From a Fijian point of view, in both these cases the relationship is exactly the same. The father's brother and the mother's sister share with the father and the mother an almost equal degree of paternity. Thus a man or a woman, referring to his or her father's brother calls him _Tamanku_ (my father), and if he is asked _Tamamu ndina?_ (your real father?) he will answer _A Tamanku lailai_ (my little father). The same applies to the mother's sister. The tabu relationship also occurs artificially between the children respectively of concubitants who have broken through the system, and have not married, but to this I will refer in its proper place. _Concubitants._--This relationship occurs between persons whose parents respectively were brother and sister. The opposition of sex in parents not only breaks down the barrier of consanguinity, but even constitutes the child of the one a marital complement of the child of the other. The young Fijian is from his birth regarded as the natural husband of the daughters of his father's sister and of his mother's brother. The girls can exercise no choice. They were born the property of their male concubitant if he desire to take them. Thus the custom, if generally followed, would enclose the blood of each family within itself, and obstruct the influx of a new strain at every third generation. The natural tendency towards the renovation of the blood would be checked, and its stagnation be continued. Thus-- A. (m) marries B. (f) | ------------------ E. (f) = C. (m) tabu D. (f) = F. (m) | | G. (f) Concubitants H. (m) [Pageheader: INTOLERANCE OF THE SYSTEM] A. and B. were concubitants, their children tabu. G. and H. being the children of tabu relations are concubitants. They marry, and of course their children being brother and sister are again tabu. But if D. had been a male who had married F. a female, G. and H. would have been tabu. It will thus be seen that the concubitant and the tabu alternate generation after generation. The children of concubitants must be tabu, and the children respectively of tabu must be concubitant. It must of course happen that persons who are concubitant have a mutual dislike to one another and do not marry, or, since a man cannot marry all his concubitants, or a woman all her concubitants, the system is dislocated by some of them marrying persons who are in no way related to them. Thus-- (m)A. = B.(f) | -------------------- | | W.(f) = C.(m) D.(f) = X.(m) | | Y.(f) = G.(m) Concubitant | with H.(f) = Z.(m) | | L.(m) tabu J.(f)