THE THEORIES OF DR. DURKHEIM

[1]J. A. I., xii. p. 497. Cf. Native Tribes of South-East Australia, PP. 173, 174.

[2]I neglected to observe this important passage when reviewing Mr. Howitt's ideas inSocial Origins.

[3]J. A. I., N.S., i. pp. 284, 285.

[4]Folk Lore, December 1904, p. 473. For Mr. Spencer's assertion that the Aninta social type is advanced, seeCentral Tribes; cf. p. 211. For the probable advanced and relatively recent character of their initiatory ceremonies, seeCentral Tribes, p. 217;Northern Tribes, p. 329.

[5]Northern Tribes, p. 147.

[6]Central Tribes, p. 123.

[7]Northern Tribes, p. 274.

[8]J. A. I., August 1898, pp. 20, 21.

[9]Northern Tribes, p. 281.

[10]Ibid., p. 175.

[11]Ibid.

[12]Central Tribes, pp. 125, 126.

[13]Northern Tribes, pp. 151, 152.

[14]Central Tribes, pp. 125, 126.

[15]Spencer and Gillen,Central Tribes, p. 123.

[16]Ibid., p. 150. Figures of the objects are given.

[17]Northern Tribes, pp. 145-148.

[18]Ibid., p. 174.

[19]Northern Tribes, pp. 146, 149.

[20]Spencer and Gillen,Central Tribes, pp. 153-155.

[21]Spencer and Gillen,Central Tribes, p. 123.

[22]Op. cit., p. 124.

[23]Op. cit., p. 132.

[24]Thechuringahere spoken of are a kind of stone amulets, of very various shapes, marked with such archaic patterns of cups, concentric circles or half circles, and other devices as are found on rock surfaces in our islands, in India, and generally all over the world, as in New Caledonia. The same marks occur on small plaques of slate or schist, in Portuguese neolithic sites, in palæolithic sites, and in Scotland, where Dr. Munro regards them as not of genuine antiquity. SeeAntiguedades Prehistoricas de Andalucia, Gongora y Martinez, Madrid, 1868, p. 109;Antiguedades Monumentaes do Algarve, vol. ii. pp. 429-462, Estacio da Veiga, Lisbon, 1887;Portugalia, i. Part IV., Severo and Brenha, 1903;Magic and Religion(A. L.), pp. 246-256, 1901. For a palæolithic bone object, exactly like an Aruntachuringa, see Hoernes,Der Diluviale Mensch in Europa, p. 138, 1903. It does not follow, of course, that these objects in Europe were ever connected with a belief like that of the Arunta. The things were probably talismans of one sort or another.

[25]Proceedings, Linnaean Society of New South Wales, 1898, vol. xxiii. part 3, and vol. xxvi. p. 238.

[26]Op. cit., p. 123.

[27]Northern Tribes, pp. 272, 373.

[28]Central Tribes, p. 265.

[29]Geographical Society of Halle,Proceedings, 1883, p. 53.

[30]Notes on Some Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of theMcDonnell Ranges, belonging to theArunta Tribe. Gillen,Horn Expedition, iv. p. 183.

[31]J. A. I., N.S., p. 278.

[32]Ibid., i. pp. 284, 285. Dr. Roth has conjectured that phratries were introduced "by a process of natural selection" to regulate the food supply. But how did they come to regulate marriage? (Aborigines of North-West Central Queensland, pp. 69, 70.)

[33]SeeNorthern Tribes, pp. xiii, xiv, 173.

[34]Dorsey,Omaha Sociology. Siouan Cults. Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-1882, pp. 238, 239; 1889-1890, p. 537. Frazer,Totemism, p. 24. For Torres Islands,J. A. I., N.S., i. pp. 5-17.

[35]Northern Tribes, pp. 224, 225.

[36]Spencer and Gillen, p. 169.

[37]Natives of South-East Australia, p. 545.

[38]Spencer and Gillen, pp. 182, 183.

[39]Northern Tribes, p. 225.

[40]Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 417.

[41]Ibid., p. 168.

Theories of Dr. Durkheim—Was man originally promiscuous?—Difficulty of ascertaining Dr. Durkheim's opinion—Apparent contradictions—Origin of totemism—A horde, which did not prohibit incest, splits into two "primary clans"—These are hostile—Each has an animal god, and its members are of the blood of the god, consubstantial with him—Therefore may not intermarry within his blood—Hence exogamy—These gods, or totems, "cannot be changed at will"—Questions as to how these beliefs arise—Why does the united horde choose different gods?—Why only two such gods?—Uncertainty as to whether Dr. Durkheim believes in the incestuous horde—Theory of "collective marriage," a "last resource"—The "primary clans" said to have "no territorial basis"—Later it is assumed that they do have territorial bases—Which they overpopulate—Colonies sent forth—These take new totems—Proof that an exogamous "clan" has no territorial basis—And cannot send out "clan" colonies—Colonies can only betribal—No proof that a "clan" ever does change its totem—Dr. Durkheim's defence of one of his apparent inconsistencies—Reply to his defence—Mr. Frazer's theory (1887) that a totemic "clan" throws off other clans of new totems, and becomes a phratry—Objections to this theory—The facts are opposed to it—Examples—Recapitulation—Eight objections to Dr. Durkheim's theory.

Dr. Durkheim, Professor of Sociology in the University of Bordeaux, has displayed much acuteness in his destructive analysis of the Arunta claims to possess a primitive form of totemism.[1]He has also given the fullest and most original explanation of the reason why, granting that groups of early men had each a special regard for a particular animal or plant, whose name they bore, they tabooed marriage within that name.[2]

With these and other merits the system of Dr. Durkheim, as unfolded at intervals in his periodical (L'Année Sociologique, 1898-1904), has, I shall try to show, certain drawbacks, at least as we possess it at present, for it has not yet appeared in the form of a book. As to the point which in this discussion we have taken first, throughout, it is not easy to be certain about the Professor's exact opinion. What was the condition of human societybeforetotemic exogamy was evolved? Dr. Durkheim writes, "Many facts tend to prove that, at the beginning of societies of men, incest was not forbidden. Nothing authorises us to suppose that incest was prohibited before each horde (peuplade) divided itself into two primitive 'clans,' at least" (namely, what we now call "phratries"), "for the first form of the prohibition known to us, exogamy, everywhere appears as correlative to this organisation, and certainly this is not primitive. Society must have formed a compact and undivided mass before bisecting itself into two distinct groups, and some of Morgan's tables of nomenclature" (of relationships) "confirm this hypothesis."[3]

So far this is the ordinary theory. An undivided promiscuous horde, for reasons of moral reformation, or any other reason, splits itself into two exogamous "clans," or germs of the phratries. These, when they cease to be hostile (as they were on Dr. Durkheim's but not on Mr. Howitt's theory), peacefully intermarry, and become the phratries in a local tribe.

Why did the supposed compact horde thus divide itself into two distinct hostile "clans," each, on Dr. Durkheim's theory, claiming descent from a different animal, the totem of each "clan"? Why were two bodies in the same horde claiming two different animal ancestors? Why were the two divisions in a common horde mutually hostile? That theywereoriginally hostile appears when our author says that, at a given stage of advance, "the different totemic groups wereno longerstrangers or enemies, one of the other."[4]Marriages, at this early period, must necessarily have been made by warlike capture, for the two groups were hostile, were exogamous, and, being hostile, would not barter brides peacefully. Women, therefore, we take it, could only be obtained for each group by acts of war. "Ages passed before the exchange of women became peaceful and regular. What vendettas, what bloodshed, what laborious negotiations were for long the result of thisrégime!"[5]

But why were they exogamous, these two primary groups formed by the bisection of a previously undivided incestuous horde? Why could not each of the two groups marry its own women? There must have been a time when they were not exogamous, and could marry their own women, for they were only exogamous, in Dr. Durkheim's theory, because they were totemic, and they did not begin by being totemic. The totem, says Dr. Durkheim, in explanation of exogamy, is a "god" who is in each member of his group while they are in him. He is blood of their blood and soul of their soul.[6]This being so—as it is wrong to shed the blood of our kindred—a man of totem Emu, say, may not marry a maid of, say, totem Emu; he must seek a bride from the only other group apparently at this stage accessible, that is a maid of, say, totem Kangaroo. Presently all Kangaroos of a generation must have been Emus by female descent; all Emus, Kangaroos; for the names were inherited through women. The clans were thus inextricably blended, and neither had a separate territory, a point to be remembered.

Manifestly the strange superstitious metaphysics of totemism must have occupied a long time in evolution. The sacredness of the totem is the result of a primitive "religiosity," Dr. Durkheim says, which existed before gods or other mythological personages had been developed. There is supposed by early man (according to our author) to be a kind of universal element of power, dreadful and divine, which attaches to some things more than to others, to some men more than to others, and to all women in their relations with men.[7]This mystic something (rather like theManaof the Maories, and theWakanof many North American tribes) is believed by each group (if I correctly understand Dr. Durkheim) to concentrate itself in their name-giving animal, their totem.[8]All tabu, all blood tabu, has in the totem animal its centre and shrine, in the opinion of each group. Human kinship, of Emu man to Emu woman, is, if I understand rightly, a corollary from their common kinship with the Emu bird; or rather thesacrednessof their kinship, not to be violated by marriage, is thus derived; an opinion which I share.

How all this came to be so;whyeach of two "clans" in one horde chose, or acquired, a given animal as the centre of the mysterious sacred atmosphere, Dr. Durkheim has not, so far, told us. Yet surely there must have been a reason for selecting two special animals, one for each of the two "clans," asthetabu,thetotem,thegod. Moreover, as such a strange belief cannot be an innate idea of the human mind, and as this belief, with its corollaries, is, in Dr. Durkheim's theory, the sole origin of exogamy, there must have been a time when men, not having the belief, were not exogamous, and when their sexual relations were wholly unregulated. They only came under regulation after two "clans" of people, in a horde, took to revering two different sacred animals, according to Dr. Durkheim.

The totem, he says, is not only the god, but the ancestor of the "clan," and this ancestor, says Dr. Durkheim, is not a species—animal or vegetable—but is such or such an individual Emu or Kangaroo. This individual Emu or Kangaroo, however, is not alive, he is a creature of fancy; he is a "mythical being, whence came forth at once all the human members of the 'clan,' and the plants or animals of the totem species. Within him exist, potentially, the animal species and the human 'clan' of the same name."[9]

"Thus," Dr. Durkheim goes on, "the totemic being is immanent in the clan, he is incarnate in each individual member of the clan, and dwells in their blood. He is himself that blood. But, while he is an ancestor, he is also a god, he is the object of a veritable cult; he is the centre of the clan's religion.... Therefore there is a god in each individual member of the clan (for the entire god is in each), and, as he lives in the blood, the blood is divine. When the blood flows, the god is shed" (le dieu se répand).

All this, of course, was the belief (if ever it was the belief) when totemism was in its early bloom and vigour, for to-day a black will shoot his totem, but not sitting; and will eat it if he can get nothing else, and Mr. Howitt mentions cases in which he will eat his totem if another man bags it.[10]The Euahlayi, with female kin, eat their totems, after a ceremony in which the tabu is removed.[11]Totemism is thus decadent to-day. But "a totem is not a thing which men think they can dispose of at their will, at least so long as totemic beliefs are still in vigour.... A totem, in short, is not a mere name, but before all and above all, he is a religious principle, which is one and consubstantial with the person in whom it has its dwelling-place; it makes part of his personality. One can no more change one's totem than one can change one's soul...."[12]He is speaking of Arunta society on the eve of a change from female to male reckoning of descent.

So far, the theory of Dr. Durkheim is that in a compact communal horde, where incest was not prohibited, one "clan" or division took to adoring, say, the Eagle Hawk, another set the Crow; to claiming descent each from their bird; to regarding his blood as tabu; to seizing wives only from the other "clan"; and, finally, to making peaceful intermarriages, each, exclusively, only from the other set, Eagle Hawk from Crow, Crow from Eagle Hawk. We do not learn why half the horde adored one, and the other half another animal. If the disruption of the horde produced two such "clans," "at least," there may have been other "clans," sets equally primal, as Lizard, Ant, Wallaby, Grub. About these we hear nothing more in the theory; the two "primary clans" alone are here spoken of as original, and are obviously the result of a mere conjecture, to explain the two phratries of animal name, familiar in our experience.

No attempt is made to explain either why members of thesamehorde choseseparateanimal gods; or why—unless because of consequent religious differences—the two "clans," previously united, were now hostile; or why there were at first only two such religious hostile "clans"; or, if there were more, what became of the others.

Meanwhile, we are not even sure that Dr. Durkheim does believe in a primary incestuous horde, when "Society must have formed a compact undivided mass ... before splitting into two distinct groups, and some of Morgan's tables of nomenclature corroborate this hypothesis."[13]It is true that Dr. Durkheim makes this assertion. But, in the same volume (i. p. 332), Dr. Durkheim tells us that Mr. Morgan's theory of obligatory promiscuity (a theory based, as we saw in Chapter II., on the terms of relationship) "seems to us to be definitely refuted." Again, Mr. Morgan, like Mr. Howitt and Mr. Spencer, regarded the savage terms for relationships as one proof of "group marriage," or "collective marriage," including unions of the nearest of kin. (Compare our Chapter III.) But Dr. Durkheim writes, "The hypothesis of collective marriage has never been more than a last resource, intended to enable us to envisage these strange customs: but it is impossible to overlook all the difficulties which it raises ... this improbable conception."[14]

Is it possible that, after many times reading the learned Professor's work, I misunderstand him? With profound regret I gather that he does not believe in the theory of "obligatory promiscuity" in an undivided horde, which I have supposed to be the basis of his system; a horde "in which there is nothing to show that incest was forbidden." That incest, in Mr. Morgan's theory, was "obligatory," I cannot suppose, because, if nobody knew who was akin to whom, nothing could compel a man to marry his own sister or daughter. I am obliged to fear that I do not understand what is meant. For Dr. Durkheim made society begin in a united solidpeuplade, in which "there is no reason to suppose that incest was forbidden," and as proof he cited some of Mr. Morgan's tables of relationships. He then gave his theory of how exogamy was introduced into the "compact undivided mass." He next appears to reject this "mass," and Morgan's argument for its existence. Is there an inconsistency, or do I merely fail to understand Dr. Durkheim?

Let us, however, take Dr. Durkheim's theory of a horde with "permissive" incest, split, for some reason, into two distinct hostile "clans" worshipping each its own "god," an animal; each occupying a different territory; reckoning by female kin; exogamous, and intermarrying. Such communities, exogamous, intermarrying, and with female descent, Dr. Durkheim uniformly styles "primary clans," or "elementary totemic groups."[15]It is obvious that they constitute, when once thoroughly amalgamated by exogamy and peaceful intermarriage,a local tribe, with a definite joint territory, and withoutclanterritory. At every hearth, through the whole tribal domain, both clans are present; the male mates are, say, Eagle Hawks, the women and children are Crows, orvice versa. Neither "clan" as such "has any longer a territorial basis." "The clan," says Dr. Durkheim, "has no territorial basis." "The clan is an amorphous group, a floating mass, with no very defined individuality; its contours, especially, have no material marks on the soil."[16]This is as true as it is obvious. The clans, when once thoroughly intermixed, and with members of each clan present, as father, mother, and children, by every hearth, can, as clans, have no local limits, no territorial boundaries, and Dr. Durkheim maintains this fact Indeed, he distinguishes the clan from the tribe as beingnon-territorial.[17]

Yet though he thus asserts what every one must see to be true, his whole theory of the origin of the totem kins ("secondary clans") within the phratries, and his theory (as we shall show later) of the matrimonial classes, rests on the contradictory of his averment. He then takes the line that the exogamous clans with female descent do, or did, possess definite separate territorial bases, which seems contrary to the passage where he says that they do not![18]He has reversed his position.

We first gave Dr. Durkheim's statement as to how the totem kins (which he calls "secondary clans") came to exist within the phratries.

"When a clan increases beyond a certain measure, its population cannot exist within the same space: it therefore throws off colonies, which, as they no longer occupy the same habitat with, nor share the interests of the original group from which they emerged, end by taking a totem which is all their own: thenceforth they constitute new clans."[19]Again, "the phratry is a primary clan, which, as it develops, has been led to segment itself into a certain number of secondary clans, which retain their sentiment of community and of solidarity."[20]

All this is (as far as I can see), by Dr. Durkheim's own previous statement, impossible. A totemic clan, exogamous, with female descent, cannot, as a clan, overflow its limits of "space," for, as a clan, he tells us, it "has no territorial basis," no material assigned frontier, marked on the soil.[21]"One cannot say at what precise point of space it begins, or where it ends." The members of one "clan" are indissolubly blended with the members of the other "clan," in the local tribe. This point, always overlooked by the partisans of a theory that the various totem kins are segments of "a primary clan," can be made plain. By the hypothesis there are two "clans" before us, of which Eagle Hawk (male) always marries Crow (female), their children being Crows, and Crow (male) always marries Eagle Hawk (female), the children being Eagle Hawks. Thetribalterritory is over-populated (theclanhas no territory). Atribaldecree is therefore passed, that clan Eagle Hawk must "segment itself," and go to new lands. This decree means that a portion of clan Eagle Hawk must emigrate. Let, then, Eagle Hawk men, women, and children, to the amount of half of the clan, be selected to emigrate. They go forth to seek new abodes. In doing so the Eagle Hawk men leave their Crow wives at home; the Eagle Hawk women leave their Crow children, and Crow husbands; the Eagle Hawk children leave their Crow fathers. Not a man or woman in the segmented portion of clan Eagle Hawk can now have a wife or a husband, for they can only marry Crows. They all die out! Such is the result of segmenting clan Eagle Hawk.

Yet the thing can be managed in no other way, for, if the emigrant Eagle Hawk men take with them their Crow wives and children, they cannot marry (unless men marry their daughters, Crows) when they become widowers, and unless Crow brothers marry Crow sisters, which is forbidden. Moreover,thisplan necessitates a segmentation, not ofclanEagle Hawk, but of thetribe, which is composed of both Crows and Eagle Hawks. These conspicuous facts demolish the whole theory of the segmentation of a "clan" into a new clan which takes a new totem, though it would need two.

Moreover, why should a tribal colony of two blended clans take, as would be absolutely necessary, two new totem names at all? We know not one example of change of totem name in Australia.[22]Their old totems were their gods, their flesh, their blood, their vital energies, by Dr. Durkheim's own definition. "The members of a clan literally deem themselves of one flesh, of one blood, and the blood is that of the mythic being" (the totem) "from which they are all descended."[23]How andwhythen, should emigrants from "clans," say Eagle Hawk and Crow, change their gods, their blood, their flesh, their souls? To imagine that totems or even the descent of totems can be changed, by legislation, from the female to the male line, is, says Dr. Durkheim, "to forget that the totem is not a thing which men think they can dispose of at will,... at least so long as totemic beliefs are in vigour."[24]

Our author goes on: "A totem, in fact, is not a mere name, it is, above all and before all, a religious principle, one with the individual in whom it dwells; and part of his personality. One can no more change his totem, than he can change his soul...."

In that case, how did the supposed colonies thrown off by a segmented clan, manage to change their totems, as they did, on Dr. Durkheim's theory?[25]They lived in the early vigour of totemic beliefs, and during that blooming age of totemism, says Dr. Durkheim, "the totem is not a thing which men think they can dispose of at will," and yet, on his theory, they did dispose of it, they took new totems.[26]

The supposed process seems to me doubly impossible by Dr. Durkheim's premises. A "clan," exogamous, with female kin, cannot overflow its territory, for it has confessedly, as a "clan," no delimitations of territory. Consequently a clan cannot throw off a colony (only a tribe can do that); therefore, as there can be no "clan" colony, the tribal colony cannot change its one totem,for it has two. Moreover, Dr. Durkheim says that there can be no such cavalier treatment of the totem: "Tant du moins que les croyances totémiques sont encore en vigueur." Yet he also says that the totems were thus cavalierly treated when totemic beliefs were in vigour.

Dr. Durkheim, however, might reply: "A tribe with two 'clans' can throw off colonies, each colony necessarily consisting of members of both clans, and these can change their two totems." That might pass, if he had not said that, while totemic beliefs are in vigour, men cannot dispose of the totem, "a part of their personalities," at their will.

One argument, based on certain facts, has been advanced to show that the totem kins in the phratries are really the result of the segmentation of a "clan" into new clans with new totems. This argument, however, breaks down on a careful examination of the facts on which it is based, though I did not see that when I wroteSocial Origins, p. 59, Note 1. The chief circumstance appealed to is this. The Mohegans in America have three phratries: (1) WOLF, with totem kins Wolf, Bear, Dog, Opossum; (2) TURKEY, with totem kins Turkey, Crane, Chicken; (3) TURTLE, with totem kins Little Turtle, Mud Turtle, Great Turtle, Yellow Eel. "Here we are almost forced to conclude," wrote Mr. Frazer in 1887, "that the Turtle phratry was originally a Turtle clan which subdivided into a number of clans, each of which took the name of a particular kind of turtle, while the Yellow Eel clan may have been a later subdivision."[27]

Mr. Frazer has apparently abandoned this position, but it seems to have escaped his observation, and the observation of Dr. Durkheim, who follows him here, that in several cases given by himself the various species of totem animals arenotgrouped (as they ought to be on the hypothesis of subdivision) under the headship of one totem of their own kind—like the three sorts of Turtle in the Mohegan Turtle phratry—but quite the reverse. They are found in the opposite phratry, under an animal not of their species.

Thus Mr. Dawson, cited by Mr. Frazer, gives for a Western Victoria tribe, now I believe extinct:—

Phratry A.Totem kins:Long-billed Cockatoo.Pelican.Phratry B.Totem kins:Banksian Cockatoo.Boa Snake.Quail.

The two cockatoos are, we see, inopposite phratries, not in the same, as they should be by Mr. Frazer's theory.[28]

This is a curious case, and is explained by a myth. Mr. Dawson, the recorder of the case (1881) was a scrupulous inquirer, and remarks that it is of the utmost importance to be able to converse with the natives in their own language. His daughter, who made the inquiries, was intimately acquainted with the dialects of the tribes in the Port Fairy district. The natives collaborated "with the most scrupulous honesty." The tribes had an otiose great Being, Pirmeheeal, or Mam Yungraak, called also Peep Ghnatnaen, that is, "Father Ours." He is a gigantic kindly man, living above the clouds. Thunder is his voice. "He is seldom mentioned, but always with respect."[29]This Being, however, did not institute exogamy. The mortal ancestor of the race "was by descent a Kuurokeetch, or Long-billed Cockatoo." His wife was a female Kappatch (Kappaheear), or Banksian Cockatoo. These two birds now head opposite phratries. Their children could not intermarry, so they brought in "strange flesh"—alien wives—whence, by female descent, came from abroad the other totem kins, Pelican, Boa Snake, and Quail. Pelican appears to be in Long-billed Cockatoo phratry; Boa Snake in Banksian Cockatoo phratry. At least these pairs may not intermarry. Quail, as if both a phratry and a totem kin by itself, may intermarry with any of the other four, while only three kins are open to each of the other four.[30]In this instance a Cockatoo phratry has not subdivided into Cockatoo totem kins, but two species of Cockatoos head opposite phratries, and are also totem kins in their own phratries.

In the same way, in the now extinct Mount Gambier tribe, the phratries are Kumi and Kroki. Black Cockatoo (Wila) is in Kroki; in Kumi is Black Crestless Cockatoo (Karaal).[31]By Mr. Frazer's theory, which he probably no longer holds, a Cockatoo primary totem kin would throw off other kins, named after various other species of Cockatoo, and become a Cockatoo phratry, with several Cockatoo totem kins. The reverse is the fact: the two Cockatoos are in opposite phratries.

Again, among the Ta-ta-thi tribe, two species of Eagle Hawk occur as totems. One is in Eagle Hawk phratry (Mukwara), the other is in Crow phratry (Kilpara). This could not have occurred through Eagle Hawk "clan" splitting into other clans, named after other species of Eagle Hawk.[32]

In the Kamilaroi phratries two species of Kangaroos occur as totem kins, but the two Kangaroo totem kins are in opposite phratries.[33]

If Mr. Frazer's old view were correct, both species of Kangaroo would be in the same phratry, like the various kinds of Turtle in the Mohegan Turtle phratry. Again, in the Wakelbura tribe, in Queensland, there are Large Bee and Small or Black Beein opposite phratries.[34]

On Mr. Frazer's old theory, we saw, a phratry is a totem kin which split into more kins, having for totems the various species of the original totem animal. These, as the two sorts of Bees, Cockatoos, Kangaroos, and so on, would on this theory always be in the same phratry, like the various kinds of Mohegan Turtles. But Mr. Frazer himself has collected and published evidence to prove that this is far from being usually the case; the reverse is often the case. Thus the argument derived from the Mohegan instance of the Turtle phratry is invalidated by the opposite and more numerous facts. The case of the Mohegan Turtle phratry, with various species of Turtles for totem kins within it, is again countered in America, by the case of the Wyandot Indians. They have four phratries. If these have names, the names are not given. But the first phratry containsStriped Turtle, Bear, and Deer. The second containsHighland Turtle, Black Turtle, andSmooth Large Turtle. If this phratry was formed by the splitting of Highland Turtle into Black and Smooth Turtles, why is Striped Turtle in the opposite phratry?[35]The Wyandots, in Ohio, were village dwellers, with female reckoning of lineage and exogamy. If they married out of the tribe, the alien was adopted into a totem kin of the other tribe, apparently changing his totem, though this is not distinctly stated.[36]

Thus Dr. Durkheim's theory of the segmentation of a primary totem "clan" into other "clans" of other totems is not aided by the facts of the Mohegan case, which are unusual. We more frequently find that animals of different species of the same genus are in opposite phratries than in the same phratry. Again, a totem kin (with female descent) cannot, we repeat, overpopulate its territory, for, as Dr. Durkheim says, an exogamous clan with female descent has no territorial basis. Nor can it segment itself without also segmenting its linked totem kin or kins, which merely means segmenting the local tribe. If that were done, there is no reason why the members of the two old "clans" in the new colony should change their totems. Moreover, in Dr. Durkheim's theory that cannot be done "while totemic beliefs are in vigour."

To recapitulate our objections to Dr. Durkheim's theory, we say (i.) that it represents human society as in a perpetual state of segmentation and resegmentation, like the Scottish Kirk in the many secessions of bodies which again split up into new seceding bodies. First, we have apeuplade, or horde, apparently (though I am not quite sure of the Doctor's meaning) permitted to be promiscuous in matters of sex. (ii.) That horde, for no obvious reason, splits into at least two "clans"—we never hear in this affair of more than the two. These two new segments select each a certain animal as the focus of a mysterious impersonal power. On what grounds the selection was made, and why, if they wanted an animal "god," the whole horde could not have fixed on the same animal, we are not informed. The animals were their "ancestors"—half the horde believed in one ancestor, half in another. The two halves of the one horde now became hostile to each other, whether because of their divergence of opinion about ancestry or for some other reason, (iii.) Their ideas about their animal god made it impossible for members of the same half-horde to intermarry, (iv.) Being hostile, they had to take wives from each other by acts of war. (v.) Each half-horde was now an exogamous totem kin, a "primary clan," reckoning descent on the female side. As thus constituted, "no clan has a territorial basis": it is an amorphous group, a floating mass. As such, no clan can overflow its territorial limits, for it has none.

(vi.) But here a fresh process of segmentation occurs. The clandoesoverflow its territory, though it has none, and, going into new lands, takes a new totem, though this has been declared impossible; "the totem is not a thing which men think they can dispose of at will, at least while totemic beliefs are in vigour." Thus the old "clans" have overflowed their territorial limits, though "clans" have none, and segments have wandered away and changed their totems, though, in the vigour of totemic ideas, men do not think that they can dispose of their totems at will, (vii.) In changing their totems, they, of course, change their blood, but, strange to say, they still recognise their relationship to persons not of their blood, men of totems not theirs, namely, the two primary clans from which they seceded. Therefore they cannot marry with members of their old primary clans, though these are of other totems, therefore,ex hypothesi, of different blood from themselves, (viii.) The primary clans, as relations all round grow pacific, become the phratries of a tribe, and the various colonies which had split off from a primary clan become totem kins in phratries. But such colonies of a "clan" with exogamy and female descent are impossible.

If these arguments are held to prove the inadequacy of Dr. Durkheim's hypothesis, we may bring forward our own.[37]

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