Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1890-08-08
NINE PIGS FOR A BRIDE.
A MATRIMONIAL AUCTION SALE
AMONG SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS.
Girls Are Secluded for Years and
Then Sold to the Highest Bidder
Fat Girls in Demand

GlrlS Are 0eCluQeu IOr 1eaFS anu
Then Sold to the Highest Bidder
Fat Girls in Demand.
Every New British community is
sharply divided into two clans, known
respectively as the Maramara and the
Pikalaba. They arc most intimately
associated in all the business and
pleasure of life, they live IN the same
houses, in fact, no household can exist
without having representatives of each
clan. That there may never be any
doubt of the clan to which any par
ticular individual belongs the device of
the clan is prominently displayed in tat
tooed lines upon his back and breast
Far from being a division of the COM
munity, these two clans tend toward its
closer union, for no person may marry a
member of his own clan, but must choose
from the other. This plan is still further
complicated by the subdivision of each
clan into four coordinate groups which
are named respectfully after some fish,
plant, bird or beast. The natural object
whose name is borne by each group, be-
comes in some sort its totem and in tat
tooing upon the body and in rude carving
upon the doorway is displayed as a de-
vice. The group in each clan which bear
a kindred device are looked upon as too
closely related to allow of intermarriage
between members of each although their
clans are indistinct. Likewise the in
dividual must not marry into the group
of either parent or one cognate Herewith
in the other clan. This may seem far
from clear concrete example will serve
for illustration. Remember that there
can be no doubt about the clan and group
of any individual, for the most cursory
glance at his body will at once show his
position.
Lumie we will take for example,
young man who has built himself house,
who owns whole fishing net and has
the equity of yam plantation or SO and
many cocoanuts. His house seems lonely
and he wants wife. This is how he
goes to work. His own father belonged
to the Pikalaba clan and the fish group,
his mother was Maramara of the plant
group; thus, he, inheriting nothing from
his father and everything from his
mother, is likewise Maramara plant.
He is therefore debarred from marriage
with any member of plant or fish group,
but must restrict his choice to the Pika-
laba birds and beasts, say to one fourth
of the girl population of his town. This
is indeed no great hardship to him, for
he has known from his earliest child
hood that some of the maidens were
positively prohibited to him, and by
the the time his thoughts bend toward
matrimony he must have become re-
signed to his fate and is prepared to con-
fine his attentions to every fourth girl. A
young man so prosperous as Lumie seems
to be could not be expected to mate with
any but the daughter of family equally
as wealthy as his own. The poorer girls
whom he will see about the town may
become wives to him, but they must wait
until he has made selections of his chief
wife and then they without any cere-
mony are summoned to take the minor
positions, which are in little different
from slavery. But of the maidens of high
degree he has no view, for they are all
carefully Gagged at their seminary in the
bush under the protection of the dread
tabu. Upon morning early the women
of the town are in commotion; they have
learned through some mysterious channel
that girl will on that day be brought
home from her seclusion of from six to
eight years. Who the debutante may be
they do not know, but they glecfully
spread their news about the town. All
other plans must yield to the great
event; the fishers on this day draw no
nets, the warriors grant one days respite
to the towns on either hand-all busy
themselves with guessing who it is whose
education has been completed and in alb
surb speculation as to what she will fetch
As the sun climbs high and nearer to
its midday point the villagers flock out
along the path which leads to the girls
retreat and crowd about the latticed
hedge from which dangle the cloth
streamers and filet or hair which mark
the tabu; we'll to the front will be found
Lumie and any others who may be ready
for marriage. Upon the other side of
the slight bulwark people are heard NOV
ing about, and at the moment of high
noon the guardian of the young girls ap-
pears and leads into view her charge, who
perhaps would blush if she were not as
black as bag of SCOT. After one mo-
ment of interested inspection, murmur
of dissatisfaction arises from many of the
young men, who find her to belong to a
clan and group prohibited to them. But
not from Lumie. He spies upon her
breast the Pickalaba mark, and tatooed
above it the outstretched wings of a
bird; by this he knows that she is eligi-
BILE. Led by the chief and by all the
young men who seek to marry her, the
young woman goes down to her old home
in the village, and mods and speaks to
those whose faces are yet familiar after
her long absence. She sits upon small
mat before her fathers door to receive
her friends, and at her side sits her
guardian, who now and again conde-
scends to gratified smile when one and
another compliment her upon the fatness