for the same reasons, the elder brother of 13 and 14. It was the elder brother 5 and the elder brother 12 who met in the manner mentioned at the Jun, and agreed to exchange sisters as wives for their younger brothers.
This marriage rule of the Wotjobaluk is a great remove from that of the Urabunna, as it disqualifies not only those who are each other's proper husbands and wives according to the rule of that tribe, but also excludes all their descendants, as far as their descent can be counted. In order to be on perfectly safe ground in such an important conclusion, I made special inquiries; and so that I might deal with actual facts, I tabulated the descents of several of the Wotjobaluk families to ascertain whether any of the wives were in the relation of Marrup to their husbands. In none of them did I find this to be the case, and my informants, after long consideration, said that a man and a woman, being Marrup and Marrup-gurk, could not mix their flesh, their Yauerin being too near. But they added that they remembered that one or two cases had occurred in which such a marriage had been permitted, but in them the parties were from places far distant from each other, for instance the Wimmera and Murray Rivers, and that in those cases their respective parents were distant tribal brothers and sisters.
The Jupagalk, a tribe adjoining the Wotjo nation, were however more decided in this matter, holding that the proper wife for a man would be a woman who stood in the relation of Maap-goruk[1] to him, but that she should be obtained from a distant locality, and not be too near to him in "flesh."
With the Jupagalk marriages were also by the exchange of sisters, and the exchange was made by the respective fathers, with the concurrence of the elder brothers of the girl.
In the Mukjarawaint tribe, which was the southern branch of the Wotjo nation, living in the northern parts of the Grampian mountains, and on the sources of the Wimmera River, I found a variation of this practice in so far that the paternal grandparents had a voice in the disposal of their granddaughter. This is an exceptional
- ↑ The equivalent in the Jupagalk language of Marrup-gurk.
