Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/272

234 here described and those of, so far as is known, the other black populations of Australia.

The tribe chiefly dealt with, and taken as typical of the rest, is that of the Arunta, divergences by other tribes of the group from the practice and beliefs of the Arunta being noted. The nearest neighbours to the south are the Urabunna, a tribe whose dwelling-place is on the western and northern shores of Lake Eyre. Their social organisation and marriage customs are first described, and serve to compare with those of the tribes which are the more immediate subject of the book. The result of the investigation, alike of the Urabunna and of the Arunta and allied tribes, is to establish the general accuracy of the theory of group-marriage as a mode of social organisation among the Australians, formulated by Messrs. Fison and Howitt and Mr. Morgan, and strongly, even bitterly, opposed by McLennan. It is indeed nothing less than astonishing that Mr. McLennan, who saw so clearly, and expounded so well, the real meaning that underlay various legal and ceremonial fictions, should have been content with the explanation that the terms of relationship employed by the Kurnai and others were merely modes of salutation. The present authors have taken great pains with the table of relationships and genealogical trees, as well as with the sexual customs of the tribes; and the case is abundantly proven. I note, however, a few defects in the tables. In that of the Arunta tribe, the term Unawa (man speaking) should be explicitly stated to include actual wife's sisters, and conversely the same term (woman speaking) should be stated to include actual husband's brothers, blood and tribal in both cases. In that of the Luritcha tribe, the term Sthoarinna is defined to include husband's sisters, blood and tribal, and brother's wife, blood and tribal, according to our mode of computing relationships. It would appear that this is a case of a woman speaking only. To a man his brother's wife would be included under the term Kuri (wife), and should be so stated. In the same table Kapirli is said to include grandmother on the mother's side and grandmother's sisters on the father's side. "Father's" is here a mistake for "mother's," the grandmother's sisters on the father's side being stated just above as included in the term Kammi, which seems correct. In the table of the Kaitish tribe there are some omissions. We may perhaps guess where to locate what in our reckoning are Younger Sister, Wife's