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

ll
gas MALEKULA 7 .
In Seniang the seclusion is much shorter, the element of torture
is absent, and there are no sacred instruments connected with
the rites—unless we include the cruciform bamboo beaten for
the dance on the evening before incision—the bullroarer being
connected with an entirely different ceremony, although it bears
the same name, “ ear-slitter,â€ù that it does in the north. The
similarities between the north-west incision rites and those at
entrance to the societies N alawam Vinbamjz, N alaum, and
Nimr/mgki Tlel can only be noted ; of their signiï¬Åcance we cannot
be sure.
Considering the wider relations of these incision ceremonies
to initiation rites in other parts of the West Paciï¬Åc, Deacon
writes : “ In many ways the incision ceremonies described
above recall those of German New Guinea [now the Mandated
Territory of New Guinea], especially as among the Big Nambas
where the ceremonial is of the 'm'z'we'i nambiig type . . . and not
incision but circumcision is practised, as in New Guinea. I think
that this is the only place in the New Hebrides, or for that
matter in Melanesia (except perhaps in Fiji) south of the Mandated
Territories, where circumcision is found.1 If we compare them
with the rites of, for instance, the Tami, Bukaua, and Jabim of
Finsch Harbour we ï¬Ånd: (I) Circumcision; (2) Two types of
bullroarer believed by the unincised, that is the uninitiated,
to be the voices of ghosts, and by the women to be the voice
of a ghost who noses round the incision wound smelling blood ;
(3) a mock water-ï¬Åght between the men and the women ; (4) The
bullroarers ‘ sing out ’ and the men beat the candidates as they
return to the house after incision ; (5) The playing of panpipes,
which may probably be equated with theisacred flutes. Add to
this the facts that the Finsch Harbour tribes mentioned above
are Melanesian-speaking and kava drinkers and that kava
is drunk by the Big Nambas alone of Malekulan tribes, among
whom it is chewed, put in a dish, and pressed with the ï¬Ångers.“
. . . It seems to me that if you are going to attempt to give a
reason for the concatenation of these ï¬Åve characteristics the only
fairly plausible one is that the incision ceremonial (circumcision
1 So far as is known true circumcision is, or was, practised in the Nnnga
rites of Fiji, but elsewhere in the West Paciï¬Åc, south of the Mandated Territory,
the practice is apparently unknown. (See Fisun, JDRIAJI‘ 1885, vol. xiv, P4 28,
and compare Rivers, 1914, ii, pp. 436, 539, 557.)—C. H. W.
2 For kaua drinking among the Big Nambas see Chap. XII. '
I