THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS
We have, fortunately, an opportunity in Melanesia of studying, as
it seems, the Australian marriage system in a state of decay.[1]
The institutions of Melanesia bear every note of being Australian
institutions, decadent, dislocated, contaminated and partially
obliterated. Starting from New Guinea, we find a long archipelago
sloping down, away from the east side of Australia, towards the Fiji
Islands. The archipelago consists mainly, in the order given, of
New Ireland, New Britain, the Solomon Group, Banks Island, the New
Hebrides, Loyalty Island, and New Caledonia. The inhabitants are a
fusion of many oceanic elements, and are much more advanced in culture
than the natives of Australia: they have chiefs, whose office tends
to be hereditary (and in one place, Saa, _is_ hereditary), in the
male line, the father handing on to the son his magical acquirements
and properties, and leaving to him his wealth, as far as he may. This
is not very far, as, curious to say, descent in the female line is
generally prevalent. Wealth is both real and personal: landed property
consisting (1) of Town Lots, (2) of Gardens (ἓρκος),
(3) of the Waste (‘the Bush’). The ‘town lots’ and gardens pass by
inheritance; the possessor being only ‘possessor,’ not proprietor,
and real property passing in the female line, where that line still
prevails. The reclaiming of land from the Waste tends, however, to
direct property into the male line, which, except in certain districts,
is not dominant. Money is divided, on a death, among brothers,
nephews--and sons, ‘if they can get it’--the money being the native
shell currency. The tendency towards the substitution, as heirs, of a
man’s sons for his sister’s sons, is powerful.[2]
This is a curious and anomalous condition of the family. As regards
material advantages (χορηγία) Melanesian society is
greatly in advance of Australian. It is in possession of houses, fruit
trees, agricultural allotments, domesticated animals, and a native
currency. Thus there is much property to be inherited, and where that
is the case, and where the family has a house of its own, the desire of
men to leave their goods and dwellings to their sons usually results
in the reckoning of descent on the sword side. Yet, in this respect,
the Melanesians of many regions are behind the naked, houseless Arunta,
and other Australian tribes with male descent.. What influences caused
these tribes to depart from the reckoning in the female line, still
used among their equally destitute neighbours, the Urabunna, is a
most difficult question; indeed the number of distinct grades, in
relation to family laws among the Australians, is an enigma. Among
the Melanesians, at all events, material advance and accumulation of
property have often failed to bring inheritance out of the female into
the male line.
Insular conditions are apt to develop divergences from any given
type--local varieties--while the mixture of races, and the introduction
into one island, or part of it, of the customs of settlers from other
islands, produces peculiarities and anomalies in Melanesia. We expect,
therefore, to find Melanesian marriage rules rather dislocated and
contaminated, and to see that the archaic type is half obliterated.
In fact, this is the case, and Totemism, if it exists, survives in
fragments and vestiges.
‘Where are the totems?’ Dr. Codrington asks, and we can only reply that
they seem to be half obliterated. ‘Nothing is more fundamental than the
division of the people into two or more classes, which are exogamous,
and in which descent is counted through the women.’[3] This answers to
the Australian ‘primary divisions,’ or ‘phratries.’ But, in Australia,
as we showed, these divisions appear to be of totemic origin. If this
was so, in Melanesia, the evidence for the fact is much less distinct.
In a large region of the Solomon Islands ‘there is no division of the
people into kindreds, as elsewhere, and descent follows the father....
The particular or local causes which have brought this exceptional
state of things are unknown.’[4]
Speaking generally, however, the two primary exogamous classes exist,
and to a Melanesian man, all women of his own generation count either
as ‘sisters’ (barred) or as (potential) ‘wives.’ The appropriation of
actual wives to their actual husbands ‘has by no means so strong a hold
on native society,’ as the exogamous class divisions. By many students
this license will be considered a survival of ‘group marriage.’
Prenuptial unchastity is wrong, but a breach of the exogamous rule used
to be punished by death. Wife-lending used to be common, as in Central
Australia, if the wife and guest were of opposite ‘divisions.’ Whether
the license of certain feasts (as among Australians and Fijians) smiles
on breaches of the exogamous law, does not seem quite certain.[5]
In Banks Island and the North New Hebrides, there are but the two
‘primary class divisions.’ These have not names as in Australia--if
once they had names, the names are lost. We find merely ‘divisions’
(veve), two ‘sides of the house.’ Every man knows his own division; all
the women in it are tabu to him; all the women of the other division,
in the same generation, are potential wives (with certain restrictions
in practice).
In Merlav, one of the Banks Islands, there are ‘families within the
kin’ (answering to _gentes_--totem kins--in Australia). These families
have _local_ names, as a rule: one has its name from the Octopus, but
eats it freely.
It is not inconceivable that here we have broken down and obliterated
Totemism, among a settled agricultural people, probably dwelling, as a
rule, in close contiguity.
In Florida, and adjacent parts of the Solomon Islands, not merely
two, but _six_ ‘kema’ or exogamous divisions (‘phratries?’) exist. Two
of the six have names derived from localities, two have animal names,
Eagle and Crab: two _kema_ came in from abroad. All this points to
contamination, and rearrangement, under new circumstances. Each _kema_
in Florida has one or more _buto_, the clam, pig, pigeon, and so on,
not to be eaten by members of the kema. This looks like the ‘totemic
subdivisions’ (that is, the totem groups within the ‘phratries’) of
the Australians. Again, these butos within each _kema_, animals and
plants not to be eaten, are exactly like the survivals of Totemism in
the names of the Siouan totem kins with male descent, ‘Do not eat small
Birds,’ ‘Do not eat Dogs,’ ‘Do not eat Buffalo,’ and so forth. The
_buto_ of each kin within the Melanesian exogamous _kemas_, then, seems
to me to be the old totem of the kin, now relegated to a position more
obscure, in the changes of society, and, with one exception, not giving
its name and tabu to the kema. Only in one case is the animal which is
the buto, also the animal which gives its name to the _kema_. The Kakau
_kema_ may not eat Kakau--the crab. The Manukuma (eagle) kema may eat
the eagle: one fancies that they find it tough. In the same way the
Narrinyeri and other tribes in Australia permit their totem kins to eat
their totems. Members of each _kema_ are apt to speak of their _butos_
(which they may not eat) as their _ancestors_, as in Totemism, but this
is a mere mythical explanation of why they may not eat the _buto_. With
half a dozen other myths, it is used by totemists to explain why they
may not eat their totems.
Dr. Codrington, on the other hand, writes, ‘the _buto_ of each _kema_
is probably comparatively recent in Florida, it has been introduced
at Bugotu within the memory of living men.’[6] Dr. Codrington, as
we have already seen, inclines to the theory which derives totems
originally from individuals. He cites Mr. Sleigh, of Lifu (mentioned
by us before), who writes, ‘When a father was about to die, surrounded
by members of his family, he might say what animal he will be, say a
butterfly or some kind of bird. That creature would be sacred to his
family, who would not injure or kill it; on seeing or falling in with
such a creature the person would say, “That is _kaka_” (papa), and
would, if possible, offer him a young cocoa-nut. But they did not thus
adopt the name of a tribe.’[7]
We need not repeat the objections to all such theories of the
derivation of pristine totem group names from individuals, The _butos_,
ancestors, not to be eaten, have all the air of archaic totems, now
reduced to a lower plane, and, save in one case out of six, not giving
the name to a _kema_, in Florida. Thus the _butos_ of each _kema_
would be, originally, totemic, but immigrations, settled conditions,
the tendency to male descent, and the introduction of local or place
names for some groups, of nicknames for others, broke down the old
totemic nomenclature, leaving only the Kakau, or crabs, true to their
colours and to their totem and totem name, while the other _kemas_ got
local names or nicknames--the Hongokikki being named from the pastime
of Cat’s Cradle--clearly a nickname. Apparently the pigeon is their
_buto_. How did these conditions arise?
Say that there were once four exogamous totem groups in
Ettrickdale--Grouse, Deer, Hares, Partridges. Say that there came in
two alien groups, Trout and Plover. Of these two, one might come to
be called Quoits, from their skill in that game.--Two of the original
four might get local names, from their places of residence, say
Singlee and Tushielaw. One might keep its old totem, Grouse, and its
old totem name, abstaining from grouse. One might get a new name, Roe
Deer, but all, under the names of Tushielaw, Singlee, Quoits, Roe
Deer, and Grouse (with another not given), would retain their old
totems as _butos_, ancestral in some way, and not to be eaten. But the
new, not the totemic, names would now mark off the exogamous _kemas_.
Something of this kind must have occurred in Florida, under new social
conditions, and the stress of immigrants. But Dr. Codrington gives a
case in which the banana was tabued, just before his death, by ‘a man
of much influence who said that he would be in the banana.’[8]
This origin of Totemism (namely, in animism, a man of influence
tabuing, and bequeathing to his descendants for ever, the animal or
plant that is to be his soul vehicle) is approved of, as the original
cause of Totemism, by Dr. Wilken. But could it arise in a much lower
state of society, wherein ‘men of much influence’ are rare, and are
readily forgotten? Now in Melanesia, generally, a man’s fame, however
great, perishes with those who remember him in his life.[9] Again,
this sort of tabuing the banana affected ‘all the people’ of the isle
Ulawa, and so could not be the base of an exogamous prohibition,
unless all brides were to be brought in from foreign islands. If the
prohibition was confined to known descendants of the banana man, then
we have the patriarchal family, founded by a known ancestor, and
exogamous. Now, in Ulawa, descent is reckoned in the male line, and
there are no exogamous divisions.[10] ‘This is an exceptional state of
things,’ says Dr. Codrington (p. 22), yet he thinks it (p. 32) ‘in all
probability’--_plus_ the tabuing of an object by a dying patriarch--the
cause of the _buto_ prohibition in the _kemas_ of Florida. Thus a
solitary case from an isle without exogamous divisions (‘the only
restriction on marriage is nearness in blood’), and with male descent,
is supposed by Dr. Codrington to cause the _buto_ prohibition in an
island with exogamous divisions, and with female descent.[11]
His theory is manifestly inconsistent with his facts--moreover, it
involves the existence of the patriarchal system at the time when
totems first arose.
On the whole, this reasoning does not convince, but, if Dr. Codrington
is right, Melanesian institutions are shattered, dislocated,
contaminated, and worn down to a remarkable degree. Yet, behind them,
where the two, or the six exogamous divisions prevail, with descent
counted in the female line, we can scarcely help recognising a basis
of Australian customary law, with obsolescence of the totem, slowly
tending towards inheritance through the father. ‘A chief’s sons are
none of them of his own kin; and, as will be shown, he passes on what
he can of his property and authority to them.’[12] In spite of the
‘generation names,’ ‘father,’ ‘brothers and sisters,’ ‘children,’ the
real distinctions of own father, cousin, and so forth, are understood,
and expressed, as they usually are, everywhere.[13]
Thus Melanesia shows us some of the ways out from Totemism, exogamy,
and descent in the female line. It also shows us, what Australia does
not, ghost worship: most prominently in Saa, where, with descent
in the male line, and hereditary chiefship, eleven generations of
ancestors are remembered, ‘by the invocation of their successive names
in sacrifices.’[14] This is a solitary case of such genealogical
knowledge among Melanesians, as distinct from Polynesians. It is made
possible by the sacrifices to the ancestors. Now, in Australia, there
are no such sacrifices. Without them ancestors among low savages cannot
be remembered, and could not hand down, as an hereditary totem, the
animal or other object which is their ‘soul-box,’ or the vehicle of
the ancestral soul after death. There appears to myself to exist, in
Melanesia, a notable tendency to adore, nay, almost to deify, a dead
man, as a _tindalo_. Dr. Codrington cites, from Bishop Selwyn, a case
in which a renowned brave man was slain in action. A house, or shrine,
was built over his head, and he was canonised, or made a _tindalo_.
His claims to sanctity were automatically certified by canoe tilting,
in principle like our table tilting. The men in the canoe cease
paddling, ‘in a quiet place,’ and, when the canoe begins to tilt,
they call over a roll of names of tindalos (human ghosts). At the
name of the dead warrior,’the canoe shook again.’ A successful raid
followed, a new shrine was built for the warrior, and fish and food
were sacrificed to him. By this means a great man’s memory is, now
and then, contrary to general custom, kept green in this region of
Melanesia. Occasionally he seems to be on the way towards godship,
as a departmental deity, perhaps as god of war.[15] Pigs are common
victims, now, in sacrifice. We do not hear of any ‘totem sacrifice,’ if
ever such a thing anywhere existed. In the case of a _tindalo_ called
Manoga, deification seems close at hand. His ‘dwelling is the light of
setting suns,’ or of the dawn: or in high heaven, or in the Pleiades,
or Orion’s belt. It is a remarkable circumstance that this discarnate
spirit is the _tindalo_ or saint of a _kema_, or exogamous division,
one of the six of Florida, and all of the six possess their tindalo,
a ghost patron in receipt of sacrifice, as well as their _buto_, or
animal not to be eaten.[16]
Still more remarkable it is that, in certain Melanesian isles of the
New Britain group, the two exogamous divisions are neither anonymous,
nor totemic, nor of local names, nor bear nicknames, but are named
after the two opposing powers of Dualism, the God and Devil of savage
theology. Of these Te Kabinana is ‘the founder, creator, or inventor
of all good and useful things, usages, and institutions.’ On the other
hand To Kovuvura is the Epimetheus of this savage Prometheus: Te
Kabinana created good land: To Kovuvura created bad land, mountains
and everything clumsy and ill formed. These powers captain the
two exogamous divisions, an office assumed by two totems in the
neighbouring Duke of York group.[17] Nothing can prove more clearly the
blending of different stages of thought in Melanesia.
On the whole, Totemism is breaking down, and something very like
Polytheism, of an animistic type, is beginning to emerge, in Melanesia.
There is a _tindalo_ of the sea, of war, and of gardens,--Poseidon,
Ares, and Priapus in the making. Sacrifice and prayer exist, neither
is found (perhaps with an exception as regards prayers for the souls
of the dead) in Australia. On the other hand, only the smallest of
small change for the Australian conception of such makers and judges
as Baiame is noted in Melanesia, mainly in the myths of and prayers
to Qat, and myths of a creative unworshipped female being. These are
_Vuis_, not ghosts; they are spirits never incarnate, unlike the
_tindalos_.[18] Qat appears to hover between the estate of a lowly
creative being, born of a rock, and that of a culture hero, and rather
resembles the Zulu Unkulunkulu. Thus Melanesia seems, in society and
beliefs, to show an advance from Totemism, nomadic life, and from an
unworshipped female creative being, towards Animism and Polytheism, and
descent reckoned in the male line: agricultural and settled existence,
with mixture of race, and foreign contamination of custom, being marked
agents in the developement.
As _tindalos_ (human ghosts, in one case the patron of a kema) thrive
to Gods’ estate, while _butos_ remain ancestral plants or animals,
not to be eaten, it would be a natural step to imagine later that the
family God (_tindalo_) of ghost origin, incarnates himself in the
_buto_, the sacred animal of the kin. That would be an explanatory
myth. If accepted, it would produce the Samoan and Fijian belief, that
the animals and plants not to be eaten by the kindreds (old totems) are
incarnations of gods. Thus the Florida beliefs and customs are a stage
between those of Australia and those of Samoa and Fiji.
HOW THE ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES WAS FORGOTTEN
It appears, at least to the mind of the maker of an hypothesis, that
the names of Melanesian kemas, as well as the new names of American
‘_gentes_’ (totem kins with male descent), indicate the probability
that, from the first--as among our villagers--group names were given
(in the majority of cases) from without, as in many American and
some Melanesian cases they certainly are. We see that it is so:
no group would call itself ‘Cat’s Cradle Players,’ or ‘Eaters of
Hide-scrapings,’ or ‘Bone Pickers,’ as in Florida; among the Sioux; and
in Western England. We cannot possibly expect to find any groups in
the process of becoming totemic and of having plant and animal names
given to them from without. But we certainly do observe that names, or
nicknames, relatively recent, are given to savage groups, on their way
out of Totemism--the totem name often still lingering on in America,
like the _butos_ in Melanesia--and that these names, or nicknames, are
given from without. Nearer to demonstration that the totem names were
given in the same way (as ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory’ were given), we cannot
expect to come.
It may be said that my conjecture is only a form of that suggested (if
I understand him) by Mr. Herbert Spencer. An individual had an animal
name or nickname. He died: his ghost was revered by his old name, say
Bear. He was forgotten, and his descendants, who kept up his worship,
came to think that they were descended from a real bear, and were akin
to bears. I need not once more reiterate the objections to this theory,
but, like my own suggestion, it involves forgetfulness of a fact,--here
the fact that ‘Bear’ was a human ancestor. Against the chances of this
forgetfulness was the circumstance that individuals were constantly
being named Bear, Wolf, Eagle, and so on, in daily experience, usually
with a qualifying epithet, ‘_Sitting_ Bull,’ ‘_Howling_ Wolf,’ and so
forth. These facts might have prevented Mr. Spencer’s savages from
forgetting that the ancestral Bear was a Bear of human kind, like
themselves and their contemporaries.
In my hypothesis, forgetfulness, on the other hand, might readily
occur. When all the group names in each area had become organised and
stereotyped, there would necessarily be no new giving of group names to
remind the savages how these titles came into existence. On the other
hand the myth-making stage, as to kinship with the name-giving plants
and animals, would set in, and then would come reverent behaviour
towards these creatures, as if they were kinsmen and friends. Respect
for the totem, in each case, will clinch the tendency to group exogamy.
I have supposed, for the reasons given, that there was already a
tendency against marriage within the group. That tendency must have
been confirmed by the totem tabu against making any use of any member
of the totem kin, and a woman of the totem would be exempted from
marital use by her male fellow-totemists. The totem belief would add a
supernormal sanction to the exogamous tendency.
OTHER SOURCES OF SACREDNESS IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS
Now any such superstitious respect for an animal, whatever its origin,
will take the same inevitable forms; and thus, if individuals select
_nyarongs, naguals_, and so on, they must necessarily behave to these
things as they do to their hereditary totems. There is no other way
in which they can behave, if they regard the animals as mysteriously
friendly and protective, though the idea that they are friendly and
protective has different origins, in either case.
Thus the exigencies of my guess as to the origin of Totemism, compel
me to disagree with a _dictum_ of Mr. Frazer, ‘if the relations are
similar, the explanation which holds good of the one ought equally
to hold good of the other.’[19] The conclusion is not necessary. You
may revere a rat (your totem), and a cat (your _nagual_) for quite
different reasons, and in quite different capacities, you being the
kinsman of your totem, the protégé of your _nagual_; but, if you revere
them, your reverence can only show itself in the same ways. There are
no other ways.[20]
RECAPITULATION
Does my guess at the origin of totems seem out of harmony with human
nature? You, belonging to a local group, must call other groups by
one name or another. Plant and animal names come very handy. The
names fluctuate at first, but are at last accepted by the groups to
which they are applied. The origin of the names being forgotten, an
explanation of them is needed, and, as in every case where it is
needed, it is provided in myths. The myths, once believed in, are acted
upon; they become the parents of tabus, magic, rites of various kinds.
Social rules must be developed, some already exist; and each group
called by an animal, plant, or other such name, becomes, under that
name, a social unit, and accepts, as such, the customary legislation,
just as a parish does. You must not marry within the totem name: either
because of the totem tabu in general, or because the totem comes to
be conceived of as denoting kinship, and (for one reason or another)
you had already a tendency not to marry within the limit of the group.
The usual totem rules may be thwarted by other rules derived from a
peculiar system of animism, very philosophically elaborated, as among
the Arunta of Central Australia. The institution, in short, may develop
or may dwindle, may persist in practice, or fade into faint survival,
or blend with analogous superstitions, or wholly vanish, in varying
conditions. Totemism affects art; to some extent it may have affected
religious evolution. It is certainly a source of innumerable myths.
But, if my guess holds water, Totemism arose out of names given from
without, these names being of a serviceable sort, as they could be,
and are, not only readily expressed in words, but readily conveyed _in
gesture language_ from a considerable distance. The names could be
‘signalled.’[21] ‘There is an Emu man: look out!’ This could easily
and silently be expressed in gesture language. Place-names, and many
nicknames, could not so be signalled.
This theory, of course, is not in accordance with any savage
explanations of the origin of their totem. It could not be! Their
explanations are such fables as only men in their intellectual
condition could invent: they are _myths_, they involve impossibilities.
My hypothesis (or myth) does not, I think, involve anything impossible
or far-fetched, or incapable of proof in a general way. It is human, it
is inevitable, that plant and animal names should be given, especially
among groups more or less hostile. We call the French ‘frogs.’ It is
also a fact that names given from without come to be accepted. It is a
fact that names, once accepted, are explained by myths; it is a fact
that myths come to be believed, and that belief influences behaviour.
AN OBJECTION ANSWERED
Here I foresee an objection; it will be said that, on the other
hand, behaviour produces myths. Men find themselves performing some
apparently idiotic rite: they ask themselves, ‘Why do we do this
thing?’ and they invent a myth as an answer. Certainly they do, but
you believe in a God, or in Saints, and act (or you ought to act) in
a manner pleasing to these guardians of conduct. You don’t believe in
a God, because you behave well, and it is not because you behave well
to a totem that you believe in a totem. You treat him as game, not as
vermin, because you believe in him, and your belief is based on the
myth which your ancestors invented to account for their having a totem.
My guess has the advantage of going behind the age of settled
dwellings, agriculture, kinship through males, and the causal action
of individuals. It reverts to the group stage of human life. Groups
give and accept the names; invent the myths, act on their belief in
the myths, and so introduce the sanction of what had perhaps been a
mere tendency towards exogamy. On the other hand, my guess has the
disadvantage of dealing with a hypothetical stage of society, behind
experience. But this cannot be avoided, for if we base our hypotheses
of the origin of Totemism on our experience of the ways of societies
which have passed, or are passing, out of Totemism, our theories must
necessarily be invalidated. It may be replied that I have myself given
illustrations of my theory from the folk-lore of civilised society. But
the only begetters of these illustrative cases are boys--and boys are
in the savage stage, ‘at least as far as they are able.’
In a tone more serious, it may be reiterated that no theory of the
origin of Totemism is likely to be correct which derives the totem,
in the first instance, in any way, from the _individual_, the private
man. Long ago, Mr. Fison wrote, ‘Sir John Lubbock considers that
the “worship of plants and animals is susceptible of a very simple
explanation, and has really originated from the practice of naming,
first _individuals_, and then their families, after particular
animals.”[22] Mr. Fison replied, ‘This is surely a reversal of the
true order. The Australian divisions show that the totem is, in the
first place, the badge of a group, not of an individual. The individual
takes it, in common with his fellows, only because he is a member of
the group. And, even if it were first given to an individual, his
family, i.e. his children, could not inherit it from him,’ when descent
is reckoned on the female side.[23]
It is a commonplace, perhaps an overworked commonplace, that the
group, not the individual, is the earlier social unit. Yet the
hypotheses of Lord Avebury, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Dr. Wilken, Mr. Boas,
Miss Alice Fletcher, and Messrs. Hose and McDougall, all derive from
_individuals_, in one way or other, the most archaic names of human
_groups_. The hypothesis of Mr. Max Müller leaves the origin of the
group name unexplained. The later hypothesis (especially provisional),
of Mr. Frazer, does start from the group name, but I am not certain
whether we are to understand that each group name is derived from the
plant Or animal or selected by the group as the object of its magical
rites, or whether, for some unknown reason, each group already bore
the name of the animal, or plant, or element, _before_ entering on the
great co-operative industrial system. Now it seems to me certain that
the names, in each case, were originally not names of individuals,
or in any way derived from individuals, but were names of groups. As
to how pristine groups might obtain such names I have offered what,
in the nature of the case, has to be only a conjecture. But named,
as soon as men had intelligence and speech, the groups, as groups,
had to be, and the actual names are such as, whether in savagery or
in full civilisation, are given to individuals, and are also, in
civilised rural society, given to local groups, to members of parishes
and villages. So far, the cause which I suggest is a _vera causa_ of
collective group names.
OTHER OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
A well-known Folk-lorist to whom I submitted my theory, rather ‘in the
rough,’ replied to me thus: ‘I have thought of Totemism as meaning a
social system, that is, as including belief, worship, kinship, society.
And therefore, the animal or plant names are an essential part of the
system. You, as I understand it, come along and say the name is the
result of one of the trifles of the human mind, therefore did not enter
into the totem system very deeply, and certainly did not belong to the
beliefs and the worship, except as the result of a later myth-making
age. Of course your book may explain all, and I shall look forward to
studying it, as I have always enjoyed your studies.
‘But I confess I don’t much believe in these accidents causing or
rather entering into so widely spread a system as Totemism. Cut away
the name and nothing is left to Totemism except myth, survivals, and a
social grouping without any apparent cement. Blood kinship as a basis
of society surely arose much later, unless Dr. Reevers’s remarkable
evidence from the Haddon expedition to New Guinea helps the matter. He
found, you remember, blood kinship traceable by definite genealogies
beneath, so to speak, a system of Totemism, and but for the most minute
examination blood kinship would have escaped observation once more and
Totemism only would have been reported. Is this blood kinship the true
social basis and Totemism only a veneer?
‘I have goodly notes on Totemism and non-Totemism, and I confess it
difficult to eliminate the name as an important part of the system. It
covers every part--is the shell into which all the rest fits. Now I
have too much respect for our savage friends to think they used myth
any further than we do. We go every Sunday saying “I believe,” but we
don’t build up much upon this. Our social fabric, nay our religion, is
not of this. And so of the savage. If I grant you the myth of descent
from an animal to have arisen out of a _pre-existing_ name system, I am
no nearer the understanding of totem-kinship as the basis of a social
group.’
These are natural objections, on a first view of my suggestions.
Totemism _is_ a social system, but there was an age before totemism,
an age of undeveloped totemism; into these we try to peer. But the
method of name-giving which I postulate is hardly ‘a trifle of the
human mind.’ It is, as I have proved, a widely diffused, probably
an universal tendency of the human mind. Not less universal, in the
savage intellectual condition, is the belief in the personality and
human characteristics of all things whatsoever; man is only one tribe
in the cosmic kinship, and is capable of specially close kinship with
animals. Nobody denies this, and the resulting myths to explain the
connection of the groups and their totems are not only natural, but
inevitable--the real origin of the connection, ‘in the dark backward
and abysm of time,’ being forgotten. We may go to church, and say ‘I
believe,’ and we may not act up to our creeds. ‘And so of the savage.’
But it is not ‘so of the savage.’ His belief in a myth of kinship with
an Emu is carried into practice, and regulates his conduct, magical
and social. This is not contestable. In the same way a Christian who
believes in the efficacy of masses for the welfare of his dead friends,
pays for masses. At the lowest, he ‘thinks the experiment well worth
trying.’ To other myths, say as to the origin of the spots on a beast,
a savage may ‘give but a doubtsome credit.’ They are not of a nature
to affect his conduct in any way. But the totem myths do affect his
conduct, quite undeniably, and, even if there are sceptics, public
opinion and customary law compel them to regulate their behaviour on
the lines of the general belief. We are not to be told that nobody
believes in anything! The ‘social grouping’ consequent on the beliefs
is _not_ ‘without any apparent cement.’ The cement is the belief in the
actual kinship of all persons having the same totem name, and sacred
totem blood, even if they belong to remote and hostile tribes. All
wolves are brethren in the wolf; all bears are brethren in the bear;
and so men-bears are sisters to women-bears, and brothers may not marry
sisters. Here is ‘apparent cement’ of the very best quality, and in
abundance, given the acknowledged condition of the savage intellect.
Manifestly these ideas belong, as a whole, to ‘a later myth-making
age’--that is to an age later than the dateless period of the
hypothetical anonymous groups. But, between that hypothetical period and
the evolution of the idea of group kinship with animals and plants, and
with all men of the same animal and plant stock names, there is time
enough and to spare for the full evolution of Totemism.
Again, to a Darwinian, the enormous influence of ‘accidents’ in
evolution ought not to be a matter hard of belief; without ‘accidents’
(in the Darwinian sense of the word), there would be no differentiation
at all, and no evolution. The Darwinian ‘accident’ seems to mean a
variation of unknown cause. But the giving of plant and animal group
names is hardly an ‘accident’ of this kind. ‘What else are you to call
it?’ the player asked, when questioned as to the origin of the words ‘a
yorker.’ And by what names so handy and serviceable as plant and animal
names were pristine men to call the neighbouring groups?
I have shown why place names were less handy, and how, in nomadic
life, they were scarcely possible. Local names come in as Totemism
goes out. Long nicknames, ‘Boil-food-with-the-paunch-skin,’
‘Take down their leggings,’ ‘Travel-with-very-light-baggage,’
‘Shot-at-some-white-object’ (Siouan nicknames of _gentes_), are much
less handy, much less easy to be signalled by gesture language, and
are certainly much later than ‘Emu,’ ‘Wolf,’ ‘Kangaroo,’ ‘Eagle,’
‘Skunk,’ and other totem names. If such totem names were, originally,
the favourite form of nomenclature for hostile groups (like our ‘Sick
Vulture’ for a famous scholar, or ‘Talking Potato,’ for Mr. J. W.
Croker), I see not much of an ‘accident’ in the circumstance.
The totem names, then, came in upon a very early society: and myth,
belief, custom, and rite, crystallised round them, and round the idea
of blood kindred, which must be very early indeed.
My critic asks, ‘Is blood kinship the true social basis, and Totemism
only a veneer?’ That question I have already answered. In my opinion
mankind, in evolving prohibitions of marriage, first had their eyes
on contiguity, that of ‘hearth-mates.’ Groups of hearth-mates were
next distinguished by totem names. But these names could give no
superstitious sanction to customary laws, till the idea of ‘blood
kinship’ with, or descent from, or evolution out of, or other form of
kinship with the totem was developed. At this period, the totem name
roughly indicated ties of blood kinship. But the Australians, as we
saw, have now reached a clearer idea of what blood kinship is, and,
by a bye-law, prohibit marriages of ‘too near flesh,’ in cases where,
though the persons are akin by blood, totem law does not interfere.
Totem law has had an educating influence in developing the objection to
marriages between people contiguous as hearth-mates, into the objection
to marriages between persons too near in blood kinship. Thus Totemism
is not ‘only a veneer.’
On the foundation of all these blended ideas, Totemism arose, a stately
but fantastic structure, varying in shape under changing conditions,
like an iceberg in summer seas. It is, indeed, ‘a far cry’ from
anonymous human groups, and groups of plant or animal names, to Helen,
the daughter of the swan, that was Zeus! But the pedigree is hardly
disputable.
On the other hand, suppress the totem names, give the original
groups such titles as the Sioux ‘Take-down-their-leggings,’
or ‘Boil-meat-in-the-paunch-skin’ (some names you must give
them), and what is left? Suppose such names to have been
those of pristine groups, and suppose them to be tending to
exogamy. A ‘Boil-meat-in-the-paunch-skin’ man may not marry
a ‘Boil-meat-in-the-paunch-skin’ girl; but must marry a
‘Take-down-their-leggings’ girl, or a ‘shoot-in-the-woods’ girl,
or a ‘Do-not-split-the-body-of-a-buffalo-with-a-knife-but-cut
-it-up-as-they-please’ girl! That is rather cumbrous: marriage rules on
that basis are not readily conceivable.
And where is here the tabu sanction? Brother Wolf or Brother
Emu is a thinkable, powerful, sacred kinsman, who will
not have his tabu tampered with. But there is no sanctity
in Do-not-split-the-body-of-a-buffalo-with-a-knife-but
-cut-it-up-as-they-please!
Luckily we have here a case in point. My theory is that animal names
being once given to the groups, the animal, in accordance with savage
ideas, became a kinsman and protector. The animal or vegetable or
other type, in each case, sanctioned various tabus, including exogamy.
Had the name been another kind of nickname, as ‘Boil-meat-in-the
paunch-skin,’ what was there to sanction the tabu? Or, if the group
name was a local name, where was the sanction? Exogamy does persist
where totem groups have become local, and are now known by the names of
their places of settlement. But not always. Of an Australian tribe, the
Gournditch Mara, we read that it consisted of four _local_ divisions,
water (mere?), swamp, mountain, and river. But there was no exogamous
rule affecting marriage. A man of the group dwelling in the swamp might
marry a woman of the same group. There was descent in the male line;
wife-lending was highly condemned. The office of headman was hereditary
in the male line, ‘before any whites came into the country.’ The
benighted tribe was not devoid of superstition.
‘They believed that there was a future good and bright place, to which
those who were good went after death, and that there was a Man at that
place who took care of the world and of all the people.’ The place was
called Mūmble-Mirring. The dark, bad place was Burreet Barrat. ‘This
belief they had before there was any white person in the country.’
As these statements are odious to most anthropologists, they cannot be
true, and thus a slur is cast on all that we learn about the Gournditch
Mara. But though a missionary (the Rev. Mr. Stähle) cannot, of course,
be trusted _here_, he had no professional motive for fictions about the
marriage laws of the tribe. They had no ceremonies of initiation, no
seasons of license, apparently no totems, and the merely local names
of groups naturally carried no exogamous prohibition: conveyed no tabu
sanction.[24] Had there never been any totem names, exogamy might never
have arisen.
How my friendly critic is ‘no nearer to the understanding of totem
kinship as the basis of a social group,’ if, for the sake of the
argument, he grants ‘the myth of descent from an animal to have arisen
from a pre-existing name system,’ I am at a loss to comprehend. Here
are groups, Bear, Wolf, Trout, Racoon, firmly, though erroneously,
believing that they are akin to these animals. Naturally they ‘behave
as such.’ Each racoon has duties to other racoons, and to the actual
racoons. He does not shoot a racoon if he can get anything else; he
does not shoot a racoon sitting. He is brother to racoons of his own
sex, and to sisters in the racoon of the other sex. He does not marry
them. The belief in the racoon kinship is the basis of that social
group--the man has other social groups of other kinds. Savages believe
in their beliefs, to the extent of dying from fear after infringing
a tabu in which they believe. Thus I would reply to the objections
offered after a first glance at my conjecture.
TOTEMS AND MAGICAL SOCIETIES
A man has other social groups than his own totem group in certain
regions. Totem groups among the Arunta, we have seen, work magic ‘to
secure the increase of the plant or animal which gives its name to the
totem.’ The Arunta have no myth as to the origin of these performances,
styled Intichiuma.[25] This, as far as Australia is concerned, seems
to be a peculiarity of the Arunta system alone, or all but alone, and,
as we saw, it has even been suggested that these rites are the origin
of Totemism. But such rites appear to be most firmly established and
organised among societies which are passing out of Totemism. Such a
society is that of the Omaha tribe of North America, where descent is
reckoned in the male line.[26] Among the Omahas we find the Elk totem
group with male kinship; they may not touch a male Elk, or eat its
flesh: if they do, as in New Caledonia, they break out into sores. This
kindred, with the Bears, ‘worship the thunder’ in spring. Their special
business and duty is ‘to stop the rain.’ But, if they are a Weather
Society, in this respect, that fact does not appear in their totem
names, Elk and Bear.
Other Omaha _gentes_, or ‘subgentes,’ are also totemic, and are named
from that which they may not eat, as wild turkeys, wild geese, cranes,
and blackbirds. The people of the black-bird totem actually do a little
totem magic, _against_ their totem; they chew and spit out corn, to
prevent the blackbirds from feeding on the crops.[27] The reptile group
does not touch or eat reptiles, but, if worms injure the corn, they
pound a few worms up into flour, make a soup thereof, and eat it (is
this ‘totem sacrifice’?), all for the good of the crops. The worm group
does this magic (involving the eating of its totem) not for the benefit
of worms (as among the Arunta) but to control the mischievous action of
worms.
Now turning to Magical or Magico-Religious Societies among these
Indians, we find a Wind Society, _but it contains members of many
totems_, buffalo, eagle, hawk, and so on, plus ‘The South wind
people,’ who, apparently, may be a totem group of that name, which,
as among the Arunta, might work wind-magic.[28] But our authority,
the late Mr. Dorsey, calls all the members of this Wind Magic Society
‘Wind _gentes_,’ and surely this breeds much confusion. By a _gens_
he usually means a totem kin with male descent (by ‘clan,’ he means
a totem kin with female descent). Thus all ‘wind _gentes_’ ought to
be wind totem groups: only wind totem groups ought to be in the Wind
Society, which is not the case: and all water gentes, or earth, or fire
gentes ought to be of water, earth, or fire totems. But this, again, is
not the case.
All sorts of totem kindreds enter into the earth, wind, fire, and
water Magical Societies, or Magico-Religious Societies. They belong
to them as members of any universities, or of certain selected
universities, may belong to an University Club: or, again, may be
Catholics, Anglicans, Brownists, or Presbyterians. These American
Magical Societies, though composed of members of totem kindreds, are
not, in themselves, totemic societies. Members of other totems serve
in the societies which work magic for earth, wind, fire, and so on.
Among the Arunta, on the other hand, the magic for each object is
worked solely by the men who have that object for totem. To a certain
extent, however, this rule is changing, and members of other totems
may, at least, be present at each totem’s _Intichiuma_, or magical
rites.[29] ‘In addition to the members of the totem’ (water) ‘other men
are invited to come, though they will not be allowed to take any part
in the actual _Intichiuma_ ceremony.’ From presence, by invitation, to
participation in the rites (as in the American Shamanistic Societies),
is a step which may come to be taken, and thus the Arunta totem groups
would become mere ‘Shamanistic Societies.’
A most curious and interesting account of the Omaha Magical Societies
is given by Miss Alice Fletcher, in her essay, already cited, on ‘The
Import of the Totem.’ To obtain the ‘personal totem’ (manitu) a youth
must first listen to his elders. They tell him ‘to go forth to cry to
Wa-kon-da. You shall not ask for any particular thing, whatever is
good, that may Wa-kon-da give.’
_Fiat voluntas tua!_
‘Four days and nights upon the hills the youth shall pray, crying, and,
when he stops, shall wipe his tears with the palms of his hands, lift
his wet hands to heaven, then lay them on the earth.’
To the ordinary mind, this describes such prayers as are the petitions
of the Saints. But, in accordance with the views of the official school
of American anthropology, it is averred that nothing of the kind is
intended by the Omaha. ‘There is no evidence that they did regard the
power represented by that word (Wa-kon-da) as a supreme being, nor is
there any intimation that they had ever conceived of a single great
ruling spirit,’ says Miss Fletcher (1897).
The prayer is evidence enough. Prayer is directed to a person, and
whether he is envisaged as ‘a spirit,’ or not, is a mere detail of
metaphysical terminology. If Miss Fletcher is right, Wa-kon-da is a
pantheistic conception, but as He, (or It) also listens to prayer,
He (or It) is personal. We see rather an anthropomorphic conception
of deity, passing towards pantheism, or to divinity no longer
anthropomorphic, than a notion of impersonal force immanent in the
universe, passing towards anthropomorphism--as in Miss Fletcher’s
theory. The idea of such a force, or cosmic _rapport_ (the Maori
_mana_), is, indeed, familiar to us in the speculations of the lower
barbaric races. It does credit to their metaphysics, but, _prima
facie_, seems likely to be later in evolution than the idea of an
anthropomorphic Maker, like the Australian Baiame.
At all events, the Omaha appears to live, in prayer, on a high
religious level, and it is open to the friends of religious borrowing,
to say that he took his creed from Europeans. I am not certain that
Miss Fletcher is indisposed to agree with me on this point of Red
Indian unborrowed theism. In her _Indian Song and Story_,[30] she gives
Pawnee songs, ‘hitherto sealed from the knowledge of the white race.’
Here is one:
Lift thine eyes! ’Tis the gods who come near,
Bringing thee joy, release from all pain.
Sending sorrow and sighing
Far from the child, Ti-ra-wa makes fain.
Ah, you look, you know who comes,
Claiming you his, and bidding you rise,
Blithely smiling and happy,
Child of Ti-ra-wa, Lord of the Skies!
Ti-ra-wa is Hau-ars, ‘a contraction of the word meaning father.’ The
song is used to still children who cry at a religious ceremony.
However it be, the Omaha prays to Wa-kon-da, not for ‘any particular
thing,’ but for whatever, in the gift of Wa-kon-da, is good, and mainly
for a manitu (‘personal totem’). The Omaha also believe in telepathy.
‘Thought and will can be projected to help a friend.’ A magical society
exists, to concentrate and direct this expenditure of energy, and
the process is strengthened by such things as the neophyte beholds
in vision, after prayer to Wa-kon-da. He sent an answer to prayer, a
feather of a bird, a tuft of a beast’s hair, a crystal, a black stone,
representing the species, or element of nature, which was to be the
neophyte’s ‘personal totem,’ or _manitu_. If it were thunder, the man
could control the elements; if it were an eagle, he had an eagle eye
for the future; if it were a bear (or a badger), he was not so gifted.
Now, according to Miss Fletcher, the Bear Magical Society is composed
of men, who, after prayer, have seen the bear in dream or vision; those
who saw representatives ‘of thunder or water beings’ form the Society
which deals with the weather. ‘The membership came from every kinship
group’ (totem kin) ‘in the tribe.’ Thus the Magical Societies are
composed of men of any totem, and, the less purely totemic the tribe,
the stronger is the Magical Society.
The totem kins now, among the Omaha, have descent in the male line.
All this is ‘late,’ and ‘late’ is the totem priesthood held by
‘hereditary chiefs of the _gens_.’ Miss Fletcher regards the totem of
the ‘_gens_,’ with the beliefs crystallised around it, as an ingenious
‘expedient,’ with a social ‘purpose!’ the totem of each kindred having
been inherited from the vision and _manitu_ of some ancestral chief.
We need not again point out that, even now, among the Omaha, advanced
as they are, _manitus_ are not hereditable, and that Miss Fletcher’s
system cannot account for Totemism in tribes which reckon descent on
the spindle side. Miss Fletcher justly remarks that the real totem,
‘the gentile totem,’ ‘gave no immediate hold upon the supernatural,
as did the individual totem’ (_manitu_) ‘to its possessor. It served
solely as a mark of kinship, and its connection with the supernatural
was manifest only in its punishment of the violation of tabu.’
In brief, the real totem, and the individual _manitu_, with its magical
societies, are two things totally apart, and apart we must keep them,
in our studies of early society. Not to do so is to make the topic
incomprehensible.
TOTEM SURVIVALS
In other books, especially in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, and _Custom
and Myth_, I have examined apparent survivals of Totemism, in ancient
Greece, ancient Egypt, and other civilised countries. Of these the
most notable are the Greek myths of descent of families from animals,
explained as the temporary vehicles of Zeus or Apollo: and the worship
of special animals by each of the Nomes of Egypt. Other arguments I
have offered, especially in the case of Apollo and the Shrew Mouse. I
remain of the opinion that many of the Greek mythical and religious
phenomena noted, are most probably to be explained as survivals of a
totemic past. Of course Totemism is only one element in animal worship,
and the Corn Spirit, disguised as almost any animal you please, may be
one of the other elements. But, as far as I have studied the subject,
I agree with Mr. Tylor in his ‘protest against the manner in which
totems have been placed almost at the foundation of religion. Totemism
... has been exaggerated out of proportion to its real theological
magnitude.... The rise and growth of ideas of deity, a branch of
knowledge requiring the largest range of information and the greatest
care in inference, cannot, I hold, be judged on the basis of a section
of theology of secondary importance--namely, animal worship--much less
of a special section of that--namely, the association of a species of
animals (and of a vast variety of other things) ‘with a clan of men
which results in Totemism. A theoretical structure has been raised
quite too wide and high for such a foundation.’[31] The totem god
himself I regard as only the hypothesis by which certain barbaric races
account to themselves for the survivals of Totemism among them. The
so-called ‘totem sacrament’ is not ‘god-eating,’ but a piece of magic,
used in ceremonies designed to foster--or to vex and annoy--the totem.
As Mr. Tylor writes, ‘till the totem sacrament is vouched for by some
more real proof, it had better fall out of speculative theology.’
DID THE ANCESTORS OF THE CIVILISED RACES PASS THROUGH THE AUSTRALIAN
STAGE?
That the ancestors of the Aryan-speaking peoples passed through the
‘stone age’ of culture, few will deny. That they also passed through
the totemic stage as regards marriage law is, however, a problem
perhaps not to be solved. For reasons unknown, the ‘white’ races
(not to speak of Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese, and Japanese) have
a peculiar aptitude for civilisation, are peculiarly accessible to
ideas. It might therefore be argued that conceivably they were readily
accessible to the idea of blood kinship. The maternal affection, in a
race whose children (unlike the offspring of the lower animals) are
so long in attaining maturity, cannot but suggest the idea of blood
kinship. Among totemic peoples it seems that this idea was originally
defined by the totem name, a definition at once too wide and too
narrow. It is not physically unthinkable that our own ancestors may
have been more acutely intelligent, and, if so, why should not they
simply forbid unions between persons too near akin in blood? We have
found no such moral or instinctive reason among totemic peoples who
were, apparently, led to exogamy, first by non-moral causes, or causes
in which the moral element was not explicit, and then, by aid of
corollaries from rules thus based, came to forbid marriages of ‘too
near flesh.’ Without the training of totemic institutions, it is hard
to see how the Aryan-speaking peoples (however naturally gifted from
the first) arrived at the same conception of incest. It seems absurd
to suppose that black men and red men arrived at the idea of incest,
and at the laws which prohibit it, by the devious and unpromising path
of Totemism, while white men reached the same point in some other way.
Yet if it has appeared difficult to find traces of Totemism among the
Melanesians, much more difficult must it be to prove that races with
so long a civilised history as, for example, the Greeks, were once
under totemic institutions.
I have already indicated my inclination to believe that Totemism has
left its traces, in Greece, in the myths of descent from bulls, bears,
swans, dogs, ants, and so forth, and in certain peculiar aspects
of animal worship. It is usual for scholars to explain these facts
away, as things borrowed by early Greeks from some other race. But
‘the receiver is as bad as the thief,’ and if Greeks were capable
of accepting totemic ideas, they were capable of evolving totemic
institutions. We are not to invent an ideal ‘Aryan,’ and then to
explain all his traces of savagery as borrowings by him from some
unknown prior race. There is no reason at all for supposing that the
peoples who speak languages called, for convenience, ‘Aryan,’ were
better bred than any other peoples at the beginning.
It would greatly add to the force of the presumptions in favour of an
‘Aryan’ totemic past, if we could point to apparent survivals not only
in myth and early art, but in actual institutions. Now there are Greek
institutions, in Attica, the ‘deme,’ the _genos_, and the _phratria_,
which may be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as survivals of Totemism.
We have seen that gens (equivalent to the Greek γένος) and
that phratria (Φρατρία) are used, by certain students, to designate
the totem kin, and the two ‘primary exogamous divisions’ (say _Dilbi_
and _Kupathin_) of Australia and North America. To use gens thus is
misleading, especially as ‘totem kin’ is adequate and unambiguous. But
we have here employed ‘phratria’ to designate the ‘primary exogamous
division,’ because no better word is handy, while we do not maintain
that the Attic phratria is a survival of the institution usual in
Australia.
Messrs. Fison and Howitt, in an instructive paper, have offered, as
a provisional hypothesis, the theory that the Attic deme (a _local_
association) may have arisen from the kind of _local_ tribe (or
_horde_) in Australia, while the Attic phratries and γένη (associations
depending on _birth_ and _kinship_) were survivals
of the ‘primary exogamous divisions’ and totem kins.[32] The present
writer had made similar suggestions long ago.[33] Concerning the γένος
and Φρατρία we know but little: inevitably, for we have seen that,
even in Australia, still more in Melanesia, _local_ names and _local_
communities are beginning to encroach on and usurp the authority of
the totem kin, and other associations based on common blood, real or
reputed. Infinitely more must this have been the case in Greece. If
savage phratries and totem kins once existed in Attica, they must have
been nearly obliterated long before the historical period. At most
they would only survive in connection with ritual and religion. Again,
our definitions of γένος [genos] and Φρατρία are derived from late
grammarians and lexicographers. Thus our means of knowledge are limited
and darkling.
Messrs. Howitt and Fison start from the horde, or tribe, the horde
meaning the largest local Australian community, composed of subtribes,
if we are not merely to say ‘tribe,’ and leave ‘horde’ out of the
question. The members of the horde or tribe are, as we know, of many
various totems, but of only two ‘primary exogamous divisions’ or
phratries. Into these the members are born, mostly taking the mother’s
phratry and totem. As a rule, both father and mother belong to the
tribe, but if a woman does come in out of an alien tribe, her children,
though deriving totem and phratry names through her, are of their
father’s local tribe. An alien woman may be assigned, by the elder men,
to this or that totem: or to the totem corresponding to that which she
had in her own local tribe. The children of male aliens follow the
totem of their mother, a member of the tribe.
In Attica, too, was a _local_ community, the deme--thus Thucydides
was a Halimusian by deme. The historical demes were organised by
Cleisthenes, on a local basis. Some of them bore the names of the
γένη which occupied them, and often the names were derived from
plants. Either these plants were characteristic of the localities, or
conceivably the γένη had old totemic plant names, like the plum and
other vegetable totems of the Australians. All about the local demes,
the members of the phratriæ were scattered, like members of various
totem names among the Australian local tribes. An alien could belong
to a local deme, but not to a Φρατρία. His children, if by marriage
with a free woman, were reckoned in her father’s Φρατρία male descent
prevailing, of course, in Attica. In Australia the tribes-woman’s
children by an alien would usually go to her totem and ‘primary
exogamous division.’ The child of an alien woman, in Attica, even if
the father was high born, could not be admitted to a Φρατρία: which
certainly looks like a survival of the archaic reckoning by female
descent. To try to insert an alien child in a deme was a civil, in a
Φρατρία was a religious offence.[34] The ancient court of the Areopagus
had to do with these offences against customary religion. Messrs. Fison
and Howitt draw a parallel between the Areopagus and the Great Council
of the Dieri tribe, whose headman was inspired by ‘the great spirit
Kuchi,’ of whom one would like to know more.
An Attic boy was presented to his Φρατρία at once; full membership of
the local deme came with adolescence, and after military training and
service. As we know, a series of initiations, and instruction ‘as to
the existence of a great spirit,’ with a probation of a year, are to
be passed before the Australian lad is allowed to marry and attend the
assembly of his local tribe. Better examples of initiation, and of a
retreat in the hills in company with an adult, and instructor, are
to be found in Sparta than in Athens. But the Australian ‘and Attic
analogies are pretty close. On the most important point there is no
analogy. There were plenty of Φρατρίαι, of ‘phratries’ each Australian
tribe has only two. Again, these two are exogamous: that is their main
_raison d’être_. We have not a glimpse of exogamy in the Φρατρία of
Attica.
The γένος, we may agree, I think, with Messrs. Fison and Howitt, was,
originally, like the totem kin, an association of persons supposed
to be related by ties of blood. The grammarian Pollux says ‘they who
belonged to the γένος were styled γεννῆται’ (men of the γένος, and ‘men
of the same milk’), ‘not that they were related γένει, but they were
so called from their union (or assemblage--ἐκ δὲ τῆς συνόδον).’ What
is meant by γένει μὲν οὐ προσήκοντες ‘not genealogically related’? I
conceive Pollux to mean that the members of the γένος were not all of
traceable or recognised degrees of kinship. Thus a Cameron, if asked
whether he is related to another Cameron, may say, and not so long ago
would have said, ‘he is not my relation, but my clansman.’ Messrs.
Fison and Howitt take much the same view. By ‘relations,’ Pollux meant
‘such as parents, sons, brothers, and those before them, and their
progeny,’ that is, from grandfathers and granduncles to grandsons and
great-nephews. This might be the notion of relationship in the time of
Pollux, the second century of our era, but, as Messrs. Fison and Howitt
justly remark, Attic ideas of kinship before the συνοικισμὸς ascribed
to Theseus would be much more extensive, as in Scotland and Britanny.
The humblest Stewart, Douglas, Ruthven, or Hamilton would call himself
‘the King’s poor cousin.’ But the Greeks of our second century were
more modern, more like the English.
Yet the very words γένος and _gens_ indicate the idea of blood
relationship, just as ‘clan’ does. The γένη had common sacra, and a
common place of burial. They were clans, but we have no proof that
they were ever exogamous or totemic. However, the myths and rituals of
Greece certainly yield facts of which a totemic past seems the most
plausible explanation. Mr. Jevons writes, ‘we find fragments of the
system’ (Totemism), ‘one here and another there, which, if only they
had not been scattered, but had been found together, would have made a
living whole. Thus we have families whose names indicate that they were
originally totem clans, _e.g._ there were Cynadæ at Athens, as there
was a Dog clan among the Mohicans; but we have no evidence to show that
the dog was sacred to the Cynadæ.... On the other hand, storks were
revered by the Thessalians, but there is nothing to show that there was
a stork clan in Thessaly.’[35] Wolves were buried solemnly in Attica,
where there was a wolf hero, and lobsters were buried in Seriphos,
like the gazelle in Arabia. But we have no evidence of a wolf kin in
Attica, though we have in Italy (the Hirpi) nor of a lobster kin in
Seriphos. (For other traces, fairly numerous, I may refer to my _Custom
and Myth_, and _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, while deprecating the idea
that all worship or reverence of animals is of totemistic origin.)
It will probably be admitted that, if Greeks (or ancient dwellers
on Greek soil) were at some remote period totemistic, and next, by
reckoning descent in the male line, became attached to localities,
then something like demes, phratries, and γένη might very naturally
be evolved. And many traces in ritual, myth, and custom do point to
Totemism in the remote past. Indeed, it is remarkable that we should
still be able to point to so many apparent relics of institutions
already almost obliterated among the Melanesians.
On the whole, I regard it as more probable than not, that, in the
education of mankind, Totemism has played a part everywhere; a
beneficent part. But this is only a private opinion: one believes in it
as one believes in telepathy, without asserting that the evidence is of
constraining value.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Haddon agrees on this point.]
[Footnote 2: Codrington, _The Melanesians_, chaps, iii. iv.]
[Footnote 3: _Op. cit._ p. 21.]
[Footnote 4: _Op. cit._ p. 22.]
[Footnote 5: _Ibid._ p. 26.]
[Footnote 6: _Op. cit._ p. 32.]
[Footnote 7: Tylor, _J. A. I._, August, November. 1898, p. 147.]
[Footnote 8: _Op. cit._ p. 33.]
[Footnote 9: _Ibid._ p. 40.]
[Footnote 10: _Ibid._ p. 22.]
[Footnote 11: Dr. Codrington’s exact words are ‘The _buto_ is in all
probability a form of the custom which prevails in Ulawa,’ and the
banana story follows.]
[Footnote 12: _Op. cit._ pp. 33, 59-68.]
[Footnote 13: _Ibid._ pp. 36-37.]
[Footnote 14: _Ibid._ p. 50.]
[Footnote 15: _Op. cit._ pp. 124-130.]
[Footnote 16: Danks, _J. A. I._ xviii. 3, 281-282.]
[Footnote 17: _Ibid._ pp. 131-132.]
[Footnote 18: Codrington, _op. cit._ pp. 154-156.]
[Footnote 19: _Golden Bough_, iii. 416-417.]
[Footnote 20: Mrs. Langloh Parker writes, concerning the Euahlayi
Baiame-worshipping tribe of New South Wales: ‘A person has often a
second or individual totem of his name, not hereditary, and given him
by the _wirreenuns_’ (medicine men), ‘called his _yunbeai_, any hurt
to which injures him, and which he may never eat--his hereditary totem
he may. He is supposed to be able, if he be a great _wirreenun_, to
take the form of his _yunbeai_, which will also give him assistance
in time of trouble or danger, is a sort of _alter ego_, as it were.’
In this tribe the _yunbeai_ (_nyarong, nagual_, _manitu_) is of more
importance to the individual than his hereditary totem, which, however,
by Baiame’s law, regulates marriage, as elsewhere (Folk-Lore, x.
491, 492). The tribe studied by Mrs. Langloh Parker speaks a dialect
(Euahlayi) akin to the Kamilaroi, but the Kamilaroi of Mr. Ridley are
seated three or four hundred miles away.]
[Footnote 21: Roth, Ethnological Studies, 71-90. Dr. Roth gives
the signs for the animals, but does not say that they are used for
signalling totem names; indeed, he says nothing about totems.]
[Footnote 22: _Origin of Civilisation_, p. 183.]
[Footnote 23: _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 165. In his edition of 1902,
Lord Avebury does not reply to these arguments.]
[Footnote 24: _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, pp. 274-278.]
[Footnote 25: Spencer and Gillen, ch. vi.]
[Footnote 26: Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ _Bureau of Ethnology_,
1881-1882, p. 225.]
[Footnote 27: Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ _Bureau of Ethnology_,
1881-1882, pp. 238-239.]
[Footnote 28: Dorsey, ‘Siouan Cults,’ _Bureau of Ethnology_, 1889-1890
(1894), p. 537.]
[Footnote 29: Spencer and Gillen, pp. 169, 191.]
[Footnote 30: Nutt, 1900, pp. 108-112.]
[Footnote 31: _J. A. I._, August, November, 1898, p. 144.]
[Footnote 32: _J.A.I._ xiv. 142, 181.]
[Footnote 33: _Politics of Aristotle_, Bolland and Lang, 1876; ‘Family’
in Encyclopædia Britannica.]
[Footnote 34: Dem. _Centra Neæram_ 17.]
[Footnote 35: _Introduction to the History of Religion_, pp. 125-126.]
PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER I
MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE
Mr. Darwin on the primitive relations of the sexes.--Primitive man
monogamous or polygamous.--His jealousy.--Expulsion of young males.--
The author’s inferences as to the evolution of Primal Law.--A customary
Rule of Conduct evolved.--Traces surviving in savage life.--The customs
of Avoidance.--Custom of Exogamy arose in the animal stage.--Brother
and Sister Avoidance.--The author’s own observation of this custom in
New Caledonia.--Strangeness of such a custom among houseless nomads in
Australia--Rapid decay under European influences.
‘Man, as I have attempted to show, is certainly descended from some
Apelike Creature. We may, indeed, conclude, 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. Therefore, looking far
enough back in the Stream of Time, and judging from the Social habits
of Man as he now exists, the most probable view is that he aboriginally
lived in small communities, each with a single wife, or, if powerful,
with several, whom he jealously guarded against all other Men. Or he
may not have been a social animal[1] 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.’[2]
Mr. Darwin, in the foregoing sentences, affirms the improbability of
Promiscuity in the Sexual Relations of Man during the Animal Stage,
and, incidentally, the Unity of the Human Race in its origin. Both
theories are contested. The following thesis, however, on the Genesis
of Primal Law in Human Marriage, treats of a _conjectural_ series
of events in the Ascent of Man, events which involve a state of the
inter-sexual relationships amidst our primitive ancestors identical
with that portrayed in the _Descent of Man_. My essay includes further,
as regards the continued evolution of society, the development of a
theory, based on my ‘Primal Law,’ which, if correct, would seem also to
confirm Mr. Darwin’s ideas as to Unity of Origin.
I am content, for my part, to hope that my hypothesis, however novel
some of its conclusions, is in its general tenor in accord with the
views of so great a naturalist as Mr. Darwin. His exposition of the
probable relations, within the family group, of the male and female
prototypes of mankind, and more especially of the antagonistic
attitude, inter se, of the older and younger males, is indeed literally
prophetic of the Primal Law, whose existence I surmise. This law is
the inevitable corollary of Mr. Darwin’s statement, if Man was ever to
emerge from the Brute. My theory, in fact, viewed as to its genesis,
is simply evolved from a consideration of the potential results of the
attitude of such creatures as our ancestors then were, when subjected
to the effects of those changes of environment, which alone, to my
deeming, could have fixed modifications towards the human type. Mr.
Darwin’s premises, indeed, as to the Early Social economy of our Race
in the animal stage, inevitably entail, if progress was to be made,
the evolution of law in regulation of Marriage relationship, having
regard to the fierce sexual jealousy of the males, on the one hand, and
on the other to the patent truth that in the peaceful aggregation of
our ancestors alone lay the germ of Society.
This would above all be the case if, reasoning by analogy, we
provisionally accept, as the probable nearest approach to man’s
direct ancestors, the actual Anthropoids. These, such as the Gorilla,
are undoubtedly amongst the most unsocial of animals as regards the
attitude of the adult males _inter se_. From the very difficulty of
the problem of the congregation of such creatures in friendly unison
within the group, we may infer that, in its solution, there will be
found the key to the whole question of the Ascent from Brute to Man.
In that ascent, Habit, the parent of Law, must have been conquered,
and modified into the direction of novel Custom, a shock to the older
economy of life. Again, the new rule of conduct, necessarily inchoate
(considering the presumed feeble intellectuality of the creatures
concerned, animals more or less brutish) must yet be of facile
interpretation to its subjects, though, as befits _Homo alalus_, it
must have been quite mute in operation. The new Rule of Conduct would
not be expressed in terms of speech, a function, _ex hypothesi_ not
yet evolved. The rule, as it was to my mind, I here propose to attempt
to unfold as the ‘Primal Law;’ hoping to show that therein lay the
beginning of law and order, and that, whilst itself arising in a
natural manner, in its incidental creation of a first standard of a
possible right and wrong, it laid, so to speak, one of the foundations
of that moral sense, which has seemed to place so wide a space between
man and other creatures.
The prior existence of this law, in the semi-brutish stage of our
physical and ethical evolution, might have been deductively evolved,
even if no traces of it had remained to our day. It will be, however,
my endeavour to point out that evidence of its existence (abundant
as it appears to me) is to be found in certain obscure customs which
are common to most actual savage races. The customs of so-called
‘avoidance’ between near relations will have the principal interest
for us, although primitive marriage and inheritance will be found of
corroborative value. Survivals and myths can be shown to point to the
undeniable occurrence of this ‘Primal Law’ in the earlier life-history
of the non-civilised peoples. The myths, however, may be merely early
guesses about the unknown past of the race.
Amongst marriage customs that which has given rise to most discussion
as regards its origin is ‘Exogamy’ or marriage outside the family
group, or outside the limit of the totem name. My general argument, as
will be seen, places me in antagonism with all theories yet advanced
on the subject. But Mr. Lang, in _Custom and Myth_, 1884 (p. 258),
hazards, as his own impression, a conception of this matter which I
will note--namely, that ‘Exogamy, may be connected with some early
idea of which we have lost touch,’ and he adds, ‘If we only knew the
origin of the prohibition to marry within the _family_[3] all would be
plain sailing.’ However utterly beyond human ken, in these our latter
days, any truthful image of so remote a past may seem to be, it is
yet precisely this hypothetic early idea which I hope to be able to
expose. (If I am correct, we shall find that it was connected with
the sexual relations of primitive man, _whilst in the animal stage_,
and especially with the mutual marital rights of the males within
a group.) Such idea in travail, hastened and sharpened by needs of
environment, created issues which necessarily gave birth to a ‘Primal
Law’ prohibitory of marriage between certain members of a family or
local group, and thus, in natural sequence, led to _forced_ connubial
union _beyond_ its circle the family, or local group--that is, led to
Exogamy. But if such was in reality the original order of succession
in the growth of custom, it becomes evident that Exogamy as a _habit_
(not as an expressed law) must have been of primordial evolution.
Thus (in contra-distinction to generally received opinion and to
Mr. McLennan’s theory in particular) Exogamy must have been a cause
rather than an effect in relation to its ordinary concomitants, i.e.
Female Infanticide as a custom, Polyandry as a fixed institution, and
Totemism as connected with exogamous groups, within which marriage was
forbidden. As thus my new hypothesis finds itself in opposition to
those of recognised authorities, it is evident that it will require to
account for all the facts if it is to hold its ground.
However convinced the author may be by the array of seemingly
confirmatory details in favour of his hypothesis, it is possible that
from their paucity they may yet to others seem to constitute but a
feeble line of defensive proof. But if the theory shall prove in itself
to have merit, this defect (arising, as I believe, from lack of general
anthropological knowledge on my part, for I dwell ‘far from books’)
will quickly be remedied, for a hundred other details in favour of my
view will be at once perceived by more experienced students. Should my
hypothesis really furnish the clue to the problem of the prohibition
to marry within the family name, or totem name, all the rest will
doubtless become ‘plain sailing’ in competent hands.
In any case before my conjecture is definitely laid aside as
erroneous, it may, let us hope, be considered desirable to await
fuller evidence as to the extent of the operation, in actual savage
life, of that particular custom of ‘Avoidance’ which I consider, in
its inception, and as the earliest law, to have been a ‘vera causa’
of widest operation in primitive social evolution. ‘Avoidance’ is,
however, to-day, a mere faint image of a remote past, and its genetic
significance has utterly faded from among even those people who yet,
with strange conservatism, still blindly yield an everyday obedience to
it, in form at least. Belonging to a class of savage habits presenting
features so extraordinary, ‘Avoidance between brother and sister’
has ever been a puzzle to inquirers. This Avoidance is only the most
obscure of all the numerous cases of the strange habit, but it is also
that which, up to the present, seems least to have attracted the
notice of anthropologists. In this class of custom, the Avoidance of
which most frequent mention has been made in literature, is avoidance
between mother-in-law and son-in-law, whereas that between brother and
sister is to my knowledge but rarely mentioned.[4] And yet, as far
as my own experience goes (and it extends over more than a quarter
of a century among primitive peoples in the South Seas), Avoidance
of brother and sister is not only as common as, but infinitely more
strict and severe in action than, the Avoidance of ‘Mothers-in-law.’
It is indeed probable that the very severity of observance has led to
its being so little noticed. For by the action of this law, a brother
and a sister, after childhood, are kept so far apart from one another,
that only those who have actually lived long amidst natives can be
expected to have had a chance of being aware of the restraints to
intercourse between them. Even then it would be from some such casual
occurrence as the accidental rencontre of the two, placing them thus
in sudden and unavoidable proximity to each other, which would lead to
an observation, by an European, of their extraordinary attitude and
behaviour under such circumstances.
My own attention was primarily only drawn to this matter by noting
the grave scandal and excitement caused in a native community by the
momentary isolation, in a canoe, of a brother and sister. The affair
became so very serious for the brother that he disappeared from the
tribe for over a year. Indeed, the rigorous severity of this particular
law in daily action is almost incredible. In New Caledonia, for
instance, all intercourse between a brother and sister by speech or
sign is absolutely prohibited from a very early age. Whilst the girl
will remain in the paternal home, the boy, at the age of seven or eight
(when not, as is usual, adopted by the maternal uncle), only comes
there for his meals, partaken again solely with the other males.[5]
He dwells until married in the large general bachelors’ hut, set
apart for youths in all villages. Even after marriage, if brother and
sister have to communicate with each other on family matters, such
communication must be made through the intermediary of a third person,
nor can the sister enter the brother’s hut even after his marriage,
despite the presence of her sister-in-law therein. If the two should
unexpectedly meet in some narrow path, the girl will throw herself
face downwards into the nearest bush, whilst the boy will pass without
turning his head, and as if unaware of her presence.
They cannot mention each other’s names, and if the sister’s name is
mentioned publicly before the brother, he will show much embarrassment,
and if it is repeated he will retire precipitately. She can eat
nothing he has carried or cooked. Whilst, then, such propinquity as is
implied in the mutual habitation of the same hut by these two would be
scandalously impossible, it is not uncommon to find a mother-in-law
and son-in-law, whilst in Avoidance, living under the same roof. It
is obvious that in the latter case each detail of ‘Avoidance’ in act
or speech would be easily remarked by Europeans, whereas no chance of
such observation between the adult brother and sister could possibly
arise, they being kept, as we see, so utterly apart. It is to be noted,
however, that the seemingly instinctive natural affection between two
so nearly related is not quenched by these strange restraints. They
remain interested in each other’s welfare, and in cases of sickness,
for instance, keep themselves informed of each other’s condition
through third persons. So great, however, is the depth in action (on
these lines) of the feeling of avoidance in this matter, that I am
convinced that the infanticide of twins, which only takes place in New
Caledonia when the children are of different sexes, arises from the
idea of a too close propinquity in the womb. Further evidence as to
the very widespread existence of this custom in the South Seas I will
leave to a later stage, only noting here that I have been astonished to
find, in answer to inquiries, that it is well recognised amongst the
aborigines, of Australia.
[Mr. Atkinson has left a blank space for an expected communication
from the late Mr. Curr. On ‘Avoidance’ in Australia, between brother
and sister, Messrs Spencer and Gillen write: ‘A curious custom exists
with regard to the mutual behaviour of elder and younger sisters and
their brothers. A man may speak freely to his elder sisters in blood,
but those who are tribal _Ungaraitcha_ must only be spoken to at a
considerable distance. To younger sisters, blood and tribal, he may
not speak, or, at least, only at such a distance that the features
are indistinguishable.... We cannot discover any explanation of this
restriction in regard to the younger sister; it can hardly be supposed
that it has anything to do with the dread of anything like incest,
else why is there not as strong a restriction in the case of the elder
sisters?[6]
Now the occurrence of this particular habit amidst a race of nomad
hunters, forced by the exigencies of the chase to wander about in
isolated groups, composed for the most part of single families, and
where the separation of the sexes cannot possibly be arranged, as
with the hut and village dwelling Caledonians, is a most remarkable
fact. When we take into consideration the disturbing effects of such
an avoidance in the internal economy of such a family circle, the
significance of the circumstance is great as regards our general
argument. It becomes, indeed, evident that the fundamental cause of the
custom involving this daily and hourly dislocation of domestic life,
must lie very deep in savage society. If, however, our theory as to the
idea which dominated the inception of this strange habit shall turn
out to be correct, then it will be seen that no surprise need be felt,
if the genesis of this rule should prove to be in the animal stage,
that traces of the superstructure should exist to our day. Now that
attention will perhaps be more closely drawn to this, till recently the
least observed of the cases of Avoidance, I feel sure that proof of its
existence will be found in abundance in the present or past of all
primitive peoples.[7] In view of its unexpectedly wide dissemination
in Australia, hope may be felt that research will find it as a working
factor in many peoples where its presence has been least expected, and
not only in Australasia. It is possible that a stricter examination of
the inner life of lower races in Africa and Asia will allow a perfectly
legitimate inference that they are still under the influence of its
effect, although the custom itself may be no longer in actual force. It
is also possible, as I have said, that Survivals and Myths may point
conclusively to its having had its day amongst the highest nations,
with whom all traditions of it have been lost before the dawn of
history. [Rather the reverse is the case; see the marriage of Zeus and
Hera, brother and sister, and of the Incas, &c.--A. L.]
In many cases philological evidence based on the derivation of the
root syllable of the word ‘sister, a word which in the tongues of
peoples still obedient to this law is from a root implying ‘Avoidance,’
may afford affirmative proof, as circumstantial as unexpected, that
this custom was once as universal as my theory would require.’[8] If
difficulty is felt in the acceptation of an hypothesis of such wide
significance, simply based on an obscure lower custom so little noted
in anthropological literature as to permit doubts of its existence,
I can only repeat that a cognisance of the traits of this particular
habit of avoidance and its effect as a factor in savage life demands
such conditions of residence and chances of observation, as can fall to
the lot of few. I may add that it is one of the very first customs to
disappear after contact with whites, especially missionaries, being,
as it is, in such extreme divergence with the economy of the European
family, in regard to the mutual attitude of brother and sister.
It is more than a quarter of a century since the author had his
attention first drawn to the practice. The evolution of the idea
of its possible identity with the Primal Law has led to a continued
and close observation; he is thus able to certify as to its rapid
disappearance. Brother and sister avoidance was at that time, thirty
years ago, quite universal in New Caledonia; now in many places it is
unknown, even as a tradition, among the younger aborigines. In view
of the probability of a similar oblivion among other peoples, the
immediate collection of evidence is urgent, and further delay seems
dangerous and even culpable.
Thus, however much to the present advantage of the theory as regards
the custom it would have been to cull larger proofs from that vast
field of literature only to be procured in older lands, it has seemed
desirable to make this thesis public without further delay. As we have
said, if the theory is correct, wider students will bring forward
cogent facts in further proof from existing knowledge, whilst continued
research should afford evidence so complete of the widespread existence
of the custom in the present and past of the human race, as to render
my speculation as to its origin less seemingly illegitimate.[9]
[Footnote 1: Mr. Atkinson’s theory is based on the idea that our
supposed anthropoid ancestor was eminently unsocial.--A. L.]
[Footnote 2: Darwin, _Descent of Man_, ii. 361-363 (1871).]
[Footnote 3: I ought to have said ‘within the community, whether local
or of recognised kindred, indicated by the totem name.’--A. L.]
[Footnote 4: This was written before the appearance of Mr. Crawley’s
_Mystic Rose_ (1902).]
[Footnote 5: Cf. V. de Rochas, _La Nouvelle-Calédonie_, p. 239;
Crawley, _Mystic Rose_, p. 217.]
[Footnote 6: _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 88, 89.--A. L..]
[Footnote 7: Mr. Atkinson’s forecast was correct. Brother and sister
avoidance is very widely diffused.--A. L.]
[Footnote 8: The author does not give examples of words for ‘sister’
implying avoidance. But we elsewhere show that in Lifu (Melanesia) the
word for ‘sister’ means ‘not to be touched.’--A. L.]
[Footnote 9: Other speculations have now been advanced, especially by
Mr. Crawley.--A. L.]
CHAPTER II
SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS
Brother and Sister Avoidance, a partial usage among the higher
mammals.--Males’ attitude to females in a group dominated by a single
male head.--Band of exiled young males.--Their relations to the sire.
--Examples in cattle and horses--In game-fowl.--Strict localisation
of animals.--Exiled young males hover on the fringe of the parent
group.--Parricide.
Another difficulty in connection with the evolution of the so-called
Primal Law of Avoidance between brother and sister from that early
idea which we will presently disclose, seems to lie in the fact that
if, as we uphold, such law was the first factor in the ascent of
man, it must have taken its rise whilst he was still some ape-like
creature. It remains, however, to be shown from its peculiar form
that in its primitive application, the law would not have required
for its intelligence greater mental power than is possessed by
actual anthropoids. The law may indeed be said to be practically an
inchoate fact, an actual if partial usage, for the regulation of the
intersexual relations among most of the higher mammals. It could, at
any rate, have come into full intelligent application as a well-defined
social institution, in the actual sense of the term, whilst the
anthropomorphic progenitor of man was still so little removed from the
ape that
His speech was yet as halting as his gait,
Only less brutish than his moral state.
Briefly, the law of Avoidance concerns (more particularly) the relation
‘inter se,’ from a sexual point of view, of the male and female
offspring of any given parents. In other words it determines the
mutual attitude to the females within a (single) family group dominated
by a male head.
Before, however, entering into the argument in this connection, it
will be desirable to make a paraphrase on Mr. Darwin’s dictum as to
the social condition of man in the animal stage in general, and more
particularly in regard to his intermarital relations, and to compare
this with that of actual mammals. It is to be noted that he does not
pronounce definitely as to whether, in the era of pure animalism, the
original type of man’s ancestor was social or non-social in habit. But
we may judge from the extract already made from the _Descent of Man_
that Darwin evidently inclines to the opinion that, even primitively,
he was a social animal, as seemingly more in accord with the present
eminently social conditions.
The very significant counter-fact, however, remains, that none of the
actual anthropoids, as far as regards the adult males, are in any way
social or even gregarious; the conclusion thus seems evident that,
like these his nearest compeers of to-day, man was on the contrary
a non-social animal, and that, as with the gorilla, only one grown
male would have been seen in a band. We must then imagine our more or
less human ancestor, roaming the forest in search of daily food, as a
solitary polygamous male, with wife or wives and female children; the
unsocial head of a _solitary_ isolated group.
With equal strength and probably already greater cunning than any
_actual_ animal of to-day, he had perhaps acquired dominance over most
of the other beasts of the field. The patriarch had only one enemy whom
he should dread, an enemy with each coming year more and more to be
feared--deadly rivals of his very own flesh and blood, and the fruit
of his loins--namely, that neighbouring group of young males exiled
by sexual jealousy from his own and similar family groups--a youthful
band of brothers living together in forced celibacy, or at most in
polyandrous relation with some single female captive.[1] A horde as yet
weak in their impubescence, they are, but they would, when strength
was gained with time, inevitably wrench by combined attacks, renewed
again and again, both wife and life from the paternal tyrant. But they
themselves, after brief communistic enjoyment, would be segregated
anew by the fierce fire of sexual jealousy, each survivor of the
slaughter relapsing into lonely sovereignty, the head of the typical
group with its characteristic feature of a single adult male member in
antagonism with every other adult male. Now it can be shown that this
vicious circle of the stream of social life is common to most mammals.
The facts of the circumstance can be most easily observed amidst the
half-wild, half-domesticated animals met with in colonial farming
experience, in New Caledonia, for instance, where European horses and
cattle have been allowed to return almost to a state of nature.
In this respect the economy of life in a herd of even such gregarious
creatures as the bovine race, is a very curious and instructive study.
There is no fact more striking than the subordination in which the
younger bulls are kept; as long as they are at all tolerated in the
herd by its patriarch, their intercourse with the females is most
limited, and only takes place by stealth and at the risk of life and
limb.
Nothing, as breeders are aware, is so fatal to the well-being of a
herd, or leads so quickly to degeneration, as the perpetuation of
the race by immature males. That procreation should be the act of
the robust adult alone, is evidently an axiom with nature herself
in successful production; it is doubtless of the highest importance
to keep up the normal standard of strength and size. As a fact, the
presence of the immature male among a herd of cattle is only permitted
whilst he is still quite impubescent. Then banishment by the master of
the herd is inevitable at a later stage. These exiles, although thus
apart from the main herd, remain in touch with it, so to speak, and
we find in consequence, in continual proximity of the troop of the
patriarch and his females, a small band of males, which, as is evident
from their colour and general physical resemblance, are its direct
product. The relations between this mob and the old male are always
strained, the latter has constantly to be on the watch to _shield his
marital rights_.
For long the mere menace of his presence suffices for such protection,
but with age--the young bulls becoming more bold--struggles take place
which sooner or later, from mere force of numbers, end in the rout or
death of the parent. We may here cite the mention made by Mr. Darwin[2]
of Lord Tankerville’s account of the battles of the wild bulls in
Chillingham Park: ‘In 1861 several contended for mastery, and it was
observed that two of the younger bulls attacked in concert the old
leader of the herd, overthrew and disabled him, so that he was believed
by the keepers to be lying mortally wounded in a neighbouring wood.
But a few days afterwards one of the young bulls approached the wood
alone, and then the monarch of the chase, who had been lashing himself
up for vengeance, came out and in a short time killed his antagonist.
He then quietly joined the herd, and long held undisputed sway.’ I may
add from my own observation among half-wild herds in the colonies, that
often when the old patriarch is not absolutely killed in such cases, he
is forced to quit the herd. He then becomes a solitary exile, always
exceptionally savage and dangerous to approach or molest. It seems to
me probable that we have here an explanation of the occurrence of the
existence of the well-known ‘rogue’ elephant, which is always a male
and notoriously dangerous.
One important fact must here, however, be noted; that before such death
or exile takes place, and the sons reach an age which enables them
successfully to dispute the supremacy of the father, the daughters have
reached puberty and borne produce to the sire--this matter, as will be
seen later, has an important bearing on our general argument--on our
theory of Primal Law. Amongst horses, again, which have become wild,
exactly the same facts are to be observed. Each herd has one head, and
this, as natural selection would imply, is the most powerful stallion;
he is the master and owner of the females, and this mastery he retains
until overpowered by other males, which, as before, are almost
invariably his own progeny. In fact, any strange male would probably
have first to run the gauntlet of this outlying herd of exiled sons
before he could reach the father. It is, however, again to be noted
that he is rarely thus overpowered by even the combined efforts of his
sons, before his daughters have reached such an age as to have produced
offspring to their father.
This system of sequence of generations in breeding is, indeed, so
universal in a state of nature amongst all animals, as to seem to point
to the fact that in-breeding between father and daughter cannot be so
prejudicial as some believe. Its efficacy in type-fixing is at least
very great, if, as experiments of my own in pig-breeding on these
lines would lead me to think, the question of prepotency is merely a
matter of such close in-breeding repeated for generations. We may note
here that if, as is probable, the produce, on the contrary, of a full
brother and sister are degenerate, nature seems to attempt to prevent
its occurrence. On the succession of the sons to the father’s rights,
speedy conflicts from sexual jealousy arise amidst the former and lead
to a rapid segregation of the herd, in which the chances of own brother
and sister continuing to mate are slight. Until this segregration,
however, does take place, nothing is more curious to watch than the
attitude and relations of these young males among themselves, the
oldest and strongest claiming prior marital rights, but no more.
The same phenomena in social economy may be observed with even greater
intensity in lower ranks of life than the quadrupeds. For instance,
in a large flock of game fowl which I had an opportunity to observe
closely for several years, during which they had nearly relapsed into a
state of nature, there was an exact reproduction of all these details.
There existed the same division into small family groups, each headed
by an adult male, the same subordination imposed on the junior males of
their banishment at puberty, as also their inevitable combined attack,
when sufficiently powerful, on their paternal enemy. His death resulted
in the same communistic assumption of his rights, with a subsequent
disruption, from jealousy, into the typical smaller and separate groups.
We thus find an identical condition of the sexual relations between
the females of a group and its older and younger male members to be
common in the animal world--the domination, in fact, of an idea that
might, in the person of the senior male, confers marital rights over
the female members of the family, and an inchoate rule of action
resulting therefrom; which bars from the enjoyment of such right each
junior male. To hold that man, whilst in the animal stage, should
form an exception to the general rule seems unreasonable. If, as we
are inclined to believe, he was originally a quite non-social animal,
the fact becomes more possible still that, as with modern types of
anthropoid apes, each adult as head of a group was at feud with every
other. As regards the social evolution, it would indeed seem most
natural that, as Mr. Darwin conceived, the first step in progress
should have been taken by animals already united gregariously, and thus
already imbued with some social feelings. Strange to say, the path in
advance which the ancestor of man, in the light of our hypothesis, was
destined to follow, disclosed itself as an indirect consequence of the
very intensity of his non-social characteristic. In fact, as I fancy
mil become evident in the development of our argument, the only line
of progress open to man was one inaccessible to animals of gregarious
habits, judging by the economy of life in a troop of mandrills or
baboons.
Having ventured to differ from the great naturalist on this point, I
would with deference take exception to his further statement--‘That the
younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at
last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close inter-breeding
within the limits of the same family.’ This, if I understand it
rightly, would convey the idea that this youthful band quitted the
scene of their birth, and deserted entirely their original habitat
in the forest. I cannot help considering it an error to imagine that
such wanderings could thus be without bounds. Nothing seems to me more
remarkable and irrevocable in savage Nature than the rigid localisation
of all living things in her realm. No fish in the sea, no bird in the
air, but has its local habitation, which only becomes free to the
stranger on the death of the occupant.[3] No corner on earth but seems
to hold its lawful tenant, and the bounds thereof are defined within
rigid limits. Within, there is safety, with a sense of ownership;
without, is the great unknown, possessed by others, fiercely ready
to defend their rights, and threaten every danger and death to the
stranger intruder--unless quite otherwise formidable than adolescent
youth.
It is thus probable, in fact, that in common with the lower animals,
the band of exiled young males of our anthropoid ancestor haunted the
neighbourhood of the parent herd, remaining thus on familiar ground,
and in hearing of friendly voices. For we must remember that their
feud was only with the paternal parent. In the magic alembic of time
the constantly increasing shadow of their presence would take sudden
dreadful form, but in parricidal crime alone. The _sequel in disastrous
incest, which Mr. Darwin would here conjecture at, Nature alone has
ever been impotent to deal with_. The problem of an effectual bar to
undesirable union between brother and sister was solved by man alone,
and in the Primal Law. An effort of his embryonic intellect, thus early
defiant of Nature, the law placed ethically, for once and for ever, a
distinction between him and every other creature.
[Footnote 1: Why ‘single?--A. L.]
[Footnote 2: _Descent of Man_, p. 501.]
[Footnote 3: This fact is well known to anglers for trout.--A. L.]
CHAPTER III
MAN VARYING FROM ANIMALS
Effect of the absence of a special pairing season on nascent
man.--Consequent state of ceaseless war between sire and young
males.--Man already more than an ape.--Results of his prolonged infancy
and of maternal love.--A young male permitted to live in the parent
group.--Conditions in which this novelty arose.