9. The following system, as a means of making intelligible the evolution of Australian totemic society, is proposed by the present writer. We may suggest that men originally lived in the state of “the Cyclopean family” ofLang’s system.Atkinson; that is, in Darwin’s “family group,” containing but one adult male, with the females, the adolescent males being driven out, to find each a female mate, or mates, elsewhere if they can. With increase of skill, improvements in implements and mitigation of ferocity, such groups may become larger, in a given area, but men may retain the habit of seeking mates outside the limits of the group of contiguity; the “avoidance” of brothers and sisters may already have arisen. Among the advanced Arunta, now, a man may speak freely to his elder sisters; 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 facilitating the permission to adult males to dwell in their paternal group, avoiding their sisters. Such groups, whether habitually exogamous or not, will require names for each other, and various reasons would yield a preference to names derived from animals. These are easily signalled in gesture language; are easily presented in pictographs and tattooing; are even now, among savages and boys, the most usual sort ofpersonalnicknames; and are widely employed asgroupnames of villagers in European folk-lore. Among European rustics such group sobriquets are usual, but are resented. The savage, with his ideas of the equality or superiority of animals to himself, sees nothing to resent in an animal sobriquet, and the names, originally group sobriquets, would not find more difficulty in being accepted than “Whig,” “Tory,” “Huguenot,” “Cavalier,” “Christian,” “Cameronian,”—all of them originally nicknames given from without. Again, “Wry Nose” and “Crooked Mouth” arederisivenicknames, but they are the translations of the ancient Celtic clan names Cameron and Campbell. The nicknames “Naked Dogs,” “Liars,” “Buffalo Dung,” “Men who do not laugh,” “Big Topknots,” 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 objects by men must in fact have been the origin of totemism.” Howitt does not admit the theory that the totem names came to arise in this way, but this way is avera causa. Names must be given either 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 transparently a nickname, as isKarti, “The Grown-up Men” (Spencer and Gillen,Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 207).
There is nothing, prima facie, which renders this origin of animal, plant and other such names for early savage groups at all improbable. They would not even be resented, as now are the animal names for villagers in the Orkneys, the Channel Islands, France, Cornwall and in ancient Israel (for examples seeSocial Origins, pp. 295-301). The names once accepted, and their origin forgotten, would be inevitably regarded as implying a mysticrapportbetween the bestial and the human namesakes, Crow, Eagle Hawk, Grub, Bandicoot, Opossum, Emu, Kangaroo and so on (seeName). On this subject it is enough to cite J.G. Frazer, inThe Golden Bough(2nd ed., vol. i. pp. 404-446). Here will be found a rich and satisfactory collection of proof that community of name implies mysticrapport. Professor Rhys is quoted for the statement that probably “the whole Aryan race believed at one time not only that the name was a part of the man, but that it was that part of him which is termed the soul.” In such a mental stage the men “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 is sacro-sanct, a friend and protector, and a centre of taboos, one of which is the prohibition preventing a Crow man from intercourse with a Crow woman, “however far apart their hunting grounds may have been.” All men and women Crows are recognized as brothers and sisters in the Crow, and are not intermarriageable.
On these lines the prohibition to infringe the totem taboo by marriage within the totem name is intelligible, but the system of phratries has yet to be accounted for. It is obvious that the names could only have been given originally tolocalgroups: the people who held this or that local habitation received the name. Suppose that the rule of each such group, or heart circle, had been “no marriage within the local group or camp,” as in Atkinson’s scheme. When the groups accept their new names, the rule becomes, “no marriage within local group Eagle Hawk, group Crow,” and so on. So far the animal giving the group name may not yet have become a revered totem. The result of the rule would inevitably be, in three or four generations, that in groups Crow or Eagle Hawk, there were no Crows or Eagle Hawksby descent, if the children took the names 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 Hawk woman’s children being Eagle Hawks,—all in local group Crow, and inheriting the names of the local groups whence their mothers were brought into local group Crow.
By this means (indicated first by McLennan) each member of a local group would have alocalgroup name, say Eagle Hawk, and a name byfemale descent, say Kangaroo, in addition, as now, to his or her personal name. In this way, all members of each local group would find, in any other local group, people of his name of descent, and, as the totem belief grew to maturity, kinsmen of his in the totem. When this fact was realized, it would inevitably make for peace among all contiguous groups. In place of taking women by force, at the risk of shedding kindred blood, peaceful betrothals between men and women of different local group names and of different names by descent could be arranged. Say that local groups Eagle Hawk and Crow took the lead in this arrangement of alliance andconnubium, and that (as they would naturally flourish in the strength conferred by union) the other local groups came into it, ranging themselves under Eagle Hawk and Crow, we should have the existing primitive type of organization: Local Groups Eagle Hawk (Mukwara) and Crow (Kilpara) would have become the widely diffused phratries,MukwaraandKilpara, with all the totem 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 phratryKilparaas now (for the different reason already indicated) among the Arunta. Such persons were in a quandary. Byphratrylaw, as being in opposite phratries, a Cat in Eagle Hawk’ phratry could marry a Cat in Crow phratry. But, by totem law, this was impossible. To avoid the clash of law, all Cats had to go into one phratry or the other, either into Eagle Hawk or into Crow.
Two whole totem kins were in the same unhappy position. The persons who were Eagle Hawksby descentcould not be in Eagle 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 was to break the old law, “no marriage within thelocalgroup name.” Their only chance was to return to Eagle Hawk phratry, while Crow totem kin went into Crow phratry, and thus we often find, in fact, that in Australian phratriesMukwara(Eagle Hawk) there is a totem kin Eagle Hawk, and inKilparaphratry (Crow) there is a totem kin Crow. This arrangement—the totem kin within the phratry of its own name—has long been known to exist in America. The Thlinkets have Raven phratry, with totem kins Raven, Frog, Goose, &c., and Wolf phratry, withtotem 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, thoughMukwaraandKilparaare translated, the Eagle Hawk and Crow totem kins within them bear other names for the same birds, more recent names, or tribal native names, such asBiliariandWaa, whileMukwaraandKilparamay have been names borrowed, within the institution of phratries, from some alien tribe now perhaps extinct.
We have now sketched a scheme explanatory of the most primitive type of social organization in Australia. The tendency is 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 opposed Matrimonial Classes.
These classes are obviously an artificial arrangement, intended to restrict marriage to persons on the same level as generations. The meanings of the class names are only known with certainty in two cases, and then are names of animals, while there is reason to suspect that animal names occur in four or five of the eight class-names which, in different dialect forms, prevail in central and northern Australia. Conceivably the new class regulations made use of the old totemic machinery of nomenclature. But until Australian philologists can trace the original meanings 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. One way out is the Arunta way, where totems no longerBreaking up of totemism.designate kinships. In parts of America totems are 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 among the Blackfeet. In Melanesia the phratries, whether named or nameless, have survived, while the totems have left but a few traces which some consider disputable (Social Origins, pp. 176-184). Among the Bantu of South Africa thetribeshave sacred animals (Siboko), which may be survivals of the totems of the chief local totem group, with male descent in the tribe, the whole of which now bears the name of the sacred animal. Even in Australia, among tribes where there is reckoning of descent in 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 thedistrict, 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 low level of material culture, one tribe derives descent through women, while its nearest neighbouring tribe, with ceremonies, rites, beliefs and myths like its own, and occupying lands of similar character in a similar climate, traces descent through men, seems totally insoluble. Again, we find that the civilized Lycians, as described by Herodotus (book i. ch. 173), reckoned lineage in the female line, while the naked savages of north and central Australia reckon in the male line. Our knowledge does not enable us to explain the change from female to male tracing of lineage. Yet the change was essential for the formation of the family system of civilized life. The change may be observed taking place in the region of North-West America peopled by the Thlinket, Haida and Salish tribes; the first are pure totemists, the last have arrived, practically, in the south, at the modern family, while a curious intermediate stage pervades the interjacent region.
The best authority on the Family developed in different shapes in North-West America is Charles Hill-Tout (cf. “Origin of the Totemism of the Aborigines of British Columbia,”Transactions of 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 of the exogamous kin, but to the animal familiars of individual men or women, calledmanitus,naguals,nyarongsandyunbeai, among North American Indians, in South America, in Borneo and in the Euahlayi tribe of New South Wales. These animal familiars are chosen by individuals, obeying the monition of dreams, or are assigned to them at birth, or at puberty, by the tribal magicians. It has often been suggested that totemism arose when the familiar of an individual became hereditary among his descendants. This could not occur under a system of reckoning descent and inheriting the kin name through women, but as a Tsimshian myth says that a man’s sister adopted his animal familiar, the bear, and transmitted it toheroffspring, Hill-Tout supposes that this may have been the origin of totemism in tribes with reckoning of descent in the female line. 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 political alliance with exclusiveinterconnubiumbetween two sets of kinsfolk by blood, totemism being a mere accidental concomitant. This theory evades the difficulties raised by the hypothesis of deliberate reformatory legislation introducing the bisection of the tribe into exogamous societies.
Authorities.—The study of the History of the Family has been subject to great fluctuation of opinion, as unexpected evidence has kept pouring in from many quarters. The theory of primal promiscuity, which in 1870 succeeded to Sir Henry Maine’spatriarchal theory, has endured many attacks, and there is a tendency to return, not precisely to the “patriarchal theory,” but to the view that the jealousy of the Sire of the “Cyclopean family,” or “Gorilla family” indicated by Darwin, has had much to do with laying the bases of “primal law.” The whole subject has been especially studied by English-speaking writers, as the English and Americans are brought most into contact with the most archaic savage societies. Among foreigners, in addition to Starcke, Westermarck and Durkheim, already cited, may be mentioned Professor J. Kohler,Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe(Stuttgart, 1897). Professor Kohler is in favour of a remote past of “collective marriage,” indicated, as in Morgan’s hypothesis, by the existing savage names of relationships, which are expressive of relations of consanguinity. E.S. Hartland (Primitive Paternity, 1910) discusses myths of supernatural birth in relation to the history of the Family.A careful and well-reasoned work by Herr Cunow (Die Verwandtschafts Organisationen der Australneger, Stuttgart, 1894) deals with the Matrimonial Classes of Australian tribes. Cunow supposes that descent was originally reckoned in the male line, and that tribes with this organization (such as the Narrinyeri) are the more primitive. In this opinion he has few allies: and on the origin of Exogamy he seems to possess no definite ideas. Pikler’sUrsprung des Totemismus(Berlin, 1900) explains Totemism as arising from the need of names for early groups of men: names which could be expressed in pictographs and tattooing, to which we may add “gesture language.” This is much akin to the theory which we have already suggested, though Pikler seems to think that the pictograph (say of a Crow or an Eagle Hawk) was prior to the group name. But, he remarks, like Howitt, “the germ of Totemism is the naming”; and the community of name between the animal species and the human group led to the belief that there was an important connexion between the men and their name-giving animal.Other useful sources of information are the annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington), theJournal of the Institute of the Anthropological Society, Folk Lore(the organ of the Folk Lore Society), and Durkheim’sL’Année sociologique.Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar, by M.A. van Gennep (Leroux, Paris, 1904) is a valuable contribution to knowledge.For India, where vestiges of totemism linger in the hill tribes, see Risley and Crooke,Tribes and Castes, vols. i., ii., iii., iv.; and Crooke,Popular Religion; also Crooke inJ.A.I.(N.S.), vol. i. pp. 232-244.
Authorities.—The study of the History of the Family has been subject to great fluctuation of opinion, as unexpected evidence has kept pouring in from many quarters. The theory of primal promiscuity, which in 1870 succeeded to Sir Henry Maine’spatriarchal theory, has endured many attacks, and there is a tendency to return, not precisely to the “patriarchal theory,” but to the view that the jealousy of the Sire of the “Cyclopean family,” or “Gorilla family” indicated by Darwin, has had much to do with laying the bases of “primal law.” The whole subject has been especially studied by English-speaking writers, as the English and Americans are brought most into contact with the most archaic savage societies. Among foreigners, in addition to Starcke, Westermarck and Durkheim, already cited, may be mentioned Professor J. Kohler,Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe(Stuttgart, 1897). Professor Kohler is in favour of a remote past of “collective marriage,” indicated, as in Morgan’s hypothesis, by the existing savage names of relationships, which are expressive of relations of consanguinity. E.S. Hartland (Primitive Paternity, 1910) discusses myths of supernatural birth in relation to the history of the Family.
A careful and well-reasoned work by Herr Cunow (Die Verwandtschafts Organisationen der Australneger, Stuttgart, 1894) deals with the Matrimonial Classes of Australian tribes. Cunow supposes that descent was originally reckoned in the male line, and that tribes with this organization (such as the Narrinyeri) are the more primitive. In this opinion he has few allies: and on the origin of Exogamy he seems to possess no definite ideas. Pikler’sUrsprung des Totemismus(Berlin, 1900) explains Totemism as arising from the need of names for early groups of men: names which could be expressed in pictographs and tattooing, to which we may add “gesture language.” This is much akin to the theory which we have already suggested, though Pikler seems to think that the pictograph (say of a Crow or an Eagle Hawk) was prior to the group name. But, he remarks, like Howitt, “the germ of Totemism is the naming”; and the community of name between the animal species and the human group led to the belief that there was an important connexion between the men and their name-giving animal.
Other useful sources of information are the annual Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology (Washington), theJournal of the Institute of the Anthropological Society, Folk Lore(the organ of the Folk Lore Society), and Durkheim’sL’Année sociologique.Tabou et totémisme à Madagascar, by M.A. van Gennep (Leroux, Paris, 1904) is a valuable contribution to knowledge.
For India, where vestiges of totemism linger in the hill tribes, see Risley and Crooke,Tribes and Castes, vols. i., ii., iii., iv.; and Crooke,Popular Religion; also Crooke inJ.A.I.(N.S.), vol. i. pp. 232-244.
(A. L.)
FAMINE(Lat.fames, hunger), extreme and general scarcity of food, causing distress and deaths from starvation among the population of a district or country. Famines have caused widespread suffering in all countries and ages. A list of the chief famines recorded by history is given farther on. The causes of famine are partly natural and partly artificial. Among the natural causes may be classed all failures of crops due to excess or defect of rainfall and other meteorological phenomena, or to the ravages of insects and vermin. Among the artificial causes may be classed war and economic errors in the production, transport and sale of food-stuffs.
The natural causes of famine are still mainly outside our control, though science enables agriculturists to combat them more successfully, and the improvement in means of transport allows a rich harvest in one land to supplement the defectivecrops in another. In tropical countries drought is the commonest cause of a failure in the harvest, and where great droughts are not uncommon—as in parts of India and Australia—the hydraulic engineer comes to the rescue by devising systems of water-storage and irrigation. It is less easy to provide against the evils of excessive rainfall and of frost, hail and the like. The experience of the French in Algiers shows that it is possible to stamp out a plague of locusts, such as is the greatest danger to the farmer in many parts of Argentina. But the ease with which food can nowadays be transported from one part of the world to another minimizes the danger of famine from natural causes, as we can hardly conceive that the whole food-producing area of the world should be thus affected at once.
The artificial causes of famine have mostly ceased to be operative on any large scale. Chief among them is war, which may cause a shortage of food-supplies, either by its direct ravages or by depleting the supply of agricultural labour. But only local famines are likely to arise from this cause. Legislative interference with agricultural operations or with the distribution of food-supplies, currency restrictions and failure of transport, which have all caused famines in the past, are unlikely thus to operate again; nor is it probable that the modern speculators who attempt to make “corners” in wheat could produce the evil effects contemplated in the old statutes against forestallers and regrators.
Such local famines as may occur in the 20th century will probably be attributable to natural causes. It is impossible to regulate the rainfall of any district, or wholly to supply its failure by any system of water-storage. Irrigation is better able to bring fertility to a naturally arid district than to avert the failure of crops in one which is naturally fertile. The true palliative of famine is to be found in the improvement of methods of transport, which make it possible rapidly to convey food from one district to another. But the efficiency of this preventive stops short at the point of saving human life. It cannot prevent a rise in prices, with the consequent suffering among the poor. Still, every year makes it less likely that the world will see a renewal of the great famines of the past, and it is only the countries where civilization is still backward that are in much danger of even a local famine.
Great Famines.—Amongst the great famines of history may be named the following:—B.C.436Famine at Rome, when thousands of starving people threw themselves into the Tiber.A.D.42Great famine in Egypt.650Famine throughout India.879Universal famine.941, 1022and 1033Great famines in India, in which entire provinces were depopulated and man was driven to cannibalism.1005Famine in England.1016Famine throughout Europe.1064-1072Seven years’ famine in Egypt.1148-1159Eleven years’ famine in India.1162Universal famine.1344-1345Great famine in India, when the Mogul emperor was unable to obtain the necessaries for his household. The famine continued for years and thousands upon thousands of people perished of want.1396-1407The Durga Devi famine in India, lasting twelve years.1586Famine in England which gave rise to the Poor Law system.1661Famine in India, when not a drop of rain fell for two years.1769-1770Great famine in Bengal, when a third of the population (10,000,000 persons) perished.1783The Chalisa famine in India, which extended from the eastern edge of the Benares province to Lahore and Jammu.1790-1792The Doji Bara, or skull famine, in India, so-called because the people died in such numbers that they could not be buried. According to tradition this was one of the severest famines ever known. It extended over the whole of Bombay into Hyderabad and affected the northern districts of Madras. Relief works were first opened during this famine in Madras.1838Intense famine in North-West Provinces (United Provinces) of India; 800,000 perished.1846-1847Famine in Ireland, due to the failure of the potato-crop. Grants were made by parliament amounting to £10,000,000.1861Famine in North-West India.1866Famine in Bengal and Orissa; one million perished.1869Intense famine in Rajputana; one million and a half perished. The government initiated the policy of saving life.1874Famine in Behar, India. Government relief in excess of the needs of the people.1876-1878Famine in Bombay, Madras and Mysore; five millions perish. Relief insufficient.1877-1878Severe famine in north China. Nine and a half millions said to have perished.1887-1889Famine in China.1891-1892Famine in Russia.1897Famine in India. Government policy of saving life successful. Mansion House fund £550,000.1899-1901Famine in India. One million people perished. Estimated loss to India £50,000,000. The government spent £10,000,000 on relief, and at one time there were 4,500,000 people on the relief works.1905Famine in Russia.
Great Famines.—Amongst the great famines of history may be named the following:—
Famine at Rome, when thousands of starving people threw themselves into the Tiber.
Great famine in Egypt.
Famine throughout India.
Universal famine.
Great famines in India, in which entire provinces were depopulated and man was driven to cannibalism.
Famine in England.
Famine throughout Europe.
Seven years’ famine in Egypt.
Eleven years’ famine in India.
Universal famine.
Great famine in India, when the Mogul emperor was unable to obtain the necessaries for his household. The famine continued for years and thousands upon thousands of people perished of want.
The Durga Devi famine in India, lasting twelve years.
Famine in England which gave rise to the Poor Law system.
Famine in India, when not a drop of rain fell for two years.
Great famine in Bengal, when a third of the population (10,000,000 persons) perished.
The Chalisa famine in India, which extended from the eastern edge of the Benares province to Lahore and Jammu.
The Doji Bara, or skull famine, in India, so-called because the people died in such numbers that they could not be buried. According to tradition this was one of the severest famines ever known. It extended over the whole of Bombay into Hyderabad and affected the northern districts of Madras. Relief works were first opened during this famine in Madras.
Intense famine in North-West Provinces (United Provinces) of India; 800,000 perished.
Famine in Ireland, due to the failure of the potato-crop. Grants were made by parliament amounting to £10,000,000.
Famine in North-West India.
Famine in Bengal and Orissa; one million perished.
Intense famine in Rajputana; one million and a half perished. The government initiated the policy of saving life.
Famine in Behar, India. Government relief in excess of the needs of the people.
Famine in Bombay, Madras and Mysore; five millions perish. Relief insufficient.
Severe famine in north China. Nine and a half millions said to have perished.
Famine in China.
Famine in Russia.
Famine in India. Government policy of saving life successful. Mansion House fund £550,000.
Famine in India. One million people perished. Estimated loss to India £50,000,000. The government spent £10,000,000 on relief, and at one time there were 4,500,000 people on the relief works.
Famine in Russia.
Famines in India.—Owing to its tropical situation and its almost entire dependence upon the monsoon rains, India is more liable than any other country in the world to crop failures, which upon occasion deepen into famine. Every year sufficient rain falls in India to secure an abundant harvest if it were evenly distributed over the whole country; but as a matter of fact the distribution is so uneven and so uncertain that every year some district suffers from insufficient rainfall. In fact, famine is, to all intents and purposes, endemic in India, and is a problem to reckon with every year in some portion of that vast area. The people depend so entirely upon agriculture, and the harvest is so entirely destroyed by a single monsoon failure, that wherever a total failure occurs the landless labourer is immediately thrown out of work and remains out of work for the whole year. The question is thus one of lack of employment, rather than lack of food. The food is there, perhaps at a slightly enhanced price, but the unemployed labourer has no money to buy it. The problem is very much the same as that met by the British Poor Law system. Every year in England a poor rate of some £22,000,000 is expended for a population of 40 millions; while it is only in an exceptional year in India that £10,000,000 are spent on a population of 300 millions.
Famines seem to recur in India at periodical intervals, which have been held to be in some way dependent on the sun-spot period. Every five or ten years the annual scarcity widens its area and becomes a recognized famine; every fifty or a hundred years whole provinces are involved, loss of life becomes widespread, and a great famine is recorded. In the 140 years since Warren Hastings initiated British rule in India, there have been nineteen famines and five severe scarcities. For the period preceding British rule the records have not been so well preserved, but there is ample evidence to show that famine was just as frequent in its incidence and infinitely more deadly in its effects under the native rulers of India. In the great Bengal famine of 1769-1770, which occurred shortly after the foundation of British rule, but while the native officials were still in power, a third of the population, or ten millions out of thirty millions, perished. From this it may be guessed what occurred in the centuries under Mogul rule, when for years there was no rain, when famine lasted for three, four or twelve years, and entire cities were left without an inhabitant. In the famine of 1901, the worst of recent years, the loss of life in British districts was 3% of the population affected, as against 33% in the Bengal famine of 1770.
The native rulers of India seem to have made no effort to relieve the sufferings of their subjects in times of famine; and even down to 1866 the British government had no settled famine policy. In that year the Orissa famine awakened the public conscience, and the commission presided over by Sir George Campbell laid down the lines upon which subsequent famine-relief was organized. In the Rajputana famine of 1869 the humane principle of saving every possible life was firstenunciated. In the Behar famine of 1874 this principle was even carried to an extreme, the cost was enormous, and the people were in danger of being pauperized. The resulting reaction caused a regrettable loss of life in the Madras and Bombay famine of 1876-1878; and the Famine Commission of 1880, followed by those of 1898 and 1901, laid down the principle that every possible life must be saved, but that the wages on relief works must be so regulated in relation to the market rate of wages as not to undermine the independence of the people. The experience gained in the great famines of 1898 and 1901 has been garnered by these commissions, and stored up in the “famine codes” of each separate province, where rules are provided for the treatment of famine directly a crop failure is seen to be probable. The first step is to open test works; and directly they show the necessity, regular relief works are established, in which the people may earn enough to keep them from starvation, until the time comes to sow the next crop.
As a result of the severe famine of 1878-1879, Lord Lytton’s government instituted a form of insurance against famine known as the Famine Insurance Grant. A sum of Rs. 1,500,000 was to be yearly set aside for purposes of famine relief. This scheme has been widely misunderstood; it has been assumed that an entirely separate fund was created, and that in years when the specified sum was not paid into this fund, the purpose of the government was not carried out. But Sir John Strachey, the author of the scheme, explains in his book on India that the original intention was nothing more than the annual application of surplus revenue, of the indicated amount, to purposes of famine relief; and that when the country was free from famine, this sum should be regularly devoted to the discharge of debt, or to the prevention of debt which would otherwise have been incurred for the construction of railways and canals. The sum of 1½ crores is regularly set aside for this purpose, and is devoted as a rule to the construction of protective irrigation works, and for investigating and preparing new projects falling under the head of protective works.
The measures by which the government of India chiefly endeavours to reduce the liability of the country to famine are the promotion of railways; the extension of canal and well irrigation; the reclamation of waste lands, with the establishment of fuel and fodder reserves; the introduction of agricultural improvements; the multiplication of industries; emigration; and finally the improvement where necessary of the revenue and rent systems. In times of famine the function of the railways in distributing the grain is just as important as the function of the irrigation-canals in increasing the amount grown. There is always enough grain within the boundaries of India for the needs of the people; the only difficulty is to transport it to the tract where it is required at a particular moment. Owing to the extension of railways, in the famines of 1898 and 1901 there was never any dearth of food in any famine-stricken tract; and the only difficulty was to find enough rolling-stock to cope with the demand. Irrigation protects large tracts against famine, and has immensely increased the wheat output of the Punjab; the Irrigation Commission of 1903 recommended the addition of 6½ million acres to the irrigated area of India, and that recommendation is being carried out at an annual cost of 1½ millions sterling for twenty years, but at the end of that time the list of works that will return a lucrative interest on capital will be practically exhausted. Local conditions do not make irrigation everywhere possible.
As five-sixths of the whole population of India are dependent upon the land, any failure, of agriculture becomes a national calamity. If there were more industries and manufactures in India, the dependence on the land would not be so great and the liability to lack of occupation would not be so uniform in any particular district. The remedy for this is the extension of factories and home industries; but European capital is difficult to obtain in India, and the native capitalist prefers to hoard his rupees. The extension of industries, therefore, is a work of time.
It is sometimes alleged by native Indian politicians that famines are growing worse under British rule, because India is becoming exhausted by an excessive land revenue, a civil service too expensive for her needs, military expenditure on imperial objects, and the annual drain of some £15,000,000 for “home charges.” The reply to this indictment is that the British land revenue is £16,000,000 annually, whereas Aurangzeb’s over a smaller area, allowing for the difference in the value of the rupee, was £110,000,000; though the Indian Civil Service is expensive, its cost is more than covered by the fact that India, under British guarantee, obtains her loans at 3½% as against 10% or more paid by native rulers; though India has a heavy military burden, she pays no contribution to the British navy, which protects her seaboard from invasion; the drain of the home charges cannot be very great, as India annually absorbs 6 millions sterling of the precious metals; in 1899-1900, a year of famine, the net imports of gold and silver were 130 millions. Finally, it is estimated by the census commissioners that in the famine of 1901 three million people died in the native states and only one million in British territory.
See Cornelius Walford, “On the Famines of the World, Past and Present” (Journal of the Statistical Society, 1878-1879); Romesh C. Dutt,Famines in India(1900); Robert Wallace,Famine in India(1900); George Campbell,Famines in India(1769-1788);Chronological List of Famines for all India(Madras Administration Report, 1885); J.C. Geddes,Administrative Experience in Former Famines(1874);Statistical Atlas of India(1895); F.H.S. Merewether,Through the Famine Districts of India(1898); G.W. Forrest,The Famine in India(1898); E.A.B. Hodgetts,In the Track of the Russian Famine(1892); W.B. Steveni,Through Famine-stricken Russia(1892); Vaughan Nash,The Great Famine(1900); Lady Hope,Sir Arthur Cotton(1900);Lord Curzon in India(1905); T.W. Holderness,Narrative of the Famine of 1896-1897(c.8812 of 1898); the Indian Famine Commission reports of 1880, 1898 and 1900; report of the Indian Irrigation Commission (1901-1903); C.W. McMinn,Famine Truths, Half-Truths, Untruths(1902); Theodore Morison,Indian Industrial Organization(1906).
See Cornelius Walford, “On the Famines of the World, Past and Present” (Journal of the Statistical Society, 1878-1879); Romesh C. Dutt,Famines in India(1900); Robert Wallace,Famine in India(1900); George Campbell,Famines in India(1769-1788);Chronological List of Famines for all India(Madras Administration Report, 1885); J.C. Geddes,Administrative Experience in Former Famines(1874);Statistical Atlas of India(1895); F.H.S. Merewether,Through the Famine Districts of India(1898); G.W. Forrest,The Famine in India(1898); E.A.B. Hodgetts,In the Track of the Russian Famine(1892); W.B. Steveni,Through Famine-stricken Russia(1892); Vaughan Nash,The Great Famine(1900); Lady Hope,Sir Arthur Cotton(1900);Lord Curzon in India(1905); T.W. Holderness,Narrative of the Famine of 1896-1897(c.8812 of 1898); the Indian Famine Commission reports of 1880, 1898 and 1900; report of the Indian Irrigation Commission (1901-1903); C.W. McMinn,Famine Truths, Half-Truths, Untruths(1902); Theodore Morison,Indian Industrial Organization(1906).
FAN(Lat.vannus; Fr.éventail), in its usually restricted meaning, a light implement used for giving motion to the air in order to produce coolness to the face; the word is, however, also applied to the winnowing fan, for separating chaff from grain, and to various engineering appliances for ventilation, &c.Ventilabrumandflabellumare names under which ecclesiastical fans are mentioned in old inventories. Fans for cooling the face have been in use in hot climates from remote ages. A bas-relief in the British Museum represents Sennacherib with female figures carrying feather fans. They were attributes of royalty along with horse-hair fly-flappers and umbrellas. Examples may be seen in plates of the Egyptian sculptures at Thebes and other places, and also in the ruins of Persepolis. In the museum of Boulak, near Cairo, a wooden fan handle showing holes for feathers is still preserved. It is from the tomb of Amenhotep, of the 18th dynasty, 17th centuryB.C.In India fans were also attributes of men in authority, and sometimes sacred emblems. A heart-shaped fan, with an ivory handle, of unknown age, and held in great veneration by the Hindus, was given to King Edward VII. when prince of Wales. Large punkahs or screens, moved by a servant who does nothing else, are in common use in hot countries, and particularly India.
Fans were used in the early middle ages to keep flies from the sacred elements during the celebrations of the Christian mysteries. Sometimes they were round, with bells attached—of silver or silver gilt. Notices of such fans in the ancient records of St Paul’s, London, Salisbury cathedral and many other churches exist still. For these purposes they are no longer used in the Western church, though they are retained in some Oriental rites. The large feather fans, however, are still carried in the state processions of the supreme pontiff in Rome, though not used during the celebration of the mass. The fan of Queen Theodolinda (7th century) is still preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Monza. Fans made part of the bridal outfit, ormundus muliebris, of Roman ladies.
Folding fans had their origin in Japan, and were imported thence to China. They were in the shape still used—a segment of a circle of paper pasted on a light radiating framework of bamboo, and variously decorated, some in colours, others of white paper on which verses or sentences are written. It is acompliment in China to invite a friend or distinguished guest to write some sentiment on your fan as a memento of any special occasion, and this practice has continued. A fan that has some celebrity in France was presented by the Chinese ambassador to the comtesse de Clauzel at the coronation of Napoleon I. in 1804. When a site was given in 1635, on an artificial island, for the settlement of Portuguese merchants in Nippo in Japan, the space was laid out in the form of a fan as emblematic of an object agreeable for general use. Men and women of every rank both in China and Japan carry fans, even artisans using them with one hand while working with the other. In China they are often made of carved ivory, the sticks being plates very thin and sometimes carved on both sides, the intervals between the carved parts pierced with astonishing delicacy, and the plates held together by a ribbon. The Japanese make the two outer guards of the stick, which cover the others, occasionally of beaten iron, extremely thin and light, damascened with gold and other metals.
Fans were used by Portuguese ladies in the 14th century, and were well known in England before the close of the reign of Richard II. In France the inventory of Charles V. at the end of the 14th century mentions a folding ivory fan. They were brought into general use in that country by Catherine de’Medici, probably from Italy, then in advance of other countries in all matters of personal luxury. The court ladies of Henry VIII.’s reign in England were used to handling fans. A lady in the “Dance of Death” by Holbein holds a fan. Queen Elizabeth is painted with a round feather fan in her portrait at Gorhambury; and as many as twenty-seven are enumerated in her inventory (1606). Coryat, the English traveller, in 1608 describes them as common in Italy. They also became of general use from that time in Spain. In Italy, France and Spain fans had special conventional uses, and various actions in handling them grew into a code of signals, by which ladies were supposed to convey hints or signals to admirers or to rivals in society. A paper in theSpectatorhumorously proposes to establish a regular drill for these purposes.
The chief seat of the European manufacture of fans during the 17th century was Paris, where the sticks or frames, whether of wood or ivory, were made, and the decorations painted on mounts of very carefully prepared vellum (incorrectly calledchicken skin)—a material stronger and tougher than paper, which breaks at the folds. Paris makers exported fans unpainted to Madrid and other Spanish cities, where they were decorated by native artists. Many were exported complete; of old fans called Spanish a great number were in fact made in France. Louis XIV. issued edicts at various times to regulate the manufacture. Besides fans mounted with parchment, Dutch fans of ivory were imported into Paris, and decorated by the heraldic painters in the process called “Vernis Martin,” after a famous carriage painter and inventor of colourless lac varnish. Fans of this kind belonging to Queen Victoria and the baroness de Rothschild were exhibited in 1870 at Kensington. A fan of the date of 1660, representing sacred subjects, is attributed to Philippe de Champagne, another to Peter Oliver in England in the 17th century. Cano de Arevalo, a Spanish painter of the 17th century, devoted himself to fan painting. Some harsh expressions of Queen Christina to the young ladies of the French court are said to have caused an increased ostentation in the splendour of their fans, which were set with jewels and mounted in gold. Rosalba Carriera was the name of a fan painter of celebrity in the 17th century. Le Brun and Romanelli were much employed during the same period. Klingstet, a Dutch artist, enjoyed a considerable reputation in the latter part of the 17th and the first thirty years of the 18th century.
The revocation of the edict of Nantes drove many fan-makers out of France to Holland and England. The trade in England was well established under the Stuart sovereigns. Petitions were addressed by the fan-makers to Charles II. against the importation of fans from India, and a duty was levied upon such fans in consequence. This importation of Indian fans, according to Savary, extended also to France. During the reign of Louis XV. carved Indian and China fans displaced to some extent those formerly imported from Italy, which had been painted on swanskin parchment prepared with various perfumes.
During the 18th century all the luxurious ornamentation of the day was bestowed on fans as far as they could display it. The sticks were made of mother-of-pearl or ivory, carved with extraordinary skill in France, Italy, England and other countries. They were painted from designs of Boucher, Watteau, Lancret and other “genre” painters; Hébert, Rau, Chevalier, Jean Boquet, Mme. Vérité, are known as fan-painters. These fashions were followed in most countries of Europe, with certain national differences. Taffeta and silk, as well as fine parchment, were used for the mounts. Little circles of glass were let into the stick to be looked through, and small telescopic glasses were sometimes contrived at the pivot of the stick. They were occasionally mounted with the finest point lace. An interesting fan (belonging to Madame de Thiac in France), the work of Le Flamand, was presented by the municipality of Dieppe to Marie Antoinette on the birth of her son the dauphin. From the time of the Revolution the old luxury expended on fans died out. Fine examples ceased to be exported to England and other countries. The painting on them represented scenes or personages connected with political events. At a later period fan mounts were often prints coloured by hand. The events of the day mark the date of many examples found in modern collections. Among the fan-makers of modern days the names of Alexandre, Duvelleroy, Fayet, Vanier became well known in Paris; and the designs of Charles Conder (1868-1909) have brought his name to the front in this art. Painters of distinction often design and paint the mounts, the best designs being figure subjects. A great impulse was given to the manufacture and painting of fans in England after the exhibition which took place at South Kensington in 1870. Modern collections of fans take their date from the emigration of many noble families from France at the time of the Revolution. Such objects were given as souvenirs, and occasionally sold by families in straitened circumstances. A large number of fans of all sorts, principally those of the 18th century, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, &c., have been bequeathed to the South Kensington (Victoria and Albert) Museum.
The sticks of folding fans are called in Frenchbrins, the two outer guardspanaches, and the mountfeuille.
See also Blondel,Histoire des éventails(1875); Octave Uzanne,L’éventail(1882); and especially G. Wooliscroft Rhead,History of the Fan(1909).
See also Blondel,Histoire des éventails(1875); Octave Uzanne,L’éventail(1882); and especially G. Wooliscroft Rhead,History of the Fan(1909).
(J. H. P.*)
FANCY(a shortened form, dating from the 15th century, of “fantasy,” which is derived through the O. Fr.fantasie, modernfantaisie. from the Latinized form of the Gr.φαντασία, φαντάζειν, φαίνειν, to show), display, showing forth, as a philosophical term, the presentative power of the mind. The word “fancy” and the older form “fantasy,” which is now chiefly used poetically, was in its early application synonymous with imagination, the mental faculty of creating representations or images of things not present to the senses; it is more usually, in this sense, applied to the lighter forms of the imagination. “Fancy” also commonly means inclination, whim, caprice. The more learned form “phantasy,” as also such words as “phantom” and “phantasm,” is chiefly confined to visionary imaginings.
FANG(Fan,Fanwe,Panwe,Pahouin,Paouen,Mpangwe), a powerful African people occupying the Gabun district north of the Ogowé river in French Congo. Their name means “men.” They call themselves Panwe, Fanwe and Fanwith highly nasalized n. They are a finely-made race of chocolate colour; some few are very dark, but these are of slave origin. They have bright expressive oval faces with prominent cheek-bones. Many of them file their teeth to points. Their hair, which is woolly, is worn by the women long, reaching below the nape of the neck. The men wear it in a variety of shapes, often building it up over a wooden base. The growth of the hair appears abundant, but that on the face is usually removed. Little clothing is worn; the men wear a bark waist-cloth, the women a plantain girdle, sometimes with a bustle of dried grass. A chief wears a leopard’s skin round the shoulders. Both sexes tattoo and paint the body,and delight in ornaments of every kind. The men, whose sole occupations are fighting and hunting, all carry arms—muskets, spears for throwing and stabbing, and curious throwing-knives with blades broader than they are long. Instead of bows and arrows they use crossbows made of ebony, with which they hunt apes and birds. In battle the Fang used to carry elephant hide shields; these have apparently been discarded.
When first met by T.E. Bowdich (1815) the Paamways, as he calls the Fang, were an inland people inhabiting the hilly plateaus north of the Ogowé affluents. Now they have become the neighbours of the Mpongwe (q.v.) of Glass and Libreville on the Komo river, while south of the Gabun they have reached the sea at several points. Their original home is probably to be placed somewhere near the Congo. Their language, according to Sir R. Burton, is soft and sweet and a contrast to their harsh voices, and the vocabularies collected prove it to be of the Bantu-Negroid linguistic family. W. Winwood Reade (Sketch Book, i. p. 108) states that “it is like Mpongwe (a pure Bantu idiom) cut in half; for instance,njina(gorilla) in Mpongwe isnjiin Fan.” The plural of the tribal name is formed in the usual Bantu way, Ba-Fang.
Morally the Fang are superior to the negro. Mary Kingsley writes: “The Fan is full of fire, temper, intelligence and go, very teachable, rather difficult to manage, quick to take offence, and utterly indifferent to human life.” This latter characteristic has made the Fang dreaded by all their neighbours. They are noted cannibals, and ferocious in nature. Prisoners are badly treated and are often allowed to starve. The Fang are always fighting, but the battles are not bloody. After the fall of two or three warriors the bodies are dragged off to be devoured, and their friends disperse. Burton says that their cannibalism is limited to the consumption of slain enemies; that the sick are not devoured; and that the dead are decently buried, except slaves, whose bodies are thrown into the forest. Mary Kingsley, on the other hand, believed their cannibalism was not limited. She writes: “The Fan is not a cannibal for sacrificial motives, like the negro. He will eat his next door neighbour’s relation and sell his own deceased to his next door neighbour in return, but he does not buy slaves and fatten them up for his table as some of the middle Congo tribes do. He has no slaves, no prisoners of war, no cemeteries, so you must draw your own conclusions.” Among certain tribes the aged alone are permitted to eat human flesh, which istaboofor all others. There is no doubt that the cannibalism of the Fang is diminishing before the advance of civilization. Apart from their ferocity, the Fang are an agreeable and industrious people. They are skilful workers in iron and have a curious coinage calledbikĕi, little iron imitation axeheads tied up in bundles calledntet, ten to a bundle; these are used chiefly in the purchase of wives. They are energetic traders and are skilled in pottery and in gardening. Their religion appears to be a combination of primitive animism and ancestor worship, with a belief in sympathetic magic.