ying classes by the persistent efforts of Mr
Howitt, by Dr Frazer's little work on Totemism, and by other students,
until it seemed that the main features of Australian social organisation
had been clearly established, when in 1898 the researches of Messrs
Spencer and Gillen seemed to do much to overthrow all recognised
principles, so far as the totemic regulation of marriage was concerned.
How far this is actually the case it is unnecessary to consider here. It
may be said however that the work of these two investigators and the
enquiries of Dr Roth in North Queensland make it more than ever a matter
for regret that the British Empire, the greatest colonial power that the
world has ever seen, will not afford the few thousand pounds needed to
put such researches on a firm basis.

Having defined the various terms, and shown the actual working of the
system by the aid of the best known example, we may now pass, after this
brief historical sketch of the development of our knowledge, to the task
of giving the broad outlines of the phratry and class organisations.

If our knowledge of Australian phratries and classes is far from
exhaustive, we have at any rate a fair knowledge of the distribution of
the various types whose existence is generally recognised; that is to
say, we can delimit the greater part of the continent according to
whether the tribes show two phratries only, or two phratries, which may
be anonymous, with the further subdivision into four classes, or into
eight classes. We also know approximately the limits of the matrilineal
and patrilineal systems. New South Wales, Victoria, the southern portion
of Queensland and Northern Territory, the eastern part of South
Australia, and the coastal regions of West Australia, are now known
with more or less accuracy from the point of view of kinship
organisations. On the other hand, from the Cape York Peninsula, and the
part of Northern Territory north of Lat. 15 deg., we have little if any
information. The south coast and its hinterland from 135 deg. westwards, as
far as King George's Sound, is virtually a terra incognita; in fact
beyond the south-western corner and the fringe which lies along the
coast we know little of the West Australian blacks, and the frontiers
between the various systems must in these areas be regarded as purely
provisional.

Broadly speaking, the tribes of the whole of the known area of
Australia, certain coast regions of comparatively small e