In this chapter an account will be given of the ideas and beliefs associated with shipwreck, and of the various precautions which the natives take to insure their own safety. We shall find here a strange mixture of definite, matter of fact information, and of fantastic superstitions. Taking a critical, ethnographic side view, it may be said directly that the fanciful elements are intertwined with the realities in such a manner, that it is difficult to make a distinction between what is mere mytho-poetic fiction and what is a customary rule of behaviour, drawn from actual experience. The best way of presenting this material will be to give a consecutive account of a shipwreck, as it is told in Kiriwinian villages by the travelled old men to the younger generation. I shall adduce in it the several magical formulÆ, the rules of behaviour, the part played by the miraculous fish, and the complex ritual of the saved party as they flee from the pursuing mulukwausi.

These—the flying witches—will play such an important part in the account, that I must begin with a detailed description of the various beliefs referring to them, though the subject has been touched upon once or twice before (Chapter II, Division VII, and other places). The sea and sailing upon it are intimately associated in the mind of a Boyowan with these women. They had to be mentioned in the description of canoe magic, and we shall see what an important part they play in the legends of canoe building. In his sailing, whether he goes to Kitava or further East, or whether he travels South to the Amphletts and Dobu, they form one of the main preoccupations of a Boyowan sailor. For they are not only dangerous to him, but to a certain extent, foreign. Boyowa, with the exception of Wawela and one or two other villages on the Eastern coast, and in the South of the island, is an ethnographic district, where the flying witches do not exist, although they visit it from time to time. Whereas all the surrounding tribes are full of women who practice this form of sorcery. Thus sailing South, the Boyowan is travelling straight into the heart of their domain.

These women have the power of making themselves invisible, and flying at night through the air. The orthodox belief is that a woman who is a yoyova can send forth a double which is invisible at will, but may appear in the form of a flying fox or of a night bird or a firefly. There is also a belief that a yoyova develops within her a something, shaped like an egg, or like a young, unripe coco-nut. This something is called as a matter of fact kapuwana, which is the word for a small coco-nut.1 This idea remains in the native’s mind in a vague, indefinite, undifferentiated form, and any attempt to elicit a more detailed definition by asking him such questions, as to whether the kapuwana is a material object or not, would be to smuggle our own categories into his belief, where they do not exist. The kapuwana is anyhow believed to be the something which in the nightly flights leaves the body of the yoyova and assumes the various forms in which the mulukwausi appears. Another variant of the belief about the yoyova is, that those who know their magic especially well, can fly themselves, bodily transporting themselves through the air.

But it can never be sufficiently emphasised that all these beliefs cannot be treated as consistent pieces of knowledge; they flow into one another, and even the same native probably holds several views rationally inconsistent with one another. Even their terminology (compare the last Division of the foregoing chapter), cannot be taken as implying a strict distinction or definition. Thus, the word yoyova is applied to the woman as we meet her in the village, and the word mulukwausi will be used when we see something suspicious flying through the air. But it would be incorrect to systematise this use into a sort of doctrine and to say: “An individual woman is conceived as consisting of an actual living personality called yoyova, and of an immaterial, spiritual principle called mulukwausi, which in its potential form is the kapuwana.” In doing this we would do much what the MediÆval Scholastics did to the living faith of the early ages. The native feels and fears his belief rather than formulates it clearly to himself. He uses terms and expressions, and thus, as used by him, we must collect them as documents of belief, but abstain from working them out into a consistent theory; for this represents neither the native’s mind nor any other form of reality.

As we remember from Chapter II, the flying witches are a nefarious agency, second in importance to the bwaga’u (male sorcerer), but in efficiency far more deadly even than he himself. In contrast to the bwaga’u, who is simply a man in possession of a special form of magic, the yoyova have to be gradually initiated into their status. Only a small child, whose mother is a witch, can become a witch herself. When a witch gives birth to a female child, she medicates a piece of obsidian, and cuts off the navel string. The navel string is then buried, with the recital of a magical formula, in the house, and not, as is done in all ordinary cases, in the garden. Soon after, the witch will carry her daughter to the sea beach, utter a spell over some brine in a coco-nut cup, and give the child to drink. After that, the child is submerged in water and washed, a kind of witch’s baptism! Then she brings back the baby into the house, utters a spell over a mat, and folds her up in it. At night, she carries the baby through the air, and goes to a trysting place of other yoyova, where she presents her child ritually to them. In contrast to the usual custom of young mothers of sleeping over a small fire, a sorceress lies with her baby in the cold. As the child grows up, the mother will take it into her arms and carry it through the air on her nightly rounds. Entering girlhood at the age when the first grass skirt is put on a maiden, the little prospective witch will begin to fly herself.

Another system of training, running side by side with flying, consists in accustoming the child to participation in human flesh. Even before the growing witch will begin to fly on her own account, the mother will take her to the ghoulish repasts, where she and other witches sit over a corpse, eating its eyes, tongue, lungs, and entrails. There the little girl receives her first share of corpse flesh, and trains her taste to like this diet.

There are other forms of training ascribed to mothers solicitous that their daughters should grow up into efficient yoyova and mulukwausi. At night the mother will stand on one side of the hut, with the child in her hands, and throw the little one over the roof. Then quickly, with the speed only possible to a yoyova, she will move round, and catch the child on the other side. This happens before the child begins to fly, and is meant to accustom it to passing rapidly through the air. Or again, the child will be held by her feet, head down, and remain in this position while the mother utters a spell. Thus gradually, by all these means, the child acquires the powers and tastes of a yoyova.

It is easy to pick out such girls from other children. They will be recognisable by their crude tastes, and more especially by their habit of eating raw flesh of pigs or uncooked fish. And here we come to a point, where mythical superstition plays over into something more real, for I have been assured by reliable informants, and those not only natives, that there are cases of girls who will show a craving for raw meat, and when a pig is being quartered in the village will drink its blood and tear up its flesh. These statements I never could verify by direct observations, and they may be only the result of very strong belief projecting its own realities, as we see on every side in our own society in miraculous cures, spiritistic phenomena, etc., etc. If, however, the eating of raw flesh by girl children really occurs, this simply means that they play up to what they know is said and believed about them. This again is a phenomenon of social psychology met with in many phases of Trobriand society and in our own.

This does not mean that the character of a yoyova is publicly donned. Indeed, though a man often owns up to the fact that he is a bwaga’u, and treats his speciality quite openly in conversation, a woman will never directly confess to being a yoyova, not even to her own husband. But she will certainly be marked by everyone as such a one, and she will often play up to the rÔle, for it is always an advantage to be supposed to be endowed with supernatural powers. And moreover, being a sorceress is also a good source of income. A woman will often receive presents with the understanding that such and such a person has to be injured. She will openly take gifts, avowedly in payment for healing someone who has been hurt by another witch. Thus the character of a yoyova is, in a way, a public one, and the most important and powerful witches will be enumerated by name. But no woman will ever openly speak about being one. Of course to have such a character would in no way spoil matrimonial chances, or do anything but enhance the social status of a woman.

So deep is the belief in the efficacy of magic, and in magic being the only means of acquiring extraordinary faculties, that all powers of a yoyova are attributed to magic. As we saw in the training of a young yoyova, magic has to be spoken at every stage in order to impart to her the character of a witch. A full blown yoyova has to utter special magic each time she wishes to be invisible, or when she wants to fly, or acquire higher speed, or penetrate darkness and distance in order to find out whether an accident is happening there. But like everything referring to this form of witchcraft, these formulÆ never come to light. Although I was able to acquire a whole body of spells of the bwaga’u sorcery, I could not even lift the fringe of the impenetrable veil, surrounding the magic of the yoyova. As a matter of fact, there is not the slightest doubt for me that not one single rite, not one single word of this magic, have ever existed.

Once a mulukwausi is fully trained in her craft, she will often go at night to feed on corpses or to destroy shipwrecked mariners, for these are her two main pursuits. By a special sense, acquired through magic, she can ‘hear,’ as the natives say, that a man has died at such and such a place, or that a canoe is in danger. Even a young apprenticed yoyova will have her hearing so sharpened that she will tell her mother: “Mother, I hear, they cry!” Which means that a man is dead or dying at some place. Or she will say: “Mother, a waga is sinking!” And then they both will fly to the spot.

When she goes out on such an errand, the yoyova leaves her body behind. Then she climbs a tree, and reciting some magic, she ties a creeper to it. Then, she flies off, along this creeper, which snaps behind her. This is the moment when we see the fire flying through the sky. Whenever the natives see a falling star, they know it is a mulukwausi on her flight. Another version is that, when a mulukwausi recites a certain spell, a tree which stands somewhere near her destination bends down towards the other tree on which she is perched. She jumps from one top to the other, and it is then that we see the fire. According to some versions, the mulukwausi, that is, the witch in her flying state, moves about naked, leaving her skirt round the body, which remains asleep in the hut. Other versions depict her as tying her skirt tightly round her when flying, and beating her buttocks with a magical pandanus streamer. These latter versions are embodied in the magic quoted above in Chapter V.

Arrived at the place where lies the corpse, the mulukwausi, with others who have also flown to the spot, perches on some high object, the top of a tree or the gable of a hut. There they all wait till they can feast on the corpse, and such is their greed and appetite that they are also very dangerous to living men. People who collect round the dead body to mourn and wake over it often have a special spell against the mulukwausi recited over them, by the one who knows it. They are careful not to stray away from the others, and, during burial of the dead and afterwards, they believe the air to be infested with these dangerous witches, who spread the smell of carrion around them.

The mulukwausi will eat out the eyes, the tongue, and the ‘insides’ (lopoula) of the corpse; when they attack a living man they may simply hit him or kick him, and then he becomes more or less sick. But sometimes they get hold of an individual and treat him like a corpse and eat some of his organs, and then the man dies. It is possible to diagnose this, for such a person would quickly fail, losing his speech, his vision, sometimes suddenly being bereft of all power of movement. It is a less dangerous method to the living man when the mulukwausi instead of eating his ‘insides’ on the spot, simply remove them. They hide them in a place only known to themselves, in order to have provision for a future feast. In that case there is some hope for the victim. Another yoyova, summoned quickly by the relations of the dying and well paid by them, will, in the form of a mulukwausi, go forth, search for the missing organs, and, if she is fortunate enough to find and restore them, save the life of the victim.

Kenoriya, the favourite daughter of To’ulawa, the chief of Omarakana, while on a visit to another village, was deprived of her internal organs by the mulukwausi. When brought home, she could neither move nor speak, and lay down as if dead. Her mother and other relatives already began their mortuary wailing over her, the chief himself broke out into loud lamentations. But nevertheless, as a forlorn hope, they sent for a woman from Wawela, a well-known yoyova, who after receiving valuables and food, flew out as a mulukwausi, and the very next night found Kenoriya’s insides somewhere in the raybwag, near the beach of Kaulukuba, and restored her to health.

Another authentic story is that of the daughter of a Greek trader and a Kiriwinian woman from Oburaku. This story was told me by the lady herself, in perfectly correct English, learnt in one of the white settlements of New Guinea, where she had been brought up in the house of a leading missionary. But the story was not spoilt by any scepticism; it was told with perfect simplicity and conviction.

When she was a little girl, a woman called Sewawela, from the Island of Kitava, but married to a man of Wawela, came to her parents’ house and wanted to sell a mat. They did not buy it, and gave her only a little food, which, as she was a renowned yoyova and accustomed therefore to deferential treatment, made her angry. When night came, the little one was playing on the beach in front of the house, when the parents saw a big firefly hovering about the child. The insect then flew round the parents and went into the room. Seeing that there was something strange about the firefly, they called the girl and put her to bed at once. But she fell ill immediately, could not sleep all night, and the parents, with many native attendants, had to keep watch over her. Next morning, added the Kiriwinian mother, who was listening to her daughter telling me the tale, the girl “boge ikarige; kukula wala ipipisi,” “she was dead already, but her heart was still beating.” All the women present broke out into the ceremonial lamentations. The father of the girl’s mother, however, went to Wawela, and got hold of another yoyova, called Bomrimwari. She took some herbs and smeared her own body all over. Then she went out in the form of a mulukwausi in search of the girl’s lopoulo (inside). She searched about and found it in the hut of Sewawela, where it lay on the shelf on which are kept the big clay-pots, in which the mona (taro pudding), is cooked ceremonially. There it lay “red as calico.” Sewawela had left it there, while she went into the garden with her husband, meaning to eat it on her return. Had this happened, the girl could not have been saved. As soon as Bomrimwari found it, she made some magic over it then and there. Then she came back to the trader’s compound, made some more magic over ginger-root, and water, and caused the lopoulo to return to its place. After that, the little girl soon got better. A substantial payment was given by the parents to the yoyova for saving their child.

Living in Oburaku, a village on the Southern half of Boyowa, I was on the boundary between the district where the yoyova do not exist, and the other one, to the East, where they are plentiful. On the other side of the Island, which is very narrow at this part, is the village of Wawela, where almost every woman is reputed to be a witch, and some are quite notorious. Going over the raybwag at night, the natives of Oburaku would point out certain fireflies which would suddenly disappear, not to relight again. These were the mulukwausi. Again, at night, swarms of flying foxes used to flap over the tall trees, making for the big, swampy Island of Boymapo’u which closes in the Lagoon opposite the village. These too were mulukwausi, travelling from the East, their real home. They also used to perch on the tops of the trees growing on the water’s edge, and this was therefore an especially dangerous spot after sunset. I was often warned not to sit there on the platforms of the beached canoes, as I liked to do, watching the play of colours on the smooth, muddy waters, and on the bright mangroves. When I fell ill soon after, everybody decided that I had been ‘kicked’ by the mulukwausi, and some magic was performed over me by my friend Molilakwa, the same who gave me some formulÆ of kayga’u, the magic spoken at sea against witches. In this case his efforts were entirely successful, and my quick recovery was attributed by the natives solely to the spells.

What interests us most about mulukwausi, is their association with the sea and shipwreck. Very often they will roam over the sea, and meet at a trysting place on a reef. There they will partake of a special kind of coral, broken off from a reef, a kind called by the natives nada. This whets their appetite for human flesh, exactly as the drinking of salt water does with the bwaga’u. They have also some indirect power over the elements in the sea. Although the natives do not quite agree on the point, there is no doubt that a definite connection exists between the mulukwausi and all the other dangers which may be met in the sea, such as sharks, the ‘gaping depth’ (ikapwagega wiwitu), many of the small sea animals, crabs, some of the shells and the other things to be mentioned presently, all of which are considered to be the cause of death of drowning men. Thus the belief is quite definite that, in being cast into the water by the shipwreck, men do not meet any real danger except by being eaten by the mulukwausi, the sharks, and the other animals. If by the proper magic these influences can be obviated, the drowning men will escape unscathed. The belief in the omnipotence of man, or rather, woman in this case, and of the equal power in antidoting by magic, governs all the ideas of these natives about shipwreck. The supreme remedy and insurance against any dangers lies in the magic of mist, called kayga’u, which, side by side with Kula magic, and the magic of the canoes, is the third of the indispensable magical equipments of a sailor.

A man who knows well the kayga’u is considered to be able to travel safely through the most dangerous seas. A renowned chief, Maniyuwa, who was reputed as one of the greatest masters in kayga’u as well as in other magic, died in Dobu on an expedition about two generations ago. His son, Maradiana, had learnt his father’s kayga’u. Although the mulukwausi are extremely dangerous in the presence of a corpse, and though the natives would never dream of putting a dead body on a canoe, and thus multiplying the probabilities of an attack by the witches, still, Maradiana, trusting to his kayga’u, brought the corpse back to Boyowa without mishap. This act, a testimony to the daring sailor’s great prowess, and to the efficiency of the kayga’u magic, is kept alive in the memory and tradition of the natives. One of my informants, boasting of his kayga’u, told me how once, on a return from Dobu, he performed his rites. Such a mist arose as a consequence of it that the rest of the canoes lost their way, and arrived in the island of Kayleula. Indeed, if we can speak of a belief being alive, that is, of having a strong hold over human imagination, the belief in the danger from mulukwausi at sea is emphatically such a one. In times of mental stress, in times of the slightest danger at sea, or when a dying or dead person is near, the natives at once respond emotionally in terms of this belief. No one could live among these natives, speaking their language, and following their tribal life, without constantly coming up against the belief in mulukwausi, and in the efficiency of the kayga’u.

As in all other magic, also here, there are various systems of kayga’u, that is, there are various formulÆ, slightly differing in their expressions, though usually similar in their fundamental wordings and in certain ‘key’ expressions. In each system, there are two main types of spells, the giyotanawa, or the kayga’u of the Underneath, and the giyorokaywa, or the kayga’u of the Above. The first one usually consists of a short formula or formulÆ spoken over some stones and some lime in a lime pot and over some ginger root. This giyotanawa, as its name indicates, is magic directed against the evil agencies, awaiting the drowning men from below. Its spells close up ‘the gaping depth’ and they screen off the shipwrecked men from the eyes of the sharks. They also protect them from the other evil things, which cause the death of a man in drowning. The several little sea worms found on the beach, the crabs, the poisonous fish, soka, and the spiky fish, baiba’i, as well as the jumping stones, whether vineylida or nu’akekepaki, are all warded off and blinded by the giyotanawa. Perhaps the most extraordinary belief in this connection is that the tokwalu, the carved human figures on the prow boards, the guwaya, the semi-human effigy on the mast top, as well as the canoe ribs would ‘eat’ the drowning men if not magically ‘treated.’

The kayga’u of the ‘Above,’ the giyorokaywa, consists of long spells, recited over some ginger root, on several occasions before sailing, and during bad weather or shipwreck. They are directed exclusively against the mulukwausi, and form therefore the more important class of the two. These spells must never be recited at night, as then the mulukwausi could see and hear the man, and make his magic inefficient. Again, the spell of the Above, when recited at sea, must be spoken so that the magician is not covered with spray, for if his mouth were wet with sea water, the smell would attract rather than disperse, the flying witches. The man who knows the kayga’u must also be very careful at meal times. Children may not speak, play about, or make any noise while he eats, nor should anyone go round him behind his back while he is thus engaged; normay they point out anything with the finger. Should the man be thus disturbed during his food, he would have to stop eating at once, and not resume it till the next meal time.

Now the leading idea of kayga’u is that it produces some sort of mist. The mulukwausi who follow the canoe, the sharks and live stones which lie in wait for it, the depth with all its horror, and the dÉbris of the canoe ready to harm the owner, all these are blinded by the mist that arises in obedience to these spells. Thus the paralysing effect of these two main forms of magic and the specialised sphere of influence of each of them, are definite and clear dogmas of native belief.

But here again we must not try to press the interpretation of these dogmas too far. Some sort of mist covers the eyes of all the evil agencies or blinds them; it makes the natives invisible from them. But to ask whether the kayga’u produces a real mist, visible also to man, or only a supernatural one, visible only to the mulukwausi; or whether it simply blinds their eyes so that they see nothing, would be asking too much. The same native who will boast of having produced a real mist, so great that it led astray his companions, will next day perform the kayga’u in the village during a burial, and affirm that the mulukwausi are in a mist, though obviously a perfectly clear atmosphere surrounds the whole proceedings. The natives will tell how, sailing on a windy but clear day, after a kayga’u has been recited into the eye of the wind, they hear the shrieks of the mulukwausi, who, losing their companions and the scent of the trail, hail one another in the dark. Again, some expressions seem to represent the view that it is mainly an action on the eyes of the witches. ‘Idudubila matala mulukwausi,’—‘It darkens the eyes of the mulukwausi,’ or ‘iguyugwayu’—‘It blinds,’ the natives will say. And when asked:

“What do the mulukwausi see, then?” they will answer: “They will see mist only. They do not see the places, they do not see the men, only mist.”

Thus here, as in all cases of belief, there is a certain latitude, within which the opinions and views may vary, and only the broad outline, which surrounds them, is definitely fixed by tradition, embodied in ritual, and expressed by the phraseology of magical formulÆ or by the statements of a myth.

I have thus defined the manner in which the natives face the dangers of the sea; we have found, that the fundamental conceptions underlying this attitude are, that in shipwreck, men are entirely in the hands of the witches, and that from this, only their own magical defence can save them. This defence consists in the rites and formulÆ of the kayga’u, of which we have also learnt the leading principles. Now, a consecutive description must be given of how this magic is performed when a toliwaga sets out on an expedition. And following up this expedition, it must be told how the natives imagine a shipwreck, and what they believe the behaviour of the shipwrecked party would be.

I shall give this narrative in a consecutive manner, as it was told to me by some of the most experienced and renowned Trobriand sailors in Sinaketa, Oburaku, and Omarakana. We can imagine that exactly such a narrative would be told by a veteran toliwaga to his usagelu on the beach of Yakum, as our Kula party sit round the camp fires at night. One of the old men, well-known for the excellence of his kayga’u, and boastful of it, would tell his story, entering minutely into all the details, however often the others might have heard about them before, or even assisted at the performance of his magic. He would then proceed to describe, with extreme realism, and dwelling graphically on every point, the story of a shipwreck, very much as if he had gone through one himself. As a matter of fact, no one alive at present has had any personal experience of such a catastrophe, though many have lived through frequent narrow escapes in stormy weather. Based on this, and on what they have heard themselves of the tradition of shipwrecks, natives will tell the story with characteristic vividness. Thus, the account given below is not only a summary of native belief, it is an ethnographic document in itself, representing the manner in which such type of narrative would be told over camp fires, the same subject being over and over again repeated by the same man, and listened to by the same audience, exactly as we, when children, or the peasants of Eastern Europe, will hearken to familiar fairy tales and MÄrchen. The only deviation here from what would actually take place in such a story-telling, is the insertion of magical formulÆ into the narrative. The speaker might indeed repeat his magic, were he speaking in broad daylight, in his village, to a group of close kinsmen and friends. But being on a small island in the middle of the ocean, and at night, the recital of spells would be a taboo of the kayga’u; nor would a man ever recite his magic before a numerous audience, except on certain occasions at mortuary vigils, where people are expected to chant their magic aloud before hundreds of listeners.

Returning then again to our group of sailors, who sit under the stunted pandanus trees of Yakum, let us listen to one of the companions of the daring Maradiana, now dead, to one of the descendants of the great Maniyuwa. He will tell us how, early in the morning, on the day of departure from Sinaketa, or sometimes on the next morning, when they leave Muwa, he performs the first rite of kayga’u. Wrapping up a piece of leyya (wild ginger root) in a bit of dried banana leaf, he chants over it the long spell of the giyorokaywa, the kayga’u of the Above. He chants this spell into the leaf, holding it cup-shaped, with the morsel of ginger root at the bottom, so that the spell might enter into the substance to be medicated. After that, the leaf is immediately wrapped round, so as to imprison the magical virtue, and the magician ties the parcel round his left arm, with a piece of bast or string. Sometimes he will medicate two bits of ginger and make two parcels, of which the other will be placed in a string necklet, and carried on his breast. Our narrator, who is the master of one of the canoes, will probably not be the only one within the circle round the camp fire, who carries these bundles of medicated ginger; for though a toliwaga must always perform this rite as well as know all the other magic of shipwreck, as a rule several of the older members of his crew also know it, and have also prepared their magical bundles.

This is one of the spells of the giyorokaywa, such as the old man said over the ginger root:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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