ABORIGINAL TRIBES OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND VICTORIA. 217 



Early in the year 1898, 1 I reported the eight sections of 

 the Wom-by'-a tribe, in the Northern Territory, with their 

 laws of marriage and succession. Again, in 1900, in deal- 

 ing with the same eight sections, I stated that " a man 

 marries the daughter of his father's father's sister's son, or 

 the daughter of his mother's mother's brother's daughter." 2 

 The direct, alternative and rare laws of marriage prevalent 

 in tiie Wombya and kindred tribes, were shown to follow 

 the same rules as in the Kamilaroi and Parnkalla com- 

 munities. On that occasion (1900), I also stated : "owing 

 to the different methods of subdividing the tribes, the 

 details of the rules regulating intermarriage and descent, 

 are somewhat varied in each system, but the fundamental 

 principles are the same in them all." 3 



Childbirth. 

 While obtaining the particulars given under this heading, 

 I was assisted by the wife of a station manager in the 

 north-western districts of New South Wales. This lady 

 had been a trained nurse and had witnessed several cases 

 of accouchement among the black women on the station 

 where she resided. 



When a woman approaches the period of labour, she is 

 taken charge of by one or two old female relatives, but 

 not by her own mother, and is conducted to the locality 

 which has been assigned as the place where that particular 

 woman must give birth to her offspring. Certain spots are 

 fixed by the elders for women to repair to in such cases, 

 and when the expected event draws near, the woman's 

 tribe proceeds to the neighbourhood of that place and 



1 " Divisions of Australian Tribes," Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. Phila- 

 delphia, Vol. xxxvu., pp. 151 - 154. 



2 " Marriage and Descent among the Australian Aborigines," Journ. 

 Eoy. Soc. N. S. Wales, Vol. xxxiv., p. 126. See also my " Ethnological 

 Notes on the Aboriginal Tribes of the Northern Territory," Queensland 

 Geographical Journal, (1901) Vol. xvi., pp, 69-90. 



* Op. cit., p. 121. 



