I

The tribes who live within the sphere of the Kula system of trading belong, one and all—with the exception perhaps, of the Rossel Island natives, of whom we know next to nothing—to the same racial group. These tribes inhabit the easternmost end of the mainland of New Guinea and those islands, scattered in the form of the long-drawn archipelago, which continue in the same south-easternly trend as the mainland, as if to bridge over the gap between New Guinea and the Solomons.

New Guinea is a mountainous island-continent, very difficult of access in its interior, and also at certain portions of the coast, where barrier reefs, swamps and rocks practically prevent landing or even approach for native craft. Such a country would obviously not offer the same opportunities in all its parts to the drifting migrations which in all probability are responsible for the composition of the present population of the South Seas. The easily accessible portions of the coast and the outlying islands would certainly offer a hospitable reception to immigrants of a higher stock; but, on the other hand, the high hills, the impregnable fastnesses in swampy flats and shores where landing was difficult and dangerous, would give easy protection to the aborigines, and discourage the influx of migrators.

The actual distribution of races in New Guinea completely justifies these hypotheses. Map II shows the Eastern part of the main island and archipelagoes of New Guinea and the racial distribution of the natives. The interior of the continent, the low sago swamps and deltas of the Gulf of Papua—probably the greater part of the North Coast and of the South-West Coast of New Guinea, are inhabited by a “relatively tall, dark-skinned, frizzly-haired” race, called by Dr. Seligman Papuan, and in the hills more especially by pygmy tribes. We know little about these people, swamp tribes and hill tribes alike, who probably are the autochtons in this part of the world.1 As we shall also not meet them in the following account, it will be better to pass to the tribes who inhabit the accessible parts of New Guinea. “The Eastern Papuasians, that is, the generally smaller, lighter coloured, frizzly-haired races of the eastern peninsula of New Guinea and its archipelagoes now require a name, and since the true Melanesian element is dominant in them, they may be called Papuo-Melanesians. With regard to these Eastern Papuasians, Dr. A. C. Haddon first recognised that they came into the country as the result of a ‘Melanesian migration into New Guinea,’ and further, ‘That a single wandering would not account for certain puzzling facts.’ ”2 The Papuo-Melanesians again can be divided into two groups, a Western and an Eastern one, which, following Dr. Seligman’s terminology, we shall call the Western Papuo-Melanesians and the Massim respectively. It is with these latter we shall become acquainted in the following pages.

If we glance at a map and follow the orographical features of Eastern New Guinea and its coast line, we see at once that the high main range of mountains drops off between the 149th and 150th meridians, and again that the fringing reef disappears at the same point, that is, at the west end of Orangerie Bay. This means that the extreme East End of New Guinea, with its archipelagoes, in other words, the Massim country, is the most easily accessible area, and might be expected to be inhabited by a homogeneous stock of people, consisting of immigrants almost unmixed with the autochtons (Cf. Map II). “Indeed, while the condition actually existing in the Massim area suggests that there was no slow mingling of the invaders with a previous stock, the geographical features of the territory of the Western Papuo-Melanesians with its hills, mountains and swamps, are such that invaders could not have speedily overrun the country, nor failed to have been influenced by the original inhabitants …”3

I shall assume that the reader is acquainted with the quoted work of Dr. Seligman, where a thorough account is given of all the main types of Papuo-Melanesian sociology and culture one after the other. But the tribes of the Eastern Papuo-Melanesian or Massim area, must be described here somewhat more in detail, as it is within this fairly homogeneous area that the Kula takes place. Indeed, the Kula sphere of influence and the ethnographic area of the Massim tribes almost completely overlap, and we can speak about the Kula type of culture and the Massim culture almost synonymously.