Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/215

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MARRIAGE RULES
189

The restriction in marriage to one or more totems is certainly later in origin than the Dieri rule, and, as will be seen in my further statements, in many tribes with two class-divisions. For instance, in the Itchumundi nation, which is the nearest on the east side to the Lake Eyre tribes, where the class names are Mukwara and Kilpara, Mukwara-eaglehawk marries Kilpara-emu; and Mukwara-dog marries Kilpara-padi-melon. The tribes of the Karamundi nation have a similar rule by which a member of the one class may marry only in one totem of the other class. For instance, a man of the Mukwara -kangaroo totem marries into the Kilpara-emu totem, but not into any other. But in some of the Barkinji tribes there is no such rule, and a man may marry a woman of any totem of the other class, always provided that there is not any other restriction, such as those which arise out of relationships.

Returning to the Lake Eyre tribes, an interesting comparison may be drawn between the marriage rules of the Dieri and those of the Urabunna, which are given concisely in the following diagrams:—

URABUNNA Diagram VIII (l) Father (4) Klder brother of 2 DIERI Diagram IX (I) Father (5) Brother of 2 (2) Mother (5) Elder sister of i (2) Mother (6) Sister of i (3) Son -<-nupa->-(6) daughter (3) daughter -<- kami ->- (7) daughter (4) grandson -<-noa->-(8) grand-daughter

The Dieri rule is evidently a development of that of the Urabunna, and is therefore the later one. This is also shown by the practice of the Dieri of which I have spoken, and which, by what may be called a "legal fiction," converts the relationship of two people who are Kami to each other, and therefore, in the Dieri custom, not marriageable, into the relation of Noa, they thus becoming eligible for marriage. The Dieri relation of Noa is the equivalent of the Nupa of the Urabunna, and Nupa and Noa are equivalents, because those