I

Now at last the Kula expedition is properly set going. The canoes are started on a long stage, before them the sea-arm of Pilolu, stretching between the Trobriands and the d’Entrecasteaux. On the North, this portion of the sea is bounded by the Archipelago of the Trobriands, that is, by the islands of Vakuta, Boyowa and Kayleula, joining in the west on to the scattered belt of the Lousançay Islands. On the east, a long submerged reef runs from the southern end of Vakuta to the Amphletts, forming an extended barrier to sailing, but affording little protection from the eastern winds and seas. In the South, this barrier links on to the Amphletts, which together with the Northern coast of Fergusson and Goodenough, form the Southern shore of Pilolu. To the West, Pilolu opens up into the seas between the mainland of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. In fact, what the natives designate by the name of Pilolu is nothing else but the enormous basin of the Lousançay Lagoon, the largest coral atoll in the world. To the natives, the name of Pilolu is full of emotional associations, drawn from magic and myth; it is connected with the experiences of past generations, told by the old men round the village fires and with adventure personally lived through.

As the Kula adventurers speed along with filled sails, the shallow Lagoon of the Trobriands soon falls away behind; the dull green waters, sprinkled with patches of brown where seaweed grows high and rank, and lit up here and there with spots of bright emerald where a shallow bottom of clean sand shines through, give place to a deeper sea of strong green hue. The low strip of land, which surrounds the Trobriand Lagoon in a wide sweep, thins away and dissolves in the haze, and before them the southern mountains rise higher and higher. On a clear day, these are visible even from the Trobriands. The neat outlines of the Amphletts stand diminutive, yet firmer and more material, against the blue silhouettes of the higher mountains behind. These, like a far away cloud are draped in wreaths of cumuli, almost always clinging to their summits. The nearest of them, Koyatabu—the mountain of the taboo—1 on the North end of Fergusson Island, a slim, somewhat tilted pyramid, forms a most alluring beacon, guiding the mariners due South. To the right of it, as we look towards the South-West, a broad, bulky mountain, the Koyabwaga’u—mountain of the sorcerers—marks the North-western corner of Fergusson Island. The mountains on Goodenough Island are visible only in very clear weather, and then very faintly.

Within a day or two, these disembodied, misty forms are to assume what for the Trobrianders seems marvellous shape and enormous bulk. They are to surround the Kula traders with their solid walls of precipitous rock and green jungle, furrowed with deep ravines and streaked with racing water-courses. The Trobrianders will sail deep, shaded bays, resounding with the, to them unknown, voice of waterfalls; with the weird cries of strange birds which never visit the Trobriands, such as the laughing of the kookooburra (laughing jackass), and the melancholy call of the South Sea crow. The sea will change its colour once more, become pure blue, and beneath its transparent waters, a marvellous world of multi-coloured coral, fish and seaweed will unfold itself, a world which, through a strange geographical irony, the inhabitants of a coral island hardly ever can see at home, and must come to this volcanic region to discover.

In these surroundings, they will find also wonderful, heavy, compact stones of various colours and shapes, whereas at home the only stone is the insipid, white, dead coral. Here they can see, besides many types of granite and basalt and volcanic tuff, specimens of black obsidian, with its sharp edges and metallic ring, and sites full of red and yellow ochre. Besides big hills of volcanic ash, they will behold hot springs boiling up periodically. Of all these marvels the young Trobriander hears tales, and sees samples brought back to his country, and there is no doubt that it is for him a wonderful experience to find himself amongst them for the first time, and that afterwards he eagerly seizes every opportunity that offers to sail again to the Koya. Thus the landscape now before them is a sort of promised land, a country spoken of in almost legendary tone.

And indeed the scenery here, on the borderland of the two different worlds, is singularly impressive. Sailing away from the Trobriands on my last expedition, I had to spend two days, weatherbound, on a small sandbank covered with a few pandanus trees, about midway between the Trobriands and the Amphletts. A darkened sea lay to the North, big thunderclouds hanging over where I knew there was the large flat island of Boyowa—the Trobriands. To the South, against a clearer sky, were the abrupt forms of the mountains, scattered over half of the horizon. The scenery seemed saturated with myth and legendary tales, with the strange adventures, hopes and fears of generations of native sailors. On this sandbank they had often camped, when becalmed or threatened with bad weather. On such an island, the great mythical hero, Kasabwaybwayreta stopped, and was marooned by his companions, only to escape through the sky. Here again a mythical canoe once halted, in order to be re-caulked. As I sat there, looking towards the Southern mountains, so clearly visible, yet so inaccessible, I realised what must be the feelings of the Trobrianders, desirous to reach the Koya, to meet the strange people, and to kula with them, a desire made perhaps even more acute by a mixture of fear. For there, to the west of the Amphletts, they see the big bay of Gabu, where once the crews of a whole fleet of Trobriand canoes were killed and eaten by the inhabitants of unknown villages, in attempting to kula with them. And stories are also told of single canoes, drifted apart from the fleet and cast against the northern shore of Fergusson Island, of which all the crew perished at the hands of the cannibals. There are also legends of some inexperienced natives, who, visiting the neighbourhood of Deyde’i and arriving at the crystal water in the big stone basins there, plunged in, to meet a dreadful death in the almost boiling pool.

But though the legendary dangers on the distant shores may appall the native imagination, the perils of actual sailing are even more real. The sea over which they travel is seamed with reefs, studded with sandbanks and coral rocks awash. And though in fair weather these are not so dangerous to a canoe as to a European boat, yet they are bad enough. The main dangers of native sailing, however, lie in the helplessness of a canoe. As we have said before, it cannot sail close to the wind, and therefore cannot beat. If the wind comes round, the canoe has to turn and retrace its course. This is very unpleasant, but not necessarily dangerous. If, however, the wind drops, and the canoe just happens to be in one of the strong tides, which run anything between three and five knots, or if it becomes disabled, and makes leeway at right angles to its course, the situation becomes dangerous. To the West, there lies the open sea, and once far out there, the canoe would have slender chances of ever returning. To the East, there runs the reef, on which in heavy weather a native canoe would surely be smashed. In May, 1918, a Dobuan canoe, returning home a few days after the rest of the fleet, was caught by a strong South-Easterly wind, so strong that it had to give up its course, and make North-West to one of the Lousançay Islands. It had been given up as lost, when in August it came back with a chance blow of the North-Westerly wind. It had had, however, a narrow escape in making the small island. Had it been blown further West, it would never have reached land at all.

There exist other tales of lost canoes, and it is a wonder that accidents are not more frequent, considering the conditions under which they have to sail. Sailing has to be done, so to speak, on straight lines across the sea. Once they deviate from this course, all sorts of dangers crop up. Not only that, but they must sail between fixed points on the land. For, and this of course refers to the olden days, if they had to go ashore, anywhere but in the district of a friendly tribe, the perils which met them were almost as bad as those of reefs and sharks. If the sailors missed the friendly villages of the Amphletts and of Dobu, everywhere else they would meet with extermination. Even nowadays, though the danger of being killed would be smaller—perhaps not absolutely non-existent—yet the natives would feel very uncomfortable at the idea of landing in a strange district, fearing not only death by violence, but even more by evil magic. Thus, as the natives sail across Pilolu, only very small sectors of their horizon present a safe goal for their journey.

On the East, indeed, beyond the dangerous barrier reef, there is a friendly horizon, marked for them by the Marshall Bennett Islands, and Woodlark, the country known under the term Omuyuwa. To the South, there is the Koya, also known as the land of the kinana, by which name the natives of the d’Entrecasteaux and the Amphletts are known generically. But to the South-West and West there is the deep open sea (bebega), and beyond that, lands inhabited by tailed people, and by people with wings, of whom very little more is known. To the North, beyond the reef of small coral islands, lying off the Trobriands, there are two countries, Kokopawa and Kaytalugi. Kokopawa is peopled with ordinary men and women, who walk about naked, and are great gardeners. Whether this country corresponds to the South coast of New Britain, where people really are without any clothing, it would be difficult to say.

The other country, Kaytalugi, is a land of women only, in which no man can survive. The women who live there are beautiful, big and strong, and they walk about naked, and with their bodily hair unshaven (which is contrary to the Trobriand custom). They are extremely dangerous to any man through the unbounded violence of their passion. The natives never tire of describing graphically how such women would satisfy their sensuous lust, if they got hold of some luckless, shipwrecked man. No one could survive, even for a short time, the amorous yet brutal attacks of these women. The natives compare this treatment to that customary at the yousa, the orgiastic mishandling of any man, caught at certain stages of female communal labour in Boyowa (cf. Chapter II, Division II). Not even the boys born on this island of Kaytalugi can survive a tender age. It must be remembered the natives see no need for male co-operation in continuing the race. Thus the women propagate the race, although every male needs must come to an untimely end before he can become a man.

None the less, there is a legend that some men from the village of Kaulagu, in eastern Boyowa, were blown in their canoe far North from the easterly course of a Kula expedition, and were stranded on the coast of Kaytalugi. There, having survived the first reception, they were apportioned individually and married. Having repaired their canoe, ostensibly for the sake of bringing some fish to their wives, one night they put food and water into it, and secretly sailed away. On their return to their own village, they found their women married to other men. However, such things never end tragically in the Trobriands. As soon as their rightful lords reappeared their women came back to them. Among other things these men brought to Boyowa a variety of banana called usikela, not known before.