Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia | Page 7

far from being the case that there is
invariable agreement between the principles on which kinship and
authority are determined. Three main types of family may be
distinguished: (1) patripotestal, (2) matripotestal, (_a_) direct, and (_b_)
indirect, in which the authority is wielded by the father, mother, and
mother's relatives, in particular her brothers, respectively. Innumerable
transitional forms are found, some of which will be mentioned in the
next chapter, which deals with the rule of descent by which
membership of natal groups is determined.
Turning now to kinship organisations, we find that the most widely
distributed type is the totem kin, in fact, if we except the Hottentots and
a few other peoples among whom no trace of it is found, it is difficult

to say where totemism has not at one time or another prevailed. It is
found as a living cult to-day among the greater part of the aborigines of
North and South America, in Australia, and among some of the Bantu
populations of the southern half of Africa. In more or less recognisable
forms it is found in other parts of Africa, New Guinea, India, and other
parts of the world. In the ancient world its existence has been
maintained for Rome (clan Valeria etc.), Greece, and Egypt, but the
absence of information as to details of the social structure renders these
theories uncertain.
Aberrant cases apart, totemism is understood to involve (1) the
existence of a body of persons claiming kinship, who (2) stand in a
certain relation to some object, usually an animal, and (3) do not marry
within the kin.
Passing over the classes, which are peculiar to Australia and will be
fully dealt with below, we come to a more comprehensive form of
kinship organisation in the phratries. These are a grouping of the
community in two or more exogamous divisions, between which the
totem kins, where they exist, are distributed. The essential feature of a
phratry is that it is exogamous; its members cannot ordinarily marry
within it, and, where there are more than two phratries, there may exist
rules limiting their choice to certain phratries.[4]
This dual or other grouping of the kins is widely found in North
America, the number of phratries ranging from two among the Tlinkits,
Cayugas, Choctaws, and others, to ten among the Moquis of Arizona.
As in Australia, the totem kins bearing the same eponymous animal as
the phratry are usually, e.g. among the Tlinkits, found in the phratry in
question. Exceptions to this rule are found among the Haida, where
both eagle and raven are in the eagle phratry.
The Mohegan and Kutchin phratries call for special notice. The kins of
the former are arranged in three groups: wolf, turtle, and turkey; and
the first phratry includes quadrupeds, the second turtles of various
kinds and the yellow eel, and the third birds. We find a parallel to these
phratries in the groups of the Kutchin, but in the latter case our lack of
knowledge of the tribe precludes us from saying whether totem kins

exist among them, and, if so, how far the grouping is systematic; the
Kutchin groups, according to one authority, are known by the generic
names of birds, beasts, and fish. As a rule, however, no classification of
kins is found, nor are the phratry names specially significant.
Dual grouping of the kins is also found in New Guinea, the Torres
Straits Islands, and possibly among the ancient Arabs[5]; but evidence
in the latter case has not been systematically dealt with.
Other peoples have a similar dichotomous organisation; but it is either
not based on the totem kins or they have fallen into the background.
In various parts of Melanesia we find the people divided into two
groups, each associated with a single totem or mythological personage,
and sexual intercourse, whether marital or otherwise, is strictly
forbidden between those of the same phratry[6]. In India the Todas
have a similar organisation[7], and the Wanika in East Africa[8].
Customs of residence and descent affect the distribution of the phratries
within the tribe, no less than the composition of the local group. With
patrilineal descent they tend to occupy the tribal territory in such a way
that each phratry becomes a local group. With the disappearance of
phratry names this would be transformed into a local exogamous group,
which is, however, indistinguishable from the local group of the same
nature which is the result of the development of a totem kin under
similar conditions.
As a rule kinship organisations descend in a given tribe either in the
male line or in the female. Among the Ova-Herero, however, and other
Bantu tribes, there are two kinds of organisation, one--the
_eanda_--descending in female line and regulative of marriage, is
clearly the totem kin; property remains in the