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It is not probable that the totem was regarded as divine in the period in which exogamy arose by the tribes whose ideas on this point are known the totem is looked on as a friend and an equal but not as a god. And, as is pointed out above, there is no such general religious respect for the clan blood as would forbid sexual intercourse between persons of the same clan.
They are exogamy, lineage and totemism. A word must be said about each in turn. Exogamy presents no difficulty until you try to account for its origin. It simply means marrying-out, in contrast to endogamy, or marrying-in.
To put it in technical language, the succession to the kingship at Rome and probably in Latium generally would seem to have been determined by certain rules which have moulded early society in many parts of the world, namely exogamy, beena marriage, and female kinship or mother-kin.
The animal is regarded as an ancestor or a patron, but clans do not take their names from animals, there is no general rule of exogamy, and there is no word corresponding exactly to the word 'totem. The question arises whether the Malagasy system is a stage antecedent to totemism proper or an attenuated survival of it. +514+. Alleged survivals of totemism among civilized peoples.
Morgan's suggestion as to the origin of exogamy. Mr. M'Lennan did not live to publish a subtle theory of the origin of exogamy, which he had elaborated. In 'Studies in Ancient History, he hazarded a conjecture based on female infanticide:
To illustrate the pre-exogamic stage of human society is not so easy as it may seem; for, though it is possible to find examples, especially amongst Negritos such as the Andamanese or Bushmen, of peoples of the rudest culture, and living in very small communities, who apparently know neither exogamy nor what so often accompanies it, namely, totemism, we can never be certain whether we are dealing in such a case with the genuinely primitive, or merely with the degenerate.
Thus the wolves might call themselves Claudii, from their chief's name, and, giving up belief in descent from a wolf, might look back to a fancied ancestor named Claudius. The result of these changes will be that an exogamous totem kin, with female descent, has become a gens, with male kinship, and only the faintest trace of exogamy.
McLennan, in Primitive Marriage, for the rule which prohibited sexual relationships within the group limit. Continence imposed by the patriarch on his sons within the group, as a condition of his tolerance of their presence, necessarily and logically entailed marriage without, with women from some other group. This explanation of exogamy is so simple that it seems likely to be true.
Thus, to revert to the imaginary case of the Cockatoos and Crows practising exogamy across the river, it seems easy to understand how the numbers on both sides might increase until, whilst remaining Cockatoos and Crows for cross-river purposes, they would find it necessary to adopt among themselves subordinate distinctions; such as would be sure to model themselves on the old Cockatoo-Crow principle of separate totemic badges.
On Sir Henry Maine's theory of exogamy, that Aryan custom is unconnected with female kinship, polyandry, and scarcity of women. On Mr. M'Lennan's theory, exogamy is the result of scarcity of women, and implies polyandry and female kinship. But neither theory has seemed satisfactory.
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