2 Balchuln Spencer : 



though he seems rather to have confused the words " shade '* of 

 blood, and *' shadow " or " shade " cast by a tree. Mr. R. H. 

 Mathew's account is very vague, and somewhat difficult to 

 understand, as it seems to refer to some form of organisation 

 tunning, as it were, across the ordinary, normal organisation, 

 ]t must also be remembered that he was dealing with very de- 

 cadent tribes, who had, for nearly half a century, been in contact 

 wath white men, and whose numbers also were so depleted that, of 

 necessity, old marriage customs had become profoundly modified, 

 whilst more important still the beliefs of then- forefathers were 

 to them, for the most 'part, only a matter cf past history in which 

 they took practically no interest. 



Recently Mrs. Larigloh Parker"^ stated that the moiety names 

 of the Euahlayi tribe in . New South Wales indicated " light 

 blooded " and " dark blooded " respectively. Mrs. Bates^ in 

 regard to S.W. Australia states that two of the sub-class, but 

 not class or moiety, have in adclition to their ordinary ones of 

 Tondaroop and Ballarook, names indicating fair- or dark-skinned 

 people, though it must be remembered that the earlier investi- 

 gators gave these names, respectively, as fish-hawk and opossum. 

 Mrs. Bates also says that " the two class system, similar to that 

 of the Dieri, but with different names, obtains in the south-west 

 of Western Australia, and also bears on colours — white cockatoo 

 and crow, light and dark purple. . . . Somewhere south-east 

 of Coolgardie the four class system dies out and, as the natives 

 of the south-east say, * marriages and relations go by faces (pro- 

 bably light and dark colour).'" 



The Rev. J. Mathew^ states that the well-known moiety names 

 in the Kamilroi tribe, Dilbi and Kupathin, indicate light and 

 dark blood and complexions, and that Kilpara and Mukwara, 

 two equally well-known moiety names, mean, not eagle-hawk 

 and crow, as he had previously told us when writing in support 

 of his bird-conflict theory, but really straight and curly hair. 

 He also states that in the Kabi and Wakka tribes, *' the four 

 gradations of colour correspond to the four classes." 



One cannot help wondering whether these kaleidoscopic 

 changes and variations in the meaning of names of which, at 



4. Parker, Mrs. Langloh. " The Euahlayi Tribe," 1905, p. 215. 



5. Bates, Mrs. Daisy. " Social Organisation of Some West Australian 

 Tribes," Report A.A.A.S., Melbourne, 1913. 



6. Mathew, Rev. J. "Two Queensland Tribes," 1905, pp. 32, 35. 142. 

 Journal Anth. Inst. Great Britain, Vol. xl., 3 910, pp. 35 and 1G6. '* Eagle- 

 iiawk and Crow," 1899. 



