Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/419

Rh 3. Each of the two "primary divisions," Matthurie and Kirarawa, is divided into two or more apparently non-totemic "classes," the members intermarry as in a cross-figure in a reel, and their children (as regards "class") take a name which is that of the "class" of neither father nor mother; the grandchildren returning to the "class" name of a grandparent.

What has led to the evolution of these rules? If we take (1) we find the majority of inquirers (say Messrs. Howitt and Fison) alleging that the native names for the two primary divisions are, when they can be translated, usually names of animals. The two primary divisions would thus seem to be totemic. But, on the other hand, most authors, following Mr. Morgan, insist that an original commune or horde existed in an "undivided" shape at first, and that it was deliberately "bisected" so that half of its members might never marry with the other half: each half taking an animal name.

Why this law was deliberately made we do not know, and every guess hitherto offered is transparently futile.

However, the bisection was made, each half of the now divided commune received a totemic name, and, next, each half was again "segmented" into so many smaller groups. Each of these (2) was also given a totem-name, and members of each totem-kin must marry out of it.

Why was this done? Nothing was gained. Already, by the "primary division," no one might marry within his or her totem-name. We receive no light on the motives for this new "segmentation," and are, moreover, puzzled by being told that the totemic divisions existed before they were exogamous, before they regulated marriage. Why they existed, for what conceivable purpose, we are not told (unless they were for magical purposes), any more than we are told why they were made exogamous.

These ideas are unsatisfactory; they may be found in the