517 



functioned as one body, as one "legal person" (comp. the 

 Tona gora arrangements, or the Nehtiru in the case of an in- 

 fluential man, chap, iii.^ sec. 5). Again, it was so in the 

 giving of the feast, though the individuality of the clan then 

 came strongly to the fore, especially in Mailu. The village 

 as a body also played an important part (comp. chap, v., 

 sec. 3). 



Thus the village was the real TroAt? of the Mailu man, 

 and its limits formed the social horizon within which he 

 moved. 



3. The Duhu (Clan and Subclan). 



Description of Clan, Subclan, and their Relation; the 

 Vlubhonse. — The village community is not an entirely homo- 

 genous social body. It is divided into clans and subclans. 

 These subdivisions possess a distinctly local character; the 

 houses of a clan always form one block in the village, and 

 usually there is a certain distance between the different blocks. 

 The houses of a clan lie on both sides of the street, so that at 

 one end of the village there is one clan, then after one has 

 passed its houses one enters the next, and so on. In other 

 words, the village consists of a series of local subdivisions 

 ranged in a row. (12) The native name for a clan is Aura^ or 

 Dub If. The first name is as a rule used with reference to 

 the rather large clans of Mailii village, where the term Dubu is 

 usually applied to the small subclans. On the mainland, where 

 the clans are smaller than in Mailu, the term Dubu is uni- 

 versally applied to clan, subclan, and clubhouse, which last 

 is the original meaning of the word. Originally the word 

 Aura means side, spot, direction — it has the same meaning 

 as the Motuan word Koiha. 



Each clan is, or more correctly was, connected with a 

 house, or clubhouse of the men (Dubu), which stood in the 

 middle of the street, between the houses of the clan. The 

 style of this building has been outlined in the preceding 

 section. No women or children were allowed to enter the 

 Dubu, nor was it safe for a stranger to go there without an 

 invitation. The young unmarried men, after ''initiation" (see 

 chap, iii., sec. 4), used to sleep there, as also the widowed 

 old men, and at times the married men made similar use of 

 the Diibu.Ci-^) 



Thus the clan was a local unit with the Dubu as a symbol, 

 so to say, of its individuality and independence, and it is not 



(12) Comp. plan of Mailu village at the beginning of sec. 2 of 

 this chapter. 



(13) All the details referring to the various uses and functions 

 of the Duhu will be described below in their respective places. 



