Note 4 — Chapter XX · Expeditions Between Kiriwina and Kitava
Reading edition
The association of taboo on economic goods with mourning is a wide-spread feature of the Melanesian customs in New Guinea. I found it among the Mailu on the South Coast of New Guinea, where a taboo, called gora, is put on coco-nuts as one of the features of mourning.4 The same institution, as we saw, obtains in Dobu. Similar taboos are to be found among the Southern Massim.5