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

THE "MAKING OF MAN" 661
Iumoran—the ghost path, the ceremony of "Making Man ",
and the association of both Ambat and Kabat with Tomman
Island—can hardly be pure coincidence. If, as seems certain,
the Ambat mythology, clan fertility rites, and the ceremony of
" Making Man â€ù do form a single cultural unit, and if we are
justiï¬Åed in correlating the ancestors who made the nahal tamer
with the Ambat-Kabat, then the legend that after they left
Mewun the former went north to Banggor suggests that this
culture complex was ï¬Årst introduced into the South-West districts
and travelled northwards along the West coast. There are,
however, certain difficulties in accepting this view, and we must
acknowledge regretfully that the full history of the introduction
and spread of these rites and of their mythology into Malekula
will probably never be known. There_are, in particular, two
points which militate against the hypothesis of their diffusion
from Mewun to Lambumbu. In the ï¬Årst place Mewun and
Lambumbu are divided by a stretch of coast which is
uninhabited, and which is said by the people to have been always
uninhabited. Inland a number of tribes separate the districts
and these, though thcy have certain cultural affinities with
Mewun, have little contact with either ; while by sea intercourse
between Lambumbu and Mewun was probably never close, since
there were, until very recent years, no sea-going craft in the
latter district, but only frail rafts, and there is no evidence that
the large sailing canoes of the fonner district ever visited any oi
the coastal villages oi Mewun, but only those of Seniang, with
which district the people of Lambumbu are culturally akin and,
if we may judge from the data afforded by the Nimrmgki, were in
more or less constant contact. More important is the fact that
the people of Lembelag themselves strenuously deny that their
Nagham N bmur rites are in any way connected with those of any
other district. Deacon went to Lambumbu alter he had learnt
about the Kabat and the N ogha Tilabwe. From here he wrote 2—~
“ The facts render it absolutely certain, so far as I can see, that there
is exactly the same thing going on at Lernbelag in Lambumbu district
as at Melpmes in Mewun district in the south, and that so far as the
noghuro or nvgho is concerned, the organization of the two districts is
identical. This is the more remarkable and important when it is
remembered that neither district—not even the sons of the nogho and
nogharo magicians—has any knowledge oi the existence of the
institution in the other. Thus Lembelag thinks its Nogharo N drum is