Anthropology in Au.straUa. 19 



(o) Co-existent with the Pirauru practice in these tribes, 

 there is also individual marriage, based upon infant Ijetrothal, 

 or exchani^e of women. In other tribes individual marriage 

 predominates, with mei'ely traces of gi-oup marriage. 



(4) Society is organised upon the division of the community 

 into two exogamous intermarrying groups. 



(5) This division into two intermarr3Mng groups, each of 

 which is represented in a somewhat modified foi'm by the 

 Pirauru groups, brings into view a set of relationships which 

 are those of group to group, and not those of individual to 

 individual. But the individual takes the relationship of his 

 group. 



(6) The relationship terms in use are fundamentally such 

 as would be required by such communal groups, but differ 

 in different tribes in their departure from the primitive type. 

 This departure is in the direction of a differentiation from 

 general into special individual terms. 



The general results of these enquiries are, that the earliest 

 social organisation of the ancestors of the Australian aborigines 

 was probably that of an undivided commune, or in other 

 words, of the condition of promiscuity which has been 

 postulated by some authors ; the succeeding state was 

 that of a divided commune, with promiscuity limited 

 to each commune, and this still exists here. The Pirauru 

 practice affords, in fact, an explanation of the existing system 

 of polyandry in Thibet, and among the Nairs, on which Mr. 

 M'Lennan's theory of the early state of society rests. He 

 was, therefore, so far correct in assuming polyandrj^ to have 

 been an early social stage, but it was not as we now see, 

 merely ])olyandry, but polyandry combined with polygyny — 

 in other words regulated promiscuity, such as is now found 

 existing in many of the Australian tribes. 



The results thus attained have been reached by a series of 

 stages, in each of which a certain advance was made upon 

 previous hypotheses. This is indeed just that which one 

 may observe in an}' of the sciences. Step by step data are 

 accumulated as the horizon widens, and each advance 

 establishes some part of the previous hypotheses, while it 

 sweeps away those portions which have been based upon 

 insufficient data. 



Our present knowledge of the organisation of Australian 

 tribes stands as I have sketched it. That this knowledge is 

 still incomplete in many important details I readily admit, 



c 2 



