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

five sons and one daughter. She again gave it to her son, Namwana Guyau, who kula’d it on to some of his southern partners. Next time he receives a soulava necklace, he will give it, not to his father directly, but to his mother, who will hand it over to her senior colleague, and this venerable lady will give it to To’uluwa. The whole transaction is evidently a complimentary interpolation of the two giyovila (chief’s wives) in between the simple transaction of the chief giving the vaygu’a to his son. This interpolation gives the women much pleasure, and is highly valued by them. In fact, at that time I heard more about that than about all the rest of the exchanges associated with this overseas trip.

In Southern Boyowa, that is in Sinaketa and Vakuta, the rôle of women is similar, but they play besides another part. A man would sometimes send his wife with a Kula gift to his partner in the neighbouring village. On some occasions, when he needs vaygu’a very badly, as for instance when he is expecting some uvalaku visitors, his wife may help him to obtain the vaygu’a from that partner. For, though this latter might refuse to give it to his Sinaketan partner, he would not do so to his wife. It must be added that no sexual motives are associated with it, and that it is only a sort of customary compliment paid to the fair sex.

In Dobu, the wife, or the sister of a man, is always credited with a great influence over his Kula decisions. Therefore, there is a special form of magic, used by the Sinaketans, in order to act on the minds of the Dobuan women. Although, in matters of sex, a Trobriander would have absolutely to keep aloof from Dobuan women, married or unmarried, he would approach them with nice speeches and gifts in matters of Kula. He would reproach an unmarried girl with her brother’s conduct towards him. She would then ask for a piece of betel-nut. This would be given with some magic spoken over it, and the girl, it is believed, would then influence her brother to kula with his partner82.

III

In the short outline of the Amphlett tribe which was given in Chapter II, Division IV, I called them „typical monopolists”, both with reference to their economic position and to their character. Monopolists they are in two respects, namely as manufacturers of the wonderful clay pots which form the only supply for the surrounding districts; and in the second place, as a commercial community, situated half-way between the populous country of Dobu, with its rich gardens and coco-nut plantations, on the one hand, and the Trobriands, the main industrial community in Eastern New Guinea on the other.

The expression „monopolists” must, however, be correctly understood. The Amphletts are not a centre of commercial middle-men, constantly busy importing and exporting desirable utilities. Only about once or twice a year, a big expedition comes to their Islands, and every few months they themselves will sail South-East or North and again receive visits from smaller expeditions from one of the neighbours or the other. It is through just such small expeditions that they collect a relatively considerable amount of utilities from all surrounding districts, and these they can give to such visitors as need and desire them. Nor would they impose high prices on any such exchange, but they are certainly considered less liberal, less ready to give or to trade and always on the look out for higher return gifts and extras. In their bartering away of the clay pots, they also cannot ask extortionate prices, such as, according to the laws of supply and demand, they could impose on their neighbours. For, no more than any other natives, can they run counter to customary rules, which regulate this exchange as much as all others. Indeed, considering the great amount of trouble which they have in obtaining the clay, and the high degree of skill necessary to produce the pots, the prices for which they sell them are very low. But here again, their manners over this transaction are distinctly haughty, and they are well aware of their value as potters and distributors of pots to the other natives.

A few more words must be said about their pot making industry as well as about the trade in these islands.

The natives of the Amphletts are exclusive manufacturers of pottery, within a wide radius. They are the only purveyors to the Trobrianders, to the inhabitants of the Marshall Bennett Islands, and also, I believe, all the claypots in Woodlark come from the Amphletts83. To the South, they export their pots to Dobu, Du’a’u, and further South as far as Milne Bay. This is not all, however, for although in some of these farther districts the Amphlett pots are used side by side with other ones, they are infinitely superior to any earthenware found in the whole of British New Guinea. Of a large size, yet extremely thin, they possess great durability, and in form they are extremely well shaped and finished (see Plate XLVI).

The best Amphlett pots owe their high quality to the excellence of their material as well as their workmanship. The clay for them has to be imported into the Islands from Yayawana, a quarry on the Northern shore of Fergusson Island, about a day’s journey from the Amphletts. Only a very inferior clay can be found in the islands of Gumasila and Nabwageta, good enough to make small pots, but quite useless for the big ones.

There is a legend, explaining why the good clay cannot be obtained nowadays in the Amphletts. In olden days, two brothers, Torosipupu and Tolikilaki, lived on one of the summits of Gumasila called Tomonumonu. There was plenty of fine clay there at that time. One day Torosipupu went to fish with a trap. He caught a very fine giant clam-shell. When he came back, Tolikilaki said: „O my shell...hall eat it!”. Torosipupu refused it and answered with a very obscene allusion to the bivalvular mollusc and to the uses he was going to make of it. Tolikilaki asked again; Torosipupu refused. They quarrelled. Tolikilaki then took part of the clay with him, and went to Yayawana on the main island. Torosipupu afterwards took the rest and followed him. What were their further destinies, the legend does not say. But on Gumasila there remained only very poor clay, which is all that can be found there ever since.

Since then, the men have to go about twice yearly to Yayawana in order to bring the clay from which the women afterwards will manufacture the pots. It takes them about a day to reach Yayawana, to which, as it lies to the South West, they can travel with any of the prevailing winds and return equally well. They remain for a couple of days there, digging the clay, drying it and filling a few vataga baskets with it. I estimate that each canoe carries about two ton weight on its return journey. This will last the women for half a year’s production. The pale, straw-coloured clay is kept under the houses in big troughs made of sides of discarded canoes.

In olden days, before the white man’s advent, the conditions were a little more complicated. Only one island, Kwatouto, being on friendly terms with the natives had the freedom of the Northern shore. Whether the other islands used also to fetch the clay from there, doing so armed and ready for attack; or whether they used to acquire the clay by barter from Kwatouto, I could not definitely establish. The information one receives in the Amphletts is exceedingly unsatisfactory, and my several informants gave contradictory accounts on this point. The fact seems clear, in my case, that Kwatouto, then as now, was the source of the best pottery, but that both Gumasila and Nabwageta also always manufactured pots, though perhaps inferior ones. The fourth island, Domdom, never participated in this trade, and up to the present there is not a single woman in Domdom who can shape a pot.

The manufucturing of this article, as said, is exclusively the work of women. They sit in groups of two or three under the houses, surrounded by big clumps of clay and the implements of their craft, and produce in these very shabby and mean conditions, veritable masterpieces of their art. Personally I had only the opportunity of seeing groups of very old women at work, although I spent about a month in the Amphletts.

With regard to the technology of pot-making, the method is that of first roughly moulding the clay into its form and then beating with a spatula and subsequently scraping the walls to the required thinness with a mussel-shell. To give the description in detail, a woman starts first by kneading a certain amount of clay for a long time. Of this material she makes two semi-circular clumps, or several clumps, if a big pot is to be made. These clumps are then placed in a ring, touching one another upon a flat stone or board, so that they form a thick, circular roll (Plate XLIV, top). The woman now begins to work this roll with both hands, gradually pressing it together, and at the same time bringing it up all round into a slanting wall (see Plate XLIV, bottom). Her left hand works as a rule on the inside, and her right on the outside of this wall; gradually it begins to shape into a semi-spherical dome. On the top of the dome there is a hole, through which the woman thrusts her left hand, working with it on the inside of the dome (see Plate XLV, top). At first the main movements of her hands were from downward up, flattening out the rolls into thin walls. The traces of her fingers going up and down on the outside leave longitudinal furrows (see details on Plate XLV, top). Towards the end of this stage her hands move round and round, leaving concentric, horizontal marks on the dome. This is continued until the pot has assumed a good curvature all round.

It seems almost a miracle to see how, in a relatively short time, out of this after all brittle material, and with no implements whatever, a woman will shape a practically faultless hemisphere, often up to a metre in diameter.

After the required shape has been obtained the woman takes a small spatula of light-wood into her right hand and she proceeds to tap the clay gently (see Plate XLV, bottom). This stage lasts a fairly long time, for big pots about an hour. After the dome has been sufficiently worked in this way small pieces of clay are gradually fitted in at the top, closing the orifice, and the top of the dome is beaten again. In the case of small pots the beating is done only after the orifice has been closed. The pot is put with the mat into the sun, where it remains for a day or two to harden. It is then turned round, so that its mouth is now uppermost, and its bottom is carefully placed into a basket. Then, round the rim of the mouth, a flat strip of clay is placed horizontally, turned towards the inside, forming a graceful lip. Three small lumps of clay are put 120° distance from each other near the lip as ornaments, and, with a pointed stick, a design is scratched in round the lip and sometimes down the outside of the body. In this state the pot is again left in the sun for some length of time.

After it has sufficiently hardened to be handled with safety, though it must be done with the utmost care, it is placed on some dried sticks, mouth downwards, supported by stones put between the sticks. It is surrounded with twigs and pieces of wood on its outside, fire is kindled, the sticks below bake it from the inside, and those from above on the outside. The final result is a beautiful pot, of a brick red colour when new, though after several uses it becomes completely black. Its shape is not quite semi-spherical; it is