Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/230

204 rule, but that all the marriages of all the four sub-classes are on the same principle.

The rule of marriage is directly in contradiction to the fundamental exogamous principle of the classes and sub-classes. The rule of descent, however, remains unaltered, since the children of these marriages take the sub-class names and the totems of their mother's children, as by the man who in another tribe would have been her husband.

Although I have not been able to find any instance in other places, the fact remains that this marriage was noted by an experienced observer, such as Mr. Lance, and may be taken as an established fact in that particular locality.

The marriages of the Wonghibon tribe, a table of which will be found a few pages further on, will serve as an example of how such innovations are made to meet what the tribes-people find to be a difficulty.

The Kamilaroi tribes extend over some eight hundred miles north and south, but in the following passages I speak of those more particularly in the south, and of times as far back as seventy years ago.

Mr. C. Naseby says that "wives were not obtained