Note 268 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

De Vaux, speaking of the women of New Caledonia, says: “All the drudgery is incumbent on them. They perform the clearing and digging of the soil, carry on their backs crushing loads of ignames and taros to the village, and, if a chief has promised you assistance in some fatiguing work that you want to have quickly done, he will send you a gang of these miserable beings who may scarcely be called women.” Turner remarks: “Chiefs had ten, twenty, and thirty wives. The more wives the better plantations and the more food.” “If a wife misbehaved, the chief did not divorce her, but made her work all the harder”. And Rochas tells us that the New Caledonians keep no servants, but have many wives instead; rich men have as many wives as they want for the cultivation of their fields268.