„O kwega leaf; friendly kwega leaf; kwega leaf hither; O kwega leaf thither!”
„I shall enter through the mouth of the woman of Dobu; I shall come out through the mouth of the man of Dobu. I shall enter through the mouth of the man of Dobu; I shall come out through the mouth of the woman of Dobu”.
„Seducing kwega leaf; enmeshing kwega leaf; the mind of the woman of Dobu is seduced by the kwega leaf, is enmeshed by the kwega leaf”.
The expression „is seduced”, „is enmeshed by the kwega leaf”, is repeated with a string of words such as: „Thy mind, man of Dobu”, „thy refusal, woman of Dobu”, „Thy disinclination, woman of Dobu”, „Thy bowels, thy tongue, thy liver”, going thus over all the organs of understanding and feeling, and over the words which describe these faculties. The last part is identical with that of one or two formulae previously quoted:
„No more it is my mother; my mother art thou, O woman of Dobu”, etc.(Compare the Kaykakaya and Ka’ubana’i spells of the previous chapter).
Kwega is a plant, probably belonging to the same family as betel pepper, and its leaves are chewed with areca-nut and lime, when real betel-pods (mwayye) are not available. The kwega is, remarkably enough, invoked in more than one magical formula, instead of the real betel-pod. The middle part is quite clear. In it, the seducing and enmeshing power of the kwega is cast over all the mental faculties of the Dobuan, and on the anatomical seats of these faculties. After the application of this magic, all the resources of the soliciting man are exhausted. He has to give up hope, and take to eating the fruit of Dobu, as his taboo lapses.
Side by side with the Kula, the subsidiary exchange of ordinary goods takes place. In Chapter VI, Division VI, we have classified the various types of give and take, as they are to be found in the Trobriand Islands. The inter-tribal transactions which now take place in Dobu also fit into that scheme The Kula itself belongs to class (6), „Ceremonial Barter with deferred payment”. The offering of the pari, of landing gifts by the visitors, returned by the talo’i or farewell gifts from the hosts fall into the class (4) of presents more or less equivalent. Finally, between the visitors and the local people there takes place, also, barter pure and simple (gimwali). Between partners, however, there is never a direct exchange of the gimwali type. The local man will as a rule contribute a bigger present, for the talo’i always exceeds the pari in quantity and value, and small presents are also given to the visitors during their stay. Of course, if in the pari there were included gifts of high value, like a stone blade or a good lime spoon, such solicitary gifts would always be returned in strictly equivalent form. The rest would be liberally exceeded in value.
The trade takes place between the visitors and local natives, who are not their partners, but who must belong to the community with whom the Kula is made. Thus, Numanuma, Tu’utauna and Bwayowa are the three communities which form what we have called the „Kula community” or „Kula unit”, with whom the Sinaketans stand in the relation of partnership. And a Sinaketa man will gimwali (trade) only with a man from one of these villages who is not his personal partner. To use a native statement:
„Some of our goods we give in pari; some we keep back; later on, we gimwali it. They bring their areca-nut, their sago, they put it down. They want some article of ours, they say: „I want this stone blade”. We give it, we put the betel-nut, the sago into our canoe. If they give us, however, a not sufficient quantity, we rate them. Then they bring more”.
This is a clear definition of the gimwali, with haggling and adjustment of equivalence in the act.