brother i.e., with a marriage in which e was married by A's brother.
I hope these examples will be sufficient to show how a number of features which might otherwise seem so absurd as to suggest a system of relationship gone mad become natural and intelligible, even obvious, if it were once the established practice of the people to marry the daughter's daughter of the brother.
Such inquiries as I was able to make confirmed the conclusion that the Pentecost marriage was with the granddaughter of the brother rather than with the daughter of the daughter herself. After I had been put on the track of the explanation by John Pantutun I had the chance of talking to only one native of Pentecost, unfortunately not a very good informant. From his evidence it appeared that the marriage I had inferred from the system of relationship even now occurs in the island, but only with the granddaughter of the brother, and that marriage with the own granddaughter is forbidden. The evidence is not as complete as I should like, but it points to the actual existence in the island of a peculiar form of marriage from which the extraordinary features of its system of relationship directly follow.
When I returned to England I found that this marriage was not unique, but had been recorded among the Dieri of Australia,[1] where, as I have already mentioned, it is associated with peculiar
- ↑ Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 164, 177.
