Tho classes arc most commonly designated hy names of animals, 



here, viz., the mode of naniini,' aommuiiiLics, tlu; iu)m.'nr];itui-(> of 



In New South Wales and (^iieenslaiid especially, lait not ex- 

 clusively there, a community derives its own name and the name 

 of its language from one of its verbal negati\'es. Unless a iiiore 

 reasonable ground for this style of designation can be adduced tlie 

 writer would be disposed to account for its origin in the frequent 

 repetition of ' no, no,' by persons when addressed in a dialect 

 to them. It very frequently 



ot miming to a conmiunity having one speech to be ;i.l.le to gi\e a 

 rational account of the origin of naming tribes from their negati\es. 

 This certainly involves the conclusion tli;it others attacii our name 



indi\iduals. One tril).\ the i'il<i;ml)ul on the Duniaresque River, 

 ^^iS Wales, is named tioiii it.s a1iiriuativ(!, the reason for the 

 iiuposiiiou of a name from a negative will suffice to explain the 



some word. Other tribes again are named after some animal such 

 as the eaglehawk e.y., the Aleebin tribe near Point Danger. 



There must have been a time when all the Australian tribal 

 names could have been count(;d on the lingers of one hand. What 

 ^-as their significance in that primeval day^? It is liardly proba])le 

 that they were derived from negative adverbs. It is more likely 

 that they were names of animals as appealing vividly to the 

 imagination, the echoes of which we still hear in the eaglehawk 

 and the crow of the south-east of the continent. There may have 

 been cotemporaneous with the animal names, traditional racial 

 names such as Koolin with its variants in Victoria, and Murri in 

 New South Wales, if indeed these be not themselves animal names 

 likewise. If the original tribal names were names of animals, and 

 if the gentes are monuments of distinct ancient races the gentile 

 names are at once accounted for. There must have been to the 

 savage mind a valid reason for the adoption of such names: 

 perhaps a fancied resemblance between particular families and 

 certain animals, perhaps an attempt to explain human origin on a 

 ^development theory, at all events the principle of nomenclature 

 once adopted, its application could be indefinitely extended, as it 

 evidently was. From the vestiges of this system of designation it 



