of the Mount Gambier local tribe is by birth either a Kumite
or a Kroki. This classification applies to the whole of the sensible
universe. Thus smoke and honeysuckle trees belong to the division
Kumite, and are akin to the fishhawk stock of men. On the other hand,
the kangaroo, summer, autumn, the wind and the shevak tree belong to
the division Kroki, and are akin to the black cockatoo stock of men. Any
human member of the Kroki division has thus for his brothers the sun,
the wind, the kangaroo, and the rest; while any man of the Kumite
division and the crow surname is the brother of the rain, the thunder,
and the winter. This extraordinary belief is not a mere idle fancy--it
influences conduct. "A man does not kill or use as food any of the
animals of the same subdivision (Kroki or Kumite) with himself,
excepting when hunger compels, and then they express sorrow for having
to eat their wingong (friends) or tumanang (their flesh). When using the
last word they touch their breasts, to indicate the close relationship,
meaning almost a portion of themselves. To illustrate: One day one of
the blacks killed a crow. Three or four days afterwards a Boortwa (a man
of the crow surname and stock), named Larry, died. He had been ailing
for some days, but the killing of his wingong (totem) hastened his
death."(1) Commenting on this statement, Mr. Fison observes: "The South
Australian savage looks upon the universe as the Great Tribe, to one
of whose divisions he himself belongs; and all things, animate and
inanimate, which belong to his class are parts of the body corporate
whereof he himself is part". This account of the Australian beliefs and
customs is borne out, to a certain extent, by the evidence of Sir George
Grey,(2) and of the late Mr. Gideon Scott Lang.(3) These two writers
take no account of the singular "dichotomous" divisions, as of Kumite
and Kroki, but they draw attention to the groups of kindred which derive
their surnames from animals, plants, and the like. "The origin of these
family names," says Sir George Grey, "is attributed by the natives to
different causes.... One origin frequently assigned by the natives is,
that they were derived from some vegetable or animal being very common
in the district which the family inhabited." We have seen from
the evidence of Messrs. Fison and Howitt that a more common native
explanation is based on kinship with the vegetable or plant which
bestows the family surname. Sir Georg