GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP. 



693 



that in the Diike of York Island, as the Rev. George Brown 

 informs me, when the two divisions are Pikalaba and Mara- 

 mara, when a woman has twins, if they be of the same sex 

 they are suffered to hve, but if they be a boy and a girl they 

 are killed as soon as they are born as offenders against the 

 exogamous rule. Marriage with the savage is not a contract 

 between two individuals ; it is a natural state into which he 

 is born, and therewith he has to be content. 



Maternal Descent. — Before we go any farther, it is necessary 

 to point out that in most, though not in all, of the Australian 

 tribes, descent is reckoned through the mother, not through 

 the father, a rule which is of very wide prevalence. The 

 effect of this — still keeping to our homely illustration — may 

 be shown by the following diagram : — (M=male, F=female). 

 The husbands are above the line, their wives below. 



Smith (M). 



Brown (M). 



Brown (F). 



Brown (M). 



Brown (F). 



Smith (F). 



Smith (M). Smith (F) 



Smith (F). Smith (M). 



Smiths. 



Brown (F). Brown (M). 



Browns. 



Smiths. 



Descent being through the mother, Smith's children are 

 Brown's, and Brown's children are Smith's. In the next 

 generation things come round again on the " spear " side, but 

 never on the " spindle " side. It will be seen that Smith's 

 son's children are Smiths, but his daughter's children are 

 Browns. 



Now, it must be remembered that the Smith of the 

 diagram represents all the Smith of the same sex and on the 

 same level in a generation ; so also Brown represents all the 

 Browns. Each name represents a group — or rather two 

 groups — one male and one female — and the relationships 

 shown in the diagram are taken by every member of the 

 respective groups. It is not that a particular Smith is the 

 husband of a particular Brown, but that all the Smith males 

 on his level are the husbands, or at least the ])otential husbands, 

 of all the Brown females on the same plane in the generation — 

 that is to say, a group of Smith males is the husband of a 

 group of Brown females, and all the relationships which flow 

 from this view of a marriage come upon the groups in the 

 successive generations. This is what we mean by Group 



