Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/230

Rh In the article already quoted {Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1916) I gave verbatim a remark of one of my informants about pigs, obtained early in the course of my field-work. "They copulate, copulate, presently the female will give birth." My comment was: "Thus here copulation appears to be the u'ula (cause) of pregnancy." This opinion, even in its qualified form, is incorrect. As a matter of fact, during my first visit to the Trobriands, after which this article was written, I never entered deeply into the matter of animal procreation. The concise native utterance quoted above, cannot, in the light of subsequent fuller information, be interpreted as implying any knowledge of how pigs really breed. As it stands, it simply means that vaginal dilation is as necessary in animals as in human beings. It also implies that, according to native tradition, animals are not subject in this, as in many other respects, to the same causal relations as man. In man, spirits are the cause of pregnancy: in animals—it just happens. Again, while the Trobrianders ascribe all human ailments to sorcery, with animals disease is just disease. Men die because of very strong evil magic; animals—just die. But it would be quite incorrect to interpret this as evidence that the natives know, in the case of animals, the natural causes of impregnation, disease, and death; while in man they obliterate this knowledge by an animistic superstructure. The true summary of the native outlook is that they are so deeply interested in human affairs that they construct a special tradition about all that is vital for man; while Rh