Kaykakaya Spell

“O katatuna fish, O marabwaga fish, yabwau fish, reregu fish!”

“Their red paint, with which they are painted; their red paint, with which they are adorned.”

“Alone they visit, together we visit; alone they visit, together we visit a chief.”

“They take me to their bosom; they hug me.”

“The great woman befriends me, where the pots are boiling; the good woman befriends me, on the sitting platform.”

“Two pigeons stand and turn round; two parrots fly about.”

“No more it is my mother, my mother art thou, O woman of Dobu! No more it is my father, my father art thou, O man of Dobu! No more it is the high platform, the high platform are his arms; no more it is the sitting platform, the sitting platform are his legs; no more it is my lime spoon, my lime spoon is his tongue; no more it is my lime pot, my lime pot is his gullet.”

This formula then passes into the same ending as the sulumwoya spell, quoted previously, Chapter VII, which runs: “Recently deceased spirit of my maternal uncle, etc.”

At the beginning of this spell, we find enumerated a series of fish names. These fishes all have red markings on their bodies, and they are tabooed to the people, who recite the mwasila magic and do the Kula. If eaten, they would give a man an ugly appearance. The above quoted saying of one of my informants: “we eat bad fish, we are ugly,” refers to these fishes amongst others. In this formula, the invocation is partly an appeal for assistance, and partly a sort of exorcism, which is meant to undo the evil effects of breaking the taboo of eating these fish. As this formula is associated with the ritual washing, the whole proceeding possesses a sort of magical consistency, which obtains within an exceedingly obscure and confused concatenation of ideas: the redness of the fish, the red painting on the human bodies for beauty, the invocation of the fishing magic, the taboo on this fish. These ideas hang together somehow, but it would be unwise and incorrect to attempt to put them into any logical order or sequence.2 The sentence about ‘visiting,’ in this spell could not be made clear by any of my native informants. I venture to suggest that the fish are invited to assist the adventurer on his Kula visit, and to help him with their beauty.

The next few sentences refer to the reception he anticipates at Dobu, in the forcible and exaggerated language of magic. The words which have been here translated by ‘take to his bosom,’ ‘hug,’ ‘befriend,’ are the terms used to describe the fondling and rocking and hugging of small children. According to native custom, it would not be considered effeminate or ridiculous for men to put their arms round each other and walk or sit about thus. And it must be added, this is done without any homo-sexual intention, at least of the grosser type. None the less, no such fondling would really take place between the Dobuans and their Kula partners. The mention of the ‘great woman,’ the ‘great good woman’ refers to the wife and sister of the partner, who, as we have said before, are considered to wield great influence in the transactions.

The two pigeons and the two parrots express metaphorically the friendship between the reciter of this magic and his partner. The long list that follows expresses the exchange of his ordinary relations for his Dobuan friends. An exaggerated description follows of the intimacy between him and his partner, on whose arms and legs he will sit, and from whose mouth he will partake of the betel chewing materials.

I shall give a sample of another of these spells, associated with adornment and personal beauty. This is the spell spoken over the betel-nut with which the toliwaga and the members of his canoe draw lines of vermilion red on their faces. Young betel-nut, when crushed with lime in a small mortar, produces pigment of wonderful brightness and intensity. Travellers in the countries of the Indian Ocean and parts of the Pacific know it well, as the paint that colours the lips and tongues of the natives.