Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia Part 3

"Blood" and "shade." Kamilaroi type. History of Research in Australia. General sketch.

Before proceeding to deal with the Australian facts it will be well to define the terminology to be employed, and give a brief survey of a typical organisation. Looking at the population from the territorial point of view in the first place, we find aggregates of tribes; these may be termed _nations_. The component tribes are friendly, one with another; they may and often do hold initiation ceremonies and other ceremonials in common; although the language is usually syntactically the same, and though they contain many words in common, the vocabularies differ to such an extent that members of different tribes are not mutually intelligible. How far the occurrence of identical kins.h.i.+p organisation and nomenclature should be taken as indicating a still larger unity than the nation is a difficult question. _Prima facie_ the nation is a relatively late phenomenon; but the distribution of the names of kins.h.i.+p organisations, as will be shown later, indicates that communication, if not alliance, existed over a wide area at some periods, which it is difficult to suppose were anything but remote.

The idea of the _tribe_ has already been defined. It is a community which occupies a definite area, recognises its solidarity and possesses a common speech or dialects of the same.

Between the tribe and the family occur various subdivisions, known as sub-tribes, hordes, local groups, etc., but without any very clear definition of their nature. It appears, however, that the tribal area is sometimes so parcelled out that property in it is vested, not in the tribe as a whole, but in the _local group_, which welcomes fellow-tribesmen in times of plenty, but has the right of punis.h.i.+ng intruders of the same tribe who seek for food without permission; for a non-tribesman the penalty is death. In some cases the local group is little more than an undivided family including three generations; it may then occupy and own an area of some ten miles radius. In other cases the term is applied to a larger aggregate, the nature and rights of which are not strictly defined; it may number some hundreds of persons and form one-third of the whole tribe; it seems best to denominate such an aggregate by the name of _sub-tribe_.

The term _family_ may be retained in its ordinary sense.

Superposed on the tribal organisation are the kins.h.i.+p organisations, which, in the case of most Australian tribes, are independent of locality. Leaving out of account certain anomalous tribes, it may be said broadly that an Australian tribe is divided into two sets, called phratries, primary cla.s.ses, moieties, etc. by various authors; the term used in the present work for these divisions is _phratry_. Members.h.i.+p of a phratry depends on birth and is taken _directly_ from the mother (_matrilineal descent_) or father (_patrilineal descent_).

In Queensland and part of N.S. Wales the phratry is again subdivided, and four _intermarrying cla.s.ses_ (sometimes called sub-phratries) are formed, two of which make up each phratry. In North Australia and Queensland a further subdivision of each of these cla.s.ses is found, making eight in all. Descent in the cla.s.ses is _indirect_ matrilineal or indirect[37] patrilineal, the child belonging to the mother's or father's phratry as before, but being a.s.signed to the cla.s.s of that phratry to which the mother or father does not belong. The cla.s.ses of father and son together are called a _couple_. The parent from whom the phratry and cla.s.s name are thus derived is said to be the _determinant spouse_.

These phratries and cla.s.ses regulate marriage. It is forbidden to marry within one's own phratry. This custom is termed _exogamy_. When the husband removes and lives in his wife's group the marriage is _matrilocal_; if the wife removes it is _patrilocal_.

In addition to the division into cla.s.ses each phratry is further divided into a number of _totem kins_. A _totem_ is usually a species of animals or plants; a body of human beings stands in a certain peculiar relation to the totem species and is termed the totem kin; each member of a totem kin is termed a _kinsman_. Members.h.i.+p of the totem kin usually descends directly from parent to child.

The existence of these kins.h.i.+p organisations is universally recognised.

Mr R.H. Mathews has recently a.s.serted the existence of yet another form and at the same time controverted the accepted views as to the operation and meaning of those described above. He distinguishes in certain tribes of New South Wales kins.h.i.+p organisations running across the phratries; these are of two kinds, according to the author, but they do not seem to differ in function. They are termed by Mr Mathews "_blood_" and "_shade_" divisions, and are held by him to be the names of the really exogamous groups. The subject is discussed in detail below.

In order to make the working of these regulations plain, let us take as an example the Kamilaroi tribe of N.S. Wales, with two phratries, four cla.s.ses and various totem kins. The phratries are named Dilbi and Kupathin; Dilbi is divided into two cla.s.ses, Muri and Kubi; Kupathin into k.u.mbo and Ipai. The Dilbi totems, which may belong to either of the cla.s.ses, are kangaroo, opossum and iguana; those of Kupathin are emu, bandicoot and black snake. Every member of the tribe has his own phratry, cla.s.s and totem; these all come to him by descent.

We have little or no information as to the local grouping of the Kamilaroi tribes, but it was possibly not unlike that of some of the tribes to the north-west. In the case of the latter the tribal area was some 3000 sq. miles in extent, it was split up into smaller areas, thirty or more in number, which were the property of the local groups; a local group consisted frequently of three generations of relatives. When we come to deal below with marriage regulations it will be shown that husband, wife and child under the four-cla.s.s system all belong to different cla.s.ses; there were therefore in each group at least three cla.s.ses, if not four, and consequently members of two phratries. If we a.s.sume that the same conditions prevailed among the Kamilaroi, the local groups would then be made up of members of both the Dilbi and Kupathin phratries; and probably all four cla.s.ses, Muri, Kubi, Ipai and k.u.mbo, would be found in each group, which in Australia varied in size according to local conditions from 20 or 30 to 200; under special conditions, such as prevailed in the neighbourhood of Lake Alexandrina, the number might run up to 600 or more, but this was exceptional.

From the fact that the totems are divided between the phratries it is clear that the local group may also have members of all the six totem kins mentioned above, among its members.

The rules by which marriage and descent are regulated are apparently very complicated but practically very simple. Taking the Kamilaroi tribe again, the rule is that Muri marries Butha (a female k.u.mbo) and their children are Ipai and Ipatha: Kubi marries Ipatha and their children are k.u.mbo and Butha; in each case the children belong to the same phratry as the mother but to the other cla.s.s in that phratry. This is termed indirect matrilineal descent.

The rule of descent for the totem among the Kamilaroi was simpler; members.h.i.+p of a totem kin descends directly from a mother to her child.

The combined effect of these rules is that if, for example, a male Dilbi of the Muri cla.s.s and iguana totem wants to marry, he must choose a wife of the Kupathin phratry, the k.u.mbo cla.s.s, and either the emu, bandicoot, or black snake totems; suppose he marries an emu woman; then his children are of the Kupathin phratry, the Ipai (or Ipatha) cla.s.s, and the emu totem. These regulations are naturally more complicated among the eight-cla.s.s tribes; on the other hand, where only phratries and totems are found, but no cla.s.ses, descent is much simpler; for in each case the child takes the phratry and totem of its mother, where matrilineal descent prevails, or of its father, where patrilineal descent is found.

The general rule in Australia is that the wife goes to live with her husband; in other words, she leaves the local group in which she was born and becomes a member of her husband's local group. The effect of this is very different according as descent is reckoned through the mother or through the father. Taking the Kamilaroi again, the Muri-iguana man brings into his group a Butha-emu woman; their children are Ipatha-emu. If, therefore, a local group is made up of the descendants of a single family, the phratry, cla.s.s, and totem names vary from generation to generation; for the girls go to other groups, and the men bring in wives of a phratry, cla.s.s, and totem different, as a rule, from their own; the children of the next generation take their kins.h.i.+p names directly or indirectly from the mother.

If, on the other hand, descent is reckoned through the father, the phratry and totem names are always the same from generation to generation; from this it follows that the phratry of the wife, who comes from without, is also the same from generation to generation, though her totem name does not of necessity remain the same. The cla.s.s name alternates both in the case of the family and of the wives in successive generations. It has already been pointed out that reckoning of descent in the male line tends to bring about local grouping of the kins.h.i.+p organisations. In the eight-cla.s.s tribes, and in parts of Victoria, the phratries, elsewhere the totem kins, tend to be or are actually limited to certain portions of the tribal area.

Our knowledge of these matters has not, of course, been gained at a bound. Before indicating the present extent of our information, it may be well to give an historical sketch of early discoveries in this field.

Some seventy years ago the attention of students of primitive social inst.i.tutions was drawn to the marriage regulations of the Indian tribes of North America by an article in _Archaeologia Americana_[38]; in which the author, drawing his conclusions partly from earlier writers, partly from his own investigations, showed that the totem kin was an exogamous group, while in some cases the kin bearing the name of a given totem were not only exogamous, but not even permitted to choose their wives from any of the other kins at will, being restricted in their choice to certain groups or, in many cases, to a single group of totem kins, according as the tribe was arranged in two or more phratries.

At least two observers had detected the existence of Australian organisations of the same nature as the American phratries, so far as our scanty information from West Australia goes, even before the publication of _Archaeologia Americana_. The honour of being the first to publish information on the subject belongs to Nind, who had spent some time in the neighbourhood of King George's Sound in 1829, and published his observations on native customs in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_[39] for 1832. Close on his heels came the authors of _Journals of Explorations in West Australia_, which appeared in 1833, and described journeys undertaken between 1829 and 1832.

The phratries were discovered in South Australia by the Rev. C.W.

Schurmann, whose Vocabulary[40], published in 1844, contains a mention of the Parnkalla phratries, without, however, any indication of their connection with marriage customs and exogamy. Five years earlier, however, Lieutenant, afterwards Sir George Grey, had observed inst.i.tutions of the nature of totem kins, phratries, or intermarrying cla.s.ses in West Australia, and had detected their connection with the marriage laws of the natives[41].

In 1841 and 1842, G.F. Moore[42] called attention to the grouping of the native divisions or kins, and antic.i.p.ated Schurmann, as will be shown later. Grey, before the publication of his _Journal_, had read the _Archaeologia_; but though he mentions the naming of "families" after animals, he makes no mention of any grouping, but merely distinguishes between "families" and "local names." Some of the names which he gives seem to be those of phratries, and if he had been led by his study of _Archaeologia Americana_ to the discovery of exogamic regulations dealing with the relations of individual totem kins to one another, it seems on the whole probable that he would not have overlooked the grouping of the kins which is, with certain exceptions, of a more or less local character, common to the whole of Australia, so far as our information goes. Singularly enough this information, very full, relatively, for the eastern and central tribes, has, so far as South-West Australia is concerned, only just been completed, although more than sixty years have elapsed since Grey wrote, the last twenty of which have seen much additional light thrown on the organisation of the tribes of the remainder of the continent.

The American tribes, where simple totemic exogamy is not the rule, are organised in two and sometimes three or more, up to ten, phratries. It is possible that Grey, in spite of his attention having been drawn to the bi- or trichotomous organisation of American totem kins, failed to understand the Australian system owing to the presence of an element, discovered a few years later at a point remote from the scene of Grey's researches, to which no American a.n.a.logue exists. In addition to the grouping of the kins into phratries, the Australian tribes over a large part of the continent subdivide each phratry into two or four cla.s.ses or "castes," as they were frequently termed by the early investigators. The effect of the cla.s.s system is to further limit the choice of a given individual, restricted to one-half of the women of the tribe under the simple phratry system, to one-fourth of them or one-eighth, as the case may be. Probably the first person to publish the fact of the existence of these cla.s.ses, which he regarded as differing in rank, was C.P.

Hodgson[43], who found them in 1846 among the blacks of Wide Bay. From a letter of Leichardt's however it appears that the discovery must have been made nearly simultaneously by several observers. Writing in 1847[44], he says that the castes are the most interesting and most obscure feature among the tribes to the northward, and mentions F.N.

Isaacs as having noticed the existence of the cla.s.ses among the natives of Darling Downs, adding that Capt. Macarthur had also found them among the Mon.o.bar tribes of the Coburg Peninsula. "These castes," he adds, "are probably intimately connected with the laws of intermarriage."

If Leichardt's words mean, as apparently they do, that the Mon.o.bar cla.s.ses are regulative of marriage, and if his information was correct, the first mention of cla.s.ses in Australia is found, not in Hodgson's work, but in Wilson's account[45]. Neither he, however, nor Stokes[46], who mentions them as existing among the Limba Karadjee, makes any mention of their connection with marriage regulations. And Earl, at a later period, omits in like manner to say what const.i.tuted members.h.i.+p of a caste, though he states that they differed in rank. The names--Manjarojally (fire people), Manjarwuli (land people), and Mambulgit (makers of nets, perhaps, therefore, water people), as well as the anomalous number of the cla.s.ses, seem to indicate that they are of a somewhat different nature to the real intermarrying cla.s.ses found elsewhere[47]. It is of course well known that the initiation ceremonies and totemic system of the northern tribes on both sides of the Gulf of Carpentaria differ somewhat widely from the normal Australian form.

None of the observers. .h.i.therto mentioned can be said however to have applied himself to the scientific study of the questions raised by the facts which they recorded. Anthropology was in those days in its infancy. The first to make a really serious effort to clear up the many difficult questions, some of them still matters of controversy, which a closer study of the native marriage customs brought to the surface, was a missionary anthropologist, a cla.s.s of which England has produced all too few. In 1853 the Rev. William Ridley published the first of many studies of the Kamilaroi speaking tribes, and, thanks to the impetus given to the investigation of systems of relations.h.i.+p and allied questions by Lewis Morgan, was the pioneer of a series of efforts which have rescued for us at the nick of time a record of the social organisation of many tribes which under European influence are now rapidly losing or have already lost all traces of their primitive customs, if indeed they have not, like the tribes formerly resident at Adelaide and other centres of population, been absolutely exterminated by contact with the white man with his vices and his civilisation, or by the less gentle method euphemistically termed "dispersion," which, if other nations were the offenders, we should term ma.s.sacre.

After Mr Ridley, Messrs Fison and Howitt turned their attention to the Kamilaroi group of tribes. The progress of these investigations is traced, historically and controversially, in the second series of Maclennan's _Studies in Ancient History_, and it is unnecessary to deal with it in detail. More and more light was thrown on totemism, marriage regulations, and intermarrying cla.s.ses by the persistent efforts of Mr Howitt, by Dr Frazer's little work on Totemism, and by other students, until it seemed that the main features of Australian social organisation had been clearly established, when in 1898 the researches of Messrs Spencer and Gillen seemed to do much to overthrow all recognised principles, so far as the totemic regulation of marriage was concerned.

How far this is actually the case it is unnecessary to consider here. It may be said however that the work of these two investigators and the enquiries of Dr Roth in North Queensland make it more than ever a matter for regret that the British Empire, the greatest colonial power that the world has ever seen, will not afford the few thousand pounds needed to put such researches on a firm basis.

Having defined the various terms, and shown the actual working of the system by the aid of the best known example, we may now pa.s.s, after this brief historical sketch of the development of our knowledge, to the task of giving the broad outlines of the phratry and cla.s.s organisations.

If our knowledge of Australian phratries and cla.s.ses is far from exhaustive, we have at any rate a fair knowledge of the distribution of the various types whose existence is generally recognised; that is to say, we can delimit the greater part of the continent according to whether the tribes show two phratries only, or two phratries, which may be anonymous, with the further subdivision into four cla.s.ses, or into eight cla.s.ses. We also know approximately the limits of the matrilineal and patrilineal systems. New South Wales, Victoria, the southern portion of Queensland and Northern Territory, the eastern part of South Australia, and the coastal regions of West Australia, are now known with more or less accuracy from the point of view of kins.h.i.+p organisations. On the other hand, from the Cape York Peninsula, and the part of Northern Territory north of Lat. 15, we have little if any information. The south coast and its hinterland from 135 westwards, as far as King George's Sound, is virtually a terra incognita; in fact beyond the south-western corner and the fringe which lies along the coast we know little of the West Australian blacks, and the frontiers between the various systems must in these areas be regarded as purely provisional.

Broadly speaking, the tribes of the whole of the known area of Australia, certain coast regions of comparatively small extent excepted, have a dichotomous kins.h.i.+p organisation. The accompanying map (Map II) shows how the various forms are distributed. Along most of the south coast, and up a belt broken perhaps in the northern portion, running through the centre of the continent in Lat. 137, are found two phratries without intermarrying cla.s.ses; for the area west of Lat. 130 we have, it is true, only one datum, which gives no information as to the area to which it applies; this portion of the field therefore is a.s.signed only provisionally to the two-phratry system. On the Bloomfield River, which runs into Weary Bay, a.s.sociated with the name of Captain Cook, is an isolated two-phratry organisation, unless indeed we may a.s.sume that the cla.s.s names have either been overlooked or have pa.s.sed out of use.

The four-cla.s.s system extends over the greater part of New South Wales, and Queensland; a narrow belt runs through the north of South Australia and broadens till it embraces the whole coastline of West Australia, the north-eastern area excluded. An isolated four-cla.s.s system, which does not regulate marriage, is found in the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia.

The eight-cla.s.s system forms a compact ma.s.s, between the Gulf of Carpentaria and Roebuck Bay, extending south as far as Lat. 25 in the centre of Australia.

In reality the rule of the eight-cla.s.s system extends considerably further south, but the cla.s.ses are nameless or altogether non-existent.

Thus, the southern Arunta have nominally four cla.s.ses, but each of these has two sections, so that the final result is as though they were an eight-cla.s.s tribe. In the same way the marriage regulations of the two-phratry Dieri are such that choice is limited among them precisely as it would be if they had eight cla.s.ses. The same may be true of the remainder of the western branch of the four-cla.s.s system, which is closely allied in name to the Arunta type; the boundary between the related sets of names is unknown.

Among the Narrinyeri and the Yuin the kins.h.i.+p organisation, which is confined to totemic groups, takes a local form; here the regulation of marriage depends on considerations of the residence of the pair. Local exogamy also prevails among the unorganised Kurnai. The Chepara appear to have had no organisation, and among the Narrangga ties of consanguinity const.i.tuted the sole bar to marriage. We are not however concerned with the problems presented by these aberrant types of organisation, to which no further reference is made in the present work.

The area covered by the dichotomous organisations is divided almost equally between matrilineal and patrilineal tribes. The latter occupy the region north of Lat. 30 and west of an irregular line running from Long. 137 to 140 or thereabouts. In addition a portion of Victoria and the region west of Brisbane form isolated patrilineal groups. The problem presented by these anomalous areas has already been discussed in the chapter on the Rule of Descent. Where local exogamy is the rule, kins.h.i.+p is also virtually patrilineal.

In the remainder of Australia, non-organised tribes of course excepted, the rule of descent is matrilineal, save that in North Queensland a small tribe on the Annan River prefers paternal descent. The accompanying map shows the distribution of the two forms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP I. RULE OF DESCENT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP II. CLa.s.s ORGANISATIONS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP III. PHRATRY ORGANISATIONS.]

FOOTNOTES:

[37] Save in the Anula and Mara tribes.

[38] Vol. II.

[39] Vol. I, p. 38.

[40] _Vocabulary_, _s.v._ Kararu.

[41] Grey, _Journals_, II, 228.

[42] _Descriptive Vocabulary_, p. 3 etc.; _Colonial Mag._ V, 222.

[43] _Australian Reminiscences_, p. 212.