Small Nambas Venture Out

For the first time in their obscure and unrecorded history, the Small Nambas, one of the New Hebrides ’ most primitive tribes, will venture into the world overseas—and that at the behest of the Arts Festival organisers.

The Small Nambas, whose home is on South Malekula, will send a team of dancers to Suva. They will take with them their colourful ceremonial masks and headdresses representing the best examples of New Hebridean primitive art, and will perform tribal dances never before seen outside their own villages.

The New Hebrides Cultural Centre, eager to show the con dominium’s own culture at its best, is combing the territory for ex amples of native art. It is expected that a wide selection of artefacts — masks, carvings, slit gongs, model canoes —will be collected at the centre, and there are high hopes that the best of paintings produced by the condominium’s many artists will find their way to Suva.