The Native Tribes of North Central Australia: Chapter II. The Social Organisation of the Tribes

It may perhaps be wondered how the natives themselves become acquainted with what is to the average white man so apparently elaborate and even, at first sight, complicated, a scheme. In the first place it is not in reality so complicated as it appears, and if we lay aside all pre-conceived ideas of relationship and remember that the terms are constantly being used by the natives who live, so to speak, surrounded with object lessons in the form of the members of the local group, then the difficulty largely vanishes. Another thing to be remembered is that the relationship of one native to another is one of the most important points with which each individual must be acquainted. There are certain customs which are enforced by long usage and according to which

1

In these diagrams the double arrow indicates the marriage connections and the single ones point to the name of the class of the children.

As a matter of fact these diagrams as they stand, though perfectly correct in stating, for example, that a Panunga man marries a Purula woman, are incomplete in that they do not show the important point that to a Panunga man the Purula women are divided into two groups the members of one of whom stand to him in the relationship of Unawa whom he may marry, while the members of the other stand in the relationship of Unkulla whom he may not marry. This fact is one of very considerable importance. Each of the four sub-classes is thus divided into two, the members of which stand respectively in the relationship of Ipmunna to each other. We can represent this graphically as follows, taking, for the sake of simplicity, only two sub-classes, the divisions of one being represented by the letters A and B, and of the other by the letters C and D.

A stands in the relationship of Unawa to C, Ipmunna to B, and Unkulla to D. In other words a woman who is Unkulla to me is Ipmunna to my wife. All women of group C (myself belonging to A), my wife calls sisters—Ungaraitcha if they be elder sisters, and Itia if they be younger sisters; and all of

This table was drawn up in the first instance in order to show the marriage relationships and the divisions into which 1 was the descendant of the animal or plant, or at least was immediately associated with the object the name of which he bears as his totemic name. In many Australian tribes it seems to be a general custom that a man must not eat or injure his totem, whereas amongst the Arunta there are special occasions on which the totem is eaten, and there is no rule absolutely forbidding the eating of the totem at other times, though it is clearly understood that it must only be partaken of very sparingly. However, though the totems of the Arunta are in certain respects

In column 1 the larger and smaller brackets on the right side indicate the relationship of Uwinna, the overlapping 1

Speaking again as an Arunta man only recognising four sub-classes the women of the class to which my mother belongs are divided into two groups, the members of one of which have the relationship of Mia to me and those of the other that of Umba.

The children of the Okilia of my Oknia, that is my father's elder brothers' children, will be Appungerta as I am, and they will be according to sex, my Okilia, elder brothers, or Ungaraitcha, elder sisters.

The children of my Oknia's Ungaraitcha and of his Quitia

1 Thus, every man calls the members of a particular group by the name of

56:1 In using the English term we do not mean to imply that it is the equivalent of the native term, but simply that the latter includes the relationship indicated by the English term.

57:1 A child is, at its birth, very often named after the place at which the mother imagines she conceived it—that is the spot at which she first becomes aware that she is, as the natives say, “atnūnta.” For instance, the child of a woman who believes that she conceived it at Alice Springs is called Atthuriira-rinia, “Atthuriia” being the native name of Alice Springs, and “rinia” a suffix meaning “of” or “belonging to.” In addition to the locality name others, which we can only call nick-names, are given. These are very popular, and are derived from some personal peculiarity or from some fanciful resemblance to a particular animal or plant. Every individual has also a sacred name, which is especially associated with his or her churinga or sacred emblem, and which is only known to the men of his or her own local totemic group. Details with regard to the names are given in Appendix A.

58:1To this may be added, still further, the fact that there do exist certain terms applied by men to certain particular individuals which are in the strict sense “terms of address.” A man, for example, addresses particular men who took part in his initiation ceremonies by such terms as Tapunga, Urinthantima, &c., which express no relationship, and the significance of which is entirely distinct from the true terms of relationship now dealt with.

59:1 Mr. Roth, in his work on the North-West Central Queensland aborigines, has proposed a series of terms, Patronym, Gamomatronym, Paedomatronym, Autonym, &c. Apart from the fact that these appear to us to be too cumbersome, the termination “nym” which is common to them all implies, as it were, a certain equivalency amongst them which does not exist, and therefore they appear to us to be somewhat misleading. We shall merely use the terms class, sub-class, totem name, sacred name, terms of relationship, terms of address, personal name, status term.

59:2 Cf. Howitt, “The Dieri and other Kindred Tribes of Central Australia,” Four. Anth. Inst., vol. xx. p. 30; see also Gason, The Dieyerie Tribe of Australian Aborigines. The classes Matthurie and Kirarawa of the Urabunna are the equivalents of the Matteri and Karara of the Dieri.

60:1 The totemic systems of the tribes inhabiting the area of country which centres in Lake Eyre and of which the Urabunna is one require further investigation. We have not been able to acquire such detailed information with regard to this tribe as we have in the case of the Arunta. The most difficult point to determine is exactly what totems intermarry. Whilst the intermarriage of the totems now described is correct so far as it goes, further investigation may reveal the fact that, for example, a man of the crow totem may marry women of other totems besides the cicada. This, however, will not affect the validity of the tables and genealogical tree now given. The fundamental fact is that men of one moiety of the tribe must marry women of the other.

62:1 The exact equivalent of the Pirauru of the Dieri tribe. Cf. Howitt, Trans. R. S. Vict., vol. i., pt. ii., 1889, p. 96.

66:1 In the table we have only indicated the totemic name: it will be understood that every cicada man and woman belongs to the Matthurie class, and every crow to the Kirarawa.

67:1 That is supposing 13 to be an elder sister, and 11 and 15 younger sisters (blood or tribal) of 14.

67:2 That is if 39 be a daughter of a younger brother of 14.

67:3 36 is regarded as the daughter of an elder sister of 14.

71:1 An outline of the organisation of the Arunta tribe has been given by Messrs. Stirling and Gillen in the Report of the Horn Expedition to Central Australia.

73:1 The Alcheringa is the name applied to the far distant past with which the earliest traditions of the tribe deal.

79:1 Father's elder brothers are Akaurli aniaura, younger brothers are Akaurli maianinga.

79:2 Mother's elder sisters are Arungwa apmarla, younger sisters are Arungwa atchinali.

80:1 Father's elder brothers are Gampatcha babati, younger brothers are Gampatcha kuka.

80:2 Mother's elder sisters are Kurnandi bithara, younger sisters are Kurnandi bilibili.

85:1 In actual practice these women are usually simply addressed as Mia.

87:1 This existence of a special term having regard to the father or mother of a husband and wife is probably very general in Australian tribes. It is interesting to note that in the tribes studied by Mr. Roth, in which descent is counted in the female line, the terms imply a relationship between the mother of the husband and the mother of the wife; in the tribes to which our account refers, and in which descent is counted in the male line, the corresponding term refers to a relationship between the father of the husband and the father of the wife.