he class system "arose in a given centre and was
propagated by emigrants and was borrowed by distant tribes."[385]
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen distinctly affirm that the "division into
eight has been adopted (or rather the names for the four new divisions
have been) in recent times by the Arunta tribe from the Ilpirra tribe
which adjoins the former on the north, and the use of them is at the
present time spreading southwards."[386] This view is supported by the
widespread organisation of eaglehawk and crow, and by the general
homogeneity of Australian social forms. It is clear, therefore, that
room is made for the external organisation of the class system and the
consequent production of the dual characteristics of the Arunta--the
joint product of the fossilisation of mother-right society at the end
of the migration movement, and the superimposing upon this
fossilisation, with its tendency towards the class system, of the
fully organised class system. The two systems are not now fully welded
in the Arunta group. Whatever view is taken of these, whether they be
considered advanced or primal, the undoubted dualism has to be
accounted for, and the best way of accounting for this dualism is, I
submit, that of differential evolution. Further study of Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen's work, together with the criticisms of various
scholars, Mr. Lang, Mr. Hartland, Mr. Frazer, Mr. Thomas, and others,
convinces me that the extreme artificiality of the class system is due
partly to a want of understanding of the entire facts, and partly to
the _ad hoc_ adoption by the natives themselves of new plans to meet
difficulties which must arise out of a too close adhesion to their
rules. Mr. Lang has allowed me to see a manuscript note of his, in
which he points out that the inevitable result of the one totem to the
one totem rule of marital relationship,--that is, totem A always
intermarrying with totem B, males and females from both totems, and
with no others,--is the consanguineous relationship of all the members
of the two totems. The rule for non-consanguineous marriage has
therefore broken down, and when it breaks down the Australian
introduces a new rule which satisfies immediate necessities. When this
in turn breaks down a further new rule is made, and this is the way I
think the differing rules resulted. They represent, therefore, not
varying degrees of culture progress, but only varying degrees of
artificial social changes, and they s