Kula: The Circulating Exchange of Valuables in the Archipelagoes of Eastern New Guinea

Abstract

This chapter describes a special system of trade, obtaining over a widespread area, and possessing several features remarkable in their bearing upon questions of primitive economics, as well as throwing some new light on native mentality. A glance at the map will show the enormous geographical extent of the trading system, and the statement may here be anticipated that the Kula looms paramount in the tribal life of all the peoples, who participate in it. All the trading systems are based upon the exchange of indispensable or highly useful utilities, such as pottery, sago, canoes, dried fish and yams, the food being sometimes imported into islands or districts which are too small or too infertile to be self-supporting. The trading system, the Kula , embraces, with its ramifications, not only the islands off the East End of New Guinea, but also the Lousiades, Woodlark Island, the Loughlans, the Trobriand Archipelago and the d'Entrecasteanx Group.

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