Note 111 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Codrington remarks: “In the native view of mankind, almost everywhere in the islands which are here under consideration [Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz Group, Banks’ Islands, and New Hebrides], nothing seems more fundamental than the division of the people into two or more classes, which are exogamous, and in which descent is counted through the mother.… Generally speaking, it may be said that to a Melanesian man all women, of his own generation at least, are either sisters or wives, to the Melanesian woman all men are either brothers or husbands”111. This seems to be sufficient proof that a subjected and despised lowest class does not exist; else the natives would not all be “brothers” and “sisters”.