Besides the specific unity, however, provided by the clan, there are wider, and, as it were, more generic unities into which a man is born, in totemic society of the complex type that is found in the actual world of to-day.
First, he belongs to a phratry. In Australia the tribe—a term to be defined presently—is nearly always split up into two exogamous divisions, which it is usual to call phratries.[5] Then, in some of the Australian tribes, the phratry is subdivided into two, and, in others, into four portions, between which exogamy takes place according to a curious criss-cross scheme. These exogamous subdivisions, which are peculiar to Australia, are known as matrimonial classes. Dr. Frazer thinks that they are the result of deliberate arrangement on the part of native statesmen; and certainly he is right in his contention that there is an artificial and man-made look about them. The system of phratries, on the other hand, whether it carves up the tribe into two, or, as sometimes in North America and elsewhere, into more than two primary divisions, under which the clans tend to group themselves in a more or less orderly way, has all the appearance of a natural development out of the clan-system. Thus, to revert to the imaginary case of the Cockatoos and Crows practising exogamy across the river, it seems easy to understand how the numbers on both sides might increase until, whilst remaining Cockatoos and Crows for cross-river purposes, they would find it necessary to adopt among themselves subordinate distinctions; such as would be sure to model themselves on the old Cockatoo-Crow principle of separate totemic badges. But we must not wander off into questions of origin. It is enough for our present purpose to have noted the fact that, within the tribe, there are normally other forms of social grouping into which a man is born, as well as the clan.
[Footnote 5: From a Greek word meaning "brotherhood," which was applied to a very similar institution.]
Now we come to the tribe. This may be described as the political unit. Its constitution tends to be lax and its functions vague. One way of seizing its nature is to think of it as the social union within which exogamy takes place. The intermarrying groups naturally hang together, and are thus in their entirety endogamous, in the sense that marriage with pure outsiders is disallowed by custom. Moreover, by mingling in this way, they are likely to attain to the use of a common dialect, and a common name, speaking of themselves, for instance, as "the men," and lumping the rest of humanity together as "foreigners." To act together, however, as, for instance, in war, in order to repel incursions on the part of the said foreigners, is not easy without some definite organization. In Australia, where there is very little war, this organization is mostly wanting. In North America, on the other hand, amongst the more advanced and warlike tribes, we find regular tribal officers, and some approach to a political constitution. Yet in Australia there is at least one occasion when a sort of tribal gathering takes place—namely, when their elaborate ceremonies for the initiation of the youths is being held.
It would seem, however, that these ceremonies are, as often as not, intertribal rather than tribal. So similar are the customs and beliefs over wide areas, that groups with apparently little or nothing else in common will assemble together, and take part in proceedings that are something like a Pan-Anglican Congress and a World's Fair rolled into one. To this indefinite type of intertribal association the term "nation" is sometimes applied. Only when there is definite organization, as never in Australia, and only occasionally in North America, as amongst the Iroquois, can we venture to describe it as a genuine "confederacy."
No doubt the reader's head is already in a whirl, though I have perpetrated endless sins of omission and, I doubt not, of commission as well, in order to simplify the glorious confusion of the subject of the social organization prevailing in what is conveniently but loosely lumped together as totemic society. Thus, I have omitted to mention that sometimes the totems seem to have nothing to do at all with the social organization; as, for example, amongst the famous Arunta of central Australia, whom Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have so carefully described. I have, again, refrained from pointing out that sometimes there are exogamous divisions—some would call them moieties to distinguish them from phratries—which have no clans grouped under them, and, on the other hand, have themselves little or no resemblance to totemic clans. These, and ever so many other exceptional cases, I have simply passed by.
An even more serious kind of omission is the following. I have throughout identified the social organization with the kinship organization—namely, that into which a man is born in consequence of the marriage laws and the system of reckoning descent. But there are other secondary features of what can only be classed as social organization, which have nothing to do with kinship. Sex, for instance, has a direct bearing on social status. The men and the women often form markedly distinct groups; so that we are almost reminded of the way in which the male and the female linnets go about in separate flocks as soon as the pairing season is over. Of course, disparity of occupation has something to do with it. But, for the native mind, the difference evidently goes far deeper than that. In some parts of Australia there are actually sex-totems, signifying that each sex is all-one-flesh, a mystic corporation. And, all the savage world over, there is a feeling that woman is uncanny, a thing apart, which feeling is probably responsible for most of the special disabilities—and the special privileges—that are the lot of woman at the present day.
Again, age likewise has considerable influence on social status. It is not merely a case of being graded as a youth until once for all you legally "come of age," and are enrolled, amongst the men. The grading of ages is frequently most elaborate, and each batch mounts the social ladder step by step. Just as, at the university, each year has apportioned to it by public opinion the things it may do and the things it may not do, whilst, later on, the bachelor, the master, and the doctor stand each a degree higher in respect of academic rank; so in darkest Australia, from youth up to middle age at least, a man will normally undergo a progressive initiation into the secrets of life, accompanied by a steady widening in the sphere of his social duties and rights.
Lastly, locality affects status, and increasingly as the wandering life gives way to stable occupation. Amongst a few hundred people who are never out of touch with each other, the forms of natal association hold their own against any that local association is likely to suggest in their place. According to natal grouping, therefore, in the broad sense that includes sex and age no less than kinship, the members of the tribe camp, fight, perform magical ceremonies, play games, are initiated, are married, and are buried. But let the tribe increase in numbers, and spread through a considerable area, over the face of which communications are difficult and proportionately rare. Instantly the local group tends to become all in all. Authority and initiative must always rest with the men on the spot; and the old natal combinations, weakened by inevitable absenteeism, at last cease to represent the true framework of the social order. They tend to linger on, of course, in the shape of subordinate institutions. For instance, the totemic groups cease to have direct connection with the marriage system, and, on the strength of the ceremonies associated with them, develop into what are known as secret societies. Or, again, the clan is gradually overshadowed by the family, so that kinship, with its rights and duties, becomes practically limited to the nearer blood-relations; who, moreover, begin to be treated for practical purposes as kinsmen, even when they are on the side of the family which lineage does not officially recognize. Thus the forms of natal association no longer constitute the backbone of the body politic. Their public importance has gone. Henceforward, the social unit is the local group. The territorial principle comes more and more to determine affinities and functions. Kinship has dethroned itself by its very success. Thanks to the organizing power of kinship, primitive society has grown, and by growing has stretched the birth-tie until it snaps. Some relationships become distant in a local and territorial sense, and thereupon they cease to count. My duty towards my kin passes into my duty towards my neighbour.
Reasons of space make it impossible to survey the further developments to which social organization is subject under the sway of locality. It is, perhaps, less essential to insist on them here, because, whereas totemic society is a thing which we civilized folk have the very greatest difficulty in understanding, we all have direct insight into the meaning of a territorial arrangement; since, from the village community up to the modern state, the same fundamental type of social structure obtains throughout.