[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

240 MALEKULA
on the child. It is said that on the fourth day after birth if the
infant be a girl, or on the ninth if it be a boy, a ï¬Åre is kindled
between two trees and some woman other than the child’s
mother, or some man, takes the babe and walks up and down
between these trees four times, passing it over the ï¬Åre and
touching one of the trees with its foot each time,‘ After this
the child is addressed with the following words: “Xi!
gï¬Åsmetmetï¬Årbnsi, law limip, gunsu milind tuen, gï¬Åfaale bambar
mba bvï¬Århon metam,â€ù This has been translated : " Xi !
You no sleep all time, you go to level place, tear wild cabbage,
you come, pig crunch your eyes! â€ù This strange formula has
notvbeen explained, but its utterance is important, for it is the
ï¬Årst time that the infant's name is spoken.
Ten days after the child is born, its father takes a pig and
once more visits his wife's brother, or, if he is not available, his
wife's father, in order to make the payment called inggilnggileu en.
It was said that the idea at the back of this payment is that the
ï¬Årst man to be “seen “ (that is, perhaps, recognized) by the
child is his mother's brother. Expressing himself in pidgin, the
informant said : " Before, eye belong picaninny he shut, now eye
he open, he look bimbi (mother's brother) belong him." In
other words, the maternal uncle is the ï¬Årst man after its own
father to appear on the child’s social horizon. Commenting on
the payment, Deacon writes : “ Though, as made now, the
payment is simply a ‘ superstition ’ and the only ‘ reason ’
recognized for it is the idea quoted above, it seems to me that
it is~quite possibly a ‘ survival ’ from matrilineal conditions, for
it is to be noted that, though according to the above tradition
the ï¬Årst male to be ' seen ' should be the mother's brother, this
does not in practice happen (unless accidentally, the father
being away or dead), since the mother’s brother belongs to some
more or less distant village (‘ clan ’) and does not come and visit
his sister specially for the child to see him. It seems possible
that the payment may be a kind of compensation to the mother’s
brother by the father for taking over the principal interest in
the child," Z
1 The notes do not make it clear whether the tree is touched by the foot
of the child, or of the person carrying the child.—C. H. W.
1 It must be pointed out that even among a people tracing descent through
the mother and practising matrilocal marriage a father would normally be the
ï¬Årst man to be recognized by a child, since the Melanesian domestic unit "Ls
invariably a man, his wife, and her children. The maternal uncle never lives in
"1
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