Kinship. 175 



the Fijian, Tavalenggu. The word for my brother's wife, 

 a female speaking, is Ndauvenggu. I am unable to explain the 

 etymology of Ndauvenggu, but that of Tavalenggu is significant 

 enough. The word is made up of Ta, a negative particle ; 

 ■vcde, house ; and nggu, the possessive sufiix. Tavalenggu, then, 

 means "not of my house." Now, the Rev. K H. Codrington, 

 of the Melanesian mission, after informing me of the two 

 veve, or divisions, of Mota, tells me that a man always 

 speaks of those of the other veve as "Tavala ima," or 

 " belonging to the other side of the house." One cannot 

 but he forcibly struck with the similarity between the 

 Tavala of Fiji, and the Tavala ima of Mota, especially since 

 strono- lin^i^uistic affinities are observable in other words. 

 The word for " father " is the same in both lano-uao-es, and 

 they both have the postfixed possessive pronouns. 



These terms naturally connect themselves in our minds 

 with the enormous houses which travellers have met with 

 among various tribes not only in bygone times but even at 

 the present day. Such for instance as the massive edifices 

 of the Village Indians of Mexico and Yucatan, which, as 

 Mit Morgan states in a paper read by him before the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, being large enough 

 to accommodate from fifty to a hundred families, "have 

 given rise to fables of palaces," but were most probably the 

 dwellings of Communal families. 



In the Mota term " Tavala ima " — the other side of the 

 house — we have perhaps a trace of the first progi-essive 

 movement caused by the tribal organization ; and in the 

 Fijian Tavalenggu — not of my house — we may trace 

 the further development of the new idea. In the former 

 we see the Communal family split up into two divisions 

 occupying opposite sides of the common dwelling ; and in 

 the latter we have the separation made more complete, by 

 the removal of one division to another house. Unless I am 

 much mistaken, we shall find the immense houses which 

 travellers have seen in New Guinea, and elsewhere in the 

 Soutli Pacific, to be of this character. 



I being a male in a nation holding the Turanian system, 

 the contemporaries of my father in the tribe to which 

 I look for my wife are my mother's brothers, whose wives 

 are my father's sisters. And since their female children 

 come into my tribe as the wives of my brothers and myself, 

 one would expect that I should address these females by the 

 term Watinggu, my wife. The fact is, that I address any one 



