Page:Cyclopedia of Western Australia, volume 1.pdf/75

classes or groups, which are in turn broken up into families. The whole fabric of the social organization and marriage relationships depends on the two phratries of the tribe, which constitute two exogamous intermarrying sections. Where the phratries consist of two groups intermarriage between groups of the same phratry is forbidden, but where there are three or four groups in a phratry it is permitted among certain of them. It will thus be seen that the question of marriage, which is sufficiently intricate in the simplest form of tribal organization, becomes exceedingly complex and difficult to unravel when the classes or groups are more than two in number. Sir George Grey, as the result of his investigations in 1839, enunciated the following axioms:—(a) That a man and his wife could not belong to the same clan; (b) that the children take the clan or family name of the mother. He did not, however, attempt to solve the puzzle of matrimonial relationships beyond that point. The credit of a full solution rests with Messrs. Howitt and Fison, who conducted exhaustive inquiries among some tribes in the Eastern States. Subsequent observers in various parts have confirmed their conclusions as far as the question of marriage is concerned, but have made it apparent that descent may be on the paternal as well as on the maternal side, and that in some cases, as in the north-west tribes, the children belong to a different clan than either parent. These differences, the result of more or less local modifications of the general system, affect the whole system of relationship in succeeding generations. Western Australia seems to be split into two divisions. South of the 30th parallel of latitude descent follows, with some uniformity, the maternal line, while north of that parallel descent is reckoned from the paternal side, but the children are, at the same time, members of a different clan.

Our knowledge of the relationships of the northern tribes is derived almost wholly from the investigations of Sir John Forrest in 1878 and of Mr. A. Brown, of the Cambridge ethnological expedition, who is at present engaged in making inquiries. Both are agreed that the tribes are divided into two phratries of two clans each, making four clans in all, which are named Burong, Banaka, Kaimera, and Paljeri. Sir John contributed in 1891 the result of his observations on the tribes round Nickol Bay to the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, and they may be tabulated as under:—

The terms Burong, etc., signify the clans to which the husband, wife, and child must respectively belong. From this it follows that Burongs and Kaimeras and Banakas and Paljeris of both sexes mix together as fathers and children of one family, though they may never have seen one another before. The same applies to Burongs and Paljeris and Banakas and Kaimeras as mothers and children of one family; but Burongs and Banakas and Kaimeras and Paljeris of opposite sexes are greatly restricted in their intercourse, because marriage is possible between them. Mr. Brown, as the result of his researches into the customs of the Buduna and Buruna tribe, places the clans in different order, which alters the whole series of marriages, though the same conclusion as to the children being of a different clan from their parents is reached. We quote his opinions as published in The West Australian:—

"As a typical example of the tribes I have been studying I may mention the Buduna and Buruna tribe on the Lyndon and Yannarie Rivers. The marriage laws of this tribe are the same as those to be found over a great part of Australia. The tribe is divided into four parts, of which the names are Banaka, Burong, Kaimera, and Paljeri. The marriage laws are that a Banaka man may marry only a Kaimera woman and a Kaimera man may marry only a Banaka woman. The children of a Banaka man and Kaimera woman are Paljeri, and the children of a Kaimera man and his Banaka wife are Burong. This can be illustrated by a diagram:—

"In former times there was a strong feeling of disapproval against any man who broke these laws and took women of the wrong class, sometimes leading to the death of the offender. Nowadays native morality is relaxed wherever the blacks have come much in contact with civilization, and wrong marriages frequently occur and do not meet with so much public disapproval.

"A good deal has been written about the peculiar marriage laws of the Australian native and various theories to explain the origin of the system of four classes have been put forward. My work among the natives of Western Australia has satisfied me of the falsity of a theory that I was formerly inclined to adopt. At the same time it has enabled me to form a more satisfactory theory for myself. Briefly, that theory is that the marriage laws of the Australian tribes, with the peculiar system of four intermarrying classes I have just described, are due to an extension of family ties to include the whole tribe. An Australian native uses the word 'father' to denote not only his own father, but his father's brothers and a number of other men, some of whom may not be related to him at all. In the same way he uses the one word 'mother' to denote any woman who is the wife of any of the men he calls father.