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

„My partner same as my clansman (kakaveyogu) he might fight me. My real kinsman (veyogu), same navel-string, would always side with us”.

The best way of obtaining detailed information, and of eliminating any errors which might have crept into ethnographic generalisations, is to collect concrete data. I have drawn up a complete list of the partners of Kouta’uya, who is one of the biggest Kula men in the whole Ring; another list of a smaller Sinaketa headman, Toybayoba; and of course I know several complements of partners of smaller men, who, as as rule, have about four to six partners each.

The full list of Kouta’uya includes fifty-five men in the Northern Half of Boyowa, that is, in Luba, Kulumata and Kiriwina. From these the chief receives armshells. To the South, his partners in the Southern districts of Boyowa and Vakuta are twenty-three by number; in the Amphletts eleven, and twenty-seven in Dobu. Thus we see that the numbers to the South and North almost balance, the Southern exceeding the Northern by six. These numbers include his partners in Sinaketa, where he makes Kula with all his fellow chiefs, and with all the headmen of the divisional villages, and in his own little village he kulas with his sons. But even there, everyone of his partners is either South or North to him, that is, either gives him the necklaces or armshells.

All the clans are represented in the list. Often when asked with regard to the name of some man, why he is in partnership with him, the answer would be „Because he is my kinsman”, which means, in this case, clansman of equal rank. Men of other clans are included, as „friends” or relatives-in-law, or for some other reason more or less imaginary. I shall speak presently of the mechanism through which the man enters on this relation.

The list of Toybayoba’s partners includes twelve men to the North, four in Southern Boyowa, three in the Amphletts and eleven in Dobu, the balance here also being on the Southern side. As said above, minor men might have anything between four to ten partners all told, whereas there are men in northern Boyowa who have only two partners, one on each side of the ring, so to speak, with whom they make Kula.

In drawing up these lists, which I shall not reproduce here in extenso, another striking feature comes to light: on both sides, there is a definite geographical limit, beyond which a man cannot have any partners. For all men in the village of Sinaketa, for instance, this limit, as regards the armshells, coincides with the furthest boundary of Kiriwina; that is, no man from Sinaketa has any partners in Kitava, which is the next Kula district beyond Kiriwina. South, in the direction from which the soulava are received, the villages at the South-East end of Fergusson Island are the last places where partners of Sinaketan men are still to be found. The small Island of Dobu itself lies just beyond this boundary, and no man in this Island or in any of the villages on Normanby Island makes Kula with the Sinaketans (compare the circles, indicating Kula Communities on Map V).

Beyond these districts, the men still know the names of what could be called their partners-once-removed, that is, the partners of their partners. In the case of a man who has only a couple of partners on each side, who, again being modest men, have also only one or two, this relationship is not devoid of importance. If I, in Sinaketa, have one partner, say in Kiriwina, who again has one partner in Kitava, it is no small matter for me to learn that this Kitava man just obtained a splendid pair of armshells. For this means that there is about a quarter of a chance of my receiving these armshells, on the supposition that the Kitavan and Kiriwinian have two partners each between whom they can choose in bestowing them. In the case of a big chief like Kouta’uya, however, the number of once-removed partners becomes so great that they lose any personal significance for him. Kouta’uya has some twenty-five partners in Kiriwina; among them To’uluwa, the big chief, makes Kula with more than half of all the men in Kitava. Some other of Kouta’uya’s partners in Kiriwina, of lesser rank, yet quite important, also make Kula with a great number, so that probably practically everybody in Kitava is Kouta’uya’s partner-once-removed.

If we were to imagine that on the Kula Ring there are many people who have only one partner on each side, then the Ring would consist of a large number of closed circuits, on each of which the same articles would constantly pass. Thus if A in Kiriwina always kulas with B in Sinaketa who kulas with C in Tubetube, who kulas with D in Murua, who kulas with E in Kitava, who kulas with A in Kiriwina, then A B C D E F would form such one strand in the big Kula circuit. If an armshell got into the hands of one of them, it could never leave this strand. But the Kula Ring is nothing approaching this, because every small Kula partner has, as a rule, on one side or the other, a big one, that is a chief. And every chief plays the part of a shunting-station for Kula objects. Having so many partners on each side, he constantly transfers an object from one strand to another. Thus, any article which on its rounds has travelled through the hands of certain men, may on its second round come through an entirely different channel. This, of course, supplies a large part of the zest and excitement of the Kula exchange.

The designation of such a partner-once-removed in the language of Kiriwina is muri-muri. A man will say that such and such a one is „my partner-once-removed”, „ulo murimuri”. Another expression connected with this relationship is to inquire „whose hand” has passed on such and such a vaygu’a. When To’uluwa gives a pair of armshells to Kouta’uya, this latter will ask: „availe yamala (whose hand)?” The answer is „yamala Pwata’i”, („the hand of Pwatai”). And, as a rule, more or less the following conversation will ensue : „who gave this pair of armshells to Pwata’i?”, „how long were they kept by a man in the Island of Yeguma, and then distributed on the occasion of a so’i (feast)?”, „when they had been the last time in Boyowa?” etc., etc.

3. Entering the Kula Relationship. — In order to become a practising member of the Kula, a man must have passed the stage of adolescence; he must have the status and rank required, that is in such villages where this condition is demanded; he must know the magic of the Kula; and last, not least, he must be in possession of a piece of vaygu’a The membership, with all its concomitant implications, may be received from the father, who teaches his son the magic, gives him a piece of vaygu’a, and provides him with a partner, very often in his own person.

Supposing one of the sons of Kouta’uya has reached the stage where a lad may begin to kula. The chief will have been teaching him the spells for some time already. Moreover the lad, who from childhood has taken part in overseas expeditions, has many a time seen the rites performed and heard the spells uttered. When the time is ripe, Kouta’uya, having the conch-shell blown, and with all due formalities, presents a soulava to his son. This latter, soon afterwards, goes somewhere North. Perhaps he goes only to one of the neighbouring villages within Sinaketa, perhaps he accompanies his father on a visit as far North as Omarakana, and in any case he makes Kula, either with one of his father’s friends and partners, or with a special friend of his own. Thus, at one stroke, the lad is equipped with magic, vaygu’a, and two partners, one of whom is his father. His northern partner will give him in due course an armshell, and this he will probably offer to his father. The transactions once started continue. His father soon gives him another vaygua, which he may kula with the same northern partner, or he may try to establish another partnership. The next mwali (armshells) he receives from the North, he will probably give to another partner in the South, and thus establish a new relationship. A chief’s son, who is always a commoner himself (since the chief cannot marry within his own sub-clan and the son has the status of his mother), would not multiply his partners beyond the limit numerically given by the above mentioned partners of Toybayoba.

Not everyone, however, is as fortunate as to be the son of a chief, which in the Trobriands is, on the whole, one of the most enviable positions, since it confers many privileges, and entails no special responsibilities. A young chief himself would have to pay substantially for establishing his position in the Kula, for a chief is always the son of a woman of high rank, and the nephew of a chief, though his father may be a commoner of small influence only. In any case, his maternal uncle will expect from him some pokala (offerings by instalment), in payment for magic, vaygu’a, and finally for a leading position in the Kula. The young chief would marry, and thus acquire wealth within limits, and with this he would have to give presents to his maternal uncle, who in turn would introduce him into the Kula, exactly as a chief does his son, only not disinterestedly.

A commoner enters into the Kula like a chief, with the only exception that everything is on a smaller scale, the amount of the pokala which he gives to his maternal uncle, the vaygu’a which he receives, and the number of partners with whom he kulas. When a man gives to another a piece of vaygu’a, of the Kula kind, but not as a Kula exchange but as a gift, let us say as youlo (gift in repayment for the harvest supply offerings, see above, Chapter VI, Division VI), this vaygu’a does not leave the Kula Ring. The receiver, if he had not been in the Kula yet, enters into it by acquiring the vaygu’a, and can then choose his partner, and go on with the exchange.

There is one important qualification of the statement made at the beginning of this section. I said there that a man entering the Kula Ring, must learn the mwasila magic. This refers only to those who practise overseas Kula. For people who do only the inland exchange, magic is not necessary, and in fact it is never learned by them.

4. Participation of Women in the Kula. — As I have said in the general descriptive chapter on the Kula tribes, the position of women among them is by no means characterised by oppression or social insignificance. They have their own sphere of influence, which, in certain cases and in certain tribes, is of great importance. The Kula, however, is essentially a man’s type of activity. As mentioned above, in the section between Sinaketa and Dobu, women do not sail on the big expeditions. From Kiriwina young, unmarried girls would sail East to Kitava, Iwa, and Gawa, and from these Islands even old, married women, indeed whole families, come to Kiriwina. But they do not carry on overseas Kula exchange, neither among themselves, nor with men.

In Kiriwina, some women, notably the chief’s wives, are admitted to the honour and privilege of exchanging vaygu’a, though in such cases the transactions are done en famille. To take a concrete case, in October or November, 1915, To’uluwa, the chief of Omarakana, brought a fine haul of mwali from Kitava. The best pair of these he presented to his veteran wife, Bokuyoba, a wife whom he had inherited from his elder brother Numakala. Bokuyoba in turn gave the pair, without much delay, to Kadamwasila, the favourite wife of the chief, the mother of