f the father and mother. In the
totem scheme of other islands and continental groups all the women
of his mother's totem were taboo to a man, though their relationship
might be remote. Yet as husband and wife had different totems, and
children took their mothers' totems, a man might in rare instances,
even with this barrier, wed his own daughter. This has happened in
Buka and in North Bougainville.

The plan of adoption in Polynesia is matched to a degree by the
fosterage common in Ireland in early days. There children were sent
to be reared in the families of fellow-clansmen of wealth. At a year
they left their own thresholds, and their fosterage ended only at
marriage. Every fostered person was under obligation to provide for
the old age of his foster-parents, and the affection arising from
this relationship was usually greater and regarded more sacred than
that of blood relationship. This is true to-day of the Tahitians.

"But children nowadays are often brought up by their own parents,"
said Mme. Tetuanui, rising to prepare the dejeuner, and I for a swim
in the lagoon, "and if adopted, they go from one home to the other
as they will. Parents are not as willing as before to let go their
children; for whereas my grandmother had fifteen, I have none, and few
of us have many. We are made sterile by your civilization. Tetuanui
and I were happy and able to persuade the mothers of twenty-five to
give their infants to us because we were childless and were chiefs
and well-to-do. Our race is passing so fast through the miseries the
white has brought us that little ones are as precious as life itself."

Chapter XVIII

The reef and the lagoon--Wonders of marine life--Fishing with spears
and nets--Sponges and hermit crabs--Fish of many colors--Ancient
canoes of Tahiti--A visit to Vaihiria and legends told there.

About a mile from the beach was the reef, on which the breakers
beat clamorously or almost inaudibly, depending on the wind and the
faraway surge of the seas. The Passe of Rautirare afforded entrance
for small vessels. It was an opening in the wall about the island
caused by the Vairahaha, the stream which emptied into the lagoon at
our door, and the fresh waters of which had ages ago prevented the
coral zooephytes from building a structure there, as at Papeete and
all other passages. Fresh water did not agree with these miraculous
architects whose material was their own skeletons.

I went out toward the re