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The author is to be congratulated on the excellent book she has written. Personally I am interested in it for several reasons. I met the author on her journey, outward bound, and am glad to see the results of her field work. As a psychoanalyst, I must say that the book is one of the few anthropological works that really help us to achieve a deeper insight into the mental life of primitive mankind. As an anthropologist, especially as a field worker in another Melanesian area, I appreciate the fine touches, the minute details which make me feel as much at home in Lesu as I was in Sipupu.
"When a woman is pregnant the women of the opposite moiety pull her house to pieces and dance around it in triumph" (p. 60). The demolishing of the house reminds me of an analogous custom in Duau. The victor in a hararaku (boat competition) is subjected to a similar raid. Perhaps the woman of the Hawk moiety who has been made pregnant by an Eagle man is regarded as having achieved a victory over the Eagle women and the attack upon the house or the person of the Hawk women is an abreaction of their jealousy. The obligation of the young girls to give a feast to their future mates (that is, Eagle girls feast Hawk men and vice versa) appears to be a punishment for intercourse. The Hawk men say playfully to the Eagle women: "Why have you not prepared food for us when you have already shown us your vulva?" (p. 78).
The chapters on Infancy and on Sexual Life provide much interesting information. The mother's milk may harm the child if she eats taboo food (p. 68). "There is no differentiation on lines of sex in the display of affectionate tenderness towards the child" (p. 69). The custom of rocking the baby even when nursing it (p. 70) agrees with what I have seen in Duau. During the nursing