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


THE NIMANGKI AND NELEMEW 383
circles (mmggab) and the cult of a number of plants among
which the cycas is included}
“ These last two groups are present in the patrilineal area of
the North-Central New Hebrides, and are very closely bound up
with the cult of ancestral ghosts as represented by the iemes. It
must be supposed that they have a common origin. Such evidence
as we have suggests that the centre of their dispersal or diffusion
was probably East Malekula. It is consistent with this that the
Nim//mgki reached its highest development in North-East Malekula
(in Wale, Atchin, and Reno), whence it may well have spread
overland to Larnbumbu and thence influenced the south-west, for
there is good reason to suppose that for the Nimangki of South-
West Bay there is a dual origin, one being Tomman Island or the
south coast, the other being the north-west." 2
! This was written before Deacon had visited Lamhumbu and studied the
Nimamgki there He would probably have classed at as belonging to the mam
group, though ah some of its titles it has afï¬Ånities with the second; and in the
prominence oi its stone-work it might seem related to the ï¬Åzst.—C. H. W.
‘ See also Chapter XXV.
‘