*94 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



in value between our terms for degrees of kinship 

 and those of peoples in savagery and barbarism 

 differences not only of extension but often of exclusion. 

 They are of importance in considering the evolution 

 of kinship. For our present point, however, they 

 are not material : the headship of the kin is vested in 

 some male member whose claims are founded on 

 seniority, on election, or on special qualifications such 

 as wisdom or renown in war. As the family begins to 

 develop within the wider circle of the kin and 

 relationships become more defined, there emerges a 

 head of each inner group owing his position to the 

 same causes and qualifications. The nomenclature 

 of his relations to the female members, whether 

 brother uncle or son, gradually approximates to our 

 conception of those terms, though not precisely coin- 

 ciding with them until a high degree of civilisation is 

 reached. 



Bearing in mind these differences we turn to 

 Australia where the aboriginal population is in a lower 

 degree of savagery than any other race whose institu- 

 tions have been investigated. The family has hardly 

 begun to be distinguishable from the kin in general. 

 The authority of the father, even among those tribes 

 which have advanced to paternal descent, is non-existent 

 after the early years of childhood. When a boy has 

 attained puberty and passed through the rites which make 

 himanadult member of the clan or the tribe he is as a rule 

 subject only to the authority of the elders in whom the 

 government of the tribe is vested. With a girl the 

 case is somewhat different : She is always in manu. 

 Practically, however, the power exercised over her 

 before* marriage seems to be limited to the right of 



