November 28, 1907] 



NA TURE 



the details as to the tribes of the Lake Eyre district and 

 of the Flinders Range are substantially the same as those 

 given in a sketch-map which accompanied one of my 

 pioneer papers entitled " The Dieri and other Kindred 

 Tribes of Central Australia," which appeared in the 

 Journal of the Anthropological Institute of August, i8go. 

 This was the result of investigations made from 1871 to 

 that date. In this instance, if I were to follow Mr. 

 .Mathews's e.xample, I might suggest that he has 

 " ignored " this pioneer work, and e.xpress something 

 similar to his " wondrous agreement in our details." 

 There is, however, nothing lo wonder at in the agreement 

 of two investigations of the same subject. My statements 

 are based upon independent investigations, made in some 

 cases many years ago, when the results were recorded for 

 future publications. If Mr. Mathews finds instances in 

 which his information has a " wondrous " agreement with 

 mine, he may rest assured that his conclusions are correct. 



My information as to the Yantruwunta class-names 

 Tiniwa and Kulpuru was received from my correspondent 

 the Rev. Otto Sicbert, and was based on his personal 

 knowledge, in 1897. 



I learn from .Mr. Mathews's letter that he has sent 

 " more than one hundred contributions to various scientific 

 societies." I have only met with two of them, neither of 

 which recommended itself 10 me by its accuracy. It is 

 therefore difficult to understand how I can have " ignored " 

 statements of which I am ignorant. 



It will be evident that there is no foundation for Mr. 

 Mathews's injurious insinuations, which, I regret to say, 

 bear upon them evidence of a personal animus. The case 

 is one of Hotti soit qui tuat y pense. 



.\. W. HOWITT. 



Metung, Victoria, July S. 



In the foregoing remarks Dr. A. W. Howitt states that 

 at the time his book appeared, in 1904, he was not aware 

 that I had published a description of the Toara (Dora) 

 ceremony, and also a map of South Australia, four years 

 previously. It seems incredible that he did not make him- 

 self acquainted with the current literature bearing upon 

 the Australian aborigines up to the time he published his 

 book. 



If Mr. Howitt obtained his account of the Dora from 

 Mr. Aldridge in 1882, it is remarkable that he did not 

 publish it until twenty-two years afterwards, especially as 

 he was very prompt in publishing his report of the 

 Kuringal ceremony in 1884 and the Jeraeil in 1885. He 

 does not, however, appear to have had much confidence in 

 Mr. .Aldridge 's account of the laws of marriage and descent 

 in vogue among the same tribes who practised the Dora 

 ceremony. He says that Mr. Aldridge sent him " a 

 number of tables of marriages and descents, which differed 

 considerably amongst themselves ; so much so that the 

 correctness of some of them seemed doubtful."' Mr. 

 Howitt did not run the risk of printing more than one 

 table out of them all, but even that one is erroneous, as 

 I have demonstrated elsewhere. 



Mr. Howitt refers to a " sketch-map " published by 

 him in 1890.* In that map he showed the Urapuna {my 

 Arrabunna) tribe as being located away to the north of 

 the .Awmani (my Ahminnie). Not content with this in- 

 accuracy, he increased its magnitude by placing another 

 tribe, which he called the Wongkurapuna, on the east of 

 thr- Urapuna and Awmani. He was, apparently, not at 

 that time aware that the two names, Urapuna and 

 Wongkurapuna, represent the same people, the prefix 

 wntik merelv meaning " speech." 



Again, the Kuyani (my Kooyeeunna), which I place on 

 the southern end of Lake Eyre, is shown on Mr. Howitt 's 

 '* sketch-map " as occupving the country I have correctly 

 allocated to the Kutchnamootha tribe. His map is 

 altogether a blank as to the numerous tribes occupying the 

 country from south I,ake Eyre to Port Lincoln and 

 Fowler's Bay. Even Mr. Howitt himself did not repro- 

 duce his own map in his book of 1904, but preferred to 



1 " Native Trib-s of S.-E. Australh 



2 Journ Anthrop. Inst., xx., p. 30. 



NO. 1987, vot. yyl 



utilise one which is identical with mine. Spencer and 

 Gillen were apparently misled by the worthless map of 

 1890. In referring to the Urabu'nna tribe, they speak of 

 " the Dieri, whose territory adjoins the Urabunna on the 

 south."' My map shows the Urabunna on the western 

 or opposite side of Lake Eyre to that on which the Dieri 

 is situated. 



Mr. Howitt states that he got the phratry names Tiniwa 

 and Kulpuru independently. Even if so, he should have 

 made himself acquainted with and referred to my prior 

 reports of 1899 and 1900. He shirks my statement that 

 he " had never heard of the Blood divisions," and he also 

 passes over my claim to priority in reporting certain 

 important facts in the sociology of the Wiradjuri 

 tribes. 



It is asserted by .Mr. Howitt that he has only seen two 

 of my articles on the Australian blacks. I contributed 

 five articles to the Royal Society of Victoria, of which Mr. 

 Howitt was a member, and I was told that he took part 

 in the discussions upon some of them. They were all 

 printed in the Proceedings of that society, vols, vii., ix., 

 and X., and these volumes were issued to Mr. Howitt in 

 virtue of his membership. 



Nuinerous articles of mine have been published by the 

 anthropological societies of the following places : — London, 

 Berlin, Washington, Paris, and Vienna, as well as by 

 other societies. I presented forty separate copies (reprints) 

 of various papers written by me on the aborigines to the 

 public library in Melbourne in 1899. A bibliography of 

 nearly all the articles published by me is printed in the 

 Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 

 xxxviii., pp. 376-381. The whole of my works are there- 

 fore within reach of any man who wishes to consult 

 them. 



As I am about to make a strong assertion, I will con- 

 fine myself to five articles published in the Proceedings of 

 the Royal Society of Victoria and twelve in the Journal 

 of the ."knthropological Institute. If Mr. Howitt still main- 

 tains that he has not seen these seventeen articles, I cannot 

 believe him. 



In regard to Mr. Howitt's remark that where I find 



instances " in which my information agrees with his 

 I may rest assured that my "conclusions are correct," I 

 may briefly mention that on one occasion, in 1894, T did 

 rely on Mr. Howitt's assertion that descent in the Kaia- 

 bara tribe is in the male line. From personal inquiries 

 among the blacks in 1898 I was able to correct my former 

 statement, and to show that descent is in the female line.' 

 Mr. Howitt, however, repeats his former error in his book 

 at p. 229, where he says that " descent [in the Kaiabara] 

 is in the male line." 



Mr. Howitt accuses me of "personal animus." There 

 cannot be any question about the " personal animus " 

 which prompted him to ignore my prior work, which had 

 the effect of temporarily misleading an English reviewer. 

 Nor can there be any mistake about the animus evirMred 

 in the statement that he has " only met with two of my 

 papers, neither of which recommended itself to him by its 

 accuracy." His object in both cases is manifestly to make 

 little of my work. Even now. while he tells us that he 

 ignored my prior work in " ignorance," he does not 

 express any regret, but attempts to justify the course he 

 adopted. 



In the present case both authors reside in the same 

 country and are known to each other as workers among 

 the same tribes. T cannot help repeating that it is both 

 " marvellous " and " wondrous " if they did not make 

 themselves acquainted with each other's publications, 

 especially as there were intervals of four, five, and eight 

 years in which to do so. Mr. Howitt's experiences should 

 be a warning to others to avoid the pitfall of claiming 

 originality for work which has alre.idv been published 

 some years in scientific journals of undoubted repute. 



R. H. Mathews. 



Parramatta, New South Wales. 



[No further correspondence can be published on this 

 subject. — Ed. Nature.] 



1 " Native Trihes of Central Australia." p. sg. 



~ Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, Phila., xxxvii., p. 33r, with map. 



