511 



"war with the latter. Thus tradition says that some time ago 

 the Laruoro attacked the Mailu successfully, killing some, 

 and forcing others to take flight on the boats. The Mailu 

 retaliated so thoroughly that they drove the whole village 

 away, after killing many. The fugitives sailed as far as 

 Gadaisiu, the frontier village of the Southern Massim. There 

 part of them remained, forming the Mailu half of the settle- 

 ment, and part returned to their island village. 



The villages of Woivuoro, Tselai, and Derehai, all of 

 which are now on the coast, form another group. In olden 

 days they were perched on the tops of hills round Amazon 

 Bay. They were on permanent friendly relations with each 

 •other and with the village of Mailu. 



The next group was formed of several villages, situated 

 on the hills, towering above the three picturesque bays — 

 Mayri Bay, Milport Harbour, and Port Glasgow. There 

 was a long gap between Derehai Hill, the place where the 

 most eastern village of the foregoing group was situated, and 

 Ddgoho Hill, where the first village of this group lay in the 

 ■olden days. The group consists of Ddc/oho, Unevi, Boreho, 

 Pediri, Tsaviriho, Geagea, Banoro, and Gitnn. All these 

 villages were mutually friendly, though I was told that there 

 was a closer bond of union between the first five and the 

 last three respectively. All these villages used to be at war 

 with the Mailu and with the Amazon Bay confederacy. They 

 were linked with each other by several co-operative functions, 

 as, for instance, by the common arrangements with regard 

 to the annual feasts, which they gave in turn, and again by 

 certain agricultural arrangements with regard to sago swamps 

 (comp. the respective paragraphs). 



The next group of villages comprised the communities 

 living on the western shores of Orangerie Bay — Oihcida, 

 Nahdi, Ore, and Goantstiha. They had certain cultural char- 

 acteristics in common (burial customs, sorcery; see below), 

 and they seemed to have been on terms of political friendship 

 with each other, whereas they were dreaded, disliked, and 

 fought by the other Mailu, though the latter villagers seem 

 to have been on better terms with them than with their 

 own immediate neihbours, the Bonho, Pedir'i, Geagea, etc. 



These groups, or confederacies, w^ere, as said, political 

 units on account of their mutually friendly relations and 

 common foes. They were also to a certain, though limited, 

 extent social units on account of the trace of co-operation 

 between them. 



As there was a close resemblance between the villages of 

 each group in their culture and customs, and possibly also 



