Kinship. 165 



Clarence, who first called Mr. Ridley's attention to the 

 class names, and kindly took the trouble to correspond with 

 me on the subject,* assured me that all the men of a class 

 considered as their wives all the women of the class 

 appropriated to them in marriage. Thus, for instance, that 

 every Ippai would look upon every Kubbotha in the light 

 of his wife ; and that even if he met a strange Kubbotha, he 

 would claim the privileges of a husband, which claim would 

 be allowed, or at least not violently resented, by her tribe. 

 This is just what we might expect to find in a nation 

 wherein the Ganowanian usao-es had not been altogether 

 done away with by the influence of polygamy. 



He gave me, moreover, another piece of information, 

 which happily led to a very important discovery. " Some- 

 times," he said, " the marriage law was crossed and 

 complicated in a manner which he did not understand." He 

 had met with a couple whose cohabitation seemed to be at 

 variance with the rules already given : an Ippai having an 

 Ippatha to wife ; and on being questioned by him, the 

 woman had said, " What for you stupid 1 This Ippai is not 

 a Blacksnake like other Ippais, but an Emu. That explains 

 it." 



It immediately occurred to me that we had here a clue to 

 a valuable discovery. I suspected the existence of 

 subdivisions in the four classes already mentioned — sub- 

 divisions marked by totems, or animal names, as among the 

 North American Indians. Fortunately, just about this time, 

 a despatch arrived from Lord Kimberley to the Governor of 

 New South Wales, enclosing a letter from Max Miiller, 

 asking that certain philological inquiries should be made 

 among the Aborigines. My friend, Mr. Ridley, was deputed 

 by the Government to make these inquiries, and at my 

 suggestion kindly engaged to search for the subdivisions 

 whose existence I suspected. His success was beyond my 

 hopes. He found that the four classes were subdivided 

 into six others, each of which bore a totem as its dis- 

 tinguishing mark. 



The Ippais and the Kumbos, together with their 

 respective sisters, are subdivided into the Emus, the 

 Blacksnakes, and the Bandicoots. The Murris and the 

 Kubbis, togetlier with their respective sisters, are subdivided 



* I thus mention the names of my informants, because I am unwilling, 

 even in appearance, to claim as my own discoveries the facts which have 

 been made known to me by the kindness of others. 



