Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/349

 Australian Marriage Customs. 313

not mean father, for them. Probably he does not perceive the full importance of his admission ; for it is fatal to his argument from marital terms of all sorts.

It is improbable that the Arunta term had an origin entirely different from that of all the others enumerated by Dr. Howitt ; we may therefore take it that either the Arunta have forgotten that the term means father, or the other tribes have learnt that it means father while the Arunta have still to gain the knowledge. Now the latter case is clearly fatal to Dr. Howitt's contention ; in the former case it remains for him to show that the term translated father was not extended by the other tribes to mean persons other than the progenitor, during a period of nescience similar to that which Dr. Howitt now admits for the Arunta.

Either way, therefore, Arunta nescience is a fatal stumbling block to Dr. Howitt.

(4) I now come to the question of the Kurnai terms maian and bra. Dr. Howitt, for the first time, says that these terms are only post-matrimonial. It is unfor- tunate that he has not told us so before ; at most he has {N.T., p. 169) said that they include husband, wife, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, whereas he translates noa by potential husband or wife. This is at best a very dim revelation. But as Dr. Howitt {F. xvii. 177) omits the " potential " in speaking of the Dieri, even this means of getting at the facts was denied me. I never denied that the inaian-bra group included the husband and wife. If Dr. Howitt had told us the real facts I should have modified my sentence (xvii. 297) to read: "They do not imply sexual relations between the parties who apply these terms to each other, save in the case of the individual husband and wife." It is clear that this in no way modifies my point that maian-bra does not correspond to pirraiiru, which does imply sexual relations between others besides the individual husband and wife.

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