ised, may have proceeded to
create four classes at a very early stage, while those in whom the
feeling for the primal law was less strong adhered to the simple phratry
system.

But it is an insuperable objection to this theory that it makes the
four-class system originate simultaneously with, or at any rate shortly
after, the rise of the phratries. For we cannot suppose that the feeling
for the primal law remained dormant for long ages and then suddenly
revived. On the other hand we have seen that if the difference in the
distribution of the phratry and class names is any guide, a considerable
interval must have separated the rise of the one from the rise of the
other. Unless therefore it can be shown that some other explanation
accounts for the non-coincidence of phratry and class areas, we can
hardly accept any explanation of the origin of classes which makes them
originate at a period not far removed from the introduction of the
phratries.

The fact that a certain number of class names are in character totemic,
that is, bear animal names, suggests that the class system may be a
development of the totem kins, which in certain cases are grouped within
the phratries or otherwise subject to special regulations. In the
Urabunna the choice of a man of one totem is said to be limited to women
of the right status in a single totem of the opposite phratry. Among the
similarly organised Yandairunga the limitation is to certain totems, and
Dr Howitt gives other examples of the same order. In the Kongulu tribe
these totemic classes seem to have been known by special names. In the
Wotjoballuk tribe there are sub-totems, grouped with certain totems,
which again seem to be collected into aggregates intermediate between
the phratry and the simple totem kin. But it is difficult to see why, if
the classes have arisen out of such organisations, there should be found
over the great part of Australia four, and only four, classes from which
the eight have obviously developed. In any case we have no parallel in
these modifications to the alternate generations of the class system.

These find an analogue, according to an old report, not subsequently
confirmed, in the Wailwun tribe, where, however, it is supplementary to
the classes. We are told that there are four totems in this tribe,
though this does not agree with other reports, and that they are found
in both phratries indiscriminately. A woman's children do not take her
totem, nor,