[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
1 ._ . _ ;92i% THE DISTRIBUTION OF CULTURES 711 culture came to the New Hebrides, it must be placed later than the fringed-skirt culture, but it may possibly have been earlier than that of the mat-skirt, though everything points, I believe, to its having arrived fairly late in the history of these islands. Thus, I have postulated four distinct cultural influences in the North and North-Central New Hebrides. I do not see how it is possible to explain the facts if any of-these tour is omitted, nor do I see any possibility of reducing any two of them to one. On the other hand, there is no need, I think, to assume any further cultural imrnigrations. I have deliberately excluded from this analysis any consideration of the cultures of the other islands of the West Paciï¬Åc, of Polynesia, and of New Guinea, for unless the cultures are known in great detail such a wide analysis as an inclusion of these would imply is apt, I believe, to defeat its own ends. Even such a restricted survey as Ihave given here can only be regarded as a preliminary approach to the problems involved in a cultural history oi the New Hebrides, for all the culture traits which I have mentioned have been but touched upon, and require a much closer and more detailed examination in themselves and in their relation to each other.‘ ‘ It will be noticed that in this survey several elements 0t Malekulan culture have not been placed at all as, for instance, the geometrical ï¬Ågures, the knocking out of the incisor teeth at the women's initiation rites, the cult of boars’ tusl-Is, the lame: nauinggol which appear to be known only in South Malekula and Ambryn, and the tobemic fertility rites which are nOt iound amOng all the totemic peoples of the New Hebrides and seem to be deï¬Ånitely related to the prehistoric pottery and through this to the Ambat mythology. These omissions only serve to emphasize the fawt that Deacon regarded this analysis which he made of the New Hebrides cultures as a. preliminary to a much more detailed and exhaustive study.—C. H. w. = 1 z 1
