“Introduction"

I:  "The Country and Inhabitants of the Kula District"

III: "Essentials of the Kula"

VI: "Launching of a Canoe and Ceremonial Visiting--Tribal Economics in the Trobriands"

VII:  "Departure of an Overseas Expedition"

XI: "In the Amphletts: Sociology of the Kula"

XIV: "The Kula in Dobu" [compare Reo Fortune, Sorcerers of Dobu]

VIII: "The Power of Words in Magic--Some Linguistic Data"

XXII:  "The Meaning of the Kula"

"General Account of Gardening," chapter 1, volume 1, pp. 52-83

"Confessions of Ignorance and Failure," appendix 2, volume 1, pp. 452-482

on narrative: see 248 and 303 ("Thus we can define myth as a narrative of events which are to the native supernatural, in this sense, that he knows well that today they do not happen.")

on ethnography: see 100 on an ethnographic versus a sociological description. See 236 and 326, where he turns from an ethnographic analysis of myths to their sociological considerations. See 453: a few more texts "of native information" that show his method and "also show the long way which lies between the crude native statement and its explicit, ethnographic presentation"

on sociology: see 274, 363 (summary of the "sociology" of kula transactions) and 411

on psychology [of the native]: see 179

How many narratives are there in the volume? [e.g., entrance, tour of Kula District, tour of Kiriwina, Sinaketa «» Dobu kula voyage] Is it significant that some are generic and some are specific?

Note page 376: "In the preceding chapters, we have followed an expedition from Sinaketa to Dobu...In this chapter, because we are already acquainted with the customs, beliefs and institutions implied in the Kula, we are ready to follow a straight and consecutive tale of an expedition in the inverse direction, from Dobu to Sinaketa."

What are the important digressions? See 274, 289, 298 ("Once more we must pause, this time in an attempt to grasp the natives' mental attitude towards the mythological aspect of the Kula.")

Note, in this regard, chapter XVII on magic, which prompts further speculation on Malinowski's expository strategy and why digressions are where they are. This chapter is not a digression (narrative is over), but a summary and supplemental commentary on all magic discussions before.

See 60-62, 84-86, 97

 Note Malinowski's 1913 review of Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Belief: "All these problems M. Durkheim seeks to solve by an analysis of the beliefs of practically one single tribe, the Arunta... Nevertheless, to base most far-reaching conclusions upon practically a single instance seems open to very serious objection. It is extremely dangerous to accept any people as 'the absolutely primitive type of mankind,'...." (Folklore 24:526).

See 64, 122, 145, 154, 156, 208, 274, 287, 290, 334, 357, 380, 441, 481, and especially 301

"the fundamental human impulse to display, to share, to bestow" (175)

"giving for the sake of giving" as "a universal feature of all primitive societies" (175)

on kula valuables and gold/pearls: "The parallel is very close....In the case of the white man this is infinitely more complex and indirect, but not essentially different from that of the natives." (351)

Consider 396-397: "The objective items of culture, into which belief has crystallized in the form of tradition, myth, spell, and rite are the most important source of knowledge." How does Malinowski analyze the contents of spells, the manner in which they are uttered, the behaviors of actors and spectators, and the social position and social function of the magical expert?

Note especially chapter XVIII ("The Power of Words in Magic") and compare this to Boas's view of language

Note 451-452 (a summary of findings) and pp. 453-463, in which he appends a few more "texts of native information" to show his method and "also [to] show the long way which lies between the crude native statement and its explicit, ethnographic presentation"

Compare Malinowski's approach to Boas's "Kathlamet Texts" and his potlatch and Winter Ceremonial chapters in Kwakiutl Ethnography.

Is it useful to argue that Malinowski: magic:: Boas: myth?

Is it significant that photographs are often separate from the text to which they refer (e.g., kaloma shell set)?

1. The kula is a system of socio-economic exchange centered on two kinds of valuables, armshells and necklaces, with other minor valuables of secondary use.
2. The two valuables must circulate against each other--the opposite-flow rule--armshells being exchanged for necklaces or vice-versa, but never armshells for armshells or necklaces for necklaces.
3. Viewed from above, the armshells move counter-clockwise and the necklaces clockwise around a giant circle of islands and communities.

1. The valuables are system-communal property and cannot be owned privately or kept in one's possession for very long.
2. The valuables derive their principal social value and meaning from being the objects of kula exchange, having few other uses in the social lives of the transactors or in their pursuit of an economic livelihood.
3. Shells accumulate value as they circulate among partners around the ring.
4. Armshells are ranked in value against each other as are necklaces inter-ranked amongst each other, the highest of each type being named and having shell-histories.

1. The valuables are exchanged according to the principle of reciprocity, like value for like value.
2. The reciprocation of valuables must be delayed, not simultaneous, transactor A going to B to seek a prestation shell x, B returning later to A for a reciprocating shell y, C coming to A to seek shell x, and later A going to C to get a reciprocating shell z.
3. Actual exchanging takes place only between individuals, though these individuals often move en bloc as 'kula communities' from one island or area to another. 

1. Kula exchanges occur between kula partners, individuals who are, unless serious breaches take place, in fixed lifelong relationships with each others.
2. With rare exceptions, only men can be kula participants.
3. A man is brought into the kula at adulthood by a kinsman, usually a father or mother's brother.
4. A man may have a minimum of 2 partners, one on either geographical side, or multiple sets of partners up to large numbers such as 100 or more as in the case of local leaders.
5. A man's partners normally come from the kula communities to his proximate geographical left and right, though they sometimes come from within his own kula community.
6. Partnerships are linked in chains around the ring, but a man exchanges only with partners to his proximate left and right, not with everyone around the entire chain of which he is one link.
7. Kula participants solicit particular shells from their partners with preliminary gifts of valued items, which should be themselves ultimately reciprocated.
8. Transactors do not haggle with their partners over relative value in exchanges 

1. Men gain considerable prestige from participating in the kula.
2. A large amount of utilitarian trade in essential and luxury resources takes place on kula expeditions, though this kind of exchanging is conceptually and behaviorally separate from kula exchange to the participants.
3. Kula partners do not trade or barter in a utilitarian sense with each other.
4. Except in minor details, the transactional rules of kula exchange are the same all around the ring.

1. Are the kula valuables a kind of money or a medium of circulation?
2. How are the relative values of the valuables determined?
3. How separate is kula exchange from other forms of exchange within and between communities?
4. What are the intra-societal uses of kula shells around the island system and how do these affect the meaning and value of the kula in different places?
5. What are the sanctions underlying kula reciprocity?
6. How does one gain (or lose) prestige in the kula and what good is it once acquired?
7. How does a person expand his place in the kula. i.e., move from a single set of partners to multiple sets, increasing the flow of shells through his position in the system, when exchanges are seemingly one-for-one, balanced and constantly reciprocal?
8. How is continuing debt between partners sustained when A = B equivalence exchange, even if delayed, seemingly cancels debt by the rule of reciprocity?
9. Does (or did) the kula prevent war between small stateless societies, thereby allowing the circulation of differentially distributed resources among them?
10. Is the whole kula like the Trobriand kula?
11. How has the kula changed over time?

1. recirculation of material resources
2. prestige competition
3. social communication