Folklore as an Historical Science Part 18

It will be necessary, therefore, to deal with the two princ.i.p.al signs of alleged Arunta progress, male descent and the exogamous cla.s.ses. I see no evidence whatever of male descent; male ascendancy, a very different thing, appears, but there cannot strictly be male descent where fatherhood is unrecognised. And here I would interpose the remark that the use of the term descent, male descent and female descent, in these studies is far too indiscriminate.[381] Descent means succession by blood kins.h.i.+p by acknowledged sons or daughters, and this is exactly what does not always occur. Sons.h.i.+p and daughters.h.i.+p in our sense of the term are not always known to savagery. They were not known to the Arunta males, for fatherhood was not recognised by them and motherhood was not definitely used in the social sense. All that the Arunta can be said to have developed is a mother-right society with male ascendancy in the group.[382] Group sons succeeded to group fathers, but individual descent from father to son there is not.

There remain the exogamous cla.s.ses. In the first place, it is necessary to get rid of a difficulty raised by Mr. Lang. "In no tribe with female descent can a district have its local totem as among the Arunta.... This can only occur under male reckoning of descent."[383]

But surely so acute an observer as Mr. Lang would see that with female descent right through, as it exists among the Khasia and Kocch people of a.s.sam, local totem centres are just as possible as with male descent. Mr. Lang is conscious of some discrepancy here, for a little later on he repeats the statement that local totem centres "can only occur and exist under male reckoning of descent," but adds the significant qualification "in cases where the husbands do not go to the wives' region of abode."[384] This is the whole point. Where husbands do go to the wives' region of abode, as they do among the Khasis and the Kocch, female descent would allow of the formation of local totem centres. This is not far from the position of the Arunta.

They are mother-right societies. The mother secures the totem name.

The father, _de facto_, is not father according to the ideas of the Arunta people, is at best only one of a group of possible fathers according to the practices of the Arunta people. Therefore, the local totem centre is formed out of a system which may be called a mother-right system for the purpose of scientific description, but which is not even a mother-right system to the natives, because motherhood is not the foundation of the local group.

Secondly, we have the important fact, which Mr. Lang has duly noted, though he does not apparently see its significance in the argument as to origins, that the cla.s.s system "arose in a given centre and was propagated by emigrants and was borrowed by distant tribes."[385]

Messrs. Spencer and Gillen distinctly affirm that the "division into eight has been adopted (or rather the names for the four new divisions have been) in recent times by the Arunta tribe from the Ilpirra tribe which adjoins the former on the north, and the use of them is at the present time spreading southwards."[386] This view is supported by the widespread organisation of eaglehawk and crow, and by the general h.o.m.ogeneity of Australian social forms. It is clear, therefore, that room is made for the external organisation of the cla.s.s system and the consequent production of the dual characteristics of the Arunta--the joint product of the fossilisation of mother-right society at the end of the migration movement, and the superimposing upon this fossilisation, with its tendency towards the cla.s.s system, of the fully organised cla.s.s system. The two systems are not now fully welded in the Arunta group. Whatever view is taken of these, whether they be considered advanced or primal, the undoubted dualism has to be accounted for, and the best way of accounting for this dualism is, I submit, that of differential evolution. Further study of Messrs.

Spencer and Gillen's work, together with the criticisms of various scholars, Mr. Lang, Mr. Hartland, Mr. Frazer, Mr. Thomas, and others, convinces me that the extreme artificiality of the cla.s.s system is due partly to a want of understanding of the entire facts, and partly to the _ad hoc_ adoption by the natives themselves of new plans to meet difficulties which must arise out of a too close adhesion to their rules. Mr. Lang has allowed me to see a ma.n.u.script note of his, in which he points out that the inevitable result of the one totem to the one totem rule of marital relations.h.i.+p,--that is, totem A always intermarrying with totem B, males and females from both totems, and with no others,--is the consanguineous relations.h.i.+p of all the members of the two totems. The rule for non-consanguineous marriage has therefore broken down, and when it breaks down the Australian introduces a new rule which satisfies immediate necessities. When this in turn breaks down a further new rule is made, and this is the way I think the differing rules resulted. They represent, therefore, not varying degrees of culture progress, but only varying degrees of artificial social changes, and they spring from the oldest conditions of all where there is no cla.s.s system at all.[387] Arunta society is not a "sport" under this view, but a product--a product to be accounted for and explained by anthropological rules, derived not only from Australian society but from the general facts of human society which have remained for observation by the science of to-day. The parallel between Semang and Arunta, therefore, helps us in two ways.

It enables us to go back to Semang totemism as an example of primitive kinless society, and forward to Arunta totemism as an example of early development therefrom. We have, in point of fact, discovered the datum line of totemism. Upon this may be constructed the various examples according to their degrees of development, and we may thus see in detail the commencing elements of totemism as well as the means by which we may proceed from the commencing elements to the more advanced elements, and finally to the last stages of totemic society where blood kins.h.i.+p is fully recognised and used, where, in fact, totemic tribes as distinct from totemic peoples take their place in the world's history.

IV

I do not propose in this chapter to proceed further with this inquiry.

It will not advance my object, nor is it absolutely necessary.

Totemism in the full has been described adequately by Mr. Frazer in his valuable abstract of the evidence supplied from all parts of the world, and there is not much in dispute among the authorities when once the stage of origin is pa.s.sed. There is danger, however, at the other extreme, namely, the attempt to discover totemism in impossible places in civilisation. Mr. Morgan has shown us totemic society in its highest form of development, untouched by other influences of sufficient consequence to divert its natural evolution. This, I think, is the merit of Mr. Morgan's great work, and not his attempt, his futile attempt as I think, to apply the principles of totemic society to the elucidation of societies that have long pa.s.sed the stage of totemism. In particular, the great European civilisations are not totemic, nor are they to be seen pa.s.sing from totemism. It is true that Mr. Lang, Mr. Grant Allen, and others have attempted to trace in certain features of Greek ritual and belief, and in certain tribal formations discoverable in Anglo-Saxon Britain, the relics of a living totemism in the civilised races of Europe;[388] but I do not believe either of these scholars would have endorsed his early conclusions in later studies. Mr. Grant Allen did not, so far as I know, repeat this theory after its first publication, and Mr. Lang has given many signs of being willing to withdraw it. The fact is, there is no necessity to think of Greek or English totem society because in Greece and England there are traces of totem beliefs. We may disengage them from their national position and put them back to the position they occupied before the coming of Greek or Englishman into the countries they have made their own.

In that position there may well have been totemic peoples in Britain of the type we have been considering from Australia. I have already indicated that totemic survivals in folklore have been the subject of a special study of my own which still in the main stands good, and for which I have collected very many additional ill.u.s.trations and proofs.

I discovered that folklore contained some remarkably perfect examples of totemic belief and custom, and also a considerable array of scattered belief and custom connected with animals and plants which, uncla.s.sified, seemed to lead to no definite stage of culture history, yet when cla.s.sified, undoubtedly led to totemism. The result was somewhat remarkable. At many points there are direct parallels to savage totemism, and the whole a.s.sociated group of customs received adequate explanation only on the theory that it represented the detritus of a once existing totemic system of belief.

The present study enables me to take the parallel to primitive totemism much closer. One of the perfect examples was of a local character. This was found in Ossory. Giraldus Cambrensis tells an extraordinary legend to the following effect: "A priest benighted in a wood on the borders of Meath was confronted by a wolf, who after some preliminary explanations gave this account of himself: There are two of us, a man and a woman, natives of Ossory, who through the curse of one Natalis, saint and abbot, are compelled every seven years to put off the human form and depart from the dwellings of men. Quitting entirely the human form, we a.s.sume that of wolves. At the end of the seven years, if they chance to survive, two others being subst.i.tuted in their places, they return to their country and their former shape."[389] Here is a saintly legend introduced to explain the current tradition of the men of Ossory, that they periodically turned into wolves. Fynes Moryson, in 1603, ridiculed the beliefs of "some Irish who will be believed as men of credit," that men in Ossory were "yearly turned into wolves."[390] But an ancient Irish MS. puts the matter much more clearly in the statement that the "descendants of the wolf are in Ossory,"[391] while the evidence of Spenser and Camden explains the popular beliefs upon even more exact lines. Spenser says "that some of the Irish doe use to make the wolf their gossip;"[392]

and Camden adds that they term them "Chari Christi, praying for them and wis.h.i.+ng them well, and having contracted this intimacy, professed to have no fear from their four-footed allies." Fynes Moryson expressly mentions the popular dislike to killing wolves, and they were not extirpated until the eighteenth century.[393] Aubrey adds that "in Ireland they value the fang-tooth of an wolfe, which they set in silver and gold as we doe ye Coralls;"[394] and Camden notes the similar use of a bit of wolf's skin.[395]

In the local superst.i.tions of Ossory, therefore, we have several of the cardinal features of savage totemism, the descent from the totem-animal, the ascription to the totem of a sacred character, the belief in its protection, and a taboo against killing it. I will venture to suggest, however, that to these important features there is to be added a parallel in survival to the Semang and Arunta features where the local circ.u.mstances of birth are the determining forces which supply the totem name, for the relations.h.i.+p of "gossip,"

"G.o.d-sib," is clearly of the same character as that of the soul-tree of the Semang and the alcheringa of the Australian.[396] The condition of survival has altered the detail of the parallel, but the parallel is on the same plane.

The wolf as gossip to the men of Ossory leads us on to inquire whether any other animal had such close connections with human beings. In Erris, a part of Connaught, "the people consider that foxes perfectly understand human language, that they can be propitiated by kindness, and even moved by flattery. They not only make mittens for Reynard's feet to keep him warm in winter, and deposit these articles carefully near their holes, but they make them sponsors for their children, supposing that under the close and long-established relations.h.i.+p of Gossipred they will be induced to befriend them."[397] Thus it appears that the selfsame conception which the men of Ossory had in the thirteenth century for the wolf, the men of Erris had for the fox in the nineteenth century. No explanation from the dry details of the natural history of these animals is sufficient to account for this curious parallel, and we must turn to ancient beliefs for the explanation.

The general att.i.tude of the men of Erris towards the fox is confirmed as an attribute of totemism when we come to examine a special local form of it. This we can do by turning to Galway. The Claddagh fishermen in Galway would not go out to fish if they saw a fox: their rivals of a neighbouring village, not believing in the fox, do all they can to introduce a fox into the Claddagh village.[398] These people are peculiar in many respects, and are distinctively clannish. They retain their old clan-dress--blue cloaks and red petticoats--which distinguishes them from the rest of the county of Galway, and it may be conjectured that the present-day custom of naming from the names of fish--thus, Jack the hake, Bill the cod, Joe the eel, Pat the trout, Mat the turbot, etc.[399]--may be a remnant of the mental att.i.tude of the folk towards that belief in kins.h.i.+p between men and animals which is at the basis of totemism. But, returning to the fox, we have in the belief that meeting this animal would prevent them from going out to fish, a parallel to the prohibition against looking at the totem which is to be found among savage people, and we have in the neighbours'

disbelief in the fox and a corresponding belief in the hare,[400] that local distribution of different totems which is also found in savagery.

But all these particulars about the relations.h.i.+p of the fox to the Claddagh fishermen receive unexpected light when we inquire into the biography of their local saint, named MacDara. This saint is the patron saint of the fishermen who, when pa.s.sing MacDara's island, always dip their sails thrice to avoid being s.h.i.+pwrecked. But then, in the folk-belief, we have this remarkable fact, that MacDara's real name was Sinach, a fox[401]--an instance, it would seem, of a totem cult being transferred to a Christian saint. Thus, then, in the superst.i.tions of these Claddagh fisherfolk we can trace the elements of totemism, the root of which is contained, first, in the nominal wors.h.i.+p of a Christian saint, and second, in the actual wors.h.i.+p of an animal, the fox.

These examples of local totemism may be followed by a remarkable example of tribal or kins.h.i.+p totemism. It was noted by Mr. G. H.

Kinahan in his researches for Irish folklore, and is mentioned quite incidentally among other items, the collector himself not fully perceiving the importance of his "find." This really enhances the value of the evidence, because it destroys any possibility of an objection to its validity--a really important matter, considering the remarkable character of this survival of totem-stocks in Western Europe. The exact words of Mr. Kinahan are as follows:--

"In very ancient times some of the clan Coneely, one of the early septs of the county, were changed by 'art magick' into seals; since then no Coneely can kill a seal without afterwards having bad luck.

Seals are called Coneelys, and on this account many of the name changed it to Connolly."[402] The same local tradition is mentioned by Hardiman in one of his notes to O'Flaherty's _Description of West or H-iar Connaught_,[403] but the note is equally significant of genuineness from the fact that the tradition is styled "a ridiculous story." It strengthens Mr. Kinahan's note in the following pa.s.sage: "In some places the story has its believers, who would no more kill a seal, or eat of a slaughtered one, than they would of a human Coneely."

The clan Coneely is mentioned both by Mr. Kinahan and by Mr. Hardiman as one of the oldest Irish septs; and that it is widely spread, and not congregated into one locality, is to be inferred from the description of the tradition as prevalent in Connaught, especially from Mr. Hardiman's words, describing that "in some places" the story has its believers now; and hence we may conclude that wherever the clan Coneely are situated there would exist this totem belief.

The full significance of these facts may best be tested by reference to the conditions laid down by Dr. Robertson Smith for the discovery of the survivals of totemism among the Semitic races. These conditions are as follows:--

"'(1) The existence of stocks named after plants and animals'--such stocks, it is necessary to add, being scattered through many local tribes; (2) the prevalence of the conception that the members of the stock are of the blood of the eponym animal, or are sprung from a plant of the species chosen as totem; (3) the ascription to the totem of a sacred character which may result in its being regarded as the G.o.d of the stock, but at any rate makes it be regarded with veneration, so that, for example, a totem animal is not used as ordinary food. If we can find all these things together in the same tribe, the proof of totemism is complete; but even when this cannot be done, the proof may be morally complete if all the three marks of totemism are found well developed within the same race. In many cases, however, we can hardly expect to find all the marks of totemism in its primitive form; the totem, for example, may have become first an animal G.o.d, and then an anthropomorphic G.o.d, with animal attributes or a.s.sociations merely."[404]

Now in the Irish case all three of these conditions are found together in the same tribe, the clan Coneely, and it is impossible to overlook the importance of such a discovery. It proves from survivals in folklore that totemistic people once lived in ancient Ireland, just as the corresponding evidence proved that the ancient Semitic stock possessed the totemic organisation.

We have now examined the most archaic forms of the survival of totemism in Britain. If we pa.s.s on to inquire whether we can detect the more scattered and decayed remnants of totem beliefs and customs, we turn to Mr. Frazer as our guide. From Mr. Frazer's review of the beliefs and customs incidental to the totemistic organisation of savage people, it is possible to extract a formula for ascertaining the cla.s.sification of savage beliefs and practices incidental to totemism. This formula appears to me to properly fall into the following groups:--

(a) Descent from the totem.

(b) Restrictions against injuring the totem.

(c) Restrictions against using the totem for food.

(d) The petting and preservation of totems.

(e) The mourning for and burying of totems.

(f) Penalties for non-respect of totem.

(g) a.s.sistance by the totem to his kin.

(_h_) a.s.sumption of totem marks.

(_i_) a.s.sumption of totem dress.

(_j_) a.s.sumption of totem names.

My suggestion is that if a reasonable proportion of the superst.i.tions and customs attaching to animals and plants, preserved to us as folklore, can be cla.s.sified under these heads this is exactly what might be expected if the origin of such superst.i.tions and customs is to be sought for in a primitive system of totemism which prevailed amongst the people once occupying these islands. The clan Coneely and the Ossory wolves are proofs that such a system existed, and if such perfect survivals have been able to descend to modern times, in spite of the influences of civilisation, there is no _prima facie_ reason why the beliefs and customs incidental to such a system should not have survived, even though they are no longer to be identified with special clans. When once a primitive belief or custom becomes separated from its original surroundings, it would be liable to change. Thus, when the wolf totem of Ossory pa.s.ses into a local cultus, we meet with the belief that human beings may be transformed into animal forms, as the derivative from the totem belief in descent from the wolf. Fortunately, the process by which this change took place is discernible in the Ossory example; but it will not be so in other examples, and we may therefore a.s.sume that the Ossory example represents the transitional form and apply it as a key to the origin of similar beliefs elsewhere.

Again, if we endeavour to discover how the a.s.sociated totem-beliefs of the clan Coneely would appear in folklore supposing they had been scattered by the influences of civilisation, we can see that at the various places where members of the clan had resided for some time there would be preserved fragments of the once perfect totem-belief.

Thus, one place would retain traditions about a fabulous animal who could change into human form; another place would preserve beliefs about its being unlucky to kill a seal (or some other animal specially connected with the locality); another place would preserve a superst.i.tious regard for the seal (or some other local animal) as an augury; and thus the process of transference of beliefs into folklore, from one form into other related forms, from one particular object connected with the clan to several objects connected with the localities, would go on from time to time, until the difficulty of tracing the original of the scattered beliefs and customs would be well-nigh insurmountable without some key. But having once proved the existence of such examples as the clan Coneely and the Ossory wolves, this difficulty, though still great, is very much lessened. Our method would be as follows. We first of all postulate that totem peoples did actually exist in ancient Britain, or whence such extraordinary survivals? We next examine and cla.s.sify the beliefs and customs which are incidental to totemism in savage society, and having set these forth by the aid of Mr. Frazer's admirable study on the subject, we ascertain what parallels to these beliefs and customs may be found in the folklore of Britain. And then our position seems to be very clearly defined. We prove that in folklore certain customs and superst.i.tions are identical, or nearly so, with the beliefs and customs of totemism among savage tribes, and we conclude that this ident.i.ty in form proves an ident.i.ty in origin, and therefore that this section of folklore originated from the totemistic people of early Britain.

I shall not take up all these points on the present occasion, especially as they have in all essentials appeared in the study to which I have referred; but as an example of the scattering of totem beliefs I will refer to the well-known pa.s.sage in Caesar (lib. v. cap.

xii.), from which we learn that certain people in Britain were forbidden to eat the hare, the c.o.c.k, or the goose, and see whether this does not receive its only explanation by reference to the totemic restriction against using the totem for food. Mr. Elton, with this pa.s.sage in his mind, notices that "there were certain restrictions among the Britons and ancient Irish, by which particular nations or tribes were forbidden to kill or eat certain kinds of animals;" and he goes on to suggest that "it seems reasonable to connect the rule of abstaining from certain kinds of food with the superst.i.tious belief that the tribes were descended from the animals from which their names and crests or badges were derived."[405]

Let us see whether this reasonable conjecture holds good. The most famous example is that of Cuchulainn, the celebrated Irish chieftain, whose name means the hound of Culain. It is said that he might not eat of the flesh of the dog, and he came by his death after transgressing this totemistic taboo. The words of the ma.n.u.script known as the Book of Leinster are singularly significant in their ill.u.s.tration of this view. "And one of the things that Cuchulainn was bound not to do was going to a cooking hearth and consuming the food [_i.e._ the dog]; and another of the things that he must not do was eating his namesake's flesh."[406] Diarmaid, whose name seems to be continued in the current popular Irish name for pig (Darby), was intimately a.s.sociated with that animal, and his life depended on the life of the boar.[407] These examples are so much to the point that we may examine the cases mentioned by Caesar from the same standard.

Mr. Frazer points out that even among existing totem-tribes the respect for the totem has lessened or disappeared, and among the results of this he notes instances where, if any one kills his totem, he apologises to the animal. Under such an interpretation as this, we may surely cla.s.sify a "memorandum" made by Bishop White-Kennett about the hare, the first of the British totems mentioned by Caesar: "When one keepes a hare alive and feedeth him till he have occasion to eat him, if he telles before he kills him that he will doe so, the hare will thereupon be found dead, having killed himself."[408] But respect for the hare, in accordance with totem ideas, was carried further than this at Biddenham, where, on the 22nd September, a little procession of villagers carried a white rabbit [a subst.i.tute for hare] decorated with scarlet ribbons through the village, singing a hymn in honour of St. Agatha. All the young unmarried women who chanced to meet the procession extended the first two fingers of the left hand pointing towards the rabbit, at the same time repeating the following doggerel:--

Gustin, Gustin, lacks a bier, Maidens, maidens, bury him here.[409]

This points to a very ancient custom, not yet fully explained, but which clearly had for its object the reverential burying of a rabbit or hare. It is characteristic of the totem animal that it serves as an omen to its clansmen, and we find that the hare is an omen in Britain.

Boudicca is said to have drawn an augury from a hare, taken from her bosom, and which when released pursued a course that was deemed fortunate for her attack upon the Roman army;[410] and in modern south Northamptons.h.i.+re the running of a hare along the street or mainway of a village portends fire to some house in the immediate vicinity.[411]

In 1648 Sir Thomas Browne tells us that in his time there were few above three-score years that were not perplexed when a hare crossed their path.[412] In Wilts and in Scotland it was unlucky to meet a hare, but the evil influence did not extend after the next meal had been taken.[413] Then, too, the prohibition against naming the totem object is found in north-east Scotland attached to the hare, whose name may not be p.r.o.nounced at sea, and Mr. Gregor adds the significant fact that some animal names and certain family names were never p.r.o.nounced by the inhabitants of some of the villages, each village having an aversion to one or more of the words.[414] A cla.s.sification of the beliefs and customs connected with the hare takes us, indeed, to almost every phase of totemistic belief, and it is impossible to reject such a ma.s.s of c.u.mulative evidence.

Of the second of the British food taboos mentioned by Caesar we have the most perfect ill.u.s.tration in the instance of the Irish chieftain, Conaire, who, descended from a fowl, was interdicted from eating its flesh.[415]

Turning next to the goose, we find that at Great Crosby, in Lancas.h.i.+re, there is held an annual festival which is called the "Goose Fair," and although it is accompanied by great feasting, the singular fact remains that the goose itself, in whose honour the feast seems to have been held, is considered too sacred to eat, and is never touched by the villagers.[416] In Scotland also the goose was never eaten, being too sacred for food.[417]

Thus the hare, the fowl, and the goose have retained their sacred character in a special manner in various parts of the country, and I may add a further note of more general significance. In Scotland there exists a prejudice against eating hares and c.o.c.ks and hens.[418] In the south-western parts of England the peasant would not eat hares, rabbits, wild-fowl, or poultry, and when asked whence this dislike proceeds, he a.s.serts that it was derived from his father[419]--the traditional sanction which is so essential to folklore.[420]

The ideas surrounding these three special animals might be easily extended to others, but I will only observe that Mr. Elton, noting both the cla.s.sical and modern accounts of certain districts in Scotland and Ireland where fish, though abundant, is tabooed as food, quotes with approval a modern suggestion that this abstinence was a religious observance.[421] That fish are carved on numerous stones is a curious commentary on this a.s.sertion, while another point to be noted is that the inhabitants of the various islands have each their peculiar notions as to what fish are good for food. Some will eat skate, some dog-fish, some eat limpets and razor-fish, and as a matter of course, says Miss Gordon c.u.mming, those who do not, despise those who do.[422] A prejudice also existed against white cows in Scotland, and Dalyell ventures upon the acute supposition that this was on account of the unlawfulness of consuming the product of a consecrated animal.[423] These are not stray notes of inexperienced observers, and with two centuries between them it must be that they contain the essence of the people's conception--a conception which leads us back to totemism for its explanation.

I do not think we could get closer to totemic beliefs and ideas than this, nor could we have a better example of the necessity of examining early historical data by anthropological tests and by folklore parallels. Caesar's words are unimportant by themselves. They convey nothing of any significance to the modern reader--a mere dietetic peculiarity which means nothing and counts for nothing. And yet it might be considered certain that Caesar knew that the details he recorded were of importance in the historical sense. He did not indicate what the importance was, probably because he was not aware of it; but because he was conscious that among the influences which counted with these people were the food taboos, he rightly recorded the facts. They have remained unconsidered trifles until now, when anthropology has brought them within the range of scientific observation, and they are now to be reckoned with as part of the material which tells of the culture conditions of a section of the early British peoples.

I must here interpose a remark with reference to this grouping of the evidence. Apart from the significance of the superst.i.tions as they are recorded in their bare condition among the peasantry, there is the additional fact to note that the superst.i.tion against eating or killing certain animals or birds, or against looking at them or naming them, etc., is not universal. It obtains in one place and not in another. If the injunction not to kill, injure, or eat a certain animal were simply the reflection of a universal practice, such a practice might originate in some attribute of the animal itself which characteristically would produce or tend to produce superst.i.tion. But the spread of this cla.s.s of superst.i.tion in certain districts, and not in others, is indicative of an ancient origin, and it is exactly what might be expected to have been produced from totem-peoples.