In the great majority of Australian tribes, but not in all, there is a very definite social organisation, which term we use in connection only with the division of the tribe into two (or more) exogamous, intermarrying groups without reference to the presence or absence of a totemic system. The two systems have become associated together in various ways in different tribes, but are perfectly distinct from one another in origin and significance. We can recognise three important types of social organisation in the tribes which occupy the country extending from Lake Eyre in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north. In the first, which exists amongst the Dieri and Urabunna tribes, there are only two main exogamous groups called respectively, in the case of the latter, Matthurie and Kirarawa. We have on a previous occasion, dealt more or less in detail with this, but, for the purpose of comparison, and of giving a general account of the central tribes, we will once more briefly refer to the Urabunna tribe as a typical example of a tribe in which descent is counted in the female line, and in which division has not proceeded beyond the formation of the two original exogamous moieties.2 In the Urabunna tribe a Matthurie man must marry a Kirarawa 1 [Reprinted with the consent of The Macmillan Company, New York, from "The Northern Tribes of Central Australia" (1904), by BALDWIN SPENCER, M.A., F.R.S., sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, Professor of Biology in the University of Melbourne, and F. J. GILLEN, Special Magistrate and Sub-protector of Aborigines, South Australia. This work is supplementary to the "Native Tribes of Central Australia" published by the same authors in 1899.] 2 In this account we use the following terms: (a) moiety, indicating the two original exogamous divisions; (b) class, the two divisions into which each moiety is usually divided; (c) subclass, the two divisions into which in certain tribes each class is divided. We purposely avoid the terms phratry, gens, clan, etc., as liable to be misleading. woman, and their children pass into the kirarawa moiety. Vice versa a Kirarawa man must marry a Matthurie woman. A Matthurie man may not, however, marry any and every Kirarawa woman. In the first place, men of one totem can only marry women of another special totem. For example, a Matthurie who belongs to the dingo totem must marry a Kirarawa of the waterhen totem, so that we may represent the marriage and descent in the Urabunna by the following diagram, in which the letter “m" represents the man and "f" the woman. m. Dingo Matthurie f. Water-hen Kirarawa m. Water-hen Kirarawa marries f. Dingo Matthurie m. or f. Dingo Matthurie f. Water-hen Kirarawa m. Dingo Matthurie m. or f. Water-hen Kirarawa Further still, a dingo man can only have assigned to him as wife a woman who belongs to one out of certain groups amongst the water-hens. The members of the latter group stand to him in one or other of the following relationships: (1) Nauilli, father's sister; (2) Biaka, children or brother's children; (3) Apillia, mother's younger brother's daughters; (4) Nupa, mother's elder brother's daughter. It must be remembered of course that whilst, for the sake of convenience, we use the English terms there is no equivalence whatever between the terms nia, nuthi, and luka and those respectively of father, brother, mother, by which we translate them. The native terms all refer to groups of individuals and not to the individual. Amongst these individuals there are women of three different levels of generation - the nauilli belong to that of the father, the biaka to younger, and the apillia and nupa to the same generation as the individual concerned, and it is from amongst these that the woman must come with whom it is lawful for him to have marital relations. He can only marry women who stand to him in the relationship of nupa that is, are the children of his mother's elder brothers, blood or tribal. A simple genealogical tree will make the matter clear. The Kirarawa man numbered 8 can only marry a woman who stands to him in the relationship of the one numbered 7. She is his nupa; the woman num 1 This appears to be the case in the northern part of the tribe. bered 9 is his apillia, and he may not have marital relations The mother of a man's wife is nauilli, and she is mura to him. and he to her, and they must not speak to one another. Every man has one or more of these nupa women who are especially attached to him and live with him in his own camp, but there is no such thing as one man having the exclusive right to one woman; the elder brothers or nuthi of the woman, who decide the matter, will give one man a preferential right, but at the same time they will give other men of the same group to which he belongs - that is, men who stand in the same relationship to the woman as he does a secondary right, and such nupa women to whom a man has the legal right of access are spoken of as his piraungaru. A woman may be piraungaru to a number of men and, as a general rule, men and women who are piraungaru to one another are to be found living together in groups. As we have said before, "individual marriage does not exist either in name or in practice amongst the Urabunna tribe." 1 In this tribe we have: (1) A group of men all of whom belong to one moiety of the tribe and are regarded as the nupas, or possible husbands, of a group of women who belong to the other moiety of the tribe. (2) One or more women specially allotted to one particular man, each standing in the relationship of nupa to the other, but no man having exclusive right to any one woman-only a preferential right. (3) A group of men who stand in the relationship of piraungaru to a group of women, selected from amongst those to whom they are nupa. In other words, a group of women of one designation have, normally and actually, marital relations with a group of men of another designation. There is no evidence of any kind to show that the practice in the Dieri and Urabunna tribes is an abnormal development. The organisation of these tribes, amongst whom the two exogamous intermarrying groups still persist groups which in other tribes of the central area have been split into four or eight indicate 1 "Native Tribes of Central Australia," p. 63 (1899). their retention of ancient customs which have become modified in tribes such as the Arunta and Warramunga, though amongst them we find traces of customs pointing back to conditions such as still persist amongst the Urabunna. If they were abnormal developments then there could not possibly be found the remarkable but very instructive gradation from the system of individual marriage as developed amongst many Australian tribes and the undoubted exercise of group marital relations which is found in the Dieri and the Urabunna. In regard to marital relations it may be said that the Central Australian native has certain women, members of a particular group, with whom it is lawful for him and for other men also to have such relations. In the tribes with the simplest and undoubtedly the most primitive organisation these women are many in number. They all belong to a certain group, and in the Urabunna tribe for example, a group of men actually does have, continually and as a normal condition, marital relations with a group of women. This state of affairs has nothing whatever to do with polygamy any more than it has with polyandry. It is simply a question of a group of men and a group of women who may lawfully have what we call marital relations. There is nothing whatever abnormal about it, and in all probability this system of what has been called group marriage, serving as it does to bind more or less closely together groups of individuals who are mutually interested in one another's welfare, has been one of the most powerful agents in the early stages of the upward development of the human race. 2. MARRIAGE CUSTOMS Except in the Urabunna tribe, where there is actually group marriage in existence, the system of individual wives prevails modified, however, by the practice of customs according to which, at certain times, much wider marital relations are allowed. As we have pointed out before,' the fundamental feature of the marital relations in all of these tribes is the existence of intermarrying groups of men and women. In the Urabunna tribe group marriage actually exists at the present day, a group of men of a certain designation having, not merely nominally but in actual reality, and under normal conditions, marital relations with a group of women of another special designation. In all other tribes we find 1 "Native Tribes of Central Australia," p. 98, et seq. that every man of a particular group is lawfully the husband of every woman of another particular group, having no name whereby he distinguishes any one or more of the women of that group, who may have been specially allotted to him, from any of the others; or, in the same way, any name by which he distinguishes the children of these women from those of all the other women of the group. Whilst there is individual marriage from the Arunta tribe northwards across the continent to the Gulf of Carpentaria there are, in actual practice, frequent occasions when the marital relations are of a much wider nature. There are indeed what may be regarded as three distinct grades of marital relationships. In the first instance there is the normal state of affairs when a woman is the property of one man, who however can, and does, lend her privately to other men, provided, however, that they belong to her group of lawful husbands, to any one of whom, but to no one else, he may lend her under ordinary circumstances. In the second place we have the wider relations existing at the time of marriage, when men to whom, under ordinary circumstances, she is strictly tabooed have access to her. The particular men vary from tribe to tribe, but in every case, in addition to representatives of one or more forbidden groups, the men who belong to the group of her husbands always have [the right of access]. At this particular time, when the woman is being handed over to one man, there takes place very clearly the recognition of the group right, and probably the recognition of a wider right still. In the third place we have the very wide relations in connection with the performance of ceremonies and the sending out of messengers as described above [in the original work]. In a few special cases the lending of lubras on these occasions is very clearly in the nature of a return for some service rendered, but no such explanation is possible in the majority of cases. At some time or another every man has to send his wife for the use of other men of various classes who are performing ceremonies, and whose wives, in their turn, are offered to him. During the performance of some of these ceremonies there is the very greatest license, a man even having relations with his mura woman, who, under ordinary circumstances, is most strictly tabooed to him, and this without her husband being in any way. indebted to him. Every one, at different times, is obliged to relinquish, for the time being, his sole right to the woman or women who have been allotted to him. |