'We

there might as yet be only a tendency towards exogamy, still girls of alien groups would be captured as mates. call you the Skunks,' or whatever it might be, such a bride might remark, and so knowledge of the new group names would be diffused. These names would adhere to groups, on my hypothesis, already exogamous in tendency, and, when the totem myth arose, the exogamy would be sanctioned by the totem tabu.1

TOTEMIC AND OTHER GROUP NAMES-ENGLISH

AND NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN

It may seem almost flippant to suggest that this old mystery of Totemism arises only from group names given from without, some of them, perhaps, derisive. But I am able to demonstrate that, in North America, the names of what some American authorities call gentes (meaning old totem groups, which now reckon descent through the male, not the female line), actually are nicknames—in certain cases derisive. Moreover, I am able to prove that, when the names of these American gentes are not merely totem names, they answer, with literal precision, to our folk-lore village sobriquets, even when these are not names of plants or animals. The late Rev. James Owen Dorsey left, at his death, a paper on The Siouan Sociology. Among the gentes (old totem kindreds with male descent) he noted, the gentes of a tribe, 'The Mysterious Lake Tribe.' There were, in 1880, seven gentes. Three names were derived from localities. One name meant 'Breakers of (exogamous) Law.' One was 'Not encumbered with much baggage.' One was Rogues (Bad Nation ').

These three last names are derisive nicknames. The seventh name was 'Eats no Geese,' obviously a totemic survival. Of the Wahpeton tribe all the seven gentes derived their names from localities. Of the Sisseton tribe, the twelve names of gentes were either nicknames (one, ‘a name of derision'), or derived from localities.

Some objections are noticed later.

2 Report of American Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-1894, p. 213 et seq.

Of the Yankton gentes, five names out of seven were nicknames, mostly derisive, the sixth was Bad Nation' (Rogues'), the seventh was a totem name, 'Wild Cat.' Of the Hunpatina (seven gentes), three names were totemic (Drifting Goose, Dogs, Eat no Buffalo Cows); the others were nicknames, such as 'Eat the Scrapings of Hides.' Of the Sitcanxu, there were thirteen gentes. Six or seven of their titles were nicknames, three were totemic, the others were dubious, such as 'Smellers of Fish.' The Itaziptec had seven gentes; of their names all were nicknames, including 'Eat dried venison from the hind quarter.' Of the Minikooju, there were nine gentes. Eight names were nicknames, including Dung Eaters.' One seems totemic, Eat no Dogs.' Of five Asineboin gentes the names were nicknames from the habits or localities of the communities. One was 'Girl's Band,' that is, 'Girls.'

6

Now compare parish sobriquets in Western England.' In this list of parish or village nicknames, twenty-one are derived from plants and animals, like most totemic names. We also find Dog Eaters,'' Bread Eaters,' 'Burd Eaters,' 'Whitpot Eaters,' and, answering to Girl's Band' (Gens des Filles), Pretty Maidens:' answering to 'Bad Nation,' 'Rogues': answering to 'Eaters of Hide Scrapings,' 'Bone Pickers' while there are, as among the Siouans, names derived from various practices attributed to the English villagers, as to the Red Indian gentes.

No closer parallel between our rural folk-lore sobriquets of village groups, given from without, and the names given from without of old savage totem groups (now reckoning in the male line, and, therefore, now settled together in given localities) could be invented. (For other examples see Appendix A.) I conceive, therefore, that my suggestion-the totem names of pristine groups were originally given from without, and were accepted (as in the case of the nicknames of Siouan gentes, now accepted by them)-may

1 Thirteenth Report of the Committee of Devonshire Folk-Lore, Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, 1895, xxvii. 61-74.

be reckoned no strain on our sense of probability. It is demonstrated that the name-giving processes of our villagers exist among American savage groups which reckon descent in the male line, and that they also existed among the savage groups which reckoned descent in the female line is, surely, a not unreasonable surmise. I add a list in parallel columns.

To produce, from North America, examples of group names conferred from without, as in the instances of our English villages, may, to some students, seem inadequate evidence. For example an unconvinced critic may say that the nicknames of Mr. Dorsey's 'Siouan gentes' were originally given by white men; the Sioux, Dacota, Asineboin, and other tribes having been long in contact with Europeans. Now it is quite possible that some of the names had this origin, as Mr. Dorsey himself observed. But no critic will go on to urge that the common totemic names which still designate many gentes were imposed by Europeans who came from English villages of Mice,' 'Cuckoos,' 'Tater Grubs,' 'Dogs,' and so forth. We might as wisely say that our

Many other animal and vegetable names-totem names in America, village names in England-have already been cited. See p. 170.

peasantry borrowed these village names from what they had read about totem names in Cooper's novels. To name individuals, or groups, after animals, is certainly a natural tendency of the mind, whether in savage or civilised society.

If we take the famous Mandan tribe, now reckoning descent in the male line, but with undeniable survivals of descent in the female line, we find that the gentes are:

Wolf
Eagle

Bear
Flat Head

Prairie Chicken Good Knife
High Village

Here, out of seven gentes, four names are totemic; one is a name of locality, High Village,' not a possible name in pristine nomadic society. While there are hundreds of such cases, we cannot reasonably regard the American group nicknames as generally of European origin. Still more does this theory fail us in the case of Melanesia, where contact with Europeans is recent and relatively slight. Among such tribes as the Mandans, and other Siouan peoples, we see Totemism with exogamy and female kinship waning, while kinship, recognised by male descent, plus settled conditions, brings in local names for gentes, and tends to cause the substitution of local names and nicknames for the totem group name. Precisely the same phenomena meet us, as we are to see, in Melanesia.

CHAPTER IX

THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS

We have, fortunately, an opportunity in Melanesia of studying, as it seems, the Australian marriage system in a state of decay. The institutions of Melanesia bear every note of being Australian institutions, decadent, dislocated, contaminated and partially obliterated. Starting from New Guinea, we find a long archipelago sloping down, away from the east side of Australia, towards the Fiji Islands. The archipelago consists mainly, in the order given, of New Ireland, New Britain, the Solomon Group, Banks Island, the New Hebrides, Loyalty Island, and New Caledonia. The inhabitants are a fusion of many oceanic elements, and are much more advanced in culture than the natives of Australia: they have chiefs, whose office tends to be hereditary (and in one place, Saa, is hereditary), in the male line, the father handing on to the son his magical acquirements and properties, and leaving to him his wealth, as far as he may. This is not very far, as, curious to say, descent in the female line is generally prevalent. Wealth is both real and personal: landed property consisting (1) of Town Lots, (2) of Gardens (ëρxos), (3) of the Waste ('the Bush'). The town lots' and gardens pass by inheritance; the possessor being only possessor,' not proprietor, and real property passing in the female line, where that line still prevails. The reclaiming of land from the Waste tends, however, to direct property into the male line, which, except in certain districts, is not dominant. Money is divided, on a death, among brothers, nephews-and sons, 'if they can get it'-the money being the native shell currency.

1 Mr. Haddon agrees on this point.