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THE AMBAT, KABAT, AND HAMBAT 639
been told, but the other said “ Die, die, ï¬Ånish â€ù. Then Hambut
came and said : “ I did not say you two were to say thus. You
have spoken that which is bad. I said you were to say ' Die,
die, live’." Had they done as he told them, then, although
they would have died, they would have come alive again, but now
they must die for good and all. This story is markedly unlike
the more common death myth of the New Hebrides, which
attributes death to an old woman who having sloughed her skin
donned it again on account other grandchildren ; but the general
theme, the command which was obeyed by one and disobeyed
by the other, recalls the story oi the death of Butwanabaghap.
The analogy is by no means close, but it is signiï¬Åcant that in
one the Kabat and in the other Hambut say that had their
orders been obeyed death would still have occurred, but people
would have lived again after it. In this both stories differ from
"other myths which tell that normally death would never have
come into the world at all.‘
Beyond these two stories we know nothing of Hambut, save
that there is a, geometrical ï¬Ågure representing him sitting by the
sca»sh0re sharpening an adze and being gradually driven back
by the incoming tide. No legend concerning such an episode has
been recorded.
Were we acquainted only with tho mythology about the ï¬Åve
Ambat brothers in Seniang and Humbut in Lagalag it is
improbable that we should have recognized any connection
between the two unless the name and the association with
geometrical ï¬Ågures had given us a clue. But with Kabat and
Hambat in the intervening districts it becomes almost indisputable
that all four are different versions of the same beings or being.
The greatest gap in the chain—due most probably to our lack
of information—is between the Kabat and Hambat, hut between
these there is one link of paramount importance. This is the
most sacred ceremony of "making man ", which is intimately
bound up with the Kabat and Hambat in their respective districts,
and which also occurs, so far as we know, associated with the
Ambat brothers in Tomman Island. In Lagalag, however, though
clan iertility ceremonies exist, there is nothing comparable with
the N agharo N omur of Lembelag or the Nogho Tilabwe of Mewun.
X For the we of this myth v. Appendix B. Deacon writes concerning it:
" The tile is reminiscent oi the common Airican story oi the Two Messengers,
the Creator giving one messenger the formula of lilo, the other mat of death."
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