1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Family

​FAMILY, a word of which the etymology but partiallyillustrates the meaning. The Roman familia, derived from theOscan famel (servus), originally signified the servile property,the thralls, of a master. Next, the term denoted other domesticproperty, in things as well as in persons. Thus, in the fifth ofthe laws of the Twelve Tables, the rules are laid down: SI ·INTESTATO · MORITUR · CUI · SUUS · HERES · NEC · SIT · ADGNATUS · ​PROXIMUS · FAMILIAM · HABETO, and SI · AGNATUS · NEC · ESCIT · GENTILIS · FAMILIAM · NANCITOR; that is, if a man die intestate,leaving no natural heir who had been under his potestas, thenearest agnate, or relative tracing his connexion with thedeceased exclusively through males, is to inherit the familia,or family fortune of every sort. Failing an agnate, a memberof the gens of the dead man is to inherit. In a third sense,familia was applied to all the persons who could prove themselvesto be descended from the same ancestor, and thus the wordalmost corresponded to our own use of it in the widest meaning,as when we say that a person is “of a good family” (Ulpian,Dig. 50, 16, 195 fin.).

1. Leaving for awhile the Roman terms, to which it will benecessary to return, we may provisionally define Family, in themodern sense, as the small community formed bythe union of one man with one woman, and by theincrease of children born to them. These in modernOld theory.times, and in most European countries, constitute the household,and it has been almost universally supposed that little naturalassociations of this sort are the germ-cell of early society. TheBible presents the growth of the Jewish nation from the onehousehold of Abraham. His patriarchal family differed from themodern family in being polygamous, but, as female chastitywas one of the conditions of the patriarchal family, and asdescent through males was therefore recognized as certain,the plurality of wives makes no real difference to the argument.In the same way the earliest formal records of Indian, Greek andRoman society present the family as firmly established, andgenerally regarded as the most primitive of human associations.Thus, Aristotle derives the first household (οἰκία πρώτη) fromthe combination of man’s possession of property—in the slaveor in domesticated animals—with man’s relation to woman,and he quotes Hesiod: οἶκον μὲν πρώτιστα γυναῖκά τε βοῦν τ’ ἀροτῆρα (Politics, i. 2. 5). The village, again, with him is acolony or offshoot of the household, and monarchical governmentin states is derived from the monarchy of the eldest male memberof the family. Now, though certain ancient terms, introducedby Aristotle in the chapters to which we refer, might have ledhim to imagine a very different origin of society, his theory is, onthe face of it, natural and plausible, and it has been almostuniversally accepted. The beginning of society, it has been saida thousand times, is the family, a natural association of kindredby blood, composed of father, mother and their descendants.In this family, the father is absolute master of his wife, hischildren and the goods of the little community; at his deathhis eldest son succeeds him; and in course of time this associationof kindred, by natural increase and by adoption, developsinto the clan, gens, or γένος. As generations multiply, the moredistant relations split off into other clans, and these clans, whichhave not lost the sense of primitive kinship, unite once moreinto tribes. The tribes again, as civilization advances, acknowledgethemselves to be subjects of a king, in whose veinsthe blood of the original family runs purest. This, or somethinglike this, is the common theory of the growth of society.

2. It was between 1866 and 1880 that the common opinionbegan to be seriously opposed. John Ferguson McLennan, in hisPrimitive Marriage and his essays on The Worship ofPlants and Animals (see his Studies in Ancient History,second series), drew attention to the wide prevalence ofModern criticism.the custom of inheriting the kinship name through mothers,not fathers; and to the law of “Exogamy” (q.v.). The formerusage he attributed to archaic uncertainty as to fatherhood;the natural result of absolute sexual promiscuity, or of Polyandry(q.v.). Either practice is inconsistent, prima facie, with theprimitive existence of the Family, whether polygamous ormonogamous, whether patriarchal or modern. The custom ofExogamy, again,—here taken to mean the unwritten law whichmakes it incest, and a capital offence, to marry within the realor supposed kin denoted by the common name of the kinship,—pointedto an archaic condition of family affairs all unlike ourTable of prohibited degrees. This law of Exogamy was found,among many savage races, associated with Totems, that is plants,animals and other natural objects which give names to thevarious kinships, and are themselves, in various degrees, reverencedby members of the kinships. (See Totem and Totemism.)Traces of such kinships, and of Totemism, also of alleged promiscuityin ancient times, were detected by McLennan in the legends,folk-lore and institutions of Greece, Rome and India. Later,Prof. Robertson Smith found similar survivals, or possiblesurvivals, among the Semitic races (Kinship in Early Arabia).Others have followed the same trail among the Celts (S. Reinach,Cultes, mythes et religions, 1904).

If arguments founded on these alleged survivals be valid,it may be that the most civilized races have passed through thestages of Exogamy, Totemism and reckoning descent in thefemale line. McLennan explained Exogamy as a result ofscarcity of women, due to female infanticide. Women beingscarce, the men of a group would steal them from other groups,and it would become shameful, and finally a deadly sin, for a manto marry within his own group-name, or name of kinship, sayWolf or Raven. Meanwhile, owing to scarcity of women, onewoman would be the mate of many husbands (polyandry);hence, paternity being undetermined, descent would be reckonedthrough mothers.

Such are the outlines of McLennan’s theory, which, as awhole, has been attacked by many writers, and is now, perhaps,accepted by none. McLennan’s was the most brilliantpioneer work; but his supply of facts was relativelyscanty, and his friend Charles Darwin stated objectionsMcLennan’s value.which to many seem final, as regards the past existence of a stageof sexual promiscuity. C. N. Starcke (The Primitive Family,1889), Edward Alexander Westermarck (History of HumanMarriage, 1891), Ernest Crawley (The Mystic Rose), HerbertSpencer, Emile Durkheim, Lord Avebury and many others,have criticized McLennan, who, however, in coining the termExogamy, and drawing scientific attention to Totemism, andreckoning of kin through mothers, founded the study of earlysociety. Here it must be observed that “Matriarchate” (q.v.)is a misleading term, as is “Gynaecocracy,” for the custom ofdeducing descent on the spindle side. Women among totemisticand exogamous savages are in a degraded position, nor does thederiving and inheriting of the kinship name, or anything else,on the spindle side, imply any ignorance of paternal relations;even where, as among Central Australian tribes, the facts ofreproduction are said to be unknown.

3. Simultaneous with McLennan’s researches and speculationswere the works of Lewis H. Morgan. He was the discoverer of acustom very important in its bearing on the history ofsociety. In about two-thirds of the globe, personsin addressing a kinsman do not discriminate betweenLewis Morgan.grades of relationship. All these grades are merged in largecategories. Thus, in what Morgan calls the “Malayan system,”“all consanguinei, near or far, fall within one of these relationships—grandparent,parent, brother, sister, child and grandchild.”No other blood-relationships are recognized (AncientSociety). This at once reminds us of the Platonic Republic.“We devised means that no one should ever be able to know hisown child, but that all should imagine themselves to be of onefamily, and should regard as brothers and sisters those whowere within a certain limit of age; and those who were of an eldergeneration they were to regard as parents and grandparents,and those who were of a younger generation as children andgrandchildren” (Timaeus, 18, Jowett’s translation, first edition,vol. ii., 1871). This system prevails in the Polynesian groupsand in New Zealand. Next comes what Morgan chooses to callthe Turanian system. “It was universal among the NorthAmerican aborigines,” whom he styles Ganowanians. “Tracesof it have been found in parts of Africa” (Ancient Society),and “it still prevails in South India among the Hindus, whospeak the Dravidian language,” and also in North India, amongother Hindus. The system, Morgan says, “is simply stupendous.”It is not exactly the same among all his miscellaneous“Turanians,” but, on the whole, assumes the following shapes.Suppose the speaker to be a male, he will style his nephew and ​niece in the male line, his brother’s children, “son” and“daughter,” and his grand-nephews and grand-nieces in the maleline, “grandson” and “granddaughter.” Here the Turanianand the Malayan systems agree. But change the sex; let themale speaker address his nephews and nieces in the female line,—thechildren of his sister,—he salutes them as “nephew” and“niece,” and they hail him as “uncle.” Now, in the Malaysystem, nephews and nieces on both sides, brother’s children orsisters, are alike named “children” of the uncle. If the speakerbe a female, using the Turanian style, these terms are reversed.Her sister’s sons and daughters are saluted by her as “son”and “daughter,” her brother’s children she calls “nephew”and “niece.” Yet the children of the persons thus styled“nephew” and “niece” are not recognized in conversation as“grand-nephew” and “grand-niece,” but as “grandson” and“granddaughter.” It is impossible here to do more thanindicate these features of the classificatory nomenclature, fromwhich the others may be inferred. The reader is referred forparticulars to Morgan’s Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity ofthe Human Race.

The existence of the classificatory system is not an entirelynovel discovery. Nicolaus Damascenus, one of the inquirersinto early society, who lived in the first century of our era,noticed this mode of address among the Galactophagi. Lafitaufound it among the Iroquois. To Morgan’s perception of theimportance of the facts, and to his energetic collection of reports,we owe our knowledge of the wide prevalence of the system.From an examination of the degrees of kindred which seemto be indicated by the “Malayan” and “Turanian” modes ofaddress, he has worked out a theory of the evolution of the modernfamily. A brief comparison of this with other modern theorieswill close our account of the family. The main points of thetheory are shortly stated in Systems of Consanguinity, &c., andin Ancient Society. From the latter work we quote the followingdescription of the five different and successive forms of thefamily:—

Morgan makes the systems of nomenclature proofs of theexistence of the Consanguine and Punaluan families. Unhappily,there is no other proof, and the same systems have been explainedon a very different principle (McLennan, Studies in AncientHistory). Looking at facts, we find the Consanguine familynowhere, and cannot easily imagine how early groups abstainedfrom infringing on each other, and created a systematic marriageof brothers and sisters. St Augustine, however (De civ. Dei,xv. 16), and Archinus in his Thessalica (Odyssey, xi. 7, scholiaB, Q) agree more or less with Morgan. Next, how did theConsanguine family change into the Punaluan? Morgan says(Ancient Society) brothers ceased to marry their sisters, because“the evils of it could not for ever escape human observation.”Thus the Punaluan family was hit upon, and “created a distinctsystem of consanguinity” (Ancient Society), the Turanian.Again, “marriages in Punaluan groups explain the relationshipsin the system.” But Morgan provides himself with anotherexplanation, “the Turanian system owes its origin to marriagein the group and to the gentile organization.” He calls exogamy“the gentile organization,” though, in point of fact, the onlygentes we know, the Roman gentes, show scarcely a trace ofexogamy. Again, “the change of relationships which resultedfrom substituting Punaluan in the place of Consanguine marriageturns the Malayan into the Turanian system.” On the samepage Morgan attributes the change to the “gentile organization,”and, still on the same page, uses both factors in his working outof the problem. Now, if the Punaluan marriage is a sufficientexplanation, we do not need the “gentile organization.” Both,in Morgan’s opinion, were efforts of conscious moral reform.In Systems of Consanguinity the gentile organization (therecalled tribal), that is, exogamy, is said to have been “designedto work out a reformation in the intermarriage of brothers andsisters.” But the Punaluan marriage had done that, otherwiseit would not have produced (as Morgan says it did) the changefrom the Malayan to the Turanian system, the difference in thetwo systems, as exemplified in Seneca and Tamil, being “in therelationships which depended on the intermarriage or non-intermarriageof brothers and sisters” (Ancient Society). Yet thePunaluan family, though itself a reform in morals and in “breeding,”“did not furnish adequate motives to reform the Malaysystem,” which, as we have seen, it did reform. The Punaluanfamily, it is suspected, “frequently involved own brothers andsisters”; had it not been so, there would have been no need of afresh moral reformation,—“the gentile organization.” Yet evenin the Punaluan family (Ancient Society) “brothers ceased tomarry their own sisters.” What, then, did the “gentile organization”do for men? As they had already ceased to marry theirown sisters, and as, under the gentile organization, they werestill able to marry their half-sisters, the reformatory “ingenuity”of the inventors of the organizations was at once superfluous anduseless. It is impossible to understand the Punaluan system.Its existence is inferred from a system of nomenclature which itdoes (and does not) produce; it admits (and excludes) ownbrothers and sisters. Morgan has intended, apparently, torepresent the Punaluan marriage as a long transition to thedefinite custom of exogamy, but it will be seen that his languageis not very clear nor his positions assured. He does not adducesufficient proof that the Punaluan family ever existed as aninstitution, even in Hawaii. There is, if possible, a greaterabsence of historical testimony to the existence of the Consanguinefamily. It is difficult to believe that exogamy was aconscious moral and social reformation, because, ex hypothesi, thesavages had no moral data, nothing to cause disgust at relationswhich seem revolting to us. It is as improbable that they discoveredthe supposed physical evils of breeding in and in. Thatdiscovery could only have been made after a long experience, andin the Consanguine family that experience was impossible. Thus,setting moral reform aside as inconceivable, we cannot understandhow the Consanguine families ever broke up. Morgan’s ingeniousspeculations as to a transitional step towards the gens (as he callswhat we style the totem-kindred), supposed to be found in the“classes” and marriage laws of the Kamilaroi, are vitiated bythe weakness and contradictory nature of the evidence (seePritchard; J. D. Lang’s Queensland, Appendix; Proceedings ofAmerican Academy of Arts, &c., vol. viii. 412; Nature, October29, 1874). Further, though Morgan calls the Australian “gentileorganization” “incipient,” he admits (Ancient Society) that theNarrinyeri have totem groups, in which “the children are of theclan of the father.” Far from being “incipient,” the gens of theNarrinyeri is on the footing of the ghotra of Hindu custom.Lastly, though Morgan frequently declares that the Polynesianshave not the gens (for he thinks them not sufficiently advanced),W. W. Gill (Myths and Songs from the South Pacific, London,1876) has shown that unmistakable traces of the totem survive inPolynesian mythology.

4. Morgan’s theory was opposed by McLennan (Studies inAncient History, 1876), who maintained that the names for ​relationships, in the “classificatory system,” were merely termsof address, as among ourselves when a preacher calls any adultRival theories.male “brother,” when an old woman is addressed as“mother,” when an elder man calls a junior “myson.” He also showed that his own system accountedfor the terms. The controversy is still alive; one set of writersregarding the savage terms of relationship as indicating a state ofthings in which human beings dwelt in a “horde,” with promiscuousintercourse; another set holding that the terms do notindicate consanguineous kinship, but degrees of age, status, andreciprocal obligations in a local tribe, and therefore that they donot yield any presumption that there was a past of promiscuity orof what is called “group marriage.” On Morgan’s side (not ofcourse accepting all his details) are L. Fison and A. W. Howitt,and Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen. Against him are Starcke,Westermarck, A. Lang, Dr Durkheim, apparently, Crawley andmany others.

5. A second presumption in favour of original promiscuity hasbeen drawn by the eminent Australian students, BaldwinSpencer and F. J. Gillen, and by A. W. Howitt, fromthe customs of some Australian aborigines. In eachtribe, owing to customary laws which are to beEvidence
of original promiscuity.examined later, only men and women of a given statusare intermarriageable (nupa, noa, unawa) with each other.Though child-betrothals are usual, and though the woman isspecialized to one man, who protects and nourishes her and allher children, and though their union is immediately preceded byan extended jus primae noctis (such as Herodotus describes amongthe Nasamones), yet, among certain tribes, the following customprevails. At great meetings the tribal leaders assign a woman asparamour (with what amount of permanence remains obscure) toa man (pirrauru); one woman may have several pirrauru men,one man several pirrauru women, in addition to their regularlybetrothed (tippa malku) wives and husbands. The husbandoccasionally shows fight, and bitter jealousies prevail, but, atthe great ceremonial meetings, complaisance is enforced underpenalty of strangling. Thenceforth, if the husband permits, themale pirrauru has matrimonial rights over the other man’stippa malku wife when they meet. A symbolic ceremony ofunion precedes the junction of the pirrauru people. This institution,as far as reported, is peculiar to a group of tribes near LakeEyre, the Dieri, Urabunna, and their congeners,—or perhaps toall who have the same “phratry” names as the Dieri andUrabunna (Kiraru and Mattera, in various dialectic forms).

Elsewhere the pirrauru custom is not known: but almosteverywhere there are licentious festivals, in which all marriagerules except those which forbid incest (in our sense of the word,namely between the closest relations) are thrown to the winds.Also a native travelling among alien tribes is lent women of thestatus into which he may legally marry.

Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, and A. W. Howitt, regardpirrauru as “group marriage” and as a proof that, at one time,all intermarriageable people were actually husbandsand wives, while the other examples of licence are alsosurvivals, in a later stage of decay, of promiscuity, andGroup marriage.“group marriage.” To this it is replied that “group marriage”is a misnomer; that if pirrauru be in a sense marriage it isstatus, not group marriage. Again, it is urged, pirrauru is amodification of tippa malku, which comes first; a woman is“specialized” to a man before she can be made pirrauru toanother, and her tippa malku husband continues to support her,and to recognize her children as his own, after she has becomepirrauru to another man or other men. Without the foregoingtippa malku union, the pirrauru unions are not conceivable;they are mere legalized paramourships, modifying the tippamalku marriage (like the Italian cicisbeism); procuring a protectorfor a woman in her husband’s absence, and supplying legal lovesfor bachelors. The custom is peculiar to a given set of kindredtribes. The festivals are the legalized, restricted and more orless permanent modification of the casual orgies of feasts oflicence, or Saturnalia, which have their analogies among manypeople, ancient and modern. Pirrauru is no more a survivalof and a proof of primitive promiscuity, than is the legalized incestof ancient Egypt or ancient Peru. If these views be correct theargument for primitive promiscuity derived from pirrauru fallsto the ground.

6. The questions at issue obviously are, was mankind originallypromiscuous, with no objections to marriage between persons ofthe nearest kin; and was the first step in advancethe prohibition of marriage (or of amatory intercourse)between brothers and sisters; or did mankind originallyThe historical problem.live in very small groups, under a jealous sire,who imposed restrictions on intercourse between the youngmales, his sons, and all the females of the “hearth-circle,” whoconstituted his harem? The problem has been studied, first,in the institutions of savages, notably of the most backwardsavages, the black natives of Australia; and next, in the lightof the habits of the higher mammalia.

As regards Australian matrimonial institutions, it has beenknown since the date of the Journals of two Expeditions ofDiscovery, by Sir George Grey (1837–1839), that they are verycomplex and peculiar, in points strongly resembling the customarylaws of the more backward Red Indian tribes of North America.Information came in, while McLennan was working, fromG. Taplin (The Narrinyeri, 1874), from A. W. Howitt and L.Fison, and many other inquirers (in Brough Smyth’s Aboriginesof Victoria, 1878), from Howitt and Fison again (in Kamilaroiand Kurnai, 1880), and many essays by these authors, and finally,in Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899) and Northern Tribesof Central Australia (1904), by Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen;and in Howitt’s Native Tribes of South-East Australia (1904),with R. Roth’s North-West Central Queensland Aborigines (1897).All of these are works of very high merit. Knowledge is nowmuch more wide, minute and securely based than it was whenMcLennan’s Studies in Ancient History, second series, wasposthumously published (1896). We know with certainty thatin Australia, among archaic savages who have neither metals,agriculture, pottery nor domesticated animals, a graduatedscale of matrimonial institutions exists. First there are localtribes, each tribe having its own dialect; holding a recognizedarea of territory; and living on friendly terms with neighbouringtribes. Territorial conquest is never attempted. In many casesa knot of tribes of allied dialects and kindred rites may be, or atleast is, spoken of as a “nation” by our authorities.

7. Customary law is administered by the Seniors, the wise,the magically skilled, who in many cases are “headmen” oflocal groups or of sets of kindred. As to marriage,persons may wed within the local tribe, or into aneighbouring local tribe, at will, provided that theyPrimitive restrictions on marriage.obey the restrictions of customary law. The localtribe is neither exogamous nor endogamous, any more than is anEnglish county. The restrictions, except where they have becomeobsolete, fall into six main categories:—

(1) In the most primitive, each tribe consists of two intermarryingand exogamous divisions, which are often styledphratries. Each such division has a name, which, when it canbe translated, is the name of an animal: in the majority ofcases, however, the meaning of the phratry name is lost. In oneinstance, that of the Euahlayi tribe of north-west New SouthWales, the phratry names are said (by Mrs Langloh Parker) tomean “Light Blood” and “Dark Blood.” This, as in the theoryof the Rev. J. Mathews, Eagle and Crow, might be taken toindicate a blending of two distinct races.

Taking, for the sake of clearness, tribes whose phratry namesmean “Crow” and “Eagle Hawk,” every member of the tribebelongs either to Eagle Hawk phratry or to Crow phratry: if toCrow, the man or woman can only marry an Eagle Hawk, if toEagle Hawk, can only marry a Crow. The children invariablybelong to the phratry of the mother, in this most primitive type.Within Eagle Hawk phratry is one set of totem kins, namedusually after various species of animals and plants; withinCrow phratry is another set of totem kins, named always (exceptin one region of Central Australia) after a different set of plantsand animals. With the exception mentioned (that of the Arunta ​“nation”), in no tribe does the same totem ever occur in bothphratries. Totems and totem names are inherited by thechildren from the mother, in this primitive type. Thus a man,Eagle Hawk by phratry, Snipe by totem, marries a woman Crowby phratry, Black Duck by totem. His children by her are ofphratry Crow, of totem Black Duck. Obviously no person canmarry another of his or her own totem, because, in the phratryinto which he or she must marry, no man or woman of his or hertotem exists. The prohibition extends to members of alien andremote tribes, if of the same totem name.

The same rules exist in the more primitive North Americantribes, but as the phratry there has generally, though not always,decayed, the rule, where this has occurred, merely forbidsmarriage within the totem kin.

(2) We find this type of organization, where the child inheritsphratry and totem from the father, not from the mother.

(3) We find tribes in which phratry and totem are inheritedfrom the mother, but an additional rule prevails: the rule of“Matrimonial Classes.” By this device, in phratry “Dilbi,”there are two classes, “Muri” and “Kubi.” In phratry“Kupathin” are two classes, “Ipai” and “Kumbo” (all thesenames are of unknown meaning). Each child inherits its mother’sphratry name and totem name, and also the name of that classof the two in the mother’s phratry to which the mother does notbelong. No person may marry into his or her own class—practicallyinto his or her own generation: the rule makesparental and filial marriages impossible,—but these never occureven among more primitive tribes which have not the institutionof classes. Suppose that the class names are really names ofanimals and other objects in nature—as in a few cases theyactually are. Then the rules, where classes exist, would amountto this: no person may marry another who, by phratry, totem orgeneration, owns the same hereditary animal name as himselfor herself. In practice, where phratries exist, a man who knowsa woman’s phratry name knows whether or not he may marryher. Where class names exist (even though the phratry name belost), a man who knows a woman’s class name knows whetheror not he may marry her. Nothing can be simpler in practice.

(4) The same rules as under (3) exist, but the phratry, totemand class are inherited through the father: the class of the childof course not being the father’s, but the linked class in hisphratry.

(5) In the fifth category (Central North Australia), whilephratry name (if not lost) and totem name are inherited fromthe father, by a refinement of law which is spreading southwardsthere are four classes in each phratry (or main exogamousdivision unnamed), and the choice of a partner in life is thusmore restricted than in more primitive tribes.

(6) Finally we reach the institutions of the group of tribescalled, from the name of the most powerful tribe in the set,“the Arunta nation.” They occupy the MacdonnellRanges and other territory in the very centre ofAustralia. The Arunta reckon kinship in the male line:Arunta customs.their phratry names they have forgotten, in place of phratrieseight matrimonial classes regulate marriage. In these respectsthey resemble most of the central and northern tribes, but presentthis unique peculiarity, that the same totems may and do existin both of the opposed intermarrying exogamous divisions consistingof four classes each. It thus results that a man, in theArunta tribe, may marry a woman of his own totem, if she bein the class with which he may intermarry. This licence is unknownin every other part of the totemic world, and even in theKaitish tribe of the Arunta nation intertotemicmarriages, inpractice, almost never occur.

Among the Arunta the totems are only prominent in magicalceremonies, unknown in South-Eastern Australia. At theseceremonies (Intichiuma) the men of the totem do co-operativemagic for the benefit of their plant or animal, as part of thetribal food-supply. The members of the totem taste it sparinglyon these occasions, apparently under the belief that to do soincreases their magical power: the rest of the tribe eat freely.But, as far as denoting kinship or regulating marriage is concerned,the totems, among the Arunta, have no legally importantexistence. Men and women of the same totem may intermarry,their children need not belong to the totem of either father ormother.

The process by which Arunta totems came thus to differ fromthose of all other savages is easily understood. Like the othertribes from the centre to the north (including the Urabunnanation, which reckons descent through women), the Aruntabelieve that the souls of the primal semi-bestial ancestors of theAlcheringa or “dream time” are perpetually reincarnated.This opinion does not affect by itself the usual exogamouscharacter of totemism among the other tribes. The Aruntanation, however, cultivates an additional myth, namely that theprimal ancestors, when they sank into the ground, left behindthem certain oval stone slabs, with archaic markings, calledchuringa nanja, or “sacred things of the nanja.” The nanja,again, is a tree or rock, fabled to have risen up to mark the spotwhere a group of primal ancestors, all of one and the same totemin each case (Cats here, Grubs there, Ducks elsewhere), “wentinto the ground.” The souls of these ancestors haunt such spots,especially they haunt the nanja tree or rock, and the stonechuringa nanja.Each district, therefore, has its own oknanikilla(or local totem centre of the ghosts), Cat ghosts, Grub ghosts,Hakea flower ghosts and so on. These spirits enter into womenand are reborn as children. When a child comes to birth, themother names the oknanikilla in which she conceived it, and,whatever the ghost totem of that place may be, it is the child’stotem. Its mother may be a Grub, its father may be a Crow,but if the child was conceived in a Duck, or Cat, or Opossum orKangaroo locality, it is, by totem, a Cat, Opossum, Duck orKangaroo. The churinga nanja of its primal ancestor is soughtfor at the place of the child’s conception, and is put into thesacred repository of such objects.

Thus the child does not inherit its totem from father, or frommother, as everywhere else, but does inherit the right to doceremonies for the paternal totem: a proof that, of old, totemswere inherited, as elsewhere, and that in the male line. If totemsamong the Arunta, as everywhere else, were once arranged onthe plan that the same totem never occurs in both exogamousmoieties, that arrangement has been destroyed, as was inevitable,by the existing method of allotting totems to children,—notby inheritance,—but at haphazard. By this means (aconsequence of the unique Arunta belief about churinga nanja)the same totems have got into both exogamous moieties, so thatpersons of the same totem, but of appropriate matrimonialclasses, may marry. This licence is absolutely confined to thelimited region in which stone churinga nanja occur.

The whole system is impossible except where descent isreckoned in the male line, for there alone is local totemismpossible, and the Arunta system is based on local totemism,plus the churinga nanja and reincarnation beliefs. With reckoningof descent in the female line, no locality can possibly haveits local totem: all the totems indiscriminately distributedeverywhere: and thus no woman can say in what totemiclocality her child was conceived, for there is not and cannot be,with female descent, any totemic locality. Now it is admittedthat reckoning by female descent is the earlier method, and it isgranted that in rites and ceremonies the Arunta are of a relativelyadvanced and highly organized pattern. Their social organizationis local, and they have a kind of local magistracies, hereditaryin the male line.

In spite of these facts, Spencer and Gillen conceive that thepeculiar totemism of the Arunta is the most primitive typeextant (cp. Spencer, J.A.I. (N.S.), vol. i. 275-281; and Frazer,ibid. 281-288). It is not easy to understand this position, as,without male kinship and consequent local totemism (which arenot primitive), and without the churinga nanja (which exist onlyin a strictly limited area), the Arunta system of non-exogamoustotems cannot possibly exist. Again, the other tribes cannot havepassed through the Arunta stage, for, if they had, their totemswould have existed, as among the Arunta, in both exogamousmoieties, and would there remain when they came to be inherited; ​so that the totems of all these tribes would still be non-exogamous,like those of the Arunta. But this is not the case. Once more,it is clear that the Arunta system has but recently reached theirneighbours, the Kaitish, for though they have the churinga nanjabelief, and the haphazard method of acquiring totems by localaccident, these things have not yet overcome the old traditionalreluctance to marry within the totem name. It is not unlawfulamong the Kaitish; but it is hardly ever done.

Despite these objections, however, Spencer and Gillen hold,as we have said, that, originally, there were no restrictions (orno known restrictions) on marriage. Totems were merely theresult of the formation of co-operative magical societies, in theinterest of the tribal food supply. Then, in some unknown way,regulations as to marriage were introduced for some unknownpurpose, or were involved in some manner not understood.“The traditions of the Arunta,” says Spencer, “point to a verydefinite introduction of an exogamous system long after thetotemic groups were fully developed, and, further, they pointvery clearly to the fact that the introduction was due to thedeliberate action of certain ancestors. Our knowledge of thenatives leads us to the opinion that it is quite possible that thisreally took place, that the exogamic groups were deliberatelyintroduced so as to regulate marital relations.”

Thus the wisdom of men living promiscuously as regardsmarriage, but organized in magical societies for the benefit ofthe common food supply of the local tribe (a complex institutionpostulated as already in being at this early stage), induced themto institute exogamy. Why they did this, what harm they sawin their promiscuity, we are not informed. Spencer goes on,“by this we do not mean that the regulations had anythingwhatever to do with the idea of incest, or of any harm accruingfrom the union of individuals who were regarded as too nearlyrelated. . . . There was felt the need of some kind of organization,and this gradually resulted in the development of exogamousgroups.” But as “it is quite possible that the exogamous groupswere deliberately introduced to regulate marital relations,” andas they could only do so by introducing exogamy, we do notsee how that system can be the result of the gradual developmentof an organization quelconque,—of unknown nature. Amagical organization already existed (Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute, New Series, i. pp. 284-285).

The traditions of the Arunta seem here to be first accepted:“quite possibly” they are correct in stating that an exogamicsystem was purposefully introduced, long after totemic groupshad arisen, by “the deliberate action of certain ancestors,”and then that myth is rejected, in favour of the gradual developmentof exogamy, “out of some form of organization,” unknown.

People who, like the Arunta, have lost memory of the verynames of the phratries, cannot conceivably remember thenature of the origin of exogamy. Accustomed as they now are totribal councils which introduce new rules, they fancy that, in thebeginning, new rules were thus introduced.

Meanwhile the working of magic for the behoof of the totemanimals and plants, or rather for the name-giving animals ofmagical societies, is not known to Howitt among thetribes of primitive social organization, while it is wellknown among agricultural natives of the TorresConclusion as to Spencer’s hypothesis.Strait Islands and among the advanced Sioux andOmaha of North America. The practice seems tobelong rather to the decadence than to the dawn of totemism.On the whole, then, there seem to be insuperable difficultiesin the way of Spencer’s hypothesis that mankind were promiscuous,as regards marriage, but were organized into co-operativemagical groups, athwart which came, in some unexplainedway, the rule of exogamy; while, when it did come,all savages except the Arunta arranged matters so that totemkins were exogamous. The reverse was probably the case,totem kins were originally exogamous, and ceased to be so,and even to be kins among the Arunta, in consequence of thechuringa nanja creed, becoming co-operative magical societies(Hartland, Marett, Durkheim and others).

8. Spencer and Gillen leave the origin of exogamy an openquestion. Howitt supposes that, in the shape of the phratriacdivision of the tribe into two exogamous moieties,the scheme may have been introduced to the tribalheadmen by a medicine man “announcing to hisOrigin of exogamy.fellow headman a command received from some supernaturalbeing . . .” (Natives of South-East Australia, pp. 89, 90).The Council, so to speak, of “headmen” accept the divinedecree, and the assembled tribe pass the Act. But this explanationexplains nothing. Why did the prophet wish to introduceexogamy? Why were names of animals given, in so many cases,to the two exogamous divisions? As Howitt asks (op. cit. p. 153),“How was it that men assumed the names of objects, which infact must have been the commencement of totemism?”

It is apparent that any theory which begins by postulatingthe existence of early mankind in promiscuous groups or hordes,into which exogamous moieties are introduced by tribal decree,takes for granted that the tribe, with its headman, councils andgreat meetings (not to mention its inspired prophet, with thetribal “All Father” who inspires him), existed before any rulesregulating “marital relations” were evolved. Even if all thiswere probable, we are not told why a promiscuous tribe thoughtgood to establish exogamous divisions. Some native mythsattribute the institution to certain wise ancestors; some to thesupernatural “All Father,” say Baiame; some to a treatybetween Eagle Hawk and Crow, beings of cosmogonic legend,who give names to the phratries. Such myths are mere hypotheses.It is impossible to imagine how early savages, ex hypothesipromiscuous, saw anything to reform in their state ofpromiscuity. They now think certain unions wrong, becausethey are forbidden: they were not forbidden, originally, becausethey were thought wrong.

Westermarck has endeavoured to escape the difficulty thus:“Among the ancestors of man, as among other animals, therewas no doubt a time when blood relationship was nobar to sexual intercourse. But variations here, aselsewhere, would naturally present themselves, andWestermarck.those of our ancestors who avoided in and in breeding wouldsurvive,” while the others would die out. This appears to beorthodox evolutionary language, but it carries us no further.Human societies are not animals or plants, in whose structurevarious favourable “accidents” occur, producing better types,which survive. We ask why in human society did “variationspresent themselves”; why did certain sets of human beings“avoid in and in breeding”? We are merely told that someof our ancestors became exogamous and survived, while othersremained promiscuous and perished. No light is thrown on theproblem,—wherefore did some of our ancestors avoid in and inbreeding, and become exogamous? Nothing is gained by saying“thus an instinct would be developed which would be powerfulenough, as a rule, to prevent injurious unions.” There is no“instinct,” there is a tribal law of exogamy. If there had beenan “instinct,” it might account for the avoidance of “in and inbreeding”—that is, it might account for exogamy, ab initio.But that is left unaccounted for by the theory which, aftermaintaining that the avoidance produced the instinct, seems toargue that the instinct produced the avoidance. Westermarckgoes on to say that “exogamy, as a natural extension of theinstinct, would arise when single families united in small hordes.”But, if the single families already had the “instinct,” they wouldnot marry within the family: they would be exogamous,—marryingonly into other families,—before they “united in smallhordes.” The difficulty of accounting for exogamy does notseem to have been overcome, and no attempt is made to explainthe animal names of totem kins and phratries. Westermarck,however, says that “there is no reason why we should assume,as so many anthropologists have done, that primitive menlived in small endogamous groups, practising incest in everydegree,” although, as he also says, “there was no doubt a timewhen blood relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse.”If there was no bar, people would “practise incest in everydegree,”—what was there to prevent them? (History of HumanMarriage, pp. 352, 353 (1891)).

​So far we have seen no luminous and consistent account ofhow mankind became exogamous, if they began by beingpromiscuous. The theories rest on the idea that man,dwelling in an “undivided horde” (except so far asit was divided into co-operative magical societies), bisected itDurkheim.into two exogamous intermarrying moieties. Durkheim has putforward a theory which is not at all points easily understood.He supposes that, “at the beginning of societies of men, incestwas not prohibited . . . before each horde (peuplade) divideditself into two primitive ‘clans’ at least” (L’Année sociologique,i. pp. 62, 63). Each of the two “clans” claimed descent from adifferent animal, which was its totem, and its “god.” The twoclans were exogamous,—out of respect to the blood of theirtotem (with which every member of the clan is mystically one),and, being hostile, the two clans raided each other for women.Each clan threw off colonies, which took new totems, new “gods,”though still owning some regard to their original clan, fromwhich they had seceded, while abandoning its “god.” When thetwo “primary clans” made alliance and connubium, they becamethe phratries in the local tribe, and their colonies became thetotem kins within the phratries.

We are not told why the original horde was disrupted into twohostile and intermarrying “clans”: we especially wonder whythe horde, if it wanted an animal god, did not choose one animalfor the whole community; and we may suspect that a differenceof taste in animal “gods” caused the hostility of the two clans.Nor do we see why, if things occurred thus, the totem kinsshould not represent twenty or thirty differences of religioustaste, in the original horde, as to the choice of animal gods.If the horde was going to vary in opinion, it is unlikely that onlytwo factions put forward animal candidates for divinity. Again,a “clan” (a totem kin, with exogamy and descent derivedthrough mothers) cannot overflow its territorial area and betherefore obliged to send out colonies, for such a clan (as Durkheimhimself remarks) has no territorial area to overflow. It is not alocal institution at all.

While these objections cannot but occur, Durkheim doesprovide a valid reason for the existence of exogamy. When oncethe groups (however they got them) had totems, with the usualtaboos on any sort of use of the totem by his human kinsfolk,the women of the kin would be tabooed to the men of the samekin. In marrying a maiden of his own totem, a man inevitablyviolates the sanctity of the blood of the totem (L’Année sociologique,i. pp. 47-57. Cf. Reinach, Cultes, mythes et religions,vol. i. pp. 162-166).

Here at last we have a theory which accounts for the “religioushorror” that attaches to the violation of the rule of totemicexogamy: a mysterious entity, the totem, is hereby offended.But how did totems, animals, plants and so on, come to bemystically solidaires with their human namesakes and kinsmen?We do not observe that Dr Durkheim ever explains why twodivisions of one horde chose each a different animal god, or whythe supposed colonies thrown off by these primary clans desertedtheir animal gods for others, or why, and on what principle,they all chose new “gods,”—fresh animals, plants and otherobjects. His hereditary totem is, in practice, the last thingthat a savage changes. The only case of change on record is arecent attempt to increase the range of legal marriages in awaning Australian tribe, on whose lands certain species ofanimals are perishing.

Theories based on a supposed primal state of promiscuitycertainly encounter, when explaining the social organizationof Australian savages, difficulties which they do notsurmount. But Howitt has provided (apparentlywithout fully realizing the merit of his own suggestions)Howitt’s solution.a way out of the perplexities caused by the conception of earlymankind dwelling promiscuously in “undivided communes.”The way out is practically to say that, in everyday life, theylived in nothing of the sort. Howitt writes (Native Tribes ofSouth-East Australia, p. 173): “A study of the evidence . . .has led me to the conclusion that the state of society amongthe early Australians was that of an ‘Undivided Commune.’. . .It is, however, well to guard this expression. I do not desireto imply necessarily the existence of complete and continuouscommunism between the sexes. The character of the country,the necessity of moving from one point to another in search ofgame and vegetable food, would cause any Undivided Commune,when it assumed dimensions greater than the immediate localitycould provide with food, to break up into two or more Communesof the same character. In addition to this it is clear . . . thatin the past as now, individual likes and dislikes must haveexisted, so that, admitting the existence of common rightsbetween the members of the Commune, these rights would remainin abeyance, so far as the separated parts of the Commune wereconcerned. But at certain gatherings . . . or on great ceremonialoccasions, all the segments of the original Communewould reunite,” and would behave in the fashion now common ingreat licentious festive meetings.

In the early ages contemplated, how can we postulate “greatceremonial occasions” or even peaceful assemblies atfruit-bearing spots? How can we postulate a survivingsense of solidarity among the scattered segments ofthe Commune, obviously very small, owing to lack ofPrimitive promiscuity improbable.supplies, and perpetually disintegrated? But, takingthe original groups as very small, and as ruled by likes anddislikes, by affection and jealousy, we are no longer concernedwith a promiscuous horde, but with a little knot of human beings,in whom love, parental affection and the jealousy of sires, wouldpromptly make discriminations between this person and thatperson, as regards sexual privileges. Thus we have edged awayfrom the hypothesis of the promiscuous indiscriminating hordeto the opinion of Darwin. “We may conclude,” he says, “fromwhat we know of the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, armed asmany of them are with special weapons for battling with theirrivals, that promiscuous intercourse in a state of Nature isextremely improbable. . . . The most probable view is that Manoriginally lived in small communities, each (man) with a singlewife, or, if powerful, with several, whom he jealously guardedagainst all other men.” But, in a community of this early type,to guard women jealously would mean constant battle, at leastwhen Man became an animal who makes love all the year round.So Darwin adds: “Or man may not have been a social animal,and yet have lived with several wives, like the Gorilla,—for allthe natives agree that but one adult male is seen in a band;when the young male grows up a contest takes place for themastery, and the strongest, by killing or driving out the others,establishes himself as head of the Community. Younger males,being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at lastsuccessful in finding a partner, prevent too close interbreedingwithin the limits of the same family” (Descent of Man, ii. pp.361, 363 (1871)).

Here, then, we have practical Exogamy, as regards unions ofbrothers and sisters, among man still brutish, while the Sire ishusband of the whole harem of females, probably unchecked asregards his daughters.

On this Darwinian text J. J. Atkinson builds his theory of theevolution of exogamy and of savage society in his Primal Law(Social Origins and Primal Law, by Lang and Atkinson,1903). Paternal jealousy “gave birth to Primal Law,prohibitory of marriage between certain members of aAtkinson’s theory.family or local group, and thus, in natural sequence, led to forcedconnubial selection beyond its circle, that is, led to Exogamy . . .as a habit, not as an expressed law. . . .” The “expressed law”was necessarily a later development; conditioned by the circumstanceswhich produced totemism, and sanctioned, as on Durkheim’sscheme, by the totemic taboo. Atkinson worked out histheory by a minute study of customs of avoidance between nearkin by blood or affinity; by observations on the customs ofanimals, and by hypotheses as to the very gradual evolution ofhuman restrictions through many modifications. He also gavea theory of the “classificatory” system of names for relationshipsopposed to that of Morgan. The names are based merely“on reference to relativity of age of a class in relation to thegroup.” The exogamous moieties of a tribe (phratries) are not ​the result of a reformatory legislative bisection of the tribe,but of the existence of “two intermarrying totem clan groups.”The whole treatise, allowing for defects caused by the author’sdeath before the book was printed, is highly original and ingenious.The author, however, did not touch on the evolution oftotemism.

9. The following system, as a means of making intelligible theevolution of Australian totemic society, is proposed by thepresent writer. We may suggest that men originallylived in the state of “the Cyclopean family” ofAtkinson; that is, in Darwin’s “family group,” containingLang’s system.but one adult male, with the females, the adolescentmales being driven out, to find each a female mate, or mates,elsewhere if they can. With increase of skill, improvements inimplements and mitigation of ferocity, such groups may becomelarger, in a given area, but men may retain the habit of seekingmates outside the limits of the group of contiguity; the “avoidance”of brothers and sisters may already have arisen. Amongthe advanced Arunta, now, a man may speak freely to his eldersisters; to younger sisters, or “tribal sisters,” he may not speak,“or only at such a distance that the features are indistinguishable.”This archaic rule of avoidance would be a step facilitatingthe permission to adult males to dwell in their paternal group,avoiding their sisters. Such groups, whether habitually exogamousor not, will require names for each other, and variousreasons would yield a preference to names derived from animals.These are easily signalled in gesture language; are easilypresented in pictographs and tattooing; are even now, amongsavages and boys, the most usual sort of personal nicknames;and are widely employed as group names of villagers in Europeanfolk-lore. Among European rustics such group sobriquets areusual, but are resented. The savage, with his ideas of the equalityor superiority of animals to himself, sees nothing to resent in ananimal sobriquet, and the names, originally group sobriquets,would not find more difficulty in being accepted than “Whig,”“Tory,” “Huguenot,” “Cavalier,” “Christian,” “Cameronian,”—allof them originally nicknames given from without. Again,“Wry Nose” and “Crooked Mouth” are derisive nicknames,but they are the translations of the ancient Celtic clan namesCameron and Campbell. The nicknames “Naked Dogs,”“Liars,” “Buffalo Dung,” “Men who do not laugh,” “BigTopknots,” have been thoroughly accepted by the “gentes”of the Blackfoot Indians, now passing out of Totemism (Grinnell,Blackfoot Lodge Tales, pp. 208-225).

As Howitt writes, “the assumption of the names of objectsby men must in fact have been the origin of totemism.” Howittdoes not admit the theory that the totem names came to arisein this way, but this way is a vera causa. Names must be giveneither from within or from without. A group, in savagery,has no need of a name for itself; “we” are “we,” or are“The Men”; for all other adjacent groups names are needed.The name of one totem, Thaballa, “The Laughing Boy” totem,among the Warramunga and another tribe, is quite transparentlya nickname, as is Karti, “The Grown-up Men” (Spencerand Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 207).

There is nothing, prima facie, which renders this origin ofanimal, plant and other such names for early savage groupsat all improbable. They would not even be resented, as now arethe animal names for villagers in the Orkneys, the ChannelIslands, France, Cornwall and in ancient Israel (for examplessee Social Origins, pp. 295-301). The names once accepted,and their origin forgotten, would be inevitably regarded asimplying a mystic rapport between the bestial and the humannamesakes, Crow, Eagle Hawk, Grub, Bandicoot, Opossum,Emu, Kangaroo and so on (see Name). On this subject it isenough to cite J. G. Frazer, in The Golden Bough (2nd ed.,vol. i. pp. 404-446). Here will be found a rich and satisfactorycollection of proof that community of name implies mysticrapport. Professor Rhys is quoted for the statement thatprobably “the whole Aryan race believed at one time not onlythat the name was a part of the man, but that it was that partof him which is termed the soul.” In such a mental stage themen “Crows” identify themselves with the actual Crow species:the birds are now “of their flesh,” are fabled to be their ancestors,or the men have been evolved out of the birds. The Crow issacro-sanct, a friend and protector, and a centre of taboos,one of which is the prohibition preventing a Crow man fromintercourse with a Crow woman, “however far apart theirhunting grounds may have been.” All men and women Crowsare recognized as brothers and sisters in the Crow, and are notintermarriageable.

On these lines the prohibition to infringe the totem tabooby marriage within the totem name is intelligible, but thesystem of phratries has yet to be accounted for. It is obviousthat the names could only have been given originally to localgroups: the people who held this or that local habitationreceived the name. Suppose that the rule of each such group,or heart circle, had been “no marriage within the local groupor camp,” as in Atkinson’s scheme. When the groups accepttheir new names, the rule becomes, “no marriage within localgroup Eagle Hawk, group Crow,” and so on. So far the animalgiving the group name may not yet have become a reveredtotem. The result of the rule would inevitably be, in three orfour generations, that in groups Crow or Eagle Hawk, there wereno Crows or Eagle Hawks by descent, if the children took thenames of descent from their mothers; for the sake of differentiation:the Ant woman’s children in local group Crow being Ants,the Grub woman’s children being Grubs, the Eagle Hawkwoman’s children being Eagle Hawks,—all in local group Crow,and inheriting the names of the local groups whence their motherswere brought into local group Crow.

By this means (indicated first by McLennan) each member of alocal group would have a local group name, say Eagle Hawk,and a name by female descent, say Kangaroo, in addition, as now,to his or her personal name. In this way, all members of eachlocal group would find, in any other local group, people of hisname of descent, and, as the totem belief grew to maturity,kinsmen of his in the totem. When this fact was realized, itwould inevitably make for peace among all contiguous groups.In place of taking women by force, at the risk of sheddingkindred blood, peaceful betrothals between men and women ofdifferent local group names and of different names by descentcould be arranged. Say that local groups Eagle Hawk and Crowtook the lead in this arrangement of alliance and connubium,and that (as they would naturally flourish in the strength conferredby union) the other local groups came into it, rangingthemselves under Eagle Hawk and Crow, we should have theexisting primitive type of organization: Local Groups EagleHawk (Mukwara) and Crow (Kilpara) would have become thewidely diffused phratries, Mukwara and Kilpara, with all thetotem kins within them.

But, on these lines, some members of any totem kin, say Cat,would be in phratry Eagle Hawk, some would be in phratryKilpara as now (for the different reason already indicated)among the Arunta. Such persons were in a quandary. Byphratry law, as being in opposite phratries, a Cat in Eagle Hawkphratry could marry a Cat in Crow phratry. But, by totem law,this was impossible. To avoid the clash of law, all Cats had togo into one phratry or the other, either into Eagle Hawk orinto Crow.

Two whole totem kins were in the same unhappy position.The persons who were Eagle Hawks by descent could not be inEagle Hawk local group, now phratry, as we have already shown.They were in Crow phratry, they could not, by phratry law,marry in their own phratry, and to marry in Eagle Hawk wasto break the old law, “no marriage within the local group name.”Their only chance was to return to Eagle Hawk phratry, whileCrow totem kin went into Crow phratry, and thus we often find,in fact, that in Australian phratries Mukwara (Eagle Hawk)there is a totem kin Eagle Hawk, and in Kilpara phratry (Crow)there is a totem kin Crow. This arrangement—the totem kinwithin the phratry of its own name—has long been known toexist in America. The Thlinkets have Raven phratry, withtotem kins Raven, Frog, Goose, &c., and Wolf phratry, with ​totem kins Wolf, Bear, Eagle, &c. (Frazer, Totemism, pp. 61, 62(1887)). In Australia the fact has hitherto escaped observation,because so many phratry names are not translated, while,though Mukwara and Kilpara are translated, the Eagle Hawkand Crow totem kins within them bear other names for the samebirds, more recent names, or tribal native names, such as Biliariand Waa, while Mukwara and Kilpara may have been namesborrowed, within the institution of phratries, from some alientribe now perhaps extinct.

We have now sketched a scheme explanatory of the mostprimitive type of social organization in Australia. The tendencyis for phratries first to lose the meanings of their names, and,next, for their names to lapse into oblivion, as among the Arunta;the work of regulating marriage being done by the opposedMatrimonial Classes.

These classes are obviously an artificial arrangement, intendedto restrict marriage to persons on the same level as generations.The meanings of the class names are only known with certaintyin two cases, and then are names of animals, while there isreason to suspect that animal names occur in four or five ofthe eight class-names which, in different dialect forms, prevailin central and northern Australia. Conceivably the new classregulations made use of the old totemic machinery of nomenclature.But until Australian philologists can trace the originalmeanings of Class names, further speculation is premature.

10. Much might be said about the way out of totemism.When once descent and inheritance are traced through males,the social side of totemism begins to break up. Oneway out is the Arunta way, where totems no longerdesignate kinships. In parts of America totems areBreaking up of totemism.simply fading into heraldry, or into magical societies,while the “gentes,” once totemic, have acquired new names,often local, as among the Sioux, or mere sobriquets, as amongthe Blackfeet. In Melanesia the phratries, whether named ornameless, have survived, while the totems have left but a fewtraces which some consider disputable (Social Origins, pp. 176-184).Among the Bantu of South Africa the tribes have sacredanimals (Siboko), which may be survivals of the totems of thechief local totem group, with male descent in the tribe, the wholeof which now bears the name of the sacred animal. Even inAustralia, among tribes where there is reckoning of descentin the male line, and where there are no matrimonial classes,the tendency is for totems to dwindle, while exogamy becomeslocal, the rule being to marry out of the district, not out of thekin (Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 270-272;cf. pp. 135-137).

The problem as to why, among savages all on the same lowlevel of material culture, one tribe derives descent throughwomen, while its nearest neighbouring tribe, with ceremonies,rites, beliefs and myths like its own, and occupying lands ofsimilar character in a similar climate, traces descent throughmen, seems totally insoluble. Again, we find that the civilizedLycians, as described by Herodotus (book i. ch. 173), reckonedlineage in the female line, while the naked savages of northand central Australia reckon in the male line. Our knowledgedoes not enable us to explain the change from female to maletracing of lineage. Yet the change was essential for the formationof the family system of civilized life. The change may be observedtaking place in the region of North-West America peopled by theThlinket, Haida and Salish tribes; the first are pure totemists,the last have arrived, practically, in the south, at the modernfamily, while a curious intermediate stage pervades the interjacentregion.

The best authority on the Family developed in different shapesin North-West America is Charles Hill-Tout (cf. “Origin of theTotemism of the Aborigines of British Columbia,” Transactionsof the Royal Society of Canada, vol. vii. sect. 11, 1901). He,like many American and some English and continental students,applies the term “totem” not only to the hereditary totem ofthe exogamous kin, but to the animal familiars of individualmen or women, called manitus, naguals, nyarongs and yunbeai,among North American Indians, in South America, in Borneoand in the Euahlayi tribe of New South Wales. These animalfamiliars are chosen by individuals, obeying the monition ofdreams, or are assigned to them at birth, or at puberty, by thetribal magicians. It has often been suggested that totemismarose when the familiar of an individual became hereditaryamong his descendants. This could not occur under a systemof reckoning descent and inheriting the kin name throughwomen, but as a Tsimshian myth says that a man’s sisteradopted his animal familiar, the bear, and transmitted it to heroffspring, Hill-Tout supposes that this may have been the originof totemism in tribes with reckoning of descent in the femaleline. Instances, however, are not known to exist in practice,and myths are mere baseless savage hypotheses.

Exogamy, in his opinion, is the result of treaties of politicalalliance with exclusive interconnubium between two sets of kinsfolkby blood, totemism being a mere accidental concomitant.This theory evades the difficulties raised by the hypothesis ofdeliberate reformatory legislation introducing the bisection ofthe tribe into exogamous societies.