Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/130

 112 Reviews.

has the social importance which he attributes to it. As to the original connection of the classes with marriage, Dr. Roth's view, that they were intended to regulate the supply of food, was certainly worth discussing, especially in view of the fact that the class of young men, in Dr. Schurtz's opinion the strongest and most active, had to submit to the greater number of food tabus. Singularly enough, Dr. Schurtz assumes thatj the totemistic food tabus are more important than those dependent on age, a complete reversal of the real facts.

The fact that marriage regulations based on the age-group are, if found at all, limited to Australia also tells against his view so far as it is intended to apply to all the facts. At the same time it is quite possible that such an extremely natural division of society developed in different parts of the world from different reasons.

It may be well to note some important and relevant groups of facts which Dr. Schurtz has neglected. In estimating the relative social importance of age groups and totem kins, we can hardly afford to overlook the evidence afforded by the sanctity of the kin and the bloodfeud, that the kin is the group to which allegi- ance is ultimately due. Again, the influence of sexual tabu in aiding, or perhaps even originating, the development of the Mdnnerhaiis is a question that demands discussion. We may also ask whether Dr. Schurtz has not overlooked the possibility that the warriors or hunters, forming what we may call an occupa- tion group, have in many cases formed an organisation which for obvious reasons is indistinguishable from the age-group but can hardly be regarded as identical with it.

When he is dealing with the main thesis of his book Dr. Schurtz's views are intelligible, if disputable. The same cannot be said of his statements as to the family and the kin. He holds that the kin {Sippe) arose from the decay of the family, and was due to the " social instinct " of the young men, and in a less degree of the maidens, of the primitive group. What constituted this family we are not told, nor is there any attempt to show in detail how social instincts would lead to the splitting up of a local group among several different kins. Equally unfortunate are the hypotheses as to the origin of exogamic rules and the phratry system, which call in the help of instincts against in-and-in breeding on the one hand, and against getting a wife from too great a distance on the other. These elements of the book are, however, independent of