Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/211

Rh terms which denote the relations of pirrauru still survive in the tribes which have now individual marriage.

Mr. Thomas concludes the passage, which I have now considered, as follows: "If the 'Kandri ceremony' occurs elsewhere, it is unfortunate that Dr. Howitt has not discovered it"

The Kandri ceremony announces the "betrothal," as I call it, of a male and a female noa, no more and no less. If Mr. Thomas will refer to page 219 of my Native Tribes, he will find just such a ceremony described in the Kuinmurbura coast-tribe of Queensland. In this tribe the relation of durki is the equivalent of noa. As betrothal is universal in the tribes of South-east Australia, other instances of such ceremonies can be found.

In speaking of the aboriginal terms at page 184 of my communication to Folk-Lore, I use the expression "the universal conditions of the Australian tribes." This, as I perceive, from the acute criticism by Mr. Thomas (p. 302), should have had the restriction "excepting the Arunta" to follow the words "Australian tribes." This correction will cover some of the following criticism:

"If Dr. Howitt asserts physiological fatherhood to be the underlying idea, does he assert the same of the term which includes 'mother' in our sense?" (p. 302).

I say "yes," as to the "own" mother. The application of the term to the "mother's sister" is explained by the pirrauru case, where, as I have pointed out, she stands in the position of "mother," because she is the wife of the child's father. This seems to me to be analogous to the application by us of the term step-mother, to a man's second wife. No Australian savage ever for a moment thinks, or says, as Mr. Lang puts it, that such a "woman, whom he calls mother, would … have collaborated in giving birth to him."