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

562 MALEKULA
the heart (Muanwisen), and the breath and shadow (nawanmz
and nemelneme respectively), which are in no way connected
with the spiritual part of man. The word nindilmane is also,
apparently, used sometimes in the sense of the " double " oi
an object. Thus it is said of the food and canoes prepared at the
Nogho Tilabwe for the dead magicians of the Melpmes clan,‘
that it is the nindihnam of these objects which the ghosts use.
Such objects are not believed to possess a soul comparable to
the soul of human beings, and in his notes Deacon has translated
the word in this context as " double ". Besides the nindilmam,
every person has also a nemahnenre. This is invisible, but, unlike
the m‘nd1'l/mane, it is separable from the body during life. When
a man is asleep his namahnmre will wander about and visit other
people and places. The people in localities visited by the
dreamer's mmahmmra are unaware of his presence, for they
too are asleep ; their mmahneme are also wandering about
elsewhere and they are therefore incapable of seeing the
visitor. This does not explain how it is that a person in a
dream sometimes speaks to the dreamer, nor do the natives
of Newun offer any solution to this problem. This belief in the
mmahnmre being an entity distinct from the nindihnane differs
from the beliefs of Seniang, where both the soul and the “ dream
double " are regarded as being one and the same—the nimwinin.
As in Seniang so in Mewun certain plants oi special importance
have mmahnenrz. These are the cycas, the namesmes, the nem-
banggawei, and the mwzlnggil 1/00 nzmahnem (sin). The nemmnes
is the tree which, according to one myth, bore the people of
Melpmes. There is no mention of the pig having 21 nemalmmre
similar to the nivimmi/n of the Seniang pigs.
The records of the beliefs of the people of Mewun about
souls and ghosts are very much less full than are those for the
southern district, but from the evidence which does exist it seems
that in both regions the attitude of the living towards the dead
is much the same. There is the same fear of eating food which
a ghost has touched. For instance, one of Deacon's informants,
Gastog, was taken ill with violent vomiting throughout the
night as a result oi such a ghostly contact, and a brother of his
died from the effects of a similar illness, caused in the same way.
It is believed, too, that a ï¬Åt (imesmes) is due to a ghost touching
I See Chapter XXII.