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

WARFARE 213
any time be given by ï¬Åghting. This hostility is of a more or less
permanent and traditional nature; it cannot be traced to any
one cause, to any one act of provocation. Thus in olden days
Seniang and Wilemp were constantly opposed to Wien, and
similarly Seniang and Mewun were set against one another.
Marriages between members of these districts could, and not
infrequently did, take place, but when once ï¬Åghting liad been
decided upon a man's allegiance to his clan or district was
expected to outweigh temporarily all obligations towards the
kins'f0lk' of his wife or mother if they belonged to the enemy
district; He was not able to remain “ friends " with them, and
for this reason peace overtures were more difficult to set in
motion ; they had to go on a roundabout way, through a chain
of non-combatants or neutrals. Thus if Seniang wished to stop
ï¬Åghting Wien, the proposal would have to pass through some
six men, people of the district of Hurtes being the mediators,
before it reached Wien. Whether there was any deï¬Ånite ï¬Åeld
of battle where the forces of Seniang or Wilemp met those of
Wien we do not know, but, as has already been mentioned,
there lies between Seniang and Mewun, a strip of no-man’s
land which in days gone by was the site for pitched battles
between these two districts.
In Lambumbu, as recounted in a previous chapter, the
villages are divided into ï¬Åve mutually hostile groups. Fighting
carried on between members of the same group is called nivaal
lium (" village war ") and is considered to be a mere domestic
quarrel: ' It is recognized as entirely distinct from warfare entered
into between members of two traditionally hostile village groups.
. 1 Of the war customs of other parts oi Malekula, nothing has
been recorded.
THE WEAPONS USED IN WARFARE
The principal weapons used by the people of Malekula in
pre-European days were the bow and arrow, the spear, the club,
and the sling. In addition to these they used to make along
the paths, hidden pits lined with pointed bamboo stakes (similar
to the pits dug for catching wild pig), called in Larnbumbu
ndwal mm nï¬Åmm, in which the unwary enemy might be
trapped.