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

128 MALEKULA ‘
is the use of the term nwin tlol (and its variants) meaning
husband's sister, and m/ugh tlol, mutldl, muut tlï¬Ål, or mur tlel for
the wife's brother and, in Nesan, the husband's brother as well.
Tlul and tlril are the same word as tlel which, in Lambumbu and
Lagalag, means “ sacred ". As in Seniang, therefore, the husband's
sister is "the sacred woman â€ù and the wife’s brother is “ the
sacred man "; the inclusion of the husband's brother and the
husband’s sister's children under this title “ sacred man " is an
extension of it not found elsewhere. In this connection it would
be valuable to know the distinction between the WORDS mughut
and mugh by means of which these last-mentioned relatives
are differentiated. Although we have no direct evidence on the
subject, this type of nomenclature makes it almost certain that
the behaviour of a man and a woman towards these kindred of
the spouse is one of unrcciprocated, respectful avoidance such
as has been described between a man and his wife's brother in
Seniang.
It will have been noticed that, apart from a general similarity
in the way in which kindred are classiï¬Åed, there is a marked
difference in the actual terms employed for several relatives and
some of these seem wholly alien to the other districts of Malekula,
as, for instance, galu or nggalu for “ mother ", tipermen for
“ spouse’s mother ", and mu/atamm or hat metmim for " spouse's
father ".
CONCLUSION
Despite the fact that our knowledge of Malekulan kinship is
so unequal from one district to another, consisting sometimes of
only an incomplete list of terms, certain generalizations can be
made. Firstly, we have the universal classing together of paternal
cross-cousins with members of the father’s family in the generation
above the speaker and the corresponding grouping of the mother's
brother’s children with members of the generation below. The
father's sister's husband is sometimes logically enough classed
with the grandfather, sometimes with the father, and sometimes
the same term is used for him as for the maternal uncle. Of the
terms used between siblings it may be said to be a general rule
that the same ones are employed between sisters as between
1
jg‘?