With these facts in mind such suggestions as an attentive study of vocabularies has disclosed are naturally put forward with a full sense of their uncertainty, they are of a purely tentative nature.

For the Koobaroo (var.  Obur) of the Goorgilla set I find in the same group the homophone obur (gidea tree), which is also a totem of the group of tribes in question[121].  The Wotero of Halifax Bay suggests Wutheru, for which I am unable to find a meaning, unless it be emu, as given by one observer, who however on another occasion gave a different translation.  Korkoro in the same set may be the same as korkoren (opossum) of a tribe some 150 miles away[122].  The muri[123] and kubbi of the Kamilaroi and Turribul (?) mean kangaroo and opossum in the latter language, and ibbai means Eaglehawk in Wiraidhuri[124].  The Kamilaroi bundar (=kangaroo) may give us a clue to the meaning of the Dippil Bundar[125]; the Kiabara Bulcoin has a homophone in the Peechera tribe, where it means kangaroo; on the Hastings River it means red wallaby.  Balcun however means native bear according to Mathew[126].

If we turn to the eight-class tribes the results are hardly more striking.  The Dieri Pultara, Palyara and Upala[127], are homophones of the class names which we have seen as alternative forms; but this very fact makes it certain, or nearly so, that one of the homophones is due to chance coincidence.  Bearing in mind that the Arunta alone have the form Bulthara, we may perhaps see in the change undergone by the word in their language the result of attraction, though it must be confessed that the hypothesis is far-fetched in the case of a non-written language.  On the other hand it tells against the Palyeri=Palyara equation that the Arunta, who are by far the nearest to the Dieri, use the form Bulthara.  The equation Kanunka=Panunga is not backed by any evidence that the p-k change is admissible.  Finally three of the four words mentioned seem to be compounded with a suffix; and if this is so it is clearly useless to equate them with words in which this suffix is a component part.

One class name only, Ungilla, is found in the Arunta area itself (and far beyond it, as far as the Gulf of Carpentaria) with the meaning crow[128].  If we may regard the j and k of the forms jungalla, kungalla, as a prefix, the equation seems justified; otherwise it seems an insuperable difficulty that not the original form of the class name, but the derivative and shortened form is the one to which the equation applies.  Our very defective knowledge of the languages of the eight-class tribes makes it possible that when we know more of them other root words may be discovered.  At present it can only be said that in very few instances have we either in the four-class or the eight-class areas any warrant for saying that we know the meaning of the class names, much less that we know them to be derived from the names of animals.