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

202 MALEKULA
When he opened them, behold the sun was nowhere to be seen,
but the man found himself once more in Benaur. All the villagers
were frightened, thinking that he was a ghost, but he soon
reassured them and showed them the valuable pig's tusk bracelet
on his arm. He then gave back the paltry pig's tusk which he
had borrowed from his friend and so miraculously recovered,
and the latter slunk away to his hut, green with envy oi that
which the sun had given to the man.
The numerous exchanges of food and pigs which take place
at every ceremony are primarily of sociological importance, in
that they serve to hind together the members of the community,
involving all in a network of obligations. From a purely economic
point of view they are probably relatively unimportant, since the
nature of the objects given and received is usually the same,
except in the rites oi the Nimangki and Nalawan and of other
similar societies wherein a certain number of animals are given
in return ior certain services or insignia. Yet even when pigs
are given for pigs and food for food, the exchanges are not wholly
without economic signiï¬Åcance, for they are deï¬Ånitely valuable
as a stimulus to work and for the need to which they give rise
for organized co-operative effort.
For the most part every household is self-supporting, and
there is little or no specialization of occupation (if we except
perhaps the occupation of a magician). Hence we might expect
to ï¬Ånd that occasions for purely economic exchanges of goods
are rare, save for the exchange of the produce of the sea for the
produce of the bush. In Lambumbu, markets, called m'mm',
are held for this purpose from time to time during the period
which elapses between the planting and the harvesting of the
yarns. The coastal folk of Lambumbu sit in their canoes, and
the people from the bush villages 1 come down to the seashore
bringing with them baskets of taro. It is a recognized thing
that the coastal people must take everything which the bushmen
bring ; nevertheless, a considerable amount of bartering goes on.
The taro is not paid for on the spot, but a date is ï¬Åxed some ten
days later, when the bush and coastal folk will meet once more
I It is not clear whether these people from the bush belong to Lambumbu
district or not. The {act that the coastal people remain in their canoes while
:1-is bushmen are on the beach suggestse certain shyness, if not = mm animosity,
between the two, which seems to imply that the busbmcu may be other than
Iambumbu people, and may have come from such little-known aismm ol the
interior as Bangasa, Niviar, or Nesa.n.—C. H. w.