CHAPTER XV

THE JOURNEY HOME--THE FISHING AND WORKING OF THE KALOMA SHELL

I

The return journey of the Sinaketan fleet is made by following exactly the same route as the one by which they came to Dobu. In each inhabited island, in every village, where a halt had previously been made, they stop again, for a day or a few hours. In the hamlets of Sanaroa, in Tewara and in the Amphletts, the partners are revisited. Some Kula valuables are received on the way back, and all the talo'i gifts from those intermediate partners are also collected on the return journey. In each of these villages people are eager to hear about the reception which the uvalaku party have received in Dobu; the yield in valuables is discussed, and comparisons are drawn between the present occasion and previous records.

No magic is performed now, no ceremonial takes place, and there would be very little indeed to say about the return journey but for two important incidents; the fishing for spondylus shell (kaloma) in Sanaroa Lagoon, and the display and comparison of the yield of Kula valuables on Muwa beach.

The natives of Sinaketa, as we have seen in the last chapter, acquire a certain amount of the Koya produce by means of trade. There are, however, certain articles, useful yet unobtainable in the Trobriands, and freely accessible in the Koya, and to these the Trobrianders help themselves. The glassy forms of lava, known as obsidian, can be found in great quantities over the slopes of the hills in Sanaroa and Dobu. This article, in olden days, served the Trobrianders as material for razors, scrapers, and sharp, delicate, cutting instruments. Pumice-stone abounding in this district is collected and carried to the Trobriands, where it is used for polishing. Red ochre is also procured there by the visitors, and so are the hard, basaltic stones (binabina) used for hammering and pounding and for magical purposes. Finally, very fine silica sand, called maya, is collected on some of the beaches, and imported into the Trobriands, where it is used for polishing stone blades, of the kind which serve as tokens of value and which are manufactured up to the present day.

II

But by far the most important of the articles which the Trobrianders collect for themselves are the spondylus shells. These are freely, though by no means easily, accessible in the coral outcrops of Sanaroa Lagoon. It is from this shell that the small circular perforated discs (kaloma) are made, out of which the necklaces of the Kula are composed, and which also serve for ornamenting almost all the articles of value or of artistic finish which are used within the Kula district. But, only in two localities within the district are these discs manufactured, in Sinaketa and in Vakuta, both villages in Southern Boyowa. The shell can be found also in the Trobriand Lagoon, facing these two villages. But the specimens found in Sanaroa are much better in colour, and I think more easily procured. The fishing in this latter locality, however, is done by the Sinaketans only.

Whether the fishing is done in their own Lagoon, near an uninhabited island called Nanoula, or in Sanaroa, it is always a big, ceremonial affair, in which the whole community takes part in a body. The magic, or at least part of it, is done for the whole community by the magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma), who also fixes the dates, and conducts the ceremonial part of the proceedings. As the spondylus shell furnishes one of the essential episodes of a Kula expedition, a detailed account both of fishing and of manufacturing must be here given. The native name, kaloma (in the Southern Massim districts the word sapi-sapi is used) describes both the shell and the manufactured discs. The shell is the large spondylus shell, containing a crystalline layer of a red colour, varying from dirty brick-red to a soft, raspberry pink, the latter being by far the most prized. It lives in the cavities of coral outcrop, scattered among shallow mud-bottomed lagoons.

This shell is, according to tradition, associated with the village of Sinaketa. According to a Sinaketan legend, once upon a time, three guya'u (chief) women, belonging to the Tabalu sub-clan of the Malasi clan, wandered along, each choosing her place to settle in. The eldest selected the village of Omarakana; the second went to Gumilababa; the youngest settled in Sinaketa. She had kaloma discs in her basket, and they were threaded on a long, thin stick, called viduna, such as is used in the final stage of manufacture. She remained first in a place called Kaybwa'u, but a dog howled, and she moved further on. She heard again a dog howling, and she took a kaboma (wooden plate) and went on to the fringing reef to collect shells. She found there the momoka (white spondylus), and she exclaimed: "Oh, this is the kaloma!" She looked closer, and said: "Oh no, you are not red. Your name is momoka." She took then the stick with the kaloma discs and thrust it into a hole of the reef. It stood there, but when she looked at it, she said: "Oh, the people from inland would come and see you and pluck you off." She went, she pulled out the stick; she went into a canoe, and she paddled. She paddled out into the sea. She anchored there, pulled the discs off the stick, and she threw them into the sea so that they might come into the coral outcrop. She said: "It is forbidden that the inland natives should take the valuables. The people of Sinaketa only must dive." Thus only the Sinaketa people know the magic, and how to dive.

This myth presents certain remarkable characteristics. I shall not enter into its sociology, though it differs in that respect from the Kiriwinian myths, in which the equality of the Sinaketan and the Gumilababan chiefs with those of Omarakana is not acknowledged. It is characteristic that the Malasi woman in this myth shows an aversion to the dog, the totem animal of the Lukuba clan, a clan which according to mythical and historical data had to recede before and yield its priority to the Malasi (compare