PRIMITIVE AGEICULTURAL RACES 187 



supposed to be gifted with a power inherited from her mother 

 of causing women to become " hageabani ", hterally incapable 

 of having more children. Suppose that a woman considers that 

 she has had enough children, she will by stealth seize an oppor- 

 tunity of consulting such a woman and will pay for services. 

 The woman gifted with the power sits down behind and as close 

 as possible to her patient, over whose abdomen she makes passes 

 while muttering incomprehensible charms. At the same time 

 herbs or roots are burnt, the smoke of which the patient inhales.' ^ 

 Such practices are obviously purely magical, and are quite 

 ineffective. There are many definite statements with regard to 

 particular races that no effective practices are known. In a few 

 cases it is asserted that conception can be and is prevented. 

 Krieger, for instance, says that in what was German New Guinea 

 methods of preventing conception are known.^ Pfeil gives 

 a circumstantial account of a method said to be employed in 

 New Ireland.^ It seems clear, nevertheless, that the prevention 

 of conception can be of but little importance in this region. 



30. There is the same remarkable unanimity of evidence with 

 regard to the small average size of families in Oceania as else- 

 where. In New Zealand ' families are usually small in number '.'* 

 According to Dieffenbach, ' families are not large ; there are rarely 

 more than two or three children ',^ while Brown says ' they have 

 very few children. Large families are never seen among them ; 

 perhaps two would be a high average compared with the number 

 of marriages.' ^ There are rarely more than three children in 

 a family in the Western Islands of the Torres Straits ; ' in the 

 Eastern Islands the number varies from two to six, leaving child- 

 less marriages out of account.^ In the Sandwich Islands the 

 average is said to be three.^ ' There were few instances of large 

 families ' in Samoa ; ' four or five would be the average.' ^° Three 

 is said to be the average among the Aru Islanders,^i while in the 

 Pelew Islands marriages are reported to be often childless. ^'^ * I 

 have never known ', says Melville of the Marquesas, ' of more 

 than two youngsters living together in the same home, and but 



1 Seligman, J. A. I., vol. xxxii, p. 303. - Krieger, Neu-Ouinea, p. 165. 



* Pfeil, Studien und Beobachtungen, p. 31. * Angas, loo. cit., p. 314. 



5 Dieffenbach, loc. cit., p. 33. ' Brown, Neiv Zealand, p. 40. ' Haddon, 



J. A. I., vol. xix, p. 359. * Cambridge Anthropological Expedition, vol. iii, 



p. 108. » Kramer, Die Samoa- Inseln, p. 335. " Turner, Samoa, 



p. 83. " Ribbe, loc. cit., p. 194. '- Kubary, Journal des Museum 



Oodeffroy, vol. i, p. 54. 



