Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/172

146 who is trying to "catch" him. The same beliefs are held by the other tribes of this nation.

The Buandik, with four other tribes associated with it, have the same organisation as the Wotjobaluk, the class names being merely in a different dialect. A man would not kill or use for food any of the animals of the same subdivision with himself, excepting when compelled by hunger, and then he expresses sorrow for having to eat his Wingong (friend), or Tumung (his flesh). When using the latter word, the Buandik touch their breasts to indicate the close relationship, meaning almost a part of themselves.

One of that tribe killed a crow. Three or four days afterwards a Boortwa (Crow) man died. He had been ailing for some days, but the killing of his Wingong hastened his death.

These statements probably apply equally to the other four tribes.

As I have already pointed out, the Kurnai have the survivals of what were once group totems, that is, certain marsupials, and birds, fish, and reptiles, which are the thundung (elder brothers) of men, and bauung (elder sisters) of women. Under the influence of male descent these names are restricted to certain localities, and not scattered throughout the tribal country. As I have indicated in the chapter on Marriage, a man brings his wife to his own locality; she does not transmit her bauung name to her children, but he transmits his. The names are therefore perpetuated from generation to generation in the same locality, and in this manner have become localised. In the sense, however, that they are now common to the members of certain families in the same tract of country, they are still group totems.

Usually the bramung or younger brother of one of these totems will not injure or kill his thundung, nor willingly see another person do so, but there are exceptions to this; for instance, men of the conger-eel totem at the Snowy River eat it, and I have known a man of the kangaroo totem eat that animal. These cases may be taken as instances of the general breaking down of the totemic system, possibly through similar causes to those which have produced such changes