II

One subject on which more must be said is that of the associated trade. A new and important article of exchange accompanies the transaction in the South-Eastern branch of the Kula: the big, sea-going canoes. The main centres of manufacture, and to a great extent manufacture for export, were the islands of Gawa and Panayati. In these places, canoes were constructed for export to the southern districts where the natives did not know how to build such canoes (compare Chapter I, Division III). In olden days the natives of Woodlark Island, before its present depopulation, also probably made some canoes for exchange in external trade. I have seen these canoes owned by natives in the Southern Massim district as far as Orangerie Bay, over two hundred miles from the place where they were manufactured. The trading of this article ran along with the Kula lines of communication as there is no doubt that the natives of Tubetube and Wari were the main distributors and middlemen in this trade.

How far canoe exchange was associated directly with Kula transactions, I cannot say definitely. Judging from the data given by Professor Seligman,4 armshells were paid by natives of Tubetube for canoes purchased from Panamoti in the North. Thus, the mwali in this commercial transaction, travelled in a direction opposite to that in which they must move in the Kula ring. This, again, suggests complete independence of the two transactions. Besides the canoes, another important article of trade in the southern portion are the clay pots manufactured both in Tubetube and Wari. Besides this, the two islands of “merchant venturers,” as they are called by Professor Seligman, carry on their Kula expeditions, and most likely independent of them also, they trade almost all the various articles of industry manufactured in the neighbouring districts and distributed by the two communities. This subject has been treated so fully by Professor Seligman in Chapter XL of his “Melanesians” that a reference here will suffice.5

Having now before us the whole ring of the Kula, we may inquire how far is this ring in contact commercially with other outlying districts, and, more especially, how far are certain articles of trade imported into it and others drawn out of it? What will interest us most in this connection is the entry into the ring and the exit out of it of the articles of Kula proper, the mwali (armshells) and the soulava (necklaces).