Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/335

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unevenly between them ; that at one time it must have been so confined, and marriage within the totemic group or clan was then prohibited ; and finally that totemism is now in decay, while the exogamous classes or phratries remain powerful institutions.

How did the revolution come about? M. Durkheim finds its cause in the change of the system of fihation. The Arunta, he contends, have once been like their neighbours in the stage of mother-right ; now, the child belongs to the father's phratry — they have adopted father-right. An elaborate argument follows, to show that this was deliberately done, and that it was effected by shifting one of the sub-classes from phratry A to phratry B. The same result would indeed have been obtained if, instead of changing the phratry, it had been decreed that the child should follow the totem of the father. But by the hypothesis the totemic system was then in full force as regards the clan, though it had (perhaps, let me interject, by the complication of the phratry or class into sub-classes for the purpose of avoiding too close inter- marriage) begun to fall into desuetude as regards the phratry. The religious, or quasi-religious, rites and beliefs attaching to the totem, therefore, would not be as easily forsaken. In making the change the line of least resistance would be followed ; and that would lie in the direction where religious sentiment had ceased to point. Assuming the argument to be correct, one consequence of the procedure would be to shift part of each totem-clan from one phratry to the other. This would lead to marriage being permitted within the clan, that is to say, within such parts of the clan as remained in the complementary phratry, for each of the phratries continued to be exogamous. M. Durkheim thinks that the further subdivision of the phratry into four classes or more, which is found in some Australian tribes, may have been due to the change from maternal to parental filiation, in order to preserve totemic exogamy. This does not seem quite in accord with the evidence. In New South Wales, where there are two phratries and ten sub-classes, mother-right is still in force.i Further inquiries, however, may throw light upon the point. Meanwhile, it is clear that a relaxation of the marriage-rules would inevitably lead to disintegration of the totemic clan.

If it be asked what were the causes of the change of filiation,

' Mathew, Eaglehawk and Crow, p. 103.