Social Origins and Primal Law

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.'124

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.125 '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.'126 (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.'127

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.128

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?129 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.130 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.131 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.132 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.

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.133 '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.'134 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.135 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.