Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/247

V known to me is the Wakelbura, whose class-names, sub-classes, and totems I have given.

The rules of marriage and descent in this tribe have a peculiar feature in the totem of the child being different both to that of its father and its mother. Unfortunately Mr. J. C. Muirhead was unable to give me a reason for it, and the tribe is now extinct.

The following table was compiled from data furnished by the marriages and descents in four generations in one case, five in another, and two in a third. The two class names are omitted.

This list is evidently incomplete as to the totems, and apparently incorrect in giving emu as a totem of both the Banbe and Obu sub-classes; but it shows in all instances that the child was of another totem than that of either of its parents. The only instances of a similar kind known to me are those of the Arunta and other Central Australian tribes made known by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. There is no possibility now of ascertaining what the belief of the Wakelbura was as to the re-incarnation of the ancestor.

I have again to point out that although it is said that a certain totem belongs to a certain sub-class, in fact it belongs to both of the pair, but alternates in succeeding generations from one to the other.

A wife was not obtained in this tribe in any other way than by betrothal, excepting the rarer cases of elopement and capture.