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.Some dances are done with the carved dancing shield.Sociologically, the village is an important unit in the Trobriands.Even the mightiest chief in the Trobriands wields his authority primarily over his own village and only secondarily over the district.The village community exploit jointly their garden lands, perform ceremonies, wage warfare, undertake trading expeditions, and sail in the same canoe or fleet of canoes as one group.After the first inspection of the village, we would be naturally interested to know more of the surrounding country, and would take a walk through the bush.Here, however, if we hoped for a picturesque and varied landscape, we should receive a great disappointment.The extensive, flat island consists only of one fertile plain, with a low coral ridge running along portions of the coast.It is almost entirely under intermittent cultivation, and the bush, regularly cleared away every few years, has no time to grow high.A low, dense jungle grows in a matted tangle, and practically wherever we move on the island, we walk along between two green walls, presenting no variety, allowing of no broader view.The monotony is broken only by an occasional clump of old trees left standing — usually a tabooed place — or by one of the numerous villages which we meet with every mile or two in this densely populated country.The main element, both of picturesqueness and ethnographic interest, is afforded by the native gardens.Each year about one quarter or one fifth of the total area is under actual cultivation as gardens, and these are well tended, and present a pleasant change from the monotony of the scrub.In its early stages, the garden site is simply a bare, cleared space, allowing of a wider outlook upon the distant coral ridge in the East, and upon the tall groves, scattered over the horizon, which indicate villages or tabooed tree clumps.Later on, when the yam-vines, taro, and sugar cane begin to grow and bud, the bare brown — soil is covered with the fresh green of the tender plants.After some more time still, tall, stout poles are planted over each yam-plant; the vine climbs round them, grows into a full, shady garland of foliage, and the whole makes the impression of a large, exuberant hop-yard.IVHalf of the natives’ working life is spent in the garden, and around it centres perhaps more than half of his interests and ambitions.And here we must pause and make an attempt to understand his attitude in this matter, as it is typical of the way in which he goes about all his work.If we remain under the delusion that the native is a happy-go-lucky, lazy child of nature, who shuns as far as possible all labour and effort, waiting till the ripe fruits, so bountifully supplied by generous tropical Nature, fall into his mouth, we shall not be able to understand in the least his aims and motives in carrying out the Kula or any other enterprise.On the contrary, the truth is that the native can and, under circumstances, does work hard, and work systematically, with endurance and purpose, nor does he wait till he is pressed to work by his immediate needs.In gardening, for instance, the natives produce much more than they actually require, and in any average year they harvest perhaps twice as much as they can eat.Nowadays, this surplus is exported by Europeans to feed plantation hands in other parts of New Guinea; in olden days it was simply allowed to rot.Again, they produce this surplus in a manner which entails much more work than is strictly necessary for obtaining the crops.Much time and labour is given up to aesthetic purposes, to making the gardens tidy, clean, cleared of all debris; to building fine, solid fences, to providing specially strong and big yam-poles.All these things are to some extent required for the growth of the plant; but there can be no doubt that the natives push their conscientiousness far beyond the limit of the purely necessary.The non-utilitarian element in their garden work is still more clearly perceptible in the various tasks which they carry out entirely for the sake of ornamentation, in connection with magical ceremonies, and in obedience to tribal usage.Thus, after the ground has been scrupulously cleared and is ready for planting, the natives divide each garden plot into small squares, each a few yards in length and width, and this is done only in obedience to usage, in order to make the gardens look neat.No self-respecting man would dream of omitting to do this.Again, in especially well trimmed gardens, long horizontal poles are tied to the yam supports in order to embellish them.Another, and perhaps the most interesting example of non-utilitarian work is afforded by the big, prismatic erections called kamkokola, which serve ornamental and magical purposes, but have nothing to do with the growth of plants (comp.Plate LIX).Among the forces and beliefs which bear upon and regulate garden work, perhaps magic is the most important [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]