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

them with a halo of romance. It seems fit here to make these few reflections upon the native psychology on this point, and to attempt to grasp its real significance.

It may help us towards this understanding to reflect, that not far from the scenes of the Kula, large numbers of white adventurers have toiled and suffered, and many of them given their lives, in order to acquire what to the natives would appear as insignificant and filthy as their bagi are to us — a few nuggets of gold. Nearer, even, in the very Trobriand Lagoon, there are found valuable pearls. In olden days, when the natives on opening a shell to eat it, found a waytuna, as they called it, a „seed” of the pearl shell, they would throw it to their children to play with. Now they see a number of white men straining all their forces in competition to acquire as many of these worthless things as they can. The parallel is very close. In both cases, the conventionalised value attached to an object carries with it power, renown, and the pleasure of increasing them both. In the case of the white man, this is infinitely more complex and indirect, but not essentially different from that of the natives. If we would imagine that a great number of celebrated gems are let loose among us, and travel from hand to hand — that Koh-i-noor and Orloff and other celebrated diamonds, emeralds and rubies — were on a continuous round tour, and to be obtained through luck, daring and enterprise, we would have a still closer analogy. Even though the possession of them would be a short and temporary one, the renown of having possessed them and the mania of „collectioneering” would add its spur to the lust for wealth.

This general, human, psychological foundation of the Kula must be kept constantly in mind. If we want, however, to understand its specific forms, we have to look for the details and technicalities of the transaction. A short outline of these has been given before in Chapter III. Here, after we have acquired a better knowledge of preliminaries, and a more thorough grasp of native psychology and custom, we shall be more ready to enter into a detailed description.

The main principle of the Kula exchange has been laid down in the before-mentioned chapter; the Kula exchange has always to be a gift, followed by a counter-gift; it can never be a barter, a direct exchange with assessment of equivalents and with haggling. There must be always in the Kula two transactions, distinct in name, in nature and in time. The exchange is opened by an initial or opening gift called vaga, and closed by a final or return present called yotile. They are both ceremonial gifts, they have to be accompanied by the blow of a conch shell, and the present is given ostentatiously and in public. The native term „to throw” a valuable describes well the nature of the act. For, though the valuable has to be handed over by the giver, the receiver hardly takes any notice of it, and seldom receives it actually into his hands. The etiquette of the transaction requires that the gift should be given in an off-hand, abrupt, almost angry manner, and received with equivalent nochalance and disdain. A slight modification in this is introduced when, as it happens sometimes, in the Trobriands, and in the Trobriands only, the vaygu’a is given by a chief to a commoner, in which case the commoner would take it into his hand, and show some appreciation of it. In all other cases, the valuable would be placed within the reach of the receiver, and an insignificant member of his following would pick it up.

It is not very easy to unravel the various motives which combine to make up this customary behaviour on receiving and giving a gift. The part played by the receiver is perhaps not so difficult to interpret. Right through their ceremonial and commercial give and take, there runs the crude and fundamental human dissatisfaction with the value received. A native will always, when speaking about a transaction, insist on the magnitude and value of the gift he gave, and minimise those of the equivalent accepted. Side by side with this, there is the essential native reluctance to appear in want of anything, a reluctance which is most pronounced in the case of food, as we have said before (Chapter VI, Division IV). Both these motives combine to produce the, after all, very human and understandable attitude of disdain at the reception of a gift. In the case of the donor, the histrionic anger with which he gives an object might be, in the first place, a direct expression of the natural human dislike of parting with a possession. Added to this, there is the attempt to enhance the apparent value of the gift by showing what a wrench it is to give it away. This is the interpretation of the etiquette in giving and taking at which I have arrived after many observations of native behaviour, and through many conversations and casual remarks of the natives.

The two gifts of the Kula are also distinct in time. It is quite obvious this must be so in the case of an overseas expedition of an uvalaku type, on which no valuables whatever are taken with them by the visiting party, and so, any valuable received on such an occasion, whether as vaga or yotile, cannot therefore be exchanged at the same time. But even when the exchange takes place in the same village during an inland Kula, there must be an interval between the two gifts, of a few minutes at least.

There are also deep differences in the nature of the two gifts. The vaga, as the opening gift of the exchange, has to be given spontaneously, that is, there is no enforcement of any duty in giving it. There are means of soliciting it (wawoyla), but no pressure can be employed. The yotile, however, that is, the valuable which is given in return for the valuable previously received, is given under pressure of a certain obligation. If I have given a vaga (opening gift of valuable) to a partner of mine, let us say a year ago, and now, when on a visit, I find that he has an equivalent vaygu’a, I shall consider it his duty to give it to me. If he does not do so, I am angry with him, and justified in being so. Not only that, if I can by any chance lay my hand on his vaygu’a and carry if off by force (lebu), I am entitled by custom to do this, although my partner in that case may become very irate. The quarrel over that would again be half histrionic, half real.

Another difference between a vaga and a yotile occurs in overseas expeditions which are not uvalaku. On such, expeditions, valuables sometimes are carried, but only such as are due already for a past vaga, and are to be given as yotile. Opening gifts, vaga, are never taken overseas.

As mentioned above, the vaga, entails more wooing or soliciting than the yotile. This process, called by the natives wawoyla, consists, among others, of a series of solicitary gifts. One type of such gifts is called pokala, and consists of food.91 In the myth of Kasabwaybwayreta, narrated in Chapter XII, this type of gift was mentioned. As a rule, a considerable amount of food is taken on an expedition, and when a good valuable is known to be in the possession of a man, some of this food will be presented to him, with the words: ”I pokala your valuable; give it to me”. If the owner is not inclined to part with his valuable, he will not accept the pokala. If accepted, it is an intimation that the vaygu’a will sooner or later be given to the man who offers the pokala. The owner, however, may not be prepared to part with it at once, and may wish to receive more solicitary gifts.

Another type of such a gift is called kaributu, and consists of a valuable which, as a rule, is not one of those which are regularly kulaed. Thus, a small polished axe blade, or a valuable belt is given with the words: ”I kaributu your necklace (or armshells); I shall take it and carry it off”. This gift again may only be accepted if there is an intention to satisfy the giver with the desired vaygu’a. A very famous and great valuable will often be solicited by gift of pokala and of kaributu, one following the other. If, after one or two of such solicitory gifts, the big vaygu’a is finally given, the satisfied receiver will often give some more food to his partner, which gift is called kwaypolu.

The food gifts would be returned on a similar occasion if it arises. But there would be no strict equivalence in the matter of food. The kaributu gift of a valuable, however, would always have to be returned later on, in an equivalent form. It may be added that the pokala offerings of food would be most often given from a district, where food is more abundant than in the district to which it is carried. Thus, the Sinaketans would bring pokala to the Amphletts, but they would seldom or never pokala the Dobuans, who are very rich in food. Again, within the Trobriands, a pokala would be offered from the Northern agricultural district of Kiriwina to men of Sinaketa, but not inversely.

Another peculiar type of gift connected with the Kula is called korotomna. After a Sinaketan has given a necklace to a man of Kiriwina, and this latter receives a minor valuable from his partner further East, this minor valuable will be given to the Sinaketan as the korotomna of his necklace. This gift usually consists of a lime spatula of whalebone ornamented with spondylus discs, and it has to be repaid.

It must be noted that all these expressions are given in the language of the Trobriands, and they refer to the gifts exchanged between the Northern and Southern Trobriands on the one hand, and these latter and the Amphletts on the other. In an overseas expedition from Sinaketa to Dobu, the solicitary gifts would be rather given wholesale, as the visitors’ gifts of pari, and the subtle distinctions in name and in technicality would not be observed. That this must be so becomes clear, if we realise that, whereas, between the Northern and Southern Trobriands the news about an exceptionally good valuable spreads easily and quickly, this is not the case between Dobu and Boyowa. Going over to Dobu, therefore, a man has to make up his mind, whether he will give any solicitory presents to his partner, what and how much he will give him, without knowing whether he has any specially fine valuables to expect from him or not. If, however, there was any exceptionally valuable gift in the visitors’ pari, it will have to be returned later on by the Dobuans.

Another important type of gift essential to the Kula is that of the intermediary gifts, called basi. Let us imagine that a Sinaketan man has given a very fine pair of armshells to his Dobuan partner at their last meeting in Sinaketa. Now, arriving in Dobu, he finds that his partner has not got any necklace equivalent in value to the armshells given. He none the less will expect his partner to give him meanwhile a necklace, even though it be of inferior value. Such a gift is a basi, that is, not a return of the highly valuable vaga, but a gift given to fill in the gap. This basi will have to be repaid by a small equivalent pair of armshells at a later date. And the Dobuan on his side has still to repay the big armshells he received, and for which he has as yet got no equivalent in his possession. As