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

Ga’u, yaga’u, yagaga’u, yaga’u, bode, bodegu!

This sentence, giving the vowels a full Italian value, such as they receive in the Melanesian pronunciation, does certainly have an impressive ring; fittingly enough, because this is the dramatic spell, uttered into the wind in the sinking waga, the final effort of magic to blind and mislead the mulukwausi. The causative prefix ya is used here with a nominal expression yaga’u, which has been translated „gathering mist”; the reduplicated one yagaga’u I have rendered by „encircling mist”. It can be seen from this example how feebly the equivalents can be given of the magical phrases in which so much is expressed by phonetic or onomatopoetic means.

The other spells have much less inspired key-words. Giyotanawa No. 1 uses the word atumboda, translated „I press”, „I close down”, which literally renders the meanings of the verbs tum, „to press”, and boda, „to close”. The Giyorokaywa No. 2 has the somewhat archaic key-words spoken in a couple: „apeyra yauredi”, „I arise”, „I escape” and the grammatically irregular expression suluya, „to lead astray”.

The main part of the Kaytaria spell, by which the benevolent fish is summoned to the rescue of the drowning party, has the key-phrase bigabaygu suyusayu: „the suyusayu fish shall lift me up”. This expression is noteworthy: even in this spell, which might be regarded as an invocation of the helpful animal, it is not addressed in the second person. The result is verbally anticipated, proving that the spell is to act through the direct force of the words and not as an appeal to the animal.

With this, the survey of linguistic samples from various spells is closed, and we can briefly summarise our results. The belief in the efficiency of a formula results in various peculiarities of the language in which it is couched, both as regards meaning and sound. The native is deeply convinced of this mysterious, intrinsic power of certain words; words which are believed to have their virtue in their own right, so to speak; having come into existence from primeval times and exercising their influence directly.

To start first with the meaning of the magical expressions, we have seen that in this respect they are plain and direct enough. Most of the key-words simply state the magical action, for example when in one of the spells the key-word napuwoye, „I impart magical virtue (of speed)”, or in another the key-words „to paint red in a festive manner”, „to wreathe in a festive manner”, simply describe what the magician is doing. Much more often the principal expressions, that is the initial words and the key-words, of a spell refer to its aim, as for instance, when we find words and phrases denoting „speed” in canoe magic; or, in Kula magic, designations for „success”, „abundant haul”, „excitement”, „beauty”. Still more often the aim of magic is stated in a metaphorical manner, by similes and double meanings. In other parts of the spell, where the magical meaning is imprisoned not so much in single words and expressions, as in explicit phraseology and long periods, we found that the predominant features are: lists of ancestral names; invocations of ancestral spirits; mythological allusions; similes and exaggerations; depreciating contrasts between the companions and the reciter most of them expressing an anticipation of the favourable results aimed at in the spell. Again, certain parts of the spell contain systematic, meticulous enumerations, the reciter going over the parts of a canoe one by one; the successive stages of a journey; the various Kula goods and valuables; the parts of the human head; the numerous places from which the flying witches are believed to come. Such enumerations as a rule strive at an almost pedantic completeness.

Passing to the phonetic characteristics, we saw that a word will often be used in a shape quite different from those in which it is used in ordinary speech; that it will show notable changes in form and sound. Such phonetic peculiarities are most conspicuous in the main words, that is in the key-words and initial words. They are sometimes truncated, more often provided with additions, such as symmetrical or antithetic affixes; formatives added for the sake of sound. By these means there are produced effects of rhythm, alliteration and rhyme, often heightened and accentuated by actual vocal accent. We found play on words by symmetrical couples of sounds, with antithetic meaning like mo- and vi- or mwana- and vina-, both couples signifying „male” and „female” respectively; or -mugwa (ancient) and -v’au (new); or ma- (hither) and wa- (thither), etc., etc. Especially we found the prefix bo-, carrying the meaning of ritual or tabooed, with derivation from bomala; or with the meaning „red”, „festive”, in its derivation from bu’a (areca-nut); onomatopoetic sounds such as sididi or saydidi, tatata, numsa, in imitation of speed noises, of the wailing of wind, rustling of sail, swish of pandanus leaves; tududu, in imitation of the thunder claps; and the rhythmical, expressive, though perhaps not directly onomatopoetic, sentence: