174 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



account for the difference in manners between the 

 Maoris and their Polynesian kinsmen. The observer 

 just quoted contrasts the sexual ethics of the Sand- 

 wich Islanders, for instance, with those of the New 

 Zealanders. " In Hawaii," he says, " whether the 

 woman was married or single, she would have been 

 thought very churlish and boorish if she refused such 

 a slight favour as " the embrace of a masculine " friend 

 of the family." 1 A missionary quoted by Morgan 

 declares that the natives of the Sandwich Islands had 

 hardly more modesty or shame than so many animals. 

 " Husbands had many wives and wives many husbands, 

 and exchanged with each other at pleasure." 2 Judge 

 Lorin Andrews of Honolulu writing to Morgan and 

 explaining the word punalua, applied by a man to the 

 husbands of his wife's sisters, observes : " The rela- 

 tionship of punalua is rather amphibious. It arose 

 from the fact that two or more brothers with their 

 wives, or two or more sisters with their husbands, were 

 inclined to possess each other in common ; but the 

 modern use of the word is that of dear friend or 

 intimate companion"* The testimony to this posses- 

 sion in common by small groups of husbands and 

 wives in the Sandwich Islands seems to put the 

 custom beyond doubt. I am not concerned now to 

 discuss the theory of group-marriage based upon it 

 by the distinguished American anthropologist. For 

 our present purpose all that is necessary is to point out 

 that the strict taboo of a wife to a single husband was 



1 J. A. I. xix. 104. 



1 Morgan, Anc. Soc. 428, quoting Bartlett, Historical Sketch of 

 the Missions, &c. t in the Sandwich Islands. Cf. 415. 



3 Ibid. 427, citing also other testimony to the same effect. 



