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

NEVINBUR, NELENG, AND NIMBE'EI 465
crawls out, they make ghosts new â€ù). The meaning of this, it
was explained, is that these temes are supposed to be rotten, like
a dead body, and that is why "the maggot of them crawls
out â€ù. (Actually they are, of course, not rotten at all.) These
iemes being now destroyed, the wholesale manufacture of new
temes begins in the amel. Hundreds or “ thousands " are said
to be constructed, and this may take so long that a whole year
elapses before the second part of the N evinbw ceremony can be
performed} The explanation of this destruction of the four
old temes and the making of hundreds of new ones was obtained
from two independent sources. They both said that as out of
the body of a man or animal that has been killed there come
hundreds of worms and maggots, so crawling like maggots from
the bodies of the four “ dead â€ù temes there come hundreds of
new ones; they are called “the maggots (noel) of the temes "
that have been killed by the old man.’ One informant expressed
it thus, in pidgin: “ Four fellow here he dead, by-um by you
look plenty fellow he corne more than that one they kill him."
These new temes are made in the same way as were those which
were destroyed, and each one bears a name, the name of one of
Mansip’s grandchildren. Every candidate who is entering the
society pays pigs for the possession of a certain number of them,
most‘ men thus acquiring three or four, though some, who are
more wealthy than their fellows, may purchase as many as seven
or nine.‘ When the Nevinbw rites are ended these temes are
kept in the amel and are never again used, but, at the death of
their purchaser, the faces of the efï¬Ågies are removed from the
sticks and fastened to the shoulders of the mmbammp of the
deceased. Thus the face painted half red and half white which
is on the left shoulder of one of the mmbammp in the museum at
Melbourne (v. Pl. XX, 7) is called Niap Mbwili; that is, it is the
noon nevinbm, a face commemorating the N evinbur, and further
it represents Niap Mbwili, a grandson of Mansip, who is always
portrayed thus.
All the new temes having‘ been manufactured, a day ‘is
1 According 1:0 one brief note in one of the ï¬Åeld note-books, one month
generally elapses between the destruction of the old and the making of the
new temes.~—C. H. W.
3 This statement was made to the ethnographer in so many words.—~A. B. D.
5 It is not certain who makes these new iemes, but one brief note suggests
that they are made for the candidates by old men who are themselves members
of the Nevinbur.-—C. H. W. '
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