280 SOME REMARKABLE CUSTOMS. 



i 



traveller in East Africa, suggests Christian influence as having 

 operated in this direction. The Beni Amer, north of Abyssinia, 

 follow the rules of Islam, cousins often marrying ; " the Beit 

 Bidel and the Allabje, on the other hand, mindful of their 

 Christian origin, observe blood-relationship to seven degrees.^^ ^ 

 In Madagascar, Ellis says that " certain ranks are not per- 

 mitted under any circumstances to intermarry, and affinity to 

 the sixth generation also forbids intermarriage, yet the prin- 

 cipal restrictions against intermarriages respect descendants 

 on the female side. Collqiteral branches on the male side are 

 permitted in most cases to intermarry, on the observance of a 

 slight but prescribed ceremony, which is supposed to remove 

 the impediment or disqualification arising out of consanguinity.'^^ 

 Among the natives of Australia, prohibitory marriage laws 

 have been found, but they are very far from being uniform, and 

 may sometimes have been misunderstood. Sir George Grey's 

 account is that the Australians, so far as he is acquainted with 

 them, are divided into great clans, and use the clan-name as a 

 sort of surname beside the individual name. Children take the 

 family name of the mother, and a man cannot marry a woman 

 of his own name, so that here it would seem that only relation- 

 ship by the female side is taken into account. One effect of 

 the division of clans in this way, is that the children of the 

 same father by difiorent wives, having different names, may be 

 obliged to take opposite sides in a quarrel.'^ Mr. Eyre's expe- 

 rience in South Australia does not, however, correspond with 

 Sir George Grey's in the West and North- West.* Collins be- 

 lieved the custom to be for a native to steal a wife from a tribe 

 at enmity with his own, and to drag her, stunned with blows, 

 home through the woods ; her relations not avenging the 

 affront, but taking an opportunity of retaliating in kind. It 

 appears from Nind's account, that in some distincts the po- 

 pulation is divided into two clans, and a man of one clan can 

 only marry a woman of another.^ In East Australia, Lang de- 

 scribes a curious and complex system. Through a large ex- 



' Munzinger, p. 319. ' Ellis, 'Madagascar,' vol. i. p. 164. 



3 Grey, ' Journals,' vol. ii. pp. 225-30. * Eyre, vol. ii. p. 330. 



* Collins, vol. i. p. 559. Klemm C. G., vol. i. pp. 288, 319. 



