Argonauts of the Western Pacific

Citation

Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. George Routledge & Sons. Reissued by Routledge (the edition listed on this page is dated 2002). Free text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55822

Chapter Summary

The book has a preface by Sir James Frazer, a foreword by the author, a long methodological introduction and twenty-two chapters, in all over 500 printed pages with plates and maps. Its subject is the Kula, a ring of ceremonial exchange linking island communities off the eastern tip of New Guinea, but the Kula serves as a way into the whole social life of the region.

Preface, Foreword and Introduction: The Subject, Method and Scope of This Inquiry

Frazer's preface praises the method of living among the people, speaking their language and treating economic life as more than the pursuit of profit. Malinowski's foreword argues that the study of "native races" is urgent because the societies are changing quickly. The introduction first sketches trade and seafaring in the South Seas and introduces the Kula. It then turns to method: the ethnographer should say how the material was gathered, distinguish observation and native statement from inference, and collect three kinds of evidence. These are the firm outline of social organisation (genealogies, maps and synoptic charts), the "imponderabilia of actual life" (daily behaviour recorded in a field diary) and the people's own words, kept as a corpus of texts in the Kiriwinian language. The introduction ends by stating the aim of grasping "the native's point of view".

Chapters I–II: The Country and Inhabitants of the Kula District; The Natives of the Trobriand Islands

Chapter I surveys the peoples and landscapes of the Kula district, from the southern Massim villages to Dobu and the Amphlett Islands. Chapter II settles in the Trobriands: first impressions, women's position, gardening, the motives for work, chieftainship based on wealth, clans and kinship, spirits of the dead and sorcery. The chapter includes a digression on "primitive economics".

Chapter III: The Essentials of the Kula

The shortest route to the core of the argument. Chapter III defines the Kula as an exchange along a closed circuit of islands, in which red shell necklaces (soulava) travel clockwise and white shell armbands (mwali) counter-clockwise. Its rules cover partnership between individuals, the direction of movement, the nature of ownership, the manner of the exchange itself and the subsidiary trade, canoe building, magic and mortuary customs that accompany it.

Chapters IV–VI: Canoes and Sailing; The Ceremonial Building of a Waga; Launching of a Canoe and Ceremonial Visiting—Tribal Economics in the Trobriands

These chapters follow the sea-going canoe as an object of value, of work and of ownership. Chapter IV treats canoe types, the organisation of labour and the privileges of the canoe's "master". Chapter V gives the ceremonial building of a waga with its associated magic. Chapter VI describes the launching and ceremonial visiting, then turns to a longer discussion of work, gifts, wealth and exchange, including a classification of kinds of gift and payment and a table of social relationships with their economic obligations.

Chapters VII–X: The Departure of an Overseas Expedition; The First Halt of the Fleet on Muwa; Sailing on the Sea-arm of Pilolu; The Story of Shipwreck

The narrative of a Kula expedition begins with the departure from Sinaketa and its magical rites. Later chapters describe the first halt on Muwa, with a ceremonial distribution, then the crossing of the Pilolu sea with its winds, taboos and monsters. Chapter X is devoted to flying witches and to a story of shipwreck and rescue, together with the associated magic.

Chapters XI–XIII: In the Amphletts—Sociology of the Kula; In Tewara and Sanaroa—Mythology of the Kula; On the Beach of Sarubwoyna

Arrival in the Amphletts opens an analysis of the sociology of the Kula: who may take part, the relation of partners and the place of women. The Amphlett pottery trade is described. Chapter XII treats Kula myths and the relation of myth to landscape and actual events, with commentary on stories such as that of the flying canoe. Chapter XIII covers the beauty magic and other rites performed on the beach at Sarubwoyna.

Chapters XIV–XVI: The Kula in Dobu—Technicalities of the Exchange; The Journey Home—The Fishing and Working of the Kaloma Shell; The Return Visit of the Dobuans to Sinaketa

Chapter XIV is the most technical account of the transactions: the opening gift and return gift, solicitory and intermediate gifts, the clinching gift and the ethics of the exchange. Chapter XV follows the return journey and the production of shell valuables. Chapter XVI describes the reciprocal visit of the Dobuans to Sinaketa, completing the picture of the exchange from both sides.

Chapters XVII–XVIII: Magic and the Kula; The Power of Words in Magic—Some Linguistic Data

A pair of chapters on magic. Chapter XVII analyses native conceptions of magic, the relation of spell and rite, its transmission, taboos and payment. Chapter XVIII presents spells in the original with literal translation and analysis, and ends with non-magical texts used to illustrate method.

Chapters XIX–XXI: The Inland Kula; Expeditions Between Kiriwina and Kitava; The Remaining Branches and Offshoots of the Kula

These chapters complete the map. Chapter XIX contrasts overseas and inland Kula and discusses the decline of chiefly power under colonial interference. Chapter XX describes expeditions between Kiriwina and Kitava and their link to a mortuary feast. Chapter XXI surveys the remaining routes and offshoots, including the production of armshells.

Chapter XXII: The Meaning of the Kula

The closing chapter steps back. Malinowski argues that the Kula is a novel type of institution on the borderland of the commercial and the ceremonial: valuables that are not money, ownership that is temporary but cumulative, and exchange that is not bargaining. He suggests that similar phenomena may be found elsewhere and calls for a kind of theory that studies how aspects of an institution depend on one another.

Key Concepts

Introduction

• Imponderabilia of actual life: the everyday details of behaviour and feeling that cannot be gathered by questioning and must be observed and recorded.
• Three avenues of fieldwork: documented social outline, recorded behaviour and a corpus of native statements, together aimed at the native's point of view.

Chapters I–III

• Kula ring: the closed circuit of island communities along which two classes of shell valuables circulate in opposite directions.
• Vaygu'a: the valuables of the Kula, held for a time and passed on rather than kept.
• Partnership: the lifelong exchange relationship between two men, summed up as "once in the Kula, always in the Kula".

Chapters IV–X

• Toliwaga: the "master" or owner of a canoe, whose privileges and duties organise the crew.
• Uvalaku: a ceremonial, competitive expedition.
• Sagali: a ceremonial distribution of food.

Chapters XI–XVI

• Solicitory and clinching gifts: the subsidiary gifts that surround the main opening and return gifts.
• Myth and landscape: the way stories give meaning to places and sanction custom.

Chapters XVII–XXII

• Spell and rite: the two linked parts of magical practice, analysed through the structure of spells.
• Inland and overseas Kula: exchange within a community and between communities across the sea.
• Cumulative possession: Malinowski's phrase for holding successive valuables for short periods.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Method stated openly. The introduction explains how the data were gathered and separates observation, native statement and inference. It remains a clear, short statement of what participant observation involves.
• One institution traced across many domains. Following a single exchange through canoe building, navigation, myth, magic and politics shows how a social world fits together, which is the book's main teaching.
• Exchange without a market logic. Chapters III, VI, XIV and XXII argue, from specific cases, that these transactions are bound up with honour, obligation and display, rather than profit.
• Primary material. The book prints native texts and spells with translations and links its generalisations to cases, tables and plates.

Limitations

• Period vocabulary and outlook. The text speaks of "savages" and "primitive" economics throughout, and the preface and foreword frame the work with the assumptions of 1922. Chapter XIX also blames colonial officials and missionaries for undermining chiefly authority in strongly worded terms. These passages need critical reading, as the book is both a record and a document of its time.
• Scale and repetition. At over twenty chapters, with long technical chapters on magic and language (XVII–XVIII), the book is a demanding read in full.
• Partial coverage. Malinowski notes that the inland Kula is known to him only from the Trobriands, and that other material, including the promised corpus of texts, would be published separately. The Kula is therefore presented from a Trobriand viewpoint.
• Method rather than theory. The closing chapter asks for a new type of theory but does not develop one.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the economic and political anthropology course, Argonauts is the ethnographic foundation. Marcel Mauss's The Gift analyses gift exchange in archaic societies in comparative terms, so the Kula chapters make a useful concrete case to read before it. Evans-Pritchard's The Nuer is a later classic ethnography, centred on livelihood and political institutions in southern Sudan. The modern textbooks, Economies and Cultures and Economic Anthropology: History, Ethnography, Critique, give the disciplinary frame and later debates, and are a good place to begin before the long ethnography. The Dawn of Everything is a recent, broad reinterpretation of human history and not an ethnography of this kind.

How to Use This Book

The book assumes no technical background, but it asks for patience with unfamiliar names and with detail. A practical plan is to read the Introduction in full, since it is the best-known statement of fieldwork method, then Chapters I–III, then Chapter VI for the economics of gift and exchange, then Chapters XIV and XXII for the Kula transactions and the author's own conclusion. Chapters IV–V, VII–XVI and XIX–XXI can be read selectively as narrative. Chapters XVII–XVIII on magic and language suit readers interested in ritual or linguistic anthropology.

While reading, keep a diagram of the ring with the direction of each class of valuable, and a short list of the kinds of gift and payment from Chapter VI. Ask what is observed, what is reported by informants, and what Malinowski infers. For coursework, cite a print edition with page numbers and read the book alongside later critiques of Malinowski's method.

Edition and Sources

This guide is based on the full text of the 1922 first edition in Project Gutenberg eBook #55822 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55822), which is in the public domain. The preface, foreword, the full table of contents with its section summaries, the methodological sections of the introduction and substantial parts of Chapters III, XIX and XXII were read, and the contents list was used to describe the remaining chapters.