Politics of the Kula Ring: An Analysis of the Findings of Bronislaw Malinowski

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P O L IT IC S

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The Kula Ring

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P O L I T I C S OF THE K U L A RI NG An Analysis of the Findings o f Bronislaw Malinowski by J . P . S IN G H U B E R O I

,

Research Scholar at the Australian National University Canberra

With a Foreword by Professor Max Gluckman & D r. I. G. Cunnison

M A N C H E S T E R U N IV E R S IT Y P R E S S

© 1962 Published by the University o f Manchester at T h e U n iv e r s it y P r e s s

316 -324 , Oxford Road, Manchester 13

Distributed in the U .S .A . b y H u m a n it ie s P r e s s , I n c .

303, Fourth Avenue, N ew Y o rk 10, N .Y .

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

0NULP

FOREWORD R O N IS L A W M A L IN O W S K I was one o f the founding heroes o f modern anthropology. Prolific in speech and writing, prodigal with his ideas, in his generation he had a profound influence in many fields o f thought. Tributes and more critical assessments o f his work have been made abundantly and his impact is still keenly felt. In this book Mr. Uberoi pays tribute to the wealth o f the observa­ tions that Malinowski made on his fieldwork trip, during the First W orld W ar^tojjie Trobriand Islands, rather than to his ideas. Ifthese observations had been less lavishly made, or less conscientiously recorded, Uberoi’s book could not have been written. Malinowski’s observations were brilliant enough for any period; but when they are compared with the earlier stiff and formalistic records o f the practices o f tribal peoples, it becomes obvious that here was a real break­ through. Malinowski’s observations were superior in quantity, range and quality to anything that had gone before. Aside from the value o f his theories, he revolutionized anthropology as a science, since every science has two sides to it, the data it collects and the theories it formulates. Malinowski brought entirely new ranges o f data into the subject. More than this, in collecting these data he set a precedent for a completely new type o f relationship between anthropologist and tribe. Malinowski in the Trobriands was no longer merely the detached scientific observer. This he was in full measure; but in addition he learned and worked through the Trobriand language, he lived in close contact with the islanders over a long period, and he participated in many o f their activities. A s this approach drew dividends in fine field data, the kind o f relationship thus established became the required technique for all anthropologists. Uberoi now offers a reinterpretation o f some o f the data which were collected in this way. It is a reinterpretation, and the difference in the conclusions is remarkable. But Uberoi does not carp in his criticism o f Malinowski as a thinker, for he has the benefit o f forty more years o f anthropological research which have been largely based on Malin­ owski’s field methods; and although the framework o f interpretation has changed during this time, the basic field methods have remained the same. W hat Uberoi does, is to use the empirical data supplied with

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Foreword

such liberality by Malinowski and look at them in the light o f advances that anthropology has made in these forty years. And such is the excellence o f the data that the book reads as if the material presented had been collected with Uberoi’s, rather than Malinowski’s, conceptual framework in mind. Strikingly, early anthropologists like T ylor, Frazer and, indeed, even Morgan (though not Engels) had written little theoretically on political organization. Since early field researches were mainly on the small-scale societies o f Pacific and Indian Ocean islands, or the small tribes o f Australia, India and North America, these were unlikely to lead to analyses o f political problems. In these societies, political relations are stated in a kinship idiom, and were often therefore handled as if they were relations akin to, or extended out of, those in the family. Malinowski studied such a society; and hence per­ haps he was unable to rise above a weakness in the anthropological theory o f his time. Thus the recent evaluation o f his w ork has no reference to political problems (M an and Culture, edited b y R . Firth). For it was only much later, when field workers moved into the larger tribes o f Africa, that anthropological analyses o f political institutions made a notable advance, marked most clearly by the publication in 1940 o f African Political Systems (edited by M. Fortes and E . E . EvansPritchard). One important discovery made in these analyses was that the institutions through which a society is organised politically need not necessarily look like the kinds o f political institutions with which we have long been familiar in the Western world, and the great nations o f Asia. Malinowski ostensibly did deal with political institutions. He named the headman o f Omarakana village, whom he considered the most important man in the Trobriands, the ‘Paramount C h ief’. A t that time he was not even the most influential man, although it seems that his predecessor had been the most influential in his time. But even he was far removed from an African paramount chief. In fact, the Paramount Chief o f the Trobriands was well on the w ay to becoming social anthropology’s Piltdown Man: not that Malinowski was a forger, but he certainly attributed to this man a position which he did not have; and his interpretation has bothered anthropologists, while no satis­ factory answer to the problem was found. B y examining this man’s position with respect to various institu­ tions, Uberoi demonstrates quite clearly that Trobriand polity, far from constituting a chieftainship, is an example o f the type o f ‘state­ less’ or ‘segmentary’ society which has been so elaborately analysed in

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Africa. Finding his clues in African examples, he takes various institu­ tions which Malinowski had treated under other headings and shows that they are as rewardingly treated under the heading o f ‘political’. Thus the kinship institutions o f harvest gifts between affines, o f free gifts to sons, and cross-cousin marriage; the institutions o f myth, magic and religion; and that economic locus classicus, the Kula Ring; as well as others, taken together, can provide a coherent picture o f Trobriand political relations. Uberoi goes further, and develops the' vague idea in Malinowski’s mind that the Kula somehow bound together the Trobriands and other island groups which took part in it into a wider polity. In addition to applying ideas which have come out o f recent research on political institutions to field data collected with different problems in mind, Uberoi also uses a method o f presenting the data which has become marked in the w ork o f younger anthropologists since the W ar. Before that, anthropologists, in setting out their analyses o f social institutions and rules, at various points cited from their field data those examples which best illustrated each point. These examples were rarely connected with one another, and one o f us has called this ‘the method o f apt illustration’. W orking thus, these anthropologists raised the field monograph to a peak o f excellence, and made out­ standing contributions to the morphology o f social systems. But in recent years, some anthropologists have preferred to deal in detail with a series o f connected events affecting the same individuals or groups o f persons; and it seems to us that their analyses are deepened by this treatment o f field data, in the demonstration o f how the process o f social life operates within the framework o f a social system and a culture, and o f individual drives and temperament. Uberoi’s use o f this method is certainly strong support for its value. He has searched through the great corpus o f Malinowski’s writings, as well as D r. Reo Fortune’s Sorcerers o f Dobw, and by bringing together scattered illustra­ tions and showing that they applied to the same people, he has given a quite different slant on the working o f Melanesian institutions. T o cite only one example, Malinowski found that w hile succession and inheri­ tance in Trobriand society was from a man to his sister’s son, a father . frequently passed certain rights and property to his son, including his partnerships in the ring o f £w/a-valuable exchanges. Malinowski, dominantly interested in kinship rather than in political relations, interpreted this as the rebellion o f paternal sentiment, culturally established as well as naturally felt, against the rules requiring that

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rights pass to sister’s son. Uberoi shows that kula exchanges link men together as individuals, and not as members o f the corporate groups which are based on matrilineal ties. He drives this point home by citing Malinowski’s description o f how a fleet setting sail to a kula exchange performs a ceremony for collective safety and success: at this stage men act as members o f the corporate groups. Immediately they have sailed, they land again, and as individuals perform rites designed to gain them individual success in the exchanges, in competition with one another even within the corporate groups. Thus a main function, in Malinowski’s terms, o f the kula exchange is to isolate a man from his fellows o f his corporate matrilineage group, and link him to other individuals in other groups. In this individual linking, a man uses his father and his other paternal kin— as in other societies the ‘submerged line’ o f kinship is used through different institutions, but with similar effects. In more modern terms, in practice kula partnerships break up the isolation and loyalties o f the land-owning and position-holding matrilineages, to establish a wider series o f important relations among dispersed individuals. This book not only gives a brilliant analysis o f Trobriand, and o f the wider Massim, social structure, but it also contributes to our understanding o f Malinowski’s role in the development o f social research in this century. Beyond this, b y applying a body o f know­ ledge derived from the study o f societies in a different part o f the world, to a South Seas community, with successful results, it vindicates present trends in anthropological theory and method. And in the end it con­ stitutes a great tribute to Bronislaw Malinowski, for it shows that here we stand on the shoulders o f a giant, whose w ork must be studied ever anew. ■

M a x G lu ckm an

University o f Manchester I a n C u n n is o n

University o f Khartoum

CO NTENTS PA GE

by Professor Max Gluckman and Dr. I. G. Cunnison . . . . . . . .

F oreword

P reface

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I n t r o d u c t io n

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The Melanesians The Massim . . . Malinowski on the Kula /

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Fortune on the Kula * . . . . Sources and Circulation of the Valuables .

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The Trobriand Archipelago

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Political Divisions . . • • • The Trobriand Village and Local Lineage Marriage and the Urigubu Principle .

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Rank and Chieftainship . . • • • A Stateless Society . • • • • Alternative to Malinowski’s Interpretation / . The Political System of the Trobriand Islands < /

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Fortune on Dobu . . . The Dobu Village and Locality

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General ' / The Sociological Type of the Kuia Relationship ✓ . ix

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T h e K u l a in S o c ie t y a n d P o l it ic s

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Siblings in Reality and Myth . . . . Competition within the Local Lineage . . Co-operation within the Local Lineage . . Wider Kula Politics: Fortune’s Evidence . . ^-Malinowski’s Evidence: his, Static_View_of..P,olitics Fathers and Sons and their Local Lineages . Wider Inter-Lineage Relations . Inter-Village Relations and Outwards Leadership on an Expedition . Relations between Districts . The Social Function of the K ula's / . Seligman’s Evidence VII

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The Importance of Trade and its Scale

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Seligman’s Evidence from the Tubetube Point of View ('Malinowski’s Evidence from the Trobriand Point of View Fortune’s Evidence and Conclusion IX

C o n c l u s io n : V a l u e o f t h e K u l a B ib lio g r a p h y

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The Kula Ring

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Melanesia: showing relative isolation of islands of the kula ring . Distribution of Papuans and Papuo-Melanesians The Trobriand Archipelago . . . . .

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PREFACE M O N G the founders o f social anthropology, as it is understood today, Bronislaw Malinowski was the most remarkable for his qualities as a fieldworker, and for the great virtuosity o f his ethno­ graphic writings, to the artistry o f which his wide influence was in no small measure owed. It is to that fieldwork, done as early as 19 14 -18 , and to the abiding value o f the ethnographic writings which followed it in the twenty years thereafter, that the present essay is intended to pay tribute. For in it I have attempted to rework a part o f the rich quarry o f material concerning Trobriand Island culture, which Malinowski bequeathed to anthropology. In making m y reanalysis, I have naturally been most influenced by those trends and interests which established themselves in British social anthropology with the publication, in 1940, o f African Political Systems, edited by Meyer Fortes and E . E . Evans-Pritchard. When Malinowski first described the ceremonial exchange cycle o f the kula in 1922, in his Argonauts o f the Western Pacific, his major concern was with the underlying psy­ chology o f this institution, while the central problem o f m y present analysis will be that o f regarding the system o f kula exchanges as a mode o f the political organization o f small-scale stateless societies. Since I have differed from Malinowski,’ in m y interpretations, in many important respects, I have thought it fairest to present his material, wherever possible, in his own words. I hope that the inor­ dinately large number o f quotations with which my argument is consequently loaded w ill not deter the reader already familiar with Malinowski’s writings. The reader’s indulgence is asked to regard these numerous quotations as the inevitable concomitant o f an effort to stretch items o f classical fieldwork on a contemporary theoretical frame. The uneven appearance o f my chapter lengths is also due to the same circumstance, since the analytical categories under which I have discussed their material were alien to the theoretical orientation o f Malinowski, as well as C. G. Seligman and R . F. Fortune, upon whose w ork I have also drawn. I have not been able, regretfully, to deal with the changes that have been brought to the islands o f the kula ring by the Australian Adminis­ tration o f Papua, by Christian missions, and by the pervasive pearl trade. Sufficient material was not available for me to try to present a xiii

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Preface

coherent picture o f these changes. I have also left to one side, for much the same reason, any comparison o f the institution o f the kula with what is known about Rossel Island ‘currency’, Manus trading, or the Port Moresby lakatoi expeditions. Finally, though I hope that this study will contribute towards closing a gap which exists in Malinowski’s writings concerning the political system o f the Trobriand Islands, I do not wish to intend it as a critique o f his work. For a number o f authoritative critiques o f Malinowski and his work, the reader may refer to the recent evaluatory symposium, M an and Culture, edited by Raymond Firth. M y essay is primarily a reanalysis o f Malinowski’s ethnographic findings, and only inci­ dentally a criticism o f some o f his theoretical methods. J. P. S. u. Kabul, Afghanistan M a y i Christobel Rerwel

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0aWa-maker who washes, anoints and paints himself,12 to make h im self‘beautiful, attractive and irresistible to his Kula partner’.13 The similarity with the Dobuan sequence o f rites is 'A rgo n au ts, p. 213.

5 Ibid., p. 417. 9 Ibid., p. 218.

2 Ibid., p. 418. 3 Ibid., p. 337. 4 Ibid., p. 198. 6 Ibid., p. 205. 7 Ibid., p. 213. 8 Ibid., pp. 215-18, 417. 10 Ibid., p. 236. 11 Ibid., pp. 335-6, 418.

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thus sufficiently sustained for it to strengthen the points made above in analysing Fortune’s evidence. But the magic is not yet concluded, for, After the beauty magic . . . every man, in full festive array, takes his place in his canoe. The sails have been folded and the masts removed, and the final stage is done by paddling.1 . . . In each canoe, simultaneously, the toliwaga and two members of the crew [recite spells] to ‘shake the mountain’, to produce an impression on the partners awaiting on the beach.2 (The Sinaketan fleet is said, though Malinowski did not witness the ceremony, to be received in D obu exactly as the Dobuan fleet was received in Sinaketa in 1918, i.e. b y the token presentation o f kula valuables before disembarkation.3) The Social Function o f the Rites It is in commenting upon this ‘magic o f the final approach to shake the mountain’, that Malinowski comes closest to appreciating the social function o f magic: The main attitude of a native to other, alien groups is that of hostility and mistrust. . . . The Trobriander is not an exception in this respect, and be­ yond his own, narrow social horizon, a wall of suspicion, misunderstanding and latent enmity divides him from even near neighbours. The Kula breaks it through at definite geographical points, and by means of special customary transactions. . . . This waiving of the general taboo on strangers must be justified and bridged over by magic.4 T o sum up m y argument: It is true that the central ceremonial o f the kula is the symbolic gift-giving which reiterates the friendshiploetween two men whose respective districts are in a state_oPlatent enmity’; .and obviously the magic performecTto woo a kula partner serves to bridge over the normal gap between two such ‘alien groups’ . But that does not exhaust the social function which the rites o f the kula fulfil. A n examination o f the social situations at these rituals reveals that the rites which punctuate the progress o f an oversea expedition serve to mark out the social categories operative at home, within one district, and 1 Argonauts, p. 342. 2 Ibid., p. 418. s Ibid., pp. 16, 350. 4 Ibid., p. 345. Unfortunately, Malinowski chooses to illustrate this remark by a Trobriander’s statement that the Dobuans ‘lay down their spears [and] receive us well’, after the visitors have ritually spat over their village on arrival and so lifted a mortuary taboo; but Fortune (p. 198) says that this ‘is only Trobriand native statement’, and the breaking of a mortuary taboo is actually done by the afiines of the deceased.

The Ritual o f the Kula

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progressively loosen up their internal solidarity, so that canoe com­ petes with canoe within the same fleet, and one man against another within the same canoe. The kula thus differs from peace-making in that it does not simply bridge over the latent enmity o f two alien groups standing one against the other. It d o esjh is, indeed, but first it breaks down the solidarity which one,district assumes when opposed to another. For the kula has two p r o n g ^ n e bridges the ‘essential hos- " tility between two strange tribesmen’,w h i l s t the other suspends the political identity between two fellow tribesmen. The kula rites, there­ fore, are to be best understood as being an integral part o f the total' proceedings o f an oversea expedition: such an expedition detaches"1 from their women and children the men o f the several villages o f one district; it parcels them out into their respective canoes; and then sets them down on an alien shore, duly and ritually prepared to compete amongst themselves for the favours o f their alien opposite numbers. 1 Argonauts, p. 276.

CHAPTER VIII TH E T R A D E OF TH E KU LA

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H A V E said that it is the ritualized exchange o f symbolic objects which establishes the peace o f the market for the exchange o f utilities. In the absence o f any central authoritvoveiLthe islands, of-the-kula ring, it is eadToversea expedition, with its ‘ever so.m any [kula] tfaSsactions taking place simultaneously’,1 each one w ith Jh igh ly formalized bargaining- and-long-term credit, which establishes afresh an inter-island market with a guaranteed peace. The ‘overseas expecGtions . . . annually bring' over big quantities o f vaygua and o f sub­ sidiary trade from one district to another. T he trade is used and used up, but the vaygua— the armshells and necklets— go round and round the ring’ 2— periodically setting up markets en route.

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The Importance o f Trade and its Scale T he importance o f the trade which follows the flag has, I think, been greatly minimized. In his earliest and extremely b rief account X Malinowski did remark o f the islands o f the kula ring: ‘it is evident that ] exchange o f goods had to obtain between them’; and he named W oodI lark (Murua), the Trobriands, and the D ’Entrecasteaux (i.e. the D obu districts),3 as having a surplus o f food, while the Amphletts, W ari, Tubetube, and ‘some’ o f the Marshall Bennetts ‘are not self-supporting as far as food goes’.4 But in the five hundred pages o f Argonauts o f the Western Pacific, although trading is mentioned, the ‘had to obtain^ aspect_is£ompletely ignored. The kula is described from the Trobriand point o f view, and, ‘all tKe necessities o f life are within easy reach o f the Trobriand Islander’.5 Later, however, in Coral Gardens, it appeared that there was an ‘absence o f certain indispensable raw materials— stone (dead coral is useless for any industrial purpose), clay, rattan, 1 Argonauts, p. 103. 2 Ibid., p. 103. 3 Fortune’s evidence on this point is rather different. ‘ Certainly the Dobuan area is poor in gardens. Each year the saving of enough seed for the next year is accomplished against the pressure of hunger, and undoubtedly usually was, although the Mission state that bumper native crops, such as are not known now, used to be harvested in the earlier days of the Mission in good seasons’: Sorcerers, p. 103. 4 ‘Kula; the circulating exchange of valuables in the archipelagoes o f Eastern New Guinea’, Man, 1920, p. 97. This is a short article of eight pages. 5 Argonauts, p. 173.

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The Trade o f the Kula

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bamboo, [and] sago’ 1 from the Trobriands. A nd stone, o f course, is a necessity o f life in a society where the stone axe (kema) or adze Ctigogu) is indispensable for house-building, canoe-cutting or garden­ ing.2 Again, it appeared that the normally ‘unparalleled’ Trobriand harvests3 did not always materialize: ‘in any average year they harvest perhaps twice as much as they can eat’,4 but there is mention o f recur­ rent years o f hunger (molu), and i f the drought lasted for two years, there would be a ‘real famine’, leading, in extremity, to a ‘sort o f endocannibalism .5 (Yam s cannot be stored for more than a year, and it is during the lean years, exceptional but recurrent, that the fishing villages whose social importance I highlighted in Chapter II come to the fore.6) So that even the uniquely opulent Trobrianders had good reasons to be keen on trade and exchange. I say ‘had’ because ‘nowadays what­ ever other “ blessings” European occupation has brought them, it has ave/ted really bad outbreaks o f molu ? ‘Since white men came . . . their supply o f rice would probably have staved off the worst miseries o f famine , and the natives have now learned to cultivate the sweet potato, which is a hardier and more prolific plant’, and also the drought-resistant pawpaw.8 Apart from the necessity for the import o f specific items o f trade, the general scale o f the traffic is also noteworthy. Malinowski says that in the old days, on a big uvalaku expedition, the Sinaketan fleet would number twenty canoes, the Vakutan forty, and the Amphlettan twenty, and all eighty o f these might converge on N .W . D obu together.9 These canoes are o f the sea-going masawa type, as against smaller canoes used for ‘coastal transport’ or fishing. (‘The word waga is a general designation for all kinds o f sailing craft.’ 10) Malinowski’s photo­ graphs in Argonauts o f the IVzstern Pacific show a masawa canoe with a ‘crew o f eighteen men’, and another ‘fully loaded with [cargo plus] a crew o f twelve men, just about to furl sail arriving in the Amphletts’.11 A s to their carrying capacity, when Malinowski speaks o f the Amphlettans journeying to Fergusson Island to collect clay for making their famous pots, he estimates ‘that each canoe carries about two ton weight on its return journey’.12 And what is more, I Coral Gardens , p. 8.

2 Ibid., pp. 62, 132, 244; Argonauts, pp. 128, 132-3. 4 Argonauts, p. 58. 6 Ibid., pp. 162-3. 7 Ibid., p. 161. 8 Ibid., p. 161. 9 Argonauts, pp. 334, 376. 10 Ibid., p. 112. II Ibid., Plates X X III and X L . See also X X I, X X II, and X X X IX . 12 Ibid., p. 284.

3 Coral Gardens, p. 74. 6 Coral Gardens, pp. 160-2.

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. . . The natives of the Eastern half of the ring use craft bigger, and in certain respects better, than the masawa. . . . The nagega, that is the larger and more seaworthy type, is used on the section of the Kula ring beginning in Gawa and ending in Tubetube. It is also used in certain parts of the Massim dis­ trict, which lie outside the Kula ring. . . . But though its use is very widely spread, its manufacture is confined to only a few places. The most important centres of nagega building are Gawa, a few villages on Woodlark Island, the Island of Panayati, and perhaps one or two places on Misima. From there, the canoes are traded all over the district, and indeed this is one of the most important forms of trade in this part of the world. The masawa canoes are used and manufactured in the district of Dobu, in the Amphletts, in the Trobriands, in Kitava and Iwa. . . . According to reliable information . . . the nagega type . . . was driven out some time ago from the Amphletts and Trobriands. The masawa, in many respects inferior, but less difficult to build, and swifter, has supplanted the bigger type. . . . In olden days, the natives of Kitava and Iwa used themselves to make the nagega canoes.1 The nagega canoes are called by Seligman waga, which apparently is the Tubetube name for them:2 These are handy and at the same time very safe out-rigger boats of com­ paratively large carrying capacity, and are used alike on raids and for carry­ ing merchandise. . . .3 Their length over all is often quite fifty feet, and their sides are built up with three or four broad hewn planks to a moulded depth of four or five feet. . . .4 Seligman s Evidence from the Tubetuhe Point o f View The islanders o f Tubetube, whom Seligman describes as ‘merchant venturers’, seem to live largely by middleman activities in trade, and b y importing kula Necklaces into the ring from without.5 Seligman speaks o f the Armshells, Necklaces and ceremonial axe blades— called masiwaru, bagi and benam in the Tubetube language— as constituting the ‘currency’ o f the Massim area, and as being paid fo r utilitarian articles.6 It is not possible, unfortunately, to infer from his account what is gift and counter-gift between kula partner, and what is freely bartered; nor is it possible to be sure i f the kula valuables were ex­ changed fo r other articles, or i f the valuables and the utilities were being jointly balanced in long-term exchanges between partners. But Seligman does make sufficiently clear the vital importance o f the trade, 1 Argonauts, pp. 144-5. 2 Melanesians, p. 754. 3 Ibid., p. 15. 4 Ibid., p. 527. 5 Melanesians, pp. 527-8, 536; Sorcerers, pp. 203, 208. 6 Melanesians, pp. 513, 5 3 1-2 , 534.

The Trade o f the Kula and its general characteristics: . . . It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that everything in daily use, includ­ ing food, was imported into Tubetube at one time or another. The exports from Tubetube are pots and shell ornaments . . . [of which only] the nose ornaments called wanepa are made locally. . . . Tubetube has become a trading community whose inhabitants are recognized as traders and middle­ men over a very considerable area extending westwards . . . to Rogea [one of the East End Islands] and eastward to Tokunu and Murua [Woodlark]. It is from the last mentioned islands that Tubetube obtains the majority if not all of the large built-up canoes called waga in which the trading voyages are undertaken. . . . In 1904, Tubetube possessed a fleet of such craft. . . .1 Although Tubetube manufactures only pots and nose ornaments for export, the position of the islanders as middlemen has enabled them to have in their possession at one time or another almost every article made and used by the communities with whom they trade. . . . The following list. . . includes only those articles which I have reason to believe are, or were formerly, imported with some constancy. All those articles made in the Trobriands comevia Duau [Normanby], and include wooden dishes, shallow bowls, lime spatulae and lime gourds, drums (large and small), wooden swords ( . . . ) and armshells, of less value than masiwaru. From Duau come obsidian (. . .), slivers o f which were formerly used for shaving and scari­ fication, and the slabs of stone used for the hearth of fireplaces and also formerly as whet stones. . . . [Also a stone] fragments of which were formerly employed as points for the common pump drill . . . [and a reed] which is made into a flute. . . . A number of forms of basket are imported from Panamoti . . . [and also] the model waga used as toys. . . . Certain kinds of wood were imported from Duau and Basilaki as well as the semi­ fossilized wood . . . used for blackening the teeth. Lastly pigs and many forms o f vegetable food are imported in large quantities [my italics].2 Seligman also states that Tubetube purchased their waga for ‘armshells, benam and b a g i,3 but what is noteworthy is that wherever he quotes a specific transaction in which a masiwaru (Armshell) or bagi (Necklace) is paid as the ‘price’ for a canoe or some other object, the direction o f movement o f the Armshell or Necklace turns out to be exactly the same as its direction in the kula circulation subsequently described by Malinowski. Since Seligman was not aware o f the kula cycle as such, he did not notice that o f his ‘articles o f currency’, the bagi were travelling clockwise, and the masiwaru anti-clockwise. Thus, In endeavouring to express the value of various articles of currency it will be convenient to begin at Murua [Woodlark] and trace the ceremonial axe 1 Ibid., pp. 526-7.

2 Ibid., p. 536.

3 Ibid., p. 536.

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blades \benam] which are, or were, its chief article of export westwards and southward. . . . [A] This passed to a Gawa man as part payment for a large canoe which he brought to Murua to sell. From Gawa the stone passed to Kwaiawata, for a particularly good bagi and some sapisapi [shell discs]; thence to Kitava and thence to the Trobriands for a bagi and certain other objects which are not specified, finally it was said, reaching D obu, where it is alleged to be at present. [D] This was sold to a Tokunu man for five basketful o f . . . conus shells. From Tokunu it passed to Misima for three pairs of masiwaru and two pigs. [E] This blade was bought by a Murua man for one bagi, three pigs and certain other articles not specified. He sold it to Gawa for one bagi and one waga, whence it passed to Kwaiawata for two bagi and a sapisapi belt. . . . [G] This stone was sold to a Yanaba [a village on Woodlark] man for one canoe, one sapisapi belt and certain other articles, and then to an Egum [Yeguma] man for one pair of masiwaru, two pigs and certain other un­ specified articles. [H] This was . . . exchanged . . . with a Kwaiawata man for a bagi, a . . . sapisapi belt, two pigs, some sapisapi, a small canoe (. . .) and a canoe full of coconuts. [J] This was sold to someone of Dekwoias village upon Murua [Wood­ lark] for one bagi, a sapisapi belt, and a pig; then to Gawa for a canoe, a belt and some sapisapi.-1 I have not reproduced the travels o f ceremonial axe blades B, C , F , I and K because they were ‘sold’ within Murua or W oodlark Island, and the direction o f movement o f the bagi or masiwaru ‘paid’ for them, cannot, unfortunately, be ascertained. I f the transactions reported above are followed on the map o f the kula ring it is seen at once that, in every case, the bagi travelled towards Woodlark from places to the north or west, and the masiwaru from places to the south or east. This rule holds even for transactions within Woodlark Island (G and J) where the direction o f movement can be determined: the point o f origin o f the axe blades is Suloga village,2 and in the transactions G and J the villages o f Yanaba and Dekwoias passed bagi or sapisapi to Suloga; and on Malinowski’s map o f the kula islands, villages called Yanabwa and D ikoyas are marked to the west and north o f Suloga.3 Again, where Seligman quotes ‘prices paid for w aga, it turns out that the canoes, in his examples, passed from Gawa to Panamoti to Tubetube, while the Armshells (along with axe blades, pigs, etc.) passed from Tubetube to Panamoti to Gawa.4 That this is the normal 1 Melanesians, pp. 531-2. 4 Melanesians, pp. 534-7.

2 Ibid., p. 530.

3 Argonauts, p. 30.

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kula route o f the Armshells is implied b y Malinowski,1 and clearly stated b y Fortune.2 A ll these transactions fall neatly into place if we drop the notion o f ‘currency’ , and take from Malinowski the hint that the ceremonial axe blades are ‘given as kaributu (solicitary gifts)’ in the kula? ‘A very famous and great valuable will often be solicited b y gift o f pokala and o f kaributu, one following the other’,4— the pokala consisting o f ‘pigs, bananas, yams, taro’ ,5 and the kaributu o f ‘a small polished axe blade, or a valuable belt’.6 The proper perspective, then, is that while the focus is upon the exchanges o f Armshells and Necklaces between kula partners, other articles, including canoes, ceremonial axe blades, pigs, etc., become involved in the exchanges through the institution o f solicitary gifts, and the total equivalence o f the objects exchanged is worked out in the long run, the tone o f commercial morality thus being set by the decorum o f the kula transaction proper. Malinowski s Evidence from the Trobriand Point o f View The picture o f the trade o f the kula given by Malinowski is drawn from the Trobriand point o f view, andJieire the manner in which the trade is conducted is clearly described^Frrst\there_isjhe_preHminary_ trade, done so that Vakuta or Sinaketk^ca n ‘replenish their stock o f goods, which they will need presently on their trip South to D oE u T , Kuboma is the industrial district of the Trobriands, where are manufactured most of the useful articles for which these islands are renowned in the whole of Eastern New Guinea. . . . From Kiriwina it is only a few miles walk, but to reach it from Sinaketa or Vakuta it is necessary to sail . . . to Kavataria, and from there walk inland to Bwoytalu [and the other villages]. . . . The inhabitants of these villages also when they hear that the Sinaketans are anchored in Kavataria, bring their wares to the canoes. A brisk trade is carried on during the day or two that the Sinaketans remain in Kavataria. The natives of Kuboma are always eager to buy yams, as they live in an unfertile district, and devote themselves more to industrial productions than to gardening. And they are still more eager to acquire coconuts and betelnut, of which they have a great scarcity. They desire besides to receive in exchange for their produce the red shell discs manufactured in Sinaketa and Vakuta, and the turtle-shell rings. For objects of great value, the Sinaketans would give the big clay pots which they receive directly from the Amphletts. . . . From Bwoytalu, they get . . . wooden dishes [of many kinds and sizes; 1 Argonauts, pp. 81, 93. 4 Ibid., p. 354.

2 Sorcerers, pp. 203-5. 5 Article on ‘Kula’, p. 97.

3 Argonauts, p. 358. 6 Argonauts, p. 354.

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and from other villages] . . . armlets of plaited fern fibre . . . wooden combs . . . [and] lime pots. . . -1 The trading activities o f the Sinaketans in N .W . D obu, and the manner in which they are conducted, have already been discussed (in Chapter V II): gifts are given to partners on arrival (part) and received upon departure (taldi), and there is barter (gimwg/zA_with_non-partners: altogether, the wooden dishes, combs, baskets or lime pots carried are exchanged for coconuts, bundles o f betel or pieces o f sago. Thus, The natives of Sinaketa act as intermediaries between the industrial centres of the Trobriands and Dobu, whereas their hosts play the same role between the Sinaketans and the men from the outlying districts.2 On their w ay home from N .W . D obu the Sinaketans, as was quoted in Chapter V I, fish in Sanaroa Lagoon for the spondylus shell (kaloma) from which they make discs and necklaces. Between Sinaketa and N .W . Dobu is interposed the kula district o f the Amphletts.3 The Amphlettans are a ‘numerically weak tribe’ (with only five ‘remaining’ villages) ‘getting hardly enough to eat from their rocky islands’, and they live by ‘their unique skill in pottery, their great daring and efficiency as sailors, and their central position half w ay between D obu and the Trobriands’.4 The Trobrianders, as well as the Dobuans, give the Amphlett natives a very bad name, as being stingy and unfair in all Kula transactions, and as having no real sense of generosity and hospitality. . . . Their somewhat precarious food supply comes partly from the poor gardens, partly from fishing with kite and fish trap, which, however, can only seldom be carried out, and does not yield very much. They are not self-supporting, and receive, in form of presents and by trade, a good deal of vegetable food as well as pigs from the mainland, from Dobu and the Trobriands.5 The natives of the Amphletts are exclusive manufacturers of pottery, within a wide radius. They are the only purveyors to the Trobrianders, to the inhabitants of the Marshall Bennett Islands, and . . . all the claypots in Woodlark come from the Amphletts. To the South, they export their pots to Dobu, Duau [Normanby], and . . . as far as Milne Bay. . . . The best Amphlett pots owe their high quality to the excellence of their material as well as to their workmanship. The clay for them has to be imported [twice yearly] . . . from . . . a quarry on the Northern shore of Fergusson Island, about a day’s journey from the Amphletts.6 1 Argonauts, pp. 165-6. 4 Ibid., p. 46.

2 Ibid., pp. 362-4. s Ibid., pp. 47-8.

3 Ibid., p. 267. « Ibid., pp. 282-3.

The Trade o f the Kula

155

Malinowski sums up the trading connections o f the Amphlett Islands with his characteristic vividness: I f we imagine a commercial diagram drawn on the map, we would first of all notice the export in pottery, radiating from the Amphletts as its source. In the inverse direction, flowing towards them, would be imports in food such as sago, pigs, coconut, betel-nut, taro and yams. An article very impor­ tant in olden days, which had to be imported into the Amphletts, was the stone for implements coming via the Trobriands from Woodlark Island. . . . The Amphlett Islands further depended on the Trobriands for . . . wooden dishes . . . lime pots . . . baskets . . . mussell shells. . . . These articles were paid for, or matched as presents by . . . first of all, of course, the pots . . . turtleshell earrings, special nose sticks, red ochre, pummice stone and obsidian, all o f these obtainable locally. Further, [they] procured on Fergusson Island, for the Trobrianders, wild banana seeds used for neck­ laces, strips of rattan used as belts and for lashing, feathers . . . fibre-belts, bamboo and barbed spears. . . . In olden days . . . [each] Amphlett village community had a district on the mainland [i.e. Fergusson Island], with which they were on friendly terms and with which [and which alone] they could trade without incurring any danger.1 So much for the inter-trading done from the Trobriands westwards; the trading eastward is done between the Trobriand district o f K iri­ wina and Kitava Island. T he Kiriwinians go first to Kuboma, ‘every man on his own account’, to acquire the articles already listed, and these are then carried by the Kiriwinian kula expedition to Kitava. Things imported from Kitava in return are grass skirts, baskets, ebony articles, etc. As [Kiriwina and Kitava] are geologically and in other respects much more similar to one another than Sinaketa and Dobu are,2 the trade is not of such vital importance, with one notable exception . . . which, in the olden days, was of surpassing utility to the Trobriand natives, and which they could obtain only from Kitava, though it came originally from . . . Murua [Wood­ lark]. These were . . . roughly shaped pieces of green-stone, which were then polished in the Trobriands, and . . . used as stone implements, while [some], very large and thin and well polished all over, became . . . the beku [ = benam, ceremonial axe blades]. . . . The finished valuables were and are re-exported again, as Kiriwina is still the main polishing district. . . . As to the manner in which the trade was done between the Kiriwinians and Kitavans, all that has been said previously on the subject of inter-tribal trade 1 Ibid., pp. 286-7. 2 The Trobriands and Kitava are coral islands, while Dobu is a volcanic district: ibid., p. 286.

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holds good; [i.e.] part of the goods carried were given as presents, part of them were exchanged with non-partners, some were gifts received from the partners on leaving.1 Fortune s Evidence and Conclusion T o this picture o f the trade o f the kula, Fortune has little to add. He sums up that the ‘different areas have special products, and by ex­ change, all areas are supplied with a selection o f the products o f each area’.2 But he further makes the suggestion that ‘the XWfl-excliangg o f ornamental—valuables, useless enough in„itself, helps to maintain., annual exchanges, o f other-objects..that. serve, more.utilitarian ends’,® a suggestion which Malinowski ‘fully’ accepted in his Introduction to Fortune’s book.4 Fortune also has an illuminating paragraph on the ‘peacemaking’ o f the kula: Dobu, as the first port of call for Tubetube canoes, necessarily wants the southern ornament [Necklaces] and necessarily gets it— for Tubetube uses Dobu as a port to get to Murua [Woodlark], and could have its trade route cut by provoking Dobuan opposition, by refusing to exchange. Thejjeace^ making ceremonyjn-this-af-ea-consists essentially in one party exchanging its particular ornament for the orn am en t of thp other party. Refusal.to make such exchange between. Dobu. .and.Tubetube. would, mean .wan and.the isolation of Tubetube from the northern archipelago.5 But this situation, or something very like it, is not confined to ‘this area’, as Fortune implied, ‘between D obu and Tubetube’: the cere­ monial exchanges between any two adjacent districts o f the kula ring consist essentially in one party exchanging its particular ornament for the ornament o f the other party; and refusal to make such an exchange would mean, if not war, certainly isolation, and the extinction o f trading connections with adjacent districts and beyond. Even without war this would be sufficient sanction. The trade o f the kula is obviously o f vital importance to districts like Tubetube or the Amphletts, which are not self-sufficient in food and have to import large quantities o f this prime necessity o f life. But the trading connections are hardly less vital when the necessities which they provide are less obvious, and imported in smaller quantities. O f the ‘indispensable raw materials’ which the otherwise rich Trobriand Islands lack, stone is imported along the route Woodlark— the Marshall Bennetts— Kitava— Kiriwina, and is polished with special sand im1 Argonauts, pp. 480-1. 4 Ibid., p. xxvii.

2 Sorcerers, p. 207. 5 Ibid., p. 204.

3 Ibid., p. 206.

The Trade o f the Kula

157

ported from Fergusson Island through Kayleula and Kavataria.1 Clay pots come from the Amphletts, made with clay from Fergusson Island, and along the same route come rattan and bamboo, while sago is imported from Dobu. Thus each district has extensive trading con­ nections via its neighbours, and all the districts o f the kula ring are well and truly interwoven by a network o f trade. The trade which follows the flag I may have shown to be vital but, item for item, the flag itself is valued more highly: The high esteem in which bagi [Necklaces] are held may be appreciated from the fact that a really fine specimen is worth from £ 5 to £ 7 , this being the price which natives earning from ten to fifteen shillings a month are prepared to pay in cash to any trader possessing a really good one.2 T his was in 1904, and Malinowski reported from his observations o f 19 14 - 18 that ‘a native w ill give up to £ 2 0 for a good article’, i.e. an Armshell or Necklace.3 Since buying a kula Armshell or Necklace means, in effect, buying a place in the kula exchange market, this high price is perhaps not surprising. But there still remains the more general problem o f the high value attached to the kula for itself, and to a possible solution o f this I shall devote m y final chapter. 1 Argonauts, p. 502.2 Seligman, Melanesians, p. 515.

3 Article on ‘Kula’, p. 98.

CHAPTER IX C O N C L U S IO N : V A L U E O F T H E K U L A

I

B E G A N this essay b y examining the political systems o f the islands o f the kula ring as far as published material permitted. 'I then examined,’'separately,- the politics, .the ritual, and the trade o f the kula. In this concluding chapter I do not propose to reproduce the con­ clusions o f earlier discussions; I shall try, rather, to-answer the question fw h y'is the kula valued so highly? Am ong the islands o f the kula ring, the normal limit o f the politicals society is the district, and one kula district may consist o f a part o f a large island, or it may comprise several smalLones. Within one district, armed fights sometimes occur between the different villages'or islands, but destructive raids o f serious violence_do..not. Through the institu-~ tion o f kula partnerships this political society comes to be extended periodically to cover persons o f neighbouring districts. A s the Trobrianders say, My partner same as my clansman (kakaveyogu) [‘spurious kinsman’]— he might fight me. My real kinsman (veyogu), same navel-string, would always side with us.1 That is to say, to a man o f Sinaketa his kula partner o f N .W . D obu is as close politically as a fellow Trobriander o f a different village, but no closer. This degree of^political consociation suffices for the impor­ tant business o f inter-district trade to be conducted peaceably under the fOambrella o f a kula expedition. Each oversea expedition which goes out to solicit Armshells or Necklaces sets u p a kind o f temporary market. for the inter-district exchange o f more utilitarian goods. | But the high value attached to the kula objects themselves is not fully accounted for, in m y opinion, b y explaining that their exchange serves to extend the political society beyond the district, and so ensures the regular maintenance o f vital trade. The matter is more complex., than that; and for a fuller explanation we must consider the social ^ _value o ijh eA u la . Consider first Malinowski’s emphasis that in the Trobriands, ‘ the whole tribal life is permeated by a constant give and take’ (Malinowski’s italics), and ‘every ceremony, every legal and customary act is done to ___ Argonauts, p. 276.

158

Value o f the Kula

159

the_accompaniment o f material gift and_counter_ gift’ The social importance o f this continual give and take is not that it-satisfies.some ‘o ver^d evelop ed lo ve o f exchange!, as Fortune supposed,2 but that m these activities, with their continual iteration o f reciprocity and equal return, generosity in giving and honourin meetingdebts. j there con tinuously occur those inter-relations o f interests which bind the in dividual men, women and children into a society’.3 A nd Malinowski’s description o f ‘Reciprocity as the Basis o f Social Structure’ does not apply only to the Trobriands; we find the ‘Prin­ ciple o f Give-and-take Pervading Tribal Life’ equally on-all islands.4 W ith its strict decorum and public ceremonial, its ‘annually re­ peated miracle’ o f extensive credit,5 and its polite adjustment o f obliga­ tory equivalence without haggling, the kula gift and counter gift represents par excellence all that give and take should be at home or abroad. It symbolizes, in fact, the reciprocity which sustains a society at home, as well as that which maintains its vital alliances abroad. And to say that the kula exchanges symbolize reciprocity is to say that they symbolize the prime organizing principle o f small-scale societies which lack government and are composed o f homologous segments. That the give and take o f Armshell and Necklace symbolizes the principle o f reciprocity itself is the fundamental social value o f the kula; but I think it possible to offer a more specific explanation o f the high esteem in which the kula valuables are held. The corporate descent group which is the cornerstone o f each o f the societies o f the kula ring is the local lineage; and a number o f local lineages are interrelated to form one district. On an oversea expedition the men o f the different local lineages o f one district come together as rivals; and the implications o f tbis-rivalrv I have discussed in detail. M y main point was that the kula extends the political society beyond the district b y periodically depreciating the ties which bind an in­ dividual to the other members o f his own local lineage or district, and re-emphasizing his obligations towards his kula partner, who belongs to an otherwise opposed district.^For a man owes to his visiting kula partner from oversea the important political duty o f being his ‘host, patron and ally in a land o f danger and insecurity’.6 Moreover, a man 1 Ibid., p. 167. 2 Sorcerers, pp. 206-7, 2I°_ 3 Radcliffe-Brown, on the social importance of the getting and consuming of food in a society such as the Andaman Islands: Structure and Function in Primitive Society, p. 151. 4 Crime and Custom, pp. vii, 39-49. For Dobu give and take, see Sorcerers, pp. 189-207. 6Sorcerers, p. 215. 6 Argonauts, p. 92.

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owes it to his partners o f the next district to pass on his valuables to them sooner rather than later; he must not be ‘slow ’ or ‘hard’,1 so that there inheres in the kula not only the morality o f the market but also that o f the relay race. This, o f course, is the peculiar aptness o f having two sorts o f valuables, kept circulating in opposite directions, through one being exchanged for the other. The kula ring is thus made up o f a series o f insular districts o f which each one is linked to those on either side o f it through ‘ever so many’ individual partnerships.2 Each man makes the kula on his own account; ^ and the Armshells and Necklaces, as against all other forms o f valuable v property, are owned and disposed o f entirely individually. On a kula ^ expedition, therefore, as the rites o f the penultimate halt emphasize, each individual kula-maker stands b y and for himself, released from the normal restraints o f group solidarity; but because he pursues his individual self-interest through wooing his kula partner, he stands not only for himself, but also for the whole chain o f partners which goes to make up the kula ring. This I believe to be the key to the ultimate social importance o f the kula valuables: that they represent to the normally kin-bound in­ dividuals o f these small stateless societies the highest point o f their legitimate individual self-interest, and also j h e interest o f The widest ^ ^ o lit ic a l association o f which they all partake| Armshell and Necklace never function in the kula as the simple^mblems o f the local kingroup which is the basic unit o f Massim society. T h ey move, rather, always along the interrelations between groups; and the mechanism o f their movement is such that they symbolize, at once, the interests o f the narrowest social category operative among the Massim and also the widest: the single individual and the Kula Ring. 1 Argonauts, p. 94.

2 Ibid., p. 103.

B IB L IO G R A P H Y (.Authors and publications referred to in the text) COLSON, ELIZA BETH 1958. Marriage and the Family among the Plateau Tonga o f Northern Rhodesia, Manchester University Press. ELK IN , A. P. 1 953. Social Anthropology in Melanesia, Melbourne, Oxford University Press. FIR T H , RAYM OND 1957. ‘The Place of Malinowski in the History o f Economic Anthropo­ logy’, in Raymond Firth, ed., Man and Culture, London, Roudedge and Kegan Paul. FO R T ES, M EYER 1957. ‘Malinowski and the Study of Kinship’, in Raymond Firth, ed., Man and Culture. FO R TES, M., a n d EV A N S-PRITC H A RD , E. E. ( e d s .) 1940. African Political Systems, London, Oxford University Press for International African Institute. FO R TU N E, R. F. 1932. Sorcerers ofDobu, London, Routledge. FU RER-H AIM EN D O RF, CH RISTO PH v o n 1955. Himalayan Barbary, London, Murray. GLUCKM AN, M AX 1955. Custom and Conflict in Africa, Oxford, Blackwell. JEN N ESS, D., a n d BA LLA N T YN E, A. 1920. The Northern D ’Entrecasteaux, Oxford. K R IE G E R , H. W. 1943. Island Peoples o f the JVestern Pacific: Micronesia and Melanesia, Washington, Smithsonian Institution, War Background Studies, No. 16. L A B O U R ET , H. 1953. ‘L ’Echange et le Commerce dans les Archipels du Pacifique et en Afrique Tropicale’, Livre i of Tome III in J. Lacour-Gavet, ed., L.’ His toire du Commerce, Paris. LEACH , E. R. ; 1957. ‘The Epistemological Background to Malinowski’s Empiricism’, in Raymond Firth, ed., Man and Culture. 1958. ‘ Concerning Trobriand Clans and the Kinship Category Tabu , in Jack Goody, ed., The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups, Cambridge University Press. 16 1

Bibliography LEN O IR, RAYM OND 1924. ‘Les Expeditions Maritimes, Institution Sociale en Melanesie Occidentale’, L ’ Anthropologie, Tome 34, Paris. MACBEATH, A. 1952. Experiments in Living, London, Macmillan. MALINOWSKI, BRO NISLAW 1920. ‘Kula’, Man, 1920-1, article 51. , 1922. Argonauts o f the Western Pacific, London, Routledge. v 1926. Crime and Custom in Savage Society, London, Kegan Paul. 1926. Myth in Primitive Psychology, London, Kegan Paul. 1927. Sex and Repression in Savage Society, London, Kegan Paul. 1932. The Sexual Life o f Savages, third edition, London, Routledge. 1935. Coral Gardens and Their Magic, Volume I, London, George Allen and Unwin. MAUSS, M ARCEL 1954. The Gift, translated by Ian Cunnison, London, Cohen and West. PO W ELL, H. A. 1952. ‘Cricket in Kiriwina’, The Listener, X LV III. RAD CLIFFE-BRO W N , A. R. 1952. Structure and Function in Primitive Society, London, Cohen and West. SELIGMAN, C. G. 1910. The Melanesians o f British New Guinea, Cambridge University Press. ST IR LIN G , M. W. T943- The Native Peoples o f New Guinea, Washington, Smithsonian Institution, War Background Studies, No. 9. THOMSON, D O NALD F. 1949. Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land, Melbourne, Macmillan. W ARN O TTE, D. 1927. Les Origines Sociologiques de VObligation Contractuelle, Institut Solvay, Brussels, Lamertin. W O RSLEY, PET E R 1 957* The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study o f ‘Cargo’ Cults in Melanesia, London, MacGibbon and Kee.