Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/213

Rh husband of a certain woman are also included in the term ngaperi has another explanation to that given by Mr. Thomas. I have dealt with those who are actually husbands, but there remain those who are nominally so. According to my view, as I have already said, that the noa relationship is a restriction upon a former wider range of license, the kandri ceremony is a restriction of the range of license, within the noa group, and creates the pirrauru group. This leaves a residuum of men and women, who at a former period would have exercised a sexual license now denied to them. But the term which denoted the group-fatherhood of the men still survives, with no more actual foundation than there is in the term breppa-mungan of the Kurnai, when applied to the brothers, own and tribal, of the mungan, that is the individual husband, who is the bra.

Mr. Thomas then continues his criticism. I have carefully read and endeavoured to arrive at the actual meaning of his further remarks. They amount, so far as I understand them, to a charge against me of "making two cases parallel, though in one of them the terms refer to the status within the family, both ngaperi being possible fathers, whereas in the other case the difference in terminology means that the mungan is the husband of the child's mother, while the breppa-mungan is merely a man of the tribal status who has no marital rights over the mother.

Mr. Thomas then says: "Thus Dr. Howitt has been guilty of a grave confusion in his statement of the case against Mr. Lang's view."

What I really did say is, I think, a complete reply to Mr. Thomas's charge. I quote from page 184 of my paper:

"Had he (i.e. Tulaba) been a Dieri, the actual tippa-malku husband of his mother would be his ngaperi, but her pirrauru husband would be his ngaperi-waka or "little father."