Again, that peoples marrying in the communal way would die out has to be proved: science has no certainty in the matter.
In any case, Mr. Morgan presently deserts his opinion about slow unconscious reformation, and his natural selection. 'The organisation into classes seems to have been directed to the single object of breaking up the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, which affords a probable explanation of the origin of the system. But since it does not look beyond this particular abomination it retained a conjugal system nearly as objectionable....'[8] The reader sees that Mr. Morgan cannot keep on the high Darwinian level. He relapses on a supposed moral reform with a single object of things 'abominable'—to us—and 'objectionable'—to us. But how did the pristine savages find out that such things were 'abominable'? Presently the totem prohibition ('the gens') 'originates probably in the ingenuity of a small band of savages,' for the purpose of modifying marriage law, and the daring novelty 'must soon have proved its utility in the production of superior men.'[9] Here we have the legislation due to human 'ingenuity,' and natural selection comes in to aid and diffuse the system. Later 'the evils of the first form of marriage came to be perceived' (what were they?) and this led 'if not to its direct abolition, to a preference for wives beyond this degree. Among the Australians it was abolished by the organisation into classes, and more widely among the Turanian tribes by the organisation into gentes.' The Australians have 'gentes' (totem groups) quite as much as the 'Turanians' or 'Ganowanians,' and we have tried to show that totems are prior to 'classes.'[10] But the Australians 'abolished' a form of marriage by an 'organisation,' which implies deliberate legislation. From this difficulty of legislation, so early and so moral, no advocate of the 'bisection' of an undivided commune and of its 'subdivision' into totem 'phratries' and kins, can escape, however he may make a push at 'natural selection,' and gradual evolution.
MR. MORGAN ON TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP
These perplexities do not predispose us in favour of Mr. Morgan's theory of the terms of 'Relationship,' which we have illustrated by the case of the Urabunna. He himself takes the Hawaiian terms, which are to the same effect. In brief, all the men and women of a generation are' brothers and sisters,' all those of the prior generation are 'fathers and mothers,' all those of the following generation are 'children.' Now, if ever all the men and women of a generation married 'all through other,' promiscuously, these terms of 'relationship' would be in place. First, we are told, brothers and sisters in a family intermarried, and the process 'gradually enfolded the collateral brothers and sisters, as the range of the conjugal system widened.' And then 'the evils came to be perceived,' what evils, how perceived, we do not know, and Reformation set in. It definitely began with the Australian 'Bisection,' 'the organisation into classes' (really into 'phratries'), and about the difficulties of that theory enough has been said.
The reader will naturally ask, What is the original meaning of the words now used by Hawaiians, and Urabunna, and others, for the relations in which our 'father,' 'son,' 'wife,' 'husband,' 'mother.' 'daughter,' 'brother,' 'sister,' are included? Do the words embracing our terms 'brother' and 'sister' in Hawaii, or elsewhere, imply procreation, and issue (as in Greek), 'from the same womb'? Among the Arunta they cannot mean procreation, if they do not even know (as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen tell us), that there is any such thing as procreation. 'A spirit child enters a woman,' that is all. In the times of this primeval ignorance, words for relationships could not imply bearing and begetting; they must have meant something else. Say that they meant relationships in point of seniority: 'my male elder,' 'my female elder,' 'my male junior,' 'my female junior,' 'my male coeval or friend,' 'my female coeval or friend,' 'the man I may marry,' 'the woman I may marry,' 'the woman or man I may not marry.'
If low savage names for relationships meant that (no doubt they do not, or not often) then they would undeniably prove nothing as to a system of communal marriage. A baby points to any man or woman and says 'pa' or 'ma,' without any theory of communal marriage. Thus philologists must first interpret for us the original significance of these savage names of relationships. Once given, they would last, whatever they originally implied. Dr. Westermarck has urged this point.[11] In the terms themselves there is, generally, nothing which indicates that they imply an idea of consanguinity.' 'Pa, papa' (father), ma, mama (mother), and scores of others, 'are formed from the earliest sounds a child can produce,' and 'have no intrinsic meaning whatever.' Dr. Westermarck gives a long list of such words, applied to 'fathers, and all the tribe brothers of fathers,' and the same for mothers, concluding 'that we must not, from these designations, infer anything as to early marriage customs.' He does not deny that other terms of relationship have roots of independent meaning, 'but the number of those that imply an idea of consanguinity does not seem to be very great.' In Lifu (Melanesia), the word for 'father' means 'root;' for 'mother,' 'foundation' or 'vessel;' for 'sister,' 'not to be touched;' for 'elder and younger brother,' 'ruler' and 'ruled.'[12] The terms for father and mother denote consanguinity; the others, customary law, and status.
If we only knew the meanings, say, of the Urabunna words for relationships, we should learn much. But the truly amusing fact is that Mr. Fison, for example, did not know the language of the natives, and thought that probably not six white men in Australia had an adequate knowledge, and an adequate access to the notions, of the tribesmen. Of these one had been initiated, and, like a gentleman, declined to break the oath of secresy.[13] This was in 1880. Things may have improved. But unless our authorities know the languages, where are we? We do know that seniority is indicated: Father's elder brothers are Gampatcha Kuka (Warramunga tribe).
Mr. McLennan thought that all these terms were 'terms of address,' used to avoid the employment of personal names, and Dr. Westermarck holds that 'there can scarcely be any doubt that the terms for relationship are, in their origin, terms of address.' Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, after impartial consideration, cannot accept this view, for Australia; where the terms are very numerous, and stand for relations very complicated, connected with the intermarrying groups, and with social duties. In addressing a person, his or her individual name (our Christian name) is freely used.[14] They believe that the terms can only be explained 'on the theory of the former existence of group marriage, and further, that this has of necessity given rise to the terms of relationship used by the Australian natives.' These opinions are shared by Messrs. Fison and Howitt. The former says, 'It must, I think, be allowed that the classificatory terms point to group marriage,' and though Bastian denies this, Mr. Fison supports his theory by the Dieri custom of allotting paramours (pinauru) to men and women, out of the sets which may intermarry.[15]
To this problem we return; meanwhile it may seem impertinent in mere ethnologists of the study to hint a doubt as to the conclusions of observers on the spot. Mr. Crawley, however, has no hesitations. The use of the terms of relationship, he thinks, does not testify to a past of 'Group Marriage,' or to a remoter past of promiscuity, but is 'the regular result of the primitive theory of relationship; the system codifies a combination of relation and relationship, "address," and age.' The terms in use 'do not in themselves necessarily point to a previous promiscuity, or even to a present group marriage,' as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen believe.
The point is one on which I almost hesitate to venture a decided opinion. Much seems to depend on the original sense of the various terms, and on that point, in the case of Urabunna, and many other tribes, we have no light. But often the terms do not express consanguinity at all. There seems to be no word for 'daughter' as distinct from 'son,' 'nephew,' and 'niece.' The grandfather maternal is Thunthie, and Thunthunnie is Urabunna for totem, so that it is tempting to guess that Thunthie means 'a sire of the maternal totem.'[16] Kadnini, again (I speaking), means grandfather paternal, grandmother maternal, and grandchildren.[17] These relationships imply duties and services. 'One individual has to do certain things for another ... and any breach of these customs is severely punished.' An Arunta of the Panunga class calls all Kumura men 'fathers-in-law.' He gashes his flesh if any one of his 'fathers-in-law' dies, and he drops his dead game if he meets any one of them. They all have that advantage over him.[18] Thus these terms of relationship—communal in appearance—really involve certain duties, rather than relations of blood and affinity. But emphatically the terms are more than mere terms of address, as in Mr. McLennan's theory.