ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the structure of Manus society, the village organization, gentile organization, the kinship system, and the way in which this structure functions in the community. The religious system of the Manus is a special variant of ancestor worship, combined with a system of communication with the spirits of the dead through two sets of oracles—female mediums and male diviners. In Manus the relationships which function most definitely in adult life are, for males: sister, wife, brother, brothers-in-law, male cross-cousin; for females: brother, husband, sister-in-law. For females, sisters are usually of less importance, and the cross-cousin relationship only important ceremonially and for occasional jesting. There is one category of personal relationship in Manus which is outside of the kinship-affinal-relative patterns, and yet is in some degree assimilated to them. This is the trade friendship obtaining between men of different tribes. The Manus gens is patrilineal, localized, limited in most cases to one village.
