(10.) Similarly, in his study on the canoes used during kula on the
Trobriand Islands, Campbell (2002) showed that the animal characteristics depicted on boats' prows--'slipperiness, swift movement, and a quality glossed as "wisdom"'--are those it is hoped will characterize the expedition itself.
The following study is concerned with the codification of reality, and more particularly, with the nonlineal apprehension of reality among the people of the
Trobriand Islands, in contrast to our own lineal phrasing.
(7.) Jutta Malnic and John Kasaipwalova, Kula: Myth and Magic in the
Trobriand Islands (Sydney, Cowrie Books, 2000) 60, on ideas of beauty and adornment in the
Trobriand IslandsAcne is ubiquitous in Western societies but absent in at least two non-Westernized populations (Kitavan people on the
Trobriand Islands near Papua New Guinea and the Ache hunter-gatherers of Paraguay).
Our Beautiful, Fragile World ranges from the
Trobriand Islands to a fertilizer factory in Nigeria.
Malinowski ([13]: 10) described larger-scale warfare in the
Trobriand Islands:
The kula tradition stretches over 18 islands in the Massim archipelago, which includes the
Trobriand Islands, and individuals will travel hundreds of miles in ocean-going canoes to trade precious shell necklaces clockwise and white shell armbands counter-clockwise.
On some
Trobriand Islands kula canoe washboards a row of the concentric circles is carved as a crescent in the centre of the board (cf.
I shall come to the second possibility later; an interesting instance suggesting the first is a debate between Bronislav Malinowski (1927; 1929) and the British psychoanalyst, Ernest Jones (1925), in the nineteen twenties over Malinowki's ethnography in the
Trobriand Islands.
Paratypes: AMS IA.5741-2, 2 specimens, 282-262 mm TL, vicinity of Samarai, 10[degrees]36.633'S, 150[degrees]39.690'E, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea; CU 24992, 695 mm TL, Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea (no other data); USNM 221705, 257 mm TL, Kuia Island, 08[degrees]35.350'S, 150[degrees]51.332'E,
Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, 1 m depth, B.B.
This fitted admirably with the anthropological functionalism of Bronislaw Malinowski, who from his experience in the Melanesian
Trobriand Islands in the 1940s came to the conclusion that reciprocity and exchange played a vital role, cementing relations between individuals and their society and that society combined with culture would arise as an emergent property of humans collaborating with each other, once the fundamental needs of individuals were met.
Dubois includes examples from areas as far-flung as eastern Peru the
Trobriand Islands near New Guinea and remote eastern Siberia--an area with a particularly rich history of shamanism.