We have here a phenomenon probably unique in the whole range of anthropology—a people who for generations have married their first cousins and still continue to do so, and among whom the offspring of first cousins were not only more numerous but have greater vitality than the children of persons unrelated. Nay more, the children of concubitants—of first cousins whose parents were brother and sister—have immense advantages over the children of first cousins who were the children of two brothers or two sisters respectively. In no other part of the world does there exist so favourable material for investigating the phenomena of in-breeding among human beings. Is it possible that we have stumbled upon an important truth in our physical nature? Throughout Europe there is a widespread prejudice against the union of first cousins, a prejudice that must have arisen from the observation of chance unions. Two French scientists, MM. Lagneau and Gueniot, have lately attempted to combat this prejudice that marriage of first cousins is in itself productive of evil in the offspring. By classifying the people of Batz, who, they affirm, are the offspring of generations of consanguineous marriages, they found the population to be comparatively free from the morbid characteristics usually attributed to consanguinity, and they traced the cases of scrofula and similar morbid taints back to its origin in the parents and grandparents. From this they argued, that if scrofulous or rickety children are born of parents nearly related, it is due to the fact that hereditary taint of disease on one or both of them has not been diluted by marriage with a person unrelated to them. It is a pity that in their investiga
tions they did not trace the exact tie of consanguinity between the parents. It might have been seen, whether in Europe as in Fiji, the union of the children respectively of a brother and sister is innocuous, while that of the children of two brothers or two sisters respectively produces evil effects upon the offspring.
COUSIN MARRIAGE POSSIBLY BENEFICIAL
The point at issue, therefore, is this. Is the classificatory system of relationships after all more logical in an important respect than our own? Is there really a wide physical difference between the relationship of cousins who are offspring of a brother and sister respectively and that of cousins whose parents respectively were two brothers or two sisters? Ought marriage in the one case to be allowed or even encouraged, and in the other case as rigidly forbidden as if it were incestuous? More complete and detailed statistics than it is possible to give within the limits of this chapter are at the service of any one who will attempt to answer these questions by going more deeply into the subject.
Due allowance being made for local variations, the marriage customs of Fijians of the middle class in heathen times may be thus summarized.
The man's parents, having ascertained that their overtures would be acceptable, sent betrothal gifts (ai ndunguthi) to the parents of the girl. The token of acceptance was sometimes a miniature liku (apron). If vei-ndavolani (concubitants), they were often betrothed in early childhood; sometimes, however, a girl child was thus promised to a man old enough to be her grandfather. In either case the girl's parents kept strict watch over her, for any lapse on her part would cover them with shame and dishonour. If the betrothed whom she thus dishonoured was a man of rank her own relations would not scruple to put her to death, as was done by the great chief Ritova in 1852, when his sister thus disgraced him. While the girl is growing up her friends were supposed to "nurse" (vei-mei) her, or they might take her to the bridegroom's parents to be cared for till the marriage. When she reached puberty the bridegroom's friends prepared a quantity of property, consisting of mats and bark-cloth, and called the
yau-ni-kumu, or the solevu, and presented it formally to the parents of the girl, and marriages were often delayed for years when the bridegroom's family were too poor to acquire property commensurate with their pride. It was this pecuniary element, and also the custom of vasu, which gave every Fijian a lien over the property of his mother's family, that made each clan so jealous in counting the interchange of wives. "Veka!" they would exclaim when a fresh proposal was made, "they have had already five women from us, and we but three from them, and now they ask us for a sixth!"
The actual ceremony varied very much with the rank of the parties to the marriage. There was no religious element, and the priests took no part in it. But however humble the couple there were two indispensable ceremonies—the wedding feast, provided by the bridegroom, and the vei-tasi, or clipping of the bride's hair. I have failed to discover the author of the fiction, quoted by so many anthropologists, that marriage in Fiji was consummated in the bush. This was never the case. On the night of the feast the bride was taken to her husband's house, which had been either built specially for her, or was lent by the groom's parents. There the marriage was consummated, without any ceremony except in the case of high chiefs, when the announcement was made by a great shouting. On the morrow was the feast of the clipping, when the long tresses (tombe) grown behind each ear as a token of virginity were cut off.[81] In the inland districts the girl's head was shorn, and she entered forthwith upon her labour as a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, ugly enough by this disfigurement to discourage any admirer. The old women of the bridegroom's family had ascertained meanwhile whether the bride had had a right to wear these love-locks, and if the result of their inquiries was unsatisfactory, the feast was made the occasion for putting her friends to shame. By a slash of a knife the carcasses of the pigs, which were presented whole to the visitors in the village square, were so mutilated as to intimate in the grossest imagery that the bride had had a history. The
Fijians, however, always preserved a delicacy in these matters which was strangely wanting in the Samoans and Tongans. In Samoa the innocence of the bride was tested in the sight of the whole village by a sort of surgical operation performed by a third person (digito intruso); in Tonga the nuptial mat was paraded from house to house.[82]
FIJIAN LOVE LETTERS