After the chief’s helpers have arranged the heaps, they go over them, seeing that the apportionment is correct, shifting some of the food here and there, and memorising to whom each heap will be given. Often in the final round, the toli’uvalaku inspects the heaps himself, and then returns to his former seat. Then comes the culminating act of the distribution. One of the chief’s henchmen, always a man of inferior rank, accompanied by the chief’s helpers, walks down the row of heaps, and at each of them screams out in a very loud voice:
„O, Siyagana, thy heap, there, O Siyagana, O!” At the next one he calls the name of another canoe: „O Gumawora, thy heap, there! O Gumawora, O!”
He goes thus over all the heaps, allotting each one to a canoe. After that is finished, some of the younger boys of each canoe go and fetch their heap. This is brought to their fire, the meat is roasted, and the yams, the sugar cane and betel-nut distributed among the crew, who presently sit down and eat, each group by itself. We see that, although the toli’uvalaku is responsible for the feast, and receives from the natives all the credit for it, his active part in the proceedings is a small one, and it is more nominal than real. On such occasions it would perhaps be incorrect to call him „master of ceremonies”, although he assumes this rôle, as we shall see, on other occasions. Nevertheless, for the natives, he is the centre of the proceedings. His people do all the work there is to be done, and in certain cases he would be referred to for a decision, on some question of etiquette.
After the meal is over, the natives rest, chew betel-nut and smoke, looking across the water towards the setting sun — it is now probably late in the afternoon — towards where, above the moored canoes, which rock and splash in the shallows, there float the faint silhouettes of the mountains. These are the distant Koya, the high hills in the d’Entrecasteaux and Amphletts, to which the elder natives have often already sailed, and of which the younger have heard so many times in myth, tales and magical spells. Kula conversations will predominate on such occasions, and names of distant partners, and personal names of specially valuable vaygu’a will punctuate the conversation and make it very obscure to those not initiated into the technicalities and historical traditions of the Kula. Recollections how a certain big spondylus necklace passed a couple of years ago through Sinaketa, how So-and-so handed it to So-and-so in Kiriwina, who again gave it to one of his partners in Kitava (all the personal names of course being mentioned) and how it went from there to Woodlark Island, where its traces become lost — such reminiscences lead to conjectures as to where the necklace might now be, and whether there is a chance of meeting it in Dobu. Famous exchanges are cited, quarrels over Kula grievances, cases in which a man was killed by magic for his too successful dealings in the Kula, are told one after the other, and listened to with never failing interest. The younger men amuse themselves perhaps with less serious discussions about the dangers awaiting them on the sea, about the fierceness of the witches and dreadful beings in the Koya, while many a young Trobriander would be warned at this stage of the unaccommodating attitude of the women in Dobu, and of the fierceness of their men folk.
After nightfall a number of small fires are lit on the beach. The stiff pandanus mats, folded in the middle, are put over each sleeper so as to form a small roof, and the whole crowd settle down for the night.
III
Next morning, if there is a fair wind, or a hope of it, the natives are up very early, and all are feverishly active. Some fix up the masts and rigging of the canoes, doing it much more thoroughly and carefully than it was done on the previous morning, since there may be a whole day’s sailing ahead of them perhaps with a strong wind, and under dangerous conditions. After all is done, the sails ready to be hoisted, the various ropes put into good trim, all the members of the crew sit at their posts, and each canoe waits some few yards from the beach for its toliwaga (master of the canoe). He remains on shore, in order to perform one of the several magical rites which, at this stage of sailing, break through the purely matter-of-fact events. All these rites of magic are directed towards the canoes, making them speedy, seaworthy and safe. In the first rite, some leaves are medicated by the toliwaga as he squats over them on the beach and recites a formula. The wording of this indicates that it is a speed magic, and this is also the explicit statement of the natives.
Kadumiyala spell
In this spell, the flying fish and the jumping gar fish are invoked at the beginning. Then the toliwaga urges his canoe to fly at its bows and at its stern. Then, in a long tapwana, he repeats a word signifying the magical imparting of speed, and with the names of the various parts of the canoe. The last part runs: „The canoe flies, the canoe flies in the morning, the canoe flies at sunrise, the canoe flies like a flying witch”, ending up with the onomatopoetic words „Saydidi, tatata, numsa”, which represent the flapping of pandanus streamers in the wind, or as others say, the noises made by the flying witches, as they move through the air on a stormy night.
After having uttered this spell into the leaves, the toliwaga gives them to one of the usagelu (members of the crew), who, wading round the waga, rubs with them first the dobwana, „head” of the canoe, then the middle of its body, and finally its u’ula (basis). Proceeding round on the side of the outrigger, he rubs the „head” again. It may be remembered here that, with the native canoes, fore and aft in the sailing sense are interchangeable, since the canoe must sail having always the wind on its outrigger side, and it often has to change stern to bows. But standing on a canoe so that the outrigger is on the left hand, and the body of the canoe on the right, a native will call the end of the canoe in front of him its head (dabwana), and that behind, its basis (u’ula).