In the Inchalachee tribe, according to Mr Mathews, descent of the classes is reckoned through females.  In the place of the arrangement shown in Table I a, he gives the order 3, 4, 8, 7; 6, 5, 1, 2[202].  Any man of the first moiety may marry any woman of the second, though certain marriages are normal and one of the remainder more usual than the others.  The effect of these rules is to make it possible for a man to marry any woman of his own generation, even if she be of his own class.  This is precisely the same as the case reported from the Kamilaroi by Dr Howitt, if we may take it that in the latter case the normal marriages are found side by side with the anomalous ones.

In the Inchalachee marriages the children, as in the Warramunga cases of Spencer and Gillen, take the class which they would have had if the woman had taken her normal spouse.  On this Mr Mathews relies for the statement that descent is reckoned in the female line in this tribe.  But, as we have seen, such a view is erroneous as regards the Warramunga, among whom anomalous marriages also occur; it is therefore by no means clear that the Inchalachee are matrilineal.  We have even more reason to doubt his view as to the Binbinga, for whom we have the evidence of Spencer and Gillen.

Mr Mathews also reports among the Wiradjeri marriages resembling in many respects those mentioned above from the Wailwun tribe[203].  The table does not seem to be complete; it is therefore useless to enquire on what principle these marriages are arranged.  There seems, however, no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of the information.

More revolutionary is the statement that these cross-class marriages are based on an actual kinship organisation, to which Mr Mathews gives the name of “blood” (Table III, p. 50)[204].

Running across the phratries and classes are divisions known as Gwaigullean and Gwaimudthen, Muggulu and Bumbirra, etc., which have the meaning of “sluggish” and “swift” blood respectively.  The bloods again are sometimes subdivided.  In the Ngeumba tribe Gwaimudthen is divided into nhurai (butt) and wangue (middle), while Gwaigulir is equivalent to winggo (top).  These names refer to different portions of the shadow of a tree and refer to the positions taken up in camping by the persons belonging to the different “bloods” and “castes.”  In this, it may be noted, these organisations follow the parallel of the phratries and classes.

With the correspondences in names shown in Table III. before our eyes, it is difficult to suppose that the statements of Mr Mathews have no basis in fact.  In the absence of further information, however, it is clearly impossible to discuss the origin of these divisions.  It seems most probable that they are the systematisation of the anomalous marriages already cited.  But much more information is needed before anything like certainty can be attained in the matter.  Both actual genealogies and tables of terms of relationship must be in our hands before we can come to a decision.