Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-15

eight and then, if Lumie has any earnest
competitor, 1t may creep slowly up by q Dia
OF now an additional cowrie or palm OIL
shell money until nine pigs is reacheo ana
the girl is knocked down to the highest bid
der. That is all the ceremony there Is.
Luml drives his pigs to the house OF MS
1ather-in-law, leads the girl to MS own
house and she is his wife. To bring as much
as nine pigs girl must be very fat and be
furthermore the daughter of man wealthy
enough to be chief; seven pigs IS a high
figure and few run over six. The buyer
takes his purchase tn his home and looks to
her domestic services to make good the
amount which he has paid.
NOT ALL A MATTER OF PIGS.
Such system affords no room for any Of
the softer sentiments, it would seem, yet
husbands and wives in New Britain dis
play great affection and are as true as
though their marriage had been solemnized
with the most elaborate VOWS. After mar
riage the clan division is ceremonially per-
petuated in the house, not to the extent of
interfering with domestic harmony, but
upon certain solemn occasions. The door
way is in the middle of one of the sides, the
fireplace directly opposite on the other. Be-
tween the two the line is drawn; one side of
the house is the husbands side, the other is
the wife's. Each retains the individual
ownership of their separate property; he
keeps his possessions on his side the line,
she on hers, and nothing is moved from one
side to the other without an equivalent.
The children belonging to each are said 10
be sin the door, and it is only as they
grow up or in the event of the fathers
death that they definitely 60 over to the
mothers side.
In the Solomon Islands this idea Of mar
riage classes has become so obscure as almost
to have passed out of existence. and with 1T
the idea of marriage by purchase. In its
place we find strong development of the
idea of wedding by force, which is the gen.
esis of the marriage ceremonial of all civil
lied communities. The marriage class sur
wives only in the shape of a custom that
man must marry someone not of his own
town. As there is no free intercourse be-
tween town and town, this naturally leads to
WIFE HUNTING FoRAYs
conducted either by stealth or lying in wait
on the part of the single man, or by the
union of a number of bachelors in bold
attack upon some village, followed, in the
event of success, by a division of the spoil.
The captive woman makes such resistance
as is in her power as long as resistance
avails; afterward she settles down content
tempt at escape.
Beyond the Solomons, in the banks group,
marriage still goes in classes and entirely
by purchase. As soon as the purchase
price has been paid over and the bride taken
to her home she can have no intercourse
with his parents nor he with hers. When
accidentally brought face to face with the
tabooed individuals they must ignore them
as though the place in which they stand
were filled with empty air.
AS in the other concerns of life, SO in this
the most important of all, The Fijians seem
to have shown the fullest flower of bari barrie
manhood. Space was afforded for the
growth of affection and marriage was not
forced upon the women. From this sprang
happy homes, and to this is undoubtedly
due the fact that the FL ian race shows no
sign of dwindling before the white men like
the Hawaiians and other Polynesians who
were always lax in their views of marriage.
WILLIAM CHURCHILL.