Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/345

Rh whose customary narratives deal so largely with social matters should at the same time be one whose social structure so frequently becomes the object of definite attention and interest.

My first suggestion, then, is that social relations are prominent in the myths of Australia because these relations are so complex that they are forced more frequently and obtrusively than elsewhere into the focus of social attention, and thus acquire such interest as to arouse wonder and speculation. I have now to point out certain facts which lead me to look elsewhere for the chief motive we are seeking, though it is not improbable that the element of complexity may be one factor tending to give persistence to the narratives, even if it played no part in their formation.

Before I proceed to point out the difficulties which lead me to look further afield in my search for an explanation of the exceptional character of Australian myth, I must consider one prominent feature of Australian social mechanism. I have elsewhere briefly drawn attention to the fact that throughout Australia there are found in combination two forms of social structure which elsewhere, as in Melanesia, are wholly distinct and apparently belong to two quite different cultures. These forms of structure are the dual organisation and the organisation in totemic clans. The dual mechanism of Australia is much more complicated than any of which we know elsewhere, having added to it the system of matrimonial classes, but, whether there be four or eight of these matrimonial classes, they remain in essence modifications of the dual system, while the totemic system seems, in many cases at any rate, to be an additional mode of social grouping.

The fact to which I wish now to call attention is that it is the totemic aspect of social life which is especially