[6] In the gentile order each gens has its totem, as lizard, opossum, emu, wolf, bear, etc., from which the gens derives its name. The totem animal is held sacred, and members of the gens may not kill it or eat its flesh. The significance of the totem was similar to that of the patron saint among the medieval guilds.
[3.—The Matriarchate.]
According to Morgan, the Punaluan family begins with the exclusion of brothers and sisters on the mother’s side. Wherever a woman has several husbands, it becomes impossible to determine paternity. Paternity becomes a mere fiction. Even at present, with the institution of monogamous marriage, paternity—as Goethe said in his “Apprenticeship,” “depends upon good faith.” But if paternity is dubious in monogamous marriage even, it is surely beyond the possibility of determination where polyandry prevails. Only descent from the mother can be shown clearly and undeniably; therefore, children, during the term of the matriarchate, were termed “spurii,” seed. As all social transformations are consummated infinitely slow upon a low stage of development, thus also the transition from the consanguine family to the Punaluan family must have extended through a great length of time, and many retrogressions must undoubtedly have occurred that could still be perceived in later days. The immediate, external cause for the development of the Punaluan family may have the necessity of dividing the greatly increased group for the purpose of finding new soil for agricultural purposes and for the grazing of herds. But it is also probable that with increasing development, people gradually came to understand the harmfulness and the impropriety of sexual intercourse between brother and sister and close relatives, and that this recognition led to a different arrangement of marriage relations. That this was the case is shown by a pretty legend that, as Cunow tells us, was related to Gason among the Dieyeris, a tribe of Southern Australia. This legend describes the origin of the “Murdu,” the gentile organization, in the following manner:
“After the creation fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and other closely related persons married indiscriminately among themselves, until the evil consequences of such marriages were clearly seen. Thereupon the leaders held a council to consider what could be done, and finally they begged Muramura, the great spirit, to bid them what to do. Muramura bade them divide the tribe into many branches and to name these after animals and inanimate objects to distinguish them from one another; for instance, Mouse, Emu, Lizzard, Rain, etc. The members of each group should not be permitted to marry among themselves, but should choose their mates from another group. Thus the son of an Emu should not marry the daughter of an Emu, but he might marry the daughter of a Mouse, a Lizard, a Rain, or any other family.” This tradition is more plausible than the biblical one, and shows the origin of gentile organization in the simplest manner.
Paul Lafargue showed in an article published in the German periodical, “Neue Zeit,” that names like Adam and Eva did not originally denote individual persons, but were the names of gentes in which the Jews were constituted in prehistoric days. By his argumentation Lafargue elucidates a number of otherwise obscure and contradictory points in the first book of Moses. In the same periodical M. Beer calls attention to the fact that among the Jews a superstition still prevails according to which a man’s mother and his fiancee must not have the same name, lest misfortune, disease and death be brought upon the family. This is a further proof of the correctness of Lafargue’s conception. Gentile organization prohibited marriage between persons belonging to the same gens. According to the gentile conception, then, the fact that a man’s mother and his fiancee had the same name, proved their belonging to the same gens. Of course, present-day Jews are ignorant of the connection existing between their superstition and the ancient gentile organization which prohibited such marriages. These prohibitory laws had the purpose of avoiding the evils resulting from close intermarriage, and though gentile organization among the Jews has gone out of existence thousands of years ago, we still see traces of the ancient tradition preserved. Early experiences in the breeding of animals may have led to a recognition of the dangers of inbreeding.
How far such experiences had been developed may be seen from the first book of Moses, chapter 30, 32 stanza, where it is told how Jacob cheated his father-in-law Laban by providing for the birth of spotted lambs and goats that were to be his, according to Laban’s promise. Thus ancient Israelites were applying Darwin’s theories in practice long before Darwin’s time.
Since we are discussing conditions that existed among the ancient Jews, it will be well to quote a few further facts which prove that in antiquity maternal law actually prevailed among them. Although in the first book of Moses, 3, 16, is written in regard to woman: “And thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee,” in the first book of Moses, 2, 24, we find the lines: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh.” The same wording is repeated in Matthew, 19, 5; Mark, 10, 7, and in the epistle to the Ephesians, 5, 31. This command then is rooted in maternal law, for which interpreters of the Bible had no explanation and, therefore, presented it incorrectly.
Maternal law is likewise shown to have existed in the fourth book of Moses, 32, 41. There it is said that Jair had a father of the tribe of Juda, but his mother came from the tribe of Manasseh, and Jair is explicitly called the son of Manasseh and became heir to that tribe. In Nehemiah, 7, 63, we find still another example of maternal law among the ancient Jews. There the children of a priest who married one of the daughters of Barzillai, a Jewish clan, are called the children of Barzillai. They are, accordingly, not called by their father’s but by their mother’s name.
In the Punaluan family, according to Morgan, one or more series of sisters of one family group married one or more series of brothers of another family group. A number of sisters or cousins of the first, second and more remote degrees were the common wives of their common husbands, who were not permitted to be their brothers. A number of brothers or cousins of various degrees were the common husbands of their common wives, who were not permitted to be their sisters. As inbreeding was thereby prohibited, this new form of marriage was favorable to higher and more rapid development, and gave those tribes that had adopted this family form an advantage over those who maintained the old form of sex relations.
The following system of kinship resulted from the Punaluan family: The children of my mother’s sisters are her children, and the children of my father’s brothers are his children, and all are my brothers and sisters. But the children of my mother’s brothers are her nephews and nieces and the children of my father’s sisters are his nephews and nieces, and all are my cousins. The husbands of my mother’s sisters are still her husbands and the wives of my father’s brothers are still his wives, but the sisters of my father and the brothers of my mother are excluded from the family group, and their children are my cousins.[7]