RISE OF PHRATRIES AND TOTEM KINS

[1]Darwin,Descent of Man, it pp. 361-363. 1871.

[2]I do not extend conjecture to a period when "our human or half-human ancestors" may hare had a rutting season, like stags. Cf. Westermarck,History of Human Marriage, pp. 27, 28.

[3]Here I cannot but remark on the almost insuperable difficulty of getting savants to understand an unfamiliar idea. M. Salomon Reinach writes, "Another theory (Atkinson, Letourneau) explains exogamy as the result of the sexual jealousy of the male, chief of the primitive group. (Cf.L'AnnÃ©e Sociologique, 1904, pp. 407, 434.) He is supposed to have tabooed all the women of the clan, reserving them for himself. This conception of a chief not only polygamous butomnigamous" (pasigamousmust be meant!) "is founded on no known ethnological fact." (Cultes, Mythes et Religions, i. 161, Note I, 1905.) Mr. Atkinson does not speak of a "clan" at all. The "clan," in French, American, and some English anthropologists' terminology, is a totem kin with exogamy and female reckoning of descent. Mr. Atkinson speaks, in the first instance, of "family groups," "the cyclopean family," and a sire with his female mates and children. Such a sire is no more and no less "omnigamous" than a Turk in his harem, except that, as his condition is "semi-brutish," his daughters (as in Panama, in 1699) are not tabooed to him. Ethnology cannot now find this state of things of course; it is a theory of Mr. Darwin's, based on the known habits of the higher mammals.

[4]See Mr. Crawley's "The Mystic Rose" for this theory of sexual taboo.

[5]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 153.

[6]Golden Bough, 2, i. pp. 404-446.

[7]Nineteenth Century, xxx. p. 566 sq.

[8]See examples in "Cupid and Psyche," in myCustom and Myth, and Mr. Clodd'sTom Tid Tot, pp. 91-93.

[9]Der Ursprung des Totemismus. Von Dr. Julius Pikler, Professor der Rechtsphilosophie an der UniversitÃ¤t Budapest. K. Koffmann, Berlin,s.a.Apparently of 1900. This tract, "The Origin of Totemism," written in 1899, did not come to my knowledge till after this chapter was drafted.

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

[11]Cf.Social Origins, pp. 141, 142.

[12]Ursprung des Totemismus, p. 7.

[13]See Colonel Mallery on Pictographs,Report of Bureau of Ethnology, 1888-1889, pp. 56-61.

[14]"From two inscriptions found at Elensis it appears that the names of the priests were committed to the depths of the sea, probably they were engraved on tablets of bronze or lead, and thrown into deep water in the Gulf of Salamis. ... A clearer illustration of the confusion between the incorporeal and the corporeal, between the name and its material embodiment, could hardly be found than in this practice of civilised Greece." (Golden Bough, 2, i p. 441.) Cf. Budge,Egyptian Magic, pp. 160-162, 1901. "The Egyptians regarded the creation as the result of the utterance of the name of the god Neb-er-tcher by himself Isis could not do her will on him till she learned thenameof the god Ra." Messrs. Spencer and Gillen tell us that the great sky-dwelling Being of the Kaitish tribe "made himself and gave himself his name." He made himself very inadequately, according to the myth, which may rest on a false etymology, and the meaning of his name is not pretty, but it would not surprise one if, by uttering his name, he made himself. (Northern Tribes, p. 498.)

[15]Der Ursprung des Totemismus, pp. 10, 11.

[16]Social Origins, p. 138.

[17]I am sure to be told that in Chapter III. I declaredlocaltotem groups to be the result of reckoning in the male line, and not primitive, and that, here, I make the primitive animal-named group local. My reply is that in this passage I am not speaking oftotemgroups, but oflocal groups bearing animal names, a very different thing. A group may have borne an animal name long before it evolved totemic beliefs about the animal, and recognised it as a totem. No group that wasnotlocal could get a name to itself, at this early stage of the proceedings. The "local habitation" precedes the "name."

[18]Spencer and Gillen,Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 139.

[19]J. A. I., p. 53, August 1888.

[20]Social Origins, pp. 145, 146, and Note 1.

[21]J. A. I., August 1888, p. 51.South-Eastern Tribes, p. 736.

[22]Other tribes decidedly do understand. Can theChuringa nanjaand reincarnation beliefs have set up nescience of obvious facts among the Arunta? "The children originate solely from the male parent, and only owe their infantine nurture to the mother," according to certain Australian tribeswith female descent. (Howitt,J. A. I., 1882, p. 502.South-Eastern Tribes, pp. 283, 284. So, too, the Euahlayi. Mrs. Langloh Parker's MS.)

[23]Cf.Golden Bough, 2, i. pp. 360-362.

[24]Dalton,Ethnology of Bengal, p. 254.

[25]On this point of the blood tabu see Dr. Durkheim,L'AnnÃ©e Sociologique, i. pp. 47-57. Also M. Reinach,L'Anthropologie, vol. x. p. 65. The point was laid before me long ago by Mr. Arthur Platt, when he was editing the papers of Mr. J. F. McLennan. Dr. Durkheim charges me (Folk Lore, December 1903) with treating these tabus "vaguely" inSocial Origins. I merely referred the reader more than once, as inSocial Origins, p. 57, Note I, to Dr. Durkheim's own exposition, also to M. Reinach,L'Anthropologie, x. p. 65. The theory of the sacredness of the blood is not absolutely necessary. The totem tabu often excludes all contact with the totem by the totemist.

[26]The passage will be found inSocial Origins, pp. 166-175.

[27]Social Origins, pp. 295-301.

[28]Folk Lore, December 1903, p. 423.

[29]Vindication of Cameron's Name. "Saints of the Covenant," i. p. 251.

[30]Northern Tribes, p. 10, Note 2.

[31]J. J. Atkinson. The natives callus"White Men." We do not call ourselves "God dams," but Jeanne d'Arc did.

[32]Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, vol. ix., vii. pp. 64, 66.

[33]Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, ut supra, pp. 96, 97.

[34]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 154.

[35]Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 208, 1893.

[36]Op. cit., p. 225.

[37]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 131.

[38]Spencer and Gillen,Central Tribes, p. 638.

[39]Macbain,Gaelic Etymological Dictionary.

[40]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 154.

[41]Northern Tribes, pp. 207-210.

[42]I am unable to understand how Mr. Howitt can say that he knows no Australian case of such nicknames being adopted. Mentioning Mr. Haddon's theory that groups were named each after its special variety of food, he says "this receives support from the fact that analogous names obtain now in certain tribes,e.g.the Yum." (Op. cit., p. 154.) I understand Mr. Haddon to mean that these names were sobriquets given from without and accepted. If so, Mr. Howitt does know such cases after all. Unluckily he gives no instances in treating of Yuin names, unless names of individuals derived from their skill in catching or spearing this or that bird or fish are intended. These exist among the more elderly KunaÃ¯. (Op. cit., p. 738.) But Mr. Haddon was not thinking of such individual names of senior men, but of group names. On his theory Wolves and Ravens were so styled because wolves and ravens were their chief articles of diet.

[43]See Turner'sSamoa, and Mr. Tylor,J. A. I., N.S., i. p. 142.

[44]J. A. I., August 1888, pp. 53, 54. Also volume xiii. p. 498. Cf., tooNative Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 89, 488, 498.

[45]J. A. I., August 1888, p. 67.

[46]Bureau of Ethnology Report, 1892, 1893, Part I. pp. 22, 23. Howitt,Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 134 Information from Mrs. Langloh Parker. These sources give Menomini, Dieri, Murring, Woeworung, and Euahlayi myths, attributing totemic rules and names to divine institution.

[47]Howitt,Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 25.

[48]J. A. I., 1888, p. 498. Cf.Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 482-484. Mura-Mura, till further notice, are mythical ancestors, not reincarnated.

[49]Making of Religion, p. 232, 1898.

[50]Assoc. Adv. Science, p. 531, and Note 30, 1902. For other discrepant myths, cf.Native Tribes of S.E. Australia, pp. 475, 482.

[51]Grey,Vocabulary of the Dialects of South-Western Australia. That only two of seven totems in one tribe were explained is usually overlooked.

[52]Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 165, 1880.

How phratries and totem kins were developedâ€”Local animal-named groups would be exogamousâ€”Children in these will bear the group names of their mothersâ€”Influence of tattooingâ€”Emulocalgroup thus full of persons who are Snipes, Lizards, &câ€”by maternal descentâ€”Members are Emusby local group name: Snipes, Lizards, &c., byname of descentâ€”No marriage, however, within local groupâ€”Reason, survival of old tabuâ€”Reply to Dr. Durkheimâ€”The names bring about peaceful relations between members of the different local groupsâ€”Tendency to peaceful betrothals between men and women of the various local groupsâ€”Probable leadership of two strong local groups in this arrangementâ€”Say they are groups Eagle Hawk and Crowâ€”More than two such groups sometimes prominentâ€”Probable that the dual alliance was widely Imitatedâ€”The two chief allied local groups become the phratriesâ€”Tendency of phratries to die outâ€”Often superseded by matrimonial classesâ€”Meaning of surviving phratry names often lost, and whyâ€”Their meaning known in other tribesâ€”Members,by descent, of various animal names, within the old local groups (now phratries), become the totem kins of to-dayâ€”Advantages of this theoryâ€”Difficulties which it avoids.

We have perhaps succeeded in showing how totemism my have become a belief and a source of institutions: we have shown, at least, that granting savage methods of thought, totemism might very naturally have come in this way.

Totemism certainly arose in an age when, if descent reckoned, and, if names were inherited, it was on the spindle side. "All abnormal instances," writes Mr. Howitt, "I have found to be connected with changes in the line of descent. The primitive and complete forms" (of totemism) "have uterine descent, and it is in cases where descent is counted in the male line that I find the most abnormal forms to occur."[1]

As few scholars seriously dispute this opinion of Mr. Howitt, based on a very wide experience, and fortified by the almost universal view that descent was reckoned, when totemism began, in the female line, and as the point is accepted by every author whose ideas I have been discussing, we need not criticise hypotheses which assume that totemism arose when descent was reckoned in the male line, or that totems arose out of personal manitus of males, transferred to the female line.

Now, granting that our system so far may afford a basis of argument, we have to show how the phratries and the totem kins within them might be logically and naturally developed.

If it be granted that exogamy existed in practice, on the lines of Mr. Darwin's theory, before the totem beliefs lent to the practice asacredsanction, our task is relatively easy. The first practical rule would be that of the jealous Sire, "No males to touch the females in my camp," with expulsion of adolescent sons. In efflux of time that rule, become habitual, would be, "No marriage within the local group." Next, let the local groups receive names, such as Emus, Crows, Opossums, Snipes, and the rule becomes, "No marriage within the local group of animal name; no Snipe to marry a Snipe." But, if the primal groups were not exogamous, they would become so, as soon as totemic myths and tabus were developed out of the animal, vegetable, and other names of small local groups.

The natural result will be that all the wives among thelocalgroups called Snipes will come to bear names other than Snipe, will come to be known by the names of thelocalgroups from which they have been acquired. These names they will retain, I suggest, in local group Snipe, by way of distinctionâ€”as the Emu woman, the Opossum woman, and so forth. The Emus know the names of the groups from which they have taken women, and it seems probable enough that the women may even have borne tattoo marks denoting their original groups, as is now in some places the Australian practice. "It probably has been universal," says Mr. Haddon.[2]

If, then, the stranger women among the Emus are known, in that local group, as the Opossum woman, the Snipe woman, the Lizard woman; their children in the group might very naturally speak of each other as "the Snipe woman's, the Lizard woman's children," or more briefly as "the little Snipes," "the young Lizards," and so on. I say "might speak," for though totem names have the advantage of being easily indicated, and in practice are often indicated by gesture language, I take it that by this time man had evolved language.[3]

In course of time, by this process (which certainly did occur, though at how early a stage it came first into being we cannot say), eachlocalgroup becomes heterogeneous. Emulocalgroup is now full of members of Snipe, Lizard, and other animal-named membersby maternal descent. There are thus what Mr. Howitt has called "Major totems" (name-giving animals of local groups), and "Minor totems" (various animal names of male and female members within, for example,localgroup Emu, these various animal names being acquiredby female descent). Each member of a local Emu group is now Emu by local group; but is Snipe, Lizard, Opossum, Kangaroo, or what not, byname of maternal descent.

This theory is no original idea, it is Mr. McLennan's mode of accounting for the heterogeneity of the local group. They are not all Wolves, for example, where descent is reckoned in the female line, and exogamy is the rule. In the local group Wolf are Ravens, Doves, Dogs, Cats, what you will, names derived by the children from mothers of these names. I do not pretend that I can demonstrate the existence of the process, but it accounts for the facts and is not out of harmony with human nature. Can any other hypothesis be suggested?

When things have reached this pitch, each local group,if it understood the situation as it is now understood among most savages, might find wives peacefully in its own circle. Lizard man, inlocalgroup Emu, might marry Snipe woman also inlocalgroup Emu,as far as extant totem law now goes. They were both, in fact, members of a small localtribeof animal name, with many kins of animal names, by female descent, within that tribe. Why then might not Snipe (by descent) in Emulocalgroup marry a woman, by descent Lizard, in the same Emulocalgroup? Many critics have asked this question, including Dr. Durkheim.[4]I had given my answer to the question before it was asked,[5]backing my opinion by a statement of Dr. Durkheim himself. People of different totems in the samelocalgroup (say Emu)mighthave married; but then, as Dr. Durkheim remarks in another case, "the old prohibition, deeply rooted in manners and customs, survives."[6]"Now the old prohibition in this case was that a man of the Emu (local) group was not to marry a woman of the Emu (local) group. That rule endures, even though the Emu group now contains men and women of several distinct and different totem kins," that is to say, of different animal-named kinsby descent.

I may add that, as soon as speculation about the animal names led to the belief in the mysticrapportbetween the animals and their human namesakes, and so led to tabu on the intermarriage of persons of the same animal name, the tabu would attach as much to the name-giving animal of thelocalgroup as to the animals of the kinsby descentwithin thatlocalgroup.

Thus Lizard man, in Emu local group, cannot marry Snipe woman in the same. Both are also, bylocalgroup name, Emus. He is Emu-Lizard, she is Emu-Snipe.

If it be replied that now no regard is paid by the members of a phratry to their phratriac animal (where it is known), I answer that the necessarypoojahis done, by the members of the totem kin of that animal, within his phratry, while all do him the grace of not marrying within his name.[7]A Lizard man and a Snipe woman in Emulocalgroup could not, therefore, yet marry. The members of the local group, though of different animal namesof descent, had still to ravish brides from other hostilelocalgroups.

Eachlocalgroup was now full of men and women who,by maternal descent, bore the same animal names as many members of the otherlocalgroups. A belief in a mysticrapportbetween the bearers of the animal names and the animals themselves now being developed, Snipe and Lizard and Opossumby descent, in Emulocalgroup, must already have felt that they were not really strangers and enemies to men of the same namesby descent, Snipe, Lizard, and Opossum, and of the same connection with the same name-giving animals, in Kangaroolocalgroup, or any other adjacentlocalgroup.

This obvious ideaâ€”human beings who are somehow connected with the same animals are also connected with each otherâ€”was necessarily an influence in favour of peace between the local groups. In whateverlocalgroup a Snipe by descent might be, he would come to notice a connection between himself and Snipesby descentin all otherlocalgroups. Consequently men at last arranged, I take it, to exchange brides on amicable terms, instead of Snipeby descentrisking the shedding of kindred blood, that of another Snipeby descent, in the mellay of a raid to lift women from anotherlocalgroup.

If two strong local groups, say Emu and Kangaroo, or Eagle Hawk and Crow, took the lead in this treaty of alliance andconnubium, and if the other local groups gradually came into it under their leadership (for union would make Eagle Hawk and Crow powerful), or if several local groups chose two such groups to head them in a peaceful exchange of brides, we have, in these two now united and intermarrying local groups of animal name, say Eagle Hawk and Crow, the primal forms of the actual phratries of to-day.

But why do we find in a tribe only two phratries? I have asked myself and been asked by others. In the first place, in America, we note examples of three or more phratries in the same tribe. Again, in Australia, we seem to myself to find probable traces of more than two phratries in a tribe, traces of what Mr. Frazer styles "sub-phratries," what one may call "submerged phratries" (see Chapter X.). Further, dual alliances are the most usual form of such combinations: two strong groups, allied and setting the example, would attract the neighbouring groups into their circle. Finally, if I am right in thinking that the phratriac arrangement arose in a given centre, and was propagated by emigrants, and was borrowed by distant tribes (which is a point elsewhere discussed), the original model of a dual alliance would spread almost universally, while, as has been said, traces of more numerous combinations appear to occur.

Except as parties of old to a peaceful arrangement, the phratries, as they at present exist (where they exist), have often now no reason for existence. Where totems are exogamous, or where totems and matrimonial classes exist, the phratry is now an empty survival; having done its work it does no more work, and often vanishes. If members oflocalanimal-named groups, become fully totemic, had at once understood their own position as under the now existing totem law, they could have taken wives of different totemsof descenteach in their own group, without any phratries at all. People manage their affairs thus in all totemic parts of the world where there are no phratries, though, for what we know, phratries may have existed, and vanished, in these places, when their task was ended.

Again, phratries die out, we repeat, even in America and Australia. In some regions of Australia their place has been taken by the opposed matrimonial classes, prohibiting marriage between mothers' and sons', fathers' and daughters' generations. That arrangement, as it is not found in the most primitive Australian tribes, which have only phratries and totems, must be later than phratries and totems. It was a later enactment, within the phratry, and, as among the Arunta and Wiraidjuri, it has now superseded the phratry. The matrimonial classes, originally introduced within each pre-existing phratry, now regulate marriage, among Arunta and Wiraidjuri, and the phratry has dropped off, its name being unknown, like the flower which has borne its fruit.

Again, in Australia, as has been said, we shall try to show that phratries, in many tribes, are perhaps aborrowedinstitution, not an institution independently evolved everywhere. That is rendered probable because, among many tribes, the phratry names survive but are now meaningless, yet these same phratry names possess, or have recently possessed, a meaning in the language of other tribes, from whom the institution may apparently (though not necessarily) have been borrowed with the foreign names of each phratry.

For all these reasons, phratries seem, in some regions, to be a device adopted, by some tribe, or tribes, at a given moment, for a given purpose (peace), and borrowed from them by some other tribes, or propagated by emigrants into new lands. Men might borrow thenamesof the phratries, or might use other names which were already current designations of their own local groups. The purpose of the phratry organisation, I argue, may have been the securing of peace and alliance, and the movement may have been originated, somewhere in Australia, by two powerful local groups of animal name; in one vast region known as Eagle Hawk and Crow, Mukwara and Kilpara, and by other names of the same meaning. Such I take to have been the mode in which phratries arose, out of the alliance andconnubiumof two local groups, say Eagle Hawk and Crow; or of more than two groups. Mr. Frazer says that the Moquis of Arizona have ten phratries (quoting Bourke,Snake Dance, p. 336) and the Wyandots have four; the Mohegans have three.[8]These, or other groups, took the lead in recognising the situation, namely, that brides might be peacefully exchanged amonglocalgroups becoming conscious of common kinship in their totemsby descent.

Meanwhile, in the various otherwise animal-named members oflocalgroups Eagle Hawk and Crowâ€”in the men and women withinlocalgroups Eagle Hawk and Crow who were Snipes, Lizards, Opossums, and so on,by maternal descentâ€”we have the forerunners of the totem kins within the phratries of to-day. In the same way, members of all other adjacentlocalgroups could also come into Eagle Hawk and Crow phratries by merely dropping theirlocalgroup-names, keeping their names bydescent.

We have not, on this system, to imagine that there were but two totem groups in each district, at the beginning (a thing unlikely to happen anywhere, still less always and everywhere), and that many of their members, hiving off, took new totem names. Our scheme gives us, naturally, and on Mr. Darwin's lines, first, many small local groups, perhaps in practice exogamous; then these local groups invested with animal names; then, the animals become totems, sanctioning exogamy; then by exogamy and female descent, each animal-namedlocalgroup becomes full of members of other animal namesby descent; then an approach to peace among all the groups naturally arises; then pacificconnubiumbetween them all, at first captained by two leading local groups, say Crow and Eagle Hawk (though there is no reason why there should not have been more of such alliances in a tribe, and there are traces of them),[9]and, lastly, the allies prevailing, the inhabitants of a district became an harmonious tribe, with two phratries (latelocalgroups), say Eagle Hawk and Crow, and with the other old local group-names represented in what are now the totem kins within the phratries. This arrangement, in course of time, is perhaps even borrowed, foreign phratry names and all, by distant groups hitherto not thus organised.

This scheme, it will be observed, is in harmony with what Mr. Howitt's knowledge of native life shows him to have occurred. From the beginning, in the physical conditions of Australia, no horde or communal mob could keep together, for lack of supplies. No assemblage "could assume dimensions more than that of a few members," before it was broken up by economic causes.[10]There were thus, in a district, many small groups, not, as on Dr. Durkheim's theory, just two groups, broken out of a larger horde by their unexplained religious devotion each to its own god, an animal, say Eagle Hawk for one group, Crow for the other. On the other hand, there was now an indefinite number of smalllocalgroups, each of animal name, each containing members of as many namesof descentas the local groups from which each local group had taken wives. Such groups would now be larger than mere hearth-circles, in proportion as improved skill in fishing, net-making, spearing, and trapping animals, and in selecting and cooking edible vegetables and roots, with improved implements, enabled larger groups to subsist in their territorial area. This scheme is manifestly consistent with the probable economic and social conditions, while the animal group-names are explained by the necessity under which the groups lay to differentiate each other by names. The regard later paid to the name-giving animals as totems is explained, on the ground of the savage theory of the mystical quality of names of unknown origin, names also borne by animals, powerful, wise, mysterious creatures.

These processes must have occupied long ages in evolution.

This hypothesis escapes the difficulty as to how an incestuous horde, guided by an inspired medicine man, could ever come to see that there was such a thing as incest, and that such a thing ought not to be tolerated. We also escape Dr. Durkheim's difficultyâ€”How did two hostile sects of animal worshippers arise in the "compact mass" of the horde; and how could they, though of one blood, claim separate origins? We also see how totem kins could occur within the phratries, without needing to urge alternately that such kins both do and do not possess a territorial basis. Again, we have not to decide, what we can never know, whether man wasoriginallygregarious and promiscuous or not. We see that circumstances forced him to live in groups so small that the jealous will of the Sire or Sires could enforce exogamy on the young members of the camp, a prohibition which the natural conservatism of the savage might later extend to the members of the animal-named local group, even when heterogeneous. However heterogeneous by descent, all members of the local group were, by habitat, of one animal name, and when tabus arose in deference to the sacred animal, these tabus forbade marriage whether in the animal-named local group, or in the animal name of descent.

So far, the theory "marches," and meets all facts known to us, in pristine tribes with female descent, phratries, and totem kins, but without "matrimonial classes," four or eight. The theory also meets facts which have not, till now, been recognised in Australia, and which we proceed to state.

[1]Rep. Reg. Smithsonian Institute, p. 801, 1883.

[2]Evolution in Art, pp. 252-257.

[3]"This question, Minna Murdu?" ("What totem?") "can be put by gesture language, to which, in the same way, a suitable reply can be made." (Mr. Howitt, on the Dieri.Rep. Reg. Smith. Institute, p. 804, Note I, 1883.)

[4]Folk Lore, December 1903.

[5]Social Origins, p. 56, Note 1.

[6]L'AnnÃ©e Sociologique, v. p. 106, Note I.

[7]The Kamilaroi are said to offer exceptions to this rule.

[8]Totemism, pp. 60-62. We must remember that American writers use the word "phratry" in several quite different senses; we cannot always tell what they mean when they use it.

[9]If the Urabunna rules are correctly reported on, they may have several "sub-phratries."

[10]J. A. I., xii. p. 497.

On our theory, in each phratry there should be a totem kin of the phratry nameâ€”If not, fatal to Dr. Durkheim's and Mr. Frazer's theories, as well as to oursâ€”The fact occurs in America: why not in Australia?â€”Questions asked by Mr. Thomasâ€”The fact, totem kins of phratriac names within the phratries,doesoccur in Australiaâ€”The fact not hitherto observedâ€”Why not observedâ€”Three causesâ€”The author's conjectureâ€”Evidence proving the conjecture successfulâ€”Myth favouring Mr. Fraser's theoryâ€”Another myth states the author's theoryâ€”MukwaraandKilpararemain, as phratry names, among many tribes which give other names to Eagle Hawks and Crowsâ€”The Eagle Hawk, under another name, is totem inMukwara(Eagle Hawk) phratryâ€”The Crow, under another name, is a totemKilpara(Crow) phratryâ€”Thus the position is the same as in Americaâ€”List of examples in proofâ€”Barinji, Barkinji. Ta-ta-thi, Keramin, Wiraudjuri, and other instancesâ€”Where phratry names are lostâ€”Eagle Hawk and Crow totems are still inoppositephratriesâ€”Five examplesâ€”Examples of Cockatoo-named phratries, each containing its own Cockatoo totemâ€”Often under new namesâ€”Bee phratries with Bee matrimonial classesâ€”Cases of borrowed phratry and class namesâ€”Success of our conjecturesâ€”Practical difficulty caused by clash of old and new lawsâ€”Two totem kins cannot legally marryâ€”Difficulty evadedâ€”These kins change their phratriesâ€”Shock to tender consciencesâ€”Change takes the line of least resistanceâ€”Example of a change to be given.

On the theory propounded in the last chapter, the lead in making peaceful alliance andconnubiumbetween exogamous groups previously hostile, was probably taken, and the example was set, or the allies were captained, by two or in some cases more of the exogamous animal-named local groups themselves. Such leading groups, by our theory, in time became the two phratries of the tribe. If this were the case, these two kins, say Eagle Hawk and Crow, or, among the Thlinkets in America, Wolf and Raven, should be found to-day among the totem kins, should exist not only as names of phratries, but as names of totem kinsinthe phratries. If they are not so found, it will prove a serious objection, not only to our hypothesis, but to that of Dr. Durkheim, and (at one time at least) of Mr. J. G. Frazer. Their theory being that two primary totem kins sent off colonies which took new totem names, and that the primary kins later became phratries, in the existing phratries we should discover totem kins of the phratry names, say, totem kin Raven in Raven phratry, and totem kin Wolf in Wolf phratry. This phenomenon has been noted in America, but only faintly remarked on, or not at all observed, in Australia.

Why should there be this difference, if it does exist, in the savage institutions of the two continents? The facts which, on either theoryâ€”Dr. Durkheim's or my ownâ€”were to be expected, are observed in America; in Australia they have only been noticed in two or three lines by Mr. Howitt, which have escaped comment by theorists. When once we recognise the importance of Mr. Howitt's remark, that in some phratries the animals of phratry names "are also totems," we open a new and curious chapter in the history of early institutions.

As to America, both Mr. Frazer and Dr. Durkheim observe that "among the Thlinkets and Mohegans, each phratry bears a name which is also the name of one of the clans," thus the Thlinkets have a Wolf totem kin in Wolf phratry; a Raven totem kin in Raven phratry. Mr. Frazer adds, "It seems probable that the names of the Raven and Wolf were the two original clans of the Thlinkets, which afterwards, by subdivision, became phratries."[1]

We have seen the objections to this theory of subdivision (Chapter V.supra), in discussing the system of Dr. Durkheim, who, by the way, gives two entirely different accounts of the Thlinket organisation in three successive pages; one version from Mr. Morgan, the other more recent, and correct, from Mr. Frazer.[2]Wolf and Raven do not appear in Mr. Morgan's version.[3]

If Mr. Frazer's view in 1887 and Dr. Durkheim's are right, Eagle Hawk and Crow phratries, say, are in Australia examples of the primary original totem kins, and as totem kins they ought to remain (as Raven and Wolf do among the Thlinkets), after they become heads of phratries. Again, if I am right, the names of the two leading local groups, after becoming phratries, should still exist to this day in the phratries, as names of totem kins. This is quite obvious, yet except in the Thlinket case, the Haida case, and that of the Mohegans, we never (apparently) have foundâ€”what we ought always to findâ€”within the phratries two totem kins bearing the same animal names as the phratries bear. Why is this? What has become of the two original, or the two leading local animal-named groups and totem kins? Nobody seems to have asked this very necessary question till quite recently.[4]

What has become of the two lost totem kins?

Mr. Thomas's objection to an earlier theory of mine, in which the two original totem kins were left in the vague, ought to be given in his own words: "Mr. Lang assumes" (inSocial Origins) "that the animals of the original connubial groups" (phratries) "did not become totems, and, consequently, that there were no totem kins corresponding to the original groups. This can only have taken place if a rule were developed that men of Emu" (local) "group might not marry women of the Emu kin, andvice versa. This would involve, however, a new rule of exogamy distinct from both group (local) and kin (totem) bars to marriage. This must have come about either (a) because the Emu kin were regarded as potentially members of the Emu group (an extension of group exogamy, the existence of which it would be hard to prove), or (b) because the Emu group or Emu kin were (legally) kindred, and as such debarred from marrying. ... In either case, on Mr. Lang's theory, two whole kins were debarred from marriage or compelled to change their totems" (when phratries arose). "I do not know which is less improbable."

Certainly the two kins could not change their totems, and certainly they would not remain celibate.

Meanwhile theapparentdisappearance in Australia of the two original, or leading, totem kins, of the same names as the phratries, is as great a difficulty to Dr. Durkheim's and Mr. Frazer's old theory as to my own, only they did not observe the circumstance.

How vanished the totem kins of the same names as the phratries? I answer that they did not vanish at all, and I go on to prove it. The main facts are very simple, the totem kins of phratry names in Australia are often in their phratries. But at a first glance this is not obvious. The facts escape observation for the following reasons:â€”

(1) In most totemic communities, except in Australia and in some American cases, there are no phratries, and consequently there is no possible proof that totem kins of the phratriac names exist, for we do not know the names of the lost phratries.

(2) In many Australian cases, such as those of the Wiraidjuri and Arunta, the phratries have now no names, and really, as phratries, no existence. Dual divisions of the tribes exist, but are known to us by the names of the four or eight "matrimonial classes" (a relatively late development)[5]into which they are parcelled, as, among the Arunta, Panunga, Bukhara, Purula, Kumara.[6]

We cannot therefore say in such cases, that the totem kins of phratriac names have vanished, because we do not know how the phratries were named; they may have had the names of two extant totem kins, but their names are lost.

(3) Again, there are Australian cases, as of the Urabunna and Dieri of Central Australia, in which the phratries have namesâ€”Matthurie and Kirarawa (Urabunna), or Matteri and Kararu (Dieri)â€”but these phratry names cannot be, or are not translated. Manifestly, then, the meaning of the names may be identical with names of extant totem kins in these phratries, may be names of obsolete or almost obsolete sacred meaning, originally denoting totems now recognised by other names in the everyday language of the tribe.

Confronted by the problem of the two apparently lost totem kins, those of the same names as the phratries, I conjectured that phratry names, now meaningless in the speech of the tribes where they appear, might be really identical in meaning with other names now denoting totem animals in the phratries. This conjecture proved to be correct, and I proceed to show how my conclusion was reached. The evidence, happily, is earlier than scientific discussion of the subject, and is therefore unbiassed.

So long ago as 1852 or 1853, Mr. C. G. N. Lockhart, in his Annual Report to the Government of New South Wales, recorded a myth of the natives on the Lower Darling River, which flows from the north into the Murray River, the boundary between New South Wales and Victoria.[7]The tribes had the phratries named by Mr. LockhartMookwaraandKeelpara, usually writtenMukwaraandKilpara. These were the usual intermarrying exogamous phratries. According to the natives, Mukwara and Kilpara were the two wives of a prehistoric black fellow, "the Eves of the Adam of the Darling," Mr. Lockhart saysâ€”like the Hebrew Lilith and Eve, wives of Adam,Lilith being a Serpent woman. (If Rachael and Leah are really animal names, they may be old phratry names, though I think it highly improbable.)

The children of wife Mukwara married those of wife Kilpara, andvice versa, the children taking the mother's name. Next, says the myth, as in the theories of Dr. Durkheim and Mr. Frazer, the two stocks, Mukwara and Kilpara, subdivided into totem kins, as Kilpara into Emu, Duck, &c., Mukwara into Kangaroo, Opossum, &c. (There is perhaps no modern theory of the origin of totemism, including my own, which has not been somewhere, and to some extent, anticipated by the mythical guesses of savages. The Port Fairy tribes, in their myth, take my view, and make the phratries arise in the male ancestor and his wife, two Cockatoos of various species; the totem kins were brought in by the sons of the two Cockatoos marrying women from a distance, of other animal parentage, their children keeping the maternal names, as Duck, Snipe, and so on. This myth is well inspired, for once!) In the passage of Mr. Lockhart, as cited by Mr. Curr, he does not give the translation of the names Mukwara and Kilpara. But in Mr. Brough Smyth'sAborigines of Victoria, a compilation of evidence published in 1878, we find another myth. "The natives of the northern parts of Victoria" believe that the makers of the world were "two beings that had severally the forms of the Crow and the Eagle Hawk." The Eagle Hawk wasMak-quarra; the Crow isKil-parra.[8]

Again, Mr. Bulmer writes: "The blacks of the Murray"â€”the river severing northern Victoria from New South Walesâ€”"are divided into two classes" (phratries), "the Mak-quarra, or Eagle, and the Kilparra, or Crow. If the man be Mak-quarra, the woman must be Kil-parra," by phratry.[9]

One myth (1852-53) explains Mukwara and Kilpara as wives of one man, and mothers of the phratries. The other (1878) says that Mukwara was a cosmic Eagle Hawk, Kilpara a cosmic Crow. They were on hostile terms, like Ormuzd and Ahriman; like the Thlinket phratry-founders, Raven and Wolf; and like the name-giving founders of phratries in New Britain, Te Kabinana, the author of good, and Te Kovuvura, the author of evil.[10]Eagle Hawk and Crow, Kilpara and Mukwara, in one of the myths, made peace, one condition being that "the Murray blacks should be divided into two classes" (phratries) called Mukwara and Kilpara, Eagle Hawk and Crow.[11]

Crow and Eagle Hawk, then, were apparently names of hostile groups, which, makingconnubium, became allied phratries.

The evidence thus is that Mukwara meant Eagle Hawk, that Kilpara meant Crow, in the language of some tribe which, so far, I have not been able to identify in glossaries. Probably the tribe is now extinct. But these two names for Eagle Hawk and Crow now denote two phratries in many widely separated tribes, which, in common use,employ various quite different names for Eagle Hawk and Crow.

Now the point is that, in Mukwara phratry (Eagle Hawk), we almost always find,under another name, Eagle Hawk as a totem kin; and in Kilpara, Crow, we find,under another name, Crow as a totem kin. In many other cases, we cannot translate the phratry names, but, by a fortunate chance, the meanings of Kilpara and Mukwara have been preserved, and we see that, as in America, so also in Australia, phratries contain totem kins representing the phratry animal-name givers.

We proceed to give instances.

On the Paroo River, for example, are the Barinji; they call the Eagle Hawk "Biliari," or Billiara; their name for Crow is not given[12]But among the Barinji, Biliari, the Eagle Hawk, is a totem in the phratry called Mukwara, which means Eagle Hawk; Crow is not given, we saw, but here at least is the totem kin Eagle Hawkâ€”Biliariâ€”in the Eagle Hawk phratry, called by the foreign, and, to the Barinji, probably meaningless name, "Mukwara" (Mak-quarra).[13]This applies to four other tribes.

The Barkinji have the same phratry names, Mukwara and Kilpara, as the Barinji. Their totem names are on the same system as those of the Ta-ta-thi Among the Ta-ta-thi the light Eagle Hawk isWaip-illi, he comes in Mukwarra, that is, in Eagle Hawk, phratry; andWalakili(the Crow), among the Ta-ta-thi, comes in Crow (Kilpara) phratry. The Wiimbaio, too, have totem Eagle Hawk in Mukwara (Eagle Hawk) and totem Crow in Kilpara (Crow).

The Keramin tribe live four hundred miles away from the Barinji. They have not the same name, Biliari, for the Eagle Hawk. Their name for Eagle Hawk is Mundhill. This totem, Eagle Hawk, among the Keramin, appears in Eagle Hawk phratry (Mukwara). The Keramin name for Crow is Wak. He occurs in Kilpara (Crow) phratry. All is as by my theory it ought to be.[14]

None of these tribes has "matrimonial classes," a relatively late device, or no such classes are assigned to them by our authorities. These tribes are of a type so archaic, that Mr. Howitt has called the primitive type,par excellence, "Barkinji."

All this set of tribes have their own names, in their own various tongues, for "Eagle Hawk" and "Craw," but all call their phratries by the foreign or obsolete names for "Eagle Hawk" and "Crow," namely, Mukwara and Kilpara. Occasionally either Crow totem is not given by our informants, or Eagle Hawk totem is not given, but Eagle Hawk, when given, is always in Eagle Hawk phratry (Mukwara), and Crow, when given, is always in Crow phratry (Kilpara). Where both Eagle Hawk and Crow totems are given, they invariably occur, Eagle Hawk totem in Mukwara (Eagle Hawk) phratry, and Crow totem in Kilpara (Crow) phratry.

In the Ngarigo tribe, the phratries are Eagle Hawk and Crow (Merung and Yukambruk), but neither fowl is given in the lists of totems, which, usually, are not exhaustive. The same fact meets us in the Wolgal tribe; the phratries are Malian and Umbe (Eagle Hawk and Crow), but neither bird is given as a totem.[15]Mr. Spencer, in a letter to me, gives, for a tribe adjacent to the Wolgal, the phratries Multu (Eagle Hawk), and Umbe (Crow); the totems I do not know. Among the Wiraidjuri tribe, Mr. Howitt does not know the phratry names, but the tribe have the Kamilaroi class names, and Eagle Hawk and Crow, as usual, in the opposite unnamed phratries. Among a sept of the Wiraidjuri on the Lachlan River, the phratry names are Mukula and Budthurung. The meaning of Mukula is not given, but Budthurung means "Black Duck" and Black Duck totem is in Black Duck phratry, Budthurung in Budthurung, as it ought to be.[16]Mr. Howitt writes that there is "no explanation" of why Budthurung is both a phratry name and a totem name. The fact, we see, is usual.

In several cases, where phratry names are lost, or are of unknown meaning, Eagle Hawk and Crow occur inoppositeexogamous moieties, which once had phratry names, or now have phratry names of unknown significance. The evidence, then, is that Eagle Hawk and Crow totems, over a vast extent of country, have been in Eagle Hawk and Crow phratries, while, when they occur in phratries whose names are lost, the lost names or untranslatable namesmayhave meant Eagle Hawk and Crow. Unluckily the names of the phratries of the central tribes about Lake Eyre and south-westâ€”Kararu and Matteriâ€”are of unknown meaning: such tribes are the Dieri, Urabunna, and their neighbours. We do indeed find Kuraru, meaning Eagle Hawk, in a tribe where the phratry name is Kararu; and Karawora is also a frequent name for Eagle Hawk in these tribes. But then Kurara means Rain, in a cognate tribe; and we must not be led into conjectural translations of names, based merely on apparent similarities of sound.

At all events, in the Kararu-Matteri phratries, we find Eagle Hawk and Crow opposed, appearing in opposite phratries in five cases, just as they do in tribes far south.[17]Again, in the Kulin "nation," now extinct, we learn that their phratries were Bunjil (Eagle Hawk) and Waa (Crow), while of the totems nothing is known.[18]It is obvious that several phratry names, capable of being translated, mean these two animals, Eagle Hawk and Crow, while two other widespread phratry names, Yungaru and Wutaru, appear to be connected with other animals. "The symbol of the Yungaru division," says Mr. Bridgman, "is the Alligator, and of the Wutaru, the Kangaroo."[19]Mr. Chatfield, however, gives Emu or Carpet Snake for Wutaru, and Opossum for Yungaru.[20]

More certain animal names for phratries are Kroki-Kumite; Krokitch-Gamutch; Krokitch-Kuputch; Ku-urokeetch-Kappatch; Krokage-Kubitch; all of which denote two separate species of cockatoo; while these birds,sometimes under other names, are totems in the phratries named after them. The tribe may not know the meaning of its phratry names. Thus, in tribes east of the Gournditch Mara, Kuurokeetch means Long-billed Cockatoo, and Kappatch means Banksian Cockatoo, as I understand.[21]But, within the phratries of all the Kuurokeetch-Kappatch forms of names, the two Cockatoos also occurunder other names, as totem kins: such names are Karaal, Wila, Wurant, and Garchuka.[22]

In the Annan River tribe, Mr. Howitt gives the phratries as Walar (a Bee), and Marla (a Bee), doubtless two Bees of different species.[23]In this case two names of matrimonial classes, Walar and Jorro, also mean Bee. Other cases of conjectural interpretation of phratry names might be given, but where the phratry names can be certainly translated they are names of animals, in all Australian cases known to me except one. When the phratry names cannot be translated, the reason may be that they were originally foreign names, borrowed, with the phratriac institution itself, by one tribe from another. Thus if tribes with totems Eagle Hawk and Crow (Biliara and Waa, let us say) borrowed the phratriac institution from a Mukwara-Kilpara tribe, they might take over Mukwara and Kilpara as phratry names, while not knowing, or at last forgetting, their meaning.

Borrowing of songs and of religious dances is known to be common in the tribes, and it is certain that the Arunta are borrowing four class names from the north. Again, several tribes have the Kamilaroiclassnames (Ipai, Kumbo, Murri, Kubbi), but have not the Kamilaroiphratrynames, Kupathin and Dilbi. Thus the Wiraidjuri, with Kamilaroiclassnames, have not Kamilaroiphratries, but have Mukula (untranslated), and Budthurung (Black Duck). The Wonghibon, with Kamilaroiclassnames, havephratriesNgielbumurra and Mukumurra. On the other hand the Kaiabara tribe, far north in Queensland, have the Kamilaroiphratrynames Dilebi and Kubatine (= Dilbi and Kupathin), but their class names are not those of the Kamilaroi.[24]

It may be that some tribes, which had alreadyphratriesnot of the Kamilaroi names, borrowed the Kamilaroiclasses, while other tribes having the Kamilaroiphratriesevolved, or elsewhere borrowedclassesof names not those of the Kamilaroi.

Again, when the four or eight class system has taken firm hold, doing the work of the phratries, tribes often forget the meaning of the phratry names, or forget the names themselves. Once more, the phratry names may once have designated animals, whose names were changed for others, in the course of daily life, or by reason of some taboo. All these causes, with the very feeble condition of Australian linguistic studies, hamper us in our interpretations of phratry and class names. Often the tribes in whose language they originally occurred may be extinct. But we have shown that many phratry names are names of animals, and that the animals which give names to phratries often occur, in Australia as in America, as totems within their own phratries.

We have thus discovered the two lost totem kins!

Thus, if only for once, conjectures made on the strength of a theory are proved to be correct by facts later observed. We guessed (i.) that in the phratries should be totem-kin animals identical with the phratriac animals. We guessed (ii.) that the phratriac names of unknown sense might be identical in meaning with the actual everyday names of the totem animals. And we guessed (iii.) for reasons of early marriage law (as conjectured in our system) that the totem kins of the same names as the phratries would be found each in the phratry of its own nameâ€”if discovered in Australia at all.

All three conjectures are proved to be correct. The third was implied in Dr. Durkheim's and Mr. Frazer's old hypothesis, that there were two original groups, say Eagle Hawk and Crow, and that the totem kins were segmented out of them, so that each original animal-named group would necessarily head its own totemic colonies. But this, in many cases, as we have seen, is what it does not do, and another animal of its genus heads the opposite phratry.

Not accepting Mr. Frazer's old theory, I anticipated the discovery of Eagle Hawk totem kininEagle Hawk phratry, and of CrowinCrow phratry, for reasons less simple and conspicuous. It has been shown, and is obvious that, by exogamy and female descent, each local group of animal name, say Eagle Hawk and Crow, would come to contain members of every group nameexcept its own. When the men of Crowlocalgroup had for generations never married a woman of Crow name, and when the wives, of other names, within Crowlocalgroup had bequeathed these other names to their children, there could be, in Crow local group, no Crowby descent, nor any Eagle Hawkby descentin Eagle Hawklocalgroup.

Suppose that these two local groups, each full of members of other animal names derived from other groups by maternal descent, madeconnubium, and became phratries containing totem kins.What, then, would be the marriageable status of the two kins which bare the phratry names?All Crows would be, as we saw, by my system, in Eagle Hawk phratry; all Eagle Hawks would be Crow phratry (or other phratries, or "sub-phratries," if these existed). They could not marry, of course, within their own phratries, that was utterly out of the question.But, also, they could not marry into the opposite phratries, lately local groups, because these bore their own old sacred local group names. For the the law of the local group had been, "No marriage within the name of the local group," "No Crow to marry into local group Crow." Yet here is Crow who, by phratry law, cannot marry into his own phratry, Eagle Hawk; while, if he marries into phratry Crow, he contravenes the old law of "No marriage within the local group of your own name." That group, to be sure, is now an element in a new organisation, the phratry organisation, but, as Dr. Durkheim says in another case, "The old prohibition, deeply rooted in manners and customs, survives."[25]

This quandary would necessarily occur, under the new conditions, and in the new legal situation created by the erection of the two animal-named local groups into phratries.

Two whole totem kins, say Wolf and Raven, or Eagle Hawk and Crow, were, in the new conditions,plusthe old legal survival, cut off from marriage. If they died celibate, their disappearance needs no further explanation. But they do not disappear. If they changed their totems their descendants are lost under new totem names; but, if totems were now fully-blown entities, they could not change their totems. They could, however, desert their local tribe, which has notribal"religion" (it sometimes, however, has an animal name), and join another set of local groups (as Urabunna and Arunta do constantly naturalise themselves among each other, to-day), or,they could simply change their phratries(late their local groups). Eagle Hawk totem kin, by going into Eagle Hawk phratry, could marry into Crow phratry; and Crow totem kin, by going into Crow phratry, could marry into Eagle Hawk phratry. This, I suggest, was what they did.

This would entail a shock to tender consciences, as each kin is now marrying into the very phratry which had been forbidden to it. But, if totems were now full blown, anything, however desperate, was better than to change your totem; and after all, Eagle Hawk and Crow were only returning each into the new phratry which represented their old local group by maternal descent. Thus in America we do find Wolf totem kin, among the Thlinkets, in Wolf phratry, and Raven in Raven phratry; with Eagle Hawk in Eagle Hawk, Crow in Crow phratries, Cockatoo and Bee in Cockatoo and Bee phratries, Black Duck in Black Duck phratry, in Australia.

The difficulty, that Crow and Eagle Hawk were now marrying precisely where they had been forbidden to marry when phratry law first was sketched out, has been brought to my notice. But the weakest must go to the wall, and, as soon as the totem became (as Mr. Howitt assures us that it has become) nearer, dearer, more intimately a man's own than the phratry animal, to the wall, under pressure of circumstances, went attachment to the phratry.Il faut se marier, and marriage could only be achieved, for totem kins of the phratry names; by a change of phratry.

But is the process of totem kins changing their local groups (now become phratries) a possible process? Under the newrÃ©gimeof fully developed totemism it was possible; more, it was certainly done, in the remote past, by individuals, as I proceed to demonstrate.

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