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364 MALEKULA
“ Next morning everyone was up early, getting leaves in which
to cook puddings and heating the stones for the ovens. This had
to be done now, for owing to the festivities there would not he
time to cook later in the day and everything had to be prepared
in advance. While this was going on, I went to some of the
neighbouring villages. Everywhere along the paths I met with
pigs being hauled along ; small pigs, some borrowed hurriedly at
the last moment ; magniï¬Åcent curved tuskers, the pride of their
owners; pigs attending their ï¬Årst Nimanglzi, as indicated by a
bunch of cordylines held with the tether ; recalcitrant pigs, docile
pigs, black pigs, white pigs, pigs from everywhere flowing to
Vevenah.
" This went on throughout the morning. When the sun had
about reached the zenith, and the ' horne~village ’ was all in
readiness, whoops and yells of delight, followed by bursts of lusty
singing, began to resound in the neighbouring woods. This heralded
the approach of the ï¬Årst visiting party, which, a short time after,
appeared in sight and moved on to the dancing ground like Bifnam
Wood come to Dunsinane. Each man carried before him a. bough
covered thickly with leaves (naai nin nmsah) which he shook to
the stamping rhythm of the dance. Entering from the far side of
the ground, through the gap between the yam towers, from which
the pen had been removed in the morning, the visiting party swung
once round the gongs, then out along the line of stones set up for
the pigs, which ran by the side of the path leading into the village,
hank again and round the gongs, out again and back for the third
and last time. As they retreated their leader went backwards,
facing the advancing column oi his fellow dancers, throwing his
body from side to side by cutting away each loot in tum, backwards
and outwards, the trunk being bent forward.
" Meanwhile the ‘home’ village had manned the gongs, and
struck up the pig-giving rhythm, mlulmlml. Filin Mal now
appeared, wearing his most valuable penis wrapper and tnsselled
girdle. This was wound carefully round a bark belt, smoked to a
velvety black for the occasion. (In this district black is a lavourite
oolour for the body, being considered even more ' flash ’ than red.)
On his right wrist he wore a pig’s tusk bracelet; on the right
lower arm a ï¬Åne turtle~shell, and on the left upper arm a ninsum,
or an-nlet of string and shell. He began to dance up and down in
a slow, digniï¬Åed manner, on that side of the ground nearest to the
amzl, his right hand held in his left behind his back, his head bent
slightly forward. On the opposite, far side of the dancing ground,
in front of the yarn towers, stood the visiting party singing lustily.
The moment for giving the pigs has arrived. The gongs grow
more and more /arts and more and more staccato, rising to the
climax. Suddenly all the visiting party fling their branches on the
ground, and out from their midst dances Ronglili, the ï¬Årst principal
seller, and two other men who are about to give valuable naarugh
pigs. They are blackened all over and Ronglili holds horizontally
in his outstretched right hand a lighted reed torch bound with
sinnet, while the other two hold similar torches unlighted. These
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