the same in Lepers' Island; where the offending man had also to make large payment to the near relatives of the woman with whom he had offended, so as to appease their anger, and 'fence against' the fault. Cases of incest of this kind were always rare in all the islands, so strong was the feeling against intercourse within the kin. (2) The feeling on the other hand that the intercourse of the sexes was natural where the man and woman belonged to different divisions, was shewn by that feature of native hospitality which provided a guest with a temporary wife. That this is done now or has lately been done is readily denied in the Solomon and Banks' Islands, but is not denied in the Northern New Hebrides; there can be little doubt that it was common everywhere. But the woman supplied to the guest was of necessity one who might have been his wife; the companionship of one of his own kin never could be allowed.
It will be convenient in the more particular treatment of this subject, to take examples first from the Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides, where the people are divided into two kins, and then from the Solomon Islands, where the divisions are more than two. The same two divisions run through the Banks' Islands, with the Torres Islands and the Northern New Hebrides. A Banks' islander wherever he goes in his own group knows his own kin, and if he passes to Aurora in the New Hebrides he finds the same. The Aurora men know well who are their kin in Pentecost and Lepers' Island; the Lepers' islanders know theirs in Espiritu Santo. Strange, therefore, as the language is to a Mota man in Pentecost, or to a Lepers' islander in Motalava, each is at home in a way which would be impossible to him in the Solomon Islands[1]. In neither the Banks' Islands nor the New Hebrides is there a name to distinguish the division or kindred; nor is there any badge or emblem belonging to either; in their small communities every neighbour is well known. Each of the divisions is in
- ↑ A Lepers' Island youth staying at Mota was delivered from some little difficulty with the remark, O tanun we wia gai, gate tanun ta Qauro, He is a man of the right sort, not a Solomon islander.
