Tribal Organisation

Owing to the twofold organisation of exogamic society in hapus or veves a whole list of restrictions, prohibitions, menaces, ramifies through families, and produces a deep influence on the life of these races. The tie by which all men and all women of two different "sides" are connected, is closer than the marriage-tie. Breaches of it are rarely committed and then severely punished. Alliances between people who are "of us" are as bad as incest. The stern law extends even to newly-born children, and twins of opposite sexes fall victims to it. The relation to the parents-in-law has peculiar limitations. The man never utters the name of his father-in-law, and avoids taking down objects that may happen to hang above his head or stepping over his legs. The mother-in-law is avoided as much as possible, and herself avoids looking at her son-in-law; intercourse is only permitted at a distance and with mutually averted faces. If they meet casually, they keep out of each other's way. Mother and son-in-law, and often brother and sister, are careful not to tread in each other's footsteps. If one has walked on the shore, the other does not go there till the tide has obliterated the prints. Towards a brother-in-law the relation is as in the case of a father-in-law; neither his name nor that of son-or daughter-in-law is ever uttered, but mutual intercourse is not forbidden. In Leper Island and in Fiji brother and sister may not talk to each other.

A Tagal Village: Luzon in the Philippines. (From a photograph.)
[Click on picture for higher resolution]

What wonder if the domestic life of a Melanesian family is governed by mistrust, jealousy, and aversion? Other things, too, tend to sap family life. Women during pregnancy remain separate from their husbands; infanticide, polygamy, adoption, have a ruinous effect. The popular philosophy of Fiji says that it is usual for a wife to hate her husband, rarer for a husband to hate his wife, rarest of all for a woman to hate the man by whom she has had a child before marriage. Superficial friendliness is common, but few are conscious of any deeper feeling. There is only one natural feeling which lives here as else-where, and often enough breaks down all barriers, and that is maternal love. Even this is flawed very soon in Fiji by the bad bringing-up of the boys; the father teaches them to beat their mother, and not be cowards enough to do what a woman tells them.

Mother-right

The practice of shutting off a tribal group by the exclusion or subordination of marriages out of the tribe has no doubt political importance, but has never had a favourable effect on the family. Where the societies connected through the mother are able to keep themselves clearly distinct, they are based on a cleavage in the tribe, as in the case of exogamy. Typical cases are the Maori hapu-system, and the East Melanesian veve. Hapu signifies the womb, in the sense of that which bears the family within it. Every hapu has its tutelary god, who is figured as a bundle of reeds; it cultivates the land in common, intermarries, and inherits by "mother-right." The oldest member represents its rights, especially in the event of a partition or division of land. Notwithstanding that the hapu is subdivided into whanau or families, all the members claim relationship with their chief, and bear a common name, which they profess to derive from the most remote ancestor.

Owing to intermarriage within the hapus, together with "mother-right," the hapu-organisation does not run parallel with the village-divisions; as a rule, several hapus are found co-existing in one village or pah. while the same hapu will be distributed among various villages. Another division iwi, exists among the - Maoris, embracing all who came over in the same boat. The name signifies "bone," and thus a deeper foundation, similar to that of the hapu is not excluded. In Melanesia the term "one side of the house" signifies the same thing as hapu, or the two veve (mothers) into which the whole tribe is divided. In Fiji it is veita "root." The children always belong to the mother's family; the husband's nearest relations, by whom his own family is carried on, are his sister's children. A man must always marry a wife from the other group. The two families again branch off into four, and these again into several subdivisions. All who bear a common name regard themselves as blood-relations, and marriages between them are incestuous. This tie is often the only one that holds, and thus it acquires political importance.

Fly-whisk, from the Society Islands
imgage approx 480mm top to bottom. - (Christy Collection.)

Here, as everywhere, the exogamic groups possess cognisances, or, as we might say, family arms; most often animals or plants, to which they believe themselves to be in some way related. Among the Melanesians this symbol is called tainanin or ponto, "resemblance"; among the Polynesians atua. They wear it both in their tattooing and in the ornamentation of their weapons. Inanimate objects also, paddles, nets, whisks, are among these signs, said to have been granted by the gods; and their protective power is honoured by solemn dances. Prohibitions in respect of what may be hunted or eaten are connected with them. That similar relations may at any time come into existence is shown by the sudden cessation of all banana-planting in Ulawu, after an influential man had announced on his death-bed that he was going to turn into a banana.

The sacrifice of the family, as if it were a transitory appearance on the surface of the unchangeable tribe, comes most clearly to view in the regulations as to property and inheritance. The husband can take nothing of his wife's property, while when he dies she only keeps what he has given to her. The brother of the deceased is the rightful heir, while in marrying she loses nothing but her name. The right of the female line is valid in the succession; but the right of the male line has already tried here and there to acquire validity, or has even achieved it to a large extent. Property and rank are conferred by the mother; the king's successors are the male offspring of his sister. Thus in Tonga, in the chiefs' families a high rank was assigned to the elder sister or aunt, in the reigning family indeed higher than that taken by the Tuitonga. In Fiji the brothers first succeeded, and failing these, the sons. No married princess could attain to this rank. Thus, in Pelew the king's wife is never the women's queen, for it is forbidden to marry in the same family; but the women's titles are like those of the men attached to seniority. Thus, in order to avoid any interlacing of the two spheres of sovereignty, the chief may not marry any chief's daughter.

Fly-whisks Chief's insignia), from the Society Islands
image approx 350mm top to bottom. - (Christy Collection.)

The children inherit their mother's home, which often leads to chaotic complications. Relationships by the female side, on which the pedigrees rest, fuses with the atua-system; the alleged sons of the same mother may not injure each other, but also must not marry into each other's families. It is indeed a gift of the gods. Kubary gives the following extraordinary account of the relations existing in the Palau or Pelew Islands : "The King of Molegojok, with which Korror is at hereditary feud, is a native of Aremolunguj, while the King of Korror comes from a Molegojok family; both have to fight against their own homes. Rgogor, the most powerful chief of Korror, is the son of a native of Ngiwal; while Karaj, the first minister of Angarard, and Iraklaj, the King of Molegojok, are sisters' children, and yet in opposite political camps."