TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 751 



It 18 liiglily probable that something like what was takinj^ place in Torres 

 Straits has occurred elsewhere, but I cannot now enter into a comparative study 

 of the rise of hero cults. 



Local or Village Exogamy. 



I have more than once ^ called nttention to the fact that amonpr some Papuans 

 marriage restrictions are territorial and not totemic. Dr. Rivers ■ has shown that 

 in Murray Island, Eastern tribe of Torres Straits, marriages are regulated by the 

 places to which natives belong. A man cannot marry a woman of his own 

 village or of certain other villages. The totemic system which probably at one 

 time existed in this island appears to have been replaced by what may be called 

 a territorial system. A similar cu.«itom occurs in the Mekeo district of British 

 New Guinea, and it is probably still more widely distributed. 



I was informed by a member of the Yaraikanna tribe of Cape York, North 

 Queensland, that children must take the ' land ' or ' country ' of their mother ; all 

 who belong to the same place are brothers and sisters, a wife must be taken from 

 another 'country';' thus it appears their marriage restrictions are territorial 

 and not totemic. The same is found amongst the Kurnai ard the Coast Murring 

 tribe in New South Wales.* 



At Kiwai, in the delta of the Fly River, B.N.G., all the members of a totemic 

 group live together in a long house which is confined to that group. I have 

 also collected evidence which proves there was a territorial grouping of totemic 

 clans among the Western tribe of Torres Straits.'' 



Within a comparatively small area we have the following conditions : — 



(1) A typical totemic community with totem-kin houses (Kiwai). 



(2) A typical totemic community with territorial grouping of the kins. 

 Although there is totem exogamy, the marriage restrictions are regulated by 

 relationship. The former mother-right has comparatively recently been replaced by 

 father-right, but there are many survivals from matriarchy (Western tribe, 

 Torres Straits). 



(3) A community in which totemism has practically lapsed, with village 

 exogamy and marriage restrictions regulated by relationship, patriarchy with 

 survivals from matriarchy (Eastern tribe, Torres Straits). 



(4) Total absence of totemism (?), village exogamy (Mekeo). 



I do not assert this is a natural sequence, but it looks like one, and it appears 

 to indicate another of the ways out of totemism. It is suggestive that this order 

 also indicates the application of the several peoples to agriculture : the people 

 of Kiwai are semi-nomadic, those of the Mekeo district are firmly attached to 

 the land. This constraint of the soil must have operated in a similar manner 

 elsewhere." The territorial exogamy occasionally found in Australia cannot be 

 explained as being due to agriculture ; a rigid limitation of hunting grounds may 

 here have had a similar eflect. 



In offering these remarks to-day I desire, above all, to impress on you the 

 need there is for more work in the field. When one surveys the fairly extensive 

 literature of totemism one is struck with the very general insufficiency of the 

 evidence ; as a matter of fact, full and precise information is lamentably lacking. 

 The foundations upon which students at home have to build their superstructures 

 of generalisation and theory are usually of too slight a character to support these 



' Folk-lore, xii. 1901, p. 233 ; Head-hunters, Black, White, and Brown, 1901, 

 p. 258. 



* Jotirn. ATcthrop. Inst., xxx. 1900, p. 78. 



' Brit. Assoc. Report, Dover, 1899, p. 585. 

 ' Frazer, Totemism, p. 90. 



* Reports Cartib. Anthrop. Expedition to Torres Straits, v. (in the press). 

 « Cf. L' Annie Socioloffique, v. 1902, pp. 330, 333. 



