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xxii PREFACE
Complexity of culture differentiation. . . . The isolation of
groups is most remarkable : this of course may be due in part
to geographical causes~mountains, and to differences of dialect
(a consequence of the former). A striking case is the Big Nambas.â€ù
In an unï¬Ånished letter to me dated 30th October, 1926, Deacon
reports as having left Lamburnbu, where he had spent four
months entirely alone and as being then at Bushman‘s Bay, at
the middle of the east coast of the island. At the beginning of
November he went to the islet of Atchin off the north-east coast,
and thence to the Big Nambas territory in the north-west of the
island. He was permitted to pay only a brief visit to these
people, but remarkable sociological information was nevertheless
obtained. Deacon collected ten male skulls of the Big Narnbas
which he rightly considered " rather remarkable â€ù and he gave
a good technical description of them, they were of a more savage
or ‘low’ type than he had seen elsewhere. As a matter ~of
fact they are of the same type as certain skulls from the interior
of Fiji and from other spots in Melanesia, and evidently indicate
an ancient stock of mankind. All the skulls collected by Deacon
were sent to Sydney, together with the numerous measurements
of natives and other observations on physical anthropology.
It is hoped that this material will be described and published ‘by
Professor Burkitt.
Deacon appears to have retumed to Bushman's Bay after
his visit to the country of the Big Nambas, and then Went to
Ambrym where he stayed for six weeks during January and
February, 1927, and investigated the regulation of MARRIAGE in
four linguistically distinct areas. In a letter to me he wrote:
“I am really rather excited at the moment. I have found in
Ambrym a system of MARRIAGE classes, still in full working, of
the type of those among the Central Australian tribes, though
not actually corresponding with the Australian system. . . .
For me it clears up a great deal, even in Malekula. . ., . To me
it is like a sudden illumination. The day after I had got the
ï¬Ånal proof of the thing I simply did nothing, just had an absolute
rest, ate my best biscuits and tinned peaches and felt that nothing
mattered now. . . . I think this Ambrym system is my greatest
stroke of luck.â€ù He expresses surprise that it had not been
described before, since “the older men explained the system
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