higher than that of the chief. Tall platforms are always built on to the chief's house, and on one of these he will sit so that the people may freely move below him during tribal gatherings (see pl. 2, where we see the chief leaning against such a platform). When a commoner passes a group of nobles seated on the ground, even at a distance, he has to call out tokay ("arise"), and the chiefs immediately scramble to their feet and remain standing while he crouches past them.[1] One would think that so uncomfortable a ceremonial of homage would have been circumvented in some way; but this is not the case. Many times when I was sitting in the village in conversation with the chief, a commoner would pass through the village grove, and call out tokay, and though this would happen every quarter of an hour or so, my friend had to rise while the other, bending low, walked slowly by.[2]
Women of rank enjoy exactly the same privilege in this matter. When a noblewoman is married to a commoner, her husband has to bend before her in public, and others have to be still more careful to do so. A high platform is erected for her and she sits upon it alone at tribal assemblies, while her husband moves or squats below with the rest of the crowd.
- ↑ Tokay, as noun, also means "commoner." The noun is perhaps derived etymologically from the verb.
- ↑ When To'uluwa, the paramount chief of the Trobriands, was put in jail by the resident magistrate, the latter, mostly, I am afraid, because he wanted to humiliate his native rival, forbade the commoners incarcerated with the chief to crouch before him. In spite of this, I have been told on good authority by several eye-witnesses that all the commoners in jail did constantly move bending, except when the white satrap appeared upon the scene. This is an example of the short-sighted policy of the typical white official, who thinks that his authority can only be maintained at the expense of the native chiefs, and thus undermines native tribal law and introduces a spirit of anarchy.
