Method in the Study of Totemism

by Andrew Lang

V.

Further south than the Tsimshian dwell the Kwakiutl, of whom the most southerly are called "the Kwakiutl proper." The northern Kwakiutl are divided, says Dr. Boas, into "septs" and "clans." What a "sept" may be I am not certain. The first tribe has "clans" called Beaver, Eagle, Wolf, Salmon, Raven, Killer Whale: the usual totemic names in this region. These totemic clans are exogamous, like those of Mayne's Tsimshians. Descent is in the female line. In the next tribe we find three exogamous animal-named clans: Eagle, Raven, Killer Whale, Beaver, Wolf, and Salmon have vanished, or have never existed. In these two tribes a child is sometimes placed in the father's, not in the mother's clan, as a Dieri father sometimes "gives" his totem to his son, in addition to the inherited maternal totem.[39]

When we reach the southern Kwakiutl ("the Kwakiutl proper") we are told by Dr. Boas that "patriarchate prevails." This appears to mean that descent is here reckoned not, as in the north, in the female, but in the male line. "We do not find a single clan that has, properly speaking, an animal for its totem; neither do the clans take their name from their crest, nor are there phratries."[40] As the northern Kwakiutl have animal-named exogamous "clans" with female descent, Dr. Boas now thinks that the northern Kwakiutl "have to a great extent adopted the maternal descent and the division into animal totems of the northern tribes."[41] We do not know, elsewhere, that totemism has ever been borrowed by one tribe from another, especially by a tribe so advanced in culture as the Kwakiutl, and we have no example of a tribe in which the men have given up their social prerogatives, and transmitted them to their nephews in the female line.

Mr. Frazer writes, "The question naturally arises, Are the Kwakiutl passing from maternal institutions to paternal institutions, from mother-kin to father-kin, or in the reverse direction?... In one passage Dr. Boas seems to incline to the former member of this alternative, that is, to the view that the Kwakiutl are passing, or have passed, from mother-kin, or (as he calls it) matriarchate to father-kin or patriarchate, for he says that "the marriage ceremonies of the Kwakiutl seem to show that originally matriarchate prevailed also among them."[42] Yet he afterwards adopted with great decision the "contrary view." On these very intricate problems I take leave to quote the statement with which Mr. Goldenweizer has been good enough to favour me.

First, as to descent among the Kwakiutl proper.

"At first, as Mr. Frazer points out (iii. p. 329 sq.). Dr. Boas believed that the Kwakiutl were passing from maternal to paternal descent. Later investigations conducted by Dr. Farrand (cf. F. Boas, The Mythology of the Bella Coola, Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. i. p. 121), led to a reversal of that opinion. The main arguments for original paternal descent among the Kwakiutl are three in number. (1) The village communities, which were the original social unit of the Kwakiutl,[43] regarded themselves as direct descendants of a mythical ancestor, and not as descendants of the ancestor's sister, which is the case in the legends of the northern tribes, with maternal descent. (Cf. F. Boas, The Kwakiutl, etc., p. 335, where a genealogy is also given.) (2) A number of offices connected with the ceremonies of the secret societies, such as master of ceremonies, etc., are hereditary in the male line (F. Boas, Kwakiutl, etc., p. 431). The Secret Societies, with their dances, are a very ancient institution among the Kwakiutl, and the male inheritance of the above offices is a strong argument for the former prevalence of paternal descent among these people. (3) The form taken by the maternal inheritance of rank, privileges, etc., among the Kwakiutl points in the same direction. When a man marries he receives crests, privileges, etc., from his father-in-law through his wife, but he himself may not use them but must keep them for his son, who, when of proper age, may sing the songs, perform the dances, use the crest, etc., which he thus receives from his mother through the medium of his father. (Cf. F. Boas, Kwakiutl, etc., p. 334.) When the young man marries he must return his privileges to his father, who then gives them to his daughter when she marries. Thus, son-in-law No. 2 receives the privileges, but again may not use them, but keeps them for his son, etc. It appears, then, that the privileges exercised by the young man before marriage are always derived from his mother, but formally he receives them from his father, who acts as a sort of guardian of these privileges until the son is ready for them. Descent here is clearly maternal, but the form of paternal descent is preserved, a plausible condition for a people who; having become maternal, still stick at least in form to the traditional inheritance from the father. If this inference be rejected, the feature becomes quite unaccountable.

"In the sentence, 'The woman's father, on his part, has acquired his privileges in the same manner through his mother' (Frazer, vol. iii. p. 333. note i), the privileges the woman's father exercised as a young man before marriage are meant. The privileges he later acquired through his wife he, of course, could not use, but had to keep them for his son. The phrase, 'each individual inherits the crest of his maternal grandfather' (Frazer, iii. p. 331, note 2), must be similarly interpreted. The crest the individual uses before marriage is meant.

"In connection with the foregoing it must be remembered that another mode of acquiring privileges, crests, songs, etc., was common among the Kwakiutl, viz. by killing the owner (cf. F. Boas, Kwakiutl, etc., p. 424, and elsewhere).

"I also cite the actual words of Dr. Boas. He believes that the intricate law by which 'a purely female line of descent is secured, although only through the medium of the husband,' can only be explained 'as an adaptation of maternal laws by a tribe which was on a paternal stage. I cannot imagine that it is a transition of a maternal society to a paternal society, because there are no relics of the former' (maternal) 'stage beyond those which we find everywhere, and which do not prove that the transition has been recent at all. There is no trace left of an inheritance from the wife's brothers; the young people do not live with the wife's parents. But the most important argument is that the customs cannot have been prevalent in the village communities from which the present tribal system originated, as in these' (village communities) 'the tribe is always designated as the direct descendants of the mythical ancestor. If the village communities had been on the maternal stage, the tribes would have been designated as the descendants of the ancestor's sisters, as is always the case in the legends of the northern tribes.'"[44]

From all this it appears that Dr. Boas believes the Kwakiutl proper to have been once, "on the maternal stage," of which the usual "relics" survive, but why should all such traces survive? Some must disappear, otherwise there could be no transition!