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

THE DISTRIBUTION OF CULTURES 707
women, the latter being wholly excluded from this aspect of the
men's social life, and by the intimate connection of chiefs or
men of considerable importance and influence with the higher
ranks of the association. There is yet another signiï¬Åcant point.
Throughout this same area genuinely secret and sacred societies
co-exist with the grade system, and of these the two which have
been most closely studied—the Tamale of the Banks, and the
Nimangki Tlel of Lamburnbu district, Malekula, areas widely
apart—show a remarkable agreement in details of ceremonial
and associated beliefs.‘ In both areas, moreover, there are deï¬Ånite
indications of a connection between, or an interrelation of, the
secret societies and the men's graded association. I have, too,
accumulated evidence which shows that even in details there is
considerable uniformity in the rites and regalia belonging to the
graded society in all the islands of the North and North-Central
New Hebrides. In many of them, as for instance in Raga, Santo,
Malekula, and Ambrym, there is a progression from the use at
entrance to the lower ranks of wild canes, through Erythrina,
cycas, and cmton as the scale is asccnded, until for the highest
some form of storlc-work is set up.
Again, if we consider the funeral rites, we notice that the
starting point of the celebration of the ritos of Nimangki Tlel
in Lambumbu is the exhumation of the skull and large bones of
a deceased rnembcr. In South Malekula the practice of hastening
the decomposition of the body that the skull may be ï¬Åxed to an
efligy (mmbimzmp) of the deceased is connected with the grade
system and with the Nevinbw society oi which the secret sound
is the whirring of bull-roarers.â€ù Finally, among the Big Narnbas
important men are buried with their heads above ground ; their
skulls are detached and kept on a stone slab in a special skull-
house, and it is on the occasion of the removal of a chiefs skull
that the ceremonies called Nalauen are performed, accompanied
I Sen uliove. PP- 455456. Deacon lays great stress upon the association in
Malekula of diflerent varieties of crotnn with dliflerent divisions oi the Nimangki
Tlzl, unri in the Banks Islands with the diï¬Åerent Tamale s0cieties,—Cr H. w.
I That the Nzvinbur and the making of efligies ni the deed are associated
is Certain, but as we have seen, it is with the Nnlau/an society that tho cult of
the dead fllld the funeral rites are most intimately associated in the South-
West. The Iundamental relation between the Nlllall/an and the Nim/mglti Tie!
has uh-euriy been discussed and I believe provcn. It is curious that throughout
this analysis of New Hebridean cultures Deacon makes no mention at all ol the
Ndlllwufl, but in an early letter he writes = " Provisionally I would allot Nmulm,
Naluwnn, Nimrmgki, and Nelmg to one culture CDmpleX."—C. H. w.
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