6. Fellow-citizenship in a Village Community. — There are many types of presents given by one community to another. And, economically, the bonds of fellow-citizenship mean the obligation to contribute one’s share to such a present. Again, at the mortuary divisions, sagali, the fellow-villagers of clans, differing from the deceased man’s, receive a series of presents for the performance of mortuary duties.
7. Relationship between Chiefs and Commoners. — The tributes and services given to a chief by his vassals on the one hand, and the small but frequent gifts which he gives them, and the big and important contribution which he makes to all tribal enterprises are characteristic of this relationship.
8. Relationship between any two tribesmen. — This is characterised by payments and presents, by occasional trade between two individuals, and by the sporadic free gifts of tobacco or betel-nut which no man would refuse to another unless they were on terms of hostility.
With this, the survey of gifts and presents is finished. The general importance of give and take to the social fabric of Boy o wan society, the great amount of distinctions and sub-divisions of the various gifts can leave no doubt as to the paramount rôle which economic acts and motives play in the life of these natives.
Chapter VII. The departure of an overseas expedition
Scene laid in Sinaketa. The local chiefs. Stir in the village. The social differentiation of the sailing party. Magical rites, associated with the preparing and loading of a canoe. The sulumwoya rite. The magical bundle (lilava). The compartments of a canoe and the gebobo spell. Farewells on the beach.
We have brought the Kula narrative to the point where all the preparations have been made, the canoe is ready, its ceremonial launching and presentation have taken place, and the goods for the subsidiary trade have been collected. It remains only to load the canoes and to set sail. So far, in describing the construction, the tasasoria and kabigidoya, we spoke of the Trobrianders in general. Now we shall have to confine ourselves to one district, the southern part of the Island, and we shall follow a Kula expedition from Sinaketa to Dobu. For there are some differences between the various districts and each one must be treated separately. What is said of Sinaketa, however, will hold good so far as the other southern community, that of Vakuta, is concerned. The scene, therefore, of all that is described in the following two chapters will be set in one spot, that is, the group of some eight component villages lying on the flat, muddy shore of the Trobriand Lagoon, within about a stone’s throw of one another. There is a short, sandy beach under a fringe of palm trees, and from there we can take a comprehensive view of the Lagoon, the wide semi-circle of its shore edged with the bright green of mangroves, backed by the high jungle on the raised coral ridge of the Raybwag. A few small, flat islands on the horizon just faintly thicken its line, and on a clear day the mountains of the d’Entrecasteaux are visible as blue shadows in the far distance.
From the beach, we step directly into one of the villages, a row of houses faced by another of yam-stores. Through this, leaving on our right a circular village, and passing through some empty spaces with groves of betel and coco-nut palms, we come to the main component village of Sinaketa, to Kasiyetana. There, overtopping the elegant native huts, stands an enormous corrugated iron shed, built on piles, but with the space between the floor and the ground filled up carefully with white coral stones. This monument testifies both to native vanity and to the strength of their superstitions — vanity in aping the white man’s habit of raising the house, and native belief in the fear of the bwaga’u (sorcerer), whose most powerful sorcery is applied by burning magical herbs, and could not be warded off, were he able to creep under the house. It may be added that even the missionary teachers, natives of the Trobriands, always put a solid mass of stones to fill the space beneath their houses. To’udawada, the chief of Kasiyetana, is, by the way, the only man in Boyowa who has a corrugated iron house, and in fact in the whole of the island there are not more than a dozen houses which are not built exactly according to the traditional pattern. To’udawada is also the only native whom I ever saw wearing a sun-helmet; otherwise he is a decent fellow (physically quite pleasant looking), tall, with a broad, intelligent face. Opposite his iron shanty are the fine native huts of his four wives.
Walking towards the North, over the black soil here and there pierced by coral, among tall trees and bits of jungle, fields and gardens, we come to Kanubayne, the village of Kouta’uya, the second most important chief in Sinaketa. Very likely we shall see him sitting on the platform of his hut or yam-house, a shrivelled up, toothless old man, wearing a big native wig. He, as well as To’udawada, belongs to the highest ranks of chieftainship, and they both consider themselves the equals of the chiefs of Kiriwina. But the power of each one is limited to his small, component village, and neither in ceremonial nor in wealth did they, at least in olden days, approach their kinsmen in the North. There is still another chief of the same rank in Sinaketa, who governs the small village of Oraywota. This is Sinakadi, a puffed up, unhealthy looking, bald and toothless old man, and a really contemptible and crooked character, despised by black and white alike. He has a well-established reputation of boarding white men’s boats as soon as they arrive, with one or two of his young wives in the canoe, and of returning soon after, alone, but with plenty of tobacco and good merchandise. Lax as is the Trobriander’s sense of honour and morality in such matters, this is too much even for them, and Sinakadi is accordingly not respected in his village.
The rest of the villages are ruled by headmen of inferior rank, but of not much less importance and power than the main chiefs. One of them, a queer old man, spare and lame but with an extremely dignified and deliberate manner, called Layseta, is renowned for his extensive knowledge of all sorts of magic, and for his long sojourns in foreign countries, such as the Amphletts and Dobu. We shall meet some of these chiefs later on in our wanderings. Having described the villages and headmen of Sinaketa let us return to our narrative.