THE ARUNTA ANOMALY

As to thePirrauruorPiraungarucustom, moreover, Mr. Howitt has himself candidly observed that, on his theory, it "ought rather to have been perpetuated than abandoned" (so itisabandoned) "under conditions of environment" (such as more abundant food) "which permitted thePirraurugroup to remain together on one spot, instead of being compelled by the exigencies of existence to separate into lesser groups having the Noa" (or regular) "marriage."[36]SoPirraurudon't live in "groups"!

As a fact, the more that supplies, in some regions, as on the south coast, permit relatively large groups to coexist, the less is their marital license; while, on the other hand, the less favourable the conditions of supply (as in the Barkinji region), the less do we hear ofPirrauru, or anything of the kind, except among tribes of the Kiraru and Matteri phratries. For these reasons,Pirrauruunions appear to mark an isolated moment in culture, not to be a survival of universal pristine promiscuity. They are almost always associated, in their inception, with seasons of frolic and lust, and with large assemblages, rather than with the usual course of everyday existence.

For the reasons here stated, it does not seem that Australian institutions yield any evidence for primitive promiscuity.

[1]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 89.

[2]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 90.

[3]Loc. cit.Mr. Howitt says "classes," but we adhere to the term "phratries."

[4]Natives of Central Australia, Spencer and Gillen, p. 63.

[5]Spencer end Gillen, pp. 92-98.

[6]Natives of Central Australia, Spencer and Gillen, p. 63.

[7]For a large account of these customs seeThe Golden Bough, second edition.

[8]Fison, J.A.I., xiv. p. 28.

[9]Natives of Central Australia, Spencer and Gillen, p. 97.

[10]Ibid., p. 111.

[11]Roth,N.W.C. Queensland Aborigines, p. 56.

[12]Starcke,The Primitive Family, p. 207.

[13]L'Année Sociologique, i. pp. 313-316.

[14]L'Année Sociologique, i. p. 315.

[15]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, xiv.

[16]Can Dr. Fison mean of the same matrimonial class?

[17]Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 166, 167.

[18]Native Races of South-East Australia, p. 163. Pointed out by Mr. N. W. Thomas.

[19]The participation of many men in thejus primae noctisis open to various explanations.

[20]Poetry of the Antijacobin.

[21]Studies in Ancient History, ii. p. 52.

[22]L'Année Sociologique, i., pp.38, 39, 62.

[23]J. A. I., pp. 56-60, August 1890.

[24]Howitt,J. A. I., August 1890, pp. 55-58.

[25]What the Dieri callPirauru(legalised paramour) the adjacent Kunan-daburi tribe callDilpa Mali. In this tribe the individual husband or individual wife (that is, the real wife or husband) is styledNubaia, in DieriNoa, in UrabunnaNupa. Husband's brother, sister's husband, wife's sister, and brother's wife are allNubaia Kodimaliin Kunandabori, and are allNoain Dieri. WhatDilpa Mali(legalised paramour, or "accessory wife or husband") means in Kunandabori Mr. Howitt does not know. But he learns thatKodi Mali(applied toPirauru) means "notNubaia," that is, "notlegal individual husband or wife." If we knew what Dilpa means in Dilpa Mali (legalised paramour of either sex), we should know more than we are apt to do in the present state of Australian philology.At Port Lincoln a man calls his own wifeYung Ara, that of his brotherKarteti(Trans. Phil. Soc. Vic., v. 180). What do these words mean?—Report of Regents of Smithsonian Institute, 1883, pp. 804-806.

At Port Lincoln a man calls his own wifeYung Ara, that of his brotherKarteti(Trans. Phil. Soc. Vic., v. 180). What do these words mean?—Report of Regents of Smithsonian Institute, 1883, pp. 804-806.

[26]Report of Regents of Smithsonian Institute, 1883, p. 807.

[27]Tippa, in one tongue,Malkuin another, denote the tassel which is a man's full dress suit.

[28]Mr. Howitt says that the pair areTippa Malku"for the time being" (p. 179), though the association seems to be permanent. May girls Tippa Malku—"sealed" to a man—have relations with other men before their actual marriage, and with what men? We are not told, but a girl cannot be aPirraurubefore she isTippa Malku. IfPirrauru"arises through the exchange by brothers of theirwives" (p. 181), how can an unmarried man who has no wife become aPirrauru? He does. WhenPirraurupeople are "re-allotted" (p. 182), does the old connection persist, or is it broken, or is it merely in being for the festive occasion? How does the jealousy of thePirrauru, which is great, like the change? These questions, and many more, are asked by Mr. N. W. Thomas.

[29]Will any one say, originally all Noa people were actual husbands and wives to each other? Then the Kandri ceremony andPirrauruwere devised to limit Tom, Dick, and Harry, &c., to Jane, Mary, and Susan, &c., all these men beingPirrauruto all these women, andvice versa. Next, Tippa Malku was devised, limiting Jane to Tom, butPirrauruwas retained, to modify that limitation. Anybody is welcome to this mode of makingPirraurulogically thinkable, without priorTippa Malku: if he thinks that the arrangement is logically thinkable, which I do not.

[30]Or his seniors would hare to ask it. But his kin could not possess the tight to betroth him before kinship was recognised, which, before marriage existed, it could not be.

[31]I have here had the advantage of using a MS. note by Mr. N. W. Thomas.

[32]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 191.

[33]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 195, 217, 219, 224, 260.

[34]Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 177, 178.

[35]Ibid., p. 283.

[36]J. A. I., xiii. p. 34.

How could man, if promiscuous, cease to be so?—Opinion of Mr. Howitt—Ethical training in groups very small, by reason of economic conditions—Likes and dislikes—Love and jealousy—Distinctions and restrictions—Origin of restrictions not explained by Professor Spencer—His account of the Arunta—Among them the totem does not regulate marriage, is not exogamous, denotes a magical society—Causes of this unique state of things—Male descent: doctrine of reincarnation, belief in spirit-haunted stonechuringa nanja—Mr. Spencer thinks Arunta totemism pristine—This opinion contested—How Arunta totemism ceased to regulate marriage—Result of isolated belief inchuringa nanja—Contradictory Arunta myths—Arunta totemism impossible in tribes with female descent—Case of the Urabunna—Origin ofchuringa nanjabelief—Sacred stone objects in New South Wales—Present Arunta belief perhaps based on myths explanatory of stone amulets of unknown meaning—Proof that the more northern tribes never held the Arunta belief inchuringa nanja—Traces of Arunta ideas among the Euahlayi—Possible traces of a belief in a sky-dwelling being among southern Arunta—Mr. Gillen's "great Ulthaana of the heavens"—How arose the magic-working animal-named Arunta societies?—Not found in the south-east—Mr. Spencer's theory that they do survive—Criticism of his evidence—Recapitulation—Arunta totemism not primitive but modified.

Next we have to ask how, granting the hypothesis of the promiscuous horde, man ceased to be promiscuous. It will be seen that, on a theory of Mr. Howitt's, man was, in fact, far on the way of ceasing to be promiscuous or a "horde's man," before he introduced the moral reform of bisecting his horde into phratries, for the purpose of preventing brother with sister marriages. Till unions were permanent, and kin recognised, things impossible in a state of promiscuity, nobody could dream of forbidding brother and sister marriage, because nobody could know who was brother or sister to whom. Now, Mr. Howitt does indicate a way in which man might cease to be promiscuous, before any sage invented the system of exogamous phratries.

He writes,[1]"I start ... from the assumption that there was once an undivided commune ... I do not desire to be understood as maintaining that it implies necessarily the assumption of complete communism between the sexes. Assuming that the former physical conditions of the Australian continent were much as they are now, complete communism always existing would, I think, be an impossibility. The character of the country, the necessity of hunting for food, and of removing from one spot to another in search of game and of vegetable food, would necessarily cause any undivided commune,when it assumed dimensions of more than that of a few members, to break up, under the necessities of existence, into two or more communes of similar constitution to itself. In addition to this it has become evident to me, after a long acquaintance with the Australian savage, that, in the past as now, individual likes and dislikes must have existed; so that, although there was the admitted common right between certain groups of the commune, in practice these rights would either not be exercised by reason of various causes, or would remain in abeyance, so far as the separated but allied undivided communes were concerned, until on great ceremonial occasions, or where certain periodical gatherings for food purposes reunited temporarily all the segments of the original community. In short, so far as the evidence goes at present, I am inclined to regard the probable condition of the undivided commune as being well represented now by what occurs when on certain occasions the modified divided communes reunite."[2]

What occurs in these festive assemblies among certain central and northern tribes, as we have seen, is a legalised and restricted change of wives all round, with disregard, in some cases, of some of the tribal rules against incest. On Mr. Howitt's theory the undivided communal horde must always have been, as I have urged, dividing itself, owing to lack of supplies. It would be a very small group, continually broken up, and intercourse of the sexes even in that group, must have been restrained by jealousy, based on the asserted existence of individual "likes" and "dislikes." These restrictions, again, must have led to some idea that the man usually associated with, and responsible for feeding, and protecting, and correcting the woman and her children, was just the man who "liked" her, the man whom she "liked," and the man who "disliked" other men if they wooed her.

But that state of things is not an undivided communal horde at all! It is much more akin to the state of things in which I take marriage rules to have arisen.

We may suppose, then, that early moral distinctions and restrictions grew up among the practically "family" groups of everyday life, as described by Mr. Howitt, and we need not discuss again the question whether, at this very early period, there existed a community exactly like the local tribe of to-day in every respect—except that marriage was utterly unregulated, till an inspired medicine man promulgated the law of exogamy, his own invention.

Mr. Howitt began his long and invaluable studies of these problems as a disciple of Mr. Lewis Morgan. That scholar was a warm partisan of the primeval horde, of group marriage, and (at times) of a reformatory movement. These ideas, first admitted to Mr. Howitt's mind, have remained with him, but he has seen clearly that the whole theory needed at least that essential modification which his practical knowledge of savage life has enabled him to make. He does not seem to me to hold that the promiscuous horde suddenly, for no reason, reformed itself: his reformers had previous ethical training in a state of daily life which is not that of the hypothetical horde. But he still clings to the horde, tiny as it must have been, as the source of a tradition of a brief-lived period of promiscuity. This faith is but the "after-image" left in his mental processes by the glow of Mr. Morgan's theory, but the faith is confirmed by his view of the terms of relationship, and of thePiraungaru,Pirrauru, and similar customs. We have shown, in the last chapter, that the terms and the customs are not necessarily proofs of promiscuity in the past, but may be otherwise interpreted with logical consistency, and in conformity with human nature.

The statement of Mr. Howitt shows how the communal horde of the hypothesis might come to see that it needed moral reformation. In daily life, by Mr. Howitt's theory, it had practically ceased to be a communal horde before the medicine man was inspired to reform it. The hypothesis of Professor Baldwin Spencer resembles that of Mr. Howitt, but, unlike his (as it used to stand), accounts for the existence of animal-named sets of people within the phratries. Mr. Spencer, starting from the present social condition of the Arunta "nation" or group of tribes (Arunta, Kaitish, Ilpirra, Unmatjera), supposes that these tribes retain pristine traits, once universal, but now confined to them. The peculiar pristine traits, by the theory, are (1) the existence of animal-named local societies for magical purposes. The members of each local group worked magic for their name-giving animal or plant, but any one might marry a woman of his own group name, Eagle Hawk, Cockatoo, and the like, while these names were not inherited, either from father or mother, and did not denote a bond of kinship. Mr. Spencer, then, supposes the horde to have been composed of such magical societies, at a very remote date, before sexual relations were regulated by any law. Later, in some fashion, and for some reason which Mr. Spencer does not profess to explain, "there was felt the need of some form of organisation, and this gradually resulted in the development of exogamous groups."[3]These "exogamous groups," among the Arunta, are now the four or eight "matrimonial classes," as among other tribes of northern Australia. These tribes, as a rule, have phratries, but the Arunta have lost even the phratry names.

Mr. Spencer's theory thus explains the existence of animal-named groups—as co-operative magical societies, for breeding the animals or plants—but does not explain how exogamy arose, or why, everywhere, except among the Arunta, all the animal or plant named sets of people are kinships, and are exogamous, while they are neither the one or the other among the Arunta. Either the Arunta groups have once been exogamous totem kinships, and have ceased to be so, becoming magical societies; or such animal-named sets of people have, everywhere, first been magical societies, and later become exogamous totem kinships. Mr. Spencer holds the latter view, we hold the former, believing that the Arunta have once been in the universal state of totemic exogamy, and that, by a perfectly intelligible process, their animal-named groups have become magical societies, no longer exogamous kinships. We can show how the old exogamous totem kinship, among the Arunta, became a magical society, not regulating sexual relations; but we cannot imagine how all totemic mankind, if they began with magical societies in an unregulated horde, should have everywhere, except among the Arunta, conspired to convert these magical societies into kinships with exogamy. If the social organisation of the Arunta were peculiarly primitive, if their beliefs and ceremonials were of the most archaic type, there might be some ground for Mr. Spencer's opinion. But Mr. Hartland justly says that all the beliefs and institutions of the Arunta "point in the same direction, namely, that the Arunta are the most advanced and not the most primitive of the Central Australian tribes."[4]

The Arunta, a tribe so advanced that it has forgotten its phratry names, has male kinship, eight matrimonial classes, andlocaltotem groups, with Headmen hereditary in the male line, and so cannot possibly be called "primitive," as regards organisation. If, then, the tribe possesses a peculiar institution, contravening what is universally practised, the natural inference is that the Arunta institution, being absolutely isolated and unique, as far as its non-exogamy goes, in an advanced tribe, is a local freak or "sport," like many others which exist. This inference seems to be corroborated when we discover, as we do at a glance, the peculiar conditions without which the Arunta organisation is physically impossible. These essential and indispensable conditions are admitted by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen to be:—

1. Male reckoning of descent—which is found in very many tribes where totems are exogamous—as everywhere.

2. Local totem groups, which are a result of male reckoning of descent. These also are found in many other tribes where, as everywhere, totems are exogamous.

3. The belief that the spirits of the primal ancestors of the "Dream-Time" (Alcheringa)—creatures evolved out of various animal shapes into human form—are constantly reincarnated in new-born children. This belief is found in all the northern tribes with male descent; and among the Urabunna, who have female descent—but among all these tribes totems are exogamous, as everywhere.

4. The Arunta and Kaitish, with two or three minor neighbouring tribes, believe that spirits desiring incarnation, all of one totem in each case, reside "at certain definite spots." So do the Urabunna believe, but at each of these spots, in Urabunna land, there may be spiritsof several different totems.[5]Among the Urabunna, as everywhere, totems are exogamous. None of these four conditions, nor all of them, can produce the Arunta totemic non-exogamy.

Finally (5) the Arunta and Kaitish, and they alone, believe not only that the spirits desiring reincarnation reside at certain definite spots, and not only that the spirits there are, in each case,all of one totem(which is essential), but also that these spirits are most closely associated with objects of stone, inscribed with archaic markings (churinga nanja), which the spirits have dropped in these places—the scenes where the ancestors died (Oknanikilla). These stone objects, and this belief in their connection with ancestral spirits, are found in the Arunta region alone, and are the determining cause, or inseparable accident at least, of the non-exogamy of Arunta totemism, as will be fully explained later.

Not one of these five conditions is reported by Mr. Howitt among the primitive south-eastern tribes, and the fifth is found only in Aruntadom. Yet Mr. Spencer regards as the earliest form of totemism extant that Arunta form, which requires four conditions, not found in the tribes of primitive organisation, and a fifth, which is peculiar to the Arunta "nation" alone.

That the Arunta tribe, whether shut off from all others or not (as a matter of fact it is not), should alone (while advanced in all respects, including marriage and ceremonials) have retained a belief which, though called primitive, is unknown among primitive tribes, seems a singularly paradoxical hypothesis. Meanwhile the cause of the Arunta peculiarity—non-exogamous totems—is recognised by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, who also declare that the cause is isolated. They say "it is the idea of spirit individuals associated withchuringa" (manufactured objects of stone), "and resident in certain definite spots, that lies at the root of the present totemic system of the Arunta tribe."[6]

Again, they inform us that thechuringabelief, and the existence of stonechuringa, are things isolated. "In the Worgaia tribe, which inhabits the country to the north-east of the Kaitish" (neighbours of the Arunta), "we meet, so far as we have been able to discover, with the last traces of thechuringa—that is, of thechuringawith its meaning and significance, as known to us in the true central tribes, as associated with the spirits ofAlcheringaancestors" (mythical beings, supposed to be constantly reincarnated).[7]Thus, "the present totemic system of the Arunta tribe,"—in which, contrary to universal rule, persons of the same totem may inter-marry—reposes on a belief associated with certain manufactured articles of stone, and neither the belief nor the stone objects are discovered beyond a certain limited region. It is proper to add that the regretted Mr. David Carnegie found, at Family Wells, in the desert of Central Australia, two stone objects, one plain, the other rudely marked with concentric circles, which resemblechuringa nanja. He mentions two others found and thrown away by Colonel Warburton. The meaning or use of these objects was not ascertained.[8]

We differ from Messrs. Spencer and Gillen when they think that this peculiar and isolated belief, held by four or five tribes of confessedly advanced social organisation and ceremonials (a belief only possible under advanced social organisation), is the pristine form of totemism, out of which all totemists, however primitive, have found their way except the Arunta "nation" alone. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write: "... the only conclusion which it seems possible to arrive at is that in the more northern tribes" (which have no churinga nanja, nostonechuringa), "the churinga represent the surviving relics of a time when the beliefs among those tribes were similar to those which now exist among the Arunta. It is more easy to imagine a change which shall lead from the present Arunta or Kaitish belief to that which exists among the Warramunga, than it is to imagine one which shall lead from the Warramunga to the Arunta."[9]Now among the Warramunga, as everywhere, the division of the totems between the two (exogamous) moieties is complete, "and, with very few exceptions indeed, the children follow the father."[10](These exceptions are not explained.) Among the Kaitish the same totems occur among both exogamous moieties, so persons of the same totemcanintermarry, but "it is a very rare thing for a man to marry a woman of the same totem as himself."[11]

The obvious conclusion is the reverse of that which our authors think "alone possible." The Kaitish have adopted the Aruntachuringa nanjausage which introduces the same totem into both exogamous moieties, but, unlike the Arunta, they have not yet discarded the old universal rule, "No marriage within the totem." It is not absolutely forbidden, but it scarcely ever occurs. The Kaitish, as regards exogamy and religion, are a link between the primitive south-eastern tribes and the Arunta.

We go on to show in detail how Arunta totems alone ceased to be exogamous, and to demonstrate that the more northern tribes have never been, and never can have been, in the present Arunta condition. Among the Arunta, in the classes, none of them his own, into which alone a man may marry, there are plenty of women of his own totem. Thus, in marrying a woman of his totem, but not of his set of classes, a man does not break the law of Arunta exogamy. Now how does it happen that a totem may be in both sets of exogamous classes among the Arunta alone of mankind? Was this always the case from the beginning?

It is, naturally, our opinion that among the Arunta, as everywhere else, matters were originally, or not much later, so arranged that the same totem never appeared in both phratries, or, afterwards, when phratries were lost, in both opposed sets of two or four exogamous matrimonial classes. The only objection to this theory is that the Arunta themselves believe it, and mention the circumstance in their myths. These myths cannot be historical reminiscences of the "Dream-Time," which never existed. But even a myth may deviate into truth, especially as the Arunta must know that in other tribes the same totem never occurs in both phratries, and are clever enough to see that their method needs explanation as being an exception to general rule; and that, even now, "the great majority of any one totem belong to one moiety of the tribe." So they say that originally all Witchetty Grubs, for instance, were in the Bulthara-Panunga moiety (as most Grubs still are to this day), while all Emus were in the opposite exogamous moiety (Purula-Kumura). But, say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "owing to the system according to which totem names are" (now) "acquired, it is always possible for a man to be, say, a Purula or a Kumura, and yet a Witchetty; or, on the other hand, a Bulthara or a Panunga, and yet an Emu."[12]The present system of acquiring totem names has transferred the totems into both exogamous moieties, and so has made it possible to marry within the totem name.

This suggests that, in native opinion or conjecture, Arunta totems, like all others, were once exogamous; no totem ever occurred originally in both exogamous moieties. It also indicates that, in the opinion of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, they only ceased to be exogamous when the present method of acquiring totem names, an unique method, was introduced. Happily, to prove the historical worthlessness of Arunta legendary myth, the tribe has a contradictory legend. The same totem, according to this fable, occurred in both exogamous moieties, even in the mythic Dream-Time (Alcheringa); by this fable the natives explain (what needs explaining) how the same totem does occur inbothexogamous moieties to-day, and so is not exogamous.[13]

This is nonsense, just as the other contradictory myth was conjecture. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have themselves explained why the same totem maynowoccur in both moieties, and so be non-exogamous. The unique phenomenon is due to the actual and unique method of acquiring totem names.[14]Thus the modern method is not primitive. These passages are very instructive.

The Arunta have been so long in the relatively advanced state oflocaltotemism that their myths do not look behind it. A group, whether stationary or migratory, in the myths of the Dream-Time (theAlcheringa) always consists of persons of the same totem, with occasional visitors of other totems. The myths, we repeat, reflect the present state of local totem groups back on the past.

The myths allege (here the isolated superstition comes in) that the mythical ancestors of theAlcheringadied, or "went into the ground" at certain now haunted spots, marked by rocks or trees, which may be called "mortuary local totem-centres"—in native speech,Oknanikilla[15]Trees or rocks arose to mark the spot where the ancestors, all of one totem in each case, went into the ground. These trees or rocks are calledNanja. Thereabouts the dying ancestors deposited possessions peculiar to Aruntadom, their stone amulets, orchuringa nanja, with what are now read as totemic incised marks. Their spirits, all of one totem in each case, haunt theNanjarock or tree, and are especially attached to these stone amulets,[16]calledchuringa nanja. The spirits discarnate await a chance of entering into women, and being reborn. When a child comes to the birth, the mother, whatever her own or her husband's totem may be, names the spot where she supposes that she conceived the child, and the child'sNanjatree or rock is that in theOknanikilla, or mortuary local totem-centre nearest to the place where the child was conceived. Its male kin hunt for thechuringa, or stone amulet, there deposited by the dyingAlcheringaancestor; if they find it, it becomes the child'schuringa, for he is merely the ancestor spirit reborn. He (or she) "comes into his own"; hisNanjatree or rock, hischuringa nanja, and his original totem, which may be, and often is, neither that of his father or mother.

Thus inheriting his own oldNanjatree andchuringa, and totem,the child is not necessarily of his father's or mothers but is of his own old original totem, say Grub, or Hakea Flower, or Kangaroo, or Frog. His totem is thus not inherited, we repeat, as elsewhere, from either parent, but is derived, by the accident of his place of conception, from thelocaltotem, from the totemic ghosts (all of one totem) haunting the particular mortuary totem centre, orOknanikilla, where he was conceived. His totem may thus be inbothof the exogamous moieties, and for that reason alone is not exogamous. To take an example. A woman, by totem Cat, has a husband by totem Iguana. She conceives a child, and believes that she conceived it in a certain district. The local totem of that district is the Grub, Grub ghosts haunt the region; the child, therefore, is a Grub. He inherits his exogamous class, say Bukhara, from his father, and he must marry a woman of Class Kumara. But she may also be a Grub, for her totem, like his, has been acquired (like his, not by inheritance, but) by the accident that her mother conceived her in a Grub district. Thus, and thus only, are totems not exogamous among the Arunta. They are not inherited from either parent.

It is probable that, after male descent came in, the Arunta and Kaitish at first inherited their totems from their fathers, as among all other tribes with male descent. This appears to be proved by the fact that they still do inherit, from their fathers, totemic rites, and the power of doing totemic mummeries for their fathers' totems, even when, by the accident of their places of conception, they do not inherit their fathers' totems. When they did inherit the paternal totem, they were, doubtless, totemically exogamous, like all other tribes with either male or female descent.

One simple argument upsets the claim of Arunta totems to be primitive. In no tribe with female descent can a district have itslocaltotem, as among the Arunta. A district can only have a local totem if the majority of the living people, and of the haunting ghosts of the dead, are of one totem only. But this (setting aside the occasional results of an isolated Urabunna superstition) can only occur under male reckoning of descent, which confessedly is not primitive. In a region where reckoning in the female line exists a woman could not say, "I conceived my child in Grub district, the country of totem Grub"—for such a country there is not and cannot be. Consequently, among the Urabunna as everywhere with reckoning of descent in the female line, every child is of its mother's totem.

Let us examine other tribes who, like the Arunta, have the theory of reincarnation, but whose totems are, as elsewhere, exogamous, unlike those of the Arunta. The Urabunna have female descent, and their myth about the origin of totemic ancestors approximates to that of the Arunta, but, unlike the Arunta fable, does not produce, or account for, non-exogamy in totems. Things began, say the Urabunna, by the appearance of a few creatures half human, half bestial or vegetable. They had miraculous powers, and dropped spirits which tenanted lizards, snakes, and so on, all over the district. These spirits later became incarnated in human beings of the Lizard, Snake, or other totem, and are constantly being reincarnated. The two Urabunna phratries were originally a green and a brown snake: the Green Snake said to the Brown Snake, "I am Kirarawa, you are Matthurie"—the phratry names. It does not appear that these names now mean Green Snake and Brown Snake, though they may once have had these significations. The spirits left about by these snakes, like all the other such spirits (mai aurli) keep on being incarnated, and, when incarnated, the children bear the totem name of their mothers in each case. A Green Snake woman is entered by a spirit, which she bears as a Green Snake child. The accident of the locality in which the child was conceived does not affect his totem, so Urabunna totems remain in their own proper phratries, and therefore, by phratry law, are exogamous, as everywhere, except among the Arunta.[17]

This arrangement is merely the usual arrangement, with female descent A woman's child is of the woman's totem. Believing in reincarnation, the Urabunna merely adapt that belief to the facts. With female descent an Emu woman's child is Emu. If a tribe has male descent, an Emu father's child is Emu. With female descent, a spirit has entered an Emu woman and been born Emu: with male descent, a spirit has entered the wife of an Emu man, and, by inheritance from his father, is Emu. Yet Messrs. Spencer and Gillen think that the Arunta and Kaitish rule—demanding the non-primitive male descent, local groups, local ghosts all of one totem, andchuringastones of the mark of that totem (all of which are indispensable), "is probably the simplest and most primitive."[18]

Most primitive, by our author's own statement, the Arunta method cannot be, for, as they show, it demands male descent, local totemism, and the peculiar belief about manufactured stonechuringa. But they think it "most simple," because the Urabunna have a complicated myth, which, however, in no way affects the result, namely, that each child takes its mother's totem. Each spirit, according to the myth, changes its phratry and sex, and, necessarily, its totem, at each reincarnation, but that does not affect the result. Each child, as in all tribes with female descent, is still of its mother's totem.[19]Nochuringa nanjacause an anomaly among the Urabunna, for thechuringa nanja, and the belief about them, among the Urabunna do not exist.

The Urabunna myth, adapted to male descent, occurs in all the northern tribes, from the northern bounds of the Kaitish to the sea, which have no stonechuringa nanja; and in all of them totems are exogamous, because they never occur in both phratries, being uninfluenced by the Aruntachuringabelief. They cannot, for they are duly inherited from the father, and they are so inherited because the tribes have not the exceptionalChuringa Nanjacreed, attaching the spirit to the amulet of a local totem group, which fixes—by the accident of place of conception—the totem of each child.

The Arunta non-exogamous totems, in Australia, as we saw, are only found wherestone churinga nanjaare in use; these amulets being peculiarly the residence of the spirits of totemic ancestors.

The origin of that belief is obscure. It could not arise in the present condition of Arunta or Kaitish affairs, for, now, every stonechuringain the tribe has already its recognised legal owner, and, on the death of an owner, or the extinction of a local totem group, thechuringaare not left lying about to be found on or in the earth, but pass by a definite rule of inheritance; and they are all carefully warded and frequently examined, in Ertnatu-lunga, or sacred storehouses.[20]Thus stonechuringa nanja, to-day, are not left lying about on the surface, or buried in graves, like those which, on the birth of each Arunta child, are sought for, and sometimes found, at the local totem-centre, and near theNanjatree or rock, where the child was conceived. Therechuringa nanjamust have beenburied, of old, if our authors correctly say that the mythical ancestors "went into the ground, each carrying hischuringawith him."[21]Again we read, "Many of thechuringawere placedinthe ground, some natural object again marking the spot." The spot was always marked by some natural object, such as a tree or rock.[22]

Though our authors tell us that they know Arunta natives who, on the birth of a child, have sought for and found hischuringa nanjanear theNanjarock or tree next to the place where he was conceived, they do not say that thechuringaare found by digging.[23]If they are, or if theOknanikillareally are ancient burying-places (about which we are told nothing), the association of thechuringa nanjawith the ghost of the man in whose grave it is buried would be easily explained. But the impression left is that the stonechuringa nanjafound after search are discovered on the surface, dropped there by the spirit when about to be reincarnated.[24]

Here a curious fact may be filed for reference. Stone amulets, fashioned and decorated by man, are not known to be in use south of the Arunta region. But a cousin of my own, Mr. William Lang, found a stone object not unlike one figured by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, on his station near Cooma, New South Wales. The decoration was of the rectilineal type prevalent in that region. Mr. Lang knew nothing of the Aruntachuringatill I drew his attention to the subject. He then visited the Sydney Museum, and found several stone objects, "banana-shaped," exactly like the specimen (wooden?), one out of five known to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and published by them in their first work (p. 150). The New South Wales ornament, however, was always rectilineal. The articles appear to be obsolete among the tribes of New South Wales. It is said that they were erected of old round graves of the dead. Whites call them "grave stones." Careful articles on these decorated stone objects of New South Wales have been written by Mr. W. R. Harper and Mr. Graham Officer.[25]As a rule, they are not banana-shaped or crescentine, but are in the form of enormous stone cigars. They used to be placed, twelve or thirteen of them, on graves, and their weight, averaging about 3 lbs. to 4 lbs., makes them less portable than most of thechuringaof the Arunta. It does not seem at all probable that Arunta stonechuringawere ever erected round graves, but excavations atOknanikilla, if they could be executed without a shock to Arunta sentiment, might throw some light on the subject.

In my opinion, thechuringafound atOknanikillaby the Arunta may have had no such original significance as is now attached to them. The belief may be a mere myth, explaining the sense of objects found and not understood—relics, as the myth itself avers, of an earlier race, theAlcheringafolk. The only information about those New South Wales decorated cigar-shaped and banana-shaped stone objects which could be got out of a local black was: "All same as bloody brand." He meant, conceivably, that the incised markings were totem marks, I think, and in that sense the marks on Arunta stonechuringaare now interpreted.

It would not be surprising if the Arunta—supposing that they possessed the belief in "spirit trees," and the belief in reincarnation, and then found, near theNanjatrees or rocks, the stone amulets or "grave stones" of some earlier occupants of the region—evolved the myth that ancestral souls, connected with the spirit trees, abode especially in these decorated stones, common enough in American and European neolithic sites.

This is, of course, a mere conjecture. But Messrs. Spencer and Gillen agree with us when they say: "It is this idea of spirit individuals associated withchuringa, and resident in certain definite spots, that lies at the root of the present totemic system of the Arunta tribes."[26]

Three facts are now apparent. The Arunta (i) must have reckoned in the male line for a very long time, otherwise their myths would not take local totem-centres for granted as a primeval fact, since such centres can only occur and exist under male reckoning of descent; in cases where the husbands do not go to the wives' region of abode. (2) The myth that totemiclocalghosts are reincarnated cannot be older thanlocaltotem-centres, for it is their old local totem-centres that the totemic ghosts do haunt. The spots are strewn with their old totem-markedchuringa. The myths make the wandering groups of fabled ancestors all of one totem, because, by male reckoning, they could be little else till thechuringasuperstition arose and scattered totems about at random in the population.

Again, (3) even local totemism,plusthe belief in the reincarnation of primary ancestral spirits, did not produce the non-exogamy of totems, till it was reinforced by the unique Arunta belief in the stonechuringa nanja.

The totemism of the Arunta, then, was originally like that of their neighbours, exogamous, till the stonechuringa nanjabecame the centre of a myth which introduces the same totems into both exogamous moieties among the Arunta, where it has broken down the old exogamous totemic rule. Among the Kaitish, as we saw, the rule is still surviving in general practice.

We now proceed to demonstrate that the more northern tribes have never passed through the present Arunta state of belief and customary law.

Suppose that the Arunta to-day dropped theirchuringa nanjabelief, and allowed the totem name to be inherited through the father, as the right to work the ceremonies of the totem still is inherited by sons who do not inherit the totem itself. What would follow? Why, totems among the Arunta would still be non-exogamous, for the existingchuringa nanjabelief has brought the same totems into both exogamous moieties, and there they would remain, after they came to be inherited in the male line. In the same way, if the northern tribes had once been in the Arunta state of belief, their totems would still be in both exogamous moieties, and would not regulate marriage. But this is not the case. These tribes, therefore, have never been in the present Arunta condition.Q.E.D.

The Arunta belief is, obviously, an elaboration of the belief in reincarnation, not held, as far as is known, by the Dieri, but held by the Urabunna, and by all tribes from the Urabunna northwards to the sea. Mr. Howitt does not mention the belief among the south-eastern tribes. But there is a kind of tendency towards it among the Euahlayi of north-west New South Wales, reported on by Mrs. Langloh Parker (MS.). This tribe reckons in the female line, has phratries, and uses the class names (four), but not the phratry names of the Kamilaroi. Each individual has aMinngah treehaunted by spirits unattached. Medicine men haveMinngahrocks. These answer to the AruntaNanja(Warramunga,Mungai) trees and rocks in mortuary local totem-centres. But theMinngah-tree spirits do not seek reincarnation. Only spirits of persons dying young, before initiation, are reincarnated. Fresh souls for new bodies are made by the Crow and the Moon. These spirits, when "made," hang in the boughs of thecoolabahtree only, not roundMinngahtrees or rocks.

I think it possible, or even probable, that ideas like those of the Euahlayi exist among the southern Arunta and elsewhere. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen give a Kaitish myth of two men "who arose fromchuringa," and heard Atnatu (the Kaitish sky-dwelling being, the father of some men) making, in the sky, a noise with hischuringa(the wooden bull roarer).[27]Now, I have seen the statement, on which I lay no stress, that in extreme south-west Aruntadom a sky-dwelling Emu-footed being lost two stonechuringa. Out of one sprang a man, out of the other a woman. They had offspring, "but not by begetting."

Among the tribes with the reincarnation belief connubial relations are supposed only to "prepare the mother for the reception and birth also of an already formed spirit child."[28]This apparent ignorance of physical facts, not found among the south-eastern tribes, is a corollary from the reincarnation belief, or from the other belief that spirit children are "made" by some non-human being. (Cf. Chapter XI.)

To continue with the statement as to the southern Arunta, the sky-dwelling being "has laid germs of the little boys in the mistletoe branches, germs of little girls among the split stones ... such a germ of a child enters a woman by the hip." Now among the Euahlayi, when the spirit children made by the Crow and the Moon are weary of waiting to be reincarnated, they are changed into mistletoe branches.

I do not insist on the alleged sky-dwelling being of these Arunta, for Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (in their two books) have not found him, and Mr. Howitt thinks that his name arises from a misunderstanding. Kempe, a missionary of 1883, speaks of "Altjira, 'god,' who gives the children."[29]Altjira, "god," may be a mistake, based on the root ofAlcheringaorAltjiringa, "dream." On the other hand, Mr. Gillen himself credits the Arunta with a belief in a sky-dwelling being, and with a creed incompatible with the faith in reincarnation, as, in tins Anunta myth, human souls are not reincarnated. This information we quote.

"ULTHAANA

"The sky is said to be inhabited by three persons, a gigantic man with an immense foot shaped like that of an emu, a woman, and a child who never develops beyond childhood. The man is called Ulthaana, meaning 'spirit.' When a native dies his spirit is said to ascend to the home of the great Ulthaana, where it remains for a short time; the Ulthaana then throws it into the Saltwater (sea) [these natives have no personal knowledge of the sea], from whence it is rescued by two benevolent but lesser Ulthaana who perpetually reside on the seashore, apparently merely for the purpose of rescuing spirits who have been subject to the inhospitable treatment of the great Ulthaana of the heavens (alkirra). Henceforth the spirit of the dead man lives with the lesser Ulthaana."[30]

Is it possible that Mr. Gillen's "Great Ulthaana of the Heavens, alkirra," is Kempe's Altjira? Or can he be a native modification of Kempe's own theology? Probably not.

In any case the Arunta of Mr. Gillen who do not believe in reincarnation cannot possibly, it would seem, possess the Arunta form of totemism. It is only natural that varieties of myth and belief should exist, and it is asserted that there is a myth among the Arunta of the extreme south-west section about a sky-dwelling being, who, like the Crow and the Moon of Euahlayi belief, makes spirit children, and places them in the mistletoe boughs. The story that the first man and woman sprang from two of this being's lostchuringa, again, is matched by the Kaitish story of two men who rose fromchuringa. The Arunta described by Mr. Gillen, they whose souls dwell with "the lesser Ulthaana," no more believe in reincarnation than do the south-eastern tribes. These variants in belief and myth usually occur among savages.

The Arunta add to the reincarnation myth, the peculiarity of mortuary local totem-centres, and of the attachment of the spirit to a stonechuringainscribed with the marks of that totem, and from these peculiar ideas—as much isolated as the peculiar ideas of the Urabunna or the Euahlayi—arises the non-exogamous character of Arunta totemism. Noone, out of such varying freaks of belief, can be regarded as primitive, more than another, but the Arunta variant, for the reason repeatedly given, cannot possibly be primitive.

The Arunta totems are not only non-exogamous: their actualraison d'être, to-day, is to exist as the objects of magical co-operative societies, fostering the totem plants and animals as articles of tribal food supply. Mr. Spencer thinks this the primary purpose of totem societies, everywhere. Now we have not, as yet, been toldwhyeach society took to doing magic for this or that animal or other thing in nature. They cannot have been "charged with" this duty, except by some central authority. As there did not yet exist, by the hypothesis, so much as a tribe with phratries, what can this central authority have been? If it existed, on what principle did it select, out of the horde, groups to become magical societies? Were they groups of kin, or groups of associates by contiguity? On what principle could the choice of departments of nature to be controlled by each group, be determined by the central authority? Had the groups already distinguishing names—Emu, Eagle Hawk, Opossum, &c.—how did these names arise, and did these names determine the department of nature for which each group was allotted to do magic? Or did authority give to each group a magical department, and did the nature of that department determine the group-name, such as Frogs, Grubs, Hakea Trees?

Or was there no formal distribution, no sudden organisation, no central authority? Did a casual knot of men, or a firm of wizards, say, "Letusdo magic for the Kangaroo, and get more Kangaroos to eat"? Was their success so great and enviable that other casual knots of men or firms of wizards followed their example? And, in this case, why do Arunta totemists not eat their totems freely? Is it because they think that to do so would frighten the totems, and make them recalcitrant to their magic? But that cannot be the case if their success, while they worked their magic on their own account, was great, enviable, and generally imitated. And, if it was not, why was it imitated? Next, how, among the magical societies, was exogamy introduced? Mr. Spencer writes: "Our knowledge of the natives leads us to the opinion that this really took place; that the exogamic groups were deliberately introducedso as to regulate marital regulations." This was, then, a Marriage Reform Act. However, Mr. Spencer hastens to add that he cannot conceive a motive for the Marriage Reform Act. "We do not mean that the regulations had anything whatever to do with the idea of incest, or of any harm accruing from the union of individuals who were regarded as too nearly related."[31]

We have shown that no such ideas could occur to the supposed promiscuous horde, who knew not that there is such a thing as procreation, but supposed that, like the stars in Caliban's philosophy, children "came otherwise." Yet the "exogamic system" does nothing but prohibit certain marriages, and "it is quite possible that the exogamic groups were deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital relations."[32]

Mr. Spencer's theory is, then, that there was a horde with magical totemic societies, how evolved we cannot guess. Across that came the arrangement of classes to regulate marriage, as it does, but the ancestors who possibly introduced it had, he says, no idea that there was any moral or material harm in unregulated marriages. Then why did they regulate them?

The hypothetical horde of the kind which we have described had nomarriagerelations, and had no possible reason for regulating intersexual relations.

It is true that reformatory movements in marriage law are actually being purposefully introduced, among tribes which, possessing already such laws, of unknown origin, to reform, have deduced from these laws themselves that there is a right and wrong in matters of sex. Certainly, too, much of savage marriage law is of ancient and purposeful institution. But the question is, not how moral laws, once developed, might be improved; but how a tabu law against sexual relations between near kin could even be so much as dreamed of by members of a communal horde, who bad do idea of kin, and could not possibly tell who was akin to whom.Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte!We must account forle premier pas.

Again, theIntichiuma, or co-operative totemic magic, of the Arunta, regarded by our authors as "primary," is nowhere reported of the tribes of the south and east. Mr. Howitt asserts its absence. The lack of record, say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "is no proof that these ceremonies did not exist" If they did, bow could they escape the knowledge of Mr. Howitt, an initiated man?[33]As a fact, when you leave the centre, and reach thenorthsea-coast, totemic magic dwindles, and nearly disappears. Among the coast tribes of the north, theIntichiumamagic is "very slightly developed." Its faint existence is "doubtless to be associated with the fact that they inhabit country where the food supply and general conditions of life are more favourable than in the central area of the continent which is the home of these ceremonies." But surely the regions of the south and east, where there is noIntichiuma, are also better in supply and general conditions than the centre. Why then should the apparent absence ofIntichiumain the south and east be due to want of observation and record, while the "very slight development" ofIntichiumaon the north coast is otherwise explained, namely, by conditions—which also exist in the south!

Moreover, co-operative and totemic magic is most elaborately organised among the Sioux, Dakotah, Omaha, and other American tribes, where supplies are infinitely better than in any part of Australia,[34]and agriculture has there, as in Europe, a copious magic. Magic, as a well-known fact, is most and best organised in the most advanced non-scientific societies. In Australia it is most organised in the centre, and dwindles as you move either north, south, or east. This implies that, socially, the centre is in this respect most advanced and least primitive; while magic, partly totemic, is highly organised in the much more prosperous islands of the Torres Straits, and in America.

It is true that Collins (1798), a very early observer, saw east-coast natives performing ceremonies connected with Kangaroos, in one of which a Kangaroo hunt was imitated. Collins believed that this was imitative magic of a familiar kind, done to secure success in the chase. InMagic and Religion, p. 100, I express the same opinion. But Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write, as to the magic observed by Collins, "There can be little doubt but that these ceremonies, so closely similar in their nature to those now performed by the central natives, were totemic in their origin"—they may be regarded as "clear evidence of the existence of these totemic ceremonies ... in a tribe living right on the eastern coast."[35]

Really the evidence of Collins, on analysis, is found to describe (i.) a Dog dance; (ii.) a native carrying a Kangaroo effigy made of grass; (iii.) a Kangaroo hunt. Nothing proves the working oftotemicceremonies: the point is not established. Collins saw a hunt dance, not a ceremony whose "sole object was the purpose of increasing the number of the animal or plant after which the totem is called," and to dothatis the aim of theIntichiuma.[36]The hunt dances seen by Collins were just those seen by Mr. Howitt at an initiation ceremony.[37]In the EmuIntichiumaof the Arunta the Emus are represented by men, but no Emu hunt is exhibited, and women are allowed to see the imitators of the fowls.[38]The ceremonies reported by Collins were done at an initiation of boys, which "the women of course were not allowed to see."[39]

Apparently we havenot"clear evidence" that Collins sawIntichiuma, or totemic co-operative magic, in the south, and Mr. Howitt asserts and tries to explain its absence there.

It is, of course, perfectly natural that men, when once they come to believe in a mystic connection between certain human groups and certain animals, should do magic for these animals. But, in point of fact, we do not find the practice in the more primitively organised tribes outside the Arunta sphere of influence, and we do find the practice most, and most highly organised, in tribes of advanced type, in America and the Torres Isles, quite irrespective of the natural abundance of supplies, which is supposed to account for the very slight development ofIntichiumaon the north coast of Australia.

I cannot agree with Mr. Hartland in supposing that the barren nature of the Arunta country forced the Arunta to do magic for their totems. The country is not so bare as to prevent large assemblies, busy with many ceremonials, from holding together during four consecutive months, while Mr. Howitt's south-eastern tribes, during a ceremonial meeting which lasted only for a week, needed the white man's tea, mutton, and bread. If fertile land makes agricultural magic superfluous, why does Europe abound in agricultural magic? Among the Arunta, the totem names, deserting kinships, clung to local groups, and with the names went the belief that the inhabitants of the locality or the bearers of the names had a specialrapportwith the name-giving animals or plants. Thisrapportwas utilised in magic for the behoof of these objects, and for the good of the tribe, which is singularlysolidaire.

We trust we have shown that the primal origin of totemic institutions cannot be found in the very peculiar and strangely modified totemism of the Arunta, and of their congeners. Their marriage law, to repeat our case briefly, now reposes solely on the familiar and confessedlylatesystem of exogamous alternating classes, as among other northern tribes. The only difference is that the totems are now (and nowhere else is this the case), in both of the exogamous moieties, denoted by the classes, and they are in both moieties because, owing to the isolated belief in reincarnation oflocalghosts, attached to stone amulets, they are acquired by accident, not, as elsewhere, by inheritance. A man who does not inherit his father's totem because of the accident of his conception in a local centre of another totem, does, none the less, inherit his totemic ceremonies and rites. Totemism is thusen pleine décadenceamong the Arunta, from whom, consequently, nothing can be learned as to the origin of totemism.

NOTEThe Arunta legends of theAlcheringausually describe the various wandering groups, all, in each case, of one totem, as living exclusively for long periods on their own totems, plants, or animals. This cannot be historically true; many plants, and such animals as grubs, are in season for but a brief time. On the other hand, we meet a legend of women of the Quail totem who lived exclusively, not on quails, but on grass seeds.[40]Again, in only one case are men of theAchilpa, or Wild Cat totem, said to have eaten anything, and what they ate was the Hakea flower. Later they became Plum men,Ulpmerka, but are not said to have eaten plums. In a note (Note I, p. 219) Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say that "Wild Cat men are represented constantly as feeding on plums." They are never said to have eaten their own totem, the Wild Cat, which is forbidden to all Arunta, though old men may eat a little of it Reasons, not totemic, are given for the avoidance.[41]We are not told anything about theIntichiumaor magical rites for the increase of the Wild Cat, which is not eaten. Are they performed by men of the Wild Cat totem? The old men of the totem might eat very sparingly of the Wild Cat, at theirIntichiuma, but certainly the members of other totems who were present would not eat at all. The use of a Wild CatIntichiumais not obvious: there is no desire to propagate the animal as an article of food.

NOTE

The Arunta legends of theAlcheringausually describe the various wandering groups, all, in each case, of one totem, as living exclusively for long periods on their own totems, plants, or animals. This cannot be historically true; many plants, and such animals as grubs, are in season for but a brief time. On the other hand, we meet a legend of women of the Quail totem who lived exclusively, not on quails, but on grass seeds.[40]Again, in only one case are men of theAchilpa, or Wild Cat totem, said to have eaten anything, and what they ate was the Hakea flower. Later they became Plum men,Ulpmerka, but are not said to have eaten plums. In a note (Note I, p. 219) Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say that "Wild Cat men are represented constantly as feeding on plums." They are never said to have eaten their own totem, the Wild Cat, which is forbidden to all Arunta, though old men may eat a little of it Reasons, not totemic, are given for the avoidance.[41]We are not told anything about theIntichiumaor magical rites for the increase of the Wild Cat, which is not eaten. Are they performed by men of the Wild Cat totem? The old men of the totem might eat very sparingly of the Wild Cat, at theirIntichiuma, but certainly the members of other totems who were present would not eat at all. The use of a Wild CatIntichiumais not obvious: there is no desire to propagate the animal as an article of food.

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