Chapter XII

, Division IV). Another detail of interest is that she brings the kaloma on their sticks, as they appear in the final stage of manufacturing. In this form, also, she tries to plant them on the reef. The finished kaloma, however, to use the words of one of my informants, "looked at her, the water swinging it to and fro; flashing its red eyes." And the woman, seeing it, pulls out the too accessible and too inviting kaloma and scatters them over the deep sea. Thus she makes them inaccessible to the uninitiated inland villagers, and monopolises them for Sinaketa. There can be no doubt that the villages of Vakuta have learnt this industry from the Sinaketans. The myth is hardly known in Vakuta, only a few are experts in diving and manufacturing; there is a tradition about a late transference of this industry there; finally the Vakutans have never fished for kaloma in the Sanaroa Lagoon.

Now let us describe the technicalities and the ceremonial connected with the fishing for kaloma. It will be better to give an account of how this is done in the Lagoon of Sinaketa, round the sandbank of Nanoula, as this is the normal and typical form of kaloma fishing. Moreover, when the Sinaketans do it in Sanaroa, the proceedings are very much the same, with just one or two phases missed out.

The office of magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma) is hereditary in two sub-clans, belonging to the Malasi clan, and one of them is that of the main chief of Kasi'etana. After the Monsoon season is over, that is, some time in March or April, ogibukuvi (i.e., in the season of the new yams) the magician gives the order for preparations. The community give him a gift called sousula, one or two bringing a vaygu'a, the rest supplying gugu'a (ordinary chattels), and some food. Then they prepare the canoes, and get ready the binabina stones, with which the spondylus shell will be knocked off the reef.

Next day, in the morning, the magician performs a rite called 'kaykwa'una la'i,' 'the attracting of the reef,' for, as in the case of several other marine beings, the main seat of the kaloma is far away. Its dwelling place is the reef Ketabu, somewhere between Sanaroa and Dobu. In order to make it move and come towards Nanoula, it is necessary to recite the above-named spell. This is done by the magician as he walks up and down on the Sinaketa beach and casts his words into the open, over the sea, towards the distant seat of the kaloma. The kaloma then 'stand up' (itolise) that is start from their original coral outcrop (vatu) and come into the Lagoon of Sinaketa. This spell, I obtained from To'udavada, the present chief of Kasi'etana, and descendant of the original giver of this shell, the woman of the myth. It begins with a long list of ancestral names; then follows a boastful picture of how the whole fleet admires the magical success of the magician's spell. The key-word in the main part is the word 'itolo': 'it stands up,' i.e., 'it starts,' and with this, there are enumerated all the various classes of the kaloma shell, differentiated according to size, colour and quality. It ends up with another boast; "My canoe is overloaded with shell so that it sinks," which is repeated with varying phraseology.

This spell the magician may utter once only, or he may repeat it several times on successive days. He fixes then the final date for the fishing expedition. On the evening before that date, the men perform some private magic, every one in his own house. The hammering stone, the gabila, which is always a binabina (it is a stone imported from the Koya), is charmed over. As a rule it is put on a piece of dried banana leaf with some red hibiscus blossoms and leaves or flowers of red colour. A formula is uttered over it, and the whole is then wrapped up in the banana leaf and kept there until it is used. This will make the stone a lucky one in hitting off many shells, and it will make the shells very red.

Another rite of private magic consists in charming a large mussel shell, with which, on the next morning, the body of the canoe will be scraped. This makes the sea clear, so that the diver may easily see and frequently find his spondylus shells.

Next morning the whole fleet starts on the expedition. Some food has been taken into the canoes, as the fishing usually lasts for a few days, the nights being spent on the beach of Nanoula. When the canoes arrive at a certain point, about half-way between Sinaketa and Nanoula, they all range themselves in a row. The canoe of the magician is at the right flank, and he medicates a bunch of red hibiscus flowers, some red croton leaves, and the leaves of the red-blossomed mangrove--red coloured substances being used to make the shell red, magically. Then, passing in front of all the other canoes, he rubs their prows with the bundle of leaves. After that, the canoes at both ends of the row begin to punt along, the row evolving into a circle, through which presently the canoe of the magician passes, punting along its diameter. At this place in the Lagoon, there is a small vatu (coral outcrop) called Vitukwayla'i. This is called the vatu of the baloma (spirits). At this vatu the magician's canoe stops, and he orders some of its crew to dive down and here to begin the gathering of shells.

Some more private magic is performed later on by each canoe on its own account. The anchor stone is charmed with some red hibiscus flowers, in order to make the spondylus shell red. There is another private magic called 'sweeping of the sea,' which, like the magic of the mussel shell, mentioned above, makes the sea clear and transparent. Finally, there is an evil magic called 'besprinkling with salt water.' If a man does it over the others, he will annul the effects of their magic, and frustrate their efforts, while he himself would arouse astonishment and suspicion by the amount of shell collected. Such a man would dive down into the water, take some brine into his mouth, and emerging, spray it towards the other canoes, while he utters the evil charm.

So much for the magic and the ceremonial associated with the spondylus fishing in the Trobriand Lagoon. In Sanaroa, exactly the same proceedings take place, except that there is no attracting of the reef, probably because they are already at the original seat of the kaloma. Again I was told that some of the private magic would be performed in Sinaketa before the fleet sailed on the Kula expedition. The objects medicated would be then kept, well wrapped in dried leaves.

It may be added that neither in the one Lagoon nor in the other are there any private, proprietary rights to coral outcrops. The whole community of Sinaketa have their fishing grounds in the Lagoon, within which every man may hunt for his spondylus shell, and catch his fish at times. If the other spondylus fishing community, the Vakutans, encroached upon their grounds, there would be trouble, and in olden days, fighting. Private ownership in coral outcrops exists in the Northern villages of the Lagoon, that is in Kavataria, and the villages on the island of Kayleula.

III

We must now follow the later stages of the kaloma industry. The technology of the proceedings is so mixed up with remarkable sociological and economic arrangements that it will be better to indicate it first in its main outlines. The spondylus consists of a shell, the size and shape of a hollowed out half of a pear, and of a flat, small lid. It is only the first part which is worked. First it has to be broken into pieces with a binabina or an utukema (green stone imported from Woodlark Island) as shown on Plate L (A). On each piece, then, can be seen the stratification of the shell: the outside layer of soft, chalky substance; under this, the layer of red, hard, calcareous material, and then the inmost, white, crystalline stratum. Both the outside and inside have to be rubbed off, but first each piece has to be roughly rounded up, so as to form a thick circular lump. Such a lump (see foregrounds of Plates L (A), L (B)) is then put in the hole of a cylindrical piece of wood. This latter serves as a handle with which the lumps are rubbed on a piece of flat sandstone (see Plate L (B)). The rubbing is carried on so far till the outside and inside layers are gone, and there remains only a red, flat tablet, polished on both sides. In the middle of it, a hole is drilled through by means of a pump drill--gigi'u--(see Plate LI), and a number of such perforated discs are then threaded on a thin, but tough stick (see Plate LII), with which we have already met in the myth. Then the cylindrical roll is rubbed round and round on the flat sandstone, until its form becomes perfectly symmetrical (see Plate LII). Thus a number of flat, circular discs, polished all round and perforated in the middle, are produced. The breaking and the drilling, like the diving are done exclusively by men. The polishing is as a rule woman's work.

This technology is associated with an interesting sociological relation between the maker and the man for whom the article is made. As has been stated in