Luckily the customs of these islanders have been carefully and intelligently studied by Professor A.C.  Haddon, who published an entertaining account of them in a periodical to which one usually looks for instruction rather than amusement.[181] Professor Haddon combines the two.  On the island of Tud, he tells us, when boys undergo the ordeal of initiation into manhood, one of the lessons taught them is:  “You no like girl first; if you do, girl laugh and call you woman.”  When a girl likes a man, she tells his sister and gives her a ring of string.  On the first suitable opportunity the sister says to her brother:  “Brother, I have some good news for you.  A woman loves you.”  He asks who it is, and, if willing to go on with the affair, tells his sister to ask the girl to keep an appointment with him in some spot in the bush.  On receipt of the message the enamoured girl informs her parents that she is going into the bush to get some wood, or food, or some such excuse.  At the appointed time the man meets her; and they sit down and yarn, without any fondling.  The ensuing dialogue is given by Haddon in the actual words which Maino, chief of Tud, used: 

     “Opening the conversation, the man says, ’You like me
     proper?’

     “‘Yes,’ she replies, ’I like you proper with my heart
     inside.  Eye along my heart see you—­you my man.’

     “Unwilling to rashly give himself away, he asks,’How
     you like me?’

     “’I like your leg—­you got fine body—­your skin good—­I
     like you altogether,’ replies the girl.

     “After matters have proceeded satisfactorily the girl,
     anxious to clench the matter, asks when they are to be
     married.  The man says, ‘To-morrow, if you like.’

     “Then they go home and inform their relatives.  There is
     a mock fight and everything is settled.”

On the island of Mabniag, after a girl has sent an intermediary to bring a string to the man she covets, she follows this up by sending him food, again and again.  But he “lies low” a month or two before he ventures to eat any of this food, because he has been warned by his mother that if he takes it he will “get an eruption all over his face.”  Finally, he concludes she means business, so he consults the big men of the village and marries her.

If a man danced well, he found favor in the sight of these island damsels.  His being married did not prevent a girl from proposing.  Of course she took good care not to make the advances through one of the other wives—­that might have caused trouble!—­but in the usual way.  On this island the men never made the first advances toward matrimony.  Haddon tells a story of a native girl who wanted to marry a Loyalty Islander, a cook, who was loafing on the mission premises.  He did not encourage her advances, but finally agreed to meet her in the bush, where, according to his version of the story, he finally refused her.  She, however, accused him of trying to “steal” her.  This led to a big palaver before the chief, at which the verdict was that the cook was innocent and that the girl had trumped up the charge in order to force the marriage.