a woman of the same clan, though the parties be no way related according to our ideas.'1 By clan' Mr. Lang here meant totem kin, and if Lord Avebury thinks clan equivalent to tribe,' a 'tribe must be a totem kin, which it is not; at least if we understand tribe' as a local aggregate of various totem kindreds.

6

6

These perplexities are caused by a vague terminology, and occurred naturally in a book of 1870, as they do in Mr. McLennan's own pioneer works. But in 1903 we must try to aim at closer and more exact distinctions and definitions, though we are still retarded and perplexed by the lack of truly scientific nomenclature. As far as I can perceive, Lord Avebury is apt to use 'family,' 'tribe,' ' clan,' and 'gens,' as equivalents, while each of them, in various places, appears to be understood as denoting a totem kindred. Thus (p. 181) ' under a system of female descent combined with exogamy a man must marry out of his tribe,' where tribe' seems to mean 'totem kin.' Compare p. 187: another general rule, in America as elsewhere, is that no one may marry within his own clan or family,' where 'clan or family' like 'tribe' seems to mean totem kin.'

This use of terms makes it difficult for me to feel sure that I apprehend Lord Avebury's theory correctly. However I take it to be that, originally, very small communities' ('tribes') lived in 'communal marriage.' Nobody knew who was the son of what father or of what mother, though, in a very small community one would expect the senior vigorous male or males to prevent son-and-mother, or brother-andsister unions, by force, out of natural jealousy. This was not done, but some males wanted wives to themselves in private property, and got them by capture, paying compensation' in the license of the bridal night. But a man might fall in love with a lass in his own tribe' ('very small community') and want to keep her to himself (p. 111). Hence would naturally arise a desire on the part of many to extend the right of capture, which originally had reference 1 G. Scott Lang, The Aborigines of Australia, p. 10.

6

only to women of a different tribe, and to apply it to all those belonging to their own.' Is 'tribe' still used of 'a very small community,' or is it here employed in the now more prevalent and much wider sense? If not, is the capture now a mere ceremonial formula? Apparently tribe,' now and here, does mean (as elsewhere it does not) a large local aggregate, for we are next told of the division of Australian tribes into classes or gentes' (though a 'class' is one thing and a gens, if totem kin is meant, is another thing), and of the 1,000 miles of wives,' who, by the theory, are not individual wives of individual men. Such wives, special rights in such wives, were acquired originally by right of capture.'

6

But, when men possessed marital privileges, each over every woman not belonging to his own gens; sharing, of course, these privileges with every other man belonging to the same gens or class as himself' (p. 112), where is the individual right acquired by capture? It seems that each man, besides his 1,000 miles of wives' has his own individual wife . . . by right of capture.' Now the Urabunna have no such individual wives, if, like Lord Avebury, we accept the statement of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (p. 63). But the Arunta have such individual wives. Here it seems necessary for Lord Avebury, if he agrees with these authors, to prove that the Arunta, unlike the Urabunna, do demonstrably acquire their individual wives by capture. But no such demonstration is produced. Till proof is offered I am unable to appreciate the force of Lord Avebury's reasoning, while like Mr. Crawley, I doubt whether individual marriage does not exist among the Urabunna, the Piraungaru license not being, I conceive, a true survival of communal marriage, but a peculiar institution.

LORD AVEBURY ON RELATIONSHIPS

Analysing Mr. Morgan's collection of names for relationships, Lord Avebury (p. 182) says, in fact the idea of relationship, like that of marriage, was founded, not upon

6

duty, but upon power.' We try to suggest that the classificatory names for relationships are, to a great extent, expressive of status, seniority, and mutual duties and services in the community-these duties and services themselves being gradually established by power-the power of the seniors. Yet some terms analysed by Lord Avebury have, linguistically, other sources. 'Wife,' in Cree, is 'part of myself,' dimidium animæ meæ, these twain are one flesh. Obviously this pretty term does not spring from communal marriage.' In Chocta, husband' is 'he who leads me,'— again not communal, but indicating the old-fashioned theory of wifely obedience. (He who kicks me' would suffice, in some civilised quarters.) Daughter-in-law,' in Delaware, is my cook,' indicating service; and 'husband' is my aid through life,' showing the advanced Homeric, or Christian, view of marriage (pp. 180-181). Father' and 'Mother' in many African, European and Asian, Non-Aryan, Oceanic, Australian, and, really in Aryan languages, also often in America, are the easiest sounds which a child can pronounce indicating father and mother' (pp. 442-449). If babes could distinguish father and mother, these relationships, one thinks, could not have been unknown to adults. They may be, and are, extended in usage, so as to embrace what we call uncles and aunts and seniors of the kin, but this, I try to argue, does not necessarily imply that fatherhood and motherhood, owing to communal marriage, were long unknown.

The result of Lord Avebury's analysis of Mr. Morgan's tables of terms is to prove progress in the discrimination of degrees of kin, though ancient sweeping terms occasionally survive among races fairly advanced out of savagery. Relationship is, at first, regarded as a matter, not of blood, but of tribal organisation' (p. 208). Here I agree that words or terms for what we call relationship often do seem to denote status, duty, service, and intermarriageableness in the community. But I do not think that the ties of blood are thereby proved to have been unknown. Maternity could not

K

be doubtful, especially where the mother nursed her child for several years.

Lord Avebury adds, 'the terms for what we call relationships are, among the lower races of men, mere expressions for the results of marriage customs, and do not comprise the idea of relationship as we understand it' (p. 210).

For this reason, I think, we must avoid the fallacy of arguing as if the terms did denote 'relationship as we understand it,' when we wish to prove a past of communal marriage. The terms indicate, in Lord Avebury's words, 'the connection of individuals inter se, their duties to one another, their rights, and the descent of their property.'

This is precisely my own opinion, and for this very reason I do not hold that these terms arose in ignorance as to who was the mother, or even the father, of a child. All the duties and rights, as Lord Avebury says, ' are regulated more by the relation to the tribe than to the family'-in our sense of family.' But this, in my view, proves that the terms (in their present significance) are relatively late and advanced, for the institution of the Tribe (as I understand the word) implies the friendly combination of many totem kins, and of many 'fire-circles,' into the tribe, the large local aggregate. No such combination can have been truly primitive.' But we have seen that Lord Avebury seems to use 'tribe' in various places, as equivalent to 'family,' ‘clan,' gens, and, apparently, to 'totem kin.' Quite possibly he means that the horde is prior to what I may call the 'firecircle,' the very small community,' which, in places, he terms 'the tribe,' or so I understand him. If so, I cannot follow him here, as I am not inclined to think that truly primitive man lived in hordes of considerable numbers: the difficulties of supply, among other reasons, make the idea improbable.

6

6

If I have failed to understand Lord Avebury, perhaps his somewhat indeterminate terminology may plead my

excuse.

131

CHAPTER VIII

THE ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS

Up to this point, we have treated of totems just as we find them in savage practice. We have seen that totem names are the titles of groups of kindred, real or imagined; they are derived from animals, plants, and other natural objects; they appear among tribes who reckon descent either on the sword or spindle side, and the totem name of each group is usually (but not in the case of the Arunta) one mark of the exogamous limit. None may marry a person of the same totem name. But, in company with this prohibition, is found a body of myths, superstitions, rites, magical practices, and artistic uses of the totem.' We have shown (Chapter II.) that we cannot move a step without a clear and consistent hypothesis of the origins of Totemism. This we now try to produce.

SACRED ANIMALS IN SAVAGE SOCIETY

Savages, both in their groups of kin, in their magical societies, or clubs, and privately, as individuals, are apt to regard certain beasts, plants, and so on, as the guardians of the group, of the society, and of the private person. To these animal guardians, whether of the individual, the

As to the word totem,' but little is certainly known. Its earliest occurrence in literature, to my knowledge, is in a work by J. Long (1791), Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter. Long sojourned among the Algonquin branch of the North American Indians. He spells the word 'Totam,' and even speaks of Totamism.' Mr. Tylor has pointed out that Long in one place confuses the totem, the hereditary group name, and protective object, with what used to be called the manitu or 'medicine,' of each individual Indian, chosen by him, or her, after a fast, at puberty. Remarks on Totemism, 1898, pp. 139-40. Cf. infra, 135, note.