was going to make of it. Tolikilaki asked again; Torosipupu refused. They quarrelled. Tolikilaki then took part of the clay with him, and went to Yayawana on the main island. Torosipupu afterwards took the rest and followed him. What were their further destinies, the legend does not say. But on Gumasila there remained only very poor clay, which is all that can be found there ever since.
Since then, the men have to go about twice yearly to Yayawana in order to bring the clay from which the women afterwards will manufacture the pots. It takes them about a day to reach Yayawana, to which, as it lies to the South-West, they can travel with any of the prevailing winds and return equally well. They remain for a couple of days there, digging the clay, drying it and filling a few vataga baskets with it. I estimate that each canoe carries about two ton weight on its return journey. This will last the women for half a year’s production. The pale, straw-coloured clay is kept under the houses in big troughs made of sides of discarded canoes.
In olden days, before the white man’s advent, the conditions were a little more complicated. Only one island, Kwatouto, being on friendly terms with the natives had the freedom of the Northern shore. Whether the other islands used also to fetch the clay from there, doing so armed and ready for attack; or whether they used to acquire the clay by barter from Kwatouto, I could not definitely establish. The information one receives in the Amphletts is exceedingly unsatisfactory, and my several informants gave contradictory accounts on this point. The fact seems clear, in my case, that Kwatouto, then as now, was the source of the best pottery, but that both Gumasila and Nabwageta also always manufactured pots, though perhaps inferior ones. The fourth island, Domdom, never participated in this trade, and up to the present there is not a single woman in Domdom who can shape a pot.
