Chapter VI

, Division VI, we have classified the various types of give and take, as they are to be found in the Trobriand Islands. The inter-tribal transactions which now take place in Dobu also fit into that scheme. The Kula itself belongs to class (6), 'Ceremonial Barter with deferred payment.' The offering of the pari, of landing gifts by the visitors, returned by the talo'i or farewell gifts from the hosts fall into the class (4) of presents more or less equivalent. Finally, between the visitors and the local people there takes place, also, barter pure and simple (gimwali). Between partners, however, there is never a direct exchange of the gimwali type. The local man will as a rule contribute a bigger present, for the talo'i always exceeds the pari in quantity and value, and small presents are also given to the visitors during their stay. Of course, if in the pari there were included gifts of high value, like a stone blade or a good lime spoon, such solicitary gifts would always be returned in strictly equivalent form. The rest would be liberally exceeded in value.

The trade takes place between the visitors and local natives, who are not their partners, but who must belong to the community with whom the Kula is made. Thus, Numanuma, Tu'utauna and Bwayowa are the three communities which form what we have called the 'Kula community' or 'Kula unit,' with whom the Sinaketans stand in the relation of partnership. And a Sinaketa man will gimwali (trade) only with a man from one of these villages who is not his personal partner. To use a native statement:

"Some of our goods we give in pari; some we keep back; later on, we gimwali it. They bring their areca-nut, their sago, they put it down. They want some article of ours, they say: 'I want this stone blade.' We give it, we put the betel-nut, the sago into our canoe. If they give us, however, a not sufficient quantity, we rate them. Then they bring more."

This is a clear definition of the gimwali, with haggling and adjustment of equivalence in the act.

When the visiting party from Sinaketa arrive, the natives from the neighbouring districts, that is, from the small island of Dobu proper, from the other side of Dawson Straits, from Deyde'i, the village to the South, will assemble in the three Kula villages. These natives from other districts bring with them a certain amount of goods. But they must not trade directly with the visitors from Boyowa. They must exchange their goods with the local natives, and these again will trade them with the Sinaketans. Thus the hosts from the Kula community act as intermediaries in any trading relations between the Sinaketans and the inhabitants of more remote districts.

To sum up the sociology of these transactions, we may say that the visitor enters into a threefold relation with the Dobuan natives. First, there is his partner, with whom he exchanges general gifts on the basis of free give and take, a type of transaction, running side by side with the Kula proper. Then there is the local resident, not his personal Kula partner, with whom he carries on gimwali. Finally there is the stranger with whom an indirect exchange is carried on through the intermediation of the local men. With all this, it must not be imagined that the commercial aspect of the gathering is at all conspicuous. The concourse of the natives is great, mainly owing to their curiosity, to see the ceremonial reception of the uvalaku party. But if I say that every visitor from Boyowa, brings and carries away about half-a-dozen articles, I do not under-state the case. Some of these articles the Sinaketan has acquired in the industrial districts of Boyowa during his preliminary trading expedition (see