island of Kitava is the traditional building centre, and at present the finest canoes as well as the best canoe carvings come from there. In this description of canoes, this island, which really belongs to the Eastern rather than to the Western branch of the N. Massim, must be included in the account, since all Boyowan canoe mythology and canoe industry is associated with Kitava.
There are at present some sixty-four Masawa canoes in the Trobriands and Kitava. Out of these, some four belong to the Northern district, where Kula is not practised; all the rest are built and used for the Kula. In the foregoing chapters I have spoken about “Kula communities,” that is, such groups of villages as carry on the Kula as a whole, sail together on overseas expeditions, and do their internal Kula with one another. We shall group the canoes according to the Kula community to which they belong.
| Kiriwina | 8 | canoes. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luba | 3 | canoes. ,, | |
| Sinaketa | 8 | canoes. ,, | |
| Vakuta | 22 | canoes. ,, | |
| Kayleula | about | 20 | canoes. ,, |
| Kitava | about | 12 | canoes. ,, |
| Total for all Kula communities | 60 | canoes. |
To this number, the canoes of the Northern district must be added, but they are never used in the Kula. In olden days, this figure was, on a rough estimate, more than double of what it is now, because, first of all, there are some villages which had canoes in the old days and now have none, and then the number of villages which became extinct a few generations ago is considerable. About half a century ago, there were in Vakuta alone about sixty canoes, in Sinaketa at least twenty, in Kitava thirty, in Kiriwina twenty, and in Luba ten. When all the canoes from Sinaketa and Vakuta sailed south, and some twenty to thirty more joined them from the Amphletts and Tewara, quite a stately fleet would approach Dobu.
Turning now to the list of ownership in Kiriwina, the most important canoe is, of course, that owned by the chief of Omarakana.