Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/498

 466 Reviews.

name, the Worgaia, Tjingilli, Umbaia, Bingongina, Walpari, Walmala, and Gnanji tribes, whose customs are in the main similar ; the Binbinga and AUaua, further to the north ; and the Mara and Anula on the western coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The differences between the customs and beliefs of the more northern tribes investigated in the recent expedition and those of the Arunta are numerous and interesting. But before referring to some of these, it is worth while to note that, among the contro- versies aroused by the publication of the former volume, one of the most prominent concerned the former existence of group- marriage. The authors had expressed the opinion that the evi- dence they had obtained supported the theory of group-marriage formulated by Messrs. Fison and Howitt. This opinion was challenged by certain anthropologists at home, and thus the special attention of the authors was directed to a reconsideration of the subject. They now say that they " are, after a further study of these tribes, more than ever convinced that amongst them group-marriage preceded the modified form of individual marriage which is now the rule amongst the majority, though in all of the latter we find customs which can only be satisfactorily explained on the supposition that they are surviving relics of a time when group-marriage was universally in vogue amongst all of the tribes." In this connection emphasis must be laid on the terms of relationship. To quote the authors again : " It is abso- lutely essential in dealing with these people to lay aside all ideas of relationship as counted amongst ourselves, The savage Austra- lian, it may indeed be said with truth, has no idea of relationships as we understand them." This is only what every one who believes in the evolution of civilisation would be prepared to expect. Indi- vidual relationship is, indeed, among these tribes in process of evolution. It is evolving out of group-relationship, the relation- ship of a group to a group, say of mothers to children, of husbands to wives, and so forth. Such a process is consonant to all we know of savage thought and custom. Civilisation has made indi- vidualism seem an essential element of thought as well as of political and social custom. Among savages all over the world it is imperfectly developed, and the dominant solidarity of the group is manifested in a hundred striking ways.

Another of their previous conclusions reaffirmed here by the authors does not seem by any means so well established, namely,