The names of these two groups, which drew in other smaller groups, became the phratry names of the newly-formed aggregate, the largest unit known to primitive society at that stage of its evolution, and corresponding roughly to what we have defined as a tribe; for it was united by bonds of friendship, and in the course of time the language, originally very different no doubt, how different we can, indeed, hardly say, must have so far coalesced, owing to the interchange of wives (in so far as a distinct woman’s language, traces of which are found among some savage tribes, was not developed), as to produce a single tongue.

This theory Mr Lang has now fortified and elaborated in The Secret of the Totem, the most important new point being the demonstration of the fact that totem kins which bear names of the same significance as the phratry names are almost invariably in the eponymous phratries—­a clear proof that law and not chance has determined their position.

As an explanation of the distribution of phratry names Mr Lang adopts a theory which combines the hypotheses of evolution and borrowing, and thus explains both the wide area covered by some systems, and the increasing multitude of organisations confined to small districts, which more minute research reveals.  This does not, it is true, explain the geographical remoteness of different parts of the same system or of allied systems, shown to be so by the identity of phratry animal or name.  Not only is Wuthera-Mallera split into two sections; but a portion of Wuthera-Yungaru seems to be in the same position; if we may take the Badieri Yungo as equivalent to Yungaru, dispersion alone suffices to explain the case; but if Yungo is derived from the Kurnandaburi, who have Mattera as the sister phratry, then we have the Badieri phratry names borrowed each from a different tribe, at any rate in appearance.

In reality this state of things affords the strongest possible support to Mr Lang’s hypothesis, if only we can suppose that the formation of tribes is subsequent to the elaboration of the phratriac system.  For it might well happen that an original Yungo local group divided, from economic causes, but that each half retained its original name.  Under these circumstances the two portions formed connubial alliances with other groups; and in the tribes as we see the names of these split groups are found as phratry names, combined in each case with a different sister phratry name.  We find for example Wuthera-Yungo, Yungo-Mattera, Matteri-Kiraru in the central area.  The same theory will explain the appearance of Wuthera beside three other sister names, though here we must call in the borrowing and migration theories as well, to explain the wide area over which the names are found.  We have seen that in the northern tribes one of the phratry names appears to be in each case from the same root; if this is so, we can apply to them too the split-group hypothesis.