132 ON THE ORGANISATION OF AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. 
and individually in the fraternal relation to each other. So far as 5, 6,7 are concerned, 
it is quite true, as might be objected, that there cannot be any doubt as to which of 
the women is the mother of any particular child. Yet each woman, other than the 
actual mother, stands in the marital relation to the croup-father of the child, and thus 
stands in the relation of group-mother to it. It may be likened, in some degree, to a 
case with us where a man has two wives successively. The child of the first wife will 
have no doubt as to its own mother, but the second wife stands in the maternal 
relation to it. When strictly defined, the relation in which she is is that of ‘“ step- 
mother;’’ with these tribes, ¢.g., the Dieri, she would be defined as ‘‘andri waka,” or 
‘« little mother.”’ 
When, however, we come to consider the relations of the groups 1, 2,3 and 5, 6,7 
to 4 or to 8, it will be found that an entirely different relation exists ; 4 is the sister, 
own or tribal, of the group 1, 2, 3, and cannot be possibly in the marital relation to 
it. Hence it cannot be in the maternal relations to 9, 10, 11. This relation, 
therefore, necessarily receives some other term equivalent to “father’s sister.”* This 
relation is clearly quite different to ‘‘ mother’s sister,’ for the diagram shows that 
5, 6, 7 being sisters, own or tribal, to each other, are indeed mothers to 9,10, 11. 
These two relations, which we confuse together in our collective term ‘“‘ aunt,” are 
clearly distinguished by the aborigines. The same line of argument will show that 
8 being the brother of 5, 6, 7, is not possibly in the paternal relation to 9, 10, 11, but 
is the ‘‘ mother’s brother,’ and as such received a special designation. In our 
collective term ‘‘ uncle” we jom ‘‘mother’s brother” to ‘father’s brother,” who, 
under group marriage, is necessarily ‘“‘ father’ to his brother’s children. 
5) 5) 
No. 4 being the sister of the group husbands 1, 2, 3, and 8 being the brother of 
the group wives 5, 6, 7, are both units in similar marital groups, and are (regarded 
from the tribal point of view) potential, if not actual, husband and wife. The child 
12 has for its parents the groups 4 and 8. It cannot be in the filial relation to 
1, 2, 3 or 5, 6, 7, and hence cannot be fraternal to 9, 10, il. 
Here we come to a further consideration of those relations which we confuse in 
our collective term “ cousin,’ which itself includes paternal cousins and maternal 
cousins. With us 9 would be ‘“‘cousin”’ to 10, 11, 12. But under group marriage as 
it exists here, based upon the segmentation of the community into A and B, 9 is the 
brother or sister of 10 and 11; 12 would be the brother or sister of 13 and 14 were 
they added to this diagram, but cannot be the brother or sister of 9,10, 11. This 
other different relation also finds a distinctive term in group relationship. 
* It is well to entirely abandon the use of such terms as our “‘ uncle,” “‘ aunt,” &¢., which are terribly misleading in 
these investigations. 
