Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia

CHAPTER XIII.. Pirrauru.

PIRRAURU.

Theories of group marriage. Meaning of group. Dieri customs. Tippa-malku marriage. Obscure points. Pirrauru. Obscure points. Relation of pirrauru to tippa-malku unions. Kurnandaburi. Wakelbura customs. Kurnai organisation. Position of widow. Piraungaru of Urabunna. Pirrauru and group marriage. Pirrauru not a survival. Result of scarcity of women. Duties of Pirrauru spouses. Piraungaru; obscure points =127-141=

CHAPTER XIV.. Temporary Unions.

TEMPORARY UNIONS.

Wife lending. Initiation ceremonies. Jus primae noctis. Punishment for adultery. Ariltha of central tribes. Group marriage unproven =142-149=

APPENDIX.

ANOMALOUS MARRIAGES.

Decay of class rules in South-East. Descent in Central Tribes. "Bloods" and "Castes" =150-152=

INDEX OF PHRATRY, BLOOD, AND CLASS NAMES =153-157= INDEX OF SUBJECTS =158-163=

* * * * *

MAPS.

PAGE I. Rule of Descent =40= II. Class Organisations to follow =40= III. Phratry Organisations " =40=

TABLE.

Class Names of Eight-Class Tribes =between pp. 46= and =47=

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1. Allgemeine Missionszeitschrift. Gutersloh, 1874 etc., 8^o.

2. American Anthropologist. Washington, 1888 etc., 8^o.

3. Année Sociologique. Paris, 1898 etc., 8^o.

4. Archaeologia Americana. Philadelphia, 1820 etc., 4^o.

5. Das Ausland. Munich, 1828-1893, 4^o.

6. Bulletins of North Queensland Ethnography. Brisbane, 1901 etc., fol.

7. BUNCE, D., Australasiatic Reminiscences of Twenty-three Years Wanderings. Melbourne, 1857, 8^o.

8. Colonial Magazine. London, 1840-1842, 8^o.

9. CUNOW, H., Die Verwandtschaftsorganisationen der Australneger. Leipzig, 1894, 8^o.

10. CURR, E.M., The Australian Race. 4 vols., London, 1886, 8^o and fol.

11. DAWSON, J., Australian Aborigines. Melbourne, 1881, 4^o.

12. FISON, L. and HOWITT, A.W., Kamilaroi and Kurnai. Melbourne, 1880, 8^o.

13. Folklore. London, 1892 etc., 8^o.

14. Fortnightly Review. London, 1865-1889, 8^o.

15. FRAZER, J.G., Totemism. Edinburgh, 1887, 8^o.

16. GERSTAECKER, F., Reisen von F. Gerstaecker. 5 vols., Stuttgart, 1853-4, 8^o.

17. Globus. Hildburghausen etc., 1863 etc., 4^o.

18. GREY, Sir G., Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and West Australia. 2 vols., London, 1841, 8^o.

19. GRIBBLE, J.B., Black but Comely. London, 1874, 8^o.

20. HODGSON, C.P., Reminiscences of Australia. London, 1846, 12^o.

21. HOWITT, A.W., Native Tribes of South-East Australia. London, 1904, 8^o.

22. Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie. Leyden, 1888 etc., 4^o.

23. Journal of the Anthropological Institute. London, 1871 sq., 8^o.

24. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. London, 1832-1880, 8^o.

25. Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales. Sydney, 1877 etc., 8^o.

26. Journals of Several Expeditions in West Australia. London, 1833, 12^o.

27. LAHONTAN, H. DE, Voyages. Amsterdam, 1705, 12^o.

28. LANG, A. and ATKINSON, J., Social Origins; Primal Law. London, 1903, 8^o.

29. LANG, A., Secret of the Totem. London, 1905, 8^o.

30. LEICHARDT, F.W.L., Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia. London, 1848, 8^o.

31. LUMHOLTZ, C., Among Cannibals. London, 1889, 8^o.

32. MACLENNAN, J.F., Studies in Ancient History. 2nd Series, London, 1886, 8^o.

33. Man. London, 1901 sq., 8^o.

34. MATHEW, J., Eaglehawk and Crow. London, 1898, 8^o.

35. MATHEWS, R.H., Ethnological Notes. Sydney, 1905, 8^o.

36. Mitteilungen des Seminars fur orientalische Sprachen. Berlin, 1898 etc., 8^o.

37. Mitteilungen des Vereins fur Erdkunde. Halle, 1877-1892, 8^o.

38. MOORE, G.F., Descriptive Vocabulary of the Language in Common Use among the Aborigines of Western Australia. London, 1842, 8^o.

39. MORGAN, Lewis H., Ancient Society. New York, 1877, 8^o.

40. NEW, C., Travels. London, 1854, 8^o.

41. OWEN, Mary A., The Musquakie Indians. London, 1905, 8^o.

42. PARKER, K.L., The Euahlayi Tribe. London, 1905, 8^o.

43. PETRIE, Tom, Reminiscences. Brisbane, 1905, 8^o.

44. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Philadelphia, 1840 etc., 8^o.

45. Proceedings of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science. 1889 etc., 8^o.

46. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, Queensland Branch. Brisbane, 1886 etc., 8^o.

47. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland. Brisbane, 1884 etc., 8^o.

48. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. Melbourne, 1889 etc., 8^o.

49. Reports of the Cambridge University Expedition to Torres Straits. Cambridge, 1903 etc., 4^o.

50. ROTH, W.E., Ethnological Studies. Brisbane, 1898, 8^o.

51. SCHÜRMANN, C.W., Vocabulary of the Parnkalla Language. Adelaide, 1844, 8^o.

52. Science of Man. Sydney, 1898 etc., 4^o.

53. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Washington, 1848 etc. 4^o.

54. SPENCER, B. and GILLEN, F.J., Native Tribes of Central Australasia. London, 1898, 8^o.

55. SPENCER, B. and GILLEN, F.J., Northern Tribes of Central Australia. London, 1904, 8^o.

56. STOKES, J.L., Discoveries in Australia. 2 vols., London, 1846, 8^o.

57. TAPLIN, G., Folklore, Manners, Customs and Language of the South Australian Aborigines. Adelaide, 1878, 8^o.

58. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia. Adelaide, 1878 etc., 8^o.

59. VAN GENNEP, A., Mythes et Légendes. Paris, 1906, 8^o.

60. West Australian. Perth, 1886 etc., fol.

61. WESTERMARCK, E., History of Human Marriage. 3rd Edition, London, 1901, 8^o.

62. Wiener Medicinische Wochenschrift. Vienna, 1851 etc., 4^o.

63. WILSON, T.B., Narrative of a Voyage round the World. London, 1835, 8^o.

64. Zeitschrift fur vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft. Stuttgart, 1878 etc., 8^o.

INDEX TO ABBREVIATIONS.

Allg. Miss. Zts., 1 Am. Anth., 2 Am. Phil. Soc., 44 Ann. Soc., 3 Aust. Ass. Adv. Sci., 45 Col. Mag., 8 C.T., 54 Ethn. Notes, 35 Fort. Rev., 14 J.A.I., 23 J.R.G.S., 24 J.R.S.N.S.W., 25 J.R.S. Vict., 48 Nat. Tr., 54 Nor. Tr., 55 N.Q. Ethn. Bull., 6 N.T., 21 Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 44 Proc. R.G.S. Qn., 46 Proc. R.S. Vict., 48 R.G.S. Qn., 47 Sci. Man, 52 T.R.S.S.A., 58 West. Aust., 60 Zts. vgl. Rechtsw., 64

CHAPTER I.. Introductory.

INTRODUCTORY.

Social organisation. Associations in the lower stages of culture. Consanguinity and Kinship. The Tribe. Kinship groups; totem kins; phratries.

The passage from what is commonly termed savagery through barbarism to civilisation is marked by a change in the character of the associations which are almost everywhere a feature of human society. In the lower stages of culture, save among peoples whose organisation has perished under the pressure of foreign invasion or other external influences, man is found grouped into totem kins, intermarrying classes and similar organised bodies, and one of their most important characteristics is that membership of them depends on birth, not on the choice of the individual. In modern society, on the other hand, associations of this sort have entirely disappeared and man is grouped in voluntary societies, membership of which depends on his own choice.

It is true that the family, which exists in the lower stages of culture, though it is overshadowed by the other social phenomena, has persisted through all the manifold revolutions of society; especially in the stage of barbarism, its importance in some directions, such as the regulation of marriage, often forbidden within limits of consanguinity much wider than among ourselves, approaches the influence of the forms of natal association which it had supplanted. In the present day, however, if we set aside its economic and steadily diminishing ethical sides, it cannot be compared in importance with the territorial groupings on which state and municipal activities depend.

If the family is a persistent type the tribe may also be compared to the modern state; it is, in most parts of the world, no less territorial in its nature; membership of it does not depend among the Australians on any supposed descent from a common ancestor; and though residence plus possession of a common speech is mentioned by Howitt as the test of tribe, it is possible in Australia, under certain conditions, to pass from one tribe to another in such a way that we seem reduced to residence as the test of membership. This change of tribe takes place almost exclusively where tribes are friendly, so far as is known; and we may doubt whether it would be possible for a stranger to settle, without any rite of adoption, in the midst of a hostile or even of an unknown tribe; but this is clearly a matter of minor importance, if adoption is not, as in North America, an invariable element of the change of tribe. Although membership of a tribe is thus loosely determined, tribesmen feel themselves bound by ties of some kind to their fellow-tribesmen, as we shall see below, but in this they do not differ from the members of any modern state.

But in Australia the importance of the tribe, save from an economic point of view, as joint owner of the tribal land, is small compared with the part played in the lives of its members by the intratribal associations, whose influence is recognised without, as within the tribe. These associations are of two kinds in the lowest strata of human society; in each case membership is determined by birth and they may therefore be distinguished as natal associations. In the one case, the kinship groups such as totem kins, phratries, etc., an individual remains permanently in the association into which he is born, special cases apart, in which by adoption he passes out of it and joins another by means of a legal fiction. The other kind of association, to which the name age-grades is applied, is composed of a series of grades, through which, concomitantly with the performance of the rites of initiation obligatory on every male member of the community, each man passes in succession, until he attains the highest. In the rare cases where an individual fails to qualify for the grade into which his coevals pass, and remains in the grade of "youth" or even lower grades, he is by birth a member of one class and does not remain outside the age-grades altogether.

Continue reading Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia free in the Wunder reader →