122 R. H. MATHEWS. 



Wales and the 19th parallel of south latitude which repre- 

 sents more than half of Queensland, which I delineated on 

 a map. in that article I stated that a man of the Barrang 

 section could marry a Barrang woman, a fact which dis- 

 proves the existence of exogamy in that part of Queensland. 

 In treating the tribes of Cape York Peninsula in 1900 I 

 gave examples of a man marrying into both phratries. 1 Since 

 that time in dealing with the sociology of the Murawarri, 

 Baddyeri and Inchalanchee tribes, reaching from the New 

 South Wales boundary to the Gulf of Carpentaria, I reported 

 some intermarrying laws which are altogether opposed to 

 exogamy. 



All the particulars contained in this treatise respecting 

 the Wongaibon and Barkuojee tribes have been collected 

 by myself from the natives personally. My information 

 regarding the Wombaia tribe has been obtained with the 

 aid of trustworthy correspondents who have resided in that 

 part of the country for many years. I have adopted none 

 of the opinions nor followed any of the methods of other 

 Australian authors, but have struck out on my own lines. 

 The present article is necessarily very brief, but it is 

 believed that it will shed much new light on the social 

 organisation of the aboriginal tribes of Central Australia, 

 New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, and enable 

 investigators to make a fresh start. 



Spencer and Gillen, 2 have given a table of the eight 

 divisions of the Umbaia (Wombaia) tribe, which cannot 

 possibly represent any practical partition of the sections 

 into cycles, phratries, or moieties. They erroneously state 

 that descent of the sections is through the men, and they 

 are altogether mistaken in asserting that the community 

 is divided into " two exogamous groups." 



1 This Journal, xxxiv., p. 132. 



2 " Northern Tribes of Central Australia," (London, 1904), pp. 70 and 

 100. 



