Westermarck has endeavoured to escape the difficulty thus: "Among the
ancestors of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt a time when
blood relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. But variations
here, as elsewhere, would naturally present themselves, and those of our
ancestors who avoided in and in breeding would survive," while the
others would die out. This appears to be orthodox evolutionary language,
but it carries us no further. Human societies are not animals or plants,
in whose structure various favourable "accidents" occur, producing
better types, which survive. We ask _why_ in human society did
"variations present themselves"; _why_ did certain sets of human beings
"avoid in and in breeding"? We are merely told that some of our
ancestors became exogamous and survived, while others remained
promiscuous and perished. No light is thrown on the problem,--wherefore
did some of our ancestors avoid in and in breeding, and become
exogamous? Nothing is gained by saying "thus an instinct would be
developed which would be powerful enough, as a rule, to prevent
injurious unions." There is no "instinct," there is a tribal law of
exogamy. If there had been an "instinct," it might account for the
avoidance of "in and in breeding"--that is, it might account for
exogamy, _ab initio_. But that is left unaccounted for by the theory
which, after maintaining that the avoidance produced the instinct, seems
to argue that the instinct produced the avoidance. Westermarck goes on
to say that "exogamy, as a natural extension of the instinct, would
arise when single families united in small hordes." But, if the single
families already had the "instinct," they would not marry within the
family: they would be exogamous,--marrying only into other
families,--_before_ they "united in small hordes." The difficulty of
accounting for exogamy does not seem to have been overcome, and no
attempt is made to explain the animal names of totem kins and phratries.
Westermarck, however, says that "there is no reason why we should
assume, as so many anthropologists have done, that primitive men lived
in small endogamous groups, practising incest in every degree,"
although, as he also says, "there was no doubt a time when blood
relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse." If there was no bar,
people would "practise incest in every degree,"--what was there to
prevent them? (_History of Human Marriage_, pp. 352, 353 (1891)).
Durkheim.
So far we have seen no luminous and consistent account of how mankind
became exogamous, if they began by being promiscuous. The theories rest
on the idea that man, dwelling in an "undivided horde" (except so far as
it was divided into co-operative magical societies), bisected it into
two exogamous intermarrying moieties. Durkheim has put forward a theory
which is not at all points easily understood. He supposes that, "at the
beginning of societies of men, incest was not prohibited ... before each
horde (_peuplade_) divided itself into two primitive 'clans' at least"
(_L'Annee sociologique_, i. pp. 62, 63). Each of the two "clans" claimed
descent from a different animal, which was its totem, and its "god." The
two clans were exogamous,--out of respect to the blood of their totem
(with which every member of the clan is mystically one), and, being
hostile, the two clans raided each other for women. Each clan threw off
colonies, which took new totems, new "gods," though still owning some
regard to their original clan, from which they had seceded, while
abandoning its "god." When the two "primary clans" made alliance and
_connubium_, they became the phratries in the local tribe, and their
colonies became the totem kins within the phratries.
We are not told why the original horde was disrupted into two hostile
and intermarrying "clans": we especially wonder why the horde, if it
wanted an animal god, did not choose one animal for the whole community;
and we may suspect that a difference of taste in animal "gods" caused
the hostility of the two clans. Nor do we see why, if things occurred
thus, the totem kins should not represent twenty or thirty differences
of religious taste, in the original horde, as to the choice of animal
gods. If the horde was going to vary in opinion, it is unlikely that
only _two_ factions put forward animal candidates for divinity. Again, a
"clan" (a totem kin, with exogamy and descent derived through mothers)
cannot overflow its territorial area and be therefore obliged to send
out colonies, for such a clan (as Durkheim himself remarks) has no
territorial area to overflow. It is not a _local_ institution at all.
While these objections cannot but occur, Durkheim does provide a valid
reason for the existence of exogamy. When once the groups (however they
got them) had totems, with the usual taboos on any sort of use of the
totem by his human kinsfolk, the women of the kin would be tabooed to
the men of the same kin. In marrying a maiden of his own totem, a man
inevitably violates the sanctity of the blood of the totem (_L'Annee
sociologique_, i. pp. 47-57. Cf. Reinach, _Cultes, mythes et religions_,
vol. i. pp. 162-166).
Here at last we have a theory which accounts for the "religious horror"
that attaches to the violation of the rule of totemic exogamy: a
mysterious entity, the totem, is hereby offended. But how did totems,
animals, plants and so on, come to be mystically _solidaires_ with their
human namesakes and kinsmen? We do not observe that Dr Durkheim ever
explains _why_ two divisions of one horde chose each a different animal
god, or why the supposed colonies thrown off by these primary clans
deserted their animal gods for others, or why, and on what principle,
they all chose new "gods,"--fresh animals, plants and other objects. His
hereditary totem is, in practice, the last thing that a savage changes.
The only case of change on record is a recent attempt to increase the
range of legal marriages in a waning Australian tribe, on whose lands
certain species of animals are perishing.
Howitt's solution.
Theories based on a supposed primal state of promiscuity certainly
encounter, when explaining the social oganization of Australian savages,
difficulties which they do not surmount. But Howitt has provided
(apparently without fully realizing the merit of his own suggestions) a
way out of the perplexities caused by the conception of early mankind
dwelling promiscuously in "undivided communes." The way out is
practically to say that, in everyday life, they lived in nothing of the
sort. Howitt writes (_Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 173):
"A study of the evidence ... has led me to the conclusion that the state
of society among the early Australians was that of an 'Undivided
Commune.'... It is, however, well to guard this expression. I do not
desire to imply necessarily the existence of complete and continuous
communism between the sexes. The character of the country, the necessity
of moving from one point to another in search of game and vegetable
food, would cause any Undivided Commune, when it assumed dimensions
greater than the immediate locality could provide with food, to break up
into two or more Communes of the same character. In addition to this it
is clear ... that in the past as now, individual likes and dislikes must
have existed, so that, admitting the existence of common rights between
the members of the Commune, these rights would remain in abeyance, so
far as the separated parts of the Commune were concerned. But at certain
gatherings ... or on great ceremonial occasions, all the segments of the
original Commune would reunite," and would behave in the fashion now
common in great licentious festive meetings.
Primitive promiscuity improbable.
In the early ages contemplated, how can we postulate "great ceremonial
occasions" or even peaceful assemblies at fruit-bearing spots? How can
we postulate a surviving sense of solidarity among the scattered
segments of the Commune, obviously very small, owing to lack of
supplies, and perpetually disintegrated? But, taking the original groups
as very small, and as ruled by likes and dislikes, by affection and
jealousy, we are no longer concerned with a promiscuous horde, but with
a little knot of human beings, in whom love, parental affection and the
jealousy of sires, would promptly make discriminations between this
person and that person, as regards sexual privileges. Thus we have edged
away from the hypothesis of the promiscuous indiscriminating horde to
the opinion of Darwin. "We may conclude," he says, "from what we know of
the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, armed as many of them are with
special weapons for battling with their rivals, that promiscuous
intercourse in a state of Nature is extremely improbable.... The most
probable view is that Man originally lived in small communities, each
(man) with a single wife, or, if powerful, with-several, whom he
jealously guarded against all other men." But, in a community of this
early type, to guard women jealously would mean constant battle, at
least when Man became an animal who makes love all the year round. So
Darwin adds: "Or man may not have been a social animal, and yet have
lived with several wives, like the Gorilla,--for all the natives agree
that but one adult male is seen in a band; when the young male grows up
a contest takes place for the mastery, and the strongest, by killing or
driving out the others, establishes himself as head of the Community.
Younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at
last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close interbreeding
within the limits of the same _family_" (_Descent of Man_, ii. pp. 361,
363 (1871)).
Here, then, we have practical Exogamy, as regards unions of brothers and
sisters, among man still brutish, while the Sire is husband of the whole
harem of females, probably unchecked as regards his daughters.
Atkinson's theory.
On this Darwinian text J.J. Atkinson builds his theory of the evolution
of exogamy and of savage society in his _Primal Law_ (_Social Origins
and Primal Law_, by Lang and Atkinson, 1903). Paternal jealousy "gave
birth to Primal Law, prohibitory of marriage between certain members of
a family or local group, and thus, in natural sequence, led to _forced_
connubial selection _beyond_ its circle, that is, led to Exogamy ... as
a _habit_, not as an expressed law...." The "expressed law" was
necessarily a later development; conditioned by the circumstances which
produced totemism, and sanctioned, as on Durkheim's scheme, by the
totemic taboo. Atkinson worked out his theory by a minute study of
customs of avoidance between near kin by blood or affinity; by
observations on the customs of animals, and by hypotheses as to the very
gradual evolution of human restrictions through many modifications. He
also gave a theory of the "classificatory" system of names for
relationships opposed to that of Morgan. The names are based merely "on
reference to relativity of age of a class in relation to the group." The
exogamous moieties of a tribe (phratries) are not the result of a
reformatory legislative bisection of the tribe, but of the existence of
"two intermarrying totem clan groups." The whole treatise, allowing for
defects caused by the author's death before the book was printed, is
highly original and ingenious. The author, however, did not touch on the
evolution of totemism.
Lang's system.
9. The following system, as a means of making intelligible the evolution
of Australian totemic society, is proposed by the present writer. We may
suggest that men originally lived in the state of "the Cyclopean family"
of Atkinson; that is, in Darwin's "family group," containing but one
adult male, with the females, the adolescent males being driven out, to
find each a female mate, or mates, elsewhere if they can. With increase
of skill, improvements in implements and mitigation of ferocity, such
groups may become larger, in a given area, but men may retain the habit
of seeking mates outside the limits of the group of contiguity; the
"avoidance" of brothers and sisters may already have arisen. Among the
advanced Arunta, now, a man may speak freely to his elder sisters; to
younger sisters, or "tribal sisters," he may not speak, "or only at such
a distance that the features are indistinguishable." This archaic rule
of avoidance would be a step facilitating the permission to adult males
to dwell in their paternal group, avoiding their sisters. Such groups,
whether habitually exogamous or not, will require names for each other,
and various reasons would yield a preference to names derived from
animals. These are easily signalled in gesture language; are easily
presented in pictographs and tattooing; are even now, among savages and
boys, the most usual sort of _personal_ nicknames; and are widely
employed as _group_ names of villagers in European folk-lore. Among
European rustics such group sobriquets are usual, but are resented. The
savage, with his ideas of the equality or superiority of animals to
himself, sees nothing to resent in an animal sobriquet, and the names,
originally group sobriquets, would not find more difficulty in being
accepted than "Whig," "Tory," "Huguenot," "Cavalier," "Christian,"
"Cameronian,"--all of them originally nicknames given from without.
Again, "Wry Nose" and "Crooked Mouth" are _derisive_ nicknames, but they
are the translations of the ancient Celtic clan names Cameron and
Campbell. The nicknames "Naked Dogs," "Liars," "Buffalo Dung," "Men who
do not laugh," "Big Topknots," have been thoroughly accepted by the
"gentes" of the Blackfoot Indians, now passing out of Totemism
(Grinnell, _Blackfoot Lodge Tales_, pp. 208-225).
As Howitt writes, "the assumption of the names of objects by men must in
fact have been the origin of totemism." Howitt does not admit the theory
that the totem names came to arise in this way, but this way is a _vera
causa_. Names must be given either from within or from without. A group,
in savagery, has no need of a name for itself; "we" are "we," or are
"The Men"; for all other adjacent groups names are needed. The name of
one totem, _Thaballa_, "The Laughing Boy" totem, among the Warramunga
and another tribe, is quite transparently a nickname, as is _Karti_,
"The Grown-up Men" (Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central
Australia_, p. 207).
There is nothing, prima facie, which renders this origin of animal,
plant and other such names for early savage groups at all improbable.
They would not even be resented, as now are the animal names for
villagers in the Orkneys, the Channel Islands, France, Cornwall and in
ancient Israel (for examples see _Social Origins_, pp. 295-301). The
names once accepted, and their origin forgotten, would be inevitably
regarded as implying a mystic _rapport_ between the bestial and the
human namesakes, Crow, Eagle Hawk, Grub, Bandicoot, Opossum, Emu,
Kangaroo and so on (see NAME). On this subject it is enough to cite J.G.
Frazer, in _The Golden Bough_ (2nd ed., vol. i. pp. 404-446). Here will
be found a rich and satisfactory collection of proof that community of
name implies mystic _rapport_. Professor Rhys is quoted for the
statement that probably "the whole Aryan race believed at one time not
only that the name was a part of the man, but that it was that part of
him which is termed the soul." In such a mental stage the men "Crows"
identify themselves with the actual Crow species: the birds are now "of
their flesh," are fabled to be their ancestors, or the men have been
evolved out of the birds. The Crow is sacro-sanct, a friend and
protector, and a centre of taboos, one of which is the prohibition
preventing a Crow man from intercourse with a Crow woman, "however far
apart their hunting grounds may have been." All men and women Crows are
recognized as brothers and sisters in the Crow, and are not
intermarriageable.
On these lines the prohibition to infringe the totem taboo by marriage
within the totem name is intelligible, but the system of phratries has
yet to be accounted for. It is obvious that the names could only have
been given originally to _local_ groups: the people who held this or
that local habitation received the name. Suppose that the rule of each
such group, or heart circle, had been "no marriage within the local
group or camp," as in Atkinson's scheme. When the groups accept their
new names, the rule becomes, "no marriage within local group Eagle Hawk,
group Crow," and so on. So far the animal giving the group name may not
yet have become a revered totem. The result of the rule would inevitably
be, in three or four generations, that in groups Crow or Eagle Hawk,
there were no Crows or Eagle Hawks _by descent_, if the children took
the names of descent from their mothers; for the sake of
differentiation: the Ant woman's children in local group Crow being
Ants, the Grub woman's children being Grubs, the Eagle Hawk woman's
children being Eagle Hawks,--all in local group Crow, and inheriting the
names of the local groups whence their mothers were brought into local
group Crow.
By this means (indicated first by McLennan) each member of a local group
would have a _local_ group name, say Eagle Hawk, and a name by _female
descent_, say Kangaroo, in addition, as now, to his or her personal
name. In this way, all members of each local group would find, in any
other local group, people of his name of descent, and, as the totem
belief grew to maturity, kinsmen of his in the totem. When this fact was
realized, it would inevitably make for peace among all contiguous
groups. In place of taking women by force, at the risk of shedding
kindred blood, peaceful betrothals between men and women of different
local group names and of different names by descent could be arranged.
Say that local groups Eagle Hawk and Crow took the lead in this
arrangement of alliance and _connubium_, and that (as they would
naturally flourish in the strength conferred by union) the other local
groups came into it, ranging themselves under Eagle Hawk and Crow, we
should have the existing primitive type of organization: Local Groups
Eagle Hawk (_Mukwara_) and Crow (_Kilpara_) would have become the widely
diffused phratries, _Mukwara_ and _Kilpara_, with all the totem kins
within them.
But, on these lines, some members of any totem kin, say Cat, would be in
phratry Eagle Hawk, some would be in phratry _Kilpara_ as now (for the
different reason already indicated) among the Arunta. Such persons were
in a quandary. By _phratry_ law, as being in opposite phratries, a Cat
in Eagle Hawk' phratry could marry a Cat in Crow phratry. But, by totem
law, this was impossible. To avoid the clash of law, all Cats had to go
into one phratry or the other, either into Eagle Hawk or into Crow.
Two whole totem kins were in the same unhappy position. The persons who
were Eagle Hawks by _descent_ could not be in Eagle Hawk local group,
now phratry, as we have already shown. They were in Crow phratry, they
could not, by phratry law, marry in their own phratry, and to marry in
Eagle Hawk was to break the old law, "no marriage within the _local_
group name." Their only chance was to return to Eagle Hawk phratry,
while Crow totem kin went into Crow phratry, and thus we often find, in
fact, that in Australian phratries _Mukwara_ (Eagle Hawk) there is a
totem kin Eagle Hawk, and in _Kilpara_ phratry (Crow) there is a totem
kin Crow. This arrangement--the totem kin within the phratry of its own
name--has long been known to exist in America. The Thlinkets have Raven
phratry, with totem kins Raven, Frog, Goose, &c., and Wolf phratry, with
totem kins Wolf, Bear, Eagle, &c. (Frazer, _Totemism_, pp. 61, 62
(1887)). In Australia the fact has hitherto escaped observation, because
so many phratry names are not translated, while, though _Mukwara_ and
_Kilpara_ are translated, the Eagle Hawk and Crow totem kins within them
bear other names for the same birds, more recent names, or tribal native
names, such as _Biliari_ and _Waa_, while _Mukwara_ and _Kilpara_ may
have been names borrowed, within the institution of phratries, from some
alien tribe now perhaps extinct.
We have now sketched a scheme explanatory of the most primitive type of
social organization in Australia. The tendency is for phratries first to
lose the meanings of their names, and, next, for their names to lapse
into oblivion, as among the Arunta; the work of regulating marriage
being done by the opposed Matrimonial Classes.
These classes are obviously an artificial arrangement, intended to
restrict marriage to persons on the same level as generations. The
meanings of the class names are only known with certainty in two cases,
and then are names of animals, while there is reason to suspect that
animal names occur in four or five of the eight class-names which, in
different dialect forms, prevail in central and northern Australia.
Conceivably the new class regulations made use of the old totemic
machinery of nomenclature. But until Australian philologists can trace
the original meanings of Class names, further speculation is premature.
Breaking up of totemism.
10. Much might be said about the way out of totemism. When once descent
and inheritance are traced through males, the social side of totemism
begins to break up. One way out is the Arunta way, where totems no
longer designate kinships. In parts of America totems are simply fading
into heraldry, or into magical societies, while the "gentes," once
totemic, have acquired new names, often local, as among the Sioux, or
mere sobriquets, as among the Blackfeet. In Melanesia the phratries,
whether named or nameless, have survived, while the totems have left but
a few traces which some consider disputable (_Social Origins_, pp.
176-184). Among the Bantu of South Africa the _tribes_ have sacred
animals (_Siboko_), which may be survivals of the totems of the chief
local totem group, with male descent in the tribe, the whole of which
now bears the name of the sacred animal. Even in Australia, among tribes
where there is reckoning of descent in the male line, and where there
are no matrimonial classes, the tendency is for totems to dwindle, while
exogamy becomes _local_, the rule being to marry out of the _district_,
not out of the _kin_ (Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_,
pp. 270-272; cf. pp. 135-137).
The problem as to why, among savages all on the same low level of
material culture, one tribe derives descent through women, while its
nearest neighbouring tribe, with ceremonies, rites, beliefs and myths
like its own, and occupying lands of similar character in a similar
climate, traces descent through men, seems totally insoluble. Again, we
find that the civilized Lycians, as described by Herodotus (book i. ch.
173), reckoned lineage in the female line, while the naked savages of
north and central Australia reckon in the male line. Our knowledge does
not enable us to explain the change from female to male tracing of
lineage. Yet the change was essential for the formation of the family
system of civilized life. The change may be observed taking place in the
region of North-West America peopled by the Thlinket, Haida and Salish
tribes; the first are pure totemists, the last have arrived,
practically, in the south, at the modern family, while a curious
intermediate stage pervades the interjacent region.
The best authority on the Family developed in different shapes in
North-West America is Charles Hill-Tout (cf. "Origin of the Totemism of
the Aborigines of British Columbia," _Transactions of the Royal Society
of Canada_, vol. vii. sect. 11, 1901). He, like many American and some
English and continental students, applies the term "totem" not only to
the hereditary totem of the exogamous kin, but to the animal familiars
of individual men or women, called _manitus_, _naguals_, _nyarongs_ and
_yunbeai_, among North American Indians, in South America, in Borneo
and in the Euahlayi tribe of New South Wales. These animal familiars
are chosen by individuals, obeying the monition of dreams, or are
assigned to them at birth, or at puberty, by the tribal magicians. It
has often been suggested that totemism arose when the familiar of an
individual became hereditary among his descendants. This could not occur
under a system of reckoning descent and inheriting the kin name through
women, but as a Tsimshian myth says that a man's sister adopted his
animal familiar, the bear, and transmitted it to _her_ offspring,
Hill-Tout supposes that this may have been the origin of totemism in
tribes with reckoning of descent in the female line. Instances, however,
are not known to exist in practice, and myths are mere baseless savage
hypotheses.
Exogamy, in his opinion, is the result of treaties of political alliance
with exclusive _interconnubium_ between two sets of kinsfolk by blood,
totemism being a mere accidental concomitant. This theory evades the
difficulties raised by the hypothesis of deliberate reformatory
legislation introducing the bisection of the tribe into exogamous
societies.
AUTHORITIES.--The study of the History of the Family has been subject
to great fluctuation of opinion, as unexpected evidence has kept
pouring in from many quarters. The theory of primal promiscuity, which
in 1870 succeeded to Sir Henry Maine's _patriarchal theory_, has
endured many attacks, and there is a tendency to return, not precisely
to the "patriarchal theory," but to the view that the jealousy of the
Sire of the "Cyclopean family," or "Gorilla family" indicated by
Darwin, has had much to do with laying the bases of "primal law." The
whole subject has been especially studied by English-speaking writers,
as the English and Americans are brought most into contact with the
most archaic savage societies. Among foreigners, in addition to
Starcke, Westermarck and Durkheim, already cited, may be mentioned
Professor J. Kohler, _Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe_ (Stuttgart, 1897).
Professor Kohler is in favour of a remote past of "collective
marriage," indicated, as in Morgan's hypothesis, by the existing
savage names of relationships, which are expressive of relations of
consanguinity. E.S. Hartland (_Primitive Paternity_, 1910) discusses
myths of supernatural birth in relation to the history of the Family.
A careful and well-reasoned work by Herr Cunow (_Die Verwandtschafts
Organisationen der Australneger_, Stuttgart, 1894) deals with the
Matrimonial Classes of Australian tribes. Cunow supposes that descent
was originally reckoned in the male line, and that tribes with this
organization (such as the Narrinyeri) are the more primitive. In this
opinion he has few allies: and on the origin of Exogamy he seems to
possess no definite ideas. Pikler's _Ursprung des Totemismus_ (Berlin,
1900) explains Totemism as arising from the need of names for early
groups of men: names which could be expressed in pictographs and
tattooing, to which we may add "gesture language." This is much akin
to the theory which we have already suggested, though Pikler seems to
think that the pictograph (say of a Crow or an Eagle Hawk) was prior
to the group name. But, he remarks, like Howitt, "the germ of Totemism
is the naming"; and the community of name between the animal species
and the human group led to the belief that there was an important
connexion between the men and their name-giving animal.
Other useful sources of information are the annual Reports of the
Bureau of Ethnology (Washington), the _Journal of the Institute of the
Anthropological Society, Folk Lore_ (the organ of the Folk Lore
Society), and Durkheim's _L'Annee sociologique_. _Tabou et totemisme a
Madagascar_, by M.A. van Gennep (Leroux, Paris, 1904) is a valuable
contribution to knowledge.
For India, where vestiges of totemism linger in the hill tribes, see
Risley and Crooke, _Tribes and Castes_, vols. i., ii., iii., iv.; and
Crooke, _Popular Religion_; also Crooke in _J.A.I._ (N.S.), vol. i.
pp. 232-244. (A. L.)
FAMINE (Lat. _fames_, hunger), extreme and general scarcity of food,
causing distress and deaths from starvation among the population of a
district or country. Famines have caused widespread suffering in all
countries and ages. A list of the chief famines recorded by history is
given farther on. The causes of famine are partly natural and partly
artificial. Among the natural causes may be classed all failures of
crops due to excess or defect of rainfall and other meteorological
phenomena, or to the ravages of insects and vermin. Among the artificial
causes may be classed war and economic errors in the production,
transport and sale of food-stuffs.
The natural causes of famine are still mainly outside our control,
though science enables agriculturists to combat them more successfully,
and the improvement in means of transport allows a rich harvest in one
land to supplement the defective crops in another. In tropical
countries drought is the commonest cause of a failure in the harvest,
and where great droughts are not uncommon--as in parts of India and
Australia--the hydraulic engineer comes to the rescue by devising
systems of water-storage and irrigation. It is less easy to provide
against the evils of excessive rainfall and of frost, hail and the like.
The experience of the French in Algiers shows that it is possible to
stamp out a plague of locusts, such as is the greatest danger to the
farmer in many parts of Argentina. But the ease with which food can
nowadays be transported from one part of the world to another minimizes
the danger of famine from natural causes, as we can hardly conceive that
the whole food-producing area of the world should be thus affected at
once.
The artificial causes of famine have mostly ceased to be operative on
any large scale. Chief among them is war, which may cause a shortage of
food-supplies, either by its direct ravages or by depleting the supply
of agricultural labour. But only local famines are likely to arise from
this cause. Legislative interference with agricultural operations or
with the distribution of food-supplies, currency restrictions and
failure of transport, which have all caused famines in the past, are
unlikely thus to operate again; nor is it probable that the modern
speculators who attempt to make "corners" in wheat could produce the
evil effects contemplated in the old statutes against forestallers and
regrators.
Such local famines as may occur in the 20th century will probably be
attributable to natural causes. It is impossible to regulate the
rainfall of any district, or wholly to supply its failure by any system
of water-storage. Irrigation is better able to bring fertility to a
naturally arid district than to avert the failure of crops in one which
is naturally fertile. The true palliative of famine is to be found in
the improvement of methods of transport, which make it possible rapidly
to convey food from one district to another. But the efficiency of this
preventive stops short at the point of saving human life. It cannot
prevent a rise in prices, with the consequent suffering among the poor.
Still, every year makes it less likely that the world will see a renewal
of the great famines of the past, and it is only the countries where
civilization is still backward that are in much danger of even a local
famine.
_Great Famines._--Amongst the great famines of history may be named
the following:--
B.C. 436 Famine at Rome, when thousands of starving people threw
themselves into the Tiber.
A.D. 42 Great famine in Egypt.