Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/226

Rh answer to a somewhat arrogantly framed affirmation that the missionaries were right, exclaimed:—

"Gala wala!Isasopasi:yambwatayambwata Notat all!They lie:alwaysalways

nakubukwabuyamomonaikasewo unmarried girlsseminal fluidit is brimful

litusigala." children theirs not.

Which may be freely rendered: "Not at all, the missionaries are mistaken; unmarried girls continually have intercourse, in fact they overflow with seminal fluid, and yet have no children."

Here, in terse and picturesque language, Motago'i expresses the view that, after all, if sexual intercourse were causally connected with child production, it is the unmarried girls who should have children, since they lead a much more intensive sexual life than the married ones—a puzzling difficulty which really exists, as we shall see later on, but which our informant exaggerates slightly, since unmarried girls do conceive, though not nearly as frequently as anyone holding the "missionary views" would be led to expect. Asked in the course of the same discussion: "What, then, is the cause of pregnancy?" he answered: "Blood on the head makes child. The seminal fluid does not make the child. Spirits bring at night time the infant, put on women's heads—it makes blood. Then, after two or three months, when the blood [that is, menstruous blood] does not come out, they know: 'Oh, I am pregnant! Rh