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SOCIAL ORIGINS
PRIMAL LAW
WORKS BY ANDREW LANG.
MAGIC AND RELIGION. 8vo. loj-. 6d. net.
CUSTOM AND MYTH : Studies of Early Usage and
Belief. With 15 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3J. 6rf.
MYTH, RITUAL, AND RELIGION. 2 vols.
Crown 8vo. -js.
MODERN MYTHOLOGY : a Reply to Professor Max
Miiller. 8vo. gj.
THE MAKING OF RELIGION. Crown 8vo. 5^.
net.
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 39 Paternoster Row, London,
New York and Bombay.
SOCIAL ORIGINS
BY
ANDREW LANG, M.A., LL.D.
PRIMAL LAW
BY
J. J. ATKINSON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. ""^-z
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY ' '
''''/. '/,.
'. s^^^•^'
All rights reserved*
<g
^'^"7-
{'"'i >.^'
\\\*"
! I I
-•■'/,(,'/,
■''^^?/?/,/ :
TO
ANNABELLA ALLEYNE
Dear Annie,
As you first pointed out to me the facts which are
the germ of my Theory of the Origin of Totemism, you are
one cause of my share in this book. The other is affection
for the memory of th^ author of ' Frimal Law J
Yours always,
A. LANG.
St. Andrews :
Feb. 13, 1903.
INTHODUGTION
The portion of this book called ' Primal Law ' is the
work of the late Mr. James Jasper Atkinson. Bom in
India, of Scottish parents (his mother being the paternal
aunt of the present editor), Mr. Atkinson was educated
(1857-1861) at Loretto School, then managed by Messrs.
Langhome. While still young he settled on certain stations
in New Caledonia bequeathed to him by his father, and,
except for visits to Australia and a visit to England, he lived
and died in the French colony. His ingenious mind was
much exercised by the singular laws and customs of the natives
of the New Caledonian Archipelago and the adjacent isles.
These peoples have been little studied by competent Eiu-opean
observers — that is, in New Caledonia. Mr. Atkinson wrote
an account of native manners before he had any acquaintance
with the works of modem anthropologists, such as Mr. Tylor,
Mr. McLennan, Lord Avebury, and others. To these he
later turned his attention ; he joined the Anthropological
Institute, and, in the course of study and observation, he dis-
covered what he conceived to be the ' Primal Law ' and origin
of morality, as regards the family. In his last illness, in
1899, he was most kindly attended by Commander John
Haggard, R.N., then Her Majesty's Consul in New Caledonia.
Mr. Atkinson's mind, in his latest moments, was occupied by
his anthropological speculations, and, through Mr. Haggard,
he sent his MS. to his cousin and present editor. I have
given to it the last cares which the author himself would have
given had he lived. But I have also taken the opportunity
to review, in the following pages, introductory to ' Primal
viii SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Law,' the present state of the discussion as to the beginnings
of the rules regulating marriage among savages.
The discussion is now nearly forty years old, if we date it
from the appearance of Mr. J. F. McLennan's Primitive
Marriage in 1865. Yet, in spite of the speculations of
some and the explorations of other distinguished students,
the main problems are still in dispute. Was marriage
originally non-existent ? Was promiscuity at first the rule,
and, if so, what were the origins, motives, and methods of the
most archaic prohibitions on primitive license ? Did man
live in ' hordes,' and did he bisect each ' horde ' into
exogamous and intermarrying moieties, and, if he did, what
was his motive? Are the groups and kindreds commonly
styled ' totemic ' earlier or later than the division into a pair
of moieties or ' phratries ' ? Do the totem-kins represent
the results of an early form of exogamous custom, or are they
additions to or consciously arranged subdivisions of the
two exogamous moieties ? Is a past of ' group marriage '
or ' communal marriage ' proved by the terms for human
relationships employed by many backward races, and by
survivals in manner and custom ?
These are among the questions examined in the intro-
ductory chapters that may be read either before or after
Mr. Atkinson's Primal Law. To him I am indebted for the
conception of sexual jealousy as a powerful element in the
evolution of exogamy.
Since my attention was first directed to these topics, I
have felt that a clear and consistent working hjrpothesis of the
origin of totemism was indispensable, and such an hypothesis,
with a criticism of other extant theories, is here offered.
Throughout I have attempted to elucidate and bring into
uniformity the perplexing and confused special terms
employed in the discussion. Here it should be explained that
by ' marriage ' in this work I mean permanent cohabitation
of man and woman, sanctioned by tribal custom, and usually
preceded by some rite or initiation which does not prelude
to casual amours. By family or fire circle I mean the
INTRODUCTION ix
partners to this permanent cohabitation^ their offspring, and
such kinsfolk by blood or affinity as may be members of their
camp. In the first sentence of the book I speak of the
family as ' most ancient and most sacred,' and I do so
deliberately. The primitive association described I take,
with Mr. Darwin and Mr. Atkinson, to be ' most ancient,'
and to be the germ of the historic family, which is ' most
sacred.' But to ' sacred ' when I apply the word to the
primitive fire-circle I give no religious sense, such as the
Greek hearth enjoyed under Hestia, youngest and oldest
daughter of Zeus. I mean that the rules given to the
primitive fire-circle by the sire were probably the earliest and
the most stringent, though not yet sanctioned by a tabu or
a goddess.
Such a small circle, and not a promiscuous horde or
commune, I conceive, with Mr. Darwin and Mr. Atkinson,
to have been the earliest form of human society.
The book deals only with the institutions of races cer-
tainly totemistic, and mainly with the Australian and North
American tribes, which present totemism in the most archaic
of its sttrviving forms. But little is said, and that
tentatively, on the question as to whether or not the ancestors
of the great civilised peoples, ancient and modem, have
passed through the stage of totemic exogamy, as our evidence
is weak and disputable. Too late for citation in the body of
the book I read Mr. A. H. Keane's theory of the origin of
totemism.'
Mr. Keane's theory is much akin to my own as it
stood in Custom and Myth (1884) and to that of Garcilasso
de la Vega, the oldest of all. Garcilasso (1540-1616), an
Inca on the mother's side, describing the animal and plant
worship of the low races in the Inca Empire, says ' they only
thought of making one differ from another and each
from all.' ^ But it may be that he had not totemism in his
mind ; the passage is not too explicit.
' Mam, Past amd, Present, Cambridge, 1899, pp. 396, 397.
'^ Royal Comimenta/ries, i. 47.
X SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Mr. Keane says : ' And thus the family, the initial unit,
segments into a number of clans, each distinguished by its
totem, its name, its heraldic badge — which badge, becoming
more and more venerated from age to age, acquires inherited
privileges, becomes the object of endless superstitious practices,
and is ultimately almost deified. ... Its origin lies behind
all strictly religious notions, and it was at first a mere device
for distinguishing one individual from another, one family or
clan group from another.' Thus among the Piaroas of the
Orinoco below San Fernando de Atabapo the belief holds
that the tapir, originally the totem of the clan, has become
their ancestor, and that after death the spirit of every Piaroa
passes into a tapir ; hence they never hunt or eat this
animal, and they also think all the surrounding tribes are in
the same way each provided with their special animal fore-
father. It is easy to see how such ideas tend to cluster
round the clan ^ or family totem, at first a distinguishing
badge, later a protecting or tutelar deity of Protean form.
It should be remembered that the personal or family name
precedes the totem, which grows out of it, as seen by the
conditions still prevailing amongst the very lowest peoples
(Fuegians, Papuans of Torres Strait ^).''
I am indebted in various ways to assistance, chiefly in
the interchange of ideas, from Mr. A. C. Haddon, Mr. G. L.
Gomme, Miss Bume, and Mr. A. E. Crawley, author of
The Mystic Rose. Mr. Crawley kindly read the book, or
most of it, before publication, and collaborated most
efficiently in the way of suggesting objections. It is not
implied that any of these students accept the ideas of the two
authors. I regret that it has been found impossible to
wait for the publication of a new book by Mr. A. W. Howitt,
from which we may expect much new information.
The question of the relations of religion and totemism
is scarcely touched on in this work. A certain amount of
' The Import of the Totem, Amer. Ass., Detroit, 1897.
^ M. Chaffanjon, Tout du Monde, 1888, lyi. 348.
^ Ethnology, pp. 9, 11.
INTRODUCTION xi
regard is given to their totem animals and plants by some of
the Australian tribes, to the extent of not killing, plucking,
or eating them, except under stress of need, but even this
is not universal. There also exists, in some cases, a sense of
kinship with them. They ai-e not worshipped. That magic
is worked for their preservation and propagation, as by the
Arunta, proves nothing in the nature of a religious attitude
towards them. In my opinion this religious regard for the
totem does not appear till ancestor worship, which does not
occur in Australia, has made considerable advance and a
myth arises that an ancestral spirit or family god is
incarnate in the animal which originally was only a totem.
If so, totemism is not an element in the origins of religion,
but a field later invaded by religion.
On the other hand. Dr. Achelis, of Bremen, writes
that to savage man ' animals are his equals. To the ancient
worship of animals is added, under the influence of sym-
pathetic emotion, the worship of ancestors and totemism,
which sees in a beast worshipped as a god the ancestor of the
whole tribe.' ^ Clearly this sentence is replete with errors and
confusions. The whole tribe, in Australia, does not regard
any animal as its ancestor. No beast is worshipped as a god.
No ancestors are worshipped. If the animals are ' his equals,'
why did man worship them, and that apparently before the
worship of ancestors and totemism arose ? In an essay like
that of Dr. Achelis on Ethnology and Religion the facts
ought to be correctly ascertained.
I have been obliged to place in Appendix A certain facts
about group names derived from animals which came late to
hand, among them Mr. Robertson's interesting letter on
many such names in the Orkneys, and some remarks on
village names derived from animals among the ancient
Hebrews.
' The International Quarterly, Dec-March, 1902-1903, p. 321.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY
The family. Theory of Mr. Atkinson — Primitiveness in man— Kecent
history of the speciilation as to the early human family — What is
exogamy? DiflSculties of terminology — Totemism and exogamy
— Theories of exogamy. Mr. McLellan's theory — Mr. Crawley's
theory — Dr. Westermarck's theory — Mr. Morgan's theory — Return
to the author's theory 1
CHAPTER II
THE CLASS SYSTEM
The class system in Australia — The varieties of marriage divisions in
Australia — Mr. Fison on the great bisection — ' Primary classes 1 '
— The 'primary divisions ' are themselves totemic and exogamous
—The totem difficulty 35
CHAPTER III
/'TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES
American support of the author's hjrpothesis — Deliberate arrange-
ment — Totems all the way — Distribution of totems in the ' phra-
tries ' — The ideas of Mr. Frazer. His earlier theory — Objections
to Mr. Frazer's early theory — Mr. Spencer's theories of the bisec-
tion — Advantages of the system here proposed — The Arunta —
Arunta metaphysics — Arunta totem eating and traditions — Dr.
Durkheim on the Arunta — The relations of totems and 'phratries '
among the Arunta — Amnta myths — Mr. Spencer on Arunta legends 52
xiv SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER IV
ARUNTA PHRATRIES AND TOTEMS
PAGE
Views of Dr. Durklieim — How did the Aranta anomaly arise ? . .81
CHAPTER V
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES
' Group marriage ' — Mr. Morgan and the class system — Difficulties
of Mr. Morgan's theory — Mr. Morgan on terms of relationship —
How the terms of relationship originally arose — Supposed sur-
vivals of group marriage — Piraungaru and piraura — Growth of
social rules in the tribe — Group marriage and Mr. Tylor's statistics 87
CHAPTER VI
THE CHANGE OF CLASS AMONG THE NEW GENERATION
The system of Herr Cunow — Classes again 112
CHAPTER VII
THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY
Lord Avebury on totemism — Lord Avebury on the origin of totemism
— Communal marriage^Lord Avebury on relationships . .122
CHAPTER VIII
THE ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS
Sacred animals in savage society — Proposed restriction of the use of
the word ' totem ' — The word ' totem ' — The totem ' cult ' — ' Totem
gods ' — Savage speculations as to the origin of totemism — Modem
theories — Mr. Max Miiller's theory — The theory of Mr. Herbert
Spencer — Mr. Frazer's theories — Suggestion of Mr. N. W. Thomas
— Dr. WiUseu's theory — Miss Alice Fletcher's theory — Mr. Hill
Tout's theory — Messrs. Hose and McDougall — ^Mr. Haddon's theory
— An objection to all the theories enumerated — Statement of the
problem — The author's own conjecture — The connection between,
groups and totems — No ' disease of language ' — Hypothetical early
groups before totemism — How the groups got names — Illustration
CONTENTS XV
from folk-lore — How the names became known — Totemic and
other group names. English and North American Indian — Theory
that Siouan gentes names are of European origin .... 131
CHAPTER IX
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS
How the origin of totem names was forgotten — Other sources of
sacredness in plants and animals — Recapitulation — An objection
answered — Other objections answered — Totems and magical
societies — Totem survivals — Did the ancestors of the civilised
races pass through the Australian stage ? 176
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 Aus-
tralia — Eapid decay under European influences .... 209
CHAPTER II
SEXUAL KELATIONS 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 219
xvi SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER III
MAN VARYING FROM ANIMALS
PAGE
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 . . 226
CHAPTER IV
EARLIEST EVOLUTION OF LAW
Truce between semi-human sire and sou — Consequent distinction
taken between female and female, as such — Consequent rise of
habit of brother and sister avoidance^Result, son seeks female
mate from without — Note by the editor 234
CHAPTER V
AVOIDANCES
Results in strengthening the groups which admit several adult males
— Disappearance of hostile band of exiled young males — Relations
of sire and female mates of young males now within the group —
Father-in-law and daughter-in-law avoidance — Rights as between
two generations — Elder brother and younger brother's wife avoid-
ances — Note on hostile capture 241
CHAPTER VI
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE
Resemblance of semi-brutal group, at this stage, to actual savage tribe
— Resemblance merely superficial — In this hypothetical semi-
brutal group paternal incest survives — Causes of its decline and
extinction — The sire's widows of the group — Arrival of outside
suitors for them — Brothers of wives of the group — New comers
barred from marital rights over their daughters — Jealousy of their
vnves intervenes — Value of sisters to be bartered for sisters of
CONTENTS
another group discovered — Consequent resistance to incest of
group sire — Natural selection favours groups where resistance is
successful — Cousinage recognised in practice — Intermarrying sets
of cousins become phratries — Exceptional cases of permitted
incest in chiefs and kings — No known trace of avoidance between
father and daughter — Progress had rendered such law superfluous 250
CHAPTER VII
TRACES OF PERIOD OF TRANSITION AVOIDANCES
Survivals in custom testify to a long period of transition from group
to tribe — Stealthy meetings of husband and wife — Examples —
Evidence to a past of jealousy of incestuous group sire — Evidence
from teknonymy — Husband named as father of his child —
Formal capture as a symbol of legal marriage — Avoidance be-
tween father-in-law and son-in-law — Arose in stage of transition
— Causes of mother-in-law and son-in-law avoidance— Influence
of jealousy — Examples — Mr. Tylor's statistics — Resentment of
capture not primal cause of this avoidance — Note on avoidance . 264
CHAPTER Vm
THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM
The classificatory system — The author's theory is the opposite of Mr.
Morgan's, of original brother and sister marriage — That theory
is based on Malayan terms of relationship — Nephew, niece, and
cousin, all named ' sons and daughters ' — This fact of nomencla-
ture used as an argument for promiscuity — The author's theory —
The names for relationship given as regards the group, not the
in4ividual — The names and rules evolved in the respective
Interests of three generations — They apply to food as well as to
marriage — Each generation is a strictly defined class — Terms for
relationship indicate, Twt Mnskip, but relative seniority and
rights in relation to the group — The distinction of age in gene-
rations breaks down in practice — Methods of bilking the letter of
the law — Communal marriage — Outside suitors and cousinage —
The fact of cousinage unperceived and unnamed — Cousins are
still called brothers and sisters ; thus, when a man styles his
sister's son his son, the fact does not prove, as in Mr. Morgan's
theory, that his sister is his wife — Terms of address between
brothers and sisters — And between members of the same and of
different phratries — These corroborate the author's theory — Dis-
xviii SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
PAGE
tinction as to sexual rights yields the classificatory system-
Progress outran recognition and verbal expression— Errors of Mr.
Morgan and Mr. McLennan— Conclusion— Note— ' Group marriage ' "280
APPENDICES
A. ENGLISH, ORCADIAN, AND HEBREW VILLAGE SOBBiaUETS 295
B. THE BA KONGA TEEMS OF KELATIONSHIP . . . .301
^^"^'^ 303
SOCIAL OEIGINS
AND
PEIMAL LAW
CHAPTER I
THE EABLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY
THE FAMILY. THEORY OF MR. ATKINSON
The Family is the most ancient and the most sacred of
human institutions ; the least likely to be overthrown by
revolutionary attacks. In epochs of change the Family
naturally invites the attentions of impetuous reformers, like
Shelley (who advocated a scheme more than any other apt
to shock the conscience of a savage), and like the friends
of 'Free Love,' who would introduce a license beyond the
Urabunna model. The horror aroused by certain relations,
such as that of brother-and-sister marriage, is perhaps the
oldest of moral sentiments, yet it has lost its hold of some
barbaric races, and has been overcome by dynastic pride, as
in the Royal House of the Incas of Peru, and in that of
Egypt. While the Family, everywhere almost, has been
secured by a religious and aU but instinctive dread of certain
aberrations, the laws or customs which may not be broken
have varied in different lands, and in different stages of civili-
sation. What is incest in one age or country is innocent in
another ; still certain unions, varying in various regions, have
always been regarded with loathing. No such emotion is
2 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
known to be felt among the lower " animals, and scientific
ciu-iosity has long been busy with the question, why should
the least civilised of human races possess the widest list of
prohibited degi-ees ? What is the origin of the stringent la/ws
that, among naked and far fe-om dainty nomads, compel men
and wonien to seek their mates outside of certain large
^oups of real or imagined kindred ? The answers given to
this question have varied with the facts of savage law which
chanced to be at each moment accessible to inquirers, and all
attempts to solve the problem must be provisional. New
knowledge may upset even the most recent theory, and, indeed,
new knowledge of the rules of certain Australian tribes has
already produced fresh hypotheses, as regards certain aspects
of the problem.
The whole subject is thorny, and I must crave pardon
for venturing to differ, provisionally, on several important
points, from authorities whose learning, research, and ex-
perience far exceed my own. The facts which they have
collected from personal knowledge of savages, and from
reading, often group themselves otherwise in my eyes than
in theirs — the perspective is different. My observations,
therefore, are submitted to criticism with all diffidence.
Only the main lines of a complex discussion are here tra-
versed, and the\works cited are, as a rule, either by English-
speaking authors, or, at least, are sometimes accessible in
English translations. It will be seen that students have
differed greatly, not only from e^ch other, but, at different
times, from themselves, under the influence of new facts
brought in from the most remote and isolated of savage
races. One author is most interested in this, another in
that, factor of the problem. The difficulty of the subject
cannot be exaggerated ; for the origins of our human society
cannot be historically traced behind the institutions of the
races now lowest in the scale of cultm-e. We are di-iven to
risk hypotheses. Again, it is by no means certain that some
of these lowest peoples of to-day (say the Arunta of Central
Aastralia) represent a moment in the main current of the
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 3
stream of tendency, a point through which all progress has
passed. The ideas and institutions of such tribes may be
mere local ' sports,' other divergencies may have arisen in
other quarters, and it would be an error (repudiated by Mr.
McLennan, the founder of the study in England) to suppose
that, everywhere, exactly the same series of changes evolved
itself in due sequence. ' In one place or another everytliing
may have been going on,' I have heard Mr. McLennan
observe.
Once more, the subject is obscure because the races
apparently 'nearest the beginning,' the naked Australians,
houseless hunters, just emerging from the palaeolithic con-
dition as regards implements, are, as to society and system
of thought, very far from being ' primitive ; ' very remote
from 'the beginning.' Their social rules are various and
extremely complex, especially as regards marriage : some of
their social customs are perhaps inexplicable — a field for
modern guesswork — their speculative philosophy is, in one
instance, ingenious, elaborate, and highly peculiar. The
'beginning' lies far behind them, yet their society and
institutions may have their germs (on the Darwinian theory)
in a state of aU but complete brutality.
To trace human institutions back to that hypothetical
stage of first emergence from the brute is the purpose of the
following treatise, ' Primal Law,' by Mr. Atkinson. It were
superfluous for me to dwell on the audacity of his enterprise.
Of thoroughly human man we know k good deal : of the
brutes we know something. Of a hypothetical creature, not
wholly brute, but not yet 'articulate-speaking man,' we
know nothing, and as to the ways of his supposed next of
kin, 'the great extant anthropoid apes,' our knowledge is
vague, resting on the accounts of native observers. Such a
creature, however, half ape, half human, is in part the theme
of Mr. Atkinson's speculations, on which I venture to express
no opinion : as not being persuaded that man ever had such
a direct ancestor.
SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
PRIMITIVENESS IN MAN
As to men really primitive, and their social arrangements,
I only venture to conjecture that, in the nature of the case,
they probably lived a nomadic life, ' selecting a temporary
place of abode, whether a cave, rock, shelter, or hut,
influenced chiefly by the amount of edible materials to be
found in the neighbourhood.' ^ The area of the wandering
of each group of hearth-mates would be limited, probably, by
the existence of other groups, which would resent poaching.
A large trout may often be seen to turn angrily and drive
away a little trout that has ventured too near the bend of
the brook which the large trout finds a good station for flies ;
and human groups would also, as in cases to be cited they do,
mortally resent intrusions. I conceive that the males would
be polygamous (like the gorilla) and jealous, killing or
expelling the young males, as in the theories of Mr. Darwin
and Mr. Atkinson. Thus groups would, on the whole, be
hostile,^ ' wandering from one locality to another, now gather-
ing fruits and seeds, now hunting wild animals, or, as a last
resource, feeding on shell-fish and other produce of the shore.' ^
The implements now used by backward savages for fish-
catching, nets, spears, and barbed hooks, cannot be precisely
primitive. Primitiveness, we must remember, does not de-
pend on antiquity of date.
The Australians, though now their groups have coalesced
into local tribes in defined areas, and though their customary
law is extremely complex, are least remote from the primitive,
least remote, but very far removed. They are, though our
contemporaries, infinitely beneath the status in culture of
palaeolithic man of the mammoth and reindeer period. It is
not improbable that he had domesticated the ox, goat, pig,
horse, and dog. ' They manufactxored fine needles of bone,
' Dr. Munro, Arolimological Journal, vol. lix. no. 234, pp. 109-143.
( Tire &pa/rt, p. 1.) See also later, Hypothetical Early Oro^ips.
2 To this point, hostility, I return later.
" Dr. Munro, Archaiological Journal, vol. lix. no. 234.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 5
with which they sewed their skin garments. They adorned
their persons with a variety of beads . . .'' Their art was of
notorious and amazing excellence. Dr. Munro says that
they were ' ignorant of the rearing of domestic animals,' ^
but also that ' there seems to be no inherent improbability
in the idea that some of them ' (ox, goat, horse, pig, and dog)
' had been domesticated by the indigenous inhabitants prior
to the coming of the neolithic brachycephals into France.' ^
A palaeolithic sketch of a horse ' with a supposed cover,' and
another of a horse with a bridle,^ may be misinterpreted :
Dr. Munro thinks that the horse-cloth 'may be no more
than the hunter's skin coat thrown over the back of the
animal when led home by means of a halter made of thongs
or withes to be there slaughtered.' If palaeolithic man had
advanced as far as Dr. Munro supposes, it was a short step
to the domestication of the horse. It is hardly conclusive to
say that, if he had tamed the horse, ' we would undoubtedly
ere now have had an equestrian representation of the fact,'
though it is also said that ' we have only as yet a prelimi-
nary instalment of these most interesting art productions.' *
The representation may later be discovered. That palaeoli-
thic man, so far advanced as he was, was ' ignorant of the
principles of religion,'* seems a hasty conclusion. If he
had the beliefs of our Australians in such potent beings as
Baiame, Nooreli, Daramulun, Mungun-ngaur, Pirmaheal, and
Pimdjel, that belief would leave no material traces, except,
perhaps, the Bull-roarer, whose noise represents the voice of
one or other of these beings. Now a small but unmistakeable
pair of palaeolithic bull-roarers in bone, or of amulets which
are bull-roarers in miniature, one of them decorated with the
sacred Australian pattern of herring-bone and concentric
circles, have been found in a quaternary station in France."
Palaeolithic man in France, countless ages ago, was thus,
' Muaro, ArcIuBologwal Journal, vol. lix. no. 234, p. 22.
■' Ibid. p. 32. ' lUd. p. 18. ' lUd. p. 20. » lUd. p. 22.
« L'Anthropologie, Mars-Avril, 1902. For a brief bibliography of the
bull-roarer see Mr. Frazer, The OoUen BotigA, ili. pp. 423-4, note 1.
6 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
especially if he had domesticated animals, immensely more
remote from ' the beginning ' than contemporary wild Aus-
tralian tribes. They, again, with their copious languages,
ingenious implements, complex institutions, and prolonged
tribal assemblies, are infinitely in advance of those really
primitive men among whom we must tentatively seek the
origins of customary law regulating the family and marital
arrangements. A society almost incalculably ancient may
have been much more advanced than a society of to-day, and
the society of the lowest known modern savages must be
equally advanced from the status of ' primitive man.'
The best proof of aU that no Australians are now in or
near ' the chrysalis state ' of humanity, is to be found in their
combinations into large friendly tribes, each covering a wide
extent of country, and holding stated meetings, for social,
political, religious, and commercial purposes. Mr. Matthews
remarks on 'articles of barter,' exchanged 'at the great
meetings which were held for the initiation of the youths of
the tribes.' Among these articles were stone hatchets, first
chipped, then ground, the tribes having passed out of the
stage in which mere rude flaking sufficed. ' At the conclusion
of the ceremonies, before the people dispersed, a kind of fair
was held, when natives in whose country stone was plentiful,
would barter their things with other people for reeds for
making spears, rich plumage of birds, &c. . . or for any
other articles brought by the various tribes for the purpose
of exchange.' ^ We can scarcely conceive that this amount of
tribal or inter-tribal unity was possible to man really
primitive. Backward and conservative as the Australians
are, we must not expect to find among them, with their
highly complex customary laws, anything like the first
beginnings of social regulations. To look for these, even
among the naked and houseless hunters of Australia, is to
organise failure in this research as to origins.
' Jonmal and Proceedings Royal Society N.S. W., vol. xxviii. p. 305.
See also Roth, EtliTwlogioal Studies, pp. 132-138. 1897.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 7
RECENT HISTORY OF THE SPECULATION AS TO
THE EARLY HUMAN FAMILY
From the age of Aristotle onwards, inquirers naturally
began with a belief in the Patriarchal Family as the original
social unit. To this opinion, in a peculiar form, Mr. Atkin-
son returns, as will be seen. The idea was natural. Aristotle,
like Hesiod, starts from ' the Man, the Woman, and the
labouring ox,' though men and women were wedded long
before oxen and other animals were domesticated. The
Biblical accoimt in Genesis opens with the same theory of the
primal pair, whose children, brother and sister, must have
married each other, as in the late Mr. Morgan's hjrpothesis of
the ' Consanguine Family ; ' but, contrary to almost imiversal
savage custom, and to Mr. Atkinson's ' Primal Law.'
In 1861, Sir Henry Maine's celebrated book, ' Ancient
Law,' appeared. Herein he wrote that it was difficult to say
' what society of men had not been originally based on the
Patriarchal Family.'^ His studies had lain chiefly in the
law of civilised peoples, Romans, Hebrews, Greeks, Irish,
and Hindoos ; not in the customary law of the lowest races.
He, like Mr. Freeman, concluded that the patriarchal family,
by aggregation of descendants (and aided by adoption ot
outsiders, and by the ownership of the family by its Head),
formed the gens, while the aggregation of gentes formed the
tribe, and the aggregation of tribes made the State. But,
as the gentes had traditions contrary to this theory, traditions
of separate origins, he supposed that ' the incoming populace
should feign themselves to be deduced from the same
stock as the people on whom they were engrafted.' Thus we
know that McUlrigs (Kennedys) of Galloway joined the
remote Macdonnells of Moidart and Glengarry, and wore the
Macdonnell tartan ^ (1745-1760), and so might come to pass
' Anaient Lam, p. 132.
■•' Major Kennedy's portrait of 1750-1760 represents him in Macdonnell
tartan. He was an agent of Prince Charles.
8 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
as Macdonnells, though they still regard the Marquis of
Ailsa, a Kennedy, as their chief, at least in Eilean Shona
(Loch Moidart). In the same way the Camerons of Glen
Nevis, though called ' Camerons,' were really MacSorlies, a
branch of the Macdonnells, and from the sixteenth century
to 1754 were always on ill terms with the chief of the clan
Cameron, Lochiel. These are very modem instances, but
illustrate Sir Henry's theory of incomers.
The members of the Roman tribes had traditions that they
were not, really, of the same original blood with each other.
Only by a fiction were they of the same blood. They did not
all descend by natm-al increase from one patriarchal ancestor.
There really did exist ' a variety of alien groups in a local
tribe,' however they might all adopt the same name, and
assert descent, in West Scotland from Somerled, let us say.
This fact, of heterogeneousness within the 'tribe' among
others, was so obvious and so imperfectly explained, by
friends of the Patriarchal theory, that it occupied ' writers
belonging to the school of so-called prehistoric inquiry,'
as Sir Henry styled it.^ They were not satisfied with
the theory that Society arose in the Patriarchal Family,
based on direct descent from, and ownership by, a single
male ancestor. To be sure a Cameron will ' cross the hill,'
and call himself Stewart, and a Chinese immigrant into
Australia has discreetly entitled himself Alexander Mac-
gDlivray. But such accretions, and such legal fictions, do not
explain the heterogeneousness of the local tribe, which, by
the theory of some historians, is of common descent. ' Pre-
historic inquirers' could not but notice that, among ruder
' non-Aryan ' races of various degrees of culture, ' the family
is radically difterent from the Patriarchal Family,' and
suggests a different origin.
Roughly speaking, the groups of real or fancied kindred
among various low races exhibit the peculiarity that the
kin-name is often inherited from the mother, not from the
father ; that the maternal blood is stronger in determining
' Early History of Inditutions, pp. 310, 311.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 9
such cases of inheritance as arise ; and that marriage is
forbidden within the recognised limits of the maternal kin-
ship. It was natural for inquirers to derive this condition
of affairs, this reckoning in the female line, from a stMe of
society in which fatherhood (owing to promiscuity, or to
polyandry — several husbands to one wife) was notably un-
certain. Bachofen, who first examined the problem, at-
tributed the system to a supposed period of the Supremacy
of Women : McLennan to dubious fatherhood, and possible
early promiscuity. The recovery of supremacy by men, or
the gradual advance in civilisation, especially in accumulation
of property, would finally cause descent to be reckoned
through the male line, as among ourselves.
As to the question of early promiscuity— sexual relations
absolutely unregulated — Dr. Westermarck, Mr. Crawley, and
others have argued, and Mr. Atkinson argues, that it never
existed, at least to any wide extent, and with any potent
influence. We hear rumours of savages utterly promiscuous,
say the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, just as we hear
of savages utterly without religion. But later and better
evidence proves that the Andamanese have both wives and a
God.i
Again, the lowest savages known are so far not ' promis-
cuous,' that they recognise certain sets of women as persons
with whom (as a general rule, subject to occasional exceptions)
certain sets of men must have no marital relations. It was the
opinion of Mr. Darwin, as of Mr. Atkinson, that sexual
jealousy, from the first, must probably have been a bar to
absolute promiscuity, even among the hjrpothetical anthropoid
ancestors of human race. To tell the truth, our evidence on
these points, as to existing savages, is, as usual, contradic-
tory.^
' Westermarck, Sistory of Humam, Marriage, pp. 53-57.
^ Mr. John Mathew declares that ' jealousy is a powerful passion with
most ahoriginal husbands ' in Australia. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, on
the other hand, represent the aboriginal husband as one of the most
complacent of his species, jealousy being regarded as ' churlish.' Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen are decidedly the better authorities. Mathew, Jour.
10 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
WHAT IS EXOGAMY ? DIFFICULTIES OF
TERMINOLOGY
In these inquiries a great source of confusion arises (as
all students must be aware) from the absence of exact termi-
nology, of technical terms with a definite and recognised
meaning. Thus when my friend, the late Mr. John Fergus
McLennan, introduced the word ' Exogamy,' in ' Primitive
Marriage ' (1865), he probably knew perfectly well what he
meant. But he did not then, from lack of practice in an
inquiry practically novel, and originated by himself, express
his meaning with exactness. He at first spoke of exogamy
as the rule ' which prohibited marriage within the tribe.' '
But the word ' tribe ' was later taken by Mr. McLennan to
mean, and is now used as meaning, what cannot be a primitive
community, a local aggregate of groups amicably occupying
a considerable area of comitry ; say the Urabunna tribe of
Central Australia. Mr. McLennan did not wish to say that
exogamy forbids an Urabunna tribesman to marry an
Urabunna tribeswoman ; he meant that exogamy prohibited
marriage within the recognised kindred — that is, in this case,
between members of totem kindreds of the same name, say
Emu or Kangaroo.. This fact he later made perfectly clear.
But meanwhile such terms as ' horde,' ' tribe,' ' sub-tribe,'
' family,' ' gens,' ' section,' ' phratria,' ' clan,' many of them
derived from civilised classical or Celtic usage, have been
tossed up and down, in company with ' class,' ' division,'
' section,' and so on, in a way most confusing.^ Odd new
terms come from America, such as ' socialry,' ' tutelaries,'
' ocular consanguinity,' ' ethnogamy,' ' conjugal conation,'
Roy. Soe. N.S.W., xxiii. 404. Westermarck, p. 57. Native Tribes of
Central Australia, p. 99.
' Studies in Ancient History, 1876, p. 41.
'' The late Major Powell, of the American Bureau of Ethnology, used
gens of a totem kin with descent in the male line, olan of such a kin with
descent in the female line, and his school follows him. Mr. Howitt, on the
other hand, uses ' horde ' for a local community with female, ' clan ' for a
local community with male descent.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 11
and so forth.^ Most perplexing it; is to find words like clan,
family, tribe, geixs, phratry, words peculiar to civilised
peoples, Greek, Roman, or Celtic, applied to the society of
savages. « The term " clan " implies descent in the female
line,' says the late Mr. Dorsey, following Major Powell ; but
why take the Celtic tei-m ' clan,' which has no such significa-
tion, and confer it on what is reaUy a totem kindred with
descent in the female line .? ^ Next, ' several of the Siouan
tribes are divided into two, and one into three sub-tribes.
Other tribes are composed of phratries, and each sub-tribe or
phratry comprises a number of gentes.^ Is there a distinction
between the ' sub-tribes ' of some tribes, and the ' phratries '
of others, or not ? Apparently there is not, but the method
of nomenclature is most confusing.
I shall understand the terms which I employ, as follows :
The tribe, speaking of the Australians, for instance, is a
large aggregate of friendly or not hostile human groups,
occupying a territory of perhaps a hundred square miles, and
holding councils and meetings for social and religious
purposes. It is so far ' endogamous ' that its members maz/
marry within it — that is to say, it is no more endogamous
than the parish of Marylebone. An Urabunna man, a man
of the Urabunna tribe, may marry an Urabunna woman — if
no special native law interferes. He may also at pleasure
marry, out of his tribe, say a woman of the neighbouring
Arunta tribe, again, if no special law bars the arrangement.
So far the tribe, the large local aggregate of groups, stands
indiiferent. But, within the tribe, there are laws barring
marital intercourse. First, each tribe is usually composed of
two ' primary exogamous divisions,' or ' phratries,' so called ;
in the case of some tribes the phratries are named ; for example,
Matihurie and Kirarawa. Every man and woman, in such
tribes, is either a Matthurie or a Kirarawa, and can only marry
' ' The Seri Indians,' by W. J. McGee. Report of Btvreau of American
Mhnology, Washington, 1898.
''■ ' Siouan Sociology,' Report of Amerioan Etlmological Bureau, 1897,
p. 213.
12 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
into the opposite division, and the children follow the name of
the mother. These two divisions are called ' primary classes ■"
by some students ; ' phratrias ' (from the Greek (ppaTpta) by
others; 'sub-tribes' by others; or, again, 'moieties,' or
'groups.' I shall, in each instance, use the term ('class,'
' phratria,' ' moiety,' ' primary exogamous division,' ' group,'
and the like) employed by the author whose opinion I am
discussing, though I prefer 'phratry,' as ' class' has another
significance ; so has ' group,' &c.
Again, the tribe contains a number of totem kindreds
(often called ' clans ' or gentes, rather at random), that is,
of sets of kin deriving their names from totems, plants,
animals, or other objects in nature. To the possible origin
of Totemism we return in a separate section. No Urabunna
man may marry a woman of his own ' phratry,' nor of his own
totem, and the children inherit the phratry and totem names
from the mother. Finally, there are sets of relationships,
roughly indicating, it would seem, seniority by generations,
and degrees of actual or supposed kindred. Within many
of these, which I shall style ' classes ' (they have other terms
applied to them), marriage is forbidden. Thus there are
bars of three several sorts on the intermarrying of an Ura-
bunna man with an Urabunna woman. In a way, there are
three grades of exogamous prohibitions.
Mr. McLennan, who introduced the word ' exogamy,'
defined it thus : ' an exogamous marriage is a marriage
between persons of different clans of kinship, not entered into
fortuitously, but because of law declaring it to be incest
for a man to marry a woman of his own clan.' ^ The
same community cannot be 'both exogamous and endoga-
mous,' as some suppose. Thus Lord Avebury writes, ' some
races which are endogamous as regards the tribe, are yet
exogamous as regards the gens.' But really ' exogamy is the
law prohibiting marriage between persons of the same blood
or stock as incest — often under pain of death — and endogamy
is the law prohibiting marriage except between persons of
' Studies in Ancient History, second series, ^. 265.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 13
the same blood or stock.' ' In Mr. McLennan's sense I shall
take the word ' exogamy,' while dealing with peoples appar-
ently nearest the beginning.
Later, when descent in the male line is established, the
prohibition on marriage within the totem name comes to
apply, sometimes, to marriage within the local district held by
the men of the name. The old prohibition, we see, is to marry
within the recognised limit of the blood kinship, or stock,
designated by the totem name. But, as tribes advance to
kinship through males, and as, thereby, groups of one totem
name come to possess one region of country, it often happens
that exogamy prohibits marriage between persons dwelling
in that region. Whereas Grouse was forbidden to marry
Grouse ; later, the Grouse living together, say in Corradale,
the exogamous prohibition takes the shape 'persons dwell-
ing in Corradale must marry out of Corradale.' The name
marking the exogamous limit is now, in such cases, local, but
the prohibition is derived from the older tabu on marriage
between ' persons of the same blood or stock ' — all those in
Corradale being conceived to share the same blood or stock.
This origin of ' local exogamy ' must be kept in mind, other-
wise confusion will arise. There are a few cases, even in
Australia, where even local exogamy has become obsolete,
and marriage, as with ourselves, is prohibited between persons
of near kindred simply.
Now, if I may venture to interpret the mind of Mr. John
Fergus McLennan, I conceive that he regarded the totemic
division as older than the ' phratry ' or the ' class ' bar, and he
thought it the oldest traceable exogamous limit. Not to
marry within the totem name (no male Emu to marry
a female Emu) was, in Mr. McLennan's opinion, the most
archaic marriage law.^ This appears from the words of
' Studies m Ancient History, second series, p. 46. In an appendix to Mr.
Morgan's Ancient Society, Mr. McLennan's terms are severely criticised.
^ I shall call each set indicated by a totem name a ' totem group,' if
the members live together ; a ' totem kin,' if they are scattered through the
tribe.
14 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Mr. McLennan's brother, Mr. Donald McLennan.^ He
writes : ' As the theory of the Origin of Exogamy took shape,
and the facts connected reduced themselves to form in his
mind, the conclusion was reached that the system conveniently
called " Totemism "... must have existed in rude societies,
prior to the origin of Exogamy.^ This carried back the
origin of Totemism to a state of mind in which no idea of
incest existed. From that condition my brother hoped to
trace the progress of Totemism — necessarily a progress up-
wards — in connection with kinship and Exogamy. It may
here be said that he had for a time a hypothesis of the origin
of Totemism, but that he afterwards came to see that there
were conclusive reasons against it.'
Meanwhile may we not, then, assume that, in Mr.
McLennan's opinion, the earliest traceable human aggregate
within which matrimony was legally forbidden was the totem
kin, indicated by the totem name, the totem tabu, and the
totem badge, or symbol — where it existed ?
We now see how heterogeneous elements came to exist in
the tribe of locality, a puzzle to the friends of the theory of
the Patriarchal Family. For the nature of totemism, ^Zjm
exogamy and female descent, is obviously such that under
totemism, each family group even (each ' fire circle ' of men,
wives, and children), must contain persons of different totems.
The father and mother must be of different totems (persons
of the same totem not intermarrying), and the children must
inherit the totem either of the father or of the mother.^
When paternal kinship is not only recognised (as, in
practical life, it always is), but becomes exclusive in its
influence on customary law, and when an approach to the
Patriarchal Family, with the power of the patriarch, is
evolved, all the members of the family in all its branches
will (if Totemism persists) have the same totem ; derived
' The Patriar(Aal Theory, pp. 6, 7, 1885.
* Meaning by Exogamy, not a mere tendency to marry out of the group,
but a customary law with a religious sanction.
' Here the unusual case of the Arunta offers an exception to the rule ■
a point to be discussed later
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 15
from the father. Thus there will now be a local totem
group, a group mainly of the same totem name, as is practi-
cally the case in parts of Central Australia.^
It is necessary to xmderstand this clearly. Take a very
early group, in a given district ; suppose it, at first, to be
anonymous, and let it later be called the Emu group. So
far, all members of the group will be Emus, they will form
an Emu local group. But, next, suppose that there are many
neighbouring groups, also at first anonymous ; let them later
be styled Rat, Cat, Bat, Sprat. Suppose that each such
group now (for reasons to be indicated later) takes its wives
not from within itself, but from all the other groups ; that
these women bring into the Emu group their group names ;
and that their children inherit their names from their mothers.
Then the name, ' Emu group, 'will cling to that local aggre-
gate, as such ; but, in time, the members of the Emu group will
all be, say, Rats, Cats, Bats, and Sprats, so called from the
group-names of their alien mothers. Suppose that, for one
reason or another, children at last come to inherit their
names and totems from their fathers. Then a Cat father
will have Cat children, though his wives may still be of dif-
ferent totems, and his sons' children will also be Cats, and so
the local group will become mainly, if not wholly, a group of
one totem, the Cat. The Arimta of Central Australia do trace
kinship in the male line, and thus there is ' one area which
belongs to the Kangaroo men, another to Emu men, another
to Hakea flower men,' and so on. This has reached such a
pitch that ' in speaking of themselves the natives will refer to
these local groups,' not by the prevalent totem names in each,
but ' by the name of the locality which each of them inhabits,'
namely, as men of the Iturkawura camp, and so on.^ Thus
we might say ' the Glen Nevis men,' ' the Corradale men,' and
so on.
Thus we begin with an anonymous group, or group of
imknown name, a local group. We introduce Totemism,
and that group becomes a local group with a totem name.
> Spencer and Gillen, pp. 8-10. " lUd. pp. 8-9.
16 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Granting exogamy (prohibition of marriage within the group),
and reckoning in the female line, it soon developes into a
local group made up of various totems, but, at first, as a
local group, it probably retains its original totem name among
its neighbom-s. Reckoning, still later, through the male line,
we again meet, as at first, a local totem group, but already
Totemism is on the wane, and the groups are soon to be called
by the territorial names of their lands. At this stage totem
names are tending to decay, and the next step will probably
be to style the group by the name of some remembered, or
mythical, male ancestor, such as ' children of Donald ' —
Macdonalds.
Thus if, at a given time, the name of a certain male
ancestor is substituted, as ' eponymous,' for the totem name,
or the district name, we shall find a local group of, say, Sons
of Donald, into which other groups. Sons of Sorlie, or Ulrig,
will enter, as occasion serves, and be more or less absorbed.
A State may at last arise, say, ' Sons of Israel.'
We are not assuming, however, that all human societies
have passed through the totemistic and exogamous stages.
TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY
But what was the original unit, the totem group, or other
division outside of which alone could marriages be arranged ?
And why was the totem name the limit ? Returning to
Mr. Donald McLennan's account of the opinions which his
brother did not live to set forth, Totemism arose ' in a state
of man in which no idea of incest existed.' On this theory,
I presume, there would be totem groups before exogamy
arose ; before it was reckoned ' incest ' to marry within
the totem name. This, as we shall see, appears to be some-
times the opinion of the best Australian authorities, Messrs.
Fison and Howitt, and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. It is
also the theory of Arunta tradition. The totem belief, as
it now exists, imposes many tabus : you may not (as a rule)
kill, eat, or use the plant or animal which is your totem ;
still less perhaps, in the long run, may you ' use,' sexually, a
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 17
woman of your totem. If this, or a kindred totem tabu, is
the origin of exogamy, then to exogamy (as a law, though
not necessarily as a tendency) the totem is prior in time.
But I have no reason to suppose that Mr. McLennan ever
regarded the totem tabu as the origin of exogamy. In his
published works he offers another theory, not commonly
accepted.
But the important thing to note is that exogamy may
conceivably (contrary to Mr. McLennan's opinion, but in
accordance with that of Mr. Atkinson) have existed, or
rather tended to exist, before totems arose ; much more, then,
previous to the evolution of totem flames, of totem tabu,
and of the idea of incest, as a sin, or mystic misdeed, and as
an offence to the totem — a religious offence to God, or to
ancestral spirits. Persons may have been forbidden to marry
within their local group, their ' fire circle ' before that group
had a totem, or a totem name, and they may have been for-
bidden for reasons piu-ely secular, to which the totem later
lent a sanction, and a definite limit. Thus Mr. Tylor, our
most sagacious guide in all such problems, writes ' Exogamy
can and does exist without Totemism, and for all we know
was originally independent of it.' '
It is part of my argument that exogamous tendencies, at
least — that is, a habit of seeking female mates outside of the
fire-circle — ^may very well have prevailed before any human
group had even a totemic name. But exogamous tendencies are
not, of coiu-se, the same thing as exogamy strictly defined, and
sanctioned by religious or superstitious fear, and by secular
penalties inflicted by the tribe. Against the notion that
exogamy may have been prior to Totemism, Mr. Robertson
Smith argued that very early man would not be restrained
from marriages by such an abstract idea as that of kindred —
' not to marry your near kin ' — while the idea of kindred was
still fluid, and not yet crystallised around the totem name.^
But, without thinking of kindred by blood, perhaps without
' ' Remarks on Totemism,' Jmr. Anthrop. Inst., August, November, 1898.
2 Ximhvp in Early Arabia, p. 187.
C
18 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
recognising consanguinity (though it must have been
recognised very soon), early man may have decided that
' thou shalt not marry within this local group or crowd, of
which I am head.' Nothing abstract in that ! There was
no tribal law — there were as yet (I suppose) no tribes— only
the will of the head of each small set of people practically en-
forced exogamy.
We can have no certainty on this point, for we know of
no pre-totemic race, no people who certainly have not yet
entered into the totemic stage. Any such people, probably,
in the remote past, had no idea of incest as a sin, or of
exogamy as a law sanctioned by a tabu. But they may
have, at least, had a strong tendency to marry outside of the
circle of the hearth, the wandering hearth of homeless nomads
ranging after food.
The reader of Mr. Atkinson's treatise will find that this
kind of exogamy — marriage outside the local group — would,
on his theory, be the rule, even when no idea of blood
kindred, or of incest as a sin, need have arisen ; and no totem,
or anything else, had yet been named. The cause of the pro-
hibition would, in Mr. Atkinson's opinion, be the sexual
jealousy of the hjrpothetical patriarchal anthropoid male
animal ; and, later, the sexual jealousy of his adult male off-
spring, and of the females. Still later the group, already in
practice exogamous, would accept the totem name, marking
off the group from others, and the totem name, snipe,
wolf, or what not, would become, for the time, the exogamous
limit. No man and woman of the same totem name could
intermarry. Still later, a myth of kinship with the totem
would arise, and would add the religious sanction of a
tabu.
A prohibition may perhaps have arisen very early, even
if Mr. Atkinson's hypothesis (that the rule of marriage out-
side the group arose in a state of brutality) be rejected.
' The origin of bars to marry is, in fact, complex,' writes Mr.
Crawley. A dislike of man-iage with a group-mate, familiar,
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 19
through contiguity, from infancy, may have been developed
among early men ; '^ and may have been reinforced by the
probably later superstitions which create ' sexual tabu,' and
mutual avoidance, among many existing peoples. Men and
women are, by savages, conceived to be mysteriouslj' perilous
to each other, especially when they live in close contiguity.
Mr. Crawley also allows for Mr. Atkinson's main factor,
jealousy, ' proprietary feeling, which is one crude means by
which the family has been regulated and maintained.' ^ If
these things were so (whether we go back to Mr. Atkinson's
semi-brutal ancestors, or not), then, contrary to Mr. Donald
McLennan's opinion, and to general opinion, it would not
' appear to be possible to demonstrate that Totemism preceded
exogamy,' or at least preceded the exogamous tendency. For,,
in the first place, exogamy might conceivably tend to arise
before the explicit idea of kinship— whether male or female —
arose. Mr. Atkinson's ' primal law ' would be unuttered in
speech (speech, by his theory, there was none), but would
amount to this : ' I, the patriarchal bull of this herd, will do
my best to kill you, the adult young bulls, if you make any
approaches to any of the cows in this crowd.' There is no
notion of ' incest,' but there is jealousy, producing the germ
of exogamy. The young bulls must find mates outside of
the local herd — or do without. This rule persisted, on Mr.
Atkinson's theory, till the hypothetical anthropoid became a
man, and named his group (or had it named for him, as I
later suggest) by a totem name.
But real human and speaking beings might enforce mar-
riage outside of the group, though they did not perhaps
think explicitly of kindred (or, at least, did not think the idea
fully out), stiU less of ' incest,' as sin. Mr. McLennan's
theory, as given in his works, was partly identical with that
of Mr. Atkinson. ' The earliest human groups can have had
no idea of kinship ' — they must, therefore, have been rather
' But, as Dr. Durkheim says, man and wife might soon abandon each
other, if familiarity breeds contempt.
2 Journal of the Anthropologieal Imtitute, May, 1895, p. 444.
c2
20 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
low savages. ' But,' he said, ' they were held together by a
feelmg of kinship,' not yet risen into explicit consciousness.
Cat and kitten have, probably, &Jeeling of kinship, and that
feeling is very strong, while it lasts, in the maternal cat, while
between semi-human mothers and children, arriving so very
slowly at matmity, mother-kin must have been consciously
realised very early. Mr. McLennan then showed the stages
by which the savage would gradually, by reflection, reach
explicit consciousness of female kinship, of mother-relation-
ship, sister and brother relationship, and all the degrees of
female kin.
But Mr. Fison and others have argued powerfully against
i;his theory. '^ Moreover, we find male relationships, as we
saw — ' descent counted in the male line ' — among the Arunta
of Central Australia, whom Mr. J. G. Frazer regarded, in
1899, as actually ' primitive ; ' while the neighbours of the
Arunta, the Urabunna, reckon through the female line.*
Mr. Crawley, for various reasons, says, 'the famous Matri-
archal theory' (the prepotency and dominion of women)
' was as exaggerated in its early forms as was the Patriarchal.
. . . It is a method of tracing genealogy, more convenient in
polygamous societies and more natural in primitive times
when the close connection of mother and child during the
early days of infancy emphasises the relation.' ^ Dr. Wester-
marck argues to a similar effect.'' His motive is to discredit
the theory of promiscuity, and consequent uncertainty of
fatherhood, as the cause of reckoning on the spindle side.
But the Arunta, who reckon on the sword side, actually do
not even know that children are the result of sexual inter-
course, according to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. How they
can have any idea of blood-kinship at all is, therefore, the
mystery. It may perhaps be argued that they have none.
But these ignorant Arunta reckon descent through the male
' Kamila/roi and Kurnai, p. 132. 1880.
^ Spencer and Gillen, p. 70. Frazer, Fortnightly Hevierv, April, May,
1899.
3 The Mystic Rose, p. 460. * History of Human Marriage, pp. 105-113.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 21
line — while the Royal Plots, in early Scotland, infinitely
more civilised, reckoned by the female line.
For myself, I still incline to the opinion ' that the
reckoning of descent through the woman is the more archaic
method, and the method that, certainly, tends to dwindle
and disappear, as at last it did among the Picts. This
applies to human society, not to that of Mr. Atkinson's
hypothesis, in which the question is not of kin, but of pro-
perty. ' Every female in my crowd is my sole property,'
says — or feels — Mr. Atkinson's patriarchal anthropoid, and
the patriarch gives expression to his sentiment with teeth
and claws, if he has not yet learned to double up his fistj
with a stone in it. ' These were early days.'
THEORIES OF EXOGAMY. MR. McLENNAN's THEORY
In any case, Mr. McLennan's hypothetical first groups,
like Mr. Atkinson's, were very low indeed. They developed
exogamy, not (as in Mr. Atkinson's theory) through sexual
jealousy on the part of the sires, but, first, through regular
female infanticide. This practice, being reasonable, could
not prevail among Mr. Atkinson's anthropoids.^ Girl
babies being mostly killed out, women became scarce.
Neighbouring groups being hostile, brides could only be pro-
cured by hostile capture. Each group thus stole all its
brides and became exogamous, and marriage inside the
group became a sin, by dint of ' a prejudice strong as a
principle of religion.'
This theory of Mr. McLennan's is, I think, quite unten-
able. The prevalence of female infanticide, at the supposed
very early stage of society, is not demonstrated, and did not
seem probable to Mr. Darwin. Even if it existed, it could
not create a prejudice against marrying the few women left
within the group. Mr. McLennan, unhappily, was pre-
vented by bad health, and death, from working out his
> Tylor, /. A. I. xviii. 3, 254.
' The practice however, is attributed to tame canary birds.
22 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
hypothesis completely. His most recent statement involves
the theory that the method of the Nairs of Malabar, living
in polyandrous households (many men to each woman) was
the earliest form of ' marriage.'' But people who, like the
Nairs, dwell in large households, are far indeed from being
'primitive.' 'A want of balance between the sexes' ledj
Mr. McLennan held, to ' a practice of capturing women
for wives,' and was followed by ' the rise of the law of
exogamy.' The first prohibition would be against capturing
women of the kindred (marked by the totem), for such
capture, if resisted, might involve the shedding of kindred
blood. Women being scarce, through female infanticide,
kindred groups would not give up or sell their women to
each other (though to the males of the groups, such women
could not be wives), nor could women be raided from kindred
groups, as we saw. So they would be stolen from alien
groups, ' and so marriages with kindred women would tend
to go into desuetude.' The introduction of captured alien
wives would change the nature of matrimonial relations.
Under the Nair system ' a woman would live in the house of
her mother, and under the special guardianship and pro-
tection of her brothers and her mother's brothers. She would
be in a position of almost absolute independence of her
husbands. . . .'
But really pristine man and woman can have had no
houses, no matriarchal rule of women. The Nairs, not being
primitive, have houses, and their women have authority :
pristine man was not in their condition. However, captured
alien wives would, Mr. McLennan argues, be property, be
slaves ; and men would find this arrangement (now obsolete)
so charming that polyandry and the reign of woman would
go out. The only real legal marriage would be wedlock
with an alien, a captive, a slave woman. Marriage with a
woman of the same stock would be a crime and a sin. It
would be incest.^ Really it would be, at worst, concubinage.
This theory seems untenable at every point, community
' Studies in Ancient History, second series, pp. 57-85.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 23
of wives, female infanticide, household life, supremacy of
women in the household, living -grith a non-captive wife
reckoning as incest, and, in short, all along the line. Even
if the prejudice against marrying native women did exist, it
coiald not be developed into the idea of sin — granting that
the idea of sin ah-eady existed. To be sinful, endogamy
within the group must have offended some superstitious
belief, perhaps the belief in the totem, with its tabu.'
MR. CRAWLEY S THEORY
To disengage from his learned book. The Mystic Rose
(1902), Mr. Crawley''s theory of the origin of exogamy is no
easy task. He strongly insists on the ' religious ' element in
all early human thought, and as in ' religion ' he includes
the vague fears, misgivings, and ideas of ' luck,' which haunt
even the least religious of modern men, we may say that
' religion,'' in this sense, mingles with the thought of all ages.
The present writer, like Dr. Johnson, is an example of the
' religious ' character, and of Mr. Crawley's remark that
'human nature remains potentially primitive.' To the
' religious ' man or woman (using ' religious ' in this sense)
the universe is indeed a thing of delicate poise, and may
' break, and bring down death,' if we walk under a ladder,
or spill the salt, or enter a doorway with the wrong foot fore-
most, or fail to salute a magpie, or the new moon. The
superstitious anthropologist, of course, knows that all these
apprehensions of his are utterly absurd, but the savage is
careful and troubled about them. The Philistine, on the
other hand, is proud of his conquest of these airy terrors : he
' cannot imagine what people mean by such nonsense,' and,
exactly so far as he is sincere, he cannot comprehend early
mankind.
Now, as to exogamy, our difficulty is to understand why
breach of the rule against certain marriages is, everywhere,
so deadly a sin : so black an offence against ' religion.' Mr.
' Cf. Cnstom and Mytli (A. L.), p. 258.
24 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Crawley's explanation is not, perhaps, easily to be disengaged
from the mass of his work, but it begins in his appreciation
of the BsiatSaifiovia of early men, their ever-present sense
of ' religious ' terrors. ' Thus all persons are potentially
dangerous to others, as well as potentially in danger . . . ."
This sense of peril arises ' in virtue simply of the distinction
between a man and his fellows.' Much more, then, are
women dangerous to men, and men to women, the sexes being
so distinct from each other. We know that the most extra-
ordinary precautions are taken to avoid contact with women
in certain circumstances, and a well-known story of Sir John
MandeviUe's is only one case of the fact that the bridegrooms
of some races, from a superstitious terror, insist on being made
cocus en herhe. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen give the instance of
' the marriage ceremony ' (an odious brutality) among the
Arunta of Central Australia.^ It is perhaps intended to
deliver the bridegroom from a peril imagined by superstition
(as in Mandeville's tale) ; ' and, without it, the Australian
would resemble the man derided in the old Scottish song :
The Bridegroom grat when the sun gaed doon.
Thus a ' religious ' dread attaches among savages (the
theory holds) to all marriages ; all are novelties, new steps in
life, and therefore are so far ' sinful ' that they involve a
peril, vague but awful, the creation of superstition. Marri-
ages contrary to the exogamous rule, are only especially and
inexplicably bad cases of the ' sin ' — that is, mystic danger — of
marital relations in general, as I understand Mr. Crawley.
Marriage ceremonies of every kind are devised to avoid ' sin,'
as our Marriage Service candidly states, using ' sin ' in the
Christian sense of the word. But there are savage marriages,
those forbidden by the law of exogamy, which, as a general
rule, no ceremony can render other than sinful. So great
and terrible is the danger of such marriages — namely, among
• Mystic Rose, p. 31. '' Spencer and Gillen, pp. 92-93.
' Lord Avebury's view that the ' rite ' implies compensation to the
other males of the community will be considered later.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 25
many savages, between persons of the same totem, that it
threatens the whole community, just as the marriage of
Charles I. with a Catholic bride caused the Plague, according
to the Rev. Mr. Row, and therefore such unions are punished
by the death penalty, and are but seldom left to the auto-
matic vengeance of the tabu. Foremost in this black list of
sins are the unions of brothers and sisters of the full blood,
though, we must remember, these are not more heavily
punished than marriage between a man and woman of the
same totem, even if the pair come together from opposite
ends of the continent, and are not blood relations at all.
Why is this ?
As I understand Mr. Crawley, the sexes, in savagery,
avoid each other's society in everyday life, partly from
' sexual tabu ' — the result of the superstitions already
indicated ; partly because of ' sexual solidarity,'' perhaps
even" of ' sexual antipathy.' In fact, men and women are
often very much in each other's way. We do not want
women in our clubs and smoking-rooms — nor do savages —
and we despise a man who lurks in drawing-rooms when his
fellows are out of doors ; a man who is a pillar of luncheon
parties and of afternoon tea. But this separation of the
sexes is especially rigid between the children of the same
hearth, even among nomads. The boys go with the father,
the girls with the mother. The manlike apes have the same
ideas. ' Diard was told by the Malays, and he foimd it
afterwards to be true, that the young Siamangs, when in
their helpless state, are carried about by their parents, the
males by the father, the females by the mother.' ' The nests
. . . are only occupied by the female and young, the male
passing the night in a fork of the same tree or another tree
in the vicinity.' ^
These facts of ape etiquette would, to use an Elizabethan
phrase, have been ' nuts ' to Mr. Atkinson, and prove that
sexual separation of the children is a very early institution.
1 Westermarck, p. 13. Citing Brehin, ' Thierleben,' i. 97, Proceedings
JR. 0.8. xvi. 177.
26 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
In Australia, New Caledonia, and other countries, brothers
and sisters must not even speak to each other, and must
avoid each other utterly. Thus the danger and ' sin ' of the
most innocent intercourse between brothers and sisters is
emphasised ; much more awful, then, are matrimonial unions
of brother and sister. ' The extension ' (of this idea) ' by
the use of relationships produces the various forms of
exogamy,' says Mr. Crawley.^ There are difficulties here;
for example, Mr. Crawley tells us that incest did not ' need
prevention,' though the rules of brother-and-sister avoidance
seem really to mean that it did, or was thought to do so (but
perhaps only superstitious dread of ordinary intercourse caused
the rule ?), and though we know of regions where such incest, in
early youth, is said to be universal.'^ ' Such incest,' says Mr.
Crawley, ' is prevented by the psychological difficulty with
which love comes into play between persons either closely
associated, or strictly separated before the age of puberty. . . .' ^.
Now we know that lust does come into play — for example,
among the Annamese — between brothers and sisters not closely
separated ; and we also know that, the more persons are
' strictly separated,' the more does the novelty and romance,
when they do meet, produce natural attraction, as between
Romeo and Juliet. Incest among the young is really pre-
vented by the religious horror with which, by most peoples,
it is regarded ; as well as, among the civilised, by the constant
and sacred familiarity of family life. The bare idea of it can
only occur, as a desirable notion, to a boyish revolutionary, like
Shelley, or to minds congenitally depraved.
Again, men and women of the same totem have no
' avoidances ' forced upon them, as far as I know (and, as
they may not marry, this is an oversight) ; yet their marriages
are as terribly sinful as mamages between brother and sister
of the full blood. Mr. Crawley writes, ' Obviously the one
invariable antecedent in all exogamous systems, indeed in all
man'iage systems, is the prohibition of marriage " within the
jo Itose, p. 443. ' Westermarck, p. 292. ' Mystic Bose, p. 222.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 27
house." ' But, we reply, A (a male) and B (a female), of the
same totem, may never have been in the same house, or in
the same degree of latitude and longitude, before they met
and fell in love. As to ' house,' houses they may have none.
Yet their union is a deadly sin. Mr. Robertson Smith
is said to have 'set the question in the right direction,'
when he wrote, ' whatever is the origin of bars to marriage,
they certainly are early associated with the feeling that it is
indecent for house-mates to intermarry.' ^
But what is early need not be primary.
Again, if Mr. Crawley reads on, he will find, I think,
that the context of Mr. Robertson Smith's argument shows
him not to have held that exogamy arose in ' the feeling that
it is indecent for " house-mates " ' (or tent-mates) ' to marry.'
For Mr. Robertson Smith adds, ' it will not do to turn this
argument roimd, and say that the pre-Islamic law of bars to
marriage may have arisen ... in virtue of a custom that
every wife and her children shall have their own tent.' In
any case, we cannot speak of ' house-mates ' before there were
houses. But if for ' house-mates ' we read ' hearth-mates,'
then no sense of ' indecency,' as on Mr. Crawley's theory,
need necessarily attend their marriage, for hearth-mates may
be of different totems, derived from different mothers, and
may be marriageable enough, at least as far as totem law is
concerned. A, male, an Emu, marries B, a Bandicoot, and
C, a Grub. His children by B have the Bandicoot totem,
his children by C have the Grub totem. As far as totem law
goes, these children may intermarry, but this is not allowed in
practice to-day. Mr. Mathews says, of the Kamilaroi, 'in
order to prevent such a close marriage ' (of brother and sister
on the father's side), ' every tribe has strict social customs,
founded upon public opinion, which will not tolerate the
union of a man with a woman whose blood relationship is
considered too near.' ^ Australian ethics, long trained under
the old totem and phratry prohibitions, are now sufficiently
' JKinship amd Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 170.
"- ProG. Roy. Sno. N.S. W. xxxi. 166.
28 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
enlightened to reject unions which we also forbid. But it
cannot have been so in the beginning, or the totem and
phratry tabus on marriage would have had no occasion to
exist. It would have sufficed to say, ' Thou shalt not marry
thy sister, or mother,' and the totemic rule would have been
a cumbrous superfluity. Superfluous it would have been, even
under the hypothetical ' group marriage system,' where the
law would have run ' Thou shalt not marry thy group-sister
or group-mother.'
While Mr. Matthews gives a kind of bye-law, forbidding
marriage, under female descent, with the paternal half-sister,
Mr. Fison avers that the Kamilaroi do allow such imions.
' It is marriage within a phratria,' but not within a totem. ^
The fact was denied, or at least questioned, by many corre-
spondents, but Mr. Fison believed it to be authentic. ' The
natives justified it on the ground that the parties were not
of the same mudji ' (totem). Apparently these natives, who
let a man marry his father's daughter, had not arrived at an
objection to unions of ' too near flesh.' But mere decadence,
under European whisky, may be the explanation. Mr.
Matthews denies, as we saw, what Mr. Fison asserts, as to the
Kamilaroi. Mr. Crawley writes, ' if we apply to the word
" indecent " the connotation of sexual tabu . . . and if we
understand by " house-mates " those upon whom sexual
tabu concentrates, we have explained exogamy.' ^
Scarcely, for sexual tabu against marriage, in fact, now, at
least, concentrates on people of near kin, and on totem-mates,
man and woman of the same totem, and they may be ' house-
mates,' or ' hearth-mates,' or they may not (in polygamous
society), and the hearth-mates (as far as the totem rule goes,
but not now in practice) may thus be intermarriageable, as
not of the same totem, while totem-mates, from opposite
ends of a continent, are not intermarriageable (except in the
peculiar case of the Arunta and cognate tribes).
But Mr. Crawley may reply that each totem, originally,
did really pertain to all members of each small local group,
' Eamila/rai and Knrnai, pp. 42, 46, 47, 115. ' Mystio Rose, p. 443.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 29
and that the totem prohibition was extended, later, to all
groups of the same totem name, however distant in space.
Thus according to the Euahlayi blacks there were originally
no totem names, but the divine Baiame gave them to mortals
with the rule that no pair of the same totem name were to
marry, 'however far apart their hunting grounds.' Thus
considered, the tabu which forbids an Emu man to marry
an Emu woman, would mean no more, originally, than
that marriage between persons living in the close contiguity
of the same local group (in this case the Emu group) was
forbidden. There might be no original intention of prohibit-
ing marriage with a person of an Emu group, dwelling a
thousand miles away ; probably no such group was known to
exist. The original meaning of exogamous law, I repeat,
would be merely ' you must not marry a hearth-mate,' — or a
' house-mate,' in Mr. Crawley's phrase — the hearth-mates, in
this particular instance, being delimited by the name ' Emu.'
So far my conjecture agrees with that of Mr. Crawley. The
extension of the prohibition to persons of the same totem-
name, however remote their homes and alien their blood, I
am content to regard as a later kind of accidental corollary.
There came to be totem kins of the same name, far remote,
and thus, as it were casually, the law acquired an unpremedi-
tated sweep and scope, including persons not really of the
same group or blood, only of the same name.
But why was there originally any objection at aU to
marrying the most accessible bride, the female hearth-mate .''
Here, as I have tried to show, Mr. Crawley would explain
by his idea of sexual tabu. All men are regarded with super-
stitious dread by all women, and vice versa ; above all, as a
daily danger, the men, or women living in close contiguity
must avoid each other. To keep them apart all sorts of
tabus and avoidances are invented, including the tabu on
their marriage.
This is a plausible and taking theoiy, and I am far from
arguing that it cannot be a true theory. But the insuper-
able difficulty of deciding arises from the circumstance that
30 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
we know nothing at all about the intellectual condition of
the more or less human beings among whom the prohibition
of marriage within the group first arose. Were they advanced
enough to be capable of such a superstitious dread of each
other as the supposed cause of the prohibition takes for
granted ? Males and females, among the lower animals, have
no such superstition. It requires human imagination. On
the other hand, animal jealousy was well within their reach,
and Mr. Atkinson derives the original prohibition of marriage
within the group from the sheer sexual jealousy of the animal-
patriarch. In his opinion the consequent aversion to such
wedlock crystallised into a habit, as the race advanced to-
wards full humanity.
Even before his anthropoid clients were completely
human, the group would be replete with children of females
not of the full group blood, captives, and therefore these
children (if blood kin through females were regarded) wotild
be eligible as wives. But this would not yet, of course, be
understood. Perhaps it would not be fully understood till
the totem name was given to, and accepted by, each group,
and so there was a definite mark set on each woman brought
in from without the group, and on her children, who bore
her totem name. After that, each totem group obviously
contained members of other totems, and those, being now
recognised by their mother's totem names, were technically
intermarriageable. What had been a group not explicitly
conscious of its own heterogeneous elements, became, in fact,
an assemblage of recognised heterogeneousness, capable of
finding legal brides within itself, and no longer under the
necessity (had it understood) of capturing brides from with-
out in hostile fashion. Such an assemblage would,iOr might,
come to consist of families, dwelling, or rather wandering,
within a given region, all on terms of friendship and mutual
aid. I take it that, by this time, improved weapons and in-
struments, and improved skill, enabled groups larger than
the small original groups to live in a given area. In fact, the
group would, or might, be a small local ' tribe,' but, probably,
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 31
was unconscious of the circumstance. If conscious, one cause
of hostility among the groups was at an end, there was no
necessity for stealing women, a system of peaceful betrothals
within the group might now arise, though certain facts, to
be dealt with later, raise a presumption, perhaps, that this
relatively peaceful state of life did not appear until two of
the original local totem groups coalesced in connuhium, inter-
marrying with each other, in fact becoming ' phratries.'
To produce the new condition of affairs, two factors were
necessary : first, a means of distinguishing the captured women
within every group from each other, and from the group into
which they were brought by captive. This means of distinc-
tion was afforded by the totem names. Next, a recognition
of kinship was needed, and this was supplied, let us conjec-
ture, by naming the children of each of the captive women
after the totem name of the group from which she was
captured. If all the children indiscriminately were called by
the totem name (say Emu) of the local group into which
their mothers had been brought — that is, by the totem name
of their fathers — there would be no recognisable hetero-
geneity within that group, and so there would be, within the
local group, no possible wives, under the exogamous rule.
Whether polyandry then existed, or not, still all the fathers
were of one local totem name, say Emu, and children could only
be differentiated by styling them after the totem names of their
alien mothers. This is usually done among the savages who
are least advanced, but not among the Arunta, whose totem
names, as we shall see, by a curious divergence, do not
indicate stock, but are derived from a singular superstition
about ancestral spirits, of various totems, incarnating them-
selves in each new-bom child;
Mr. McLennan, in Primitive Marriage (1865), had arrived
at conclusions very like these. The primitive groups ' were
assumed to be homogeneous. . . . While as yet there was no
system of kinship, the presence of captive women in a horde '
(group I, ' in whatever numbers, could not introduce a system
of betrothals ' — the women and their children not yet being
32 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
differentiated from each other, and from the group in which
they lived. Mr; McLennan, in 1865, did not ask how these
women ever came to be distinctly differentiated, each from
each, and from the group which held them, though that
differentiation was a necessary prelude to the recognition of
kindred through these women. But presently, in his Studies
of Totemism (1869), he found, whether he observed the fact
or not, the means of differentiation. Differentiation became
possible after, and not before, each primitive group received
a totem name, retained by its captive women within each
group to which they were carried, a name to be inherited by
their children in each case.
He says, ' heterogeneity as a statical force can only have
come into play when a system of kinship led the hordes to
look on the children of their foreign women as belonging to
the stocks of their mothers.' That was impossible, before
the totem or some equivalent system of naming foreign
groups arose, a circumstance not easily observed till Mr.
McLennan himself opened the way to the study of Totem-
ism.^
It thus appears that Mr. Crawley's theory of exogamy
and mine are practically identical in essence (if I rightly
interpret him). The original objection was to the intermar-
riage of the young of the group of contiguity, the hearth-
mates. If there was but one male of the elder generation in
the group of contiguity, these young people would be brothers
and sisters. If there were two or more males of the elder
generation, brothers, the group would include cousins, who
(even before the totem name was accepted by the group) would
also be forbidden to intermarry. When the totem name was
accepted, cousins, children of brother and sister, and even
brothers and sisters, children of one father, by wives of
different totems, would be, technically, intermarriageable :
though their marriages may, in practice, have been forbidden
because they were still of the group of contiguity, and as such
bore its local totem name, say. Emu, while, by the mother's
' See Studies in Ancient History, pp. 183-186.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY 33
totem name, they may have been Bats, or Cats, or anything.
Where I must differ from Mr. Crawley is in doubting whether
at this hypothetical early stage, the superstitions which pro-
duce ' sexual tabu ^ had arisen. We cannot tell ; but
certainly, as soon as the totem name had given rise to the
myth that the totem, in human beings as in animals and
plants, was inviolable — the beast or plant of the totem blood
not to be killed or eaten, ^ the woman of the totem name not
to be touched — so soon would endogamy, marriage within
the totem, be a sin, incest. This it would be ; the totem
tabu once established, whether sexual tabu, or sexual jealousy,
or both, caused the first prohibition, not to marry group
mates. Here we may briefly advert to Dr. Westermarck's
theory of exogamy, though it interrupts the harmonious issue
of our speculations.
DR. WESTERMARCK's THEORY
As to exogamy, Dr. Westermarck explains it by ' an
instinct ' against marriage of near kin. Om- ancestors who
married near kin would die out, he thinks, and they who
avoided such unions would survive, 'and thus an instinct
would be developed,' ^ by ' Natural Selection.' But why did
any of our ancestors avoid such marriages at all ? From ' an
aversion to those with whom they lived.' And why had they
this aversion .'' Because they had an instinct against such
unions. Then why had they an instinct ? We are engaged
in a vicious circle. ' Lastly it is not scientific to use the
term instinct of this kind of thing.' ^
MR. morgan's theory
As to Mr. Morgan's theory, in his Ancient Society (1877),
of a movement of sanitary and moral reform, which led to
prohibition of ' consanguine marriages ' I shall return to it
' This is the view of Dr. Durkheim, who explains the blood
superstition. Cf. Reinach, L' Anthropologie, x. 65.
^ Higtory of Hwnan Marriage, p. 352.
' Compare Mr. Crawley, Mystic Moge, pp. 444-446.
D
34 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
in a later part of this essay (' Other Bars to Marriage ').
Here it will be found that Mr. Morgan is the source of
certain other theories which we are to discuss, a fact involv-
ing a certain amount of repetition of arguments already
advanced.
RETURN TO THE AUTHORS THEORY
We conclude, provisionally, that exogamy, for various
reasons of sexual jealousy, and perhaps of sexual superstition,
and of sexual indifference to persons familiar from infancy,
may, at least, have tended to arise while each little human
group was anonymous ; before the acceptance of totem
names by local groups. But this exogamous tendency, if it
existed, must have been immensely reinforced and sweepingly
defined when the hitherto anonymous groups, coming to be
known by totem names, evolved the totem superstitions
and tabus. Under these, I suggest, exogamy became fully
developed. Marriage was forbidden, amours were forbidden
(there are exceptional cases), within the totem name. This
law barred, of course, marital relations between son and
mother, between brother and sister, but, just as it stood,
permitted incest between father and daughter, so long as the
totem name was inherited from the mother. But that form
of incest, in turn, came to be barred by another set of savage
rules, which, whatever their origin, prohibit marriage within
the generation. That set of rules, noted specially in Australia
and North America, is part of what is usually styled ' The
Class System.'
35
CHAPTER II
TEE CLASS SYSTEM
Under this name appear to be blended, (1) the prohibition
to marry within a division, which, in its simplest form, is said
to cut the tribe into two ' classes ' or ' phratries,' or ' groups ; ' ^
(2) the prohibition to marry within the totem name ; (3) the
prohibition to marry within the generation, and within certain
recognised degrees (' classes,' ' sections ') of real or inferred
kinship — ' too near flesh,' too close consanguinity, which, in
their present condition, many Australian tribes undoubtedly
regard as a bar to matrimony. But it does not follow that
they originally held this opinion.
We shall first examine what authorities who differ from
me, call the great ' bisection ' of the tribe, into, say, Matthurie
and Kirarawa, members of which must intermarry, the totem .
prohibition also remaining in force. It will here be sug-
gested, in accordance with what has already been said, but
contrary to general opinion, that the totemic prohibition is
earlier than the prohibition of marriage between persons of
the same segment of the ' bisection.' The opinions of most
students appear, at present, to be divided thus. We hear
that:
1. The exogamous division into two moieties, or 'phra-
tries,' is earlier than the division of each into numerous
totem kins. The totem kins are regarded as later 'subdivi-
sions ' of, or additions to, the two ' original ' moieties.
2. Totem groups are earlier than the ' bisection ' (though
' Apparently, among the Kamilaroi, members of the same phratry may
intermarry, avoiding unions in their own totems. Mathews (_Proc. Bm/.
Soo. N.S. W. xxxi. 161, 162). Mr. Mathews calls a ' phratry ' a ' group.'
D 2
36 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
somehow, according to the same authors, the two moieties
of the bisection bore totem names), but, before the ' bisec-
tion,' these totem groups were not exoganrmms. They only
became exogamous when six of them, say, were arranged in
one of the two moieties (phratries), now forbidden to marry,
and another six in the other.
I venture to prefer, as already indicated, the system (3)
that totem groups not only existed, but were already exoga-
mous, before the great ' bisection ' producing the ' phratries '
came into existence, though I argue that ' bisection ' is a
misleading term, and that the apparent division was really
the result of an amalgamation of two separate and indepen-
dent local totem groups.
This theory (presently to be more fully set forth) is
original on my part, at least as far a^ my supraliminal con-
sciousness is concerned. I mean that I conceived myself to
have hit on the idea in July 1902. But something very like
my notion (I later discovered) had been printed by Dr.
Durkheim, and something not unlike it was propounded by
Herr Cunow (1894). Mr. Daniel McLennan had also sug-
gested it : and I find that the Rev. John Mathew had stated
a form of it in his Eagle-Hawk and Crow (1899), (pp. 19-
22, 93-112). Mr. Mathew's hypothesis, however, involves
a theory of contending and alien races in Australia. This
theory does not seem well based, but, however that may be,
I recognise that Mr. Mathew's hypothesis of the origin of
exogamy (p. 98), and of the origin of the ' phratries ' or
' primary classes,' in many respects anticipates my own. He
opposes Mr. Howitt's conclusions, and I may be allowed to
say that I would prefer Mr. Howitt, owing to his unrivalled
knowledge, as an ally. On the other hand, the undesigned
coincidence of Dr. Durkheim's, Mr. Daniel McLennan's, Mr.
Mathew's, and Herr Cunow's ideas with my own, raises a
presumption that mine may not be untenable.
THE CLASS SYSTEM 37
THE CLASS SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA
Though the existence of what are called exogamous ' phra-
tries ' (two to each tribe) was made known, as regards the
North American tribes, by Mr. Lewis Morgan (to whose work
we return) in the middle of the nineteenth century, almost
our earliest hint of its existence in Australia came from the
Rev. W. Ridley, a learned missionary, in 1853-55. In Mr.
McLennan's Studies in Ancient History '^ will be found an
account of Mr. Ridley's facts, as they gradually swelled in
volume, altered in character, and were added to, and criti-
cally constructed, by the Rev. Mr. Fison, and Mr. A. W.
Howitt. These gentlemen were regarded by Mr. McLennan
as the allies of Mr. Morgan, in a controversy then being
waged with some acerbity. He, therefore, criticised the
evidence from Australia rather keenly. It is probable that
Mr. Morgan and Mr. McLennan both had some right on their
parts — seeing each a different side of the shield — though a few
points in the discussion are still undecided. But it seems
certain that the continued researches of Messrs. Fison and
Howitt, reinforced by the studies of Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen in Central Australia, have invalidated some of Mr.
McLennan's opinions as to matters of fact.
Much trouble and confusion will be saved if we remember
that, as has been said, imder the ' classificatory system,' three
sets of rules applying to marriage exist. The totem rule
exists, rules as to marriage in relation to generations and so-
called degrees of kindred (real or ' tribal ') exist (' classes '),
and, thirdly, there are the rules relative to ' phratries,' the
phratries, being, I think, in origin themselves totemic. We
shall mainly consider here the so-called ' bisection ' of a tribe
into two exogamous and intermarrying 'phratries,' while
remembering Herr Cunow's opinion that a ' class ' is one
thing, a ' phratry ' quite another.^
' Second series, pp. 289-310.
== I shall, for my own part, use ' phratry ' for the two ' primary
exogamous divisions 'of a tribe, and ' class ' for the divisions within the
38 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
THE VARIETIES OF MARRIAGE DIVISIONS IN
AUSTRALIA
Perhaps the most recent, lucid, and well-informed
writer on the various divisions which regulate the marriages
of the Australian tribes is Mr. R. H. Mathews.' In
some regions, the system of two intermarrying phratries
exists, without further subdivision (except in regard to
totem kins). Sometimes each phratry is divided into two
' sections ' (or ' classes '), making four for the tribe. Again,
each phi-atry may have four ' subsections ' or ' classes,' making
eight for the tribe. Each phratry, like each ' class,' ' has an
independent name by which its members are ejisily recognised.'
Obviously we need, of aU things, to know the actual
meanings of these names, but we do not usually know them.
As we shall see, where a tribe has two ' phratries ' and no
subordinate ' classes,' the names of these ' phratries,' when
they can be translated, are usually names of animals. In a
few cases, as will later appear, when there are ' classes ' under
and in the ' phratries ' their names seem to indicate dis-
tinctions of ' old ' and ' young.' But Mr. Mathews nowhere,
as far as I have studied him, gives the meanings of the
' class ' names, some of which are of recent adoption. Mr.
Mathews usually gives only ' Phratry A ' and ' Phratry B.'
We now cite his tables of the simple ' phratry ' system, of
the ' phratry ' plus two classes system, and of the ' phratry '
plus foiu" classes system ; making fovu*, or eight, such divisions
for the tribe.
' In describing the social structinre of a native Australian
community, the first matter calling for attention is the
' phratry ' which do not appear to be of totemic origin. Mr. Fison applies
' class ' to both the primary divisions and those contained in each of them,
observing that 'the Greek " phratria " would be the most correct term.'
He is aware, of course, that this employment of phratria is arbitrary, but
it is convenient. While he applies ' class ' both to ' the primary divisions
of a community, and their first subdivisions,' to the latter I restrict
' classes,' using phratry for the former (Kamilaroi and Kwrnai, p. 24).
' Jow. and Froo. of the Roy. Soo. N.S. W., xxviii., xxxi., xxxii., xxxiv.
THE CLASS SYSTEM
39
classification of the people into two primary divisions, called
phratries, or groups — the men of each phratry intermarry-
ing with the women of the opposite one, in accordance with
prescribed laws.'
Mr. Mathews then mentions that some tribes have (1) this
simple division only (of course, as a rule, plus totem kins).
(2) Elsewhere each phratry is composed of two ' sections '
(called by us ' classes '). (3) Elsewhere, again, each phratry
has foiu- sections (we need not discuss here the tribes
where none of these things exist).
Mr. Mathews now gives tables representing the working
of the system in each of the three cases.'
Father
Phratry A Kirraroo
Phratry B Matturri
Mother
Matturrin
Kirrarooan
Son
Matturri
Kirraroo
Daughter
Matturrin
Kirrarooan
Phratry A
Phratry B
Father
/Murri
IKubbi
(Kumbo
1 1ppai
Mother
Buta
Ippatha
Matha
Kubbitha
Son
Ippai
Kumbo
Kubbi
Murri
Daughter
Ippatha
Butfia
Kubbitha
Matha
Phratry A
Phratry B
Father
CChoolum
Cheenum
Jamerum
^Yacomary
Father
/ Chingalum
J Chooralum
I Bungarin
Palyarin
Mother
Ningulum
Nooralum
Palyareenya
Bungareeny
Mother
Noolum
Neenrim
Tacomareenya
Neomarmn
Soa
Palyarin
Bungarin
Chooralum
Chingulum
Son
Yacomary
Jamerum
Cheenum
Choolum
Daughter
Palyareenya
Bungareenya
Nooralum
Ningulum
Daughter
Yacomareenya
Neomarmn
Neenum
Noolum
It will be seen that, under the simple phratry system,
children of the female Matturrin are always Matturri and
Mattmrin, children of the female Kirrarooan are always
Kirraroo and Kirrarooan. On the phratry plus two classes
system, female Butha is mother of Ippatha and Ippatha of
Proo. Boy. Soc. A'.S. W. xxxiv. 120-122.
40 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Butha for ever. On the phratry plus four classes system,
female Ningulum has a Palyareena daughter, who has a
Nooralum daughter, who has a Bungareenya daughter, whose
daughter reverts to the original Ningulum class, and so on,
ad infinittmi. The women remain constant to their 'phratry,'
and marry always the men of the opposite phratry.
It is to be observed that, by customary law, brothers and
sisters actual (and not ' tribal ') may never intermarry.^ In
short, consanguinity is now fully understood by the natives,
and too close unions are forbidden on the ground of consan-
guinity. It also seems that, though the blacks are aU-on the
same level of material culture, yet reflection on marriage
rules, and modification of these rules by additional restric-
tions and alterations, have been carried much further by some
tribes than by others. I by no means deny, but rather
affirm, that consanguinity is now understood, and that rules
have in some tribes been consciously made, and altered, to
avoid certain marriages as of ' too near flesh.' But I do not
think that, at the beginning, the objection to consangui-
neous marriages, as such, can have been entertained, and
I am not of opinion that, for the piu-pose of preventing such
marriages, in the beginning, a horde was bisected into two
phratries, and each phratry split up into totem groups.
Rather, I conceive, certain primitive conditions of life led to
the evolution of certain rules, independent of any theory
about the noxiousness or immorality of marriages of near
kin ; and then reflection on those primal rules helped to
beget moral ideas, and improvements on the rules themselves.
In the original restrictions, morality, in our sense, was only
implicitly or potentially present, though now it has risen into
explicit consciousness. The tribes came to think certain
marriages morally wrong, or physically noxious, because they
were forbidden ; such unions were not, in the first instance,
forbidden because they were deemed physically injurious,
or morally wrong. These ideas have, by this time, been
' Proc. Jour. Boy. Soc. N.S. W., xxxiv. 127. Mr. Fisou makes an excep-
tion for some Kamilaroi.
THE CLASS SYSTEM 41
evolved ; but it does not follow that they were present at
the beginning.
I took the liberty of laying a brief sketch of my own
theory before Mr. Howitt, who, after considering it, was
unable to accept it. He was kind enough to send me a
summary account of many varieties of institutions, which, as
we have seen, prevail — from tribes with totems and the simple
phratry and female descent, up to tribes which have lost their
classes and totems, coimt descent in the male line, and permit
marriage only between persons dwelling in certain localities,
or not of ' too near flesh.' All sorts of varieties of custom,
in fact, prevail. Again, the most backward tribes, in Mr.
Howitfs opinion, have group-marriage ; ^ the more advanced
have individual marriage, with rare reversions on special occa-
sions. Each advance, from mere phratry to phratry ^Zz« eight
'classes,' reduced the number of persons who might inter-
marry, and extended the range of exogamy (except where,
as among the Arunta, the totem prohibition has ceased to
exist). The marked tendency of the developing rules is to
prevent marriage between persons ' too near in flesh,' or ' of
the same flesh.' Mr. Howitt argues that, if the later stages
of prohibition are the result of deliberate intention to prevent
too near marriage, we may infer that the original ' bisection '
of the ' undivided commime ' was also consciously designed to
prevent imions of persons of too near flesh.
To this I would reply, that the circumstances were
different. The savages of recent centuries have been trained
in the totem and phratry systems, and have now, like Mr.
Howitt, excogitated the theory that these were originally
designed for the purpose of preventing marriages of 'too
near flesh,' wherefore all such marriages (even if permitted
by the totem law) must be morally or materially evil. This
is the theory expressed in the myths of the Dieri, Woeworung,
and others ; and it is the theory of many scientific writers.
In brief, it is the hypothesis of men already trained to think
near marriages morally wrong, or physically injurious. But
' This view is discussed later.
42 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
how could this idea occur to members of 'an undivided
commune,' who had never known anything better ?
That is the difficulty ; and we get rid of it by disbelieving
in a primeval undivided commune ; and by supposing a long
past of forbidden unions, the prohibition then resting on no
moral ideas, but on the interest of the strongest, the jealousy
of the adult sire. These prohibitions later evolved into
conscious morality ; and were at last susceptible of improve-
ment by deliberate design. I shall now examine more in
detail the ideas which do not win my assent.
MR. FISON ON THE GREAT BISECTION
In 1880, in Kamilaroi and Kurnai^ Mr. Fison, a learned
missionary and anthropologist, gave his account of the
organisation of certain Australian tribes. He speaks of
(1) The division of a tribe, or community, into two exo-
gamous intermarrying classes.^ (2) ' The subdivision ' (mark
the phrase) ' of these classes into four.' (3) ' Their subdivision
into gentes, distinguished by totems, which are generally,
though not invariably, the names of animals.'
Now totems we know, and we have cited Mr. Mathews
for the other divisions. Take (1) ' the two exogamous inter-
marrying classes.' Examples are
Male, Kumite ; female, Kumitegor (one ' class,' which I call ' phratry ').
Male, Kroki ; female, Rrokigor (the other ' class,' ' phratry ').
Again.
Male, T'umgaru (^upossiim) ; female, Yum/arnan.
Male, Wutaru (Jw/ngaroo) ; female, Wuta/ruan.
What are these two ^primary'' exogamous divisions.?
And why call them ' primary ' ?
> P. 27 et seq.
* There is a tradition of an aboriginal Adam, who had two wives,
Kilpara and Mukwara, these being the names of two phratries. On this
showing brothers married paternal half-sisters (Xamilaroi and Kwrnai,
p. 33).
THE CLASS SYSTEM 43
' PRIMARY CLASSES ? '
My object, as has been said, is now, contrary to general
opinion, to repeat that the great dichotomous ' division ' of
a tribe into two exogamous, intermarrying, ' classes ' or
' phratries,' is not ' primary ' at all, but is secondary to groups
at once totemic and exogamous, and is not, in origin, a
bisection, but a combination. If I am right, the consequences
will be of some curiosity. First, it wiU appear that the
' primary divisions ' are themselves totemic in origin, thus
implying the pre-existeiice of Totemism. Next it will be
made to appear probable that the pre-existing totems were
already exogamous before the phratries arose, and that
exogamy does not date, as the best authorities hold,
from the making of the great dichotomous divisions or
' phratries.' For no such dichotomous division, I suggest, was
ever made.
THE 'PRIMARY DIVISIONS' ARE THEMSELVES
TOTEMIC AND EXOGAMOUS
We see that, of the two ' phratries ' Yungaru and Wutaru,
Ymigaru is 'opossmn" (according to Mr. Chatfield) or
' alligator ' (according to Mr. Bridgman) ; while Wutaru is
' kangaroo.' These two primary ' phratries,' therefore, have
totemic names, and (in my opinion) were originally two local
totem groups, each containing members of various totems
derived from alien mothers. The same thing may be true
when the meanings of the ' primary class names ' (' phratries ')
can no longer be discovered. If so, the ' primary divisions '
are, in origin, mere totem distinctions, involving, I think,
the pre-existence of the rule of exogamy, which is also in-
volved in the rules of the 'primary divisions.' Mr. Fison
writes (what is obvious) 'in some places the primary divisions
are distinguished by totem names at the present day.' ^
' Kamilaroi emd Kv/rnai, p. 40.
44 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
' Probably they were so distinguished everywhere, in ancient
times,' he adds, and this is certainly the case in North
America, as we shall see later. Mr. Fison's opinion is my
own so far, and, if it is right, if the 'primary class divisions'
(' phratries '), within which marriage is now forbidden, were
originally two totem divisions, then Totemism is earlier
than the ' primary divisions.' On this point Messrs. Fison
and Howitt say that the divisions on which marriage regula-
tions are based ' are denoted by class names or by totems —
frequently by both class names and totems.' In a note
they add, ' Class names, so called by us solely for the sake
of convenience, and because they cannot always be positively
asserted to be totems, though the strong probability is that
they are always totems.' ^
By ' class names ' the authors, I think, here mean the
names of the ' primary exogamous divisions ' or ' phratries.'
These are often, if not always, known by totem names.
But the ' classes,' as distinguished from the ' phratries,' are
not known by totemic names, as far as I am aware. Herr
Cunow, we shall see, asserts that in some cases they denote
mere seniority, ' big ' and ' little,' ' young ' and ' old.' Unless
they can be proved to be totemic, we must, I repeat,
carefully avoid confusing the ' classes,' four or eight, with
the ' phratries,' in which they are included. The confusion
is general and very misleading.
Totemism, according to Mr. McLennan, preceded exo-
gamy, and made exogamy possible. Thus totem distinc-
tions, with exogamy, may be older than the ' two primary
class exogamous divisions,' in which, according to most
authorities, exogamy began. Mr. Tylor is cautious : ' the
dual form of exogamy ' (the ' phratries,' or ' two primary
divisions ') ' may be the original form,' or at least that view
is tenable.^ The origin of exogamy is, however, imknown,
in Mr. Tylor's opinion, which commits him to nothing.
Mr. Howitt, if I do not misinterpret him, also regards the
' /. A. I. xiv. 142.
' Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. 264.
THE CLASS SYSTEM 45
two divisions, ' phratries,' as primary, but at the same time
agrees with me, and Mr. Fison, that the two ' phratry '
divisions were themselves in origin totemic.
THE TOTEM DIFFICULTY
At this point I lose Messrs. Fison and Howitt. I do not
know what they mean, and, unless I misconstrue them, they
unconsciously hold different opinions at different moments.
They start with an 'undivided commune.' Mr. Fison,
however, is not certain on this point. To prevent near
marriages (previously universal), the commune is split into
two exogamous intermarrying phratries. The names of these
phratries are totemic, and each phratry has its totem. Such
is their theory. How and why ?
Did totemic divisions already exist in 'the undivided
commune ' ? If so, the commune was not undivided ! Or
were totem names given, nobody knows why, to the two
phratries at the time when the ' bisection ' of the commune
was made ? Did the legislator send half the horde to the
right, crying, ' You are sheep,' and half to the left, saying,
' You are goats,' — or rather, say. Emus and Kangaroos ?
This is not easily thinkable. But, if this was done, whence
came the other totem kins, often numerous, within each
phratry ?
Mr. Fison says that the totem kins (or ' gentes ') ' arose
out of two primary divisions by an orderly process of evolution,
such as might be expected from the forces at work,' and ' we
have seen how ' the phratries subdivided ' into other sub-
divisions, distinguished by totems.' ^ But, alas, I have seen
nothing of the sort ! Mr. Fison has merely asserted the fact.
' The totems affect the intersexual regulations ... by
narrowing the range of matrimonial selection.' ^ Here would
be a reason for the evolution of these totem kins. But this
added restriction is exactly what (given phratries) the totems
do not effect. There are so many totems in each phratry, but
' Kamila/roi and Kurnai, p. 107. ^ Op. cit. p. 41,
46 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
as the same totem (except among the Arunta and similarly
disorganised tribes) never occurs in both phratries, the range
of sexual selection is thus not more restricted by the totem
than by the phratry. The members of each phratry may
not intermarry, and all persons of their totem are in their
phratry and so are not marriageable to them. They would
all be exactly as exogamous as they are, if there were no
totem rules, nothing but phratry rules. Thus the totems
cannot be later deliberate segmentations of the phratry, for
additional exogamous purposes, because they serve no such
purpose, except where, among the Kamilaroi, a man may
marry in his phratry, if he marries out of his totem. But
that is a peculiarity.
Mr. Mathews writes, ' Under the group ' (phratry) ' laws
it is impossible for a Dilbi or Kupathin ' (phratry names of
the Kamilaroi) ' to marry a woman bearing the same totem
name as himself, for the reason that such a totem does not
exist in the division ' (phratry) ' from which he is bound to
select his wife. But when persons of the same group '
(phratry) ' were permitted to marry each other, it became
necessary to promulgate a law prohibiting man-iage between
persons of the same totem.' ^ But there were totems before
that novelty of marriage within the phratry, and why were
they there ? Moreover, under phratry laws it was already the
rule that no man could marry a woman of his own totem.
Obviously we are not told how the totem kins arose out of the
phratries, ' by an orderly process of evolution such as might
be expected from the forces at work.' One sees no reason at
all for the rise of totem kins within the phratry, itself, by
Mr. Fison's theory, originally totemic.
Totem kins are called ' subdivisions ' by Mr. Howitt, but
why were the phratries subdivided into totem kins, and why
were there totem groups in ' the undivided commune ' before
the bisection, the phratries (the result of the bisection) being
themselves, in Mr. Howitt's hypothesis, totem groups.? I
quote a statement of the case by Mr. Howitt (1889) : ' The
' Proc. Roy. Soo. If.S. W. xxxi. 162.
THE CLASS SYSTEM 47
fundamental principle of aboriginal society in Australia is
the division of the community into two exogamous inter-
marrying moieties. Out of this division into two groups,
and out of the relations thus created between the contem-
porary members of them and their descendants, the terms of
relationship must have grown. As the two primary divisions
(classes) ^ (' phratries ') ' have become again divided in the
process of social development, and as the groups of numerous
totems have been added^ &c.^
Here the totem kins are not orderly evolved out of the
phratries, nor subdivided out of them, but are ' added.' Where
were they picked up, whence did they arise, why were they
'added'.?
May we not conclude that no clear account, or theory,
of the origin and piupose of totems and totem kins has been
laid before us ?
Mr. Howitt elsewhere writes, ' If the supposition is correct
that, in the primary divisions, we may recognise the oldest
forms, and in the subdivisions somewhat newer forms of
Totemism ' (newer names of totems i), ' it should be found that
these earlier divisions show signs of antiquity as compared
to the totems which are, according to this hypothesis, the
nearest to the present time. This, I think, is the case.'
Thus, in fact, some of the Australian names for the two
divisions are no longer to be translated,^ perhaps owing to
their antiquity, and sometimes the names are lost, as, else-
where, in Banks Island. When translatable, the phratry
names are totemic.
But this hardly amounts to proof that the 'primary
divisions ' are really older than totemic divisions, ^/t« exogamy.
The existing names of the ' primary divisions ' may be older
than existing totem names, in some cases. But that may be
because the two ' primary divisions ' endure, unchanged,
' On the Organisation of Av^ralicm Tribes, p. 129; Trwnsaotions of
Royal Society of Viatoria, 1889.
^ The natives retain sacred songs to Daramulun, but cannot (or will not ?)
translate them. Proo. Roy. Soo. U.S. W. xxxiv. 280.
48 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
while a local totem group may become extinct.^ Its place,
perhaps, may be filled up by a totem group of relatively
recent name, or, perhaps, in a great trek into a land of novel
fauna and flora, old totem names might be exchanged for new
ones. 'Munki' (sheep) is said to have been recently
adopted.^ Mr. Fison here corroborates my suggestion. ' If
a tribe migrate to a country in which their totem is not
found, they TviU, in all probability, take as their totem some
other animal which is a native of the place.' '
Mr. Howitt, then, believes that 'the primary class
divisions ' were originally totemic, and also that the ' class
system ' as a rule has been developed through the subdivision
of the earlier and simpler forms by ' deliberate arrangement.'' *
This appears to mean that savages began by making two
divisions, bearing totem names, and established them as
primary exogamous divisions. Later they cut them up into
slices, each slice with a newer totem name. Or the totem
divisions are evolved within the phratry, somehow or other,
as in one of Mr. Fison's views. Or they are ' added ' — for what
purpose .? Thus every tribesman has now a ' class name '
(phratry name) — an old totem name (say either Eagle-Hawk
or Crow), and no Crow may marry an Eagle-Hawk. But, later,
they split Crows up into, say, bats, rats, cats, and kangaroos,
while they split Eagle- Hawk up into, say, grubs, emus, mice,
and frogs. Now each person, under this arrangement, has
two totem names. He is Eagle-Hawk (old) and (new) grub,
emu, mouse, or frog : or he is Crow (old) and (new) bat, cat,
rat, or kangaroo. If cat, he may not only not marry a
Crow, but also he may not marry a cat. What could
be the reason for this new subdivision of Eagle-Hawk and
Crow, and for this multiplication of marriage prohibitions,
which, given the phratries, prohibit nothing .? ^ I shall try
to show, and have already suggested, that, from a period
' Spencer and Gillen, p. 152. ^ Howitt, J. A. I. xviii. 37-39.
' Kamila/roi am,d Kuvnai, p. 235, note. * Op. cit. pp. 59, 62, 63, 66.
' New marriage prohibitions may have been, and, I believe, were added,
but the divisions thus made were not, I think, totemistio.
THE CLASS SYSTEM 49
infinitely remote, each member of the Eagle-Hawk and Crow
local groups may also have been, or rather must have been, a
grub, emu, mouse, or frog, bat, rat, cat, or kangaroo, by in-
heritance and birth. So understood, the ' primary divisions '
(Eagle-Hawk and Crow) were not deliberately subdivided
(as I conceive them to have been on Mr. Howitt's system)
into the other numerous new totem groups, nor were the
totem kins added to the phratries, nor were they orderly
evolved out of the phratries, but, from the dawn of Totemism
with exogamy, they contained these totem groups within
themselves ; a fact which early man came to perceive.
Mr. Howitt adds, ' If the two first intermarrying groups '
(' phratries ') ' had distinguished names, they were probably
those of animals, and their totems, and, if so, the origin of
Totemism would be so far back in the mist of ages, as to be
beyond my vision.' In the chapter on the ' Origin of
Totemism,' we try to penetrate ' the mist of ages,' and to see
beyond the range of vision of Mr. Howitt. But the ' Origin
of Totemism ' cannot be beyond Mr. Howitt's range of vision,
if he agrees with Mr. Fison that the totem kins were orderly
evolved within the phratry, or were segmented out of the
phratry, or split off, as colonies, from the phratry (Dr.
Durkheim's theory), or were added to the phratry, for some
reason.
It seems, then, that he does not commit himself to any
of these four theories. He appears to confess to having
no theory of the origin of Totemism, which, in his opinion,
gave the names to the phratries, these being the result
of the primary bisection. Probably his best plan would
be to say ' the horde was bisected into two moieties, for
exogamous purposes, and animal names, for the sake of dis-
tinction, were arbitrarily imposed on the phratry divisions.'
But, then, what about the many totem kins within the
phratry .'' We receive no solid theory about them. They
were certainly not arbitrarily marked out later, within the
phratry, for exogamous purposes which they do not fiilfil.
If they were picked up elsewhere, and added into the
50 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
phratry, where did they come from ? Crowds of totems were
not going about, Mr. Howitt seems to think, before the bi-
section, because, if so, we saw hordes were not ' undivided,'
before the bisection, but were already divided into totem kins.
Or shall we say that the undivided communes had already
organised distinct co-operative magical totem groups, to do
magic for the good of the food supply, plants and animals,
but that these totem groups were not exogamous before the
bisection ? After the bisection two of these magical totem
groups, say Eagle-Hawk and Crow, were selected, shall we
guess, to give names to the two moieties or phratries ? The
other totem groups fell, or were meted out, some into Crow,
some into Eagle-Hawk. This is a thinkable hypothesis, but
it is fatal to the theory of subdivision, or of segmentation,
or of evolution, as causes of totem kins within the phratries ;
and it is not suggested by Messrs. Fison and Howitt.
Thus we must construct for ourselves, later, a theory of
the Origin of Totemism. We are actually constrained to
make this effort, because it will probably be admitted that,
having no theory, or hesitating between three or four theories,
of the origin of totems and of totem kins, Messrs. Fison and
Howitt produce an hypothesis of the evolution of Australian
society which cannot be construed by us into an intelligible
form.
Mr. Howitt elsewhere writes, ' The existence of the two
exogamous intermarrying groups ' (' phratries ') ' seems to me
almost to require the previous existence of an undivided
commune, from the segmentation of which they arose.' "^ But
they, the phratries, were totemic, and why ? Once again,
why was the undivided commune divided .'' We know not
the motive for, much less the means of effecting, such a great
change ' in the beginning.'
In 1885, Messrs. Howitt and Fison were aware of, and
expressed their sense of this difficulty (that of dividing people
out into arbitrary groups) in the case of ancient Attica.
Speaking of the yivos, or clan, in Attica, they combat the
' Organisation of Awstralian Trihes, p. 136.
THE CLASS SYSTEM 51
opinion of Harpocration, that the people were 'arbitrarily
drafted into the ^eVij.' ^ Our authors remark, ' Ancient
society — the more ancient — does not thus regulate itself.
Nascitur rum Jit. One can understand a Kleisthenes redistri-
buting into demes a civilised community which has grown
into a State, but the notion of any such arbitrary distribution
of men into '^svtj in the beginning of things cannot be enter-
tained for a moment.' ^
This being so, how can our authors maintain that, ' in
the beginning of things,' given an ' undivided commune,'
all its members were ' drafted ' into one or other of two divi-
sions, and again into totem groups. A subdivision of the
' phratries ' into totem groups, by deliberate arrangement,,
is clearly as artificial and arbitrary as the scheme suggested
by Harpocration, 'which cannot be entertained for a
moment.'
We are speaking of ' the beginning of things,' not of the
present state of things, in which we know that modifications
of the rules, e.g. the division into eight ' classes,' are being
deliberately adopted.^ In 'the beginning of things,' as
Messrs. Howitt and Fison, in 1885, maintained, society
nascitur non Jit. Our effort is to show the process of the
birth of society before conscious and deliberate modifications
were made to prevent marriages of 'too near flesh.' Our
criticism of Messrs. Fison and Howitt's theories may perhaps
indicate that they are insufficient, or but dubiously intelli-
gible. Something clear and consistent is required.
' Harpocration s.v. •yevvriTai. ' J. A. I. xiv. 160.
' Spencer and Gillen, pp. 72, 420.
E 2
52 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER III
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHBATBIES
AMERICAN SUPPORT OF THE AUTHOR's
HYPOTHESIS
The system which I advocate here, as to the smallness of
the original human groups, and their later combination into
larger unions, seems to have, as regards America, the support
of the late Major Powell, the Director of the Bureau of
Ethnology, and of Mr. McGee of the same department.
This gentleman writes, ' Two postulates concerning primitive
society, adopted by various ethnologic students of other coun-
tries, have been erroneously applied to the American abori-
gines . . . The first postulate is that primitive men were
originally assembled in chaotic hordes, and that organised
society was developed out of the chaotic mass by the segrega-
tion of groups. . . ■■ This appears to be Mr. Howitt's doctrine.
In fact, Mr. McGee says, American research points, not to a
primal horde, ' bisected ' and ' subdivided ' into an organised
community, but to an early condition ' directly antithetic to
the postulated horde, in which the scant population was segre-
gated in small discrete bodies, probably family groups . . .'
The process of advance was one of ' progressive combination
rather than of continued differentiation. ... It would appear
that the original definitely organised groups occasionally
coalesced with other groups, both simple and compound,
whereby they were elaborated in structiu-e . . . ' Mr. McGee
adds, ' always with some loss in definiteness and permanence.'
As far as concerns Australia, I do not feel sure that the last
remark applies, but, on the whole, Mr. McGee's observations,
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 53
couched in abstract terms, appear to fit what I have written,
in concrete terms, about the probable evolution of Australian
tribal society.^
The theory thus suggested makes little demand on deli-
berate legislation, as we shall see later.
DELIBERATE ARRANGEMENT
This I take to be important. It seems well to avoid, as
far as possible, the hypothesis of deliberate legislation in
times primeval, involving so sweeping a change as the legal
establishment of exogamy through a decree based on common
consent by an exogamous ' Bisection ' consciously made<
Exogamy must have been gradually evolved. But, if we
begin with Mr. Howitt's original undivided commune, and
suppose a deliberate bisection of it into two exogamous
phratries, each somehow containing different totems ; or if
we suppose a tribe of only two totems, and imagine that the
tribe deliberately made these totems exogamous, which they
had not been before, and then subdivided them into many
other totem groups, we see, indeed, why persons of the same
totem may not intermarry. They now, iafter the decree,
belong to the same exogamous ' phratry ' within which
marriage is deliberately forbidden. But, on this theory, I
find no escape from the conclusion that the ' bisection ' into
' phratries ' was the result of a deliberate decree, intended to
produce exogamy — for the bisection has not, and apparently
cannot have, any other effect. Now I can neither imagine a
motive for such a decree, nor any mode, in such early times,
of procuring for it common consent. At this point we have
laboured, and to it we shall return, observing that our hypo-
thesis makes much less appeal to such early and deliberate
legislation.
TOTEMS ALL THE WAY
In any case, by Mr. Fison's and Mr. Howitt's theory and
our own, we have totems almost all the way : totems in the
' MTinological Biirean, Anniml Beport, 1893-1894, pp. 200 201.
54 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
so-called ' primary divisions ' (phratries) ; totems in the so-
called gentes, and all these divisions (setting the Arunta
apart) are strictly exogamous. The four or eight ' classes,'
on the other hand, are apparently not of totemic origin.
However much the systems may be complicated and inter-
twisted, the basis of the whole, except of the four or eight
' classes,' is, I think, the totem exogamous prohibition.
There are many examples of the type ; thus the Urabunna
' are divided into two exogamous intermarrying classes, which
are respectively called Matthurie and Kirarawa, and the
members of these again are divided into a series of totemic
groups, for which the native name is Tliunihwrvme. A
Matthurie man must marry a Kirarawa women ' (as in the
system of the Kamil-speaking tribes, or Kamilaroi, reported
on by Mr. Fison) — ' and not only this, but a man of one
totem must marry a woman of another totem.' This is pre-
cisely what I should expect. It works out thus :
I ^^"^ ^T^ ^°*r ^'°"P I . . . Matthurie.
I New ' Phratry 1
r Old Local Totem Group I Xi^arcma.
iNew'Phratry' J
Each of these ' phratries ' has five totems, not found in
the other class, and how this occurred, if not by actual
deliberate arrangement, I do not know. One thing is clear :
totem and phratry are prior to ' class ' divisions. They
occur where ' class ' divisions do not. But my theory does
not involve the deliberate introduction of exogamy, by
an exogamous bisection of groups not hitherto exogamous,
or by making two pre-existing totem groups exogamous.
I take the groups to have been exogamous already, before
the blending in connubium of two local totem groups (now
' phratries '), each including numbers of already exogamous
totem kindreds. They were exogamous before the ' phratries '
existed, and after their falling into the two phratries, exo-
gamous they remained.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 55
DISTRIBUTION OF TOTEMS IN THE ' PHRATRIES '
Mr. McLennan, ere he had the information now before
us, wrote, in 1865, ' Most probably contiguous groups would
be composed of exactly the same stocks ' (we can now, for
' stocks,' read ' totem kins ') — ' would contain gentes of pre-
cisely the same names.' ' This is obvious, for Emu, Kangaroo,
Wild Duck, Opossum, Snake, and Lizard, living in the same
region, would raid each other (by the hypothesis) for wives,
and each foreign wife would bring her own totem name into
each group. Yet we find that the two 'primary classes'
(phratries) of the Urabunna (which, on my theory, represent
two primitive totem local groups, say Emu and Kangaroo,
each with its representatives of all other totem groups within
raiding distance) never contain the same totems.
It is mathematically impossible that this exclusiveness
should be the result of accident. On a first consideration,
therefore, I took it to be the result of deliberate legislative
design, at the moment when on my hypothesis two ZocaZ totem
groups, containing members of several totems of descent, united
in connubium. The totem names, I at first conceived, with
reluctance, must have been consciously and deliberately meted
out between the two local totem groups, now become phratries.
This idea did not involve so stringent and useless a measure as
that of segmenting the two phratries into minor totem groups :
however the idea was still too much akin to that of
Harpocration as regards the arbitrary drafting of the Attic
population into 'ysvr]. But, on further reflection, I conceived
that my first theory was superfluous. Given the existence of
local groups, as such totemic, and of totem kins of descent
within the original local totem groups, the actual results,
I thought, arise automatically, as soon as two local totem
gi-oups agree to intermarry. Men and women must marry
out of their local totem group (now ' phratry ') and must
marry out of their totem of descent. Consequently, no one
totem could possibly exist in both phratries. This I now, on
' Studies in Ancient History, p. 221.
56 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
third thoughts, 'which are a wiser first,' deem erroneous.
The automatic arraying of one set of totems into one, ot
another set into the other, phratry, woxild not occur. The
totems have been divided between the two phratries.^ This
condition of affairs is universal in Australia, except where, as
among the Arunta and similar tribes, the same totem comes to
exist in both phratries, so that men and women of the same
totem, but of opposite phratries, may intermarry. That breach
of old rule, we shall try to show, arises from the peculiar
animistic philosophy of the Arunta, by virtue of which totems
are no longer totems of descent, but are otherwise obtained.
Thfe Kamilaroi practice of interphratry marriage arises out
of respect for totem and neglect of phratry law.
My conjecture takes for granted, let me repeat, that,
' Suppose we take a group ranging in a given locality, and known to
its neighbours as the Emu group. Let us also take a similar and similarly
situated Kangaroo group. Let us suppose that each such group has raided
for its wives among Opossum, Grub, Cat, and Dingo groups. By female
descent, both the Emu and Kangaroo groups will contain persons of the
Opossum, Grub, Cat, and Dingo groups. This being so a man of the Emu
local group, named Grub by totem, might marry a woman of the Emu local
group, by totem of descent an Opossum ; and similarly in the Kangaroo
group. But, as Dr. Dnrkheim remarks in another case, ' the old prohibition ,
deeply rooted in manners and customs, survives ' (jOAmnee Soeiologigue,
V. 107, note). Now ' the old prohibition ' was that a man of the Emu
group was not to marry a woman of the Emu group; That rule endures,
though the Emu group now contains men and women of several distinct
totem kins. To escape from the difficulty, by my theory. Emu local totem
group makes connubium with Kangaroo local totem group. Any Emu
man may marry any Kangaroo woman not of his own totem by descent.
But this does not, automatically, throw Opossum and Grub into one. Cat
and Dingo into another, of the two local totem groups, Emu and Kan-
garoo, now become phratries, with loss of their local character. For if a
man, by phratry Emu, and by totem of descent Cat, marries a woman,
by phratry Kangaroo, and by totem of descent Grub, their children, by
female descent, are Kangaroo Grubs. Meanwhile, if a man, by phratry
Kangaroo, and by totem Cat, marries a woman, by phratry Emu, and
by totem Grub, their children are Emu Grubs. There are thus Grubs in
both phratries, a thing that never occurs (except among the Arunta).
Therefore the division of the totem kins, some into one phratry, others
into the other, is not automatic. There might be a tendency, by way of
making assurance doubly sure, for the totem kins to be assorted into the
two phratries, but some kind of deliberate arrangement does seem neces-
sary. The same necessity attends Dr. Durkheim's theory later criticised.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 57
before the 'bisection,' or the amalgamation, which produced
the two exogamous ' classes,' the totem kindreds were aheady
exogamous. My reasons for this opinion have already been
given, in the discussion of Mr. Crawley's theory of the origin
of exogamy {supra), to which the reader may refer. My
suggestion makes the growth of exogamy non-moral, gradual,
and almost unconscious, till it is clinched and stereotyped
by the totem tabu.^ The opposite theory — namely, the
deliberate bisection into exogamous ' classes,' of totem
groups, or of an ' undivided commune ' not previously exo-
gamous, appeals too much, I repeat, to conscious and — as
far as we can see — motiveless legislation, at an early stage.
The bisection must have had a purpose, and has no visible
purpose except the establishment of exogamy, and why did
the ' undivided commune ' establish that ?
THE IDEAS OF MR. FRAZER — HIS EARLIER THEORY
It cannot be concealed that my conjecture is opposed to
the mass of learned opinion, which represents the primary
' phratries ' as the first exogamous bodies, and the totems in
each as later subdivisions of the phratries. The writers who,
like Mr. Fison, recognise that the primary subdivisions are
themselves, in origin, totem divisions, do not (as I under-
stand) regard these very ancient totem groups as already
exogamous, before the institution of ' phratries.'
Again, turning from Australia to North America, we
find Mr. Frazer, at least in one passage, on the side of the view
generally held. Of the ' phratry,' in America, he says, ' the
evidence goes to show that in many cases it was originally a
totem clan which has undergone subdivision.' ^ Many ex-
amples are then given of the North American ' phratries,'
which include totem groups within them. ' The Choctaws
' See again Durkheim, in L'Annec SoeioUgique, i. 47-57, on the super-
stition as to blood, and the totem as a sacred representative of the
inviolable blood of the kindred. That superstition gives religious sanction
to a pre-existing exogamous tendency.
2 Totemism, p. 60 (1889).
58 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
were divided into two phratries, each of which included four
clans ' (totem kins) ; ' marriage was prohibited between
members of the same phratry, but members of either phratry
could marry into any clan of the other.' Among the
Senecas, one phratry included the Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and
Turtle totems : the other held the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and
Hawk totems ; just as in Australia. Among the Thlinkets
and Mohegans, ' each phratry bears a name which is also the
name of one of the clans ' (totems) ' included in it ; ' Mr.
Frazer adds, ' it seems probable that the names of the Raven
and Wolf were the two original clans of the Thlinkets, which
afterwards by subdivision became phratries.' ' This is pre-
cisely as if we were to argue that Matthiu-ie and Kirarawa
were the ' two original clans ' of the Urabunna, ' which after-
wards by subdivision ' (into totem groups) ' became phratries,'
or ' primary exogamous divisions.'
The objections to this theory, as advocated by Australian
inquirers, apply to the American cases as interpreted here by
Mr. Frazer. In the first place, how are we to conceive of a
large tribe, like the Thlinkets, as originally containing only
two totems, Raven and Wolf ? ^ If we do take this view,
we seem almost driven to suppose that, in exceedingly early
times, the Thlinkets deliberately bisected themselves, for
some reason, called one moiety Ravens, the other moiety
Wolves, and then made the divisions exogamous. Or,
perhaps, having two totems and only two. Raven and Wolf,
they deliberately decided that members of neither group
should marry within itself; but should always take wives
from the other group. Later, the two tribes. Raven and
Wolf, again deliberately subdivided themselves, or perhaps,
as in Dr. Durkheim's view, Wolf threw off colonies which
' Totemism, p. 62.
^ The people of New Britain group of islands are divided into two
exogamous sets. The totems of these classes are two insects, but I incline
to suppose that there are, or may have been, totem kins included within
these totemic classes. Our informant, the Rev. B. Danks, regrets that he
did not pay more attention to these matters. J. A. I. xviii. 281-294.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 59
became five totem kins, and Raven threw off colonies which
became five other totem kins.
Is it not more readily credible that, over a large extent
of Thlinket comitry, many small local groups came, by an
vmconscious process (see 'The Origin of Totemism '), to bear
each a separate totem name? The two most important
local groups. Raven and Wolf, would inevitably each con-
tain, by the working of exogamy and female kin, members of
all the other totems which would array themselves, five in
each chief gi'oup. Raven and Wolf, as I have conjectured
in speaking of the Australian cases.^
Again, I cannot believe that a tribe like the Thlinkets
originally had but two totems, not yet exogamous, then
made them exogamous, and then cut them up, or let them
split off, into many exogamous totem groups. No motive
is obvious : the people, by the theory, being exogamous
already.
OBJECTIONS TO MR. FRAZER's EARLY THEORY
We shall later see that Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
appear to advance, but also to qualify out of existence, a
theory of a motive for an exogamous bisection of earlier non-
exogamous local totem groups. They practically explain
away their own explanation of the great bisection, but it
rests, while it exists, on certain recently discovered facts,
which, in timi, are fatal, perhaps, to any theory that a tribe
had originally but two totems, which became ' phratries,' on
being subdivided into other totems. The new facts accepted
and theorised on by Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer, would
' On the other hand, among the Mohegans, I can admit that Little
Turtle, Mud Turtle, and Great Turtle may be deliberate subdivisions of
the Turtle totem, now a phratry, but even this need not necessarily be
the case ; the different species of turtles being quite capable of giving names
to different totems. I would not deny the possibility of the occasional
segmentation of a totem group— far from it— but I doubt whether great
tribes originally (and, as it seems, deliberately) first bisected themselves,
and then cut up the two main divisions.
60 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
make it seem perhaps impossible that a tribe like the
Thlinkets should originally have possessed but two ' clans '
or totems. The facts, as stated by Mr. Spencer, in 1899,
are these, or rather, this is his hypothesis founded on his
facts. ' In our Australian tribes the ■primary ^ function of a
totem group is that of ensuring, by magic means, a supply of
the object which gives its name to the totem group.' ^ Mr*
Frazer says, 'in its origin Totemism was, on oiu- theory,
simply an organised and co-operative system of magic. . . .
Each totem group was charged with the superintendence and
control of the particular department of nature from which it
took its name. . . .' ^
But this is hardly the origin of Totemism, so long as we
are not told how, or why, each totem group took its name
from a department of nature. Had it the name, before it
worked magic for its eponymous object, or did it take the
name because it worked the magic ?
Again, there are dozens of such departments,* which
implies the existence of dozens of organised and co-operative
totem groups : not of an original poor pair of such groups
alone. Can we believe that, on Mr. Frazer's earlier theory,
the Thlinkets formed but two such groups, one 'charged
with ' the duty to moUify the Wolf, the other to take care
of the interests of the Raven .? Manifestly this is unlikely.
I elsewhere oppose this theory of the magical Origin of
Totemism, made at first to fit the case of the Arunta and
cognate tribes. If organised co-operation in magic is the
source of Totemism, we may be pretty confident that no
tribe began by appointing one half of all its members to do
magic to propagate ravens, and the other half to mollify
wolves. This would indicate, in the magical and co-operative
tribe, a most oddly limited and feebly capitalised flotation of
the company — merely ' Wolf and Raven.' No tribe would
select ravens as the article of food which most required care-
' My italics. ^ J. A. I., N.S. i. 278. » IMd. p. 282.
' Mr. Mathews counts thirty-four totems in the Dilbi, and as many in
the KvpatMn ' phratries.' Froc. Roy. iSoo. J^.S.W. xxxi. 157-158.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 61
fill propagation and preservation, even if the Wolf most de-
manded to be propitiated and mollified. The new Australian
facts (whatever their interpretation) are fatal to the older
idea that a tribe could have had only two original totems :
an idea which we may perhaps regard as now abandoned, at
least by Mr. Frazer.
Thus Mr. Spencer himself remarks that, in Anmta
tradition, there were numbers of totem groups before the
great dichotomous division was made. That is my own
opinion : though I do not hold it for Mr. Spencer's reasons,
or believe in any ' bisection.'
MR. SPENCERS THEORIES OF THE BISECTION
It will be noted that Mr. Spencer's original totem groups
existed for magical piu-poses only, and were not exogamous.
' The traditions of the Arunta tribe point to a very definite
introduction of an exogamic system long after the totemic
groups were fully developed, and, further, they point very
clearly to the fact that the introduction was due to the
deliberate action of certain ancestors. Our knowledge of
the natives leads us to the opinion that it is quite possible
that this really took place, that the exogamic groups were de-
liberately introduced so as to regulate marital relations.'
The Arunta ' exogamic groups ' are ' classes,' and
' phratries,' the totem does not now regulate marriage among
the Arunta. I shall later try to show, that, originally,
totems did regulate marriage, among the Arunta. But here
we find Mr. Spencer averring that possibly ' the exogamic
groups were deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital
relations ' among the Arunta. This opinion surprises us, if
we hold that exogamy was, in its original forms, the result,
not of a deliberate enactment, but of gradual and unconscious
processes, to which, later, conscious modifications have been
added. Mr. Spencer, despite the passage cited, is obviously
of the same opinion, for he proceeds to remark, ' By this we
do not mean that the regulations had anything whatever to
62 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
do with the idea of incest, or of any harm accruing from the
union of individuals who were regarded as too nearly related.
... It can only be said that far back in the early history
of mankind, there was felt the need of some form of organi-
sation, and that this gradually resulted in the development of
exogamous groups.'
This statement must remind us of what the ancient
ballad sings about Lord Bateman :
He shipped himself all aboard of a ship.
Some foreign country for to see.
The scholiast (Thackeray, I think) explains, 'some foreign
country he wished to see, and that was the extent of his
desire : any foreign country woidd serve his purpose, all
foreign countries were alike to him.' In the same way, long
ago, the ancestors of the Australians ' felt the need of some
form of organisation,' and that was the extent of their desire ;
any organisation would serve their purpose. Nevertheless,
Mr. Spencer also says that, quite possibly, ' the exogamic
groups were deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital
relations.' But exogamic groups can regulate marital
arrangements in one way only — that is, by introducing
exogamy. Yet Mr. Spencer remarks that ' the development
of exogamic groups ' gradiudly resulted from some organisa-
tion of unknown nature. I am unable to reconcile Mr.
Spencer's statements with each other. The 'bisection' of
his theory could not, I fear, be ' gradual.'
Mr. Frazer, in 1899, begins with numerous totem groups,
primarily and originally arranged for mere purposes of co-
operative magic, in the social interests of a large friendly
tribe, itself no primitive institution, one thinks. Then he
supposes that the exogamous bisection occiured (and why
did it occur ? ), and then ' if the existing totem groups were
arranged, as they naturally would be, some in one of the two
new classes, and the rest in the other, the exogamy of the totem
groups would follow, ipso facto.'' ' Mr. Frazer does not here
' J. A. I., N.S. i. 284-285.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 63
pretend to guess why the bisection occurred. The rest is
quite obvious : but it is vmavoidably inconsistent with Mr.
Frazer's earlier theory, that a tribe begins (or that the
Thlinkets began) wjth two original totem groups, made them
exogamous, ands then ' subdivided ' them up (or did they
merely swjarm off ? ) into many totem groups. It is against
that almost universal theory, in 1899 abandoned (as I con-
ceive) by Mr. Frazer, that I have so long been arguing.
There was not first an exogamous bisection of a tribe, or the
addition of the exogamous rule to two ' original clans,' or
totem groups, and then the subdivision of each of the two
sections into a number of totems. This cannot have occurred.
Totems, I venture to think, did not come in that way, but
pre-existing totem kins, granting the bisection, might fall into
one or other phratry, if they had always been exogamous.
ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM HEKE PROPOSED
On my system, as has been already stated, the origin of
exogamy may have been sexual jealousy, in small primitive
groups, perhaps aided by ' sexual tabu,' with the strange
superstitions on which it is based, and these causes would be
strengthened enormously by the totem superstition, later.
The totem name would now be the exogamous limit. The
' phratries ' might result, quite naturally, and even gradually,
now in one region, now in another, from the interlocking and
alliance, with connubium, of two large friendly local totem
groups, an arrangement of which the advantages are so
obvious that it might spread by way of imitation and
accretion.
This view of the possible origin of what is usually called
the ' bisection ' of ' the undivided commune ' had already been
suggested by the late Mr. Daniel McLennan.^ Writing
before our information was so full as it now is, he says, as
to the two ' phratries ' Kumite and Kroki (answering to
Matthurie and Kirarawa), ' were it worth while to make
' Studies in Ancient Eistory, second series, p. 605.
64 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
surmises, it would not be unreasonable to surmise that at
Mount Gambler two separate local tribes ^ containing different
totem kindreds had, through the operation of exogamy and
female kinship, become welded into one community.' Mr.
Daniel McLennan, unluckily, inherited his brother's feud
against Mr. Fison, and he opposed all that gentleman's do-
ings. Later research has corroborated many of Mr. Fison's
facts, and extended the range of their influence. On this
point, however — namely, that the ' phratries ' are not the
result of a bisection, but of an amalgamation — Mr. Daniel
McLennan appears to have had a good case. He illustrates
his theory, and mine, by remarks on a tradition of the tribes
of Northern Victoria.^
The exogamous ' phratries ' of these tribes are Eagle-
Hawk and Crow. The tradition represents these birds as
hostile creative powers. They made peace on the terms
' that the Murray blacks should be divided into two classes '
(' phratries'), ' the Makquarra, or Eagle-Hawk, and the Kil-
parra, or Crow. . . . Out of the enmities' (of the original
Crow and Eagle-Hawk) ' arose the two classes, and thence a
law governing marriage among these classes.' This tradition,
it wiU be observed, espouses the theory of a bisection,
deliberately made of ' the Murray blacks,' into two inter-
marrying and exogamous classes. Mr. McLennan writes,
' But what the tradition suggests is, not that the Crow and
Eagle agreed to divide one tribe into two, with a view to the
better regulation of marriage, but that Crow and Eagle or
Eagle-Hawk were tribes (and they might have been consti-
tuted in the ordinary Australian way) which long waged war
against each other, and that at length there came peace, and
then their complete interfusion by means of friendly marriages.'
The tradition asserts the reverse ; it adopts, or rather it
forestalls, the scientific theory of a ' bisection ' of the MuiTay
blacks, not the amalgamation of two tribes (or large local
totem groups). But I agree with Mr. McLennan in prefer-
' Local totem groups, in my theory.
'' Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 423-i24.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 65
ring, for the reasons given, the theory of an amalgamation.
It is rather curious and interesting to observe that almost
every scientific hypothesis about totems and ' classes,' which
I am obliged to reject, has, in fact, been forestalled by the
theories which the natives themselves express in their explana-
tory myths. Myths, I fear, are never in the right. ' The
aborigines themselves,' says Mr. Howitt, ' recognise the
former existence of the undivided commune in their legends,
but,' he judiciously adds, ' I do not rely upon this as having
the force of evidence.' '
We shall presently see that other distinguished anthro-
pologists do, to some extent, rely on Arunta myths, as
' bearing the stamp of authenticity.' The truth is that the
native thinkers have hit on the same hypothesis as their
European critics, the hypothesis of something like deliberate
primeval legislation to a given end, the regulation of mar-
riage. Far from accepting any such native myths, I am
rather inclined to hold that, whatever theory be correct, the
theory of the savage myth-makers must be wrong. It ought
to be said that Mr. Fison, at least, knows what his own
theory involves, and once even frankly accepted the possibility
that the Dieri myth (the foundation of exogamy by divine
decree) may be historically true. ' All I contend for is,' he
says, ' that if the former existence of the undivided commxme
be taken for granted ' (and Mr. Fison, unlike Mr. Howitt,
regards the undivided commune as a mere unproved hypo-
thesis), 'its division into exogamous clans must have had
precisely the effect ' (a consciously reformatory effect) ' which
Mr. Morgan's theory requires. If such a community ever
existed, I do not hesitate to say that Mr. Morgan's " refor-
matory movement" appears to me the most likely mettiod
by which it would begin its advance to a better system of mar-
riage ' than ' communal marriage.'
But what gave the impulse to the hypothetical moral
reformation .'' Contact with a more advanced tribe is
' On the Orgtmisation of Auslralicm Tribes, p. 186.
66 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
reckoned improbable by Mr. Fison (for how came the other
tribe to be more advanced ?), and so the moral impxilse
' must have been derived from a higher power,' from the Good
Spirit, or from ancestral spirits, as in the myths of the Dieri,
the Woeworung, also of the Menomini Redmen of North
America, a branch of the Algonquins, and the Euahlayi
tribe.
According to the Menomini, there is, or was, a Being
who ' made the earth.' ^ His name being interpreted means
' The Great Unknown,' but only extreme believers in the
theory of religious borrowing will say that he was Sir Walter
Scott, Bart. He (The Great Unknown) created ' manidos
or spirits,' in the shape of animals, or birds. The chief
birds (as often in Australia) were Eagles and Hawks. The
Bear ' came out of the ground,' and was turned into an
Indian, by the Great Unknown, alias ' The Good Mystery.'
He and the Beaver headed totem kins now in 'The Big
Thunder phratry.' Other animals came in ; there are now
Bear, Eagle, Crane, and Moose ' phratries,' each containing
a number of totems. All the people of a totem name in the
Menomini tribe are akin to persons of the same totem in
other tribes, say of the Sioux.^
These myths favourably illustrate the piety of the Dieri,
Woeworung, Euahlayi men, and Menomini. Like Mr. Fison
(at one time, and ' under all reserves ') these tribes leaned to
the hypothesis of divine or supernormal intervention in
matters totemic. The Dieri may be right, but a less
difficult hypothesis is that there was never 'an undivided
commune,' in the sense of Mr. Morgan and Mr. Fison, and
that, consequently, it never was ' divided into exogamous
clans.' If so, no miracle is needed : Nee Dens intersit nisi
(lignus vindice nodus. My own scheme needs no divine aid,
nor deliberate legislation, 'in the beginning.' But that
' I know that many students will decline to admit that there is such a
myth of a Maker.
« Report of Bureau of Mtlinology, 1892-1893, pt. i. pp. 32-43.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 67
such legislation has intervened later, I think probable, or
certain.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write : ' Rigidly conservative
as the native is, it is yet possible for changes to be introduced.
. . . There are certain men who are respected for their ability,
and, after watching large numbers of the tribe, at a time
when they were assembled together for months to perform
certain of their most sacred ceremonies, we have come to the
conclusion that, at a time such as this, when the older and
more powerful men from various groups are met together,
and when day by day, and night by night around their camp
fires, they discuss matters of tribal interest, it is quite possible
for changes of custom to be introduced.' ^ The Arunta
traditions allege that such changes introduced by men of
weight, and accepted after discussion, have been not unusual.^
This is highly probable, now, but not in the beginning.
The Arunta historical traditions are of little value as
to historical facts,' but the consciousness of the Central
Australian tribes accepts the possibility that new customs
may now be proposed, debated, and adopted. If no such
thing ever occurred, the belief in its possibility could scarcely
have arisen among the Arunta. But the possibility has its
limits, and one of these is the deliberate primeval intro-
duction of exogamy, for no conceivable reason, and its im-
position on a society already totemic but not yet exogamous.
Perhaps few critics will frankly say that exogamy was thus
imposed ; they will try to qualify or evade so improbable and
antiquated a theory. Yet they cannot but slip back into
it, while they believe in ' segmentations ' of ' an undivided
commune,' and of later totemic ' subdivisions ' of the ' seg-
mentations.'
In any case these Arunta and cognate tribes of similar
usages, so recently discovered, so anomalous, so odd, are
' Natives of Central Australia, pp. 12-15.
2 lUd. pp. 15, 421-422, also p. 272.
' Here I dissent from Mr. Frazer and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen ; the
point is discussed later.
r 2
68 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
' the only begetters ' of the latest hypotheses of Mr. Frazer
and Mr. Spencer — namely, that totems, originally, were co-
operative industrial groups with no influence on marriage
rules. Do the Arunta, then, present a surviving model of
primitive Totemism, in other regions modified and con-
taminated ; or is their Totemism not, like their metaphysics
and psychology, a ' freak,' an unique divergence from the
normal development, as I have from the first maintained ? '
All these difficulties and confusions, as to ' phratries ' and
totems, inevitably arise from the doctrine that the original
totem groups were not at first exogamous, and only became
•exogamous when separate sets of them were scheduled under
Ihe two more recent exogamous primary divisions, or were
segmented out of them. In that case it is not easy to see
how we can escape from the impossible theory that exogamy,
and the primary divisions, were the result, of direct legislative
enactment. Even if we could believe this, we see no conceiv-
able motive, except Mr. Fison's divine intervention, an idea
which, it appears, he put forward quite provisionally in an
argument with Lord Avebury.^
THE ARUNTA
The case of these Central Australian tribes, in regard to
Totemism and marriage prohibitions, is so peculiar that it
demands particular notice. Mr. Frazer some years ago pro-
pounded the hypothesis that the Arunta tribe, especially,
are the most ' primitive ' of living peoples, are still in ' the
chrysalis stage ' of humanity, whence it would follow that
their singular kind of Totemism, and of marriage rules, is
nearest to the beginning, and best represents the original
type.' The Arunta, dwelling in the arid regions of the
centre, have certainly been little contaminated by European
' Fortmghtly Meviem, June 1889.
^ In 1895, J. A. I. xxiv., no. 4, p. 371, Mr. Fisou abandons hope of a
certain discovery of the origin of exogamy.
' Fortniglitly Bevien), April, May, 1899.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 69
influences. They are naked, houseless, non-agricultural
nomads, like all the Australian tribes, and it is asserted by
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen and others that they have not yet
discovered the rather obvious facts as to the reproduction of
the species. All this has certainly a primitive air. But I
have ventured to reply that the Arunta, as regards the family,
are confessedly more advanced towards individual marriage
than their neighbours, the Urabunna, with whom they freely
intermarry.^ Unlike what is told of the Urabunna, the
Arunta recognise ' individual marriage.' They deliberately
and ingeniously modify their system on the occasion of inter-
marriage with the Urabunna. These reckon descent in the
female, the Arunta in the male line.^ The office of Alatunja,
or head man of a local group, among the Arunta, is here-
ditary in the male line, descending to a brother of the late
Alatunja, if he leaves no adult son.'
Moreover, the Arunta, and cognate tribes, occupy an area
of 750 miles, and their meetings and discussions last for
months. A people truly primitive cannot be conceived as
capable of such immense local associations, and of such pro-
longed and pacific assemblies. Again, Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen, rightly or wrongly, believe that ' communal marriage '
is the earlier institution, and that it persists, 'slightly
modified ^ among the Urabunna, but not among the Arunta.
Thus, beyond all doubt, the Arunta are more developed,
more advanced, than the Urabunna, and it is hardly safe to
say that, where their organisation difiers from that of the
Urabmina, and other tribes in general, it differs because it
is more ' primitive.' It must be less primitive, a special
divergence from the type.
ARUNTA METAPHYSICS
Again, as proof that they are in no chrysalis stage, the
Arunta possess a reasoned theory of things, so ingenious and
complex, so peculiar, so extraordinary, so carefully atheistic,
' Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68, 69, 121. ^ Hid. p. 70. » Ibid. p. 10.
70 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
that one could scarcely believe it possible for naked savages,
were it not so well attested. The theory is that of the
original evolution of types of life into plants and animals,
which, with the minimum of extra-natm-al aid, became human.
The human beings possessed souls, which on the death, or
disappearance into earth, of the original owners, were
hereditary, being reborn into Arunta children. These souls
each of a given totem (the plant or animal or other thing
which first became human) haunt certain local centres. One
place is the centre of Grub totem souls, another of Cat totem
souls, and so forth. Each new child is of the totem of the
haunted locality where the mother supposes that she con-
ceived it ; a totem soul of that locality has become incarnate
in her, and from her is born. Thus the wife may be of one
totem, the child of another ; the husband may be of the wife's
totem, of the child's, or of another. The totem is thus no
bar to marriage, and is not inherited, all this being the
result of the peculiar philosophic system of the Arunta.
Their totemism is thus a ' sport,' and not the original form
of the institution.
We cannot reverse the case, the philosophy of hereditary
totemie souls cannot be the result of the present mode of
inheriting the totem from the group of souls that haunts
each locality, it cannot be a myth invented to explain that
custom. That custom requires the peculiar Arunta soul-
belief as its basis, and cannot exist without the belief. If
the child received its totem name from the place where it is
born, we might say, ' Originally the child was called after the
place of its birth.'' (Arunta children still receive territorial
personal names from the place of their birth.) ' Later,
Totemism came in with totem local names, each place having
a totem title. The local totem name of the place where a
child was born was then given to each child. Still later,
arose a myth that totem souls haunted each place, and that
the child received its totem name because a local totem soul
was incarnated in it, at the place where it was born.' We
cannot maintain this theory — which makes the present
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 71
Arunta belief a myth to explain the present Arunta custom —
because that custom it does not explain. The child receives
its totem name, not from the place where it is born, but
from the place where the totem soul entered into its mother.
Nor can we assume that totem names were originally given,
not to human groups, but to districts of territory. Thus
the present Arunta mode of obtaining the totem, in each
case, is the direct result of the Arunta philosophic belief.
That belief is peculiar, is elsewhere unheard of, is the
property of a tribe distinctly more advanced in marriage
rules, and local solidarity, than some of its neighbours, and
therefore cannot be primary. It follows that the Arunta
mode of obtaining the totem, not by inheritance, is not
' primitive,' is not the original model from which the rest ot
savage mankind has diverged. This I state, because, as a
rule, a belief exists to explain an institution, and, as a rule,
an institution is not the result of a belief.
ARUNTA TOTEM EATING AND TRADITIONS
Each Arunta totem kin may now eat, in moderation, of
its own totem, and each kin does magic {Intichiumd) for
the benefit of its totem, as part of the food supply of the
tribe in general. The traditions represent men and women
of the same totem as, of old, usually intermarrying (that is,
as endogamous) : while they are also said, as a rule, to
have fed almost exclusively on their totems, being thus
endophagous.
All these usages, real or traditional (except doing magic
for the benefit of the totem), are at the opposite pole from
the customary exogamous and exophagous Totemism of savage
tribes all over the world, and even in A.ustralia. If, therefore,
the Arunta and tribes practising the same usages are
primitive (it may be, and has been argued), their Totemism
is, in origin, the earliest known case of the division of
labour; each group selecting and working (by magic)
for the benefit of its totem, as part of the tribal food supply.
72 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
I elsewhere argue that each group must probably have had a
recognised connection with its totem, before it set out to do
magic for the propagation of the creature.^ But I have also
maintained that the Arunta are far from being ' primitive,'
but are rather a ' sport,' and that their usages represent a
local variation from the central stream of Totemism; not
Totemism in its earliest known form.
DR. nURKHEIM ON THE ARUNTA
I had written on this topic in the Fortnightly Review
(June, 1899), and in another chapter of this book (' The
Origin of Totemism'), before I saw the essay of Professor
Durkheim, of Bordeaux, Sur le Totemisme? It is encourag-
ing to find that Dr. Durkheim, independently, has worked out
the same theory — namely, that the Arunta are not in the
primitive stage of Totemism, but represent a very peculiar
divergence from the type, and that their historical legends
(more or less accepted by Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer) are
mainly myths, told to account for certain facts in their social
arrangements. We are not to reason from their single case,
says Dr. Durkheim, as against the great mass of our know-
ledge of Totemism and totemistic exogamy and exophagy.
' In place of being a perfectly pure example of the totemistic
regime, is not Arunta Totemism a later and disfigured
{denaturee) development ? ' For many reasons, says Dr.
Durkheim, ' the Arunta are among the most advanced of the
Australian peoples,' ^ and he gives his grounds for this
opinion, some of which I had already adduced in 1899.
Entering into detail. Dr. Durkheim readily shows that,
though the Arunta now permit marriage between persons of
the same totem (which is not hereditary on either side, but
casual), they are, for all that, exogamous, in a fashion result-
ing from precise Totemism in their past.
' See ' The Origin of Totemism,' infra.
2 L'Awnie Socioloffiqvs, 1900-1901, pp. 82-121.
' ma. V. 89-90.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 73
They may not marry within the two primary divisions
(which Dr. Durkheim styles ' phratries '). Each phratry
contains two (sometimes fom-) other ' classes ' (exogamous),
and phratries arose in the combination of ' two elementary
exogamous totem groups ' — as I have already suggested. Now
phratries, we have agreed with Mr. Howitt and Mr. Fison,
were, in all probability, themselves originally totemic. Mr.
Frazer also says, ' We should infer that the objects from which
the Australian phratries take their names were originally
totems. But there seems to be direct evidence that both the
phratries and subphratries actually retain, in some tribes, their
totems.' ^ If the opinion be correct, the phratries of the
Arunta, which regulate their marriages, were originally local
totem groups. On my system, then, namely, that totem kins
were originally, or very early became, exogamous, were
exogamous before ' phratries ' arose, and before the so-called
' bisection ' was made, then the Arunta organisation was
originally that of exogamous Totemism. At first, though
not now, totems regulated Arunta marriages.
Dr. Durkheim, in the passage cited, says that the two
exogamous phratries are composed of ' two elementary totem
groups, egalement exogarms!' ^ Dr. Durkheim, who here
is of my opinion, writes, 'It is not true that, among the
Arunta, the totem has always been ■" (as it is now) ' without
influence on marriages, nor, above all, is it true that Totemism,
generally, implied endogamy.' Yet, according to Arunta
myth, the ancestors of the ' dream-time ' {AlcTwringd) were
endogamous, as a general rule, and, as a general rule, were
endophagous, ate their totem animals or plants. The ances-
tors of their traditions fed on their own totems, ' as if by a
functional necessity,' say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. But
this simply cannot be true, for each totem is not in season
(plums, for instance), or accessible, all the year through, and,
if it were, it would be exterminated by endophagy. The
traditions, again, do not represent the men of the totem
groups as really and religiously endogamous. They exercised
' Totemism, p. 83. ^ IJAnnee SoeiologiqtMi, v. 92.
74 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
marital privileges, not only over the women of their totem
group, but over any other woman they could come across.
Certain totem groups are represented in the legends as wan-
dering across the land, the men living with women of their
totem group, while ' there is nothing to show definitely that
marital relations were prohibited between individuals of
different totems.' The men accepted the caresses of such
women of other totems as they encountered ; but their habi-
tual mates were the women of their own totem. '^ In the
alleged state of perpetual treh, the wives were natinrally,
in the opinion of the myth makers, of the group. At
present an Arunta marries in or out of his totem ; as he
pleases.
THE RELATIONS OF TOTEMS AND ' PHRATRIES '
AMONG THE ARUNTA
The relations of the totem groups to the ' primary
divisions,'' or ' phratries,'' among the Arunta and cognate
tribes, are, as we have already stated, entirely peculiar. We
have seen that, in North America, and in Australia generally,
no phratry ever contains the same totems as its linked
phratry, and we have seen that Mr. Frazer calls this the
natural arrangement. ^ If so, the present Arunta arrangement
is not natural ; it is a divergence from the natural type.
Among the Arunta, ' no totem is confined to either moiety '
(' phratry ') ' of the tribe.' There is only ' in each local
centre a great predominance of one moiety.' ^
Dr. Durkheim regards the present state of Arunta
affairs (the totems not being peculiar to either phratry)
as uTie derogation. Originally, he thinks, as among
the Urabunna, each phratry contained only totems which
were iwt in the other phratry ; and he detects survivals,
among the Arunta, of the earlier usage. At present the
Arunta totems show ' a slight tendency to skip ' (chevaucher)
' Spencer and Gillen, p. 419.
^ /. A. Z, N.S., i. 285. " Spencer and Gillen, p. 120.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 75
' from one into the other phratry, doubtless because the
Arunta totem system is no longer complete ' — and no wonder,
as Arunta totems are now not hereditary, but derived from
the totem souls haunting each locality. Again, in Arunta
legend, the ancestors ' were divided into companies, the
members of which bore the same totem name, and belonged
as a rule to the same moiety ' (' phratry ') ' of the tribe,'' as
now among the Urabunna, ' who are in a less developed state
than the Arunta.'' So say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and
thus Arunta legend points to a past in which Arunta usage
was, in this matter, as a rule the same as that of the less
developed Urabunna : which I believe it really was.
But we can hardly accept the legends when they fit, and
reject them when they do not fit, om- theory ! I lay no
stress on the legends.
K, however, the Arunta ' phi-atries ' originally, as Dr.
Dm-kheim and I believe, never contained the same totems,
then each Arunta totem group was, at that time, necessarily
exogamous. No man or woman could then marry within the
totem, as, at present, the Arunta can and do. They were
barred by the phratry limit : persons of their totem were
never in the phratry into which alone they could marry.
So no one then could marry a member of his or her own totem
kin. ' It is, therefore, untrue that marriage has always been
permitted between members of a totem,' says Dr. Durkheim,
though Arunta legend declares for the opposite view.
ARUNTA MYTHS
Here I am apt to agi-ee with Dr. Durkheim. The evi-
dence of the Arunta legends as to the customs of the
Akheringa, or ' dreamtime,'' is ' such stuff as dreams are
made of The legends are ' statements, invented mainly by
popular fancy,'' says Dr. Durkheim, 'to explain existing
institutions, by attaching them to some mythical beings in
the past. They are myths, in the proper sense of the word.''
They are not marked by authenticity.
76 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Against this idea we have the opinion of Mr. Frazer, and
of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.^ The Arunta traditions,
they say, and Mr. Frazer agrees with them, do not explain the
present system, but deal with a former state of organisation
and with customs quite different from the present. They do,
but the Arunta invented the customs described in their myths,
on purpose to explain, mythically, how the present customs
arose out of deliberate modification of the alleged older
customs. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen themselves assert this :
'the traditions point to a very definite introduction of an
exogamic system, long after the totemic groups were fully
developed, and, further, they point very clearly to the fact
that the introduction was due to the deliberate action
of certain ancestors,' which is the theory of Mr. Lewis
Morgan !
The rest is true, but I, like Dr. Durkheim, conceive that
all is (except where we have external evidence for deliberate
modification of the ' classes ') merely part of the Arunta
agtiological or explanatory myth. That myth starts from
the belief (Mr. Howitt's belief ?) in primary totemic, but not
exogamous groups, such as are precisely the present groups of
the Arunta, though not of their neighbours the Urabunna,
or of totemists in general. This exceptional condition of
Arunta affairs needed explanation, and got it, in the myth
that the groups were originally totemic, but not exogamous,
as Arunta totem groups stiU are. Exogamy (not applying
to totem groups, but to ' phratries '') was brought in, the
myth says, by deliberate action, by our old friend, 'the
Legislator.' The Arunta traditions, therefore, do explain
' the origin of the present system,' of the Arunta, as far as
exogamy goes ; and their explanation is as much a specu-
lative hypothesis as Mr. Morgan's equivalent theory. It is
one more example of the coincidence of savage myth and
scientific hypothesis.
' J. A. I., N.S., i., nos. 3, 4, p. 276.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 77
MR. SPENCER ON ARUNTA LEGENDS
I understand Messrs. Spencer and Gillen to contest this
opinion, in one psissage, and to assert it, under qualifications,
in another. Their exact words must be given. 'If they'
(Arunta traditions) ' simply explained the origin of the
present system out of, as it were, no system, then we might
regard them as simply myths invented to account for the
former ' (i.e. ' the present system ' ), ' but when we find that
they deal with a gradual development, and with a former
state of organisation and customs quite different from, and in
important respects at variance with, the organisation and
customs of the present day, we are probably right in regard-
ing them as actually indicative of a time when these were
different from those now in force.' ^
Now to what do the traditions amount, as regards earlier
marriage laws and customs at variance with those now in use
among the Arunta ? They amount to this : (1) Men of one
totem had marital relations normally with women of the
same totem. It is no longer the case that Arunta men have
relations, normally and exclusively, with women of the same
totem ; a man may marry a woman of his own totem, or not,
as he pleases. But so, in the traditions of the primeval trek,
a man might, and did, take women of other totems as he
pleased, by conquest probably ; though these women seem to
have lived, hitherto, solely with men of their own totem.
The tradition starts from the hypothesis that all members of
each mythical wandering totem group were originally of the
same totem. That being so, the men naturally lived, when
on trek, with women of their totem, taking women of other
totems as they came across them. No longer on trek, the
Arunta of to-day do the same thing, marry women of their
own or any other totem. The only shade of difference arises
from the nature of the mythical theory, that many totem
groups were originally migratory. But the present Arunta
' /.Ji.Z,N.S.,i. 276-277.
78 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
system of ' go as you please ' in marriage (as far as totems
are concerned) differs from the regular custom of the neigh-
bouring Urabunna, for example. That difference, the Arunta
probably feel, needs explanation. So their myth explains it,
' we Arunta always acted thus from the beginning.' So far
the ' tradition ' of Messrs Spencer and Gillen seems to me to
be an ordinary explanatory myth.
(2) At the supposed time (a time when many human
tjrpes were still in the husk ! ) men and women of what are
now ' exogamic groups ' (' phratries ' or ' classes ' ) had marital
relations contrary to present usage.
But did the phratries or classes then, according to tradi-
tion, exist at all ? The legend says that the men of the
Little Hawk totem had these ' phratries ' and classes, Kumura
and Purula and so on (the names then carrjdng no known
exogamous prohibition, as now, for the legend does not say
that these ' classes ' were exogamous). The Little Hawk men
had arrived at the arts of making flint knives, and using
them in circumcision. This they taught to less advanced
groups, who tooled with fire sticks. But they only let their
pupils have ' very rough ' stone knives (Palaeolithic, probably),
at first. ' It was these Little Hawks,' say our authors, ' who
first gave to the Arunta the fom- " class " names. We may
presume that along with them there was instituted some system
of marriage regulations, but what exactly this was there is
no evidence to show.' Either the Little Hawks introduced
exogamy, or they did not, a valuable result of traditional
evidence.' 'As yet we have no indication of any restric-
tions with regard to marriage as far as either totems or
classes are concerned,' say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. Then
why does the legend aver that the class names existed ? Why
did they exist ? Now the existing restrictions of the ' classes '
need explanation, and get it, from the myth ; but, as there
are no Arunta totem restrictions on marriage, at present the
myth naturally says nothing about them. At this mythic
period, ' persons of the Purula and Kumura classes, who may not
' Native Tribes of Aiistralia, pp. 396-402, 421.
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES 79
now marry one another, are represented as living together.' ^
(3) Next ' the organisation now in vogue was adopted.' But,
in its first shape, due to the wisdom of Emu men, it permitted
marriages, which are now (4) forbidden by the superior intelli-
gence of men dwelling further north, ' and it was decided to
adopt the new system,' that is, the present Arunta ' class '
system.
Now the Arunta are stiU accepting innovations from the
North, and this part of the myth need not be mythical.
But the whole traditions, fuU of stark mythical inventions
(including a myth like that of Isis and the mutilation of
Osiris), amount merely to this. Society was totemic, but the
totems were not exogamous ; rather endogamous of the two.
Society among the Arunta is still totemic, but not, as far as
totems go, exogamous. In this it differs from the usual rule,
and the myth explains why, — ' it was always so.' But Arunta
society is exogamous as regards the ' phratries ' and classes,
and that has to be explained by the myth. The myth there-
fore explains by saying that Emu men introduced a deficient,
and northern men an adequate, system of exogamy — -that
which now prevails. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, however,
appear to deny that the ' traditions ' ' simply explain the
origin of the present system, out of, as it were, no system.'
It is true that the traditions do give stages in the arrange-
ment of the present system ; but they also do ' explain the
origin of the present system.' And Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen not only admit this, but, as we saw, even think the
explanation ' quite possible.' The explanation, I repeat, is
that the system ' is due to the deliberate action of certain
ancestors,' Emu men and wiser Northern men.
Of course, as we tried to show, that explanation of
primeval exogamy is improbable, but it is the explanation
given by the Arunta legend. With a grain of fact, as to
innovations from the North, the legend is a myth, an
aetiological myth, a myth explanatory of the origin of the
present organisation. History it is not. The Arunta
> Native Tribes of Australia, p. 418.
80 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
' traditions ' are not historical evidence in favour of the new
hypothesis that the Arunta are ' primitive,' are in ' the
chrysalis stage ' of humanity ; (this they deny) : that Totem-
ism, in origin, vi^as a magical co-operative and industrial
association ; that the original totems were not exogamous ;
and that exogamy was superimposed by legislation, or grew
out of an organisation so imposed on a society of non-exoga-
mous totem groups. Whatever the value of that hypothesis,
it has no historical support from the Arunta traditions.
History is a very diflFerent thing.
The Arunta still marry, at pleasure, in or out of the
totem, merely because their totems are now scattered about
among their exogamous divisions. This is not the ' natural
arrangement ' (as Mr. Frazer assures us), is not the inevitable
original arrangement, and is not the case with their neighbours,
the Urabunna, who are confessedly ' less developed than the
Arunta.' The Urabunna system, therefore, is more archaic,
ex hypothesi, than that of the Arunta, which must be less
archaic. It is, I repeat, peculiar, isolated, needs explanation,
and the Arunta traditions give the explanation. The an-
cestors took women in or out of the totem, as at present the
Arunta do ; exogamy by classes was later imposed, says the
myth. Dr. Durkheim appears here to hold the more logical
position. There was, I conceive, with Dr. Durkheim, and
have stated, though Messrs Spencer and Gillen and others
deny it, ' a primary relationship between the totemic system
and exogamy.' '
' Op. eit. p 279
81
CHAPTER IV
ABUNTA PHBATRIES AND TOTEMS
The essential question is, why, among the more archaic
Urabvmna, do the large exogamous divisions never include the
same totems, whereas, among the more highly developed
Arunta, they do ? If we can show how the Arunta, if once
organised on the Urabunna and North American model, came
to slip out of it ; while we cannot show how the Urabunna,
and most other tribes, if once on the Arunta model, came to
desert it (as they must have done), then it will seem probable
that the Urabunna organisation, the regular universal Aus-
tralian organisation, is the older.
The sequence of events, as understood by Messrs. Spencer
and Gillen, was this, or, at least, may thus be conceived.
We take two tribes, say Urabunna and Arimta. They both
have many totem groups, totemic, because (on this theory)
each group had, for its ' primary function,' the working of
magic for the object which was its totem. The totem had
primarily, on this theory, no relation to marriage rules. It
is 'quite possible' that certain persons then deliberately
introduced exogamous divisions. . . . 'so as to regulate
marital relations.' The exact purpose, however, is unknown ;
' it can only be said that far back in the early history of
mankind, there was felt the need of some form of organisa-
tion, and that this gradually resulted in the development of
exogamic groups.' This position I have already criticised ; it
is not intelligible to me. However — the exogamous division
was made, and then all the totems might be arranged sepa-
rately in the two divisions, by the Urabunna, ' and perhaps
82 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
the majority of Australian tribes ' (and the American tribes)
or, ' this was not done,' as by the Arunta. Consequently,
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen think, the rule which prevents
an Urabunna man from marrying a woman of his own
totem, has nothing, primarily, to do with the totem, but
is a mere inevitable consequence of the system which, among
all tribes but the Arunta, excluded each totem from one of
the two exogamous divisions, and placed it (not among the
Arunta) in the other. My own system — I need not reiterate
it — is the reverse of all this.
The Arunta, I contend, probably had, originally, the
usual organisation, but have lost it, for obvious reasons, so
that now the same totem may occur in both of the large exo-
gamous divisions, and persons of the same totem may now
intermarry.
The traditions of the Arunta represent the exogamous
' phratries ' as later than the totemic (but not yet exogamous)
division. Dr. Diu-kheim thinks this improbable or impossible.
It is true that the ' phratries ' or ' classes ' are now much more
important, among the Arunta, than the totems, on which
Dr. Durkheim insists. They need not, therefore, be earlier.
VIEWS OF DR. DURKHEIM
The theory of Dr. Durkheim is not, perhaps, expressed
with his usual lucidity ; at least I have found some difficulty
in understanding it. The following summary, however, seems
to be correct. ' The phratry,' he says, ' began by being a clan '
(in my terminology an exogamous local totem group).
' There is no reason why this general idea should not apply
to the Arunta. Consequently, since there are actually two
exogamous phratries, we have reason to admit that this
society was originally formed by two primary clans, or, if
any one prefers the phrase, by two elementary totem groups,
both exogamous {egalement exogames), for under this form the
two phratries must have begun to exist. Now in that case
there was at least a moment when marriage was forbidden
ARUNTA PHRATRIES AND TOTEMS 83
between members of the same totem,' though now among the
Arunta this rule no longer obtains.^
So far Dr. Durkheim and I hold identical views ; we
differ on a point of detail. What are, and whence came,
the totems within the phratries ? Dr. Dm-kheim conceives
the case thus : Originally there was a ' clan ' (local totem
group) which was exogamous, and married out into one other
equally exogamous clan. The members of each such exo-
gamous totem group (' clan ') then multiplied and ' swarmed
off,' in colonies, and all such colonies took a new totem, while
retaining ' the sentiment of their primary solidarity ' with the
original totem group. These are the ' secondary ' totem
kins. But why should they take new totem names and new
totems ? ^ I know not, but the original group from which
they swarmed off now became their ' phratry.' This phratry,
in many cases, still has a totem name, ' which is the proof
that it is, or has been a clan,' that is an exogamous totem
group.' Therefore exogamous totem groups were ' primary,'
the existing totem kins are ' secondary,' they have split off^
from the original groups. As far as I am able to foUow Dr.
Durkheim's reasoning, he and I differ on this one point.
We both regard the two ' phratries ' as having been originally
local exogamous totem groups, which united in cormvbium.
But in each ' phratria ' there exist several totem kinships.
Dr. Durkheim regards these as ' secondary ' branches which
split off" from the two original local totem groups, and which,
in each case, took new totem names, while retaining member-
ship in their original totem groups, now ' phratries.' They
are totemic colonies of a totemic metropolis. I, on the other
hand, as has been explained, conceive that each of the two
local totem groups which became phratries (say Emu and
Kangaroo) already, by the action of exogamy in a region
where there were many totem groups, and by virtue of
female descent, contained within it persons who were of
' V Annie Soeiologique, v. 91, 92.
2 This idea we shall find again later, in another part of Dr. Durkheim's
system. ' L' Annie Sooiologiq'ue, i. 6, 7.
o2
84 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
various totem kindreds. Dr. Durkheim, on the contrary,
seems to think of the existence of but two primal exogamous
clans in a given region. Groups emigrating from these took
new totem names, while retaining the phratry name and
connection with their mother clans, now phratries.
Why the clans were totemic at all does not appear. I
understand that they were exogamous out of respect for the
blood of their totems, the totem tabu (p. 57, note 1).
Against the hypothesis it may be urged (1) that we do
not know that emigrants from a local centre ever select new
totem names — unless, indeed, they reach a region where their
old totem does not exist. This cannot have occxnred con-
stantly. Again (2), Dr. Durkheim's theory involves the
same diificulty as my own. How did the colonies from the
Kangaroo group happen never to select the same totem as
colonies from the Emu group, so that the same totem never
occurs in both phratries .? This implies deliberate arrange-
ment. If however, totem names were given from without,
by neighbours (as I shall argue), the case could not occur at
all, and the same totem would appear in both phratries.
If we adopt the hypothesis that two friendly ' families,'
or ' fire circles,' of a cousinly character, set the first example
of exogamous intermarriage — exclusively with each other —
and then got totem names, they might become phratries, but
whence arose the totem kins within the phratries ? Shall we
say that other such ' families,' increasing in size, and receiving
totem names, came in, two by two, to Emu and Kangaroo,
each of the new linked adherents taking opposite sides,
Opossum going to the Kangaroo, Bandicoot to the Emu
phratry "i This would give the totems within the phratries,
by a constant accession of other pairs of phratries, which
subordinated themselves, one to Emu, one to Kangaroo.
Either this hypothesis, or Dr. Diurkheim's, or my own,
accounts for the phratry plus totem kins arrangement,
without supposing the deliberate bisection of a hitherto
undivided commune. That hypothesis, if any one of the
other three, Dr. Durkheim's, my own, or the theory of acces-
ARUNTA PHRATRIES AND TOTEMS 85
sions to the pair of exogamous intermarrying families, be
accepted, is therefore not forced upon us in defect of a
better.
HOW DID THE ARUNTA ANOMALY ARISE?
At all events, the Arunta ' clan ' (totem kin) is now no
longer exogamoxis, and two Arunta phratries can now con-
tain members of the same totems, contrary to Kamilaroi,
Dieri and Urabunna and American custom. How did
this anomaly arise ? Dr. Durkheim supposes that the change
began when Arunta kinship came to desert the female and
to be reckoned in the male line. This appears to Dr. Din-k-
heim to be indicated by the complicated and ingenious
arrangements made when an Urabunna (who reckons by the
female line) intermarries with an Arunta, who reckons by
the male line.' These arrangements, he thinks, are no
novelty devised for the occasion : the Arunta merely revert to
their old way of reckoning by the spindle side. When the
Arunta changed their system, and reckoned in the male,
not, as of old, in the female line, the children now belonged
to the ' phratries,' not of their mothers, as previously, but of
their fathers. Each ' phratry ' then bartered a sub-class of
its own for a sub-class of its partner. Each bartered sub-
class thus brought its totems into the other ' phratry,' and
there was no longer a totem group entirely peculiar to one
or other ' phratry.' Consequently, a member of the Kan-
garoo totem could marry a woman of the same, if she were in
the opposite ' phratry ' to his own.
Might not the same results follow from the mere fact,
that, among the Arunta, the totem is now inherited neither
from father nor mother, but is derived simply from the totem
souls that haunt the particular glen or hill where the child
was conceived ? By this means a totem soul can get into a
child of the ' phratry ' to which that totem did not origi-
nally belong, and thus the totems ' skip ' from one ' phratry '
» VAwn. 8oe. V. 104-107 ; Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68-69.
86 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
to another, contrary to general rule in Australia and North
America. This is the explanation of the Arunta anomaly
which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen accept. ' The spirit child '
(of the Lizard totem) 'deliberately, the natives say, chose
to go into a Kumura ^ (class) ' woman, instead of a Bulthara
woman. . . . TTiough the class was changed, the totem could
not possibly be. . . . Owing to the system according to
which totem names are acquired, it is always possible for
a man to be, say, a Purula ' (class) ' or a Kumura ' (class)
' and yet a Witchetty ; or, on the other hand, a Bulthara '
(class) 'or a Panunga' (class) 'and yet an Emu' (totem).
But, if he is thus born to a totem which was not originally
(on my theory) a totem of his phratry, a man loses the
chance of being an Alatutya, or head man of a local group.'
Thus the Arunta anomaly arises merely and necessarily
from the Arunta philosophy of souls. That philosophy is
an isolated freak, and it has upset and revolutionised Arunta
Totemism, which, therefore, is the reverse of the 'primi-
tive ' model.
' Spencer and Gillen, pp. 125, 126. The reader is recommended to
study Dr. Durkheim's passage cited in the last note, the topic being
difficult.
87
CHAPTER V
OTHEB BABS TO MABBIAQES
The prohibitions on marriage, with which we have hitherto
been concerned, are based on what savages regard — while
we do not — as relations of kindred. Men and women of
the same ' phratry ' or ' primary division ' may not inter-
marry (where such divisions exist), nor may men and women
of the same totem name. Civilised society, at least in
Europe, now recognises no such things as the ' phratry ' or
the totem kin. When Mr. George Osborne, in Vanity
Fair, was asked whether he was akin to the ducal House ot
Leeds, he replied that he bore the same arms — these having
been conferred on his father by a coach-builder. In savage
society, Captain Osborne's answer would have been satis-
factory. He would really have reckoned as a kinsman of all
other Emus, if his totem and badge (coat of arms) was an
Emu. In Scotland the Campbell name used to be regarded as
implying at least a chance that the bearer was of the blood
of the Black Knight of Loch Awe, and had a right to the
Campbell tartan, and badge, the gale, or bog-myrtle. But,
of course, as a rule, in modem society, a common surname is
no proof of kinship, and coats of arms are usually borne by
the middle classes, and peers of recent creation, without much
inquiry.
So far, then, the totemic rules which prohibit certain
marriages, have no resemblance to oiu- own definite ' forbidden
degrees,' based on nearness of blood. The savage rules,
as they stand, include our notions of kindred, but these
notions, as far as they are recognised, are not conterminous
with ours. But the ' phratry ' prohibitions, and the totem
88 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
prohibitions, are not the only bars to marriage among such
peoples as the Australians.
The other bars are lucidly described by Messrs. Spencer
and Gillen.i 'There are still further restrictions to mar-
riage . . . and it is here that we are brought into contact
with the terms of relationship.'' We find that a woman may
belong to a totem kin (and phratry) into which a man may
lawfully marry, ' yet there is a further restriction preventing
marriage in this particular case.' Thus a male Dingo (among
the Urabunna) may marry a female Water Hen, as far as
' phratry ' and totem are concerned. But he may not marry
a woman of the Water Hen totem if she reckons (1) as his
father's sister (i.e. of his father's generation), (2) if she is his
child, or his brother's child (of the next generation), (3) if
she be one of his mother's younger brother's daughters :
but he may marry her if she (4) be one of his mother's elder
brother's daughters. All women of that category (4) are
Nupa, or nubile, as far as this man goes. In category 1,
the women (including ' paternal aunts,' as we reckon) are of
an older generation than the man ; in category 2 they are
of a younger generation (including our ' children ' and
' nieces ') ; in category 3 the women include oin* cousins on
the maternal side, by uncles younger than our mothers, and,
in category 4, they include our cousins on the maternal side,
by uncles older than oin- mothers. We Em-opeans, being
males, may not marry into categories 1 and 2, but if not
Catholics, we may marry into categories 3 and 4 ; if Catho-
lics, we may — if we can get a dispensation.
In the Australian system the oddest thing is that a male
may marry into what, in our phrase, includes his younger
maternal uncle's daughter, but not his elder maternal uncle's
daughter. But we here use the words ' uncle,' aunt,' and
' cousin,' only by way of illustration. The Urabunna, and
tribes of their level generally, have no such words. AU
children (category 1) ' of men who are at the same level in the
generation, and belong to the same class and totem, are
' Op. eit. p. 61.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 89
regarded as the common children of these men,' or, perhaps
we should rather say, are called by the same name, Bidka, as
a man's own children are styled. A man knows very well
which children he reckons his own, though, as will be seen,
he has little ground for his confidence. In the same way a
child, though he calls all men of his father's class, totem, and
level in the generation, Nia (fathers), knows well enough
which Nia feeds him, pets him, thrashes him for his good,
and, generally, plays the paternal part. For example, a man
informs you that this or that native, by personal name
Oriaka, is his Okilia, ' and you cannot possibly tell with-
out further inquiry whether he is the speaker's own or tribal
brother, that is the son of his own father, or of some man
belonging to the same particular group ' (by ' phratry,' totem,
and seniority) ' as his father.' ^ But you can learn ' by
farther inquiry : ' the actual relationship, in our sense of the
word, is recognised.
' GROUP MARRIAGE '
These facts necessarily lead to the question, are all men of
one class, totem, and seniority, actual husbands of all women
of the opposite class, different totem, and equivalent
seniority ? (Group Marriage). Or, if this is no longer the
case, was it once the case .'' and are these sweeping uses of
names which include our ' father,' ' mother,' ' brother,' ' child,'
survivals of such a stage, called ' Group Marriage'? This
question is stUl undecided ; good authorities take opposite
views of the question, which has bred, in the past, much
angry controversy.
MR. MORGAN AND THE CLASS SYSTEM
The arrangement by • classes,' ' the classificatory system,'
was first brought into scientific prominence by the late Mr.
Lewis Morgan, an American gentleman affiliated to the
' Spencer and Gillen, p. 57.
90 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Iroquois tribe, in his very original studies of the names for
degrees of kinship.^ A great deal may be said, and has been said,
especially by Mr. McLennan and Dr. Westermarck, against
Mr. Morgan's ideas and methods, but his large and careful
collection of facts is of high importance. On what he called
' the Malayan system,' one name denoting kin includes all
my brothers, sisters, and cousins. Another name includes
my father, mother, my uncles, aunts, and all the cousins of
my father, mother, aunts, and uncles. The generation of my
grandparents and their relations is included in a third name ;
a fourth covers my children and their cousins, and the grand-
children of my brothers and sisters, with their children, bear
the same name, for me, as my own grandchildren. From the
names Mr. Morgan inferred the existence of certain facts in
the evolution of systems of kindred. Everybody of the same
generation lived together, once, on his theory, in ' communal
marriage,' brothers, sisters, and cousins. There was promis-
cuity between all men and women in the same generation.
Of course this involves the converse of Mr. Atkinson's Primal
Law, as Mr. Atkinson observes in his eighth chapter. In
place of the prohibition of brother and sister union being the
earliest of prohibitions (as in Mr. Atkinson's system), the
rule that they must unite, caused, in Mr. Morgan's opinion,
the earliest form of the human family.
DIFFICULTIES OF MR, MORGANS THEORY
Mr. Morgan's theory, it must be observed, landed him at
once in the fallacy of supposing that prohibitions of marriage
of kinsfolk were originally the result of ' a reformatory move-
ment.' ^ We have seen that, granting, for the sake of argu-
ment, Mr. Morgan's premise of an original ' undivided
commune,' Mr. Fison is also deposited in the same difficulty,
' Systems of Consanguinity amd Affinity of the Human Family (1871) ;
and ATioient Society (1877) ; earlier in The League of the Iroquois (1854).
' So Mr. Fison candidly states, and Mr. Morgan saw his work, and
wrote an introductory essay. Kamilaroi and Kwrnai, p. 99.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 91
and was once even inclined to regard a theory of intervention
' by a higher power ' (the Dieri myth) as not necessarily out
of the question, if marriage was once commimal. To reform
such marriage relations, he says, ' would be a step in advance
so difficult for men in that utter depth of savagery to take,
that they would not be able to take it, unless they had help
from without. This might be given by contact with a more
advanced tribe ; but if all the tribes started from the same
level, that impulse would be impossible in the first instance,
and must have been derived from a higher power.' ^ Mr.
Fison, as we saw, has since expressed the opinion that the
origin of exogamy is probably indiscoverable, but I cite again
his early remark to prove his sense of the insuperable difficulty
of Mr. Morgan's theory.
How were men in his hypothetical condition to know that
there was anything to reform ? It needed a divine revelation !
Mr. Morgan was himself aware of this difficulty, and
tried to get out of it, by using Darwinian phrases about
' natural selection ' — ' blessed words,' but here unavailing.
He was in the postmre of Mr. Spencer, between direct
legislation to introduce exogamy, and gradual evolution of
exogamy, as the slow result of the felt need of ' some organi-
sation,' — its nature and purpose unknown. Thus Mr.
Morgan, speaking of communal marriage, and its results,
says that ' emancipation from them was slowly accomplished
through movements which resulted in unconscious reforma-
tion.' These movements were, first, the ' class ' system, then
the ^ gens'' (totem system), 'worked out unconsciously through
natural selection.' ^ TTiis means, if it means anything, that,
by a freak or sport, some people did not marry in and in,
that they unconsciously evolved the totem system, that they
therefore throve, while others who married in and in, and
did not evolve the totem system, perished, and so we
have the results of ' natural selection.' But why did some
people avoid the habit of marriages of near kin which was so
general ? The position is that of Dr. Westermarck, who
' Kamilarn and Kicrncd, pp. 160-161. = Ancient Society, pp. 49-50.
92 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
adds an 'instinct,' developed by natural selection/ an idea
which involves arguing in a circle.
Again, that peoples marrying in the communal way would
die out has to be proved : science has no certainty in the
matter.
In any case, Mr. Morgan presently deserts his opinion
about slow unconscious reformation, and his natural selection.
' The organisation into classes seems to have been directed to
the single object of breaking up the intermarriage of brothers
and sisters, which affords a probable explanation of the
origin of the system. But since it does not look beyond this
particular abomination it retained a conjugal system nearly
as objectionable . . . .' ^ The reader sees that Mr. Morgan
cannot keep on the high Darwinian level. He relapses on a
supposed moral reform with a single object of things ' abomi-
nable' — to us — and ' objectionable' — to us. But how did the
pristine savages find out that such things were ' abominable' ?
Presently the totem prohibition (' the gens ') ' originates
probably in the ingenuity of a small band of savages,' for
the purpose of modifying marriage law, and the daring
novelty ' must soon have proved its utility in the production
of superior men."* Here we have the legislation due to
human ' ingenuity,' and natural selection comes in to aid and
diffuse the system. Later ' the evils of the first form of
marriage came to be perceived ' (what were they .') and
this led 'if not to its direct abolition, to a preference for
wives beyond this degree. Among the Australians it was
abolished by the organisation into classes, and more widely
among the Turanian tribes by the organisation into gentes.''
The Australians have ^gentes'' (totem groups) quite as much
as the ' Turanians ' or ' Ganowanians,' and we have tried to
show that totems are prior to ' classes.' * But the Australians
' abolished ' a form of marriage by an ' organisation,' which
implies deliberate legislation. From this difficulty of legisla-
' Cf . The Mystic Hose, pp. 444-445. Westermarck, p. 352.
^ AnHent Society, p. 59. ^ IMd. p. 74.
* By ' classes ' Mr. Morgan here seems to mean phratries.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 93
tion, so early and so moral, no advocate of the ' bisection ' of
an undivided commune and of its ' subdivision ' into totem
' phratries ' and kins, can escape, however he may make a
push at ' natural selection,' and gradual evolution.
MR. MORGAN ON TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP
These perplexities do not predispose us in favour of Mr.
Morgan's theory of the terms of ' Relationship,' which we
have illustrated by the case of the Urabunna. He himself
takes the Hawaiian terms, which are to the same effect. In
brief, all the men and women of a generation are ' brothers and
sisters,' all those of the prior generation are ' fathers and
mothers,' aU those of the following generation are ' children.'
Now, if ever all the men and women of a generation married
' all through other,' promiscuously, these terms of ' relation-
ship ' would be in place. First, we are told, brothers and
sisters in a family intermarried, and the process ' gradually
enfolded the collateral brothers and sisters, as the range of
the conjugal system widened.' And then ' the evils came to
be perceived,' what evils, how perceived, we do not know,
and Reformation set in. It definitely began with the
Australian ' Bisection,' ' the organisation into classes ' (really
into ' phratries '), and about the difBculties of that theory
enough has been said.
The reader will naturally ask, what is the original mean-
ing of the words now used by Hawaiians, and Urabunna, and
others, for the relations in which our ' father,' ' son,' ' wife,'
' husband,' ' mother,' ' daughter,' ' brother,' ' sister,' are
included ? Do the words embracing our terms ' brother '
and ' sister ' in Hawaii, or elsewhere, imply procreation, and
issue (as in Greek), ' from the same womb ' ? Among the
Arunta they cannot mean procreation, if they do not even
know (as Messrs, Spencer and Gillen tell us), that there
is any such thing as procreation. 'A spirit child enters
a woman,' that is all. In the times of this primeval igno-
rance, words for relationships could not imply bearing and
94. SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAWS
begetting ; they must have meant something else. Say that
they meant relationships in point of seniority : ' my male
elder,' ' my female elder,' ' my male junior,' ' my female junior,'
' my male coeval or friend,' ' my female coeval or friend,' ' the
man I may marry,' ' the woman I may marry,' ' the woman or
man I may not marry.'
If low savage names for relationships meant that (no
doubt they do not, or not often) then they would undeniably
prove nothing as to a system of communal marriage. A baby
points to any man or woman and says ' pa ' or ' ma,' without
any theory of communal marriage. Thus philologists must
first interpret for us the original significance of these savage
names of relationships. Once given, they would last, what-
ever they originally implied. Dr. Westermarck has urged
this point.' In the terms themselves there is, generally,
nothing which indicates that they imply an idea of con-
sanguinity.' ' Pa, papa ' (father), ma, mama (mother), and
scores of others, ' are formed from the earliest sounds a child
can produce,' and ' have no intrinsic meaning whatever.' Dr.
Westermarck gives a long list of such words, applied to
' fathers, and all the tribe brothers of fathers,' and the same
for mothers, concluding ' that we must not, from these desig-
nations, infer anything as to early marriage customs.' He
does not deny that other terms of relationship have roots of
independent meaning, ' but the number of those that imply
an idea of consanguinity does not seem to be very great.'
In Lifu (Melanesia), the word for ' father ' means ' root ; ' for
' mother,' ' foundation ' or ' vessel ; ' for ' sister,' ' not to be
touched ; ' for ' elder and younger brother,' ' ruler ' and
' ruled.' ^ The terms for father and mother denote con-
sanguinity ; the others, customary law, and status.
If we only knew the meanings, say, of the Urabunna
words for relationships, we should learn much. But the
truly amusing fact is that Mr. Fison, for example, did not
know the language of the natives, and thought that probably
' Westermarck, pp. 85, 96.
" Lord Avebnry, Origin of Civilisation, pp. 442-449, 1902.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 95
not six white men in Australia had an adequate knowledge,
and an adequate access to the notions, of the tribesmen. Of
these one had been initiated, and, like a gentleman, declined
to break the oath of secresy.^ This was in 1880. Things
may have improved. But unless our authorities know the
languages, where are we ? We do know that seniority is
indicated. Father's elder brothers are Gampatcha Kuka
(Warramunga tribe).
Mr. McLennan thought that all these terms were ' terms
of address,' used to avoid the employment of personal names,
and Dr. Westermarck holds that ' there can scarcely be any
doubt that the terms for relationship are, in their origin,
terms of address.' Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, after
impartial consideration, cannot accept this view, for Australia ;
where the terms are very numerous, and stand for relations
very complicated, connected with the intermarrying groups,
and with social duties. In addressing a person, his or her
individual name (oiu- Christian name) is freely used.^ They
believe that the terms can only be explained ' on the theory
of the former existence of group marriage, and further, that
this has of necessity given rise to the terms of relationship
used by the Australian natives.' These opinions are shared
by Messrs. Fison and Howitt. The former says, ' It must, I
think, be allowed that the classificatory terms point to group
marriage,' and though Bastian denies this, Mr. Fison supports
his theory by the Dieri custom of allotting paramours
(pinauru) to men and women, out of the sets which may
intermarry.^
To this problem we return ; meanwhile it may seem
impertinent in mere ethnologists of the study to hint a
doubt as to the conclusions of observers on the spot. Mr.
Crawley, however, has no hesitations. The use of the terms
of relationship, he thinks, does not testify to a past of
' Group Marriage,' or to a remoter past of promiscuity, but
is ' the regular result of the primitive theory of relationship ;
» Kamila/roi and Kurnai, p. 60.
' Spencer and Gillen, pp. 56, 57, 59. ' J. A. I., May 1895, p. 368.
96 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
the system codifies a combination of relation and relationship,
" address," and age.' The terms in use ' do not in themselves
necessarily point to a previous promiscuity, or even to a
present group marriage,' as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
believe.
The point is one on which I almost hesitate to venture a
decided opinion. Much seems to depend on the original
sense of the various terms, and on that point, in the case of
Urabunna, and many other tribes, we have no light. But
often the terms do not express consanguinity at all. There
seems to be no word for ' daughter ' as distinct from ' son,'
' nephew,' and ' niece.' The grandfather maternal is
Thunthie, and Thunthunnie is Urabunna for totem, so that
it is tempting to guess that Thunthie means ' a sire of the
maternal totem.' ^ Kadnini, again (I speaking), means grand-
father paternal, grandmother maternal, and grandchildren.^
These relationships imply duties and services. ' One
individual has to do certain things for another . . . and any
breach of these customs is severely punished.' An Arunta of
the Panunga class calls all Kumura men ' fathers-in-law.'
He gashes his flesh if any one of his ' fathers-in-law ' dies,
and he drops his dead game if he meets any one of them.
They all have that advantage over hira.' Thus these
terms of relationship — communal in appearance — really
involve certain duties, rather than relations of blood and
affinity. But emphatically the terms are more than mere
terms of address, as in Mr. McLennan's theory.
But these are usages of the system as it stands to-day. Is
there behind it an 'undivided commune,' as Mr. Morgan
held ; is there actual ' group marriage ' ? I am not apt to
believe that there is. Language shows, in the terras of
relationship, a group of ' Mothers ' for each child ; but, as
Mr. Darwin remarks, 'it seems almost incredible that the
relationship of the child to its mother should ever have been
completely ignored, especially as the women in most savage
tribes nurse their infants for a long time.' A man's mother
, ' Spencer and Gillen, p. 60. » Ibid. p. 66. ' Ibid. p. 75.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 97
is one, and must be known, though he calls many women by
the same name as he gives to his mother. She is lumped, in
the terms of relationship, in one term with all the women
whom the father might legally have married, but did not.
The son, in addressing or speaking of his mother, overlooks
the ' one love which needs no winning,' and his term has
reference only to the present marriage law of his tribe.
That law ' codifies ' the terms, they result from that law, and
that law, again, is based, if I am right, on totem prohibitions,
on the desire to keep marriage between people of the same
generation, and on the rights and duties of the generations.
These prohibitions, of phratry, ' class,' totem, and age, leave
only a certain set of women marriageable to a certain set of
men. The name of this set of women is Nupa to their
coevals, Luka to the succeeding generation. There is no
name for ' wife,' no name for ' mother ; ' there are only
names expressive of customary legal status, itself the result of
the existing rules. Whatever their original sense, they all
now connote seniority and customary legal status, with its
reciprocal duties, rights and avoidances. ' It is the system,
and not group marriage, which has given rise to these terms
of relationship,' says Mr. Crawley.^
But what gave rise to the system ? Mr. Fison has told
us. 1. ' The division of a tribe (community) into two
exogamous intermarrying classes. . . .' 2. ' The subdivision
of these two classes into foiu-,' or, he suggests, the amalga-
mation of two tribes. 3. ' Their subdivision into gentes dis-
tinguished by totems.' ^
But all of this theory we have already declined to accept
for reasons given, and mainly because it involves (as I try to
show) deliberate primeval reformatory legislation — without
any conceivable motive. Again, we cannot accept Mr.
Fison's system because it involves the hypothesis that a
tribe, or ' community,' large enough to feel the necessity of
bisecting itself for social and moral purposes, existed at a
period when the difficulties of commissariat, of food supply,
' The Mystie Rose, p. 476. '' Kamilariri and Kumai, p. 27, cf. p. 70.
H
98 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
and of hostility, could seldom, if ever, permit its existence.
A tribe is, I repeat, a local aggregate of small groups be-
come friendly : it is not a primeval horde which keeps on
subdividing itself, legislatively, for reformatory purposes.
What social cement kept such a primeval horde, such an
' undivided commune,' together ; and how did the animal
jealousy of men so near to the brutal stage fail to rend it into
pieces ? How was it fed ? How can we imagine a human
herd — how supplied with food, who knows ? — wherein each
male sees each other male approach what female he pleases,
perhaps his own preferred girl, without internecine jealousy ?
I cannot imagine this indifference to love in such a primitive
Agapemone ; I cannot understand its economics ; any more
than I can guess why such a state of affairs ever seemed — to
its members — ' abominable ' and ' objectionable,'' and a thing
to be reformed ; yet they ' bisected ' it, and ' subdivided ' the
segments, all in the interests of morality — such is the theory.
As for the good-humovired laxity which enables all men
and women to live together matrimonially at random, Mr.
Morgan found an example, as he thought, in the Punahia
of the Hawaiians. The word Punahia, when observed
(1860) by Judge Andrews, meant ' dear friend,' or ' intimate
companion.' A man called his sister's husband (our ' brother-
in-law ') his ' dear friend,' and a woman styled the wife of
her husband's brother (her sister-in-law), her ' dear friend,' or
Punalua. This shows that relations-in-law were not ' Foes-
in-law,' or, at least, that this was not the official view of the
case. It really does not follow that all the wives ' shared
their remaining husbands in common.' Judge Andrews
thought that this happy family ^were inclined to possess
each other in common.' That was only the Judge's theory,
also the theory of the Rev. Artemus Bishop. Probably there
was a great deal of genial license amd indifference among
loose luxurious barbaric people, living in ' summer isles of
Eden,' where food and necessaries were ready made by benig-
nant Nature.'
' Aneient Society, pp. 427-428.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 99
Each shepherd clasped, with unconcealed delight,
His jrielding fair, within the Captain's sight ;
Each yielding fair, as chance or fancy led.
Preferred new lovers to her sylvan bed."^
This is vastly well, and the poet adds, in a liberal spirit,
What Otaheite is, let England be !
It is very well, but it by no means represents, probably,
the manners of primitive man.
' We may conclude,' says Mr. Darwin, ' from what we
know of the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, . . . that pro-
miscuous intercoiu-se, in a state of nature, is extremely im-
probable . . . The most probable view is that primeval
man aboriginally lived in small communities, each with as
many wives as he could support and obtain, whom he would
have jealously guarded against all other men. Or he may
have lived with several wives by himself, like the GoriUa, for
all the natives agree that but one adult male is seen in a
band ; when the young male grows up a struggle takes place
for mastery, and the strongest, by killing and driving out
■ the others, establishes himself as the head of the community.
The 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,' just as the other male did.^
This second view of Mr. Darwin's is much like the theory
of Mr. Atkinson, and is very unlike Mr. Morgan's theory
of a human horde, living in communal marriage, or group
marriage. Mr. Darwin's idea, moreover, the primitive groups
being small, does not encounter the economic difficulties
raised by the hypothesis of the ' undivided commune.' The
strongest male practically enforced exogamy, as far as he was
able, and may be conceived to have entertained no scruples as
to connection with his daughters. Mr. Darwin admitted that
' Captain Cook, of His Majesty's ship The Endeavoii/r.
^ Sesoent of Man, ii. 362, 363. Dr. Savage, Boston Jo^ir. of Nat. Hist
V. 423.
h2
100 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
' the indirect evidence ' for communal marriage, and fraternal
incest, was ' extremely strong,' but then ' it rests chiefly on the
terms of relationship which are employed between members
of the same tribe, implying a connection with the tribe alone,
and not with either parent.' If, however, we have success-
fully explained these terms of relationship as not usually
meaning degrees of consanguinity, but of customary legal
status, under the prevalent customary law, the evidence which
these terms yield for promiscuity, or group marriage, is ex-
tremely weak, or is nil, above all if our theory of how the
legal status arose is accepted. And, if it is not accepted,
back we come to primeval ' reformatory movements.'
In Lifa, the word for ' sister ' means ' not to be touched,'
and this is a mere expression of customary law. A man
' must not touch ' any one of the women of his generation
whom the totem tabu and the rule of the exogamous ' phratry '
(in origin, we suggest, totemic) forbid him to touch. All
such women, in a particular grade, are his sisters. Many
women, besides his actual sisters, stand to him in the degree
thus prohibited. AU bear the same name of status as a
man's actual sisters bear, but the name does not mean ' sisters '
at all, in oiu* sense of that word : namely, daughters of the
man's real father and mother. It means tabued women of a
generation. If the ' classificatory ' terms which include owe
' fathers,' ' sisters,' ' wives,' and the rest meant what our
' fathers,' ' sisters,' ' wives,' and so on mean, then the evidence
from the terras, for communal or group marriage, would
really be ' extremely strong.' But, as Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen say, ' unless all ideas of terms of relationship as counted
among ourselves be abandoned, it is useless to try and {sic)
understand the native terms.' ^ Yet the whole force of the
argument for communal marriage derived from savage terms
of relationship rests precisely on our not ' abandoning ' (as we
are warned to abandon) ' all ideas of terms of relationship as
counted among ourselves.'
The friends of group and communal marriage, it seems
' Spencer and Gillen, p. 65.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 101
to me, keep forgetting that our ideas of sister, brother,
father, mother, and so on, have nothing to do (as they
tell us at certain points of their argument) with the native
terms which include, indeed, but do not denote these relation-
shipsj as understood by us. An Urabunna calls a crowd of
men of his father's status by the same term as he calls his
father. This need not point to an age when, by reason of
promiscuity, no man knew his father. Were this so, a man
ot the generation prior to his father might be the actual
parent of the speaker, and all men under eighty ought to be
called ' father ' by him — ^which they are not. The facts may
merely mean that the Urabimna styles his father by the name
denoting a status which his father shares with many other
men ; a status in seniority, ' phratry,' and totem. We really
cannot first argue that oiu- ideas have no relation to the
terms employed by savages, and then, when we want to prove
a past of commtmal marriage, turn round and reason as if
om- terms and the savage terms were practically identical.
We cannot say ' our word " son " must not be thought of
when we try to understand the native term of relationship
which includes sons in our sense,' and next aver that ' sons in
our sense, are regarded as real sons of the group, not of the
individual — because of a past stage of promiscuity making
paternity indiscoverable.'
As Messrs. Spencer and GiUen say, we must ' lay aside all
preconceived ideas of relationship," when we study the Ura-
bunna or other classificatory terms of relationships.^ Let
us do so, and the evidence borne by these terms to a past of
communal marriage vanishes at once. That the terms often
denote status in customary law is demonstrated. ' There are
certain customs which are enforced by long usage and accord-
ing to which men and women of particular degrees of relation-
ship may alone have marital relations, or may not speak to
one another, or according to which one individual has to do
certain things for another, such as providing the latter with
food, or with hair, as the case may be, and any breach of
Op. cit. p. 67.
102 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
these customs is severely punished. The elder men of each
group very carefully keep alive these customs, many of which
are of considerable value to themselves. . . .' '
Thus, you have speared a fish, or an opossum, but if you
meet any man of your father-in-law's set, you must drop your
spoil and make off. Consequently, I venture to take it, the
terms of relationship in no way answer to our ideas of kin,
but merely denote legal status.
HOW THE TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP ORIGINALLY
AROSE
We cannot, as a rule, recover (or Australian students
have not recovered) the original sense and etymology of terms
like Biaka, Nia, Nupa, and so forth. We are thus left to
choose between two competing theories of their nature and
diffusion. If we advocate the hypothesis of consanguine
marriage and group marriage, we must suppose that the
members of the ' undivided commune ' of the theory, had
once names absolutely identical in sense with our ' father,'
' mother,' ' sister,' ' brother,' ' son,' ' daughter,' and so forth.
But the speakers, in each case, were obliged to apply these
words with the utmost laxity, because who knew whx) A's
father might be, and whether C's sister were really his sister
or not, while every girl was the wife of every male of her
generation, not barred by other laws, and so on ? The
promiscuity of living, then, made this lax use of words for
relationships inevitable.
This is the usual hypothesis, and the sweeping scope of
savage words for human relationships is accepted as proof
that consanguine and group marriage once existed and left
their marks in language. On the other hand, if communal
marriage prevailed, the people who lived in that condition
could not possibly have had ideas equivalent to mir father,
son, daughter, brother, wife, and so on. Our ideas of these
relationships could not enter the human mind, at the hypo-
" Spencer and Gillen, pp. 67, 68.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 103
thetical stage of culture when nobody knew ' who is who ' and
the hypothesis is wrecked on that fact.
Therefore either the names now used under ' the class
system ' are of unkno^vn original sense ; or, human marriage
was, from the first, so far ' individual ' that oin: ideas of
father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, could arise and
could find expression in terms that still survive, say, among
the Urabunna or other Australians. But while tribal custo-
mary laws as to classes, totems, generations, marriage rules,
and many other social duties were being evolved ; some of the
ancient names for father, son, brother, sister, were perhaps
taken up and applied to each of the large sets of persons
whose customary legal status was now (as groups coalesced
into large tribes) on the level of actual fathers, sons, brothers,
sisters, and the rest. Obviously, in a primitive group of a
male senior, his female mates and children, there could not
exist (other groups being, on my theory, strange or hostile)
large sets of persons occupying a common legal status, as in
modem tribes. The existence of such sets of persons is the
result of the later and tribal society, of society in which many
groups are reconciled and united in a local tribe. Only in
such a tribe, which cannot be primitive, is the classificatory
system of naming sets of people necessary. It is only in tribal
law that the grades of customary status answering to all the
many terms can exist, and tribes with their laws cannot be
primitive. Most names for the various grades, therefore, are
later than Mr. Darwin's hypothetical stage of small and
perhaps hostile groups ; they were, in a few cases, perhaps
originally names for such relationships as our own father,
mother, son, brother, &c., but in the evolution of tribal
customary law, such names have been extended out of their
family, or fire-circle, into their tribal significance, out of
recognised kinship, or close contiguity, into terms including
all who have the same status, rights, and duties.
104 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
SUPPOSED SURVIVALS OF GROUP MARRIAGE
If our suggestion as to the origin and significance of the
* classificatory terms of relationship ' be plausible, then the
theory of a pristine past of ' communal ' or of ' group marriage '
will lose what Mr. Darwin deemed the chief evidence in its
favour, the evidence from terms of relationship. But there
remains the evidence from ' survivals,' in institutions. For
example, among the Urabunna, women of a certain seniority,
totem and ' phratry ' are Nupa to men of the relative status
among males. They are the men's potential wives. In
actual practice each individual man has one or perhaps two
of these Nupa women who are specially attached to himself,
and live in his camp. They are his wives. But each man
has also, or many men have, other women of the Nupa set, who
by an allotment, which the elders arrange, are his Piraungaru.
He is, that is to say, their ' second master,' after their
husbands. This is a kind of Cicisbeism, recognised and regu-
lated by customary law, and sanctioned by a definite ceremony.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen therefore say ' individual marriage
does not exist, either in name or in practice, among the
Urabvmna tribe.' Their idea appears to be that once every
man was the husband of every Nupa woman who was accessible,
and that the Piraungaru arrangement is a nascent restriction
upon, or survival of, this communal marriage. It is admitted
that a man may now try to prevent his wife from having
sexual relations with her Piraungaru man, just as an Italian
of the eighteenth century might have done in the case of his
wife's Cicisbeo. ' But this leads to a fight, and the husband
is looked upon as churlish.' The Italian husband would
have undergone the same reproach, yet he lived in a society
which in theory, and as Christian, insisted on individual
marriage.
The question arises, is the Piraungaru arrangement a
modified survival of communal marriage, or is it a mere
chartered libertinism in customary practice, and not a ' rudi-
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 105
mentary survival "" ? It is certainly found among the tribes
most tenacious of archaic institutions. Mr. Crawley thinks,
however, and, under correction, I agree with him, that the
Piraungaru system is no survival, and that it ' has never been
more fully developed than it is now.' ^
PIRAUNGARU AND PIRAURA
As to this Piraungaru affair, as usual we need, and do not
get, the help of philology. What does the word 'Piraun-
garu ' literally mean .? Among the Dieri the Piraungaru
custom prevails, and the persons affected by it are called
Piraura — the resemblance to Piraimgaru is striking. Now
Mr. Howitt tells us that the Headman of the Dieri is
called Pinaru, from pina, ' great,' but he also calls these
Headmen Piravtrus, the same title as he gives to the men and
women allotted to each other on the system of native Cicis-
beism.^
Clearly there is here either a misprint, or a curious fact.
Either the Headmen are Pinarus, not Piraurus, or Headmen
and supplementary wives and husbands have one and the
same title ! One great Headman was Jalina Pira murana.
Is ' great ' pma or pira ? If Australia does not produce an
adequate philologist in the native tongues, who will specially
study these matters, it wiU be a heavy blow to the research
into native institutions.
It is worth observing that the Dieri Piraura are ' per-
mitted new marital privileges at the ceremony of circum-
cision.' Now license amidst the large assemblies brought
together from all quarters on such occasions (in some places
even transgressing the sacred rules of totem, phratry, and
close relationship in our sense) is merely part of that
periodical general 'burst' which survived in, the Persian
Sacaea and Roman Saturnalia. Many examples may be
found in Mr. Frazer's ' Golden Bough.' Every kind of law
> Spencer and Gillen, pp. 62-64. Mystic Rose, pp. 477-478.
2 On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, pp. 107, 108.
106 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
is, at these 'bursts,' deliberately violated. Perhaps, then,
the due selection of Piraura, by the Dieri seniors, is really
rather a restriction of Saturnalian license than a relaxation of
marriage laws, or a survival of communal marriage. That
the license of the Saturnalia was a return to primitive ways was
a Roman theory. For Australia it is the theory of the
Arunta themselves.' The adjacent Urabunna have the same
Piraura usages, and what looks very like a form of the same
word, Piraura, Piraungaru. The relations thereby indicated
exist, when occasion serves, after the season of license.
A wife, at marriage, is subjected to a disgraceful ordeal
(modern ideas will break in), which I take, as Mr. Crawley
does, to be a mere initiation (due to a well-defined supersti-
tion) into the life matrimonial.'' Meanwhile, though a defi-
nite and disgusting set of proceedings forms the Urabunna
marriage ceremonial, I am not aware that the same doings
precede and sanction the establishment of the Piraungaru or
Piram-a relation, which, if not, is no marriage at all. Thus,
so far as our information goes, and with all deference to the
great Australian authorities, I do not see that the evidence for
a past stage of communal or of group marriage is such as
compels our assent. On the other hand, as has been shown,
the theory of communal marriage forces all its advocates,
unwillingly or unconsciously, into the other theory of a
primeval moral and social reformatory movement, deliberately
undertaken, perhaps under direct divine inspiration, for what
other motive could exist .? The economical and biological
difficulties which also beset that hypothesis have been suffi-
ciently explained, and Mr. Darwin has dwelt on the psycho-
logical difficulty, the sexual jealousy of the primitive male.
These objections, at least, do not hamper the hypothesis or
conjecture, which we have ventured to submit as an alternative
system. As a proof of survival of communal or group
marriage, Mr. Fison quotes Mr. Lance : ' If a Kubbi meets a
strange Ippatha ' (female), ' they address each other as spouse.'
' Spencer and Gillen, p. 97.
2 lUd. pp. 92-96. The Mystio Rose, pp. 479, 480.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 107
(They belong to intermarrying phratries.) ' A Kubbi thus
meeting an Ippatha, though she were of another tribe, would
treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be recog-
nised by her tribe.' His right, as far as phratry prohibitions
go, would certainly be recognised, but how her husband,
if she had one, would view the transaction is another
question. The morality is that of the Scottish ballads, in
which such bonnes Jhrtunes are frequent, and the frail pair
only ask questions — afterwards. In the ballad of TTie Bonny
Hind, in the Kalewala, and elsewhere, the answers prove that
the pair are brother and sister. Suicide foUows, but it does
not follow that communal or group marriage prevailed in
Scotland, or in Finland,
GROWTH OF SOCIAL KULES IN THE TRIBE
It is probable that the rules now defining the privileges,
prohibitions, and duties of sets of people, rules interwoven
now with those of ' class' and totem, have been gradually
evolved in the wear and tear of ages. Tribes which hold
such large and protracted assemblies, or palavers, as the
Arunta of to-day, discuss and debate common affairs with all
the diffuseness of our Parliament at Westminster. It is not
to be supposed that tribal peace existed over hundreds of
square miles of country, and that the group representatives,
so to speak, flocked in from far-off regions, to parliament,
in the ages when the pristine rules of exogamy were evolved.
We might as wisely imagine that, in the beginning of
Totemism, groups travelled to a tribal folk-mote, and
arranged the details of a kind of magical co-operative
society to preserve and increase the foodstuffs of the tribe.
In ages really pristine the tribal peace and union cannot
have arisen ; deliberate legislation for a vast scattered tribal
community could not have entered into men's dreams.
No such community could have existed. But the tribes
of to-day, and notably the Arunta, being remote from
truly primitive conditions, do hold prolonged assemblies, and
108 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
work at public problems, so very remote from the primitive
are they.
The Arunta, in their pseudo-historic legends, throw back
upon the past the reflection of their actual estate, and
ascribe the rule which practically limits marriage within the
generation to a leader of the Thurathwerta group, living
near what is called, by Europeans, Glen Helen, in the Mac-
donneU range. He was backed by the Emu people of four
widely separated localities.^ One is not, however, to suppose
that, at some witan of the tribes, names indicative of
generations, and of their respective rights, were suddenly
invented and dealt out by ' the legislator,'' any more than
that totems were thus invented and dealt out. As Mr.
Atkinson remarks (Chapter VIII.) : ' Gradually each genera-
tion . . . would, qua generation, come to be a distinctly
defined class, with certain separate rights and obligations.
In this simple classification of the connected persons, we see
the origin of the classificatory system itself (as far as genera-
tions are concerned), ' as an institution. . . . The classifica-
tory system evolves itself merely as the result of a desire to
define certain rights, and the division by generations was the
most natural and feasible for the purpose. . . . Thus we
find a desire for distinction, as regards rights in sexual union,
to be the genetic cause of the classificatory system, both as
concerns the generation and its component members.'
The marriage rules prevalent, with many variations, among
the people least advanced in material culture, the Australians,
are thus seen, on the whole, to be based (1) on totem rules
(in which, with Dr. Dm-kheim, we include the 'primary
classes ' or ' phratries '), and (2) on the distinction of genera-
tions. It is clear, from the case of the Arunta and other
tribes, that the rule of counting on the spindle side may
break down, male descent being substituted, in times exces-
sively rude ; while again, as in the Pictish Royal House, it
may elsewhere last into a stage relatively civilised. All
' Spencer and Gillen, pp. 420-421.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 109
manners of conditions and superstitions may affect and alter
the course of social development in various places.
GROUP MARRIAGE AND MR. TYLOR S STATISTICS
In 1899, Mr. Tylor published a sketch of ' A Method of
Investigating the Development of Institutions, applied to
Laws of Marriage and Descent.' ' He had catalogued the
usages of 350 peoples, and examined (1) the rule of avoidance
between husbands and wives' relations, and vice versa. (2) The
naming of husband (or wife) after their children ; as Odysseus
says, ' May I no longer be called the father of Telemachus.'
(3) The nature of inheritance in widows. (4) The Couvade in
which the husband pretends to lie in, while his wife is really
doing so. (5) The custom of capture. (6) Exogamy and the
classificatory system. Mr. Tylor was led to believe that, so
far as the statistical evidence goes, the husband first lived
with the wife's family (A) ; next, after a residence with the
wife's family, went back to his own home (B) ; last, (C) took
the wife at once to his own home. (Husband to Wife.
Removal. Wife to Husband.)
Now statistics are rather vague evidence without full know-
ledge of the social concomitants in each case. In what exact
stage of culture, in each instance, does the husband go to live
with the wife's relations ? We have not this information.
But if this be really the earliest stage, how is it compatible
with group marriage ? If a man is husband to ' a thousand
miles of wives,' how can he go and live with the relations of
all his wives ? Even within his actual region of wandering,
how can he do this ? Nor, perhaps, can he bring all his
wives to live with the relations of each of them in turn ?
Either there was no group marriage, or it did not exist
when, on the hypothesis, the husband, in the earliest stage,
habitually resided with his wife's relations. Again, take the
maternal and paternal systems, the reckoning in the female
or male line, the female line, as we hold with Mr. Tylor,
' /. A. I. vol. xviii., no. 3, pp. 245-272.
110 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
being the earlier. If so, on Mr. Tyler's hypothesis, it ought
to axise in his first epoch, when husband goes to live with
wife's people. ' The lines ' (of a diagram) ' show the institu-
tions of female descent, avuncular authority, &c. arising in
the stage of residence on the female side, and extending into
the stages of removal and residence on the male side.'
Now we have tried to explain the reckoning in the female
line, by the differentiation, in the supposed original local
totem group, of the captive women, each retaining, and
handing on to her children, the name of her own totem group,
this bequest of the totem name continuing into the tribal
state of peaceful betrothals. But Mr. Tylor's theory of the
first stage (husband goes to live with wife), implies a peace-
ful state, and groups not hostile. For the reasons given, early
hostility and sexual jealousy, I am unable to hold that, in
the beginning, husbands always joined their wives' groups.
It seems, granting hostility and jealousy, to be impossible.
A Malay example of polygamy flus residence with wives'
relations, proves nothing for primitive man. Therefore we
need to know the exact stage of culture of the peoples
among whom the husbands go as subdued hangers-on, ' not
recognised,' into the wife's family. Are these people all
precisely primitive .? The ' husband to wife ' stage implies
peaceful relations. These were produced, on my theory, by
the arrangement of the phratries. When these are once
constituted, the husband may go to live with the wife's family
as much as he pleases. But I fail to see how he could have
done so ' in the beginning.' Moreover I am disinclined to
suppose that exogamy was instituted for the purpose of
strengthening a group by matrimonial alliances.
jBe/te gerant alii, tu,felix Austria, nuhe !
Exogamy has this effect, but it was not devised purposely to
produce this effect.
I may casually remark that Mr. Tylor mentions an
Assineboin case in which the husband enters 'his lodge,'
where his father and mother-in-law ' shirk ' or avoid him.
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES 111
But, in the next page but one, the lodge is described, not as
the husband's, but as that of the father and mother-in-law.^
Whose lodge was it really ? Was the husband staying with
his wife's family, or were the old people on a visit to their
married daughter ?
Among several Australian tribes, a feigned form of
capture precedes marriage.^ Is this a survival of actual capture
in the stage of hostility, the pre-tribal stage ? Or is it the
result of girlish modesty in the bride ?
> Op. Bit. pp. 246-248.
^ Howitt, Organisation of Aiistralia/n Tribes.
* Mr. Morgan's 'Reformatory Movement': It is proper to note that,
in his preface to Ka/milwroi and KurnaA (p. 5), Mr. Morgan wrote, ' it is not
supposable that savages design, consciously, reformatory movements in
the strict sense.' For his theory cannot escape the conclusion that, in
fact, they did.
112 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER VI
THE CHANOE OF CLASS AMONG THE NEW
GENEBATION
We have hitherto, for the sake of lucidity, spoken chiefly of
two ' primary classes ' (' phratries '), such as the Kirarawa and
Matthurie of the Urabunna. But among the Arunta, and
many other tribes, there are four or even eight such ' classes.'
The reader may refer to the extract from Mr. Mathews's
description (p. 39).
Each of these classes roughly corresponds to a different
generation of the tribe. But, with female descent, each child
belongs to the class to which its mother does not belong.
The classes, that is, alter with each generation. What is
the cause of this curious rule ? One generation is A, its
children are B, its grandchildren are A again.
Here we meet the explanation of Herr Cunow, which
may as well be given in summary.
THE SYSTEM OF HERR CUNOW
The theory of Herr Cunow ^ is in the first place opposed
to the systems of all who regard the ' phratries ' as divisions
made in an original group, or horde, for purposes of exogamy.
I have not observed that any of our writers have noticed the
book of Herr Cunow. In his opinion, as was said earlier,
authors err in confusing ' phratries ' with ' classes : ' ' a phratry
is not a class, and a class is not a phratry ; these two sorts of
bodies have been developed out of different antecedents, and
' Die Vermandtsohafts- Organisationen der Australneger. Diek, Stutt-
gart, 1894.
THE CHANGE OF CLASS 113
have different tendencies. The two " primary divisions," say
Kroki and Kumite, are phratries, but are not classes in the
same sense as the Ippai and Kumbo, Murri and Kubbi
classes of the Kamilaroi ' (p. 24).
Herr Cunow regards the ' classes ' as in origin earlier ^
than the divisions of totem kin, or the ' phratry ' divisions,
and thinks that the ' classes ' were originally non-inter-
marrying divisions based on seniority. They were devised or
developed, not to prevent marriage between near kin, but
between persons of different generations, or rather degrees of
seniority. This is proved, he thinks, by the etymology of
some of the names of the classes (about which we need much
fuller information). Thus the word Kubbi (Kamilaroi),
already cited as a class name, is derived, he says, from
' Kvhbura, ' young, new,' and originally designates a youth
who has passed the initiatory ceremonies. Ridley's voca-
bulary of the Kamilaroi tongue is the source for this fact.
Kumbo, another class name, is the Kombia or Kumbia of the
tribes on the Lower Murray river, and means ' great,' that is,
' old.' On the Lower Darling, the word is gumholca, Kum-
buka ; compare Kumba, Kwnbera, ' old woman,' Kumbeja,
' father.' ' Great ' and ' old,' ' little ' and ' young,' are
equivalent in sense. Bonda, a class name of the Kabi,
means ' new ' or ' young,' and the class-name Darawang, or
Tarawang, is the Kabi word darami, ' little,' or ' young.'
Obu, a class name, is the Queensland jahu, jobu, jabbo bobu,
* father.'
Thus the class names, Herr Cunow holds, originally
indicate divisions of youth apd age in the ' horde,' by which
term Herr Cunow understands a local set of from forty
to sixty people, a local aggregate of several .such ' hordes '
being a 'tribe' (pp. 25-28). The fact of Australian
attention to degrees of seniority is demonstrated by the
stages of initiation, and by the various dues, of food gifts
and so on, paid by the juniors to the seniors of the tribe :
' This can hardly be, as the most backward tribes have phratries and
totems, but no ' classes.'
I
114i SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
by the food which persons of different status in seniority
may eat, and so forth. Indeed Dr. Roth has regarded the
' classes ' a^ originally evolved to regulate the distribution of
the food supply, and such regulations would, I think, be
elements among other regulations of matrimonial and other
rights, dependent on seniority. ' What a man may eat at
one stage is at another stage forbidden, and vice versa.'' '
The ' horde,' then, in Herr Cunow's opinion, was primarily
divided into non-intermarrying persons of three stages of
seniority. This is the original organisation, that of totem
kindreds being later, in Herr Cunow's theory, which is not
ours (pp. 36, 37). The word 'father' does not, in the
Australian dialects, at first, signify what we mean by the
word, but merely ' senior ; ' and ' mother ' is a term of the
same meaning. ' Father ' and ' mother ' with all of their
seniority are ' the big ones ; ' children are ' the little ones.'
These terms become ' class ' names.
An example is taken from Mr. Bridgman, superintendent
of the tribes at Port Mackay. These have two ' phratries,'
Yungaru and Wutaru (totemic names), and four 'classes,'
Gurgela, Bemhia, Wungo, and Kuharu? The terms for
family relations are not understood in our sense. Mr. Bridgman
had a name and status in the tribe. His name was Gunwrra ;
his phratry was Yungaru, his class was Bemiia, and his
children, if he had any, were Wutaru (by phratry), Kubaru
(by class). If a girl came by, and Mr. Bridgman asked who
she was, and if she was Kubaruan, he was told ' she is your
daughter.' This ' daughter ' is a young woman of the class
to which Mr. Bridgman's daughters, if he had any, would
belong.
Herr Cunow's theory, then, starts from the ' horde,'
divided into not intermarrying degrees of seniority. That
such hordes, not separate family groups, were the initial stage
of society, he is persuaded.' He rejects Morgan's theory of
' Eyre, Journals, ii. 293-295. Cunow, p. 33, note 2. Buhner, in Brough
Smyth, i. 235. Roth, Ethnological Studies, pp. 69, 70, Brisbane, 1897.
« Brough Smyth, i. 91.
' Pp. 122-124, and note 1, an argument against Westermarck.
THE CHANGE OF CLASS 115
communal marriage.^ Next, he thinks, arose objections to
brother and sister and other near akin marriages {why we are
not told), and a man would thus be driven to seek a wife out
of his own horde. Why was this ? Herr Cunow merely
refers to the Dieri tradition already cited ; evils followed
on kindred marriages, and were perceived and, by divine
decree, were reformed.^ That such evils did arise and were
perceived, and being perceived were reformed, by very low
savages, is to the highest degree improbable. However it
came about (we suggest by dint of reflection on the totem
and phratry restrictions), there is now an objection to inter-
marriage between persons ' of the same flesh.' How this
arose does not seem to be a question that Herr Cunow chooses
to dogmatise upon.
The horde now developes itself into a group of kin, of
which the members regard each other as ' too nearly related
by blood,' to intermarry. ' As a mark of these groups of kin
they later take diflferent beast or plant names, usually from
such species as exist in their districts. No reverence would
originally be paid to the totem animal ; ' the Narrinyeri eat it
without scruple,' like any other ; the totem name is originally
a name of a genossenschqfi ; a comradeship, the Narrinyeri
word for totem, ' Ngaitje,' is equivalent to ' friend.'
All this is rather vague. Why did groups of comrades or
of recognised kin take plant and animal names ? Why did
they forbid intermarriage ? What was the origin of the
objection to marriage between blood kindred ? It does not
arise out of ' moral ideas,' nor out of ' wife-capture,' * and
Herr Cunow speaks neither of ' sexual taboo,' nor of ' sexual
jealousy,' while the theory of 'personal totems' become here-
ditary, or of magical co-operation in totem breeding, is not
mentioned ; indeed, when Herr Cunow \\Tote (1894), the
magical theory was unbora. The hordes merely developed
into groups of comrades or of kin, as such not intermarrying
' Pp. 127-128.
2 Gason, The Dieyrie Tribe (1894), p. 13. Xam. and Kur. p. 25. Cunow,
pp. 109-110, 130-132.
» Cf. CuDOw, p. 82. So, too, the Euahlayi. * Cunow, p. 130.
i2
116 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
among themselves, and marking themselves for no assigned
reason, with plant or animal names : reverence of the totem
came later.
' Still later than the totem association the phratry seems
to arise,' and the phratries are described as allied local totem
groups. This is my own opinion, but by ' local totem group,'
I here mean (as already explained), the original local totem
group, with the other totems which had become its elements,
through exogamy, and female descent. Herr Cunow, if I
follow him, means on the other hand a local totem group of
the kind which now results among the Arunta from reckoning
descent in the male line. ' The forbidding of marriage
extended beyond the local group, passing into the neighbour-
ing hordes, till at length morality enjoined the obtaining of
wives from remoter districts. Hence was developed a come-
and-go of marriage between two out of several larger local
totems, and these larger local communities are the original
types of the Australian phratries. Suppose that the hordes
of the Kumai had gradually developed themselves into local
totem groups like those of the Narrinyeri, and . . . that it be-
came the rule for the Brataulong to take their wives from their
south-western neighbours, the Kulin, and vice versa, till the
two groups waxed into a great community, and we have the
probable, development ' (of the ' phratries ' ) ' before us.' The
groups ' Brataulong ' and ' Kulin ' would now be a great com-
munity of two intermarrying phratries.
All this implies, I think, a more advanced society, and
larger communities, than we can easily conceive to have existed
in the distant past when phratries arose. Moreover Herr
Cunow, as we shall see, takes descent, even at this primitive
period, to have been reckoned in the male line. Again, we
have observed that phratry names, when they can be trans-
lated, are usually totemic, an opinion expressed by Mr. Fison
and Mr. Howitt. The same sort of totemic names marks
Red Indian phratries. Granting male kinship, the phratries
of Herr Cunow's hypothesis might well have totem names, but
he tries to show: that phratry names are usually local ; he gives
THE CHANGE OF CLASS 117
seven cases out of which only two names of phratries are to-
temic' But he offers no authority for his assertion that the
other five names are non-totemic (Eigennahme) and Yungaru
and Wutaru, represented by him as non-totemic, are really
totem names.
We know that as a result of reckoning in the male line
local or district names tend to supersede totem names, and
large local totem groups thus arise, a featiu-e of the decay,
not of the dawn, of Totemism. My own hypothesis, on the
other hand, shows why phratry names are totemic. Herr
Cunow concludes ' the phratry is originally nothing but an
exogamous local group composed of several hordes.' Like
Mr. Daniel McLennan, Herr Cunow quotes the legend of the
wars of Eagle-Hawk and Crow, which ended in the establish-
ment of the intermarrying phratries of Crow and Eagle-Hawk.^
HeiT Cunow's theory of phratries appears to me to find, in
the remotest past, the most recent institutions of the Aus-
tralians, and to confiise the primitive local totem group with the
local totem-group later developed out of reckoning descent in
the male line. He throws back into the distant past the
large modern associations, which could not exist in times really
primitive. He makes the hordes develope themselves into
totem kins, in place of being, originally (as in my system),
small associations united by contiguity, and receiving totem
names from without.' He makes reckoning in the female
line later than reckoning in the male line — the Narrinyeri
reckoning in the male line (p. 84) — and perhaps this method,
he thinks, is a result of ignorance of fatherhood, consequent
on the Piraungaru custom (p. 135). Unluckily we find reckon-
ing descent in the female line among many races, the Red
Indians for example, where the Piraungaru custom is unknown.
The priority of male to female descent is not admitted as a
rule, by Mr. Tylor or any other English authorities.
Where I can agree with Herr Cunow is on the point that
' Pp. 133-134.
^ Brough Smyth, i. 423. Cunow, p. 134. Stvdies in Ancient History,
second series, ut svpra.
^ See ' The Origin of Totemism.'
118 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
the two ' primary divisions ' are the result, probably, of amal-
gamation, not of bisection for purposes of exogamy. Where
we differ is as to the character of the communities that, by
alliance and connuUum, became ' primary divisions ' or ' phra-
tries.' On his system the communities were large, holding
great districts. On mine, they were ancient local totem
groups, whose members, through exogamy and female descent,
were really of various totems. In a note (p. 139) Herr
Cunow shows that he might easily have arrived at my con-
clusion, but, while allowing that alien brides brought the
totem names of their own kins into each original totem group,
he says that the men of that group still ' belonged to the
totem identified with that horde.' This is the result of his
belief that reckoning descent in the female line is ' an inno-
vation.' His ' horde ' is originally endogamous ; then, we
know not well why, is exogamous (p. 137). Those who
do not believe that men originally lived in ' hordes,' and
hold that, through jealousy and other causes, their little
primary sets were, or tended to be, exogamous from the
first, cannot agree with Herr Cunow. On the other
hand, they may incline to accept his theory that, as the
Australian terms of relationship indicate often status, not
reilationship in our sense, they do not help to prove a
past of consanguine and communal marriage.
CLASSES AGAIN
To return to the classes. Dr. Durkheim opposes Herr
Cunow's theory that they indicated originally degrees of
seniority. He takes no notice, however, of Herr Cunow's
argument from etymology, and the original meanings of the
class names, ' Yoimg ' and ' Old.' He argues that, on Herr
Cunow's system, each individual would, in lapse of time,
move from young to old, and so ought to change his class
name, and move into another class. Herr Cunow answers
that, if this occurred, the object of the class names, practi-
cally to prevent yoimg and old intermarrying, would have
THE CHANGE OF CLASS 119
been defeated. But, as matters exist, a grandfather may
marry a girl who might be his grand-daughter. He is A,
his children are B, but their children are A again. He
is Kubbi, he marries Ippatha, her children are Buta, their
children are Ippatha, and the venerable Kubbi may marry a
very juvenile Ippatha.
Possibly the institution grew up among people who did
not look so far forward, who ' took short views.' It is cer-
tain that, if the object of the classes was to stop marriages
between young and old, it is a failure. ' The old men marry
young wives at present,' says Mr. Mathews. If so, Herr
Cimow may be right. Dr. Durkheim offers a theory. But
his theory takes for granted, as we saw, that the two
' phratries,' originally, were only two totem groups, contain-
ing within them no members of other totem kins. ' They
were not yet subdivided ' into other totem kins. But I have
tried to show that there was no such ' subdivision ' into
' secondary clans ' or totem kins. Dr. Durkheim regards
these totem kins as colonies split off from the two original
totem groups which became phratries.^ My reasons against
accepting this position have already been given. This being
the case, it is imnecessary to unfold Dr. Durkheim's theory
of the origin of the classes. Probably that of Herr Cunow
comes nearest to the truth.
Mr. Mathews offers another solution of the problem.
' Phratry ' Dilbi, for example, has ' classes ' Murri and Kubbi,
while the linked phratry, Kupathin, has classes Ippai and
Kumbo. ' It is possible that the group DUbi was divided
into (female) Matha and Kubbitha to distinguish the mothers
from the daughters, and that the terms Murri and Kubbi
were adopted to provide names for the uncles and nephews of
their respective generations.' Thus we return to distinction
of generations. In any case the ' classes ' ' have the effect of
preventing consanguineous marriages, by furnishing an easy
test of relationship when the tribe has become so numerous
or widespread that kinship could not otherwise be well
' Cf. p. 83.
120 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
determined.^ Later (p. 168) Mr. Matthews writes, ' The
mother of a man's wife, and also his daughters, belong to the
same section ' (' class '), ' and therefore his marriage with that
section is prohibited.' That is, he cannot marry out of his
generation above or below, as indicated by 'class' names.
' Neither can he marry into the section to which his mother
belongs, although a woman might be found in either case, who
was in no way connected with him.' In short, as far as the
names rudely indicate the generation above, and the genera-
tion below a man, he cannot marry into these classes. But,
as old men do marry young wives, the apparent intention of
the rules is to some extent frustrated. We can say no more,
till we are told what the class names mean in a literal
sense. Does nobody inquire into this essential question .''
As if to accentuate the problems raised by the change
of ' class ' names in each generation, Mr. Matthews has dis-
covered that when a man may marry a woman of his own
' phratry,' but out of a set of totems not his own, the totems
of his children by her alter as the class names do. ' The
children take the totem name,' not of their mother, but of
their maternal grandmother. ' One totem is the mother of
another totem.' ^ This is an unusual phenomenon, and looks
like the effort of a desperate ingenuity.
The class system exists among the Arunta, with male
descent; One moiety of the southern part of the tribe con-
sists of Panunga and Bulthara, linked classes, calling them-
selves Nakrakia ; the other moiety is of Piu-ula and Kumara,
calling themselves Mulganuka. A Bulthara man of the first
moiety can only marry a Kumara woman, of the second
moiety : a Purula man marries a Panunga woman only. The
children of a Bulthara man's union with a Kumara woman
take neither the Bulthara nor Kumara name, but are called
Panunga, while the children of a Purula man and a Panunga
woman are Kumara : of a Panunga man and a Purula woman,
Bulthara ; of a Kumara man and a Bulthara woman, Purula.
' Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S. W. xxxi. 161.
■' Op. Bit. pp. 172-175. '
THE CHANGE OF CLASS 121
That is to say, the Arunta reckoning in the male line, a
man's children do not take his ' class ' name but the name of
the ' class ' linked to his, and forming, with his, one division
of the tribe. Further each of these four divisions consists of
two moieties, and a Panunga man, though he can marry a
Piu-ula woman, must choose her out of the proper moiety of
the Pxu-ula division. These moieties of each division, among
the Northern Arunta, have names ; Uknaria, Appungerta,
Umbitchana, Ungalla, and the children of each marriage fall
under these names.
This restricts a man to only an eighth of the women
of his generation, but, on the other hand, among the
Arunta, the totem prohibition no longer exists : the
totems are not restricted to one or another class, but
skip among them, as we have shown in the section on the
Arunta. The eight class system, perhaps the toxtr class
System, may be regarded as later and conscious modifications
of the old phratry and totem rules, which, on my hypothesis,
had no conscious moral origin.
122 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER VII
THEOBIES OF LORD AVE BUSY
The opinions of Lord Avebm-y (Sir John Lubbock) are to be
collected from the sixth edition (1902) of his Origin of
Civilisation. First published in 1870, this was a pioneer
work of great value and importance. Perhaps the vast
amount of new information and of new speculation which has
accrued since 1870 might almost make us wish that Lord
Avebiury had found time to re-write his early book. But
he ' sees no reason to change in any essential respects the
opinions originally expressed,' and merely adds a few refer-
ences to such recent researches as those of Messrs. Spencer
and GUlen. Therefore we must not look to Lord Avebury for
much new light on the origin of the Australian ' classes ' or
' primary divisions,' or ' phratries,' and on their relations to
the totem kindreds within them.
LORD AVEBURY ON TOTEMISM
Our author (p. 217) regards Totemism as synonymous
with Nature- Worship. He speaks of ' Nature- Worship or
Totemism, in which nattu-al objects, trees, lakes, stones,
animals, &c. are worshipped.' I am not acquainted (unless
it be in early Peru) with any totem kin whose totem is a
lake ; and totems, very often, are not ' worshipped ' at all.
Nature- Worship, again, may exist where there is no Totemism,
and Totemism where there is no Nature- Worship, indeed
where, as among the Arunta, there is, strictly speaking, no
worship, as far as we are informed.
Again (p. 351), ' Totemism ' (as opposed to fetichism),
THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY 123
'is a deification of classes.' But the term 'deification'
implies the possession, by the deifiers, of the conception
of Deity ; of gods, or of a god. The Australians have
totems, but, according to Lord Avebury, have no notion
of a god or gods. They ' possess merely certain vague ideas
as to the existence of evil spirits, and a general dread
of witchcraft ' (p. 338). It is not clear, then, how they can
'deify' classes of things, if they have no notion of deity.
' They do not believe in the existence of a true Deity '
(with a capital D), says Lord Avebury, without defining
what ' a true Deity ' is : and, contrary to the evidence of Mr.
Howitt and many others, he denies that ' morality is in any
way connected with their religion, if such it can be called '
(p. 338).
The authority cited is of 1859,^ and is contradicted, for
example, by Mr. Howitt (1880-1890), who is not here
quoted. It is clear that Australian totems cannot result
from the ' deification of classes,' if the Australians have no
conception of Deity, whether ' true ' or not so true.
Lord Avebury remarks, 'True, myths do not occur
among the lowest races ' (p. 355), whereas, with many others,
myths of the origin of Totemism do notably occur, as we
have shown, among perhaps all totemistic races. Perhaps we
should read, deleting the comma, ' true myths do not occur
among the lowest races,' when the question as to what a
' true myth ' is again arises, as in the case of ' a true Deity.'
Perhaps we must suppose that by ' a true myth,' or a ' true
Deity,' Lord Avebury implies a Deity or a myth in accordance
with his own conception of either.
LORD AVEBURY ON THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMISM
' The worship of animals,' says our author (p. 275), ' is
susceptible of a very simple explanation, and perhaps, as I
have ventured to suggest," may have originated from the
• ' Report of the Committee of the Legislative Council on Aborigines. '
Victoria, pp. 9, 69, 77.
'^ Prehiftoric Times, p. 598
124 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
practice of naming, first individuals, and then their families,
after particular animals. A family, for instance, which was
called after the bear, would come to look on that animal
first with interest, then with respect, and at length with a
sort of awe.' If by ' individuals,' male individuals are in-
tended, this theory is open to the objection that Lord Ave-
biu-y regards descent in the female as earlier than descent in
the male line (p. 164), while ' families ' with enduring rela-
tions to their founders, can hardly yet have been consciously
envisaged, by his theory, at so very rudimentary a stage.
Moreover, we try to show that totem names were, originally,
group names, and were not derived from the personal names
of individuals, an opinion in which Mr. Haddon concurs.
Lord Avebiu-y's theory is, apparently, that of Mr. Herbert
Spencer, minus the supposed worship of the ghost of the male
ancestor and founder of the family.
COMMUNAL MARKIAGE
Lord Avebmy assumes, as a working hypothesis, that
' the communal marriage system . . . represents the primi-
tive and earliest social condition of man . . . ' (p. 102).
The objections to this hypothesis we have stated, though, of
course, historic certainty cannot be attained.
Lord Avebury, assuming ' communal marriage ' as the
Primitive stage, holds that it ' was gradually superseded by
individual marriage founded on capture, and that this led
firstly to exogamy, and then to female infanticide ; thus
reversing Mr. McLennan's order of sequence' (p. 108).
' Originally no man could appropriate a woman of his own
tribe exclusively to himself . . . without infringing tribal
rights, but, on the other hand, if a man captured a woman
belonging to another tribe, he thereby acquired an individual
and peculiar right to her, and she became his exclusively, no one
else having any claim or property in her' (p. 110). (I here
italicise ' tribe ' and ' tribal.' Lord Avebury intends, I
think, a woman of the same ' fire-circle ' (p. 188), not a woman
THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY 125
of the t?-ibe understood as a large and inevitably not primitive
local aggregate of friendly groups of different totems, such
as the Arunta, Narrinyeri, Pawnees, and so forth.)
In brief, men would desire to appropriate to themselves
some woman, at first from beyond their own ' tribe.' This
they could only do by capture. Their individual right in her
would be modified by the disgusting license of the bridal
night, which Lord Avebury regards as ' compensation ' to
the other males of the 'tribe' (pp. 138, 557-560). That
license I would rather explain as Mr. Crawley does : the
topic does not need to be insisted on at length in this place.
Lord Avebury, at all events, supposes that a form of captxu-e
finally came to be applied, with results in individual marriage,
to women of the same 'tribe' (p. 111). But if we have
.'complete and conclusive evidence that in large portions of
Australia every man had the privilege of a husband over
every woman not belonging to his own gens ; sharing, of
course, these privileges with every other man belonging to
the same class or gens as himself ' (p. 112), I fail to see that
a man gained anything by enduring the trouble and risk of
capturing a bride aU to himself. Before the capture she had
been, it seems, the common spoil of the males of her ' tribe;'
when captured she was the common spoil of her captor's
' class or gens ' — though a ' class ' and a gens are not, I think,
identical, but much the reverse.
The rather promiscuous use of terms for different kinds
of human communities affected all the pioneer works on
primitive society, and, indeed, still perplexes om* speculations.
Thus Lord Avebury suggests (p. 119) the case of four exo-
gamous neighbouring ' tribes,' with kinship traced through
women. ' After a certain time the result would be that each
tribe would consist of four septs or clans ' (totem kins ?),
' representing the four original tribes, and hence we should
find communities in which each tribe is divided into clans,
and a man must always marry a woman of a different
clan.'
We do not, perhaps, know any exogamous tribes in our
126 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
sense of ' tribe ; ' a Dieri is not obliged to mariy out of the
Dieri, or an Urabunna out of the Urabunna. By ' tribe '
here, it seems probable that Lord Avebury intends not a
large local aggregate, but ' a very small commimity,' for he
writes ' we have seen that, under the custom of communal
marriage, a child was regarded as related to the tribe, but not
specially to any particular father or mother. Such a state
of things, indeed, is only possible in very small communities.'
Now a tribe is a very large community. The members of
such communities must have been poor observers if they did
not discover the relation between a child and the woman
who bore and, for several years, nm-sed it. But such ' tribes '
are not tribes in the sense in which I use the word ; they are
rather ' groups of the same hearth.' Now it is easy to see how
small groups of the same hearth became exogamous, namely
through sexual jealousy, and sexual tabu, which would
oblige the yoimg males to wander away, or to get wives by
capture, practices residting, under the tabu, in the sacred rule
of exogamy. This, however, is not Lord Avebury's theory of
the origin of exogamy.
Lord Avebury's theory does not become more distinct
when he says, ' In Australia, where the same family names '
(totem names ?) ' are common almost over the whole con-
tinent, no man may marry a woman whose family name '
(totem name ?) ' is the same as his own ' (here the Arunta
are an exception) ' and who belongs therefore to the same
tribe ' (p. 144). But siu-ely, if the ' family names ' are
' common almost over the whole continent,' a woman may
well have the same ' family name ' (say Emu) as a man, and
yet need not be of his tribe. An Arunta Emu man and a
Dieri Emu woman would have the same 'family name'
(totem name), but would not, therefore, ' belong to the same
tribe.' It even appears that Lord Avebury regards ' tribe '
and ' clan ' and ' family ' as synonymous terms, for, in proof
of the statement that people of the same 'family name'
necessarily belong to the same ' tribe,' he quotes my
late uncle, Mr. Gideon Scott Lang, 'No man can marry
THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY 127
a woman of the same clan, though the parties be no way
related according to our ideas.' ^ By ' clan ' Mr. Lang
here meant totem kin, and if Lord Avebury thinks ' clan '
equivalent to ' tribe,' a ' tribe ' must be a totem kin, which
it is not ; at least if we understand ' tribe ' as a local
aggregate of various totem kindreds.
These perplexities are caused by a vague terminology, and
occurred naturally in a book of 1870, as they do in Mr.
McLennan's own pioneer works. But in 1903 we must try
to aim at closer and more exact distinctions and definitions,
though we are still retarded and perplexed by the lack of
truly scientific nomenclature. As far as I can perceive. Lord
Avebury is apt to use ' family,' ' tribe,' ' clan,' and ' gens,'' as
equivalents, while each of them, in various places, appears to
be understood as denoting a totem kindred. Thus (p. 181)
' under a system of female descent combined with exogamy
a man must marry out of his tribe,' where ' tribe ' seems to
mean ' totem kin.' Compare p. 187 : ' another general rule,
in America as elsewhere, is that no one may marry within
his own clan or family,' where ' clan or family ' like ' tribe '
seems to mean ' totem kin.'
This use of terms makes it difficult for me to feel sure
that I apprehend Lord Avebury's theory correctly. How-
ever I take it to be that, originally, ' very small communities '
(' tribes ') lived in ' communal marriage.' Nobody knew who
was the son of what father or of what mother, though, in a
very small community one would expect the senior vigorous
male or males to prevent son-and-mother, or brother-and-
sister unions, by force, out of natural jealousy. This was
not done, but some males wanted wives to themselves in
private property, and got them by capture, paying ' com-
pensation ' in the license of the bridal night. But a man
might fall in love with a lass in his own ' tribe ' (' very small
community') and want to keep her to himself (p. 111).
' Hence would naturally arise a desire on the part of many to
extend the right of capture, which originally had reference
' G. Scott Lang, The Aborigines of Australia, p. 10.
128 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
only to women of a different tribe, and to apply it to all
those belonging to their own.' Is ' tribe ' still used of ' a very
small community,' or is it here employed in the now more
prevalent and much wider sense ? If not, is the ' capture '
now a mere ceremonial formula ? Apparently ' tribe,' now
and here, does mean (as elsewhere it does not) a large local
aggregate, for we are next told of ' the division of Australian
tribes into classes or gentes ' (though a ' class ' is one thing
and a gens, if totem kin is meant, is another thing), and of
the ' 1,000 miles of wives,' who, by the theory, are not in-
dividual wives of individual men. Such wives, special rights
in such wives, were acquired ' originally by right of capture.'
But. when men possessed marital privileges, each ' over
every woman not belonging to his own gens ; sharing, of
course, these privileges with every other man belonging to the
same gens or class as himself (p. 112), where is the individual
right acquired by capture ? It seems that each man, besides
his ' 1,000 miles of wives ' ' has his own individual wife . . .
by right of capture.' Now the Urabunna have no such in-
dividual wives, if, like Lord Avebury, we accept the state-
ment of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (p. 63). But the
Arunta have such individual wives. Here it seems necessary
for Lord Avebury, if he agrees with these authors, to prove
that the Anmta, unlike the Urabunna, do demonstrably
acquire their individual wives by capture. But no such
demonstration is produced. Till proof is offered I am unable
to appreciate the force of Lord Avebury's reasoning, while
like Mr. Crawley, I doubt whether individual marriage does
not exist among the Urabunna, the Piraungaru license not
being, I conceive, a true survival of communal man-iage, but
a peculiar institution.
LORD AVEBURY ON RELATIONSHIPS
Analysing Mr. Morgan's collection of names for relation-
ships, Lord Avebury (p. 182) says, 'in fact the idea of
relationship, like that of marriage, was foimd^d, not upon
THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY 129
duty, but upon power.' We try to suggest that the classifi-
catory names for relationships are, to a great extent,
expressive of status, seniority, and mutual duties and
services in the community — these duties and services them-
selves being gradually established by power — the power of
the seniors. Yet some terms analysed by Lord Avebury
have, linguistically, other sources. ' Wife,' in Cree, is ' part
of myself,' dimidium animce mece, these twain are one flesh.
Obviously this pretty term does not spring from ' commimal
marriage.' In Chocta, ' husband ' is 'he who leads me,' —
again not commxmal, but indicating the old-fashioned theory
of wifely obedience. (' He who kicks me ' would suffice, in
some civilised quarters.) ' Daughter-in-law,' in Delaware, is
' my cook,' indicating service ; and ' husband ' is ' my aid
through life,' showing the advanced Homeric, or Christian,
view of marriage (pp. 180-181). ' Father ' and ' Mother ' in
many African, Eitfopean and Asian, Non-Aryan, Oceanic,
Australian, and, really in Aryan languages, also often in
America, are ' the easiest soimds which a child can pronounce
indicating father and mother' (pp. 442-449). If babes
could distinguish father and mother, these relationships,
one thinks, could not have been unknown to adults. They
may be, and are, extended in usage, so as to embrace what
we call imcles and aunts and seniors of the kin, but this,
I try to argue, does not necessarily imply that fatherhood
and motherhood, owing to communal marriage, were long
unknown.
The result of Lord Avebury's analysis of Mr. Morgan's
tables of terms is to prove progress in the discrimination of
degrees of kin, though ancient sweeping terms occasionally
survive among races fairly advanced out of savagery.
' Relationship is, at first, regarded as a matter, not of blood,
but of tribal organisation ' (p. 208). Here I agree that
words or terms for what we call relationship often do seem to
denote status, duty, service, and intermarriageableness in the
community. But I do not think that the ties of blood are
thereby proved to have been unknown. Maternity could not
130 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
be doubtful, especially where the mother nursed her child for
several years.
Lord Avebury adds, ' the terms for what we call relation-
ships are, among the lower races of men, mere expressions
for the results of marriage customs, and do not comprise the
idea of relationship as we understand it ' (p. 210).
For this reason, I think, we must avoid the fallacy of
arguing as if the terms did denote ' relationship as we under-
stand it,' when we wish to prove a past of communal
marriage. The terms indicate, in Lord Avebmry's words,
' the connection of individuals inter se, their duties to one
another, their rights, and the descent of their property.'
This is precisely my own opinion, and for this very reason
I do not hold that these terms arose in ignorance as to who
was the mother, or even the father, of a child. All the
duties and rights, as Lord Avebury says, ' are regulated more
by the relation to the tribe than to the family '^ — in our
sense of ' family.' But this, in my view, proves that the
terms (in their present significance) are relatively late and
advanced, for the institution of the Tribe (as I understand
the word) implies the friendly combination of many totem
kins, and of many ' fire-circles,' into the tribe, the large local
aggregate. No such combination can have been truly
' primitive.' But we have seen that Lord Avebury seems to
use ' tribe ' in various places, as equivalent to ' family,' ' clan,'
gem, and, apparently, to 'totem kin.' Quite possibly he
means that the horde is prior to what I may call the ' fire-
circle,' the ' very small community,' which, in places, he terms
' the tribe,' or so I understand him. If so, I cannot follow
him here, as I am not inclined to think that truly primitive
man lived in hordes of considerable numbers : the difficulties
of supply, among other reasons, make the idea improbable.
K I have failed to understand Lord Avebury, perhaps
his somewhat indeterminate terminology may plead my
excuse.
131
CHAPTER VIII
THE OBIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS
Up to this point, we have treated of totems just as we find
them in savage practice. We have seen that totem names
are the titles of groups of kindred, real or imagined ; they
are derived from animals, plants, and other natural objects ;
they appear among tribes who reckon descent either on the
sword or spindle side, and the totem name of each group is
usually (but not in the case of the Arunta) one mark of the
exogamous limit. None may marry a person of the same
totem name. But, in company with this prohibition, is
found a body of myths, superstitions, rites, magical practices,
and artistic uses of the totem.' We have shown (Chapter
II.) that we cannot move a step without a clear and consistent
hjrpothesis of the origins of Totemism. This we now try to
produce.
SACRED ANIMALS IN SAVAGE SOCIETY
Savages, both in their groups of kin, in their magical
societies, or clubs, and privately, as individuals, are apt to
regard certain beasts, plants, and so on, as the guardians of
the group, of the society, and of the private person. To
these animal guardians, whether of the individual, the
' As to the mord ' totem,' but little is certainly known. Its earliest
occurrence in literature, to my knowledge, is in a work by J. Long (1791),
Voyages and TroAseli of am, Indiam Interpreter. Long sojourned among the
Algonquin branch of the North American Indians. He spells the word
' Totam,' and even speaks of ' Totamism.' Mr. Tylor has pointed out that
Long in one place confuses the totem, the hereditary group name, and
protective object, with what used to be called the manitu or ' medicine,'
of each individual Indian, chosen by him, or her, after a fast, at puberty.
Jtemarlis on Totemitm, 1898, pp. 139-40. Cf. infra, 135, note.
« k2
132 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
society, or the group of kin, they show a certain amount of
reverence and respect. That reverence naturally takes much
the same forms — the inevitable forms — as of not killing or
eating the animal, occasionally praying to it, or of burying
dead representatives of the species, as may happen. But I
am unaware that the savage ever calls his personal selected
animal or plant, or the guardian animal of his magical
society (except among the Arunta, where the totem groups
are evolving into magical clubs), by the same term as he
applies to the hereditary guardian of his group of kindred ;
his totem, as I use the word. If I am right, this distinction
has been overlooked, or thought insignificant, by some
modern inquirers. Major Powell, the Director of the
Ethnological Bureau at Washington, appears to apply the
word totem both to the chosen animal friend of the indi-
vidual, and to that of the magical society in America, which
includes men of various group totems. '^ He also applies it
to the totem of the kin.
Mr. Frazer, too, writes of (1) The Clan Totem, (2) ITie
Sex Totem (in Australia), (3) 'The Individual Totem,
belonging to a single individual, and not passing to his
descendants,' and even indicates that one savage may have five
totems.^ This third rule as to the non-hereditable character
of ' the individual totem ' has, since Mr. Frazer wrote in
1887, been found to admit of more exceptions than we then
knew. In a few cases and places, the animal selected by, or
for, the private individual, is found to descend to his or her
children. In my opinion it is better, for the present at
least, to speak of such protective animals of individuals, by
the names which their savage proteges give to them in each
case : nyarongs (Sarawak) ' bush-souls,' (Calabar) naguals,
(Central America) mamitus (?) as among the Algonquins,
Yunbeai in some Australian dialects, and so forth.* I myself
' Mom, 1902, No. 75. ' ToUmism, p. 2, 1887.
' So also Mr. Hartland writes, 3Ian, 1902, No. 84. But mamtu is
perhaps too wide and vague a term : it usually connotes anything mystical
or supernormal.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 133
here use ' totem ' only of the object which lends its name,
hereditarily, to a group of kin.
PROPOSED RESTRICTION OF THE USE OF THE
WORD 'totem'
This restriction I make, not for the purpose of simplify-
ing the problem of totemism by disregarding ' the individual
totem,' ' the sex totem,' and so on, but because I understand
that savages everywhere use one word for their hereditary
kin totem, and other words for the plant or animal pro-
tectors of individuals, of magical societies, and so forth.
The true totem is a plant or animal or other thing, the
hereditary friend and ally — of the kin — but all plant or
animal allies of individuals or of magical societies are not
totems. Though the attitude of a private person to his
nagiud, or of a magical society to its protective animal, may
often closely resemble the attitude of the group to its heredi-
tary totem, still, the origin of this attitude of respect may
be different in each case.
This is obvious, for the individual or society deliberately
adopts an animal protector and friend, usually suggested in
a dream, after a fast, whereas we can scarcely conceive that
the totem was deliberately adopted by the first members of
the first totem groups. Savages look on animals as perso-
nalities like themselves, but more powerful, gifted with more
wdkan, or mana, or cosmic rapport: each man, therefore,
and each organised magical society, looks out for, and, for
some reason of dream or divination, adopts, a special animal
friend. But it is hard to believe that the members of a
primeval human group of unknown antiquity, consciously
and deliberately made a compact to adopt, and for ever be
faithful to— this or that plant, animal, element, or the like
to be inherited in the female line. For, on this plan, the
group, say Wolves, instantly loses the totem it has adopted.
We cannot prove that it was not so, that a primitive
group of rudimentary human beings did not make a covenant
134 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
with Bear, or Wolf, as Israel did with Jehovah, and as an
individual savage does with his nyarong, or nagtial, or
mcmitu. This covenant, if made and kept by each group,
would be the Origin of Toteraism. But, with female
descent, the covenant could not be kept. I am not certain
that this theory, involving joint and deliberate selection and
retention of a totem, by a primeval human group, has ever
been maintained, unless it be by Mr. Jevons. ' The primary
object of a totem alliance between a human kin and an
animal kind is to obtain a supernatural ally against super-
natural foes.' ^ The term ' supernatural ' seems here out of
place — both the animal kind and the human kin being
natural ; and one has a difficulty in conceiving that very
early groups of kin would make, and would adhere to, such
alliances. Indeed, how could they adhere to their totems,
when these descended through women of alien totem groups ?
But there seems to be nothing otherwise impossible or self-
contradictory in this theory ; nor can it be disproved, for
lack of evidence. Only such theories as are self-contradictory,
or inconsistent with the known and admitted facts of the case,
are capable of absolute disproof.
It may, of course, be objected here that, though totems,
in actual savage society, descend sometimes in the female
line, still, descent in the male line may be the original rule ;
and that thus a group, like an individual, could seek, make a
covenant with, and cleave to a grub, or frog, or lizard, as a
supernatural ally. But, for reasons already indicated, in an
earlier part of this work, I conceive that, originally, totems
descended in the female line only. One reason for this
opinion is that, as soon as descent of the totem comes by
the male line, a distinct step in the upward movement
towards civilisation and a settled life is made. It is not
very probable that the backward step, from reckoning by
male lineage to descent in the female line, has often been
' Introduction to the History of Meligion, p. 21 i. Major Powell has
said something to the same effect, but that was in a journal of 'popular
science.'
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 135
taken. On the other hand, tribes which now inherit the
totem in the male line, exhibit in their institutions many
sm-vivals of female descent. An instance is that of the
Mandans, as recorded by Mr. Dorsey.^ Among the Melane-
sians, where female descent still exists, there is at work the
most obvious tendency towards descent through males, as
Dr. Codrington proves in an excellent work on that people.
Dr. Durkheim, too, has pointed out the traces of uterine
descent among the Arunta, who now reckon in the male
line.^ On the other hand, where we find descent in the male
line, I am not aware that we discover signs of movement in
the opposite direction. In this opinion that, as a general
rule, descent was reckoned in the female, not the male line,
originally, I have the support of Mr. E. B. Tylor.' For
these reasons the hypothesis of the selection of and covenant
with a ' supernatural ally,' plant or animal, by the deliberate
joint action of an early group, at a given moment, involving
staunch adherence to the original resolution, rather strains
belief; and a suggestion perhaps more plausible will be
offered later.
THE WORD 'totem'
As to the precise original meaning and form of the
word usually written ' totem ' — whether it should be
' totam,' or ' toodaim,' or ' dodaim,' or ' ododam,' or ' ote,''
philologists may dispute.* They may question whether the
word means ' mark,' or ' family,' or ' tribe,' or clay for paint-
ing the family mark.^ When we here use the word ' totem '
we mean, at all events, the object which gives its name to a
group of savage kindred, who may not marry within this here-
ditary name. In place of ' totem ' we might use the equi-
valent murdu of the Dieri, or gaura of the Kunundaburi.*
' Bureau of MhnoUgy, 1893-1894, p. 241.
* L'Awnee Soeiologique, v. 93, 99, 100. As far as the proof rests on
Arunta traditiom, I lay no stress upon it.
' J. A I. vol. xviii., no. 3, p. 254.
* Frazer, Totemism, p. 1. ^ Major Powell, Man, 1901, no. 75.
« Howitt, /. A. I. XX. 40-41, 1891.
136 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
THE TOTEM 'CULT
The ' cult,' if it deserves to be called a ' cult,' of the
totem, among savages, is not confined to abstention from
marriage within the name. Each kin usually abstains from
killing, eating, or in any way using its totem (except in
occasional ceremonies, religious or magical), is apt to claim
descent from or kindred with it, or alternations of metamor-
phosis into or out of it, and sometimes uses its effigy on
memorial pillars, on posts carved with a kind of genealogical
tree, or tattoos or paints or scarifies it on the skin — in
different cases and places.
To what extent the blood-feud is taken up by all
members of the slain man's totem, I am not fuUy aware : it
varies in different regions. The eating or slaying of the
totem, by a person of the totem name, is in places believed
to be punished by disease or death, a point which the late
Mr. J. J. Atkinson observed among the natives of New
Caledonia (MS. penes me). Mr. Atkinson happened to be
conversing with some natives on questions of anthropology,
when his servant brought in a lizard which he had killed.
On this one of the natives exhibited great distress, saying,
' Why have you killed my father ? we were talking of my
father, and he came to us.' The son (his name was Jericha)
then wrapped the dead lizard up in leaves, and reverently
laid the body in the bush. This was not a case like that of
the Zulu Idhlozi, the serpents that haunt houses, and are
believed to be the vehicles of the souls of dead kinsfolk.
The other natives present had for their ' father,' one, a
mouse, the other a pigeon, and so on. If any one ate his
animal ' father,' sores broke out on him, and Mr. Atkinson
was shown a woman thus afflicted, for having eaten her
' father.' But I do not find, in his papers, that a man with
a mouse for father might not marry a woman of the mouse
set, nor have I elsewhere been .able to ascertain what is New-
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 137
Caledonian practice on this point.^ When Mr. Atkinson
made these observations (1874), he had only heard of totems
in the novels of Cooper and other romancers.
' TOTEM GODS
This example is here cited because, as far as I am aware,
no other anthropologist has observed this amount of Totemism
in New Caledonia. Students are divided into those who have
a bias in favour of finding totemism everywhere ; and those
who aver, with unconcealed delight, that in this or the other
place there are no totems. Such negative statements must
always be received with caution. An European may live
long among savages before he really knows them ; and,
without possessing totemism in full measure, many races
retain obvious fragments of the institution.
Mr. Tylor has censured the use of the terms ' totems '
and ' totem clans ' with respect to the Fijians and Samoans,
where certain animals, not to be eaten, are believed to be
vehicles or shrines of certain gods. It is a very probable
conjecture (so probable, I think, as almost to amount to a
certainty), that the creatures which are now the shrines of
Fijian or Samoan gods of the family, or of higher gods, were
once totems in an earlier stage of Samoan and Fijian society
and belief. As I have said elsewhere, 'in totemistic
countries the totem is respected himself ; in Samoa the animal
is worshipful because a god abides within him. This appears
to be a theory by which the reflective Samoans have
explained to themselves what was once pure Totemism.'^
But I must share in Mr. Tylor's protest against using the
' The Marquis d'Eguilles kindly sends me extracts from an official
' Notice sur la Nouvelle-Caledonie,' drawn up for the Paris Exhibition of
1900. The author says that the names of relationships are expressed, by
the Kanaka, ' in a touching manner.' One name includes our ' uncle ' and
' father,' another our ' mother ' and ' aunts ; ' another name includes our
' brothers,' ' sisters,' and ' cousins.' This, of course, is ' the classifioatory
system.' About animal ' fathers ' nothing is said.
' TyloT, Jtemarks on Totemism, Tpp.lil-li3. Myth, Ritiw.1, a/nd Religion,
ii. 56-58. Turner's Samoa, p. 17 (1884).
138 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
name of ' totem ' for a plant or animal which is regarded as
the shrine of a god. Such thorough totemists as some of
the North American Indians, or the Australians, do not
explain their totems as the shrines of gods, for they have no
such gods to serve as explanations. That myth appears to
be the Samoan or Fijian way of accounting for the existence
of worshipful and friendly plants and animals.
Thus, at all events, and unluckily, the phrase 'the
totem-god ' is introduced into our speculations, and the cult
of the ' totem-god ' is confused with the much more limited
respect paid by savages to actual totems. However attrac-
tive the theory of ' the totem-god ' may be, we cannot speak
of ' totems ' where a god incarnate in a plant or animal is
concerned. Such a deity may be a modified survival of
Totemism, but a totem he is not. Moreover, it is hardly safe
to say that, in the Samoan case, the god is ' developed from
a totem ; ' we only know that the god has got into
suspiciously totemistic society. On the whole, we cannot be
too cautious in speaking of totems and Totemism : and we
must be specially careful not to exaggerate the more or less
religious respect with which totems are, in many cases,
regarded. The Australians, as far as they have the idea of a
creative being, Baiame, Nooreli, and so forth, do not regard
their totems as shrines or incarnations of him. That
appears to be the speculation of peoples who, probably
by way of animism, and ancestor- worship, are already in the
stage of polytheism. Totems, in their earliest known stage,
have very little to do with religion, and probably, in origin,
had nothing really religious about them.
SAVAGE SPECULATIONS AS TO THE ORIGIN
OF TOTEMISM
Peoples who are still in the totemistic stage, as we have
seen, know nothing about the beginnings of the institution.
All that they tell the civilised inquirers is no more than the
myth handed down by their own tradition. Thus the Dieri
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 139
or Diejrrie, in Australia, say that the totems were appointed
by the ancestors, for the purpose of regulating marriages,
after consultation with Miu-a Miu-a, or with ' the ' Miu'amura.
The Woeworung, according to Mr. Howitt, have a similar
legend.' It is not necessary here to ask whether Mura Mura
is ' the Supreme Being ' (Gason, Howitt), or ' ancestral spirits '
(Fison).^ The most common savage myth is of the DsuTdnian
variety, each totem kin is descended from, or evolved out of,
the plant or animal type which supplies its totem. Again, as
in fairy tales, a woman gave birth to animals, whence the
totem kins derive their descent. In North- West America,
totems are often accounted for by myths of ancestral heroes.
' The Tlingit ' (Thlinket) ' hold that souls of ancestors are
reborn in children, that a man will be reborn as a man, a wolf
as a wolf, a raven as a raven.' Nevertheless, the totems are
regarded as ' relatives and protectors,' and it is explained that,
in the past, a human ancestor had an adventure with this or
that animal, whence he assimied his totem armorial bearings.'
In precisely the same way a myth, a very late myth, was
invented, about the adventxu-e of a Stewart with a lion, to
account for the Lyon of the Stewarts."* The Haidas and
Thlinkets, believing as they do that human souls are reborn
human, cannot hold that a bestial soul animates a man, say,
of the Haven totem.
The Arunta, on the other hand, suppose that the souls
of animals which evolved into human beings, are reincar-
nated in each child bom to the tribe. 'Two clans of
Western Australia, who are named after a small opossum
and a little fish, think that they are so called because they
used to live chiefly on these creatures.' ^ This myth has
some support in modem opinion : the kins, it is argued,
received their totem names from the animals and plants
' Howitt, On the Orgamsation of Auttralian Tribes, p. 136, note, 1889.
^ The Mura Mura appear Ireally to answer to the fabled ancestors of
the Arunta, but are addressed in prayers. Cf. Miss Howitt, Folk Lore,
January 1903. ' Tylor, Remarks on Tatemism, p. 134.
' So also to explain the crest of the Hamiltons, the Skenes, and many
others. ° Frazer, Totemism, p. 7.
140 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
which mainly formed their food supply ; though now their
totems are seldom eaten by them. These legends, and
others, are clearly setiological myths, like the Samoan
hypothesis that gods are incarnate in the totems. The myths
merely try to explain the original connection between men
and totems, and are constructed on the lines of savage ideas
about the relations of all things in the universe, all alike
being personal, and rational, and capable of interbreeding,
and of shape-shifting. Certain Kalamantans of Sarawak
will not eat a species of deer, because ' an ancestor became a
deer of this kind.' ^ All such fables, of course, are valueless
as history ; and, in the savage state of the intellect, such
myths were inevitable.
MODERN THEORIES
Mr. McLennan himself at first had a theory, which, as
far as I heard him speak of it, was more or less akin to my
own. But he abandoned it, says his brother, Mr. Daniel
McLennan, for reasons that to him appeared conclusive. I
ought to mention that Mr. A. H. Keane informed me,
several years ago, that he had independently evolved a theory
akin to mine, of which, as it then stood, I had published
some hint. (For a statement of Mr. Keane's theory see
our Preface.) In 1884 ^ I wrote, ' People united by con-
tiguity, and by the blind sentiment of kinship not yet
brought into explicit consciousness, might mark themselves
by a bsidge, and might thence derive a name, and, later,
might invent a myth of their descent from the object which
the badge represented.' But why shotild such people mark
themselves by a badge, and why, if they did, should the ttiark
be, not a decorative or symbolic pattern, but the represen-
tation of a plant or animal ? These questions I cannot
answer, and my present guess is not identical with that of
1884.
' Hose and McDougall, .7^. A. I. xxxi. 193, 1901.
* Custom and Myth, p. 262.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 141
Meanwhile let us keep one point steadily before our
minds. Totemism, at a first glance, seems a perfectly crazy
and irrational set of beliefs, and we might think, with Dr.
Johnson, that there is no use in looking for reason among the
freaks of irrational people. But man is never irrational.
His reason for doing this, or believing that, may seem a bad
reason to us, but a reason he always had for his creeds and
conduct, and he had a reason for his totem belief, a reason in
congruity with his limited knowledge of facts, and with his
theory of the universe. For all things he wanted an explana-
tion. Now what he wanted a reason for, in Totemism, was
the nature and origin of the connection between his own and
the neighbouring groups, and the plant or animal names
which they bore. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write, ' what -
gave rise, in the first instance, to the association of parti-
cular men with particular animals and plants, it is impossible
to say.' But it is not impossible to guess, with more or less
of probability. The connection once established, savages
guessed at its origin : their guesses, as always, were myths,
and were of every conceivable kind. The myth of descent
from or kinship with the animal or plant, the Darwinian
myth, does not stand alone. Every sort of myth was
fashioned, was believed, and influenced conduct. Our busi-
ness is to form our own guess as to the original connection
between men and their totems : a guess which shall be
consistent with human nature.
MR. MAX MULLERS THEORY
Many such guesses by civilised philosophers exist. We
need not dwell long on that of Mr. Max Miiller, akin, as it
is, to my own early conjecture, ' a totem is a clan mark, then
a clan name, then the name of the ancestor of the clan, and
lastly the name of something worshipped by the clan.' ' We
need not dwell on this, because the kind of ' clan mark ' on a
pillar outside of the quarters of the clan, in a village, is
' Contrihitions to the Seience of Mythology, i. 201.
142 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
peculiar to North America, and to people dwelling in fixed
settlements. Among the nomadic Australians, we have
totemism without the settlements, without the totem pillar,
without the ' clan mark,' on the pillar, which, thus, cannot
be the first step in Totemism. Again, the ' clan name,' or
group name, must be earlier than the 'clan mark,' which
merely expresses it, just as my name is prior to my visiting
card, or as the name of an inn, ' The Red Lion,' is prior to
the sign representing that animal. Obviously we have to ask
first, whence comes the clan name, or group name ?
THE THEORY OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER
In a passage on animal-worship, Mr. Herbert Spencer
(unless T misconceive him) advances a theory of the origin of
Totemism. True, he does not here speak of totems, but he
suggests an hypothesis to explain why certain stocks claim
descent from animals, and why these animals are treated by
them with more or less of religious regard. Actual men, in
savagery, are often called by ' animal nicknames,' and we
cannot be surprised if the savage . . . gets the idea that an
ancestor named ' the tiger ' was an actual tiger . . , Inevi-
tably, then, he grows up believing that his father descended
from a tiger — thinking of himself as one of the tiger stock.^
It were superfluous to dwell on this theory. Totem
names are group names ; and, as they occur where group
names are derived from the mother, they cannot have origi-
nated in the animal nicknames of individual dead grand-
fathers. The names of the dead are usually tabued and
forgotten ; but that is of no great moment. The point is
that such group names are derived through mothers, in
the first instance, not through male founders of families."
No theory which starts from an individual male ancestor,
and his name bequeathed to his descendants, can be correct.
That Mr. Spencer's does start in this way may be inferred
' Tlie Prviwiplei of Sociology, i. 362, 1876.
^ The whole passage will be found in the work cited. Vol. i. 359-368,
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 143
from the following text : ' commonly the names of the clans
which are forbidden to intermarry, such as Wolf, Bear,
Eagle, Whale, &c., are names given to men, implying, as I
have before contended (170-173), descent from distinguished
male ancestors bearing those names — descent which, notwith-
standing the system of female kinship, was remembered when
there was pride in the connection.'
A brief-lived joy in the name of which the male ances-
tor's descendants were proud, left them, in the second gene-
ration, under exogamy and female kin. Thus my father was
nicknamed ' Tiger.' Proud of the title, I call myself Tiger.
But I must marry a woman who is Not-Tiger, and my off-
spring are Not-Tigers. My honoxir hath departed !
MR. FRAZEK's theories
The hjrpotheses of Mr. J. G. Frazer are purely provisional.
He starts from the idea, so common in Mdrchen, of the
person whose ' soul,' ' life,' or ' strength ' is secretly hidden in
an animal, plant, or other object. The owner of the soul
wraps the ' soul-box ' up in a mystery, it is the central secret
of his existence, for he may be slain by any one who can
discover and destroy his ' soul-box.' Next Mr. Frazer offers
many cases of this actual belief and practice among savage
and barbarous peoples ; and, as a freak or survival, the idea
is found even among the civilised. We meet the superstition
in the Melanesian group of islands (where Totemism is all
but extinct), and perhaps among the Zulus, with their
serpent Idhlozi, whose life is associated with their own. Mr.
Atkinson's New-Caledonians, however, did not think that
death inflicted on their animal ' fathers ' involved danger to
themselves, though it distressed them, as an outrage to senti-
ment. Then we have the ' bush-souls ' (one soul out of four
in the possession of each individual), among the natives of
Calabar. These souls. Miss Kingsley wrote, are never in
plants, but always in ^oUd beasts, and are recognisable only
by second-sighted men. The ' bush-soul ' of a man is often
144 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
that of his sons : the daughters often inherit the mother's
'bush-soul:' or children of both sexes may take the bush-
soul of either father or mother. The natives will not injure
their bush-soul beasts. Nothing is known as to prohibition
of marriage between persons of the same bush-soul. Here
we have really something akin to the totem, the bush-souls
being hereditary, at least for one generation. But this is
among a house-dweUing, agricultural people, far above the
state of real savagery : not among a ' primitive' people.
The Zapotecs of Central America, again, choose, by a
method of divination, ' a tona or second self,' an animal, for
each child, at its birth. It is, by the nature of the case, not
hereditable. The nagual, usually a beast, of each Indian of
Guatemala is well known ; and is discovered, on the moni-
tion of a dream, by each individual. Therefore it cannot be
hereditable. The sexes, in Australia, have each a friendly
and protecting species of animal ; say a Bat for all men, a
Nightjar for all women : indeed, in Australia, all the
elements of nature have their place in the cosmic tribe. To
injure the animal of either sex, is to injure one of the sex.
There is no secret about the matter.
Mr. Frazer then argues, ' the explanation which holds
good of the one ' (say ' the sex totem,' or ' personal totem '),
' ought equally to hold good of the other ' (the group totem).
'Therefore, the reason why a tribe' (I venture to prefer
' group,' or ' kin,' as there are many totems in each ' tribe ')
' revere a particular species of animals or plants . . . and
call themselves after it, would seem to be a belief that the
life of each individual of the tribe is boimd up with some
one plant or animal of the species, and that his or her death
would be the consequence of killing that particular animal or
destroying that particular plant.' Mr. Frazer thinks that
' this explanation squares well ' with Sir George Grey's de-
scription of a Kdbong or totem in Western Australia.
There, a native gives his totem ' a fair show ' before killing it,
always affording it a chance of escape, and never killing it in
its sleep. He only does not shoot his kindred animal sitting;
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 145
and his plant he only spares ' in certain circumstances, and at
a particular period of the year.' Mr. Frazer writes that as
the man does not know which individual of the species ot
plant or animal ' is specially dear to him, he is obliged to
spare them all, for fear of injm-ing the dear one.' But the
man, it seems from Grey's account, does not ' spare ' any of
them ; he kills or plucks them, ' reluctantly,' and in a sports-
manlike manner, ' never without affording them a chance of
escape.' In a case of. Sir George Grey's, the killing of a
crow hastened the death of a man of the Crow totem, who
had been ailing for some days. But the Australians do not
think that to kiU a man's totem is to kiU the man. Some-
body's totem is killed whenever any animal is slain. Mr.
Frazer now finds that the Battas, for example, ' do not in set
terms affirm their external soul to be in their totems,' and I
am not aware that any totemists do make this assertion.
They freely offer aU other sorts of mythical explanations as
to what their totems originally were, as to the origin of their
connection with their totems, but never say that their totems
are their ' soul-boxes.'
Mr. Frazer has an answer to this objection. ' How close
must be the concealment, how impenetrable the reserve in
which he ' (the savage) ' hides the inner keep and citadel of his
being.' The Giant, in the Mdrchen, tries to keep the secret
of his ' soul-box,' much more then does ' the timid and
furtive savage.' ' No inducement that can be offered is likely
to tempt him to imperil his soul by revealing its hiding-place
to a stranger. It is, therefore, no matter for sm-prise that
the central mystery of the savage's life should so long have
remained a secret, and that we should be left to piece it to-
gether from scattered hints and fragments, and from the
recollections of it which linger in fairy tales.'
On reflection, we cannot but see the flaw in this reason-
ing. No savage has revealed to European inquirers that his
totem is his ' soul-box.' But every other savage knows his
Jatal secret. Every savage, well aware that his own totem is
the hiding-place of his soul, knows that the totems of his
146 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
enemies are the hiding-places of their souls. He wants to
kill his enemies, and he has an easy mode of doing so, to
shoot down every specimen of their totems. His enemies
will then die, when he is lucky enough to destroy their ' soul-
boxes.' Now I am not aware, in the destructive magic of
savages, of a single case in which a totem is slain, or tortured
for the purpose of slaying or torturing a man of that totem.
All other sorts of sympathetic magic are practised, but where
is the evidence for that sort, which ought to be of consider-
able diffusion ? ^ The supposed ' secret ' of savage life is no
secret to other savages. Each tells any inquirer what his
' clay ' or totem is. He blazons his totem proudly. The
nearest approach to invidious action, against a totem, with
which I am acquainted, is the killing by the Kurnai women,
of the men's ' sex totem,' when the young men are backward
wooers. The purpose is to produce a fight between lads and
lasses, a rude form of flirtation, after which engagements, or
elopements, are apt to follow.^
Mr. Frazer tentatively suggests another, a rival or a
subsidiary solution of the problem, to which reference
has already been made. Among the Arunta and other
tribes, ' the totemic system has a much wider scope, its aim
being to provide the community with a supply of food
and all other necessaries by means of certain magical cere-
monies, the performance of which is distributed among the
various totem groups.' That is to say, these totemic magical
eeremonies tiow exist for the purpose of propagating, as
part of the food supply, animals or vegetables, which, by the
former theory, were the secret receptacles of the lives of the
tribesmen. To kill and eat these sacred receptacles would
endanger the lives of the tribesmen, but to risk that is quite
in accordance with the practical turn of the Arunta mind.
Mr. Frazer has, however, suggested a possible method of
reconciling his earlier hypothesis — that a totem was a soul-
' I am haunted by the impression that I have met examples, but
•where I know not.
'^ Hewitt, Journal of the AntTi Topological InHitute, xviii. 58.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 147
box — with his later theory, that the primal object of totem
groups was to breed their totems for food.^
Mr. Frazer observes, ' It is not as yet clear how far the
particular theory of Totemism suggested by the Central
Australian system is of general application, and . , . in the
uncertainty which still hangs over the origin and meaning of
Totemism, it seems scarcely worth while to patch up an old
theory which the next new facts may perhaps entirely
demolish.' He then cites the Anmta belief that their
ancestors of ' the dream time ' (who were men evolved out of
animals or plants, - these objects being their totems) kept
their souls (like the Giant of the fairy tale) in stone churingaa
(a kind of amulets) which they hung on poles when they went.
out hunting. We have thus a va-et-vient between each man,,
and the spirit of the plant or animal out of which he, or his;
human ancestor, was evolved. That spirit (in origin the
spirit of an animal or plant) is now handed down with the?
stone churinga, and is reincarnated in each child, who is thus:
an incarnation of the original totem. Such is the Arunta,
theory, and thus each living Arunta is the totem's soul-box,
while, to savage reasoners, the totem soul may, perhaps,
seem also to tenant simultaneously each plant or animal of
its species.
This is a theory of Totemism ; ^ but, so far, we only
know the facts on which it is based among one extraordinary
tribe of anomalous development. We have still to ask, what
was the original connection of the men with the plants and
animals, which the Arunta explain by their myth .'' Was
that connection originally one of magic-working, by each
group, for its totem species, and, if so, why or how did the
groups first select their plants and animals .'' Mr. Haddon's
theory, presently to be criticised, may elucidate that point of
departure.
' Golden Bough, iii. 416, note 3.
' It is possible that I have failed to understand the mode of reconciling
the two hypotheses, and Mr. Frazer is not to be understood as committed
to either or both in the present state of our information.
l2
148 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
SUGGESTION OF MR. N. W, THOMAS
As I am writing, a theory, or suggestion, by Mr. N. W.
Thomas appears in Man (1902, No. 85). Mr. Thomas
begins with the spirit which dwells in an African fetich, and
becomes the servant of its owner. The magical apparatus
' may be a bag of skin containing parts of various animals.
Such an animal may be the familiar of the owner, his
messenger, or an evil spirit that possesses him ; ^ similar
beliefs are held about the wer-wolf. Now the American-
Indian has his ' medicine bag.' ' The contents are the skin,
feathers, or other part of the totem animal.'
Distingiio : they are parts, not of the ' totem animal,' but
of the adopted animal of the individual, often called his
mcmitu. If we say ' the totem animal,' we beg the question ;
we identify the totem with the manitu of the individual. It
may be true, as Mr. Thomas says, that ' the basis of individual
Totemism seems to be the same as that of fetishism,' but I
am not discussing ' individual Totemism,' but real group
Totemism. Mr. Thomas also is clear on this point, but,
turning to Australia, he says that ' the individual totem
seems to be confined to the medicine-man.' From informa-
tion by Mrs. Langloh Parker, I doubt the truth of this
idea. A confessedly vague reminiscence of Mr. Rusden does
not help us. Speaking of an extinct tribe on the Hunter
River, N.S.W., he says that he ' does not recollect all their
class divisions, Yippai' (Ippai), 'and Kombo' (Kumbo).
' Apropos of the generic names ' (whatever these may be)
' the Geawe-gal had a superstition that every one had within
himself an affinity to the spirit of some beast, bird, or reptile.
Not that he sprang from the creature in any way ' (as is a
common totemic myth), ' but that the spirit which was in
him was akin to that of the creature.' This is vague. Mr.
Rusden does not say that his native informant said, that the
' spirit ' was the man's totem in each case.^ But Mr.
Thomas, on this evidence, writes : ' This belief suggests that
' Kamilaroi amd Kurnai, p. 280.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 149
the interpretation suggested for individual Totemism can also
be applied to clan Totemism,' apparently because, among
the extinct tribe, not only sorcerers, but, in this case, every
one was the receptacle of an animal (not a plant) spirit.
But obviously the animal spirits of the Geawe-gal may be
the spirits — not of their group totems, if they had any — but
of their individual manitus, which we do not know to be con-
fined to sorcerers. Every one is a sorcerer, better or worse,
in a society where every one works magic.
Next, the wer-wolf has a way of retiurning ' to look at '
(to eat, I think) the body of his victim. Now in North
Queensland, as in Scotland, the body of a dead man is
surrounded with dust or ashes (flour in Scotland), and the
dust is inspected, to find the tracks of some bird or animal.'
From such marks, if any, ' the totem of the malefactor
is inferred.' The malefactor is the person who, by the
usual superstition, is thought magically to have caused
the death of the tribesman. 'These facts seem best
interpreted if we suppose that in North Queensland the
sorcerer is believed to return in animal form, and that
the form is that of his totem, for in no other way does it
seem possible to identify the man's totem by observing the
footsteps.'
Is the man's group totem meant .? If so, the process
could not identify ' the malefactor,' there are hundreds of
men of his totem. Is his manitu or ' individual totem '
meant ? Then the process might be successful, but has
no concern with the origin of hereditary kin-Totemism.
Indeed Mr. Thomas 'leaves the applicability of the theory to
group Totemism for subsequent consideration.' We shall
show — indeed, in Mr. Herbert Spencer's case we have shown
— the difficulty of deriving kin-Totemism from the manitu,
or ' obsessing spirit ' if Mr. Thomas pleases, of the individual.
This point, as is said, Mr. Thomas reserves for later con-
sideration.
' J. A. I. xiii. 191, note 1.
150 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
DR. WILKEN's theory
We now come to a theory which exists in many shapes, but
in all is vitiated, I think, by the same error of reasoning. Mr.
Tylor, however, has lent at least a modified approval to the
hypothesis as mooted by the late Dutch anthropologist, Dr.
Wilken, of Leyden. Mr. Tylor writes, ' if it does not com-
pletely solve the totem problem, at any rate it seems to mark
out its main lines.' Unluckily the hypothesis of Dr. Wilken
is perhaps the least probable of all. The materials are
found, not in a race so comparatively early as the Australians
or Adamanese, but among the settled peoples of Malay,
Sumatra, and Melanesia. By them, in their Tables of
Precedence, ' the Crocodile is regarded as equal in rank to
the Dutch Resident.' Crocodiles are looked on as near
kinsmen of men, who, when they die, expect to become
crocodiles. To kill crocodiles is murder. 'So it is with
tigers, whom the Sumatrans worship and call ancestors.'
Mr. Tylor observes, ' Wilken sees in this transmigration
of souls the link which connects Totemism with ancestor-
worship,' and thinks that Dr. Codrington's remarks on
Melanesian ways add weight to this opinion. In Melanesia,
as Dr. Codrington reports, an influential man, before his
death, wiU lay a ban, or tabu, on something, say a banana,
or a pig. He says that he ' will be in ' a shark, a banana, a
bird, a butterfly, or what not. Dr. Codrington's informant,
Mr. Sleigh of Lifii, says ' that creature would be sacred to
his family,' they would call it ' papa,' and ' offer it a young
cocoa-nut.' ^ But they did not adopt thus the name of a tribe.''
The children of papa, who chose to be a butterfly (like
Mr. Thomas Haynes Bailey) do not call themselves 'The
Butterflies,' nor does the butterfly name mark their exoga-
mous limit. Mr. Tylor concludes, ' an ancestor, having lineal
descendants among men and sharks, or men and owls, is thus
the founder of a totem family, which mere increase may
convert into a totem clan, already provided with its animal
name.' This conclusion is tentative, and put forth with Mr.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 151
Tylor's usual caution. But, as a matter of fact, no totem
kin is actually founded thus, for example, in Melanesia. The
institutions of that region, as we are to show, really illustrate
the way out of, not the way into, Totemism. Moreover the
theory, as expressed by Mr. Tylor in the words cited, must
be deemed unfortunate because it takes for granted that ' the
Patriarchal theory ' of the origin of the so-called ' clan,' or
totem group, is correct. A male ancestor founds a family,
which swells, ' by natural increase,' into a ' clan.' The
ancestor is worshipped under the name of Butterfly, his
descendants, the clan foimded by him, are named Butter-
flies. But all this can only happen where male ancestors are
remembered, and are worshipped, where descent is reckoned
in the male line, and where, as among ourselves, a remem-
bered male ancestor founds a House, as Tam o' the Cowgate
founded the House of Haddington. In short Dr. Wilken
has slipped back into the Patriarchal theory. Now, among
totemists like the Australians, ancestors are not remembered,
their names are tabued, they are not worshipped, they do not
found families, where descent is reckoned in the female line.'^
MISS ALICE Fletcher's theory
An interesting variant of this theory is offered, as regards
the Omaha tribe of North America, by Miss Alice Fletcher,
whose knowledge of the inner mind of that people is no less
remarkable than her scientific caution.^ The conclusion of
Miss Fletcher's valuable essay shows, at a glance, that her
hypothesis contains the same fundamental error as that of
Dr. Wilken : namely, the totem of the kin is derived from
the manitu, or personal friendly object of an individual, a
male ancestor. This cannot, we repeat, hold good for that
early stage of society which reckons descent in the female
line, and in which male ancestors do not found houses, clans,
names, or totem kins.
' Tylor, Memarkt on Totemism, pp. 146-147, 1898.
^ The Import of the. Totem, by Alice 0. Fletcher, Salem Press, Mass.,
1897.
152 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
The Omaha men, at puberty, after prayer and fasting,
choose manitus suggested in dreams or visions. Miss Fletcher
writes, ' As totems could be obtained but in one way —
through the rite of the vision, the totem of a gens must
have come into existence in that manner, and must have
represented the manifestation of an ancestor's vision, that of
a man whose ability and opportunity served to make him
the founder of a family, of a group of kindred who dwelt
together, fought together, and learned the value of united
strength.' '
This explanation obviously cannot explain the Origin
of Totemism amBng tribes where descent is reckoned in
the female line, and where no man becomes ' the founder ot
a family.' The Omaha, a house-dwelling, agricultural
tribe, with descent in the male line, with priests, and
departmental gods, a tribe, too, among whom the manitu
is not hereditable, can give us no line as to the origin of
Totemism. Miss Fletcher's theory demands the hereditable
character of the individual manitu, and yet it is never in-
herited.
MR. HILL tout's THEORY
Mr. Hill Tout has evolved a theory out of the customs of
the aborigines of British Columbia, among whom ' the clan
totems are a development of the personal or individual totem
or tutelar spirit.' The Salish tribes, in fact, seek for ' sidia,
or tutelar spirits,' and these ' gave rise to the personal totem,'
answering to manitu, nyarong, jiagual, and so forth. ' From
the personal and family crest is but a step to the clan crest.'
Unluckily, with descent in the female line, the step cannot
be taken. Mr. Hill Tout takes a village-inhabiting tribe, a
tribe of village communities, as one in which Totemism is
only nascent. ' The village commimity apparently formed the
original unit of organisation.' But the Australians, who have
not come within measurable distance of the village community,
have already the organisation of the totem kin. Interesting
' Op. cit. p. 12.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 153
as is Mr. Hill Toufs account of the Salish Indians, we need
not dwell longer on an hypothesis which makes village com-
munities prior to the evolution of Totemism. What he
means by saying that ' the gens has developed into the clan,'
I am unable to conjecture. The school of Major Powell use
' gens ' of a totem kin with male, ' clan ' of a totem kin with
female descent. Mr. Hill Tout cannot mean that male
descent is being converted into descent in the female line .?
As he writes of ' a four-clan system, each clan being made up
of groups of gentes^ he may take a ' clan ' to signify what is
usually called a ' phratry.' ^
MESSRS. HOSE AND MCDOUGALL
Among other efforts to show how the hereditary totem
of a group might be derived from the special animal or plant
friend of an individual male, may be noticed that of Messrs.
Hose and McDougall.^ The Ibans, or Sea Dyaks of Sarawak,
are probably of Malay stock, and are ' a very imitative people,'
of mixed, inconsistent, and extravagant beliefs. They have a
god of agriculture, and, of course, are therefore remote from
the primitive ; being rice-farmers. They respect nyarongs,
or ' spirit helpers,' though Mr. Hose lived among them for
fourteen years without knowing what a nyarong is. ' It
seems usually to be the spirit of some ancestor, or dead re-
lative, but not always so. . . .' The spirit first appears to
an Iban in a dream, in human form, and the Iban> on awak-
ing, looks for the nyarong in any casual beast, or quartz
crystal, or queer root or creeper. So far the nyarong is a
fetish. Only about two per cent, of men have nyarongs.
If the thing be an animal, the Iban respects the other
creatures of the species. 'In some cases the cult of a
nyarong will spread through a whole family or household.'
Australian individuals have also their secret animal friends,
' ' The Origin of the Totemism of the. Inhabitants of British Columbia,'
Transaetions of Boyal Society of Cemada, second series, vol. vii., 1901-1902.
Qnajritch, London. '*
2 /. A. I. xxxi. 196, et seq.
154 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
like nyarongs and naguals, but these are never hereditary.
What is hereditary is the totem of the group, which may
not be altered, or so seldom that it would be hard to find a
modem example : though changes of totems may have
occurred when, in the pristine ' treks ' of the race, they
reached regions of new fauna and flora.
'The children and grandchildren,' oiu- authors go on,
' among the Ibans, will usually respect the species of animals to
which a man's nyarong belongs, and perhaps sacrifice fowls or
pigs to it occasionally.' Of course ' primitive ' man has no
domesticated animals, and does not sacrifice anything to any-
body. ' If the great-grandchildren of a man behave well to
his nyarong, it will often befriend them just as much as its
original protege.'' It is not readily conceivable that, among
very early men, and where the names of the dead are tabued,
the wisest great-grandchild knows who his great-grandfather
was. Still, though the great-grandfather was forgotten, his
nyarong — it may be said — would be held in perpetual
memory, and become the totem of a group. But this is not
easily to be conceded, because there would be the competition
of the nyarongs of each generation to crush the ancient
nyarong ; moreover the totem, in truly primitive times, is not
inherited from fathers, but from mothers.
Our authors say that, in some cases, ' all the members of
a man's family, and all his descendants, and, if he be a chief,
all the members of the community over which he rules,' may
come to share in the benefits of his nyarong, and in its
rites. But all this of chiefs, and great-grandchildren of a
known great-grandfather, all this occurring to-day among an
imitative and agricultural people, with departmental deities,
and domesticated animals, cannot give us a line to the origin
of Totemism among houseless nomads, who tabu the memory
of their dead, and, as a rule, probably reckoned descent on
the female side, so that a man could not inherit his father's
totem. We must try to see how really early men became
totemic. Mr. Frazer observes, ' It is quite possible that, as
some good authorities incline to believe, the clan totem has
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 155
been developed out of the individual totem by inheritance,'
and Miss Alice C. Fletcher we have cited as holding this
process to be probable in North America.^ All such theories
are based on the beliefs and customs of modern savages
advancing, like the American Indians of to-day, towards
what is technically styled 'barbarism.' It was not in the
state of barbarism, but in a savagery no longer extant, that
totemism was evolved. Totemism derived from inherit-
ance of a male ancestor's special ' spirit-helper' is checked by
the essential conditions of people who are settled, agricul-
tural, and given to reckoning descent in the male line. No
more can be produced, in such a state, than ' abortive begin-
nings of Totemism.' ^ Exogamy is never reached on these
lines, and Totemism is behind, not in front of, all such
peoples. Totemism arose in the period of the group, not of
the family-founding male ancestor.
Messrs. Hose and McDougall, it is to be noted, do not
say that Totemism is now being developed, in Sarawak, out
of nyarongs. They only say that it, perhaps, might be so
developed ' in the absence of unfavourable conditions.' If
there existed 'prosperous families,' each with a nyarong,
other families would dream of nyarongs, and it would
become rather disreputable to have none. ' So a system of
clan totems would be established.' But male kinship, agri-
culture, metal-working, chiefship, and large houses were
certainly non-existent when Totemism was first evolved. We
must not look, in such advanced society, for the origin of
Totemism. In Sarawak is a houseless nomadic race, the
Punans. Among them Totemism has not yet been observed,
but they are so little known, that the present negative
evidence cannot be regarded as conclusive. Mr. Hose knew
the Ibans for fourteen years without learning what a nyarong
is, and it was by mere accident that Mr. Atkinson discovered
the animal ' fathers ' of the Kanakas.
' Oolden Botigh, iii. 419, note 5.
' Hose and McDougall, op. cit. p. 211.
156 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
MR. HADDONS THEORY
Mr. Haddon has suggested a theory which was printed
in the Proceedings of' the British Association (1 902). On this
scheme, at a very early period, groups, by reason of their
local environment, would have special varieties of food.
Thus, at present, in New Caledonia, the Sea branch of a tribe
has cocoa-nuts, fish of all sorts, and so forth, while the Bush
branch has bananas, and other commodities, and the Sea and
Bush moieties of the tribe meet at markets for purposes of
barter. But, in a really primitive state, there will be no
cultivation, as there is in New Caledonia. Still, a coast
savage might barter crabs for a kangaroo, and, if landed
property is acknowledged, owners of plum-trees, or of a spot
rich in edible grass-seeds, might trade these away for lobsters
and sea-perch.^ Not having any idea of real cultivation, or
of pisciculture (though they may and do have ' close ' seasons,
under tabu), the savages may set about working magic for
their specialities in food. Thus it is conceivable that the
fishers might come to be named ' crab-men,' ' lobster-men,'
' cuttlefish-men,'' by their neighbotn-s, whom they would
speak of as ' grass-men,' ' plum-men,' ' kangaroo-men,' and so
on. When once these names were accepted (I presume), and
were old, and now of unknown or rather forgotten origin, all
manner of myths to account for the connection between
the grojips and their plant and animal names would arise.
When the mjrth declared that the plants and animals were
akin to their name-giving creatures, superstitious practices
would follow. We have seen two cases in which Australian
totem groups averred that they were named totemically after
a small species of opossum, and a fish which their ancestors
' Mr. Haddou's theory involves the existence of barter between groups
that had special articles of food. Under ' Hypothetical early groups ' I
show proof of the extreme hostility of adjacent groups in some regions.
The merchant, with his articles of barter, would there himself be eaten.
Mr. Atkinson's cook was eaten by his neighbours. Mr. Haddon does not
hold that the primitive human groups were thus mutually hostile. Here
we differ in opinion.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 157
habitually ate. But that is an explanatory myth. Man
cannot live on opossums alone, still less on sardines.
My own guess admits the possibility of this cause of giv-
ing plant and animal names to groups, among other causes.
But I doubt if this was a common cause. In Australia,
everything that can be eaten is eaten by all the natives of a
given area, each kindred having only a tendency to spare its
own totem, while certain other tabus on foods exist. In this
condition of affairs, very few groups could have a notable
special variety of food, except in the case of certain fruits,
grass-seeds, and insects. For these articles the season is
almost as brief as the season of the mayfly or the grannom.
' When fruits is in, cats is out,' as the pieman said to the
young lady. During the rest of the year, all the groups in
a large area will be living on the same large variety of reptiles,
roots, animals such as rats and lizards, birds and so forth. It
does not seem probable that, except as between Sea and Bush
parts of a tribe, there could be much specialisation in matters
of diet, during the greater part of the year. Therefore, I do
not think that the derivation of totem names from special
articles of food can ever have been common. But local
knowledge is necessary on this point. Are the totem groups
of Australia settled on lands peculiarly notable for the plants
and animals whose names they bear ? If so, that circum-
stance may account for the totem names of each group, and
— granting that the origin of the names is long ago forgotten,
and that native speculation has explained the names by
myths— the rest is easy.
It will appear, when we come to my conjectin-e, that it
varies from Mr. Haddon's only on one point. We both
begin with plant and animal names given to the various
groups,_^orw without. We then suppose (or, at least, I sup-
pose) the origin of the names to be forgotten, and a connec-
tion to be established between the groups and their name-
giving objects, a connection which is explained by myths,
while belief in these gives rise to corresponding behaviour :
respect for the totem, and for his human kinsfolk. The only
158 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
difference is that my theory suggests several sources of the
names : while Mr. Haddon offers only one source, special
articles of food and barter. Kindreds, to be sure, are now
named, not from what they eat (scores of things), but from
the one thing which (as a kindred) they do not eat. But
this, when once the myths of kinship with the totem arose,
might be a later development, arising out of the myth. In
essentials, my conjecture appears to be in harmony with
Mr. Haddon's — the two, of course, were independently
evolved.
On one point I perceive no difficulty, and no difference.
It has been suggested that Mr. Haddon ' commences with the
commencement,'' whereas, in the hypothetical early age which
we both contemplate, people had scarcely a sufficient command
of language to invent nicknames. Why more command of
language is needed for the application of nicknames than of
names, I do not perceive. In Mr. Haddon's theor}', as in
mine, names already existed, names of plants and animals.
In both of oiu- hypotheses those names were transferred to
human groups ; in my conjecture for a variety of reasons, in
his, solely from connection with special articles of food, eaten
and bartered, by each group. I am not convinced that, so
early, the relations between groups would admit of frequent
barter : nor, as has been said, am I certain that many groups
could have a very special article of food, in an age prior to
cultivation. But, granting all that to Mr. Haddon, no more
command of language is needed by my theory than by his.
Each conjecture postulates the existence of names of plants
and animals, and the transference of the names to human
groups. If gesture language was prior to spoken language,
in each case gesture names could be employed, as, in North
America, totem names are to this day expressed in gesture
language. In my own opinion, man was as human as he is
to-day, when totem names arose, and as articulate. But, if
he was not, gestm-e-language would suffice.
I shall illustrate my theory from folk-lore practice. We
might do the same for Mr. Haddon's. We talk of 'the
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 159
MufBn man,' the man who sells muffins. We style one
person ' The English Opium-Eater,' another ' The Oyster-
Eater,' another 'The Irish Whiskey Drinker.' Here are
the nicknames derived from the dealing in, or special con-
sumption of, articles of food.
Many others occur in my folk-lore and savage lists of
nicknames. TTiey all imply at least as much command of
language, as the naities, ultimately totem names, given, for
various reasons, in my theory. Thus Mr. Haddon and
myself do not seem to me to differ on this point : his theory
goes no further back in culture than mine does : nay, he
assumes that barter was a regular institution, which implies
a state of peace, almost a state of co-operation.
AN OBJECTION TO ALL THE THEORIES
ENUMERATED
Not one of the theories here summarised, except the
Dieri and Woeworung myth, explains why members of the
various totem kins are exogamous, may not marry other
members of the name. Suppose you do get your totem name
from that of a distinguished male ancestor, why may you not
marry another descendant ? If because the common name,
say Emu, is taken to indicate some sort of blood-relationship,
why may you not marry a blood relation, even if there be no
traceable kinship between you and her ? A Douglas may
marry a Douglas, a Smith may marry a Smith ; but an Emu
is often capitaJly punished if he marries an Emu. Suppose
you get your totem name from the beast for which you do
magic. Why may you not marry a person who bears the
name of the same beast, and whose male kindred do magic
for it ? Because it is sacrosanct to you and her .'' But you
are actually breeding it for the food-market. The answer
must be that you may not marry a person who bears your
own totem name, and is in the same branch of the Co-opera-
tive Magical Stores, because her beast and yours are in the
same phratry, and phratry mates may not intermarry. But
160 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
why may they not marry? The reply will probably be,
because the legislator divided the previously undivided com-
mune into two intermarrying exogamous phratries. But
that theory we have shown to be untenable. Thus not one
of the extant hypotheses of the origin of Totemism explains
why totem kins are exogamous, unless Mr. Haddon supposes
that the totem names, once given from without, came to be
explained by myths asserting the sacred character and tribal
kindred of the totem. Mr. Haddon has not said anything
about a previous exogamous tendency in each of the groups
which, by his scheme, received totem names from without.
By my hypothesis, these groups had already a strongly
exogamous tendency, which later was hall-marked and
sanctioned by the totem, with its myths and tabus. This
advantage of explaining the exogamous attribute of the
totem, my scheme possesses, and its rivals lack.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Let us concentrate, now, our attention on the character
of the genuine totem, the totem of the group or kin. It is
hot adopted by the savages on a dream-warning ; each man
or woman for himself or herself : nor is it chosen for each
child at birth, nor by a diviner, like the nagual, bush-soul,
nyarong of Sarawak, or the secret animal friend of each
individual Australian. A savage inherits his group totem
name. The name of any plant or animal which he may
adopt for himself, or have assigned to him as a personal
name, by his parents, or, so to speak, god-parents, is not his
totem. My meaning is, I repeat, that my conjecture is only
concerned with hereditary kin-totems and hereditary totem
names of kindreds. No others enter into my conjecture as
to origin. What some call 'personal totems,' adopted by
the individual, or selected by others for him after his birth,
such as the Calabar ' bush-soul,' the Sarawak nyarong, the
Central American nagual, the Banks Island taimaniu, and the
analogous special animal of the Australian tribesman (ob-
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 161
served chiefly, as far as I know, by Mr. Howitt ^ and Mrs.
Langloh Parker), do not here concern me. They are not
hereditary group names.
THE AUTHORS OWN CONJECTURE
I now approach my own conjecture as to the origins of
the genuine, hereditary, exogamous Totemism of groups of
kin, real or imagined. Totemism as we know it, especially j
in some tribes of North America and in Australia, has j
certainly, as a necessary condition, that state of mind in
which man regards all the things in the world as very much
on a level in personality ; the beasts being even moriG i
powerful than himself. Were it not so, the totem myths
about human descent from beasts and plants : about friendly
beasts, beasts who may marry men, and about metamor-
phoses, could not have been invented and believed, even to
whatever extent myths are believed. We may say that such
beliefs are real, where they regulate conduct. So far, there
is probably no difference of opinion, among anthropologists.
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GROUPS AND TOTEMS
In all theories, the real problem is, how did the early
groups get their totem names .'', The names, once accepted
and stereotyped, impUed a connection between each kindred,
and the animal, plant, or other thing in nature whose name
the kindred bore. Round the mystery of this connection
the savage mind would play freely, and would invent the
explanatory myths of descent from, and kinship with, or
other friendly relations with, the name-giving objects. A
measure of respect for the objects would be established : they
might not be killed or eaten, except under necessity : magic
might be worked by human Emus, Kangaroos, Plum-trees, ana
Grubs for their propagation, as among the Arunta and other
tribes ; or against them, to bar their ravaging of the crops, as
' J.A.I, xiii. ; Foli Lore, 10, 491.
M
162 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
among the Sioux. As a man should not spear a real Emu, if
the Emu was his totem, so he does not, for reasons to be
adduced, marry or have an amour with a woman who is also
of the Emu blood. That is part of the tabu, resulting from
the circumstances presently to be explained.
/"■ AU these things, given the savage stage of thought,
/ would inevitably follow from the recognised but mysterious
I connection between men and the plants and animals from
I] which they were named. All such connections, to the
/' savage, are blood-relationships, and such relationship in-
volves the duties which are recognised and performed. But
how did the early groups come to he named afier ike plants
and animals ; the name suggesting the idea of connection,
and the idea of connection involving the duties of the
totemist to his totem, and of the totem to the totemist .''
NO 'DISEASE OF LANGUAGE'
The names, I repeat, requiring and receiving mythical
explanations, and the explanations necessarily suggesting
conduct to match, are the causes of Totemism. This theory
is not a form of the philological doctrine, nomina nwmina.
This is no case of disease of language, in Mr. Max Muller's
sense of the words. A man is called a Cat, all of his kin
are Cats. The language is not diseased, but the man has to
invent some reason for the name common to his kin. It
is not even a case of Folk Etymology, as when a myth is
invented to explain the meaning of the name of a place, or
person, or thing. Thus the Loch of Duddingston, near
Edinburgh, is explained by the myth that Queen Mary, as a
child, used to play at ' dudding ' (or skipping) stones across
the water : ' making ducks and drakes.' Or again, marma-
lade is derived from Marie malade. Queen Mary, as a child,
was seasick in crossing to France, and asked for confiture of
oranges ; hence Marie malade — ' marmalade.' In both cases,
the name to be explained is perverted. There is no real
* stone ' in Duddingston — ' Duddings' town,' the ton or tun
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 163
of the Duddings ; while ' marmalade ' is a late form of
' marmalet,' a word older than Queen Mary's day.
An example of a folk etymology bordering on Totemism
is the supposed descent of Clan Chattan, and of the House
of Sutherland, from the Wild Cat of their heraldic crests.
Now Clan Chattan is named, not from the cat, but from
Gilla Catain, ' the servant of Saint Catan,' a common sort of
Celtic personal name, as in Gilchrist. ^ The Sutherland cat-
crest is, apparently, derived from Catness, or Caithness.
That name, again, is mythically derived from Cat, one of the
Seven Sons of Cruithne who gave their names to the seven
Pictish provinces, as Fib to Fife, and so on. These Seven
Sons of Cruithne, like Ion and Dorus in Greece (lonians,
Dorians), are mere mythical ' eponymoi ' or name-giving
heroes, invented to explain the names of certain districts..
In Totemism this is not so. Not fancied names, like-
Duddingstone, or Marmalade, are, in Totemism, explained by
popular etymologies. Emu, Kangaroo, Wolf, Bear, Raven,
are real, not perverted names, the question is, why are these
names borne by groups of human beings? Answers are
given in all the nmnerous savage myths, whether of a divine
ordinance (Dieri, Woeworung) or of descent and kinship, of
intermarriage with beasts, or of adventures with beasts, or of
a woman giving birth to beasts, or of evolution out of bestial
types, and all these myths suggest mutual duties between
men and their totems, as between men and their himaan
kinsfolk. It will be seen that here no disease of language is
involved, not even a volks-etymologie (a vera causa of myth).
If it could be shown by philologists that many totem
names originally meant something other than they now do,
and that they were misunderstood, and supposed to be names
of plants and animals, then ' disease of language ' w ould be
present. Thus \vkos and apKTOs have really been regarded,
as meaning, each of them 'the bright one,' and the Wolf Hero
of Athens, and the Bear of the Arcadians, have been explained
away, as results of ' disease of language.' But nobody wiU
■ Macbain, Etymological Bietiona/ry, 1896, quoting manuscript of 1456.
M 2
164 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
apply that obsolete theory to the vast menagerie of savage
totem names.
HYPOTHETICAL EARLY GROUPS BEFORE TOTEMISM
But, discarding this old philological hypothesis, how did
the pristine groups get their totem names ? We ought first
to return to oui- conjecture as to what these pristine groups
were like. They must have varied in various environments.
Where the sea, or a large lake, yields an abundant food-supply,
men are likely to have assembled in considerable numbers, as
' kitchen middens ' show, at favourable stations. In great woods
and jungles the conditions of food-supply are not the same as
in wide steppes and prairies, especially in the uniform and arid
plateaus of Central Australia. Rivers, like seas and lakes,
are favourable to settlement ; steppes make nomadism in-
evitable, before the rise of agriculture. But, if the earliest
groups were mutually hostile, strongly resenting any en-
croachment on their region of food-supply, the groups would
necessarily be small, as in Mr. Darwin's theory of small pris-
tine groups, the male, with his females, daughters, and male
sons not adult. ^ A bay, or inlet, or a good set of pools and
streams, would be appropriated and watchfully guarded by a
group, just as every area of Central Australia has its recog-
nised native owners, who wander about it, feeding on grubs,
lizards, snakes, rats, frogs, grass-seeds, roots, emus, kangaroos,
and opossums.
The pristine groups, we may be allowed to conjecture,
were small. If they were not, the hypotheses which I venture
to present are of no value, while that of Mr. Atkinson shares
their doom. Mr. McLennan, as far as one can conjectm-e
from the fragments of his speculations, regarded the earliest
groups as at least so large, and so bereft of women, that
polyandry was the general rule. Mr. Darwin, on the other
hand, began with Polygyny and Monogamy, 'jealousy
' Descent of Man, ii. 362.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 165l
determining the first stage.' ' This meant that there was a
jealous old sire, who kept the women to himself, as in Mr.
Atkinson's theory. As we can scarcely expect to reach
certainty on this essential point, anthropology becomes (like
history in the opinion of a character in SUas Marner) ' a
process of ingenious guessing.' But, embarking on conjecture,
I venture to suggest that the problem of the commissariat
must have kept the pristine groups very smaU.^
They ' lived on the country,' and the country was untilled.
They subsisted on the natural supplies, and the more backward
their material culture, the sooner would they eat the coimtry
bare, as far as its resources were within their means of attain-
ment. One can hardly conceive that such himian beings herded
in large hordes, rather they would wander in small ' family '
groups. These would be mutually hostile, or at least jealous :
they could scarcely yet have established a modus vivendi, and
coalesced into the friendly aggregate of a local tribe, such
as Arunta, Dieri, Urabunna, and so on. Such tribes have
now their common coimcils and mysteries lasting for months
among the Arunta. We cannot predicate such friendly union
of groups in a tribe, for the small and jealous knots of
really early men ; watchfully resenting intrusion on their
favourite bays, pools, and hunting of browsing grounds. As
to marriage relations, it is not improbable that 'sexual soli-
darity ' (as Mr. Crawley calls it), the separation of the sexes —
the little boys accompanying the men, the little girls accom-
panying the women — and perhaps that ' sexual tabu,' coupled
with the jealousy of male heads of groups, may already have
led to prohibition of marriage within the group, and to raids
for women upon hostile groups. The smaller the group, the '
more easily would sexual jealousy prohibit the lads from
dealings with the lasses of their own group. There might
thus, in different degrees, arise a tendency towards exogamy,
and specially against son and mother, or father's mates, and \
' Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 50.
2 This is the opinion not only of Mr. Darwin but of Major Powell and
Mr. McGee.
166 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
brother and sister marriage. The thing would not yet be a
sin, forbidden by a superstition, but still, the tendency might
(as we have already said) run strong against marriage within
each little group.
HOW THE GROUPS GOT NAMES
Up to this point we may conceive that the groups were
anonymous. Each group would probably speak of itself as
' the Men ' (according to a well-recognised custom among
the tribes of to-day ; for instance, the Gournditch-mara of
Australia, mora meaning ' men ' ; Kumai and Narinyeri, also
mean ' the men '), while it would know neighbouring groups
as ' the others,'' or ' the wild blacks.' But this arrangement
manifestly lacks distinctness. Even ' the others down there '
is too like the vague manner in which the Mulligan indicated
his place of residence. Each group wiU need a special name
for each of its unfriendly neighbours.
These names, as likely as not, or more likely than not,
will be animal or plant names, given for various reasons,
perhaps, among others from fancied resemblances. It may
be objected that an individual may bear a resemblance
to this or that animal, but that a group cannot. But it
is a peculiarity of human nature, to think that strangers
(of another school eleven, say) are all very like each other,
and if one of them reminds us of an Emu or a Kangaroo, all
of them will. Moreover the name may be based on some
'real or fancied group trait of character, good or bad, which
also marks this or that type of animal, such as cunning,
cruelty, cowardice, strength, and so forth, and animal names
may even be laudatory. We have also to reckon with the
kinds of animals, plants, trees, usefiil flints, and other ob-
jects which may be more prevalent in the area occupied by
each group ; and with specialities in the food of each group's
area, as in Mr. Haddon's theory. Thus there are plenty
of reasons for the giving of plant and animal names, which,
I suggest, were imposed on each group frgm withnut.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 167
It is true that local names would serve the turn, if they
were in use. But the ' hill-men,' ' the river-men,' ' the bush-
men,' ' the men of the thorn country,' ' the rock-men,' are at
once too scanty and too general. Many groups might fall
collectively under each such local name. Again, it is as
society moves away from Totemism, towards male kinship,
and settled abodes, that local names are given to human
groups, as in Melanesia, or even to individuals, as in the
case of the Arunta, and the Gournditcha Mara. Among
the Arunta a child is 'of the place where he or she was
bom, like our de and von} The piquancy of plant and
animal names for groups probably hostile must also be con-
sidered. We are dealing with a stage of society far behind
that of Mincopies, or Punans of Borneo, or Australians, and
in imagining that the groups were, as a rule, hostile, we may
or may not be making a false assumption. We are presum-
ing that the jealousy of the elder males drove the younger
males out of the group, or at least compelled them to bring
in females from other groups, which would mean war. We
are also assuming jealousy of all encroachments on feeding
grounds. These are the premises, which cannot be demon-
strated, but only put in for the sake of argument. In any
case no more hostility than our and the French villages have
for each other is enough to provide the giving of animal
sobriquets.
As to hostility, Mr. Atkinson, in New Caledonia, had a
set of labourers brought in from a distant island. Among
them was a young boy, who, being employed as cook, had a
good deal of popularity with his mates. He went home for
a holiday, with a few men from his own island. He was put
down at their little harbour, only a few miles from that of
his tribe, and was instantly killed and eaten.
In ' Notice sur la Nouvelle-Caledonie ' (1900) this fero-
cious hostility between near neighbomring groups is corrobo-
rated. It is certain death for the crew of a canoe to be
driven into a harbour, however near their own, which is not
' Spencer and Gillen, p. 57, note.
168 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
their own. This is among the islanders not under the
French. Count von Pfeil remarks on the violent hostility
between Kanakas and others near adjacent. "^
On this point of unfriendly sobriquets I may quote MM.
Gaidoz and SebiUot.^
' In all ages men love to speak iU of their neighbour : to
blazon him, in the old phrase of a time when our speech was
less prudish, and more gay. Pleasantries are exchanged not
only between man and man, but between village and village.
Sometimes in one expressive word, the defect, or the quality
(usually the defect), the dominant and apparently hereditary
trait of the people of a race or a province is stated ... in
a kind of verbal caricature. . . . Les hommes se sent done
blasorvnes de tout le temps.''
De tout le temps ! MM. Gaidoz and Sebillot were not
thinking of the origin of totem names, but their theory
applies ' to aU ages,' even the most primitive. Among
French village sobriquets I note, at a hasty glance,
Largitzen Cows Houmeau Frogs
Angouleme Lizards Artois Dogs
Aire Pigeons Avalon Birds
and villages named as eaters of :
Old Ewes
Onions
Crows.
We shall see that many Sioux groups, many English
villages are blazoned, as in Mr. Haddon's theory, by the
names of the things which they eat : or are accused of
eating.
,_ Thus, among very early men, the names by which the
I groups knew their neighbours would be names given from
without. To caU them ' nicknames,' is to invite the objec-
tion that nicknames are essentially derisive, and that groups
, so low could not yet use the language of derision. I see no
' J. A. I. May 1897, p. 181.
^ Blason Populaire de la Framce, p. 5. Paxis, Oerf, 1884.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 169
reason why early articulate-speaking men (or even men
whose language is gesture language) should be so modern as
to lack all sense of humour, all delight in derision. But the
names need not have been derisive. If these people had the
present savage belief in the wdkan, or mystic power of
animals, the names may even have been laudatory. I ask
for no more than names conferred from without, callJljeHft— '
nicknames, sobriquets, or what you Hke.
We are acquainted with no race that is just entered on
Totemism, unless we agree with Mr. HiU Tout that Totemism
is nascent among the Salish tribe, who live in village
communities. Consequently we cannot prove that early
hostile groups would name each other after plants and
animals. I am only able to demonstrate that, alike in
English and French folk-lore, and among American tribes
who reckon by the male line, who are agricultural and
settled, the villages or groups are named, from without, after
plants and animals, and after what they are supposed to be
specially apt to use as articles of food, and also by nick-
names — often derisive. What I present is, not proof that
the primal groups named each other after plants and animals,
but proof that among our rustics, by congruity of fancy, such
names are given, with other names exactly analogous to
those now used among settled savages moving away from
Totemism.
ILLUSTRATION FROM FOLK-LORE
I select illustrative examples from the blason populaire of
modem folk-lore. Here we find the use of plant and animal
names for neighbouring groups, villages, or parishes. Thus
two informants in a rural district of Cornwall, living at a
village which I shall call Loughton, found that, when they
walked through the neighbouring village, Hillborough, the
little boys ' called cuckoo at the sight of us.' They learned
that the cuckoo was the badge, in folk-lore, of their vUlage.
An ancient carved and gilded dove in the Loughton church
' was firmly believed by many of the inhabitants to be a
170 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
representation of the Loughton Cuckoo,' and all Loughton
folk were Cuckoos. ' It seems as if the inhabitants do not care
to talk about these things, for some reason or other.' A
travelled Loughtonian 'believes the animal names and
symbols to be very ancient, and that each village has its
symbol.' My informants think that 'some modern badges
have been substituted for more ancient ones,' such as tiger and
monkey. There is apparently no veneration of the local
beast, bird, or insect, which seems often, on the other hand,
to have been imposed from without as a token of derision.
Australians make a great totem of the Witchetty Grub (as
Spencer and Gillen report), but the village of Oakditch is not
proud of its potato grub, the natives themselves being styled
' tater grubs.' I append a list of villages (with false names '■)
and of their badges :
Hillborough Mice Brailing Peesweeps
Loughton
Cuckoos
Wickley
Tigers
Miltown
Mules
Fenton
Rooks
(it used to be rats)
Linton
Men
Ashley
Monkeys
Oakditch
Potato grubs
Yarby
Geese
St. Aldate's
1 Fools
Watworth
Bulldogs
At Loughton, when the Hillborough boys pass through
on a holiday excursion, the Loughton boys hang out dead
mice, the Hillborough badge, in derision. The boys have
even their ' personal totem,' and a lad who wishes for a com-
panion in nocturnal adventure will utter the cry of his
peculiar beast or bird, and a friend will answer with his. If
boys remained always boys (that is, savages), and if civilisa-
tion were consequently wiped out, myths about these group
names of villages would be developed, and Totemism would
flourish again. Later I give other instances of village names
answering to totem names, and in an Appendix I give ana-
logous cases collected by Miss Burne in Shropshire, and
' Pseudonyms were given to avoid arousing local attention, when I
put forth these facts in The Athenesimi. For reasons, I retain the
pseudonyms ; but for the real vUlage names see p. 173, note 1.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 171
others, we saw, are to be found in the Mason populaire of
France.
It appears to me that totem group names may, originally,
have been imposed Jrom without, just as the Eskimo are
really Inuits ; ' Eskimo,' ' Eaters of raw flesh,' being the
derisive name conferred by their Indian neighbours. Of
coxirse I do not mean that the group names would always, or
perhaps often, have been, in origin, derisive nicknames.
Many reasons, as has been said, might prompt the name-
giving. But each such group would, I suggest, evolve animal
and vegetable nicknames for each neighbouring group.
Finally some names would ' stick,' would be stereotjrped, and
each group would come to answer to its nickname, just as
' Pussy Moncrieff,' or ' BuUdog Irving,' or ' Piggy Frazer,' or
' Cow Maitland,' does at school.
HOW THE NAMES BECAME KNOWN
Here the questions arise, how would each group come to j
know by what name each of its neighbours called it, and how 1
would hostile groups come to have the same nicknames for I
each other ? Well, they would know the nicknames through 1
taunts exchanged in battle. '
' Rvm, you deer, run ! '
' Off with you, you hares ! '
' Skuttle, you skunks ! '
They would readily recognise the appropriateness of the
names, if derived from the plants, trees, or animals most
abundant in their area, and most important to their food
supply : for, at this hypothetical stage, and before myths
had crystallised round the names, they would have no
scruples about eating their name-giving plants, fruits, fishes,
birds, and animals. They would also hear their names from
war captives at the torture stake, or on the road to the overu__
or the butcher. But the chief way in which the new group /
names spread would be through captured women ; for, though /
172 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
there might as yet be only a tendency towards exogamy,
still girls of alien groups would be captured as mates. ' We
call you the Skunks,' or whatever it might be, such a bride
might remark, and so knowledge of the new group names
would be diffused. These names would adhere to groups, on
my hypothesis, already exogamous in tendency, and, when the
totem myth arose, the exogamy would be sanctioned by the
totem tabu.'
TOXEMIC AND OTHER GROUP NAMES — ENGLISH
AND NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN
It may seem almost flippant to suggest that this old mystery
of Totemism arises only from group names given from without,
some of them, perhaps, derisive. But I am able to demonstrate
that, in North America, the names of what some American
authorities call gentes (meaning old totem groups, which
now reckon descent through the male, not the female line),
actually are nicknames — in certain cases derisive. Moreover,
I am able to prove that, when the names of these American
gentes are not merely totem names, they answer, with literal
precision, to oiu- folk-lore village sobriquets, even when these
are not names of plants or animals. The late Rev. James
Owen Dorsey left, at his death, a paper on The Siouan
Sociology.^ Among the gentes (old totem kindreds with
male descent) he noted, the gentes of a tribe, ' The Myste-
rious Lake Tribe.' There were, in 1880, seven gentes.
Three names were derived from localities. One name meant
' Breakers of (exogamous) Law.' One was ' Not encumbered
with much baggage.' One was Rogues (' Bad Nation ').
These three last names are derisive nicknames. The seventh
name was ' Eats no Geese,' obviously a totemic survival. Of
the Wahpeton tribe all the seven gentes derived their names
from localities. Of the Sisseton tribe, the twelve names of
gentes were either nicknames (one, ' a name of derision '), or
derived from localities.
' Some objections are noticed later.
2 Report of American Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-1894, p. 213 et leq.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 17S
Of the Yankton gentes, five names out of seven were
nicknames, mostly derisive, the sixth was ' Bad Nation '
(' Rogues '), the seventh was a totem name, ' Wild Cat.'
Of the Hunpatina (seven gentes), three names were totemic
(Drifting Goose, Dogs, Eat no Buffalo Cows) ; the others
were nicknames, such as ' Eat the Scrapings of Hides.'
Of the Sitcanxu, there were thirteen gentes. Six or
seven of their titles were nicknames, three were totemic,
the others were dubious, such as 'Smellers of Fish.' The
Itaziptec had seven gentes ; of their names all were nick-
names, including ' Eat dried venison from the hind quarter.'
Of the Minikooju, there were nine gentes. Eight names
were nicknames, including ' Dung Eaters.' One seems
totemic, ' Eat no Dogs.' Of five Asineboin gentes the names
were nicknames from the habits or localities of the com-
munities. One was ' Girl's Band,' that is, ' Girls.'
Now compare parish sobriquets in Western England.'
In this list of parish or village nicknames, twenty-one are
derived from plants and animals, like most totemic names.
We also find ' Dog Eaters,' ' Bread Eaters,' ' Burd Eaters,'
« Whitpot Eaters,' and, answering to ' Girl's Band ' (Gens
des FUles), ' Pretty Maidens : ' answering to ' Bad Nation,'
' Rogues ' : answering to ' Eaters of Hide Scrapings,' ' Bone
Pickers ' : while there are, as among the Siouans, names
derived from various practices attributed to the English
villagers, as to the Red Indian gentes.
No closer parallel between our rural folk-lore sobriquets
of village groups, given from without, and the names given
from without of old savage totem groups (now reckoning
in the male line, and, therefore, now settled together in
given localities) could be invented. (For other examples
see Appendix A.) I conceive, therefore, that my sugges-
tion — the totem names of pristine groups were originally
given from without, and were accepted (as in the case of the
nicknames of Siouan gentes, now accepted by them) — may
^ Thirteenth Report of the Com/mittee of Devonshire Folk-Lore, Devonshire
Association for the Advancement of Science, 1895, xxvii. 61-74.
174 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
be reckoned no strain on our sense of probability. It is
demonstrated that the name-giving processes of our villagers
exist among American savage groups which reckon descent in
the male line, and that they also existed among the savage
groups which reckoned descent in the female line is, surely,
a not unreasonable surmise. I add a list in parallel columns.
English Village Names Siouan Group Names
Legs
Rogues
Bad Sorts
Stags 1
Elk 1
Bull Dogs
Common Dogs
Horse Heads
Warts on Horses'
Bone Pickers
Hide Scrapers
Pretty Girls
Girl Folk
Eaters of
Eaters of
Whitpot
Dried Venison
Cheese
Fish
Barley Bread
Dung
Dog
THEORY THAT SIOUAN GENTES NAMES ARE OF
EUROPEAN ORIGIN
To produce, from North America, examples of group
names conferred from without, as in the instances of our
English villages, may, to some students, seem inadequate
evidence. For example an unconvinced critic may say that
the nicknames of Mr. Dorsey's ' Siouan gentes ' were originally
given by white men ; the Sioux, Dacota, Asineboin, and
other tribes having been long in contact with Europeans.
Now it is quite possible that some of the names had this
origin, as Mr. Dorsey himself observed. But no critic wiU
go on to urge that the common totemic names which still
designate many gentes were imposed by Europeans who came
from English villages of ' Mice,' ' Cuckoos,' ' Tater Grubs,'
'Dogs,' and so forth. We might as wisely say that our
' Many other animal and vegetable names — totem names in America,
village names in England — have already been cited. See p. 170.
ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS 175
peasantry borrowed these village names from what they had
read about totem names in Cooper's novels. To name
individuals, or groups, after animals, is certainly a natural
tendency of the mind, whether in savage or civilised society.
If we take the famous Mandan tribe, now reckoning
descent in the male line, but with undeniable survivals of
descent in the female line, we find that the gentes are :
Wolf Bear Prairie Chicken Good Knife
Eagle Flat Head High Village
Here, out of seven gentes, four names are totemic ; one is
a name of locality, ' High Village,' not a possible name in
pristine nomadic society. While there are hundreds of such
ca^es, we cannot reasonably regard the American group nick-
names as generally of European origin. Still more does this
theory fail us in the case of Melanesia, where contact with
Exuropeans is recent and relatively slight. Among such tribes
as the Mandans, and other Siouan peoples, we see Totemism
with exogamy and female kinship waning, while kinship,
recognised by male descent, pltis settled conditions, brings in
local names for gentes, and tends to cause the substitution of
local names and nicknames for the totem group name.
Precisely the same phenomena meet us, as we are to see, in
Melanesia.
176 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER IX
THE MELANE8IAN SYSTEMS
We have, fortunately, an opportunity in Melanesia of study-
ing, as it seems, the Australian marriage system in a state of
decay.^ The institutions of Melanesia bear every note of
being Australian institutions, decadent, dislocated, contami-
nated 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 consist-
ing (1) of Town Lots, (2) of Gardens (epKos), (3) of the Waste
(' the Bush '). The ' town lots ' and gardens pass by inheri-
tance ; 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.
' Mr. Haddon agrees on this point.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 177
The tendency towards the substitution, as heirs, of a man's
sons for his sister's sons, is powerful.^
This is a curious and anomalous condition of the family.
As regards material advantages (xoprjyla) 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, house-
less 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 ques-
tion ; 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 accumu-
lation 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 frag-
ments 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.' ^ This
answers to the Australian ' primary divisions,' or ' phratries.'
• Codrington, The Melanesians, chaps, iii. iv. = Op. cit. p. 21.
N
178 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 ex-
ceptional state of things are unknown.' '
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.^
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 ; aU 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 Merlay, 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,
' Op. Bit. p. 22. 2 ji,;£ p_ 26.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 179
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 smalt
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 huto, also the anim?il
which gives its name to the kema. The Kakau kema may
not eat Kakau — the crab. The Manukuraa (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 kemM are apt to speak of their hutos (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 huto.
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 huto of
each kema is probably comparatively recent in Florida, it has
been introduced at Bugotu within the memory of living
men.' ^ 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,
' Op. olt. p. 32.
N 2
180 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 haka " (papa), and would, if possible, offer
him a young cocoa-nut. But they did not thus adopt the
name of a tribe.' ^
We need not repeat the objections to all such theories of
the derivation of pristine totem group names from indi-
viduals. The hutos, 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 Teerruiy
in Florida. Thus the butos of each 1cema would be, origi-
nally, 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 hemas got local names or nicknames- —
the Hongokikki being named from the pastime of Cat's
Cradle — clearly a nickname. Apparently the pigeon is their
into. 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 hemas. Something
of this kind must have occurred in Florida, under new social
conditions, and the stress of immigrants. But Dr. Codring-
' Tylor, /. A. I., August, November. 1898, p. 147.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 181
ton 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.' ^
This origin of Totemism (namely, in animism, a man of in-
fluence 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.^ 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 pro-
hibition, imless all brides were to be brought in from foreign
islands. If the prohibition was confined to known descend-
ants 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.' ' 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.*
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 exo-
' Op. cit. p. 33. ^ Ibid. p. 40. » Ibid. p. 22.
■■ 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.
182 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
gamous 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.'^ 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, eveiywhere.^
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.'^ 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 Selw3m, 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 tmdalos
(human ghosts). At the name of the dead warrior, ' the canoe
shook again.' A successful raid followed, a new shrine was
' Op. ait. pp. 33, 59-68. ' Ibid. pp. 3G-37. » Ibid. p. 50.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 183
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.'^
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 discamate
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.^
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 foimder, 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.^ 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
» Op. cit. pp. 124-130. " lUd. pp. 131-132.
= Danks, /. A. I. xviii. 3, 281-282.
184 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
exception as regards prayers for the souls of the dead) in
Austraha. On the other hand, only the smallest of small
change for the Australian conception of such raaikers 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} Qat appears to hover
between the estate of a lowly creative being, bom of a rock,
and that of a culture hero, and rather resembles the Zulu
Unkulunkulu. Thus Melanesia seems, in society and beljefs,
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 : agri-
cultural 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
hemd) 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 in-
carnations 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 hypo-
thesis, that the names of Melanesian Jcemas, 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
' Codiington, op. cit. pp. 154-15G.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 185
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 ' Cafs Cradle Players,'' or
' Eaters of Hide-scrapings,' or ' Bone Pickers,' as in Florida ;
among the Sioux ; and in Western England. We cannot pos-
sibly 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 lin-
gering 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 forget-
fidness 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. Spen- '
cer'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
186 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
and animals, would set in, and then would come reverent be-
I haviour towards these creatiores, 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
I given, that there was already a tendency against marriage
i within the group. That tendency must have been confirmed
I 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.' '^ The conclusion is not necessary. You may revere
a rat (your totem), and a cat (your nagual) for quite differ-
ent reasons, and in quite different capacities, you being the
kinsman of your totem, the protege of your nagual ; but, if
you revere them, your reverence can only show itself in the
same ways. There are no other ways.^
' Golden Bmigh, iii. 416-417.
^ Mrs. Langloh Parker writes, concernmg the EuaWayi Baiame-wor-
shipping tribe of New South Wales : ' A person has often a second or in-
dividual totem of his name, not hereditary, and given him by the ivirree-
nuns ' (medicine men), ' called his yimbeai, any hurt to which injures him,
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 187
RECAPITULATION
Does my guess at the origin of totems seem out of har-
mony 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
whoUy 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
and which he may never eat — his hereditary totem he may. He is supposed
to be able, if he be a great mirreenun, to take the form of his ywribeai,
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 yiimbeai (nyaroiig, nagual,
Tncmitu) is of more importance to the individual than his hereditary totem,
which, however, by Baiame's law, regulates marriage, as elsewhere {Folli-
Lore, X. 491, 492). The tribe studied by Mrs. Langloh Parker speaks a dia-
lect (Buahlayi) akin to the Kamilaroi, but the Kamilaroi of Mr. Ridley are
seated three or four hundred miles away.
f
\
188 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 ' signaUed.' ' ' There is an
Emu man : look out ! ' This could easily and silently be
expressed in gesture language. Place-names, and many nick-
names, 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 inca-
pable 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
Relieved, 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.
' Roth, Mthnological Stvdies, 71-90. Dr. Koth gives the signs for the
animals, but does not say that they are used for signalling totem names ;
indeed, he says nothing about totems.
OBJECTIONS 189
My guess has the advantage of going behind the age of
settled dweUings, 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 ex-
perience. 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, o^xr 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 indi-
vidual, 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 indi-
viducds, and then their families, after particular animals." ' ^
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.^
It is a commonplace, perhaps an overworked common-
place, that the group, not the individual, is the earlier
' Origin of Cwilisation, p. 183.
2 Eamila/roi and, Kurnai, p. 165. In his edition of 1902, Lord Avebury
does not reply to these arguments.
190 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 Miiller leaves the
origin of the group name imexplained. The later hypothesis
(especially provisional), of Mr. Frazer, does start from the
gi-oup name, but I am not certain whether we are to under-
stand 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
OBJECTIONS 191
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 Totem-
ism except myth, survivals, and a social grouping without
any apparent cement. Blood kinship as a basis of society
surely arose much later, imless Dr. Reevers's remarkable
evidence from the Haddon expedition to New Guinea helps
the matter. He found, you remember, blood kinship trace-
able 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 fiirther 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 sug-
gestions. 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 pos^~^
tulate 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 intellec- j
tual condition, is the belief in the personality and human
characteristics of aU things whatsoever ; man is only one tribe
in the cosmic kinship, and is capable of specially close kin-
ship with animals. Nobody denies this, and the resulting
192 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 con-
testable. 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 anjrthing ! 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 fuU evolution of Totemism.
Again, to a Darwinian, the enormous influence of ' acci-
dents ' in evolution ought not to be a matter hard of belief ;
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 193
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 hfe, they were scarcely possible. Local names
come in as Totemism goes out. Long nicknames, 'Boil-
food-with-the-paxmch-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 otu- '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
o
194 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 sea^. 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 dis-
putable.
On the other hand, suppress the totem names, give the
original groups such titles as the Sioxrx ' Take-down-their-
leggings,' or ' Boil-meat-in-the-paunch-skin ' (some names you
musb 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-buffaJo-with-
a-knife-but-cut-it-up-as-they-please ' girl ! That is rather
cumbrous : marriage rules on that basis are not readily con-
ceivable.
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-bufialo-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 pro-
tector. The animal or vegetable or other type, in each case,
sanctioned various tabus, including exogamy. Had the
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 195
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 dwelHng 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 supersti-
tion.
' They believed that there was a futiu-e 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 Mumble-
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 sliu: is cast on all that we learn
about the Gournditch Mara. But though a missionary (the
Rev. Mr. Stable) 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.^ Had there never been any
totem names, exogamy might never have arisen.
How my friendly critic is ' no nearer to the understand-
ing 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,'
' Kamilaroi cmd Kivrnai, pp. 274-278.
196 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 ' be-
have as such.' Each racoon has duties to other racoons, and
to the actual racoons. He does not shoot a racoon if he can
get an)rthing 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.' 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.^ 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.
' Spencer and Gillen, ch. vi.
' Dorsey, ' Omaha Sociology,' Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-1882, p. 225.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 197
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 com, to prevent the black-
birds from feeding on the crops.^ The reptile group does
not touch or eat reptiles, but, if worms injure the com, 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, hut 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.^ 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 Socie-
ties. 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,
' Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' Bureau of Mlmology, 1881-1882, pp. 238-
239.
2 Dorsey, ' Siouan Cults,' ^weaK of Mhnology, 1889-1890 (1894), p. 537.
198 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 Intkhiuma, or magical rites.^
' 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 Intkhiwma ceremony.' Prom
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 be-
come 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 repre-
sented 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
" Spencer and Gillen, pp. 169, 191.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 199
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 tmiverse,
passing towards anthropomorphism — as in Miss Fletcher's
theory. The idea of such a force, or cosmic rapport (the Maori
mama), 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 Stcyry^ 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,
' Nutt, 1900, pp. 108-112.
200 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 oi 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 pimishment 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.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 201
TOTEM SUllVIVALS
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 Com 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 informa-
tion 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.' ' 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
' J. A. I., August, November, 1898, p. 144.
SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 off-
spring of the lower animals) are so long in attaining ma-
turity, 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, appa-
rently, led to exogamy, first by non-moral causes, or causes in
which the moral element was not explicit, and then, by aid ot
corollaries from rules thus based, came to forbid marriages of
' too near flesh.' Without the training of totemic institu-
tions, 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 ot
Totemism among the Melanesians, much more difficult must
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 203
it be to prove that races with so long a civilised history as,
for example, the Greeks, were once under totemic institu-
tions.
I have already indicated my inclination to believe that
Totemism has left ibs 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 in-
terpreted, rightly or wrongly, as survivals of Totemism. We
have seen that gens (equivalent to the Greek ysvos) and that
phratria {^parpia) 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 h3rpothesis, 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
204 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
and '^ivq (associations depending on birth and hinshlp) were
survivals of the ' primary exogamous divisions ' and totem
kins.i The present writer had made similar suggestions long
ago.' Concerning the ryivos and ippaTpia 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 yhos and
(pparpoa are derived from late grammarians and lexico-
graphers. 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 bom, 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 yevrj which occupied them, and often
' J.A.I, xiv. 142, 181.
^ Politics of Aristotle, BoUaxid and Lang, 1876; 'Family' inEnoyclo-
pasdia Britannica.
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 205
the names were derived from plants. Either these plants
were characteristic of the localities, or conceivably the yei/Tj
had old totemic plant names, like the plum and other vege-
table totems of the Australians. All about the local demes,
the members of the phratriae 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 ^pa-
TpCa. His children, if by marriage with a free woman, were
reckoned in her father's tpparpia, 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 bom, could not be admitted to a
4>paTpLa : 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 ^parpLa v/as a religious offence.'^
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 Coimcil
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 ^parpla 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 ot
a retreat in the hills in company with an adult, and in-
structor, 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 <f>paTpiai, of ' phratries ' each Australian tribe has
only two. Again, these two are exogamous : that is their
main raison d'etre. We have not a glimpse of exogamy in
the (pparpia of Attica.
' Dem. Contra Ne^ram, 17.
206 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
The r^ivos, 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 gram-
marian Pollux says ' they who belonged to the '•/ivos were
styled 'yevvijrai ' (men of the ysvos, and ' men of the same
milk '), ' not that they were related 'ysvei, but they were so
called from their union (or assemblage — sic Ss rrjs a-vvoSov).''
What is meant by jevei fisv ov nrpocnfiKOVTSS ' not genealogi-
cally related ' ? I conceive Pollux to mean that the members
of the '^ivos 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 crvvoiKLcrfibs 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 modem, more
like the English.
Yet the very words ysvos and gens indicate the idea of
blood relationship, just as ' clan ' does. The ysvrj 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 origi-
nally totem clans, e.g. there were Cynadse at Athens, as there
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS 207
was a Dog clan among the Mohicans ; but we have no evi-
dence to show that the dog was sacred to the Cjniadae. . . .
On the other hand, storks were revered by the Thessalians,
but there is nothing to show that there was a stork clan in
Thessaly.' ^ 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 totem-
istic, and next, by reckoning descent in the male line,
became attached to localities, then something like demes,
phratries, and '^svrj 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 tele-
pathy, without asserting that the evidence is of constraining
value.
' Introduction to the Hiitory of Beligion, pp. 125-126.
PEIMAL LAW
\
CHAPTER I
MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE
Mr. Darwin on the primitive relations of the sexes. — ^Primitive man mono-
gamous or polygamous. — His jealousy. — Expulsion of young males. —
The author's inferences as to the evolution of Primal Law. — A custom-
ary 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 in-
fluences.
' 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 ^ 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
■ Mr. Atkinson's theory is based on the idea that our supposed anthro-
poid ancestor was eminently unsocial. — A. L.
P
aiO SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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.' ^
Mr. Darwin, in the foregoing sentences, affirms the im-
probability of Promiscuity in the Sexual Relations of Man
dm-ing 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 state-
ment, 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
> Darwin, Desoent of Man, ii. 361-3G3 (1871).
MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE 211
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 un-
social 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 foimd
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 interpre-
tation to its subjects, though, as befits Homo alalus, it must
have been quite mute in operation. The new Bule 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
p 2
212 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
most actual savage races. The customs of so-called ' avoid-
ance ' 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 arid Myth, 1884 (p. 258),
hazards, as his own impression, a conception of this matter
Xjhich 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 ^ all would be plain sailing.' How-
ever 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 ' pro-
hibitory of marriage between certain members of a family
or local group, and thus, in natural sequence, led to forced
connubial imion 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-
' I ought to have said 'within the community, whether local or of
recognised kindred, indicated by the totem name.' — A. L.
MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE 213
distinction to generally received opinion and to Mr. Mc-
Lennan's theory in particular) Exogamy must have been a
cause rather than an effect in relation to its ordinary concomi-
tants, i.e. Female Infanticide as a custom, Polyandry as a
fixed institution, and Totemism as connected with exoga-
mous groups, within which marriage was forbidden. As thus
my new h3rpothesis 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 ftirnish 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 obedi-
ence to it, in form at least. Belonging to a class of savage
habits presenting features so extraftrdinary, ' Avoidance be-
tween 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
214 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
present, seems least to have attracted the notice of anthropo-
logists. 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.^
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 ex-
traordinary 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.'' He dwells until married
' This was written before the appearance of Mr. Crawley's Mystic Hose
(1902).
' Of. V. de Kochas, La. No-melle- CaUdonie, p. 239 ; Crawley, Myatlo Rose,
p. 217.
MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE 215
in the large general bachelors' hut, set apart for youths in
aU 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 wiU throw herself face downwards into
the nearest bush, whilst the boy will pass without turning his
head, and as if imaware 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 wiU 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 Eiu-opeans,
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.
216 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
[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 yoimger 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 featiu^es are indistinguishable. ^ . .
We cannot discover any explanation of this restriction in re-
gard 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 ? ' ^]
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 can-
not 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
wiU perhaps be more closely drawn to this, till recently the
least observed of the cases of Avoidance, I feel sui'e that proof
of its existence will be found in abundance in the present or
> Natme Trihi's of CmitToL A iisiralia, pp. 88, 89. — A. L.
MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE 217
past of all primitive peoples.^ In view of its unexpectedly
wide dissemination in Australia, hope may be felt that re-
search will find it as a working factor in many peoples where
its presence has been least expected, and not only in Austra-
lasia. 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 stiU under the influence of
its effect, although the custom itself may be no longer in
actual force. It is also pos^ble, 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 deriva-
tion 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 aflbrd affirmative proof, as circum-
stantial as unexpected, that this custom was once as universal
as my theory would require.^ If difficulty is felt in the ac-
ceptation of an hypothesis of such wide significance, simply
based on an obsciu-e lower custom so little noted in anthro-
pological 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 observa-
tion, 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 diver-
gence 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
' Mr. Atkinson's forecast was correct. Brother and sister avoidance is
very widely diffused. — A. L.
* The author does not give examples of words for ' sister ' implying
avoidance. But we elsewhere show that in Lif u (Melanesia) the word for
' sister ' means ' not to be touched.' — A. L.
218 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 seem-
ingly illegitimate.^
' other speculations have now been advanced, especially by Mr,
Crawley. — A. L.
219
CHAPTER II
SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS
Brother and Sister Avoidance, a partial usage among the higher mam-
mals. — 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 primi-
tive application, the law would not have required for its in-
telligence 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 regula-
tion of the intersexual relations among most of the higher
mammals. It could, at any rate, have come into full inteUi-
gent application as a well-defined social institution, in the
actual sense of the term, whilst the anthropomorphic pro-
genitor 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
220 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 con-
nection, 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 pro-
nounce 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 oiu- 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 misocial head of a solitary isolated group.
With equal strength and probably already greater cun-
ning 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 neighboiuing 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.-'^ A horde as yet weak in their
' Why ' single ' ?— A. L.
SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS 221
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 enjoy-
ment, 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 character-
istic 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 yoiuiger 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 procrea-
tion 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
SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
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 ^ 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 soli-
tary 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,
' Descent of Man, p. 501.
SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS
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 com-
bined 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, in-
deed, so universal in a state of nature amongst aU 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, how-
ever, does take place, nothing is more curious to watch than
the attitude and relations of these young males among them-
selves, 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 im-
posed on the junior males of their banishment at puberty, as
224 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
also their inevitable combined attack, when sufficiently power-
ful, on their paternal enemy. His death resulted in the same
communistic assumption of his rights, with a subsequent dis-
ruption, 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 domi-
nation, 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 there-
from ; 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 unreason-
able. 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 will 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 ex-
pelled 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
SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS 225
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.' 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 anthro-
poid 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 con-
stantly 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 pro-
blem 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 dis-
.tinction between him and every other creature.
' This fact is well known to anglers for trout. — A. L.
226 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER III
MAN VABYING FBOM ANIMALS
Effect of the absence of a special pairing season on nascent man. — Con-
sequent 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.
In common, then, with their nearest congeners of to-day, we
have found each male head of a group of our anthropoid an-
cestors in direct antagonism with every other male, and a
consequent disruption of the family at each encoimter with a
superior force. This disruption, in its effects on a species of
non-gregarious habits, would result not only in the dispersal
of its members, but in the destruction of what material pro-
gress in the accumulation of property might have accrued.
As this would have included all germs of mechanical dis-
covery, again doubtless due solely to the superior constructive
faculties of the male, it is evident that advance in a race thus
socially constituted was quite impossible.
Now this antagonism of male with male, with all its re-
trograde consequences, a struggle fierce enough in all animals,
had a more intense effect on nascent man than on any other
creature that had ever existed. An added force was caused
by the disappearance in the nascent human species of that
season of physical and mental repose, granted by Natiu-e to
the rest of creation, when not actually in the moment or
season of rut. This ever-recurring but limited period, ordi-
narily appearing for a certain fixed epoch in each year, by the
exigencies of supply and demand in the necessarily abundant
food required for nursing mothers, had lost its date-fixing
MAN VARYING FROM ANIMALS 227
power with this new creation — Man. With the very first
steps in progress would come his adaptation to a more or less
omnivorous and consequently more regular diet. The con-
sequent modification would be profound in the matter of
sexual habit and appetite. Man needed no longer to put
limits to the season of love and desire.' This was a crime
against Nature, new in the history of the world, a crime which
Nature would probably have avenged by race-deterioration or
extermination, if the germs of mental power had not been
already strong enough to lift him, Man, to be, of all creatures,,
almost completely beyond the influence of environment, thence
of Nature herself.
The intensity of the evil led to its cm'e. In a state of
society where literally every male creature's hand was against
the other, and life one continual uproar from their contending;
strife ; where not only was there no instant's truce in the war-
fare, but each blow dealt was emphasised (fatally) by the
intellectual finesse which now directed it, it became a question
of forced advance in progress or straight retreat in annihila-
tion as a species. However difficult it may be to imagine by
what path such a creature was ever to emerge from the
materialistic labyrinth in which we thus find him involved, it
is sure that he neither could nor did remain there. A forward
step was somehow taken, some road out of the maze was
somehow found.
It remains for us to trace, by what dim light of custom
and tradition we may, the faint trail of those momentous
footprints, which, however lame and halting, took the strait
and difficult way to a higher life. We may expect to
find, as is but natural, that the path was one before un-
trodden. As man followed it, at first unconsciously, from
the shoulders of this new pilgrim, predestined to worthier
burdens, would fall some of the heavy load of the mere
animal natxn-e.
There was now, in fact, to be a break in the economy of
■ See Westermarck, Sistory of Hti/nioM Marriage, ch. ii., 1891. The
subject is obscure.
Q. -2
228 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
animal nature, as regards that vicious circle, where we found
an ever-recurring violent succession to the solitary paternal
tyrant, by sons whose parricidal hands were so soon again
clenched in fratricidal strife. In the dawn of peace between
this father and son we shall find the signpost to the new
highway.
Before going fm-ther, we may here state our assumption
that, when oiu- ancestor had arrived at this crisis in his life,
a crisis involving the vast psychological step in advance
implied in the development of society, and the intelligence
necessary for the evolution of the law in its regulation, he
was already somewhat more than ape. The animal stage as
forming part of the ladder of ascent from brute to man
would be marked by degrees of progression, each a step further
removed from the original type. These very earliest steps we
indeed propose to examine later in detail, for the present we
will suppose they have been taken, and that the influence of
environment, under certain hypothetic conditions, to be also
detailed hereafter, has fostered physical modifications to-
wards the human type such as we found in the matter of rut.
But in nature the relation is very close between the physical
and the mental qualities. The advance in one would possibly
lead to a corresponding development of the other. Each is
the necessary complement of each. For instance, as Mr.
Darwin has pointed out, while the lower extremities become
more and more used for progression alone, so the upper, thus
left free, would be specialised as prehensile organs, so becoming
both valet and tutor to the nascent brain. To push our
metaphor to an extreme, we may say that when Homo Alalus
trod the new path, it was already as a biped in an upright
attitude, thus leaving at least his hand free to point it out to
others, for as yet his tongue, at least by the hypothesis, was
inarticulate.
Our line of research as regards the new departure was at
once naiTowed when we indicated that it ended in the peaceful
conjunction of father and son. Our path will lie in the
examination of the question as to what possible series of
MAN VARYING FROM ANIMALS 229
natural circumstances, in the domestic life of the race, could
lead to such conjunction, and what law in such an age could
suffice for regulation of such association if formed. We shall
have to examine more closely (as far as our imagination will
aid us) the exact conditions of the family life of the semi-
human group which we have supposed typical in that era,
i.e. the small isolated band of anthropoids, composed of a
single polygamous adult male with dependent wives and off-
spring. His possible relations with these, especially his
attitude towards his male children, will interest us. Therein
should certainly be found the desired series of circumstances
entailing a critical situation, whose happy resolution shall
furnish the clue to the problem of that possible aggregation
on which all futvu-e progress depends. However strange it
may appear, it wiU be found, as we have already said, that the
abnormal conditions imposed by the imnatural modifications
of the sexual functions have served as a means to the end of
advance in progress. And as, by their action in the past,
anthropoid man had become the most sexually jealous and
intractable of all creatiures, so it may be expected that the
series of causes which shall have for effect the restraint of
such excess of passion, will possess further vast potentiality
of action. Such latency in potentiality is evidently indis-
pensable when we consider that there is here concerned the
evolution of law in opposition to nature, and its triumph for
all time over the mere brute.
But first as regards the fact of the association of adult
males on friendly terms within the group, which fact has
seemed to us to constitute the whole problem of progress, it
would on a hasty view appear as if it had been already
found in the band of exiled sons which we have seen haunt-
ing the parent horde. Here we meet with that aggregation
of individuals whose combination in peaceful union should
apparently be the result of some law in regulation. This
idea would even seem to gain support from the fact that all
the members being brothers, and living most probably in a
state of polyandry, we here appear to find fulfilled exactly
230 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
those genetic conditions of primitive marriage imperative
according to Mr. McLennan's theory of the origin of society.
It will not, however, be difficult to prove that, at least at
this stage in evolution, such a group would lack the most
essential elements of stability. Their unity, in fact, as has
been already pointed out, could only endure as long as the
youthfulness of the members necessitated union for protec-
tion, and their immaturity prevented the full play of the
sexual passion. The horde would inevitably dissolve under
the influence of jealousy at the adult stage, especially if, as
is probable, the number of their female captives had increased
with the gain in years and power. The necessary Primal
Law which alone could determine peace within a family circle
by recognising a distinction between female and female (the
indispensable antecedent to a definition of marital rights)
could never have arisen in such a body. It follows that if
such law was ever evoked, it must have been from within the
only other assembly in existence, viz. that headed by the
solitary polygamous patriarch, ' the Cyclopean family.'
We have said that this family would be composed of the
male head and his wives, the latter consisting of captured
females, and further, let us note, of his own adult female off-
spring, accompanied by a troop of infants of both sexes. The
absence of male offspring beyond those of tender years would
be another most notable phenomenon. These sons would, eis
we have seen, have been banished at puberty from the herd,
in common with the habit of most animals:
Now we have surmised that at this stage oiu" subject has
been modified, both physically and mentally, to a certain
extent in approach to the human type, and there is precisely
one special modification which would have been of paramount
importance in view of the problem of advance in progress.
For if we may thus infer a certain increase in the longevity
of the nascent race at even so early a stage in evolution, then
that evidently entails a more prolonged infancy. It follows
that, however precocious, the young males before exile must
have passed at least nine to ten helpless years under their
MAN VARYING FROM ANIMALS 231
mother's care. But, again, the rise of superior intellectual
faculties in general presupposes a decided increase in the
powers of memory, and this agent, in connection with that of
the longer companionship, would here set in movement, sooner
or later, a psychological factor of strangely magnified force
as compared with what it is in the mere brute — namely, human
maternal love.
Separation, however caused, between this mother and her
child would be far more severely felt than by any other
animal. At the renewed banishment of each of her male
progeny by the jealous patriarch, the mother's feelings and
instinct would be increasingly lacerated and outraged. Her
agonised efforts to retain at least her last and youngest
would be even stronger than with her first-bom. It is ex-
ceedingly important to observe that her chances of success in
this case would be much greater. When this last and dearest
son approached adolescence, it is not difficult to perceive that
the patriarch must have reached an age when the fire of desire
may have become somewhat dull ; whilst, again, his harem,
from the presence of numerous adult daughters, would be in-
creased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once more
active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situ-
ation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love
wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in desire,
we may here discern a possible key of the sociological problem
which occupies us, and which consisted in a conjunction within
one group of two adult males.
We must conceive that, in the march of the centuries, on
some fateful day, the bloody tragedy in the last act of the
familiar drama was avoided, and the edict of exUe or death
left unpronounced. Pure maternal love triumphed over the
demons of lust and jealousy. A mother succeeded in keeping
by her side a male child, and thus, by a strange coincidence,
that father and son, who, amongst all mammals, had been the
most deadly of enemies, were now the first to join hands. So
portentous an alliance might well bring the world to their
feet. The family group would now present, for the first time.
232 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
the tiU then unknown spectacle of the inclusion within a
domestic circle, and amidst its component females, of an
adolescent male youth. It must, however, be admitted that
such an event, at such an epoch, demanded imperatively veiy
exceptional qualities, both physiological and psychological, in
the primitive agents. The new happy ending to that old-
world drama which had run for so long through blood and
tears, was an innovation requiring very unusually gifted
actors. How many failures had doubtless taken place in its
rehearsal during the centuries, with less able or happy inter-
preters ! It is probable that, in the new experiment, suc-
cess was rendered possible by the rise of new powers in nascent
man. Some feeble germ of altruism may already have arisen
to make its force felt as an important factor.
It is also certain that, with such prolonged infancy, there
had been opportunity for the development of paternal philo-
progenitiveness. It is evident that such long-continued
presence of sons could but result in a certain mutual sympathy,
however inevitable the eventual exile.
The love and care of a parent for his offspring is, after all,
ethically speaking, the normal condition. Habitual desertion
at too early an age would be fatal. Their dissociation, the
abnormal and only one, took plax;e under the influence of the
strongest passion in nature, again largely exaggerated in
primitive man. But in such an era pm-ely physical character-
istics would undoubtedly have also a vast influence in the
development of the incident we have tried to depict. The
fiercely solitary patriarch who first consented to the intrusive
presence within his family circle of another adult male was,
as I think we can prove, a being of abnormal physical power
as compared with his fellows. For we have assumed satiety
in desire to have been a powerful factor in the innovatory
struggle we have witnessed. But such satiety implies exten-
sive polygamy, and yet again a large harem composed ex-
clusively of unwilling outside captives is incredible, escape
for them in the primeval forest being too facile. Thus the
harem would certainly be formed of the female offspring of
MAN VAKYING FROM ANIMALS 263
the tyrant himself. These alone would need no watch or
guard, for them the unknown outside world was hostile
ground. But again very many adult daughters imply a
father stricken in years. That one of such advanced age, in an
epoch when force was all in all, could, defiant of rivals, still
retain possession of his female kind, presupposes vast enduring
physical power, or at least the protective tradition of past
exceptional strength, still enduring in terror. If, again, at so
early a date in the history of man we may be permitted to
surmise any development of the faculty of psychogenesis, then
we may again perceive how extreme physical qualities might
have facilitated the solution of the problem of the admission
of the intrusive male. For it is credible that long undisputed
supremacy of power as the result of personal vigour might, in
•its incredulous contempt of a possible rivalry, show a tolerance
of a situation utterly impossible to a weaker nature.
234 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER IV
EABLIEST EVOLUTION OF LAW
Truce between semi-human sire and son. — Consequent distinction taken
between female and female, as such. — Consequent rise of habit of
Brother and Sister Avoidance. — Kesult, son seeks female mate from
without Note by the editor.
In what, then, we are willing to concede, must have been
exceptional circumstances, may thus have been taken that
first step in progress which was to lead to such vast advance.
In a development of the, social qualities depended the whole
future of mankind, and here we seem to see their germ and
birth.
When, however, we affirm that the triumph of maternal
love in the continued companionship of a male child, consti-
tuted the solution of the social problem before us, we do not
intend to convey the idea that it lay solely in the fact of a
simple inclusion of male offspring within a group. Such a
condition, however significant in the actual case, has nothing
in itself but what is common to the family economy of
many animals. It is the normal one, for instance, among
many pithecoids, as baboons, &c., where we find the yoimger
males still form an integral part of the horde, although
denied all marital rights. But, however inexorable among
such species the temporary separation from the females
during the actual season of rut, there is at other times a pro-
pinquity in amity as members of the same herd, which
lessened doubtless the fierceness of the strife during the
periodic play of passion, a truce in fact admitting of peace
and alliance in offence and defence during most of the
year.
EARLIEST EVOLUTION OF LAW 235
With our ancestors there could be no such healing pause,
the unnatural sexual modification of the race had rendered it
impossible. The non-periodicity of the sexual function in
rut would have made the whole year, with two adult males
in presence, an interval of trial insupportable to the mere
brute. With this race the banishment of the youth would
be for all time, and the loss would be not only that of an
ally, each exile would become an active enemy. Now we
have hinted that the importance, in a potential sense, of a
movement towards union, in such creatures, arose precisely
from the fact that, on account of the intensity of the rela-
tions between male and male, and especially between father
and son, their amicable conjunction was only possible under
such exceptional conditions as would probably conduce to its
stability whenever it did take place.
Indeed such inchoate rule or habit, a corollary of the
early idea, as reigns in regulation of marital rights among
lower creatm-es, would not be fully adequate for this higher
creation. With lower creatures, might alone confers rights,
which feebler force ever seeks each chance to invade, all
stratagems being legitimate as a means to that end. With
inchoate man such imperfect rule of action had become
utterly impossible. The greater endowment in memory and
reason entailed a too fatally added hate on non-compliance.
For inchoate men the requisite law required such further
exactness in definition as should leave no doubt of a meaning,
not only to be understood, but to be accepted and obeyed
unconditionally.
For between this father and son there was yet no real
peace, only a truce, and that enduring but so long as the
latter respected those marital rights of the former which we
found extending over all that was feminine in the horde.
The intelligent acceptance by the intruding junior of the
sole right of the senior to union with the females of a group,
was its sijie qua non, which the dawn of intellectuality in the
race as inevitably imposed as it happily permitted. Such a
step in advance as a possible obedience, ex cmimo, to such a
236 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
law would be immense, 'llierefrom would issue the vital
point of a conception of moral reserves in marital rights as
regards the other sex ; the germ of a profound and funda-
mental difference between brute and man. For the first time
in the history of the world we encounter the factor which is to
be the leading power in future social metamorphosis, i.e.
an explicit distinction between fimale and female, as such. The
superlative fact, indeed, in relation to our general argument,
appears — namely, that certain females are now to become sacred
to certain males, and that both (wote bene) are members of the
same family circle.
But what shall be, in such an age, the notes of a law
conveying this noble sentiment- of sanctity, which, disarming
jealousy, could permit peace where before strife reigned ?
How give the outer expression of the inner feeling, now
aroused, of a change in the past intersexual attitude of
certain group members ? Whence borrow the eloquence
which shall ordain rules in restriction of intercourse whilst
yet, for Homo Alalus, they must needs be mute in expres-
sion.^ In the primal law alone, as I hope in its portrayal to
show, can each condition be comprised and found as such.
It will be marked and recognised by a physical trait whose
presence is as significant and imperative as it is characteristic
of the epoch. For a sentiment of restraint in feeling, whilst
articulate speech was yet lacking, could only be expressed by
restrictive checks in act and deed, requiring mere visual per-
ception for interpretation — acts we may here note, which, as
insulating the individual, would also inevitably tend to con-
secration.
Nov/ we mentioned in our first chapter that, in connection
with the primal law, certain cases of so-called avoidance, and
especially that between near relatives, would have interest for
us and probably afford aid in proof. We drew attention
to the strange features marking these customs, which had
rendered their origin a source of wondering conjecture to all
inquirers. It may be that precisely the actual anomalism
' How do we know that homo was still alalus 1 — A. L.
EARLIEST EVOLUTION OF LAW 237
of these characteristics may render them eloquent in our
case. In view of our past argument, in very deed, nothing
now becomes insignificant in these quaint rules of non-pro-
pinquity between certain near relations ; nothing inexpressive
in the ordinance of non-recognition between individuals well
known to each other ; nothing not suggestive in the dread
of mere contact between those whom nature would place
closest together, no lack of import in the strange taciturnity
so incongruous with our garrulous later days of unloosed
tongues. There is a possible vestige of a past era of diunb
show in their eloquent muteness ; of connection in their
actual utter unreason with a long dead past of all unfamiliar
habits and manners. Eui-ther, is verily aught lacking, in these
latter-day customs of avoidance, of the necessarily archaic
features of a possible primeval law ? If these in truth were
still existent, would they not, with such traits in common,
be simply classed with those ? Undoubtedly so, as it seems
to me.
Now in the course of oiu- argument it has appeared that
the inclusion of the son as the second adult male in a
group would evolve, as the most primitive rule of action,
restriction of intercourse between its component females and
the intruder. But in such a group, the former would neces-
sarily be to the latter in the relation of mother and sisters.
Such restriction, again, taking the only possible form, would
be avoidance of these relations, and thus there is a concur-
rence in resemblance with that particular habit of avoidance
on which we enlarged in om- first pages, viz. that between
brother and sister (and now less strictly), between mother and
son. Do we not thus seem to lay a finger on an actual law,
still an every-day working factor in savage life, which is not
only identical with, but is in very deed the primal law itself,
in form at least ? The acceptation of such intolerably irk-
some restraints as avoidance, in the daily economy of savage
life, has seemed forcibly to imply a fimdamental cause of
profoimd depth. This cause now seems laid open to us. The
unaccountable and seemingly imreasonable restrictions on
SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
intercoiirse which mark it thus betray their appropriate origin
in a time of comparative unreason.
This then, the primal law — avoidance between a brother
and sister — with appalling conservatism has descended
through the ages (in conservance of form, if not of tiltimate
purpose). It ordained in the dawn of time a barrier between
mother and son, and brother and sister, and that ordinance is
still binding on all mankind [but in Egypt and Peru, for
example, the opposite of this rule, for special reasons, has
prevailed]. Between these for ever, a bit was placed in the
mouth of desire, and chains on the feet of lust. Their
mutual relationship is one that has been held sacred from a
sexual point of view, in most later ages. It only remains for
us to repeat that it follows that this law, as applied in
the group composed of a single family, is, as we pointed
out, the parent of exogamy ; continuance within the group
necessarily and logically entailed marriage without; but,
again as we said, it was itself the offspring of the early idea.
For this idea, in its assumption that sovereignty in marital
right was compatible with solitude alone, was shaken to its
depths when a second presence threatened rivalry, and de-
manded remedy in the action of law, which it has seemed to
us could only take the form we have tried to portray ^ in
the primal law.
NOTE TO CHAPTER IV
To the Editor this theory seems worthy of the ingenuity of
his old friend and kinsman. Granting that early man was a
speechless jealous brute, dwelling in groups consisting of a
patriarchal beast, and all the females whom he could catch, and
all the females whom he could beget ; granting that he drove
' Later, as we further analyse the chords in the great hymn of human
existence, we shall find that this first of all rules of intelligent moral action,
however little it may have had of ethical intention in its inception, will
ever remain (in its effects) the fundamental note in the harmony of
psychical life. All succeeding law is its inevitable corollary, and vibrating
in cadence with this fundamental note.
EARLIEST EVOLUTION OF LAW 239
all his adolescent sons out ; and finally (under the circumstances
described) kept one or a few sons at home, his rule would tabu
all females of the group to these sons. Otherwise there would
be a fight.
The sons would have to bring in mates from without — the
result is Exogamy. But Mr. Atkinson does not observe the
numerous tabus existing among savages, on ordinary (not sexual)
intercourse between men and women ; as if each individual, of
each sex, was or might be dangerous to each individual of the
other sex ; that is no idea of our speechless brute ancestors, of
Mr. Atkinson's hypothesis. These tabus do not amount to
absolute avoidance, but they do amount to very marked restric-
tions ; for example, on eating together, or sleeping under the
same roof, even where husbands and wives are concerned. For
the facts, to save repetition, it is enough to refer to Mr. Crawley's
book. The Mystic Rose. Now if these less rigid tabus between
the sexes (which Mr. Atkinson noted in his observations on the
hfe of New Caledonian natives) arose in the general savage
superstitious dread of everjrthing not a man's or woman's own
self, they might become more rigid as propinquity increased.
The most dangerous female would be the female who had most
chance of being dangerous, by virtue of propinquity, namely the
sister. She would therefore be the most strictly barred. The
closest of all relations, that of lover and lover, and man and wife,
would be most severely guarded, as most dangerous, by tabus.
All this would happen (granting the verifiable condition of
savage superstitious dread) even if Mr. Atkinson's theory of our
speechless beast ancestors' way of life were wrong.
We should probably find the effects (Avoidance and Exogamy)
even if the primeval causes postulated by him never actually
existed. Moreover any avoidance between mother and son that
may exist (as in the case of the mothers of chiefs, in New Cale-
donia, and their sons) is perhaps no more than part of the general
rule of restricted familiarity between the sexes, whether that rule
arises from a superstition, or from the circumstance that men
and women sometimes ' disturb each other damnably,' as Lord
Byron remarked to his wife. It might be argued that the
exogamous prohibition is only one aspect of the general totem
tabu ; and that, in the case of brothers and sisters, incest
against the totem tabu needed to be guarded against (as most
likely to occur) by precautions of avoidance peculiarly stringent.
These precautions, then, would not necessarily come down from
240 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
the time of our hypothetical speechless beast ancestors. They
might come down from that time, but the descent, it may be
objected, is not necessary. The rules might have arisen among
men as human as we are — Totemists. On the other hand, it
might be argued for Mr. Atkinson that his hypothetical groups
must be infinitely older than Totemism. When totem names
were imposed on the earlier groups, the totem name and mark
would only be a method of distinguishing group from group,
probably becoming the germ of later superstitions by which every-
thing connected with the totem was tabued, in each case, to the
groups bearing its name. Either alternative hypothesis is easily
conceivable : on the whole, I prefer the theory that exogamy
arose, or an exogamous tendency arose, as in Mr. Atkinson's
hypothesis, and was later sanctioned by the totem superstition.
As to brother and sister avoidance, if there is an ' instinct,'
as Westermarck thinks, against marriage between near rela-
tions, if ' close living together inspires an aversion to inter-
marriage' (pp. 352, 545), then the avoidance of brother and
sister would make them especially apt to fall in love together.
But they don't. Brother and sister, under the tabu, are the
greatest possible strangers to each other. They have not ' lived
in long-continued intimate relationship from a period of life at
which the action of desire is out of the question ' (Westermarck,
p. 353). They have done precisely the reverse. So why they
do not fall in love with each other is what we have still to
explain. All the rigid systems of brother and sister avoidance
exist, it would seem, to prevent what never would have occurred,
had the young people been allowed to grow up together. For in
that case they could have had (we are to fancy) no erotic desires
towards each other ; that is Dr. Westermarck's idea. But could
they not ? He tells us that, among the Annamese, ' no girl who
is twelve years old and has a brother is a virgin ' (p. 292).
And the Hottentots do not 'marry out of their own kraals'
(p. 347).
Then where are we, exactly .'' If there is ' a real powerful
instinct ' against love between persons who ' have lived in a long-
continued intimate relationship ' from childhood — why does the
instinct fail to affect Annamese and Hottentots, for instance.''
And if to be absolute strangers to each other is apt to make two
young people fall in love, why do New-Caledonian brothers and
sisters never do it ? (Compare Mr. Crawley, The Mystic Rose,
pp. 444-44)6.)
241
CHAPTER V
AVOIDANCES
Results in strengthening the groups which admit several adult males. —
Disappearance of hostile baud of exiled young males. — Eelations of
sire and female mates of young males now within the group. — Father-
in-law and daughter-in-law avoidance. — Rights as between two genera-
tions. — Elder brother and younger brother's wife avoidances.— Note on
Hostile Capture.
If we can admit the argument as to the sequence of incidents
which thus led to the primary amicable conjunction of two
males within the same group, it is not necessary to enter very
minutely into the exact manner in which it would grow into
a habit and spread throughout the land. We may surmise
that, in spite of the advantages presented, its progress would,
from the isolation of the groups, and their mutual hostility,
be very slow. This wovdd specially be the case if, as with
physical variations, this point of departure in social develop-
ment was a purely individual one, and so had to spread from
a single centre by natural selection acting through a beneficial
variation. It is, in fact, difficult to conceive, in view of the
series of the abnormal factors we have supposed necessary for
the genesis of such evolution, that any coincident departure
of the same nature would be likely to occur in any other
centre. It is even certain that the full possible benefit of the
innovation would not be able to make itself felt even in the
original group of its creators. It is easy to understand that,
in spite of the shield-like love of the mother, there would be
friction between father and son in such unfamiliar circum-
stances, not only novel to the individual, but unhabitual to
the race. In fact, it may be taken for granted that on the
part of. the father there was at first only a sulky tolerance of
242 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
the new arrangement, a tacit but very unwilling acquiescence
in the presence of the son.
On the part of the son would exist a watchful reserve,
with an ever-haunting sense of insecmity, bom of a novel
and precarious situation. Even on such terms, however,
and with what little might be of conciliation between the
two, it is evident that a momentous forward step has been
taken : the powers of the group in offence and defence, as
against outsiders, would be enormously increased ; ^ the fire
of youth and the wisdom of old age for the first time joined
forces, and paternal experience comes to the aid of filial
courage and ardour. On the death of the patriarch the
family found a natural protector, and what potential germs
of advance, material or spiritual, had been evolved, would
remain intact.
The real significance of the circumstance of such conjunc-
tion will, however, be found to lie in the character of its
consequences as entailing fiuiher progress. Thus we have
suggested that the original innovation consisted in the
toleration of the presence of a single male offspring. But
the way was evidently thus paved for the acceptance, at
least in later generations, of others of the young males,
although at first only of those who, not too much rivalling
the fathers in power, would offer least grounds for jealousy.
Now if we may accept it as an axiom in the matter of social
progress in this race, that everything depended on aggrega-
tion of numbers in peaceful union, then such renewed inclusion
presents itself in an important light. When it grew into a
habit, the vast increase in power with every succeeding
generation to a group, which is implied in the fact of each
male child counting as an unit of strength, becomes evident.
The new superiority to the original Cyclopean form of
family, with its solitary male head, is enormous. The
extinction of the latter type would only be a matter of time,
it would finally result from the easy capture, by better
' It is clear that, for this reason, natural selection would favour the
new kind of group. The arrangement would be imitated. — A. L,
AVOIDANCES 243
organised rivals, of their females. With the gradual disap-
pearance of those who clung to the old order, the leaven of
progress would spread in permanence through the whole
mass. It would eventually become the rule that all the male
offspring should remain within a group, to form henceforth
an integral part of it.
This result would be very important from another point
of view. Such retention of sons would lead to the elimina-
tion of one of the greatest past elements of disorder — that
band of exiled young males, which we found as a constantly
menacing adjunct of the Cyclopean family, would cease to
exist. But, again, a very slight reflection will enable us to
perceive that such a modification as the presence of these
celibate young males in the family circle must soon have
entailed consequences in social evolution of a new and strange
complexion, thoroughly embarrassing, in such an era, to those
interested. Primitive social economy was now, in fact, to
enter on phases presenting such possibilities of complication
and disruption as must forcibly have led to the continued
evolution of law in regulation. Such complications wiU
become at once apparent on an examination of the probable
sequence of events in the family life of the race. Such law
in regulation wiU be shown to have been evolved, and, as
before, to be still existent as a rule of action in these latter
days, and with aU those weird characteristics of mutism and
general anomalism which prove its archaic origin.
Granted a group consisting of a patriarch whose marital
rights extend over all its females, and of young males whose
attitude,' from a sexual point of view, is marked by the strict
reserve ordained by the primal law, it by no means follows
that such celibacy of the young males would extend beyond
the feminine element of their own troop. On the contrary,
the whole of the outside world remains free for them to
choose from. In fact, it is evident that it is there, in the
world outside of the group, that their future mates must be
found. On the component females of the parent horde a ban
' With portentous endurance of custom towards these.
r2
244 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
has been for ever laid, but all else of womankind are free of
the interdict ; they are beyond the law, and ' Sin is not im-
puted where there is no law.' Here, then, in the outer
world, would their wives be sought. The complication we have
mentioned would arise when, after successful captures of females
by the young males, captures which it is hardly necessary
to state would have been ' hostile,' the introduction of their
captives within the parental group took place. The presence
of females not to be his own within a circle where all that
was feminine had ever been his in undisputed right, would
certainly stir to its depths the soul of the Cyclopean type of
parent. Such a situation must in its inception have caused a
friction full of menace to the new order of things.
The only solution would be, as we have said, in the
further evolution of law in remedy. We shall, as before,
expect to find the law ordaining restrictions on intercourse
between certain individuals, and marked with the archaic
characteristic of mere visual action being sufficient for its
interpretation. Such, then, as it was, we still find it, in the
habit still common with many races of avoidance between
father-in-law and daughter-in-law. In mute avoidance be-
tween these two could peace alone endm-e in the new crisis.
The new rule implied the development of the same respect by
the father for the marital rights of the son, as we have seen
the primal law to have had for effect as regards the paternal
prerogatives. Natural selection would come into play in the
consolidation of this new stage in legislative evolution. For
the group which first adopted such a modus Vivendi would
gain so great an advantage with each generation, in point of
numbers alone, as would quickly give it supremacy. On the
other hand, the forcible infringement by the father on the
rights of possession by the sons in their captives, would
simply result in the withdrawal of the sons and their women.
Hence disruption of the group, and a fatal retrogression to
the archaic type with all the weakness implied in a sole male
component.
Here then we find renewed, in act of custom, another bar
AVOIDANCES 245
to intercourse between certain individuals of different sexes.
And not only as a peace-conferring covenant would the fresh
step in progress be important. It marks another stride in
advance from brute to man, in the further recognition of
points of difference between one female and another from a
sexual point of view, the genetic evolution of which sentiment,
in the primal law, foreshadowed such latent potentiality as
already distinctive of mankind alone. Social advance to this
stage has entailed the genesis of law in definition of respective
marital rights as between the two generations, viz. fathers and
sons, but further evolution in regulation of the individual
right, as within the generation itself, is evidently indicated.
For all members of the latter, as is the case to-day with many
lower people, would be considered, de facto, a class, in which
all are regarded as brothers, own or tribal, whose interest in
aU things regarding their classificatory rights would be in
common.^
Such would be more especially the case in respect to
female captives, whose capture would be the act of all. Here
sexual jealousy, if uncontrolled, would inevitably lead to
repetitions of that violent segregation of the members which
occinred under the same circumstances amidst their primitive
prototypes — i.e. that band of isolated young males, contem-
poraries of and exiles from some Cyclopean family. We
may, however, sm-mise that, now or soon, the general develop-
ment of intelligence and advance in social feeling would
permit the action of the necessary rule in remedy. That rule
would doubtless take the form we still find existing to-day for
regulation in parallel circumstances, a rule which simply
accords priority of right in accordance with seniority in birth.
Such right would in itself accrue naturally as with other
animals, from the fact that superior strength is found with
greater age. This prior possession is not incompatible with
an amicable recognition of the privilege of later participation
' Herr Cunow, as we showed, regards the ' classes ' (not the ' phratries ')
of Australian tribes as based on a rough and ready calculation of non-
intermarrying generations. — A.L.
246 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
by others. If such recognition took place in favour of the
rights of the juniors, whilst they again peacefully accepted
the larger pretensions of the seniors within their class, then
natural selection would again act in their favour by the
elimination of groups unable to abide such conditions. The
arrogation of sole possession could but lead to the disintegra-
tion of the troop. '^
Another solution of the problem of rights as between
brothers may here be noted : it is that which is common to
such widely separated spots as New Caledonia and Orissa, viz.
the law of avoidance between an elder brother and a younger
brother's wife. It is one of the most strict and severe. It is,
however, incompatible with group marriage, which we are now
dealing with.^ It marks the genetic stage of monandry.
So far, then, we have thus traced the evolutionary process
of group formation — -and we seem to find confirmed that
affirmation as to the primordial order of succession in the
genetic growth of custom which I ventured to submit in my
first pages, viz. primo : the existence of an early idea of con-
cupiscent lust, distinctive of the male head of a group, which
led to his pretensions in marital right over all its component
females in necessary incestuous union ; secundo, the evolution
of the primal law (with what little of originally ethical
intention is now immaterial), in protection of such right
when threatened by intruders ; tertio, its acceptance by the
latter, and, as an inevitable sequel, their indispensable capture
of outside females as sole possible mates.'
But then this question of the absolute necessity of the
' See also Westermarck, pp. 458, 459, on the Khyoungtha, a Chittagong
hill tribe. After marriage a younger brother is allowed to touch the hand,
to speak and laugh with his elder brother's wife, but it is thought improper
for the elder brother even to look at the wife of his younger brother. This
is a custom more or less among all hill tribes, it is found carried to even a
preposterous extent among the Santals.
^ As a fact the ' classes ' (probably distinctions, originally, of genera-
tions) do not, I think, indicate ' group marriage.' — A. L.
' Westermarck, let swpra, pp. 387-389, 546, agrees. For the opposite
view, cf. Crawley, p. 367. Westermarck does not seem very sure of his
own mind. — A. L.
AVOIDANCES 247
rape of strange females as mates by the young males of a
group, opens up to view another remarkable coincidence of
effect in custom, still enduring to oiu- day. As such it may
furnish a clue to a feature in savage habits, to which we have
already alluded as the cause of more discussion, concerning
its origin, than any other. For habitual hostile capture of
females outside a group by its male members, with a coinci-
dental bar to sexual union with its component females,
seems simply a definition of that habit among many actual
peoples which has been called Exogamy by Mr. J. F. Mc-
Lennan. Hence comes the evident corollary to the argument
that the primal law and exogamy stand to each other in the
mutual relation of cause and effect. We stated that if this
was in reality the case, and if here we have the origin of
marriage outside the group, then the novelty of the view, and
the fact that it finds itself in opposition to other theories on
the matter, weighty from the eminence of their propounders,
would stiU require the production of a clear series of proofs
in its favour if it was to be accepted. Such proofs, however,
we predicted, would with research be found abundantly. We
hope that already in our thesis, as far as it has gone, we may
be considered to have advanced some such testimony in the
seemingly necessary identity of custom, in form at least, in a
hypothetic ancient and an actual modern era. There is
surely here more than mere fortuitous coincidence in social
evolution.
It seems, indeed, a legitimate inference that the divers
habits of avoidance which we have cited, intelligible only by
their congruency with such phases of genetic growth of custom
as we have surmised, whilst presenting featm-es utterly
anomalous as latter-day creations, are in reality of the archaic
origin we would assign to them. Their extraordinary vitality,
which becomes almost bewildering to contemplate, may be
explained by the fact that, as the first steps in progress, they
would be necessarily woven into the whole social fabric.
It remains to be seen if, in further unravelling its tangled
web, other threads of actual custom may not be found as
248 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
apparently eloquent of a far distant, unfamiliar past, in their
present abnormal features ; other usages in every-day lower
(savage) life, which in the light of a primal law shall furnish
an unexpected solution of many perplexing problems in social
evolution. If it can be shown that their inception would
have been in happy accordance with the resolution of neces-
sary incidents in evolutionary progress, may we not legiti-
mately infer both that such customs thus had their origin, and
again that these incidents really occurred ? Our further re-
search into the development of social institutions will point
out indisputably, that primitive society was now on the eve
of a succession of events in social order, presenting quite a
series of menacing complications— their resolution will seem-
ingly entail inevitably the continuous evolution of law in
remedy, which law would have presented features identical
with the actual laws of avoidance and others.
NOTE TO CHAPTER V
Marriage hy Hostile Capture
Mr. Atkinson accepts, for the excessively early stage of semi-
human society with which his hypothesis deals, the necessity of
procuring mates for the young bucks by capture from a hostile
group. Now Dr. Westermarck writes, ' Mr. McLennan thinks
that marriage by capture arose from the rule of exogamy ; ' and
Mr. Atkinson holds that it arose from the necessity of the case.
The old patriarch allowed no female bom within his group to be
united to his sons. Dr. Westermarck says, ' It seems to me
extremely probable that the practice of capturing women for
wives is due chiefly to the aversion to close intermarrying . . .
together with the difficulty a savage man has in procuring a wife
in a friendly manner, without giving compensation for the loss
he inflicts on her father ' (Westermarck, 368-369). He admits
a period when ' the idea of barter had hardly occurred to man's
mind.' But Mr. Atkinson is thinking of a state of afiairs in
which the idea of barter had not occurred at all. Even at Dr.
Westermarck's stage of the dawn of barter, ' marriage by capture
AVOIDANCES 249
must have been very common.' But Mr. Crawley argues that
because, in his opinion, ' types of formal and connubial capture '
are not survivals from actual capture, therefore ' the theory that
mankind . . . ever, in normal circumstances, were accustomed
to obtain their wives by capture from other tribes, may be
regarded as exploded ' (Mystic Rose, p. 367). This dictum does
not aflTect Mr. Atkinson's theory. Semi-human beings, in the
conditions imagined by him, might be obliged to get their wives
by capture, whether existing types of so-called formal capture
are survivals of actual hostile capture or not. If Mr. Atkinson
accepts the formal abductions as survivals of real captures and
so as proofs of his argument, and if such formal abductions are not
survivals of real capture — still, as Dr. Westermarck says, even
after the supposed stage of semi-human life, 'marriages by
capture must have been very common ' — in Mr. Atkinson's
hypothetical still earlier stage, they must have been universal.
250 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER VI
PBOM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE
Resemblance of semi-brutal group, at this stage, to actual savage tribe. —
Resemblance merely superficial. — In this hypothetical semi-brutal
group paternal incest survives. — Causes of its decline and extinction.
— The Sire's widows in the group. — Arrival of outside suitors for them.
— Brothers of wives of the group. — New comers barred from marital
rights over their daughters. — Jealousy of their wives intervenes. — Value
of sisters to be bartered for sisters of another group discovered. — Con-
sequent resistance to incest of group sire. — Natural selection favours
groups where resistance is successful. — Cousinage recognised in
practice. — Intermarrying sets of cousins become phratries. — Exceptional
cases of permitted incest in chiefs and kings.— No known trace of
avoidance between father and daughter. — Progress had rendered such
law superfluous.
A suPEEFiciAL view of the group we have examined might,
from its general resemblance in custom to others among
actual lower types of man, lead to a hasty conception of
perfect identity, from a social point of view, in nearly all
other respects. We see that exogamy, hostile capture, group
marriage,^ and obedience to certain accepted rules of avoid-
ance, are common to both, to the hypothetical semi-bestial
and to the actual savage groups.
The impression, however, would be very erroneous.
In the former, the hypothetical archaic stage, still liu'ked
as a festering canker, an archaic element in marital prero-
gative, which marks it as of an epoch in the life-history of our
race when the brute still triumphed over the man, an epoch
far removed from oiu: own. It possessed a feature in con-
nubial relations as between certain group members which
placed a profound gulf between it and any existing form of
' As to group marriage the editor cannot follow Mr. Atkinson.
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE 251
these days — a trait which, whilst it endured, would tend to
render all further social progress difficult, if not impossible.
It barred the road to that next great gradation in sociological
evolution which is implied in the friendly conjunction of
groups in a tribe. The latter stage was a vast upward step,
but still it was only one round in the ladder of ascent to
man, and indeed derived its chief importance from this fact
as such. The tribe was the real goal ; there, only, could be
found the vital quality of social stability to be conferred by
peaceful connubium between united groups as opposed to
hostile capture between isolated families. Each group must
come to be in itself coniplete, and yet each must form the
necessary complementary parts of the actual Tribe common to
all lower races, with its typical divisional inter-marriageable
group classes [' phratries ']. The fatal bar to a higher plat-
form was a heritage from the anthropoid ancestor, and, as
such, eminently characteristic of an animal stage.
This odious inheritance was the habit of incest between
father and daughter, which we have found to be common to
all the mammalia as a dominant domestic feature. As a
factor in evolution we have seen that it actually had as
direct outcome the primal law itself, and thus, with a strange
irony, it may be said to have so laid the foundation of an
ultimate moral sense. In such or other action in the past it
had, however, served its useftil purpose. Its operation in
the future could be but detrimental ; so opposed to all advance
does it become, that, as we shall find, it is to be finally swept
aside so completely as to permit to some students doubts of
its existence, though ' In Saturn's time such mixture weis not
held a crime.'' Leaving no traces of action in actual usage
save in such exceptions as prove the rule, it will not be
difficult to show that, in giving birth to the primal law, it
doomed its own existence, and this apart from any ethical
connection. The continued progress of society led almost
mechanically to developments eminently inimical to its con-
tinuance as a custom, whilst again it would be found even
injurious to the order of things as constituted in the earliest
252 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
group-plits-tiihe stage. If we bear in mind the axiom that,
other things being equal, the largest assemblage of indivi-
duals in amity would have the greatest chance of survival, as
possessing more numerous units of strength, then father-and-
daughter marriage would be pernicious by preventing an
assembly from profiting to a full extent by the productive
powers of all its members. For such incest implies sole
marital rights by a senior generation of males over a jimior
generation of females. As the latter would always, from
mere disparity of age, outlive the former, it follows that, on
the death of a father the daughters would remain unproduc-
tive, the only other males in the family group being their
own brothers, and as such ban-ed to them by the primal
law.
This situation, in itself an element of weakness, became
doubly so, if, as is probable, these young widowed females
seceded to other and hostile groups with whom union to them
was free. Such groups would in consequence be by so much
strengthened, at the expense of their original circle. If, on
the other hand, these widows remained in their own circle,
their presence as useless mouths would be embarrassing, and
a possible soin:ce of danger as a temptation to outside suitors.
Again, celibacy being quite an anomaly in such an era, com-
plications might arise from possible infractions of the primal
law itself within a group.
But it is in special relation to the furbher movement in
advance implied in the friendly aggregation of groups into a
tribe that the effects of paternal incest would be most fatally
felt. For while it reigned as a custom and a father usmped
sole marital right over the whole feminine element, the immi-
gration into the group of outside suitors for their hands would
be impossible, their possession by the latter would be only
possible after capture, which, being hostile, would tend to
keep asunder the different groups. And yet in the next and
higher stage of social evolution, as presented in the amalga-
mation of groups into a tribe, the acceptation of these
outside mates in peaceful connubium is precisely the most
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE 253
characteristic feature. In later days they will Ibe found as
the male members of a certain ' class ' in one ' phratry,' and,
de Jhcto, eligible in group marriage with all and certain
females of the corresponding category as regards birth in
another phratry, within an aU-embracing tribe. As indeed
with actual Australians, where, by right of birth alone each
' class ' contains the natural born husbands of the wives of
another 'class.' Such connubium is evidently impossible
while incest flourished as a custom, it could only arise after
its decay.'
It thus becomes necessary to study by what possible con-
junction of affairs so desirable a result was arrived at. We
will find that, however fortuitous the event of the primary
inclusion of an outside possible suitor within a group, how-
ever timid and hesitating his entry, his presence there would
be the signal of the beginning of the end. Now it is evidently
hopeless to look for any voluntary acceptance of his claims
by the living father, to whom the temptation to so easy a
procuring of an inmate of his harem as his own daughter
would be irresistible. There would be also on his side all
habit and tradition, and with no direct group interest in
opposition, the brothers being unconcerned. The initiative
in change must then arise irrespective of him, and without
the obstacle of his presence. This could only be possible
thus after his death.
' I have here slightly altered Mr, Atkinson's terminology. As the
passage stands in his manuscript he confuses totem kins with the Aus-
tralian intermarrying ' classes.' In his manuscript the passage runs thus :
'In later days they' (the outside mates) 'will be found as the male
members of a certain class generation in one group ' (by which he means a
' class,' say Ippai, in a ' phratry,' say Dilbi) ' and, de facto, eligible in group
marriage with all and certain females of the same category as regards birth
in another group.' Here he obviously should have written ' eligible in
marriage with all females of the oorrespondinff category in the other
" phratry " of an all-embracing tribe.' ' As indeed with actual Australians
where, by right of birth alone, each totem group contains the natural bom
husbands and wives of another totem group.' This is not the case : men
of one totem kin are not compelled to take virives from one other totem kin ;
but men of one ' class ' must take wives of one other ' class,' and men of one
' phratry' must take vrives out of the other ' phratry.' To avoid confusion
I have, in the text, inserted the correct terminology.— A. L.
254 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Now it is important to observe that precisely the embar-
rassment we have seen arise after this event must be a means
to the end of the conjunction we seek. We have rioted the
danger of the situation under such circumstances ; ineligible
in union by the primal law with the remaining male element,
which is composed of their own brothers, temptations to its
infraction would be as frequent as fatal, on the part of the
early widowed sisters. On the other hand, the anomaly of a
celibate existence in the animal stage would tend to the
secession of widows, so to speak, to hostile hordes, or to
constant attempts at hostile capture by the outside suitor.
But with the fiiendly entry of the latter and his acceptance
as a group member, all these disturbing influences would at
once cease ; further, the value of an extra imit of strength
in his presence would soon make itself felt.
Let us then imagine a band of brothers willing to aid in
the sustenance of their widowed sisters, strong enough to defy
their capture by others, and determined to fiiistrate any
attempt at escape on their part. The inevitable result would
be the attraction within their own circle of suitors for their
hands. Now it is worthy of note that the feasibility of the
process of such attraction and inclusion becomes more obvious
when we reflect that if, as is probable, they belonged to a
neighbouring group, they would thus by no means find them-
selves quite strangers in their new home. For it is precisely
from near neighbours that their wives would have been captured
by the males of the assembly they have now joined. These
wives, in fact, would be probably own sisters to the immi-
grants. As such, then, we can understand an easier tolerance
of their presence by the resident males, their new brothers-in-
law ; as brothers and sisters the primal law created such a
bar in division between their own wives and the new comers,
as put aside any possible chance of friction in jealousy.
Now the significance of the entry of outside males would
be vast, from many points of view. In a general sense we
here find that further aggregation of numbers in imison
which we considered important, as prophetic of the present
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE 255
social condition of to-day. Again, there arises a renewed
distinction of that difference as between one female and
another, so peculiar to mankind. For here we see that for
the first time a sister no longer ranks in exactly the same
line, from a marital point of view, as a mother. A daughter,
in fact, may now evidently have as mate other than the
husband-father. As the primitive mind habituated itself to
this idea, the first serious blow was dealt at the old parental
prerogative. Again, in other ways, in other minds than own
brother and sister, will this change in the old order of things
be thus brought home — to no one more clearly than to the
outside suitor himself, when, later, he becomes a father ; the
trains of circumstances leading to it are very cm-ious, but
would arise in a perfectly natural manner. The result in
this connection would make itself felt by him in the next
generation, with the advent to the adult stage of his own
female offspring.
Is it credible, indeed, that the original male members of a
group who had solely accepted his entry as mate for those
ineligible females, their sisters, would consent to his fiirther
participation in marital right with other female group
members ? Evidently not : for thus the sexual prerogatives
of the strangers would be much greater than their own — for
the resident males are barred by the primal law from the
wives of the new comers, who yet, as resident females, form
probably much the most numerous section of the feminine
element in the horde. If the new comers further inherited
the ordinary right of intercourse with their own daughters,
who would be correspondingly numerous, then the extent of
their rights would entirely outbalance that of their bxothers-
in-law. As original residents the latter would, however, be
the law-makers, and we can have no doubt as to what form
in such a case law would take.^ Thus is struck a blow again,
' All the younger generation of females would be reserved for them-
selves, and thus not only their own daughters, but the daughters of their
brothers-in-law, who, as of the same generation, were all classed together
as sisters.
256 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
however indirect, to incest as a custom, a blow whose power
would be the more effective, insomuch as here it is the living
father himself, in the outside suitor, who would be in cause.
But even admitting that it is possible to conceive a com-
placency in regard to such participation in sexual rights on
the part of the brother, there would still be another much
more formidable obstacle to incestuous license as regards his
daughter confronting the male intruder in the person of the
precedent sister, now his wife.
A psychological factor of enormous power was now for
the first time in the history of the world to make itself felt.
It would be the play of the natural feeling of sexual jealousy
on the part of his resident female mate. The jealousy of a
woman, in fact, is at length able to make its strength appear,
to some purpose. As a wife who had not been captured,
who, in fact, as an actual member of the group itself, was, so
to speak, the capturer, her position in regard to her depend-
ent husband would be profoundly modified in comparison
with that of the ordinary captive female. Whereas such a
captive, seized by the usual process of hostile capture, had
been a mere chattel utterly without power ; she, as a free
agent in her own home, with her will backed by that of her
brothers, could impose law on her subject spouse, and such
law dictated by jealousy would undoubtedly ordain a bar to
intercourse between him and her more youthful, and hence
more attractive, daughter.
By these then, and other incidents, each of vast value, we
may perceive how the primitive mind became gradually pre-
pared for a change so imperatively necessary for all future
progress, and how a habit even so deeply ingrafted as incest
may primarily have been forced to slacken its hold. It is
even possible to imagine how from such a point of departiu-e,
the custom might at once have entirely ceased among all, or
at least a portion of, mankind. If we could conceive at this
stage a secession from their original group of its resident
component fema,les, accompanied by their outside mates,
with a continuance of the acceptance of the subordinate
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE 257
sti-ange suitors in futui-e generations of the new colony, then
we could admit the probability of rapid evolution in approach
to a well-known actual group formation. The persistent im-
portation of the always dependent outsider would accentuate
the movement already begun against incest — with two such
associations in unison, cousinship would be recognised, and
peaceful connuiium in ' cross-cousin ' marriage between groups
would become a habit, and female descent the rule.^ But at
such a stage in social evolution, it is impossible to accept the
dominance of the unsupported female or ' feme sole.' Gynce-
cocracy, if it has indeed ever existed, is evidently as yet
incredible. Not thus was dealt the final fatal blow at this
last great trait of archaism. We must rather seek it in the
familiar economy of the tjrpe of group we have left, which is
characterised, as with other animals, by the predominance of
the male.
In oiu- study of the various incidents in primitive social
economy which would have had effect in a sense inimical to
the custom of incest, we have only considered the matter
from the point of view of the entry of the outside suitor after
the death of the paternal tyrant. The incestuous rights of
the living group-fathers are thereby in no way directly
affected. In the absence of any direct personal interest in
the matter on the part of the group-sons, the only other
male components and law-makers might indeed continue to
remain unopposed indefinitely. Thus a resolution of the
problem of decay of incest would seem as far off as ever.
HappUy this is not in reality the case — the real significance
of the entry of the outsider, even on such terms as we have
examined, lay in the co-ordination of movement of these
resultant primary checks, and the inevitable synchronous
evolution of the most characteristic feature of the next and
higher type of group, as in itself a mere component of a tribe.
The outsider's admission, in fact, really contained the germ
of progress in group formation which was to entail the total
required decay [of incest].
' These groups would be phratries, or the germs of phratries. — A. L.
258 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Up to the present, although the entire male element in a
group was divided into two classes, by generations whose
interests had little in common, between them no antagonism
had arisen which could not be appeased by the evolution of
such a law in remedy as we have noted. The case would
now be altered ; an irreconcilable breach was about to divide
them. It will be seen that the advent of the outsider had
been a real portent. Where, for instance, and mider the
circvmistances we have portrayed, he had become a more
accustomed figure as an immigrant, he would form a valuable
connecting link between groups. Each would certainly possess
some females seized from the other by more or less forcible
capture, but each now possessed a certain proportion of these
males, brothers of those females, whose intrusion had been
peaceably accepted. With less strained relations and greater
intercourse, capture would become a little more rare, and a
friendly interchange of women more common. There would
be then discovered by the brother a hitherto undreamt-of
virtue in the young female, his sister ; in fact, her value as a
negotiable article would appear.
As brothers and sisters, and thus barred in union by
the primal law, their relative interest in each other had
been of the feeblest in the past. The ultimate destiny
of the sister might be a matter of the most perfect in-
difference to the brother. With the new order of things
she had suddenly become more precious. As an object of
barter for the sister of another man, she would show her-
self to be invaluable. In view of the difficulty and danger
attending hostile capture, the temptation to such easy pro-
curation of mates as sister-barter offered would be irresistible.
Coming at first into practice when only the death of the
father had left his widowed daughter free, its advantages to
the sons would impose a gradual encroachment on the rights
of possession by the living parent. In prejudice to incest
were now opposed the two most powerful passions in human
nature, sexual desire, and a love of material gain, and the
successful barter of a sister for another man's sister satisfied
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE 259
both. For attempts at capture might be vmsuccessful, and
purchase might be more or less unsatisfactory. And these
passions would be aroused in bosoms able to make their
power felt. The sons, as also resident males, would be among
the law-makers. However powerful the father in past
authority and tradition, in the end the force of numbers would
tell. However numerous the group of fathers, they would
always be outnumbered by the group of brother sons, and
victory would thus ultimately incline to these. ^ However
long and doubtful the struggle, as the latter possessed the
longer lease of life, the quantum of the exchange value of a
sister would always finally be made to show itself, and the
determination to profit thereby would be more strongly
impressed on each generation.
Natural selection would again certainly come into play in
favour of such groups, thus curtailing the monstrous preroga-
tives of the old-world fathers, by dint of numbers alone.
The superiority which would ensue with each generation,
would speedily ensm-e the triumph of that assembly which
could definitely accept the presence of the outside suitor.
He would come as a m^tiple unit of strength, a willing ally
who would otherwise have been an active enemy — the
generator of the prodtlctive power to females who would
either have remained as sterile residents, or seceded to
hostile hordes as breeders of new foes.
Thus, then, we may at length perceive how a custom even
so deeply ingrained in nascent man as paternal incest, may
finally have become extinct as a custom. In the action of
such circumstances we can accept the idea of its ultimate
decay and death. By the numerical preponderance of the
individuals within a group interested in its disappearance,
was alone such a result feasible. This necessary condition
we here find fulfilled.
In opposition to the father we now see arrayed not only
' The breach between father and sons could only be healed by the
submission of the fathers. Then prerogative in incest would gradually
decay, for strange to say no vestige of law in avoidance can be traced.
S2
260 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
the wife-mother jealous of her mate, not only the daughter
inclined instinctively to youth and the unknown, but, most
important of all, the son, now egged on by most powerful
personal feelings and interests. And for these latter ones,
as we have seen, time itself would fight ; to youth each hour
and day is a gain in strength, to old age each moment means
a loss of power. With the decay of the custom we see that
the way lies clear to progress in group formation. Sooner or
later the presence of the offspring of the outside suitors in
the formerly purely consanguine circle will be recognised,
their recognition as cousins to the younger resident members
Avill be made, and the old type of horde by a process of
cleavage divides itself into two intermarriageable clans
(phratries ?), and the savage tribe is created.^
' It will be observed that Mr. Atkinson, when he writes of ' the cleavage
of the old type of horde into two intermarriageable clans, creating the
tribe,' differs from the opinions already expressed by his editor. By
' clans ' Mr. Atkinson here means ' phratries,' and we have shown that
phratries, even now, often bear totemic names, and probably were, in
origin, local totem groups ; each containing members (by female descent)
of several other totem groups. Mr. Atkinson, as far as his MS. goes,
appears to have given no attention to the origin and evolution of totem
names, totem groups, and totem kins. Thus he writes, ' the presence of the
offspring of the outside suitor in the formerly purely consanguine circle
will be recognised.' But if the heterogeneity in the circle was only
recognised as marked by female descent, and by the totem name of the
female mate from without, Tnale parentage of ' the children of the outside
suitor ' would not come into the purview of customary laws, would not
cause the ' cleavage into two intermarriageable clans,' or ' phratries.' There
was no such ' cleavage,' as we have argued, and the permission of cross-
cousin marriage is due (I suspect), not to such early legal recognition of
male descent, but simply to the natural working of the totemic exogamy,
plui female descent.
Mr. Atkinson's theory of ' cleavage,' it will be remarked, does not
involve the idea that the members of an 'undivided commune,' being
pricked in conscience, bisected it for reformatory purposes. He merely
suggests that his clients found, in their group, persons marriageable ac-
cording to their existing rules of the game, and married them. But these
persons are, according to him, recognised as the offspring of 'outside
suitors ' male, and are also recognised as cousins, on the female side, though
even now no name for cousins exists in Australian society. This involves
counting both on the male and female sides, which, in practice, may have
occurred, But the theory of Mr. Atkinson avoids all the problems of the
different totemic names given both to the born members of his original
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE 261
Thus did the custom of paternal incest disappear, and so
completely as not to leave a trace of its passage in recognised
usage among actual peoples. But as an unauthorised habit
it long existed, nay, it still lurks, and as such it is probably
much more common among the lowest classes of even most
civilised peoples than is generally imagined. The continual
domiciliary propinquity of such close relatives makes the
crime easy ^ and detection difScult. Amidst the savage
races, although rare, it is by no means unknown. It is not
a crime by the laws of totem kinship with female descent,
the daughter in such a case being always of the same totem
as her mother, and thus theoretically eligible. The only bar
is the classificatory system which, based on sequence in birth,
forbids aU connection between those of different generations.
Thus this form of incest, when it does occur, in no way
creates the utter horror which we find universal at any union
between brother and sister. An old native chief whom I
questioned on the matter certainly spat with disgust at the
idea, but again, to my own knowledge, a case occurred where
a girl bore a child to her own father, and when the fact was
mentioned among the people, it only caused coarse laughter.
It is true that in this case the culprit was a great chief — it
is possible that there would have been more adverse comment
if he had been a commoner. It is certain that the betrayal
group, and to other members thereof, consisting of the offspring of the
outside suitors. If totemic group names already existed, these suitors
must have been of many totem group names. Whence, then, came the two
different and distinct totemic group names of the two sets of cross-cousins
— now phratries on Mr. Atkinson's theory t
Give his original group a name, say Emu. With Totemism it will con-
tain captive wives of various groups, say Bat, Cat, Rat. It will also
contain outside suitors, probably of the same names. These men are
allowed to marry women of the group, and, by Mr. Atkinson's theory, the
offspring of these unions, or 'cross-cousins,' are allowed to marry the
children of their aunts within the group. There are thus, within the
group, two intermarrying ' sides of the house,' veve, as in Melanesia. But
why or how do these sides of the house, practically phratries, now receive
totemic names, say Tungaru and Wutaru, or Wolf and Raven t Perhaps
Mr. Atkinson would have replied, ' by a mere extension of the habit of
adopting totemic names,' which, of course, involves the pre-existence of
that habit. — A. L.
' But not tempting, according to Dr. Westermarck I — A. L.
262 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
of the vested interests of the future husband (for in New
Caledonia all children are betrothed at a very early age)
would have been more resented in the latter case. But
license in sexual intercourse within forbidden relationships
seems everywhere the privilege of irresponsible rank, if we
may judge by the Kalmuck proverb, ' Great folk and the
beasts marry where they please.'
However, its occurrence in such cases may be traced to
sources which show that here the exception proves the rule.
Indeed, the fact of its occurring almost solely among the
higher classes [as among the Incas], points clearly to a probable
connection with an idea of pride of race, or a question of in-
heritance. Now we may note that with descent in the female
line the right of direct succession to the paternal name, or
place of power, or property, is not in the gift of a father.
The only legal conveyers of the blood right within him are
females in whose veins is to be found that same blood, i.e. his
mother and sisters. However regal a personage his child
by a foreign woman, it is cut off from that heritage, nor
in connection with this offspring can pride of race find a
place. Thus, then, we may understand how vmion, although
illegal, with a sister was so frequent in, and even enjoined on,
the royal race amidst certain peoples. The purity of the
royal blood thus alone remained intact, and from a king was
bom a king. For it is a remarkable fact which must be
more than a coincidence that amongst these very peoples,
such as the ancient Egyptians, Persians, and Peruvians,
whose rulers were addicted to the habit, female descent was
the custom [?]. At least I am not personally acquainted with
any exception to the rule. In consonance with this descent
through females only and where any approach has been made
to gynsecocracy, we shall expect to find that there would be
only one legal wife. Such was indeed the case also in Ancient
Egypt, there is no instance of two consorts given in any of
the inscriptions. This fact, taken in connection with that
which conduced to incestuous union under this form of
descent, invites us to make a digression in a curious reflection,
not however entirely foreign to our general theme. For the
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE 263
same eiFect as regards inheritance on the offspring which
would be produced by union with a sister, would also occur
in marriage with a daughter whose parents had been them-
selves brother and sister. Thus we may guess the lineage of
the unknown mother of the great royal wife Nefer-ari,
daughter and consort of the Pharaoh of the oppressive
Rameses the Great. This daughter had, in fact, been pro-
bably chosen among others for wife precisely because her
mother had herself been both his sister and his wife.^
We may now renew our affirmation that paternal incest
as a custom, is no longer generally recognised anywhere.
The primitive unquestioned marital right in incest is quite
unknown. It has disappeared, and so completely have even
traces of its past general occurrence faded, that doubts of the
reality of the fact may be pardonably entertained. The
question is of importance in connection with our thesis, for
as may be seen the whole theory of the primal law is based
on the idea of its primitive imiversal prevalence. We hope,
however, to have shown the inherent possibility of the fact as
being a habit common to all the mammalia — and it has
seemed against reason to suppose that man's ancestor, whilst
in the animal stage, would be an exception to so general a
rule. Our ftirther argument has adduced circumstances in
favour of a final decay so complete that oblivion could not
but follow.
Perhaps not the least remarkable fact to the anthropologist
in connection with its life and death, is that only as between
a father and a daughter, of aU blood relationships, do we
find no trace among actual peoples of any law in Avoidance.
The fact is significant, as we may thus surmise that the
process of decay was very long delayed, in fact to a time
when such inchoate form of law as Avoidance had become an
archaism, or until general progress had rendered any law un-
necessary.
' It will be interesting to see if research will bring to light the fact
that even with so irresponsible and imperious a dynasty as the Ramesids
some form of lustration was not considered necessary in the event of such
unions. This is the case with the people of Madagascar under similar
circumstances.
264 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER VII
TRACES OF PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES
Survivals in custom testify to a long period of transition from group to
tribe. — Stealthy meetings of husband and wife. — Examples. — Evidence
to a past of jealousy of incestuous group sire. — Evidence from Tekno-
nymy. — Husband named as father of his child. — Formal capture as a
symbol of legal marriage. — Avoidance between father-in-law and son-
in-law. — Arose in stage of transition. — Causes of mother-in-law and
son-in-law avoidance. — Influence of jealousy. — Examples. — Mr. Tyler's
statistics. — Resentment of capture not primal cause of this avoidance.
^Note on avoidance.
With a custom so deeply ingrained as incest would be in the
nature of man's ancestor, still doubtless vastly animal, we
may indeed surmise that the process of its decay was long
and tedious. The temptation, as we have said, to such easy
procuration of a mate in comparison with the danger and
comparatively scanty results of capture, was very great, whilst
the continual propinquity of father and daughter would tend
to constant recrudescence, especially in default of any trace
of law against it. There must, then, evidently have been a
transition era of vast durance, between the type of the
isolated consanguine group whose only resoiu-ce in matrimony
was exogamic hostile capture, as the outcome of the incestuous
lust of its solitary male head, and the all-embracing tribe
composed of an aggregation of several groups, and possessing
thus ipso facto all the necessary elements of an endogamic
connubium quite incompatible with such incest. In such a
tribe, a group of women in many cases formed the pivotal
centre, and capture was often found only as a form in survival.
Is it possible to retrace the main features of an epoch of such
evident importance in social evolution ? In view of the fact
PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES 265
that, in the past course of our argument, such law as would
seemingly have been necessarily evolved in regulation of each
step in primitive progress has been found identical in form
with some actual savage custom, may not a deeper investiga-
tion of savage custom disclose further co-ordination, and
prove equally fertile in interpretation of the past ? Whilst,
again, many obscure observances in actual lower life, in con-
sonance with such archaic genesis, may take a rational form,
though the origin seems apparently lost for ever.
Such research ■«dll, I think, clearly show that many social
features in modern savage habit afford internal evidence that,
as a fact, they could only have arisen in such a transition era.
They also bear marks of a very lengthened evolutionary
process, and thus confirm the natural idea of a halt of
portentous length at the threshold of the present haven
of comparative social rest. We shall doubtless find that
the door left ajar by the entrance of the outside suitor
was not to yield further with ease to the pressure of
new needs, half-hearted as men would be, from the conserva-
tive force of old ideas, of incest and entire masculine domi-
nance.
There is, for instance, one curious trait in actual savage
custom which evidently dates from a very early stage of
this epoch. It is that of the strange forms of 'stealthy'
intercourse, being the indispensable preliminary symbols of
the legality of an after marriage between the resident female
of a group and an outside male. These forms are well
known to anthropologists as occmrring among many lower
peoples. Here we find that the visits of the male suitor are
supposed to be distinctly clandestine, taking place only by
night, although in reality the fact is perfectly in the cogni-
sance of the whole group. Now such fugitive and secret
meetings are exactly what would have taken place when a
group had arrived at a stage in which, although filial incest
was decaying as a custom, there were still recognised certain
marital rights over his daughter by the living father ; when,
in fact, tolerance of the presence of the outsider was yet in a
266 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
tentative stage — and he was still regarded with suspicion, if
not disfavour.'
In consonance with the view we have advanced of the
circumstances attending the entry of an immigrant suitor, it
has seemed to ensue that his position would have been quite
dependent, and himself considered as a foreign element.
That such was actually the case seems again proved by
another trait in modem custom, whose genesis, however, was
of very much later date, and when speech had made some
progress. In our own day clandestine intercourse, as above
described, may continue to pregnancy. On the birth of the
child alone does the father become recognised as part of the
group. But even so his nomenclatory power ^.s regards his
offspring is absolutely nil. Far from giving a name to the
child, his own is taken from his offspring. Till now, in fact,
he has been nameless ; in future he wiU be known as the father
of so-and-so, of Telemachus, in the case of Odysseus. To
this point we will, however, have to return when we arrive at
the question of the evolution of personal descent from that of
descent recognised by locality, which we consider to have been
the most primitive form. [Mr. Atkinson probably means
descent from a local group, say Crow, not descent denoted
by a place name, as ' de Rutherford.']
There is another trait in actual custom which also could
only have acquired its most remarkable features in this era of
change, and that is hostile capture itself, in its legacy of those
' forms ' of captvure which we find connected with more peace-
ful connubium all over the world. Such ' forms ' have rightly
been considered as mere survivals, and thus in agreement with
our own theory capture is generally accepted as the earliest
form of outside marriage.^ But in some minds the brutality
necessarily attending real captiure, and its occurrence solely
' Well-known instances of this marital shyness are the Spartan and Red
Indian usage of only entering the wife's bower, or wigwam, under cover of
darkness. There are also Fijian and New Caledonian cases (Crawley,
pp. 39-40). Mr. Crawley would regard these as cases of ' sexual tabu,'
but various other cases may be readily conjectured. — A. L.
^ See Note at the end of chap. V.
PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES 267
among very low races with whom any idea of sexual restraint
is expected to be quite unfamiliar, has simply connected the
process with the general lawlessness which, amongst such
peoples, is supposed to characterise the relations between the
sexes. Its occurrence in form of survival among higher races
has been considered a meaningless ceremony, and its evident
symbolism in legality dismissed as incredible. Students are,
however, aware how much in error is the idea of utter law-
lessness in connection with the marriage relationships of any
savage race. On the contrary, as is well known, the list of
prohibited kindred is not only much wider than our own, but
no stage in the marital arrangements is without irksome and
minute legislative restraints, strictly limiting and defining
the rights of each individual, male and female.
To other minds the fact that a 'hostile capture,' pre-
senting as its most characteristic feature an utter violence,
should ever have been constituted into a symbol of legality
in marriage, has given rise to much perplexity. Mr.
McLennan in fact remarks — ' It is impossible to believe
that the mere lawlessness of savages should be consecrated
into a legal symbol ' — an assertion which we may accept,
however little we are prepared to accept his general views
on early society. It is evident that the whole difficulty
has arisen from the apparent complete incompatibility of a
seeming method in violence with a virtual act in law. The
hypothesis we have presented of the 'primal law,' and its
exogamous sequel, would seem however to throw a new
light on the matter. All unions within the group being
by the action of primal law, as we have shown, con-
sidered incestuous and illicit, marriage could only take place
with an outside mate. The presence of a captured female
within the camp would thus, as we see, actually constitute in
itself a proof, and the only one possible at the epoch, of the
legal consummation of marriage as ordained by the primal
law. It is thus easy to see how a form of capture should be
retained as a symbol of legality in later connubium. Its
continued vitality results from the intense conservatism of
268 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
lower peoples, and from the fact of the halo of prowess that
sirrrounds it*
Its evolution as a symbol only arose, however, when,
during the transition era, by the conjunction of groups
into a tribe, friendly unions were possible. It would not
have occurred with the earliest forms of horde, for these were
isolated and hostile, and real capture itself was the sole form
of marriage ; nor would it have occurred with that later
type, in which, with matriarchal descent, the relative positions
of males and females were reversed, as far at least as suit in
union is concerned.^ It took its rise with that other great
type of group characterised by patriarchal descent, which
in all the after history of the world (for, as we shall see, their
evolution was coincident and had for cause the same factor)
was to dispute supremacy with that which accepted uterine
descent. Here, as in the original t3rpe, the male continued to
preserve his predominance and continued its traditions of
capture.^
There remain other actual traits whose connection with
this era is equally evident. For instance, avoidance between
father-in-law and son-inJaw could not have had its genesis
in the very earliest type of assembly. Whilst parental incest
ruled as the custom, each group must have been isolated from
and hostile to every other. These two could never have been
in habitual presence one of the other. But, again, the habit
could not have arisen in the later form, as represented by a
tribal horde with uterine descent, as primitively composed of
' With the consequent accession of power to the resident female thus
accruing, capture would have become more rare. In any case it would
certainly become connected in the minds of the more advanced and power-
ful tribes with the rape of women, other than their own, and probably
inferior in type, mentally and physically ; the comparison of this degraded
captive in their midst with their own free females would not be at all
likely to have led in connection with her to any spontaneous idea of
symbolic consecration in marriage, or aught else.
2 When two groups, despite the isolating tendency of the habit of
capture, did at length form a union sufficiently close to permit of marriage
by consent between the respective group members, then, with capture as
regards outsiders still rife amongst them, we can understand how the
symbol would come to be attached to the peaceful connubium.
PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES 269
only two intermarrying groups, each of which formed a clan
distinguished by a different totem emblem.^ The relative
clan-relationship of each member of the horde would, by the
aid of this distinctive totem, be distinctly defined, and, with
female descent, the father-in-law and son-in-law would find
themselves members of the same clan [phratry]. As thus
being both males and of the same ' phratry,' there could not
possibly be avoidance or enmity, real or simulated, between
them.^ By all the sacred ties of blood [phratry] they were
conjoined in offence and in defence. Further, where descent
is uterine we find that the disposal of a daughter is in the
hands of the mother or maternal uncle alone — the father has
no voice whatever in the question, nor any part in her value
as an object of barter or sale. Thus he is perfectly disin-
terested in the matter of his children. So far from being in
disunion with his son-in-law, his sympathies, in case of a
tribal quarrel, would be certainly with him. But the
yoimger man, in internal quarrels, might be found fighting
to the death with his own real father, not (as I have seen it
stated in mention of just such an incident) ' becai^se he has
become part of his wife's clan,* which could never be, but
because, with descent through the female, his father would
be a member of the difFerent group and of other blood to
himself, and to his father-in-law also.
The genesis of this particular avoidance (father-in-law
and son-in-law) took place during that stage of the transition
era, when, incest still lingering, the immigrant suitor was so
far acknowledged that his entry into a group was not always
delayed tiU the death of his proposed father-in-law. As they
were thus possible rivals there was a chance of friction, only
to be averted by the law in question. Avoidance would
' ' Phratries ' are here meant, where the word ' clan ' is used, or local
totem groups. — A. L. Cf. Note, p. 260.
2 The exact relation of each to the females being defined by the classi-
ficatory system by generations.
' As mentioned by Tylor.
* Here I really do not know what ' clan ' is meant to denote — ' phratry,'
I think.— A. L.
270 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
arise at the same time between mother-in-law and son-in-law,
but this time as a measure of protection for the marital rights
of the husband of the former. ^ It could not have arisen
in the early Cyclopean era. The son-in-law as such, could
evidently not have had existence when the mother's daughter
was the father's wife, nor, later, when, with the general recog-
nition of the classifactory system, there arose a strict inter-
diction of sexual imion between members of different genera-
tions. There would in such circumstances be no further risk
of danger from the jealousy of a father as regards his wife,
and the husband of his daughter. It had its origin in the
fact that when the outside suitor had originally been granted
entry, it would only have been after the death of the patriarch
sire, and as a mate for his widowed females. But as these
would include both mother and daughter, there would thereby
be created a precedent, so to speak, which required regulation,
when later, with the decay of incest, the living father remained
in presence. In fact, avoidance between mothers-in-law and
sons-in-law defined fathers-in-law's rights.
We may here again note another step in advance to purely
human attributes in the fresh distinction between female and
female, which has now again arisen as between a mother and her
daughter as regards the immigrant suitor. But whereas with
these, as indeed with most of the cases of avoidance we have
studied, sexual jealousy has been the primary cause, we may
now trace the action of quite another factor, which would
certainly tend to a conservation of the habit, and in a manner
intensify it. This would be association of idea with hostile
capture.
As regards the father-in-law, however, the custom, as far
as capture is concerned, would not occur with female descent,
for the reasons we have already given of clan kinship in such
a case. It might, however, be found as a factor to a certain
extent with male kinship, for here it is the father-in-law who
is of the same clan as his daughter, and thus interested in her
' See Mr. Crawley's ' Sexual tabu ' theory of this avoidance, Mystio
Rose, pp. 399-414.— A. L.
PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES 271
negotiable value. Thus it is possible to imagine enmity
between him and her possible captor, who is also of a different
clan from himself. As regards avoidance of mother-in-law it
has again, perhaps, been accentuated by forcible capture.
The effect, however, in relation to descent would be exactly
the reverse of that with the father. With early male descent
in the primitive tribe as composed of only two clan groups
Qphratries], it is she who would be of the same stock as her
daughter's husband, and the habit would not arise, the
captor is, in fact, a member of the tribe from which she her-
self has been stolen ; although later, when more than two
clans were conjoined,^ it might happen that her son-in-law
belonged to another, and here there might arise feelings of
animosity. With uterine descent the case is certainly altered.
As a mother, and as member of a clan different from that of
the male suitor, the figure of the son-in-law might be dreaded
as a possible captor of her daughter and other young female
members. But here again a difficulty arises, for when the
capture becomes an accomplished fact, the mother-in-law and
son-in-law would probably not meet again, at least in primi-
tive times : he belonging to the group having patriarchal
descent, with captmre as the rule ; she, to the matriarchal,
where the female is normally immobile, between which two
forms of group no friendly intercotu-se could occur. The
fact of avoidance in any form presumes contiguity or the
habitual presence of the individuals concerned, and this in such
a case could not arise. So as in Tylor's figures we find that
in W to H, as the latter is completely cut off from his
family, there is not one single case of avoidance between the
wife and the husband's relatives. It is evident that the same
rarity of contiguity must have arisen also with the father in
male descent ; there is here certainly cause of disagreement
in the rape, but if the parties see each other no more there
would be no necessity of evolution of avoidance to mark the
fact. Indeed, I cannot help thinking that the importance of
' Apparently ' clans ' here = totem kins, Mr. Atkinson seems to think
that totem kins kept on being added to the two original ' phratries.'— A. L.
272 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
association with hostile capture has been much exaggerated
as a factor in the evolution of Avoidance. The question of
' residence ' and ' descent ' has not been held sufficiently in
account by those who insist on the capture as the sole cause
of avoidance. Despite the eminence of the authors favoiu-ing
this view, I would venture to submit that the balance of
proof would much favour sexual jealousy, which we have
heretofore found the sole motive power in all changes.
Those who would uphold anger roused by capture as the
cause of avoidance with the wife's relatives, for instance,
must be prepared to show that it would be strongest with the
one who was most deeply interested in the wife, one whose
voice in her destiny was of greater power than her own
mother's, and that was her maternal uncle, the head of her
clan. Now I have failed as yet to find a single trace of such
a case as avoidance between the latter and his sister's
daughter's husband.
Again, jealousy, or a desire for regulations in matters of
sexual union, will explain certain details in the accounts we
have received of individual cases which seem otherwise
obscure or irrelevant. These have been overlooked, as they
are minute, but from my point of view are full of significance
when closely examined. Mr. Lubbock says,^ quoting Franklin
as to American Indians : ' It is extremely improper for a
mother-in-law to speak or even look at him, i.e. her son-in-
law.' Quoting Baegert : ' The son-in-law was not allowed
for some thne to look into the face of his mother-in-law.'
Further, ' among the Mongols a woman must not speak to
her faiher-in-law, nor sit down in his presence. Among the
Ostiaks, Une fille marlee evite autant qu'il lui est possible la
presence du pere de son mari tant qu'elle n'a pets d'enfcmt, et
le mari pendant ce temps rCose pas paraitre devant la m^re de
sa Jemme ' (Pallas). In China the father-in-law after the
wedding-day never sees the face of his daughter-in-law again,
he never visits her, and if they chance to meet he hides him-
self Among the Kaffirs a married woman is required to
' Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 13 et neq.
PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES 273
hlonipa ' her father-in-law, and all her husband's male rela-
tions in the ascending line, i.e. to be cut off from all inter-
course with them.
Again, in Australia, it is compulsory on the mothers-
in-law to avoid the sight of their sons-in-law, by making
the former take a very circuitous route on all occasions, to
avoid being seen, and they hide the face or figure with
the rug which the female carries with her. So strict is the
rule, that if married men are jealous of any one, they some-
times promise to give him a daughter in marriage. This
places the married man's wife, according to custom, in the
position of mother-in-law, and renders any communication
between her and her futtu-e son-in-law a capital crime.^ Also
among the Sioux or Dacotas, Mr. Philander Prescott remarks
on the fear of uttering certain names. The father and
mother-in-law must not call their son-in-law by name, and
vice versa, and there are other relationships to which the
prohibition applies. He has known an infringement of this
rule punished by cutting the offender's clothes off his back
and throwing them away. Harmon says ' that among the
Indians east of the Rocky Mountains it is indecent for the
father or mother-in-law to look at or speak to the son or
daughter-in-law.' Among the Yakuts, Adolf Erman noticed
a more peculiar custom. As in other northern regions the
custom of wearing but little clothing in the hot stifling interior
of the huts is common there, and the women often go about
their domestic work stripped to the waist, nor do they object
to this disarray in the presence of strangers ; but there are
two persons before whom a Yakut woman must not appear
in this guise, her father-in-law and her husband's elder
brother. Again, quoting J. G. Wood, he says the native
term for these customs of avoidance is, ' being ashamed of
the mother-in-law.' The Basuto custom forbids a wife to
' Hhmvpay to avoid mention of his name^ &o.
'^ Origim, of Civiliiatim, p. 14. Lubbock quoting 'Report of Select
Committee on Aborigines,' Vict. 1859, p. 73. Tylor, Early History of Man-
kind, p. 288.
T
274 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
look in the face of her father-in-law till the birth of her first
child — and among the Banyai a man must sit with his knees
bent in presence of his mother-in-law, and must not put out
his feet towards her.
Now an important circumstance to be remarked in nearly
all cases of Avoidance is, that it principally exists between
people of different sexes, — thus an a priori inference may be
drawn that the primary cause lay in some relation to the sexual
question. It is significant that a woman's avoidance of her
husband's relations is with those in the ascending line, i.e. with
his seniors. Against his juniors he can defend himself, against
his seniors he needs the protection of law. In the cases we
have cited, it is significant that, besides the father-in-law,
hlonipaed among the Kaffirs, the woman must fdonipa all her
husband's male relations in the ascending line. Among the
Yakuts she must not appear unclothed before her husband's
elder brother.
Among the Veddahs of Ceylon a father will not see his
daughter, nor a mother her son, after they have come to
years of maturity.^
If we examine the words italicised in the quotations above,
they seem to convey more nearly an idea of impropriety in
any approach to intimacy than that of ' cutting ' from
enmity, as Dr. Tylor has suggested. Indeed, we observe
here just the same horror that a too familiar attitude
between forbidden kindred, as imcle and niece, would
excite amongst ourselves, arising from the same idea of
repugnance.
We see that various observers use the terms ' improper '
(Franklin), ' the fear of (P. Prescott), ' indecent ' (Harmon),
* cut off" from all intercourse with them,' and no doubt they
have ^ each expressed the impression made on themselves in
observation. We note again that the only case where the
' Among the Veddahs the fact that the avoidance begins after puberty,
and in each case in relation to the opposite sex, is evidence that here the
sexual feelings are concerned.
* Tylor, Early History of Mtm?dnd, p. 291.
PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES 275
native term in designation of the custom is given that it
means ' being ashamed.' The Hmit in time for the avoidance
is again significant. ' For some time,' Baegart says ; ' tant
qu'elle n'a pas d'enfant' (Pallas). ' Till the birth of the first
child.' These limitations in time would not exist if enmity
because of capture was the cause, whereas we can quite un-
derstand them if, the circumstances now proving the consum-
mation of marriage, jealousy might then be supposed to
cease. The reserve as to a too familiar attitude that this
idea of indecency would imply, is shown where a Mongol
daughter-in-law ' cannot sit down in the presence of the
father-in-law,' and where the Banyai man ' must not put out
his feet towards his mother-in-law, but sit with his knees,
bent in her presence.' In China it is the father-in-law who
hides himself, and this surely would hardly be the act of a
captor, nor can we imagine a man having his clothes cut ofF
his back simply because he had not 'cut' some one
sufBciently.
However, in connection with our argument we have Adolf
Erman's account of the custom among the Yakuts, and where
we find the husband's elder brother joined with the father-
in-law in an avoidance, there a distinct feeling of impro-
priety in connection with these relations in law of the wife is
indicated. The diffidence cited is exactly what would occur
if union was undesirable and yet not impossible, between the
persons in avoidance, and hence temptation was to be avoided.
It is very important to note that no idea of enmity from
capture can be associated with the husband's elder brother.
Again, the custom of avoidance with an elder brother, where
its connection with jealousy is evident, is very widespread,
and very strict in observance ; as we have already noted, it
occm-s in Orissa and among the Kyonthas in India, Avhilst I
have also observed it in practice in New Caledonia, where
it is most undoubtedly a means to an end, to protect the
younger brother's marital rights. As to the significance of
the fact mentioned in the case of the natives of Australia,
where, as regards their wives, they are jealous of a man —
t2
276 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
and give him a daughter to place him in avoidance with her
mother, comment is unnecessary.
These facts seem to me to be conclusive ; but the question
of the exact origin of avoidance is so important to my general
argument, that I am glad to be able to find what I fancy is
added proof from another source. If this furnishes the
requisite evidence, that sexual jealousy was the real 'factor,
and not hostile captiu-e, our hypothesis of the primal law
acquires valuable inferential evidence in its favour. Such
added proof we hope to be able to show in Dr. Tylor's
figures.'
Theory as
practice
-
In Residence, H to W : 65
Avoidance H to W relations
Avoidance W to H relations
In Residence, W to H :
Avoidance W to H relations
Avoidance H to W relations
(a) 9 cases
3 „
5 „
18 „
(b) 14 cases
„
8 „
9 n
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
These figures, which are extracted from Dr. Tylor's work,
would seem to be eloquent against hostile capture being the
sole cause of Avoidance. They are derived from a comparison
of Avoidance as occurring, (a) quite independent of residence,
and (b) as actually resulting where coincidence of Avoidance
and residence is foimd.
Now as regards the question of jealousy as cause of
Avoidance, residence and propinquity will evidently have a
powerful effect.
(A) As we have seen, any Avoidance under these circum-
stances would be remarkable without a prior stage in quite
other conditions than those found generally with H to W
residence. We note that whereas we might expect under
even the above conditions to find only 9, there are 14.
Here sexual jealousy has been an important cause.
' E. B. Tylor. On a method of investigating the development of in-
stitutions: applied to laws of marriage and descent. J. A. I. 1889, xviii.
No. 3, 245-269.
PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES 277
The Avoidance of the Mother-in-law (for, of course, there
was none here with father-in-law, who was a nonentity in such
a family circle, and of the same clan as the son-in-law) arose
as a matter of protection for the marital rights of the
daughter as against her mother, both inhabiting the same
large house common to matriarchal descent.
(B) Here, again, we expect to find 3, and see there
are actually none, from which it would seem to result that
W capture had nothing whatever to do with the origin of
A, H to W, for, admitting the almost entire separation of
the W from H family, which would make the case rarer, a
tradition of capture would exist which would have effect
when they were later grouped together. Whereas the non-
Avoidance is explained by lack of jealousy, from absence of
male relations of H.
(C) Here it is again quite impossible to accept any idea
of W capture as the motive cause. Avoidance arose between
W and father-in-law to protect rights of son-in-law and
mother-in-law. It was evolved, as we have seen, as a
measure of protection for that generation of males who were
the actual captors, each generation by the classificatory
system having individual rights. That the necessity for
such legislation was urgent we see in the proportion of the
figures 5 to 8.
Here, again, the fallacy of capture as primal cause of
Avoidance is clearly evident. If this was the case, we might
expect it to be almost universal, whereas in reality, instead of
the 18 ceises which the average should give us, we find only 9.
It really had its origin in the reason we have already given,
of sexual jealousy as a primary cause, and was later augmented
as serving to impress on many the classificatory distinction
between M and D, who otherwise, as far as totems went,
were eligible to the same person. Where both father-in-law
and mother-in-law are in avoidance, we may surmise a
change in descent from the F to the M in the tribe, the con-
verse change of M to F of course never occurring. The
question of change of descent will explain problems in the
278 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
nomenclature of Morgan's tables as regards nephews and sons,
which have been overlooked.'
NOTE TO CHAPTER VII
Mr. Crawley reckons three interpretations of the origin of the
avoidance of mother-in-law and son-in-law. 1. Fison (Kamilaroi
and Kumai, p. 103), ' It is that the rule is due to a fear of inter-
course which is unlawful, though theoretically allowed on some
classificatory systems.' Mr. Crawley remarks, ' this explanation
is the one most likely to occur to explorers who have personal
knowledge of savages,' which was Mr. Atkinson's case. Mr.
Crawley objects the antecedent improbability of any man, 'not
to mention a savage, ever falling in love with a woman old
enough to be his mother or mother-in-law, and the improbability
of so many peoples being afraid of this.' Now 'in love ' is one
thing, and an access of lust is another. Moreover, the mother-
in-law,- in prospective, not infrequently is her daughter's rival,
even in modern life. She has to be guarded against, even if the
son-in-law is less dangerous. And he is very apt to be 'a
general lover.' ' Theoretically the mother-in-law is marriageable
in many systems,' says Mr. Crawley, ' and so there would be no
incest . . . ' But Mr. Atkinson is not contemplating the
danger of incest as the cause of mother-in-law avoidance ; his
theory postulates jealousy — that of the mother-in-law's husband,
and, for what it is worth, that of the mother-in-law's daughter.
Mr. Crawley's objection, I think, does not invalidate Mr. Atkin-
son's theory ; especially as he does not reflect that the possible
mother-in-law may have a caprice for her son-in-law, while the
would-be son-in-law, less frequently, may follow the course of
Colonel Henry Esmond.
2. Sir John Lubbock's (Lord Avebury's) theory, of enmity
caused by capture, Mr. Atkinson has dealt with ; it is rejected
by Mr. Crawley.
3. Mr. Tylor's theory (Jom-nal Anthrop. hutitute, xviii. 247,
' The matter here is highly technical, and must be compared, if it is
to be understood, with Mr. Tylor's essay, cited in the previous note. W
stands for Wife, H for Husband, D is Daughter, F is Female, M is Mother,
and is also Male 1 A is Avoidance. — A. L.
PERIOD OF TRANSITION— AVOIDANCES 279
is that of ' cutting ' ' an outsider/ not one of the family, not
recognised till his first child is born. For various reasons, Mr.
Crawley rejects this explanation, rightly, I venture to think.
Mr. Crawley holds that the mother-in-law avoidance 'seems to
be causally connected with a man's avoidance of his own wife,'
which he regards as only one aspect of the tabu between the two
sexes, superstitiously regarded as dangerous to each other. But,
like Mr. Atkinson, I much doubt whether the 'avoidance,' as
far as it goes, of husband and wife is, in the main, the result of
this superstition, though it plays its part on special occasions, as
before the women sow the crops, and before the men go forth to
war. Mr. Crawley's suggestion that, as husband and wife are
perpetually breaking the alleged sexual tabu, the mother-in-law
becomes ' a substitute to receive the onus of tabu,' ' a good
instance of savage make-believe ' does not carry conviction. Mr.
Atkinson's theory seems 'as good as a better' (Mystic Rose, pp.
400-414).— A. L.
280 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER VIII
THE CLAS8IFICAT0RY SYSTEM
The classificatory system. — The author's theory is the opposite of Mr.
Morgan's, of original brother and sister marriage.— That theory is based
on Malayan terms of relationship.— Nephew, niece, and cousin, all
named ' sons and daughters.' — This fact of nomenclature used as an
argument for promiscuity. — The author's theory. — The names for
relationship given as regards the group, not the individual. — The
names and rules evolved in the respective interests of three generations.
— They apply to food as well as to marriage. ^ — Each generation is a
strictly defined class.— Terms for relationship indicate, not kinship, but
relative seniority and rights in relation to the group. — The distinction
of age in generations breaks down in practice. — Methods of bilking the
letter of the law. — Communal marriage. — Outside suitors and cousinage.
— The fact of cousinage unperceived and unnamed. — Cousins are still
called brothers and sisters ; thus, when a man styles his sister's son
his son, the fact does not prove, as in Mr. Morgan's theory, that his
sister is his wife. — Terms of address between brothers and sisters. —
And between members of the same and of different phratries. — ^These
corroborate the author's theory. — Distinction as to sexual rights
yields the classificatory system. — Progress outran recognition and
verbal expression. — Errors of Mr. Morgan and Mr. McLennan. — Con-
clusion.— Note. — ' Group marriage.'
In the gradual evolution of the group into the tribe during
the long period of transition, the modifications in the internal
organisation, which took place as the necessary result in the
march in progress, should have left traces which we may also
be able to follow in living custom. The immigration ot
the outside suitor, in its synchronism with the decay of
paternal incest, must have entailed continual complications
demanding regulation, and the resolution of each problem
would lead to an almost mechanical step in advance. When
by force of circumstances of environment or others such a
step became retrograde, then we may expect an aberrant
THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 281
form whose very anomalism should lead to a facile recogni-
tion, and prove equally fertile in interpretation. Indeed, a
curious vestige of the effect in action of the habit of incest,
when brought into inevitable contact with progressive social
evolution, is to be discerned in the nomenclature of that
earliest phase of the classificatory system which Mr. L. H.
Morgan has called the Malayan. From the general prevalence
among lower races of a division into classes by generations
of the members of group, and the deduction we see drawn in
Ancient Society from the Hawaiian terms of relationship
therein detailed, as to a previous state of general promiscuity,
it wiU be desirable thoroughly to examine the whole question
of the so-called classificatory system. It is doubly imperative
in view of ova: own hypothesis, which, as regards the primary
origin of society, may be said to be exactly the reverse of
that of Mr. Morgan, in as far as the sexual inter-relations of
brother and sister are concerned.
We have tried to portray the imperative evolution of a
primal law £is the sole possible condition of the first steps in
social progress, a law which had so specially in view the bar
to sexual intercourse between a brother and sister that it
might, if a name for it were needed, be called the
(madelphogamous law. [Mr. Atkinson wrote ' asororogamic,'
which is really too impossible a word for even science to
employ.] Mr. Morgan, on the contrary, says,^ ' The primitive
or consanguine family was founded upon the inter-marriage
of brothers and sisters own and collateral in a group.' He
adds,^ ' The Malayan system defines the relationship that
would exist in a consanguine family, and it demands the
existence of such a family to account for its own existence.'
And again,^ ' It is impossible to explain the system as a
natural growth, upon any other hypothesis than the one
named, since this form of marriage alone can furnish a key
to its interpretation.' He bases his argument on the fact that *
'imder the Malayan system all consanguines, near and
^Ancient Society, p. 384, Lewis PI. Morgan. ' Ibid. p. 402.
= lUd. p. 409. ' Ibid. p. 385.
282 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
remote, fall within some one of the following relationships,
viz. parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, brother and sister
— no other blood relationships are recognised,' and says,
speaking of promiscuity, that ^ ' a man calls his brother's son,
his son, because his brother's wife is hk wife as well as his
brother's, and his sister's son is also his son because his sister is
his wife.'
Now that a brother's son should be called a son is quite
simple, as being a natural effect of the group marriage ot
brothers, the prevalence of which as a habit, and its effects,
MM. Lorimer and Fison so well show among the Austra-
lians.^ But that a sister's son should also be termed, by her
brother, a ' son ' is certainly a very different thing indeed,
despite Mr. McLennan's and other arguments to the contrary.
In this verbal detail lies the whole crux of the matter as
regards Mr. Morgan. That it should have given rise to such
diversity of opinion and suggested his theory of brother and
sister marriage need hardly be matter of smprise. For it is
at once evident that a group holding such nomenclature
ignored cousinship, even if it existed. To all later seeming
my sister's son must be nephew to ego quite necessarily.
That at any stage he should be unrecognised as such seems
the more astonishing, as even in the very early times when
totems first arose, and arose probably and precisely to dis-
tinguish cousins as such,' each cousin is of a different totem
' Ancient Society, p. 391, Lewis H. Morgan.
^ Kamilaroi a/nd Kwnai, Lorimer and Fison. Cf. note at end of
chapter. I have already stated my objections to the theory of 'group
marriage.' — A. L.
' ' Totems arose to distinguish cousins as such.' This implies that the
totem name was assigned to each group for a definite social purpose, the
regulation of degrees of kin. But, on any feasible theory of the ' totem '
it ' came otherwise,' and was only used as a mark of kinship after it had
come, just as a place name might have been used, had it been equally con-
venient. On the system of descent of the totem on the female side, A
(man), an Emu, marries B (woman), a Kangaroo. Their sons and
daughters are Kangaroos. C, one of the sisters, marries D, a Witchetty
Grub, her children are Kangaroos. E, C's brother, marries F, a Frog, his
children are Frogs, and may, as far as the totem rule goes, marry their
cousins, C's children, who are Kangaroos. — ^A. L.
THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 283
to the other, and thus not only eligible in marriage with
another cousin, but in many lower races the born spouse each
of the other. The whole question thus resolves itself into
the exact value of the term we find used in the Hawaiian
designation of the sister's son by her brother. Now it is
important to note that two causes might have for effect the
form of nomenclature in which a brother and sister each call
the child a son, and thus ignore a possible cousinship. One
cause is that some factor in self-interest or otherwise allowed
such relationship to remain unrecognised, although existent,
and another is that, as cousinship did not exist at all, there
could be no recognition, or, as Mr. Morgan puts it, ' his
sister's son is also his son because his sister is his wife.' To
determine which is correct certainly seems difficult, and the
whole thing has evidently been considered a most stubborn
fact for the opponents of promiscuity.
That Mr. Morgan should have seized it in support of his
theory, and that the theory should be so largely accepted, is
not astonishing. Happily the great value of his ensuing
argument as regards tribal development is in no way impaired
if it can be shown, as we hope to do, that there is no necessity
for an hypothesis of promiscuity to explain the terms in the
Malayan table, which apparent need seems primarily to have
led Mr. Morgan to evolve the idea of his primitive group. In
fact, it becomes evident that, if we can furnish a clue as to how
a sister's son came also to be a brother's son, without having
recourse to the theory of an incestuous union of brothers and
sisters, we at least discount the need of Mr. Morgan's ' con-
sanguine family,' in which such incest is supposed to be a
most characteristic and essential feature. We hope to prove
that the terms which misled him are more apparent than real
as proofs of any real affinity in blood, and that the original
conception in causal connection was something quite apart.
Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury) has observed that
the lower the milieu of a social status the less we see of the
individual and the more of the group. In the case before us
the individual as such does not exist at all, and there is only
284 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
question of the group in its relation to its component classes.
To confound one with the other led to Mr. Morgan's error.
There was much, in fact, in Mr> McLennan's shrewd
remark in criticism of Mr. Morgan's theory that 'he did not
seek the origin of the system of nomenclature in the origin of
the classification of the connected persons, and that he courted
failure in attempting to solve the problem by explaining the
relationships comprised in the system in detail.' \ But it seems
to me that Mr. McLennan fell into the same error when he
contented himself with the misleading analogies which a com-
parison with the Nair family system presented. These, how-
ever striking, are, as we shall find, simply the result of the
fact that class or communal marriage was the common trait
of the polyandrous and the Cyclopean family, nor can I see
that Mr. McLennan followed his own excellent advice as
regards the possible identity in origin of nomenclature and
classification ; if he had so done, his acute mind could not
have failed in a resolution of the whole problem, whereas his
final resume of the argument is in terms which I profess to
be quite unable to grasp.
Before entering into the matter ourselves, we must keep
in mind our affirmation as to the axiom which must, in my
opinion, guide us in all research into the hidden causes of
early social evolution. All innovations, as we have said, in
the regulation of society, all novel legislative procedure so to
speak, wiU be found to have relation to the sexual feelings in
jealousy. This already is the genesis of the primal law, and,
in each case of avoidance, we have found jealousy the leading
factor. It is the same in the case before us. Bearing this
in mind, let us then follow Mr. McLennan's advice as to
seeking the origin of the classification of connected persons.
Now what would be the family economy of the primitive
group, and who are its component individuals, whose in-
terests, in sexual matters, are likely to clash, and whose
mutual relationship in this respect demanded distinction in
furtherance of regulation of their respective rights ?
' Studies in Anoient History, McLennan, p. 269 et seq.
THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 285
The original primitive t)rpe of family, which we have
called 'the Cyclopean,' has disappeared, giving place to a
higher form, \<fhich, by the inclusion of male offspring, has
permitted the existence of several generations in presence.
The component individuals, speaking of one sex only, would
be old males, males, and young males representing three
generations. It is the interests of these generations, which,
in sexual matters and in choice of food, &c. would be likely
to clash, for we may be sure that the seniors, as with actual
savages, would desire the lion's share» Distinction then
being necessary, it would naturally, as with individuals, be
based on relativity of age, seniority within certain limits
confering priority. Thus gradually each generation, as
indeed with actual lower races, would, qua generation, come
to be a distinctly defined class with certain separate rights
and obligations. In this simple necessity of a classification
of the connected persons, we see the origin of the classificatory
system itself, as an institution. Divers interests, as between
seniors and juniors, demanded strict demarcation, and the
limits of a generation furnished the required lines to mark
them.
The very natural distinction by relativity of age was
simply, as with individuals, utilised as the requisite machinery
in regulation of mutual rights of the individual himself.
His rights are a matter of concern simply within his gene-
ration, in which the relation is purely paternal and communal,
with the sole reservation of rights conferred by seniority.
Even when later denominative expression was given to
the idea of a generation, terms almost identical of male, old
male, and young male are used, as there is no desire to convey
any idea of personal kinship, and there is merely in view
reference to relativity of age of a class in relation to the
group. Later, as Mr. McLennan says (p. 277) : ' What-
ever class names primitively signified, Kiki would come to
mean child, Kina parent, Moopuna grandchild, Kapuna
grandparent, but originally no such idea of kinship was in
view.' The classificatory system evolved itself simply as the
286 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
result of a desire to define certain rights, and the division by
generations was the most natural and feasible for the purpose.
But the very simplicity and paucity of the original terms
show that it was applied to any simple group form. In
fact, we are here dealing with that primitive form which bound
people together, by the mere tie of residence and locality,
and was purely exogamous in habit. Now when we consider
that this fixed relativity of age by generation was originally
evolved in view of the relations within such a family, we can
imagine that complications might arise from such arbitrary
definitions, when, later, this family expanded into the numeri-
cally large tribe composed of two intermarrying totem clan
groups [phratries].
Primitively, doubtless, as between the classes, the genetic
idea as regards sexual matters was (as still with savages in
questions of food) to favour the seniors and defend their rights
in defining each one's status. But actually, with the decay
of incest, it would become what it is as among lower races,
where nothing is more remarkable than the strict interdict
upon any union between members of different generations.'
It is evident that hence complications might arise per-
plexing to the savage mind. For instance, we may expect to
find cases where the niece is an adult, whilst the aimt is still
an infant, and yet marriage between the former and the son
of the latter is obligatory, as they are cousins of the same gene-
ration. Here, probably, we have a clue to one of the most
bizarre facts in anthropology, where the universal rule as to
sexual connection between generations seems to be wantonly
disobeyed, although in reality the reverse may be seen to be
the case on examination. It is recorded of the Keddies of
Southern India that a very singular custom exists among
them, a young woman of sixteen or twenty years of age may
be married to a boy of five or six years. She, however, lives
with some other adult mstle (perhaps a maternal uncle or
' The most distinctive feature to-day in the inter-relations of genera-
tions is a most strict ordinance to celibacy between members of different
generations.
THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 287
cousin), but is also allowed to form a connection with the
father's relatives, occasionally it may be the boy's father him-
self, i.e. the woman's father-in-law ! Should there be children
from these liaisons, they are fathered on the boy husband.
When the boy grows, the wife is either old or past child-
bearing, when he in tm-n takes some other boy's wife in a
manner precisely similar to that in his own case and pro-
creates children for the boy husband.
By the classifieatory system, as each in fact is a member of
the same generation, they are born husbands and wives. The
enforced virginity of the wife, implied under such conditions,
entailed a celibacy incompatible with all lower ideas. It is
easy to imagine the compromise between his conscience and
his desires which a savage would make in such a case when
favoured (or forced) by circumstances of environment, for it
is miknown elsewhere. The infant nephew goes through the
ceremony of marriage, which, by a fiction, being thus legally
consummated, the wife is left free to follow her desires. These,
however, are by no means allowed to run riot. They are
regulated in a fashion of which, although the peculiarity is
noted by the authors of the extract, the full significance can
only be appreciated in connection with our hypothesis. She
formed indeed connections outside of her husband, but solely
with those of the legally eligible totem. As I believe the
Keddies have male descent, these would be sons of the father's
sister, or sons of the mother's brother, or again with the latter
himself, who was her father-in-law, whereas union with the
sons of the father's brothers, or of the mother's sisters, as
being of the same totem, would not take place — and this we
■fiiid to be the actual fact, as evidence proves.
But still other complications will be found to arise as the
effect of the original concept of the classifieatory system
when brought face to face with new and advanced social
order, which will have closer relation to our present argument.
The distinctive feature in the economy of the primitive group
in its relation to all other groups was mutual hostility. The
instinctive distrust of strangers would be accentuated by the
288 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
habitual hostile capture of females, for such groups, except in
the case of the incest between father and daughter, were yet
purely exogaraous. But such mutual hostility implies isola-
tion of each community. Thus all law evolved, as we have
said, would be purely with a view to regulation of the in-
ternal economy of a single consanguine group alone. Now
in such a group, the division into generations of old male,
male, and young male implied (although not as yet under-
stood as between generations) the relationship of parents and
children. Each generation is either child or parent to the
other. As marriage is communal,' all the fathers in one
generation are fathers to all the children in the next indis-
criminately, and conversely these children recognise as fathers
aU the males of the senior generation. It follows that the
relationship of all the members of a generation is purely
fraternal, all are brothers and sisters to each other, and in
this consanguine family they were really either actually so,
or at least half brothers and half sisters.
Between these the primal law of celibacy between brother
and sister as such embraced the whole generation. Now as
long as the family was thus simply constituted, no friction
would arise. The brothers, in common, captured and married
in common some outside female,^ and their children consti-
tuted solely the next generation. The sisters were either
stolen or emigrated to other groups ; but we have seen that
a moment would come when this process ceased to be universal.
The sister came to remain in her own group, and she was
joined by some outside suitor ; with the advent of their
children, who are cousins to the others, would arise dire per-
plexities, in view of the old law.
We may now begin to see more distinctly, in the fact of
the presence of the cousins, the resolution of the problem as
to how a sister's son came to be also a brother's, and we will
find that Mr. Morgan was not the first to be baffled by the
' How can marriage be communal, granting Mr. Atkinson's views about
sexual jealousy 1 — A. L.
' Where is sexual jealousy ? — A. L.
THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 289
problem. It was too intricate for primitive man at any rate.
When first presented to him, we may surmise that he, in fact,
refused to recognise it as a problem at all. Since the begin-
ning of things in the group, as constituted by all tradition, the
children of one generation were children of another simply,
and nothing more. That as a result of the presence of the
outside male, some intricate process of scission had occurred,
and things were not as they seemed, was an idea far too
abstract to be readily seized. All in a generation had been
ever, to early man, brother and sister, and brother and sister
they should continue.
We have seen in a past chapter that it was actually to
the interest of senior male group-members, while incest
reigned, that this condition of things should endure. It put
at their sole disposal the daughters of their brothers-in-law,
and in the primal law placed a ban on sexual intercourse
between all the younger male and female members, as consti-
tuting them brothers and sisters. As a factor in this case,
however, the effect of incest was more or less temporary.
The real agent in the tardy or non-recognition of the cousin-
ship thus created, was the conservative force of old habit and
tradition. We must remember that, in so early a group,
personal descent as such was in no way recognised. Mere
local contiguity alone constituted the sense of relationship,
exogamy for instance took the form of local exogamy, for as
all within a locality were (locally) relations, so all outside
were, as strangers, free in marriage. While then so strong a
sense of the value of contiguity continued, and was in practice,
the evolution of an idea of non-relationship of two individuals
with a common habitat would be too complex. Again, a
recognition in fact implies a vast modification of the whole
organisation of the group, which thus contains in cousins the
elements of marriage within itself. But this is the latest
and highest type of group and constitutes the tribe. We can
tmderstand that such a step was not taken at once by early
man. Even when recognised we know that definition lags
behind the event.
290 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Thus in such a case as cited, and at the stage we are
studying, if we find two cousins in presence, who are yet un-
recognised as cousins, then, if nomenclature has taken place,
we should find exactly the terms employed in the Malayan
table which misled Mr. Morgan. A sister's son would be
termed the brother's son, simply because the individual was
as yet ignored, although existent, as a cousin, as members of
the same generation they were brother and sister. Classes
by generations alone were recognised.
Now as regards the validity of our assumption that rela-
tivity in age served as a means to determine privilege as to
wedlock, proof can be furnished by certain nomenclatory
features, as between members of a class or generation, to be
found in the Malayan table in Ancient Society and else-
where. This will afford, incidentally, strong negative proof
of our theory as to non-imion between brother and sister. It
wiU also incidentally furnish the strongest negative evidence
that, so far from brother and sister living in incest, as
Morgan holds, brother and sister were regarded as quite
apart in the sense of any sexual relation between them. It
will be seen that there is a profound distinction made in
address between inter-marriageable people and those between
whom celibacy is enjoined.
Both Mr. Morgan and Mr. McLennaji have drawn at-
tention to the peculiarities in the terms of address as between
' brothers ' and as between ' sisters.' It is curious that the
full significance of the phenomena therein presented escaped
two such keen intellects. We find here that terms of address
as between persons of the same sex and of the same genera-
tion, and ergo brothers or sisters, present the very remarkable
features that
(1) ' The age of the person spoken to compared with that
of the speaker plays a very important part in the matter of
denomination.'
(2) ' Such names refer not to the absolute age of the
person addressed.'
(3) ' The relationships of brother and sister are conceived
THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 291
in the twofold form of elder and younger, and not in the
abstract, £ind there are special terms for each among the
Seneca Iroquois.'
(4) ' There is no name for brother and sister (Malayan
system). On the other hand, there are a variety of names for
use in salutations between "brother " and " sister " according to
the age and sex of the person speaking in relation to the age
and sex of the person addressed.'
(5) Among the Eskimo the form of the terms of relation-
ship appears to depend, in some cases, more on the sex of the
speaker than on that of the person to whom the term refers.^
(6) In Eastern Central Africa, if a man has a brother and
a sister, he is called one thing by the brother, but quite a
different thing by the sister.
We wiU now illustrate the idea more completely by
an extract of terms from the table of Hawaiian relationships
in Ancient Society. An older or a younger brother is to a
sister simply addressed or mentioned by the general term
Kaiku nana, but to her, in address or mention of an older or a
younger sister, they are respectively Kaik a'ana and Kaika-i-na.
Again, an older or a younger sister is to a brother collectively
Kaikuwaheena, but to him an elder or a younger brother is
respectively Kaiknana and Kaikaina.
Now in view of our argument as regards the origin of these
diversities in some sexual feelings, it is a nlost significant
feature in these details of the terms of address that the
expression of the relativity of age between the speakers is
confined solely to the intercourse between members of the
same sex. That a brother is the senior or the jimior of Ego
is carefiilly noted, but a sister is simply and vaguely a sister.
Why ? simply because whereas, by virtue of the primal law,
no possible question whatever of mutual interest in sexual
matters could possibly arise between a brother and a sister,
on the other hand friction might hourly occur between
brothers or between sisters. In fact, if our theory is correct,
then, as questions of sexual privilege or precedence could
cause -jealousy between members of the same sex, distinctions
u 2
292 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
would be necessary by definition of seniority when address
took place between these, and in these cases alone, and this
indeed we find to be the fact. As conclusive evidence we
would cite the further important fact that these very same
distinctions of senior and junior are used, inter se, between all
those of the same totem [phratry] as now existing, but are
never employed for their tribal cousins of the other totem
[phratry]. And the reason is the same. The latter
naturally do not marry (in groups formed of only two classes)
[phratries] into the same totem [phratry] as the former, and
thus there is no cause for jealousy or necessity of definition,
whereas individuals of the same totem [phratry] are ipsojacto
group [potential] husbands of the same group [potential]
wives, or are at least eligible in marriage with the same totem
groups [phratries], and hence necessity for the exact defini-
tion by age of each one's rights.
Thus, as with other laws or institutions we have traced,
we find a desire for distinction as regards rights in sexual
union to be the genetic cause of the classificatory system
both as regards the generation and its componerft members.
In all periods of transition which a process in change in
progress implies, we expect to find cases where the con-
servative force of tradition from the past has delayed
recognition of the too novel present, and we discover that
circumstances have moved too rapidly for the intelligence of
the times. If we keep this fact in view, we have thus seemed
to find a natural explanation of the knotty point which was
the cause of dispute between Mr. Morgan and Mr. McLennan,^
and we may thus ventm-e to say that each was both wrong
and right in his views of the classificatory system in general.
Each has mistaken a part for a whole, and they were ignorant
that they were upholding two sides of the same question.
Mr. Morgan was in error in assuming the system's too inti-
mate connection with a determination of affinities in blood, in
relation to which primarily, as we hope to have shown, it had
Cf,
Mr. Tylor, J.A.I, xviii. 3, 265, who expresses the same opinion.
THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 293
really neither purpose nor aim, as also in his too hasty assump-
tion of a consanguine family founded on brother and sister
incest, based on a mere conjectural solution of a verbal detail,
an assumption which he himself acknowledges had no other
foundation.
Mr. McLennan was in error in maintaining that the
classificatory system concerned terms of address alone.
To quote his own words : ' What duties or rights are
affected by the " relationships ■" comprised in the classifi-
catory system ? Absolutely none ; they are barren of conse-
quences, except indeed as comprising a code of coiui;esies and
ceremonial addresses in social intercoiu'se.' On the other
hand, as we have tried to show, the system had precisely
both intention and effect in regulation, as regards sexual
feeling, which is the strongest passion in nature. And yet
each disputant again was right in a degree, for, in later times,
the classificatory distinctions really served as terms of address
as regards the clan [tribe ?], whilst again the primitive terms,
which simply describe generations of persons in their relation
to the group, were afterwards, by philological transmutation,
to come to have a more definite meaning expressing the sense
of the personal parent.
NOTE TO CHAPTER VIH
Group Marriage
The idea that ' group marriage ' exists among the dusky
natives of Australia, and that ' the group is the social unit as
regards marriage ' (as explained in the earlier part of this book),
was introduced by Messrs. Howitt and Fison in their Kamilaroi
and Kumai (1880). Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, in their Natives
of Central Australia (1899), support the views of Messrs. Fison
and Howitt. ' Under certain modifications group marriage still
exists as an actual custom, regulated by fixed and well recognised
rules, amongst various Australian tribes ' (p. 56). ' Individual
marriage does not exist either in name or practice in the
294 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Urabunna tribe ' (p. 63). Mr. Crawley argues, on the other
hand, that individual marriage does exist among the Urabunna,
' though slightly modified ' (Mystic Rose, p. 482). For each
'slight modification,' the husband's consent must be obtained.
The system is regarded by Mr. Crawley, not as a survival of
promiscuity, more or less modified, but as an ' abnormal develop-
ment.' He believes in individual marriage, as, from the earliest
known times, 'the regular type of union of man and woman.'
' One is struck by the high morality of primitive man ' (pp.
483-484).
What Mr. Atkinson meant by saying that 'marriage is
communal,' I do not understand, as, on his theory, sexual
jealousy must have prevented each man of a generation, in a
group, from being equally the husband of each woman, not his
sister. The young braves are supposed to bring in women
captives from without, and to marry them ' communally.' Then
what becomes of jealousy .'' They ought rather to have fought
for their captive, on the principles of a golf tournament, the
survivor and winner taking the bride. Mr. Atkinson never saw
his work except in his manuscript, and might have made modifi-
cations on such points as this, where he seems to me to lose
grasp of his idea, as in his theory of recognition of the children
of ' the outside suitor,' he seems to bring male descent into
action at a period when, as he asserts elsewhere, it was not yet
recognised by customary law. On the Keddies (p. 287) I have
no information, the author giving no reference. A. L.
295
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
ORIGIN OF TOTEMISM
In the following village sobriquets from the south-western
counties of England the people are styled ' eaters of ' this or
that.'
ENGLISH VILLAGE
SOBEIQUETS
Eatei-s
Ashreigney . . .
. Dog-eaters
Morchard
. ' Burd '-eaters
Roseash
Whitpot-eaters
Sandford
. Cheese-eaters
Moreton
. Tatie-eaters
Paignton
Pudding-eaters
Churston
. Liver-eaters
Compare with these the following sobriquets of Siouan old
totem kins, counting descent in the male line.
Siouan Names of Gentes
Eaters
Eat the scrapings of hides
Eat dried venison
Eat dung
Eat raw food
' Western Antiqtuiry, vol. ix., pt. ii., p. 37, August, 1899.
296 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Among the Sioux we have also noted the sobriquets
Non-Eaters of
Deer
Buffalos
Swans
Cranes
Blackbirds, etc.
These sobriquets of non-eaters are probably totemic : the
Deer kin does not eat deer, nor does the Crane kin eat cranes,
and so on. Totem kins are named from what they do not eat ;
many totem kins with male descent are nicknamed from what
they do eat, or are alleged by their neighbours to eat.
Group Sobriquets in Orkney.
In the following letter, which I owe to the kindness of Mr.
Duncan Robertson, we read that, in Orkney and Shetland,
local sobriquets are derived from what the people are alleged
to eat. The tradition is, Mr. Robertson informs me, that each
group is named after the edible plant or animal which it brought
when engaged in building the Cathedral of Kirkwall.
Crantit House, St. Ola, Orkney,
Jan. 29, 1903.
Dear Mr. Lang, — My tyrannical doctor won't let me out yet,
so that I have not been able to collect all the information I
should like to get for you about the Orkney nicknames — or ' bye-
names,' as they are called here.
Here follows the list as taken from Tudor's The Orhneys and
Shetland, with alterations :
I. Mainland or Pomona
Kirkwall Starlings
St. Andrews Skerry-scrapers
Deemess Skate-rumples
Holm Hobblers
Orphir Yearnings
Firth Oysters
Stromness Bloody-puddings
Sandwick Assie-pattles
Harray Crabs (of old, sheep)
Birsay Hoes = dog-fish
Evie Cauld kail
Randall Sheep-thieves
APPENDIX A
297
II.
South Isles
Hoy
Hawks, Auks or Tammy-
nories
Walls
Lyars (Manx Sheer-water)
Burray
Oily Bogies = the skin
buoys used for herring
nets
South Ronaldshay :
a. Grimness
Gruties
h. Hope
Scouties (Skuas)
c. Widewal)
Witches
d. Herston
Hogs
e. Sandwick
Birkies
f. South Parish
Teeacks (Lapwings)
III.
North Isles
Gairsay
Buckies
Wyre
Whelks
Egilsay
Burstin Lumps
Rousay
Mares
Shapansey
Sheep
Stronsay
Limpets
Sanday
Gruelly Belkies
North Ronaldshay
Selkies = Seals (also called
'Tangie Wliessos') and
'Hides'
Eday
Scarfs = Shag or small Cor-
morant
Westray
Auks =: the common Guille-
mot
Papa Westray
Doundies = spent Cod
These are all the names I know or can hear of in Orkney. I
wrote to Mr. Moodie Heddle of Cletts on the subject, as I knew
him to take a great and intelligent interest in all such topics ;
and I have a most interesting letter from him, of which I shall
give you the gist. He says he has no doubt that the origin of
the names is that which you suggest, though some of the names
do not at first sight appear to bear this out. Kirkwall ' Starlings '
are easily accounted for, assuming that there have always been
as many starlings about Kirkwall as there are now. They may
298 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
well have been eaten by the townsfolk. I have tried them, and
their breasts are not at all bad.
Skerry-scrapers. — The allusion here is to men who live off shell
fish, 'dilse,' etc. oiFthe skerries. There are— or were — excellent
oysters on the St. Andrews skerries. Mr. Heddle tells me he
has heard a woman insulting a man by saying she supposed he
would soon leave no limpets in a certain bay, meaning that he
was too lazy to work for his living.
Skate-mmjile is, of course, the skate's tail. Deemess is the
nearest land to a famous piece of water for skate, known as ' the
skate-hole.'
Holm ' Hobhlers ' I do not understand, but shall make some
further inquiries. I have an idea it is a reference to some bird ;
Mr. Heddle thinks it has something to do with seals, but neither
of us knows.
Yearnings are, of course, the dried stomachs of calves used for
making cheese.
Oysters. — The bay of Firth was famous for its oysters till the
beds were overfished and destroyed some thirty years ago.
Stromness 'Bloody-puddings.'- — Mr. Heddle suggests that the
people bled their cattle twice or thrice a year and made
' puddings ' of the blood. This, of course, was done in the
Highlands at one time.
Assie-paUles. — Either those who lay in the ashes or, Mr.
Heddle suggests, who ate cakes baked in the ashes. Before iron
girdles came much into use cakes were baked on flat stones ; and
there is a hill, known as ' Baking-stone Hill,' where the people
used to come for stones that would not split in the fire. The
peats used in Sandwick have a very red ash, which colours all
persons and things near it.
Harray ' Crabs.' — Harray is the only parish in Orkney which
does not touch the sea, and the name is given in irony. The old
'tee-name' is said to have been 'sheep.' The story is told that
some fishermen passing through Harray dropped a live crab.
The men of Harray could not make it out at all, and sent for the
oldest inhabitant, who was brought in a wheel-barrow. After
gazing at the monster for a few moments he exclaimed : ' Boys,
bid's a fiery draygon ; tak' me hame ! '
I suspect there is some other tee-name than ' sheep-thieves '
for the Rendall people, but will try to find out and let you
know.
Hoy ' Hawks.' — Mr. Heddle, who was formerly proprietor of
APPENDIX A 299
Hoy, says he thinks ' auks ' must have been the original word,
as he believes ' tammy-nories ' was the old name. ' Auk ' is
Orcadian for the conunon guillemot, and a ' tammy-norie ' is a
puffin. Both of these birds abound in Hoy.
Mr. Heddle also tells me that the old name of ' Lyars ' for the
people of Walls was to a great extent replaced by ' Cockles.' The
' lyars ' were very common in Walls at one time, and were
esteemed a great delicacy, but, Mr. Heddle tells me, were to a
great extent killed out by the brown rat. He himself remembers
men being bitten by rats when putting their hands into holes to
look for young ' lyars.' Some three generations back enormous
numbers of cockles were taken and eaten by the people of Walls,
and they seem to have been called ' Cockles ' — or, I presume,
' eaters of cockles ' — in consequence.
Oily Bogies. — I hardly see how this can have been ' eaters of.'
There might have been some old story to the effect that the
Burray men stole and ate these buoys, but I never heard it.
South Ronaldshay has names for every district, which no
other island but the Mainland has.
Gnities is, Mr. Heddle says, equivalent to ' Skerry-scrapers ' —
people who get their living from the ' grut ' or refuse left in
bights by the tide. (' Grut,' see Norse grade = porridge or
gruel.)
Scouties may be derived from the skua, though Mr. Heddle
gives an unpresentable derivation. The word Birkies he did not
know the meaning of, but asked two or three people, who all
said the Sandwick people wei"e so called ' because Sandwick was
such a place for tangles coming ashore, and the people had such
a habit of eating what they called " birken " tangles, i.e. the stout
or lower ends of the large thick tangles.'
Burstin Lumps are a sort of preparation of oatmeal, once a very
favourite dish in the Isles.
Rousay ' Mares.' — -There is an old tale of a Rousay man who,
being a coward, killed liis mare and hid inside her from his
enemies. Mr. Heddle sends me an old rhyme on the subject :
As the Rousay man said to his mare :
' I wish I were in thee, for fear o' the war ;
I wish I were in thee without any doubt,
Were it Martinmas Day before I cam' out.'
The North Ronaldshay people did eat seals. Why Hides I do
not know. Mr. Heddle here suggests it may have had to do
300 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
■with witchcraft, in which skins and especially seals' flippers were
much used. Within the last ten years a man pulled down and
rebuilt his byre because of some 'ongoings with a selkie flipper.'
The names are very old and must be of Scandinavian origin.
Yours sincerely,
Duncan J. Robertson.
In addition to these names of ' eaters/ simple names of
animals, we have shown in the text, are as commonly given to
English villages as totemic names are given to the totem groups
of savages.
Ancient Hebrew Village Names
In Robertson Smith's Khuhip and Marriage in Early Arabia
(p. 219) he says : ' I have argued that many place-names formed
from the names of animals are also to be regarded as having been
originally taken from the totem clans that inhabited them.'
Now where toteimism is a living institution I know no instance
in which a locality is named from ' the totem clan that inhabits
it.' The thing cannot be where female descent prevails, as
many totems are then everywhere mixed in each local group.
Where male descent prevails we do, indeed, get localities in-
habited by groups mainly of the same totem name. But their
tendency is to let the totem name merge in the territorial title,
the name of the locality, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen prove for
the Arunta and Mr. Dorsey for the Sioux.
Having found no instance where a totemic group gives its
totem name to the locality which it inhabits, I was struck by a
remark of Dean Stanley in his Lectures on the History of the Jewish
Church (p. 319, 1870). He there mentions the villages of Judah
which were the scenes of some of Samson's adventures (Joshua
XV. 32, 33 ; Judges i. 35). ITie villages of Lebaoth, Shaalbim,
Zorah, respectively mean Lions, Jackals, and Hornets. Nobody
eats any of these three animals, and they may be names of totem
groups transferred to localities — though of this usage I know no
example among savage totemists — or they may merely be old
Hebrew village sobriquets, as in England and France.
On consulting the Eiicyclopcedia Biblica, under ' Names ' (vol.
iii. 3308, 3316) we find that 'there can be no doubt that many
place-names ' in Palestine ' are identical with names of animals.'
Those ' applied to towns ' (we may read villages probably)
are much more common in the south than in the north. We
APPENDIX A 301
have Stags, Lions, Leopards, Gazelles, Wild Asses, Foxes,
HyaenaSj Cows, Lizards, Hornets, Scorpions, Serpents, and so on.
These may have been derived from old totem kins, though I
think that theory improbable, or from the frequency of hornets
or scorpions in this or that place, or the villagers' sobriquet may
have become the village name. The last hypothesis has hitherto
been overlooked. The frequency of animal and plant names in
the Roman gentes, Fabii (Beans), Asinii (Asses), Caninii (Dogs),
is an instance that readily occurs. These may be survivals of
totemism or of less archaic sobriquets, while the totem names
themselves, as we have argued, may have had their origin in
sobriquets.
APPENDIX B
THE BA EONGA TEEMS OF EELATIONSHIP
The hypothesis that the Australian terms of relationship, as
they now exist, really denote status in customary law, may
perhaps derive corroboration from the classiiicatory system as it
appears among the Ba Ronga, near Delagoa Bay. Here the
natives are rich, industrial, conunercial, and polygamous to the
full extent of their available capital. Polygamy, male kinship,
and wife purchase, with elaborate laws of dowry and divorce,
have modified and complicated the terms of relationship. They
are described by an excellent authority, M. Henri Junod, a
missionary.'
M. Junod has obviously never heard of the "^ classificatory
system' among other races, and his explanation of certain
'avoidances,' such as between the husband and his wife's
brother, father, and mother, is probably incorrect (turning, as it
does, on the laws of wife-price and divorce), though it appears
now to be accepted by the Ba Ronga themselves. But what
more concerns us is the nature of terms of relationship. These
terms denote status in customary law, determined by sex and
seniority. Among the Basuto, ' a man is otherwise related to
his sister than to his brother ; his children are related to their
paternal otherwise than to their maternal uncles and aunts,' and
' Les Baronga, Attinger, Neufchatel, 1898, pp. 82-87.
302 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
to their cousins in the same style. Relative seniority, erttailing
relative social duties, is also expressed in the terms of relation-
ship. The maternal aunt, senior to the mother, is ' grandmother.'
The children of my father's brother and of my mother's sister,
are my ' brothers ' or ' sisters ; ' the children of my maternal
uncle and paternal aunt are not my ' brothers ' and ' sisters.'
The children of a man's inferior wives call the chief wife
' grandmother,' and the other wives, not their mother, ' maternal
aunts.' ' The son of my wife's sister is my 'son,' because I may
succeed to her husband on his death, and his father calls me
'brother.' The maternal uncle is the mere butt of his nephew,
the uncle's wives are the nephew's potential wives : he is one of
the heirs to them. This kind of uncle (maternal) is not one of the
tribal ' fathers ' of the nephew, but the paternal uncle is, and is
treated with the utmost respect. In brief, each name for a
' relationship ' is a name carrying certain social duties or privi-
leges, dependent on sex and seniority.
We have no such customary laws, and need no such names —
the names are the result and expression of the Basuto customary
laws. Had we such ideas of duty and privilege, then they would
be expressed in our terms of relationship, which would be
numerous. My maternal uncle would have a name denoting the
man with whose wife I may flirt. The wife of my brother-in-
law is the woman whom I must treat with the most distant
respect. If I am a woman, my father's sister's husband (my
' uncle by marriage ') is a man whose wife I may become, and so
forth endlessly. Consequently there is a wealth of terms of
relationship, just because of the peculiarities of Ba Ronga
customary law.
' Op. cit. pp. 487-489.
INDEX
Aboriginal man, Mr. Darwin's
view of, 209 ; Mr. Atkinson on, 220
Affinity, degrees of, prohibiting
marriage, 188 ; most stringently
applied by least civilised races,
2 ; differences of opinion among
students of the qnestion, 2 ; ex-
isting laws not an indication of
primitive rules, 2; Australian
anomaly, 88
Age distinction and the classifica-
tory system, Mr. Atkinson on,
290
jUtruism, possible germ of, in
nascent man, 232
American ethnological terms, 10
Andrews, Judge, on Hawaiian
marriage relationships, 98
Animal guardians among savages,
131
Annamese famUy rela,tionshJps, Dr.
Westermarck on, 240
Anomaly, totem, among the Arunta,
85
Anthropoid adult males unsocial,
220
Aristotle and early human society,
7
Arunta tribe of Central Australia,
2, 11 ; descent reckoned in the
male line, 15, 69 ; supposed
ignorance of procreation, 20; a
'marriage ceremony,' 24; rein-
carnation superstition, 31, 139 ;
totem marriage-prohibition now
extinct, 41 ; totem common to
both phratries, 46, 56; totem
groups preceded phratries, 61 ;
Mr. Spencer on the introduction
of exogamy, 61 ; totem influence,
61 ; traditions as to change of
custom, 67 ; Mr. Frazer's opinion
of the tribe, 68 ; intermarry with
the Urabunna, 69 ; theory of
evolution, 70 ; totemism, 70 ;
belief in reincarnation, 71 ; totem
eating, 71 ; Dr. Durkheim's views,
72; opinion of Spencer and
Gillen, 73; marital relationship,
74 ; relations of totems and
phratries, 74; myths, 75; Dr.
Durkheim on, 75 ; Messrs. Spencer
and Gillen's opinions, 76, 77 ;
institution of marriage regula-
tions, 78 ; phratries and totems,
81 ; Dr. Durkheim's views on the
phratry, 82 ; totemic divisions,
83 ; origin of the anomalous
marriage system, 85 ; philosophy
of souls, 86 ; relationships pro-
hibiting marriage, 88 ; curiosities
of aflfinity, 88 ; terms of relation-
ship, 93 ; relationship customs,
96 ; legislation, 108 ; legend re-
garding marriage limits, 108 ;
class system with male descent,
120 ; totems and magic, 196, 198
Atkinson, Mr., his speculations on
human origin, 3 ; on primitive
man's polygamy, 4 ; his theories
and the Biblical account, 7 ; dis-
belief in early promiscuity, 9 ;
views on the effect of sexual
jealousy, 9, 18, .30 ; his opinion
on exogamy and totemism, 17 ;
his exogamous marriage hypo-
thesis, 18 ; his ' primal law,' 19 ;
on the origin of the ' classificatory
system,' 108 ; on New Caledonian
totems, 136 ; and the custom of
avoidance, 212, 264 ; on the
origin of exogamy, 212, 238 ;
aboriginal man polygamous, 220 ;
man's distinction in the primal
law, 225 ; prolonged infancy in
nascent man, 230; origin of
maternal love, 231 ; possible germ
of altruism, 232 ; earliest evolu-
304 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
tion of law, 236 ; wives procured
by capture, Zll ; editor's note
thereon, 248 ; development from
the group to the tribe, 250;
eflfect of female sexual jealousy,
256 ; extinction of the patriarchal
family, 261 ; survivals of transi-
tion period, 264; clan (phratry)
relationship, 269; editor's note on-
avoidances, 278 ; the classifica-
tory system, 280, 285 ; on the ori-
ginal purpose of totems, 282 ; on
local contiguity constituting re-
lationship, 289 ; on age distinc-
tion and the classiiicatory system,
290 ; on group marriage and the
classificatory system, 292
Attic plant names, 205
Australia, marriage divisions in,
38 ; consanguineous marriages
forbidden, 40 ; tribal variations
of custom, 41
Australian group marriage, Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen on, 293
Australian, native, society not
primitive, 3; complexity of
social rules, 3, 4 ; low state of
culture, 4; divinities, 5 ; languages
and customs, 6 ; commerce, 6
Australian tribal division, Mr. Fison
on, 42 ; the author's view, 43
Australian sex protectors, 144
Avebury, Lord, on racial customs,
12; on totemism, 122; on totem
origin, 123 ; on communal
marriage, 124 ; vague termino-
logy, 126, 130 ; on relation-
ships, 128
' Avoidance.' custom of, Mr. Atkin-
son on, 212 ; origin of, 276
Avoidance between father-in-law
and son-in-law, 268 ; its origin,
269
Avoidance of mother-in-law, 270,
277 ; Mr. Crawley on its origin,
278
Bachofbn's view^ on maternal kin-
names, 9
Baiame, Australian divinity, 5, 29,
138, 184
Banks Island, two class divisions in,
178
Ba Ronga terms of relationship, 301
Barter between Australian tribes, 6
Basuto customary law, 301
' Bisection ' a misleading term, 36
Bishop, Rev. A., on Hawaiian mar-
riage relationships, 98
Blood kinship implied by totem
name, 193
Breeding between sire and daughter,
effect of, 223
British Columbia clan totems, Mr.
Hill Tout on, 152
Brother-and-sister ' avoidance,' 213 ;
in Australia, 216
Brother-and-sister 'avoidance,' Dr.
Westermarck on, 240
Brother-and-sister marriage, primi-
tive, Mr. Morgan on, 281
Bull-roarer, palaeolithic, 5 ; minia-
ture, discovered in France, 5 ;
Mr. Frazer's bibliography of, 5 n
Calabar 'bush-souls,' 143
Camerons of Glen Nevis properly
MacSorlies, 8
Chattan, Clan, crest of the, 163
Clan, definition of, 11
Clan (phratry) relationship, Mr.
Atkinson on, 269
Clandestine intercourse preliminary
to marriage, 265
Class system, the, 85 ; and Mr.
Morgan, 89
Class system with male descent
among the Arunta, 120
Class and generation correspond,
112
Class names, Herr Cuuow on, 113,
118 ; Dr. Durkheim on, 118 ; Mr.
Mathews on, 119
Classes, Mr. Morgan's view of their
origin, 92
Classificatory system, Mr. Atkinson
on the, 108, 285; division by
generations the most natural one,
286 ; age distinction, 290 ; and
group marriage, 292
Classificatory terms, 100
Codrington, Dr., and totem descent,
135; on Melanesian ancestor-
worship, 150; on social systems
in Melanesia, 177 ; his totem
theory controverted, 181
Commerce, Australian inter-tribal, 6
Communal marriage, Mr. Morgan's
theory, 90 ; Lord Avebury on, 124
Consanguineous marriages for-
bidden among Australian tribes,
40
Contiguity, local, constituting rela-
tionship, Mr. Atkinson on, 289
INDEX
305
Crawley, Mr., on promiscuous sexual
relationship, 9 ; on the origin of
prohibited marriages, 18 ; on
jealousy in the family, 19 ; on the
matriarchal theory, 20 ; his theory
of exogamy, 23 ; his view of
marriage among savages, 24 ; on
the prevention of incest, 26 ; on
terms of relationship, 95 ; on
marriage by captirre, 249 ; on
mother-in-law avoidance, 278
Cult of the totem, 136
Cunow's, Herr, opinion on ' class '
and ' phratry,' 37, 112; on class
names, 113; regards the 'horde'
as the original stage of society,
114 ; his theory of exogamy, 115 ;
on local totem groups, 116 ; his
class-name theory opposed by Dr.
Durkheim, 118
Dakamtjlun, Australian divinity, 5
Darwin, Mr., his theory of primitive
polygamy, 4 ; his views on sexual
jealousy, 9 ; opposed to theory of
promiscuity, 99 ; on primitive
man, 209
Dieri, the, 41; myths, 65, 66, 91,
139, 159, 163 ; piraura custom, 95,
105
Diet, effect of, on sexual appetite, 227
Distribution of totems in the
' phratries,' 55
Divine intervention, savage and
civilised ideas, 91
Domesticated animals in palaeolithic
age, 4, 5
Dorsey, Mr., his definition of clan,
11 ; on totem descent, 135 ; and
North American Indian group
names, 172
Dual relationship, tribal and indivi-
dual, 88
Durkheim, Dr., on marriage relation-
ship, 19 ra ; on blood and totem
superstition, 57 w ; on Arunta to-
temism, 72 ; on Arunta 'phratries'
and marriage, 73 ; on the relation
of totem and phratry, 74, 82 ; on
Amnta legends, 75 ; on totemic
divisions, 83 ; on Arunta anoma-
lous marriage system, 85 ; op-
poses Herr Cunow's theory of
class names, 118 ; on totem de-
scent, 135
Early belief in mutual danger of
mankind, 24
Eguilles, Marquis d', and Kanaka
relationship names, 137
Egypt, royal intermarriage, 1, 262
Egyptian totemic myths, 201
Endogamy, meaning of, 12
English village sobriquets, 173, 295
Erman, Adolf, on Yakut avoidance,
275
Euahlayi, the, 29 ; Mrs. Laugloh
Parker on the, 186 n ; myth, 66
Evolution of primal law of avoid-
ance, Mr. Atkinson on the, 210
Exchange, commercial, among Aus-
tralian tribes, 6
Exogamy, meaning of the term, 10 ;
anterior to totems, opinions on,
17 ; Mr. McLennan's theory, 21 ;
Mr. Crawley's theory, 23 ; Dr.
Westermarck's theory, 33 ; Mr.
Morgan's theory, 33 ; the author's
theory, 34; the result of evolu-
tion, 53; Mr. Frazer's earlier
ideas on, 57 ; objections to, 59 ;
his later theory, 62 ; advantages
of the system now proposed, 63 ;
ignored by theorists on group
totemism, 160 ; Mr. Atkinson on
origin of, 212, 238 ; earlier view
quoted, 212
Exogamy among the Arunta, 61
Exogamy and totemism, Mr.
Taylor's view, 17
Exogamy, local, origin of, 31
Family, the, its antiquity, 1 ; se-
cured by dread of aberrations, 1 ;
laws and customs vary, 1 ; un-
civilised races and prohibited
marriages, 2 ; present-day institu-
tions no guide to prehistoric
customs, 2 ; conjectures as to
primitive state, 4 ; patriarchal
family the original social unit,
7 ; descent counted through the
maternal line, 8, 21 ; suggestions
as to early promiscuity, 9 ; pro-
miscuity prevented by sexual
jealousy, 9 ; totemism, 14 ; family
group or ' fire circle,' 14, 17 ;
exogamous tendencies, 17 ; Mr.
Crawley on the effect of jealousy,
19 ; matriarchal theory, 20 ; Mr.
McLennan's theory of family
exogamy, 21 ; Mr. Crawley's
theory, 23
Father - and - daughter avoidance,
Veddah, 274
306 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Satber-in-law and daughter-in-law,
customs concerning, 272, 275
Father-in-law avoidance, Mr. Atkin-
son on, 263, 277
Female infanticide in first stages of
society, 21
Fijian 'totem gods,' 137
Fison, Mr., on Kamilaroi marriage
laws, 28 ; and the class sys-
tem in Australia, 37 ; on Aus-
tralian tribal division, 42 ; con-
troverted by the author, 43 ; on
the origin of totems, 45 ; on the
change of totems, 48 ; on the
origin of exogamy, 65, 97 ; his
suggestion of Divine intervention,
91 ; on terms of relationship, 95 ;
quotes Mr. Lance on communal
marriage, 106
Fison and Howitt, Messrs., on to-
temism, 16; their theories in-
sufficient, 51 ; hypothesis as to
Greek totemism, 203
Fletcher, Miss Alice, on totem
origin, 151 ; on Omaha magical
societies, 198
Folk-lore illustrative of totem group
names, 169
France, miniature palaeolithic bull-
roarers found in, 5
Frazer, Mr., bibliography of the
bull-roarer, 5 ; regards the Arunta
as primitive, 20, 68 ; his early
ideas of the exogamous phratry,
57 ; objections to them, 59 ; his
later theory of exogamy, 62 ; his
view that totems did not influence
marriage, 68 ; on the arrange-
ment of totems in phratries, 74 ;
on Arunta legends, 76 ; names
several varieties of totem, 132 ;
his theories as to totem origin,
143 ; on the group totem, 144 ;
on the personal totem, 145
Freeman, Mr., and the patriarchal
famUy, 7
Gaidoz and Sebillot mm., on un-
friendly sobriquets, 168
Ganowanian gentes, 92
Ghost-worship, Melanesian, 182
Gillen, Mr., see Spencer
Goumditoh Mara tribe, 195
Greek totemic myths, 201
Greek totemism, Messrs. Fison and
Hewitt's hypothesis, 208
Grey, Sir George, on totems in
Western Australia, 144
Group marriage, 89 ; supposed sur-
vivals of, 104
Group marriage and the classifica-
tory system, Mr. Atkinson on,
292 ; editor's comments, 293
Group marriage, Australian, Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen on, 293
Group names, theory as to, 166;
originated outside the group, 168,
171
Group totem, the hereditary, 160
Group totems, Mr. N. W. Thomas
on, 148
Guatemala Indian nagual, 144
Haddon, Mr., on totem origin, 156
Hawaiian marriage relationships, 98
Hawaiian terms of relationship, 93
Hebrew village names, ancient, 300
Hesiod and early human society, 7
Horde the foundation of Herr
Cunow's theory, 114; its division,
115
Hose and McDougall, Messrs., on
Sarawak beliefs, 153
Hottentot marriages. Dr. Wester-
marok on, 240
Howitt, Mr., his ethnological no-
menclature, 10 n ; and the class
system in Australia, 37 ; his
opinion on Australian marriage
customs, 41 ; his views on the
primary class divisions, 46 ; con-
siders totemism too old for
theorising, 49 ; regards the undi-
vided commune as a probable
hypothesis, 65 ; see also Fison
Human origin, Mr. Atkinson's specu-
lations on, 3 ; Biblical account
differs from Mr. Atkinson's, not
from Mr. Morgan's hypothesis, 7
Human society, limit of historical
research into origins of, 2 ; pro-
gress of, 3 ; obscurity of the
subject, 3
Hunter Biver totems, Mr. Eusden
on, 148
INCAS of Peru, royal intermarriage,
1
Incest to marry within totem name,
16
Incest, prevention of, Mr. Crawley's
theory, 26
Individual totems, Mr. N. W.Thomas
on, 148
INDEX
307
Infancy prolonged in nascent man,
Mr. Atkinson on, 230
Infanticide, female, and exogamy, 21
Jealousy the cause of exogamy, 19
Jealousy, sexual, the motive power
in social changes, 272
Jevons, Mr., on totems, 134 ; on the
Attic social system, 206
Junod, M. Henri, and the Baronga
terms of relationship, 301
Kamilaroi, the, 35 n
Kamilaroi group laws, Mr. Mathews
on, 46
Kamilaroi interphratry marriages,
56
Kamilaroi marriage laws, Mr.
Mathews on, 27 ; Mr. Fison on, 28
Keddies (Southern India), marriage
custom among, 286
Kennedys of Galloway, 7
'KiTi name, maternal, 8
Klngsley, Miss, on the Calabar
'bush-souls,' 143
Kinship among the earliest human
groups, 19
Kumai women and the sex totem,
146
Kyontha social customs, Dr.
Westermarck on, 246 n
Kyonthas, avoidance among the, 275
Lanoe, Mr., on communal marriage
survival, 106
Lang, Mr. G. S., quoted by Lord
Avebury, 126
Lifu terms of relationship, 94, 100
Local exogamy, its origin, 13
Long's, J., mention of ' totam,' 131 n
Macdonnells of Moidart and
Glengarry, 7
McGee, W. J., his ethnological
terminology, 11 » ; his views on
the evolution of society, 52
McLennan, Mr. Daniel, on the origin
of exogamy, 63 ; on the phratries
of Northern Victoria tribes, 64
McLennan, Mr. Donald, on exogamy
and totemism, 14, 16, 17
McLennan, Mr. J. F., 3 ; his views on
maternal kin-names, 9 ; his defini-
tion of exogamy, 10, 12 ; his view
of the most archaic marriage law,
13 ; his opinion of kinship, 19,
20 ; his theory of exogamy, 21 ;
the theory untenable, 22 ; his
views of ' primitive groups,' 31 ;
and exogamous phratries, 37 ; con-
siders totemism anterior to exo-
gamy, 44 ; on totem kins, 55 ; on
terms of relationship, 95 ; on
marriage by capture, 267 ; his
criticism of Mr. Morgan's classifi-
cation theory, 284 ; remarks
thereon by Mr. Atkinson, 284
MacSorlies part of Clan Cameron, 8
McUlrigs (Kennedys) of Galloway, 7
Magical societies, 197
Maine, Sir Henry, his 'Ancient
Law,' 7 ; on the evolution of
tribes and states, 7
Malayan relationship system, Mr.
Morgan on, 90, 281
Mandeville, Sir John, referred to, 24
Man's distinction from other crea-
tures, Mr. Atkinson on, 225
Marital relations among the Arunta,
74
Marriage among savages, Mr. Craw-
ley's view of, 24
Marriage by capture, Mr. Atkinson
on, 244, 266 ; editor's remarks on
Mr. Atkinson's views, 248 ; Mr.
McLennan on, 267
Marriage ceremony, Arunta, 24
Marriage, communal, Mr. Morgan's
theory, 90; Lord Avebury on,
124
Marriage custom of the Keddies of
Southern India, 286
Marriage divisions in Australia, 38
Marriage, group, 89 ; supposed sur-
vivals of, 104
Marriage laws, totemio and civilised,
87
Marriage regulations among the
Arunta, 78
Marriage within the totem name
prohibited, 16
Maternal kinship, 8
Maternal love, origin of, Mr. Atkin-
son on, 231
Mathews, Mr. John, on aboriginal
jealousy, 9 n
Mathews, Mr., on Australian inter-
tribal barter, 6 ; on prohibited
marriages, 27 ; on group mar-
riages, 35 m; on marriage divi-
sions in Australia, 38 ; on class
names, 119 ; on totem names, 120
Matriarchal theory, 20
Melanesian ghost-worship, 182 ;
sacrifices, 183
308 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Melanesia!! social system, 176
Menomini myth, 66
Mincopies (Ancla,mauese), 9
Modern theories of totem origin:
Mr. A. H. Keane's theory, 140;
Mr. Max Muller's theory, 141 ;
Mr. Herbert Spencer's theory,
142; Mr. Frazer's theories, 143;
Mr. N. W. Thomas's theory, 148 ;
Dr. Wilken's theory, 150; Miss
Alice Fletcher's theory, 151 ; Mr.
Hill Tout's theory, 152; Messrs.
Hose and McDougall's theory,
153 ; Mr. Haddon's theory, 156 :
an objection to these theories,
159 ; the author's conjecture, 161
Modification of sexual habit, Mr.
Atkinson on, 227
Morgan, Mr., on human origin, 7 ;
his criticism of Mr. McLennan's
terms, 13 n; his theory of
exogamy, 33 ; and exogamous
phratries, 87 ; his theory quoted
by Mr. Fison, 65 ; and the class
system, 89 ; his theory of com-
munal marriage, 90 ; the theory
inexplicable, 91 ; his views on
the origin of classes and totems,
92 ; on terms of relationship, 93 ;
on communal marriage in Hawaii,
98; his theory opposed by Dar-
win, 98 ; on primitive brother-
and-sister marriage, 281
Mother kin, 20
Mother-and-son avoidance, Veddah,
274
Mother-in-law, ' avoidance ' of, 277 ;
Mr. Atkinson on, 213 ; Mr. Craw-
ley on its origin, 278
Mother-in-law, customs concerning,
272, 273, 275
Miiller, Mr. Max, and totem origin,
141
Mungun-nganr, Australian divinity,
5
Munro, Dr., on primitive man, 4
Myth, savage, and scientific hypo-
thesis, coincidence of, 76
Myths, Arunta, 75 ; Greek and
Egyptian totemic, 201
Naies of Malabar, 22
Narrinyeri totem eaters, 179
Nascent man a solitary polygamous
male, 220 ; younger males ex-
pelled from family, 220 ; absence
of a paring season, 226 ; effect of
diet on sexual function, 227 ;
prolonged infancy, 230 ; maternal
love, 231 ; retention of adult son
in family, 232; distinction be-
tween females in the family
circle, 236 ; rule of ' avoidance,'
237 ; primal law the parent of
exogamy, 238 ; the editor's view,
238 ; sexual relations between
sire and' daughter, 251 ; widows
of the polygamous husband, 252 ;
introduction of outside males,
254 ; effect of female sexual
jealousy, 256 ; recognition of
cousinship, 257 ; interchange of
sisters, 258 : division of the
group, 260
Nature-worship, Lord Avebury's
synonym of totemism, 122
New Caledonia, separation of
brother and sister, 214 ; infanti-
cide of twins, 215 ; avoidance in,
275
New Caledonia totems, 136
New Caledonian totem belief, 143
New Caledonian tribes, hostility
between, 167
New Hebrides, North, class divisions
in, 178
Nooreli, Australian divinity, 5, 138
North American Indian group
names, 172
Northern Victoria, tribal tradition
of, 64
Nyarongs, Sarawak, 153
Omaha magical societies, 197 ; Miss
Alice Fletcher on, 198
Omaha manitus. Miss Fletcher on,
152
Omaha totem groups, 196
Origin of avoidance, Mr. Atkinson
on, 276
Origin of classes and totems, Mr.
Morgan's view, 92
Origin of totemism, theories regard-
ing the, 49, 50 ; Lord Avebury on,
123
Orissa, avoidance in 275
Orkney, group sobriquets in, 296
PALiEOLlTHic man, Dr. Munro on,
4, 5 ; possessed religous belief, 5
PalsBolithic remains found in France,
5
Parker, Mrs. Langloh, on the Euah-
layi, 186 n.
Patriarchal family first social unit,
7 ; Sir Henry Maine's opinion, 7 ;
INDEX
309
Mr. Freeman's concurrence, 7 ;
absent from ' non- Aryan ' races, 8
Persian royal marriages, 262
Peruvian Incas' marriages, 1, 262
Pfeil, Ooiint von, on inter-tribal
hostility, 168
Phratria, the Attic, 205
Phratries, 35 ; intended to produce
exogamy, 53
Phratries and totem groups, rela-
tive antiquity, 35
Phratries and totems of the Arunta,
81
Phratries and totems, relations of,
74
Phratry, Herr Cunow on the deve-
lopment of, 116
Phratry names usually totemic, 116
Phratry, origin of the, Mr. McGee's
view, 52 ; Mr. Hewitt's theory,
53 ; Mr. Frazer's ideas, 67
Plots, royal, counted descent
through female line, 21
Pinaru, Dieri headman's title, 105
Piraungani arrangement, 105 ;
among the Urabunna, 106
Pirmaheal, Australian divinity, 5
Plant names, Attic, 205
Pollux on the Attic genos, 206
Polyandry in Malabar, 22
Polyandry supposed origin of ma-
ternal kin-name, 9
Polygamy probable institution of
primitive man, 4
Polygyny and monogamy, Mr.
Darwin's group basis, 64
Powell's, Major, ethnological ter-
minology, 10 n ; use of the word
' totem,' 132
'Primary divisions' totemic and
exogamous, 43; Mr. Hewitt's
hypothesis, 46 ; probably the
result of amalgamation, 181
Primitive brother-and-sister mar-
riage, Mr. Morgan on, 281
Primitive man, opinions on, 4
Pristine groups necessarily small,
164 ; governed by sexual jealousy,
165
Prohibited marriages, Arunta, by
affinity, 88
Pundjel, Australian divinity, 5
Qat, Melanesian object of prayer,
184
Eblationship by generations, 90 ;
Mr. Morgan's theory, 93
Eelationship constituted by local
contiguity, Mr. Atkinson on, 289
Eelationship terms, origin of, 102 ;
difierence of meaning between
savage and civilised, 102 ; family
and tribal significance, 103 ;
express status, 129
Eelationships, Lord Avebury on,
128
Eelationships, Arunta, which pre-
clude marriage, 88; curious dis-
tinctions, 88
' Eeligion,' Mr. Crawley's definition
of, 23
Eeverence for totems, nyarongs,
and naguals, 186
Eidley, Eev. W., and Australian
exogamous phratries, 37
Robertson, Mr. Dancan, on group
sobriquets in Orkney, 296
Eoman traditions as to tribal
origin, 8
Roth, Dr., and Australian native
customs, 6 % ; on the evolution of
classes, 114
Eusden, Mr., on the Hunter Eiver
totems, 148
Sacred animals in savage society,
131
Sacrifices, Melanesian, 183
Samoan ' totem gods,' 137
Sarawak, nyarongs in, 153
'Second master,' Urabunna wife's,
104 ; not a survival of communal
marriage; 105
Selwyn, Bishop, quoted as to
Melanesian ghost-worship, 182
Sex protector, Australian, 144
Sex totem, killing a, 146
Sexes mutually dangerous, savage
beliefs, 19, 24
Sexual family relations common to
all animals, 224
Sexual functions, modification of,
Mr. Atkinson on, 227
Sexual jealousy, Mr. Atkinson on,
220, 272, 276
Sexual jealousy the cause of exo-
gamous marriage, 18
Siouan gentes, Mr. Dorsey on, 172
Siouan gentes, names of, 295 ;
probably totemic, 175
Siouan tribes, 11
Smith,Mr. Robertson,andtotemism,
17 ; on prohibited marriages, 27
Sobriquets, English village, 295 ;
310 SOCIAL ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW
Siouan, 295 ; Orkney and Shet-
land, 296 ; Ancient Jewish, 300
Social changes the result of sexual
jealousy, Mr. Atkinson on, 272
Social rules, growth of, in the tribe,
107
Social system of Melanesia, 176
Solomon Islands, no division into
kindreds, 178 ; exoga,mous groups,
179
Son-in-law, customs concerning,
272, 273, 275
Spencer, Mr., on the origin of
totemism, 60, 142 ; on exogamous
groups in the Arunta tribe, 61 ;
his reason for their introduction,
62 ; inconclusive statements, 62 ;
his latest hypothesis regarding
totemism, 68
Spencer and Gillen on aboriginal
jealousy, 9 ; on totem groups,
15 OT, 16 ; on TJrabunna descent,
20; and the Arunta marriage
ceremony, 24 ; on the class system
in Australia, 37 ; on changes of
tribal custom, 67 ; and ' com-
munal marriage,' 69 ; on Arunta
totem eating, 73 ; on Arunta
marital relations, 74; on totems
and phratries, 74 ; on Arunta
legends, 76, 77 ; on marriage
regulations, 78 ; on tribal and
individual relationships, 89 ; on
terms of relationship, 95 ; on
' classificatory ' terms, 100 ; on
Urabunna customs, 101 ; on totem
origin, 141 ; on brother-and-sister
' avoidance,' 216 ; on Australian
group marriage, 293
State, origin of the. Sir H. Maine
on, 7
Status implied by relationship
terms, 101
' Stealthy ' intercourse preliminary
to marriage, 265
Supremacy of women, supposed
period of, 9
Sutherland crest, 163
Tankervillb, Loed, on the Chil-
lingham Park bulls, 222
Terminology, the author's, 37 n ;
Mr. Fison's, 38 n
Terminology, confusing, 10, 44, 126,
130
Terms of relationship, Mr. Morgan
on, 93 ; origin of, 102 ; family
and tribal significance, 103
Thlinket ideas of totems, 139
Thomas, Mr. N. W., on totemism,
148
Totem, restricted meaning of the
word, 133 ; original word doubt-
ful, 135; cult, the, 136; origin
probably not religious, 137
Totem alliance, Mr. Jevons on, 134
Totem eating, Arunta, 71
Totem group names, folk-lore illus-
trative of, 169
Totem groups, local, 15 ; hetero-
geneous, 30 ; Mr. Morgan on the
origin of, 92
Totem groups and magic, Arunta,
196, 198
Totem groups and phratries, relative
antiquity, 35
Totem influence among the Arunta,
61
Totem kindreds, 10, 12
Totem name a bar to marriage, 16 ;
liable to change, 48 ; origin for-
gotten, 184 ; implies blood kin-
ship, 193
Totem prohibition of tribal marri-
age, 35
Totemic divisions of the Arunta, 83
Totemic influence on the Keddies'
marriage customs, 287
Totemic myths, ancient Greek and
Egyptian, 201
Totemic rules differ from civilised
marriage laws, 87
Totemic system and exogamy, 80
Totemism, Lord Avebury on, 122
Totemism among the Arunta, 68
Totemism and exogamy, 16
Totemism dying in Melanesia, 184
Totemism, group, exogamous, the
author's conjecture, 161
Totemism, origin of, 14, 131 ; theo-
ries regarding, 49, 50; Mr.
Spencer on, 60
Totems and phratries, relations of,
74
Totems, classification of, by Mr.
Frazer, 132
Totems, distribution of, in the
'phratries,' 55
Totems, Mr. Fison on the origin of,
45
Totems, original purpose of, Mr.
Atkinson on, 282
Tout, Mr. Hill, on totem otigin,
152
Tribal and individual relationship.
INDEX
311
Tribal custom, Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen on, 67
Tribal divisions totemic in origin,
54
Tribal heterogeneousness, 8
Tribe, origin of the. Sir H. Maine
on, 7 ; definition of the word, 11 ;
an aggregation, not a division,
98 ; not a primitive institution,
103 ; growth of social rules in
the, 107
Turanian gentes, 92
Tylor, Mr., on exogamy and totem-
ism, 17 ; considers descent
through female line the more
archaic, 21 ; his researches into
laws of marriage and descent,
109 ; on the word ' totem,' 131 n ;
on Fijian and Samoan totemism,
137 ; supports Dr. Wilken's theory
of totem origin, 150
Urabxjnna tribe of Central Aus-
tralia, 1, 10 ; tribal divisions, 11 ;
marriage restrictions, 12 ; descent
through the female line, 20, 69 ;
exogamous and totemic division,
54; intermarry with the Arunta,
69 ; communal marriage among,
69; less developed than the
Arunta, 75 ; terms of relationship,
93 ; status implied by relation-
ship terms, 101 ; Spencer and
Gillen on customs, 101 ; marriage
laws, 104 ; ' second masters ' of
married women, 104 ; Piraungaru
custom, 105
Vbddahs, avoidance of father and
daughter, 274 ; of motherand son,
274
Victoria, Northern, tribal tradition
of, 64
Village names, ancient Hebrew,
300
Village sobriquets, English, 173,
295
Westermarck, Dr., on promiscuous
sexual relationship, 9 ; on the
matriarchal theory, 20 ; on ape
etiquette, 25 ; his theory of exo-
gamy, 33 ; on terms of relation-
ship, 95 ; on brother-and-sister
avoidance, 240 ; on Aimamese
and Hottentot relationships, 240 ;
on marriage by capture, 248
Western Australia totem. Sir George
Grey on, 144
Wilken's, Dr., theory of totemic
origin, 150; depends on the
patriarchal theory, 151
Witchetty Grub, Australian totem,
170
Woeworung, the, 41 ; myths, 66, 139,
159, 163
Women, supremacy of, supposed
period of, 9
Women, dominion of, 20
Yak€TS, avoidance among the,
275
Zapotbcs and their tona, 144
Zulu superstition, 136, 143
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PHILOSOPHY 17
MISCELLANEOUS AND CRITICAL
WORKS 38
POETRY AND THE DRAMA
23
POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ECO-
NOMICS ---... 20
POPULAR SCIENCE - - - .
RELIGION, THE SCIENCE OF
SILVER LIBRARY (THE)
SPORT AND PASTIME -
STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL
SERIES
I TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, THE
COLONIES, &c. - - - -
17 i WORKS OF REFERENCE -
30
21
33
12
19
II
31
INDEX
Page
OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS.
Abbott (Evelyn) 3,
19, 22
(J. H. M.)
3
(T. K.) - -
17,18
(E. A.) - -
17
Acland (A. H. D.) -
3
Acton (Eliza) -
S6
Adclborg(0.) - -
32
£schylus
22
Albemarle (Earl of) -
13
Alcock (C. W.)
15
Allen (Grant) -
30
AUgood (G.) - -
3
Alverstone (Lord) -
15
Angwin (M. C.)
3b
Annandale (N.)
21
Anstey (F.)
25
Aristophanes -
22
Aristotle -
17
Arnold (Sir Edwin) -
11,23
(Dr.T.) - -
3
Ashbourne (Lord) -
3
Ashby (H.) -
36
Ashley (W. J.) -
3, 20
Atkinson (J. J.)
Avebury (Lord)
21
21
Ayre (Rev. J.) -
31
Bacon
9,17
Bagehot (W.) - 9
20, 38
Bagwell (R.) -
3
Bailey (H. C.) -
25
Baillie (A. F.) -
3
Bain (Alexander)
17
Baker (J. H.) -
38
(Sir S. W.)
II, 12
Baldwin (C.:S.)
17
Page
13.21
Balfour (A. J.)
Ball (John)
Banks (M. M.) -
Baring-Gould (Rev,
S.) - - -21,38
Harnett (S. A. and H.)
Baynes (T. S.) -
Beaconsfield (Earl of)
Beaufort (Duke of)
12, 13,
Becker (W. A.)
Beesly (A, H.) -
Bell (Mrs. Hugh) -
Bent (J. Theodore) -
Besant (Sir Walter)-
Bickerdyke (J.)
Bird(G.) -
Blackburne (J. H.) -
Bland (Mrs. Hubert)
Blount (Sir E.)
Boase (Rev. C. W.) -
Boedder (Rev. B.) -
Bonnell (H. H.)
24
38
9
23
II
3
14. 15
23
15
24
9
Page
36
Booth (A. J)
Bottome (P.) -
Bowen (W. E.)
Brassey (Lady)
Bright (Rev. }. F.) -
Broadfoot (Major W.)
Brooks (H. J.) -
Brough (J.) -
Brown (A. F.) -
Bruce (R. I.) -
Buckland (Jas.)
Buckle (H. T.) -
Ball(T.) -
Burke (U. R.) -
Burne-Jones (Sir E.)
Burns (C. L.) -
Burrows (Montagu)
Campbell (Rev. Lewis)
Casserly (G.) -
Chesney (Sir G.)
Childe-Pemberton (W.
S.) - - -
Chisholm (G. C ) -
Cholmondeley-Pennell
(H.) - - -
Christie (R. C.)
Churchill (Winston S.) 4, 25
Cicero - - - 22
Clarke (Rev. R. F.) - 19
Climenson (E. J.) - 10
Clodd (Edward) -21,30
Clutterbuck(W. J.)- 12
Cochrane (A.) - - 23
Cockerell (C. R.) - n
Colenso(R. J.)
Conington (John) -
Conybeare (Rev. W. J.)
& Howson (Dean)
Coolidge (W. A. B.)
Corbett (Julian S.) -
Coutts (W.) •
Cox (Harding)
Crake (Rev. A. D.) -
Crawford (J. H.) -
Creed (S.)
Creighton (Bishop) - 4.
Cross,(A. L.) -
Page
9, 17
6
Crozier (J.B.) -
Cutis (Rev. E. L.)
Dabney (J. P.) - - 23
Dale (L.) - - - 4
Dallinger (F. W.) - 5
Dauglish (M. G.) - 9
Davenport (A.) - 25
Davidson (A. M. C.) 22
(W. L.) - 17,20,21
Davies (J. F.) - - 22
Dent (C. T.) - - 14
De Salis (Mrs.) - 36
De Tocqueville (A.) - 4
Devas (C. S.) - - 19, 20
Dewey (D. R.)- - 20
Dickinson (W. H.) - 38
Dougall (L.) - - 25
Dowden (E.) - - 40
Doyle (Sir A. Conan) 25
Du Bois (W. E. B.)- 5
Dunbar (Mjiry F.) - 25
Dyson (E.) - - 26
Ellis (J. H.) ■ - 15
(R. L.) - - 17
Erasmus - . - g
Evans (Sir John) - 38
Falkiner (C. L.) . - 4
Farrar (Dean) - - 20, 26
Fite (W.) - - - 17
Fitzmaurice (Lord E.) 4
Folkard (H. C.) - 15
Ford (H.) ... 16
Fountain (P - - 11
Fowler (Edith H.) - 26
Francis (Francis) - 16
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND
5
20
15
17
9
23
17, 18
5
5
18
Page
Francis (M. E.) - 26
Freeman (Edward A.) 6
Fremantle (T. F.) - 16
Frost (G.)- - - 38
Froude (James A.) 4,9,11,26
Fuller (F. W.) - - 5
Furneaux (W.) - 30
Gardiner (Samuel R.) 5
Gatborne-Hardy (Hon.
A. E.) - - 13, 16
Geikie (Rev. Cunning-
ham) - - - 38
Gibson (C. H.) - - 17
Gilkes (A. H.) - - 38
Gleig(Rev. G. R.)
Grabam (A.)
(P. A.) -
(G. F.) - -
Granby (Marquess of)
Grant (Sir A.) -
Graves (R. P.) -
(A. F.) - -
Green (T. Hill)
Greene (E. B.)-
Greville (C. C. F.)
Grosfe (T. H.) -
Gross (C.) - - 5
Grove (Lady) - - 11
(Mrs. Lilly) - 13
Gurnhill (J.) - - 18
Gwilt (I.) - - - 31
Haggard (H, Rider)
II, 26, 27, 38
Halliwell-Pbillipps(J.) 10
Hamilton (Col. H. B.) 5
Hamlin (A. D. F.) - 36
Harding (S. B.) - 5
Hardwick (A. A.) - II
Harmswortb (A. C.)
Harte (Bret) -
Harting(J. E.)-
Hartwig (G.) -
Hassall (A.) -
Haweis (H. R.) - c
Head (Mrs.) -
Heath (D. D.) -
Heathcote (I. M.) -
(C. G.) - -
(N.) - - -
Helmholtz (Hermann
von) - - -
Henderson (Lieut-
Col. G. F. R.) -
Henry (W.) -
Henty (G. A.) -
Higgins (Mrs. N.) -
HiU (Mabel) -
(S. C.) - -
Hillier (G. Lacy) -
Hime (H. W. L.) -
Hodgson (Sbadwortb)
Hoenig (F.) -
Hoffmann (J ) -
Hogan(J. F.) - -
Holmes (R. R.)
Homer - - -
Hope (Antbony)
Horace - - -
Houston (D. F.)
Howard (Lady Mabel)
Howitt (W.) ►
Hudson (W. H.) -
Huish (M. B.) -
Hullah (J.)
Hume (David) -
(M. A. S.)
Hunt (Rev. W.)
Hunter (Sir W.) -
Hutcbinson (Horace G.)
13, 16, 27, 38
Ingelow (Jean) - 23
Ingram (T. D.) - 6
James (W.) - - 18, 21
iameson (IVIrs. Anna) 37
efFeries (Ricbard) - 38
ekyll (Gertrude) - 38
13. 14
27
15
30
8
■ 9,36
37
17
14
14
Page
27
39
31
27, 39
18
Jerome (Jerome K.) -
Johnson Q.&.]. H.)
Jones (H. Bence)
Joyce (P. W.) - 6,
Justinian - - -
Kant (I.) - - l8
Kaye (Sir J. W.) - 6
Keary (C. t.) - - 23
Kelly (E.)- - - 18
Kielmansegge (F.) - 9
Killick (Rev. A. H.) - 18
Kitcbin (Dr. G. W.) 6
Knight (E. F.) - - 11, 14
Kbstlin (J.) - - 10
Kristeller (P.) - - 37
Ladd(G. T.) - - 18
Lang (Andrew) 6 ,13, 14, 16,
21, 22, 23, 27, 32, 39
Lapsley (G. T.) - 5
Laurie (S. S.) - - 6
Lawrence (F. W.) - 20
Lear (H.L.Sidney)- 36
Lecky (W. E. H.) 6, 18, 23
Lees (J. A.) - - 12
Leigbton (t. A.) - 21
Leslie (T. E. Cliffe)
Lieven (Princess)
Lillie (A.)-
Lindley(J.)
Locock (C. D.)
Lodge (H. C.) -
Loftie (Rev. W. J.)
Longman (C. J.)
(F. W.) -
(G. H.) -
(Mrs. C. J.)
Lowell (A. L.) -
Lucian
Lutoslawski (W.)
Lyall (Edna) -
Lynch (G.)
(H. F. B.)-
Lytton (Earl of)
Macaulay (Lord) 6,7,10,24
Macdonald (Dr. G.) - 24
Macfarren(Sir G. A.) 37
Mackail (J. W.) - 10, 23
Mackenzie (C. G.) - 16
Mackinnon (J.) - 7
Macleod (H. D.) - 20
Macpherson(Rev.H.A.) 15
Madden (D. H.) - 16
Magniisson (E.) - 28
Maber (Rev. M.) - 19
Mallet (B.) - - 7
Malleson(Col. G.B.) 6
Marbot (Baron de) - 10
Marchmcnt (A. W.) 27
Marshman (J. C.) - 9
Maryon (M.) - - 39
Mason (A. E. W.) - 27
Maskelyne (J. N.) - 16
Matthews (B.) - 39
Maunder (S.) - - 31
Max Muller (F.)
10, 18, 20, 21, 22, 27, 39
May (Sir T. Erskine) 7
Meade (L. T.) - - 32
Melville (G. J. Whyte) 27
Merivale (Dean) - 7
Merriman (H. S.) - 27
Mill (John Stuart) - 18, 20
Millais (J. G.) - - 16, 30
Milner (G.) - - 40
Monck (W. H. S.) - 19
Montague (F. C.) - 7
Moore (T.) - - 31
(Rev. Edward) - 17
Moran (T. F.) - - 7
Morgan (C. Lloyd) - 21
Morris (W.) - 22, 23, 24,
27. 28, 37, 40
Mulhall (M. G.) - 20
Murray (Hilda) - 33
Myers (F. W. H.) - 19
Nansen (F.) - - 12
6
l6
31
16
6
6
12, 16
16
13, 15
37
6
22
18
27,32
6
12
24
Page
7
24
17
28
9
14
Nash (V.) -
Nesbit (E.)
Nettleship (R. L.) -
Newman (Cardinal) -
Nichols (F. M.)
Oakesmith (J.) -
Ogilvie (R.) - ■ za
Oldfield (Hon. Mrs.) 9
Osbourne (L.) - - 28
Packard (A. S.) - 21
Paget (Sir J.) - ■ 10
Park(W.) - - 16
Parker (B.) - - 40
Payne-Gallwey(SirR.)i4,i6
Pears (E.) - - 7
Pearse (H. H. S.)
Peek (Hedley) -
Pemberton (W.
Cbilde-) - - 9
Penrose (H. H.) - 33
Phillipps-Wolley(C.) 12,28
Pierce (A. H.) - - 19
Pole (W.) - - - 17
Pollock (W. H.) - 13, 40
Poole (W.H. and Mrs.) 36
Poore (G. V.) - - 40
Portman (L.) - - - 28
Powell (E.) - - 7
Powys (Mrs. P. L.) - 10
Praeger (S. Rosamond) 33
Pritchett (R. T.) - 14
Proctor (R. A.) 16, 30, 35
Raine (Rev. James) - 6
Ramal (W.) - - 24
Randolph (C. F.) - 7
Rankin (R.) - - 8, 25
Ransome (Cyril) - 3, 8
Reid(S. J.) - - 9
Rhoades (J.) - - 23
Rice (S. P.) - - 12
Rich (A.) - - - 23
Richmond (Ennis) - 19
Rickaby (Rev. John) 19
(Rev. Joseph) - 19
Riley (J. W.) - - 24
Roberts (E. P.) - 33
Robertson (W. G.) - 37
Robinson (H. C.) - 21
Roget (Peter M.) - 20, 31
Romanes (G.J.) 10, 19,21,24
(Mrs. G. J.) - 10
Ronalds (A.) - - 17
Roosevelt (T.) - - 6
Ross (Martin) - - 28
Rossetti (Maria Fran-
cesca) - - - 40
Rotberam (M. A.) - 36
Rowe (R. P. P.) - 14
Russell (Lady)- - 10
Sandars (T. C.) - 18
Sanders (E. K.) - 9
Savage- Armstrong(G.F.)25
Scott (F. J.) - - 8
Seebohm (F.) - - 8, 10
Selous (F. C.) - - 12, 17
Senior (W.) - - 13, 15
Seton-Karr (Sir H.)- 8
Sewell (Elizabeth M.) 28
EDITORS — continued.
Page
Stanley (Bishop) - 3:
Stebbing (W.) -
Steel (A. G.) -
Stephen (Leslie)
Stephens (H. Morse)
Sternberg (Count
Adalbert) -
Stevens (R. W.)
Stevenson (R. L.) 25,28,33
Storr (F.) - - - 17
Stuart-Wortley(A.J.) 14,15
Stubbs (J. W.) -
(W.)- - -
Suffolk & Berkshire
(Earlol) -
Sullivan (Sir E.)
Sully (James) -
Sutherland (A. and G.)
(Alex.)
Suttner (B. von)
Swinburne (A. j".) -
Symes (J. E.) -
Tait(J.) - - -
Tallentyre (S. G.) -
Tappan (E. M.)
Taylor (Col. Meadows)
Theopbrastus -
Thomas (J. W.)
Thomson (H. C.)
Shadwell (A.) -
Shakespeare
Shaw (W. A.) -
Shearman (M.)
Sheeban (P. A.)
Sheppard (E.) -
Sinclair (A.)
Skrine (F. H.) -
Smith (C. Fell)
• (R. Boswortb) -
(T. C.) - -
(W. P. Haskett)
Somerville (E.)
Sophocles
Soulsby(LucyH.) -
Southey (R.) -
Spedding(J.) -
Spender (A. E.)
■ 12, 13
28
13
40
14
14
19
8
19,40
29
19
33
Tbornhill (W. J.)
Thornton (T. H.)
23
10
40
Thuillier (H. F.)
Todd (A.) - - - 8
Tout (T. F.) - - 7
Toynbee (A.) - - 20
Trevelyan (Sir G. O.)
6, 7, 8, 9, 10
(G. M.) - - 7, 8
(R. C.) - - 25
Trollope (Anthony)- 29
Turner (H. G.) - 40
Tyndall (J.) - - 9, 12
Tyrrell (R. Y.) - - 22, 23
Unwin (R.) - - 40
Upton(F.K.and Bertha) 33
Van Dyke (J. C.) - 37
Vanderpoel (E. N.) - 37
Virgil - - - 23
Wagner (R.) - - 25
Wakeman (H. O.) - 8
Walford (L. B.) - 29
Wallas (Graham) - 10
(Mrs. Graham) - 32
Walpole (Sir Spencer) 8, iq
(Horace) - - 10
Walrond (Col. H.) - 12
Walsingbam (Lord)- 14
Ward (Mrs. W.) - 29
Warner (P. F.) - 17
Warwick (Countess of) 40
Watson (A. E. T.) 12, 13, 14
Weathers (J.) - - 40
Webb (Mr. and Mrs.
Sidney) - - 20
(Judge T.) - 40
(T. E.) - - 19
Weber (A.) - - 19
Weir (Capt. R.) - 14
Wellington (Duchess of) 37
Wemyss(M. C. E.)- 33
Weyman (Stanley) - 29
Whately(Archbisbop) 17,19
Whitelaw (R.) - - 23
Whittall (Sir J. W. )- 40
Wilkins (G.) - - 23
(W. H.) - - 10
Willard (A. R.) - 37
Willich (C. M.) - 31
Wood (Rev. J. G.) - 31
Wood-Martin (W. G.) 22
Wotton (H.) - - 37
Wyatt (A. J.) - - 24
Wylie (J. H.) - - 8
Yeats (S. Levett) - 29
Yoxall (J. H.) - - 29
Zeller (E.) - - 19
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