Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/205

V the body on their heads at the grave, and in these cases it is not required that a sister shall be given in exchange for her.

In all these cases the husband and wife must be Noa to each other, but this does not mean that a man has been born Noa to any particular woman. He is one of a group which is Noa to a group of females in the other moiety of the tribe.

By the practice of betrothal two Noa individuals of opposite sexes become, if I may use the term, specialised to each other as Tippa-malku for the time being, to the exclusion of any other man in that relation. In other words, no woman can be Tippa-malku to two or more men at the same time. It seems to me that out of this system of specialisation the individual marriage of some tribes has been developed. The germ of individual marriage may be seen in the Dieri practice; for, as I shall show later on, a woman becomes a Tippa-malku wife before she becomes a Pirrauru or group-wife. But at the same time it must be remembered that every woman is potentially a group-wife, and unless she dies after she becomes a Tippa-malku wife, she becomes actually a group-wife. The woman is one of a group, over whom in advance a man is given special rights by being made Tippa-malku to her, but at the same time with the fullest knowledge that she is not to be his individual wife as we understand the term. These explanations are necessary to guard against misconception from using the words "individual wife."

In those cases in which the kindred altered the relations of the parties, the man and the woman were necessarily of the opposite class and might have lawfully married were they of the Noa groups. A diagram will show how this works.

1, 2, and 3 are mother, daughter, and grandson. Nos. 1 and 4 are Kamari, which is brother's wife. Their children