824 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



lationship there are many anomalies which cannot be explained with- 

 out a competent knowledge of the dialects in which they occur, and of 

 the customs of the tribes using them. Such a knowledge is not to be 

 looked for in any one investigator. The present memoir must, there- 

 fore, be looked upon as no more than an attempt to " prospect" the rich 

 field which has so long awaited examination. How far I may have suc- 

 ceeded in the attempt I will not venture to surmise, but will leave it for 

 the consideration of anthropologists. 



I think, however, I may venture to say that I have shown good 

 grounds for accepting the following conclusions: 



1. The class divisions and totems are groups held together by common 

 descent. 



2. The class divisions and the totems form in the aggregate two ex- 

 ogamous intermarrying divisions of the community. 



3. The marriage relation between these two exogamous divisions was 

 probably at one period the common co-habitation, as occasion, food, sup- 

 ply, and other conditions allowed, of a group of males belonging to one 

 division with a group of females belonging to the other division ; and that 

 even now this communal marriage exists in a somewhat limited form. 



4. The marital relations, being those of group to group, the terms of 

 relationship which arose and were used, necessarily expressed this rela- 

 tion of group to group, as well as of the individual to the group, and of 

 the individual to the individual. 



5. The filial relations of one generation to the preceding generation 

 are those of group to group, and are clearly brought into view by the 

 Pirauru practice, under which the children are necessarily the children 

 of a male group, and not of an individual. 



6. The conditions of 3 and 5 necessarily require those terms which I 

 have tabulated as the "fraternal." 



The evidence, which I have endeavored to state with clearness, is, I 

 I feel, very incomplete, and therefore wanting in that entire unity 

 which I should have liked to give it. But, looking at the facts which 

 have been ascertained, I venture to submit that the systems in use 

 among the Australian tribes indicate relationships which have been, and 

 are, fully as real to them as ours are to us ; that the terms have arisen 

 under social conditions whose survival we may now distinctly recog- 

 nize as still existing in the least advanced tribes, and that they have 

 been developed and modified under the influence of changing social 

 conditions, just as language, laws, religions, and even society itself 

 have been developed and modified. 



The Australian evidence, as far as it has been systematically collected 

 and examined, supports in the main the views enunciated by the late 

 Dr. Lewis H. Morgan. He was subjected to violent attacks by certain 

 critics, who held views to which his own, if accepted, were fatal. This 

 confirmation of his conclusions will be gratifying to all who, like myself, 

 admire his single hearted search after truth, and who feel a sincere re- 

 spect for his memory. 



