Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/70

44 be able not only to show the actual advances made in the local and social organisations, but also the character of those important changes.

In order to make clear the definition of the terms I use, the following is given:—

(1) Nation is used to signify a group of tribes.

(2) Tribe is used in the sense given at p. 41.

(3) Horde, the primary geographical division of a tribe having female descent, for instance, the Ngadi-ngani below.

(4) Clan, the primary geographical division of a tribe with descent in the male line, for instance, the Krauatun-galung.

The alliance of the tribes forming the nation comes into view on the occasion of one of the great ceremonies being held; all the tribes which form the nation may attend the ceremonies and take part in them, a bond which holds the hordes or clans of a tribe together.

The Dieri tribe inhabits part of the Barcoo delta on the east and south-east of Lake Eyre, in Central Australia. It is one of a number of tribes which have the same organisation, with allied languages and ceremonies, customs and beliefs. These tribes, though submitting to the white man's supremacy, live their own lives in a great measure, and follow the ancestral customs as far as possible under changed conditions. What I have to say of them will describe what they were forty years ago, when I knew them in their savage state, and before their country was occupied by the white man for pastoral purposes.

The local division of the Dieri tribe into hordes is the following, and will serve as an example of that and other tribes surrounding Lake Eyre.

(1) The Ngadi-ngani or Bukatyiri inhabited the country around Lake Perigundi. The Ngadi-ngani connect the Dieri with the Yaurorka tribe, and the name Ngadi-ngani