Turning now to the list of ownership in Kiriwina, the most important canoe is, of course, that owned by the chief of Omarakana. This canoe always leads the fleet; that is to say, on big ceremonial Kula sailings, called uvalaku, it has the privileged position. It lives in a big shed on the beach of Kaulukuba (see Plates XXII, XXX), distant about one mile from the village, the beach on which also each new canoe is made. The present canoe (see Plates XXI and XLI) is called Nigada Bu’a—“begging for an areca-nut.” Every canoe has a personal name of its own, sometimes just an appropriate expression, like the one quoted, sometimes derived from some special incident. When a new canoe is built, it often inherits the name of its predecessor, but sometimes it gets a new name. The present Omarakana canoe was constructed by a master-builder from Kitava, who also carved the ornamental prow-board. There is no one now in Omarakana who can build or carve properly. The magic over the latter stages ought to have been recited by the present chief, To’uluwa, but as he has very little capacity for remembering spells, the magic was performed by one of his kinsmen.
All the other canoes of Kiriwina are also housed in hangars, each on a beach of clean, white sand on the Eastern coast. The chief or headman of each village is the toliwaga. In Kasana’i, the sub-village of Omarakana, the canoe, called in feigned modesty tokwabu (something like “landlubber”), was built by Ibena, a chief of equal rank, but smaller power than To’uluwa, and he is also the toliwaga. Some other characteristic names of the canoes are:—Kuyamataym’—“Take care of yourself,” that is, “because I shall get ahead of you”; the canoe of Liluta, called Siya’i, which is the name of a Government station, where some people from Liluta were once imprisoned; Topusa—a flying fish; Yagwa’u—a scarecrow; Akamta’u—“I shall eat men,” because the canoe was a gift from the cannibals of Dobu.
In the district of Luba there are at present only three canoes; one belongs to the chief of highest rank in the village of Olivilevi. This is the biggest canoe in all the Trobriands. Two are in the village of Wawela, and belong to two headmen, each ruling over a section of the village; one of them is seen being relashed on Plate XXVII.
The big settlement of Sinaketa, consisting of sectional villages, has also canoes. There are about four expert builders and carvers, and almost every man there knows a good deal about construction. In Vakuta the experts are even more numerous, and this is also the case in Kayleula and Kitava.