Social Origins and Primal Law

We have no such customary laws, and need no such names – the names are the result and expression of the Basuto customary laws. Had we such ideas of duty and privilege, then they would be expressed in our terms of relationship, which would be numerous. My maternal uncle would have a name denoting the man with whose wife I may flirt. The wife of my brother-in-law is the woman whom I must treat with the most distant respect. If I am a woman, my father's sister's husband (my 'uncle by marriage') is a man whose wife I may become, and so forth endlessly. Consequently there is a wealth of terms of relationship, just because of the peculiarities of Ba Ronga customary law.

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.

7

Dr. Munro, Archæological Journal, vol. lix. no. 234, pp. 109-143: (Tire à part, p. 1.) See also later, Hypothetical Early Groups.

8

To this point, hostility, I return later.

9

Dr. Munro, Archæological Journal, vol. lix. no. 234.

10

Munro, Archæological Journal, vol. lix. no. 234, p. 22.

11

Ibid. p. 32.

12

Ibid. p. 18.

13

Ibid. p. 20.

14

Ibid. p. 22.

15

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.

16

Journal and Proceedings Royal Society N.S.W., vol. xxviii. p. 305. See also Roth, Ethnological Studies, pp. 132-138. 1897.

17

Ancient Law p. 132.

18

Major Kennedy's portrait of 1750-1760 represents him in Macdonnell tartan. He was an agent of Prince Charles.

19

Early History of Institutions, pp. 310, 311.

20

Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, pp. 53-57.

21

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.

22

Studies in Ancient History, 1876, p. 41.

23

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.

24

'The Seri Indians,' by W. J. McGee. Report of Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, 1898.

25

'Siouan Sociology,' Report of American Ethnological Bureau, 1897, p. 213.

26

Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 265.

27

Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 46. In an appendix to Mr. Morgan's Ancient Society, Mr. McLennan's terms are severely criticised.

28

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.

29

The Patriarchal Theory, pp. 6, 7, 1885.

30

Meaning by Exogamy, not a mere tendency to marry out of the group, but a customary law with a religious sanction.

31

Here the unusual case of the Arunta offers an exception to the rule; a point to be discussed later.

32

Spencer and Gillen, pp. 8-10.

33

Ibid. pp. 8-9.

34

'Remarks on Totemism,' Jour. Anthrop. Inst., August, November, 1898.

35

Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 187.

36

But, as Dr. Durkheim says, man and wife might soon abandon each other, if familiarity breeds contempt.

37

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, May, 1895, p. 444.

38

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 132. 1880.

39

Spencer and Gillen, p. 70. Frazer, Fortnightly Review, April, May, 1899.

40

The Mystic Rose, p. 460.

41

History of Human Marriage, pp. 105-113.

42

Tylor, J. A. I. xviii. 3, 254.

43

The practice however, is attributed to tame canary birds.

44

Studies in Ancient History, second series, pp. 57-65.

45

Cf. Custom and Myth (A. L.), p. 258.

46

Mystic Rose, p. 31.

47

Spencer and Gillen, pp. 92-93.

48

Lord Avebury's view that the 'rite' implies compensation to the other males of the community will be considered later.

49

Westermarck, p. 13. Citing Brehm, 'Thierleben,' i. 97, Proceedings R.G.S. xvi. 177.

50

Mystic Rose, p. 443.

51

Westermarck, p. 292.

52

Mystic Rose, p. 222.

53

Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 170.

54

Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxi. 166.

55

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 42,46, 47, 115.

56

Mystic Rose, p. 443.

57

See Studies in Ancient History, pp. 183-186.

58

This is the view of Dr. Durkheim, who explains the blood superstition. Cf. Reinach, L'Anthropologie, x. 652.

59

History of Human Marriage, p. 352.

60

Compare Mr. Crawley, Mystic Rose, pp. 444-446.

61

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.'

62

Second series, pp. 289-310.

63

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).

64

Jour. and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. N.S.W., xxviii, xxxii, xxxiv.

65

Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxiv. 120-122.

66

Prov. Jour. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., xxxiv. 127. Mr. Fison makes an exception for some Kamilaroi.

67

This view is discussed later.

68

P. 27 et seq.

69

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).

70

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 40.

71

J. A. I. xiv. 142.

72

Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xviii. 264.

73

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 107.

74

Op. cit. p. 41.

75

Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxi. 162.

76

On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 129; Transactions of Royal Society of Victoria, 1889.

77

The natives retain sacred songs to Daramulun, but cannot (or will not?) translate them. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxiv. 280.

78

Spencer and Gillen, p. 152.

79

Howitt, J. A. I. xviii. 37-39.

80

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 235, note.

81

Op. cit. pp. 59, 62, 63, 66.

82

New marriage prohibitions may have been, and, I believe, were added, but the divisions thus made were not, I think, totemistic.

83

Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 136.

84

Harpocration s. v. γεννῆται Greek: genneitai.

85

J. A. I. xiv. 160.

86

Spencer and Gillen, pp. 72, 420.

87

Ethnological Bureau, Annual Report, 1893-1894, pp. 200, 201.

88

Studies in Ancient History, p. 221.

89

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.

90

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.

91

Totemism, p. 60 (1889).

92

Totemism, p. 62.

93

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.

94

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.

95

My italics.

96

J. A. I., N.S. i. 278.

97

Ibid. p. 282.

98

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.

99

J. A. I., N.S. i. 284-285.

100

Studies in Ancient History, second series, p. 605.

101

Local totem groups, in my theory.

102

Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 423-424.

103

On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, p. 186.

104

I know that many students will decline to admit that there is such a myth of a Maker.

105

Report of Bureau of Ethnology, 1892-1893, pt. i. pp. 32-43.

106

Natives of Central Australia, pp. 12-15.

107

Ibid. pp. 15, 421-422, also p. 272.

108

Here I dissent from Mr. Frazer and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen; the point is discussed later.

109

Fortnightly Review, June 1889.

110

In 1895, J. A. I. xxiv., no. 4, p. 371, Mr. Fison abandons hope of a certain discovery of the origin of exogamy.

111

Fortnightly Review, April, May, 1899.

112

Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68, 69, 121.

113

Ibid. p. 70.

114

Ibid. p. 10.

115

See 'The Origin of Totemism,' infra.

116

L'Année Sociologique, 1900-1901, pp. 82-121.

117

Ibid. v. 89-90.

118

Totemism, p. 83.

119

L'Année Sociologique, v. 92.

120

Spencer and Gillen, p. 419.

121

J. A. I., N.S., i. 285.

122

Spencer and Gillen, p. 120.

123

J. A. I., N.S., i., nos. 3, 4, p. 276.

124

J. A. I., N.S., i. 276-277.

125

Native Tribes of Australia, pp. 396-402, 421.

126

Native Tribes of Australia, p. 418.

127

Op. cit. p 279.

128

L'Année Sociologique, v. 91, 92.

129

This idea we shall find again later, in another part of Dr. Durkheim's system.

130

L'Année Sociologique, i. 6, 7.

131

L'Ann. Soc. v. 104-107; Spencer and Gillen, pp. 68-69.

132

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.

133

Op. cit. p. 61.

134

Spencer and Gillen, p. 57.

135

Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871); and Ancient Society (1877); earlier in The League of the Iroquois (1854).

136

So Mr. Fison candidly states, and Mr. Morgan saw his work, and wrote an introductory essay. Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 99.

137

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 160-161.

138

Ancient Society, pp. 49-50.

139

Cf. The Mystic Rose, pp. 444-445. Westermarck, p. 352.

140

Ancient Society, p. 59.

141

Ibid. p. 74.

142

By 'classes' Mr. Morgan here seems to mean phratries.

143

Westermarck, pp. 85, 96.

144

Lord Avebury, Origin of Civilisation, pp. 442-449, 1902.

145

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 60.

146

Spencer and Gillen, pp. 56, 57, 59.

147

J. A. I., May 1895, p. 368.

148

Spencer and Gillen, p. 60.

149

Ibid. p. 66.

150

Ibid. p. 75.

151

The Mystic Rose, p. 476.

152

Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 27, cf. p. 70.

153

Ancient Society, pp. 427-428.

154

Captain Cook, of His Majesty's ship The Endeavour.

155

Descent of Man, ii. 362, 363. Dr. Savage, Boston Jour. of Nat. Hist. v. 423.

156

Spencer and Gillen, p. 65.

157

Op. cit. p. 67.

158

Spencer and Gillen, pp. 67, 68.

159

Spencer and Gillen, pp. 62-64. Mystic Rose, pp. 477-478.

160

On the Organisation of Australian Tribes, pp. 107, 108.

161

Spencer and Gillen, p. 97.

162

Ibid. pp. 92-96. The Mystic Rose, pp. 479, 480.

163

Spencer and Gillen, pp. 420-421.

164

J. A. I. vol. xviii., no. 3, pp. 245-272.

165

Op. cit. pp. 246-248.

166

Howitt, Organisation of Australian Tribes.

167

Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger. Diek, Stuttgart, 1894.

168

This can hardly be, as the most backward tribes have phratries and totems, but no 'classes.'

169

Eyre, Journals, ii. 293-295. Cunow, p. 33, note 2. Bulmer, in Brough Smyth, i. 235. Roth, Ethnological Studies, pp. 69, 70, Brisbane, 1897.

170

Brough Smyth, i. 91.

171

Pp. 122-124, and note 1, an argument against Westermarck.

172

Pp. 127-128.

173

Gason, The Dicyrie Tribe (1894), p. 13. Kam. and Kur. p. 25. Cunow, pp. 109-110, 130-132.

174

Cf. Cunow, p. 82. So, too, the Euahlayi.

175

Cunow, p. 130.

176

Pp. 133-134.

177

Brough Smyth, i. 423. Cunow, p. 134. Studies in Ancient History, second series, ut supra.

178

See 'The Origin of Totemism.'

179

Cf. p. 83.

180

Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W. xxxi. 161.

181

Op. cit. pp. 172-175.

182

'Report of the Committee of the Legislative Council on Aborigines.' Victoria, pp. 9, 69, 77.

183

Prehistoric Times, p. 598.

184

G. Scott Lang, The Aborigines of Australia, p. 10.

185

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.

186

Man, 1902, No. 75.

187

Totemism, p. 2, 1887.

188

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.

189

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.'

190

Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-1894, p. 241.

191

L'Année Sociologique, v. 93, 99, 100. As far as the proof rests on Arunta traditions, I lay no stress upon it.

192

J. A. I. vol. xviii., no. 3, p. 254.

193

Frazer, Totemism, p. 1.

194

Major Powell, Man, 1901, no. 75.

195

Howitt, J. A. I. xx. 40-41, 1891.

196

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.

197

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

198

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

199

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.

200

Tylor, Remarks on Totemism, p. 134.

201

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

202

Frazer, Totemism, p. 7.

203

Hose and McDougall, J. A. I. xxxi. 193, 1901.