696 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 



who are " too near in blood," and the reasonable presumption 

 is that its intention may be inferred from its effect. 



The four subdivisions are still further divided into totems, 

 e.g.^ Emu, Bandicoot, Black Snake, &c., belonging to Dilbe ; 

 Kangaroo, Opossum, Iguana, &c., belonging to Kupathin. 

 ]\o man can marry a woman of his own totem, nor of any 

 totem in his own division,* and the child takes the totem of 

 its mother, not of its father. Say, for instance, that Dilbe — 

 Ipai — Emu marries Kupathin — Kubitha — Iguana, his son is 

 Kupathin — Mari — Iguana. 



Marriage is still further restricted by local considerations. 

 The tribes are divided locally into what Mr. Howitt and 

 myself have called Hordes for want of a better term, and 

 many of these forbid marriage within their own bounds. 

 This is as if a Hobart Smythe were compelled to go to 

 Launceston for his Miss Branson, and a Launceston Brown- 

 ing had to seek his Miss Smithson in Hobart. And, further, 

 the elders of the tribe would meet in solemn conclave to 

 decide whether there were any bar between him and the lady 

 of his choice, owing to nearness of blood arising out of 

 former marriages, or to blood feud, or any other cause ; so 

 that although the range of matrimonial right is a very wide 

 one, the actual fruition of that right may be shut up within 

 quite narrow bounds. 



But how often soever the primary divisions may be sub- 

 divided, and whatever other restrictions may be placed upon 

 matrimonial choice, it is evident that, as I have said else- 

 where,t they consist of certain homogeneous groups ; and, 

 taking each group as a unit, it will be seen that the relation- 

 ships between group and group are precisely those which 

 would arise and continue between individuals among our- 

 selves if marriage were between certain first cousins — 

 between the children of a man and those of his sister — and 

 continued from generation to generation between pairs of 

 their descendants. The groups represented by those cousins 

 are found in many tribes at the present day ; the terms of 

 kinship appropriate to them are in constant use ; and if, 

 taking the groups as single units, we examine the relation- 

 ship of any one group to another, we find that the term 

 proper to that degree is used between all the members of the 

 groups. Hence the terms of relationship, as they are now 

 heard in daily use, point out the groups, and the groups, 



* We found an exception to this rule in one tribe in New South Wales, 

 but we could not hear of it anywhere else. t Kamilaroi and Kurnai. 



