Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/183

Rh and he then married Dakiya, an extremely attractive woman who bore traces of her good looks even at the somewhat mature age at which I first saw her. Dakiya's younger sister Kamwalila was married to Manimuwa, a renowned sorcerer of Wakayse. Kamwalila sickened, and her sister Dakiya went to nurse her. Then between her and her sister's husband evil things began. He made love magic over her. Her mind was influenced, and they committed adultery then and there. When, after her sister's death, Dakiya returned to her husband Bagido'u, matters were not as before. He found his food tough, his water brackish, the coconut drinks bitter, and the betel nut without a bite in it. He would also discover small stones and bits of wood in his lime pot, twigs lying about in the road where he used to pass, pieces of foreign mat- ter in his food. He sickened and grew worse and worse, for all these substances were, of course, vehicles of evil magic, performed by his enemy, the sorcerer Manimuwa, assisted in this by the faithless wife. In the meantime, his wife trysted with her leman.

Bagido'u scolded and threatened her until one day she ran away and went to live with Manimuwa, an altogether irregular procedure. The power of the chiefs being now only a shadow, Bagido'u could not use special force to bring her back; so he took another wife — a broad-faced, sluggish, and somewhat cantankerous person by the name of Dagiribu'a. Dakiya remained with her wizard lover, and married him. The unfortunate Bagido'u who obviously suffers from consumption, a disease with which all his family are more or less tainted, attributes his ills to Rh