Let us say a few words about inheritance. As inheritance implies the existence of private property, we may look for it only where there is private property in Australia. In the first place there is "private landed property." We saw that "property" must be understood in the cases of individuals much more in a mystic, magical sense than otherwise.[953] Moreover, in the few cases where there is any mention of individual property in land, we found very little information about the principles according to which it is inherited. According to Roth, whose statement on individual proprietorship is the clearest one, we know that this individual right to land is not hereditary, but determined for magical and mystical reasons. In the other cases we are not informed at all how the individual or family comes into possession, or are informed in such an inexact way[954] that we cannot attach much value to the information. From our best sources (Spencer and Gillen and Roth) we know that the ties binding an individual to a given locality are of mystical, magico-religious character, and were determined not by heredity, but by a special principle connected with their beliefs, and we may suppose that this was the rule, especially as individual land ownership seems to be on the whole more of a magico-religious than of a purely economic order. As to the inheritance of other property, there is little to say about it, unimportant as it was itself.[955] According to some writers, it passes from father to son (_e. g._ Fraser). Elsewhere we read that it is inherited by certain groups of men from their common relations.[956] On the whole, inheritance does not seem to form any important binding element between parents and children, either in the male or in the female line.[957] [953] Compare above, pp. 150, 153. [954] Compare Eyre's and Grey's statements, where heredity appears to be in the male line. Also Salvado, p. 265. [955] Compare Wheeler, _loc. cit._, p. 36. [956] Spencer and Gillen, _Nor. Tr._, pp. 615-617. [957] Compare also the statements collected by Wheeler on this point, _loc. cit._, pp. 36 _sqq._ CHAPTER IX SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS