TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES
AMERICAN SUPPORT OF THE AUTHOR’S HYPOTHESIS
The system which I advocate here, as to the smallness of the original
human groups, and their later combination into larger unions, seems
to have, as regards America, the support of the late Major Powell,
the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, and of Mr. McGee of the
same department. This gentleman writes, ‘Two postulates concerning
primitive society, adopted by various ethnologic students of other
countries, have been erroneously applied to the American aborigines ...
The first postulate is that primitive men were originally assembled
in chaotic hordes, and that organised society was developed out of
the chaotic mass _by the segregation of groups_ ...’ This appears to
be Mr. Hewitt’s doctrine. In fact, Mr. McGee says, American research
points, not to a primal horde, ‘bisected’ and ‘subdivided’ into an
organised community, but to an early condition ‘directly antithetic
to the postulated horde, in which the scant population was segregated
in small discrete bodies, probably family groups....’ The process of
advance was one of ‘progressive combination rather than of continued
differentiation.... It would appear that the original definitely
organised groups occasionally coalesced with other groups, both simple
and compound, whereby they were elaborated in structure....’ Mr. McGee
adds, ‘always with some loss in definiteness and permanence.’ As far as
concerns Australia, I do not feel sure that the last remark applies,
but, on the whole, Mr. McGee’s observations, couched in abstract
terms, appear to fit what I have written, in concrete terms, about the
probable evolution of Australian tribal society.[1]
The theory thus suggested makes little demand on deliberate
legislation, as we shall see later.
DELIBERATE ARRANGEMENT
This I take to be important. It seems well to avoid, as far as
possible, the hypothesis of deliberate legislation in times primeval,
involving so sweeping a change as the legal establishment of exogamy
through a decree based on common consent by an exogamous ‘Bisection’
consciously made. Exogamy must have been gradually evolved. But, if
we begin with Mr. Howitt’s original undivided commune, and suppose a
deliberate bisection of it into two exogamous phratries, each somehow
containing different totems; or if we suppose a tribe of only two
totems, and imagine that the tribe deliberately made these totems
exogamous, which they had not been before, and then subdivided them
into many other totem groups, we see, indeed, why persons of the
same totem may not intermarry. They now, after the decree, belong to
the same exogamous ‘phratry’ within which marriage is deliberately
forbidden. But, on this theory, I find no escape from the conclusion
that the ‘bisection’ into ‘phratries’ was the result of a deliberate
decree, intended to produce exogamy--for the bisection has not, and
apparently cannot have, any other effect. Now I can neither imagine
a motive for such a decree, nor any mode, in such early times, of
procuring for it common consent. At this point we have laboured, and
to it we shall return, observing that our hypothesis makes much less
appeal to such early and deliberate legislation.
TOTEMS ALL THE WAY
In any case, by Mr. Fison’s and Mr. Howitt’s theory and our own, we
have totems almost all the way: totems in the so-called ‘primary
divisions’ (phratries); totems in the so-called _gentes_, and all these
divisions (setting the Arunta apart) are strictly exogamous. The four
or eight ‘classes,’ on the other hand, are apparently not of totemic
origin. However much the systems may be complicated and inter-twisted,
the basis of the whole, except of the four or eight ‘classes,’ is, I
think, the totem exogamous prohibition. There are many examples of the
type; thus the Urabunna ‘are divided into two exogamous intermarrying
classes, which are respectively called Matthurie and Kirarawa, and the
members of these again are divided into a series of totemic groups,
for which the native name is _Thunthunnie_. A Matthurie man must marry
a Kirarawa women’ (as in the system of the Kamil-speaking tribes, or
Kamilaroi, reported on by Mr. Fison)--‘and not only this, but a man of
one totem must marry a woman of another totem.’ This is precisely what
I should expect. It works out thus:
{ Old Local Totem Group } Matthurie.
{ New ‘Phratry’ }
{ Old Local Totem Group } Kirarawa.
{ New ‘Phratry’ }
Each of these ‘phratries’ has five totems, not found in the other
class, and how this occurred, if not by actual deliberate arrangement,
I do not know. One thing is clear: totem and phratry are prior to
‘class’ divisions. They occur where ‘class’ divisions do not. But my
theory does not involve the deliberate introduction of exogamy, by an
exogamous bisection of groups not hitherto exogamous, or by making two
pre-existing totem groups exogamous. I take the groups to have been
exogamous already, before the blending in _connubium_ of two local
totem groups (now ‘phratries’), each including numbers of already
exogamous totem kindreds. They were exogamous before the ‘phratries’
existed, and after their falling into the two phratries, exogamous they
remained.
DISTRIBUTION OF TOTEMS IN THE ‘PHRATRIES’
Mr. McLennan, ere he had the information now before us, wrote, in 1865,
‘Most probably contiguous groups would be composed of exactly the same
stocks’ (we can now, for ‘stocks,’ read ‘totem kins’)--‘would contain
gentes of precisely the same names.’[2] This is obvious, for Emu,
Kangaroo, Wild Duck, Opossum, Snake, and Lizard, living in the same
region, would raid each other (by the hypothesis) for wives, and each
foreign wife would bring her own totem name into each group. Yet we
find that the two ‘primary classes’ (phratries) of the Urabunna (which,
on my theory, represent two primitive totem local groups, say Emu and
Kangaroo, each with its representatives of all other totem groups
within raiding distance) _never_ contain the same totems.
It is mathematically impossible that this exclusiveness should be the
result of accident. On a first consideration, therefore, I took it to
be the result of deliberate legislative design, at the moment when on
my hypothesis two _local_ totem groups, containing members of several
_totems of descent_, united in _connubium_. The totem names, I at first
conceived, with reluctance, must have been consciously and deliberately
meted out between the two local totem groups, now become phratries.
This idea did not involve so stringent and useless a measure as that
of segmenting the two phratries into minor totem groups: however the
idea was still too much akin to that of Harpocration as regards the
arbitrary drafting of the Attic population into γένη.
But, on further reflection, I conceived that my first theory was
superfluous. Given the existence of local groups, as such totemic, and
of totem kins of descent within the original local totem groups, the
actual results, I thought, arise automatically, as soon as two local
totem groups agree to intermarry. Men and women must many out of their
local totem group (now ‘phratry’) and must marry out of their totem
of descent. Consequently, no one totem could possibly exist in both
phratries. This I now, on third thoughts, ‘which are a wiser first,’
deem erroneous. The automatic arraying of one set of totems into one,
or another set into the other, phratry, would not occur. The totems
have been divided between the two phratries.[3] This condition of
affairs is universal in Australia, except where, as among the Arunta
and similar tribes, the same totem comes to exist in both phratries, so
that men and women of the same totem, but of opposite phratries, may
intermarry. That breach of old rule, we shall try to show, arises from
the peculiar animistic philosophy of the Arunta, by virtue of which
totems are no longer totems of descent, but are otherwise obtained. The
Kamilaroi practice of interphratry marriage arises out of respect for
totem and neglect of phratry law.
My conjecture takes for granted, let me repeat, that, before the
‘bisection,’ or the amalgamation, which produced the two exogamous
‘classes,’ the totem kindreds were already exogamous. My reasons
for this opinion have already been given, in the discussion of
Mr. Crawley’s theory of the origin of exogamy (_supra_), to which
the reader may refer. My suggestion makes the growth of exogamy
non-moral, gradual, and almost unconscious, till it is clinched and
stereotyped by the totem tabu.[4] The opposite theory--namely, the
deliberate bisection into exogamous ‘classes,’ of totem groups, or of
an ‘undivided commune’ not previously exogamous, appeals too much, I
repeat, to conscious and--as far as we can see--motiveless legislation,
at an early stage. The bisection must have had a purpose, and has no
visible purpose except the establishment o f exogamy, and why did the
‘undivided commune’ establish that?
THE IDEAS OF MR. FRAZER HIS EARLIER THEORY
It cannot be concealed that my conjecture is opposed to the mass of
learned opinion, which represents the primary ‘phratries’ as the first
exogamous bodies, and the totems in each as later subdivisions of
the phratries. The writers who, like Mr. Fison, recognise that the
primary subdivisions are themselves, in origin, totem divisions, do not
(as I understand) regard these very ancient totem groups as already
exogamous, _before_ the institution of ‘phratries.’
Again, turning from Australia to North America, we find Mr. Frazer,
at least in one passage, on the side of the view generally held. Of
the ‘phratry,’ in America, he says, ‘the evidence goes to show that
in many cases it was originally a totem clan which has undergone
subdivision.’[5] Many examples are then given of the North American
‘phratries,’ which include totem groups within them. ‘The Choctaws
were divided into two phratries, each of which included four clans’
(totem kins); ‘marriage was prohibited between members of the same
phratry, but members of either phratry could marry into any clan of
the other.’ Among the Senecas, one phratry included the Bear, Wolf,
Beaver, and Turtle totems: the other held the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and
Hawk totems; just as in Australia. Among the Thlinkets and Mohegans,
‘each phratry bears a name which is also the name of one of the clans’
(totems) ‘included in it;’ Mr. Frazer adds, ‘it seems probable that
the names of the Raven and Wolf were the two original clans of the
Thlinkets, which afterwards by subdivision became phratries.’[6]
This is precisely as if we were to argue that Matthurie and Kirarawa
were the ‘two original clans’ of the Urabunna, ‘which afterwards by
subdivision’ (into totem groups) ‘became phratries,’ or ‘primary
exogamous divisions.’
The objections to this theory, as advocated by Australian inquirers,
apply to the American cases as interpreted here by Mr. Frazer. In
the first place, how are we to conceive of a large tribe, like the
Thlinkets, as originally containing only two totems, Raven and
Wolf?[7] If we do take this view, we seem almost driven to suppose
that, in exceedingly early times, the Thlinkets deliberately bisected
themselves, for some reason, called one moiety Ravens, the other moiety
Wolves, and then made the divisions exogamous. Or, perhaps, having two
totems and only two, Raven and Wolf, they deliberately decided that
members of neither group should marry within itself; but should always
take wives from the other group. Later, the two tribes, Raven and
Wolf, again deliberately subdivided themselves, or perhaps, as in Dr.
Durkheim’s view, Wolf threw off colonies which became five totem kins,
and Raven threw off colonies which became five other totem kins.
Is it not more readily credible that, over a large extent of Thlinket
country, many small local groups came, by an unconscious process (see
‘The Origin of Totemism’), to bear each a separate totem name? The two
most important local groups, Raven and Wolf, would inevitably each
contain, by the working of exogamy and female kin, members of all the
other totems which would array themselves, five in each chief group,
Raven and Wolf, as I have conjectured in speaking of the Australian
cases.[8]
Again, I cannot believe that a tribe like the Thlinkets originally had
but two totems, not yet exogamous, then made them exogamous, and then
cut them up, or let them split off, into many exogamous totem groups.
No motive is obvious: the people, by the theory, being exogamous
already.
OBJECTIONS TO MR. FRAZER’S EARLY THEORY
We shall later see that Messrs. Spencer and Gillen appear to advance,
but also to qualify out of existence, a theory of a motive for an
exogamous bisection of earlier non-exogamous local totem groups.
They practically explain away their own explanation of--the great
bisection, but it rests, while it exists, on certain recently
discovered facts, which, in turn, are fatal, perhaps, to any theory
that a tribe had originally but two totems, which became ‘phratries,’
on being subdivided into other totems. The new facts accepted and
theorised on by Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer, would make it seem
perhaps impossible that a tribe like the Thlinkets should originally
have possessed but two ‘clans’ or totems. The facts, as stated by Mr.
Spencer, in 1899, are these, or rather, this is his hypothesis founded
on his facts. ‘In our Australian tribes the _primary_[9] function of
a totem group is that of ensuring, by magic means, a supply of the
object which gives its name to the totem group.’[10] Mr. Frazer says,
‘in its origin Totemism was, on our theory, simply an organised and
co-operative system of magic.... Each totem group was charged with the
superintendence and control of the particular department of nature from
which it took its name....’[11]
But this is hardly the origin of Totemism, so long as we are not
told how, or why, each totem group took its name from a department
of nature. Had it the name, before it worked magic for its eponymous
object, or did it take the name because it worked the magic?
Again, there are dozens of such departments,[12] which implies the
existence of dozens of organised and co-operative totem groups: not of
an original poor pair of such groups alone. Can we believe that, on
Mr. Frazer’s earlier theory, the Thlinkets formed but two such groups,
one ‘charged with’ the duty to mollify the Wolf, the other to take
care of the interests of the Raven? Manifestly this is unlikely. I
elsewhere oppose this theory of the magical Origin of Totemism, made at
first to fit the case of the Arunta and cognate tribes. If organised
co-operation in magic is the source of Totemism, we may be pretty
confident that no tribe began by appointing one half of all its members
to do magic to propagate ravens, and the other half to mollify wolves.
This would indicate, in the magical and co-operative tribe, a most
oddly limited and feebly capitalised flotation of the company--merely
‘Wolf and Raven.’ No tribe would select ravens as the article of food
which most required careful propagation and preservation, even if the
Wolf most demanded to be propitiated and mollified. The new Australian
facts (whatever their interpretation) are fatal to the older idea that
a tribe could have had only two original totems: an idea which we may
perhaps regard as now abandoned, at least by Mr. Frazer.
Thus Mr. Spencer himself remarks that, in Arunta tradition, there were
numbers of totem groups before the great dichotomous division was made.
That is my own opinion: though I do not hold it for Mr. Spencer’s
reasons, or believe in any ‘bisection.’
MR. SPENCER’S THEORIES OF THE BISECTION
It will be noted that Mr. Spencer’s original totem groups existed for
magical purposes only, and were not exogamous.
‘The traditions of the Arunta tribe point to a very definite
introduction of an exogamic system long after the totemic groups were
fully developed, and, further, they point very clearly to the fact that
the introduction was due to the deliberate action of certain ancestors.
Our knowledge of the natives leads us to the opinion that it is quite
possible that this really took place, that the exogamic groups were
deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital relations.’
The Arunta ‘exogamic groups’ are ‘classes,’ and ‘phratries,’ the
totem does not now regulate marriage among the Arunta. I shall later
try to show, that, originally, totems did regulate marriage, among
the Arunta. But here we find Mr. Spencer averring that possibly ‘the
exogamic groups were deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital
relations’ among the Arunta. This opinion surprises us, if we hold that
exogamy was, in its original forms, the result, not of a deliberate
enactment, but of gradual and unconscious processes, to which, later,
conscious modifications have been added. Mr. Spencer, despite the
passage cited, is obviously of the same opinion, for he proceeds to
remark, ‘By this we do not mean that the regulations had anything
whatever to do with the idea of incest, or of any harm accruing from
the union of individuals who were regarded as too nearly related.... It
can only be said that far back in the early history of mankind, there
was felt the need of some form of organisation, and that this gradually
resulted in the development of exogamous groups.’
This statement must remind us of what the ancient ballad sings about
Lord Bateman:
He shipped himself all aboard of a ship,
Some foreign country for to see.
The scholiast (Thackeray, I think) explains, ‘some foreign country
he wished to see, and that was the extent of his desire: any foreign
country would serve his purpose, all foreign countries were alike to
him.’ In the same way, long ago, the ancestors of the Australians ‘felt
the need of some form of organisation,’ and that was the extent of
their desire; any organisation would serve their purpose. Nevertheless,
Mr. Spencer also says that, quite possibly, ‘the exogamic groups
were deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital relations.’
But exogamic groups can regulate marital arrangements in one way
only--that is, by introducing exogamy. Yet Mr. Spencer remarks that
‘the development of exogamic groups’ _gradually_ resulted from some
organisation of unknown nature. I am unable to reconcile Mr. Spencer’s
statements with each other. The ‘bisection’ of his theory could not, I
fear, be ‘gradual.’
Mr. Frazer, in 1899, begins with numerous totem groups, primarily
and originally arranged for mere purposes of co-operative magic, in
the social interests of a large friendly tribe, itself no primitive
institution, one thinks. Then he supposes that the exogamous bisection
occurred (and _why_ did it occur?), and then ‘if the existing totem
groups were arranged, as they naturally would be, some in one of the
two new classes, and the rest in the other, the exogamy of the totem
groups would follow, _ipso facto_.’[13] Mr. Frazer does not here
pretend to guess why the bisection occurred. The rest is quite obvious:
but it is unavoidably inconsistent with Mr. Frazer’s earlier theory,
that a tribe begins (or that the Thlinkets began) with two original
totem groups, made them exogamous, and then ‘subdivided’ them up (or
did they merely swarm off?) into many totem groups. It is against
that almost universal theory, in 1899 abandoned (as I conceive) by
Mr. Frazer, that I have so long been arguing. There was not first an
exogamous bisection of a tribe, or the addition of the exogamous rule
to two ‘original clans,’ or totem groups, and then the subdivision of
each of the two sections into a number of totems. This cannot have
occurred. Totems, I venture to think, did not come in that way, but
pre-existing totem kins, granting the bisection, might fall into one or
other phratry, if they had always been exogamous.
ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM HERE PROPOSED
On my system, as has been already stated, the origin of exogamy may
have been sexual jealousy, in small primitive groups, perhaps aided
by ‘sexual tabu,’ with the strange superstitions on which it is
based, and these causes would be strengthened enormously by the totem
superstition, later. The totem name would now be the exogamous limit.
The ‘phratries’ might result, quite naturally, and even gradually, now
in one region, now in another, from the interlocking and alliance, with
_connubium_, of two large friendly local totem groups, an arrangement
of which the advantages are so obvious that it might spread by way of
imitation and accretion.
This view of the possible origin of what is usually called the
‘bisection’ of ‘the undivided commune’ had already been suggested by
the late Mr. Daniel McLennan.[14] Writing before our information was so
full as it now is, he says, as to the two ‘phratries’ Kumite and Kroki
(answering to Matthurie and Kirarawa), ‘were it worth while to make
surmises, it would not be unreasonable to surmise that at Mount Gambier
two separate local tribes[15] containing different totem kindreds had,
through the operation of exogamy and female kinship, become welded
into one community.’ Mr. Daniel McLennan, unluckily, inherited his
brother’s feud against Mr. Fison, and he opposed all that gentleman’s
doings. Later research has corroborated many of Mr. Fison’s facts, and
extended the range of their influence. On this point, however--namely,
that the ‘phratries’ are not the result of a bisection, but of an
amalgamation--Mr. Daniel McLennan appears to have had a good case. He
illustrates his theory, and mine, by remarks on a tradition of the
tribes of Northern Victoria.[16]
The exogamous ‘phratries’ of these tribes are Eagle-Hawk and Crow.
The tradition represents these birds as hostile creative powers. They
made peace on the terms ‘that the Murray blacks should be divided into
two classes’ (‘phratries’), ‘the Makquarra, or Eagle-Hawk, and the
Kilparra, or Crow.... Out of the enmities’ (of the original Crow and
Eagle-Hawk) ‘arose the two classes, and thence a law governing marriage
among these classes.’ This tradition, it will be observed, espouses the
theory of a bisection, deliberately made of ‘the Murray blacks,’ into
two intermarrying and exogamous classes. Mr. McLennan writes, ‘But what
the tradition suggests is, not that the Crow and Eagle agreed to divide
one tribe into two, with a view to the better regulation of marriage,
but that Crow and Eagle or Eagle-Hawk were tribes (and they might have
been constituted in the ordinary Australian way) which long waged war
against each other, and that at length there came peace, and then their
complete interfusion by means of friendly marriages.’ The tradition
asserts the reverse; it adopts, or rather it forestalls, the scientific
theory of a ‘bisection’ of the Murray blacks, not the amalgamation of
two tribes (or large local totem groups). But I agree with Mr. McLennan
in prefering, for the reasons given, the theory of an amalgamation.
It is rather curious and interesting to observe that almost every
scientific hypothesis about totems and ‘classes,’ which I am obliged
to reject, has, in fact, been forestalled by the theories which the
natives themselves express in their explanatory myths. Myths, I fear,
are never in the right. ‘The aborigines themselves,’ says Mr. Howitt,
‘recognise the former existence of the undivided commune in their
legends, but,’ he judiciously adds, ‘I do not rely upon this as having
the force of evidence.’[17]
We shall presently see that other distinguished anthropologists
do, to some extent, rely on Arunta myths, as ‘bearing the stamp of
authenticity.’ The truth is that the native thinkers have hit on the
same hypothesis as their European critics, the hypothesis of something
like deliberate primeval legislation to a given end, the regulation
of marriage. Far from accepting any such native myths, I am rather
inclined to hold that, whatever theory be correct, the theory of the
savage myth-makers must be wrong. It ought to be said that Mr. Fison,
at least, knows what his own theory involves, and once even frankly
accepted the possibility that the Dieri myth (the foundation of exogamy
by divine decree) may be historically true. ‘All I contend for is,’ he
says, ‘that if the former existence of the undivided commune be taken
for granted’ (and Mr. Fison, unlike Mr. Howitt, regards the undivided
commune as a mere unproved hypothesis), ‘its division into exogamous
clans must have had precisely the effect’ (a consciously reformatory
effect) ‘which Mr. Morgan’s theory requires. If such a community ever
existed, I do not hesitate to say that Mr. Morgan’s “reformatory
movement” appears to me the most likely method by which it would begin
its advance to a better system of marriage’ than ‘communal marriage.’
But what gave the impulse to the hypothetical moral reformation?
Contact with a more advanced tribe is reckoned improbable by Mr. Fison
(for how came the other tribe to be more advanced?), and so the moral
impulse ‘must have been derived from a higher power,’ from the Good
Spirit, or from ancestral spirits, as in the myths of the Dieri, the
Woeworung, also of the Menomini Redmen of North America, a branch of
the Algonquins; and the Euahlayi tribe.
According to the Menomini, there is, or was, a Being who ‘made the
earth.’[18] His name being interpreted means ‘The Great Unknown,’ but
only extreme believers in the theory of religious borrowing will say
that he was Sir Walter Scott, Bart. He (The Great Unknown) created
‘manidos or spirits,’ in the shape of animals, or birds. The chief
birds (as often in Australia) were Eagles and Hawks. The Bear ‘came out
of the ground,’ and was turned into an Indian, by the Great Unknown,
_alias_ ‘The Good Mystery.’ He and the Beaver headed totem kins now
in ‘The Big Thunder phratry.’ Other animals came in; there are now
Bear, Eagle, Crane, and Moose ‘phratries,’ each containing a number of
totems. All the people of a totem name in the Menomini tribe are akin
to persons of the same totem in other tribes, say of the Sioux.[19]
These myths favourably illustrate the piety of the Dieri, Woeworung,
Euahlayi men, and Menomini. Like Mr. Fison (at one time, and ‘under
all reserves’) these tribes leaned to the hypothesis of divine or
supernormal intervention in matters totemic. The Dieri may be right,
but a less difficult hypothesis is that there was never ‘an undivided
commune,’ in the sense of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Fison, and that,
consequently, it never was ‘divided into exogamous clans.’ If so, no
miracle is needed: _Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus._ My
own scheme needs no divine aid, nor deliberate legislation, ‘in the
beginning.’ But that such legislation has intervened later, I think
probable, or certain.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write: ‘Rigidly conservative as the native
is, it is yet possible for changes to be introduced.... There are
certain men who are respected for their ability, and, after watching
large numbers of the tribe, at a time when they were assembled together
for months to perform certain of their most sacred ceremonies, we have
come to the conclusion that, at a time such as this, when the older
and more powerful men from various groups are met together, and when
day by day, and night by night around their camp fires, they discuss
matters of tribal interest, it is quite possible for changes of custom
to be introduced.’[20] The Arunta traditions allege that such changes
introduced by men of weight, and accepted after discussion, have been
not unusual.[21] This is highly probable, now, but not in the beginning.
The Arunta historical traditions are of little value as to historical
facts,[22] but the consciousness of the Central Australian tribes
accepts the possibility that new customs may now be proposed,
debated, and adopted. If no such thing ever occurred, the belief in
its possibility could scarcely have arisen among the Arunta. But
the possibility has its limits, and one of these is the deliberate
primeval introduction of exogamy, for no conceivable reason, and its
imposition on a society already totemic but not yet exogamous. Perhaps
few critics will frankly say that exogamy was thus imposed; they will
try to qualify or evade so improbable and antiquated a theory. Yet they
cannot but slip back into it, while they believe in ‘segmentations’
of ‘an undivided commune,’ and of later totemic ‘subdivisions’ of the
‘segmentations.’
In any case these Arunta and cognate tribes of similar usages, so
recently discovered, so anomalous, so odd, are ‘the only begetters’
of the latest hypotheses of Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer--namely,
that totems, originally, were co-operative industrial groups with
no influence on marriage rules. Do the Arunta, then, present a
surviving model of primitive Totemism, in other regions modified
and contaminated; or is their Totemism not, like their metaphysics
and psychology, a ‘freak,’ an unique divergence from the normal
development, as I have from the first maintained?[23] All these
difficulties and confusions, as to ‘phratries’ and totems, inevitably
arise from the doctrine that the original totem groups were not at
first exogamous, and only became exogamous when separate sets of them
were scheduled under the two more recent exogamous primary divisions,
or were segmented out of them. In that case it is not easy to see how
we can escape from the impossible theory that exogamy, and the primary
divisions, were the result, of direct legislative enactment. Even if we
could believe this, we see no conceivable motive, except Mr. Fison’s
divine intervention, an idea which, it appears, he put forward quite
provisionally in an argument with Lord Avebury.[24]
THE ARUNTA
The case of these Central Australian tribes, in regard to Totemism
and marriage prohibitions, is so peculiar that it demands particular
notice. Mr. Frazer some years ago propounded the hypothesis that the
Arunta tribe, especially, are the most ‘primitive’ of living peoples,
are still in ‘the chrysalis stage’ of humanity, whence it would follow
that their singular kind of Totemism, and of marriage rules, is nearest
to the beginning, and best represents the original type.[25] The
Arunta, dwelling in the arid regions of the centre, have certainly been
little contaminated by European influences. They are naked, houseless,
non-agricultural nomads, like all the Australian tribes, and it is
asserted by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen and others that they have not
yet discovered the rather obvious facts as to the reproduction of the
species. All this has certainly a primitive air. But I have ventured
to reply that the Arunta, as regards the family, are confessedly
more advanced towards individual marriage than their neighbours, the
Urabunna, with whom they freely intermarry.[26] Unlike what is told
of the Urabunna, the Arunta recognise ‘individual marriage.’ They
deliberately and ingeniously modify their system on the occasion of
intermarriage with the Urabunna. These reckon descent in the female,
the Arunta in the male line.[27] The office of Alatunja, or head man
of a local group, among the Arunta, is hereditary in the male line,
descending to a brother of the late Alatunja, if he leaves no adult
son.[28]
Moreover, the Arunta, and cognate tribes, occupy an area of 750 miles,
and their meetings and discussions last for months. A people truly
_primitive_ cannot be conceived as capable of such immense local
associations, and of such prolonged and pacific assemblies. Again,
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, rightly or wrongly, believe that ‘communal
marriage’ is the earlier institution, and that it persists, ‘slightly
modified’ among the Urabunna, but not among the Arunta. Thus, beyond
all doubt, the Arunta are more developed, more advanced, than the
Urabunna, and it is hardly safe to say that, where their organisation
differs from that of the Urabunna, and other tribes in general, it
differs because it is more ‘primitive.’ It must be less primitive, a
special divergence from the type.
ARUNTA METAPHYSICS
Again, as proof that they are in no chrysalis stage, the Arunta possess
a reasoned theory of things, so ingenious and complex, so peculiar, so
extraordinary, so carefully atheistic, that one could scarcely believe
it possible for naked savages, were it not so well attested. The theory
is that of the original evolution of types of life into plants and
animals, which, with the minimum of extra-natural aid, became human.
The human beings possessed souls, which on the death, or disappearance
into earth, of the original owners, were hereditary, being reborn into
Arunta children. These souls each of a given totem (the plant or animal
or other thing which first became human) haunt certain local centres.
One place is the centre of Grub totem souls, another of Cat totem
souls, and so forth. Each new child is of the totem of the haunted
locality where the mother supposes that she conceived it; a totem soul
of that locality has become incarnate in her, and from her is born.
Thus the wife may be of one totem, the child of another; the husband
may be of the wife’s totem, of the child’s, or of another. The totem
is thus no bar to marriage, and is not inherited, all this being the
result of the peculiar philosophic system of the Arunta. Their totemism
is thus a ‘sport,’ and not the original form of the institution.
We cannot reverse the case, the philosophy of hereditary totemic souls
cannot be the result of the present mode of inheriting the totem from
the group of souls that haunts each locality, it cannot be a myth
invented to explain that custom. That custom requires the peculiar
Arunta soul-belief as its basis, and cannot exist without the belief.
If the child received its totem name from the place where it is _born_,
we might say, ‘Originally the child was called after the _place of
its birth_.’ (Arunta children still receive territorial _personal_
names from the place of their birth.) ‘Later, Totemism came in with
totem local names, each place having a totem title. The local totem
name of the place where a child was born was then given to each child.
Still later, arose a myth that totem souls haunted each place, and
that the child received its totem name because a local totem soul was
incarnated in it, at the place where it was born.’ We cannot maintain
this theory--which makes the present Arunta belief a myth to explain
the present Arunta custom--because that custom it does not explain. The
child receives its totem name, not from the place where it is born,
but from the place where the totem soul entered into its mother. Nor
can we assume that totem names were originally given, not to human
groups, but to districts of territory. Thus the present Arunta mode of
obtaining the totem, in each case, is the direct result of the Arunta
philosophic belief. That belief is peculiar, is elsewhere unheard of,
is the property of a tribe distinctly more advanced in marriage rules,
and local solidarity, than some of its neighbours, and therefore cannot
be primary. It follows that the Arunta mode of obtaining the totem,
not by inheritance, is not ‘primitive,’ is not the original model from
which the rest of savage mankind has diverged. This I state, because,
as a rule, a belief exists to explain an institution, and, as a rule,
an institution is not the result of a belief.
ARUNTA TOTEM EATING AND TRADITIONS
Each Arunta totem kin may now eat, in moderation, of its own totem,
and each kin does magic (_Intichiuma_) for the benefit of its totem,
as part of the food supply of the tribe in general. The traditions
represent men and women of the same totem as, of old, usually
intermarrying (that is, as endogamous): while they are also said, as
a rule, to have fed almost exclusively on their totems, being thus
endophagous.
All these usages, real or traditional (except doing magic for the
benefit of the totem), are at the opposite pole from the customary
exogamous and exophagous Totemism of savage tribes all over the world,
and even in Australia. If, therefore, the Arunta and tribes practising
the same usages are primitive (it may be, and has been argued), their
Totemism is, in origin, the earliest known case of the division of
labour; each group selecting and working (by magic) for the benefit
of its totem, as part of the tribal food supply. I elsewhere argue
that each group must probably have had a recognised connection with
its totem, before it set out to do magic for the propagation of the
creature.[29] But I have also maintained that the Arunta are far from
being ‘primitive,’ but are rather a ‘sport,’ and that their usages
represent a local variation from the central stream of Totemism; not
Totemism in its earliest known form.
DR. DURKHEIM ON THE ARUNTA
I had written on this topic in the _Fortnightly Review_ (June, 1899),
and in another chapter of this book (‘The Origin of Totemism’),
before I saw the essay of Professor Durkheim, of Bordeaux, _Sur
le Totémisme_.[30] It is encouraging to find that Dr. Durkheim,
independently, has worked out the same theory--namely, that the Arunta
are not in the primitive stage of Totemism, but represent a very
peculiar divergence from the type, and that their historical legends
(more or less accepted by Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer) are mainly myths,
told to account for certain facts in their social arrangements. We are
not to reason from their single case, says Dr. Durkheim, as against
the great mass of our knowledge of Totemism and totemistic exogamy and
exophagy. ‘In place of being a perfectly pure example of the totemistic
_régime_, is not Arunta Totemism a later and disfigured (_dénaturée_)
development?’ For many reasons, says Dr. Durkheim, ‘the Arunta are
among the most advanced of the Australian peoples,’[31] and he gives
his grounds for this opinion, some of which I had already adduced in
1899. Entering into detail, Dr. Durkheim readily shows that, though the
Arunta now permit marriage between persons of the same totem (which is
not hereditary on either side, but casual), they are, for all that,
exogamous, in a fashion resulting from precise Totemism in their past.
They may not marry within the two primary divisions (which Dr. Durkheim
styles ‘phratries’). Each phratry contains two (sometimes four) other
‘classes’ (exogamous), and phratries arose in the combination of ‘two
elementary exogamous totem groups’--as I have already suggested.
Now phratries, we have agreed with Mr. Howitt and Mr. Fison, were,
in all probability, themselves originally totemic. Mr. Frazer also
says, ‘We should infer that the objects from which the Australian
phratries take their names were originally totems. But there seems to
be direct evidence that both the phratries and subphratries actually
retain, in some tribes, their totems.’[32] If the opinion be correct,
the phratries of the Arunta, which regulate their marriages, were
originally local totem groups. On my system, then, namely, that totem
kins were originally, or very early became, exogamous, were exogamous
before ‘phratries’ arose, and before the so-called ‘bisection’ was
made, then the Arunta organisation was originally that of exogamous
Totemism. At first, though not now, totems regulated Arunta marriages.
Dr. Durkheim, in the passage cited, says that the two exogamous
phratries are composed of ‘two elementary totem groups, _également
exogames_.’[33] Dr. Durkheim, who here is of my opinion, writes, ‘It
is not true that, among the Arunta, the totem has always been’ (as it
is now) ‘without influence on marriages, nor, above all, is it true
that Totemism, generally, implied endogamy.’ Yet, according to Arunta
myth, the ancestors of the ‘dream-time’ (_Alcheringa_) were endogamous,
as a general rule, and, as a general rule, were endophagous, ate
their totem animals or plants. The ancestors of their traditions fed
on their own totems, ‘as if by a functional necessity,’ say Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen. But this simply cannot be true, for each totem
is not in season, (plums, for instance), or accessible, all the year
through, and, if it were, it would be exterminated by endophagy. The
traditions, again, do not represent the men of the totem groups as
really and religiously endogamous. They exercised marital privileges,
not only over the women of their totem group, but over any other woman
they could come across. Certain totem groups are represented in the
legends as wandering across the land, the men living with women of
their totem group, while ‘there is nothing to show definitely that
marital relations were prohibited between individuals of different
totems.’ The men accepted the caresses of such women of other totems
as they encountered; but their habitual mates were the women of their
own totem.[34] In the alleged state of perpetual _trek_, the wives were
naturally, in the opinion of the myth makers, of the group. At present
an Arunta marries in or out of his totem; as he pleases.
THE RELATIONS OF TOTEMS AND ‘PHRATRIES’ AMONG THE ARUNTA
The relations of the totem groups to the ‘primary divisions,’ or
‘phratries,’ among the Arunta and cognate tribes, are, as we have
already stated, entirely peculiar. We have seen that, in North America,
and in Australia generally, no phratry ever contains the same totems
as its linked phratry, and we have seen that Mr. Frazer calls this
the natural arrangement.[35] If so, the present Arunta arrangement
is not natural; it is a divergence from the natural type. Among the
Arunta, ‘no totem is confined to either moiety’ (‘phratry’) ‘of the
tribe.’ There is only ‘in each local centre a great predominance of one
moiety.’[36]
Dr. Durkheim regards the present state of Arunta affairs (the totems
not being peculiar to either phratry) as _une dérogation_. Originally,
he thinks, as among the Urabunna, each phratry contained only totems
which were _not_ in the other phratry; and he detects survivals,
among the Arunta, of the earlier usage. At present the Arunta totems
show ‘a slight tendency to skip’ (_chevaucher_) ‘from one into the
other phratry, doubtless because the Arunta totem system is no longer
complete’--and no wonder, as Arunta totems are now not hereditary, but
derived from the totem souls haunting each locality. Again, in Arunta
legend, the ancestors ‘were divided into companies, the members of
which bore the same totem name, and belonged as a rule to the same
moiety’ (‘phratry’) ‘of the tribe,’ as now among the Urabunna, ‘who are
in a less developed state than the Arunta.’ So say Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen, and thus Arunta legend points to a past in which Arunta usage
was, in this matter, as a rule the same as that of the less developed
Urabunna: which I believe it really was.
But we can hardly accept the legends when they fit, and reject them
when they do not fit, our theory! I lay no stress on the legends.
If, however, the Arunta ‘phratries’ originally, as Dr. Durkheim and I
believe, never contained the same totems, then each Arunta totem group
was, at that time, necessarily exogamous. No man or woman could then
marry within the totem, as, at present, the Arunta can and do. They
were barred by the phratry limit: persons of their totem were never in
the phratry into which alone they could marry. So no one then could
marry a member of his or her own totem kin. ‘It is, therefore, untrue
that marriage has always been permitted between members of a totem,’
says Dr. Durkheim, though Arunta legend declares for the opposite view.
ARUNTA MYTHS
Here I am apt to agree with Dr. Durkheim. The evidence of the Arunta
legends as to the customs of the _Alcheringa_, or ‘dreamtime,’ is ‘such
stuff as dreams are made of.’ The legends are ‘statements, invented
mainly by popular fancy,’ says Dr. Durkheim, ‘to explain existing
institutions, by attaching them to some mythical beings in the past.
They are myths, in the proper sense of the word.’ They are not marked
by authenticity.
Against this idea we have the opinion of Mr. Frazer, and of Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen.[37] The Arunta traditions, they say, and Mr. Frazer
agrees with them, do not explain the present system, but deal with a
former state of organisation and with customs quite different from the
present. They do, but the Arunta invented the customs described in
their myths, on purpose to explain, mythically, how the present customs
arose out of deliberate modification of the alleged older customs.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen themselves assert this: ‘the traditions
point to a very definite introduction of an exogamic system, long after
the totemic groups were fully developed, and, further, they point very
clearly to the fact that the introduction was due to the deliberate
action of certain ancestors,’ which is the theory of Mr. Lewis Morgan!
The rest is true, but I, like Dr. Durkheim, conceive that all is
(except where we have external evidence for deliberate modification of
the ‘classes’) merely part of the Arunta ætiological or explanatory
myth. That myth starts from the belief (Mr. Howitt’s belief?) in
primary totemic, but not exogamous groups, such as are precisely the
present groups of the Arunta, though not of their neighbours the
Urabunna, or of totemists in general. This exceptional condition of
Arunta affairs needed explanation, and got it, in the myth that the
groups were originally totemic, but not exogamous, as Arunta totem
groups still are. Exogamy (not applying to totem groups, but to
‘phratries’) was brought in, the myth says, by deliberate action, by
our old friend, ‘the Legislator,’ The Arunta traditions, therefore, do
explain ‘the origin of the present system,’ of the Arunta, as far as
exogamy goes; and their explanation is as much a speculative hypothesis
as Mr. Morgan’s equivalent theory. It is one more example of the
coincidence of savage myth and scientific hypothesis.
MR. SPENCER ON ARUNTA LEGENDS
I understand Messrs. Spencer and Gillen to contest this opinion, in
one passage, and to assert it, under qualifications, in another. Their
exact words must be given. ‘If they’ (Arunta traditions) ‘simply
explained the origin of the present system out of, as it were, no
system, then we might regard them as simply myths invented to account
for the former’ (i.e. ‘the present system’), ‘but when we find that
they deal with a gradual development, and with a former state of
organisation and customs quite different from, and in important
respects at variance with, the organisation and customs of the present
day, we are probably right in regarding them as actually indicative of
a time when these were different from those now in force.’[38]
Now to what do the traditions amount, as regards earlier marriage laws
and customs at variance with those now in use among the Arunta? They
amount to this: (1) Men of one totem had marital relations normally
with women of the same totem. It is no longer the case that Arunta men
have relations, normally and exclusively, with women of the same totem;
a man may marry a woman of his own totem, or not, as he pleases. But
so, in the traditions of the primeval trek, a man might, and did, take
women of other totems as he pleased, by conquest probably; though these
women seem to have lived, hitherto, solely with men of their own totem.
The tradition starts from the hypothesis that all members of each
mythical wandering totem group were originally of the same totem. That
being so, the men naturally lived, when on trek, with women of their
totem, taking women of other totems as they came across them. No longer
on trek, the Arunta of to-day do the same thing, many women of their
own or any other totem. The only shade of difference arises from the
nature of the mythical theory, that many totem groups were originally
migratory. But the present Arunta system of ‘go as you please’ in
marriage (as far as totems are concerned) differs from the regular
custom of the neighbouring Urabunna, for example. That difference, the
Arunta probably feel, needs explanation. So their myth explains it, ‘we
Arunta always acted thus from the beginning.’ So far the ‘tradition’
of Messrs Spencer and Gillen seems to me to be an ordinary explanatory
myth.
(2) At the supposed time (a time when many human types were still in
the husk!) men and women of what are now ‘exogamic groups’ (‘phratries’
or ‘classes’) had marital relations contrary to present usage.
But did the phratries or classes then, according to tradition, exist
at all? The legend says that the men of the Little Hawk totem _had_
these ‘phratries’ and classes, Kumura and Purula and so on (the names
then carrying no known exogamous prohibition, as now, for the legend
does not say that these ‘classes’ were exogamous). The Little Hawk
men had arrived at the arts of making flint knives, and using them in
circumcision. This they taught to less advanced groups, who tooled with
fire sticks. But they only let their pupils have ‘very rough’ stone
knives (Palæolithic, probably), at first. ‘It was these Little Hawks,’
say our authors, ‘who first gave to the Arunta the four “class” names.
We may presume that along with them there was instituted some system of
marriage regulations, but what exactly this was there is no evidence
to show.’ Either the Little Hawks introduced exogamy, or they did not,
a valuable result of traditional evidence.[39] ‘As yet we have no
indication of any restrictions with regard to marriage as far as either
totems or classes are concerned,’ say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. Then
why does the legend aver that the class names existed? Why did they
exist? Now the existing restrictions of the ‘classes’ need explanation,
and get it, from the myth; but, as there are no Arunta _totem_
restrictions on marriage, at present the myth naturally says nothing
about them. At this mythic period, ‘persons of the Purula and Kumura
classes, who may not now marry one another, are represented as living
together.’[40] (3) Next ‘the organisation now in vogue was adopted.’
But, in its first shape, due to the wisdom of Emu men, it permitted
marriages, which are now (4) forbidden by the superior intelligence
of men dwelling further north, ‘and it was decided to adopt the new
system,’ that is, the present Arunta ‘class’ system.
Now the Arunta are still accepting innovations from the North, and
_this_ part of the myth need not be mythical.
But the whole traditions, full of stark mythical inventions (including
a myth like that of Isis and the mutilation of Osiris), amount merely
to this. Society was totemic, but the totems were not exogamous; rather
endogamous of the two. Society among the Arunta is still totemic,
but not, as far as totems go, exogamous. In this it differs from the
usual rule, and the myth explains why,--‘it was always so.’ But Arunta
society is exogamous as regards the ‘phratries’ and classes, and _that_
has to be explained by the myth. The myth therefore explains by saying
that Emu men introduced a deficient, and northern men an adequate,
system of exogamy--that which now prevails. Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen, however, appear to deny that the ‘traditions’ ‘simply explain
the origin of the present system, out of, as it were, no system. It
is true that the traditions do give stages in the arrangement of the
present system; but they also do ‘explain the origin of the present
system.’ And Messrs. Spencer and Gillen not only admit this, but, as we
saw, even think the explanation ‘quite possible.’ The explanation, I
repeat, is that the system ‘is due to the deliberate action of certain
ancestors,’ Emu men and wiser Northern men.
Of course, as we tried to show, that explanation of primeval exogamy
is improbable, but it is the explanation given by the Arunta legend.
With a grain of fact, as to innovations from the North, the legend
is a myth, an ætiological myth, a myth explanatory of the origin of
the present organisation. History it is not. The Arunta ‘traditions’
are not historical evidence in favour of the new hypothesis that the
Arunta are ‘primitive,’ are in ‘the chrysalis stage’ of humanity; (this
they deny): that Totemism, in origin, was a magical co-operative and
industrial association; that the original totems were not exogamous;
and that exogamy was superimposed by legislation, or grew out of an
organisation so imposed on a society of non-exogamous totem groups.
Whatever the value of that hypothesis, it has no historical support
from the Arunta traditions. History is a very different thing.
The Arunta still marry, at pleasure, in or out of the totem, merely
because their totems are now scattered about among their exogamous
divisions. This is not the ‘natural arrangement’ (as Mr. Frazer assures
us), is not the inevitable original arrangement, and is not the
case with their neighbours, the Urabunna, who are confessedly ‘less
developed than the Arunta.’ The Urabunna system, therefore, is more
archaic, _ex hypothesi_ than that of the Arunta, which must be less
archaic. It is, I repeat, peculiar, isolated, needs explanation, and
the Arunta traditions give the explanation. The ancestors took women in
or out of the totem, as at present the Arunta do; exogamy by _classes_
was later imposed, says the myth. Dr. Durkheim appears here to hold the
more logical position. There was, I conceive, with Dr. Durkheim, and
have stated, though Messrs Spencer and Gillen and others deny it, ‘a
primary relationship between the totemic system and exogamy.’[41]
[Footnote 1: _Ethnological Bureau, Annual Report_, 1893-1894, pp. 200,
201.]
[Footnote 2: _Studies in Ancient History_, p. 221.]
[Footnote 3: Suppose we take a group ranging in a given locality, and
known to its neighbours as the Emu group. Let us also take a similar
and similarly situated Kangaroo group. Let us suppose that each such
group has raided for its wives among Opossum, Grub, Cat, and Dingo
groups. By female descent, both the Emu and Kangaroo groups will
contain persons of the Opossum, Grub, Cat, and Dingo groups. This
being so a man of the Emu local group, named Grub by totem, might
marry a woman of the Emu local group, by totem of descent an Opossum;
and similarly in the Kangaroo group. But, as Dr. Durkheim remarks in
another case, ‘the old prohibition’, deeply rooted in manners and
customs, survives (_L’Année Sociologique_, v. 107, note). Now ‘the old
prohibition’ was that a man of the Emu group was not to marry a woman
of the Emu group. That rule endures, though the Emu group now contains
men and women of several distinct totem kins. To escape from the
difficulty, by my theory, Emu local totem group makes connubium with
Kangaroo local totem group. Any Emu man may marry any Kangaroo woman
not of his own totem by descent. But this does not, automatically,
throw Opossum and Grub into one, Cat and Dingo into another, of the
two local totem groups, Emu and Kangaroo, now become phratries, with
loss of their local character. For if a man, by phratry Emu, and by
totem of descent Cat, marries a woman, by phratry Kangaroo, and by
totem of descent Grub, their children, by female descent, are Kangaroo
Grubs. Meanwhile, if a man, by phratry Kangaroo, and by totem Cat,
marries a woman, by phratry Emu, and by totem Grub, their children are
Emu Grubs. There are thus Grubs in both phratries, a thing that never
occurs (except among the Arunta). Therefore the division of the totem
kins, some into one phratry, others into the other, is not automatic.
There might be a tendency, by way of making assurance doubly sure, for
the totem kins to be assorted into the two phratries, but some kind of
deliberate arrangement does seem necessary. The same necessity attends
Dr. Durkheim’s theory later criticised.]
[Footnote 4: See again Durkheim, in _L’Année Sociologique_, i.
47-57, on the superstition as to blood, and the totem as a sacred
representative of the inviolable blood of the kindred. That
superstition gives religious sanction to a pre-existing exogamous
tendency.]
[Footnote 5: _Totemism_, p. 60 (1889).]
[Footnote 6: _Totemism_, p. 62.]
[Footnote 7: The people of New Britain group of islands are divided
into two exogamous sets. The totems of these classes are two insects,
but I incline to suppose that there are, or may have been, totem kins
included within these totemic classes. Our informant, the Rev. B.
Danks, regrets that he did not pay more attention to these matters. _J.
A. I._ xviii. 281-294.]
[Footnote 8: On the other hand, among the Mohegans, I can admit
that Little Turtle, Mud Turtle, and Great Turtle may be deliberate
subdivisions of the Turtle totem, now a phratry, but even this need
not necessarily be the case; the different species of turtles being
quite capable of giving names to different totems. I would not deny
the possibility of the occasional segmentation of a totem group--far
from it--but I doubt whether great tribes originally (and, as it seems,
deliberately) first bisected themselves, and then cut up the two main
divisions.]
[Footnote 9: My italics.]
[Footnote 10: _J. A. I._, N.S. i. 278.]
[Footnote 11: _Ibid_. p. 282.]
[Footnote 12: Mr. Mathews counts thirty-four totems in the _Dilbi_, and
as many in the Rupathin ‘phratries.’ _Proc. Ray. Soc. N.S.W._ xxxi.
157-158.]
[Footnote 13: _J. A. I._, N.S. i. 284-285.]
[Footnote 14: _Studies in Ancient History_, second series, p. 605.]
[Footnote 15: Local totem groups, in my theory.]
[Footnote 16: Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 423-424.]
[Footnote 17: _On the Organisation of Australian Tribes_, p. 186.]
[Footnote 18: I know that many students will decline to admit that
there is such a myth of a Maker.]
[Footnote 19: _Report of Bureau of Ethnology_, 1892-1893, pt. i. pp.
32-43.]
[Footnote 20: _Natives of Central Australia_, pp. 12-15.]
[Footnote 21: _Ibid_. pp. 15, 421-422, also p. 272.]
[Footnote 22: Here I dissent from Mr. Frazer and Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen; the point is discussed later.]
[Footnote 23: _Fortnightly Review_, June 1889.]
[Footnote 24: In 1895, _J. A. I._ xxiv., no. 4, p. 371, Mr. Fison
abandons hope of a certain discovery of the origin of exogamy.]
[Footnote 25: _Fortnightly Review_, April, May, 1899.]
[Footnote 26: Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68, 69, 121.]
[Footnote 27: _Ibid_. p. 70.]
[Footnote 28: _Ibid_. p. 10.]
[Footnote 29: See ‘The Origin of Totemism,’ _infra_.]
[Footnote 30: _L’Année Sociologique_, 1900-1901, pp. 82-121.]
[Footnote 31: _Ibid_. v. 89-90.]
[Footnote 32: _Totemism_, p. 83.]
[Footnote 33: _L’Année Sociologique_, v. 92.]
[Footnote 34: Spencer and Gillen, p. 419.]
[Footnote 35: _J. A. I._, N.S., i. 285.]
[Footnote 36: Spencer and Gillen, p. 120.]
[Footnote 37: _J. A. I._, N.S., i., nos. 3, 4, p. 276.]
[Footnote 38: _J. A. I._, N.S., i. 276-277.]
[Footnote 39: _Native Tribes of Australia_, pp. 396-402, 421.]
[Footnote 40: _Native Tribes of Australia_, p. 418.]
[Footnote 41: _Op. cit._ p 279.]