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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The making of the local tribe of savagery-Earliest known stage of society-Result of complex processes-Elaborate tribal rules-Laws altered deliberately: sometimes borrowed-Existing legislative methods of savages not primitive-The tribe a gradual conquest of culture-The tribe a combination of small pre-tribal kinships-History of progress towards the tribe traceable in surviving institutions-From passion to Law- Rudeness of native culture in Australia-Varieties of social organisation there-I. Tribes with two phratries, totems, female descent-Tribes of this organisation differ as to ceremonies and beliefs-Some beliefs tend to polytheism: others towards monotheism- Some tribes of pristine organisation have totemic magic and pirrauru: others have not- The more northern tribes of pristine organisation share the ceremonies and beliefs of central tribes: not so the south-eastern tribes-Second form (a) of social organisation has male descent-Second form (b) has female descent plus "matrimonial classes"-Account of these-Eight-class system-The Arunta nation-Their peculiar form of belief in reincarnation-Churinga nanja-Recapitulation-The Euahlayi tribe. The question of the origin of totemism has more than the merely curious or antiquarian interest of an historic or prehistoric mystery. In the course of the inquiry we may be able to discern and discriminate the relative contributions of unreflecting passion, on one hand, and of deliberate reason, on the other, to the structure of the earliest extant form of human society. That form is the savage local tribe, as known to us in America and in Australia. Men live in united local communities, relatively large, and carefully regimented, before they have learned to domesticate animals, or to obey chiefs, or to practise the rudest form of agriculture, or to fashion clay into pottery, or to build permanent hovels. Customary law is older than any of these things, and the most ancient law which we can observe unites a tribe by that system of marriages which expresses itself in totemism.

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