Lagoon, facing these two villages. But the specimens found in Sanaroa are much better in colour, and I think more easily procured. The fishing in this latter locality, however, is done by the Sinaketans only.
Whether the fishing is done in their own Lagoon, near an uninhabited island called Nanoula, or in Sanaroa, it is always a big, ceremonial affair, in which the whole community takes part in a body. The magic, or at least 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.