Howitt to Fison 22 December 1878

Transcription - Page 3

once to the notes and often miss them. I
suggested that each footnote should be placed
at the bottom of the page to which it refers, as
I have done in several instances where footnotes
were required. I did not intend to suggest
placing them in the body of the work.
4. By all means add whatever footnotes you
like (I will add two or three to your part and
send them with my copy to you) and also
add an appendix. I quite agree with you
that it will be an excellent plan. [No point 5.]
6. Again I have not clearly explained myself -
it must be the "want of precision of thought which
is shown in the want of precision of language" against
which I am always striving that has done this. The
unit [underlined] I spoke of was so far as I now remember
not the unit out of which society originally sprang
but the unit of the existing society. As I see it
among the Kurni it is the "family" - or rather
in strictness "the pair" - the man and the woman
- the two who together form the unit of society -
that which may be described as the duality - "Yeerung
+ Djeetgun." Morgan will I expect dissent from
this view.
I now go on numbering on my own account.
7. The Twofold Bay blacks are not Yeerung and
Djeetgun - nor are they Kurni. All that I can
learn is that the Snowy River men were friendly
with them - more friendly than the other Kurni
were with "outsiders" and in this sense