Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/69

II need not take them into account at the present time. They will be dealt with in the next chapter.

It is this systematic division of the tribe which was called by Dr. Lorimer Fison and myself "the social organisation."

As I have said, the tribe is also divided into a number of lesser groups, say X, Y, Z, etc. (I take these for the sake of convenience, but there may be many more); these divisions of the tribe are local, and therefore differ essentially from the classes or totems, which are groups of the social organisation. In order to prevent confusion between the lesser division of each of these different organisations of the tribe, the term "clan" is used for the subdivision of a tribe which has descent in the male line, and "horde" for that in which there is female descent. The clan and the horde are each therefore a geographical division of a tribe.

Thus the local organisations, X, Y, Z, etc., are made up of individuals belonging to both A and B. The children of the horde belong to the horde, e.g. the children of X males are of X horde and so forth, but since A (male) must marry B (female) with descent in the female line, the son of X is XB. In other words, the son is of the father's horde and tribe, but of the mother's totem and class; of the local division to which the father belongs, but of the mother's social division. In extreme cases, where descent has come to be in the male line, the hordes or clans as well as the social divisions are found to be exogamous; the exogamic law has, seemingly, passed over from the social to the local division, which therefore in such cases regulates marriage. It is as if an English village had determined that its children should marry beyond its bounds, the sons bringing their wives to the village, while the daughters went to the villages whence their brothers took their wives. In illustration of these statements I shall give instances, commencing with the Dieri, which is one of the socially backward standing tribes; going through the tribes in a socially progressive series, until the end is reached, with tribes of which the Kurnai are an example. In this way I hope to