would impair tradition. Yet in Gipps' Land none could
marry a person of his own totem.[1]
Differing in detail, the marriage laws of Australia are one in principle, and barred promiscuous intercourse or incest. Implicitly obeyed, and much too intricate to have been devised by a race defective in mental gifts, they either prove its capacity for legislation, or else that it imported its ceremonial law as other wanderers or conquerors have carried theirs within the range of authentic history.
To imagine that the Kurnai tribe invented a complicated system in order to relieve themselves from a difficulty in which it is gratuitously supposed that they were placed, is to invent a problem for the sake of a theory. No evidence is discoverable to warrant the setting aside the account given by the natives themselves. Their law was handed down from their forefathers, treasured unchanged, obeyed by all without demur, and no instance was known in which passion stirred a member of a tribe to defy the law by
- ↑ The names of the classes or totems in Gipps' Land were different,
according to Mr. Howitt, from any found elsewhere. They were derived
from small birds. As Mr. Fison remarks, this fact is not deeply important.
The Kurnai had the institution, though under a different name. The
Narrinyerri tribes had no less than eighteen totems derived from quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fish. In the same work which recites their
totems ("South Australian Aboriginal Folk-Lore") will be found an
amusing instance of the confused manner in which persons, presumed to be
conversant with the customs of the natives, enlarge upon them. Among
the most widely-spread designations of totems are the Keelparrah (crow),
and Muqwarrah (eagle). Among printed questions sent to a person who
had had many years' experience among the natives were:
4. Is the tribe divided into clans?
5. Has each clan a totem?-that is, some beast, bird, &c., the symbol of the tribe?
6. Are there class names, or a kind of castes in the tribe ?
7. . . . clan marriages
8. . . . Marriage customs and ceremonies.
The answers were:
4. The tribe is divided into five classes, called respectively-Condelkoo, Boolkarlie, Moattillkoo, Bullalre, Toopparlie.
5. These clans have no totems whatever.
6. There are class names-the Keelparrah and the Muqwarrah.
7. Only a Keelparrah can marry a Muqwarrah. A Keelparrah must not marry a Keelparrah, nor a Muqwarrah a Muqwarrah.
8. . . . At times (betrothment) "which must in due time be carried out."
12. Blood relations are not allowed to marry. These aborigines are very strict on that point.
