Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/223

Rh had no less than six children, five of whom died and one of whom still survives.

Albinos, male and female, are considered unfit for sexual intercourse. There is not the slightest doubt that all the natives feel real horror of and disgust for these unfortunate beings, a horror perfectly comprehensible after one has seen specimens of such unpigmented natives (see pl. 38). Yet there are on record several instances of albino women who have brought forth a numerous progeny. "Why did they become pregnant? Is it because they copulate at night time? or because a baloma has given them children?" Such was the clinching argument of one of my informants, for the first alternative appeared obviously absurd. Indeed, the whole of this line of argument was volunteered to me in one of my early discussions of the subject, although I obtained confirmatory data by subsequent research. For as a means of testing the firmness of their belief, I sometimes made myself definitely and aggressively an advocate of the truer physiological doctrine of procreation. In such arguments the natives would quote, not only positive instances, such as those just mentioned, of women who have children without having enjoyed any intercourse; but would also refer to the equally convincing negative aspect, that is, to the many cases in which an unmarried woman has plenty of intercourse and no children. This argument would be repeated over and over again, with specially telling Rh