alive or their
descendants--have to be distinguished from wild pigs, and especially
so in connection with feasts and ceremonies.

Village pigs are the individual property of the householders who
possess them, there being no system of community or village ownership;
and, when required for feasts and ceremonies, each household has to
provide such pig or pigs as custom requires of it. They are bred in the
villages by their owners, and by them brought up, fed and tended, the
work of feeding and looking after them being the duty of the women. No
distinguishing ownership marks are put upon the pigs, but their owners
know their own pigs, and still more do the pigs know the people who
feed them; so that disputes as to ownership do not arise. The number
of pigs owned by these people is enormous in proportion to the size
of their villages, and I was told that a comparatively small village
will be able at a big feast to provide a number of village pigs much
in excess of what will be produced by one of the big Mekeo villages.

These village pigs often wander away into the bush, and may disappear
from sight for months; but they nevertheless still continue to
be village pigs. If, however, they are not seen or heard of for a
very long time (say six months), they are regarded as having become
wild pigs, and may be caught and appropriated as such. It is usual
with village pigs to clip or shorten their ears and tails, or even
sometimes to remove their eyes, so as to keep them from wandering
into the gardens. [55] But even a village pig thus marked as such
would be regarded as having become a wild pig if it had disappeared
for a very long time.

Village pigs (as distinguished from wild pigs) are, as will be seen
below, never eaten in their own village on ceremonial occasions,
or indeed perhaps at all, being only killed and cut up and given to
the visitors to take away and eat in their own villages.

Etiquette.

These simple people do not appear to have many customs which come
under the heading of etiquette, pure and simple.

A boy must soon, say within a few weeks, after he has received his
perineal band leave the parental home, and go to live in the _emone;_
but this rule only refers to his general life, and does not prohibit
him from ever entering his parents' house. If he receives his band
when he is very young, this rule will not begin to operate until he
is ten or twelve years old. He is in no case under any prohibition
fro