Only after the gwara has run out its course, and is ripe for expiring, do the Kiriwinians dare to come on a visit to Dobu, having been advised beforehand of the circumstance. But then, when they arrive, the Dobuans put up a show of real hostility, for the visitors will have to break the taboo, they will have to scale the palms, and take the forbidden fruit. This is in accordance with a wide-spread Papuo-Melanesian type of custom of finishing tabooed periods: in all cases, someone else, who is not under the taboo, has to put an end to it, or to force the imposer of the taboo to break it. And in all cases, there is some show of violence and struggle on the part of the one who has to allow it to be broken. In this case, as the Kiriwinian natives put it:
“Supposing we do not perform the *ka’ubana’i* (safety magic), we are afraid, when there is a *gwara* in Dobu. The Dobuans put on war paint, take spear in hand, and a *puluta* (sword club); they sit and look at us. We run into the village; we climb the tree. He runs at us ‘Don’t climb,’ he cries. Then we spit *leyya* (ginger root) at him. He throws down his spear, he goes back and smiles. The women take the spears away. We spit all around the village. Then he is pleased. He speaks: ‘You climb your coco-nut, your betel-nut; cut your bananas.’ ”
Thus the taboo is broken, the gwara is finished, and the customary and histrionic moment of tension is over, which must have been none the less a strain on the nerves of both parties.
This is the lengthy formula which a toliwaga utters over several bits of ginger root, which are afterwards distributed among his crew, each of whom carries a piece when getting ashore.