AUSTRALIAN Gj.OUP RELATIONS. 



813 



sister's husband are all " apiri," for they arc of the same group, (M) A, 

 which is Pirauru to group (M) B. The mother's brother and the father's 

 sister's husband — who are the same group individual — are both Kaka, 

 and form part of another marital group, (M) B. 



I have said that in spite of the Pirauru system, and the consequent 

 uncertainty as to actual paternity, there is, nevertheless, a tendency to 

 attribute the paternity to the man who habitually cohabits with the 

 mother of the child ; that is to say, who is to her in the relation of Noa, 

 which, indeed, is inchoate individual marriage. He is the " father" of 

 the child, while the mother's accessory husband is only the " little father." 

 Morever, he claims the right to dispose of the daughter of his Koa in 

 marriage, though she may be dv facto the child of any one of her mother's 

 Piryurus. 



This rests upon a belief which is not peculiar to the Dieri. I have 

 found it in every Australian tribe, without exception, with which I have 

 acquaintance. This belief is that the child is derived from the male 

 parent only, and that the mother is no more than its nurse. As a black 

 fellow once put it to me, " The man gives the child to a woman to take 

 care of for him, and he can do whatever he likes with his own child." 

 This is so wonderfully like Apollo's well-known dictum in the Euuieni- 

 des as to be positively startling when heard from the lips of an Austral- 

 ian black ; but the foregoing is not the only instance within my knowl- 

 edge in which the belief has been expressed by the aborigines. The 

 subject well merits full discussion, but, as it involves the important ques- 

 tion of the change of descent from the female line to that through males, 

 I defer its further consideration to the penultimate section of this 

 memoir. 



I now offer for comparison with the parental and filial terms of re- 

 lationship among the Dieri and Kunandaburi, those of tribes who are 

 socially more advanced. 



Table V. 



English. 



Kumai. 



Murring. 



Father 



Father's hrother 



Mother's sister's husband 



Mm her 



Mother's sister 



Father's brother's wife... 



Son (M) 



Brother's son (M) 



Will's sister's son 



Son (F) 



Sister's son (F) 



Husband's brother's son . 



mungan 

 mungan 

 mungan 

 yukan .. 

 yukan . . 

 yukan . . 



lit 



lit 



lit 



lit 



lit 



lit 



banga 



nadjnng 



kauang 



minga 



minting 



minting 



wurun 



wurun 



wurun 



wurun 



wurun 



wurun 



(M) means male speaking ; (F) means female speaking. 



I have found the study of the development of the terms of relation- 

 ship used by the Australian aborigines to be one of extreme difficulty. 

 When arranged in groups, as I have arranged them, the terms of one 



