XI

A very rapid survey of the phonetic characters of the kayga’u spells (Chapter XI) must be sufficient and we shall confine ourselves to their tapwana. The word gwa’u or ga’u means ‘mist’ or ‘fog’; verbally used with the meaning ‘to make mist’ ‘to befog,’ it has always the form ga’u. In the main parts of some of the formulæ of this class, this phonetically very expressive word is used with very great sound effect. For example in the giyorokaywa spell No. 1, the key-words are aga’u (‘I befog’), aga’usulu (‘I befog, lead astray’); aga’uboda (‘I befog, shut off’). Spoken, at the beginning of the tapwana slowly and sonorously, and then quickly and insistently these words produce a really ‘magical’ effect—that is as far as the hearers’ subjective impressions are concerned. Even more impressive and onomatopoetic is the phrase used as key-expression in the Giyotanawa No. 2:

Ga’u, yaga’u, yagaga’u, yaga’u, bode, bodegu!

This sentence, giving the vowels a full Italian value, such as they receive in the Melanesian pronunciation, does certainly have an impressive ring; fittingly enough, because this is the dramatic spell, uttered into the wind in the sinking waga, the final effort of magic to blind and mislead the mulukwausi. The causative prefix ya- is used here with a nominal expression yaga’u which has been translated ‘gathering mist’; the reduplicated one yagaga’u I have rendered by ‘encircling mist.’ It can be seen from this example how feebly the equivalents can be given of the magical phrases in which so much is expressed by phonetic or onomatopoetic means.

The other spells have much less inspired key-words. Giyotanawa No. 1 uses the word atumboda, translated ‘I press,’ ‘I close down,’ which literally renders the meanings of the verbs tum, ‘to press,’ and boda, ‘to close.’ The Giyorokaywa No. 2 has the somewhat archaic key-words spoken in a couple: ‘apeyra yauredi,’ ‘I arise,’ ‘I escape’ and the grammatically irregular expression suluya, ‘to lead astray.’

The main part of the Kaytaria spell, by which the benevolent fish is summoned to the rescue of the drowning party has the key-phrase ‘bigabaygu suyusayu: the suyusayu fish shall lift me up.’ This expression is noteworthy: even in this spell, which might be regarded as an invocation of the helpful animal, it is not addressed in the second person. The result is verbally anticipated, proving that the spell is to act through the direct force of the words and not as an appeal to the animal.