Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/414

 fiction of native belief comes nearer to reality. A man of intelligence, of strong will, personality, and temperament, will have greater success with women than a beautiful but soulless dullard — in Melanesia as in Europe. A man who is convinced that he is going the right way to work; a man who has the energy to find out who has the best magic and the industry to acquire and learn it, such a man will be good at love-making as well as at magic. The native belief thus expresses some truth, though it is psychological rather than physical or occult, and refers to results rather than to mechanism.

Gomaya was a case in point. The five sons of To'uluwa and Kadamwasila were all pleasant and clever, attractive and enterprising, and were all renowned for their love magic. As a matter of fact, the first and last of the formulas here given I received from Yobukwa'u who, knowing only two out of the four charms, yet achieved an incestuous love-affair with his father's youngest wife, several adulteries, and two engagements one after the other. All these affairs were attributed to love magic; as was the case with Kalogusa, his younger brother, who subdued Yobukwa'u's fiancée, Isepuna. Another of the five brothers, Gilayviyaka, with whose intrigues too we are already acquainted, was also reputed to be an expert at love magic. Many more examples could be adduced, but it is better to keep to the more notorious cases.

Bagido'u, the nephew and heir-apparent of the principal chief, an extremely intelligent and pleasant informant, was ill of some internal wasting sickness, probably tuberculosis. We have already heard of his domestic