several members of these families again have each a local name, which is understood in the district which they inhabit; but the family names extend from King George's Sound to Carpentaria. "The family names are perpetuated and spread through the country by the operation of two remarkable laws:—
1st. "That children of either sex always take the family name of their mother." (And reference is made to Genesis xx., 12:—"And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.")
2nd. "That a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name."
In this respect—as Grey observes—their custom coincides with that of the North American Indians.
Mr. C. Wilhelmi says that "all the Aborigines in the Port Lincoln district are divided into two separate classes, namely, the Matteri and the Karraru. This division seems to have been introduced since time immemorial, and with a view to regulate their marriages, as no one is allowed to intermarry in his own caste, but only into the other one—that is, if a man is a Matteri, he can choose as his wife a Karraru only, and vice versa. This distinction is kept up by the arrangement that the children belong to the caste of the mother. There are no instances of two Karrarus or two Matteris having been married together, and yet connections of a less virtuous character which take place between members of the same caste do not appear to be considered incestuous. In addition to this general rule, there are certain degrees of relationship within which intermarrying is prohibited; yet, from the indefinite degree of their relationship by blood, arising from the plurality of wives, and their being cast off at pleasure, &c., it becomes very difficult to trace them exactly. Besides this, friendship among the natives leads to the adoption of forms and names strictly in use among relatives only; thus it becomes totally impossible to make out what are real relations or apparently so."
How the knowledge of consanguinity was preserved, under such conditions as those described by Mr. Wilhelmi, is difficult to conjecture. Marriages between members of certain classes were prohibited, but intercourse between males and females belonging to the same class appears to have been regarded without disfavor. If the issue of such connections were preserved, to what class did they belong? They would not—from want of knowledge of their origin—be in all cases destroyed. Unless it is assumed that in later times their laws were relaxed, and that the natives are now living in a state altogether different from that which formerly existed, there is nothing in their ancient rigid rules regarding marriage which would serve to protect them against the evils these rules were enacted to prevent.
Mr. Francis F. Armstrong, the Government Interpreter to the native tribes of West Australia, informs me "that the females are betrothed or promised in marriage when very young in a certain line of families or to a particular person in that line, and generally are not supposed to marry or be taken out of that line: certainly not to have their own choice. The brother of a deceased native has a right to the widow, and may, if he is willing, take her."
