December 29, 19 10] 



NATURE 



267 



AVSTRAUAN TRIBES. 

 (i) The Tribe, and Intertribal Relations in Australia. 

 By G. C. Wheeler. With a prefatory note by Prof. 

 Edward A. Westermarck. Pp. xii + i68. (London : 

 J. Murray, 19 lo.) Price 35. 6d. net. 

 I Two Representative Tribes of Queensland, with 

 an Inquiry concerning the Origin of the Australian 

 Race. By J. Mathew. With an introduction by 

 Prof. A. H. Keane. Pp. xxiii + 256. (London : 

 T. Fisher Unwin, 1910.) Price 55. net. 

 \ CQUAINTANCE with the interesting political and 

 • i X social organisation of the Australian aborigines 

 has gradually destroyed the tradition of their primaeval 

 simplicity, and the information collected and classified 

 by Mr. Wheeler (i), during his work as Martin-White 

 student of sociology in London University, shows that 

 intertribal relationships in Australia are unusually 

 well regulated. Mr. Wheeler declares that '" in con- 

 trast with the loose ideas generally held war in these 

 tribes cannot be deemed a normal condition," and 

 Prof. Westermarck, in a prefatory note, remarks 

 "among the Australian aborigines the germs of inter- 

 national law" and "something like an anticipation 

 of the Geneva Convention." Instead of the Austra- 

 lian aborigines retaining a primitive communism, 

 territorial ownership is so fully recognised that, 

 according to Mr. Wheeler (p. 161), "War has no other 

 purpose than the seeking of justice or revenge for 

 injuries done." War there, he says, is never for the 

 sake of territorial conquest, as the right of the lawful 

 owners of land is regarded as absolute. 



The main purpose of Mr. Wheeler's study is to 

 collect the available information as to the relationships 

 of the Australian tribes. He summarises the evidence 

 as to their confederations, the rights of territorial 

 sovereignty, the regulations which govern tribal inter- 

 course — including barter, asylum, and the safety of 

 envoys, the punishment of offenders belonging to 

 different tribes, and war. The essay is a discussion of 

 second-hand evidence, in the valuation of which the 

 author is perhaps not always successful. Thus, he 

 disparages Hewitt's work, since, as that author care- 

 fully explained the source of his information, it is 

 obvious how much of it came from others ; but Mr. 

 Wheeler is less cautious in regard to some authori- 

 ties, in whose writings observation and inference are 

 less easily distinguished. 



The essential difficulty in the study of intertribal rela- 

 tionships among the Australians is the absence of any 

 trustworthy distinction between tribes and intertribal 

 local groups, and between tribes and " nations." Mr. 

 Wheeler uses the term nation occasionally, but regards 

 it as inappropriate in Australia, as the groups are so 

 indefinite. He admits that there is no firm line to be 

 drawn between nations made up of tribes, and tribes 

 made up of local groups; and he recognises that the 

 relations between local groups of the same tribe do 

 not differ from those of local groups belonging to 

 different tribes. The intertribal regulations, which 

 Mr. Wheeler's study shows are so widely recognised 

 in Australia, therefore deal with the relations of local 

 groups, which have been perhaps only recently and 

 temporarily isolated or combined, and not of tribes 

 separated by racial differences, as in India or Africa, 

 or by traditional feuds, as in North America. 

 NO. 2148, VOL. 85] 



According to Mr. Wheeler, the best test of a tribe 

 (p. 55) is that the intertribal groups do not carry 

 on unregulated warfare, and during warfare do not 

 eat the dead. According to Mr. Math%w, on the 

 other hand, tribal distinctions are based on language. 



(2) Mr. Mathew 's book may be divided into two 

 distinct sections. Its main value is an account of the 

 Kabi and Wakka tribes, who inhabited the basins of 

 the Mary River and upper Burnett River in southern 

 Queensland. The author had excellent opportunities 

 for the study of the Kabi, as he lived among them 

 from 1866 to 1872, and has re-visited them in 1884 

 and 1906. He knows their language and appears 

 carefully to have observed their habits and collected 

 their beliefs and folklore. Mr. Mathew 's most in- 

 teresting chapter is upon religion and magic. He 

 concludes that "these tribes possessed the elementary 

 contents of religion " (p. 168), and had some belief in 

 supernatural beings, of whom they spoke with rever- 

 ence and of whom the "great supernatural" w'as 

 nameless and was referred to only with bated breath. 



The value of Mr. Mathew's book is reduced by his 

 constant re-statement of the theory which he advanced 

 in 1899, in his " Eaglehawk and Crow," and in an 

 earlier paper. He there claimed that the two totemic 

 divisions named after the Eaglehawk and Crow were 

 due to racial differences ; he believed that the Aus- 

 tralian aborigines have originated from the fusion 

 of a dark " Papuasian " people, who were of the same 

 race as the Tasmanians, with a fairer people who 

 were possibly connected with the Dravidians of India, 

 the Veddas of Ceylon, and the Toalas of Celebes. 

 He "re-states this view in an introductor}- memoir, and 

 repeats it, but without mentioning the strongest objec- 

 tions to it, and still claiming in its support authors, 

 such as Lydekker — who has long since abandoned it, 

 Mr. Mathew admits that some tribes outside Aus- 

 tralia are also divided into two exogamous classes, 

 and he appears disposed (p. 140) to extend his racial 

 theory to those cases. Moreover, many Aus- 

 tralian tribes are divided into four classes 

 instead of into two, and as Mr. Mathew 

 admits that the fourfold division is not racial, 

 it seems unnecessary to adopt his explanation 

 for the division of the tribes into two classes. Mr. 

 Mathew states that the light-blooded and dark-blooded 

 sections may still be recognised among the Austra- 

 lians ; but, in quoting one of these cases he admits 

 (p. 142) that his informants differed as to which 

 section was the light and which the dark. The differ- 

 ence in colour appears to be as slight as the rest of 

 the evidence in favour of Mr. Mathew's theory. The 

 account of the Kabi is, however, a useful contribution 

 to Australian anthropology. 



SOME CRITICAL SPECIES OF VERONICA. 

 Veronica prostrata L., Teucrium L., tind austriaca L. 



nebst einem anhang iiber deren ndchste verxvandte. 



By Dr. Bruno Watzl. (Abh. der K.K. Zool-Botan. 



Gesellschaft in Wien. Bd. v.. Heft 5.) Pp. 94 + Tafel 



xlv. (Jena: Gustav 'Fischer, 1910.) Price 7 marks. 



DR. WATZL has made a detailed study of three 

 closely-allied species in what is generally recog- 

 nised as a very critical genus. Bentham, when mono- 



