If our knowledge of Australian phratries and classes is far from exhaustive, we have at any rate a fair knowledge of the distribution of the various types whose existence is generally recognised; that is to say, we can delimit the greater part of the continent according to whether the tribes show two phratries only, or two phratries, which may be anonymous, with the further subdivision into four classes, or into eight classes.  We also know approximately the limits of the matrilineal and patrilineal systems.  New South Wales, Victoria, the southern portion of Queensland and Northern Territory, the eastern part of South Australia, and the coastal regions of West Australia, are now known with more or less accuracy from the point of view of kinship organisations.  On the other hand, from the Cape York Peninsula, and the part of Northern Territory north of Lat. 15 deg., we have little if any information.  The south coast and its hinterland from 135 deg. westwards, as far as King George’s Sound, is virtually a terra incognita; in fact beyond the south-western corner and the fringe which lies along the coast we know little of the West Australian blacks, and the frontiers between the various systems must in these areas be regarded as purely provisional.

Broadly speaking, the tribes of the whole of the known area of Australia, certain coast regions of comparatively small extent excepted, have a dichotomous kinship organisation.  The accompanying map (Map II) shows how the various forms are distributed.  Along most of the south coast, and up a belt broken perhaps in the northern portion, running through the centre of the continent in Lat. 137 deg., are found two phratries without intermarrying classes; for the area west of Lat. 130 deg. we have, it is true, only one datum, which gives no information as to the area to which it applies; this portion of the field therefore is assigned only provisionally to the two-phratry system.  On the Bloomfield River, which runs into Weary Bay, associated with the name of Captain Cook, is an isolated two-phratry organisation, unless indeed we may assume that the class names have either been overlooked or have passed out of use.

The four-class system extends over the greater part of New South Wales, and Queensland; a narrow belt runs through the north of South Australia and broadens till it embraces the whole coastline of West Australia, the north-eastern area excluded.  An isolated four-class system, which does not regulate marriage, is found in the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia.

The eight-class system forms a compact mass, between the Gulf of Carpentaria and Roebuck Bay, extending south as far as Lat. 25 deg. in the centre of Australia.

In reality the rule of the eight-class system extends considerably further south, but the classes are nameless or altogether non-existent.  Thus, the southern Arunta have nominally four classes, but each of these has two sections, so that the final result is as though they were an eight-class tribe.  In the same way the marriage regulations of the two-phratry Dieri are such that choice is limited among them precisely as it would be if they had eight classes.  The same may be true of the remainder of the western branch of the four-class system, which is closely allied in name to the Arunta type; the boundary between the related sets of names is unknown.