Argonauts of the Western Pacific

by Bronisław Malinowski

II

One subject on which more must be said is that of the associated trade. A new and important article of exchange accompanies the transaction in the South-Eastern branch of the Kula: the big, sea-going canoes. The main centres of manufacture, and to a great extent manufacture for export, were the islands of Gawa and Panayati. In these places, canoes were constructed for export to the southern districts where the natives did not know how to build such canoes (compare Chapter I, Division III). In olden days the natives of Woodlark Island, before its present depopulation, also probably made some canoes for exchange in external trade. I have seen these canoes owned by natives in the Southern Massim district as far as Orangerie Bay, over two hundred miles from the place where they were manufactured. The trading of this article ran along with the Kula lines of communication, as there is no doubt that the natives of Tubetube and Wari were the main distributors and middlemen in this trade.

How far canoe exchange was associated directly with Kula transactions, I cannot say definitely. Judging from the data given by Professor Seligman¹⁰⁹, armshells were paid by natives of Tubetube for canoes purchased from Panamoti in the North. Thus, the mwali in this commercial transaction, travelled in a direction opposite to that in which they must move in the Kula ring. This, again, suggests complete independence of the two transactions. Besides the canoes, another important article of trade in the southern portion are the clay pots manufactured both in Tubetube and Wari. Besides this, the two islands of „merchant venturers”, as they are called by Professor Seligman, carry on their Kula expeditions, and most likely independent of them also, they trade almost all the various articles of industry manufactured in the neighbouring districts and distributed by the two communities. This subject has been treated so fully by Professor Seligman in Chapter XL of his Melanesians that a reference here will suffice¹¹⁰.

Having now before us the whole ring of the Kula, we may inquire how far is this ring in contact commercially with other outlying districts, and, more especially, how far are certain articles of trade imported into it and others drawn out of it? What will interest us most in this connection is the entry into the ring and the exit out of it of the articles of Kula proper, the mwali (armshells) and the soulava (necklaces).

III

One such offshoot of the Kula ring we met in the Trobriands, to wit, the expeditions from the Western village of Kavataria, and from the island of Kayleula, to the Koya of Fergusson and Goodenough. We shall begin with a brief account of these expeditions¹¹¹. The preparations are very much the same, as in Sinaketa. The canoes are built with more or less the same magic (cf. Chapter V), they are launched ceremonially and the trial run, the tasasoria, also takes place (Chapter VI). The island of Kayleula is by far the more important centre of canoe building. Whether some of the Kavataria canoes were not actually made in Kayleula and purchased by the Kavatarians in olden days, I do not definitely know, though I think this was the case. Nowadays, the community of Kavataria are completely absorbed by the pearling industry, and since about a generation ago have given up the expeditions, and even do not own any canoes. The collecting of trade articles, the magic performed over the lilava, the yawarapu, and the sulumwoya are the same as those described before (Chapter VII) except, that is, that there exists a different system of mwasila in the island of Kayleula, a system which was used also by the Kavatarians. It must be remembered in this connection that the natives of Kayleula did make Kula on a small scale with the Amphlettans, and that their mwasila was connected with the Kula¹¹². But the main object of the Kavatarian and Kayleulan mwasila was their non-Kula trade with the natives of Fergusson and Goodenough. This is quite clear from Mr. Gilmour’s account, and it was also corroborated by my informants. They told me that the mwasila is done because of the kavaylu’a (fine food) that is, of the sago and betel-nut and pigs, the main objects of their expedition:

„If they (the Western Boyowans) would not make mwasila, they (the Western d’Entrecasteaux natives) would fight them. They are foolish men, the people of the Koya, not like people of Dobu, who are human beings. Those in the Koya are wild, eaters of man. If they (Kavataria and Kayleula) would make no mwasila, they would refuse them betel-nut, refuse them sago.

The sailing is characterised by the priority enjoyed by the Kulutula clan, who, as we have seen in a previous chapter (Chapter IX, Division III) sail ahead and have the privilege of landing first on any beach, on which they stop. On arrival, they perform the beauty magic, and sailing towards the beach, the magic of „shaking the mountain” is also recited. In the Koya, the transactions resemble to a certain extent those of the Kula. As my informant said:

„When they anchor, first of all they give the pari; they give combs, lime pots, wooden dishes, lime spatulae, plenty of gugu’a (objects of use). At the talo’i (farewell gifts) this will be repaid.

The following transaction, the main trade, is carried on as gimwali. The natives of the Koya would bring the sago or the betel-nut, put it on the beach near the canoes and say: