MATRIMONIAL CLASSES
Matrimonial classes—Their working described—Prevent persons of successive generations from intermarrying—Child and parent unions forbidden in tribes without matrimonial classes—Obscurity caused by ignorance of philology—Meanings of names of classes usually unknown—Mystic names for common objects—Cases in which meaning of class names is known—They are names of animals—Variations in evidence—Names of classes from the centre to Gulf of Carpentaria—They appear to be Cloud, Eagle Hawk (?), Crow, Kangaroo Rat—Uncertainty of these etymologies—One totem to one totem marriages—Obscurity of evidence—Perhaps the so-called "totems" are matrimonial classes—Meaning of names forgotten—Or names tabued—The classes a deliberately framed institution—Unlike phratries and totem kins—Theory of Herr Cunow—Lack of linguistic evidence for his theory.
The nature of the sets called Matrimonial Classes has already been explained (Chapter I.). In its simplest form, as among the Kamilaroi, who reckon descent in the female line, and among the adjacent tribes to a great distance, there exist, within the phratries, what Mr. Frazer has called "sub-phratries," what Mr. Howitt calls "sub-classes," in our term "matrimonial classes," In these tribes each child is born into its mother's phratry and totem of course, but not into its mother's "sub-phratry," "sub-class," or "matrimonial class." There being two of these divisions in each phratry, the child belongs to that division, in its mother's phratry, which is not its mother's. That a man of class Muri, in Dilbi phratry, marries a woman of class Kumbo, in Kupathin phratry, and their children, keeping to the mother's phratry and totem, belong to the class in Kupathin phratry which is not hers, that is, belong to class Ipai, and so on. Children and parents are never of the same class, and never can intermarry. The class names eternally differentiate each generation from its predecessor, and eternally forbid their intermarriage.
But child-parent intermarriages are just as unlawful, by custom, among primitive tribes like the Barkinji, who have female reckoning of descent, but no matrimonial classes at all. By totem law, among the Barkinji, a man might marry his daughter, who is neither of his phratry nor totem, but he never does. Yet nobody suggests that the Barkinji once had classes and class law, but dropped the classes, while retaining one result of that organisation—no parent and child marriage. The classes are found in Australia only, and tend, in the centre, north, and west, under male descent, to become more numerous and complex, eight classes being usual from the centre to the sea in the north.
One of the chief obstacles to the understanding of the classes and of their origin, is the obscurity which surrounds the meaning of their names, in most cases. Explorers like Messrs. Spencer and Gillen mention no instance in which the natives of Northern and Central Australia could, or at all events would, explain the sense of their class names.
In these circumstances, as in the interpretation of the divine names of Sanskrit and Greek mythology, we naturally turn to comparative philology for a solution of the problem. But, in the case of Greek and Sanskrit divine names, say, Athênê, Dionysus, Artemis, Indra, Poseidon, comparative philology almost entirely failed. Each scholar found an "equation," an interpretation, which satisfied himself, but was disputed by his brethren. The divine names, with a rare exception or two, remained impenetrably obscure.
If this was the state of things when divine names of peoples with a copious written literature were concerned; if scholars armed with "the weapons of precision" of philological science were baffled; it is easy to see how perilous is the task of interpreting the class names of Australian savages. Their dialects, leaving no written monuments, have manifestly fluctuated under the operation of laws of change, and these laws have been codified by no Grimm.
As a science, Australian philology does not exist. In 1880 Mr. Fison wrote, "It is simply impossible to ascertain the exact meaning of these words" (changes of name and grade conferred at secret ceremonies), "without a very full knowledge of the native dialects," and without strong personal influence with the blacks.... "In all probability there are not half-a-dozen men so qualified in the whole Australian continent."[1]
The habit of using, in the case of the initiate, mystic terms even for the everyday names of animals, greatly complicates the problem. It does not appear that most of the recorders of the facts know even one native dialect as Dr. Walter Roth knows some dialects of North-West Central Queensland. In the south-east, Kamilaroi was seriously studied, long ago, by Mr. Threlkeld and Mr. Ridley, who wrote tracts in that language. Sir George Grey and Mr. Matthews, with many others, have compiled vocabularies, the result of studies of their own, and Mr. Curr collected brief glossaries of very many tribes, by aid of correspondents without linguistic training.
Into this ignorance as to the meanings of the names of matrimonial classes, Mr. Howitt brings a faint little gleam of light In a few cases, he thinks, the meaning of class and "sub-class" names is ascertained. Among the Kuinmurbura tribe, between Broad Sound and Shoal water Bay, the "sub-classes" (our "matrimonial classes") "were totems." By this Mr. Howitt obviously means that the classes bore animal names. They meant (i.) the Barrimundi, (ii.) a Hawk, (iii.) Good Water, and (iv.) Iguana.[2] For the Annan River tribe, he gives "sub-classes" (our "matrimonial classes"), (i.) Eagle Hawk, (ii.) Bee, (iii.) Salt-Water-Eagle Hawk, (iv.) Bee.[3] This is not very satisfactory. In previous works he gave so many animal names for his "sub-classes," Mr. Frazer's "sub-phratries" (our "matrimonial classes"), that Mr. Frazer wrote, "It seems to follow that the sub-phratries of the Kamilaroi (Muri, Kubi, Ipai, and Kumbo) have, or once had, totems also," that is, had names derived from animals or other objects.[4]
Mr. Howitt himself at one time appeared to hold that the names of the matrimonial classes are often animal names. His phraseology here is not very lucid. "The main sections themselves are frequently, probably always, distinguished by totems." Here he certainly means that the phratries have usually animal names, though we are not told that the phratries, as such, treat their name-giving animal, even when they know the meaning of its name, "with the decencies of a totem." Mr. Howitt goes on, "The probability is that they are all" (that all the classes are) "totems."[5] By this Mr. Howitt perhaps intends to say that all the "classes" (both the phratries and the matrimonial classes) probably have animal or other such names.
Again, the class names of the Kiabara tribe were said to denote four animals—Turtle, Bat, Carpet Snake, Cat.[6] But now (1904) the Kiabara class names are given without translation, and the four animals are thrown into the list of totems, with Flood Water and Lightning totems (which names were previously given as translations of Kubatine and Dilebi, the phratry names).[7] Doubtless Mr. Howitt has received more recent information, but, if we accept what he now gives us, the meanings of his "sub-class" names are only ascertained in the cases of two tribes, and then are names of animals.
I spent some labour in examining the class names of the tribes studied by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, from the Arunta in the centre to the Tingilli at Powell's Creek, after which point our authors no longer marched due north, but turned east, at a right angle, reaching the sea, and the Binbinga, the Mara, and Anula coast tribes, on or near the MacArthur River. The class names of these coastal tribes did not resemble those of the central tribes. But if Messrs. Spencer and Gillen had held north by west, in place of turning due east from Newcastle Waters, they would have found, as far as the sea at Nichol Bay, four classes whose names closely resemble the class names of the central tribes, and are reported as Paljarie, or Paliali, or Palyeery (clearly the Umbaia and Binbinga Paliarinji), Kimera or Kymurra, (obviously Kumara), Banigher, or Bunaka, or Panaka (Panunga, cf. Dieri Kanunka = Bush Wallaby),[8] and Boorungo, or Paronga.[9]
It thus appears scarcely doubtful that, from the Arunta in the centre, to the furthest north, several of the class names are of the same linguistic origin, and—whether by original community of speech, or by dint of borrowing—had once the same significance. Now we can show that some of these names, in the dialects of one tribe or another, denote objects in nature. Thus Warramunga Tj-upila' (Tj being an affix) at least suggests the Dieri totem, Upala, "Cloud." Biliarinthu, in the same way, suggests the Barinji Biliari, "Eagle Hawk," or the Umbaia Paliarinji. Ungalla, or Thungalla, is Arunta Ungilla, "Crow," the Ungōla, or Ungăla, "Crow" of the Yaroinga and Undekerabina of North-West Queensland,[10] while Panunga, Banaka, Panaka, resembles Dieri Kanunka—"Bush Wallaby," or Kanunga, "Kangaroo Rat."
The process of picking out animal names in one tribe corresponding to class names in other tribes, is not so utterly unscientific as it may seem, for the tribes have either borrowed the names from each other, or have a common basis of language, and some forms of dialectical change are obvious. We lay no stress on the "equations" given above, but merely offer the suggestion that class names have often been animal names, and hint that inquiry should keep this idea in mind.
I do not, then, offer my "equations" as more than guesses in a field peculiarly perilous. The word which means "fire" in one tribe, means "snake" in another. "What fools these fellows are, they call 'fire' 'snakes,'" say the tribesmen. However, if we guess right, we find Eagle Hawk, Crow, Cloud, and Kangaroo Rat, as class names, over an enormous extent of Central and Northern Australia.[11]
About the deliberate purpose of the classes there can be no doubt. They were introduced to bar marriages, not between parents and children, for these are forbidden in primitive tribes, but between persons of the parental and filial generations. Or the names were given to stereotype classes, already existing, but hitherto anonymous, within which marriage was already prohibited. To make the distinction permanent, it was only necessary to have a linked pair of classes of different names in each phratry, the child never taking the maternal class name, but always that of the linked class in her phratry (under a system of female descent). The names Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, would have served the turn as well as any others. If a tribe had two words for young, and two for old, these would have served the turn; as
Phratry
| Dilby | Jeune. Old. |
Phratry
| Kupathin | Vieux. Young. |
Meanwhile, in our linguistic darkness, we are only informed with assurance that, in two cases, the class names denote animals, while we guess that this may have been so more generally.
According to Mr. Howitt, "in such tribes as the Urabunna, a man, say, of class" (phratry) A, is restricted to women of certain totems, or rather "his totem inter-marries only with certain totems of the other class" (phratry).[12] But neither in their first nor second volume do Messrs. Spencer and Gillen give definite information on this obscure point. They think that it "appears to be the case" that, among the northern Urabunna, "men of one totem can only marry women of another special totem."[13] This would seem prima facie to be an almost impossible and perfectly meaningless restriction on marriage. Among tribes so very communicative as the dusky friends of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, it is curious that definite information on the facts cannot be obtained.
Mr. Howitt, however, adds that "one totem to one totem" marriage is common in many tribes with phratries but without matrimonial classes.[14] Among these are some tribes of the Mukwara-Kilpara phratry names. Now this rule is equivalent in bearing to the rule of the phratries, it is a dichotomous division. But the phratries contain many totems; the rule here described limits marriage to one totem kin with one totem kin, in each phratry. What can be the origin, sense, and purpose of this, unless the animal-named divisions in the phratry called "totems" by our informants, are really not totem kins but "sub-phratries" of animal name, each sub-phratry containing several totems? This was Mr. Frazer's theory, based on such facts or statements as were accessible in 1887.[15] There might conceivably be, in some tribes, four phratries, or more, submerged, and, as bearing animal names, these might be mistaken by our informants for mere totem kins. With development of social law, such animal-named sub-phratries might be utilised for the mechanism of the matrimonial classes. In many tribes the meaning of their names, like the meaning of too many phratry names, might be forgotten with efflux of time.
Or again, when classes were instituted, four then existing totem names—two for each phratry—might be tabued or reserved, and made to act exclusively as class names, while new names might be given to the actual animals, or other objects, which were god-parents to the totem kins. Such tabus and substitutions of names are authenticated in other cases among savages. Thus Dr. Augustine Henry, F.L.S., tells me that, among the Lolos of Yunnan, he observed the existence of kinships, each of one name. It is not usual to marry within the name; the prohibition exists, but is decadent If a person wishes to know the kin-name of a stranger, he asks: "What is it that you do not touch?" The reply is "Orange" or "Monkey," or the like; but the name is not that applied to orange or monkey in everyday life. It is an archaic word of the same significance, used only in this connection with the tabued name-giving object of the kin. The names of the Australian matrimonial classes appear to be tabued or archaic names of animals and other objects, as we have shown that some phratry names also are.
For practical purposes, as we have shown, any four different class-titles would serve the turn, but pre-existing law, in phratries and totems, had mainly, for the reasons already offered, used animal and plant names, and the custom was, perhaps, kept up in giving such names to the new classes of seniority. Beyond these suggestions we dare not go, in the present state of our information.
The matrimonial classes are a distinct, deliberately imposed institution.
In this respect they seem to differ from the phratry and totem names, which, as we have tried to show, are things of long and unconscious evolution. But conscious purpose is evident in the institution of matrimonial classes. We tentatively suggest that, if their names turn out to be usually names of animals and other objects, this occurs because animal-named sub-phratries once existed, and were converted into the mechanism of the classes; or because the pre-existing totemic system of nomenclature was preserved in the development of a new institution. Herr Cunow's theory that the class names mean "Young," "Old," "Big," "Little" (Kubbi = Kubbura, "young"; Kunibo = Kombia, Kumbia, Gumboka, "great or old"), needs a wide and assured etymological basis.[16] Dr. Durkheim's hypothesis appears to assume that "clans," exogamous, with female descent, are territorial, which (see Chapter V.) is not possible.
Whatever their names may mean, the matrimonial classes were instituted to prevent marriage between persons of parental and filial generations.
[1] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 59, 60.
[2] Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. III.
[3] Ibid., p. 118.
[4] Totemism, p. 84. Cf. Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 41.
[5] J. A. I., 1885, p. 143. Cf. Note 4.
[6] J. A. I., xiii. pp. 336, 341.
[7] Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 116.
[8] J. A. I., August 1890, p. 38.
[9] Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 36. J. A. I., ix. pp. 356, 357. Curr, i. p. 298. Austral. Assoc. Adv. Science, ii. pp. 653. 654. Journal Roy. Soc. N.S.W. vol. xxxii. p. 86. R. H. Matthews.
[10] Roth, p. 50.
[11] Mr. N. W. Thomas helped the chase of these names, without claiming any certainty for the "equations."
[12] Native Tribes of South-East Australia, p. 176. Citing Spencer and Gillen, p. 60.
[13] Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 71, Note 2.
[14] Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 189-194.
[15] Totemism, pp. 64-67.
[16] Die Verwandschafts Organisationen der Australneger. Stuttgart, 1894.