138 Notes on the Customs of Mota, Banks Islands. 



noting the fact that these interchanges are precisely those which children 

 make before they learn to speak with full articulation. 



As the ability to count up to high numbers is not necessarily a mark of 

 superior intelligence, unless it be taken for granted that root-growers must 

 be more intelligent than hunters or pastoral tribes, so also, as it seems to 

 me, the inability to count beyond very low numbers does not necessarily prove 

 a lack of intelligence. Sir John Lubbock tells us that there is no "more 

 striking proof of the low mental condition of many savage races than the 

 undoubted fact that they are unable to count their own fingers even of one 

 hand." But why should they count their fingers, unless they have some- 

 thing to count on them ? Savages are practical people, and it never occurs 

 to them to sit down and count their fingers for mere amusement, or even as a 

 curious study. The Australian has perhaps no articles of property more 

 numerous than his spears, of which he usually carries two or three; and why, 

 then, should he invent numerals beyond that limit ? He soon learns to count 

 when it becomes necessary for him to learn, and my friend, Mr. A. W. Howitt, 

 F.G.S., informs me that the boys in one of the Victorian aboriginal schools 

 gained the highest possible number of marks in the subjects (including 

 arithmetic) in which they were examined by the Government inspector. — 

 L. F.] 



28. Money. 



The common money of the Banks Islands is made of the 

 tips of shells strung together. A finer kind is made for 

 ornament. This money is money strictly. There are regular 

 terms for borrowing, interest, and so on. The rate of interest 

 is cent, per cent., without limitation of time ; and there is a 

 kind of forced loan, which the receiver is bound to take by 

 a feeling of honour, but which he cannot make to the lender. 

 Rich men thus keep others back by sending them an 

 unasked-f or loan, which they have to repay double. 



[The Rev. George Brown, F.R.G.S., of the Wesleyan Mission to New 

 Britain, states that shell-money, like that of Mota, is current there also. 

 The tribes of New Britain seem to be born traders. Even husband and wife 

 will not give one another so much as a morsel of food or a leaf of tobacco 

 without money payment.— L. F.] 



29, SUPWE, OR SUQE. 



This most important institution is the chief bond of 

 society in the Banks Islands, and extends certainly as far as 

 the Three Hills in the New Hebrides, in substance the same. 



The men who pass for chiefs are those who are highest in 

 this society ; and the names given by traders, naval officers, 

 and others as the names of chiefs are often the words ex- 

 pressing the grade in the society to which they had attained. 

 At Mota, and in the Banks Islands generally, the supwe 

 practically includes every male, and every one's place and 

 influence depend very much on his rank in it. 



