Totem kins are called ‘subdivisions’ by Mr. Howitt, but why were the phratries subdivided into totem kins, and why were there totem groups in ‘the undivided commune’ before the bisection, the phratries (the result of the bisection) being themselves, in Mr. Howitt’s hypothesis, totem groups? I quote a statement of the case by Mr. Howitt (1889): ‘The fundamental principle of aboriginal society in Australia is the division of the community into two exogamous intermarrying moieties. Out of this division into two groups, and out of the relations thus created between the contemporary members of them and their descendants, the terms of relationship must have grown. As the two primary divisions (classes)’ (‘phratries’) ‘have become again divided in the process of social development, _and as the groups of numerous totems have been added_,’ &c.[16] Here the totem kins are not orderly evolved out of the phratries, nor subdivided out of them, but are ‘added.’ Where were they picked up, whence did they arise, why were they ‘added’? May we not conclude that no clear account, or theory, of the origin and purpose of totems and totem kins has been laid before us? Mr. Howitt elsewhere writes, ‘If the supposition is correct that, in the primary divisions, we may recognise the oldest forms, and in the subdivisions somewhat newer forms of Totemism’ (newer names of totems?), ‘it should be found that these earlier divisions show signs of antiquity as compared to the totems which are, according to this hypothesis, the nearest to the present time. This, I think, is the case.’ Thus, in fact, some of the Australian names for the _two_ divisions are no longer to be translated,[17] perhaps owing to their antiquity, and sometimes the names are lost, as, elsewhere, in Banks Island. When translatable, the phratry names are totemic. But this hardly amounts to proof that the ‘primary divisions’ are really older than totemic divisions, _plus_ exogamy. The existing _names_ of the ‘primary divisions’ may be older than existing totem names, in some cases. But that may be because the two ‘primary divisions’ endure, unchanged, while a local totem group may become extinct.[18] Its place, perhaps, may be filled up by a totem group of relatively recent name, or, perhaps, in a great trek into a land of novel fauna and flora, old totem names might be exchanged for new ones. ‘Munki’ (sheep) is said to have been recently adopted.[19] Mr. Fison here corroborates my suggestion. ‘If a tribe migrate to a country in which their totem is not found, they will, in all probability, take as their totem some other animal which is a native of the place.’[20] Mr. Howitt, then, believes that ‘the primary class divisions’ were originally totemic, and also that the ‘class system’ as a rule has been developed through the subdivision of the earlier and simpler forms by ‘_deliberate arrangement_.’[21]