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

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l 96 MALEKULA
is this shifting of generations which results in the cross-cousins
on the maternal side being lowered to the status of children
while those on the father‘s side are raised to that of father and
father's sister, the children of this male crosscousin being called
brother and sister. Why the relationship system which is
“ dependent on â€ù the marriage with the widow of the maternal
uncle should be found in so complete a form in an area where
that very marriage is prohibited ; whether it is the result of the
close association of Mewun with Seniang and other districts
where that form of marriage was customary; or whether it
points to an earlier condition when this form of the levirate was
recognized as correct in Mewun, is a subject about which there
are too few data to speculate with any proï¬Åt.‘
The Rights and Duties of Relatives
The search for any information about the rights and duties
of relatives in Mewun has been in vain. The only note on this
subject is to the effect that the mother's brother does not wash
the child nor name it nor take part in any other of»-the early
ceremonies connected with his sister’s son as he does in Seniang.
One other fact of some interest in this respect may also be noticed
in the list of kinship terms which has been given. In Seniang,
as we observed, a woman calls her husband's sister “ the sacred
girl ", a man his wife’s brother “ the sacred man â€ù, and the
personal name may not be used for either of these relatives. In
Mewun the tcnns of reference for the husband’s sister and the
wife's brother have the same signiï¬Åcance as have those of Seniang,
nelebe wokh meaning " the venerated girl â€ù, nemzmggut lowokh
" the venerated man ". Nevertheless it is stated that the personal
name is used in addressing these afï¬Ånals.
It is perhaps permissible to suppose that in other respects
the patterns of kinship behaviour are the same in Mewun as they
are in the southern district.
1 It may well be that this “ dependence “ is a rationalization oi‘ the native
of Seniang, and an illusion oi the theoretical anthropologist, and that both the
custom of marrying the mother-'s brother's widow and that of classiug the
maternal cross-cousins with the children are related to some more fundamental
and hidden character oi Malekulan sociology.—C. I-I. W.
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