Social Origins and Primal Law. Lang Andrew
probably family groups…' The process of advance was one of 'progressive combination rather than of continued differentiation… It would appear that the original definitely organised groups occasionally coalesced with other groups, both simple and compound, whereby they were elaborated in structure…' Mr. McGee adds, 'always with some loss in definiteness and permanence.' As far as concerns Australia, I do not feel sure that the last remark applies, but, on the whole, Mr. McGee's observations, couched in abstract terms, appear to fit what I have written, in concrete terms, about the probable evolution of Australian tribal society.87
The theory thus suggested makes little demand on deliberate legislation, as we shall see later.
DELIBERATE ARRANGEMENT
This I take to be important. It seems well to avoid, as far as possible, the hypothesis of deliberate legislation in times primeval, involving so sweeping a change as the legal establishment of exogamy through a decree based on common consent by an exogamous 'Bisection' consciously made. Exogamy must have been gradually evolved. But, if we begin with Mr. Howitt's original undivided commune, and suppose a deliberate bisection of it into two exogamous phratries, each somehow containing different totems; or if we suppose a tribe of only two totems, and imagine that the tribe deliberately made these totems exogamous, which they had not been before, and then subdivided them into many other totem groups, we see, indeed, why persons of the same totem may not intermarry. They now, after the decree, belong to the same exogamous 'phratry' within which marriage is deliberately forbidden. But, on this theory, I find no escape from the conclusion that the 'bisection' into 'phratries' was the result of a deliberate decree, intended to produce exogamy – for the bisection has not, and apparently cannot have, any other effect. Now I can neither imagine a motive for such a decree, nor any mode, in such early times, of procuring for it common consent. At this point we have laboured, and to it we shall return, observing that our hypothesis makes much less appeal to such early and deliberate legislation.
TOTEMS ALL THE WAY
In any case, by Mr. Fison's and Mr. Howitt's theory and our own, we have totems almost all the way: totems in the so-called 'primary divisions' (phratries); totems in the so-called gentes, and all these divisions (setting the Arunta apart) are strictly exogamous. The four or eight 'classes,' on the other hand, are apparently not of totemic origin. However much the systems may be complicated and inter-twisted, the basis of the whole, except of the four or eight 'classes,' is, I think, the totem exogamous prohibition. There are many examples of the type; thus the Urabunna 'are divided into two exogamous intermarrying classes, which are respectively called Matthurie and Kirarawa, and the members of these again are divided into a series of totemic groups, for which the native name is Thunthunnie. A Matthurie man must marry a Kirarawa women' (as in the system of the Kamil-speaking tribes, or Kamilaroi, reported on by Mr. Fison) – 'and not only this, but a man of one totem must marry a woman of another totem.' This is precisely what I should expect. It works out thus:
{ Old Local Totem Group} Matthurie.
{ New 'Phratry' }
{ Old Local Totem Group} Kirarawa.
{ New 'Phratry' }
Each of these 'phratries' has five totems, not found in the other class, and how this occurred, if not by actual deliberate arrangement, I do not know. One thing is clear: totem and phratry are prior to 'class' divisions. They occur where 'class' divisions do not. But my theory does not involve the deliberate introduction of exogamy, by an exogamous bisection of groups not hitherto exogamous, or by making two pre-existing totem groups exogamous. I take the groups to have been exogamous already, before the blending in connubium of two local totem groups (now 'phratries'), each including numbers of already exogamous totem kindreds. They were exogamous before the 'phratries' existed, and after their falling into the two phratries, exogamous they remained.
DISTRIBUTION OF TOTEMS IN THE 'PHRATRIES'
Mr. McLennan, ere he had the information now before us, wrote, in 1865, 'Most probably contiguous groups would be composed of exactly the same stocks' (we can now, for 'stocks,' read 'totem kins') – 'would contain gentes of precisely the same names.'88 This is obvious, for Emu, Kangaroo, Wild Duck, Opossum, Snake, and Lizard, living in the same region, would raid each other (by the hypothesis) for wives, and each foreign wife would bring her own totem name into each group. Yet we find that the two 'primary classes' (phratries) of the Urabunna (which, on my theory, represent two primitive totem local groups, say Emu and Kangaroo, each with its representatives of all other totem groups within raiding distance) never contain the same totems.
It is mathematically impossible that this exclusiveness should be the result of accident. On a first consideration, therefore, I took it to be the result of deliberate legislative design, at the moment when on my hypothesis two local totem groups, containing members of several totems of descent, united in connubium. The totem names, I at first conceived, with reluctance, must have been consciously and deliberately meted out between the two local totem groups, now become phratries. This idea did not involve so stringent and useless a measure as that of segmenting the two phratries into minor totem groups: however the idea was still too much akin to that of Harpocration as regards the arbitrary drafting of the Attic population into γένη. But, on further reflection, I conceived that my first theory was superfluous. Given the existence of local groups, as such totemic, and of totem kins of descent within the original local totem groups, the actual results, I thought, arise automatically, as soon as two local totem groups agree to intermarry. Men and women must many out of their local totem group (now 'phratry') and must marry out of their totem of descent. Consequently, no one totem could possibly exist in both phratries. This I now, on third thoughts, 'which are a wiser first,' deem erroneous. The automatic arraying of one set of totems into one, or another set into the other, phratry, would not occur. The totems have been divided between the two phratries.89 This condition of affairs is universal in Australia, except where, as among the Arunta and similar tribes, the same totem comes to exist in both phratries, so that men and women of the same totem, but of opposite phratries, may intermarry. That breach of old rule, we shall try to show, arises from the peculiar animistic philosophy of the Arunta, by virtue of which totems are no longer totems of descent, but are otherwise obtained. The Kamilaroi practice of interphratry marriage arises out of respect for totem and neglect of phratry law.
My conjecture takes for granted, let me repeat, that, before the 'bisection,' or the amalgamation, which produced the two exogamous 'classes,' the totem kindreds were already exogamous. My reasons for this opinion have already been given, in the discussion of Mr. Crawley's theory of the origin of exogamy (supra), to which the reader may refer. My suggestion makes the growth of exogamy non-moral, gradual, and almost unconscious, till it is clinched and stereotyped by the totem tabu.90 The opposite theory – namely, the deliberate bisection into exogamous 'classes,' of totem groups, or of an 'undivided commune' not previously exogamous, appeals too much, I repeat, to conscious and – as far as we can see – motiveless legislation, at an early stage. The bisection must have had a purpose, and has no visible purpose except the establishment o f exogamy, and why did the 'undivided commune' establish that?
THE IDEAS OF MR. FRAZER HIS EARLIER THEORY
It cannot be concealed that my conjecture is opposed to the mass of learned opinion, which represents the primary 'phratries' as the first exogamous bodies, and the totems in each as later subdivisions of the phratries. The writers who, like Mr. Fison, recognise that the primary subdivisions are themselves, in origin, totem divisions, do not (as I understand) regard these very ancient totem groups as already exogamous, before the institution of 'phratries.'
Again, turning from Australia to North America, we find Mr. Frazer, at least in one passage, on the side of the view generally held. Of the 'phratry,' in America, he says, 'the evidence goes to show that in many cases it was originally a totem clan which has undergone subdivision.'91 Many examples are then given of the North American 'phratries,' which include totem groups within
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 (
See again Durkheim, in