| Narrinyeri | Male descent. | All Father. |
| Wiimbaio | Female descent. | " " |
| Wotjobaluk | " " | " " |
| Woeworung | Male descent. | " " |
| Kulin | " " | " " |
| Kurnai | " " | " " |
| Wiradjuri | Female descent. | " " |
| Wathi Wathi | " " | " " |
| Ta-Ta-Thi | " " | " " |
| Kamilaroi | " " | " " |
| Yuin | Male descent. | " " |
| Ngarigo | Female descent. | " " |
About other tribes Mr. Howitt's information is rather vague, but, thanks to Mrs. Langloh Parker, we can add:—
Euahlayi — Female descent — All Father.
Here, then, we have eight tribes with female descent and the All Father, against five tribes with male descent and the All Father, in the area to which Mr. Howitt assigns "the advance from descent in the female line to that in the male line." The tribes with female descent occupy much the greater part of the southern interior, not of the coastal line, of South-East Australia.
Mr. Frazer puts the case thus, "it can hardly be an accidental coincidence that, as Dr. Howitt has well pointed out, the same regions in which the germs of religion begin to appear have also made some progress towards a higher form of social and family life."[11]
But though Dr. Howitt has certainly "pointed it out," his statement seems in collision with his own evidence as to the facts. The tribes with female descent and the "germs of religion" occupy the greater part of the area in which he finds "the advance from descent in the female line to that in the male line." He does find that advance, with belief in the All Father, in some tribes, mainly coastal, of his area, but he also finds the belief in the All Father among "nations" and tribes which have not made the "advance"—in the interior. As the northern tribes who have made the "advance" are mainly credited with no All Father, it is clear that the "advance" in social and family life has no connection with the All Father belief. Mr. Howitt, in saying so, overlooks his own collection of evidence. Large tribes and nations, in the region described by him, are in that social organisation which he justly regards as the least advanced of all, yet they have the "germs of religion," which he explains as the results of a social progress which they have not made.
In these circumstances Mr. Howitt might perhaps adopt a large theory of borrowing. The primitive south-east tribes have not borrowed from the remote coastal tribes the usage of male descent; they have not borrowed matrimonial classes from the Kamilaroi. But, nevertheless, they have borrowed, it may be said, their religion from remote coastal tribes. Of course, it is just as easy to guess that the coastal tribes have borrowed their Bunjil All Father from the Kamilaroi Baiame, or the Mulkari of Queensland.
I have not commented on Mr. Frazer's suggestion as to the origin of exogamy. It was the result, he thinks, of a deliberate reformation, and its earliest form was the division of the tribe into the two phratries. "Exogamy was introduced ... at first to prevent the marriage of brothers with sisters, and afterwards" (in the matrimonial classes) "to prevent the marriage of parents with children."[12] The motive was probably a superstitious fear that such close unions would be harmful, in some way, "to the persons immediately concerned," according to "a savage superstition to which we have lost the clue." I made the same suggestion in Custom and Myth (1884). I added, however, that totemic exogamy might be only one aspect of the general totem tabu on eating, killing, or touching, &c., an object of the totem name. We seem to have found the clue to that superstition, including the blood tabu, emphasised by Dr. Durkheim. But, on this showing, the animal patrons of phratries and totem kins, with their "religion," are among the causes of exogamy, while some unknown superstition, in Mr. Frazer's system, may have been the cause. As we have a known superstition, of origin already explained, it seems unnecessary to suppose an unknown superstition.
Again, if the reformers knew who were brothers and sisters, how can they have been promiscuous? Further, the phratriac prohibition includes vast numbers of persons who are not brothers and sisters, except in the phratry. Sires could prohibit unions of brothers and sisters, each in his own hearth circle; the phratriac prohibition is much more sweeping, so is the matrimonial class prohibition. Once more, parent with child unions do not occur among primitive tribes which have no matrimonial classes at all.
For these reasons Mr. Frazer's system does not recommend itself at least to persons who cherish a different theory.