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

648 MALEKULA
Wuk used to sit during the celebration of a Nogho Tilabwz, but
he could not recollect the others.‘ The other set oi stones (e e)
is composed of smaller blocks which lie in disorderly formation
near those just described. Deacon writes of them :—" It is
impossible to say whether these blocks originally formed ‘ tables '
or not. They presumably either stood upright, or formed the
horizontal stones of tables, a.ud the others may have been
supporting stones or may not. . . . My informant says there
were formerly more stone tables [besides the new muogh and
the one at the other end] made by the overturned blocks, but I
question this." ' Like the stones in other logha and those in
the nembrmbr/ion of Seniang villages, each of these tagha stones
is believed to be the residence of a powerful ghost. They are
indeed loosely referred to as tmzs, the only explanation of this
being that they procreated the Kabul ancestors of Melpn-ies.
The newt muvgh (see Plate XXIIIA) means the “ stone of lite ",
or "the living stone â€ù (Newt = “ the stone", muogh = “he
(or it) lives "). It consists of one large slab of coral supported
along one side and at the two ends by smaller uprights, thus
forming a kind of stone house, the open side of which faces down
the avenue.
Nothing is told of the deformed skull which lies in front nor
oi the mound of trochus shells. The existence of the former is
curious, for artiï¬Åcial defamation of the skull is restricted in the
New Hebrides to the south-west district, and probably also to
the southern part, of Malekula.
The stone table at the other end of the avenue (a) has no
name. It is built oi a table-stone supported at the two ends and
it stands inside the remains of a ruined hut. This hut (I2) is
known as the amel (men's house) of Butwanabaghap. The heap
of skulls to one side of it is composed of the skulls of deceased
men of Melpmes. A little distance from the logho stand the
remains of another house called namwitilï¬Åh. Unlike the ordinary
houses of the district it is built entirely of kangaroo grass. This
is thehouse of Nirnanin, the wife of Butwananaghap, and is
1 The discrepancy between the ten stones in the Iflglw, the mi amwi oi die
Mnlpmes clan, and the twelve stones which it is said the two Kabat gronreated
has already been pointed oiie_ci l-l. w.
= It is to be remembered that though LhBil'lfOl‘£|1ï¬Å-DC was the SOD of B KEDRC
Wiik, yet he had not com leted his initiation main oPï¬Åc_e: that Melpmes ceased
to Bllifl H3 3 village in 1936, and that the last Niighv ruiilm was pflfflrmed in
1904.-c. H. w.
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