ABSTRACT
Two competent authorities on Melanesian anthropology, Dr Codrington and Dr Rivers, both held that ‘ the dual organization was the earliest of the forms of social structure found in Melanesia ’, and that ‘ nothing seems more fundamental than the division of the (Melanesian) people into two or more classes, which are exogamous, and in which descent is counted through the mother ! ’ Dr Codrington (M., p. 22) notes that Ulawa and Mala are an exception to the regular Melanesian rule of the division of the people into exogamous classes, and records his wonder thereat. However, he failed to see the implication that the patrilineal descent there meant the doing away of the connexion between relationship terms and the performance of social duties, when he made the statement (M., p. 41) that ‘ it is improbable that the peculiar closeness of relation between a man and his sister’s son should entirely fail to appear ‘ in Ulawa and Mala. The general departure from the culture existing in other Melanesian islands is so marked in Ulawa and Mala that if the first of the so-called cultural survivals referred to below were non-existent, and if the others be ruled out as fanciful or as explainable otherwise, one might go so far as to say that the culture of the people of these two islands formed a notable exception to the dictum of the two authorities quoted above.
