RACES BIBLIOGRAPHY COMMITTEE. 331 
is given by tradition of its origin. (See my “Life in the 
Southern Isles,” pp. 59, 60.) 
Polygamy has been entirely done away with by Christianity. 
In the olden time it was very common, and was not restricted to 
chiefs. As women were rarely slain in war, superfluous females 
were divided out amongst the victorious warriors. The famous 
Arekare, of Mangaia, had ten wives, Parima six, others two 
apiece. In general, if a man of position married the eldest 
girl of a slave-family, the younger sisters became his as a matter 
of course, being only too glad to have a protector. Even amongst 
those of equal rank a man often had two or three sisters to wife 
at the same time. Even now, in Christian times, a woman feels 
herself to be deeply injured if her brother-in-law does not, on the 
death of his wife, ask her to become a mother to his children. 
Children, unless distinctly adopted into another clan, always 
follow the father. The name of the god pronounced at the 
severance of the /wnis umbilicus really determines the clan of the 
infant, as before stated. In war they usually followed the 
father’s kin; but the duty of an adopted son would be to fight 
alongside of his adopted father. Sometimes serfs, forgetting the 
claims of blood, followed their lord to battle. 
Land is the property of the tribe, and must on no account be 
alienated. The adopted son possesses land only so long as he 
goes with the clan, obeys the commands of the elders, and fights 
(if need be) against his nearest of kin for the tribe into which he 
has been adopted. A woman, in general, owns not an inch of 
soil, lest she carry away the right to it into another family. 
Usually she gives up one child at least to her own tribe, the rest 
going to the father’s. When her husband dies, she lives on with 
the tribe as s/ave to her children. She weeds, plants, and eats 
because of them. If they die, she goes back to her tribe as she 
originally came—empty-handed. 
When a chief has only a daughter, and that daughter is 
married (by the father’s arrangement) to a man of inferior (7.e., 
slave) rank, the husband lives with her on land given to her for 
their mutual support (or, as the phrase runs, “land given to her 
to feed her husband.”) In all points she rules the household and 
lands ; but should war break out, Ze may elect to fight by the 
side of his father-in-law, and if victory incline to their side, he is 
no longer counted a slave. Should he go with his own clan to 
fight against his father-in-law’s tribe, the wife may or may not 
go with him. Sometimes the wife, with her children, will stay 
on with her own clan; so that, if victorious, the children will 
share the good things of the mother’s tribe, whilst the unhappy 
father, if not slain in battle, becomes a homeless, hunted fugitive. 
In no case may a woman take into another clan any portion of 
the ancestral lands of her own tribe. The reason of this is 
obvious ; these lands were originally won and subsequently kept 
