TKANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 84S< 



Others, saying to him, 'So-and-so sends you this,' and he then gives his message,, 

 referring, as he does so, to the marks on the message-stick. 



The author gives an explanation of the method adopted for indicating 

 numbers, which fully disposes of the idea that the paucity of numerals in the 

 languages of the Australian tribes arises from any inability to conceive of more- 

 numbers than two, three, or four. 



A messenger of death painted his face with pipe-clay when he set out, but did 

 not in this tribe carry any emblematical token. 



Among the "Wirajuri of New South Wales, when the message was one calling 

 the people together for initiation ceremonies, the messenger carried a ' biill-roarer,' 

 a man's belt, a man's kilt, a bead string, and a white head-band, in addition to the 

 message-stick. 



In New South Wales, the Kaiabara tribe use message-sticks cut in the form of 

 a boomerang, to one end of which a shell is tied. 



As a rule the notches on a message-stick are only reminders to the messenger 

 of the message he is instructed to defiver, and are unintelligible to a man to whom 

 they have not been explained; but certain notches appear to have a definite 

 meaning and to indicate diflerent classes ; and among the Adjadura there is an 

 approach to a fixed rule, according to which these sticks are marked, so that they 

 would convey a certain amoimt of meaning definitely to an Adjadura headman 

 independently of any verbal message. 



5. Social Regulations in Melanesia. 

 By the Rev. R. H. Codrington, D.I). 



Inxrobtjctory.— The part of Melanesia in view comprises the Northern New 

 Hebrides, the Banks' Islands, Sta. Cruz, and the South-eastern Solomon Islands, 

 The Social Regulations which obtain among the people are described from personal 

 observation, and from information given by natives. A considerable portion of 

 the whole subject is thus in view, and with particular difierences there is a general 

 agreement, from which a wider likeness throughout the Melanesian population may 

 be inferred. 



The Social Regulations dealt with are only those relating (I.) to Marriage, and- 

 (II.) to Property. 



I. Social Regulations relating to Marriage. 



1. The entire arrangement of society depends on the division of the whole people,, 

 in every settlement, large or small, into two or more classes, which are exogamous, 

 and in which descent follows the mother. This division comes first of all things in 

 native thought, and all social arrangements are founded upon it. Mankind, to a 

 woman, was divided into husbands and brothers ; womankind, to a man, into 

 wives and sisters— at least, ou about the same level of descent. Illustration from 

 a story. 



2. The members of these divisions are all intermixed in habitation, property, 

 subordination to a chief, and in the well-understood relationship through the 

 father ; the divisions, therefore, are not tribes. 



3. Examples from two regions— («) where these divisions are two, as in the 

 Banks' Islands and Northern New Hebrides; (6) where there are more than two,, 

 as in Florida, in the Solomon Islands. 



(rt) 1. Where there are two divisions there is no name to either. In Mota 

 there are two veve (distinction) ; in Lepers' Island two wai-vung (bunch of fruit). 



2. The divisions are strictly exogamous ; irregular intercourse between mem- 

 bers of the same is a heinous crime ; avoidance of the person and name of father-in- 

 law, &c., is the custom. 



3. No communal marriage in practice, or tradition of it ; yet a latent conscious- 

 ness of the meaning of the words used for husband and wife, mother, &c. The 

 story of Qat shows individual marriage. The levirate, and practice of giving 8. 

 wife to set up a nephew in the world. 



