Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/173

Rh brought to him by her parents openly, and that the gifts exchanged are more substantial.

At present a stop is being gradually put to the whole system of the chief's polygamy. The first administrators, benevolently conceited and megalomaniacally sensitive as all those with arbitrary power over an "inferior" race are apt to be, were not guided by any sympathetic understanding of native custom and institutions. They did not grope, but proceeded at once to hit about them in the dark. They tried to destroy such native power as they found, instead of using it and working through it. Polygamy, a practice uncongenial to a European mind and indeed regarded by it as a sort of gross indulgence, seemed a weed proper for extirpation. So the chiefs, and especially he of Omarakana, though allowed to retain such wives as they had, were forbidden to fill the place left by each death, as would have been done in olden days. This prohibition was, by the way, an arbitrary act on the part of the white Resident, since it was justified by no law or regulation of the colony. Now To'uluwa's wealth and influence are declining, and would already have ceased to exist if it had not been for the faithful obedience of his subjects to native custom. They were openly encouraged to forgo payment of the annual gifts, and the wives were invited to leave their husband; Rh