Tribes with Two Classes and Female Descent
As before, I take the Dieri tribe as my starting-point. In speaking of the marriage relations I shall have occasion to use the terms "husband" and "wife," and it must be understood that in doing so I do not use them in the sense in which we use them, but in the Dieri sense as "tippa-malku-wife" or "pirrauru-wife." I also use them, in a sense, of those tribes who, while they retain the old terms of relationship, have lost the practice they define. This is pointed out in the chapter on relationships; but in order to avoid any chance of misconception, I direct attention to it here.
The community, that is the tribe, in its social aspect is divided into two moieties, each of which has a distinguishing name, and has attached to it a group of totems. As the native speech varies in dialects or even languages in more or less divergent directions, so do the names of the classes and totems vary, though in a less degree, since it is common to find the same class names extending over country occupied by a number of tribes speaking different dialects even for hundreds of miles.
To avoid the confusion which would invariably arise from the use of the native names for the classes, sub-classes, and totems, I shall avail myself in the diagrams explaining the rules of marriage of numerals and letters as I have done before.
| Classes. | Totems. | |
| (Kararu), Moiety A. | 1,2, 3, 4, etc. | |
| (Matteri), Moiety B. | I., II., III., IV., etc. |
In this diagram A represents one of the classes of the Dieri tribe, say Kararu, and B represents Matteri. The Arabic figures represent the totems of A class, and the Roman numerals those of B. The marriage law is that the people of class A marry those of B class, and vice versa, and of a totem, or totems, of the class other than their own. It is well to note here that the custom as to the marriage of
