men, with a considerable display of indignation and authority. As it happened, a day or two afterwards, but still while the Kula party were away, one of the favourite sons of To’uluwa, called Nabwasu’a, who had not gone on the expedition, was caught in flagrante delicto of adultery with the youngest wife of the very old chief of Kasana’i. The people of the latter village were highly incensed, not without an admixture of malicious amusement. One of these who had been expelled two nights before from Omarakana took a conch shell and with its blast announced to the wide world the shame and scandal of Omarakana. As a conch shell is blown only on very important and ceremonial occasion, this was a slap in the face of the supposedly virtuous community, and a reproach of its hypocrisy. A man of Kasana’i, speaking in a loud voice, addressed the people of Omarakana:—
“You don’t allow us to enter your village; you call us adulterous (*tokaylasi*); but we wanted only to go and visit our friends. And look here, Nabwasu’a committed adultery in our village!”
The uvalaku party, to whom we now return, would cross the sea in a few hours and arrive in Kitava. Their manner of sailing, the arrangement of men in the canoe, the taboos of sailing are the same as in Sinaketa. My knowledge of their canoe magic is much smaller than of that in Southern Boyowa, but I think they have got far fewer rites. The sailing on these seas is on the whole easier, for there are fewer reefs, and the two prevailing winds would either bring them towards the Eastern islands, or push them back towards the long coast of Boyowa. The natives of Kiriwina are on the other hand far less expert sailors than the Sinaketans.
They have the same beliefs about the dangers at sea, especially about the participation of the flying witches in shipwreck. The history of such a calamity and the means of escape from it, given in one of the foregoing chapters (Chapter X), refers to these seas, as well as to the sea-arm of Pilolu.
These natives, as well as the Southern Boyowans, feel and appreciate the romance of sailing; they are visibly excited at the idea of an expedition, they enjoy even the sight of the open sea on the Eastern coast beyond the raybwag (coral ridge), and often walk there on mere pleasure parties.
The Eastern coast is much finer than the beach of the Lagoon; steep, dark rocks alternate there with fine, sandy beaches, the tall jungle spreading over the higher and lower parts of the shore.
The sailing to Kitava does not present, however, the same contrasts as an expedition to the d’Entrecasteaux Islands from Southern Boyowa.
The natives remain still in the world of raised coral islands, which they know from their own home.
Even the island of Muyuwa (or Murua, Woodlark Island) where I spent a short time, does not present such a definite contrast in landscape as that between the Trobriands and the Koya.
I do not know from personal experience the Marshall Bennett Islands, but from an excellent description given by Professor Seligman, they seem to be good specimens of small raised atolls.2
With regard to magic, the most important initial rites over the lilava and sulumwoya are done in the village by the toliwaga (compare above, Chapter VII). The magic over the four coco-nuts in the canoe is not performed in Kiriwina. On arrival at the beach in Kitava, all the rites of beauty magic, as well as the magic over the conch shell are recited in a manner identical to that in Sarubwoyna (Chapter XIII). Here, however, the natives have to make the last stage of the journey on foot.