THE JOURNEY HOME--THE FISHING AND WORKING OF THE KALOMA SHELL
I
The return journey of the Sinaketan fleet is made by following exactly
the same route as the one by which they came to Dobu. In each inhabited
island, in every village, where a halt had previously been made,
they stop again, for a day or a few hours. In the hamlets of Sanaroa,
in Tewara and in the Amphletts, the partners are revisited. Some
Kula valuables are received on the way back, and all the talo'i
gifts from those intermediate partners are also collected on the
return journey. In each of these villages people are eager to hear
about the reception which the uvalaku party have received in Dobu;
the yield in valuables is discussed, and comparisons are drawn between
the present occasion and previous records.
No magic is performed now, no ceremonial takes place, and there
would be very little indeed to say about the return journey but for
two important incidents; the fishing for spondylus shell (kaloma)
in Sanaroa Lagoon, and the display and comparison of the yield of
Kula valuables on Muwa beach.
The natives of Sinaketa, as we have seen in the last chapter, acquire
a certain amount of the Koya produce by means of trade. There are,
however, certain articles, useful yet unobtainable in the Trobriands,
and freely accessible in the Koya, and to these the Trobrianders
help themselves. The glassy forms of lava, known as obsidian, can be
found in great quantities over the slopes of the hills in Sanaroa
and Dobu. This article, in olden days, served the Trobrianders
as material for razors, scrapers, and sharp, delicate, cutting
instruments. Pumice-stone abounding in this district is collected
and carried to the Trobriands, where it is used for polishing. Red
ochre is also procured there by the visitors, and so are the hard,
basaltic stones (binabina) used for hammering and pounding and for
magical purposes. Finally, very fine silica sand, called maya, is
collected on some of the beaches, and imported into the Trobriands,
where it is used for polishing stone blades, of the kind which serve
as tokens of value and which are manufactured up to the present day.
II
But by far the most important of the articles which the Trobrianders
collect for themselves are the spondylus shells. These are freely,
though by no means easily, accessible in the coral outcrops of Sanaroa
Lagoon. It is from this shell that the small circular perforated
discs (kaloma) are made, out of which the necklaces of the Kula
are composed, and which also serve for ornamenting almost all the
articles of value or of artistic finish which are used within the
Kula district. But, only in two localities within the district are
these discs manufactured, in Sinaketa and in Vakuta, both villages in
Southern Boyowa. The shell can be found also in the Trobriand Lagoon,
facing these two villages. But the specimens found in Sanaroa are
much better in colour, and I think more easily procured. The fishing
in this latter locality, however, is done by the Sinaketans only.
Whether the fishing is done in their own Lagoon, near an uninhabited
island called Nanoula, or in Sanaroa, it is always a big, ceremonial
affair, in which the whole community takes part in a body. The
magic, or at least part of it, is done for the whole community by
the magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma), who also fixes the
dates, and conducts the ceremonial part of the proceedings. As the
spondylus shell furnishes one of the essential episodes of a Kula
expedition, a detailed account both of fishing and of manufacturing
must be here given. The native name, kaloma (in the Southern Massim
districts the word sapi-sapi is used) describes both the shell and
the manufactured discs. The shell is the large spondylus shell,
containing a crystalline layer of a red colour, varying from dirty
brick-red to a soft, raspberry pink, the latter being by far the most
prized. It lives in the cavities of coral outcrop, scattered among
shallow mud-bottomed lagoons.
This shell is, according to tradition, associated with the village
of Sinaketa. According to a Sinaketan legend, once upon a time, three
guya'u (chief) women, belonging to the Tabalu sub-clan of the Malasi
clan, wandered along, each choosing her place to settle in. The eldest
selected the village of Omarakana; the second went to Gumilababa;
the youngest settled in Sinaketa. She had kaloma discs in her basket,
and they were threaded on a long, thin stick, called viduna, such
as is used in the final stage of manufacture. She remained first
in a place called Kaybwa'u, but a dog howled, and she moved further
on. She heard again a dog howling, and she took a kaboma (wooden plate)
and went on to the fringing reef to collect shells. She found there
the momoka (white spondylus), and she exclaimed: "Oh, this is the
kaloma!" She looked closer, and said: "Oh no, you are not red. Your
name is momoka." She took then the stick with the kaloma discs and
thrust it into a hole of the reef. It stood there, but when she looked
at it, she said: "Oh, the people from inland would come and see you
and pluck you off." She went, she pulled out the stick; she went into
a canoe, and she paddled. She paddled out into the sea. She anchored
there, pulled the discs off the stick, and she threw them into the
sea so that they might come into the coral outcrop. She said: "It
is forbidden that the inland natives should take the valuables. The
people of Sinaketa only must dive." Thus only the Sinaketa people
know the magic, and how to dive.
This myth presents certain remarkable characteristics. I shall not
enter into its sociology, though it differs in that respect from
the Kiriwinian myths, in which the equality of the Sinaketan and the
Gumilababan chiefs with those of Omarakana is not acknowledged. It is
characteristic that the Malasi woman in this myth shows an aversion to
the dog, the totem animal of the Lukuba clan, a clan which according
to mythical and historical data had to recede before and yield its
priority to the Malasi (compare Chapter XII, Division IV). Another
detail of interest is that she brings the kaloma on their sticks,
as they appear in the final stage of manufacturing. In this form,
also, she tries to plant them on the reef. The finished kaloma,
however, to use the words of one of my informants, "looked at her,
the water swinging it to and fro; flashing its red eyes." And the
woman, seeing it, pulls out the too accessible and too inviting
kaloma and scatters them over the deep sea. Thus she makes them
inaccessible to the uninitiated inland villagers, and monopolises them
for Sinaketa. There can be no doubt that the villages of Vakuta have
learnt this industry from the Sinaketans. The myth is hardly known in
Vakuta, only a few are experts in diving and manufacturing; there is
a tradition about a late transference of this industry there; finally
the Vakutans have never fished for kaloma in the Sanaroa Lagoon.
Now let us describe the technicalities and the ceremonial connected
with the fishing for kaloma. It will be better to give an account
of how this is done in the Lagoon of Sinaketa, round the sandbank
of Nanoula, as this is the normal and typical form of kaloma
fishing. Moreover, when the Sinaketans do it in Sanaroa, the
proceedings are very much the same, with just one or two phases
missed out.
The office of magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma) is hereditary in
two sub-clans, belonging to the Malasi clan, and one of them is that
of the main chief of Kasi'etana. After the Monsoon season is over,
that is, some time in March or April, ogibukuvi (i.e., in the season
of the new yams) the magician gives the order for preparations. The
community give him a gift called sousula, one or two bringing a
vaygu'a, the rest supplying gugu'a (ordinary chattels), and some
food. Then they prepare the canoes, and get ready the binabina stones,
with which the spondylus shell will be knocked off the reef.
Next day, in the morning, the magician performs a rite called
'kaykwa'una la'i,' 'the attracting of the reef,' for, as in the
case of several other marine beings, the main seat of the kaloma is
far away. Its dwelling place is the reef Ketabu, somewhere between
Sanaroa and Dobu. In order to make it move and come towards Nanoula,
it is necessary to recite the above-named spell. This is done by the
magician as he walks up and down on the Sinaketa beach and casts
his words into the open, over the sea, towards the distant seat
of the kaloma. The kaloma then 'stand up' (itolise) that is start
from their original coral outcrop (vatu) and come into the Lagoon of
Sinaketa. This spell, I obtained from To'udavada, the present chief
of Kasi'etana, and descendant of the original giver of this shell,
the woman of the myth. It begins with a long list of ancestral names;
then follows a boastful picture of how the whole fleet admires the
magical success of the magician's spell. The key-word in the main part
is the word 'itolo': 'it stands up,' i.e., 'it starts,' and with this,
there are enumerated all the various classes of the kaloma shell,
differentiated according to size, colour and quality. It ends up with
another boast; "My canoe is overloaded with shell so that it sinks,"
which is repeated with varying phraseology.
This spell the magician may utter once only, or he may repeat it
several times on successive days. He fixes then the final date for the
fishing expedition. On the evening before that date, the men perform
some private magic, every one in his own house. The hammering stone,
the gabila, which is always a binabina (it is a stone imported from
the Koya), is charmed over. As a rule it is put on a piece of dried
banana leaf with some red hibiscus blossoms and leaves or flowers
of red colour. A formula is uttered over it, and the whole is then
wrapped up in the banana leaf and kept there until it is used. This
will make the stone a lucky one in hitting off many shells, and it
will make the shells very red.
Another rite of private magic consists in charming a large mussel
shell, with which, on the next morning, the body of the canoe will
be scraped. This makes the sea clear, so that the diver may easily
see and frequently find his spondylus shells.
Next morning the whole fleet starts on the expedition. Some food has
been taken into the canoes, as the fishing usually lasts for a few
days, the nights being spent on the beach of Nanoula. When the canoes
arrive at a certain point, about half-way between Sinaketa and Nanoula,
they all range themselves in a row. The canoe of the magician is at the
right flank, and he medicates a bunch of red hibiscus flowers, some
red croton leaves, and the leaves of the red-blossomed mangrove--red
coloured substances being used to make the shell red, magically. Then,
passing in front of all the other canoes, he rubs their prows with
the bundle of leaves. After that, the canoes at both ends of the
row begin to punt along, the row evolving into a circle, through
which presently the canoe of the magician passes, punting along its
diameter. At this place in the Lagoon, there is a small vatu (coral
outcrop) called Vitukwayla'i. This is called the vatu of the baloma
(spirits). At this vatu the magician's canoe stops, and he orders some
of its crew to dive down and here to begin the gathering of shells.
Some more private magic is performed later on by each canoe on its own
account. The anchor stone is charmed with some red hibiscus flowers,
in order to make the spondylus shell red. There is another private
magic called 'sweeping of the sea,' which, like the magic of the mussel
shell, mentioned above, makes the sea clear and transparent. Finally,
there is an evil magic called 'besprinkling with salt water.' If a
man does it over the others, he will annul the effects of their magic,
and frustrate their efforts, while he himself would arouse astonishment
and suspicion by the amount of shell collected. Such a man would dive
down into the water, take some brine into his mouth, and emerging,
spray it towards the other canoes, while he utters the evil charm.
So much for the magic and the ceremonial associated with the
spondylus fishing in the Trobriand Lagoon. In Sanaroa, exactly the
same proceedings take place, except that there is no attracting of
the reef, probably because they are already at the original seat
of the kaloma. Again I was told that some of the private magic
would be performed in Sinaketa before the fleet sailed on the Kula
expedition. The objects medicated would be then kept, well wrapped
in dried leaves.
It may be added that neither in the one Lagoon nor in the other are
there any private, proprietary rights to coral outcrops. The whole
community of Sinaketa have their fishing grounds in the Lagoon,
within which every man may hunt for his spondylus shell, and catch
his fish at times. If the other spondylus fishing community, the
Vakutans, encroached upon their grounds, there would be trouble,
and in olden days, fighting. Private ownership in coral outcrops
exists in the Northern villages of the Lagoon, that is in Kavataria,
and the villages on the island of Kayleula.
III
We must now follow the later stages of the kaloma industry. The
technology of the proceedings is so mixed up with remarkable
sociological and economic arrangements that it will be better to
indicate it first in its main outlines. The spondylus consists of a
shell, the size and shape of a hollowed out half of a pear, and of a
flat, small lid. It is only the first part which is worked. First
it has to be broken into pieces with a binabina or an utukema
(green stone imported from Woodlark Island) as shown on Plate L
(A). On each piece, then, can be seen the stratification of the
shell: the outside layer of soft, chalky substance; under this, the
layer of red, hard, calcareous material, and then the inmost, white,
crystalline stratum. Both the outside and inside have to be rubbed
off, but first each piece has to be roughly rounded up, so as to form
a thick circular lump. Such a lump (see foregrounds of Plates L (A),
L (B)) is then put in the hole of a cylindrical piece of wood. This
latter serves as a handle with which the lumps are rubbed on a piece
of flat sandstone (see Plate L (B)). The rubbing is carried on so far
till the outside and inside layers are gone, and there remains only a
red, flat tablet, polished on both sides. In the middle of it, a hole
is drilled through by means of a pump drill--gigi'u--(see Plate LI),
and a number of such perforated discs are then threaded on a thin,
but tough stick (see Plate LII), with which we have already met in
the myth. Then the cylindrical roll is rubbed round and round on
the flat sandstone, until its form becomes perfectly symmetrical
(see Plate LII). Thus a number of flat, circular discs, polished
all round and perforated in the middle, are produced. The breaking
and the drilling, like the diving are done exclusively by men. The
polishing is as a rule woman's work.
This technology is associated with an interesting sociological relation
between the maker and the man for whom the article is made. As has
been stated in Chapter II, one of the main features of the Trobriand
organisation consists of the mutual duties between a man and his
wife's maternal kinsmen. They have to supply him regularly with yams
at harvest time, while he gives them the present of a valuable now and
then. The manufacture of kaloma valuables in Sinaketa is very often
associated with this relationship. The Sinaketan manufacturer makes his
kutadababile (necklace of large beads) for one of his relatives-in-law,
while this latter pays him in food. In accordance with this custom, it
happens very frequently that a Sinaketan man marries a woman from one
of the agricultural inland villages, or even a woman of Kiriwina. Of
course, if he has no relatives-in-law in one of these villages, he
will have friends or distant relatives, and he will make the string
for one or the other of them. Or else he will produce one for himself,
and launch it into the Kula. But the most typical and interesting
case is, when the necklace is produced to order for a man who repays
it according to a remarkable economic system, a system similar to
the payments in instalments, which I have mentioned with regard to
canoe making. I shall give here, following closely the native text,
a translation of an account of the payments for kaloma making.
ACCOUNT OF THE KALOMA MAKING
Supposing some man from inland lives in Kiriwina or in Luba
or in one of the villages nearby; he wants a katudababile. He
would request an expert fisherman who knows how to dive for
kaloma. This man agrees; he dives, he dives ... till it is
sufficient; his vataga (large folding basket) is already full,
this man (the inlander) hears the rumour; he, the master of the
kaloma (that is, the man for whom the necklace will be made) says:
"Good! I shall just have a look!" He would come, he would see,
he would not give any vakapula payment. He (here the Sinaketan
diver is meant) would say: "Go, tomorrow, I shall break the shell,
come here, give me vakapula." Next day, he (the inlander) would
cook food, he would bring, he would give vakapula; he (the diver)
would break the shell. Next day, the same. He (the inlander) would
give the vakapula, he (the diver) would break the shell. Supposing
the breaking is already finished, he (the diver) would say:
"Good! already the breaking is finished, I shall polish." Next
day, he (the inlander) would cook food, would bring bananas,
coco-nut, betel-nut, sugar cane, would give it as vakapula;
this man (the diver) polishes. The polishing already finished,
he would speak: "Good! To-morrow I shall drill." This man (the
inlander) would bring food, bananas, coco-nuts, sugar cane,
he would give it as vakapula: it would be abundant, for soon
already the necklace will be finished. The same, he would give a
big vakapula on the occasion of the rounding up of the cylinder,
for soon everything will be finished. When finished, we thread it
on a string, we wash it. (Note the change from the third singular
into the first plural). We give it to our wife, we blow the conch
shell; she would go, she would carry his valuable to this man,
our relative-in-law. Next day, he would yomelu; he would catch
a pig, he would break off a bunch of betel-nut, he would cut
sugar cane, bananas, he would fill the baskets with food, and
spike the coco-nut on a multi-forked piece of wood. By-and-by
he would bring it. Our house would be filled up. Later on we
would make a distribution of the bananas, of the sugar cane, of
the betel-nut. We give it to our helpers. We sit, we sit (i.e.,
we wait); at harvest time he brings yams, he karibudaboda (he
gives the payment of that name), the necklace. He would bring
the food and fill out our yam house.
This narrative, like many pieces of native information, needs certain
corrections of perspective. In the first place, events here succeed one
another with a rapidity quite foreign to the extremely leisurely way in
which natives usually accomplish such a lengthy process as the making
of a katudababile. The amount of food which, in the usual manner,
is enumerated over and over again in this narrative would probably
not be exaggerated, for--such is native economy--a man who makes a
necklace to order would get about twice as much or even more for it
than it would fetch in any other transaction. On the other hand,
it must be remembered that what is represented here as the final
payment, the karibudaboda, is nothing else but the normal filling up
of the yam house, always done by a man's relations-in-law. None the
less, in a year in which a katudababile would be made, the ordinary
yearly harvest gift would be styled the 'karibudaboda payment for
the necklace.' The giving of the necklace to the wife, who afterwards
carries it to her brother or kinsman, is also characteristic of the
relation between relatives-in-law.
In Sinaketa and Vakuta only the necklaces made of bigger shell and
tapering towards the end are made. The real Kula article, in which
the discs are much thinner, smaller in diameter and even in size from
one end of the necklace to the other, these were introduced into the
Kula at other points, and I shall speak about this subject in one
of the following chapters (Chapter XXI), where the other branches of
the Kula are described.
IV
Now, having come to an end of this digression on kaloma, let us return
for another short while to our Sinaketan party, whom we have left
on the Lagoon of Sanaroa. Having obtained a sufficient amount of the
shells, they set sail, and re-visiting Tewara and Gumasila, stopping
perhaps for a night on one of the sandbanks of Pilolu, they arrive at
last in their home Lagoon. But before rejoining their people in their
villages, they stop for the last halt on Muwa. Here they make what is
called tanarere, a comparison and display of the valuables obtained
on this trip. From each canoe, a mat or two are spread on the sand
beach, and the men put their necklaces on the mat. Thus a long row of
valuables lies on the beach, and the members of the expedition walk
up and down, admire, and count them. The chiefs would, of course,
have always the greatest haul, more especially the one who has been
the toli'uvalaku on that expedition.
After this is over, they return to the village. Each canoe blows its
conch shell, a blast for each valuable that it contains. When a canoe
has obtained no vaygu'a at all, this means great shame and distress
for its members, and especially for the toliwaga. Such a canoe is
said to bisikureya, which means literally 'to keep a fast.'
On the beach all the villagers are astir. The women, who have put on
their new grass petticoats (sevata'i) specially made for this occasion,
enter the water and approach the canoes to unload them. No special
greetings pass between them and their husbands. They are interested
in the food brought from Dobu, more especially in the sago.
People from other villages assemble also in great numbers to greet the
incoming party. Those who have supplied their friends or relatives
with provisions for their journey, receive now sago, betel-nuts and
coco-nuts in repayment. Some of the welcoming crowd have come in order
to make Kula. Even from the distant districts of Luba and Kiriwina
natives will travel to Sinaketa, having a fair idea of the date of
the arrival of the Kula party from Dobu. The expedition will be talked
over, the yield counted, the recent history of the important valuables
described. But this stage leads us already into the subject of inland
Kula, which will form the subject of one of the following chapters.