Frazer has further shown that even now some of the Australian aborigines are ignorant of the physical fact of paternity and its relation to sexual intercourse.

That such ignorance could have survived so long is the strongest evidence in favour of the universal priority of female to male descent.

It is doubtful, however, whether even the mother could remember her children after they had become adult, prior to the introduction of personal names.

Mr.M'Lennan states: "The tie between mother and child, which exists as a matter of necessity during infancy, is not infrequently found to be lost sight of among savages on the age of independence being reached." [161] Personal names were probably long subsequent to clan-names, and when they were first introduced the name usually had some reference to the clan.

The Red Indians and other races have totem-names which are frequently some variant of the name of the totem.