Читать книгу Social Origins and Primal Law - Lang Andrew - Страница 4

As to men really primitive, and their social arrangements, I only venture to conjecture that, in the nature of the case, they probably lived a nomadic life, 'selecting a temporary place of abode, whether a cave, rock, shelter, or hut, influenced chiefly by the amount of edible materials to be found in the neighbourhood.'7 The area of the wandering of each group of hearth-mates would be limited, probably, by the existence of other groups, which would resent poaching. A large trout may often be seen to turn angrily and drive away a little trout that has ventured too near the bend of the brook which the large trout finds a good station for flies; and human groups would also, as in cases to be cited they do, mortally resent intrusions. I conceive that the males would be polygamous (like the gorilla) and jealous, killing or expelling the young males, as in the theories of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Atkinson. Thus groups would, on the whole, be hostile,8 'wandering from one locality to another, now gathering fruits and seeds, now hunting wild animals, or, as a last resource, feeding on shell-fish and other produce of the shore.'9 The implements now used by backward savages for fish-catching, nets, spears, and barbed hooks, cannot be precisely primitive. Primitiveness, we must remember, does not depend on antiquity of date.

The Australians, though now their groups have coalesced into local tribes in defined areas, and though their customary law is extremely complex, are least remote from the primitive, least remote, but very far removed. They are, though our contemporaries, infinitely beneath the status in culture of palæolithic man of the mammoth and reindeer period. It is not improbable that he had domesticated the ox, goat, pig, horse, and dog. 'They manufactured fine needles of bone, with which they sewed their skin garments. They adorned their persons with a variety of beads…' Their art was of notorious and amazing excellence. Dr. Munro says that they were 'ignorant of the rearing of domestic animals,'10 but also that 'there seems to be no inherent improbability in the idea that some of them' (ox, goat, horse, pig, and dog) 'had been domesticated by the indigenous inhabitants prior to the coming of the neolithic brachycephals into France.'11 A palæolithic sketch of a horse 'with a supposed cover,' and another of a horse with a bridle,12 may be misinterpreted: Dr. Munro thinks that the horse-cloth 'may be no more than the hunter's skin coat thrown over the back of the animal when led home by means of a halter made of thongs or withes to be there slaughtered.' If palæolithic man had advanced as far as Dr. Munro supposes, it was a short step to the domestication of the horse. It is hardly conclusive to say that, if he had tamed the horse, 'we would undoubtedly ere now have had an equestrian representation of the fact,' though it is also said that 'we have only as yet a preliminary instalment of these most interesting art productions.'13 The representation may later be discovered. That palæolithic man, so far advanced as he was, was 'ignorant of the principles of religion,'14 seems a hasty conclusion. If he had the beliefs of our Australians in such potent beings as Baiame, Nooreli, Daramulun, Mungun-ngaur, Pirmaheal, and Pundjel, that belief would leave no material traces, except, perhaps, the Bull-roarer, whose noise represents the voice of one or other of these beings. Now a small but unmistakeable pair of palæolithic bull-roarers in bone, or of amulets which are bull-roarers in miniature, one of them decorated with the sacred Australian pattern of herring-bone and concentric circles, have been found in a quaternary station in France.15

Palæolithic man in France, countless ages ago, was thus, especially if he had domesticated animals, immensely more remote from 'the beginning' than contemporary wild Australian tribes. They, again, with their copious languages, ingenious implements, complex institutions, and prolonged tribal assemblies, are infinitely in advance of those really primitive men among whom we must tentatively seek the origins of customary law regulating the family and marital arrangements. A society almost incalculably ancient may have been much more advanced than a society of to-day, and the society of the lowest known modern savages must be equally advanced from the status of 'primitive man'.

The best proof of all that no Australians are now in or near 'the chrysalis state' of humanity, is to be found in their combinations into large friendly tribes, each covering a wide extent of country, and holding stated meetings, for social, political, religious, and commercial purposes. Mr. Matthews remarks on 'articles of barter,' exchanged 'at the great meetings which were held for the initiation of the youths of the tribes.' Among these articles were stone hatchets, first chipped, then ground, the tribes having passed out of the stage in which mere rude flaking sufficed. 'At the conclusion of the ceremonies, before the people dispersed, a kind of fair was held, when natives in whose country stone was plentiful, would barter their things with other people for reeds for making spears, rich plumage of birds, &c. … or for any other articles brought by the various tribes for the purpose of exchange.'16 We can scarcely conceive that this amount of tribal or inter-tribal unity was possible to man really primitive. Backward and conservative as the Australians are, we must not expect to find among them, with their highly complex customary laws, anything like the first beginnings of social regulations. To look for these, even among the naked and houseless hunters of Australia, is to organise failure in this research as to origins.