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CHAPTER III

RELATIONSHIPS AND TOTEMS

SOME savants question the intellectual ability of the blacks because they have not elaborate systems of numeration and notation, which in their life were quite unneeded. Such as were needed were supplied. They are often incorporate in one word-noun and qualifying numerical adjective, as for example--

Gundooee

a solitary emu

Booloowah

two emus

Oogle oogle

four emus

Gayyahnai

five or six emus

Gonurrun

fourteen or fifteen emus.

 

I fancy the brains that could have elaborated their marriage rules were capable of workaday arithmetic if necessary, and few indeed of us know our family trees as the blacks know theirs.

Even the smallest black child who can talk seems full of knowledge as to all his relations, animate and inanimate, the marriage taboos, and the rest of their complicated system.

The first division among this tribe is a blood distinction (I phratries'):--

Gwaigulleeah

light blooded

Gwaimudthen

dark blooded.

 

This distinction is not confined to the human beings of the tribe, who must be of one or the other, but there are the Gwaigulleeah and Gwaimudthen divisions in all things. The first and chief division in our tribe, as regards customary marriage law, is the partition of all tribes-folk into these 'phratries,' or 'exogamous moieties.' While in most Australian tribes the meanings of the names of phratries are lost, where the meanings are known they are usually names of animals-Eagle, Hawk, and Crow, White Cockatoo and Black Cockatoo, and so forth. Among the great Kamilaroi tribe, akin in speech to the Euahlayi, the names of phratries, Dilbi and Kupathin, are of unknown significance. The Euahlayi names, we have seen, are Gwaigulleeah, Light blooded, and Gwaimudthen, Dark blooded.

The origin of this division is said to be the fact that the original ancestors were, on the one side, a red race coming from the west, the Gwaigulleeah; on the other, a dark race coming from the east.

A Gwaigulleeah may under no circumstances marry a Gwaigulleeah; he or she must mate with a Gwaimudthen. This rule has no exception. A child belongs to the same phratry as its mother.

The next name of connection is local, based on belonging to one country or hunting-ground; this name a child takes from its mother wherever it may happen to be born. Any one who is called a Noongahburrah belongs to the Noongah-Kurrajong country; Ghurreeburrah to the orchid country; Mirriehburrah, poligonum country; Bibbilah, Bibbil country, and so on. This division, not of blood relationship, carries no independent marriage restriction, but keeps up a feeling equivalent to Scotch, Irish, or English, and is counted by the blacks as 'relationship,' but not sufficiently so to bar marriage.

The next division is the name in common for all daughters, or all sons of one family of sisters. The daughters take the name from their maternal grandmother, the sons from their maternal great-uncle.

Of these divisions, called I Matrimonial Classes, there are four for each sex, bearing the same names as among the Kamilaroi. The names are--

Masculine
Feminine,

Kumbo
Bootha

brother and sister

Masculine
Feminine,

Murree
Matha

brother and sister

Masculine
Feminine,

Hippi
Hippitha

brother and sister

Masculine
Feminine,

Kubbee
Kubbootha

brother and sister

 

The children of Bootha will be

Masculine
Feminine,

Hippi
Hippitha

brother and sister

 

The children of Matha will be

Masculine
Feminine,

Kubbee
Kubbootha

brother and sister

 

The children of Hippatha will be

Masculine
Feminine,

Kumbo
Bootha

brother and sister

 

The children of Kubbootha will be

Masculine
Feminine,

Murree
Matha

brother and sister

 

Thus, you see, they take, if girls, their grandmother's and her sisters' 'class' names in common; if boys, the 'class' name of their grandmother's brothers.

Bootha

Can only marry

Murree,

Matha

"

Kumbo,

Hippitha

"

Kubbee,

Kubbootha

"

Hippi.

 

Both men and women are often addressed by these names when spoken to.

A propos of names, a child is never called at night by the same name as in the daytime, lest the 'devils' hear it and entice him away.

Names are made for the newly born according to circumstances; a girl born under a Dheal tree, for example, was called Dheala. Any incident happening at the time of birth may gain a child a name, such as a particular lizard passing. Two of my black maids were called after lizards in that way: Barahgurree and Bogginbinnia.

Nimmaylee is a porcupine with the spines coming; such an one having been brought to the camp just as a girl was born, she became Nimmaylee.

The mothers, with native politeness, ask you to give their children English names, but much mote often use in familiar conversation either the Kumbo Bootha names, or others derived from place of birth, from some circumstance connected with it, a child's mispronunciation of a word, some peculiarity noticed in the child, or still more often they call each other by the name proclaiming the degree of relationship.

For example, a girl calls the daughters of her mother and of her aunts alike sisters.

Boahdee

sister

Wambaneah

full brother

Dayadee

half brother

Gurrooghee

uncle

Wulgundee

uncle's wife

Kummean

sister's sister

Numbardee

mother

Numbardee

mother's sister

Beealahdee

Father

Beealahdee

Mother's sisters' husbands

Gnahgnahdee

Grandmother on father's side

Bargie

Grandmother on mother's side

Dadadee

Grandfather on mother's siae

Gurroomi

a son-in-law, or one who could be a son-in-law

Goonooahdee

a daughter-in-law, or one who could be a daughter-in-law

Gooleerh

Husband or wife, or one who might be so.

So relationships are always kept in their memories by being daily used as names. There are other general names, too, such as--

Mullayerh

a temporary mate or companion

Moothie

a friend of childhood in after life

Doore-oothai

a lover

Dillahga

an elderly man of the same totem

Tuckandee

a young man of the same totem, reckoned as a sort of brother.

Another list of names used ordinarily is--

Boothan

last possible child of a woman

Mahmee

old woman

Beewun

motherless girl

Gowun

fatherless girl

Yumbui

fatherless boy

Moogul

only child.

Those of the same totem are reckoned as brothers and sisters, so cannot intermarry. 'Boyjerh' relations, as those on the father's side are called, are not so important as on the mother's side, but are still recognised.

Now for the great Dhé or totem system, by some called Mah, but Dhé is the more correct.

Dinewan, or emu, is a totem, and has amongst its multiplex totems' or 'sub-totems'--

Goodoo

or codfish

Gumbarl

silver bream

Inga

crayfish

Boomool

shrimps

Gowargay

water emu spirit

Moograbah

big black-and-white magpie

Booloorl

little night owl

Byahmul

black swan

Eerin

a little night owl

Beerwon

a bird like a swallow

Dulloorah

the manna-bringing birds

Bunnyal

flies

Dheal

sacred fire

Gidya

an acacia

Yaraan

an eucalyptus

Deenyi

ironbark

Guatha

quandong

Goodooroo

river box

Mirieh

poligonum

Yarragerh

the north-east wind

Guie

tree--Owenia acidula

Niune

wild melon

Binnamayah

big saltbush.

Bohrah, the kangaroo, is another totem, and is considered somewhat akin to Dinewan. For example, in a quarrel between, say, the Bohrah totem and the Beewee, the Dinewan would take the part of the former rather than the latter.

Amongst the multiplex totems of Bohrah are--

Goolahwilleel

topknot pigeons

Boogoodoogadah

the rain-bird

Gilah

fink-breasted parrot

Quarrian

yellow and red breasted grey parrot

Buln Buln

green parrot

Gidgerregah

small green parrot

Cocklerina

a rose and yellow crested while cockatoo

Youayah

frogs

Guiggahboorool

biggest ant-beds

Dunnia

wattle tree

Mulga

an acacia

Gnoel

sandalwood

Brigalow

an acacia

Yarragerh

north-east wind, same as Dinewan's.

All clouds, lightning, thunder, and rain that is not blown up by the wind of another totem, belong to Bohrah.

Beewee, brown and yellow Iguana, numerically a very powerful totem, has for multiplex totems--

Gai-gai

catfish

Curreequinquin

butcher-bird

Gougourgahgah

laughing-jackass

Deenbi

divers

Birroo Birroo

sand builders

Deegeenboyah

soldier-bird

Weedah

bower-bird

Mooregoo Mooregoo

black ibis

Booloon

white crane

Noodulnoodul

whistling ducks

Goborrai

stars

Gulghureer

pink lizard

Goori

pine

Talingerh

native fuchsia

Guiebet

native passion fruit

Boonburr

poison tree

Gungooday

stockman's wood

Guddeeboondoo

bitter bark

Boorgoolbean or
Mooloowerh

a shrub with creamy blossoms

Yarragerh

spring wind

Muddernwurderh

west wind.

Those with whom the Beewee shares the winds he counts as relations. It is the Beewees of the Gwaimudthen, or dark blood, who own Yarragerh (spring wind); the light-blooded own Mudderwurderh (west wind).

Another totem is Gouyou, or Bandicoot. The animal has disappeared from the Narran district, but the totem tribe is still strong, though not so numerous as either the Beewees or Dinewans.

Multiplex totems of Gouyou--

Wayarnberh

turtle

Mungghee

mussels

Piggiebillah

Porcupine

Dayahminnah

small carpet snake

Mungun

large carpet snake

Douyouie

ants

Moondoo

wasps

Murgahmuggui

spider

Bayarh

green-head ants

Mubboo

beefwood

Coolabah

eucalyptus, flooded box

Bingahwingul

needlebush

Mayarnah

stones

Gheeger Gheeger

cold west wind

Gibbon

yam

Boondoon

kingfisher

Durnerh brown

pigeon

Guineeboo

redbreasts

Munggheewurraywurraymul

seagulls

Guiggah ordinary

ant-beds.

Next we take Doolungaiyah, or Bilber, commonly known as Bilby, a large species of rat the size of a small rabbit, like which it burrows; almost died out now. The totem clan are very few here too, so it is difficult to learn much as to their multiplex totems, amongst which, however, are--

Ooboon

blue-tongued lizard

Goomblegubbon

plains turkey or bustard

Boothagullagulla

bird like seagull

Tekel Barain

large white amaryllis.

Douyou, black snake, totem claims--

Noongah

kurrajong--sterculia

Carbeen

an eucalyptus

Booroorerh

bulrushes

Gargooloo

yams

Yhi

the sun (feminine)

Gunyahmoo

the east wind

Kurreah

crocodile

Wa-ah

shells

Douyougurrah

earth-worms

Deereeree

willy wagtail

Burrengeen

jeewee

Bouyoudoorunnillee

grey cranes

Ouyan

curlew

Bouyougah

centipedes

Bubburr

big snake

Woggoon

scrub turkey

Beeargah

crane

Waggestmul

kind of rat

Wi

small fish

Millan

small water-yam--sourtop

Moodai, or opossum, another totem, claims--

Bibbil

popular-leaved gum

Bumble

Capparis Mitchellianni

Birah

whitewood

Beebuyer

yellow flowering broom

Illay

hop bush

Mirrie

wild currant bush

Mooregoo

swamp oak--belah

Mungoongarlee

largest iguana

Mouyi

white cockatoo

Beeleer

black cockatoo

Wungghee

white night owl

Mooregoo

mopoke

Narahdarn

bat

Bahloo

moon

Euloowirrie

rainbow

Bibbee

woodpecker

Billai

crimson wing parrot

Durrahgeegin

green frog.

Maira, a paddy melon, claims as multiplex totems--

Wahn

the crow

Mullyan

the eagle-hawk

Gooboothoo

doves

Goolayyalilee

pelican

Oonaywah

black diver

Gunundar

while diver

Birriebungar

small diver

Mounin

mosquito

Mouninguggahgui

mosquito bird

Bullah Bullah

butterflies

Tucki

a kind of bream

Beewerh

bony bream

Gulbarlee

shingleback lizard

Budtha

rosewood

Goodoogah

yalli

Wayarah

wild grapes

Garwah

rivers

Gooroongoodilbaydilbay

south wind.

It is said a Maira will never be drowned, for the rivers are a sub-totem of theirs; but I notice they nevertheless learn to swim.

Yubbah, carpet snake, as a kin has almost disappeared, only a few members remaining to claim

Mungahran

hawk.

Burrahwahn, a big sandhill rat, now extinct here, claims--

Mien

dingo

Dalleerin

a lizard

Gaengaen

wild lime

Willerhderh, or
Douran Douran

north wind

Bralgah

native companion.

Buckandee, native cat kin, claim--

Buggila

leopard wood

Bean

myall

Bunbundoolooey

a little brown bird

Dunnee Bunbun

a very large green parrot

Dooroongul

hairy caterpillar.

Amongst other totems were once the Bralgah, Native Companion, and Dibbee, a sort of sandpiper, but their kins are quite extinct as far as our blacks are concerned; the birds themselves are still plentiful. The Bralgah birds have a Boorah ground at the back of our old horse-paddock, a smooth, well-beaten circle, where they dance the grotesque dances peculiar to them, which are really most amusing to watch, somewhat like a set of kitchen lancers into which some dignified dames have got by mistake, and a curious mixture is the dance of dignity and romping.

The totem kins numerically strongest with us were the Dinewans, Beewees, Bohrahs, and Gouyous. Further back in the country, they tell me, the crow, the eaglehawk, and the bees were original totems, not multiplex ones, as with us.

It may be as well for those interested in the marriage law puzzles to state that Dinewans, Bohrahs, Douyous, and Doolungayers are always

Kumbo

Hippi

Bootha

Hippitha.

That Moodai, Gouyou, Beewee, Maira, Yubbah are always

Murree

Kubbee

Matha

Kubbootha.

Our blacks may and do eat their hereditary totems, if so desirous, with no ill effects to themselves, either real or imaginary; their totem names they take from their mothers. They may, in fact, in any way use their totems, but never abuse them. A Beewee, for example, may kill, or see another kill, and eat or use a Beewee, or one of its multiplex totems, and show no sign of sorrow or anger. but should any one speak evil of the Beewee, or of any of its multiplex totems, there will be a quarrel.

There will likewise be a quarrel if any one dares to mimic a totem, either by drawing one, except at Boorahs, or imitating it in any way.

There are members of the tribes, principally wizards, or men intended to be such, who are given an individual totem called Yunbeai. This they must never eat or they will die. Any injury to his yunbeai hurts the man himself In danger he has the power to assume the shape of his yunbeai, which of course is a great assistance to him, especially in legendary lore; but, on the other hand, a yunbeai is almost a Heel of Achilles to a wirreenun (see the chapter on Medicine and Magic).

Women are given a yunbeai too, sometimes. One girl had a yunbeai given her as a child, and she was to be brought up as a witch, but she caught rheumatic fever which left her with St. Vitus's dance. The yunbeai during one of her bad attacks jumped out of her, and she lost her chance of witchery. One old fellow told me once that when he was going to a public-house he took a miniature form of his yunbeai, which was the Kurrea--crocodile-out of himself and put it safety in a bottle of water, in case by any chance he got drunk, and an enemy, knowing his yunbeai, coaxed it away. I wanted to see that yunbeai in a bottle, but never succeeded.

The differences between the hereditary totem or Dhé, inherited from the mother, and the individual totem or yunbeai, acquired by chance, are these: Food restrictions do not affect the totem, but marriage restrictions do; the yunbeai has no marriage restrictions; a man having an opossum for yunbeai may marry a woman having the same either as her yunbeai or hereditary totem, other things being in order, but under no circumstances must a yunbeai be eaten by its possessor.

The yunbeai is a sort of alter ego; a man's spirit is in his yunbeai, and his yunbeai's spirit in him.

A Minggah, or spirit-haunted tree of an individual, usually chosen from amongst a man's multiplex totems, is another source of danger to him, as also a help.

As Mr. Canton says: 'What singular threads of superstition bind the ends of the earth together! In an old German story a pair of lovers about to part chose each a tree, and by the tree of the absent one was the one left to know of his wellbeing or the reverse. In time his tree died, and she, hearing no news of him, pined away, her tree withering with her, and both dying at the same time.

Well, that is just what a wirreenun would believe about his Minggah. These Minggah and Goomarh spirit trees and stones always make me think, perhaps irrelevantly, of one of the restored sayings of the Lord, which ends 'Raise the stone, and there thou shalt find Me; cleave the wood, and I am there.'

Blacks were early scientists in some of their ideas, being before Darwin with the evolution theory, only theirs was a kind of evolution aided by Byamee. I dare say, though, the missing link is somewhere in the legends. I rather think the Central Australians have the key to it. One old man here was quite an Ibsen with his ghastly version of heredity.

He said, when I asked him what harm it would do for, say, a Beewee totem man to come from the Gulf country, where his tribe had never had any communication with ours, and marry a girl here,--that all Beewees were originally changed from the Beewee form into human shape. The Beewee of the Gulf, originally, like the Beewee here, had the same animal shape, and should two of this same blood mate the offspring would throw back, as they say of horses, to the original strain, and partake of iguana (Beewee) attributes either in nature or form.

From the statements just given, it will be seen that the Euahlayi are in the Kamilaroi stage of social organisation. They reckon descent in the female line: they have 'phratries' and four matrimonial classes, with totems within the phratries. In their system of 'multiplex-totems' or 'sub-totems' they resemble the Wotjobaluk tribe.[1] The essence of the 'sub-totem' system is the division of all things into the categories provided by the social system of the human society. The arrangement is a very early attempt at a scientific system of classification.

Perhaps the most peculiar feature in the organisation of the Euahlayi is the existence of Matrimonial Classes, which are named as in the Kamilaroi tongue, while the

[1. Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 121, 125, 453, 455.]

phratry names are not those of the Kamilaroi, and alone among phratry names in Australia which can be translated, are not names of animals. The phratries have thus no presiding animals, and in the phratries there are no totem kins of the phratriac names. The cause of these peculiarities is matter of conjecture.

A peculiarity in the totemic system of the Euahlayi--the right of each individual to kill and eat his own totem--has been mentioned, and may be associated here with other taboos on food.

The wunnarl, or food taboo, was taken off a different kind of food for boys at each Boorah, until at last they could eat what they pleased except their yunbeai, or individual familiar: their Dhé, or family totem, was never wunnarl or taboo to them.

A child may not perhaps know that it has had a yunbeai given to it, and may eat of it in ignorance, when immediately they say that child sickens.

Should a boy or a girl eat plains turkey or bustard eggs while they were yet wunnarl, or taboo, he or she would lose his or her sight. Should they eat the eggs or flesh of kangaroo or piggiebillah, their skins would break out in sores and their limbs wither.

Even honey is wunnarl at times to all but the very old or very young. Fish is wunnarl for about four years after his Boorah to a boy, and about four months after she is wirreebeeun, or young woman, to a girl.

When the wunnarl was taken off a particular kind of meat, a wizard poured some of the melted fat and inside blood of that animal or bird, as the case might be, over the boy, and rubbed it into him. The boy, shaking and shivering, made a spluttering noise with his lips; after that he could eat of the hitherto forbidden food.

This did not necessarily refer to his totem, but any food wunnarl to him, though it is possible that there may have been a time in tribal history, now forgotten, when totems were wunnarl, and these ceremonies may be all that is left to point to that time.

When a boy, after his first Boorah, killed his first emu, whether it was his Dhé, or totem, or not, his father made him lie on the bird before it was cooked. Afterwards a wirreenun (wizard) and the father rubbed the fat on the boy's joints, and put apiece of the flesh in his mouth. 'The boy chewed it, making a noise as he did so of fright and disgust; finally he dropped the meat from his mouth, making a blowing noise through his lips of 'Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!' After that he could eat the flesh.

A girl, too, had to be rubbed with the fat and blood of anything from which the wunnarl was to be removed for her. No ceremony of this sort would be gone through with the flesh, fat, or blood of any one's yunbeai, or individual familiar animal, for under no circumstances would any one kill or eat their yunbeai.

Concerning the yunbeai, or animal familiar of the individual, conferred by the medicine men, more is to be said in the ensuing chapters. The yunbeai answers to the Manitu obtained by Red Indians during the fast at puberty; to the 'Bush Soul' of West Africa; to the Nagual of South American tribes; and to the Nyarong of Borneo. The yunbeai has hitherto been scarcely remarked on among Australian tribes. Mr. Thomas declares it to be 'almost non-existent' in Australia, mentioning as exceptions its presence among the Euahlayi; the Wotjobaluk in Victoria; the Yaraikkanna of Cape York; and 'probably' some of the northern tribes on the other side of the Gulf of Carpentaria.[1]

Perhaps attention has not been directed to the animal familiar in Australia, or perhaps it is really an infrequent thing among the tribes.

[1. Man (1904), No. 53, p. 85.]


Next: Chapter IV. The Medicine Men