THE KAYEKI OF THE KULA PEOPLE

THE GINIUBA OF THE KULA PEOPLE

BEAUTY MAGIC IN THE KULA AREA

ANOTHER USE FOR THE BEKU IN THE TROBRIANDS

Kayeki Kaydobu Giniuba Beku

The above illustrations are to scale

The following articles are mainly taken from The Traditional Money Journal Vol.9 Number 1
of April 1988 and some have excerpts taken from the publications shown in the Bibliography.

They can be read in the aforementioned Journal but I thought that they deserved an easier
availability.

My thanks to my wife Eileen for re-typing the articles.

Bibliography (for the four articles on Massim items following)

Armstrong, W.E. (1928) Rossel Island, An Ethnological Study

Leach, Jerry W. & Edmund Leach (eds) (1983) The Kula, New Perspectives in Massim
Exchange
McIntyre, M. Personal communication
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1922) Argonauts of the Western Pacific
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1929) The Sexual Life of Savages in North Western Melanesia
Seligmann, C.G. (1910) The Melanesians of British New Guinea
Shack, William A. (1985) The Kula, A Bronislaw Malinowski Centennial Exhibition
Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley, California.
Weiner, Annette B, (1977) Women of Value, Men of Renown, New Perspectives in
Trobriand Exchange
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 THE KAYEKI OF THE KULA PEOPLE

Col Davidson

Some years back I was fortunate in being able to purchase a number of Kula items collected
by a teacher on Dobu Island in the very early 1920s. At the time I noticed that the late
teachers family had a few ground and edge-sharpened pearlshell vegetable peelers. I was not
overly interested in these because they appeared to be relatively unimportant use items, non-
monetary and (an important detail at the time) I was rapidly running out of cash because of
my more major purchases. However, a friend in America then obtained for me a lovely book
The Kula. A Bronislaw Malinowski Centennial Exhibition, which made me reconsider
my original opinion.

The book shows several pictures of

similar vegetable peelers that had
actually been collected by
Malinowski and are now part of the
Museums collection. Beside the
illustrations it is mentioned that the
items were used in rituals of
adornment and the books
presentation of them, with no less
than three picture illustrations, made
me start wondering if my idea of their
lack of importance required some re-
evaluation. So, I began a search for
information that could help.

My first reference was, of course, Malinowskis Argonauts. Mr. Malinowski wasnt much
help at first as nowhere could I find a mention of such pearlshell scrapers. The only mention
of shell scrapers that I could find was in his list of the articles of subsidiary trade which a
Kiriwinian expedition would carry with them to Kitava these are the following: wood
combs; various classes of lime pots; armlets of plaited fern fibre; turtle shell earrings;
mussel shell, etc. Of these articles the most important are probably the mussel shells, used
for scraping and as knives. I thought that I would check a little further on this reference to
mussels and found an interesting note in his description of items from the Trobriands traded
to the Amphletts: wooden dishes; lime pots, baskets; ebony lime pots and mussel shells,
these latter fished mainly by the village of Kavataria in the lagoon. Again, later in his book,
he mentions that nowadays, the community of Kavataria are completely absorbed by the
pearling industry.

So here I had a number of puzzling and seemingly contradictory facts Malinowski actually
collected some Pearlshell scrapers but he mentions only mussel scrapers. The mussels are
apparently common in the lagoon near Kavataria and the same area was heavily involved in
the pearlshell industry. I found a reference in Armstrongs Rossel Island to pearl mussels
and now began wondering if the mussel shells mentioned by Malinowski were, in fact,
pearlshell. A dictionary wasnt much help apart from advising that there were saltwater
mussels as well as freshwater ones. I then contacted the Australian Museum and found the
anthropology and shell departments very helpful and knowledgeable. It appears that the term
mussel in Malinowskis day was a fairly general term describing most bivalve shellfish.
Also, both marine mussels and oysters would be present in the lagoon near Kavataria, but the
mussels would be only one to two inches in length. It appeared to me that Malinowskis
mussel was, in fact, an oyster pearlshell and I confirmed this with Ms Martha McIntyre of
the Latrobe University who is very knowledgeable in Kula matters.

Kayeki Kaydobu

Seligmann named the mussels as Kaneku against Malinowskis Kaniku. Malinowski,

however, called the pearlshell, Kayeki or Kaydobu. This inconsistency is explained as a
Annette Weiners description of the Kaniku as a womans cutting tool for making skirts and
bundles from banana leaves, usually a sharpened shell or the sharpened edge of an empty tin
of fish. They were used in making the items of womens wealth by cutting the leaf between
the sharpened shell or tin and a flat board (Kaidawagu) which comprises part of the
household inventory of every married woman. Thus we see that Kaniku is the name of the
implement rather than that of the material of which it is made.
 A Kaydobu and the Kaidawagu womens cutting board

The words Kayeki and Kaydobu are the names of the material itself the pearlshell. The
second name is interesting in that it denotes pearlshell from Dobu one of the more
important areas which supplied the item but I can see no real difference between the two.
The size is different in my examples but I have seen larger Kayeki.

The pearlshell knife was used throughout all of the Kula area and even further. It was
called Kuma on Rossel Island and Gile on Sudest. However, these days, it appears to be quite
scarce. Scoditti in The Kula mentions that by the mid-1970s the mussel shells had
dropped out of the list of subsidiary trade items of the Kula between Kiriwina and Kitava
he advises that this is because of the ready availability of knives, a fact which is backed up by
Weiner who describes their replacement by sharpened empty fish tins.

Although they appear to have been replaced throughout most of the Kula and related areas,
on the island of Sudest in the east they have been used in recent times as a ceremonial
valuable, a spoon, vegetable peeler and in memorial feasts. On Sudest the pearlshell knife is
called a Gile and is essential in the memorial feast called Jivia where kinspeople of the
deceased are ritually fed by mourning in-laws with specially prepared sago pudding or sacred
taro using a Gile. Also in Sudest is a custom called Buwa, where the first time a man or boy is
discovered to have spent the night inside a house with an unmarried woman or girl, the
womans family presents a small basket to the man filled with such items as shell valuables,
gile, fabric, trade store plates and cutlery, money and sometimes even bagi necklaces or beku
axeblades. The man is not supposed to take these things, but to add an equivalent amount of
valuables to the basket and return it to the womans family, after which he may sleep with her
without further payment for a long as is mutually agreeable. These items are distributed
among her kinsfolk and do not go to her. A somewhat similar custom exists on Rossel Island.

From what I have been able to learn I find that the pearlshell knives are important Kula area
valuables. In some localities they are the most important subsidiary trade item of that
particular Kula and, like the Swill Army knife, they have a multitude of uses. They are a
knife (they are even used to cut a mans hair cutting it off in tufts against a flat board), a
vegetable peeler and scraper, a love payment, a ceremonial spoon and on Sudest, sea-witchs
spirits have been known to use them to cut off the lips of sailors so that they will talk like
dogs and be unable to find their way home.
My opinion of the kayeki and kaydobu has now changed considerably. From the
inconsequential items I originally thought them to be I now regard them as important Kula
trade items with magical and ceremonial connotations. They are scarce, if not rare, and would
be an accepted item in any collection of Pacific traditional moneys.

In my eyes this story has a happy ending as I was able to obtain the small batch of kaydobu
shells still held by the teachers family and I now have them presented in my collection with
other Kula items.

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 THE GINIUBA OF THE KULA PEOPLE

Col Davidson

Another item very similar to the kayeki or kaydobu, but much more important, is the Giniuba
of the Kula and associated regions.

Giniuba (230mm wide)

Carl Thune, in Leachs Kula mentions that the most commonly used Kune or Kula
valuables on Normanby Island are bagi necklaces and mwali armshells but that other Kune
valuables include the mwahu noseplug, the gadiwana sapi-sapi belt, the palelesalu stone
axeblade, the giniuba pearlshell and the dona necklace with tusk pendant.

As well as being items of the Kula proper they are important valuables for the internal
exchanges of the Duau and Normanby people. Some of these ceremonies, such as in marriage
and mortuary exchanges, are the high points of Duau social life - far overshadowing all other
social events, including even those related to the Kula.

The pearlshell Giniuba have many uses, quite apart from their need in ceremonial exchanges.
A few instances are set out below:

Malinowski tells us that the Kinaketan people collect the shell Kaloma to be made into the
famous bagi necklaces for the Kula trade. Whether the fishing for the shell 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. Much magic is used to
help them find the shell and one rite of private magic consists of charming a Giniuba
pearlshell, with which the body of a canoe will be scraped. This makes the sea clear, so that
the diver may easily see and frequently find his Kaloma spondylus shells.

Lepowsky, in Leachs Kula, mentions the high value of the Giniuba pearlshell which is, in
effect, a particularly large and fine pearlshell knife. The Sudest people say the giniuba are
only found by a person appealing through magic to a dead kinsperson whose ghost may
consent to reveal the specific location of the shell, in the lagoon waters, to the sleeper in a
dream. The giniuba are apparently used in all of the ceremonial occasions in which the gile
are used (see article on Kayeki) but are much more highly valued because of their size and
rarity.

Giniuba and Kayobu (showing relative sizes)

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 BEAUTY MAGIC IN THE KULA AREA

Col Davidson

To the Trobriand Islander and those of the immediate Massim area one of the items which
most affects all walks of life is Megwa or, as we understand it, MAGIC.

This is the force residing in man and kept there by correctly observing tradition by generation
after generation of villagers. The force can only become active by the performance of the
correct ritual for the occasion, by the recital of the proper incantations and by the observance
of specific taboos. In matters of love it is of major importance as it can endow a person with
charm, produce or alienate affection and it can produce or enhance ones personal beauty.

Personal beauty is not only valued for amorous or erotic reasons. A woman in her first
pregnancy is sexually taboo to her own husband and both she and society would regard
adultery as morally repulsive but she is subject to an elaborate ritual with spells to enhance
her bodily beauty. Males in Kula partnerships employ full ritual, taboo and ceremony to make
themselves attractive so that their partners will admire them and throw the vaygua
(valuables) at us. Also, on the death of a person, the body is washed, anointed and covered
with ornaments to enhance its beauty. So we see that beauty magic is of major importance in
all spheres of their life from birth to death and is not used solely for sexual attraction
although this phase of its use is definitely not unimportant).
Beauty magic, called Talilisa, is part of the personal preparation for all big festivals and the
Trobrianders have many festivals for the harvest, mortuary rites, competitive enterprises,
the annual season of amusement and so on. Special charms are recited over certain parts of
the body during the care and cleansing of them and during ornamentation. The ceremonial
washing and decoration of the dancers for these festivities is undertaken by women of a
special class in relation to the dancers. These are their tabula (note 1). The ceremonial
dressing must be preceded by a ritual washing and cleansing conducted by a continuous
recital of the appropriate spells.

In the meantime, the

women have been
preparing various cosmetic
substances. Each boy,
before the washing, has
taken off his most precious
ornaments, such as shell
belt, armshells and
valuable necklaces, and left
them with his tabula; so
now the toilet can begin.
First comes the anointing
with charmed coconut oil,
always the next stage after
washing. This is rubbed all
over the skin by the man
himself and then the
women proceed to stroke
the skin with a mother-of-
pearl shell the kayeki or
kaydobu. Slowly and
gently each tabula presses
the smooth shell up and
down his cheeks, his arms
and his chest, and laterally
across his forehead;
reciting a formula in a clear
audible voice directing
the words towards the
boys face which she is
stroking:

Who makes the beauty magic?

To heighten the beauty, to make it come out.
Who makes it on the slopes of Obukula?
I, Tabalu and my mate Kwaywaya.
We make the beauty magic.
I smooth out, I improve, I whiten!
Thy head I smooth out, I improve, I whiten!
Thy cheeks I smooth out, I improve, I whiten!
Thy nose I smooth out, I improve, I whiten!
Thy throat ..........................
Bright skin, bright; glowing skin, glowing.

The reference to the magic mountain Obukula from whence the earliest clan ancestors
emerged and with the names of two ancestors of the highest sub-clan the woman is calling on
the original source of the magic to help in the ritual.

After the body has been anointed and smoothed with the pearl shell the cosmetics are
ceremonially applied, while reciting the appropriate spells, the dancers then are adorned with
red flowers, aromatic herbs and garlands of the butia. Appropriate incantations are said and
finally, with no magic, ornaments such as belts, armshells, necklaces and feather ornaments
are placed on the dancers. This last part of the toilet is done by the men.

A womans first pregnancy is an

important time imbued with
much ceremony. In her fifth
month of pregnancy ceremonial
garments are presented to the
mother-to-be. The next day the
actual investment of the
pregnant woman takes place and
with this is associated her public
bathing and magical adornment.
As part of this ceremony the face
of the young woman is stroked
with a mother-of-pearl shell
whole one of the tabula mutters
the spell of beauty exactly as
used in the beauty magic for the
dancers previously mentioned.

Although many kinds of beauty

magic are known and used by
both women and men, Talilisa
and the accompanying pearlshell
are the sole property of women.
When they perform talilisa, they
themselves are mooted as
objects of beauty.
As was explained in more detail in this and the previous article, the pearlshells mentioned
were important trade valuables which would fit well into any collection of Primitive or
Traditional Moneys. Their further appeal to such a collector would be enhanced by their
association with magic and ritual and their recognised use in the age-old endeavour for
personal beautification.

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Note 1: A tabula is a mans fathers sister or his cross-cousin. The true tabula of a man is his
fathers sisters daughter who is an approved and suitable partner for passing intrigues and for more
stable liaisons or for marriage. The tabula of the pregnant woman mentioned is her fathers sister or
other paternal relatives.

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 ANOTHER USE FOR THE BEKU IN THE TROBRIANDS

Col Davidson

Most collectors of Pacific Primitive Moneys know of the many monetary uses
to which the Massim people (and others) put their beku stone axeblades.
These beku or vaygua (ceremonial valuables) are used in ceremonial
exchanges, bride price, canoe price, mortuary payments, purchase of
allegiance, purchase of pigs/bagi or other ceremonial valuables, etc., etc.

In obtaining the information on the pearlshell scrapers I noticed another

rather interesting use for beku on the Trobriand Island of Kiriwina.

Beku

On Kiriwina there were seven war regions each with its own traditional allies and enemies.
It was common for a group of villages, usually from within a war region, to wage war on
another village or group. If not directly involved, other villages made decisions on each
occasion of impending battle to fight or not to
fight for these villages only if solicited by a
ceremonial presentation of the beku axeblades.

Traditionally, the war regions of Katumatala

and Kuboma were called in by Wakaisa to
fight Kulakaiwa, or by Kulakaiwa to fight
Wakaisa. Their services were bought with
beku or vaygua. If Kulakaiwa was successful
in buying their services, these two hired areas
would congregate at Obwelia or Okaikoda to
eat (the custom of kabutu), and then prepare
for battle. They would paint their bodies
(biputumasi), decorate their hair with feathers
(bikalaisi) and work up a battle fervour by
certain dances (biseiwausi) before going to the
battle-ground. If Wakaisa was the successful
bidder in hiring their services, they would
congregate at Yalaka for the same meal and
battle preparation.

Warfare among these Trobrianders had many

civilised features. Some battles were
ritualised and had their own rules and
regulations. There was the prepared ground,
the dress of the participants, the appointed day for fighting, the lining up in two great
phalanxes of warriors facing each other and the existence of battle umpires.
War took two forms. The warriors would go to a village or succession of villages, burning the
houses, killing pigs and destroying food gardens. Or else they would assemble to fight an
opposing force of warriors at the traditional battle-ground Duguveiyusa. If the latter form was
chosen, all the women went along to watch. Such battles were highly formalised and deaths
were generally those which the Tabalu chief had decided would take place.

It is recorded of one such battle that when all the warriors were drawn up ready to begin, it
was found that the sun shone into the eyes of one side, giving their opponents an unfair
advantage; so the disposition of both sides was re-arranged to even things up, after which
battle was joined

As part of this system, one of the northern war regions Katumatala is of particular
interest. The name Katumatala means killing or killing place and the area contains three
or four villages. The northern tip of the region contains the traditional battlefield called
Duguveiyusa, which is between the villages of Omarakana and Kwaibwaga. On this
battlefield any set of warring villagers could choose to fight and, for a payment of the
ceremonial axeblade, beku, the Kamutalans would clear the field. The highest privilege of the
Katumatalans was to be able to stop any battle in progress at any point, by plunging a spear
into the middle of the battleground and shouting, desi, or finished, to the accompaniment
of the conch shell. Any side which did not stop risked having the Katumatalans, well known
as fierce warriors, come into the fight against them

The advantage of the ownership of beku is readily apparent. Their necessity in obtaining
allies or placating others and their use in arranging a battleground far from ones village or
gardens gives just one more aspect to these lovely items of primitive money.

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