An example is taken from Mr. Bridgman, superintendent of the tribes at Port Mackay. These have two 'phratries,' Yungaru and Wutaru (totemic names), and four 'classes,' Gurgela, Bembia, Wungo, and Kubaru.[4] The terms for family relations are not understood in our sense. Mr. Bridgman had a name and status in the tribe. His name was Gunurra; his phratry was Yungaru, his class was Bembia, and his children, if he had any, were Wutaru (by phratry), Kubaru (by class). If a girl came by, and Mr. Bridgman asked who she was, and if she was Kubaruan, he was told 'she is your daughter.' This 'daughter' is a young woman of the class to which Mr. Bridgman's daughters, if he had any, would belong.

Herr Cunow's theory, then, starts from the 'horde,' divided into not intermarrying degrees of seniority. That such hordes, not separate family groups, were the initial stage of society, he is persuaded.[5] He rejects Morgan's theory of communal marriage.[6] Next, he thinks, arose objections to brother and sister and other near akin marriages (why we are not told), and a man would thus be driven to seek a wife out of his own horde. Why was this? Herr Cunow merely refers to the Dieri tradition already cited; evils followed on kindred marriages, and were perceived and, by divine decree, were reformed.[7] That such evils did arise and were perceived, and being perceived were reformed, by very low savages, is to the highest degree improbable. However it came about (we suggest by dint of reflection on the totem and phratry restrictions), there is now an objection to intermarriage between persons 'of the same flesh.' How this arose does not seem to be a question that Herr Cunow chooses to dogmatise upon.

The horde now developes itself into a group of kin, of which the members regard each other as 'too nearly related by blood,' to intermarry. 'As a mark of these groups of kin they later take different beast or plant names, usually from such species as exist in their districts. No reverence would originally be paid to the totem animal;' the Narrinyeri eat it without scruple,[8] like any other; the totem name is originally a name of a genossenschaft; a comradeship, the Narrinyeri word for totem, 'Ngaitje,' is equivalent to 'friend.'

All this is rather vague. Why did groups of comrades or of recognised kin take plant and animal names? Why did they forbid intermarriage? What was the origin of the objection to marriage between blood kindred? It does not arise out of 'moral ideas,' nor out of 'wife-capture,'[9] and Herr Cunow speaks neither of 'sexual taboo,' nor of 'sexual jealousy,' while the theory of 'personal totems' become hereditary, or of magical co-operation in totem breeding, is not mentioned; indeed, when Herr Cunow wrote (1894), the magical theory was unborn. The hordes merely developed into groups of comrades or of kin, as such not intermarrying among themselves, and marking themselves for no assigned reason, with plant or animal names: reverence of the totem came later.

'Still later than the totem association the phratry seems to arise,' and the phratries are described as allied local totem groups. This is my own opinion, but by 'local totem group,' I here mean (as already explained), the original local totem group, with the other totems which had become its elements, through exogamy, and female descent. Herr Cunow, if I follow him, means on the other hand a local totem group of the kind which now results among the Arunta from reckoning descent in the male line. 'The forbidding of marriage extended beyond the local group, passing into the neighbouring hordes, till at length morality enjoined the obtaining of wives from remoter districts. Hence was developed a come-and-go of marriage between two out of several larger local totems, and these larger local communities are the original types of the Australian phratries. Suppose that the hordes of the Kurnai had gradually developed themselves into local totem groups like those of the Narrinyeri, and ... that it became the rule for the Brataulong to take their wives from their south-western neighbours, the Kulin, and vice versa, till the two groups waxed into a great community, and we have the probable development' (of the 'phratries') 'before us.' The groups 'Brataulong' and 'Kulin' would now be a great community of two intermarrying phratries.

All this implies, I think, a more advanced society, and larger communities, than we can easily conceive to have existed in the distant past when phratries arose. Moreover Herr Cunow, as we shall see, takes descent, even at this primitive period, to have been reckoned in the male line. Again, we have observed that phratry names, when they can be translated, are usually totemic, an opinion expressed by Mr. Fison and Mr. Howitt. The same sort of totemic names marks Red Indian phratries. Granting male kinship, the phratries of Herr Cunow's hypothesis might well have totem names, but he tries to show that phratry names are usually local; he gives seven cases out of which only two names of phratries are totemic.[10] But he offers no authority for his assertion that the other five names are non-totemic (Eigennahme) and Yungaru and Wutaru, represented by him as non-totemic, are really totem names.

We know that as a result of reckoning in the male line local or district names tend to supersede totem names, and large local totem groups thus arise, a feature of the decay, not of the dawn, of Totemism. My own hypothesis, on the other hand, shows why phratry names are totemic. Herr Cunow concludes 'the phratry is originally nothing but an exogamous local group composed of several hordes.' Like Mr. Daniel McLennan, Herr Cunow quotes the legend of the wars of Eagle-Hawk and Crow, which ended in the establishment of the intermarrying phratries of Crow and Eagle-Hawk.[11] Herr Cunow's theory of phratries appears to me to find, in the remotest past, the most recent institutions of the Australians, and to confuse the primitive local totem group with the local totem-group later developed out of reckoning descent in the male line. He throws back into the distant past the large modern associations, which could not exist in times really primitive. He makes the hordes develope themselves into totem kins, in place of being, originally (as in my system), small associations united by contiguity, and receiving totem names from without.[12] He makes reckoning in the female line later than reckoning in the male line—the Narrinyeri reckoning in the male line (p. 84)—and perhaps this method, he thinks, is a result of ignorance of fatherhood, consequent on the Piraungaru custom (p. 135). Unluckily we find reckoning descent in the female line among many races, the Red Indians for example, where the Piraungaru custom is unknown. The priority of male to female descent is not admitted as a rule, by Mr. Tylor or any other English authorities.

Where I can agree with Herr Cunow is on the point that the two 'primary divisions' are the result, probably, of amalgamation, not of bisection for purposes of exogamy. Where we differ is as to the character of the communities that, by alliance and connubium, became 'primary divisions' or 'phratries.' On his system the communities were large, holding great districts. On mine, they were ancient local totem groups, whose members, through exogamy and female descent, were really of various totems. In a note (p. 139) Herr Cunow shows that he might easily have arrived at my conclusion, but, while allowing that alien brides brought the totem names of their own kins into each original totem group, he says that the men of that group still 'belonged to the totem identified with that horde.' This is the result of his belief that reckoning descent in the female line is 'an innovation.' His 'horde' is originally endogamous; then, we know not well why, is exogamous (p. 137). Those who do not believe that men originally lived in 'hordes,' and hold that, through jealousy and other causes, their little primary sets were, or tended to be, exogamous from the first, cannot agree with Herr Cunow. On the other hand, they may incline to accept his theory that, as the Australian terms of relationship indicate often status, not relationship in our sense, they do not help to prove a past of consanguine and communal marriage.

CLASSES AGAIN

To return to the classes, Dr. Durkheim opposes Herr Cunow's theory that they indicated originally degrees of seniority. He takes no notice, however, of Herr Cunow's argument from etymology, and the original meanings of the class names, 'Young' and 'Old.' He argues that, on Herr Cunow's system, each individual would, in lapse of time, move from young to old, and so ought to change his class name, and move into another class. Herr Cunow answers that, if this occurred, the object of the class names, practically to prevent young and old intermarrying, would have been defeated. But, as matters exist, a grandfather may marry a girl who might be his grand-daughter. He is A, his children are B, but their children are A again. He is Kubbi, he marries Ippatha, her children are Buta, their children are Ippatha, and the venerable Kubbi may marry a very juvenile Ippatha.