MARITAL JEALOUSY 113 



where uterine descent generally prevails it is an 

 almost universal rule that visitors to a neighbouring 

 tribe having the same class organisation are accommo- 

 dated with temporary wives. When two brothers (using 

 that word in the extended sense of Australian relation- 

 ships) have quarrelled and wish for a reconciliation 

 one of them sends his wife to the other's camp, and a 

 temporary exchange is effected. At a grand assembly 

 of the tribe, or as a magical rite to avert some 

 threatened calamity, a general exchange of wives 

 sometimes takes place. 1 A calamity is not foreboded 

 every day, and grand assemblies of a tribe are be- 

 coming constantly rarer : hence this custom is not of 

 frequent occurrence. The practice of other tribes 

 may however lead us to suspect that it was formerly 

 by no means uncommon. At any rate there is a good 

 deal of sexual licence at all the gatherings for puberty 



ceremonies. 2 



Another district in which matrilineal institutions 

 prevail is the western side of the continent of Africa. 

 Many of the tribes both of Negroes and Bantu are 

 comparable for laxity to the Australians. Thus of the 

 Bahuana, a tribe inhabiting the banks of the Kwilu, 

 an affluent of the Kasai in the Congo basin, we are 

 told that sexual morality is conspicuous by its absence. 

 " The unmarried indulge as they please from a very 

 early age, the girls even before puberty. Hence 

 virginity in a bride is never expected and never found." 



amples of more or less restriction are the Kamilaroi (Id. 208), the 

 Geawegal (Id. 217), the Wakelbura (Id. 224). Compare the 

 customs of the aborigines of North-West-Central Queensland, Roth, 

 Ethnol. Stud. 174, 175, 181, 182, 



1 A. L. P. Cameron,/. A. I. xiv. 353. 



1 Mathews, Ethnol. Notes, 68. 



