Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/256

230 This shows that while there is male descent in the classes and sub-classes, it is in the female line in the totems, with the peculiarity that while the child takes the same beast or bird as its mother, it is of a different colour or gender. Another peculiarity is that the same totem appears to belong to Bulkoin and Baring, that is to both classes. This suggests an inaccuracy, which I was not able to check.

I could not ascertain whether the Kaiabara marriage law was of the Urabunna or the Dieri type, but did so as to that of the Muruburra tribe living at the White Cliffs at Great Sandy Island. There the proper wife of a man is the daughter of his mother's brother. The following instance shows how this is, the man in question being Therwain-wurumi (fire), his wife being Balgoingun, and his son being Baring. His wife was given to him by her father. Bunda, who was the brother of Bundagun, the mother of Therwain-wurumi, thus:—

This diagram may be compared with those given of the Urabunna and Dieri rules.

It was the old men in the Kaiabara who instructed the children in the marriage laws, about the boundaries of their country, and what they might eat. The boys stood in one row and the girls in another, and an old man would walk between them and ask the boys which of the girls they would choose for a wife. If they selected one of the forbidden class, they were abused; but if of the right one, they were praised.

The Kaiabara had an ingenious method of recording the four sub-classes and their marriages in a diagrammatic form on a piece of wood, about four inches in length, as figured on next page, the markings being made in such a manner as to represent a man with his arms crossed.

The family represented in the upper quadrant is called Avang, or mother, the right-hand quadrant is Yerome, or