The Secret of the Totem. Andrew Lang
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or three tribes, where the meaning of the class names is known with certainty, they denote animals.
The arrangement works thus, a man of phratry Dilbi, and of matrimonial class Muri, may not marry any woman that he chooses, in the other phratry, Kupathin. He can only marry a Kubatha, that is, a female of the class Kumbo. Their children, female descent prevailing, are of Kupathin phratry, and of the mother's totem, but do not belong to the class either of father (Muri) or of mother (Kumbo). They must belong to the other class within her phratry, namely Ipai. This rule applies throughout; thus, if a man of phratry Dilbi, and of Kubi class, marries a woman of Ipai class in phratry Kupathin, their children are neither of class Kubi nor of class Ipai, but of class Kumbo, the linked or sister class of Ipai, in Kupathin phratry.
Suppose for the sake of argument that the class names denote, or once denoted animals, so that, say—
In phratry
| Dilbi | Muri = Turtle. | |
| Kubi = Bat. |
While in phratry
| Kupathin | Ipai = Carpet Snake. | |
| Kumbo = Native Cat. |
It is obvious that male Turtle would marry female Cat, and (with maternal descent) their children would, by class name, be Carpet Snakes. Bat would marry Carpet Snake, and their children would, by class name, be Cats. Persons of each generation would thus belong to classes of different animal names for ever, and no one might marry into either his or her own phratry, his or her own totem, or his or her own generation, that is, into his or her own class. It is exactly (where the classes bear animal names) as if two generations had totems. The mothers of Muri class in Dilbi would have Turtle, the mothers in Kupathin (Ipai) would have Carpet Snake. Their children, in Kupathin, would have Cat. Not only the phratries and the totem kins, but each successive generation, would thus be delimited by bearing an animal name, and marriage would be forbidden between all persons not of different animal-named phratries, different animal-named totem kins, and different animal-named generations. In many cases, we repeat, the names of the phratries and of the classes have not yet been translated, and the meanings are unknown to the natives themselves. That the class names were originally animal names is a mere hypothesis, based on few examples.
Say I am of phratry Crow, of totem Lizard, of generation and matrimonial class Turtle; then I must marry only a woman of phratry Eagle Hawk, of any totem in Eagle Hawk phratry,[15] and of generation and class name Cat. Our children, with female descent, will be of phratry Eagle Hawk, of totem the mother's, and of generation and class name Carpet Snake. Their children will be of phratry Crow, of totem the mother's, and of generation and class name Cat again; and so on for ever. Each generation in a phratry has its class name, and may not marry within that name. The next generation has the other class name, and may not marry within that. Assuming that phratry names, totem names, and generation names are always names of animals (or of other objects in nature), the laws would amount, we repeat, simply to this: No person may marry another person who, by phratry, or totem, or generation, owns the same hereditary animal name or other name as himself or herself. Moreover no one may marry a person (where matrimonial classes exist) who bears the same class or generation name as his mother or father.
In practice the rules are thus quite simple, mistake is impossible—complicated as the arrangements look on paper. Where totem and phratry names only exist, a man has merely to ask a woman, "What is your phratry name?" If it is his own, an amour is forbidden. Where phratry names are obsolete, and classes exist, he has only to ask, "What is your class name?" If it is that of either class in his own phratry of the tribe, to love is to break a sacred law. It is not necessary, as a rule, even to ask the totem name. What looks so perplexing is in essence, and in practical working, of extreme simplicity. But some tribes have deliberately modified the rules, to facilitate marriage.
The conspicuous practical result of the Class arrangement (not primitive), is that just as totem law makes it impossible for a person to marry a sister or brother uterine, so Class law makes a marriage between father and daughter, mother and son, impossible.[16] But such marriages never occur in Australian tribes of pristine organisation (1) which have no class names, no collective names for successive generations. The origin of these class or generation names is a problem which will be discussed later.
Such is the Class system where it exists in tribes with female descent. It has often led to the loss and disappearance of the phratry names, which are forgotten, since the two sets of opposed class names do the phratry work.
We have next (3) the same arrangements with descent reckoned in the male line. This prevails on the south-east coast, from Hervey River to Warwick. In Gippsland, and in a section round Melbourne, there were "anomalous" arrangements which need not now detain us; the archaic systems tended to die out altogether.
All these south central (Dieri), southern, and eastern tribes may be studied in Mr. Howitt's book, already cited, which contains the result of forty years' work, the information being collected partly by personal research and partly through many correspondents. Mr. Howitt has viewed the initiatory ceremonies of more than one tribe, and is familiar with their inmost secrets.
For the tribes of the centre and north we must consult two books, the fruits of the personal researches of Mr. Baldwin Spencer, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of Biology in the University of Melbourne, and of Mr. F. J. Gillen, Sub-Protector of Aborigines, South Australia.[17] For many years Mr. Gillen has been in the confidence of the tribes, and he and Mr. Spencer have passed many months in the wilds, being admitted to view the most secret ceremonies, and being initiated into the myths of the people. Their photographs of natives are numerous and excellent.
These observers begin in the south centre, where Mr. Howitt leaves off in his northerly researches, and go north. They start with the Urabunna tribe, north-east of Lake Eyre, congeners of Mr. Howitt's Dieri, and speaking a dialect akin to theirs, while the tribe intermarry marry with the Arunta (whose own dialect has points in common with theirs) of the centre of the continent These Urabunna are apparently in the form of social organisation which we style primitive (No. 1), but there are said, rather vaguely, to be more restrictions on marriage than is usual, people of one totem in Kiraru phratry being restricted to people of one totem in Matteri phratry.[18]
They have phratries, totem kins, apparently no matrimonial classes (some of their rules are imperfectly ascertained), and they reckon descent in the female line. But, like the Dieri (and unlike the tribes of the south and east), they practise subincision; they have, or are said to have, no belief in "a supernatural anthropomorphic great Being"; they believe in "old semi-human ancestors," who scattered about spirits, which are perpetually reincarnated in new members of the tribe; they practise totemic magic; and they cultivate the Dieri custom of allotting paramours. Thus, by social organisation, they attach themselves to the south-eastern tribes (1), but, like the Dieri, and even more so (for, unlike the Dieri, they believe in reincarnation), they agree in ceremonies, and in the general idea of their totemic magic, rites, and mythical ideas, with tribes who, as regards social organisation, are in state (4), reckon descent in the male line, and possess, not four, but eight matrimonial classes.
This institution of eight classes is developing in the Arunta "nation," the people of the precise centre of Australia, who march with, and intermarry with, the Urabunna; at least the names for the second set of four matrimonial classes, making eight in all, are reaching