The Euahlayi Tribe/Chapter 3

by K. Langloh Parker

 

CHAPTER III

 

RELATIONSHIPS AND TOTEMS

 

Some savants question the intellectual ability of the blacks because they have not elaborate systems of numeration and notation, which in their life were quite unneeded. Such as were needed were supplied. They are often incorporate in one word-noun and qualifying numerical adjective, as for example—

Gundooee	a solitary emu
Booloowah	two emus
Oogle oogle	four emus
Gayyahgnai	five or six emus
Gonurrun	fourteen or fifteen emus.

I fancy the brains that could have elaborated their marriage rules were capable of workaday arithmetic if necessary, and few indeed of us know our family trees as the blacks know theirs.

Even the smallest black child who can talk seems full of knowledge as to all his relations, animate and inanimate, the marriage taboos, and the rest of their complicated system.

The first division among this tribe is a blood distinction ('phratries'):—

Gwaigulleeah	light blooded
Gwaimudthen	dark blooded.

This distinction is not confined to the human beings of the tribe, who must be of one or the other, but there are the Gwaigulleeah and Gwaimudthen divisions in all things. The first and chief division in our tribe, as regards customary marriage law, is the partition of all tribes-folk into these 'phratries,' or 'exogamous moieties.' While in most Australian tribes the meanings of the names of phratries are lost, where the meanings are known they are usually names of animals-Eagle, Hawk, and Crow, White Cockatoo and Black Cockatoo, and so forth. Among the great Kamilaroi tribe, akin in speech to the Euahlayi, the names of phratries, Dilbi and Kupathin, are of unknown significance. The Euahlayi names, we have seen, are Gwaigulleeah, Light blooded, and Gwaimudthen, Dark blooded.

The origin of this division is said to be the fact that the original ancestors were, on the one side, a red race coming from the west, the Gwaigulleeah; on the other, a dark race coming from the east.

A Gwaigulleeah may under no circumstances marry a Gwaigulleeah; he or she must mate with a Gwaimudthen. This rule has no exception. A child belongs to the same phratry as its mother.

The next name of connection is local, based on belonging to one country or hunting-ground; this name a child takes from its mother wherever it may happen to be born. Any one who is called a Noongahburrah belongs to the Noongah-Kurrajong country; Ghurreeburrah to the orchid country; Mirriehburrah, poligonum country; Bibbilah, Bibbil country, and so on. This division, not of blood relationship, carries no independent marriage restriction, but keeps up a feeling equivalent to Scotch, Irish, or English, and is counted by the blacks as 'relationship,' but not sufficiently so to bar marriage.

The next division is the name in common for all daughters, or all sons of one family of sisters. The daughters take the name from their maternal grandmother, the sons from their maternal great-uncle.

Of these divisions, called 'Matrimonial Classes,' there are four for each sex, bearing the same names as among the Kamilaroi. The names are—

Masculine	Kumbo	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	brother and sister
Feminine,	Bootha
Masculine	Murree	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	brother and sister
Feminine,	Matha
Masculine	Hippi	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	brother and sister
Feminine,	Hippitha
Masculine	Kubbee	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	brother and sister
Feminine,	Kubbootha

The children of Bootha will be

Masculine	Hippi	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	brother and sister
Feminine,	Hippitha

The children of Matha will be

Masculine	Kubbee	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	brother and sister
Feminine,	Kubbootha

The children of Hippatha will be

Masculine	Kumbo	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	brother and sister
Feminine,	Bootha

The children of Kubbootha will be

Masculine	Murree	$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	brother and sister
Feminine,	Matha

Thus, you see, they take, if girls, their grandmother's and her sisters' 'class' names in common; if boys, the 'class' name of their grandmother's brothers.

Bootha can	only marry	Murree,
Matha	„	Kumbo,
Hippitha	„	Kubbee,
Kubbootha	„	Hippi.

Both men and women are often addressed by these names when spoken to.

A propos of names, a child is never called at night by the same name as in the daytime, lest the 'devils' hear it and entice him away.

Names are made for the newly born according to circumstances; a girl born under a Dheal tree, for example, was called Dheala. Any incident happening at the time of birth may gain a child a name, such as a particular lizard passing. Two of my black maids were called after lizards in that way: Barahgurree and Bogginbinnia.

Nimmaylee is a porcupine with the spines coming; such an one having been brought to the camp just as a girl was born, she became Nimmaylee.

The mothers, with native politeness, ask you to give their children English names, but much more often use in familiar conversation either the Kumbo Bootha names, or others derived from place of birth, from some circumstance connected with it, a child's mispronunciation of a word, some peculiarity noticed in the child, or still more often they call each other by the name proclaiming the degree of relationship.

For example, a girl calls the daughters of her mother and of her aunts alike sisters.

Boahdee	sister
Wambaneah	full brother
Dayadee	half brother
Gurrooghee	uncle
Wulgundee	uncle's wife
Kummean	sister's sister
Numbardee	mother
Numbardee	mother's sister
Beealahdee	father
Beealahdee	Mother's sisters' husbands
Gnahgnahdee	Grandmother on father's side
Bargie	„    mother's side
Dadadee	Grandfather on mother's side
Gurroomi	a son-in-law, or one who could be a son-in-law
Goonooahdee	a daughter-in-law, or one who could be a daughter-in-law
Gooleerh	husband or wife, or one who might be so.

So relationships are always kept in their memories by being daily used as names. There are other general names, too, such as—

Mullayerh	a temporary mate or companion
Moothie	a friend of childhood in after life
Doore-oothai	a lover
Dillahga	an elderly man of the same totem
Tuckandee	a young man of the same totem, reckoned as a sort of brother.

Another list of names used ordinarily is—

Boothan	last possible child of a woman
Mahmee	old woman
Beewun	motherless girl
Gowun	fatherless girl
Yumbui	fatherless boy
Moogul	only child.

Those of the same totem are reckoned as brothers and sisters, so cannot intermarry. 'Boyjerh' relations, as those on the father's side are called, are not so important as on the mother's side, but are still recognised.

Now for the great Dhé or totem system, by some called Mah, but Dhé is the more correct.

Dinewan, or emu, is a totem, and has amongst its 'multiplex totems' or 'sub-totems'—

Goodoo  or	codfish
Gumbarl	silver bream
Inga	crayfish
Boomool	shrimps
Gowargay	water emu spirit
Moograbah	big black-and-white magpie
Booloorl	little night owl
Byahmul	black swan
Eerin	a little night owl
Beerwon	a bird like a swallow
Dulloorah	the manna-bringing birds
Bunnyal	flies
Dheal	sacred fire
Gidya	an acacia
Yaraan	an eucalyptus
Deenyi	ironbark
Guatha	quandong
Goodooroo	river box
Mirieh	poligonum
Yarragerh	the north-east wind
Guie	tree—Owenia acidula
Niune	wild melon
Binnamayah	big saltbush.

Bohrah, the kangaroo, is another totem, and is considered somewhat akin to Dinewan. For example, in a quarrel between, say, the Bohrah totem and the Beewee, the Dinewan would take the part of the former rather than the latter.

Amongst the multiplex totems of Bohrah are—

Goolahwilleel	topknot pigeons
Boogoodoogadah	the rain-bird
Gilah	pink-breasted parrot
Quarrian	yellow and red breasted grey parrot
Buln Buln	green parrot
Gidgerregah	small green parrot
Cocklerina	a rose and yellow crested while cockatoo
Youayah	frogs
Guiggahboorool	biggest ant-beds
Dunnia	wattle tree
Mulga	an acacia
Gnoel	sandalwood
Brigalow	an acacia
Yarragerh	north-east wind, same as Dinewan's.

All clouds, lightning, thunder, and rain that is not blown up by the wind of another totem, belong to Bohrah.

Beewee, brown and yellow Iguana, numerically a very powerful totem, has for multiplex totems—

Gai-gai	catfish
Curreequinquin	butcher-bird
Gougourgahgah	laughing-jackass
Deenbi	divers
Birroo Birroo	sand builders
Deegeenboyah	soldier-bird
Weedah	bower-bird
Mooregoo Mooregoo	black ibis
Booloon	white crane
Noodulnoodul	whistling ducks
Goborrai	stars
Gulghureer	pink lizard
Goori	pine
Talingerh	native fuchsia
Guiebet	native passion fruit
Boonburr	poison tree
Gungooday	stockman's wood
Guddeeboondoo	bitter bark
Boorgoolbean or Mooloowerh	a shrub with creamy blossoms
Yarragerh	spring wind
Muddernwurderh	west wind.

Those with whom the Beewee shares the winds he counts as relations. It is the Beewees of the Gwaimudthen, or dark blood, who own Yarragerh (spring wind); the light-blooded own Mudderwurderh (west wind).

Another totem is Gouyou, or Bandicoot. The animal has disappeared from the Narran district, but the totem tribe is still strong, though not so numerous as either the Beewees or Dinewans.

Multiplex totems of Gouyou—

Wayarnberh	turtle
Mungghee	mussels
Piggiebillah	porcupine
Dayahminnah	small carpet snake
Mungun	large carpet snake
Douyouie	ants
Moondoo	wasps
Murgahmuggui	spider
Bayarh	green-head ants
Mubboo	beefwood
Coolabah	eucalyptus, flooded box
Bingahwingul	needlebush
Mayarnah	stones
Gheeger Gheeger	cold west wind
Gibbon	yam
Boondoon	kingfisher
Durnerh brown	pigeon
Guineeboo	redbreasts
Munggheewurraywurraymul	seagulls
Guiggah ordinary	ant-beds.

Next we take Doolungaiyah, or Bilber, commonly known as Bilby, a large species of rat the size of a small rabbit, like which it burrows; almost died out now. The totem clan are very few here too, so it is difficult to learn much as to their multiplex totems, amongst which, however, are—

Ooboon	blue-tongued lizard
Goomblegubbon	plains turkey or bustard
Boothagullagulla⁠	bird like seagull
Tekel Barain	large white amaryllis.

Douyou, black snake, totem claims—

Noongah	kurrajong—sterculia
Carbeen	an eucalyptus
Booroorerh	bulrushes
Gargooloo	yams
Yhi	the sun (feminine)
Gunyahmoo	the east wind
Kurreah	crocodile
Wa-ah	shells
Douyougurrah	earth-worms
Deereeree	willy wagtail
Burrengeen	jeewee
Bouyoudoorunnillee	grey cranes
Ouyan	curlew
Bouyougah	centipedes
Bubburr	big snake
Woggoon	scrub turkey
Beeargah	crane
Waggestmul	kind of rat
Wi	small fish
Millan	small water-yam—sourtop

Moodai, or opossum, another totem, claims—

Bibbil	popular-leaved gum
Bumble	Capparis Mitchellianni
Birah	whitewood
Beebuyer	yellow flowering broom
Illay	hop bus
Mirrie	wild currant bush
Mooregoo	swamp oak—belah
Mungoongarlee	largest iguana
Mouyi	white cockatoo
Beeleer	black cockatoo
Wungghee	white night owl
Mooregoo	mopoke
Narahdarn	bat
Bahloo	moon
Euloowirrie	rainbow
Bibbee	woodpecker
Billai	crimson wing parrot
Durrahgeegin	green frog.

Maira, a paddy melon, claims as multiplex totems—

Wahn	the crow
Mullyan	the eagle-hawk
Gooboothoo	doves
Goolayyalilee	pelican
Oonaywah	black diver
Gunundar	while diver
Birriebungar	small diver
Mounin	mosquito
Mouninguggahgui	mosquito bird
Bullah Bullah	butterflies
Tucki	a kind of bream
Beewerh	bony bream
Gulbarlee	shingleback lizard
Budtha	rosewood
Goodoogah	yalli
Wayarah	wild grapes
Garwah	rivers
Gooroongoodilbaydilbay	south wind.

It is said a Maira will never be drowned, for the rivers are a sub-totem of theirs; but I notice they nevertheless learn to swim.

Yubbah, carpet snake, as a kin has almost disappeared, only a few members remaining to claim

Mungahran⁠

hawk.⁠

Burrahwahn, a big sandhill rat, now extinct here, claims—

Mien	dingo
Dalleerin	a lizard
Gaengaen	wild lime
Willerhderh, or Douran Douran	north wind
Bralgah	native companion.

Buckandee, native cat kin, claim—

Buggila	leopard wood
Bean	myall
Bunbundoolooey	a little brown bird
Dunnee Bunbun	a very large green parrot
Dooroongul	hairy caterpillar.

Amongst other totems were once the Bralgah, Native Companion, and Dibbee, a sort of sandpiper, but their kins are quite extinct as far as our blacks are concerned; the birds themselves are still plentiful. The Bralgah birds have a Boorah ground at the back of our old horse-paddock, a smooth, well-beaten circle, where they dance the grotesque dances peculiar to them, which are really most amusing to watch, somewhat like a set of kitchen lancers into which some dignified dames have got by mistake, and a curious mixture is the dance of dignity and romping.

The totem kins numerically strongest with us were the Dinewans, Beewees, Bohrahs, and Gouyous. Further back in the country, they tell me, the crow, the eaglehawk, and the bees were original totems, not multiplex ones, as with us.

It may be as well for those interested in the marriage law puzzles to state that Dinewans, Bohrahs, Douyous, and Doolungayers are always

Kumbo
Hippi
Bootha
Hippitha.

That Moodai, Gouyou, Beewee, Maira, Yubbah are always

Murree
Kubbee
Matha
Kubbootha.

Our blacks may and do eat their hereditary totems, if so desirous, with no ill effects to themselves, either real or imaginary; their totem names they take from their mothers. They may, in fact, in any way use their totems, but never abuse them. A Beewee, for example, may kill, or see another kill, and eat or use a Beewee, or one of its multiplex totems, and show no sign of sorrow or anger; but should any one speak evil of the Beewee, or of any of its multiplex totems, there will be a quarrel.

There will likewise be a quarrel if any one dares to mimic a totem, either by drawing one, except at Boorahs, or imitating it in any way.

There are members of the tribes, principally wizards, or men intended to be such, who are given an individual totem called Yunbeai. This they must never eat or they will die. Any injury to his yunbeai hurts the man himself In danger he has the power to assume the shape of his yunbeai, which of course is a great assistance to him, especially in legendary lore; but, on the other hand, a yunbeai is almost a Heel of Achilles to a wirreenun (see the chapter on Medicine and Magic).

Women are given a yunbeai too, sometimes. One girl had a yunbeai given her as a child, and she was to be brought up as a witch, but she caught rheumatic fever which left her with St. Vitus's dance. The yunbeai during one of her bad attacks jumped out of her, and she lost her chance of witchery. One old fellow told me once that when he was going to a public-house he took a miniature form of his yunbeai, which was the Kurrea—crocodile—out of himself and put it safety in a bottle of water, in case by any chance he got drunk, and an enemy, knowing his yunbeai, coaxed it away. I wanted to see that yunbeai in a bottle, but never succeeded.

The differences between the hereditary totem or Dhé, inherited from the mother, and the individual totem or yunbeai, acquired by chance, are these: Food restrictions do not affect the totem, but marriage restrictions do; the yunbeai has no marriage restrictions; a man having an opossum for yunbeai may marry a woman having the same either as her yunbeai or hereditary totem, other things being in order, but under no circumstances must a yunbeai be eaten by its possessor.

The yunbeai is a sort of alter ego; a man's spirit is in his yunbeai, and his yunbeai's spirit in him.

A Minggah, or spirit-haunted tree of an individual, usually chosen from amongst a man's multiplex totems, is another source of danger to him, as also a help.

As Mr. Canton says: 'What singular threads of superstition bind the ends of the earth together! In an old German story a pair of lovers about to part chose each a tree, and by the tree of the absent one was the one left to know of his wellbeing or the reverse. In time his tree died, and she, hearing no news of him, pined away, her tree withering with her, and both dying at the same time.

Well, that is just what a wirreenun would believe about his Minggah. These Minggah and Goomarh spirit trees and stones always make me think, perhaps irrelevantly, of one of the restored sayings of the Lord, which ends 'Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find Me; cleave the wood, and I am there.'

Blacks were early scientists in some of their ideas, being before Darwin with the evolution theory, only theirs was a kind of evolution aided by Byamee. I dare say, though, the missing link is somewhere in the legends. I rather think the Central Australians have the key to it. One old man here was quite an Ibsen with his ghastly version of heredity.

He said, when I asked him what harm it would do for, say, a Beewee totem man to come from the Gulf country, where his tribe had never had any communication with ours, and marry a girl here,—that all Beewees were originally changed from the Beewee form into human shape. The Beewee of the Gulf, originally, like the Beewee here, had the same animal shape, and should two of this same blood mate the offspring would throw back, as they say of horses, to the original strain, and partake of iguana (Beewee) attributes either in nature or form.

From the statements just given, it will be seen that the Euahlayi are in the Kamilaroi stage of social organisation. They reckon descent in the female line: they have 'phratries' and four matrimonial classes, with totems within the phratries. In their system of 'multiplex-totems' or 'sub-totems' they resemble the Wotjobaluk tribe.^[1] The essence of the 'sub-totem' system is the division of all things into the categories provided by the social system of the human society. The arrangement is a very early attempt at a scientific system of classification.

Perhaps the most peculiar feature in the organisation of the Euahlayi is the existence of Matrimonial Classes, which are named as in the Kamilaroi tongue, while the phratry names are not those of the Kamilaroi, and alone among phratry names in Australia which can be translated, are not names of animals. The phratries have thus no presiding animals, and in the phratries there are no totem kins of the phratriac names. The cause of these peculiarities is matter of conjecture.

A peculiarity in the totemic system of the Euahlayi—the right of each individual to kill and eat his own totem—has been mentioned, and may be associated here with other taboos on food.

The wunnarl, or food taboo, was taken off a different kind of food for boys at each Boorah, until at last they could eat what they pleased except their yunbeai, or individual familiar: their Dhé, or family totem, was never wunnarl or taboo to them.

A child may not perhaps know that it has had a yunbeai given to it, and may eat of it in ignorance, when immediately they say that child sickens.

Should a boy or a girl eat plains turkey or bustard eggs while they were yet wunnarl, or taboo, he or she would lose his or her sight. Should they eat the eggs or flesh of kangaroo or piggiebillah, their skins would break out in sores and their limbs wither.

Even honey is wunnarl at times to all but the very old or very young. Fish is wunnarl for about four years after his Boorah to a boy, and about four months after she is wirreebeeun, or young woman, to a girl.

When the wunnarl was taken off a particular kind of meat, a wizard poured some of the melted fat and inside blood of that animal or bird, as the case might be, over the boy, and rubbed it into him. The boy, shaking and shivering, made a spluttering noise with his lips; after that he could eat of the hitherto forbidden food.

This did not necessarily refer to his totem, but any food wunnarl to him, though it is possible that there may have been a time in tribal history, now forgotten, when totems were wunnarl, and these ceremonies may be all that is left to point to that time.

When a boy, after his first Boorah, killed his first emu, whether it was his Dhé, or totem, or not, his father made him lie on the bird before it was cooked. Afterwards a wirreenun (wizard) and the father rubbed the fat on the boy's joints, and put apiece of the flesh in his mouth. 'The boy chewed it, making a noise as he did so of fright and disgust; finally he dropped the meat from his mouth, making a blowing noise through his lips of 'Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!' After that he could eat the flesh.

A girl, too, had to be rubbed with the fat and blood of anything from which the wunnarl was to be removed for her. No ceremony of this sort would be gone through with the flesh, fat, or blood of any one's yunbeai, or individual familiar animal, for under no circumstances would any one kill or eat their yunbeai.

Concerning the yunbeai, or animal familiar of the individual, conferred by the medicine men, more is to be said in the ensuing chapters. The yunbeai answers to the Manitu obtained by Red Indians during the fast at puberty; to the 'Bush Soul' of West Africa; to the Nagual of South American tribes; and to the Nyarong of Borneo. The yunbeai has hitherto been scarcely remarked on among Australian tribes. Mr. Thomas declares it to be 'almost non-existent' in Australia, mentioning as exceptions its presence among the Euahlayi; the Wotjobaluk in Victoria; the Yaraikkanna of Cape York; and 'probably' some of the northern tribes on the other side of the Gulf of Carpentaria.^[2]

Perhaps attention has not been directed to the animal familiar in Australia, or perhaps it is really an infrequent thing among the tribes.

1. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 121, 125, 453, 455.
2. Man (1904), No. 53, p. 85.