Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/351

 Australian Marriage Customs. 315

marriage has nothing to do with the kandri ceremony, and Dr. Howitt repeats in his reply to me (p. 167) that the kandri ceremony has to do with pirraiirit. But if the betrothal ceremony of the Kuinmurbura, prior to individual marriage, is a parallel to the kandri ceremony, all this is erroneous. I fear Dr. Howitt has not mas- tered his facts.

(6) Dr. Howitt asserts (p. 184) that I omit to mention the dilpa-malli relation. I did not omit it (see p. 301, lines 11-12), though so far there is no evidence that it corresponds exactly to pirrauru. All that is asserted by Dr. Howitt {N.T., p. 193) is that a group of men and women cohabit at certain times. But this is not pirrauru, which involves a ceremony to initiate it. Moreover, Dr. Howitt seems very uncertain as to the reliability of the information : he says, " according to my informant " — a formula which he does not use in speaking of the Dieri, though his information about them too has now turned out to be erroneous on a point of fundamental impor- tance. Not only so, but Dr. Howitt {N.T.S.E.A., p. 97) includes the Kurnandaburi among the Lake Eyre tribes, i.e. the Dieri nation. I may add that before Dr. Howitt argues that dilpa-malli is the equivalent of pirrauru, he should at least tell us what individuals constitute the group, whether all tribal brothers and sisters {i.e. the noa group) or only some of them ; and in the latter case how they are selected. As to the Yantruwunta, I understand Dr. Howitt to class them too with other tribes of the Dieri nation {N.T.S.E.A., pp. 90-92).

I have, so far, barely alluded to the amazing admission with which Dr. Howitt opens his reply to me. Not once, but several times, it is asserted in his Native Tribes that tippa-malku precedes pirrauru. This now goes by the board, though Dr. Howitt does not allow us to judge of the quality of the evidence on which he relies. As the Dieri are stated to have been decadent for more