This custom is not known in the Kula between Sinaketa and Dobu or Sinaketa and Kiriwina. It begins on the Eastern shore of the Trobriands, and is carried on as far as Tubetube where it stops again, for it is not practised in Wari (Teste Island) or on the portion of the Kula between Tubetube and Dobu. I myself never saw it practised in the Trobriands, but I saw a similar custom among the Massim of the South Coast of New Guinea. At a so’i feast which I witnessed in three different villages as it progressed from one to the other, the party who brought in gifts of pigs to a man attempted to do some damage to his trees or his house. A pig is always slung by its legs on a long, stout pole, dangling head downwards (see Plates V and LXIII): with this pole the natives would ram a young coco-nut or betel-nut palm or a fruit tree and if not stopped by the owners would break or uproot it, the pig squealing and the women of the damaged party screaming in unison. Again, a party entering a village with gifts to one of the inhabitants, would throw miniature spears at his house. A distinct show of fierceness and hostility is displayed on both sides by the natives on such occasions. Although the somewhat histrionic attack, and the slight but real damage to property were sanctioned by tribal usage, not infrequently among the Southern Massim serious quarrels and scrimmages were started by it. This custom has been observed by Professor Seligman among the natives of Bartle Bay. “As a man passed the house, they speared the wall with the branches they had been waving, and left them stuck in the walls.” And again: “… the people bringing them (the pigs) in, carried branches of trees or pieces of stick with a wisp of grass tied to the end, and with these speared the house of the man to whom the pigs were given.”3
Table of Contents
Chapter XX Expeditions Between Kiriwina and Kitava
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