h the analysis of initiation ceremonies gives
us--a tripartite division which Curr also makes on the linguistic side,
though Mathew's map shows considerable intermixture in this respect.
Until we know to what extent the Urabunna or the Ikula have folktales in
common with the Victorian area, or,--which is perhaps more important,
though we do not seem to hear of any communication on this line,--how
far there is a stock of folktales common to the Darling district and the
central area, it is obviously idle to speculate as to how it comes that
an Eaglehawk myth is told in both areas. The physical anthropology of
the Australian natives is at present a little-worked field, in which,
singularly enough, the French have done more than the English, to our
shame be it said. Possibly a somatological survey might disclose to what
extent the central tribes are distinct from the eastern group, and how
far we may assume movements of population, subsequent to the original
peopling of the country by the stocks in question, in either or both
directions. In the absence of such data, and until an Australian Grimm
has arisen to bring order into the present linguistic chaos, the
evidence from folktales seems to promise most light on the question of
migrations.

We are, of course, confronted by the difficulty that this evidence may
simply disclose the lines along which tribal intercommunication has been
most easy, whether in the way of simple interchange of commodities,
evidence of which we have over considerable areas in Australia, or in
the way of intermarriage, which, as we see by the example of the
Urabunna and the Arunta, is found in spite of fundamental differences of
tribal organisation. A common stock of folktales due to this cause would
leave unexplained the prominence of the bird myth in the sacred rites,
and leave the present hypothesis, in this regard, on a par with that of
post-phratriac dissemination, in respect of probability. On the other
hand we have the Scylla of tribal property in land, an idea so firmly
rooted in our own day in the minds of the Australians as to make wars of
conquest unthinkable to them, and to transform the practical part of
their intertribal feuds into mere raids. If, therefore, investigation
showed that the central and eastern tribes are in possession of a stock
of folktales with many items in common, we should always have to take
into consideration the possibility that these tales antedate the
complete o