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First published as ‘Bemerkungen über die Eingebornen Australiens’ in Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft, vol. 36, 1906, pp. 167-73. The article was written in English and translated into German by an unnamed translator. This version was retranslated into English by Christine Winter with reference to Mathews’ original draft in the National Library of Australia (NLA MS 8006/5/8).
In 1903 I published in this journal a short grammar and vocabulary of the Kumbainggeri language spoken on the northeast coast of New South Wales.[1] The following year I dealt with the elements of the grammar of the Tyeddyuwurru language,[2] in use in the central parts of Victoria, and described the important ceremony of initiation known as the Mŭltyerra, which is practised by the Kurnū tribe in New South Wales.[3]
In the present article I shall describe the social organisation of a number of tribes inhabiting both sides of the Darling River in New South Wales. Then follows information on the sociology of some tribes of Queensland. A study of these organisations will exhibit the utter fallacy of the belief in exogamy which has been so tenaciously adhered to by all Australian writers who belong to the old school.
I am the first and only author to report that there is no exogamy among any of the tribes whose sociology I have investigated, neither in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, the Northern Territory, nor in Western Australia. The range of my investigations comprises extensive regions in all the states mentioned, and I feel sure that the publication of my work will completely dispel all the antiquated notions of previous writers.
My article concludes with a brief description of the Gurē, or Aboriginal method of inflicting the death penalty as it was practised in certain parts of Victoria.