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FISON # KAMILAROI AND KURNAI
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KAMILAKOI AND KUENAI
MANEROO TABLE LAND.
BASS'S STRAITS
KAIILAROI AID KFRIAI
GROUP-MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP, AND MARRIAGE BY ELOPEMENT
Drawn chiefly from the usage of the Australian Aborigines
THE KURNAI TRIBE
Their customs in Peace and War
BY
LORIMER FISON, M.A., and A. W. HOWITT, F.G.S.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
LEWIS H. MORGAN, LL.D.
AUTHOR OP ''Systems of Consanguinity," "Ancient Society," &c.
' Imlkiis monstrare recentihus ahilita rpriim." — HOR.
GEORGE ROBERTSON MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, ADELAIDE, AND BRISBANE
MDCCCLXXX
[All rights reserved.]
TO THE HONOURABLE
LEWIS H. MORGAN, LL.D.,
THIS VOLUME
©eUicatetr,
AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM,
B Y THE A UTHORS.
CONTENTS.
PREFATORY NOTE ... ... 1
KAMILAROI MARRIAGE, DESCENT, AND RELATIONSHIP 21
GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP 97
THE KURNAI, THEIR CUSTOMS IN PEACE AND WAR ... 177
THEORY OF THE KURNAI SYSTEM 293
SUMMARY AND GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 315
ERRATA.
P. 4-}. The following statcmeut, which occurs here, requires correction : — "The two sets of gentes are conterminous with the original classes; and, descent being through the mother, they alternate between those classes in alternate generations.
Ipai-Kumbu CYuugaru') = Kangaroo-Opossum-Iguana. Muri-Kubi ( VVutaru) = Emu-Bandicoot- Blacksnake. In the next generation : —
Ipai-Kumbu = Emu-Bandicoot-Blacksnake. Muri-Kubi = Kangaroo-Opossum-Iguana." This is incorrect. Ipai-Kumbu always^ Emu-Bandicoot-Blacksnakc and Muri-Kubi always = Kangaroo- Opossum-Iguana. The gentes, there- fore, do not " alternate between the original classes in alternate genera- tions."
P. 52, line 2 of Latin quotation from " Eyre's Discoveries,"/'"' ^'pvoeiet" read "^praek'^."
P. 59, line 29, /or " kinship," read "kinsfolk."
P. 72, line 4, /or " Gurgela-Burbia," read " Wungo-Kuberu."
P. 121, in the diagram of " Descent through males,"/or "n' " read "m'."
P. 140, line 10, for " Derbet and (Torgot or Tchoro)," read " Derbet (or Tchoro) and Torgot."
PEEFATOEY NOTE.
The following memoirs — the first by the Rev, Lorimer Fison, and the second by Mr. Alfred W. Howitt, F.G.S. — were sent by these gentlemen to the undersigned, and they very kindly requested me to add an introduction, and such foot- notes as the text might suggest ; but the facts are so carefully and plainly presented that nothing seems left for me to do, except to call attention to the value of the materials contained in these memoirs, and to their bearing upon the early history of mankind.
While collecting materials for my work on " Consan- guinity," which forms the seventeenth volume of the " Smithsonian Contributions to KJaowledge," it was my good fortune to interest, as a co-labourer, Mr. Fison, then resi- dent in the Fiji Islands. He became a direct contributor to that work, as will be seen by consulting the same, pp. 573-583. Soon afterwards, he removed to Australia, where he entered upon a wider series of investigations into the social organization of the Australian tribes, their customs in respect to maiTiage and descents, the form of the family, and the systems of consanguinity and afiinity pertaining to the same. These researches, which extended over a period of several years, are in part embodied in the first of the memoirs named. It is proper to add that the late Professor Joseph Henry was acquainted with Mr. Fison's work, and
2
2 PREFATORY NOTE.
that he addressed him a letter, in which he commended his labours, and encouraged him to continue their prosecution.
Mr. Fison found an efficient fellow-labourer in the Aus- tralian field in Mr. A. W. Howitt, whose memoir is also attached. Although engaged in arduous official duties, he has found time to do excellent ethnological work, as his memoir will show. These gentlemen united in a list of printed questions touching organization, kinship, and consanguinity among the Australian blacks, which they distributed widely in the principal settlements of that country, inviting correspondence, as well as prompting inquiries. They also held personal intercourse with the natives as far as possible. From a number of original sources, they have accumulated a large body of facts, illustrating phases of savage life, and exhibiting the prin- cipal institutions, and some of the customs of the Australian aborigines.
In this connection I cannot forbear to remark, to the lasting credit of these gentlemen, that, while charged with weighty professional avocations, they have felt it their duty to stretch forth a timely, as well as an active, hand to save from oblivion the facts embodied in these memoirs.
The Australian tribes are melting away before the touch of civilization, even more rapidly than the American aborigines. In a lower ethnical condition than the latter, they have displayed less power of resistance. They now represent the condition of mankind in savagery better than it is elsewhere represented on the earth — a condition now rapidly passing away, through the destructive influence of superior races. Moreover, it is a condition of society which has not hitherto been thought worthy of special scientific investigation, although it is one of the stages of progress through which the more advanced tribes and nations of mankind have passed in their early
PREFATORY NOTE. 3
history, and although some of the more important institu- tions of civilized states must be sought, in their rudimentary forms, in this very condition of savagery in which they originated. In a few years nothing will be known of the arts, institutions, manners, customs, and plan of life of savage man, except as they are preserved in memoirs like the present.
Part First of the following contribution to Australian ethnology is by Mr. Fison, on the origin and development of the classificatory system of kinship. It treats of the Australian class divisions organized upon the basis of sex, together with their laws of marriage and descent, and their system of consanguinity and affinity, in a clear, precise, and exhaustive manner. I shall limit this notice of Mr. Fison's important memoir to the following subjects : —
I.— The Murdu-Legend.
II. — The extent of the distribution of the organization upon the basis of sex among the Australian aborigines. III. — The organization into gentes or clans, with a rule
prohibiting intermarriage in the gens. IV. — Marriage in the Group.
y. — The Turanian character of Kamilaroi kinship, resulting from the class organization and from the prohibition named. YI. — Severe penalties for violating the rule in respect to marriage — i.e., marrying into a prohibited class. VII. — Mr, Fison's explanation of the classical legend concerning the trial and acquittal of Orestes by the gods, as presented by -^schylus.
These several topics by no means reach all the important questions presented and discussed in this memoir, a careful study of which will amply repay the reader.
4 PKEFATORY NOTE.
I. — The Murdu-Legend.
Mr. Fison introduces the first chapter with the very striking legend named, which recognizes a state of society in certain Australian tribes, at some early period in their history, in which the consanguine family existed. This family, the probable existence of which has been denied by a limited number of authors,* has been deduced theoretically from the Malayan system of consanguinity and affinity, and from the facts of the social condition of the Polynesian tribes. It is not claimed that this family exists at the present time. That state of society has passed away. This legend opens with the following paragraph, which is borne out as to its truthfulness by what is now known of Aus- tralian society : —
" After the creation, brothers and sisters, and others of the closest kin, intermarried promiscnously, until the evil effects of these alliances becoming manifest, a council of the chiefs was assembled to consider in what way they might be averted."
There we have the testimony of an accepted and perpetuated native legend, which gives to the con- sanguine family a basis of probability. It has more weight than mere negative assertions, which are necessarily incapable of proof. It is also a plain statement of facts as they appeared to the native mind, familiar with their present, and, to some extent, with their anterior condition. The Australians and Polynesians are alike in the condition of savagery, in which state alone the consanguine family was possible. Until their social condition and sexual relations are more thoroughly investigated, the existence of a consanguine family among them, at some early period, is
* See Address of Mr. C. Staniland Wake before the London Archaeological Institute (Journal for November, 1878), which seems to have received the entire concurrence of the members of the institute.
PREFATORY NOTE. 5
an unavoidable conclusion. It is rendered so far probable by existing knowledge that the probability can only be set aside by actual facts to the contrary.
The movement referred to — the- legend goes on to say — resulted in the establishment of the Australian class system, with such an arrangement in respect to marriage that own brothers and sisters were thereafter excluded from the mar- riage relation. This legend not only admits consanguine marriages as previously real, but also treats the establishment of the classes on the basis of sex, with the prohibition named, as designed by its authors to avert a recognized evil. Evolutionists are slow to ascribe to savages any conscious desire for reformatory measures. They concede that they try different measures by accident, and that when they discover a practical benefit, they adopt the means by which the benefit was gained. It is not supposable that savages design, consciously, reformatory measures, in the strict sense of the term ; but that they are without intelli- gence in their action and aims, cannot be truthfully spoken. " The thouo-htless brain of a savage " will answer as a poetical phrase, but it cannot be accepted as literally true. If the brain of the savage had always remained thoughtless, mankind throughout the earth would have remained savages to the present hour.
II. — The distribution of the organization on the basis of sex among the Australian aborigines.
This memoir settles the question of the wide prevalence of this most archaic orofanization among the Australian tribes. It was not the mere fancy of the tribes speaking the Hawaiian language, among whom it was first discovered ; but it has been found in a large number of tribes scattered over immense areas in Australia. The names for the classes of males and of females, in some of the tribes, are changed
6 PREFATORY NOTE.
dialectically beyond identification, thus showing that these classes have existed among them from a very early period. The memoir is valuable for this fact alone, and Mr. Fison is entitled to the thanks of ethnolo£cists for ascertaining and verifying the facts contained in this table.
III. — The organization into Gentes or Clans, with the rule prohibiting marriage in the Gens.
This remarkable organization on the basis of kin, with descent in the female line universal in the early period, and in the male line universal in the later — which was retained among the Greeks and Romans until civilization was reached, when gentile society was superseded by political society, on the modern basis of territory and of property — is one of the striking facts in the history of the human mind, and of human institutions of government. A comparison of the several forms of the gentile organization among different races, leaves no doubt that it is the same organization wherever found, but in different stages of development. The Gens of the Greek and Roman peoples, the Gens of the Iroquois, the Scottish Clan, the Irish Sept, the Phratria of the Athenians, the Thum of the Mayars of India, the Kinships- of the Tribes of Siberia and of Africa, and the Divisions of Kin in Australia, named after animals, are unquestionably the same organization, whatever may be asserted to the contrary.* It is shown by the composition of the group, by the mutual obligations of its members, by the rules in respect to marriage, descent, and inheritance, and of the character and tenure of the office of chief, in which there is. a substantial concurrence among them all, with narrow limits of variation. It shows that the principal races of mankind, white, red, yellow, and black, derived this organ-
* See a review of " Ancient Society," in the Academy of 20tli July, 1S78, by E. B. Tylor, where the contrary is maintained.
PHEFATORY NOTE. 7
ization from their ancestors in a far anterior condition of the respective societies which gave it birth, and that the organization was transmitted to their several descendants, who are now found upon all the continents. We are thus enabled to trace, by its uniformity, the operations of the human mind, in its upward progress from savagery to civilization, far back of the period of recorded history into the dim twilight of far-distant periods of time, with the means of reconstructing a portion of the institutional history of mankind upon evidence of the highest character.
We may now turn to one of the aspects of the Australian class divisions, which I will venture to preface with a quotation from " Ancient Society " : —
"From the preceding statements, the composition of the gentes will be understood when placed in their relations to the classes. The latter are in pairs of brothers and sisters derived from each other, and the gentes themselves, through the classes, are in pairs as follows : —
Gentes. Male. Female. Male. Female.
1. Iguana. All are Murri and Mata or Kubbi and Kapota.
2. Emu. ,, Kumbo ,, Buta ,, Ippai ,, Ippata.
3. Kangakoo. ,, Murri „ Mata ,, Kubbi ,, Kapota.
4. Bandicoot, ,, Kumbo ,, Buta ,, Ippai ,, Ippata.
5. Opossum. ,, Murri ,, Mata ,, Kubbi ,, Kapota.
6. Blacksnake, ,, Kumbo ,, Buta ,, Ippai ,, Ippata,
" The connection of children with a particular gens is proved by the law of marriage. Thus Iguana-Mata must marry Kumbo ; her children are Kubbi and Kapota, and necessarily Iguana in gens, because descent is in the female line. Iguana-Kapota must marry Ippai ; her children are Murri and Mata, and also Iguana in gens, for the same reason. In like manner Emu-Buta must marry Murri ; her children are Ippai and Ippata, and of the Emu gens. So Emu-Ippata must marry Kubbi ; her children are Kumbo and Buta, and also of the Emu gens. In this manner the gens is maintained by keeping in its membership the children of all its female members. The same is true in all respects of each of the remaining gentes. It will be noticed that each gens is made up, theoretically, of the descendants of two supposed female ancestors, and contains four of the eight classes. It seems probable that originally there were but two male and two female classes, which were set opposite to each other in respect to the right of marriage, and
9 PREFATORY NOTE.
that the four afterwards subdivided into eight. The classes, as an anterior organization, were evidently arranged among the gentes, and not formed by the subdivision of the latter.
''Moreover, since the Iguana, Kangaroo, and Opossum gentes are found to be counterparts of each other, in the classes they contain, it follows that they are subdivisions of an original gens. Precisely the same is true of Emu, Bandicoot, and Blacksnake, in both particulars ; thus reducing the six to two original gentes, with the right in each to marry into the other, but not into itself. It is confirmed by the fact that the members of the first three gentes could not originally inter- marry ; neither could the members of the last three. The reason which prevented intermarriage in the gens, when the three Avere one, would follow the subdivisions because they were of the same descent, although under different gentile names. Exactly the same thing is found among the Seneca Iroquois."*
There is an entire concurrence between the views presented by Mr. Fison, and those in the above paragraph — with, perhaps, a slight difference of opinion as to the manner in which the number of classes were evolved. If we suppose Iguana and Emu are a pair of original gentes, the eight classes are divided between them, four in each. Since Mata is the mother of Kubbi and Kapota, and Kapota is the mother of Murri and Mata, the four classes are in reality but one, with a male and female branch. They form one kinship, with descent in the female line. It is the same with the Emu gens. It would seem, therefore, more proper to say that the two original intermarrying classes in the two gentes subdivided hy segmentation into eight, independently of gens, rather than that each gens subdivided into four classes, with the right to intermarry into the four classes of the other gens. The two organizations of gens and class are independent entities, of which the class is oldest in time, and the original unit of the system. The unit of organization cannot be subdivided from a greater whole,
* "Ancient Society," p. 56.
PREFATORY NOTE, 9
because it is necessarily an original growth. The same argument holds with respect to the four remaining gentes. Three of the six are counterparts of each other in the classes they contain, and altogether consist of but two inter- marrying classes in each pair of gentes. It seems here also more proper to say that Kangaroo and Opossum were formed by the segmentation of Iguana, and that Bandicoot and Blacksnake are segments of Emu ; supposing in both cases that Iguana and Emu were the first two gentes formed. It may as well have been either of the other two pairs, for aught that is known ; but as there are reasons for believing that in the beij^inninof of this organization o-entes began in pairs, it may be concluded that it was the same among the Kamilaroi.
Nothing is stated showing the existence of the phratric organization among them. It may never have appeared as a definite and higher organization of two or more gentes for certain common objects. But from the form of their social system, as it appears in Mr. Fison's memoir, the basis of two phratries is found in the relation of the gentes to each other. Thus Iguana, Kangaroo, and Opossum would naturally form one phratry, composed of gentes having the same class, all the members of which are of the same lineage ; Emu, Bandicoot, and Blacksnake a second phratry — they also have identical classes. Although we have here the gentile organization in its lowest, and, in some respects, in an archaic form, there is a theoretical probability that they possessed the phratric organization in its simplest form, which time and experience would have developed into a positive form. These views of the evolution of the system are merely opinions ; and those of Mr. Fison, where any degree of opinion exists, are entitled to as much, and, perhaps, to greater weight than my own. They are submitted with the greatest deference to Mr. Fison's views.
10 PREFATORY NOTE.
IV. — Marriage in the Group.
It is very difficult for the men of our times to understand man'iage in the group, which is something new, even in ethnology. Marriage among civilized races is so entirely different from this, that it is not easy for us to recognize marriage in the group as a form of the marriage relation. A part of the embarrassment arises from the use of the term marriage to express relation of the sexes so peculiar ; but with this qualification the use of the term is justified, because it is a form of marriage followed by cohabitation. Among the Australian savages, as this memoir fully shows, groups of ^males are found united to groups of females — not by any ceremony of a formal marriage to which the groups were parties, but by an organic law, respected by tribal usage, recognized over large areas, and followed in actual practice by the cohabitation of the parties. A woman is found one day living with one man in the marriage relation, and on the next day with another man of the same group in the same relation, and perhaps several men with several women at the same time. In Chapter III., to which attention is invited, the subject of marriage and descents is treated. Marriage in the group is presented and explained. A group of males, distinguished by the same class name, are the born husbands of a group of females bearing another class name ; and whenever a male of this class meets a female of the other class, they recognize each other as husband and wife, and their right to live in this relation is recognized by the tribe to which they belong. Mr. Fison remarks, upon this subject, that " this seems to be the most extensive system of communal marriage the world has ever known.
. . . It is an arranfjement extending across a continent (see Table B), which divides very widely-scattered tribes into intermarrying classes, and gives a man of one class marital rights over women of another class in a tribe a
PREFATORY NOTE. II
thousand miles away, and speaking a language other than his own." Near the end of this chapter, while commenting upon descent in the female line, which is the general rule in Australian tribes, he observes that " when a woman is married to a thousand miles of husbands, then it is evident that paternity must be, to say the least of it, somewhat doubtful." The facts presented in this memoir shed a new light upon this singular relation of the sexes low down in savagery.
V. — The Turanian character of Kamilaroi kinship, result- ing from the class organization, with the prohibition of marriage in the Gens.
The main difference between the Malayan and the Tura- nian systems of consanguinity is in those relationships which depend upon the intermarriage or the non-intermarriage of own brothers and sisters. As among the Australian tribes, divided into male and female classes, such marriages are prohibited by an organic law, the Turanian system of con- sanguinity would be expected to exist, unless it was superseded by a system in principle like the Aryan ; for but three systems have as yet been found among the tribes and nations of mankind. In chapter IV. Mr. Fison shows, among the Australian tribes organized in classes, the pre- sence of the Turanian system. His general discussion of the subject of consanguinity, in this and the succeeding chapter, is deserving of the attention of the reader. It is done with thoroughness, and with a profound understanding of the elements of a difficult subject.
VI. — Severe penalties for violating the rule in respect to marriage — i.e., for marrying into a prohibited class.
Marriage in the group is a practice seemingly so singular and extraordinary that it would be natural to explain it as
12 PEEFATOKY NOTE.
a custom originating in laxity of morals, and in low views of the relations of the sexes among savages. Under such usages, no restraints whatever upon the passions of the sexes would be expected to exist. But such a hypothesis is met by the fact that this usage is vipheld by public sentiment and organic law, which condemns and punishes every infringement of prohibitions in the relations of the sexes which forms a part of a general system. Accordingly, we find that any attempt to take a wife from a prohibited class in the same tribe, or even from a distant and hostile tribe, having a similar class organization, is at once resisted, and punished with severity by the tribe itself. A number of illustrations are given in Chapter III., of which the following is one : —
" If a warrior took to himself a captive who belonged to a forbidden class, he would be hunted down like a wild beast ; and, unless he managed to keep out of the way until the hot wrath of the tribe had cooled down, he would be killed, and his captive with him. This is a strong statement, but it rests on strong evidence. "
It thus appears that low down in savage society, where usages and customs exhibit the lowest possible views of the relations of the sexes, restraints exist ; and these restraints are upheld and maintained by custom and by public opinion with vigour and persistency. It exhibits, dimly, a type of that moral sense which binds together the elements of civilized society, and refutes the fallacious proposition stereotyped in the phrase, " the thoughtless brain of a savage." The thoughts of a savage are feeble in degree, and limited in range, of which Mr. Howitt's monograph furnishes a number of examples; but the principle of intelli- gence, though infantile, is ever present and ever active.
VII. — Mr. Fison's explanation of the classical legend of the trial and acquittal of Orestes by the gods, as presented by ./Eschylus.
PREFATORY NOTE. ig
In an appendix to his memoir, Mr. Fison re-examines the celebrated trial of Orestes, who is pursued by the furies for the murder of his mother. Sir John Lubbock and others have essayed explanations of this case of some ingenuity, but that of Mr. Fison seems to be as conclusive as it is original and complete.*
The monograph of the Kiirnai, by Mr. Howitt, is also a contribution to ethnology of exceptional value. The Kurnai tribe inhabit Gippsland, Victoria, in the south-east part of Australia — an area which is separated from the remainder of the continent by natural barriers, more or less formidable. This insulation was favourable to their progress. In the arts of life, they are not specially advanced beyond the other Australian tribes ; but in their social relations, particularly in their usages in respect to marriage, and in the form of the family, they show a marked advance beyond other Australian tribes. This memoir is based upon a personal knowledge of the usages and customs of the Kurnai, gained by direct personal intercourse with the remnant of this once large tribe, through a long residence in their country. For ascertaining and verifying the facts embodied in this memoir, Mr. Howitt possessed peculiar facilities. It presents a fresh and vivid picture of abori- ginal life, and has the merits of an original and intelligent investigation of the usages and customs of savages.
In speaking of the special subjects treated in this memoir, I propose to confine myself to a brief notice of the follow- ing :—
I. — Infanticide. II. — Marriage between single pairs by mutual consent, followed by elopement.
* This appendix has now been incorporated with the memoir. — L. F.
i4 PREFATORY NOTE.
III. — Non-intercourse between son-iu-law and mother- in-law.
IV. — Previous marriage in the Group, and with it a punaluan family, and Lack of that a consanguine family, among the Kumai, deduced by Mr. Howitt as necessary antecedents of their present marriage customs, and of their system of consanguinity. V. — The Kurnai belief that death is not the natural termination of life, but a consequence of accident, open violence, or necromancy.
VI. — Insecurity of life among savages.
While these topics give an imperfect conception of the contents of this memoir, they will serve to illustrate its general character.
I. — Infanticide.
The subject of infanticide, which has been so often exaggerated, is presented by Mr. Howitt in a plain manner, with the native reasons alleged. for the practice. The main fact is made to appear that it is limited to families over- burdened with children, and thus is of very limited practice, which is most likely the case. As a general rule, wherever infanticide prevails, or has prevailed in the past, Mr. Howitt observes —
" On speaking to a number of the Kurnai upon this subject, they gave me the following exijlanation. It is often difficult to carry about young children, particularly where there are several. Their wander- ing life renders this very difficult. It sometimes happened tliat when a child was about to be born, its father would say to his wife, ' We have too many children to carry about — best leave this one, when it is born, behind in the camp.' On this, the new-born child was left lying in the camp, and the family moved elsewhere. The infant, of course, soon perished. The Kurnai drew this singular distinction, that they never knew an instance of parents killing their children — but, only of leaving behind new-born infants. The aboriginal mind does not seem to perceive the horrid idea of leaving an unfortunate baby to die
PREFATORY NOTE. 15
miserably in a deserted camp, ... It may be that the feelings of affection arising from association and dependence have not, in such a case, been aroused, and the natural parental feelings seem to be over- borne by what they conceive to be the exigencies of their circum- stances. "
In such a case, the term infanticide, which implies an act of direct personal violence by the parents, producing death, is hardly appropriate. Desertion, or exposure of infants to perish, expresses the act more accurately, while it mitigates, in some degree, the deep atrocity of the crime.
II. — Marriage between single pairs by mutual consent, followed by elopement.
Among the Kurnai is found the extraordinary usage that marriage by the consent and procurement of parents, so universal in barbarous society, is the exception, while marriage by consent of the parties to be married, inde- pendently of parents, is the rule, followed by elopement to escape the violence of parents and kindred. Such a custom as that here indicated is unusual in the tribes of mankind, whether savage or barbarous, and I am not aware that any- thing precisely like it has elsewhere been observed.
" The young Kurnai," Mr. Howitt remarks, " can, as a rule, acquire a wife in one way only. He must run away with her. Native marriage may be brought about in various ways. If the young man is so fortu- nate as to have an unmarried sister, and to have a friend who also has an unmarried sister, they may arrange with the girls to run ofl' together ; or he may make his arrangement with some eligible girl whom he fancies, and who fancies him ; or a girl, if she fancies a young man, may send him a secret message, asking — ' Will you find me some food ? ' and this is understood to be a proposal. But in every such case it is essential to success that the parents of the bride should be utterly ignorant of what is about to take place. It is no use his asking a wife excepting under most exceptional circumstances, for he can only acquire one in the usual manner, and that by running off with her."
The father, brothers, and kindred pursue the runaways,
16 PREFATORY NOTE.
and, if they find them, they are cruelly treated, and punished as for an actual offence.
"Her father perhaps spears her through the leg, or both feet, and her mother and brothers may severely beat her. As for the hus- band, when he returns, he has to fight her male relatives. At length, the family becoming tired of objecting, the mother may say — ' Oh ! it's all right, better let him have her.' "
The form of the family resulting from these unions is called by Mr. Howitt the Pairing Family, which is entirely accurate, from what is elsewhere stated of their social condition. As this custom must have commenced as an accidental practice, it seems singular that it should have ripened into a permanent tribal usage.
III. — Non-intercourse between son-in-law and mother- in-law.
This singular custom, which has been found so widely prevalent among the lower races of mankind, is found in an equally positive form among the Kiirnai, and seemingly with reasons for the practice. Mr. Howitt gives the following illustration : —
" A Brabrolung, who is a member of the Church of England, was one day talking to me. His wife's mother was passing at some little distance, and I called to her. Suffering at the time from a cold, I could not make her hear, and said to the Brabrolung — ' Call Mary, I want to speak to her.' He took no notice whatever, but looked vacantly on the ground. I spoke to him again sharply, but still no answer. I then said — ' What do you mean by taking no notice of me V He thereupon called to his wife's brother, who was at a little distance, * Tell Mary Mr. Howitt wants her,' and turning to me, continued, reproachfully, ' You know very well I could not do that ; you know I cannot speak to that old woman.' "
It seems not unlikely that the hostile feelings aroused against him in the mind of her mother in consequence of his elopement with her daughter, which must be supposed real, received a continued expression from the mother through
PREFATORY NOTE. 17
this refusal of all intercourse with her son-in-law. An occasional occurrence at first, ripened in time into a settled custom.
IV. — Previous mamage in the Group, and with it a punaluan family, and back of that a consanguine family, among the Ktirnai, deduced by Mr. Howitt as necessary antecedents of their present marriage customs, and of their system of consanguinity.
Passing over Mr. Howitt's discussion of the office of elder or of chief, of blood feud, and of their organization into kinships or clans (Table A), I will next refer to his re- marks upon their system of consanguinity, as presented in Tables B and C, with his inferences therefrom. Pre- mising that the existence of the consanguine family, so named, is proved mainly by the Malayan system of con- sanguinity and affinity, which gives the relationships that would actually exist in such a family, and that the existence of the punaluan family, so called, is mainly proved by the Turanian system of consanguinity and affinity still prevalent in Asia, and by the Ganowanian system still prevalent in America, which gives the relationships that would actually exist in a punaluan family, Mr. Howitt finds evidence, in their present terms of relationship, that the Ktirnai must have had both the punaluan and the consanguine families at some anterior periods. He remarks that —
"The inter-relations of this group are, I think, strictly Malayan in theory, for they are all regarded as brothers and sisters to each other. This is further carried out in their relations towards each other, except when they stand in the relation of Miimmung [father's sister] and Babiik [mother's brother].* It is highly significant that, in these instances, as in others which may be perceived on examining the Table B, the secondary relations — if I may so term them — are such as should
* In order that Dr. Morgan's meaning may not be misunderstood, see the group referred to— Nos, 12, 13, 14, 15.
3
18 PREFATORY NOTE.
be indicated logically by the primary terms themselves. It lends much strength to the belief that they have arisen at first through adaptation of language to existing relationships, and not as mere terms of personal address. For comparison I give, in Table C, the principal Kumai terms, together with analogous ones used by two far-distant tribes. The comparative simplicity of the former will be apparent. These terms suggest a family in which a group of brothers had their wives in common, or in which a group of sisters had their husbands in common, but in which it did not perhaps necessarily follow that the brother's children were the husbands and wives of the sister's children. [This gives the punaluan family. ] They also, I think, strongly suggest a more archaic form of family, in which marriage was consanguine."
This inference of Mr. Howitt is important. His famili- arity with the condition of the Australian tribes gives weight to his opinions ; and it seems to the writer that they are fully warranted by the native system of consanguinity.
V. — The Ktirnai belief that death is not the natural termination of life, but a consequence of accident, open violence, or necromancy.
Among the curious beliefs of the Australian blacks, two may be here repeated. "It is not difficult," says Mr. Howitt, " to see how, among savages, who have no know- ledge of the real causes of diseases which are the common lot of humanity, the very suspicion even of such a thing as death from disease should be unknown. Death by accident they can imagine — death by violence they can imagine — but I ques- tion if they can, in their savage condition, imagine death by mere disease. . . . Thus the belief arises that death occurs only from accident, open violence, or secret magic ; and, naturally, that the latter can only be met by counter- charms." And, of a like belief in ghosts, he gives the fol- lowing instance of a native mistaking a living European for a ghost : — " A BrabrolCing told me that, when he was a little boy, near the Tambo river, and he saw a white man for the first time, he felt sure that it was a mrart [ghost], and he ran
PUEFATORY NOTE. 19
away. He said he was sure it was a mrart, because ' it was so very pale.' " These, and a number of other beliefs, usages and customs presented in these memoirs, give a new insight into the life of savages, and show the feebleness of their mental powers in comparison with those of civilized men. Some realization of this great difference between the savage and the civilized man may be gained from this contribu- tion to Australian ethnology. It indicates the low place from which the human race started on its upward career.
VI. — Insecurity of life among savages.
One of the greatest results of civilization is the security it gives to individuals and to families except in time of actual war ; and now even the approach of war has ceased to be sudden. Among barbarians, and especially among savages who occupy limited areas, they are constantly exposed to sudden and stealthy attack. A family retires to rest at night without any assurance they may not be attacked before the morning comes, or that the day will pass without the sudden appearance of an enemy. It is one of the dangers of their condition, as well as obstacles to their progress. The Kiirnai are no exception to the rule. " In one aspect," Mr. Howitt remarks, " the life of the Ktimai is a life of dread. He lives in fear of the visible and the invisible. He never knew the moment when the lurking Brajerak might not spear him from behind ; and he never knew the moment when some secret foe among the Ktimai might not succeed in passing over him some spell against which he could not struggle, or from which even the most potent counter-charm given him by his ancestors could not free him."
The distribution of food among the Kiirnai, discussed at the end of the memoir, and the character of the Kiirnai for intelligence, also discussed at its close, are interesting and
20 PREFATOEY NOTE.
suggestive subjects, but the unexpected length of this note precludes their consideration. Ethnologists will read this contribution to Australian ethnology with pleasure, and with a sense of grateful obligation to its authors. It is an attempt to fill up some of the great deficiencies in our knowledge of the condition of savage tribes, a knowledge which necessarily lies at the foundation of an intelligent scheme of human history and development.
I am compelled also to omit any notice of Mr. Fison's brief discussion of the theory of the Ktirnai system, which forms the third part of these memoirs. It forms a necessary and important sequel to Mr. Howitt's monograph.
LEWIS H. MORGAN. Rochester, New York, May, 1879.
Note. — This introduction was ■vrritten by Dr. Morgan after a penisal of the MSS., the con chiding portion of which was sent to him in February, 1879. Since that time the entire work has been carefully revised, much additional matter has been put in, and the arrangement has been con- siderably altered.
The Committee of the Smithsonian Institution did the authors the honour of accepting their memoirs, but they had so many works already in hand that a very long delay before publication was unavoidable. The authors were consequently compelled reluctantly to forego the great advantage of having their memoirs issued from the Smithsonian press.
KAMILAROI MARRIAGE, DESCENT, AND RELATIONSHIP:
An Attempt to Trace the Origin and Development op the
Turanian System of Kinship, as shown in the Class
Divisions of the Australian Aborigines, with
their Laws op Marriage and Descent.
BY
LORIMER FISON.
PEEFACE TO KAMILAEOI MAERIAGE, &c.
The chief object of this memoir is to trace the formation of the exogamous intermarrying divisions which have been found among so many savage and barbaric tribes of the present day, and to show that what the Hon. Lewis H. Morgan calls the Punaluan family, with the Turanian system of kinship, logically results from them. The Australian classes are especially valuable for this purpose, because they give us what seem to be the earliest stages of development.
To the gentlemen who were good enough to furnish me with information concerning the tribes whose customs are within their knowledge, I am under deep obligation. Their names will be fomid in connection with such of the facts supplied by them as I have had occasion to use.
My special thanks are due to the courteous editor of the Australasian, who published several of my letters of inquiry in that ably-conducted journal, and thereby gained for me some of my most valued correspondents. Above all, it is to the publication of those letters that I owe the help of my friend and fellow-worker, Mr, Alfred W. Howitt, F.G.S.
As it has come in my way to question more than one of the views advanced by Sir John Lubbock in his " Origin of Civilization," it is only fair to call attention to the fact that my remarks are based upon the second edition of that
24 PREFACE.
work. It would be inexcusable on the part of one who has easy access to books to deal solely with so early an issue of a work which has passed through several subsequent editions. My excuse is, that a mission station in Fiji affords no such access, even now that the group forms a part of the British empire, and that, until within the last two or three years, we were almost entirely excluded from the outer world. The second edition of the " Origin of Civilization " was the latest issue I could procure when I visited Australia in 1871.
With reference to the spelling of Australian words, I have endeavoured to follow a uniform plan, by sounding the consonants as in English, and giving the vowels their proper sounds. My difficulty here has been to find out what sounds our correspondents intended to express, and I cannot suppose that I have overcome this difficulty in eveiy case.
I have used the word " class " in preference to tribe, sept, or clan, because each of these words is apt to have a sort of confused meaning to the reader which might tend to produce a wrong impression. The Greek "phratria " would be the most correct term ; but, for several reasons, " class " seemed to be the more convenient for the special purposes of this memoir, to designate the primary divisions of a community, and their first subdivisions.
LORIMER FISON. Fiji, August, 1878.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Mukdu-Legend — M'Lennan's Theory of Kinship Terms — The Three Kinds of Class Divisions — Object of the Treatise — Explanatory Remarks.
In a valuable pamphlet on the Dieyeri (Cooper's Creek) tribe of Australian aborigines, Mr. Samuel Gason tells us the following legend with regard to the custom called Murdu :—
" After the creation, brothers, sisters, and others of the closest kin, intermarried promiscuously, until — the evil effects of these alliances becoming manifest — a council of the chiefs was assembled to consider in what way they might be averted, the result of their deliberations being a petition to the Muramura (Good Spirit), in answer to which he ordered that the tribe should be divided into branches, and dis- tinguished one from another by different names, after objects animate and inanimate, such as dogs, mice, emu, rain, iguana, and so forth ; the members of any such branch not to intermarry, but with permission for one branch to mingle with another. Thus, the son of a dog might not marry the daughter of a dog, but either might form an alliance with a mouse, rat, or other family. This custom is still observed, and the first question asked of a stranger is, ' What murdoo V — i.e., ' Of what family are you?'" (" Gason's Dieyeri Tribe," p. 13. Cox: Adelaide, South Australia, 1874)
There can be no doubt that this is a genuine Australian legend. Mr. Gason is well known as a trustworthy person. He has an intimate acquaintance with the people of whom he writes, and he speaks their language fluently. But, whatever may be thought of the legend itself, or of its value as evidence with regard to the state of society to which it
26 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
points, it is certain that divisions similar to those which it mentions are found throughout the length and breadth of the Australian continent, as well as in many other parts of the world, and that from these divisions, with their inter- sexual arrangements, flows the entire system of kinship called the Turanian* by Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, in his work on " Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family," and in his more recent work entitled "Ancient Society."
Mr. J. F. M'Lennan refuses to accept the terms of kinship common to the numerous tribes whose system is the Turanian, as expressing either consanguinity or affinity. He looks upon them as forming a mere "system of addresses," and disposes of Mr. Morgan's theory as to the origin of the classificatory system of kinship in the following words : —
" The space I have devoted to the consideration of the solution may- seem disproportioned to its importance ; but, issuing from the press of the Smithsonian Institution, and its preparation having been aided by the United States Government, Mr. Morgan's work has been very generally quoted as a work of authority, and it seemed worth while to take the trouble necessary to show its utterly unscientific character, "t
This is certainly a somewhat high-handed manner of setting aside as worthless a most painstaking and accurate
* " Turanian." This term of Mr. Morgan's has been objected to by some of his English critics as inappropriate ; but we may as well use it until a better be provided. Mr. Morgan is doubtless more concerned to establish his facts than to insist upon his nomenclature. It should be noted that, strictly speaking, the " Kamilaroi system" is what he calls the Ganowanian, as distinguished from the Turanian, The dis- tinction between the two is in the line of descent, wliich is through females in the former, and through males in the latter. But, as the line of descent does not affect personal relationship, it did not seem worth while to trouble the reader with more than one term in this memoir. I have, therefore, used Turanian as applying to both lines.
t "Studies in Ancient History," quoted by Morgan, "Ancient Society," p. 509.
INTRODUCTORY. 27
summary of the result of researches carried on for more than twenty years in ahnost every part of the world ; and, even if we do not take into account the value of the facts collected and collated by Mr. Morgan, we may perhaps do well to hesitate before we cast aside as utterly worthless the theory which he has founded on the facts. His theory certainly finds strong confirmation in the evidence afforded by the Australian classes, and it seems to be the only reasonable explanation of those divisions. They are of three kinds, arising from —
1. The division of a tribe into two exogamous inter- marrying classes — the word tribe being used as synonymous with community.
2. The subdivision of these two classes into four.
3. Their subdivision into gentes distinguished by totems, which are generally, though not invariably, the names of animals.
One set of these classes — viz., that with the class names Ipai, Muri, Kubi, and Kumbu — has been briefly noticed in M'Lennan's "Primitive Marriage," Tylor's "Early History of Mankind," Bonwick's " Tasmanians," and other works. A memorandum upon it, and its totemic subdivisions, by the Rev. W. Eidley, MA., was printed in the journal of the Anthropological Society, and it has also been carefully examined by Morgan in his " Ancient Society."
My present object is to trace the formation and the gradual development of the classes in the order already stated, to set forth their laws of marriage and descent, and to show that the terms of kinship peculiar to the Turanian system necessarily arise from class divisions, which are governed by such laws. If this can be shown, it will be difficult to maintain Mr. M'Lennan's theory that those terms represent nothing more than a system of addresses, unless we suppose that the Australians and American Indians, as well
28 KAMILAKOI MARRIAGE.
as the numerous Asiatic and African tribes — who have similar divisions governed by similar inter-sexual laws — invented those divisions and founded those laws by a sort of common inspiration, for no other purpose than that individuals might be enabled to call one another by fictitious terms of kinship instead of by their own proper names. Mr. M'Lennan seems not to have been aware that there are tribes — the Friendly Islanders, for instance — whose system of kinship is the Turanian, who use all the terms peculiar to that system, but who never employ them in addressing one another.
A few words of preliminary explanation may be useful here. It must be distinctly understood, and borne in mind, that the laws of marriage and descent which I shall endeavour to set forth can be said to prevail in Australia among those tribes only which have the organization here- inafter described. We have found many such tribes, but there are very many others yet unreached by our inquiries, and there are others again concerning which our informa- tion is imperfect. Some of these appear not to fall in with the system which we may call the Kamilaroi,* and much work yet remains to be done in order to ascertain their regulations.
In the following pages the words inarriage, husband, ivife, and indeed all the terms of kinship, are used in a certain accommodated sense. Husband and wife are not
* Some of the South Australian tribes in particular appear to differ widely from the Kamilaroi. They are divided into clans distinguished by totems, but they seem not to have the class organization, and their line of descent is said to be through males. Further investigation may, perhaps, connect their present regulations with the Kamilaroi system, as in the case of the Kurnai {See Theory of the Kilrnai System, &c.), but the information available concerning them is not sufficient to warrant anything more than a bare conjecture. There are also tribes which have the two primary classes, but which do not appear to have adopted the four classes with the peculiar marriage arrangements.
INTKODUCTORY. 29
necessarily man and wife according to our ideas. "My husband," for instance, among tribes such as the Australian, does not necessarily single out any one man in particular. A woman may apply it to any one of a group of tribal brothers who have the right of taking her to wife.
The word tribe, also, is a very misleading term, and requires careful definition. In these pages it will never be used (unless in quotation) to denote any division within a community. Where used, it will denote the entire com- munity— e.g., by " the Larakia tribe " will be meant " the community of Australian aborigines calling themselves the Larakia."
It must also be borne in mind that present usage is not to the full extent that set forth by the class divisions. It is founded upon them, and is conformable to them, but the present inter-sexual arrangements are those of an extremely loose form of polygamy rather than those of what may be called group marriage — i.e., communal marriage. Every marriage at the present day among the Australian blacks who have the Kamilaroi system — giving to the word marriage a very wide meaning — is necessarily regulated by the classes ; but certain modifications as to the extent of the matrimonial privilege have been introduced. Here, as elsewhere, present usage is in advance of the ancient rules. But those rules underlie it, and are felt through it ; and the underlying strata crop up in many places.
By present usage, I mean that which has been developed by the natives themselves, not that which has resulted from their contact with the white men. This is a factor which must be altogether cast out of the calculation, and an investigator on this line of research needs to be continually on the watch against it. Even now the information supplied by the few aborigines who remain near our more populous settlements has to be received
30 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
with caution, and probably in a few years it will be only in the far interior that inquirers will find trustworthy evidence concerning the Australian classes. Most of the tribes within easy reach are already so reduced in number that they cannot observe the class regulations. Clan after clan has died out, and the few wretched survivors are obliged to take such mates as death has left them, whether they be of the right classes or not. The rum-saturated natives in the neighbourhood of our towns long ago so far profited by the teaching of the higher civilization as to make money by the prostitution of their women. No wonder that the inter-sexual rules, which were held as sacred obligations by their fathers, should be well-nigh forgotten by them. The black mounted police, and natives who take service with the owners of cattle or sheep stations, learn from the white men to disregard native customs ; and that which is disregarded soon drops out of the aboriginal mind. The old people may remember the old rules, but the young folks grow up in ignorance of them, and in a few years there will be none of those elders left.
"I regret," writes one of our informants,* "that my attention was not directed to this matter ten years ago, when the natives were numerous, when there were old people of intelligence to be found among them, when one might, without hesitation, accept their ideas and expressions as original. . . . You remark truly that now is the time to gather information. A year or two hence, and it wUl be too late. The tribe with which I identified myself was 900 strong twenty-eight years ago, when I first began to study their habits. Now they number only seventeen ! "
* Mr. D. S. Stewart, to whom we are indebted for much valuable help.
CHAPTER II.
THE CLASS DIVISIONS.
Wide-spread prevalence of the Class Divisions — Division of a Tribe into Two Classes — Subdivision into Four Classes — Subdivisions distinguished by Totems — Kamilaroi Marriage with the Half-sister.
A FEW quotations from the letters of gentlemen who have furnished information to Mr. Howitt and myself will be sufficient to show that the class division is no mere local institution as far as Australia is concerned. It extends across the continent from east to west, and from north to south, and it has been traced far among the islands also. But I do not mean to assert that it takes in every tribe some one of the forms which I am about to describe. It may, however, be safely asserted that these forms are of wide prevalence.
Mr. Lionel H. Gould writes from Nicol Bay, West Australia : —
"In this district I include the country — say from 100 miles east of the De Grey River to the North-west Cape, and inland — say 150 miles. Throughout this extent of country, although dialects differ every fifty or sixty miles, the same class distinctions are observed. "
Mr. G. F. Bridgman, Mackay, Queensland, writes as follows : —
" I have a Brisbane black with me who has been over nearly all Australia, the Kamilaroi country among other places. He tells me the divisions are nearly the same over all the continent, though the
32 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
names (i. e. , the class names) are different. One term here represents another in another place. "
Mr. William Reeve, jim., says : —
" My informant, Dora, a native of the Herbert River (Queensland) tribe, says all the tribes round — say within a radius of 100 miles — are bound by the same laws as her own, though the actual names indicating particular relation.ships are often different."
The next words of Mr. Reeve's letter show that, by " the names indicating particular relationships," he means, not specific terms of kinship, but names indicating class divisions.
" For instance," he continues, " a Tarawangan is called a Kolelangan in a neighbouring tribe, and she cannot marry a Tarawang in Dora's tribe, or in any other tribe. " (Mr. Reeve uses tribe as equivalent to community. )
Similar testimony concerning the usage in South Australia, the Darling River country, and many other districts, might be quoted here.
The Rev. R. H. Codrington, M.A., of the Melanesian. Mission, writes : —
"1 have ascertained that they (the class divisions) are identical as far south as the north of Pentecost at any rate ; that a Banks Islander knows, or easily learns, which is his ' side of the house' (i.e., class) in all that group, and that Star Island people know theirs in Aurora. The Aurora people know theirs in Leper's Island, and the people of Leper's know theirs in Espiritu Santo."
The Rev. George Brown, F.R.G.S., of the Wesleyan Mission, tells me that he has found the divisions at New Britain also ; and all our informants agree in stating that the rules of marriage and descent are substantially uniform throughout the districts within their knowledge. It will be seen that, mutatis mutandis, they coincide with the rules of the exogamous intermarrying tribal divisions which have been observed in so many other parts of the world.
THE CLASS DIVISIONS. 33
DIVISION OF A TRIBE INTO TWO CLASSES.
The simplest, and probably the earliest, form of the class division among the Australian aborigines is the separation of a community into two intermarrying classes, each having a distinctive title, which is taken by every one of its members.
This form has been found from South Australia to Northern Queensland, as well as among the islands.
The Mount Gambler (South Australia) tribe divides into two classes, called respectively Kumite and Kroki. The females are called Kumitegor and Krokigor. (Informant, Mr, D. S. Stewart, Mount Gambler.)
The Lower Darling tribe divides into Kilparas and Mukwaras. There is a tradition that the Darling River Adam had two wives with those names. Kilpara's descen- dants are called Kilpara ; Mukwara's descendants are called Mukwara. (Informant, Mr. Charles G. N. Lockhart, Went- worth, New South Wales. Other informants write Maguara for Mukwara.)
A Queensland tribe divides into Yiingaru and Wutaru. The feminine forms are Yungaruan and Wutaruan. (Infor- mant, Mr, G. F. Bridgman, Mackay, Queensland.)
Similar divisions of a tribe, or community, into two inter- marrying classes, are found among the Banks Islanders and others, who separate into two Veve. Veve = Mother. (Informant, the Rev. R. H. Codrington, M.A., Norfolk Island.)
At New Britain, the two intermarrying classes are called Pikalaba and Muramura. (Informant, Rev. G. Brown.)
Charles New, Burton, Du Chaillu, and others, mention similar divisions into two classes among the Gallas and other African tribes. It is well worth while to inquire
34
KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
whether to these we may not arid the ancient Sun and Moon divisions of India.
The laws of marriao^e and descent connected with these divisions will appear from the following table and diagram : —
TABLE A.
The regulations of these classes being the same in every case, as is manifest from the forefjoinof table, a diacjram showing the descents to grandchildren in any one tribe will .suffice for all : —
Diagram No. 1.
Kumite.
Kroki.
Krokigor. Kroki. I Krokigor.
Kiimitegor. Kiiniite. I Kumitegor.
Kuiiiitegor. Kumite. Kumit'^gor.
Kumite. Krokigor. Kroki.
Kroki. I Krokigor. Kroki. | Krokigor."" Kumite. I Kumitegor.
Allowing to each marriage a son and a daughter, we have in the second descent two males and two females of each class. Let this be kept in mind for comparison with the descents in tribes whose class divisions take other forms.
Mr. Howitt has found two tribes — the Ngarego of Carawong, Maneroo, New South Wales, and the Wakeruk,
THE CLASS DIVISIONS. 35
an East Gippsland tribe — which have the two divisions, but their regulations are seemingly anomalous. These recjuire investigation, as pointing to a system differing from that hereinafter described. Indications of such a system are found elsewhere in Australia.
DIVISION OF A TRIBE INTO FOUR^CLASSES.
In many Australian tribes we find four classes, which can be shown to be subdivisions of two primary classes.*
A selection of class names, indicating the four divisions, is given in the following table. Others might be inserted, but these will amply suffice to show the laws of marriage and descent, as well as to indicate the wide-spread prevalence of these class divisions.
* It is possible that the four classes may have been formed by the amalgamation of two tribes, each of which was divided into two classes. See p. 70 for a detailed statement of this hypothesis.
KAMILAEOI MARRIAGE.
5S 25 ^ -
60 cS ■ rt S rt S
c 5 -:
I-' ri W r^
S W h-l KM
c - i J
5 to ci '^ rt S ci S
fqMHpq
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cS
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w
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= c4 c8 _
to . c3
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cS S rt S ^ to ^0 g
so =« ' ""
4f cD«2g cso.is J2=t:tr
S drtScS •S'^^rt =:^_^-s
WMMH '^im^^
tiJ?=KO
pa
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a 3
to S rt a o
g?o|g S
? r-i a O K
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irt a 5 2 'aj .'2 ib r,
-^^ "^ "5 S ■— : s- a S a 03 cS ,--•
so
so a
a c3
Pi 5"!
c3 z; 03 so
s- E ^ "^
cS a c3 3
■=* -J H
•5 -5 >rf 5
.a ^ a a
-c3
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p^tSffiS cm^t4
|
a |
rt |
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||
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oj a |
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§50 |
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03 r-^ |
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[vamuaroi : — Mr. T. E. L Rev. W. Ri t |
AntakerinyaT Australia Mr. C. Giles |
-SI h-l |
1^ |
THE CLASS DIVISIONS. 37
We might reasonably conclude that these four classes were formed by subdividing two primary classes, from the fact that they are composed of two pairs of non-intermarry- ing classes, each pair corresponding to one of the original classes, and intermarrying with the other pair, as shown in the foregoing table.
Thus Ipai does not intermarry with Kumbu, nor does Muri intermarry with Kubi ; but the Ipai-Kumbu pair intermarries with the Muri-Kubi pair. These pairs re- present the original classes.
So also with all the other sets. Bultara, for instance, does not intermarry with Parula, nor does Panangka inter- marry with Kumura ; but Bultara-Parula intermarries with Panangka-Kumura ; and, even if there were no other evidence, we might take it for granted that these pairs represent the original classes.
* Since Table B was prepared, Mr. Howitt received the following information from the Rev. R. H. Codrington :— "At Florida, one of the Solomon Islands, there are four Kana (divisions for marriage). They are exogamous, and the child follows the mother." These Kema are sub- divided, and it appears that the subdivisions are distinguished by totems.
f Kubitha, Table B. — The Kamilaroi class names were first published, I believe, by the Rev. W. Ridley, M.A., whose attention had been called to them by Mr. T. E. Lance. Mr. Ridley pointed them out to me in 1871, and I sent a memorandum on them to Mr. Morgan, following Mr. Ridley's method of spelling, and in that guise they appear in Mr. Morgan's "Ancient Society." Subsequently Mr. Lance informed me that the spelling aforesaid did not correctly represent the sound of the words. After a careful inquiry from several competent informants, I altered the spelling to that given in the table, which, to my ear, comes as nearly as possible to their pronunciation, the vowels, of course, having their proper sounds.
I am careful to give this explanation minutely, because there hangs to it something more than a mere question of orthography. Kubi's sister is called Kapota by Mr. Ridley, and the fact is thereby concealed that this class name is simply Kubi with the feminine termination tJta, just as Tarawangan is the feminine form of Tarawang. From the spelling given in the table, it is seen at a glance that, in the Kamilaroi language, the feminine names are formed from the masculine by adding tha, as they are formed elsewhere by adding an, gan, or gor\ Matha and Butha are evidently contractions of Muritha and Kumbutha.
38 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
This inference, which naturally suggests itself from the inter-sexual arranccements shown in the table, is strencrth- ened into certainty by the fact that in some tribes the class names of the primary divisions are still found side by side with those of the four classes.* Thus it is known that the four classes of the Mackay tribe are subdivisions of the two classes, Yungaru and Wutaru, already given in Table A. The class names Yungaru and Wutaru are still used.
Yuno^aru includes Gurgela and Burbia.
Wutaru includes Wungo and Kuberu.
Elsewhere the names of the original classes may have dropped out of use, but their subdivisions are still recog- nized as " brother " classes, and, consequently, do not inter- marry. It may be that they have escaped the notice of our informants, whose attention was fixed upon the four classes by our inquiries. Mr. Bridgman, before-mentioned, states, on the authority of an intelligent aborigine of the Yungaru class who visited the Kamilaroi people, that those tribes have a division corresponding to Yungaru — that is to say, a class composed of Ipai and Kumbu ; and if so, they must have the other class, composed of Muri and Kubi.
It will be seen from the following table and diagram that, though the range of matrimonial choice is reduced by the subdivision of the two primary classes into four, the laws of marriage and descent remain unaltered as far as their fundamental principles are concerned. Marriage is still forbidden within the class, and descent is still reckoned throuofh the mother.
See p. 69.
THE CLASS DIVISIONS. TABLE C.
39
|
Primary Class. |
Subdivision. |
The Male Marries. j Children. |
|
Yungaru ... Gurgela. Yungaru . . . Burbia. Wutaru . . . Wungo. Wutaru . . . Kuberu. |
Wutaru-Kuberuan. Wutaru- W ungoan. Yungarii-Burbian. Yungaru-Gurgelan. |
Wutaru- Wungo-an. Wutaru-Kuberu-an. Yungaru-Gurgela-n. Yungaru-Burbia-n. |
Descents. — Diagram No. 2.
IPAI.
KUMBtr.
Kubitha.
Matha.
MURI.
Matha.
KUBI.
Kubitha.
IPAI.
Kumbu.
KuBi. Kubitha.
Ipatha.
Kumbu. Butha,
Ipai.
MuRi. Matha.
MURI.
KUBI.
Butha.
Ipatha.
Kubitha.
MuRi. Matha.
Kubi.
Kumbu. Butha
Matha.
Kubi.
Kubitha.
Ipai. | Ipatha.
If this diagram be compared with Diagram No. 1, showing the descents in the classes Kumite and Kroki, it will be seen that the results are precisely the same in both cases.
In the first descent one class produces the other. Ipai- Kumbu produces Muri-Kubi, and Muri-Kubi produces Ipai- Kumbu, just as Kumite produces Kroki and Kroki, Kumite.
The second descent gives a male and a female of each of the four classes as the grandchildren of Ipai and Kumbu ; and, again, a male and a female of each of the four classes as the grandchildren of Muri and Kubi. In other words, the second descent gives two males and two females of each class, as with Kumite and Kroki. {See Diagram No. 1.)
Hence it is manifest that the laws of marriage and
40 KAMILAROI MARFJAGE.
descent are not affected by the subdivision of the two original classes into four, save as to the range of marriage selection. A man who, under the two classes, had matri- monial rights over the women of half the tribe, is now restricted to one-fourth. Ipai-Kumbu could marry any Matha-Kubitha. Ij^ai can marry Kubitha only. Kumbu can marry Matha only. But marriage must still be without the class, and descent is still reckoned in the female line.
SUBDIVISIONS OF THE TWO CLASSES DISTINGUISHED BY TOTEMS,
It is, perhaps, not too much to say that every tribe of the Australian aborigines has subdivisions distinguished by totems, which are generally the names of animals. It is certain that some of these contract the range of matri- monial selection, but our information is not sufficiently complete to enable us to assert that this is always the case.
In some places the primary divisions are distinguished by totems at the present day. Probably they were so distinguished everywhere in ancient times. " The symbol of the Yoongaroo division," says Mr, Bridgman, " is the alligator, and of the Wootaroo the kangaroo." Mr. A. S. P. Cameron gives the following list of class names used by the Queensland natives, who speak the Unghi language, as the equivalents of the Kamilaroi, Ipai, «S:c. : —
Kamilaroi. Ipai. Cubby. Combo. Murri.
Unghi* Oorgilla. Uberoo. Nganbay. Woongoo.
* With the exception of Nganbay, these are evidently the ilackay class names given by Mr. Bridgman. Oorgilla is nndoubtedly Gurgela (which probably should have been written Gurjela) ; Nganbay isBurbia ; Woongoo is Wuugo (which ought perhaps to be written Wungu) ; and Uberoo is Kuberu. The dropping of the letter K is of frequent occurrence. Several Fijian tribes drop it from every word in which it occurs, a curious break,
THE CLASS DIVISIONS. 41
And Mr. William Chatfield, of Bowen, Queensland, informs
us that each class has " a distinguishing animal — a sort of
heraldic crest — viz.: —
" Utheroo has emu, or carj)et snake. Mulleroo ,, iguana. Yungaroo ,, opossum. Goorjilla ,, kangaroo, or scrub turkey."
Whence it appears that Ipai, &:c., can be identified with class names elsewhere which have distinguishing totems. But for all practical purposes we may take the totems as indicating subdivisions of the classes, at least among the tribes who have the class divisions already described.
Mr. Lockhart writes concerning the Darling tribe, who &ve divided into Kilpara and Mukwara : —
" There is a further division into tribes or families, such as the Emu, Wndduck, and Kangaroo tribes, but the main division is by no means thereby affected. . . . The females of the Wildduck, we shall say, are all Ealparas, and they take Mookwara men of the Emu. The •children remain Kilparas and Wildducks. No Kilpara man can approach these Kilpara women, and the Kilpara Wildduck boys look out for, say, Mookwara Emu girls. The children and the pedigree always run through the woman. "
These totems affect the inter-sexual regulations only as the development of the four classes from the original two affects them — i.e., no otherwise than by narrowing the range of matrimonial selection. They do not touch " the main division," as Mr. Lockhart justly observes. They are, in fact, subdivisions of the Kilpara and Mukwara classes, analogous to the Ipai, Kumbu, &c., of the Kamilaroi. Given two Kilpara totems, the Wildduck and the Kangaroo, and two Mukwara totems, the Emu and the Hawk,
or catch, being heard ui the hiatus. Thus Katakata is pronounced 'ata 'ata, the apostrophe representing the break. Other Fijian tribes drop T in like manner. The language has a word, Ngaio, for this letter-dropping ; and the Eev. E.. H. Codriugton informs me that in Mota (Banks Islands) Gato means " to speak like a foreigner," " to speak in a foreign tongue."
42 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
and we have the four classes as we have them in the sub- divisions of the Queensland Yun^^aru and Wutaru. Mr. Stewart, however, who has been for nearly thirty years in close intercourse with the Mount Gambier tribe, assures us that the numerous totems used by that people do not in any way restrict matrimonial selection.* " A Kuraite can take any Krokeegor : a Krokee any Kumitegor," he wrote in reply to a specific inquiry as to whether the totems affect the marriage regulations. But it may be that the old rule differed from this. Mr. Stewart's words refer to present usage ; and this, in the case of the Mount Gambier blacks, cannot be taken as conclusive. A tribe, which in less than 30 years has been reduced from 900 souls to 17, is compelled to make such matrimonial arrangements as it can, whether they be according to ancient law or not. "f
The Kamilaroi totems are peculiar. At least, they have a peculiarity attached to them which calls for special attention. Unlike the Darling totems, at first sight they appear to affect " the main division " by legalizing to a certain limited extent marriage with the half-sister by the father's side. This is marriage ivithin the class, an utter abomination to all, or nearly all, the other tribes. It will be seen, however, that the totems are not answerable for this. It is an innovation, and an overriding of their rules.
The Kamilaroi totemic divisions will be most easily made intelligible by reverting to the two primary classes, which have been shown to be Ipai-Kumbu and Muri-Kubi. In one generation — the order is reversed in the next — Ipai- Kumbu divides into Kangaroo, Opossum, and Iguana; Muri-Kubi divides into Emu, Bandicoot, and Blacksnake.
* See also the Gournditch-Mara tribe of Western Victoria — Part II., Appendix F.
t 6'ee Mr. Stewart's noteworthy remarks quoted at the conclusion of the introductory cliapter.
THE CLASS DIVISIONS.
43^
For the sake of distinction, let us call these subdivisions gentes* which is the term most appropriate to them.
The following table shows the marriages and descents of the Kamilaroi gentes, or totemic subdivisions, so called for the sake of convenience to distingfuish them from the classes : — -
t- ^ ^ rf ^ "
§ss
s s s
2S . S ® s ! I I
03 ce eS
^ ^ *3
'S'S'2
: o s >:.
' o "3 m -3
•4J,^
|
1 1 1 |
^ S o C p c3 |
|
c3 c« c3 |
Kmm |
|
-+J -W -M |
c3 c3 c3 |
|
^^^ |
^^-C |
|
5 S 3 |
|
|
WUJt^ |
Ph a c^ |
|
'73 t;^ |
I— 1 HH h- 1 |
|
CCS |
• w '0 -"d |
|
eS cS cS |
c c c |
|
cj c4 cS |
|
|
^.JSnO |
|
|
PCS |
eS eS eS |
|
www |
M 1— 1 1— 1 |
2S .
=« S S
S O g
I I I
cS rt eS
*3 ^ +3
eS cS cj
O cS
o a
--•^-^ c c S
mwpq
Wo •
|W S
■ -II g
• 05 to
C -S O M So
w
•n S I '
CO ^
o =^
c c c
03 rt cS WWW
S ii o S 3i5
w;
««
o
W
w
* The use of this term must not be taken as implying that these gentes- are identical with the Roman gens. They have uterine succession, whereas its succession was agnatic — to use a term which, if not strictly correct, is so extremely convenient that even the sternest precisian may wink at its. employment.
44 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
That these gentes are subdivisions of the original classes Ipai-Kumbu and Muri-Kiibi (= the Queensland Yungaru and Wutaru) is manifest from the fact pointed out by Mr. Morgan,* that they subdivide those classes into two non- intermarrying triplets (if this convenient term may be allowed), each of which intermarries with the other. Thus, the Emu gens cannot intermarry with the Bandicoot or the Blacksnake, but it can intermarry with the Kangaroo, Opossum, or Iguana. Emu, Bandicoot, and Blacksnake are "brother" gentes, and, therefore, cannot intermarry. So, also, are the other three. The two sets of gentes are conter- minous with the original classes, and descent being through the mother, they alternate between those classes in alternate generations.
Ipai-Knmbu (Yungaru) = Kangaroo-Opossum-Iguana. Muri-Kubi (Wutaru) = Emu-Bandicoot-Blacksnake.
In the next generation —
Ipai-Kumbu = Emu-Bandicoot-Blacksnake. Muri-Kubi = Kangaroo-Opossum-Iguana.
But it does not follow from this that the gentes are older than the four classes. It is but another proof that the two primary classes were not discarded when they were sub- divided. Their laws still ruled the tribe. The old form was not broken up to be re-cast into a new shape. The four classes, and the gentes also, were looked upon as sub- divisions ivitJtin huo still-existing classes, whose regulations they must still obey. To use a homely illustration, the construction of the four classes and the gentes was like the .succession to their father's business of two sons in the one case and three in the other. These are partners in the firm now, and each takes his own share of the proceeds, but the •old firm is the old firm still.
* "Ancient Society," page 51.
THE CLASS DIVISIONS.
45-
Hitherto, as is manifest from the foregoing table, the laws of man-iage and descent are in nowise affected by the Kamilaroi gentes. They are identical with those found in Table B. But we now come to the innovation which legalizes marriage with the half-sister. This, together with its descents, is shown by the following table, wherein are stated certain marriages additional to those already given in Table D.
|
a> <o |
|||
|
^M |
Ilia, ana. Igaroo. |
||
|
cksna cksna u. |
6 6 |
d |
|
|
a— Bla a— Bla a— Ein |
-Blacks Blacks -Emu. |
Ml 1 1 1 c3 o3 o3 |
-Iguan —Iguan -Kang |
|
^ ^ ^3 |
iii |
^ 4^ -fc3 |
1 1 ' e« g cS |
|
MMm |
c5 c3 c3 |
:i 0 s |
"rt H 1s |
|
a a a (!« rt c3 |
l—t^-^>—t |
sss |
|
|
a 3 a |
•nn^ |
a a a |
a a a |
|
a a a c3 rt c3 |
eS c3 03 |
||
|
s s s |
• ^ .p^ -.H |
'S'S'S |
'C 'S 'S |
|
•S zi '^ |
c3 tS c3 |
a a a |
|
|
wwtii |
1— 1 1— 1 1— 1 |
Wilt^ |
SSS |
|
lacksnake acksnake niu. |
acksnake. acksnake. nu. |
uana. liana, angaroo. |
Iguana. Iguana. Kangaroo |
|
1 1 1 |
1 1 1 |
1— 1 1— 1 (4 1 1 1 |
1 1 1 cS c3 eS |
|
tS tS c3 |
Butha- Butha- Butha- |
c3 tS cS X .a j3 |
:S55 |
|
c4 03 cS 1— 1 l-H hH |
w3 ^ +3 c3 c3 cS |
rO.0.0 a a a |
O cS O p3
O o5
o a
^ .id
a s; y S ^S MM. 2:1
a ii o S Sis
,2 -a .a
i § §
OS
3 o s
h b4 ll
MS
is ^
|3 a c3
§ g,a
,2_2,a a a a I— I ^^ M
S >»
eS 3
m a <u a> soa
is -2
,an3
oj o
;3 «•
00 <u
pH 'cS
46 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
Hence, it is manifest that —
1. The gentes are strictly exogamous. No marriage can take place between a male and a female of the same totem.
2. Two of the gentes — the Bandicoots and the Opossums — though they take the extended matrimonial privilege for their men, refuse it to their women.
According to the regulations shown in the table, no Bandicoot or Opossum woman can marry a man of her own class. If the arrangement had been that Emu married Bandicoot, Bandicoot married Blacksnake, and Black- snake married Emu, with a like arrangement for the other class, all would have shared alike in the extended privilege. But since Emu and Blacksnake intermarry with one another, the Bandicoot women are necessarily excluded. They cannot marry Bandicoot men, for this would be marriage within a gens, which is strictly forbidden. So also with the Opossums. I can offer no explanation of this other than the conjecture that the innovation was begun by the Emus and Blacksnakes in the one class, and the Kangaroos and Iguanas in the other, intermarrying one with another. These, it will be observed, are corresponding gentes.
3. This extension of the matrimonial privilege, while it allows marriage with the paternal half-sister, does not permit marriage with the uterine half-sister.
A man's uterine half-sister bears her mother's totem, which is his also (Tables D and E) ; and, therefore, they cannot marry. They are of the same gens.
4. The extended privilege does not include all the half- sisters by the father's side. A man's paternal half-sisters may be found in two gentes ; but he may take them to wife from one only of those gentes. Thus, Ipai- Emu's half- sisters by the father's side may be either Ipatha-Bandi- coot or Ipatha-Blacksnake (Table D) ; but he can have the Blacksnake only.
THE CLASS DIVISIONS. 47
5. The law of descent is in nowise affected by the marriage with the paternal half-sister.
The children of these marriages with the half-sister take the class name and totem of their mother's children by the man who may be called her proper husband {see Table D). The mother alone is looked to, as far as descent is concerned : the father is utterly ignored. This will be seen in the following diagram : —
Diagram No. 3.
Table D. Tabh' E.
Ipatha-Emtt. Ipatha-Emu.
Kubi. Ipai-Blacksnake.
Kumbu-Emu. ! Butha-Emu. Kumbu-Emu. Butha-Kmu.
This partial breach of the general rule which forbids marriage within the class seems to be peculiar to the Kamilaroi, and it is even doubtful whether it prevails among all the tribes included under that name.*
A letter of inquiry concerning it called forth a number of replies from correspondents in various parts of Aus- tralia, who expressed surprise at the statement concerning marriage with the paternal half-sister, and assured us that it was unknown to the natives with whom they were acquainted. Some of these gentlemen had lived for many years in the country occupied by the Kamilaroi blacks. Mr. A. S. P. Cameron wi^ote as follows : —
"In your letter, published in the Australasian, it is asserted that in some instances Ipai marries Ipatlia. In any district where I have Tieen Ipai marries Cubetha, and no other ; and yet there are the same subdivisions, such as Emu, Kangaroo, Snake, &c."
* Kamilaroi. — Strictly speaking, this is a name of a language, not of a tribe. It is derived from the negative " Kamil," which some of our corres- pondents give as Kumil, and the language as Kumilrai. The Kamilaroi are the people who say "Kamil." Under this term are included quite a number of tribes.
48 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
The materials gathered by Mr. Howitt and myself are insufficient for a satisfactory settlement of this matter ; but it seems almost certain that the half-sister mamanfe is only a local infringement of a class law which is looked upon as of universal obligation by all the other tribes who have the class organization, and we may therefore set it aside for the present. Not, however, because it is of little worth. At first sight, apparently, a retrograde movement,. a more careful inspection shows it to be a most important forward step in the direct line of advance. But, as far as we know, it did not make sufficient way among the Austra- lian aborigines to affect materially the laws of marriage and descent with which we are now concerned.
On the whole, it may be said, with regard to the Austra- lian totemic gentes, that while in some cases they restrict matrimonial choice, and in others they may perhaps not have that effect, they are bound by the laws which bind the classes. This, at all events, is the general rule, to which there may be exceptions besides that of the Kamilaroi marriage with the half-sister.*
* As so many of our correspondents have questioned the assertion of marriage with the paternal half-sister among the Kamilaroi, it may be well to give the authority on which it rests.
The late Mr. T. E. Lance, an unquestionable authority, informed me that he had met with instances of marriage between Ipai and Ipatha, ■which the natives justified on the ground that the parties were not of the same mudji (totem). Being then in Sydney, where my friend Mr. Ridley resides, I told him what Mr. Lance had said, and urged him to follow up the clue, which evidently pointed to marriage regulations based upon totemic subdivisions of the classes. He was on the eve of starting for the interior to make certain philological investigations set on foot by the New South Wales Government at the instance of Prof. Max MilUer ; and, on his return to Sydney, he informed me that his inquiries had resulted in the discovery of the laws of the Kamilaroi gentes. He gave me a short memorandum on them, which is embodied in Tables D and E.
The Kamilaroi half-sister marriage, therefore, having been noted by an exi>erienced observer, such as Mr. Lance, and verified by so well known an authority as Mr. Ridley, we may safely take to be an established fact as far as concerns the tribe which came under the notice of these gentlemen.
THE CLASS DIVISIONS. 4»
Certain curious facts connected with the totems, apart from the question of marriage and descent, have come to our knowledge in the course of these inquiries ; but, as it is with this question only that we are at present concerned, those facts would be out of place here, A brief notice of them will be given further on,*
* See Appendix B,
CHAPTER III.
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT.
Rule I. — fa). Marriage is theoretically Communal — Matrimonial Rights of a Class recognized over Wide Areas — Communication aided by Gesture Language — (hj. Relationship is that of Group to Group — "Brother," Gentes, and Classes — Evidence of the Terms of Kinship.
Rule IL — Marriage is Exogamous — This Rule binds all the Classes and Gentes — Overrides Marriage by Capture — Necessarily results from the first Class Divisions.
Rule III. — The Wife does not come into her Husband's Class or Gens.
Rule IV. — Descent is through the Mother — Shown by the Class Names and Totems — Kamilaroi Class Names no Exception — Necessary Result of the Marriage Regulations and the Constitution of the Classes.
We have traced the inter-sexual divisions of the Australian aborigines from the two primary divisions to the four classes, and the subdivisions distinguished by totems; and we have seen that the laws of marriage and descent, founded on the first segmentation of the community, remained unaltered save in the narrowing of matrimonial selection. Those laws, already clearly shown by the various tables of marriage and descent given in the preceding chapter, now present themselves for further investigation. They may be stated as follows : —
I. — Marriage is theoretically communal. In other words, it is based upon the ^marriage of all the males in one division of a tribe to all the females of the same generation in another division.
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT. 51
Hence, relationship is not merely that of one individual to another, but of group to group.
By this it is not meant that present usage is hereby stated, but that this is the ancient rule which underlies present usage, and to which that usage points.
II. — All the divisions — gentes as well as classes — are stricthj exogamovbs. In other luords, marriage is forbidden ivithin every division of a tribe.
III. — The luife does not come into her husband's dAvision. She remains in her oiun.
IV. — Descent is reckoned through the mother.
In order more clearly to illustrate these regulations, we may take one set of the class divisions as an example ; and, inasmuch as the rules have been shown to be substantially invariable, we may take any one set as typical of all. Let us take the South Australian classes Kumite and Kroki, with their feminine terms Kumitegor and Krokigor.
Rule I. — Communal Marriage and Group Relationship.
Marriage is communal. Every Kumite is theoretically the husband of every Krokigor in the same generation with himself. Every Kroki is theoretically the husband of every Kumitegor in his own generation. It is not hereby asserted that marital rights are actually exercised to this extent at the present day ; but they exist, and are acknowledged, even now-a-days, to a certain extent.
Relationship is consequently that of groups of individuals to other groups. All Kumites and Kumitegors of the same generation are looked upon as brothers and sisters. So also are all Krokis and Krokigors of the same o-eneration.
Every Kumite is looked upon as joint father to all Krokis and Krokigors in the generation next below his own. So also with the other relationships.
52 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
(a) MAREIAGE.
The refjulation Piven aljove is the ancient rule. Present usage is that every Kuniite, for instance, takes as many Kroldgor wives as he can get and keep ; but tlie old rule makes itself felt still, asserting the tribal right in the women, who are now, nominally at least, the property of the individual.
Thus, among tribes which are organized like the Kami- laroi,* friendly visitors from other tribes are accommodated with temporary wives from the proper classes, and no man can refuse to furnish his (|uota from his own harem.
" 'Cui foemina sit,' " we read in 'Eyre's Discoveries in Central Aus- tralia't " earn amicis libenter proebet. Si in itinere sit, uxori in castris manenti aliquis supplet illi vires. Adversis ex longinquo accedentibus fceniinas ad terapus dare hospitis esse boni judicatnr. . . . Se- nioribus mos est, si forte gentium plurium castra aj^propinquant, viros noctu hinc inde transeuntes, uxoribus alienis uti, et in sua castra ex utraque parte mane redire. ' "
These statements are more than borne out 1>y the plain- spoken testimony of many correspondents who have been good enough to furnish information concerning the Austra- lian blacks to Mr. Howitt and myself.:|: They, however,
* Lilr the Kamilaroi. — It must be distinctly understood that these remarks are intended to apply to those tril>es only ■which are organized like the Kamilaroi. It is their common organization which gives them the common privilege. It will be seen that there are tribes which have not that organization.
+ Quoted by Sir J. Lubbock, "Origin, &c.," Note, p. 411.
:J: [I liavc observed the custom referred to by Eyre fi-equently among the Cooper's Creek aborigines (Dieri, Yantruwunta, &c. ) In a communication receiveil from the Rev. H. Vogelsang, of the Lutheran Mission, Koppera- mana, during the prei^aration of tliis work for the press, he says — "The question 'Minna murdu ?' is connected with eating and with hospitalitj-. For instance, when a stranger blackfellow arrives here, the question is, * Minna murdu ?' — what are you ? Kangaroo, or Rat, or Mouse, or whatever else it may be. All those of the same name go to the same cam]i, eat to- gether, live together, even lend each other tlieir women. Even alien black- fellows, from a distance of three or four hundred miles, are thus hospitably
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT. 53
are unanimous in making this important addition to Eyre's statement, that the freely-granted favours, which were naturally looked upon by him as mere promiscuous inter- course, are strictly regulated by the laws of the class divisions. Thus, Mr. T. E. Lance informed us, with regard to a tribe with which he was well acquainted, that, though most of the women are nominally the wives of the elderly men of the tribe, their husbands are obliged to lend them to the younger men on stated occasions. But the youths • thus favoured must be none other than those of the proper classes. And of the Clarence River Kamilaroi he wrote —
" If a Kubbi meet a stranger Ippatha — (these are intermarriageable classes, see Table B) — they address each other as spouse. A Kubbi thus meeting an Ippatha, though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be recognized by her tribe."
This important statement has been fully confirmed by other competent informants, in reply to a special inquiry on the subject.*
Mr. G. F. Bridgman's native servant, before mentioned, Avho had travelled far and wide throughout Australia, told him that he was furnished with temporary wives by the various tribes with whom he sojourned in his travels ; that his right to those women was recognized as a matter of course ; and that he could always ascertain whether they belonged to the division into which he could legally marry.
entertained. Our tribe, the Dieri, have different names for their Murdus from those of the neighbouring tribes, but they can always understand each other."— A.W.H.]
* [Mr. Cyrus E. Doyle, of Kunopia, ]\Ioree, N.S.W., wrote to me as follows, in reply to a question : — " You are quite right in supposing that any Hippi can take any Kubbatha as his wife and keep her, and that his right to her will not be questioned by her family ; and of course the same rule extends .to the other names, such as Cumbo, Kubbi, &c." — A.W,H.]
54 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
" though the places were 1,000 miles apart, and the lan- guages quite different." Many pages might be filled with, similar testimony.
This seems to be the most extensive system of communal marriage the world has ever known. It could have held its own in no other part of the globe ; for nowhere else, if we except an isolated tribe here and there, have the aborigines been so completely shut out from external impulse. Aus- tralian marriage — taking into account, for the present, those tribes only which have the Kamilaroi organization — is • something more than the marriage of group to group, within a tribe. It is an arrangement, extending across a continent, which divides many widely- scattered tribes into intermarrying classes, and gives a man of one class marital rights over women of another class in a tribe a thousand miles away, and speaking a language other than his own. It seems to be strong evidence of the common origin of all the Australian tribes among whom it pi'evails ; aiid it is a striking illustration of how custom remains fixed while language changes.
The evidence I have brought forward may perhaps be called in question. For instance, it may be doubted whether Mr. Brid Oman's native servant could have made himself understood amono- the various tribes whom he visited in the course of his travels ; and it may also be objected that the inter-tribal enmity of the Australians must make his story somewhat problematical. But, in the first place, the fact in support of which his testimony is advanced, is quite independent of that testimony, being fully supported by other evidence ; and, in the second place, the difhcultios in the way of his journcyings may be more apparent than real.
It is quite possible for a native to make his way across the Austi'alian continent if he passed from tribe to tribe in.
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT. 55
accordance with certain established rules ;* though, if he ventured without that passport, he might be killed — and eaten too, for many of the tribes are cannibals.
Nor would his ignorance of the dialects sjDoken by stranger tribes necessarily stop his way. Mr. Gason, an unimpeachable authority, tells us, in his pamphlet on the Dieri Tribe, that they have a gesture language as well as a spoken tongue ; that this gesture language is common to many tribes, and that by its means natives who are " bar- barians " one to another can converse with ease. Mr. Gason understands this language of signs, and has frequently employed it. I have heard of it in other parts of Australia, and have myself seen it used with great apparent readiness by two white men who had learned it from the natives.-f-
The importance of this subject may justify a short digression here. Gesture language, which has been ad- vanced as an evidence of mental inferiority on the part of
* "Passed on from tribe to tribe." — This statement receives amusing con- firmation from the following incident narrated by Buckley, the convict who lived among the blacks for so many years that he forgot his English : —
" They have a notion that the world is supported by props, which are in charge of a man who lives at the farthest end of the earth. They were dreadfully alarmed on one occasion, when I was with them, by news passed from tribe to tribe, that, unless they sent him a supply of tomahawks for cutting more props, and some rope to tie them with, the earth would go by the run, and all hands would be smothered. . . . Passing on the icord to the tribes along the coast, some settlers at a very great distance w^ere robbed of axes, saws, rope, and tires of dray wheels, all of which were for- warded to the old gentleman on the other side ; and, as was supposed, in time to prevent the capsize, for it never ha^jpened. A tribute of this description is paid whenever possible ; but who the juggling old recei\'ing thief is I could never make out." (Morgan's "Life of Buckley," p. 58. M'Dougall : Hobart Town, Tasmania, 1852.)
The Australian tribes have heralds, whose person is sacred when they are engaged in their official duties. See Mr. Howitt's account of the Kiirnai Leewin.
f [I have often seen this gesture language used by the Dieri and other kindred tribes. By means of it the " Murdu " of a stranger could be ascertained, and the various hospitalities connected therewith either offered or demanded. — A.W.H.]
56 KAJVITLAROI MAEEIAGE.
savages, we may yet discover to be a proof of a quite remaikable intelligence. It certainly fails to prove poverty of language. The North American Indians — some of them, at least — have it, and their languages not only suffice for all their ordinary wants, hut are also copious enough to furnish materials for abundant oratoiy. There is no evidence* whatever that the lanffuaije of savages is inade- quate to express all they have in their minds ; and what tongue can do more than this for the people who speak it ? Gesture language is not a mere eking out of the spoken tongue. It is a most remarkable enrichment of it, and forms a valuable means of communication between tribes whose languages differ from one another far more widely than French or German differs fiom Enolish. How valu- able would such a means of communication be to ourselves! — a language of signs, by means of which Englishmen, speaking^no tongue but their own, could make themselves understood — as far, at least, as their everyday wants are concerned — throughout a continental tour.
(h) RELATIONSHIP.
That relationship is of group to group seems to be a fair inference from what has already been shown as to communal marital riffhts.
o
* A^o evidence, d-c. — Much of -what has been advanced as proving the poverty of language among savage tribes seems to me to have but little weight. An African traveller, for instance, observes that, when his men talk together after nightfall, they sit within the light of the camp-tire in order that their word signs may be perceptible ; and he jumps at once to the conclusion that the signs are necessary in order to eke out the poverty of the spoken language. But he forgets that his men were of different tribes, some, at least, of whose dialects differ as do the Australian.
The proof 'required heie is, firstly, that the interlocutors are men of the same tribe ; and secondly, that they are compelled to use signs to express what their words are insufficient to express, for we know that savages often use the gesture language from choice in their conversation. It is good practice so to use it.
LA\YS OF MAKRIAGE AND DESCENT. 57
As to both marriage and relationship, it is the group alone 1;hat is regarded. The individual is ignored. He is not Jooked upon as a perfect entity. He has no existence save as a part of a group, which in its entii'ety is the perfect entity. It is not the individual Kumite who marries the individual Krokigor : it is the group of males called Kumite which marries the group of females called Krokigor. Hence the .son of this marriage is not the individual Kroki, but the group Kroki ; its daughter is not the individual Krokigor, but the group Krokigor (Table A). This son and this daughter — i.e., group Kroki and group Krokigor — are brother and sister, and this relationship binds every member of the groups. So also with the other degrees. *
The subdivision of the two primary classes failed to alter the idea of relationship in the native mind. For matrimonial jpurposes, indeed, the boundaries of the group are contracted, but descent and relationship remain unaltered. The Ipai group is brother to the Kumbu; the Muri group is brother to the Kubi. So also with the gentes. The Emu group is brother to the Bandicoots and Blacksnakes ; the Kangaroo group is brother to the Opossums and the Iguanas (Table D).
Further evidence is afforded by the terms of kinship in present use among the Australian aborigines. These, however, are not so conclusive in proof as are those in use among other tribes, whose terms are given in full by Mr. Morgan in his work on the " Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family." The systems of the Tamil speaking peoples, the North American Indians, Fijians, Tongans, and many others, follow out the strict logical
* [When conversing with one of the Majauka tribe, of the Darling River {whose cousin had been with me on my first expedition), as to the classes of the Cooper's Creek tribe, I said " I am ]Mungalli-Lizard of the Yantru- wunta." He immediately replied, "Why! lam Lizard too — Kami — and you are just the same as my brother." — A.W.H.]
58 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
sequences of the primary relationships which result from, the division of a community into exogamous intermariying classes. When those primary degrees are known, they themselves reveal the inter-sexual laws on which the system was founded, and every possible relationship may be deduced from them by a simple process of reasoning. In every case, excepting where a few anomalous terms have been introduced, the theoretical deduction will be found to be identical with the term in actual use. For instance, when we have ascertained that a Mbau Fijian calls his father's brother father, his mother's sister mother, his father's- sister mother-in-laiu, and his mother's brother father-in-law,. we can determine with positive certainty the exact degree of relationship in which he stands to any other member of his tribe, how remote soever their relationship may be according to our own system. Nay, more, we can determine the exact relationship between any one of his descendants and any other person belonging to the tribe after the lapse of any number of generations, although, according to our system, there may be no relationship whatever between those persons.
Not so, however, with the Australian terms. In the first place, several terms are found in use which point to the older system, called by Mr. Morgan the Malayan — to a time prior to the first division of the community into inter- marrying classes. The survival of these terms here and there need cause no surprise if we bear in mind the fact that every one of the terms logically resulting from the classificatory system of kinship is still found in everyday use among nations who advanced beyond that system — who can say how many ages ago ?
And farther, an Australian aborigine, when asked to define the relationship in which he stands to other persons, fre- quently takes into consideration matters other than relation-
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT. 5^'
ship, and so gives words which are not specific terms of kinship. After years of inquiry into this matter, the humiliating confession must be made that I am hopelessly puzzled. Of one thing, however, I am perfectly sure, that there is a good reason for every one of the inexplicable terms which an Australian black gives when asked to explain a long line of descents, with several branches from the main stem ; only, I have been unable to get at those reasons. In one list I have found the same degree of relationship represented by no fewer than five different words, four of which appear not to be terms of kinship at all, but to express some con- nection other than relationship. A difference of totem within a class may cause a difference of appellation, or it may not, apparently according to the whim of the speaker. Thus, Muri-Iguana and Muri-Kangaroo are half-brothers, for they are the sons of Ipai (Table D) ; but one sometimes designates the other by a word differing from the term by which he would address a Muri of his own totem, while at other times he may use the ordinary term. So also with the four classes. Ipai and Kumbu are "brother" classes, but any particular Ipai, in defining his relationship to Kumbu, may use either the ordinary term for brother, or some word intelligible enough to the natives, but exas- peratingly puzzling to an inquirer who is ignorant of the language. Moreover, there are certain changes of name and grade conferred at a secret ceremony called Bora, or Bura, which in some way or other, inexplicable by our informants, affects, or may affect, the words by which a man will designate his kinship, and yet does not touch their relationship. It is simply impossible to ascertain the exact meaning of these words without a very full know- ledge of the native dialects, added to a personal influence with the blacks powerful enough to induce them to reveal jealously-guarded secrets known to the initiated only, and
^0 KAMILAROI MAERIAGE.
a patience compared with which that of Job is furious irritability. In all probability there are not half a dozen men so qualified in the whole Australian continent; and one gentleman — who, doubtless, has the requisite knowledge — positively refused to disclose the secrets entrusted to him by the natives. He had to identify himself with a tribe before he could learn those secrets.
Nevertheless, enough can be made out from the terms of kinship in present use to show that relationship is based upon the same ideas with those which form the foundation of the system called by Mr. Morgan the Turanian. Most certainly, as will presently be shown, the terms of that S3^stem are the logical outcome of the Australian classes. The following table, though incomplete, shows that among many widely-separated tribes the same term is used for father and father's brother ; the same term for mother and mother's sister ; the same term for brother, father's brother's son, and mother's sister's son ; and the same term for son and brother's son (a male speaking), or for son and sister's son (a female speaking).
If the reader will make out a genealogical table, or family tree, of his own brothers and sisters, or of his uncles and aunts, with their respective children, the significance of these terms, and their points of difference from our own, will be readily perceived.
In every case shown in the following table there are two terms for " brother," one signifying " elder brother," and the other " younger brother." I have given one only of those terms.
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT.
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<62
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LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT. 63
The significance of the terms of kinship given in the foregoing table requires only a little attention in order that it may be clearly seen. It can be presented directly to the •eye by constructing genealogical tables, or " family trees," •and noting down the relationship of the persons represented therein, according to the rules shown in the table. This, however, would require considerable space, and as it will have to be done further on in a series of diagrams showing that the terms of kinship in the Turanian system logically result from the class divisions, the reader is referred to those diagrams.*
Rule II. — All the divisions — gentes as luell as classes — are strictly exogamous. In other words, onarriage is forbidden luithin every division of a tribe.
Although matrimonial selection has so wide a range, it is :strictly governed by the class regulations. A man, as already shown, has marital rights over women in a class intermarriageable with his, not in his own tribe only, but in others also far distant from his own ; but under no circum- stances may he take to himself a woman from a forbidden ■class. The Kamilaroi marriage with the half-sister by the father's side need not be taken into account here. It has b)een shown to be, in all probability, no more than a local infringement of a universal rule. And moreover, partial exception though it be, it proves the rule by observing its application to the gens, while it throws off its yoke as l)inding upon the entire class. Ipai, for instance, is allowed,
* The reader cannot fail to be struck with the extraordinary divergence of the Australian dialects as showTi in Table F. Even among terms of kinship, where, if anywhere, we should expect similarity, we find the widest difference. In the New Hebrides again, and in other South Sea Island groups, a like confusion of tongues prevails. Here is a rich field for the philologist, if he enter upon it now. A few years hence and it will be a desert.
64 KAMILAROI MArvRIAGE.
at least in the tribe of JNIr. Lance's informants, to marry an Ipatha of a totem other than his own, but he cannot mariy Ipatha of his own totem (Table E). That is to say, he cannot marry a woman of his own gens.
The rule of the two original classes — " Kumite may not marry Kuniitogor : Kroki may not marry Krokigor " — pro- hibiting marriage within the class, binds all the subdivisions also. The tables of marriage and descent already given show that (with the local exception of the Kamilaroi marriage with the half-sister by the father's side) the subdivision of the two classes did not result in inter- marriage between any two divisions formed out of one of the original classes. Thus, Yungaru was di\dded inta Gurgela and Burbia ; but Gurgela cannot marry Burbian r he must seek his wife in one of the sub-classes into which the other original class, Wutaru, was divided (Table C). So- also with the gentes (Table D). If we had found these subdivisions to be simply exogamous qua subdivisions, this would have been enough to prove that the law of exogamy still prevailed, though with contracted range. But the tables prove more than this ; they show that, not the principle only, but the range also, of the law is unaltered. And this is sufficient to prove the law, as far as the women within a tribe, or community, are concerned.
That this law of exogamy is strictly enforced, under the sternest penalties, is proved by the united and positive testimony of many competent informants. A few of them may be quoted here.
Mr. J. A. G. Little says of the Larakia tribe. Port Darwin : —
" Occasional cases of elopement between blood relations (i.e., persons of the same class) occur. In such cases the pair are iwrsued, and the man, if possible, killed ; but, if he succeed in eluding capture fur a certain period, the oftence may be condoned."
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT. 65
Dora, a Herbert River (Queensland) native, was present when her brother inflicted summary punishment for a breach of this law, and she gave a graphic account of the incident to our valued correspondent, Mr. W. Reeve, jun. The offenders were a man of her tribe, and a woman belono^inof to another tribe, but of the class name corre- sponding to his. They were found together in the bush, cooking grubs at the same fire. After some parley, Dora's brother struck the woman fiercely with his knife, inflicting " awful wounds under the left breast and over the back." The woman recovered, and the offence was eventually con- doned.
Mr. C. Giles, jun., writes concerning the Antakerinya tribe. Central Australia : —
" Marriage can take place only according to the rules given {i.e., the class rules). Infringement of these rules is punishable by death. "*
Not only is the law thus strictly enforced in all cases of ordinary marriage, but it holds good also with regard to what Mr. M'Lennan calls marriage by capture. It regulates the disposal of women who are stolen from other tribes, or captured in war.-f-
"It is obvious," Sir John Lubbock remarks ("Origin of Civilization," p. 80), + ' ' that, even under communal marriage, a warrior who had
* [As to marriage by capture, and further evidence confirmatory of tliis statement, see Summary and General Conclusions, Part ii. — A.W.H.]
t Mr. Percival S. Friend, Stipendiary Magistrate, Rewa, Fiji, informs me that a man from Tana (New Hebrides), one of the ' ' imported labourers," was brought before him, charged with the murder of a woman from the same island, with whom he had been cohabiting. "The prisoner, after being duly cautioned, made a voluntary statement to the effect that he was bound to kill the woman, because she had admitted men whom the law of their land forbade to her. If she had intercourse with a dozen men of the same clan with himself, he could have no objection."
I myself witnessed the trial of a similar case in the Supreme Court of Fiji.
t All my references to the "Origin of Civilization " are to the Second Edition.
6
66 KAMILAROI MAKRIAGE,
captured a beautiful girl . . . would claim a peculiar right to her, and, when possible, would set custom at defiance. ... A war captive was in a peculiar position. The tribe had no right to her. "
This seems obvious to ourselves, but the influence of the class system among the Australians makes it anything but obvious to them. They maintain the tribal right against the individual with regard to war captives as strictly as they maintain it with regard to any other women. If a warrior took to himself a captive who belonged to a for- bidden class, he would be hunted down like a wdld beast ; and, unless he managed to keep out of the way until the hot wrath of the tribe had cooled down, he would be killed, and his captive with him. This is a strong statement, but it rests upon strong evidence,
Mr. Charles G. N. Lockhart, after giving the law of marriage between Kilpara and Mukwara, says : —
" This holds good even with regard to casual amours. It appears, further, that the neighbouring tribes have the same distinctions. I asked them how, under certain circumstances of forcible rajje — no uncommon occurrence — they knew the female was not of a forbidden tribe. They said they always knew. If in doubt, they asked the female. "*
Mr. Reeve, already quoted, remarks further : —
" Should any children be bom of such a connection (/.e., between forbidden classes), they are certain to be killed, as are generally the parents also. If the offenders be sjiared, they are subject to the eternal gibes and jeers of the tribe, t If a. man takes in icar from
* " Jf in doubt, they asked the female." — Mr. Chatfield, before mentioned, informed me that in a tribe with which he was acquainted, the raised cicatrices on the bodies of the natives are the blazon of tlieir respective classes or totems. But several of our most trustworthy correspondents, replying to inquiries on this point, did not confirm Mr. Chatfield's state- ment. This, however, does not prove his statement to be incorrect, as far as concerns tlie tribe to which he referred.
t " 27(6 eternal ijihes and jeers of the tribe." — So also Mr. Morgan tells us of a case among the Shyaus, "where first cousins had married against their usages." The pair were " ridiculed so constantly by their associates that
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT. 67
another tribe a woman whom he cannot legally marry, and uses her as his mistress, the tribe will kill them both. "
Many similar testimonies might be quoted from the letters of gentlemen who have given us information as to the tribes which have the Kamilaroi organization. Their evidence is conclusive in proof that the class law overrides marriage by capture among those tribes, and it must be borne in mind that none other are at present under consideration.
Hence it is evident that — with the one local exception already noted, which is, after all, only an exception in part — all the class divisions are exogamous, and that the law is strictly enforced. At all events, if this be not exogamy, it is not easy to imagine what exogamy can be.*
Here, then, we have exogamy, certainly not produced by marriage by capture, according to Sir John Lubbock's theory (" Origin of Civilization," p. 83), but actually com- pelling marriage by capture to conform to long-established cxoo^amous rules. Nor do the Australian class regulations give more countenance to Mr. M'Lennan's theory that savages were driven into exogamy and capture-marriage by '' female infanticide " resulting in a scarcity of women.-f* Australian exogamy, at all events, is the plain outcome of
they voluntarily separated rather than face the prejudice." ("Ancient Society," p. 458.)
Compare Hardistry's remarks on the Tinn6 Indians — "A Chitsang cannot by their rules marry a Chitsang, although the rule is set at nought occasionally. But, when it does take place, the persons are ridiculed and laughed at." The words next following are strong proof of group relation- ship— "The man is said to have married his sister, though there be not the slightest connection of blood between them." (Smithsonian Report, quoted by Lubbock, "Origin," &c., p. 112.)
* [S'ee Part II., Appendix F. The Gournditch-Mara tribe. This community has four classes which are not exogamous. It is, however, socially far advanced beyond the Kamilaroi organization, and the class rules are proportionately weakened. The form remains, while the substance is gone. See also the Wimmera tribe, Summary, Part II. — A.W.H.]
f See the discussion of female infanticide in the Summary, Part II.
68 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
the class divisions ; and similar divisions elsewhere doubt- less produced similar results.
KuLE III. — The wife does not come into her husband's division. She remains in her own.
Kumitegor marries Kroki, but her marriage does not brino- her into the Kroki class. She continues to belong to the Kumite class. So also with the four classes and the gentes.
The Motu people, Mr. Codrington informs us, express thi,^ regulation by a striking figure of speech. They are divided into two intermarrying classes, called Veve, or " mothers." One veve is said to be on one " side of the house," and the other veve to be on the other side. The wife does not pass to her husband's " side of the house." She is said to be " at the door."
This is a most important fact, and, together with the following lule, it is the key to more than one difficulty concerning which there has been much speculation. There is no need for any further evidence in support of it with regard to the Australians. A glance at Tables A, B, C, D,. and E will show it as a matter of fact.
Rule IV. — Descent is rechoned through the mother.
In every case the class names and totems shown in the foregoing tables settle this question beyond dispute. The child is of the mother's class, not of the father's: of its mother's totem, not of its father's.
Thus, Kumite's wife is Krokigor. His son is not Kumite, but Kroki. So also, if the Kamilaroi Emu marry Iguana, his son is not Emu, but Iguana (Table D).
LAWS OF MAKRIAGE AND DESCENT. 69
At first sight, the descents in the four classes may seem to contradict this assertion, inasmuch as the child does not come into that particular sub-class to which its mother belongs — e.g., Ipatha's son is Kumbu, not Ipai (Table B). But it has been shown that Ipai and Kumbu are mere segments of a still-existing class. Ipai is the complement of Kumbu. The two together make up a whole. The original classes are Ipai-Kumbu and Muri-Kubi ; and, as far as the line of descent is concerned, the original classes only are taken into consideration. Kubi, therefore, in marrying Ipatha, marries a woman of the Ipai-Kumbu class, and his children, Kumbu and Butha, are of that class (Table B). In other words, they are of their mother's class, not of their father's.
This is still more clearly seen in the Mackay classes, simply because we know the names of the two primary classes in that tribe.
Yungaru = Gurgela-Burbia. Wutaru = Wungo -Kuberu.
Gurgela, a Yungaru man, marries Kuberuan, a Wutaru woman. His children are Wungo and Wungoan, who are not Yungaru like their father, but Wutaru after their mother (Table C).
Why the children should be exchanged between these "brother " classes which do not intermarry — in other words, why Wungoan's children should be of the Kuberu class, and why Kuberuan's children should be of the Wungo class, is not directly apparent. Their exchange between the two primary classes is the necessary result of descent through the mother. Kumite's son must be Kroki because the mother is Krokigor. Kroki's son must be Kumite because the mother is Kumitegor. Is it possible that this •exchange — which, however, as will presently appear, is
70
KAMILAPvOI MAERIAGE.
more apparent than real — had become a fixed idea in the native mind when the two classes subdivided, whence it seemed to be an absolute necessity that the sub-classes alsa should exchange their children ? This, though mere con- jecture, would be thoroughly in accordance with the mode of thought among savages. To the savage ancient custom is full of sanctity, and cannot be disregarded without impiety. He reasons, not from intrinsic quality, but from the custom of his fathers ; and, like that school of poli- ticians to whom he has transmitted so many of his ideas, he cannot be happy without his precedent.
There is a curious solution of this difficulty, which seems- to come within the bounds of possibility. I give it for what it is worth. It was suggested to my mind by Herodotus' "Legend of the Minyse," who came to Sparta from Lemnos ; and, apparently as a necessary consequence of their naturalization among the Spartans, exchanged ivives ivith them. (" Melpomene," 145.)*
A reference to Table B (p. 36) will show, if we arrange the four classes (say of the Mackay tribe) in two pairs as follows, that the marriages and the first descents are —
Gurgela. Kuberuan.
Wungo. Burbian.
Wungo-an. Gurgela-n.
B.
Burbia. Wungoau.
Kuberu. Gurgelan.
Kurberu-an. Burbia-n.
If we examine either of these pairs, we see that their descents are precisely those of two exogamous intermaiTying
* The Spartans seemed to have reasoned as follows :— We admit the Minyje as a clan into our community. We must look upon them all — men and women alike — as Minya\ Therefore, our clans being exogamous, their women must be married to another clan, and we must furnish their men with wives.
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT.
71
gentes with uterine succession, but the marriages are different.
Thus, if Emu and Snake be two such gentes, the identity of the descents is shown by the following diagram — males being represented : —
Emu. (Gurgela.)
Snake. (Wungo.)
Emu. (Gurgela.)
Snake. (Wungo. )
Emu. (Gurgela. )
Snake. (Wungo.)
The difference in the marriages appears as follows :- M=male ; F= female.
Emu M. ( Gurgela,
Snake F. ( Kuberuan
Snake M. ( Wungo.
Emu F. ( Burbian.
That is to say (if Emu be taken as corresponding to Gur- gela, and Snake to Wungo), Emu (male) marries Snake (female), but Gurgela marries, not Wungoan, but Kuberuan, and so forth.
If the usual rule were observed, the marriages and the first descents would be as follows : —
A.
Gurgela.
Wungo.
Wungoan. Gurgelan.
Wungo-an. Gurgela-n.
Burbia. Kuberuan.
Kuberu-an.
Kuberu.
Burbian.
Burbia-n.
Now, let US make the following suppositions : — 1. That A. and B. were at one time two distinct tribes, each consisting of two exogamous intermarrying classes — A. being made up of Gurgela and "Wungo, while B. consisted of Burbia and Kuberu, as shown in the diagram.
72
KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
2. That these two tribes united into one community, Gur- gela amalgamating with Burbia, and Wungo with Kuberu ; Gurgela-Burbia taking the Alligator (Yungaru) as its totem, and Gurgela-Burbia taking the Kangaroo (Wutaru).
3. That these amalgamating classes exchanged tuives, as the Minyie are said to have exchanged theirs with the Spartans, but tvithout altering the descents as they stood when the union took iilace — in other words, that class Gurgela took Bur])ia's wives (Kuberuan), but retained its ckildren, Wungo and Wungoan ; that Burbia took Gurgela's wives, (Wungoan), but retained its children, Kuberu and Kuberuan, and so forth.
Then we shall have the followinor arransfement : —
A. (Yungaru.) Gurgela. Burbia.
Kuberuan.
Wungoan.
Wungo-au. Kuberu-an.
B. (Wutaru.) Wungo. Kuberu.
Burbian.
Gurgelan.
Gurgela-u. Burbia-u.
which is precisely the arrangement as it stands at the present day.
If, by any chance, this be the true solution, the four classes were formed by the amalgamation of two class- divided communities, not by the further segmentation of one such community ; but the main theory set forth in this memoir will serve equally well for either supposition. And, in what way soever the four classes may have been formed, it is evident, from the fact of their wide prevalence in Australia, that their formation must be referred to a very early time, before the tribes dispersed over the continent.
It is well known that descent is still reckoned through the mother by many tribes in every quarter of the globe, and several conflicting theories have been advanced to
LAWS OF MAERIAGE AND DESCENT. 73
account for tlie fact. The Australian system shows it to be the necessary consequence of the matrimonial regulations of the class divisions. If we consider the inter-sexual arrangements at present in force among the Australian aborigines, who have what I call, for the sake of conve- nience, the Kamilaroi class organization, we cannot deny that the saying — cynical enough as regards civilized com- munities, " Maternity is a matter of fact, paternity of conjecture" — represents the plain literal truth as far as tribes such as the Australian are concerned. For, when a man has no exclusive right to his wives ; when even strangers from a distant tribe, who are of a class corre- sponding to his, may claim a share in his marital rights ; when a woman is married to a thousand miles of husbands, then paternity must be, to say the least of it, somewhat doubtful. But there can be no possibility of mistake as to maternity, and therefore it seems natural enough that children should "follow the mother," as several of our correspondents phrase it; in other words, that they should be of the mother's class and gens, not of the father's.
Moreover, this is the necessary result of the very con- stitution of the classes. In speaking of the " exchange of children," it was said that this exchange is more apparent than real. It appears to be a real exchange as long as our attention is fixed upon the fathers of those children. But when we turn our attention to the fact pointed out by Mr. Morgan ("Ancient Society," Part II. chap, i,), that the basis of the Australian class organization is the woman, not the man, we see that there is in reality no exchange at all. The classes are, in point of fact, not Kumite and Kroki, but Kumitegor and Krokigor. Kumite and Kroki appear to exchange their children, because each wife holds her own offspring by a law as steadfast against alteration as were those of the Medes and Persians. As far as descent is
74
KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
concerned, the father is a mere nonentity. Descent in the male line alternates between Kumite and Kroki in alternate generations, but Kumitegor's female descendants in the direct line, through females, are Kumitegor for ever.*
From first to last, as regards descent, the father is utterly- ignored, and the mother alone is taken into -consideration. This is notably shown in the descents from the Kamilaroi marriage with the paternal half-sister (Table E, Diagram No. 3). Throughout the classes, and the gentes also, descent is traced through female ancestors. An Emu prides himself on being the descendant of a long line of Emus ; but it was through his mother that the Emu blood flowed into his veins, not through his father. His father was no better than a Blacksnake.
Conclu- sion.
The system which I have tried to explain in the foregoing- pages is that which will, I think, be found in most of the Australian tribes ; but there is so much ground yet unex-
* Descent in the Male line and in the Female. — These descents are
shown at a glance by the following diagram, which may be continued ad
infinitum with the same results. The female line appears on the right hand, the male on the left.
Kumite. m
|
Krok |
IGOR. ''. |
||||
|
Kroki. |
Krokigor. |
||||
|
Kumitegor. Kumite. |
|||||
|
Kumite. |
Krokigor |
, |
|||
|
Krokigor. |
Kumite. |
||||
|
Kroki. |
Krokigor. |
LAWS OF MARRIAGE AND DESCENT. 75
plored, that this opinion can only be held provisionally, while waiting for further evidence.
The system has been shown to prevail in Western and Central Australia, along the east coast and interior to a considerable distance inland, and in the extreme north at Port Darwin. We know that it extends beyond the places noted, but we have reason to believe that it does not cover all the area bounded by them. The usages of several tribes, which appear at first sight to be radically opposed to it, can be shown to arise directly from the enforcement of its rules under circumstances of peculiar difficulty ; but we cannot affirm that the usages of all the Australian tribes which may be found to differ from those of the Kamilaroi, admit of a similar explanation. In all probability they do not. Some of the South Australian tribes, especially, point to the prevalence of a system different from that of the Kamilaroi ;. and a vast amount of work yet remains to be done before the question can be finally settled.
The whole subject needs thorough investigation, and it needs it now. The aborigines are dying out as if they were plague-stricken, and with them is perishing information of the highest value to anthropological science, which, if not soon obtained, must be lost to us for ever. This is a matter for the united action of the Australian Governments. A year's work by a few competent men under their auspices now would do more than could be effected by an army of savans a generation hence.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP PECULIAR TO THE TURANIAN SYSTExM SHOWN TO RESULT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN CLASS ORGANIZATION.
From the four rules of marriage and descent shown in the various tables, and investigated in the preceding chapter, it may now be demonstrated that the terms of kinship peculiar to what Mr. Morgan calls the Turanian system, are the logical outcome of the Australian classes.
The characteristics of that system are given by Mr. Morgan in his " Ancient Society," pp. 442, et seq., together with theoretical explanations which will be found to coincide in every particular with the ascertained facts. We may take those characteristics as so many propositions, and demonstrate them by means of diagrams, so as to present directly to the eye that which would otherwise require a troublesome effort to keep it clearly before the mind.
All the marriages and descents given in the diagrams may be verified by a reference to Table A. This notification is ^iven once for all, in order to save the trouble of repeating the reference at each step of the demonstration.
Special attention is called to the terms Uncle, Aunt, Nephew, Niece, and Cousin, Strictly speaking, these relationships are not recognized by the Turanian system; and Mr. Morgan uses the terms, for the sake of convenience, to indicate relatives who are fathers-in-law and mothers- in-law rather than Uncles and Aunts, sons-in-law and
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 77
daughters-in-law rather than Nephews and Nieces ; while the meaning of the term Cousin varies with the sex of the speaker, and with that of the person spoken of. These points will be fully brought out in the course of the demonstration.
It must further be noted that the meaning of those terms, as applied to the Turanian system, does not coincide with that which they bear in our own. The following definitions must be borne in mind : —
I. — My Uncle is my mother's brother only, not my father's brother also, as with us.
II. — My Aunt is my father's sister only, not my mother's sister also, as with us.
III. — Ego being male, my Nephews and Nieces are my sister's children only, not my brother's children also, as with us.
IV. — Ego being female, my Nephews and Nieces are my brother's children only, not my sister's children also, as with us. V. — My Cousins are the children of my mother's brothers, and of my father's sisters, but not those also of my mother's sisters, and of my father's brothers, as with us.
VI. — The term collateral, as used by Mr. Morgan in stating the Turanian characteristics, denotes relationships diftering from those with which our own system has made us familiar. For instance, "my collateral brothers" are the sons of my father's brothers and of my mother's sisters. The ex- planation given in the introductory chapter as to the extended sense in which the terms of kinship are used, must be kept in mind. The Ego is a group, not an individual ; but each individual
78 KAMILAEOI MARRIAGE.
takes all the relationships which are taken by his group.
PROPOSITION I.
" Ego being male, all the children of my several brothers, own and collateral, are my sons and daughters." (" Ancient Society," p. 442.)
Kumite. Kumite A.
Krokigor. Krokigor A.
Kroki B. | Krokigor B. Kroki B. ' Krokigor B.
Let Ego be Kumite, a male. All my brothers, own and collateral, are Kumite.
Let any one of them be represented by Kumite A.
Then, because my wife is Krokigor, my children are Kroki B and Krokigor B.
But the wife of Kumite A is also Krokigor.
Therefore his children also are Kroki B and Krokigor B.
But Kroki B and Krokigor B are my children.
Therefore, Ego being male, my brother's children are my «ons and daughters. Q.E.D.
Note. — Hence is manifest the reason why my brother's children. Ego being male, cannot be called my nephews and nieces, as with us.
PROPOSITION II.
" Ego being male, all the children of all my sisters, own and collateral, are my nephews and nieces."
Kumite. Kumitegor.
Krokigor. Kroki.
Kroki B. 1 Krokigor B. Kumite B. I Kumitegor B.
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 79
If Ego be Kumite, a male —
My sister is Kumitegor, and her children are Kumite B and Kumitegor B.
Kumite B and Kumitegor B are my nephews and nieces.
But all my sisters, own and collateral, are also Kumitegor.
And all their children are Kumite B and Kumitegor B.
But Kumite B and Kumitegor B are my nephews and nieces.
Therefore, &c. Q.E.D.
But, strictly speaking, the Turanian system does not recognize these relationships, and the proposition may be stated thus : —
" Ego being male, all the children of all my sisters, own and collateral, are my sons-in-law and daughters-in-law."
Diagrarti as above.
Ego being Kumite, all my sisters, own and collateral, are Kumitegor.
All their sons are Kumite B ; all their daughters are Kumitegor B,
But Kumite B marries my daughter, Krokigor B, and is therefore my son-in-law.
And Kumitegor B marries my son, Kroki B, and is there- fore my daughter-in-law.
Wherefore, &c. Q.E.D.
PROPOSITION III.
" Ego being female, the children of my several brothers, own and collateral, are my nephews and nieces."
Kumitegor. Kumite.
Kroki. Krokigor.
Kumite B. Kumitegor B. Kroki B.
Krokigor B.
80 KAMILAEOI MAERIAGE.
If Ego be Kumitegor, a female —
My brother is Kumite, and his children are Kroki B and Krokigor B.
Kroki B and Krokigor B are my nephews and nieces. But all my brothers, own and collateral, are Kumite. And all their children are Kroki B and Krokigor B. But Kroki B and Krokigor B are my nephews and nieces.
Therefore, &c. Q.E.D.
But, strictly speaking, the Turanian system does not recognize these relationships, and the proposition may be stated thus : —
" Ego being female, all the children of my several brothers,, own and collateral, are my sons-in-law and daughters-in- law."
Proof as in Proposition II.
Cor. — From this proposition and the foregoing it is manifest that (bearing in mind the restricted sense of the terms nephew and niece). Ego being male or female —
My nephew is my son-in-law — that is, a man who has a right to take my daughter to wife.
My niece is my daughter-in-law — that is, a woman whom my son has a right to take to wife.
PROPOSITION IV.
" Ego being female, the children of my several sisters,, own and collateral, are my sons and daughters."
Kumitegor. Kumitegor A.
Kroki. Kroki A.
Kumite B.
Kumitegor B. Kumite B.
Kumitegor B.
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 81
If Ego be Kumitegor, a female —
My children are Kumite B and Kumitegor B.
But all my sisters, own and collateral, are also Kumitegor.
And all their children are Kumite B and Kumitegor B.
But Kumite B and Kumitegor B are my children.
Therefore, &c. Q.E.D.
Note 1. — Hence is manifest the reason why my sister's children. Ego being female, cannot be called " my nephews and nieces," as with us.
Note 2. — Mr. Morgan's statement of this characteristic is as follows: — "With myself a female, the children of my several sisters, own and collateral, and of my several female cousins, are my sons and daughters."
The words which I have italicised are omitted from my enunciation of this proposition. They apply to the Seneca- Iroquois system, to which Mr, Morgan's statement refers, but not to the Tamil, the Fijian, and many others, which take all the terms logically resulting from the division of a tribe into exogamous intermarrying classes. Ego being- female, the children of my female cousins are my nephews and nieces, or rather my sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, as shown in Proposition XIII.
PROPOSITION V.
" All the children of these sons and daughters are my grandchildren." {See "Ancient Society," p. 443.) This may be more fully stated as follows : —
(a) Ego being male, all the children of m}^ brother's children are my grandchildren.
(b) Ego being female, all the children of my sister's children are my gTandchildren.
7
O-l /\
v;.^
82 KAMILAEOI MAERIAGE.
(a) Ego being male, all my brother's children are my sons and daughters. (Prop. I.)
And the children of my sons and daughters are my grand- children.
Therefore the children of my brother's children are my grandchildren.
(b) Ego being female, my sister's children are my sons and daughters. (Prop. IV.)
And the children of my sons and daughters are my grandchildren.
Therefore the children of my sister's children are my grandchildren.
Wherefore, &c. Q.E.D.
PROPOSITION VI.
" All the children of those nephews and nieces are my grandchildren."
This may be more fully stated as follows : —
(a) Ego being male, the children of my sister's children are my grandchildren.
(h) Ego being female, the children of my brother's children are my grandchildren."
(a) If Ego be male, my sister's children are my sons-in- law and daughters-in-law. (Prop. II.)
And the children of my sons-in-law and daughters-in-law are my grandchildren.
Therefore the children of my sister's children are my grandchildren.
(h) Ego being female, my brother's children arc my sons- in-law and daughters-in-law. (Prop. III.)
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP.
83
And the children of my sons-in-law and daughters-in-law are my grandchildren.
Therefore the children of my brother's children are my grandchildren.
Wherefore, &c. Q.E.D.
Cor. — From this proposition and the foregoing it is manifest that, Ego being male or female, all the children of my brother's children, and all the children of my sister's children, are my grandchildren.*
PROPOSITION VII.
" All my father's brothers, own and collateral, are my fathers."
Kroki. Kroki A.
Kumitegor.
Kumite B.
Kumitegor B.
* Sir John Lubbock observes of the Iroquois system that — "Though a man's sister's children are his nephews and nieces, his sister's grandchildren are also his grandchildren, indicating the existence of a period when his sister's children were his children." ("Origin," &c., p. 129.)
This is an evident mistake, for those relationships afford no such indication. They result from the fact that a man's sons and daughters intermarry with his sister's children. His sister's grandchildren, therefore, must necessarily be his grandchildren. They are his children's children.
Thus, Ego being male —
Ego.
My Sister.
My Son marries Her Daughter.
Grandchild.
84 KAMILAT.OI MARRIAGE.
If Ego "be Kumite B, or Kumitegor B — i.e., male or female,
All my father's brothers, own and collateral, are Kroki. But Kroki is my father.
Therefore all my father's brothers are my fathers.
Q.E.D.
Note. — Hence is manifest the reason why my father's "brothers are not called my uncles, as with us.
PROPOSITION VIII.
"All my father's sisters, own and collateral, are my aunts."
Kumite. Kumitegor.
Krokigor. Kroki.
Kroki B. I Krokigor B. Kumite B.
Kumitegor B.
If Ego be Kroki B, or Krokigor 'B^{i.e., male or female)^ My aunt is Kumitegor.
But all my father's sisters, own and collateral, are Kumitegor.
Therefore they are my aunts. Q.E.D.
Strictly speaking, the relationship of aunt is not recog- nized by the Turanian system, and the proposition may be stated thus : —
" All my father's sisters, own and collateral, are my mothers-in-law."
Diagram as above. If Ego be Kroki B, a male, my wife is Kumitegor B, Her mother is Kumitegor.
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 85
Therefore Kumitegor is my mother-in-law.
But all my father's sisters, own and collateral, are Kumitegor.
Therefore, they are my mothers-in-law.
In like manner, if Ego be female, it may be shown that my father's sisters are my mothers-in-law.
Wherefore, &c. Q.KD.
Note. — " My mother-in-law " does not necessarily mean the actual mother of the woman whom I have as my wife. Ego being male, it means "a woman whose daughter I have a right to take to wife." Ego being female, it means " a woman whose son has a right to take me to wife."
PROPOSITION IX.
"All my mother's brothers, own and collateral, are my Tmcles."
Kumitegor. Kumite.
Kroki. Krokigor.
Kumite B.
Kumitegor B. Kroki B.
Krokigor B.
If Ego be Kumite B, or Kumitegor B — i.e., male or female, My uncle is Kumite.
But all my mother's brothers, own and collateral, are Kumite.
Therefore they are my uncles. Q.E,D,
Strictly speaking, the Turanian system does not recognize the relationship of imcle, and the proposition may be stated thus : —
m KAMILAROI MAPvRIAGE.
" All my mother's brothers, own and collateral, are my fathers-in-law."
Diagram as above.
Ego being Kumite B, a male, my wife is Krokigor B.
Her father is Kumite.
Therefore Kumite is my father-in-law.
But all my mother's brothers, own and collateral, are Kumite.
Therefore they are my fathers-in-law.
In like manner, if Ego be female, it may be shown that all my mother's brothers, own and collateral, are my fathers- in-law. Q.E.D.
Cor. — From this proposition and the foregoing, it is manifest that, whether Ego be male or female,
My uncle is my father-in-law, or rather the father of one with whom I have matrimonial rights.
My aunt is my mother-in-law, or rather the mother of one with whom I have matrimonial rights.
PROPOSITION X. "All my mother's sisters, own and collateral, are my mothers."
Kumitegor. Kumitegor A.
Kroki.
Kmnite B.
Kumitegor B,
If Ego be Kumite B, or Kumitegor B — i.e., male or female^ Kumitegor is my mother.
But all my mother's sisters, own and collateral, are Kumitegor.
Therefore they are my mothers. Q.E.D.
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 87
PROPOSITION XI.
"All the children of my father's brothers, and all the children of my mother's sisters, own and collateral, are my brothers and sisters."
Kumite, Kumite A.
Krokigor. Krokigor A.
Kroki B.
Krokigor B. Kroki B.
Krokigor B.
Ego being Kroki B, or Krokigor B — i.e., male or female, all my father's brothers are Kumite, and their children are Kroki B and Krokigor B.
Again, all my mother's sisters are Krokigor, and their children are Kroki B and Krokigor B.
But Kroki B and Krokigor B are my brothers and sisters.
Therefore, &c. Q.E.D.
PROPOSITION XII.
"All the children of my several uncles, and all the children of my several aunts, are my male and female cousins."
My uncles are my mother's brothers (definition i).
My aunts are my father's sisters (definition ii).
And their children are my male and female cousins (defi- nition v).
But since, strictly speaking, these relationships are not recognized by the Turanian system, the proposition may be stated as follows : —
(a) Ego being male,
1. The sons of my mother's brothers and the sons of my father's sisters are my brothers-in-law.
2. Their daughters are my wives. (/3) Ego being female,
88 KAMILAROI MAEPJAGE.
1. The sons of my mother's brothers and the sons of my father's sisters are my husbands.
2. Their daughters are my sisters-in-law.
Kumite. Kumitegor.
Krokigor. Kroki.
Kroki B. | Krokigor B. Kumite B. | Kumitegor B.
(a) If Ego be Kroki B, a male,
1. My mother's brothers are Kroki, and my father's sisters are Kumitegor.
Their sons are Kumite B.
But Kumite B marries my sister, Krokigor B, and I marry his sister, Kumitegor B.
Therefore he is my brother-in-law.
2. The daughters of my mother's brothers Kroki, and of my father's sisters Kumitegor, are all Kumitegor B.
And Kumitegor B is my wife.
(/3) If Ego be Krokigor B. — i.e., a female,
1. My mother's brothers are Kroki, and my father's sisters are Kumitegor.
Their sons are Kumite B. And Kumite B is my husband.
2. The daughters of my mother's brothers Kroki, and of my father's sisters Kumitegor, are all Kumitegor B.
But Kumitegor B marries my brother Kroki B, and I many her brother Kumite B.
Therefore she is my sister-in-law.
Wherefore, &c. Q.E.D.
Note. — This result may be formulated as follows : —
Ego being male, my male cousin is my brother-in-law — that is, he may take my sister to wife. My female
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 89
cousin is my wife — i.e., she is a woman whom I may take to wife.
Hence it is manifest that a man has brothers-in-law, but no sisters-in-law.
Ego being female, my male cousin* is my husband — i.e., he may take me to wife. My female cousin is my sister-in-law — i,e., she is a woman whom my brother may take to wife.
Hence it is manifest that a woman has sisters-in-law, but no brothers-in-law.
PROPOSITION XIII.
" Ego being male, the children of my male cousins are my nephews and nieces, and the children of my female cousins are my sons and daughters."
Ego being male, my male cousin is my brother-in-law. (Prop. XII.)
Therefore his children are my sister's children.
But the children of my sister's children are my nephews •and nieces. (Prop. II.)
Therefore the children of my male cousins are my nephews and nieces.
Again, Ego being male, my female cousin is my wife. (Prop. XII.)
Therefore her children are my sons and daughters.
Wherefore, «fec., Q.E.D.
In like manner it may be shown that, Ego being female, the children of my male cousins are my sons and daughters, and the children of my female cousins are my nephews and nieces.
* I am told that, in some parts of Ireland at the present day, a girl will sometimes reveal the state of her affections to the youth on whom she has set her heart, by saying, "I wish I were your cousin." And this is understood to be an oflfer of marriage.
90 KAMILAEOI MARRIAGE.
PROPOSITION XIV.
"All the brothers and sisters of my grandfather, and those of my grandmother, are my grandfathers and grand- mothers."
This follows as a corollary from Proposition V.
SUMMARY OF RELATIONSHIPS.
In order to understand the classificatory relationships, we must dismiss from our minds our own notions of relation- ship. We are accustomed to think of it as a relation between individual and individual : but we must bear in mind the well-established fact that to the savage the group is the individual. Where we have any one person in our mind in considering relationship, he has in his mind a number of persons, who collectively make up the group the relationship of which he has under considei^ation ; and every one of those persons bears to all other persons in the tribe the relationship which his, or her, group bears to their respective groups. In other words, relationship, whether consanguinity or affinity, is conceived between gi'oup and group ; and as is the relationship of Group A to Group B, sa is the relationship of each member of Group A to all the members of Group B, and vice versa.
The relationships between three generations include all the degrees with which we need concern ourselves. Above grandfathers the terms are generally second grandfather, third, fourth, and so on, or simply " ancestors."* Below grandchildren the terms are second grandchild, third, fourth, and so on, or simply " descendants." Sometimes apparently anomalous terms of great interest present themselves for
* Some tribes have no term for grandparents.
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 91
these degrees, but we cannot stop to notice them here. The relationships then may be classified as follows : —
I. — Relationships on the same level — i.e., between groups- in the same generation.
II. — Relationships between the first generation and the second.
III. — Relationships between the first generation and the third.
I. — Relationships on the same level.
1st Phratria.* 2nd Phratria.
Kumite. Kumitegoe, Kroki. Krokigor.
Kroki. Kumite.
On the same level in each phratria, as shown in the diagram, there are two groups, one male and the other female, making four groups in a generation. And the relationships are —
(a) Between the groups in the same phratria.
(/3) Between each group in one phratria and those of the other.
(o) Relationships between the groups in the same phratria..
Group Kumite is brother to Group Kumitegor —
That is to say, every Kumite is brother to all the Kumite- gors : he is also brother to the other Kumites.
Every Kumitegor is sister to all the Kumites, as well as. to all the other Kumitegors.
So also with Groups Kroki and Krokigor.
Hence the term " my brother " does not necessarily single out the son of my actual father or of my actual mother.
* The same results are obtained from diagrams of a pair of intermarrying^ gentes — say Emu and Kangaroo. I use the terms gens and phratria here for the sake of convenience, asking permission to waive for the present any question that may arise as to their propriety.
92 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
Ego being male, it means a man of my own group.
Ego being female, it means a man of the group which is " brother" to my group.
So, also, the term " my sister " does not necessarily mean the daughter of my own father or my o"«ti mother.
Ego being male, it means a woman of the group which is " sister " to my group.
Ego being female, it means a woman of my own group.
(/3) Relationships between each group of one phratria and those of the other : —
Group Kumite is the husband of Group KJrokigor.
Group Kroki is the husband of Group Kumitegor.
Hence Group Kumite and Group Kroki are brothers-in- law.
Group Kumitegor and Group Krokigor are sisters-in- law. That is to say, every Kumite has (theoretically) marital rights over all Krokigors. Every Kroki has (theoretically) marital rights over all Kumitegors.
Hence the terms "husband" and "wife" do not necessarily imply actual marriage. They indicate mutual rights of cohabitation.
The term "my brother-in-law" does not necessarily single" out the actual husband of my own sister. It indicates a man belonging to a group which has the right of cohabit- ing with the group which is " sister " to my own.
So also with the term " sister-in-law. "
II. — Relationships between the first generation and the second.
Kumite. Kumitegor. Kroki. Krokigob.
Kroki. Kumite.
KUMITE-B. KUMITEGOR-B. KROKI-B. KROKIGOR-B.
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 9$:
Group Kroki is the father of Groups Kumite B and Kumitegor B.
Hence every Kroki calls every Kumite B " my son," and every Kumitegor B " my daughter." Every Kumite B, and every Kumitegor B, call every Kroki " my father."
Group Kumitegor is the mother of Groups Kumite B and Kumitegor B.
Hence every Kumitegor calls every Kumite B " my son," and every Kumitegor B " my daughter ; " and they call every Kumitegor " my mother."
So also with the relationships between Group Kumite and Groups Kroki B and Krokigor B ; also between Group Krokigor and those groups.
Again, Group Kumite is the father of Group Krokigor B, which is the wife of Group Kumite B ; Group Kumite is also the father of Group Kroki B, which is the husband of Group Kumitegor B. Therefore, Group Kumite is father- in-law (or uncle) to Groups Kumite B and Kumitegor B.
So also Group Kroki is father-in-law to Groups Kroki B and Krokigor B,
For a like reason Group Kumitegor is the mother-in-law (or aunt) of Groups Kroki B and Krokigor B.
And Group Krokigor is the mother-in-law (or aunt) of Groups Kumite B and Kumitegor B.
Hence every Kumite B is the son-in-law (or nephew) of every Kumite and of every Krokigor ; and every Kumitegor B is their daughter-in-law (or niece).
So also every Kroki B is the son-in-law of every Kroki and of every Kumitegor; and every Krokigor B is their daughter-in-law.
Hence the term " my father-in-law" does not necessarily single out the actual father of my actual wife. It indicates a man of a group with whose daughters my group has the right of cohabitation.
-94 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE.
So also with the terms mother-in-law, son-in-law, and daughter- in-law.
III. — Relationships between the first generation and the third.
Kumite. Kttmitegor. Kroki. Krokigor.
Kroki. Kumite.
I I
Kumite-b. | Ku^nTEGOR-B. Kroki-b. | Krokigor-b.
Kroki-b. Kumite-b.
Kumite-c. | Kumitegor-c. Kroki-c. | Krokigor-c.
These are very simple.
Groups Kumite C and Kumitegor C are the grand- children—
Of Group Kumite, because its son. Group Kroki B, is their father ; also of Group Krokigor, for the same reason.
Of Group Kumitegor, because its daughter, Group Kumitegor B, is their mother ; also of Group Kroki, for the same reason.
That is to say, all the groups of the third generation are grandchildren to all the groups of the first.
Hence the term " my gTandfather" applies to all the males of my tribe in the generation next above that of my father ; the term " my grandmother" applies to all the women of my tribe in that generation.*
Hence it is manifest that —
1. — On the same level the relationships are —
Within a phratria, brother and sister — consanguinity only.
Between the phratrise, husband and wife, brother-in-law and sister-in-law — affinity only.
* Here, probably, we find the reason why many tribes have no terms for grandparents.
THE TERMS OF KINSHIP. 95
2, — Between the first generation and the second the relationships are —
Within a phratria, mother and child, father-in-law and son (or daughter) -in-law.
Between the phratri?e, father and child, mother-in-law and son (or daughter) -in-law.
Both within a phratria and between the phratrife, there are relationships of consanguinity and others of affinity.
3. — Between the first generation and the third the relationships are grandparents and grandchildren.
APPENDIX A.
At the risk of incurring a little harmless ridicule, I will endeavour to set forth the systems of group relationship more clearly by means of the following diagram. My excuse for presenting it here is that it has often helped me in my own study of this somewhat perplexing subject, showing to the eye at a glance what the mind does not readily perceive and retain without some such aid. I have used the diagram many hundreds of times in determining particular relationships among savage tribes, and it has never failed. Of course, when the relationship is more remote, it needs extension ; but, how far soever it may be extended, it never changes its form. And in its simple form now given it shows all that is necessary to the understanding of the classificatory relationships.
John Smith and John Brown, two first cousins, marry one another's sisters. Each has a son John and a daughter Jane. These first cousins marry, and have issue, a son and a daughter to each marriage. The same christian names are continued.
96 KAMILAROI MAERIAGE.
The surnames represent the two intermarrying phratrife^ or gentes. The christian names represent the sex of the- gTOups.
No. I.— DESCENT THROUGH MALES.
( Turanian System.)
M. gens. N. gens.
John Smith. Jane Smith. John Brown. Jane Brown>
Jane Brown. Jane Smith.
John Smith.^ | Jane Smith.^ John Brown.- | Jane Brown.' Jane Brown. ^ Jane Smith. -
Smiths.' Browns.'
No. II.— DESCENT THROUGH FEMALES.
(Ganotvanian System.)
M. gens. N. gens.
John Smith. Jane Smith. John Brown. Jane Brown.
John Brown. John Smith.
John Smith. '^ | Jane Smith.- John Brown.- | Jane Brown. ^
John Brown.* John Smith.-
Smiths.' Browns.'
Precisely as are the relationships between the individuals in the diagram, so are the group relationships of inter- marrying gentes. No. I. shows the system as it appears in tribes like the Fijians, who have descent through the father. No. II. shows the system as it is found in tribes like the Kamilaroi, who have descent through the mother. The composition of the gens, also, is shown in each case.
GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP :
BY
LORIMER FISON,
CHAPTER I.
Morgan's Theory — M'Lennan's Theory of Kinship Terms — The Group Eelationships are Real Relationships — Lubbock's Theory of the Four Classes — The Ancient Gens — Kamilaroi— Half-sister Marriage — Endogamy and Exogamy— Distinction between Relationship through Females and Descent through Females^Orestes' Plea before the Areopagus — Marriage not a Contract, but a Status — The Social Unit — Inheritance of the Sister's Son.
The characteristics of the Turanian system (as shown in Morgan's
theory.
Chap. IV. of Kamilaroi Marriage, &;c.) were drawn by Mr. Morgan from the terms of kinship found by himself and his helpers in everyday use among many tribes in every quarter of the world. The hypothesis on which he accounts for them is that they are the result of a reformatory movement prohibiting the once-prevalent intermarriage of brothers and sisters. His theory, therefore, as a whole, requires the former prevalence of what he calls the Malayan system with the consanguine family — that is to say, com- munal marriage of all the males within a tribe which is not divided into intermarrying classes, to all the females of the same generation, those males and those females being, con- sequently, at once tribal brothers and sisters and husbands and wives.
With that system we have little to do in this memoir, which deals with the Australian classes, whose system is the Turanian, or, rather, the Ganowanian, not the Malayan. But it may be observed, in passing, that sister-marriage is well known to have been no uncommon occurrence in the
100 GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP.
past, and that survivals of it may be found even at the present day. Ellis gives an instance which came under his notice at Hawaii : —
"Among the reignmg families," he says, "brothers and sisters marry. This custom, so revolting to every idea of moral propriety, appears to have been long in use, and very recently a marriage was proposed at Maui between the young prince and princess, both children of the same parents. A council of chiefs was held on the subject, and all were favourable. . . . The individuals them- selves are entirely passive in the affair." (" Polynesian Researches," vol. iv., p. 435.)
This is not a marriage with the half-sister, which is found elsewhere among otherwise exogamous tribes. The pair were brother and sister of full blood. Other modern instances might be given, showing that sister-marriage is still permitted, either for the preservation of a certain strain of blood, or for the transmission of property in a certain line. We have also to take into consideration the fact that the terms of kinship in present use by the Hawaiians, Samoans, Rotumans, and other South Sea Islanders, are precisely those which would logically spring from such marriages, though they do not represent present usage.
Given a community with the Malayan system in force — • in other words, a state of society such as that indicated by the Dieri legend of the Murdu quoted at the beginning of the introductory chapter — and it is evident that the division of the community into tM'o exogamous intermarrying classes, like Kumite and Ki-oki, Avould have precisely the reformatory effect which Mr. Morgan's theory requires, Kumite may not marry Kumitegor ; and, since all his sisters, own and collateral, must be Kumitegor, this rule is simply a prohibition of sister-marriage, extending to tribal sisters as well as to own sisters. Mr. Morgan's theoretical divisions, induced from the terms of kinshij), are identical with the two classes, found in Australia and elsewhere, of
M'LENNAN'S THEORY. 101
M^hich those terms of kinship have been shown to be the logical outcome.
So far, then, his case appears to be complete ; unless we M'Len- •can bring ourselves to agree with Mr. M'Lennan, that the theory of terms belong to a mere system of addresses, invented by terms, .savages for the purpose of enabling them to call one another by unreal titles of kinship. But, as already stated, there .are tribes whose terms of kinship are those of the Turanian system, and who, nevertheless, do not employ them in .addressinor one another. Moreover, the facts brouo-ht forward in the preceding chapters show clearly that the relationships expressed by those terms are as real to the Australians as are ours to ourselves. We can hardly believe that the term luife, for instance, if it were no more than a mere form of address, would carry with it veritable ■conjugal rights ;* and still less can we believe that a man's taking to wife a woman who is in nowise akin to him according to our system, but whose brother he is according to the Australian, could be a capital offence unless the relationship between the parties were a real one in the eyes
* " Veritable conjugal rights." — It is not asserted that these rights actually exist at the present day wherever the Turanian terms of kinship are found. The oft-repeated caution must be borne in mind, that present usage is everywhere in advance of the system revealed by the tei'nis of kinship. Among the Australian tribes which have the Kamilaroi organization we have seen that the term wife does actually, to a certain •extent, carry with it conjugal rights wherever it applies ; and even in far more advanced tribes the old range of the term is not wholly forgotten. Among the Fijian tribes, for instance, who have the patriarchal form of the family — polygamy with agnatic descent — the term "my wife" is applied to my brother's wife, and is something more than a mere form of address. A man's actual assertion of the old right it expresses is looked upon with an indulgent eye, if the parties are discreet enough to keep their affairs from being noised abroad. Though the practice was forbidden, it was winked at by those most nearly concerned, unless open scandal followed, in which •case much virtuous indignation was displayed by the very tribe's folk who secretly allow themselves the same indulgence. This shows that the prohibition of the old license had not acquired the force of a moral -obligation.
102 GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP.
of the natives. Its reality is shown, not only l)y the infliction of the penalty, but by its motive also. The act is looked upon by the aborigines with abhorrence, and is severely punished, because it appears to them an offence against morality, such as incest is to us. It is a pollution of the entire group to which the offenders belong.
This statement may perhaps be ridiculed by those who consider savages to be " almost entirely wanting in moral feeling;" but to accuse savages of immorality because they are not moral according to our code of morality is both unreasonable and unjust. We can judge the quality of an action only by bringing it to the standard with which we are acquainted ; and no more can be expected of any man than that he regulate his conduct by the law of right which is within his knowledge. As far, at least, as the inter-sexual regulations are concerned, this is done with all strictness by the Australian tribes, excepting those who have become demoralized by their contact with a civiliza- tion which, while teaching them to disregard their own moral code, neglected to teach them a better one.
The group relationships seem unreal to us only because we look at -them from our own point of view; but not so do they appear to the savage. They are as real to him as our own are to us ; and they bring to him the rights, the duties, and the prohibitions which ours bring to us. He has the rights of a brother, and he acknowledges the duties of a brother, towards every man of his own group ; and he can no more marry a woman of a group which is " sister " to his own than we can marry our own sister.
Nor is the marriage relationship less real. AVe have seen that wherever a Kamilaroi native goes among tribes whose organization is that of his own, he finds the marital rights of the group to which he belongs, over the women of the group which is " wife " to his own, acknowledged by hia
M'LENNAN'S THEORY. 103
hosts ; and he is as ready to acknowledge their rights in return if they become his guests.
That the group relationships are real relationships to the native mind is further shown by the curious feeling manifested among savages between those who are connec- tions by marriage, and especially between mother-in-law and son-in-law. It is well known that this frequently takes the form of mutual shame and avoidance, and exhibits itself in all manner of ludicrous ways. As, for instance ■ when an Australian and his mother-in-law, compelled to address one another, stand back to back, and yell at the top of their voices, feigning to be far apart. Or as when a Kafir woman, meeting her son-in-law in the path, squats behind a bush, while he passes on hiding his face behind his shield. I once saw a man of the Wangaratta tribe (Australia) full of the utmost distress and disgust because his mother-in-law's shadow had fallen across his legs. He had been lying at the foot of an enormous gum-tree, which hid him from the old lady's view as she approached, and so the catastrophe occurred. In some tribes this feeling exhibits itself in another form — that of respectful formality between such connections. They are ceremoniously polite to one another, always using the respectful forms of address — e.g., the pronouns in the dual or the plural instead of the singular — and in all things treating one another with a certain formal courtesy, as if they were strangers of rank, to whom such respect is due.
These customs — whether the mutual shame or the mutual respect — seem to have sprung from the same motive.* Certainly they have the same efiect. Their result is an avoidance of familiarity between the 'parties.
* Sir John Lubbock supposes the mutual avoidance of mother-in-law and son-in-law to be the result of marriage by capture. I venture to think that his theory does not account for the facts.
104 GROUP MARKIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP.
And when we consider who the parties are, the customs explain themselves. It will be seen at a glance from the diagram showing the relationships between the First generation and the Second that a man's mother-in-law is a woman of the same class name with his wife. That is, she is one of a class of women who are his wives, but she herself is forbidden to him, and must therefore keep out of his w^ay, as he on his part must keep out of hers. The slightest familiarity between them would be indecent — nay more, it would be pollution, bringing down who knows what terrible punishment from the Unseen Powers. Hence the ludicrous shifts to which these relatives resort. Among the Fijians the same mutual avoidance is seen between brother and sister, whether they be children of the same parents or not. They will not so much as look at one another. The word for the relationship between them is Ngane, and the verb formed from it means " to shun." The Fijian shuns his sister for the same reason that an Australian avoids his mother-in-law. She is a woman who is specially forbidden to him, and the very touch of such a woman would be pollution. These customs are powerful aids in enforcing the moral code as it exists among such tribes.
Group relationship also furnishes the reason why a person who is adopted into a gens forthwith abandons all the relationships of his own gens, and takes those of the gens into which he is adopted. Relationship being conceived, not between individual and individual, but between group and group, the relationships of the group into which he enters by adoption must necessarily bind him, as they bind all those who are members of it by birth ; and, as necessarily, his former relationships must fall from him as he enters the new group. This also goes to prove that the group relationships are true relationships. We cannot
M'LENNAN'S THEORY. 105
suppose that the Iroquois Wolves, for instance, who, as Mr. Morgan tells us, were taken into the Hawk gens by adoption,* considered their Hawk relationships to be unreal, any more than we can suppose that a Roman who was adopted looked upon his solemn detestatlo sacrorum, and transitio in sacra, as indicating nothing more than a change from one " system of addresses " to another.
Another remarkable proof that the group relationships are real to the savage mind presents itself in the well-known fact that, in many tribes who have descent through females, the son-in-law is bound to provide food for his father-in-law in times of peace, and to fight on his side in war. Thus, an Australian native cannot do as he pleases with the game he kills. He must share it out according to certain established rules ; and, in Mr. Howitt's carefully-prepared list of food distribution among the Kurnai, we see that the best joints are given to the wife's father. That a man has to fight on his father-in-law's side has been noticed by several observers of savage life among: tribes who have uterine succession : and it is worthy of note that this duty still devolves upon him in some tribes, who, though they have advanced to descent through males, have not yet been able to free them- selves from the traditions of the older line. Thus the Rev. R. Taylor says of the Maori, who keep records carved in wood of long lines of male ancestors, and whose songs carry back those lines to the nichts und alles,f that the son-in-law
* "Ancient Society," p. 81.
t " Very little, " says the Rev. R. Taylor, "is thought of a chief who cannot count back some twenty or thirty generations, and the high families carry theirs even to the beginning of all things. I once obtained a pedigree of this kind, beginning with na kore i al — from the Nothing the Something — which went on gradually introducing name after name, and at last terminating with that of the speaker." (" Te Ika a Maui," p. 325.)
This genealogy begins with The Nothing, whence came, iu orderly sequence, the power of increasing, the living breath, the atmosphere, the firmament, the heavenly bodies, the dawn, the morning, the day, the earth, the god
106 GROUP MAEPJAGE AND PELATIOXSHIP.
had to go into his father-in-law's Jiapu (clan), and, " in case of war, was often obliged to fight against his own relatives."*
The reason of this custom, and the probability of its frequent prevalence among the lower savages, is seen in the fact that it is the logical result of their group relationships, when descent is through the mother. It is not that a man has to leave his own clan, in order to go into his father-in- law's, when he marries. He is of his father-in-law's division by birth. Thus, if Dog and Snake be the totems, or badges, of two intermarrying clans with descent through females, the daughter of Dog (male) is Snake, and the son of Snake (male) is Dog. This Dog, the son of Snake, marries Snake, the daughter of Dog. In other words, father-in-law and son-in-law are of the same division. See also the forejroinir summary of relationships between the first generation and the second (ante, p. 92), where it is shown that Kumite B is the son-in-law of Kumite.
The foregoing considerations will, I think, be admitted as a sufficient answer to Mr. M'Lennan's question now to be quoted, as well as a sufficient refutation of the strong state- ment he makes in his own reply to the question he puts. " What duties or rights," he asks, " are aflfected by the
Eu, and so on, until we come to the exalted mortal at the end of the series. Pride in a long pedigree is no mere " ecstasy of the fancy," as Buckle called it. It is a " survival in culture" of an old savage notion, -which was reasonable enough in its day, when he who was not the full-born descendant of full-born ancestors could not even have a place in the clan except on sufferance.
* This custom, which may be said to be the rule in Australia among the tribes of Kainilaroi organization, was evidently on its way to extinction among the Maori. This is manifest from the fact that there was stout rebellion against it on the part of the young men, doubtless backed up by the agnates. Some of them, witliin Mr. Taylor's knowledge, refused to obey the custom, and lost their wives in consequence ; and whenever there is so much opposition to an ancient custom among savages, we may be sure that a new custom has gained a footing strong enough to afford a sanction to the malcontents. (" Te Ika a Maui," p. 3.37.)
LUBBOCK'S THEORY. 107
'relationships' comprised in the classificatory system? Absolutely none. They are barren of consequences, except, indeed, as comprising a code of courtesies and ceremonial addresses in social intercourse."*
Sir John Lubbock sufjcrests that the four intermarrying Lubbock's
. p theory of
classes might arise out of marriage by capture among tour the four neighbouring tribes, who had the custom of exogamy with descent through the mother.
"After a certain time," he observes, "the result would be that each tribe would consist of four septs or clans, re^jresenting the original tribes ; and hence we should find communities in which each is divided into clans, and a man must always marry a women of another clan." (" Origin," &c., p. 87.)
This is a possible hypothesis, but we have no need to search for hypothetical solutions of the question. The Australian divisions — which are tangible facts before our eyes at the present day — show that the four classes, and the gentes also, arose out of two primary divisions by an orderly process of evolution, such as might be expected from the forces at work. Granted the consanguine family, the prohibition of sister-marriage would give us two exogamous intermarrying classes — the Queensland Yungaru and Wutaru for instance ; and we have seen how these subdivided into four, Gurgela, Burbia, Wungo, and Kuberu, and into other subdivisions distinguished by totems.
But, although the primary divisions were subdivided, they held all the subdivisions bound by their law. The four classes, for instance, are pei-fect in form, but they are not independent. They are like two pairs of Siamese twins, each individual being fully developed, and yet bound to his fellow by an unseverable ligament which prevents inde- pendent action. The bond here is the old law, " No
* "Studies," &c., p. 3C6.
108 GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP.
marriage within either of the primary divisions." If that law did not continue to bind the subdivisions, Gurofela, for instance, could marry a woman from any one of the three remaining subdivisions, whereas he can only marry into the other primary division Wutaru, and into one only of its subdivisions (Table C). Each of the two primary divisions is, in fact, an imperfectly developed curia or i^hratria (phratry, as Mr. Morgan sensibly anglicizes it) ; and the four classes, as well as the totemic subdivisions, are gentes within a phratria. The This use of the term " gens " may seem improper to the
ancient ° -' l r
Oens. student, before whose mind the word calls up the Greek yt'roc and the Roman gens ; but I venture to say, that when the social organizations of savaofe tribes are more fully understood, it will be seen that their exogamous intermarrying class is but the archaic form of the Roman gens, that the two are the same institution in different stages of growth, as Mr. Morgan has shown in his " Ancient Society," and that the same term may be correctly applied to both. To secure precision, it may be desirable to make a distinction between the gens which, like the Australian, has descent through the mother, and that which, like the Roman, has agnatic descent. But this is only a question of convenient nomenclature. It is not worth while to dispute about a mere " question of words and names." Our family is not the Roman familia, nor is our household the old Teutonic household ; but no one disputes the propriety of the terms, whether they be applied to our institutions or to those others.
Professor Hearn, in his admirable work on the " Aryan Household," argues correctly that the gens is neither an artificial association nor an aggregation of originally inde- pendent households ; but he proceeds to assert that it is the outcome of a household : —
THE ANCIENT GENS. 109
" From the simple homogeneous household are evolved numerous distinct and related households, which, in the aggregate, form a whole, and that whole is the gens." " Aryan Household," p. 168.)
On the same page, however, we read : —
*' There were gentes before familite ; and, after familise were known, there were gentes without familiar. The clan separated into house- holds, but the separate households did not by any voluntary association form a clan. "
I am not sure that I have grasped his meaning here. The two statements appear to be contradictory ; for, if the gens were evolved from the household, how could there be " gentes before familiar ? " Setting this aside, his theory seems to be that the gens, or clan, separated into house- holds ; and that from some at least of these households — sav, from each of those which were successful in the strucjale for existence — a gens w^as evolved. These gentes, we may suppose, would again separate into households, which would again expand into gentes. So that we have an alternate series of clans dividing into households, and households growing into clans ; but the original " simple homogeneous household" at the beginnino- of the series remains unaccounted for.*
Doubtless there were clans so formed after descent came into the male line ; but there were clans of an earlier date than these. There are gentes among many tribes who have descent through females ; and these could not have been evolved from a household such as that of which Professor Hearn treats in his valuable work ; for there cannot be such a household without a house-father, and there cannot be a house-father until descent comes to be reckoned through males. . The gens, therefore, being older than
* It should be noted that Professor Hearn expressly disclaims any inten- tion of tracing the household back to the remoter past.
110 GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP.
the household, is, d fortiori, older than the gens which was evolved from a household. It is as old as the first division of an endogamous commune into two exogamous intermarrying classes. It is needless to say that the gens of the nomad hunters — especially in so early a stage of their history as that which the Australian reveals — does not coincide with that of the civilized dwellers in cities. Like other institutions, it adapted itself to the changing conditions through which the races passed as they advanced from savagery, or barbarism, to civilization ; but it never so far changed its aspect as to be beyond recog- nition, and I am persuaded that we shall yet be able to trace the successive stages of its development in the present usage of savage tribes, if we bestir ourselves to ascertain that usage before the tribes are " improved off the face of the earth." The great desideratum now is to trace the change of descent from the female line to the male.* From this point the gens — to use a nautical phrase — " takes a fresh departure," and the formation of the household, with its ancestral worship, becomes only a question of time.
Professor Hearn follows De Coulanges in taking ancestral worship as the basis of relationship ; but in the earlier form of the gens the bond of union was certainly relationship and not community of worship. We have instances of female eponyms — the Darling River Kilpara and Mukwara are such instances — but I know of no case in which worship of female ancestors is practised among savage tribes. Mr. Morgan observes that the North American Indians,
"Though they had a polytheistic system not much unlike that from which the Greek and the Roman must have sprung, had not attained that religious development which was so strongly impressed upon the gentes of the latter tribes. It can scarcely be said that any Indian
* [In the Ktimai we have a community, as it were in the act of change from descent in the female to descent in the male line. — A. W. H.]
THE ANCIENT GENS. Ill
gens had special religious rites ; and yet their religious worship had a more or less direct connection with the gentes." (" Ancient Society," p. 81.)
I think it can be shown that they could not possibly have " attained that religious development," the reason being that, with a few exceptions, they had not reached descent through the father.
Ancestral worship seems clearly to have been an outcome of descent through males. At all events, there must have been this descent before there could be that worship. For, since the household gods were the male ancestors, the forefathers must have come into the direct line of descent before there could be household gods. And, when ancestral worship had become established, men worshipped the same gods because they were related — because they were descended from the same forefathers who had grown into gods. A common worship, therefore, was necessarily a mark of common descent ; for the gods worshipped were the ancestors, and none but their descendants, either by birth or by adoption, could offer sacrifices to them. But the worship depended on the relationship, not the relationship on the worship. The worship was a mark of the relationship : the relationship was the cause of the worship. When descent comes into the male line, the eponym takes the place of the totem, and his subsequent deification is a simple growth.*
* We cannot draw a line beyond which offerings to the dead cease to be mere acts of filial piety, and become acts of worship, pre-supposing deifica- tion. The savage does not think that death removes his ancestors entirely from him. In some way or other, which he does not trouble himself to account for, they are still present with him, even though they have made the long journey to Hades, and they are in want of those things which they needed in this life. Hence he makes offerings to them of food and other useful things, just as he furnishes his living elders with such articles, and for the same reason — because they have the claim of kinship upon him. But it can scarcely be said that the presentation of such offerings amoiants to deification. The ancestors grow into gods, and then what were mere acts of filial piety become acts of worship.
112 GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP.
It is true that many persons were brought into the gens by adoption ; and so there were men who were in nowise related according to our notions of relationship, but who nevertheless shared in the common worship. But the gens exercised the right of adoption long before it practised ancestral worship. The admission, therefore, of the adopted to the sacra of the gens could not have been the basis of their admission to its relationships. They were admitted to those relationships before the sacra were established. Amono- tribes who have descent through the mother at the present day, the gens has the power of assimilating members of other gentes by adoption, and these persons, when adopted, necessarily* enter forthwith into all the relation- ships belonging to true-born members of the gens.^f*
The fact that ancestral worship is consequent on the change of descent from the female line to the male explains the facts that the household god is always a male, and that the celebration of his worship is limited to males. Professor Hearn observes —
"It is remarkable that the house spirit is always masculine." ("Aryan Household," p. 148.)
And again —
" Admitting the worship of the house spirit, why was that spirit a male, and never a female ? Why, too, was the celebration of his worship always limited to males ? Until an answer can be given to these (luestions, our explanation of the subject, although it may be true as far as it goes, is obviously incomplete." {Ibid., p. 103.)
The answers to these questions seem to me to be very simple, and to be clearly given by the laws of marriage and
* See page 104.
t [It seoins to me that the formal presentation of female captives to the head man and a council of elders in the Gournditch-mara tribe before being given to their future husbands, points strongly to adoption. — See Part II., Appendix F.— A.W.H.]
THE ANCIENT GENS. 113
descent. Let M and N be two intermarrying gentes, three generations being represented, the males by capitals, and the females by small letters, while the successive descents are noted by figures. Descent is in the male line.
|
M |
m |
|
M' |
ml |
|
M* |
m»j |
|
N |
n |
|
N' |
n» |
|
N"- |
n» |
When the marriages take place, m, m^, m- — that is, all the women of M efens — go over in marrias:e to N ofens : n, n^, n^ go over to M gens, and the gentes become —
M n N m
M» n' N' ml
M* n^ N^ m^"
Each gens, therefore, consists of males who are married to women of another gens. The women forfeit their own agnatic rights without acquiring similar rights in the gens of their husbands. They abandon their own line of descent without gaining a place in the other line. If any one of them do not marry, she may remain in her own gens, but she cannot transmit its blood. She cannot have a legitimate child, and therefore she cannot become an ancestor. The gens, therefore, virtually consists of males alone. Hence it is manifest that, since the ancestors are the household gods, the house spirit can be none other than a male, for all the female members are of another gens. For the same reason the celebration of his worship is necessarily limited to males. The only females who could join in that worship by right of birth forfeited their birthright by marrying into another gens ; and none but males are left to make the offering. " No female," says Professor Hearn, " is counted
9
114 GROUP MAKRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP.
in the line of descent, because no offering is made to a female ancestor." But the fact is that no female is counted in the line of descent for the sufficient reason that no female can possibly be in that line when descent is through males. Every female ancestor was a woman of another line, and therefore no offering could be made to her.
But though this is known to have been the rule among Aryan nations, it is probable that there was a time in their history when females, and not males, were reckoned as the ancestors. It is certain that some of those nations formerly counted descent through the mother; and further investiga- tion will, I think, show a strong probability that this was the general rule. At all events, it can be proved that tribes with whose present usage our forefathers Avould find themselves quite at home, advanced from that rule to the reofulations now in force anions them. The more advanced Fijian tribes, for instance, have descent through males, agnatic relationship, and ancestral worship. They have village communities consisting of clans which are made up of households. They have the mark, of which each clan, and each household, knows its share. Within the l-oro, or village, they have the precinct under the dominion of the house father, often surrounded by its own fence, and the position of its house, or houses, regulated by the allowance for eavesdrip. In short, their status and regulations might be set forth in terms which would roughly serve for the Aryan tribes. And it is beyond question that they formerly had descent through females. Unmistakable marks of that line of descent are to be seen even on the most advanced tribes ; others still bring the sister's son into the line of succession, while others again are divided into two exogamous intermarrying classes with descent through the mother, like the Kurnite and Kroki of South Australia.
MARRIAGE WITH THE HALF-SISTER. 115
The Kamilaroi marriage with the paternal half-sister is The specially interesting in that it affords an instance of rebellion mkniage against the class law. It is a partially-successful assertion half-sister. of the independent right of a gens to choose its own wives where it will, provided always that it go beyond its own boundaries in choosing them. We should not have expected to find it among savages of so low a type as the Australian ; for, as far as it goes, it is a defiance of the rule which was long obeyed by the gentes even in nations of a high culture. It is marriage within a phratria.
It will be observed that this innovation of the Kamilaroi can result in marriage with the half-sister