Kinship organisations and group marriage in Australia / by Northcote W. Thomas.

  • Thomas, Northcote Whitridge, 1868-1936.
Date:
1906
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Kinship organisations and group marriage in Australia / by Northcote W. Thomas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    169/194 (page 143)
    husbands, they are permitted at the same time to exercise marital rights, provided their own primary spouses are absent. Among the Wiimbaio, when sickness was believed to be coming down the Murray^,and among the Kurnai, when the Aurora australis was seen-, an exchange of wives was ordered by the old men to avert the threatened evil^ This is explained by Dr Howitt as a reversion to the ancient custom of group marriage. It is however not quite clear on what grounds it is necessary to treat it as a survival at all. If a day of prayer and fasting is ordered in order to avert national calamities, it does not follow that the nation in question was in the habit of perpetual prayer and fasting at some previous stage of its existence. Moreover, if the magical rite was formerly the universal practice we may well ask what induced the tribes which believe in its efficacy to adopt a new form of marriage. Ex hypothesis it is pleasing to Mungan, or good against disease; knowing this, they have not hesitated to abolish group marriage, but apparently without incurring Mungan’s wrath, or bringing any epidemic upon them. Among the Narrinyeri*, the old men have a right of access to the newly initiated girls, but apparently Dr Howitt does not regard this as a survival. On the other hand the narumbe (initiated youths), who may not at this period take wives, had unrestricted rights over the younger women, those “ of his own class and totem not excepted,” and this Dr Howitt regards as a survival from the days of the undivided commune, though if it is so it is hard to see why they should have rights only over the younger women. The practice does not appear to differ from the free love found among the Dieri except in the absence of class restrictions and its limitation to the period after initiation which is among many other peoples a period of sexual licence. Another group of customs, also interpreted by Dr Howitt as a survival of group marriage and an “expiation for individual marriage,” calls for some discussion. It is unnecessary to refer here to the explanation of the jus priniae metis suggested by 1 p. 195. 2 pp, 277. 3 Also among the Kurnandaburi, the Wonkamira, etc. Journ. Anthr. Inst, xx, 62. General circumcision was a remedy in Fiji when the chief was ill. ^ And among the Dieri, according to Gason,/^?«r«. Anthr. Inst, xx, 87.