MELANESIAN ANNOTATIONS ON THE VOCABULARY. 79 
The legend of the Tamate liwoa of Petanpatapata on Vanua Lava is told 
atlength. It involves the offer of the bride-piece for a girl by a line of suitors, 
a typical statement being, ‘‘So he took a well-tusked boar and a rawe with 
tusks and a hundred fathoms of money.” A note supplies the information 
that the rawe is “‘a special kind of pig said to be hermaphrodite, with large 
tusks’’ (I 107). 
There are other conditions which influence the act of joining the Tamate 
societies, some acting as obstacles and others as motives. Of the former 
one very important is that a man must liquidate his debts before he can be 
initiated, and this must be done with money, pigs not being sufficient (I 122). 
A very efficient obstacle is the difficulty of getting anyone already a mem- 
ber to undertake the duty of acting as introducer. When a man enters a 
society he has to obtain the services of a member to whom he gives money, 
the native expression being that he has to tiro mun this man. ‘Though the 
introducer receives money from the initiate, he has to give a pig, or pigs if 
more than one man is initiated. Ifa man has only one good pig he will not 
consent to act as introducer, because a consequence would be the loss of this 
pig. This is so well recognized that a man who is known to be so situated will 
not be asked to act. If, on the other hand, a man has a pig which is a fence 
jumper, yam eater, or a public nuisance, he will be only too glad to act as 
introducer and thus get rid of the animal with profit (I 123). 
The disputers would have to pay fines of pigs to those societies the names 
of which had been taken in vain (I 124). 
In all these cases payments of pigs or money or both appear to be the most 
important features of the initiations (I 131). 
The chief features of the kolekole are the dance, the killing of pigs, and the 
payments to those who participate, and everyone will try to excel his neigh- 
bor in the splendor of the dance, the number of the slaughtered pigs, and the 
liberality of payment (I 132). 
There are similar rites (magic) to increase the supply of pigs, fish, and 
flying foxes. In order to promote the fertility of pigs a special stone is buried 
(I 163). 
(Arag, New Hebrides.) Members of the Subwe moiety (social) call the 
Tagaro people matan dura (sow) (I 191). 
(Arag.) ‘The man who wishes to marry settles with the parents of the girl 
how many pigs he will give and it is arranged in how many days he shall be 
ready with them. . . . Only the brothers and the sister’s son of the father 
are to get the pigs which the bridegroom is about to present (I 207). The 
father gives her one of his own pigs to kill as a sign that it is the last of his 
property with which she will have anything to do. She kills the pig with a 
club and is then again wrapped up in her mat. One of the husband’s party 
is then deputed to fetch the pig, this duty being regarded as a high honor. 
A relative of the father stands over the animal to resist its being taken, but 
the man of the husband’s party has only to succeed in touching its body for 
the resistance to cease, when the pig is cut up and the parts distributed. 
The bridegroom takes the head, which he gives to some bachelor of his party. 
The man who is given the head in this manner may not marry a widow, but 
must marry a girl not previously married. . . . When the husband’s village 
is reached, the girl, still wrapped up, is put down in the open space of the 
village and the husband presents pigs to the father, at least four being given, 
and if the husband is an important man more than this number. . . . Then 
the father of the girl distributes the four pigs he had received to his brothers 
and to his sister’s son (I 208). 
