Lang Andrew
Method in the Study of Totemism
III
Mr. Goldenweizer tabulates the results of his comparison between the Totemism of British Columbia and that of Central Australia.9 In the latter region the totemic institutions and myths are not those of South-Eastern Australia. To the totemism of many tribes in South-Eastern Australia that of a great tribe of British Columbia, the Tlingit, bears, – if we may trust some of the evidence, – the closest possible resemblance; while, if we trust other and conflicting evidence, the resemblance is, on an important point, nearer to the institutions of certain Australian tribes of the furthest south, in Cape Yorke peninsula. The evidence for British Columbian totemism, I shall show, is so wavering as to make criticism difficult. The terminology, too, of some American students has been extremely perplexing. I am sorry to be obliged to dwell on this point, but a terminology which seems to apply five or six separate terms to the same social unit needs reform.
Dr. Boas is one of the most energetic field-anthropologists of the United States. To him we owe sixteen separate disquisitions and reports on the natives of the North-West Pacific coast and Hinterland, all of them cited by Mr. Goldenweizer in his excellent Bibliography. But Mr. Frazer observes that Dr. Boas variously denominates the kindred groups of the Kwakiutl tribe as "groups," "clans," "gentes," and "families." I must add that he also uses gentes as a synonym for phratries – "Phratries, viz. gentes."10 Now a "phratry" is not a gens; a "group" may be anything you please; a "family" is not a gens; – a "gens" is an aggregate of families, – and a "clan" is not a "family."
Mr. Goldenweizer's tabulated form of his comparisons between British Columbia and Australia contains ten categories (see the last footnote of p. 6). Of these, two at least (8) (9) indicate elements which are purely proofs that the B.C. tribes are on a much higher, or later, level of social progress than the Australians. These two are Rank and Art. Had Mr. Goldenweizer added Wealth and Towns to his ten categories he would have given four factors in B.C. culture which affect B.C. totemism, and which do not exist in Central Australia, where realistic art is all but wholly unknown: art being occupied with archaic conventional patterns. Thus, in Australia, the bewildering B.C. heraldry – the "crests" – cannot, as in B.C., confuse the statements of observers, perplex their terminology (for they often use "crests" as synonyms of "totems"), and disorganise totemism itself. But we can find, not far from Australia, a parallel to this heraldry in New Guinea. For "crests" or badges in Central British New Guinea, see Totemism and Exogamy, vol. ii. pp. 42-44. The people, like the B.C. tribes, are settled in villages. They have "a number of exogamous clans," most clans occupying several villages, and they have paternal descent. "Every clan" (as apparently in some cases in British Columbia) "has a number of badges called Oaoa, which, generally speaking, may only be worn or used by members of the clan." The "clan" names are geographical or are patronymics, they are not totemic; the badges either represent birds and mammals, or are "schematised" from some prominent feature of these. The people are not now totemists, even if they have passed through totemism.
Again (category 5), in British Columbia, "Magical Ceremonies are not associated with Totemism." In Central Australia they are "intimately associated with totemism." Yes, but in South-Eastern Australia they are not, as far as our evidence informs us. Magical ceremonies are not in Mr. Goldenweizer's list of five symptoms or characteristic peculiarities of totemism, so I leave them out of account.
Again, as to Taboo (category 3), in British Columbia, "non-totemic taboo is common; totemic, absent."
As to this "absence," Mr. Frazer has a great deal to say. For example, we have Commander Mayne's book, Four Years in British Columbia, a work of 1862, in which is given information from Mr. William Duncan, a missionary among the Tsimshian tribe. All such evidence given prior to controversies about totemism is valuable. According to this account, the Indians used, as "crests," representations of Whale, Porpoise, Eagle, Raven, Wolf, Frog, etc. Every person was obliged to marry out of the name of the animal represented by his crest, and each "clan" tabooed its animal, "will never kill the animal which he has adopted for his crest, or which belongs to him as his birthright," that is, apparently, his "familiar," and his inherited totem. This is original totemism in North-West America.
Mr. Frazer says, "So far as I remember, no other writer on these North-Western Indians has mentioned their reluctance to kill their totemic animals. In the course of this work I have repeatedly called attention to the paucity of information on this important side of totemism in the writings of American ethnologists."11 Mr. Frazer also finds the usual totemic taboo among the Yuchi, a tribe of the Gulf nations.12
In Central Australia are "numerous totemic and non-totemic taboos." But in other parts of Australia there are also tribes where people even kill and eat their totems. The totemic taboo is an extremely common institution, but not a note stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae.
Another category is (4), "Descent from the Totem." As I have said, the belief in this descent is a mere explanatory myth to account for totemism; and, like all other such myths, could only arise after men were not only totemic, but wondered why they were totemic. Consequently such myths are not of the essence of totemism, and their varieties are of no importance.
The belief, or myth, of totemic descent is absent in British Columbia, says Mr. Goldenweizer, in the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes, and present "among the Kwakiutl and further south." In Central Australia descent from the totem is "universal."
But it is a queer kind of "descent," is not, in the usual sense, descent at all, and, notoriously, is not descent by physical generation.
Then we have the category (7), "Guardian Spirits, intimately associated with Totemism" in British Columbia, "not associated with it in Central Australia." Yet, in Central Australia, a man's spirit is a totemic spirit. Again (10), "Number of Totems." In British Columbia "small," in Central Australia "large." But it is "small" in such central regions of Australia as those of the Dieri and Urabunna, and in South-Eastern Australia; and why it is so large among the Arunta no man knows. It is an unexplained peculiarity, and not essential.
"Reincarnation" (6) is, in British Columbia, "not associated with Totemism," in Central Australia "intimately associated with Totemism." Here, Mr. Strehlow, for the Southern Arunta, reports otherwise; while for the Northern Arunta and other tribes, this "reincarnation" is part of a speculative explanatory myth. The myth, as I can show, explains, at one stroke, how men come to have souls, and why men are totemic We know the kind of savage philosophy which accounts for this category.
I have now remarked on eight out of Mr. Goldenweizer's ten categories of differences between British Columbian and South Australian totemism; all of them, I think, are separable accidents of totemism; and most of them are easily to be accounted for by actual differences of culture, of social conditions, and by variety of savage taste and fancy in making guesses as to why totemists are totemistic.
IV
We next arrive at the two first of Mr. Goldenweizer's categories. These are concerned with points of such very wide diffusion in the totemic world that I, under correction, take leave to regard them as "normal," while I hold that such variations from the norm as exist can be explained – as aberrations.
The first of these two categories is announced as:
BRITISH COLUMBIA.
1. Exogamy
Totemic phratries (Tlingit).
Totemic clans (Haida, Tsimshian, Northern Kwakiutl).
CENTRAL AUSTRALIA.
2. Exogamy
Phratries.
Classes.
Totem clans (generally not independent exogamous units).
This needs explanation! By "totemic phratries" in the case of the Tlingits, Mr. Goldenweizer means the two main exogamous divisions of the tribe, Wolf and Raven. By "totemic clans," in the case of the Haida, he also means the two main exogamous divisions, Raven and Eagle, which, really, are phratries. But it is also clear that Mr. Goldenweizer is here using the word "clans" as it exists in the peculiar terminology of Dr. Swanton. Mr. Goldenweizer informs us that "Dr. Swanton now fully recognises the strict parallelism of the social units of the Tlingit and Haida, and sanctions the use of 'phratry' and clan in both cases." This terminological source of confusion happily disappears.
We are now, alas, entering a region where the variations of evidence, the confusions of terminology, and the influence of wealth and rank in the creation of heraldry, cause extreme perplexity. Meanwhile, as the Haida "clans" of the category are, in fact, phratries; on the other hand the "totemic clans" of the Tsimshians and Northern Kwakiutl (Raven, Eagle, Hawk, Wolf), and six "totemic clans" of the Northern Kwakiutl seem destitute of phratries, which, among the Arunta of Central Australia, have also died out Mr. Goldenweizer, however, assigns phratries to Central Australia, the Arunta have none;13 also "totem clans," where there are none, for the totemically named associations of the Arunta are not "clans," in the normal and usual sense of that word; they are not kins but associations.
Mr. Goldenweizer, in his first category, speaks of Central Australia as possessing totemic "clans" ("generally not independent exogamous units"). If by "Central Australia" he means the Arunta group of tribes, they have, I repeat, no "totemic clans"; they have only clubs with totemic names, and these associations are not "exogamous units." Where phratries with totem kins in them exist, no totem kin is or can be "an independent exogamous unit," except where one totem to one totem marriage prevails, as among certain Australian tribes. But if the phratry rule be dropped, as Morgan says it was among the Iroquois, then people may marry into any totem kin except their own, and each totem kin becomes an "independent exogamous unit."14
Thus the first category in Mr. Goldenweizer's list needs a good deal of explanation and criticism.
The second category is Totemic Names. Under these, in British Columbia, are:
"Phratries (Tlingit)."
"Clans (Haida)." (But these are phratries.)
"Two of four clan Tsimshian."
"Clans (Northern Kwakiutl)."
In place of two animal-named clans out of four, Mr. Frazer assigns four animal-named clans to the Tsimshians;15 Raven, Eagle, Wolf, and Bear. (T. and E., vol. iii. pp. 307-308.) Mr. Goldenweizer himself16 also assigns these four animal-named clans to the Tsimshians. But, in his table,17 he docks two Tsimshian clans of their totem names. He does so also in his p. 190. Thus (p. 187) all of the four Tsimshian "clans" have animal names. But (p. 190), and also in the tabular arrangement, only two of the Tsimshian clans have animal names. Mr. Frazer gives to all four Tsimshian clans the names of animals. Whom are we to believe18 Method is here a little to seek.
A much more serious puzzle meets us when, in his second category (totemic names), Mr. Goldenweizer assigns no totemic names to the "clans" of the Tlingit, while Mr. F. Boas (whose list is quoted by Mr. Frazer) and Holmberg (1856) do assign totemic names to the Tlingit clans.
Let us examine this situation.
If we take a South-East Australian tribe of the Barkinji pattern, we find it divided into two animal-named intermarrying phratries (or exogamous intermarrying "classes" or "moieties," I call them "phratries"). In each phratry are totem kins, that is, kins named after animals, vegetables, or other things in nature. The names of phratries and totem kins (I know no other word for them but totem kins or totem clans) descend in the female line. No such totem kin occurs in both exogamous phratries, therefore all these units are necessarily exogamous.
Two-thirds of the Australian phratry names are untranslated, like those of the Dieri; the other third, with a single exception (the Euahlayi), are names of animals.19
Now turn to the disputable case of the Tlingits of British Columbia. I first examine Mr. Frazer's account of them in Totemism and Exogamy (vol. iii. pp. 264-278). The Tlingits are divided into two exogamous phratries, or "classes," of animal names, Raven and Wolf. (In the north the Wolf "class" is also known as the Eagle.) Phratry exogamy is the rule; descent is in the female line. Each phratry is subdivided into a number of "clans," which are named after various animals. As no "clan" is represented in both phratries, and as all folk are obliged to marry out of their own phratry, the "clans" are, inevitably, exogamous.
For purposes of comparison with other British Columbia tribes, I give the list of Tlingit totem kins furnished by Mr. Frazer, "on the authority of Mr. F. Boas"20:
Примечание 121
As I found out, and proved, in many Australian tribes the name of each phratry also occurs as the name of a totem kin in the phratry; so also it is among the Tlingit —teste Mr F. Boas.22
Thus on every point – female descent, animal-named phratries, animal-named totem kins, and each phratry containing a totem kin of its own name, the Tlingit totemism is absolutely identical with that of many South-Eastern Australian tribes of the most archaic type.
But the Tlingit, unlike the Australians, live in villages, and "the families or households may occupy one or more houses. The families actually take their names from places." (I italicise the word "families.") Mr. Frazer's authorities here are Holmberg (1856), Pauly (1862), Petroff ("the principal clans are those of the Raven, the Bear, the Wolf, and the Whale"), Krause (both here undated). Dr. Boas (1889). and Mr. Swanton (1908).
Mr Goldenweizer23 does not mention that the "clans" of the Tlingit have animal names. Quite the reverse; he says that "the 'clans' of the Tlingit … bear, with a few exceptions, names derived from localities."24 This is repeated on p. 225.
At this point, really, the evidence becomes unspeakably perplexing. Mr. Frazer, we see, follows Mr. F. Boas and Holmberg (1856) in declaring that the "clans" of the Tlingit bear animal names. Mr. Goldenweizer says that, "with few exceptions," the "clans" of the Tlingit bear "names derived from localities."25 Mr. Goldenweizer's authority is "Swanton, Bur. Eth. Rep., 1904-1905 (1908), p. 398." Mr. Frazer26 also quotes that page of Mr. Swanton, but does not say that Mr. Swanton here gives local, not animal, names to the clans of the Tlingit. Mr. Frazer also cites Mr. Swanton's p. 423 sq. Here we find Mr. Swanton averring that Killer Whale, Grizzly Bear, Wolf, and Halibut are in the Wolf phratry, "on the Wolf side," among the Tlingit; while Raven, Frog, Hawk, and Black Whale are on the Raven side. Here are animal names (not precisely as in Mr. Boas' list) within the phratries. But Mr. Swanton does not reckon these animal names as names of "clans"; to "clans" he gives local names in almost every case. To his mind these animal names in Tlingit society denote "crests" not "clans" and with crests we enter a region of confusion.
