It seems absurd, from the rational point of view, that the natives, who know that they are expected, indeed, who have been invited to come, should yet feel uncertain about the good will of their partners, with whom they have so often traded, whom they have received in visit, and themselves visited and re-visited again and again.
Coming on a customary and peaceful errand, why should they have any apprehensions of danger, and develop a special magical apparatus to meet the natives of Dobu?
This is a logical way of reasoning, but custom is not logical, and the emotional attitude of man has a greater sway over custom than has reason.
The main attitude of a native to other, alien groups is that of hostility and mistrust.
The fact that to a native every stranger is an enemy, is an ethnographic feature reported from all parts of the world.
The Trobriander is not an exception in this respect, and beyond his own, narrow social horizon, a wall of suspicion, misunderstanding and latent enmity divides him from even near neighbours.
The Kula breaks it through at definite geographical points, and by means of special customary transactions.
But, like everything extraordinary and exceptional, this waiving of the general taboo on strangers must be justified and bridged over by magic.
Indeed, the customary behaviour of the Dobuans and of the visitors expresses this state of affairs with singular accuracy. It is the customary rule that the Trobrianders should be received first with a show of hostility and fierceness; treated almost as intruders. But this attitude entirely subsides after the visitors have ritually spat over the village on their arrival. The natives express their ideas on this subject very characteristically:
“The Dobu man is not good as we are. He is fierce, he is a man-eater! When we come to Dobu, we fear him, he might kill us. But see! I spit the charmed ginger root, and their mind turns. They lay down their spears, they receive us well.”
III
This show of hostility is fixed into a definite ceremonial attitude when the Dobuan village, which consists of a collection of hamlets, has been laid under a taboo. On the death of a man of importance in any of the hamlets, the whole community undergoes the so called gwara taboo. The coco-nut and betel-nut palms around and within the village are not allowed to be scaled, and the fruit must not be touched by the Dobuans themselves, and still less by strangers. This state of affairs lasts a varying length of time, according to the importance of the dead man, and to other circumstances.