the parties who apply these terms to each other; and they do not mean that any ceremony has been performed to constitute the relationship between the man and the woman."
This is rather a strong statement, but an assertion is not evidence. I will now explain what the facts really are which Mr. Thomas has apparently misunderstood or not taken into account.
The term noa attaches to a Dieri individual at birth and is not acquired, so that a man and his wife were noa to each other from birth, and remained so till death. The noa relationship did not exist in the Kurnai tribe, but what I consider as its equivalent was provided by the exogamous intermarrying local groups. The terms bra and maian cannot therefore be compared with noa.
As a simple matter of fact, the terms bra and maian are not acquired till after marriage, and therefore, as they arise after marriage, they necessarily imply sexual relations between the husband and wife.
In this tribe the "marriage ceremony," which Mr. Thomas appears to consider necessary, was replaced by the custom of elopement, which, as I have described in my Native Tribes, was at times brought about by the Bunjil-Yenjin "ceremony."
I think that Mr. Thomas must have made a slip at page 298, where he says as follows, quoting from me: "Marriage between them as … pirrauru is group-marriage (i.e. polygamy), and is defined by the terms of relationship. Such being the case, these must have originated when group-marriage (i.e. modified promiscuity) existed. These statements will not bear examination."
I think that Mr. Thomas makes rather a rash statement here, in defining pirrauru as "polygamy" and then speaking of group-marriage as "modified promiscuity," because in the next paragraph he says that "to use the term 'group-marriage' of pirrauru is confusing."
