ABSTRACT

 1. No abstract terms exist in Kiriwinian corresponding to such concepts as ‘husbandry’, ‘agriculture’ or ‘cultivation’ (cf. Part IV, Div. VII). There are, however, some expressions denoting, on the one hand, the importance of gardens and, on the other, certain general ideas which characterise gardening as a whole and serve to contrast it with other activities and aspects of culture. One of them already discussed (Div. II, § 8) is kaulo, ‘staple crops’, ‘accumulated crops’. Another word is bagula, which means ‘garden’ in its nominal form but is, perhaps, even more important in its verbal use for the delimitation of activities (cf. Div. I, § 18). When the natives wish to characterise a certain community as ‘agricultural’, they would refer directly to their gardens, saying that:—

T. 22.

Ma-tau-si-na

si

bagula

bi-kugwo.

these (m.)

their

garden

he might be first