1900.] MATHEWS—THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 563 
rest, and a very easy way of doing this would be to call them after 
their mothers, Tinnawa. When the young lads whose lives had 
been spared at the time of the slaughter of their fathers grew up to 
maturity, they would take some of their wives from among the 
Koolpirro women, and distinguish them by the latter name. Or in 
other words the Koolpirro men would give their sisters to the Tin- 
nawa men in exchange for their sisters as wives. This would 
account for the origin of the two phratries Koolpirro and Tinnawa, 
as illustrated in the following table: 
TABLE No. 1. 
Phratry. Husband. Wife. Child. 
A Koolpirro Tinnawa Tinnawa 
B Tinnawa Koolpirro Koolpirro 
Instead of the conquerors killing off all the males in the way just 
stated, it is customary in many places for two hostile families to 
make peace by the exchange of wives. This practice was much in 
vogue among the tribes on the Barwon river and its tributaries in 
New South Wales, whose customs I had exceptional opportunities 
of observing when stationed in those districts surveying government 
lands during the years from 1871 to 1880. I have also witnessed 
this usage among tribes in Queensland, and in the Northern Terri- 
tory of South Australia. 
It may be postulated that in ancient times the Koolpirro men 
gave their wives to the Tinnawa men in exchange for the wives of 
the latter, in order to terminate existing feuds, or for the purpose 
of resisting a common foe. A man of the Koolpirro tribe, for 
example, would of course have a Koolpirro wife and Koolpirro 
children. He would give his wife to a Tinnawa man, and her chil- 
dren by the new husband would be called Koolpirro the same as 
before. This interchange of wives might be only temporary, or it 
might continue during that generation. But in the rising genera- 
tion the Koolpirro men would take their wives from the sisters of 
the Tinnawa men, and conversely the same as at present. 
It is seen by Table No. 1 that the resulting offspring in both 
cases inherit the phratry name of their mother. ‘They are also gen- 
erally distinguished by her fo/em ; thus, if the mother be an iguana, 
her children of both sexes will be iguanas. This rule is not 
universal, however, for I have found tribes possessing a dual divi- 
