kwiyam
cuscuses which had been caught during the previous days. The
animals had not been killed, although many of them were dead and others
barely alive. They had been bound so that their hands and teeth were
showing and the animals, held by the tail, were dragged across the
backs of the hunched over and frightened boys. This continued until
the first rays of the sun showed in the east whereupon the initiands
were taken outside to sit in the sun. There they were shown how to
rub themselves with dew and pig fat. They were told that they must
r i s e each morning to s i t in the sun and rub themselves in that fashion. Each i n i t i a n d was given a piece of f a t to use and t o l d never to show i t to women. Afterwards they were each fed a morsel of the l i v e r of the kwiyam. This was given to them by the elder who presented i t in the sacred, r i t u a l manner e a r l i e r mimicked by the old women.
Later the kwiyam were cooked and consumed by everyone except the youngest of the i n i t i a n d s , whose incapacity to control t h e i r
fla tu l e n c e renders them l i a b l e to betray to women the fa c t tha t they have eaten meat during the i n i t i a t i o n . Pandanus f r u i t s of the ayab
v a r i e t y are also cooked and eaten as a sauce on top of taro. The i n i t i a n d s were to l d that they would be k i l l e d i f they spoke to anyone of what they had seen or heard during the r i t u a l .
A L A AWEM
A f t e r he had grown a l i t t l e more Slibal was i n i t i a t e d in to a la awem. This time the r i t e took place at his own Oboblik settlement on the San River and involved only the youth of tha t group and one or two from the Senani group across the watershed on the Tabo River.
The i n i t i a n d s were assembled in the t i i m am, the men's house, the day before the r i t u a l was due to take place. The followin g day the boys were taken from the house to a small enclosure located some way from the v i l l a g e (Slibal called i t a sokidam ). I t had been
b u i l t s p e c i a l l y f o r the occasion and the boys had never seen i t before. At a gate stood two of the seniors, each of whom held a l e a f of the
ayab pandanus tree. The boys were l e f t before these men who presently f e l l to arguing. Each accused the other of stealing his ayab f r u i t s . They began to shout at one another and eventually one of them poked the l e a f which he was holding int o the eye of the other. They wrestled with one another and, as*they did so, crashed through the door in to the enclosure. There they stopped f i g h t i n g , revealing tha t they had been pretending a l l along, and called the boys inside.
There the i n i t i a n d s saw the re st of the elders attending an oven. The most senior of them began to harangue them about t h e i r immoral habits o f t h e f t and slothfulness. He lectured them on the need fo r them to become good men who behaved well and who did not cause trouble in the community. As he did t h i s the elder began to remove the leaves covering the oven revealing ayab f r u i t s inside. As he prepared the sauce from the kernels he explained th a t they, l i k e t h e i r seniors and