Identifier: historyofmankind01ratz (find matches)
Title: Chiefs wife of Papua, Samoa. (From a photograph in the Godeffroy Album.)
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Ratzel, Friedrich, 1844-1904 Butler, Arthur John, 1844-1910
Subjects: Ethnology Anthropology
Publisher: London, Macmillan and co., ltd. New York, The Macmillan co.
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Wellesley College Library

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. In Fiji the cord is solemnly buried. As in New Zealand, where children are purified and named eight days after birth, with invocation of the tutelary god, and sprinkling with water, the Morioris of Chatham Island give the name amid hymns from the priests,water being poured on at the same time ; and they further plant a ma/ieu-tree, in order that the child may grow like it and flourish. Among the Melanesians, simpler customs prevail. A hut is built for the lying-in woman, and some female relation suckles the infant. Continence and purification are enjoined upon the husband also. In Fiji and the New Hebrides neither of the couple eats flesh-meat or fish after the birth, for fear of making the baby ill ; nor must the father, for 268 THE HISTORY OF MANKIND a month after the birth of his first child, do any hard work. The couvade occurs distinctly in San Christoval, where father-right is the custom. Infanticide is widespread, and abortion is extensively practised, often merely on account of pique.
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Chiefs wife of Papua, Samoa. (From a photograph in the Godeffroy Album.) but often also from vanity—the woman not caring to have children until the thirdyear of her marriage. In some parts of the Solomons and the New Hebrides all children even are killed at birth, and substitutes purchased. If the child is a girl,it has generally more prospect of being kept alive where inheritance goes in the female line, and where it will carry on the family succession. The birth of twins THE FAMILY AND THE STATE IN OCEANIA 269 is not regarded as actually injurious, though there is a disposition to look upon them as uncanny. If the children are once allowed to live, everything is done forthem with due care. Not only the parents but the relations make them presents.Little children who are living after their parents death are -adopted by others ;if they are older, natural ties, as well as the laws of inheritance, are honestly observed in the traditional way. The most important epochs in life have their o

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