140 Notes on the Customs of Mota, Banks Islands. 



course of time, lie forbade the carrying or taking up of 

 bows in Mota. Any one who took his bow had to pay a 

 fine to the tamate. On one of my first days in Mota, in 

 1869, we heard all around one morning the peculiar cry of the 

 tamates, and we were told that they were all astir because 

 some one had taken his bow to shoot a man who had 

 offended him. Later in the day we heard the man had 

 given a pig as his fine, and all was quiet. One would have 

 supposed from this that Mala was a powerful chief, but it 

 was only his social power through the two clubs that showed 

 itself. 



[I delayed the compilation of tins paper for several months in the hope of 

 hearing trom my friend, the Rev. George Brown, of New Britain, to whom I 

 sent Mr. Codrington's account of the cluhs ; but I have been disappointed. I 

 am persuaded that the tamate is the New Britain duk-duk. What I heard 

 formerly of this institution from him coincides exactly as far as it goes with 

 Mr. Codrington's description. I have in my possession a photograph taken by 

 Mr. Brown of several persons in the duk-duk dresses and tall hats. The hats 

 are 5 feet high, and the men who wear them look, when sitting down, like very 

 small candle-ends under very large extinguishers. I have also a number of 

 the masks ; and most horrible things they are, being the front parts of skulls 

 with artificial flesh and hair. One of the masks in the possession of the Rev. 

 F. Langttam is of quite another kind, and is really a most elaborate work of 

 art. 



These secret societies require a thorough investigation. They are widely 

 prevalent, and they may tell us many things. — L. F.] 



31. Laws. 



There was and is no political constitution whatever in the 

 Banks Islands; no chiefs, nor any men in authority excepting 

 from their position in the societies. People were altogether 

 equal, and the law was that of the man most ready with 

 his bow, excepting in as much as customs, superstition, or 

 social position acted as a restraint. 



As there are no chiefs, nor government, nor tribes properly 

 so called, revenge for injury and defence of rights are entirely 

 private affairs. A bow and poisoned arrows were always 

 at hand. Relatives of the injured person took revenge on 

 any relatives of him who .began the fray. Often villages 

 became at enmity, village against village — as within a village 

 a family connection against another family connection. 

 Some one generally acted as a go-between, and the quarrel 

 was settled by payment made. If the thing had gone 

 on far, and many people or two groups of villages 

 were concerned, the reconciliation was a ceremony with 

 speeches. 



