Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/168

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
142
NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA
CH.

tribe his own intermarries; and he knows also, though perhaps not quite so well, the marriage relations of the other class or sub-class as the case may be.

TABLE SHOWING THE EQUIVALENCE OF THE CLASSES AND SUB-CLASSES
Buandik   Wotjobaluk   Wiimbaio Kamilaroi Kaiabara Wakelbura
Mount
Gambier
Wimmera   Murray River     Gwydir River   Bunya
Mountains
Belyando
South
  Australia  
Victoria New South
Wales
New South
Wales
  Queensland     Queensland  
Kroki
Kumite
Krokitch
Gamutch
Kilpara
Mukwara
Kupathin
Dilbi
Kubatine
Dilebi
Malera
Wuthera

I have endeavoured to bring into orderly review in this chapter the various states of development of the social organisation of the native tribes, and so to arrange my materials that the tribes should form a series commencing with those in the most primitive condition socially, and terminating with those in whose organisation the greatest changes have taken place. The series commences with tribes in which the two organisations are in existence and, of the two, the social is most vigorous. The two class divisions into which we may suppose the hypothetical Undivided Commune was segmented control marriage, and are transmitted in the female line of descent. The further consecutive changes are in two directions, one by the segmentation successively in different tribes of the two into four and finally eight sub-classes. In some tribes the descent continued in the female line, while in others it has changed to the male line. In the other direction the changes are of various kind and degree, but all tend to produce what I may term atrophy in the classes and the totems, with the establishment of descent in the male line, finally ending in such tribes as the Kurnai and Chepara with the extinction of the classes and, as to the latter, of the totems. The local organisation remains and controls marriage by requiring it to be between those of reciprocal localities, thus continuing the principle of exogamy, which is established by the class law.