Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/87

Rh are taking a bird's-eye view of a native village, and are trying to form a compound moving picture of the life of the community. Casting our glance over the central place, the street, and the surrounding grove and garden land, we see them peopled by men and women mixing freely and on terms of equality. Sometimes they go together to work in the garden, or to collect food-stuffs in the jungle or on the sea-shore. Or else they separate, each sex forming a group of workers engaged in some special activity, and performing it efficiently and with interest. Men predominate on the central place, discussing, perhaps, in a communal gathering the prospects of the garden, or preparing for an oversea expedition or for some ceremony. The street is peopled by women, busying themselves with household work, and there the men will presently join them, helping them to amuse the children or in some domestic task. We can hear the women scold their husbands, usually in a very good-natured manner.

Let us suppose our attention to be drawn to some singular event, to a death, a tribal squabble, a division of inherited wealth, or to some ceremony. We watch it with understanding eyes, and see, side by side, the workings of tribal law and custom, and the play of personal passion and interest. We see the influence of matrilineal principles, the working of paternal rule, usages of tribal authority, and the results of totemic division in the clans and sub-clans. In all this there is a balance between the influence of male and female, the man wields the power while the woman determines its distribution.

Rh