TOTEMISM: DESCENDANT-LEAVING STRATEGY OF THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES</= title>  <style>  </style>  </head> <body lang=3DEN-US style=3D'tab-interval:.5in;text-justify-trim:punctuation= '> <div class=3DSection1> TOTEMISM: DESCENDANT-LEAVING STRATEGY OF THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES <o:p></o:p> Lyle Steadm= an, Craig Palmer Departments= of Anthropology Arizona Sta= te University and University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Human Behav= ior and Evolution Society Meeting University = of Nebraska Lincoln, NE= June, 2003 <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; Of all the exotic facts encountered by early European travelers to Australia, perhaps the most perplexing was Totemism, the insistence by Aborigines that some of them were kangaroos, while others were witchety grubs, blackbirds, = and so on. Both Sigmund Freud and= Emile Durkheim were so struck by reports that the Australian Aborigines believed = they were certain species of animals, that they both proposed that Totemism was = the earliest form of religion. Totemism, and the theories set forth to explain it, have been at the center of the study of religion ever since. Evolutionary psychologists current= ly attempting to explain religion must account for Totemism. This will require addressing sever= al aspects of Totemism that represent challenges to the view that religious behavior is simply the consequence of certain psychological mechanisms that cause an individual to hold religious beliefs. First, the assumption that practit= ioners of Totemism believe their religious claims (e.g., that they are true member= s of their totemic species) is not scientifically acceptable. Second, far from springing from an individual’s psychological mechanisms, the religious behavior compris= ing Australian Totemism is profoundly traditional, having been copied from ancestors, apparently for hundreds of generations: regardless of the= ir personal inclinations, individuals are socially obligated to participate.<s= pan style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> As an alternative, we present here= a model of totemism (and religion in general) that focuses on the identifiabl= e effects of religious behavior, particularly on the social relationships between dis= tant kinsmen. <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Earlier Explanations and the Assumption of Belief= <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; Along with Durkheim and Freud, countless anthropologists have assumed that when Aborigines claim they are kangaroos, witchety grubs, kookaburras and so on, they really mean it, and that they believe they are their totem animal. There are several rea= sons for rejecting this assumption. First, the behavior of members of the kangaroo clan, for exam= ple, demonstrates a systematic discrimination between real humans (of any type) = and real kangaroos. The humans (n= o less than the actual kangaroos) demonstrably recognize huge differences between = the two categories. For example, kangaroo humans do not mate with, or marry actual kangaroos, and kangaroo humans never object when their so-called “relatives,” the actual kangaroos, are killed and eaten by other humans. On the contrary, they perform cere= monies said to be aimed at increasing the reproduction of actual kangaroos = so that members of other totemic clans – who are their kinsmen—may= eat them! <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; Hence, instead of attempting to identify the evolved psychological mechanisms that might somehow cause a person to believe he is a kangaroo, an assumption tha= t is both impossible to verify and is contradicted by behavior, we suggest attem= pts to explain totemism should avoid the problematic assumption of belief and f= ocus instead on its identifiable effects, effects that can demonstrably influence the survivial and reproductive chances of descendants. <o:p> </o:p> <h1>Defining Totemism<o:p></o:p></h1> <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; In the strict anthropological sense, a totem can be defined precisely a= s a name of a non‑human category (usually a species of animal or plant) u= sed to identify a set of human co‑descendants, such as a lineage, clan, phratry and so on. Because su= ch categories are distinguished by an ancestral name, a totem can be said to be either associated with an ancestral name or be itself the name. But what, one must ask, make= s the totemism of the Australian aborigines religious? Non-religious totemic= ‑like identification is common in probably every human society. Individuals are called by plant and animal names—he is a pig, mule, good old bean; she is a fox, tiger, chick, peach—and social relationships among members of certain groups—sporting teams, for example—are identified often by names such as Rams, Eagles, Beavers, Hawks, and so on. Furthermore, ancestral, or “= family”, names, even in modern societies, are often “totemic”: Fox, Tiger, Lion, Hawk, Gold, Ston= e, Moon, Wood, Steed, Brown, Clay, with sometimes only the spelling obscuring their “totemic” status—Browne, Greene, Foxe (with an ‘e’ on the end), Tyger (with a ‘y’), Pigg (with two= “g”s). <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; What exactly is the difference between these totemic‑like phenomena in mod= ern societies and totems ‘proper’, which are considered religious?<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> In both cases, the most striking f= eature of a totem is that it is a metaphor, its claim recognized as not literally true. “The feature of metaphor that has most troubled philosophers is that it is ‘wrongR= 17;: ‘It asserts of one thing that it is something else’” (Per= cy, cited in Geertz l973:2l0). A = human who is called a pig is not an actual pig.&= nbsp; A team called the Rams does not consist of rams, but humans, and the same is true of an Australian Kangaroo clan, despite its member’s cla= im to the contrary. Totemic clai= ms are metaphorical. So what makes s= ome totemic claims religious while others not? <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; We suggest that totems are religious when, and only when, their status as meta= phor is denied. Metaphors, normall= y, are acknowledged to be literally false. For example, if we call a person a “rat,” when questione= d we explicitly recognize that he or she is only like a rat, in some way. Hence, no one considers = this talk about people being rats, religious. Religious behavior differs from no= rmal metaphor in that the claims are said explicitly not to be metaphorical. Totemism is religious becaus= e the practitioners deny that their claim of being a “rat” or “kangaroo” is a metaphor.&= nbsp; It is this denial that makes totemism religious behavior, not the unidentifiable beliefs of those involved.&= nbsp; <o:p> </o:p> The use of metaphor facil= itates communication, including making claims more interesting, and hence, more influential. So the key quest= ion is what does the claim that a metaphor is not a metaphor – that it is, instead, literally true – add to the communication? We suggest that the assertion that= the statement (the metaphor) is literally true communicates a willingness to ac= cept the speaker’s influence non-skeptically, and thereby, promotes cooperation. We suggest that = this cooperation engendered by the acceptance of religious claims, may be the fundamental function of all religious behavior, including Totemism. That is, it is this effect on cooperation, we propose, that can account for the persistence of religion – religious behavior -- through the generations. <o:p> </o:p> <h1>Ancestor= s, Traditions, and the Evolutionary Significance of Totemism<o:p></o:p>= </h1> <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; Since totems are names for, or are associated with, common ancestors, they symbol= ize the relationship between the kin who are the co-descendants of those ancestors. Totemic names are appropriate symbols to represent sets of co-descendants because a name of a= species of animal or plant already represents a category of related organisms, a species, and hence is particularly appropriate to represent a category of related humans. That is, the = totem communicates that the set of co-descendants called a clan or lineage is utterly distinct from other people, it is like a separate species <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; The Australian aborigines of today are descendants of ancestors who came to Australia more than 40,000 years ago (e.g., Hart et al 1988). Totemic names and rituals are almo= st certainly traditions that have been copied from parent to offspring for this entire period, for all 600 or so tribes exhibit this phenomenon. While some other traditions = surely appeared and disappeared over this period, individuals passing on the tradi= tion of Totemism survived, reproduced and left descendants. In general, it should be the case = that only when a tradition promoted the leaving of descendants should it tend to increase in frequency, along with the descendants. What was the effect of Totemism th= at might have promoted its great descendant-leaving success? The most significant identifiable = effect of Australian Totemism, and all other forms of ancestor worship, is in the promotion of social behavior among the participants. Totemism does this with names that identify genealogical relations, and Totemic rituals convert these identifi= ed genealogical relations into social relationships among the participants.<sp= an style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> These rituals communicate respect = for the ancestor – indeed, they often reenact the alleged behavior of the= ir ancestor—and thereby communicate respect for what is of importance to ancestors: their descendants, who are co-descendants of one another, and su= ch things as the prohibition on eating the totem animal, along with other sacrifices. Totems and totemic rituals, by embellishing genealogical relationships and, by stereotyped cooperation, encourage social behavior and relationships between those so identified. <o:p> </o:p> Living more or less in ex= treme isolation from the rest of humanity – for example, they never took up= the practice of agriculture, and the use of the bow and arrow -- the tradition of Australian Aboriginal Tote= mism today represents an elaboration—a fine tuning—of traditions, wh= ich promote genealogical identification and social relationships among those so identified. The importance of= these kinship relationships cannot be overstated. In Radcliffe‑Brown’s words: <o:p> </o:p> [In] native Australian society [genealogical relationship] regulates more or less definitely the behaviour of an individual to every person with whom he has = any social dealings whatever. (19= 31:43) <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; One final point: a major enigma regarding the Australian Aborigines is the mean= ing and significance of a word found in perhaps all tribes, translated usually = as the dreaming or dreamtime, such as alcheringa in the Aranda language. Although the anthropologist William Stanner, as have many others, translates alcherin= ga as the “Dream Time,” he notes that it means “… literally something like ‘men of old.’” Now, if the literal meaning= of alcheringa is indeed ‘men of old,’ then its other uses, including Dream Ti= me and “the dreaming”, must be metaphorical. ‘Men of old’ surely refers to ancestors, those who creat= ed the present descendants and their traditions. Thus alcheringa, = or its equivalent, means literally “ancestors", and is extended metaphorically to identify the time of the ancestors, newly initiated males, females who= have just given birth, all traditions and rituals, and the various symbols used = to represent the ancestors, including their totem animal and their sacred sites -- literally everything important to = the ancestors. The equivalent wor= d in the Tiwi of northern Australia, for example, is pukimani, which Hart translates as “taboo” (Hart et al 1988:96-97), and for the Mard= u of Western Australia, it is manguny or djugurr, which Tonkinson translates as the “dreaming”, although elsewhere he writes that= it refers to “ancestral heroes” (Tonkinson 1991:22, 195). <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; What we are proposing here is not a group explanation, for participation in such rituals is not limited to one’s clan. For example, men regularly partici= pate in rituals directed toward their mother’s clan’s ancestor, or father’s mother’s clan ancestor, and the effect, therefore, of these rituals is to promote social relations between living co-descendants = -- regardless of their particular clan identity -- and not those of a particul= ar group. <o:p> </o:p> We suggest that the fail= ure to appreciate the role of traditions copied from long dead ancestors is the greatest flaw in current attempts to explain human behavior with evolutiona= ry theory. This failure to inclu= de the role of ancestors and traditions in our evolutionary explanations of human behavior may reflect the experiences of social scientists living in societi= es no longer respectful of ancestors and their traditions. The Aborigines themselves recogniz= e this failure of Whites to appreciate the crucial importance of ancestors and traditions, translated by Whites as the dreaming. This can be seen in one Aborigine’s perceptive statement to Stanner: <o:p> </o:p> White man got no dreaming [th= at is, ancestors], Him go ‘nother way. White man, him go different,<= /p> Him got road belong himself (1956:51). <o:p> </o:p= > A person without respect= for his ancestors has neither kin nor tradition.&n= bsp; He indeed has only himself. &n= bsp; In a traditional society, such a person, even with the species typic= al repertoire of psychological mechanisms, would not survive, reproduce and le= ave descendants. Traditions have = been, and are, a necessary part of human evolutionary success, and hence, are cru= cial to an evolutionary explanation of human behavior. <o:p> <= /span></o:p> References Cited<o:p></o:p> Durkheim = </spa= n>1961 The Elementary Forms of= the Religious Life. New York: Collier Books. (First published 1912) <o:p> </o:p> Freud. Sigmund 1950 (1st pub. 1913) Totem and Taboo; Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. &n= bsp; Hart, C.W.M., A. Pilling, J. Goodale <![if !supportLists]>1988<![endif]> The Tiwi. Holt, Rinehart and Winston Radcliffe-Brown </spa= n>1931 The Social Organization= of Australian Tribes. Oceania Monograph, No. 1. Sydney. Tonkinson, Robert <![if !supportLists]>1991= <![endif]>The Mardu Aborigines: Living the Dream in Australia’s Desert. Hol= t, Rinehart and Winston <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> </div> </body> </html> ------=_NextPart_01C5B89F.3832C790 Content-Location: file:///C:/58A64513/2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines_files/header.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" <html xmlns:v=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns=3D"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; charset=3Dus-ascii"> <meta name=3DProgId content=3DWord.Document> <meta name=3DGenerator content=3D"Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name=3DOriginator content=3D"Microsoft Word 11"> <link id=3DMain-File rel=3DMain-File href=3D"../2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines.h= tm"> <![if IE]> <base href=3D"file:///C:\58A64513\2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustr= alianAborigines_files\header.htm" id=3D"webarch_temp_base_tag"> <![endif]> </head> <body lang=3DEN-US> <div style=3D'mso-element:footnote-separator' id=3Dfs> <![if !supportFootnotes]> <hr align=3Dleft size=3D1 width=3D"33%"> <![endif]> </div> <div style=3D'mso-element:footnote-continuation-separator' id=3Dfcs> <![if !supportFootnotes]> <hr align=3Dleft size=3D1> <![endif]> </div> <div style=3D'mso-element:endnote-separator' id=3Des> <![if !supportFootnotes]> <hr align=3Dleft size=3D1 width=3D"33%"> <![endif]> </div> <div style=3D'mso-element:endnote-continuation-separator' id=3Decs> <![if !supportFootnotes]> <hr align=3Dleft size=3D1> <![endif]> </div> <div style=3D'mso-element:footer' id=3Df1> <div style=3D'mso-element:frame;mso-element-wrap:auto;mso-element-anchor-ve= rtical: paragraph;mso-element-anchor-horizontal:margin;mso-element-left:right; mso-element-top:.05pt;mso-height-rule:exactly'> <table cellspacing=3D0 cellpadding=3D0 hspace=3D0 vspace=3D0 align=3Dright> <tr> <td valign=3Dtop align=3Dleft style=3D'padding-top:0in;padding-right:0in; padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:0in'> <p class=3DMsoFooter style=3D'mso-element:frame;mso-element-wrap:auto;mso= -element-anchor-vertical: paragraph;mso-element-anchor-horizontal:margin;mso-element-left:right; mso-element-top:.05pt;mso-height-rule:exactly'>5<!-= -[if supportFields]></span= ><![endif]--><o:p></o:p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <o:p> </o:p> </div> </body> </html> ------=_NextPart_01C5B89F.3832C790 Content-Location: file:///C:/58A64513/2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines_files/filelist.xml Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8" <xml xmlns:o=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"> <o:MainFile HRef=3D"../2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines= .htm"/> <o:File HRef=3D"header.htm"/> <o:File HRef=3D"filelist.xml"/> </xml> ------=_NextPart

MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_01C5B89F.3832C790" This document is a Single File Web Page, also known as a Web Archive file. If you are seeing this message, your browser or editor doesn't support Web Archive files. Please download a browser that supports Web Archive, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer. ------=_NextPart_01C5B89F.3832C790 Content-Location: file:///C:/58A64513/2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" TOTEMISM: DESCENDANT-LEAVING STRATEGY OF THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES</= title>  <style>  </style>  </head> <body lang=3DEN-US style=3D'tab-interval:.5in;text-justify-trim:punctuation= '> <div class=3DSection1> TOTEMISM: DESCENDANT-LEAVING STRATEGY OF THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES <o:p></o:p> Lyle Steadm= an, Craig Palmer Departments= of Anthropology Arizona Sta= te University and University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Human Behav= ior and Evolution Society Meeting University = of Nebraska Lincoln, NE= June, 2003 <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; Of all the exotic facts encountered by early European travelers to Australia, perhaps the most perplexing was Totemism, the insistence by Aborigines that some of them were kangaroos, while others were witchety grubs, blackbirds, = and so on. Both Sigmund Freud and= Emile Durkheim were so struck by reports that the Australian Aborigines believed = they were certain species of animals, that they both proposed that Totemism was = the earliest form of religion. Totemism, and the theories set forth to explain it, have been at the center of the study of religion ever since. Evolutionary psychologists current= ly attempting to explain religion must account for Totemism. This will require addressing sever= al aspects of Totemism that represent challenges to the view that religious behavior is simply the consequence of certain psychological mechanisms that cause an individual to hold religious beliefs. First, the assumption that practit= ioners of Totemism believe their religious claims (e.g., that they are true member= s of their totemic species) is not scientifically acceptable. Second, far from springing from an individual’s psychological mechanisms, the religious behavior compris= ing Australian Totemism is profoundly traditional, having been copied from ancestors, apparently for hundreds of generations: regardless of the= ir personal inclinations, individuals are socially obligated to participate.<s= pan style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> As an alternative, we present here= a model of totemism (and religion in general) that focuses on the identifiabl= e effects of religious behavior, particularly on the social relationships between dis= tant kinsmen. <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Earlier Explanations and the Assumption of Belief= <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; Along with Durkheim and Freud, countless anthropologists have assumed that when Aborigines claim they are kangaroos, witchety grubs, kookaburras and so on, they really mean it, and that they believe they are their totem animal. There are several rea= sons for rejecting this assumption. First, the behavior of members of the kangaroo clan, for exam= ple, demonstrates a systematic discrimination between real humans (of any type) = and real kangaroos. The humans (n= o less than the actual kangaroos) demonstrably recognize huge differences between = the two categories. For example, kangaroo humans do not mate with, or marry actual kangaroos, and kangaroo humans never object when their so-called “relatives,” the actual kangaroos, are killed and eaten by other humans. On the contrary, they perform cere= monies said to be aimed at increasing the reproduction of actual kangaroos = so that members of other totemic clans – who are their kinsmen—may= eat them! <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; Hence, instead of attempting to identify the evolved psychological mechanisms that might somehow cause a person to believe he is a kangaroo, an assumption tha= t is both impossible to verify and is contradicted by behavior, we suggest attem= pts to explain totemism should avoid the problematic assumption of belief and f= ocus instead on its identifiable effects, effects that can demonstrably influence the survivial and reproductive chances of descendants. <o:p> </o:p> <h1>Defining Totemism<o:p></o:p></h1> <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; In the strict anthropological sense, a totem can be defined precisely a= s a name of a non‑human category (usually a species of animal or plant) u= sed to identify a set of human co‑descendants, such as a lineage, clan, phratry and so on. Because su= ch categories are distinguished by an ancestral name, a totem can be said to be either associated with an ancestral name or be itself the name. But what, one must ask, make= s the totemism of the Australian aborigines religious? Non-religious totemic= ‑like identification is common in probably every human society. Individuals are called by plant and animal names—he is a pig, mule, good old bean; she is a fox, tiger, chick, peach—and social relationships among members of certain groups—sporting teams, for example—are identified often by names such as Rams, Eagles, Beavers, Hawks, and so on. Furthermore, ancestral, or “= family”, names, even in modern societies, are often “totemic”: Fox, Tiger, Lion, Hawk, Gold, Ston= e, Moon, Wood, Steed, Brown, Clay, with sometimes only the spelling obscuring their “totemic” status—Browne, Greene, Foxe (with an ‘e’ on the end), Tyger (with a ‘y’), Pigg (with two= “g”s). <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; What exactly is the difference between these totemic‑like phenomena in mod= ern societies and totems ‘proper’, which are considered religious?<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> In both cases, the most striking f= eature of a totem is that it is a metaphor, its claim recognized as not literally true. “The feature of metaphor that has most troubled philosophers is that it is ‘wrongR= 17;: ‘It asserts of one thing that it is something else’” (Per= cy, cited in Geertz l973:2l0). A = human who is called a pig is not an actual pig.&= nbsp; A team called the Rams does not consist of rams, but humans, and the same is true of an Australian Kangaroo clan, despite its member’s cla= im to the contrary. Totemic clai= ms are metaphorical. So what makes s= ome totemic claims religious while others not? <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; We suggest that totems are religious when, and only when, their status as meta= phor is denied. Metaphors, normall= y, are acknowledged to be literally false. For example, if we call a person a “rat,” when questione= d we explicitly recognize that he or she is only like a rat, in some way. Hence, no one considers = this talk about people being rats, religious. Religious behavior differs from no= rmal metaphor in that the claims are said explicitly not to be metaphorical. Totemism is religious becaus= e the practitioners deny that their claim of being a “rat” or “kangaroo” is a metaphor.&= nbsp; It is this denial that makes totemism religious behavior, not the unidentifiable beliefs of those involved.&= nbsp; <o:p> </o:p> The use of metaphor facil= itates communication, including making claims more interesting, and hence, more influential. So the key quest= ion is what does the claim that a metaphor is not a metaphor – that it is, instead, literally true – add to the communication? We suggest that the assertion that= the statement (the metaphor) is literally true communicates a willingness to ac= cept the speaker’s influence non-skeptically, and thereby, promotes cooperation. We suggest that = this cooperation engendered by the acceptance of religious claims, may be the fundamental function of all religious behavior, including Totemism. That is, it is this effect on cooperation, we propose, that can account for the persistence of religion – religious behavior -- through the generations. <o:p> </o:p> <h1>Ancestor= s, Traditions, and the Evolutionary Significance of Totemism<o:p></o:p>= </h1> <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; Since totems are names for, or are associated with, common ancestors, they symbol= ize the relationship between the kin who are the co-descendants of those ancestors. Totemic names are appropriate symbols to represent sets of co-descendants because a name of a= species of animal or plant already represents a category of related organisms, a species, and hence is particularly appropriate to represent a category of related humans. That is, the = totem communicates that the set of co-descendants called a clan or lineage is utterly distinct from other people, it is like a separate species <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; The Australian aborigines of today are descendants of ancestors who came to Australia more than 40,000 years ago (e.g., Hart et al 1988). Totemic names and rituals are almo= st certainly traditions that have been copied from parent to offspring for this entire period, for all 600 or so tribes exhibit this phenomenon. While some other traditions = surely appeared and disappeared over this period, individuals passing on the tradi= tion of Totemism survived, reproduced and left descendants. In general, it should be the case = that only when a tradition promoted the leaving of descendants should it tend to increase in frequency, along with the descendants. What was the effect of Totemism th= at might have promoted its great descendant-leaving success? The most significant identifiable = effect of Australian Totemism, and all other forms of ancestor worship, is in the promotion of social behavior among the participants. Totemism does this with names that identify genealogical relations, and Totemic rituals convert these identifi= ed genealogical relations into social relationships among the participants.<sp= an style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> These rituals communicate respect = for the ancestor – indeed, they often reenact the alleged behavior of the= ir ancestor—and thereby communicate respect for what is of importance to ancestors: their descendants, who are co-descendants of one another, and su= ch things as the prohibition on eating the totem animal, along with other sacrifices. Totems and totemic rituals, by embellishing genealogical relationships and, by stereotyped cooperation, encourage social behavior and relationships between those so identified. <o:p> </o:p> Living more or less in ex= treme isolation from the rest of humanity – for example, they never took up= the practice of agriculture, and the use of the bow and arrow -- the tradition of Australian Aboriginal Tote= mism today represents an elaboration—a fine tuning—of traditions, wh= ich promote genealogical identification and social relationships among those so identified. The importance of= these kinship relationships cannot be overstated. In Radcliffe‑Brown’s words: <o:p> </o:p> [In] native Australian society [genealogical relationship] regulates more or less definitely the behaviour of an individual to every person with whom he has = any social dealings whatever. (19= 31:43) <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; One final point: a major enigma regarding the Australian Aborigines is the mean= ing and significance of a word found in perhaps all tribes, translated usually = as the dreaming or dreamtime, such as alcheringa in the Aranda language. Although the anthropologist William Stanner, as have many others, translates alcherin= ga as the “Dream Time,” he notes that it means “… literally something like ‘men of old.’” Now, if the literal meaning= of alcheringa is indeed ‘men of old,’ then its other uses, including Dream Ti= me and “the dreaming”, must be metaphorical. ‘Men of old’ surely refers to ancestors, those who creat= ed the present descendants and their traditions. Thus alcheringa, = or its equivalent, means literally “ancestors", and is extended metaphorically to identify the time of the ancestors, newly initiated males, females who= have just given birth, all traditions and rituals, and the various symbols used = to represent the ancestors, including their totem animal and their sacred sites -- literally everything important to = the ancestors. The equivalent wor= d in the Tiwi of northern Australia, for example, is pukimani, which Hart translates as “taboo” (Hart et al 1988:96-97), and for the Mard= u of Western Australia, it is manguny or djugurr, which Tonkinson translates as the “dreaming”, although elsewhere he writes that= it refers to “ancestral heroes” (Tonkinson 1991:22, 195). <o:p> </o:p> &n= bsp; What we are proposing here is not a group explanation, for participation in such rituals is not limited to one’s clan. For example, men regularly partici= pate in rituals directed toward their mother’s clan’s ancestor, or father’s mother’s clan ancestor, and the effect, therefore, of these rituals is to promote social relations between living co-descendants = -- regardless of their particular clan identity -- and not those of a particul= ar group. <o:p> </o:p> We suggest that the fail= ure to appreciate the role of traditions copied from long dead ancestors is the greatest flaw in current attempts to explain human behavior with evolutiona= ry theory. This failure to inclu= de the role of ancestors and traditions in our evolutionary explanations of human behavior may reflect the experiences of social scientists living in societi= es no longer respectful of ancestors and their traditions. The Aborigines themselves recogniz= e this failure of Whites to appreciate the crucial importance of ancestors and traditions, translated by Whites as the dreaming. This can be seen in one Aborigine’s perceptive statement to Stanner: <o:p> </o:p> White man got no dreaming [th= at is, ancestors], Him go ‘nother way. White man, him go different,<= /p> Him got road belong himself (1956:51). <o:p> </o:p= > A person without respect= for his ancestors has neither kin nor tradition.&n= bsp; He indeed has only himself. &n= bsp; In a traditional society, such a person, even with the species typic= al repertoire of psychological mechanisms, would not survive, reproduce and le= ave descendants. Traditions have = been, and are, a necessary part of human evolutionary success, and hence, are cru= cial to an evolutionary explanation of human behavior. <o:p> <= /span></o:p> References Cited<o:p></o:p> Durkheim = </spa= n>1961 The Elementary Forms of= the Religious Life. New York: Collier Books. (First published 1912) <o:p> </o:p> Freud. Sigmund 1950 (1st pub. 1913) Totem and Taboo; Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. &n= bsp; Hart, C.W.M., A. Pilling, J. Goodale <![if !supportLists]>1988<![endif]> The Tiwi. Holt, Rinehart and Winston Radcliffe-Brown </spa= n>1931 The Social Organization= of Australian Tribes. Oceania Monograph, No. 1. Sydney. Tonkinson, Robert <![if !supportLists]>1991= <![endif]>The Mardu Aborigines: Living the Dream in Australia’s Desert. Hol= t, Rinehart and Winston <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> </div> </body> </html> ------=_NextPart_01C5B89F.3832C790 Content-Location: file:///C:/58A64513/2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines_files/header.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" <html xmlns:v=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns=3D"http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; charset=3Dus-ascii"> <meta name=3DProgId content=3DWord.Document> <meta name=3DGenerator content=3D"Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name=3DOriginator content=3D"Microsoft Word 11"> <link id=3DMain-File rel=3DMain-File href=3D"../2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines.h= tm"> <![if IE]> <base href=3D"file:///C:\58A64513\2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustr= alianAborigines_files\header.htm" id=3D"webarch_temp_base_tag"> <![endif]> </head> <body lang=3DEN-US> <div style=3D'mso-element:footnote-separator' id=3Dfs> <![if !supportFootnotes]> <hr align=3Dleft size=3D1 width=3D"33%"> <![endif]> </div> <div style=3D'mso-element:footnote-continuation-separator' id=3Dfcs> <![if !supportFootnotes]> <hr align=3Dleft size=3D1> <![endif]> </div> <div style=3D'mso-element:endnote-separator' id=3Des> <![if !supportFootnotes]> <hr align=3Dleft size=3D1 width=3D"33%"> <![endif]> </div> <div style=3D'mso-element:endnote-continuation-separator' id=3Decs> <![if !supportFootnotes]> <hr align=3Dleft size=3D1> <![endif]> </div> <div style=3D'mso-element:footer' id=3Df1> <div style=3D'mso-element:frame;mso-element-wrap:auto;mso-element-anchor-ve= rtical: paragraph;mso-element-anchor-horizontal:margin;mso-element-left:right; mso-element-top:.05pt;mso-height-rule:exactly'> <table cellspacing=3D0 cellpadding=3D0 hspace=3D0 vspace=3D0 align=3Dright> <tr> <td valign=3Dtop align=3Dleft style=3D'padding-top:0in;padding-right:0in; padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:0in'> <p class=3DMsoFooter style=3D'mso-element:frame;mso-element-wrap:auto;mso= -element-anchor-vertical: paragraph;mso-element-anchor-horizontal:margin;mso-element-left:right; mso-element-top:.05pt;mso-height-rule:exactly'>5<!-= -[if supportFields]></span= ><![endif]--><o:p></o:p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <o:p> </o:p> </div> </body> </html> ------=_NextPart_01C5B89F.3832C790 Content-Location: file:///C:/58A64513/2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines_files/filelist.xml Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8" <xml xmlns:o=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"> <o:MainFile HRef=3D"../2003TotemismDescendantLeavingStrategyoftheAustralianAborigines= .htm"/> <o:File HRef=3D"header.htm"/> <o:File HRef=3D"filelist.xml"/> </xml> ------=_NextPart_01C5B89F.3832C790--