Sail-making is done on another day, usually in the village, by communal labour, and, with a number of people helping, the tedious and complicated work is performed in a relatively short time. The triangular outline of the sail is first pegged out on the ground, as a rule the old sail being used as a pattern. After this is done, tapes of dried pandanus leaf (see Plates XXVIII, XXIX) are stretched on the ground and first fixed along the borders of the sail. Then, starting at the apex of the triangle, the sail-makers put tapes radiating towards the base, sewing them together with awls of flying fox bone, and using as thread narrow strips of specially toughened pandanus leaf. Two layers of tapes are sewn one on top of the other to make a solid fabric.
IV
The canoe is now quite ready to be launched. But before we go on to an account of the ceremonial launching and the associated festivities, one or two general remarks must be made retrospectively about the proceedings just described.
The whole of the first stage of canoe-building, that is, the cutting of the tree, the scooping out of the log, and the preparation of the other component parts, with all their associated magic, is done only when a new canoe is built.
But the second stage has to be performed over all the canoes before every great overseas Kula expedition. On such an occasion, all the canoes have to be re-lashed, re-caulked, and re-painted. This obviously requires that they should all be taken to pieces and then lashed, caulked and painted exactly as is done with a new canoe. All the magic incidental to these three processes is then performed, in its due order, over the renovated canoe. So that we can say about the second stage of canoe-building that not only is it always performed in association with the Kula, but that no big expedition ever takes place without it.
We have had a description of the magical rites, and the ideas which are implied in every one of them have been specified. But there are one or two more general characteristics which must be mentioned here. First, there is what could be called the “ceremonial dimension” of magical rites. That is, how far is the performance of the rite attended by the members of the community, if at all; and if so, do they actively take part in it, or do they simply pay keen attention and behave as an interested audience; or, though being present, do they pay little heed and show only small interest?
In the first stage of canoe-building, the rites are performed by the magician himself, with only a few helpers in attendance. The general village public do not feel sufficiently interested and attracted to assist, nor are they bound by custom to do so. The general character of these rites is more like the performance of a technicality of work than of a ceremony. The preparing of herbs for the ligogu magic, for instance, and the charming it over, is carried out in a matter-of-fact, businesslike manner, and nothing in the behaviour of the magician and those casually grouped around him would indicate that anything specially interesting in the routine work is happening.
The rites of the second stage are ipso facto attended by all those who help in piecing together and lashing, but on the whole those present have no special task assigned to them in the performance of these rites. As to the attention and behaviour during the performance of the magic, much depends of course on whether the magician officiating is a chief of great importance or someone of low rank. A certain decorum and even silence would be observed in any case. But many of those present would turn aside and go away, if they