629 



agricultural activities — are also strongly interwoven with the 

 feast. (63; 



Among the Mailu the two social phases — the feast and 

 the trading — are so interdependent that if the feast were 

 abolished there would be no scope for trading ; if the trading^ 

 were suppressed the feast would be impossible. 



To return from this digression to the trading pure and 

 simple, it is certain that the Mailu community was one of the 

 very important links in the great chain of intertribal trading 

 which encircled the whole of Papua. There is no doubt, 

 however, that articles from the Gulf seldom reached the 

 Massim area and conversely, and it is also a fact that there 

 was no absolute breach of continuity, no absolute impossibility 

 that articles, ideas, and customs should travel from the mouth 

 of the Fly River, and beyond, as far as Woodlark and the 

 Trobriands and the north-eastern coast. Thus, for instance, 

 the ceremonial blades of fine workmanship, made in Muiua 

 and the Trobriands, were to be found all along the southern 

 coast of the territory, as far, according to Prof. Seligman, as 

 the Fly River. Nevertheless, there does not seem to have been 

 any great cultural influence carried by this stream of trade. 

 The influence of the Gulf culture undoubtedly extended as 

 far as Port Moresby, and beyond to HuJda and Kerepiina ; 

 but it seems to me that it did not even reach Mailu. While 

 some of the Massim objects seem to travel further, the general 

 influence of their culture on the Papuo-Melanesians does not 

 extend beyond the Mailu district. 



5. Forms of Work. 



General Remarks. — There seems to be no doubt that, 

 human communities, standing at different levels of culture 

 and living under different conditions, differ widely and essen- 

 tially in the quantity and quality of the work they are able to 



^65) Studying the Tdhu feast in the Sinaugholo tribe I was 

 able to see that it possesses distinct economic featuries ; it 

 is closely associated with the native gardening. This feature, 

 however, is very much obscured among the Koifa. of the Port 

 Moresby District, who undoubtedly have accepted this feast from 

 the Sinangholo; comp. C. G. Seligman, op. cit., pp. 145 to 150 

 and p. 18, where it is stated that ''according to the Sinaugholo 

 it was among themselves that the Dtihu originated, being adopted 

 later by the neighbouring tribes." I should add that this 

 opinion is shared by the Koita and Motu of Gdbagdba, Gaile, and 

 Tupiiscleia, who acknowledge their indebtedness to the Sinaugholo. 

 Further, the mythology of the feast and the knowledge of all its 

 ritual is so much more flourishing among the Sinaugholo that it 

 seems certain they were the centre from which the feast in its 

 present form has spread, and among these it is undoubt- 

 edly connected with gardening activities. 



