Материал: Durkheim, Emile - The Elementary Forms Of The Religious Life

of a single notion which is much more general, and there is every ground for believing it the more primitive.

The manner in which the name is acquired is more important for the organization and recruiting of the clan than for religion ;it belongs to the sociology of the family rather than to religious sociology.2 So we shall confine ourselves to indicating summarily the most essential principles which regulate the matter.

In the different tribes, three different systems are in use.

In a great number, or it might even be said, in the greater number of the societies, the child takes the totem of its mother, by right of birth : this is what happens among the Dieri and the Urabunna of the centre of Southern Australia ; the Wotjobaluk and the Gournditch-Mara of Victoria ; the Kamilaroi, the Wirad-juri, the Wonghibon and the Euahlayi of New South Wales ; and the Wakelbura, the Pitta-Pitta and the Kumandaburi of Queensland, to mention only the most important names. In this case, owing to a law of exogamy, the mother is necessarily of a different totem from her husband, and on the other hand, as she lives in his community, the members of a single totem are necessarily dispersed in different localities according to the chances of their marriages. As a result, the totemic group lacks a territorial base.

Elsewhere the totem is transmitted in the paternal line. In this case, if the child remains with his father, the local group is largely made up of people belonging to a single totem ; only the married women there represent foreign totems. In other words, each locality has its particular totem. Up until recent times, this scheme of organization was found in Australia only among the tribes where totemism was in decadence, such as the Narrin-yeri, where the totem has almost no religious character at all

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any more.1 It was therefore possible to believe that there was a close connection between the totemic system and descent in the uterine line. But Spencer and Gillen have observed, in the northern part of central Australia, a whole group of tribes where the totemic religion is still practised but where the transmission of the totem is in the paternal line : these are the Warramunga, the Quan]i, the Umbia, the Binbinga, the Mara and the Anula.2

Finally, a third combination is the one observed among the Arunta and Loritja. Here the totem of the child is not necessarily either that of the mother or that of the father ; it is that of a mythical ancestor who came, by processes which the observers recount in different ways,3 and mysteriously fecundated the mother at the moment of conception. A special process makes it possible to learn which ancestor it was and to which totemic group he belonged.4 But since it was only chance which determined that this ancestor happened to be near the mother, rather than another, the totem of the child is thus found to depend finally upon fortuitous circumstances.5

2 As we indicated in the preceding chapter, totemism is at the same time of interest for the question of religion and that of the family, for the clan is a family. In the lower societies, these two problems are very closely connected. But both are so complex that it is indispensable to treat them separately. Also, the primitive family organization cannot be understood before the primitive religious beliefs are known ; for the latter serve as the basis of the former. This is why it is necessary to study totemism as a religion before studying the totemic clan as a family group.

1See Taplin, The Naninyeri Tribe, in Curr, II, pp. 244 f.; Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. X3i.

2Nor. Tr.. pp. 163, 1699, 170, 172. It is to be noted that in all these tribes, except the Mara and the Anula, the transmission of the totem in the paternal line is only a general rule, which has exceptions.

3According to Spencer and Gillen (Nat. Tr., pp. 123 ft.), the soul of the ancestor becomes reincarnate in the body of the motlier and becomes the soul of the child ; according to Strehlow (II, pp. 51 fi.), the conception, though being the work of the ancestor, does not imply any reincarnation ; but in neither interpretation does the totem of the child necessarily depend upon that of the parents.

4Nat. Tr., p. 133 ; Strehlow, II, p. 53.

5It is in large part the locality where the mother believes that she conceived which determines the totem of the child. Each totem, as we shall see, has its centre and the ancestors preferably frequent the places serving as centres for their respective totems. The totem of the child is therefore that which belongs to the place where the mother believes that she conceived. As this should generally be in the vicinity of the place which serves as totemic centre for her husband, the child should generally follow the totem of his father. It is undoubtedly this which explains why the greater part of the

overlappings of this sort have taken place, the great part of the clan is included entirely within one or the other of the two groups of the tribe ; only a small minority is to be found in the other one.2 As a rule then, the two phratries do not overlap each other ; consequently, the list of totems which an individual may have is predetermined by the phratry to which he belongs. In other words, the phratry is like a species of which the clans are varieties. We shall presently see that this comparison is not purely metaphorical.

In addition to the phratries and clans, another secondary group is frequently met with in Australian societies, which is not without a certain individuality: these are the matrimonial classes.

By this name they designate certain subdivisions of the phratry, whose number varies with the tribe : there are sometimes two and sometimes four per phratry.3 Their recruiting and operation are regulated by the two following principles. In the first place, each generation in a phratry belongs to different clans from the immediately preceding one. Thus, when there are only two classes per phratry, they necessarily alternate with each other every generation. The children make up the class of which their parents are not members ; but grandchildren are of the same class as their grandparents. Thus, among the Kamilaroi, the Kupathin phratry has two classes, Ippai and Kumbo ; the Dilby phratry, two others which are called Murri and Kubbi. As descent is in the uterine line, the child is in the phratry of its mother ; if she is a Kupatliin, tlie child will be one also. But if she is of the Ippai class, he will be a Kumbo ; f the child is a girl, her children will again be in the Ippai class.

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Likewise, the children of the women of the Murri class will be in the Kubbi class, and the children of the Kubbi women will be Murri again. When there are four classes per phratry, instead of two, the system is naturally more complex, but the principle is the same. The four classes form two couples of two classes each, and these two classes alternate with each other every generation in the manner just indicated. Secondly, the members of one class can in principle1 marry into only one of the classes of the other phratry. The Ippai must marry into the Kubbi class and the Murri into the Kumbo class. It is because this organization profoundly affects matrimonial relations that we give the group the name of matrimonial class.

Now it may be asked whether these classes do not sometimes have totems like the phratries and clans.

This question is raised by the fact that in certain tribes of Queensland, each matrimonial class has dietetic restrictions that are peculiar to it. The individuals who compose it must abstain from eating the flesh of certain animals which the others may consume freely.2 Are these animals not totems ?

But dietetic restrictions are not the characteristic marks of totemism. The totem is a name first of all, and then, as we shall see, an emblem. Now in the societies of which we just spoke, there are no matrimonial classes which bear the name of an animal or plant, or which have an emblem.3

clan of the pelican is found in the two phratries equally. This fact seems doubtful to us. It is very possible that the two clans may have two varieties of pelicans as totems. Information given by Mathews on the same tribe seems to point to this (Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria, in Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales, 1904, PP. 287 f.).

2In connection with this question, see our memoir on Le Totemisme, in the Annie Sociologique, Vol. V, pp. 82 ff.

3On the question of Australian matrimonial classes in general, see our Btemoir on La Prohibition de I'inceste, in the A nnee Hoc., 1, pp. 9 ff., and especially tor the tribes with eight classes, L'Organisation matrimomale des societes Austra-nennes. iu Annie Soc.. VIII, pp. 118-147.

1This principle is not maintained everywhere with an equal strictness. In the central tribes of eight classes notably,

beside the class with which marriage is regularly permitted, there is another with which a sort of secondary concubinage is allowed (Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 106). It is the same with certain tribes of four classes. Each class has a choice between the two classes of the other phratry. This is the case with the Kabi (see Mathews, in Curr, III, 162).

2See Roth, Ethnologies! Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines, pp. 56 fi. ; Palmer, Notes on some Australian Tribes, J.A.I., XIII (1884), pp. 302 ff.

3Nevertheless, some tribes are cited where the matrimonial classes bear the names of animals or plant? : this is the case with the Kabi (Mathew, Two Representative Tribes, p. 150), the tribes observed by Mrs. Bates (The Marriage

Of course it is possible that these restrictions are indirectly derived from totemism. It might be supposed that the animals which these interdictions protect were once the totems of clans which have since disappeared, while the matrimonial classes remained. It is certain that they have a force of endurance which the clans do not have. Then these interdictions, deprived of their original

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field, may have spread themselves out over the entire class, since there were no other groups to which they could be attached. But it is clear that if this regulation was born of totemism, it represents only an enfeebled and denatured form of it.1

All that has been said of the totem in Australian societies is equally applicable to the Indian tribes of North America. The only difference is that among these latter, the totemic organization has a strictness of outline and a stability which are not found in Australia. The Australian clans are not only very numerous, but in a single tribe their number is almost unlimited. Observers cite some of them as examples, but without ever succeeding in giving us a complete list. This is because the list is never definitely terminated. The same process of dismemberment which broke up the original phratries and give birth to clans properly so-called still continues within these latter ; as a result of this progressive crumbling, a clan frequently has only a very small effective force.2 In America, on the contrary, the totemic system has better defined forms. Although the tribes there are considerably larger on the average, the clans are less numerous. A single tribe rarely has more than a dozen of them,3 and frequently less; each of them is therefore a much more important group. But above all, their number is fixed; they know their exact number, and they it tell to us.4

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This difference is due to the superiority of their social economy. From the moment when these tribes were observed for the first time, the social groups were strongly attached to the soil, and consequently better able to resist the decentralizing forces which assailed them. At the same time, the society had too keen a sentiment of its unity to remain unconscious of itself and of the parts out of which it was composed. The example of America thus enables us to explain even better the organization at the base of the clans. We would take a mistaken view, if we judged this only on the present conditions in Australia. In fact, it is in a state of change and dissolution there, which is not at all normal; it is much rather the product of a degeneration which we see, due both to the natural decay of time and the disorganizing effect of the whites. To be sure, it is hardly probable that the

Laws and Customs of the West Australian Aborigines, in Victorian Geographical Journal, XXIII-XXIV, p. 47), and perhaps in two tribes observed by Palmer. But these facts are very rare and their significance badly established. Also, it is not surprising that the classes, as well as the sexual groups, should sometimes adopt the names of animals. This exceptional extension of the totemic denominations in no way modifies our conception of totemism.

1Perhaps the same explanation is applicable to certain other tribes of the South-East and the East where, if we are to believe the informers of Howitt, totems specially attached to each matrimonial class are to be found. This is the case among the Wiradjuri, the Wakelbura and the Bunta-Murra on the Bulloo River (Howitt, Nat. Tr., pp. 210, 221, 226). However, the evidence collected is suspect, according to his own admission. In fact, it appears from the lists which he has drawn up, that many totems are found equally in the two classes of the same phratry.

The explanation which we propose, after Frazer {Totemism and Exogamy, pp. 531 ff.), raises one difficulty. In principle, each clan and consequently each totem, is represented equally in the two classes of a single phratry, since one of the classes is that of the children and the other that of the parents from whom the former get their totems. So when the clans disappeared, the totemic interdictions which survived should have remained in both matrimonial classes, while in the actual cases cited, each class has its own. Whence comes this differentiation ? The example of the Kaiabara (a tribe of southern Queensland) allows us to see how it may have come about. In this tribe, the children have the totem of their mother, but it is particularized by some distinctive mark. If the mother has the black eagle-hawk as totem, the child has the white eagle-hawk (Howitt, Nat. Tr., p. 229). This appears to be the beginning of a tendency for the totems to differentiate themselves according to the matrimonial classes.

2A tribe of only a few hundred members frequently has fifty or sixty clans, or even many more. On this point, see Durkheim and Mauss, De quelques formes primitives de classification, in the Annee Sociologique, Vol. VI, p. 28, n. i.

3Except among the Pueblo Indians of the South-West, where they are more Bumerous. See Hodge, Pueblo Indian Clans, in American Anthropologist, ist series. Vol. IX, pp. 345 ff. It may always be asked whether the groups which have these totems are clans or sub-clans.

4See the tables arranged by Morgan, Ancient Society, pp. 153-185.

Australian clans ever had the dimensions and solid structure of the American ones. But there must.have been a time when the distance between them was less considerable than it is to-day, for the American societies would never have succeeded in making so solid a structure if the clans had always been of so fluid and inconsistent a nature.

This greater stability has even enabled the archaic system ol phratries to maintain itself in America with a clearness and a relief no longer to be found in Australia. We have just seen that in the latter continent the phratry is everywhere in a state of decadence ; very frequently it is nothing more than an anonymous group ; when it has a name, this is either no longer understood, or in any case, it cannot mean a great deal to the native, since it is borrowed from a foreign language, or from one no longer spoken. Thus we have been able to infer the existence of totems for phratries only from a few survivals, which, for the most part, are so slightly marked that they have escaped the attention of many observers. In certain parts of America, on the contrary, this institution has retained its primitive importance. The tribes of the North-west coast, the Tlinkit and the Haida especially, have now attained a relatively advanced civilization; yet they are divided into two phratries which are subdivided into a certain number of clans : the phratries of the Crow and the Wolf among the Tlinkit,1 of the Eagle and the Crow among the Haida.2 And this division is not merely nominal; it corresponds to an ever-existing state of tribal customs and is deeply marked with the tribal life. The moral distance separating the clans is

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very slight in comparison with that separating the phratries.1 The name of each is not a word whose sense is forgotten or only vaguely known ; it is a totem in the full sense of the term ; they have all its essential attributes, such as will be described below.2 Consequently, upon this point also, American tribes must not be neglected, for we can study the totems of phratries directly there, while Australia offers only obscure vestiges of them.

II

But the totem is not merely a name ; it is an emblem, a veritable coat-of-arms whose analogies with the arms of heraldry have often been remarked. In speaking of the Australians, Grey says, " each family adopt an animal or vegetable as their crest and sign," 3 and what Grey calls a family is incontestably a clan. Also Fison and Howitt say, the Australian divisions show that the totem is, in the first place, the badge of a group."4 Schoolcraft says the same thing about the totems of the Indians of North America. "The totem is in fact a design which corresponds to the heraldic emblems of civilized nations, and each person is authorized to bear it as a proof of the identity of the family to which it belongs. This is proved by the real etymology of the word, which is derived from dodaim, which means village or the residence of a family group."5 Thus when the Indians entered into relations with the Europeans and contracts were formed between them, it was with its totem that each clan sealed the treaties thus concluded.6

1Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer. p. 112; Swan-ton, Social Condition, Beliefs and Linguistic Relationship of the Tlingit Indians, in XXVIth Rep.. p. 308.

2Swanton, Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida, p. 62.

1"The distinction between the two clans is absolute in every respect," says Swanton, p. 68 ; he gives the name clan to what we call phratries. The two phratries, he says elsewhere, are like two foreign nations in their relations to each other.

2Among the Haida at least, the totem of the real clans is altered more than that of the phratries. In fact, usage permits a clan to sell or give away the right of bearing its totem, as a result of which each clan has a number of totems, some of which it has in common with other clans (see Swanton, pp. 107 and 268). Since Swanton calls the phratries clans, he is obliged to give the name of family to the real clans, and of household to the regular families. But the real sense of his terminology is not to be doubted.

3Journals of two Expeditions in N.W. and W. Australia. II, p. 228.

4Kamiiaroi and Kurnai, p. 165.

5Indian Tribes. I, p. 420 ; cf. I, p. 52. This etymology is very doubtful. Cf. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (Simthsonian Iiist. Bur. of Ethnol., Pt. II, s.v.. Totem, p. 787).

6Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, III. 184 ; Garrick Mallery, Picture Writing of ihe American Indians, in Tenth Report,