III

On the fourth day, conch shells were blown again in the morning, though on the last of the three days their sounds had almost died out. These were the signs of the departure. Food and small presents were brought to the canoes as talo’i, and a few mwali were given at the last, for which the conch shells were blown. Without any ceremony or farewell speeches, the Dobuan canoes sailed away, one after the other.

Their journey home was also interrupted by a customary halt for fishing, but this time for fish, not shell. Some of them stop on the beach of Muwa, but the bulk camp on a beach called Susuwa, half way between Sinaketa and Vakuta, where they catch the fish by means of a poisonous root, which they have brought for this purpose from home. This time, they remained three days in Susuwa and Muwa, and then sailed to Vakuta to receive there talo’i. Their further journey I could not trace step by step, but afterwards I heard that quickly, and without any accident, they had reached their homes.

Their tanarere on Sarubwoyna beach—that is, the competitive display of the yield—gave more or less the following results:

From Sinaketa they received 304 armshells.

From Vakuta they received 344 armshells.

The total therefore was 648. As there were about sixty canoes making the proper uvalaku from Dobu, that is, not counting those from the Amphletts and Vakuta which joined on the way and appeared before Sinaketa, there were at the outside some five hundred Dobuan natives on that expedition. Out of these, however, not more than half were grown-up, Kula making men. So that, on the average, there were nearly thirteen armshells for every five men. Some would not get more than one pair, some perhaps even none, whilst the headmen received large quantities.

We shall follow in a later chapter the movements of some at least of those who had collected in Sinaketa from the other districts, in connection with the Kula. It did not take them more than a few days to disperse completely, and for the village to resume its ordinary aspect and routine.

1 See the Author’s Memoir, “The Natives of Mailu” in Transactions of the R. Society of S. Australia for 1915, p. 598. ↑