Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/187

IV It is advisable, in order to avoid any misconception, to say in advance of the statements to be made in the chapter on marriage and descent, that there are two forms of marriage in this tribe. One I have termed Tippa-malku marriage, because it follows upon betrothal or exchange of a sister for a wife; the other is the Pirrauru marriage, which follows the former, and is the group-marriage of the Lake Eyre tribes.

It is also well to say that, excepting Tippa-malku, each term represents a group, and not merely an individual. The relationships of the individuals shown in the Table will be best brought out by considering them seriatim, beginning with the brothers and sisters in the first line. It will be observed that in all cases the children are shown as a son and a daughter, who in the two instances 29 and 30 are of different totems, their father No. 2 having had two Tippa-malku wives. In former times, before the tribes had been broken up by our settlement of their country, it was not rare for a man to have more than one wife. In such a case he probably was so fortunate as to have had sisters to exchange, or he had done some notable service; as, for instance, bringing about peace between his tribe and some other, or that some one fearing vengeance on a blood feud from him had pacified him by a present of a wife. In one or two cases a couple had no "own" son or "own" daughter, and a "tribal" son or daughter has been interpolated, there being, from a Dieri point of view, no difference in the relationship.

The men Nos. 1 and 2 were brothers, the former being the Neyi or elder, and the latter Ngatata or younger, who, under the marriage rules of this tribe, had each other's sisters as Tippa-malku wives. Their sisters 3 and 4 were the wives of the men 7 and 8, the brothers of the women 5 and 6, the latter being the Kaku of 5, while 3 was the Ngatata of 4.

The terms Neyi, Kaku, and Ngatata each represent a group of people who are in the fraternal relation to each other. But it does not follow that two persons who are in that relation to each other are both so to a third person. For instance, if a man belonging to another tribe is on a