3i6 Australian Marriage Customs.
than thirty years and to be gathered upon the mission stations, I submit that we have no trustworthy evidence.
In this connection I need hardly point out that the two views cited by Dr. Howitt on p. i66 are in reahty not inconsistent at all, unless we know that at the kandri ceremony to which the statement refers there were marriageable girls ; and this we do not know. Women being scarce — there do not seem to be more than ten of all ages in the tribe to whom a man is noa — it is probable that they are all betrothed and married as soon as they are initiated ; at any rate it lies with Dr. Howitt to show that his view is right.
In any case it seems clear that the kandri ceremony is but rarely performed, for otherwise it would not be necessary for a widower to give presents to his brother in order that the wife of the latter may become his pirraurii ; in fact, this custom seems to throw doubt on the permanence of pirraiim altogether ; for why should a man who has a pirrauru, as an elderly man presumably has, set out in quest of fresh adventures ?
Space fails me to discuss all the points at which Dr. Howitt accuses me of ignorance of the Australian facts or of other misunderstandings. If space permitted it would be easy to show that these charges are all ground- less ; but I can only take a few cases. On p. 171 Dr. Howitt takes one of my sentences, and construes the term "group-marriage" in his own sense, not in mine, and proceeds to reply on that supposition. Controversy is really impossible if one is not allowed to define one's own terminology ; as I have shown, Dr. Howitt's is too defective to permit me to put his terms alongside of my own as a means of avoiding misunderstanding. But I really must claim the right to use my own terms.
Again, on p. 174, Dr. Howitt says I have not mastered the facts of the noa relation ; his only ground for doing so is because I say that the classificatory system is a
