Social Origins and Primal Law

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.212 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.213 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.214

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.215 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.'216

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.'217

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.218 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.219 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.'220 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.221 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.