[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
558 MALEKULA Deacon's notes of the places Lamanggau or Ma’a, nor in that curious stipulation concerning the fate of men possessing sisters and of women possessing brothers} ' THE CULT or rue DEAD The memory of dead male relatives is kept green by the presence of the rambamm4> in the amel, and in the commemorative rites at the Neerew Rahulemp, which will be described shortly. The more famous or important a man is, the longer will he be borne in mind. The living may also ask the dead to help them in certain enterprises ; thus a man who wishes his yams to prosper and yield plentifully will go into the garden and pray for a good crop to one whom he addresses as " Grandfather “.2 Further, as has been mentioned, the sacred place or nembrmbrkzm of every clan is inhabited by its own particular spiritual being, which is called a temes and must therefore be regarded as a ghost, very probably that of the founder of the clan. It is perhaps signiï¬Åcant then that before going out to kill anyone of another group a man will retire to the nembrmbrkm and ask the tamer there, whom he addresses as aavu, to help him in his attack. To do this is called itu tamat binggen nimarlamp temzs, which may he roughly translated as: “ he puts prayer unto the old man temes.â€ù From such evidence it cannot be said that the dead are in anyway deiï¬Åed or worshipped by the people of Seniang (though the respect paid to certain individual clan temzs, such as the Temes Mor Vaal, may approach this condition), but they are undoubtedly much respected and believed to take a constant interest in the doings of their descendants. As we have seen, the erection of wooden or stone images at entrance to a grade in the Nimangki and Nalawan, the blowing of the sacred tmes naainggol during the ceremonies of the Nalawan, and the celebration of the litamate rite all point to the existence of a deï¬Ånite cult of the ancestors, and from such evidence as we have this appears to be the most important element in the religion of the south-west. I It is rather surprising that, of =11 the myths and legends collected by Deacon, not one beers any relation to the story of the Three Races which was told to Layard by his interpreter, and which is directly concerned with these beliefs about lile alter death. (Layard, 1928, p. zoo.) 1 The words of the prayer have not been translated ; they mu as follows: Aavu niiamafl mbaai gala an miaw m'n iiingk gels!
