part of it, is done for the whole community by the magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma), who also fixes the dates, and conducts the ceremonial part of the proceedings. As the spondylus shell furnishes one of the essential episodes of a Kula expedition, a detailed account both of fishing and of manufacturing must be here given. The native name, kaloma (in the Southern Massim districts the word sapi-sapi is used) describes both the shell and the manufactured discs. The shell is the large spondylus shell, containing a crystalline layer of a red colour, varying from dirty brick-red to a soft, raspberry pink, the latter being by far the most prized. It lives in the cavities of coral outcrop, scattered among shallow mud-bottomed lagoons.
This shell is, according to tradition, associated with the village of Sinaketa. According to a Sinaketan legend, once upon a time, three guya’u (chief) women, belonging to the Tabalu sub-clan of the Malasi clan, wandered along, each choosing her place to settle in. The eldest selected the village of Omarakana; the second went to Gumilababa; the youngest settled in Sinaketa. She had kaloma discs in her basket, and they were threaded on a long, thin stick, called viduna, such as is used in the final stage of manufacture. She remained first in a place called Kaybwa’u, but a dog howled, and she moved further on. She heard again a dog howling, and she took a kaboma (wooden plate) and went on to the fringing reef to collect shells. She found there the momoka (white spondylus), and she exclaimed: “Oh, this is the kaloma!” She looked closer, and said: “Oh no, you are not red. Your name is momoka.” She took then the stick with the kaloma discs and thrust it into a hole of the reef. It stood there, but when she looked at it, she said: “Oh, the people from inland would come and see you and pluck you off.” She went, she pulled out the stick; she went into a canoe, and she paddled. She paddled out into the sea. She anchored there, pulled the discs off the stick, and she threw them into the sea so that they might come into the coral outcrop. She said: “It is forbidden that the inland natives should take the valuables. The people of Sinaketa only must dive.” Thus only the Sinaketa people know the magic, and how to dive.
This myth presents certain remarkable characteristics. I shall not enter into its sociology, though it differs in that respect from the Kiriwinian myths, in which the equality of the Sinaketan and the Gumilababan chiefs with those of Omarakana is not acknowledged. It is characteristic that the Malasi woman in this myth shows an aversion to the dog, the totem animal of the Lukuba clan, a clan which according to mythical and historical data had to recede before and yield its priority to the Malasi (compare Chapter XII, Division IV). Another detail of interest is that she brings the kaloma on their sticks, as they appear in the final stage of manufacturing. In this form, also, she tries to plant them on the reef. The finished kaloma, however, to use the words of one of my informants, “looked at her, the water swinging it to and fro; flashing its red eyes.” And the woman, seeing it, pulls out the too accessible and too inviting kaloma and scatters them over the deep sea. Thus she makes them inaccessible to the uninitiated inland villagers, and monopolises them for Sinaketa. There can be no doubt that the villages of Vakuta have learnt this industry from the Sinaketans. The myth is hardly known in Vakuta, only a few are experts in diving and manufacturing; there is a tradition about a late transference of this industry there; finally the Vakutans have never fished for kaloma in the Sanaroa Lagoon.
Now let us describe the technicalities and the ceremonial connected with the fishing for kaloma. It will be better to give an account of how this is done in the Lagoon of Sinaketa, round the sandbank of Nanoula, as this is the normal and typical form of kaloma fishing. Moreover, when the Sinaketans do it in Sanaroa, the proceedings are very much the same, with just one or two phases missed out.
The office of magician of the kaloma ( towosina kaloma ) is hereditary in two sub-clans, belonging to the Malasi clan, and one of them is that of the main chief of Kasi’etana. After the Monsoon season is over, that is,