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.
III
This exhausts all the peculiarities of the Kula in Kitava except one, and that a very important one. It has been mentioned before, in fact it is obvious from the account of the uvalaku custom that the Kula does not run with an even flow, but in violent gushes. Thus the uvalaku expedition from Dobu described in Chapter XVI carried about 800 pairs of armshells from Boyowa. Such sudden rushes of the Kula articles are associated with an important institution, which is not known in the Trobriands or in Dobu, but which we find in Kitava and further along the Ring, as far as Tubetube (see Map V).
When a man dies, custom imposes a taboo upon the inhabitants of that village. This means that no one on a visit is received in the village, and no Kula articles are given away from there. The community lying under the taboo, however, expect to receive as many Kula gifts as possible, and busy themselves in that matter.
After a certain time, a big ceremony and distribution of goods, called so’i is held, and invitations are sent out to all the Kula partners, and, in the case of a big affair, even to people from districts beyond the boundary of partnership. A big distribution of food takes place in which all the guests receive their share, and then the Kula valuables are given in great quantities to the partners of that community.