Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia

by Northcote Whitridge Thomas

In the four-class area are two extensive systems, ranking next after those of South Australia and N. S. Wales; these are Mallera-Wuthera (27) and Pakoota-Wootaro (29); they have a single phratry name in common, which is also found in two other systems; if we add these together, as we may perhaps do on this evidence of a common basis, we have by far the largest phratric system in Australia as the result. Almost equal in extent to either of the two areas occupied by 27 and 29 is that claimed by the better known Kamilaroi system—Dilbi-Kupathin, which spreads over a long, comparatively narrow region, but had possibly at one time a wider field from which at the present time only the corresponding class names can be recovered. Of the remaining thirteen in the two-class region, only 28, one of the Wuthera systems already mentioned, has more than a restricted field of influence. Of moderate size are the four areas in the eight-class system proper, that of the Mara being small in comparison.

Taking now the native names, we find that, in addition to the Wuthera (Ootaroo) sets already mentioned, the Dieri and Kurnandaburi have Matteri (Mattera) in common, while the latter have in the Baddieri tribe a neighbour which shares the Yungo phratry name with them. The fact, if correct, that with the Badieri Yungo is associated with Wutheru, and takes the place of the more usual Yungaru, suggests that we may equate the latter with Yungo. In the eight-class area Uluuru is common to two systems, while a third has Wiliuku, and the fourth Illitchi, all of which seem to be allied, if we may take it that uru, uku, and tchi are suffixes; that they are is borne out by the corresponding names Liaritchi and Liaraku. Other possible equations are Mukula—Mukumurra, and Cheepa—Koocheebinga, but in the latter case, even if koo is a prefix, the distance of the two systems makes any such correspondence improbable. In Victoria the Malian-Multa equation is indisputable; it is interesting to note that the former is found in N. S. Wales as the name of the bird, while Multa belongs to Yorke Peninsula.

As regards the meaning of these names, we find that of the fifty-eight names which remain after deducting those which occur in more than one system, nineteen can be translated with certainty, and we can guess at the meaning of some half dozen more. Of translateable names the most widely spread are various titles of Eaglehawk and Crow, which appear in five different systems in Victoria and New South Wales[100]. Crow reappears in West Australia under the name of Wartung, with white cockatoo, also a Victorian phratry name, as its fellow. In North Queensland, as a parallel to the black and white cockatoo of the south, we find on the Annan River two species of bee giving their names to phratries; and the Black Duck phratry of the Waradjeri suggests that here too might be found another contrasting pair, if we could translate the other name. For the Euahlayi phratry names, on which more will be said in discussing the "blood" organisations, Mrs Parker gives the translation "Light-blooded" and "Dark-blooded," which comes near that suggested by Mr Mathews—slow and quick blooded. In the Ulu, Illi, and Wili of Northern Territory we seem to recognise Welu (curlew). Koolpuru (emu), Yungaru and Yungo (kangaroo), and Wutheroo (emu) are also possible meanings.

The problems raised by the phratriac nomenclature are complex and probably insoluble. They are in part bound up with the problem of the origin of the organisation itself; of this nature, for example, is the question whether the names correspond to anything existing in the pre-phratriac stage, or whether the organisation was borrowed and the names taken over translated or untranslated into the idiom of the borrowers. If the latter be the solution, we have a simple explanation of the wide-spread Eaglehawk-Crow system as well as of other facts, to which reference is made below.

If on the other hand the names have not been much spread by borrowing,—and the increasing number of small phratry areas known to us tells in favour of this, though it also suggests that the widely-found systems have gained ground at the expense of their neighbours,—then we obviously need some theory as to the origin of the organisation, before we can frame any hypothesis as to the origin of the names.

The prominent part, however, played by the Eaglehawk among phratry names raises some questions which can be discussed on their merits. One of these is the age of phratry names. Some of the earliest records of initiation ceremonies in New South Wales mention that the eaglehawk figured in them[101]. In West Australia this bird is the demiurge, and the progenitors of the phratries, of which crow is one, are his nephews. This is not the only case in which these birds figure in mythology.

As the Rev. John Mathew has pointed out in his work, Eaglehawk and Crow, there are found in Australia, especially in the south-eastern portion, a number of myths relating to the conflicts of these birds. These myths he interprets as echoes of a long-past conflict between the aboriginal Negrito race and the invading Papuans, and traces the origin of the phratries to the same racial strife. As an explanation of exogamy the hypothesis is clearly insufficient, but it is evident that no theory of the origin of the phratries can leave exogamy out of the question. The point, however, with which we are immediately concerned is the myth on which in the main Mr Mathew based his theory. Unfortunately, he did not think it necessary to attempt to define either the area covered by the different phratry names—an omission which is remedied by the present work—nor yet the limits within which the myth in question or its analogues are part of the native mythology. These analogues to the story of the battle of Eaglehawk and Crow, ended in the Darling area according to tradition by a treaty between the contending birds, are myths in which birds are said to have destroyed the human race, or a large portion of it, to have contended with Baiame, or one of the other gods, or to have figured in some other conflict[102]. The bird of this myth—the bird conflict myth, as it may be termed—is the Eaglehawk. Possibly, as I have pointed out in the note in Man, both bird conflict myths and Eaglehawk-Crow myths—they may be termed collectively bird myths—may go back to a common origin. So far as Mr Mathew's evidence goes, bird myths do not seem to be told outside the colony of Victoria and the Darling area of New South Wales.

A little research, however, shows that this idea is altogether erroneous. There are unfortunately large areas in Australia, as to the mythology of which we know absolutely nothing. Therefore it must not be supposed that the bird conflict myth is confined to the districts in which we have evidence of its existence. We may rather infer that a myth so widely distributed—it ranges from the head of the Bight, 129° E., to the coast north of Sydney, and probably as far as Moreton Bay; to the north it is found among the Urabunna, and probably elsewhere—is common property of the Australian Tribes.

A glance at the map will show that the eaglehawk and crow myth covers but a small portion of the area in which the bird conflict myth is found. On the other hand we find within the eaglehawk-crow myth district the phratry names Cockatoo, three names of unknown meaning, and the doubtful Kiraru—Kirarawa. Now if a racial conflict is indicated by the names eaglehawk and crow, this must be either because the contending races were already known by these names, or because the two birds in question are proverbially hostile to each other. In either case we are left without any explanation of the two cockatoo phratries. It may indeed be argued that the locality in which the eaglehawk-crow phratry names are found tells strongly in favour of the racial conflict hypothesis; for it is precisely in this area that the last stand of the aborigines against the invaders may, on the theory put forward by Mr Mathew and accepted by some anthropologists[103], be supposed to have taken place. But against this must be set the fact that in this area also we find two cockatoos, and on the Annan River two bees, arrayed against one another; unless it can be shown that these two birds are also proverbial foes, or that the Australian native had reached a point in his biological investigations at which he recognised that the presence of two closely allied species in a district involves a particularly keen struggle for existence (which they would, however, regard in such an advanced stage of knowledge as appropriate to the designation of intra-racial rather than inter-racial feuds), the two sets of facts balance one another, and leave us still engaged in a vain quest for a conclusion.