MARRIAGE AND DESCENT AMONG AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES. 133 



The sons and daughters of certain women are betrothed in 

 infancy to the daughters and sons of other women — these betrothals 

 being of course in accordance with the laws illustrated in Table 

 No. 6. For the purpose of providing against contingencies, two 

 or three girls are usually betrothed to the same boy ; or more boys 

 than one may be allotted to the same girl. Meeoogoo is a mutual 

 term of relationship between the mother of the girl and the mother 

 of the boy. 



The totems, called by the natives eedeete, belonging to each 

 phatry are common to the two sections of which it is composed ; 

 thus, the totems attached to Jamakunda are common to the 

 sections Lankenamee and Namegooree ; and the Kamanutta 

 totems are common to the Packwickee and Pamarang sections. 

 The following are some of the totems attached to the phratry 

 Jamakunda : — black snake, shark, emu, native dog, bush rat, rock, 

 stone, ironbark tree, wattle tree, north wind, black cloud, yams, 

 native cat, kangaroo-grass, carpet snake, kangaroo, crow, common 

 hawk, dove, white fish, silver fish, bronze pigeon, sea, fresh water, 

 a dead man, grasshopper, green ants, bloodwood tree, fire, and 

 wind. Among the totems of the Kamanutta phratry may be 

 enumerated the tea-tree, sun, moon, iguana, plain turkey, opossum, 

 pelican, common grass, bee, fly, frog, black duck, lizard, bark of a 

 tree, gum, thunder, water-lily, sea-shell, turtle, butterfly, ibis, crab 

 and beetle. 



The children take the phratry and totem name of the mother; 

 they do not, however, belong to her section, but take the name of 

 the other section in their mother's phratry, as exemplified in 

 Table No. 6. 



When the boys are about twelve years of age, they are taken 

 from the control of their mothers by the chief men, and are passed 

 through a course of initiatory formalities, analogous in their main 

 features to those practised by the Kamilaroi, 1 Dippil, 2 and Koom- 



1 Proc. Roy. Soc, Victoria, Vol. ix., N.S., pp. 137-173. 



2 American Anthropoligist, Vol. n., N.S., pp. 139-144. 



