OF ARTS AND SCIENCES: MARCH 12, 1872. 419 



privilege of cohabitation, which better expresses the relation. One 

 class of males, as before stated, can marry but one class of females- 

 Such was the original law, thus : — 



Ippai marries Kapota, and no other. 



Kumbo " Mat a " " " 



Murri " Buta " " " 



Kubbi " Ippata " " " 

 This exclusive scheme has been modified in one particular, as will 

 be hereafter shown. 



It is thus seen that each male in the selection of a wife, or rather in 

 the range of the conjugal privilege, is limited to one fourth part of all 

 the Kamilaroi females. Tppai, in the Emu, Bandicoot, and Blacksnake 

 tribes, can marry Kapota in the Iguana, Kangaroo, and Opossum tribes ; 

 and Kumbo, in the same first three, can marry Mata in the last three. 

 On the other hand, Murri and Kubbi in the last three can marry 

 Buta and Ippata respectively in the first three tribes. This, however* 

 is not the most remarkable part of the system. Theoretically, every 

 Kapota is the wife of every Ippai, every Mata is the wife of every 

 Kumbo, every Buta of every Murri, and every Ippata of every Kubbi. 

 Upon this material point the information communicated by Mr. Lance 

 to Mr. Fison is specific. The latter, after observing that Mr. Lance 

 had " had much intercourse with the natives, having lived among them 

 many years on frontier cattle stations on the Darling River, and in the 

 trans-Darling Country," quotes from his letter as follows: " If a Kubbi 

 meets a stranger Ippata, they address each other as Goleer = Spouse. 

 .... A Kubbi thus meeting an Ippai, even though she were of another 

 tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be 

 recognized by her tribe." (See Memo. B.) A fortiori every Ippata 

 within the immediate circle of his acquaintance would also be his wife. 

 Here we find, in a direct and definite form, communal marriage, or 

 a legalized system of cohabitation in a great communal family, with 

 the family itself as comprehensive as the range of the conjugal privi- 

 lege. Under these jura co7ijugialia a domestic institution was formed, 

 giving to one quarter of all the males the conjugal privilege with one 

 quarter of all the females of the Kamilaroi nation ; and making it the 

 basis, originally, of their social organization. It is but a step from 

 promiscuous intercourse ; or the same thing, in reality, with a method. 

 Moreover, it is deeply significant as a revelation of an existing state of 

 marriage, and of the family in a nation of savages. It is the first 



