[108] Mr Lang's view is that the women from the first retained their original group names wherever they went. Letter of July 27th, 1906.
[109] See pp. 31, 50.
[110] Fortn. Rev. LXXVIII, 459.
CHAPTER VII.
CLASS NAMES.
Classes later than Phratries. Anomalous Phratry Areas. Four-class Systems. Borrowing of Names. Eight-class System. Resemblances and Differences of Names. Place of Origin. Formative Elements of the Names: Suffixes, Prefixes. Meanings of the Class Names.
The priority of phratries over classes is commonly admitted and it is unnecessary to argue the question at length. The main grounds for the assumption are: (1) that it is a priori probable that the fourfold division succeeded the twofold division, exactly as the eightfold division has succeeded, and apparently is still gaining ground, at the expense of the four-class system. (2) Over a considerable and compact area phratries alone are found without a trace of named classes, if we except the anomalous organisation recorded by Dawson in S. W. Victoria. On the other hand, while we find certain tribes among whom no phratry names have yet been discovered, it is inherently probable that this is due to their having been forgotten and not to their never having existed. It is possible that the encroachments of an alien class system have in some cases helped on the extinction of the phratry names. (3) We find classes without phratry names, not in a compact group, but scattered up and down more or less at random, suggesting that chance and not law has been at work to produce this result. (4) Where class names are found without corresponding phratry names, they are invariably arranged in what may be termed anonymous phratries; that is to say, in pairs or fours, so that the member of one class is under normal circumstances not at liberty to select a wife at will from the other three, but is usually limited to one of the other classes. This state of things clearly points to a time when the phratries were recognised by the tribes in question.
(5) While the classes are arranged in pairs or fours, according to whether the system is four- or eight-class, the totems, on the other hand, are distributed phratry fashion; in other words, one group of totems belongs to each pair or quadruplet of classes. This divergent organisation of the classes (four or eight for the whole tribe) and totems (two groups for the whole tribe) can only be explained on the supposition that the phratry everywhere preceded the class organisation.