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

THE AMBAT, KABAT, AND HAMBAT 627
the mythology of several social institutions which are otherwise
not apparently related. In the Nevinbm rites she appears as the
mother of Mansip’s two wives, and at the same time as the
mother of Sasndaliep, and the whirring of the bull-roarers is
said to be her voice crooning her child’ to-sleep, thcsc very
instruments being called sometimes by her name. Again, she is
represented as the ï¬Årst person to make a N imangki ï¬Åre. As the
wife of the Ambat Malondr she kindled a great ï¬Åre and this she
held to be sacred ; no man save her husband might approach it
or eat at it, and if other men attempted to do so, she ate them.
It was only after some time that she admitted men who were not
her husband to this privilege on payment of pigs to her. In this
context the natives say that she was â€ù all same man " (although
at the same time they recognize that she was a female being),
since to-day only men may enter or have anything to do with
the Nimangki. She is associated, too, with the sacred Nalawzm
for the high grade Nevei Nambar nin Naluwzm is called
alternatively Nalau/an Nevinbumbaau. Finally, she is the
"totem" ot the village called Nomep, and is also connected
with the magic of house-building.‘ Now not only is Nevin-
bumbaau associated with the beings called Ambat through her
husband Ambat Malondr, she is also, as we have mentioned,
directly connected with the Ambat brothers in two separate
myths. The ï¬Årst of these tells how she dwelt once at a place
called Rambambap, near to Milip on the south coast. Herc she
dug a pit in which she trapped unwary men whom she after-
wards ate. In this way she caught all ï¬Åve of the Amhat brothers,
one after the other, but, through the cleverness of the eldest,
they managed to dig their way out and to win back to their
home at Iumoran.' The other myth relates that Nevinbumbaau
went to Tomman Island and there saw Ambat making a pudding.
He was using a stone with four handles—oi a kind not known
to~day-—and this she managed to steal from him. But Ambat,
discovering his loss, pursued her and recovered his property.‘
1 Nevinbumbaau is further referred to in a ‘brie! note as the mother or
eleven children. It is written that she used to " throw down a banana-1 a red
one called nisun limbllgimbu = “ sacred "] to her eleven children, counting
th h did ". . H, W.
em as 5 = S0
' The tut of this story in the dialect oi Senlsng, together with a. literal
translation will he found in Appendix B.
- No cowglete rm D1 um myth, either in English or Malekulan, has been
preserved. at the iourahandled stone may have been or in what way Arnbat
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