Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia

by Northcote Whitridge Thomas

The spatial relations of the phratries and classes are sufficiently clear from the map; and a table shows how far cross divisions are found.

The main area of disturbance of the normal relations is, as shown in Table IV (p. [51]), the district occupied by the Koorgilla class-system and its immediate neighbourhood. The Yungaroo-Witteru group has three representatives in the Koorgilla class and one in the Kurpal class. The Pakoota-Wootaroo phratry has likewise three in the Koorgilla class, a fourth being in the Yowingo organisation. A large area is occupied by the Mallera-Witteru phratry in the Koorgilla class, and one tribe is again found in the Yowingo group. No class names are recorded for the Undekerebina in the Pakoota group, and no phratry names for the Mycoolon and Workobongo in the Yowingo group, nor for the Yerunthully in the Koorgilla group, which in addition to tribes belonging to the three Wuthera phratries also embraces within its limits the small Purgoma and Jouon tribes.

The only other anomaly recorded in addition to those mentioned is among the tribes on the south and south-east of the area just dealt with, which have the Barang class names with the Kamilaroi phratry names, or the Kamilaroi class names with tribal phratry names. In four cases therefore the phratry is found outside the limits of the class usually associated with it, or, in other words, it is associated with a strange class system. In one case, that of the Kalkadoon, this is sufficiently explained by the fact that the tribe is itself now remote geographically speaking from its fellows, owing to the interposition of Pitta-Pitta and allied tribes. In the other three cases the facts seem to point to a change in the intertribal relationships in the period intervening between the adoption of phratry names and the introduction of the class system. If the lines of intercourse and intermarriage had suffered a revolution in the interval, the names, the origin of which we have yet to consider, would naturally show a different grouping of the tribes; for it is on the grouping of the tribes that the spread of the names, whether of phratries or classes, must have depended.

The main mass of the tribes organised on the four-class system lies in Queensland and New South Wales, and whereas only two sets of names are found in the latter colony, no less than fifteen (some of which are, however, of more than doubtful authenticity) are reported from various parts of Queensland. From Northern Territory two (Anula and Mara) of small extent are reported[111]; a considerable area of this colony, as well as of South and West Australia, is occupied by the Arunta system, and the closely allied classes to the north-west of them. The only other four-class system in West Australia of which we have definite information is that west and north of King George's Sound and eastwards for an unknown distance.

Covering nearly the whole of New South Wales outside the area occupied by the two-phratry tribes of the Darling country, and extending far up into Queensland, we find the well-known Muri-Kubbi, Ippai-Kumbo classes (1) of the Kamilaroi nation[112]. The Kamilaroi system appears to have touched the sea in the neighbourhood of Sydney. According to Mr Mathews, the Darkinung, who inhabited this part of New South Wales, substituted Bya for Muri. (1a) In like manner the Wiradjeri are stated by Gribble to have replaced Kumbo by Wombee; this may however be no more than a dialectical variant.

Lying along the sea coast north-east of the Darkinung and east of the main mass of Kamilaroi tribe were the Kombinegherry and other tribes, whom Mr Mathews denominates the Anaywan. Their classes are given by him as Irrpoong, Marroong, Imboong, and Irrong; but an earlier authority gives the forms Kurbo, Marro, Wombo, and Wirro (2); at Wide Bay we find Baran, Balkun, Derwen, and Bundar (3) with an alternative form Banjoor.

North of them, still on the coast, we find the Kuinmurbura with Kurpal, Kuialla, Karilbura, and Munal (4); for the Taroombul, which I am unable to locate, Mr Mathews gives Koodala in place of Kuialla and Karalbara for Karilbura. For the Kangoollo, lying inland from this group, Mr Mathews gives Kearra, Banjoor, Banniar, and Koorpal. This suggests that there is some confusion, for the names include two from 4, and one or two from 3.

A very large area is occupied by tribes with the classes (5) Koorgila, Bunburi, Wunggo, and Obur (and variants). They include the Yuipera and allied tribes, the Kogai, the Wakelbura and allied tribes, the Yambeena, the Yerunthully, the Woonamurra, the Mittakoodi, the Pitta-Pitta, etc., together with the Purgoma of the Palm Islands and the neighbouring Jouon, whose headquarters are at Cooktown. In the southern portion of this group a correspondent of Curr's has reported the classes Nullum, Yoolgo, Bungumbura, and Teilling. We have class names analogous in form to the third of these names, it is true, but it resembles tribal names so closely as to suggest that the observer in question was really referring to a tribe and not to a class. If this is so we may perhaps identify Teilling with the Toolginbura. There seems to be no reason for admitting these four names to a place among the other groups of class names. In like manner we may dismiss the class names assigned to the Yukkaburra by an inaccurate correspondent of Curr's, who gives Utheroo, Multheroo, Yungaroo, and Goorgilla. It seems clear that the first and third of these are really phratry names; possibly the second is a dialectical form for Utheroo.

From Halifax Bay and Hinchinbrook Island are reported the names Korkoro, Korkeen, Wongo, and Wotero (with variants). Among the Joongoongie of North Queensland we find Langenam, Namegoor, Packewicky, and Pamarung (15); and among the Karandee Curr gives an anomalous and probably defective set, Moorob, Heyanbo, Lenai, Roanga, and Yelet.