The fact, however, that there is a direct line of communication between Murua-Tubetube-Dobu does not preclude the possibility of other and more complex routes running parallel with the direct one. Indeed, I know that the island of Wari, (Teste Island) lying almost due South of Tubetube is also in the Kula. The big island of Misima (St. Aignan Island) about a hundred miles East of Tubetube forms also part of the ring. Thus a much wider circle runs from Woodlark Island, perhaps from the Loughlans through Misima, the neighbouring small island of Panayati, Wari, and further West, through the group of islands quite close to the East end of New Guinea, that is, the islands of Sariba, Roge’a, and Basilaki, and then northwards again towards Normanby Island. This duplicated circuit in the South-East has its North-Western counterpart in the double ramification which unites Kitava with Dobu. The short route runs direct from Kitava to Vakuta and from Vakuta to Dobu. Besides this, however, there are several longer ones. In one of them the stages are as follows: Kitava, Okayaulo, or Kitava, Wawela, thence Sinaketa, then Dobu direct; or via the Amphletts. Another and still wider ramification would run thus: Kitava, to Kiriwina, Kiriwina to Sinaketa, etc.; or, the widest, Kiriwina to western Boyowa, then Kayleula, thence Amphletts, and from there to Dobu. This last route was not only longest in distance, but owing to the notorious ‘hardness’ of both the natives of Kayleula and of the Amphletts, would take up much more time. A glance at Map V, and also at the more detailed map of the Trobriands (Map IV) will make all this clear.
A more detailed knowledge of the North-Western routes allowed us to see the complications and irregularities obtaining there; that the district of Western Boyowa carried on exclusively the inland Kula, and that merely in the person of a few headmen of a few villages; that Kayleula made Kula on a small scale with the communities in the Amphletts, and that all these, as well as the villages on the Eastern shore of Southern Boyowa, were what we described as semi-independent Kula communities. Such details and peculiarities no doubt also exist with regard to the South-Eastern ramifications of the Kula, but must be taken here for granted.
Following the various threads further on, I have no doubt that the islands lying near the East end of New Guinea—Roge’a, Sariba, Basilaki—are and were in olden days in the Kula ring, communicating in the East with Tubetube and Wari, while to the North they were in contact with the natives of Normanby Island. Whether the large village complex lying at East Cape was also in the Kula I cannot definitely say. In any case all the strands led to the Eastern shores of Dawson Straits, by way of the North-Eastern shores of Normanby Island. From here, from the district of Dobu, we have traced the further lines with complete exactness and detail.
Of the various details of these expeditions and technicalities of the Kula observed in them, I have not much material available. The rules of actual exchange, the ceremonial of conch blowing, the code of honour or morality or vanity, perhaps, compelling people to give equivalent articles for what they have received, all these are the same all along the ring. So is also the Kula magic, with variations in details.
II
One subject on which more must be said is that of the associated trade. A new and important article of exchange accompanies the transaction in the South-Eastern branch of the Kula: the big, sea-going canoes. The main centres of manufacture, and to a great extent manufacture for export, were the islands of Gawa and Panayati. In these places, canoes were constructed for export to the southern districts where the natives did not know how to build such canoes (compare Chapter I, Division III). In olden days the natives of