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

14 MALEKULA
Seniang. Its absence in Laus is indicated by the fact that although
the men of this district are invited to attend Nimangki celebra-
tions in Seniang (celebrations which are not of a particularly
sacred or secret nature), they are not asked to enter and join
the other mcn in the club-house, but are left to feed with the
women and are treated as people of no importance, such as
uninitiated boys. The Naan Bugoi do not evcn attend Nimangki
festivals. '
Another cultural element which, so far as has been recorded,
has very much the same distribution, is'the use by the women of a
mat head-dress. (See Plates IVA, VA, XII) It is aregular part of
a woman's costume among the Big Nambas and in Lambumbu,
Lagalag, and Laravat, while in Seniang, and probably elsewhere
in the southwestern districts, it forms part of thc rcgalia
helunging to the Lapas, which is the graded society of the women
(Plate XVIIA). How tar it is known or used in the other southern
districts or in those of the east coast and adjoining islands has
not been reported.
It would he tedious here to enter into a complete analysis of
the distribution of all the more important culture traits found
in Malekula, for this will have to be done when we describe them
in detail, but already we can conï¬Ådently atï¬Årm that the weight
of evidence goes to support the view that we can indeed
distinguish between what it will be convenient to call the “ mat-
skirt " and the " fringe-skirt â€ù areas.
It must not be imagined, however, that the cultures of each
of these areas are homogeneous. There are certain signiï¬Åcant
differences within each cultural district. For instance, among
the Big Nainbas kava drinking and circumcision are practised
—l':oth of them entirely non-Malckulan features-~-tlierc is a
special form of nambas or penis wrapper (Plate XA), and a remark-
able organization of male homosexuality. With the tribes of
Lambumbu and Lagalag these people share the ritual use of the
bul.l—r0arer, and a system of what is, to all intents and purposes,
hereditary chieftainship (though the latter is almost certainly
more highly developed among the Big Nambas than among their
southern neighbours]. The southern districts, again, share many
cultural features which mark them oft from their eastern and
north-western neighbours. It is in them alone that we ï¬Ånd the