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

580 MALEKULA
Larnbumbu and Lagalag and that of the south-west.‘ In the
ï¬Årst place there is the belief that, in ordervto reach lambi the
ghost must pass through a geometrical ï¬Ågure called Newt ho;
Iamln‘ (" The Stone of Iambi "), but this is not identical with
the Nahal of Seniang (see Fig. 37b). Whether in Lambumbu
there is also the belief that the entrance to the Land of the Dead
is guarded by a being similar to the Tomes Savsap oi Seniang
mythology, and that the ghost must pass through a similan
test of completing the geometrical ï¬Ågure is not deï¬Ånitely stated,
but the notes on Iambi seem to imply that in thes/e respects also
the people of Seniang, Lambumbu, and Lagalag are alike in
their ideas. Again, the entrance to Iambi and Hambi, like the
entrance to Embw, is marked by :1 rock, though apparently in
these northern districts the ghosts do not actually pass through it.
Deacon writes :—
"There appears lobe some idea that Iambi is beneath the ground.
The souls of the people of Ilambumbu district and of that part of
Lagalag which lies nearest tn the west coast enter it near Lam-
bumhu village, the opening being beside a stone on the bank oi a
stream which flows into the sea there, On the sea side of Lagalag
district, however, a contradictory belief is met with: that the
entrance to Humbi is by a stone near the village of Teniblitipf,
which lies on the east coast. Those who dwell in the centre of this
district disagree among themselves which way to go, whether (Q
the west or east. It seems very probable that the belief came
across from the east coast, in the form that the entrance to Hambi
was by u stone near the sea, and that when this Land of the Dead
Was adopted by the people oi the west lrnabi was naturally located
on the west coast."
There is no suggestion that the fate of a ghost in the next
world depends in any way upon his life as 2L rnen, hut everyone
is expected to have the septum of his nose perforated. According
to the belief in Lamhumbu, when a man enters Iambi he is
inspected by his father's sister who, if his nose is unperforated,
performs the operation with her pubic bone. In Lagalzig it is
held that should a man die without a perforated nose then he
is doomed in the Land of the Dead to eat the mucous nasal
discharge of his grandmother. .
Of lite in Iambi nothing is recorded. lt is said that it is
populated by both male and female ghosts, but it seems that
‘ It will be noticed that in Mewun the Land oi the Dead has only the one
name, Wikise, and in this is distinct both from Seniang and from the north-
western districts.—C. H. W,