78 MATHEWS — DIVISIONS OF NOKTH AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. [May 5, 



Some native tribes on the Victoria river, in the Northern Terri- 

 tory of South Australia are segregated into two intermarrying 

 groups, with the following subdivisions : 



Group A. 



Group B. 



If we compare Tables I, II, III and IV with the table of eight 

 sections reported by me in a former article to this Society,^ it will 

 be observed that the four tables are constructed on the same system, 

 and all contain the same order of succession. In other words, all 

 the tribes dealt with have substantially the same organization, 

 although there are dialectic variations, more or less, in the names 

 of the sections. In the Tables I, II and III, I have omitted the 

 feminine form of the name of each section, which, it is thought, 

 will enable the reader more readily to follow the rules of marriage 

 and descent. The divisional system, or social organization, 

 reported in this article, extends from the Upper Finke river to the 

 embouchure of the McArthur, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, a distance 

 of about six hundred and fifty miles. I am informed by some of 

 my correspondents that the same system, but witli different divi- 

 sional names, reaches westwardly from the Gulf of Carpentaria to 

 the Daly and Victoria rivers, and onwards into West Australia. 



The southern portion of the Arrinda and adjoining tribes occupy 

 the Middle Finke and Charlotte waters, reaching as far south as the 

 Macumba river. Among them there are only four sections em- 

 ployed to regulate the intersexual relations, as shown in the follow- 

 ing table. These sections comprise four of those enumerated in 

 Table I : 



1 Prog. Amer. Philos. Sue, xxxvii, 152. 



