e too late to save the race.

We undertook an excursion into the interior, to a district whose
inhabitants had only recently been pacified by Mr. F., my host; the
tribes we visited were very primitive, especially on the east coast,
where there is little contact with whites. The people were still
cannibals, and I had no difficulty in obtaining some remnants of a
cannibal meal.

We frequently tried to obtain information about the organization of
the family among these natives, but, being dependent on biche la mar,
we made small progress. My observations were supplemented later by
the Rev. Mr. Drummond, for which I am very much indebted to him;
some of these observations may be of interest.

The population is divided into two clans--the Bule and the Tabi. The
former is supposed to have originated from the tridacna shell, the
latter from the taro. Every individual knows exactly to which clan
he belongs, although there are no external signs. There is a strict
rule forbidding marriage within the clan, and an offence against this
law was formerly punished by death; to this day, even in Christian
districts, marriage within the clan is extremely rare. No one can
change his clan. Children do not belong to the clan of the father,
but to that of the mother, and property cannot be alienated from the
clan. The father has no rights over his children, and the head of the
family is not the father, but the eldest brother of the mother, who
educates the boys and helps them along in the Suque. Land belongs to
the clan, which is like a large family, and indeed seems a stronger
organization than the family itself; but the clans live together
in the villages, and as such they form a whole with regard to the
outside world. Quarrels between two clans are not so rare as those
inside a clan, and the vendetta does not act inside the clan, whereas
a murder outside the clan must be avenged. Uncles and aunts within
the clan are called father and mother, and the cousins are called
sister and brother.

However, this exogamic system could not prevent inbreeding, as there
was always the possibility that uncles and nieces might marry, so
that a "horizontal" system was superimposed across this "vertical"
one, forbidding all marriages between different generations. Thus,
all marriages between near relations being impossible, the chances to
marry at all are considerably diminished, so that nowadays, with the
decreased population, a man very often cannot