\ I/I THE MELANESIANfc STUDIES IN THEIR ANTHROPOLOGY AND FOLK-LOME R H. CODB1NGTON, D.D. LATE OP THE MELANESIAN MISSION SOMETIME FELLOW OF WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD AUTHOR OF 'THE MELANESIAN LANGUAGES' With Illustrations AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1891 \_All rights reserved] M* PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PRINTED IN ENGLANB, PBEFACE. IT has been my endeavour in the following pages to bring together the results of such observations as many years' acquaintance with Melanesian people has enabled me to make. I had once hoped to have been able to give something more like a full account of the beliefs and practices of the natives of those islands concerning which I have had the opportunity of collecting information ; but my stay upon my last return to the Melanesian Mission was too short for this, and I have now to put forth what I know to be very incomplete. My observations and enquiries were carried on, and my notes were made, in the years from 1863, when I first visited the islands, to 1887, when I left the Mission ; partly in the Melanesian Islands, but mostly in Norfolk Island, where natives of many of these islands have for many years been brought together for instruction. Twice during this period I made with natives of the various islands a systematic enquiry into the religious beliefs and practices of the Melanesians, and the social regulations and conditions prevailing among them. On the first occasion I had, as re- gards the Banks' Islands, the very valuable assistance of a native who was a grown youth before his people had been at all affected by intercourse with Europeans or had heard any Christian teaching the Rev. George Sarawia, the first, vi Preface. and now for many years the leader, of the native clergy of that group. The results of these first enquiries appeared briefly in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of February, 1881 ; and these were carefully reviewed by me during my last stay in Norfolk Island in 1866 and 1867. I was so fortunate then as to meet there several old friends and pupils who had come down, for their health's sake and for other reasons, after a residence as teachers among their own people. They had been living in their various islands in a position and at an age which would make them ac- quainted with the views and habits of their countrymen, and they were able, and, I believe, entirely willing, to com- municate freely what they knew. It happened thus that I was able to go through the subjects which are treated of in this book with native instructors from the Solomon Islands, the Banks' Islands, and the Northern New Hebrides ; with Marsden Manekalea from Ysabel, Benjamin Bele from Florida, Joseph Wate from Saa, Walter Woser from Motlav, Arthur Arudulewari from Aurora, Lewis Tariliu from Pentecost, Martin Tangabe from Lepers' Island ; every one of them, in my opinion, a competent and trustworthy witness, though all were not equally intelligent. It has been my purpose to set forth as much as possible what natives say about themselves, not what Europeans say about them. For this reason, though the results of my own personal observations are given, I have refrained from asking or recording, except in a few instances where acknowledgment is made, the information which my colleagues in the Mission would have abundantly and willingly imparted. No one can be more sensible than myself of the incompleteness and insufficiency of what I venture to publish ; I know that I must have made many mistakes and missed much that I might have learnt. I have felt the truth of what Mr. Fison, late missionary in Preface. vii Fiji, to whom I am indebted for much instruction, has written : * When a European has been living for two or three years among savages he is sure to be fully convinced that he knows all about them ; when he has been ten years or so amongst them, if he be an observant man, he finds that he knows very little about them, and so begins to learn.' My own time of learning has been all too short. I have endeavoured as far as possible to give the natives' account of themselves by giving what I took down from their lips and translating what they wrote themselves. It is likely that under the circumstances of such enquiries much of the worst side of native life may be out of sight, and the view given seem generally more favourable than might be expected ; if it be so, I shall not regret it. I should have been glad if space had allowed me to treat at greater length the subject of the native Arts of Life, and to have given more of the Tales, which throw so much light upon native life and thought. The comparison of the Melanesian languages, customs, beliefs, and arts, with those of the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, will fix the ethnological place of the Melanesian people while it aids the general study of mankind. In conclusion, this book, though written by a missionary, with his full share of the prejudices and predilections belonging to missionaries, is not meant to have what is generally understood to be a missionary character ; but the writer is persuaded that one of the first duties of a mis- sionary is to try to understand the people among whom he works, and to this end he hopes that he may have con- tributed something that may help. WADHUBST : March 12, 1891. CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. INTEODUCTORY. */Uroups of Melanesian Islands. Connexion East and West. Discovery. Spanish, French, English Discoverers. Names of Islands, native and geographical. Identification. Condition on discovery. Native view of discoverers. Geology. Volcanos. Coral. Reef Islands. Lakes. Water- falls. Zoology. , pp. 1-19 CHAPTER II. SOCIAL EEGULATIONS. DIVISIONS OF THE PEOPLE. KINSHIP AND MAKEIAGE CONNEXION. Ethnology, Or igin.y/pi vision of people into Expgamous dreds, with Succession through the Mother. No Tribes. : Exception in X Eastern Solomon Islands, intercourse of sexes regulated and restricted. Incest. Guest- wives. Division into two King^ Banks' Islands; Families^ Adoption. New Hebrides. Question of Communal marriage. Testi- mony of language. Nearness of^ blood. Plural Divisions, Florida, Bugotu. ^A^omina.tion^,^^. ^jfoiems. Custom at Ulawa. Shifting predominance of Florida Tcema. Delation of sister's son and mother's brother. V Banks' Island System of Relationship, in Kinship, Family, by Marriage7""pedigree of Mota family. Step-father. Terms of relation- ship in Florida. System where descent follows the Father. Reserve. Avoidance, in Banlcs' Islands. Disuse of Names as words. New HeBrides 20-45 Contents. CHAPTER III. SOCIAL [REGULATIONS. CHIEFS. VChiefs recognised by visitors. VHieir Power in Solomon Islands, Banks' Islands, and New Hebrides. \/Absence of History and Tradition, y Remarkable exception at Saa. Origin of that settlement. Chiefs there: Hereditary element. Chiefs in Florida ; in Banks' Islands. Alterna- tion of predominance in Kindreds. Chiefs in New Hebrides, Lepers' Island 46 >|V] o CHAPTER IV. PKOPERTY AND INHERITANCE. General agreement as to Property and Succession. /Divisions of Land, Bush, Gardens, Town. Sale of Land. Property in Fruit-trees. Tendency to succession of son to father. Solomon Islands, Florida. Land and Personal property. Banks' Islands, Redemption of father's land, Sale of land, Wills. New Hebrides, Pentecost Island, Lepers' Island . 59-68 CHAPTER V. ' SECRET SOCIETIES AND MYSTEKIES. AVide extent of Secret Societies in Melanesia., Difference from Austra- lian Mysteries; no 'Making young men.' Social importances Exclu- sion of women. Conspicuous feature in native life. Banks' Islands, Tamate, ' Ghosts ' ; masks ; badges ; lodges. Salagoro ; hats ; mysterious sounds ; admission ; seclusion of neophytes ; license. Smaller Societies. Qatu ; dance ; initiation. New Hebrides, Aurora Island. Handiwork of ' ghosts.' -'Native account of Initiations. / Dances. Pentecost Island. The Qeta. Solomon Islands, Florida. Matairibala; origin; native account; downfall of the Mystery 69-100 CHAPTER VI. SOCIETIES. CLUBS. Presence of these Societies conspicuous in Torres Islands, Banks' Islands, and New Hebrides. The Gamal, club-house; the Club, the Suqe. Ranks. Social importance. Banks' Islands, Mota. Images ; hats. Santa Maria, Torres Islands. Admission and advance in rank ; Method and forms. Feasts ; dress. Women's Club. Kolekole ; decorations. Charms ; Feast of deliverance. New Hebrides, Aurora, Lepers' Island. Ranks and titles. Pentecost Island 101-115 Contents. xi CHAPTER VII. EELIGION. ifficulty of the subject. Language of Natives and Europeans. Mana ; stones ; charms. Spirits and Ghosts distinguished by natives. Differ- ence between religion of Eastern and Western Melanesia. Misuse of terms ; ' god ' and ' devil.' Banks' Islands, Spirits, vui. Solomon Is- lands, tindalo, Ghosts of worship. Example of Ganindo. Prayers and offerings 117-127 CHAPTER VIII. <7 SACEIFICES. f Offerings at meals to the Dead. Difference between Sacrifices in Eastern and Western Melanesia. Solomon Islands ; Sacrifice to ghosts ; example at San Cristoval. Florida sacrifices, public and private ; first-fruits ; for war; for crops. Human sacrifices. Seven sacrifices at Saa. San Cristoval; Substitution. Santa Cruz. Banks' Islands; Offerings to Spirits at stones ; with money. Familiar spirits. New Hebrides, Aurora, Pentecost, Lepers' Island, Ambrym ...... 128-144 CHAPTER IX. PEAYEES. Prayers and Invocations. To Ghosts in Solomon Islands, Florida, San Cristoval, Saa. To Spirits in Banks' Islands, Motlav, Mota. Invocations at sea. New Hebrides 145-149 CHAPTER X. SPIEITS. Little prominence of belief in Spirits in Solomon Islands. Kahausibware. Banks' Islands, vui. Native conceptions ; two orders of spirits. Nopitu. Qat ; Creation. Story and adventures of Qat ; Marawa, Qasavara. Story of flood. Santa Cruz. New Hebrides. Tagaro and Supwe ; Creation ; Winged women. Changeling spirits 150-172 CHAPTER XL SACEED PLACES AND THINGS. Images not idols . / Stones./Solomon Islands, Places of sepulture sacred ; Shrines. Other sacred places, Streams/' Florida, Bugotu. Sharks, snakes, frigate-birds, crocodiles. Banks' Islands and New Hebrides; Stones, heaps, streams and pools, trees, sharks, snakes, changeling snakes, king- fishers .... .... ^ ... 173-190 xii Contents. CHAPTER XII. MAGIC. Mana, and equivalent terms. Native belief in magic, (i) Sickness: causes. Solomon Islands. Treatment with charms ; medicine. Ghosts fighting; Sea-ghosts. Santa Cruz. Banks' Islands. New Hebrides. (2) Weather: weather doctoring ; Banks' Islands, charms. (3) Witch- craft : fragments of food ; bones ; ' ghost-shooter ' ; Metamorphosis. (4) Dreams: dreamers. (5) Prophecy: possession by ghosts ; prophets. (6) Divination: methods in Solomon Islands and Banks' Islands. (7) Ordeals. (8) Poison. (9) Tapu, taboo: Curses; Oaths. . 191-217 CHAPTER XIII. POSSESSION. INTERCOURSE WITH GHOSTS. Mildness believed to be possession by Spirits or Ghosts. Other forms of possession. Omens. Vampires. Tricks played by ghosts on men ; by men with ghosts. Form of possession in Torres Islands. Tricks. Sneezing ............ 218-227 CHAPTER XIV. . BIRTH. CHILDHOOD. MARRIAGE. Couvade ; abortion ; infanticide ; twins. Birth. Weaning ; nose-boring ; clothing. Reserve. Separation of sexes. Initiation at Saa. Circumcision; tattoo. Intercourse of sexes ; harlots. Betrothal and Marriagey' Adul- tery. Divorce. Levirate. Widowhood ; mourning. CHAPTER XV. _ DEATH. BURIAL. AFTER DEATH. Death. Soul called shadow. Native words translated soul, in Florida, Banks' Islands, New Hebrides. Ghosts, two classes. Burial customs in Florida and Bugotu. Hades ; ship and bridge of the dend. San Cris- toval, Sea-ghosts. Saa, ghosts; Hades; burial; relics; memorials. Santa Cruz. Torres Islands. Banks' Islands. Panoi. Origin of death ; burial ; driving away ghost ; funeral feasts ; death-days ; state of the dead ; judgment. Descents to Panoi. Aurora. Journey of the dead ; funeral ; death-meals. Lepers' Island. Origin of death ; burial ; Hades. Pentecost Island. Burying alive ..... 247-2 Contents. Xlll CHAPTER XVI. _ AKTS OF LIFE. Outrigger- canoes ; plank-built canoes ; voyages ; trade. Houses : dwel- ling-houses ; canoe -houses ; pile-houses ; tree-houses ; forts ; stone- buildings. Cultivations. Weapons. Fighting. Bows ; slings ; poisoned arrows. Shell and stone implements ; pottery ; stone-boiling. Fishing : hooks ; floats ; nets ; kites ; traps. Food ; Cookery. Native cloth ; Dress. Money : mat-money ; feather-money ; shell-money ; money-lending. Decorative Arts, in Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, Banks' Islands . 290-331 CHAPTER XVII. DANCES. MUSIC. GAMES. Dances. Songs. Drums ; pipes ; stringed instrument ; ^olian flute. Games. Toys: kites; bull-roarer; rattles . . . . .332-342 CHAPTER XVIII. MISCELLANEOUS. Cannibalism. Head-taking. Castaways. Slaves. Burning alive. Sun ; moon ; stars ; eclipses. Months and Seasons. Narcotics. Counting ; 343-355 Measures. Salutations. Wild men CHAPTER XIX. STORIES. I. Animal Stories. I. Heron and Turtle. 2. Three Fish. 3. Rat and Rail. 4. Birds' Voyage. 5. Shark and Snake. 6. Hen and Chickens., II. Myths, Tales of Origins. i. Kamakajaku. 2. Samuku. 3. The Mim. 4. Muesarava. 5. Tagaro's Departure. 6. How Tagaro made the Sea. 7. How Tagaro found Fish. 8. How the old Woman made the Sea. III. Wonder Tales. I. Dilingavuv. 2. Story of an Eel. 3. Molgon and Molwor. 4. Ghost-wife. 5. Ganviviris. 6. The Little Orphan. 7. The Woman and Eel. 8. The Little Owl. 9. The Winged Wife. 10. Taso. n. Betawerai. 12. Basi and Dovaowari. 13. Dei- tari. 14. Tarkeke. 15. The Woman and Ghost. 16. Tagaro the Little. 17. Merambuto and Tagaro . . . . . . 356-411 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, FRONTISPIECE. Stone buildings at Gaua, Santa Maria, Banks' Islands From a sketch by the Author. 1. Map and Elevation of Mota. Sugarloaf Island, Banks' Islands . 15 2. Masked Figure from New Caledonia 70 From a photograph. 3. Masked Figure of a Banks' Islands Tamate 73 From a photograph by the Author. 4. Tamate at Valuwa. Saddle Island, Banks' Islands ... 78 From a sketch by the Author. 5,6. Tamate Hats or Masks. Banks' Islands . ., *. . - 79 From sketches by the Author. 7. Masked Figures at Aurora Island, New Hebrides . . . 91 From a photograph by Rev. C. Sice. 5. Lano Hats or Masks. Banks' Islands . . . . . .104 From a drawing "by a native. g. 3falo-saru Dancing Dress. Banks' Islands 108 From a specimen in the British Museum. 10. A Sea-ghost shooting a man fishing, at Saa, Solomon Islands . .197 From a drawing by a native. 11. A Sea-ghost. San Cristoval, Solomon Islands 250 From a drawing by a native. 12. A New Hebrides Canoe 2 gi From a sketch by the Author. 13. A Mota Canoe. Banks' Islands 292 From a photograph by the Author. 14. A Santa Cruz Canoe 2 ^ From a slietch by the Author. 15. Spear-rest in a Florida Canoe. Solomon Islands . . -295 From a sketch by the Author. List of Illustrations. xv PAGE 1 6. Figure-head of a Florida Canoe 296 From a sketch by the A uthor. 17. A House at Tega. Ysabel, Solomon Islands 300 From a sketch by the Author. 1 8. Shafts of Arrows. Santa Maria, Banks' Islands . . . . 311 Draivn from specimens in the Author's collection by Rev. H. H. Minchin. 19. Shell Adze from Torres Islands, in the Author's collection . .312 Drawn by Rev. H. H. Minchin. 20. Shell tool from Santa Cruz, in the Author's collection ; to be turned either way, and used as adze or axe . . . . . 313 Drawn by Rev. H. If. Minchin. 21. Shell Adze from Lepers' Island, New Hebrides, in the Author's collection 314 Drawn by Rev. H. H. Minchin. 22. Stone Adze from San Cristoval, Solomon Islands, in the Blackmore Museum, Salisbury 314 23. Breadfruit Chopper from Mota, Banks' Islands, in the Blackmore Museum, Salisbury 315 24. Shell Adze from Mota, Banks' Islands, in the Blackmore Museum, Salisbury 315 25. Float for catching Flying-fish, from Santa Cruz, in the Blackmore Museum, Salisbury . . 317 26. Float for catching Flying-fish, from Malanta, Solomon Islands, in the Author's collection . 317 Drawn by Rev. S. H. Minchin. 27. Sketch by the Author showing the Dress of Men and Women at Bellona Island, Solomon Islands 322 28. Lime-box from Ysabel, Solomon Islands, in the Author's collection . 328 Drawn by Rev. S. H. Minchin. 29. Incised and whitened pattern on a Cocoa-nut Water-bottle from Ysabel, in the Author's collection 328 From a rubbing. 30. Incised patterns of two Banks' Islands Ear-ornaments . . . 329 31. Incised ornament cut by A. Arudulewari of Aurora Island, New Hebrides . 330 Drawn by Rev. H. H. Minchin. 32. Incised and whitened ornament from Ysabel, Solomon Islands . 331 From a rubbing. 33. Drums at Ambrym, New Hebrides 337 From a photograph by Capt. Acland, R.N. NOTE. The orthography in use in the various native languages is not generally here employed in native words, but it occasionally appears. In such cases it is enough to observe that & = mb, d = nd, n is ng, g is ngg, and that g and q represent peculiar sounds. Excuse must be offered for the very ill-looking ngg, representing the ng in ' finger' ; a sound so distinct from the ng in ' singer' that it is impossible to use, as in English, the same symbol for both. It is necessary to note that ng here always stands as ng in 'singer.' CHAPTER I. INTEODUCTORY. THERE are four groups of islands, within that region of the Western Pacific to which the name of Melanesia has been given, that form a curved belt following roughly the outline of the Australian coast, at a general distance of some fifteen hundred miles, and turning away from the important outlying Archipelago of Fiji ; these are the Solomon Islands, the Santa Cruz group, the Banks' Islands and New Hebrides, and New Caledonia with the Loyalty Islands. There is an undoubted connexion of race, language and customs among the people who inhabit these groups ; a connexion which further extends itself throughout what is called Melanesia to New Guinea westwards, and eastwards to Fiji. The distinction between the Melanesian people of these groups and the Polynesians eastwards of Fiji is clearly marked and recognised, for the line which separates Melanesian from Polynesian falls between Fiji and Tonga. No such line can be drawn to mark such a boundary to the west till the Asiatic continent itself is reached. From the Polynesian? islands of the East Pacific on the one side, and from the Asiatic islands of the Malay Archipelago on the other, two currents of influence have poured and are pouring into Melanesia, the former much more modern and direct, the ^ latter ancient and broken in its course. Upon these currents float respectively the kava root and the betel-nut.. The use of the betel is common to India, China, and the Melanesian islands as far to the east as Tikopia ; the Polynesian kavai has established itself in the New Hebrides, and is a novelty in some of the Banks' Islands ; it has not been carried across B 2 Introductory. [CH. the boundary of the betel-nut by the Polynesian settlers in the Reef Islands of Santa Cruz. The present work is not concerned at all with one of the four groups above mentioned, that of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, nor with the larger southern members of the New Hebrides group ; its view is confined, except for occasional illustration, to the Solomon Islands, Ysabel, Florida, Savo, Guadalcanal*, Malanta, San Cristoval, Ulawa, to the Santa Cruz group, the Banks' and Torres Islands, and three of the northern New Hebrides, Aurora, Pentecost and Lepers' Islands. Within this field are contained certain islands inhabited by Polynesian colonists from the East who still retain their Polynesian speech. Such are Nupani, Pileni, Nukapu, and other reef islands of the Swallow group, where the physical character- istics of the Polynesian people may possibly be traced, but certainly are not conspicuous, having been lost by mixture with neighbouring Melanesians. In Rennell Island and Bellona Island, southern members of the Solomon group, the people are physically Polynesian ; a lad from Bellona, who was in New Zealand with Bishop Patteson, was in name (Te Kiu), colour, tattoo, and speech very much a Maori. Men from the Polynesian settlements on Mae and Fate in the New Hebrides have found the language of Ontong Java like their own. The discovery of these islands was prolonged through three centuries, and carried on by Spanish, French and English voyagers. The Spaniards found the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, the Banks' Islands, and the northern New Hebrides ; the French added much later to the discoveries in these groups ; the English found, under Captain Cook, the principal islands of the New Hebrides and New Caledonia, and have filled in the charts. The Dutch discovered Fiji. The earliest, and certainly most interesting, discoveries were those of the Spaniards ; of Mendana in his two voyages of 1567 and 1595, and of Quiros and Torres in 1606 l . 1 Dr. Guppy, in his Solomon Islands and their Natives, has discussed these discoveries at length with special reference to the Journal of Gallego. By the kindness of Mr. Woodford I have read the narrative of Cotoira. In both the i.] Discoveries. 3 Mendana, despatched by the Viceroy of Peru, reached in 1567 the first Melanesian land seen by Europeans, the great island which he named Santa Ysabel de la Estrella, and from thence the voyagers under his command discovered further and named the large islands Malaita, Guadalcanal, San Crist-oval, and the lesser islands, Sesarga, which is Savo, Florida with its islets, Ulawa, and the small islands near San Cristoval. To these he gave the name of the Solomon Islands, to mark his conjecture, or to suggest the belief, that he had discovered the source of the riches of Solomon. In his second voyage of 1595, undertaken for the purpose of colonizing the Solomon Islands, Mendana discovered Santa Cruz, and attempted to form a settlement there ; an attempt abandoned after two months, in consequence of his death and the sickness of the remnant of his crews. Quiros had been with Mendana, and was allowed in 1606 to carry out a project he had been continually urging of recovering and colonizing the Solomon group. Fortune however made him the discoverer of the New Hebrides, when he believed himself to have reached the great Austral Continent, in the island which still bears the name he gave it of Espiritu Santo. The first Melanesian islands however that he saw were those now known as the Banks' Islands, one of which, Santa Maria, retains the name he gave it : Torres, after parting from Quiros, saw and named the Torres Islands. After an interval of more than a century and a half, the French voyager Bougainville, in 1768, added Pentecost, Lepers' Island, and Malikolo to the discovery of Quiros, naming the group the Great Cyclades, and found the great islands of Choiseul and Bougainville beyond those discovered in the first voyage of Mendana. Polynesian word Te Ariki, the Chief, in the form Taurique, is given as the designation of the chiefs in Ysabel, where it is now entirely out of place. This is the less easy of explanation, as the other native words given appear to be those now in use. I may add that I have discussed the accounts of Mendana's discoveries, as related in Burney's and Dalrymple's collections, with natives of the Solomon and Santa Cruz Islands ; but unfortunately my notes on this subject have been lost. B 2 4 Introductory. [CH. In the next year Surville passed through the same group ; the disastrous voyage of La Perouse ended at Vanikoro in 1785. The southern islands of the group, which have since preserved the name he gave of the New Hebrides, were discovered by Cook in his second great voyage in 1774, and after these New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands. Bligh, in his wonderful boat voyage after the mutiny of the Bounty, passed through and named the islands of the Banks' group. The names given by the Spaniards to the Solomon and Santa Cruz groups, and to the islands of Ysabel, Florida, Guadal- canar, San Cristoval, Santa Anna and Santa Catalina, to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides and Santa Maria in the Banks' Islands, have maintained themselves; some of the French names have disappeared ; some, Aurora, Pentecost or Whitsuntide, Star Island, Gulf Island (for Ugi), have taken an English form. To some islands no new names have been given, native names, or what were supposed to be such, having been supplied by the natives, such as Ambry m, Api, Mallicollo ; in some cases the native name, or what was taken for it, as Malaita, has prevailed over the name given by the discoverer. To ascertain the native name, and the proper orthography of the native name, of an island is a matter of difficulty to a visitor. Large islands seldom have a name ; an enquirer pointing to the island as a whole, is given the name of the district or village to which he points, or perhaps that of some islet between him and the mainland ; or he may take the name of a man for that of a place *. Of the islands discovered 1 The island of San Cristoval has been called Bauro by Europeans, not by natives, from the name of a part of it. A village on that island is marked on the Admiralty chart with the name of its chief. The island of Florida and its language has got the name of Anutha. and Anudha, from an islet between Mboli and Ravu. Bishop Patteson, on his visit in 1862, was given by a native boy on board the name, in the form Anudha, of the islet Anuha, and took it for the name of the whole island. Melanesians who could not pronounce th called it Anuta ; Banks' Islanders, taking the first syllable to be the preposition 'at,' commonly used with names of places, call it Nuta, and Nut. The large island of Ysabel may be seen in some maps marked Mahaga, from a single village in Bugotu, the language of which was made known by Bishop Patteson. i.] Discoveries. 5 by Mendana in his first voyage, Ysabel, Guadalcanar, and San Crist oval have no native names, though names of parts are often taken to designate the whole ; the second of these, so far as is known to them, is called Gera by natives of south- east Malanta and San Cristoval ; and the latter has become known as Bauro, from its most conspicuous part. It is strange that the large island which has somehow got the name of Malanta has a native name, at any rate all along the west side, Mala or Mara. The native name of Florida is Nggela, the same word as Gera ; and the island is known in Mala Masiki as * beyond Gela.' Savo is no doubt the island called Sesarga by the Spaniards, who heard the name Sabo, and misplaced it. The native Ulawa, heard by the Spaniards as Uraba, has lost the Spanish name of La Treguada, and retains on the charts Surville's Contrariete. The native name of Santa Cruz, the discovery of Mendana's second voyage, is Ndeni, from which the Nitendi of the charts has probably been derived \ The discovery of the Banks' Islands and New Hebrides by Quiros was preceded by a visit to Taumako, where he obtained information concerning some sixty islands known to the native voyagers. Nearly all of these probably are the small islands inhabited, like Taumako, by people of the Polynesian race, 1 There can be little doubt that Gallego's Florida is a part of the Nggela of the natives, and probably Buena Vista is Vatilau. San Dimas, San German, Guadalupe, have been shewn by Mr. Woodford to be parts of Florida as they shew from the sea, not as the island is divided by unseen channels. The native names of the lesser islands near San Cristoval are, Ugi for Gulf Island, the Spanish San Juan ; 'Olu Malau, the Three Malau, for Three Sisters, Las Tres Marias ; Owa-raha, GreatOwa, for Santa Ana, and Owa-rii, Little Owa,for Santa Catalina. It is remarkable how much more accurate Gallego's Aguare is than the Yoriki of the charts or the Orika given by Dr. Guppy. Gallego's Hapa may represent Owa, though not so well as Oo-ah or Oa. Uraba is really nearer the native Ulawa than Ulaua, the native tongue, like the Spanish, readily interchanging 1 and r, w and b. How Mr. Brenchley got Ulakua cannot be explained, nor why a new form Ulava is introduced. A correct native name, it may be said, is rarely to be obtained from a trader; the early sea-going visitors make the form which is to stand for the native name, and hand it on. The only security is the writing of a native who knows. 6 Introductory. [CH. who are great voyagers at the present day, and are easily dis- tinguished by their Polynesian tongue, though where they lie near larger islands of Melanesian population, the appearance of Polynesians has been lost 1 . Many of these islands are easily identified, and lie away from the New Hebrides 2 , but Quiros was led by his information to look for the large country of which he was in search towards the south, and he thought he found it in what he named Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo. This island, now commonly known as Santo, has the native name of Marina. This was not the first land of the New Hebrides seen by Quiros ; after having apparently seen the light of a volcano in the night, he found himself in the morning in view of three islands, one the present Aurora of the New Hebrides, and two belonging to the Banks' Islands, the volcanic cone, Merlav, called by him Nuestra Senora de la 1 I have myself witnessed the arrival of eleven canoes from Tikopia among the Banks' Islands. The men said they had come to see the islands, and were hospitably received. One was shot at Ureparapara, and they departed. Shortly before this a canoe from Tikopia had been driven by the wind to Mota, and the men in her most kindly treated, and the same thing had happened before and has happened since. The difference in size, manner, language and dress between the Tikopians and Banks' Islanders was conspicuous. The true name is pretty certainly Chikopia, since the Mota people learnt Sikopia from their visitors ; two Fijian islands are Cikobia = Thikombia. 2 Chicayana is Sikaiana, Stewart Island; Guaytopo is Waitupu, Tracy Island, of the Ellice group ; Taukalo is Tokelau ; Nupani and Pileni are Reef Islands of Santa Cruz ; Manicolo no doubt stands for Vanikoro. Bishop Patteson in 1866 found that the Eeef Islanders of Santa Cruz visited Taumako and Tikopia. It is excusable at sight to take the Pouro of Quiros for Bauro in San Cristoval, but in my opinion the attempted identification must completely fail. In the first place, Pouro and Bauro are far from being the same in sound when the confusion of English spelling is got rid of ; Quiros would never write ou for au. Secondly, Bauro is not and never was the native name of San Cristoval ; it is a name picked up by Europeans, I believe by Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand, and adopted for European convenience. Gallego calls, and properly, a part only of the island Paubro. Thirdly, arrows with points in form of a knife (a fair description of some Lepers' Island arrows) are wholly out of place in the Solomon Islands. Fourthly, the certain identifications of the islands named do not lead in that direction. In the same way, when it is understood that the name of the island in the Malay Archipelago is Buru, in Dutch spelling Boeroe, there can remain very little ground for identifying it with either Bauro or Bulotu, in French spelling Bourotou. i.] Discoveries. 7 Luz, and Santa Maria. After having* visited the latter, he made his way to a larger island seen to the southward, and remained a month in the great bay of SS. Philip and James in Espiritu Santo. Merlav was renamed Pic de 1' Etoile by Bougainville, and is now Star Island. The eight islands of the Banks' group are: (i) Star Island, Merlav ; (2) Sainte Claire, Merig ; (3) Santa Maria, Gaua ; (4) Sugarloaf Island, Mota ; (5) Great Banks' Island, Vanua Lava ; (6) Saddle Island ; (7) Bligh Island, Ureparapara ; and (8) Rowa 1 . One of these, named Saddle Island by Bligh, has no native name as a whole ; another, the Reef Island of Rowa, has no geographical name. The Torres group consists of four islands, Hiw, Tegua, Lo, and Tog, and is now known as Vava ; there is no native name to the group. The native names of the three islands which with Espiritu Santo make up the northern New Hebrides are, Maewo, Aurora Island ; Araga, Pentecost Island ; and Omba, Lepers' Island. The two latter names present a difficulty, and 1 Quiros named seven islands before he reached Espiritu Santo: San Kaymundo, Los Portales de Belen, La Vergel, Las Lagrimas de San Pedro, El Pilar de Zaragoza, Santa Maria, and Nuestra Senora de la Luz. The two latter alone are known. Bligh named Ureparapara after himself, Saddle Island and Sugarloaf Island (probably the Pillar of Quiros) after natural features, and Great Banks' Island, with the whole group, after Sir Joseph Banks. Besides the geographical names, these islands have mostly three sets of names. An island has its name in the local form and in the Mota form, which has come into use through the employment of the Mota tongue as a common language in the Melanesian Mission. Thus Vanua Lava, Gaua, Ureparapara, Meralava, are the Mota forms of Vono Lav, Gog, Norbarbar, Merlav. Another set of names was used by natives when sailing between the islands, with a view of concealing their course from unseen enemies ; Mota was Ure-kor, the place full of dried bread-fruit ; Ureparapara, full of slopes, was Ure-us, full of bows, Meralava, Ure-kere, full of clubs, the best bows and clubs being got there ; others were named after the food and other natural productions thought to characterise them. Misspelt and then misread, the rock Vat Ganai has become in maps the island Vatu Rhandi ; by a misreading of Gaua, Santa Maria, which is to its native inhabitants Gog, got with traders the nam e of Ganna. The Torres group has got the name of Vava, with the preposition ' at ' Avava, Ababa, from a part of one of the islands which Ureparapara people used to visit. Traders have fixed on Tog the name of Pukapuka, originally unknown among the natives. The Mota name for Lepers' Island, Opa, for Omba, has become well known. 8 Introductory. [CH. bring in a point of much interest. In the native name of Pentecost a is really the preposition ' at ' ; Omba with the same preposition appears in charts as Aoba ; it would be reasonable therefore to write Raga as well as Omba, but custom in these matters must be allowed to prevail. The interest of the point lies in the connexion shewn by the common use of this preposition in place-names between Melanesia, the Malay Archipelago and Madagascar. Ethnological and historical questions are inseparable from the consideration of place- names ; for example, the questions whether the Bauro of the Solomon Islands is the same with the Bouro, properly Buru, near the Moluccas, or whether Futuna of the New Hebrides is named after Futuna, Home's Island. About one thing however there ought to be no disagreement; however difficult it may be to ascertain a native name and its ortho- graphy, European names should be written in the language to which they belong ; San Cristoval, or Cristobal, not Christoval ; Espiritu Santo, not Spirito Santo or St. Esprit ; and where French names are retained, Contrariete Island and Cape Zelee. Between the time of the discovery of the Solomon Islands by Mendana and the time in which the visits of whalers, traders and missionaries have become frequent, within the last thirty or forty years, very little if anything at all was done by Europeans to influence the character of native life. It is very interesting therefore to enquire in what particulars the Spaniards' account of what they discovered differs from what would be recorded by recent visitors. The place-names mentioned, with less error than is common now, are those still in use, Malaita for Mala, Uraba for Ulawa, Paubro for Bauro, Aguare for Owarii. The names of persons mentioned are such as are now in use ; one of the few words not names to be found in Gallego's narrative, benau, panale^ panay, is clearly pana, a kind of yam with prickles on the vines. In three points it may be observed that Gallego reports what would not have been lately seen. The natives are represented as at- tacking the Spaniards with bows and arrows everywhere, i.] Discoveries. 9 except at San Cristoval, where darts are mentioned ; in recent times a voyager would not have found bows and arrows the usual weapon, but spears, except at Malanta. Gallego reports open cannibalism at Ysabel and Florida, whereas no modern visitor would have seen it except at San Cristoval. Nakedness is said by Gallego to have been complete, a point in which Figueroa differs from him, and complete nakedness would not have been found of late years anywhere but in Malanta. The probable conclusion is that, making allowance for lapses of memory on one side and exaggeration of fact on the other, the people, language, customs and condition of the people in the Solomon Islands have not changed since Mendana's discovery of 1567 I . The account of the visit of Mendana to Santa Cruz in 1595 and of the Spanish attempt to form a settlement is ample and detailed ; and it was remarked by Bishop Patteson, who was probably the first European after Mendana's party to go about the native villages, that what he observed corre- sponded closely with the Spanish record. It is only within the last ten years that, by the courage and enterprise of the present Missionary Bishop John Selwyn, the island of Santa Cruz has again become open to friendly, and unhappily also to mis- chievous, approach. The present writer has gone through the account of Mendana's visit with natives of Santa Cruz, whose comments were certainly interesting. One point may be mentioned ; the Spaniards, failing to get the people of the main island to learn their language, sent to kidnap, after the fashion which from the beginning seems to have been natural to European visitors, some boys from the neighbouring Reef Islands, whom they had observed to be more intelligent 1 Mr. Woodford, in Further Explorations in the Solomon Islands, has brought forward information from the Journal of Catoira, chief purser of Mendana's fleet. From this it appears that the use of the betel-nut was already established. Another native word, na mbolo, a pig, also occurs. Much may be learnt as to the present condition of the Solomon Islanders from Mr. Woodford's Naturalist among the Headhunters, as well as from Dr. Guppy's book ; but there is no picture of native life so good as that given in ' Percy Porno.' jo Introductory. [CH. than those of Santa Cruz. When this was related to a mixed group of Santa Cruz and Reef Island boys at Norfolk Island, it was at once declared that the Spaniards were quite right, that the Santa Cruz people now think the Keef Island boys sharper than their own ; because it is the custom of their fathers to take them with them on their voyages, which Santa Cruz men do not do. The very short stay of the Spaniards, soon assuming hostile relations, cannot be thought to have affected native life at all ; the looms with which they weave their mats, their fowls, common till lately to other islands with them, and many other things in which a difference has been observed, are mentioned in the Spanish narrative. There is nothing in the account of the discoveries of Quiros in the Banks' Islands and New Hebrides to shew any difference between the condition of the native people then and in the later times, when they have become well known to Europeans ; but it may be observed that the Spaniards began to kidnap, doubtless with good intentions, and to recognise the ' devil ' of the natives. In the interval between the discoveries of Mendana and Quiros and the visits of whalers and missionaries in the present century, there is every reason to believe that all memory and tradition of white men had died away in the Solomon Islands and Santa Cruz l ; Europeans appeared again as perfect strangers. We are able therefore to conjecture how the first explorers appeared to the natives, when we know how we have ourselves appeared. To the old voyagers, as 1 Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand began his missionary voyages in 1849, and visited the Solomon Islands in 1850 ; he landed on sixty islands in 1857, in which year the Banks' Islands became well known to him. In 1861 Bishop Patteson, in H. M. S. Cordelia, became acquainted with Florida and Ysabel, the yearly visits of the Melanesian Mission having before stopped short at Guadalcanar. From that year forward the work of the Mission has been regularly carried on within the limits of Ysabel to the west, and Mae, later Pentecost, to the south. When the present writer made his first voyage in the Mission vessel, the Southern Cross, in 1863, Bishop Patteson was generally conversant with the people and the languages of the islands from New Zealand to Ysabel. i. ] Discoveries. 1 1 to later discoverers, it was a matter of course that hitherto unknown countries should be found, and that they should be inhabited by men unlike themselves ; but to the natives it was a strange thing- that there should be any men unlike themselves, or any unknown land for them to come from. There are still natives in these islands who remember when a white man was first seen, and what he was taken to be. In the Banks' Islands, for example, the natives believed the world to consist of their own group, with the Torres Islands, the three or four northern New Hebrides, and perhaps Tikopia, round which the ocean spread till it was shut in by the foundations of the sky. The first vessels they remember to have seen were whalers, which they did not believe to come from any country in the world ; they were indeed quite sure that they did not, but must have been made out at sea, because they knew that no men in the world had such vessels. In the same way they were sure that the voyagers were not men ; if they were they would be black. What were they then? They were ghosts, and being ghosts, of necessity those of men who had lived in the world. When Mr. Patteson first landed at Mota, the Mission party having been seen in the previous year at Vanua Lava, there was a division of opinion among the natives ; some said that the brothers of Qat had returned, certain supernatural beings of whom stories are told ; others maintained that they were ghosts. Mr. Patteson retired from the heat and crowd into an empty house, the owner of which had lately died ; this settled the question, he was the ghost of the late householder, and knew his home. A very short acquaintance with white visitors shews that they are not ghosts, but certainly does not shew that they are men ; the conjecture then is that they are beings of another order, spirits or demons, powerful no doubt, but mischievous. A ghost would be received in a peaceful and respectful manner, as European visitors have always in the first instance been received ; a being not a living man or ghost has wonderful things with him to see and to procure, but he probably brings disease and disaster. To the question why the Santa Cruz 1 2 Introductory. [CH. people shot at Bishop Patteson's party in 1864, when, as far as can be known, they had not as yet any injuries from white men to avenge, the natives have replied that their elder men said that these strange beings would bring- nothing but harm, and that it was well to drive them away ; and as to shooting at them, they were not men. and the arrows could not do them much harm. It is sad to think how generally the elder men have, from their own point of view at least, been right ; iron, tobacco, calico, a wider knowledge of the world, have not compensated native people for new diseases and the weakening of social bonds 1 . White visitors have not meant to do the natives wrong, but they have in fact harmed them, and have not earned moral respect at any rate generally from them. Europeans have from the beginning of inter- course with Melanesian natives kidnapped them, and have persuaded themselves that they were doing them a service by bringing them into what is called contact with civilization ; the natives have from the first resented the kidnapping of their sons, and their sons, however much they may have wished to go away and have rejoiced in what they have learnt and acquired, will hardly be said by any impartial observer to have done any good when they have returned ; although- indeed to some people the power of speaking a little ' pigeon English,' for their convenience, seems to be a great improvement to a native. To a voyager among these Melanesian islands who has no special geological learning the generally volcanic character 1 I believe there is no doubt that dysentery was unknown in the islands till natives returned from residence with Europeans. When the Nukapu men, whose kidnapping was the immediate cause of the death of Bishop Patteson, escaped from Fiji and made their way to their native island, dysentery, before unknown, broke out there. The absence of a native name for this and other diseases, is to some extent at least a proof of recent in- troduction. Within my own recollection syphilis, or the venereal disease which was taken for it, was unknown in the islands visited by the Mela- nesian Mission, except at San Cristoval, where alone intercourse with whalers and traders had been considerable. It has lately become widely known, and it is certain that it has been brought back by returned ' labourers,' male and female. i.] Geology. 13 of them cannot fail to be apparent. The lofty land of Guadal- canar, rising- to a height of 8000 feet, and the high mountains of Espiritu Santo and New Caledonia, may be thought by him to have some other origin ; but he cannot miss the still active volcanos, or fail to observe that many islands have the shape of those that are active in a more or less perfect or ruinous condition. The vast cone of Lopevi in the New Hebrides rises to an apparent point at the height of 5000 feet, and has been seen to cast out smoke and ashes. Tinakula, as it is called, near Santa Cruz, the native name of which is Tamami, is a well-formed cone 3000 feet high. When Men- dana was attempting his settlement in i595> ^ ne point of the cone was blown away ; the volcano is now very active, throwing out glowing masses of lava, which roll down into the sea. The enormous crater of Ambrym, at the height of 3500 feet, is the centre of vast rugged fields of lava, hitherto unapproach- able ; round this main mass of the volcano there rise lateral cones no longer active, forest-covered to their peaks, and affording perhaps the most beautiful of Melanesian landscapes. When the Solomon Islands were discovered Savo was active. Some years ago an eruption was expected by the natives, because the old people remembered or had been told of considerable activity some fifty years before ; rumblings were then heard and smoke was seen at Florida : the steaming pool and hot stream flowing from it are often visited. In the Banks' Islands, Vanua Lava is always steaming from its sulphur springs. Great lateral cones on the north and east of this island are now extinct, but the streams which rise in the central mass run warm and stinking to the sea, and powder the rocks with sulphur. In Santa Maria above Lakona there are steaming vents on the ridge of the ancient crater now filled by a lake, and on the hill Garat, which has been thrown up within it, there is a group of hot pools, sulphurous jets, and basins of boiling mud within the encircling ridge, from which hot streams pour down into the lake 1 . Bligh Island, 1 Any volcanic vent, from an active crater to a dead solfatara, is in the Banks' Islands a vuro. Three of those near Lakona have names, one, a deep 14 Introductory. [CH. Ureparapara, is a remarkable example of the type of Amsterdam or St. Paul's Island in the Indian Ocean ; the sea enters the ancient crater, on the ridge of which, rising- to nearly 2000 feet, is a steaming vent. Star Island, Meralava, is a massive cone rising so steeply to a height of 3000 feet, that it surprises strangers that it should be inhabited. From below the cone appears to terminate in a cup with a broken lip, but Bishop Selwyn and Mr. Palmer, who reached the top in 1881, found a more recent crater, which no doubt was active when Quiros discovered the island : there is now no recollection of activity l . In the New Hebrides, volcanic action has not yet exhausted itself on Lepers' Island ; it is probable that besides the very conspicuous volcanos of Ambrym, Lopevi, and Yazur on Tanna, there are many solfataras and fumaroles as yet un- noticed in this group. All these volcanic islands, whether still in active operation, or still fuming with latent fires, or long ago extinct, have dead and living coral round their base. The greater number of the islands lie in a ruined mass, in contrast to the cones of Lopevi and Tinakula ; in some the volcanic form is hidden or pool sluggishly bubbling and steaming, is the Old Woman ; another briskly active is the Stranger's Wonder ; another, the New Vuro, though evidently not very recent, is very active and noisy. In the largest pool, some twenty feet across, two jets of steam raise the water to the height of a couple of feet, and after rain very much higher. When I was there in 1875 a new vent had been lately opened by an earthquake. 1 Some years ago a native lad from Mota told me that he with a companion had mounted to this crater. They found at the top a bare stretch of stones, and within the crater a lake of black water, covered with a thick black cloud ; a heavy darkness filled the place, a huge bird soared round their heads, awe and horror fell upon them, and they turned and fled. It is easy to talk lightly about native superstitions. Mr. Palmer thus describes the crater. ' We could see nothing at first, as a cloud was over, but presently it lifted, and we saw a large deep crater with splendid precipitous sides, in some places fully three hundred feet high. There is a small pool of water at the bottom, and rather on one side a second perfectly round crater, which we also deter- mined to look into. We descended through trees and mosses ; I was much interested in finding the tutu of New Zealand (coriaria sarmentoea), which I have never seen anywhere else in these islands ; the second crater goes down to a point, where the trees and ferns are of better growth.' i.] Volcanos. 15 confused, in others lateral cones and craters plainly shew themselves ; a dense forest growth generally covers all from base to summit. All alike have coral forming a certain pro- 2 MILES MOT A. portion of their mass, the rock of coral formation varying with its age. Elevated terraces of coral appear in Futuna and the Loyalty Islands. The figure of Mota, in the Banks' Islands, shews the primary cone with a shoulder of later 1 6 Introductory. [CH. discharges standing upon a broad coral base uplifted some 200 feet above the sea. On this raised surface lie blocks of volcanic stone, while the ravines cut deep through it by the torrents from above expose to view the madrepore and other corals of which it is composed ; on the beach water- worn fragments of both coral and volcanic rock lie among the living coral. In the Torres Islands terraces formed by successive upheavals are conspicuous ; nothing is seen but coral ; in one of the islands, at least, the natives have to dig for volcanic stone that will bear heat for their ovens. In the Banks' Islands it may be said that the land is being elevated ; a patch between Mota and Motalava has become much more shallow in the last few years. Florida in the Solomon group is divided into three parts by two channels called utuha, and calls to mind the mainland of the Aru Islands, as described in Mr. Wallace's Malay- Archi- pelago. Though the northernmost channel is pretty wide, the island in its native name, Nggela, and in native conception, is one, and neither of the three parts has a name of its own. A similar channel divides Mala masiki from Mala paina, little from great Malanta. In Florida, over the wider channel which is called from this utuJia ta na vula the Moon Channel, there is a cliff white as chalk. In the Banks' Islands small barren patches, rea, of coarse grass here and there appear ; in Florida large barren spaces of this kind are conspicuous, as they are on the opposite slopes of Guadalcanar, and change the aspect of the landscape to the eyes of one who comes from the forest-covered islands to the East J . 1 The islands may be roughly classified according to the use of stone or shell implements in them. In the Banks' Islands, Torres Islands, and Santa Cruz, they had only shell adzes, and used obsidian flakes for cutting and scraping. In the Solomon Islands, except in Rennell and Bellona, and the New Hebrides, the implements were of stone, and flakes of chert were used ; but in the latter group on Lepers' Island, where the volcanic force is not yet exhausted, shell was the ancient use. Stone adzes in my possession from the Solomon Islands are of Andesite, a basaltic lava, from Florida compact andesite, from Ulawa altered andesite ; from the New Hebrides, one from Ambrym is Gabbro, one from Pentecost is Bastite serpentine. i.] Reef Islands. Lakes. Zoology. 17 "Whether there are in this part of Melanesia any atolls properly so called may be a question. There are lagoon islands of two kinds. The Reef Islands of the Santa Cruz group show flat patches of sand and coral resting on the reefs ; such a one is Nukapu, where the lagoon is two miles across. The Matema group, part of the same Swallow group, consists of several sand islets resting on the edge of a very large and irregular reef ; two of the islets, which are only separated at high tide, are very characteristically inhabited, Nufilole by a score or two of Melanesians, and Fenua loa, as the name imports, by Polynesian colonists from, the East. On the other hand, Rowa in the Banks' group consists of five tiny islets on the bight of an irregular reef five miles long, the principal islet being formed upon a jagged point of volcanic rock, to all appearance a fragment of the edge of a sunken crater. The Tas in the middle of Santa Maria in the Banks' Islands is the only lake of considerable size known in Melanesia. It is about five miles long, occupying the hollow of the ancient crater, into which the steaming hill Garat has been intruded ; the waters pour out in a magnificent waterfall. There is a much smaller lake in Vanua Lava which feeds two fine cascades, and another on Lepers' Island with a volcanic vent upon its edge. Bishop Selwyn in 1888 found the lake at Tikopia covered with large water-lilies ; the Tas of Santa Maria will surely reward its first scientific visitor. A few words may be ventured on the natural history of this part of Melanesia. The cuscus common in the Solomon Islands does not reach to Santa Cruz ; it is believed to exist in Espiritu Santo, where Quiros reported that there were goats. The white cockatoo, abundant in the Solomon Islands generally, does not pass the two straits that separate respectively Guadal- canar and San Cristoval, Malanta and Ulawa ; but while Ulawa does not strike the unlearned visitor as different in its zoology from Malanta, the birds of San Cristoval seem few and strange. Frogs stop short of Santa Cruz, abundant as they are in the Solomons. A remarkable megapod is found in all the groups, if not of more than one species at any rate with c 1 8 Introductory. [CH. different habits. At Savo, where without any attempt at domestication they have become private property, they lay in a carefully divided and appropriated patch of sand, and come out of the bush, as the natives say, twice a day to lay and look after their eggs. In the Banks' Islands and the New Hebrides they lay their eggs in the hollow of a decayed tree or in a heap of rubbish they have scratched together. In the Banks' Islands these birds are called malau, as they are maleo in Celebes 1 . The native breed of fowls still abounds in Santa Cruz ; the imported fowls seem to have destroyed and replaced them in all the more commonly visited places, though they were common thirty years ago 2 . Crocodiles are abundant in the Solomon Islands and Santa Cruz ; they are sometimes seen in the Banks' Islands, and one was lately killed in the Torres Islands ; they are known and named in the Northern New Hebrides. The name throughout is the same, vua or via, the Malay buaya, Malagasy voay. The natives of Ysabel maintain that they have four eyes, two for clear water, and two for mud. Snakes are not everywhere abundant ; at Mota in the Banks' Islands there are no land snakes, and the natives maintain that if imported they will not live ; in Vanua Lava and Saddle Island of the same group, those that live among the root-stems of the huge banyan-trees are said to attain an enormous size. The eels in the Tas of Santa Maria are some- times more than thirty inches in girth. It is tantalizing to those who suffer so much from mosquitos in the islands now to know that Mendana, who was two months at Santa Cruz, 1 Mr. Wallace remarks of the maleo of Celebes, that the difference between the sexes is so slight that it is not always possible to distinguish it without dissection. At Savo it is asserted that there is no distinction of sex, all are hens ; ara mua pukua na tanotcmodika, they know no sexual impropriety. 3 The rapidity with which imported fowls have replaced the indigenous breed is remarkable. I have no recollection myself of having seen native fowls, out of Santa Cruz, except in Lepers' Island and Florida. Mr. Woodford remarks, as a proof how little native tradition can be depended on, that natives assured him that there were no fowls in the Solomons until white men came. They meant, no doubt, fowls of the kind before them. I am not aware that any new name has come in anywhere in the Solomon Islands, as JcoTcok has in the Banks' Islands, for the new fowls. i.] Zoology. 19 and Quiros, who lay a month in the great bay of Espiritu Santo, both declare that in their time there were no mosquitos, but it is probably the small house fly that is meant. The variety of the mosquitos of the present time is interesting with all the suffering they bring; in Mota there is but one kind, which bites only in the daylight; in Vanua Lava, in the rainy season, they drive the natives to bury them- selves in the sea-sand for sleep. The same name for the mosquito prevails from the Asiatic continent to Fiji ; and the odious blow-fly carries the same name and habits through all the islands. Dr. Guppy commends the habits of the Birgus latro to the attention of residents in the Pacific Ocean. The account of it in Hazlewood's Fiji Dictionary describes how the ugamde climbs cocoanut-trees, pierces and drinks the young nuts, husks and breaks the old nuts and eats the meat; how it is taken by tying grass round the tree it has ascended, so that when descending backwards it reaches as it believes the ground, and loosing its hold on the tree it falls and is stunned ; how it throws earth and stones into the face of its pursuers. The same crab or lobster is called ngair in the Banks' Islands, where the natives assert that when it seizes anything, such as a man's hand, with the left and smaller claw, it holds till sundown ; on which account that claw has the name of sundown, loaroro. They say also that when a ngair drops a cocoanut from the tree upon a stone to break it, he will only eat it if it is broken smooth ; if the fracture is jagged he will not touch it. The Wango people of San Cristoval go beyond probable fact when they relate that on moonlight nights they paddle over to the little island Biu, and quietly creeping up the beach find these crabs occupied in a dance, two large and old ones in the centre, beating time with one claw upon the other, and the rest circling round and waving their claws as the dancing natives wave their clubs ; so surprised they are taken in great numbers 1 . 1 The natives do not believe in the existence of anthropoid apes. They believe in the existence of wild men, and Europeans for many years past have interpreted this belief to imply the existence of apes. See Chapter xviii. C 2 CHAPTEE II. SOCIAL REGULATIONS. DIVISIONS OF THE PEOPLE. KINSHIP AND MARRIAGE CONNEXION. THERE will be no attempt made here to deal with the Ethnology of Melanesia. The origin of the Melanesian people, in their various seats and in their various divisions, may be taken to be unknown ; as they themselves apparently have no traditions and no opinions about the matter, and in the stories which pass among them represent themselves to have been created where they are. The variety of their languages, and to a much less extent of their arts and customs, shews that they have not come in one body into the islands they now inhabit ; an examination of their lan- guages discovers a very considerable underlying sameness ; and the present book may be taken perhaps as an evidence of a large general resemblance in the religious beliefs and practices, the customs and ways of life, which prevail in the islands which are here embraced in a common view. As knowledge extends and detailed information is brought in from all sides, a connexion will no doubt be traced with regions beyond Melanesia ; the loom, for example, peculiar to Santa Cruz alone among the islands here treated of, may connect the people of that group with those of the Caroline Islands; many things in common between Fiji and Mada- gascar besides language may bring those countries and much that lies between them into whatever ethnographic province the latter is held to belong to ; but to endeavour to trace such connexion is beyond the present purpose, which is confined to the exhibition of the Melanesian people as they Exogamous Divisions. 2 1 now appear. There are not wanting some myths of origin, over and above the stories of creation told of Koevasi, Qat, or Tagar. It is said at Saa for example, in Mara Masiki, that men sprung spontaneously from a sugar-cane of a particular sort, toJm nunu : two knots began to shoot, and the cane below each shoot burst asunder ; from one came out a man, and from the other a woman, the parents of mankind. It is of more consequence to observe the meaning of the words by which the people of the various islands describe themselves as men. It is said sometimes that people discovered in isolation from others call themselves merely ' men,' without a name for their race or nation, as if they thought themselves the only men in the world. In Melanesia, when natives were first asked who they were, they answered * men,' meaning that they were not demons or ghosts, but living men ; and they did so because they did not believe their visitors to be men, but ghosts them- selves, or demons, or spirits belonging to the sea. In the native view of mankind, almost everywhere in the islands which are here under consideration, nothing seems more fundamental than the division of the people into two or more classes, which are exogamous, and in which descent is counted through the mother. This seems to stand foremost as the native looks out upon his fellow men ; the knowledge of it forms probably the first social conception which shapes itself in the mind of the young Melanesian of either sex, and it is not too much to say that this division is the foundation on which the fabric of native society is built up. There are no Tribes among the natives ; if the word tribe is to be ap- plied as it is to the Maori people of New Zealand, or as it is used in Fiji. No portion of territory, however small, can be said to belong to any one of these divisions ; no single family of natives can fail to consist of members of more than one division y both divisions where there are two, and all the divisions where there are more than two, are intermixed in habitation and in property; whatever political organization can be found can never be described as that of a tribe grouped round its hereditary or elective chief. It is probably true t 22 Social Regulations. [CH. that in every account of Melanesian affairs given to the world tribes are spoken of; but a belief that every savage people is made up of tribes is part of the mental equipment of a civilized visitor; when one reads of the 'coast tribes' or the 'bush tribes/ nothing more is meant than the people who inhabit the coast or the inland part of some island. There is, however, one very remarkable exception to this general rule of division in the Solomon Islands ; it is not to be found in Ulawa, Ugi, and parts of San Cristoval, Malanta, and Guadalcanar, a district in which the languages also form a group by themselves, and in which a difference in the decorative art of the people, and in the appearance of the people themselves, thoroughly Melanesian as they are, can hardly escape notice. In this region, the boundaries of which are at present unknown, there is no division of the people into kindreds as elsewhere, and descent follows the father. This is so strange that to myself it seemed for a time incredible, and nothing but the repeated declarations of a native who is well acquainted with the division which prevails in other groups of islands, was sufficient to fix it with me as an ascertained fact. The particular or local causes which have brought about this exceptional state of things are unknown ; the fact of the exception is a valuable one to note *. Speaking generally, it may be said that to a Melanesian man all women, of his own generation at least, are either sisters or wives, to the Melanesian woman all men are either brothers or husbands. An excellent illustration of this is given in the story of Taso from Aurora in the New Hebrides, in which Qatu discovers and brings to his wife twin boys, children of his dead sister: his wife asks, 'Are these my children or my husbands ? ' and Qatu answers, ' Your husbands to be sure, they are my sister's children.' In that island there are two divisions of the people ; Qatu and his wife could not be of the same, Qatu and his sister and her children must be of the same ; the boys therefore were possible husbands of 1 ' Descent is still uterine in some parts of Fiji ; most of the tribes, however, have advanced to agnatic descent.' Rev. L. Fison. ii.]. Restriction of Intercourse. 23 Qatu's wife, but had they belonged to the other division their age would have made her count them her children rather than her brothers. It must not be understood that a Melanesian regards all women who are not of his own division as in fact his wives, or conceives himself to have rights which he may exercise in regard to those women of them who are unmarried ; but the women who may be his wives by marriage, and those who cannot possibly be so, stand in a widely different relation to him ; and it may be added that all women who may become wives in marriage and are not yet appropriated, are to a certain extent looked upon by those who maybe their husbands as open to a more or less legitimate intercourse. In fact appropriation of particular women to their own husbands, though established by every sanction of native custom, has by no means so strong a hold in native society, nor in all probability anything like so deep a foundation in the history of the native people, as the severance of either sex by divisions which most strictly limit the intercourse of men and women to those of the section or sections to which they do not themselves belong. Two proofs or exemplifications of this are conspicuous, (i) There is probably no place in which the common opinion of Melanesians approves the intercourse of unmarried youths and girls as a thing good in itself, though it allows it as a thing to be expected and to be excused ; but intercourse within the limit which restrains from marriage, where two members of the same division are concerned, is a crime, is incest. In Florida in old times the man would have been killed, and the woman made a harlot ; now that the severity of ancient manners is relaxed, money and pigs can condone the offence, but much more than is exacted if a man is found sinning with one who might possibly have become his wife. In the Banks' Islands, where the divisions of the people are two, if it became known that two members of one of them had been guilty of this dis- graceful crime, as they considered it, the people of the other division would come and destroy the gardens of those who belonged to that in which the offence had been committed, and these would make no resistance nor complaint. It was 24 Social Regulations. [CH. the same in Lepers' Island ; where the offending" man had also to make large payment to the near relatives of the woman with whom he had offended, so as to appease their anger, and ' fence against ' the fault. Cases of incest of this kind were always rare in all the islands, so strong was the feeling against intercourse within the kin. (2) The feeling on the other hand that the intercourse of the sexes was natural where the man and woman belonged to different divisions, was shewn by that feature of native hospitality which provided a guest with a temporary wife. That this is done now or has lately been done is readily denied in the Solomon and Banks' Islands, but is not denied in the Northern New Hebrides ; there can be little doubt that it was common everywhere. But the woman supplied to the guest was of necessity one who might have been his wife ; the companionship of one of his own kin never could be allowed. It will be convenient in the more particular treatment of this subject, to take examples first from the Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides, where the people are divided into two kins, and then from the Solomon Islands, where the divisions are more than two. The same two divisions run through the Banks' Islands, with the Torres Islands and the Northern New Hebrides. A Banks' islander wherever he goes in his own group knows his own kin, and if he passes to Aurora in the New Hebrides he finds the same. The Aurora men know well who are their kin in Pentecost and Lepers' Island ; the Lepers' islanders know theirs in Espiritu Santo. Strange, therefore, as the language is to a Mota man in Pentecost, or to a Lepers' islander in Motalava, each is at home in a way which would be impossible to him in the Solomon Islands 1 . In neither the Banks' Islands nor the New Hebrides is there a name to dis- tinguish the division or kindred ; nor is there any badge or emblem belonging to either ; in their small communities every neighbour is well known. Each of the divisions is in 1 A Lepers' Island youth staying at Mota was delivered from some little difficulty with the remark, tanun we wia gai, gate tanun ta Qauro, He is a man of the right sort, not a Solomon islander. ii.] Banks Islands. Divisions. Adoption. 25 Mota called a veve, in Motlav vev, a word which in itself signifies division. Those who are of one veve are said to be tavala ima to the others, that is ' of the other side of the house.' A woman who marries does not come over to her husband's side of the house ; she is said to be ape mateima, * at the door/ the doors being at the ends of the native houses ; nor does the husband go over to the wife's side ; the children belong to mother's side. All of the same ' side of the house ' are sogoi to one another. Hence a man's children are not his sogoi, his kindred ; his nearest relations are his sister's children. There is no account seriously given of the origin of the two divisions in the Banks' Islands. Within the two veve there are certain families among the Banks' Island people, the members of which have a certain family pride, and endeavour to keep up by intermarriage the family connexion. The best known of these is the Lo Sepere family, from the place of that name in Vanua Lava, where Qat is believed to have lived *. Adoption is common, and has no particular significance. Childless parents naturally adopt a child of kin to the wife, so that the adopted child occupies the position of one born in the house ; but if, as sometimes happens, an orphan child from the husband's kin is adopted out of pity, it is brought up as of kin to the wife, and care is taken to conceal the fact of adoption. When the child grows up and by some chance finds out that he has been brought up on the wrong ' side of the house,' he will leave his foster parents, and go and live with his own sogoi. Much grief and bitterness is caused by such a dis- covery. In Aurora, Maewo, the nearest of the New Hebrides to the Banks' Islands, with one of which, Merlav, there is a good deal of communication, the members of the two divisions 1 The Lo Sepere family of Vanua Lava is the same with the Tupueviga of Gaua and the Anamele of Mota. On the other side of the house the Tapulia of Gaua and Merlav are counted the same with three groups at Mota, viz. Alo Gapmaras of Takelvarea, the Wotawota of Maligo, and theLiwotuqe of Gatava. These family groups lie within the veve, but do not take in all the veve j neither side of the house is exhaustively divided into family groups. 26 Social Regulations. [CH. speak of one another as ' of the other side/ ta tavuluna ; and they have a story that the first woman, a cowry shell that turned into a woman, called the men to her and divided them into her husbands and her brothers, fathers and maternal uncles, according to the present arrangements. The presence of families within the kin in this island is very remarkable. There are several in the northern part of the island, mostly named from the places where they are formed. There is one, however, named from the octopus, wirita, belonging originally to Bugita, a place upon the shore. The connexion between this family and the octopus is obscure ; they have no notion of descent from the wirita, and eat it as freely as other natives ; but if a man of another family desired to get wirita for food, he would take with him one of the wirita family to stand on the beach at Bugita, and cry out, ' So-and-so. wants wirita' ; then plenty would be taken. It seems rather as though the residence of this family where wirita are abundant, and where the beach would naturally be their preserve for fishing, had given rise to a belief in a connexion and to a name. Another family named ' At the Wotaga,' from their home near a certain fruit tree, would not bring up a light-coloured child ; if such a one were among them they thought that they would die 1 . In Araga, Pentecost Island, though irregular intercourse between members of the same kin is punished by the de- struction of the gardens of the offending side by the members of the other, yet marriages within the kin are not unknown. Those who contract them are despised, and even abhorred, but money and pigs having been given and received, the marriage stands. In Lepers' Island, Omba, the two divisions are called ' bunches of fruit,' wai vung, as if all the members hang on the same stalk. Their story is that when Tagar first made men he made two, both male, and then one of these 1 To these lesser divisions or family groups my informant (A. Arudulewari) gives the name of reve, as to the two great kindreds. For example, he and Walter Gao are of the Wirita family, Tarisuluana is of the Ta Wongi, a place now deserted ; Vile is Ta Lau of the beach, Tilegi of Suwumea. ii.] Question of Communal Marriage. 27 took a tuber of qew, a kind of yam, and threw it at the other, who at once turned into a woman, and cried with a loud voice that many men should die because of women. This woman had two daughters, who fell out ; and from one of these sprang- one waivung, and from the second the other. In case of the adoption of a child by a foster-mother who is of the other ( bunch,' the secret of the kindred is carefully kept ; the true state of the case is never mentioned by those who know it, until the time for marriage comes. This is done out of consideration for the feelings of the adopting parents ; but the repugnance to marriage within the kin is too great to allow of permanent concealment. The system of the division of the people into strictly exogamous kins is no doubt best seen and considered where the division is simple and separates the whole population on the one ' side of the house ' and the other. Two questions may here therefore be suitably raised; the first, whether in this division there are traces of a communal system of marriage ; the second, whether the system is sufficient to prevent that which it seems intended or maintained in order to prevent, namely, the marriage of persons too closely allied in blood. In regard to the first question it must be said, on the one hand, that the people have no memory of a time when all the women of one side were in fact common wives to the men of the other side, and that there is no occasion on which the women become common to the men who are not of their kin. The license of a gathering at a feast is confessed to be great, but it is disorderly and illegitimate, and is not defended on the ground of prescription. If a great man making a feast gives it to be understood that he will not allow the harmony of the gathering to be spoilt by jealous quarrelling about women, it is taken as a festive concession ; if he gives out that people are to behave well, they know that any one who takes liberties will have to answer for it, not only, as on ordinary occasions, to the injured husband, but to the powerful master of the feast. The stories also of the creation of mankind, and particularly of woman, represent individual marriage. 28 Social Regulations. [CH. When Qat wove Iro Lei with pliant rods and made her live, it was to be his own wife ; his brothers tried to carry her off for themselves, one woman among- eleven of them, but they are said to be stealing her, not claiming a right. When he made men, male and female, he assigned to each man his wife. On the other side is to be set the testimony, the strong testimony, of words. This is given by the plural form in which the terms for ' mother ' and ' husband ' or ' wife ' are expressed. In the Mota language the form is very clear ; ra is the plural prefix ; the division, side, or kin, is the veve, and mother is ra veve ; soai is a member, as of a body, or a component part of a house or of a tree, and ra soai is either husband or wife. To interpret ra as a prefix of dignity is forbidden by the full consciousness of the natives themselves that it expresses plurality. The kin is the veve, a child's mother is 'they of the kin/ his kindred. A man's kindred are not called his veve because they are his mother's people ; she is called his veve, in the plural, his kindred, as if she were the representative of the kin ; as if he were not the child of the particular woman who bore him, but of the whole kindred for whom she brought him into the world. By a parallel use to this a plural form is given to the Mota word for child, reremera, with a doubled plural sign ; a single boy is called not ' child ' but ' children,' as if his individuality were not dis- tinguished from the common offspring of his veve. The same plural prefix is found in other Banks' Island words meaning mother ; rave in Santa Maria, retne in Vanua Lava, reme in Torres Islands. The mother is called ratahi in W r hitsuntide, and rataJngi in Lepers' Island, that is the sisters, the sisterhood, because she represents the sister members of the waivung who are the mothers generally of the children. Similarly the one word used for husband or wife has the plural form. In Mota a man does not call his wife a member of him, a component part of him, but his members, his component parts ; and so a wife speaks of her husband. It is not that the man and his wife make up a composite body between them, but that the men on the one side and the women on the other make up a ii.] Testimony of Words. A gnatic Descent. 29 composite married body. The Mota people know that the word they use means this ; it was owned to myself with a blush that it was so, with a Melanesian blush, and a protesta- tion that the word did not represent a fact. The word used in Motlav, part of Saddle Island, gives hardly the less con- firmation to this interpretation of the Mota word because it has not a plural form ; in Motlav ignige has the same meaning 1 with the Mota soai ; a man says of his leg or his arm ignik, my member, one of my members, and he calls also his wife ignik, while she calls him the same. As concerns the second point in question, it is apparent that the strict rule of exogamy as regards the kin leaves marriage open to those who are very near in blood ; for a man is not of kin to his own children, and a man is not of kin to his brother's children. But although it is the intermarriage of sogoi, members of the same veve, that is strictly forbidden, and the descent is always counted by the mother, yet the blood connexion with the father and the father's near relations is never out of sight. Consequently the marriage of those who are near in blood, though they are not sogoi and may lawfully marry, is discountenanced. In Mota, for example, the children of a brother and sister are thought too near to marry. The brother and sister are both of one veve, A, as children of one mother ; the children of the sister are of her veve, A ; the brother's children are of the veve B, following their mother, who must needs be of the other side of the house. It appears then that the two cousins, children of a brother and sister, are not sogoi, one being A and the other B, and that they can marry. But they will not ; the match will not be made ; if they married they would be said to ' go wrong 1 .' It will be seen that the succession to property shews the same tendency, perhaps a recent tendency, to the recognition of agnatic descent. Florida, and the parts of the Solomon Islands adjacent to it, afford an example of the division of the people into more than two exogamous kindreds. In Florida these divisions are six, 1 As in the case of Dudley and Agnes in the Mota pedigree further on. 30 Social Regulations. [CH. called kema, and each has its distinguishing name. These are the Nggaombata, the Manukama or Honggokama, the Honggokiki, the Kakau, the Himbo, and the Lahi. But these six kema no doubt represent a much simpler original division ; for two of them have local names, of Nggaombata in Guadalcanar, and Himbo, the Simbo somewhat indefinitely placed among the islands to the west, from whence these two kema are known to have come. The Nggaombata and the Himbo, perhaps only as strangers, go together ; and the Lahi, a small division, are said to be so closely connected with Himbo that the members cannot intermarry. Whether Honggokama and Manukama are names of one kema, or of two divisions into which the one is separating, is a question. The Honggo- kama and the Honggo-kiki, the great and the little, are plainly parts of one original. It is not the case in Florida that an originally double division has simply split and split again ; but the settlement of foreigners has so complicated the arrangement that few natives profess to be able to follow it *. Yet the foreigners have undoubtedly brought with them a distinct sense of kinship with one or other of the local kema. The strict rule of exogamy is not a sufficient limit to the right of marriage ; here also, as in the eastern islands, it is supplemented by a strong public opinion as to what is right. A remarkable instance of this occurred a few years ago, when Takua, a considerable chief, took to himself the daughter of one of his wives. The girl was not, of course, of his own kema, and so far he was within his right, but the sense of decency and propriety of the people was outraged, and the man's influence as a chief was much diminished. In Bugotu of Ysabel there are three vinahuhu : Dhonggokama, Vihuvunagi, and Poso- 1 This is illustrated by the case of Alfred Lombu, who, returning from Norfolk Island in search of a wife, proposed for a daughter of Takua, the chief of Mboli. The girl was not of the same kema in name with Lombu, and he maintained that he was not aware that his Jcema and hers were in fact the same; but Takua imposed upon him a heavy fine, seeing an opportunity for possessing himself of the money accumulated for the marriage, and professing great indignation at the outrage on propriety. II.] Florida and Bugotu. mogo, not one of which now corresponds exactly with either of the Florida kema. But the Dhonggokama, they say, is the same as the ancient kema which has split into the Honggokama and Honggokiki in Florida ; and the other two may be well believed to be themselves the divided other member of the original pair. The meaning of the names of three of the Florida kema, besides the two that are local, are known ; Honggo is cat's-cradle, Manukama is an eagle, Kakau is a crab. It is evident that when the divisions of a people mul- tiply names must be given them ; where there are two ' sides of the house' no name is needed for either, but when a man may have wives and children of three or four kindreds not his own, a name for each kin is necessary to maintain the matriarchal system of descent through the mother. It adds very much to the distinction between these kema, that each has some one or more Into from which its members must keep clear, abstain from eating, approaching, or beholding it 1 . One of the very first lessons learnt by a Florida child is what is its buto, its abomination, to eat or touch or see which would be a dreadful thing. In one case, and in one case only, this Into is the living creature from which the kema takes its name ; the Kakau kin may not eat the Kakau crab. The Nggaombata may not eat the giant clam ; the Lahi may not eat of a white pig ; the Manukama may not eat the pigeon ; the Kakau, besides their eponymous crab, may not eat the parrot Trichoglossus Massena. The Manukama are at liberty to eat the bird from which they take their name. If the question be put to any member of these kema he will probably answer that his Into is his ancestor ; a Manukama will say that the pigeon he does not eat is his ancestor; but an intelligent native, describing this native custom, writes : * This is the explanation of the Into. We believe these tindalo (the object of worship in each kema) to have been once living men, and something that was with them, or with which they had to do, has become a thing forbidden, tambu^ and abominable, 1 Thus in ' Percy Porno ' a man is horrified at seeing blue trousers, the colour of some part of the iuside of the shark, which was hia buto. 3 2 Social Regulations. [CH. Into, to those to whom the tindalo belongs.' He gives the example of the clam of the Nggaombata. The ghost, tindalo, of a famous ancient member of that Jcema, named Polika, haunted a beach opposite Mage, and a large snake, poll, was believed to represent him there. The Nggaombata could not approach that beach, Polika was their buto 1 . On another beach where they catch fish wherewith to sacrifice to Polika is a ffima, a clam, which they call Polika, and used to believe to be in some way Polika ; hence the gima in their buto. There will occur at once the question whether in this we do not find totems. But it must be asked where are the totems? in the living creatures after which two of the divisions are named, or in those creatures which the members of the several divisions may not eat ? It is true that the Kakau kindred may not eat the crab kakau ; but the Manukama may eat the bird manukama. If there be a totem then it must be found in the buto ; in the pigeon of the Manukama and the giant clam of the Nggaobata, which are said to be ancestors. But it must be observed that the thing which it is abominable to eat is never believed to be the ancestor, certainly never the eponymous ancestor, of the clan ; it is said to represent some famous former member of the clan, one of a generation beyond that of the fathers of the present member of it, a kuJcua. The thing so far represents him that disrespect to it is disrespect to him. The most probable explanation of these buto may indeed throw light upon the origin of totems elsewhere, but can hardly give totems a home in the Solomon Islands. The buto of each kema is probably comparatively recent in Florida ; it has been introduced at Bugotu within the memory of living men. It is in all probability a form of the custom which prevails in Ulawa, another of the Solomon Islands. It was observed with surprise when a Mission school was established 1 ^a lutodira Gaobata na tidalo eni, That ghost is the buto of the Nggaombata. The origin of the prohibition is respect for Polika ; those of his Jcema would not intrude upon the beach he haunted, nor would they eat the clam, because the clam on the reef represented him. They have now looked in vain for the snake. ii.] Florida Divisions. 33 in that island, that the people of the place would not eat bananas, and had ceased to plant the tree. It was found that the origin of this restraint was recent and well re- membered ; a man of much influence had at his death not long- ago prohibited the eating of bananas after his decease, saying that he would be in the banana. The elder natives would still give his name and say, ' We cannot eat So-and- So.' When a few years had passed, if the restriction had held its ground, they would have said, ' We must not eat our ancestor.' This represents what is not uncommon also in Malanta near Ulawa, where, as in Florida also, a man will often declare that after death he will be seen as a shark. These divisions, kema, are not political divisions 1 . It is not, as in the Banks' Islands where every house must needs contain members of both divisions, that every kema will be represented in every village, for one or two of the smaller may have no member there ; but every man's wife, or wives, and all his children, must needs be of a kema different from his own, and every village must have its population mixed. The property of the members of each kema is intermixed with that of the others. In a considerable village the principal chief is the head of the kema which predominates there, and he exercises his authority over all, while the principal men of the less numerous kema are lesser chiefs. It is evident that the pre- dominance of any kema cannot be permanent. A chiefs sons are jnone of them of his own kin ; and, as will be shewn, he passes on what he can of his property and authority to them. If then in a certain district one kindred is now most numerous, in the next generation it. cannot be so, for the children of those now most numerous will be naturally many more in 1 When some outrage on white men has been committed the ' tribe ' is supposed responsible ; but any party of natives concerned is sure to be made up of members of both veve or several Jcema, and some of these prob- ably do not belong to the place where the outrage is committed. Of the five natives who cut off the boat at Mandoliana in 1880, only two were of the same kema, and only one was at home at Gaeta. D 34 Divisions of the People. [CH. number, and will none of them be of kin to their fathers. Thus it was that twenty years ago the Nggaombata was the dominant kema in Florida, and to be a great chief it was said that a man must be Nggaombata ; but now the Manukama are rising into the chief place, and supply the chiefs in many districts of the island. The system by which the Melanesian people are thus divided into exogamous groups in which descent follows the mother, receives of course the name of a Matriarchal system ; but it , must be understood that the mother is in no way the head of the family. The house of the family is the father's, the garden is his, the rule and government are his ; it is into the father's house that the young bridegroom takes his wife, if he has not one ready of his own. The closest relationship, however, according to native notions, is that which exists between the sister's son and the mother's brother, because the mother who transmits the kinship is not able to render the service which a man can give. A man's sons are not of his own kin, though he acts a father's part to them ; but the tie between his sister's children and himself has the strength of the traditional bond of all native society, that of kinship through the mother. The youth as he begins to feel social wants, over and above the food and shelter that his father gives him, looks to his mother's brother as the male re- presentative of his kin. It is well known that in Fiji the vasu, the sister's son, has extraordinary rights with his maternal uncle. The corresponding right is much less qon- spicuous and important than this in the Melanesian Islands west of Fiji ; but it is a matter of course that the nephew should look to his mother's brother for help of every kind, and that the uncle should look upon his sister's son as his special care; the closeness of this relation is fundamental. The connexion of kinship through the mother with the great exogamous group, and that of blood through the father with his family, thus stand in clear recognition, and to a certain extent necessarily conflict one with another. The connexion caused by marriage between members of the groups and II.] Banks Island System. 35 families is a third relation equally felt and expressed in words. The terms therefore in which the various degrees of relation- ship are conveyed fall into three classes ; the first of the kin- ship through the mother, the second of the family generally on father's and mother's side, the third those following on marriage. A complete view of the system of relationship with the terms that express it, in any one native field in Melanesia, cannot indeed be taken to shew what everywhere prevails, but as giving a representative example is very valuable ; the Mota system, which may well stand for that of the Banks' group, can perhaps be shewn completely and exactly. (i) It has been said that all the members of each of the two exogamous divisions of the people are sogoi, that is of kin, to one another ; the only other relation belonging to this kinship is that between the maternal uncle and his sister's children, male and female, expressed in the terms maraui and vanangoi. The uncle is maraui to his sister's child, the nephew or niece is vanangoi to the mother's brother ; but the nephew is also called maraui to his uncle. The relation passes on to the second generation ; the children of a man's sister's daughters are his vanangoi, they are still of his kin ; but his sister's son's children are of the other veve, the special tie of kindred is broken ; they are called his children, being brought up to stand in the same generation with their parents. A man's sister's child, his vanangoi, stands as if in the same generation with himself. (3) Putting aside connexion by marriage, and the special relation of the maraui and vanangoi, which follows upon the passing of kindred through the mother, relationship generally can be arranged in four successive stages of generation ; the grandparents, the parents, the children, the grandchildren. Take the present generation, tarangiu, of young married men and women ; they are brothers and sisters ; the generation above them are their fathers and mothers ; the generation be- low them are their children ; the generation below that will be their grandchildren, to whom again all who come before their D 2 36 Kinship and Marriage Connexion. [CH. parents are grandparents and ancestors. The terms tamai and veve must be translated by father and mother, and are used generally to all of the same generation with the parents who are ' near ' and belong to the family connexion. A child, son or daughter, is natm; grandparent and grandchild, ancestor and descendant, is tupui 1 . The terms equivalent to brother and sister are used on a different principle from that with which we are familiar, and according to which the sex of the person referred to determines the use of the word. In Melanesia, as elsewhere, one word describes the relationship of persons of the same sex, and the other word describes the relationship of persons of different sexes. Men are tasiu to men, and women tasiu to women ; men are tutuai to women, and women tutuai to men. There is a further difference, the sex being the same, the elder man or woman is tugui to the younger, the younger man or woman is tasiu to the elder ; but tasiu is the prevailing use. It may be observed in this system of terms of relationship that all of one generation, within the family connexion, are called fathers and mothers of all the children who form the generation below them ; a man's brothers are called fathers of his children, a woman's sisters are called mothers of her children ; a father's brothers call his children theirs, a mother's sisters call her children theirs. Upon this it has to be remarked that this wide use of the terms father and mother does not at all signify any looseness in the actual view of proper paternity and maternity; they are content with one word for father and uncle, for mother and aunt, when the special relation of the kinship of the mother's brother does not come in ; but the one who speaks has no confusion as to paternity in his mind, and will correct a misconception with the explanation, 'my own child, tur 1 It may be observed that the principal terms of relationship are generally the same, not only in the Melanesian islands here in view, but throughout the languages with which the Melanesian languages are connected ; mother being an exception. Common words however are not alwavs used in the same appli- cation, as the Florida tubu is no doubt the Mota tupu. ii.] A Mota Family. 37 natuk ; his real father, tur tamana ; tur tasina, his brother not his cousin V (3) A general term qaliga embraces all of the other side of the house who have been brought near by marriage, fathers- in-law, mothers-in-law, sons- and daughters-in-law, and all their brothers and sisters. A man and his wife's brother call one another wulus, and a woman and her husband's sister call one another walu ; but the man is also called walu ; and both terms are extended to the cousins of the husband or wife. A woman does not call her husband's brother her brother-in-law ; she is nothing to him, though her children, being his brother's children, are called his. A man calls his daughter-in-law tawarig. There is, moreover, a term of marriage relation to which no equivalent exists in English ; parents whose children Lave intermarried call one another gasala, which may be trans- lated fellow- wayfarers. A genealogical table or pedigree of a Mota family (see p. 38) will supply examples of the various relationships subsisting, and make clear the application of the various terms. The two veve^the two sides of the house, are distinguished by the letters A and IB for males, a and b for females. All A and #, B and b, are sogoi respectively, as belonging to the same side of the house ; and as besides they are * near ' to one another by blood, they will call one another tasiu and tutuai when the relationship strictly conveyed by those words is absent. The prefix Ro marks a feminine name. The points in the pedigree marked with asterisks require some explanation, but are almost entirely covered by the principle that a man's sister's son, his vanangol, takes his place in the family on the same 1 Before the native use is well understood it is certainly perplexing and misleading. As an example, a boy named Tarioda came from Araga to Norfolk Island. Remembering a youth of the same name from the same island, I enquired if he had anything to do with him ; the boy answered that he was hi father, and that he had seen him and knew him, meaning that he was a cousin of his father's. Such an answer might well be the ground of a statement that paternity was very little thought of in the New Hebrides. English people probably had perfectly clear conceptions about family ties before they used the words uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew and niece. o HH P EH O ii.] A Mota Family. 39 level with his uncle, maraui, as if in the place of his mother. Thus Leveveg is in fact great-uncle to John and Agnes, but counts as uncle only "because they are grandchildren of his sister. The grandchildren of his brother are his grandchildren, tnpm, that is his great-nephews and nieces. For the same reason Leveveg, who is in fact maternal great-uncle to Dudley, counts as his maternal uncle, maraui, Dudley ascending into his mother's place. So Pantutun is first cousin to the mothers of Tavrowar and Mowur, and, being of the generation above them, would be called father or uncle, tamai, and they his children, if it were not that he is cousin to their mothers through his mother, whose place therefore he takes on the second ascending step, and becomes tvpui, great-uncle. Thus he is father, tamai, that is uncle, to his first cousins Arisqoe and Marostuwale ; and his sister Maututun is their mother or aunt ; because he ascends into his mother's place, who was their father's sister. The same rule makes Dudley father or uncle properly to his first cousins John and Agnes, though, as they are of the same generation and older than himself, he calls them improperly brother and sister : improperly, because they are not his sogoi, and he could in strictness, though not with public approval, marry Agnes. It is still more remark- able that John is properly father or uncle to his second cousins Tavrowar and Mowur, who are much older than himself ; but his father Pantutun is their great-uncle, tupui y and he is there- fore their uncle, tamai, or as it naturally sounds to us their father 1 . The case of Matevagqoe and Bo Tapermaro is distinct from this : he married her brother's daughter, and to do that must have been of her side of the house, her sogoi. If it had been her sister's daughter, she and her niece's husband would be qaliga but that cannot be between sogoi, so they call them- selves cousins, brother and sister. The pedigree here exhibited does not shew the polygamy 1 It sometimes happens that a boy is in this way ' father ' to one old enough to be his natural father, or ' grandfather,' tupui, to one of his own age. When it is so the formal relationship is practically merged in the general tasiu, brotherhood. 40 Kinship and Marriage Connexion. [CH. which existed in its early stages, and it may be asked whether the terms of relationship would not undergo some change in such a case ; whether, for example, the sons of the same father by two mothers would not be distinguished from the sons of the same father and mother. The answer is that no difference is made. A man's wives, if he should have many, must all be soffoi, of the same side of the house, calling one another sisters, and calling each the other's children hers, whether they were married to the same man or had different husbands. This does not however shut out altogether the relationship of step-father and mother. A man who has a son by one of his wives who is dead, does not bring in a step-mother to the boy if he adds another to his living wives ; the woman would come in as another mother, and the boy would take no notice. But if a woman with children loses her husband, and becomes the wife of a man who is not ' near ' to her previous husband, being of course sogoi but with no recent blood relation, the man will come in as step-father, and the term wsur, successor, is applied to him, the connexion being called mur-gae, bond of succession. A looser connexion than this is enough to make an mur\ as when a boy's father has had a wife, not the mother of the boy, who after becoming a widow marries another man ; the boy will take liberties with the man as having come into his father's place ; he will take yams from his garden. When a step-father sneezes the step-son will cry out, Mafia revereve gam o sulate ! a sneeze to draw out a worm for you ! the notion being that the former husband has a certain grudge against his successor, and sends a worm from a point of land on which ghosts congregate. Where, as in Florida and the neighbouring parts of the Solomon Islands, the divisions of the people are three, four, or six, and where a man may have a wife or wives from any one of them but his own, it would seem likely to be more difficult to keep accurate count of the various degrees of relationship in which people stand to one another ; and it is probable that, though the native system is precise in following every step and connexion, the people do in fact content themselves com- II.] Florida Terms. monly with general terms. The special relation of the sister's son to his mother's brother is of course conspicuous ; each calls the other tumbu ; and this term is applied also to the father's mother's brother by his grand-nephew, and by the great-uncle to his sister's grandchild. In a generation of members of the same kema all of them call one another Jiogo in the same sex, and, with more or less attention to nearness of blood, brothers and sisters ; that is to say, an elder brother or sister is tuga to one of the same sex, and a younger brother or sister is tahi, while a brother or sister is vavine to one of the other sex. With the exception of the mother's brother, the blood rela- tions of the ascending generation are all father and mother, tama and Una. In the generation above, with the exception of the father's mother's brother aforesaid, who is tumbu^ all male and female are kuJcua. In descending a man's sons and daughters, and his brother's and cousin's children, are dale, distinguished as dale mane and dale vaivine, according to sex, a man's sister's child being tumbu ; and in the same way a woman's children and her sister's and female cousin's children and her husband's brother's and sister's children are all her children, dale mane male, dale vaivine female. Descending to the next generation, all are again Jcukua to their grandparents and great uncles and aunts, and all above them ; except that, as aforesaid, the relation of tumbu subsists between a great- nephew and his father's mother's brother. Husband and wife are tau. A father- or mother-in-law, and son- or daughter-in- law, is vnngo, the term being applied widely to persons con- nected by marriage who are not of the same generation. Brothers- and sisters-in-law, and generally persons of the same generation connected by marriage, are iva to one another 1 . It would seem that the absence of exogamous divisions of the population in that region of the Solomon Islands in which descent follows the father (namely, in Malanta, about Cape Zelee, in Ulawa, and in San Cristoval), must make the system 1 The word mavu, which is used for ' namesake,' is also used as a term of family relationship. Unfortunately the full list of Florida terms made by me many years ago lacks a key. 42 Kinship and Marriage Connexion. [CH. of family relationship very different there from that which has been described as prevailing in the Banks' Islands and in Florida. To a very considerable extent no doubt this is so ; but it is improbable that the peculiar closeness of relation between a man and his sister's son should entirely fail to ap- pear. , Of this I have little evidence to offer l ; .the families are formed upon the father, and the only restriction upon marriage is nearness in bloody To whatever extent, however, it may be that descent through the father removes that characteristic feature of the Melanesian family system which appears in the relation between the maternal uncle and his sister's child, it is certain that the main structure is the same as elsewhere ; that is to say, that no terms corresponding to uncle and aunt, nephew and niece } or cousin exist. All on the same level are brothers and sisters, if children of brothers and sisters or of cousins ; they look upon the children of brothers, sisters and cousins as their children, and the children call them all fathers and mothers ; the ancestors above father and mother, and the descendants in the second and lower generations, are all united under one general term, which covers ancestry and posterity alike. At Wango in San Cristoval, where owing to immo- rality and infanticide the population has been kept up by the adoption of children from the bush, adopted children take the position in the family which would have been theirs if they had been born in it ; although no blood relationship exists, they cannot marry those who are near through the adoptive father. These children appear to be by traders called slaves because they are bought ; the people themselves call them their children. ^The subject of marriage relations is incomplete without notice, of the reserve so remarkably exercised towards the persons . and names of those who have become connected by marriage* . This J.s conspicuous in the Banks' Islands,, and makes but little show in the Solomon Islands. In Lepers' Island, a 1 From Rev. R. B. Comins I learn that at Wango and Fagani in San Cristoval the term for the relation between the maternal uncle and his sister's child is maw. The terms iha, ifa, hungo, fungo, are the Florida iva and vungo ; 'ama, 'ina, 'cm, are tama, Una, taki. ii.] Reserve and Avoidance. 43 singular reserve is strongly shewn, as it is in Fiji, by brothers and sisters, and also by mothers and sons ; but this reserve, though its existence and its cause may well throw light upon that exercised between those connected by marriage, has no proper place here. In Florida, in the Solomon Islands, there is no difficulty about meeting, or mentioning the name of, father- or mother-in-law, or any of a wife's kindred, and no extraordinary marks of respect are shewn. It is the same at Saa. The extraordinary separation of the sexes in Santa Cruz and the neighbouring islands, however instructive to observe in this connexion, does not follow on relation by marriage. In the Banks' Islands the rules of avoidance and reserve are very strict and minute. As regards the avoidance of the person, a man will not come near his wife's mother ; the avoidance is mutual ; if the two chance to meet in a path, the woman will step out of it and stand with her back turned till he has gone by, or perhaps if it be more convenient he will move out of the way. At Vanua Lava, in Port Patteson, a man would not follow his mother-in-law along the beach, nor she him, until the tide had washed out the footsteps of the first traveller from the sand. At the same time a man and his mother-in-law will talk at a distance. A man does not avoid his father-in-law, nor a woman hers. A man does not avoid his wife's brother, but will not sleep with him ; he does not avoid his son's wife, or his own wife's sister. Boys and girls who are engaged generally avoid one another, but through shyness, not by rule. Where the persons above mentioned do not avoid one another, they are careful to shew respect in not J;aking_anything from above the head or stepping over the legs of a father-in-law or wife's brother. It is disrespectful at all times for a young man to take anything from above an elder man's head, for there is something naturally sacred, rongO) about the head, and no one will take the liberty of stepping over the legs of any but a brother or intimate friend. To avoid the mention of a name shews a lower degree of respect than to avoid a person. A man who sits and talks with his wife's father will not mention his name, much less his 44 Kinship and Marriage Connexion. [CH. wife's mother's name ; a man will not name Ms wife's brother, but he will name his wife's sister, she is nothing to him. A woman will not name, but does not avoid, her husband's father ; she will on no account name her daughter's husband. Two people whose children have intermarried, who are gasala, will not name each other. The reserve with regard to the name extends to the use of it, or of any part of it, in common conversation. A man on one occasion spoke to me of his house as a shed, and when that was not understood, went and touched it with his hand to shew what he meant ; a difficulty being still made, he looked round to be sure that no one was near and whispered, not the name of his son's wife, but the respectful substitute for her name, amen Mulegona, she who was with his son, and whose name was Tawurima, Hind-house *. Thus, referring to the Mota pedigree given on page 38, Leve- veg could not use the common words mate, to die, or qoe, pig, because of his son-in-law Matevagqoe ; Virsal could not use the common words panei, hand, or tutun, hot, because of his wife's brother's name, or even the numeral tuwale, one, because of his wife's cousin's name. To meet the difficulty caused by this limitation of vocabulary, a word may be used improperly like paito, shed, for ima, house ; or a knife may be called a cutter and a bow a shooter ; but there is a stock of words kept in use for this veiy purpose, to use which instead of the common words is called to un. Thus the un words used in the cases mentioned above would be karwae for qoe, saproro for mate, lima for panei, val for tuwale 2 . This avoidance of the person and of the name is ascribed by the natives themselves to a feeling of shyness and respect, a certain inward trembling 1 The word amaia, with him, is used not only for a wife's name but in place of ' his wife ' ; nan amaia wa, then said his wife. In the case referred to, Tawurima, the name of the daughter-in-law, contains the word ima, house. The father of Tawurima, again, could not use the common word for to go, mule, because it is part of her husband's name, Mulegona. 2 These un words are particularly valuable, because they often shew a connexion with other languages which does not appear in more common words. Words are not invented for this purpose ; words are taken which lie comparatively unused in the language. ii.] Reserve in the New Hebrides. 45 which they say prevents their mentioning their own names also ; to blurt out a name is to take a liberty, to avoid the use of it shews delicate respect, and one will extend this respect to more distant connexions rather than apply it too narrowly. A native when asked the name of some other, will often turn to some bystander who answers for him, and the explanation is given in the one word qaliga. Respect is also shewn in Mota by using a dual pronoun in addressing or speaking of a single person; 'Where are you two going?' is asked of a qaliga, as if both husband and wife were present. In the New Hebrides the practice is much the same. In Lepers' Island a man speaks to his mother-in-law, and she to him, but they will not come near ; when he speaks to her she turns away. A mother-in-law or father-in-law does not mind using the name of daughter's husband or son's wife in speaking of them to others, but cannot use it in addressing them. When a woman calls to her son-in-law she addresses him as mim, you in the plural; when she sends a message to him she says, using his name, * They want Tanga to go to them/ that is, ' I want Tanga to come to me.' A daughter-in-law does not avoid her husband's father, a man sends his wife with messages to his father. A man will not speak at all the name of his wife's brother ; speaking of him he says, 'my brother-in-law,' speaking to him he says, 'you' in the plural; if he meets him in the path he turns aside, and asks 'Wliere are you (plural) going?' In this case only it appears that the name is never spoken ; the reserve among connexions by marriage is much less marked than that between brother and sister. No one will step across the legs of another, or take anything from over his head, especially a brother's ; that is thought a serious piece of disrespect. Jin the neighbouring island of Araga, Pentecost, the intercourse of fathers- and mothers-in-law with their daughter's husband or son's wife is very little restricted; the chief, if not the only, reserve in speaking is exercised by engaged couples before the giving of property for the girl is complete ; this is called lalag. CHAPTER III. SOCIAL REGULATIONS. CHIEFS. IT has been shewn that the social structure in these Mela- nesian islands is not tribal, and it will have been observed therefore that there can be no political structure held together by the power of tribal chiefs ; but chiefs exist, and still have in most islands important place and power, though never perhaps so much importance in the native view as . they have in the eyes of European visitors, who carry with them the persuasion that savage people are always ruled by chiefs. A trader or other visitor looks for a chief, and finds such a one as he expects ; a very insignificant person in this way comes to be called, and to call himself, the king of his island, and his consideration among his own people is of course enor- mously enhanced by what white people make of him. The practice moreover of the commanders of ships of war by which local chiefs are held responsible for the conduct of their people, and are treated as if they had considerable power, undoubtedly increases their importance, nor can that result be regretted. As a matter of fact the power of chiefs has hitherto rested upon the belief in their supernatural power derived from the spirits or ghosts with which they had intercourse. As this belief has failed, in the Banks' Islands for example some time ago, the position of a chief has tended to become obscure ; and as this belief is now being generally undermined a new kind of chief must needs arise, unless a time of anarchy is to begin. It will be well probably at the outset to give the account of a chiefs power and government in the Solomon Islands, the Banks' Islands, and the New Hebrides, as supplied by natives Power of Chiefs. 47 of those groups respectively, who well knew what they were speaking about. A Florida Vunagi kept order in his place, ' directed the common operations and industries, represented his people with strangers, presided at sacrifices and led in war. He inflicted fines, and would order any one to be put to death. At Saa in Malanta the chief, Maelaha, is such by virtue of descent, a remarkable difference existing in many points between this people and Melanesians generally; the people work in his gardens, plant for him, build a house or canoe for him at his word. He inflicts fines, and can order a man to be put to death. At Banks' Islands the Tavusmele or JEtvmmel in former days kept order, gave commands about the common f" concerns of the place, arranged difficulties with neighbouring villages, could order an offender (one for example who had be- witched or poisoned another) to be put to death, or to pay a fine of pigs. In Lepers' Island the Ratakigi commands or forbids in such matters as fishing, voyaging, and building ; he can order an offender to be shot or clubbed, or to give a fine of pigs. In each of these cases it may be added that the chief has with him young men who have attached them- selves to him and carry out his commands, and that the chief has no more property in or dominion over land than another man. Further details as to* the position and power of chiefs in the various islands will be hereafter given. A point of difference between the Polynesian and Mela- nesian sections of the Pacific peoples is the conspicuous presence in the former, and the no less conspicuous absence in the latter, of native history and tradition. In the Melanesian islands, with one notable exception, the enquirer seeks in vain for antiquity; the memory of the past perishes quickly where all things soon pass away, where every building soon decays, where life is short, and no marked change of seasons makes people count by longer measures of time than months. While any one lives who remembers some famous man of the past his fame lingers, but it dies with the personal remembrance ; a man's ancestry goes back so far as living memory extends ; historical tradition can hardly be said to 48 Social Regulations. [CH. exist. It is true that in Motlav, part of Saddle Island in the Banks' group, the people who now live in the islet of Ha and the coast opposite know where their families came from, from neighbouring islands, Mota, Vanua Lava, or from other parts of Saddle Island ; but it was only lately they say that they came to live where they are. In Araga, Pentecost Island of the New Hebrides, they shew their original seat at Atabulu, a village still remaining and held in high respect. But the little history that remains, and is vouched for by a multitude of sepulchral stones, is lost in the legend attaching to a sacred stone, of winged shape, tying in the village place. It is called Vingaga, Flyer with webbed wings, and represents one Vingaga, who came floating in a canoe to shore and founded that town. People, ata, collected and abode with him, bulu ; after a time he flew back to heaven. Ancient house sites, raised perhaps a yard above the ground, are to be seen at Atabulu, and at Anwalu near by, with stones over the graves of forgotten chiefs. In Maewo great heaps of stones mark the graves of great men of old times, such as none have been of late. In Motlav, near a famous and enormous natu tree, is a house-mound five feet high, where no habitations are now, and men say that it came down from his ancestors to the last man whose house stood on it ; and this is but a single known representative of the yavu of a Fiji family of rank 1 . The remarkable exception to this absence of history or tradition is found at Saa in Malanta, and is so remarkable and characteristic of native life that the story must be told at length. The larger and principal part of the present inhabitants of Saa ani menu came from Saa haalu, inland not very far off, eleven generations ago. The migration took place under the following circum- stances. There were four brothers at the ancient Saa, of whom the eldest was the chief; two were named Pau-ulo, the eldest Pauulo _paina, the great, the second Pauulo oou, the champion ; 1 Mr. Fison writes, The higher the house-mound, the higher its occupant's rank : sa cere na nodra yavu, their house-mound is high, is still used to express that a family is of high rank/ The yavu is described as the ancestral town-lot on which the house is built. in.] History of Saa. 49 the two younger had the same name, Ro Ute sen oo'u 1 . The chief was a quiet man ; the two youngest, aided by the second, were always fighting and damaging their neighbours' property; all Pauulo Paina's money was spent in paying compensation for their injuries and in making peace, and he told them he must leave them and go away. The neighbouring people, however, determined to make an end of their trouble ; they collected, and began to surround the village of Saa as night fell. Before their circle was complete the Saa people learnt their danger, gathered their women and children, and escaped unseen and unheard in the darkness, carrying with them three drums, which remained at the present Saa within the memory of old men yet alive. But when they were clear of the enemy and safe outside their line, they remembered that a bunch of areca-nuts from which Pauulo Paina had already taken some to chew with his betel leaves, and which would furnish means to the enemy of working his death with charms, was left behind. The two Ute agreed that one of them, if he died for it, must go for the nuts to save the elder brother, and the younger of the two took on himself the danger because he was the younger. The circle was now closed round the village, but it was still dark, and the enemy knowing nothing of the escape sat waiting for the dawn to make their onset. The young Ute took his seat among them as one of their party, and after a while said to them that he would steal in and see whether the Saa people were safe in their houses and could be surprised. Thus he passed through to the empty village, climbed the palm with a rope round his feet, gathered all the nuts remaining on the tree, and as he came down so twisted the stem that when his feet touched the ground it split into four, and fell with a crash upon the house. The enemy hearing the sound thought that the Saa people were not yet all asleep, and sat still ; Ute managed to pass through them unperceived with his nuts, and joined his friends. Thus they escaped and descended towards the coast ; 1 The two having the same name were the ' Bonito-gutter champions' ; the Saa oo'u being the Mota wownt, a fine fellow, a favourite, a hero. E 50 Chiefs. [CH. and when they came to a fork where the path divided Pauulo Paina made a speech, saying that no fighters, bullies, thieves, or wizards were to follow him. One party then branched off with Pauulo Oou ; and lower down a second separation was made, so that in the end three settlements were formed of people who counted themselves of kin. The inhabitants of what is now Saa ani menu received trie fugitives with Pauulo Paina, and his descendants in the male line have ever since been the hereditary chiefs 1 . The descendants of the old in- habitants are now but few and of the lower orders, but they are still the owners of the land. It has never occurred to the Saa immigrants to dispossess them ; the new-comers remairi, even the chiefs, landless men, except so far as a little has been given to them and a little sold ; they have always been allowed what they wanted for their gardens, and have been con- tent. When the move was made there was no great difference in speech, and there is none now in words; but the older race speak very slowly, and may be distinguished now by that slow habit of speech. There are then at Saa, and at the other two settlements founded by the refugees from the ancient Saa, a family of chiefs with a history, and with descent in the male line. All of that family are born in a certain sense chiefs, the eldest son succeeding to the position of his father as principal chief unless he be judged incompetent. If he turns out a bad, vicious man he loses respect and power, and his brother in- sensibly replaces him. Sometimes a man will retire because he knows his own unfitness 2 . The chiefs power therefore 1 The eleven generations from Pauulo to the present chiefs are kept in mind by the invocation of their successive names in sacrifices. 2 At the time of writing the above there were three chiefs of high rank at Saa : the ostensible and acting chief was Dorawewe, but he is only the third son of his father, the late head chief. The son and heir of the eldest son was not yet grown up ; respect was paid to him for his birth, but he had little power, and the less because his character was bad and he went after women, and so did not gain personal respect. Watehaaodo, uncle on the mother's side to the young man, and himself of the chief's family, was guardian to him, and thence was an important man. It should be observed that thus the particularly close relation in.] Hereditary Element. 51 at Saa comes from his birth and personal qualities, not from his intimacy with supernatural beings and his magical know- ledge ; he may have these, and is in fact pretty sure to have them, but if one, like Dorawewe now, sacrifices for the family, it is not as chief, but because he has had the knowledge how to do it passed on to him. In the same way the chief curses in the name of a lio'a, powerful ghost, for- bidding something to be done under the penalty of death, taboos, because of his ancestral connexion with that lioa. He inherits wealth from his father, and adds to it by the fines he imposes and by the gifts of the people ; but no wealth or success in war could make a man a chief at Saa if not born of the chief's family 1 . The hereditary element is not absent in the succession of chiefs in other islands, though it is by no means so operative as it appears to b