Argonauts of the Western Pacific

by Bronisław Malinowski

The association of taboo on economic goods with mourning is a wide-spread feature of the Melanesian customs in New Guinea. I found it among the Mailu on the South Coast of New Guinea, where a taboo, called gora, is put on coco-nuts as one of the features of mourning¹⁰². The same institution, as we saw, obtains in Dobu. Similar taboos are to be found among the Southern Massim¹⁰³.

The importance of such economic taboos at times of mourning is due to another wide-spread association, that namely which obtains between mourning and feasts, or, more correctly, distributions of food, which are made at intervals during a more or less prolonged period after a person’s death. An especially big feast, or rather distribution, is made at the end of the period, and on this occasion the accumulated goods, usually coco-nut, betel-nut and pigs, are distributed. Death among all the coastal natives of Eastern New Guinea causes a great and permanent disturbance in the equilibrium of tribal life. On the one hand, there is the stemming of the normal flow of economic consumption. On the other hand, an innumerable series of rites, ceremonies and festive distributions, which one and all create all sorts of reciprocal obligations, take up the best part of the energy, attention and time of the natives for a period of a few months, or a couple of years according to the importance of the dead. The immense social and economic upheaval which occurs after each death is one of the most salient features of the culture of these natives, and one also which on its surface strikes us as enigmatic and which entices into all sorts of speculations and reflections. What makes the problem still more obscure and complex is the fact that all these taboos, feasts, and rites have nothing whatever to do, in the belief of the natives, with the spirit of the deceased. This latter has gone at once and settled definitely in another world, entirely oblivious of what happens in the villages and especially of what is done in memory of his former existence.

The so’i (distribution of food) as found in Kitava is the final act in a long series of minor distributions. What distinguishes it from its Boyowan counterparts and the similar ceremonies among the other Massim, is the accumulation of Kula goods. In this case, as we have said, the taboo extends also to the valuables. Immediately after death has occurred in a village, a large stick is placed on the reef in front of its landing beach, and a conch shell is tied to it. This is a sign that no visitors will be received who come to ask for Kula goods. Besides this, a taboo is also imposed on coco-nut, betel-nut and pigs.

These details, as well as the following ones, I received from an intelligent and reliable Kit a van informant, who has settled in Sinaketa. He told me that according to the importance of the death, and the speed with which the goods were accumulating after a year or so, word would be sent round to all the partners and muri-muri (partners once removed).

„When all are assembled”, my informant told me, „the sagali (distribution) begins. They sagali first kaulo (yam food), then bulukwa (pig). When pig is plentiful it would be given in halves; when not, it will be quartered. A big heap of yam food, of coco-nut, betel-nut, and banana would be placed for each canoe. Side by side with this row, a row of pig meat would be placed. One man calls out for the yam heaps, another for the pig-meat; the name of each canoe is called out. If it were a whole pig, they would say, To’uluwa kam visibala! („To’uluwa, your whole pig”)! Otherwise they would call out, Mililuta, kami bulukwa! („Men of Liluta, your pig”). And again, Mililuta, kami gogula! („Men of Liluta, your heap”). They take it, take their heap to their canoe. There, the toliwaga (master of the canoe) would make another small sagali. Those, who live near by, singe their meat, and carry it home in their canoes. Those who live far away, roast the pig, and eat it on the beach.

It will be noted that the supreme chief’s name would be uttered when his and his companion’s share is allotted. With the shares of men of less importance, the name of the village is called out. As on all such occasions, the strangers do not eat their food in public, and even its re-distribution is done in the privacy of their camping place near the canoe.

After the distribution of the food, and of course before this is taken away by the parties, the master of the so’i goes into his house and takes out a specially good piece of valuable. With a blast of the conch shell, he gives it to the most distinguished of his partners present. Others follow his example, and soon the village is filled with conch shell blasts, and all the members of the community are busy presenting gifts to their partners. First, the initial gifts (vaga) are given, and only after this is over, such valuables as have been due of old to their partners, and which have to be given as clinching gifts (yotile) are handed over.

After the whole public distribution is finished and the guests have gone, the members of the sub-clan who organised it, at sunset make a small distribution of their own, called kaymelu. With that the so’i and the whole period of mourning and of consecutive distributions, is over. I have said before that this account of the so’i has been obtained only through the statements of several informants, one especially very clear and reliable. But it has not been checked by personal observation, and as is always the case with such material, there is no guarantee of its being complete.

From the point of view in which it interests us, however, that is, in connection with the Kula, the outstanding fact is well established; a mortuary taboo temporarily holds up the flow of Kula goods, and a big quantity of valuables thus dammed up, is suddenly let loose by the so’i and spreads in a big wave along the circuit. The big wave of armshells, for instance, which travelled along and was taken up by the uvalaku expedition of the Dobuans, was the ripple of a so’i feast, held one or two months previously at full moon in Yanabwa, a village of Woodlark Island. When I was leaving Boyowa, in September, 1918, a mortuary taboo was in force in the Island of Yeguma, or Egum, as it is pronounced in the Eastern district (the Alcester Islands of the map). Kwaywaya, the chief of Kitava whom I met on his visit in Sinaketa, told me that the people of Yeguma had sent him a sprouting coco-nut, with the message: „When its leaves develop, we shall sagali (make the distribution)”. They had kept a coco-nut at the same stage of development in their village, and sent others to to all the neighbouring communities. This would give a first approach in fixing the date, which would be appointed more precisely when the feast was close at hand.

The custom of associating the so’i with Kula is practised as far as Tubetube. In Dobu, there is no distribution of valuables at the mortuary feast. They have there another custom, however; at the final mortuary distribution, they like to adorn themselves with armshells and necklaces of the Kula — a custom entirely foreign to the Trobrianders. In Dobu therefore, an approaching mortuary feast also tends to dam up the valuables which after its performance, will ebb away in two waves of mwali and so’ulava along both branches of the Kula. But they have no custom of distributing these valuables during the final mortuary feast, and therefore the release of the vaygu’a would not be as sudden as in a so’i.