Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia Part 11

To explain the origin of the cla.s.ses, as of the phratries, two kinds of theories have been put forward, which are in this case also cla.s.sifiable as reformatory and developmental respectively. The former labour under the same disadvantages, so far as they a.s.sume that particular marriages were regarded as immoral or objectionable, as do the similar hypotheses of the origin of phratries.

What is the effect of dividing a phratry into two cla.s.ses? Firstly and most obviously, to reduce by one half the number of women from whom a man may take his spouse. Secondarily, to put in the forbidden cla.s.s both his mother's generation and his daughters' generation. It must however not be overlooked that it is the whole cla.s.s of individuals that are thus put beyond his reach and not those only who stand to him in the relation of daughters in the European sense. Now it is certain that the savage of the present day distinguishes blood relations.h.i.+p from tribal relations.h.i.+p; of this there are plenty of examples in Australia itself[130]. In fact the hypothesis that the introduction of cla.s.s regulations was due to a desire to prevent the intermarriage of parents and children, more especially of fathers and daughters, the mothers being of course of the same phratries as their sons in the normal tribe, depends for its existence on the a.s.sumption that consanguinity was recognised. But it is clearly a clumsy expedient to limit a man's right of choice to the extent we have indicated solely in order to prevent him from marrying his daughter, when the simple prohibition to marry her would, so far as we can see, have been equally effective.

Dr Durkheim has suggested that phratries and cla.s.ses originated together.

If we start with two exogamous local groups in which the determinant spouse removes, the result is two groups in which both phratries are found, as is evident from the following graphic representation. The two sides represent the local grouping, the letters A and B the phratry names, and m or f male or female; the = denotes marriage, the vertical lines show the children, the brackets show that the person whose symbol is bracketed removes, and the italics that the symbol in question is that of a spouse introduced from without.

mA=_fB_ mB=fA _______| |_______ | | | | [fB] mB=_fA_ _fB_=mA [mB]

_________| |_________ | | | | [fA] mA=_fB_ _fA_=mB [fB]

_________| |_________ | | | | [fB] mB=_fA_ _fB_=mA [fA]

etc. etc.

We see from this that the alternate generations are in each group A and B, whose spouses are in the same alternation B and A, the male remaining in the group, the female removing in each case, if we a.s.sume that the matrilineal kins.h.i.+p is the rule. The permanent members of each group therefore, and in like manner the imported members, are by alternate generations A and B, though of course there is no difference of age actually corresponding to the difference of generation.

By the simple phratry law that A can only marry B, and may marry any B, local group mates are marriageable. The law however which forbids the marriage of phratry mates is on Mr Lang's original theory founded on the prohibition to marry group mates. If we suppose that the primal law or the memory of it continued to work, we have at once a sufficient explanation of the origin of the four-cla.s.s system. The tribes or nations in which the instinct against intra-group marriage was strong enough to persist as an active principle after the law against intra-phratry marriage had become recognised, may have proceeded to create four cla.s.ses at a very early stage, while those in whom the feeling for the primal law was less strong adhered to the simple phratry system.

But it is an insuperable objection to this theory that it makes the four-cla.s.s system originate simultaneously with, or at any rate shortly after, the rise of the phratries. For we cannot suppose that the feeling for the primal law remained dormant for long ages and then suddenly revived. On the other hand we have seen that if the difference in the distribution of the phratry and cla.s.s names is any guide, a considerable interval must have separated the rise of the one from the rise of the other. Unless therefore it can be shown that some other explanation accounts for the non-coincidence of phratry and cla.s.s areas, we can hardly accept any explanation of the origin of cla.s.ses which makes them originate at a period not far removed from the introduction of the phratries.

The fact that a certain number of cla.s.s names are in character totemic, that is, bear animal names, suggests that the cla.s.s system may be a development of the totem kins, which in certain cases are grouped within the phratries or otherwise subject to special regulations. In the Urabunna the choice of a man of one totem is said to be limited to women of the right status in a single totem of the opposite phratry. Among the similarly organised Yandairunga the limitation is to certain totems, and Dr Howitt gives other examples of the same order. In the Kongulu tribe these totemic cla.s.ses seem to have been known by special names. In the Wotjoballuk tribe there are sub-totems, grouped with certain totems, which again seem to be collected into aggregates intermediate between the phratry and the simple totem kin. But it is difficult to see why, if the cla.s.ses have arisen out of such organisations, there should be found over the great part of Australia four, and only four, cla.s.ses from which the eight have obviously developed. In any case we have no parallel in these modifications to the alternate generations of the cla.s.s system.

These find an a.n.a.logue, according to an old report, not subsequently confirmed, in the Wailwun tribe, where, however, it is supplementary to the cla.s.ses. We are told that there are four totems in this tribe, though this does not agree with other reports, and that they are found in both phratries indiscriminately. A woman's children do not take her totem, nor, apparently, the totem of her brother, who belongs to a different kin, but are of the remaining two totems according to their s.e.x[131]. From this it follows that the totems alternate, precisely as do the cla.s.ses; the difference in the arrangement consists in the distinction of totem falling to males and females, which has no a.n.a.logue in the cla.s.s system. But such arrangements, even if we may take them as established facts, are clearly of secondary origin, and can hardly give a clue to the origin of the cla.s.ses.

There is an important difference between the four-cla.s.s and eight-cla.s.s organisations in respect of the totem kins. In the former systems the kins are almost invariably divided between the phratries; but within them they do not belong to either of the cla.s.ses, though certain cla.s.ses claim them[132]; but on the contrary, of necessity are divided between them. In the eight-cla.s.s tribes this seems to be the case in some tribes also; in others, like the Arunta, abnormalities of development cause the totems to fall in both phratries. But in the Mara, the Mayoo, and the Warramunga[133] they fall, or are stated to fall, in the first case into groups according to the four cla.s.ses, in the other cases according to the "couples," i.e. the two cla.s.ses which stand in the relation of parent and child (the son of Panunga is Appungerta, his son is again Panunga, and so for the other pairs). This suggests that totemism has something to do with the division of the four cla.s.ses into eight, as was pointed out by Dr Durkheim in 1905[134]. His argument is that as long as descent was in the female line, the rule was that a man could not marry a woman of his mother's totem. When the change to male descent took place, the mother's totem, as we see by actual examples[135], did not lose the respect which it formerly enjoyed; there is in more than one tribe a tabu of the mother's as well as of the father's totem. That being so, it is natural to suppose that the new marriage organisation according to male descent might be modified to take account of this fact. By dividing the cla.s.ses and arranging that one member of a couple should be debarred not only from intermarrying with the cla.s.s of his mother, for which the four-cla.s.s system also provides, but also from intermarrying with the second member of the same couple too, this result was attained, in the view of Dr Durkheim.

It remains however to be established that this segregation of totems is actually found in the tribes in question. For the Warramunga Spencer and Gillen distinctly state[136] that the arrangement is dichotomous, in which case the alleged result would not be brought about. The Anula and Mara are exceptional tribes with direct male descent; it is hardly likely that the eight-cla.s.s system spread from them. The Mayoo have not yet been reported on by an expert. Finally some of the tribes have not even the dichotomous arrangement of totems but distribute them in both phratries. The basis of the hypothesis, therefore, is hardly established.

Singularly enough, Dr Durkheim[137] expresses his adherence to a previous theory of his own as to the method of effecting the change from female to male descent in four-cla.s.s tribes. This he supposes to have been done by transferring one of the two cla.s.ses from each phratry to the opposite one; and in the former discussion (_Annee Soc._ V, 82 sq.) he showed that this procedure would result in scattering the totems through both phratries, as we find them to be in the case of the Arunta.

It is therefore singular to find that he adheres to this theory when his new hypothesis demands that the totems, so far from being more widely distributed, should be actually confined to the members of one couple.

Beyond the Urabunna custom in intertribal marriages, however, which is hardly decisive evidence, there does not appear to be any proof that the transference from one phratry to the other ever took place.

The further support claimed by Dr Durkheim for his hypothesis from the alleged male descent of the totem in tribes where female descent of the cla.s.s names prevails, rests on too uncertain a basis to make it necessary to deal with it at length; some criticism of the evidence will be found elsewhere.

We have seen above that the Dieri rule is precisely parallel to that of the eight-cla.s.s tribes in practice; it is however expressed, not by a cla.s.s system, but by enacting that people standing in a certain degree of kins.h.i.+p or consanguinity shall marry. If Dr Durkheim's theory of the origin of the eight-cla.s.s system is correct, it should also apply to the Dieri. Now the rule that a man must marry his maternal great-uncle's daughter clearly prevents intermarriage with one of the mother's totem; but this cannot be the object of the rule, for it is prevented already by the phratry system. Dr Durkheim's theory therefore finds no support in the Dieri rule.

On the other hand, unless the totems have been scattered through the phratries since the southern Arunta divided their cla.s.ses, Dr Durkheim will have difficulty in explaining why a tribe where the totem does not concern marriage at all has found it necessary to split the cla.s.ses; and that though the child does not take its totem from mother or father.

Herr Cunow has advanced the view that the cla.s.ses correspond to distinctions of age; but he took as his basis, not the differentia of elder and younger, but the distinction made by the initiation customs, which divide the community, in his view, into three strata--young, adult and old. Into the difficulties created by this theory we need not here enter. Suffice it to say that the theory depends on the supposition that an age-grade had to marry within itself. Now the age-grade is not a fixed body, but is continually changing its personnel; not only so, but it is difficult to see how marriage could take place, given the initiation ceremonies, in any other way; unions of "old men" with adult women apart, which are not, in fact, prohibited, so far as is known, the only marriages possible are those within the adult grade. Although father and son can rarely belong to the adult grade simultaneously, mother and daughter can readily do so. If not, these grades are clearly generation cla.s.ses, and what Herr Cunow really takes as the basis of his theory is the generation in each family. This can readily be shown by a consideration of the kins.h.i.+p terms.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] Roth, _Eth. Stud._ p. 182; Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._ p. 616; Howitt, p. 262; _J.R.S.N.S.W._ x.x.xI, 166.

[131] _J.A.I._ VII, 249, cf. _J.R.S.N.S.W._ x.x.xI, 172.

[132] Howitt, p. 110.

[133] _Nor. Tr._ p. 167; _Proc. R.G.S. Qu._ XVI, 70; _J.R.S.N.S.W._ x.x.x, 111, 112.

[134] _Ann. Soc._ VIII, 118.

[135] Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._ p. 166.

[136] _Nor. Tr._ p. 163.

[137] p. 142.

CHAPTER IX.

KINs.h.i.+P TERMS.

Descriptive and cla.s.sificatory systems. Kins.h.i.+p terms of Wathi-Wathi, Ngerikudi-speaking people and Arunta. Essential features. Urabunna.

Dieri. Distinction of elder and younger.

Some cla.s.sless two-phratry tribes observe in practice the same rules as the four and eight cla.s.s tribes when they are deciding what marriages are permissible. The Dieri and Narrangga follow the eight-cla.s.s rule; the position of the Urabunna is somewhat uncertain owing to the obscurity of our authorities, which again is probably due to their lack of intimate acquaintance with the tribe; and the Wolgal, Ngarrego and Murring have the simple four-cla.s.s rule that a man marries his mother's brother's daughter.

We have seen in an earlier chapter that kins.h.i.+p and consanguinity are distinct in their nature, though among civilised peoples they are not in practice distinguishable. In the lower stages of culture it is otherwise, as will be shown in detail below. Corresponding to this distinction of consanguinity and kins.h.i.+p but not parallel to it we have two ways of expressing these relations.h.i.+ps--the descriptive and the cla.s.sificatory.

The terminology of the former system is based on the principle of reckoning the relations.h.i.+p of two people by the total number of steps between them and the nearest lineal ancestor of both. The latter does not concern itself with descent at all but expresses the status of the individual as a member of a group of persons. Thus, to take a single example, in a typical Australian tribe the word applied by a child to its father is not used of him alone but of all the other males on the same level of a generation provided they belong to the same phratry; to the other half of the generation is applied the term usually translated "mother's brother."

Unfortunately but few Australian lists of kins.h.i.+p terms have been drawn up, and the anomalous tribes like the Kurnai have absorbed a large share of attention. It is however possible to give tables for the three cla.s.ses of tribes with which we have been in the main concerned. Those given are in use among the Wathi-Wathi of Victoria, the Ngerikudi-speaking people of North Queensland and the Arunta[138].

_Wathi-Wathi Tribe: two-phratry._

-------------------------------------+------------------------------------+---- _Phratry A_ | _Phratry B_ |Gen- |_Naponui_ | |_Kokonui_ |er- |(mother's father) | |(mother's mother)|at- |_Miimui_ | |_Matui_ |ion |(father's mother) | |(father's father)| | | | | I ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ _Mamui_ | |_Kukui_ | | (father) | |(mother) | | _Niingui_ | |_Gunui_ | | II (father's sister= | |(mother's brother=| | _Nalundui_, | |_Nguthanguthu_ | | wife's mother) | |wife's father) | | ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ |_Malunui_ | | EGO | |(father's | |_Wawi, mamui_ | |sister's son) | |(elder brother, | III |_Neripui_ | |sister) | |(father's sister's| |_Tatui, minukui_ | |daughter=wife) | |(younger do.) | ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ _Waipui_ | |_Ngipui_ | | (son, daughter) | |(sister's son) | | | |? (sister's dau. | | IV | |=_Boikathui_, | | | | son's wife) | | ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ |_Naponui_ | |_Kokonui_ | |(daughter's son) | |(sister's | |_Miimui_ | |daughter's son) | V |(sister's son's | |_Matui_ | | son) | | (son's son) | ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+---

_Ngerikudi: Four-cla.s.s._

------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+---- | | | |Gen- | | | |er- _Phratry A:_ |_Cla.s.s a_1_ |_Phratry B:_ |_Cla.s.s b_1_ |at- _Cla.s.s a_ | |_Cla.s.s b_ | |ion ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ |_Daida_ (mother's | |_Mite_ (mother's | |father) | |mother) | I |_Baida_ (father's | |_Laeta_ (father's| |mother) | |father) | ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ _Naider_ (father) | |_Naibeguta_ | | _Waita_ (father's | |(mother) | | brother) | |_Miata_ (brother) | | _Niata_ (elder | |_Goete_ (elder | | II sister) | |sister) | | _Wiata_ (younger | |_Datu_ younger | | do.) | |( do.) | | ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ | | | EGO | |_Danuma_ (wife= | |_Maneinga_ (elder| |mo. bro. dau.) | |brother) | |_Lanti ngenuma_ | |_Goete_ (elder | III |(sister's husband | |sister) | |=mo. bro. son) | |_Otro_ (younger | | | |brother or | | | |sister) | ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ _Yuta_ (son or | |? (sister's son | | daughter) | |or daughter) | | | |_Yamaanta_ (dau.'s| | IV | |husband) | | ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+ |_Yudanta_ | |_Yuunta_ (son's | |(daughter's child)| |child) | V ------------------+------------------+------------------+-----------------+----

So far as deficiencies in our information would allow, these tables have been drawn up on corresponding lines, and the first point which strikes us is the great similarity between the three tables, in spite of the apparent wide divergence in the kins.h.i.+p organisation of the tribes. To facilitate comparison the Wathi-Wathi terms have been arranged, not only according to the system in use in the tribe, but in such a way as to show how the terms would be arranged under the four-cla.s.s system.

_Arunta: Eight-cla.s.s._

----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+---- _Panunga_ | _Uknaria_ | _Bulthara_ | _Appungerta_ |Gen- ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+er- | |_Ipmunna_ (mother's|_Arunga_ (father's|at- | |mother, wife's |father) |ion | |mother's father) | |I ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+ _Oknia_ (father)|_Mura_ (wife's | | | _Uwinna_ |mother, wife's | | |II (father's |mother's | | | sisters) |brothers) | | | | | | | ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+ | | | EGO | | |_Ipmunna_ (father's|_Okilia_ (elder | | |sister's daughter's|brothers) | | |husband, son's |_Ungaraitcha_ |III | |wife's mother) |(elder sisters) | | | |_Itia_ (younger | | | |brothers and | | | |sisters) | ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+ _Allira_ | | | | (children, | | | | brother's | | | |IV children) | | | | ----------------|---------------+-------------------+------------------+ | | |_Arunga_ (son's | | | |son) |V ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+----

----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+---- _Purula_ | _Ungalla_ | _k.u.mara_ | _Umb.i.t.c.hana_ |Gen- ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+er- | |_Tjimmia_ |_Aperla_ |at- | |(mother's father) |(father's |ion | | |mother) |I ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+ _Mia_ (mother, |_Ikuntera_ | | | mother's sister)|(wife's father)| | |II _Gammona_ | | | | (mother's | | | | brother) | | | | ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+ | | | | | |_Unkulla_ (father's|_Unawa_ (wife, | | |sister's sons) |wife's sisters) | | | |_Umbirna_ |III | | |(wife's brother= | | | |sister's | | | |husband) | - | | | | ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+ _Gammona_ (son's|_Umba_ | | | wife) |(sister's | | |IV |children) | | | | | | | ----------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+ | |_Tjimmia_ | | | |(daughter's child) | |V ---------------+---------------+-------------------+------------------+----

In the Wathi-Wathi system, we observe that in each generation there are two groups of males and two of females, corresponding to the two-phratry system, which are distinguished by names differing for each generation.

Precisely the same arrangement is found in the four-cla.s.s tribe. The four-cla.s.s are therefore simply a systematisation of the terms of kins.h.i.+p in use under the two-phratry system.

Comparing now the eight-cla.s.s with the four-cla.s.s system, we do not see at a glance the essential principle of the former. The clue is given by the fact that cla.s.ses I and IV, II and III in phratry A, I and II, III and IV in phratry B, are what we have termed a couple, that is to say stand in the relation of parent and child alternately. Marriage being between cla.s.ses of corresponding numbers, it follows that k.u.mara-Bulthara and Appungerta-Umb.i.t.c.hana are the maternal and paternal grandparents of the man EGO. The grandparents of his wife are in the same cla.s.ses but with reversal as regards the s.e.x. Bulthara is the cousin of Appungerta, k.u.mara of Umb.i.t.c.hana and so on. We see therefore that, just as among the Dieri, a man may not marry his cousin, but must marry his second cousin, to use ordinary terms, which in this case are not misleading.

Looking now at the Ngerikudi system, we see that elder and younger sisters are distinguished in the generations of EGO and his parents.

Possibly they are the eight-cla.s.s tribe of Queensland to which Dr Howitt alludes. If not, we have in them a tribe one stage earlier than the southern Arunta, who have their four cla.s.ses divided but as yet without any corresponding names.