BY

NORTHCOTE W. THOMAS, M.A.
Diplome de l'Ecole des Hautes-Etudes,
Corresponding Member of the Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris, etc.

CAMBRIDGE:
at the University Press
1906

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
C.F. CLAY, MANAGER,

London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
Glasgow: 50, WELLINGTON STREET.

[Illustration]

Leipzig: F.A. BROCKHAUS.
New York: G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS.
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.

[_All Rights reserved._]

DEDICATED
TO
MISS C.S. BURNE,
WHO FIRST GUIDED MY STEPS
INTO THE PATHS OF
ANTHROPOLOGY

PREFACE.

It is becoming an axiom in anthropology that what is needed is not
discursive treatment of large subjects but the minute discussion of
special themes, not a ranging at large over the peoples of the earth
past and present, but a detailed examination of limited areas. This work
I am undertaking for Australia, and in the present volume I deal briefly
with some of the aspects of Australian kinship organisations, in the
hope that a survey of our present knowledge may stimulate further
research on the spot and help to throw more light on many difficult
problems of primitive sociology.

We have still much to learn of the relations of the central tribes and
their organisations to the less elaborately studied Anula and Mara. I
have therefore passed over the questions discussed by Dr Durkheim. We
have still more to learn as to the descent of the totem, the relation of
totem-kin, class and phratry, and the like; totemism is therefore
treated only incidentally in the present work, and lack of knowledge
compels me to pass over many other interesting questions.

The present volume owes much to Mr Andrew Lang. He has read twice over
both my typescript MS, and my proofs; in the detection of ambiguities
and the removal of obscurities he has rendered my readers a greater
service than any bald statement will convey; for his aid in the matter
of terminology, for his criticisms of ideas already put for