Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia   By: Northcote Whitridge Thomas (1868-1936)

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The Cambridge Archaeological and Ethnological Series is supervised by an Editorial Committee consisting of WILLIAM RIDGEWAY, M.A., F.B.A., Disney Professor of Archaeology, A.C. HADDON, Sc.D., F.R.S., University Lecturer in Ethnology, M.R. JAMES, Litt. D., F.B.A., Provost of King's College and C. WALDSTEIN, Litt. D., Slade Professor of Fine Art.

KINSHIP ORGANISATIONS

AND

GROUP MARRIAGE

IN

AUSTRALIA

BY

NORTHCOTE W. THOMAS, M.A. Diplomé de l'École des Hautes Études, Corresponding Member of the Société 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.