[79] According to Dr. Seligmann, among the Koita the forbidden degrees of relationship extend to third cousins (Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 82); whereas it will be seen that among the Mafulu it only extends, as between people of the same generation, to first cousins.  But a Mafulu native who was grandson of the common ancestor would be prohibited from marrying his first cousin once removed (great-granddaughter of that ancestor) or his first cousin twice removed (great-great-granddaughter of that ancestor).

[80] But see p. 178, note 1.

[81] Half-a-dozen years ago, before open systematic killing and cannibalism were checked, it was a Kuni custom, when a woman died in her confinement, to bury the living baby with the dead mother.  I have not heard of this custom in Mafulu, and do not know whether or not it exists, or has existed, there; but as regards matters of this sort the Mafulu and the Kuni are very similar.  My statement that there is no burying alive must be taken subject to the possibility of this custom.

[82] This custom is found elsewhere.

[83] From Dr. Haddon’s distribution chart in Vol.  XVI. of The Geographical Journal, it will be seen that the Mafulu district is just about at the junction between his spear area and his bow and arrow area.

[84] I have never seen the animal called the “Macgregor bear,” and I do not know what it is.  The Fathers assured me it was a bear; but in view of the great unlikelihood of this, I consulted the authorities at the Natural History Museum, and they think it is probably one of the marsupials.  It is named after Sir William Macgregor.  It is found in the mountains, where the forest is very thick.

[85] Compare the Motumotu (Toaripi) practice of rubbing the dogs’ mouths with a special plant, referred to by Chalmers (Pioneering in New Guinea, p. 305).

[86] The birds of paradise which dance in trees include, I was told, what the Fathers called the “Red,” the “Blue,” the “Black,” the “Superb” and the “Six-feathered.”  Those which dance on the ground include the “Magnificent.”

[87] In Mekeo the weir is made with wicker-work, at the openings in which basket fish-traps are placed.

[88] Pioneering in New Guinea, pp. 3 and 4.

[89] Dr. Stapf tells me that taro is usually propagated by means of tubers or division of crowns, that is that either the whole tuber is planted or it is cut up, as potatoes are done, into pieces, each of which has an eye, and each of which is planted.  It would appear that the Mafulu method, as explained to me, amounts to much the same thing, the only difference being that instead of planting a crown, or a piece with an eye from which a fresh shoot will proceed, they let that shoot first grow into a young plant and then transplant the latter.

[90] I have examined at the British Museum some net work of the dwarf people of the interior of Dutch New Guinea, brought home by the recent expedition organised by the British Ornithologists’ Union, and found it to be similar in stitch to the Mafulu network.