Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs

by Alfred C. Haddon

Persons of the same totem may not marry or have sexual intercourse with each other. Amongst some peoples this rule is rigidly adhered to; the penalty for infringing this rule may be the vengeance of supernatural powers, but most frequently the clan steps in and punishes the offenders. Amongst the more primitive totemistic peoples the death penalty is usually enforced, but in any case the punishment is always severe. When other social conditions modify totemism these sexual restrictions are weakened and the punishment for offences is diminished.

There are some Australian tribes in which the members of any clan are free to marry members of any clan but their own; but more frequently an Australian tribe is divided into groups of clans, and a person can marry only into certain of these groups; an exogamous clan-group is known as a phratry. Thus a man is a possible husband to all the women of one or more phratries of his tribe, but he is brother to all the women of the remaining phratries.

“A remarkable feature of the Australian social organisation is that divisions of one tribe have their recognised equivalent in other tribes, whose languages, including the names for the tribal divisions, are quite different. A native who travelled far and wide through Australia stated that ‘he was furnished with temporary wives by the various tribes with whom he sojourned in his travels; that his right to these women was recognised as a matter of course; and that he could always ascertain whether they belonged to the division into which he could legally marry, though the places were one thousand miles apart, and the languages quite different.’”[153]

I am not aware that any one has attempted to study the totem and divisional body-marks of the Australian tribes. This can only be done through careful and laborious investigations conducted among the natives; it cannot be accomplished in the study or in museums. If Australian anthropologists do not bestir themselves without delay this information will be irrevocably lost. Every year passed makes it more difficult to do, and soon it will be too late.

The origin of tattooing or scarifying of the person receives a fresh significance from these Australian customs. The marks appear to be, not so much tribal distinctions for political purposes, but clan badges of social significance with the object of preventing persons from falling into the sin of unwitting clan incest; they are, in fact, religious symbols which make for social purity.

It is obvious that the knowledge of these symbols has to be learnt by the young people, and hence this forms an important part of the information of lads imparted during the initiation ceremonies. The main religious object of these initiation ceremonies is the assimilation of the youth with his totem, and the consequent formal adoption into the clan of that totem. Thence follows the social aspect of that adoption, and the newly-made man is instructed in his social duties; he is taught the code of sexual permissions and prohibitions, and the knowledge of personal marks and gestures by means of which he can communicate his totem to, or to ascertain the totems of, strangers whose language he does not understand.

It is a common, possibly a universal custom, for totemistic peoples to decorate their belongings with their totems. This is well known to occur in North America. The Thlinkets paint or carve their totem on shields, helmets, canoes, blankets, household furniture, and houses. In single combats between chosen champions of different Thlinket clans, each wears a helmet representing his totem. In front of the houses of the chiefs and leading men of the Haidas are erected posts carved with the totems of the inmates. As the houses sometimes contain several families of different totems, the post often exhibits a number of totems, carved one above the other. Or these carvings one above the other represent the paternal totems in the female line, which, descent being in the female line, necessarily change from generation to generation. The totem is painted or carved on the clansman’s tomb or grave-post, the figure being sometimes reversed to denote death. It is always the Indian’s totem name, not his personal name, which is thus recorded. Other examples will be found in Mr. Frazer’s valuable little book.

I have already (p. [17]) referred to the delineation of totem animals on drums, pipes, and other objects from Torres Straits and the adjoining coast of New Guinea. Two representations of a totem are usually placed symmetrically on the object; I rather suspect that this is the rule. The cassowary is the most frequent animal on the drums, and I have reason to believe that only a certain clan, or clans, can beat the drums, in which case it is evident that the cassowary men are the chief if not the sole musicians.

When the totem representations are realistic in character there is no difficulty in recognising them; but this is by no means the usual case. Abundant evidence has been given in this book of the degeneration of animal forms into simple decorative devices.

Many savages, however, lay no stress upon realism. A certain simple or complex mark represents a given object, it may not in the very least resemble that object any more than the written or printed name of an animal bears any relation to that animal. The mark is a sign for that object, and if it can be recognised, it answers its purpose. In many cases it can be shown that the mark is in reality a degraded picture of the object, in a vast number of examples we have no evidence.