The guardianship of and responsibility for infant children whose father dies falls primarily upon the children’s mother, and she, if and when she returned to her own people, would probably take the children away with her, though her sons, who shared in the inheritance from their father, would usually come back again to their own village when they became grown up, and might do so even when comparatively young. If there is no mother of the children, the guardianship and responsibility is taken up by one or more of the relatives of either the deceased father or deceased mother of the children, and it might be that some children would be taken over by some of such relatives, and some by others. There appears, however, to be no regular rule as to all this, the question being largely one of convenience.
Adopted children have in all matters of inheritance the same rights as actual children.
From the above particulars it will be seen that there is no system of descent in the female line or of mother-right among the Mafulu, 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.
[1] Compare the Koita system under which the owner of the house owns the site of it also, and the latter passes on his death to his heirs (Seligmann’s Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 89.)
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.
The feast, though only to be solemnised in one village, is organised and given by the whole community of villages. There is no (now) known matter or event with reference to which it is held. It is decided upon and arranged and prepared for long beforehand, say a year or two, and feasts will only be held in one village at intervals of perhaps fifteen or twenty years. The decision to hold a feast is arrived at by the chiefs of the clans of the community which proposes to give it. The village at which the feast is to be held will not necessarily be the largest one of the community, or one in which is a then existing chiefs emone. The guests to be invited to it will be the people of some other (only one other) community, and at the outset it will be ascertained more or less informally whether or not they will be willing to accept the invitation.
When the feast has been resolved upon, the preparations for it begin immediately, that is a year or two before the date on which it is to be held. Large quantities will be required of yam, taro and sugar-cane, and of a special form of banana (not ripening on the trees, and requiring to be cooked); also of the large fruit of the ine, a giant species of Pandanus (see Plate [80]—the figure seated on the ground near to the base of the tree gives an idea of the size of the latter and of the fruit head which is hanging from it), which is cultivated in the bush, and the fruit heads of which are oval or nearly round, and have a transverse diameter of about 18 inches; and of another fruit, called by the natives malage, which grows wild, chiefly by streams, and is also cultivated, and the fruit of which was described to me as being rather like an apple, almost round, green in colour, and 4 or 5 inches in diameter.[1] And above all things will be wanted an enormous number of village pigs (not wild pigs); and sweet potatoes must be plentiful for the feeding of these pigs. And finally they will need plenty of native tobacco for their guests. In view of these requirements it is obvious that a year or two is by no means an excessive period for the preparations for the feast.