The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1

50. Terms of relationship

Exogamy and totemism are found not only in India, but are the characteristics of primitive social groups over the greater part of the world. Totemism establishes a relation of kinship between persons belonging to one clan who are not related by blood, and exogamy prescribes that the persons held to be so related shall not intermarry. Further, when terms of relationship come into existence it is found that they are applied not to members of one family, but to all the persons of the clan who might have stood in each particular relationship to the person addressing them. Thus a man will address as mother not only his own mother, but all the women of his clan who might have stood to him in the relation of mother. Similarly he will address all the old men and women as grandfather or grandmother or aunt, and the boys and girls of his own generation as brother and sister, and so on. With the development of the recognition of the consanguineous family, the use of terms of relationship tends to be restricted to persons who have actual kinship; thus a boy will address only his father’s brothers as father, and his cousins as brothers and sisters; but sufficient traces of the older system of clan kinship remain to attest its former existence. But it seems also clear that some, at least, of the terms of relationship were first used between persons really related; thus the word for mother must have been taught by mothers to their own babies beginning to speak, as it is a paramount necessity for a small child to have a name by which to call its mother when it is wholly dependent on her; if the period of infancy is got over without the use of this term of address there is no reason why it should be introduced in later life, when in the primitive clan the child quickly ceased to be dependent on its mother or to retain any strong affection for her. Similarly, as shown by Sir J.G. Frazer in Totemism and Exogamy, there is often a special name for the mother’s brother when other uncles or aunts are addressed simply as father or mother. This name must therefore have been brought into existence to distinguish the mother’s brother at the time when, under the system of female descent, he stood in the relation of a protector and parent to the child. Where the names for grandfather and grandmother are a form of duplication of those for father and mother as in English, they would appear to imply a definite recognition of the idea of family descent. The majority of the special names for other relatives, such as fraternal and maternal uncles and aunts, must also have been devised to designate those relatives in particular, and hence there is a probability that the terms for father and brother and sister, which on a priori grounds may be considered doubtful, were also first applied to real or putative fathers and brothers and sisters. But, as already seen, under the classificatory system of relationship these same terms are addressed to members of the same clan who might by age and sex have stood in such a relationship to the person addressing them, but are not actually akin to him at all. And hence it seems a valid and necessary conclusion that at the time when the family terms of relationship came into existence, the clan sentiment of kinship was stronger than the family sentiment; that is, a boy was taught or made to feel that all the women of the clan of about the same age as his mother were as nearly akin to him as his own mother, and that he should regard them all in the same relation. And similarly he looked on all the men of the clan of an age enabling them to be his fathers in the same light as his own father, and all the children of or about his own age as his brothers and sisters. The above seems a necessary conclusion from the existence of the classificatory system of relationship, which is very widely spread among savages, and if admitted, it follows that the sentiment of kinship within the clan was already established when the family terms of relationship were devised, and therefore that the clan was prior to the family as a social unit. This conclusion is fortified by the rule of exogamy which prohibits marriage between persons of the same clan between whom no blood-relationship can be traced, and therefore shows that some kind of kinship was believed to exist between them, independent of and stronger than the link of consanguinity. Further, Mr. Hartland shows in Primitive Paternity92 that during the period of female descent when physical paternity has been recognised, but the father and mother belong to different clans, the children, being of the mother’s clan, will avenge a blood-feud of their clan upon their own father; and this custom seems to show clearly that the sentiment of clan-kinship was prior to and stronger than that of family kinship.

51. Clan kinship and totemism

The same argument seems to demonstrate that the idea of kinship within the clan was prior to the idea of descent from a common ancestor, whether an animal or plant, a god, hero or nicknamed ancestor. Because it is obvious that a set of persons otherwise unconnected could not suddenly and without reason have believed themselves to be descended from a common ancestor and hence related. If a number of persons not demonstrably connected by blood believe themselves to be akin simply on account of their descent from a common ancestor, it can only be because they are an expanded family, either actually or by fiction, which really had or might have had a common ancestor. That is, the clan tracing its descent from a common ancestor, if this was the primary type of clan, must have been subsequent to the family as a social institution. But as already seen the sentiment of kinship within the clan was prior to that within the family, and therefore the genesis of the clan from an expanded family is an impossible hypothesis; and it follows that the members of the clan must first have believed themselves to be bound together by some tie equivalent to or stronger than that of consanguineous kinship, and afterwards, when the primary belief was falling into abeyance, that of descent from a common ancestor came into existence to account for the clan sentiment of kinship already existing. If then the first form of association of human beings was in small groups, which led a migratory life and subsisted mainly by hunting and the consumption of fruits and roots, as the Australian natives still do, the sentiment of kinship must first have arisen, as stated by Mr. M’Lennan, in that small body which lived and hunted together, and was due simply to the fact that they were so associated, that they obtained food for each other, and on occasion protected and preserved each other’s lives.93 These small bodies of persons were the first social units, and according to our knowledge of the savage peoples who are nearest to the original migratory and hunting condition of life, without settled habitations, domestic animals or cultivated plants, they first called themselves after some animal or plant, usually, as Sir J.G. Frazer has shown in Totemism and Exogamy,94 after some edible animal or plant. The most probable theory of totemism on a priori grounds seems therefore to be that the original small bodies who lived and hunted together, or totem-clans, called themselves after the edible animal or plant from which they principally derived their sustenance, or that which gave them life. While the real tie which connected them was that of living together, they did not realise this, and supposed themselves to be akin because they commonly ate this animal or plant together. This theory of totemism was first promulgated by Professor Robertson Smith and, though much disputed, appears to me to be the most probable. It has also been advocated by Dr. A.C. Haddon, F.R.S.95 The Gaelic names for family, teadhloch and cuedichc or coedichc, mean, the first, ‘having a common residence,’ the second, ‘those who eat together.’96 The detailed accounts of the totems of the Australian, Red Indian and African tribes, now brought together by Sir J.G. Frazer in Totemism and Exogamy, show a considerable amount of evidence that the early totems were not only as a rule edible animals, but the animals eaten by the totem-clans which bore their names.97 But after the domestication of animals and the culture of plants had been attained to, the totems ceased to be the chief means of subsistence. Hence the original tie of kinship was supplanted by another and wider one in the tribe, and though the totem-clans remained and continued to fulfil an important purpose, they were no longer the chief social group. And in many cases, as man had also by now begun to speculate on his origin, the totems came to be regarded as ancestors, and the totem-clans, retaining their sentiment of kinship, accounted for it by supposing themselves to be descended from a common ancestor. They thus also came to base the belief in clan-kinship on the tie of consanguinity recognised in the family, which had by now come into existence. This late and secondary form of totemism is that which obtains in India, where the migratory and hunting stage has long been passed. The Indian evidence is, however, of great value because we find here in the same community, occasionally in the same caste, exogamous clans which trace their descent sometimes from animals and plants, or totems, and sometimes from gods, heroes, or titular ancestors, while many of the clans are named after villages or have names to which no meaning can be attached. As has been seen, there is good reason to suppose that all these forms of the exogamous clan are developed from the earliest form of the totem-clan; and since this later type of clan has developed from the totem-clan in India, it is a legitimate deduction that wherever elsewhere exogamous clans are found tracing their descent from a common ancestor or with unintelligible names, probably derived from places, they were probably also evolved from the totem-clan. This type of clan is shown in Professor Hearn’s Aryan Household to have been the common unit of society over much of Europe, where no traces of the existence of totemism are established.98 And from the Indian analogy it is therefore legitimate to presume that the totem-clan may have been the original unit of society among several European races as well as in America, Africa, Australia and India. Similar exogamous clans exist in China, and many of them have the names of plants and animals.99

52. Animate Creation

In order to render clear the manner in which the clan named after a totem animal (or, less frequently, a plant) came to hold its members akin both to each other and their totem animals, an attempt may be made to indicate, however briefly and imperfectly, some features of primitive man’s conception of nature and life. Apparently when they began dimly to observe and form conscious mental impressions of the world around them, our first ancestors made some cardinal, though natural and inevitable, mistakes. In the first place they thought that the whole of nature was animate, and that every animal, plant, or natural object which they saw around them, was alive and self-conscious like themselves. They had, of course, no words or ideas connoting life or consciousness, or distinguishing animals, vegetables or lifeless objects, and they were naturally quite incapable of distinguishing them. They merely thought that everything they saw was like themselves, would feel hurt and resentment if injured, and would know what was done to it, and by whom; whenever they saw the movement of an animal, plant, or other object, they thought it was volitional and self-conscious like their own movements. If they saw a tree waving in the wind, having no idea or conception of the wind, they thought the tree was moving its branches about of its own accord; if a stone fell, they, knowing nothing of the force of gravity, thought the stone projected itself from one place to another because it wished to do so. This is exactly the point of view taken by children when they first begin to observe. They also think that everything they see is alive like themselves, and that animals exercise volition and have a self-conscious intelligence like their own. But they quickly learn their mistakes and adopt the point of view of their elders because they are taught. Primitive man had no one to teach him, and as he did not co-ordinate or test his observations, the traces of this first conception of the natural world remain clearly indicated by a vast assortment of primitive customs and beliefs to the present day. All the most prominent natural objects, the sun and moon, the sky, the sea, high mountains, rivers and springs, the earth, the fire, became objects of veneration and were worshipped as gods, and this could not possibly have happened unless they had been believed to have life. Stone images and idols are considered as living gods. In India girls are married to flowers, trees, arrows, swords, and so on. A bachelor is married to a ring or a plant before wedding a widow, and the first ceremony is considered as his true marriage. The Saligrām, or ammonite stone, is held to represent the god Vishnu, perhaps because it was thought to be a thunderbolt and to have fallen from heaven. Its marriage is celebrated with the tulsi or basil-plant, which is considered the consort of Vishnu. Trees are held to be animate and possessed by spirits, and before a man climbs a tree he begs its pardon for the injury he is about to inflict on it. When a tank is dug, its marriage is celebrated. To the ancient Roman his hearth was a god; the walls and doors and threshold of his house were gods; the boundaries of his field were also gods.100 It is precisely the same with the modern Hindu; he also venerates the threshold of his house, the cooking-hearth, the grinding-mill, and the boundaries of his field. The Jains still think that all animals, plants and inanimate objects have souls or spirits like human beings. The belief in a soul or spirit is naturally not primitive, as man could not at first conceive of anything he did not see or hear, but plants and inanimate objects could not subsequently have been credited with the possession of souls or spirits unless they had previously been thought to be alive. “The Fijians consider that if an animal or a plant dies its soul immediately goes to Bolotoo; if a stone or any other substance is broken, immortality is equally its reward; nay, artificial bodies have equal good luck with men and hogs and yams. If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away flies its soul for the service of the gods. If a house is taken down or any way destroyed, its immortal part will find a situation on the plains of Bolotoo. The Finns believed that all inanimate objects had their haltia or soul.”101 The Malays think that animals, vegetables and minerals, as well as human beings, have souls.102 The Kawar tribe are reported to believe that all articles of furniture and property have souls or spirits, and if any such is stolen the spirit will punish the thief. Theft is consequently almost unknown among them. All the fables about animals and plants speaking and exercising volition; the practice of ordeals, resting on the belief that the sacred living elements, fire and water, will of themselves discriminate between the innocent and guilty; the propitiatory offerings to the sea and to rivers, such incidents as Xerxes binding the sea with fetters, Ajax defying the lightning, Aaron’s rod that budded, the superstitions of sailors about ships: all result from the same primitive belief. Many other instances of self-conscious life and volition being attributed to animals, plants and natural objects are given by Lord Avebury in Origin of Civilisation, by Dr. Westermarck in The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas,103 and by Sir J.G. Frazer in The Golden Bough104

Thus primitive man had no conception of inanimate matter, and it seems probable that he did not either realise the idea of death. Though it may be doubtful whether any race exists at present which does not understand that death is the cessation of life in the body, indications remain that this view was not primary and may not have been acquired for some time. The Gonds apparently once thought that people would not die unless they were killed by magic, and similar beliefs are held by the Australian and African savages. Several customs also point to the belief in the survival of some degree of life in the body after death, apart from the idea of the soul.

53. The distribution of life over the body

Primitive man further thought that life, instead of being concentrated in certain organs, was distributed equally over the whole of the body. This mistake appears also to have been natural and inevitable when it is remembered that he had no name for the body, the different limbs and the internal organs, and no conception of their existence and distribution, nor of the functions which they severally performed. He perceived that sensation extended over all parts of the body, and that when any part was hurt or wounded the blood flowed and life gradually declined in vigour and ebbed away. For this reason the blood was subsequently often identified with the life. During the progress of culture many divergent views have been held about the source and location of life and mental and physical qualities, and the correct one that life is centred in the heart and brain, and that the brain is the seat of intelligence and mental qualities has only recently been arrived at. We still talk about people being hard-hearted, kind-hearted and heartless, and about a man’s heart being in the right place, as if we supposed that the qualities of kindness and courage were located in the heart, and determined by the physical constitution and location of the heart. The reason for this is perhaps that the soul was held to be the source of mental qualities, and to be somewhere in the centre of the body, and hence the heart came to be identified with it. As shown by Sir J.G. Frazer in The Golden Bough many peoples or races have thought that the life and qualities were centred in the whole head, not merely in the brain. And this is the reason why Hindus will not appear abroad with the head bare, why it is a deadly insult to knock off a man’s turban, and why turbans or other head-gear were often exchanged as a solemn pledge of friendship. The superstition against walking under a ladder may have originally been based on some idea of its being derogatory or dangerous to the head, though not, of course, from the fear of being struck by a falling brick. Similarly, as shown in the article on Nai, the belief that the bodily strength and vigour were located in the hair, and to a less extent in the nails and teeth, has had a world-wide prevalence. But this cannot have been primary, because the hair had first to be conceived of apart from the rest of the body, and a separate name devised for it, before the belief that the hair was the source of strength could gradually come into existence. The evolution of these ideas may have extended over thousands of years. The expression ‘white-livered,’ again, seems to indicate that the quality of courage was once held to be located in the liver, and the belief that the liver was the seat of life was perhaps held by the Gonds. But the primary idea seems necessarily to have been that the life was equally distributed all over the body. And since, as will be seen subsequently, the savage was incapable of conceiving the abstract idea of life, he thought of it in a concrete form as part of the substance of the flesh and blood.

And since primitive man had no conception of inanimate matter it followed that when any part of the body was severed from the whole, he did not think of the separate fraction as merely lifeless matter, but as still a part of the body to which it had originally belonged and retaining a share of its life. For according to his view of the world and of animate nature, which has been explained above, he could not think of it as anything else. Thus the clippings of hair, nails, teeth, the spittle and any other similar products all in his view remained part of the body from which they had been severed and retained part of its life. In the case of the elements, earth, fire and water, which he considered as living beings and subsequently worshipped as gods, this view was correct. Fractional portions of earth, fire and water, when severed from the remainder, retained their original nature and constitution, and afforded some support to his generally erroneous belief. And since he had observed that an injury done to any part of the body was an injury to the whole, it followed that if one got possession of any part of the body, such as the severed hair, teeth or nails, one could through them injure that body of which they still formed a part. It is for this reason that savages think that if an enemy can obtain possession of any waste product of the body, such as the severed hair or nails, that he can injure the owner through them. Similarly the Hindus thought that the clippings of the hair or nails, if buried in fertile ground, would grow into a plant, through the life which they retained, and as this plant waxed in size it would absorb more and more of the original owner’s life, which would consequently wane and decline. The worship of relics, such as the bones or hair of saints, is based on the same belief that they retain a part of the divine life and virtue of him to whom they once belonged.

54. Qualities associated with animals

It is probable that qualities were first conceived of by being observed in animals or natural objects. Prior to the introduction of personal names, the individuality of human beings could neither be clearly realised nor remembered after they were dead. But man must have perceived at an early period that certain animals were stronger or swifter than he was, or more cunning, and since the same quality was reproduced in every animal of the species, it could easily become permanently associated with the animal. But there were no names for qualities, nor any independent conception of them apart from the animal or animals in which they were observed. Supposing that strength and swiftness were mainly associated with the horse, as was often the case, then they would be necessarily conceived of as a part or essence of the horse and his life, not in the way we think of them, as qualities appertaining to the horse on account of the strength of his muscles and the conformation of his limbs. When names were devised for these qualities, they would be something equivalent to horsey or horse-like. The association of qualities with animals is still shown in such words as asinine, owlish, foxy, leonine, mulish, dogged, tigerish, and so on; but since the inferiority of animals to man has long been recognised, most of the animal adjectives have a derogatory sense.105 It was far otherwise with primitive man, who first recognised the existence of the qualities most necessary to him, as strength, courage, swiftness, sagacity, cunning and endurance, as being displayed by certain animals in a greater degree than he possessed them himself. Birds he admired and venerated as being able to rise and fly in the air, which he could not do; fish for swimming and remaining under water when he could not; while at the same time he had not as yet perceived that the intelligence of animals was in any way inferior to his own, and he credited many of them with the power of speech. Thus certain animals were venerated on account of the qualities associated with them, and out of them in the course of time anthropomorphic gods personifying the qualities were evolved. The Australian aborigines of the kangaroo totem, when they wish to multiply the number of kangaroos, go to a certain place where two special blocks of stone project immediately one above the other from the hillside. One is supposed to represent an ‘old man’ kangaroo and the other a female. The stones are rubbed and then painted with alternate red and white stripes, the red stripes representing the red fur of the kangaroos, and the white ones its bones. After doing this some of them open veins in their arms and allow the blood to spurt over the stones. The other men sing chants referring to the increase in the numbers of the kangaroos, and they suppose that this ceremony will actually result in producing an increased number of kangaroos and hence an additional supply of food.106 Here the inference seems to be that the stones represent the centre or focus of the life of kangaroos, and when they are quickened by the painting, and the supply of blood, they will manifest their creative activity and increase the kangaroos. If we suppose that some similar stone existed on the Acropolis and was considered by the owl clan as the centre of the life of the owls which frequented the hill, then when the art of sculpture had made some progress, and the superiority of the human form and intellect began to be apprehended, if a sculptor carved the stone into the semblance of a human being, the goddess Athena would be born.