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

20 MALEKULA
by the Burns Philp boat, ravaged the whole district a few years
ago, hundreds dying. The Mortality froM whooping cough and
Measles is also very high.“
Again he writes of the saMe district in the May of the sarne
year :-—
“Intensive study here is iMpossible—there is no intensive
lite. . . . You have scarcely an idea of the terrible depopulation
here during the last ten years. Layard told Me that according to
King, the late coMMissioner, there was a virile MuMMyfying popula-
lion ‘ here. Well, the total nuMber of survivors of the Wi eMp
district . . . is twenty-two, froM/My clans within living MeMory ;
the gong rhythMs ‘ of twenty-six of the clans were reMeMbered by
one adult, but not old, survivor, so that they were all existing say
twenty years ago at the Most. Ot the twenty-two, eight are
woMen. As for a ‘virile rnuMMyiying population ', I very Much
doubt whether a single ‘MuMMy ’ has been Made in S. Malekula
for several years. . . . The More or less coastal district, Seniang,
has 125 adult inhabitants, and that is where I have done Most
work. There has been a constant gravitation froM the interior
to the coast, so that there is now not a single village reMaining
in the whole of WileMp and Nahate districts, whereas upwards
of sixty existed soMe years ago. One dysentry and Spanish
in&iuMl;¬‚uenza epideMic, Boyd the Missionary calculated, reduced the
population by 62 per cent. The Spanish in&iuMl;¬‚uenza of post-war
days siMply wiped out whole villages.
"The only reMaining ‘heathen’ are drunkards. . . . For
soMe reason alcohol seeMs absolutely to knock the bottoM out
of a native. Many a tiMe I have coMe to it place in the Morning
to &iuMl;nd everyone in a sort of senseless coMa, capable only of &iuMl;lching
anything you give theM the chance to. You go into the Men’s
houses to try and &iuMl;nd Masks, etc., and all you &iuMl;nd are eMpty gin
bottles. As tor the Christian converts, they forM a sMall band,
corresponding in function and teMper to the (idealistic) social
revolutionaries of the Bakunin type lu Europe ;—they are out for
the destruction and reconstruction of native society. Depopula-
tion and alcoholisM suM up the situation."
In other parts of the island conditions seeM to have been
little better, for, soMe Months later, when he was working in
1 This ~ MhMMyiyiM; population“ refers to the people ht the !0uth~West
aiiiiihM of Malek&iuMl;¬‚l&iuMl;¬‚ who lSQd Q0 Make et&iuMl;¬Ågies 01 the Men who died. After
the funeral these were kept iii the Men‘: club-house IS MeMorials hr the deceased.
Such c&iuMl;igics, which are coMMonly but wrongly terMed " MuMMies BIS called
iii the MiMe language MMlMMp. For B ull description oi theM ind oi the
W2)‘ ih which they are Made, S06 below, Chap. xvru.-c. H. w.
1 The Mal&iuMl;¬Åkull&iuMl;¬‚s have large Wb&iuMl;¬Åde&iuMl;¬‚ gangs Made froM hollowed tree-trunks.
on which they beat out coMplicated rhlythrns, by Means of which siMple Messages
can be sent iroxn village to village. ach Eli-I1 has its OWE distinctive rhythM
hy which it and its MeMbers can be indicated. For 1 hill account oi these 5»
below, Chap. xvu.-c. I-I. w.