PHRATRY WOLF.
TONGAS (Geographical group, apparently).
Te'goedî, People of the island Teq°.
GānAXÁdî and Te'goedî seem to be "clans," but then clan Te'goedî, "People of the isle Teq°," looks like "a geographical group"!
There are fourteen "geographical divisions" of this kind, and sixty-eight "clans" of this kind, with descriptive or local names. The clans "were in a way local groups," says Mr. Swanton. They were also "clans or consanguineal bands," each "usually named from some town or camp it had once occupied." They "differed from the geographical groups ... being social divisions instead of comprising the accidental occupants of one locality."[35]
Be it observed that Mr. Swanton speaks of "these geographical divisions or tribes"; which increases the trouble, for, if the Tlingit be a "tribe," and the geographical divisions of the Tlingit be also "tribes," things are perplexing.
Once more, the Tlingit reckon descent in the female line. Now how can "a consanguineal band," which reckons descent in the female line, look like "a geographical group"? A totem kin, with male descent, in Australia and elsewhere, like a Highland clan, say the MacIans, necessarily becomes "a geographical group," say in Glencoe. But how, with female descent (unless the women go to the men's homes), a Tlingit "consanguineal band" can also have a local habitation is to me a difficult question. The names of the phratries descend in the female line. Do the local and descriptive names of "the clans or consanguineal bands," also descend in the female line? I cannot presume to say. Mr. Frazer throws no light on this point believing, as he does, that the "clans" within the Tlingit phratries, are the familiar totem kins, of animal names. If so, the children must inherit the maternal totem "clan" name.
Only one thing is clear to me, a Tlingit of the Wolf phratry can only marry a bride of the Raven phratry; a Tlingit of the Raven phratry can only woo a maiden of the Wolf phratry. If totem kins there be in the phratries, these totem kins are exogamous. If there be no totem kins in the phratry, are Mr. Swanton's clans of local names locally exogamous? May persons marry within the region where they are settled? I know not, but I rather incline to suppose that members of both phratries may be found in Mr. Swanton's clans of local name; indeed it must be so, and therefore a pair of lovers may perhaps wed within their "clan or consanguineal band," and within their local group, which, thus, is not exogamous. If so, the Tlingit clan is not exogamous. But all this is purely conjectural.
While, in Mr. Swanton's version, the Tsimshians, with female descent, have two exogamous "clans" with animal names, and two with other names; while in Mr. Frazer's book they have four animal-named exogamous clans, there is a third story resting on the authority of Mr. William Duncan, a missionary among the Tsimshian from 1857 onwards.[36] Mr. Duncan's information Commander Mayne incorporated in his book.[37]
According to Commander Mayne, using Mr. Duncan's evidence, in 1862, the Tsimshians (as we have seen), carved faces of "Whale, Porpoise, Raven, Eagle, Wolf, Frog, etc.," on roof beams. He calls such effigies "crests." No person may marry another of the same "crest": the children take their mother's crest, and bear the name of the animal which it represents. None may kill the animal of his crest. All this is exogamy with totem kins, under the phratries, as the exogamous units,[38] and with the totemic taboo. If Mayne and Duncan are right, either more recent writers are wrong, or Tsimshian totemism has been much modified since 1862.
[13] That is, the matrimonial classes, eight in all, are divided into two sets of four each, but these sets are nameless.