Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/229

Rh Very important was a statement volunteered to me by Motago'i: "From all male pigs we cut off the testes. They copulate not. Yet the females bring forth." Thus he ignored the possible misconduct of the bush-pigs, and adduced the castration of domestic hogs as final proof that intercourse has nothing to do with breeding. On another occasion, I instanced the only two goats in the Archipelago, one male and one female, which a trader had recently imported. When I asked whether the female would bear any young if the male were killed, there was no uncertainty about the answer: "Year after year she will breed." Thus they have the firm conviction that if a female animal were entirely cut off from any male of the species, this would by no means interfere with her fecundity.

Another crucial test is provided by the recent importation of European pigs. In honour of the first man who brought them, the late Mick George, a Greek trader and a truly Homeric character, they are called by the natives bulukwa Miki (Mick's pigs), and they will give five to ten of the native pigs in exchange for one of them. Yet when they have acquired it, they will not take the slightest precautions to make it breed with a male of the same superior race, though they could easily do so. In one instance when, having several small pigs of European race they castrated all the males, they were reproved by a white trader, and told that by so doing they lowered the whole breed. But they simply could not be made to understand, and all over the district they continue to allow their valued European pigs to mis-breed.

Rh