[hill-tout] TOTEMISM : ITS ORIGIN AND IMPORT 8S 



riage within the kin and necessitating inter-marriage between the kins." 

 But is this really a feature of totemism ? It is true it has become in a 

 measure associated with totemism, but is not this accidental? Is it not 

 because the endogamous or incest group is the same thing as the clan 

 group? We have seen that the formation of the clan group was inde- 

 pendent of totemism, and are we not thereby justified in inferring that 

 the endogamous group, which is the same body, was equally independent 

 of totemic concepts ? Such evidence as we may gather on the point cer- 

 tainly supports this view. Marriages among the tribes of America are 

 universally regulated by customary law which appears to have had its 

 origin quite apart from totemism. It appears to be basid on political con- 

 siderations rather than upon any other. Marriage ties were bonds em- 

 ployed to unite different clans into larger bodies such as the tribe. These 

 bi'dies were primarily political corporations, their union having for its 

 object a permanent alliance for offensive and defensive purposes. "Make 

 ye marriages with us: give your daughters unto us and take our 

 daughters unto you," said Hamor of old to Jacob, and we can well be- 

 lieve that many Hamors before and since have uttered the same words. 

 Agreements or treaties of this kind enforced for a generation or two 

 crystalize into customary law which later may be thought to have received 

 the sanction of the clan or tribal deities and so to have become sacred. 

 But is this totemism? I cannot think so. If the canon of exogamy 

 were of totemic origin, surely we ought to find a uniformity of practice 

 and observance. But this is by no means the case. American tribal 

 society presents us with totem groups living under endogamous regula- 

 tion and marrying strictly within the family or totem group. And the 

 same thing is found in Australia. 



Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have shown that among some of the 

 Central Australian tribes, totemism has no effect upon marriage or 

 descent, a man being free to marry a woman of his own totem or any 

 other as he desires or thinks fit, and his offspring may belong to either 

 his own or his wife's clan, or they may belong to neither, or part in one 

 and part in another as fancy and circumstances shall dictate, and the 

 traditions of these tribes "seem to point back to a time when a man 

 always married a woman of his own totem. The reference to men and 

 women of one totem always living together in groups would appear to be 

 too frequent and explicit to admit of any other satisfactory explanation. 

 We never meet with an instance of a man living with a woman who was 

 not of his own totem."^ " Such traditions," remarks Dr. Frazer in his 

 consideration of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen's work, " it is plain, fly 

 straight in the face of all our old notions of totemism. Are we, there- 

 fore, at liberty to reject them as baseless? Certainly not. Their very 

 ^ The Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 419. 



