The Ogress
Nevinbimbaau (Deacon's spelling Nevinbumbaau) is the ogress of the myths of the Seniang district of south-west Malekula, described in some accounts simply as a powerful female mythic figure. She is the wife of Temes Malau and mother of Mansip, and in the Ambat cycle she trapped the hero's older brothers one after another in a ditch, where they remained until Ambat freed them. She stands at the centre of the Nevinbur secret rites documented by Deacon: performers manipulate large staffs topped with modelled and carved heads, stick puppets called temes nevinbur representing Mansip's children, her grandchildren; in the course of the long ritual cycle some or all of these figures are destroyed and made anew, and at the climax wooden effigies of Mansip and his two wives are speared and burned. The dramatic apparatus of these rites is among the best-known ritual art of Vanuatu, and examples of the Nevinbur figures are held in major museum collections.
Domains
- strife
- initiation rites
Powers
- to trap men in a pit
Relations
- enemy: Culture Hero of MalekulaNevinbimbaau trapped the older brothers of the culture hero Ambat one after another in a ditch, and they stayed imprisoned there until Ambat came and freed them.A. B. Deacon (ed. C. H. Wedgwood), Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1934) (secondary); R. Poignant, Oceanic Mythology: The Myths of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Australia (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1967) (secondary)
Sources
- Nevinbimbaau is the ogress of south-west Malekula myth, wife of Temes Malau and mother of Mansip, who trapped Ambat's brothers in a ditch and whose story is enacted with puppets and effigies in the Nevinbur rites.: A. B. Deacon (ed. C. H. Wedgwood), Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1934) (secondary); R. Poignant, Oceanic Mythology: The Myths of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Australia (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1967) (secondary)