IV
Let us now move North, towards the district marked “IV, the Dobu,” in our map, which forms one of the most important links in the chain of Kula and a very influential centre of cultural influence. As we sail North, passing East Cape, the Easternmost point of the main island—a long, flat promontory covered with palms and fruit belts, and harbouring a very dense population—a new world, new both geographically and ethnographically, opens up before us. At first it is only a faint, bluish silhouette, like a shadow of a distant mountain range, hovering far north over the horizon. As we approach, the hills of Normanby, the nearest of three big islands of the d’Entrecasteaux Archipelago, become clearer and take more definite shape and substance. A few high summits stand out more distinctly through the usual tropical haze, among them the characteristic double-peaked top of Bwebweso, the mountain where, according to native legend, the spirits of the dead in these parts lead their latter existence. The South Coast of Normanby, and the interior are inhabited by a tribe or tribes of which we know nothing ethnographically, except that they differ culturally from the rest of their neighbours. These tribes also take no direct part in the Kula.
The Northern end of Normanby, both sides of the Dawson Straits which separate the two islands of Normanby and Fergusson, and the South-eastern tip of Fergusson, are inhabited by a very important tribe, the Dobu. The heart of their district is the small extinct volcano forming an island at the Eastern entrance to Dawson Straits—Dobu, after which island they are named. To reach it, we have to sail through this extremely picturesque channel. On either side of the winding, narrow strait, green hills descend, and close it in, till it is more like a mountain lake. Here and there they recede, and a lagoon opens out. Or again they rise in fairly steep slopes, on which there can be plainly seen triangular gardens, native houses on piles, large tracts of unbroken jungle and patches of grass land. As we proceed, the narrow straits broaden, and we see on our right a wide flank of Mt. Sulomona’i on Normanby Island. On our left, there is a shallow bay, and behind it a large, flat plain, stretching far into the interior of Fergusson Island, and over it, we look into wide valleys, and on to several distant mountain ranges. After another turn, we enter a big bay, on both sides bordered by a flat foreshore, and in the middle of it rises out of a girdle of tropical vegetation, the creased cone of an extinct volcano, the island of