Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/193

IV prevented an otherwise advisable match. Two such instances are worth quoting as showing the manner in which these people overcome such difficulties.

There were two men who, in the usual manner, married each other's sisters. Each had a daughter, and among the grandchildren there was a son on one side and a daughter on the other. This is a typical case in which the grand-children are Noa to each other. It was proposed that they should marry, but there was a far-distant Murdu relationship traceable between them, which made them brother and sister. Thus the Noa and the fraternal relations were in conflict.

The kindred on both sides, that is the two mothers, their brothers and those of the girl, decided however that, as the Murdu relation was a far-distant one, it was not so strong as the Nadada-noa one, and the two were married.

This "far-distant" case means, as I see it, that in the past, and possibly in one of the far-distant intermarrying tribes, some man, as is sometimes the custom, gave his Murdu to his son, who then was of two Murdus, that of his mother by inheritance, and that of his father by gift from him. He might therefore be of the same Murdu as the girl, which would make him her tribal brother. Unfortunately I did not follow out this line of inquiry, and have not had an opportunity since of doing so.

In the other case the fundamental facts were much the same. Two brothers married two sisters, and one had a son and the other a daughter. These being the children of two brothers, were brother and sister. Each of them married, and one had a son and the other a daughter, who were Kami-mara.

Under the Dieri rules these two could not lawfully marry; but since there was no girl or woman Noa to the young man and available, he could not get a wife.

The respective kindreds, however, got over the difficulty by altering the relationships of the two mothers from Kamari (brother's wife) to Kami by which change the two young people came into the Noa relationship. This