63 pages • 2 hours read
Bronislaw MalinowskiArgonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea (1922)
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1922A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 20-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary: “Expeditions Between Kiriwina and Kitava”
This chapter discusses the northeast branch of the Kula, which is in many ways similar to the Kula expeditions already discussed. Kiriwinians (Trobrianders) speak the same language as Kitavans, with minor dialectic differences, and they are friendly toward each other, with frequent migration and marriage between Kiriwina and Kitava.
Subsidiary trade takes place though is limited because of the similarities between the two places. A Trobriand expedition would take, among other articles, wooden combs, lime pots, mussel shells, and lashing creeper on a journey to Kitava. They import various items like baskets, pandanus mats, and ornaments; none of these are of “vital importance” (379). In the past Trobriand natives could get kukumali, “roughly shaped pieces of green-stone” (379), solely from Kitava, which they processed into stone tools back home. Though these were greatly valued before the “introduction of steel and iron” (379), only the axe blades remain valuable, because the white men use these to purchase pearls from the natives.
The second half of the chapter turns to Chief To’ulawa, who has arranged with his primary partner for an uvalaku to come to Kitava. Upon arrival they perform a custom in which they damage the houses in the village.
The last peculiarity that Malinowski highlights about this branch of the Kula is a mortuary taboo. When a man dies, no one is received as a visitor to his village, and no Kula valuables are given away from the village. The community, however, expects to receive as many valuables as possible. The taboo finally ends with a so’I, a distribution of goods and food—and later, Kula valuables.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Remaining Offshoots of the Kula”
While most of the Kula occurs in a ring formation, offshoots also bring Kula goods to outlying places. This chapter discusses some of these offshoots as well as hubs of particular importance in the Kula ring. One of these hubs is Tubetube, which relies heavily on trade from other areas even for food. One place where Kula valuables get caught in an “eddy,” meaning a smaller circle, is between Woodlark Island and the Loughlans.
Malinowski also discusses the trade in large sea canoes from their sites of manufacture on the islands of Gawa and Panayati to southern districts of the Massim up to 200 miles away. Though other accounts describe mwali being used to pay for these canoes, it appears that is an interaction independent of the Kula.
Mwali are for the most part produced in Woodlark Island and in Western Boyowa. The soulava enter the ring at their site of production in the “southernmost point” (399) of the ring, while mwali enter from the north.
Chapter 22 Summary: “The Meaning of the Kula”
The final chapter looks “from a distance at the subject of our inquiry” (401). Malinowski reminds us that “there is no value in isolated facts for science,” which must analyze them and “place them in an organic whole” (401). He aims to articulate the mental attitude espoused in the Kula and wants his observations to serve as hypotheses for further research.
The Kula appears to be a novel “sociological mechanism” (402) of exchange. The type of transaction is itself unusual as a “half commercial, half ceremonial exchange carried out for its own sake” (402), with only temporary possession. Of great importance is the attitude the natives have toward vaygu’a. Vaygu’a are not money; they are never “used as medium of exchange or as measure of value” (402). The equivalency of vaygu’a is left to the partner’s sense of honor. Malinowski hopes that this can dispel notions of the “primitive economic man,” given that the Kula completely contradicts notions of “primitive value” (406).
Malinowski doubts that a “social phenomenon on such a scale” (404) and so deeply embedded in a culture can be truly unique in the world. To find similar practices, Malinowski urges researchers to look for the “fundamental ideas of the Kula” that include “reverential, almost worshipping attitude towards the valuables exchanged” (405), temporary ownership, and complex social mechanisms surrounding a practice. Lessons from the Kula could be applied to instances where two aspects of culture are entangled, such as “economic enterprise and magical ritual,” to study the “social psychological mechanism[s]” of each institution (406).
Malinowski reiterates his belief that the most important part of research is the “scientific use” (407) made of the ethnographic details collected, aimed toward understanding of the natives’ attitude. Only through this can we “broaden our knowledge, widen our outlook and deepen our grasp of human nature” (407). Finally, he ends with a call not only to see through the eyes of the native but to integrate this new insight into an understanding of own natures too. He hopes above all that the “Science of Man” will lead us to “tolerance and generosity” (407).
Chapters 20-22 Analysis
Chapters 20 and 21 wrap up the descriptions of the Kula that have dominated the book by discussing two more variations in its practice, while Chapter 22 theoretically concludes the book. This last chapter is essential for revisiting the claims made in the Introduction with the knowledge of the Kula’s entire form.
Chapter 21 attempts in a few pages to give an overall summary of the parts of the Kula ring in which Malinowski has not completed as much fieldwork. He traces the paths of mwali and soulava around the circle, examining where they enter and how they circulate. Malinowski writes about this using an implicit metaphor of water, discussing “eddies,” “outflows,” and “leakages” (398) of the valuables, and in Chapter 20 he writes that “the Kula does not run with an even flow, but in violent gushes” (385).
Chapter 22 provides a short but impactful conclusion, returning to considerations about the practice of ethnology while viewing the Kula “from a distance” (401). The Introduction and this conclusion serve as much-needed bookends to a long, often unwieldy text. Malinowski reviews the Kula as an institution, describing it as novel in size and kind. As Malinowski attempts to classify the Kula, he describes the valuables by what they are not—they are not money or currency, since they aren’t used as a “medium of exchange” nor as “measure of value” (402). More generally, the Kula can be described neither as “barter” nor an “exchange of gifts” (402). Malinowski’s resistance to collapse the complexity of the Kula into any one of these categories emphasizes his insistence that the Kula is entirely new, though it bears some similarity to kinds of trade we already know. Still, while Malinowski believes it is a novel category of exchange, he doubts that it can be wholly unique in its basic form or the attitudes its practitioners espouse toward it.
In proposing the Kula as representing a new category, Malinowski opens the door to other ethnologists to be on the lookout for “allied and kindred phenomena” (405). This should be easy enough when armed with the correct methodological arsenal he laid out in the Introduction and demonstrated throughout the monograph.
Toward the very end of this chapter Malinowski adopts a more poetic tone. He reveals his curiosity for understanding foreign ways of viewing the world and a desire for an expansive sense of empathy and understanding. By the final page, he has revealed that he wants science, particularly ethnology, to act as a unifier, as a virtuous agent that can reveal the mind of the “other.”
