Note 2 — Some other Ceremonies and Feasts

Dr. Seligmann refers to this custom among the Roro people (Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 256), and there is no doubt that it exists among the Mekeo people also. Father Desnoes, of the Sacred Heart Mission, told me that in Mekeo, though the pig used to be given when the boy adopted his perineal band at the age of four, five, six, or seven, it is now generally given earlier. The pig is there regarded as the price paid for the child, and is called the child’s engifunga.