514 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



traditions of relationship. One of these groups of the latter kind I 

 know a little about. It consists of forty-six villages, saj', average 

 1,000 souls each, and they now constitute about ten distinct sub- 

 tribes, often at war with one another, and taking each others' heads. 

 All are descended from a place called " Changnu," and its earlier 

 off-shoots. The lines of their tribal development, if plotted on a 

 map, show as radial lines, and some go back for twenty genera- 

 tions. There is a lai'ge amount of good history ready for any 

 investigator ; quite 90 per cent, will be lost, I believe. In some 

 tribes government is quite democratic ; in others (near me) it is by 

 hereditary chiefs, and nearly despotic. 



Very few men on our side realise the extraordinary intricacy 

 of the Australian clan and marriage systems, and few on your side 

 (here) seem to be aware that probably the clue rests -with us in 

 Eastern Bengal, where the growth of tribes into tribelets is now 

 going on before our eyes actively, and where there is the greatest 

 elasticity seen inaction among endogamic and semi-exogamic tribes 

 and races of strongly communal tendencies still in many ways. 



It is a pity that the terms marriage, husband, and wife have been 

 so misused by writers on Australian customs. As a rule " com- 

 munal marriage " is a misnomer. 



Marriage is really the public ceremony intended as proof that 

 a particular female has become the property sexually of one male, 

 and is thus cut off from the public or commune. Our Asamese 

 betrothal is thus " Bhuja pelaisi," e.e., "Knowledge thrown about," 

 a giving the bond publicity. 



The two terms "communal" and "marriage" are really mutuality 

 antagonistic and antithetical. 



In re husband and wife again : It is often said that men are the 

 husbands of women of a class and women the wives of all men of 

 another class, yet no ceremony is performed. This " pirauru " is 

 simply right of paramour liberty of sexual intercourse derived 

 from a communal stage. The terms husband and wife imjjly to us 

 much more, i.e., prolonged cohabitation as well as segregation. 

 The tribal horror of "incest" is marrying and isolating a public 

 girl (a tribal sister) ; it is a communal sin, and this is demonstrated 

 by the fact that among all blood relations there is really sexual 

 liberty till marriage. 



The gross licentiousness and public orgies, such as the " wira- 

 jinka," where all the men and boys have sexual intercourse with 

 females "no matter what their relationship," is proof of it. It is 

 tribal "incest" to "maiTy" a communal girl, and this term is mis- 

 leading in consequence. The blood means the tribe. You will 

 find by " Heth's Marriage of Near Kin " that the injurious effects 

 of close intermarrying is a myth, and hence cannot be the basis of 

 the Australian horror of blood alliances. That is the relic of a 

 communal sin. Yours, &c., 



S. E. PEAL. 



