ashore. There was a common belief that a stranger would bring with him disease or some other mischief. But it was often a question whether a castaway was a stranger. If he were recognised as belonging to an hostile district, there was no doubt of his fate; but if he fell into the hands of those to whose division, kema or veve, he belonged, he would probably be saved. It is a not uncommon thing that canoes should be blown from Santa Cruz and the Reef Islands to Malanta and Ulawa; the men on board them were not wholly strangers, though personally unknown; they were men and from known lands, not strange beings like white men from without the world. They were therefore received as guests, sometimes establishing themselves after a while by marriage, sometimes waiting an opportunity to return. Many single canoes from time to time have been blown away from Polynesian islands, and have drifted to the Banks' Islands; in many cases the castaways have been kindly treated, and have added a strain to the native race. Within the last forty years men from Tikopia have twice been most kindly received at Mota.
(4) Slaves. There is no such thing as slavery properly so called. In head-hunting expeditions prisoners are made for the sake of their heads, to be used when occasion requires, and such persons live with their captors in a condition very different from that of freedom, but they are not taken or maintained for the purposes of service. In the same islands when a successful attack and massacre enriches the victors with many heads, they spare and carry off children, whom they bring up among their own people. Such a seka will certainly be killed for a head or for a sacrifice before any native member of the community, but he lives as an adopted member, shares the work, pleasures, and dangers of those with whom he dwells, and often becomes a leading personage among them. A refugee or a castaway is not a slave but a guest; his life is naturally much less valued than that of a man of the place, and useful services are expected from him, while he mixes freely and on equal terms with the common people.
