remark made to me in several cases, that a woman is only a nurse who takes care of a man's children for him.
A step further is when a man gives his totem name to his son, who then has those of both mother and father. This has been done even in the Dieri tribe. Such a practice leads directly to a change in the line of descent.
Whatever cause has led to the change from the female to the male line, the result has been to attach the class and totem names to the paternal locality. In tribes with female descent, a woman living in her husband's local division transmits to her children her class and totem ; and her husband's sister, who is exchanged for her, likewise transmits her class and totem to her children in the new locality. Thus the classes and totems alternate between intermarrying localities with each generation. Under female descent the class and totem names are scattered over the tribal territory. It is so with male descent also, only that they are fixed to localities, while in some cases, such as the Narrang-ga, the Narrinyeri, the Wurunjerri, the Bunurong, and perhaps other tribes, the classes and totems are segregated into separate localities. How this has come about I am not at present able to explain.
While this work has been going through the press, it has been my great privilege to discuss many salient points with Dr. J. G. Frazer. Such discussions are stimulating, and clarify views which otherwise might remain obscure. A case in point is my statement on p. 282, that the segmentation of a whole community into two exogamous intermarrying moieties limits the choice of a wife to one half of the women of the tribe, and that the broad principle of intermarriage between the two exogamous moieties is controlled by a prohibition of marriage between parents and children, brothers and sisters.
Dr. Frazer pointed out to me that the effect of dividing the community into two exogamous intermarrying sections was to prevent the marriage of brothers with sisters, and that the effect of further subdividing the community into four exogamous intermarrying sections was to prevent the marriage of parents with children. This view he briefly
