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

ECONOMIC LIFE I97
borrowed, but one equal in these respects to the condition which
the latter would have attained during the interval between the
loan and the repayment. If, however, the borrower, or a man
to whom a pig has been presented, wishes to be of good repute,
it is necessary for hiin to return to the donor an animal of one
grade higher than that which he received. It is important to
notice that two pigs of low status do not equate to one of high
status, though, as Will be seen later in the accounts of certain
ceremonies, if a man is unable to make a suitable return he will
sometimes give an animal of low value as an earnest of his
intentions to reward the donor with a more worthy animal in
the not too distant future. From an analysis of the exchanges
of pigs which he himself observed in Lambumbu, and of which
he was told, Deacon was able to work out a graph showing the
relative value of the different grades (see Fig. 9). Taking three
as the unit of value for the smallest pig, the ï¬Årst four grades
increase by one point each; the ï¬Åfth grade, in which the tusk
is seenprojecting, increases by two points ; the seventh grade
is four higher ; the ninth grade twelve higher than the seventh ;
while the eleventh grade is twenty—four points higher than the
ninth. During certain ceremonies when pigs are presented, as
in the rites of the Nimamgki and Nalawam societies of Seniang,
or the Nelemew of Lambumbu and Lagalag, the man who is
going to present the animal often gives the prospective recipient
some object which indicates the value or status of the pig. In
Seniang a sprouting coco-nut is generally employed, the length
of the shoot indicating the degree of the animal's tusk curvature.
In the north-west it seems that a torch is used, at least for animals
of the higher grades. Thus, at the Nimangki celebrated by
Filin Mal of Vevenah (see below), three men came forward, one
with a lighted torch, symbolizing a mlarugh pig, the other two
with unlighted torches symbolizing nimbuah tmnilsian.
In Seniang, and probably also in Mewun, only men can own
pigs, though the care of them is often in the hands of their wives.
In Lambumbu and Lagalag, however, where, as we have already
seen, women have greater rights in the matter of holding land
than they have in the south, pigs—both sows and boars—are
owned by men and women alike. In the beginning a woman will
usually get possession of one or two pigs by working in the
yarn gardens of some important man who will recompense her