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

12 MALEKULA

father and tnie father’s sister are used for the son and daughter
respectively of the paternal aunt. Further, there is in all
parts of the island the same form of garden tillage; the cult
of boars and of curved boars’ tusks; and, so tar as we know,
the practice of drawing geometrical ï¬Ågures in .the sand. Never-
theless, from the outset Deacon was able to recognize the
existence of two main culture areas, which he distinguished in
the ï¬Årst place according to the dress worn by the women. Within
these there are a number of sub-types of culture, but this distinc-
tion does appear to be fundamental. Throughout all the coastal
parts of Malckula, with the exception of that tract of country
which lies north of Seniang and south of Lambumbu (and which
includes Mewun), the women wear a skirt made of a mat of ï¬Åne
texture, fringed at both ends, stained red, and often decorated
with white designs. (See Plate IVA.) It is wrapped around
the hips in such a way as to rest low down on the buttocks,
leaving the upper part oi them bare. Formerly the ends
of the mat were drawn round to the front and tucked in so that
they hung down sufficiently for the fringes to hide the genitals.
To-day they are more usually wrapped one over the‘other to
form a true skirt, and often another narrow mat is passed between
the legs, the whole being kept secure by a belt}
How far inland the use of this mat skirt is found we cannot
be sure. It is everywhere in what we may term the southern
districts——that is the districts lying south of a line running
from South-West Bay to Port Sandwich~in the north or “ head "
of the island, along the north-west coast and throughout the
whole length of the east coast. But it does not appear to have
penetrated among the bush peoples. It is not found in Laus,
in the territory of the Naan Bugoi, in Bangasa, Uerik, nor in
all the other small districts which lie inland from Banggor and
to the south of that bounding range of hills which stretches
from near Pacey Point to Bushman’s Bay and separates the people
of the plains from those oi the mountainous interior. It is
absent too in Mewun. In all these districts the women wear
instead a petticoat of shredded banana leaves or of ï¬Ånely twisted
1 ct. Speiser, 1923, p. 200. He states that these women's mat-skirts
resemble the mats Wm by men in Omba, but that they are somewhat larger
than the mm, measuring circa 40 >< 120 crn.—C, H. w.