Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/161

Rh grows for his women-folk and their husbands is called urigubu.

The harvest of the main gardens inaugurates a long and elaborate series of activities, associated with the offering of annual gifts. The members of each household — for digging is always done en famille — repair to their own garden-plot within the large, communal enclosure. The yams of the small variety, called taytu, which are by far the most important of all native vegetables, are then dug up by means of pointed sticks and carried to a shady arbour {kalimomyo) made of poles and yam vine, where the family group sit down and carefully clean the dug-up tubers, shaking the earth from them and shaving off the hairs with sharpened shells. Then a selection is made. The best yams are placed in a large conical heap in the middle, and this is the urigubu yield (see pl. 27). The rest are stowed away in the corners in less regular and much smaller heaps. The main heap is constructed with almost geometrical precision, with the best yams carefully distributed all over its surface, for it will remain in the little shed for some time, to be admired by people from the village and neighbouring communities. All this part of the work, which, as can easily be seen, has no utilitarian value, is done eagerly, with interest and con amore, under the stimulus of vanity and ambition. The chief pride of a Trobriander is to gain renown as a "master-gardener" {tokway-bagula). And to achieve this, he will make great efforts and till many plots in order to produce a considerable number of heaps with a large quantity of Rh