Social Origins and Primal Law

The marriage rules prevalent, with many variations, among the people least advanced in material culture, the Australians, are thus seen, on the whole, to be based (1) on totem rules (in which, with Dr. Durkheim, we include the 'primary classes' or 'phratries'), and (2) on the distinction of generations. It is clear, from the case of the Arunta and other tribes, that the rule of counting on the spindle side may break down, male descent being substituted, in times excessively rude; while again, as in the Pictish Royal House, it may elsewhere last into a stage relatively civilised. All manners of conditions and superstitions may affect and alter the course of social development in various places.

GROUP MARRIAGE AND MR. TYLOR's STATISTICS

In 1899, Mr. Tylor published a sketch of 'A Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions, applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent.'[32] He had catalogued the usages of 350 peoples, and examined (1) the rule of avoidance between husbands and wives' relations, and vice versa. (2) The naming of husband (or wife) after their children; as Odysseus says, 'May I no longer be called the father of Telemachus.' (3) The nature of inheritance in widows. (4) The Couvade in which the husband pretends to lie in, while his wife is really doing so. (5) The custom of capture. (6) Exogamy and the classificatory system. Mr. Tylor was led to believe that, so far as the statistical evidence goes, the husband first lived with the wife's family (A); next, after a residence with the wife's family, went back to his own home (B); last, (C) took the wife at once to his own home. (Husband to Wife. Removal. Wife to Husband.)

Now statistics are rather vague evidence without full knowledge of the social concomitants in each case. In what exact stage of culture, in each instance, does the husband go to live with the wife's relations? We have not this information. But if this be really the earliest stage, how is it compatible with group marriage? If a man is husband to 'a thousand miles of wives,' how can he go and live with the relations of all his wives? Even within his actual region of wandering, how can he do this? Nor, perhaps, can he bring all his wives to live with the relations of each of them in turn?

Either there was no group marriage, or it did not exist when, on the hypothesis, the husband, in the earliest stage, habitually resided with his wife's relations. Again, take the maternal and paternal systems, the reckoning in the female or male line, the female line, as we hold with Mr. Tylor, being the earlier. If so, on Mr. Tylor's hypothesis, it ought to arise in his first epoch, when husband goes to live with wife's people. 'The lines' (of a diagram) 'show the institutions of female descent, avuncular authority, &c. arising in the stage of residence on the female side, and extending into the stages of removal and residence on the male side.'

Now we have tried to explain the reckoning in the female line, by the differentiation, in the supposed original local totem group, of the captive women, each retaining, and handing on to her children, the name of her own totem group, this bequest of the totem name continuing into the tribal state of peaceful betrothals. But Mr. Tylor's theory of the first stage (husband goes to live with wife), implies a peaceful state, and groups not hostile. For the reasons given, early hostility and sexual jealousy, I am unable to hold that, in the beginning, husbands always joined their wives' groups. It seems, granting hostility and jealousy, to be impossible. A Malay example of polygamy plus residence with wives' relations, proves nothing for primitive man. Therefore we need to know the exact stage of culture of the peoples among whom the husbands go as subdued hangers-on, 'not recognised,' into the wife's family. Are these people all precisely primitive? The 'husband to wife' stage implies peaceful relations. These were produced, on my theory, by the arrangement of the phratries. When these are once constituted, the husband may go to live with the wife's family as much as he pleases. But I fail to see how he could have done so 'in the beginning.' Moreover I am disinclined to suppose that exogamy was instituted for the purpose of strengthening a group by matrimonial alliances.

Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube!

Exogamy has this effect, but it was not devised purposely to produce this effect.

I may casually remark that Mr. Tylor mentions an Assineboin case in which the husband enters 'his lodge,' where his father and mother-in-law 'shirk' or avoid him. But, in the next page but one, the lodge is described, not as the husband's, but as that of the father and mother-in-law.[33] Whose lodge was it really? Was the husband staying with his wife's family, or were the old people on a visit to their married daughter?

Among several Australian tribes, a feigned form of capture precedes marriage.[34] Is this a survival of actual capture in the stage of hostility, the pre-tribal stage? Or is it the result of girlish modesty in the bride?

Note: Mr. Morgan's 'Reformatory Movement': It is proper to note that, in his preface to Kamilaroi and Kurnai (p. 5), Mr. Morgan wrote, 'it is not supposable that savages design, consciously, reformatory movements in the strict sense.' For his theory cannot escape the conclusion that, in fact, they did.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHANGE OF CLASS AMONG THE NEW GENERATION

We have hitherto, for the sake of lucidity, spoken chiefly of two 'primary classes' ('phratries'), such as the Kirarawa and Matthurie of the Urabunna. But among the Arunta, and many other tribes, there are four or even eight such 'classes.' The reader may refer to the extract from Mr. Mathews's description (p. 39).

Each of these classes roughly corresponds to a different generation of the tribe. But, with female descent, each child belongs to the class to which its mother does not belong. The classes, that is, alter with each generation. What is the cause of this curious rule? One generation is A, its children are B, its grandchildren are A again.

Here we meet the explanation of Herr Cunow, which may as well be given in summary.

THE SYSTEM OF HERR CUNOW

The theory of Herr Cunow[1] is in the first place opposed to the systems of all who regard the 'phratries' as divisions made in an original group, or horde, for purposes of exogamy. I have not observed that any of our writers have noticed the book of Herr Cunow. In his opinion, as was said earlier, authors err in confusing 'phratries' with 'classes:' 'a phratry is not a class, and a class is not a phratry; these two sorts of bodies have been developed out of different antecedents, and have different tendencies. The two "primary divisions," say Kroki and Kumite, are phratries, but are not classes in the same sense as the Ippai and Kumbo, Murri and Kubbi classes of the Kamilaroi' (p. 24).

Herr Cunow regards the 'classes' as in origin earlier[2] than the divisions of totem kin, or the 'phratry' divisions, and thinks that the 'classes' were originally non-intermarrying divisions based on seniority. They were devised or developed, not to prevent marriage between near kin, but between persons of different generations, or rather degrees of seniority. This is proved, he thinks, by the etymology of some of the names of the classes (about which we need much fuller information). Thus the word Kubbi (Kamilaroi), already cited as a class name, is derived, he says, from Kubbura, 'young, new,' and originally designates a youth who has passed the initiatory ceremonies. Ridley's vocabulary of the Kamilaroi tongue is the source for this fact. Kumbo, another class name, is the Kombia or Kumbia, of the tribes on the Lower Murray river, and means 'great,' that is, 'old.' On the Lower Darling, the word is gumboka, Kumbuka; compare Kumba, Kumbera, 'old woman,' Kumbeja, 'father.' 'Great' and 'old,' 'little' and 'young,' are equivalent in sense. Bonda, a class name of the Kabi, means 'new' or 'young,' and the class-name Darawang, or Tarawang, is the Kabi word darami, 'little,' or 'young.' Obu, a class name, is the Queensland jabu, jobu, jabbo bobu, 'father.'

Thus the class names, Herr Cunow holds, originally indicate divisions of youth and age in the 'horde,' by which term Herr Cunow understands a local set of from forty to sixty people, a local aggregate of several such 'hordes' being a 'tribe' (pp. 25-28). The fact of Australian attention to degrees of seniority is demonstrated by the stages of initiation, and by the various dues, of food gifts and so on, paid by the juniors to the seniors of the tribe: by the food which persons of different status in seniority may eat, and so forth. Indeed Dr. Roth has regarded the 'classes' as originally evolved to regulate the distribution of the food supply, and such regulations would, I think, be elements among other regulations of matrimonial and other rights, dependent on seniority. 'What a man may eat at one stage is at another stage forbidden, and vice versa.'[3]

The 'horde,' then, in Herr Cunow's opinion, was primarily divided into non-intermarrying persons of three stages of seniority. This is the original organisation, that of totem kindreds being later, in Herr Cunow's theory, which is not ours (pp. 36, 37). The word 'father' does not, in the Australian dialects, at first, signify what we mean by the word, but merely 'senior;' and 'mother' is a term of the same meaning. 'Father' and 'mother' with all of their seniority are 'the big ones;' children are 'the little ones.' These terms become 'class' names.

An example is taken from Mr. Bridgman, superintendent of the tribes at Port Mackay. These have two 'phratries,' Yungaru and Wutaru (totemic names), and four 'classes,' Gurgela, Bembia, Wungo, and Kubaru.[4] The terms for family relations are not understood in our sense. Mr. Bridgman had a name and status in the tribe. His name was Gunurra; his phratry was Yungaru, his class was Bembia, and his children, if he had any, were Wutaru (by phratry), Kubaru (by class). If a girl came by, and Mr. Bridgman asked who she was, and if she was Kubaruan, he was told 'she is your daughter.' This 'daughter' is a young woman of the class to which Mr. Bridgman's daughters, if he had any, would belong.

Herr Cunow's theory, then, starts from the 'horde,' divided into not intermarrying degrees of seniority. That such hordes, not separate family groups, were the initial stage of society, he is persuaded.[5] He rejects Morgan's theory of communal marriage.[6] Next, he thinks, arose objections to brother and sister and other near akin marriages (why we are not told), and a man would thus be driven to seek a wife out of his own horde. Why was this? Herr Cunow merely refers to the Dieri tradition already cited; evils followed on kindred marriages, and were perceived and, by divine decree, were reformed.[7] That such evils did arise and were perceived, and being perceived were reformed, by very low savages, is to the highest degree improbable. However it came about (we suggest by dint of reflection on the totem and phratry restrictions), there is now an objection to intermarriage between persons 'of the same flesh.' How this arose does not seem to be a question that Herr Cunow chooses to dogmatise upon.

The horde now developes itself into a group of kin, of which the members regard each other as 'too nearly related by blood,' to intermarry. 'As a mark of these groups of kin they later take different beast or plant names, usually from such species as exist in their districts. No reverence would originally be paid to the totem animal;' the Narrinyeri eat it without scruple,[8] like any other; the totem name is originally a name of a genossenschaft; a comradeship, the Narrinyeri word for totem, 'Ngaitje,' is equivalent to 'friend.'

All this is rather vague. Why did groups of comrades or of recognised kin take plant and animal names? Why did they forbid intermarriage? What was the origin of the objection to marriage between blood kindred? It does not arise out of 'moral ideas,' nor out of 'wife-capture,'[9] and Herr Cunow speaks neither of 'sexual taboo,' nor of 'sexual jealousy,' while the theory of 'personal totems' become hereditary, or of magical co-operation in totem breeding, is not mentioned; indeed, when Herr Cunow wrote (1894), the magical theory was unborn. The hordes merely developed into groups of comrades or of kin, as such not intermarrying among themselves, and marking themselves for no assigned reason, with plant or animal names: reverence of the totem came later.

'Still later than the totem association the phratry seems to arise,' and the phratries are described as allied local totem groups. This is my own opinion, but by 'local totem group,' I here mean (as already explained), the original local totem group, with the other totems which had become its elements, through exogamy, and female descent. Herr Cunow, if I follow him, means on the other hand a local totem group of the kind which now results among the Arunta from reckoning descent in the male line. 'The forbidding of marriage extended beyond the local group, passing into the neighbouring hordes, till at length morality enjoined the obtaining of wives from remoter districts. Hence was developed a come-and-go of marriage between two out of several larger local totems, and these larger local communities are the original types of the Australian phratries. Suppose that the hordes of the Kurnai had gradually developed themselves into local totem groups like those of the Narrinyeri, and ... that it became the rule for the Brataulong to take their wives from their south-western neighbours, the Kulin, and vice versa, till the two groups waxed into a great community, and we have the probable development' (of the 'phratries') 'before us.' The groups 'Brataulong' and 'Kulin' would now be a great community of two intermarrying phratries.

All this implies, I think, a more advanced society, and larger communities, than we can easily conceive to have existed in the distant past when phratries arose. Moreover Herr Cunow, as we shall see, takes descent, even at this primitive period, to have been reckoned in the male line. Again, we have observed that phratry names, when they can be translated, are usually totemic, an opinion expressed by Mr. Fison and Mr. Howitt. The same sort of totemic names marks Red Indian phratries. Granting male kinship, the phratries of Herr Cunow's hypothesis might well have totem names, but he tries to show that phratry names are usually local; he gives seven cases out of which only two names of phratries are totemic.[10] But he offers no authority for his assertion that the other five names are non-totemic (Eigennahme) and Yungaru and Wutaru, represented by him as non-totemic, are really totem names.

We know that as a result of reckoning in the male line local or district names tend to supersede totem names, and large local totem groups thus arise, a feature of the decay, not of the dawn, of Totemism. My own hypothesis, on the other hand, shows why phratry names are totemic. Herr Cunow concludes 'the phratry is originally nothing but an exogamous local group composed of several hordes.' Like Mr. Daniel McLennan, Herr Cunow quotes the legend of the wars of Eagle-Hawk and Crow, which ended in the establishment of the intermarrying phratries of Crow and Eagle-Hawk.[11] Herr Cunow's theory of phratries appears to me to find, in the remotest past, the most recent institutions of the Australians, and to confuse the primitive local totem group with the local totem-group later developed out of reckoning descent in the male line. He throws back into the distant past the large modern associations, which could not exist in times really primitive. He makes the hordes develope themselves into totem kins, in place of being, originally (as in my system), small associations united by contiguity, and receiving totem names from without.[12] He makes reckoning in the female line later than reckoning in the male line—the Narrinyeri reckoning in the male line (p. 84)—and perhaps this method, he thinks, is a result of ignorance of fatherhood, consequent on the Piraungaru custom (p. 135). Unluckily we find reckoning descent in the female line among many races, the Red Indians for example, where the Piraungaru custom is unknown. The priority of male to female descent is not admitted as a rule, by Mr. Tylor or any other English authorities.

Where I can agree with Herr Cunow is on the point that the two 'primary divisions' are the result, probably, of amalgamation, not of bisection for purposes of exogamy. Where we differ is as to the character of the communities that, by alliance and connubium, became 'primary divisions' or 'phratries.' On his system the communities were large, holding great districts. On mine, they were ancient local totem groups, whose members, through exogamy and female descent, were really of various totems. In a note (p. 139) Herr Cunow shows that he might easily have arrived at my conclusion, but, while allowing that alien brides brought the totem names of their own kins into each original totem group, he says that the men of that group still 'belonged to the totem identified with that horde.' This is the result of his belief that reckoning descent in the female line is 'an innovation.' His 'horde' is originally endogamous; then, we know not well why, is exogamous (p. 137). Those who do not believe that men originally lived in 'hordes,' and hold that, through jealousy and other causes, their little primary sets were, or tended to be, exogamous from the first, cannot agree with Herr Cunow. On the other hand, they may incline to accept his theory that, as the Australian terms of relationship indicate often status, not relationship in our sense, they do not help to prove a past of consanguine and communal marriage.

CLASSES AGAIN

To return to the classes, Dr. Durkheim opposes Herr Cunow's theory that they indicated originally degrees of seniority. He takes no notice, however, of Herr Cunow's argument from etymology, and the original meanings of the class names, 'Young' and 'Old.' He argues that, on Herr Cunow's system, each individual would, in lapse of time, move from young to old, and so ought to change his class name, and move into another class. Herr Cunow answers that, if this occurred, the object of the class names, practically to prevent young and old intermarrying, would have been defeated. But, as matters exist, a grandfather may marry a girl who might be his grand-daughter. He is A, his children are B, but their children are A again. He is Kubbi, he marries Ippatha, her children are Buta, their children are Ippatha, and the venerable Kubbi may marry a very juvenile Ippatha.

Possibly the institution grew up among people who did not look so far forward, who 'took short views.' It is certain that, if the object of the classes was to stop marriages between young and old, it is a failure. 'The old men marry young wives at present,' says Mr. Mathews. If so, Herr Cunow may be right. Dr. Durkheim offers a theory. But his theory takes for granted, as we saw, that the two 'phratries,' originally, were only two totem groups, containing within them no members of other totem kins. 'They were not yet subdivided' into other totem kins. But I have tried to show that there was no such 'subdivision' into 'secondary clans' or totem kins. Dr. Durkheim regards these totem kins as colonies split off from the two original totem groups which became phratries.[13] My reasons against accepting this position have already been given. This being the case, it is unnecessary to unfold Dr. Durkheim's theory of the origin of the classes. Probably that of Herr Cunow comes nearest to the truth.

Mr. Mathews offers another solution of the problem. 'Phratry' Dilbi, for example, has 'classes' Murri and Kubbi, while the linked phratry, Kupathin, has classes Ippai and Kumbo. 'It is possible that the group Dilbi was divided into (female) Matha and Kubbitha to distinguish the mothers from the daughters, and that the terms Murri and Kubbi were adopted to provide names for the uncles and nephews of their respective generations.' Thus we return to distinction of generations. In any case the 'classes' 'have the effect of preventing consanguineous marriages, by furnishing an easy test of relationship when the tribe has become so numerous or widespread that kinship could not otherwise be well determined.[14] Later (p. 168) Mr. Matthews writes, 'The mother of a man's wife, and also his daughters, belong to the same section' ('class'), 'and therefore his marriage with that section is prohibited.' That is, he cannot marry out of his generation above or below, as indicated by 'class' names. 'Neither can he marry into the section to which his mother belongs, although a woman might be found in either case, who was in no way connected with him.' In short, as far as the names rudely indicate the generation above, and the generation below a man, he cannot marry into these classes. But, as old men do marry young wives, the apparent intention of the rules is to some extent frustrated. We can say no more, till we are told what the class names mean in a literal sense. Does nobody inquire into this essential question?

As if to accentuate the problems raised by the change of 'class' names in each generation, Mr. Matthews has discovered that when a man may marry a woman of his own 'phratry,' but out of a set of totems not his own, the totems of his children by her alter as the class names do. 'The children take the totem name,' not of their mother, but of their maternal grandmother. 'One totem is the mother of another totem.'[15] This is an unusual phenomenon, and looks like the effort of a desperate ingenuity.

The class system exists among the Arunta, with male descent. One moiety of the southern part of the tribe consists of Panunga and Bulthara, linked classes, calling themselves Nakrakia; the other moiety is of Purula and Kumara, calling themselves Mulganuka. A Bulthara man of the first moiety can only marry a Kumara woman, of the second moiety: a Purula man marries a Panunga woman only. The children of a Bulthara man's union with a Kumara woman take neither the Bulthara nor Kumara name, but are called Panunga, while the children of a Purula man and a Panunga woman are Kumara: of a Panunga man and a Purula woman, Bulthara; of a Kumara man and a Bulthara woman, Purula.

That is to say, the Arunta reckoning in the male line, a man's children do not take his 'class' name but the name of the 'class' linked to his, and forming, with his, one division of the tribe. Further each of these four divisions consists of two moieties, and a Panunga man, though he can marry a Purula woman, must choose her out of the proper moiety of the Purula division. These moieties of each division, among the Northern Arunta, have names; Uknaria, Appungerta, Umbitchana, Ungalla, and the children of each marriage fall under these names.

This restricts a man to only an eighth of the women of his generation, but, on the other hand, among the Arunta, the totem prohibition no longer exists: the totems are not restricted to one or another class, but skip among them, as we have shown in the section on the Arunta. The eight class system, perhaps the four class system, may be regarded as later and conscious modifications of the old phratry and totem rules, which, on my hypothesis, had no conscious moral origin.

CHAPTER VII

THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY

The opinions of Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock) are to be collected from the sixth edition (1902) of his Origin of Civilisation. First published in 1870, this was a pioneer work of great value and importance. Perhaps the vast amount of new information and of new speculation which has accrued since 1870 might almost make us wish that Lord Avebury had found time to re-write his early book. But he 'sees no reason to change in any essential respects the opinions originally expressed,' and merely adds a few references to such recent researches as those of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. Therefore we must not look to Lord Avebury for much new light on the origin of the Australian 'classes' or 'primary divisions,' or 'phratries,' and on their relations to the totem kindreds within them.

LORD AVEBURY ON TOTEMISM

Again (p. 351), 'Totemism' (as opposed to fetichism), 'is a deification of classes.' But the term 'deification' implies the possession, by the deifiers, of the conception of Deity; of gods, or of a god. The Australians have totems, but, according to Lord Avebury, have no notion of a god or gods. They 'possess merely certain vague ideas as to the existence of evil spirits, and a general dread of witchcraft' (p. 338). It is not clear, then, how they can 'deify' classes of things, if they have no notion of deity. 'They do not believe in the existence of a true Deity' (with a capital D), says Lord Avebury, without defining what 'a true Deity' is: and, contrary to the evidence of Mr. Howitt and many others, he denies that 'morality is in any way connected with their religion, if such it can be called' (p. 338).

The authority cited is of 1859,[1] and is contradicted, for example, by Mr. Howitt (1880-1890), who is not here quoted. It is clear that Australian totems cannot result from the 'deification of classes,' if the Australians have no conception of Deity, whether 'true' or not so true.

Lord Avebury remarks, 'True, myths do not occur among the lowest races' (p. 355), whereas, with many others, myths of the origin of Totemism do notably occur, as we have shown, among perhaps all totemistic races. Perhaps we should read, deleting the comma, 'true myths do not occur among the lowest races,' when the question as to what a 'true myth' is again arises, as in the case of 'a true Deity.' Perhaps we must suppose that by 'a true myth,' or a 'true Deity,' Lord Avebury implies a Deity or a myth in accordance with his own conception of either.

LORD AVEBURY ON THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMISM

'The worship of animals,' says our author (p. 275), 'is susceptible of a very simple explanation, and perhaps, as I have ventured to suggest,[2] may have originated from the practice of naming, first individuals, and then their families, after particular animals. A family, for instance, which was called after the bear, would come to look on that animal first with interest, then with respect, and at length with a sort of awe.' If by 'individuals,' male individuals are intended, this theory is open to the objection that Lord Avebury regards descent in the female as earlier than descent in the male line (p. 164), while 'families' with enduring relations to their founders, can hardly yet have been consciously envisaged, by his theory, at so very rudimentary a stage. Moreover, we try to show that totem names were, originally, group names, and were not derived from the personal names of individuals, an opinion in which Mr. Haddon concurs. Lord Avebury's theory is, apparently, that of Mr. Herbert Spencer, minus the supposed worship of the ghost of the male ancestor and founder of the family.

COMMUNAL MARRIAGE

Lord Avebury, assuming 'communal marriage' as the Primitive stage, holds that it 'was gradually superseded by individual marriage founded on capture, and that this led firstly to exogamy, and then to female infanticide; thus reversing Mr. McLennan's order of sequence' (p. 108). 'Originally no man could appropriate a woman of his own tribe exclusively to himself ... without infringing tribal rights, but, on the other hand, if a man captured a woman belonging to another tribe, he thereby acquired an individual and peculiar right to her, and she became his exclusively, no one else having any claim or property in her' (p. 110). (I here italicise 'tribe' and 'tribal.' Lord Avebury intends, I think, a woman of the same 'fire-circle' (p. 188), not a woman of the tribe understood as a large and inevitably not primitive local aggregate of friendly groups of different totems, such as the Arunta, Narrinyeri, Pawnees, and so forth.)

In brief, men would desire to appropriate to themselves some woman, at first from beyond their own 'tribe.' This they could only do by capture. Their individual right in her would be modified by the disgusting license of the bridal night, which Lord Avebury regards as 'compensation' to the other males of the 'tribe' (pp. 138, 557-560). That license I would rather explain as Mr. Crawley does: the topic does not need to be insisted on at length in this place. Lord Avebury, at all events, supposes that a form of capture finally came to be applied, with results in individual marriage, to women of the same 'tribe' (p. 111). But if we have 'complete and conclusive evidence that in large portions of Australia every man had the privilege of a husband over every woman not belonging to his own gens; sharing, of course, these privileges with every other man belonging to the same class or gens as himself' (p. 112), I fail to see that a man gained anything by enduring the trouble and risk of capturing a bride all to himself. Before the capture she had been, it seems, the common spoil of the males of her 'tribe;' when captured she was the common spoil of her captor's 'class or gens'—though a 'class' and a gens are not, I think, identical, but much the reverse.

The rather promiscuous use of terms for different kinds of human communities affected all the pioneer works on primitive society, and, indeed, still perplexes our speculations. Thus Lord Avebury suggests (p. 119) the case of four exogamous neighbouring 'tribes,' with kinship traced through women. 'After a certain time the result would be that each tribe would consist of four septs or 'clans' (totem kins?), 'representing the four original tribes, and hence we should find communities in which each tribe is divided into clans, and a man must always marry a woman of a different clan.'

We do not, perhaps, know any exogamous tribes in our sense of 'tribe;' a Dieri is not obliged to marry out of the Dieri, or an Urabunna out of the Urabunna. By 'tribe' here, it seems probable that Lord Avebury intends not a large local aggregate, but 'a very small community,' for he writes 'we have seen that, under the custom of communal marriage, a child was regarded as related to the tribe, but not specially to any particular father or mother. Such a 'state of things, indeed, is only possible in very small communities.' Now a tribe is a very large community. The members of such communities must have been poor observers if they did not discover the relation between a child and the woman who bore and, for several years, nursed it. But such 'tribes' are not tribes in the sense in which I use the word; they are rather 'groups of the same hearth.' Now it is easy to see how small groups of the same hearth became exogamous, namely through sexual jealousy, and sexual tabu, which would oblige the young males to wander away, or to get wives by capture, practices resulting, under the tabu, in the sacred rule of exogamy. This, however, is not Lord Avebury's theory of the origin of exogamy.

Lord Avebury's theory does not become more distinct when he says, 'In Australia, where the same family names' (totem names?) 'are common almost over the whole continent, no man may marry a woman whose family name' (totem name?) 'is the same as his own' (here the Arunta are an exception) 'and who belongs therefore to the same tribe' (p. 144). But surely, if the 'family names' are 'common almost over the whole continent,' a woman may well have the same 'family name' (say Emu) as a man, and yet need not be of his tribe. An Arunta Emu man and a Dieri Emu woman would have the same 'family name' (totem name), but would not, therefore, 'belong to the same tribe.' It even appears that Lord Avebury regards 'tribe' and 'clan' and 'family' as synonymous terms, for, in proof of the statement that people of the same 'family name' necessarily belong to the same 'tribe,' he quotes my late uncle, Mr. Gideon Scott Lang, 'No man can marry a woman of the same clan, though the parties be no way related according to our ideas.'[3] 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.

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-and-sister 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 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.'

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 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 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 'fire-circle,' 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.

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