42 NOTES OX SOCIAL AND INDlVIDrAI. NOMENCLATURE, ETC. 



plants, trees, fruits, shrubs, or i^rasses forbidden. Upon this 

 point of avoiding certain food, the aborij>-inals are very particular, 

 and should one of them wilfully partake of that which is 

 tabooed, he is tirndy convinced that it would never satisfy his 

 hunger, and that sickness, probably of a fatal character, would 

 overtake him. To be caught red-handed in the act by his fellow- 

 men often means death to the delin(pu'nt. With regard to the 

 food not permissible it has to be noted that the lists of prohibited 

 articles, though constant for each tribe, are not identical through- 

 out the North -West Central Queensland for the corresponding 

 paedomatronyms in difierent tribes. Thus a Pitta-Pitta 

 Koopooroo at Boulia has a prohibitory diet-scale differing from 

 that of a neighbouring Mitakoodi Koopooroo at Cloncurry. 



Along the coastal district between (lladstone and Marl- 

 borough, in reply to enquiry from the few old men who could 

 render them?'elves adequately intelligilde, I found that in thc^ 

 old days, all members of the ^ribe u.p to the time of their attain- 

 ing a certain social rank (at the first initiation ceremony), were 

 forbidden to eat iguana, carpet snake, black-face snake, emu, 

 porcupine, young opossum, young paddymelon ; there was no 

 record of any particular diet-scale being prohibited to each 

 paedomatronyi 1 1 . 



At Miriam Vale, south of (Uadstonc, no evidence whatsoever 

 was obtainable concerning any dietary being forbidden to anyone 

 at any time. 



(A) These groups have an impoi'tant l)earing, in the North- 

 A\'est Central Districts, at the first and subsequent rites or 

 initiation ceremonies which admit the individual to his or her 

 respective grade or rank in the social status. Thus, the persons 

 with whom one may converse by speech or sign, on certain of 

 these occasions, depends upon particular paedomatronymic 

 groups. 



(r) They bear relation to the marriage-rule. The members 

 of these four paedomatronymic groups can be married as follows 

 only, no other arrangement being allowed ; the rule is constant 

 throughout the two dozen odd tribes examined, for corresponding 

 paedomatronyms. Among the Pitta-Pitta, etc., tribes they may 

 be tabulated thus : — 



