The Family among the Australian Aborigines, a Sociological StudyMalinowski, Bronislaw
History
The Family among the Australian Aborigines, a Sociological Study
Malinowski, Bronislaw
Aboriginal Australians -- Social life and customs; Ethnology -- Australia; Families -- History
In regard to the motive of jealousy as connected with the question
of progeny--the care to be sure of a man's own real paternity of
his children, we may remark that this motive must be absent in many
tribes, viz. in those tribes where the physiological rôle of the
father in procreation is not known. We know with all certainty that
this is the case in the Central and North Central tribes, as well as
in the North-east part of the continent.[349] But it appears to be
the case in the South Central tribes. It is stated that the Urabunna
have quite analogous beliefs in reincarnation of ancestors, in their
dwelling-places, and other totemic matters.[350] Spencer and Gillen do
not say anything definite about the appreciation or want of knowledge
of physiological paternity, but that is perhaps because they were
less well acquainted with the Urabunna, who were also probably in
a more advanced stage of decay. By analogy it may be inferred that
the Urabunna, like all the other neighbouring tribes, had with the
whole apparatus of analogous beliefs, also the lack of the knowledge
in question. We might infer the same about the Dieri and kindred
tribes, who seem to be almost identical in all respects with the
Urabunna, but of whose religious and totemic ideas we are by no means
so well informed as of their social organization; in fact, for these
psychological data it is undoubtedly to Spencer and Gillen that we owe
the major part of our knowledge about Australia.
[349] See below, pp. 209 _sqq._ and 226.
[350] Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, pp. 146 _sqq._
Certainly the ignorance of physiological fatherhood in the South
Central tribes is of a hypothetical character. But provided it is a
fact, we see that the area occupied by tribes which believe in the
supernatural begetting of children extends over the whole Central and
North-east area. There is no evidence on this point in the case of the
Western tribes. We find only in the South-eastern tribes a knowledge of
the real process of procreation. It is interesting to note that thus
the area of greater sexual promiscuity and less pronounced jealousy is
conterminous with the area where natural paternity is unknown. Whether
there be any real dependence between these two series of facts it is
impossible to assert, as our knowledge of the natives' psychology is
too scanty. But if our information on this point be reliable, and if
these limits be correct, then the coincidence just noted is rather
suggestive.
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