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MALEKULA
Featured: Big Nambas, Mewun
AGE STRATIFIED
HOMOSEXUALITY
The description of Malekulan
institutional “pederasty” described by Deacon (1934)[1]
and Layard (1942)[2]
on the islands Raga and Vao leaves room for speculation, since neither
author offers a precise statement on initial ages of the novice, nor on the
age of transition to active participant (Creed, 1984:p159-60)[3].
Thus, “[i]t is very unfortunate that in all his
accounts of these ceremonies Deacon never mentions the approximate age of the
novices, nor does he give any indications of how old a boy is when he first
is taken as a lover” (eHRAF note, signed C. H. W.).
On Malekula, the boy played the passive role in
homosexual intercourse with a man “from the time when circumcision
approached” to afterward, with abstinence in the seclusion period, which
lasted thirty days (see also Bleibtrue-Ehrenberg,
1980:p96-8). The relation was said to be monogamous.
L. H. Gray (p665) comes to the conclusion that
it is a preparation for sexual life only “in so far as it is a preparation
for the duties and privileges of manhood.”
Deacon:
“Among the Big Nambas,
as in North Raga, homosexual practices between men are very highly developed.
Every chief has a number of boy-lovers, and it is said that some men are so
completely homosexual in their affections, that they seldom have intercourse
with their wives, preferring to go with their boys[4]. Up to the time that a boy
assumes the bark-belt, the badge of the adult male, he should not take a
boy-lover, but himself plays this rôle to some
older man. It is only after he has donned the bark-belt that he enjoys this
privilege. It is clear, then, that for some time before a boy is circumcised
he belongs to one of the older men. A boy-lover, like a circumcision
candidate, is termed mugh vel, and he
refers to his “husband” as nilagh sen. Nilagh sen
is really the term employed by a man for his sister’s husband, but in this
context it is used in jest, for the rules regulating the behaviour of
relations by marriage make it impossible for a man to have homosexual
connection with his wife’s brother. The association between a nilagh sen and his
mugh vel is a
very close one; indeed, the former has complete sexual rights over his boy.
Thus, if the mugh vel were to
have sexual intercourse with any other man, without the consent of his nilagh sen, the
latter would be very angry. Further, the nilagh sen can “sell” his rights over the boy
to another man. When this is done it is customary for the second man to
copulate with the boy and immediately after having done so to give him some
calico, fowl's feathers, or other ornament. This the boy then hands over to
his nilagh sen. Boys
are “sold” in this way only for short periods of time; after a few days they
always return to their real “husbands”, who have use of them as before. The
bond between mugh vel and nilagh sen is,
however, not only a sexual one. The boy accompanies his “husband” everywhere;
works in his garden (it is for this reason that a chief has many boy-lovers),
and if one or other of the two should die, the survivor will mourn him
deeply”. […] Whether it is the nilagh sen who is asked to play the part of dubut during
the circumcision rites is not certain, but after the arrangements for
circumcising the lad have been made, the dubut has exclusive sexual
rights over him. He is now the boy’s “husband” and is extremely jealous of
any other man, not excepting the guardians of other boys, securing his mugh vel and
having intercourse with him. So much is this the case that he will not allow
him out of his sight. The dubut himself, however, cannot have sexual access to the
boy throughout all the thirty days’ seclusion which accompanies the
circumcision rites. From the time of the operation until the wound is healed,
intercourse is forbidden, and the dubut only plays the part of a guardian who cares for the
novice’s physical needs. But when the wound has healed he resumes his
“marital” rights and continues to have relations with the boy until some time
later the latter purchases his bark-belt. The reason, or rather the
rationalization, which the natives put forward for their homosexual practises
is that the boy-lover's male organ is caused to grow strong and large by the
homosexual acts of his “husband”. This growth of the penis is supposed to be
complete by the time that the bark-belt is assumed. […] The next day a great
feast is celebrated. The novices are led forth from the ghamal bagho, their fathers pay the
guardians, and each lad now purchases his newly-won penis-sheath from his
maternal uncle. It is important to notice that the boy himself, not his
father, makes payment for this. He does not acquire the bark-belt on this
occasion, but at some later date (the length of the interval was not stated
and probably varies) the erstwhile novice pays his dubut a few coco-nuts or some
tobacco for it. Until this payment is made the dubut continues to have
homosexual relations with the lad, but when once the latter has assumed his
bark-belt this bond is severed and he, being now a “man”, can take a
boy-lover for himself”.
Layard, quoting Deacon, also dwells
largely on
“[…] the organised practice of
homosexuality existing in the two areas where circum-incision replaces the
more usual incision, namely, among the Big Nambas
and in South (and apparently also in North) Raga. The explanation usually advanced with
regard to the Big Nambas is that the chiefs have so
many wives that the commoners have to content themselves with substitutes in
the form of boys. This explanation is, to say the least of it, unlikely, and
is quite certainly not applicable to South Raga where there are no chiefs
(p486-7). […] From Raga, the only other area from which organised
homosexuality has been reported, we have no details by which to test the
validity or otherwise of what has just been suggested. […] Indeed, so far as
I could learn, though homosexuality is not unknown in the Small Islands, it is rare, and such relationships as exist
almost always consist in a Small Island boy being the passive partner in a
temporary union with an adult native from the Malekulan
mainland, for which he is rewarded by the present of a money-mat in the same
way as men throughout the group make such gifts to their girl-lovers. The
Small Islanders’ attitude towards such relationships are a comic look and the
remark, “What a waste of time when there are so many women”. On Atchin, more closely connected with the customs of
the Malekulan mainland, the tutor actually
addresses his novice as “my wife”. Even there, however, where I myself had
the good fortune to witness most of the rites, I was assured that this
terminology did not indicate actual homosexual union, and the same is true of
Vao where,
though the novice does indeed sometimes speak of his tutor as his “husband”,
the more usual term used is to-mbat na-nuk, “my to-mbat”, to
which the tutor reciprocates by calling the novice mov ghal na-nuk,
“my novice” ” (p503-4)[5].
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus
Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology, Berlin
Last
revised: Sept 2004
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