Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/183

CH. IV He seems to consider that the terms of relationship which he has been taught to use are, or ought to be, of universal application among mankind.

When such a man is brought first into contact with a race of savages who use the classificatory system, he feels in most cases surprise, mingled with pity, and even with contempt, for those poor creatures who are so low in intellect as to think it possible for any one to have several fathers and mothers, and a vast number of brothers and sisters.

In order to grasp the true nature and bearing of the classificatory system of relationships, it is necessary not only to free oneself from misconceptions, as to the universal use of our own system, but also to have such an acquaintance with the nature of a savage as to be able to put oneself mentally into his place, think with his thoughts, and reason with his mind; unless this be done, the classificatory system will be a delusion and a snare.

It is upon the division of the whole community into two exogamous intermarrying classes that the whole social structure is built up; and the various relationships which are brought about by those marriages are defined and described by the classificatory system.

In order to bring out the real nature of the relations which it defines, it is necessary to clear the ground by some preliminary remarks. As I have said before, the social unit is not the individual, but the group; and the former merely takes the relationships of his group, which arc of group to group. The relationship terms differ very much in their meaning from those we use, and moreover the natives distinguish between some which we confuse under one collective term, and those native terms are distinguished from each other, by the persons whom they represent, being respectively in one or the other of the two moieties of the tribe. For instance, our term "uncle" includes "father's brother" and "mother's brother." In the classificatory system the father and the father's brother are of the same class name, while the mother and her brother are in the other, and the same thing occurs with all other collective terms we use. Our collective terms have been the cause of much