We have seen in an earlier chapter that kinship and consanguinity are distinct in their nature, though among civilised peoples they are not in practice distinguishable.  In the lower stages of culture it is otherwise, as will be shown in detail below.  Corresponding to this distinction of consanguinity and kinship but not parallel to it we have two ways of expressing these relationships—­the descriptive and the classificatory.  The terminology of the former system is based on the principle of reckoning the relationship of two people by the total number of steps between them and the nearest lineal ancestor of both.  The latter does not concern itself with descent at all but expresses the status of the individual as a member of a group of persons.  Thus, to take a single example, in a typical Australian tribe the word applied by a child to its father is not used of him alone but of all the other males on the same level of a generation provided they belong to the same phratry; to the other half of the generation is applied the term usually translated “mother’s brother.”

Unfortunately but few Australian lists of kinship terms have been drawn up, and the anomalous tribes like the Kurnai have absorbed a large share of attention.  It is however possible to give tables for the three classes of tribes with which we have been in the main concerned.  Those given are in use among the Wathi-Wathi of Victoria, the Ngerikudi-speaking people of North Queensland and the Arunta[138].

Wathi-Wathi Tribe:  two-phratry.

-------------------------------------+-----------------

-------------------+----
Phratry A             |             Phratry B            |Gen-
|_Naponui_         |                  |_Kokonui_        |er-
|(mother’s father) |                  |(mother’s mother)|at-
|_Miimui_          |                  |_Matui_          |ion
|(father’s mother) |                  |(father’s father)|
|                  |                  |                 | I
------------------+------------------+------------------+---

--------------+
Mamui           |                  |_Kukui_           |                 |
(father)          |                  |(mother)          |                 |
Niingui         |                  |_Gunui_           |                 | II
(father’s sister= |                  |(mother’s brother=|                 |
Nalundui,       |                  |_Nguthanguthu_    |                 |
wife’s mother)    |                  |wife’s father)    |                 |
------------------+------------------+------------------+---

--------------+
|_Malunui_         |                  |  EGO            |
|(father’s         |                  |_Wawi, mamui_    |
|sister’s son)     |                  |(elder brother,  | III
|_Neripui_         |                  |sister)          |
|(father’s sister’s|                  |_Tatui, minukui_ |
|daughter=wife)    |                  |(younger do.)    |