[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
30 MALEKULA “ mother " gong (s'nen nambwilaghai) measuring about I5 feet high ; a smaller gong called nitugun mm nambwilaghai ; and one of the variety known as mwmzh nen nambwilaghai which is yet smaller. The two ï¬Årst are on the side nearest the amzl, the last on the other side. Round about, lying prone on the ground, are a number of much smaller gongs which are spoken of as the " child gongs " (nam nambwilaghm). The great “ mother " gong is crowned with a thin slab of coral some 4 feet in diameter and coming to a peak in the centre, not unlike a coo1ie’s hat. It is called nivepf (" the hat â€ù) and is one of the symbols of the most exalted rank. As another symbol of chieftainship, a rain- bow is, or was, also painted over the door of the club-house (ml nuwan itdvwa mn mmmel). Leading out of the dancing ground, on the side opposite that by which it is entered, is another avenue of stones. This one is only 440 yards long and is composed of sixty pairs of stones. In both avenues the ï¬Årst and last pairs of stones are much larger than the remainder. In that approaching the dancing ground the terminal stones measure 5ft. Bin, and 4ft. Io in. with a circumference almost as great, but the ï¬Ånest specimens are the monoliths where the avenue runs into the dancing ground. One of these is 6 ft. 8 in. high, carefully shaped to a cylindrical fom1—so carefully, indeed, that over the whole length the circumference only varies between 4 ft. 6§ in. and 4 ft. 8 in. All these stones, both the blocks and the monoliths, were set up when Saghsagh mal, the father of the present chief oi the village, purchased the highest Nimangki, and thereby acquired this name. In other parts of Lambumbu rows and avenues of stones are to be seen erected on the hills outside the villages and these, like the stones in the dancing ground of Sarernbal, are used ritually for tying pigs to when any important Nimangki ceremony is taking place. (The Nimangki, chapter xii.) Of the arrangements of villages in other parts of Malekula, Deacon leit no record at all. Speiser gives a plan of one from “ Central Malekula " (I923, plate x, No. 9), but this designation is, in view of the great diversity of cultures in this island, rather vague.
