Exogamy presents no difficulty until you try to account for its origin. It simply means marrying-out, in contrast to endogamy, or marrying-in. Suppose there were a village composed entirely of McIntyres and McIntoshes, and suppose that fashion compelled every McIntyre to marry a McIntosh, and every McIntosh a McIntyre, whilst to marry an outsider, say a McBean, was bad form for McIntyres and McIntoshes alike; then the two clans would be exogamous in respect to each other, whereas the village as a whole would be endogamous.
Lineage is the principle of reckoning descent along one or other of two lines—namely, the mother's line or the father's. The former method is termed matrilineal, the latter patrilineal. It sometimes, but by no means invariably, happens, when descent is counted matrilineally, that the wife stays with her people, and the husband has the status of a mere visitor and alien. In such a case the marriage is called matrilocal; otherwise it is patrilocal. Again, when the matrilocal type of marriage prevails, as likewise often when it does not, the wife and her people, rather than the father and his people, exercise supreme authority over the children. This is known as the matripotestal, as contrasted with the patripotestal, type of family. When the matrilineal, matrilocal and matripotestal conditions are found together, we have mother-right at its fullest and strongest. Where we get only two out of the three, or merely the first by itself, most authorities would still speak of mother-right; though it may be questioned how far the word mother-right, or the corresponding, now almost discarded, expression, "the matriarchate," can be safely used without further explanation, since it tends to imply a right (in the legal sense) and an authority, which in these circumstances is often no more than nominal.
Totemism, in the specific form that has to do with kinship, means that a social group depends for its identity on a certain intimate and exclusive relation in which it stands towards an animal-kind, or a plant-kind, or, more rarely, a class of inanimate objects, or, very rarely, something that is individual and not a kind or class at all. Such a totem, in the first place, normally provides the social group with its name. (The Boy Scouts, who call themselves Foxes, Peewits, and so on, according to their different patrols, have thus reverted to a very ancient usage.) In the second place, this name tends to be the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace that, somehow flowing from the totem to the totemites, sanctifies their communion. They are "all-one-flesh" with one another, as certain of the Australians phrase it, because they are "all-one-flesh" with the totem. Or, again, a man whose totem was ngaui, the sun, said that his name was ngaui and he "was" ngaui; though he was equally ready to put it in another way, explaining that ngaui "owned" him. If we wish to express the matter comprehensively, and at the same time to avoid language suggestive of a more advanced mysticism, we may perhaps describe the totem as, from this point of view, the totemite's "luck."
There is considerable variation, however, to be found in the practices and beliefs of a more or less religious kind that are associated with this form of totemism; though almost always there are some. Sometimes the totem is thought of as an ancestor, or as the common fund of life out of which the totemites are born and into which they go back when they die. Sometimes the totem is held to be a very present help in time of trouble, as when a kangaroo, by hopping along in a special way, warns the kangaroo-man of impending danger. Sometimes, on the other hand, the kangaroo-man thinks of himself mainly as the helper of the kangaroo, holding ceremonies in order that the kangaroos may wax fat and multiply. Again, almost invariably the totemite shows some respect towards his totem, refraining, for instance, from slaying and eating the totem-animal, unless it be in some specially solemn and sacramental way.
The upshot of these considerations is that if the totem is, on the face of it, a name, the savage answers the question, "What's in a name?" by finding in the name that makes him one with his brethren a wealth of mystic meaning, such as deepens for him the feeling of social solidarity to an extent that it takes a great effort on our part to appreciate.
Having separately examined the three principles of exogamy, lineage and totemism, we must now try to see how they work together. Generalization in regard to these matters is extremely risky, not to say rash; nevertheless, the following broad statements may serve the reader as working hypotheses, that he can go on to test for himself by looking into the facts. Firstly, exogamy and totemism, whether they be in origin distinct or not, tend in practice to go pretty closely together. Secondly, lineage, or the one-sided system of reckoning descent, is more or less independent of the other two principles.[4]
[Footnote 4: That is to say, either mother-right or father-right in any of their forms may exist in conjunction with exogamy and totemism. It is certainly not the fact that, wherever totemism is in a state of vigour, mother-right is regularly found. At most it may be urged in favour of the priority of mother-right that, if there is change, it is invariably from mother-right to father-right, and never the other way about.]
If, instead of consulting the evidence that is to hand about the savage world as it exists to-day, you read some book crammed full with theories about social origins, you probably come away with the impression that totemic society is entirely an affair of clans. Some such notion as the following is precipitated in your mind. You figure to yourself two small food-groups, whose respective beats are, let us say, on each side of a river. For some unknown reason they are totemic, one group calling itself Cockatoo, the other calling itself Crow, whilst each feels in consequence that its members are "all-one-flesh" in some mysterious and moving sense. Again, for some unknown reason each is exogamous, so that matrimonial alliances are bound to take place across the river. Lastly, each has mother-right of the full-blown kind. The Cockatoo-girls and the Crow-girls abide each on their own side of the river, where they are visited by partners from across the water; who, whether they tend to stay and make themselves useful, or are merely intermittent in their attentions, remain outsiders from the totemic point of view and are treated as such. The children, meanwhile, grow up in the Cockatoo and Crow quarters respectively as little Cockatoos or Crows. If they need to be chastised, a Cockatoo hand, not necessarily the mother's, but perhaps her brother's—never the father's, however—administers the slap. When they grow up, they take their chances for better and worse with the mother's people; fighting when they fight, though it be against the father's people; sharing in the toils and the spoils of the chase; inheriting the weapons and any other property that is handed on from one generation to another; and, last but not least, taking part in the totemic mysteries that disclose to the elect the inner meaning of being a Cockatoo or a Crow, as the case may be.
Now such a picture of the original clan and of the original inter-clan organization is very pretty and easy to keep in one's head. And when one is simply guessing about the first beginnings of things, there is something to be said for starting from some highly abstract and simple concept, which is afterwards elaborated by additions and qualifications until the developed notion comes near to matching the complexity of the real facts. Such speculations, then, are quite permissible and even necessary in their place. To do justice, however, to the facts about totemic society, as known to us by actual observation, it remains to note that the clan is by no means the only form of social organization that it displays.
The clan, it is true, whether matrilineal or patrilineal, tends at the totemic level of society to eclipse the family. The natural family, of course—that is to say, the more or less permanent association of father, mother and children, is always there in some shape and to some extent. But, so long as the one-sided method of counting descent prevails, and is reinforced by totemism, the family cannot attain to the dignity of a formally recognized institution. On the other hand, the totemic clan, of all the formally recognized groupings of society to which an individual belongs in virtue of his birth and kinship, is, so to speak, the most specific. As the Australian puts it, it makes him what he "is." His social essence is to be a Cockatoo or a Crow. Consequently his first duty is towards his clan and its members, human and not-human. Wherever there are clans, and so long as there is any totemism worthy of the name, this would seem to be the general law.