798 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



position to question the accuracy of the statements made as to fact, or 

 to draw the true inferences which the facts justified.* 



One of the strongest illustrations of the difficulty to which I have re- 

 ferred is shown by the determined refusal on the part of some English 

 anthropologists to accept the classificatory system of relationship. The 

 late lamented Dr. Morgan, who had practical acquaintance with the 

 North American tribes, came to see that their peculiar system of rela- 

 tionship terms was founded on the idea of a group where civilized people 

 have that of a single individual. He was thus led to institute inquiries 

 which proved that this idea is common over the whole world in savage 

 life, and he drew the general inference which might be drawn from the 

 facts by persons accustomed to the mode of thought among the lower 

 races. This, however, is so different from that of civilized man that 

 most of the English anthropologists refused to accept his inferences and 

 it is only now, when accumulated evidence continues to support his 

 views, that the truth of the main generalizations which he made is be- 

 ginning to be recognized. 



In Australia observations may be made similar to those made by Dr. 

 Morgan in America, but with this difference, that in the former country 

 the native tribes are in a much lower ethnical stage, and are therefore 

 so much nearer to the conditions under which the group system of re- 



* The danger to which such inaccurate statements of custom lead when received as 

 established facts justifying generalization is strikingly shown by the well-known 

 and often quoted passage as to Australian marriage in Collins's English Colony in New 

 South Wales, p. 362 : 



" These unfortunate victims (the wives) of lust and cruelty * * * are, it is be- 

 lieved, always selected from the women of a diiferent tribe from that of the males (for 

 they ought not to be dignified with the title of men), and with whom they are at en- 

 mity. * * ■* The poor wretch is stolen upon in the absence of her protectors. 

 Being first stupefied with blows, inflicted with clubs or wooden swords, on the head 

 back, and shoulders, every one of which is followed by a stream of blood, she is then 

 dragged away through the woods by one arm, with a perseverance and violence that 

 it might be supposed would displace it from its sockets." In this manner the woman 

 is said to be dragged to the man's camp, where " a scene ensues too shocking to re- 

 late." 



Isolated cases of brutal violence such as this doubtless occur as acts of war, but no 

 such practice is known to me as a custom in any Australian tribe. On the contrary, 

 Mr. C. Naseby, of Maitland, New South Wales, who lived for fifty years in the Ka- 

 milaroi country, states as follows : 



"When a young man has passed a certain number of Boras (initiations) he has a 

 right to choose a wife from among the unmarried and otherwise unappropriated women 

 of the tribe who are of the class permitted to him by the native laws. He claims the 

 girl in the presence of her parents by saying " I will come and take you by and by," 

 and they cannot refuse her to him unless he be specially disqualified — as for instance 

 if "his hands are stained with the blood of any of her kin." And even in that case he 

 may carry her off by force if he can in spite of their refusal. For this purpose he 

 generally comes by stealth and alone. But if he be a very bold warrior, he some- 

 times goes openly to the girls' camp and carries her off, defying the bravest of her 

 friends to meet him in single combat if they dare to stay him." 



This places the practice stated by Collins in a very different light. 



