328 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
or of two or more sisters respectively (q). The term noa may 
be freely translated marriageable. 
Such a girl is promised (betrothed) frequently at her birth 
to one of the males to whom she is noa, and at the same time 
one of his own or tribal sisters is promised to one of her own 
or tribal brothers. Thus there is an exchange of a woman for 
a woman by each intermarrying group. Each woman is the 
brideprice of the other. 
It is practically the group, consisting of the own mother, 
and the own and tribal brothers of the mother, and of the 
daughter, which betrothes the girl on either side. A woman 
by betrothal becomes the specialised noa of a certain man, but 
subsequently becomes the pirrauru, or groupwife, of a number 
of men who are his own or tribal brothers (r). This practice of 
betrothal, which specialises the female noa, overrides tem- 
porarily the right of pirrauru, or group marriage, which is the 
practice of this tribe, and evidently the more primitive one. 
If we now look at the Diagram I. by the light of the Dieri 
practice, we may be able to see why the sister of the widow 
and of the widow’s mother should be introduced prominently, 
for under female descent and the classificatory system of re- 
lationships, the women (2) and (3) are own or tribal mothers of 
(5); and (5), (6), and (7), who are so likewise as to (9), (10), 
and (11), who ara consequently in the fraternal relation to each 
other. The mother’s brother (1) is properly included in the 
group, and the brother of the widow has personal rights 
over her. Such an association of persons as that under the law 
of the Reippus would seem quite natural to an Australian 
savage living under maternal descent. That the male mem- 
bers of such a group should participate in some benefit to the 
exclusion of its females would also seem to him quite proper. 
Among the Teutonic tribes a woman was the property of her 
kindred, who exchanged her for a valuable consideration (s). 
In the time of the Salic law it was a money payment, but in 
earlier times it was doubtless made in kind, as described by 
Tacitus, in the cases of compensation for homicide. If we 
imagine a still earlier period, when these tribes were in a com- 
plete state of savagery, and when there was little or no per- 
sonal property beyond the rude weapons of the individual, one 
may safely conjecture that the most probable brideprice would 
be a woman for a woman. Then we should reach the precise 
condition of very many, if not the majority of the Australian 
tribes. 
(g) This does not include all first cousins. The children of a man on the one side and 
of bis sister on the other, stand in a totally different relation. 
(rv) There is a special ceremony for-this pirrauru-marriage, which is always subse- 
quent to the noa-marriage. It will be fully described in a paper which [ am now pre- 
paring in conjunction with the Rev. Otto Siebert. 
(s) In the earliest laws of the Anglo-Saxons the bride was sold by her father, a later 
social stage than that recorded by the Law of the Reippus. 
