magic, commented in the following manner:
“A man, he lived in Laba’i, the master of the magic. It was not this man who first knew the magic of Monikiniki. That magic was partly found by Tokosikuna, partly in olden days in Sinaketa.”
In explaining this commentary it must be noted that the informant was a Sinaketan man, hence his local patriotism, for there is no definite, mythological version connecting the early practice of the mwasila with the village of Sinaketa. As we saw, Tokosikuna is indeed one of the mythical heroes with whose story the magic of mwasila is associated. Monikiniki is the name of one of the systems of the mwasila magic, which usually is said to come from a man of that name.
Phrase 2 of this spell contains four couples, each consisting of a compound and a verb. The substantival compounds have all, according to the alliterative symmetry so dear to Kiriwinian magic, the prefix silimway-, derived from sulumwoya, the mint plant. Such play on words, especially on what is the leading word in a spell, as sulumwoya is here, shows that the purely phonetic handling of words must be associated with the idea or feeling of their inherent power. The keyword of the tapwana (phrase 3), has been translated, literally ‘it boils.’ Perhaps it might have been translated in its other slightly different meaning ‘it foams.’ Probably it has both meanings to the mind of the native reciter. I think that the use of a word fraught with two meanings at the same time is one of the characteristics of native