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

378 MALEKULA
districts of South Malekula; these are T aresing with its image
Nahau ; Balrmrum with its image Savanral; and Bwiliau with
its image Ambang. _ ,
It is not only in the names, however, that the Mangks of the
Maskelynes resembles the Ninumgki of Seniang; the images
set up at entrance to the grades have certain characters in
common. Thus the temes erected for Lovwis is of tree fern carved
with several faces through the noses of which a short stick is
thrust; the temes of Neliu/is is also of tree fern, and though it
has only one facevit too has a stick (ngimgunu) through the nasal
septum. Again in the grade Meleim the temes is said to be placed
under a thatched roof with a small circle of ï¬Åat upright stones
behind it‘ These are certainly similar to the shelter which, in
Seniang, is put up for the ï¬Årst time at entrance to Nimze/eil and
to the nonggob. It is interesting that there should have been a
division of opinion as to whether the temes of the highest grade
Amat were a carved pole or a stone image, for it it were indeed
the latter then in this south-easterly part of Malekula, as in the
south-westerly, the highest Nimangki status is oonnected with
the erection of a monolith, and this suggests that in the latter
district the use of stone images is not wholly due to contact with
Lambumbu. Further, the existence of the names Meleun and
Balias in the Maskelynes shows that, though the grades of
which these are the titles may have been introduced into Seniang
from the north, they are not to be regarded as the unique property
of Larnbumbu, and, if we are correct i.n equating Naamel ndarlamp
with Amul Lumqï¬Å, and the Amat of the Maskelynes with the Amat
of Worvulu, it seems very possible that this grade is indigenous
to the south and was perhaps formerly the highest in the series
there.
Lists of Nimzmgki grade names or titles have also been collected
from Vanbaut near Port Sandwich and from Senbarei. These
are given on p. 379, together with those recorded by Rivers
from Sulol and Lonwolwol in Ambrym. It will be noticed that
these lists 1 are not as long as the list from Seniang, nor even as
that from Worvulu, and that the names of the majority of grades
1 Whence Deacon obtained these lists is not clear. No further notes on the
grades which they record have been iound, and it is doubtful whether any were
taken. In the lists them lv th to b '
se es ere seems e some contusion as to whether
the name is that of the grade or or the title which is borne by its membexs.—-
C. H. W,
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