RACES BIBLIOGRAPHY COMMITTEE. 319 
At Kabadi and Nara, girls, on reaching maturity, are kept 
indoors for a long time, well fed, and not allowed to be in the 
sun. When they are to go out a feast is prepared by her parents, 
and she mixes with the company, dressed up with all the finery 
available. 
Girls also have tattoo marks made at various times, and when 
menses appear, the fima/e is made between the legs and back, and 
then she waits until marriage, when her chest is done. 
In Motu and other tribes, lads when about 14 years old, or 
when hair appears, receive the sihi (string). When the parents. 
think the time has arrived he is sent to his aunt on father’s side 
with food, pig, and arm-shells, and she ties on the sihi. He 
receives presents from father’s and mother’s relatives, and visits 
every part of the village. If there is any girl he likes he may 
spend the evenings with her, she lying close to him, it may be on 
his arm, but they must have no intercourse. If he has not been 
betrothed he can then select the girl he wishes for wife, and will 
inform his parents of it. 
There is no circumcision, and the only place I have seen it was 
on Rook Island. 
MARRIAGE. 
Marriage is by payment. After betrothal, the boy’s parents 
and relatives give articles of value to the girl’s parents, also give 
food, fish, wallaby, and pig, when these can be got. Near relatives 
do not marry. 
A young man who has been betrothed will sleep in the girl’s 
house, leaving it before morning light; his parents, knowing where 
he has been, will ask him if he has been with the girl, and if they 
had connection. The same is asked of the girl by her parents, and 
if answered in the affirmative, the girl is that day taken to the 
husband’s house, food is cooked by the friends of both parties, 
husband and wife eat out of one dish, and she remains in the 
husband’s home. Afterwards, final payment is made, the husband’s 
friends carry to the bride’s parents, arm-shells, necklaces, toma- 
hawks, and food. The bride takes home with her to her husband 
cooking pots, water pots, fish net, hunting net, spear and shield, 
bow and arrows. 
Many betrothed ones, not caring for one another, never come 
together, and, the girl marrying another, the payment is made to 
the betrothed. There is generally a good deal of trouble about 
such lapses. 
There is polygamy: it varies in the various tribes—in some 
many, in others few. It depends upon the wealth of a man the 
number of wives he has. The more he has the more food he will 
have, and hence the greater man he becomes. 
Children follow their father’s tribe, but can hold property in 
their mother’s. In war they follow their father’s. Sometimes, 
