Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/62

48 acknowledged by a feast. This may be done at any age, and a recent case was related in which the paternal aunt of a man had picked up some of his nail-parings just as he was going away to another island, and, when he returned, he had to make a feast in his aunt's honour.

There are several special rites and feasts after the birth of a first-born child. In the island of Motlav all the women of the village come to the house with their mats and sleep there for twenty days, decorating themselves in a different way every day, and feasting on different kinds of food, which they are privileged to take from the gardens of anyone. On the twentieth day there are various payments which are prominent in every Banksian rite, and then all the women who have been staying in the house sit in a ring outside, and the father's sister brings the baby out of the house and hands it round the circle, so that each woman holds it in turn. When the child has gone the round, it is given back to the father's sister, who carries it round the circle four times,—the customary number of a Melanesian rite,—and the child is then returned to its mother.

In Mota, when a woman has given birth for the first time, the child is taken to the door of the house by a woman, and a little bow is put in its hand, and all the maternal uncles of the child collect and shoot at it with blunted arrows or throw limes. When this is over, the child is handed to the father's sister, who holds it out with straightened arms till they tremble, and then she says,—"You and tawarig go up into the cultivated land, you with your bow and tawarig with the basket, digging yams; you shooting birds, tawarig breaking up the firewood; you two come back to the village; she will take food and carry it into the house; you will take your food in the gamal." As these words are said the father's sister raises her arms, lifting the child in the air.