[CHAPTER IV]
ARUNTA PHRATRIES AND TOTEMS
The essential question is, why, among the more archaic Urabunna, do the large exogamous divisions never include the same totems, whereas, among the more highly developed Arunta, they do? If we can show how the Arunta, if once organised on the Urabunna and North American model, came to slip out of it; while we cannot show how the Urabunna, and most other tribes, if once on the Arunta model, came to desert it (as they must have done), then it will seem probable that the Urabunna organisation, the regular universal Australian organisation, is the older.
The sequence of events, as understood by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, was this, or, at least, may thus be conceived. We take two tribes, say Urabunna and Arunta. They both have many totem groups, totemic, because (on this theory) each group had, for its 'primary function,' the working of magic for the object which was its totem. The totem had primarily, on this theory, no relation to marriage rules. It is 'quite possible' that certain persons then deliberately introduced exogamous divisions.... 'so as to regulate marital relations.' The exact purpose, however, is unknown; 'it can only be said that far back in the early history of mankind, there was felt the need of some form of organisation, and that this gradually resulted in the development of exogamic groups.' This position I have already criticised; it is not intelligible to me. However—the exogamous division was made, and then all the totems might be arranged separately in the two divisions, by the Urabunna, 'and perhaps the majority of Australian tribes' (and the American tribes) or, 'this was not done,' as by the Arunta. Consequently, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen think, the rule which prevents an Urabunna man from marrying a woman of his own totem, has nothing, primarily, to do with the totem, but is a mere inevitable consequence of the system which, among all tribes but the Arunta, excluded each totem from one of the two exogamous divisions, and placed it (not among the Arunta) in the other. My own system—I need not reiterate it—is the reverse of all this.
The Arunta, I contend, probably had, originally, the usual organisation, but have lost it for obvious reasons, so that now the same totem may occur in both of the large exogamous divisions, and persons of the same totem may now intermarry.
The traditions of the Arunta represent the exogamous 'phratries' as later than the totemic (but not yet exogamous) division. Dr. Durkheim thinks this improbable or impossible. It is true that the 'phratries' or 'classes' are now much more important, among the Arunta, than the totems, on which Dr. Durkheim insists. They need not, therefore, be earlier.
VIEWS OF DR. DURKHEIM
The theory of Dr. Durkheim is not, perhaps, expressed with his usual lucidity; at least I have found some difficulty in understanding it. The following summary, however, seems to be correct. 'The phratry,' he says, 'began by being a clan' (in my terminology an exogamous local totem group). 'There is no reason why this general idea should not apply to the Arunta. Consequently, since there are actually two exogamous phratries, we have reason to admit that this society was originally formed by two primary clans, or, if any one prefers the phrase, by two elementary totem groups, both exogamous (également exogames), for under this form the two phratries must have begun to exist. Now in that case there was at least a moment when marriage was forbidden between members of the same totem,' though now among the Arunta this rule no longer obtains.[1]