III
As has been said above, the two stages differ from one another in the nature of work done and in their sociological and ceremonial setting. So far, we have seen only a few men engaged in cutting the tree and scooping it out and then preparing the various parts of the canoe. Industriously, but slowly and deliberately, with many pauses, they toil over their work, sitting on the brown, trodden soil of the village in front of the huts, or scooping the canoe in the central place. The first part of the task, the felling of the tree, took us to the tall jungle and intricate undergrowth, climbing and festooned around the fantastic shapes of coral rocks.
Now, with the second stage, the scene shifts to the clean, snow-white sand of a coral beach, where hundreds of natives in festive array crowd around the freshly scraped body of the canoe. The carved boards, painted in black, white and red, the green fringe of palms and jungle trees, the blue of the sea—all lend colour to the vivid and lively scene. Thus I saw the building of a canoe done on the East shore of the Trobriands, and in this setting I remember it. In Sinaketa, instead of the blue, open sea, breaking in a belt of white foam outside on the fringing reef and coming in limpid waves to the beach, there are the dull, muddy browns and greens of the Lagoon, playing into pure emerald tints where the clean sandy bottom begins.
Into one of these two scenes, we must now imagine the dug-out transported from the village, after all is ready, and after the summons of the chief or headman has gone round the neighbouring villages. In the case of a big chief, several hundreds of natives will assemble to help, or to gaze on the performance. When a small community with a second-rate headman construct their canoe, only a few dozen people will come, the relatives-in-law of the headman and of other notables, and their close friends.
After the body of the canoe and all the accessories have been placed in readiness, the proceedings are opened by a magical rite, called Katuliliva tabuyo. This rite belongs to the Kula magic, for which the natives have a special expression; they call it mwasila. It is connected with the inserting of the ornamental prow-boards into their grooves at both ends of the canoe. These ornamental parts of the canoe are put in first of all, and this is done ceremonially. A few sprigs of the mint plant are inserted under the boards, as they are put in, and the toliwaga (owner of the canoe) hammers the boards in by means of a special stone imported from Dobu, and ritually repeats a formula of the mwasila magic. The mint plant (sulumwoya) plays an important part in the mwasila (Kula magic) as well as in love spells, and in the magic of beauty. Whenever a substance is to be medicated for the purpose of charming, seducing, or persuading, as a rule sulumwoya is used. This plant figures also in several myths, where it plays a similar part, the mythical hero always conquering the foe or winning a woman by the use of the sulumwoya.
I shall not adduce the magical formulæ in this account, with the exception of the most important one. Even a short summary of each of them would obstruct the narrative, and it would blur completely the outline of the consecutive account of the various activities. The various complexities of the magical ritual and of the formulæ will be set forth in [Chapter XVII]. It may be mentioned here, however, that not only are there several types of magic performed during canoe building, such as the mwasila (Kula magic), the canoe speed magic, exorcisms against evil magic, and exorcism of the tokway, but within each of these types, there are different systems of magic, each with its own mythological basis, each localised in a different district, and each having of course different formulæ and slightly different rites.[3]
After the prow-boards are put in, and before the next bit of technical work is done, another magical rite has to be performed. The body of the canoe, now bright with the three-coloured boards, is pushed into the water. A handful of leaves, of a shrub called bobi’u, is charmed by the owner or by the builder, and the body of the canoe is washed in sea water with the leaves. All the men participate in the washing, and this rite is intended to make the canoe fast, by removing the traces of any evil influence, which might still have remained, in spite of the previous magic, performed on the waga. After the waga has been rubbed and washed, it is pulled ashore again and placed on the skid logs.
Now the natives proceed to the main and most important constructive part of their work; this consists of the erection of the gunwale planks at the sides of the dug-out log, so as to form the deep and wide well of the built-up canoe. They are kept in position by an internal framework of some twelve to twenty pairs of ribs, and all of this is lashed together with a special creeper called wayugo, and the holes and interstices are caulked with a resinous substance.
I cannot enter here into details of building, though from the technological point of view, this is the most interesting phase, showing us the native at grips with real problems of construction. He has a whole array of component parts, and he must make them fit together with a considerable degree of precision, and that without having any exact means of measurement. By a rough appreciation based on long experience and great skill, he estimates the relative shapes and sizes of the planks, the angles and dimensions of the ribs, and the lengths of the various poles. Then, in shaping them out, the builder tests and fits them in a preliminary manner as work goes on, and as a rule the result is good. But now, when all these component parts have to be pieced finally together, it nearly always happens that some bit or other fails to fit properly with the rest. These details have to be adjusted, a bit taken off the body of the canoe, a plank or pole shortened, or even a piece added. The natives have a very efficient way of lashing on a whole bit of a plank, if this proves too short, or if, by some accident, it breaks at the end. After all has been finally fitted, and made to tally, the framework of ribs is put into the canoe (see [Plate XXVII]), and the natives proceed to lash them to the body of the dug-out, and to the two longitudinal poles to which the ribs are threaded.
And now a few words must be said about the wayugo, the lashing creeper. Only one species of creeper is used for the lashing of boats, and it is of the utmost importance that this creeper should be sound and strong. It is this alone that maintains the cohesion of the various parts, and in rough weather, very much depends on how the lashings will stand the strain. The other parts of the canoe—the outrigger poles—can be more easily tested, and as they are made of strong, elastic wood, they usually stand any weather quite well. Thus the element of danger and uncertainty in a canoe is due mainly to the creeper. No wonder, therefore, that the magic of the creeper is considered as one of the most important ritual items in canoe-building.
In fact, wayugo, the name of that creeper species, is also used as a general term for canoe magic. When a man has the reputation of building or owning a good and fast canoe, the usual way of explaining it is to say that he has, or knows “a good wayugo.” For, as in all other magic, there are several types of wayugo spells. The ritual is always practically the same: five coils of the creeper are, on the previous day, placed on a large wooden dish and chanted over in the owner’s hut by himself. Only exceptionally can this magic be done by the builder. Next day they are brought to the beach ceremonially on the wooden plate. In one of the wayugo systems, there is an additional rite, in which the toliwaga (canoe owner) takes a piece of the creeper, inserts it into one of the holes pierced in the rim of the dug-out for the lashing, and pulling it to and fro, recites once more the spell.
In consideration of the importance of this magic, the formula will be here adduced in full. It consists of an exordium (u’ula), a double main part (tapwana), and a concluding period (dogina).[4]
Wayugo Spell.
In the u’ula he first repeats “Sacred (or ritual) eating of fish, sacred inside,” thus alluding to a belief that the toliwaga has in connection with this magic to partake ritually of baked fish. Then come the words—“Flutter, betel plant, leaving behind,” all associated with leading ideas of canoe magic—the flutter of pandanus streamers; the betel-nut, which the ancestral spirits in other rites are invited to partake of; the speed by which all comrades will be left behind!
A list of ancestral names follows. Two of them, probably mythical personages, have significative names; “Stormy sea” and “Foaming.” Then the baloma (spirits) of these ancestors are asked to sit on the canoe slips and to chew betel, and they are invoked to take the pandanus streamer of the Kudayuri—a place in Kitava, where the flying canoe magic originated—and plant it on top of Teula or Tewara, the small island off the East coast of Fergusson.
The magician after that chants: “I shall turn, I shall turn towards you, O men of Kitava, you remain behind on the To’uru beach (in the Lagoon of Vakuta). Before you lies the sea arm of Pilolu. To-day, they kindle the festive fire of the Kudayuri, thou, O my boat” (here the personal name of the boat is uttered), “bind thy skirts together and fly!” In this passage—which is almost identical with one in the previously quoted Ligogu spell—there is a direct allusion to the Kudayuri myth, and to the custom of festive fires. Again the canoe is addressed as a woman who has to bind her grass petticoat together during her flight, a reference to the belief that a flying witch binds her skirts when starting into the air and to the tradition that this myth originates from Na’ukuwakula, one of the flying Kudayuri sisters. The following main part continues with this mythical allusion: Na’ukuwakula flew from Kitava through Sinaketa and Kayleula to Simsim, where she settled down and transmitted the magic to her progeny. In this spell the three places: Kuyawa (a creek and hillock near Sinaketa), Dikutuwa (a rock near Kayleula), and La’u (a cleft rock in the sea near Simsim, in the Lousançay Islands) are the leading words of the tapwana.
The last sentence of the first part, forming a transition into the tapwana, runs as follows: “I shall grasp the handle of the adze, I shall grip all the component parts of the canoe”—perhaps another allusion to the mythical construction of the Kudayuri canoe (comp. [Chap. XII, Div. IV])—“I shall fly on the top of Kuyawa, I shall disappear; dissolve in mist, in smoke; become like a wind eddy, become alone—on top of Kuyawa.” The same words are then repeated, substituting for Kuyawa the two other above-mentioned spots, one after the other, and thus retracing the flight of Na’ukuwakula.
Then the magician returns to the beginning and recites the spell over again up to the phrase: “bind thy skirt together and fly,” which is followed this time by a second tapwana: “I shall outdistance all my comrades with the bottom of my canoe; I shall out-distance all my comrades with the prow-board of my canoe, etc., etc.,” repeating the prophetic boast with all the parts of the canoe, as is usual in the middle part of magical spells.
In the dogina, the last part, the magician addresses the waga in mythological terms, with allusions to the Kudayuri myth, and adds: “Canoe thou art a ghost, thou art like a wind eddy; vanish, O my canoe, fly; break through your sea-passage of Kadimwatu, cleave through the promontory of Saramwa, pass through Loma; die away, disappear, vanish with an eddy, vanish with the mist; make your imprint in the sand, cut through the seaweed, go, put on your wreath of aromatic herbs.”[5]
Plate XXVII
Construction of a Waga
This canoe has been partly dismembered, in the process of being relashed. It shows the construction of the tibs and the fixtures on the outrigger log. The men were just in the act of fitting in a new gunwale plank (to be seen in the background) which has to fit into the carved prow-boards and into the groove at the top of the hull. (see Div. V.)
Plate XXVIII
Sail Making
Within a couple of hours a number of men perform this enormous task of sewing together small bands of pandanus leaf (see [Div. III] and [next Chap. Div. II]) till they form a sail. Among the workers there is an albino.
Plate XXIX
Rolls of Dried Pandanus Leaf
This is the material of which the sail is made. The bisila (pandanus streamer) is made of a softer variety of pandanus leaf, bleached at a fire.
After the wayugo has been ritually brought in, the lashing of the canoe begins. First of all the ribs are lashed into position then the planks, and with this the body of the canoe is ready. This takes a varying time, according to the number of people at work, and to the amount of tallying and adjusting to be done at the final fitting. Sometimes one whole day’s work is spent on this stage, and the next piece of work, the construction of the outrigger, has to be postponed to another day. This is the next stage, and there is no magic to punctuate the course of technical activities. The big, solid log is put alongside the canoe, and a number of short, pointed sticks are driven into it. The sticks are put in crossways on the top of the float (lamina). Then the tops of these sticks are again attached to a number of horizontal poles, which have to be thrust through one side of the canoe-body, and attached to the other. All this naturally requires again adjusting and fitting. When these sticks and poles are bound together, there results a strong yet elastic frame, in which the canoe and the float are held together in parallel positions, and across them transversely there run the several horizontal poles which keep them together. Next, these poles are bridged over by many longitudinal sticks lashed together, and thus a platform is made between the edge of the canoe and the tops of the float sticks.
When that is done, the whole frame of the canoe is ready, and there remains only to caulk the holes and interstices. The caulking substance is prepared in the hut of the toliwaga, and a spell is recited over it on the evening before the work is begun. Then again, the whole community turn out and do the work in one day’s sitting.
The canoe is now ready for the sea, except for the painting, Which is only for ornamentation. Three more magical rites have to be performed, however, before it is painted and then launched. All three refer directly to the canoe, and aim at giving it speed. At the same time all three are exorcisms against evil influences, resulting from various defilements or broken taboos, which possibly might have desecrated the waga. The first is called Vakasulu, which means something like “ritual cooking” of the canoe. The toliwaga has to prepare a real witches’ cauldron of all sorts of things, which afterwards are burnt under the bottom of the canoe, and the smoke is supposed to exercise a speed-giving and cleansing influence. The ingredients are: the wings of a bat, the nest of a very small bird called posisiku, some dried bracken leaves, a bit of cotton fluff, and some lalang grass. All the substances are associated with flying and lightness. The wood used for kindling the fire is that of the light-timbered mimosa tree (liga). The twigs have to be obtained by throwing at the tree a piece of wood (never a stone), and when the broken-off twig falls, it must be caught in the hand, and not allowed to touch the ground.
The second rite, called Vaguri, is an exorcism only, and it consists of charming a stick, and then knocking the body of the canoe all over with it. This expels the evil witchery (bulubwalata), which it is only wise to suspect has been cast by some envious rivals, or persons jealous of the toliwaga.
Finally, the third of these rites, the Kaytapena waga, consists in medicating a torch of coco-leaf with the appropriate spell, and fumigating with it the inside of the canoe. This gives speed and once more cleanses the canoe.
After another sitting of a few days, the whole outside of the canoe is painted in three colours. Over each of them a special spell is chanted again, the most important one over the black colour. This is never omitted, while the red and white spells are optional. In the rite of the black colour, again, a whole mixture of substances is used—a dry bracken leaf, grass, and a posisiku nest—all this is charred with some coco-nut husk, and the first strokes of the black paint are made with the mixture. The rest is painted with a watery mixture of charred coco-nut. For red colour, a sort of ochre, imported from the d’Entrecasteaux Islands, is used; the white one is made of a chalky earth, found in certain parts of the sea shore.
Sail-making is done on another day, usually in the village, by communal labour, and, with a number of people helping, the tedious and complicated work is performed in a relatively short time. The triangular outline of the sail is first pegged out on the ground, as a rule the old sail being used as a pattern. After this is done, tapes of dried pandanus leaf (see Plates [XXVIII], [XXIX]) are stretched on the ground and first fixed along the borders of the sail. Then, starting at the apex of the triangle, the sail-makers put tapes radiating towards the base, sewing them together with awls of flying fox bone, and using as thread narrow strips of specially toughened pandanus leaf. Two layers of tapes are sewn one on top of the other to make a solid fabric.