PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 321 
these tribes has his or her own particular bull-roarer, with 
which from birth his fortunes are supposed to be intimately 
bound up. The distinction of bull-roarers into male and female 
is matched by the lke distinction drawn between the sacred 
flutes, on which, in German New Guinea, boys after circum- 
cision play while they are living secluded in the forest. These 
flutes are of two patterns, one called the male and the other the 
female, and the two are said to be married together (w), just 
as, if my conjecture is right, the two bull-roarers are married 
to form the Ambilyerikirra. For a woman to look upon these 
flutes is death, just as among some tribes it is death for her to 
look on a bull-roarer. 
Finally, if my interpretation of the Amébzlyertkirra ceremony 
should be deemed inconsistent with the beliefs which the Arunta 
are known to hold as to the relation of the sexes, I would sug- 
gest that the ceremony may perhaps have been borrowed by 
thein from another tribe in which a more usual opinion pre 
vailed as to the functions discharged by the.two sexes in the 
reproduction of the species. 
8.—MATERNAL DESCENT.IN THE SALIC LAW. 
By A. W. Howirr. 
A LONG-CONTINUED study of the classificatory system of rela- 
tionships in Australian tribes has led me to the belief that 
such a system must have been the source of that which obtained 
in the Teutonic tribes, and from which our descriptive system 
has been developed. A further inference seemed fair, that the 
Anglo-Saxon terminology of relationships was merely a stage of 
development from a more ancient type. If such were the case 
one might expect to find, not only the kindred organised in 
groups, as indeed they were, but also traces of descent in the 
female line. In following out this inquiry, I have had recourse 
to the oldest available literature of the Teutonic peoples, 
namely, the so-called barbarian laws, which were, as regards 
the oldest of them, apparently compiled before the tribes ac- 
cepted the Christian religion, at which time these laws assumed 
their Latin versions. 
These codes of customary laws are rich storehouses of facts, 
illustrating the social condition of the Teutonic tribes located 
(w) O. Schellong, *‘ Das Barlum-fest der Gegend Finsch-hafeas (Kaiserwilhelmsland),”’ 
Internationales Archiv fiir Ethnographie, If. (1889), p. 156. Some of the Indian tribes of 
the Amazon have pipes on which they play at their festivals, and which no woman may 
see under pain of death. ‘‘ Each pair of instruments gives a distinct note, and they pro- 
duce a rather agreeable concert, something resembling clarionets and bassoons.’’ It is 
not, however, said that each pair of pipes is regarded as male and female. See A. R. 
Wallace, Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (London, 1889), p. 348. This South 
American parallel to the bull-roarer had been already cited by Prof. A. C. Haddon (The 
Study of Man, p. 29§). 
W 
