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All the actions of the native are regulated on the basis of this organization. A man owes certain duties to the man he calls 'father' and others of a different nature to those men he calls 'uncle' (mother's brother). The whole tribe may thus be regarded as a huge family, so that if we choose a single individual all the men of the tribe are either his grandfathers, fathers, maternal uncles, brothers, cousins (maternal uncle's sons), sons, nephews (sister's sons), or grandchildren. The women are, of course, similarly divided. As for all social purposes, a man's own sister is not distinguished from the other women he calls sisters, and as he may not marry his own sister, the native laws prohibit him from marrying any of his tribal 'sisters.' The same applies to his mothers and daughters and aunts and nieces. His choice of a wife is restricted to his tribal cousins (maternal uncle's daughters).

"This form of social organization, based on an extension of the ties of kinship to include the whole tribe, is found all over Australia. In some parts, as among the tribes I have been studying, it has been systematized by means of the four class-names. Thus if a man is Banaka his brothers and sisters are also Banaka, his fathers and his sons are Paljeri, his mother's maternal uncles and his sister's children are Burong, and his cousins (the children of his maternal uncle) are Kaimera. The law that he may marry only a tribal cousin is, therefore, expressed in another way by saying that a Banaka man may marry only a Kaimera woman. Exactly the same form of social organization however, may exist, and does exist in Western Australia without the four class-names.

We are not so much concerned here with the class-names as with the general principle upon which the marriage system is based. That, we find, is the same in both cases, and brings the children into the father's section of the tribe, though not into his particular clan. From the 30th parallel south to King George Sound, and probably as far east as Eyre, the descent of the children is on the maternal side. Mrs. Bates, who has spent some years investigating these tribes, divides the tribe into two phratries—Wordungmat and Manytchmat, and then further subdivides the Wordungmat into Ballaruks and Nagarnooks and the Manytchmat into Tondarups and Didarruks. The marriage relations are set out in the following table, from which it will be seen that the choice is not quite so restricted, and, further, that children belong to the same clan as the mother:—

It is scarcely our province in this work to discuss the various modifications and divergences that have developed in different districts. The examples given are broad types of the two classes of marriage relationships, between which the whole social organization of the Australian aborigines is divided. On the north of the 30th parallel the one form holds, as a general rule, and on the south of it the other. The main effect is that in the former case the child follows the paternal and in the latter the maternal line, with the consequent necessary effect upon inheritance.

The tribe, from the point of view of the individual native, is thus divided into two divisions—those whom he can marry and those whom he regards as relations, with whom marriage is prohibited. Among the southern tribes of the State the former are Nooyung and the latter are Ngunning. Curiously enough, this idea prevails in tribal matters generally, and to an individual member any particular object or thing is either Nooyung or Ngunning. For example, as Mrs. Bates points out, the red-gum is a male and belongs to the Manytchmat, while the white-gum is a female and of the Wordungmat division. Therefore to a Tondarup the former would be Ngunning and the latter Nooyung.

As regards marriage itself, the female children are almost invariably assigned at birth or soon after to some particular man, who is usually one of the seniors. These men, therefore, have generally a plurality of wives, and the system results in a disparity between the marriageable males and females, while it has the effect of depriving the young men of wives until in turn they become seniors. The result of this, as one may easily see, is that seduction is a common crime, and is indirectly the cause of many of the tribal disturbances. A further cause of trouble is the custom by which, after a man's death, his wives are passed on to his brother.

The marriage ceremony itself is simple in the extreme, and consists merely in the fact that the man takes the woman to his hut. After that she becomes his property, to sell, exchange, or mortgage as the fancy takes him.

To the phratries and clan divisions of the tribe there is added another series of classes due to the totems. These are the totem kins—a different subdivision altogether of the tribe—which are so closely interwoven in the social fabric that they demand some attention. Marriage relationships are not dependent on the totems, but, on the other hand, whatever religious sense the tribe may possess may be referred to them. Taking the whole tribe as one family, the totem kins represent the various branches of that family, a totem kin consisting of those individuals who all have the same totem. A totem is some kind of animal, bird, fish, or plant, or even some natural phenomenon as rain, sun, and so on, between which and the person whose totem it is there is deemed to be some peculiar religious or magical