Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/444

 4o8 Lord Avebury on Marriage,

How does Lord Avebury explain the fact that, in the Buandik tribe, no one of the Ti-tree, Owl, and Root totems may marry a person of the Fish-hawk, Pelican, Crow, and Snake totem ?

A hypothesis must colligate all the facts in the case. Why are the phratries universally, (except in the Arunta and one or two other tribes where the variation is easily explained), so arranged that none may marry into their own totems, nor into several other totems?

This question carries us to Lord Avebury's theory of the origin of totems. " The children and followers of a man called the Bear or the Lion would make that a tribal name." ^° Then is it Lord Avebury's theory that all per- sons called Black Cockatoo (Kumit) and White Cockatoo (Kroki), originally were descendants of the children or followers of two men, one named Black and the other White Cockatoo ? If so, Lord Avebury makes the Patri- archal system prior to Totemism ! Such communities would not be tribes, but would exactly resemble Highland clans, " Sons of Wry Mouth," " Sons of Crook Nose," (Campbells and Camerons). The Highland clans consist of the " children and followers " of this man or that, Ian or Donald, or The Servant of Christ, (Macgilchrist), and so on.

Here we have the Patriarchal system, which could exist neither among the "kinless loons" of "communal marriage," nor under the system of female descent of the name, which Lord Avebury recognises as prior to male descent.

Lord Avebury's theory of the origin of totemism here demands the existence of recognised families, children of this or that man ; now this is the Patriarchal system.

Again, Totemism " arose from the practice of naming,, first individuals, and then their families, after particular animals." ^^ Here a "family" is the family of an individual.

^"Avebury, p. 97. "Avebury, p. 87.