and I could not find any trace of such a thing having ever existed
with them. As to this I would draw attention to the facts that the
mother's relatives do not come in specially, as they do among the
Roro and Mekeo people, in connection with the perineal band ceremony;
that a boy owes no service to his maternal uncle, as is the case among
the Koita; that there is no equivalent of the Koita _Heni_ ceremony;
that in no case can a woman be a chief, or chieftainship descend by
the female line; that children belong to the clan of their father,
and not to that of their mother; and that no duty or responsibility
for orphan children devolves specially upon their mother's relations.







CHAPTER VIII

The Big Feast

This is the greatest and most important social function of a Mafulu
community of villages. I was unable to get any information as to its
real intent and origin, but a clue to this may, I think, be found in
the formal cutting down of the grave platform of a chief, the dipping
of chiefs' bones in the blood of the slain pigs, and the touching of
other chiefs' bones with the bones so dipped, which constitute such
important features of the function, and which perhaps point to an
idea of in some way finally propitiating or driving away or "laying"
the ghosts of the chiefs whose bones are the subject of the ceremony.