MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 
The men marry after they are eighteen and the 
girls much younger, for they are considered ready for 
double-blessedness at fourteen. In the case of the 
men, there are exceptions to this rule, for we met an 
experienced young gentleman of fourteen, Kaukwai, 
who confided to us, with an air of deep wisdom, that 
he had already had two wives and had dismissed them 
both. 
In the villages there was no clearly defined form of 
government. ‘There was, of course, invariably a chief, 
but his authority was not great, and nowhere did I see 
an autocrat, except Mavai, with whom the reader is 
already well acquainted. ‘There is no regular council 
of elders, but in isolated instances the younger 
men may go to the elder for advice. The villagers, 
however, are wonderfully conservative in their institu- 
tions, and marriage between distant villages is un- 
common. ‘The man who dares to bring a wife from 
a distance gains great credit for an enterprising person. 
At Amana, for instance, we found an interpreter who 
had married a Foula woman, and this person was 
accounted strong-minded. He had either learnt the 
Foula dialect from his wife or had acquired it while he 
was staying at Foula courting her. 
The method of wooing is, as with all primitive 
peoples, more commercial than romantic. The intend- 
ing suitor generally comes to the point during a tribal 
dance which has been arranged by calling from hill 
to hill. Ifthe woman agrees to the match, the wooer 
does not think it at all necessary to make overtures to 
her father, but should negotiations be required he is 
neither laggard nor bashful. He puts the price in his 
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