of earthenware pots, and after about three months they return, sailing before the north-west monsoon and bringing back a cargo of sago which they have obtained by barter for their crockery. It is about the beginning of the south-east monsoon, that is, in April or May, that the skippers, who are leading men in the villages, make up their minds to go on these trading voyages. When their resolution is taken they communicate it to their wives, and from about that time husband and wife cease to cohabit. The same custom of conjugal separation is observed by what we may call the mate or second in command of each vessel. But it is not till the month of August that the work of preparing the canoes for sea by overhauling and caulking them is taken seriously in hand. From that time both skipper and mate become particularly sacred or taboo (_helaga_), and consequently they keep apart from their wives more than ever. Husband and wife, indeed, sleep in the same house but on opposite sides of it. In speaking of his wife he calls her “maiden,” and she calls him “youth.” They have no direct conversation or dealings with each other. If he wishes to communicate with her, he does so through a third person, usually a relative of one of them. Both refrain from washing themselves, and he from combing his hair. “The wife’s position indeed becomes very much like that of a widow.” When the canoe has been launched, skipper, mate, and crew are all forbidden to touch their food with their fingers; they must always handle it and convey it to their mouths with a bone fork.(669) A briefer account of the custom and superstition had previously been given by a native pastor settled in the neighbourhood of Port Moresby. He says: “Here is a custom of trading-voyage parties:—If it is arranged to go westward, to procure arrowroot, the leader of the party sleeps apart from his wife for the time being, and on until the return from the expedition, which is sometimes a term of five months. They say if this is not done the canoe of the chief will be sunk on the return voyage, all the arrowroot lost in the sea, and he himself covered with shame. He, however, who observes the rule of self-denial, returns laden with arrowroot, has not a drop of salt water to injure his cargo, and so is praised by his companions and crew.”(670) The Akamba and Akikuyu of eastern Africa refrain from the commerce of the sexes on a journey, even if their wives are with them in the caravan; and they observe the same rule of chastity so long as the cattle are at pasture, that is, from the time the herds are driven out to graze in the morning till they come back in the evening.(671) Why the rule should be in force just while the cattle are at pasture is not said, but we may conjecture that any act of incontinence at that time is somehow supposed, on the principles of sympathetic magic, to affect the animals injuriously. The conjecture is confirmed by the observation that among the Akikuyu for