122 
the Papuan tongues of New Guinea. 
NATURE 
Throughout the | 
[JANUARY 27, 1923 

Social organisations and ceremonies are controlled 
Australian continent gesture language is very highly | by men whose age, fighting power, or skill in magic 

Fic. 2.—Ceremonial objects. 
developed and forms a ready means of communication 
when words fail. 
Much has been written about Australian tribes. 
Most of them have a very definite organisation and are 
divided into at least two main divisions (sometimes 
four or eight). Men of one group must marry women 
of the other, the children belonging sometimes to the 
father’s division, sometimes to the 
mother’s. Relationship names refer 
to the members of the group. 
Thus a man uses the term “ father ”’ 
not only for his real father but 
for all his father’s brothers. His 
“mother”? is any of the women 
whom his father might have law- 
fully married, and his “ brothers ” 
are not only his blood brothers but 
also his father’s brother’s sons. 
Another social system which is 
greatly developed among the Aus- 
tralian aborigines is based on the 
totems. As defined by Sir J. G. 
Frazer, a totem is “a class of 
material objects which a savage 
regards with superstitious respect, 
believing that there exists between 
him and every member of the class 
an intimate and altogether special 
relation.” In Australia the totem 
is an animal or plant, and the native 
describes himself as a kangaroo, 
snake, or gum-tree man as the case 
may be. Some tribes perform ceremonies to increase the 
totem animal or plant, while in others men may not eat 
or injure their totem. Sometimes the tribal organisa- 
tion is based on the totems, sometimes it is sexual, and 
the women have different totems from the men. Often 
the totem regulates marriage. 
No. 2778, VOL. 111] 
make them prominent ; but there are 
-no chiefs. The passage from youth to 
manhood is marked by submission to 
painful rites of initiation. The know- 
ledge of the sacred or secret ceremonies 
connected with initiation is forbidden 
to women and children under severe 
penalties. Many of the sacred objects 
connected with these ceremonies, and 
with the totems, are prominent in the 
Victorian collection (Fig. 2). They com- 
prise churinga (sacred stones and sticks 
associated with the totems), wands, 
slabs, and decorations used at initiation. 
No Australian weapons are made of 
metal. Bows and arrows are unknown. 
Spears are sharpened wooden sticks 
with barbs attached or cut near the 
point. Sir Baldwin Spencer describes 
twelve main types. In some places 
they are tipped with bone, flaked 
stone, or spines from the echidna or 
the sting-ray. The spear is launched 
by a spear-thrower. This is astick with 
a point at one end which fits into a 
hole in the spear-shaft and gives lever- 
age and accuracy of aim. Spear thrusts are warded 
off by shields, which are often highly decorated. Clubs 
of various forms are also used. The most distinctive 
Australian weapon is the boomerang. This was 
apparently not used by the Tasmanians. It is a 
curved throwing weapon varying in size and use, and 
most of the eastern and southern coastal tribes make 

Fic. 3.—Baskets, 
a “return”? boomerang which when thrown comes 
back to the thrower. 
The weapons and implements exhibited have been 
arranged so as to show their development in various 
parts of Australia. Thus one of the cases shows transi- 
tion from an ordinary throwing-stick to a boomerang 
Ee 
