Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/57

Rh marriage of her fakafotu or brother's son, and she could veto one arranged by his parents or by the man himself. Even now a man will usually take the woman whom his father's sister wishes him to marry, though he will sometimes rebel and choose for himself. There is some degree of community of goods between nephew and aunt; the father's sister can take anything belonging to her nephew and the latter will not say a word, but, if the nephew desires anything belonging to his aunt, he must ask for it, and to take it without permission is one of the mistakes which it was said would have had fatal results in the old days. If permission to take anything were asked, however, it would seem that it was rarely refused.

There are a certain number of restrictions on the conduct of a man in relation to his father's sister which resemble the customs of avoidance of certain relatives so often found elsewhere. A man may not eat in his aunt's presence, nor may he eat anything which she has carried. He will not sit on her bed, nor will he stay in a house into which she comes. On the other hand, restrictions on conversation with her and on the use of her name do not exist.

The relation of the father's sister to her niece is like that towards her nephew. A girl is subject to the same restrictions in relation to her father's sister as a boy, and her relative arranges her marriage and may take any of her possessions. The father's sister also takes the leading place in the ceremonial connected with the first menstruation of a girl, and to her is given the piece of tapa cloth stained with the menstrual blood. I could not discover that the father's sister took any corresponding part in ceremonial connected with her nephew, the leading part in the ceremonial connected with circumcision being taken by the mother's brother.

In Melanesia I found a very similar relationship between paternal aunt and nephew or niece in two places,—in the island of Pentecost or Raga in the New Hebrides, and in