ABSTRACT
Gardening and fishing then—briefly to sum up what has just been said—are the two principal sources of livelihood to the Trobriander. Hunting provides him with hardly any sustenance. His domestic animals, pig and fowls, afford a pleasant seasoning to his food on festive occasions, and the fruits collected from the bush help him out in times of scarcity. But neither collecting nor fishing nor domestic animals are sufficient when gardens fail. A drought or a destructive blight on the crops inevitably mean hunger (molu) for the whole tribe; and this, the most dreaded of calamities, though it happens but rarely, is remembered for centuries. A year of good harvest on the other hand means prosperity (malia), that is satisfaction, festivities and, incidentally, village brawls and fights; in short, all that makes life worth living. We know also that fishing and gardening are closely interrelated and that agriculture forms the backbone of tribal economics.
