ccupation of Australia, and go back to a period when the
eastern and central divisions were in close relation. The probability of
this view would, of course, depend on the extent of the resemblance
between the two stocks of tales, or, perhaps, rather on the extent of
the resemblance between those tales which they have in common; for it is
clear that a close resemblance between comparatively few items would be
more effective proof of intercommunication than a less marked general
resemblance between the tale-stocks as a whole.

In spite of the deficiencies of our evidence we may perhaps incline to
the view that the bird myth dates back to a very early period. Until it
has been shown that intrusive elements are not only taken up into the
tribal stock of tales, but also incorporated in the more sacred portion
of those tales, which are told at the tribal mysteries, it will always
remain more probable that the myth belongs to the two divisions as a
result of lineal and not lateral transmission. If this is so the
differences between the initiation ceremonies, no less than the
anthropomorphic form of the myth in the eastern division, as compared
with the purely theriomorphic story of the central division and the
mixed form of the Ikula, will enable us to say that the period when the
separation of the divisions took place must be very remote.

There is, therefore, no inherent improbability in supposing that the
bird myth was told before the phratry names were invented or adopted,
and that the latter were in some cases taken from the principal
characters in the myth. This conclusion is supported by the fact that
the phratry names seem to be subsequent to the present grouping, if we
may take as our guide the fact that the frontiers of the phratry names
correspond with the boundaries between the central and eastern
divisions. The fact that there is a cross division, if we base our
reasoning on the class organisation, need not of course be taken into
account, for we have every reason to believe that the classes are
subsequent to the phratries.

In favour of the derivation of the phratry names from the myth tells
also the five-fold division of the eaglehawk-crow groups into Muquara
and Kilpara, Bunjil and Waa, Merung and Yuckembruk, Multa or Malian and
Umbe. For it is clearly more probable that the names should have been
taken from a common object than that they should have been in their
origin identical in form and subsequently di