In [Chapter III] I spoke about the sociology of Kula, and gave a concise definition of partnership with its functions and obligations. I said there that people enter into this relationship in a definite manner, and remain in it for the rest of their life. I also said that the number of partners a man possesses, depends upon his social position and rank. The protective character of an overseas partner becomes now clearer, after we have realised the nervous tension with which each Kula party in olden days would have approached a land full of mulukwausi, bowo’u and other forms of sorcery, a land from which originate the very tauva’u themselves.[1] To have a friend there, one who will not on the surface of it have bad intentions, is a great boon. What this really means to the natives can, however, only be realised when we arrive at Dobu, learn the special safety magic performed there and find how genuinely serious these apprehensions are.
We must now make another short digression from our consecutive account, and discuss the several aspects of the sociology of the Kula one after the other.
1. Sociological Limitations to the Participation in the Kula.—Not everyone who lives within the cultural sphere of the Kula does participate in it. More especially in the Trobriand Islands, there are whole districts which do not practise the Kula. Thus a series of villages in the North of the main Island, the villages on the Island of Tuma, as well as the industrial villages of Kuboma and the agricultural ones of Tilataula do not practise Kula. In villages like Sinaketa, Vakuta, Gumasila and Nabwageta, every man carries on the Kula. The same applies to the small Islands which link up the big gaps of the Kula chain, the Islands of Kitava, Iwa, Gawa and Kwayawata, strewn on the seas between the Trobriands and Woodlark Island, to Tubetube and Wari, etc., etc. In the Dobuan speaking district, on the other hand, I think that certain village complexes either do not practice Kula at all, or else practice it on a small scale, that is, their headmen have only a few partners in the neighbouring villages.
In some of the big chiefs’ villages in Kiriwina there are certain people who never practice Kula. Thus, in a village where the headman has the rank of guya’u (chief) or gumguya’u (minor chief) the commoners of the lowest rank and unrelated to the headman are not supposed to carry on the Kula. In olden days this rule would be very strictly observed, and nowadays even, though somewhat relaxed, not many commoners of this description practice the Kula. Limitations as to entry into the Kula, therefore, exist only in big Kula districts such as that of Dobu and of the Trobriands, and they are partly local, excluding whole villages, and partly social, excluding certain people of low rank.
2. The Relation of Partnership.—The name for an overseas partner is in the Trobriand language karayta’u; ‘my partner’ is styled ulo karayta’u, ulo being the possessive pronoun of remote relation. In Gumasila he is called ulo ta’u, which means simply ‘my man’; in Dobuan, yegu gumagi. The inland partners are known in Kiriwinian by the term denoting a friend, ‘lubaygu,’ the suffixed possessive pronoun gu being that of nearest possession.
Only after this relationship has been established between two men, can the two make Kula with one another. An overseas visitor would as a rule go to his partner’s house and offer him a small present as pari. This again would be returned by the local man by means of a talo’i present. There would not be any great intimacy between two overseas partners. But, in sharp contrast to the essential hostility between two strange tribesmen, such a relationship of friendship would stand out as the most remarkable deviation from the general rule. In inland relations between two partners of neighbouring villages, the closeness and intimacy would be relatively small as compared to other ties. This relation was defined to me in these words:
“My partner same as my clansman (kakaveyogu)—he might fight me. My real kinsman (veyogu), same navelstring, would always side with us.”
The best way of obtaining detailed information, and of eliminating any errors which might have crept into ethnographic generalisations, is to collect concrete data. I have drawn up a complete list of the partners of Kouta’uya, who is one of the biggest Kula men in the whole Ring; another list of a smaller Sinaketa headman, Toybayoba; and of course I know several complements of partners of smaller men, who, as a rule, have about four to six partners each.
The full list of Kouta’uya includes fifty-five men in the Northern Half of Boyowa, that is, in Luba, Kulumata and Kiriwina. From these the chief receives armshells. To the South, his partners in the Southern districts of Boyowa and Vakuta are twenty-three by number; in the Amphletts eleven, and twenty-seven in Dobu. Thus we see that the numbers to the South and North almost balance, the Southern exceeding the Northern by six. These numbers include his partners in Sinaketa, where he makes Kula with all his fellow chiefs, and with all the headmen of the divisional villages, and in his own little village he kulas with his sons. But even there, everyone of his partners is either South or North to him, that is, either gives him the necklaces or armshells.
All the clans are represented in the list. Often when asked with regard to the name of some man, why he is in partnership with him, the answer would be—“Because he is my kinsman,” which means, in this case, clansman of equal rank. Men of other clans are included, as ‘friends’ or relatives-in-law, or for some other reason more or less imaginary. I shall speak presently of the mechanism through which the man enters on this relation.