[361] We would say _local group_, as we reserve the term _family_ for an undivided group living in the closest unity, and consisting of a man, his wife and his children. [362] Howitt, _Nat. Tr._, p. 74. [363] _Idem_, _Kam. and Kurn._, p. 215. [364] _Ibid._ [365] Compare chapter on initiations in Howitt's _Nat. Tr._, and _Kam. and Kurn._, _passim_. [366] _Kam. and Kurn._, p. 232 footnote. The statements of Howitt concerning the Murring tribes are not quite clear. "Claims to a particular tract of country arose in certain of these tribes by birth."[367] He does not say if these claims consisted in actual right to live, roam and hunt over the said tract of country. It is probable, however, that just this is the meaning, as he speaks immediately afterwards of an hereditary principle as to the grounds determining the habitation where one lives--a father pointing out the bounds of his child's country--"where his father lived, or himself was born and had lived."[368] If we can assume that each "family" (= local group) had its hunting-grounds so designated this would point to a far-going subdivision of country and consequently of the tribe; we can hardly infer anything conclusive from this statement alone. But it appears clearer in the light of the following remark: "The local group has in all cases been perpetuated in the same place from father to son by occupation, I may almost say by inheritance, of the hunting-grounds."[369] It seems, therefore, that generally in the tribes studied by Howitt, the local group (he calls it the "family," speaking of the Kurnai) was a very well-defined unit. And that, in the tribes in question the people who inherit a certain territory from father to son are just members of the local group. Its rights to the hunting-grounds were based on some--perhaps magic or religious--ideas of heredity. [367] _Nat. Tr._, p. 82. [368] _Nat. Tr._, p. 83. [369] Howitt, _Smith. Rep._ 83, p. 816.