s the notion is
sanctioned by capital punishment.

Another important feature in Australian totemism strengthens our
position. The idea of the animal kinship must be an ancient one in the
race, because the family surname, Emu, Bandicoot, or what not, and the
crest, kobong, or protecting and kindred animal, are inherited through
the mother's side in the majority of stocks. This custom, therefore,
belongs to that early period of human society in which the woman is the
permanent and recognised factor in the family while male parentage is
uncertain.(1) One other feature of Australian totemism must be mentioned
before we leave the subject. There is some evidence that in certain
tribes the wingong or totem of each man is indicated by a tattooed
representation of it upon his flesh. The natives are very licentious,
but men would shrink from an amour with a woman who neither belonged to
their own district nor spoke their language, but who, in spite of that,
was of their totem. To avoid mistakes, it seems that some tribes mark
the totem on the flesh with incised lines.(2) The natives frequently
design figures of some kind on the trees growing near the graves of
deceased warriors. Some observers have fancied that in these designs
they recognised the totem of the dead men; but on this subject evidence
is by no means clear. We shall see that this primitive sort of heraldry,
this carving or painting of hereditary blazons, is common among the Red
Men of America.(3)

(1) Cf. Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht; M'Lennan, Primitive Marriage, passim;
Encycl. Brit. s. v. Family.

(2) Fison, op. cit., p. 66.

(3) Among other recent sources see Howitt in "Organisation of Australian
Tribes" (Transactions of Royal Society of Victoria, 1889), and Spencer
and Gillen, Natives of Central Australia. In Central Australia there is
a marked difference in the form of Totemism.

Though a large amount of evidence might be added to that already put
forward, we may now sum up the inferences to be drawn from the study
of totemism in Australia. It has been shown (1) that the natives think
themselves actually akin to animals, plants, the sun, and the wind, and
things in general; (2) that those ideas influence their conduct, and
even regulate their social arrangements, because (3) men and women of
the kinship of the same animal or plant may not intermarry, while men
are obliged to defend, and in case of murder to avenge, persons of the
stock of the family or p