Chapter 29

RELATIONSHIP AND MARRIAGE. DIVISION OF FAMILIES.

Traditional Laws of Relationship and Marriage.

One of the most remarkable facts connected with the natives is that they are divided into certain great families, all the members of which bear the same names, as a family, or second name: the principal branches of these families, so far as I have been able to ascertain, are the:

Ballaroke Tdondarup Ngotak Nagarnook Nogonyuk Mongalung Narrangur.

But in different districts the members of these families give a local name to the one to which they belong, which is understood in that district to indicate some particular branch of the principal family. The most common local names are:

Didaroke Gwerrinjoke Maleoke Waddaroke Djekoke Kotejumeno Namyungo Yungaree.

These family names are common over a great portion of the continent; for instance, on the Western coast, in a tract of country extending between four and five hundred miles in latitude, members of all these families are found. In South Australia I met a man who said that he belonged to one of them, and Captain Flinders mentions Yungaree as the name of a native in the gulf of Carpentaria.

LAW OF MARRIAGE.

These family names are perpetuated and spread through the country by the operation of two remarkable laws:

1. That children of either sex always take the family name of their mother.

2. That a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name.

COINCIDENT INSTITUTIONS AMONGST THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

But not the least singular circumstance connected with these institutions is their coincidence with those of the North American Indians, which are thus stated in the Archaeologia Americana:*

Independent of political or geographical divisions, that into families or clans has been established from time immemorial. At what time and in what manner the division was first made is not known. At present, or till very lately, every nation was divided into a number of clans, varying in the several nations from three to eight or ten, the members of which respectively were dispersed indiscriminately throughout the whole nation. It has been fully ascertained that the inviolable regulations by which those clans were perpetuated amongst the southern nations were, first, that no man could marry in his own clan; secondly, that every child belongs to his or her mother's clan. Among the Choctaws there are two great divisions, each of which is subdivided into four clans, and no man can marry in any of the four clans belonging to his division. The restriction among the Cherokees, the Creeks, and the Natches, does not extend beyond the clan to which the man belongs.

There are sufficient proofs, that the same division into clans, commonly called tribes, exists among almost all the other Indian nations. But it is not so clear that they are subject to the same regulations which prevail amongst the southern Indians.

(*Footnote. Volume 2 page 109.)

...

A similar law of consanguinity seems to be inferred in Abraham's reply to Abimelech (Genesis 20:12) And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.

FAMILY NAMES AND SIGNS. ORIGIN OF FAMILY NAMES.

The origin of these family names is attributed by the natives to different causes, but I think that enough is not yet known on the subject to enable us to form an accurate opinion on this point. One origin frequently assigned by the natives is that they were derived from some vegetable or animal being very common in the district which the family inhabited, and that hence the name of this animal or vegetable became applied to the family. I have in my published vocabulary of the native language, under each family name, given its derivations as far as I could collect them from the statements of the natives.

But as each family adopts some animal or vegetable as their crest or sign, or Kobong, as they call it, I imagine it more likely that these have been named after the families than that the families have been named after them.

SECOND COINCIDENCE.

A certain mysterious connection exists between a family and its kobong, so that a member of the family will never kill an animal of the species to which his kobong belongs, should he find it asleep; indeed he always kills it reluctantly, and never without affording it a chance to escape. This arises from the family belief that some one individual of the species is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime, and to be carefully avoided. Similarly a native who has a vegetable for his kobong may not gather it under certain circumstances and at a particular period of the year. The North American Indians have this same custom of taking some animal as their sign. Thus it is stated in the Archaeologia Americana:* "Each tribe has the name of some animal. Among the Hurons the first tribe is that of the bear; the two others of the wolf and turtle. The Iroquois nation has the same divisions, only the turtle family is divided into two, the great and the little." And again, in speaking of the Sioux tribes:** "Each of these derives its name from some animal, part of an animal, or other substance which is considered as the peculiar sacred object or medicine, as the Canadians call it, of each band respectively." To this we may add the testimony of John Long, who says,*** "one part of the religious superstition of the savages consists in each of them having his totem, or favourite spirit, which he believes watches over him. This totem they conceive assumes the shape of some beast or other, and therefore they never kill, hunt, or eat the animal whose form they think the totem bears."

(*Footnote. Volume 2 page 109 quoting from Charlevoix volume 3 page 266.)

(**Footnote. Ibid page 110 quoting from Major Long's Exp. volume 1