The organisation of the more primitive tribes presents only the two exogamous moieties or phratries in each tribe and the totem kins in the phratries. We have Crow phratry and Eagle Hawk phratry, and, within Crow phratry, Crow totem kin,⁹ with other totem kins; within Eagle Hawk phratry, Eagle Hawk totem kin, with other totem kins, which are never of the same names as those in Crow phratry.

This we call the primitive type, all the other organisations are the result of advances on and modifications of this organisation. It also occurs in America,¹⁰ where, however, the phratry is seldom extant, though it does exist occasionally, and is known to have existed among the Iroquois and to have decayed.

On examining Mr. Howitt's map¹¹ it will be seen that this type of social organisation extends, or has extended, from Mount Gambier, by the sea, in the extreme south, past Lake Eyre, to some distance beyond Cooper's Creek or the Barcoo River, and even across the Diamantina River in Queensland. But it is far from being the case that all tribes with this pristine organisation possess identical ceremonies and ideas. On the other hand, from the southern borders of Lake Eyre, northwards, the tribes of this social organisation have peculiar ceremonies, unknown in the south and east, but usual further north and west. They initiate young men with the rites of circumcision or subincision (a cruel process unknown outside of Australia), or with both. In the south-east the knocking out of a front tooth takes the place of these bloody ordeals. The Lake Eyre tribes, again, do not, like those south and east of them, hold by, and inculcate at the rites, "the belief as to the existence of a great supernatural anthropomorphic Being, by whom the ceremonies were first instituted, and who still communicates with mankind through the medicine men, his servants."¹² Their myths rather repose on the idea of beings previous to man, "the prototypes of, but more powerful in magic than the native tribes. These beings, if they did not create man, at least perfected him from some unformed and scarcely human creatures."¹³

Thus, the more northern tribes of primitive tribal organisation (say the Dieri and their congeners) have beliefs which might ripen into the Greek mythology of gods and Titans, while the faith of the tribes of the same social organisation, further south by east, might develop into a rude form of Hebrew monotheism, and the two myths may co-exist, and often do. The northern tribes about Lake Eyre, and the central and north tribes, work co-operative magic for the behoof of their totem animals, as part of the common food supply, a rite unknown to the south and east. They also practise a custom (Pirrauru) of allotting men and women, married or unmarried, as paramours to each other, after a symbolic ceremony. This arrangement also is unknown in the south and east, and even north by west, though almost everywhere there is sexual licence at certain ceremonial meetings. It is thus plain that the more northern tribes of the primitive organisation described, differ from their southern and eastern neighbours (i.) in their most important initiatory rites, (ii.) in some of their myths or beliefs,¹⁴ (iii.) in their totemic magic, and (iv.) in their allotment of permanent paramours. In the first three points these northern tribes of primitive type resemble, not the south-eastern tribes of the same social type, but the more socially advanced central, western, and northern "nations," with whom some of them are in touch and even intermarry. It is a dangerous fallacy to suppose that all tribes of the primitive tribal organisation are solidaires as to marriage, ceremonial rites, and beliefs.

It is difficult to say which is the second type of tribal organisation. We have in Victoria, in a triangle with its apex on the Murray River, the organisation already described (1), but here descent is reckoned in the male, not in the female line. This implies some social advance: social institutions, with male descent of the totem name, are certain to become local, rather than totemistic. The Kangaroos, deriving the totem name from the father, are a local clan, in some cases, like the MacIans in Glencoe. The Kangaroo name prevails in the locality. This cannot occur, obviously, when the names are derived from mothers, and the women go to the husband's district. We may call the organisation thus described (2a), and as (2b) we should reckon the organisation which prevails, as a rule, on the east of Southern Australia, in Queensland and New South Wales, from the northerly and southern coast-line (with a gap in the centre of the coast-line), to the eastern limits of (1). Here we find (2b) a great set of tribes having female descent, but each individual belongs not only to one of two phratries, and to a totem, but also to a "Matrimonial Class." In each phratry there are two such classes. Among the Kamilaroi, in phratry Dilbi, are "classes" named Muri (male) and Kubi (male). In phratry Kupathin are Ipai (male) and Kumbo (male), while the women bear the feminine forms of these names. Their meaning is usually unknown, but in two or three tribes, where the meaning of the class names is known with certainty, they denote animals.

The arrangement works thus, a man of phratry Dilbi, and of matrimonial class Muri, may not marry any woman that he chooses, in the other phratry, Kupathin. He can only marry a Kubatha, that is, a female of the class Kumbo. Their children, female descent prevailing, are of Kupathin phratry, and of the mother's totem, but do not belong to the class either of father (Muri) or of mother (Kumbo). They must belong to the other class within her phratry, namely Ipai. This rule applies throughout; thus, if a man of phratry Dilbi, and of Kubi class, marries a woman of Ipai class in phratry Kupathin, their children are neither of class Kubi nor of class Ipai, but of class Kumbo, the linked or sister class of Ipai, in Kupathin phratry.

Suppose for the sake of argument that the class names denote, or once denoted animals, so that, say —

In phratry

While in phratry

It is obvious that male Turtle would marry female Cat, and (with maternal descent) their children would, by class name, be Carpet Snakes. Bat would marry Carpet Snake, and their children would, by class name, be Cats. Persons of each generation would thus belong to classes of different animal names for ever, and no one might marry into either his or her own phratry, his or her own totem, or his or her own generation, that is, into his or her own class. It is exactly (where the classes bear animal names) as if two generations had totems. The mothers of Muri class in Dilbi would have Turtle, the mothers in Kupathin (Ipai) would have Carpet Snake. Their children, in Kupathin, would have Cat. Not only the phratries and the totem kins, but each successive generation, would thus be delimited by bearing an animal name, and marriage would be forbidden between all persons not of different animal-named phratries, different animal-named totem kins, and different animal-named generations. In many cases, we repeat, the names of the phratries and of the classes have not yet been translated, and the meanings are unknown to the natives themselves. That the class names were originally animal names is a mere hypothesis, based on few examples.

Say I am of phratry Crow, of totem Lizard, of generation and matrimonial class Turtle; then I must marry only a woman of phratry Eagle Hawk, of any totem in Eagle Hawk phratry,¹⁵ and of generation and class name Cat. Our children, with female descent, will be of phratry Eagle Hawk, of totem the mother's, and of generation and class name Carpet Snake. Their children will be of phratry Crow, of totem the mother's, and of generation and class name Cat again; and so on for ever. Each generation in a phratry has its class name, and may not marry within that name. The next generation has the other class name, and may not marry within that. Assuming that phratry names, totem names, and generation names are always names of animals (or of other objects in nature), the laws would amount, we repeat, simply to this: No person may marry another person who, by phratry, or totem, or generation, owns the same hereditary animal name or other name as himself or herself. Moreover no one may marry a person (where matrimonial classes exist) who bears the same class or generation name as his mother or father.

In practice the rules are thus quite simple, mistake is impossible – complicated as the arrangements look on paper. Where totem and phratry names only exist, a man has merely to ask a woman, "What is your phratry name?" If it is his own, an amour is forbidden. Where phratry names are obsolete, and classes exist, he has only to ask, "What is your class name?" If it is that of either class in his own phratry of the tribe, to love is to break a sacred law. It is not necessary, as a rule, even to ask the totem name. What looks so perplexing is in essence, and in practical working, of extreme simplicity. But some tribes have deliberately modified the rules, to facilitate marriage.

The conspicuous practical result of the Class arrangement (not primitive), is that just as totem law makes it impossible for a person to marry a sister or brother uterine, so Class law makes a marriage between father and daughter, mother and son, impossible.¹⁶ But such marriages never occur in Australian tribes of pristine organisation (1) which have no class names, no collective names for successive generations. The origin of these class or generation names is a problem which will be discussed later.

Such is the Class system where it exists in tribes with female descent. It has often led to the loss and disappearance of the phratry names, which are forgotten, since the two sets of opposed class names do the phratry work.

We have next (3) the same arrangements with descent reckoned in the male line. This prevails on the south-east coast, from Hervey River to Warwick. In Gippsland, and in a section round Melbourne, there were "anomalous" arrangements which need not now detain us; the archaic systems tended to die out altogether.

All these south central (Dieri), southern, and eastern tribes may be studied in Mr. Howitt's book, already cited, which contains the result of forty years' work, the information being collected partly by personal research and partly through many correspondents. Mr. Howitt has viewed the initiatory ceremonies of more than one tribe, and is familiar with their inmost secrets.

For the tribes of the centre and north we must consult two books, the fruits of the personal researches of Mr. Baldwin Spencer, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of Biology in the University of Melbourne, and of Mr. F. J. Gillen, Sub-Protector of Aborigines, South Australia.¹⁷ For many years Mr. Gillen has been in the confidence of the tribes, and he and Mr. Spencer have passed many months in the wilds, being admitted to view the most secret ceremonies, and being initiated into the myths of the people. Their photographs of natives are numerous and excellent.

These observers begin in the south centre, where Mr. Howitt leaves off in his northerly researches, and go north. They start with the Urabunna tribe, north-east of Lake Eyre, congeners of Mr. Howitt's Dieri, and speaking a dialect akin to theirs, while the tribe intermarry marry with the Arunta (whose own dialect has points in common with theirs) of the centre of the continent These Urabunna are apparently in the form of social organisation which we style primitive (No. 1), but there are said, rather vaguely, to be more restrictions on marriage than is usual, people of one totem in Kiraru phratry being restricted to people of one totem in Matteri phratry.¹⁸

They have phratries, totem kins, apparently no matrimonial classes (some of their rules are imperfectly ascertained), and they reckon descent in the female line. But, like the Dieri (and unlike the tribes of the south and east), they practise subincision; they have, or are said to have, no belief in "a supernatural anthropomorphic great Being"; they believe in "old semi-human ancestors," who scattered about spirits, which are perpetually reincarnated in new members of the tribe; they practise totemic magic; and they cultivate the Dieri custom of allotting paramours. Thus, by social organisation, they attach themselves to the south-eastern tribes (1), but, like the Dieri, and even more so (for, unlike the Dieri, they believe in reincarnation), they agree in ceremonies, and in the general idea of their totemic magic, rites, and mythical ideas, with tribes who, as regards social organisation, are in state (4), reckon descent in the male line, and possess, not four, but eight matrimonial classes.

This institution of eight classes is developing in the Arunta "nation," the people of the precise centre of Australia, who march with, and intermarry with, the Urabunna; at least the names for the second set of four matrimonial classes, making eight in all, are reaching the Arunta from the northern tribes. All the way further north to the Gulf of Carpentaria, male descent and eight classes prevail, with subincision, prolonged and complex ceremonials, the belief in reincarnation of primal semi-human, semi-bestial ancestors, and the absence (except in the Kaitish tribe, next the Arunta) of any known belief in what Mr. Howitt calls the "All Father." Totemic magic also is prevalent, dwindling as you approach the north-east coast. In consequence of reckoning in the male line (which necessarily causes most of the dwellers in a group to be of the same totem), local organisation is more advanced in these tribes than in the south and east.

We next speak of social organisation (5), namely, that of the Arunta and Kaitish tribes, which is without example in any other known totemic society all over the world. The Arunta and Kaitish not only believe, like most northern and western tribes, in the perpetual reincarnation of ancestral spirits, but they, and they alone, hold that each such spirit, during discarnate intervals, resides in, or is mainly attached to, a decorated kind of stone amulet, called churinga nanja. These objects, with this myth, are not recorded as existing among other "nations." When a child is born, its friends hunt for its ancestral stone amulet in the place where its mother thinks that she conceived it, and around the nearest rendezvous of discarnate local totemic souls, all of one totem only. The amulet and the local totemic centre, with its haunted nanja rock or tree, determine the totem of the child. Thus, unlike all other totemists, the Arunta do not inherit their totems either from father or mother, or both. Totems are determined by local accident. Not being hereditary, they are not exogamous: here, and here alone, they do not regulate marriage. Men may, and do, marry women of their own totem, and their child's totem may neither be that of its father nor of its mother. The members of totem groups are really members of societies, which co-operatively work magic for the good of the totems. The question arises, Is this the primitive form of totemism? We shall later discuss that question (Chapter IV.).

Meanwhile we conceive the various types of social organisation to begin with the south-eastern phratries, totems, and female reckoning of descent (1) to advance to these plus male descent (2a), and to these with female descent and four matrimonial classes (2b). Next we place (3) that four-class system with male descent; next (4) the north-western system of male descent with eight matrimonial classes, and last (as anomalous in some respects), (5) the Arunta-Kaitish system of male descent, eight classes, and non-hereditary non-exogamous totems.

As regards ceremonial and belief, we place (1) the tribes south and east of the Dieri. (2) The Dieri. (3) The Urabunna, and north, central, and western tribes. (4) The Arunta. The Dieri and Urabunna we regard (at least the Dieri) as pristine in social organisation, with peculiarities all their own, but in ceremonial and belief more closely attached to the central, north, and west than to the south-eastern tribes. As concerns the bloody rites, Mr. Howitt inclines to the belief (corroborated by legends, whatever their value) that "a northern origin must ultimately be assigned to these ceremonies."¹⁹ It is natural to assume that the more cruel initiatory rites are the more archaic, and that the tribes which practise them are the more pristine. But this is not our opinion nor that of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. The older rite is the mere knocking out of front teeth (also used by the Masai of East Central Africa). This rite, in Central Australia, "has lost its old meaning, its place has been taken by other rites."²⁰ … Increased cruelty accompanies social advance in this instance. In another matter innovation comes from the north. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen are of the opinion that "changes in totemic matters have been slowly passing down from north to south." The eight classes, in place of four classes, are known as a matter of fact to have actually "reached the Arunta from the north, and at the present moment are spreading south-wards."²¹

Again, a feebler form of the reincarnation belief, namely, that souls of the young who die uninitiated are reincarnated, occurs in the Euahlayi tribe of north-western New South Wales.²² Whether the Euahlayi belief came from the north, in a limited way, or whether it is the germinal state of the northern belief, is uncertain. It is plain that if bloody rites and eight classes may come down from the north, totemic magic and the faith in reincarnation may also have done so, and thus modified the rites and "religious" opinions of the Dieri and Urabunna, who are said still to be, socially, in the most pristine state, that of phratries and female descent, without matrimonial classes.²³ It is also obvious that if the Kaitish faith in a sky-dweller (rare in northern tribes) be a "sport," and if the Arunta churinga nanja, plus non-hereditary and non-exogamous totems, be a "sport," the Dieri and Urabunna custom, too, of solemnly allotted permanent paramours may be a thing of isolated and special development, not a survival of an age of "group marriage."