THE FAMILY AND PRINCIPLES OF KINSHIP STRUCTURE IN AUSTRALIA.

The social life of the primitive Australian aborigines has been a fascinating field of scientific interest and rheoretical speculation for several generations of European and American sociologists and social anthropologists. Knowledge of the native family and kinship systems and their associated esoteric totemic rites, for example, stimulated such social theorists as Emile Durkheim and Lewis H. Morgan. The present article is an attempt to present some results of investigations done in Australia. Special emphasis is given to the several typical forms of kinship found in Australia and the principles underlying the organization of the immediate family and larger kinship structures. A somewhat different method of kinship analysis, which applies not only to Australian but to any other systems, is used in an effort to remove the strangeness and complexity from the minds of those, who have not specialized in this field of family research. The kinship terms are always designating instruments organized around the individual who places his various kin by the use of them, and by so doing, also socially places himself as the designator. In other words, Ego anchored in his immediate family, looks out at his kinship world and places all the kindred in relation to himself by means of his kinship terms and in so doing also socially orientates himself.