640 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. Morgan’s Malayan System of Relationship! By W. H.R. Rivers, WD. 
Morgan’s concept of the ‘consanguine family’ as the earliest stage in the 
development of human society was founded on his belief in the primitiveness of 
the system of relationship now existing in Polynesia, The characteristic of this 
‘ Malayan’ system is the very wide connotation of the terms expressive of kinship, 
so that relatives are denoted by one term, for whom there are several terms in the 
more usual forms of the classificatory system of relationship. 
It is unlikely that people so advanced in culture as the Polynesians should 
have retained the most primitive of existing methods of reckoning relationship, 
and there is evidence that communities elsewhere, such as the islanders of Torres 
Straits and the Kurnai of Australia, possess kinship systems which are in process 
of modification in such a way that they are coming to resemble the Malayan form, 
and it thus becomes highly probable that the Malayan system is a late product of 
change rather than the representative of a primitive stage of the human family. 
This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that similar approaches to the 
Malayan form are to be found in North American tribes which show no indica- 
tion of forms of social organisation earlier than those of their neighbours. 
2. On some new Types of Prehistoric Objects in British New Gwinea.? 
By C. G. Szviemann, .D., and T. A. Joycn, M.A. 
The specimens described fall into four classes, viz., objects of (1) obsidian, 
(2) stone of other kinds, (8) engraved shells, (4) pottery. 
All are truly prehistoric, since the natives now living in the localities in 
which they were found cannot say who made them, and in some cases cannot 
even suggest for what purpose they were used, The most striking of these finds 
have been made by prospectors while sinking shafts, but a single piece of worked 
obsidian of moderate size has been picked up on the surface of the ground of 
Murua (Woodlarks) ; and on Goodenough Island a long knife-like flake, which 
had been recently and quite roughly lasbed to the ends of two wooden spears Jaid 
side by side and tied together at intervals, was brought for trade. The most 
interesting obsidian implement is an axe or adze with a convex edge and a much- 
worked tang. The stone objects include a stone mortar weighing about 60 lb, 
and several heavy stone-pestles. All of these were found by prospectors in the 
neighbourhood of the Yoda Valley, in the northern division of the Possession. The 
engraved shells and the most remarkable of the pottery finds come from a site 
called Rainu, in Collingwood Bay. On cutting into a number of mounds for the 
urpose of levelling the site for a new village, fragments of pottery and human 
Hones, with a few stone adze-blades and engraved Conus shells, were found. The 
adze-blades are of the stone until recently used in the district, but, judging from 
the specimens we have handled, are on the whole lighter and less effective tools. 
The carving on the shells consists of spirals, rectangles, and leaf-like patterns; on 
one shell there is a human face, which, as far as its technique is concerned, would 
easily pass as a piece of work from the Papuan Gulf. The pottery found on the 
Rainu site is superior in make and ornament to that in use at the present day in 
any part of British New Guinea. This part of the find includes club-heads 
(‘pineapple’ and ‘emu egg’ types), the necks of pottery vessels, which, from the 
narrowness of their mouths and the length of their necks, formed parts of vessels 
which must be called bottles, and a large number of fragments of pottery bowls, 
1 Published in full in Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor, 
p. 309. 
? Published in full in Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor, 
p. 325. 
