Page:The sexual life of savages in north-western Melanesia.djvu/78

Rh daily on shallow water. There can be also a kayasa of erotic pastimes. Some of these entertainments are exclusively feminine (singing and certain ornaments); in others both sexes participate (flowers, erotics, and hair decoration); in others only men (the toy canoes).

In all the public festivals and entertainments, whether women take an active part or no, they are never excluded from looking on or freely mixing with the men; and this they do on terms of perfect equality, exchanging banter and jokes with them and engaging in easy conversation.

One aspect of public life is very important to the Trobriander and stands apart as something peculiar and specific. The native sets on one side a certain category of facts, one type of human behaviour, and designates these by the word megwa, which may be quite adequately translated as "magic." Magic is very intimately associated with economic life and indeed with every vital concern; it is also an instrument of power and an index of the importance of those who practise it. The position of women in magic deserves therefore very special consideration.

Magic constitutes a particular aspect of reality. In all important activities and enterprises in which man has not the issue firmly and safely in hand, magic is deemed indispensable. Thus appeal is made to it in gardening and fishing, in building a large canoe, and in diving for valuable shell, in the regulation of wind and weather, in Rh