Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/82

Rh, such as gardening or love-making, the control of the weather or human health, where at first glance there appears to be no association with one sex rather than the other. Yet garden magic is invariably a man's concern and women never perform the important public rites, most scrupulously observed and highly valued by the natives, which are carried out by the village magician over the gardens of the whole community. Even those phases of gardening, such as weeding, which are undertaken exclusively by women, have to be inaugurated by the male garden magician in an official ceremony. Wind, sunshine, and rain are also controlled entirely by male hands and mouths.

In certain mixed activities a man or a woman can equally well perform the required magic, and some minor rites of private garden magic, used by each individual for his or her own benefit, can be carried out indiscriminately by men or women. There is the magic of love and beauty, of which the spells are recited by anyone who suffers from unrequited love or needs to enhance his or her personal charm. Again, on certain occasions, such, for instance, as the big tribal festivals, the spells of beauty are publicly recited by women over men (ch. xi, sec. 3), and, at other times, men apply a form of beauty magic to their own persons and ornaments.

The most definite allocation of magical powers to one Rh