104 R. H. MATHEWS. 



SOCIOLOGY OF SOME AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. 



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



Oorres. Memb. Anthrop. Soc. Washington, etc. 



[Read before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, December 6, 1905. ,] 



Introductory. 

 $n 1894, when writing of the marriage systems of certain 

 Australian tribes, I said : "Among the social institutions 

 of a primitive people there is none of greater interest and 

 value to the anthropologist than the study of these social 

 systems." 1 At different times since then I have published 

 a number of articles on the social and other customs of 

 aboriginal tribes in all parts of Australia, but there still 

 remains much unbroken ground in this branch of science. 



Last year I reported for the first time certain subdivisions 

 among the Ngeumba and Kamilaroi tribes, 2 which had quite 

 escaped the observation of all previous writers. I now 

 report for the first time the entire absence of exogamy 

 among the Wongaibon, Kamilaroi, Ngeumba, Wirraidyuri, 

 Barkunjee and other tribes in New South Wales and Vic- 

 toria. I shall also endeavour to briefly explain the regula- 

 tions regarding marriage among some tribes in Central 

 Australia. A perusal of these pages will, it is thought, 

 show the fallacy of the hitherto accepted belief in exogamy 

 among Australian tribes and abrogate all the old-school 

 notions respecting their sociology generally. 



In any of my previous articles, whether published in this 

 Journal or elsewhere, in which it may be stated that an 

 aboriginal community comprises 'two exogamous divisions,' 



1 Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc, (Queensland) x., p. 18. 

 3 This Journal, xxxviii., pp. 209 and 214. 



