ild blacks,' though, in the absence of
missionary influences, they retain their ancient beliefs, at least the
old people do; and, in a decadent form, preserve their tribal
initiations, or Boorah. How she tested and controlled the evidence of
her informants she has herself stated, and I venture to think that she
could hardly have made a better use of her opportunities.

In one point there is perhaps, almost unavoidably, a lacuna or gap in
her information. The Euahlayi, she says, certainly do not possess the
Dieri and Urabunna custom of Pirrauru or Piraungaru, by which married,
and unmarried men, of the classes men and women which may intermarry,
are solemnly allotted to each other as more or less permanent paramours.
[See Mr. Howitt's NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, and my
SECRET OF THE TOTEM, chapter iii.] That custom, for some unknown reason,
is confined to certain tribes possessing the two social divisions with the
untranslated names MATTERI and KIRARU. These tribes range from Lake Eyre
southward, perhaps, as far as the sea. Their peculiar custom is unknown to
the Euahlayi, but Mrs. Parker does not inform us concerning any recognised
licence which may, as is usual, accompany their Boorah assemblies, or
their 'harvest home' of gathered grass seed, which she describes.

Any reader of Mrs. Parker's book who has not followed recent
anthropological discussions, may need to be apprised of the nature of
these controversies, and of the probable light thrown on them by the
full description of the Euahlayi tribe. The two chief points in dispute
are (1) the nature and origin of the marriage laws of the Australians;
and (2) the nature and origin of such among their ideas and practices
as may be styled 'religious.' As far as what we commonly call material
civilisation is concerned, the natives of the Australian continent are
probably the most backward of mankind, having no agriculture, no
domestic animals, and no knowledge of metal-working. Their weapons and
implements are of wood, stone, and bone, and they have not even the
rudest kind of pottery. But though the natives are all, in their
natural state, on or about this common low level, their customary laws,
ceremonials, and beliefs are rich in variety.

As regards marriage rules they are in several apparently ascending
grades of progress. First we have tribes in which each person is born
into one or other of two social divisions usually called 'phratries.'
Say that the