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Title: Social Origins and Primal Law

Author: Andrew Lang
J. J. Atkinson

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Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOCIAL
ORIGINS AND PRIMAL LAW ***

SOCIAL ORIGINS
BY
ANDREW LANG, M.A., LL.D.

PRIMAL LAW
BY
J. J. ATKINSON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1903

TO
ANNABELLA ALLEYNE
Dear Annie,
As you first pointed out to me the facts which are
the germ of my Theory of the Origin of Totemism,
you are one cause of my share in this book. The
other is affection for the memory of the author of
'Primal Law.'
Yours always,
A. LANG.

St. Andrews:
Feb. 13, 1903.

INTRODUCTION

The portion of this book called 'Primal Law' is the work of the late Mr.
James Jasper Atkinson. Born in India, of Scottish parents (his mother being
the paternal aunt of the present editor), Mr. Atkinson was educated (1857-
1861) at Loretto School, then managed by Messrs. Langhome. While still
young he settled on certain stations in New Caledonia bequeathed to him by
his father, and, except for visits to Australia and a visit to England, he lived
and died in the French colony. His ingenious mind was much exercised by
the singular laws and customs of the natives of the New Caledonian
Archipelago and the adjacent isles. These peoples have been little studied
by competent European observers—that is, in New Caledonia. Mr. Atkinson
wrote an account of native manners before he had any acquaintance with
the works of modern anthropologists, such as Mr. Tylor, Mr. McLennan,
Lord Avebury, and others. To these he later turned his attention; he joined
the Anthropological Institute, and, in the course of study and observation,
he discovered what he conceived to be the 'Primal Law' and origin of
morality, as regards the family. In his last illness, in 1899, he was most
kindly attended by Commander John Haggard, R.N., then Her Majesty's
Consul in New Caledonia. Mr. Atkinson's mind, in his latest moments, was
occupied by his anthropological speculations, and, through Mr. Haggard, he
sent his MS. to his cousin and present editor. I have given to it the last cares
which the author himself would have given had he lived. But I have also
taken the opportunity to review, in the following pages, introductory to
'Primal Law,' the present state of the discussion as to the beginnings of the
rules regulating marriage among savages.
The discussion is now nearly forty years old, if we date it from the
appearance of Mr. J. F. McLennan's Primitive Marriage in 1865. Yet, in
spite of the speculations of some and the explorations of other distinguished
students, the main problems are still in dispute. Was marriage originally
non-existent? Was promiscuity at first the rule, and, if so, what were the
origins, motives, and methods of the most archaic prohibitions on primitive
license? Did man live in 'hordes,' and did he bisect each 'horde' into
exogamous and intermarrying moieties, and, if he did, what was his
motive? Are the groups and kindreds commonly styled 'totemic' earlier or
later than the division into a pair of moieties or 'phratries'? Do the totem-
kins represent the results of an early form of exogamous custom, or are they
additions to or consciously arranged subdivisions of the two exogamous
moieties? Is a past of 'group marriage' or 'communal marriage' proved by

the terms for human relationships employed by many backward races, and
by survivals in manner and custom?
These are among the questions examined in the introductory chapters that
may be read either before or after Mr. Atkinson's Primal Law. To him I am
indebted for the conception of sexual jealousy as a powerful element in the
evolution of exogamy.
Since my attention was first directed to these topics, I have felt that a clear
and consistent working hypothesis of the origin of totemism was
indispensable, and such an hypothesis, with a criticism of other extant
theories, is here offered. Throughout I have attempted to elucidate and bring
into uniformity the perplexing and confused special terms employed in the
discussion. Here it should be explained that by 'marriage' in this work I
mean permanent cohabitation of man and woman, sanctioned by tribal
custom, and usually preceded by some rite or initiation which does not
prelude to casual amours. By family or fire circle I mean the partners to this
permanent cohabitation, their offspring, and such kinsfolk by blood or
affinity as may be members of their camp. In the first sentence of the book I
speak of the family as 'most ancient and most sacred,' and I do so
deliberately. The primitive association described I take, with Mr. Darwin
and Mr. Atkinson, to be 'most ancient,' and to be the germ of the historic
family, which is 'most sacred.' But to 'sacred' when I apply the word to the
primitive fire-circle I give no religious sense, such as the Greek hearth
enjoyed under Hestia, youngest and oldest daughter of Zeus. I mean that the
rules given to the primitive fire-circle by the sire were probably the earliest
and the most stringent, though not yet sanctioned by a tabu or a goddess.
Such a small circle, and not a promiscuous horde or commune, I conceive,
with Mr. Darwin and Mr. Atkinson, to have been the earliest form of human
society.
The book deals only with the institutions of races certainly totemistic, and
mainly with the Australian and North American tribes, which present
totemism in the most archaic of its surviving forms. But little is said, and
that tentatively, on the question as to whether or not the ancestors of the
great civilised peoples, ancient and modern, have passed through the stage
of totemic exogamy, as our evidence is weak and disputable. Too late for

citation in the body of the book I read Mr. A. H. Keane's theory of the origin
of totemism.[1]
Mr. Keane's theory is much akin to my own as it stood in Custom and Myth
(1884) and to that of Garcilasso de la Vega, the oldest of all. Garcilasso
(1540-1616), an Inca on the mother's side, describing the animal and plant
worship of the low races in the Inca Empire, says 'they only thought of
making one differ from another and each from all.'[2] But it may be that he
had not totemism in his mind; the passage is not too explicit.
Mr. Keane says: 'And thus the family, the initial unit, segments into a
number of clans, each distinguished by its totem, its name, its heraldic
badge—which badge, becoming more and more venerated from age to age,
acquires inherited privileges, becomes the object of endless superstitious
practices, and is ultimately almost deified.... Its origin lies behind all strictly
religious notions, and it was at first a mere device for distinguishing one
individual from another, one family or clan group from another.[3] Thus
among the Piaroas of the Orinoco below San Fernando de Atabapo the
belief holds that the tapir, originally the totem of the clan, has become their
ancestor, and that after death the spirit of every Piaroa passes into a tapir;
hence they never hunt or eat this animal, and they also think all the
surrounding tribes are in the same way each provided with their special
animal fore-father. It is easy to see how such ideas tend to cluster round the
clan[4] or family totem, at first a distinguishing badge, later a protecting or
tutelar deity of Protean form. It should be remembered that the personal or
family name precedes the totem, which grows out of it, as seen by the
conditions still prevailing amongst the very lowest peoples (Fuegians,
Papuans of Torres Strait[5]).'
I am indebted in various ways to assistance, chiefly in the interchange of
ideas, from Mr. A. C. Haddon, Mr. G. L. Gomme, Miss Burne, and Mr. A.
E. Crawley, author of The Mystic Rose. Mr. Crawley kindly read the book,
or most of it, before publication, and collaborated most efficiently in the
way of suggesting objections. It is not implied that any of these students
accept the ideas of the two authors. I regret that it has been found
impossible to wait for the publication of a new book by Mr. A. W. Howitt,
from which we may expect much new information.

The question of the relations of religion and totemism is scarcely touched
on in this work. A certain amount of regard is given to their totem animals
and plants by some of the Australian tribes, to the extent of not killing,
plucking, or eating them, except under stress of need, but even this is not
universal. There also exists, in some cases, a sense of kinship with them.
They are not worshipped. That magic is worked for their preservation and
propagation, as by the Arunta, proves nothing in the nature of a religious
attitude towards them. In my opinion this religious regard for the totem
does not appear till ancestor worship, which does not occur in Australia, has
made considerable advance and a myth arises that an ancestral spirit or
family god is incarnate in the animal which originally was only a totem. If
so, totemism is not an element in the origins of religion, but a field later
invaded by religion.
On the other hand, Dr. Achelis, of Bremen, writes that to savage man
'animals are his equals. To the ancient worship of animals is added, under
the influence of sympathetic emotion, the worship of ancestors and
totemism, which sees in a beast worshipped as a god the ancestor of the
whole tribe.'[6] Clearly this sentence is replete with errors and confusions.
The whole tribe, in Australia, does not regard any animal as its ancestor. No
beast is worshipped as a god. No ancestors are worshipped. If the animals
are 'his equals,' why did man worship them, and that apparently before the
worship of ancestors and totemism arose? In an essay like that of Dr.
Achelis on Ethnology and Religion the facts ought to be correctly
ascertained.
I have been obliged to place in Appendix A certain facts about group names
derived from animals which came late to hand, among them Mr.
Robertson's interesting letter on many such names in the Orkneys, and some
remarks on village names derived from animals among the ancient
Hebrews.
[1] Man, Past and Present, Cambridge, 1899, pp. 396, 397.
[2] Royal Commentaries, i. 47.
[3] The Import of the Totem, Amer. Ass., Detroit, 1897.
[4] M. Chaffanjon, Tour du Monde, 1888, lvi. 348.
[5] Ethnology, pp. 9, 11.
[6] The International Quarterly, Dec.-March, 1902-1903, p. 321.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY

The family. Theory of Mr. Atkinson—
Primitiveness in man—Recent history of the
speculation as to the early human family—What
is exogamy? Difficulties of terminology—
Totemism and exogamy—Theories of exogamy.
Mr. McLellan's theory—Mr. Crawley's theory—
Dr. Westermarck's theory—Mr. Morgan's theory
—Return to the author's theory
CHAPTER II
THE CLASS SYSTEM

The class system in Australia—The varieties of
marriage divisions in Australia—Mr. Fison on
the great bisection—'Primary classes?'—The
'primary divisions' are themselves totemic and
exogamous—The totem difficulty
CHAPTER III
TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES

American support of the author's hypothesis—
Deliberate arrangement—Totems all the way—
Distribution of totems in the 'phratries'—The
ideas of Mr. Frazer. His earlier theory—
Objections to Mr. Frazer's early theory—Mr.
Spencer's theories of the bisection—Advantages
of the system here proposed—The Arunta—
Arunta metaphysics—Arunta totem eating and
traditions—Dr. Durkheim on the Arunta—The
relations of totems and 'phratries' among the
Arunta—Arunta myths—Mr. Spencer on Arunta
legends

CHAPTER IV
ARUNTA PHRATRIES AND TOTEMS

Views of Dr. Durkheim—How did the Aranta
anomaly arise?
CHAPTER V
OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES

'Group marriage'—Mr. Morgan and the class
system—Difficulties of Mr. Morgan's theory—
Mr. Morgan on terms of relationship—How the
terms of relationship originally arose—Supposed
survivals of group marriage—Piraungaru and
piraura—Growth of social rules in the tribe—
Group marriage and Mr. Tylor's statistics
CHAPTER VI
THE CHANGE OF CLASS AMONG THE NEW
GENERATION
The system of Herr Cunow—Classes again
CHAPTER VII
THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY

Lord Avebury on totemism—Lord Avebury on
the origin of totemism —Communal marriage—
Lord Avebury on relationships
CHAPTER VIII
THE ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS

Sacred animals in savage society—Proposed
restriction of the use of the word 'totem'—The
word 'totem'—The totem 'cult'—'Totem gods'—
Savage speculations as to the origin of totemism
—Modern theories—Mr. Max Müller's theory—
The theory of Mr. Herbert Spencer—Mr. Frazer's
theories—Suggestion of Mr. N. W. Thomas—Dr.
Wilken's theory—Miss Alice Fletcher's theory—
Mr. Hill Tout's theory—Messrs. Hose and
McDougall—Mr. Haddon's theory—An
objection to all the theories enumerated—

Statement of the problem—The author's own
conjecture—The connection between groups and
totems—No 'disease of language'—Hypothetical
early groups before totemism—How the groups
got names—Illustration from folk-lore—How the
names became known—Totemic and other group
names. English and North American Indian—
Theory that Siouan gentes names are of
European origin
CHAPTER IX
THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS

How the origin of totem names was forgotten—
Other sources of sacredness in plants and
animals—Recapitulation—An objection
answered—Other objections answered—Totems
and magical societies—Totem survivals—Did
the ancestors of the civilised races pass through
the Australian stage?
PRIMAL LAW
CHAPTER I
MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE

Mr. Darwin on the primitive relations of the
sexes—Primitive man monogamous or
polygamous—His jealousy—Expulsion of young
males—The author's inferences as to the
evolution of Primal Law—A customary rule of
conduct evolved—Traces surviving in savage life
—The customs of avoidance—Custom of
exogamy arose in the animal stage—Brother and
sister avoidance—The author's own observation
of this custom in New Caledonia—Strangeness
of such a custom among houseless nomads in
Australia—Rapid decay under European
influences
CHAPTER II

SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS

Brother and sister avoidance, a partial usage
among the higher mammals—Males' attitude to
females in a group dominated by a single male
head—Band of exiled young males—Their
relations to the sire—Examples in cattle and
horses—In game-fowl—Strict localisation of
animals—Exiled young males hover on the
fringe of the parent group—Parricide
CHAPTER III
MAN VARYING FROM ANIMALS

Effect of the absence of a special pairing season
on nascent man—Consequent state of ceaseless
war between sire and young males —Man
already more than an ape—Results of his
prolonged infancy and of maternal love—A
young male permitted to live in the parent group
—Conditions in which this novelty arose
CHAPTER IV
EARLIEST EVOLUTION OF LAW

Truce between semi-human sire and son—
Consequent distinction taken between female
and female, as such—Consequent rise of habit of
brother and sister avoidance—Result, son seeks
female mate from without—Note by the editor
CHAPTER V
AVOIDANCES

Results in strengthening the groups which admit
several adult males—Disappearance of hostile
band of exiled young males—Relations of sire
and female mates of young males now within the
group—Father-in-law and daughter-in-law
avoidance—Rights as between two generations
—Elder brother and younger brother's wife
avoidances—Note on hostile capture

CHAPTER VI
FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE

Resemblance of semi-brutal group, at this stage,
to actual savage tribe—Resemblance merely
superficial—In this hypothetical semi-brutal
group paternal incest survives—Causes of its
decline and extinction—The sire's widows of the
group—Arrival of outside suitors for them—
Brothers of wives of the group—New comers
barred from marital rights over their daughters—
Jealousy of their wives intervenes—Value of
sisters to be bartered for sisters of another group
discovered—Consequent resistance to incest of
group sire—Natural selection favours groups
where resistance is successful—Cousinage
recognised in practice—Intermarrying sets of
cousins become phratries—Exceptional cases of
permitted incest in chiefs and kings—No known
trace of avoidance between father and daughter
—Progress had rendered such law superfluous
CHAPTER VII
TRACES OF PERIOD OF TRANSITION AVOIDANCES

Survivals in custom testify to a long period of
transition from group to tribe—Stealthy meetings
of husband and wife—Examples—Evidence to a
past of jealousy of incestuous group sire—
Evidence from teknonymy—Husband named as
father of his child—Formal capture as a symbol
of legal marriage—Avoidance between father-in-
law and son-in-law—Arose in stage of transition
—Causes of mother-in-law and son-in-law
avoidance—Influence of jealousy—Examples—
Mr. Tylor's statistics—Resentment of capture not
primal cause of this avoidance—Note on
avoidance.
CHAPTER VIII

THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM

The classificatory system—The author's theory is
the opposite of Mr. Morgan's, of original brother
and sister marriage—That theory is based on
Malayan terms of relationship—Nephew, niece,
and cousin, all named 'sons and daughters'—This
fact of nomenclature used as an argument for
promiscuity—The author's theory—The names
for relationship given as regards the group, not
the individual—The names and rules evolved in
the respective interests of three generations—
They apply to food as well as to marriage—Each
generation is a strictly defined class—Terms for
relationship indicate, not kinship, but relative
seniority and rights in relation to the group—The
distinction of age in generations breaks down in
practice—Methods of bilking the letter of the
law—Communal marriage—Outside suitors and
cousinage—The fact of cousinage unperceived
and unnamed—Cousins are still called brothers
and sisters; thus, when a man styles his sister's
son his son, the fact does not prove, as in Mr.
Morgan's theory, that his sister is his wife—
Terms of address between brothers and sisters—
And between members of the same and of
different phratries—These corroborate the
author's theory—distinction as to sexual rights
yields the classificatory system—Progress outran
recognition and verbal expression—Errors of Mr.
Morgan and Mr. McLennan—Conclusion—Note
—'Group marriage'
APPENDICES
A.—ENGLISH, ORCADIAN, AND HEBREW VILLAGE
SOBRIQUETS
B.—THE BA RONGA TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP
INDEX

SOCIAL ORIGINS
AND
PRIMAL LAW

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY
THE FAMILY. THEORY OF MR. ATKINSON

The Family is the most ancient and the most sacred of human institutions;
the least likely to be overthrown by revolutionary attacks. In epochs of
change the Family naturally invites the attentions of impetuous reformers,
like Shelley (who advocated a scheme more than any other apt to shock the
conscience of a savage), and like the friends of 'Free Love,' who would
introduce a license beyond the Urabunna model. The horror aroused by
certain relations, such as that of brother-and-sister marriage, is perhaps the
oldest of moral sentiments, yet it has lost its hold of some barbaric races,
and has been overcome by dynastic pride, as in the Royal House of the
Incas of Peru, and in that of Egypt. While the Family, everywhere almost,
has been secured by a religious and all but instinctive dread of certain
aberrations, the laws or customs which may not be broken have varied in
different lands, and in different stages of civilisation. What is incest in one
age or country is innocent in another; still certain unions, varying in various
regions, have always been regarded with loathing. No such emotion is
known to be felt among the lower animals, and scientific curiosity has long
been busy with the question, why should the least civilised of human races
possess the widest list of prohibited degrees? What is the origin of the
stringent laws that, among naked and far from dainty nomads, compel men
and women to seek their mates outside of certain large groups of real or
imagined kindred? The answers given to this question have varied with the
facts of savage law which chanced to be at each moment accessible to

inquirers, and all attempts to solve the problem must be provisional. New
knowledge may upset even the most recent theory, and, indeed, new
knowledge of the rules of certain Australian tribes has already produced
fresh hypotheses, as regards certain aspects of the problem.
The whole subject is thorny, and I must crave pardon for venturing to differ,
provisionally, on several important points, from authorities whose learning,
research, and experience far exceed my own. The facts which they have
collected from personal knowledge of savages, and from reading, often
group themselves otherwise in my eyes than in theirs—the perspective is
different. My observations, therefore, are submitted to criticism with all
diffidence. Only the main lines of a complex discussion are here traversed,
and the works cited are, as a rule, either by English-speaking authors, or, at
least, are sometimes accessible in English translations. It will be seen that
students have differed greatly, not only from each other, but, at different
times, from themselves, under the influence of new facts brought in from
the most remote and isolated of savage races. One author is most interested
in this, another in that, factor of the problem. The difficulty of the subject
cannot be exaggerated; for the origins of our human society cannot be
historically traced behind the institutions of the races now lowest in the
scale of culture. We are driven to risk hypotheses. Again, it is by no means
certain that some of these lowest peoples of to-day (say the Arunta of
Central Australia) represent a moment in the main current of the stream of
tendency, a point through which all progress has passed. The ideas and
institutions of such tribes may be mere local 'sports,' other divergencies may
have arisen in other quarters, and it would be an error (repudiated by Mr.
McLennan, the founder of the study in England) to suppose that,
everywhere, exactly the same series of changes evolved itself in due
sequence. 'In one place or another everything may have been going on,' I
have heard Mr. McLennan observe.
Once more, the subject is obscure because the races apparently 'nearest the
beginning,' the naked Australians, houseless hunters, just emerging from the
palæolithic condition as regards implements, are, as to society and system
of thought, very far from being 'primitive;' very remote from 'the
beginning.' Their social rules are various and extremely complex, especially
as regards marriage: some of their social customs are perhaps inexplicable
—a field for modern guesswork—their speculative philosophy is, in one

instance, ingenious, elaborate, and highly peculiar. The 'beginning' lies far
behind them, yet their society and institutions may have their germs (on the
Darwinian theory) in a state of all but complete brutality.
To trace human institutions back to that hypothetical stage of first
emergence from the brute is the purpose of the following treatise, 'Primal
Law,' by Mr. Atkinson. It were superfluous for me to dwell on the audacity
of his enterprise. Of thoroughly human man we know a good deal: of the
brutes we know something. Of a hypothetical creature, not wholly brute,
but not yet 'articulate-speaking man,' we know nothing, and as to the ways
of his supposed next of kin, 'the great extant anthropoid apes,' our
knowledge is vague, resting on the accounts of native observers. Such a
creature, however, half ape, half human, is in part the theme of Mr.
Atkinson's speculations, on which I venture to express no opinion: as not
being persuaded that man ever had such a direct ancestor.

PRIMITIVENESS IN MAN

As to men really primitive, and their social arrangements, I only venture to
conjecture that, in the nature of the case, they probably lived a nomadic life,
'selecting a temporary place of abode, whether a cave, rock, shelter, or hut,
influenced chiefly by the amount of edible materials to be found in the
neighbourhood.'[1] The area of the wandering of each group of hearth-mates
would be limited, probably, by the existence of other groups, which would
resent poaching. A large trout may often be seen to turn angrily and drive
away a little trout that has ventured too near the bend of the brook which
the large trout finds a good station for flies; and human groups would also,
as in cases to be cited they do, mortally resent intrusions. I conceive that the
males would be polygamous (like the gorilla) and jealous, killing or
expelling the young males, as in the theories of Mr. Darwin and Mr.
Atkinson. Thus groups would, on the whole, be hostile,[2] 'wandering from
one locality to another, now gathering fruits and seeds, now hunting wild
animals, or, as a last resource, feeding on shell-fish and other produce of the
shore.'[3] The implements now used by backward savages for fish-catching,
nets, spears, and barbed hooks, cannot be precisely primitive. Primitiveness,
we must remember, does not depend on antiquity of date.

The Australians, though now their groups have coalesced into local tribes in
defined areas, and though their customary law is extremely complex, are
least remote from the primitive, least remote, but very far removed. They
are, though our contemporaries, infinitely beneath the status in culture of
palæolithic man of the mammoth and reindeer period. It is not improbable
that he had domesticated the ox, goat, pig, horse, and dog. 'They
manufactured fine needles of bone, with which they sewed their skin
garments. They adorned their persons with a variety of beads....' Their art
was of notorious and amazing excellence. Dr. Munro says that they were
'ignorant of the rearing of domestic animals,'[4] but also that 'there seems to
be no inherent improbability in the idea that some of them' (ox, goat, horse,
pig, and dog) 'had been domesticated by the indigenous inhabitants prior to
the coming of the neolithic brachycephals into France.'[5] A palæolithic
sketch of a horse 'with a supposed cover,' and another of a horse with a
bridle,[6] may be misinterpreted: Dr. Munro thinks that the horse-cloth 'may
be no more than the hunter's skin coat thrown over the back of the animal
when led home by means of a halter made of thongs or withes to be there
slaughtered.' If palæolithic man had advanced as far as Dr. Munro supposes,
it was a short step to the domestication of the horse. It is hardly conclusive
to say that, if he had tamed the horse, 'we would undoubtedly ere now have
had an equestrian representation of the fact,' though it is also said that 'we
have only as yet a preliminary instalment of these most interesting art
productions.'[7] The representation may later be discovered. That palæolithic
man, so far advanced as he was, was 'ignorant of the principles of
religion,'[8] seems a hasty conclusion. If he had the beliefs of our
Australians in such potent beings as Baiame, Nooreli, Daramulun, Mungun-
ngaur, Pirmaheal, and Pundjel, that belief would leave no material traces,
except, perhaps, the Bull-roarer, whose noise represents the voice of one or
other of these beings. Now a small but unmistakeable pair of palæolithic
bull-roarers in bone, or of amulets which are bull-roarers in miniature, one
of them decorated with the sacred Australian pattern of herring-bone and
concentric circles, have been found in a quaternary station in France.[9]
Palæolithic man in France, countless ages ago, was thus, especially if he
had domesticated animals, immensely more remote from 'the beginning'
than contemporary wild Australian tribes. They, again, with their copious
languages, ingenious implements, complex institutions, and prolonged

tribal assemblies, are infinitely in advance of those really primitive men
among whom we must tentatively seek the origins of customary law
regulating the family and marital arrangements. A society almost
incalculably ancient may have been much more advanced than a society of
to-day, and the society of the lowest known modern savages must be
equally advanced from the status of 'primitive man'.
The best proof of all that no Australians are now in or near 'the chrysalis
state' of humanity, is to be found in their combinations into large friendly
tribes, each covering a wide extent of country, and holding stated meetings,
for social, political, religious, and commercial purposes. Mr. Matthews
remarks on 'articles of barter,' exchanged 'at the great meetings which were
held for the initiation of the youths of the tribes.' Among these articles were
stone hatchets, first chipped, then ground, the tribes having passed out of
the stage in which mere rude flaking sufficed. 'At the conclusion of the
ceremonies, before the people dispersed, a kind of fair was held, when
natives in whose country stone was plentiful, would barter their things with
other people for reeds for making spears, rich plumage of birds, &c. ... or
for any other articles brought by the various tribes for the purpose of
exchange.'[10] We can scarcely conceive that this amount of tribal or inter-
tribal unity was possible to man really primitive. Backward and
conservative as the Australians are, we must not expect to find among them,
with their highly complex customary laws, anything like the first
beginnings of social regulations. To look for these, even among the naked
and houseless hunters of Australia, is to organise failure in this research as
to origins.

RECENT HISTORY OF THE SPECULATION AS TO THE EARLY HUMAN FAMILY

From the age of Aristotle onwards, inquirers naturally began with a belief in
the Patriarchal Family as the original social unit. To this opinion, in a
peculiar form, Mr. Atkinson returns, as will be seen. The idea was natural.
Aristotle, like Hesiod, starts from 'the Man, the Woman, and the labouring
ox,' though men and women were wedded long before oxen and other
animals were domesticated. The Biblical account in Genesis opens with the
same theory of the primal pair, whose children, brother and sister, must
have married each other, as in the late Mr. Morgan's hypothesis of the

'Consanguine Family;' but, contrary to almost universal savage custom, and
to Mr. Atkinson's 'Primal Law.'
In 1861, Sir Henry Maine's celebrated book, 'Ancient Law,' appeared.
Herein he wrote that it was difficult to say 'what society of men had not
been originally based on the Patriarchal Family.[11] His studies had lain
chiefly in the law of civilised peoples, Romans, Hebrews, Greeks, Irish, and
Hindoos; not in the customary law of the lowest races. He, like Mr.
Freeman, concluded that the patriarchal family, by aggregation of
descendants (and aided by adoption of outsiders, and by the ownership of
the family by its Head), formed the gens, while the aggregation of gentes
formed the tribe, and the aggregation of tribes made the State. But, as the
gentes had traditions contrary to this theory, traditions of separate origins,
he supposed that 'the incoming populace should feign themselves to be
deduced from the same stock as the people on whom they were engrafted.'
Thus we know that McUlrigs (Kennedys) of Galloway joined the remote
Macdonnells of Moidart and Glengarry, and wore the Macdonnell tartan[12]
(1745-1760), and so might come to pass as Macdonnells, though they still
regard the Marquis of Ailsa, a Kennedy, as their chief, at least in Eilean
Shona (Loch Moidart). In the same way the Camerons of Glen Nevis,
though called 'Camerons,' were really MacSorlies, a branch of the
Macdonnells, and from the sixteenth century to 1754 were always on ill
terms with the chief of the clan Cameron, Lochiel. These are very modern
instances, but illustrate Sir Henry's theory of incomers.
The members of the Roman tribes had traditions that they were not, really,
of the same original blood with each other. Only by a fiction were they of
the same blood. They did not all descend by natural increase from one
patriarchal ancestor. There really did exist 'a variety of alien groups in a
local tribe,' however they might all adopt the same name, and assert
descent, in West Scotland from Somerled, let us say. This fact, of
heterogeneousness within the 'tribe' among others, was so obvious and so
imperfectly explained, by friends of the Patriarchal theory, that it occupied
'writers belonging to the school of so-called prehistoric inquiry,' as Sir
Henry styled it.[13] They were not satisfied with the theory that Society
arose in the Patriarchal Family, based on direct descent from, and
ownership by, a single male ancestor. To be sure a Cameron will 'cross the
hill,' and call himself Stewart, and a Chinese immigrant into Australia has

discreetly entitled himself Alexander Mac-gillivray. But such accretions,
and such legal fictions, do not explain the heterogeneousness of the local
tribe, which, by the theory of some historians, is of common descent.
'Prehistoric inquirers' could not but notice that, among ruder 'non-Aryan'
races of various degrees of culture, 'the family is radically different from the
Patriarchal Family,' and suggests a different origin.
Roughly speaking, the groups of real or fancied kindred among various low
races exhibit the peculiarity that the kin-name is often inherited from the
mother, not from the father; that the maternal blood is stronger in
determining such cases of inheritance as arise; and that marriage is
forbidden within the recognised limits of the maternal kinship. It was
natural for inquirers to derive this condition of affairs, this reckoning in the
female line, from a state of society in which fatherhood (owing to
promiscuity, or to polyandry—several husbands to one wife) was notably
uncertain. Bachofen, who first examined the problem, attributed the system
to a supposed period of the Supremacy of Women: McLennan to dubious
fatherhood, and possible early promiscuity. The recovery of supremacy by
men, or the gradual advance in civilisation, especially in accumulation of
property, would finally cause descent to be reckoned through the male line,
as among ourselves.
As to the question of early promiscuity—sexual relations absolutely
unregulated—Dr. Westermarck, Mr. Crawley, and others have argued, and
Mr. Atkinson argues, that it never existed, at least to any wide extent, and
with any potent influence. We hear rumours of savages utterly promiscuous,
say the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, just as we hear of savages
utterly without religion. But later and better evidence proves that the
Andamanese have both wives and a God.[14]
Again, the lowest savages known are so far not 'promiscuous,' that they
recognise certain sets of women as persons with whom (as a general rule,
subject to occasional exceptions) certain sets of men must have no marital
relations. It was the opinion of Mr. Darwin, as of Mr. Atkinson, that sexual
jealousy, from the first, must probably have been a bar to absolute
promiscuity, even among the hypothetical anthropoid ancestors of human
race. To tell the truth, our evidence on these points, as to existing savages,
is, as usual, contradictory.[15]

WHAT IS EXOGAMY? DIFFICULTIES OF TERMINOLOGY

In these inquiries a great source of confusion arises (as all students must be
aware) from the absence of exact terminology, of technical terms with a
definite and recognised meaning. Thus when my friend, the late Mr. John
Fergus McLennan, introduced the word 'Exogamy,' in 'Primitive Marriage'
(1865), he probably knew perfectly well what he meant. But he did not
then, from lack of practice in an inquiry practically novel, and originated by
himself, express his meaning with exactness. He at first spoke of exogamy
as the rule 'which prohibited marriage within the tribe.'[16] But the word
'tribe' was later taken by Mr. McLennan to mean, and is now used as
meaning, what cannot be a primitive community, a local aggregate of
groups amicably occupying a considerable area of country; say the
Urabunna tribe of Central Australia. Mr. McLennan did not wish to say that
exogamy forbids an Urabunna tribesman to marry an Urabunna
tribeswoman; he meant that exogamy prohibited marriage within the
recognised kindred—that is, in this case, between members of totem
kindreds of the same name, say Emu or Kangaroo. This fact he later made
perfectly clear. But meanwhile such terms as 'horde,' 'tribe,' 'sub-tribe,'
'family,' 'gens,' 'section,' 'phratria,' 'clan,' many of them derived from
civilised classical or Celtic usage, have been tossed up and down, in
company with 'class,' 'division,' 'section,' and so on, in a way most
confusing.[17] Odd new terms come from America, such as 'socialry,'
'tutelaries,' 'ocular consanguinity,' 'ethnogamy,' 'conjugal conation,' and so
forth.[18] Most perplexing it is to find words like clan, family, tribe, gens,
phratry, words peculiar to civilised peoples, Greek, Roman, or Celtic,
applied to the society of savages. 'The term "clan" implies descent in the
female line,' says the late Mr. Dorsey, following Major Powell; but why
take the Celtic term 'clan,' which has no such signification, and confer it on
what is really a totem kindred with descent in the female line?[19] Next,
'several of the Siouan tribes are divided into two, and one into three sub-
tribes. Other tribes are composed of phratries, and each sub-tribe or, phratry
comprises a number of gentes.' Is there a distinction between the 'sub-tribes'
of some tribes, and the 'phratries' of others, or not? Apparently there is not,
but the method of nomenclature is most confusing.
I shall understand the terms which I employ, as follows:

The tribe, speaking of the Australians, for instance, is a large aggregate of
friendly or not hostile human groups, occupying a territory of perhaps a
hundred square miles, and holding councils and meetings for social and
religious purposes. It is so far 'endogamous' that its members may marry
within it—that is to say, it is no more endogamous than the parish of
Marylebone. An Urabunna man, a man of the Urabunna tribe, may marry an
Urabunna woman—if no special native law interferes. He may also at
pleasure marry, out of his tribe, say a woman of the neighbouring Arunta
tribe, again, if no special law bars the arrangement. So far the tribe, the
large local aggregate of groups, stands indifferent. But, within the tribe,
there are laws barring marital intercourse. First, each tribe is usually
composed of two 'primary exogamous divisions,' or 'phratries,' so called; in
the case of some tribes the phratries are named; for example, Matthurie and
Kirarawa. Every man and woman, in such tribes, is either a Matthurie or a
Kirarawa, and can only marry into the opposite division, and the children
follow the name of the mother. These two divisions are called 'primary
classes' by some students; 'phratrias' (from the Greek: Φρατρία) by others;
'sub-tribes' by others; or, again, 'moieties,' or 'groups.' I shall, in each
instance, use the term ('class,' 'phratria,' 'moiety,' 'primary exogamous
division,' 'group,' and the like) employed by the author whose opinion I am
discussing, though I prefer 'phratry,' as 'class' has another significance; so
has 'group,' &c.
Again, the tribe contains a number of totem kindreds (often called 'clans' or
gentes, rather at random), that is, of sets of kin deriving their names from
totems, plants, animals, or other objects in nature. To the possible origin of
Totemism we return in a separate section. No Urabunna man may marry a
woman of his own 'phratry,' nor of his own totem, and the children inherit
the phratry and totem names from the mother. Finally, there are sets of
relationships, roughly indicating, it would seem, seniority by generations,
and degrees of actual or supposed kindred. Within many of these, which I
shall style 'classes' (they have other terms applied to them), marriage is
forbidden. Thus there are bars of three several sorts on the intermarrying of
an Urabunna man with an Urabunna woman. In a way, there are three
grades of exogamous prohibitions.
Mr. McLennan, who introduced the word 'exogamy,' defined it thus: 'an
exogamous marriage is a marriage between persons of different clans of

kinship, not entered into fortuitously, but because of law declaring it to be
incest for a man to marry a woman of his own clan.'[20] The same
community cannot be 'both exogamous and endogamous,' as some suppose.
Thus Lord Avebury writes, 'some races which are endogamous as regards
the tribe, are yet exogamous as regards the gens.' But really 'exogamy is the
law prohibiting marriage between persons of the same blood or stock as
incest—often under pain of death—and endogamy is the law prohibiting
marriage except between persons of the same blood or stock.'[21] In Mr.
McLennan's sense I shall take the word 'exogamy,' while dealing with
peoples apparently nearest the beginning.
Later, when descent in the male line is established, the prohibition on
marriage within the totem name comes to apply, sometimes, to marriage
within the local district held by the men of the name. The old prohibition,
we see, is to many within the recognised limit of the blood kinship, or
stock, designated by the totem name. But, as tribes advance to kinship
through males, and as, thereby, groups of one totem name come to possess
one region of country, it often happens that exogamy prohibits marriage
between persons dwelling in that region. Whereas Grouse was forbidden to
marry Grouse; later, the Grouse living together, say in Corradale, the
exogamous prohibition takes the shape 'persons dwelling in Corradale must
marry out of Corradale.' The name marking the exogamous limit is now, in
such cases, local, but the prohibition is derived from the older tabu on
marriage between 'persons of the same blood or stock'—all those in
Corradale being conceived to share the same blood or stock. This origin of
'local exogamy' must be kept in mind, otherwise confusion will arise. There
are a few cases, even in Australia, where even local exogamy has become
obsolete, and marriage, as with ourselves, is prohibited between persons of
near kindred simply.
Now, if I may venture to interpret the mind of Mr. John Fergus McLennan, I
conceive that he regarded the totemic division as older than the 'phratry' or
the 'class' bar, and he thought it the oldest traceable exogamous limit. Not to
marry within the totem name (no male Emu to marry a female Emu) was, in
Mr. McLennan's opinion, the most archaic marriage law.[22] This appears
from the words of Mr. McLennan's brother, Mr. Donald McLennan.[23] He
writes: 'As the theory of the Origin of Exogamy took shape, and the facts
connected reduced themselves to form in his mind, the conclusion was

reached that the system conveniently called "Totemism" ... must have
existed in rude societies, prior to the origin of Exogamy.[24] This carried
back the origin of Totemism to a state of mind in which no idea of incest
existed. From that condition my brother hoped to trace the progress of
Totemism—necessarily a progress upwards—in connection with kinship
and Exogamy. It may here be said that he had for a time a hypothesis of the
origin of Totemism, but that he afterwards came to see that there were
conclusive reasons against it.'
Meanwhile may we not, then, assume that, in Mr. McLennan's opinion, the
earliest traceable human aggregate within which matrimony was legally
forbidden was the totem kin, indicated by the totem name, the totem tabu,
and the totem badge, or symbol—where it existed?
We now see how heterogeneous elements came to exist in the tribe of
locality, a puzzle to the friends of the theory of the Patriarchal Family. For
the nature of totemism, plus exogamy and female descent, is obviously such
that under totemism, each family group even (each 'fire circle' of men,
wives, and children), must contain persons of different totems. The father
and mother must be of different totems (persons of the same totem not
intermarrying), and the children must inherit the totem either of the father
or of the mother.[25] When paternal kinship is not only recognised (as, in
practical life, it always is), but becomes exclusive in its influence on
customary law, and when an approach to the Patriarchal Family, with the
power of the patriarch, is evolved, all the members of the family in all its
branches will (if Totemism persists) have the same totem; derived from the
father. Thus there will now be a local totem group, a group mainly of the
same totem name, as is practically the case in parts of Central Australia.[26]
It is necessary to understand this clearly. Take a very early group, in a given
district; suppose it, at first, to be anonymous, and let it later be called the
Emu group. So far, all members of the group will be Emus, they will form
an Emu local group. But, next, suppose that there are many neighbouring
groups, also at first anonymous; let them later be styled Rat, Cat, Bat, Sprat.
Suppose that each such group now (for reasons to be indicated later) takes
its wives not from within itself, but from all the other groups; that these
women bring into the Emu group their group names; and that their children
inherit their names from their mothers. Then the name, 'Emu group,' will

cling to that local aggregate, as such; but, in time, the members of the Emu
group will all be, say, Rats, Cats, Bats, and Sprats, so called from the group-
names of their alien mothers. Suppose that, for one reason or another,
children at last come to inherit their names and totems from their fathers.
Then a Cat father will have Cat children, though his wives may still be of
different totems, and his sons' children will also be Cats, and so the local
group will become mainly, if not wholly, a group of one totem, the Cat. The
Arunta of Central Australia do trace kinship in the male line, and thus there
is 'one area which belongs to the Kangaroo men, another to Emu men,
another to Hakea flower men,' and so on. This has reached such a pitch that
'in speaking of themselves the natives will refer to these local groups,' not
by the prevalent totem names in each, but 'by the name of the locality which
each of them inhabits,' namely, as men of the Iturkawura camp, and so on.
[27]
Thus we might say 'the Glen Nevis men,' 'the Corradale men,' and so on.
Thus we begin with an anonymous group, or group of unknown name, a
local group. We introduce Totemism, and that group becomes a local group
with a totem name. Granting exogamy (prohibition of marriage within the
group), and reckoning in the female line, it soon developes into a local
group made up of various totems, but, at first, as a local group, it probably
retains its original totem name among its neighbours. Reckoning, still later,
through the male line, we again meet, as at first, a local totem group, but
already Totemism is on the wane, and the groups are soon to be called by
the territorial names of their lands. At this stage totem names are tending to
decay, and the next step will probably be to style the group by the name of
some remembered, or mythical, male ancestor, such as 'children of
Donald'—Macdonalds.
Thus if, at a given time, the name of a certain male ancestor is substituted,
as 'eponymous,' for the totem name, or the district name, we shall find a
local group of, say, Sons of Donald, into which other groups, Sons of
Sorlie, or Ulrig, will enter, as occasion serves, and be more or less
absorbed. A State may at last arise, say, 'Softs of Israel.'
We are not assuming, however, that all human societies have passed
through the totemistic and exogamous stages.

TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY

But what was the original unit, the totem group, or other division outside of
which alone could marriages be arranged? And why was the totem name the
limit? Returning to Mr. Donald McLennan's account of the opinions which
his brother did not live to set forth, Totemism arose 'in a state of man in
which no idea of incest existed.' On this theory, I presume, there would be
totem groups before exogamy arose; before it was reckoned 'incest' to many
within the totem name. This, as we shall see, appears to be sometimes the
opinion of the best Australian authorities, Messrs. Fison and Howitt, and
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. It is also the theory of Arunta tradition. The
totem belief, as it now exists, imposes many tabus: you may not (as a rule)
kill, eat, or use the plant or animal which is your totem; still less perhaps, in
the long run, may you 'use,' sexually, a woman of your totem. If this, or a
kindred totem tabu, is the origin of exogamy, then to exogamy (as a law,
though not necessarily as a tendency) the totem is prior in time. But I have
no reason to suppose that Mr. McLennan ever regarded the totem tabu as
the origin of exogamy. In his published works he offers another theory, not
commonly accepted.
But the important thing to note is that exogamy may conceivably (contrary
to Mr. McLennan's opinion, but in accordance with that of Mr. Atkinson)
have existed, or rather tended to exist, before totems arose; much more,
then, previous to the evolution of totem names, of totem tabu, and of the
idea of incest, as a sin, or mystic misdeed, and as an offence to the totem—
a religious offence to God, or to ancestral spirits. Persons may have been
forbidden to marry within their local group, their 'fire circle' before that
group had a totem, or a totem name, and they may have been forbidden for
reasons purely secular, to which the totem later lent a sanction, and a
definite limit. Thus Mr. Tylor, our most sagacious guide in all such
problems, writes 'Exogamy can and does exist without Totemism, and for
all we know was originally independent of it.'[28]
It is part of my argument that exogamous tendencies, at least—that is, a
habit of seeking female mates outside of the fire-circle—may very well
have prevailed before any human group had even a totemic name. But
exogamous tendencies are not, of course, the same thing as exogamy
strictly defined, and sanctioned by religious or superstitious fear, and by
secular penalties inflicted by the tribe. Against the notion that exogamy may
have been prior to Totemism, Mr. Robertson Smith argued that very early

man would not be restrained from marriages by such an abstract idea as that
of kindred—'not to marry your near kin'—while the idea of kindred was
still fluid, and not yet crystallised around the totem name.[29] But, without
thinking of kindred by blood, perhaps without recognising consanguinity
(though it must have been recognised very soon), early man may have
decided that 'thou shalt not marry within this local group or crowd, of which
I am head.' Nothing abstract in that! There was no tribal law—there were as
yet (I suppose) no tribes—only the will of the head of each small set of
people practically enforced exogamy.
We can have no certainty on this point, for we know of no pre-totemic race,
no people who certainly have not yet entered into the totemic stage. Any
such people, probably, in the remote past, had no idea of incest as a sin, or
of exogamy as a law sanctioned by a tabu. But they may have, at least, had
a strong tendency to marry outside of the circle of the hearth, the wandering
hearth of homeless nomads ranging after food.
The reader of Mr. Atkinson's treatise will find that this kind of exogamy—
marriage outside the local group—would, on his theory, be the rule, even
when no idea of blood kindred, or of incest as a sin, need have arisen; and
no totem, or anything else, had yet been named. The cause of the
prohibition would, in Mr. Atkinson's opinion, be the sexual jealousy of the
hypothetical patriarchal anthropoid male animal; and, later, the sexual
jealousy of his adult male offspring, and of the females. Still later the group,
already in practice exogamous, would accept the totem name, marking off
the group from others, and the totem name, snipe, wolf, or what not, would
become, for the time, the exogamous limit. No man and woman of the same
totem name could intermarry. Still later, a myth of kinship with the totem
would arise, and would add the religious sanction of a tabu.
A prohibition may perhaps have arisen very early, even if Mr. Atkinson's
hypothesis (that the rule of marriage outside the group arose in a state of
brutality) be rejected. 'The origin of bars to marry is, in fact, complex,'
writes Mr. Crawley. A dislike of marriage with a group-mate, familiar,
through contiguity, from infancy, may have been developed among early
men;[30] and may have been reinforced by the probably later superstitions
which create 'sexual tabu,' and mutual avoidance, among many existing
peoples. Men and women are, by savages, conceived to be mysteriously
perilous to each other, especially when they live in close contiguity. Mr.

Crawley also allows for Mr. Atkinson's main factor, jealousy, 'proprietary
feeling, which is one crude means by which the family has been regulated
and maintained.'[31] If these things were so (whether we go back to Mr.
Atkinson's semi-brutal ancestors, or not), then, contrary to Mr. Donald
McLennan's opinion, and to general opinion, it would not 'appear to be
possible to demonstrate that Totemism preceded exogamy,' or at least
preceded the exogamous tendency. For, in the first place, exogamy might
conceivably tend to arise before the explicit idea of kinship—whether male
or female—arose. Mr. Atkinson's 'primal law' would be unuttered in speech
(speech, by his theory, there was none), but would amount to this: 'I, the
patriarchal bull of this herd, will do my best to kill you, the adult young
bulls, if you make any approaches to any of the cows in this crowd.' There
is no notion of 'incest,' but there is jealousy producing the germ exogamy.
The young bulls must find mates outside of the local herd—or do without.
This rule persisted, on Mr. Atkinson's theory, till the hypothetical
anthropoid became a man, and named his group (or had it named for him,
as I later suggest) by a totem name.
But real human and speaking beings might enforce marriage outside of the
group, though they did not perhaps think explicitly of kindred (or, at least,
did not think the idea fully out), still less of 'incest,' as sin. Mr. McLennan's
theory, as given in his works, was partly identical with that of Mr. Atkinson.
'The earliest human groups can have had no idea of kinship'—they must,
therefore, have been rather low savages. 'But,' he said, 'they were held
together by a feeling of kinship,' not yet risen into explicit consciousness.
Cat and kitten have, probably, feeling of kinship, and that feeling is very
strong, while it lasts, in the maternal cat, while between semi-human
mothers and children, arriving so very slowly at maturity, mother-kin must
have been consciously realised very early. Mr. McLennan then showed the
stages by which the savage would gradually, by reflection, reach explicit
consciousness of female kinship, of mother-relationship, sister and brother
relationship, and all the degrees of female kin.
But Mr. Fison and others have argued powerfully against this theory.[32]
Moreover, we find male relationships, as we saw—'descent counted in the
male line'—among the Arunta of Central Australia, whom Mr. J. G. Frazer
regarded, in 1899, as actually 'primitive;' while the neighbours of the
Arunta, the Urabunna, reckon through the female line.[33] Mr. Crawley, for

various reasons, says, 'the famous Matriarchal theory' (the prepotency and
dominion of women) 'was as exaggerated in its early forms as was the
Patriarchal.... It is a method of tracing genealogy, more convenient in
polygamous societies and more natural in primitive times when the close
connection of mother and child during the early days of infancy emphasises
the relation.'[34] Dr. Westermarck argues to a similar effect.[35] His motive is
to discredit the theory of promiscuity, and consequent uncertainty of
fatherhood, as the cause of reckoning on the spindle side. But the Arunta,
who reckon on the sword side, actually do not even know that children are
the result of sexual intercourse, according to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.
How they can have any idea of blood-kinship at all is, therefore, the
mystery. It may perhaps be argued that they have none. But these ignorant
Arunta reckon descent through the male line—while the Royal Picts, in
early Scotland, infinitely more civilised, reckoned by the female line.
For myself, I still incline to the opinion[36] that the reckoning of descent
through the woman is the more archaic method, and the method that,
certainly, tends to dwindle and disappear, as at last it did among the Picts.
This applies to human society, not to that of Mr. Atkinson's hypothesis, in
which the question is not of kin, but of property. 'Every female in my crowd
is my sole property,' says—or feels—Mr. Atkinson's patriarchal anthropoid,
and the patriarch gives expression to his sentiment with teeth and claws, if
he has not yet learned to double up his fist, with a stone in it. 'These were
early days.'

THEORIES OF EXOGAMY. MR. MCLENNAN'S THEORY

In any case, Mr. McLennan's hypothetical first groups, like Mr. Atkinson's,
were very low indeed. They developed exogamy, not (as in Mr. Atkinson's
theory) through sexual jealousy on the part of the sires, but, first, through
regular female infanticide. This practice, being reasonable, could not prevail
among Mr. Atkinson's anthropoids.[37] Girl babies being mostly killed out,
women became scarce. Neighbouring groups being hostile, brides could
only be procured by hostile capture. Each group thus stole all its brides and
became exogamous, and marriage inside the group became a sin, by dint of
'a prejudice strong as a principle of religion.'

This theory of Mr. McLennan's is, I think, quite untenable. The prevalence
of female infanticide, at the supposed very early stage of society, is not
demonstrated, and did not seem probable to Mr. Darwin. Even if it existed,
it could not create a prejudice against marrying the few women left within
the group. Mr. McLennan, unhappily, was prevented by bad health, and
death, from working out his hypothesis completely. His most recent
statement involves the theory that the method of the Nairs of Malabar,
living in polyandrous households (many men to each woman) was the
earliest form of 'marriage.' But people who, like the Nairs, dwell in large
households, are far indeed from being 'primitive.' 'A want of balance
between the sexes' led, Mr. McLennan held, to 'a practice of capturing
women for wives,' and was followed by 'the rise of the law of exogamy.'
The first prohibition would be against capturing women of the kindred
(marked by the totem), for such capture, if resisted, might involve the
shedding of kindred blood. Women being scarce, through female
infanticide, kindred groups would not give up or sell their women to each
other (though to the males of the groups, such women could not be wives),
nor could women be raided from kindred groups, as we saw. So they would
be stolen from alien groups, 'and so marriages with kindred women would
tend to go into desuetude.' The introduction of captured alien wives would
change the nature of matrimonial relations. Under the Nair system 'a
woman would live in the house of her mother, and under the special
guardianship and protection of her brothers and her mother's brothers. She
would be in a position of almost absolute independence of her husbands....'
But really pristine man and woman can have had no houses, no matriarchal
rule of women. The Nairs, not being primitive, have houses, and their
women have authority: pristine man was not in their condition. However,
captured alien wives would, Mr. McLennan argues, be property, be slaves;
and men would find this arrangement (now obsolete) so charming that
polyandry and the reign of woman would go out. The only real legal
marriage would be wedlock with an alien, a captive, a slave woman.
Marriage with a woman of the same stock would be a crime and a sin. It
would be incest.[38] Really it would be, at worst, concubinage.
This theory seems untenable at every point, community of wives, female
infanticide, household life, supremacy of women in the household, living
with a non-captive wife reckoning as incest, and, in short, all along the line.

Even if the prejudice against marrying native women did exist, it could not
be developed into the idea of sin—granting that the idea of sin already
existed. To be sinful, endogamy within the group must have offended some
superstitious belief, perhaps the belief in the totem, with its tabu.[39]

MR. CRAWLEY'S THEORY

To disengage from his learned book, The Mystic Rose (1902), Mr. Crawley's
theory of the origin of exogamy is no easy task. He strongly insists on the
'religious' element in all early human thought, and as in 'religion' he
includes the vague fears, misgivings, and ideas of 'luck,' which haunt even
the least religious of modern men, we may say that 'religion,' in this sense,
mingles with the thought of all ages. The present writer, like Dr. Johnson, is
an example of the 'religious' character, and of Mr. Crawley's remark that
'human nature remains potentially primitive.' To the 'religious' man or
woman (using 'religious' in this sense) the universe is indeed a thing of
delicate poise, and may 'break, and bring down death,' if we walk under a
ladder, or spill the salt, or enter a doorway with the wrong foot foremost, or
fail to salute a magpie, or the new moon. The superstitious anthropologist,
of course, knows that all these apprehensions of his are utterly absurd, but
the savage is careful and troubled about them. The Philistine, on the other
hand, is proud of his conquest of these airy terrors: he 'cannot imagine what
people mean by such nonsense,' and, exactly so far as he is sincere, he
cannot comprehend early mankind.
Now, as to exogamy, our difficulty is to understand why breach of the rule
against certain marriages is, everywhere, so deadly a sin: so black an
offence against 'religion.' Mr. Crawley's explanation is not, perhaps, easily
to be disengaged from the mass of his work, but it begins in his appreciation
of the δεισιδαιμονία of early men, their ever-present sense of 'religious'
terrors. 'Thus all persons are potentially dangerous to others, as well as
potentially in danger....'[40] This sense of peril arises 'in virtue simply of the
distinction between a man and his fellows.' Much more, then, are women
dangerous to men, and men to women, the sexes being so distinct from each
other. We know that the most extraordinary precautions are taken to avoid
contact with women in certain circumstances, and a well-known story of Sir
John Mandeville's is only one case of the fact that the bridegrooms of some

races, from a superstitious terror, insist on being made cocus en herbe.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen give the instance of 'the marriage ceremony' (an
odious brutality) among the Arunta of Central Australia.[41] It is perhaps
intended to deliver the bridegroom from a peril imagined by superstition (as
in Mandeville's tale);[42] and, without it, the Australian would resemble the
man derided in the old Scottish song:
The Bridegroom grat when the sun gaed doon.
Thus a 'religious' dread attaches among savages (the theory holds) to all
marriages; all are novelties, new steps in life, and therefore are so far 'sinful'
that they involve a peril, vague but awful, the creation of superstition.
Marriages contrary to the exogamous rule, are only especially and
inexplicably bad cases of the 'sin'—that is, mystic danger—of marital
relations in general, as I understand Mr. Crawley. Marriage ceremonies of
every kind are devised to avoid 'sin,' as our Marriage Service candidly
states, using 'sin' in the Christian sense of the word. But there are savage
marriages, those forbidden by the law of exogamy, which, as a general rule,
no ceremony can render other than sinful. So great and terrible is the danger
of such marriages—namely, among many savages, between persons of the
same totem, that it threatens the whole community, just as the marriage of
Charles I. with a Catholic bride caused the Plague, according to the Rev.
Mr. Row, and therefore such unions are punished by the death penalty, and
are but seldom left to the automatic vengeance of the tabu. Foremost in this
black list of sins are the unions of brothers and sisters of the full blood,
though, we must remember, these are not more heavily punished than
marriage between a man and woman of the same totem, even if the pair
come together from opposite ends of the continent, and are not blood
relations at all. Why is this?
As I understand Mr. Crawley, the sexes, in savagery, avoid each other's
society in everyday life, partly from 'sexual tabu'—the result of the
superstitions already indicated; partly because of 'sexual solidarity,' perhaps
even of 'sexual antipathy.' In fact, men and women are often very much in
each other's way. We do not want women in our clubs and smoking-rooms
—nor do savages—and we despise a man who lurks in drawing-rooms
when his fellows are out of doors; a man who is a pillar of luncheon parties
and of afternoon tea. But this separation of the sexes is especially rigid
between the children of the same hearth, even among nomads. The boys go

with the father, the girls with the mother. The manlike apes have the same
ideas. 'Diard was told by the Malays, and he found it afterwards to be true,
that the young Siamangs, when in their helpless state, are carried about by
their parents, the males by the father, the females by the mother.' 'The nests
... are only occupied by the female and young, the male passing the night in
a fork of the same tree or another tree in the vicinity.'[43]
These facts of ape etiquette would, to use an Elizabethan phrase, have been
'nuts' to Mr. Atkinson, and prove that sexual separation of the children is a
very early institution. In Australia, New Caledonia, and other countries,
brothers and sisters must not even speak to each other, and must avoid each
other utterly. Thus the danger and 'sin' of the most innocent intercourse
between brothers and sisters is emphasised; much more awful, then, are
matrimonial unions of brother and sister. 'The extension' (of this idea) 'by
the use of relationships produces the various forms of exogamy,' says Mr.
Crawley.[44] There are difficulties here; for example, Mr. Crawley tells us
that incest did not 'need prevention,' though the rules of brother-and-sister
avoidance seem really to mean that it did, or was thought to do so (but
perhaps only superstitious dread of ordinary intercourse caused the rule?),
and though we know of regions where such incest, in early youth, is said to
be universal.[45] 'Such incest,' says Mr. Crawley, 'is prevented by the
psychological difficulty with which love comes into play between persons
either closely associated, or strictly separated before the age of
puberty....'[46] Now we know that lust does come into play—for example,
among the Annamese—between brothers and sisters not closely separated;
and we also know that, the more persons are 'strictly separated,' the more
does the novelty and romance, when they do meet, produce natural
attraction, as between Romeo and Juliet. Incest among the young is really
prevented by the religious horror with which, by most peoples, it is
regarded; as well as, among the civilised, by the constant and sacred
familiarity of family life. The bare idea of it can only occur, as a desirable
notion, to a boyish revolutionary, like Shelley, or to minds congenitally
depraved.
Again, men and women of the same totem have no 'avoidances' forced upon
them, as far as I know (and, as they may not marry, this is an oversight); yet
their marriages are as terribly sinful as marriages between brother and sister
of the full blood. Mr. Crawley writes, 'Obviously the one invariable

antecedent in all exogamous systems, indeed in all marriage systems, is the
prohibition of marriage "within the house."' But, we reply, A (a male) and B
(a female), of the same totem, may never have been in the same house, or in
the same degree of latitude and longitude, before they met and fell in love.
As to 'house,' houses they may have none. Yet their union is a deadly sin.
Mr. Robertson Smith is said to have 'set the question in the right direction,'
when he wrote, 'whatever is the origin of bars to marriage, they certainly are
early associated with the feeling that it is indecent for house-mates to
intermarry.'[47]
But what is early need not be primary.
Again, if Mr. Crawley reads on, he will find, I think, that the context of Mr.
Robertson Smith's argument shows him not to have held that exogamy
arose in 'the feeling that it is indecent for "house-mates"' (or tent-mates) 'to
marry.' For Mr. Robertson Smith adds, 'it will not do to turn this argument
round, and say that the pre-Islamic law of bars to marriage may have arisen
... in virtue of a custom that every wife and her children shall have their
own tent.[50] In any case, we cannot speak of 'house-mates' before there
were houses. But if for 'house-mates' we read 'hearth-mates,' then no sense
of 'indecency,' as on Mr. Crawley's theory, need necessarily attend their
marriage, for hearth-mates may be of different totems, derived from
different mothers, and may be marriageable enough, at least as far as totem
law is concerned. A, male, an Emu, marries B, a Bandicoot, and C, a Grub.
His children by B have the Bandicoot totem, his children by C have the
Grub totem. As far as totem law goes, these children may intermarry, but
this is not allowed in practice to-day. Mr. Mathews says, of the Kamilaroi,
'in order to prevent such a close marriage' (of brother and sister on the
father's side), 'every tribe has strict social customs, founded upon public
opinion, which will not tolerate the union of a man with a woman whose
blood relationship is considered too near.'[48] Australian ethics, long trained
under the old totem and phratry prohibitions, are now sufficiently
enlightened to reject unions which we also forbid. But it cannot have been
so in the beginning, or the totem and phratry tabus on marriage would have
had no occasion to exist. It would have sufficed to say, 'Thou shalt not
marry thy sister, or mother,' and the totemic rule would have been a
cumbrous superfluity. Superfluous it would have been, even under the

hypothetical 'group marriage system,' where the law would have run 'Thou
shalt not marry thy group-sister or group-mother.'
While Mr. Matthews gives a kind of bye-law, forbidding marriage, under
female descent, with the paternal half-sister, Mr. Fison avers that the
Kamilaroi do allow such unions. 'It is marriage within a phratria,' but not
within a totem.[49] The fact was denied, or at least questioned, by many
correspondents, but Mr. Fison believed it to be authentic. 'The natives
justified it on the ground that the parties were not of the same mudji'
(totem). Apparently these natives, who let a man marry his father's
daughter, had not arrived at an objection to unions of 'too near flesh.' But
mere decadence, under European whisky, may be the explanation. Mr.
Matthews denies, as we saw, what Mr. Fison asserts, as to the Kamilaroi.
Mr. Crawley writes, 'if we apply to the word "indecent" the connotation of
sexual tabu ... and if we understand by "house-mates" those upon whom
sexual tabu concentrates, we have explained exogamy.'[50]
Scarcely, for sexual tabu against marriage, in fact, now, at least,
concentrates on people of near kin, and on totem-mates, man and woman of
the same totem, and they may be 'house-mates,' or 'hearth-mates,' or they
may not (in polygamous society), and the hearth-mates (as far as the totem
rule goes, but not now in practice) may thus be intermarriageable, as not of
the same totem, while totem-mates, from opposite ends of a continent, are
not intermarriageable (except in the peculiar case of the Arunta and cognate
tribes).
But Mr. Crawley may reply that each totem, originally, did really pertain to
all members of each small local group, and that the totem prohibition was
extended, later, to all groups of the same totem name, however distant in
space. Thus according to the Euahlayi blacks there were originally no totem
names, but the divine Baiame gave them to mortals with the rule that no
pair of the same totem name were to marry, 'however far apart their hunting
grounds.' Thus considered, the tabu which forbids an Emu man to marry an
Emu woman, would mean no more, originally, than that marriage between
persons living in the close contiguity of the same local group (in this case
the Emu group) was forbidden. There might be no original intention of
prohibiting marriage with a person of an Emu group, dwelling a thousand
miles away; probably no such group was known to exist. The original
meaning of exogamous law, I repeat, would be merely 'you must not marry

a hearth-mate,'—or a 'house-mate,' in Mr. Crawley's phrase—the hearth-
mates, in this particular instance, being delimited by the name 'Emu.' So far
my conjecture agrees with that of Mr. Crawley. The extension of the
prohibition to persons of the same totem-name, however remote their
homes and alien their blood, I am content to regard as a later kind of
accidental corollary. There came to be totem kins of the same name, far
remote, and thus, as it were casually, the law acquired an unpremeditated
sweep and scope, including persons not really of the same group or blood,
only of the same name.
But why was there originally any objection at all to marrying the most
accessible bride, the female hearth-mate? Here, as I have tried to show, Mr.
Crawley would explain by his idea of sexual tabu. All men are regarded
with superstitious dread by all women, and vice versa; above all, as a daily
danger, the men, or women living in close contiguity must avoid each other.
To keep them apart all sorts of tabus and avoidances are invented, including
the tabu on their marriage.
This is a plausible and taking theory, and I am far from arguing that it
cannot be a true theory. But the insuperable difficulty of deciding arises
from the circumstance that we know nothing at all about the intellectual
condition of the more or less human beings among whom the prohibition of
marriage within the group first arose. Were they advanced enough to be
capable of such a superstitious dread of each other as the supposed cause of
the prohibition takes for granted? Males and females, among the lower
animals, have no such superstition. It requires human imagination. On the
other hand, animal jealousy was well within their reach, and Mr. Atkinson
derives the original prohibition of marriage within the group from the sheer
sexual jealousy of the animal-patriarch. In his opinion the consequent
aversion to such wedlock crystallised into a habit, as the race advanced
towards full humanity.
Even before his anthropoid clients were completely human, the group
would be replete with children of females not of the full group blood,
captives, and therefore these children (if blood kin through females were
regarded) would be eligible as wives. But this would not yet, of course, be
understood. Perhaps it would not be fully understood till the totem name
was given to, and accepted by, each group, and so there was a definite mark
set on each woman brought in from without the group, and on her children,

who bore her totem name. After that, each totem group obviously contained
members of other totems, and those, being now recognised by their mother's
totem names, were technically intermarriageable. What had been a group
not explicitly conscious of its own heterogeneous elements, became, in fact,
an assemblage of recognised heterogeneousness, capable of finding legal
brides within itself, and no longer under the necessity (had it understood) of
capturing brides from without in hostile fashion. Such an assemblage
would, or might, come to consist of families, dwelling, or rather wandering,
within a given region, all on terms of friendship and mutual aid. I take it
that, by this time, improved weapons and instruments, and improved skill,
enabled groups larger than the small original groups to live in a given area.
In fact, the group would, or might, be a small local 'tribe,' but, probably,
was unconscious of the circumstance. If conscious, one cause of hostility
among the groups was at an end, there was no necessity for stealing women,
a system of peaceful betrothals within the group might now arise, though
certain facts, to be dealt with later, raise a presumption, perhaps, that this
relatively peaceful state of life did not appear until two of the original local
totem groups coalesced in connubium, intermarrying with each other, in fact
becoming 'phratries.'
To produce the new condition of affairs, two factors were necessary: first, a
means of distinguishing the captured women within every group from each
other, and from the group into which they were brought by capture. This
means of distinction was afforded by the totem names. Next, a recognition
of kinship was needed, and this was supplied, let us conjecture, by naming
the children of each of the captive women after the totem name of the group
from which she was captured. If all the children indiscriminately were
called by the totem name (say Emu) of the local group into which their
mothers had been brought—that is, by the totem name of their fathers—
there would be no recognisable heterogeneity within that group, and so
there would be, within the local group, no possible wives, under the
exogamous rule. Whether polyandry then existed, or not, still all the fathers
were of one local totem name, say Emu, and children could only be
differentiated by styling them after the totem names of their alien mothers.
This is usually done among the savages who are least advanced, but not
among the Arunta, whose totem names, as we shall see, by a curious
divergence, do not indicate stock, but are derived from a singular

superstition about ancestral spirits, of various totems, incarnating
themselves in each new-born child.
Mr. McLennan, in Primitive Marriage (1865), had arrived at conclusions
very like these. The primitive groups 'were assumed to be homogeneous....
While as yet there was no system of kinship, the presence of captive women
in a horde' (group), 'in whatever numbers, could not introduce a system of
betrothals'—the women and their children not yet being differentiated from
each other, and from the group in which they lived. Mr. McLennan, in 1865,
did not ask how these women ever came to be distinctly differentiated, each
from each, and from the group which held them, though that differentiation
was a necessary prelude to the recognition of kindred through these women.
But presently, in his Studies of Totemism (1869), he found, whether he
observed the fact or not, the means of differentiation. Differentiation
became possible after, and not before, each primitive group received a
totem name, retained by its captive women within each group to which they
were carried, a name to be inherited by their children in each case.
He says, 'heterogeneity as a statical force can only have come into play
when a system of kinship led the hordes to look on the children of their
foreign women as belonging to the stocks of their mothers.' That was
impossible, before the totem or some equivalent system of naming foreign
groups arose, a circumstance not easily observed till Mr. McLennan himself
opened the way to the study of Totemism.[51]
It thus appears that Mr. Crawley's theory of exogamy and mine are
practically identical in essence (if I rightly interpret him). The original
objection was to the intermarriage of the young of the group of contiguity,
the hearth-mates. If there was but one male of the elder generation in the
group of contiguity, these young people would be brothers and sisters. If
there were two or more males of the elder generation, brothers, the group
would include cousins, who (even before the totem name was accepted by
the group) would also be forbidden to intermarry. When the totem name
was accepted, cousins, children of brother and sister, and even brothers and
sisters, children of one father, by. wives of different totems, would be,
technically, intermarriageable: though their marriages may, in practice, have
been forbidden because they were still of the group of contiguity, and as
such bore its local totem name, say, Emu, while, by the mother's totem
name, they may have been Bats, or Cats, or anything. Where I must differ

from Mr. Crawley is in doubting whether at this hypothetical early stage,
the superstitions which produce 'sexual tabu' had arisen. We cannot tell; but
certainly, as soon as the totem name had given rise to the myth that the
totem, in human beings as in animals and plants, was inviolable—the beast
or plant of the totem blood not to be killed or eaten,[52] the woman of the
totem name not to be touched—so soon would endogamy, marriage within
the totem, be a sin, incest. This it would be; the totem tabu once established,
whether sexual tabu, or sexual jealousy, or both, caused the first prohibition,
not to marry group, mates. Here we may briefly advert to Dr. Westermarck's
theory of exogamy, though it interrupts the harmonious issue of our
speculations.

DR. WESTERMARCK'S THEORY

As to exogamy, Dr. Westermarck explains it by 'an instinct' against marriage
of near kin. Our ancestors who married near kin would die out, he thinks,
and they who avoided such unions would survive, 'and thus an instinct
would be developed,'[53] by 'Natural Selection.' But why did any of our
ancestors avoid such marriages at all? From 'an aversion to those with
whom they lived.' And why had they this aversion? Because they had an
instinct against such unions. Then why had they an instinct? We are
engaged in a vicious circle. 'Lastly it is not scientific to use the term instinct
of this kind of thing.'[54]

MR. MORGAN'S THEORY

As to Mr. Morgan's theory, in his Ancient Society (1877), of a movement of
sanitary and moral reform, which led to prohibition of 'consanguine
marriages' I shall return to it in a later part of this essay ('Other Bars to
Marriage'). Here it will be found that Mr. Morgan is the source of certain
other theories which we are to discuss, a fact involving a certain amount of
repetition of arguments already advanced.

RETURN TO THE AUTHOR'S THEORY

We conclude, provisionally, that exogamy, for various reasons of sexual
jealousy, and perhaps of sexual superstition, and of sexual indifference to

persons familiar from infancy, may, at least, have tended to arise while each
little human group was anonymous; before the acceptance of totem names
by local groups. But this exogamous tendency, if it existed, must have been
immensely reinforced and sweepingly defined when the hitherto
anonymous groups, coming to be known by totem names, evolved the totem
superstitions and tabus. Under these, I suggest, exogamy became fully
developed. Marriage was forbidden, amours were forbidden (there are
exceptional cases), within the totem name. This law barred, of course,
marital relations between son and mother, between brother and sister, but,
just as it stood, permitted incest between father and daughter, so long as the
totem name was inherited from the mother. But that form of incest, in turn,
came to be barred by another set of savage rules, which, whatever their
origin, prohibit marriage within the generation. That set of rules, noted
specially in Australia and North America, is part of what is usually styled
'The Class System.'

[1] Dr. Munro, Archæological Journal, vol. lix. no. 234, pp. 109-143: (Tire à
part, p. 1.) See also later, Hypothetical Early Groups.
[2] To this point, hostility, I return later.
[3] Dr. Munro, Archæological Journal, vol. lix. no. 234.
[4] Munro, Archæological Journal, vol. lix. no. 234, p. 22.
[5] Ibid. p. 32.
[6] Ibid. p. 18.
[7] Ibid. p. 20.
[8] Ibid. p. 22.
[9] L'Anthropologie, Mars-Avril, 1902. For a brief bibliography of the bull-
roarer see Mr. Frazer, The Golden Bough, iii. pp. 423-4, note 1.
[10] Journal and Proceedings Royal Society N.S.W., vol. xxviii. p. 305. See also
Roth, Ethnological Studies, pp. 132-138. 1897.
[11] Ancient Law p. 132.
[12] Major Kennedy's portrait of 1750-1760 represents him in Macdonnell
tartan. He was an agent of Prince Charles.
[13] Early History of Institutions, pp. 310, 311.
[14] Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, pp. 53-57.
[15] Mr. John Mathew declares that 'jealousy is a powerful passion with most
aboriginal husbands' in Australia. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, on the other hand,
represent the aboriginal husband as one of the most complacent of his species,

jealousy being regarded as 'churlish.' Messrs. Spencer and Gillen are decidedly
the better authorities. Mathew, Jour. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., xxiii. 404. Westermarck, p.
57. Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 99.
[16] Studies in Ancient History, 1876, p. 41.
[17] The late Major Powell, of the American Bureau of Ethnology, used gens of
a totem kin with descent in the male line, clan of such a kin with descent in the
female line, and his school follows him. Mr. Howitt, on the other hand, uses
'horde' for a local community with female, 'clan' for a local community with
male descent.
[18] 'The Seri Indians,' by W. J. McGee. Report of Bureau of American
Ethnology, Washington, 1898.
[19] 'Siouan Sociology,' Report of American Ethnological Bureau, 1897, p. 213.
[20] Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 265.
[21] Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 46. In an appendix to Mr.
Morgan's Ancient Society, Mr. McLennan's terms are severely criticised.
[22] I shall call each set indicated by a totem name a 'totem group,' if the
members live together; a 'totem kin,' if they are scattered through the tribe.
[23] The Patriarchal Theory, pp. 6, 7, 1885.
[24] Meaning by Exogamy, not a mere tendency to marry out of the group, but a
customary law with a religious sanction.
[25] Here the unusual case of the Arunta offers an exception to the rule; a point
to be discussed later.
[26] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 8-10.
[27] Ibid. pp. 8-9.
[28] 'Remarks on Totemism,' Jour. Anthrop. Inst., August, November, 1898.
[29] Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 187.
[30] But, as Dr. Durkheim says, man and wife might soon abandon each other, if
familiarity breeds contempt.
[31] Journal of the Anthropological Institute, May, 1895, p. 444.
[32] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 132. 1880.
[33] Spencer and Gillen, p. 70. Frazer, Fortnightly Review, April, May, 1899.
[34] The Mystic Rose, p. 460.
[35] History of Human Marriage, pp. 105-113.
[36] Tylor, J. A. I. xviii. 3, 254.
[37] The practice however, is attributed to tame canary birds.
[38] Studies in Ancient History, second series, pp. 57-65.
[39] Cf. Custom and Myth (A. L.), p. 258.
[40] Mystic Rose, p. 31.
[41] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 92-93.

[42] Lord Avebury's view that the 'rite' implies compensation to the other males
of the community will be considered later.
[43] Westermarck, p. 13. Citing Brehm, 'Thierleben,' i. 97, Proceedings R.G.S.
xvi. 177.
[44] Mystic Rose, p. 443.
[45] Westermarck, p. 292.
[46] Mystic Rose, p. 222.
[47] Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 170.
[48] Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxi. 166.
[49] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 42,46, 47, 115.
[50] Mystic Rose, p. 443.
[51] See Studies in Ancient History, pp. 183-186.
[52] This is the view of Dr. Durkheim, who explains the blood superstition. Cf.
Reinach, L'Anthropologie, x. 652.
[53] History of Human Marriage, p. 352.
[54] Compare Mr. Crawley, Mystic Rose, pp. 444-446.

CHAPTER II

THE CLASS SYSTEM

Under this name appear to be blended, (1) the prohibition to marry within a
division, which, in its simplest form, is said to cut the tribe into two 'classes'
or 'phratries,' or 'groups;'[1] (2) the prohibition to marry within the totem
name; (3) the prohibition to marry within the generation, and within certain
recognised degrees ('classes,' 'sections') of real or inferred kinship—'too
near flesh,' too close consanguinity, which, in their present condition, many
Australian tribes undoubtedly regard as a bar to matrimony. But it does not
follow that they originally held this opinion.
We shall first examine what authorities who differ from me, call the great
'bisection' of the tribe, into, say, Matthurie and Kirarawa, members of which
must intermarry, the totem prohibition also remaining in force. It will here
be suggested, in accordance with what has already been said, but contrary
to general opinion, that the totemic prohibition is earlier than the

prohibition of marriage between persons of the same segment of the
'bisection.' The opinions of most students appear, at present, to be divided
thus. We hear that:
1. The exogamous division into two moieties, or 'phratries,' is earlier than
the division of each into numerous totem kins. The totem kins are regarded
as later 'subdivisions' of, or additions to, the two 'original' moieties.
2. Totem groups are earlier than the 'bisection' (though somehow, according
to the same authors, the two moieties of the bisection bore totem names),
but, before the 'bisection,' these totem groups were not exogamous. They
only became exogamous when six of them, say, were arranged in one of the
two moieties (phratries), now forbidden to marry, and another six in the
other.
I venture to prefer, as already indicated, the system (3) that totem groups
not only existed, but were already exogamous, before the great 'bisection'
producing the 'phratries' came into existence, though I argue that 'bisection'
is a misleading term, and that the apparent division was really the result of
an amalgamation of two separate and independent local totem groups.
This theory (presently to be more fully set forth) is original on my part, at
least as far as my supraliminal consciousness is concerned. I mean that I
conceived myself to have hit on the idea in July 1902. But something very
like my notion (I later discovered) had been printed by Dr. Durkheim, and
something not unlike it was propounded by Herr Cunow (1894). Mr. Daniel
McLennan had also suggested it: and I find that the Rev. John Mathew had
stated a form of it in his Eagle-Hawk and Crow (1899), (pp. 1922, 93-112).
Mr. Mathew's hypothesis, however, involves a theory of contending and
alien races in Australia. This theory does not seem well based, but, however
that may be, I recognise that Mr. Mathew's hypothesis of the origin of
exogamy (p. 98), and of the origin of the 'phratries' or 'primary classes,' in
many respects anticipates my own. He opposes Mr. Howitt's conclusions,
and I may be allowed to say that I would prefer Mr. Howitt, owing to his
unrivalled knowledge, as an ally. On the other hand, the undesigned
coincidence of Dr. Durkheim's, Mr. Daniel McLennan's, Mr. Mathew's, and
Herr Cunow's ideas with my own, raises a presumption that mine may not
be untenable.

THE CLASS SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA

Though the existence of what are called exogamous 'phratries' (two to each
tribe) was made known, as regards the North American tribes, by Mr. Lewis
Morgan (to whose work we return) in the middle of the nineteenth century,
almost our earliest hint of its existence in Australia came from the Rev. W.
Ridley, a learned missionary, in 1853-55. In Mr. McLennan's Studies in
Ancient History[2] will be found an account of Mr. Ridley's facts, as they
gradually swelled in volume, altered in character, and were added to, and
critically constructed, by the Rev. Mr. Fison, and Mr. A. W. Howitt. These
gentlemen were regarded by Mr. McLennan as the allies of Mr. Morgan, in
a controversy then being waged with some acerbity. He, therefore, criticised
the evidence from Australia rather keenly. It is probable that Mr. Morgan
and Mr. McLennan both had some right on their parts—seeing each a
different side of the shield—though a few points in the discussion are still
undecided. But it seems certain that the continued researches of Messrs.
Fison and Howitt, reinforced by the studies of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
in Central Australia, have invalidated some of Mr. McLennan's opinions as
to matters of fact.
Much trouble and confusion will be saved if we remember that, as has been
said, under the 'classificatory system,' three sets of rules applying to
marriage exist. The totem rule exists, rules as to marriage in relation to
generations and so-called degrees of kindred (real or 'tribal') exist ('classes'),
and, thirdly, there are the rules relative to 'phratries,' the phratries, being, I
think, in origin themselves totemic. We shall mainly consider here the so-
called 'bisection' of a tribe into two exogamous and intermarrying
'phratries,' while remembering Herr Cunow's opinion that a 'class' is one
thing, a 'phratry' quite another.[3]

THE VARIETIES OF MARRIAGE DIVISIONS IN AUSTRALIA

Perhaps the most recent, lucid, and well-informed writer on the various
divisions which regulate the marriages of the Australian tribes is Mr. R. H.
Mathews.[4] In some regions, the system of two intermarrying phratries
exists, without further subdivision (except in regard to totem kins).
Sometimes each phratry is divided into two 'sections' (or 'classes'), making
four for the tribe. Again, each phratry may have four 'subsections' or

'classes,' making eight for the tribe. Each phratry, like each 'class,' 'has an
independent name by which its members are easily recognised.'
Obviously we need, of all tilings, to know the actual meanings of these
names, but we do not usually know them. As we shall see, where a tribe has
two 'phratries' and no subordinate 'classes,' the names of these 'phratries,'
when they can be translated, are usually names of animals. In a few cases,
as will later appear, when there are 'classes' under and in the 'phratries' their
names seem to indicate distinctions of 'old' and 'young.' But Mr. Mathews
nowhere, as far as I have studied him, gives the meanings of the 'class'
names, some of which are of recent adoption. Mr. Mathews usually gives
only 'Phratry A' and 'Phratry B.' We now cite his tables of the simple
'phratry' system, of the 'phratry' plus two classes system, and of the 'phratry'
plus four classes system; making four, or eight, such divisions for the tribe.
'In describing the social structure of a native Australian community, the first
matter calling for attention is the classification of the people into two
primary divisions, called phratries, or groups—the men of each phratry
intermarrying with the women of the opposite one, in accordance with
prescribed laws.'
Mr. Mathews then mentions that some tribes have (1) this simple division
only (of course, as a rule, plus totem kins). (2) Elsewhere each phratry is
composed of two 'sections' (called by us 'classes'). (3) Elsewhere, again,
each phratry has four sections (we need not discuss here the tribes where
none of these things exist).
Mr. Mathews now gives tables representing the working of the system in
each of the three cases.[5]
1

Father Mother Son Daughter
Phratry A Kirraroo Matturrin Matturri Matturrin
Phratry B Matturri Kirrarooan Kirraroo Kirrarooan

2
Father Mother Son Daughter
{Murri Buta Ippai Ippatha
Phratry A {Kubbi Ippatha Kumbo Butha
Phratry B {Kumbo Matha Kubbi Kubbithai
{Ippai Kubbitha Murri Matha

3
Father Mother Son Daughter
{Choolum Ningulum Palyarin Palyareenya
Phratry A {Cheenum Nooralum Bungarin Bungareenya
{Jamerum Palyareenya Chooralum Nooralum
{Yacomary Bungareeny Chingulum Ningulum

Father Mother Son Daughter
{Chingalum Noolum Yacomary Yacomareenya
Phratry B {Chooralum Neenum Jamerum Neomarum
{Bungarin Yacomareenya Cheenum Neenum
{Palyarin Neomarum Choolum Noolum

It will be seen that, under the simple phratry system, children of the female
Matturrin are always Matturri and Matturrin, children of the female
Kirrarooan are always Kirraroo and Kirrarooan. On the phratry plus two
classes system, female Butha is mother of Ippatha and Ippatha of Butha for
ever. On the phratry plus four classes system, female Ningulum has a
Palyareena daughter, who has a Nooralum daughter, who has a
Bungareenya daughter, whose daughter reverts to the original Ningulum
class, and so on, ad infinitum. The women remain constant to their 'phratry,'
and marry always the men of the opposite phratry.
It is to be observed that, by customary law, brothers and sisters actual (and
not 'tribal') may never intermarry.[6] In short, consanguinity is now fully
understood by the natives, and too close unions are forbidden on the ground
of consanguinity. It also seems that, though the blacks are all on the same
level of material culture, yet reflection on marriage rules, and modification
of these rules by additional restrictions and alterations, have been carried
much further by some tribes than by others. I by no means deny, but rather
affirm, that consanguinity is now understood, and that rules have in some
tribes been consciously made, and altered, to avoid certain marriages as of
'too near flesh.' But I do not think that, at the beginning, the objection to
consanguineous marriages, as such, can have been entertained, and I am not
of opinion that, for the purpose of preventing such marriages, in the
beginning, a horde was bisected into two phratries, and each phratry split up
into totem groups. Rather, I conceive, certain primitive conditions of life led
to the evolution of certain rules, independent of any theory about the
noxiousness or immorality of marriages of near kin; and then reflection on
those primal rules helped to beget moral ideas, and improvements on the
rules themselves. In the original restrictions, morality, in our sense, was
only implicitly or potentially present, though now it has risen into explicit
consciousness. The tribes came to think certain marriages morally wrong, or
physically noxious, because they were forbidden; such unions were not, in
the first instance, forbidden because they were deemed physically injurious,
or morally wrong. These ideas have, by this time, been evolved; but it does
not follow that they were present at the beginning.
I took the liberty of laying a brief sketch of my own theory before Mr.
Howitt, who, after considering it, was unable to accept it. He was kind
enough to send me a summary account of many varieties of institutions,

which, as we have seen, prevail—from tribes with totems and the simple
phratry and female descent, up to tribes which have lost their classes and
totems, count descent in the male line, and permit marriage only between
persons dwelling in certain localities, or not of 'too near flesh.' All sorts of
varieties of custom, in fact, prevail. Again, the most backward tribes, in Mr.
Howitt's opinion, have group-marriage;[7] the more advanced have
individual marriage, with rare reversions on special occasions. Each
advance, from mere phratry to phratry plus eight 'classes,' reduced the
number of persons who might intermarry, and extended the range of
exogamy (except where, as among the Arunta, the totem prohibition has
ceased to exist). The marked tendency of the developing rules is to prevent
marriage between persons 'too near in flesh,' or 'of the same flesh.' Mr.
Howitt argues that, if the later stages of prohibition are the result of
deliberate intention to prevent too near marriage, we may infer that the
original 'bisection' of the 'undivided commune' was also consciously
designed to prevent unions of persons of too near flesh.
To this I would reply, that the circumstances were different. The savages of
recent centuries have been trained in the totem and phratry systems, and
have now, like Mr. Howitt, excogitated the theory that these were originally
designed for the purpose of preventing marriages of 'too near flesh,'
wherefore all such marriages (even if permitted by the totem law) must be
morally or materially evil. This is the theory expressed in the myths of the
Dieri, Woeworung, and others; and it is the theory of many scientific
writers. In brief, it is the hypothesis of men already trained to think near
marriages morally wrong, or physically injurious. But how could this idea
occur to members of 'an undivided commune,' who had never known
anything better?
That is the difficulty; and we get rid of it by disbelieving in a primeval
undivided commune; and by supposing a long past of forbidden unions, the
prohibition then resting on no moral ideas, but on the interest of the
strongest, the jealousy of the adult sire. These prohibitions later evolved
into conscious morality; and were at last susceptible of improvement by
deliberate design. I shall now examine more in detail the ideas which do not
win my assent.

MR. FISON ON THE GREAT BISECTION

In 1880, in Kamilaroi and Kurnai,[8] Mr. Fison, a learned missionary and
anthropologist, gave his account of the organisation of certain Australian
tribes. He speaks of (1) The division of a tribe, or community, into two
exogamous intermarrying classes.[9] (2) 'The subdivision' (mark the phrase)
'of these classes into four.' (3) 'Their subdivision into gentes, distinguished
by totems, which are generally, though not invariably, the names of
animals.'
Now totems we know, and we have cited Mr. Mathews for the other
divisions. Take (1) 'the two exogamous intermarrying classes.' Examples are
Male, Kumite; female, Kumitegor (one 'class,' which I call
'phratry').
Male, Kroki; female, Krokigor (the other 'class,' 'phratry').
Again.
Male, Yungaru (opossum); female, Yungaruan.
Male, Wutaru (kangaroo); female, Wutaruan.
What are these two 'primary' exogamous divisions? And why call them
'primary'?

'PRIMARY CLASSES?'

My object, as has been said, is now, contrary to general opinion, to repeat
that the great dichotomous 'division' of a tribe into two exogamous,
intermarrying, 'classes' or 'phratries,' is not 'primary' at all, but is secondary
to groups at once totemic and exogamous, and is not, in origin, a bisection,
but a combination. If I am right, the consequences will be of some curiosity.
First, it will appear that the 'primary divisions' are themselves totemic in
origin, thus implying the pre-existence of Totemism. Next it will be made to
appear probable that the pre-existing totems were already exogamous
before the phratries arose, and that exogamy does not date, as the best
authorities hold, from the making of the great dichotomous divisions or
'phratries.' For no such dichotomous division, I suggest, was ever made.

THE 'PRIMARY DIVISIONS' ARE THEMSELVES TOTEMIC AND EXOGAMOUS

We see that, of the two 'phratries' Yungaru and Wutaru, Yungaru is
'opossum' (according to Mr. Chatfield) or 'alligator' (according to Mr.
Bridgman); while Wutaru is 'kangaroo.' These two primary 'phratries,'
therefore, have totemic names, and (in my opinion) were originally two
local totem groups, each containing members of various totems derived
from alien mothers. The same thing may be true when the meanings of the
'primary class names' ('phratries') can no longer be discovered. If so, the
'primary divisions' are, in origin, mere totem distinctions, involving, I think,
the pre-existence of the rule of exogamy, which is also involved in the rules
of the 'primary divisions.' Mr. Fison writes (what is obvious) 'in some
places the primary divisions are distinguished by totem names at the present
day.'[10]

'Probably they were so distinguished everywhere, in ancient times,' he adds,
and this is certainly the case in North America, as we shall see later. Mr.
Fison's opinion is my own so far, and, if it is right, if the 'primary class
divisions' ('phratries'), within which marriage is now forbidden, were
originally two totem divisions, then Totemism is earlier than the 'primary
divisions.' On this point Messrs. Fison and Howitt say that the divisions on
which marriage regulations are based 'are denoted by class names or by
totems—frequently by both class names and totems.' In a note they add,
'Class names, so called by us solely for the sake of convenience, and
because they cannot always be positively asserted to be totems, though the
strong probability is that they are always totems.'[11]
By 'class names' the authors, I think, here mean the names of the 'primary
exogamous divisions' or 'phratries.' These are often, if not always, known
by totem names. But the 'classes,' as distinguished from the 'phratries,' are
not known by totemic names, as far as I am aware. Herr Cunow, we shall
see, asserts that in some cases they denote mere seniority, 'big' and 'little,'
'young' and 'old.' Unless they can be proved to be totemic, we must, I
repeat, carefully avoid confusing the 'classes,' four or eight, with the
'phratries,' in which they are included. The confusion is general and very
misleading.

Totemism, according to Mr. McLennan, preceded exogamy, and made
exogamy possible. Thus totem distinctions, with exogamy, may be older
than the 'two primary class exogamous divisions,' in which, according to
most authorities, exogamy began. Mr. Tylor is cautious: 'the dual form of
exogamy' (the 'phratries,' or 'two primary divisions') 'may be the original
form,' or at least that view is tenable.[12] The origin of exogamy is, however,
unknown, in Mr. Tylor's opinion, which commits him to nothing.
Mr. Howitt, if I do not misinterpret him, also regards the two divisions,
'phratries,' as primary, but at the same time agrees with me, and Mr. Fison,
that the two 'phratry' divisions were themselves in origin totemic.

THE TOTEM DIFFICULTY

At this point I lose Messrs. Fison and Howitt. I do not know what they
mean, and, unless I misconstrue them, they unconsciously hold different
opinions at different moments. They start with an 'undivided commune.' Mr.
Fison, however, is not certain on this point. To prevent near marriages
(previously universal), the commune is split into two exogamous
intermarrying phratries. The names of these phratries are totemic, and each
phratry has its totem. Such is their theory. How and why?
Did totemic divisions already exist in 'the undivided commune'? If so, the
commune was not undivided! Or were totem names given, nobody knows
why, to the two phratries at the time when the 'bisection' of the commune
was made? Did the legislator send half the horde to the right, crying, 'You
are sheep,' and half to the left, saying, 'You are goats,'—or rather, say, Emus
and Kangaroos? This is not easily thinkable. But, if this was done, whence
came the other totem kins, often numerous, within each phratry?
Mr. Fison says that the totem kins (or 'gentes') 'arose out of two primary
divisions, by an orderly process of evolution, such as might be expected
from the forces at work,' and 'we have seen how' the phratries subdivided
'into other subdivisions, distinguished by totems.'[13] But, alas, I have seen
nothing of the sort! Mr. Fison has merely asserted the fact. 'The totems
affect the intersexual regulations ... by narrowing the range of matrimonial
selection.'[14] Here would be a reason for the evolution of these totem kins.
But this added restriction is exactly what (given phratries) the totems do not

effect. There are so many totems in each phratry, but as the same totem
(except among the Arunta and similarly disorganised tribes) never occurs in
both phratries, the range of sexual selection is thus not more restricted by
the totem than by the phratry. The members of each phratry may not
intermarry, and all persons of their totem are in their phratry and so are not
marriageable to them. They would all be exactly as exogamous as they are,
if there were no totem rules, nothing but phratry rules. Thus the totems
cannot be later deliberate segmentations of the phratry, for additional
exogamous purposes, because they serve no such purpose, except where,
among the Kamilaroi, a man may marry in his phratry, if he marries out of
his totem. But that is a peculiarity.
Mr. Mathews writes, 'Under the group' (phratry) 'laws it is impossible for a
Dilbi or Kupathin' (phratry names of the Kamilaroi) 'to marry a woman
bearing the same totem name as himself, for the reason that such a totem
does not exist in the division' (phratry) 'from which he is bound to select his
wife. But when persons of the same group' (phratry) 'were permitted to
marry each other, it became necessary to promulgate a law prohibiting
marriage between persons of the same totem.'[15] But there were totems
before that novelty of marriage within the phratry, and why were they
there? Moreover, under phratry laws it was already the rule that no man
could marry a woman of his own totem. Obviously we are not told how the
totem kins arose out of the phratries, 'by an orderly process of evolution
such as might be expected from the forces at work.' One sees no reason at
all for the rise of totem kins within the phratry, itself, by Mr. Fison's theory,
originally totemic.
Totem kins are called 'subdivisions' by Mr. Howitt, but why were the
phratries subdivided into totem kins, and why were there totem groups in
'the undivided commune' before the bisection, the phratries (the result of the
bisection) being themselves, in Mr. Howitt's hypothesis, totem groups? I
quote a statement of the case by Mr. Howitt (1889): 'The fundamental
principle of aboriginal society in Australia is the division of the community
into two exogamous intermarrying moieties. Out of this division into two
groups, and out of the relations thus created between the contemporary
members of them and their descendants, the terms of relationship must have
grown. As the two primary divisions (classes)' ('phratries') 'have become

again divided in the process of social development, and as the groups of
numerous totems have been added,' &c.[16]
Here the totem kins are not orderly evolved out of the phratries, nor
subdivided out of them, but are 'added.' Where were they picked up, whence
did they arise, why were they 'added'?
May we not conclude that no clear account, or theory, of the origin and
purpose of totems and totem kins has been laid before us?
Mr. Howitt elsewhere writes, 'If the supposition is correct that, in the
primary divisions, we may recognise the oldest forms, and in the
subdivisions somewhat newer forms of Totemism' (newer names of
totems?), 'it should be found that these earlier divisions show signs of
antiquity as compared to the totems which are, according to this hypothesis,
the nearest to the present time. This, I think, is the case.' Thus, in fact, some
of the Australian names for the two divisions are no longer to be translated,
[17]
perhaps owing to their antiquity, and sometimes the names are lost, as,
elsewhere, in Banks Island. When translatable, the phratry names are
totemic.
But this hardly amounts to proof that the 'primary divisions' are really older
than totemic divisions, plus exogamy. The existing names of the 'primary
divisions' may be older than existing totem names, in some cases. But that
may be because the two 'primary divisions' endure, unchanged, while a
local totem group may become extinct.[18] Its place, perhaps, may be filled
up by a totem group of relatively recent name, or, perhaps, in a great trek
into a land of novel fauna and flora, old totem names might be exchanged
for new ones. 'Munki' (sheep) is said to have been recently adopted.[19] Mr.
Fison here corroborates my suggestion. 'If a tribe migrate to a country in
which their totem is not found, they will, in all probability, take as their
totem some other animal which is a native of the place.'[20]
Mr. Howitt, then, believes that 'the primary class divisions' were originally
totemic, and also that the 'class system' as a rule has been developed
through the subdivision of the earlier and simpler forms by 'deliberate
arrangement.'[21]
This appears to mean that savages began by making two divisions, bearing
totem names, and established them as primary exogamous divisions. Later

they cut them up into slices, each slice with a newer totem name. Or the
totem divisions are evolved within the phratry, somehow or other, as in one
of Mr. Fison's views. Or they are 'added'—for what purpose? Thus every
tribesman has now a 'class name' (phratry name)—an old totem name (say
either Eagle-Hawk or Crow), and no Crow may marry an Eagle-Hawk. But,
later, they split Crows up into, say, bats, rats, cats, and kangaroos, while
they split Eagle-Hawk up into, say, grubs, emus, mice, and frogs. Now each
person, under this arrangement, has two totem names. He is Eagle-Hawk
(old) and (new) grub, emu, mouse, or frog: or he is Crow (old) and (new)
bat, cat, rat, or kangaroo. If cat, he may not only not marry a Crow, but also
he may not marry a cat. What could be the reason for this new subdivision
of Eagle-Hawk and Crow, and for this multiplication of marriage
prohibitions, which, given the phratries, prohibit nothing?[22] I shall try to
show, and have already suggested, that, from a period infinitely remote,
each member of the Eagle-Hawk and Crow local groups may also have
been, or rather must have been, a grub, emu, mouse, or frog, bat, rat, cat, or
kangaroo, by inheritance and birth. So understood, the 'primary divisions'
(Eagle-Hawk and Crow) were not deliberately subdivided (as I conceive
them to have been on Mr. Ho wit Vs system) into the other numerous new
totem groups, nor were the totem kins added to the phratries, nor were they
orderly evolved out of the phratries, but, from the dawn of Totemism with
exogamy, they contained these totem groups within themselves; a fact
which early man came to perceive.
Mr. Howitt adds, 'If the two first intermarrying groups' ('phratries') 'had
distinguished names, they were probably those of animals, and their totems,
and, if so, the origin of Totemism would be so far back in the mist of ages,
as to be beyond my vision.' In the chapter on the 'Origin of Totemism,' we
try to penetrate 'the mist of ages,' and to see beyond the range of vision of
Mr. Howitt. But the 'Origin of Totemism' cannot be beyond Mr. Howitt's
range of vision, if he agrees with Mr. Fison that the totem kins were orderly
evolved within the phratry, or were segmented out of the phratry, or split
off, as colonies, from the phratry (Dr. Durkheim's theory), or were added to
the phratry, for some reason.
It seems, then, that he does not commit himself to any of these four
theories. He appears to confess to having no theory of the origin of
Totemism, which, in his opinion, gave the names to the phratries, these

being the result of the primary bisection. Probably his best plan would be to
say 'the horde was bisected into two moieties, for exogamous purposes, and
animal names, for the sake of distinction, were arbitrarily imposed on the
phratry divisions.' But, then, what about the many totem kins within the
phratry? We receive no solid theory about them. They were certainly not
arbitrarily marked out later, within the phratry, for exogamous purposes
which they do not fulfil. If they were picked up elsewhere, and added into
the phratry, where did they come from? Crowds of totems were not going
about, Mr. Howitt seems to think, before the bisection, because, if so, we
saw hordes were not 'undivided,' before the bisection, but were already
divided into totem kins.
Or shall we say that the undivided communes had already organised distinct
co-operative magical totem groups, to do magic for the good of the food
supply, plants and animals, but that these totem groups were not exogamous
before the bisection? After the bisection two of these magical totem groups,
say Eagle-Hawk and Crow, were selected, shall we guess, to give names to
the two moieties or phratries? The other totem groups fell, or were meted
out, some into Crow, some into Eagle-Hawk. This is a thinkable hypothesis,
but it is fatal to the theory of subdivision, or of segmentation, or of
evolution, as causes of totem kins within the phratries; and it is not
suggested by Messrs. Fison and Howitt.
Thus we must construct for ourselves, later, a theory of the Origin of
Totemism. We are actually constrained to make this effort, because it will
probably be admitted that, having no theory, or hesitating between three or
four theories, of the origin of totems and of totem kins, Messrs. Fison and
Howitt produce an hypothesis of the evolution of Australian society which
cannot be construed by us into an intelligible form.
Mr. Howitt elsewhere writes, 'The existence of the two exogamous
intermarrying groups' ('phratries') 'seems to me almost to require the
previous existence of an undivided commune, from the segmentation of
which they arose.'[23] But they, the phratries, were totemic, and why? Once
again, why was the undivided commune divided? We know not the motive
for, much less the means of effecting, such a great change 'in the beginning.'
In 1885, Messrs. Howitt and Fison were aware of, and expressed their sense
of this difficulty (that of dividing people out into arbitrary groups) in the

case of ancient Attica. Speaking of the γένος, or clan, in Attica, they combat
the opinion of Harpocration, that the people were 'arbitrarily drafted into the
γένη.[24] Our authors remark, 'Ancient society—the more ancient—does not
thus regulate itself. Nascitur non fit. One can understand a Kleisthenes
redistributing into demes a civilised community which has grown into a
State, but the notion of any such arbitrary distribution of men into γένη; in
the beginning of things cannot be entertained for a moment.'[25]
This being so, how can our authors maintain that, 'in the beginning of
things,' given an 'undivided commune,' all its members were 'drafted' into
one or other of two divisions, and again into totem groups. A subdivision of
the 'phratries' into totem groups, by deliberate arrangement, is clearly as
artificial and arbitrary as the scheme suggested by Harpocration, 'which
cannot be entertained for a moment.'
We are speaking of 'the beginning of things,' not of the present state of
things, in which we know that modifications of the rules, e.g. the division
into eight 'classes,' are being deliberately adopted.[26] In 'the beginning of
things,' as Messrs. Howitt and Fison, in 1885, maintained, society nascitur
non fit. Our effort is to show the process of the birth of society before
conscious and deliberate modifications were made to prevent marriages, of
'too near flesh.' Our criticism of Messrs. Fison and Howitt's theories may
perhaps indicate that they are insufficient, or but dubiously intelligible.
Something clear and consistent is required.

[1] Apparently, among the Kamilaroi, members of the same phratry may
intermarry, avoiding unions in their own totems. Mathews (Proc. Roy. Soc.
N.S.W. xxxi. 161, 162). Mr. Mathews calls a 'phratry' a 'group.'
[2] Second series, pp. 289-310.
[3] I shall, for my own part, use 'phratry' for the two 'primary exogamous
divisions' of a tribe, and 'class' for the divisions within the 'phratry' which do not
appear to be of totemic origin. Mr. Fison applies 'class' to both the primary
divisions and those contained in each of them, observing that 'the Greek
"phratria" would be the most correct term.' He is aware, of course, that this
employment of phratria is arbitrary, but it is convenient. While he applies 'class'
both to 'the primary divisions of a community, and their first subdivisions,' to the
latter I restrict 'classes,' using phratry for the former (Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p.
24).
[4] Jour. and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. N.S.W., xxviii, xxxii, xxxiv.
[5] Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxiv. 120-122.

[6] Prov. Jour. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., xxxiv. 127. Mr. Fison makes an exception for
some Kamilaroi.
[7] This view is discussed later.
[8] P. 27 et seq.
[9] There is a tradition of an aboriginal Adam, who had two wives, Kilpara and
Mukwara, these being the names of two phratries. On this showing brothers
married paternal half-sisters (Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 33).
[10] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 40.
[11] J. A. I. xiv. 142.
[12] Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. 264.
[13] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 107.
[14] Op. cit. p. 41.
[15] Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxi. 162.
[16] On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 129; Transactions of Royal
Society of Victoria, 1889.
[17] The natives retain sacred songs to Daramulun, but cannot (or will not?)
translate them. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxiv. 280.
[18] Spencer and Gillen, p. 152.
[19] Howitt, J. A. I. xviii. 37-39.
[20] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 235, note.
[21] Op. cit. pp. 59, 62, 63, 66.
[22] New marriage prohibitions may have been, and, I believe, were added, but
the divisions thus made were not, I think, totemistic.
[23] Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 136.
[24] Harpocration s.v. γεννῆται Greek: genneitai.
[25] J. A. I. xiv. 160.
[26] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 72, 420.

CHAPTER III

TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES

AMERICAN SUPPORT OF THE AUTHOR'S HYPOTHESIS

The system which I advocate here, as to the smallness of the original human
groups, and their later combination into larger unions, seems to have, as
regards America, the support of the late Major Powell, the Director of the
Bureau of Ethnology, and of Mr. McGee of the same department. This
gentleman writes, 'Two postulates concerning primitive society, adopted by
various ethnologic students of other countries, have been erroneously
applied to the American aborigines ... The first postulate is that primitive
men were originally assembled in chaotic hordes, and that organised society
was developed out of the chaotic mass by the segregation of groups ...' This
appears to be Mr. Hewitt's doctrine. In fact, Mr. McGee says, American
research points, not to a primal horde, 'bisected' and 'subdivided' into an
organised community, but to an early condition 'directly antithetic to the
postulated horde, in which the scant population was segregated in small
discrete bodies, probably family groups....' The process of advance was one
of 'progressive combination rather than of continued differentiation.... It
would appear that the original definitely organised groups occasionally
coalesced with other groups, both simple and compound, whereby they
were elaborated in structure....' Mr. McGee adds, 'always with some loss in
definiteness and permanence.' As far as concerns Australia, I do not feel
sure that the last remark applies, but, on the whole, Mr. McGee's
observations, couched in abstract terms, appear to fit what I have written, in
concrete terms, about the probable evolution of Australian tribal society.[1]
The theory thus suggested makes little demand on deliberate legislation, as
we shall see later.

DELIBERATE ARRANGEMENT

This I take to be important. It seems well to avoid, as far as possible, the
hypothesis of deliberate legislation in times primeval, involving so
sweeping a change as the legal establishment of exogamy through a decree
based on common consent by an exogamous 'Bisection' consciously made.
Exogamy must have been gradually evolved. But, if we begin with Mr.
Howitt's original undivided commune, and suppose a deliberate bisection of
it into two exogamous phratries, each somehow containing different totems;
or if we suppose a tribe of only two totems, and imagine that the tribe
deliberately made these totems exogamous, which they had not been before,
and then subdivided them into many other totem groups, we see, indeed,

why persons of the same totem may not intermarry. They now, after the
decree, belong to the same exogamous 'phratry' within which marriage is
deliberately forbidden. But, on this theory, I find no escape from the
conclusion that the 'bisection' into 'phratries' was the result of a deliberate
decree, intended to produce exogamy—for the bisection has not, and
apparently cannot have, any other effect. Now I can neither imagine a
motive for such a decree, nor any mode, in such early times, of procuring
for it common consent. At this point we have laboured, and to it we shall
return, observing that our hypothesis makes much less appeal to such early
and deliberate legislation.

TOTEMS ALL THE WAY

In any case, by Mr. Fison's and Mr. Howitt's theory and our own, we have
totems almost all the way: totems in the so-called 'primary divisions'
(phratries); totems in the so-called gentes, and all these divisions (setting
the Arunta apart) are strictly exogamous. The four or eight 'classes,' on the
other hand, are apparently not of totemic origin. However much the systems
may be complicated and inter-twisted, the basis of the whole, except of the
four or eight 'classes,' is, I think, the totem exogamous prohibition. There
are many examples of the type; thus the Urabunna 'are divided into two
exogamous intermarrying classes, which are respectively called Matthurie
and Kirarawa, and the members of these again are divided into a series of
totemic groups, for which the native name is Thunthunnie. A Matthurie man
must marry a Kirarawa women' (as in the system of the Kamil-speaking
tribes, or Kamilaroi, reported on by Mr. Fison)—'and not only this, but a
man of one totem must marry a woman of another totem.' This is precisely
what I should expect. It works out thus:
{ Old Local Totem Group } Matthurie.
{ New 'Phratry' }

{ Old Local Totem Group } Kirarawa.
{ New 'Phratry' }
Each of these 'phratries' has five totems, not found in the other class, and
how this occurred, if not by actual deliberate arrangement, I do not know.
One thing is clear: totem and phratry are prior to 'class' divisions. They

occur where 'class' divisions do not. But my theory does not involve the
deliberate introduction of exogamy, by an exogamous bisection of groups
not hitherto exogamous, or by making two pre-existing totem groups
exogamous. I take the groups to have been exogamous already, before the
blending in connubium of two local totem groups (now 'phratries'), each
including numbers of already exogamous totem kindreds. They were
exogamous before the 'phratries' existed, and after their falling into the two
phratries, exogamous they remained.

DISTRIBUTION OF TOTEMS IN THE 'PHRATRIES'

Mr. McLennan, ere he had the information now before us, wrote, in 1865,
'Most probably contiguous groups would be composed of exactly the same
stocks' (we can now, for 'stocks,' read 'totem kins')—'would contain gentes
of precisely the same names.'[2] This is obvious, for Emu, Kangaroo, Wild
Duck, Opossum, Snake, and Lizard, living in the same region, would raid
each other (by the hypothesis) for wives, and each foreign wife would bring
her own totem name into each group. Yet we find that the two 'primary
classes' (phratries) of the Urabunna (which, on my theory, represent two
primitive totem local groups, say Emu and Kangaroo, each with its
representatives of all other totem groups within raiding distance) never
contain the same totems.
It is mathematically impossible that this exclusiveness should be the result
of accident. On a first consideration, therefore, I took it to be the result of
deliberate legislative design, at the moment when on my hypothesis two
local totem groups, containing members of several totems of descent, united
in connubium. The totem names, I at first conceived, with reluctance, must
have been consciously and deliberately meted out between the two local
totem groups, now become phratries. This idea did not involve so stringent
and useless a measure as that of segmenting the two phratries into minor
totem groups: however the idea was still too much akin to that of
Harpocration as regards the arbitrary drafting of the Attic population into
γένη. But, on further reflection, I conceived that my first theory was
superfluous. Given the existence of local groups, as such totemic, and of
totem kins of descent within the original local totem groups, the actual
results, I thought, arise automatically, as soon as two local totem groups
agree to intermarry. Men and women must many out of their local totem

group (now 'phratry') and must marry out of their totem of descent.
Consequently, no one totem could possibly exist in both phratries. This I
now, on third thoughts, 'which are a wiser first,' deem erroneous. The
automatic arraying of one set of totems into one, or another set into the
other, phratry, would not occur. The totems have been divided between the
two phratries.[3] This condition of affairs is universal in Australia, except
where, as among the Arunta and similar tribes, the same totem comes to
exist in both phratries, so that men and women of the same totem, but of
opposite phratries, may intermarry. That breach of old rule, we shall try to
show, arises from the peculiar animistic philosophy of the Arunta, by virtue
of which totems are no longer totems of descent, but are otherwise
obtained. The Kamilaroi practice of interphratry marriage arises out of
respect for totem and neglect of phratry law.
My conjecture takes for granted, let me repeat, that, before the 'bisection,' or
the amalgamation, which produced the two exogamous 'classes,' the totem
kindreds were already exogamous. My reasons for this opinion have already
been given, in the discussion of Mr. Crawley's theory of the origin of
exogamy (supra), to which the reader may refer. My suggestion makes the
growth of exogamy non-moral, gradual, and almost unconscious, till it is
clinched and stereotyped by the totem tabu.[4] The opposite theory—
namely, the deliberate bisection into exogamous 'classes,' of totem groups,
or of an 'undivided commune' not previously exogamous, appeals too much,
I repeat, to conscious and—as far as we can see—motiveless legislation, at
an early stage. The bisection must have had a purpose, and has no visible
purpose except the establishment o f exogamy, and why did the 'undivided
commune' establish that?

THE IDEAS OF MR. FRAZER HIS EARLIER THEORY

It cannot be concealed that my conjecture is opposed to the mass of learned
opinion, which represents the primary 'phratries' as the first exogamous
bodies, and the totems in each as later subdivisions of the phratries. The
writers who, like Mr. Fison, recognise that the primary subdivisions are
themselves, in origin, totem divisions, do not (as I understand) regard these
very ancient totem groups as already exogamous, before the institution of
'phratries.'

Again, turning from Australia to North America, we find Mr. Frazer, at least
in one passage, on the side of the view generally held. Of the 'phratry,' in
America, he says, 'the evidence goes to show that in many cases it was
originally a totem clan which has undergone subdivision.'[5] Many examples
are then given of the North American 'phratries,' which include totem
groups within them. 'The Choctaws were divided into two phratries, each of
which included four clans' (totem kins); 'marriage was prohibited between
members of the same phratry, but members of either phratry could marry
into any clan of the other.' Among the Senecas, one phratry included the
Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and Turtle totems: the other held the Deer, Snipe,
Heron, and Hawk totems; just as in Australia. Among the Thlinkets and
Mohegans, 'each phratry bears a name which is also the name of one of the
clans' (totems) 'included in it;' 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.'[6] This is precisely as if
we were to argue that Matthurie and Kirarawa were the 'two original clans'
of the Urabunna, 'which afterwards by subdivision' (into totem groups)
'became phratries,' or 'primary exogamous divisions.'
The objections to this theory, as advocated by Australian inquirers, apply to
the American cases as interpreted here by Mr. Frazer. In the first place, how
are we to conceive of a large tribe, like the Thlinkets, as originally
containing only two totems, Raven and Wolf?[7] If we do take this view, we
seem almost driven to suppose that, in exceedingly early times, the
Thlinkets deliberately bisected themselves, for some reason, called one
moiety Ravens, the other moiety Wolves, and then made the divisions
exogamous. Or, perhaps, having two totems and only two, Raven and Wolf,
they deliberately decided that members of neither group should marry
within itself; but should always take wives from the other group. Later, the
two tribes, Raven and Wolf, again deliberately subdivided themselves, or
perhaps, as in Dr. Durkheim's view, Wolf threw off colonies which became
five totem kins, and Raven threw off colonies which became five other
totem kins.
Is it not more readily credible that, over a large extent of Thlinket country,
many small local groups came, by an unconscious process (see 'The Origin
of Totemism'), to bear each a separate totem name? The two most important
local groups, Raven and Wolf, would inevitably each contain, by the

working of exogamy and female kin, members of all the other totems which
would array themselves, five in each chief group, Raven and Wolf, as I have
conjectured in speaking of the Australian cases.[8]
Again, I cannot believe that a tribe like the Thlinkets originally had but two
totems, not yet exogamous, then made them exogamous, and then cut them
up, or let them split off, into many exogamous totem groups. No motive is
obvious: the people, by the theory, being exogamous already.

OBJECTIONS TO MR. FRAZER'S EARLY THEORY

We shall later see that Messrs. Spencer and Gillen appear to advance, but
also to qualify out of existence, a theory of a motive for an exogamous
bisection of earlier non-exogamous local totem groups. They practically
explain away their own explanation of—the great bisection, but it rests,
while it exists, on certain recently discovered facts, which, in turn, are fatal,
perhaps, to any theory that a tribe had originally but two totems, which
became 'phratries,' on being subdivided into other totems. The new facts
accepted and theorised on by Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer, would make it
seem perhaps impossible that a tribe like the Thlinkets should originally
have possessed but two 'clans' or totems. The facts, as stated by Mr.
Spencer, in 1899, are these, or rather, this is his hypothesis founded on his
facts. 'In our Australian tribes the primary[9] function of a totem group is
that of ensuring, by magic means, a supply of the object which gives its
name to the totem group.'[10] Mr. Frazer says, 'in its origin Totemism was,
on our theory, simply an organised and co-operative system of magic....
Each totem group was charged with the superintendence and control of the
particular department of nature from which it took its name....'[11]
But this is hardly the origin of Totemism, so long as we are not told how, or
why, each totem group took its name from a department of nature. Had it
the name, before it worked magic for its eponymous object, or did it take
the name because it worked the magic?
Again, there are dozens of such departments,[12] which implies the
existence of dozens of organised and co-operative totem groups: not of an
original poor pair of such groups alone. Can we believe that, on Mr. Frazer's
earlier theory, the Thlinkets formed but two such groups, one 'charged with'

the duty to mollify the Wolf, the other to take care of the interests of the
Raven? Manifestly this is unlikely. I elsewhere oppose this theory of the
magical Origin of Totemism, made at first to fit the case of the Arunta and
cognate tribes. If organised co-operation in magic is the source of
Totemism, we may be pretty confident that no tribe began by appointing
one half of all its members to do magic to propagate ravens, and the other
half to mollify wolves. This would indicate, in the magical and co-operative
tribe, a most oddly limited and feebly capitalised flotation of the company
—merely 'Wolf and Raven.' No tribe would select ravens as the article of
food which most required careful propagation and preservation, even if the
Wolf most demanded to be propitiated and mollified. The new Australian
facts (whatever their interpretation) are fatal to the older idea that a tribe
could have had only two original totems: an idea which we may perhaps
regard as now abandoned, at least by Mr. Frazer.
Thus Mr. Spencer himself remarks that, in Arunta tradition, there were
numbers of totem groups before the great dichotomous division was made.
That is my own opinion: though I do not hold it for Mr. Spencer's reasons,
or believe in any 'bisection.'

MR. SPENCER'S THEORIES OF THE BISECTION

It will be noted that Mr. Spencer's original totem groups existed for magical
purposes only, and were not exogamous.
'The traditions of the Arunta tribe point to a very definite introduction of an
exogamic system long after the totemic groups were fully developed, and,
further, they point very clearly to the fact that the introduction was due to
the deliberate action of certain ancestors. Our knowledge of the natives
leads us to the opinion that it is quite possible that this really took place,
that the exogamic groups were deliberately introduced so as to regulate
marital relations.'
The Arunta 'exogamic groups' are 'classes,' and 'phratries,' the totem does
not now regulate marriage among the Arunta. I shall later try to show, that,
originally, totems did regulate marriage, among the Arunta. But here we
find Mr. Spencer averring that possibly 'the exogamic groups were
deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital relations' among the
Arunta. This opinion surprises us, if we hold that exogamy was, in its

original forms, the result, not of a deliberate enactment, but of gradual and
unconscious processes, to which, later, conscious modifications have been
added. Mr. Spencer, despite the passage cited, is obviously of the same
opinion, for he proceeds to remark, 'By this 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.... It can only be said that far back in the early history of
mankind, there was felt the need of some form of organisation, and that this
gradually resulted in the development of exogamous groups.'
This statement must remind us of what the ancient ballad sings about Lord
Bateman:
He shipped himself all aboard of a ship,
Some foreign country for to see.
The scholiast (Thackeray, I think) explains, 'some foreign country he
wished to see, and that was the extent of his desire: any foreign country
would serve his purpose, all foreign countries were alike to him.' In the
same way, long ago, the ancestors of the Australians 'felt the need of some
form of organisation,' and that was the extent of their desire; any
organisation would serve their purpose. Nevertheless, Mr. Spencer also says
that, quite possibly, 'the exogamic groups were deliberately introduced so as
to regulate marital relations.' But exogamic groups can regulate marital
arrangements in one way only—that is, by introducing exogamy. Yet Mr.
Spencer remarks that 'the development of exogamic groups' gradually
resulted from some organisation of unknown nature. I am unable to
reconcile Mr. Spencer's statements with each other. The 'bisection' of his
theory could not, I fear, be 'gradual.'
Mr. Frazer, in 1899, begins with numerous totem groups, primarily and
originally arranged for mere purposes of co-operative magic, in the social
interests of a large friendly tribe, itself no primitive institution, one thinks.
Then he supposes that the exogamous bisection occurred (and why did it
occur?), and then 'if the existing totem groups were arranged, as they
naturally would be, some in one of the two new classes, and the rest in the
other, the exogamy of the totem groups would follow, ipso facto.'[13] Mr.
Frazer does not here pretend to guess why the bisection occurred. The rest
is quite obvious: but it is unavoidably inconsistent with Mr. Frazer's earlier

theory, that a tribe begins (or that the Thlinkets began) with two original
totem groups, made them exogamous, and then 'subdivided' them up (or did
they merely swarm off?) into many totem groups. It is against that almost
universal theory, in 1899 abandoned (as I conceive) by Mr. Frazer, that I
have so long been arguing. There was not first an exogamous bisection of a
tribe, or the addition of the exogamous rule to two 'original clans,' or totem
groups, and then the subdivision of each of the two sections into a number
of totems. This cannot have occurred. Totems, I venture to think, did not
come in that way, but pre-existing totem kins, granting the bisection, might
fall into one or other phratry, if they had always been exogamous.

ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM HERE PROPOSED

On my system, as has been already stated, the origin of exogamy may have
been sexual jealousy, in small primitive groups, perhaps aided by 'sexual
tabu,' with the strange superstitions on which it is based, and these causes
would be strengthened enormously by the totem superstition, later. The
totem name would now be the exogamous limit. The 'phratries' might result,
quite naturally, and even gradually, now in one region, now in another, from
the interlocking and alliance, with connubium, of two large friendly local
totem groups, an arrangement of which the advantages are so obvious that it
might spread by way of imitation and accretion.
This view of the possible origin of what is usually called the 'bisection' of
'the undivided commune' had already been suggested by the late Mr. Daniel
McLennan.[14] Writing before our information was so full as it now is, he
says, as to the two 'phratries' Kumite and Kroki (answering to Matthurie
and Kirarawa), 'were it worth while to make surmises, it would not be
unreasonable to surmise that at Mount Gambier two separate local tribes[15]
containing different totem kindreds had, through the operation of exogamy
and female kinship, become welded into one community.' Mr. Daniel
McLennan, unluckily, inherited his brother's feud against Mr. Fison, and he
opposed all that gentleman's doings. Later research has corroborated many
of Mr. Fison's facts, and extended the range of their influence. On this point,
however—namely, that the 'phratries' are not the result of a bisection, but of
an amalgamation—Mr. Daniel McLennan appears to have had a good case.

He illustrates his theory, and mine, by remarks on a tradition of the tribes of
Northern Victoria.[16]
The exogamous 'phratries' of these tribes are Eagle-Hawk and Crow. The
tradition represents these birds as hostile creative powers. They made peace
on the terms 'that the Murray blacks should be divided into two classes'
('phratries'), 'the Makquarra, or Eagle-Hawk, and the Kilparra, or Crow....
Out of the enmities' (of the original Crow and Eagle-Hawk) 'arose the two
classes, and thence a law governing marriage among these classes.' This
tradition, it will be observed, espouses the theory of a bisection, deliberately
made of 'the Murray blacks,' into two intermarrying and exogamous classes.
Mr. McLennan writes, 'But what the tradition suggests is, not that the Crow
and Eagle agreed to divide one tribe into two, with a view to the better
regulation of marriage, but that Crow and Eagle or Eagle-Hawk were tribes
(and they might have been constituted in the ordinary Australian way)
which long waged war against each other, and that at length there came
peace, and then their complete interfusion by means of friendly marriages.'
The tradition asserts the reverse; it adopts, or rather it forestalls, the
scientific theory of a 'bisection' of the Murray blacks, not the amalgamation
of two tribes (or large local totem groups). But I agree with Mr. McLennan
in prefering, for the reasons given, the theory of an amalgamation. It is
rather curious and interesting to observe that almost every scientific
hypothesis about totems and 'classes,' which I am obliged to reject, has, in
fact, been forestalled by the theories which the natives themselves express
in their explanatory myths. Myths, I fear, are never in the right. 'The
aborigines themselves,' says Mr. Howitt, 'recognise the former existence of
the undivided commune in their legends, but,' he judiciously adds, 'I do not
rely upon this as having the force of evidence.'[17]
We shall presently see that other distinguished anthropologists do, to some
extent, rely on Arunta myths, as 'bearing the stamp of authenticity.' The
truth is that the native thinkers have hit on the same hypothesis as their
European critics, the hypothesis of something like deliberate primeval
legislation to a given end, the regulation of marriage. Far from accepting
any such native myths, I am rather inclined to hold that, whatever theory be
correct, the theory of the savage myth-makers must be wrong. It ought to be
said that Mr. Fison, at least, knows what his own theory involves, and once
even frankly accepted the possibility that the Dieri myth (the foundation of

exogamy by divine decree) may be historically true. 'All I contend for is,' he
says, 'that if the former existence of the undivided commune be taken for
granted' (and Mr. Fison, unlike Mr. Howitt, regards the undivided commune
as a mere unproved hypothesis), 'its division into exogamous clans must
have had precisely the effect' (a consciously reformatory effect) 'which Mr.
Morgan's theory requires. If such a community ever existed, I do not
hesitate to say that Mr. Morgan's "reformatory movement" appears to me
the most likely method by which it would begin its advance to a better
system of marriage' than 'communal marriage.'
But what gave the impulse to the hypothetical moral reformation? Contact
with a more advanced tribe is reckoned improbable by Mr. Fison (for how
came the other tribe to be more advanced?), and so the moral impulse 'must
have been derived from a higher power,' from the Good Spirit, or from
ancestral spirits, as in the myths of the Dieri, the Woeworung, also of the
Menomini Redmen of North America, a branch of the Algonquins; and the
Euahlayi tribe.
According to the Menomini, there is, or was, a Being who 'made the
earth.'[18] His name being interpreted means 'The Great Unknown,' but only
extreme believers in the theory of religious borrowing will say that he was
Sir Walter Scott, Bart. He (The Great Unknown) created 'manidos or spirits,'
in the shape of animals, or birds. The chief birds (as often in Australia) were
Eagles and Hawks. The Bear 'came out of the ground,' and was turned into
an Indian, by the Great Unknown, alias 'The Good Mystery.' He and the
Beaver headed totem kins now in 'The Big Thunder phratry.' Other animals
came in; there are now Bear, Eagle, Crane, and Moose 'phratries,' each
containing a number of totems. All the people of a totem name in the
Menomini tribe are akin to persons of the same totem in other tribes, say of
the Sioux.[19]
These myths favourably illustrate the piety of the Dieri, Woeworung,
Euahlayi men, and Menomini. Like Mr. Fison (at one time, and 'under all
reserves') these tribes leaned to the hypothesis of divine or supernormal
intervention in matters totemic. The Dieri may be right, but a less difficult
hypothesis is that there was never 'an undivided commune,' in the sense of
Mr. Morgan and Mr. Fison, and that, consequently, it never was 'divided
into exogamous clans.' If so, no miracle is needed: Nec Deus intersit nisi
dignus vindice nodus. My own scheme needs no divine aid, nor deliberate

legislation, 'in the beginning.' But that such legislation has intervened later,
I think probable, or certain.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write: 'Rigidly conservative as the native is, it is
yet possible for changes to be introduced.... There are certain men who are
respected for their ability, and, after watching large numbers of the tribe, at
a time when they were assembled together for months to perform certain of
their most sacred ceremonies, we have come to the conclusion that, at a
time such as this, when the older and more powerful men from various
groups are met together, and when day by day, and night by night around
their camp fires, they discuss matters of tribal interest, it is quite possible
for changes of custom to be introduced.'[20] The Arunta traditions allege that
such changes introduced by men of weight, and accepted after discussion,
have been not unusual.[21] This is highly probable, now, but not in the
beginning.
The Arunta historical traditions are of little value as to historical facts,[22]
but the consciousness of the Central Australian tribes accepts the possibility
that new customs may now be proposed, debated, and adopted. If no such
thing ever occurred, the belief in its possibility could scarcely have arisen
among the Arunta. But the possibility has its limits, and one of these is the
deliberate primeval introduction of exogamy, for no conceivable reason,
and its imposition on a society already totemic but not yet exogamous.
Perhaps few critics will frankly say that exogamy was thus imposed; they
will try to qualify or evade so improbable and antiquated a theory. Yet they
cannot but slip back into it, while they believe in 'segmentations' of 'an
undivided commune,' and of later totemic 'subdivisions' of the
'segmentations.'
In any case these Arunta and cognate tribes of similar usages, so recently
discovered, so anomalous, so odd, are 'the only begetters' of the latest
hypotheses of Mr. Frazer and Mr. Spencer—namely, that totems, originally,
were co-operative industrial groups with no influence on marriage rules. Do
the Arunta, then, present a surviving model of primitive Totemism, in other
regions modified and contaminated; or is their Totemism not, like their
metaphysics and psychology, a 'freak,' an unique divergence from the
normal development, as I have from the first maintained?[23] All these
difficulties and confusions, as to 'phratries' and totems, inevitably arise from

the doctrine that the original totem groups were not at first exogamous, and
only became exogamous when separate sets of them were scheduled under
the two more recent exogamous primary divisions, or were segmented out
of them. In that case it is not easy to see how we can escape from the
impossible theory that exogamy, and the primary divisions, were the result,
of direct legislative enactment. Even if we could believe this, we see no
conceivable motive, except Mr. Fison's divine intervention, an idea which,
it appears, he put forward quite provisionally in an argument with Lord
Avebury.[24]

THE ARUNTA

The case of these Central Australian tribes, in regard to Totemism and
marriage prohibitions, is so peculiar that it demands particular notice. Mr.
Frazer some years ago propounded the hypothesis that the Arunta tribe,
especially, are the most 'primitive' of living peoples, are still in 'the chrysalis
stage' of humanity, whence it would follow that their singular kind of
Totemism, and of marriage rules, is nearest to the beginning, and best
represents the original type.[25] The Arunta, dwelling in the arid regions of
the centre, have certainly been little contaminated by European influences.
They are naked, houseless, non-agricultural nomads, like all the Australian
tribes, and it is asserted by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen and others that they
have not yet discovered the rather obvious facts as to the reproduction of
the species. All this has certainly a primitive air. But I have ventured to
reply that the Arunta, as regards the family, are confessedly more advanced
towards individual marriage than their neighbours, the Urabunna, with
whom they freely intermarry.[26] Unlike what is told of the Urabunna, the
Arunta recognise 'individual marriage.' They deliberately and ingeniously
modify their system on the occasion of intermarriage with the Urabunna.
These reckon descent in the female, the Arunta in the male line.[27] The
office of Alatunja, or head man of a local group, among the Arunta, is
hereditary in the male line, descending to a brother of the late Alatunja, if
he leaves no adult son.[28]
Moreover, the Arunta, and cognate tribes, occupy an area of 750 miles, and
their meetings and discussions last for months. A people truly primitive
cannot be conceived as capable of such immense local associations, and of

such prolonged and pacific assemblies. Again, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen,
rightly or wrongly, believe that 'communal marriage' is the earlier
institution, and that it persists, 'slightly modified' among the Urabunna, but
not among the Arunta. Thus, beyond all doubt, the Arunta are more
developed, more advanced, than the Urabunna, and it is hardly safe to say
that, where their organisation differs from that of the Urabunna, and other
tribes in general, it differs because it is more 'primitive.' It must be less
primitive, a special divergence from the type.

ARUNTA METAPHYSICS

Again, as proof that they are in no chrysalis stage, the Arunta possess a
reasoned theory of things, so ingenious and complex, so peculiar, so
extraordinary, so carefully atheistic, that one could scarcely believe it
possible for naked savages, were it not so well attested. The theory is that of
the original evolution of types of life into plants and animals, which, with
the minimum of extra-natural aid, became human. The human beings
possessed souls, which on the death, or disappearance into earth, of the
original owners, were hereditary, being reborn into Arunta children. These
souls each of a given totem (the plant or animal or other thing which first
became human) haunt certain local centres. One place is the centre of Grub
totem souls, another of Cat totem souls, and so forth. Each new child is of
the totem of the haunted locality where the mother supposes that she
conceived it; a totem soul of that locality has become incarnate in her, and
from her is born. Thus the wife may be of one totem, the child of another;
the husband may be of the wife's totem, of the child's, or of another. The
totem is thus no bar to marriage, and is not inherited, all this being the result
of the peculiar philosophic system of the Arunta. Their totemism is thus a
'sport,' and not the original form of the institution.
We cannot reverse the case, the philosophy of hereditary totemic souls
cannot be the result of the present mode of inheriting the totem from the
group of souls that haunts each locality, it cannot be a myth invented to
explain that custom. That custom requires the peculiar Arunta soul-belief as
its basis, and cannot exist without the belief. If the child received its totem
name from the place where it is born, we might say, 'Originally the child
was called after the place of its birth.' (Arunta children still receive
territorial personal names from the place of their birth.) 'Later, Totemism

came in with totem local names, each place having a totem title. The local
totem name of the place where a child was born was then given to each
child. Still later, arose a myth that totem souls haunted each place, and that
the child received its totem name because a local totem soul was incarnated
in it, at the place where it was born.' We cannot maintain this theory—
which makes the present Arunta belief a myth to explain the present Arunta
custom—because that custom it does not explain. The child receives its
totem name, not from the place where it is born, but from the place where
the totem soul entered into its mother. Nor can we assume that totem names
were originally given, not to human groups, but to districts of territory.
Thus the present Arunta mode of obtaining the totem, in each case, is the
direct result of the Arunta philosophic belief. That belief is peculiar, is
elsewhere unheard of, is the property of a tribe distinctly more advanced in
marriage rules, and local solidarity, than some of its neighbours, and
therefore cannot be primary. It follows that the Arunta mode of obtaining
the totem, not by inheritance, is not 'primitive,' is not the original model
from which the rest of savage mankind has diverged. This I state, because,
as a rule, a belief exists to explain an institution, and, as a rule, an
institution is not the result of a belief.

ARUNTA TOTEM EATING AND TRADITIONS

Each Arunta totem kin may now eat, in moderation, of its own totem, and
each kin does magic (Intichiuma) for the benefit of its totem, as part of the
food supply of the tribe in general. The traditions represent men and women
of the same totem as, of old, usually intermarrying (that is, as endogamous):
while they are also said, as a rule, to have fed almost exclusively on their
totems, being thus endophagous.
All these usages, real or traditional (except doing magic for the benefit of
the totem), are at the opposite pole from the customary exogamous and
exophagous Totemism of savage tribes all over the world, and even in
Australia. If, therefore, the Arunta and tribes practising the same usages are
primitive (it may be, and has been argued), their Totemism is, in origin, the
earliest known case of the division of labour; each group selecting and
working (by magic) for the benefit of its totem, as part of the tribal food
supply. I elsewhere argue that each group must probably have had a
recognised connection with its totem, before it set out to do magic for the

propagation of the creature.[29] But I have also maintained that the Arunta
are far from being 'primitive,' but are rather a 'sport,' and that their usages
represent a local variation from the central stream of Totemism; not
Totemism in its earliest known form.

DR. DURKHEIM ON THE ARUNTA

I had written on this topic in the Fortnightly Review (June, 1899), and in
another chapter of this book ('The Origin of Totemism'), before I saw the
essay of Professor Durkheim, of Bordeaux, Sur le Totémisme.[30] It is
encouraging to find that Dr. Durkheim, independently, has worked out the
same theory—namely, that the Arunta are not in the primitive stage of
Totemism, but represent a very peculiar divergence from the type, and that
their historical legends (more or less accepted by Mr. Frazer and Mr.
Spencer) are mainly myths, told to account for certain facts in their social
arrangements. We are not to reason from their single case, says Dr.
Durkheim, as against the great mass of our knowledge of Totemism and
totemistic exogamy and exophagy. 'In place of being a perfectly pure
example of the totemistic régime, is not Arunta Totemism a later and
disfigured (dénaturée) development?' For many reasons, says Dr.
Durkheim, 'the Arunta are among the most advanced of the Australian
peoples,'[31] and he gives his grounds for this opinion, some of which I had
already adduced in 1899. Entering into detail, Dr. Durkheim readily shows
that, though the Arunta now permit marriage between persons of the same
totem (which is not hereditary on either side, but casual), they are, for all
that, exogamous, in a fashion resulting from precise Totemism in their past.
They may not marry within the two primary divisions (which Dr. Durkheim
styles 'phratries'). Each phratry contains two (sometimes four) other 'classes'
(exogamous), and phratries arose in the combination of 'two elementary
exogamous totem groups'—as I have already suggested. Now phratries, we
have agreed with Mr. Howitt and Mr. Fison, were, in all probability,
themselves originally totemic. Mr. Frazer also says, 'We should infer that
the objects from which the Australian phratries take their names were
originally totems. But there seems to be direct evidence that both the
phratries and subphratries actually retain, in some tribes, their totems.'[32] If
the opinion be correct, the phratries of the Arunta, which regulate their

marriages, were originally local totem groups. On my system, then, namely,
that totem kins were originally, or very early became, exogamous, were
exogamous before 'phratries' arose, and before the so-called 'bisection' was
made, then the Arunta organisation was originally that of exogamous
Totemism. At first, though not now, totems regulated Arunta marriages.
Dr. Durkheim, in the passage cited, says that the two exogamous phratries
are composed of 'two elementary totem groups, également exogames.'[33]
Dr. Durkheim, who here is of my opinion, writes, 'It is not true that, among
the Arunta, the totem has always been' (as it is now) 'without influence on
marriages, nor, above all, is it true that Totemism, generally, implied
endogamy.' Yet, according to Arunta myth, the ancestors of the 'dream-time'
(Alcheringa) were endogamous, as a general rule, and, as a general rule,
were endophagous, ate their totem animals or plants. The ancestors of their
traditions fed on their own totems, 'as if by a functional necessity,' say
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. But this simply cannot be true, for each totem
is not in season, (plums, for instance), or accessible, all the year through,
and, if it were, it would be exterminated by endophagy. The traditions,
again, do not represent the men of the totem groups as really and religiously
endogamous. They exercised marital privileges, not only over the women of
their totem group, but over any other woman they could come across.
Certain totem groups are represented in the legends as wandering across the
land, the men living with women of their totem group, while 'there is
nothing to show definitely that marital relations were prohibited between
individuals of different totems.' The men accepted the caresses of such
women of other totems as they encountered; but their habitual mates were
the women of their own totem.[34] In the alleged state of perpetual trek, the
wives were naturally, in the opinion of the myth makers, of the group. At
present an Arunta marries in or out of his totem; as he pleases.

THE RELATIONS OF TOTEMS AND 'PHRATRIES' AMONG THE ARUNTA

The relations of the totem groups to the 'primary divisions,' or 'phratries,'
among the Arunta and cognate tribes, are, as we have already stated,
entirely peculiar. We have seen that, in North America, and in Australia
generally, no phratry ever contains the same totems as its linked phratry,
and we have seen that Mr. Frazer calls this the natural arrangement.[35] If

so, the present Arunta arrangement is not natural; it is a divergence from the
natural type. Among the Arunta, 'no totem is confined to either moiety'
('phratry') 'of the tribe.' There is only 'in each local centre a great
predominance of one moiety.'[36]
Dr. Durkheim regards the present state of Arunta affairs (the totems not
being peculiar to either phratry) as une dérogation. Originally, he thinks, as
among the Urabunna, each phratry contained only totems which were not in
the other phratry; and he detects survivals, among the Arunta, of the earlier
usage. At present the Arunta totems show 'a slight tendency to skip'
(chevaucher) 'from one into the other phratry, doubtless because the Arunta
totem system is no longer complete'—and no wonder, as Arunta totems are
now not hereditary, but derived from the totem souls haunting each locality.
Again, in Arunta legend, the ancestors 'were divided into companies, the
members of which bore the same totem name, and belonged as a rule to the
same moiety' ('phratry') 'of the tribe,' as now among the Urabunna, 'who are
in a less developed state than the Arunta.' So say Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen, and thus Arunta legend points to a past in which Arunta usage was,
in this matter, as a rule the same as that of the less developed Urabunna:
which I believe it really was.
But we can hardly accept the legends when they fit, and reject them when
they do not fit, our theory! I lay no stress on the legends.
If, however, the Arunta 'phratries' originally, as Dr. Durkheim and I believe,
never contained the same totems, then each Arunta totem group was, at that
time, necessarily exogamous. No man or woman could then marry within
the totem, as, at present, the Arunta can and do. They were barred by the
phratry limit: persons of their totem were never in the phratry into which
alone they could marry. So no one then could marry a member of his or her
own totem kin. 'It is, therefore, untrue that marriage has always been
permitted between members of a totem,' says Dr. Durkheim, though Arunta
legend declares for the opposite view.

ARUNTA MYTHS

Here I am apt to agree with Dr. Durkheim. The evidence of the Arunta
legends as to the customs of the Alcheringa, or 'dreamtime,' is 'such stuff as
dreams are made of.' The legends are 'statements, invented mainly by

popular fancy,' says Dr. Durkheim, 'to explain existing institutions, by
attaching them to some mythical beings in the past. They are myths, in the
proper sense of the word.' They are not marked by authenticity.
Against this idea we have the opinion of Mr. Frazer, and of Messrs. Spencer
and Gillen.[37] The Arunta traditions, they say, and Mr. Frazer agrees with
them, do not explain the present system, but deal with a former state of
organisation and with customs quite different from the present. They do, but
the Arunta invented the customs described in their myths, on purpose to
explain, mythically, how the present customs arose out of deliberate
modification of the alleged older customs. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
themselves assert this: 'the traditions point to a very definite introduction of
an exogamic system, long after the totemic groups were fully developed,
and, further, they point very clearly to the fact that the introduction was due
to the deliberate action of certain ancestors,' which is the theory of Mr.
Lewis Morgan!
The rest is true, but I, like Dr. Durkheim, conceive that all is (except where
we have external evidence for deliberate modification of the 'classes')
merely part of the Arunta ætiological or explanatory myth. That myth starts
from the belief (Mr. Howitt's belief?) in primary totemic, but not
exogamous groups, such as are precisely the present groups of the Arunta,
though not of their neighbours the Urabunna, or of totemists in general.
This exceptional condition of Arunta affairs needed explanation, and got it,
in the myth that the groups were originally totemic, but not exogamous, as
Arunta totem groups still are. Exogamy (not applying to totem groups, but
to 'phratries') was brought in, the myth says, by deliberate action, by our old
friend, 'the Legislator,' The Arunta traditions, therefore, do explain 'the
origin of the present system,' of the Arunta, as far as exogamy goes; and
their explanation is as much a speculative hypothesis as Mr. Morgan's
equivalent theory. It is one more example of the coincidence of savage myth
and scientific hypothesis.

MR. SPENCER ON ARUNTA LEGENDS

I understand Messrs. Spencer and Gillen to contest this opinion, in one
passage, and to assert it, under qualifications, in another. Their exact words
must be given. 'If they' (Arunta traditions) 'simply explained the origin of

the present system out of, as it were, no system, then we might regard them
as simply myths invented to account for the former' (i.e. 'the present
system'), 'but when we find that they deal with a gradual development, and
with a former state of organisation and customs quite different from, and in
important respects at variance with, the organisation and customs of the
present day, we are probably right in regarding them as actually indicative
of a time when these were different from those now in force.'[38]
Now to what do the traditions amount, as regards earlier marriage laws and
customs at variance with those now in use among the Arunta? They amount
to this: (1) Men of one totem had marital relations normally with women of
the same totem. It is no longer the case that Arunta men have relations,
normally and exclusively, with women of the same totem; a man may marry
a woman of his own totem, or not, as he pleases. But so, in the traditions of
the primeval trek, a man might, and did, take women of other totems as he
pleased, by conquest probably; though these women seem to have lived,
hitherto, solely with men of their own totem. The tradition starts from the
hypothesis that all members of each mythical wandering totem group were
originally of the same totem. That being so, the men naturally lived, when
on trek, with women of their totem, taking women of other totems as they
came across them. No longer on trek, the Arunta of to-day do the same
thing, many women of their own or any other totem. The only shade of
difference arises from the nature of the mythical theory, that many totem
groups were originally migratory. But the present Arunta system of 'go as
you please' in marriage (as far as totems are concerned) differs from the
regular custom of the neighbouring Urabunna, for example. That difference,
the Arunta probably feel, needs explanation. So their myth explains it, 'we
Arunta always acted thus from the beginning.' So far the 'tradition' of
Messrs Spencer and Gillen seems to me to be an ordinary explanatory myth.
(2) At the supposed time (a time when many human types were still in the
husk!) men and women of what are now 'exogamic groups' ('phratries' or
'classes') had marital relations contrary to present usage.
But did the phratries or classes then, according to tradition, exist at all? The
legend says that the men of the Little Hawk totem had these 'phratries' and
classes, Kumura and Purula and so on (the names then carrying no known
exogamous prohibition, as now, for the legend does not say that these
'classes' were exogamous). The Little Hawk men had arrived at the arts of

making flint knives, and using them in circumcision. This they taught to
less advanced groups, who tooled with fire sticks. But they only let their
pupils have 'very rough' stone knives (Palæolithic, probably), at first. 'It was
these Little Hawks,' say our authors, 'who first gave to the Arunta the four
"class" names. We may presume that along with them there was instituted
some system of marriage regulations, but what exactly this was there is no
evidence to show.' Either the Little Hawks introduced exogamy, or they did
not, a valuable result of traditional evidence.[39] 'As yet we have no
indication of any restrictions with regard to marriage as far as either totems
or classes are concerned,' say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. Then why does
the legend aver that the class names existed? Why did they exist? Now the
existing restrictions of the 'classes' need explanation, and get it, from the
myth; but, as there are no Arunta totem restrictions on marriage, at present
the myth naturally says nothing about them. At this mythic period, 'persons
of the Purula and Kumura classes, who may not now marry one another, are
represented as living together.'[40] (3) Next 'the organisation now in vogue
was adopted.' But, in its first shape, due to the wisdom of Emu men, it
permitted marriages, which are now (4) forbidden by the superior
intelligence of men dwelling further north, 'and it was decided to adopt the
new system,' that is, the present Arunta 'class' system.
Now the Arunta are still accepting innovations from the North, and this part
of the myth need not be mythical.
But the whole traditions, full of stark mythical inventions (including a myth
like that of Isis and the mutilation of Osiris), amount merely to this. Society
was totemic, but the totems were not exogamous; rather endogamous of the
two. Society among the Arunta is still totemic, but not, as far as totems go,
exogamous. In this it differs from the usual rule, and the myth explains why,
—'it was always so.' But Arunta society is exogamous as regards the
'phratries' and classes, and that has to be explained by the myth. The myth
therefore explains by saying that Emu men introduced a deficient, and
northern men an adequate, system of exogamy—that which now prevails.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, however, appear to deny that the 'traditions'
'simply explain the origin of the present system, out of, as it were, no
system. It is true that the traditions do give stages in the arrangement of the
present system; but they also do 'explain the origin of the present system.'
And Messrs. Spencer and Gillen not only admit this, but, as we saw, even

think the explanation 'quite possible.' The explanation, I repeat, is that the
system 'is due to the deliberate action of certain ancestors,' Emu men and
wiser Northern men.
Of course, as we tried to show, that explanation of primeval exogamy is
improbable, but it is the explanation given by the Arunta legend. With a
grain of fact, as to innovations from the North, the legend is a myth, an
ætiological myth, a myth explanatory of the origin of the present
organisation. History it is not. The Arunta 'traditions' are not historical
evidence in favour of the new hypothesis that the Arunta are 'primitive,' are
in 'the chrysalis stage' of humanity; (this they deny): that Totemism, in
origin, was a magical co-operative and industrial association; that the
original totems were not exogamous; and that exogamy was superimposed
by legislation, or grew out of an organisation so imposed on a society of
non-exogamous totem groups. Whatever the value of that hypothesis, it has
no historical support from the Arunta traditions. History is a very different
thing.
The Arunta still marry, at pleasure, in or out of the totem, merely because
their totems are now scattered about among their exogamous divisions. This
is not the 'natural arrangement' (as Mr. Frazer assures us), is not the
inevitable original arrangement, and is not the case with their neighbours,
the Urabunna, who are confessedly 'less developed than the Arunta.' The
Urabunna system, therefore, is more archaic, ex hypothesi than that of the
Arunta, which must be less archaic. It is, I repeat, peculiar, isolated, needs
explanation, and the Arunta traditions give the explanation. The ancestors
took women in or out of the totem, as at present the Arunta do; exogamy by
classes was later imposed, says the myth. Dr. Durkheim appears here to
hold the more logical position. There was, I conceive, with Dr. Durkheim,
and have stated, though Messrs Spencer and Gillen and others deny it, 'a
primary relationship between the totemic system and exogamy.'[41]

[1] Ethnological Bureau, Annual Report, 1893-1894, pp. 200, 201.
[2] Studies in Ancient History, p. 221.
[3] Suppose we take a group ranging in a given locality, and known to its
neighbours as the Emu group. Let us also take a similar and similarly situated
Kangaroo group. Let us suppose that each such group has raided for its wives
among Opossum, Grub, Cat, and Dingo groups. By female descent, both the

Emu and Kangaroo groups will contain persons of the Opossum, Grub, Cat, and
Dingo groups. This being so a man of the Emu local group, named Grub by
totem, might marry a woman of the Emu local group, by totem of descent an
Opossum; and similarly in the Kangaroo group. But, as Dr. Durkheim remarks in
another case, 'the old prohibition', deeply rooted in manners and customs,
survives (L'Année Sociologique, v. 107, note). Now 'the old prohibition' was that
a man of the Emu group was not to marry a woman of the Emu group. That rule
endures, though the Emu group now contains men and women of several distinct
totem kins. To escape from the difficulty, by my theory, Emu local totem group
makes connubium with Kangaroo local totem group. Any Emu man may marry
any Kangaroo woman not of his own totem by descent. But this does not,
automatically, throw Opossum and Grub into one, Cat and Dingo into another, of
the two local totem groups, Emu and Kangaroo, now become phratries, with loss
of their local character. For if a man, by phratry Emu, and by totem of descent
Cat, marries a woman, by phratry Kangaroo, and by totem of descent Grub, their
children, by female descent, are Kangaroo Grubs. Meanwhile, if a man, by
phratry Kangaroo, and by totem Cat, marries a woman, by phratry Emu, and by
totem Grub, their children are Emu Grubs. There are thus Grubs in both
phratries, a thing that never occurs (except among the Arunta). Therefore the
division of the totem kins, some into one phratry, others into the other, is not
automatic. There might be a tendency, by way of making assurance doubly sure,
for the totem kins to be assorted into the two phratries, but some kind of
deliberate arrangement does seem necessary. The same necessity attends Dr.
Durkheim's theory later criticised.
[4] See again Durkheim, in L'Année Sociologique, i. 47-57, on the superstition as
to blood, and the totem as a sacred representative of the inviolable blood of the
kindred. That superstition gives religious sanction to a pre-existing exogamous
tendency.
[5] Totemism, p. 60 (1889).
[6] Totemism, p. 62.
[7] The people of New Britain group of islands are divided into two exogamous
sets. The totems of these classes are two insects, but I incline to suppose that
there are, or may have been, totem kins included within these totemic classes.
Our informant, the Rev. B. Danks, regrets that he did not pay more attention to
these matters. J. A. I. xviii. 281-294.
[8] On the other hand, among the Mohegans, I can admit that Little Turtle, Mud
Turtle, and Great Turtle may be deliberate subdivisions of the Turtle totem, now
a phratry, but even this need not necessarily be the case; the different species of
turtles being quite capable of giving names to different totems. I would not deny
the possibility of the occasional segmentation of a totem group—far from it—but
I doubt whether great tribes originally (and, as it seems, deliberately) first
bisected themselves, and then cut up the two main divisions.
[9] My italics.
[10] J. A. I., N.S. i. 278.
[11] Ibid. p. 282.

[12] Mr. Mathews counts thirty-four totems in the Dilbi, and as many in the
Rupathin 'phratries.' Proc. Ray. Soc. N.S.W. xxxi. 157-158.
[13] J. A. I., N.S. i. 284-285.
[14] Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 605.
[15] Local totem groups, in my theory.
[16] Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 423-424.
[17] On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 186.
[18] I know that many students will decline to admit that there is such a myth of
a Maker.
[19] Report of Bureau of Ethnology, 1892-1893, pt. i. pp. 32-43.
[20] Natives of Central Australia, pp. 12-15.
[21] Ibid. pp. 15, 421-422, also p. 272.
[22] Here I dissent from Mr. Frazer and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen; the point is
discussed later.
[23] Fortnightly Review, June 1889.
[24] In 1895, J. A. I. xxiv., no. 4, p. 371, Mr. Fison abandons hope of a certain
discovery of the origin of exogamy.
[25] Fortnightly Review, April, May, 1899.
[26] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68, 69, 121.
[27] Ibid. p. 70.
[28] Ibid. p. 10.
[29] See 'The Origin of Totemism,' infra.
[30] L'Année Sociologique, 1900-1901, pp. 82-121.
[31] Ibid. v. 89-90.
[32] Totemism, p. 83.
[33] L'Année Sociologique, v. 92.
[34] Spencer and Gillen, p. 419.
[35] J. A. I., N.S., i. 285.
[36] Spencer and Gillen, p. 120.
[37] J. A. I., N.S., i., nos. 3, 4, p. 276.
[38] J. A. I., N.S., i. 276-277.
[39] Native Tribes of Australia, pp. 396-402, 421.
[40] Native Tribes of Australia, p. 418.
[41] Op. cit. p 279.

CHAPTER IV

ARUNTA PHRATRIES AND TOTEMS

The essential question is, why, among the more archaic Urabunna, do the
large exogamous divisions never include the same totems, whereas, among
the more highly developed Arunta, they do? If we can show how the
Arunta, if once organised on the Urabunna and North American model,
came to slip out of it; while we cannot show how the Urabunna, and most
other tribes, if once on the Arunta model, came to desert it (as they must
have done), then it will seem probable that the Urabunna organisation, the
regular universal Australian organisation, is the older.
The sequence of events, as understood by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, was
this, or, at least, may thus be conceived. We take two tribes, say Urabunna
and Arunta. They both have many totem groups, totemic, because (on this
theory) each group had, for its 'primary function,' the working of magic for
the object which was its totem. The totem had primarily, on this theory, no
relation to marriage rules. It is 'quite possible' that certain persons then
deliberately introduced exogamous divisions.... 'so as to regulate marital
relations.' The exact purpose, however, is unknown; 'it can only be said that
far back in the early history of mankind, there was felt the need of some
form of organisation, and that this gradually resulted in the development of
exogamic groups.' This position I have already criticised; it is not
intelligible to me. However—the exogamous division was made, and then
all the totems might be arranged separately in the two divisions, by the
Urabunna, 'and perhaps the majority of Australian tribes' (and the American
tribes) or, 'this was not done,' as by the Arunta. Consequently, Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen think, the rule which prevents an Urabunna man from
marrying a woman of his own totem, has nothing, primarily, to do with the
totem, but is a mere inevitable consequence of the system which, among all
tribes but the Arunta, excluded each totem from one of the two exogamous
divisions, and placed it (not among the Arunta) in the other. My own system
—I need not reiterate it—is the reverse of all this.
The Arunta, I contend, probably had, originally, the usual organisation, but
have lost it for obvious reasons, so that now the same totem may occur in

both of the large exogamous divisions, and persons of the same totem may
now intermarry.
The traditions of the Arunta represent the exogamous 'phratries' as later than
the totemic (but not yet exogamous) division. Dr. Durkheim thinks this
improbable or impossible. It is true that the 'phratries' or 'classes' are now
much more important, among the Arunta, than the totems, on which Dr.
Durkheim insists. They need not, therefore, be earlier.

VIEWS OF DR. DURKHEIM

The theory of Dr. Durkheim is not, perhaps, expressed with his usual
lucidity; at least I have found some difficulty in understanding it. The
following summary, however, seems to be correct. 'The phratry,' he says,
'began by being a clan' (in my terminology an exogamous local totem
group). 'There is no reason why this general idea should not apply to the
Arunta. Consequently, since there are actually two exogamous phratries, we
have reason to admit that this society was originally formed by two primary
clans, or, if any one prefers the phrase, by two elementary totem groups,
both exogamous (également exogames), for under this form the two
phratries must have begun to exist. Now in that case there was at least a
moment when marriage was forbidden between members of the same
totem,' though now among the Arunta this rule no longer obtains.[1]
So far Dr. Durkheim and I hold identical views; we differ on a point of
detail. What are, and whence came, the totems within the phratries? Dr.
Durkheim conceives the case thus: Originally there was a 'clan' (local totem
group) which was exogamous, and married out into one other equally
exogamous clan. The members of each such exogamous totem group ('clan')
then multiplied and 'swarmed off,' in colonies, and all such colonies took a
new totem, while retaining 'the sentiment of their primary solidarity' with
the original totem group. These are the 'secondary' totem kins. But why
should they take new totem names and new totems?[2] I know not, but the
original group from which they swarmed off now became their 'phratry.'
This phratry, in many cases, still has a totem name, 'which is the proof that
it is, or has been a clan,' that is an exogamous totem group.[3] Therefore
exogamous totem groups were 'primary,' the existing totem kins are
'secondary,' they have split off from the original groups. As far as I am able

to follow Dr. Durkheim's reasoning, he and I differ on this one point. We
both regard the two 'phratries' as having been originally local exogamous
totem groups, which united in connubium. But in each 'phratria' there exist
several totem kinships. Dr. Durkheim regards these as 'secondary' branches
which split off from the two original local totem groups, and which, in each
case, took new totem names, while retaining membership in their original
totem groups, now 'phratries.' They are totemic colonies of a totemic
metropolis. I, on the other hand, as has been explained, conceive that each
of the two local totem groups which became phratries (say Emu and
Kangaroo) already, by the action of exogamy in a region where there were
many totem groups, and by virtue of female descent, contained within it
persons who were of various totem kindreds. Dr. Durkheim, on the contrary,
seems to think of the existence of but two primal exogamous clans in a
given region. Groups emigrating from these took new totem names, while
retaining the phratry name and connection with their mother clans, now
phratries.
Why the clans were totemic at all does not appear. I understand that they
were exogamous out of respect for the blood of their totems, the totem tabu
(p. 57, note I).
Against the hypothesis it may be urged (1) that we do not know that
emigrants from a local centre ever select new totem names—unless, indeed,
they reach a region where their old totem does not exist. This cannot have
occurred constantly. Again (2), Dr. Durkheim's theory involves the same
difficulty as my own. How did the colonies from the Kangaroo group
happen never to select the same totem as colonies from the Emu group, so
that the same totem never occurs in both phratries? This implies deliberate
arrangement. If however, totem names were given from without, by
neighbours (as I shall argue), the case could not occur at all, and the same
totem would appear in both phratries.
If we adopt the hypothesis that two friendly 'families,' or 'fire circles,' of a
cousinly character, set the first example of exogamous intermarriage—
exclusively with each other—and then got totem names, they might become
phratries, but whence arose the totem kins within the phratries? Shall we
say that other such 'families,' increasing in size, and receiving totem names,
came in, two by two, to Emu and Kangaroo, each of the new linked
adherents taking opposite sides, Opossum going to the Kangaroo,

Bandicoot to the Emu phratry? This would give the totems within the
phratries, by a constant accession of other pairs of phratries, which
subordinated themselves, one to Emu, one to Kangaroo. Either this
hypothesis, or Dr. Durkheim's, or my own, accounts for the phratry plus
totem kins arrangement, without supposing the deliberate bisection of a
hitherto undivided commune. That hypothesis, if any one, of the other three,
Dr. Durkheim's, my own, or the theory of accessions to the pair of
exogamous intermarrying families, be accepted, is therefore not forced
upon us in defect of a better.

HOW DID THE ARUNTA ANOMALY ARISE?

At all events, the Arunta 'clan' (totem kin) is now no longer exogamous, and
two Arunta phratries can now contain members of the same totems,
contrary to Kamilaroi, Dieri and Urabunna and American custom. How did
this anomaly arise? Dr. Durkheim supposes that the change began when
Arunta kinship came to desert the female and to be reckoned in the male
line. This appears to Dr. Durkheim to be indicated by the complicated and
ingenious arrangements made when an Urabunna (who reckons by the
female line) intermarries with an Arunta, who reckons by the male line.[4]
These arrangements, he thinks, are no novelty devised for the occasion: the
Arunta merely revert to their old way of reckoning by the spindle side.
When the Arunta changed their system, and reckoned in the male, not, as of
old, in the female line, the children now belonged to the 'phratries,' not of
their mothers, as previously, but of their fathers. Each 'phratry' then bartered
a sub-class of its own for a sub-class of its partner. Each bartered sub-class
thus brought its totems into the other 'phratry,' and there was no longer a
totem group entirely peculiar to one or other 'phratry.' Consequently, a
member of the Kangaroo totem could marry a woman of the same, if she
were in the opposite 'phratry' to his own.
Might not the same results follow from the mere fact, that, among the
Arunta, the totem is now inherited neither from father nor mother, but is
derived simply from the totem souls that haunt the particular glen or hill
where the child was conceived? By this means a totem soul can get into a
child of the 'phratry' to which that totem did not originally belong, and thus
the totems 'skip' from one 'phratry' to another, contrary to general rule in
Australia and North America. This is the explanation of the Arunta anomaly

which Messrs. Spencer and Gillen accept. 'The spirit child' (of the Lizard
totem) 'deliberately, the natives say, chose to go into a Kumura' (class)
'woman, instead of a Bulthara woman.... Though the class was changed, the
totem could not possibly be.... Owing to the system according to which
totem names are acquired, it is always possible for a man to be, say, a
Purula' (class) 'or a Kumura' (class) 'and yet a Witchetty; or, on the other
hand, a Bulthara' (class) 'or a Panunga' (class) 'and yet an Emu' (totem).
But, if he is thus born to a totem which was not originally (on my theory) a
totem of his phratry, a man loses the chance of being an Alatunja, or head
man of a local group.[5] Thus the Arunta anomaly arises merely and
necessarily from the Arunta philosophy of souls. That philosophy is an
isolated freak, and it has upset and revolutionised Arunta Totemism, which,
therefore, is the reverse of the 'primitive' model.

[1] L'Année Sociologique, v. 91, 92.
[2] This idea we shall find again later, in another part of Dr. Durkheim's system.
[3] L'Année Sociologique, i. 6, 7.
[4] L'Ann. Soc. v. 104-107; Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68-69.
[5] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 125, 126. The reader is recommended to study Dr.
Durkheim's passage cited in the last note, the topic being difficult.

CHAPTER V

OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES

The prohibitions on marriage, with which we have hitherto been concerned,
are based on what savages regard—while we do not—as relations of
kindred. Men and women of the same 'phratry' or 'primary division' may not
intermarry (where such divisions exist), nor may men and women of the
same totem name. Civilised society, at least in Europe, now recognises no
such things as the 'phratry' or the totem kin. When Mr. George Osborne, in
Vanity Fair, was asked whether he was akin to the ducal House of Leeds, he

replied that he bore the same arms—these having been conferred on his
father by a coach-builder. In savage society, Captain Osborne's answer
would have been satisfactory. He would really have reckoned as a kinsman
of all other Emus, if his totem and badge (coat of arms) was an Emu. In
Scotland the Campbell name used to be regarded as implying at least a
chance that the bearer was of the blood of the Black Knight of Loch Awe,
and had a right to the Campbell tartan, and badge, the gale, or bog-myrtle.
But, of course, as a rule, in modern society, a common surname is no proof
of kinship, and coats of arms are usually home by the middle classes, and
peers of recent creation, without much inquiry.
So far, then, the totemic rules which prohibit certain marriages, have no
resemblance to our own definite 'forbidden degrees,' based on nearness of
blood. The savage rules, as they stand, include our notions of kindred, but
these notions, as far as they are recognised, are not conterminous with ours.
But the 'phratry' prohibitions, and the totem prohibitions, are not the only
bars to marriage among such peoples as the Australians.
The other bars are lucidly described by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.[1]
'There are still further restrictions to marriage ... and it is here that we are
brought into contact with the terms of relationship.' We find that a woman
may belong to a totem kin (and phratry) into which a man may lawfully
marry, 'yet there is a further restriction preventing marriage in this particular
case.' Thus a male Dingo (among the Urabunna) may marry a female Water
Hen, as far as 'phratry' and totem are concerned. But he may not marry a
woman of the Water Hen totem if she reckons (1) as his father's sister (i.e.
of his father's generation), (2) if she is his child, or his brother's child (of the
next generation), (3) if she be one of his mother's younger brother's
daughters: but he may marry her if she (4) be one of his mother's elder
brother's daughters. All women of that category (4) are Nupa, or nubile, as
far as this man goes. In category I, the women (including 'paternal aunts,' as
we reckon) are of an older generation than the man; in category 2 they are
of a younger generation (including our 'children' and 'nieces'); in category 3
the women include our cousins on the maternal side, by uncles younger
than our mothers, and, in category 4, they include our cousins on the
maternal side, by uncles older than our mothers. We Europeans, being
males, may not marry into categories 1 and 2, but if not Catholics, we may

marry into categories 3 and 4; if Catholics, we may—if we can get a
dispensation.
In the Australian system the oddest thing is that a male may marry into
what, in our phrase, includes his younger maternal uncle's daughter, but not
his elder maternal uncle's daughter. But we here use the words 'uncle,' 'aunt,'
and 'cousin,' only by way of illustration. The Urabunna, and tribes of their
level generally, have no such words. All children (category I) 'of men who
are at the same level in the generation, and belong to the same class and
totem, are regarded as the common children of these men,' or, perhaps we
should rather say, are called by the same name, Biaka, as a man's own
children are styled. A man knows very well which children he reckons his
own, though, as will be seen, he has little ground for his confidence. In the
same way a child, though he calls all men of his father's class, totem, and
level in the generation, Nia (fathers), knows well enough which Nia feeds
him, pets him, thrashes him for his good, and, generally, plays the paternal
part. For example, a man informs you that this or that native, by personal
name Oriaka, is his Okilia, 'and you cannot possibly tell without further
inquiry whether he is the speaker's own or tribal brother, that is the son of
his own father, or of some man belonging to the same particular group' (by
'phratry,' totem, and seniority) 'as his father.'[2] But you can learn 'by further
inquiry:' the actual relationship, in our sense of the word, is recognised.

'GROUP MARRIAGE'

These facts necessarily lead to the question, are all men of one class, totem,
and seniority, actual husbands of all women of the opposite class, different
totem, and equivalent seniority? (Group Marriage). Or, if this is no longer
the case, was it once the case? and are these sweeping uses of names which
include our 'father,' 'mother,' 'brother,' 'child,' survivals of such a stage,
called 'Group Marriage'? This question is still undecided; good authorities
take opposite views of the question, which has bred, in the past, much angry
controversy.

MR. MORGAN AND THE CLASS SYSTEM

The arrangement by 'classes,' 'the classificatory system,' was first brought
into scientific prominence by the late Mr. Lewis Morgan, an American

gentleman affiliated to the Iroquois tribe, in his very original studies of the
names for degrees of kinship.[3] A great deal may be said, and has been said,
especially by Mr. McLennan and Dr. Westermarck, against Mr. Morgan's
ideas and methods, but his large and careful collection of facts is of high
importance. On what he called 'the Malayan system,' one name denoting kin
includes all my brothers, sisters, and cousins. Another name includes my
father, mother, my uncles, aunts, and all the cousins of my father, mother,
aunts, and uncles. The generation of my grandparents and their relations is
included in a third name; a fourth covers my children and their cousins, and
the grandchildren of my brothers and sisters, with their children, bear the
same name, for me, as my own grandchildren. From the names Mr. Morgan
inferred the existence of certain facts in the evolution of systems of kindred.
Everybody of the same generation lived together, once, on his theory, in
'communal marriage,' brothers, sisters, and cousins. There was promiscuity
between all men and women in the same generation. Of course this involves
the converse of Mr. Atkinson's Primal Law, as Mr. Atkinson observes in his
eighth chapter. In place of the prohibition of brother and sister union being
the earliest of prohibitions (as in Mr. Atkinson's system), the rule that they
must unite, caused, in Mr. Morgan's opinion, the earliest form of the human
family.

DIFFICULTIES OF MR. MORGAN'S THEORY

Mr. Morgan's theory, it must be observed, landed him at once in the fallacy
of supposing that prohibitions of marriage of kinsfolk were originally the
result of 'a reformatory movement.'[4] We have seen that, granting, for the
sake of argument, Mr. Morgan's premise of an original 'undivided
commune,' Mr. Fison is also deposited in the same difficulty, and was once
even inclined to regard a theory of intervention 'by a higher power' (the
Dieri myth) as not necessarily out of the question, if marriage was once
communal. To reform such marriage relations, he says, 'would be a step in
advance so difficult for men in that utter depth of savagery to take, that they
would not be able to take it, unless they had help from without. This might
be given by contact with a more advanced tribe; but if all the tribes started
from the same level, that impulse would be impossible in the first instance,
and must have been derived from a higher power.'[5] Mr. Fison, as we saw,
has since expressed the opinion that the origin of exogamy is probably

indiscoverable, but I cite again his early remark to prove his sense of the
insuperable difficulty of Mr. Morgan's theory.
How were men in his hypothetical condition to know that there was
anything to reform? It needed a divine revelation!
Mr. Morgan was himself aware of this difficulty, and tried to get out of it,
by using Darwinian phrases about 'natural selection'—'blessed words,' but
here unavailing. He was in the posture of Mr. Spencer, between direct
legislation to introduce exogamy, and gradual evolution of exogamy, as the
slow result of the felt need of 'some organisation,'—its nature and purpose
unknown. Thus Mr. Morgan, speaking of communal marriage, and its
results, says that 'emancipation from them was slowly accomplished
through movements which resulted in unconscious reformation.' These
movements were, first, the 'class' system, then the 'gens' (totem system),
'worked out unconsciously through natural selection.'[6] This means, if it
means anything, that, by a freak or sport, some people did not marry in and
in, that they unconsciously evolved the totem system, that they therefore
throve, while others who married in and in, and did not evolve the totem
system, perished, and so we have the results of 'natural selection.' But why
did some people avoid the habit of marriages of near kin which was so
general? The position is that of Dr. Westermarck, who adds an 'instinct,'
developed by natural selection,[7] an idea which involves arguing in a circle.
Again, that peoples marrying in the communal way would die out has to be
proved: science has no certainty in the matter.
In any case, Mr. Morgan presently deserts his opinion about slow
unconscious reformation, and his natural selection. 'The organisation into
classes seems to have been directed to the single object of breaking up the
intermarriage of brothers and sisters, which affords a probable explanation
of the origin of the system. But since it does not look beyond this particular
abomination it retained a conjugal system nearly as objectionable....'[8] The
reader sees that Mr. Morgan cannot keep on the high Darwinian level. He
relapses on a supposed moral reform with a single object of things
'abominable'—to us—and 'objectionable'—to us. But how did the pristine
savages find out that such things were 'abominable'? Presently the totem
prohibition ('the gens') 'originates probably in the ingenuity of a small band
of savages,' for the purpose of modifying marriage law, and the daring

novelty 'must soon have proved its utility in the production of superior
men.'[9] Here we have the legislation due to human 'ingenuity,' and natural
selection comes in to aid and diffuse the system. Later 'the evils of the first
form of marriage came to be perceived' (what were they?) and this led 'if
not to its direct abolition, to a preference for wives beyond this degree.
Among the Australians it was abolished by the organisation into classes,
and more widely among the Turanian tribes by the organisation into gentes.'
The Australians have 'gentes' (totem groups) quite as much as the
'Turanians' or 'Ganowanians,' and we have tried to show that totems are
prior to 'classes.'[10] But the Australians 'abolished' a form of marriage by an
'organisation,' which implies deliberate legislation. From this difficulty of
legislation, so early and so moral, no advocate of the 'bisection' of an
undivided commune and of its 'subdivision' into totem 'phratries' and kins,
can escape, however he may make a push at 'natural selection,' and gradual
evolution.

MR. MORGAN ON TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP

These perplexities do not predispose us in favour of Mr. Morgan's theory of
the terms of 'Relationship,' which we have illustrated by the case of the
Urabunna. He himself takes the Hawaiian terms, which are to the same
effect. In brief, all the men and women of a generation are' brothers and
sisters,' all those of the prior generation are 'fathers and mothers,' all those
of the following generation are 'children.' Now, if ever all the men and
women of a generation married 'all through other,' promiscuously, these
terms of 'relationship' would be in place. First, we are told, brothers and
sisters in a family intermarried, and the process 'gradually enfolded the
collateral brothers and sisters, as the range of the conjugal system widened.'
And then 'the evils came to be perceived,' what evils, how perceived, we do
not know, and Reformation set in. It definitely began with the Australian
'Bisection,' 'the organisation into classes' (really into 'phratries'), and about
the difficulties of that theory enough has been said.
The reader will naturally ask, What is the original meaning of the words
now used by Hawaiians, and Urabunna, and others, for the relations in
which our 'father,' 'son,' 'wife,' 'husband,' 'mother.' 'daughter,' 'brother,'
'sister,' are included? Do the words embracing our terms 'brother' and 'sister'

in Hawaii, or elsewhere, imply procreation, and issue (as in Greek), 'from
the same womb'? Among the Arunta they cannot mean procreation, if they
do not even know (as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen tell us), that there is any
such thing as procreation. 'A spirit child enters a woman,' that is all. In the
times of this primeval ignorance, words for relationships could not imply
bearing and begetting; they must have meant something else. Say that they
meant relationships in point of seniority: 'my male elder,' 'my female elder,'
'my male junior,' 'my female junior,' 'my male coeval or friend,' 'my female
coeval or friend,' 'the man I may marry,' 'the woman I may marry,' 'the
woman or man I may not marry.'
If low savage names for relationships meant that (no doubt they do not, or
not often) then they would undeniably prove nothing as to a system of
communal marriage. A baby points to any man or woman and says 'pa' or
'ma,' without any theory of communal marriage. Thus philologists must first
interpret for us the original significance of these savage names of
relationships. Once given, they would last, whatever they originally
implied. Dr. Westermarck has urged this point.[11] In the terms themselves
there is, generally, nothing which indicates that they imply an idea of
consanguinity.' 'Pa, papa' (father), ma, mama (mother), and scores of others,
'are formed from the earliest sounds a child can produce,' and 'have no
intrinsic meaning whatever.' Dr. Westermarck gives a long list of such
words, applied to 'fathers, and all the tribe brothers of fathers,' and the same
for mothers, concluding 'that we must not, from these designations, infer
anything as to early marriage customs.' He does not deny that other terms of
relationship have roots of independent meaning, 'but the number of those
that imply an idea of consanguinity does not seem to be very great.' In Lifu
(Melanesia), the word for 'father' means 'root;' for 'mother,' 'foundation' or
'vessel;' for 'sister,' 'not to be touched;' for 'elder and younger brother,' 'ruler'
and 'ruled.'[12] The terms for father and mother denote consanguinity; the
others, customary law, and status.
If we only knew the meanings, say, of the Urabunna words for
relationships, we should learn much. But the truly amusing fact is that Mr.
Fison, for example, did not know the language of the natives, and thought
that probably not six white men in Australia had an adequate knowledge,
and an adequate access to the notions, of the tribesmen. Of these one had
been initiated, and, like a gentleman, declined to break the oath of secresy.

[13]
This was in 1880. Things may have improved. But unless our
authorities know the languages, where are we? We do know that seniority is
indicated: Father's elder brothers are Gampatcha Kuka (Warramunga tribe).
Mr. McLennan thought that all these terms were 'terms of address,' used to
avoid the employment of personal names, and Dr. Westermarck holds that
'there can scarcely be any doubt that the terms for relationship are, in their
origin, terms of address.' Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, after impartial
consideration, cannot accept this view, for Australia; where the terms are
very numerous, and stand for relations very complicated, connected with
the intermarrying groups, and with social duties. In addressing a person, his
or her individual name (our Christian name) is freely used.[14] They believe
that the terms can only be explained 'on the theory of the former existence
of group marriage, and further, that this has of necessity given rise to the
terms of relationship used by the Australian natives.' These opinions are
shared by Messrs. Fison and Howitt. The former says, 'It must, I think, be
allowed that the classificatory terms point to group marriage,' and though
Bastian denies this, Mr. Fison supports his theory by the Dieri custom of
allotting paramours (pinauru) to men and women, out of the sets which may
intermarry.[15]
To this problem we return; meanwhile it may seem impertinent in mere
ethnologists of the study to hint a doubt as to the conclusions of observers
on the spot. Mr. Crawley, however, has no hesitations. The use of the terms
of relationship, he thinks, does not testify to a past of 'Group Marriage,' or
to a remoter past of promiscuity, but is 'the regular result of the primitive
theory of relationship; the system codifies a combination of relation and
relationship, "address," and age.' The terms in use 'do not in themselves
necessarily point to a previous promiscuity, or even to a present group
marriage,' as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen believe.
The point is one on which I almost hesitate to venture a decided opinion.
Much seems to depend on the original sense of the various terms, and on
that point, in the case of Urabunna, and many other tribes, we have no light.
But often the terms do not express consanguinity at all. There seems to be
no word for 'daughter' as distinct from 'son,' 'nephew,' and 'niece.' The
grandfather maternal is Thunthie, and Thunthunnie is Urabunna for totem,
so that it is tempting to guess that Thunthie means 'a sire of the maternal

totem.'[16] Kadnini, again (I speaking), means grandfather paternal,
grandmother maternal, and grandchildren.[17] These relationships imply
duties and services. 'One individual has to do certain things for another ...
and any breach of these customs is severely punished.' An Arunta of the
Panunga class calls all Kumura men 'fathers-in-law.' He gashes his flesh if
any one of his 'fathers-in-law' dies, and he drops his dead game if he meets
any one of them. They all have that advantage over him.[18] Thus these
terms of relationship—communal in appearance—really involve certain
duties, rather than relations of blood and affinity. But emphatically the
terms are more than mere terms of address, as in Mr. McLennan's theory.
But these are usages of the system as it stands to-day. Is there behind it an
'undivided commune,' as Mr. Morgan held; is there actual 'group marriage'?
I am not apt to believe that there is. Language shows, in the terms of
relationship, a group of 'Mothers' for each child; but, as Mr. Darwin
remarks, 'it seems almost incredible that the relationship of the child to its
mother should ever have been completely ignored, especially as the women
in most savage tribes nurse their infants for a long time.' A man's mother is
one, and must be known, though he calls many women by the same name as
he gives to his mother. She is lumped, in the terms of relationship, in one
term with all the women whom the father might legally have married, but
did not. The son, in addressing or speaking of his mother, overlooks the 'one
love which needs no winning,' and his term has reference only to the
present marriage law of his tribe. That law 'codifies' the terms, they result
from that law, and that law, again, is based, if I am right, on totem
prohibitions, on the desire to keep marriage between people of the same
generation, and on the rights and duties of the generations. These
prohibitions, of phratry, 'class,' totem, and age, leave only a certain set of
women marriageable to a certain set of men. The name of this set of women
is Nupa to their coevals, Luka to the succeeding generation. There is no
name for 'wife,' no name for 'mother;' there are only names expressive of
customary legal status, itself the result of the existing rules. Whatever their
original sense, they all now connote seniority and customary legal status,
with its reciprocal duties, rights and avoidances. 'It is the system, and not
group marriage, which has given rise to these terms of relationship,' says
Mr. Crawley.[19]

But what gave rise to the system? Mr. Fison has told us. 1. 'The division of
a tribe (community) into two exogamous intermarrying classes....' 2. 'The
subdivision of these two classes into four,' or, he suggests, the
amalgamation of two tribes. 3. 'Their subdivision into gentes distinguished
by totems.'[20]
But all of this theory we have already declined to accept for reasons given,
and mainly because it involves (as I try to show) deliberate primeval
reformatory legislation—without any conceivable motive. Again, we cannot
accept Mr. Fison's system because it involves the hypothesis that a tribe, or
'community,' large enough to feel the necessity of bisecting itself for social
and moral purposes, existed at a period when the difficulties of
commissariat, of food supply, and of hostility, could seldom, if ever, permit
its existence. A tribe is, I repeat, a local aggregate of small groups become
friendly: it is not a primeval horde which keeps on subdividing itself,
legislatively, for reformatory purposes. What social cement kept such a
primeval horde, such an 'undivided commune,' together; and how did the
animal jealousy of men so near to the brutal stage fail to rend it into pieces?
How was it fed? How can we imagine a human herd—how supplied with
food, who knows?—wherein each male sees each other male approach what
female he pleases, perhaps his own preferred girl, without internecine
jealousy? I cannot imagine this indifference to love in such a primitive
Agapemone; I cannot understand its economics; any more than I can guess
why such a state of affairs ever seemed—to its members—'abominable' and
'objectionable,' and a thing to be reformed; yet they 'bisected' it, and
'subdivided' the segments, all in the interests of morality—such is the
theory.
As for the good-humoured laxity which enables all men and women to live
together matrimonially at random, Mr. Morgan found an example, as he
thought, in the Punalua of the Hawaiians. The word Punalua, when
observed (1860) by Judge Andrews, meant 'dear friend,' or 'intimate
companion.' A man called his sister's husband (our 'brother-in-law) his 'dear
friend,' and a woman styled the wife of her husband's brother (her sister-in-
law), her 'dear friend,' or Punalua. This shows that relations-in-law were
not 'Foes-in-law,' or, at least, that this was not the official view of the case.
It really does not follow that all the wives 'shared their remaining husbands
in common.' Judge Andrews thought that this happy family 'were inclined to

possess each other in common.' That was only the Judge's theory, also the
theory of the Rev. Artemus Bishop. Probably there was a great deal of
genial license and indifference among loose luxurious barbaric people,
living in 'summer isles of Eden,' where food and necessaries were ready
made by benignant Nature.[21]
Each shepherd clasped, with unconcealed delight,
His yielding fair, within the Captain's sight;
Each yielding fair, as chance or fancy led,
Preferred new lovers to her sylvan bed.[22]
This is vastly well, and the poet adds, in a liberal spirit,
What Otaheite is, let England be!
It is very well, but it by no means represents, probably, the manners of
primitive man.
'We may conclude,' says Mr. Darwin, 'from what we know of the jealousy
of all male quadrupeds,... that promiscuous intercourse, in a state of nature,
is extremely improbable.... The most probable view is that primeval man
aboriginally lived in small communities, each with as many wives as he
could support and obtain, whom he would have jealously guarded against
all other men. Or he may have lived with several wives by himself, like the
Gorilla, for all the natives agree that but one adult male is seen in a band;
when the young male grows up a struggle takes place for mastery, and the
strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes himself as the
head of the community. The younger males, being thus expelled and
wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a partner,
prevent too close interbreeding within the limits of the same family,' just as
the other male did.[23]
This second view of Mr. Darwin's is much like the theory of Mr. Atkinson,
and is very unlike Mr. Morgan's theory of a human horde, living in
communal marriage, or group marriage. Mr. Darwin's idea, moreover, the
primitive groups being small, does not encounter the economic difficulties
raised by the hypothesis of the 'undivided commune.' The strongest male
practically enforced exogamy, as far as he was able, and maybe conceived
to have entertained no scruples as to connection with his daughters. Mr.
Darwin admitted that 'the indirect evidence' for communal marriage, and

fraternal incest, was 'extremely strong,' but then 'it rests chiefly on the terms
of relationship which are employed between members of the same tribe,
implying a connection with the tribe alone, and not with either parent.' If,
however, we have successfully explained these terms of relationship as not
usually meaning degrees of consanguinity, but of customary legal status,
under the prevalent customary law, the evidence which these terms yield for
promiscuity, or group marriage, is extremely weak, or is nil, above all if our
theory of how the legal status arose is accepted. And, if it is not accepted,
back we come to primeval 'reformatory movements.'
In Lifu, the word for 'sister' means 'not to be touched,' land this is a mere
expression of customary law. A man 'must not touch' any one of the women
of his generation whom the totem tabu and the rule of the exogamous
'phratry' (in origin, we suggest, totemic) forbid him to touch. All such
women, in a particular grade, are his sisters. Many women, besides his
actual sisters, stand to him in the degree thus prohibited. All bear the same
name of status as a man's actual sisters bear, but the name does not mean
'sisters' at all, in our sense of that word: namely, daughters of the man's real
father and mother. It means tabued women of a generation. If the
'classificatory' terms which include our 'fathers,' 'sisters,' 'wives,' and the
rest meant what our 'fathers,' 'sisters,' 'wives,' and so on mean, then the
evidence from the terms, for communal or group marriage, would really be
'extremely strong.' But, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, 'unless all ideas
of terms of relationship as counted among ourselves be abandoned, it is
useless to try and (sic) understand the native terms.'[24] Yet the whole force
of the argument for communal marriage derived from savage terms of
relationship rests precisely on our not 'abandoning' (as we are warned to
abandon) 'all ideas of terms of relationship as counted among ourselves.'
The friends of group and communal marriage, it seems to me, keep
forgetting that our ideas of sister, brother, father, mother, and so on, have
nothing to do (as they tell us at certain points of their argument) with the
native terms which include, indeed, but do not denote these relationships, as
understood by us. An Urabunna calls a crowd of men of his father's status
by the same term as he calls his father. This need not point to an age when,
by reason of promiscuity, no man knew his father. Were this so, a man of
the generation prior to his father might be the actual parent of the speaker,
and all men under eighty ought to be called 'father' by him—which they are

not. The facts may merely mean that the Urabunna styles his father by the
name denoting a status which his father shares with many other men; a
status in seniority, 'phratry,' and totem. We really cannot first argue that our
ideas have no relation to the terms employed by savages, and then, when we
want to prove a past of communal marriage, turn round and reason as if our
terms and the savage terms were practically identical. We cannot say 'our
word "son" must not be thought of when we try to understand the native
term of relationship which includes sons in our sense,' and next aver that
'sons in our sense, are regarded as real sons of the group, not of the
individual—because of a past stage of promiscuity making paternity
indiscoverable.'
As Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, we must 'lay aside all preconceived
ideas of relationship,' when we study the Urabunna or other classificatory
terms of relationships.[25] Let us do so, and the evidence borne by these
terms to a past of communal marriage vanishes at once. That the terms often
denote status in customary law is demonstrated. 'There are certain customs
which are enforced by long usage and according to which men and women
of particular degrees of relationship may alone have marital relations, or
may not speak to one another, or according to which one individual has to
do certain things for another, such as providing the latter with food, or with
hair, as the case may be, and any breach of these customs is severely
punished. The elder men of each group very carefully keep alive these
customs, many of which are of considerable value to themselves....'[26]
Thus, you have speared a fish, or an opossum, but if you meet any man of
your father-in-law's set, you must drop your spoil and make off.
Consequently, I venture to take it, the terms of relationship in no way
answer to our ideas of kin, but merely denote legal status.

HOW THE TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP ORIGINALLY AROSE

We cannot, as a rule, recover (or Australian students have not recovered) the
original sense and etymology of terms like Biaka, Nia, Nupa, and so forth.
We are thus left to choose between two competing theories of their nature
and diffusion. If we advocate the hypothesis of consanguine marriage and
group marriage, we must suppose that the members of the 'undivided
commune' of the theory, had once names absolutely identical in sense with

our 'father,' 'mother,' 'sister,' 'brother,' 'son,' 'daughter,' and so forth. But the
speakers, in each case, were obliged to apply these words with the utmost
laxity, because who knew who A's father might be, and whether C's sister
were really his sister or not, while every girl was the wife of every male of
her generation, not barred by other laws, and so on? The promiscuity of
living, then, made this lax use of words for relationships inevitable.
This is the usual hypothesis, and the sweeping scope of savage words for
human relationships is accepted as proof that consanguine and group
marriage once existed and left their marks in language. On the other hand, if
communal marriage prevailed, the people who lived in that condition could
not possibly have had ideas equivalent to our father, son, daughter, brother,
wife, and so on. Our ideas of these relationships could not enter the human
mind, at the hypothetical stage of culture when nobody knew 'who is who'
and the hypothesis is wrecked on that fact.
Therefore either the names now used under the 'class system' are of
unknown original sense; or, human marriage was, from the first, so far,
'individual' that our ideas of father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter,
could arise and could find expression in terms that still survive, say, among
the Urabunna or other Australians. But while tribal customary laws as to
classes, totems, generations, marriage rules, and many other social duties
were being evolved; some of the ancient names for father, son, brother,
sister, were perhaps taken up and applied to each of the large sets of persons
whose customary legal status was now (as groups coalesced into large
tribes) on the level of actual fathers, sons, brothers, sisters, and the rest.
Obviously, in a primitive group of a male senior, his female mates and
children, there could not exist (other groups being, on my theory, strange or
hostile) large sets of persons occupying a common legal status, as in
modern tribes. The existence of such sets of persons is the result of the later
and tribal society, of society in which many groups are reconciled and
united in a local tribe. Only in such a tribe, which cannot be primitive, is the
classificatory system of naming sets of people necessary. It is only in tribal
law that the grades of customary status answering to all the many terms can
exist, and tribes with their laws cannot be primitive. Most names for the
various grades, therefore, are later than Mr. Darwin's hypothetical stage of
small and perhaps hostile groups; they were, in a few cases, perhaps
originally names for such relationships as our own father, mother, son,

brother, &c., but in the evolution of tribal customary law, such names have
been extended out of their family, or fire-circle, into their tribal
significance, out of recognised kinship, or close contiguity, into terms
including all who have the same status, rights, and duties.

SUPPOSED SURVIVALS OF GROUP MARRIAGE

If our suggestion as to the origin and significance of the 'classificatory
terms of relationship' be plausible, then the theory of a pristine past of
'communal' or of 'group marriage' will lose what Mr. Darwin deemed the
chief evidence in its favour, the evidence from terms of relationship. But
there remains the evidence from 'survivals,' in institutions. For example,
among the Urabunna, women of a certain seniority, totem and 'phratry' are
Nupa to men of the relative status among males. They are the men's
potential wives. In actual practice each individual man has one or perhaps
two of these Nupa women who are specially attached to himself, and live in
his camp. They are his wives. But each man has also, or many men have,
other women of the Nupa set, who by an allotment, which the elders
arrange, are his Piraungaru, He is, that is to say, their 'second master,' after
their husbands. This is a kind of Cicisbeism, recognised and regulated by
customary law, and sanctioned by a definite ceremony. Messrs. Spencer and
Gillen therefore say 'individual marriage does not exist, either in name or in
practice, among the Urabunna tribe.' Their idea appears to be that once
every man was the husband of every Nupa woman who was accessible, and
that the Piraungaru arrangement is a nascent restriction upon, or survival
of, this communal marriage. It is admitted that a man may now try to
prevent his wife from having sexual relations with her Piraungaru man, just
as an Italian of the eighteenth century might have done in the case of his
wife's Cicisbeo. 'But this leads to a fight, and the husband is looked upon as
churlish.' The Italian husband would have undergone the same reproach, yet
he lived in a society which in theory, and as Christian, insisted on individual
marriage.
The question arises, is the Piraungaru arrangement a modified survival of
communal marriage, or is it a mere chartered libertinism in customary
practice, and not a 'rudimentary survival'? It is certainly found among the
tribes most tenacious of archaic institutions. Mr. Crawley thinks, however,

and, under correction, I agree with him, that the Piraungaru system is no
survival, and that it 'has never been more fully developed than it is now.'[27]

PIRAUNGARU AND PIRAURA

As to this Piraungaru affair, as usual we need, and do not get, the help of
philology. What does the word 'Piraungaru' literally mean? Among the Dieri
the Piraungaru custom prevails, and the persons affected by it are called
Piraura—the resemblance to Piraungaru is striking. Now Mr. Howitt tells us
that the Headman of the Dieri is called Pinaru, from pina, 'great,' but he
also calls these Headmen Piraurus, the same title as he gives to the men and
women allotted to each other on the system of native Cicisbeism.[28]
Clearly there is here either a misprint, or a curious fact. Either the Headmen
are Pinarus, not Piraurus, or Headmen and supplementary wives and
husbands have one and the same title! One great Headman was Jalina Pira
murana. Is 'great' pina or pira? If Australia does not produce an adequate
philologist in the native tongues, who will specially study these matters, it
will be a heavy blow to the research into native institutions.
It is worth observing that the Dieri Piraura are 'permitted new marital
privileges at the ceremony of circumcision.' Now license amidst the large
assemblies brought together from all quarters on such occasions (in some
places even transgressing the sacred rules of totem, phratry, and close
relationship in our sense) is merely part of that periodical general 'burst'
which survived in the Persian Sacæa and Roman Saturnalia. Many
examples may be found in Mr. Frazer's 'Golden Bough.' Every kind of law
is, at these 'bursts,' deliberately violated. Perhaps, then, the due selection of
Piraura, by the Dieri seniors, is really rather a restriction of Saturnalian
license than a relaxation of marriage laws, or a survival of communal
marriage. That the license of the Saturnalia was a return to primitive ways
was a Roman theory. For Australia it is the theory of the Arunta themselves.
[29]
The adjacent Urabunna have the same Piraura usages, and what looks
very like a form of the same word, Piraura, Piraungaru. The relations
thereby indicated exist, when occasion serves, after the season of license.
A wife, at marriage, is subjected to a disgraceful ordeal (modern ideas will
break in), which I take, as Mr. Crawley does, to be a mere initiation (due to

a well-defined superstition) into the life matrimonial.[30] Meanwhile, though
a definite and disgusting set of proceedings forms the Urabunna marriage
ceremonial, I am not aware that the same doings precede and sanction the
establishment of the Piraungaru or Piraura relation, which, if not, is no
marriage at all. Thus, so far as our information goes, and with all deference
to the great Australian authorities, I do not see that the evidence for a past
stage of communal or of group marriage is such as compels our assent. On
the other hand, as has been shown, the theory of communal marriage forces
all its advocates, unwillingly or unconsciously, into the other theory of a
primeval moral and social reformatory movement, deliberately undertaken,
perhaps under direct divine inspiration, for what other motive could exist?
The economical and biological difficulties which also beset that hypothesis
have been sufficiently explained, and Mr. Darwin has dwelt on the
psychological difficulty, the sexual jealousy of the primitive male. These
objections, at least, do not hamper the hypothesis or conjecture, which we
have ventured to submit as an alternative system. As a proof of survival of
communal or group marriage, Mr. Fison quotes Mr. Lance: 'If a Kubbi
meets a strange Ippatha' (female), 'they address each other as spouse.' (They
belong to intermarrying phratries.) 'A Kubbi thus meeting an Ippatha,
though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right
to do so would be recognised by her tribe.' His right, as far as phratry
prohibitions go, would certainly be recognised, but how her husband, if she
had one, would view the transaction is another question. The morality is
that of the Scottish ballads, in which such bonnes fortunes are frequent, and
the frail pair only ask questions—afterwards. In the ballad of The Bonny
Hind, in the Kalewala, and elsewhere, the answers prove that the pair are
brother and sister. Suicide follows, but it does not follow that communal or
group marriage prevailed in Scotland, or in Finland.

GROWTH OF SOCIAL RULES IN THE TRIBE

It is probable that the rules now defining the privileges, prohibitions, and
duties of sets of people, rules interwoven now with those of 'class' and
totem, have been gradually evolved in the wear and tear of ages. Tribes
which hold such large and protracted assemblies, or palavers, as the Arunta
of to-day, discuss and debate common affairs with all the diffuseness of our
Parliament at Westminster. It is not to be supposed that tribal peace existed

over hundreds of square miles of country, and that the group
representatives, so to speak, flocked in from far-off regions, to parliament,
in the ages when the pristine rules of exogamy were evolved. We might as
wisely imagine that, in the beginning of Totemism, groups travelled to a
tribal folk-mote, and arranged the details of a kind of magical co-operative
society to preserve and increase the foodstuffs of the tribe. In ages really
pristine the tribal peace and union cannot have arisen; deliberate legislation
for a vast scattered tribal community could not have entered into men's
dreams. No such community could have existed. But the tribes of to-day,
and notably the Arunta, being remote from truly primitive conditions, do
hold prolonged assemblies, and work at public problems, so very remote
from the primitive are they.
The Arunta, in their pseudo-historic legends, throw back upon the past the
reflection of their actual estate, and ascribe the rule which practically limits
marriage within the generation to a leader of the Thurathwerta group, living
near what is called, by Europeans, Glen Helen, in the Macdonnell range. He
was backed by the Emu people of four widely separated localities.[31] One
is not, however, to suppose that, at some witan of the tribes, names
indicative of generations, and of their respective rights, were suddenly
invented and dealt out by 'the legislator,' any more than that totems were
thus invented and dealt out. As Mr. Atkinson remarks (Chapter VIII.):
'Gradually each generation ... would, qua generation, come to be a distinctly
defined class, with certain separate rights and obligations. In this simple
classification of the connected persons, we see the origin of the
classificatory system itself' (as far as generations are concerned), 'as an
institution.... The classificatory system evolves itself merely as the result of
a desire to define certain rights, and the division by generations was the
most natural and feasible for the purpose.... Thus we find a desire for
distinction, as regards rights in sexual union, to be the genetic cause of the
classificatory system, both as concerns the generation and its component
members.'
The marriage rules prevalent, with many variations, among the people least
advanced in material culture, the Australians, are thus seen, on the whole, to
be based (1) on totem rules (in which, with Dr. Durkheim, we include the
'primary classes' or 'phratries'), and (2) on the distinction of generations. It
is clear, from the case of the Arunta and other tribes, that the rule of

counting on the spindle side may break down, male descent being
substituted, in times excessively rude; while again, as in the Pictish Royal
House, it may elsewhere last into a stage relatively civilised. All manners of
conditions and superstitions may affect and alter the course of social
development in various places.

GROUP MARRIAGE AND MR. TYLOR's STATISTICS

In 1899, Mr. Tylor published a sketch of 'A Method of Investigating the
Development of Institutions, applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent.'[32]
He had catalogued the usages of 350 peoples, and examined (1) the rule of
avoidance between husbands and wives' relations, and vice versa. (2) The
naming of husband (or wife) after their children; as Odysseus says, 'May I
no longer be called the father of Telemachus.' (3) The nature of inheritance
in widows. (4) The Couvade in which the husband pretends to lie in, while
his wife is really doing so. (5) The custom of capture. (6) Exogamy and the
classificatory system. Mr. Tylor was led to believe that, so far as the
statistical evidence goes, the husband first lived with the wife's family (A);
next, after a residence with the wife's family, went back to his own home
(B); last, (C) took the wife at once to his own home. (Husband to Wife.
Removal. Wife to Husband.)
Now statistics are rather vague evidence without full knowledge of the
social concomitants in each case. In what exact stage of culture, in each
instance, does the husband go to live with the wife's relations? We have not
this information. But if this be really the earliest stage, how is it compatible
with group marriage? If a man is husband to 'a thousand miles of wives,'
how can he go and live with the relations of all his wives? Even within his
actual region of wandering, how can he do this? Nor, perhaps, can he bring
all his wives to live with the relations of each of them in turn?
Either there was no group marriage, or it did not exist when, on the
hypothesis, the husband, in the earliest stage, habitually resided with his
wife's relations. Again, take the maternal and paternal systems, the
reckoning in the female or male line, the female line, as we hold with Mr.
Tylor, being the earlier. If so, on Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, it ought to arise in
his first epoch, when husband goes to live with wife's people. 'The lines' (of
a diagram) 'show the institutions of female descent, avuncular authority, &c.

arising in the stage of residence on the female side, and extending into the
stages of removal and residence on the male side.'
Now we have tried to explain the reckoning in the female line, by the
differentiation, in the supposed original local totem group, of the captive
women, each retaining, and handing on to her children, the name of her
own totem group, this bequest of the totem name continuing into the tribal
state of peaceful betrothals. But Mr. Tylor's theory of the first stage
(husband goes to live with wife), implies a peaceful state, and groups not
hostile. For the reasons given, early hostility and sexual jealousy, I am
unable to hold that, in the beginning, husbands always joined their wives'
groups. It seems, granting hostility and jealousy, to be impossible. A Malay
example of polygamy plus residence with wives' relations, proves nothing
for primitive man. Therefore we need to know the exact stage of culture of
the peoples among whom the husbands go as subdued hangers-on, 'not
recognised,' into the wife's family. Are these people all precisely primitive?
The 'husband to wife' stage implies peaceful relations. These were
produced, on my theory, by the arrangement of the phratries. When these
are once constituted, the husband may go to live with the wife's family as
much as he pleases. But I fail to see how he could have done so 'in the
beginning.' Moreover I am disinclined to suppose that exogamy was
instituted for the purpose of strengthening a group by matrimonial alliances.
Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube!
Exogamy has this effect, but it was not devised purposely to produce this
effect.
I may casually remark that Mr. Tylor mentions an Assineboin case in which
the husband enters 'his lodge,' where his father and mother-in-law 'shirk' or
avoid him. But, in the next page but one, the lodge is described, not as the
husband's, but as that of the father and mother-in-law.[33] Whose lodge was
it really? Was the husband staying with his wife's family, or were the old
people on a visit to their married daughter?
Among several Australian tribes, a feigned form of capture precedes
marriage.[34] Is this a survival of actual capture in the stage of hostility, the
pre-tribal stage? Or is it the result of girlish modesty in the bride?

Note: Mr. Morgan's 'Reformatory Movement': It is proper to note that, in his
preface to Kamilaroi and Kurnai (p. 5), Mr. Morgan wrote, 'it is not
supposable that savages design, consciously, reformatory movements in the
strict sense.' For his theory cannot escape the conclusion that, in fact, they
did.

[1] Op. cit. p. 61.
[2] Spencer and Gillen, p. 57.
[3] Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871); and
Ancient Society (1877); earlier in The League of the Iroquois (1854).
[4] So Mr. Fison candidly states, and Mr. Morgan saw his work, and wrote an
introductory essay. Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 99.
[5] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 160-161.
[6] Ancient Society, pp. 49-50.
[7] Cf. The Mystic Rose, pp. 444-445. Westermarck, p. 352.
[8] Ancient Society, p. 59.
[9] Ibid. p. 74.
[10] By 'classes' Mr. Morgan here seems to mean phratries.
[11] Westermarck, pp. 85, 96.
[12] Lord Avebury, Origin of Civilisation, pp. 442-449, 1902.
[13] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 60.
[14] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 56, 57, 59.
[15] J. A. I., May 1895, p. 368.
[16] Spencer and Gillen, p. 60.
[17] Ibid. p. 66.
[18] Ibid. p. 75.
[19] The Mystic Rose, p. 476.
[20] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 27, cf. p. 70.
[21] Ancient Society, pp. 427-428.
[22] Captain Cook, of His Majesty's ship The Endeavour.
[23] Descent of Man, ii. 362, 363. Dr. Savage, Boston Jour. of Nat. Hist. v. 423.
[24] Spencer and Gillen, p. 65.
[25] Op. cit. p. 67.
[26] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 67, 68.
[27] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 62-64. Mystic Rose, pp. 477-478.
[28] On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, pp. 107, 108.
[29] Spencer and Gillen, p. 97.
[30] Ibid. pp. 92-96. The Mystic Rose, pp. 479, 480.
[31] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 420-421.
[32] J. A. I. vol. xviii., no. 3, pp. 245-272.
[33] Op. cit. pp. 246-248.

[34] Howitt, Organisation of Australian Tribes.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHANGE OF CLASS AMONG THE NEW
GENERATION

We have hitherto, for the sake of lucidity, spoken chiefly of two 'primary
classes' ('phratries'), such as the Kirarawa and Matthurie of the Urabunna.
But among the Arunta, and many other tribes, there are four or even eight
such 'classes.' The reader may refer to the extract from Mr. Mathews's
description (p. 39).
Each of these classes roughly corresponds to a different generation of the
tribe. But, with female descent, each child belongs to the class to which its
mother does not belong. The classes, that is, alter with each generation.
What is the cause of this curious rule? One generation is A, its children are
B, its grandchildren are A again.
Here we meet the explanation of Herr Cunow, which may as well be given
in summary.

THE SYSTEM OF HERR CUNOW

The theory of Herr Cunow[1] is in the first place opposed to the systems of
all who regard the 'phratries' as divisions made in an original group, or
horde, for purposes of exogamy. I have not observed that any of our writers
have noticed the book of Herr Cunow. In his opinion, as was said earlier,
authors err in confusing 'phratries' with 'classes:' 'a phratry is not a class,
and a class is not a phratry; these two sorts of bodies have been developed
out of different antecedents, and have different tendencies. The two
"primary divisions," say Kroki and Kumite, are phratries, but are not classes
in the same sense as the Ippai and Kumbo, Murri and Kubbi classes of the
Kamilaroi' (p. 24).

Herr Cunow regards the 'classes' as in origin earlier[2] than the divisions of
totem kin, or the 'phratry' divisions, and thinks that the 'classes' were
originally non-intermarrying divisions based on seniority. They were
devised or developed, not to prevent marriage between near kin, but
between persons of different generations, or rather degrees of seniority. This
is proved, he thinks, by the etymology of some of the names of the classes
(about which we need much fuller information). Thus the word Kubbi
(Kamilaroi), already cited as a class name, is derived, he says, from
Kubbura, 'young, new,' and originally designates a youth who has passed
the initiatory ceremonies. Ridley's vocabulary of the Kamilaroi tongue is
the source for this fact. Kumbo, another class name, is the Kombia or
Kumbia, of the tribes on the Lower Murray river, and means 'great,' that is,
'old.' On the Lower Darling, the word is gumboka, Kumbuka; compare
Kumba, Kumbera, 'old woman,' Kumbeja, 'father.' 'Great' and 'old,' 'little'
and 'young,' are equivalent in sense. Bonda, a class name of the Kabi,
means 'new' or 'young,' and the class-name Darawang, or Tarawang, is the
Kabi word darami, 'little,' or 'young.' Obu, a class name, is the Queensland
jabu, jobu, jabbo bobu, 'father.'
Thus the class names, Herr Cunow holds, originally indicate divisions of
youth and age in the 'horde,' by which term Herr Cunow understands a local
set of from forty to sixty people, a local aggregate of several such 'hordes'
being a 'tribe' (pp. 25-28). The fact of Australian attention to degrees of
seniority is demonstrated by the stages of initiation, and by the various
dues, of food gifts and so on, paid by the juniors to the seniors of the tribe:
by the food which persons of different status in seniority may eat, and so
forth. Indeed Dr. Roth has regarded the 'classes' as originally evolved to
regulate the distribution of the food supply, and such regulations would, I
think, be elements among other regulations of matrimonial and other rights,
dependent on seniority. 'What a man may eat at one stage is at another stage
forbidden, and vice versa.'[3]
The 'horde,' then, in Herr Cunow's opinion, was primarily divided into non-
intermarrying persons of three stages of seniority. This is the original
organisation, that of totem kindreds being later, in Herr Cunow's theory,
which is not ours (pp. 36, 37). The word 'father' does not, in the Australian
dialects, at first, signify what we mean by the word, but merely 'senior;' and
'mother' is a term of the same meaning. 'Father' and 'mother' with all of their

seniority are 'the big ones;' children are 'the little ones.' These terms become
'class' names.
An example is taken from Mr. Bridgman, superintendent of the tribes at
Port Mackay. These have two 'phratries,' Yungaru and Wutaru (totemic
names), and four 'classes,' Gurgela, Bembia, Wungo, and Kubaru.[4] The
terms for family relations are not understood in our sense. Mr. Bridgman
had a name and status in the tribe. His name was Gunurra; his phratry was
Yungaru, his class was Bembia, and his children, if he had any, were Wutaru
(by phratry), Kubaru (by class). If a girl came by, and Mr. Bridgman asked
who she was, and if she was Kubaruan, he was told 'she is your daughter.'
This 'daughter' is a young woman of the class to which Mr. Bridgman's
daughters, if he had any, would belong.
Herr Cunow's theory, then, starts from the 'horde,' divided into not
intermarrying degrees of seniority. That such hordes, not separate family
groups, were the initial stage of society, he is persuaded.[5] He rejects
Morgan's theory of communal marriage.[6] Next, he thinks, arose objections
to brother and sister and other near akin marriages (why we are not told),
and a man would thus be driven to seek a wife out of his own horde. Why
was this? Herr Cunow merely refers to the Dieri tradition already cited;
evils followed on kindred marriages, and were perceived and, by divine
decree, were reformed.[7] That such evils did arise and were perceived, and
being perceived were reformed, by very low savages, is to the highest
degree improbable. However it came about (we suggest by dint of reflection
on the totem and phratry restrictions), there is now an objection to
intermarriage between persons 'of the same flesh.' How this arose does not
seem to be a question that Herr Cunow chooses to dogmatise upon.
The horde now developes itself into a group of kin, of which the members
regard each other as 'too nearly related by blood,' to intermarry. 'As a mark
of these groups of kin they later take different beast or plant names, usually
from such species as exist in their districts. No reverence would originally
be paid to the totem animal;' the Narrinyeri eat it without scruple,[8] like any
other; the totem name is originally a name of a genossenschaft; a
comradeship, the Narrinyeri word for totem, 'Ngaitje,' is equivalent to
'friend.'

All this is rather vague. Why did groups of comrades or of recognised kin
take plant and animal names? Why did they forbid intermarriage? What was
the origin of the objection to marriage between blood kindred? It does not
arise out of 'moral ideas,' nor out of 'wife-capture,'[9] and Herr Cunow
speaks neither of 'sexual taboo,' nor of 'sexual jealousy,' while the theory of
'personal totems' become hereditary, or of magical co-operation in totem
breeding, is not mentioned; indeed, when Herr Cunow wrote (1894), the
magical theory was unborn. The hordes merely developed into groups of
comrades or of kin, as such not intermarrying among themselves, and
marking themselves for no assigned reason, with plant or animal names:
reverence of the totem came later.
'Still later than the totem association the phratry seems to arise,' and the
phratries are described as allied local totem groups. This is my own opinion,
but by 'local totem group,' I here mean (as already explained), the original
local totem group, with the other totems which had become its elements,
through exogamy, and female descent. Herr Cunow, if I follow him, means
on the other hand a local totem group of the kind which now results among
the Arunta from reckoning descent in the male line. 'The forbidding of
marriage extended beyond the local group, passing into the neighbouring
hordes, till at length morality enjoined the obtaining of wives from remoter
districts. Hence was developed a come-and-go of marriage between two out
of several larger local totems, and these larger local communities are the
original types of the Australian phratries. Suppose that the hordes of the
Kurnai had gradually developed themselves into local totem groups like
those of the Narrinyeri, and ... that it became the rule for the Brataulong to
take their wives from their south-western neighbours, the Kulin, and vice
versa, till the two groups waxed into a great community, and we have the
probable development' (of the 'phratries') 'before us.' The groups
'Brataulong' and 'Kulin' would now be a great community of two
intermarrying phratries.
All this implies, I think, a more advanced society, and larger communities,
than we can easily conceive to have existed in the distant past when
phratries arose. Moreover Herr Cunow, as we shall see, takes descent, even
at this primitive period, to have been reckoned in the male line. Again, we
have observed that phratry names, when they can be translated, are usually
totemic, an opinion expressed by Mr. Fison and Mr. Howitt. The same sort

of totemic names marks Red Indian phratries. Granting male kinship, the
phratries of Herr Cunow's hypothesis might well have totem names, but he
tries to show that phratry names are usually local; he gives seven cases out
of which only two names of phratries are totemic.[10] But he offers no
authority for his assertion that the other five names are non-totemic
(Eigennahme) and Yungaru and Wutaru, represented by him as non-totemic,
are really totem names.
We know that as a result of reckoning in the male line local or district
names tend to supersede totem names, and large local totem groups thus
arise, a feature of the decay, not of the dawn, of Totemism. My own
hypothesis, on the other hand, shows why phratry names are totemic. Herr
Cunow concludes 'the phratry is originally nothing but an exogamous local
group composed of several hordes.' Like Mr. Daniel McLennan, Herr
Cunow quotes the legend of the wars of Eagle-Hawk and Crow, which
ended in the establishment of the intermarrying phratries of Crow and
Eagle-Hawk.[11] Herr Cunow's theory of phratries appears to me to find, in
the remotest past, the most recent institutions of the Australians, and to
confuse the primitive local totem group with the local totem-group later
developed out of reckoning descent in the male line. He throws back into
the distant past the large modern associations, which could not exist in
times really primitive. He makes the hordes develope themselves into totem
kins, in place of being, originally (as in my system), small associations
united by contiguity, and receiving totem names from without.[12] He makes
reckoning in the female line later than reckoning in the male line—the
Narrinyeri reckoning in the male line (p. 84)—and perhaps this method, he
thinks, is a result of ignorance of fatherhood, consequent on the Piraungaru
custom (p. 135). Unluckily we find reckoning descent in the female line
among many races, the Red Indians for example, where the Piraungaru
custom is unknown. The priority of male to female descent is not admitted
as a rule, by Mr. Tylor or any other English authorities.
Where I can agree with Herr Cunow is on the point that the two 'primary
divisions' are the result, probably, of amalgamation, not of bisection for
purposes of exogamy. Where we differ is as to the character of the
communities that, by alliance and connubium, became 'primary divisions' or
'phratries.' On his system the communities were large, holding great
districts. On mine, they were ancient local totem groups, whose members,

through exogamy and female descent, were really of various totems. In a
note (p. 139) Herr Cunow shows that he might easily have arrived at my
conclusion, but, while allowing that alien brides brought the totem names of
their own kins into each original totem group, he says that the men of that
group still 'belonged to the totem identified with that horde.' This is the
result of his belief that reckoning descent in the female line is 'an
innovation.' His 'horde' is originally endogamous; then, we know not well
why, is exogamous (p. 137). Those who do not believe that men originally
lived in 'hordes,' and hold that, through jealousy and other causes, their little
primary sets were, or tended to be, exogamous from the first, cannot agree
with Herr Cunow. On the other hand, they may incline to accept his theory
that, as the Australian terms of relationship indicate often status, not
relationship in our sense, they do not help to prove a past of consanguine
and communal marriage.

CLASSES AGAIN

To return to the classes, Dr. Durkheim opposes Herr Cunow's theory that
they indicated originally degrees of seniority. He takes no notice, however,
of Herr Cunow's argument from etymology, and the original meanings of
the class names, 'Young' and 'Old.' He argues that, on Herr Cunow's system,
each individual would, in lapse of time, move from young to old, and so
ought to change his class name, and move into another class. Herr Cunow
answers that, if this occurred, the object of the class names, practically to
prevent young and old intermarrying, would have been defeated. But, as
matters exist, a grandfather may marry a girl who might be his grand-
daughter. He is A, his children are B, but their children are A again. He is
Kubbi, he marries Ippatha, her children are Buta, their children are Ippatha,
and the venerable Kubbi may marry a very juvenile Ippatha.
Possibly the institution grew up among people who did not look so far
forward, who 'took short views.' It is certain that, if the object of the classes
was to stop marriages between young and old, it is a failure. 'The old men
marry young wives at present,' says Mr. Mathews. If so, Herr Cunow may
be right. Dr. Durkheim offers a theory. But his theory takes for granted, as
we saw, that the two 'phratries,' originally, were only two totem groups,
containing within them no members of other totem kins. 'They were not yet
subdivided' into other totem kins. But I have tried to show that there was no

such 'subdivision' into 'secondary clans' or totem kins. Dr. Durkheim
regards these totem kins as colonies split off from the two original totem
groups which became phratries.[13] My reasons against accepting this
position have already been given. This being the case, it is unnecessary to
unfold Dr. Durkheim's theory of the origin of the classes. Probably that of
Herr Cunow comes nearest to the truth.
Mr. Mathews offers another solution of the problem. 'Phratry' Dilbi, for
example, has 'classes' Murri and Kubbi, while the linked phratry, Kupathin,
has classes Ippai and Kumbo. 'It is possible that the group Dilbi was divided
into (female) Matha and Kubbitha to distinguish the mothers from the
daughters, and that the terms Murri and Kubbi were adopted to provide
names for the uncles and nephews of their respective generations.' Thus we
return to distinction of generations. In any case the 'classes' 'have the effect
of preventing consanguineous marriages, by furnishing an easy test of
relationship when the tribe has become so numerous or widespread that
kinship could not otherwise be well determined.[14] Later (p. 168) Mr.
Matthews writes, 'The mother of a man's wife, and also his daughters,
belong to the same section' ('class'), 'and therefore his marriage with that
section is prohibited.' That is, he cannot marry out of his generation above
or below, as indicated by 'class' names. 'Neither can he marry into the
section to which his mother belongs, although a woman might be found in
either case, who was in no way connected with him.' In short, as far as the
names rudely indicate the generation above, and the generation below a
man, he cannot marry into these classes. But, as old men do marry young
wives, the apparent intention of the rules is to some extent frustrated. We
can say no more, till we are told what the class names mean in a literal
sense. Does nobody inquire into this essential question?
As if to accentuate the problems raised by the change of 'class' names in
each generation, Mr. Matthews has discovered that when a man may marry
a woman of his own 'phratry,' but out of a set of totems not his own, the
totems of his children by her alter as the class names do. 'The children take
the totem name,' not of their mother, but of their maternal grandmother.
'One totem is the mother of another totem.'[15] This is an unusual
phenomenon, and looks like the effort of a desperate ingenuity.

The class system exists among the Arunta, with male descent. One moiety
of the southern part of the tribe consists of Panunga and Bulthara, linked
classes, calling themselves Nakrakia; the other moiety is of Purula and
Kumara, calling themselves Mulganuka. A Bulthara man of the first moiety
can only marry a Kumara woman, of the second moiety: a Purula man
marries a Panunga woman only. The children of a Bulthara man's union
with a Kumara woman take neither the Bulthara nor Kumara name, but are
called Panunga, while the children of a Purula man and a Panunga woman
are Kumara: of a Panunga man and a Purula woman, Bulthara; of a Kumara
man and a Bulthara woman, Purula.
That is to say, the Arunta reckoning in the male line, a man's children do not
take his 'class' name but the name of the 'class' linked to his, and forming,
with his, one division of the tribe. Further each of these four divisions
consists of two moieties, and a Panunga man, though he can marry a Purula
woman, must choose her out of the proper moiety of the Purula division.
These moieties of each division, among the Northern Arunta, have names;
Uknaria, Appungerta, Umbitchana, Ungalla, and the children of each
marriage fall under these names.
This restricts a man to only an eighth of the women of his generation, but,
on the other hand, among the Arunta, the totem prohibition no longer exists:
the totems are not restricted to one or another class, but skip among them,
as we have shown in the section on the Arunta. The eight class system,
perhaps the four class system, may be regarded as later and conscious
modifications of the old phratry and totem rules, which, on my hypothesis,
had no conscious moral origin.

[1] Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger. Diek, Stuttgart, 1894.
[2] This can hardly be, as the most backward tribes have phratries and totems,
but no 'classes.'
[3] Eyre, Journals, ii. 293-295. Cunow, p. 33, note 2. Bulmer, in Brough Smyth,
i. 235. Roth, Ethnological Studies, pp. 69, 70, Brisbane, 1897.
[4] Brough Smyth, i. 91.
[5] Pp. 122-124, and note 1, an argument against Westermarck.
[6] Pp. 127-128.
[7] Gason, The Dicyrie Tribe (1894), p. 13. Kam. and Kur. p. 25. Cunow, pp.
109-110, 130-132.

[8] Cf. Cunow, p. 82. So, too, the Euahlayi.
[9] Cunow, p. 130.
[10] Pp. 133-134.
[11] Brough Smyth, i. 423. Cunow, p. 134. Studies in Ancient History, second
series, ut supra.
[12] See 'The Origin of Totemism.'
[13] Cf. p. 83.
[14] Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxi. 161.
[15] Op. cit. pp. 172-175.

CHAPTER VII

THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY

The opinions of Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock) are to be collected from
the sixth edition (1902) of his Origin of Civilisation. First published in
1870, this was a pioneer work of great value and importance. Perhaps the
vast amount of new information and of new speculation which has accrued
since 1870 might almost make us wish that Lord Avebury had found time to
re-write his early book. But he 'sees no reason to change in any essential
respects the opinions originally expressed,' and merely adds a few
references to such recent researches as those of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen.
Therefore we must not look to Lord Avebury for much new light on the
origin of the Australian 'classes' or 'primary divisions,' or 'phratries,' and on
their relations to the totem kindreds within them.

LORD AVEBURY ON TOTEMISM

Our author (p. 217) regards Totemism as synonymous with Nature-Worship.
He speaks of 'Nature-Worship or Totemism, in which natural objects, trees,
lakes, stones, animals, &c. are worshipped.' I am not acquainted (unless it
be in early Peru) with any totem kin whose totem is a lake; and totems, very
often, are not 'worshipped' at all. Nature-Worship, again, may exist where
there is no Totemism, and Totemism where there is no Nature-Worship,

indeed where, as among the Arunta, there is, strictly speaking, no worship,
as far as we are informed.
Again (p. 351), 'Totemism' (as opposed to fetichism), 'is a deification of
classes.' But the term 'deification' implies the possession, by the deifiers, of
the conception of Deity; of gods, or of a god. The Australians have totems,
but, according to Lord Avebury, have no notion of a god or gods. They
'possess merely certain vague ideas as to the existence of evil spirits, and a
general dread of witchcraft' (p. 338). It is not clear, then, how they can
'deify' classes of things, if they have no notion of deity. 'They do not believe
in the existence of a true Deity' (with a capital D), says Lord Avebury,
without defining what 'a true Deity' is: and, contrary to the evidence of Mr.
Howitt and many others, he denies that 'morality is in any way connected
with their religion, if such it can be called' (p. 338).
The authority cited is of 1859,[1] and is contradicted, for example, by Mr.
Howitt (1880-1890), who is not here quoted. It is clear that Australian
totems cannot result from the 'deification of classes,' if the Australians have
no conception of Deity, whether 'true' or not so true.
Lord Avebury remarks, 'True, myths do not occur among the lowest races'
(p. 355), whereas, with many others, myths of the origin of Totemism do
notably occur, as we have shown, among perhaps all totemistic races.
Perhaps we should read, deleting the comma, 'true myths do not occur
among the lowest races,' when the question as to what a 'true myth' is again
arises, as in the case of 'a true Deity.' Perhaps we must suppose that by 'a
true myth,' or a 'true Deity,' Lord Avebury implies a Deity or a myth in
accordance with his own conception of either.

LORD AVEBURY ON THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMISM

'The worship of animals,' says our author (p. 275), 'is susceptible of a very
simple explanation, and perhaps, as I have ventured to suggest,[2] may have
originated from the practice of naming, first individuals, and then their
families, after particular animals. A family, for instance, which was called
after the bear, would come to look on that animal first with interest, then
with respect, and at length with a sort of awe.' If by 'individuals,' male
individuals are intended, this theory is open to the objection that Lord
Avebury regards descent in the female as earlier than descent in the male

line (p. 164), while 'families' with enduring relations to their founders, can
hardly yet have been consciously envisaged, by his theory, at so very
rudimentary a stage. Moreover, we try to show that totem names were,
originally, group names, and were not derived from the personal names of
individuals, an opinion in which Mr. Haddon concurs. Lord Avebury's
theory is, apparently, that of Mr. Herbert Spencer, minus the supposed
worship of the ghost of the male ancestor and founder of the family.

COMMUNAL MARRIAGE

Lord Avebury assumes, as a working hypothesis, that 'the communal
marriage system ... represents the primitive and earliest social condition of
man....' (p. 102). The objections to this hypothesis we have stated, though,
of course, historic certainty cannot be attained.
Lord Avebury, assuming 'communal marriage' as the Primitive stage, holds
that it 'was gradually superseded by individual marriage founded on
capture, and that this led firstly to exogamy, and then to female infanticide;
thus reversing Mr. McLennan's order of sequence' (p. 108). 'Originally no
man could appropriate a woman of his own tribe exclusively to himself ...
without infringing tribal rights, but, on the other hand, if a man captured a
woman belonging to another tribe, he thereby acquired an individual and
peculiar right to her, and she became his exclusively, no one else having any
claim or property in her' (p. 110). (I here italicise 'tribe' and 'tribal.' Lord
Avebury intends, I think, a woman of the same 'fire-circle' (p. 188), not a
woman of the tribe understood as a large and inevitably not primitive local
aggregate of friendly groups of different totems, such as the Arunta,
Narrinyeri, Pawnees, and so forth.)
In brief, men would desire to appropriate to themselves some woman, at
first from beyond their own 'tribe.' This they could only do by capture.
Their individual right in her would be modified by the disgusting license of
the bridal night, which Lord Avebury regards as 'compensation' to the other
males of the 'tribe' (pp. 138, 557-560). That license I would rather explain
as Mr. Crawley does: the topic does not need to be insisted on at length in
this place. Lord Avebury, at all events, supposes that a form of capture
finally came to be applied, with results in individual marriage, to women of
the same 'tribe' (p. 111). But if we have 'complete and conclusive evidence

that in large portions of Australia every man had the privilege of a husband
over every woman not belonging to his own gens; sharing, of course, these
privileges with every other man belonging to the same class or gens as
himself' (p. 112), I fail to see that a man gained anything by enduring the
trouble and risk of capturing a bride all to himself. Before the capture she
had been, it seems, the common spoil of the males of her 'tribe;' when
captured she was the common spoil of her captor's 'class or gens'—though a
'class' and a gens are not, I think, identical, but much the reverse.
The rather promiscuous use of terms for different kinds of human
communities affected all the pioneer works on primitive society, and,
indeed, still perplexes our speculations. Thus Lord Avebury suggests (p.
119) the case of four exogamous neighbouring 'tribes,' with kinship traced
through women. 'After a certain time the result would be that each tribe
would consist of four septs or 'clans' (totem kins?), 'representing the four
original tribes, and hence we should find communities in which each tribe is
divided into clans, and a man must always marry a woman of a different
clan.'
We do not, perhaps, know any exogamous tribes in our sense of 'tribe;' a
Dieri is not obliged to marry out of the Dieri, or an Urabunna out of the
Urabunna. By 'tribe' here, it seems probable that Lord Avebury intends not a
large local aggregate, but 'a very small community,' for he writes 'we have
seen that, under the custom of communal marriage, a child was regarded as
related to the tribe, but not specially to any particular father or mother. Such
a 'state of things, indeed, is only possible in very small communities.' Now
a tribe is a very large community. The members of such communities must
have been poor observers if they did not discover the relation between a
child and the woman who bore and, for several years, nursed it. But such
'tribes' are not tribes in the sense in which I use the word; they are rather
'groups of the same hearth.' Now it is easy to see how small groups of the
same hearth became exogamous, namely through sexual jealousy, and
sexual tabu, which would oblige the young males to wander away, or to get
wives by capture, practices resulting, under the tabu, in the sacred rule of
exogamy. This, however, is not Lord Avebury's theory of the origin of
exogamy.
Lord Avebury's theory does not become more distinct when he says, 'In
Australia, where the same family names' (totem names?) 'are common

almost over the whole continent, no man may marry a woman whose family
name' (totem name?) 'is the same as his own' (here the Arunta are an
exception) 'and who belongs therefore to the same tribe' (p. 144). But
surely, if the 'family names' are 'common almost over the whole continent,'
a woman may well have the same 'family name' (say Emu) as a man, and
yet need not be of his tribe. An Arunta Emu man and a Dieri Emu woman
would have the same 'family name' (totem name), but would not, therefore,
'belong to the same tribe.' It even appears that Lord Avebury regards 'tribe'
and 'clan' and 'family' as synonymous terms, for, in proof of the statement
that people of the same 'family name' necessarily belong to the same 'tribe,'
he quotes my late uncle, Mr. Gideon Scott Lang, 'No man can marry a
woman of the same clan, though the parties be no way related according to
our ideas.'[3] By 'clan' Mr. Lang here meant totem kin, and if Lord Avebury
thinks 'clan' equivalent to 'tribe,' a 'tribe' must be a totem kin, which it is
not; at least if we understand 'tribe' as a local aggregate of various totem
kindreds.
These perplexities are caused by a vague terminology, and occurred
naturally in a book of 1870, as they do in Mr. McLennan's own pioneer
works. But in 1903 we must try to aim at closer and more exact distinctions
and definitions, though we are still retarded and perplexed by the lack of
truly scientific nomenclature. As far as I can perceive, Lord Avebury is apt
to use 'family,' 'tribe,' 'clan,' and 'gens' as equivalents, while each of them, in
various places, appears to be understood as denoting a totem kindred. Thus
(p. 181) 'under a system of female descent combined with exogamy a man
must marry out of his tribe,' where 'tribe' seems to mean 'totem kin.'
Compare p. 187: 'another general rule, in America as elsewhere, is that no
one may marry within his own clan or family,' where 'clan or family' like
'tribe' seems to mean 'totem kin.'
This use of terms makes it difficult for me to feel sure that I apprehend Lord
Avebury's theory correctly. However I take it to be that, originally,'very
small communities' ('tribes') lived in 'communal marriage.' Nobody knew
who was the son of what father or of what mother, though, in a very small
community one would expect the senior vigorous male or males to prevent
son-and-mother, or brother-and-sister unions, by force, out of natural
jealousy. This was not done, but some males wanted wives to themselves in
private property, and got them by capture, paying 'compensation' in the

license of the bridal night. But a man might fall in love with a lass in his
own 'tribe' ('very small community') and want to keep her to himself (p.
111). 'Hence would naturally arise a desire on the part of many to extend the
right of capture, which originally had reference only to women of a
different tribe, and to apply it to all those belonging to their own.' Is 'tribe'
still used of 'a very small community,' or is it here employed in the now
more prevalent and much wider sense? If not, is the 'capture' now a mere
ceremonial formula? Apparently 'tribe,' now and here, does mean (as
elsewhere it does not) a large local aggregate, for we are next told of 'the
division of Australian tribes into classes or gentes' (though a 'class' is one
thing and a gens, if totem kin is meant, is another thing), and of the '1,000
miles of wives,' who, by the theory, are not individual wives of individual
men. Such wives, special rights in such wives, were acquired 'originally by
right of capture.'
But, when men possessed marital privileges, each 'over every woman not
belonging to his own gens; sharing, of course, these privileges with every
other man belonging to the same gens or class as himself' (p. 112), where is
the individual right acquired by capture? It seems that each man, besides his
'1,000 miles of wives' 'has his own individual wife ... by right of capture.'
Now the Urabunna have no such individual wives, if, like Lord Avebury, we
accept the statement of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (p. 63). But the Arunta
have such individual wives. Here it seems necessary for Lord Avebury, if he
agrees with these authors, to prove that the Arunta, unlike the Urabunna, do
demonstrably acquire their individual wives by capture. But no such
demonstration is produced. Till proof is offered I am unable to appreciate
the force of Lord Avebury's reasoning, while like Mr. Crawley, I doubt
whether individual marriage does not exist among the Urabunna, the
Piraungaru license not being, I conceive, a true survival of communal
marriage, but a peculiar institution.

LORD AVEBURY ON RELATIONSHIPS

Analysing Mr. Morgan's collection of names for relationships, Lord
Avebury (p. 182) says, 'in fact the idea of relationship, like that of marriage,
was founded, not upon duty, but upon power.' We try to suggest that the
classificatory names for relationships are, to a great extent, expressive of
status, seniority, and mutual duties and services in the community—these

duties and services themselves being gradually established by power—the
power of the seniors. Yet some terms analysed by Lord Avebury have,
linguistically, other sources. 'Wife,' in Cree, is 'part of myself,' dimidium
animæ meæ, these twain are one flesh. Obviously this pretty term does not
spring from 'communal marriage.' In Chocta, 'husband' is 'he who leads
me,'—again not communal, but indicating the old-fashioned theory of
wifely obedience. ('He who kicks me' would suffice, in some civilised
quarters.) 'Daughter-in-law,' in Delaware, is 'my cook,' indicating service;
and 'husband' is 'my aid through life,' showing the advanced Homeric, or
Christian, view of marriage (pp. 180-181). 'Father' and 'Mother' in many
African, European and Asian, Non-Aryan, Oceanic, Australian, and, really
in Aryan languages, also often in America, are 'the easiest sounds which a
child can pronounce indicating father and mother' (pp. 442-449). If babes
could distinguish father and mother, these relationships, one thinks, could
not have been unknown to adults. They may be, and are, extended in usage,
so as to embrace what we call uncles and aunts and seniors of the kin, but
this, I try to argue, does not necessarily imply that fatherhood and
motherhood, owing to communal marriage, were long unknown.
The result of Lord Avebury's analysis of Mr. Morgan's tables of terms is to
prove progress in the discrimination of degrees of kin, though ancient
sweeping terms occasionally survive among races fairly advanced out of
savagery. 'Relationship is, at first, regarded as a matter, not of blood, but of
tribal organisation' (p. 208). Here I agree that words or terms for what we
call relationship often do seem to denote status, duty, service, and
intermarriageableness in the community. But I do not think that the ties of
blood are thereby proved to have been unknown. Maternity could not be
doubtful, especially where the mother nursed her child for several years.
Lord Avebury adds, 'the terms for what we call relationships are, among the
lower races of men, mere expressions for the results of marriage customs,
and do not comprise the idea of relationship as we understand it' (p. 210).
For this reason, I think, we must avoid the fallacy of arguing as if the terms
did denote 'relationship as we understand it,' when we wish to prove a past
of communal marriage. The terms indicate, in Lord Avebury's words, 'the
connection of individuals inter se, their duties to one another, their rights,
and the descent of their property.'

This is precisely my own opinion, and for this very reason I do not hold that
these terms arose in ignorance as to who was the mother, or even the father,
of a child. All the duties and rights, as Lord Avebury says, 'are regulated
more by the relation to the tribe than to the family'—in our sense of 'family.'
But this, in my view, proves that the terms (in their present significance) are
relatively late and advanced, for the institution of the Tribe (as I understand
the word) implies the friendly combination of many totem kins, and of
many 'fire-circles,' into the tribe, the large local aggregate. No such
combination can have been truly 'primitive.' But we have seen that Lord
Avebury seems to use 'tribe' in various places, as equivalent to 'family,'
'clan,' gens, and, apparently, to 'totem kin.' Quite possibly he means that the
horde is prior to what I may call the 'fire-circle,' the 'very small community,'
which, in places, he terms 'the tribe,' or so I understand him. If so, I cannot
follow him here, as I am not inclined to think that truly primitive man lived
in hordes of considerable numbers: the difficulties of supply, among other
reasons, make the idea improbable.
If I have failed to understand Lord Avebury, perhaps his somewhat
indeterminate terminology may plead my excuse.

[1] 'Report of the Committee of the Legislative Council on Aborigines.' Victoria,
pp. 9, 69, 77.
[2] Prehistoric Times, p. 598.
[3] G. Scott Lang, The Aborigines of Australia, p. 10.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS

Up to this point, we have treated of totems just as we find them in savage
practice. We have seen that totem names are the titles of groups of kindred,
real or imagined; they are derived from animals, plants, and other natural
objects; they appear among tribes who reckon descent either on the sword
or spindle side, and the totem name of each group is usually (but not in the
case of the Arunta) one mark of the exogamous limit. None may marry a

person of the same totem name. But, in company with this prohibition, is
found a body of myths, superstitions, rites, magical practices, and artistic
uses of the totem.[1] We have shown (Chapter II.) that we cannot move a
step without a clear and consistent hypothesis of the origins of Totemism.
This we now try to produce.

SACRED ANIMALS IN SAVAGE SOCIETY

Savages, both in their groups of kin, in their magical societies, or clubs, and
privately, as individuals, are apt to regard certain beasts, plants, and so on,
as the guardians of the group, of the society, and of the private person. To
these animal guardians, whether of the individual, the society, or the group
of kin, they show a certain amount of reverence and respect. That reverence
naturally takes much the same forms—the inevitable forms—as of not
killing or eating the animal, occasionally praying to it, or of burying dead
representatives of the species, as may happen. But I am unaware that the
savage ever calls his personal selected animal or plant, or the guardian
animal of his magical society (except among the Arunta, where the totem
groups are evolving into magical clubs), by the same term as he applies to
the hereditary guardian of his group of kindred; his totem, as I use the word.
If I am right, this distinction has been overlooked, or thought insignificant,
by some modern inquirers. Major. Powell, the Director of the Ethnological
Bureau at Washington, appears to apply, the word totem both to the chosen
animal friend of the individual, and to that of the magical society in
America, which includes men of various group totems.[2] He also applies it
to the totem of the kin.
Mr. Frazer, too, writes of (1) The Clan Totem, (2) The Sex Totem (in
Australia), (3) 'The Individual Totem, belonging to a single individual, and
not passing to his descendants,' and even indicates that one savage may
have five totems.[3] This third rule as to the non-hereditable character of 'the
individual totem' has, since Mr. Frazer wrote in 1887, been found to admit
of more exceptions than we then knew. In a few cases and places, the
animal selected by, or for, the private individual, is found to descend to his
or her children. In my opinion it is better, for the present at least, to speak of
such protective animals of individuals, by the names which their savage
protégés give to them in each case: nyarongs (Sarawak) 'bush-souls,'

(Calabar) naguals, (Central America) manitus (?) as among the Algonquins,
Yunbeai in some Australian dialects, and so forth.[4] I myself here use
'totem' only of the object which lends its name, hereditarily, to a group of
kin.

PROPOSED RESTRICTION OF THE USE OF THE WORD 'TOTEM'

This restriction I make, not for the purpose of simplifying the problem of
totemism by disregarding 'the individual totem,' 'the sex totem,' and so on,
but because I understand that savages everywhere use one word for their
hereditary kin totem, and other words for the plant or animal protectors of
individuals, of magical societies, and so forth. The true totem is a plant or
animal or other thing, the hereditary friend and ally—of the kin—but all
plant or animal allies of individuals or of magical societies are not totems.
Though the attitude of a private person to his nagual, or of a magical
society to its protective animal, may often closely resemble the attitude of
the group to its hereditary totem, still, the origin of this attitude of respect
may be different in each case.
This is obvious, for the individual or society deliberately adopts an animal
protector and friend, usually suggested in a dream, after a fast, whereas we
can scarcely conceive that the totem was deliberately adopted by the first
members of the first totem groups. Savages look on animals as personalities
like themselves, but more powerful, gifted with more wakan, or mana, or
cosmic rapport: each man, therefore, and each organised magical society,
looks out for, and, for some reason of dream or divination, adopts, a special
animal friend. But it is hard to believe that the members of a primeval
human group of unknown antiquity, consciously and deliberately made a
compact to adopt, and for ever be faithful to—this or that plant, animal,
element, or the like—to be inherited in the female line. For, on this plan, the
group, say Wolves, instantly loses the totem it has adopted.
We cannot prove that it was not so, that a primitive group of rudimentary
human beings did not make a covenant with Bear, or Wolf, as Israel did
with Jehovah, and as an individual savage does with his nyarong, or nagual,
or manitu. This covenant, if made and kept by each group, would be the
Origin of Totemism. But, with female descent, the covenant could not be
kept. I am not certain that this theory, involving joint and deliberate

selection and retention of a totem, by a primeval human group, has ever
been maintained, unless it be by Mr. Jevons. 'The primary object of a totem
alliance between a human kin and an animal kind is to obtain a supernatural
ally against supernatural foes.'[5] The term 'supernatural' seems here out of
place—both the animal kind and the human kin being natural; and one has a
difficulty in conceiving that very early groups of kin would make, and
would adhere to, such alliances. Indeed, how could they adhere to their
totems, when these descended through women of alien totem groups? But
there seems to be nothing otherwise impossible or self-contradictory in this
theory; nor can it be disproved, for lack of evidence. Only such theories as
are self-contradictory, or inconsistent with the known and admitted facts of
the case, are capable of absolute disproof.
It may, of course, be objected here that, though totems, in actual savage
society, descend sometimes in the female line, still, descent in the male line
may be the original rule; and that thus a group, like an individual, could
seek, make a covenant with, and cleave to a grub, or frog, or lizard, as a
supernatural ally. But, for reasons already indicated, in an earlier part of this
work, I conceive that, originally, totems descended in the female line only.
One reason for this opinion is that, as soon as descent of the totem comes
by the male line, a distinct step in the upward movement towards
civilisation and a settled life is made. It is not very probable that the
backward step, from reckoning by male lineage to descent in the female
line, has often been taken. On the other hand, tribes which now inherit the
totem in the male line, exhibit in their institutions many survivals of female
descent. An instance is that of the Mandans, as recorded by Mr. Dorsey.[6]
Among the Melanesians, where female descent still exists, there is at work
the most obvious tendency towards descent through males, as Dr.
Codrington proves in an excellent work on that people. Dr. Durkheim, too,
has pointed out the traces of uterine descent among the Arunta, who now
reckon in the male line.[7] On the other hand, where we find descent in the
male line, I am not aware that we discover signs of movement in the
opposite direction. In this opinion that, as a general rule, descent was
reckoned in the female, not the male line, originally, I have the support of
Mr. E. B. Tylor.[8] For these reasons the hypothesis of the selection of and
covenant with a 'supernatural ally,' plant or animal, by the deliberate joint
action of an early group, at a given moment, involving staunch adherence to

the original resolution, rather strains belief; and a suggestion perhaps more
plausible will be offered later.

THE WORD 'TOTEM'

As to the precise original meaning and form of the word usually written
'totem'—whether it should be 'totam,' or 'toodaim,' or 'dodaim,' or 'ododam,'
or 'ote,' philologists may dispute.[9] They may question whether the word
means 'mark,' or 'family,' or 'tribe,' or clay for painting the family mark.[10]
When we here use the word 'totem' we mean, at all events, the object which
gives its name to a group of savage kindred, who may not marry within this
hereditary name. In place of 'totem' we might use the equivalent murdu of
the Dieri, or gaura of the Kunundaburi.[11]

THE TOTEM 'CULT'

The 'cult,' if it deserves to be called a 'cult,' of the totem, among savages, is
not confined to abstention from marriage within the name. Each kin usually
abstains from killing, eating, or in any way using its totem (except in
occasional ceremonies, religious or magical), is apt to claim i descent from
or kindred with it, or alternations of metamorphosis into or out of it, and
sometimes uses its effigy on memorial pillars, on posts carved with a kind
of genealogical tree, or tattoos or paints or scarifies it on the skin—in
different cases and places.
To what extent the blood-feud is taken up by all members of the slain man's
totem, I am not fully aware: it varies in different regions. The eating or
slaying of the totem, by a person of the totem name, is in places believed to
be punished by disease or death, a point which the late Mr. J. J. Atkinson
observed among the natives of New Caledonia (MS. penes me). Mr.
Atkinson happened to be conversing with some natives on questions of
anthropology, when his servant brought in a lizard which he had killed. On
this one of the natives exhibited great distress, saying, 'Why have you killed
my father? we were talking of my father, and he came to us' The son (his
name was Jericha) then wrapped the dead lizard up in leaves, and reverently
laid the body in the bush. This was not a case like that of the Zulu Idhlozi,
the serpents that haunt houses, and are believed to be the vehicles of the

souls of dead kinsfolk. The other natives present had for their 'father,' one, a
mouse, the other a pigeon, and so on. If any one ate his animal 'father,' sores
broke out on him, and Mr. Atkinson was shown a woman thus afflicted, for
having eaten her 'father.' But I do not find, in his papers, that a man with a
mouse for father might not marry a woman of the mouse set, nor have I
elsewhere been able to ascertain what is New-Caledonian practice on this
point.[12] When Mr. Atkinson made these observations (1874), he had only
heard of totems in the novels of Cooper and other romancers.

'TOTEM GODS'

This example is here cited because, as far as I am aware, no other
anthropologist has observed this amount of Totemism in New Caledonia.
Students are divided into those who have a bias in favour of finding
totemism everywhere; and those who aver, with unconcealed delight, that in
this or the other place there are no totems. Such negative statements must
always be received with caution. An European may live long among
savages before he really knows them; and, without possessing totemism in
full measure, many races retain obvious fragments of the institution.
Mr. Tylor has censured the use of the terms 'totems' and 'totem clans' with
respect to the Fijians and Samoans, where certain animals, not to be eaten,
are believed to be vehicles or shrines of certain gods. It is a very probable
conjecture (so probable, I think, as almost to amount to a certainty), that the
creatures which are now the shrines of Fijian or Samoan gods of the family,
or of higher gods, were once totems in an earlier stage of Samoan and Fijian
society and belief. As I have said elsewhere, 'in totemistic countries the
totem is respected himself; in Samoa the animal is worshipful because a
god abides within him. This appears to be a theory by which the reflective
Samoans have explained to themselves what was once pure Totemism.'[13]
But I must share in Mr. Tylor's protest against using the name of 'totem' for
a plant or animal which is regarded as the shrine of a god. Such thorough
totemists as some of the North American Indians, or the Australians, do not
explain their totems as the shrines of gods, for they have no such gods to
serve as explanations. That myth appears to be the Samoan or Fijian way of
accounting for the existence of worshipful and friendly plants and animals.

Thus, at all events, and unluckily, the phrase 'the totem-god' is introduced
into our speculations, and the cult of the 'totem-god' is confused with the
much more limited respect paid by savages to actual totems. However
attractive the theory of 'the totem-god' may be, we cannot speak of 'totems'
where a god incarnate in a plant or animal is concerned. Such a deity may
be a modified survival of Totemism, but a totem he is not. Moreover, it is
hardly safe to say that, in the Samoan case, the god is 'developed from a
totem;' we only know that the god has got into suspiciously totemistic
society. On the whole, we cannot be too cautious in speaking of totems and
Totemism: and we must be specially careful not to exaggerate the more or
less religious respect with which totems are, in many cases, regarded. The
Australians, as far as they have the idea of a creative being, Baiame,
Nooreli, and so forth, do not regard their totems as shrines or incarnations
of him. That appears to be the speculation of peoples who, probably by way
of animism, and ancestor-worship, are already in the stage of polytheism.
Totems, in their earliest known stage, have very little to do with religion,
and probably, in origin, had nothing really religious about them.

SAVAGE SPECULATIONS AS TO THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMISM

Peoples who are still in the totemistic stage, as we have seen, know nothing
about the beginnings of the institution. All that they tell the civilised
inquirers is no more than the myth handed down by their own tradition.
Thus the Dieri or Dieyrie, in Australia, say that the totems were appointed
by the ancestors, for the purpose of regulating marriages, after consultation
with Mura Mura, or with 'the' Muramura. The Woeworung, according to
Mr. Howitt, have a similar legend.[14] It is not necessary here to ask whether
Mura Mura is 'the Supreme Being' (Gason, Howitt), or 'ancestral spirits'
(Fison).[15] The most common savage myth is of the Darwinian variety,
each totem kin is descended from, or evolved out of, the plant or animal
type which supplies its totem. Again, as in fairy tales, a woman gave birth
to animals, whence the totem kins derive their descent. In North-West
America, totems are often accounted for by myths of ancestral heroes. 'The
Tlingit' (Thlinket) 'hold that souls of ancestors are reborn in children, that a
man will be reborn as a man, a wolf as a wolf, a raven as a raven.'
Nevertheless, the totems are regarded as 'relatives and protectors,' and it is
explained that, in the past, a human ancestor had an adventure with this or

that animal, whence he assumed his totem armorial bearings.[16] In
precisely the same way a myth, a very late myth, was invented, about the
adventure of a Stewart with a lion, to account for the Lyon of the Stewarts.
[17]
The Haidas and Thlinkets, believing as they do that human souls are
reborn human, cannot hold that a bestial soul animates a man, say, of the
Raven totem.
The Arunta, on the other hand, suppose that the souls of animals which
evolved into human beings, are reincarnated in each child born to the tribe.
'Two clans of Western Australia, who are named after a small opossum and
a little fish, think that they are so called because they used to live chiefly on
these creatures.'[18] This myth has some support in modern opinion: the
kins, it is argued, received their totem names from the animals and plants
which mainly formed their food supply; though now their totems are
seldom eaten by them. These legends, and others, are clearly ætiological
myths, like the Samoan hypothesis that gods are incarnate in the totems.
The myths merely try to explain the original connection between men and
totems, and are constructed on the lines of savage ideas about the relations
of all things in the universe, all alike being personal, and rational, and
capable of interbreeding, and of shape-shifting. Certain Kalamantans of
Sarawak will not eat a species of deer, because 'an ancestor became a deer
of this kind.'[19] All such fables, of course, are valueless as history; and, in
the savage state of the intellect, such myths were inevitable.

MODERN THEORIES

Mr. McLennan himself at first had a theory, which, as far as I heard him
speak of it, was more or less akin to my own. But he abandoned it, says his
brother, Mr. Daniel McLennan, for reasons that to him appeared conclusive.
I ought to mention that Mr. A. H. Keane informed me, several years ago,
that he had independently evolved a theory akin to mine, of which, as it
then stood, I had published some hint. (For a statement of Mr. Keane's
theory see our Preface.) In 1884[20] I wrote, 'People united by contiguity,
and by the blind sentiment of kinship not yet brought into explicit
consciousness, might mark themselves by a badge, and might thence derive
a name, and, later, might invent a myth of their descent from the object
which the badge represented.' But why should such people mark themselves

by a badge, and why, if they did, should the mark be, not a decorative or
symbolic pattern, but the representation of a plant or animal? These
questions I cannot answer, and my present guess is not identical with that of
1884.
Meanwhile let us keep one point steadily before our minds. Totemism, at a
first glance, seems a perfectly crazy and irrational set of beliefs, and we
might think, with Dr. Johnson, that there is no use in looking for reason
among the freaks of irrational people. But man is never irrational. His
reason for doing this, or believing that, may seem a bad reason to us, but a
reason he always had for his creeds and conduct, and he had a reason for his
totem belief, a reason in congruity with his limited knowledge of facts, and
with his theory of the universe. For all things he wanted an explanation.
Now what he wanted a reason for, in Totemism, was the nature and origin
of the connection between his own and the neighbouring groups, and the
plant or animal names which they bore. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen write,
'what gave rise, in the first instance, to the association of particular men
with particular animals and plants, it is impossible to say.' But it is not
impossible to guess, with more or less of probability. The connection once
established, savages guessed at its origin: their guesses, as always, were
myths, and were of every conceivable kind. The myth of descent from or
kinship with the animal or plant, the Darwinian myth, does not stand alone.
Every sort of myth was fashioned, was believed, and influenced conduct.
Our business is to form our own guess as to the original connection between
men and their totems: a guess which shall be consistent with human nature.

MR. MAX MÜLLER'S THEORY

Many such guesses by civilised philosophers exist. We need not dwell long
on that of Mr. Max Müller, akin, as it is, to my own early conjecture, 'a
totem is a clan mark, then a clan name, then the name of the ancestor of the
clan, and lastly the name of something worshipped by the clan.'[21] We need
not dwell on this, because the kind of 'clan mark' on a pillar outside of the
quarters of the clan, in a village, is peculiar to North America, and to people
dwelling in fixed settlements. Among the nomadic Australians, we have
totemism without the settlements, without the totem pillar, without the 'clan
mark,' on the pillar, which, thus, cannot be the first step in Totemism.
Again, the 'clan name,' or group name, must be earlier than the 'clan mark,'

which merely expresses it, just as my name is prior to my visiting card, or
as the name of an inn, 'The Red Lion,' is prior to the sign representing that
animal. Obviously we have to ask first, whence comes the clan name, or
group name?

THE THEORY OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER

In a passage on animal-worship, Mr. Herbert Spencer (unless I misconceive
him) advances a theory of the origin of Totemism. True, he does not here
speak of totems, but he suggests an hypothesis to explain why certain stocks
claim descent from animals, and why these animals are treated by them
with more or less of religious regard. Actual men, in savagery, are often
called by 'animal nicknames,' and we cannot be surprised if the savage ...
gets the idea that an ancestor named 'the tiger' was an actual tiger ...
Inevitably, then, he grows up believing that his father descended from a
tiger—thinking of himself as one of the tiger stock.[22]
It were superfluous to dwell on this theory. Totem names are group names;
and, as they occur where group names are derived from the mother, they
cannot have originated in the animal nicknames of individual dead
grandfathers. The names of the dead are usually tabued and forgotten; but
that is of no great moment. The point is that such group names are derived
through mothers, in the first instance, not through male founders of
families.[23]
No theory which starts from an individual male ancestor, and his name
bequeathed to his descendants, can be correct. That Mr. Spencer's does start
in this way may be inferred from the following text: 'commonly the names
of the clans which are forbidden to intermarry, such as Wolf, Bear, Eagle,
Whale, &c., are names given to men, implying, as I have before contended
(170-173), descent from distinguished male ancestors bearing those names
—descent which, notwithstanding the system of female kinship, was
remembered when there was pride in the connection.'
A brief-lived joy in the name of which the male ancestor's descendants were
proud, left them, in the second generation, under exogamy and female kin.
Thus my father was nicknamed 'Tiger.' Proud of the title, I call myself
Tiger. But I must marry a woman who is Not-Tiger, and my offspring are
Not-Tigers. My honour hath departed!

MR. FRAZER'S THEORIES

The hypotheses of Mr. J. G. Frazer are purely provisional. He starts from
the idea, so common in Märchen, of the person whose 'soul,' 'life,' or
'strength' is secretly hidden in an animal, plant, or other object. The owner
of the soul wraps the 'soul-box' up in a mystery, it is the central secret of his
existence, for he may be slain by any one who can discover and destroy his
'soul-box.' Next Mr. Frazer offers many cases of this actual belief and
practice among savage and barbarous peoples; and, as a freak or survival,
the idea is found even among the civilised. We meet the superstition in the
Melanesian group of islands (where Totemism is all but extinct), and
perhaps among the Zulus, with their serpent Idhlozi, whose life is
associated with their own. Mr. Atkinson's New-Caledonians, however, did
not think that death inflicted on their animal 'fathers' involved danger to
themselves, though it distressed them, as an outrage to sentiment. Then we
have the 'bush-souls' (one soul out of four in the possession of each
individual), among the natives of Calabar. These souls, Miss Kingsley
wrote, are never in plants, but always in wild beasts, and are recognisable
only by second-sighted men. The 'bush-soul' of a man is often that of his
sons: the daughters often inherit the mother's 'bush-soul:' or children of both
sexes may take the bush-soul of either father or mother. The natives will not
injure their bush-soul beasts. Nothing is known as to prohibition of
marriage between persons of the same bush-soul. Here we have really
something akin to the totem, the bush-souls being hereditary, at least for
one generation. But this is among a house-dwelling, agricultural people, far
above the state of real savagery: not among a 'primitive' people.
The Zapotecs of Central America, again, choose, by a method of divination,
'a tona or second self,' an animal, for each child, at its birth. It is, by the
nature of the case, not hereditable. The nagual, usually a beast, of each
Indian of Guatemala is well known; and is discovered, on the monition of a
dream, by each individual. Therefore it cannot be hereditable. The sexes, in
Australia, have each a friendly and protecting species of animal; say a Bat
for all men, a Nightjar for all women: indeed, in Australia, all the elements
of nature have their place in the cosmic tribe. To injure the animal of either
sex, is to injure one of the sex. There is no secret about the matter.

Mr. Frazer then argues, 'the explanation which holds good of the one' (say
'the sex totem,' or 'personal totem'), 'ought equally to hold good of the other'
(the group totem). 'Therefore, the reason why a tribe' (I venture to prefer
'group,' or 'kin,' as there are many totems in each 'tribe') 'revere a particular
species of animals or plants ... and call themselves after it, would seem to
be a belief that the life of each individual of the tribe is bound up with some
one plant or animal of the species, and that his or her death would be the
consequence of killing that particular animal or destroying that particular
plant.' Mr. Frazer thinks that 'this explanation squares well' with Sir George
Grey's description of a Kobong or totem in Western Australia. There, a
native gives his totem 'a fair show' before killing it, always affording it a
chance of escape, and never killing it in its sleep. He only does not shoot his
kindred animal sitting, and his plant he only spares 'in certain
circumstances, and at a particular period of the year.' Mr. Frazer writes that
as the man does not know which individual of the species of plant or animal
'is specially dear to him, he is obliged to spare them all, for fear of injuring
the dear one.' But the man, it seems from Grey's account, does not 'spare'
any of them; he kills or plucks them, 'reluctantly,' and in a sportsmanlike
manner, 'never without affording them a chance of escape.' In a case of Sir
George Grey's, the killing of a crow hastened the death of a man of the
Crow totem, who had been ailing for some days. But the Australians do not
think that to kill a man's totem is to kill the man. Somebody's totem is killed
whenever any animal is slain. Mr. Frazer now finds that the Battas, for
example, 'do not in set terms affirm their external soul to be in their totems,'
and I am not aware that any totemists do make this assertion. They freely
offer all other sorts of mythical explanations as to what their totems
originally were, as to the origin of their connection with their totems, but
never say that their totems are their 'soul-boxes.'
Mr. Frazer has an answer to this objection. 'How close must be the
concealment, how impenetrable the reserve in which he' (the savage) 'hides
the inner keep and citadel of his being.' The Giant, in the Märchen, tries to
keep the secret of his 'soul-box,' much more then does 'the timid and furtive
savage.' 'No inducement that can be offered is likely to tempt him to imperil
his soul by revealing its hiding-place to a stranger. It is, therefore, no matter
for surprise that the central mystery of the savaged life should so long have
remained a secret, and that we should be left to piece it together from

scattered hints and fragments, and from the recollections of it which linger
in fairy tales.'
On reflection, we cannot but see the flaw in this reasoning. No savage has
revealed to European inquirers that his totem is his 'soul-box.' But every
other savage knows his fatal secret. Every savage, well aware that his own
totem is the hiding-place of his soul, knows that the totems of his enemies
are the hiding-places of their souls. He wants to kill his enemies, and he has
an easy mode of doing so, to shoot down every specimen of their totems.
His enemies will then die, when he is lucky enough to destroy their 'soul-
boxes.' Now I am not aware, in the destructive magic of savages, of a single
case in which a totem is slain, or tortured for the purpose of slaying or
torturing a man of that totem. All other sorts of sympathetic magic are
practised, but where is the evidence for that sort, which ought to be of
considerable diffusion?[24] The supposed 'secret' of savage life is no secret
to other savages. Each tells any inquirer what his 'clay' or totem is. He
blazons his totem proudly. The nearest approach to invidious action, against
a totem, with which I am acquainted, is the killing by the Kurnai women, of
the men's 'sex totem,' when the young men are backward wooers. The
purpose is to produce a fight between lads and lasses, a rude form of
flirtation, after which engagements, or elopements, are apt to follow.[25]
Mr. Frazer tentatively suggests another, a rival or a subsidiary solution of
the problem, to which reference has already been made. Among the Arunta
and other tribes, 'the totemic system has a much wider scope, its aim being
to provide the community with a supply of food and all other necessaries by
means of certain magical ceremonies, the performance of which is
distributed among the various totem groups.' That is to say, these totemic
magical ceremonies now exist for the purpose of propagating, as part of the
food supply, animals or vegetables, which, by the former theory, were the
secret receptacles of the lives of the tribesmen. To kill and eat these sacred
receptacles would endanger the lives of the tribesmen, but to risk that is
quite in accordance with the practical turn of the Arunta mind. Mr. Frazer
has, however, suggested a possible method of reconciling his earlier
hypothesis—that a totem was a soul-box—with his later theory, that the
primal object of totem groups was to breed their totems for food.[26]

Mr. Frazer observes, 'It is not as yet clear how far the particular theory of
Totemism suggested by the Central Australian system is of general
application, and ... in the uncertainty which still hangs over the origin and
meaning of Totemism, it seems scarcely worth while to patch up an old
theory which the next new facts may perhaps entirely demolish.' He then
cites the Arunta belief that their ancestors of 'the dream time' (who were
men evolved out of animals or plants, these objects being their totems) kept
their souls (like the Giant of the fairy tale) in stone churingas (a kind of
amulets) which they hung on poles when they went out hunting. We have
thus a va-et-vient between each man, and the spirit of the plant or animal
out of which he, or his human ancestor, was evolved. That spirit (in origin
the spirit of an animal or plant) is now handed down with the stone
churinga, and is reincarnated in each child, who is thus, an incarnation of
the original totem. Such is the Arunta theory, and thus each living Arunta is
the totem's soul-box, while, to savage reasoners, the totem soul may,
perhaps, seem also to tenant simultaneously each plant or animal of its
species.
This is a theory of Totemism;[27] but, so far, we only know the facts on
which it is based among one extraordinary tribe of anomalous development.
We have still to ask, what was the original connection of the men with the
plants and animals, which the Arunta explain by their myth? Was that
connection originally one of magic-working, by each group, for its totem
species, and, if so, why or how did the groups first select their plants and
animals? Mr. Haddon's theory, presently to be criticised, may elucidate that
point of departure.

SUGGESTION OF MR. N. W. THOMAS

As I am writing, a theory, or suggestion, by Mr. N. W. Thomas appears in
Man (1902, No. 85). Mr. Thomas begins with the spirit which dwells in an
African fetich, and becomes the servant of its owner. The magical apparatus
'may be a bag of skin containing parts of various animals. Such an animal
may be the familiar of the owner, his messenger, or an evil spirit that
possesses him;' similar beliefs are held about the wer-wolf. Now the
American-Indian has his 'medicine bag.' 'The contents are the skin, feathers,
or other part of the totem animal.'

Distinguo: they are parts, not of the 'totem animal,' but of the adopted
animal of the individual, often called his manitu. If we say 'the totem
animal,' we beg the question; we identify the totem with the manitu of the
individual. It may be true, as Mr. Thomas says, that 'the basis of individual
Totemism seems to be the same as that of fetishism,' but I am not discussing
'individual Totemism,' but real group Totemism. Mr. Thomas also is clear
on this point, but, turning to Australia, he says that 'the individual totem
seems to be confined to the medicine-man.' From information by Mrs.
Langloh Parker, I doubt the truth of this idea. A confessedly vague
reminiscence of Mr. Rusden does not help us. Speaking of an extinct tribe
on the Hunter River, N.S.W., he says that he 'does not recollect all their
class divisions, Yippai' (Ippai), 'and Kombo' (Kumbo). 'Apropos of the
generic names' (whatever these may be) 'the Geawe-gal had a superstition
that every one had within himself an affinity to the spirit of some beast,
bird, or reptile. Not that he sprang from the creature in any way' (as is a
common totemic myth), 'but that the spirit which was in him was akin to
that of the creature.' This is vague. Mr. Rusden does not say that his native
informant said, that the 'spirit' was the man's totem in each case.[28] But Mr.
Thomas, on this evidence, writes: 'This belief suggests that the
interpretation suggested for individual Totemism can also be applied to clan
Totemism,' apparently because, among the extinct tribe, not only sorcerers,
but, in this case, every one was the receptacle of an animal (not a plant)
spirit. But obviously the animal spirits of the Geawe-gal may be the spirits
—not of their group totems, if they had any—but of their individual
manitus, which we do not know to be confined to sorcerers. Every one is a
sorcerer, better or worse, in a society where every one works magic.
Next, the wer-wolf has a way of returning 'to look at' (to eat, I think) the
body of his victim. Now in North Queensland, as in Scotland, the body of a
dead man is surrounded with dust or ashes (flour in Scotland), and the dust
is inspected, to find the tracks of some bird or animal.[29] From such marks,
if any, 'the totem of the malefactor is inferred.' The malefactor is the person
who, by the usual superstition, is thought magically to have caused the
death of the tribesman. 'These facts seem best interpreted if we suppose that
in North Queensland the sorcerer is believed to return in animal form, and
that the form is that of his totem, for in no other way does it seem possible
to identify the man's totem by observing the footsteps.'

Is the man's group totem meant? If so, the process could not identify 'the
malefactor,' there are hundreds of men of his totem. Is his manitu or
'individual totem' meant? Then the process might be successful, but has no
concern with the origin of hereditary kin-Totemism. Indeed Mr. Thomas
'leaves the applicability of the theory to group Totemism for subsequent
consideration.' We shall show—indeed, in Mr. Herbert Spencer's case we
have shown—the difficulty of deriving kin-Totemism from the manitu, or
'obsessing spirit' if Mr. Thomas pleases, of the individual. This point, as is
said, Mr. Thomas reserves for later consideration.

DR. WILKEN'S THEORY

We now come to a theory which exists in many shapes, but in all is vitiated,
I think, by the same error of reasoning. Mr. Tylor, however, has lent at least
a modified approval to the hypothesis as mooted by the late Dutch
anthropologist, Dr. Wilken, of Leyden. Mr. Tylor writes, 'if it does not
completely solve the totem problem, at any rate it seems to mark out its
main lines.' Unluckily the hypothesis of Dr. Wilken is perhaps the least
probable of all. The materials are found, not in a race so comparatively
early as the Australians or Adamanese, but among the settled peoples of
Malay, Sumatra, and Melanesia. By them, in their Tables of Precedence, 'the
Crocodile is regarded as equal in rank to the Dutch Resident.' Crocodiles
are looked on as near kinsmen of men, who, when they die, expect to
become crocodiles. To kill crocodiles is murder. 'So it is with tigers, whom
the Sumatrans worship and call ancestors.'
Mr. Tylor observes, 'Wilken sees in this transmigration of souls the link
which connects Totemism with ancestor-worship,' and thinks that Dr.
Codrington's remarks on Melanesian ways add weight to this opinion. In
Melanesia, as Dr. Codrington reports, an influential man, before his death,
will lay a ban, or tabu, on something, say a banana, or a pig. He says that he
'will be in' a shark, a banana, a bird, a butterfly, or what not. Dr.
Codrington's informant, Mr. Sleigh of Lifu, says 'that creature would be
sacred to his family,' they would call it 'papa,' and 'offer it a young cocoa-
nut.' 'But they did not adopt thus the name of a tribe.' The children of papa,
who chose to be a butterfly (like Mr. Thomas Haynes Bailey) do not call
themselves 'The Butterflies,' nor does the butterfly name mark their
exogamous limit. Mr. Tylor concludes, 'an ancestor, having lineal

descendants among men and sharks, or men and owls, is thus the founder of
a totem family, which mere increase may convert into a totem clan, already
provided with its animal name.' This conclusion is tentative, and put forth
with Mr. Tylor's usual caution. But, as a matter of fact, no totem kin is
actually founded thus, for example, in Melanesia. The institutions of that
region, as we are to show, really illustrate the way out of, not the way into,
Totemism. Moreover the theory, as expressed by Mr. Tylor in the words
cited, must be deemed unfortunate because it takes for granted that 'the
Patriarchal theory' of the origin of the so-called 'clan,' or totem group, is
correct. A male ancestor founds a family, which swells, 'by natural increase,'
into a 'clan.' The ancestor is worshipped under the name of Butterfly, his
descendants, the clan founded by him, are named Butterflies. But all this
can only happen where male ancestors are remembered, and are
worshipped, where descent is reckoned in the male line, and where, as
among ourselves, a remembered male ancestor founds a House, as Tam o'
the Cowgate founded the House of Haddington. In short Dr. Wilken has
slipped back into the Patriarchal theory. Now, among totemists like the
Australians, ancestors are not remembered, their names are tabued, they are
not worshipped, they do not found families, where descent is reckoned in
the female line.[30]

MISS ALICE FLETCHER'S THEORY

An interesting variant of this theory is offered, as regards the Omaha tribe
of North America, by Miss Alice Fletcher, whose knowledge of the inner
mind of that people is no less remarkable than her scientific caution.[31] The
conclusion of Miss Fletcher's valuable essay shows, at a glance, that her
hypothesis contains the same fundamental error as that of Dr. Wilken:
namely, the totem of the kin is derived from the manitu, or personal friendly
object of an individual, a male ancestor. This cannot, we repeat, hold good
for that early stage of society which reckons descent in the female line, and
in which male ancestors do not found houses, clans, names, or totem kins.
The Omaha men, at puberty, after prayer and fasting, choose manitus
suggested in dreams or visions. Miss Fletcher writes, 'As totems could be
obtained but in one way—through the rite of the vision, the totem of a gens
must have come into existence in that manner, and must have represented

the manifestation of an ancestor's vision, that of a man whose ability and
opportunity served to make him the founder of a family, of a group of
kindred who dwelt together, fought together, and learned the value of united
strength.'[32]
This explanation obviously cannot explain the Origin of Totemism among
tribes where descent is reckoned in the female line, and where no man
becomes 'the founder of a family.' The Omaha, a house-dwelling,
agricultural tribe, with descent in the male line, with priests, and
departmental gods, a tribe, too, among whom the manitu is not hereditable,
can give us no line as to the origin of Totemism. Miss Fletcher's theory
demands the hereditable character of the individual manitu, and yet it is
never inherited.

MR. HILL TOUT'S THEORY

Mr. Hill Tout has evolved a theory out of the customs of the aborigines of
British Columbia, among whom 'the clan totems are a development of the
personal or individual totem or tutelar spirit.' The Salish tribes, in fact, seek
for 'sulia, or tutelar spirits,' and these 'gave rise to the personal totem,'
answering to manitu, nyarong, nagual, and so forth. 'From the personal and
family crest is but a step to the clan crest.' Unluckily, with descent in the
female line, the step cannot be taken. Mr. Hill Tout takes a village-
inhabiting tribe, a tribe of village communities, as one in which Totemism is
only nascent. 'The village community apparently formed the original unit of
organisation.' But the Australians, who have not come within measurable
distance of the village community, have already the organisation of the
totem kin. Interesting as is Mr. Hill Tout's account of the Salish Indians, we
need not dwell longer on an hypothesis which makes village communities
prior to the evolution of Totemism. What he means by saying that 'the gens
has developed into the clan,' I am unable to conjecture. The school of Major
Powell use 'gens' of a totem kin with male, 'clan' of a totem kin with female
descent. Mr. Hill Tout cannot mean that male descent is being converted
into descent in the female line? As he writes of 'a four-clan system, each
clan being made up of groups of gentes,' he may take a 'clan' to signify what
is usually called a 'phratry.'[33]

MESSRS. HOSE AND MCDOUGALL

Among other efforts to show how the hereditary totem of a group might be
derived from the special animal or plant friend of an individual male, may
be noticed that of Messrs. Hose and McDougall.[34] The Ibans, or Sea
Dyaks of Sarawak, are probably of Malay stock, and are 'a very imitative
people,' of mixed, inconsistent, and extravagant beliefs. They have a god of
agriculture, and, of course, are therefore remote from the primitive; being
rice-farmers. They respect nyarongs, or 'spirit helpers,' though Mr. Hose
lived among them for fourteen years without knowing what a nyarong is. 'It
seems usually to be the spirit of some ancestor, or dead relative, but not
always so....' The spirit first appears to an Iban in a dream, in human form,
and the Iban, on awaking, looks for the nyarong in any casual beast, or
quartz crystal, or queer root or creeper. So far the nyarong is a fetish. Only
about two per cent, of men have nyarongs. If the thing be an animal, the
Iban respects the other creatures of the species. 'In some cases the cult of a
nyarong will spread through a whole family or household.' Australian
individuals have also their secret animal friends, like nyarongs and naguals,
but these are never hereditary. What is hereditary is the totem of the group,
which may not be altered, or so seldom that it would be hard to find a
modern example: though changes of totems may have occurred when, in the
pristine 'treks' of the race, they reached regions of new fauna and flora.
'The children and grandchildren,' our authors go on, 'among the Ibans, will
usually respect the species of animals to which a man's nyarong belongs,
and perhaps sacrifice fowls or pigs to it occasionally.' Of course 'primitive'
man has no domesticated animals, and does not sacrifice anything to
anybody. 'If the great-grandchildren of a man behave well to his nyarong, it
will often befriend them just as much as its original protégé.' It is not
readily conceivable that, among very early men, and where the names of the
dead are tabued, the wisest great-grandchild knows who his great-
grandfather was. Still, though the great-grandfather was forgotten, his
nyarong—it may be said—would be held in perpetual memory, and become
the totem of a group. But this is not easily to be conceded, because there
would be the competition of the nyarongs of each generation to crush the
ancient nyarong; moreover the totem, in truly primitive times, is not
inherited from fathers, but from mothers.
Our authors say that, in some cases, 'all the members of a man's family, and
all his descendants, and, if he be a chief, all the members of the community

over which he rules,' may come to share in the benefits of his nyarong, and
in its rites. But all this of chiefs, and great-grandchildren of a known great-
grandfather, all this occurring to-day among an imitative and agricultural
people, with departmental deities, and domesticated animals, cannot give us
a line to the origin of Totemism among houseless nomads, who tabu the
memory of their dead, and, as a rule, probably reckoned descent on the
female side, so that a man could not inherit his father's totem. We must try
to see how really early men became totemic. Mr. Frazer observes, 'It is quite
possible that, as some good authorities incline to believe, the clan totem has
been developed out of the individual totem by inheritance,' and Miss Alice
C. Fletcher we have cited as holding this process to be probable in North
America.[35] All such theories are based on the beliefs and customs of
modern savages advancing, like the American Indians of to-day, towards
what is technically styled 'barbarism.' It was not in the state of barbarism,
but in a savagery no longer extant, that totemism was evolved. Totemism
derived from inheritance of a male ancestor's special 'spirit-helper' is
checked by the essential conditions of people who are settled, agricultural,
and given to reckoning descent in the male line. No more can be produced,
in such a state, than 'abortive beginnings of Totemism.'[36] Exogamy is
never reached on these lines, and Totemism is behind, not in front of, all
such peoples. Totemism arose in the period of the group, not of the family-
founding male ancestor.
Messrs. Hose and McDougall, it is to be noted, do not say that Totemism is
now being developed, in Sarawak, out of nyarongs. They only say that it,
perhaps, might be so developed 'in the absence of unfavourable conditions.'
If there existed 'prosperous families,' each with a nyarong, other families
would dream of nyarongs, and it would become rather disreputable to have
none. 'So a system of clan totems would be established.' But male kinship,
agriculture, metal-working, chiefship, and large houses were certainly non-
existent when Totemism was first evolved. We must not look, in such
advanced society, for the origin of Totemism. In Sarawak is a houseless
nomadic race, the Punans. Among them Totemism has not yet been
observed, but they are so little known, that the present negative evidence
cannot be regarded as conclusive. Mr. Hose knew the Ibans for fourteen
years without learning what a nyarong is, and it was by, mere accident that
Mr. Atkinson discovered the animal 'fathers' of the Kanakas.

MR. HADDON'S THEORY

Mr. Haddon has suggested a theory which was printed in the Proceedings of
the British Association (1902). On this scheme, at a very early period,
groups, by reason of their local environment, would have special varieties
of food. Thus, at present, in New Caledonia, the Sea branch of a tribe has
cocoa-nuts, fish of all sorts, and so forth, while the Bush branch has
bananas, and other commodities, and the Sea and Bush moieties of the tribe
meet at markets for purposes of barter. But, in a really primitive state, there
will be no cultivation, as there is in New Caledonia. Still, a coast savage
might barter crabs for a kangaroo, and, if landed property is acknowledged,
owners of plum-trees, or of a spot rich in edible grass-seeds, might trade
these away for lobsters and sea-perch.[37] Not having any idea of real
cultivation, or of pisciculture (though they may and do have 'close' seasons,
under tabu), the savages may set about working magic for their specialities
in food. Thus it is conceivable that the fishers might come to be named
'crab-men,' 'lobster-men,' 'cuttlefish-men,' by their neighbours, whom they
would speak of as 'grass-men,' 'plum-men,' 'kangaroo-men,' and so on.
When once these names were accepted (I presume), and were old, and now
of unknown or rather forgotten origin, all manner of myths to account for
the connection between the groups and their plant and animal names would
arise. When the myth declared that the plants and animals were akin to their
name-giving creatures, superstitious practices would follow. We have seen
two cases in which Australian totem groups averred that they were named
totemically after a small species of opossum, and a fish which their
ancestors habitually ate. But that is an explanatory myth. Man cannot live
on opossums alone, still less on sardines.
My own guess admits the possibility of this cause of giving plant and
animal names to groups, among other causes. But I doubt if this was a
common cause. In Australia, everything that can be eaten is eaten by all the
natives of a given area, each kindred having only a tendency to spare its
own totem, while certain other tabus on foods exist. In this condition of
affairs, very few groups could have a notable special variety of food, except
in the case of certain fruits, grass-seeds, and insects. For these articles the
season is almost as brief as the season of the mayfly or the grannom. 'When
fruits is in, cats is out,' as the pieman said to the young lady. During the rest
of the year, all the groups in a large area will be living on the same large

variety of reptiles, roots, animals such as rats and lizards, birds and so forth.
It does not seem probable that, except as between Sea and Bush parts of a
tribe, there could be much specialisation in matters of diet, during the
greater part of the year. Therefore, I do not think that the derivation of totem
names from special articles of food can ever have been common. But local
knowledge is necessary on this point. Are the totem groups of Australia
settled on lands peculiarly notable for the plants and animals whose names
they bear? If so, that circumstance may account for the totem names of each
group, and—granting that the origin of the names is long ago forgotten, and
that native speculation has explained the names by myths—the rest is easy.
It will appear, when we come to my conjecture, that it varies from Mr.
Haddon's only on one point. We both begin with plant and animal names
given to the various groups, from without. We then suppose (or, at least, I
suppose) the origin of the names to be forgotten, and a connection to be
established between the groups and their name-giving objects, a connection
which is explained by myths, while belief in these gives rise to
corresponding behaviour: respect for the totem, and for his human kinsfolk.
The only difference is that my theory suggests several sources of the names:
while Mr. Haddon offers only one source, special articles of food and barter.
Kindreds, to be sure, are now named, not from what they eat (scores of
things), but from the one thing which (as a kindred) they do not eat. But
this, when once the myths of kinship with the totem arose, might be a later
development, arising out of the myth. In essentials, my conjecture appears
to be in harmony with Mr. Haddon's—the two, of course, were
independently evolved.
On one point I perceive no difficulty, and no difference. It has been
suggested that Mr. Haddon 'commences with the commencement,' whereas,
in the hypothetical early age which we both contemplate, people had
scarcely a sufficient command of language to invent nicknames. Why more
command of language is needed for the application of nicknames than of
names, I do not perceive. In Mr. Haddon's theory, as in mine, names already
existed, names of plants and animals. In both of our hypotheses those
names were transferred to human groups; in my conjecture for a variety of
reasons, in his, solely from connection with special articles of food, eaten
and bartered, by each group. I am not convinced that, so early, the relations
between groups would admit of frequent barter: nor, as has been said, am I

certain that many groups could have a very special article of food, in an age
prior to cultivation. But, granting all that to Mr. Haddon, no more command
of language is needed by my theory than by his. Each conjecture postulates
the existence of names of plants and animals, and the transference of the
names to human groups. If gesture language was prior to spoken language,
in each case gesture names could be employed, as, in North America, totem
names are to this day expressed in gesture language. In my own opinion,
man was as human as he is to-day, when totem names arose, and as
articulate. But, if he was not, gesture-language would suffice.
I shall illustrate my theory from folk-lore practice. We might do the same
for Mr. Haddon's. We talk of 'the Muffin man,' the man who sells muffins.
We style one person 'The English Opium-Eater,' another 'The Oyster-Eater,'
another 'The Irish Whiskey Drinker.' Here are the nicknames derived from
the dealing in, or special consumption of, articles of food.
Many others occur in my folk-lore and savage lists of nicknames. They all
imply at least as much command of language, as the names, ultimately
totem names, given, for various reasons, in my theory. Thus Mr. Haddon
and myself do not seem to me to differ on this point: his theory goes no
further back in culture than mine does: nay, he assumes that barter was a
regular institution, which implies a state of peace, almost a state of co-
operation.

AN OBJECTION TO ALL THE THEORIES ENUMERATED

Not one of the theories here summarised, except the Dieri and Woeworung
myth, explains why members of the various totem kins are exogamous, may
not marry other members of the name. Suppose you do get your totem name
from that of a distinguished male ancestor, why may you not marry another
descendant? If because the common name, say Emu, is taken to indicate
some sort of blood-relationship, why may you not marry a blood relation,
even if there be no traceable kinship between you and her? A Douglas may
marry a Douglas, a Smith may marry a Smith; but an Emu is often capitally
punished if he marries an Emu. Suppose you get your totem name from the
beast for which you do magic. Why may you not marry a person who bears
the name of the same beast, and whose male kindred do magic for it?
Because it is sacrosanct to you and her? But you are actually breeding it for

the food-market. The answer must be that you may not marry a person who
bears your own totem name, and is in the same branch of the Co-operative
Magical Stores, because her beast and yours are in the same phratry, and
phratry mates may not intermarry. But why may they not marry? The reply
will probably be, because the legislator divided the previously undivided
commune into two intermarrying exogamous phratries. But that theory we
have shown to be untenable. Thus not one of the extant hypotheses of the
origin of Totemism explains why totem kins are exogamous, unless Mr.
Haddon supposes that the totem names, once given from without, came to
be explained by myths asserting the sacred character and tribal kindred of
the totem. Mr. Haddon has not said anything about a previous exogamous
tendency in each of the groups which, by his scheme, received totem names
from without. By my hypothesis, these groups had already a strongly
exogamous tendency, which later was hall-marked and sanctioned by the
totem, with its myths and tabus. This advantage of explaining the
exogamous attribute of the totem, my scheme possesses, and its rivals lack.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Let us concentrate, now, our attention on the character of the genuine totem,
the totem of the group or kin. It is not adopted by the savages on a dream-
warning; each man or woman for himself or herself: nor is it chosen for
each child at birth, nor by a diviner, like the nagual, bush-soul, nyarong of
Sarawak, or the secret animal friend of each individual Australian. A savage
inherits his group totem name. The name of any plant or animal which he
may adopt for himself, or have assigned to him as a personal name, by his
parents, or, so to speak, god-parents, is not his totem. My meaning is, I
repeat, that my conjecture is only concerned with hereditary kin-totems and
hereditary totem names of kindreds. No others enter into my conjecture as
to origin. What some call 'personal totems,' adopted by the individual, or
selected by others for him after his birth, such as the Calabar 'bush-soul,' the
Sarawak nyarong, the Central American nagual, the Banks Island tamaniu,
and the analogous special animal of the Australian tribesman (observed
chiefly, as far as I know, by Mr. Howitt[38] and Mrs. Langloh Parker), do not
here concern me. They are not hereditary group names.

THE AUTHOR'S OWN CONJECTURE

I now approach my own conjecture as to the origins of the genuine,
hereditary, exogamous Totemism of groups of kin, real or imagined.
Totemism as we know it, especially in some tribes of North America and in
Australia, has certainly, as a necessary condition, that state of mind in
which man regards all the things in the world as very much on a level in
personality; the beasts being even more powerful than himself. Were it not
so, the totem myths about human descent from beasts and plants: about
friendly beasts, beasts who may marry men, and about metamorphoses,
could not have been invented and believed, even to whatever extent myths
are believed. We may say that such beliefs are real, where they regulate
conduct. So far, there is probably no difference of opinion, among
anthropologists.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GROUPS AND TOTEMS

In all theories, the real problem is, how did the early groups get their totem
names? The names, once accepted and stereotyped, implied a connection
between each kindred, and the animal, plant, or other thing in nature whose
name the kindred bore. Round the mystery of this connection the savage
mind would play freely, and would invent the explanatory myths of descent
from, and kinship with, or other friendly relations with, the name-giving
objects. A measure of respect for the objects would be established: they
might not be killed or eaten, except under necessity: magic might be
worked by human Emus, Kangaroos, Plum-trees, and Grubs for their
propagation, as among the Arunta and other tribes; or against them, to bar
their ravaging of the crops, as among the Sioux. As a man should not spear
a real Emu, if the Emu was his totem, so he does not, for reasons to be
adduced, marry or have an amour with a woman who is also of the Emu
blood. That is part of the tabu, resulting from the circumstances presently to
be explained.
All these things, given the savage stage of thought, would inevitably follow
from the recognised but mysterious connection between men and the plants
and animals from which they were named. All such connections, to the
savage, are blood-relationships, and such relationship involves the duties
which are recognised and performed. But how did the early groups come to
be named after the plants and animals; the name suggesting the idea of

connection, and the idea of connection involving the duties of the totemist
to his totem, and of the totem to the totemist?

NO 'DISEASE OF LANGUAGE'

The names, I repeat, requiring and receiving mythical explanations, and the
explanations necessarily suggesting conduct to match, are the causes of
Totemism. This theory is not a form of the philological doctrine, nomina
numina. This is no case of disease of language, in Mr. Max Müller's sense
of the words. A man is called a Cat, all of his kin are Cats. The language is
not diseased, but the man has to invent some reason for the name common
to his kin. It is not even a case of Folk Etymology, as when a myth is
invented to explain the meaning of the name of a place, or person, or thing.
Thus the Loch of Duddingston, near Edinburgh, is explained by the myth
that Queen Mary, as a child, used to play at 'dudding' (or skipping) stones
across the water: 'making ducks and drakes.' Or again, marmalade is
derived from Marie malade. Queen Mary, as a child, was seasick in
crossing to France, and asked for confiture of oranges; hence Marie malade
—'marmalade.' In both cases, the name to be explained is perverted. There
is no real 'stone' in Duddingston—'Duddings' town,' the ton or tun of the
Duddings; while 'marmalade' is a late form of 'marmalet,' a word older than
Queen Mary's day.
An example of a folk etymology bordering on Totemism is the supposed
descent of Clan Chattan, and of the House of Sutherland, from the Wild Cat
of their heraldic crests. Now Clan Chattan is named, not from the cat, but
from Gilla Catain, 'the servant of Saint Catan,' a common sort of Celtic
personal name, as in Gilchrist.[39] The Sutherland cat-crest is, apparently,
derived from Catness, or Caithness. That name, again, is mythically derived
from Cat, one of the Seven Sons of Cruithne who gave their names to the
seven Pictish provinces, as Fib to Fife, and so on. These Seven Sons of
Cruithne, like Ion and Dorus in Greece (Ionians, Dorians), are mere
mythical 'eponymoi' or name-giving-heroes, invented to explain the names
of certain districts. In Totemism this is not so. Not fancied names, like
Duddingstone, or Marmalade, are, in Totemism, explained by popular
etymologies. Emu, Kangaroo, Wolf, Bear, Raven, are real, not perverted
names, the question is, why are these names borne by groups of human
beings? Answers are: given in all the numerous savage myths, whether of a

divine ordinance (Dieri, Woeworung) or of descent and kinship, of
intermarriage with beasts, or of adventures with beasts, or of a woman
giving birth to beasts, or of evolution out of bestial types, and all these
myths suggest mutual duties between men and their totems, as between men
and their human kinsfolk. It will be seen that here no disease of language is
involved, not even a volks-etymologie (a vera causa of myth).
If it could be shown by philologists that many totem names originally
meant something other than they now do, and that they were
misunderstood, and supposed to be names of plants and animals, then
'disease of language' would be present. Thus λύκος and ἅρκτος have really
been regarded, as meaning, each of them 'the bright one,' and the Wolf Hero
of Athens, and the Bear of the Arcadians, have been explained away, as
results of 'disease of language.' But nobody will apply that obsolete theory
to the vast menagerie of savage totem names.

HYPOTHETICAL EARLY GROUPS BEFORE TOTEMISM

But, discarding this old philological hypothesis, how did the pristine groups
get their totem names? We ought first to return to our conjecture as to what
these pristine groups were like. They must have varied in various
environments. Where the sea, or a large lake, yields an abundant food-
supply, men are likely to have assembled in considerable numbers, as
'kitchen middens' show, at favourable stations. In great woods and jungles
the conditions of food-supply are not the same as in wide steppes and
prairies, especially in the uniform and arid plateaus of Central Australia.
Rivers, like seas and lakes, are favourable to settlement; steppes make
nomadism inevitable, before the rise of agriculture. But, if the earliest
groups were mutually hostile, strongly resenting any encroachment on their
region of food-supply, the groups would necessarily be small, as in Mr.
Darwin's theory of small pristine groups, the male, with his females,
daughters, and male sons not adult.[40] A bay, or inlet, or a good set of pools
and streams, would be appropriated and watchfully guarded by a group, just
as every area of Central Australia has its recognised native owners, who
wander about it, feeding on grubs, lizards, snakes, rats, frogs, grass-seeds,
roots, emus, kangaroos, and opossums.

The pristine groups, we may be allowed to conjecture, were small. If they
were not, the hypotheses which I venture to present are of no value, while
that of Mr. Atkinson shares their doom. Mr. McLennan, as far as one can
conjecture from the fragments of his speculations, regarded the earliest
groups as at least so large, and so bereft of women, that polyandry was the
general rule. Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, began with Polygyny and
Monogamy, 'jealousy determining the first stage.'[41] This meant that there
was a jealous old sire, who kept the women to himself, as in Mr. Atkinson's
theory. As we can scarcely expect to reach certainty on this essential point,
anthropology becomes (like history in the opinion of a character in Silas
Marner) 'a process of ingenious guessing.' But, embarking on conjecture, I
venture to suggest that the problem of the commissariat must have kept the
pristine groups very small.[42]
They 'lived on the country,' and the country was untilled. They subsisted on
the natural supplies, and the more backward their material culture, the
sooner would they eat the country bare, as far as its resources were within
their means of attainment. One can hardly conceive that such human beings
herded in large hordes, rather they would wander in small 'family' groups.
These would be mutually hostile, or at least jealous: they could scarcely yet
have established a modus vivendi, and coalesced into the friendly aggregate
of a local tribe, such as Arunta, Dieri, Urabunna, and so on. Such tribes
have now their common councils and mysteries lasting for months among
the Arunta. We cannot predicate such friendly union of groups in a tribe, for
the small and jealous knots of really early men; watchfully resenting
intrusion on their favourite bays, pools, and hunting of browsing grounds.
As to marriage relations, it is not improbable that 'sexual solidarity' (as Mr.
Crawley calls it), the separation of the sexes—the little boys accompanying
the men, the little girls accompanying the women—and perhaps that 'sexual
tabu,' coupled with the jealousy of male heads of groups, may already have
led to prohibition of marriage within the group, and to raids for women
upon hostile groups. The smaller the group, the more easily would sexual
jealousy prohibit the lads from dealings with the lasses of their own group.
There might thus, in different degrees, arise a tendency towards exogamy,
and specially against son and mother, or father's mates, and brother and
sister marriage. The thing would not yet be a sin, forbidden by a

superstition, but still, the tendency might (as we have already said) run
strong against marriage within each little group.

HOW THE GROUPS GOT NAMES

Up to this point we may conceive that the groups were anonymous. Each
group would probably speak of itself as 'the Men' (according to a well-
recognised custom among the tribes of to-day; for instance, the Gournditch-
mara of Australia, mara meaning 'men'; Kurnai and Narinyeri, also mean
'the men'), while it would know neighbouring groups as 'the others,' or 'the
wild blacks.' But this arrangement manifestly lacks distinctness. Even 'the
others down there' is too like the vague manner in which the Mulligan
indicated his place of residence. Each group will need a special name for
each of its unfriendly neighbours.
These names, as likely as not, or more likely than not, will be animal or
plant names, given for various reasons, perhaps, among others from fancied
resemblances. It may be objected that an individual may bear a resemblance
to this or that animal, but that a group cannot. But it is a peculiarity of
human nature, to think that strangers (of another school eleven, say) are all
very like each other, and if one of them reminds us of an Emu or a
Kangaroo, all of them will. Moreover the name may be based on some real
or fancied group trait of character, good or bad, which also marks this or
that type of animal, such as cunning, cruelty, cowardice, strength, and so
forth, and animal names may even be laudatory. We have also to reckon
with the kinds of animals, plants, trees, useful flints, and other objects
which may be more prevalent in the area occupied by each group; and with
specialities in the food of each group's area, as in Mr. Haddon's theory. Thus
there are plenty of reasons for the giving of plant and animal names, which,
I suggest, were imposed on each group from without.
It is true that local names would serve the turn, if they were in use. But the
'hill-men,' 'the river-men,' 'the bush-men,' 'the men of the thorn country,' 'the
rock-men,' are at once too scanty and too general. Many groups might fall
collectively under each such local name. Again, it is as society moves away
from Totemism, towards male kinship, and settled abodes, that local names
are given to human groups, as in Melanesia, or even to individuals, as in the
case of the Arunta, and the Gournditcha Mara. Among the Arunta a child is

'of' the place where he or she was born, like our de and von.[43] The
piquancy of plant and animal names for groups probably hostile must also
be considered. We are dealing with a stage of society far behind that of
Mincopies, or Punans of Borneo, or Australians, and in imagining that the
groups were, as a rule, hostile, we may or may not be making a false
assumption. We are presuming that the jealousy of the elder males drove the
younger males out of the group, or at least compelled them to bring in
females from other groups, which would mean war. We are also assuming
jealousy of all encroachments on feeding grounds. These are the premises,
which cannot be demonstrated, but only put in for the sake of argument. In
any case no more hostility than our and the French villages have for each
other is enough to provide the giving of animal sobriquets.
As to hostility, Mr. Atkinson, in New Caledonia, had a set of labourers
brought in from a distant island. Among them was a young boy, who, being
employed as cook, had a good deal of popularity with his mates. He went
home for a holiday, with a few men from his own island. He was put down
at their little harbour, only a few miles from that of his tribe, and was
instantly killed and eaten.
In 'Notice sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie' (1900) this ferocious hostility
between near neighbouring groups is corroborated. It is certain death for the
crew of a canoe to be driven into a harbour, however near their own, which
is not their own. This is among the islanders not under the French. Count
von Pfeil remarks on the violent hostility between Kanakas and others near
adjacent.[44]
On this point of unfriendly sobriquets I may quote MM. Gaidoz and
Sébillot.[45]
'In all ages men love to speak ill of their neighbour: to blazon him, in the
old phrase of a time when our speech was less prudish, and more gay.
Pleasantries are exchanged not only between man and man, but between
village and village. Sometimes in one expressive word, the defect, or the
quality (usually the defect), the dominant and apparently hereditary trait of
the people of a race or a province is stated ... in a kind of verbal
caricature.... Les hommes se sont donc blazonnés de tout le temps?
De tout le temps! MM. Gaidoz and Sébillot were not thinking of the origin
of totem names, but their theory applies 'to all ages,' even the most

primitive. Among French village sobriquets I note, at a hasty glance,

Largitzen Cows Houmeau Frogs
Angoulême Lizards Artois Dogs
Aire Pigeons Avalon Birds
and villages named as eaters of:
Old Ewes
Onions
Crows.
We shall see that many Sioux groups, many English villages are blazoned,
as in Mr. Haddon's theory, by the names of the things which they eat: or are
accused of eating.
Thus, among very early men, the names by which the groups knew their
neighbours would be names given from without. To call them 'nicknames,'
is to invite the objection that nicknames are essentially derisive, and that
groups so low could not yet use the language of derision. I see no reason
why early articulate-speaking men (or even men whose language is gesture
language) should be so modern as to lack all sense of humour, all delight in
derision. But the names need not have been derisive. If these people had the
present savage belief in the wakan, or mystic power of animals, the names
may even have been laudatory. I ask for no more than names conferred from
without, call them nicknames, sobriquets, or what you like.
We are acquainted with no race that is just entered on Totemism, unless we
agree with Mr. Hill Tout that Totemism is nascent among the Salish tribe,
who live in village communities. Consequently we cannot prove that early
hostile groups would name each other after plants and animals. I am only
able to demonstrate that, alike in English and French folk-lore, and among
American tribes who reckon by the male line, who are agricultural and
settled, the villages or groups are named, from without, after plants and
animals, and after what they are supposed to be specially apt to use as
articles of food, and also by nick-names—often derisive. What I present is,
not proof that the primal groups named each other after plants and animals,
but proof that among our rustics, by congruity of fancy, such names are
given, with other names exactly analogous to those now used among settled
savages moving away from Totemism.

ILLUSTRATION FROM FOLK-LORE

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

Hillborough Mice Brailing Peesweeps
Loughton Cuckoos Wickley Tigers
Miltown Mules Fenton Rooks
(it used to be rats) Linton Men
Ashley Monkeys Oakditch Potato grubs
Yarby Geese St. Aldate's Fools
Watworth Bulldogs
At Loughton, when the Hillborough boys pass through on a holiday
excursion, the Loughton boys hang out dead mice, the Hillborough badge,
in derision. The boys have even their 'personal totem,' and a lad who wishes

for a companion in nocturnal adventure will utter the cry of his peculiar
beast or bird, and a friend will answer with his. If boys remained always
boys (that is, savages), and if civilisation were consequently wiped out,
myths about these group names of villages would be developed, and
Totemism would flourish again. Later I give other instances of village
names answering to totem names, and in an Appendix I give analogous
cases collected by Miss Burne in Shropshire, and others, we saw, are to be
found in the blason populaire of France.
It appears to me that totem group names may, originally, have been imposed
from without, just as the Eskimo are really Inuits; 'Eskimo,' 'Eaters of raw
flesh,' being the derisive name conferred by their Indian neighbours. Of
course I do not mean that the group names would always, or perhaps often,
have been, in origin, derisive nicknames. Many reasons, as has been said,
might prompt the name-giving. But each such group would, I suggest,
evolve animal and vegetable nicknames for each neighbouring group.
Finally some names would 'stick,' would be stereotyped, and each group
would come to answer to its nickname, just as 'Pussy Moncrieff,' or
'Bulldog Irving,' or 'Piggy Frazer,' or 'Cow Maitland,' does at school.

HOW THE NAMES BECAME KNOWN

Here the questions arise, how would each group come to know by what
name each of its neighbours called it, and how would hostile groups Come
to have the same nicknames for each other? Well, they would know the
nicknames through taunts exchanged in battle.
'Run, you deer, run!'
'Off with you, you hares!'
'Skuttle, you skunks!'
They would readily recognise the appropriateness of the names, if derived
from the plants, trees, or animals most abundant in their area, and most
important to their food supply: for, at this hypothetical stage, and before
myths had crystallised round the names, they would have no scruples about
eating their name-giving plants, fruits, fishes, birds, and animals. They
would also hear their names from war captives at the torture stake, or on the
road to the oven, or the butcher. But the chief way in which the new group
names spread would be through captured women; for, though there might as

yet be only a tendency towards exogamy, still girls of alien groups would be
captured as mates. 'We call you the Skunks,' or whatever it might be, such a
bride might remark, and so knowledge of the new group names would be
diffused. These names would adhere to groups, on my hypothesis, already
exogamous in tendency, and, when the totem myth arose, the exogamy
would be sanctioned by the totem tabu.[47]

TOTEMIC AND OTHER GROUP NAMES—ENGLISH AND NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN

It may seem almost flippant to suggest that this old mystery of Totemism
arises only from group names given from without, some of them, perhaps,
derisive. But I am able to demonstrate that, in North America, the names of
what some American authorities call gentes (meaning old totem groups,
which now reckon descent through the male, not the female line), actually
are nicknames—in certain cases derisive. Moreover, I am able to prove that,
when the names of these American gentes are not merely totem names, they
answer, with literal precision, to our folk-lore village sobriquets, even when
these are not names of plants or animals. The late Rev. James Owen Dorsey
left, at his death, a paper on The Siouan Sociology.[48] Among the gentes
(old totem kindreds with male descent) he noted, the gentes of a tribe, 'The
Mysterious Lake Tribe.' There were, in 1880, seven gentes. Three names
were derived from localities. One name meant 'Breakers of (exogamous)
Law.' One was 'Not encumbered with much baggage.' One was Rogues
('Bad Nation'). These three last names are derisive nicknames. The seventh
name was 'Eats no Geese,' obviously a totemic survival. Of the Wahpeton
tribe all the seven gentes derived their names from localities. Of the
Sisseton tribe, the twelve names of gentes were either nicknames (one, 'a
name of derision'), or derived from localities.
Of the Yankton gentes, five names out of seven were nicknames, mostly
derisive, the sixth was 'Bad Nation' ('Rogues'), the seventh was a totem
name, 'Wild Cat.' Of the Hunpatina (seven gentes), three names were
totemic (Drifting Goose, Dogs, Eat no Buffalo Cows); the others were
nicknames, such as 'Eat the Scrapings of Hides.' Of the Sitcanxu, there were
thirteen gentes. Six or seven of their titles were nicknames, three were
totemic, the others were dubious, such as 'Smellers of Fish.' The Itaziptec
had seven gentes; of their names all were nicknames, including 'Eat dried

venison from the hind quarter.' Of the Minikooju, there were nine gentes.
Eight names were nicknames, including 'Dung Eaters.' One seems totemic,
'Eat no Dogs.' Of five Asineboin gentes the names were nicknames from the
habits or localities of the communities. One was 'Girl's Band,' that is, 'Girls.'
Now compare parish sobriquets in Western England.[49] In this list of parish
or village nicknames, twenty-one are derived from plants and animals, like
most totemic names. We also find 'Dog Eaters,' 'Bread Eaters,' 'Burd Eaters,'
'Whitpot Eaters,' and, answering to 'Girl's Band' (Gens des Filles), 'Pretty
Maidens:' answering to 'Bad Nation,' 'Rogues': answering to 'Eaters of Hide
Scrapings' 'Bone Pickers': while there are, as among the Siouans, names
derived from various practices attributed to the English villagers, as to the
Red Indian gentes.
No closer parallel between our rural folk-lore sobriquets of village groups,
given from without, and the names given from without of old savage totem
groups (now reckoning in the male line, and, therefore, now settled together
in given localities) could be invented. (For other examples see Appendix A.)
I conceive, therefore, that my suggestion—the totem names of pristine
groups were originally given from without, and were accepted (as in the
case of the nicknames of Siouan gentes, now accepted by them)—may be
reckoned no strain on our sense of probability. It is demonstrated that the
name-giving processes of our villagers exist among American savage
groups which reckon descent in the male line, and that they also existed
among the savage groups which reckoned descent in the female line is,
surely, a not unreasonable surmise. I add a list in parallel columns.
English Village Names Siouan Group Names
Rogues Bad Sorts
Stags[50] Elk[50]
Bull Dogs Common Dogs
Horse Heads Warts on Horses' Legs
Bone Pickers Hide Scrapers
Pretty Girls Girl Folk
Eaters of Eaters of

Whitpot Dried Venison
Cheese Fish
Barley Bread Dung
Dog.

THEORY THAT SIOUAN GENTES NAMES ARE OF EUROPEAN ORIGIN

To produce, from North America, examples of group names conferred from
without, as in the instances of our English villages, may, to some students,
seem inadequate evidence. For example an unconvinced critic may say that
the nicknames of Mr. Dorsey's 'Siouan gentes' were originally given by
white men; the Sioux, Dacota, Asineboin, and other tribes having been long
in contact with Europeans. Now it is quite possible that some of the names
had this origin, as Mr. Dorsey himself observed. But no critic will go on to
urge that the common totemic names which still designate many gentes
were imposed by Europeans who came from English villages of 'Mice,'
'Cuckoos,' 'Tater Grubs,' 'Dogs,' and so forth. We might as wisely say that
our peasantry borrowed these village names from what they had read about
totem names in Cooper's novels. To name individuals, or groups, after
animals, is certainly a natural tendency of the mind, whether in savage or
civilised society.
If we take the famous Mandan tribe, now reckoning descent in the male
line, but with undeniable survivals of descent in the female line, we find
that the gentes are:
Wolf Bear Prairie Chicken Good Knife
Eagle Flat Head High Village
Here, out of seven gentes, four names are totemic; one is a name of locality,
'High Village,' not a possible name in pristine nomadic society. While there
are hundreds of such cases, we cannot reasonably regard the American
group nicknames as generally of European origin. Still more does this
theory fail us in the case of Melanesia, where contact with Europeans is
recent and relatively slight. Among such tribes as the Mandans, and other
Siouan peoples, we see Totemism with exogamy and female kinship

waning, while kinship, recognised by male descent, plus settled conditions,
brings in local names for gentes, and tends to cause the substitution of local
names and nicknames for the totem group name. Precisely the same
phenomena meet us, as we are to see, in Melanesia.

[1] As to the word 'totem,' but little is certainly known. Its earliest occurrence in
literature, to my knowledge, is in a work by J. Long (1791), Voyages and Travels
of an Indian Interpreter. Long sojourned among the Algonquin branch of the
North American Indians. He spells the word 'Totam,' and even speaks of
'Totamism.' Mr. Tylor has pointed out that Long in one place confuses the totem,
the hereditary group name, and protective object, with what used to be called the
manitu or 'medicine,' of each individual Indian, chosen by him, or her, after a
fast, at puberty. Remarks on Totemism, 1898, pp. 139-40. Cf. infra, 135, note.
[2] Man, 1902, No. 75.
[3] Totemism, p. 2, 1887.
[4] So also Mr. Hartland writes, Man, 1902, No. 84. But manitu is perhaps too
wide and vague a term: it usually connotes anything mystical or supernormal.
[5] Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 214. Major Powell has said
something to the same effect, but that was in a journal of 'popular science.'
[6] Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-1894, p. 241.
[7] L'Année Sociologique, v. 93, 99, 100. As far as the proof rests on Arunta
traditions, I lay no stress upon it.
[8] J. A. I. vol. xviii., no. 3, p. 254.
[9] Frazer, Totemism, p. 1.
[10] Major Powell, Man, 1901, no. 75.
[11] Howitt, J. A. I. xx. 40-41, 1891.
[12] The Marquis d'Eguilles kindly sends me extracts from an official 'Notice sur
la Nouvelle-Calédonie,' drawn up for the Paris Exhibition of 1900. The author
says that the names of relationships are expressed, by the Kanaka, 'in a touching
manner.' One name includes our 'uncle' and 'father,' another our 'mother' and
'aunts;' another name includes our 'brothers,' 'sisters,' and 'cousins.' This, of
course, is 'the classificatory system.' About animal 'fathers' nothing is said.
[13] Tylor, Remarks on Totemism, pp. 141-143. Myth, Ritual, and Religion, ii.
56-58. Turner's Samoa, p. 17 (1884).
[14] Howitt, On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 136, note, 1889.
[15] The Mura Mura appear really to answer to the fabled ancestors of the
Arunta, but are addressed in prayers. Cf. Miss Howitt, Folk Lore, January 1903.
[16] Tylor, Remarks on Totemism, p. 134.
[17] So also to explain the crest of the Hamiltons, the Skenes, and many others.
[18] Frazer, Totemism, p. 7.

[19] Hose and McDougall, J. A. I. xxxi. 193, 1901.
[20] Custom and Myth, p. 262.
[21] Contributions to the Science of Mythology, i. 201.
[22] The Principles of Sociology, i. 362, 1876.
[23] The whole passage will be found in the work cited. Vol. i. 359-368.
[24] I am haunted by the impression that I have met examples, but where I know
not.
[25] Howitt, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. 58.
[26] Golden Bough, iii. 416, note 3.
[27] It is possible that I have failed to understand the mode of reconciling the
two hypotheses, and Mr. Frazer is not to be understood as committed to either or
both in the present state of our information.
[28] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 280.
[29] J. A. I. xiii. 191, note 1.
[30] Tylor, Remarks on Totemism, pp. 146-147, 1898.
[31] The Import of the Totem, by Alice C. Fletcher, Salem Press, Mass., 1897.
[32] Op. cit. p. 12.
[33] 'The Origin of the Totemism of the Inhabitants of British Columbia,'
Transactions of Royal Society of Canada, second series, vol. vii., 1901-1902.
Quaritch, London.
[34] J. A. I. xxxi. 196, et seq.
[35] Golden Bough, iii. 419, note 5.
[36] Hose and McDougall, op. cit. p. 211.
[37] Mr. Haddon's theory involves the existence of barter between groups that
had special articles of food. Under 'Hypothetical early groups' I show proof of
the extreme hostility of adjacent groups in some regions. The merchant, with his
articles of barter, would there himself be eaten. Mr. Atkinson's cook was eaten by
his neighbours. Mr. Haddon does not hold that the primitive human groups were
thus mutually hostile. Here we differ in opinion.
[38] J. A. I. xiii.; Folk Lore, 10, 491.
[39] Macbain, Etymological Dictionary, 1896, quoting manuscript of 1456.
[40] Descent of Man, ii. 362.
[41] Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 50.
[42] This is the opinion not only of Mr. Darwin but of Major Powell and Mr.
McGee.
[43] Spencer and Gillen, p. 57, note.
[44] J. A. I. May 1897, p. 181.
[45] Blason Populaire de la France, p. 5. Paris, Cerf, 1884.

[46] Pseudonyms were given to avoid arousing local attention, when I put forth
these facts in The Athenæum. For reasons, I retain the pseudonyms; but for the
real village names see p. 173, note 1.
[47] Some objections are noticed later.
[48] Report of American Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-1894, p. 213 et seq.
[49] Thirteenth Report of the Committee of Devonshire Folk-Lore, Devonshire
Association for the Advancement of Science, 1895, xxvii. 61-74.
[50] Many other animal and vegetable names—totem names in America, village
names in England—have already been cited. See p. 170.

CHAPTER IX

THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS

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

sons, 'if they can get it'—the money being the native shell currency. The
tendency towards the substitution, as heirs, of a man's sons for his sister's
sons, is powerful.[2]
This is a curious and anomalous condition of the family. As regards material
advantages (χορηγία) Melanesian society is greatly in advance of
Australian. It is in possession of houses, fruit trees, agricultural allotments,
domesticated animals, and a native currency. Thus there is much property to
be inherited, and where that is the case, and where the family has a house of
its own, the desire of men to leave their goods and dwellings to their sons
usually results in the reckoning of descent on the sword side. Yet, in this
respect, the Melanesians of many regions are behind the naked, houseless
Arunta, and other Australian tribes with male descent.. What influences
caused these tribes to depart from the reckoning in the female line, still used
among their equally destitute neighbours, the Urabunna, is a most difficult
question; indeed the number of distinct grades, in relation to family laws
among the Australians, is an enigma. Among the Melanesians, at all events,
material advance and accumulation of property have often failed to bring
inheritance out of the female into the male line.
Insular conditions are apt to develop divergences from any given type—
local varieties—while the mixture of races, and the introduction into one
island, or part of it, of the customs of settlers from other islands, produces
peculiarities and anomalies in Melanesia. We expect, therefore, to find
Melanesian marriage rules rather dislocated and contaminated, and to see
that the archaic type is half obliterated. In fact, this is the case, and
Totemism, if it exists, survives in fragments and vestiges.
'Where are the totems?' Dr. Codrington asks, and we can only reply that
they seem to be half obliterated. 'Nothing is more fundamental than the
division of the people into two or more classes, which are exogamous, and
in which descent is counted through the women.'[3] This answers to the
Australian 'primary divisions,' or 'phratries.' But, in Australia, as we
showed, these divisions appear to be of totemic origin. If this was so, in
Melanesia, the evidence for the fact is much less distinct. In a large region
of the Solomon Islands 'there is no division of the people into kindreds, as
elsewhere, and descent follows the father.... The particular or local causes
which have brought this exceptional state of things are unknown.'[4]

Speaking generally, however, the two primary exogamous classes exist, and
to a Melanesian man, all women of his own generation count either as
'sisters' (barred) or as (potential) 'wives.' The appropriation of actual wives
to their actual husbands 'has by no means so strong a hold on native
society,' as the exogamous class divisions. By many students this license
will be considered a survival of 'group marriage.' Prenuptial unchastity is
wrong, but a breach of the exogamous rule used to be punished by death.
Wife-lending used to be common, as in Central Australia, if the wife and
guest were of opposite 'divisions.' Whether the license of certain feasts (as
among Australians and Fijians) smiles on breaches of the exogamous law,
does not seem quite certain.[5]
In Banks Island and the North New Hebrides, there are but the two 'primary
class divisions.' These have not names as in Australia—if once they had
names, the names are lost. We find merely 'divisions' (veve), two 'sides of
the house.' Every man knows his own division; all the women in it are tabu
to him; all the women of the other division, in the same generation, are
potential wives (with certain restrictions in practice).
In Merlav, one of the Banks Islands, there are 'families within the kin'
(answering to gentes—totem kins—in Australia). These families have local
names, as a rule: one has its name from the Octopus, but eats it freely.
It is not inconceivable that here we have broken down and obliterated
Totemism, among a settled agricultural people, probably dwelling, as a rule,
in close contiguity.
In Florida, and adjacent parts of the Solomon Islands, not merely two, but
six 'kema' or exogamous divisions ('phratries?') exist. Two of the six have
names derived from localities, two have animal names, Eagle and Crab: two
kema came in from abroad. All this points to contamination, and
rearrangement, under new circumstances. Each kema in Florida has one or
more buto, the clam, pig, pigeon, and so on, not to be eaten by members of
the kema. This looks like the 'totemic subdivisions' (that is, the totem
groups within the 'phratries') of the Australians. Again, these butos within
each kema, animals and plants not to be eaten, are exactly like the survivals
of Totemism in the names of the Siouan totem kins with male descent, 'Do
not eat small Birds,' 'Do not eat Dogs,' 'Do not eat Buffalo,' and so forth.
The buto of each kin within the Melanesian exogamous kemas, then, seems

to me to be the old totem of the kin, now relegated to a position more
obscure, in the changes of society, and, with one exception, not giving its
name and tabu to the kema. Only in one case is the animal which is the
buto, also the animal which gives its name to the kema. The Kakau kema
may not eat Kakau—the crab. The Manukuma (eagle) kema may eat the
eagle: one fancies that they find it tough. In the same way the Narrinyeri
and other tribes in Australia permit their totem kins to eat their totems.
Members of each kema are apt to speak of their butos (which they may not
eat) as their ancestors, as in Totemism, but this is a mere mythical
explanation of why they may not eat the buto. With half a dozen other
myths, it is used by totemists to explain why they may not eat their totems.
Dr. Codrington, on the other hand, writes, 'the buto of each kema is
probably comparatively recent in Florida, it has been introduced at Bugotu
within the memory of living men.'[6] Dr. Codrington, as we have already
seen, inclines to the theory which derives totems originally from
individuals. He cites Mr. Sleigh, of Lifu (mentioned by us before), who
writes, 'When a father was about to die, surrounded by members of his
family, he might say what animal he will be, say a butterfly or some kind of
bird. That creature would be sacred to his family, who would not injure or
kill it; on seeing or falling in with such a creature the person would say,
"That is kaka" (papa), and would, if possible, offer him a young cocoa-nut.
But they did not thus adopt the name of a tribe.'[7]
We need not repeat the objections to all such theories of the derivation of
pristine totem group names from individuals, The butos, ancestors, not to be
eaten, have all the air of archaic totems, now reduced to a lower plane, and,
save in one case out of six, not giving the name to a kema, in Florida. Thus
the butos of each kema would be, originally, totemic, but immigrations,
settled conditions, the tendency to male descent, and the introduction of
local or place names for some groups, of nicknames for others, broke down
the old totemic nomenclature, leaving only the Kakau, or crabs, true to their
colours and to their totem and totem name, while the other kemas got local
names or nicknames—the Hongokikki being named from the pastime of
Cat's Cradle—clearly a nickname. Apparently the pigeon is their buto. How
did these conditions arise?
Say that there were once four exogamous totem groups in Ettrickdale—
Grouse, Deer, Hares, Partridges. Say that there came in two alien groups,

Trout and Plover. Of these two, one might come to be called Quoits, from
their skill in that game.—Two of the original four might get local names,
from their places of residence, say Singlee and Tushielaw. One might keep
its old totem, Grouse, and its old totem name, abstaining from grouse. One
might get a new name, Roe Deer, but all, under the names of Tushielaw,
Singlee, Quoits, Roe Deer, and Grouse (with another not given), would
retain their old totems as butos, ancestral in some way, and not to be eaten.
But the new, not the totemic, names would now mark off the exogamous
kemas. Something of this kind must have occurred in Florida, under new
social conditions, and the stress of immigrants. But Dr. Codrington gives a
case in which the banana was tabued, just before his death, by 'a man of
much influence who said that he would be in the banana.'[8]
This origin of Totemism (namely, in animism, a man of influence tabuing,
and bequeathing to his descendants for ever, the animal or plant that is to be
his soul vehicle) is approved of, as the original cause of Totemism, by Dr.
Wilken. But could it arise in a much lower state of society, wherein 'men of
much influence' are rare, and are readily forgotten? Now in Melanesia,
generally, a man's fame, however great, perishes with those who remember
him in his life.[9] Again, this sort of tabuing the banana affected 'all the
people' of the isle Ulawa, and so could not be the base of an exogamous
prohibition, unless all brides were to be brought in from foreign islands. If
the prohibition was confined to known descendants of the banana man, then
we have the patriarchal family, founded by a known ancestor, and
exogamous. Now, in Ulawa, descent is reckoned in the male line, and there
are no exogamous divisions.[10] 'This is an exceptional state of things,' says
Dr. Codrington (p. 22), yet he thinks it (p. 32) 'in all probability'—plus the
tabuing of an object by a dying patriarch—the cause of the buto prohibition
in the kemas of Florida. Thus a solitary case from an isle without
exogamous divisions ('the only restriction on marriage is nearness in
blood'), and with male descent, is supposed by Dr. Codrington to cause the
buto prohibition in an island with exogamous divisions, and with female
descent.[11]
His theory is manifestly inconsistent with his facts—moreover, it involves
the existence of the patriarchal system at the time when totems first arose.

On the whole, this reasoning does not convince, but, if Dr. Codrington is
right, Melanesian institutions are shattered, dislocated, contaminated, and
worn down to a remarkable degree. Yet, behind them, where the two, or the
six exogamous divisions prevail, with descent counted in the female line,
we can scarcely help recognising a basis of Australian customary law, with
obsolescence of the totem, slowly tending towards inheritance through the
father. 'A chief's sons are none of them of his own kin; and, as will be
shown, he passes on what he can of his property and authority to them.'[12]
In spite of the 'generation names,' 'father,' 'brothers and sisters,' 'children,'
the real distinctions of own father, cousin, and so forth, are understood, and
expressed, as they usually are, everywhere.[13]
Thus Melanesia shows us some of the ways out from Totemism, exogamy,
and descent in the female line. It also shows us, what Australia does not,
ghost worship: most prominently in Saa, where, with descent in the male
line, and hereditary chiefship, eleven generations of ancestors are
remembered, 'by the invocation of their successive names in sacrifices.'[14]
This is a solitary case of such genealogical knowledge among Melanesians,
as distinct from Polynesians. It is made possible by the sacrifices to the
ancestors. Now, in Australia, there are no such sacrifices. Without them
ancestors among low savages cannot be remembered, and could not hand
down, as an hereditary totem, the animal or other object which is their 'soul-
box,' or the vehicle of the ancestral soul after death. There appears to myself
to exist, in Melanesia, a notable tendency to adore, nay, almost to deify, a
dead man, as a tindalo. Dr. Codrington cites, from Bishop Selwyn, a case in
which a renowned brave man was slain in action. A house, or shrine, was
built over his head, and he was canonised, or made a tindalo.
His claims to sanctity were automatically certified by canoe tilting, in
principle like our table tilting. The men in the canoe cease paddling, 'in a
quiet place,' and, when the canoe begins to tilt, they call over a roll of
names of tindalos (human ghosts). At the name of the dead warrior,'the
canoe shook again.' A successful raid followed, a new shrine was built for
the warrior, and fish and food were sacrificed to him. By this means a great
man's memory is, now and then, contrary to general custom, kept green in
this region of Melanesia. Occasionally he seems to be on the way towards
godship, as a departmental deity, perhaps as god of war.[15] Pigs are
common victims, now, in sacrifice. We do not hear of any 'totem sacrifice,'

if ever such a thing anywhere existed. In the case of a tindalo called
Manoga, deification seems close at hand. His 'dwelling is the light of setting
suns,' or of the dawn: or in high heaven, or in the Pleiades, or Orion's belt. It
is a remarkable circumstance that this discarnate spirit is the tindalo or saint
of a kema, or exogamous division, one of the six of Florida, and all of the
six possess their tindalo, a ghost patron in receipt of sacrifice, as well as
their buto, or animal not to be eaten.[16]
Still more remarkable it is that, in certain Melanesian isles of the New
Britain group, the two exogamous divisions are neither anonymous, nor
totemic, nor of local names, nor bear nicknames, but are named after the
two opposing powers of Dualism, the God and Devil of savage theology. Of
these Te Kabinana is 'the founder, creator, or inventor of all good and useful
things, usages, and institutions.' On the other hand To Kovuvura is the
Epimetheus of this savage Prometheus: Te Kabinana created good land: To
Kovuvura created bad land, mountains and everything clumsy and ill
formed. These powers captain the two exogamous divisions, an office
assumed by two totems in the neighbouring Duke of York group.[17]
Nothing can prove more clearly the blending of different stages of thought
in Melanesia.
On the whole, Totemism is breaking down, and something very like
Polytheism, of an animistic type, is beginning to emerge, in Melanesia.
There is a tindalo of the sea, of war, and of gardens,—Poseidon, Ares, and
Priapus in the making. Sacrifice and prayer exist, neither is found (perhaps
with an exception as regards prayers for the souls of the dead) in Australia.
On the other hand, only the smallest of small change for the Australian
conception of such makers and judges as Baiame is noted in Melanesia,
mainly in the myths of and prayers to Qat, and myths of a creative
unworshipped female being. These are Vuis, not ghosts; they are spirits
never incarnate, unlike the tindalos.[18] Qat appears to hover between the
estate of a lowly creative being, born of a rock, and that of a culture hero,
and rather resembles the Zulu Unkulunkulu. Thus Melanesia seems, in
society and beliefs, to show an advance from Totemism, nomadic life, and
from an unworshipped female creative being, towards Animism and
Polytheism, and descent reckoned in the male line: agricultural and settled
existence, with mixture of race, and foreign contamination of custom, being
marked agents in the developement.

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

HOW THE ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES WAS FORGOTTEN

It appears, at least to the mind of the maker of an hypothesis, that the names
of Melanesian kemas, as well as the new names of American 'gentes' (totem
kins with male descent), indicate the probability that, from the first—as
among our villagers—group names were given (in the majority of cases)
from without, as in many American and some Melanesian cases they
certainly are. We see that it is so: no group would call itself 'Cat's Cradle
Players,' or 'Eaters of Hide-scrapings,' or 'Bone Pickers,' as in Florida;
among the Sioux; and in Western England. We cannot possibly expect to
find any groups in the process of becoming totemic and of having plant and
animal names given to them from without. But we certainly do observe that
names, or nicknames, relatively recent, are given to savage groups, on their
way out of Totemism—the totem name often still lingering on in America,
like the butos in Melanesia—and that these names, or nicknames, are given
from without. Nearer to demonstration that the totem names were given in
the same way (as 'Whig' and 'Tory' were given), we cannot expect to come.
It may be said that my conjecture is only a form of that suggested (if I
understand him) by Mr. Herbert Spencer. An individual had an animal name
or nickname. He died: his ghost was revered by his old name, say Bear. He
was forgotten, and his descendants, who kept up his worship, came to think
that they were descended from a real bear, and were akin to bears. I need
not once more reiterate the objections to this theory, but, like my own
suggestion, it involves forgetfulness of a fact,—here the fact that 'Bear' was
a human ancestor. Against the chances of this forgetfulness was the
circumstance that individuals were constantly being named Bear, Wolf,
Eagle, and so on, in daily experience, usually with a qualifying epithet,
'Sitting Bull,' 'Howling Wolf,' and so forth. These facts might have

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

OTHER SOURCES OF SACREDNESS IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS

Now any such superstitious respect for an animal, whatever its origin, will
take the same inevitable forms; and thus, if individuals select nyarongs,
naguals, and so on, they must necessarily behave to these things as they do
to their hereditary totems. There is no other way in which they can behave,
if they regard the animals as mysteriously friendly and protective, though
the idea that they are friendly and protective has different origins, in either
case.
Thus the exigencies of my guess as to the origin of Totemism, compel me to
disagree with a dictum of Mr. Frazer, 'if the relations are similar, the
explanation which holds good of the one ought equally to hold good of the
other.'[19] The conclusion is not necessary. You may revere a rat (your
totem), and a cat (your nagual) for quite different reasons, and in quite
different capacities, you being the kinsman of your totem, the protégé of
your nagual; but, if you revere them, your reverence can only show itself in
the same ways. There are no other ways.[20]

RECAPITULATION

Does my guess at the origin of totems seem out of harmony with human
nature? You, belonging to a local group, must call other groups by one
name or another. Plant and animal names come very handy. The names
fluctuate at first, but are at last accepted by the groups to which they are
applied. The origin of the names being forgotten, an explanation of them is
needed, and, as in every case where it is needed, it is provided in myths.
The myths, once believed in, are acted upon; they become the parents of
tabus, magic, rites of various kinds. Social rules must be developed, some
already exist; and each group called by an animal, plant, or other such
name, becomes, under that name, a social unit, and accepts, as such, the
customary legislation, just as a parish does. You must not marry within the
totem name: either because of the totem tabu in general, or because the
totem comes to be conceived of as denoting kinship, and (for one reason or
another) you had already a tendency not to marry within the limit of the
group. The usual totem rules may be thwarted by other rules derived from a
peculiar system of animism, very philosophically elaborated, as among the
Arunta of Central Australia. The institution, in short, may develop or may
dwindle, may persist in practice, or fade into faint survival, or blend with
analogous superstitions, or wholly vanish, in varying conditions. Totemism
affects art; to some extent it may have affected religious evolution. It is
certainly a source of innumerable myths.
But, if my guess holds water, Totemism arose out of names given from
without, these names being of a serviceable sort, as they could be, and are,
not only readily expressed in words, but readily conveyed in gesture
language from a considerable distance. The names could be 'signalled.'[21]
'There is an Emu man: look out!' This could easily and silently be expressed
in gesture language. Place-names, and many nicknames, could not so be
signalled.
This theory, of course, is not in accordance with any savage explanations of
the origin of their totem. It could not be! Their explanations are such fables
as only men in their intellectual condition could invent: they are myths, they
involve impossibilities. My hypothesis (or myth) does not, I think, involve
anything impossible or far-fetched, or incapable of proof in a general way.
It is human, it is inevitable, that plant and animal names should be given,
especially among groups more or less hostile. We call the French 'frogs.' It
is also a fact that names given from without come to be accepted. It is a fact

that names, once accepted, are explained by myths; it is a fact that myths
come to be believed, and that belief influences behaviour.

AN OBJECTION ANSWERED

Here I foresee an objection; it will be said that, on the other hand, behaviour
produces myths. Men find themselves performing some apparently idiotic
rite: they ask themselves, 'Why do we do this thing?' and they invent a myth
as an answer. Certainly they do, but you believe in a God, or in Saints, and
act (or you ought to act) in a manner pleasing to these guardians of conduct.
You don't believe in a God, because you behave well, and it is not because
you behave well to a totem that you believe in a totem. You treat him as
game, not as vermin, because you believe in him, and your belief is based
on the myth which your ancestors invented to account for their having a
totem.
My guess has the advantage of going behind the age of settled dwellings,
agriculture, kinship through males, and the causal action of individuals. It
reverts to the group stage of human life. Groups give and accept the names;
invent the myths, act on their belief in the myths, and so introduce the
sanction of what had perhaps been a mere tendency towards exogamy. On
the other hand, my guess has the disadvantage of dealing with a
hypothetical stage of society, behind experience. But this cannot be
avoided, for if we base our hypotheses of the origin of Totemism on our
experience of the ways of societies which have passed, or are passing, out
of Totemism, our theories must necessarily be invalidated. It may be replied
that I have myself given illustrations of my theory from the folk-lore of
civilised society. But the only begetters of these illustrative cases are boys
—and boys are in the savage stage, 'at least as far as they are able.'
In a tone more serious, it may be reiterated that no theory of the origin of
Totemism is likely to be correct which derives the totem, in the first
instance, in any way, from the individual, the private man. Long ago, Mr.
Fison wrote, 'Sir John Lubbock considers that the "worship of plants and
animals is susceptible of a very simple explanation, and has really
originated from the practice of naming, first individuals, and then their
families, after particular animals."'[22] Mr. Fison replied, 'This is surely a
reversal of the true order. The Australian divisions show that the totem is, in

the first place, the badge of a group, not of an individual. The individual
takes it, in common with his fellows, only because he is a member of the
group. And, even if it were first given to an individual, his family, i.e. his
children, could not inherit it from him,' when descent is reckoned on the
female side.[23]
It is a commonplace, perhaps an overworked commonplace, that the group,
not the individual, is the earlier social unit. Yet the hypotheses of Lord
Avebury, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Dr. Wilken, Mr. Boas, Miss Alice Fletcher,
and Messrs. Hose and McDougall, all derive from individuals, in one way
or other, the most archaic names of human groups. The hypothesis of Mr.
Max Müller leaves the origin of the group name unexplained. The later
hypothesis (especially provisional), of Mr. Frazer, does start from the group
name, but I am not certain whether we are to understand that each group
name is derived from the plant Or animal or selected by the group as the
object of its magical rites, or whether, for some unknown reason, each
group already bore the name of the animal, or plant, or element, before
entering on the great co-operative industrial system. Now it seems to me
certain that the names, in each case, were originally not names of
individuals, or in any way derived from individuals, but were names of
groups. As to how pristine groups might obtain such names I have offered
what, in the nature of the case, has to be only a conjecture. But named, as
soon as men had intelligence and speech, the groups, as groups, had to be,
and the actual names are such as, whether in savagery or in full civilisation,
are given to individuals, and are also, in civilised rural society, given to
local groups, to members of parishes and villages. So far, the cause which I
suggest is a vera causa of collective group names.

OTHER OBJECTIONS ANSWERED

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

all, and I shall look forward to studying it, as I have always enjoyed your
studies.
'But I confess I don't much believe in these accidents causing or rather
entering into so widely spread a system as Totemism. Cut away the name
and nothing is left to Totemism except myth, survivals, and a social
grouping without any apparent cement. Blood kinship as a basis of society
surely arose much later, unless Dr. Reevers's remarkable evidence from the
Haddon expedition to New Guinea helps the matter. He found, you
remember, blood kinship traceable by definite genealogies beneath, so to
speak, a system of Totemism, and but for the most minute examination
blood kinship would have escaped observation once more and Totemism
only would have been reported. Is this blood kinship the true social basis
and Totemism only a veneer?
'I have goodly notes on Totemism and non-Totemism, and I confess it
difficult to eliminate the name as an important part of the system. It covers
every part—is the shell into which all the rest fits. Now I have too much
respect for our savage friends to think they used myth any further than we
do. We go every Sunday saying "I believe," but we don't build up much
upon this. Our social fabric, nay our religion, is not of this. And so of the
savage. If I grant you the myth of descent from an animal to have arisen out
of a pre-existing name system, I am no nearer the understanding of totem-
kinship as the basis of a social group.'
These are natural objections, on a first view of my suggestions. Totemism is
a social system, but there was an age before totemism, an age of
undeveloped totemism; into these we try to peer. But the method of name-
giving which I postulate is hardly 'a trifle of the human mind.' It is, as I
have proved, a widely diffused, probably an universal tendency of the
human mind. Not less universal, in the savage intellectual condition, is the
belief in the personality and human characteristics of all things whatsoever;
man is only one tribe in the cosmic kinship, and is capable of specially
close kinship with animals. Nobody denies this, and the resulting myths to
explain the connection of the groups and their totems are not only natural,
but inevitable—the real origin of the connection, 'in the dark backward and
abysm of time,' being forgotten. We may go to church, and say 'I believe,'
and we may not act up to our creeds. 'And so of the savage.' But it is not 'so
of the savage.' His belief in a myth of kinship with an Emu is carried into

practice, and regulates his conduct, magical and social. This is not
contestable. In the same way a Christian who believes in the efficacy of
masses for the welfare of his dead friends, pays for masses. At the lowest,
he 'thinks the experiment well worth trying.' To other myths, say as to the
origin of the spots on a beast, a savage may 'give but a doubtsome credit.'
They are not of a nature to affect his conduct in any way. But the totem
myths do affect his conduct, quite undeniably, and, even if there are
sceptics, public opinion and customary law compel them to regulate their
behaviour on the lines of the general belief. We are not to be told that
nobody believes in anything! The 'social grouping' consequent on the
beliefs is not 'without any apparent cement.' The cement is the belief in the
actual kinship of all persons having the same totem name, and sacred totem
blood, even if they belong to remote and hostile tribes. All wolves are
brethren in the wolf; all bears are brethren in the bear; and so men-bears are
sisters to women-bears, and brothers may not marry sisters. Here is
'apparent cement' of the very best quality, and in abundance, given the
acknowledged condition of the savage intellect.
Manifestly these ideas belong, as a whole, to 'a later myth-making age '—
that is to an age later than the dateless period of the hypothetical
anonymous groups. But, between that hypothetical period and the evolution
of the idea of group kinship with animals and plants, and with all men of
the same animal and plant stock names, there is time enough and to spare
for the full evolution of Totemism.
Again, to a Darwinian, the enormous influence of 'accidents' in evolution
ought not to be a matter hard of belief; without 'accidents' (in the Darwinian
sense of the word), there would be no differentiation at all, and no
evolution. The Darwinian 'accident' seems to mean a variation of unknown
cause. But the giving of plant and animal group names is hardly an
'accident' of this kind. 'What else are you to call it?' the player asked, when
questioned as to the origin of the words 'a yorker.' And by what names so
handy and serviceable as plant and animal names were pristine men to call
the neighbouring groups?
I have shown why place names were less handy, and how, in nomadic life,
they were scarcely possible. Local names come in as Totemism goes out.
Long nicknames, 'Boil-food-with-the-paunch-skin,' 'Take down their
leggings,' 'Travel-with-very-light-baggage,' 'Shot-at-some-white-object'

(Siouan nicknames of gentes), are much less handy, much less easy to be
signalled by gesture language, and are certainly much later than 'Emu,'
'Wolf,' 'Kangaroo,' 'Eagle,' 'Skunk,' and other totem names. If such totem
names were, originally, the favourite form of nomenclature for hostile
groups (like our 'Sick Vulture' for a famous scholar, or 'Talking Potato,' for
Mr. J. W. Croker), I see not much of an 'accident' in the circumstance.
The totem names, then, came in upon a very early society: and myth, belief,
custom, and rite, crystallised round them, and round the idea of blood
kindred, which must be very early indeed.
My critic asks, 'Is blood kinship the true social basis, and Totemism only a
veneer?' That question I have already answered. In my opinion mankind, in
evolving prohibitions of marriage, first had their eyes on contiguity, that of
'hearth-mates.' Groups of hearth-mates were next distinguished by totem
names. But these names could give no superstitious sanction to customary
laws, till the idea of 'blood kinship' with, or descent from, or evolution out
of, or other form of kinship with the totem was developed. At this period,
the totem name roughly indicated ties of blood kinship. But the Australians,
as we saw, have now reached a clearer idea of what blood kinship is, and,
by a bye-law, prohibit marriages of 'too near flesh,' in cases where, though
the persons are akin by blood, totem law does not interfere. Totem law has
had an educating influence in developing the objection to marriages
between people contiguous as hearth-mates, into the objection to marriages
between persons too near in blood kinship. Thus Totemism is not 'only a
veneer.'
On the foundation of all these blended ideas, Totemism arose, a stately but
fantastic structure, varying in shape under changing conditions, like an
iceberg in summer seas. It is, indeed, 'a far cry' from anonymous human
groups, and groups of plant or animal names, to Helen, the daughter of the
swan, that was Zeus! But the pedigree is hardly disputable.
On the other hand, suppress the totem names, give the original groups such
titles as the Sioux 'Take-down-their-leggings,' or 'Boil-meat-in-the-paunch-
skin' (some names you must give them), and what is left? Suppose such
names to have been those of pristine groups, and suppose them to be
tending to exogamy. A 'Boil-meat-in-the-paunch-skin' man may not marry a
'Boil-meat-in-the-paunch-skin' girl; but must marry a 'Take-down-their-

leggings' girl, or a 'shoot-in-the-woods' girl, or a 'Do-not-split-the-body-of-
a-buffalo-with-a-knife-but-cut -it-up-as-they-please' girl! That is rather
cumbrous: marriage rules on that basis are not readily conceivable.
And where is here the tabu sanction? Brother Wolf or Brother Emu is a
thinkable, powerful, sacred kinsman, who will not have his tabu tampered
with. But there is no sanctity in Do-not-split-the-body-of-a-buffalo-with-a-
knife-but -cut-it-up-as-they-please!
Luckily we have here a case in point. My theory is that animal names being
once given to the groups, the animal, in accordance with savage ideas,
became a kinsman and protector. The animal or vegetable or other type, in
each case, sanctioned various tabus, including exogamy. Had the name been
another kind of nickname, as 'Boil-meat-in-the paunch-skin,' what was there
to sanction the tabu? Or, if the group name was a local name, where was the
sanction? Exogamy does persist where totem groups have become local,
and are now known by the names of their places of settlement. But not
always. Of an Australian tribe, the Gournditch Mara, we read that it
consisted of four local divisions, water (mere?), swamp, mountain, and
river. But there was no exogamous rule affecting marriage. A man of the
group dwelling in the swamp might marry a woman of the same group.
There was descent in the male line; wife-lending was highly condemned.
The office of headman was hereditary in the male line, 'before any whites
came into the country.' The benighted tribe was not devoid of superstition.
'They believed that there was a future good and bright place, to which those
who were good went after death, and that there was a Man at that place who
took care of the world and of all the people.' The place was called Mūmble-
Mirring. The dark, bad place was Burreet Barrat. 'This belief they had
before there was any white person in the country.'
As these statements are odious to most anthropologists, they cannot be true,
and thus a slur is cast on all that we learn about the Gournditch Mara. But
though a missionary (the Rev. Mr. Stähle) cannot, of course, be trusted here,
he had no professional motive for fictions about the marriage laws of the
tribe. They had no ceremonies of initiation, no seasons of license,
apparently no totems, and the merely local names of groups naturally
carried no exogamous prohibition: conveyed no tabu sanction.[24] Had there
never been any totem names, exogamy might never have arisen.

How my friendly critic is 'no nearer to the understanding of totem kinship
as the basis of a social group,' if, for the sake of the argument, he grants 'the
myth of descent from an animal to have arisen from a pre-existing name
system,' I am at a loss to comprehend. Here are groups, Bear, Wolf, Trout,
Racoon, firmly, though erroneously, believing that they are akin to these
animals. Naturally they 'behave as such.' Each racoon has duties to other
racoons, and to the actual racoons. He does not shoot a racoon if he can get
anything else; he does not shoot a racoon sitting. He is brother to racoons of
his own sex, and to sisters in the racoon of the other sex. He does not marry
them. The belief in the racoon kinship is the basis of that social group—the
man has other social groups of other kinds. Savages believe in their beliefs,
to the extent of dying from fear after infringing a tabu in which they
believe. Thus I would reply to the objections offered after a first glance at
my conjecture.

TOTEMS AND MAGICAL SOCIETIES

A man has other social groups than his own totem group in certain regions.
Totem groups among the Arunta, we have seen, work magic 'to secure the
increase of the plant or animal which gives its name to the totem.' The
Arunta have no myth as to the origin of these performances, styled
Intichiuma.[25] This, as far as Australia is concerned, seems to be a
peculiarity of the Arunta system alone, or all but alone, and, as we saw, it
has even been suggested that these rites are the origin of Totemism. But
such rites appear to be most firmly established and organised among
societies which are passing out of Totemism. Such a society is that of the
Omaha tribe of North America, where descent is reckoned in the male line.
[26]
Among the Omahas we find the Elk totem group with male kinship;
they may not touch a male Elk, or eat its flesh: if they do, as in New
Caledonia, they break out into sores. This kindred, with the Bears, 'worship
the thunder' in spring. Their special business and duty is 'to stop the rain.'
But, if they are a Weather Society, in this respect, that fact does not appear
in their totem names, Elk and Bear.
Other Omaha gentes, or 'subgentes,' are also totemic, and are named from
that which they may not eat, as wild turkeys, wild geese, cranes, and
blackbirds. The people of the black-bird totem actually do a little totem

magic, against their totem; they chew and spit out corn, to prevent the
blackbirds from feeding on the crops.[27] The reptile group does not touch
or eat reptiles, but, if worms injure the corn, they pound a few worms up
into flour, make a soup thereof, and eat it (is this 'totem sacrifice'?), all for
the good of the crops. The worm group does this magic (involving the
eating of its totem) not for the benefit of worms (as among the Arunta) but
to control the mischievous action of worms.
Now turning to Magical or Magico-Religious Societies among these
Indians, we find a Wind Society, but it contains members of many totems,
buffalo, eagle, hawk, and so on, plus 'The South wind people,' who,
apparently, may be a totem group of that name, which, as among the
Arunta, might work wind-magic.[28] But our authority, the late Mr. Dorsey,
calls all the members of this Wind Magic Society 'Wind gentes,' and surely
this breeds much confusion. By a gens he usually means a totem kin with
male descent (by 'clan,' he means a totem kin with female descent). Thus all
'wind gentes' ought to be wind totem groups: only wind totem groups ought
to be in the Wind Society, which is not the case: and all water gentes, or
earth, or fire gentes ought to be of water, earth, or fire totems. But this,
again, is not the case.
All sorts of totem kindreds enter into the earth, wind, fire, and water
Magical Societies, or Magico-Religious Societies. They belong to them as
members of any universities, or of certain selected universities, may belong
to an University Club: or, again, may be Catholics, Anglicans, Brownists, or
Presbyterians. These American Magical Societies, though composed of
members of totem kindreds, are not, in themselves, totemic societies.
Members of other totems serve in the societies which work magic for earth,
wind, fire, and so on. Among the Arunta, on the other hand, the magic for
each object is worked solely by the men who have that object for totem. To
a certain extent, however, this rule is changing, and members of other
totems may, at least, be present at each totem's Intichiuma, or magical rites.
[29]
'In addition to the members of the totem' (water) 'other men are invited
to come, though they will not be allowed to take any part in the actual
Intichiuma ceremony.' From presence, by invitation, to participation in the
rites (as in the American Shamanistic Societies), is a step which may come
to be taken, and thus the Arunta totem groups would become mere
'Shamanistic Societies.'

A most curious and interesting account of the Omaha Magical Societies is
given by Miss Alice Fletcher, in her essay, already cited, on 'The Import of
the Totem.' To obtain the 'personal totem' (manitu) a youth must first listen
to his elders. They tell him 'to go forth to cry to Wa-kon-da. You shall not
ask for any particular thing, whatever is good, that may Wa-kon-da give.'
Fiat voluntas tua!
'Four days and nights upon the hills the youth shall pray, crying, and, when
he stops, shall wipe his tears with the palms of his hands, lift his wet hands
to heaven, then lay them on the earth.'
To the ordinary mind, this describes such prayers as are the petitions of the
Saints. But, in accordance with the views of the official school of American
anthropology, it is averred that nothing of the kind is intended by the
Omaha. 'There is no evidence that they did regard the power represented by
that word (Wa-kon-da) as a supreme being, nor is there any intimation that
they had ever conceived of a single great ruling spirit,' says Miss Fletcher
(1897).
The prayer is evidence enough. Prayer is directed to a person, and whether
he is envisaged as 'a spirit,' or not, is a mere detail of metaphysical
terminology. If Miss Fletcher is right, Wa-kon-da is a pantheistic
conception, but as He, (or It) also listens to prayer, He (or It) is personal.
We see rather an anthropomorphic conception of deity, passing towards
pantheism, or to divinity no longer anthropomorphic, than a notion of
impersonal force immanent in the universe, passing towards
anthropomorphism—as in Miss Fletcher's theory. The idea of such a force,
or cosmic rapport (the Maori mana), is, indeed, familiar to us in the
speculations of the lower barbaric races. It does credit to their metaphysics,
but, prima facie, seems likely to be later in evolution than the idea of an
anthropomorphic Maker, like the Australian Baiame.
At all events, the Omaha appears to live, in prayer, on a high religious level,
and it is open to the friends of religious borrowing, to say that he took his
creed from Europeans. I am not certain that Miss Fletcher is indisposed to
agree with me on this point of Red Indian unborrowed theism. In her Indian
Song and Story,[30] she gives Pawnee songs, 'hitherto sealed from the
knowledge of the white race.' Here is one:

Lift thine eyes! 'Tis the gods who come near,
Bringing thee joy, release from all pain.
Sending sorrow and sighing
Far from the child, Ti-ra-wa makes fain.

Ah, you look, you know who comes,
Claiming you his, and bidding you rise,
Blithely smiling and happy,
Child of Ti-ra-wa, Lord of the Skies!
Ti-ra-wa is Hau-ars, 'a contraction of the word meaning father.' The song is
used to still children who cry at a religious ceremony.
However it be, the Omaha prays to Wa-kon-da, not for 'any particular thing,'
but for whatever, in the gift of Wa-kon-da, is good, and mainly for a manitu
('personal totem'). The Omaha also believe in telepathy. 'Thought and will
can be projected to help a friend.' A magical society exists, to concentrate
and direct this expenditure of energy, and the process is strengthened by
such things as the neophyte beholds in vision, after prayer to Wa-kon-da.
He sent an answer to prayer, a feather of a bird, a tuft of a beast's hair, a
crystal, a black stone, representing the species, or element of nature, which
was to be the neophyte's 'personal totem,' or manitu. If it were thunder, the
man could control the elements; if it were an eagle, he had an eagle eye for
the future; if it were a bear (or a badger), he was not so gifted.
Now, according to Miss Fletcher, the Bear Magical Society is composed of
men, who, after prayer, have seen the bear in dream or vision; those who
saw representatives 'of thunder or water beings' form the Society which
deals with the weather. 'The membership came from every kinship group'
(totem kin) 'in the tribe.' Thus the Magical Societies are composed of men
of any totem, and, the less purely totemic the tribe, the stronger is the
Magical Society.
The totem kins now, among the Omaha, have descent in the male line. All
this is 'late,' and 'late' is the totem priesthood held by 'hereditary chiefs of
the gens.' Miss Fletcher regards the totem of the 'gens,' with the beliefs
crystallised around it, as an ingenious 'expedient,' with a social 'purpose!'
the totem of each kindred having been inherited from the vision and manitu
of some ancestral chief. We need not again point out that, even now, among

the Omaha, advanced as they are, manitus are not hereditable, and that Miss
Fletcher's system cannot account for Totemism in tribes which reckon
descent on the spindle side. Miss Fletcher justly remarks that the real totem,
'the gentile totem,' 'gave no immediate hold upon the supernatural, as did
the individual totem' (manitu) 'to its possessor. It served solely as a mark of
kinship, and its connection with the supernatural was manifest only in its
punishment of the violation of tabu.'
In brief, the real totem, and the individual manitu, with its magical
societies, are two things totally apart, and apart we must keep them, in our
studies of early society. Not to do so is to make the topic incomprehensible.

TOTEM SURVIVALS

In other books, especially in Myth, Ritual, and Religion, and Custom and
Myth, I have examined apparent survivals of Totemism, in ancient Greece,
ancient Egypt, and other civilised countries. Of these the most notable are
the Greek myths of descent of families from animals, explained as the
temporary vehicles of Zeus or Apollo: and the worship of special animals
by each of the Nomes of Egypt. Other arguments I have offered, especially
in the case of Apollo and the Shrew Mouse. I remain of the opinion that
many of the Greek mythical and religious phenomena noted, are most
probably to be explained as survivals of a totemic past. Of course Totemism
is only one element in animal worship, and the Corn Spirit, disguised as
almost any animal you please, may be one of the other elements. But, as far
as I have studied the subject, I agree with Mr. Tylor in his 'protest against
the manner in which totems have been placed almost at the foundation of
religion. Totemism ... has been exaggerated out of proportion to its real
theological magnitude.... The rise and growth of ideas of deity, a branch of
knowledge requiring the largest range of information and the greatest care
in inference, cannot, I hold, be judged on the basis of a section of theology
of secondary importance—namely, animal worship—much less of a special
section of that—namely, the association of a species of animals (and of a
vast variety of other things) 'with a clan of men which results in Totemism.
A theoretical structure has been raised quite too wide and high for such a
foundation.'[31] The totem god himself I regard as only the hypothesis by
which certain barbaric races account to themselves for the survivals of
Totemism among them. The so-called 'totem sacrament' is not 'god-eating,'

but a piece of magic, used in ceremonies designed to foster—or to vex and
annoy—the totem. As Mr. Tylor writes, 'till the totem sacrament is vouched
for by some more real proof, it had better fall out of speculative theology.'

DID THE ANCESTORS OF THE CIVILISED RACES PASS THROUGH THE
AUSTRALIAN STAGE?

That the ancestors of the Aryan-speaking peoples passed through the 'stone
age' of culture, few will deny. That they also passed through the totemic
stage as regards marriage law is, however, a problem perhaps not to be
solved. For reasons unknown, the 'white' races (not to speak of Egyptians,
Babylonians, Chinese, and Japanese) have a peculiar aptitude for
civilisation, are peculiarly accessible to ideas. It might therefore be argued
that conceivably they were readily accessible to the idea of blood kinship.
The maternal affection, in a race whose children (unlike the offspring of the
lower animals) are so long in attaining maturity, cannot but suggest the idea
of blood kinship. Among totemic peoples it seems that this idea was
originally defined by the totem name, a definition at once too wide and too
narrow. It is not physically unthinkable that our own ancestors may have
been more acutely intelligent, and, if so, why should not they simply forbid
unions between persons too near akin in blood? We have found no such
moral or instinctive reason among totemic peoples who were, apparently,
led to exogamy, first by non-moral causes, or causes in which the moral
element was not explicit, and then, by aid of corollaries from rules thus
based, came to forbid marriages of 'too near flesh.' Without the training of
totemic institutions, it is hard to see how the Aryan-speaking peoples
(however naturally gifted from the first) arrived at the same conception of
incest. It seems absurd to suppose that black men and red men arrived at the
idea of incest, and at the laws which prohibit it, by the devious and
unpromising path of Totemism, while white men reached the same point in
some other way. Yet if it has appeared difficult to find traces of Totemism
among the Melanesians, much more difficult must it be to prove that races
with so long a civilised history as, for example, the Greeks, were once
under totemic institutions.
I have already indicated my inclination to believe that Totemism has left its
traces, in Greece, in the myths of descent from bulls, bears, swans, dogs,
ants, and so forth, and in certain peculiar aspects of animal worship. It is

usual for scholars to explain these facts away, as things borrowed by early
Greeks from some other race. But 'the receiver is as bad as the thief,' and if
Greeks were capable of accepting totemic ideas, they were capable of
evolving totemic institutions. We are not to invent an ideal 'Aryan,' and then
to explain all his traces of savagery as borrowings by him from some
unknown prior race. There is no reason at all for supposing that the peoples
who speak languages called, for convenience, 'Aryan,' were better bred than
any other peoples at the beginning.
It would greatly add to the force of the presumptions in favour of an 'Aryan'
totemic past, if we could point to apparent survivals not only in myth and
early art, but in actual institutions. Now there are Greek institutions, in
Attica, the 'deme,' the genos, and the phratria, which may be interpreted,
rightly or wrongly, as survivals of Totemism. We have seen that gens
(equivalent to the Greek γένος) and that phratria (Φρατρία) are used, by
certain students, to designate the totem kin, and the two 'primary
exogamous divisions' (say Dilbi and Kupathin) of Australia and North
America. To use gens thus is misleading, especially as 'totem kin' is
adequate and unambiguous. But we have here employed 'phratria' to
designate the 'primary exogamous division,' because no better word is
handy, while we do not maintain that the Attic phratria is a survival of the
institution usual in Australia.
Messrs. Fison and Howitt, in an instructive paper, have offered, as a
provisional hypothesis, the theory that the Attic deme (a local association)
may have arisen from the kind of local tribe (or horde) in Australia, while
the Attic phratries and γένη (associations depending on birth and kinship)
were survivals of the 'primary exogamous divisions' and totem kins.[32] The
present writer had made similar suggestions long ago.[33] Concerning the
γένος and Φρατρία we know but little: inevitably, for we have seen that,
even in Australia, still more in Melanesia, local names and local
communities are beginning to encroach on and usurp the authority of the
totem kin, and other associations based on common blood, real or reputed.
Infinitely more must this have been the case in Greece. If savage phratries
and totem kins once existed in Attica, they must have been nearly
obliterated long before the historical period. At most they would only
survive in connection with ritual and religion. Again, our definitions of

γένος and Φρατρία are derived from late grammarians and lexicographers.
Thus our means of knowledge are limited and darkling.
Messrs. Howitt and Fison start from the horde, or tribe, the horde meaning
the largest local Australian community, composed of subtribes, if we are not
merely to say 'tribe,' and leave 'horde' out of the question. The members of
the horde or tribe are, as we know, of many various totems, but of only two
'primary exogamous divisions' or phratries. Into these the members are
born, mostly taking the mother's phratry and totem. As a rule, both father
and mother belong to the tribe, but if a woman does come in out of an alien
tribe, her children, though deriving totem and phratry names through her,
are of their father's local tribe. An alien woman may be assigned, by the
elder men, to this or that totem: or to the totem corresponding to that which
she had in her own local tribe. The children of male aliens follow the totem
of their mother, a member of the tribe.
In Attica, too, was a local community, the deme—thus Thucydides was a
Halimusian by deme. The historical demes were organised by Cleisthenes,
on a local basis. Some of them bore the names of the γένη which occupied
them, and often the names were derived from plants. Either these plants
were characteristic of the localities, or conceivably the γένη had old totemic
plant names, like the plum and other vegetable totems of the Australians.
All about the local demes, the members of the phratriæ were scattered, like
members of various totem names among the Australian local tribes. An
alien could belong to a local deme, but not to a Φρατρία. His children, if by
marriage with a free woman, were reckoned in her father's Φρατρία male
descent prevailing, of course, in Attica. In Australia the tribes-woman's
children by an alien would usually go to her totem and 'primary exogamous
division.' The child of an alien woman, in Attica, even if the father was high
born, could not be admitted to a Φρατρία: which certainly looks like a
survival of the archaic reckoning by female descent. To try to insert an alien
child in a deme was a civil, in a Φρατρία was a religious offence.[34] The
ancient court of the Areopagus had to do with these offences against
customary religion. Messrs. Fison and Howitt draw a parallel between the
Areopagus and the Great Council of the Dieri tribe, whose headman was
inspired by 'the great spirit Kuchi,' of whom one would like to know more.
An Attic boy was presented to his Φρατρία at once; full membership of the
local deme came with adolescence, and after military training and service.

As we know, a series of initiations, and instruction 'as to the existence of a
great spirit,' with a probation of a year, are to be passed before the
Australian lad is allowed to marry and attend the assembly of his local tribe.
Better examples of initiation, and of a retreat in the hills in company with
an adult, and instructor, are to be found in Sparta than in Athens. But the
Australian 'and Attic analogies are pretty close. On the most important point
there is no analogy. There were plenty of Φρατρίαι, of 'phratries' each
Australian tribe has only two. Again, these two are exogamous: that is their
main raison d'être. We have not a glimpse of exogamy in the Φρατρία of
Attica.
The γένος, we may agree, I think, with Messrs. Fison and Howitt, was,
originally, like the totem kin, an association of persons supposed to be
related by ties of blood. The grammarian Pollux says 'they who belonged to
the γένος were styled γεννῆται' (men of the γένος, and 'men of the same
milk'), 'not that they were related γένει, but they were so called from their
union (or assemblage—ἐκ δὲ τῆς συνόδον).' What is meant by γένει μὲν οὐ
προσήκοντες 'not genealogically related'? I conceive Pollux to mean that the
members of the γένος were not all of traceable or recognised degrees of
kinship. Thus a Cameron, if asked whether he is related to another
Cameron, may say, and not so long ago would have said, 'he is not my
relation, but my clansman.' Messrs. Fison and Howitt take much the same
view. By 'relations,' Pollux meant 'such as parents, sons, brothers, and those
before them, and their progeny,' that is, from grandfathers and granduncles
to grandsons and great-nephews. This might be the notion of relationship in
the time of Pollux, the second century of our era, but, as Messrs. Fison and
Howitt justly remark, Attic ideas of kinship before the συνοικισμὸς ascribed
to Theseus would be much more extensive, as in Scotland and Britanny.
The humblest Stewart, Douglas, Ruthven, or Hamilton would call himself
'the King's poor cousin.' But the Greeks of our second century were more
modern, more like the English.
Yet the very words γένος and gens indicate the idea of blood relationship,
just as 'clan' does. The γένη had common sacra, and a common place of
burial. They were clans, but we have no proof that they were ever
exogamous or totemic. However, the myths and rituals of Greece certainly
yield facts of which a totemic past seems the most plausible explanation.
Mr. Jevons writes, 'we find fragments of the system' (Totemism), 'one here

and another there, which, if only they had not been scattered, but had been
found together, would have made a living whole. Thus we have families
whose names indicate that they were originally totem clans, e.g. there were
Cynadæ at Athens, as there was a Dog clan among the Mohicans; but we
have no evidence to show that the dog was sacred to the Cynadæ.... On the
other hand, storks were revered by the Thessalians, but there is nothing to
show that there was a stork clan in Thessaly.'[35] Wolves were buried
solemnly in Attica, where there was a wolf hero, and lobsters were buried in
Seriphos, like the gazelle in Arabia. But we have no evidence of a wolf kin
in Attica, though we have in Italy (the Hirpi) nor of a lobster kin in
Seriphos. (For other traces, fairly numerous, I may refer to my Custom and
Myth, and Myth, Ritual, and Religion, while deprecating the idea that all
worship or reverence of animals is of totemistic origin.)
It will probably be admitted that, if Greeks (or ancient dwellers on Greek
soil) were at some remote period totemistic, and next, by reckoning descent
in the male line, became attached to localities, then something like demes,
phratries, and γένη might very naturally be evolved. And many traces in
ritual, myth, and custom do point to Totemism in the remote past. Indeed, it
is remarkable that we should still be able to point to so many apparent relics
of institutions already almost obliterated among the Melanesians.
On the whole, I regard it as more probable than not, that, in the education of
mankind, Totemism has played a part everywhere; a beneficent part. But
this is only a private opinion: one believes in it as one believes in telepathy,
without asserting that the evidence is of constraining value.

[1] Mr. Haddon agrees on this point.
[2] Codrington, The Melanesians, chaps, iii. iv.
[3] Op. cit. p. 21.
[4] Op. cit. p. 22.
[5] Ibid. p. 26.
[6] Op. cit. p. 32.
[7] Tylor, J. A. I., August, November. 1898, p. 147.
[8] Op. cit. p. 33.
[9] Ibid. p. 40.
[10] Ibid. p. 22.

[11] Dr. Codrington's exact words are 'The buto is in all probability a form of the
custom which prevails in Ulawa,' and the banana story follows.
[12] Op. cit. pp. 33, 59-68.
[13] Ibid. pp. 36-37.
[14] Ibid. p. 50.
[15] Op. cit. pp. 124-130.
[16] Danks, J. A. I. xviii. 3, 281-282.
[17] Ibid. pp. 131-132.
[18] Codrington, op. cit. pp. 154-156.
[19] Golden Bough, iii. 416-417.
[20] Mrs. Langloh Parker writes, concerning the Euahlayi Baiame-worshipping
tribe of New South Wales: 'A person has often a second or individual totem of
his name, not hereditary, and given him by the wirreenuns' (medicine men),
'called his yunbeai, any hurt to which injures him, and which he may never eat—
his hereditary totem he may. He is supposed to be able, if he be a great
wirreenun, to take the form of his yunbeai, which will also give him assistance in
time of trouble or danger, is a sort of alter ego, as it were.' In this tribe the
yunbeai (nyarong, nagual, manitu) is of more importance to the individual than
his hereditary totem, which, however, by Baiame's law, regulates marriage, as
elsewhere (Folk-Lore, x. 491, 492). The tribe studied by Mrs. Langloh Parker
speaks a dialect (Euahlayi) akin to the Kamilaroi, but the Kamilaroi of Mr.
Ridley are seated three or four hundred miles away.
[21] Roth, Ethnological Studies, 71-90. Dr. Roth gives the signs for the animals,
but does not say that they are used for signalling totem names; indeed, he says
nothing about totems.
[22] Origin of Civilisation, p. 183.
[23] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 165. In his edition of 1902, Lord Avebury does
not reply to these arguments.
[24] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 274-278.
[25] Spencer and Gillen, ch. vi.
[26] Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-1882, p. 225.
[27] Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-1882, pp. 238-239.
[28] Dorsey, 'Siouan Cults,' Bureau of Ethnology, 1889-1890 (1894), p. 537.
[29] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 169, 191.
[30] Nutt, 1900, pp. 108-112.
[31] J. A. I., August, November, 1898, p. 144.
[32] J.A.I. xiv. 142, 181.
[33] Politics of Aristotle, Bolland and Lang, 1876; 'Family' in Encyclopædia
Britannica.
[34] Dem. Centra Neæram 17.

[35] Introduction to the History of Religion, pp. 125-126.

PRIMAL LAW

CHAPTER I

MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE

Mr. Darwin on the primitive relations of the sexes.—Primitive man
monogamous or polygamous.—His jealousy.—Expulsion of young males.
— The author's inferences as to the evolution of Primal Law.—A customary
Rule of Conduct evolved.—Traces surviving in savage life.—The customs
of Avoidance.—Custom of Exogamy arose in the animal stage.—Brother
and Sister Avoidance.—The author's own observation of this custom in
New Caledonia.—Strangeness of such a custom among houseless nomads
in Australia—Rapid decay under European influences.
'Man, as I have attempted to show, is certainly descended from some
Apelike Creature. We may, indeed, conclude, from what we know of the
jealousy of all Male Quadrupeds, armed as many of them are with special
weapons for battling with their rivals, that promiscuous intercourse in a
state of Nature is extremely improbable. Therefore, looking far enough back
in the Stream of Time, and judging from the Social habits of Man as he now
exists, the most probable view is that he aboriginally lived in small
communities, each with a single wife, or, if powerful, with several, whom
he jealously guarded against all other Men. Or he may not have been a
social animal[1] and yet have lived with several wives like the Gorilla—for
all the natives agree that but one adult male is seen in a band; when the
young male grows up, a contest takes place for the mastery, and the
strongest, by killing or driving out the others, establishes himself as head of
the Community.

'Younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at
last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close interbreeding within
the limits of the same family.'[2]
Mr. Darwin, in the foregoing sentences, affirms the improbability of
Promiscuity in the Sexual Relations of Man during the Animal Stage, and,
incidentally, the Unity of the Human Race in its origin. Both theories are
contested. The following thesis, however, on the Genesis of Primal Law in
Human Marriage, treats of a conjectural series of events in the Ascent of
Man, events which involve a state of the inter-sexual relationships amidst
our primitive ancestors identical with that portrayed in the Descent of Man.
My essay includes further, as regards the continued evolution of society, the
development of a theory, based on my 'Primal Law,' which, if correct,
would seem also to confirm Mr. Darwin's ideas as to Unity of Origin.
I am content, for my part, to hope that my hypothesis, however novel some
of its conclusions, is in its general tenor in accord with the views of so great
a naturalist as Mr. Darwin. His exposition of the probable relations, within
the family group, of the male and female prototypes of mankind, and more
especially of the antagonistic attitude, inter se, of the older and younger
males, is indeed literally prophetic of the Primal Law, whose existence I
surmise. This law is the inevitable corollary of Mr. Darwin's statement, if
Man was ever to emerge from the Brute. My theory, in fact, viewed as to its
genesis, is simply evolved from a consideration of the potential results of
the attitude of such creatures as our ancestors then were, when subjected to
the effects of those changes of environment, which alone, to my deeming,
could have fixed modifications towards the human type. Mr. Darwin's
premises, indeed, as to the Early Social economy of our Race in the animal
stage, inevitably entail, if progress was to be made, the evolution of law in
regulation of Marriage relationship, having regard to the fierce sexual
jealousy of the males, on the one hand, and on the other to the patent truth
that in the peaceful aggregation of our ancestors alone lay the germ of
Society.
This would above all be the case if, reasoning by analogy, we provisionally
accept, as the probable nearest approach to man's direct ancestors, the actual
Anthropoids. These, such as the Gorilla, are undoubtedly amongst the most
unsocial of animals as regards the attitude of the adult males inter se. From
the very difficulty of the problem of the congregation of such creatures in

friendly unison within the group, we may infer that, in its solution, there
will be found the key to the whole question of the Ascent from Brute to
Man. In that ascent, Habit, the parent of Law, must have been conquered,
and modified into the direction of novel Custom, a shock to the older
economy of life. Again, the new rule of conduct, necessarily inchoate
(considering the presumed feeble intellectuality of the creatures concerned,
animals more or less brutish) must yet be of facile interpretation to its
subjects, though, as befits Homo alalus, it must have been quite mute in
operation. The new Rule of Conduct would not be expressed in terms of
speech, a function, ex hypothesi not yet evolved. The rule, as it was to my
mind, I here propose to attempt to unfold as the 'Primal Law;' hoping to
show that therein lay the beginning of law and order, and that, whilst itself
arising in a natural manner, in its incidental creation of a first standard of a
possible right and wrong, it laid, so to speak, one of the foundations of that
moral sense, which has seemed to place so wide a space between man and
other creatures.
The prior existence of this law, in the semi-brutish stage of our physical and
ethical evolution, might have been deductively evolved, even if no traces of
it had remained to our day. It will be, however, my endeavour to point out
that evidence of its existence (abundant as it appears to me) is to be found
in certain obscure customs which are common to most actual savage races.
The customs of so-called 'avoidance' between near relations will have the
principal interest for us, although primitive marriage and inheritance will be
found of corroborative value. Survivals and myths can be shown to point to
the undeniable occurrence of this 'Primal Law' in the earlier life-history of
the non-civilised peoples. The myths, however, may be merely early
guesses about the unknown past of the race.
Amongst marriage customs that which has given rise to most discussion as
regards its origin is 'Exogamy' or marriage outside the family group, or
outside the limit of the totem name. My general argument, as will be seen,
places me in antagonism with all theories yet advanced on the subject. But
Mr. Lang, in Custom and Myth, 1884 (p. 258), hazards, as his own
impression, a conception of this matter which I will note—namely, that
'Exogamy, may be connected with some early idea of which we have lost
touch,' and he adds, 'If we only knew the origin of the prohibition to marry
within the family[3] all would be plain sailing.' However utterly beyond

human ken, in these our latter days, any truthful image of so remote a past
may seem to be, it is yet precisely this hypothetic early idea which I hope to
be able to expose. (If I am correct, we shall find that it was connected with
the sexual relations of primitive man, whilst in the animal stage, and
especially with the mutual marital rights of the males within a group.) Such
idea in travail, hastened and sharpened by needs of environment, created
issues which necessarily gave birth to a 'Primal Law' prohibitory of
marriage between certain members of a family or local group, and thus, in
natural sequence, led to forced connubial union beyond its circle the family,
or local group—that is, led to Exogamy. But if such was in reality the
original order of succession in the growth of custom, it becomes evident
that Exogamy as a habit (not as an expressed law) must have been of
primordial evolution. Thus (in contra-distinction to generally received
opinion and to Mr. McLennan's theory in particular) Exogamy must have
been a cause rather than an effect in relation to its ordinary concomitants,
i.e. Female Infanticide as a custom, Polyandry as a fixed institution, and
Totemism as connected with exogamous groups, within which marriage was
forbidden. As thus my new hypothesis finds itself in opposition to those of
recognised authorities, it is evident that it will require to account for all the
facts if it is to hold its ground.
However convinced the author may be by the array of seemingly
confirmatory details in favour of his hypothesis, it is possible that from their
paucity they may yet to others seem to constitute but a feeble line of
defensive proof. But if the theory shall prove in itself to have merit, this
defect (arising, as I believe, from lack of general anthropological
knowledge on my part, for I dwell 'far from books') will quickly be
remedied, for a hundred other details in favour of my view will be at once
perceived by more experienced students. Should my hypothesis really
furnish the clue to the problem of the prohibition to marry within the family
name, or totem name, all the rest will doubtless become 'plain sailing' in
competent hands.
In any case before my conjecture is definitely laid aside as erroneous, it
may, let us hope, be considered desirable to await fuller evidence as to the
extent of the operation, in actual savage life, of that particular custom of
'Avoidance' which I consider, in its inception, and as the earliest law, to
have been a 'vera causa' of widest operation in primitive social evolution.

'Avoidance' is, however, to-day, a mere faint image of a remote past, and its
genetic significance has utterly faded from among even those people who
yet, with strange conservatism, still blindly yield an everyday obedience to
it, in form at least. Belonging to a class of savage habits presenting features
so extraordinary, 'Avoidance between brother and sister' has ever been a
puzzle to inquirers. This Avoidance is only the most obscure of all the
numerous cases of the strange habit, but it is also that which, up to the
present, seems least to have attracted the notice of anthropologists. In this
class of custom, the Avoidance of which most frequent mention has been
made in literature, is avoidance between mother-in-law and son-in-law,
whereas that between brother and sister is to my knowledge but rarely
mentioned.[4] And yet, as far as my own experience goes (and it extends
over more than a quarter of a century among primitive peoples in the South
Seas), Avoidance of brother and sister is not only as common as, but
infinitely more strict and severe in action than, the Avoidance of 'Mothers-
in-law.' It is indeed probable that the very severity of observance has led to
its being so little noticed. For by the action of this law, a brother and a
sister, after childhood, are kept so far apart from one another, that only
those who have actually lived long amidst natives can be expected to have
had a chance of being aware of the restraints to intercourse between them.
Even then it would be from some such casual occurrence as the accidental
rencontre of the two, placing them thus in sudden and unavoidable
proximity to each other, which would lead to an observation, by an
European, of their extraordinary attitude and behaviour under such
circumstances.
My own attention was primarily only drawn to this matter by noting the
grave scandal and excitement caused in a native community by the
momentary isolation, in a canoe, of a brother and sister. The affair became
so very serious for the brother that he disappeared from the tribe for over a
year. Indeed, the rigorous severity of this particular law in daily action is
almost incredible. In New Caledonia, for instance, all intercourse between a
brother and sister by speech or sign is absolutely prohibited from a very
early age. Whilst the girl will remain in the paternal home, the boy, at the
age of seven or eight (when not, as is usual, adopted by the maternal uncle),
only comes there for his meals, partaken again solely with the other males.
[5]
He dwells until married in the large general bachelors' hut, set apart for

youths in all villages. Even after marriage, if brother and sister have to
communicate with each other on family matters, such communication must
be made through the intermediary of a third person, nor can the sister enter
the brother's hut even after his marriage, despite the presence of her sister-
in-law therein. If the two should unexpectedly meet in some narrow path,
the girl will throw herself face downwards into the nearest bush, whilst the
boy will pass without turning his head, and as if unaware of her presence.
They cannot mention each other's names, and if the sister's name is
mentioned publicly before the brother, he will show much embarrassment,
and if it is repeated he will retire precipitately. She can eat nothing he has
carried or cooked. Whilst, then, such propinquity as is implied in the mutual
habitation of the same hut by these two would be scandalously impossible,
it is not uncommon to find a mother-in-law and son-in-law, whilst in
Avoidance, living under the same roof. It is obvious that in the latter case
each detail of 'Avoidance' in act or speech would be easily remarked by
Europeans, whereas no chance of such observation between the adult
brother and sister could possibly arise, they being kept, as we see, so utterly
apart. It is to be noted, however, that the seemingly instinctive natural
affection between two so nearly related is not quenched by these strange
restraints. They remain interested in each other's welfare, and in cases of
sickness, for instance, keep themselves informed of each other's condition
through third persons. So great, however, is the depth in action (on these
lines) of the feeling of avoidance in this matter, that I am convinced that the
infanticide of twins, which only takes place in New Caledonia when the
children are of different sexes, arises from the idea of a too close
propinquity in the womb. Further evidence as to the very widespread
existence of this custom in the South Seas I will leave to a later stage, only
noting here that I have been astonished to find, in answer to inquiries, that it
is well recognised amongst the aborigines, of Australia.
[Mr. Atkinson has left a blank space for an expected communication from
the late Mr. Curr. On 'Avoidance' in Australia, between brother and sister,
Messrs Spencer and Gillen write: 'A curious custom exists with regard to
the mutual behaviour of elder and younger sisters and their brothers. A man
may speak freely to his elder sisters in blood, but those who are tribal
Ungaraitcha must only be spoken to at a considerable distance. To younger
sisters, blood and tribal, he may not speak, or, at least, only at such a

distance that the features are indistinguishable.... We cannot discover any
explanation of this restriction in regard to the younger sister; it can hardly
be supposed that it has anything to do with the dread of anything like incest,
else why is there not as strong a restriction in the case of the elder sisters?[6]
Now the occurrence of this particular habit amidst a race of nomad hunters,
forced by the exigencies of the chase to wander about in isolated groups,
composed for the most part of single families, and where the separation of
the sexes cannot possibly be arranged, as with the hut and village dwelling
Caledonians, is a most remarkable fact. When we take into consideration
the disturbing effects of such an avoidance in the internal economy of such
a family circle, the significance of the circumstance is great as regards our
general argument. It becomes, indeed, evident that the fundamental cause of
the custom involving this daily and hourly dislocation of domestic life,
must lie very deep in savage society. If, however, our theory as to the idea
which dominated the inception of this strange habit shall turn out to be
correct, then it will be seen that no surprise need be felt, if the genesis of
this rule should prove to be in the animal stage, that traces of the
superstructure should exist to our day. Now that attention will perhaps be
more closely drawn to this, till recently the least observed of the cases of
Avoidance, I feel sure that proof of its existence will be found in abundance
in the present or past of all primitive peoples.[7] In view of its unexpectedly
wide dissemination in Australia, hope may be felt that research will find it
as a working factor in many peoples where its presence has been least
expected, and not only in Australasia. It is possible that a stricter
examination of the inner life of lower races in Africa and Asia will allow a
perfectly legitimate inference that they are still under the influence of its
effect, although the custom itself may be no longer in actual force. It is also
possible, as I have said, that Survivals and Myths may point conclusively to
its having had its day amongst the highest nations, with whom all traditions
of it have been lost before the dawn of history. [Rather the reverse is the
case; see the marriage of Zeus and Hera, brother and sister, and of the Incas,
&c.—A. L.]
In many cases philological evidence based on the derivation of the root
syllable of the word 'sister, a word which in the tongues of peoples still
obedient to this law is from a root implying 'Avoidance,' may afford
affirmative proof, as circumstantial as unexpected, that this custom was

once as universal as my theory would require.'[8] If difficulty is felt in the
acceptation of an hypothesis of such wide significance, simply based on an
obscure lower custom so little noted in anthropological literature as to
permit doubts of its existence, I can only repeat that a cognisance of the
traits of this particular habit of avoidance and its effect as a factor in savage
life demands such conditions of residence and chances of observation, as
can fall to the lot of few. I may add that it is one of the very first customs to
disappear after contact with whites, especially missionaries, being, as it is,
in such extreme divergence with the economy of the European family, in
regard to the mutual attitude of brother and sister.
It is more than a quarter of a century since the author had his attention first
drawn to the practice. The evolution of the idea of its possible identity with
the Primal Law has led to a continued and close observation; he is thus able
to certify as to its rapid disappearance. Brother and sister avoidance was at
that time, thirty years ago, quite universal in New Caledonia; now in many
places it is unknown, even as a tradition, among the younger aborigines. In
view of the probability of a similar oblivion among other peoples, the
immediate collection of evidence is urgent, and further delay seems
dangerous and even culpable.
Thus, however much to the present advantage of the theory as regards the
custom it would have been to cull larger proofs from that vast field of
literature only to be procured in older lands, it has seemed desirable to
make this thesis public without further delay. As we have said, if the theory
is correct, wider students will bring forward cogent facts in further proof
from existing knowledge, whilst continued research should afford evidence
so complete of the widespread existence of the custom in the present and
past of the human race, as to render my speculation as to its origin less
seemingly illegitimate.[9]

[1] Mr. Atkinson's theory is based on the idea that our supposed anthropoid
ancestor was eminently unsocial.—A. L.
[2] Darwin, Descent of Man, ii. 361-363 (1871).
[3] I ought to have said 'within the community, whether local or of recognised
kindred, indicated by the totem name.'—A. L.
[4] This was written before the appearance of Mr. Crawley's Mystic Rose (1902).
[5] Cf. V. de Rochas, La Nouvelle-Calédonie, p. 239; Crawley, Mystic Rose, p.
217.
[6] Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 88, 89.—A. L..
[7] Mr. Atkinson's forecast was correct. Brother and sister avoidance is very
widely diffused.—A. L.
[8] The author does not give examples of words for 'sister' implying avoidance.
But we elsewhere show that in Lifu (Melanesia) the word for 'sister' means 'not
to be touched.'—A. L.
[9] Other speculations have now been advanced, especially by Mr. Crawley.—A.
L.

CHAPTER II

SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS

Brother and Sister Avoidance, a partial usage among the higher mammals.
—Males' attitude to females in a group dominated by a single male head.—
Band of exiled young males.—Their relations to the sire. —Examples in
cattle and horses—In game-fowl.—Strict localisation of animals.—Exiled
young males hover on the fringe of the parent group.—Parricide.
Another difficulty in connection with the evolution of the so-called Primal
Law of Avoidance between brother and sister from that early idea which we
will presently disclose, seems to lie in the fact that if, as we uphold, such
law was the first factor in the ascent of man, it must have taken its rise
whilst he was still some ape-like creature. It remains, however, to be shown
from its peculiar form that in its primitive application, the law would not
have required for its intelligence greater mental power than is possessed by
actual anthropoids. The law may indeed be said to be practically an

inchoate fact, an actual if partial usage, for the regulation of the intersexual
relations among most of the higher mammals. It could, at any rate, have
come into full intelligent application as a well-defined social institution, in
the actual sense of the term, whilst the anthropomorphic progenitor of man
was still so little removed from the ape that
His speech was yet as halting as his gait,
Only less brutish than his moral state.
Briefly, the law of Avoidance concerns (more particularly) the relation 'inter
se,' from a sexual point of view, of the male and female offspring of any
given parents. In other words it determines the mutual attitude to the
females within a (single) family group dominated by a male head.
Before, however, entering into the argument in this connection, it will be
desirable to make a paraphrase on Mr. Darwin's dictum as to the social
condition of man in the animal stage in general, and more particularly in
regard to his intermarital relations, and to compare this with that of actual
mammals. It is to be noted that he does not pronounce definitely as to
whether, in the era of pure animalism, the original type of man's ancestor
was social or non-social in habit. But we may judge from the extract
already made from the Descent of Man that Darwin evidently inclines to the
opinion that, even primitively, he was a social animal, as seemingly more in
accord with the present eminently social conditions.
The very significant counter-fact, however, remains, that none of the actual
anthropoids, as far as regards the adult males, are in any way social or even
gregarious; the conclusion thus seems evident that, like these his nearest
compeers of to-day, man was on the contrary a non-social animal, and that,
as with the gorilla, only one grown male would have been seen in a band.
We must then imagine our more or less human ancestor, roaming the forest
in search of daily food, as a solitary polygamous male, with wife or wives
and female children; the unsocial head of a solitary isolated group.
With equal strength and probably already greater cunning than any actual
animal of to-day, he had perhaps acquired dominance over most of the other
beasts of the field. The patriarch had only one enemy whom he should
dread, an enemy with each coming year more and more to be feared—
deadly rivals of his very own flesh and blood, and the fruit of his loins—
namely, that neighbouring group of young males exiled by sexual jealousy

from his own and similar family groups—a youthful band of brothers living
together in forced celibacy, or at most in polyandrous relation with some
single female captive.[1] A horde as yet weak in their impubescence, they
are, but they would, when strength was gained with time, inevitably wrench
by combined attacks, renewed again and again, both wife and life from the
paternal tyrant. But they themselves, after brief communistic enjoyment,
would be segregated anew by the fierce fire of sexual jealousy, each
survivor of the slaughter relapsing into lonely sovereignty, the head of the
typical group with its characteristic feature of a single adult male member
in antagonism with every other adult male. Now it can be shown that this
vicious circle of the stream of social life is common to most mammals. The
facts of the circumstance can be most easily observed amidst the half-wild,
half-domesticated animals met with in colonial farming experience, in New
Caledonia, for instance, where European horses and cattle have been
allowed to return almost to a state of nature.
In this respect the economy of life in a herd of even such gregarious
creatures as the bovine race, is a very curious and instructive study. There is
no fact more striking than the subordination in which the younger bulls are
kept; as long as they are at all tolerated in the herd by its patriarch, their
intercourse with the females is most limited, and only takes place by stealth
and at the risk of life and limb.
Nothing, as breeders are aware, is so fatal to the well-being of a herd, or
leads so quickly to degeneration, as the perpetuation of the race by
immature males. That procreation should be the act of the robust adult
alone, is evidently an axiom with nature herself in successful production; it
is doubtless of the highest importance to keep up the normal standard of
strength and size. As a fact, the presence of the immature male among a
herd of cattle is only permitted whilst he is still quite impubescent. Then
banishment by the master of the herd is inevitable at a later stage. These
exiles, although thus apart from the main herd, remain in touch with it, so to
speak, and we find in consequence, in continual proximity of the troop of
the patriarch and his females, a small band of males, which, as is evident
from their colour and general physical resemblance, are its direct product.
The relations between this mob and the old male are always strained, the
latter has constantly to be on the watch to shield his marital rights.

For long the mere menace of his presence suffices for such protection, but
with age—the young bulls becoming more bold—struggles take place
which sooner or later, from mere force of numbers, end in the rout or death
of the parent. We may here cite the mention made by Mr. Darwin[2] of Lord
Tankerville's account of the battles of the wild bulls in Chillingham Park:
'In 1861 several contended for mastery, and it was observed that two of the
younger bulls attacked in concert the old leader of the herd, overthrew and
disabled him, so that he was believed by the keepers to be lying mortally
wounded in a neighbouring wood. But a few days afterwards one of the
young bulls approached the wood alone, and then the monarch of the chase,
who had been lashing himself up for vengeance, came out and in a short
time killed his antagonist. He then quietly joined the herd, and long held
undisputed sway.' I may add from my own observation among half-wild
herds in the colonies, that often when the old patriarch is not absolutely
killed in such cases, he is forced to quit the herd. He then becomes a
solitary exile, always exceptionally savage and dangerous to approach or
molest. It seems to me probable that we have here an explanation of the
occurrence of the existence of the well-known 'rogue' elephant, which is
always a male and notoriously dangerous.
One important fact must here, however, be noted; that before such death or
exile takes place, and the sons reach an age which enables them
successfully to dispute the supremacy of the father, the daughters have
reached puberty and borne produce to the sire—this matter, as will be seen
later, has an important bearing on our general argument—on our theory of
Primal Law. Amongst horses, again, which have become wild, exactly the
same facts are to be observed. Each herd has one head, and this, as natural
selection would imply, is the most powerful stallion; he is the master and
owner of the females, and this mastery he retains until overpowered by
other males, which, as before, are almost invariably his own progeny. In
fact, any strange male would probably have first to run the gauntlet of this
outlying herd of exiled sons before he could reach the father. It is, however,
again to be noted that he is rarely thus overpowered by even the combined
efforts of his sons, before his daughters have reached such an age as to have
produced offspring to their father.
This system of sequence of generations in breeding is, indeed, so universal
in a state of nature amongst all animals, as to seem to point to the fact that

in-breeding between father and daughter cannot be so prejudicial as some
believe. Its efficacy in type-fixing is at least very great, if, as experiments of
my own in pig-breeding on these lines would lead me to think, the question
of prepotency is merely a matter of such close in-breeding repeated for
generations. We may note here that if, as is probable, the produce, on the
contrary, of a full brother and sister are degenerate, nature seems to attempt
to prevent its occurrence. On the succession of the sons to the father's
rights, speedy conflicts from sexual jealousy arise amidst the former and
lead to a rapid segregation of the herd, in which the chances of own brother
and sister continuing to mate are slight. Until this segregration, however,
does take place, nothing is more curious to watch than the attitude and
relations of these young males among themselves, the oldest and strongest
claiming prior marital rights, but no more.
The same phenomena in social economy may be observed with even greater
intensity in lower ranks of life than the quadrupeds. For instance, in a large
flock of game fowl which I had an opportunity to observe closely for
several years, during which they had nearly relapsed into a state of nature,
there was an exact reproduction of all these details. There existed the same
division into small family groups, each headed by an adult male, the same
subordination imposed on the junior males of their banishment at puberty,
as also their inevitable combined attack, when sufficiently powerful, on
their paternal enemy. His death resulted in the same communistic
assumption of his rights, with a subsequent disruption, from jealousy, into
the typical smaller and separate groups.
We thus find an identical condition of the sexual relations between the
females of a group and its older and younger male members to be common
in the animal world—the domination, in fact, of an idea that might, in the
person of the senior male, confers marital rights over the female members
of the family, and an inchoate rule of action resulting therefrom; which bars
from the enjoyment of such right each junior male. To hold that man, whilst
in the animal stage, should form an exception to the general rule seems
unreasonable. If, as we are inclined to believe, he was originally a quite
non-social animal, the fact becomes more possible still that, as with modern
types of anthropoid apes, each adult as head of a group was at feud with
every other. As regards the social evolution, it would indeed seem most
natural that, as Mr. Darwin conceived, the first step in progress should have

been taken by animals already united gregariously, and thus already imbued
with some social feelings. Strange to say, the path in advance which the
ancestor of man, in the light of our hypothesis, was destined to follow,
disclosed itself as an indirect consequence of the very intensity of his non-
social characteristic. In fact, as I fancy mil become evident in the
development of our argument, the only line of progress open to man was
one inaccessible to animals of gregarious habits, judging by the economy of
life in a troop of mandrills or baboons.
Having ventured to differ from the great naturalist on this point, I would
with deference take exception to his further statement—'That the younger
males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at last
successful in finding a partner, prevent too close inter-breeding within the
limits of the same family.' This, if I understand it rightly, would convey the
idea that this youthful band quitted the scene of their birth, and deserted
entirely their original habitat in the forest. I cannot help considering it an
error to imagine that such wanderings could thus be without bounds.
Nothing seems to me more remarkable and irrevocable in savage Nature
than the rigid localisation of all living things in her realm. No fish in the
sea, no bird in the air, but has its local habitation, which only becomes free
to the stranger on the death of the occupant.[3] No corner on earth but seems
to hold its lawful tenant, and the bounds thereof are defined within rigid
limits. Within, there is safety, with a sense of ownership; without, is the
great unknown, possessed by others, fiercely ready to defend their rights,
and threaten every danger and death to the stranger intruder—unless quite
otherwise formidable than adolescent youth.
It is thus probable, in fact, that in common with the lower animals, the band
of exiled young males of our anthropoid ancestor haunted the
neighbourhood of the parent herd, remaining thus on familiar ground, and
in hearing of friendly voices. For we must remember that their feud was
only with the paternal parent. In the magic alembic of time the constantly
increasing shadow of their presence would take sudden dreadful form, but
in parricidal crime alone. The sequel in disastrous incest, which Mr. Darwin
would here conjecture at, Nature alone has ever been impotent to deal with.
The problem of an effectual bar to undesirable union between brother and
sister was solved by man alone, and in the Primal Law. An effort of his

embryonic intellect, thus early defiant of Nature, the law placed ethically,
for once and for ever, a distinction between him and every other creature.

[1] Why 'single?—A. L.
[2] Descent of Man, p. 501.
[3] This fact is well known to anglers for trout.—A. L.

CHAPTER III

MAN VARYING FROM ANIMALS

Effect of the absence of a special pairing season on nascent man.—
Consequent state of ceaseless war between sire and young males.—Man
already more than an ape.—Results of his prolonged infancy and of
maternal love.—A young male permitted to live in the parent group.—
Conditions in which this novelty arose.
In common, then, with their nearest congeners of to-day, we have found
each male head of a group of our anthropoid ancestors in direct antagonism
with every other male, and a consequent disruption of the family at each
encounter with a superior force. This disruption, in its effects on a species
of non-gregarious habits, would result not only in the dispersal of its
members, but in the destruction of what material progress in the
accumulation of property might have accrued. As this would have included
all germs of mechanical discovery, again doubtless due solely to the
superior constructive faculties of the male, it is evident that advance in a
race thus socially constituted was quite impossible.
Now this antagonism of male with male, with all its retrograde
consequences, a struggle fierce enough in all animals, had a more intense
effect on nascent man than on any other creature that had ever existed. An
added force was caused by the disappearance in the nascent human species
of that season of physical and mental repose, granted by Nature to the rest

of creation, when not actually in the moment or season of rut. This ever-
recurring but limited period, ordinarily appearing for a certain fixed epoch
in each year, by the exigencies of supply and demand in the necessarily
abundant food required for nursing mothers, had lost its date-fixing power
with this new creation—Man. With the very first steps in progress would
come his adaptation to a more or less omnivorous and consequently more
regular diet. The consequent modification would be profound in the matter
of sexual habit and appetite. Man needed no longer to put limits to the
season of love and desire.[1] This was a crime against Nature, new in the
history of the world, a crime which Nature would probably have avenged
by race-deterioration or extermination, if the germs of mental power had
not been already strong enough to lift him, Man, to be, of all creatures,
almost completely beyond the influence of environment, thence of Nature
herself.
The intensity of the evil led to its cure. In a state of society where literally
every male creature's hand was against the other, and life one continual
uproar from their contending strife; where not only was there no instant's
truce in the war-fare, but each blow dealt was emphasised (fatally) by the
intellectual finesse which now directed it, it became a question of forced
advance in progress or straight retreat in annihilation as a species. However
difficult it may be to imagine by what path such a creature was ever to
emerge from the materialistic labyrinth in which we thus find him involved,
it is sure that he neither could nor did remain there. A forward step was
somehow taken, some road out of the maze was somehow found.
It remains for us to trace, by what dim light of custom and tradition we may,
the faint trail of those momentous footprints, which, however lame and
halting, took the strait and difficult way to a higher life. We may expect to
find, as is but natural, that the path was one before untrodden. As man
followed it, at first unconsciously, from the shoulders of this new pilgrim,
predestined to worthier burdens, would fall some of the heavy load of the
mere animal nature.
There was now, in fact, to be a break in the economy of animal nature, as
regards that vicious circle, where we found an ever-recurring violent
succession to the solitary paternal tyrant, by sons whose parricidal hands
were so soon again clenched in fratricidal strife. In the dawn of peace
between this father and son we shall find the signpost to the new highway.

Before going further, we may here state our assumption that, when our
ancestor had arrived at this crisis in his life, a crisis involving the vast
psychological step in advance implied in the development of society, and
the intelligence necessary for the evolution of the law in its regulation, he
was already somewhat more than ape. The animal stage as forming part of
the ladder of ascent from brute to man would be marked by degrees of
progression, each a step further removed from the original type. These very
earliest steps we indeed propose to examine later in detail, for the present
we will suppose they have been taken, and that the influence of
environment, under certain hypothetic conditions, to be also detailed
hereafter, has fostered physical modifications towards the human type such
as we found in the matter of rut. But in nature the relation is very close
between the physical and the mental qualities. The advance in one would
possibly lead to a corresponding development of the other. Each is the
necessary complement of each. For instance, as Mr. Darwin has pointed out,
while the lower extremities become more and more used for progression
alone, so the upper, thus left free, would be specialised as prehensile organs,
so becoming both valet and tutor to the nascent brain. To push our metaphor
to an extreme, we may say that when Homo Alalus trod the new path, it was
already as a biped in an upright attitude, thus leaving at least his hand free
to point it out to others, for as yet his tongue, at least by the hypothesis, was
inarticulate.
Our line of research as regards the new departure was at once narrowed
when we indicated that it ended in the peaceful conjunction of father and
son. Our path will lie in the examination of the question as to what possible
series of natural circumstances, in the domestic life of the race, could lead
to such conjunction, and what law in such an age could suffice for
regulation of such association if formed. We shall have to examine more
closely (as far as our imagination will aid us) the exact conditions of the
family life of the semi-human group which we have supposed typical in that
era, i.e. the small isolated band of anthropoids, composed of a single
polygamous adult male with dependent wives and offspring. His possible
relations with these, especially his attitude towards his male children, will
interest us. Therein should certainly be found the desired series of
circumstances entailing a critical situation, whose happy resolution shall
furnish the clue to the problem of that possible aggregation on which all
future progress depends. However strange it may appear, it will be found, as

we have already said, that the abnormal conditions imposed by the
unnatural modifications of the sexual functions have served as a means to
the end of advance in progress. And as, by their action in the past,
anthropoid man had become the most sexually jealous and intractable of all
creatures, so it may be expected that the series of causes which shall have
for effect the restraint of such excess of passion, will possess further vast
potentiality of action. Such latency in potentiality is evidently indispensable
when we consider that there is here concerned the evolution of law in
opposition to nature, and its triumph for all time over the mere brute.
But first as regards the fact of the association of adult males on friendly
terms within the group, which fact has seemed to us to constitute the whole
problem of progress, it would on a hasty view appear as if it had been
already found in the band of exiled sons which we have seen haunting the
parent horde. Here we meet with that aggregation of individuals whose
combination in peaceful union should apparently be the result of some law
in regulation. This idea would even seem to gain support from the fact that
all the members being brothers, and living most probably in a state of
polyandry, we here appear to find fulfilled exactly those genetic conditions
of primitive marriage imperative according to Mr. McLennan's theory of the
origin of society. It will not, however, be difficult to prove that, at least at
this stage in evolution, such a group would lack the most essential elements
of stability. Their unity, in fact, as has been already pointed out, could only
endure as long as the youthfulness of the members necessitated union for
protection, and their immaturity prevented the full play of the sexual
passion. The horde would inevitably dissolve under the influence of
jealousy at the adult stage, especially if, as is probable, the number of their
female captives had increased with the gain in years and power. The
necessary Primal Law which alone could determine peace within a family
circle by recognising a distinction between female and female (the
indispensable antecedent to a definition of marital rights) could never have
arisen in such a body. It follows that if such law was ever evoked, it must
have been from within the only other assembly in existence, viz. that
headed by the solitary polygamous patriarch, 'the Cyclopean family.'
We have said that this family would be composed of the male head and his
wives, the latter consisting of captured females, and further, let us note, of
his own adult female offspring, accompanied by a troop of infants of both

sexes. The absence of male offspring beyond those of tender years would be
another most notable phenomenon. These sons would, as we have seen,
have been banished at puberty from the herd, in common with the habit of
most animals.
Now we have surmised that at this stage our subject has been modified,
both physically and mentally, to a certain extent in approach to the human
type, and there is precisely one special modification which would have been
of paramount importance in view of the problem of advance in progress.
For if we may thus infer a certain increase in the longevity of the nascent
race at even so early a stage in evolution, then that evidently entails a more
prolonged infancy. It follows that, however precocious, the young males
before exile must have passed at least nine to ten helpless years under their
mother's care. But, again, the rise of superior intellectual faculties in general
presupposes a decided increase in the powers of memory, and this agent, in
connection with that of the longer companionship, would here set in
movement, sooner or later, a psychological factor of strangely magnified
force as compared with what it is in the mere brute—namely, human
maternal love.
Separation, however caused, between this mother and her child would be
far more severely felt than by any other animal. At the renewed banishment
of each of her male progeny by the jealous patriarch, the mother's feelings
and instinct would be increasingly lacerated and outraged. Her agonised
efforts to retain at least her last and youngest would be even stronger than
with her first-born. It is exceedingly important to observe that her chances
of success in this case would be much greater. When this last and dearest
son approached adolescence, it is not difficult to perceive that the patriarch
must have reached an age when the fire of desire may have become
somewhat dull; whilst, again, his harem, from the presence of numerous
adult daughters, would be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed
his once more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situation,
where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love wrestled with a for
once satiated paternal appetite in desire, we may here discern a possible key
of the sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted in a
conjunction within one group of two adult males.
We must conceive that, in the march of the centuries, on some fateful day,
the bloody tragedy in the last act of the familiar drama was avoided, and the

edict of exile or death left unpronounced. Pure maternal love triumphed
over the demons of lust and jealousy. A mother succeeded in keeping by her
side a male child, and thus, by a strange coincidence, that father and son,
who, amongst all mammals, had been the most deadly of enemies, were
now the first to join hands. So portentous an alliance might well bring the
world to their feet. The family group would now present, for the first time,
the till then unknown spectacle of the inclusion within a domestic circle,
and amidst its component females, of an adolescent male youth. It must,
however, be admitted that such an event, at such an epoch, demanded
imperatively very exceptional qualities, both physiological and
psychological, in the primitive agents. The new happy ending to that old-
world drama which had run for so long through blood and tears, was an
innovation requiring very unusually gifted actors. How many failures had
doubtless taken place in its rehearsal during the centuries, with less able or
happy interpreters! It is probable that, in the new experiment, success was
rendered possible by the rise of new powers in nascent man. Some feeble
germ of altruism may already have arisen to make its force felt as an
important factor.
It is also certain that, with such prolonged infancy, there had been
opportunity for the development of paternal philo-progenitiveness. It is
evident that such long-continued presence of sons could but result in a
certain mutual sympathy, however inevitable the eventual exile.
The love and care of a parent for his offspring is, after all, ethically
speaking, the normal condition. Habitual desertion at too early an age
would be fatal. Their dissociation, the abnormal and only one, took place
under the influence of the strongest passion in nature, again largely
exaggerated in primitive man. But in such an era purely physical
characteristics would undoubtedly have also a vast influence in the
development of the incident we have tried to depict. The fiercely solitary
patriarch who first consented to the intrusive presence within his family
circle of another adult male was, as I think we can prove, a being of
abnormal physical power as compared with his fellows. For we have
assumed satiety in desire to have been a powerful factor in the innovatory
struggle we have witnessed. But such satiety implies extensive polygamy,
and yet again a large harem composed exclusively of unwilling outside
captives is incredible, escape for them in the primeval forest being too

facile. Thus the harem would certainly be formed of the female offspring of
the tyrant himself. These alone would need no watch or guard, for them the
unknown outside world was hostile ground. But again very many adult
daughters imply a father stricken in years. That one of such advanced age,
in an epoch when force was all in all, could, defiant of rivals, still retain
possession of his female kind, presupposes vast enduring physical power, or
at least the protective tradition of past exceptional strength, still enduring in
terror. If, again, at so early a date in the history of man we may be permitted
to surmise any development of the faculty of psychogenesis, then we may
again perceive how extreme physical qualities might have facilitated the
solution of the problem of the admission of the intrusive male. For it is
credible that long undisputed supremacy of power as the result of personal
vigour might, in its incredulous contempt of a possible rivalry, show a
tolerance of a situation utterly impossible to a weaker nature.

[1] See Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, ch. ii., 1891. The subject is
obscure.

CHAPTER IV

EARLIEST EVOLUTION OF LAW

Trace between semi-human sire and son.—Consequent distinction taken
between female and female, as such—Consequent rise of habit of Brother
and Sister Avoidance.—Result, son seeks female mate from without Note
by the editor.
In what, then, we are willing to concede, must have been exceptional
circumstances, may thus have been taken that first step in progress which
was to lead to such vast advance. In a development of the social qualities
depended the whole future of mankind, and here we seem to see their germ
and birth.

When, however, we affirm that the triumph of maternal love in the
continued companionship of a male child, constituted the solution of the
social problem before us, we do not intend to convey the idea that it lay
solely in the fact of a simple inclusion of male offspring within a group.
Such a condition, however significant in the actual case, has nothing in
itself but what is common to the family economy of many animals. It is the
normal one, for instance, among many pithecoids, as baboons, &c., where
we find the younger males still form an integral part of the horde, although
denied all marital rights. But, however inexorable among such species the
temporary separation from the females during the actual season of rut, there
is at other times a propinquity in amity as members of the same herd, which
lessened doubtless the fierceness of the strife during the periodic play of
passion, a truce in fact admitting of peace and alliance in offence and
defence during most of the year.
With our ancestors there could be no such healing pause, the unnatural
sexual modification of the race had rendered it impossible. The non-
periodicity of the sexual function in rut would have made the whole year,
with two adult males in presence, an interval of trial insupportable to the
mere brute. With this race the banishment of the youth would be for all
time, and the loss would be not only that of an ally, each exile would
become an active enemy. Now we have hinted that the importance, in a
potential sense, of a movement towards union, in such creatures, arose
precisely from the fact that, on account of the intensity of the relations
between male and male, and especially between father and son, their
amicable conjunction was only possible under such exceptional conditions
as would probably conduce to its stability whenever it did take place.
Indeed such inchoate rule or habit, a corollary of the early idea, as reigns in
regulation of marital rights among lower creatures, would not be fully
adequate for this higher creation. With lower creatures, might alone confers
rights, which feebler force ever seeks each chance to invade, all stratagems
being legitimate as a means to that end. With inchoate man such imperfect
rule of action had become utterly impossible. The greater endowment in
memory and reason entailed a too fatally added hate on non-compliance.
For inchoate men the requisite law required such further exactness in
definition as should leave no doubt of a meaning, not only to be understood,
but to be accepted and obeyed unconditionally.

For between this father and son there was yet no real peace, only a truce,
and that enduring but so long as the latter respected those marital rights of
the former which we found extending over all that was feminine in the
horde. The intelligent acceptance by the intruding junior of the sole right of
the senior to union with the females of a group, was its sine qua non, which
the dawn of intellectuality in the race as inevitably imposed as it happily
permitted. Such a step in advance as a possible obedience, ex animo, to
such a law would be immense. Therefrom would issue the vital point of a
conception of moral reserves in marital rights as regards the other sex; the
germ of a profound and fundamental difference between brute and man. For
the first time in the history of the world we encounter the factor which is to
be the leading power in future social metamorphosis, i.e. an explicit
distinction between female and female, as such. The superlative fact,
indeed, in relation to our general argument, appears—namely, that certain
females are now to become sacred to certain males, and that both (nota
bene) are members of the same family circle.
But what shall be, in such an age, the notes of a law conveying this noble
sentiment of sanctity, which, disarming jealousy, could permit peace where
before strife reigned? How give the outer expression of the inner feeling,
now aroused, of a change in the past intersexual attitude of certain group
members? Whence borrow the eloquence which shall ordain rules in
restriction of intercourse whilst yet, for Homo Alalus, they must needs be
mute in expression.[1] In the primal law alone, as I hope in its portrayal to
show, can each condition be comprised and found as such. It will be marked
and recognised by a physical trait whose presence is as significant and
imperative as it is characteristic of the epoch. For a sentiment of restraint in
feeling, whilst articulate speech was yet lacking, could only be expressed by
restrictive checks in act and deed, requiring mere visual perception for
interpretation—acts we may here note, which, as insulating the individual,
would also inevitably tend to consecration.
Now we mentioned in our first chapter that, in connection with the primal
law, certain cases of so-called avoidance, and especially that between near
relatives, would have interest for us and probably afford aid in proof. We
drew attention to the strange features marking these customs, which had
rendered their origin a source of wondering conjecture to all inquirers. It
may be that precisely the actual anomalism of these characteristics may

render them eloquent in our case. In view of our past argument, in very
deed, nothing now becomes insignificant in these quaint rules of non-
propinquity between certain near relations; nothing inexpressive in the
ordinance of non-recognition between individuals well known to each
other; nothing not suggestive in the dread of mere contact between those
whom nature would place closest together, no lack of import in the strange
taciturnity so incongruous with our garrulous later days of unloosed
tongues. There is a possible vestige of a past era of dumb show in their
eloquent muteness; of connection in their actual utter unreason with a long
dead past of all unfamiliar habits and manners. Further, is verily aught
lacking, in these latter-day customs of avoidance, of the necessarily archaic
features of a possible primeval law? If these in truth were still existent,
would they not, with such traits in common, be simply classed with those?
Undoubtedly so, as it seems to me.
Now in the course of our argument it has appeared that the inclusion of the
son as the second adult male in a group would evolve, as the most primitive
rule of action, restriction of intercourse between its component females and
the intruder. But in such a group, the former would necessarily be to the
latter in the relation of mother and sisters. Such restriction, again, taking the
only possible form, would be avoidance of these relations, and thus there is
a concurrence in resemblance with that particular habit of avoidance on
which we enlarged in our first pages, viz. that between brother and sister
(and now less strictly), between mother and son. Do we not thus seem to lay
a finger on an actual law, still an every-day working factor in savage life,
which is not only identical with, but is in very deed the primal law itself, in
form at least? The acceptation of such intolerably irksome restraints as
avoidance, in the daily economy of savage life, has seemed forcibly to
imply a fundamental cause of profound depth. This cause now seems laid
open to us. The unaccountable and seemingly unreasonable restrictions on
intercourse which mark it thus betray their appropriate origin in a time of
comparative unreason.
This then, the primal law—avoidance between a brother and sister—with
appalling conservatism has descended through the ages (in conservance of
form, if not of ultimate purpose). It ordained in the dawn of time a barrier
between mother and son, and brother and sister, and that ordinance is still
binding on all mankind [but in Egypt and Peru, for example, the opposite of

this rule, for special reasons, has prevailed]. Between these for ever, a bit
was placed in the mouth of desire, and chains on the feet of lust. Their
mutual relationship is one that has been held sacred from a sexual point of
view, in most later ages. It only remains for us to repeat that it follows that
this law, as applied in the group composed of a single family, is, as we
pointed out, the parent of exogamy; continuance within the group
necessarily and logically entailed marriage without; but, again as we said, it
was itself the offspring of the early idea. For this idea, in its assumption that
sovereignty in marital right was compatible with solitude alone, was shaken
to its depths when a second presence threatened rivalry, and demanded
remedy in the action of law, which it has seemed to us could only take the
form we have tried to portray[2] in the primal law.

NOTE TO CHAPTER IV

To the Editor this theory seems worthy of the ingenuity of his old friend and
kinsman. Granting that early man was a speechless jealous brute, dwelling
in groups consisting of a patriarchal beast, and all the females whom he
could catch, and all the females whom he could beget; granting that he
drove all his adolescent sons out; and finally (under the circumstances
described) kept one or a few sons at home, his rule would tabu all females
of the group to these sons. Otherwise there would be a fight.
The sons would have to bring in mates from without—the result is
Exogamy. But Mr. Atkinson does not observe the numerous tabus existing
among savages, on ordinary (not sexual) intercourse between men and
women; as if each individual, of each sex, was or might be dangerous to
each individual of the other sex; that is no idea of our speechless brute
ancestors, of Mr. Atkinson's hypothesis. These tabus do not amount to
absolute avoidance, but they do amount to very marked restrictions; for
example, on eating together, or sleeping under the same roof, even where
husbands and wives are concerned. For the facts, to save repetition, it is
enough to refer to Mr. Crawley's book, The Mystic Rose. Now if these less
rigid tabus between the sexes (which Mr. Atkinson noted in his observations
on the life of New Caledonian natives) arose in the general savage

superstitious dread of everything not a man's or woman's own self, they
might become more rigid as propinquity increased. The most dangerous
female would be the female who had most chance of being dangerous, by
virtue of propinquity, namely the sister. She would therefore be the most
strictly barred. The closest of all relations, that of lover and lover, and man
and wife, would be most severely guarded, as most dangerous, by tabus. All
this would happen (granting the verifiable condition of savage superstitious
dread) even if Mr. Atkinson's theory of our speechless beast ancestors' way
of life were wrong.
We should probably find the effects (Avoidance and Exogamy) even if the
primeval causes postulated by him never actually existed. Moreover any
avoidance between mother and son that may exist (as in the case of the
mothers of chiefs, in New Caledonia, and their sons) is perhaps no more
than part of the general rule of restricted familiarity between the sexes,
whether that rule arises from a superstition, or from the circumstance that
men and women sometimes 'disturb each other damnably,' as Lord Byron
remarked to his wife. It might be argued that the exogamous prohibition is
only one aspect of the general totem tabu; and that, in the case of brothers
and sisters, incest against the totem tabu needed to be guarded against (as
most likely to occur) by precautions of avoidance peculiarly stringent.
These precautions, then, would not necessarily come down from the time of
our hypothetical speechless beast ancestors. They might come down from
that time, but the descent, it may be objected, is not necessary. The rules
might have arisen among men as human as we are—Totemists. On the other
hand, it might be argued for Mr. Atkinson that his hypothetical groups must
be infinitely older than Totemism. When totem names were imposed on the
earlier groups, the totem name and mark would only be a method of
distinguishing group from group, probably becoming the germ of later
superstitions by which everything connected with the totem was tabued, in
each case, to the groups bearing its name. Either alternative hypothesis is
easily conceivable: on the whole, I prefer the theory that exogamy arose, or
an exogamous tendency arose, as in Mr. Atkinson's hypothesis, and was
later sanctioned by the totem superstition.
As to brother and sister avoidance, if there is an 'instinct,' as Westermarck
thinks, against marriage between near relations, if 'close living together
inspires an aversion to intermarriage' (pp. 352, 545), then the avoidance of

brother and sister would make them especially apt to fall in love together.
But they don't. Brother and sister, under the tabu, are the greatest possible
strangers to each other. They have not 'lived in long-continued intimate
relationship from a period of life at which the action of desire is out of the
question' (Westermarck, p. 353). They have done precisely the reverse. So
why they do not fall in love with each other is what we have still to explain.
All the rigid systems of brother and sister avoidance exist, it would seem, to
prevent what never would have occurred, had the young people been
allowed to grow up together. For in that case they could have had (we are to
fancy) no erotic desires towards each other; that is Dr. Westermarck's idea.
But could they not? He tells us that, among the Annamese, 'no girl who is
twelve years old and has a brother is a virgin' (p. 292). And the Hottentots
do not 'marry out of their own kraals' (p. 347).
Then where are we, exactly? If there is 'a real powerful instinct' against love
between persons who 'have lived in a long-continued intimate relationship'
from childhood—why does the instinct fail to affect Annamese and
Hottentots, for instance? And if to be absolute strangers to each other is apt
to make two young people fall in love, why do New-Caledonian brothers
and sisters never do it? (Compare Mr. Crawley, The Mystic Rose, pp. 444-
446.)

[1] How do we know that homo was still alalus?—A. L.
[2] Later, as we further analyse the chords in the great hymn of human existence,
we shall find that this first of all rules of intelligent moral action, however little it
may have had of ethical intention in its inception, will ever remain (in its effects)
the fundamental note in the harmony of psychical life. All succeeding law is its
inevitable corollary, and vibrating in cadence with this fundamental note.

CHAPTER V

AVOIDANCES

Results in strengthening the groups which admit several adult males.—
Disappearance of hostile band of exiled young males.—Relations of sire
and female mates of young males now within the group.—Father-in-law
and daughter-in-law avoidance.—Rights as between two generations.—
Elder brother and younger brother's wife avoidances.—Note on Hostile
Capture.
If we can admit the argument as to the sequence of incidents which thus led
to the primary amicable conjunction of two males within the same group, it
is not necessary to enter very minutely into the exact manner in which it
would grow into a habit and spread throughout the land. We may surmise
that, in spite of the advantages presented, its progress would, from the
isolation of the groups, and their mutual hostility, be very slow. This would
specially be the case if, as with physical variations, this point of departure
in social development was a purely individual one, and so had to spread
from a single centre by natural selection acting through a beneficial
variation. It is, in fact, difficult to conceive, in view of the series of the
abnormal factors we have supposed necessary for the genesis of such
evolution, that any coincident departure of the same nature would be likely
to occur in any other centre. It is even certain that the full possible benefit
of the innovation would not be able to make itself felt even in the group of
its creators. It is easy to understand that, in spite of the shield-like love of
the mother, there would be friction between father and son in such
unfamiliar circumstances, not only novel to the individual, but unhabitual to
the race. In fact, it may be taken for granted that on the part of the father
there was at first only a sulky tolerance of the new arrangement, a tacit but
very unwilling acquiescence in the presence of the son.
On the part of the son would exist a watchful reserve, with an ever-haunting
sense of insecurity, born of a novel and precarious situation. Even on such
terms, however, and with what little might be of conciliation between the
two, it is evident that a momentous forward step has been taken: the powers
of the group in offence and defence, as against outsiders, would be
enormously increased;[1] the fire of youth and the wisdom of old age for the
first time joined forces, and paternal experience comes to the aid of filial
courage and ardour. On the death of the patriarch the family found a natural
protector, and what potential germs of advance, material or spiritual, had
been evolved, would remain intact.