Chapter 2 DESCENT.

Descent of kinship, origin and primitive form. Matriliny in Australia. Relation to potestas, position of widow, etc. Change of rule of descent; relation to potestas, inheritance and local organisation.

In discussions of the origin and evolution of kinship organisations, we are necessarily concerned not only with their forms but also with the rules of descent which regulate membership of them. Until recently the main questions at issue were twofold: (1) the priority or otherwise of female descent; (2) the causes of the transition from one form of descent to another. Of late the question has been raised whether in the beginning hereditary kinship groups existed at all, or whether membership was not rather determined by considerations of an entirely different order. Dr Frazer, who has enunciated this view, maintains that totemism rests on a primitive theory of conception, due to savage ignorance of the facts of procreation.10 But his theory is based exclusively on the foundation of the beliefs of the Central Australians and seems to neglect more than one important point which goes to show that the Arunta have evolved their totemic system from the more ordinary hereditary form. Whether this be so or not, it is difficult to see how any idea of kinship could arise from such a condition of nescience. If we take the analogous case of the nagual or "individual totem" there seems to be no trace of any belief in the kinship of those who have the same animal as their nagual, but are otherwise bound by no tie of relationship. Yet if Dr Frazer's theory were correct, this is precisely what we ought to find.

This is, however, no reason for rejecting the general proposition that kinship, at its origin, was not hereditary; or, more exactly, that the beginnings of the kinship groups found at the present day may be traced back to a point at which the hereditary principle virtually disappears, although the bond of union and perhaps the totem name already existed. If, as suggested by Mr Lang, man was originally distributed in small communities, known by names which ultimately came to be those of the totem kins, we may suppose that daily association would not fail to bring about that sense of solidarity in its members which it is found to produce in more advanced communities. In the case of the tribe an even feebler bond, the possession of a common language, seems to give the tribesmen a sense of the unity of the tribe, though perhaps other explanations may be suggested, such as the possession in common of the tribal land, or the origin of the tribe from a single blood-related group. However this may be, it seems reasonable to look for one factor of the first bond of union in the influence of the daily and hourly association of group-mates. On the other hand, if, as Mr Lang supposes, the original group was a consanguine one, the claims of the factor of consanguinity and perhaps of foster brotherhood and motherhood cannot be neglected. It may be true, as Dr Frazer argues, that man was originally and still is in some cases ignorant of physiological facts. But all races of man and a great part of the rest of the animal kingdom show us the phenomena of parental affection, of care for offspring and sometimes of union for their defence. This does not, it may be noted, imply any predominance of the mother.11

We may suppose that the idea of kinship or the recognition of consanguinity, whichever be the more correct term to apply to these far-off developments of the factors of human society, extended only by degrees beyond the limits of the group. First, perhaps, came the naming of the group, already, it may be, exogamous; then came the recognition of the fact that those members of it, viz. the women, who passed to community B after being born and having resided for years in community A, were in reality, in spite of their change of residence, still in fact the kin of community A; finally came the step of assigning to their children the group names which were retained by their mothers from the original natal groups. This brings us face to face with the first of the fundamental questions of descent, to which allusion has been made.

It is commonly assumed by students of primitive social organisation that matrilineal descent is the earlier and that it has everywhere preceded patrilineal descent; but the questions involved are highly complicated and it can hardly be said that the subject has been fully discussed.

Much of what has been said on the point has been vitiated by the introduction of foreign factors. Thus, the child belongs to the tribe of the father where the wife removes to the husband's local group or tribe. But though it may be taken as a mark of matrilineal institutions, often associated with matria potestas or its analogue the rule of the mother's brother, that the husband should remove and live with the wife, we are by no means entitled to say that the removal of the wife to the husband implies a different state of things. Customs of residence are no guide to the principles on which descent is regulated. Consequently it is entirely erroneous to import into the discussion with which we are concerned, viz. the rules by which kinship is determined, any considerations based on the rules by which membership of a tribe is settled.

Similarly, no proof of the existence of paternal authority in the family throws any light on the question of whether the children belong to the kin of the father rather than of the mother. Where the mother or mother's brother is the guardian, we are usually safe in assuming that descent is or has been until recently matrilineal. But from the undisputed existence of patria potestas no similar inference can be drawn.

Again, as will be shown below, not even the tie of blood between parent and child, confined though it may be in the opinion of the people whose institutions are in question, to a single parent, is an index to the way in which is determined the kinship organisation to which the child belongs.

It is therefore clear that the utmost discrimination is necessary in dealing with these questions; rules of descent must be kept apart from matters which indeed influence the evolution of the rules but are in no way decisive as to their form at any given moment.

Returning now to the alleged priority of matrilineal descent in determining the kinship organisation into which a child passes, it may be said that whereas evidences of the passage from female to male reckoning may be observed,12 there is virtually none of a change in the opposite direction. In other words, where kinship is reckoned in the female line, there is no ground for supposing that it was ever hereditary in any other way. On the other hand, where kinship is reckoned in the male line, it is frequently not only legitimate but necessary to conclude that it has succeeded a system of female kinship. But this clearly does not mean that female descent has in all cases preceded the reckoning of kinship through males. Patrilineal descent may have been directly evolved without the intermediate stage of reckoning through females.

The problem is probably insoluble. No decisive data are available, for the mere absence of traces of matrilineal descent does not necessarily prove more than that it had long been superseded by reckoning of kinship through males. All that can be said is that in the kinship organisations known to us female descent seems to have prevailed in the vast majority of cases and probably existed in the residual class of indeterminable examples.

With patria potestas it is, of course, different. There can be little doubt that it might and probably did develop in the absence of kinship organisations and in a state of society where consanguinity is no real bond after the children have reached puberty. If therefore under such circumstances a kinship organisation were to come into existence, either independently or by transmission, it might well be that patrilineal principles prevailed from the first. But of such a case we have no knowledge. It may perhaps be questioned whether the actually existing peoples who appear to have no kinship organisations, such as the Hottentots, the Bushmen, the Veddahs and perhaps the Fuegians, are not in this state rather as a result of the break-up of their former organisation than because they have never evolved kinship groups. But our knowledge in these matters is lamentably small and the problem is not one which calls for discussion here.

The second fundamental problem relating to rules of descent is that of the cause of the transition from matrilineal to patrilineal descent. The subject needs to be discussed in detail for each particular area before general conclusions can be formulated; it is quite possible that the causes will be found to differ widely; for no general rule can be laid down as to the relations between matrilineal descent and other cultural conditions.

All that can be attempted here is an examination of the various elements in the problem so far as it affects Australia. To this may be prefixed a further discussion of the origin of matrilineal descent with especial reference to Australian conditions.

It is commonly assumed that in a pure matrilineal community, the husband removes to the wife's local group (matrilocal marriage), or if not that, that at any rate the authority in the family rests in the hands of the mother's brothers, who are also the heirs to the exclusion of the children. But of any such custom of removal there is but the very slenderest evidence in Australia. According to Howitt it occurs occasionally in Victoria and among the Dieri; among the Wakelbura it is done only if a man elopes with a betrothed woman and the man to whom she was betrothed dies; among the Kuinmurbura it seems to have been a recognised thing for a man who married a woman of another tribe to remove, but in this case he took no part in intertribal warfare13. In all these cases, the Kurnai excepted, descent is reckoned in the female line.

If however Dr Howitt's informant, who does not seem to have been particularly accurate in many cases, is to be relied on, the removal of the husband to the wife's group is also found among the patrilineal Maryborough tribes, though only if the woman belonged to a distant tribelet, whatever that may be14. To this information is added the statement that in such cases the husband joined his wife's tribe for purposes of hostilities also and that it has happened that a son has come into conflict with his father under these circumstances and endangered his life with full knowledge of what he was doing. There is, it is true, no definite statement to the effect that children in these tribes take their totems from the father, but we may assume that it is the case. If therefore the statement in question is accurate, it is a pretty clear proof of the break-up of the social system; for under no circumstances does the totem-kinsman, as a rule, violate the sacro-sanctity of his own flesh. It cannot therefore be argued that the fact of removal in the Maryborough tribes is any very strong evidence of the primitive nature of the custom. In the other tribes, on the other hand, it is distinctly stated that the practice prevails only when marriage takes place between members of two different tribes, and among the Wakelbura only exceptionally even when the wife is of an alien folk. Whatever else the custom proves in these cases, it certainly evidences the existence of friendly relations between the tribes in question; for if it were otherwise the man would hardly be disposed to give up the security of his own people for the perils of a strange community; on the other hand it is hardly likely that the man's tribe would allow him to pass over to the ranks of the strangers, nor would they view with equanimity the loss of effective fighting strength which would result from the fact that his children too would be numbered against them, not for them, if it came to hostilities. The custom is therefore clear evidence of fairly permanent friendly relations in the district in question; and it is plain that we cannot assume these to have existed in more primitive times. It is therefore difficult to see in what way the present day practices lend support to the theory that the original usage was for the husband to remove to his wife's group. For, be it noted, there is not a single case, unless we include the anomalous Kurnai, in which the husband removes to his wife's group within his own tribe; but clearly this is the custom to which the removal theory applies. So far, therefore, as Australia is concerned, the removal theory falls to the ground; it cannot of course be disproved, but we are not justified in assuming that matrilineal descent and matria potestas are due to a custom of removal.

Inasmuch as patrilocal15 marriage involves descent of group and tribal property rights in the male line, it might appear that in rejecting the hypothesis of a prior stage of matrilocal marriage, we are involving ourselves in difficulties; for it is clearly not easy to see how descent could come to be reckoned through the mother, while property descended through the father. But it is obviously unnecessary in the first place to regard the individual rights of property as originating simultaneously or under the same conditions as the rules as to kinship or even communal property; there is nothing to show how long the present system of land tenure in Australia has held good, and it is clearly one which points to a certain growth of population; for if the local group were remote from their neighbours, there would be little need to encroach; moreover, the exact delimitation of territory now in practice is a thing of long growth.

Further consideration however shows that it is only by a confusion of thought that we can speak of land descending in the male line (that is, of course, in respect of group rights, not private property, to which we return later); strictly speaking the descent of landed property is neither in the male nor the female line but local. A man who removes to his wife's tribe is, so far as we can see, as truly part owner of the tribal land as if he were himself a member of the tribe by birth within its limits. The suggested difficulty, therefore, does not exist, and the conclusion as to removal customs holds good.

We may now examine the relation of matriliny to the seat of authority in the family. Questions of potestas naturally range themselves under more than one head. We have (1) the relation of the husband (a) to the wife and (b) to the children; (2) the relation of the mother to the children, and closely connected with this the influence of the mother's brother; finally (3) we have the position of the widow, a matter indeed more intimately connected with inheritance from a legal point of view but in Australia more closely connected with potestas than in countries where slavery is a recognised institution.

Small as is our information on Australian jurisprudence, it is certain that the husband enjoys practically unrestricted rights over the person of his wife, pirrauru and similar customs apart. He may at will lend her or hire her out to strangers; he may punish her infidelity, disobedience or awkwardness by chastisement, not stopping short of the infliction of spear or club wounds; he may even, according to Roth16, go so far as to kill her and yet get off scot free, his only duty in such a case being to provide a sister for the brothers of his dead wife to kill in retaliation.

This custom suggests that the kin to which the woman belongs claim a certain property in her even after she is married, and this partial proprietorship naturally implies a slight protecting influence; for it would clearly not be in every case easy for the homicidal male to find a sister ready to go out and be killed as a set-off to his murdered wife. We should not, it is true, overlook the fact that the customs of the Pitta-Pitta differ from those of many of the Australian tribes, in that exchange of sisters is not practised. Otherwise it would be tempting to argue that this proprietorship in the women of their kin may go back to the time of Mr Lang's connubial groups and help to explain the reckoning of descent through females. For clearly, if a woman still belongs in a sense to the group she has left, so may her children belong to the same group, inasmuch as their relationship to her is, to us at any rate, unmistakeable. If any evidence could be produced for the widespread existence of the custom (found in various parts of the globe, though not, up to the present, in Australia), according to which the widow and her children remove to her own district, some probability would be imparted to this hypothesis.

The ordinary rule as regards punishment inflicted by the husband on the wife seems to be that he may go any length short of doing her a mortal injury, without being liable to be called to account. The punishment of death however may only be inflicted for adultery and certain specified offences without incurring a blood-feud with the woman's relatives.

It is by no means improbable that under the influence of the custom of exchanging sisters there may be a tendency for the control of the kin in this respect to diminish; in fact the Boulia example is only explicable on this hypothesis. At the same time we cannot overlook the fact that elopement, or real marriage by capture, as distinguished from formal abduction, would, so far as we can see, have a similar effect, and the rise of the custom of exchange of sisters would in that case tend to re-establish rather than weaken the power of the woman's kin, at any rate in the first instance.

However this may be, the woman's kin exercises, prima facie, some kind of protectorship. At the present day the kinship may be matrilineal or patrilineal without affecting their right. But if, before kinship was reckoned at all, this protectorship were exercised for the benefit of the children, we clearly have a possible cause of matriliny.

For a discussion of the question of the inheritance of the deceased's wife by his brother we have more facts at our disposal. As a matter of fact it is a not infrequent custom in Australia for the widow to pass to the deceased husband's brother17; or if she does not become his wife, he decides to whom she shall be allotted18. In no case do the woman's kin seem to have a voice in the selection of her new husband. On the whole therefore the proprietary rights found in the Boulia district seem to be the product of exceptional local conditions. If this is so, it is clear that in the matter of potestas the rights of the woman's kin are now absolutely restricted to protecting her from a death which she has not according to native law deserved and to avenging such a death when it is inflicted by the husband.

The so-called levirate, or right of succession to the widow, is clearly of much importance, so far as questions of dominion are concerned; but as regards the problems of descent the evidence is less easily interpreted. It has sometimes been assumed that the succession of the brother and not the son is a mark of matriliny; but it is clear that where the right of appropriating the widow is concerned, this is very far from being the case, for the simple reason that the real matria potestas would put her at the disposal of the kin from whom she originally came; on the other hand, inasmuch as the son is naturally debarred from marrying his own mother or his tribal mother, who commonly belongs to a class into which he does not marry, there might easily arise in a purely patripotestal and patrilineal tribe a custom of handing over the widow to the father's brother.

On the whole however it seems simplest to regard the matter as one in which the rights are determined by no considerations of inheritance or descent but simply by the rule that the property in the woman remains vested in the body of purchasers. For it must be remembered that not only an own but also a tribal sister may be given in exchange for a wife. From this it follows that, theoretically at any rate, the contracting parties are corporations rather than individuals, and in this case the death of the individual on whose behalf the transaction has been effected does not extinguish the proprietary rights acquired by handing over a woman, standing in the relation of sister to the one corporation, in exchange for another woman standing in the relation of sister to the other corporation.

If this solution is correct, it is unnecessary to go into the complicated question of the relation of brother-inheritance to matriliny and patriliny. For it is by no means clear that it is an exemplification of the former rather than the latter principle. It may, of course, be argued that brothers succeed as children of the same mother; but against this must be set the fact that they are also children of the same father; for uncertain paternity can only be a vera causa where pirrauru and similar customs are found; and even here the pre-eminence of the primary husband might well be held to determine the legal paternity of the children, which is, of course, especially in Africa, a matter of potestas rather than procreation. However this may be, the position of the widow does not appear to invalidate the guardianship origin of matriliny.

We now turn to the question of why male tends to take the place of female descent. The possible factors are (1) authority in the family, (2) the rise of chieftainship and inheritance generally, and (3) the organisation of the family group. Of the authority of father or mother over the children, there is not much trace in Australia except in the most youthful period of the pre-adult life. It is for example exceptional for a parent to correct a child. As to who decides in cases of infanticide we have unfortunately too little information to be able to generalise. Only in one important step-that of betrothal-have we anything like adequate information, and the interrelations between rule of descent and potestas are found to be in this case sufficiently clear, though it is not clear on what principle it is decided who shall exercise the right.

Taking first tribes with matrilineal descent, we find that the Barkinji, the Wakelbura, the Dieri, and in some cases the Wollaroi, assign the right of betrothal to the mother or mother's brother19. In other cases, transitional forms, the father, his elder brother, or the girl's brothers decide, or else the parents or two of these persons jointly20. Among the Mukjarawaint the betrothal rested in part with the paternal grandparents21; it may be noted that the grandfather had to decide also whether a child should be brought up or killed. Among the Kuinmurbura it falls to the mother's brother's son or the father's sister's son, who is, apparently, entitled to marry the girl himself22.

Turning now to tribes with male descent, we find that the father, his brother, or the parents, almost invariably make the decision23. Among the eight-class tribes, Spencer and Gillen assert in one place24 that the mother's brother betroths a girl; but this is contradicted in two other passages25, and cannot be regarded as reliable.

On the whole therefore it appears that while there are some survivals of matria potestas into patrilineal descent, and in the matrilineal stage transitional forms are found, the right of betrothal tends to pass from the mother's to the father's side, when the rule of descent changes; but there is little to show how far a change in the right of betrothal tends to cause a change in the rule of descent.

A curious fact may be noted here, which goes far to demonstrate the absolutely heterogeneous nature of kinship and consanguinity, and suggests that descent is not reckoned in the female line on account of any supposed specially close connection between the mother and her offspring. Of the four tribes among which, according to Howitt, the child is regarded as the offspring of the father alone26, the mother being only its nurse, two, the Yuin and Kulin, have male descent; two, however, the Wolgal and Tatathi, have female descent, and among the latter, in addition, the right of betrothal lies with the mother or mother's brother.

On the whole, therefore, it may be said that no questions of potestas seem to have exercised any influence in bringing about the transition from matrilineal to patrilineal descent. It does not appear necessary, therefore, to do more than allude in passing to a fact which may well have had something to do with the decay of matria potestas, at any rate, so far as the mother's brother is concerned, even if it did not actively hasten the coming of patria potestas. This fact is the considerable size of the area over which, with the rise of the so-called nations, it is possible to select a wife. The more remote geographically the mother's relatives, the less their influence. Allowance must of course be made for the opportunities of discussion afforded by the great gatherings of the tribes; but the wider area of bride-choice must have shaken the authority of the brother.

It has been remarked above that there is no well-established case of the right of betrothal being assigned on patrilineal principles in a matrilineal tribe. The influence of the father's brother is not necessarily a mark of patrilineal tendencies, except in so far as all patria potestas is such. That the elder brother has authority in this case is no more decisive than that the elder brother has authority in cases of betrothal; it is no more an exemplification of the simple patria potestas, which has already been shown to be universal and under but slight limitations so far as the wife is concerned. From the point of view of potestas, it is a great advance that the father should be able to dispose of his own daughter in marriage; but if we may judge by the survival of matria potestas into patriliny, the cases of patria potestas under matriliny cannot have exercised an important influence in bringing about a change in the rule of descent.

The case of the power of the girl's own brother is somewhat different. Prima facie it appears to owe its origin to the fact that it is the brothers who are mainly interested in the transaction, inasmuch as it is to them that wives come in exchange for the sisters given in marriage. Consequently we cannot, as has already been the case with the so-called levirate, assign the practice definitely either to matripotestal or patripotestal customs, for father's and mother's authority are alike overruled.

It has already been stated that we have but few data for estimating the influence of the right of betrothal on the rule of descent. Clearly the father has little to gain from the fact that his daughter follows him rather than the mother, when the inevitable effect of the marriage regulations is to make her children of the phratry and totem of her husband, and consequently to make them of a different phratry and totem from her father. Under matriliny on the other hand there is nothing to prevent the grandchildren from being of the same totem as the grandfather, and they are necessarily of the same class in a four-class tribe. If considerations with regard to the phratry and totem of the grandchildren played any part in bringing about a change in the rule of descent, this must have been based on a review of the changes that would be brought about in the position of the son's and not the daughter's offspring. But this is unlikely.

But on the other hand the father's disposal of the daughter's hand is indirectly a means of increasing his influence both with his son and in general. If the son gains his wife by an exchange of sisters, the father's authority is obviously increased. But we do not know how far this factor of the right of betrothal has operated.

Turning now to questions of inheritance, we find that properly speaking the hereditary chief is unknown in Australia. There is a tendency for the son of the tribal headman to succeed his father, but it is subject to exceptions. Moreover, it is by no means a universal rule for the tribe to have an over-headman; it may be ruled by the council of district headmen. In any case the influence of the quasi-hereditary character of the over-headmanship upon the rule of descent cannot but have been comparatively slight.

It is, on the other hand, usual for the local group and the totem kin to have headmen. In the case of the latter, age is often the qualification, as among the Dieri27; in such cases there is no possible effect on the rule of succession. But among some of the Victorian tribes with matrilineal descent the rule is for the son to follow the father in the headmanship28; and the same is the case, as we should expect, among the patrilineal eight-class tribes29. The most important tribe in which hereditary headmanship is combined with female descent is the Wiradjeri30; their neighbours, the Kamilaroi, showed marked respect to the son of a headman, if he possessed ability, though they did not, apparently, make him his father's successor31.

On the whole, then, we cannot assign much weight to this element in the list of possible causes of the transition.

Of inheritance of chattels or land and fixtures we know little. From Spencer and Gillen we learn that among the Warramunga the mother's brother, or daughter's husband, succeeds to the boomerangs, and other moveable property32. Among the Kulin and the Kurnai inheritance in the male line seems to have been the rule. In the Adelaide district, as we learn from Gerstaecker33, individual property in land was known; it descended in the male line. Among the Turribul there was individual property in bunya-bunya trees; these too devolved from father to son34.

On the other hand on the Bloomfield property in zamia nut grounds has vested in women and descends from mother to daughter35; but in this remarkable variant we see, of course, not the influence of the mother's kin, but female influence or rather the right of females to the produce of their labour. In respect of other property, inheritance in North Queensland is in the male line, for it descends to blood brothers and remains in the same exogamous group from generation to generation.

This brings us to the question of the part played by the local group in causing the change from female to male descent. Under ordinary circumstances, with female descent, the local group is made up of persons of different phratries and totems; in any case, just as the phratry and totem of the members of the individual family change from generation to generation, the complexion of the local group is liable to be completely changed; though in practice the changes in one direction are no doubt counterbalanced by changes in the other, so that the net result may be nil, when the original differences were small. But we cannot suppose that the group was often evenly balanced; and a change in the rule of descent would in that case have important results for the local group and in any case for the individual family.

The importance of the difference in the constitution of the local group under descent in the male line is seen when we reflect that in the normal tribe the totem kin is practically the unit for many purposes. If, for example, an emu man has killed, let us say, an iguana man, it is the duty of the iguana men to avenge the death of their kinsman. Their vengeance need not, however, fall on the original perpetrator of the deed; according to the rules of savage justice all the emu men are equally responsible with the culprit; consequently it suffices to kill the first emu person whom they can find. Conversely, those to whom an emu man looks for defence, when he is attacked, or assistance, when he wishes to abduct a wife or anything of that sort, are his fellow emu men. It is therefore clear that the rule of male descent gives far greater security to the members of a local group; for they are surrounded by kinsmen. Under the rule of female descent, on the other hand, they probably have some kinsmen in the same group but equally a considerable number of members of other totem kins.

Self-interest therefore, no less than the natural sympathy between fathers and children, as well as between members of the same group (quite apart from forays and fighting), must have tended to bring about a change in the laws of descent.

The late Major J. W. Powell has already described the transition from matria potestas to patria potestas among the Pueblo peoples. He put it down to economic conditions, which lead the groups to scatter, each under the headship of a male, who is also the husband; this naturally resulted in a weakening of the influence of the mother's brother. It is, however, less clear that it would bring about the decay of the power of the mother herself, which in Australian tribes, at any rate, seems to be independent of the support she obtains from her male relatives.

In Australia, as we have seen, the change from matria to patria potestas had but little influence in bringing about a change in the rule of descent. Here, too, the change in the rule of descent may be put down in the main to economic causes also in a broad sense. Dumping was not in those days a question of practical politics; the problem was to prevent the neighbours from pursuing the policy of the free and open port. The necessity of protecting tribal and group property in land and game would naturally tend to bind men closer and closer, in proportion as the pressure from without became greater. It is perhaps hardly accidental that the main area of male descent is that which has also developed the Intichiuma ceremonies.

If Prof. Gregory's view36 that the occupation of Victoria by the natives dates back no more than 300 years is correct, we may perhaps see in the migration one cause of the rise of patriliny. Anything which tended to shake the influence of the mother's kin would increase the father's power; and the need of protecting newly established groups from the incursions of their neighbours would be more urgent than in older districts. As we have seen, the first mentioned cause has elsewhere had little direct effect; but it may well have played a larger part under the novel conditions of migration and occupation of fresh territory.

In South Queensland the fractionation of tribes seems to have gone further than elsewhere, unless we suppose that we have here an area, where, as in California, pressure from without has crowded together the remnants of many tribes. Although it is not obvious how the multiplication of distinct tribes has favoured patrilineal descent, we may, at any rate, say that the conditions in the area are exceptional; possibly it was more fruitful than the greater part of the continent; if so personal property in the shape of trees, etc., which we have already seen in existence in this area, would play a more important r?le here, and may well have determined the transition to patrilineal descent.

10 Fortn. Rev. Sept. 1905, cf. van Gennep, Mythes et Légendes.

11 It cannot be said that the ordinary theory of the development of kinship in the female line is satisfactory. The consanguine relation of mother and child does not appear to be a complete answer to the question why kinship-an entirely different thing-was reckoned through the mother; the alleged uncertainty of fatherhood is in the first place closely connected with an unproven stage of promiscuity and consequently hardly a vera causa, until further evidence of such a stage has been produced; and again among the Arunta, it is rather potestas than physical fatherhood which, on their theory, determines the kinship of the child so far as the class is concerned. For the primitive group therefore we cannot assert any predominant interest of the mother in the children nor yet admit that it would necessarily be important if it were shown to exist.

12 Année Sociologique V, 104 sq.; VIII, 132 sq.; Tylor in J. A. I. XVIII, 245-272.

13 Howitt, pp. 220, 225, 234, 248; cf. 159, 269.

14 ib. p. 234.

15 P. 30 infra.

16 Ethnological Studies, p. 141.

17 Howitt, pp. 193, 224, 227, 236.

18 ib. p. 248, cf. 227.

19 Howitt, pp. 195, 221, 177, 217.

20 ib. pp. 210, 227, 252, 216, 177, 260.

21 ib. p. 243.

22 ib. p. 219.

23 ib. pp. 232, 257, 236.

24 Nor. Tr. p. 603.

25 ib. pp. 77 n., 114.

26 Howitt, pp. 263, 255, 198, 195.

27 Howitt, p. 298.

28 ib. pp. 306, 308 sq.

29 Nor. Tr. p. 23.

30 Howitt, p. 303.

31 ib. p. 302.

32 Nor. Tr. p. 524.

33 Reisen. IV, 347.

34 Petrie's Reminiscences, p. 117.

35 N. Q. Ethn. Bull. VIII.

36 Proc. R. S. Vict. XVII, 120.

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