(1.) The form of capture in bridal ceremonies. That this form survived
in Sparta, Crete, in Hindoo law, in the traditions of Ireland, in the
popular rustic customs of Wales, is not denied.
If we hold, with Mr. M'Lennan, that scarcity of women (produced by female
infanticide or otherwise) is the cause of the habit of capturing wives,
we may see, in survivals of this ceremony of capture among Aryans, a
proof of early scarcity of women, and of probable polyandry. But an
opponent may argue, like Mr. J. A. Farrer in 'Primitive Manners,' that
the ceremony of capture is mainly a concession to maiden modesty among
early races. Here one may observe that the girls of savage tribes are
notoriously profligate and immodest about illicit connections. Only
honourable marriage brings a blush to the cheek of these young persons.
This is odd, but, in the present state of the question, we cannot lean on
the evidence of the ceremony of capture. We cannot demonstrate that it
is derived from a time when paucity of women made capture of brides
necessary. Thus 'honours are easy' in this first deal.
(2.) The next indication is very curious, and requires much more
prolonged discussion. The custom of Exogamy was first noted and named by
Mr. M'Lennan. Exogamy is the prohibition of marriage within the supposed
blood-kinship, as denoted by the family name. Such marriage, among many
backward races, is reckoned incestuous, and is punishable by death.
Certain peculiarities in connection with the family name have to be noted
later. Now, Sir Henry Maine admits that exogamy, as thus defined, exists
among the Hindoos. 'A Hindoo may not marry a woman belonging to the same
gotra, all members of the gotra being theoretically supposed to have
descended from the same ancestor.' The same rule prevails in China.
'There are in China large bodies of related clansmen, each generally
bearing the same clan-name. They are exogamous; no man will marry a
woman having the same clan-name with himself.' It is admitted by Sir
Henry Maine that this wide prohibition of marriage was the early Aryan
rule, while advancing civilisation has gradually permitted marriage
within limits once forbidden. The Greek Church now (according to Mr.
M'Lennan), and the Catholic Church in the past, forbade intermarriages
'as far as relationship could be known.' The Hindoo rule appears to go
still farther, and to prohibit marriage as far as the common gotra name
seems merely to indicate relationship.
As to the ancient Romans, Plutarch says: Formerly they did not marry
women connected with them by blood, any more than they now marry aunts or
sisters. It was long before they would even intermarry with cousins.'
Plutarch also remarks that, in times past, Romans did not marry [Greek],
and if we may render this 'women of the same gens,' the exogamous
prohibition in Rome was as complete as among the Hindoos. I do not quite
gather from Sir Henry Maine's account of the Slavonic house communities
(pp. 254, 255) whether they dislike _all_ kindred marriages, or only
marriage within the 'greater blood'--that is, within the kinship on the
male side. He says: 'The South Slavonians bring their wives into the
group, in which they are socially organised, from a considerable distance
outside. . . . Every marriage which requires an ecclesiastical
dispensation is regarded as disreputable.'
On the whole, wide prohibitions of marriage are archaic: the widest are
savage; the narrowest are modern and civilised. Thus the Hindoo
prohibition is old, barbarous, and wide. 'The barbarous Aryan,' says Sir
Henry Maine, 'is generally exogamous. He has a most extensive table of
prohibited degrees.' Thus exogamy seems to be a survival of barbarism.
The question for us is, Can we call exogamy a survival from a period when
(owing to scarcity of women and polyandry) clear ideas of kinship were
impossible? If this can be proved, exogamous Aryans either passed
through polyandrous institutions, or borrowed a savage custom derived
from a period when ideas of kinship were obscure.
If we only knew the origin of the prohibition to marry within the family
name all would be plain sailing. At present several theories of the
origin of exogamy are before the world. Mr. Morgan, the author of
'Ancient Society,' inclines to trace the prohibition to a great early
physiological discovery, acted on by primitive men by virtue of a contrat
social. Early man discovered that children of unsound constitutions were
born of nearly related parents. Mr. Morgan says: 'Primitive men very
early discovered the evils of close interbreeding.' Elsewhere Mr. Morgan
writes: 'Intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, to secure the benefits
of marrying out with unrelated persons.' This arrangement was 'a product
of high intelligence,' and Mr. Morgan calls it a 'reform.'
Let us examine this very curious theory. First: Mr. Morgan supposes
early man to have made a discovery (the evils of the marriage of near
kin) which evades modern physiological science. Modern science has not
determined that the marriages of kinsfolk are pernicious. Is it credible
that savages should discover a fact which puzzles science? It may be
replied that modern care, nursing, and medical art save children of near
marriages from results which were pernicious to the children of early
man. Secondly: Mr. Morgan supposes that barbarous man (so notoriously
reckless of the morrow as he is), not only made the discovery of the
evils of interbreeding, but acted on it with promptitude and self-denial.
Thirdly: Mr. Morgan seems to require, for the enforcement of the
exogamous law, a contrat social. The larger communities meet, and divide
themselves into smaller groups, within which wedlock is forbidden. This
'social pact' is like a return to the ideas of Rousseau. Fourthly: The
hypothesis credits early men with knowledge and discrimination of near
degrees of kin, which they might well possess if they lived in
patriarchal families. But it represents that they did not act on their
knowledge. Instead of prohibiting marriage between parents and children,
cousins, nephews and aunts, uncles and nieces, they prohibited marriage
within the limit of the name of the kin. This is still the Hindoo rule,
and, if the Romans really might not at one time marry within the gens, it
was the Roman rule. Now observe, this rule fails to effect the very
purpose for which ex hypothesi it was instituted. Where the family name
goes by the male side, marriages between cousins are permitted, as in
India and China. These are the very marriages which some theorists now
denounce as pernicious. But, if the family name goes by the female side,
marriages between half-brothers and half-sisters are permitted, as in
ancient Athens and among the Hebrews of Abraham's time. Once more, the
exogamous prohibition excludes, in China, America, Africa, Australia,
persons who are in no way akin (according to our ideas) from
intermarriage. Thus Mr. Doolittle writes: {256} 'Males and females of
the same surname will never intermarry in China. Cousins who have not
the same ancestral surname may intermarry. Though the ancestors of
persons of the same surname have not known each other for thousands of
years, they may not intermarry.' The Hindoo gotra rule produces the same
effects.
For all these reasons, and because of the improbability of the
physiological discovery, and of the moral 'reform' which enforced it; and
again, because the law is not of the sort which people acquainted with
near degrees of kinship would make; and once more, because the law fails
to effect its presumed purpose, while it does attain ends at which it
does not aim--we cannot accept Mr. Morgan's suggestion as to the origin
of exogamy. Mr. M'Lennan did not live to publish a subtle theory of the
origin of exogamy, which he had elaborated. In 'Studies in Ancient
History,' he hazarded a conjecture based on female infanticide:--
'We believe the restrictions on marriage to be connected with the
practice in early times of female infanticide, which, rendering women
scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing
of women from without. . . . Hence the cruel custom which, leaving
the primitive human hordes with very few young women of their own,
occasionally with none, and in any case seriously disturbing the
balance of the sexes within the hordes, forces them to prey upon one
another for wives. Usage, induced by necessity, would in time
establish a prejudice among the tribes observing it, a prejudice
strong as a principle of religion--as every prejudice relating to
marriage is apt to be--against marrying women of their own stock.'
Mr. M'Lennan describes his own hypothesis as 'a suggestion thrown out at
what it was worth.' {258} In his later years, as we have said, he
developed a very subtle and ingenious theory of the origin of exogamy,
still connecting it with scarcity of women, but making use of various
supposed stages and processes in the development of the law. That
speculation remains unpublished. To myself, the suggestion given in
'Studies in Ancient History' seems inadequate. I find it difficult to
conceive that the frequent habit of stealing women should indispose men
to marry the native women they had at hand. That this indisposition
should grow into a positive law, and the infringement of the law be
regarded as a capital offence, seems still more inconceivable. My own
impression is, that exogamy may be connected with some early superstition
or idea of which we have lost the touch, and which we can no longer
explain.
Thus far, the consideration of exogamy has thrown no clear light on the
main question--the question whether the customs of civilised races
contain relics of female kinship. On Sir Henry Maine's theory of
exogamy, that Aryan custom is unconnected with female kinship, polyandry,
and scarcity of women. On Mr. M'Lennan's theory, exogamy is the result
of scarcity of women, and implies polyandry and female kinship. But
neither theory has seemed satisfactory. Yet we need not despair of
extracting some evidence from exogamy, and that evidence, on the whole,
is in favour of Mr. M'Lennan's general hypothesis. (1.) The exogamous
prohibition must have first come into force _when kinship was only
reckoned on one side of the family_. This is obvious, whether we suppose
it to have arisen in a society which reckoned by male or by female
kinship. In the former case, the law only prohibits marriage with
persons of the father's, in the second case with persons of the mother's,
family name, and these only it recognises as kindred. (2.) Our second
point is much more important. The exogamous prohibition must first have
come into force _when kinship was so little understood that it could best
be denoted by the family name_. This would be self-evident, if we could
suppose the prohibition to be intended to prevent marriages of relations.
Had the authors of the prohibition been acquainted with the nature of
near kinships, they would simply (as we do) have forbidden marriage
between persons in those degrees. The very nature of the prohibition, on
the other hand, shows that kinship was understood in a manner all unlike
our modern system. The limit of kindred was everywhere the family name:
a limit which excludes many real kinsfolk and includes many who are not
kinsfolk at all. In Australia especially, and in America, India, and
Africa, to a slighter extent, that definition of kindred by the family
name actually includes alligators, smoke, paddy melons, rain, crayfish,
sardines, and what you please. {259} Will anyone assert, then, that
people among whom the exogamous prohibition arose were organised on the
system of the patriarchal family, which permits the nature of kinship to
be readily understood at a glance? Is it not plain that the exogamous
prohibition (confessedly Aryan) must have arisen in a stage of culture
when ideas of kindred were confused, included kinship with animals and
plants, and were to us almost, if not quite, unintelligible? It is even
possible, as Mr. M'Lennan says, {260} 'that the prejudice against
marrying women of the same group may have been established _before the
facts of blood relationship had made any deep impression on the human
mind_.' How the exogamous prohibition tends to confirm this view will
next be set forth in our consideration of _Totemism_.
The Evidence from Totemism.--Totemism is the name for the custom by which
a stock (scattered through many local tribes) claims descent from and
kindred with some plant, animal, or other natural object. This object,
of which the effigy is sometimes worn as a badge or crest, members of the
stock refuse to eat. As a general rule, marriage is prohibited between
members of the stock--between all, that is, who claim descent from the
same object and wear the same badge. The exogamous limit, therefore, is
denoted by the stock-name and crest, and kinship is kinship in the wolf,
bear, potato, or whatever other object is recognised as the original
ancestor. Finally, as a general rule, the stock-name is derived through
the mother, and where it is derived through the father there are proofs
that the custom is comparatively modern. It will be acknowledged that
this sort of kindred, which is traced to a beast, bird, or tree, which is
recognised in every person bearing the same stock-name, which is counted
through females, and which governs marriage customs, is not the sort of
kindred which would naturally arise among people regulated on the
patriarchal or monandrous family system. Totemism, however, is a
widespread institution prevailing all over the north of the American
continent, also in Peru (according to Garcilasso de la Vega); in Guiana
(the negroes have brought it from the African Gold Coast, where it is in
full force, as it also is among the Bechuanas); in India among Hos,
Garos, Kassos, and Oraons; in the South Sea Islands, where it has left
strong traces in Mangaia; in Siberia, and especially in the great island
continent of Australia. The Semitic evidences for totemism
(animal-worship, exogamy, descent claimed through females) are given by
Professor Robertson Smith, in the 'Journal of Philology,' ix. 17, 'Animal
Worship and Animal Tribes among the Arabs, and in the Old Testament.'
Many other examples of totemism might be adduced (especially from Egypt),
but we must restrict ourselves to the following questions:--
(1.) What light is thrown on the original form of the family by
totemism? (2.) Where we find survivals of totemism among civilised
races, may we conclude that these races (through scarcity of women) had
once been organised on other than the patriarchal model?
As to the first question, we must remember that the origin and
determining causes of totemism are still unknown. Mr. M'Lennan's theory
of the origin of totemism has never been published. It may be said
without indiscretion that Mr. M'Lennan thought totemism arose at a period
when ideas of kinship scarcely existed at all. 'Men only thought of
marking one off from another,' as Garcilasso de la Vega says: the totem
was but a badge worn by all the persons who found themselves existing in
close relations; perhaps in the same cave or set of caves. People united
by contiguity, and by the blind sentiment of kinship not yet brought into
explicit consciousness, might mark themselves by a badge, and might
thence derive a name, and, later, might invent a myth of their descent
from the object which the badge represented. I do not know whether it
has been observed that the totems are, as a rule, objects which may be
easily drawn or tattooed, and still more easily indicated in
gesture-language. Some interesting facts will be found in the 'First
Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,' p. 458 (Washington, 1881).
Here we read how the 'Crow' tribe is indicated in sign-language by 'the
hands held out on each side, striking the air in the manner of flying.'
The Bunaks (another bird tribe) are indicated by an imitation of the cry
of the bird. In mentioning the Snakes, the hand imitates the crawling
motion of the serpent, and the fingers pointed up behind the ear denote
the Wolves. Plainly names of the totem sort are well suited to the
convenience of savages, who converse much in gesture-language. Above
all, the very nature of totemism shows that it took its present shape at
a time when men, animals, and plants were conceived of as physically
akin; when names were handed on through the female line; when exogamy was
the rule of marriage, and when the family theoretically included all
persons bearing the same family name, that is, all who claimed kindred
with the same plant, animal, or object, whether the persons are really
akin or not. These ideas and customs are not the ideas natural to men
organised in the patriarchal family.
The second question now arises: Can we infer from survivals of totemism
among Aryans that these Aryans had once been organised on the full
totemistic principle, probably with polyandry, and certainly with female
descent? Where totemism now exists in full force, there we find exogamy
and derivation of the family name through women, the latter custom
indicating uncertainty of male parentage in the past. Are we to believe
that the same institutions have existed wherever we find survivals of
totemism? If this be granted, and if the supposed survivals of totemism
among Aryans be accepted as genuine, then the Aryans have distinctly come
through a period of kinship reckoned through women, with all that such an
institution implies. For indications that the Aryans of Greece and India
have passed through the stage of totemism, the reader may be referred to
Mr. M'Lennan's 'Worship of Plants and Animals' ('Fortnightly Review,'
1869, 1870). The evidence there adduced is not all of the same value,
and the papers are only a hasty rough sketch based on the first
testimonies that came to hand. Probably the most important 'survival' of
totemism in Greek legend is the body of stories about the amours of Zeus
in animal form. Various noble houses traced their origin to Zeus or
Apollo, who, as a bull, tortoise, serpent, swan, or ant, had seduced the
mother of the race. The mother of the Arcadians became a she-bear, like
the mother of the bear stock of the Iroquois. As we know plenty of races
all over the world who trace their descent from serpents, tortoises,
swans, and so forth, it is a fair hypothesis that the ancestors of the
Greeks once believed in the same fables. In later times the swan,
serpent, ant, or tortoise was explained as an avatar of Zeus. The
process by which an anthropomorphic god or hero succeeds to the exploits
of animals, of theriomorphic gods and heroes, is the most common in
mythology, and is illustrated by actual practice in modern India. When
the Brahmins convert a pig-worshipping tribe of aboriginals, they tell
their proselytes that the pig was an avatar of Vishnu. The same process
is found active where the Japanese have influenced the savage Ainos, and
persuaded them that their bear- or dog-father was a manifestation of a
deity. We know from Plutarch ('Theseus') that, in addition to families
claiming descent from divine animals, one Athenian [Greek], the Ioxidae,
revered an ancestral plant, the asparagus. A vaguer indication of
totemism may perhaps be detected in the ancient theriomorphic statues of
Greek gods, as the Ram-Zeus and the Horse-headed Demeter, and in the
various animals and plants which were sacred to each god and represented
as his companions.
The hints of totemism among the ancient Irish are interesting. One hero,
Conaire, was the son of a bird, and before his birth his father (the
bird) told the woman (his mother) that the child must never eat the flesh
of fowls. 'Thy son shall be named Conaire, and that son shall not kill
birds.' {265a} The hero Cuchullain, being named after the dog, might not
eat the flesh of the dog, and came by his ruin after transgressing this
totemistic taboo. Races named after animals were common in ancient
Ireland. The red-deer and the wolves were tribes dwelling near Ossory,
and Professor Rhys, from the frequency of dog names, inclines to believe
in a dog totem in Erin. According to the ancient Irish 'Wonders of Eri,'
in the 'Book of Glendaloch,' 'the descendants of the wolf are in Ossory,'
and they could still transform themselves into wolves. {265b} As to our
Anglo-Saxon ancestors, there is little evidence beyond the fact that the
patronymic names of many of the early settlements of Billings, Arlings,
and the rest, are undeniably derived from animals and plants. The manner
in which those names are scattered locally is precisely like what results
in America, Africa, and Australia from the totemistic organisation.
{265c} In Italy the ancient custom by which animals were the leaders of
the Ver sacrum or armed migration is well known. The Piceni had for
their familiar animal or totem (if we may call it so) a woodpecker; the
Hirpini were like the 'descendants of the wolf' in Ossory, and practised
a wolf-dance in which they imitated the actions of the animal.
Such is a summary of the evidence which shows that Aryans had once been
totemists, therefore savages, and therefore, again, had probably been in
a stage when women were scarce and each woman had many husbands.
Evidence from the Gens or [Greek].--There is no more puzzling topic in
the history of the ancient world than the origin and nature of the
community called by the Romans the gens, and by the Greeks the [Greek].
To the present writer it seems that no existing community of men, neither
totem kin, nor clan, nor house community, nor gotra, precisely answers to
the gens or the [Greek]. Our information about these forms of society is
slight and confused. The most essential thing to notice for the moment
is the fact that both in Greece and Rome the [Greek] and gens were
extremely ancient, so ancient that the [Greek] was decaying in Greece
when history begins, while in Rome we can distinctly see the rapid
decadence and dissolution of the gens. In the Laws of the Twelve Tables,
the gens is a powerful and respected corporation. In the time of Cicero
the nature of the gens is a matter but dimly understood. Tacitus begins
to be confused about the gentile nomenclature. In the Empire gentile law
fades away. In Greece, especially at Athens, the early political reforms
transferred power from the [Greek] to a purely local organisation, the
Deme. The Greek of historical times did not announce his [Greek] in his
name (as the Romans always did), but gave his own name, that of his
father, and that of his deme. Thus we may infer that in Greek and Roman
society the [Greek] and gens were dying, not growing, organisations. In
very early times it is probable that foreign gentes were adopted en bloc
into the Roman Commonwealth. Very probably, too, a great family, on
entering the Roman bond, may have assumed, by a fiction, the character
and name of a gens. But that Roman society in historical times, or that
Greek society, could evolve a new gens or [Greek] in a normal natural
way, seems excessively improbable.
Keeping in mind the antique and 'obsolescent' character of the gens and
[Greek], let us examine the theories of the origin of these associations.
The Romans themselves knew very little about the matter. Cicero quotes
the dictum of Scaevola the Pontifex, according to which the gens
consisted of _all persons of the same gentile name_ who were not in any
way disqualified. {267} Thus, in America, or Australia, or Africa, all
persons bearing the same totem name belong to that totem kin. Festus
defines members of a gens as persons of the same stock and same family
name. Varro says (in illustration of the relationships of words and
cases) 'Ab AEmilio homines orti AEmilii sunt gentiles.' The two former
definitions answer to the conception of a totem kin, which is united by
its family name and belief in identity of origin. Varro adds the
element, in the Roman gens, of common descent from one male ancestor.
Such was the conception of the gens in historical times. It was in its
way an association of kinsfolk, real or supposed. According to the Laws
of the Twelve Tables the gentiles inherited the property of an intestate
man without agnates, and had the custody of lunatics in the same
circumstances. The gens had its own sacellum or chapel, and its own
sacra or religious rites. The whole gens occasionally went into mourning
when one of its members was unfortunate. It would be interesting if it
could be shown that the sacra were usually examples of ancestor-worship,
but the faint indications on the subject scarcely permit us to assert
this.
On the whole, Sir Henry Maine strongly clings to the belief that the gens
commonly had 'a real core of agnatic consanguinity from the very first.'
But he justly recognises the principle of imitation, which induces men to
copy any fashionable institution. Whatever the real origin of the gens,
many gentes were probably copies based on the fiction of common ancestry.
On Sir Henry Maine's system, then, the gens rather proves the constant
existence of recognised male descents among the peoples where it exists.
The opposite theory of the gens is that to which Mr. M'Lennan inclined.
'The composition and organisation of Greek and Roman tribes and
commonwealths cannot well be explained except on the hypothesis that they
resulted from the joint operation, in early times, of exogamy, and the
system of kinship through females only.' {268} 'The gens', he adds, 'was
composed of all the persons in the tribe bearing the same name and
accounted of the same stock. Were the gentes really of different stocks,
as their names would imply and as the people believed? If so, how came
clans of different stocks to be united in the same tribe? . . . How came
a variety of such groups, of different stocks, to coalesce in a local
tribe?' These questions, Mr. M'Lennan thought, could not be answered on
the patriarchal hypothesis. His own theory, or rather his theory as
understood by the present writer, may be stated thus. In the earliest
times there were homogeneous groups, which became, totem kin. Let us say
that, in a certain district, there were groups called woodpeckers,
wolves, bears, suns, swine, each with its own little territory. These
groups were exogamous, and derived the name through the mother. Thus, in
course of time, when sun men married a wolf girl, and her children were
wolves, there would be wolves in the territory of the suns, and thus each
stock would be scattered through all the localities, just as we see in
Australia and America. Let us suppose that (as certainly is occurring in
Australia and America) paternal descent comes to be recognised in custom.
This change will not surprise Sir Henry Maine, who admits that a system
of male may alter, under stress of circumstances, to a system of female
descents. In course of time, and as knowledge and common sense advance,
the old superstition of descent from a woodpecker, a bear, a wolf, the
sun, or what not, becomes untenable. A human name is assumed by the
group which had called itself the woodpeckers or the wolves, or perhaps
by a local tribe in which several of these stocks are included. Then a
fictitious human ancestor is adopted, and perhaps even adored. Thus the
wolves might call themselves Claudii, from their chief's name, and,
giving up belief in descent from a wolf, might look back to a fancied
ancestor named Claudius. The result of these changes will be that an
exogamous totem kin, with female descent, has become a gens, with male
kinship, and only the faintest trace of exogamy. An example of somewhat
similar processes must have occurred in the Highland clans after the
introduction of Christianity, when the chief's Christian name became the
patronymic of the people who claimed kinship with him and owned his sway.
Are there any traces at all of totemism in what we know of the Roman
gentes? Certainly the traces are very slight; perhaps they are only
visible to the eye of the intrepid anthropologist. I give them for what
they are worth, merely observing that they do tally, as far as they go,
with the totemistic theory. The reader interested in the subject may
consult the learned Streinnius's 'De Gentibus Romanis,' p. 104 (Aldus,
Venice, 1591).
Among well-known savage totems none is more familiar than the sun. Men
claim descent from the sun, call themselves by his name, and wear his
effigy as a badge. {270} Were there suns in Rome? The Aurelian gens is
thus described on the authority of Festus Pompeius:--'The Aurelii were of
Sabine descent. The Aurelii were so named from the sun (aurum, urere,
the burning thing), because a place was set apart for them in which to
pay adoration to the sun.' Here, at least, is an odd coincidence. Among
other gentile names, the Fabii, Cornelii, Papirii, Pinarii, Cassii, are
possibly connected with plants; while wild etymology may associate
Porcii, Aquilii, and Valerii with swine and eagles. Pliny ('H. N.'
xviii. 3) gives a fantastic explanation of the vegetable names of Roman
gentes. We must remember that vegetable names are very common in
American, Indian, African, and Australian totem kin. Of sun names the
Natchez and the Incas of Peru are familiar examples. Turning from Rome
to Greece, we find the [Greek] less regarded and more decadent than the
gens. Yet, according to Grote (iii. 54) the [Greek] had--(l) sacra, 'in
honour of the same god, supposed to be the primitive ancestor.' (2) A
common burial-place. (3) Certain rights of succession to property. (4)
Obligations of mutual help and defence. (5) Mutual rights and
obligations to intermarry in certain cases. (6) Occasionally possession
of common property.
Traces of the totem among the Greek [Greek] are, naturally, few. Almost
all the known [Greek] bore patronymics derived from personal names. But
it is not without significance that the Attic demes often adopted the
names of obsolescent [Greek], and that those names were, as Mr. Grote
says, often 'derived from the plants and shrubs which grew in their
neighbourhood.' We have already seen that at least one Attic [Greek],
the Ioxidae, revered the plant from which they derived their lineage. One
thing is certain, the totem names, and a common explanation of the totem
names in Australia, correspond with the names and Mr. Grote's explanation
of the names of the Attic demes. 'One origin of family names,' says Sir
George Grey (ii. 228), 'frequently ascribed by the natives, is that they
were derived from some vegetable or animal being common in the district
which the family inhabited.' Some writers attempt to show that the Attic
[Greek] was once exogamous and counted kin on the mother's side, by
quoting the custom which permitted a man to marry his half-sister, the
child of his father but not of his mother. They infer that this
permission is a survival from the time when a man's _father's_ children
were not reckoned as his kindred, and when kinship was counted through
mothers. Sir Henry Maine (p. 105) prefers M. Fustel De Coulanges'
theory, that the marriage of half-brothers and sisters on the father's
side was intended to save the portion of the girl to the family estate.
Proof of this may be adduced from examination of all the recorded cases
of such marriages in Athens. But the reason thus suggested would have
equally justified marriage between brothers and sisters on both sides,
and this was reckoned incest. A well-known line in Aristophanes shows
how intense was Athenian feeling about the impiety of relations with a
sister uterine.
On the whole, the evidence which we have adduced tends to establish some
links between the ancient [Greek] and gens, and the totem kindreds of
savages. The indications are not strong, but they all point in one
direction. Considering the high civilisation of Rome and Greece at the
very dawn of history--considering the strong natural bent of these
peoples toward refinement--it is almost remarkable that even the slight
testimonies we have been considering should have survived.
(5.) On the evidence from myth and legend we propose to lay little
stress. But, as legends were not invented by anthropologists to prove a
point, it is odd that the traditions of Athens, as preserved by Varro,
speak of a time when names were derived from the mother, and when
promiscuity prevailed. Marriage itself was instituted by Cecrops, the
serpent, just as the lizard, in Australia, is credited with this useful
invention. {273a} Similar legends among non-Aryan races, Chinese and
Egyptian, are very common.
(6.) There remains the evidence of actual fact and custom among Aryan
peoples. The Lycians, according to Herodotus, 'have this peculiar
custom, _wherein they resemble no other men_, they derive their names
from their mothers, and not from their fathers, and through mothers
reckon their kin.' Status also was derived through the mothers. {273b}
The old writer's opinion that the custom (so common in Australia,
America, and Africa) was unique, is itself a proof of his good faith.
Bachofen (p. 390) remarks that several Lycian inscriptions give the names
of mothers only. Polybius attributes (assigning a fantastic reason) the
same custom of counting kin through mothers to the Locrians. {273c} The
British and Irish custom of deriving descents through women is well
known, {273d} and a story is told to account for the practice. The
pedigrees of the British kings show that most did not succeed to their
fathers, and the various records of early Celtic morals go to prove that
no other system of kinship than the maternal would have possessed any
value, so uncertain was fatherhood. These are but hints of the
prevalence of institutions which survived among Teutonic races in the
importance attached to the relationship of a man's sister's son. Though
no longer his legal heir, the sister's son was almost closer than any
other kinsman.
We have now summarised and indicated the nature of the evidence which, on
the whole, inclines us to the belief of Mr. M'Lennan rather than of Sir
Henry Maine. The point to which all the testimony adduced converges, the
explanation which most readily solves all the difficulties, is the
explanation of Mr. M'Lennan. The Aryan races have very generally passed
through the stage of scarcity of women, polyandry, absence of recognised
male kinship, and recognition of kinship through women. What Sir Henry
Maine admits as the exception, we are inclined to regard as having, in a
very remote past, been the rule. No one kind of evidence--neither traces
of marriage by capture, of exogamy, of totemism, of tradition, of noted
fact among Lycians and Picts and Irish--would alone suffice to guide our
opinion in this direction. But the cumulative force of the testimony
strikes us as not inconsiderable, and it must be remembered that the
testimony has not yet been assiduously collected.
Let us end by showing how this discussion illustrates the method of
Folklore. We have found anomalies among Aryans. We have seen the gens
an odd, decaying institution. We have seen Greek families claim descent
from various animals, said to be Zeus in disguise. We have found them
tracing kinship and deriving names from the mother. We have found stocks
with animal and vegetable names. We have found half-brothers and sisters
marrying. We have noted prohibition to marry anyone of the same family
name. All these institutions are odd, anomalous, decaying things among
Aryans, and the more civilised the Aryans the more they decay. All of
them are living, active things among savages, and, far from being
anomalous, are in precise harmony with savage notions of the world.
Surely, then, where they seem decaying and anomalous, as among Aryans,
these customs and laws are mouldering relics of ideas and practices
natural and inevitable among savages.