Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/129

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vidual, and in the case of the latter does not even depend on the performance of certain ceremonies, but, like the totem, is regu- lated in most cases by maternal descent.

Again, it seems open to question how far the intermarrying class has been derived from the age group. The intermarrying classes seldom correspond in number to the age-groups, and are, further, found side by side with them, which would hardly be the case if one were descended lineally from the other. It is true that the intermarrying classes are called in some cases by names implying differences of age, but on the other hand membership of them depends on birth, and the alleged object — of preventing the inter- marriage of old and young — is not attained; though intermarriage of successive generations of the same family — perhaps the original object of the system — is effectually barred. Perhaps the simplest solution of the origin of the intermarrying classes is to see in them the product of a dichtotomy of the phratry, based possibly in the main on considerations of age. This view of the case is borne out by the fact that the original classes are in some cases further subdivided. The process was perhaps not quite a simple one, but it seems to involve smaller difficulties than a transformation of the age-groups. It may be further questioned how far Dr. Schurtz is right in referring ceremonies of initiation solely to the change of class to the exclusion of a possible connection with totemism. Both in this case and in the case of secret societies it would not be difficult to put his facts in an entirely different light, throw into relief the relation between them and the totem system and beliefs.

Dr. Schurtz may be right in supposing that the house of the chief has passed through a previous stage in which it served as a dwelling for the unmarried men, but it is not difficult to see that where a nomadic tribe with well-developed differences of rank has become sedentary, such an hypothesis is by no means necessary to explain the facts.

Dr. Schurtz is disposed to trace back the origin of the classes. on the one hand to the social instinct of man, on the other to a desire to introduce marriage regulations. In fact he seems to alternate in this and other cases between two views. Against the first theory it may be urged that the class is very far from being a voluntary association among the most primitive peoples ; and Dr. Schurtz has hardly shown that in Australia or among the Bushmen or Fuegians (for whom he gives no references), the class system