Note 2 — Some other Ceremonies and Feasts

I could not find out who the person who buys the pig and performs the ceremony would ordinarily be, nor what motive he has for buying and paying for a pig which is about to be killed and cut up and distributed amongst other people; and I am convinced that there must be something further behind the matter, which I have been unable to ascertain. I may say that, knowing that among the Roro and Mekeo people a brother or other male relative of the child’s mother takes a prominent part in the perineal band ceremony, being the recipient of the dog or pig which is killed, and the person who puts the band upon the boy, I specially enquired as to any similar relationship on the part of the person who buys the pig and performs the ceremony among the Mafulu, but I could find no trace of anything of the sort.2 Nor, as already stated, could I find any system of service being rendered by a boy to his maternal uncle, such as exists among the Koita,3 nor anything in the nature of the Koita Heni ceremony, described by Dr. Seligmann.4