Note 8 — Chapter VI · Launching of a Canoe and Ceremonial Visiting—Tribal Economics in the Trobriands (continued 2)

This advantage was probably in olden days a mutual one. Nowadays, when the fishermen can earn about ten or twenty times more by diving for pearls than by performing their share of the wasi, the exchange is as a rule a great burden on them. It is one of the most conspicuous examples of the tenacity of native custom that in spite of all the temptation which pearling offers them and in spite of the great pressure exercised upon them by the white traders, the fishermen never try to evade a wasi, and when they have received the inaugurating gift, the first calm day is always given to fishing, and not to pearling. ↑