Custom and Myth Part 8

The perusal of Mr. Max Muller's book deeply impresses one with the necessity of studying early religions and early societies simultaneously. If it be true that early Indian religion lacked precisely those superst.i.tions, so childish, so grotesque, and yet so useful, which we find at work in contemporary tribes, and which we read of in history, the discovery is even more remarkable and important than the author of the 'Hibbert Lectures' seems to suppose. It is scarcely necessary to repeat that the negative evidence of the Vedas, the religious utterances of sages, made in a time of what we might call 'heroic culture,' can never disprove the existence of superst.i.tions which, if current in the former experience of the race, the hymnists, as Barth observes, would intentionally ignore. Our object has been to defend the 'primitiveness of fetichism.' By this we do not mean to express any opinion as to whether fetichism (in the strictest sense of the word) was or was not earlier than totemism, than the wors.h.i.+p of the dead, or than the involuntary sense of awe and terror with which certain vast phenomena may have affected the earliest men. We only claim for the powerful and ubiquitous practices of fetichism a place among the early elements of religion, and insist that what is so universal has not yet been shown to be 'a corruption' of something older and purer.

One remark of Mr. Max Muller's fortifies these opinions. If fetichism be indeed one of the earliest factors of faith in the supernatural; if it be, in its rudest forms, most powerful in proportion to other elements of faith among the least cultivated races (and that Mr. Muller will probably allow)-among what cla.s.s of cultivated peoples will it longest hold its ground? Clearly, among the least cultivated, among the fishermen, the shepherds of lonely districts, the peasants of outlying lands-in short, among the people. Neglected by sacred poets in the culminating period of purity in religion, it will linger among the superst.i.tions of the rustics. There is no real break in the continuity of peasant life; the modern folklore is (in many points) the savage ritual. Now Mr. Muller, when he was minimising the existence of fetichism in the Rig Veda (the oldest collection of hymns), admitted its existence in the atharvana (p. 60). {241} On p. 151, we read 'the Atharva-veda-Sanhita is a later collection, containing, besides a large number of Rig Veda verses, some curious relics of popular poetry connected with charms, imprecations, and other superst.i.tious usages.' The italics are mine, and are meant to emphasise this fact:-When we leave the sages, the Ris.h.i.+s, and look at what is popular, look at what that cla.s.s believed which of savage practice has everywhere retained so much, we are at once among the charms and the fetiches! This is precisely what one would have expected. If the history of religion and of mythology is to be unravelled, we must examine what the unprogressive cla.s.ses in Europe have in common with Australians, and Bushmen, and Andaman Islanders. It is the function of the people to retain in folklore these elements of religion, which it is the high duty of the sage and the poet to purify away in the fire of refining thought. It is for this very reason that ritual has (though Mr. Max Muller curiously says that it seems not to possess) an immense scientific interest. Ritual holds on, with the tenacity of superst.i.tion, to all that has ever been practised. Yet, when Mr. Muller wants to know about origins, about actual ancient practice, he deliberately turns to that 'great collection of ancient poetry' (the Rig Veda) 'which has no special reference to sacrificial acts,' not to the Brahmanas which are full of ritual.

To sum up briefly:-(1) Mr. Muller's arguments against the evidence for, and the primitiveness of, fetichism seem to demonstrate the opposite of that which he intends them to prove. (2) His own evidence for primitive practice is chosen from the doc.u.ments of a cultivated society. (3) His theory deprives that society of the very influences which have elsewhere helped the Tribe, the Family, Rank, and Priesthoods to grow up, and to form the backbone of social existence.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY.

What are the original forms of the human family? Did man begin by being monogamous or polygamous, but, in either case, the master of his own home and the a.s.sured central point of his family relations? Or were the unions of the s.e.xes originally s.h.i.+fting and precarious, so that the wisest child was not expected to know his own father, and family ties were reckoned through the mother alone? Again (setting aside the question of what was 'primitive' and 'original'), did the needs and barbarous habits of early men lead to a scarcity of women, and hence to polyandry (that is, the marriage of one woman to several men), with the consequent uncertainty about male parentage? Once more, admitting that these loose and strange relations of the s.e.xes do prevail, or have prevailed, among savages, is there any reason to suppose that the stronger races, the Aryan and Semitic stocks, ever pa.s.sed through this stage of savage customs? These are the main questions debated between what we may call the 'historical' and the 'anthropological' students of ancient customs.

When Sir Henry Maine observed, in 1861, that it was difficult to say what society of men had not been, originally, based on the patriarchal family, he went, of course, outside the domain of history. What occurred in the very origin of human society is a question perhaps quite inscrutable. Certainly, history cannot furnish the answer. Here the anthropologist and physiologist come in with their methods, and even those, we think, can throw but an uncertain light on the very 'origin' of inst.i.tutions, and on strictly primitive man.

For the purposes of this discussion, we shall here re-state the chief points at issue between the adherents of Sir Henry Maine and of Mr. M'Lennan, between historical and anthropological inquirers.

1. Did man originally live in the patriarchal family, or did he live in more or less modified promiscuity, with uncertainty of blood-ties, and especially of male parentage?

2. Did circ.u.mstances and customs at some time compel or induce man (whatever his original condition) to resort to practices which made paternity uncertain, and so caused kins.h.i.+p to be reckoned through women?

3. Granting that some races have been thus reduced to matriarchal forms of the family-that is, to forms in which the woman is the permanent recognised centre-is there any reason to suppose that the stronger peoples, like the Aryans and the Semites, ever pa.s.sed through a stage of culture in which female, not male, kins.h.i.+p was chiefly recognised, probably as a result of polyandry, of many husbands to one wife?

On this third question, it will be necessary to produce much evidence of very different sorts: evidence which, at best, can perhaps only warrant an inference, or presumption, in favour of one or the other opinion. For the moment, the impartial examination of testimony is more important and practicable than the establishment of any theory.

(1.) Did man originally live in the patriarchal family, the male being master of his female mate or mates, and of his children? On this first point Sir Henry Maine, in his new volume, {247a} may be said to come as near proving his case as the nature and matter of the question will permit. Bachofen, M'Lennan, and Morgan, all started from a hypothetical state of more or less modified s.e.xual promiscuity. Bachofen's evidence (which may be referred to later) was based on a great ma.s.s of legends, myths, and travellers' tales, chiefly about early Aryan practices. He discovered Hetarismus, as he called it, or promiscuity, among Lydians, Etruscans, Persians, Thracians, Cyrenian nomads, Egyptians, Scythians, Troglodytes, Nasamones, and so forth. Mr. M'Lennan's view is, perhaps, less absolutely stated than Sir Henry Maine supposes. M'Lennan says {247b} 'that there has been a stage in the development of the human races, when there was no such appropriation of women to particular men; when, in short, marriage, as it exists among civilised nations, was not practised. Marriage, in this sense, was yet undreamt of.' Mr. M'Lennan adds (pp. 130, 131), 'as among other gregarious animals, the unions of the s.e.xes were probably, in the earliest times, loose, transitory, and, in some degree, promiscuous.'

Sir Henry Maine opposes to Mr. M'Lennan's theory the statement of Mr. Darwin: 'From all we know of the pa.s.sions of all male quadrupeds, promiscuous intercourse in a state of Nature is highly improbable.' {248} On this first question, let us grant to Sir Henry Maine, to Mr. Darwin, and to common sense that if the very earliest men were extremely animal in character, their unions while they lasted were probably monogamous or polygamous. The s.e.xual jealousy of the male would secure that result, as it does among many other animals. Let the first point, then, be scored to Sir Henry Maine: let it be granted that if man was created perfect, he lived in the monogamous family before the Fall: and that, if he was evolved as an animal, the unchecked animal instincts would make for monogamy or patriarchal polygamy in the strictly primitive family.

(2.) Did circ.u.mstances and customs ever or anywhere compel or induce man (whatever his original condition) to resort to practices which made paternity uncertain, and so caused the absence of the patriarchal family, kins.h.i.+p being reckoned through women? If this question be answered in the affirmative, and if the sphere of action of the various causes be made wide enough, it will not matter much to Mr. M'Lennan's theory whether the strictly primitive family was patriarchal or not. If there occurred a fall from the primitive family, and if that fall was extremely general, affecting even the Aryan race, Mr. M'Lennan's adherents will be amply satisfied. Their object is to show that the family, even in the Aryan race, was developed through a stage of loose savage connections. If that can be shown, they do not care much about primitive man properly so called. Sir Henry Maine admits, as a matter of fact, that among certain races, in certain districts, circ.u.mstances have overridden the s.e.xual jealousy which secures the recognition of male parentage. Where women have been few, and where poverty has been great, jealousy has been suppressed, even in the Venice of the eighteenth century. Sir H. Maine says, 'The usage' (that of polyandry-many husbands to a single wife) 'seems to me one which circ.u.mstances overpowering morality and decency might at any time call into existence. It is known to have arisen in the native Indian army.' The question now is, what are the circ.u.mstances that overpower morality and decency, and so produce polyandry, with its necessary consequences, when it is a recognised inst.i.tution-the absence of the patriarchal family, and the recognition of kins.h.i.+p through women? Any circ.u.mstances which cause great scarcity of women will conduce to those results. Mr. M'Lennan's opinion was, that the chief cause of scarcity of women has been the custom of female infanticide-of killing little girls as bouches inutiles. Sir Henry Maine admits that 'the cause a.s.signed by M'Lennan is a vera causa-it is capable of producing the effects.' {249} Mr. M'Lennan collected a very large ma.s.s of testimony to prove the wide existence of this cause of paucity of women. Till that evidence is published, I can only say that it was sufficient, in Mr. M'Lennan's opinion, to demonstrate the wide prevalence of the factor which is the mainspring of his whole system. {250a} How frightfully female infanticide has prevailed in India, everyone may read in the official reports of Col. M'Pherson, and other English authorities. Mr. Fison's 'Kamilaroi and Kurnai' contains some notable, though not to my mind convincing, arguments on the other side. Sir Henry Maine adduces another cause of paucity of women: the wanderings of our race, and expeditions across sea. {250b} This cause would not, however, be important enough to alter forms of kins.h.i.+p, where the invaders (like the early English in Britain) found a population which they could conquer and whose women they could appropriate.

Apart from any probable inferences that may be drawn from the presumed practice of female infanticide, actual ascertained facts prove that many races do not now live, or that recently they did not live, in the patriarchal or modern family. They live, or did live, in polyandrous a.s.sociations. The Thibetans, the Nairs, the early inhabitants of Britain (according to Caesar), and many other races, {251} as well as the inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands, and the Iroquois (according to Lafitau), practise, or have practised, polyandry.

We now approach the third and really important problem-(3.) Is there any reason to suppose that the stronger peoples, like the Aryans and the Semites, ever pa.s.sed through a stage of culture in which female, not male, kins.h.i.+p was chiefly recognised, probably as a result of polyandry?

Now the nature of the evidence which affords a presumption that Aryans have all pa.s.sed through Australian inst.i.tutions such as polyandry, is of extremely varied character. Much of it may undoubtedly be explained away. But such strength as the evidence has (which we do not wish to exaggerate) is derived from its convergence to one point-namely, the anterior existence of polyandry and the matriarchal family among Aryans before and after the dawn of real history.

For the sake of distinctness we may here number the heads of the evidence bearing on this question. We have-

1. The evidence of inference from the form of capture in bridal ceremonies.

2. The evidence from exogamy: the law which forbids marriage between persons of the same family name.

3. The evidence from totemism-that is, the derivation of the family name and crest or badge, from some natural object, plant or animal. {252} Persons bearing the name may not intermarry, nor, as a rule, may they eat the object from which they derive their family name and from which they claim to be descended.

4. The evidence from the gens of Rome, or ye??? of ancient Greece, in connection with Totemism.

5. The evidence from myth and legend.

6. The evidence from direct historical statements as to the prevalence of the matriarchal family, and inheritance through the maternal line.

To take these various testimonies in their order, let us begin with

(1.) The form of capture in bridal ceremonies. That this form survived in Sparta, Crete, in Hindoo law, in the traditions of Ireland, in the popular rustic customs of Wales, is not denied.

If we hold, with Mr. M'Lennan, that scarcity of women (produced by female infanticide or otherwise) is the cause of the habit of capturing wives, we may see, in survivals of this ceremony of capture among Aryans, a proof of early scarcity of women, and of probable polyandry. But an opponent may argue, like Mr. J. A. Farrer in 'Primitive Manners,' that the ceremony of capture is mainly a concession to maiden modesty among early races. Here one may observe that the girls of savage tribes are notoriously profligate and immodest about illicit connections. Only honourable marriage brings a blush to the cheek of these young persons. This is odd, but, in the present state of the question, we cannot lean on the evidence of the ceremony of capture. We cannot demonstrate that it is derived from a time when paucity of women made capture of brides necessary. Thus 'honours are easy' in this first deal.

(2.) The next indication is very curious, and requires much more prolonged discussion. The custom of Exogamy was first noted and named by Mr. M'Lennan. Exogamy is the prohibition of marriage within the supposed blood-kins.h.i.+p, as denoted by the family name. Such marriage, among many backward races, is reckoned incestuous, and is punishable by death. Certain peculiarities in connection with the family name have to be noted later. Now, Sir Henry Maine admits that exogamy, as thus defined, exists among the Hindoos. 'A Hindoo may not marry a woman belonging to the same gotra, all members of the gotra being theoretically supposed to have descended from the same ancestor.' The same rule prevails in China. 'There are in China large bodies of related clansmen, each generally bearing the same clan-name. They are exogamous; no man will marry a woman having the same clan-name with himself.' It is admitted by Sir Henry Maine that this wide prohibition of marriage was the early Aryan rule, while advancing civilisation has gradually permitted marriage within limits once forbidden. The Greek Church now (according to Mr. M'Lennan), and the Catholic Church in the past, forbade intermarriages 'as far as relations.h.i.+p could be known.' The Hindoo rule appears to go still farther, and to prohibit marriage as far as the common gotra name seems merely to indicate relations.h.i.+p.

As to the ancient Romans, Plutarch says: Formerly they did not marry women connected with them by blood, any more than they now marry aunts or sisters. It was long before they would even intermarry with cousins.' Plutarch also remarks that, in times past, Romans did not marry s?yye??da?, and if we may render this 'women of the same gens,' the exogamous prohibition in Rome was as complete as among the Hindoos. I do not quite gather from Sir Henry Maine's account of the Slavonic house communities (pp. 254, 255) whether they dislike all kindred marriages, or only marriage within the 'greater blood'-that is, within the kins.h.i.+p on the male side. He says: 'The South Slavonians bring their wives into the group, in which they are socially organised, from a considerable distance outside... . Every marriage which requires an ecclesiastical dispensation is regarded as disreputable.'

On the whole, wide prohibitions of marriage are archaic: the widest are savage; the narrowest are modern and civilised. Thus the Hindoo prohibition is old, barbarous, and wide. 'The barbarous Aryan,' says Sir Henry Maine, 'is generally exogamous. He has a most extensive table of prohibited degrees.' Thus exogamy seems to be a survival of barbarism. The question for us is, Can we call exogamy a survival from a period when (owing to scarcity of women and polyandry) clear ideas of kins.h.i.+p were impossible? If this can be proved, exogamous Aryans either pa.s.sed through polyandrous inst.i.tutions, or borrowed a savage custom derived from a period when ideas of kins.h.i.+p were obscure.

If we only knew the origin of the prohibition to marry within the family name all would be plain sailing. At present several theories of the origin of exogamy are before the world. Mr. Morgan, the author of 'Ancient Society,' inclines to trace the prohibition to a great early physiological discovery, acted on by primitive men by virtue of a contrat social. Early man discovered that children of unsound const.i.tutions were born of nearly related parents. Mr. Morgan says: 'Primitive men very early discovered the evils of close interbreeding.' Elsewhere Mr. Morgan writes: 'Intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, to secure the benefits of marrying out with unrelated persons.' This arrangement was 'a product of high intelligence,' and Mr. Morgan calls it a 'reform.'

Let us examine this very curious theory. First: Mr. Morgan supposes early man to have made a discovery (the evils of the marriage of near kin) which evades modern physiological science. Modern science has not determined that the marriages of kinsfolk are pernicious. Is it credible that savages should discover a fact which puzzles science? It may be replied that modern care, nursing, and medical art save children of near marriages from results which were pernicious to the children of early man. Secondly: Mr. Morgan supposes that barbarous man (so notoriously reckless of the morrow as he is), not only made the discovery of the evils of interbreeding, but acted on it with prompt.i.tude and self-denial. Thirdly: Mr. Morgan seems to require, for the enforcement of the exogamous law, a contrat social. The larger communities meet, and divide themselves into smaller groups, within which wedlock is forbidden. This 'social pact' is like a return to the ideas of Rousseau. Fourthly: The hypothesis credits early men with knowledge and discrimination of near degrees of kin, which they might well possess if they lived in patriarchal families. But it represents that they did not act on their knowledge. Instead of prohibiting marriage between parents and children, cousins, nephews and aunts, uncles and nieces, they prohibited marriage within the limit of the name of the kin. This is still the Hindoo rule, and, if the Romans really might not at one time marry within the gens, it was the Roman rule. Now observe, this rule fails to effect the very purpose for which ex hypothesi it was inst.i.tuted. Where the family name goes by the male side, marriages between cousins are permitted, as in India and China. These are the very marriages which some theorists now denounce as pernicious. But, if the family name goes by the female side, marriages between half-brothers and half-sisters are permitted, as in ancient Athens and among the Hebrews of Abraham's time. Once more, the exogamous prohibition excludes, in China, America, Africa, Australia, persons who are in no way akin (according to our ideas) from intermarriage. Thus Mr. Doolittle writes: {256} 'Males and females of the same surname will never intermarry in China. Cousins who have not the same ancestral surname may intermarry. Though the ancestors of persons of the same surname have not known each other for thousands of years, they may not intermarry.' The Hindoo gotra rule produces the same effects.

For all these reasons, and because of the improbability of the physiological discovery, and of the moral 'reform' which enforced it; and again, because the law is not of the sort which people acquainted with near degrees of kins.h.i.+p would make; and once more, because the law fails to effect its presumed purpose, while it does attain ends at which it does not aim-we cannot accept Mr. Morgan's suggestion as to the origin of exogamy. Mr. M'Lennan did not live to publish a subtle theory of the origin of exogamy, which he had elaborated. In 'Studies in Ancient History,' he hazarded a conjecture based on female infanticide:-

'We believe the restrictions on marriage to be connected with the practice in early times of female infanticide, which, rendering women scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of women from without... . Hence the cruel custom which, leaving the primitive human hordes with very few young women of their own, occasionally with none, and in any case seriously disturbing the balance of the s.e.xes within the hordes, forces them to prey upon one another for wives. Usage, induced by necessity, would in time establish a prejudice among the tribes observing it, a prejudice strong as a principle of religion-as every prejudice relating to marriage is apt to be-against marrying women of their own stock.'

Mr. M'Lennan describes his own hypothesis as 'a suggestion thrown out at what it was worth.' {258} In his later years, as we have said, he developed a very subtle and ingenious theory of the origin of exogamy, still connecting it with scarcity of women, but making use of various supposed stages and processes in the development of the law. That speculation remains unpublished. To myself, the suggestion given in 'Studies in Ancient History' seems inadequate. I find it difficult to conceive that the frequent habit of stealing women should indispose men to marry the native women they had at hand. That this indisposition should grow into a positive law, and the infringement of the law be regarded as a capital offence, seems still more inconceivable. My own impression is, that exogamy may be connected with some early superst.i.tion or idea of which we have lost the touch, and which we can no longer explain.

Thus far, the consideration of exogamy has thrown no clear light on the main question-the question whether the customs of civilised races contain relics of female kins.h.i.+p. On Sir Henry Maine's theory of exogamy, that Aryan custom is unconnected with female kins.h.i.+p, polyandry, and scarcity of women. On Mr. M'Lennan's theory, exogamy is the result of scarcity of women, and implies polyandry and female kins.h.i.+p. But neither theory has seemed satisfactory. Yet we need not despair of extracting some evidence from exogamy, and that evidence, on the whole, is in favour of Mr. M'Lennan's general hypothesis. (1.) The exogamous prohibition must have first come into force when kins.h.i.+p was only reckoned on one side of the family. This is obvious, whether we suppose it to have arisen in a society which reckoned by male or by female kins.h.i.+p. In the former case, the law only prohibits marriage with persons of the father's, in the second case with persons of the mother's, family name, and these only it recognises as kindred. (2.) Our second point is much more important. The exogamous prohibition must first have come into force when kins.h.i.+p was so little understood that it could best be denoted by the family name. This would be self-evident, if we could suppose the prohibition to be intended to prevent marriages of relations. Had the authors of the prohibition been acquainted with the nature of near kins.h.i.+ps, they would simply (as we do) have forbidden marriage between persons in those degrees. The very nature of the prohibition, on the other hand, shows that kins.h.i.+p was understood in a manner all unlike our modern system. The limit of kindred was everywhere the family name: a limit which excludes many real kinsfolk and includes many who are not kinsfolk at all. In Australia especially, and in America, India, and Africa, to a slighter extent, that definition of kindred by the family name actually includes alligators, smoke, paddy melons, rain, crayfish, sardines, and what you please. {259} Will anyone a.s.sert, then, that people among whom the exogamous prohibition arose were organised on the system of the patriarchal family, which permits the nature of kins.h.i.+p to be readily understood at a glance? Is it not plain that the exogamous prohibition (confessedly Aryan) must have arisen in a stage of culture when ideas of kindred were confused, included kins.h.i.+p with animals and plants, and were to us almost, if not quite, unintelligible? It is even possible, as Mr. M'Lennan says, {260} 'that the prejudice against marrying women of the same group may have been established before the facts of blood relations.h.i.+p had made any deep impression on the human mind.' How the exogamous prohibition tends to confirm this view will next be set forth in our consideration of Totemism.

The Evidence from Totemism.-Totemism is the name for the custom by which a stock (scattered through many local tribes) claims descent from and kindred with some plant, animal, or other natural object. This object, of which the effigy is sometimes worn as a badge or crest, members of the stock refuse to eat. As a general rule, marriage is prohibited between members of the stock-between all, that is, who claim descent from the same object and wear the same badge. The exogamous limit, therefore, is denoted by the stock-name and crest, and kins.h.i.+p is kins.h.i.+p in the wolf, bear, potato, or whatever other object is recognised as the original ancestor. Finally, as a general rule, the stock-name is derived through the mother, and where it is derived through the father there are proofs that the custom is comparatively modern. It will be acknowledged that this sort of kindred, which is traced to a beast, bird, or tree, which is recognised in every person bearing the same stock-name, which is counted through females, and which governs marriage customs, is not the sort of kindred which would naturally arise among people regulated on the patriarchal or monandrous family system. Totemism, however, is a widespread inst.i.tution prevailing all over the north of the American continent, also in Peru (according to Garcila.s.so de la Vega); in Guiana (the negroes have brought it from the African Gold Coast, where it is in full force, as it also is among the Bechuanas); in India among Hos, Garos, Ka.s.sos, and Oraons; in the South Sea Islands, where it has left strong traces in Mangaia; in Siberia, and especially in the great island continent of Australia. The Semitic evidences for totemism (animal-wors.h.i.+p, exogamy, descent claimed through females) are given by Professor Robertson Smith, in the 'Journal of Philology,' ix. 17, 'Animal Wors.h.i.+p and Animal Tribes among the Arabs, and in the Old Testament.' Many other examples of totemism might be adduced (especially from Egypt), but we must restrict ourselves to the following questions:-

(1.) What light is thrown on the original form of the family by totemism? (2.) Where we find survivals of totemism among civilised races, may we conclude that these races (through scarcity of women) had once been organised on other than the patriarchal model?

As to the first question, we must remember that the origin and determining causes of totemism are still unknown. Mr. M'Lennan's theory of the origin of totemism has never been published. It may be said without indiscretion that Mr. M'Lennan thought totemism arose at a period when ideas of kins.h.i.+p scarcely existed at all. 'Men only thought of marking one off from another,' as Garcila.s.so de la Vega says: the totem was but a badge worn by all the persons who found themselves existing in close relations; perhaps in the same cave or set of caves. People united by contiguity, and by the blind sentiment of kins.h.i.+p not yet brought into explicit consciousness, might mark themselves by a badge, and might thence derive a name, and, later, might invent a myth of their descent from the object which the badge represented. I do not know whether it has been observed that the totems are, as a rule, objects which may be easily drawn or tattooed, and still more easily indicated in gesture-language. Some interesting facts will be found in the 'First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,' p. 458 (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1881). Here we read how the 'Crow' tribe is indicated in sign-language by 'the hands held out on each side, striking the air in the manner of flying.' The Bunaks (another bird tribe) are indicated by an imitation of the cry of the bird. In mentioning the Snakes, the hand imitates the crawling motion of the serpent, and the fingers pointed up behind the ear denote the Wolves. Plainly names of the totem sort are well suited to the convenience of savages, who converse much in gesture-language. Above all, the very nature of totemism shows that it took its present shape at a time when men, animals, and plants were conceived of as physically akin; when names were handed on through the female line; when exogamy was the rule of marriage, and when the family theoretically included all persons bearing the same family name, that is, all who claimed kindred with the same plant, animal, or object, whether the persons are really akin or not. These ideas and customs are not the ideas natural to men organised in the patriarchal family.

The second question now arises: Can we infer from survivals of totemism among Aryans that these Aryans had once been organised on the full totemistic principle, probably with polyandry, and certainly with female descent? Where totemism now exists in full force, there we find exogamy and derivation of the family name through women, the latter custom indicating uncertainty of male parentage in the past. Are we to believe that the same inst.i.tutions have existed wherever we find survivals of totemism? If this be granted, and if the supposed survivals of totemism among Aryans be accepted as genuine, then the Aryans have distinctly come through a period of kins.h.i.+p reckoned through women, with all that such an inst.i.tution implies. For indications that the Aryans of Greece and India have pa.s.sed through the stage of totemism, the reader may be referred to Mr. M'Lennan's 'Wors.h.i.+p of Plants and Animals' ('Fortnightly Review,' 1869, 1870). The evidence there adduced is not all of the same value, and the papers are only a hasty rough sketch based on the first testimonies that came to hand. Probably the most important 'survival' of totemism in Greek legend is the body of stories about the amours of Zeus in animal form. Various n.o.ble houses traced their origin to Zeus or Apollo, who, as a bull, tortoise, serpent, swan, or ant, had seduced the mother of the race. The mother of the Arcadians became a she-bear, like the mother of the bear stock of the Iroquois. As we know plenty of races all over the world who trace their descent from serpents, tortoises, swans, and so forth, it is a fair hypothesis that the ancestors of the Greeks once believed in the same fables. In later times the swan, serpent, ant, or tortoise was explained as an avatar of Zeus. The process by which an anthropomorphic G.o.d or hero succeeds to the exploits of animals, of theriomorphic G.o.ds and heroes, is the most common in mythology, and is ill.u.s.trated by actual practice in modern India. When the Brahmins convert a pig-wors.h.i.+pping tribe of aboriginals, they tell their proselytes that the pig was an avatar of Vishnu. The same process is found active where the j.a.panese have influenced the savage Ainos, and persuaded them that their bear- or dog-father was a manifestation of a deity. We know from Plutarch ('Theseus') that, in addition to families claiming descent from divine animals, one Athenian ye???, the Ioxidae, revered an ancestral plant, the asparagus. A vaguer indication of totemism may perhaps be detected in the ancient theriomorphic statues of Greek G.o.ds, as the Ram-Zeus and the Horse-headed Demeter, and in the various animals and plants which were sacred to each G.o.d and represented as his companions.

The hints of totemism among the ancient Irish are interesting. One hero, Conaire, was the son of a bird, and before his birth his father (the bird) told the woman (his mother) that the child must never eat the flesh of fowls. 'Thy son shall be named Conaire, and that son shall not kill birds.' {265a} The hero Cuchullain, being named after the dog, might not eat the flesh of the dog, and came by his ruin after transgressing this totemistic taboo. Races named after animals were common in ancient Ireland. The red-deer and the wolves were tribes dwelling near Ossory, and Professor Rhys, from the frequency of dog names, inclines to believe in a dog totem in Erin. According to the ancient Irish 'Wonders of Eri,' in the 'Book of Glendaloch,' 'the descendants of the wolf are in Ossory,' and they could still transform themselves into wolves. {265b} As to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, there is little evidence beyond the fact that the patronymic names of many of the early settlements of Billings, Arlings, and the rest, are undeniably derived from animals and plants. The manner in which those names are scattered locally is precisely like what results in America, Africa, and Australia from the totemistic organisation. {265c} In Italy the ancient custom by which animals were the leaders of the Ver sacrum or armed migration is well known. The Piceni had for their familiar animal or totem (if we may call it so) a woodp.e.c.k.e.r; the Hirpini were like the 'descendants of the wolf' in Ossory, and practised a wolf-dance in which they imitated the actions of the animal.

Such is a summary of the evidence which shows that Aryans had once been totemists, therefore savages, and therefore, again, had probably been in a stage when women were scarce and each woman had many husbands.

Evidence from the Gens or ye???.-There is no more puzzling topic in the history of the ancient world than the origin and nature of the community called by the Romans the gens, and by the Greeks the ye???. To the present writer it seems that no existing community of men, neither totem kin, nor clan, nor house community, nor gotra, precisely answers to the gens or the ye???. Our information about these forms of society is slight and confused. The most essential thing to notice for the moment is the fact that both in Greece and Rome the ye??? and gens were extremely ancient, so ancient that the ye??? was decaying in Greece when history begins, while in Rome we can distinctly see the rapid decadence and dissolution of the gens. In the Laws of the Twelve Tables, the gens is a powerful and respected corporation. In the time of Cicero the nature of the gens is a matter but dimly understood. Tacitus begins to be confused about the gentile nomenclature. In the Empire gentile law fades away. In Greece, especially at Athens, the early political reforms transferred power from the ye??? to a purely local organisation, the Deme. The Greek of historical times did not announce his ye??? in his name (as the Romans always did), but gave his own name, that of his father, and that of his deme. Thus we may infer that in Greek and Roman society the ye??? and gens were dying, not growing, organisations. In very early times it is probable that foreign gentes were adopted en bloc into the Roman Commonwealth. Very probably, too, a great family, on entering the Roman bond, may have a.s.sumed, by a fiction, the character and name of a gens. But that Roman society in historical times, or that Greek society, could evolve a new gens or ye??? in a normal natural way, seems excessively improbable.

Keeping in mind the antique and 'obsolescent' character of the gens and ye???, let us examine the theories of the origin of these a.s.sociations. The Romans themselves knew very little about the matter. Cicero quotes the dictum of Scaevola the Pontifex, according to which the gens consisted of all persons of the same gentile name who were not in any way disqualified. {267} Thus, in America, or Australia, or Africa, all persons bearing the same totem name belong to that totem kin. Festus defines members of a gens as persons of the same stock and same family name. Varro says (in ill.u.s.tration of the relations.h.i.+ps of words and cases) 'Ab aemilio homines orti aemilii sunt gentiles.' The two former definitions answer to the conception of a totem kin, which is united by its family name and belief in ident.i.ty of origin. Varro adds the element, in the Roman gens, of common descent from one male ancestor. Such was the conception of the gens in historical times. It was in its way an a.s.sociation of kinsfolk, real or supposed. According to the Laws of the Twelve Tables the gentiles inherited the property of an intestate man without agnates, and had the custody of lunatics in the same circ.u.mstances. The gens had its own sacellum or chapel, and its own sacra or religious rites. The whole gens occasionally went into mourning when one of its members was unfortunate. It would be interesting if it could be shown that the sacra were usually examples of ancestor-wors.h.i.+p, but the faint indications on the subject scarcely permit us to a.s.sert this.

On the whole, Sir Henry Maine strongly clings to the belief that the gens commonly had 'a real core of agnatic consanguinity from the very first.' But he justly recognises the principle of imitation, which induces men to copy any fas.h.i.+onable inst.i.tution. Whatever the real origin of the gens, many gentes were probably copies based on the fiction of common ancestry.

On Sir Henry Maine's system, then, the gens rather proves the constant existence of recognised male descents among the peoples where it exists.

The opposite theory of the gens is that to which Mr. M'Lennan inclined. 'The composition and organisation of Greek and Roman tribes and commonwealths cannot well be explained except on the hypothesis that they resulted from the joint operation, in early times, of exogamy, and the system of kins.h.i.+p through females only.' {268} 'The gens', he adds, 'was composed of all the persons in the tribe bearing the same name and accounted of the same stock. Were the gentes really of different stocks, as their names would imply and as the people believed? If so, how came clans of different stocks to be united in the same tribe? ... How came a variety of such groups, of different stocks, to coalesce in a local tribe?' These questions, Mr. M'Lennan thought, could not be answered on the patriarchal hypothesis. His own theory, or rather his theory as understood by the present writer, may be stated thus. In the earliest times there were h.o.m.ogeneous groups, which became, totem kin. Let us say that, in a certain district, there were groups called woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, wolves, bears, suns, swine, each with its own little territory. These groups were exogamous, and derived the name through the mother. Thus, in course of time, when sun men married a wolf girl, and her children were wolves, there would be wolves in the territory of the suns, and thus each stock would be scattered through all the localities, just as we see in Australia and America. Let us suppose that (as certainly is occurring in Australia and America) paternal descent comes to be recognised in custom. This change will not surprise Sir Henry Maine, who admits that a system of male may alter, under stress of circ.u.mstances, to a system of female descents. In course of time, and as knowledge and common sense advance, the old superst.i.tion of descent from a woodp.e.c.k.e.r, a bear, a wolf, the sun, or what not, becomes untenable. A human name is a.s.sumed by the group which had called itself the woodp.e.c.k.e.rs or the wolves, or perhaps by a local tribe in which several of these stocks are included. Then a fict.i.tious human ancestor is adopted, and perhaps even adored. Thus the wolves might call themselves Claudii, from their chief's name, and, giving up belief in descent from a wolf, might look back to a fancied ancestor named Claudius. The result of these changes will be that an exogamous totem kin, with female descent, has become a gens, with male kins.h.i.+p, and only the faintest trace of exogamy. An example of somewhat similar processes must have occurred in the Highland clans after the introduction of Christianity, when the chief's Christian name became the patronymic of the people who claimed kins.h.i.+p with him and owned his sway.

Are there any traces at all of totemism in what we know of the Roman gentes? Certainly the traces are very slight; perhaps they are only visible to the eye of the intrepid anthropologist. I give them for what they are worth, merely observing that they do tally, as far as they go, with the totemistic theory. The reader interested in the subject may consult the learned Streinnius's 'De Gentibus Romanis,' p. 104 (Aldus, Venice, 1591).

Among well-known savage totems none is more familiar than the sun. Men claim descent from the sun, call themselves by his name, and wear his effigy as a badge. {270} Were there suns in Rome? The Aurelian gens is thus described on the authority of Festus Pompeius:-'The Aurelii were of Sabine descent. The Aurelii were so named from the sun (aurum, urere, the burning thing), because a place was set apart for them in which to pay adoration to the sun.' Here, at least, is an odd coincidence. Among other gentile names, the Fabii, Cornelii, Papirii, Pinarii, Ca.s.sii, are possibly connected with plants; while wild etymology may a.s.sociate Porcii, Aquilii, and Valerii with swine and eagles. Pliny ('H. N.' xviii. 3) gives a fantastic explanation of the vegetable names of Roman gentes. We must remember that vegetable names are very common in American, Indian, African, and Australian totem kin. Of sun names the Natchez and the Incas of Peru are familiar examples. Turning from Rome to Greece, we find the ye??? less regarded and more decadent than the gens. Yet, according to Grote (iii. 54) the ye??? had-(l) sacra, 'in honour of the same G.o.d, supposed to be the primitive ancestor.' (2) A common burial-place. (3) Certain rights of succession to property. (4) Obligations of mutual help and defence. (5) Mutual rights and obligations to intermarry in certain cases. (6) Occasionally possession of common property.

Traces of the totem among the Greek ye?? are, naturally, few. Almost all the known ye?? bore patronymics derived from personal names. But it is not without significance that the Attic demes often adopted the names of obsolescent ye??, and that those names were, as Mr. Grote says, often 'derived from the plants and shrubs which grew in their neighbourhood.' We have already seen that at least one Attic ye???, the Ioxidae, revered the plant from which they derived their lineage. One thing is certain, the totem names, and a common explanation of the totem names in Australia, correspond with the names and Mr. Grote's explanation of the names of the Attic demes. 'One origin of family names,' says Sir George Grey (ii. 228), 'frequently ascribed by the natives, is that they were derived from some vegetable or animal being common in the district which the family inhabited.' Some writers attempt to show that the Attic ye??? was once exogamous and counted kin on the mother's side, by quoting the custom which permitted a man to marry his half-sister, the child of his father but not of his mother. They infer that this permission is a survival from the time when a man's father's children were not reckoned as his kindred, and when kins.h.i.+p was counted through mothers. Sir Henry Maine (p. 105) prefers M. Fustel De Coulanges' theory, that the marriage of half-brothers and sisters on the father's side was intended to save the portion of the girl to the family estate. Proof of this may be adduced from examination of all the recorded cases of such marriages in Athens. But the reason thus suggested would have equally justified marriage between brothers and sisters on both sides, and this was reckoned incest. A well-known line in Aristophanes shows how intense was Athenian feeling about the impiety of relations with a sister uterine.