kangaroo.

[124] ib. nos. 168, 181, 190; Mathew, _Eaglehawk_, p. 227.

[125] Curr, no. 181.

[126] Mathew, _Eaglehawk_, p. 100; Curr, no. 177.

[127] ib. no. 55.

[128] Roth, _Studies_, p. 50; Curr, nos. 37, 38, 39.

[129] _Halle Verein fur Erdkunde_, 1883, p. 52; _Aust. Ass. Adv. Sci._
II, 640.

CHAPTER VIII.

THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF CLASSES.

Effect of classes. Dr Durkheim's Theory of Origin. Origin in grouping of
totems. Dr Durkheim on origin of eight classes. Herr Cunow's theory
of classes.

In dealing with the origin of the classes it is important to bear in
mind that they are undoubtedly later than the phratries. This is clear,
not only from the considerations urged on p. 71, but also from the fact
that the areas covered by the same classes are in the three most
important cases immensely larger than any covered by a phratriac system.
We may therefore dismiss at the outset Herr Cunow's theory, which makes
the classes the original form of organisation.

To explain the origin of the classes, as of the phratries, two kinds of
theories have been put forward, which are in this case also classifiable
as reformatory and developmental respectively. The former labour under
the same disadvantages, so far as they assume that particular marriages
were regarded as immoral or objectionable, as do the similar hypotheses
of the origin of phratries.

What is the effect of dividing a phratry into two classes? Firstly and
most obviously, to reduce by one half the number of women from whom a
man may take his spouse. Secondarily, to put in the forbidden class both
his mother's generation and his daughters' generation. It must however
not be overlooked that it is the whole class of individuals that are
thus put beyond his reach and not those only who stand to him in the
relation of daughters in the European sense. Now it is certain that the
savage of the present day distinguishes blood relationship from tribal
relationship; of this there are plenty of examples in Australia
itself[130]. In fact the hypothesis that the introduction of class
regulations was due to a desire to prevent the intermarriage of parents
and children, more especially of fathers and daughters, the mothers
being of course of the same phratries as their sons in the normal tribe,
depends for its existence on the assumption that consanguinity was
recognised. But it is clearly a clumsy expedient to limit a man's right
of choice t