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

I36 MALEKULA ‘
genealogies recorded, it would seem that, despite the disintegrating
influence of the white man, there have been surprisingly few
violations of the marriage rules during the last two or three
generations. There are indeed only three clear instances of
marriage within the clan, one of which was in the nature of a
marriage rie convenmce whose circumstances will be described
later (see Chapter VIII). A man who does thus break the law
oi clan exogamy is said to There is no instance of
marriage with a woman of the mother’s or father's wife’s clan,
although a man of Loorha did marry a woman of Wien to which
clan his father’s brother’s wife belonged. Breach of the rule
against a man marrying a woman whose “ close " relative had
already been taken by one of his fellow clansmen is rather more
common. The most flagrant instance was the union of two men
of Luha, sons of the same mother, and two women of Amel Tamat
who were full blood sisters; while the marriages of a man of
Rahuwari and one of Mbwilmhar, villages both belonging to
the same clan, with two women of Maur who were ï¬Årst cousins,
were only a degree less improper.
There is one piece of independent evidence which strongly
suggests that formerly, at least, these marriage prohibitions
were respected. This is derived from the gong language which
is used for transmitting messages. As has been already said,
each clan has its own characteristic gong-rhythm‘ In order to
indicate or draw the attention of a certain individual the gong<
rhythm of his father's clan, that of his mother's, and that of the
grade of the men's society to which he belongs, are beaten out
in succession. It is clear that if marriages between the men
of one clan and the women of another were common, this method
of distinguishing one individual from another would be impossible.
As it is, the number of men within a gong radius whose fathers
belong to clan A and whose mothers belong to clan B will be
limited to perhaps nine or ten, and since it is highly improbable
that more than one of them will belong to any one of the numerous
grades in the Nimzmgki society, this third rhythm will narrow
down the call to a single person. It was even stated, indeed,
that generally the gong beats of the clans of the father and
mother were sufficient for identifying a man without the addition
of that of his Nimangki rank.
Since a man applies a classiï¬Åcatory relationship term to every
.1
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