Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Julia Miller, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcriber's Note: This text has many tables, which are best viewed using a fixed-width font. Table I a and the _Arunta: Eight-class_ Table were printed on fold-out pages. These have been split into sections (3 and 2 sections, respectively) to fit within the display boundaries. The original book had a number of words with inconsistant hyphenation or spelling, as well as a small number of typographical errors. These have been maintained in this version. The inconsistencies and errors are detailed at the end of the present text. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _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.