The Secret of the Totem

CHAPTER IX

TOTEMIC REDISTRIBUTION

The totemic redistribution – The same totem is never in both phratries – This cannot be the result of accident – Yet, originally, the same totems must have existed in both phratries, on any theory of the origin of phratries – The present state of affairs is the result of legislation – To avoid clash of phratry law and totem law, the totems were redistributed – No totem in both phratries – Recapitulation – Whole course of totemic evolution has been surveyed – Our theory colligates every known fact – Absence of conjecture in our theory – All the causes are veræ causæ– Protest against use of such terms as "sex totems," "individual totems," "mortuary totems," "sub-totems" – The true totem is hereditary, and marks the exogamous limit – No other is genuine.

That the process of changing phratries was possible when it was necessary to meet, on the lines of least resistance, a matrimonial problem (there must always be some friction in law, under changed conditions) may be demonstrated as matter of fact. We are aware of an arrangement which cannot have been accidental, which evaded a clash of laws, and involved the changing of their phratries by certain members of totem kins.

That, at some early moment, the name-giving animals of descent had become full-blown totems, is plain from this fact, which occurs in all the primitive types of tribal organisation: The same totem never exists in both phratries.229 This in no way increases, as things stand, the stringency of phratry law, of the old law, "No marriage in the local group," now a phratry. But it imposes a law perhaps more recent, "No marriage within the totem name by descent, and the totem kin." The distribution of totem kins, so that the same totem is never in both phratries, cannot, I repeat, be the result of accident.230 Necessarily, at first, the same totem must have occurred, sometimes, in both of the local groups which, on our theory, became phratries. Thus if Eagle Hawk local group and Crow local group had both taken wives from Lizard, Wallaby, Cat, Grub, and Duck local groups, these women would bring Wallaby, Cat, Grub, Lizard, Duck names into both the Eagle Hawk and the Crow local groups. Yet Eagle Hawk and Crow phratries, representing Eagle Hawk and Crow local groups, never now contain, both of them, Snipe, Duck, Grub, Wallaby, Cat, and Emu totem kins. Snipe, Duck, and Wallaby are in one phratry; Cat, Grub, and Emu are in the other.

This is certainly the result of deliberate legislation, whether at the first establishment of phratry law, or later.

If the theory of Mr. Frazer and Dr. Durkheim, the theory that the two primal groups threw off totem colonies, be preferred to mine, it remains very improbable that colonies, swarming off the hostile Crow group, never once took the same new animal-names as those chosen by Eagle Hawk colonies: that the Eagle Hawk colonies, again, always chose new totems which were always avoided by the Crow colonies.

It would appear, then, that there must have been a time when several of the same totems by descent occurred in both phratries, or, at least, in both the local groups that became phratries. In that case, by phratry law, a Snipe in Eagle Hawk phratry might marry, out of his own phratry, in Crow phratry, a Snipe. By totem law, however, he may not do this. There was thus a clash of laws, as soon as totem law was fully developed, and the totems were therefore deliberately arranged so that one totem never appeared in both phratries. This law made it necessary, when Snipes occurred in both phratries, that some Snipes, say, in Eagle Hawk phratry, must cross over and join the other Snipes in Crow phratry, or vice versa. They obviously could not change their totems, and, of two evils, preferred to change their phratry, the representative of their old local group. Totems were beginning to override and flourish at the expense of phratries, a process in the course of which many phratry names are now of unknown meaning, many phratry names have even ceased to exist (the later matrimonial class names doing all that is needed), and outside of Australia, America, and parts of Melanesia, phratries seem not to be found at all among totemists – (the Melanesians have only rags of totemism left).

But where totems, under male kinship (as among the Arunta), have decayed, phratries, named or nameless (and, where nameless, indicated by the opposed matrimonial classes in Australia), do regulate exogamy still.

Thus the possibility of members of a totem kin changing phratries, as we suppose Eagle Hawk and Crow kins to have done, seems to have been demonstrated by actual fact, by that redistribution of totem kins in the phratries – never the same totem in both phratries – which cannot be due to accident, and is universal, except in the Arunta nation. In that nation the absence of the universal practice has been explained. (Cf. Chapter IV.)

It is clear that the first great change in evolution was the addition to the rule, "No marriage in the local group of animal name," of the rule, "No marriage in the animal name of descent," or totem, the totem being nearer and dearer to a man than his local group name, when that became a phratry name, including several totem kins.

Now that this feeling – to which the totem of the kin was far nearer and dearer than the old local group animal whence the phratry took its name – is a genuine sentiment, can be proved by the evidence of Mr. Howitt, who certainly is not biassed by affection for my theory – his own being contrary. He says: "The class name" (that is, in our terminology, the phratry name) "is general, the totem name is in one sense individual, for it is certainly nearer to the individual than the name of the moiety" (phratry) "of the community to which he belongs."231 Again, "It is interesting to note that the totems seem to be much nearer to the aborigines, if I may use that expression, than the" (animals of?) "the primary classes," that is, phratries.232

As soon as this sentiment prevailed, wherever a clash of laws arose men would change their phratries, rather than change their totems, and we have seen that, to effect the present distribution of totems (never the same totem in each phratry), many persons must have changed their phratries, as did the two whole totem kins of the phratriac names, on my hypothesis. I reached these conclusions before Mr. Howitt informed us of the various dodges by which several tribes now facilitate marriages that are counter to the strict letter of the law.

It seems needless to dwell on the objection that my system "does not account for the fact that phratriac names – say Eagle Hawk, Crow – are commonly found over wide areas, and are not distributed in a way that Mr. Lang's 'casual' origin would explain."233

We have seen, though we knew it not when the objection was raised, that the institutions were perhaps in some cases diffused by borrowing, from a centre where Kilpara meant Crow, and Mukwara meant Eagle Hawk; and that these names, and the phratriac institution, reached regions very remote, and tribes in whose language Kilpara and Mukwara have no everyday meaning. If borrowing be rejected, then the names spread with the spread of migration from a given Mukwara-Kilpara centre, and other names for Eagle Hawk and Crow were evolved in everyday life.

Except as regards late "abnormalities," we have now surveyed the whole course of totemic evolution. May it not be said that my theory involves but a small element of conjecture? Man, however he began, was driven, by obvious economic causes, into life in small groups. Being man, he had individual likes and dislikes, involving discrimination of persons and some practical restraints. A sense of female kin and blood kin and milk kin was forced on him by the visible facts of birth, of nursing, of association. His groups undeniably did receive names; mainly animal names, which I show to be usual as group sobriquets in ancient Israel and in later rural societies. These names were peculiarly suitable for silent signalling by gesture language; no others could so easily be signalled silently; none could so easily be represented in pictographs, whether naturalistic or schematised into "geometrical" marks. It is no conjecture that the names exist, and exist in the diffused manner naturally caused by women handing on their names to their offspring, as, under a system of reckoning in the female line, they do to this day. It is no conjecture that the origin of the totem names has long been forgotten.

It is no conjecture that names are believed, by savages, to indicate a mystical rapport, and transcendental connection, between the name and all bearers of the name. It is no conjecture that this rapport is exploited for magical and other purposes. It is no conjecture that myths have been invented to explain the rapport which must, it is held, exist between Emu bird and Emu man, and so in all such cases. It is no conjecture that the myths explain the rapport, usually, as one of blood connection, involving duties and privileges. It is no conjecture that blood is held sacred, especially kindred blood, and that this belief involves exogamy, "No marriage within the blood of the man and the totem." We give reasons for everything, whereas, if a reformatory bisection of a promiscuous horde were made, by an inspired wizard, why did he do it, and why should each moiety take an animal name? Again, if there were no recognised pre-existing connection between human groups and animals, why should one group do magic for one animal, rather than for another, in cases where they do this magic?

We have thus reached totemism, and we trace its varying forms in the light of institutions which grew up in the evolution – under changing conditions – of the law of exogamy. The causes are demonstrably veræ causæ, conspicuously present in savage human nature, and the hypothesis appears to colligate all the known facts.

The eccentric and abnormal types of social organisation, as Mr. Howitt justly observes, are found in tribes which have adopted the reckoning of descent, or inheritance of names, in the male line. Phratry names lose their meanings or vanish, even phratries themselves decay, or are found with names that can hardly be original, names of cosmogonic anthropomorphic beings, as in New Britain. Totems, under male descent, become names of groups of locality, and local limits and local names (names of places, not totems) come to be the exogamous bounds, as among the isolated Kurnai.

In America, magical societies of animal names, and containing members of many totems, have been evolved. But we must not fall into the error of regarding such societies as "phratries." Nor must we confuse matters by regarding every animal now attached to any kind of association or individual as a totem. Each sex, in many Australian tribes, has an associated animal. Each dead man, in some communities, is classed under some name of an object of nature. Each individual may have a patron animal familiar revealed to him, in a dream, or by an accident, after a fast, or may have it selected for him by soothsayers. The totem kins may classify all things, in sets, each set of things under one totem. But the animal names which are not hereditary or exogamous are not judiciously to be spoken of as "Sex Totems," "Mortuary Totems," "Individual Totems," or "Sub-totems." They are a result of applying totemic ideas to the sexes, to dead men, or to living individuals, or to the universe. Perhaps totemic methods and style were even utilised and adapted when the institution of matrimonial classes was later devised.

CHAPTER X

MATRIMONIAL CLASSES

Matrimonial classes – Their working described – Prevent persons of successive generations from intermarrying – Child and parent unions forbidden in tribes without matrimonial classes – Obscurity caused by ignorance of philology – Meanings of names of classes usually unknown – Mystic names for common objects – Cases in which meaning of class names is known – They are names of animals – Variations in evidence – Names of classes from the centre to Gulf of Carpentaria – They appear to be Cloud, Eagle Hawk (?), Crow, Kangaroo Rat – Uncertainty of these etymologies – One totem to one totem marriages – Obscurity of evidence – Perhaps the so-called "totems" are matrimonial classes – Meaning of names forgotten – Or names tabued – The classes a deliberately framed institution – Unlike phratries and totem kins – Theory of Herr Cunow – Lack of linguistic evidence for his theory.

The nature of the sets called Matrimonial Classes has already been explained (Chapter I.). In its simplest form, as among the Kamilaroi, who reckon descent in the female line, and among the adjacent tribes to a great distance, there exist, within the phratries, what Mr. Frazer has called "sub-phratries," what Mr. Howitt calls "sub-classes," in our term "matrimonial classes," In these tribes each child is born into its mother's phratry and totem of course, but not into its mother's "sub-phratry," "sub-class," or "matrimonial class." There being two of these divisions in each phratry, the child belongs to that division, in its mother's phratry, which is not its mother's. That a man of class Muri, in Dilbi phratry, marries a woman of class Kumbo, in Kupathin phratry, and their children, keeping to the mother's phratry and totem, belong to the class in Kupathin phratry which is not hers, that is, belong to class Ipai, and so on. Children and parents are never of the same class, and never can intermarry. The class names eternally differentiate each generation from its predecessor, and eternally forbid their intermarriage.

But child-parent intermarriages are just as unlawful, by custom, among primitive tribes like the Barkinji, who have female reckoning of descent, but no matrimonial classes at all. By totem law, among the Barkinji, a man might marry his daughter, who is neither of his phratry nor totem, but he never does. Yet nobody suggests that the Barkinji once had classes and class law, but dropped the classes, while retaining one result of that organisation – no parent and child marriage. The classes are found in Australia only, and tend, in the centre, north, and west, under male descent, to become more numerous and complex, eight classes being usual from the centre to the sea in the north.

One of the chief obstacles to the understanding of the classes and of their origin, is the obscurity which surrounds the meaning of their names, in most cases. Explorers like Messrs. Spencer and Gillen mention no instance in which the natives of Northern and Central Australia could, or at all events would, explain the sense of their class names.

In these circumstances, as in the interpretation of the divine names of Sanskrit and Greek mythology, we naturally turn to comparative philology for a solution of the problem. But, in the case of Greek and Sanskrit divine names, say, Athênê, Dionysus, Artemis, Indra, Poseidon, comparative philology almost entirely failed. Each scholar found an "equation," an interpretation, which satisfied himself, but was disputed by his brethren. The divine names, with a rare exception or two, remained impenetrably obscure.

If this was the state of things when divine names of peoples with a copious written literature were concerned; if scholars armed with "the weapons of precision" of philological science were baffled; it is easy to see how perilous is the task of interpreting the class names of Australian savages. Their dialects, leaving no written monuments, have manifestly fluctuated under the operation of laws of change, and these laws have been codified by no Grimm.

As a science, Australian philology does not exist. In 1880 Mr. Fison wrote, "It is simply impossible to ascertain the exact meaning of these words" (changes of name and grade conferred at secret ceremonies), "without a very full knowledge of the native dialects," and without strong personal influence with the blacks… "In all probability there are not half-a-dozen men so qualified in the whole Australian continent."234

The habit of using, in the case of the initiate, mystic terms even for the everyday names of animals, greatly complicates the problem. It does not appear that most of the recorders of the facts know even one native dialect as Dr. Walter Roth knows some dialects of North-West Central Queensland. In the south-east, Kamilaroi was seriously studied, long ago, by Mr. Threlkeld and Mr. Ridley, who wrote tracts in that language. Sir George Grey and Mr. Matthews, with many others, have compiled vocabularies, the result of studies of their own, and Mr. Curr collected brief glossaries of very many tribes, by aid of correspondents without linguistic training.

Into this ignorance as to the meanings of the names of matrimonial classes, Mr. Howitt brings a faint little gleam of light In a few cases, he thinks, the meaning of class and "sub-class" names is ascertained. Among the Kuinmurbura tribe, between Broad Sound and Shoal water Bay, the "sub-classes" (our "matrimonial classes") "were totems." By this Mr. Howitt obviously means that the classes bore animal names. They meant (i.) the Barrimundi, (ii.) a Hawk, (iii.) Good Water, and (iv.) Iguana.235 For the Annan River tribe, he gives "sub-classes" (our "matrimonial classes"), (i.) Eagle Hawk, (ii.) Bee, (iii.) Salt-Water-Eagle Hawk, (iv.) Bee.236 This is not very satisfactory. In previous works he gave so many animal names for his "sub-classes," Mr. Frazer's "sub-phratries" (our "matrimonial classes"), that Mr. Frazer wrote, "It seems to follow that the sub-phratries of the Kamilaroi (Muri, Kubi, Ipai, and Kumbo) have, or once had, totems also," that is, had names derived from animals or other objects.237

Mr. Howitt himself at one time appeared to hold that the names of the matrimonial classes are often animal names. His phraseology here is not very lucid. "The main sections themselves are frequently, probably always, distinguished by totems." Here he certainly means that the phratries have usually animal names, though we are not told that the phratries, as such, treat their name-giving animal, even when they know the meaning of its name, "with the decencies of a totem." Mr. Howitt goes on, "The probability is that they are all" (that all the classes are) "totems."238 By this Mr. Howitt perhaps intends to say that all the "classes" (both the phratries and the matrimonial classes) probably have animal or other such names.

Again, the class names of the Kiabara tribe were said to denote four animals – Turtle, Bat, Carpet Snake, Cat.239 But now (1904) the Kiabara class names are given without translation, and the four animals are thrown into the list of totems, with Flood Water and Lightning totems (which names were previously given as translations of Kubatine and Dilebi, the phratry names).240 Doubtless Mr. Howitt has received more recent information, but, if we accept what he now gives us, the meanings of his "sub-class" names are only ascertained in the cases of two tribes, and then are names of animals.

I spent some labour in examining the class names of the tribes studied by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, from the Arunta in the centre to the Tingilli at Powell's Creek, after which point our authors no longer marched due north, but turned east, at a right angle, reaching the sea, and the Binbinga, the Mara, and Anula coast tribes, on or near the MacArthur River. The class names of these coastal tribes did not resemble those of the central tribes. But if Messrs. Spencer and Gillen had held north by west, in place of turning due east from Newcastle Waters, they would have found, as far as the sea at Nichol Bay, four classes whose names closely resemble the class names of the central tribes, and are reported as Paljarie, or Paliali, or Palyeery (clearly the Umbaia and Binbinga Paliarinji), Kimera or Kymurra, (obviously Kumara), Banigher, or Bunaka, or Panaka (Panunga, cf. Dieri Kanunka = Bush Wallaby),241 and Boorungo, or Paronga.242