ments against, Morgan.

According to Morgan, the punaluan family has its start with the
exclusion of consanguineous brothers and sisters, on the mother's side.
Where a woman has several husbands, the evidence of paternity is
impossible. Paternity becomes a fiction. Even to-day, under the rule of
strict monogamous marriage, paternity, as Goethe, in his
"Apprenticeship," lets Frederick say, "rests only upon faith." If with
monogamy, paternity is often doubtful, it is impossible of proof in
polygamy: only descent from the mother is certain and unquestionable.
Accordingly, descent from the mother afforded the only criterion. As all
deep-reaching transformations in the social relations of primitive man
are accomplished only slowly, the change of the so-called consanguine
into the punaluan family must unquestionably have engaged vast periods
of time, and been broken through by many relapses, still noticeable in
much later days. The proximate external inducement for the development
of the punaluan family was, possibly, the necessity of splitting up the
strongly swollen membership of the family, to the end that new grounds
could be occupied for cattle ranges and agriculture. Probably, also,
with the reaching of a higher grade of civilization, a sense gradually
asserted itself of the harmfulness and indecorousness of sexual
intercourse between brothers and sisters, and close relatives. In favor
of this theory stands a pretty tradition, that, as related by Cunow,
Gaston found among the Dieyeries, one of the South Australian tribes, on
the rise of the "Mordu" consanguine group. He says:

"After creation, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and other near
relatives married promiscuously among one another, until the evil
effects of such connections showed themselves clearly. A conference of
leaders was held, and it was considered in what way this could be
avoided. The outcome of the conference was a request to the Muramura
(Great Spirit); and he ordered in his answer that the tribe be divided
into several branches, and that, in order to distinguish them, they be
called by different names, after animate or inanimate objects. For
instance: after the dingo, the mouse, the emu, the rain, the
iguana-lizard, etc. The members of one and the same group could not
marry another. The son of a Dingo could not, for instance, marry the
daughter of a Dingo; each of the two could, however, enter into
connections with the Mouse, the Emu, the Rat, o