ARUNTA PHRATRIES AND TOTEMS
The essential question is, why, among the more archaic Urabunna, do
the large exogamous divisions never include the same totems, whereas,
among the more highly developed Arunta, they do? If we can show how the
Arunta, if once organised on the Urabunna and North American model,
came to slip out of it; while we cannot show how the Urabunna, and
most other tribes, if once on the Arunta model, came to desert it (as
they must have done), then it will seem probable that the Urabunna
organisation, the regular universal Australian organisation, is the
older.
The sequence of events, as understood by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen,
was this, or, at least, may thus be conceived. We take two tribes,
say Urabunna and Arunta. They both have many totem groups, totemic,
because (on this theory) each group had, for its ‘primary function,’
the working of magic for the object which was its totem. The totem
had primarily, on this theory, no relation to marriage rules. It is
‘quite possible’ that certain persons then deliberately introduced
exogamous divisions.... ‘so as to regulate marital relations.’ The
exact purpose, however, is unknown; ‘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 exogamic groups.’ This position I have already criticised; it is
not intelligible to me. However--the exogamous division was made, and
then all the totems might be arranged separately in the two divisions,
by the Urabunna, ‘and perhaps the majority of Australian tribes’
(and the American tribes) or, ‘this was not done,’ as by the Arunta.
Consequently, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen think, the rule which prevents
an Urabunna man from marrying a woman of his own totem, has nothing,
primarily, to do with the totem, but is a mere inevitable consequence
of the system which, among all tribes but the Arunta, excluded each
totem from one of the two exogamous divisions, and placed it (not among
the Arunta) in the other. My own system--I need not reiterate it--is
the reverse of all this.
The Arunta, I contend, probably had, originally, the usual
organisation, but have lost it for obvious reasons, so that now the
same totem may occur in both of the large exogamous divisions, and
persons of the same totem may now intermarry.
The traditions of the Arunta represent the exogamous ‘phratries’ as
later than the totemic (but not yet exogamous) division. Dr. Durkheim
thinks this improbable or impossible. It is true that the ‘phratries’
or ‘classes’ are now much more important, among the Arunta, than the
totems, on which Dr. Durkheim insists. They need not, therefore, be
earlier.
VIEWS OF DR. DURKHEIM
The theory of Dr. Durkheim is not, perhaps, expressed with his usual
lucidity; at least I have found some difficulty in understanding it.
The following summary, however, seems to be correct. ‘The phratry,’
he says, ‘began by being a clan’ (in my terminology an exogamous
local totem group). ‘There is no reason why this general idea should
not apply to the Arunta. Consequently, since there are actually two
exogamous phratries, we have reason to admit that this society was
originally formed by two primary clans, or, if any one prefers the
phrase, by two elementary totem groups, both exogamous (_également
exogames_), for under this form the two phratries must have begun to
exist. Now in that case there was at least a moment when marriage was
forbidden between members of the same totem,’ though now among the
Arunta this rule no longer obtains.[1]
So far Dr. Durkheim and I hold identical views; we differ on a point
of detail. What are, and whence came, the totems within the phratries?
Dr. Durkheim conceives the case thus: Originally there was a ‘clan’
(local totem group) which was exogamous, and married out into one
other equally exogamous clan. The members of each such exogamous totem
group (‘clan’) then multiplied and ‘swarmed off,’ in colonies, and
all such colonies took a new totem, while retaining ‘the sentiment of
their primary solidarity’ with the original totem group. These are
the ‘secondary’ totem kins. But why should they take new totem names
and new totems?[2] I know not, but the original group from which they
swarmed off now became their ‘phratry.’ This phratry, in many cases,
still has a totem name, ‘which is the proof that it is, or has been a
clan,’ that is an exogamous totem group.[3] Therefore exogamous totem
groups were ‘primary,’ the existing totem kins are ‘secondary,’ they
have split off from the original groups. As far as I am able to follow
Dr. Durkheim’s reasoning, he and I differ on this one point. We both
regard the two ‘phratries’ as having been originally local exogamous
totem groups, which united in connubium. But in each ‘phratria’ there
exist several totem kinships. Dr. Durkheim regards these as ‘secondary’
branches which split off from the two original local totem groups, and
which, in each case, took new totem names, while retaining membership
in their original totem groups, now ‘phratries.’ They are totemic
colonies of a totemic metropolis. I, on the other hand, as has been
explained, conceive that each of the two local totem groups which
became phratries (say Emu and Kangaroo) already, by the action of
exogamy in a region where there were many totem groups, and by virtue
of female descent, contained within it persons who were of various
totem kindreds. Dr. Durkheim, on the contrary, seems to think of the
existence of but two primal exogamous clans in a given region. Groups
emigrating from these took new totem names, while retaining the phratry
name and connection with their mother clans, now phratries.
Why the clans were totemic at all does not appear. I understand that
they were exogamous out of respect for the blood of their totems, the
totem tabu (p. 57, note I).
Against the hypothesis it may be urged (1) that we do not know that
emigrants from a local centre ever select new totem names--unless,
indeed, they reach a region where their old totem does not exist. This
cannot have occurred constantly. Again (2), Dr. Durkheim’s theory
involves the same difficulty as my own. How did the colonies from the
Kangaroo group happen never to select the same totem as colonies from
the Emu group, so that the same totem never occurs in both phratries?
This implies deliberate arrangement. If however, totem names were given
from without, by neighbours (as I shall argue), the case could not
occur at all, and the same totem would appear in both phratries.
If we adopt the hypothesis that two friendly ‘families,’ or ‘fire
circles,’ of a cousinly character, set the first example of exogamous
intermarriage--exclusively with each other--and then got totem names,
they might become phratries, but whence arose the totem kins within the
phratries? Shall we say that other such ‘families,’ increasing in size,
and receiving totem names, came in, two by two, to Emu and Kangaroo,
each of the new linked adherents taking opposite sides, Opossum going
to the Kangaroo, Bandicoot to the Emu phratry? This would give the
totems within the phratries, by a constant accession of other pairs of
phratries, which subordinated themselves, one to Emu, one to Kangaroo.
Either this hypothesis, or Dr. Durkheim’s, or my own, accounts for
the phratry _plus_ totem kins arrangement, without supposing the
deliberate bisection of a hitherto undivided commune. That hypothesis,
if any one, of the other three, Dr. Durkheim’s, my own, or the theory
of accessions to the pair of exogamous intermarrying families, be
accepted, is therefore not forced upon us in defect of a better.
HOW DID THE ARUNTA ANOMALY ARISE?
At all events, the Arunta ‘clan’ (totem kin) is now no longer
exogamous, and two Arunta phratries can now contain members of the
same totems, contrary to Kamilaroi, Dieri and Urabunna and American
custom. How did this anomaly arise? Dr. Durkheim supposes that the
change began when Arunta kinship came to desert the female and to be
reckoned in the male line. This appears to Dr. Durkheim to be indicated
by the complicated and ingenious arrangements made when an Urabunna
(who reckons by the female line) intermarries with an Arunta, who
reckons by the male line.[4] These arrangements, he thinks, are no
novelty devised for the occasion: the Arunta merely revert to their old
way of reckoning by the spindle side. When the Arunta changed their
system, and reckoned in the male, not, as of old, in the female line,
the children now belonged to the ‘phratries,’ not of their mothers,
as previously, but of their fathers. Each ‘phratry’ then bartered a
sub-class of its own for a sub-class of its partner. Each bartered
sub-class thus brought its totems into the other ‘phratry,’ and
there was no longer a totem group entirely peculiar to one or other
‘phratry.’ Consequently, a member of the Kangaroo totem could marry a
woman of the same, if she were in the opposite ‘phratry’ to his own.
Might not the same results follow from the mere fact, that, among the
Arunta, the totem is now inherited neither from father nor mother,
but is derived simply from the totem souls that haunt the particular
glen or hill where the child was conceived? By this means a totem soul
can get into a child of the ‘phratry’ to which that totem did not
originally belong, and thus the totems ‘skip’ from one ‘phratry’ to
another, contrary to general rule in Australia and North America. This
is the explanation of the Arunta anomaly which Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen accept. ‘The spirit child’ (of the Lizard totem) ‘deliberately,
the natives say, chose to go into a Kumura’ (class) ‘woman, instead of
a Bulthara woman.... Though the class was changed, the totem could not
possibly be.... Owing to the system according to which totem names are
acquired, it is always possible for a man to be, say, a Purula’ (class)
‘or a Kumura’ (class) ‘and yet a Witchetty; or, on the other hand, a
Bulthara’ (class) ‘or a Panunga’ (class) ‘and yet an Emu’ (totem). But,
if he is thus born to a totem which was not originally (on my theory)
a totem of his phratry, a man loses the chance of being an _Alatunja_,
or head man of a local group.[5] Thus the Arunta anomaly arises merely
and necessarily from the Arunta philosophy of souls. That philosophy is
an isolated freak, and it has upset and revolutionised Arunta Totemism,
which, therefore, is the reverse of the ‘primitive’ model.
[Footnote 1: _L’Année Sociologique_, v. 91, 92.]
[Footnote 2: This idea we shall find again later, in another part of
Dr. Durkheim’s system.]
[Footnote 3: _L’Année Sociologique_, i. 6, 7.]
[Footnote 4: _L’Ann. Soc._ v. 104-107; Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68-69.]
[Footnote 5: Spencer and Gillen, pp. 125, 126. The reader is
recommended to study Dr. Durkheim’s passage cited in the last note, the
topic being difficult.]