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[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
4 -I .r ‘r t ~ 1 r ) E ‘la r1: P.. . THE NIMANGKI AND NELEMEW . 341 Lagalag for as long a time as in Seniang, and his nota on the Nimnngki of these districts are correspondingly less detailed, though, in his opinion, the society in Lamburnbu played an even more important part in the social life of the people there than it did in the south-west. The grade system in Lambumbu is to so great an extent disintegrated into its component elements as to be scarcely comparable with the strict divisions of other areas. There are very strong indications, however, that this was not always so. To-day there are, strictly speaking, no grade names, but only a numbervof titles or personal names which a man can purchase by the ceremonial payment of pigs. In fact in this area there are a number of different things, such as objects, ornaments, privileges and names, the possession of which confers prestige or “ rank â€ù in a rather general, vague sense of the word. Each one of these has a number of varieties which can be listed in order of value, from the lowest to the highest. Thus, there are some twenty to thirty personal names or titles, which can be arranged in groups; within any one group all the names are equally important, but those of one group are of higher value than those of the group which precedes it, of lower value than those of the succeeding one. Similarly there are four types of penis wrapper, which can be arranged serially in accordance with their " prestige value ". In general there is no particular corre- spondence between objects in the different series. Thus it cannot be said that any one variety of penis wrapper is equal iniimportance to any given group of narnes, ‘or that, where several objects are purchased at the same time, these will be regarded as being of equal prestige each in its own series. As we shall see later-,~there is actually a certain connection between certain names and certain objects, but this is by no means rigid nor in any way essential to the structure of the institution. When a man wishes to acquire a new name, penis wrapper, or other object of ‘higher value than that which he possesses, he celebrates a mlemew. This is the word used for any formal ceremonial, involving the transference of pigs in connection with the acquisition of rights or dignities, or simply in settling accounts.’ Should the‘ man purchase several of the highest valued objects at one and the same nelemew, then this would be regarded as an occasion for a Nimangki. This differs from the ordinary ml:-rnew only in the
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