Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/206

180 are Kami-mara to each other, and therefore not permitted to marry. Were they of the Urabunna, they would, under the rule of that tribe, be Nupa to each other, and marriageable. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the Dieri Kami relation has removed the marriageable groups by one level in the generation. The alteration of Kamari to Kami is merely a reversion to the older rule.

In order to show the Noa rule in practice I refer to the table in Chapter IV., and, as there said, the men 1, 2, 7, 8 on the first line have obtained wives by exchange of their sisters. The several couples 1-5, 2-6, 3-7, and 4-8 were born into the Noa relation with each other, and were specialised by betrothal. The children of the couples 1-5 and 2-6 are in the fraternal relation to each other. So also are those of the couples 3-7 and 4-8. They form two groups who are in the relation of Kami to each other, and those children of these groups who are respectively of a brother on one side and of his sister on the other are Noa-mara to each other.

The rule deducible from diagrams compiled by tracing back marriages and descents in a number of the Dieri families may be stated as follows, and can be traced out in the Table referred to:—

Or

In stating this rule of the Noa relation, I must again point out that Ego is not an individual, but is primarily a group, the individual merely taking the relationship as being one of it.