No attempt is made to explain either why members of the same horde chose separate animal gods; or why—unless because of consequent religious differences—the two "clans," previously united, were now hostile; or why there were at first only two such religious hostile "clans"; or, if there were more, what became of the others.
Meanwhile, we are not even sure that Dr. Durkheim does believe in a primary incestuous horde, when "Society must have formed a compact undivided mass ... before splitting into two distinct groups, and some of Morgan's tables of nomenclature corroborate this hypothesis."[13] It is true that Dr. Durkheim makes this assertion. But, in the same volume (i. p. 332), Dr. Durkheim tells us that Mr. Morgan's theory of obligatory promiscuity (a theory based, as we saw in Chapter II., on the terms of relationship) "seems to us to be definitely refuted." Again, Mr. Morgan, like Mr. Howitt and Mr. Spencer, regarded the savage terms for relationships as one proof of "group marriage," or "collective marriage," including unions of the nearest of kin. (Compare our Chapter III.) But Dr. Durkheim writes, "The hypothesis of collective marriage has never been more than a last resource, intended to enable us to envisage these strange customs: but it is impossible to overlook all the difficulties which it raises ... this improbable conception."[14]
Is it possible that, after many times reading the learned Professor's work, I misunderstand him? With profound regret I gather that he does not believe in the theory of "obligatory promiscuity" in an undivided horde, which I have supposed to be the basis of his system; a horde "in which there is nothing to show that incest was forbidden." That incest, in Mr. Morgan's theory, was "obligatory," I cannot suppose, because, if nobody knew who was akin to whom, nothing could compel a man to marry his own sister or daughter. I am obliged to fear that I do not understand what is meant. For Dr. Durkheim made society begin in a united solid peuplade, in which "there is no reason to suppose that incest was forbidden," and as proof he cited some of Mr. Morgan's tables of relationships. He then gave his theory of how exogamy was introduced into the "compact undivided mass." He next appears to reject this "mass," and Morgan's argument for its existence. Is there an inconsistency, or do I merely fail to understand Dr. Durkheim?
Let us, however, take Dr. Durkheim's theory of a horde with "permissive" incest, split, for some reason, into two distinct hostile "clans" worshipping each its own "god," an animal; each occupying a different territory; reckoning by female kin; exogamous, and intermarrying. Such communities, exogamous, intermarrying, and with female descent, Dr. Durkheim uniformly styles "primary clans," or "elementary totemic groups."[15] It is obvious that they constitute, when once thoroughly amalgamated by exogamy and peaceful intermarriage, a local tribe, with a definite joint territory, and without clan territory. At every hearth, through the whole tribal domain, both clans are present; the male mates are, say, Eagle Hawks, the women and children are Crows, or vice versa. Neither "clan" as such "has any longer a territorial basis." "The clan," says Dr. Durkheim, "has no territorial basis." "The clan is an amorphous group, a floating mass, with no very defined individuality; its contours, especially, have no material marks on the soil."[16] This is as true as it is obvious. The clans, when once thoroughly intermixed, and with members of each clan present, as father, mother, and children, by every hearth, can, as clans, have no local limits, no territorial boundaries, and Dr. Durkheim maintains this fact Indeed, he distinguishes the clan from the tribe as being non-territorial.[17]
Yet though he thus asserts what every one must see to be true, his whole theory of the origin of the totem kins ("secondary clans") within the phratries, and his theory (as we shall show later) of the matrimonial classes, rests on the contradictory of his averment. He then takes the line that the exogamous clans with female descent do, or did, possess definite separate territorial bases, which seems contrary to the passage where he says that they do not![18] He has reversed his position.
We first gave Dr. Durkheim's statement as to how the totem kins (which he calls "secondary clans") came to exist within the phratries.
"When a clan increases beyond a certain measure, its population cannot exist within the same space: it therefore throws off colonies, which, as they no longer occupy the same habitat with, nor share the interests of the original group from which they emerged, end by taking a totem which is all their own: thenceforth they constitute new clans."[19] Again, "the phratry is a primary clan, which, as it develops, has been led to segment itself into a certain number of secondary clans, which retain their sentiment of community and of solidarity."[20]
All this is (as far as I can see), by Dr. Durkheim's own previous statement, impossible. A totemic clan, exogamous, with female descent, cannot, as a clan, overflow its limits of "space," for, as a clan, he tells us, it "has no territorial basis," no material assigned frontier, marked on the soil.[21] "One cannot say at what precise point of space it begins, or where it ends." The members of one "clan" are indissolubly blended with the members of the other "clan," in the local tribe. This point, always overlooked by the partisans of a theory that the various totem kins are segments of "a primary clan," can be made plain. By the hypothesis there are two "clans" before us, of which Eagle Hawk (male) always marries Crow (female), their children being Crows, and Crow (male) always marries Eagle Hawk (female), the children being Eagle Hawks. The tribal territory is over-populated (the clan has no territory). A tribal decree is therefore passed, that clan Eagle Hawk must "segment itself," and go to new lands. This decree means that a portion of clan Eagle Hawk must emigrate. Let, then, Eagle Hawk men, women, and children, to the amount of half of the clan, be selected to emigrate. They go forth to seek new abodes. In doing so the Eagle Hawk men leave their Crow wives at home; the Eagle Hawk women leave their Crow children, and Crow husbands; the Eagle Hawk children leave their Crow fathers. Not a man or woman in the segmented portion of clan Eagle Hawk can now have a wife or a husband, for they can only marry Crows. They all die out! Such is the result of segmenting clan Eagle Hawk.
Yet the thing can be managed in no other way, for, if the emigrant Eagle Hawk men take with them their Crow wives and children, they cannot marry (unless men marry their daughters, Crows) when they become widowers, and unless Crow brothers marry Crow sisters, which is forbidden. Moreover, this plan necessitates a segmentation, not of clan Eagle Hawk, but of the tribe, which is composed of both Crows and Eagle Hawks. These conspicuous facts demolish the whole theory of the segmentation of a "clan" into a new clan which takes a new totem, though it would need two.
Moreover, why should a tribal colony of two blended clans take, as would be absolutely necessary, two new totem names at all? We know not one example of change of totem name in Australia.[22] Their old totems were their gods, their flesh, their blood, their vital energies, by Dr. Durkheim's own definition. "The members of a clan literally deem themselves of one flesh, of one blood, and the blood is that of the mythic being" (the totem) "from which they are all descended."[23] How and why then, should emigrants from "clans," say Eagle Hawk and Crow, change their gods, their blood, their flesh, their souls? To imagine that totems or even the descent of totems can be changed, by legislation, from the female to the male line, is, says Dr. Durkheim, "to forget that the totem is not a thing which men think they can dispose of at will,... at least so long as totemic beliefs are in vigour."[24]