MABUIAG
The day after we left Parama we had a long, disagreeable run against the
tide to Dauan, only reaching a comparatively sheltered anchorage near
this island late at night. In the morning we made an early start, and
arrived at Mabuiag in the afternoon. It was rough till we got in the lee
of the extensive Orman’s reef. When the shelter of that was passed we
had to do a lot of beating up against a strong tide, for in the narrow
channels between the reefs, or between the reefs and the islands, there
is often a tidal race.
I was very pleased to visit Mabuiag once more. During my former
expedition I spent five weeks in this island, and its inhabitants
happened to be the first natives I had studied and made friends with.
After interviewing Mr. Cowling, the local trader, we went on to the
Mission Station, and the rest of the day was spent in landing our stuff
and putting up the camp beds, and otherwise establishing ourselves in the
mission-house. Cowling invited us to dinner, for which we were grateful,
as our domestic arrangements were all sixes and sevens. After a yarn we
returned to the Mission camp; it felt quite chilly at night, as a strong
south-east wind was blowing. Fortunately there were no mosquitoes nor
sandflies, so there was no need to be cooped up in mosquito nets.
The Mission Station on Murray Island is on the leeward or western side
of the island; but when we went across the island—to Las, for example—we
found the continuous wind very refreshing. In Mabuiag the Mission Station
is on the windward or south-east side of the island, and we at once felt
braced by the change of air. There is no doubt that, owing to this, we
could work better, and there was less temptation to slackness than was
the case in Murray Island.
Mabuiag is a larger island than Murray, and consists of several hills
three or four hundred feet in height, some are about five hundred feet
high. It is, roughly speaking, triangular in outline, each side measuring
about a couple of miles. Owing to the character of ancient igneous rocks
the island is only moderately fertile, and the vegetation has more of an
Australian character than has that of Murray Island. There are also small
grassy plains with scattered pandanus trees, and here and there a cycad.
The somewhat conical rocky hills are mostly covered with trees, with
grassy patches on their summits. Water is rather scarce.
The little harbour, with its jetty, is situated at the most easterly
point of the island. It is here Cowling has his store. The Mission
Station is on the beach on the south-eastern side of the island, at one
end of the only village in the island. Formerly the houses were more or
less scattered over the island, but the missionaries have induced the
natives to congregate in one spot.
Compared with the Murray Islanders, the people of Mabuiag are much better
off so far as clothes and European commodities are concerned; but, as
already stated, the island is much less fertile—indeed, little native
food is now grown, barely enough for daily use.
Mabuiag has been for a longer time, and also far more thoroughly, under
the influence of the white man than has Murray Island. Consequently
the social and economic conditions have been more modified, and one
immediately perceives that the people are more civilised, and it does not
take long to find out that they are more intelligent as a whole. The men
do more fishing, and are altogether more industrious than are the Murray
Islanders.
At first sight one would be inclined to put all this down to the credit
of the influence of the white men, but I am by no means sure that this is
entirely the case. When the results of our investigations are completed
and published it will, we suspect, be evident that the Mabuiag people are
naturally more intelligent than the Murray Islanders.
Mabuiag is situated half-way between New Guinea and Australia, and it
was the intermediate trading station between the natives of the Prince
of Wales group and those of Saibai, who, on the other hand, had trading
relations with the coastal people of Daudai, as the neighbouring part of
New Guinea is locally termed.
The Mabuiag men were skilful sailors and fishermen, and they combined
with this a little head-hunting and a fair amount of trading, all of
which occupations tend to develop the intelligence. They also had the
advantage of not having a very fertile soil. It was therefore necessary
for them to till the ground fairly assiduously if they were to have
enough garden produce to sustain life in comfort; this probably assisted
towards making them industrious.
Muralug, the largest island in Torres Straits, and one of the nearest
to Australia, has very similar physical conditions, but the people were
at a much lower social grade. My impression is that they were not so
enterprising on the sea as the Mabuiag men, and certainly they were
greatly inferior to them so far as general culture and tilling of the
soil were concerned. Indeed, most of their time was spent wandering
about in the bush and living on what fruit happened to be in season.
Macgillivray states that none of the land “by cultivation has been
rendered fit for the permanent support of man.” It is possible that the
Muralug people, although of the same stock as the Mabuiag folk, were
influenced for bad by their neighbours on the Cape York peninsula, while
the Mabuiag men were braced by contact with the Papuans of the mainland
of New Guinea.
Murray Island, as we have seen, was so fertile that very little labour
was necessary for supplying garden produce; and though the men were good
sailors, and often visited Erub, and even occasionally Parama or Kiwai,
yet their isolation prevented much intercourse, and they remained less
intelligent than the Mabuiag people, but more so than the Muralug folk.
There is another circumstance that must not be overlooked, although we
do not yet know its full bearing. From the measurements we made of the
living natives, and from those I have made on the skulls, it appears that
the Torres Straits Islands were inhabited by a branch of the Western
Papuans, who had the very dark skin, black woolly hair, and long, narrow
heads that characterise that group of peoples. This stock alone occurs
in Murray Island, whereas in the western tribe, from Saibai to Muralug,
there is superimposed on this ground-stock another stem with a similar
skin and hair, but with broader heads. This broader-headed population
can also be traced along the Daudai coast to Kiwai Island, and for at
least seventy miles up the Fly River.
It is generally admitted that a broadening of the head is advantageous,
especially if associated with an increase in total capacity. However this
may be, human progress is usually directly connected with a mixture of
peoples, and apparently the mixture of even a very slightly different
people has somewhat improved the mental activity of the western islanders.
There is a large collection of skulls in the British Museum (Natural
History Museum) which came from the island of Pulu, about which I shall
have more to say immediately. They are consequently the skulls of enemies
of the Mabuiag folk, probably mainly natives of Moa. These skulls, which
have been described by Mr. Oldfield Thomas, are very narrow. Of one
exceptionally narrow skull, with a very protruding muzzle, Mr. Thomas
writes: “This skull may be taken as a type of the lowest and most simian
human cranium likely to occur at the present day.”
The skulls I obtained at Mabuiag during my two visits to that island
belonged to natives of that island, and they are markedly broader than
those collected by Dr. Macfarlane.
In 1888 I was very anxious to obtain some skulls, but for some time could
not get any. One morning my boy Dick said to me, “Doctor, I savvy where
head belong dead man he stop; he stop in hole.” I promised the boy a
jew’s-harp to show me the spot, and on going there I took from a crevice
in a rock a beautifully perfect skull that had been painted red. I told
Dick to inform his friends that I would give a jew’s-harp for a skull or
for some bones.
That afternoon a crowd of small boys marched up, holding in their hands
a number of human bones. I suspected I was being somewhat imposed upon,
as probably one boy had collected the lot and distributed them among his
friends; but I had learned the lesson that if you want to start a trade
you must not mind paying extravagantly, if needs be, at first. Once
the trade has started it is quite a different matter. I paid each boy
a jew’s-harp for the worthless broken bones he brought. The boys were
hugely delighted, and strutted up and down the village strumming their
jew’s-harps.
The young men of the village then began to yearn for jew’s-harps, and
that same evening they came to me, and said, “Doctor, I want jewsarp.” I
replied, “I want head belong dead man.” “I no got head belong dead man,”
they urged. “You savvy where he stop. You get him,” was my reply.
The following evening the skulls began to arrive, and I duly gave a
jew’s-harp for each one. Unfortunately by this time my small stock
of jew’s-harps was exhausted, save for two. Then one young man said,
“Doctor, I want jewsarp.” “I want head belong dead man.” “I no got head
belong dead man.” “You savvy where he stop; good thing you catch him.” To
my surprise the man replied, “I no got wife.”
At first I could not make it out. In those days I had not paid any
attention to craniology, but I knew enough to satisfy myself that the
skulls were those of people who had been dead a long time, and many were
obviously the skulls of men. Consequently the young men had not been
killing their wives for the sake of a jew’s-harp. No savage I ever came
across would make such a bad bargain as that.
Then I discovered that the young men had sent their wives to procure the
skulls; and, as not unfrequently happens elsewhere, the women did the
work, and the men got the reward.
The advent of the white man has upset the former economic conditions
on Mabuiag. The men now spend all their time “swimming diving” as it
is called, that is, they go in parties in sailing boats, and dive by
swimming for pearl-shell in shallow water. Some natives own their own
boats, and make up crews on a system of sharing; others hire themselves
out to white men. They generally start out on Monday and return on
Friday or Saturday. All the time they are away they feed on tinned meat,
biscuits, flour, and other white man’s food. They get accustomed to this
food, and as they are away from home so much, they cannot “make” their
gardens. Thus it comes about that agriculture, as well as fishing, is
greatly neglected, and a considerable portion—and in some instances the
bulk—of their food has to be bought from the stores. Should the supply
of pearl-shell fall off, or the price be lowered, the natives would
suffer greatly; and if the storekeepers left the island, the people
would practically starve. As it is, many are considerably in debt to the
traders, and often the traders have to advance supplies of flour and food
to ward off starvation. With all their apparent prosperity, the people
are really in a false economic condition, and their future may yet be
temporarily deplorable.
The Mabuiag people have a very superior new timber church, which was
built, as they are proud of stating, “by contract for £250.” The natives
of other islands built their churches themselves, but here they could
afford to pay others to do it for them; and no false modesty causes them
to be behindhand in making the most of this fact. Some time ago a large
quantity of pig copper was found by the natives on a reef close by, and
they sold this to the traders for about £500. With some of the money thus
obtained they built their church. The copper must have formed part of the
cargo of a ship that struck on the reef, and the copper was jettisoned to
lighten her.
We very soon annexed the old church building as a storehouse and
laboratory, and found it most convenient. Some of us slept in it, and
found it a cool, airy bedroom. The roof was considerably dilapidated, the
thatch having come off in many spots; but fortunately there was no rain.
The walls were broken in places, and the doors and window-frames were all
giving way; still it suited our purposes admirably.
A day or two after our arrival a procession of men, women, and children
came from the village very early in the morning, singing hymns as they
marched, and deposited in front of our door a present of a large number
of coconuts, four water melons, one yam, some taro, several eggs, two
cocks, and a hen. Most of the parents with characteristic kindliness let
their little children put their presents on the heap. The spokesman said
the island was poor (in garden produce), and they could not give us much.
In replying, I said we knew they had not much produce, and that they had
given us a good present. I added also that no one had given us fowls and
eggs before. After the little speechifying was over, the people and the
heaped-up food were photographed.
It was much easier to get information from these people than from the
Murray Islanders, for they know English very much better, were further
removed from their past, and did not appear to have the scarcely veiled
affection and respect for their old customs that the Murray Islanders
certainly retain. They were less unwilling, therefore, to tell what they
remembered of their former customs. There were still a few old men alive
who knew the “old-time fashion,” and they often acted as referees, so
that it was possible to get definite information upon points about which
the younger men were uncertain; but the old men knew very little English,
and the young men had to interpret for them.
[Illustration: PLATE XI
WARIA, PETER, TOM, AND GIZU
NĒĔT OR PLATFORM FROM WHICH DUGONG ARE HARPOONED]
Owing to the industrious habits of the men and their professed desire
to get money for the forthcoming “May,” they went out diving for
pearl-shell, and we were during our first week occasionally left without
“subjects.” To obviate this I engaged two men, Peter and Tom, at ten
shillings a week each to come and talk to us whenever we wanted them. I
also engaged a man named Waria to help Ontong. After engaging Waria as
literally our drawer of water and hewer of wood, I discovered that he was
the hereditary chief of the island! So he was promoted to be my special
instructor in the old native customs, and help Ray with his study of the
language. Waria’s father died when he was a lad, so the present Mamoose
was elected by the Hon. John Douglas. Since we left Waria has “come
into his own.” We soon found out that Waria was making a translation of
the Gospel of St. Matthew, and he turned out to be a very accomplished
person. He was genuinely interested in our work, and quite grasped what
our objects were. One day, on his own initiative, he wrote the following:—
ANTHROPOLADIKO EKSIPIDISIN
_tana mun nel itabo Mabaigan nel_
their name in the of Mabuiag name
Very early one morning, hearing the sound of wailing in the village, we
went to inquire who had died. To our sorrow we heard it was the infant
son of Waria. The child was quite well the day before, except for a
stomach-ache; probably he had been overlaid in the night. There was a
great exhibition of grief, and many people came in all through the day
to sit in Waria’s house and weep by the poor little corpse. These people
are really most affectionate and sympathetic; everything was disorganised
that day on account of the infant’s death. Even old men sat about doing
nothing. Waria was very desirous to have a photograph of his dead baby in
order that he might not forget what he was like. Of course we did this
for him.
When he was in Murray Island, Rivers wanted to find out whether any
of the psychological traits or aptitudes that he had investigated
ran in certain families, and consequently he commenced to record the
relationships of the various subjects. Before he commenced on the inquiry
he had absolutely no interest in the subject of genealogy, but he soon
became literally fascinated with it. In the end he had tabulated the
genealogies of every native of Murray Island as far back as could be
remembered.
It was very amusing to see Rivers closeted with some old man ferreting
out the family history of various people, and he often surprised the
natives by the width and accuracy of his knowledge. A tremendous amount
of secrecy had to be exercised in these inquiries in Murray Island, and
one never knew in what odd corner or retired spot one might not come upon
the mysterious whispering of Rivers and his confidant. The questions one
overheard ran mostly in this wise, “He married?” “What name wife belong
him?” “Where he stop?” “What piccaninny he got?” “He boy, he girl?” “He
come first?” and so forth.
All this is not so simple as it appears, as everyone has one or two
names, and sometimes a man will casually assume a new name. Some men
have married several times, often to widows with children; but the most
confusing point of all is the very general custom in Murray Island of
adopting children. In many cases children do not find out till they are
grown up who their parents were; often they never know.
Their system of naming relationships is very different from ours; for
example, a mother’s sisters, that is the maternal aunts, are called
“mothers.” In the usual method of collecting names of relationships
confusion would often arise, owing to the very varied ways of regarding
kinship; but according to Rivers’ system mistakes could practically
never arise. All the terms he used were: “father,” “mother,” “husband,”
“wife,” “boy,” “girl,” or “man” and “woman,” and for the first of these
he always asked, “He proper father?” “He proper mother?” Once a genealogy
was fairly complete it was only necessary to ask, “What A call B?”
“What A call F?” “What B call A?” and so on, to find out what were the
relationships acknowledged by them, and the names by which they were
called.
Finding that this line of inquiry led to such good results in Murray
Island, Rivers immediately started similar investigations when he
arrived at Mabuiag. The collection of genealogies here was in one
respect more difficult than in Murray Island, as the families were
larger and the prevalence of polygamy, until quite recently, further
complicated matters. Intermarriages between natives of different islands
were naturally much more common than in Murray Island; indeed the
intermarriage between the inhabitants of Mabuiag and Badu have been so
frequent that they must be regarded as one people.
Not only did Rivers record the islands the various people came from, but
their totems as well. By this laborious work a great deal of valuable
information will result that could not be obtained in any other way
or with anything like the same accuracy. The clan marriages of the
population of Mabuiag for several generations will not fail to reveal the
rules that regulated marriage and descent.
There was an interesting psychological difference between the Mabuiag
folk and those of Murray Island. As has just been pointed out, great
secrecy had to be maintained in the latter island when pursuing
genealogical inquiries; but quite the opposite condition prevailed in
Mabuiag. Here the information was obtained in public, and a doubtful
point in genealogy was frankly discussed by men and women. This enabled
Rivers to make more rapid progress than in Murray Island, and at the same
time he was equally sure of his facts: what in Murray Island required
private confabulations with various men at different times could here be
settled practically offhand.
Much varied sociological information can be obtained by recording
genealogies in this way. For example, one can get definite facts on the
number of children in a family, the proportion of the sexes, the number
that die before they themselves have children, the number of adopted
children, the idea on which relationship is based, the relationship
nomenclature, the relation of totems to individuals or communities, the
personal or group restrictions as to marriage, the relative fertility
of related or unrelated stock, the effect of crossing between different
races, and so forth.
Without entering into further detail, I would like to emphasise the fact
that by this system Rivers has supplied anthropologists with a new
method of research, by means of which important data can be collected
with absolute accuracy on subjects concerning which it has hitherto been
very difficult to obtain reliable information.
Some white men resident on Mabuiag had crews of mainland (Queensland)
blacks, and we took this opportunity to measure, psychologise, and
photograph some dozen of these men. This was a fortunate chance for
us, as we wanted to make a few comparative observations on the North
Queensland aborigines.
There were also a few South Sea men living on Mabuiag, who had married
native women, and we studied several of them, and their half-caste
children as well. My old friend Billy Tanna was still on Mabuiag with his
numerous progeny, and three or four other Tanna men besides, whom we also
measured. Tanna is one of the New Hebrides group.
One Lifu man, Sŭni or Charley, had the longest head I have ever measured.
It was 215 mm. (8½ inches) in length. It was also narrow and high; the
length, breadth (or cephalic) index was 66·9. Rivers found in Sŭni the
first example of true colour blindness he had yet come across. It was
amusing to see Sŭni’s total inability to discriminate between pink and
blue and red and green, and his other attempted matches were very quaint.
There were two other Lifu men on the island, and great was Rivers’
delight to find that one of them was also red-green blind. One felt
tempted to frame all sorts of wild theories about a colour-blind race.
During his return home, both at Thursday Island and at Rockhampton, in
Queensland, Rivers investigated four other Lifu men, but only one of
these was colour-blind. Still, it is an interesting fact that not a
single other case of colour-blindness was found among one hundred and
fifty natives of Torres Straits and Kiwai, or among some eighty members
of other races, including Australians, Polynesians, Melanesians, Tamils,
and half-castes, and yet three out of seven Lifu men were colour-blind.
Lifu is one of the Loyalty group in the South Pacific. The inhabitants
are Melanesians, with, in some instances, a little Polynesian admixture.
Ray pursued his philological studies in Mabuiag, and found that there was
a very marked difference, both structurally and in vocabulary, between it
and the Murray Island tongue. From Saibai to Muralug and from Badu to
Tut one language is spoken, but there are at least four closely allied
dialects corresponding to as many groups of islands. The grammar of this
language is decidedly of the Australian type, though there is no marked
connection in structure or vocabulary with languages of the neighbouring
mainland of Australia.
Later, Ray had an opportunity of verifying this conclusion by a partial
investigation of the language of the Yaraikanna tribe of Cape York, which
is, however, totally distinct from that of the islanders of either the
eastern or western tribes.
A marked peculiarity of the Mabuiag language is the extremely indefinite
signification of the verbs, which require to be made definite by prefixes
indicating the part of the body concerned, the direction of the action,
or the place concerned. For example, _palan_ apparently indicates the
putting forth of something; and thus we have _poi-palan_, to shake off
dust; _gagai-palan_, to fire gun or arrow; _minar-palan_, to make marks,
to write; _ibelai-palan_, to cover as with a blanket; _balbalagi-palan_,
to make not crooked, to straighten; _berai-palan_, to make like a rib, to
slacken a rope; _dan-pali_ (an intransitive), to open the eyes, to awake;
_aka-pali_, to show fear. Another peculiarity is the partiality of the
language for noun constructions; indeed, as all the verb suffixes are
the same as those of nouns, it may be doubted whether the verb exists as
it is understood in European languages. “I have seen you,” is in Mabuiag
_ngau ninu imaizinga_, literally, “mine your seeing”; the imperative
plural “Fear not” is _nitamun akagi_, “Your not (being) afraid.”
The Mabuiag people have been under Christian teaching for over a quarter
of a century, and in most respects they may be regarded as civilised and
Christianised as country-folk at home. For about half this period the
islanders were under the influence of the Rev. Dr. S. Macfarlane, but the
actual teaching has always been done by South Sea teachers.
The new church was opened with great ceremony in 1897, and crowds
of natives arrived from all parts of Torres Straits, even from the
far-distant Darnley and Murray Islands.
It was amusing to find that these Mabuiag folk believe that the Murray
Islanders are more savage, or less advanced than themselves, just as the
Murray Islanders in their turn look down upon all the other islanders.
We were told in all soberness that at the opening of the new church one
of the Murray Islanders tried to make sorcery on a Mabuiag man, but
God was too powerful, and He made an example of a Murray Island boy
who died mysteriously and was buried on a small island to windward. I
believe our wicked old friend Ulai was the suspected sorcerer. On Mabuiag
they say the Murray and Darnley people still keep up magic, and they
contemptuously speak of these foreigners as eating frogs. Really, people
are much alike all the world over! Here is another instance of the fact
that is always striking us—the essential identity of the human mind under
all varying conditions of race and climate.
Our good friend Mr. Chalmers arrived on Monday, October 3rd, from
Saguane, bringing Ray with him, various mishaps having delayed his
expected arrival on the previous Saturday. His main object in visiting
Mabuiag was to hold a “May Meeting.” Murray Island and Saibai each have
their own “Mei,” as they call it; but Mabuiag is the central station for
all the other western islands.
Tamate employed one day in examining the school children, and some of
us went to the distribution of prizes in the afternoon, the scissors,
knives, pens, and pencils giving great pleasure to the little winners.
According to their custom everywhere the South Sea teachers put a stop to
all native dancing in Torres Straits, and as I much wanted to see a dance
in Mabuiag, there was some danger of the Mabuiag teacher misunderstanding
my expressed desire to get up one. Tamate, however, soon arranged
matters, and a native dance was included in the programme.
In the forenoon of Saturday, October 8th, a service was held in the
church. Most of the congregation arrived in procession headed by Tamate,
Isaiah, the Samoan teacher of Mabuiag, and Morris, the Niuie teacher of
Badu.
After these came two broad rows of men and boys, then two rows of women
and girls, all singing hymns. During the singing of the second hymn in
church, it was discovered that the all-important plate for the collection
had been forgotten, so a deacon went out and returned with two enamelled
iron plates.
In his address Tamate said he was sorry to see that fewer people had
come from the other islands than in former years. The Prince of Wales
Islanders were few in number, but they (the Mabuiag people) had promised
to subscribe money to help the Prince of Wales Islanders. The Mabuiag
people earned plenty of money diving for pearl-shell; perhaps they
made too much money, for when they went to Thursday Island they often
squandered it on drink and other indulgences, and so had no reserve for
bad seasons. Tamate appealed for more money to support new teachers in
the Fly River district, and also for an annual contribution of clothes
and calico and other things for their fellow-countryman Mugala, the
teacher at Kunini. Finally he asked them to send young men to his station
at Saguane to learn to read the Bible in English, and eventually to go
out as teachers.
Before the meeting actually began, but after we entered the church, Mr.
Chalmers, greatly to my surprise, said he would like me to speak to the
natives. On finishing his address, therefore, he called upon me for a
“talk.” After some general remarks I spoke a little about our work, and
that we found the differences between white, black, brown, and yellow men
were mainly external, but in reality all were very much alike. I went
on to tell them about prehistoric man in Britain, how, like themselves
thirty years ago, he went naked, and only had stone implements. I
described briefly the difference between palæolithic and neolithic
implements, and how man gradually improved; how they themselves had
_augŭds_ (totems) and our ancestors had too—theirs were dugong, shark,
cassowary, etc., while ours had been the white horse, seal, and wild
boar, and so on; how they cut representatives of their totems on their
bodies, whilst our forbears used to paint their _augŭds_ in blue on their
bodies; how tomahawks and knives came to us from another place, just as
white men brought them theirs; how we formerly made sorcery just as they
did—they made magic with wooden figures of men, and we stuck pins into
clay figures. Then missionaries came to Britain and taught the people
about God, just as missionaries come to them. The people in New Guinea
are still what they themselves were like a few years ago, and it was now
their turn to send missionaries to New Guinea. This address of mine given
in pidgin English was the first, as it will probably be the last, given
by me at a “May Meeting.”
Then followed prayers and addresses in the vernacular by teachers,
chiefs, and deacons, with hymns interspersed; and all the time, as in
home churches, only more so, there was a continual dropping by the
children of the coins they were to contribute to the collection, only,
as _not_ at home, the sound was the clink of silver, and not the clank of
copper.
Afterwards the five young men with their wives, who were going to
Chalmers’ Mission Station at Saguane, were asked to come on the platform,
and each gave a short address. Finally the collection was made as the
congregation passed out of church in island groups. Mabuiag contributed
£8 10_s._; Badu and Moa, £8 0_s._ 9_d._; Prince of Wales Island, £1; and
the South Sea men of Mabuiag, £11 2_s._, making a total of £28 12_s._
9_d._ During the year £64 15_s._ 1_d._ has been collected at the Sunday
offertory at Mabuiag, consequently Chalmers took back as the Mabuiag
subscription to the London Missionary Society £40 10_s._, this amount
being the local “May” collection and half the weekly offerings for the
year, a very creditable amount.
Mabuiag is the only native church which has a collection every Sunday;
during the four months we were in Murray Island there was no collection,
they have one only during their “May,” and I was told that their last
collection amounted to less than 10_s._!
Isaiah invited all our party to luncheon with Tamate, and he gave us a
first-rate midday dinner of pig, fowl, ham, yams, and sago cooked in an
earth-oven; cake, tinned fruit, bananas, and water-melon, with ginger ale
and coconut water to drink.
After dinner a large quantity of food was heaped in front of the mission
house by the natives, and a speech was made stating that the island was
so unfertile that they could not give so much as they would like. There
was one large live turtle, and a cooked and cut-up one, dugong meat,
fish, dampers, tins of meat, yams, taro, sweet potatoes, two bunches of
bananas, and plenty of coconuts. When we had photographed the heaps of
food, “Teapot,” a Samoan, gave a very clever dance to the beating of
an empty kerosine tin. Teapot flung an axe backward and forwards, up
and down, and every possible way, catching and twisting it with great
dexterity.
The present of food was then distributed. To Tamate was given the live
turtle, a lot of coconuts, and other fruit; to the “Doctor,” twenty
coconuts and five sweet potatoes. I was very pleased at this further
proof of the friendliness of the natives; other people also received a
share of the present.
Later in the afternoon a dance was performed by some thirty men in
the palm grove within the Mission compound. This was the _Pibi kap_,
sometimes called “Kwoiam’s dance,” after the legendary warrior of the
island—it was a war dance performed after a successful fight. Some of
the men had variously painted themselves with red and black and yellow
ochre; they wore chaplets of young coconut leaves or white feathers in
their hair, crossed shoulder-belts and petticoats of the same yellow, or
yellowish green coconut leaves, streaming armlets to match, and bands
round their legs and ankles. They held bows and arrows in their left
hands, and in their right each carried a coconut, or pawpaw, to represent
a decapitated human head.
It would be tedious to describe in detail the various movements of the
dancers. Usually they advanced in single file, with a skipping movement,
holding the body somewhat bent, then, resting for a moment on one leg,
would beat the air two or three times with the other leg, then stoop,
resting on both feet, and trail the “head” on the ground, then advance
with various skipping movements; occasionally they would rapidly dance on
the tips of their toes, as if they were boring into the ground, sometimes
the bow would be held horizontally, at others vertically, and almost
continuously the “head” would be trailed backwards and forwards in the
sand; every now and again the cry of victory would be raised. Some old
women excited by the memory of former days could not refrain joining also
in the dance.
Imagine a “May Meeting” in Exeter Hall closing with a war dance!