to been made; and the institutions of barbarous races, their
probable origin, the effects they have upon the people submitted to them,
the evidences of design which they contain, and other similar questions,
are those points to which in this enquiry attention should be
particularly directed.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

The progress of events and the rapid march of science in our country are
very wonderful, but the progress of events in the eastern hemisphere at
the present moment is still more amazing: Christianity and civilization
are marching over the world with a rapidity not fully known or estimated
by any one nation; the English are scarcely aware what has been effected
by their own missionaries and commerce, and they are utterly ignorant of
what has been already done, and is now doing, by the Americans, Dutch,
and Portuguese.

CHAPTER 11. LAWS OF RELATIONSHIP, MARRIAGE, AND INHERITANCE.

RELATIONSHIP AND MARRIAGE. DIVISION OF FAMILIES.

Traditional Laws of Relationship and Marriage.

One of the most remarkable facts connected with the natives is that they
are divided into certain great families, all the members of which bear
the same names, as a family, or second name: the principal branches of
these families, so far as I have been able to ascertain, are the:

Ballaroke
Tdondarup
Ngotak
Nagarnook
Nogonyuk
Mongalung
Narrangur.

But in different districts the members of these families give a local
name to the one to which they belong, which is understood in that
district to indicate some particular branch of the principal family. The
most common local names are:

Didaroke
Gwerrinjoke
Maleoke
Waddaroke
Djekoke
Kotejumeno
Namyungo
Yungaree.

These family names are common over a great portion of the continent; for
instance, on the Western coast, in a tract of country extending between
four and five hundred miles in latitude, members of all these families
are found. In South Australia I met a man who said that he belonged to
one of them, and Captain Flinders mentions Yungaree as the name of a
native in the gulf of Carpentaria.

LAW OF MARRIAGE.

These family names are perpetuated and spread through the country by the
operation of two remarkable laws:

1. That children of either sex always take the family name of their
mother.

2. That a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name.

COINCIDENT INSTITUTIONS AMONGST THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

But not the least singular circumstance co