Alfred William Howitt

“ He has apparently not observed that tippa-malku is not a group relation but a reciprocal term between two individuals who have been betrothed to each other, and is thus in complete contrast to and an innovation on the group terms of relationship of the Australian tribes. ”

“ The fact that the All-Father belief is held by tribes which have not got beyond the two-class organization, or who have developed four sub-classes, while others hold it who have got so far as to be organized upon locality, means no more than, that some tribes have progressed in social development more rapidly than others. ”

“ Spencer and Gillen in Central and North Australia.
Dieri.
(F. means "female speaking," M. means "male speaking.)
All the terms given in this series of relationships are group terms, which include both own and tribal relations. In this tribe every woman ultimately becomes a pirrauru wife, having probably been a tippa-malku wife in the first instance. I have shown in my Native Tribes [1] that betrothal is not the only way in which a man may obtain a wife, she not being his pirrauru already. ”

“ Lang:
(a) The part of Australia in which I find that belief is "the whole of Victoria and of New South Wales up to the eastern boundaries of the tribes of the Darling River. If the Queensland coast tribes are included, then the western bounds might be indicated by a line drawn from the mouth of the Murray River to Cardwell, including the Great Dividing Range with some of the fall inland in New South Wales" (p. 500) .
(b) This excludes all the "Central and Northern Tribes" of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, which cannot properly be included. ”

“ This is one of the tribes of South Central Victoria which have two classes, with male descent and individual marriage. KURNAI. Marital terms include Maian. M. Wife, wife's sisters, brother's wife. Bra. F. Husband, husband's brothers, sister's husband. This tribe occupied Gippsland. It had no classes or sub-classes and the totems did not affect marriage.
Descent in the male line with individual marriage.
Yuin.
This is a coast tribe without classes or sub-classes, but with totems which regulate marriage. Descent is in the male line with individual marriage. ”

“ In this reversion it is the fraternal group, own and tribal, which exercises that right, but thereafter it has no further claim over the woman, who has become the actual individual maian of the man with whom she eloped. ”