After the sagali (ceremonial distribution of food) is over, as a rule, in the afternoon, the new canoe is rigged, the mast is put up, the sail attached, and this and all the other boats make a trial run. It is not a competitive race in the strict sense of the word. The chief’s canoe, which indeed would as a rule be best and fastest, in any case always wins the race. If it did not sail fastest, the others would probably keep back. The trial run is rather a display of the new canoe, side by side with the others.
In order to give one concrete illustration of the ceremonial connected with canoe building and launching, it may be well to relate an actual event. I shall therefore describe the tasasoria, seen on the beach of Kaulukuba, in February, 1916, when the new canoe of Kasana’i was launched. Eight canoes took part in the trial run, that is, all the canoes of Kiriwina, which forms what I have called the “Kula community,” the social group who make their Kula expeditions in a body, and who have the same limits within which they carry on their exchange of valuables.
Plate XXX
Launching of a Canoe
Nigada Bu’a, after its renovation, being pushed into the water. (See [Div. I].)
Plate XXXI
The Tasasoria on the Beach of Kaulukuba
Stepping the masts and getting the sails ready for the run. In the foreground, To’uluwa, the chief of Kiriwina, standing at the mast, supervises the rigging of Nigada Bu’a. (See [Div. I])