Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/297

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V
MARRIAGE RULES
271

considers the effect of this system of relationship, the restriction of marriage to certain localities, and that the old people, especially the old women, carefully kept in memory all the marriages, descents, and resultant relationships, which were specially considered at such times as the Jeraeil ceremonies.

The intermarrying localities are shown in the following table, so far as I have been able to ascertain the rules of marriage between them. The table shows that marriage was forbidden in the division, but not always in the clan or tribe, as for instance between the Brabralung divisions f, g, or in a more limited manner between the Tatungalung divisions s, t, and the Brataualung divisions p, q. It was also a general rule that those living on the course of the same river were considered to be too nearly related to each other to marry, but there was an exception in the divisions f and g, which adjoined each other. An inspection shows that the rule was that the divisions mutually obtained wives from each other, where the right of intermarriage existed. Yet to this general rule I have found an exception. Gliunkong, the survivor of the Bunjil-baul, who lived on Haul, now called Raymond Island, in Lake King, Gippsland, said to me that they did not travel far from the Lakes for wives, but that men from distant places had to come to Baul for theirs. Although this list is incomplete, I feel no doubt that in all cases where it shows that wives were obtained from a certain locality, or that wives were supplied to it, there was reciprocity between them. That this reciprocity is not always shown in the list merely proves, what I am quite aware of, that my information is incomplete, by reason of some of the divisions of the tribe having died out.

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