The most important leakage out and into the main stream takes place on the Southern section, mainly at Tubetube and Wari, and at some points of lesser importance around these two main centres. The North coast of New Guinea was connected with this district through the seafaring community at East Cape. But this side branch is of very small importance as regards the main articles of the Kula. It is the two connections to East and West, at the extreme southern point of the Kula ring, which matter most. One of them links up the South Coast of New Guinea with the Kula ring, the other joins the ring to the big islands of Sud-Est (Tagula) and Rossel with several adjacent small islands.
The South Coast, going from East to West, is at first inhabited by natives of the Massim stock, speaking the Su’a’u and Bonabona dialects. These are in constant intercourse with the Southern section of the Kula district, that is with the natives of Rogea, Sariba, Basilaki, Tubetube and Wari. The Massim of the Southern coast are again in commercial relations with the Mailu, and from this point, a chain of trading relations unites the Eastern districts with the Central ones, inhabited by the Motu. The Motu again as we know from Captain Barton’s contribution to Professor Seligman’s work, are in annual trading relations with the Gulf of Papua, so that an article could travel from the delta of any of the Papuan rivers to Woodlark in the Trobriands, and many things were in fact traded over all this distance.
There is, however, one movement which specially interests us from the Kula point of view, namely that of the two types of Kula valuables. One of these articles, the armshells, travels on the South Coast from East to West. There is no doubt that this article leaks out from the Kula current at its Southernmost point, and is carried away towards Port Moresby, where the value of armshells is, and was, in olden days much higher than in the Eastern district. I found in Mailu that the local native traders purchased, for pigs, armshells in the Su’a’u district, and carried them West towards Aroma, Hula, and Kerepunu. Professor Seligman, from his notes taken at Port Moresby, informs us that Hula, Aroma, and Kerepunu import armshells into Port Moresby. Some of these armshells, according to the same authority, travel further West as far as the Gulf of Papua.9
It was much more difficult to ascertain what was the direction in which the spondylus shell necklaces moved on the Southern Coast. Nowadays, the industry of making these articles, which was once very highly developed among the Port Moresby natives is partially, though not completely in decay. I have myself still had the opportunity of watching the natives of Bo’era at work on the ageva, the very small and fine shell discs, such as the very finest bagi would consist of. They were using in their manufacture a native pump-drill with a quartz point, in a place within a few miles of a large white settlement, in a district where white man’s influence on a big scale has been exercised for the last fifty years. Yet, this is only a vestige of the once extremely developed industry. My inquiries into this subject could not be exhaustive, for when I worked on the South Coast, I did not have the problem before me, and on my second and third expeditions to New Guinea I only passed through Port Moresby. But I think it may be considered certain that in olden days the shell strings moved from Port Moresby Eastwards and were introduced into the Kula ring, at the East end of New Guinea.
However this might be, unquestionable sources of this Kula article are the islands of Sud-Est, Rossel, and the surrounding small islands. The best spondylus shell, with the reddest colours is fished in these seas, and the natives are expert workers of the discs, and export the finished article to the island of Wari, and, I believe, to the islands of Misima and Panayati. The most important articles for which the necklaces are traded are the canoes, and the large polished axe blades.