146 R. H. MATHEWS. 



NOTES ON the ARRANDA TRIBE. 



By R. H. Mathews, l.s., 



Associe etran. Soc. d'Anthrop. de Paris. 



[Bead before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, November 6, 1907.'] 



In the following monograph it is proposed to supply a few 

 notes on the beliefs and sociology of the Arranda tribe, 

 located upon the Upper and Middle Finke River, partly 

 in the Northern Territory and partly in South Australia. 

 The information is either wholly new or is in extension of 

 fragments previously published by others, whose works are 

 quoted. 



If this article and my contribution of the 7th August last 

 be studied together, they will be found to present a con- 

 densed account of the leading elements of the sociology of 

 the Arranda and Chingalee tribes, in both of which descent 

 is counted through the mother, quite irrespective of the 

 father. Matrilineal descent also prevails in all the eight 

 section tribes from the north- western portion of Queens- 

 land, right through a wide zone of the Northern Territory, 

 into the Kimberley District of Western Australia. Tribes 

 with four sections in their social structure, and having 

 matrilineal descent, occupy more than half of the entire 

 area of Western Australia. 



Mr. N. W. Thomas assumes that the tribes of the four- 

 section system in Western Australia have patrilineal 

 descent, 51 but I am at a loss to know upon what grounds he 

 does so. My reports just quoted are conclusive that 

 descent is through the mothers. 



1 Proc. Arner. Philos. Soc, Phila., xxxix., 574-578, with map ; also 

 p. 124. Queensland Geographical Journal, xix., pp. 52, 53 ; lb., xxn., p. 

 78. This Journal, xxxv., p. 220. 



3 "Kinship and Marriage," (London, 1906), p. 40. 



