Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia

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Kinship Organisations and
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Title: Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia
Author: Northcote W. Thomas
Release Date: December 28, 2005 [EBook #17404]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MARRIAGE IN AUSTRALIA ***

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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.
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 forward
and for his many pregnant suggestions, but inadequately worked out in
the present volume. I am under the deepest obligations to him; and no
mere formal expression of thanks will meet the case. I have been more
than fortunate in securing aid from Mr Lang in a subject which he has
made his own.
I do not for a moment suppose that the information here collected is
exhaustive. If any one should be in a position to supplement or correct
my facts or to enlighten me in any way as to the ideas and customs of
the blacks I shall be obliged if he will tell me all he knows about them
and their ways. Letters may be addressed to me c/o the Anthropological
Institute, 3 Hanover Sq., W.

NORTHCOTE W. THOMAS.
BUNTINGFORD, _Sept. 11th, 1906._