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THE NIMANGKI AND NELEMEW 373
with the ï¬Årst three grades, but a very interesting part of the
ritual of Miliun is recorded. A man who aspires to the highest
ehieftainship by entrance into this grade invites a party from
two villages which are both distant from his own and from each
other, and which may even belong to different districts. The
dancing ground is then swept, cleaned, and decorated, and
divided into two parts by a broad track (described by the
informant as “ all same gov'ment road") edged with small
stakes. In each division a club-house is built for the housing
of the guests. Each party of visitors, accompanied by its chief,
takes up its position in one of these divisions of the dancing
ground. Their faces are painted, and fowls’ feathers adom
their hair. When everything is ready, one party advances to
the edge of the dividing track; thereupon the other rushes
forward also, armed with human bones, with which they attempt
to beat their 1)is1i—v'is. After a time the contest stops, and the
erstwhile attacking party becomes the attacked. Thus changing
their roles altemately, the two groups continue to strive, until
the chief, Whose guests they are, orders them to cease. Through-
out, no man oi either side may cross the boundary which divides
the two forces. When all is over the chief who is celebrating the
festival, kills the pigs which are tied to the line of mon0liths,'
and distributes them to the chiefs of the two companies of
guests.
A feature of peculiar interest in connection with the Nimangki
of the Big Nambas is the use of kava. Kava-drinking is unknown
elsewhere in Malekula, but it is said that the kava plant is used
in the ritual of some of the high N imangki grades of Seniang, and
also in connection with the ceremony of Making Man (Nogha
Tilabwe) in Mewun. Among the Big Nambas the drink, called
by them malokh, is prepared in a trough made from the dried
spathe of a coco-nut (see Plate XXIVA). Such a trough is always
found inside the men's club-house, near the entrance. Five or
six men take pieces of kava root, chew them vigorously, and then
in tum spit the chewed mass into the trough which has been
filled with water. Another man sits beside this trough and stirs
the water and its contents until they form a thick, yellowish
.liquid. This is then consumed in a ceremonial manner. just
1 The pl§S are not killed on stone tables as is the practice in Espiritu s-aw.
(A. E. Deacon, me, Pr 49l.)—A. B. D.