SEMON'S RESEARCHES IN AUSTRALIA. 



3 1 



limits. This stability of the population is preserved by killing or 

 exposing a certain proportion of infants, or by the castration or 

 hypospadic mutilation of a percentage of the boys before pu- 

 berty. In some tribes every father of a family voluntarily 

 submits to one of these radical operations after the birth of his 

 second or third child. Personal sacrifice for the public good 

 could surely not go further than this. 



A fatal consequence of the smallness and isolation of the 

 horde would be the constantly increasing necessity of marriages 

 between persons closely related by ties of blood, and the ef- 

 fect of such unions would soon be perceptible in the physical 

 and mental degeneracy of the race. The Dieri of southern 

 Australia have a tradition that in the beginning fathers, 

 mothers, brothers, sisters, and other next of kin were wont to 

 intermarry indiscriminately, until the injurious results of these 

 connections became apparent and led to their prohibition. First, 

 marriages between parents and children, uncles and nieces, 

 aunts and nephews, were forbidden, and the interdict was then 

 extended to brothers and sisters, and finally to cousins. The 

 result was that after a time all marriages between members of 

 the same horde were prevented by the ban of consanguinity, 

 so that they were obliged to enter into negotiations with other 

 hordes for an interchange of marriageable maidens. The 

 Kurnai, in Gipsland, forbid a man to take a wife who is more 

 nearly related to him than in the fifth degree ; but for a people 

 who can neither read nor write or hardly count, and have 

 therefore no genealogical records, it would be difficult to de- 

 termine precisely the proximity of blood. A simpler and 

 more effective system is that adopted by the Narin- 

 yeri, who inhabit the region of southern Australia at 

 the mouth of Murray River. The tribe consists of 

 eighteen independent hordes, and it is strictly for- 

 bidden for any man to marry into the horde of his 

 father or his mother. By this regulation marriages 

 between brothers and sisters and between cousins (un- 

 less they happen to be the children of two sisters who 

 have not married into the same horde) are prevented. f 

 The children belong to the horde of the father, but 

 the totem as the symbol of the family is inherited from 

 the mother, and descends to the maternal line. Some 

 tribes forbid matrimonial unions between persons 

 having the same totem. This prohibition renders it impossible for 

 a man to marry the descendants of his mother's sister, but permits 

 him to marry the descendants of her brother, inasmuch as the 



Papuan Spears. 



