1442 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



one-sex groups only, unless a war-captured 

 prostitute was in the village.^ For the girl, 

 the long, dull, incessantly chaperoned pe- 

 riod between betrothal, which ended her 

 childhood, and marriage was broken by one 

 bright event, menarche, which men believetl 

 to be the only time a woman menstruated 

 without having had intercourse. All the girls 

 of the same age stayed with the just-nubile 

 girl for a month, and the house party ended 

 with a ceremonial in which she was blessed 

 by a paternal aunt, so: 



May fire be to her hand, 



May she kindle forehandodly the fire of 



her mother-in-law, 

 In the house of the noble one who receives 



the exchange, 

 May she blow the house fire, 

 Providing well for the funeral feast, the 



marriage feast, the birth feast, 

 She shall make the fire swiftly, 

 Her eyes shall see clearly by its liglit. 



Then the group of girls, dressed in skirts of 

 money which would also be used for bridal 

 costumes and marriage ceremonies, paraded 

 the village, leaving fire and food on the 

 doorstep of the nubile girl's relatives. 



The boy's parallel ceremony was individ- 

 ual. At puberty his ears were pierced and 

 he went through a period of ritual seclusion, 

 when an older paternal relative pronounced 

 a charm over him, so: 



The mouth turn toward shell money 

 The shell money is not plentiful 

 Let the taro turn the mouth toward it, 

 Toward plentifulness. 

 Toward greatness. 



Let it become the making of great economic 



transactions. 

 Let him overhaul and outstrip the others. 



May he become rich in dog's teetli, 



Attaining many 



Toward the attainment of much shell money . . . 



Thus the attainment of sexual pul)crty 

 became the occasion for stressing the prin- 

 cipal value of the society, the industrious 

 pursuit of wealth which was to be used con- 

 tinuously in transactions. The boy's charm 

 goes on: 



Let him become rich, 



Let him walk within the house, virtuou.sly, 



® This practice was forbidden by government 

 in 1928 but was still vividiv remembered. 



He must not walk upon the center board 



of the house floor. 

 He must call out for an invitation (to enter) 

 He must call out announcing his arrival to 



women. 

 That they may stand up to receive him. 



Absolute circumspection of sexual behavior 

 at all times from youth to age was de- 

 manded of women under all circumstances 

 and of men except where women from an- 

 other tribe were involved. Sometimes a cap- 

 tured woman was kept as a prostitute. In 

 this case, the men had to take the prostitute, 

 who was regarded as the property of her 

 captor who hired her services to others, with 

 them wherever they went, lest the women of 

 the village kill her. 



Each house was presided over by the 

 ghost of the most recently dead male mem- 

 ber who prospered the fishing and the 

 trade and protected the health of his house- 

 hold members as long as they practiced im- 

 peccable moral behavior (which included 

 even refraining from gossip about sexual 

 matters) and worked with unflagging indus- 

 try. Illness, which most frequently took the 

 form of malaria, was regarded as a punish- 

 ment for some moral defection or economic 

 omission, often very slight, which must be 

 confessed and atoned for by more hard 

 work. People were active, nervous, and driv- 

 ing and lived under great tension. Men 

 died before their eldest sons had children; 

 women were as active and tense as men, 

 playing a vigorous role in economic affairs. 



The society grouped together its prin- 

 cipal preoccupations, sexual morality for its 

 female members and incessant wealth-get- 

 ting activities. Several years after puberty, 

 depending almost entirely on the financial 

 exigencies of the older men who were financ- 

 ing the marriage exchanges, the young cou- 

 ple were married. The ceremonies were elab- 

 orate and were focused on bringing the 

 over-adorned, property-laden bride into the 

 household of her hostile female relatives- 

 in-law. The bridegroom, overcome with 

 shame, fied from the scene. Consummation 

 of the marriage was expected to take the 

 form of rape, the hymenal bleeding being 

 regarded as first menstruation, whereas me- 

 narche was regarded by the men as a rup- 

 tured vein. Women were so carefully 

 schooled in shame that they did not know 

 that the men did not know that they men- 



