class system.  In one case, that of the Kalkadoon, this is sufficiently explained by the fact that the tribe is itself now remote geographically speaking from its fellows, owing to the interposition of Pitta-Pitta and allied tribes.  In the other three cases the facts seem to point to a change in the intertribal relationships in the period intervening between the adoption of phratry names and the introduction of the class system.  If the lines of intercourse and intermarriage had suffered a revolution in the interval, the names, the origin of which we have yet to consider, would naturally show a different grouping of the tribes; for it is on the grouping of the tribes that the spread of the names, whether of phratries or classes, must have depended.

The main mass of the tribes organised on the four-class system lies in Queensland and New South Wales, and whereas only two sets of names are found in the latter colony, no less than fifteen (some of which are, however, of more than doubtful authenticity) are reported from various parts of Queensland.  From Northern Territory two (Anula and Mara) of small extent are reported[111]; a considerable area of this colony, as well as of South and West Australia, is occupied by the Arunta system, and the closely allied classes to the north-west of them.  The only other four-class system in West Australia of which we have definite information is that west and north of King George’s Sound and eastwards for an unknown distance.

Covering nearly the whole of New South Wales outside the area occupied by the two-phratry tribes of the Darling country, and extending far up into Queensland, we find the well-known Muri-Kubbi, Ippai-Kumbo classes (1) of the Kamilaroi nation[112].  The Kamilaroi system appears to have touched the sea in the neighbourhood of Sydney.  According to Mr Mathews, the Darkinung, who inhabited this part of New South Wales, substituted Bya for Muri. (1_a_) In like manner the Wiradjeri are stated by Gribble to have replaced Kumbo by Wombee; this may however be no more than a dialectical variant.

Lying along the sea coast north-east of the Darkinung and east of the main mass of Kamilaroi tribe were the Kombinegherry and other tribes, whom Mr Mathews denominates the Anaywan.  Their classes are given by him as Irrpoong, Marroong, Imboong, and Irrong; but an earlier authority gives the forms Kurbo, Marro, Wombo, and Wirro (2); at Wide Bay we find Baran, Balkun, Derwen, and Bundar (3) with an alternative form Banjoor.

North of them, still on the coast, we find the Kuinmurbura with Kurpal, Kuialla, Karilbura, and Munal (4); for the Taroombul, which I am unable to locate, Mr Mathews gives Koodala in place of Kuialla and Karalbara for Karilbura.  For the Kangoollo, lying inland from this group, Mr Mathews gives Kearra, Banjoor, Banniar, and Koorpal.  This suggests that there is some confusion, for the names include two from 4, and one or two from 3.