II
Returning now to the Sinaketan fleet assembled at Muwa, as soon as they have arrived there, that is, some time about noon, they proceed to the ceremonial distribution. Although the toli’uvalaku is master of ceremonies, in this case he as a rule sits and watches the initial proceedings from a distance. A group of his relatives or friends of lesser rank busy themselves with the work. It might be better perhaps here to give a more concrete account, since it is always difficult to visualise exactly how such things will proceed.
This was brought home to me when in March, 1918, I assisted at these initial stages of the Kula in the Amphlett Islands. The natives had been preparing for days for departure, and on the final date, I spent the whole morning observing and photographing the loading and trimming of the canoes, the farewells, and the setting out of the fleet. In the evening, after a busy day, as it was a full-moon night, I went for a long pull in a dinghy. Although in the Trobriands I had had accounts of the custom of the first halt, yet it gave me a surprise when on rounding a rocky point I came upon the whole crowd of Gumasila natives, who had departed on the Kula that morning, sitting in full-moon light on a beach, only a few miles from the village which they had left with so much to-do some ten hours before. With the fairly strong wind that day, I was thinking of them as camping at least half way to the Trobriands, on one of the small sand banks some twenty miles North. I went and sat for a moment among the morose and unfriendly Amphlett Islanders, who, unlike the Trobrianders, distinctly resented the inquisitive and blighting presence of an Ethnographer.
To return to our Sinaketan party, we can imagine the chiefs sitting high up on the shore under the gnarled, broad-leafed branches of the shady trees. They might perhaps be resting in one group, each with a few attendants, or else every headman and chief near his own canoe, To’udawada silently chewing betel-nut, with a heavy and bovine dignity, the excitable Koutauya chattering in a high pitched voice with some of his grown-up sons, among whom there are two or three of the finest men in Sinaketa. Further on, with a smaller group of attendants, sits the infamous Sinakadi, in conference with his successor to chieftainship, his sister’s son, Gomaya, also a notorious scoundrel. On such occasions it is good form for chiefs not to busy themselves among the groups, nor to survey the proceedings, but to keep an aloof and detached attitude. In company with other notables, they discuss in the short, jerky sentences which make native languages so difficult to follow, the arrangements and prospects of the Kula, making now and then a mythological reference, forecasting the weather, and discussing the merits of the canoes.
In the meantime, the henchmen of the toli’uvalaku, his sons, his younger brothers, his relatives-in-law, prepare the distribution. As a rule, either To’udawada or Koutauya would be the toli’uvalaku. The one who at the given time has more wealth on hand and prospects of receiving more vaygu’a, would take over the dignity and the burdens. Sinakadi is much less wealthy, and probably it would be an exception for him and his predecessors and successors to play the part. The minor headmen of the other compound villages of Sinaketa would never fill the rôle.
Whoever is the master of the expedition for the time being will have brought over a couple of pigs, which will now be laid on the beach and admired by the members of the expedition. Soon some fires are lit, and the pigs, with a long pole thrust through their tied feet, are hung upside down over the fires. A dreadful squealing fills the air and delights the hearers. After the pig has been singed to death, or rather, into insensibility, it is taken off and cut open. Specialists cut it into appropriate parts, ready for the distribution. Yams, taro, coco-nuts and sugar cane have already been put into big heaps, as many as there are canoes—that