Argonauts of the Western Pacific

by Bronisław Malinowski

The canoe, painted and decorated, stands now ready to be launched, a source of pride to the owners and to the makers, and an object of admiration to the other beholders. A new sailing craft is not only another utility created; it is more : if is a new entity sprung into being, something with which the future destinies of the sailors will be bound up, and on which they will depend. There can be no doubt that this sentiment is also felt by the natives and expressed in their customs and behaviour. The canoe receives a personal name, it becomes an object of intense interest to the whole district. Its qualities, points of beauty, and of probable perfection or faultiness are canvassed round the fires at night. The owner and his kinsmen and fellow villagers will speak of it with the usual boasting and exaggerations, and the others will all be very keen to see it, and to watch its performances. Thus the institution of ceremonial launching is not a mere formality prescribed by custom; it corresponds to the psychological needs of the community, it rouses a great interest, and is very well attended even when the canoe belongs to a small community. When a big chief’s canoe is launched, whether that of Kasanai or Omarakana, Olivilevi or Sinaketa, up to a thousand natives will assemble on the beach.

This festive and public display of a finished canoe, with its full paint and ornament, is not only in harmony with the natives’ sentiments towards a new sailing craft; it also agrees with the way they treat in general the results of their economic activities. Whether in gardening or in fishing, in the building of houses or in industrial achievements, there is a tendency to display the products, to arrange them, and even adorn at least certain classes of them, so as to produce a big, aesthetic effect. In fishing, there are only traces of this tendency, but in gardening, it assumes very great proportions, and the handling, arranging and display of garden produce is one of the most characteristic features of their tribal life, and it takes up much time and work⁵⁸.

Soon after the painting and adorning of the canoe, a date is fixed for the ceremonial launching and trial run, the tasasoria festivities, as they are called. Word is passed to the chiefs and headmen of the neighbouring villages. Those of them who own canoes and who belong to the same Kula community have always to come with their canoes and take part in a sort of regatta held on the occasion. As the new canoe is always constructed in connection with a Kula expedition, and as the other canoes of the same Kula community have to be either done up or replaced, it is the rule that on the tasasoria day a whole fleet of brand new or renovated canoes assemble on the beach, all resplendent in fresh colours and decoration of cowrie shells and bleached pandanus streamers.

The launching itself is inaugurated with a rite of the mwasila (Kula magic), called Kaytalula wadola waga („staining red of the mouth of the canoe”). After the natives have taken off the plaited coco-nut leaves with which the canoe is protected against the sun, the toliwaga chants a spell over some red ochre, and stains both bow and stern of the canoe. A special cowrie shell, attached to the prow-board (tabuyo) is stained at each end. After that the canoe is launched, the villagers pushing it into the water over pieces of wood transversely placed which act as slips (see Plate XXX). This is done amidst shouts and ululations, such as are made on all occasions when some piece of work has to be done in a festive and ceremonial manner, when, for instance, the harvest is brought in and given ceremonially by a man to his brother-in-law, or when a gift of yams or taro is laid down before a fisherman’s house by an inland gardener, or the return gift of fish is made.

Thus the canoe is finally launched after the long series of mingled work and ceremony, technical effort and magical rite.

After the launching is done, there takes place a feast, or, more correctly, a distribution of food (sagali) under observation of all sorts of formalities and ritual. Such a distribution is always made when the toliwaga has not built the canoe himself, and when he therefore has to repay the cutter of the canoe and his helpers. It also takes place whenever the canoe of a big chief is launched, in order to celebrate the occasion, to show off his wealth and generosity, and to give food to the many people who have been summoned to assist in the construction.

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.

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.