Chapter XIV
The Kula in Dobu—Technicalities of the Exchange
I
In the last chapter, we spoke about the institution of gwara (mortuary taboo) and of the threatening reception accorded to the visiting party, at the time when it is laid upon the village, and when it has to be lifted. When there is no gwara, and the arriving fleet are on an uvalaku expedition, there will be a big and ceremonial welcome. The canoes, as they approach, will range themselves in a long row facing the shore. The point selected will be the beach, corresponding to a hamlet where the main partner of the toli’uvalaku lives. The canoe of the toli’uvalaku, of the master of the uvalaku expedition, will range itself at the end of the row. The toli’uvalaku will get up on to the platform and harangue the natives assembled on the beach. He will try to appeal to their ambition, so that they might give the visitors a large amount of valuables and surpass all other occasions. After that, his partner on the shore will blow a conch-shell, and, wading through the water, advance towards the canoe, and offer the first gift of valuables to the master of the expedition. This may be followed by another gift, again given to the toli’uvalaku. Other blasts then follow, and men disengage themselves from the throng on the shore, approaching the canoes with necklaces for their partners. A certain order of seniority will be observed in this. The necklaces are always carried ceremonially; as a rule they will be tied by both ends to a stick, and carried hanging down, with the pendant at the bottom (see [Plate LXI]). Sometimes, when a vaygu’a (valuable) is carried to the canoes by a woman (a headman’s wife or sister) it will be put into a basket and carried on her head.
II
After this ceremonial reception, the fleet disperses. As we remember from [Chapter II], the villages in Dobu are not built in compact blocks of houses, but scattered in hamlets, each of about a dozen huts. The fleet now sails along the shore, every canoe anchoring in front of the hamlet in which its toliwaga has his main partner.
We have at last arrived at the point when the real Kula has begun. So far, it was all preparations, and sailing with its concomitant adventure, and a little bit of preliminary Kula in the Amphletts. It was all full of excitement and emotion, pointing always towards the final goal, the big Kula in Dobu. Now we have at last reached the climax. The net result will be the acquisition of a few dirty, greasy, and insignificant looking native trinkets, each of them a string of flat, partly discoloured, partly raspberry-pink or brick-red discs, threaded one behind the other into a long, cylindrical roll. In the eyes of the natives, however, this result receives its meaning from the social forces of tradition and custom, which give the imprint of value to these objects, and surround them with a halo of romance. It seems fit here to make these few reflections upon the native psychology on this point, and to attempt to grasp its real significance.