LXVI PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



river systems, no less than tliose of giant marsupials and other 

 animals, such as Ceratodus and crocodiles, indicate in late Pleis- 

 tocene times a. climate quite different from that of to-day. 

 Gradually, with the desiccation of the central area, the tribes 

 occupying this became not only shut off from those inhabiting 

 the limited area of coastal land, but, as the climate became still 

 more unfavorable, there took place a further segregation of 

 originally larger groups into smaller groups, farming the so-called 

 nations. This, which really consisted in a drawing in towards 

 centres, where, in time of drought, physical conditions were more 

 favorable than elsewhere, led on to the disintegration of the groups 

 into smaller communities that form the existing tribes, and thus 

 in course of time, because amongst a savage people with no written 

 language words easily become changed, the various dialects arose. 

 This fourfold organization of nation, tribe, local group, and family 

 is probably of fundamental significance, and has ibeen developed 

 in the sequence indicated, leading from the general to the special. 



"We may now pass on to deal with the second form of organiza- 

 tion, commonly known as the Social. In studying that of a typical 

 Australian tribe, the existence of two institutions stands out 

 markedly. One is Exogamy, the other Totemism. How, when, 

 and where these first arose it seems impossible to say, but both 

 of them had their origin far back in the early days of humanity. 

 The two, though they have become closely associated in many 

 parts of the world, and pre-eminently so in Australia, are evidently 

 in their origin quite independent of one another; in fact, we may 

 have pure totemism and pure exogamy existing side by side; 

 totemism without exogamy or exogamy without totemism. 



Exogamy means marrying out, whether it be of a tribe, a class, 

 a local group, or a totem group. A totem, to adopt Sir James 

 Frazer's definition, " is a class of material objects which a savage 

 regards with superstitious respect, believing that there exists 

 between him and every member of the class an intimate and alto- 

 gether special relation." 



Totemism " is an intimate relation which is supposed to exist 

 between a group of kindred people on the one side and a species 

 of natural or artificial objects on the other, which objects are 

 called the totems of the human group." 



Totemism is undoubtedly older than exogamy, and in Australia 

 we have probably the relics of the earliest belief in regard to it. 

 It is, in fact, perhaps the crudest form of any evolutionary theory 

 with which we are acquainted. Every Central and JNTorthem 

 Australian native believes that he or she is the .direct descendant 

 of some ancestrjil animal or plant, or even, because the animistic 

 feeling has been "carried over to them, of some natural or artificial 



