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PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 Table I. — Dieri class system. 



Every member of the community is either Matteri or Kararu. Each 

 individual also bears one of the totemic names of the primary division 

 ^ o which he or she belongs. 



This class system represents that of the Dieri, the Kunandaburi, and 

 ^ther kindred tribes, between whom there exists connubium. It also 

 represents the systems which are found under various dialectic differ- 

 ences of nomenclature among tribes spread over a very large area in 

 Central Australia. The members of one tribe know well which of their 

 own divisions are the equivalents of those in neighboring tribes, even 

 when the totemic names are not the same. 



Before explaining the laws of these classes it will be well to say a few 

 words about the Dieri and the kindred tribes making up the "nation" 

 of which it is the most important member. 



As shown upon the annexed sketch-map, the Barcoo River, in its nu- 

 merous sources, the Alice, the Thomson, and many other streams, rises 

 on the western fall of the Queensland Great Dividing "Range, and thence 

 has a general southwesterly course into the depressed region of Central 

 Australia. Soon after passing from Queensland into the colony of South 

 Australia it begins to form a large delta, or a series of deltas, and its 

 numerous branches water, and often partly submerge, a tract of country 

 at least 20,000 square miles in extent. The various streams of this delta 

 terminate in lakes, of which Lake Eyre is the largest. This delta coun- 

 try of the Barcoo — or, as it is called locally, Cooper's Creek— is one of 

 the hottest and driest districts in all Australia — a country of sand-hills, 

 of mud-plains subject to floods, of stony tracts, and of salt lakes. It is 

 subject to great vicissitudes of climate, being in its extreme conditions 

 a perfect garden of verdure after seasons of flood, while during long- 

 continued droughts it is little better than " a howling wilderness." This 

 delta country on the eastern side of Lake Eyre is inhabited by the Dieri 

 tribe. To the north, east, and south, and to the west also beyond the 

 great lake — are other tribes allied to the Dieri by language, by custom, 

 and by class system, all more or less intermarrying. Of these the Ku- 

 nanduburi tribe is one of the farthest outlying to the eastward within 

 the Queensland boundary on the main Barcoo River above the point at 

 which the delta commences. Of all these tribes, as I have already said, 

 the Dieri is the central and most important. Not only do its members 



