[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
332 MALEKULA nimbuas mlml lief etinglï¬Å guvalip." Ates Vinbamp then accepted the yam as a symbol of the pig and gave it to the aforementioned man who had danced before the tartar. This signiï¬Åed that the pig which had been given to Ates Vinbamp, but which in accordance with the usual Nimangki rule he might not eat, together with the vegetable food, had all been presented by him to this man and his friends. They therefore gathered up the yams, cut up the pig, and divided out this food among the seniors. One portion they kept for themselves and took back to their village to cook and eat there. At this point the description of the proceedings breaks off, but presumably they were closed by the usual rite of bestowing upon the candidate his new title. Perhaps the most curious thing about this incomplete account of Tota’s is how little it corresponds to the general but also incomplete account which precedes it, and in particular that nowhere in it is any reference made to the nimaw or bamboo cone, but instead to a tomes of umnu wood carved with faces which symbolize a mmbammp and crowned with a skull to which is fastened a coco-nut at the end oi a string. There is probably no reason to suppose that either account is inaccurate, but rather that out of the manifold rites which go to make up the entrance ceremonies of Nimew different informants selected different onus for mention. The question immediately presents itself : to which group of Nimrmgki grades is Nimew allied P Layard, in adjudging this, based his arguments on the bamboo cone (nimsw), which according to his informant is at one stage in the proceedings hung irom a high pole of nator wood in the dancing ground. This he com- pared with the nav/zmzvu of Mbulmbal and the swinging coon-nut which hangs from a similar pole in the rites of Newt. There are, however, certain grave objections to regarding Nimew as belonging to this group of grades, the more important of which are perhaps that the people of Seniang themselves class Newt, Naai Mbim- bamp (a grade which Layard did not record), and Mbalmbal as Nimzmgki Metmet ; that these have no distinctive gong—rhythm of their own ; that their body»painting is black, and that tear is not danced for them. Nimew, on the contrary, has a coloured body-painting, a distinctive gong-rhythm, and tear is performed at its entrance rites. But not only does this evidence suggest 2:.
