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[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
240 MALEKULA on the child. It is said that on the fourth day after birth if the infant be a girl, or on the ninth if it be a boy, a ï¬Åre is kindled between two trees and some woman other than the child’s mother, or some man, takes the babe and walks up and down between these trees four times, passing it over the ï¬Åre and touching one of the trees with its foot each time,‘ After this the child is addressed with the following words: “Xi! gï¬Åsmetmetï¬Årbnsi, law limip, gunsu milind tuen, gï¬Åfaale bambar mba bvï¬Århon metam,â€ù This has been translated : " Xi ! You no sleep all time, you go to level place, tear wild cabbage, you come, pig crunch your eyes! â€ù This strange formula has notvbeen explained, but its utterance is important, for it is the ï¬Årst time that the infant's name is spoken. Ten days after the child is born, its father takes a pig and once more visits his wife's brother, or, if he is not available, his wife's father, in order to make the payment called inggilnggileu en. It was said that the idea at the back of this payment is that the ï¬Årst man to be “seen “ (that is, perhaps, recognized) by the child is his mother's brother. Expressing himself in pidgin, the informant said : " Before, eye belong picaninny he shut, now eye he open, he look bimbi (mother's brother) belong him." In other words, the maternal uncle is the ï¬Årst man after its own father to appear on the child’s social horizon. Commenting on the payment, Deacon writes : “ Though, as made now, the payment is simply a ‘ superstition ’ and the only ‘ reason ’ recognized for it is the idea quoted above, it seems to me that it is~quite possibly a ‘ survival ’ from matrilineal conditions, for it is to be noted that, though according to the above tradition the ï¬Årst male to be ' seen ' should be the mother's brother, this does not in practice happen (unless accidentally, the father being away or dead), since the mother’s brother belongs to some more or less distant village (‘ clan ’) and does not come and visit his sister specially for the child to see him. It seems possible that the payment may be a kind of compensation to the mother’s brother by the father for taking over the principal interest in the child," Z 1 The notes do not make it clear whether the tree is touched by the foot of the child, or of the person carrying the child.—C. H. W. 1 It must be pointed out that even among a people tracing descent through the mother and practising matrilocal marriage a father would normally be the ï¬Årst man to be recognized by a child, since the Melanesian domestic unit "Ls invariably a man, his wife, and her children. The maternal uncle never lives in "1 l
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