whom they had hereditary feuds. The general tension would often be broken by squabbles or even miniature fights, especially at the moment of dispersing, and on the way home.
One of the important features of the performance, and the one of which the natives think perhaps most—the display of food—would also have been quite different. The chief whom I saw sitting on a platform surrounded by a few wives only, and with small attendance would, under the old conditions, have been the owner of thrice as many wives and consequently relatives-in-law, and as it is these from whom he derives most of his income, he would have provided a much bigger sagali than he is able to do nowadays.
Three generations ago the whole event would have been much more solemn and dramatic to the natives. The very distance to the neighbouring island of Kitava is nowadays dwarfed. In the past, it would not, as now, be quickly obliterated by a white man’s steam-launch. Then, the canoes on the beach were the only means of arriving there, and their value in the eyes of the natives must have, therefore, been even higher, although they think so much of them now. The outlines of the distant island and the small fleet of canoes on the beach formed for the natives the first act of a big over seas expedition, an event of far deeper significance to them then than now. A rich haul of arm-shells, the arrival of many much-coveted utilities, the bringing back of news from the far-off land, all this meant much more in older days than it can mean at present. War, dancing, and the Kula supplied tribal life with its romantic and heroic elements. Nowadays, with war prohibited by the Government, with dancing discredited by missionary influence, the Kula alone remains, and even that is stripped of some of its glamour.
II
Before we proceed to the next stage, we must pause in following the events of a Kula expedition, and consider one or two points of more general importance. I have touched in the narrative, but not dwelt upon, certain problems of the sociology of work. At the outset of the preceding chapter it was mentioned that canoe-building requires a definite organisation of work, and in fact we saw that in the course of construction, various kinds of labour were employed, and more especially towards the end, much use was made of communal labour. Again, we saw that during the launching ceremony payment was given by the owner to the expert and his helpers. These two points therefore, the organisation of labour and communal labour in particular, and the system of payment for experts’ work must be here developed.
Organisation of Labour.—First of all, it is important to realise that a Kiriwinian is capable of working well, efficiently and in a continuous manner. But he must work under an effective incentive: he must be prompted by some duty imposed by tribal standards, or he must be lured by ambitions and values also dictated by custom and tradition. Gain, such as is often the stimulus for work in more civilised communities, never acts as an impulse to work under the original native conditions. It succeeds very badly, therefore, when a white man tries to use this incentive to make a native