in that island, that the people of the place would not eat bananas, and had ceased to plant the tree. It was found that the origin of this restraint was recent and well remembered; a man of much influence had at his death not long ago prohibited the eating of bananas after his decease, saying that he would be in the banana. The elder natives would still give his name and say, 'We cannot eat So-and-So.' When a few years had passed, if the restriction had held its ground, they would have said, 'We must not eat our ancestor.' This represents what is not uncommon also in Malanta near Ulawa, where, as in Florida also, a man will often declare that after death he will be seen as a shark.
These divisions, kema, are not political divisions[1]. It is not, as in the Banks' Islands where every house must needs contain members of both divisions, that every kema will be represented in every village, for one or two of the smaller may have no member there; but every man's wife, or wives, and all his children, must needs be of a kema different from his own, and every village must have its population mixed. The property of the members of each kema is intermixed with that of the others. In a considerable village the principal chief is the head of the kema which predominates there, and he exercises his authority over all, while the principal men of the less numerous kema are lesser chiefs. It is evident that the predominance of any kema cannot be permanent. A chief's sons are none of them of his own kin; and, as will be shewn, he passes on what he can of his property and authority to them. If then in a certain district one kindred is now most numerous, in the next generation it cannot be so, for the children of those now most numerous will be naturally many more in
- ↑ When some outrage on white men has been committed the 'tribe' is supposed responsible; but any party of natives concerned is sure to be made up of members of both veve or several kema, and some of these probably do not belong to the place where the outrage is committed. Of the five natives who cut off the boat at Mandoliana in 1880, only two were of the same kema, and only one was at home at Gaeta.
