160, article on the “Economics of the Social Group,” represents what may be called the official view of contemporary Ethnology on the subject, and in perusing the rest of the article, it can be easily seen that all the manifold economic problems, with which we are dealing in this book, have been so far more or less neglected.
These views had to be adduced at length, although touched upon already in Chapter II, Division IV, because they imply a serious error with regard to human nature in one of its most fundamental aspects. We can show up their fallacy on one example only, that of the Trobriand Society, but even this is enough to shatter their universal validity and show that the problem must be re-stated. The criticised views contain very general propositions, which, however, can be answered only empirically. And it is the duty of the field Ethnographer to answer and correct them. Because a statement is very general, it can none the less be a statement of empirical fact. General views must not be mixed up with hypothetical ones. The latter must be banished from field work; the former cannot receive too much attention.
As a matter of fact, this custom is not so prominent in the Trobriands as in other Massim districts and all over the Papuo-Melanesian world, cf. for instance Seligman, op. cit., p. 56 and Plate VI, Fig. 6.
Again, in explaining value, I do not wish to trace its possible origins, but I try simply to show what are the actual and observable elements into which the natives’ attitude towards the object valued can be analysed.
These natives have no idea of physiological fatherhood. See Chapter II, Division VI.
Compare Plate XXXIII, where the yam houses of a headman are filled by his wife’s brothers.
This advantage was probably in olden days a mutual one. Nowadays, when the fishermen can earn about ten or twenty times more by diving for pearls than by performing their share of the wasi, the exchange is as a rule a great burden on them. It is one of the most conspicuous examples of the tenacity of native custom that in spite of all the temptation which pearling offers them and in spite of the great pressure exercised upon them by the white traders, the fishermen never try to evade a wasi, and when they have received the inaugurating gift, the first calm day is always given to fishing, and not to pearling.
Chapter VII The Departure of an Overseas Expedition
Compare the linguistic analysis of the original text of this spell, given in Chapter XVIII.
Koyatabu—the mountain on the North shore of Fergusson; Kamsareta,—the highest hill on Domdom,—in the Amphletts; Koyava’u—the mountain opposite Dobu island, on the North shore of Dawson Straits; Gorebubu—the volcano on Dobu island.