The Pirrauru relationship is clearly group-marriage, by which a man is privileged to obtain a number of wives from his Noas in common with other men of his group, while a woman's wish can only be given effect to by the consent of her Tippa-malku husband. On the other hand, however, she cannot refuse to receive a Pirrauru husband when he is assigned to her by the ceremony referred to. The Dieri regard it as being lawful, just as the Tippa-malku marriage is lawful, and it must be clearly distinguished from irregular unions, for which the Dieri have special terms, and which they condemn and abhor.
Standing between the regular and irregular intersexual relations, but nearer to the former than the latter, is the access between the unmarried girls and widows and those men who are Noa-mara to them, and not Tippa-malku as to those girls. This relation is called Ngura-mundu, from Ngura, "camp," and Mundu, "to come together."
The term Ngura-mandretya refers to sexual licence in the camp of the husband during his absence. It is from Ngura "camp" or "hut," Mandra, "body," and Etja, " the middle," colloquially used for habitually, or habitually recurring. Such a woman is called Pala-kantyi, that is, "without shame," the term being really "a breaker of marriage." Such persons are hated and despised.
Buka-pari is the term for a man who lies in wait for a woman, either with or without her consent, and not caring whether she is Noa to him or not.[1]
On the opposite side of Lake Eyre, or more correctly, north-westerly from the Dieri, there is the Urabunna tribe, the southern division of which is called the Yendakarangu.[2] The class names are said to be those of the Dieri, but the rules of marriage of the totems differ. The former allow a marriage between a totem of one class and any totem of the other class, but with the latter the rule is that certain totems of the one class are assigned to certain totems of the other. This, so far as I have been able to trace it out, is shown in the following table:—
