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

710 MALEKULA
type ; by the use of the bull-roarer ; by the cult of the dead and
of the skulls of the dead (involving the treatment of the corpse
with ï¬Åre and being manifested in South Malekula by the custom
of making mmbammqb) ; by the carving of tree-fern images ; by
the cult of the cycas, croton, Erythrina, and cordyline ; by the
setting up of stone structures such as dolmens, monoliths, and
stone images; by the development of a graded society with
chieftainship, a rigid sex dichotomy, and the attendant ritual
phenomena of the Sukwe and Nimangki. To this culture I also
attribute totemism, the use of the spear and of the conch tnimpet,
the institution of tebu and, where it occurs, the sky home of the
dead. Very probably, too, the use of the slit gong and of a
system of signalling by means of gong-rhythms,‘ the practice of
giving a pig as a burnt offering, which occurs in Ambryrn and
Malekula, and the An-lbat~Qat mythological cycle belong to this
culture. Finally, it was, I presume, distinguished by patrilineal
descent, inheritance, and succession. It appears to have spread
over both the patrilineal and the matrilineal areas of the Northern
New Hebrides, modifying the kinship organization of the latter
region by changing the rules of inheritance and succession to
patriliny. It is most strongly developed, or acquired the strongest
hold, in those places where the mat-skirt culture had penetrated
only very slightly or not at all, and is lacking many of its features
in those places where the mat-skirt culture is dominant. The
great influence of this fourth “ secret society culture in East,
South, and North-West Malekula is probably associated with the
former presence in these parts of the island of the great sea-going
canoes which have been described, and indeed it is more than
likely that these were the vehicles whereby the culture reached
these shores. This theory is strengthened when we remember
that in days gone by a nimbembew canoe was, in Lambumbu, one
of the sacred things for the purchase of which a man celebrated a
Nimangki festival.
As regards the relative date at which this secret society
‘ It is obvious that the system of gongsignalling as it is carried out in
South-West Malekula would be impossible in a community having a simple dual
organization or even in one whose social structure involved six marriage sections.
1: is essentially bound up with the System oi local village exogamy as is that
found in Malekula. (See above, pp. 52-54.) It will also have been noticed
how very similar are the rites celebrated at the erection and purchase oi a new
gong, to those performed at entrance to a new Nimanghi rank in Seniang. or
at the acquisition of a new " sacred thing " in Lambu!:nbu.—C. H. W.
..-_, ,1
J.