in-law. It is only when these correspondences are present that there will be any decisive reason for inferring the former existence of the cross-cousin marriage.
The first conclusion, then, is that some of the features found in association with the cross-cousin marriage are of greater value than others in enabling us to infer the former existence of the cross-cousin marriage where it no longer exists. Next, the probability that such features as I am considering are due to the former presence of the cross-cousin marriage will be greatly heightened if this form of marriage should exist among people with allied cultures. An instance from Melanesia will bring out this point clearly.
In the island of Florida in the Solomons it is clear that the cross-cousin marriage is not now the custom, and I could discover no tradition of its existence in the past. One feature, however, of the system of relationship is just such as would follow from the cross-cousin marriage. Both the wife's mother and the wife of the mother's brother are called vungo.
Florida is not only near Guadalcanar where the cross-cousin marriage is practised, (the two islands are within sight of one another), but their cultures are very closely related. In such a case the probability that the single feature of the Florida system which follows from the cross-cousin marriage has actually had that form of marriage as its antecedent becomes very great, and this conclusion
