other canoes which will be outrun by that of the reciter. Both these words, therefore, can be placed without much difficulty into the context of this spell. It is quite clear, as has been said, that each of these expressions stands alone and represents a self-contained cycle of ideas. The two expressions of sentence 1 probably do belong to one another, but even they represent each one-half of a complex story.
Then, in 3, there comes a long list of names of ancestors, all of whom are said to be real men who had lived in Kitava, the home of this magic. The words kwaysa’i, ‘stormy sea,’ and pulupolu, ‘boiling up,’ ‘foaming up,’ suggest that the names are significant and therefore mythical. Nawabudoga, a Kitavan man, was father of the last-mentioned one, Mogilawota, a maternal relative of the present owner. We see here, therefore, a good case of ‘magical filiation,’ by which the present owner, a man of Sinaketa, is connected with the mythical district of Kitava.
The following two sentences, 4 and 5, are linguistically much clearer and simpler, and they present connected sequences of words. They are an invocation to ancestral spirits, asking them to join the magician at the canoe, which is called here Kaykudayuri, ‘the craft of the Kudayuri,’ and to place the pandanus streamers on the top of Teulo. This, in an exaggerated and figurative speech, expresses an invitation to the spirits to follow the man on his trip. It must be noted that, according to the present belief at least, the spirits are not conceived as agents or forces which carry the canoe at the behest of the magician, but as passive companions only. Sentence 6 contains a scornful address to his companions; the magician in prospect sees himself sailing ahead towards the mountains; as he turns round, the Kitava men, that is his companions, are far behind on the beach of To’uru, and the whole sea-arm of Pilolu still lies before them.
In 7, the same trend of ideas is followed; the custom of kindling the fire by the first canoe is alluded to, and the magician sees himself carrying out this privilege. It is to be noted that he speaks always of his canoe under the name of Kudayuri, that is of the mythical flying canoe of ancient times. In 8, the canoe is addressed as a flying witch, who is asked to bind her skirt together and to fly. In 9, the magician verbally retraces an incident from the original myth of Kudayuri. He takes the adze handle, gets hold of the canoe, and strikes it, whereupon the canoe flies.
Thus the u’ula begins with archaic, condensed compounds each carrying a self-contained cycle of magical meaning. Then follows