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Social Origins and Primal Law

Note 2 — Chapter VI

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I have here slightly altered Mr. Atkinson's terminology. As the passage stands in his manuscript he confuses totem kins with the Australian intermarrying 'classes.' In his manuscript the passage runs thus: 'In later days they' (the outside mates) 'will be found as the male members of a certain class generation in one group' (by which he means a 'class,' say Ippai, in a 'phratry,' say Dilbi) 'and, de facto, eligible in group marriage with all and certain females of the same category as regards birth in another group.' Here he obviously should have written 'eligible in marriage with all females of the corresponding category in the other "phratry" of an all-embracing tribe.' 'As indeed with actual Australians where, by right of birth alone, each totem group contains the natural born husbands and wives of another totem group.' This is not the case: men of one totem kin are not compelled to take wives from one other totem kin; but men of one 'class' must take wives of one other 'class,' and men of one 'phratry' must take wives out of the other 'phratry.'. To avoid confusion I have, in the text, inserted the correct terminology.—A. L.

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