4N notes on social AN!) INDIVIKIAL M >MKNcr.VrrKK, ETC. 



(/') In North-West C'enlral Queenshmd what we should term 

 incest is totally disregarded (except perhaps in the case of father 

 and daughter, mother and son) at the sexual orgies taking place 

 at a woman's first initation ceremony ; the individuals indulging 

 in this celebration are in no way limited by any particular 

 grouping (paedomatronym. etc.), based on the class systems. 



((■) The difierence of group and blcjod relationship is not 

 recognised in the aboriginal idea of incest, the penalties for 

 anv violation of the rights of either relationship are identical. 



((/) The class .systems do in fact prevent the union of 

 couples whose marriage (if permissabie) would certainly not 

 constitute incestuous consanguinity. For instance, a Koopooroo 

 r>oulia native cannot marry any Bunburi or Woongko woman of 

 some friendly tribe, say a hundred and fifty miles distant, with 

 whom he or his family have perhaps never mixed ; but yet of 

 that same tribe, he may marry a Koorkilla. 



For my own part I am strongly of opinion that the whole 

 class system has been devised, by a process of natural selection, 

 to regulate the proper distribution of the total quantity of food 

 available. Thus the husltand, according to his paedomatronym 

 lives on articles of diet ditterent from those of his wife (or wives) ; 

 both these diet scales again differ from those permissabie to their 

 resulting ofY-spring, which belong to a third paedomatronymic 

 group. Hence, putting it shortly, whereas in a European 

 community with a connnon dietary, the mort' children there are 

 to feed, the less "vvill become the share of the parents. In this 

 North-West Central Queensland aboriginal class system, the 

 appearance of children will make no appreciable difierence in 

 minimising the quantity of food available lor those that give 

 tluni birth. Any scarcity in the total quanlily of all the food 

 is met by a change of camping ground. A circumstance in 

 fa\()iir of this view is that, although identical classes with 

 conesponding marriage-rules, etc., aiv found throughout, the 

 particular animals, birds, fish, etc., tabooed in each jiaedonuitrony- 

 mic group, vary with each ethnographical district. I look upon 

 the Ivockhampton area custom as being a still earlier develop 

 miin, a siHvival of the time when the elders, and consequently 

 \ihv stronger party in a camp collectiveU forced the younger 



