Kinship. 177 



of one tribe are reproduced in another, which is separated 

 from it by half the circumference of the globe. 



Take for instance the following peculiarity of that South 

 Australian tribe, the Narrinyeri. Grandparent and grand- 

 child address one another by the usual terms ; but great 

 grandfather and great grandchild call one another "brother." 

 The great grandfather calls his great grandson " my younger 

 brother" and the great grandchild calls his great grandfather 

 " my elder brother." So also the great grandmother is called 

 the elder sister of her great grandchild. If we were to find 

 this strange peculiarity in, say, an Asiatic tribe, we should 

 at once suspect that tribe to have been connected with 

 the Narrinyeri at some time or other. We could not 

 suppose that each tribe had invented the anomaly 

 independently of the other. Now, I have not discovered 

 this peculiarity in any other tribe than the Narrinyeri, 

 and I state it here because I wish to call attention 

 to it, in the hope of thereby leading to further discovery ; 

 but we have found peculiarities to the full as strange as this 

 among nations equally remote. Thus in the Tamil system, 

 I call my father's elder brother, Periya taJ^appan, my great 

 father ; but my father's younger brother, I call Seriya 

 takappan, my little father. The Fijian system repeats this 

 peculiarity to the letter, calling my father's elder brother 

 " Tamanggu levu," my great father ; and my father's younger 

 brother, "Tamanggu lailai," my little father.* Again, in the 

 Tongan system, I call the son of my father's brother " my 

 elder brother," or " my younger brother," irrespectively of 

 our ages, but accordingly as his father is younger or older 

 than mine : that is, I call the son of my father's elder 

 brother " m}^ elder brother," even though he be my junior; 

 I call the son of my father's younger brother " my younger 

 brother," even though he be my senior. And this very 

 peculiarity 1 have found reproduced in the Narrinyeri 

 system.f 



Taking, then, into consideration that we find the numerous 

 independent characteristics of the system among the mul- 

 titudinous tribes which have already been reached by our 



* So also does the Japanese. Moreover, the Eev. Mr. Homan, pastor of 

 the Lutheran Church, Adelaide, informs me that these terms are reproduced 

 in the system of the Diri, a Cooper's Creek tribe. 



t A. W. Howitt, Esq., of Bairnsdale, Gipps Land, to whom I am indebted 

 for an extremely valuable communication, informs me that this peculiarity 

 is found among the tribes in his neighbourhood. 



N 



