36 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



one spouse. 1 The peculiarities of the marital arrange- 

 ments of both Timor and Borneo seem to point to a 

 conflict between the old motherright and the father- 

 right which is superseding or has superseded it. 2 



The Wagawaga tribe, on Tauwara, British New 

 Guinea, reckon kinship in the female line ; and con- 

 formably thereto the husband goes to live among the 

 wife's kin. 3 This is the custom on Ruck, one of the 

 Caroline Islands ; 4 and concerning the Mortlock 

 Islands, usually regarded as belonging to the Caroline 

 group, we are told that the man who marries a woman 

 of another tribe must go to dwell with her and culti- 

 vate her land. He does not relinquish his own land 

 at his own home, but he brings the produce to his 

 wife's family. 5 The natives of the Melanesian island 

 of Rotuma are organised in exogamous clans de- 

 scendible in the female line, and each dwelling by 

 itself. On marriage the husband as a rule entered the 

 wife's clan, or hoag, and came to live with her. In the 

 case of a big chief or the head of a clan, or if the man 



1 Roth, op. cit. ii. clxxix. citing Dr. Schwaner. If we may 

 believe Dr. Schwaner's report, " Members of the same family are 

 allowed to contract marriage, nay, even the nearest relations, brothers 

 and sisters, parents and children." 



2 It is hardly necessary to emphasise the statement already made 

 or implied that the place of residence of husband or wife during the 

 marriage is by no means an infallible test of the existence of male or 

 female kinship. In Australia the prevailing rule, whether the kin be 

 reckoned through males or through females, is that the woman goes 

 to live with her husband. There are, however, a few exceptions ; 

 but they seem to have been insisted on from political reasons 

 (Howitt, 220, 225, 234). 



3 Colonial Rep. No. 131. Brit. New Guinea, 1893-4, 80. 

 1 VAnnee Soc. iv. 328, reviewing Gtobus, Ixxvi. 37 sqq. 



' Bastian, Indonesian, iii. 96. Bastian with his incorrigible 

 negligence professes to quote but gives no reference. 



