Grade Figure

Large figure carved of fernwood, with huge round eyes, projecting nose, fish on stomach.

All men in Malekula societies participate in a ranking system called, in English, a Graded Society. Fathers and material uncles set a young man up in the lowest rank. As men acumulate wealth, they finanace advancement ceremonies for themselves in which they "purchase" the rights and privileges of the rank above from its members and thus move themselves up the social ladder. Fern figures and slit gongs are made to memorialize such an advancement.