Preface

This brilliant work is one of the great classics of anthropological research
ARGONAUTS OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC Bronislaw. Malimowski
974 —s Me A Ditton Papetback: f 5 $2.45 g
ARGONAUTS OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC
BRonisLtAaw Matinowsktr (1884-1942), Anglo-Polish a thropologist, was born in what was then Austrian Polan of a long line of Polish nobility and landed gentry. He was educated at the Polish University of Cracow, from which he received his doctorate in 1908 with the highes honors of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He also studied at the University of Leipzig and later went on to London, where from 1910 he was associated with the London School of Economics. From 1914 to 1918 Dr. Malinowski was a member of the Robert Mond Expedition to New Guinea and North Melanesia, and it was the research done on this expedition that was later published as Argo- nauts of the Western Pacific. In later years Dr. Malinow- ski taught at the University of London, at Cornell Uni-' versity, and at Yale. His books include the following: Myth in Primitive Society (1926), Crime and Custom in Savage Society (1926), Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927), The Sexual Life of Savages (1929).
ARGONAUTS OF THE WESTERN Paciric was first published in 1922.
A CEREMONIAL ACT OF THE KULA (See p. 472)
ARGONAUTS
OF THE
WESTERN PACIFIC
AN ACCOUNT OF NATIVE ENTERPRISE AND ADVENTURE IN THE ARCHIPELAGOES OF MELANESIAN NEW GUINEA
by BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI
Preface by SIR JAMES G. FRASER
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TO MY FRIEND AND TEACHER
PROFESSOR C. G. SELIGMAN, F.R.S.
PREFACE
By Sir JAMES G. FRAZER
My esteemed friend, Dr. B. Malinowski has asked me to write a preface to his book, and I willingly comply with his request, though J can hardly think that any words of mine will add to the value of the remarkable record of anthropological research which he has given us in this volume. My observations, such as they are, will deal partly with the writer’s method and partly with the matter of his book.
In regard to method, Dr. Malinowski has done his work, as it appears to me, under the best conditions and in the manner calculated to secure the best possible results, Both by theoretical training and by practical experience he was well equipped for the task which he undertook. Of his theoretical training he had given proof in his learned and thoughtful treatise on the family among the aborigines of Australia*; of his practical experience he had produced no less satisfactory evidence in his account of the natives of Mailu in New Guinea, based on a residence of six months among them.f In the Trobriand Islands, to the east of New Guinea, to which he next turned his attention, Dr. Malinowski lived as a native among the natives for many months together, watching them daily at work and at play, conversing with them in their own tongue, and deriving all his information from the surest sources—personal observation and statements made to him directly by the
* The Family among the Australian Aborigines: A Sociological Study. London: University of London Press, 1913.
+ “The Natives of Mailu: Preliminary Results of the Robert Mond Research Work in British New Guinea.” Transactions of the Royal Society of South
_ Australia, vol. xxxix., 1915.
.
: vii
viii PREFACE
natives in their own language without the intervention of aninterpreter. In this way he has accumulated a large mass of materials, of high scientific value, bearing on the social, religious, and economic or industrial life of the Trobriand Islanders. These he hopes and intends to publish hereafter in full; meantime he has given us in the present volume a preliminary study of an interesting and peculiar feature in Trobriand society, the remark- able system of exchange, only in part economic or commercial, which the islanders maintain among them- selves and with the inhabitants of neighbouring islands.
Little reflection is needed to convince us of the funda- mental importance of economic forces at all stages of man’s career from the humblest to the highest. After all, the human species is part of the animal creation, and as such, like the rest of the animals, it reposes on a material foundation ; on which a higher life, intellectual, moral, social, may be built, but without which no such superstructure is possible. That material foundation, consisting in the necessity of food and of a certain degree of warmth and shelter from the elements, forms the economic or industrial basis and prime condition of human life. If anthropologists have hitherto unduly neglected it, we may suppose that it was rather because they were attracted to the higher side of man’s nature than because they deliberately ignored and undervalued the importance and indeed necessity of the lower. In excuse for their neglect we may also remember that anthropology is still a young science, and that the multitude of problems which await the student cannot all be attacked at once, but must be grappled with one by one. Be that as it may, Dr. Malinowski has done well to emphasise the great significance of primitive economics by singling out the notable exchange system of the Trobriand Islanders for special consideration.
Further, he has wisely refused to limit himself to a mere description of the processes of the exchange, and has set himself to penetrate the motives which underlie it and the feelings which it excites in the minds of the
PREFACE ix
natives. It appears to be sometimes held that pure sociology should confine itself to the description of acts and should leave the problems of motives and feelings to psychology. Doubtless it is true that the analysis of motives and feelings is logically distinguishable from the description of acts, and that it falls, -strictly speaking, within the sphere of psychology ; but in practice an act has no meaning for an observer unless he knows or infers the thoughts and emotions of the agent; hence to describe a series of acts, without any reference to the state of mind of the agent, would not answer the purpose of sociology, the aim of which is not merely to register but to understand the actions of men in society. Thus sociology cannot fulfil its task without calling in at every turn the aid of psychology.
It is characteristic of Dr. Malinowski’s method that he takes full account of the complexity of human nature. He sees man, so to say, in the round and not in the flat. He remembers that man is a creature of emotion at least as much as of reason, and he is constantly at pains to discover the emotional as well as the rational basis of human action. The man of science, like the man of letters, is too apt to view mankind only in the abstract, selecting for his consideration a single side of our com- plex and many-sided being. Of this one-sided treatment Moliére is a conspicuous example among great writers. All his characters are seen only in the flat: one of them is a miser, another a hypocrite, another a coxcomb, and so on; but not one of themisaman. All are dummies dressed up to look very like human beings; but the likeness is only on the surface, all within is hollow and empty, because truth to nature has been sacrificed to literary effect. Very different is the presentation of human nature in the greater artists, such as Cervantes’ and Shakespeare: their characters are solid, being drawn not from one side only but from many. No doubt in science a certain abstractness of treatment is not _merely legitimate, but necessary, since science is nothing _ but knowledge raised to the highest power, and all
x PREFACE
knowledge implies a process of abstraction and general- isation : even the recognition of an individual whom we see every day is only possible as the result of an abstract idea of him formed by generalisation from his appear- ances in the past. Thus the science of man is forced to abstract certain aspects of human nature and to con- sider them apart from the concrete reality ; or rather it falls into a number of sciences, each of which considers a single part of man’s complex organism, it may be the physical, the intellectual, the moral, or the social side of his being ; and the general conclusions which it draws will present a more or less incomplete picture of man as a whole, because the lines which compose it are necessarily but a few picked out of a multitude.
In the present treatise Dr. Malinowski is mainly concerned with what at first sight might seem a purely economic activity of the Trobriand Islanders; but, with his usual width of outlook and fineness of perception, he is careful to point out that the curious circulation of valuables, which takes place between the inhabitants of the Trobriand and other islands, while it is accompanied by ordinary trade, is by no means itself a purely com- mercial transaction ; he shows that it is not based on a simple calculation of utility, of profit and loss, but that it satisfies emotional and esthetic needs of a higher order than the mere gratification of animal wants. This leads Dr. Malinowski to pass some severe strictures on the conception of the Primitive Economic Man as a kind of bogey who, it appears, still haunts economic text-books and even extends his blighting influence to the minds of certain anthropologists. Rigged out in cast-off garments of Mr. Jeremy Bentham and Mr. Gradgrind, this horrible phantom is apparently actuated
by no other motive than that of filthy lucre, which he
pursues relentlessly, on Spencerian principles, along the line of least resistance. If such a dismal fiction is really regarded by serious inquirers as having any counterpart in savage society, and not simply as a useful abstraction,
Dr. Malinowski’s account of the Kwa in this book should ©
Sty bs
PREFACE xi
help to lay the phantom by the heels ; for he proves that the trade in useful objects, which forms part of the Kula system, is in the minds of the natives entirely sub- ordinate in importance to the exchange of other objects, which serve no utilitarian purpose whatever. In its combination of commercial enterprise, social organi- sation, mythical background, and magical ritual, to say nothing of the wide geographical range of its operations, this singular institution appears to have no exact parallel in the existing anthropological record ; but its discoverer, Dr. Malinowski, may very well’ be right in surmising that it is probably a type of institution of which ana- logous, if not precisely similar, instances will hereafter be brought to light by further research among savage and barbarous peoples.
Not the least interesting and instructive feature of the Kula, as it is described for us by Dr. Malinowski, is the extremely important part which magic is seen to play in the institution. From his description it appears that in the minds of the natives the performance of magical rites and the utterance of magical words are indispensable for the success of the enterprise in all its phases, from the felling of the trees out of which the canoes are to be hollowed, down to the moment when, the expedition successfully accomplished, the argosy with its precious cargo is about to start on its homeward voyage. And incidentally we learn that magical ceremonies and spells are deemed no less necessary for the cultivation of gardens and for success in fishing, the two forms of industrial enterprise which furnish the islanders with their principal means of support ; hence the garden magician, whose business it is to promote the growth of the garden produce by his hocus-pocus, is one of the most important ° men in the village, ranking next after the chief and the sorcerer. In short, magic is believed to be an absolutely essential adjunct of every industrial undertaking, being just as requisite for its success as the mechanical oper- _ ations involved in it, such as the caulking, painting and _ launching of a canoe, the planting of a garden, and the
xii PREFACE
setting of a fish-trap. ‘‘ A belief in magic,” says Dr. Malinowski, ‘‘is one of the main psychological forces which allow for organisation and systematisation of economic effort in the Trobriands.”
This valuable account of magic as a factor of fundamental economic importance for the welfare and indeed for the very existence of the community should suffice to dispel the erroneous view that magic, as opposed to religion, is in its nature essentially male- ficent and anti-social, being always used by an individual for the promotion of his own selfish ends and the injury of his enemies, quite regardless of its effect on the common weal. No doubt magic may be so employed, and has in fact probably been so employed, | in every part of the world; in the Trobriand Islands themselves it is believed to be similarly practised for nefarious purposes by sorcerers, who inspire the natives with the deepest dread and the most constant concern. But in itself magic is neither beneficent nor maleficent ; it is simply an imaginary power of controlling the forces of nature, and this control may be exercised by the magician for good or evil, for the benefit or injury of individuals and of the community. In this respect, magic is exactly on the same footing with the sciences, of which it is the bastard sister. They, too, in themselves, are neither good nor evil, though they become the source of one or other according to their application. It would be absurd, for example, to stigmatise pharmacy as anti- social, because a knowledge of the properties of drugs is often employed to destroy men as well as to heal them. It is equally absurd to neglect the beneficent application of magic and to single out its maleficent use as the character- istic property by which to define it. The processes of. nature, over which science exercises a real and magic an imaginary control, are not affected by the moral dis- position, the good or bad intention, of the individual who uses his knowledge to set them in motion. The action of drugs on the human body is precisely the same whether they are administered by a physician or by a poisoner.
PREFACE xiil
Nature and her handmaid Science are neither friendly nor hostile to morality ; they are simply indifferent to it and equally ready to do the bidding of the saint and of the sinner, provided only that he gives them the proper word of command. If the guns are well loaded and well aimed, the fire of the battery will be equally destructive, whether the gunners are patriots fighting in defence of their country or invaders waging a war of unjust aggres- sion. The fallacy of differentiating a science or an art according to its application and the moral intention of the agent is obvious enough with regard to pharmacy and artillery; it is equally real, though to many people apparently it is less obvious, with regard to magic.
The immense influence wielded by magic over the whole life and thought of the Trobriand Islanders is perhaps the feature of Dr. Malinowski’s book which makes the most abiding impression on the mind of the reader. He tells us that “ magic, the attempt of man to govern the forces of nature directly by means of a special lore, is all-pervading and all-important in the Trobriands”; it is “interwoven into all the many industrial and communal activities”? ; ‘all the data which have been so far mustered disclose the extreme importance of magic in the Kula. But if it were a questions of treating of any other aspect of the tribal life of these natives, it would also be found that, whenever they approach any concern of vital importance, they summon magic to their aid. It can be said without exaggeration that magic, according to their ideas, governs human destinies ; that it supplies man with the power of mastering the forces of nature; and that it is his weapon and armour against the many dangers which crowd in upon him on every side.”
Thus in the view of the Trobriand Islanders, magic is a power of supreme importance either for good or evil; it can make or mar the life of man ; it can sustain and pro- tect the individual and the community, or it can injure and destroy them. Compared to this universal and deep- rooted conviction, the belief in the existence of the
xiv PREFACE
spirits of the dead would seem to exercise but little influence on the life of these people. Contrary to the general attitude of savages towards the souls of the departed, they are reported to be almost completely devoid of any fear of ghosts. They believe, indeed, that the ghosts return to their villages once a year to partake of the great annual feast ; but “in general the spirits do not influence human beings very much, for better or worse”; “there is nothing of the mutual inter- action, of the intimate collaboration between man and spirit which are the essence of religious cult.” This conspicuous predominance of magic over religion, at least over the worship of the dead, is a very notable feature in the culture of a people so comparatively high in the scale of savagery as the Trobriand Islanders. It furnishes a fresh proof of the extraordinary strength and tenacity of the hold which this world-wide delusion has had, and still has, upon the human mind.
We shall doubtless learn much as to the relation of magic and religion among the Trobrianders from the full report of Dr. Malinowski’s researches in the islands. From the patient observation which he has devoted to a single institution, and from the wealth of details with which he has illustrated it, we may judge of the extent and value of the larger work which he has in preparation. It promises to be one of the completest and most scientific accounts ever given of a savage people.
J. G. FRAZER.
The Temple, London. 7th March, 1922.
FOREWORD
By THE AUTHOR
ETHNOLOGY is in the sadly ludicrous, not to say tragic, position, that at the very moment when it begins to put its workshop in order, to forge its proper tools, to start ready for work on its appointed task, the material of its study melts away with hopeless rapidity. Just now, when the methods and aims of scientific field ethnology have taken shape, when men fully trained for the work have begun to travel into savage countries and study their inhabitants—these die away under our very eyes.
The research which has been done on native races by men of academic training has proved beyond doubt and cavil that scientific, methodic inquiry can give us results far more abundant and of better quality than those of even the best amateur’s work. Most, though not all, of the modern scientific accounts have opened up quite new and unexpected aspects of tribal life. They have given us, in clear outline, the picture of social insti- tutions often surprisingly vast and complex ; they have brought before us the vision of the native as he is, in his religious and magical beliefs and practices. They have allowed us to penetrate into his mind far more deeply than we have ever done before. From this new material, scientifically hall-marked, students of comparative Ethnology have already drawn some very important . conclusions on the origin of human customs, beliefs and institutions ; on the history of cultures, and their spread and contact ; on the laws of human behaviour in society, and of the human mind.
The hope of gaining a new vision of savage humanity through the labours of scientific specialists opens out like a mirage, vanishing almost as soon as perceived.
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xvi FOREWORD
For though at present, there is still a large number of native communities available for scientific study, within a generation or two, they or their cultures will have practi- cally disappeared. The need for energetic work is urgent, and the time is short. Nor, alas, up to the present, has any adequate interest been taken by the public in these studies. The number of workers is small, the encourage- ment they receive scanty. I feel therefore no need to justify an ethnological contribution which is the result of specialised research in the field.
In this volume I give an account of one phase of savage life only, in describing certain forms of inter-tribal, trading relations among the natives of New Guinea. This account has been culled, as a preliminary monograph, from Ethnographic material, covering the whole extent of the tribal culture of one district. One of the first conditions of acceptable Ethnographic work certainly is that it should deal with the totality of all social, cultural and psychological aspects of the community, for they are so interwoven that not one can be understood without taking into consideration all the others. The reader of this monograph will clearly see that, though its main theme is economic-—for it deals with commercial enter- prise, exchange and trade—constant reference has to be made to social organisation, the power of magic, to mythology and folklore, and indeed to all other aspects as well as the main one.
The geographical area of which the book treats is limited to the Archipelagoes lying off the eastern end of New Guinea. Even within this, the main field of research was in one district, that of the Trobriand Islands. This, however, has been studied minutely. I have lived in that one archipelago for about two years, in the course of three _ expeditions to New Guinea, during which time I naturally acquired a thorough knowledge of the language. I did my work entirely alone, living for the greater part of the time right in the villages. I therefore had constantly the daily life of the natives before my eyes, while accidental, dramatic occurrences, deaths, quarrels, village brawls,
FOREWORD XVil
public and ceremonial events, could not escape my notice.
In the present state of Ethnography, when so much has still to be done in paving the way for forthcoming research and in fixing its scope, each new contribution ought to justify its appearance in several points. It ought to show some advance in method; it ought to push research beyond its previous limits in depth, in width, or in both ; finally, it ought to endeavour to present its results in a manner exact, but not dry. The specialist interested in method, in reading this work, will find set out in the Introduction, Divisions II-I[X and in Chapter XVIII, the exposition of my points of view and efforts in this direction. The reader who is concerned with results, rather than with the way of obtaining them, will find in Chapters 1V to XXI a consecutive narrative of the Kula expeditions, and the various associated customs and beliefs. The student who is interested, not only in the narrative, but in the ethnographic background for it, and a clear definition of the institution, will find the first in Chapters I and II, and the latter in Chapter III.
To Mr. Robert Mond I tender my sincerest thanks. It is to his generous endowment that I owe the possibility of carrying on for several years the research of which the present volume is a partial result. To Mr. Atlee Hunt, C.M.G., Secretary of the Home and Territories Depart- ment of the Commonwealth of Australia, I am indebted for the financial assistance of the Department, and also for much help given on the spot. In the Trobriands, I was immensely helped in my work by Mr. B. Hancock, pearl trader, to whom I am grateful not only for assis- tance and services, but for many acts of friendship.
_ Much of the argument in this book has been greatly improved by the criticism given me by my friend, Mr. Paul Khuner, of Vienna, an expert in the practical affairs of modern industry and a highly competent thinker on economic matters. Professor L. T. Hobhouse has kindly read the proofs and given me valuable advice on several points.
XViii FOREWORD
Sir James Frazer, by writing his Preface, has enhanced the value of this volume beyond its merit and it is not only a great honour and advantage for me to be introduced by him, but also a special pleasure, for my first love for ethnology is associated with the reading of the “ Golden Bough,” then in its second edition.
Last, not least, I wish to mention Professor C. G. Seligman, to whom this book is dedicated. The initiative of my expedition was given by him and I owe him more than I can express for the encouragement and scientific counsel which he has so generously given me during the progress of my work in New Guinea.
B.M.
El Boquin, Icod de los Vinos, Tenertfe. Apmil, 1921.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is in the nature of the research, that an Ethnographer has to rely upon the assistance of others to an extent much greater than is the case with other scientific workers. I have therefore to express in this special place my obligations to the many who have helped me. As said in the Preface, financially I owe most to Mr. Robert Mond, who made my work possible by bestowing on me the Robert Mond Travelling Scholarship (University of London) of £250 per annum for five years (for 1914 and for 1917 —1920). I was substantially helped by a grant of {250 from the Home and Territories Department of Australia, obtained by the good offices of Mr. Atlee Hunt, C.M.G. The London School of Economics awarded me the Constance Hutchinson Scholarship of {100 yearly for two years, 1915-1916. Professor Seligman, to whom in this, as in other matters I owe so much, besides helping me in obtaining all the other grants, gave himself {100 towards the cost of the expedition and equipped me with a camera, a phonograph, anthropometric instruments and other paraphernalia of ethnographic work. I went out to Australia with the British Association for the Advancement of Science in I9I4, as a guest, and at the expense, of the Commonwealth Government of Australia.
It may be interesting for intending field-workers to observe that I carried out my ethnographic research for six years— I9g14 to 1920—making three expeditions to the field of my work, and devoting the intervals between expeditions to the working out of my material and to the study of special literature, on little more than £250 a year. I defrayed out of this, not only all the expenses of travel and research, such as fares, wages to native servants, payments of interpreters, but I was also able to collect a fair amount of ethnographic specimens, of which part has been presented to the Melbourne Museum as the Robert Mond Collection. This would not have been possible for me, had I not received much help from residents in New Guinea. My friend, Mr. B. Hancock, of Gusaweta, Trobriand Islands, allowed me to use his house and store as base for my gear and provisions ; he lent me his cutter on various occasions and pro- ‘vided me with a home, where I could always repair in need or sickness. He helped me in my photographic work, and gave mea good number of his own photographic plates, of which several are reproduced in this book (Plates XI, XX XVII, and L-LII).
Other pearl traders and buyers of the Trobriands were also very kind to me, especially M. and Mme. Raphael Brudo, of
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xx ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Paris, Messrs. C. and G. Auerbach, and the late Mr. Mick George, all of whom helped me in various ways and extended to me their kind hospitality.
In my interim studies in Melbourne, I received much help from the staff of the excellent Public Library of Victoria, for which I have to thank the Librarian, Mr. E. La Touche Armstrong, my friend Mr. E. Pitt, Mr. Cooke and others.
Two maps and two plates are reproduced by kind permission of Professor Seligman from his ‘‘ Melanesians of British New Guinea.” I have to thank the Editor of Man (Captain T. A. Joyce) for his permission to use here again the plates which were previously published in that paper.
Mr. William Swan Stallybrass, Senior Managing Director of Messrs. Geo. Routledge & Sons, Ltd., has spared no trouble in meeting all my wishes as to scientific details in the publication of this book, for which I wish to express my sincere thanks.
PuHonetTIc NOTE,
The native names and words in this book are written according to the simple rules, recommended by the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute. That is, the vowels are to be pronounced as in Italian and the consonants as in English. This spelling suits the sounds of the Melanesian languages of New Guinea sufficiently well. The apostrophe placed between two vowels indicates that they should be pronounced separately and not merged into a diphthong. The accent is almost always on the penultimate, rarely on the anti-penultimate. All the syllables must be pronounced clearly and distinctly.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE BY SIR JAMES FRAZER vil FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR XV
INTRODUCTION: THE SUBJECT, METHOD AND SCOPE OF THIS ENQUIRY
I—Sailing, and trading in the South Seas; the Kula. JII—Method in Ethnography. III— Starting field work. Some perplexing difficul- ties. Three conditions of success... IV—Life in a tent among the natives. Mechanism of “getting in touch” with them. V—Active methods of research. Order and consistency in savage cultures. Methodological consequences of this truth. VI—Formulating the principles of tribal constitution and of the anatomy ofculture. Method of inference from statistic accumulation of concrete data. Usesofsynoptic charts. VII— Presentation of the intimate touches of native life ; of types of behaviour. Method of system- atic fixing of impressions ; of detailed, consecu- tive records. Importance of personal participa- tion in native life. VIII—Recording of stereo- typed manners of thinking and feeling. Corpus inscriptionum Kiriwinensium. IX—Summary of argument. The native’s vision of his world I
I THE COUNTRY AND INHABITANTS OF THE KULA DISTRICT
I—Racial divisions in Eastern New Guinea. Seligman’s classification. The Kula natives. II—Sub-divisions of the Kula district. III— Scenery at the Eastern end of New Guinea. Villages of the S. Massim; their customs and social institutions. IV—The d’Entrecasteaux Archipelago. The tribes of Dobu. The mytho- logical associations of their country. Some of their customs and institutions. Sorcery. A vision on Sarubwoyna beach. V—Sailing North. The Amphlett Group. Savage monopolists 27 J
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Il THE NATIVES OF THE TROBRIAND ISLANDS
I—Arrival in the coral Islands. First impression of the native. Some significant appearances and their deeper meaning. II—Position of women ; their life and conduct before and after marriage. I11]—Further exploration in the villages. A cross country walk. Gardens and gardening. IV— The native’s working power ; their motives and incentives to work. Magic and work. A digression on Primitive Economics. V—Chief- tainship : power through wealth ; a plutocratic community. List of the various provinces and and political divisions in the Trobriands. VI— Totemism, the solidarity of clans and the bonds of kinship. VII—Spirits of the dead. The overweening importance of magic. Black magic. The prowling sorcerers and the flying witches. The malevolent visitors from the South, and epidemics. VIII=The Eastern neighbours of of the Trobrianders. The remaining districts of the Kula
III THE ESSENTIALS OF THE KULA
I—A concise definition of the Kula. IJ—Its economic character. I[I—The articles exchanged ; the conception of vaygu’a. IV—The main rules and aspects of the Kula: the sociological aspect (partnership) ; direction of movement; nature of Kula ownership ; the differential and integral effect of these rules. W—The act of exchange; its regulations ; the light it throws on the acquisi- tive and ‘“‘communistic’’ tendencies of the natives ; its concrete outlines; the sollicitory gifts. VI—The associated activities and the secondary aspects of the Kula: construction of canoes; subsidiary trade—their true relation to the Kula; the ceremonial, mythology and magic associated with the Kula; the mortuary taboos and distributions, in their relation to the Kula
IV CANOES AND SAILING
I—The value and importance of a canoe to a native. Its appearance, the impressions and emotions it arouses in those who use or own it. The atmosphere of romance which surrounds it
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PAGE for the native. II—Analysis of its construction, in relation to its function. The three types of canoes in the Trobriand Islands. III—V— Sociology of a large canoe (masawa). III—(A) Social organisation of labour in constructing a canoe; the division of functions; the magical regulation of work. IV—(B)—Sociology of canoe ownership; the /oli-relationship; the toliwaga, ““master’’ or “owner” of a canoe; the four privileges and functions of a toliwaga. V— (C)—The social division of functions in manning and sailing a canoe. Statistical data about the Trobriand shipping 105
V THE CEREMONIAL BUILDING OF A WAGA
I—Construction of canoes as part of the Kula proceedings. Magic and mythology. The pre- paratory and the ceremonial stage of construction IIl—The first stage: expelling the wood sprite Tokway ; transport of the log; the hollowing- out of the log and the associated magic. III— The second stage: the inaugural rite of Kula magic ; the native at grips with problems of construction ; the wayugo creeper; the magical spell uttered over it; caulking; the three magical exorcisms. IV—Some general remarks about the two stages of canoe-building and the concomitant magic. Bulubwalata (evil magic) of canoes. The orna- mental prowboards. The Dobuan and the Mur- uwan types of overseas canoe 124
VI LAUNCHING OF A CANOE AND CEREMONIAL VISITING —TRIBAL ECONOMICS IN THE TROBRIANDS
I—The procedure and magic at launching. The trial run (/asasoria). Account of the launching and tasasoria seen on the beach of Kualukuba. Reflections on the decay of customs under Euro- pean influence. II1—Digression on the sociology of work : organisation of labour ; forms of communial labour; payment for work. III—The custom of ceremonial visiting (kabigidoya) ; local trade, done on such expeditions. IV—VII—Dzigression on gifts, payments, and exchange. WV—Attitude of the native towards wealth. Desire of display. Enhancement of social prestige through wealth. The motives of accumulating food stuffs. The
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vilamalya (magic of plenty). The handling of yams. Psychology of eating. Value of manu- factured goods, psychologically analysed. V— Motives for exchange. Giving, as satisfaction of vanity and as display of power. Fallacy of the “economically isolated individual” or “ house- hold.”” Absence of. gain in exchange. VI— Exchange of gifts and barter. List of gifts, pay- ments and commercial transactions: 1. Pure gifts; 2. customary payments, repaid irregu- larly and without strict equivalents; 3. pay- ments for services rendered; 4. gifts returned in strictly equivalent form; 5. exchange of material goods against privileges, titles and non- material possessions ; 6. ceremonial barter with deferred payment; 7. trade pure and simple. VI—Economic duties corresponding to various social ties ; table of eight classes of social relation- ship, characterised by definite economic obliga- tions
VII THE DEPARTURE OF AN OVERSEAS EXPEDITION
Scene laid in Sinaketa. The local chiefs. Stir in the village. The social differentiation of the sailing party. Magical rites, associated with the preparing and loading of a canoe. The sulu- mwoya rite. The magical bundle (lilava). The compartments of a canoe and the gebobo spell. Farewells on the beach