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We cannot expect to find traces of the prohibition to marry a woman of the same totem. In Rome we do find traces of exogamy, as among totemists. Mr. Frazer on Origin of Totemism Mr. Frazer has introduced the term 'sex-totems, in application to Australia. This is connected with his theory of the Origin of Totemism. I cannot quite approve of the term sex-totems.
If this can be proved, exogamous Aryans either passed through polyandrous institutions, or borrowed a savage custom derived from a period when ideas of kinship were obscure. If we only knew the origin of the prohibition to marry within the family name all would be plain sailing. At present several theories of the origin of exogamy are before the world. Mr.
I have already described these ceremonies in Totemism and Exogamy, iii. 237 sq. Schoolcraft did not know the date of the ceremony, but he conjectured that it fell at the end of the Iroquois year, which was a lunar year of twelve or thirteen months. Franz Boas, "The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay," Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural, History, xv. Part i.
'The composition and organisation of Greek and Roman tribes and commonwealths cannot well be explained except on the hypothesis that they resulted from the joint operation, in early times, of exogamy, and the system of kinship through females only. 'The gens', he adds, 'was composed of all the persons in the tribe bearing the same name and accounted of the same stock.
The non-Aryan peoples of India are divided into a large number of exogamous clans, each with its sacred object, which it is unlawful to injure or use. A departure from ordinary totemic usage appears in the fact that in many cases the sacred objects receive worship. The Aryans of India have exogamy but not totemism, and this is true in part of the Assamese.
The religious superstitions that came to be connected with these totem names would make binding the new order in the marriage law. When this stage was reached exogamy would be strictly practised; and in all cases under the complete maternal system, the woman on marriage would remain in her family home, where the husband would come to live with her as a kind of privileged guest.
J. Roscoe, The Baganda, p. 80. Rev. R. Sutherland Rattray, op. cit. pp. 191 sq. Rev. See Totemism and Exogamy, iv. 224 sqq. This statement applies especially to the Ama-Xosa. G. McCall Theal, Kaffir Folk-lore, p. 218. Rev. Compare above, p. 28. The other consequences supposed to flow from the omission of the rites are mentioned by Father Campana. From Mr. The Rev. G. Brown, quoted by the Rev.
Wallace's claim to the origination of the idea of natural selection; on the former barbarism of civilised nations; on improvements in the arts among savages; on resemblances of the mental characters in different races of men; on the arts practised by savages; on the power of counting in primeval man; on the prehensile organs of the male Labidocera Darwinii; on Chloeon; on Smynthurus luteus; finding of new mates by jays; on strife for women among the North American Indians; on music; on the ornamental practices of savages; on the estimation of the beard among the Anglo-Saxons; on artificial deformation of the skull; on "communal marriages;" on exogamy; on the Veddahs; on polyandry.
One way of seizing its nature is to think of it as the social union within which exogamy takes place. The intermarrying groups naturally hang together, and are thus in their entirety endogamous, in the sense that marriage with pure outsiders is disallowed by custom.
+439+. Exogamy served a good purpose in early stages of society, both by preventing marriages between blood relations and by inducing a sense of the sacredness of the marriage bond. Its long persistence shows that it was regarded by most tribes as necessary for the maintenance of the tribal life.
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