With the help of these he may proceed to grapple for himself with the mass of highly interesting but bewildering details concerning social organization to be found in any of the leading first-hand authorities.

For instance, for Australia he can do no better than consult the two fascinating works of Messrs.

Spencer and Gillen on the Central tribes, or the no less illuminating volume of Howitt on the natives of the South-eastern region; whilst for North America there are many excellent monographs to choose from amongst those issued by the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution.

Or, if he is content to allow some one else to collect the material for him, his best plan will be to consult Dr.
Frazer's monumental treatise, _Totemism and Exogamy_, which epitomizes the known facts for the whole wide world, as surveyed region by region.
The first thing to grasp is that, for peoples of this type, social organization is, primarily and on the face of it, identical with kinship-organization.

Before proceeding further, let us see what kinship means.