I

After the somewhat long digression on magic, we can now return once more to the description of the Kula. So far, we have been treating only one incident in it, the overseas expedition between Sinaketa and Dobu, and the return visit. But in dealing with this one typical stage we have received a picture of the whole Kula, and we have incidentally learnt all about the fundamentals of the exchange, the magic, the mythology, and the other associated aspects. Now it remains to put the finishing touches to the general picture, that is, to say a few words, first about the manner in which it is conducted within a district, and then to follow the exchange on the remaining part of the ring. The exchange within each Kula community has been called the ‘inland Kula.’ This part of the subject I know from personal experience in the Trobriands only. All that will be said therefore in this chapter will apply primarily to that part of the ring. As Boyowa, however, is by far the biggest and most densely populated piece of land within the Kula, it is clear that in treating the inland exchange in that island, we treat it in its most developed and typical form.

It has been mentioned before, in Chapter XVI that in April, 1918, To’uluwa had come to Sinaketa in connection with the uvalaku visit of the Dobuans. To’uluwa is the present chief of Omarakana, indeed, the last chief of Kiriwina, for after his death no one will succeed him. His power has been broken by the interference of Government officials and the influence of Mission work. The power of the Trobriand chief lay mainly in his wealth, and this he was able to keep constantly at a high level through the institution of polygamy. Now that he is forbidden to acquire more wives, though he may keep his old ones; and now that his successor will not be allowed to follow this immemorial custom of polygamy practised by their dynasty, the power of the chief has no basis, and has to a great extent collapsed.

I may add that this interference, inflicted for no comprehensible purposes, except if it be an exceedingly parochial and narrow-minded application of our sense of morality and propriety, has no legal basis whatever in the regulations of that Colony, and could not be justified either formally or on account of any results it may produce. Indeed, the undermining of old-established authority, of tribal morals and customs tends on the one hand completely to demoralise the natives and to make them unamenable to any law or rule, while on the other hand, by destroying the whole fabric of tribal life, it deprives them of many of their most cherished diversions, ways of enjoying life, and social pleasures. Now once you make life unattractive for a man, whether savage or civilised, you cut the taproot of his vitality. The rapid dying out of native races is, I am deeply convinced, due more to wanton interference with their pleasures and normal occupations, to the marring of their joy of life as they conceive it, than to any other cause. In the Trobriands, for instance, the chief has always been the organiser of all the big, tribal festivities. He received large contributions from the commoners under various legal obligations (see Chap. VI, Division VI) but he gave away all his wealth again in the form of big, ceremonial distributions, of presents at festivities, of food gifts to the partakers in dances, tribal sports and diversions. These were the pleasures in which the natives found real zest, which largely gave meaning to their lives. Nowadays all these pursuits have greatly slackened, because of the lack of concentration of wealth and power in the chief’s hands. He can neither afford to finance the big pastimes of yore, nor has he influence enough to give the same energetic initiative to start them going. After his death, things will be worse still. There are reasons to fear, and even natives express their misgivings, that in a generation or two the Kula will become entirely disorganised.

It is a well-known fact that the resistance and health of a native depend on auto-suggestion more even than is the case with ourselves, though new developments in psychotherapy seem to indicate that medicine has up till now largely underrated the general influence of this factor. Even the old ethnographic observers, more in Polynesia perhaps than anywhere else, have reported clear, unmistakable instances in which the loss of interest in life and the determination to die brought about death without any other cause. My own experience, though I have no one very striking case to cite, bears this out fully from all sorts of corroborating types of evidence. It is therefore not going beyond what is fully granted by facts, to maintain that a general loss of interest in life, of the joie de vivre, the cutting of all the bonds of intense interest, which bind members of a human community to existence, will result in their giving up the desire to live altogether, and that therefore they will fall an easy prey to any disease, as well as fail to multiply.

A wise administration of natives would, on the one hand, try to govern through the chief, using his authority along the lines of old law, usage, and custom; on the other hand it would try to maintain all which really makes life worth living for the natives, for it is the most precious inheritance, which they have from the past ages, and it is no good to try to substitute other interests for those lost. It is easy to hand over one’s vices to a man racially and culturally different; but nothing is as difficult to impart as a keen interest in the sports and amusements of other people. Even from one European nation to another, the last stronghold of national peculiarity can be found in its traditional diversions, and without diversion and amusement a culture and a race cannot survive. The application of a heavy, indeed, crushing machinery of European law and moral regulations, with their various sanctions, simply destroys the whole delicate fabric of tribal authority, eradicating good and bad alike, and leaves nothing but anarchy, bewilderment and ill will.1

With a mere show of his former authority, therefore, poor old To’uluwa arrived with a handful of followers at Sinaketa. He still keeps to all the strict observances and onerous duties with which his exalted position was weighted in olden days. Thus, he may not partake of ever so many kinds of food, considered to be unclean for the members of the sub-clan of Tabalu. He may not even touch any defiled objects, that have been in contact with unclean food; he may not eat from dishes or drink out of vessels which have been used previously by other people. When he goes to Sinaketa, for instance, where even the highest chiefs do not keep the taboos, he remains almost on starvation diet; he can only eat the food which has been brought from his own village, or drink and eat green coco-nut. Of the honours attaching to his position, not many are observed. In olden days, on his approach to a village, a runner would enter first, and in a loud voice cry out “O Guya’u,” whereupon all the people would stand in readiness, and at the chief’s approach the commoners would throw themselves on the ground, the headman would squat down, and men of rank would bend their heads. Even now, no commoner in the Trobriands would stand erect in the presence of To’uluwa. But he no more announces his arrival in such a loud and proud manner, and he takes his dues as they are given, not demanding them with any show of authority.