See H.H. Earl,Centennial History of Fall River ... 1656-1876(New York, 1877); and the report of Carroll D. Wright onFall River, Lowell and Lawrence, in 13th annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor (1882), which, however, was regarded as unjust and partial by the manufacturers of Fall River.
See H.H. Earl,Centennial History of Fall River ... 1656-1876(New York, 1877); and the report of Carroll D. Wright onFall River, Lowell and Lawrence, in 13th annual report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor (1882), which, however, was regarded as unjust and partial by the manufacturers of Fall River.
1The small increase between 1900 and 1906 was due in large part to the emigration of many of the inhabitants during the great strike of 1904-1905.2The above figures do not show adequately the full importance of Fall River as a cotton manufacturing centre, for during six months of the census year the great strike was in progress; this strike, caused by a reduction in wages, lasted from the 25th of July 1904 to the 18th of January 1905.
1The small increase between 1900 and 1906 was due in large part to the emigration of many of the inhabitants during the great strike of 1904-1905.
2The above figures do not show adequately the full importance of Fall River as a cotton manufacturing centre, for during six months of the census year the great strike was in progress; this strike, caused by a reduction in wages, lasted from the 25th of July 1904 to the 18th of January 1905.
FALMOUTH,a municipal and contributary parliamentary borough and seaport of Cornwall, England, 306 m. W.S.W. of London, on a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 11,789. It is finely situated on the west shore of the largest of the many estuaries which open upon the south coast of the county. This is entered by several streams, of which the largest is the Fal. Falmouth harbour lies within Pendennis Point, which shelters the estuary from the more open Falmouth Bay. The Penryn river, coming in from the north-west, forms one of several shallow, winding arms of the estuary, the main channel of which is known as Carrick Roads. To the east Pendennis Castle stands on its lofty promontory, while on the opposite side of the roads the picturesque inlet of the Porthcuel river opens between Castle Point on the north, with St Mawes’ Castle, and St Anthony Head and Zoze Point on the south. The shores of the estuary as a rule slope sharply up to about 250 ft., and are beautifully wooded. The entrance is 1 m. across, and the roads form one of the best refuges for shipping on the south coast, being accessible at all times by the largest vessels. Among the principal buildings and institutions in Falmouth are the town hall, market-house, hall of the Cornwall Polytechnic Society, a meteorological and magnetic observatory, and a submarine mining establishment. The Royal Cornwall Yacht Club has its headquarters here, and in the annual regatta the principal prize is a cup given by the prince of Wales as duke of Cornwall. Engineering, shipbuilding, brewing and the manufacture of manure are carried on, and there are oyster and trawl fisheries, especially for pilchard. The inner harbour, under the jurisdiction partly of commissioners and partly of a dock company, is enclosed between two breakwaters, of which the eastern has 23 ft. of water at lowest tides alongside. The area of the harbour is 42 acres, with nearly 700 lineal yards of quayage. There are two graving docks, and repairing yards. Grain, timber, coal and guano and other manures are imported, and granite, china clay, copper ore, ropes and fish exported. Falmouth is also in favour as a watering-place. The parliamentary borough of Penryn and Falmouth returns one member. The municipal borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 790 acres.
Falmouth (Falemuth) as a haven and port has had a place in the maritime history of Cornwall from very early times. The site of the town, which is comparatively modern, was formerly known as Smithick and Pennycomequick and formed part of the manor of Arwenack held by the family of Killigrew. The corporations of Penryn, Truro and Helston opposed the undertaking, but the lords in council, to whom the matter was referred, decided in Killigrew’s favour. In 1652 the House of Commons considered that it would be advantageous to the Commonwealth to grant a Thursday market to Smithick. This market was confirmed to Sir Peter Killigrew in 1660 together with two fairs, on the 30th of October and the 27th of July, and also a ferry between Smithick and Flushing. By the charter of incorporation granted in the following year the name was changed to Falmouth, and a mayor, recorder, 7 aldermen and 12 burgesses constituted a common council with the usual rights and privileges. Three years later an act creating the borough a separate ecclesiastical parish empowered the mayor and aldermen to assess all buildings within the town at the rate of sixteen pence in the pound for the support of the rector. This rector’s rate occasioned much ill-feeling in modern times, and by act of parliament in 1896 was taken over by the corporation, and provision made for its eventual extinction. The disfranchisement of Penryn, whichhad long been a subject of debate in the House of Commons, was settled in 1832, by uniting Penryn with Falmouth for parliamentary purposes and assigning two members to the united boroughs. By the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, the number of members was reduced to one. The fairs granted in 1660 are no longer held, and a Saturday market has superseded the chartered market. In the 17th and 18th centuries Falmouth grew in importance owing to its being a station of the Packet Service for the conveyance of mails.
FALSE POINT,a landlocked harbour in the Cuttack district of Bengal, India. It was reported by the famine commissioners in 1867 to be the best harbour on the coast of India from the Hugli to Bombay. It derives its name from the circumstance that vessels proceeding up the Bay of Bengal frequently mistook it for Point Palmyras, a degree farther north. The anchorage is safe, roomy and completely landlocked, but large vessels are obliged to lie out at some distance from its mouth in an exposed roadstead. The capabilities of False Point as a harbour remained long unknown, and it was only in 1860 that the port was opened. It was rapidly developed, owing to the construction of the Orissa canals. Two navigable channels lead inland across the Mahanadi delta, and connect the port with Cuttack city. The trade of False Point is chiefly with other Indian harbours, but a large export trade in rice and oil-seeds has sprung up with Mauritius, the French colonies and France. False Point is now a regular port of call for Anglo-Indian coasting steamers. Its capabilities were first appreciated during the Orissa famine of 1866, when it afforded almost the only means by which supplies of rice could be thrown into the province. A lighthouse is situated a little to the south of the anchorage, on the point which screens it from the southern monsoon.
FALSE PRETENCES,in English law, the obtaining from any other person by any false pretence any chattel, money or valuable security, with intent to defraud. It is an indictable misdemeanour under the Larceny Act of 1861. The broad distinction between this offence and larceny is that in the former the owner intends to part with his property, in the latter he does not. This offence dates as a statutory crime practically from 1756. At common law the only remedy originally available for an owner who had been deprived of his goods by fraud was an indictment for the crime of cheating, or a civil action for deceit. These remedies were insufficient to cover all cases where money or other properties had been obtained by false pretences, and the offence was first partially created by a statute of Henry VIII. (1541), which enacted that if any person should falsely and deceitfully obtain any money, goods, &c., by means of any false token or counterfeit letter made in any other man’s name, the offender should suffer any punishment other than death, at the discretion of the judge. The scope of the offence was enlarged to include practically all false pretences by the act of 1756, the provisions of which were embodied in the Larceny Act 1861.
The principal points to notice are that the pretence must be a false pretence of some existing fact, made for the purpose of inducing the prosecutor to part with his property (e.g.it was held not to be a false pretence to promise to pay for goods on delivery), and it may be by either words or conduct. The property, too, must have been actually obtained by the false pretence. The owner must be induced by the pretence to make over the absolute and immediate ownership of the goods, otherwise it is “larceny by means of a trick.” It is not always easy, however, to draw a distinction between the various classes of offences. In the case where a man goes into a restaurant and orders a meal, and, after consuming it, says that he has no means of paying for it, it was usual to convict for obtaining food by false pretences. ButR.v.Jones, 1898, L.R. 1 Q.B. 119 decided that it is neither larceny nor false pretences, but an offence under the Debtors Act 1869, of obtaining credit by fraud. (See alsoCheating;Fraud;Larceny.)
United States.—American statutes on this subject are mainly copied from the English statutes, and the courts there in a general way follow the English interpretations. The statutes of each state must be consulted. There is no Federal statute, though there are Federal laws providing penalties for false personation of the lawful owner of public stocks, &c., or of persons entitled to pensions, prize money, &c. (U.S. Rev. Stats. § 5435), or the false making of any order purporting to be a money order (id.§ 5463).
In Arizona, obtaining money or property by falsely personating another is punishable as for larceny (Penal Code, 1901, § 479). Obtaining credit by false pretences as to wealth and mercantile character is punishable by six months’ imprisonment and a fine not exceeding three times the value of the money or property obtained (id.§ 481).
In Illinois, whoever by any false representation or writing signed by him, of his own respectability, wealth or mercantile correspondence or connexions, obtains credit and thereby defrauds any person of money, goods, chattels or any valuable thing, or who procures another to make a false report of his honesty, wealth, &c., shall return the money, goods, &c., and be fined and imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year (Crim. Code, 1903, ch. xxxviii. §§ 96, 97). Obtaining money or property by bogus cheques, the “confidence game” (Dorrv.People, 1907, § 228, Ill. 216), or “three card monte,” sleight of hand, fortune-telling, &c., is punishable by imprisonment for from one to ten years (id.§§ 98, 100). Obtaining goods from warehouse, mill or wharf by fraudulent receipt wrongly stating amount of goods deposited—by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than ten years (id.§ 124). Fraudulent use of railroad passes is a misdemeanour (id.125a).
In Massachusetts it is simple larceny to obtain by false pretences the money or personal chattel of another (Rev. Laws, 1902, ch. ccviii. § 26). Obtaining by a false pretence with intent to defraud the signature of a person to a written instrument, the false making whereof would be forgery, is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison or by fine (id.§ 27).
In New York, obtaining property by false pretences, felonious breach of trust and embezzlement are included in the term “larceny” (Penal Code, § 528;Paulv.Dumar, 106 N.Y. 508;Peoplev.Tattlekan, 1907, 104 N.Y. Suppl. 805), but the methods of proof required to establish each crime remain as before the code. Obtaining lodging and food on credit at hotel or lodging house with intent to defraud is a misdemeanour (Pen. Code, § 382). Purchase of property by false pretences as to person’s means or ability to pay is not criminal when in writing signed by the party to be charged (Pen. Code, § 544).
FALTICHENI(Faltiçenĭ), the capital of the department of Suceava, Rumania, situated on a small right-hand tributary of the Sereth, among the hills of north-west Moldavia, and 2 m. S.E. of the frontier of Bukovina. Pop. (1900) 9643, about half being Jews. A branch railway runs for 15 m. to join the main line between Czernowitz in Bukovina, and Galatz. The Suceava department (named after Suceava or Suciava, its former capital, now Suczawa in Bukowina) is densely forested; its considerable timber trade centres in Falticheni. For five weeks, from the 20th July onwards, Russians and Austro-Hungarians, as well as Rumans, attend the fair which is held at Falticheni, chiefly for the sale of horses, carriages and cattle.
FALUN,a town of Sweden, capital of the district (län) of Kopparberg, 153 m. N.W. of Stockholm by rail. Pop. (1900) 9606. It is situated in a bare and rocky country near the western shore of lake Runn. Here are the oldest and most celebrated copper mines in Europe. Their produce has gradually decreased since the 17th century, and is now unimportant, but sulphate of copper, iron pyrites, and some gold, silver, sulphur and sulphuric acid, and red ochre are also produced. The mines belong to the Kopparberg Mining Company (Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags Aktiebolag, formerlyKopparbergslagen). This is the oldest industrial corporation in Sweden, and perhaps the oldest still existing in the world; it is known to have been established before 1347. Since its reorganization as a joint-stock company in 1890 many of the shares have been held by the crown, philanthropic institutions and other public bodies. The company also owns iron mines, limestone and quartz quarries, large iron-works at Domnarfvet and elsewhere, a great extent of forests andsaw-mills, and besides the output of the copper mines it produces manufactured iron and steel, timber, wood-pulp, bricks and charcoal. Falun has also railway rolling-stock factories. There are museums of mineralogy and geology, a lower school of mining, model room and scientific library. The so-called “Gothenburg System” of municipal control over the sale of spirits was actually devised at Falun as early as 1850.
FAMA(Gr.Φήμη, Ὄσσα), in classical mythology, the personification of Rumour. The Homeric equivalentOssa(Iliad, ii. 93) is represented as the messenger of Zeus, who spreads reports with the rapidity of a conflagration. Homer does not personifyPheme, which is merely a presage drawn from human utterances, whereas Ossa (until later times) is associated with the idea of divine origin. A more definite character is given to Pheme by Hesiod (Works and Days, 764), who calls her a goddess; in Sophocles (Oed. Tyr.158) she is the immortal daughter of golden Hope and is styled by the orator Aeschines (Contra Timarchum, § 128) one of the mightiest of goddesses. According to Pausanias (i. 17. 1) there was a temple of Pheme at Athens, and at Smyrna (ib.ix. 11, 7), whose inhabitants were especially fond of seeking the aid of divination, there was a sanctuary of Cledones (sounds or rumours supposed to convey omens).
There does not seem to have been any cult of Fama among the Romans, by whom she was regarded merely as “a figure of poetical religion.” The Temple of Fame and Omen (Pheme and Cledon) mentioned by Plutarch (Moralia, p. 319) is due to a confusion with Aius Locutius, the divinity who warned the Romans of the coming attack of the Gauls. There are well-known descriptions of Fame in Virgil (Aeneid, iv. 173) and Ovid (Metam.xii. 39); see also Valerius Flaccus (ii. 116), Statius (Thebais, iii. 425). An unfavourable idea gradually became attached to the name; thus Ennius speaks of Fama as the personification of “evil” reputation and the opposite of Gloria (cp. the adjectivefamosus, which is not used in a good sense till the post-Augustan age). Chaucer in hisHouse of Fameis obviously imitating Virgil and Ovid, although he is also indebted to Dante’sDivina Commedia.
FAMAGUSTA(Gr.Ammochostos), a town and harbour on the east cost of Cyprus, 2½ m. S. of the ruins of Salamis. The population in 1901 was 818, nearly all being Moslems who live within the walls of the fortress; the Christian population has migrated to a suburb called Varosia (pop. 2948). The foundation of Salamis (q.v.) was ascribed to Teucer: it was probably the most important town in early Cyprus. The revolt of the Jews under Trajan, and earthquakes in the time of Constantius and Constantine the Great helped in turn to destroy it. It was restored by Fl. Constantius II. (A.D.337-361) as Constantia. Another town a little to the south, built by Ptolemy Philadelphus in 274B.C., and called Arsinoe in honour of his sister, received the refugees driven from Constantia by the Arabs under Mu’awiyah, became the seat of the orthodox archbishopric, and was eventually known as Famagusta. It received a large accession of population at the fall of Acre in 1291; was annexed by the Genoese in 1376; reunited to the throne of Cyprus in 1464; and surrendered, after an investment of nearly a year, to the Turks in 1571. The fortifications, remodelled by the Venetians after 1489, the castle, the grand cathedral church of St Nicolas, and the remains of the palace and many other churches make Famagusta a place of unique interest. Acts ii. and v. of Shakespeare’sOthellopass there. In 1903 measures were taken to develop the fine natural harbour of Famagusta. Basins were dredged to give depths of 15 and 24 ft. respectively at ordinary low tides, and commodious jetties and quays were constructed.
FAMILIAR(through the Fr.familier, from Lat.familiaris, of or belonging to thefamilia, family), an adjective, properly meaning belonging to the family or household, but in this sense the word is rare. The more usual meanings are: friendly, intimate, well known; and from its application to the easy relations of intimate friends the term may be used in an invidious sense of “free and easy” conduct on the part of any one not justified by any close relationship, friendship or intimacy. “Familiar” is, however, also used as a substantive, especially of the spirit or demon which attended on a wizard or magician, and was summoned to execute his master’s wishes. The idea underlies the notion of the Christian guardian angel and of the Romangenius natalis(seeDemonology;Witchcraft). In the Roman Church the term is applied to persons attached to the household of the pope or of bishops. These must actually do some domestic service. They are supported by their patron, and enjoy privileges which in the case of the papal familiars are considerable. “Familiars of the Holy Office” were lay officers of the Inquisition, whose functions were chiefly those of police, in making arrests, &c., of persons charged.
FAMILISTS,a term of English origin (later adopted in other languages) to denote the members of theFamilia Caritatis(Hus der Lieften;Huis der Liefde;Haus der Liebe; “Family of Love”), founded by Hendrik Niclaes (born on the 9th or 10th of January 1501 or 1502, probably at Münster; died after 1570, not later than 1581, probably in 1580). His calling was that of a merchant, in which he and his son Franz prospered, becoming ultimately wealthy. Not till 1540 did he appear in the character of one divinely endowed with “the spirit of the true love of Jesus Christ.” For twenty years (1540-1560) Emden was the headquarters at once of his merchandise and of his propaganda; but he travelled in both interests to various countries, visiting England in 1552 or 1553. To this period belong most of his writings. His primary work wasDen Spegel der Gherechticheit dorch den Geist der Liefden unde den vergodeden Mensch H.N. uth de hemmelische Warheit betüget. It appeared in an English form with the author’s revision, asAn Introduction to the holy Understanding of the Glasse of Righteousness(1575?; reprinted in 1649). None of his works bear his name in full; his initials were mystically interpreted as standing forHomo Novus. His “glass of righteousness” is the spirit of Christ as interpreted by him. The remarkable fact was brought out by G. Arnold (and more fully by F. Nippold in 1862) that the printer of Niclaes’s works was Christopher Plantin, of Antwerp, a specially privileged printer of Roman Catholic theology and liturgy, yet secretly a steadfast adherent of Niclaes. It is true that Niclaes claimed to hold an impartial attitude towards all existing religious parties, and his mysticism, derived from David Joris, was undogmatic. Yet he admitted his followers by the rite of adult baptism, and set up a hierarchy among them on the Roman model (see hisEvangelium Regni, in EnglishA Joyfull Message of the Kingdom, 1574?; reprinted, 1652). His pantheism had an antinomian drift; for himself and his officials he claimed impeccability; but, whatever truth there may be in the charge that among his followers were those who interpreted “love” as licence, no such charge can be sustained against the morals of Niclaes and the other leaders of the sect. His chief apostle in England was Christopher Vitel, a native of Delft, an “illuminate elder,” living at Colchester and Southwark, who ultimately recanted. The society spread in the eastern counties, in spite of repressive measures; it revived under the Commonwealth, and lingered into the early years of the 18th century; the leading idea of its “service of love” was a reliance on sympathy and tenderness for the moral and spiritual edification of its members. Thus, in an age of strife and polemics, it seemed to afford a refuge for quiet, gentle spirits, and meditative temperaments.
See F. Nippold, “H. Niclaes u. das Haus der Liebe,” inZeitschrift für die histor. Theol.(1862); article “H. Niclaes” in A.J. van der Aa, Biog.Woordenboek der Nederlanden(1868); article “H. Nicholas,” by C. Fell Smith, inDict. Nat. Biog.(1894); article “Familisten,” by Loofs, in Herzog-Hauck’sRealencyklopädie(1898).
See F. Nippold, “H. Niclaes u. das Haus der Liebe,” inZeitschrift für die histor. Theol.(1862); article “H. Niclaes” in A.J. van der Aa, Biog.Woordenboek der Nederlanden(1868); article “H. Nicholas,” by C. Fell Smith, inDict. Nat. Biog.(1894); article “Familisten,” by Loofs, in Herzog-Hauck’sRealencyklopädie(1898).
(A. Go.*)
FAMILY,a word of which the etymology but partially illustrates the meaning. The Romanfamilia, derived from the Oscanfamel(servus), originally signified the servile property, the thralls, of a master. Next, the term denoted other domestic property, in things as well as in persons. Thus, in the fifth of the laws of the Twelve Tables, the rules are laid down:SI · INTESTATO · MORITUR · CUI · SUUS · HERES · NEC · SIT · ADGNATUS·PROXIMUS · AMILIAM · ABETO, andSI · AGNATUS · NEC · ESCIT · GENTILIS · FAMILIAM · NANCITOR; that is, if a man die intestate, leaving no natural heir who had been under hispotestas, the nearest agnate, or relative tracing his connexion with the deceased exclusively through males, is to inherit thefamilia, or family fortune of every sort. Failing an agnate, a member of thegensof the dead man is to inherit. In a third sense,familiawas applied to all the persons who could prove themselves to be descended from the same ancestor, and thus the word almost 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, 195fin.).
1. Leaving for awhile the Roman terms, to which it will be necessary to return, we may provisionally define Family, in the modern sense, as the small community formed by the union of one man with one woman, and by theOld theory.increase of children born to them. These in modern times, and in most European countries, constitute the household, and it has been almost universally supposed that little natural associations of this sort are the germ-cell of early society. The Bible presents the growth of the Jewish nation from the one household of Abraham. His patriarchal family differed from the modern family in being polygamous, but, as female chastity was one of the conditions of the patriarchal family, and as descent 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 and Roman society present the family as firmly established, and generally regarded as the most primitive of human associations. Thus, Aristotle derives the first household (οἰκία πρώτη) from the combination of man’s possession of property—in the slave or 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 a colony or offshoot of the household, and monarchical government in states is derived from the monarchy of the eldest male member of the family. Now, though certain ancient terms, introduced by Aristotle in the chapters to which we refer, might have led him to imagine a very different origin of society, his theory is, on the face of it, natural and plausible, and it has been almost universally accepted. The beginning of society, it has been said a thousand times, is the family, a natural association of kindred by blood, composed of father, mother and their descendants. In this family, the father is absolute master of his wife, his children and the goods of the little community; at his death his eldest son succeeds him; and in course of time this association of kindred, by natural increase and by adoption, develops into the clan,gens, orγένος. As generations multiply, the more distant relations split off into other clans, and these clans, which have not lost the sense of primitive kinship, unite once more into tribes. The tribes again, as civilization advances, acknowledge themselves to be subjects of a king, in whose veins the blood of the original family runs purest. This, or something like this, is the common theory of the growth of society.
2. It was between 1866 and 1880 that the common opinion began to be seriously opposed. John Ferguson McLennan, in hisPrimitive Marriageand his essays onThe Worship of Plants and Animals(see hisStudies in Ancient History,Modern criticismsecond series), drew attention to the wide prevalence of the custom of inheriting the kinship name through mothers, not fathers; and to the law of “Exogamy” (q.v.). The former usage 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 the primitive existence of the Family, whether polygamous or monogamous, whether patriarchal or modern. The custom of Exogamy, again,—here taken to mean the unwritten law which makes it incest, and a capital offence, to marry within the real or supposed kin denoted by the common name of the kinship,—pointed to an archaic condition of family affairs all unlike our Table 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 the various kinships, and are themselves, in various degrees, reverenced by members of the kinships. (SeeTotem and Totemism.) Traces of such kinships, and of Totemism, also of alleged promiscuity in 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 possible survivals, 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 the stages of Exogamy, Totemism and reckoning descent in the female line. McLennan explained Exogamy as a result of scarcity of women, due to female infanticide. Women being scarce, the men of a group would steal them from other groups, and it would become shameful, and finally a deadly sin, for a man to marry within his own group-name, or name of kinship, say Wolf or Raven. Meanwhile, owing to scarcity of women, one woman would be the mate of many husbands (polyandry); hence, paternity being undetermined, descent would be reckoned through mothers.
Such are the outlines of McLennan’s theory, which, as a whole, has been attacked by many writers, and is now, perhaps, accepted by none. McLennan’s was the most brilliant pioneer work; but his supply of facts was relativelyMcLennan’s value.scanty, and his friend Charles Darwin stated objections which to many seem final, as regards the past existence of a stage of sexual promiscuity. C.N. Starcke (The Primitive Family, 1889), Edward Alexander Westermarck (History of Human Marriage, 1891), Ernest Crawley (The Mystic Rose), Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Lord Avebury and many others, have criticized McLennan, who, however, in coining the term Exogamy, and drawing scientific attention to Totemism, and reckoning of kin through mothers, founded the study of early society. Here it must be observed that “Matriarchate” (q.v.) is a misleading term, as is “Gynaecocracy,” for the custom of deducing descent on the spindle side. Women among totemistic and exogamous savages are in a degraded position, nor does the deriving 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 of reproduction are said to be unknown.
3. Simultaneous with McLennan’s researches and speculations were the works of Lewis H. Morgan. He was the discoverer of a custom very important in its bearing on the history of society. In about two-thirds of the globe, personsLewis Morgan.in addressing a kinsman do not discriminate between grades of relationship. All these grades are merged in large categories. Thus, in what Morgan calls the “Malayan system,” “allconsanguinei, near or far, fall within one of these relationships—grandparent, parent, brother, sister, child and grandchild.” No other blood-relationships are recognized (Ancient Society). This at once reminds us of the Platonic Republic. “We devised means that no one should ever be able to know his own child, but that all should imagine themselves to be of one family, and should regard as brothers and sisters those who were within a certain limit of age; and those who were of an elder generation they were to regard as parents and grandparents, and those who were of a younger generation as children and grandchildren” (Timaeus, 18, Jowett’s translation, first edition, vol. ii., 1871). This system prevails in the Polynesian groups and in New Zealand. Next comes what Morgan chooses to call the Turanian system. “It was universal among the North American aborigines,” whom he styles Ganowanians. “Traces of it have been found in parts of Africa” (Ancient Society), and “it still prevails in South India among the Hindus, who speak the Dravidian language,” and also in North India, among other 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 andniece in the male line, his brother’s children, “son” and “daughter,” and his grand-nephews and grand-nieces in the male line, “grandson” and “granddaughter.” Here the Turanian and the Malayan systems agree. But change the sex; let the male speaker address his nephews and nieces in the female line,—the children of his sister,—he salutes them as “nephew” and “niece,” and they hail him as “uncle.” Now, in the Malay system, nephews and nieces on both sides, brother’s children or sisters, are alike named “children” of the uncle. If the speaker be 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 than indicate these features of the classificatory nomenclature, from which the others may be inferred. The reader is referred for particulars to Morgan’sSystems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Race.
The existence of the classificatory system is not an entirely novel discovery. Nicolaus Damascenus, one of the inquirers into early society, who lived in the first century of our era, noticed this mode of address among the Galactophagi. Lafitau found it among the Iroquois. To Morgan’s perception of the importance 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 seem to be indicated by the “Malayan” and “Turanian” modes of address, he has worked out a theory of the evolution of the modern family. A brief comparison of this with other modern theories will close our account of the family. The main points of the theory are shortly stated inSystems of Consanguinity, &c., and inAncient Society. From the latter work we quote the following description of the five different and successive forms of the family:—
“I.The Consanguine Family.—It was founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group.“II.The Punaluan Family.—It was founded upon the intermarriage of several sisters, own and collateral, with each others’ husbands, in a group—the joint husbands not being necessarily kinsmen of each other; also, on the intermarriage of several brothers, own and collateral, with each others’ wives in a group—these wives not being necessarily of kin to each other, although often the case in both instances (sic). In each case the group of men were conjointly married to the group of women.“III.The Syndyasmian or Pairing Family.—It was founded upon marriage between single pairs, but without an exclusive cohabitation. The marriage continued during the pleasure of the parties.“IV.The Patriarchal Family.—It was founded upon the marriage of one man with several wives, followed in general by the seclusion of the wives.“V.The Monogamian Family.—It was founded upon marriage between single pairs with an exclusive cohabitation.“Three of these forms, namely, the first, second, and fifth, were radical, because they were sufficiently general, and influential to create three distinct systems of consanguinity, all of which still exist in living forms. Conversely, these systems are sufficient of themselves to prove the antecedent existence of the forms of the family and of marriage with which they severally stand connected.”
“I.The Consanguine Family.—It was founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group.
“II.The Punaluan Family.—It was founded upon the intermarriage of several sisters, own and collateral, with each others’ husbands, in a group—the joint husbands not being necessarily kinsmen of each other; also, on the intermarriage of several brothers, own and collateral, with each others’ wives in a group—these wives not being necessarily of kin to each other, although often the case in both instances (sic). In each case the group of men were conjointly married to the group of women.
“III.The Syndyasmian or Pairing Family.—It was founded upon marriage between single pairs, but without an exclusive cohabitation. The marriage continued during the pleasure of the parties.
“IV.The Patriarchal Family.—It was founded upon the marriage of one man with several wives, followed in general by the seclusion of the wives.
“V.The Monogamian Family.—It was founded upon marriage between single pairs with an exclusive cohabitation.
“Three of these forms, namely, the first, second, and fifth, were radical, because they were sufficiently general, and influential to create three distinct systems of consanguinity, all of which still exist in living forms. Conversely, these systems are sufficient of themselves to prove the antecedent existence of the forms of the family and of marriage with which they severally stand connected.”
Morgan makes the systems of nomenclature proofs of the existence of the Consanguine and Punaluan families. Unhappily, there is no other proof, and the same systems have been explained on a very different principle (McLennan,Studies in Ancient History). Looking at facts, we find the Consanguine family nowhere, and cannot easily imagine how early groups abstained from infringing on each other, and created a systematic marriage of brothers and sisters. St Augustine, however (De civ. Dei, xv. 16), and Archinus in hisThessalica(Odyssey, xi. 7, scholia B, Q) agree more or less with Morgan. Next, how did the Consanguine 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 distinct system of consanguinity” (Ancient Society), the Turanian. Again, “marriages in Punaluan groups explain the relationships in the system.” But Morgan provides himself with another explanation, “the Turanian system owes its origin to marriage in the groupandto the gentile organization.” He calls exogamy “the gentile organization,” though, in point of fact, the only gentes we know, the Roman gentes, show scarcely a trace of exogamy. Again, “the change of relationships which resulted from substituting Punaluan in the place of Consanguine marriage turns the Malayan into the Turanian system.” On the same page Morgan attributes the change to the “gentile organization,” and, still on the same page, usesbothfactors in his working out of the problem. Now, if the Punaluan marriage is a sufficient explanation, we do not need the “gentile organization.” Both, in Morgan’s opinion, were efforts of conscious moral reform. InSystems of Consanguinitythe gentile organization (there called tribal), that is, exogamy, is said to have been “designed to work out a reformation in the intermarriage of brothers and sisters.” But the Punaluan marriage had done that, otherwise it would not have produced (as Morgan says it did) the change from the Malayan to the Turanian system, the difference in the two systems, as exemplified in Seneca and Tamil, being “in the relationships which depended on the intermarriage or non-intermarriage of brothers and sisters” (Ancient Society). Yet the Punaluan family, though itself a reform in morals and in “breeding,” “did not furnish adequate motives to reform the Malay system,” which, as we have seen, it did reform. The Punaluan family, it is suspected, “frequently involved own brothers and sisters”; had it not been so, there would have been no need of a fresh moral reformation,—“the gentile organization.” Yet even in the Punaluan family (Ancient Society) “brothers ceased to marry their own sisters.” What, then, did the “gentile organization” do for men? As they had already ceased to marry their own sisters, and as, under the gentile organization, they were still able to marry their half-sisters, the reformatory “ingenuity” of the inventors of the organizations was at once superfluous and useless. It is impossible to understand the Punaluan system. Its existence is inferred from a system of nomenclature which it does (and does not) produce; it admits (and excludes) own brothers and sisters. Morgan has intended, apparently, to represent the Punaluan marriage as a long transition to the definite custom of exogamy, but it will be seen that his language is not very clear nor his positions assured. He does not adduce sufficient proof that the Punaluan family ever existed as an institution, even in Hawaii. There is, if possible, a greater absence of historical testimony to the existence of the Consanguine family. It is difficult to believe that exogamy was a conscious moral and social reformation, because,ex hypothesi, the savages had no moral data, nothing to cause disgust at relations which seem revolting to us. It is as improbable that they discovered the supposed physical evils of breeding in and in. That discovery could only have been made after a long experience, and in the Consanguine family that experience was impossible. Thus, setting moral reform aside as inconceivable, we cannot understand how the Consanguine families ever broke up. Morgan’s ingenious speculations as to a transitional step towards the gens (as he calls what we style the totem-kindred), supposed to be found in the “classes” and marriage laws of the Kamilaroi, are vitiated by the weakness and contradictory nature of the evidence (see Pritchard; J.D. Lang’s Queensland, Appendix;Proceedings of American Academy of Arts, &c., vol. viii. 412; Nature, October 29, 1874). Further, though Morgan calls the Australian “gentile organization” “incipient,” he admits (Ancient Society) that the Narrinyeri have totem groups, in which “the children are of the clan of the father.” Far from being “incipient,” the gens of the Narrinyeri is on the footing of the ghotra of Hindu custom. Lastly, though Morgan frequently declares that the Polynesians have 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 in Polynesian mythology.
4. Morgan’s theory was opposed by McLennan (Studies in Ancient History, 1876), who maintained that the names ofrelationships, in the “classificatory system,” were merely terms of 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 “my son.” He also showed that his own system accounted for the terms. The controversy is still alive; one set of writers regarding the savage terms of relationship as indicating a state of things in which human beings dwelt in a “horde,” with promiscuous intercourse; another set holding that the terms do not indicate consanguineous kinship, but degrees of age, status, and reciprocal obligations in a localtribe, and therefore that they do not yield any presumption that there was a past of promiscuity or of what is called “group marriage.” On Morgan’s side (not of course 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 and many others.
5. A second presumption in favour of original promiscuity has been drawn by the eminent Australian students, Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, and by A.W. Howitt, from the customs of some Australian aborigines. In eachEvidence of original promiscuity.tribe, owing to customary laws which are to be examined later, only men and women of a given status are intermarriageable (nupa,noa,unawa) with each other. Though child-betrothals are usual, and though the woman is specialized to one man, who protects and nourishes her and all her children, and though their union is immediately preceded by an extendedjus primae noctis(such as Herodotus describes among the Nasamones), yet, among certain tribes, the following custom prevails. At great meetings the tribal leaders assign a woman as paramour (with what amount of permanence remains obscure) to a man (pirrauru); one woman may have severalpirraurumen, one man severalpirrauruwomen, in addition to their regularly betrothed (tippa malku) wives and husbands. The husband occasionally shows fight, and bitter jealousies prevail, but, at the great ceremonial meetings, complaisance is enforced under penalty of strangling. Thenceforth, if the husband permits, the malepirrauruhas matrimonial rights over the other man’stippa malkuwife when they meet. A symbolic ceremony of union precedes the junction of thepirraurupeople. This institution, as far as reported, is peculiar to a group of tribes near Lake Eyre, the Dieri, Urabunna, and their congeners,—or perhaps to all who have the same “phratry” names as the Dieri and Urabunna (KiraruandMattera, in various dialectic forms).
Elsewhere thepirraurucustom is not known: but almost everywhere there are licentious festivals, in which all marriage rules 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 the status into which he may legally marry.
Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, and A.W. Howitt, regardpirrauruas “group marriage” and as a proof that, at one time, all intermarriageable people were actually husbands and wives, while the other examples of licence are alsoGroup marriage.survivals, in a later stage of decay, of promiscuity, and “group marriage.” To this it is replied that “groupmarriage” is a misnomer; that ifpirraurube in a sense marriage it isstatus, notgroupmarriage. Again, it is urged,pirrauruis a modification oftippa malku, which comes first; a woman is “specialized” to a manbeforeshe can be madepirrauruto another, and her tippamalku husbandcontinues to support her, and to recognize her children as his own, after she has becomepirrauruto another man or other men. Without the foregoingtippa malkuunion, thepirrauruunions are not conceivable; they are mere legalized paramourships, modifying thetippa malkumarriage (like the Italian cicisbeism); procuring a protector for a woman in her husband’s absence, and supplying legal loves for bachelors. The custom is peculiar to a given set of kindred tribes. The festivals are the legalized, restricted and more or less permanent modification of the casual orgies of feasts of licence, orSaturnalia, which have their analogies among many people, ancient and modern.Pirrauruis no more a survival of and a proof of primitive promiscuity, than is the legalized incest of ancient Egypt or ancient Peru. If these views be correct the argument for primitive promiscuity derived frompirraurufalls to the ground.
6. The questions at issue obviously are, was mankind originally promiscuous, with no objections to marriage between persons of the nearest kin; and was the first step in advance the prohibition of marriage (or of amatory intercourse)The historical problem.between brothers and sisters; or did mankind originally live in very small groups, under a jealous sire, who imposed restrictions on intercourse between the young males, his sons, and all the females of the “hearth-circle,” who constituted his harem? The problem has been studied, first, in the institutions of savages, notably of the most backward savages, the black natives of Australia; and next, in the light of the habits of the higher mammalia.
As regards Australian matrimonial institutions, it has been known since the date of theJournals of two Expeditions of Discovery, by Sir George Grey (1837-1839), that they are very complex and peculiar, in points strongly resembling the customary laws of the more backward Red Indian tribes of North America. Information came in, while McLennan was working, from G. Taplin (The Narrinyeri, 1874), from A.W. Howitt and L. Fison, and many other inquirers (in Brough Smyth’sAborigines of Victoria, 1878), from Howitt and Fison again (inKamilaroi and Kurnai, 1880), and many essays by these authors, and finally, inNative Tribes of Central Australia(1899) andNorthern Tribes of Central Australia(1904), by Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen; and in Howitt’sNative Tribes of South-East Australia(1904), with R. Roth’sNorth-West Central Queensland Aborigines(1897). All of these are works of very high merit. Knowledge is now much more wide, minute and securely based than it was when McLennan’sStudies in Ancient History, second series, was posthumously published (1896). We know with certainty that in Australia, among archaic savages who have neither metals, agriculture, pottery nor domesticated animals, a graduated scale of matrimonial institutions exists. First there arelocaltribes, each tribe having its own dialect; holding a recognized area of territory; and living on friendly terms with neighbouring tribes. Territorial conquest is never attempted. In many cases a knot of tribes of allied dialects and kindred rites may be, or at least 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” of local groups or of sets of kindred. As to marriage,Primitive restrictions on marriage.persons may wed within the local tribe, or into a neighbouring local tribe, at will, provided that they obey the restrictions of customary law. The local tribe is neither exogamous nor endogamous, any more than is an English county. The restrictions, except where they have become obsolete, fall into six main categories:—
(1) In the most primitive, each tribe consists of two intermarrying and exogamous divisions, which are often styledphratries. Each such division has a name, which, when it can be translated, is the name of an animal: in the majority of cases, however, the meaning of the phratry name is lost. In one instance, that of the Euahlayi tribe of north-west New South Wales, the phratry names are said (by Mrs Langloh Parker) to mean “Light Blood” and “Dark Blood.” This, as in the theory of the Rev. J. Mathews,Eagle and Crow, might be taken to indicate a blending of two distinctraces.
Taking, for the sake of clearness, tribes whose phratry names mean “Crow” and “Eagle Hawk,” every member of the tribe belongs either to Eagle Hawk phratry or to Crow phratry: if to Crow, the man or woman can only marry an Eagle Hawk, if to Eagle Hawk, can only marry a Crow. The children invariably belong to the phratry of the mother, in this most primitive type. Within Eagle Hawk phratry is one set of totem kins, named usually after various species of animals and plants; within Crow phratry is another set of totem kins, named always (except in one region of Central Australia) after adifferentset of plants and animals. With the exception mentioned (that of the Arunta“nation”), in no tribe does the same totem ever occur in both phratries. Totems and totem names are inherited by the children from the mother, in this primitive type. Thus a man, Eagle Hawk by phratry, Snipe by totem, marries a woman Crow by phratry, Black Duck by totem. His children by her are of phratry Crow, of totem Black Duck. Obviously no person can marry another of his or her own totem, because, in the phratry into which he or shemustmarry, no man or woman of his or her totem exists. The prohibition extends to members of alien and remote tribes, if of the same totem name.
The same rules exist in the more primitive North American tribes, but as the phratry there has generally, though not always, decayed, the rule, where this has occurred, merely forbids marriage within the totem kin.
(2) We find this type of organization, where the child inherits phratry and totem from the father, not from the mother.
(3) We find tribes in which phratry and totem are inherited from 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 these names are of unknown meaning). Each child inherits its mother’s phratry name and totem name, and also the name of that class of the two in the mother’s phratry to which the mother doesnotbelong. No person may marry into his or her own class—practically into his or her own generation: the rule makes parental and filial marriages impossible,—but these never occur even among more primitive tribes which have not the institution of classes. Suppose that the class names are really names of animals and other objects in nature—as in a few cases they actually are. Then the rules, where classes exist, would amount to this: no person may marry another who, by phratry, totem or generation, owns the same hereditary animal name as himself or herself. In practice, where phratries exist, a man who knows a woman’s phratry name knows whether or not he may marry her. Where class names exist (even though the phratry name be lost), a man who knows a woman’s class name knows whether or not he may marry her. Nothing can be simpler in practice.
(4) The same rules as under (3) exist, but the phratry, totem and class are inherited through the father: the class of the child of course not being the father’s, but the linked class in his phratry.
(5) In the fifth category (Central North Australia), while phratry name (if not lost) and totem name are inherited from the father, by a refinement of law which is spreading southwards there arefourclasses in each phratry (or main exogamous division unnamed), and the choice of a partner in life is thus more restricted than in more primitive tribes.
(6) Finally we reach the institutions of the group of tribes called, from the name of the most powerful tribe in the set, “the Arunta nation.” They occupy the Macdonnell Ranges and other territory in the very centre ofArunta customs.Australia. The Arunta reckon kinship in the male line: their phratry names they have forgotten, in place of phratries eight matrimonial classes regulate marriage. In these respects they resemble most of the central and northern tribes, but present this unique peculiarity, that the same totems may and do exist inbothof the opposed intermarrying exogamous divisions consisting of four classes each. It thus results that a man, in the Arunta tribe, may marry a woman of his own totem, if she be in the class with which he may intermarry. This licence is unknown in every other part of the totemic world, and even in the Kaitish tribe of the Arunta nation intertotemic marriages, in practice, almost never occur.
Among the Arunta the totems are only prominent in magical ceremonies, unknown in South-Eastern Australia. At these ceremonies (Intichiuma) the men of the totem do cooperative magic for the benefit of their plant or animal, as part of the tribal food-supply. The members of the totem taste it sparingly on these occasions, apparently under the belief that to do so increases 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 important existence. Men and women of the same totem may intermarry, their children need not belong to the totem of either father or mother.
The process by which Arunta totems came thus to differ from those of all other savages is easily understood. Like the other tribes from the centre to the north (including the Urabunna nation, which reckons descent through women), the Arunta believe that the souls of the primal semi-bestial ancestors of the Alcheringa or “dream time” are perpetually reincarnated. This opinion does not affect by itself the usual exogamous character of totemism among the other tribes. The Arunta nation, however, cultivates an additional myth, namely that the primal ancestors, when they sank into the ground, left behind them certain oval stone slabs, with archaic markings, calledchuringa nanja, or “sacred things of thenanja.” Thenanja, again, is a tree or rock, fabled to have risen up to mark the spot where a group of primal ancestors, all of one and the same totem in each case (Cats here, Grubs there, Ducks elsewhere), “went into 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 ownoknanikilla(or local totem centre of the ghosts), Cat ghosts, Grub ghosts, Hakea flower ghosts and so on. These spirits enter into women and are reborn as children. When a child comes to birth, the mother names the oknanikilla in which she conceived it, and, whatever the ghost totem of that place may be, it is the child’s totem. 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 or Kangaroo locality, it is, by totem, a Cat, Opossum, Duck or Kangaroo. Thechuringa nanjaof its primal ancestor is sought for at the place of the child’s conception, and is put into the sacred repository of such objects.
Thus the child does not inherit its totem from father, or from mother, as everywhere else, butdoesinherit the right to do ceremonies for the paternal totem: a proof that, of old, totems were inherited, as elsewhere, and that in the male line. If totems among the Arunta, as everywhere else, were once arranged on the plan that the same totem never occurs in both exogamous moieties, that arrangement has been destroyed, as was inevitable, by the existing method of allotting totems to children,—not by inheritance,—but at haphazard. By this means (a consequence of the unique Arunta belief aboutchuringa nanja) the same totems have got intobothexogamous moieties, so that persons of the same totem, but of appropriate matrimonial classes, may marry. This licence is absolutely confined to the limited region in which stonechuringa nanjaoccur.
The whole system is impossible except where descent is reckoned in the male line, for there alone islocaltotemism possible, and the Arunta system is based on local totemism,plusthechuringa nanjaand reincarnation beliefs. With reckoning of descent in the female line, no locality can possibly have itslocaltotem: all the totems indiscriminately distributed everywhere: and thus no woman can say in what totemic locality her child was conceived, for there is not and cannot be, with female descent, any totemiclocality. Now it is admitted that reckoning by female descent is the earlier method, and it is granted that in rites and ceremonies the Arunta are of a relatively advanced and highly organized pattern. Their social organization is local, and they have a kind of local magistracies, hereditary in the male line.
In spite of these facts, Spencer and Gillen conceive that the peculiar totemism of the Arunta is the most primitive type extant (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 are not primitive), and without thechuringa nanja(which exist only in a strictly limited area), the Arunta system of non-exogamous totems cannot possibly exist. Again, the other tribes cannot have passed through the Arunta stage, for, if they had, their totems would have existed, as among the Arunta, inbothexogamous moieties, 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 their neighbours, the Kaitish, for though they have thechuringa nanjabelief, and the haphazard method of acquiring totems by local accident, these things have not yet overcome the old traditional reluctance to marry within the totem name. It is not unlawful among 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 (or no known restrictions) on marriage. Totems were merely the result of the formation of co-operative magical societies, in the interest of the tribal food supply. Then, in some unknown way, regulations as to marriage were introduced for some unknown purpose, or were involved in some manner not understood. “The traditions of the Arunta,” says Spencer, “point to a very definite introduction of an exogamous 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 deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital relations.”
Thus the wisdom of men living promiscuously as regards marriage, but organized in magical societies for the benefit of the common food supply of the localtribe(a complex institution postulated as already in being at this early stage), induced them to institute exogamy. Why they did this, what harm they saw in their promiscuity, we are not informed. Spencer goes on, “by this we do not mean that the regulations had anything whatever to do with the idea of incest, or of any harm accruing from the union of individuals who were regarded as too nearly related.... There was felt the need of some kind of organization, and this gradually resulted in the development of exogamous groups.” But as “it is quite possible that the exogamous groups were deliberately introduced to regulate marital relations,” and as they could only do so by introducing exogamy, we do not see how that system can be the result of thegradualdevelopment of an organizationquelconque,—of unknown nature. A magical organization already existed (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 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 exogamic system was purposefully introduced, long after totemic groups had arisen, by “the deliberate action of certain ancestors,” and then that myth is rejected, in favour of thegradualdevelopment of exogamy, “out of some form of organization,” unknown.
People who, like the Arunta, have lost memory of the very names of the phratries, cannot conceivably remember the nature of the origin of exogamy. Accustomed as they now are to tribal councils which introduce new rules, they fancy that, in the beginning, new rules were thus introduced.
Meanwhile the working of magic for the behoof of the totem animals and plants, or rather for the name-giving animals of magical societies, is not known to Howitt among the tribes of primitive social organization, while it is wellConclusion as to Spencer’s hypothesis.known among agricultural natives of the Torres Strait Islands and among the advanced Sioux and Omaha of North America. The practice seems to belong rather to the decadence than to the dawn of totemism. On the whole, then, there seem to be insuperable difficulties in the way of Spencer’s hypothesis that mankind were promiscuous, as regards marriage, but were organized into cooperative magical groups, athwart which came, in some unexplained way, the rule of exogamy; while, when it did come, all savages except the Arunta arranged matters so that totem kins 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 nanjacreed, becoming co-operative magical societies (Hartland, Marett, Durkheim and others).
8. Spencer and Gillen leave the origin of exogamy an open question. Howitt supposes that, in the shape of the phratriac division of the tribe into two exogamous moieties, the scheme may have been introduced to the tribalOrigin of exogamy.headmen by a medicine man “announcing to his fellow headman a command received from some supernatural being ...” (Natives of South-East Australia, pp. 89, 90). The Council, so to speak, of “headmen” accept the divine decree, and the assembled tribe pass the Act. But this explanation explains nothing. Why did the prophet wish to introduce exogamy? 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 in fact must have been the commencement of totemism?”
It is apparent that any theory which begins by postulating the existence of early mankind in promiscuous groups or hordes, into which exogamous moieties are introduced by tribal decree, takes for granted that thetribe, with its headman, councils and great meetings (not to mention its inspired prophet, with the tribal “All Father” who inspires him), existed before any rules regulating “marital relations” were evolved. Even if all this were probable, we are not told why a promiscuous tribe thought good to establish exogamous divisions. Some native myths attribute the institution to certain wise ancestors; some to the supernatural “All Father,” say Baiame; some to a treaty between 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 of promiscuity. They now think certain unions wrong, because they are forbidden: they were not forbidden, originally, because they were thought wrong.
Westermarck has endeavoured to escape the difficulty thus: “Among the ancestors of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt a time when blood relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. But variations here, asWestermarckelsewhere, would naturally present themselves, and those of our ancestors who avoided in and in breeding would survive,” while the others would die out. This appears to be orthodox evolutionary language, but it carries us no further. Human societies are not animals or plants, in whose structure various favourable “accidents” occur, producing better types, which survive. We askwhyin human society did “variations present themselves”;whydid certain sets of human beings “avoid in and in breeding”? We are merely told that some of our ancestors became exogamous and survived, while others remained promiscuous and perished. No light is thrown on the problem,—wherefore did some of our ancestors avoid in and in breeding, and become exogamous? Nothing is gained by saying “thus an instinct would be developed which would be powerful enough, as a rule, to prevent injurious unions.” There is no “instinct,” there is a tribal law of exogamy. If there had been an “instinct,” it might account for the avoidance of “in and in breeding”—that is, it might account for exogamy,ab initio. But that is left unaccounted for by the theory which, after maintaining that the avoidance produced the instinct, seems to argue that the instinct produced the avoidance. Westermarck goes on to say that “exogamy, as a natural extension of the instinct, would arise when single families united in small hordes.” But, if the single families already had the “instinct,” they would not marry within the family: they would be exogamous,—marrying only into other families,—beforethey “united in small hordes.” The difficulty of accounting for exogamy does not seem to have been overcome, and no attempt is made to explain the 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 men lived in small endogamous groups, practising incest in every degree,” although, as he also says, “there was no doubt a time when blood relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse.” If there was no bar, people would “practise incest in every degree,”—what was there to prevent them? (History of Human Marriage, pp. 352, 353 (1891)).
So far we have seen no luminous and consistent account of how mankind became exogamous, if they began by being promiscuous. The theories rest on the idea that man, dwelling in an “undivided horde” (except so far asDurkheim.it was divided into co-operative magical societies), bisected it into two exogamous intermarrying moieties. Durkheim has put forward a theory which is not at all points easily understood. He supposes that, “at the beginning of societies of men, incest was not prohibited ... before each horde (peuplade) divided itself into two primitive ‘clans’ at least” (L’Année sociologique, i. pp. 62, 63). Each of the two “clans” claimed descent from a different animal, which was its totem, and its “god.” The two clans were exogamous,—out of respect to the blood of their totem (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, from which they had seceded, while abandoning its “god.” When the two “primary clans” made alliance andconnubium, they became the phratries in the local tribe, and their colonies became the totem kins within the phratries.
We are not told why the original horde was disrupted into two hostile and intermarrying “clans”: we especially wonder why the horde, if it wanted an animal god, did not choose one animal for the whole community; and we may suspect that a difference of taste in animal “gods” caused the hostility of the two clans. Nor do we see why, if things occurred thus, the totem kins should not represent twenty or thirty differences of religious taste, in the original horde, as to the choice of animal gods. If the horde was going to vary in opinion, it is unlikely that onlytwofactions put forward animal candidates for divinity. Again, a “clan” (a totem kin, with exogamy and descent derived through mothers) cannot overflow its territorial area and be therefore obliged to send out colonies, for such a clan (as Durkheim himself remarks) has no territorial area to overflow. It is not alocalinstitution at all.
While these objections cannot but occur, Durkheim does provide a valid reason for the existence of exogamy. When once the groups (however they got them) had totems, with the usual taboos 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 same kin. In marrying a maiden of his own totem, a man inevitably violates 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 “religious horror” that attaches to the violation of the rule of totemic exogamy: a mysterious entity, the totem, is hereby offended. But how did totems, animals, plants and so on, come to be mysticallysolidaireswith their human namesakes and kinsmen? We do not observe that Dr Durkheim ever explainswhytwo divisions of one horde chose each a different animal god, or why the supposed colonies thrown off by these primary clans deserted their animal gods for others, or why, and on what principle, they all chose new “gods,”—fresh animals, plants and other objects. His hereditary totem is, in practice, the last thing that a savage changes. The only case of change on record is a recent attempt to increase the range of legal marriages in a waning Australian tribe, on whose lands certain species of animals are perishing.
Theories based on a supposed primal state of promiscuity certainly encounter, when explaining the social oganization of Australian savages, difficulties which they do not surmount. But Howitt has provided (apparentlyHowitt’s solution.without fully realizing the merit of his own suggestions) a way out of the perplexities caused by the conception of early mankind dwelling promiscuously in “undivided communes.” The way out is practically to say that, in everyday life, they lived in nothing of the sort. Howitt writes (Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 173): “A study of the evidence ... has led me to the conclusion that the state of society among the early Australians was that of an ‘Undivided Commune.’... It is, however, well to guard this expression. I do not desire to imply necessarily the existence of complete and continuous communism between the sexes. The character of the country, the necessity of moving from one point to another in search of game and vegetable food, would cause any Undivided Commune, when it assumed dimensions greater than the immediate locality could provide with food, to break up into two or more Communes of the same character. In addition to this it is clear ... that in the past as now, individual likes and dislikes must have existed, so that, admitting the existence of common rights between the members of the Commune, these rights would remain in abeyance, so far as the separated parts of the Commune were concerned. But at certain gatherings ... or on great ceremonial occasions, all the segments of the original Commune would reunite,” and would behave in the fashion now common in great licentious festive meetings.
In the early ages contemplated, how can we postulate “great ceremonial occasions” or even peaceful assemblies at fruit-bearing spots? How can we postulate a surviving sense of solidarity among the scattered segments ofPrimitive promiscuity improbable.the Commune, obviously very small, owing to lack of supplies, and perpetually disintegrated? But, taking the original groups as very small, and as ruled by likes and dislikes, by affection and jealousy, we are no longer concerned with a promiscuous horde, but with a little knot of human beings, in whom love, parental affection and the jealousy of sires, would promptly make discriminations between this person and that person, as regards sexual privileges. Thus we have edged away from the hypothesis of the promiscuous indiscriminating horde to the opinion of Darwin. “We may conclude,” he says, “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.... The most probable view is that Man originally lived in small communities, each (man) with a single wife, or, if powerful, with-several, whom he jealously guarded against all other men.” But, in a community of this early type, to guard women jealously would mean constant battle, at least when 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 all the natives agree that but one adult male is seen in a band; when the young male grows up a contest takes place for the mastery, and the strongest, by killing or driving out the others, establishes himself as head of the Community. Younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close interbreeding within the limits of the samefamily” (Descent of Man, ii. pp. 361, 363 (1871)).
Here, then, we have practical Exogamy, as regards unions of brothers and sisters, among man still brutish, while the Sire is husband of the whole harem of females, probably unchecked as regards his daughters.
On this Darwinian text J.J. Atkinson builds his theory of the evolution of exogamy and of savage society in hisPrimal Law(Social Origins and Primal Law, by Lang and Atkinson, 1903). Paternal jealousy “gave birth to Primal Law,Atkinson’s theory.prohibitory of marriage between certain members of a family or local group, and thus, in natural sequence, led toforcedconnubial selectionbeyondits circle, that is, led to Exogamy ... as ahabit, not as an expressed law....” The “expressed law” was necessarily a later development; conditioned by the circumstances which produced totemism, and sanctioned, as on Durkheim’s scheme, by the totemic taboo. Atkinson worked out his theory by a minute study of customs of avoidance between near kin by blood or affinity; by observations on the customs of animals, and by hypotheses as to the very gradual evolution of human restrictions through many modifications. He also gave a theory of the “classificatory” system of names for relationships opposed to that of Morgan. The names are based merely “on reference to relativity of age of a class in relation to the group.” The exogamous moieties of a tribe (phratries) are notthe 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’s death before the book was printed, is highly original and ingenious. The author, however, did not touch on the evolution of totemism.