864 MYSTIC ISLES 



their mothers' totems, a man might in rare instances, 

 even with this barrier, wed his own daughter. This has 

 happened in Buka and in North Bougainville. 



The plan of adoption in Polynesia is matched to a 

 degree by the fosterage common in Ireland in early 

 days. There children were sent to be reared in the fam- 

 ilies of fellow-clansmen of wealth. At a year they left 

 their own thresholds, and their fosterage ended only at 

 marriage. Every fostered person was under obliga- 

 tion to provide for the old age of his foster-parents, and 

 the affection arising from this relationship was usually 

 greater and regarded more sacred than that of blood 

 relationship. This is true to-day of the Tahitians. 



"But children nowadays are often brought up by their 

 own parents," said Mme. Tetuanui, rising to prepare 

 the dejeuner, and I for a swim in the lagoon, "and if 

 adopted, they go from one home to the other as they 

 will. Parents are not as willing as before to let go 

 their children ; for whereas my grandmother had fifteen, 

 I have none, and few of us have many. We are made 

 sterile by your civilization. Tetuanui and I were 

 happy and able to persuade the mothers of twenty-five 

 to give their infants to us because we were childless and 

 were chiefs and well-to-do. Our race is passing so fast 

 through the miseries the white has brought us that little 

 ones are as precious as life itself." 



