[250] Howitt, pp. 101, 102.
[251] J. Mathews, Two Representative Tribes of Queensland, p. 139.
[252] Still other reasons could be given in support of this hypothesis, but it would be necessary to bring in considerations relative to the organization of the family, and we wish to keep these two studies separate. Also this question is only of secondary interest to our subject.
[253] For example, Mukwara, which is the name of a phratry among the Barkinji, the Paruinji and the Milpulko, designates the eagle-hawk, according to Brough Smyth; now one of the clans of this phratry has the eagle-hawk as totem. But here the animal is designated by the word Bilyara. Many cases of the same thing are cited by Lang, op. cit., p. 162.
[254] Spencer and Gillen, Nat. Tr., p. 115. According to Howitt (op. cit., pp. 121 and 454), among the Wotjobaluk, the clan of the pelican is found in the two phratries equally. This fact seems doubtful to us. It is very possible that the two clans may have two varieties of pelicans as totems. Information given by Mathews on the same tribe seems to point to this (Aboriginal Tribes of N.S. Wales and Victoria, in Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales, 1904, pp. 287 f.).
[255] In connection with this question, see our memoir on Le Totémisme, in the Année Sociologique, Vol. V, pp. 82 ff.
[256] On the question of Australian matrimonial classes in general, see our memoir on La Prohibition de l'inceste, in the Année Soc., I, pp. 9 ff., and especially for the tribes with eight classes, L'Organisation matrimoniale des societés Australiennes, in Année Soc., VIII, pp. 118-147.
[257] This principle is not maintained everywhere with an equal strictness. In the central tribes of eight classes notably, beside the class with which marriage is regularly permitted, there is another with which a sort of secondary concubinage is allowed (Spencer and Gillen, Nor. Tr., p. 106). It is the same with certain tribes of four classes. Each class has a choice between the two classes of the other phratry. This is the case with the Kabi (see Mathews, in Curr, III, 162).
[258] See Roth, Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines, pp. 56 ff.; Palmer, Notes on some Australian Tribes, J.A.I., XIII (1884), pp. 302 ff.
[259] Nevertheless, some tribes are cited where the matrimonial classes bear the names of animals or plants: this is the case with the Kabi (Mathew, Two Representative Tribes, p. 150), the tribes observed by Mrs. Bates (The Marriage Laws and Customs of the West Australian Aborigines, in Victorian Geographical Journal, XXIII-XXIV, p. 47), and perhaps in two tribes observed by Palmer. But these facts are very rare and their significance badly established. Also, it is not surprising that the classes, as well as the sexual groups, should sometimes adopt the names of animals. This exceptional extension of the totemic denominations in no way modifies our conception of totemism.