[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

INTRODUCTION xxxvii
“the â€ù, and there are such serious possibilities for error in any
attempt to separate a noun from its preï¬Åxed deï¬Ånite article, that
it has been deemed advisable to follow Deacon’s lead, and to
retain the preï¬Åx as he does for the great majority of words, and
to d.rop it only for those which are constantly MENTIONED, as, for
example, temes (“ghost ") instead of nitemes, and amzl (“ club-
house â€ù) instead of naamel.
This brief survey of Deacon's work in Malekula, of the
condition of his notes when they came into my hands and some
of the difï¬Åculties which I had to meet in preparing them for
publication, has been necessary in order that the reader may
appreciate how far the material contained in this book is to
be relied upon, and why it is that so many statements have to
be qualiï¬Åed by the words “ probably â€ù, "perhaps ", and “ it
seems that â€ù. The reader will also realize why it is that the
book is so incomplete ; why so many subjects are touched upon
and so few fully elaborated; but especially why there is so
much of facts and so little of interpretation of these facts. Only
from his letters has it been possible to glean something of what
Deacon believed to be the meaning of some of the complex
phenomena which went to make up the lives of the Malekulans ;
the great majority are left unexplained. This is not the book
which Deacon would have written ; it is only a compilation of
what he left behind.
- It will be found that in writing up these notes I have made
little reference to other writers on Malekula. The reasons for
this are twofold, In the ï¬Årst place, as I have already indicated,
such Work as has hitherto been published about this island
refers predominantly to South-East Malekula, to the region
around Port Sandwich, or else it either purports to be true of
Malekulan cultures in general (which, considering their diversity,
is absurd) or lacks any speciï¬Åc localization. In the second
place they almost invariably present only one or two aspects
of Malekulan life, tearing them from their cultural context,
and thus either showing them in a somewhat distorted form,
or at best depriving them of much of their signiï¬Åcance. Only
occasionally, therefore, have such writings been called upon to
illuminate obscure points. In particular I have made use of
Mr. john Layard‘s article on " The Degree—taking rites of