social union. But among savages a religious community generally coincides with a community of some other kind. There are tutelary gods of families, clans, and tribes ;1 and a purely local group may also form a religious community by itself. Major Éllis observes that with some two or three exceptions all the gods worshipped by the Tshi-speaking tribes on the Gold Coast are exclusively local and have a limited area of worship. If they are nature-gods they are bound up with the natural objects they animate, if they are ghost-gods they are localised by the place of sepulture, and if they are tutelary deities whose origin has been forgotten their position is necessarily fixed by that of the town, village, or family they protect; in any case they are worshipped only by those who live in the neighbourhood, the only exceptions being the sky-god, the earthquake-god, and the goddess of the silkcotton trees, who are worshipped everywhere.2 When the religious community is thus at the same time a family, clan, village, or tribe, it is of course impossible exactly to distinguish the social influence of the common religion from that exercised by marriage, local proximity, or a common descent. It seems, however, that the importance of the religious bond, or at least of the totem bond, has been somewhat exaggerated by a certain school of anthropologists. We are told that in early society "each member of the kin testifies and renews his union with the rest" by taking part in a sacrificial meal in which the totem god is eaten by his worshippers. But no satisfactory evidence has ever been given in support of this theory. Dr. Frazer knows only one certain case of a totem sacrament, namely, that prevalent among the Arunta and some other tribes in Central Australia,' who at the time of Intichiuma are in the habit of killing and eating totem animals; and this practice has nothing what1 See infra, on Gods as Guardians of Morality. 2 Ellis, Yoruba-speaking_Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 284 sq. For various instances of village gods see Turner, Samoa, p. 18; Crozet, Voyage to Tas mania, &c. p. 45 (Maoris); Christian, 3 Hartland, op. cit. ii. 236. 4 Frazer Golden Bough, i. p. xix. ever to do with the mutual relations between kindred. Its object is only to multiply in a magic manner the animals of certain species for the purpose of increasing the food-supply for other totemic groups. In his book on Totemism Dr. Frazer writes :-" The totem bond is stronger than the bond of blood or family in the modern sense. This is expressly stated of the clans of western Australia and of north-western America, and is probably true of all societies where totemism exists in full force. Hence in totem tribes every local group, being necessarily composed (owing to exogamy) of members of at least two totem clans, is liable to be dissolved at any moment into its totem elements by the outbreak of a blood feud, in which husband and wife must always (if the feud is between their clans) be arrayed on opposite sides, and in which the children will be arrayed against either their father or their mother, according as descent is traced through the mother, or through the father." In the two or three cases which Dr. Frazer quotes in support of his statement the totemic group is identical with the clan; hence it is impossible to decide whether the strength of the tie which unites its members is due to the totem relationship or to the common descent. But even the combined clan and totem systems seem at most only in exceptional cases to lead to such consequences as are indicated by Dr. Frazer's authorities. With reference to the Australian aborigines Mr. Curr observes :-"Of the children of one father being at war with him, or with each other, on the ground of maternal relationship, or any other ground, my inquiries and experience supply no To Captain Grey's statements, indeed, there instances. are several objections." 1 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, ch. vi. lidem, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, ch. ix. sq. 2 Frazer, Totemism, p. 57. 3 Grey, Journals of Expeditions in North-West and Western Australia, ii. 230. Petroff, Report on Alaska, p. Among the Arunta and some other Central Australian tribes we have fortunately an opportunity of studying the social influence of totemism apart from that of clanship, the division into totems being quite independent of the clan system. The whole district of a tribe may be mapped out into a large number of areas of various sizes, each of which centres in one or more spots where, in the dim past, certain mythical ancestors are said to have originated or camped during their wanderings, and where their spirits are still supposed to remain, associated with sacred stones, which the ancestors used to carry about with them. From these spirits have sprung, and still continue to spring, actual men and women, the members of the various totems being their reincarnations. At the spots where they remained, the ancestral spirits enter the bodies of women, and in consequence a child must belong to the totem of the spot at which the mother believes that it was conceived. A result of this is that no one totem is confined to the members of a particular clan or sub-clan,' and that though most members of a given horde or local group belong to the same totemic group, there is no absolute coincidence between these two kinds of organisation." How, then, does the fact that two persons belong to the same totem influence their social relationships? "In these tribes," say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "there is no such thing as the members of one totem being bound together in such a way that they must combine to fight on behalf of a member of the totem to which they belong. . . . The men to assist a particular man in a quarrel are those of his locality, and not of necessity those of the same totem as himself, indeed the latter consideration does not enter into account and in this as in other matters we see the strong as the children were never of the same caste (clan) as the father, the children would, of course, be against the father and the father against the children. . . This, however, was not likely to occur very often, as the worst of parents would have naturally preferred peace to war with his own children." Petroff's passage concerning the Thlinkets, referred to by Dr. Frazer, simply runs :"The ties of the totem or clanship are considered far stronger than those of blood relationship." 1 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, ch. iv. 2 Ibid. pp. 9, 32, 34. development of what we have called the local influence.' The men who assist him are his brothers, blood and tribal, the sons of his mother's brothers, blood and tribal. That is, if he be a Panunga man he will have the assistance of the Panunga and Ungalla men of his locality, while if it comes to a general fight he will have the help of the whole of his local group. . . . It is only indeed during the performance of certain ceremonies that the existence of a mutual relationship, consequent upon the possession of a common totemic name, stands out at all prominently. In fact, it is perfectly easy to spend a considerable time amongst the Arunta tribe without even being aware that each individual has a totemic name.' " 1 When from the savage and barbarous races of men we pass to peoples of a higher culture, as they first appear to us in the light of history, we meet among them social units similar in kind to those prevalent at lower stages of civilisation the family, clan, village, tribe. We also find among them, side by side with the family consisting of parents and children, a larger family organisation, which, though not unknown among the lower races, assumes particular prominence in the archaic State. In China the family generally remains undivided till the children of the younger sons are beginning to grow up. Then the younger branches of the family separate, and form their own households. But the new householders continue to take part in the ancestral worship of the old home; and mourning is worn in theory for four generations of ascendants and descendants in the direct line, and for contemporaries descended in the same fifth generation from the "honoured head" of the family.2 At the same time we find in China at least traces of a clan organisation. Large bodies of persons bear the same surname, and a penalty is inflicted on anyone who marries a person with the same surname as his own, whilst a man is strictly forbidden to nominate as his heir 1 1 Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 34, 544. 2 Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, ii. 303, 493, 69. an individual of a different surname. Moreover, there are whole villages composed of relatives all bearing the same ancestral name. "In many cases," says Mr. Doolittle, “for a long period of time no division of inherited property is made in rural districts, the descendants of a common ancestor living or working together, enjoying and sharing the profits of their labours under the general direction and supervision of the head of the clan and the heads of the family branches. . . . There may be only one head of the clan. Under him there are several heads of families.": The "four generations" of the Chinese, comprising those who are regarded as near relatives, have their counterpart in the family organisation of most so-called Aryan peoples. The Roman Propinqui—that is, parents and children, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, first cousins (conscbrini) and second cousins (sobrini)—exactly corresponded to the Anchisteis of the Greeks, the Sapindas of the Hindus, and the "Syngeneis" of the Persians.* The persons belonging to these four generations stood in a particularly close relationship to each other. They had mutual rights and duties of various kinds. In early times, if one of them was killed, the survivors had to avenge his death. They were expected to assist each other whenever it was needed, especially before the court. They celebrated in common feasts of rejoicing and feasts for the dead. They had a common cult and common mourning. In short, they formed an enlarged family unit of which the individual families were merely sub-branches, even though 1 Medhurst, Marriage, Affinity, and Inheritance in China,' in Trans. Roy. Asiatic Soc. China Branch, iv. 21, 22, 29. 2 Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, ii. 225 sqq. 3 Baudhayana, i. 5. 11. 9:—" The great-grandfather, the grandfather, the father, oneself, the uterine brothers, the son by a wife of equal caste, the grandson, and the great-grandson— these they call Sapindas, but not the great-grandson's son." Laws of Manu, ix. 186:-" To three ancestors water must be offered, to three the funeral cake is given, the fourth descendant is the giver of these oblations, the fifth has no connection with them." Cf. Jolly, Recht und Sitte,' in Bühler, Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie, ii. 85. Brissonius, De regio Persarum principatu, i. 207, p. 279. Leist, Altarisches Jus Civile, i, 47 sqq. |