Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/334

 3 1 6 Reviews.

denial of the primitive character of totemic exogamy and food- restriction, and the assertion that the present practice and tradi- tions of the Arunta more nearly represent the original customs. These propositions M. Durkheim proceeds to traverse by elaborate arguments, the bare outline of which is all that can be reproduced here. So far from the civilisation of the Arunta being primitive or archaic, he says, they are among the most advanced of the Austra- lian peoples. They have a sentiment of unity, whatever may be its cause, far more highly developed than is usual on the Australian continent. Every local group has its chief, and the dignity of chief is hereditary. The sacred places are already a sort of temple. Matrimonial relations have passed beyond the coarseness and indefiniteness characteristic of those of many other tribes. All these things are indications of a society which has certainly not been arrested in the first stages of evolution ; and it is to be pre- sumed that the institutions of such a society have themselves been transformed as the society has developed, losing some character- istics, and gaining others, so that their actual condition only imper- fectly recalls their original nature.

This presumption, he continues, is confirmed by a close con- sideration of the facts. Taking first the question of exogamy, it is manifest that exogamy as an institution is not unknown to the Arunta, since there actually exist two exogamous divisions, each composed of two sub-classes. M. Durkheim calls the two divisions phratries. Similar divisions exist almost all over Australia, and are by English writers usually called classes. The origin of these classes has been a subject of discussion ever since the publication of Morgan's Ancient Society. M. Durkheim considers them to have been totem-clans. Mr. Howitt, whose authority few will be inclined to dispute, came several years ago to the same conclusion.! These divisions, and not the present totemic groups, are in M. Durkheim's opinion, the fundamental institutions of Arunta society. A minute examination of its structure, as well as of the legends, renders it certain that Arunta society has under- gone considerable changes, that the exogamous classes or phratries are the original divisions, and the present totemic groups are secondary ; that none of the present totemic groups is confined to one of the two exogamous classes, but is divided more or less

' Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xviii., p. 39.