On February 11th 1970, the Port Moresby G.P.O. issued a set of four stamps called the National Heritage Issue. The 10 cents stamp shows a Masawa canoe, used by the people of the Trobriand Islands. Masawa was the name given to the largest sort of canoe, used for deep-sea sailing. The stamp shows clearly the attachment of the Trobriand Islanders to their craft, described by Bronislaw Malinowski, the pioneer anthropologist, who wrote:
"The Islander has spun a tradition around it and he adorns it with his best carvings, he colours and decorates it. It is to him a powerful contrivance for the mastery of Nature, which allows him to cross perilous seas to distant places. It is associated with journeys by sail, full of threatening dangers, of living hopes and desires, to which he gives expression in song and story". The Kula circuit mentioned on the stamp inscription was actually a closed trading system, a native "Common Market". It was carried on by communities inhabiting a wide ring of islands; the "circuit" and their laws regarding trading were as fixed and regulated as are those modern restricted trading systems of today, though some of the acts of the Kula were accompanied by an elaborate magical ritual and public ceremonies.
SG170 Sea Breezes 5/70