816 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



occasion of a girl's marriage, when, according to Mr. O'Dounell, her 

 favors may be shared "by all the males present in the camp without re- 

 gard to relationship." In the Dieri tribe, however, the prohibition, as 

 regards intercourse between those who are within the fraternal rela- 

 tions, is never relaxed. No greater offense can be offered to a Dieri 

 man or woman than to call him or her "Bftyulu parchaua," which means, 

 according to Mr. Gason, " nearest relatives," or, in its understood sense, 

 '•incestuous intercourse between near relatives." Among such are all 

 those who stand in the fraternal group relation to one another.* That 

 this group relation is a real one to the Dieri is proved by the fact that 

 such an offense is punished by the great council of the tribe with death. 



In the more advanced tribes, where the social organization has given 

 way and is more or less approaching extinction, if not utterly extinct, 

 the fraternal group survives as long as a single totem remains in ex- 

 istence, as in the coast Murring. And, where the totems are gone, 

 it becomes transferred in a modified form to the local group, whose 

 members are then thought to be so " near to each other " in blood as to 

 be forbidden in marriage. It is well to remember that this local group 

 has, in all cases, even where uterine descent is strongest, been perpetu- 

 ated in the same place from father to son by occupation, I may almost 

 say by inheritance, of the hunting grounds. 



The relationship terms of different Australian tribes, which I have 

 collected and tabulated, show three types of the fraternal group. 



First. All the descendants of several brothers or of several sisters are 

 still brothers and sisters mutually ; and this relationship descends in an 

 ever-expanding fraternal group. Such an instance is that of the Kurnai 

 tribe. 



Second. The descendants of several brothers are differentiated from 

 the descendants of several sisters ; so that two fraternal groups come 

 into existence, each of which is still fraternal within its own limits, but 

 is not so towards the other group. Nevertheless, the prohibition as to 

 marriage between the members of the two groups still obtains. The 

 new relation thus arising, finds expression in a reciprocal term such as 

 the " Kami " of the Dieri (Table VI). Taken in the widest sense, the 

 contemporary generation "on the same level" in the intermarrying di- 

 visions A and B (Table I) may be said to be " potential spouses" to one 

 another ; but the marital privilege is restricted by what we may call an 

 "inner regulation" when two "Kami," male and female, are the chil- 

 dren of own brother and sister respectively. 



Third. The fraternal relations tend to become restricted to the chil- 

 dren of one pair. There is also a tendency to a multiplication of distinct- 



*Thi8 prohibition includes not only "brother" and " sister," but also the "cousins" 

 who are indicated by the term " kami." (See Table VI.) Although the kami belong, 

 respectively, to the two intermarrying class divisions, the nearness of blood stops the 

 marital right. We have here a prohibition counted through the male line in a tribe 

 which has uterine descent. 



