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Kamilaroi and Kurnai : Group-Marriage and Relationship

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Kamilaroi and Kurnai : Group-Marriage and Relationship ^^!fvolume handle t^*^° BOOK 572.9g4.F54 c. 1 FISON # KAMILAROI AND KURNAI 3 T1S3 0013flTflb 7 |K, 64 2-^ KAMILAKOI AND KUENAI MANEROO TABLE LAND. BASS'S STRAITS KAIILAROI AID KFRIAI GROUP-MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP, AND MARRIAGE BY ELOPEMENT Drawn chiefly from the usage of the Australian Aborigines THE KURNAI TRIBE Their customs in Peace and War BY LORIMER FISON, M.A., and A. W. HOWITT, F.G.S. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LEWIS H. MORGAN, LL.D. AUTHOR OP ''Systems of Consanguinity," "Ancient Society," &c. ' Imlkiis monstrare recentihus ahilita rpriim."—HOR. GEORGE ROBERTSON MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, ADELAIDE, AND BRISBANE MDCCCLXXX [All rights reserved.] TO THE HONOURABLE LEWIS H. MORGAN, LL.D., THIS VOLUME ©eUicatetr, AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM, B Y THE A UTHORS. CONTENTS. PREFATORY NOTE ... ... 1 KAMILAROI MARRIAGE, DESCENT, AND RELATIONSHIP 21 GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP 97 THE KURNAI, THEIR CUSTOMS IN PEACE AND WAR ... 177 THEORY OF THE KURNAI SYSTEM 293 SUMMARY AND GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 315 — — ERRATA. P. 4-}. The following statcmeut, which occurs here, requires correction : "The two sets of gentes are conterminous with the original classes; and, descent being through the mother, they alternate between those classes in alternate generations. Ipai-Kumbu CYuugaru') = Kangaroo-Opossum-Iguana. Muri-Kubi ( VVutaru) = Emu-Bandicoot- Blacksnake. In the next generation : Ipai-Kumbu = Emu-Bandicoot-Blacksnake. Muri-Kubi = Kangaroo-Opossum-Iguana." This is incorrect. Ipai-Kumbu always^ Emu-Bandicoot-Blacksnakc and Muri-Kubi always = Kangaroo- Opossum-Iguana. The gentes, there- fore, do not " alternate between the original classes in alternate genera- tions." P. 52, line 2 of Latin quotation from " Eyre's Discoveries,"/'"' ^'pvoeiet" read "^praek'^." P. 59, line 29, /or " kinship," read "kinsfolk." " " P. 72, line 4, /or Gurgela-Burbia," read Wungo-Kuberu." P. 121, in the diagram of " Descent through males,"/or "n' " read "m'." P. 140, line 10, for " Derbet and (Torgot or Tchoro)," read " Derbet (or Tchoro) and Torgot." PEEFATOEY NOTE. The following memoirs—the first by the Rev, Lorimer Fison, and the second by Mr. Alfred W. Howitt, F.G.S.—were sent by these gentlemen to the undersigned, and they very kindly requested me to add an introduction, and such foot- notes as the text might suggest ; but the facts are so carefully and plainly presented that nothing seems left for me to do, except to call attention to the value of the materials contained in these memoirs, and to their bearing upon the early history of mankind. While collecting materials for my work on " Consan- guinity," which forms the seventeenth volume of the " Smithsonian Contributions to KJaowledge," it was my good fortune to interest, as a co-labourer, Mr. Fison, then resi- dent in the Fiji Islands. He became a direct contributor to that work, as will be seen by consulting the same, pp. 573-583. Soon afterwards, he removed to Australia, where he entered upon a wider series of investigations into the social organization of the Australian tribes, their customs in respect to maiTiage and descents, the form of the family, and the systems of consanguinity and afiinity pertaining to the same. These researches, which extended over a period of several years, are in part embodied in the first of the memoirs named. It is proper to add that the late Professor Joseph Henry was acquainted with Mr. Fison's work, and 2 2 PREFATORY NOTE. that he addressed him a letter, in which he commended his labours, and encouraged him to continue their prosecution. Mr. Fison found an efficient fellow-labourer in the Aus- tralian field in Mr. A. W. Howitt, whose memoir is also attached. Although engaged in arduous official duties, he has found time to do excellent ethnological work, as his memoir will show. These gentlemen united in a list of printed questions touching organization, kinship, and consanguinity among the Australian blacks, which they distributed widely in the principal settlements of that country, inviting correspondence, as well as prompting inquiries. They also held personal intercourse with the natives as far as possible. From a number of original sources, they have accumulated a large body of facts, illustrating phases of savage life, and exhibiting the prin- cipal institutions, and some of the customs of the Australian aborigines. In this connection I cannot forbear to remark, to the lasting credit of these gentlemen, that, while charged with weighty professional avocations, they have felt it their duty to stretch forth a timely, as well as an active, hand to save from oblivion the facts embodied in these memoirs. The Australian tribes are melting away before the touch of civilization, even more rapidly than the American aborigines. In a lower ethnical condition than the latter, they have displayed less power of resistance. They now represent the condition of mankind in savagery better than it is elsewhere represented on the earth—a condition now rapidly passing away, through the destructive influence of superior races. Moreover, it is a condition of society which has not hitherto been thought worthy of special scientific investigation, although it is one of the stages of progress through which the more advanced tribes and nations of mankind have passed in their early — — PREFATORY NOTE. 3 history, and although some of the more important institu- tions of civilized states must be sought, in their rudimentary forms, in this very condition of savagery in which they originated. In a few years nothing will be known of the arts, institutions, manners, customs, and plan of life of savage man, except as they are preserved in memoirs like the present. Part First of the following contribution to Australian ethnology is by Mr. Fison, on the origin and development of the classificatory system of kinship. It treats of the Australian class divisions organized upon the basis of sex, together with their laws of marriage and descent, and their system of consanguinity and affinity, in a clear, precise, and exhaustive manner. I shall limit this notice of Mr. Fison's important memoir to the following subjects : I.—The Murdu-Legend. II.—The extent of the distribution of the organization upon the basis of sex among the Australian aborigines. III.—The organization into gentes or clans, with a rule prohibiting intermarriage in the gens. IV.—Marriage in the Group. y.—The Turanian character of Kamilaroi kinship, resulting from the class organization and from the prohibition named. YI.—Severe penalties for violating the rule in respect to marriage i.e., marrying into a prohibited class. VII.—Mr, Fison's explanation of the classical legend concerning the trial and acquittal of Orestes by the gods, as presented by -^schylus. These several topics by no means reach all the important questions presented and discussed in this memoir, a careful study of which will amply repay the reader. — 4 PKEFATORY NOTE. I. —The Murdu-Legend. Mr. Fison introduces the first chapter with the very striking legend named, which recognizes a state of society in certain Australian tribes, at some early period in their history, in which the consanguine family existed. This family, the probable existence of which has been denied by a limited number of authors,* has been deduced theoretically from the Malayan system of consanguinity and affinity, and from the facts of the social condition of the Polynesian tribes. It is not claimed that this family exists at the present time. That state of society has passed away. This legend opens with the following paragraph, which is borne out as to its truthfulness by what is now known of Aus- tralian society : " After the creation, brothers and sisters, and others of the closest kin, intermarried promiscnously, until the evil effects of these alliances becoming manifest, a council of the chiefs was assembled to consider in what way they might be averted." There we have the testimony of an accepted and perpetuated native legend, which gives to the con- sanguine family a basis of probability. It has more weight than mere negative assertions, which are necessarily incapable of proof. It is also a plain statement of facts as they appeared to the native mind, familiar with their present, and, to some extent, with their anterior condition. The Australians and Polynesians are alike in the condition of savagery, in which state alone the consanguine family was possible. Until their social condition and sexual relations are more thoroughly investigated, the existence of a consanguine family among them, at some early period, is * See Address of Mr. C. Staniland Wake before the London Archaeological Institute (Journal for November, 1878), which seems to have received the entire concurrence of the members of the institute. —; PREFATORY NOTE. 5 an unavoidable conclusion. It is rendered so far probable by existing knowledge that the probability can only be set aside by actual facts to the contrary. The movement referred to—the- legend goes on to say resulted in the establishment of the Australian class system, with such an arrangement in respect to marriage that own brothers and sisters were thereafter excluded from the mar- riage relation. This legend not only admits consanguine marriages as previously real, but also treats the establishment of the classes on the basis of sex, with the prohibition named, as designed by its authors to avert a recognized evil. Evolutionists are slow to ascribe to savages any conscious desire for reformatory measures. They concede that they try different measures by accident, and that when they discover a practical benefit, they adopt the means by which the benefit was gained. It is not supposable that savages design, consciously, reformatory measures, in the strict sense of the term ; but that they are without intelli- gence in their action and aims, cannot be truthfully spoken. " The thouo-htless brain of a savage " will answer as a poetical phrase, but it cannot be accepted as literally true.
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