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

THE NIMANGKI TLEL SOCIETY 447
necessary in order that a special yam garden may be planted
and come to fruition, to provide food for the members and
novices during their seclusion. When these yams are nearly
ready for lifting, the son, brother, or other near male relative
in the male line who is acting as the (lead man's " executor ",
detemiines upon a day when the bones shall be exhumed. On
this day he goes to the dead man's grave, taking with him a
newly plaited basket. Using an ordinary digging stick, he
uncovers the remains, puts the skull and large bones into his
basket, and carries them to the charnel place of his village.‘
Here he sets up a kind of small d0lmen>l.ike box, about one foot
high. made of four stone slabs with one side open, and in this he
places the skull and bones. There is then an interval of ï¬Åve

" Fi}._ za. Diaflrlmmatic sketch nt n Skull and two long»honns lying in
1" '- " the dolmon in whinh they are Pill at the celebration or the rim
‘,;,;1 ._,9£_Nimp»5m' Tlnl. (Ami S ï¬Åkotcll by UH.‘ author.)
Ida-yï¬Åpaï¬Åtevlwhichl the rite nmap takes place. This is really, it
,s‘eern’s¢llé1,oeuemonly.whcreby the women, who have all this time
flpeerg.-inimmurning, are’ released from it andlallowed to return to
the norifnal li'i&.of?thel,community.' They all assemble at the
dead main's:vi_Ilage, each woman bringing a pig with her. ‘On the
dancing ground rows lot yams are piled up and beside them stands
the “executorâ€ù of -the deceased. One woman after another
leads her» pig up to him. rubs hcr forehead across the tether or
across the animal itself, and hands it over to him. In return
the “ executor â€ù makes her a gilt of yams, The rubbing of the
forehead is symbolic of the woman rubbing off her ashes of
mourning. ~
_ 1 Since the man who is exhllmlng the linnni is a close relative ofthe deceased
in the innle llflu, they will both be members of the same village, According
to one luformiut the exhumed bones are pint ï¬Årst in the loghor and l8.C€l‘ in the
Charncl place, but this ii generally denied.-—-A B. D.
I The men only remain in mourning for ten day: my an ordinary man and
thirty days for a chief. (v. Chapter XlX.)——A. B. D.