THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS

They 'lived on the country,' and the country was untilled. They subsisted on the natural supplies, and the more backward their material culture, the sooner would they eat the country bare, as far as its resources were within their means of attainment. One can hardly conceive that such human beings herded in large hordes, rather they would wander in small 'family' groups. These would be mutually hostile, or at least jealous: they could scarcely yet have established amodus vivendi, and coalesced into the friendly aggregate of a local tribe, such as Arunta, Dieri, Urabunna, and so on. Such tribes have now their common councils and mysteries lasting for months among the Arunta. We cannot predicate such friendly union of groups in a tribe, for the small and jealous knots of really early men; watchfully resenting intrusion on their favourite bays, pools, and hunting of browsing grounds. As to marriage relations, it is not improbable that 'sexual solidarity' (as Mr. Crawley calls it), the separation of the sexes—the little boys accompanying the men, the little girls accompanying the women—and perhaps that 'sexual tabu,' coupled with the jealousy of male heads of groups, may already have led to prohibition of marriage within the group, and to raids for women upon hostile groups. The smaller the group, the more easily would sexual jealousy prohibit the lads from dealings with the lasses of their own group. There might thus, in different degrees, arise a tendency towards exogamy, and specially against son and mother, or father's mates, andbrother and sister marriage. The thing would not yet be a sin, forbidden by a superstition, but still, the tendency might (as we have already said) run strong against marriage within each little group.

Up to this point we may conceive that the groups wereanonymous. Each group would probably speak of itself as 'the Men' (according to a well-recognised custom among thetribesof to-day; for instance, the Gournditch-mara of Australia,marameaning 'men'; Kurnai and Narinyeri, also mean 'the men'), while it would know neighbouring groups as 'the others,' or 'the wild blacks.' But this arrangement manifestly lacks distinctness. Even 'the others down there' is too like the vague manner in which the Mulligan indicated his place of residence. Each group will need a special name for each of its unfriendly neighbours.

These names, as likely as not, or more likely than not, will be animal or plant names, given for various reasons, perhaps, among others from fancied resemblances. It may be objected that an individual may bear a resemblance to this or that animal, but that a group cannot. But it is a peculiarity of human nature, to think that strangers (of another school eleven, say) are all very like each other, and if one of them reminds us of an Emu or a Kangaroo, all of them will. Moreover the name may be based on some real or fancied group trait of character, good or bad, which also marks this or that type of animal, such as cunning, cruelty, cowardice, strength, and so forth, and animal names may even be laudatory. We have also to reckon with the kinds of animals, plants, trees, useful flints, and other objects which may be more prevalent in the area occupied by each group; and with specialities in the food of each group's area, as in Mr. Haddon's theory. Thus there are plenty of reasons for the giving of plant and animal names, which, I suggest, were imposed on each groupfrom without.

It is true that local names would serve the turn, if they were in use. But the 'hill-men,' 'the river-men,' 'the bush-men,' 'the men of the thorn country,' 'the rock-men,' are at once too scanty and too general. Many groups might fall collectively under each such local name. Again, it is as society moves away from Totemism, towards male kinship, and settled abodes, that local names are given to human groups, as in Melanesia, or even to individuals, as in the case of the Arunta, and the Gournditcha Mara. Among the Arunta a child is 'of' the place where he or she was born, like ourdeandvon.[43]The piquancy of plant and animal names for groups probably hostile must also be considered. We are dealing with a stage of society far behind that of Mincopies, or Punans of Borneo, or Australians, and in imagining that the groups were, as a rule, hostile, we may or may not be making a false assumption. We are presuming that the jealousy of the elder males drove the younger males out of the group, or at least compelled them to bring in females from other groups, which would mean war. We are also assuming jealousy of all encroachments on feeding grounds. These are the premises, which cannot be demonstrated, but only put in for the sake of argument. In any case no more hostility than our and the French villages have for each other is enough to provide the giving of animalsobriquets.

As to hostility, Mr. Atkinson, in New Caledonia, had a set of labourers brought in from a distant island. Among them was a young boy, who, being employed as cook, had a good deal of popularity with his mates. He went home for a holiday, with a few men from his own island. He was put down at their little harbour, only a few miles from that of his tribe, and was instantly killed and eaten.

In 'Notice sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie' (1900) this ferocious hostility between near neighbouring groups is corroborated. It is certain death for the crew of a canoe to be driven into a harbour, however near their own, which is nottheir own. This is among the islanders not under the French. Count von Pfeil remarks on the violent hostility between Kanakas and others near adjacent.[44]

On this point of unfriendlysobriquetsI may quote MM. Gaidoz and Sébillot.[45]

'In all ages men love to speak ill of their neighbour: to blazon him, in the old phrase of a time when our speech was less prudish, and more gay. Pleasantries are exchanged not only between man and man, but between village and village. Sometimes in one expressive word, the defect, or the quality (usually the defect), the dominant and apparently hereditary trait of the people of a race or a province is stated ... in a kind of verbal caricature....Les hommes se sont donc blazonnés de tout le temps?

De tout le temps!MM. Gaidoz and Sébillot were not thinking of the origin of totem names, but their theory applies 'to all ages,' even the most primitive. Among French villagesobriquetsI note, at a hasty glance,

LargitzenCowsHoumeauFrogsAngoulêmeLizardsArtoisDogsAirePigeonsAvalonBirds

and villages named as eaters of:

Old EwesOnionsCrows.

We shall see that many Sioux groups, many English villages are blazoned, as in Mr. Haddon's theory, by the names of the things which they eat: or are accused of eating.

Thus, among very early men, the names by which the groups knew their neighbours would be names given from without. To call them 'nicknames,' is to invite the objection that nicknames are essentiallyderisive, and that groups so low could not yet use the language of derision. I see noreason why early articulate-speaking men (or even men whose language is gesture language) should be so modern as to lack all sense of humour, all delight in derision. But the names need not have been derisive. If these people had the present savage belief in the wakan, or mystic power of animals, the names may even have been laudatory. I ask for no more than names conferred from without, call them nicknames,sobriquets, or what you like.

We are acquainted with no race that is just entered on Totemism, unless we agree with Mr. Hill Tout that Totemism is nascent among the Salish tribe, who live in village communities. Consequently we cannotprovethat early hostile groups would name each other after plants and animals. I am only able to demonstrate that, alike in English and French folk-lore, and among American tribes who reckon by the male line, who are agricultural and settled, the villages or groups are named,from without, after plants and animals, and after what they are supposed to be specially apt to use as articles of food, and also by nick-names—often derisive. What I present is, not proof that the primal groups named each other after plants and animals, but proof that among our rustics, by congruity of fancy, such names are given, with other names exactly analogous to those now used among settled savages moving away from Totemism.

I select illustrative examples from theblason populaireof modern folk-lore. Here we find the use of plant and animal names for neighbouring groups, villages, or parishes. Thus two informants in a rural district of Cornwall, living at a village which I shall call Loughton, found that, when they walked through the neighbouring village, Hillborough, the little boys 'called cuckoo at the sight of us.' They learned that the cuckoo was the badge, in folk-lore, of their village. An ancient carved and gilded dove in the Loughton church 'was firmly believed by many of the inhabitants to be arepresentation of the Loughton Cuckoo,' and all Loughton folk were Cuckoos. 'It seems as if the inhabitants do not care to talk about these things, for some reason or other.' A travelled Loughtonian 'believes the animal names and symbols to be very ancient, and that each village has its symbol.' My informants think that 'some modern badges have been substituted for more ancient ones,' such as tiger and monkey. There is apparently no veneration of the local beast, bird, or insect, which seems often, on the other hand, to have been imposed from without as a token of derision. Australians make a great totem of the Witchetty Grub (as Spencer and Gillen report), but the village of Oakditch is not proud of its potato grub, the natives themselves being styled 'tater grubs.' I append a list of villages (with false names[46]) and of their badges:

HillboroughMiceBrailingPeesweepsLoughtonCuckoosWickleyTigersMiltownMulesFentonRooks(it used to be rats)LintonMenAshleyMonkeysOakditchPotato grubsYarbyGeeseSt. Aldate'sFoolsWatworthBulldogs

At Loughton, when the Hillborough boys pass through on a holiday excursion, the Loughton boys hang out dead mice, the Hillborough badge, in derision. The boys have even their 'personal totem,' and a lad who wishes for a companion in nocturnal adventure will utter the cry of his peculiar beast or bird, and a friend will answer withhis. If boys remained always boys (that is, savages), and if civilisation were consequently wiped out, myths about these group names of villages would be developed, and Totemism would flourish again. Later I give other instances of village names answering to totem names, and in an Appendix I give analogous cases collected by Miss Burne in Shropshire, andothers, we saw, are to be found in theblason populaireof France.

It appears to me that totem group names may, originally, have been imposedfrom without, just as the Eskimo are really Inuits; 'Eskimo,' 'Eaters of raw flesh,' being the derisive name conferred by their Indian neighbours. Of course I do not mean that the group names would always, or perhaps often, have been, in origin, derisive nicknames. Many reasons, as has been said, might prompt the name-giving. But each such group would, I suggest, evolve animal and vegetable nicknames for each neighbouring group. Finally some names would 'stick,' would be stereotyped, and each group would come to answer to its nickname, just as 'Pussy Moncrieff,' or 'Bulldog Irving,' or 'Piggy Frazer,' or 'Cow Maitland,' does at school.

Here the questions arise, how would each group come to know by what name each of its neighbours called it, and how would hostile groups Come to have the same nicknames for each other? Well, they would know the nicknames through taunts exchanged in battle.

'Run, you deer, run!''Off with you, you hares!''Skuttle, you skunks!'

They would readily recognise the appropriateness of the names, if derived from the plants, trees, or animals most abundant in their area, and most important to their food supply: for, at this hypothetical stage, and before myths had crystallised round the names, they would have no scruples about eating their name-giving plants, fruits, fishes, birds, and animals. They would also hear their names from war captives at the torture stake, or on the road to the oven, or the butcher. But the chief way in which the new group names spread would be through captured women; for, thoughthere might as yet be only a tendency towards exogamy, still girls of alien groups would be captured as mates. 'We call you the Skunks,' or whatever it might be, such a bride might remark, and so knowledge of the new group names would be diffused. These names would adhere to groups, on my hypothesis, already exogamous in tendency, and, when the totem myth arose, the exogamy would be sanctioned by the totem tabu.[47]

It may seem almost flippant to suggest that this old mystery of Totemism arises only from group names given from without, some of them, perhaps, derisive. But I am able to demonstrate that, in North America, the names of what some American authorities callgentes(meaning old totem groups, which now reckon descent through the male, not the female line), actuallyarenicknames—in certain cases derisive. Moreover, I am able to prove that, when the names of these American gentes are not merely totem names, they answer, with literal precision, to our folk-lore villagesobriquets, even when these are not names of plants or animals. The late Rev. James Owen Dorsey left, at his death, a paper onThe Siouan Sociology.[48]Among thegentes(old totem kindreds with male descent) he noted, thegentesof a tribe, 'The Mysterious Lake Tribe.' There were, in 1880, sevengentes. Three names were derived from localities. One name meant 'Breakers of (exogamous) Law.' One was 'Not encumbered with much baggage.' One was Rogues ('Bad Nation'). These three last names are derisive nicknames. The seventh name was 'Eats no Geese,' obviously a totemic survival. Of the Wahpeton tribe all the sevengentesderived their names from localities. Of the Sisseton tribe, the twelve names ofgenteswere either nicknames (one, 'a name of derision'), or derived from localities.

Of the Yanktongentes, five names out of seven were nicknames, mostly derisive, the sixth was 'Bad Nation' ('Rogues'), the seventh was a totem name, 'Wild Cat.' Of the Hunpatina (sevengentes), three names were totemic (Drifting Goose, Dogs, Eat no Buffalo Cows); the others were nicknames, such as 'Eat the Scrapings of Hides.' Of the Sitcanxu, there were thirteen gentes. Six or seven of their titles were nicknames, three were totemic, the others were dubious, such as 'Smellers of Fish.' The Itaziptec had seven gentes; of their names all were nicknames, including 'Eat dried venison from the hind quarter.' Of the Minikooju, there were ninegentes. Eight names were nicknames, including 'Dung Eaters.' One seems totemic, 'Eat no Dogs.' Of five Asineboin gentes the names were nicknames from the habits or localities of the communities. One was 'Girl's Band,' that is, 'Girls.'

Now compare parishsobriquetsin Western England.[49]In this list of parish or village nicknames, twenty-one are derived from plants and animals, like most totemic names. We also find 'Dog Eaters,' 'Bread Eaters,' 'Burd Eaters,' 'Whitpot Eaters,' and, answering to 'Girl's Band' (Gens des Filles), 'Pretty Maidens:' answering to 'Bad Nation,' 'Rogues': answering to 'Eaters of Hide Scrapings' 'Bone Pickers': while there are, as among the Siouans, names derived from various practices attributed to the English villagers, as to the Red Indiangentes.

No closer parallel between our rural folk-loresobriquetsof village groups, given from without, and the names given from without of old savage totem groups (now reckoning in the male line, and, therefore, now settled together in given localities) could be invented. (For other examples see Appendix A.) I conceive, therefore, that my suggestion—the totem names of pristine groups were originally given from without, and were accepted (as in the case of the nicknames of Siouangentes, now accepted by them)—maybe reckoned no strain on our sense of probability. It is demonstrated that the name-giving processes of our villagers exist among American savage groups which reckon descent in the male line, and that they also existed among the savage groups which reckoned descent in the female line is, surely, a not unreasonable surmise. I add a list in parallel columns.

English Village NamesSiouan Group NamesRoguesBad SortsStags[50]Elk[50]Bull DogsCommon DogsHorse HeadsWarts on Horses' LegsBone PickersHide ScrapersPretty GirlsGirl FolkEaters ofEaters ofWhitpotDried VenisonCheeseFishBarley BreadDungDog.

To produce, from North America, examples of group names conferred from without, as in the instances of our English villages, may, to some students, seem inadequate evidence. For example an unconvinced critic may say that the nicknames of Mr. Dorsey's 'Siouangentes' were originally given by white men; the Sioux, Dacota, Asineboin, and other tribes having been long in contact with Europeans. Now it is quite possible that some of the names had this origin, as Mr. Dorsey himself observed. But no critic will go on to urge that the common totemic names which still designate manygenteswere imposed by Europeans who came from English villages of 'Mice,' 'Cuckoos,' 'Tater Grubs,' 'Dogs,' and so forth. We might as wisely say that ourpeasantry borrowed these village names from what they had read about totem names in Cooper's novels. To name individuals, or groups, after animals, is certainly a natural tendency of the mind, whether in savage or civilised society.

If we take the famous Mandan tribe, now reckoning descent in the male line, but with undeniable survivals of descent in the female line, we find that thegentesare:

WolfBearPrairie ChickenGood KnifeEagleFlat HeadHigh Village

Here, out of sevengentes, four names are totemic; one is a name of locality, 'High Village,' not a possible name in pristine nomadic society. While there are hundreds of such cases, we cannot reasonably regard the American group nicknames as generally of European origin. Still more does this theory fail us in the case of Melanesia, where contact with Europeans is recent and relatively slight. Among such tribes as the Mandans, and other Siouan peoples, we see Totemism with exogamy and female kinship waning, while kinship, recognised by male descent,plussettled conditions, brings in local names forgentes, and tends to cause the substitution of local names and nicknames for the totem group name. Precisely the same phenomena meet us, as we are to see, in Melanesia.

[1]As to theword'totem,' but little is certainly known. Its earliest occurrence in literature, to my knowledge, is in a work by J. Long (1791),Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter. Long sojourned among the Algonquin branch of the North American Indians. He spells the word 'Totam,' and even speaks of 'Totamism.' Mr. Tylor has pointed out that Long in one place confuses the totem, the hereditary group name, and protective object, with what used to be called themanituor 'medicine,' of each individual Indian, chosen by him, or her, after a fast, at puberty.Remarks on Totemism, 1898, pp. 139-40. Cf.infra, 135, note.

[2]Man, 1902, No. 75.

[3]Totemism, p. 2, 1887.

[4]So also Mr. Hartland writes,Man, 1902, No. 84. Butmanituis perhaps too wide and vague a term: it usually connotes anything mystical or supernormal.

[5]Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 214. Major Powell has said something to the same effect, but that was in a journal of 'popular science.'

[6]Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-1894, p. 241.

[7]L'Année Sociologique, v. 93, 99, 100. As far as the proof rests on Aruntatraditions, I lay no stress upon it.

[8]J. A. I.vol. xviii., no. 3, p. 254.

[9]Frazer,Totemism, p. 1.

[10]Major Powell,Man, 1901, no. 75.

[11]Howitt,J. A. I.xx. 40-41, 1891.

[12]The Marquis d'Eguilles kindly sends me extracts from an official 'Notice sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie,' drawn up for the Paris Exhibition of 1900. The author says that the names of relationships are expressed, by the Kanaka, 'in a touching manner.' One name includes our 'uncle' and 'father,' another our 'mother' and 'aunts;' another name includes our 'brothers,' 'sisters,' and 'cousins.' This, of course, is 'the classificatory system.' About animal 'fathers' nothing is said.

[13]Tylor,Remarks on Totemism, pp. 141-143.Myth, Ritual, and Religion, ii. 56-58. Turner'sSamoa, p. 17 (1884).

[14]Howitt,On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 136, note, 1889.

[15]The Mura Mura appear really to answer to the fabled ancestors of the Arunta, but are addressed in prayers. Cf. Miss Howitt,Folk Lore, January 1903.

[16]Tylor,Remarks on Totemism, p. 134.

[17]So also to explain the crest of the Hamiltons, the Skenes, and many others.

[18]Frazer,Totemism, p. 7.

[19]Hose and McDougall,J. A. I.xxxi. 193, 1901.

[20]Custom and Myth, p. 262.

[21]Contributions to the Science of Mythology, i. 201.

[22]The Principles of Sociology, i. 362, 1876.

[23]The whole passage will be found in the work cited. Vol. i. 359-368.

[24]I am haunted by the impression that I have met examples, but where I know not.

[25]Howitt,Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. 58.

[26]Golden Bough, iii. 416, note 3.

[27]It is possible that I have failed to understand the mode of reconciling the two hypotheses, and Mr. Frazer is not to be understood as committed to either or both in the present state of our information.

[28]Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 280.

[29]J. A. I.xiii. 191, note 1.

[30]Tylor,Remarks on Totemism, pp. 146-147, 1898.

[31]The Import of the Totem, by Alice C. Fletcher, Salem Press, Mass., 1897.

[32]Op. cit.p. 12.

[33]'The Origin of the Totemism of the Inhabitants of British Columbia,'Transactions of Royal Society of Canada, second series, vol. vii., 1901-1902. Quaritch, London.

[34]J. A. I.xxxi. 196,et seq.

[35]Golden Bough, iii. 419, note 5.

[36]Hose and McDougall,op. cit.p. 211.

[37]Mr. Haddon's theory involves the existence of barter between groups that had special articles of food. Under 'Hypothetical early groups' I show proof of the extreme hostility of adjacent groups in some regions. The merchant, with his articles of barter, would there himself be eaten. Mr. Atkinson's cook was eaten by his neighbours. Mr. Haddon does not hold that the primitive human groups were thus mutually hostile. Here we differ in opinion.

[38]J. A. I.xiii.; Folk Lore, 10, 491.

[39]Macbain,Etymological Dictionary, 1896, quoting manuscript of 1456.

[40]Descent of Man, ii. 362.

[41]Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 50.

[42]This is the opinion not only of Mr. Darwin but of Major Powell and Mr. McGee.

[43]Spencer and Gillen, p. 57, note.

[44]J. A. I.May 1897, p. 181.

[45]Blason Populaire de la France, p. 5. Paris, Cerf, 1884.

[46]Pseudonyms were given to avoid arousing local attention, when I put forth these facts inThe Athenæum. For reasons, I retain the pseudonyms; but for the real village names see p. 173, note 1.

[47]Some objections are noticed later.

[48]Report ofAmerican Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-1894, p. 213 et seq.

[49]Thirteenth Report of the Committee of Devonshire Folk-Lore, Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, 1895, xxvii. 61-74.

[50]Many other animal and vegetable names—totem names in America, village names in England—have already been cited. See p. 170.

We have, fortunately, an opportunity in Melanesia of studying, as it seems, the Australian marriage system in a state of decay.[1]The institutions of Melanesia bear every note of being Australian institutions, decadent, dislocated, contaminated and partially obliterated. Starting from New Guinea, we find a long archipelago sloping down, away from the east side of Australia, towards the Fiji Islands. The archipelago consists mainly, in the order given, of New Ireland, New Britain, the Solomon Group, Banks Island, the New Hebrides, Loyalty Island, and New Caledonia. The inhabitants are a fusion of many oceanic elements, and are much more advanced in culture than the natives of Australia: they have chiefs, whose office tends to be hereditary (and in one place, Saa,ishereditary), in the male line, the father handing on to the son his magical acquirements and properties, and leaving to him his wealth, as far as he may. This is not very far, as, curious to say, descent in the female line is generally prevalent. Wealth is both real and personal: landed property consisting (1) of Town Lots, (2) of Gardens (ἓρκος), (3) of the Waste ('the Bush'). The 'town lots' and gardens pass by inheritance; the possessor being only 'possessor,' not proprietor, and real property passing in the female line, where that line still prevails. The reclaiming of land from the Waste tends, however, to direct property into the male line, which, except in certain districts, is not dominant. Money is divided, on a death, among brothers, nephews—and sons, 'if they can get it'—the money being the native shell currency.The tendency towards the substitution, as heirs, of a man's sons for his sister's sons, is powerful.[2]

This is a curious and anomalous condition of the family. As regards material advantages (χορηγία) Melanesian society is greatly in advance of Australian. It is in possession of houses, fruit trees, agricultural allotments, domesticated animals, and a native currency. Thus there is much property to be inherited, and where that is the case, and where the family has a house of its own, the desire of men to leave their goods and dwellings to their sons usually results in the reckoning of descent on the sword side. Yet, in this respect, the Melanesians of many regions are behind the naked, houseless Arunta, and other Australian tribes with male descent.. What influences caused these tribes to depart from the reckoning in the female line, still used among their equally destitute neighbours, the Urabunna, is a most difficult question; indeed the number of distinct grades, in relation to family laws among the Australians, is an enigma. Among the Melanesians, at all events, material advance and accumulation of property have often failed to bring inheritance out of the female into the male line.

Insular conditions are apt to develop divergences from any given type—local varieties—while the mixture of races, and the introduction into one island, or part of it, of the customs of settlers from other islands, produces peculiarities and anomalies in Melanesia. We expect, therefore, to find Melanesian marriage rules rather dislocated and contaminated, and to see that the archaic type is half obliterated. In fact, this is the case, and Totemism, if it exists, survives in fragments and vestiges.

'Where are the totems?' Dr. Codrington asks, and we can only reply that they seem to be half obliterated. 'Nothing is more fundamental than the division of the people into two or more classes, which are exogamous, and in which descent is counted through the women.'[3]This answers to the Australian 'primary divisions,' or 'phratries.'But, in Australia, as we showed, these divisions appear to be of totemic origin. If this was so, in Melanesia, the evidence for the fact is much less distinct. In a large region of the Solomon Islands 'there is no division of the people into kindreds, as elsewhere, and descent follows the father.... The particular or local causes which have brought this exceptional state of things are unknown.'[4]

Speaking generally, however, the two primary exogamous classes exist, and to a Melanesian man, all women of his own generation count either as 'sisters' (barred) or as (potential) 'wives.' The appropriation of actual wives to their actual husbands 'has by no means so strong a hold on native society,' as the exogamous class divisions. By many students this license will be considered a survival of 'group marriage.' Prenuptial unchastity is wrong, but a breach of the exogamous rule used to be punished by death. Wife-lending used to be common, as in Central Australia, if the wife and guest were of opposite 'divisions.' Whether the license of certain feasts (as among Australians and Fijians) smiles on breaches of the exogamous law, does not seem quite certain.[5]

In Banks Island and the North New Hebrides, there are but the two 'primary class divisions.' These have not names as in Australia—if once they had names, the names are lost. We find merely 'divisions' (veve), two 'sides of the house.' Every man knows his own division; all the women in it are tabu to him; all the women of the other division, in the same generation, are potential wives (with certain restrictions in practice).

In Merlav, one of the Banks Islands, there are 'families within the kin' (answering togentes—totem kins—in Australia). These families havelocalnames, as a rule: one has its name from the Octopus, but eats it freely.

It is not inconceivable that here we have broken down and obliterated Totemism, among a settled agricultural people, probably dwelling, as a rule, in close contiguity.

In Florida, and adjacent parts of the Solomon Islands,not merely two, butsix'kema' or exogamous divisions ('phratries?') exist. Two of the six have names derived from localities, two have animal names, Eagle and Crab: twokemacame in from abroad. All this points to contamination, and rearrangement, under new circumstances. Eachkemain Florida has one or morebuto, the clam, pig, pigeon, and so on, not to be eaten by members of the kema. This looks like the 'totemic subdivisions' (that is, the totem groups within the 'phratries') of the Australians. Again, these butos within eachkema, animals and plants not to be eaten, are exactly like the survivals of Totemism in the names of the Siouan totem kins with male descent, 'Do not eat small Birds,' 'Do not eat Dogs,' 'Do not eat Buffalo,' and so forth. Thebutoof each kin within the Melanesian exogamouskemas, then, seems to me to be the old totem of the kin, now relegated to a position more obscure, in the changes of society, and, with one exception, not giving its name and tabu to the kema. Only in one case is the animal which is the buto, also the animal which gives its name to thekema. The Kakaukemamay not eat Kakau—the crab. The Manukuma (eagle) kema may eat the eagle: one fancies that they find it tough. In the same way the Narrinyeri and other tribes in Australia permit their totem kins to eat their totems. Members of eachkemaare apt to speak of theirbutos(which they may not eat) as theirancestors, as in Totemism, but this is a mere mythical explanation of why they may not eat thebuto. With half a dozen other myths, it is used by totemists to explain why they may not eat their totems.

Dr. Codrington, on the other hand, writes, 'thebutoof eachkemais probably comparatively recent in Florida, it has been introduced at Bugotu within the memory of living men.'[6]Dr. Codrington, as we have already seen, inclines to the theory which derives totems originally from individuals. He cites Mr. Sleigh, of Lifu (mentioned by us before), who writes, 'When a father was about to die, surrounded by members of his family, he might say what animal he will be,say a butterfly or some kind of bird. That creature would be sacred to his family, who would not injure or kill it; on seeing or falling in with such a creature the person would say, "That iskaka" (papa), and would, if possible, offer him a young cocoa-nut. But they did not thus adopt the name of a tribe.'[7]

We need not repeat the objections to all such theories of the derivation of pristine totem group names from individuals, Thebutos, ancestors, not to be eaten, have all the air of archaic totems, now reduced to a lower plane, and, save in one case out of six, not giving the name to akema, in Florida. Thus thebutosof eachkemawould be, originally, totemic, but immigrations, settled conditions, the tendency to male descent, and the introduction of local or place names for some groups, of nicknames for others, broke down the old totemic nomenclature, leaving only the Kakau, or crabs, true to their colours and to their totem and totem name, while the otherkemasgot local names or nicknames—the Hongokikki being named from the pastime of Cat's Cradle—clearly a nickname. Apparently the pigeon is theirbuto. How did these conditions arise?

Say that there were once four exogamous totem groups in Ettrickdale—Grouse, Deer, Hares, Partridges. Say that there came in two alien groups, Trout and Plover. Of these two, one might come to be called Quoits, from their skill in that game.—Two of the original four might get local names, from their places of residence, say Singlee and Tushielaw. One might keep its old totem, Grouse, and its old totem name, abstaining from grouse. One might get a new name, Roe Deer, but all, under the names of Tushielaw, Singlee, Quoits, Roe Deer, and Grouse (with another not given), would retain their old totems asbutos, ancestral in some way, and not to be eaten. But the new, not the totemic, names would now mark off the exogamouskemas. Something of this kind must have occurred in Florida, under new social conditions, and the stress of immigrants. But Dr. Codringtongives a case in which the banana was tabued, just before his death, by 'a man of much influence who said that he would be in the banana.'[8]

This origin of Totemism (namely, in animism, a man of influence tabuing, and bequeathing to his descendants for ever, the animal or plant that is to be his soul vehicle) is approved of, as the original cause of Totemism, by Dr. Wilken. But could it arise in a much lower state of society, wherein 'men of much influence' are rare, and are readily forgotten? Now in Melanesia, generally, a man's fame, however great, perishes with those who remember him in his life.[9]Again, this sort of tabuing the banana affected 'all the people' of the isle Ulawa, and so could not be the base of an exogamous prohibition, unless all brides were to be brought in from foreign islands. If the prohibition was confined to known descendants of the banana man, then we have the patriarchal family, founded by a known ancestor, and exogamous. Now, in Ulawa, descent is reckoned in the male line, and there are no exogamous divisions.[10]'This is an exceptional state of things,' says Dr. Codrington (p. 22), yet he thinks it (p. 32) 'in all probability'—plusthe tabuing of an object by a dying patriarch—the cause of thebutoprohibition in thekemasof Florida. Thus a solitary case from an isle without exogamous divisions ('the only restriction on marriage is nearness in blood'), and with male descent, is supposed by Dr. Codrington to cause thebutoprohibition in an island with exogamous divisions, and with female descent.[11]

His theory is manifestly inconsistent with his facts—moreover, it involves the existence of the patriarchal system at the time when totems first arose.

On the whole, this reasoning does not convince, but, if Dr. Codrington is right, Melanesian institutions are shattered, dislocated, contaminated, and worn down to a remarkable degree. Yet, behind them, where the two, or the six exogamousdivisions prevail, with descent counted in the female line, we can scarcely help recognising a basis of Australian customary law, with obsolescence of the totem, slowly tending towards inheritance through the father. 'A chief's sons are none of them of his own kin; and, as will be shown, he passes on what he can of his property and authority to them.'[12]In spite of the 'generation names,' 'father,' 'brothers and sisters,' 'children,' the real distinctions of own father, cousin, and so forth, are understood, and expressed, as they usually are, everywhere.[13]

Thus Melanesia shows us some of the ways out from Totemism, exogamy, and descent in the female line. It also shows us, what Australia does not, ghost worship: most prominently in Saa, where, with descent in the male line, and hereditary chiefship, eleven generations of ancestors are remembered, 'by the invocation of their successive names in sacrifices.'[14]This is a solitary case of such genealogical knowledge among Melanesians, as distinct from Polynesians. It is made possible by the sacrifices to the ancestors. Now, in Australia, there are no such sacrifices. Without them ancestors among low savages cannot be remembered, and could not hand down, as an hereditary totem, the animal or other object which is their 'soul-box,' or the vehicle of the ancestral soul after death. There appears to myself to exist, in Melanesia, a notable tendency to adore, nay, almost to deify, a dead man, as atindalo. Dr. Codrington cites, from Bishop Selwyn, a case in which a renowned brave man was slain in action. A house, or shrine, was built over his head, and he was canonised, or made atindalo.

His claims to sanctity were automatically certified by canoe tilting, in principle like our table tilting. The men in the canoe cease paddling, 'in a quiet place,' and, when the canoe begins to tilt, they call over a roll of names of tindalos (human ghosts). At the name of the dead warrior,'the canoe shook again.' A successful raid followed, a new shrine wasbuilt for the warrior, and fish and food were sacrificed to him. By this means a great man's memory is, now and then, contrary to general custom, kept green in this region of Melanesia. Occasionally he seems to be on the way towards godship, as a departmental deity, perhaps as god of war.[15]Pigs are common victims, now, in sacrifice. We do not hear of any 'totem sacrifice,' if ever such a thing anywhere existed. In the case of atindalocalled Manoga, deification seems close at hand. His 'dwelling is the light of setting suns,' or of the dawn: or in high heaven, or in the Pleiades, or Orion's belt. It is a remarkable circumstance that this discarnate spirit is thetindaloor saint of akema, or exogamous division, one of the six of Florida, and all of the six possess their tindalo, a ghost patron in receipt of sacrifice, as well as theirbuto, or animal not to be eaten.[16]

Still more remarkable it is that, in certain Melanesian isles of the New Britain group, the two exogamous divisions are neither anonymous, nor totemic, nor of local names, nor bear nicknames, but are named after the two opposing powers of Dualism, the God and Devil of savage theology. Of these Te Kabinana is 'the founder, creator, or inventor of all good and useful things, usages, and institutions.' On the other hand To Kovuvura is the Epimetheus of this savage Prometheus: Te Kabinana created good land: To Kovuvura created bad land, mountains and everything clumsy and ill formed. These powers captain the two exogamous divisions, an office assumed by two totems in the neighbouring Duke of York group.[17]Nothing can prove more clearly the blending of different stages of thought in Melanesia.

On the whole, Totemism is breaking down, and something very like Polytheism, of an animistic type, is beginning to emerge, in Melanesia. There is atindaloof the sea, of war, and of gardens,—Poseidon, Ares, and Priapus in the making. Sacrifice and prayer exist, neither is found (perhaps with anexception as regards prayers for the souls of the dead) in Australia. On the other hand, only the smallest of small change for the Australian conception of such makers and judges as Baiame is noted in Melanesia, mainly in the myths of and prayers to Qat, and myths of a creative unworshipped female being. These areVuis, not ghosts; they are spirits never incarnate, unlike thetindalos.[18]Qat appears to hover between the estate of a lowly creative being, born of a rock, and that of a culture hero, and rather resembles the Zulu Unkulunkulu. Thus Melanesia seems, in society and beliefs, to show an advance from Totemism, nomadic life, and from an unworshipped female creative being, towards Animism and Polytheism, and descent reckoned in the male line: agricultural and settled existence, with mixture of race, and foreign contamination of custom, being marked agents in the developement.

Astindalos(human ghosts, in one case the patron of a kema) thrive to Gods' estate, whilebutosremain ancestral plants or animals, not to be eaten, it would be a natural step to imagine later that the family God (tindalo) of ghost origin, incarnates himself in thebuto, the sacred animal of the kin. That would be an explanatory myth. If accepted, it would produce the Samoan and Fijian belief, that the animals and plants not to be eaten by the kindreds (old totems) are incarnations of gods. Thus the Florida beliefs and customs are a stage between those of Australia and those of Samoa and Fiji.

It appears, at least to the mind of the maker of an hypothesis, that the names of Melanesian kemas, as well as the new names of American 'gentes' (totem kins with male descent), indicate the probability that, from the first—as among our villagers—group names were given (in themajority of cases) from without, as in many American and some Melanesian cases they certainly are. We see that it is so: no group would call itself 'Cat's Cradle Players,' or 'Eaters of Hide-scrapings,' or 'Bone Pickers,' as in Florida; among the Sioux; and in Western England. We cannot possibly expect to find any groups in the process of becoming totemic and of having plant and animal names given to them from without. But we certainly do observe that names, or nicknames, relatively recent, are given to savage groups, on their way out of Totemism—the totem name often still lingering on in America, like thebutosin Melanesia—and that these names, or nicknames, are given from without. Nearer to demonstration that the totem names were given in the same way (as 'Whig' and 'Tory' were given), we cannot expect to come.

It may be said that my conjecture is only a form of that suggested (if I understand him) by Mr. Herbert Spencer. An individual had an animal name or nickname. He died: his ghost was revered by his old name, say Bear. He was forgotten, and his descendants, who kept up his worship, came to think that they were descended from a real bear, and were akin to bears. I need not once more reiterate the objections to this theory, but, like my own suggestion, it involves forgetfulness of a fact,—here the fact that 'Bear' was a human ancestor. Against the chances of this forgetfulness was the circumstance that individuals were constantly being named Bear, Wolf, Eagle, and so on, in daily experience, usually with a qualifying epithet, 'SittingBull,' 'HowlingWolf,' and so forth. These facts might have prevented Mr. Spencer's savages from forgetting that the ancestral Bear was a Bear of human kind, like themselves and their contemporaries.

In my hypothesis, forgetfulness, on the other hand, might readily occur. When all the group names in each area had become organised and stereotyped, there would necessarily be no new giving of group names to remind the savages how these titles came into existence. On the other hand the myth-making stage, as to kinship with the name-giving plantsand animals, would set in, and then would come reverent behaviour towards these creatures, as if they were kinsmen and friends. Respect for the totem, in each case, will clinch the tendency to group exogamy. I have supposed, for the reasons given, that there was already a tendency against marriage within the group. That tendency must have been confirmed by the totem tabu against making any use of any member of the totem kin, and a woman of the totem would be exempted from marital use by her male fellow-totemists. The totem belief would add a supernormal sanction to the exogamous tendency.

Now any such superstitious respect for an animal, whatever its origin, will take the same inevitable forms; and thus, if individuals selectnyarongs, naguals, and so on, they must necessarily behave to these things as they do to their hereditary totems. There is no other way in which they can behave, if they regard the animals as mysteriously friendly and protective, though the idea that they are friendly and protective has different origins, in either case.

Thus the exigencies of my guess as to the origin of Totemism, compel me to disagree with adictumof Mr. Frazer, 'if the relations are similar, the explanation which holds good of the one ought equally to hold good of the other.'[19]The conclusion is not necessary. You may revere a rat (your totem), and a cat (yournagual) for quite different reasons, and in quite different capacities, you being the kinsman of your totem, the protégé of yournagual; but, if you revere them, your reverence can only show itself in the same ways. There are no other ways.[20]

Does my guess at the origin of totems seem out of harmony with human nature? You, belonging to a local group, must call other groups by one name or another. Plant and animal names come very handy. The names fluctuate at first, but are at last accepted by the groups to which they are applied. The origin of the names being forgotten, an explanation of them is needed, and, as in every case where it is needed, it is provided in myths. The myths, once believed in, are acted upon; they become the parents of tabus, magic, rites of various kinds. Social rules must be developed, some already exist; and each group called by an animal, plant, or other such name, becomes, under that name, a social unit, and accepts, as such, the customary legislation, just as a parish does. You must not marry within the totem name: either because of the totem tabu in general, or because the totem comes to be conceived of as denoting kinship, and (for one reason or another) you had already a tendency not to marry within the limit of the group. The usual totem rules may be thwarted by other rules derived from a peculiar system of animism, very philosophically elaborated, as among the Arunta of Central Australia. The institution, in short, may develop or may dwindle, may persist in practice, or fade into faint survival, or blend with analogous superstitions, or wholly vanish, in varying conditions. Totemism affects art; to some extent it may have affected religious evolution. It is certainly a source of innumerable myths.

But, if my guess holds water, Totemism arose out of namesgiven from without, these names being of a serviceable sort, as they could be, and are, not only readily expressed in words, but readily conveyedin gesture languagefrom a considerable distance. The names could be 'signalled.'[21]'There is an Emu man: look out!' This could easily and silently be expressed in gesture language. Place-names, and many nicknames, could not so be signalled.

This theory, of course, is not in accordance with any savage explanations of the origin of their totem. It could not be! Their explanations are such fables as only men in their intellectual condition could invent: they aremyths, they involve impossibilities. My hypothesis (or myth) does not, I think, involve anything impossible or far-fetched, or incapable of proof in a general way. It is human, it is inevitable, that plant and animal names should be given, especially among groups more or less hostile. We call the French 'frogs.' It is also a fact that names given from without come to be accepted. It is a fact that names, once accepted, are explained by myths; it is a fact that myths come to be believed, and that belief influences behaviour.

Here I foresee an objection; it will be said that, on the other hand, behaviour produces myths. Men find themselves performing some apparently idiotic rite: they ask themselves, 'Why do we do this thing?' and they invent a myth as an answer. Certainly they do, but you believe in a God, or in Saints, and act (or you ought to act) in a manner pleasing to these guardians of conduct. You don't believe in a God, because you behave well, and it is not because you behave well to a totem that you believe in a totem. You treat him as game, not as vermin, because you believe in him, and your belief is based on the myth which your ancestors invented to account for their having a totem.

My guess has the advantage of going behind the age of settled dwellings, agriculture, kinship through males, and the causal action of individuals. It reverts to the group stage of human life. Groups give and accept the names; invent the myths, act on their belief in the myths, and so introduce the sanction of what had perhaps been a mere tendency towards exogamy. On the other hand, my guess has the disadvantage of dealing with a hypothetical stage of society, behind experience. But this cannot be avoided, for if we base our hypotheses of the origin of Totemism on our experience of the ways of societies which have passed, or are passing, out of Totemism, our theories must necessarily be invalidated. It may be replied that I have myself given illustrations of my theory from the folk-lore of civilised society. But the only begetters of these illustrative cases are boys—and boys are in the savage stage, 'at least as far as they are able.'

In a tone more serious, it may be reiterated that no theory of the origin of Totemism is likely to be correct which derives the totem, in the first instance, in any way, from theindividual, the private man. Long ago, Mr. Fison wrote, 'Sir John Lubbock considers that the "worship of plants and animals is susceptible of a very simple explanation, and has really originated from the practice of naming, firstindividuals, and then their families, after particular animals."'[22]Mr. Fison replied, 'This is surely a reversal of the true order. The Australian divisions show that the totem is, in the first place, the badge of a group, not of an individual. The individual takes it, in common with his fellows, only because he is a member of the group. And, even if it were first given to an individual, his family, i.e. his children, could not inherit it from him,' when descent is reckoned on the female side.[23]

It is a commonplace, perhaps an overworked commonplace, that the group, not the individual, is the earliersocial unit. Yet the hypotheses of Lord Avebury, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Dr. Wilken, Mr. Boas, Miss Alice Fletcher, and Messrs. Hose and McDougall, all derive fromindividuals, in one way or other, the most archaic names of humangroups. The hypothesis of Mr. Max Müller leaves the origin of the group name unexplained. The later hypothesis (especially provisional), of Mr. Frazer, does start from the group name, but I am not certain whether we are to understand that each group name is derived from the plant Or animal or selected by the group as the object of its magical rites, or whether, for some unknown reason, each group already bore the name of the animal, or plant, or element,beforeentering on the great co-operative industrial system. Now it seems to me certain that the names, in each case, were originally not names of individuals, or in any way derived from individuals, but were names of groups. As to how pristine groups might obtain such names I have offered what, in the nature of the case, has to be only a conjecture. But named, as soon as men had intelligence and speech, the groups, as groups, had to be, and the actual names are such as, whether in savagery or in full civilisation, are given to individuals, and are also, in civilised rural society, given to local groups, to members of parishes and villages. So far, the cause which I suggest is avera causaof collective group names.

A well-known Folk-lorist to whom I submitted my theory, rather 'in the rough,' replied to me thus: 'I have thought of Totemism as meaning a social system, that is, as including belief, worship, kinship, society. And therefore, the animal or plant names are an essential part of the system. You, as I understand it, come along and say the name is the result of one of the trifles of the human mind, therefore did not enter into the totem system very deeply, and certainly did not belong to the beliefs and the worship, except as the result of a later myth-making age. Of course your bookmay explain all, and I shall look forward to studying it, as I have always enjoyed your studies.

'But I confess I don't much believe in these accidents causing or rather entering into so widely spread a system as Totemism. Cut away the name and nothing is left to Totemism except myth, survivals, and a social grouping without any apparent cement. Blood kinship as a basis of society surely arose much later, unless Dr. Reevers's remarkable evidence from the Haddon expedition to New Guinea helps the matter. He found, you remember, blood kinship traceable by definite genealogies beneath, so to speak, a system of Totemism, and but for the most minute examination blood kinship would have escaped observation once more and Totemism only would have been reported. Is this blood kinship the true social basis and Totemism only a veneer?

'I have goodly notes on Totemism and non-Totemism, and I confess it difficult to eliminate the name as an important part of the system. It covers every part—is the shell into which all the rest fits. Now I have too much respect for our savage friends to think they used myth any further than we do. We go every Sunday saying "I believe," but we don't build up much upon this. Our social fabric, nay our religion, is not of this. And so of the savage. If I grant you the myth of descent from an animal to have arisen out of apre-existingname system, I am no nearer the understanding of totem-kinship as the basis of a social group.'

These are natural objections, on a first view of my suggestions. Totemismisa social system, but there was an age before totemism, an age of undeveloped totemism; into these we try to peer. But the method of name-giving which I postulate is hardly 'a trifle of the human mind.' It is, as I have proved, a widely diffused, probably an universal tendency of the human mind. Not less universal, in the savage intellectual condition, is the belief in the personality and human characteristics of all things whatsoever; man is only one tribe in the cosmic kinship, and is capable of specially close kinship with animals. Nobody denies this, and the resultingmyths to explain the connection of the groups and their totems are not only natural, but inevitable—the real origin of the connection, 'in the dark backward and abysm of time,' being forgotten. We may go to church, and say 'I believe,' and we may not act up to our creeds. 'And so of the savage.' But it is not 'so of the savage.' His belief in a myth of kinship with an Emu is carried into practice, and regulates his conduct, magical and social. This is not contestable. In the same way a Christian who believes in the efficacy of masses for the welfare of his dead friends, pays for masses. At the lowest, he 'thinks the experiment well worth trying.' To other myths, say as to the origin of the spots on a beast, a savage may 'give but a doubtsome credit.' They are not of a nature to affect his conduct in any way. But the totem myths do affect his conduct, quite undeniably, and, even if there are sceptics, public opinion and customary law compel them to regulate their behaviour on the lines of the general belief. We are not to be told that nobody believes in anything! The 'social grouping' consequent on the beliefs isnot'without any apparent cement.' The cement is the belief in the actual kinship of all persons having the same totem name, and sacred totem blood, even if they belong to remote and hostile tribes. All wolves are brethren in the wolf; all bears are brethren in the bear; and so men-bears are sisters to women-bears, and brothers may not marry sisters. Here is 'apparent cement' of the very best quality, and in abundance, given the acknowledged condition of the savage intellect.

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