100 ON THE ORGANISATION OF AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. 
related group, in which all the men of the same contemporaneous level in a genera- 
tion are regarded as brothers, and the women of it as sisters, and the two groups are 
brothers and sisters. Kurgila marries Obuan, and the children of this marriage take 
the name of the sister-class of Obuan, namely, Wungo and Wungoan. The same rule 
applies mutato mutandis to the other three classes. The above little diagram may be 
conveniently expanded as under, and the small letters, a, a’, b, b’ may be taken for 
the four sub-classes in the order above given :— 
mAa 
{Bb’ 
m B b————f B b 
It now becomes evident that, although the children of Obuan* are Wungo and 
Wungoan, that they count their descent through the mother’s, and not through the 
father’s line; for they are of their mother’s primary class, and of that sub-class which, 
with hers, represent the primary of both. 
There remain now the totem sub-divisions to be considered. The Wakelbura, as 
do a number of other tribes, indeed, probably many more than are thought of, divide 
the whole universe between their two great classes. 
Every natural object, including the blackfellow, is either Malera or Wuthera. 
Moreover, they are again subdivided under the four sub-classes, so that man is, In one 
sense, no more than one item in the great assemblage of totems which range them- 
selves under the classes Malera and Wuthera. Man is so intimately connected with 
_his fellow totems, and they are regarded as having so great a control over him, that 
scarcely an action of his life is beyond their influence. The totem influences him 
waking and sleeping, when alive, and affects him even when dead. Certain animals 
are the especial game of each sub-class. Obu, for instance, claims as his game emu 
and wallaby, and, if he desires to invite his fellow totemites in a neighbouring tribe 
to hunt their common game, he does so by means of amessage-stick made from a 
tree which, like themselves, is of the Obu class. When a man desires to perform 
some magic act he must use for it only objects which are of the same class as himself, 
and when he dies he is laid upon a stage made of the branches and is covered with 
the boughs of some tree which is of his class.+ Among all these natural objects, 
which are of his class, there is some one which is nearer to him than any other. He 
* It is well to bear in mind that ‘‘an” is the female termination. 
+ Among other instances of analogous beliefs, I may refer to the Wotjobaluk of Victoria, who also divided the whole 
universe between their two primary classes. 
