Argonauts of the Western Pacific - Bronisław Malinowski (darmowa biblioteka online .TXT) 📖

there, he would have received them at his place of official reception, in front of his lisiga, the extremely large and high chief’s house, standing in the inner row of yam houses, and facing the main place, the baku (see Plate II), On that occasion he went to the hut of Kadamwasila, his favourite wife, the mother of four sons and one daughter. She is quite old now, but she was the first wife married by To’uluwa himself, that is, not inherited, and there is an unmistakable attachment and affection between the two, even now. Though the chief has several much younger and one or two really fine looking wives, he is usually to be found talking and taking his food with Kadamwasila. He has also a few older wives, whom, according to the custom, he inherited from his predecessor, in that case, his elder brother. The eldest of them, Bokuyoba, the Dean of the Body of the chief’s wives, has been twice inherited; she is now a source of income for her male kinsmen have to supply yams to the chief and an object of veneration, and is now even relieved of the duty of cooking the chief’s food.

To’uluwa sat, ate, and talked about his journey to myself and some of the village elders assembled there. He spoke of the amount of mwali at present in Kitava, told us from whom and how he obtained those at which we were then looking, naming the most important ones, and giving bits of their histories. He commented on the state of gardens in Kitava, which in one respect, in the production of the big yams (kuvi) are the admiration of all the surrounding districts. He spoke also about future Kula arrangements, expeditions to arrive from the East in Kiriwina, and of his own planned movements.

On the afternoon of the same day, people from other villages began to assemble, partly to hear the news of the chief’s expedition, partly in order to find out what they could obtain themselves from him. Headmen from all the dependent villages sat in one group round the chief, who now had moved to the official reception ground, in front of his lisiga. Their followers, in company with the chief’s henchmen, and other inhabitants of Omarakana, squatted all over the baku (central place), engaged in conversation. The talk in each group was of the same subjects, and did not differ much from the conversation, I had heard from the chief on his arrival. The newly acquired armshells were handed round, admired, named, and the manner of their acquisition described.

Next day, several soulava (spondylus shell necklaces) were brought to Omarakana by the various men from neighbouring villages to the West, and ceremonially offered to To’uluwa (see Plates LXI, LXII, and Frontispiece). This was, in each case a vaga (opening gift), for which the giver expected to receive his yotile (clinching gift) at once from the store of mwali. In this case we see the influence of chieftainship in the relation between Kula partners. In the inland Kula of Kiriwina, all gifts would be brought to To’uluwa, and he would never have to fetch or carry his presents. Moreover, he would always be given and never give the opening gift (vaga); while his gift would invariably be yotile. So that the chief sometimes owes a Kula gift to a commoner, but a commoner never owes a gift to a chief. The difference between the rules of procedure here and those of an uvalaku overseas expedition is clear: in a competitive overseas expedition, valuables for exchange are never carried by the visiting party, who only receive gifts and bring them back home; in the inland Kula, the determining factor is the relative social position of the two partners. Gifts are brought to the man of superior by the man of inferior rank, and the latter has also to initiate the exchange.

The following entry is quoted literally from my notes, made in Omarakana, on November the I3th, 1915. „This morning, the headman of Wagaluma brought a bagido’u (fine necklace). At the entrance to the village (it is Omarakana), they (the party) halted, blew the conch shell, put themselves in order. Then, the conch shell blower went ahead, the men of highest rank took the stick with the bagido’u, a boy carrying the heavy wooden bell pendant on a kaboma (wooden dish)”. This requires a commentary. The ceremonial way of carrying the spondylus shell necklaces is by attaching each end to a stick, so that the necklace hangs down with the pendant at its lowest point (see Frontispiece and Pl. LXI and LXII). In the case of very long and fine necklaces, in which the pendant is accordingly big and heavy, while the actual necklace is thin and fragile, the pendant has to be taken off and carried apart. Resuming the narrative: „The headman approached To’uluwa and said: Agukuleya, ikanawo; lagayla lamaye; yoku kayne gala mwali. This he said in thrusting the stick into the thatch of the chief’s house”. The words literally mean: „My kuleya (food left over), take it; I brought it to-day; have you perhaps no armshells?”. The expression „food left over” applied to the gift was a depreciating term, meaning something which is an overflow or unwanted scrap. Thus he was ironically depreciating his gift, and at the same time implying that much wealth still remained in his possession. By this, in an oblique manner, he bragged about his own riches, and with the last phrase, expressing doubt as to whether To’uluwa had any armshells, he threw a taunt at the chief. This time the gift was returned immediately by a fine pair of armshells.

It was in connection with the same expedition that the little exchange between two of the chief’s wives took place, mentioned before (in Chapter XI, Division II, under 4) and one or two more domestic Kula acts were performed, a son of To’uluwa offering him a necklace (see Plates LXI and LXII) and receiving a pair of armshells afterwards. Many more transactions took place in those two days or so; sounds of conch shells were heard on all sides as they were blown first in the village from which the men started, then on the way, then at the entrance to Omarakana, and finally at the moment of giving. Again, after some time another blast announced the return gift by To’uluwa, and the receding sounds of the conch marked the stages of the going home of the party. To’uluwa himself never receives a gift with his own hands; it is always hung up in his house or platform, and then somebody of his household takes charge of it; but the commoner receives the armshell himself from the hands of the chief. There was much life and movement in the village during this time of concentrated exchange; parties came and went with vaygu’a, others arrived as mere spectators, and the place was always full of a gazing crowd. The soft sounds of the conch shell, so characteristic of all South Sea experiences, gave a special flavour to the festive and ceremonial atmosphere of those days.

Not all the armshells brought from Kitava were thus at once given away. Some of them were kept for the purposes of more distant Kula; or to be given on some future, special occasion when a present had to be handed over in association with some ceremony. In the inland Kula, there is always an outbreak of transactions whenever a big quantity of valuables is imported into the district. And afterwards, sporadic transactions happen now and then. For the minor partners who had received armshells from To’uluwa would not all of them keep them for any length of time, but part of them would be sooner or later passed on in inland transactions. But, however these valuables might spread over the district, they would be always available when an expedition from another Kula community would come and claim them. When the party from Sinaketa came in March, 1918, to Omarakana, all those who owned armshells would either come to the capital or else be visited in their villages by their Sinaketan partners. Of the 154 or so armshells obtained in Kiriwina on that occasion, only thirty came from To’uluwa himself, and fifty from Omarakana altogether, while the rest were given from other villages, in the following proportions:

Liluta . . . . . . 14

Osapola . . . . . . 14

Mtawa . . . . . . 6

Kurokaywa . . . . 15

Omarakana (To’uluwa) . . 30

Omarakana (other men) . . 20

Yalumugwa . . . . 14

Kasana’i . . . . . . 16

Other villages . . . . 25

Together: 154

Thus the inner Kula does not affect the flow of the main stream, and, however, the valuables might change hands within the „Kula community”, it matters little for the outside flow.

IV

It will be necessary to give a more detailed account of the actual conditions obtaining in Boyowa wth regard to the limits of the various Kula communities in that district. Looking at Map IV, p. 50, we see there the boundaries of Kiriwina, which is the easternmost Kula community in the Northern part of the islands. To the west of it the provinces of Tilataula, Kuboma, and Kulumata form another Kula community, or, it would be more correct to say, some of the men in these districts make the inland Kula with members of neighbouring communities. But these three provinces do not form as a whole a Kula community. In the first place, many villages are quite outside the Kula, that is, not even their headmen belong to the inter-tribal exchange. Remarkably enough, all the big industrial centres, such as Bwoytalu, Luya, Yalaka, Kadukwaykela, Buduwaylaka, do not take part in the Kula. An interesting myth localised in Yalaka tells how the inhabitants of that village, prevented by custom from seeing the world on Kula expeditions, attempted to erect a high pillar reaching to heaven, so as to find a field for their adventures in the skies. Unfortunately, it fell down, and only one man remained above, who is now responsible for thunder and lightning.

Another important omission in the Kula is that of the Northern villages of Laba’i, Kaybola, Lu’ebila, Idaleaka, Kapwani and Yuwada. If we remember that Laba’i is the very centre of Kiriwinian mythology, that there lies the very hole out of which the original ancestors of the four clans emerged from underground, that the highest chiefs of Kiriwina trace their descent from Laba’i, this omission appears all the more remarkable and mysterious.

Thus the whole Western half of the Northern Trobriands forms a unit of sorts in the chain of Kula communities, but it cannot be considered as a fully fledged one, for only sporadic individuals belong to it, and again, that district as a whole, or even individual canoes from it, never take part in any overseas Kula expedition. The village of Kavataria makes big overseas sailings to the Western d’Entrecasteaux Islands. Though these expeditions really have nothing to do with the Kula, we shall say a few words about this in the next chapter but one.

Passing now to the West, we find the island of Kayleula, which, together with two or three smaller islands, to its South, Kuyawa, Manuwata, and Nubiyam, form a „Kula community” of its own. This community is again slightly anomalous, for they make Kula only on a small scale, on the one hand with the chiefs and headmen of Kiriwina, and of the North-Western district of Boyowa, and on the other hand with the Amphletts, but never with Dobu. They also used to make long and perilous trips to the Western d’Entrecasteaux, sailing further West and for longer distances than the natives of Kavataria.

The main Kula communities in the South of Boyowa, Sinaketa and Vakuta, have been described already, and sufficiently defined in the previous chapters. Sinaketa is the centre for inland Kula of the