Schmidt endeavours to trace the connection between the distribution of languages with that of types of social groupings, more particularly in connection with the culture zones which Graebner[976] has traced throughout the Pacific area, representing successive waves of migration. The first immigration, corresponding with Graebner's Ur-period, is represented by languages with postposed genitive, the earliest stratum being pure only in Tasmania; remnants of the first stratum and a second stratum occur in Victoria, and remnants of the second stratum to the north and north-east. According to Schmidt this cultural stratum is characterised by absence of group or marriage totemism, and presence of sex patrons ("sex-totemism"). The second immigration is represented by languages with preposition of the genitive, initial r and l, vowel and explosive endings, and is found fairly pure only in the extreme north-west and north, and in places in the north-east. The great multiplicity of languages belonging to this stratum may be attributed to the predominance of the strictly local type of totem-groups. These are the languages of Graebner's "totem-culture." The third immigration is represented by languages with preposition of the genitive, no initial r and l, and purely vowel terminations. These are the languages of the south central group of tribes with a 2-class system and matrilinear descent. This uniform group has the largest area and has influenced the whole mass of Australian languages, only North Australia and Tasmania remaining immune. Their sociological structure with no localisation of totems and classes contributed to their power of expansion. The fourth immigration is represented by languages of an intermediate type, with vowel and liquid endings but no initial r and l. These are the tribes with 4-class and 8-class systems, universal father-right (proving the strong influence of older totemic ideas), curious fertility rites, conception ideas and migration myths.
Earlier Views.
It will be seen that Schmidt's conclusions confute the evolutionary theory developed by Frazer, Hartland, Howitt, Spencer and Gillen, Durkheim and (in part) Andrew Lang, that Australia was essentially homogeneous in fundamental ideas which have developed differently on account of geographic and climatic variation. Schmidt's view is that Australia was entered successively by a number of entirely different tribes, so that the variation now met with is due to radical diversities and to the numerous intermixtures arising from migrations and stratifications of peoples. The linguistic data dispose of the idea that the oldest tribes with mother-right, 2-class system, traces of group-marriage, and lack of moral and religious ideas live in the centre, and that from thence advancement radiated towards the coast bringing about father-right, abandonment of class system and totemism, individual marriage, and higher ethical and religious ideas. On the contrary it would appear that the centre of the continent is the great channel in which movements are still taking place; the older peoples are driven out towards the margin and there preserve the old sociological, ethical and religious conditions. In fact, the older the people, judging from their linguistic stratum, the less one finds among them what has been assumed to be the initial stage for Central Australia[977]. These are Schmidt's views and they confirm the cultural results established by Graebner. But as the whole question of the culture layers in the Pacific is still under discussion it is inadvisable at this stage of our knowledge to make any definite statements. It is worth noting, however, that[978] the distribution of simple burial of the dead coincides in the main with Schmidt's South Australian language area, and the area roughly enclosed on the east by long. 140° E. and the north by lat. 20° S. appears to form a technological province distinct from the rest of Australia[979].
Material Culture.
Rarely can the Australian depend on regular supplies of food. He feeds on flesh, fish, grubs and insects, and wild vegetable food; probably everything that is edible is eaten. Cannibalism is widely spread, but human flesh is nowhere a regular article of food. Clothing, apart from ornament, is rarely worn, but in the south, skin cloaks and fur aprons are fairly common. Scarification of the body is frequent and conspicuous. The men usually let their hair grow long, and the women keep theirs short. Dwellings are of the simplest character, usually merely breakwinds or slight huts, but where there is a large supply of vegetable food, huts are made of boughs covered with bark or grass and are sometimes coated with clay. Implements are made of shell, bone, wood and stone. Baldwin Spencer remarks "It is not too much to say that at the present time we can parallel amongst Australian stone weapons all the types known in Europe under the names Chellean, Mousterian, Aurignacian etc.... The terms Eolithic, Palaeolithic, and Neolithic do not apply in Australia as indicating either time periods or levels of culture[980]." Spears and wooden clubs are universal, and the use of the spear-thrower is generally distributed. The boomerang is found almost throughout Australia; the variety that returns when it is thrown is as a rule only a plaything or for throwing at birds. The forms of the various implements vary in different parts of the country and in some districts certain implements may be entirely absent. For example the boomerang is not found in the northern parts of Cape York peninsula or of the Northern Territory, and the spear-thrower is absent from south-east Queensland. Bows and arrows are unknown and pottery making does not occur. Rafts are made of one or more logs, and the commonest form of canoe is that made of a single sheet of bark. Dug-outs occur in a few places, and both single and double outriggers are found only on the Queensland coast. These sporadic occurrences give additional support to the modern view that the racial and cultural history of Australia is by no means so simple as has till lately been assumed[981].
Sociology.
Students of Australian sociology have been so much impressed with certain prominent features of social organisation that they have paid insufficient attention to kinship and the family; the former has however recently been investigated by A. R. Brown[982], while information concerning the latter has been carefully sifted by B. Malinowski[983]. The main features of social groupings are the tribe, the local groups, the classes, the totemic clans and the families. A tribe is composed of a number of local groups and these are perpetuated in the same tracts by the sons, who hunt over the grounds of their fathers; this is the "local organisation." The local group is the only political unit, and intra-group justice has been extended to inter-group justice, where the units of reference are not based on kinship; this may be regarded as the earliest stage of what is known as International Law[984]. In the so-called "social organisation," the tribe as a community is divided into two parts (moieties or phratries), which are quite distinct from the local groups, though rarely they may be coincident. Each moiety may be subdivided into two or four exogamous sections which are generally called "classes" and are peculiar to Australia. Descent in the classes is as a rule indirect matrilineal or indirect patrilineal, that is to say, while the child still belongs to its mother's or father's moiety (as the case may be) it is assigned to the class to which the mother or the father does not belong; but the grandchildren belong to the class of a grandmother or grandfather. In diagram I (below) A and C are classes of one moiety, B and D those of the other. Thus when A man marries B woman the children are D. B man marries A woman and the children are C and so on. When there are four classes in each moiety the diagram works out as follows (II)[985]:
Very important in social life are the initiation ceremonies by means of which a youth is admitted to the status of tribal manhood. These ceremonies vary greatly from tribe to tribe but they agree in certain fundamental points. "(1) They begin at the age of puberty. (2) During the initiation ceremonies the women play an important part. (3) At the close of the first part of the ceremonies, such as that of tooth knocking out or circumcision, a definite performance is enacted emblematic of the fact that the youths have passed out of the control of the women. (4) During the essential parts the women are typically absent and the youths are shown the bull-roarer, have the secret beliefs explained to them and are instructed in the moral precepts and customs, including food restrictions, that they must henceforth observe under severe penalties. (5) The last grade is not passed through until a man is quite mature[986]."
Totemism.