Argonauts of the Western Pacific ebook

Bronisław Malinowski

Argonauts of the Western Pacific

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Argonauts of the Western Pacific

An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea

Preface by Sir James G. Frazer

My esteemed friend, Dr. B. Malinowski has asked me to write a preface to his book, and I willingly comply with his request, though I can hardly think that any words of mine will add to the value of the remarkable record of anthropological research which he has given us in this volume. My observations, such as they are, will deal partly with the writer’s method and partly with the matter of his book.

In regard to method, Dr. Malinowski has done his work, as it appears to me, under the best conditions and in the manner calculated to secure the best possible results. Both by theoretical training and by practical experience he was well equipped for the task which he undertook. Of his theoretical training he had given proof in his learned and thoughtful treatise on the family among the aborigines of Australia1; of his practical experience he had produced no less satisfactory evidence in his account of the natives of Mailu in New Guinea2, based on a residence of six months among them. In the Trobriand Islands, to the east of New Guinea, to which he next turned his attention, Dr. Malinowski lived as a native among the natives for many months together, watching them daily at work and at play, conversing with them in their own tongue, and deriving all his information from the surest sources — personal observation and statements made to him directly by the natives in their own language without the intervention of an interpreter. In this way he has accumulated a large mass of materials, of high scientific value, bearing on the social, religious, and economic or industrial life of the Trobriand Islanders. These he hopes and intends to publish hereafter in full; meantime he has given us in the present volume a preliminary study of an interesting and peculiar feature in Trobriand society, the remarkable system of exchange, only in part economic or commercial, which the islanders maintain among themselves and with the inhabitants of neighbouring islands.

Little reflection is needed to convince us of the fundamental importance of economic forces at all stages of man’s career from the humblest to the highest. After all, the human species is part of the animal creation, and as such, like the rest of the animals, it reposes on a material foundation; on which a higher life, intellectual, moral, social, may be built, but without which no such superstructure is possible. That material foundation, consisting in the necessity of food and of a certain degree of warmth and shelter from the elements, forms the economic or industrial basis and prime condition of human life. If anthropologists have hitherto unduly neglected it, we may suppose that it was rather because they were attracted to the higher side of man’s nature than because they deliberately ignored and undervalued the importance and indeed necessity of the lower. In excuse for their neglect we may also remember that anthropology is still a young science, and that the multitude of problems which await the student cannot all be attacked at once, but must be grappled with one by one. Be that as it may, Dr. Malinowski has done well to emphasise the great significance of primitive economics by singling out the notable exchange system of the Trobriand Islanders for special consideration.

Further, he has wisely refused to limit himself to a mere description of the processes of the exchange, and has set himself to penetrate the motives which underlie it and the feelings which it excites in the minds of the natives. It appears to be sometimes held that pure sociology should confine itself to the description of acts and should leave the problems of motives and feelings to psychology. Doubtless it is true that the analysis of motives and feelings is logically distinguishable from the description of acts, and that it falls, strictly speaking, within the sphere of psychology; but in practice an act has no meaning for an observer unless he knows or infers the thoughts and emotions of the agent; hence to describe a series of acts, without any reference to the state of mind of the agent, would not answer the purpose of sociology, the aim of which is not merely to register but to understand the actions of men in society. Thus sociology cannot fulfil its task without calling in at every turn the aid of psychology.

It is characteristic of Dr. Malinowski’s method that he takes full account of the complexity of human nature. He sees man, so to say, in the round and not in the flat. He remembers that man is a creature of emotion at least as much as of reason, and he is constantly at pains to discover the emootional as well as the rational basis of human action. The man of science, like the man of letters, is too apt to view mankind only in the abstract, selecting for his consideration a single side of our complex and many-sided being. Of this one-sided treatment Molière is a conspicuous example among great writers. All his characters are seen only in the flat: one of them is a miser, another a hypocrite, another a coxcomb, and so on; but not one of them is a man. All are dummies dressed up to look very like human beings; but the likeness is only on the surface, all within is hollow and empty, because truth to nature has been sacrificed to literary effect. Very different is the presentation of human nature in the greater artists, such as Cervantes and Shakespeare: their characters are solid, being drawn not from one side only but from many. No doubt in science a certain abstractness of treatment is not merely legitimate, but necessary, since science is nothing but knowledge raised to the highest power, and all knowledge implies a process of abstraction and generalisation: even the recognition of an individual whom we see every day is only possible as the result of an abstract idea of him formed by generalisation from his appearances in the past. Thus the science of man is forced to abstract certain aspects of human nature and to consider them apart from the concrete reality; or ratter it falls into a number of sciences, each of which considers a single part of man’s complex organism, it may be the physical, the intellectual, the moral, or the social side of his being; and the general conclusions which it draws will present a more or less incomplete picture of man as a whole, because the lines which compose it are necessarily but a few picked out of a multitude.

In the present treatise Dr. Malinowski is mainly concerned with what at first sight might seem a purely economic activity of the Trobriand Islanders; but, with his usual width of outlook and fineness of perception, he is careful to point out that the curious circulation of valuables, which takes place between the inhabitants of the Trobriand and other islands, while it is accompanied by ordinary trade, is by no means itself a purely commercial transaction; he shows that it is not based on a simple calculation of utility, of profit and loss, but that it satisfies emotional and aesthetic needs of a higher order than the mere gratification of animal wants. This leads Dr. Malinowski to pass some severe strictures on the conception of the Primitive Economic Man as a kind of bogey who, it appears, still haunts economic text-books and even extends his blighting influence to the minds of certain anthropologists. Rigged out in cast-off garments of Mr. Jeremy Bentham and Mr. Gradgrind, this horrible phantom is apparently actuated by no other motive than that of filthy lucre, which he pursues relentlessly, on Spencerian principles, along the line of least resistance. If such a dismal fiction is really regarded by serious inquirers as having any counterpart in savage society, and not simply as a useful abstraction, Dr. Malinowski’s account of the Kula in this book should help to lay the phantom by the heels; for he proves that the trade in useful objects, which forms part of the Kula system, is in the minds of the natives entirely subordinate in importance to the exchange of other objects, which serve no utilitarian purpose whatever. In its combination of commercial enterprise, social organisation, mythical background, and magical ritual, to say nothing of the wide geographical range of its operations, this singular institution appears to have no exact parallel in the existing anthropological record; but its discoverer, Dr. Malinowski, may very well be right in surmising that it is probably a type of institution of which analogous, if not precisely similar, instances will hereafter be brought to light by further research among savage and barbarous peoples.

Not the least interesting and instructive feature of the Kula, as it is described for us by Dr. Malinowski, is the extremely important part which magic is seen to play in the institution. From his description it appears that in the minds of the natives the performance of magical rites and the utterance of magical words are indispensable for the success of the enterprise in all its phases, from the felling of the trees out of which the canoes are to be hollowed, down to the moment when, the expedition successfully accomplished, the argosy with its precious cargo is about to start on its homeward voyage. And incidentally we learn that magical ceremonies and spells are deemed no less necessary for the cultivation of gardens and for success in fishing, the two forms of industrial enterprise which furnish the islanders with their principal means of support; hence the garden magician, whose business it is to promote the growth of the garden produce by his hocus-pocus, is one of the most important men in the village, ranking next after the chief and the sorcerer. In short, magic is believed to be an absolutely essential adjunct of every industrial undertaking, being just as requisite for its success as the mechanical operations involved in it, such as the caulking, painting and launching of a canoe, the planting of a garden, and the setting of a fish-trap. „A belief in magic”, says Dr. Malinowski, „is one of the main psychological forces which allow for organisation and systematisation of economic effort in the Trobriands”.

This valuable account of magic as a factor of fundamental economic importance for the welfare and indeed for the very existence of the community should suffice to dispel the erroneous view that magic, as opposed to religion, is in its nature essentially maleficent and anti-social, being always used by an individual for the promotion of his own selfish ends and the injury of his enemies, quite regardless of its effect on the common weal. No doubt magic may be so employed, and has in fact probably been so employed, in every part of the world; in the Trobriand Islands themselves it is believed to be similarly practised for nefarious purposes by sorcerers, who inspire the natives with the deepest dread and the most constant concern. But in itself magic is neither beneficent nor maleficent; it is simply an imaginary power of controlling the forces of nature, and this control may be exercised by the magician for good or evil, for the benefit or injury of individuals and of the community. In this respect, magic is exactly on the same footing with the sciences, of which it is the bastard sister. They, too, in themselves, are neither good nor evil, though they become the source of one or other according to their application. It would be absurd, for example, to stigmatise pharmacy as antisocial, because a knowledge of the properties of drugs is often employed to destroy men as well as to heal them. It is equally absurd to neglect the beneficent application of magic and to single out its maleficent use as the characteristic property by which to define it. The processes of nature, over which science exercises a real and magic an imaginary control, are not affected by the moral disposition, the good or bad intention, of the individual who uses his knowledge to set them in motion. The action of drugs on the human body is precisely the same whether they are administered by a physician or by a poisoner. Nature and her handmaid Science are neither friendly nor hostile to morality; they are simply indifferent to it and equally ready to do the bidding of the saint and of the sinner, provided only that he gives them the proper word of command. If the guns are well loaded and well aimed, the fire of the battery will be equally destructive, whether the gunners are patriots fighting in defence of their country or invaders waging a war of unjust aggression. The fallacy of differentiating a science or an art according to its application and the moral intention of the agent is obvious enough with regard to pharmacy and artillery; it is equally real, though to many people apparently it is less obvious, with regard to magic.

The immense influence wielded by magic over the whole life and thought of the Trobriand Islanders is perhaps the feature of Dr. Malinowski’s book which makes the most abiding impression on the mind of the reader. He tells us that „magic, the attempt of man to govern the forces of nature directly by means of a special lore, is all-pervading and all-important in the Trobriands’’; it is „interwoven into all the many industrial and communal activities”; „all the data which have been so far mustered disclose the extreme importance of magic in the Kula. But if it were a questions of treating of any other aspect of the tribal life of these natives, it would also be found that, whenever they approach any concern of vital importance, they summon magic to their aid. It can be said without exaggeration that magic, according to their ideas, governs human destinies; that it supplies man with the power of mastering the forces of nature; and that it is his weapon and armour against the many dangers which crowd in upon him on every side”.

Thus in the view of the Trobriand Islanders, magic is a power of supreme importance either for good or evil; it can make or mar the life of man; it can sustain and protect the individual and the community, or it can injure and destroy them. Compared to this universal and deep-rooted conviction, the belief in the existence of the spirits of the dead would seem to exercise but little influence on the life of these people. Contrary to the general attitude of savages towards the souls of the departed, they are reported to be almost completely devoid of any fear of ghosts. They believe, indeed, that the ghosts return to their villages once a year to partake of the great annual feast; but „in general the spirits do not influence human beings very much, for better or worse”; „there is nothing of the mutual interaction, of the intimate collaboration between man and spirit which are the essence of religious cult. This conspicuous predominance of magic over religion, at least over the worship of the dead, is a very notable feature in the culture of a people so comparatively high in the scale of savagery as the Trobriand Islanders. It furnishes a fresh proof of the extraordinary strength and tenacity of the hold which this world-wide delusion has had, and still has, upon the human mind.

We shall doubtless learn much as to the relation of magic and religion among the Trobrianders from the full report of Dr. Malinowski’s researches in the islands. From the patient observation which he has devoted to a single institution, and from the wealth of details with which he has illustrated it, we may judge of the extent and value of the larger work which he has in preparation. It promises to be one of the completest and most scientific accounts ever given of a savage people.

Foreword by the author

Ethnology is in the sadly ludicrous, not to say tragic, position, that at the very moment when it begins to put its workshop in order, to forge its proper tools, to start ready for work on its appointed task, the material of its study melts away with hopeless rapidity. Just now, when the methods and aims of scientific field ethnology have taken shape, when men fully trained for the work have begun to travel into savage countries and study their inhabitants — these die away under our very eyes.

The research which has been done on native races by men of academic training has proved beyond doubt and cavil that scientific, methodic inquiry can give us results far more abundant and of better quality than those of even the best amateur’s work. Most, though not all, of the modern scientific accounts have opened up quite new and unexpected aspects of tribal life. They have given us, in clear outline, the picture of social institutions often surprisingly vast and complex; they have brought before us the vision of the native as he is, in his religious and magical beliefs and practices. They have allowed us to penetrate into his mind far more deeply than we have ever done before. From this new material, scientifically hall-marked, students of comparative Ethnology have already drawn some very important conclusions on the origin of human customs, beliefs and institutions; on the history of cultures, and their spread and contact; on the laws of human behaviour in society, and of the human mind.

The hope of gaining a new vision of savage humanity through the labours of scientific specialists open out like a mirage, vanishing almost as soon as perceived. For though at present, there is still a large number of native communities available for scientific study, within a generation or two, they or their cultures will have practically disappeared. The need for energetic work is urgent, and the time is short. Nor, alas, up to the present, has any adequate interest been taken by the public in these studies. The number of workers is small, the encouragement they receive scanty. I feel therefore no need to justify an ethnological contribution which is the result of specialised research in the field.

In this volume I give an account of one phase of savage life only, in describing certain forms of inter-tribal, trading relations among the natives of New Guinea. This account has been culled, as a preliminary monograph, from Ethnographic material, covering the whole extent of the tribal culture of one district. One of the first conditions of acceptable Ethnographic work certainly is that it should deal with the totality of all social, cultural and psychological aspects of the community, for they are so interwoven that not one can be understood without taking into consideration all the others. The reader of this monograph will clearly see that, though its main theme is economic — for it deals with commercial enterprise, exchange and trade — constant reference has to be made to social organisation, the power of magic, to mythology and folklore, and indeed to all other aspects as well as the main one.

The geographical area of which the book treats is limited to the Archipelagoes lying off the eastern end of New Guinea. Even within this, the main field of research was in one district, that of the Trobriand Islands. This, however, has been studied minutely. I have lived in that one archipelago for about two years, in the course of three expeditions to New Guinea, during which time I naturally acquired a thorough knowledge of the language. I did my work entirely alone, living for the greater part of the time right in the villages. I therefore had constantly the daily life of the natives before my eyes, while accidental, dramatic occurrences, deaths, quarrels, village brawls, public and ceremonial events, could not escape my notice.

In the present state of Ethnography, when so much has still to be done in paving the way for forthcoming research and in fixing its scope, each new contribution ought to justify its appearance in several points. It ought to show some advance in method; it ought to push research beyond its previous limits in depth, in width, or in both; finally, it ought to endeavour to present its results in a manner exact, but not dry. The specialist interested in method, in reading this work, will find set out in the Introduction, Divisions II-IX and in Chapter XVIII, the exposition of my points of view and efforts in this direction. The reader who is concerned with results, rather than with the way of obtaining them, will find in Chapters IV to XXI a consecutive narrative of the Kula expeditions, and the various associated customs and beliefs. The student who is interested, not only in the narrative, but in the ethnographic background for it, and a clear definition of the institution, will find the first in Chapters I and II, and the latter in Chapter III.

To Mr. Robert Mond I tender my sincerest thanks. It is to his generous endowment that I owe the possibility of carrying on for several years the research of which the present volume is a partial result. To Mr. Atlee Hunt, C. M. G., Secretary of the Home and Territories Department of the Commonwealth of Australia, I am indebted for the financial assistance of the Department, and also for much help given on the spot. In the Trobriands, I was immensely helped in my work by Mr. B. Hancock, pearl trader, to whom I am grateful not only for assistance and services, but for many acts of friendship.

Much of the argument in this book has been greatly improved by the criticism given me by my friend, Mr. Paul Khuner, of Vienna, an expert in the practical affairs of modern industry and a highly competent thinker on economic matters. Professor L. T. Hobhouse has kindly read the proofs and given me valuable advice on several points.

Sir James Frazer, by writing his Preface, has enhanced the value of this volume beyond its merit and it is not only a great honour and advantage for me to be introduced by him, but also a special pleasure, for my first love for ethnology is associated with the reading of the Golden Bough, then in its second edition.

Last, not least, I wish to mention Professor C. G. Seligman, to whom this book is dedicated. The initiative of my expedition was given by him and I owe him more than I can express for the encouragement and scientific counsel which he has so generously given me during the progress of my work in New Guinea.

Acknowledgements

It is in the nature of the research, that an Ethnographer has to rely upon the assistance of others to an extent much greater than is the case with other scientific workers. I have therefore to express in this special place my obligations to the many who have helped me. As said in the Preface, financially I owe most to Mr. Robert Mond, who made my work possible by bestowing on me the Robert Mond Travelling Scholarship (University of London) of £250 per annum for five years (for 1914 and for 1917–1920). I was substantially helped by a grant of £250 from the Home and Territories Department of Australia, obtained by the good offices of Mr. Atlee Hunt, C. M. G. The London School of Economics awarded me the Constance Hutchinson Scholarship of £100 yearly for two years, 1915–1916. Professor Seligman, to whom in this, as in other matters I owe so much, besides helping me in obtaining all the other grants, gave himself £100 towards the cost of the expedition and equipped me with a camera, a phonograph, anthropometric instruments and other paraphernalia of ethnographic work. I went out to Australia with the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1914, as a guest, and at the expense, of the Commonwealth Government of Australia.

It may be interesting for intending field-workers to observe that I carried out my ethnographic research for six years 1914 to 1920 making three expeditions to the field of my work, and devoting the intervals between expeditions to the working out of my material and to the study of special literature, on little more than £250 a year. I defrayed out of this, not only ail the expenses of travel and research, such as fares, wages to native servants, payments of interpreters, but I was also able to collect a fair amount of ethnographic specimens, of which part has been presented to the Melbourne Museum as the Robert Mond Collection. This would not have been possible for me, had I not received much help from residents in New Guinea. My friend, Mr. B. Hancock, of Gusaweta, Trobriand Islands, allowed me to use his house and store as base for my gear and provisions; he lent me his cutter on various occasions and provided me with a home, where I could always repair in need or sickness. He helped me in my photographic work, and gave me a good number of his own photographic plates, of which several are reproduced in this book (Plates XI, XXXVII, and L-LII).

Other pearl traders and buyers of the Trobriands were also very kind to me, especially M. and Mme. Raphael Brudo, of Paris, Messrs. C. and G. Auerbach, and the late Mr. Mick George, all of whom helped me in various ways and extended to me their kind hospitality.

In my interim studies in Melbourne, I received much help from the staff of the excellent Public Library of Victoria, for which I have to thank the Librarian, Mr. E. La Touche Armstrong, my friend Mr. E. Pitt, Mr. Cooke and others.

Two maps and two plates are reproduced by kind permission of Professor Seligman from his Melanesians of British New Guinea I have to thank the Editor of Man (Captain T. A. Joyce) for his permission to use here again the plates which were previously published in that paper.

Mr. William Swan Stallybrass, Senior Managing Director of Messrs. Geo. Routledge & Sons, Ltd., has spared no trouble in meeting all my wishes as to scientific details in the publication of this book, for which I wish to express my sincere thanks

Phonetic note

The native names and words in this book are written according to the simple rules, recommended by the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute. That is, the vowels are to be pronounced as in Italian and the consonants as in English. This spelling suits the sounds of the Melanesian languages of New Guinea sufficiently well. The apostrophe placed between two vowels indicates that they should be pronounced separately and not merged into a diphthong. The accent is almost always on the penultimate, rarely on the anti-penultimate. All the syllables must be pronounced clearly and distinctly.

Table of contents

Introduction: The subject, method and scope of this enquiry

I — Sailing, and trading in the South Seas; the Kula. II — Method in Ethnography. III — Starting field work. Some perplexing difficulties. Three conditions of success. IV — Life in a tent among the natives. Mechanism of „getting in touch” with them. V — Active methods of research. Order and consistency in savage cultures. Methodological consequences of this truth. VI — Formulating the principles of tribal constitution and of the anatomy of culture. Method ot inference from statistic accumulation of concrete data. Uses of synoptic charts. VII — Presentation of the intimate touches of native life; of types of behaviour. Method of systematic fixing of impressions; of detailed, consecutive records. Importance of personal participation in native life. VIII — Recording of stereotyped manners of thinking and feeling. Corpus inscriptionum Kiriwinensium IX — Summary of argument. The native’s vision of his world.

Chapter I. The country and inhabitants of the Kula district

I — Racial divisions in Eastern New Guinea. Seligman’s classification. The Kula natives. II — Sub-divisions of the Kula district. III — Scenery at the Eastern end of New Guinea. Villages of the S. Massim; their customs and social institutions. IV — The d’Entrecasteaux Archipelago. The tribes of Dobu. The mythological associations of their country. Some of their customs and institutions. Sorcery. A vision on Sarubwoyna beach. V — Sailing North. The Amphlett Group. Savage monopolists.

Chapter II. The natives of the Trobriand Islands

I — Arrival in the coral Islands. First impression of the native. Some significant appearances and their deeper meaning. II — Position of women; their life and conduct before and after marriage. III — Further exploration in the villages. A cross country walk. Gardens and gardening. IV — The native’s working power; their motives and incentives to work. Magic and work. A digression on Primitive Economics. V — Chieftainship, power through wealth; a plutocratic community. List of the various provinces and and political divisions in the Trobriands. VI — Totemism, the solidarity of clans and the bonds of kinship. VII — Spirits of the dead. The overweening importance of magic. Black magic. The prowling sorcerers and the flying witches. The malevolent visitors from the South, and epidemics. VIII — The Eastern neighbours of of the Trobrianders. The remaining districts of the Kula.

Chapter III. The essentials of the Kula

I — A concise definition of the Kula. II — Its economic character. III — The articles exchanged; the conception of vaygu’a. IV — The main rules and aspects of the Kula: the sociological aspect (partnership); direction of movement; nature of Kula ownership; the differential and integral effect of these rules. V — The act of exchange; its regulations; the light it throws on the acquisitive and „communistic” tendencies of the natives; its concrete outlines; the sollicitory gifts. VI — The associated activities and the secondary aspects of the Kula: construction of canoes; subsidiary trade — their true relation to the Kula; the ceremonial, mythology and magic associated with the Kula; the mortuary taboos and distributions, in their relation to the Kula.

Chapter IV. Canoes and sailing

I — The value and importance of a canoe to a native. Its appearance, the impressions and emotions it arouses in those who use or own it. The atmosphere of romance which surrounds it for the native. II — Analysis of its construction, in relation to its function. The three types of canoes in the Trobriand Islands. III–V Sociology of a large canoe (masawa). III—(A) — Social organisation of labour in constructing a canoe; the division of functions; the magical regulation of work. IV—(B) — Sociology of canoe ownership; the toli-relationship; the toliwaga, „master” or „owner” of a canoe; the four privileges and functions of a toliwaga. V — (C) — The social division of functions in manning and sailing a canoe. Statistical data about the Trobriand shipping.

Chapter V. The ceremonial building of a waga

I — Construction of canoes as part of the Kula proceedings. Magic and mythology. The preparatory and the ceremonial stage of construction II — The first stage: expelling the wood sprite Tokway; transport of the log; the hollowingout of the log and the associated magic. III — The second stage: the inaugural rite of Kula magic; the native at grips with problems of construction; the wayugo creeper; the magical spell uttered over it; caulking; the three magical exorcisms. IV — Some general remarks about the two stages of canoe-building and the concomitant magic. Bulubwalata (evil magic) of canoes. The ornamental prowboards. The Dobuan and the Muruwan types of overseas canoe.

Chapter VI — Launching of a canoe and ceremonial visiting tribal economics in the Trobriands

I — The procedure and magic at launching. The trial run (tasasoria). Account of the launching and tasasoria seen on the beach of Kualukuba. Reflections on the decay of customs under European influence. II — Digression on the sociology of work: organisation of labour; forms of commumal labour; payment for work. III — The custom of ceremonial visiting (kabigidoya); local trade, done on such expeditions. IV–VII Digression on gifts, payments, and exchange. V — Attitude of the native towards wealth. Desire of display. Enhancement of social prestige through wealth. The motives of accumulating food stuffs. Tho vilamalya (magic of plenty). The handling of yams. Psychology of eating. Value of manufactured goods, psychologically analysed. V — Motives for exchange. Giving, as satisfaction of vanity and as display of power. Fallacy of the „economically isolated individual” or „household”. Absence of gain in exchange. VI — Exchange of gifts and barter. List of gifts, payments and commercial transactions: 1. Pure gifts; 2. customary payments, repaid irregularly and without strict equivalents; 3. payments for services rendered; 4. gifts returned in strictly equivalent form; 5. exchange of material goods against privileges, titles and nonmaterial possessions; 6. ceremonial barter with deferred payment; 7. trade pure and simple. VI — Economic duties corresponding to various social ties; table of eight classes of social relationship, characterised by definite economic obligations.

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.

Chapter VIII. The first halt of the fleet on Muwa

I — The definition of an uvalaku (ceremonial, competitive expedition). II — The sagali (ceremonial distribution) on Muwa. III — The magic of sailing.

Chapter IX. Sailing on the sea-arm of Pilolu

I — The landscape. Mythological geography of the regions beyond. II — Sailing: the winds; navigation; technique of sailing a canoe and its dangers. III — The customs and taboos of sailing. Privileged position of certain sub-clans. IV — The beliefs in dreadful monsters lurking in the sea.

Chapter X. The story of shipwreck

I — The flying witches, mulukwausi or yoyova: essentials of the belief; initiation and education of a yoyova (witch); secrecy surrounding this condition; manner of practising this witchcraft; actual cases. II — The flying witches at sea and in shipwreck. Other dangerous agents. The kayga’u magic; its modes of operation. III — Account of the preparatory rites of kayga’u. Some incantations quoted. IV — The story of ship-wreck and rescue. V — The spell of the rescuing giant fish. The myth and the magical formula of Tokulubwaydoga.

Chapter XI. In the Amphletts — sociology of the Kula

I — Arrival in Gumasila. Example of a Kula conversation. Trobrianders on long visits in the Amphletts. II — Sociology of the Kula: i. sociological limitations to participation in the Kula; 2. relation of Partnership; 3. entering the Kula relationship; 4. participation of women in the Kula. III — The Natives of the Amphletts: their industries and trade; pottery; importing the clay; technology of pot-making; commercial relations with the surrounding districts. IV — Drift of migrations and cultural influences in this province.

Chapter XII. In Tewara and Sanaroa — mythology of the Kula

I — Sailing under the lee of Koytabu. The cannibals of the unexplored jungle. Trobriand traditions and legends about them. The history and song of Gumagabu. II — Myths and reality: significance imparted to landscape by myth; line of distinction between the mythical and the actual occurrences; magical power and mythical atmosphere; the three strata of Trobriand myths. III–V The myths of the Kula. III — Survey of Kula mythology and its geographical distribution. The story of Gere’u of Muyuwa (Woodlark Island). The two stories of Tokosikuna of Digumenu and Gumasila. IV — The Kudayuri myth of the flying canoe. Commentary and analysis of this myth. Association between the canoe and the flying witches. Mythology and the Lukuba clan. V — The myth of Kasabwaybwayreta and the necklace Gumakarakedakeda. Comparison of these stories. VI — Sociological analysis of the myths: influence of the Kula myths upon native outlook; myth and custom. VII — The relation between myth and actuality restated. VIII — The story, the natural monuments and the religious ceremonial of the mythical personalities Atu’a’ine, Aturamo’a and their sister Sinatemubadiye’i. Other rocks of similar traditional nature.

Chapter XIII. On the beach of Sarubwoyna

I — The halt on the Beach. The beauty magic. Some incantations quoted. The spell of the ta’uya (conch shell). II — The magical onset on the Koya. Psychological analysis of this magic. III — The Gwara (taboo) and the Ka’ubana’i spell.

Chapter XIV. The Kula in Dobu — technicalities of the exchange

I — Reception in Dobu. II — The main transactions of the Kula and the subsidiary gifts and exchanges: some general reflections on the driving force of the Kula; regulations of the main transaction; vaga (opening gift) and yotile (return gift); the sollicitory gifts (pokala, kwaypolu, kaributu, korotomna); intermediary gifts (basi) and final clinching gift (kudu); the other articles sometimes exchanged in the main transaction of the Kula (doga, samakupa, beku); commercial honour and ethics of the Kula. III — The Kula proceedings in Dobu: wooing the partner; kwoygapani magic; the subsidiary trade; roamings of the Boyowans in the Dobu district.

Chapter XV. The journey home the fishing and working of the kaloma shell

I — Visits made on the return trip. Some articles acquired. II — The spondylus shell fishing in Sanaroa lagoon and in home waters: its general character and magic; the Kaloma myth; consecutive account of the technicalities, ceremonial and magic of the diving for the shell. III — Technology, economics and sociology of the production of the discs and necklaces from the shell. IV — Tanarere, display of the haul. Arrival of the party home to Sinaketa.

Chapter XVI. The return visit of the Dobuans to Sinaketa

I — The uvalaku (ceremonial expedition) from Dobu to Southern Boyowa: the preparations in Dobu and Sanaroa; preparations in Gumasila; the excitement, the spreading and convergence of news; arrival of the Dobuan fleet in Nabwageta. II — Preparations in Sinaketa for the reception of the visiting party. The Dobuans arrive. The scene at Kaykuyawa point. The ceremonial reception. Speeches and gifts. The three days’ sojurn of the Dobuans in Sinaketa. Manner of living. Exchange of gifts and barter. III — Return home. Results shown at the tanarere.

Chapter XVII. Magic and the Kula

I — The subject matter of Boyowan magic. Its association with all the vital activities and with the unaccountable aspects of reality. II–V The native conception of magic. II — The methods of arriving at its knowledge. III — Native views about the original sources of magic. Its primeval character. Inadmissability to the native of spontaneous generation in magic. Magic a power of man and not a force of nature. Magic and myth and their super-normal atmosphere. IV — The magical acts: spell and rite; relation between these two factors; spells uttered directly without a concomitant rite; spells accompanied by simple rite of impregnation; spells accompanied by a rite of transference; spells accompanied by offerings and invocations; summary of this survey. V — Place where magic is stored in the human anatomy. VI — Condition of the performer. Taboos and observances. Sociological position. Actual descent and magical filiation. VII — Definition of systematic magic. The „systems” of canoe magic and Kula magic. VIII — Supernormal or supernatural character of magic; emotional reaction of the natives to certain forms of magic; the kariyala (magical portent); role of ancestral spirits; native terminology. IX — Ceremonial setting of magic. X — Institution of taboo, supported by magic. Kaytubutabu and kaytapaku. XI — Purchase ol certain forms of magic. Payments for magical services. XII — Brief summary.

Chapter XVIII. The power of words in magic — some linguistic data

I — Study of linguistic data in magic to throw light on native ideas about the power of words. II — The text of the wayugo spell with literal translation. III — Linguistic analysis of its u’ula (exordium). IV — Vocal technique of reciting a spell. Analysis of the tapwana (main part) and dogina (final part). V — The text of the Sulumwoya spell and its analysis. VI–XII Linguistic data referring to the other spells mentioned in this volume and some general inferences. VI — The tokway spell and the opening phrases of the canoe spells. VII — The tapwana (main parts) of the canoe spells. VIII — The end parts (dogina) of these spells. IX — The u’ula of the mwasila spells. X — The tapwana and the dogina of these spells. XI — The kayga’u spells. XII — Summary of the results of this linguistic survey. XIII — Substances used in these magical rites. XIV–XVIII Analysis of some non-magical linguistic texts, to illustrate ethnographic method and native way of thinking. XIV — General remarks about certain aspects of method. XV — Text No. 1, its literal and free translation. XVI — Commentary. XVII — Texts No. 2 and 3 translated and commented upon.

Chapter XIX. The inland Kula

I — To’uluwa, the chief of Kiriwina, on a visit in Sinaketa. The decay of his power. Some melancholy reflections about the folly of destroying the native order of things and of undermining native authority as now prevailing. II — The division into Kula communities; the three types of Kula, with respect to this division. The overseas Kula. III — The inland Kula between two „Kula communities” and within such a unit. IV The „Kula communities” — in Boyowa (Trobriand Islands).

Chapter XX. Expeditions between Kiriwina and Kitava

I–II Account of an expedition from Kinwina to Kitava. I — Fixing dates and preparing districts. II — Preliminaries of the journey. Departure from Kaulukuba Beach. Sailing. Analogies and differences between these expeditions and those of the Sinaketans to Dobu. Entering the village. The youlawada custom. Sojourn in Kitava and return. III — The So’i (mortuary feast) in the Eastern district (Kitava to Muyuwa) and its association with the Kula.

Chapter XXI. The remaining branches and offshoots of the Kula.

I — Rapid survey of the routes between Woodlark Island (Murua or Muyuwa) and the Engineer group and between this latter and Dobu. II — The ordinary trade carried on between these communities. III — An offshoot of the Kula; trading expeditions between the Western Trobriand (Kavataria and Kayleula) and the Western d’Entrecasteaux. IV — Production of mwali (armshells). V — Some other offshoots and leakages of the Kula ring. Entry of the Kula vaygu’a into the Ring.

Chapter XXII. The meaning of the Kula.

Introduction. The subject, method and scope of this inquiry

I — Sailing, and trading in the South Seas; the Kula. II — Method in Ethnography. III — Starting field work. Some perplexing difficulties. Three conditions of success. IV — Life in a tent among the natives. Mechanism of „getting in touch” with them. V — Active methods of research. Order and consistency in savage cultures. Methodological consequences of this truth. VI — Formulating the principles of tribal constitution and of the anatomy of culture. Method ot inference from statistic accumulation of concrete data. Uses of synoptic charts. VII — Presentation of the intimate touches of native life; of types of behaviour. Method of systematic fixing of impressions; of detailed, consecutive records. Importance of personal participation in native life. VIII — Recording of stereotyped manners of thinking and feeling. Corpus inscriptionum Kiriwinensium IX — Summary of argument. The native’s vision of his world.

I

The coastal populations of the South Sea Islands, with very few exceptions, are, or were before their extinction, expert navigators and traders. Several of them had evolved excellent types of large sea-going canoes, and used to embark in them on distant trade expeditions or raids of war and conquest. The Papuo-Melanesians, who inhabit the coast and the outlying islands of New Guinea, are no exception to this rule. In general they are daring sailors, industrious manufacturers, and keen traders. The manufacturing centres of important articles, such as pottery, stone implements, canoes, fine baskets, valued ornaments, are localised in several places, according to the skill of the inhabitants, their inherited tribal tradition, and special facilities offered by the district; thence they are traded over wide areas, sometimes travelling more than hundreds of miles.

Definite forms of exchange along definite trade routes are to be found established between the various tribes. A most remarkable form of intertribal trade is that obtaining between the Motu of Port Moresby and the tribes of the Papuan Gulf. The Motu sail for hundreds of miles in heavy, unwieldy canoes, called lakatoi, which are provided with the characteristic crab-claw sails. They bring pottery and shell ornaments, in olden days, stone blades, to Gulf Papuans, from whom they obtain in exchange sago and the heavy dug-outs, which are used afterwards by the Motu for the construction of their lakatoi canoes.3

Further East, on the South coast, there lives the industrious, sea-faring population of the Mailu, who link the East End of New Guinea with the central coast tribes by means of annual trading expeditions4. Finally, the natives of the islands and archipelagoes, scattered around the East End, are in constant trading relations with one another. We possess in Professor Seligman’s book an excellent description of the subject, especially of the nearer trades routes between the various islands inhabited by the Southern Massim.5 There exists, however, another, a very extensive and highly complex trading system, embracing with its ramifications, not only the islands near the East End, but also the Louisiades, Woodlark Island, the Trobriand Archipelago, and the d’Entrecasteaux group; it penetrates into the mainland of New Guinea, and exerts an indirect influence over several outlying districts, such as Rossel Island, and some parts of the Northern and Southern coast of New Guinea. This trading system, the Kula, is the subject I am setting out to describe in this volume, and it will be seen that it is an economic phenomenon of considerable theoretical importance. It looms paramount in the tribal life of those natives who live within its circuit, and its importance is fully realised by the tribesmen themselves, whose ideas, ambitions, desires and vanities are very much bound up with the Kula.

II

Before proceeding to the account of the Kula, it will be well to give a description of the methods used in the collecting of the ethnographic material. The results of scientific research in any branch of learning ought to be presented in a manner absolutely candid and above board. No one would dream of making an experimental contribution to physical or chemical science, without giving a detailed account of all the arrangements of the experiments; an exact description of the apparatus used; of the manner in which the observations were conducted; of their number; of the length of time devoted to them, and of the degree of approximation with which each measurement was made. In less exact sciences, as in biology or geology, this cannot be done as rigorously, but every student will do his best to bring home to the reader all the conditions in which the experiment or the observations were made. In Ethnography, where a candid account of such data is perhaps even more necessary, it has unfortunately in the past not always been supplied with sufficient generosity, and many writers do not ply the full searchlight of methodic sincerity, as they move among their facts and produce them before us out of complete obscurity.

It would be easy to quote works of high repute, and with a scientific hall-mark on them, in which wholesale generalisations are laid down before us, and we are not informed at all by what actual experiences the writers have reached their conclusion. No special chapter or paragraph is devoted to describing to us the conditions under which observations were made and information collected. I consider that only such ethnographic sources are of unquestionable scientific value, in which we can clearly draw the line between, on the one hand, the results of direct observation and of native statements and interpretations, and on the other, the inferences of the author, based on his common sense and psycholgical insight6. Indeed, some such survey, as that contained in the table, given below (Div. VI of this chapter) ought to be forthcoming, so that at a glance the reader could estimate with precision the degree of the writer’s personal acquaintance with the facts which he describes, and form an idea under what conditions information had been obtained from the natives.

Again, in historical science, no one could expect to be seriously treated if he made any mystery of his sources and spoke of the past as if he knew it by divination. In Ethnography, the writer is his own chronicler and the historian at the same time, while his sources are no doubt easily accessible, but also supremely elusive and complex; they are not embodied in fixed, material documents, but in the behaviour and in the memory of living men. In Ethnography, the distance is often enormous between the brute material of information — as it is presented to the student in his own observations, in native statement, in the kaleidoscope of tribal life — and the final authoritative presentation of the results. The Ethnographer has to traverse this distance in the laborious years between the moment when he sets foot upon a native beach, and makes his first attempts to get into touch with the natives, and the time when he writes down the final version of his results. A brief outline of an Ethnographer’s tribulations, as lived through by myself, may throw more light on the question, than any long abstract discussion could do.

III

Imagine yourself suddenly set down surrounded by all your gear, alone on a tropical beach close to a native village, while the launch or dinghy which has brought you sails away out of sight. Since you take up your abode in the compound of some neighbouring white man, trader or missionary, you have nothing to do, but to start at once on your ethnographic work. Imagine further that you are a beginner, without previous experience, with nothing to guide you and no one to help you. For the white man is temporarily absent, or else unable or unwilling to waste any of his time on you. This exactly describes my first initiation into field work on the south coast of New Guinea. I well remember the long visits I paid to the villages during the first weeks; the feeling of hopelessness and despair after many obstinate but futile attempts had entirely failed to bring me into real touch with the natives, or supply me with any material. I had periods of despondency, when I buried myself in the reading ot novels, as a man might take to drink in a fit of tropical depression and boredom.

Imagine yourself then, making your first entry into the village, alone or in company with your white cicerone. Some natives flock round you, especially if they smell tobacco. Others, the more dignified and elderly, remain seated where they are. Your white companion has his routine way of treating the natives, and he neither understands, nor is very much concerned with the manner in which you, as an ethnographer, will have to approach them. The first visit leaves you with a hopeful feeling that when you return alone, things will be easier. Such was my hope at least.

I came back duly, and soon gathered an audience around me. A few compliments in pidgin-English on both sides, some tobacco changing hands, induced an atmosphere of mutual amiability. I tried then to proceed to business. First, to begin with subjects which might arouse no suspicion, I started to „do” technology. A few natives were engaged in manufacturing some object or other. It was easy to look at it and obtain the names of the tools, and even some technical expressions about the proceedings, but there the matter ended. It must be borne in mind that pidgin-English is a very imperfect instrument for expressing one’s ideas, and that before one gets a good training in framing questions and understanding answers one has the uncomfortable feeling that free communication in it with the natives will never be attained; and I was quite unable to enter into any more detailed or explicit conversation with them at first. I knew well that the best remedy for this was to collect concrete data, and accordingly I took a village census, wrote down genealogies, drew up plans and collected the terms of kinship. But all this remained dead material, which led no further into the understanding of real native mentality or behaviour, since I could neither procure a good native interpretation of any of these items, nor get what could be called the hang of tribal life. As to obtaining their ideas about religion, and magic, their beliefs in sorcery and spirits, nothing was forthcoming except a few superficial items of folk-lore, mangled by being forced into pidgin English.

Information which I received from some white residents in the district, valuable as it was in itself, was more discouraging than anything else with regard to my own work. Here were men who had lived for years in the place with constant opportunities of observing the natives and communicating with them, and who yet hardly knew one thing about them really well. How could I therefore in a few months or a year, hope to overtake and go beyond them? Moreover, the manner in which my white informants spoke about the natives and put their views was, naturally, that of untrained minds, unaccustomed to formulate their thoughts with any degree of consistency and precision. And they were for the most part, naturally enough, full of the biassed and pre-judged opinions inevitable in the average practical man, whether administrator, missionary, or trader; yet so strongly repulsive to a mind striving after the objective, scientific view of things. The habit of treating with a self-satisfied frivolity what is really serious to the ethnographer; the cheap rating of what to him is a scientific treasure, that is to say, the native’s cultural and mental peculiarities and independence — these features, so well known in the inferior amateur’s writing, I found in the tone of the majority of white residents.7

Indeed, in my first piece of Ethnographic research on the South coast, it was not until I was alone in the district that I began to make some headway; and, at any rate, I found out where lay the secret of effective field-work. What is then this ethnographer’s magic, by which he is able to evoke the real spirit of the natives, the true picture of tribal life? As usual, success can only be obtained by a patient and systematic application of a number of rules of common sense and wellknown scientific principles, and not by the discovery of any marvellous short-cut leading to the desired results without effort or trouble. The principles of method can be grouped under three main headings; first of all, naturally, the student must possess real scientific aims, and know the values and criteria of modern ethnography. Secondly, he ought to put himself in good conditions of work, that is, in the main, to live without other white men, right among the natives. Finally, he has to apply a number of special methods of collecting, manipulating and fixing his evidence. A few words must be said about these three foundation stones of field work, beginning with the second as the most elementary.

IV

Proper conditions for ethnographic work. These, as said, consist mainly in cutting oneself off from the company of other white men, and remaining in as close contact with the natives as possible, which really can only be achieved by camping right in their villages (see Plates I and II). It is very nice to have a base in a white man’s compound for the stores, and to know there is a refuge there in times of sickness and surfeit of native. But it must be far enough away not to become a permanent milieu in which you live and from which you emerge at fixed hours only to „do the village”. It should not even be near enough to fly to at any moment for recreation. For the native is not the natural companion for a white man, and after you have been working with him for several hours, seeing how he does his gardens, or letting him tell you items of folk-lore, or discussing his customs, you will naturally hanker after the company of your own kind. But if you are alone in a village beyond reach of this, you go for a solitary walk for an hour or so, return again and then quite naturally seek out the natives’ society, this time as a relief from loneliness, just as you would any other companionship. And by means of this natural intercourse, you learn to know him, and you become familiar with his customs and beliefs far better than when he is a paid, and often bored, informant.

There is all the difference between a sporadic plunging into the company of natives, and being really in contact with them. What does this latter mean? On the Ethnographer’s side, it means that his life in the village, which at first is a strange, sometimes unpleasant, sometimes intensely interesting adventure, soon adopts quite a natural course very much in harmony with his surroundings.

Soon after I had established myself in Omarakana (Trobriand Islands), I began to take part, in a way, in the village life, to look forward to the important or festive events, to take personal interest in the gossip and the developments of the small village occurrences; to wake up every morning to a day, presenting itself to me more or less as it does to the native. I would get out from under my mosquito net, to find around me the village life beginning to stir, or the people well advanced in their working day according to the hour and also to the season, for they get up and begin their labours early or late, as work presses. As I went on my morning walk through the village, I could see intimate details of family life, of toilet, cooking, taking of meals; I could see the arrangements for the day’s work, people starting on their errands, or groups of men and women busy at some manufacturing tasks (see Plate III). Quarrels, jokes, family scenes, events usually trivial, sometimes dramatic but always significant, formed the atmosphere of my daily life, as well as of theirs. It must be remembered that as the natives saw me constantly every day, they ceased to be interested or alarmed, or made self-conscious by my presence, and I ceased to be a disturbing element in the tribal life which I was to study, altering it by my very approach, as always happens with a new-comer to every savage community. In fact, as they knew that I would thrust my nose into everything, even where a well-mannered native would not dream of intruding, they finished by regarding me as part and parcel of their life, a necessary evil or nuisance, mitigated by donations of tobacco.