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THE NALAWAN SOCIETY 423
During this seclusion, which lasts for a year, the candidates
have to observe certain tabus, particularly i.n connection with
food. They must avoid eating all short round things, such as
short varieties of yam, also bread-fruit, and anything which has
been touched by a woman, as, for instance, a coco-nut which a
woman has husked, and the only kind of banana allowed to
them is the nemunggut nimnmt, which womcn are never permitted
to eat. It is recorded further that all cooked food is proscribed
to the candidates, but this statement may not he entirely reliable,
for it is said elsewhere that they may consume ï¬Åsh and pig, and
there is no suggestion that these are eaten raw. Specimens of all
the tabued foods are put in the " eternal ï¬Åre â€ù, the naamb mbatam-
bni, and thus are ritually burntr; it is after they have been thus
consumed that they are prohibited to the candidates. Should
a man wish to break one oi these food tabus, he takes some
leaves of two “ sacred " plants, the red cmton nimbile and an
unidentiï¬Åed shrub nembewus, and rubs them between his hands
so that their juice falls on the forbidden food which he desires
to eat. It is said that the nembal/as is a "strong" tree, and
that its spirit devours the evil principle in the tabued foods,
and so renders them harmless to the candidate.‘
When the year's seclusion is over, the men go out and cut
barnboos and erect a kind of platfonn along one side of the amel,
and, the whole building is made gay with red leaves and flowers.
lntront of, the platform masks are hung, which are called tamer
by the women but nitevis by the men, and are therefore probably
functionally similar in some way to the nitel/is erected at entrance
to many otthe Nalawan grades. The women and children of
the ‘village retire to where they cannot see what is taking place
at the amel, and the candidates are brought out on to the platform.
Here they sit down, one behind each mask, and in this way all
have their faces completely hidden. Two men now appear
from the bush, each carrying a bow and arrow. They approach
the amel, dancing back and forth, passing and repassing each
other, to the rhythm of the gongs. When they are close to the
platform, the gongs become quiet; each dancer draws his bow
I 1t is interesting that the same foods which are tnbu to the candidates
ol IV_ulau/an Varrrmmp are also tabu to 1 sorcerer who is engaged in making death
magic. The nxml>uml7a_l tree, 91 which the leaves or fruit an put into the lama:
xmagggl to be burnt, rs a vanety which is used in the making oi death magic.~