Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia

thi-Wathi, Ngerikudi-speaking people and Arunta. Essential

and Narrangga follow the eight-class rule; the position of the Urabunna is somewhat uncertain owing to the obscurity of our authorities, which again is probably due to t

pressing these relationships-the descriptive and the classificatory. The terminology of the former system is based on the principle of reckoning the relationship of two people by the total number of steps between them and the nearest lineal ancestor of both. The latter does not concern itself with descent at all but expresses the status of the individual as

arge share of attention. It is however possible to give tables for the three classes of tribes with which we have been in the main con

i Tribe: t

Phratry B

po

er's

im

s mother

er's

a

r's fa

i (f

ui (f

st

dui,

Kukui

(mot

ot

hang

s fat

lu

the

er's

ri

r's si

er=wif

i,

r bro

st

i, m

ger d

ip

aughter

ter'

ster'

ika

s wi

po

hter'

im

er's

Kok

ste

ter's

a

's s

di: Fou

ss a1 Phratry B: Class

a

er's

a

's moth

er's

a

r's fa

id

at

a

r's br

i

er s

i

r do.)

ot

i

oth

o

er s

a

ger d

nu

e=mo

a

i ng

er's

ro. so

ne

r bro

o

er s

t

ger b

iste

a (

er) ? (si

augh

nta (

ban

da

r's chil

s chi

ilarity between the three tables, in spite of the apparent wide divergence in the kinship organisation of the tribes. To facilitate comparison the Wathi-Wathi terms

: Eigh

Bulthara Appun

na (m

er,

ther) Arung

her

a (f

in

sisters) M

er,

th

hers

na (f

's dau

and,

mothe

ia (

the

ara

r sis

(yo

hers

ers)

a (ch

the

dren

ga (

n)

Kumara Umbitc

im

ather) Aper

her

(mot

r's s

mm

brother)

s fath

la (f

sons) Una

s sis

na (w

er=si

and)

ona

Umba (

dren

im

ter's

two-phratry system, which are distinguished by names differing for each generation. Precisely the same arrangement is found in the

y stand in the relation of parent and child alternately. Marriage being between classes of corresponding numbers, it follows that Kumara-Bulthara and Appungerta-Umbitchana are the maternal and paternal grandparents of the man EGO. The grandparents of his wife are in the same classes

is parents. Possibly they are the eight-class tribe of Queensland to which Dr Howitt alludes. If not, we have in them a trib

ules under the influence of the neighbouring eight-class system; or the eight-class organisation is a systematisation of the Dieri rule, adopted perhaps to facilitate the determination of marriageableness or otherwise in the case of persons residing at some distance from each other and therefore less likely to be acquainted with genealogical niceties than the members of a small community. Now if the second of these hypotheses is cor

B) marries an elder sister (D) of a man (C); the daughter of this elder sister (D) is the proper mate for the son of the younger sister (B) of her husband; this younger sister's husband is the

, the elder to the elder brother; but we do not learn how elder and younger are distinguished, if it is not by descent. Apparently it cannot be by descent, however; for we find that the son of the younger brother and sister marries the daughter of the elder brother a

; it is not possible to divide the women and the men into elder brothers and sisters on the one hand, younger brothers a

them the division is within the generation. There is no class of women, who, with their descendants, are the normal spouses of a cl

the origin of the eight-class rule was not what its prima facie meaning suggests, viz., the desire to prevent the marriage of cousins, for we know that it originated in the distinction betw

ame for both elder and younger; in Australia a man may speak freely to his elder sisters in blood, but only at a distance to his tribal ungaraitcha. To his younger sisters, blood and tribal, he may

we take a crucial case of kinship terminology, we find that a child applies the same term to its actual mother as to all the women whom its father might have married, to its potential mothers in fact. If th

d. But this would be equivalent to prohibiting marriage with one of a number of men or women embraced under a common kinship term. In the lower culture generally and especially among the Australians ther

ould be to marry within the generation, and this mi

he distinction between elder and younger sister. What is

tical purposes, since all pass through the initiation ceremonies. The various initiation ceremonies during what may be termed the involuntary stage of these associations, no less than in their later form of secret societies, determine the rights and duties of

ctoria he decides whom they are to marry. As we have seen in the tables of terms, the Wathi-Wathi man distinguishe

ther than the younger, or the daughter of the elder rather than the daughter of th

same term as he applies to his actual wife. On this basis it has been argued that at one time all the men in one phratry were united in marriage with all the women in the other within the

l. Eth. Bull. VI, 6; Spencer and

ontr. vol. XVII; Globus, LXI

this distinction is found se