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

572 MALEKULA
bananas and yams are gathered and a small feast (imam) is held.
From this two yams are taken to the club-house and given to the
two men who had buried the body, who cook and eat them.
Ever since the interment these two men have remained in
seclusion, hedged about with tabus. Throughout this period
of thirty days they have not been allowed to stand upright,
but have had to crawl about on all fours, their hands and knees
inserted into coco-nut shells so that they shall not touch the
ground. Neither have they been allowed to touch any food
save that which they themselves eat. On the thirtieth day of
their conï¬Ånement, when the yams are brought to them from the
imam, they discard the coco-nut shells and once more walk
erect. Now they put on the two mats, netivilang, which the
female mourners have made, fastening them round their legs,
and binding them at the ankles. Thus attired they come out
of the club-house and receive :1 new name (mhvenu), which is
given to them by the son of the deceased. He stands up, slaps
them on the back, and calls out the new name as is the custom
in Nimangki ritual. Fifteen days later they emerge ï¬Ånally
from seclusion and return to normal life. They go down to the
sea and bathe, washing oil their ashes of mourning and removing
the mtivilang. These latter are then hung upon the naaimban.
The sons and widows are now the only people who are still in
mourning. The widows may not remove their ashes until
the nitemah is made, that is, until one hundred days have elapsed
since the death, but the sons may do so at some earlier period.‘
Four days before the celebration of the rite of nitemuh all
the women leave the village, going to live either with relatives
in other villages or in a house in the bush some distance away.
The ensuing four days are a time of unprecedented activity on
the part of the ghosts. At intervals along every road leading
into the village of the dead man, or if he were a big chief along
all the roads in the district, is arranged every conceivable kind
of “ hoax ". At One spot there are enormous logs bound together
1 According to one note all mourners put charcoal and red paint on their
(noes. This mourning is adopted by hhrh men and women (the kinship oi these
to the deceased is not speciï¬Åed) immediately after the death; it is discarded
by the men tan days later ii the dead man were 01 commoner, thirty days later
1: he were a chief. The women may only discard it niter a yhy much longer
time, at the end oi which a small feast called vtmlap is held. They do not,
however, in fact, wen! their mourning garb all the time, {or after the first month
nr two they put it on nniy for public occasions, as when attending a dance,
a mlamaw ceremony or when visiting another district.-C. H. w.