into the work of Mrs. Parker. The author herself has remarked that,
beginning as a disciple of Mr. Herbert Spencer in regard to the
religious ideas of the Australians--according to that writer, mere
dread of casual 'spirits'--she was obliged to alter her attitude, in
consequence of all that she learned at first hand. She also explains
that her tribe are not 'wild blacks,' though, in the absence of
missionary influences, they retain their ancient beliefs, at least the
old people do; and, in a decadent form, preserve their tribal
initiations, or Boorah. How she tested and controlled the evidence of
her informants she has herself stated, and I venture to think that she
could hardly have made a better use of her opportunities.

In one point there is perhaps, almost unavoidably, a lacuna or gap in
her information. The Euahlayi, she says, certainly do not possess the
Dieri and Urabunna

custom of Pirrauru or Piraungaru, by which married, and unmarried men,
of the classes men and women which may intermarry, are solemnly
allotted to each other as more or less permanent paramours.[See
Mr. Howitt's NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA, and my
SECRET OF THE TOTEM, chapter iii.] That custom, for some unknown reason,
is confined to certain tribes possessing the two social divisions with the
untranslated names MATTERI and KIRARU. These tribes range from Lake Eyre
southward, perhaps, as far as the sea. Their peculiar custom is unknown to
the Euahlayi) but Mrs. Parker does not inform us concerning any recognised
licence which may, as is usual, accompany their Boorah assemblies, or
their 'harvest home' of gathered grass seed, which she describes.

Any reader of Mrs. Parker's book who has not followed recent
anthropological discussions, may need to be apprised of the nature of