Malakula

The Malakula are the Melanesian peoples of Malakula, Vanuatu's second-largest island, whose coasts and interior hold nearly thirty mutually distinct Oceanic languages. Their best-known societies are the Big Nambas of the north and the Small Nambas of the south-central interior, named for the size of the leaf penis sheath worn by the men.

Both have graded societies in which rank is earned by the ceremonial killing of pigs, and traditionally bound infants' skulls so that a cone-shaped head marked high status. Pedro Fernandes de Queirós's Spanish expedition first sighted Malakula in 1606, and James Cook visited in 1774, after which British and French settlers and missionaries made it part of the contested New Hebrides.