As to America, both Mr. Frazer and Dr. Durkheim observe that "among the Thlinkets and Mohegans, each phratry bears a name which is also the name of one of the clans," thus the Thlinkets have a Wolf totem kin in Wolf phratry; a Raven totem kin in Raven phratry. Mr. Frazer adds, "It seems probable that the names of the Raven and Wolf were the two original clans of the Thlinkets, which afterwards, by subdivision, became phratries."[1]
We have seen the objections to this theory of subdivision (Chapter V. supra), in discussing the system of Dr. Durkheim, who, by the way, gives two entirely different accounts of the Thlinket organisation in three successive pages; one version from Mr. Morgan, the other more recent, and correct, from Mr. Frazer.[2] Wolf and Raven do not appear in Mr. Morgan's version.[3]
If Mr. Frazer's view in 1887 and Dr. Durkheim's are right, Eagle Hawk and Crow phratries, say, are in Australia examples of the primary original totem kins, and as totem kins they ought to remain (as Raven and Wolf do among the Thlinkets), after they become heads of phratries. Again, if I am right, the names of the two leading local groups, after becoming phratries, should still exist to this day in the phratries, as names of totem kins. This is quite obvious, yet except in the Thlinket case, the Haida case, and that of the Mohegans, we never (apparently) have found—what we ought always to find—within the phratries two totem kins bearing the same animal names as the phratries bear. Why is this? What has become of the two original, or the two leading local animal-named groups and totem kins? Nobody seems to have asked this very necessary question till quite recently.[4]
What has become of the two lost totem kins?
Mr. Thomas's objection to an earlier theory of mine, in which the two original totem kins were left in the vague, ought to be given in his own words: "Mr. Lang assumes" (in Social Origins) "that the animals of the original connubial groups" (phratries) "did not become totems, and, consequently, that there were no totem kins corresponding to the original groups. This can only have taken place if a rule were developed that men of Emu" (local) "group might not marry women of the Emu kin, and vice versa. This would involve, however, a new rule of exogamy distinct from both group (local) and kin (totem) bars to marriage. This must have come about either (a) because the Emu kin were regarded as potentially members of the Emu group (an extension of group exogamy, the existence of which it would be hard to prove), or (b) because the Emu group or Emu kin were (legally) kindred, and as such debarred from marrying. ... In either case, on Mr. Lang's theory, two whole kins were debarred from marriage or compelled to change their totems" (when phratries arose). "I do not know which is less improbable."
Certainly the two kins could not change their totems, and certainly they would not remain celibate.
Meanwhile the apparent disappearance in Australia of the two original, or leading, totem kins, of the same names as the phratries, is as great a difficulty to Dr. Durkheim's and Mr. Frazer's old theory as to my own, only they did not observe the circumstance.
How vanished the totem kins of the same names as the phratries? I answer that they did not vanish at all, and I go on to prove it. The main facts are very simple, the totem kins of phratry names in Australia are often in their phratries. But at a first glance this is not obvious. The facts escape observation for the following reasons:—
(1) In most totemic communities, except in Australia and in some American cases, there are no phratries, and consequently there is no possible proof that totem kins of the phratriac names exist, for we do not know the names of the lost phratries.
(2) In many Australian cases, such as those of the Wiraidjuri and Arunta, the phratries have now no names, and really, as phratries, no existence. Dual divisions of the tribes exist, but are known to us by the names of the four or eight "matrimonial classes" (a relatively late development)[5] into which they are parcelled, as, among the Arunta, Panunga, Bukhara, Purula, Kumara.[6]