CH. XI CUSTOMS OF THE MINAHASSEBS 289 



in the houses of their parents. A man who has many wives 

 is respected. The robbery of a wife from another clan is an 

 honom-, and the children follow the father with or without 

 payment of the fine attached to the deed. Smaller or 

 weaker clans even demand no fine. In the Kesar and 

 Wetar island groups a Uke state of things appears, the 

 maternal system being the recognised rule, but always 

 liable to pass into the paternal system by capture, which 

 brings wife and children into the husband's hands ' (64) . 



Now, although it is very probable from this and from 

 other considerations that the practice of capturing wives 

 was the cause, in some parts of the archipelago, of the 

 change from the ' beena ' to the ' deega ' form of marriage, 

 from the genealogies being traced through the female line 

 to the male line, we are by no means justified in supposing 

 that this was the only cause. I will not now enter into all 

 the arguments which might be brought forward to support 

 this theory, but merely indicate that in the Alfurs of 

 Minahassa we have races which at the present day have 

 deega marriages, never having passed through the stage 

 of capture marriages. The cause of the change with them 

 was, I believe, primarily due to a breaking down of 

 the strict observance of the rules of exogamy, but it is 

 difficult to say what causes led to this. Furthermore, I 

 believe that, when we have more information about 

 the matrimonial institutions of the Talaut and Sangir 

 islanders, we shall find that many if not all the stages in 

 the process are now existent among those people. 



But what reasons are there for supposing that there never 

 was a strict patriarchal system with exogamy in Minahassa ? 



In the first place, there are no traces in the ceremonies, 

 legends, or fables of such a custom. Now, as Maclennan 

 has shown, capture marriage remains as a formal ceremony 

 in very many races of the world long after its true origin 



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