March 30, 1899] 



NA TURE 



511 



THE 



NATIVE TRIBES OF CENTRAL 

 AUSTRALIA.^ 



THE sincere efforts of some of the Australian govern- 

 ments to protect the native tribes have met with 

 eminently satisfactory ethnographical results. It is only 

 a few months ago that a highly meritorious work on the 

 Queensland natives by Walter E. Roth was published 

 by the Queensland Government, and we have now before 

 us a very thorough work dealing with the native tribes 

 of Central Australia— the joint production of a professor 

 of biology and a protector of aborigines. These gentle- 

 men have spent many years in the study of their black 

 friends, and have become initiated into those mysteries 

 into which Grey, Gason, Fison and Howitt 

 were the first to make headway. The book 

 thus contains a considerable amount of inform- 

 ation quite new to us, as well as other matter 

 largely confirmatory of the investigations of 

 their predecessors, rendered all the more valu- 

 able by the conscientious pains that have been 

 taken to thoroughly investigate everything in 

 ■connection with native customs with which 

 they have had to deal. In referring to the 

 common statement that the Australian native 

 is incapable of gratitude, the authors explain 

 the position taken up by the aboriginal as 

 regards this virtue, and point out that, although 

 he is exceedingly liberal himself, he does not 

 think it necessary to express his gratitude when 

 he receives a gift from one of his own tribe, 

 and that we should, in order to understand 

 the sentiments of the native, put ourselves 

 into his mental attitude, and then the question 

 is capable of being more or less explained or 

 understood. It is no doubt by their adoption 

 of this attitude that they have been peculiarly 

 successful in their studies. With the advent 

 of the white man the secret ceremonies fall 

 into disuse, for the young men get attracted 

 away to the stations, and naturally feel less 

 disposed to obey their elders ; and these, in 

 turn, consider the growing youth unworthy of 

 initiation ; hence the ceremonies get neglected 

 and die out. It is of consequence therefore 

 that every scrap of information regarding them 

 be properly recorded, and in doing this Messrs. 

 Spencer and Gillen have collected a mass of 

 detail which, while it may at first sight appear 

 somewhat superfluous, will be invaluable for 

 future reference as further investigations are 

 carried on. 



\'aluable portions of the book consist in the 

 comparisons made between the results of 

 studies on the Australian tribes under review, 

 and those of studies made by anthropological 

 students elsewhere, and it is significant of the 

 importance of field work that the theories of 

 McLennan and Westermarck on group marriage Fig. i. 



are not borne out by the present investigations. 

 For instance, marriage by capture, notwithstand- 

 ing what has been written on the subject, is an exception 

 rather than the rule with the .Australians, so that a good 

 deal that Westermarck bases on this custom falls to the 

 ground. In group marriage the authors distinguish 

 (p. 108) three grades of development, and from their 

 studies of these conclude that the customs indicate a 

 temporary recognition of certain general rights which 

 existed in times previous to that of the clearly defined 

 system of group marriage. The authors are careful to 

 add that the indications do not afford any direct evidence 



1 "The Native Tribes of Central Australia." By Prof. B. Spencer 

 and F. G. Gillen. Pp. xi: -V 671. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd , 

 1899.) 



NO. 1535, VOL. 59] 



of the former existence of actual promiscuity, but only 

 that evidence is afforded in such direction. The tendency 

 of the evidence of prehistoric promiscuity is, however, 

 so strong that we cannot doubt its former existence ; and 

 if the authors had elucidated no other point than this, 

 they would have done good work. The totemism of the 

 tribes shows some curious departures from the customs 

 commonly associated with the idea of totemism as met 

 with amongst other .Australian tribes, as well as with 

 primitive people elsewhere. Each individual considers 

 himself the direct reincarnation of an ancestor, whose 

 spirit having become humanised, has entered a woman, 

 and so the individual is born in human form ; the 

 lotemic animal or plant is not regarded exactly as a 



Iruntarinia ceremony of the Unjiamba Totein to illustrate one form of 

 Nurtunja ; the small cross pieces represent pointing sticks. 



close relative, and an individual may help to kill or 

 destroy his totem ; members of the same totem are not 

 bound to assist one another, nor does totemism rule.in 

 marriage, so that two individuals of the same totem may 

 be lawfully man and wife. The authors are unable to 

 explain satisfactorily these anomalies, nevertheless their 

 inquiries on the subject of totemism are quite amongst 

 the most fascinating of the book. The .\runta tribe, the 

 description of whose customs occupy the greater portion 

 of the monograph, reckon descent through the male 

 instead of, as do most of the surrounding tribes, through 

 the female ; but, as is pointed out (p. 36), it is doubtful 

 whether in all cases the counting of descent in the female 



