_imbele_ relationship to the members of his
own old clan, although he has by his change of residence obtained a
similar relationship to the members of the clan in whose village he
has settled.

[57] See _Annual Report_ for June, 1910, which on p. 5 speaks of
"several villages round about the Mission, known as Sivu."

[58] Compare the Koita system, under which under certain conditions
the son of a chief's sister might succeed him (Seligmann, _Melanesians
of British New Guinea_, p. 52). Such a thing could not take place
among the Mafulu.

[59] I do not know how far this pig-killer may be compared with the
Roro _ovia akiva_, or chief of the knife, referred to by Dr. Seligmann
(_Melanesians of British New Guinea_, p. 219). The Mafulu pig-killer
cannot be regarded as being even a quasi-chief, and his office is
not hereditary. It is noticeable also that he is the man who kills
the pigs, whereas the _ovia akiva_ only cuts up the bodies after the
pigs have been killed by someone else.

[60] I do not suggest that these defences are peculiar to the
Mafulu area. I believe they are used by other mountain natives of
the Central District.

[61] Though this curious-shaped hood in front of a house is apparently
a speciality of the mountains, so far as British New Guinea is
concerned, I do not suggest that it does not exist elsewhere. In fact,
some of the native houses which I have seen in the Rubiana Lagoon
district of the Solomon Islands had a somewhat similar projection,
though in them the front wall of the house, with its little
door-opening, was carried round below the outer edge of the hood,
which thus formed part of the roof of the interior, instead of being
merely a shelter over the outside platform, as is the case in Mafulu.

[62] Dr. Haddon refers (_Geographical Journal, Vol. XVI._, p. 422)
to conical ground houses with elliptical and circular bases found in
villages on the top of steep hills behind the Mekeo district and on
the southern spur of Mt. Davidson, and says that in some places, as
on the Aduala affluent of the Angabunga (_i.e._, St. Joseph's) river,
the houses are oblong, having a short ridge pole. I think that the
elliptical houses to which he refers have probably been Kuni houses,
to which his description could well be applied, and that the oblong
houses have been Mafulu. The villages with very narrow streets,
and the houses of which are, he says, built partly on the crest and
partly on the slope, are a