A few words of comment must now be given on the text of the above narrative. In it, a number of magical rites were mentioned, besides those which were described first with their spells. Something must be said more in detail about the spells of the subsequent magical performances. There are some eleven of them. First comes the ritual invocation of the fish which helps the shipwrecked sailors. The spell corresponding to this, is called kaytaria, and it is an important formula, which every toliwaga is supposed to know. The question arises, has this rite ever been practised in reality? Some of the actions taken by the shipwrecked natives, such as the cutting of the the outrigger float when the boat is abandoned, are quite rational. It would be dangerous to float on the big, unwieldy canoe which might be constantly turned round and round by the waves, and if smashed to pieces, might injure the sailors with its wreckage. In this fact, perhaps there is also the empirical basis for the belief that some fragments of the canoe ‘eat’ the shipwrecked men. The round, symmetrical log of the lamina, on the other hand, will serve as an excellent lifebuoy. Perhaps a toliwaga, arrived at such a pass, would really utter the kaytaria spell. And if the party were saved, they would probably all declare, and, no doubt believe, that the fish had come to their summons, and somehow or other helped in the rescue.
It is less easy to imagine what elements in such an experience might have given rise to the myth that the natives, landed on the shore, magically lift the fish from the shallow waters by means of a charmed pole. This indeed seems a purely imaginary incident, and my main informant, Molilakwa of Oburaku, from whom I obtained the kaytaria spell, did not know the spell of the pole, and would have had to leave the iraviaka to its own fate in the shallows. Nor could I hear of anyone else professing to know this spell. The formula uttered over the stone to be thrown on the beach was equally unknown to the circle of my informants. Of course, in all such cases, when a man carrying on a system of magic would come to a gap in his knowledge, he would perform the rite without the spell, or utter the most suitable spell of the system. Thus here, as the stone is thrown in order to reconnoitre whether the mulukwausi are waiting for them, a spell of the giyorokaywa, the spell of the mulukwausi, might be uttered over the stone. Over the combs, as well as over the herbs on the beach, a giyorokaywa spell would be uttered, according to my informants, but probably, a different spell from the one spoken originally over the ginger root. Molilakwa, for instance, knows two spells of the giyorokaywa, both of which are suitable to be spoken over the ginger and over the beach respectively. Then there comes another spell, to be uttered over the libu plant, and in addressing the spider and the bush-hen. Molilakwa told me that the same spell would be said in the three cases, but neither he, nor anyone else, among my informants could give me this spell. The magic done in the village, while the shipwrecked men remained in the smoky hut, would be all accompanied by the leyya (ginger) spells.
One incident in the above narrative might have struck the reader as contradictory of the general theory of the mulukwausi belief, that, namely, where the narrator declares that the party on the beach have to wait till nightfall before they enter the village. The general belief expressed in all the mulukwausi legends, as well as in the taboos of the kayga’u, is that the witches are really dangerous only at night, when they can see and hear better. Such contradictions, as I have said, are often met in native belief, and in this, by the way, the savages do not differ from ourselves. My informant, from whom I had this version, simply said that such was the rule and the custom, and that they had to wait till night. In another account, on the other hand, I was told that the party must proceed to the village immediately after having performed the several rites on the beach, whether night or day.
There also arises the main question, regarding this narrative, to which allusion has been made already, namely, how far does it represent the normal behaviour in shipwreck, and how far is it a sort of standardised myth? There is no doubt that shipwreck in these seas, surrounded in many parts by islands, is not unlikely to end by the party’s being saved. This again would result in some such explanation as that contained in our narrative. Naturally, I tried to record all the actual cases of shipwreck within the natives’ memory. Some two generations ago, one of the chiefs of Omarakana, named Numakala, perished at sea, and with him all his crew. A canoe of another Eastern Trobriand village, Tilakaywa, was blown far North, and stranded in Kokopawa, from where it was sailed back by its crew, when the wind turned to the North-West. Although this canoe was not actually shipwrecked, its salvation is credited to kayga’u magic, and to the kind fish, iraviyaka. A very intelligent informant of mine explained this point of view in answer to some of my cavillings: “If this canoe had been wrecked, it would have been saved also.”
A party from Muyuwa (Woodlark Island) were saved on the shore of Boyowa. In the South of the Island, several cases are on record where canoes were wrecked and saved in the d’Entrecasteaux Islands or in the Amphletts. Once the whole crew were eaten by cannibals, getting ashore in a hostile district of Fergusson Island, and one man only escaped, and ran along the shore, south-eastwards towards Dobu. Thus there is a certain amount of historical evidence for the saving power of the magic, and the mixture of fanciful and real elements makes our story a good example of what could be called standardised or universalised myth—that is, a myth referring not to one historical event but to a type of occurrence, happening universally.
V
Let us now give the text of the remaining spells which belong to the above narrative, but have not been adduced there, so as not to spoil its flow. First of all there is the kaytaria spell, that which the toliwaga, drifting alongside his crew on the detached canoe float, intones in a loud, slow voice, in order to attract the iraviyaka.
Kaytaria Spell.
“I lie, I shall lie down in my house, a big house. I shall sharpen my ear, I shall hear the roaring of the sea—it foams up, it makes a noise. At the bottom of Kausubiyai, come, lift me, take me, bring me to the top of Nabonabwana beach.”
Then comes a sentence with mythological allusions which I could not succeed in translating. After that follows the main part of the spell:
“The suyusayu fish shall lift me up; my child, the suyusayu shall lift me up; my child’s things, the suyusayu shall lift me up; my basket, etc.; my lime pot, etc.; my lime spoon, etc.; my house, etc.;” repeating the words “the suyusayu fish shall lift me up” with various expressions describing the toliwaga’s equipment as well as his child, presumably a member of the shipwrecked crew.
There is no end part to this spell, as it was given to me; only the beginning is repeated after the main part. It is not impossible that Molilakwa himself, my informant, did not know the spell to the end. Such magic, once learnt by a native, never used, and recited perhaps once a year during a mortuary ceremony, or occasionally, in order to show off, is easily forgotten. There is a marked difference between the vacillating and uncertain way in which such spells are produced by informants, and the wonderful precision and the easy flow with which, for example, the spells, year after year performed in public, will trip off the tongue of the garden magician.