Social Origins and Primal Law

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Lang Andrew. Social Origins and Primal Law

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY

THE FAMILY. THEORY OF MR. ATKINSON

PRIMITIVENESS IN MAN

RECENT HISTORY OF THE SPECULATION AS TO THE EARLY HUMAN FAMILY

WHAT IS EXOGAMY? DIFFICULTIES OF TERMINOLOGY

TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY

THEORIES OF EXOGAMY. MR. MCLENNAN'S THEORY

MR. CRAWLEY'S THEORY

DR. WESTERMARCK'S THEORY

MR. MORGAN'S THEORY

RETURN TO THE AUTHOR'S THEORY

CHAPTER II. THE CLASS SYSTEM

THE CLASS SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA

THE VARIETIES OF MARRIAGE DIVISIONS IN AUSTRALIA

MR. FISON ON THE GREAT BISECTION

'PRIMARY CLASSES?'

THE 'PRIMARY DIVISIONS' ARE THEMSELVES TOTEMIC AND EXOGAMOUS

THE TOTEM DIFFICULTY

CHAPTER III. TOTEMS WITHIN THE PHRATRIES

AMERICAN SUPPORT OF THE AUTHOR'S HYPOTHESIS

DELIBERATE ARRANGEMENT

TOTEMS ALL THE WAY

DISTRIBUTION OF TOTEMS IN THE 'PHRATRIES'

THE IDEAS OF MR. FRAZER HIS EARLIER THEORY

OBJECTIONS TO MR. FRAZER'S EARLY THEORY

MR. SPENCER'S THEORIES OF THE BISECTION

ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM HERE PROPOSED

THE ARUNTA

ARUNTA METAPHYSICS

ARUNTA TOTEM EATING AND TRADITIONS

DR. DURKHEIM ON THE ARUNTA

THE RELATIONS OF TOTEMS AND 'PHRATRIES' AMONG THE ARUNTA

ARUNTA MYTHS

MR. SPENCER ON ARUNTA LEGENDS

CHAPTER IV. ARUNTA PHRATRIES AND TOTEMS

VIEWS OF DR. DURKHEIM

HOW DID THE ARUNTA ANOMALY ARISE?

CHAPTER V. OTHER BARS TO MARRIAGES

'GROUP MARRIAGE'

MR. MORGAN AND THE CLASS SYSTEM

DIFFICULTIES OF MR. MORGAN'S THEORY

MR. MORGAN ON TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP

HOW THE TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP ORIGINALLY AROSE

SUPPOSED SURVIVALS OF GROUP MARRIAGE

PIRAUNGARU AND PIRAURA

GROWTH OF SOCIAL RULES IN THE TRIBE

GROUP MARRIAGE AND MR. TYLOR's STATISTICS

CHAPTER VI. THE CHANGE OF CLASS AMONG THE NEW GENERATION

THE SYSTEM OF HERR CUNOW

CLASSES AGAIN

CHAPTER VII. THEORIES OF LORD AVEBURY

LORD AVEBURY ON TOTEMISM

LORD AVEBURY ON THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMISM

COMMUNAL MARRIAGE

LORD AVEBURY ON RELATIONSHIPS

CHAPTER VIII. THE ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES AND BELIEFS

SACRED ANIMALS IN SAVAGE SOCIETY

PROPOSED RESTRICTION OF THE USE OF THE WORD 'TOTEM'

THE WORD 'TOTEM'

THE TOTEM 'CULT'

'TOTEM GODS'

SAVAGE SPECULATIONS AS TO THE ORIGIN OF TOTEMISM

MODERN THEORIES

MR. MAX MÜLLER'S THEORY

THE THEORY OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER

MR. FRAZER'S THEORIES

SUGGESTION OF MR. N. W. THOMAS

DR. WILKEN'S THEORY

MISS ALICE FLETCHER'S THEORY

MR. HILL TOUT'S THEORY

MESSRS. HOSE AND MCDOUGALL

MR. HADDON'S THEORY

AN OBJECTION TO ALL THE THEORIES ENUMERATED

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

THE AUTHOR'S OWN CONJECTURE

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GROUPS AND TOTEMS

NO 'DISEASE OF LANGUAGE'

HYPOTHETICAL EARLY GROUPS BEFORE TOTEMISM

HOW THE GROUPS GOT NAMES

ILLUSTRATION FROM FOLK-LORE

HOW THE NAMES BECAME KNOWN

TOTEMIC AND OTHER GROUP NAMES – ENGLISH AND NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN

THEORY THAT SIOUAN GENTES NAMES ARE OF EUROPEAN ORIGIN

CHAPTER IX. THE MELANESIAN SYSTEMS

HOW THE ORIGIN OF TOTEM NAMES WAS FORGOTTEN

OTHER SOURCES OF SACREDNESS IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS

RECAPITULATION

AN OBJECTION ANSWERED

OTHER OBJECTIONS ANSWERED

TOTEMS AND MAGICAL SOCIETIES

TOTEM SURVIVALS

DID THE ANCESTORS OF THE CIVILISED RACES PASS THROUGH THE AUSTRALIAN STAGE?

PRIMAL LAW

CHAPTER I. MAN IN THE BRUTAL STAGE

CHAPTER II. SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS

CHAPTER III. MAN VARYING FROM ANIMALS

CHAPTER IV. EARLIEST EVOLUTION OF LAW

CHAPTER V. AVOIDANCES

CHAPTER VI. FROM THE GROUP TO THE TRIBE

CHAPTER VII. TRACES OF PERIOD OF TRANSITION – AVOIDANCES

CHAPTER VIII. THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A. ORIGIN OF TOTEMISM

APPENDIX B. THE BA RONGA TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP

Отрывок из книги

The portion of this book called 'Primal Law' is the work of the late Mr. James Jasper Atkinson. Born in India, of Scottish parents (his mother being the paternal aunt of the present editor), Mr. Atkinson was educated (1857-1861) at Loretto School, then managed by Messrs. Langhome. While still young he settled on certain stations in New Caledonia bequeathed to him by his father, and, except for visits to Australia and a visit to England, he lived and died in the French colony. His ingenious mind was much exercised by the singular laws and customs of the natives of the New Caledonian Archipelago and the adjacent isles. These peoples have been little studied by competent European observers – that is, in New Caledonia. Mr. Atkinson wrote an account of native manners before he had any acquaintance with the works of modern anthropologists, such as Mr. Tylor, Mr. McLennan, Lord Avebury, and others. To these he later turned his attention; he joined the Anthropological Institute, and, in the course of study and observation, he discovered what he conceived to be the 'Primal Law' and origin of morality, as regards the family. In his last illness, in 1899, he was most kindly attended by Commander John Haggard, R.N., then Her Majesty's Consul in New Caledonia. Mr. Atkinson's mind, in his latest moments, was occupied by his anthropological speculations, and, through Mr. Haggard, he sent his MS. to his cousin and present editor. I have given to it the last cares which the author himself would have given had he lived. But I have also taken the opportunity to review, in the following pages, introductory to 'Primal Law,' the present state of the discussion as to the beginnings of the rules regulating marriage among savages.

The discussion is now nearly forty years old, if we date it from the appearance of Mr. J. F. McLennan's Primitive Marriage in 1865. Yet, in spite of the speculations of some and the explorations of other distinguished students, the main problems are still in dispute. Was marriage originally non-existent? Was promiscuity at first the rule, and, if so, what were the origins, motives, and methods of the most archaic prohibitions on primitive license? Did man live in 'hordes,' and did he bisect each 'horde' into exogamous and intermarrying moieties, and, if he did, what was his motive? Are the groups and kindreds commonly styled 'totemic' earlier or later than the division into a pair of moieties or 'phratries'? Do the totem-kins represent the results of an early form of exogamous custom, or are they additions to or consciously arranged subdivisions of the two exogamous moieties? Is a past of 'group marriage' or 'communal marriage' proved by the terms for human relationships employed by many backward races, and by survivals in manner and custom?

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We can have no certainty on this point, for we know of no pre-totemic race, no people who certainly have not yet entered into the totemic stage. Any such people, probably, in the remote past, had no idea of incest as a sin, or of exogamy as a law sanctioned by a tabu. But they may have, at least, had a strong tendency to marry outside of the circle of the hearth, the wandering hearth of homeless nomads ranging after food.

The reader of Mr. Atkinson's treatise will find that this kind of exogamy – marriage outside the local group – would, on his theory, be the rule, even when no idea of blood kindred, or of incest as a sin, need have arisen; and no totem, or anything else, had yet been named. The cause of the prohibition would, in Mr. Atkinson's opinion, be the sexual jealousy of the hypothetical patriarchal anthropoid male animal; and, later, the sexual jealousy of his adult male offspring, and of the females. Still later the group, already in practice exogamous, would accept the totem name, marking off the group from others, and the totem name, snipe, wolf, or what not, would become, for the time, the exogamous limit. No man and woman of the same totem name could intermarry. Still later, a myth of kinship with the totem would arise, and would add the religious sanction of a tabu.

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