Without any preliminary welcoming ceremony or formal reception, the Sinaketan guests now leave their canoes and disperse among the villagers, settle down in groups near the houses of their friends, and engage in betel chewing and conversations. They speak in Kiriwinian, a language which is universally known in the Amphletts.
Almost as soon as they go ashore, they give to their partners presents of pari (opening gift), some small object, such as a comb, a lime pot, or a lime stick. After that, they await some Kula gifts to be given them.
The most important headman will offer such a gift first to Kouta’uya, or To’udawada, whichever of them is the toli’uvalaku of the occasion. The soft, penetrating sound of a conch-shell soon announces that the first gift has been given. Other blasts of conch-shells follow, and the Kula is in full swing.
But here again, what happens in the Amphletts, is only a minor interlude to the Sinaketan adventurers, bent on the bigger goal in Dobu. And in order for us to remain in harmony with the native perspective we shall also wait for the detailed and circumstantial description of the Kula proceedings till we arrive on the beach of Tu’utauna, in Dobu.
The concrete account of how such a visiting fleet is received and behaves on arrival will be given, when I describe a scene I saw with my own eyes in the village of Nabwageta, another Amphlett island, when sixty Dobuan canoes arrived there on their uvalaku, en route for Boyowa.
To give a definite idea of the conversations which take place between the visitors and the Amphlettans, I shall give a sample noted down, during a visit of some Trobrianders to Nu’agasi, the smaller village of Gumasila. A few canoes had arrived a day or two before, in the neighbouring island, Nabwageta, coming from the small Western islands of the Trobriands on a Kula.