Ancestral and Present Linkages

Linking the islands to the north and west with the Louisiades is the Kula Ring.
This complex system, first studied by the Polish-British ethnographer Brinislaw Malinowski between 1915 and 1918, link a number of different island cultures.
Among these are the Trobriand Islands, Woodlark and the d’Entrecasteaux Islands. They all form part of the Kula System.
Only two kinds of ceremonial valuables are passed around on the Kula Ring: soulava, or bagi, long necklaces consisting of hundreds of pierced and polished Spondylus shells, which travel clockwise, and mwali, white armrings made of cone shells which travel counterclockwise. Both kinds of objects are elaborately decorated with tiny cowrie shells and other types of ornaments. The objects are exchanged between different partners on different islands, soulave being traded for mwali and vice versa. They will continue to make their way around the Kula ring as they are successively exchanged with partners in adjacent regions. Sometimes after several decades of travelling an object will return to its point of origin for a while!

Further to the Kula ring is the traditional trading. Whilst many reading this website rely on trained electrons to create “money” in bank accounts for their commerce, the currency of the Louisiades includes bagi, stones axes and pigs.

The Kula ring and traditional trading are not some anthropological theory of a culture long past, this is live and forms a fundamental basis for the Misiman culture of today.