Lang Andrew
Social Origins and Primal Law
NO 'DISEASE OF LANGUAGE'
The names, I repeat, requiring and receiving mythical explanations, and the explanations necessarily suggesting conduct to match, are the causes of Totemism. This theory is not a form of the philological doctrine, nomina numina. This is no case of disease of language, in Mr. Max Müller's sense of the words. A man is called a Cat, all of his kin are Cats. The language is not diseased, but the man has to invent some reason for the name common to his kin. It is not even a case of Folk Etymology, as when a myth is invented to explain the meaning of the name of a place, or person, or thing. Thus the Loch of Duddingston, near Edinburgh, is explained by the myth that Queen Mary, as a child, used to play at 'dudding' (or skipping) stones across the water: 'making ducks and drakes.' Or again, marmalade is derived from Marie malade. Queen Mary, as a child, was seasick in crossing to France, and asked for confiture of oranges; hence Marie malade– 'marmalade.' In both cases, the name to be explained is perverted. There is no real 'stone' in Duddingston – 'Duddings' town,' the ton or tun of the Duddings; while 'marmalade' is a late form of 'marmalet,' a word older than Queen Mary's day.
An example of a folk etymology bordering on Totemism is the supposed descent of Clan Chattan, and of the House of Sutherland, from the Wild Cat of their heraldic crests. Now Clan Chattan is named, not from the cat, but from Gilla Catain, 'the servant of Saint Catan,' a common sort of Celtic personal name, as in Gilchrist.223 The Sutherland cat-crest is, apparently, derived from Catness, or Caithness. That name, again, is mythically derived from Cat, one of the Seven Sons of Cruithne who gave their names to the seven Pictish provinces, as Fib to Fife, and so on. These Seven Sons of Cruithne, like Ion and Dorus in Greece (Ionians, Dorians), are mere mythical 'eponymoi' or name-giving-heroes, invented to explain the names of certain districts. In Totemism this is not so. Not fancied names, like Duddingstone, or Marmalade, are, in Totemism, explained by popular etymologies. Emu, Kangaroo, Wolf, Bear, Raven, are real, not perverted names, the question is, why are these names borne by groups of human beings? Answers are: given in all the numerous savage myths, whether of a divine ordinance (Dieri, Woeworung) or of descent and kinship, of intermarriage with beasts, or of adventures with beasts, or of a woman giving birth to beasts, or of evolution out of bestial types, and all these myths suggest mutual duties between men and their totems, as between men and their human kinsfolk. It will be seen that here no disease of language is involved, not even a volks-etymologie (a vera causa of myth).
If it could be shown by philologists that many totem names originally meant something other than they now do, and that they were misunderstood, and supposed to be names of plants and animals, then 'disease of language' would be present. Thus λύκος and ἅρκτος have really been regarded, as meaning, each of them 'the bright one,' and the Wolf Hero of Athens, and the Bear of the Arcadians, have been explained away, as results of 'disease of language.' But nobody will apply that obsolete theory to the vast menagerie of savage totem names.
HYPOTHETICAL EARLY GROUPS BEFORE TOTEMISM
But, discarding this old philological hypothesis, how did the pristine groups get their totem names? We ought first to return to our conjecture as to what these pristine groups were like. They must have varied in various environments. Where the sea, or a large lake, yields an abundant food-supply, men are likely to have assembled in considerable numbers, as 'kitchen middens' show, at favourable stations. In great woods and jungles the conditions of food-supply are not the same as in wide steppes and prairies, especially in the uniform and arid plateaus of Central Australia. Rivers, like seas and lakes, are favourable to settlement; steppes make nomadism inevitable, before the rise of agriculture. But, if the earliest groups were mutually hostile, strongly resenting any encroachment on their region of food-supply, the groups would necessarily be small, as in Mr. Darwin's theory of small pristine groups, the male, with his females, daughters, and male sons not adult.224 A bay, or inlet, or a good set of pools and streams, would be appropriated and watchfully guarded by a group, just as every area of Central Australia has its recognised native owners, who wander about it, feeding on grubs, lizards, snakes, rats, frogs, grass-seeds, roots, emus, kangaroos, and opossums.
The pristine groups, we may be allowed to conjecture, were small. If they were not, the hypotheses which I venture to present are of no value, while that of Mr. Atkinson shares their doom. Mr. McLennan, as far as one can conjecture from the fragments of his speculations, regarded the earliest groups as at least so large, and so bereft of women, that polyandry was the general rule. Mr. Darwin, on the other hand, began with Polygyny and Monogamy, 'jealousy determining the first stage.'225 This meant that there was a jealous old sire, who kept the women to himself, as in Mr. Atkinson's theory. As we can scarcely expect to reach certainty on this essential point, anthropology becomes (like history in the opinion of a character in Silas Marner) 'a process of ingenious guessing.' But, embarking on conjecture, I venture to suggest that the problem of the commissariat must have kept the pristine groups very small.226
They 'lived on the country,' and the country was untilled. They subsisted on the natural supplies, and the more backward their material culture, the sooner would they eat the country bare, as far as its resources were within their means of attainment. One can hardly conceive that such human beings herded in large hordes, rather they would wander in small 'family' groups. These would be mutually hostile, or at least jealous: they could scarcely yet have established a modus vivendi, and coalesced into the friendly aggregate of a local tribe, such as Arunta, Dieri, Urabunna, and so on. Such tribes have now their common councils and mysteries lasting for months among the Arunta. We cannot predicate such friendly union of groups in a tribe, for the small and jealous knots of really early men; watchfully resenting intrusion on their favourite bays, pools, and hunting of browsing grounds. As to marriage relations, it is not improbable that 'sexual solidarity' (as Mr. Crawley calls it), the separation of the sexes – the little boys accompanying the men, the little girls accompanying the women – and perhaps that 'sexual tabu,' coupled with the jealousy of male heads of groups, may already have led to prohibition of marriage within the group, and to raids for women upon hostile groups. The smaller the group, the more easily would sexual jealousy prohibit the lads from dealings with the lasses of their own group. There might thus, in different degrees, arise a tendency towards exogamy, and specially against son and mother, or father's mates, and brother and sister marriage. The thing would not yet be a sin, forbidden by a superstition, but still, the tendency might (as we have already said) run strong against marriage within each little group.
HOW THE GROUPS GOT NAMES
Up to this point we may conceive that the groups were anonymous. Each group would probably speak of itself as 'the Men' (according to a well-recognised custom among the tribes of to-day; for instance, the Gournditch-mara of Australia, mara meaning 'men'; Kurnai and Narinyeri, also mean 'the men'), while it would know neighbouring groups as 'the others,' or 'the wild blacks.' But this arrangement manifestly lacks distinctness. Even 'the others down there' is too like the vague manner in which the Mulligan indicated his place of residence. Each group will need a special name for each of its unfriendly neighbours.
These names, as likely as not, or more likely than not, will be animal or plant names, given for various reasons, perhaps, among others from fancied resemblances. It may be objected that an individual may bear a resemblance to this or that animal, but that a group cannot. But it is a peculiarity of human nature, to think that strangers (of another school eleven, say) are all very like each other, and if one of them reminds us of an Emu or a Kangaroo, all of them will. Moreover the name may be based on some real or fancied group trait of character, good or bad, which also marks this or that type of animal, such as cunning, cruelty, cowardice, strength, and so forth, and animal names may even be laudatory. We have also to reckon with the kinds of animals, plants, trees, useful flints, and other objects which may be more prevalent in the area occupied by each group; and with specialities in the food of each group's area, as in Mr. Haddon's theory. Thus there are plenty of reasons for the giving of plant and animal names, which, I suggest, were imposed on each group from without.
It is true that local names would serve the turn, if they were in use. But the 'hill-men,' 'the river-men,' 'the bush-men,' 'the men of the thorn country,' 'the rock-men,' are at once too scanty and too general. Many groups might fall collectively under each such local name. Again, it is as society moves away from Totemism, towards male kinship, and settled abodes, that local names are given to human groups, as in Melanesia, or even to individuals, as in the case of the Arunta, and the Gournditcha Mara. Among the Arunta a child is 'of' the place where he or she was born, like our de and von.227 The piquancy of plant and animal names for groups probably hostile must also be considered. We are dealing with a stage of society far behind that of Mincopies, or Punans of Borneo, or Australians, and in imagining that the groups were, as a rule, hostile, we may or may not be making a false assumption. We are presuming that the jealousy of the elder males drove the younger males out of the group, or at least compelled them to bring in females from other groups, which would mean war. We are also assuming jealousy of all encroachments on feeding grounds. These are the premises, which cannot be demonstrated, but only put in for the sake of argument. In any case no more hostility than our and the French villages have for each other is enough to provide the giving of animal sobriquets.
As to hostility, Mr. Atkinson, in New Caledonia, had a set of labourers brought in from a distant island. Among them was a young boy, who, being employed as cook, had a good deal of popularity with his mates. He went home for a holiday, with a few men from his own island. He was put down at their little harbour, only a few miles from that of his tribe, and was instantly killed and eaten.
In 'Notice sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie' (1900) this ferocious hostility between near neighbouring groups is corroborated. It is certain death for the crew of a canoe to be driven into a harbour, however near their own, which is not their own. This is among the islanders not under the French. Count von Pfeil remarks on the violent hostility between Kanakas and others near adjacent.228
On this point of unfriendly sobriquets I may quote MM. Gaidoz and Sébillot.229
'In all ages men love to speak ill of their neighbour: to blazon him, in the old phrase of a time when our speech was less prudish, and more gay. Pleasantries are exchanged not only between man and man, but between village and village. Sometimes in one expressive word, the defect, or the quality (usually the defect), the dominant and apparently hereditary trait of the people of a race or a province is stated … in a kind of verbal caricature… Les hommes se sont donc blazonnés de tout le temps?
De tout le temps! MM. Gaidoz and Sébillot were not thinking of the origin of totem names, but their theory applies 'to all ages,' even the most primitive. Among French village sobriquets I note, at a hasty glance,
and villages named as eaters of:
Old Ewes
Onions
Crows.
We shall see that many Sioux groups, many English villages are blazoned, as in Mr. Haddon's theory, by the names of the things which they eat: or are accused of eating.
Thus, among very early men, the names by which the groups knew their neighbours would be names given from without. To call them 'nicknames,' is to invite the objection that nicknames are essentially derisive, and that groups so low could not yet use the language of derision. I see no reason why early articulate-speaking men (or even men whose language is gesture language) should be so modern as to lack all sense of humour, all delight in derision. But the names need not have been derisive. If these people had the present savage belief in the wakan, or mystic power of animals, the names may even have been laudatory. I ask for no more than names conferred from without, call them nicknames, sobriquets, or what you like.
We are acquainted with no race that is just entered on Totemism, unless we agree with Mr. Hill Tout that Totemism is nascent among the Salish tribe, who live in village communities. Consequently we cannot prove that early hostile groups would name each other after plants and animals. I am only able to demonstrate that, alike in English and French folk-lore, and among American tribes who reckon by the male line, who are agricultural and settled, the villages or groups are named, from without, after plants and animals, and after what they are supposed to be specially apt to use as articles of food, and also by nick-names – often derisive. What I present is, not proof that the primal groups named each other after plants and animals, but proof that among our rustics, by congruity of fancy, such names are given, with other names exactly analogous to those now used among settled savages moving away from Totemism.
ILLUSTRATION FROM FOLK-LORE
I select illustrative examples from the blason populaire of modern folk-lore. Here we find the use of plant and animal names for neighbouring groups, villages, or parishes. Thus two informants in a rural district of Cornwall, living at a village which I shall call Loughton, found that, when they walked through the neighbouring village, Hillborough, the little boys 'called cuckoo at the sight of us.' They learned that the cuckoo was the badge, in folk-lore, of their village. An ancient carved and gilded dove in the Loughton church 'was firmly believed by many of the inhabitants to be a representation of the Loughton Cuckoo,' and all Loughton folk were Cuckoos. 'It seems as if the inhabitants do not care to talk about these things, for some reason or other.' A travelled Loughtonian 'believes the animal names and symbols to be very ancient, and that each village has its symbol.' My informants think that 'some modern badges have been substituted for more ancient ones,' such as tiger and monkey. There is apparently no veneration of the local beast, bird, or insect, which seems often, on the other hand, to have been imposed from without as a token of derision. Australians make a great totem of the Witchetty Grub (as Spencer and Gillen report), but the village of Oakditch is not proud of its potato grub, the natives themselves being styled 'tater grubs.' I append a list of villages (with false names230) and of their badges:
At Loughton, when the Hillborough boys pass through on a holiday excursion, the Loughton boys hang out dead mice, the Hillborough badge, in derision. The boys have even their 'personal totem,' and a lad who wishes for a companion in nocturnal adventure will utter the cry of his peculiar beast or bird, and a friend will answer with his. If boys remained always boys (that is, savages), and if civilisation were consequently wiped out, myths about these group names of villages would be developed, and Totemism would flourish again. Later I give other instances of village names answering to totem names, and in an Appendix I give analogous cases collected by Miss Burne in Shropshire, and others, we saw, are to be found in the blason populaire of France.
It appears to me that totem group names may, originally, have been imposed from without, just as the Eskimo are really Inuits; 'Eskimo,' 'Eaters of raw flesh,' being the derisive name conferred by their Indian neighbours. Of course I do not mean that the group names would always, or perhaps often, have been, in origin, derisive nicknames. Many reasons, as has been said, might prompt the name-giving. But each such group would, I suggest, evolve animal and vegetable nicknames for each neighbouring group. Finally some names would 'stick,' would be stereotyped, and each group would come to answer to its nickname, just as 'Pussy Moncrieff,' or 'Bulldog Irving,' or 'Piggy Frazer,' or 'Cow Maitland,' does at school.
HOW THE NAMES BECAME KNOWN
Here the questions arise, how would each group come to know by what name each of its neighbours called it, and how would hostile groups Come to have the same nicknames for each other? Well, they would know the nicknames through taunts exchanged in battle.
'Run, you deer, run!'
'Off with you, you hares!'
'Skuttle, you skunks!'
They would readily recognise the appropriateness of the names, if derived from the plants, trees, or animals most abundant in their area, and most important to their food supply: for, at this hypothetical stage, and before myths had crystallised round the names, they would have no scruples about eating their name-giving plants, fruits, fishes, birds, and animals. They would also hear their names from war captives at the torture stake, or on the road to the oven, or the butcher. But the chief way in which the new group names spread would be through captured women; for, though there might as yet be only a tendency towards exogamy, still girls of alien groups would be captured as mates. 'We call you the Skunks,' or whatever it might be, such a bride might remark, and so knowledge of the new group names would be diffused. These names would adhere to groups, on my hypothesis, already exogamous in tendency, and, when the totem myth arose, the exogamy would be sanctioned by the totem tabu.231
TOTEMIC AND OTHER GROUP NAMES – ENGLISH AND NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN
It may seem almost flippant to suggest that this old mystery of Totemism arises only from group names given from without, some of them, perhaps, derisive. But I am able to demonstrate that, in North America, the names of what some American authorities call gentes (meaning old totem groups, which now reckon descent through the male, not the female line), actually are nicknames – in certain cases derisive. Moreover, I am able to prove that, when the names of these American gentes are not merely totem names, they answer, with literal precision, to our folk-lore village sobriquets, even when these are not names of plants or animals. The late Rev. James Owen Dorsey left, at his death, a paper on The Siouan Sociology.232 Among the gentes (old totem kindreds with male descent) he noted, the gentes of a tribe, 'The Mysterious Lake Tribe.' There were, in 1880, seven gentes. Three names were derived from localities. One name meant 'Breakers of (exogamous) Law.' One was 'Not encumbered with much baggage.' One was Rogues ('Bad Nation'). These three last names are derisive nicknames. The seventh name was 'Eats no Geese,' obviously a totemic survival. Of the Wahpeton tribe all the seven gentes derived their names from localities. Of the Sisseton tribe, the twelve names of gentes were either nicknames (one, 'a name of derision'), or derived from localities.
Of the Yankton gentes, five names out of seven were nicknames, mostly derisive, the sixth was 'Bad Nation' ('Rogues'), the seventh was a totem name, 'Wild Cat.' Of the Hunpatina (seven gentes), three names were totemic (Drifting Goose, Dogs, Eat no Buffalo Cows); the others were nicknames, such as 'Eat the Scrapings of Hides.' Of the Sitcanxu, there were thirteen gentes. Six or seven of their titles were nicknames, three were totemic, the others were dubious, such as 'Smellers of Fish.' The Itaziptec had seven gentes; of their names all were nicknames, including 'Eat dried venison from the hind quarter.' Of the Minikooju, there were nine gentes. Eight names were nicknames, including 'Dung Eaters.' One seems totemic, 'Eat no Dogs.' Of five Asineboin gentes the names were nicknames from the habits or localities of the communities. One was 'Girl's Band,' that is, 'Girls.'
Now compare parish sobriquets in Western England.233 In this list of parish or village nicknames, twenty-one are derived from plants and animals, like most totemic names. We also find 'Dog Eaters,' 'Bread Eaters,' 'Burd Eaters,' 'Whitpot Eaters,' and, answering to 'Girl's Band' (Gens des Filles), 'Pretty Maidens:' answering to 'Bad Nation,' 'Rogues': answering to 'Eaters of Hide Scrapings' 'Bone Pickers': while there are, as among the Siouans, names derived from various practices attributed to the English villagers, as to the Red Indian gentes.
No closer parallel between our rural folk-lore sobriquets of village groups, given from without, and the names given from without of old savage totem groups (now reckoning in the male line, and, therefore, now settled together in given localities) could be invented. (For other examples see Appendix A.) I conceive, therefore, that my suggestion – the totem names of pristine groups were originally given from without, and were accepted (as in the case of the nicknames of Siouan gentes, now accepted by them) – may be reckoned no strain on our sense of probability. It is demonstrated that the name-giving processes of our villagers exist among American savage groups which reckon descent in the male line, and that they also existed among the savage groups which reckoned descent in the female line is, surely, a not unreasonable surmise. I add a list in parallel columns.
Примечание 1234
