1898.] MATHEAVS — DIVISIONS OF AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. 151 



DIVISIONS OF AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. 



BY K. II. MATHEWS. L.S. 



{Read April 15, 1S9S.) 



In 1S91, my attention was drawn by an article contributed to the 

 Royal Society of South Australia/ by the Rev. L. Schultze, to the 

 existence of eight classes or divisions among the native tribes in- 

 habiting the Finke river in South Australia. On making further 

 inquiries, I found that this eight-class system, with different modi- 

 fications, extends northerly from the Finke river almost to Port 

 Darwin and the Gulf of Carpentaria. It also prevails in a westerly 

 direction, from the boundary of Queensland to that of West Aus- 

 tralia, and may therefore be said to be in force over the greater 

 part of the Northern Territory — a name given to the northern por- 

 tion of South Australia. 



Owing to the great apathy regarding native customs shown by the 

 white population sparsely distributed over this immense tract of 

 country, I have experienced much difficulty in obtaining particu- 

 lars respecting these classes. Among my correspondents I was, 

 however, fortunate enough to find Mr. S. N. Innes, the owner of a 

 station in the Northern Territory. He had read a paper on the 

 class systems of other tribes contributed by me in 1894 to the 

 •Geographical Society at Brisbane,^ which had awakened his interest 

 in the subject, and when I wrote to him he willingly offered to 

 collect particulars of the divisions among the natives in his district. 



The tribes reported upon by Mr. Innes are divided into eight 

 classes or sections — the names of the women being'slightly different 

 from those of the men in each section. Four of these sections 

 form a group, which may be called A, and the other four sections 

 become group B. This division will be readily understood by 

 means of a table. 



It will be seen by the accompanying table that the women of group 

 A are the mothers of the men of group B, who marry the women be- 

 longing to the latter group. The women of group B are likewise the 

 mothers of the men who marry the women of group A. In other 

 words, the sons of the women of one group marry the daughters of 

 the women of the other group. Or, what amounts to the same thing, 



1 Trans. Roy. Soc, S. Australia, xiv, 2 10-246. 



^ Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc. Anst., Queensland, x, 18-34. 



