When we remember what has been said about the style in which all gifts are given; that is, so to speak, thrown down fiercely and almost contemptuously by the giver; when we remember the taunts with which gifts are often accompanied, as well as the manner in which they are received, the youlawada custom appears only as an exaggerated form of this manner of giving, fixed into a definite ceremonial. It is interesting from this point of view to note that the youlawada is only done in association with vaga (initial gifts) and not with the yotile (return gifts).
The Kiriwinian party, after having paid their preliminary ceremonial visit in the village, given their gifts, both of the Kula and of the pari type, and had a long chat with their partners and friends, return in the evening to the beach, where they camp near their canoes. Sometimes temporary huts are erected, sometimes in fine weather the natives sleep under mats on the sand beach. Food is brought to them from the village by young, unmarried girls, who very often on that occasion arrange their intrigues with the visitors. The party will remain for a few days paying calls to the other villages of the island, talking, inspecting the gardens and hoping for more Kula presents. The food of Kitava is not tabooed to the chiefs, as the Kitavans abstain from the worst abominations. At parting the visitors receive their talo’i gifts which are brought down to their canoes.
The visits are returned by the Kitavans in very much the same manner. They camp on the sand beaches of the Eastern Coast. When weather-bound they erect temporary habitations, and I have seen whole families, men, women, and children living for days on some of the Eastern shores. For it is the custom of the men of Kitava to carry their women and small children on their trips. The Kiriwinians take sometimes unmarried girls, but they would never take their wives and small children, whilst in the South no Sinaketan women at all go on a Kula voyage however small and unimportant a one it may be. From big uvalaku expeditions, women are excluded in all the districts.
It has been mentioned in the last chapter that Kitava enjoys a privileged position in the Ring, for every single piece of valuables has to pass through it. The island of Kitava is a ‘Kula community’ in itself. All its neighbours to the West, the Kula communities of Kiriwina, Luba, Wawela, Southern Boyowa (that is, the villages of Okayyaulo, Bwaga and Kumilabwaga) cannot skip Kitava when they are exchanging, and the same refers to the Kitavan neighbours in the East. In other words, a man from the Eastern islands beyond Kitava, if he wants to pass an armshell westwards, has to give it to a Kitava man, and may not give it directly to some one beyond. The islands East of Kitava, Iwa, Gawa, and Kwayawata form one community. This is shown on Map V, where each ‘Kula community’ is represented by one circle. The Kula stream, after having concentrated in Kitava, spreads out again, but by no means as broadly as when it runs to the Westward, and overflows over the broad area of the Trobriands. Another point, in which the Kula of Kitava differs from that of Sinaketa or Kiriwina, a point on which I have touched already once before (in Chapter XIII, Division I) is that the small island has to make overseas exchanges on both sides. As we saw, the Sinaketans carry on big expeditions and make uvalaku only to their Southern partners, so that they receive only the one Kula article, the necklaces in this manner, while their armshells come to them by inland Kula, from their Northern and Eastern neighbours. The same mutatis mutandis refers to the Kiriwinians, who receive all their necklaces overland and make overseas Kula for their armshells only. The two islands of Kitava and Vakuta, as well as the other Marshall Bennetts are, so to speak, ambidextrous in the Kula and have to fetch and carry both articles overseas. This, of course, results primarily from the geographical position in a district and a glance at Map V will easily show which Kula communities have to carry all their transactions overseas and which of them have to do one half of them overland. These latter are only the Trobriand districts mentioned in the previous Chapter and the districts in Dobu.