Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/228

Rh care for the welfare and quality of his animals. The South Sea natives are extremely keen to have good, strong, and healthy pigs, and pigs of a good breed.

The main distinction which they make in the matter of quality is that between the wild or bush-pigs, and the tame village pigs. The village pig is considered a great delicacy, while the flesh of the bush-pig is one of the strongest taboos to people of rank in Kiriwina, the transgression of which they hold in genuine horror and disgust. Yet they allow the female domestic pigs to wander on the outskirts of the village and in the bush, where they can pair freely with male bush-pigs. On the other hand, they castrate all the male pigs in the village in order to improve their condition. Thus, naturally, all the progeny are in reality descended from wild bush sires. Yet the natives have not the slightest inkling of this fact. When I said to one of the chiefs, "You eat the child of a bush-pig," he simply took it as a bad joke; for making fun of bush-pig eating is not considered altogether good taste by a Trobriander of birth and standing. But he did not understand at all what I really meant.

On one occasion when I asked directly how pigs breed, the answer was: "The female pig breeds by itself," which simply meant that, probably, there is no baloma involved in the multiplication of domestic animals. When I drew parallels and suggested that small pigs are brought by their own balomas, they were not convinced; and it was evident that neither their own interest, nor the data supplied by tradition, went far enough to inspire any concern as to the procreation of pigs.

Rh