be the orthodox Banksian marriage, and, if the mother's brother's wife had been at one time the same person as the father's sister, it is not surprising that marriage with the latter should have persisted here and there.
A third working hypothesis is suggested by the fact that the father's sister is a member of the opposite veve or social division of the community. We have another example of such relations between people of different social divisions in the help that is often given to a man by his wife's brother,[1] and Mr. A. R. Brown has called my attention to the fact that such relations are frequent in Australia. Is there anything in the functions of the father's sister in the Banks' Islands which may suggest a general explanation of this relationship between members of different social divisions?
Before considering this, I must describe certain features of Banksian society which are of significance in this respect. In the island of Mota the two veve are believed to possess different dispositions; those of one division are learned in social lore, living peaceably with one another, and capable of looking after themselves and their affairs; the members of the other division are ignorant, always quarrelling, and unable to manage their affairs properly. In the old days the members of the two veve hated one another, and even now there is a feeling of hostility between the two. There is a tradition that at one time there was a very long gamal or club-house, the site of which can still be pointed out. One veve lived at one end of this house and the other at the other, and a man who entered the wrong door, or crossed the gamal from his own end to the other, ran the risk of being killed. Further, there are a number of customs of avoidance which receive their most natural explanation as evidence of this old feeling between the two divisions.
The problem we have then to face is the choice of a
- ↑ See Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v., p. 148.
