e more remote relatives are
not yet excluded from sexual intercourse, it is founded in the other
case on the difference between local and sexual organization.
Furthermore, the marriage between daughter and father is permitted in
the lower stage, and again in that higher stage, where the class
organization of the Kamilaroi is on the verge of dissolution. But in
both cases the circle of those who are regarded as fathers is entirely
different. The character of an institution can only be perfectly
understood, if we examine its connection with the entire organization,
and, if possible, trace its metamorphoses in the preceding stages....

The characteristic feature of the class system is that by the side of
the gentile order, such as is found among the North American Indians,
there is always another system of four marriage classes for the purpose
of limiting sexual intercourse between certain groups of relatives.
Neither the phratry nor the gens of the Kamilaroi forms a distinct
territorial community. Their members are scattered among different
roving hordes, and they only meet occasionally, e. g., to celebrate a
feast or dance....

The origin of gentile systems out of Punaluan groups has never been
proven, while we see among the Australian negroes that the classes are
clearly and irrefutably in existence among the first traces of
gentilism....

The class system in its original form is a conclusive proof of Morgan's
theory, that the first step in the formation of systems of relationship
consisted in prohibiting sexual intercourse between parents and children
(in a wider sense)....

It has been often disputed that the Punaluan family ever existed outside
of the Sandwich Islands. But the marriage institutions of certain
Australian tribes named by me prove the contrary. The Pirrauru of the
Dieyerie is absolutely identical with the Punalua of the Hawaiians; and
these institutions were not described by travelers who rushed through
the territories of those tribes without knowing their language, but by
men who lived among them for decades and fully mastered their
dialects....

I have shown how far the class system corresponds to the Hawaiian
system. It is and remains a fact, that it contains a long series of
terms that cannot be explained by the relations in the so-called
consanguine family, and the use of which creates confusion, if applied
to this family. But that simply shows that Morgan was mistaken about the
age and pres