Plate XXXII
A Chiefs Yam House in Kasana’i
This illustrates the display of yams in the interstices between the logs of the well, and the decorations of cocoanuts, running round the gable, along the supports and the walls. This yam house was quite recently put up and its barge boards had not yet been erected. (See [Div. IV].)
Plate XXXIII
Filling a Yam House in Yalumugwa
The yams are taken from the conical heaps and put into the bwayma (store houses) by the brother-in-law (wife’s brother) of the owner. Note the decorations on the gableûthe owner being a gumguya’u (chief of lower rank). See [Div. IV].
The great event which was the cause of the building and renovating of the canoes, was a Kula expedition planned by To’ulawa and his Kula community. They were to go to the East, to Kitava, to Iwa or Gawa, perhaps even to Muruwa (Woodlark Island), though with this island the natives do not carry on the Kula directly. As is usual in such cases, months before the approximate date of sailing, plans and forecasts were made, stories of previous voyages were recounted, old men dwelt on their own reminiscences and reported what they had been told by their elders of the days when iron was unknown and everyone had to sail to the East in order to get the green stone quarried in Suloga on Woodlark Island. And so, as it always happens when future events are talked over round village fires, imagination outran all bounds of probability; and the hopes and anticipations grew bigger and bigger. In the end, everyone really believed his party would go at least to the Easternmost Marshall Bennetts (Gawa), whereas, as events turned out, they did not sail beyond Kitava.
For this occasion a new canoe had to be constructed in Kasana’i, and this was done by Ibena himself, the chief of that village, a man of rank equal to the highest chief (his kinsman, in fact) but of smaller power. Ibena is a skilled builder as well as a fair carver, and there is no class of magic in which he does not profess to be versed. The canoe was built, under his guidance; he carved the boards himself, he also performed the magic, and he was, of course, the toliwaga.