Though the Fijian system of relationships is closely allied to those of the Tamils in India and the Two-mountain Iroquois, and the Wyandots in North America, none of these, except the Tamils, I believe, recognize the principle of concubitant cousinship. The custom must be regarded, I think, as being one of limited range, evolved from marriage laws of far wider application. It undoubtedly exercises upon the Fijians a marked influence in promoting consanguineous marriages—an influence from which the other races in the Pacific are comparatively free, if we except the inhabitants of the island of Tanna in the New Hebrides and possibly some other islands not yet systematically investigated.
Concubitancy in practice.—The fact of a race of men habitually marrying their first cousins promised to exhibit such remarkable features in vital statistics that we did not stop short at investigating the theory alone. We caused a census to be taken of twelve villages, not selected from one province, but chosen only for convenience of enumeration in the widely separated provinces of Rewa, Colo East, Serua, and Ba. I am indebted to the late Mr. James Stewart, C.M.G., for the analysis of the returns which follows:—
In the twelve villages there were 448 families. The couples forming the heads of these families have had born to them as children of the marriage 1317 children, an average of 2·94 to each marriage. But of these 1317 children, only 679 remain alive, 638 being dead. The heads of these families therefore do not replace themselves by surviving children, for only 51·5 per cent. survive, while 48·5 are lost.
We divided the married couples into four classes—
(1) Concubitant relations who have married together. These we found to be on inquiry in nearly every case actual first cousins. They formed 29·7 per cent. of the total number of families.
(2) Relations other than concubitant cousins who have intermarried. Two-fifths of these are near relations, uncle and niece, and non-marriageable cousins-german, brother and sister according to the Fijian ideas. But the remaining three-fifths are more distantly related than are the concubi
tants. These form 12·3 per cent. of the total number of families.
(3) Fellow villagers—natives of the same village, but not otherwise related—who have married together. These form 32·1 of the total number of families.
(4) Natives of different villages, not being relations who have intermarried. These form 25·9 of the total number of families.
Thus it will be seen that the concubitant and other relations who have intermarried number over two-fifths of the people, while one-third of the married people have been brought up together in the same village, and only one-fourth, not being relations, have come from different villages.