The History of Melanesian Society/Banks Islands (VI)

Chapter VI

BANK ISLANDS

Birth and Childbirth Customs, Relations with Animals and Plants, Magic, Possession, Money, Canoes, Decorative Art.

Birth and Childbirth Customs.

At childbirth the woman's own mother and sisters will not be present nor will the own mother or sister of her husband, but women who are called sister or moth through the classificatory system will attend and the husband's own sister will choose one of them to act especially as midwife.

The fact that a birth is about to take place is kept as quiet as possible, and it was said that this is done in order that there shall not be too many visitors, each of who would have to be paid for attendance, while it is evident that the custom connect with adoption already considered often make it desirable to keep the even as much as possible from general knowledge.

When the child is born the cord called gaputoi is divided with a bamboo knife (even now a steel knife would not be used for this purpose). The afterbirth is buried under the fireplace of a house and a fire is kept burning above it, the idea being to assist in the drying of the remains of the cord on the body of the child, but if the navel becomes inflamed, the fire is extinguished. The child is kept in the house till strong, the idea being that the afterbirth which is part of him is in the house, and if the child is taken to another village before he is strong he will be sulky and cross because part of him remains in the house; he has been taken away from his nigina (or nest) which is a name for the fireplace and the part of the house surrounding it. The afterbirth is regarded as the house of the child before it is born.

When the piece of cord left on the child separates it is tied up in a piece of umbrella-palm leaf and offered by the father to his own sister. He knows, however, that she will refuse it and he then gives it to another woman, whom he calls sister according to the classificatory system, who hangs it round her neck, the leaf containing the cord having been so completely covered with string that it is not visible. She keeps this on her neck till the child is about two years old when the father must give a feast. it was said that sometimes when a woman has a bad disposition and has a grudge against her brother, she will accept the gift of the cord, rejoicing in the prospect of the expense and trouble to which she will thus have the opportunity of putting him later. After the feast has been given, the cord in its covering is hung up in the rafters of the house above the fire. The father's sister will also ask for some off the nail-parings of the child and keep them on her neck, and it would seem that these also might be made the occasion of a feast. The father's sister may also keep her nephew's nail-parings when he is older. I was told of a case in which the father's sister of an adult man picked up some of his nail-parings when he was going to another island and when he returned he had to give her a feast.

It is regarded as a good thing to have twins if these are both of the same sex. If they are a boy and girl they are regarded as man and wife, but my informant could not tell me what was done on such an occasion. It is probable that in old days they were killed.

Before the birth takes place firewood, torches and coconuts are brought into the house. When the pain begins, the husband opens with his own hands anything covering up; he takes the string off any bowl, removes the string with which the door is fastened and takes down anything which is hanging up. While bearing a child, a woman must not eat fish caught with a net or with a hook, though she may eat that shot shot with an arrow. The idea is that the child will be entangled as in the net or on the hook and will not come forth freely.

The parents must remain in the house for some time after the child is born. The father must not do any work for five days (till the cord has separated) and he must not do any hard work for a hundred days. He must not eat food which comes from a place where people have been doing an oloolo rite. nor must he go to such a place himself. If by any chance this happened, he would have to submit to a ceremony to remove the source of danger to the child. For some time after childbirth any visitor who has come from the beach or from a distance must not go straight into the hoise but must wait outside for a time.

Directly after the birth of a first-born male there takes place a ceremony called kalo vagalo. A little bow is put into the hand of a child and a woman stands with the child in her arms at the door of the house. All the maraui or maternal uncles of the child collect outside and shoot at the woman and child with blunt arrows or throw lemons at them. The woman moves the child about so as to diminish the change of its being struck, and after a time the father puts an end to the business by paying money to the uncles. When the woman brings the child back into the house she hands it to the sister of the father who holds the child with her arms straight out till it trembles, and then says:&mdash; "You and tawarig go up into the cultivated land; you with your bow and tawarig with the basket, digging yams; you shooting birds, tawarig breaking up the firewood; you two come bak into the village; she will take food and carry it into the house; you will take your food in the gamal. When she has said those words she lifts up the child.  The tawarig of this speech refers to the woman who will marry the child when he grows up; the wife will be the tawarig  of the father's sister and the passage should probably read "you and my tawarig."

When a male child goes out for the first time the father and mother go with it and tie leaves together and throw them down on the path so that when the people see them they will know that a male child has been added to the community.

Before the birth of a first-born child, probably at an early stage of pregnancy, the husband gives a feast, and a rite called valugtokwa is performed. The wife's brother chooses four male relatives each off whom gives him half a fathom of shell-money and to each the brother himself and half a fathom, so that there are altogether four fathoms, and the father of the child provides eight fathoms. A yam pudding has been made which is taken out of the oven and put in the open place in the middle of the village and the wife's brother then puts his four lengths of money on the pudding so that they lie from east to west. He then goes for water to a particular spring which is used for this purpose only (there is only one such spring in Mota) and brings the water back in a leaf of taro, which he has tied up carefully to hold it. He must do this alone and in absolute silence. The expectant mother then stands at the west end of the strings of money and her brother takes up one off the four fathoms and puts it over her right shoulder, and so with the other three fathoms. The woman then takes the money off her shoulder and holds it hanging down over the pudding while certain words are said by the father's sister.

The husband puts his eight fathoms on the pudding lying from north to south; then takes them up again and gives them to his wife who hands them to her brother. The latter takes the water he has brought and, standing behind the woman, slowly puts the leaf containing the water over the woman's head till t comes below her chin, the woman standing quite still. He then pinches the bottom of the leaf-cup and if the water squirts out the child will be a boy; if not, a girl.

The whole proceeding must be carried out in absolute silence and the rite is often done at night to ensure the absence of noise.

The sex of a child is also believed to be known before birth by means of dreams, and when the sex is already known in this way or through the rite which has been described the child may sometimes be named before birth. My informant could not say what would be done if the prenatal diagnosis turned out to be incorrect. Whether the naming is done before or after birth there is no special ceremony or feast.

In all cases there is a feast ten days after the birth, when those who have been present at the birth receive their payment. The women paid on this occasion give coconut oil which is drunk by the parents of the child.

The foregoing account applies to the island of Mota and the following was obtained from a native of Motlav.

When a woman gives birth to her first child all the women of the village, sogoi of both parents, assemble in the house.

They bring their mats and sleep there, the gathering being used. Amoung the chiefs it seems that royal succession was counted in both lines and, as we have seen, chieftainship of the highest rank depended on both parents having been of royal rank and in these cases it is certainly nor correct to speak of succession as matrilineal. As we have seen also, the grade of the marriage and the rank of the children depends quite as much on the rank of the father as that of the mother, and the only case in which it seems applicable to use the term matrilineal succession is when the child has only one parent of chief's rank. When it is the mother who has the rank of a chief it seems that the offspring belongs to the chiefs, though it is recognised that the chiefly rank is stained by the plebeian condition of the father. If, on the other hand, it is the father that is of higher rank in a mixed marriage, it seems that the offspring is not counted as a chief at all, and the Wawaians seem themselves to recognise that this is due to the uncertainty of the male parentage.

It may be noted that in the account of Mr Poepoe, the marriage called la'a-uli alii, in which a chief of high rank marries a chiefess of lower rank, is given before that in which a chiefess of hihg rank marries one of lower rank, the kaujau alii marriage. If this order is significant it would seem to imply that it is the rank of the husband rather than that of the wife which determines the poistion in the series of royal of princely Hawaian marriages. I do not know, however, whether any importance can be attached to the exact order in which the marriages in question were places as they were recounted to me.

I am not aware of the existence of any data which would show whether there were other features of social organisation which can have made the mode of succession important. One would suppose that there must have been laws to regulate the inheritance of property amoung the chiefs but I do not know how far this kind of inheritance was on the same lines as the succession of royal rank.

Amoung the ordinary people it seems to be doubtful whether there existed anything which could be called descent or inheritance because there was little or nothing to descend or be inherited. There were no clans and there seems to have been nothing of the nature of individual property, the whole of the land and all goods being absolutely at the disposal of the chiefs. Nevertheless, there must have been something which was passed on from person to person, even though it may have been liable to the claims of the chiefs, but I failed wholly to discover what was done in this case.

THe evidence thus shows clearly that in Hawaian society in its ancient condition there existed the institution of individual marriage, though undoubtedly accompanied by much sexual laxity and with the possession of marital rights by others than the husband. This condition is supported by several other features of the social order. There is the great richness of the relationship system in terms expressive of connections by marriage. There are definite terms for many relationships by marriage and further there is a community in which marriage was a definite institution. There is also the equal certainty about male and female parentage to which I have already referred. Further, I obtained an account of an incident from an old man which is difficult top reconcile with any other state of society than one in which there was a definite union between a man and a woman.

This incident was related to me by an old man named Naonohielua. The mother of this man, Kekaula, was regarded as the daughter of Kikipani and Malai and this was so described in the pedigree as it was given to me.

Her actual parentage was, however, different. Kikipani and Malai after some years of married life had no child, so Maluai, the husband of Kikipani's sister, was called upon and the result was the birth of Kekaula. Maluai was the kaikoeke of Kikipani but became his punalua when his services were thus used.

Naonohielua is now about 74 years of age and his mother, if alive, would be probably about 100. We have thus the record of an incident which occurred a hundred years ago and the fact that another man was expressly called in to beget a child for a couple without issue seems to show that sexuial relations external to marriage cannot have been so constant as feature of Hawaian marriage as in usually supposed. Naonohielua is an old man whose memory was failing to some extent and in order to get a clear idea of the exact relations of the five persons concerned he arranged five sandals, two pairs representing Kikipani and his wife on the one hand and Maluai and his wife on the other, while the fifth sandal represented Kikaula. His relation of the whole incident was quite spontaneous and he was obviously much interested in this story of the old days.

I refer to this matter at some length because it has been supposed that Hawaian society was characterised by relations between the sexes which approached a condition of complete promiscuity without any of the restrictions which are almost universal amoung other races, a view which was supported by the undoubted existence of consanguineous marriages amoung the Hawaians. We have seen, however, that there is every reason to believe that consanguineous marriages only took place amoung the chiefs and amoung them perhaps only for a special purpose, and there is no reason whatever to suppose that we have in the consanguineous marriages of the Hawaians any indication of a state of society characterised by the general existence of such marriages. Further, there seems to be definite evidence of the existence of wide restrictions on marriage, much wider than those of the civilised world, which were dependent on ties of kinship of the same kind as those found amoung many peoples of rude culture.

At the same time there can be no doubt that in general the sexual relations of the Hawaians were lax and that side by side with the presence of individual marriage as a social institution there existed, especially amoung the chiefs, a state of very general laxity, while the claims of the chiefs on the women of the ordinary people (and of the women on chiefly rank on the man of the lower class) extended this laxity to the relations of the whole community.

Part of this laxity was due to the existence of certain definite institutions. One was the claim which a chief had over the virgins of his district. a right allied to that of the jus primate noctis which appears to have existed in the Hawaian Islands, but without the limitation which is implied in the title of that right. Another and more important institution is that of punalua. There existed amoung the Hawaians a definite system of cicisbeism in which the paramours had a recognised status. Of these paramours those who would seem to have had the most definite status were certain relatives, viz. the brothers of the husband and the sisters of the wife. These formed a group within which all the males had marital rights over all the females, and I was told that even now, nearly a century after the general acceptance of Christianity, these rights of a punalua are still sometimes recognised, and give rise to cases which come before the law courts where they are treated as cases of adultery. In addition to these punalua who had recognised status owing to their relationship to the married couple, there were often other paramours apparently chosen freely at the will of husband or wife.