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

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ECONOMIC -LIFE I93
is even more meagre than it is of the ritual aspect of agriculture.
Certain clans have species of ï¬Åsh for their totems, and perform
the annual increase rite for them. There is mention, however,
of one variety of magic called in Seniang mwenglgil seselnggarim,
which is said to be ï¬Åshing magic, and is almost certainly concerned
with that form of sea and river ï¬Åshing for which the variety of
hook known as seselnggar is used. We are told, too, of a certain
hunting magic mwelnggil mlutu metim which clearly has to do
with the snare called nititu met.
Pros
Although yams are the basic foodstuï¬Å of the Malekulans, it
is in the ownership of pigs that a man estimates his wealth,
and it is the acquisition of pigs and their distribution as payment
for a rise in social status that form the central interests in a
Maleku1an’s life. All pigs do not, however, rank equally ; quality
is of much greater importance than mere quantity. In the
islands of the New Hebrides to the north of Malekula, the natives
distinguish between sows, boars, and intersexual 1 pigs, and
it is the last that are sociologically of paramount importance.
But in Malekula the intersexuals, called in Seniang nitaras
mbuas, are not common and are of no special value. Sows are
socially of no importance whatever (m'vim'asin in Seniang,
nimbwilzi in Wilemp). No man would ever eat one; they are
regarded as food ï¬Åt only for women and children. It is interesting,
however, that a s_ow is killed in the rites of the Nevinbur, and
that during the ceremonies of the Nalmmm grade Lekngvaal
Nimbwilai Tonggor, a rite is performed in which a man is repre-
sented as seeking for his sow which is about to litter.
It is in the boars that the Malekulan man is chiefly interested.
These are graded according to the development of their tusks.
To the accompaniment of the blowing of conch trumpets, the
two upper canine teeth are knocked out while the animal is
still young, and the lower ones, having nothing to bite against,
grow ever longer and longer, curving round until they pierce the
lower jaw, thus forming a complete circle and sometimes growing
out again (see Plate VII). To distinguish the different grades
1 J. R. Baker, 1928, 1929, who did not know that intersexual pigs occur in
Malekula.
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