Argonauts of the Western Pacific

by Bronisław Malinowski

IV

It will be necessary to give a more detailed account of the actual conditions obtaining in Boyowa wth regard to the limits of the various Kula communities in that district. Looking at Map IV, p. 50, we see there the boundaries of Kiriwina, which is the easternmost Kula community in the Northern part of the islands. To the west of it the provinces of Tilataula, Kuboma, and Kulumata form another Kula community, or, it would be more correct to say, some of the men in these districts make the inland Kula with members of neighbouring communities. But these three provinces do not form as a whole a Kula community. In the first place, many villages are quite outside the Kula, that is, not even their headmen belong to the inter-tribal exchange. Remarkably enough, all the big industrial centres, such as Bwoytalu, Luya, Yalaka, Kadukwaykela, Buduwaylaka, do not take part in the Kula. An interesting myth localised in Yalaka tells how the inhabitants of that village, prevented by custom from seeing the world on Kula expeditions, attempted to erect a high pillar reaching to heaven, so as to find a field for their adventures in the skies. Unfortunately, it fell down, and only one man remained above, who is now responsible for thunder and lightning.

Another important omission in the Kula is that of the Northern villages of Laba’i, Kaybola, Lu’ebila, Idaleaka, Kapwani and Yuwada. If we remember that Laba’i is the very centre of Kiriwinian mythology, that there lies the very hole out of which the original ancestors of the four clans emerged from underground, that the highest chiefs of Kiriwina trace their descent from Laba’i, this omission appears all the more remarkable and mysterious.

Thus the whole Western half of the Northern Trobriands forms a unit of sorts in the chain of Kula communities, but it cannot be considered as a fully fledged one, for only sporadic individuals belong to it, and again, that district as a whole, or even individual canoes from it, never take part in any overseas Kula expedition. The village of Kavataria makes big overseas sailings to the Western d’Entrecasteaux Islands. Though these expeditions really have nothing to do with the Kula, we shall say a few words about this in the next chapter but one.

Passing now to the West, we find the island of Kayleula, which, together with two or three smaller islands, to its South, Kuyawa, Manuwata, and Nubiyam, form a „Kula community” of its own. This community is again slightly anomalous, for they make Kula only on a small scale, on the one hand with the chiefs and headmen of Kiriwina, and of the North-Western district of Boyowa, and on the other hand with the Amphletts, but never with Dobu. They also used to make long and perilous trips to the Western d’Entrecasteaux, sailing further West and for longer distances than the natives of Kavataria.

The main Kula communities in the South of Boyowa, Sinaketa and Vakuta, have been described already, and sufficiently defined in the previous chapters. Sinaketa is the centre for inland Kula of the South, which, though on a smaller scale than the inland Kula of the North, still unites half-a-dozen villages round Sinaketa. That village also carries on Kula with three coastal villages in the East, Okayaulo, Bwaga, and Kumilabwaga, who link it up with Kitava, to where they make journeys from time to time. These villages form again the sort of imperfect „Kula community”, or perhaps one on a very small scale, for they would never have an uvalaku of their own, and the amount of transactions which pass through them is very small. Another such small community, independent as regards Kula, is the village of Wawela. The district of Luba, which sometimes joins with Kiriwina in carrying on a big expedition, also sometimes joins with Wawela on small expeditions. Such nondescript or intermediate phenomena of transition are always to be found in studying the life of native races, where most social rules have not got the same precision as with us. There is among them neither any strong, psychological tendency to consistent thinking, nor are the local peculiarities and exceptions rubbed off by the influence of example or competition.

I cannot say very much about the inland Kula in other regions besides the Trobriands. I have seen it done in Woodlark Island, at the very beginning of my work among the Northern Massim, and that was the first time that I came across any of the symptoms of the Kula. Early in 1915, in the village of Dikoyas, I heard conch shells blown, there was a general commotion in the village, and I saw the presentation of a large bagido’u. I, of course, inquired about the meaning of the custom, and was told that this is one of the exchanges of presents made when visiting friends. At that time I had no inkling that I had been a witness of a detailed manifestation, of what I subsequently found out was Kula. On the whole, however, I have been told by natives from Kitava and Gawa, later on whilst working in the Trobriands, that the customs of Kula exchange there are identical with those obtaining in Kiriwina. And the same I was told is the case in Dobu. It must be realised, however, that the inland Kula must be somewhat different in a community where, as in Kitava, for instance, the strands of the Kula all come together in a small space, and the stream of valuables, which has been flowing through the broad area of the Trobriands, there concentrates into three small villages. If we estimate the inhabitants of the Trobriands with Vakuta at up to ten thousand, while those of Kitava at no more than five hundred, there will be about twenty times as many valuables per head of inhabitants in Kitava as compared to the Trobriands.

Another such place of concentration is the island of Tubetube, and I think one or two places in Woodlark Island, where the village of Yanabwa is said to be an independent link in the chain, through which every article has to pass. But this brings us already to the Eastern Kula, which will form the subject of the next chapter.