NORTH QUEENSLAND ETHNOGRAPHY — ROTH. 3 



is not included in them, and I am satisfied in my own mind that 

 the idea which has prompted him to avoid as far as possible the 

 intermarriage of blood relatives represents a gradual development 

 of the moral sense. 



3. A third essential for the marriage to be publicly recognised 

 is that one (Princess Charlotte Bay, Tully River, etc.) or both 

 (North-West Districts) of the contracting parties must be of 

 suitable rank so far as initiation is concerned : where one is 

 necessary it is that of the male, 



4. A feature of more than ordinary interest is the right of 

 marital relationship between a husband and his wife's blood- 

 sisters on the Pennefather and Tully Rivers, and between a 

 wife and her husband's blood brothers on the Tully River. 

 Cases of this nature, coupled with the handing over of the widow 

 to her late husband's brother, bear strong evidence of communal 

 marriage in a very primitive condition, before the distinction 

 had come to be made between blood- and group-members of the 

 different class-s3 r stems. The sexual orgie at the expense of the 

 bride upon her initiation into womanhood is also significant 

 from this point of view. 3 



5 The ceremonial sign of marriage is represented by the 

 building of a hut and the lighting of a fire on the part of the 

 girl (though this duty may be performed by her mother on the 

 Upper Normanby River) and by the seizing of her wrist on the 

 part of the husband. In the North-West District sign language, 

 the ideagram for marriage by capture, is represented by a wrist- 

 grasp. i 



There is no public celebration or rejoicing on the advent of a 

 marriage, nor do the contracting parties don anything in the way 

 of special ornaments or decorations. 



There would seem to be no special season of the year devoted 

 to the celebration of marriage. In those districts where the 

 burial ceremonies include the growth of the mourner's hair, no 

 marriages take place till this is cut, at the same time that the 

 widows are handed over. 



In cases where a man marries into a tribe foreign to him, his 

 wife and children become members of his own. 



6. On the Pennefather River betrothal is the usual form of 

 giving in marriage, the old men usually getting the pick : even 

 while yet in utero an infant is occasionally promised in this way 

 on the chance of its being a girl. A present of some food, spears, 

 etc., is usually sufficient, and the promise is invariably adhered 



3 Roth— Ethnol. Studies, etc., 1897, Sect. 305. 

 * Roth— Ethnol. Studies, etc., 1897, Fig. 197. 



