W.H.R.Rivers

“ At the same time there can be no doubt that in general the sexual relations of the Hawaians were lax and that side by side with the presence of individual marriage as a social institution there existed, especially amoung the chiefs, a state of very general laxity, while the claims of the chiefs on the women of the ordinary people (and of the women on chiefly rank on the man of the lower class) extended this laxity to the relations of the whole community. ”

“ The afterbirth is buried under the fireplace of a house and a fire is kept burning above it, the idea being to assist in the drying of the remains of the cord on the body of the child, but if the navel becomes inflamed, the fire is extinguished. The child is kept in the house till strong, the idea being that the afterbirth which is part of him is in the house, and if the child is taken to another village before he is strong he will be sulky and cross because part of him remains in the house ”

“ One would suppose that there must have been laws to regulate the inheritance of property amoung the chiefs but I do not know how far this kind of inheritance was on the same lines as the succession of royal rank.
Amoung the ordinary people it seems to be doubtful whether there existed anything which could be called descent or inheritance because there was little or nothing to descend or be inherited. There were no clans and there seems to have been nothing of the nature of individual property, the whole of the land and all goods being absolutely at the disposal of the chiefs. ”

“ We have seen, however, that there is every reason to believe that consanguineous marriages only took place amoung the chiefs and amoung them perhaps only for a special purpose, and there is no reason whatever to suppose that we have in the consanguineous marriages of the Hawaians any indication of a state of society characterised by the general existence of such marriages. ”

“ Before the birth of a first-born child, probably at an early stage of pregnancy, the husband gives a feast, and a rite called valugtokwa is performed. The wife's brother chooses four male relatives each off whom gives him half a fathom of shell-money and to each the brother himself and half a fathom, so that there are altogether four fathoms, and the father of the child provides eight fathoms. ”

“ Further, there seems to be definite evidence of the existence of wide restrictions on marriage, much wider than those of the civilised world, which were dependent on ties of kinship of the same kind as those found amoung many peoples of rude culture. ”

“ We have thus the record of an incident which occurred a hundred years ago and the fact that another man was expressly called in to beget a child for a couple without issue seems to show that sexuial relations external to marriage cannot have been so constant as feature of Hawaian marriage as in usually supposed. ”

“ While bearing a child, a woman must not eat fish caught with a net or with a hook, though she may eat that shot shot with an arrow. The idea is that the child will be entangled as in the net or on the hook and will not come forth freely. [1]
The parents must remain in the house for some time after the child is born. The father must not do any work for five days (till the cord has separated) and he must not do any hard work for a hundred days. He must not eat food which comes from a place where people have been doing an oloolo rite. ”

“ When a male child goes out for the first time the father and mother go with it and tie leaves together and throw them down on the path so that when the people see them they will know that a male child has been added to the community. ”

“ A little bow is put into the hand of a child and a woman stands with the child in her arms at the door of the house. All the maraui or maternal uncles of the child collect outside and shoot at the woman and child with blunt arrows or throw lemons at them. ”

“ The woman moves the child about so as to diminish the change of its being struck, and after a time the father puts an end to the business by paying money to the uncles. When the woman brings the child back into the house she hands it to the sister of the father who holds the child with her arms straight out till it trembles, and then says:— "You and tawarig go up into the cultivated land ”

“ When the pain begins, the husband opens with his own hands anything covering up; he takes the string off any bowl, removes the string with which the door is fastened and takes down anything which is hanging up. ”

“ A yam pudding has been made which is taken out of the oven and put in the open place in the middle of the village and the wife's brother then puts his four lengths of money on the pudding so that they lie from east to west. ”