PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



(D) Warramunga Tribe. 



LXXJ 



The moieties are each divided into four sub-classes, and, in addi- 

 tion, though in order to simplify matters not shown here, the 

 women of each sub-class have a name distinct from that of the men. 

 Thus, for example, Thapanunga women are called N^apanunga, 

 Tjupila women are Naralu, and so on. The children of a Thapa- 

 nunga man are Thapungarti, of a Tjupila man Thakomara, &c. ; 

 so that here, once more, we have indirect male descent. 



These tables show us that in each of the two main groups of 

 tribes, one counting descent in the female and the other in the 

 male line, we find that, so soon as the moieties become divided, 

 first into classes, and then into sub-classes, descent, so far as the 

 class or sub-class is concerned, is always in the indirect line, even 

 if, as in the Mara on the one side and the Urabunna on the other, 

 it is hidden from view until one digs below the surface. 



It is remarkable that, on the one hand, in the female descent 

 Urabunna Tribe, in which there are only names for the two 

 moieties, there are really, so far as marriage is concerned, four 

 classes; that in the male descent Mara Tril)e, with its moieties 

 and four classes, there really exist eight sub-classes, the equivalents 

 of those in the Warramunga Tribe. 



These successive dichotomous divisions are intimately associated 

 with the organization of the various communities and with 

 marriage regvilations, and reveal the institution of at least three 

 grades of gradually narrowing restrictions. In regard to tliese 

 relationships it must be uiiderstood that, though we use the terras 

 of consanguinity in current Ui;ie amongst ourselves, these connote 

 to the native a much wider kinship than we recognise. Thus to 

 a native the terms that we translate as father and mother imply 

 respectively any one who might lawfully have been his father or 

 mother, and the term children, in the same way, applies to the 

 offspring of any woman whom he might, as shown in the pre- 

 ceding tables, have lawfully married : — 



(1) The first division divided the community into two 

 moieties. This prohibited the marriage of brothers and 

 sisters, but not that with women belonging to the group of 

 a man's wife, nor of what we call first cousins. 



