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

THE VILLAGE AND VILLAGE LIFE 47
Maintenance. of Law and Order
But it is not only fear of the anger of the ancestral spirits
which keeps a man or woman from flouting the rules and customs
of society. The strongest check on the frequent commission of
anti-social acts is probably desire for prestige and the fear of
public contempt or ostracism. One of the most noticeable things
about the life of the Malekulans is its publicity. The dwelling-
houses, although they are doubtless occupied to some extent
during the day-tirne, are primarily, it seems, sleeping places.
The usual daily activities are carried on for the most part in
the open in full view of other people, qr, by a man, amidst his
fellows in the club-house.‘ This is undoubtedly a fact of con-
siderable sociological importance, for there is in this island the
minimum of organized legal machinery. Even in the north and
north-west, where there are to be found men to whom the word
" chief " is not inapplicable and where something in the nature
of class distinctions exist, these men do not, so far as we know,
have any judicial or administrative functions, and indeed we
know very little of what privileges and obligations their position
does entail. The evidence seems to suggest that such influence
as they have (or may have had) over their fellow tribesmen is due
to. their wealth. This enables them to be lavish in the making
pidgiftsand the giving of feasts and is in itself an indication that
.t,hey,are.people whom fortune favours. It is certain, however,
.that,'- though chiefs possessed of authority do probably exist
among the Big NAMBAS and in Lambumbu, Lagalag, and other
neighbouring districts, and though their position seems to be in
effect, though perhaps not in theory, an hereditary one, in the
south and south~west the social status of a man is entirely
dependent upon his ability to purchase membership of a high
rank in the two graded societies, the N imangki and the Nala:/mm,
and that such high rank carries with it considerable influence,
but probably nothing which could be truly regarded as
‘ Deacon wrote in a letter: “ The publicity of native life is at times
maddening. . If they [the natives] really olier to accept you as a member
of the commumty the stress oi give and take in the daily life in it soon leaves
little room for any attitude except in your rare private moments; —- you
come in for your share of censure, ridicule, chafl, aï¬Åection, help, as any other
man, and return what you get."