I

In the twelve preceding chapters, we have followed an expedition from Sinaketa to Dobu. But branching off at almost every step from its straight track, we studied the various associated institutions and underlying beliefs; we quoted magical formulæ, and told mythical stories, and thus we broke up the continuous thread of the narrative. In this chapter, as we are already acquainted with the customs, beliefs and institutions implied in the Kula, we are ready to follow a straight and consecutive tale of an expedition in the inverse direction, from Dobu to Sinaketa.

As I have seen, indeed followed, a big uvalaku expedition from the South to the Trobriands, I shall be able to give some of the scenes from direct impression, and not from reconstruction. Such a reconstruction for one who has seen much of the natives’ tribal life and has a good grip over intelligent informants is neither very difficult nor need it be fanciful at all. Indeed, towards the end of my second visit, I had several times opportunities to check such a reconstruction by witnessing the actual occurrence, for after my first year’s stay in the Trobriands I had written out already some of my material. As a rule, even in minute details, my reconstructions hardly differed from reality, as the tests have shown. None the less, it is possible for an Ethnographer to enter into concrete details with more conviction when he describes things actually seen.

Plate LIII  

On the Beach of Nabwageta.

In the middle of the picture a sail is seen, hung on a scaffolding of sticks; natives are pausing in their work of overhauling it and patching it up. (See Div. I.)

In September, 1917, an uvalaku expedition was led by Kouta’uya from Sinaketa to Dobu. The Vakutans joining them on the way, and the canoes of the Amphletts following them also, some forty canoes finally arrived at the western shore of Dawson Straits. It was arranged then and there that a return expedition from that district should visit Sinaketa in about six months’ time. Kauyaporu, the esa’esa (headman) of Kesora’i hamlet in the village of Bwayowa, had a pig with circular tusks. He decided therefore to arrange an uvalaku expedition, at the beginning of which the pig was to be killed and feasted upon and its tusks turned into ornaments.

When, in November, 1917, I passed through the district, the preparing of the canoes was already afoot. All of those, which still could be repaired, had been taken to pieces and were being relashed, recaulked and repainted. In some hamlets, new dug-outs were being scooped. After a few months stay in the Trobriands, I went South again in March, 1918, intending to spend some time in the Amphletts. Landing there is always difficult, as there are no anchorages near the shore, and it is quite impossible to disembark in rough weather at night. I arrived late in a small cutter, and had to cruise between Gumasila and Domdom, intending to wait till daybreak and then effect a landing. In the middle of the night, however, a violent north-westerly squall came down, and making a split in the main-sail, forced us to run before the wind, southwards towards Dobu. It was on this night that the native boys employed in the boat, saw the mulukwausi flaming up at the head of the mast. The wind dropped before daybreak, and we entered the Lagoon of Sanaroa, in order to repair the sail. During the three days we stopped there, I roamed over the country, climbing its volcanic cones, paddling up the creeks and visiting the villages scattered on the coral plain. Everywhere I saw signs of the approaching departure for Boyowa; the natives preparing their canoes on the beach to be loaded, collecting food in the gardens and making sago in the jungle. At the head of one of the creeks, in the midst of a sago swamp, there was a long, low shelter which serves as a dwelling to Dobuan natives from the main Island when they come to gather sago. This swamp was said to be reserved to a certain community of Tu’utauna.

Another day I came upon a party of local natives from Sanaroa, who were pounding sago pulp out of a palm, and sluicing it with water. A big tree had been felled, its bark stripped in the middle of the trunk in a large square, and the soft, fleshy interior laid open. There were three men standing in a row before it and pounding away at it. A few more men waited to relieve the tired ones. The pounding instruments, half club, half adzes, had thick but not very broad blades of green stone, of the same type as I have seen among the Mailu natives of the South Coast.1

The pulp was then carried in baskets to a neighbouring stream. At this spot there was a natural trough, one of the big, convex scales, which form the basis of the sago leaf. In the middle of it, a sieve was made of a piece of coco-nut spathing, a fibre which covers the root of a coco-nut leaf, and looks at first sight exactly like a piece of roughly woven material. Water was directed so that it flowed into the trough at its broad end, coming out at the narrow one. The sago pulp was put at the top, the water carried away with it the powdered sago starch, while the wooden, husky fibres were retained by the sieve. The starch was then carried with the water into a big wooden canoe-shaped trough; there the heavier starch settled down, while the water welled over the brim. When there is plenty of starch, the water is drained off carefully and the starch is placed into another of the trough-shaped, sago leaf bases, where it is allowed to dry. In such receptacles it is then carried on a trading expedition, and is thus counted as one unit of sago.

I watched the proceedings for a long time with great interest. There is something fascinating about the big, antideluvian-looking sago palm, so malignant and unapproachable in its unhealthy, prickly swamp, being turned by man into food by such simple and direct methods. The sago produced and eaten by the natives is a tough, starchy stuff, of dirty white colour, very unpalatable. It has the consistency of rubber, and the taste of very poor, unleavened bread. It is not clear, like the article which is sold under the name of sago in our groceries, but is mealy, tough, and almost elastic. The natives consider it a great delicacy, and bake it into little cakes, or boil it into dumplings.

The main fleet of the Dobuans started some time in the second half of March from their villages, and went first to the beach of Sarubwoyna, where they held a ceremonial distribution of food, eguya’i, as it is called in Dobu. Then, offering the pokala to Aturamo’a and Atu’a’ine, they sailed by way of Sanaroa and Tewara, passing the tabooed rock of Gurewaya to the Amphletts. The wind was light and changeable, weak S.W. breezes prevailing. The progress of this stage of the journey must have been very slow. The natives must have spent a few nights on the intermediate islands and sandbanks, a few canoes’ crews camping at one spot.

At that time I had already succeeded in reaching the Amphletts, and had been busy for two or three weeks doing ethnographic work, though not very successfully; for, as I have already once or twice remarked, the natives here are very bad informants. I knew of course that the Dobuan fleet was soon to come, but as my experience had taught me to mistrust native time-tables and fixtures of date, I did not expect them to be punctual. In this, however, I was mistaken. On a Kula expedition, when the dates are once fixed, the natives make real and strenuous efforts to keep to them. In the Amphletts the people were busy preparing for the expedition, because they had the intention of joining the Dobuans and proceeding with them to the Trobriands. A few canoes went to the mainland to fetch sago, pots were being mustered and made ready for stowing away, canoes were overhauled. When the small expedition returned from the mainland with sago, after a week or so, a sagali (in Amphlettan: madare), that is, a ceremonial distribution of food was held on the neighbouring island, Nabwageta.

My arrival was a very untoward event to the natives, and complicated matters, causing great annoyance to Tovasana, the main headman. I had landed in his own little village, Nu’agasi, on the island of Gumasila, for it was impossible to anchor near the big village, nor would there have been room for pitching a tent. Now, in the Amphletts, a white man is an exceedingly rare occurrence, and to my knowledge, only once before, a white trader remained there for a few weeks. To leave me alone with the women and one or two old men was impossible, according to their ideas and fears, and none of the younger men wanted to forgo the privilege and pleasure of taking part in the expedition. At last, I promised them to move to the neighbouring island of Nabwageta, as soon as the men were gone, and with this they were satisfied.

As the date fixed for the arrival of the Dobuans approached, the excitement grew. Little by little the news arrived, and was eagerly received and conveyed to me: “Some sixty canoes of the Dobuans are coming,” “the fleet is anchored off Tewara,” “each canoe is heavily laden with food and gifts,” “Kauyaporu sails in his canoe, he is toli’uvalaku, and has a big pandanus streamer attached to the prow.” A string of other names followed which had very little meaning for me, since I was not acquainted with the Dobuan natives. From another part of the world, from the Trobriands, the goal of the whole expedition, news reached us again: “To’uluwa, the chief of Kiriwina has gone to Kitava—he will soon come back, bringing plenty of mwali.” “The Sinaketans are going there to fetch some of the mwali.” “The Vakutans have been in Kitava and brought back great numbers of mwali.” It was astonishing to hear all this news, arriving at a small island, apparently completely isolated with its tiny population, within these savage and little navigated seas; news only a few days old, yet reporting events which had occurred at a travelling distance of some hundred miles.

It was interesting to follow up the way it had come. The earlier news about the Dobuans had been brought by the canoes, which had fetched the sago to Gumasila from the main island. A few days later, a canoe from one of the main island villages had arrived here, and on its way had passed the Dobuans in Tewara. The news from the Trobriands in the North had been brought by the Kuyawa canoe which had arrived a couple of days before in Nabwageta (and whose visit to Nu’agasi I have described in Chapter XI). All these movements were not accidental, but connected with the uvalaku expedition. To show the complexity, as well as the precise timing of the various movements and events, so perfectly synchronised over a vast area, in connection with the uvalaku, I have tabulated them in the Chart, facing this page, in which almost all the dates are quite exact, being based on my own observations. This Chart also gives a clear, synoptic picture of an uvalaku, and it will be useful to refer to it, in reading this Chapter.

In olden days, not less than now, there must have been an ebullition in the inter-tribal relations, and a great stirring from one place to another, whenever an uvalaku Kula was afoot. Thus, news would be carried rapidly over great distances, the movements of the vast numbers of natives would be co-ordinated, and dates fixed. As has been said already, a culminating event of an expedition, in this case the arrival of the Dobuan fleet in Sinaketa, would be always so timed as to happen on, or just before, a full moon, and this would serve as a general orientation for the preliminary movements, such as in this case, the visits of the single canoes.