[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
xvi PREFACE
the diffusion of cultures." In I925 Deacon obtained a First
Class in the Anthropological Tripos. I suggested that he should
make an_intensive study of the ethnography of Malekula, an
island in the Northern New Hebrides, which was known to
possess a rich native culture concerning which scarcely anything
had been published. An earlier student, Mr. ]ohn Layard, had
spent some time in the small islands off North-East Malekula
and a week in South-West Bay, but had not then been able to
publish his results. It was more particularly to the latter area
that I directed Deac0n’s attention. To enable him to undertake
this expedition he was appointed to the Anthony Wilkin Student-
ship, and this, with a grant from the Worts Fund and a liberal
extension of his scholarship by Trinity College, enabled him to
undertake the adventure.
Deacon sailed for Australia on Ist October, 1925 ; he stayed
a short time at Melbourne and made large coloured sketches
of the two ï¬Åne Malekulan eï¬Åigies in the National Museum of
Victoria, concerning the decoration of which he subsequently
obtained information in Malekula. While waiting for a steamer
to take him to Vila, he made friends in Sydney and employed
his time proï¬Åtably in various ways. I
Deacon arrived at Vila, the headquarters of the Condominium
Government on the island of Efate, or Sandwich Island, on
31st December, and stayed there for nearly a fortnight with the
British Commissioner, the late Mr. Smith-Rewse, “ one of the
best type of administrators, with a keen desire for the general
adoption of a just and sympathetic attitude towards the natives.
He is up against terrible odds in the French, who do much harm
through ignorance and indifference." In another letter Deacon
says that " the French are very much in the ascendant every~
where, the whole place [the New Hebrides] is flooded with rum,
champagne, wines, beers, face powders, and scents; the two
latter are popular with the natives, they look pitifully grotesque
daubed with them. In addition there are Tonkinese and Chinese
everywhere, the French import hundreds from Cochin China.
Maewo is apparently quite depopulated and South-East Santo
a sort of French garden city.â€ù He got to know Monseigneur
Douceré, the Roman Catholic Bishop who had been in the islands
since I889. He is an expert botanist and has written a small
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