Argonauts of the Western Pacific / An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea

Kayga'u of Tokulubwaydoga.

“Tobunaygu (repeated), Manemanaygu (repeated), my mother a snake, myself a snake; myself a snake, my mother a snake. Tokulubwaydoga, Isenadoga, Matagagai, Kalaytaytu; bulumava’u tabugu Madokei. I shall befog the front, I shall shut off the rear; I shall befog the rear, I shall shut off the front.”

This exordium contains at first the invocation of the name of the mulukwausi, who was the source of the spell. Its pendant Manemanaygu is, according to my informant, derived from an archaic word nema, equivalent to the present day yama, hand. “As the right hand is to the left one, so is Tobunaygu to Manemanaygu,” which was expressed as a matter of fact in the less grammatically worded form; “this right hand, this left” (clapped together) “so Tobunaygu, Manemanaygu.”

Whether this analysis of my informant is correct must remain an open question. It must be remembered that magic is not taken by the natives as an ethnographic document, allowing of interpretations and developments, but as an instrument of power. The words are there to act, and not to teach. Questions as to the meaning of magic, as a rule, puzzled the informants, and therefore it is not easy to explain a formula or obtain a correct commentary upon it. All the same there are some natives who obviously have tried to get to the bottom of what the various words in magic represent.

To proceed with our commentary, the phrase “My mother a snake, etc.,” was thus explained to me by Molilakwa: “Supposing we strike a snake, already it vanishes, it does not remain; thus also we human beings, when mulukwausi catch us, we disappear.” That is, we disappear after having spoken this magical formula, for in a formula the desired result is always expressed in anticipation. Molilakwa’s description of a snake’s behaviour is, according to my experience, not sound Natural History, but it probably expresses the underlying idea, namely the elusiveness of the snake, which would naturally be one of the metaphorical figures used in the spell.

The string of words following the invocation of the snake are all mythical names, four of which we found mentioned in the above myth, while the rest remain obscure. The last-named, that of Modokei, is preceded by the words bulumavau tabugu, which means, ‘recent spirit of my ancestor,’ which words are as a rule used in spells with reference to real grandfathers of the reciters.

The middle part of the spell proceeds:—

“I shall cover the eyes of the witches of Kitava; I shall cover the eyes of the witches of Kumwageya; I shall cover the eyes of the witches of Iwa; I shall cover the eyes of the witches of Gawa, etc., etc.,” enumerating all the villages and islands renowned for their witches. This list is again recited, substituting for the expression “I shall cover,” in succession, “I shall befog,” and “dew envelopes.” This middle part needs no commentary.

The end of this formula runs as follows:

“I shall kick thy body, I shall take thy spirit skirt, I shall cover thy buttocks, I shall take thy mat, a pandanus mat, I shall take thy mantle. I shall strike thee with my foot, go, fly over Tuma, fly away. I myself in the sea (here the reciter’s name is mentioned), I shall drift away, well.” This last part of the spell is so much alike to the end of the spell first quoted in this chapter, that no commentary is needed.

The mythological and magical data presented in this chapter all bear upon the native belief in flying witches and dangers at sea, a belief in which elements of reality are strangely blended with traditionally fixed fancies, in a way, however, not uncommon to human belief in general. It is time now to return to our party on the beach at Yakum, who, after having spent the night there, next morning rig up their masts, and with a favourable wind, soon reach the waters of Gumasila and Domdom.

1 Professor Seligman has described the belief in similar beings on the North-East Coast of New Guinea. At Gelaria, inland of Bartle Bay, the flying witches can produce a double, or “sending,” which they call labuni. “Labuni exists within women, and can be commanded by any woman who has had children …. It was said that the labuni existed in, or was derived from, an organ called ipona, situated in the flank, and literally meaning egg or eggs.” op. cit., p. 640. The equivalence of beliefs here is evident.?

2 Not all the spells which I have obtained have been equally well translated and commented upon. This one, although very valuable, for it is one of the spells of the old chief Maniyuwa, and one which had been recited when his corpse was brought over from Dobu by his son Maradiana, was obtained early in my ethnographic career, and Gomaya, Maradiana’s son, from whom I got it, is a bad commentator. Nor could I find any other competent informant later on, who could completely elucidate it for me.?

3 Such reconstructions are legitimate for an Ethnographer, as well as for a historian. But it is a duty of the former as well as of the latter to show his sources as well as to explain how he has manipulated them. In one of the next chapters, Chapter XVIII, Divisions XIV–XVII, a sample of this methodological aspect of the work will be given, although the full elaboration of sources and methods must be postponed to another publication.?

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