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

528 ' MALEKULA '
(see Pl. XIX). _ This man took the ï¬Årst portion of meat and held
it up in the palm of his hand in front of the old man. The latter
holding aloft the croton branch which he carried, turned towards
the amel, and called out to the temes residing within it the invoca-
tion "Lz'—-ta~a—mat~@—eil “ From the amel these temes,
the temes naaingol, blown by the men of Loorveli, replied with
a ferocious bubbling sound, like a hundred demons let loose.
Then turning towards his assistant once more, the old man
continued the formula: " nitamat {long do hm’ N {long its X,"
striking the piece of pork with his croton branch as he spoke.
The explanation of this ceremony is as follows. In the sentence
quoted above " N â€ù represents the name of some N alawan grade,
“Xâ€ù the name of a village from which visitors have come.
Every such village must receive a portion of the pigs whidi have
been killed, but since they are all associated with the Nalawan
only members of this society may eat them. The old man,
therefore, selects in his own mind from every village a man who
has entered a Nalawan grade of some importance, and makes
him the oï¬Åicial recipient for his village. He then calls out the
name of the Nalawan grade of which this man is a member -alnd
the village which he represents in the manner described above,
the translation of the words being: “ Peace goes and abides
with [Nalawan] N, it goes and abides in [the village called]
The man thus summoned comes forward, not without much
protesting and false modesty and urging from his friends and
the visitors from other villages. He says that the honour is too
great for him, and so on and so forth, until at last he is pushed
forward and gladly aooepts the piece of pig, probably thinking
to himself that it might well have been a LARGER bit. Then having
received it, he takes up his position behind the old man. This
whole ceremony is repeated until representatives of all the
villages present have received portions of pork, and have lined
up one behind the other behind the distributor. The last N alawan
grade and village to be called are those to which the assistant
belongs, and he receives the ï¬Ånal portion of pig as the
representative of his village. It is left entirely to the old man to
decide whom he will select from each village, though the son of
the deceased will often stand beside him to give advice in case
of need and to remind him of any village which he may forget.
When the old man had distributed all the portions of pig in