PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. LXXXV 



for any fundamental changes in the method of counting relation- 

 ship. The only difference would be that the children would auto- 

 matically pass into a class or sub-class on the father's instead of 

 the mother's side of the tribe, and thereby, ipso facto, staad in 

 certain definite relationships to every other member of the tribe. 

 In any case, the change from matri-lineal to patri-lineal descent is 

 a sharply marked one, and may very probably have taken place 

 quite independently in various parts of the world — Australia 

 amongst others. 



If now we turn to the consideration of the customs and beliefs 

 of the various tribes we meet with the most bewildering confusion 

 and complications. To take only four examples, which are, how- 

 ever, of great significance, we find, apart from abnormal ones, four 

 methoids of counting descent — matri-lineal, direct and indirect, 

 and patri-lineal, direct and indirect — at least six entirely different 

 methods of treating the dead, each of which is found in other 

 parts of the world ; five or six distinct initiation ceremonies ; and 

 three distinct methods of fire-making, each of which again is met 

 with elsewhere. 



The problem of multiple or single origin of similar inventions, 

 beliefs, and customs is a difficult one to solve, and during recent 

 years it has been strongly urged by many anthropologists that 

 multiple origin is impossible, even unthinkable. 



Professor Elliot Sanith,(^) who may be regarded as representa- 

 tive of this school, says, " As to the possibility of any invention 

 originating independently in more than one centre, the facts of 

 history, no less than the common experience of mankind, are fatal 

 to any such hypothesis." This is a wide-reaching conclusion, but 

 with all due deference to the opinion of such a distinguished 

 authority, I venture to think that, though it may be impossible 

 to j^i'ove it absolutely, yet there is, at least, certain evidence of 

 a very suggestive nature in regard, not only to Australian culture, 

 but to Australian animals, that points in the direction of the 

 probability, or at least the possibility, of the polygenesis of 

 similar customs, beliefs, inventions of various kinds, and also even 

 of details of bodily structure. With regard to that of identical 

 ideas and theories, we have the historic case of Darwin and 

 Wallace, and the existence of this alone may well give us pause 

 before denying absolutely the possibility of the independent origin 

 of any two things, be they beliefs, custcms, or inventions, de- 

 pendent for their origin on the brain and thought of man. 



First of all, we may consider certain features revealed by a 

 study of the mammalian fauna of Australia, which I think are 

 not without significance in regard to the problem of the Australian 

 native. The earliest mammals, now represented by platypus 



(») Professor Elliot Smith, " Man," 1915, No. 92, page 162. 



