therefore under such
circumstances a kinship organisation were to come into existence, either
independently or by transmission, it might well be that patrilineal
principles prevailed from the first. But of such a case we have no
knowledge. It may perhaps be questioned whether the actually existing
peoples who appear to have no kinship organisations, such as the
Hottentots, the Bushmen, the Veddahs and perhaps the Fuegians, are not
in this state rather as a result of the break-up of their former
organisation than because they have never evolved kinship groups. But
our knowledge in these matters is lamentably small and the problem is
not one which calls for discussion here.

The second fundamental problem relating to rules of descent is that of
the cause of the transition from matrilineal to patrilineal descent. The
subject needs to be discussed in detail for each particular area before
general conclusions can be formulated; it is quite possible that the
causes will be found to differ widely; for no general rule can be laid
down as to the relations between matrilineal descent and other cultural
conditions.

All that can be attempted here is an examination of the various elements
in the problem so far as it affects Australia. To this may be prefixed a
further discussion of the origin of matrilineal descent with especial
reference to Australian conditions.

It is commonly assumed that in a pure matrilineal community, the husband
removes to the wife's local group (matrilocal marriage), or if not that,
that at any rate the authority in the family rests in the hands of the
mother's brothers, who are also the heirs to the exclusion of the
children. But of any such custom of removal there is but the very
slenderest evidence in Australia. According to Howitt it occurs
occasionally in Victoria and among the Dieri; among the Wakelbura it is
done only if a man elopes with a betrothed woman and the man to whom she
was betrothed dies; among the Kuinmurbura it seems to have been a
recognised thing for a man who married a woman of another tribe to
remove, but in this case he took no part in intertribal warfare[13]. In
all these cases, the Kurnai excepted, descent is reckoned in the female
line.

If however Dr Howitt's informant, who does not seem to have been
particularly accurate in many cases, is to be relied on, the removal of
the husband to the wife's group is also found among the patrilineal
Maryborough tribes, though only if