Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia. Northcote Whitridge Thomas
dual or other grouping of the kins is widely found in North America, the number of phratries ranging from two among the Tlinkits, Cayugas, Choctaws, and others, to ten among the Moquis of Arizona. As in Australia, the totem kins bearing the same eponymous animal as the phratry are usually, e.g. among the Tlinkits, found in the phratry in question. Exceptions to this rule are found among the Haida, where both eagle and raven are in the eagle phratry.
The Mohegan and Kutchin phratries call for special notice. The kins of the former are arranged in three groups: wolf, turtle, and turkey; and the first phratry includes quadrupeds, the second turtles of various kinds and the yellow eel, and the third birds. We find a parallel to these phratries in the groups of the Kutchin, but in the latter case our lack of knowledge of the tribe precludes us from saying whether totem kins exist among them, and, if so, how far the grouping is systematic; the Kutchin groups, according to one authority, are known by the generic names of birds, beasts, and fish. As a rule, however, no classification of kins is found, nor are the phratry names specially significant.
Dual grouping of the kins is also found in New Guinea, the Torres Straits Islands, and possibly among the ancient Arabs5; but evidence in the latter case has not been systematically dealt with.
Other peoples have a similar dichotomous organisation; but it is either not based on the totem kins or they have fallen into the background.
In various parts of Melanesia we find the people divided into two groups, each associated with a single totem or mythological personage, and sexual intercourse, whether marital or otherwise, is strictly forbidden between those of the same phratry6. In India the Todas have a similar organisation7, and the Wanika in East Africa8.
Customs of residence and descent affect the distribution of the phratries within the tribe, no less than the composition of the local group. With patrilineal descent they tend to occupy the tribal territory in such a way that each phratry becomes a local group. With the disappearance of phratry names this would be transformed into a local exogamous group, which is, however, indistinguishable from the local group of the same nature which is the result of the development of a totem kin under similar conditions.
As a rule kinship organisations descend in a given tribe either in the male line or in the female. Among the Ova-Herero, however, and other Bantu tribes, there are two kinds of organisation, one—the eanda—descending in female line and regulative of marriage, is clearly the totem kin; property remains in the eanda, and consequently descends to the sister's son. The other—the oruzo—descends in the male line; it is concerned with chieftainship and priesthood, which remain in the same oruzo, and the heir is the brother's son.9
This dual rule of descent brings us face to face with the question of how membership of kinship groups is determined.
1 Howitt, N. T., p. 225.
2 Cf. Owen, Musquakie Indians, p. 122; Lahontan, Voyages, II, 203–4; Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 81.
3 Two kinds of kinship are recognised in Australian tribes—(a) totem and (b) phratry or class—but the precise relationship of one to the other is far from clear. Nor is there much information as to what terms of kinship are used within the totem kin. It is certain that neither set of terms includes the other, for the totem kin extends beyond the tribe or may do so, and there is more than one in each phratry.
4 For the facts see Frazer, Totemism, and cf. p. 31 infra.
5 MS. note from Dr. Seligmann's unpublished Report of Cook-Daniels Expedition; Camb. Univ. Torres Sts Exped., V, 172; Man, 1904, no. 18.
6 J. A. I. XVIII, 282.
7 Man, 1903, no. 97.
8 New, Travels, p. 274.
9 Ausland, 1856, p. 45, 1882, p. 834; Allg. Miss. Zts. V, 354; Zts. Vgl. Rechtswiss. XIV, 295; Mitt. Orient. Seminar, III, 73, V, 109. The recent work of Irle is inaccurate and confused.
CHAPTER II.
DESCENT.
Descent of kinship, origin and primitive form. Matriliny in Australia. Relation to potestas, position of widow, etc. Change of rule of descent; relation to potestas, inheritance and local organisation.
In discussions of the origin and evolution of kinship organisations, we are necessarily concerned not only with their forms but also with the rules of descent which regulate membership of them. Until recently the main questions at issue were twofold: (1) the priority or otherwise of female descent; (2) the causes of the transition from one form of descent to another. Of late the question has been raised whether in the beginning hereditary kinship groups existed at all, or whether membership was not rather determined by considerations of an entirely different order. Dr. Frazer, who has enunciated this view, maintains that totemism rests on a primitive theory of conception, due to savage ignorance of the facts of procreation.10 But his theory is based exclusively on the foundation of the beliefs of the Central Australians and seems to neglect more than one important point which goes to show that the Arunta have evolved their totemic system from the more ordinary hereditary form. Whether this be so or not, it is difficult to see how any idea of kinship could arise from such a condition of nescience. If we take the analogous case of the nagual or "individual totem" there seems to be no trace of any belief in the kinship of those who have the same animal as their nagual, but are otherwise bound by no tie of relationship. Yet if Dr. Frazer's theory were correct, this is precisely what we ought to find.
This is, however, no reason for rejecting the general proposition that kinship, at its origin, was not hereditary; or, more exactly, that the beginnings of the kinship groups found at the present day may be traced back to a point at which the hereditary principle virtually disappears, although the bond of union and perhaps the totem name already existed. If, as suggested by Mr. Lang, man was originally distributed in small communities, known by names which ultimately came to be those of the totem kins, we may suppose that daily association would not fail to bring about that sense of solidarity in its members which it is found to produce in more advanced communities. In the case of the tribe an even feebler bond, the possession of a common language, seems to give the tribesmen a sense of the unity of the tribe, though perhaps other explanations may be suggested, such as the possession in common of the tribal land, or the origin of the tribe from a single blood-related group. However this may be, it seems reasonable to look for one factor of the first bond of union in the influence of the daily and hourly association of group-mates. On the other hand, if, as Mr. Lang supposes, the original group was a consanguine one, the claims of the factor of consanguinity and perhaps of