AUSTRALIAN GROUP RELATIONS. 807 



modified form, and in actual existence, is what I have elsewhere called 

 the Divided Commune.* 



Besides this form of group marriage there is also individual marriage 

 in the tribes. This is the Noa relation, the features of which can be 

 thus summarized. 



1. The relation of Noa can only exist between a man and a woman of 

 different class names and totems, who, moreover, are not within certain 

 prohibited degrees of relationship to each other. 



2. A woman becomes the Noa of a man most frequently by being be- 

 trothed to him wheu she is a mere infant, he being perhaps a young 

 man. In certain cases she is given by direction of the great council as 

 a reward for some meritorious acton his part. 



3. A man may bo Noa to two or more women, but a woman cannot be 

 Noa to more than one man. 



4. But a woman who is Noa to one man may also be Pirauru to 

 several other men. 



5. The right of the Noa overrides that of the Pirauru. Thus a man 

 cannot claim a woman who is Pirauru to him when her Noa is present 

 in the camp, excepting by his consent. It is not often, however, that the 

 male Noa refuses to accommodate the Pirauru temporarily, for he is 

 liable to have a refusal retorted upon himself. But he will more freely 

 lend his Pirauru than his Noa. Such cases, however, are the frequent 

 causes of jealousies and fights. 



(i. When a man is sent on a mission to another tribe he never takes 

 his Noa with him. It is understood that, on such occasions the female 

 companions of these " ambassadors " are to be perfectly complaisant to 

 all the men of the visited tribe who do not stand to them within the 

 prohibited degrees ; and it is held that for this purpose a man's Pirauru 

 is better fitted than his Noa. Yet this Pirauru is of course the Noa of 

 some man who remains at home. 



7. The relationship of Noa may exist between individuals of any of the 

 allied tribes, always provided that there is no obstacle of class or other 

 prohibition. Such arrangements between individuals of different tribes 

 are often, perhaps most frequently, brought about by the great council, 

 as tribal alliances, and are the subject of much diplomatic negotiation. 



The Noa of the Dieri is the same as the Nubaia of the Kunandaburi, 

 But the marital group of the latter has a most archaic simplicity, show- 

 ing a group relationship even more extended in theory than that which 



*See Kainilaroi and Kurnai, passim. I may take this opportunity of saying that 1 

 doubt whether, even under an "Undivided Commune " there could have been anything 

 more than a limited promiscuity, excepting when the whole community occasionally 

 reunited. The general conditions of savage life on the Australian continent would not 

 permit an entire undivided commune to remain united for any length of time in the 

 same locality. The Dieri practice may show us, in a modified form, what might take 

 place. The common Pirauru right exists, but it cannot bo fully exercised excepting 

 when the whole tribe assembles. Then, and then only, does the Pirauru group of A 

 men (or the Pirauru group of B men); with its female Pirauru, temporarily resemble 

 what one might suppose an undivided commune to be. 



