SOUTH SEA CANNIBALS
Everyone has heard of the wild and savage cannibals of the South Sea
islands, and to the average mind, either the whole of the South
Pacific is inhabited by man-eaters, or the idea that such
bloodthirsty creatures exist is simply scoffed at.
Hitherto I have told of the gentle, big, brown inhabitants of the
eastern islands, known as Polynesia. But now we have come into
Melanesia. Let me try to describe, as modestly yet graphically as
possible, the first of the Melanesians that the _Snark_ crew came in
contact with.
It is hard to tell of these savages. Yet, in writing of them, I
simply state facts. These people exist. There are at this time some
seventy thousand of them in the New Hebrides Islands. Very few white
people have ever seen them. They can scarcely be written about in
language sufficiently plain to give a definite idea of them. The
hundred or more pictures I made of these cannibals cannot be printed
in a volume intended for popular circulation.
Probably it is best to describe these people as one would describe
animals. For they are only one degree removed from the animals. I
wish I might speak plainly. But a great deal of the modesty in our
ultra-civilised state is a false modesty, inasmuch as it is not
based upon necessity. It is this fact that constitutes the
difficulty when one attempts to describe a race living in absolute
savagery, unwitting of those rules of conduct we have laid down for
our guidance, a race whose social relations are vastly different
from ours. This much, however, I must say. Our so-called "proper"
clothing is in many cases designed solely for purposes of
suggestion. Men and women who go stark naked every day of their
lives are oftentimes more moral and have stronger natural modesty
than certain of those who bedizen themselves with fashionable silks
and satins.
In my studies of various peoples as I have journeyed round this
earth, I have found many queer customs and fashions. In some
countries, they squeeze the foot to make it small, and a woman with
a large foot is a social outcast. In other countries they cover
parts of the face. An Arabian woman would expose her entire body in
order to keep the lower part of her face hidden. The Chinese men, as
a sign of rank and distinction, develop long finger-nails, and we
can well remember when our own women wore ridiculously large bustles
that looked very funny on the street. By the way, speaking of
bustles, I wish to say that the habit of wearing them did not
originate in any of the fashion-centres. Bustles have always been
and now are the only article of apparel worn by the women of the New
Hebrides. And funny as these women look with only large plaited
grass bustles on them, we must not consider them foolish, for they
have just as much right to their fashions as the women of America,
England, France, Germany, or any other civilised country, have to
theirs.
Having seen all these fashions, I am willing to grant to men or
women the perfect liberty to dress or adorn themselves, or go
undressed, as they see fit. Having, as I believe, seen the origin of
the bustle among these primitive folk, I fully expect to see some
day the prettiest ladies of our land wearing enormous nose-rings, as
there are places in the world where such nose-rings constitute the
entire wardrobe.
Ignorance is not virtue. Virtue is knowledge coupled with
self-restraint. And so let me call attention to a people who are as
directly opposed to us in their views of morality as could be
imagined. These people are sex worshippers, and their ideas of right
and wrong lead them to call attention to the very subjects we seek
to hide and dismiss from our minds.
To go back to Suva, Fiji. Captain Warren was no longer a member of
the _Snark's_ crew. As we lay alongside the wharf at Suva, the crew
painted and scraped masts, decks and booms, and after loading with
water and provisions, we were again ready for sea. Tehei was dressed
in his first suit of clothes, of which he was as proud as a peacock.
Our compasses were swung and adjusted by an expert. Our chronometer
was taken aboard an Australian steamer and corrected, and we were
ready to try our luck with Captain Jack London. And when I think of
the crew of the _Snark_, I always think of the crew that sailed out
of Fiji, and the same crew that stuck to the trip to the end. Up to
this time, I had seen come and go three captains, two engineers,
several sailors and a cabin-boy. The crew that sailed from Suva
included Mr. and Mrs. London, myself, and four dark-skinned persons:
Nakata, the Jap cabin-boy, Wada San, the Jap cook, and the two
Tahitians, Tehei and Henry.
We cleared Suva Harbor at 12:30 on the afternoon of Saturday, June
6, 1908. The harbour master, with his crew of Fiji convicts, was the
last to leave; then we just slid out of the bay with a strong beam
wind, and in an hour had left Suva out of sight. We passed a small
cutter, and her crew of bushy-haired Fijians cried good-bye in their
own language, and dipped their flag. About four o'clock we got to
the entrance of a very narrow channel and between two small islands.
I took the wheel, and Jack sang out the course from the bow. By six
o'clock we were through and headed for the open sea, at which
everyone was glad, for reefs and small islands cause much worry.
The next day I cleaned up the engine room and did small carpentering
jobs about the ship. The sea was quite rough, and we had the
skylights battened down; but because of the clearness of the sky we
did not expect very nasty weather. We were speeding at about seven
knots. All day, Jack studied navigation. For the first several days
out of Fiji he had no time to write. He navigated by every method
known to captains, and then proved his navigating as we used to
prove our arithmetic problems at school. On Wednesday morning, I
took the time while he got the sight; then we corrected the two
compasses, he watching one compass and I the other. Jack figured
that day that we had done ten thousand miles in the _Snark_ since
leaving San Francisco.
That evening, Jack announced that at a certain point on the compass,
at sunrise next morning, would be the first island in the New
Hebrides, called Futuna, and next morning at five o'clock there was
a call for all hands on deck. I hurried up, expecting to see a storm
closing in on us, but instead the sky was clear and Jack was
excitedly pointing to a rocky island at the exact place he had told
us of the night before. Jack said: "I told you so," and for the rest
of that day he went around with his head up in the air, with the
bearing of a person who knew much more than any others on board, and
we all looked at him in awe and told him he was a great navigator.
Futuna was a high, flat rock, as seen from the sea. We did not go
close enough to examine it. We had a good breeze, and all that day
we passed small uninhabited islands, and that night slowed down, for
the island of Tanna was directly ahead, and we were afraid to go
into the bay at night; but early next morning we dropped anchor
opposite a mission station in a long, narrow bay.
The third cylinder igniters blew out when I tried to use the engine
to help us into this bay, and we had trouble in finding an entrance,
for the place seemed reef-locked, but we took a chance, and finally
got in. We anchored one hundred yards off a high bluff, on the top
of which was a little white church, almost hidden by the dense
jungle. We saw clumsy canoes coming toward us, and soon two hundred
of the puniest, dirtiest, most unhealthy little thieving natives
came aboard. All afternoon they kept arriving in canoe-loads. All
wore remnants of white men's clothing, filthy beyond description.
Some had only an undershirt; some, old trousers; and there were old
hats of all kinds. One carried an umbrella. Others, again, wore red
singlets, so full of holes they would scarcely hang on their backs.
Their ears were pierced with holes I could have stuck my thumb
through. They were all missionaries from the mission school on the
top of the hill--and great missionaries they were! In the afternoon,
when we three whites started ashore, we cleared the deck of the
natives, and they cleared the deck of any spare ropes or marlin they
could find loose. We missed nearly everything that was small enough
for the natives to get away with. We went ashore and had dinner with
the only missionary on the island, Rev. Watt. He had been for
twenty-eight years at this station, and had managed to convert the
coast natives only, but in the interior the natives were as savage
and primitive as the day God had made them--he sighed when he told
us of the interior natives. We asked him to take us on an excursion
to see these natives, but he flung up his hands in horror. "No! It
was no place for a woman," and we could not persuade him to alter
his decision. He told us of a lawless trader living on the island,
and for us to be careful of him, he was a very bad man; he was
friendly with the bush natives. And right then Jack whispered to me
that we must find that bad, wicked trader and get him to take us to
visit the savages that we had sailed thousands and thousands of
miles to see. On going aboard that night, we found the wicked trader
sitting on our deck, smoking Jack's cigarettes. He was a big,
jolly-looking Scotchman. He was overjoyed to see us, for it is
mighty few white people that Trader Wiley ever sees in Tanna. He had
been trading here for over seven years. In order to trade among the
different tribes, he had learned their languages, and to gain their
friendship had doctored the sick and set broken bones. He had been
the means of bringing peace between several of the tribes that
before his advent had been continually at war. But the missionary
considered him a bad man because he had gained such a hold on the
natives, and, doctoring their ills and injuries, refused to doctor
their souls.
Mr. Wiley stayed for supper, and told us some interesting yarns of
the island. Up to one year ago, the different tribes were at war
with each other. No tribe dared go outside its own boundaries,
unless it wished to precipitate a rumpus. But the English warship
_Cambrian_ came and threw bombs in some of the villages, and now the
natives were quiet through fear of having their homes destroyed. It
had been three years, Mr. Wiley said, since a cannibalistic feast
took place, and he had been there to see it. Having the confidence
of the natives because he smuggled old-fashioned "Springfield"
rifles in to them, he was allowed to go and come as he pleased. He
had gone up into the bush after copra one day, after one tribe had
been defeated by the tribe he was visiting, and was asked to stay
and watch the feast that night, which he did--he found four bodies
cooked and ready to eat, with the heads off and the bowels removed.
Of course he would show us the bush people; but he warned us that
they were not the kind of people that we had been used to. It was
agreed that on Sunday, June 22, he was to take us up to the village
where he had seen the cannibal feast. On Saturday, Jack and Mrs.
London went to see one of the most noted volcanoes in the New
Hebrides, which is located on this island. I wandered up and down
the bay, looking in the village huts and trying to find curios, but
the natives seemed to have none. One little four-foot grass hut and
a few dirty mats is all the average man here possesses.
I gossiped with Mr. Wiley and his partner, Mr. Stanton, in their
little 10-X-15 store, where they ate, slept and traded. Very little
money was in circulation; they traded out of their stock for copra.
One stick of cheap tobacco bought ten cocoanuts; and three sticks
would hire a man for one day to take the meat from the nut and dry
it into copra; so it will be seen that the remuneration of labour in
the New Hebrides is nothing magnificent. One stick of tobacco is
worth a cent.
Saturday night, Jack, Mrs. London and I took supper with Rev. Watt.
The missionary was a fairly decent sort of man, but I don't approve
of his methods. In the evening, I developed film in his dark-room.
Early Sunday morning, Tehei landed us on the beach, where we found
Frank Stanton waiting for us. He explained that Mr. Wiley was sick
and could not go. We four started off, and for several hours tramped
over hills and through valleys, penetrating a jungle of trees and
vines and ferns so dense that in places we walked through pitch-dark
recesses, into which the sun had never shone. Sometimes we rested
under a big banyan tree, with its hundreds of roots and its branches
turning and growing back into the ground until the single tree might
cover as much as a half acre. We passed several of Mr. Stanton's
copra houses, where he came on certain days each week to buy
cocoanuts; then we struck off through a deep ravine, the walls forty
and fifty feet high, with just enough room for us to walk
single-file. All the time, we were gradually rising higher and
higher above the sea-level. Often we had to pull Mrs. London up
after us, but she was game and never lagged a bit. About one o'clock
we emerged without warning into a clearing set on the side of a
mountain, a clearing about a half-mile across. Many grass houses
were set in a circle around this clearing. In the centre of the
circle squatted about fifty men, as many children, and a few women.
They were the most savage, heathenish looking folk I have ever
looked upon. I had heard of and seen pictures of such savages, but I
had hardly been able to convince myself that such animals existed:
but here was ocular demonstration. They were smeared over their
bodies with coloured juices from berries, and several of the younger
men had queer white designs painted on their faces. The men wore
belts around their waists--that was all; around their ankles were
anklets of porpoise shell or cocoanut shell, and there were some
that were carved of stone. Many wore strings of white shells around
their necks. Through their enormously distended ear-lobes were
thrust pieces of wood as big as one's wrist, or ear-rings of
porpoise shell. But the crowning beauty was their heads. The hair,
dyed red, was about a foot long. Locks of about one hundred hairs
were wrapped from the roots to within one inch of the end with
cocoanut fibre; and the whole head was one cluster of these
bunches. And every man carried a large knife. As for the women, they
wore a dried palm-leaf hung on in front by a string around the
waist; except for a miscellaneous collection of anklets, bracelets,
and necklets, this was all they wore.
Most of these savages broke for the bush when they sighted us; all
but fifteen or twenty who knew Mr. Stanton well. Stanton spoke to
them; they advanced with hands outstretched; and we shook hands all
around.
"How can I describe these people in my diary?" Mrs. London asked.
"'Worse than naked,' and let it go at that," Jack replied.
And so, in turn, I can describe these people at no greater length
and no better than to say, as Jack said, that they were worse than
naked. For several hours we sat with them in the clearing, and
showed how Mrs. London's Winchester could shoot eleven times in the
twinkling of an eye. I made dozens of photographs, and tried to
photograph the women; but they were very shy. I got only one, as she
was diving into her house.
The men who had run for the bush we could see on all sides of us,
peeping around trees and through the dense brush at the edges of the
jungle. They were armed with spears, so we kept our hands on our
guns all the time, but Stanton assured us they were not
dangerous. Nevertheless, we were not going to take any risks.
[Illustration: MRS. GODDEN AND HER SCHOOL PEOPLE, NEW HEBRIDES
ISLANDS. MR. GODDEN, THE MELANESIAN MISSIONARY, WAS MURDERED A WEEK
PREVIOUS TO THE GROUP BEING PHOTOGRAPHED]
Late that afternoon, we started back for the bush. For some time
we could see painted faces peeking at us through the jungle.
When we arrived on board the _Snark_ late that night, I gave a
big sigh of relief. I had been far from comfortable among these
ferocious-looking bush people.
I desired very much to develop my film that night, but Rev. Watt
refused to let me use his dark-room. "Christians should do nothing
at all on the Sabbath!" he told me; and I gathered from his tones
that he knew of our expedition inland, and that he was far from
approving of it.
The New Hebrides are entirely of volcanic origin. There are about
thirty active volcanoes in the group, of which the greatest is on
the island of Tanna. At night the sky is fiery red from the
reflection of the red-hot lava in its crater, and about every half
hour the air is rent with a terrific explosion, and from the
direction of the volcano the sky seems afire.
On the morning after we had visited the bush people, Henry, Tehei,
Nakata and myself secured guides and went to the volcano, walking
for miles through barren desert land, hundreds of hot springs and
geysers on all sides of us. As we drew closer, the ground under our
feet would tremble with each explosion. At noon we reached the edge
of the crater. Just as we got there, there came a tremendous
explosion, and away we ran, guides and all. When we recovered our
courage, we crept up to the edge, and looked down nearly half a mile
into what looked like hell. Out of the bowels of the earth were
thrown huge boulders, which spent their force and fell back with
hideous reverberations into the pits whence they came; and away at
the bottom, the farthest down I have ever seen--and I believe it is
the bottom-most point to which one can see--were two boiling lakes
of lava, and when an explosion came, the lava would be thrown
spattering against the encrusted crater sides, nearly to the top,
and then run in thousands of rivers of liquid fire back to the
bottom. The rumblings and explosions were deafening. I had to leave
the edge of the crater, for there was stealing over me the
overwhelming desire to jump off and to the bottom of the twin lakes
of molten death--a desire that everyone has experienced when looking
down from a vast elevation.
We got back to the bay about two o'clock that afternoon, where we
found that a whole village of bush-boys had come down to buy
tobacco. There were about fifty of them, all naked, and they had
brought bows and arrows and spears. I gave a shilling, a brass ring,
and a red handkerchief for a bow and two arrows, then invited the
crowd aboard, for I knew Jack would want some of their bows and
spears, and I myself wanted to get some good photographs of these
natives. I took a few of them over in the launch, and the rest came
in canoes, until we could scarcely move around on deck. Jack
snapped twenty good exposures of them, and I, too, got busy with my
cameras. Then began the trading, which lasted for over an hour. Many
a bow, spear, and pack of arrows shifted hands that afternoon, in
exchange for tobacco, cheap jewellery, candy and red cloth. Jack
boxed up his things and sent them back to California, while I boxed
mine and sent them to Independence.
We lay at Tanna a week. Then, at four o'clock on a fine Tuesday
afternoon, we motored out of the harbour and slid twenty miles up
the coast, until we got out from under the lee of the land and
caught a light breeze. All the next day we sailed to windward of
Erromango, heaving-to at night for fear of running into land in the
dark, and early the next morning putting on sail and heading for
land twenty miles away.
As we were cruising in a general westerly direction through the New
Hebrides, a little incident occurred which throws a side-light on
the man, Jack London. One day, when weather conditions were perfect
and everyone was on deck enjoying himself, an animated ball of
variegated colours dropped slowly down into the cockpit at the feet
of Mrs. London, who was at the wheel. She eagerly picked it up,
calling out, "Lookie, lookie, what I've got!" It proved to be the
prettiest little bird we had ever seen. Jack got out his book on
ornithology, and proceeded to study book and bird, but nowhere was
such a bird described.
It was evidently a land-bird that had gotten too far from shore and
had fallen exhausted on the deck of the _Snark_. We all stood around
looking at it as it lay in Mrs. London's hand, while she chirped and
tried to talk bird-talk to it. At last Jack said: "If it's a
land-bird you are, to the land you go," and changing the course, we
sailed for the island Mallicollo, just barely visible ten miles out
of our way. We sailed as close to the shore as possible, and the
little multi-coloured, pigeon-like bird, having regained its
strength, flew in among the cocoanut trees. Then we headed out and
continued our cruise up through the score of small islands composing
the Western New Hebrides.
Critics of the man, Jack London, may call him an infidel. Colonel
Roosevelt may call him a "nature faker." Others have not agreed with
his ideas of life, but I have little doubt that this is the only
time a captain ever went twenty miles out of his way when his fuel
was low (our gasolene tanks were fast emptying), just to put a poor
little bird ashore to go back to its mate and its young.
On our way through these islands we lived entirely on deck, so as to
miss none of the beautiful scenery. The weather continued equable.
We rode the water as silently as a canoe. The islands around us
sheltered the sea from any disturbances, leaving the surface of
these island straits perfectly calm. We sailed a day and a night
past a score of active volcanoes. One towering cone of land
protruded from the water like an enormous ant-hill, smoke wreathing
the top in the day, and the fiery red craters acting as lighthouses
by night. Once we put into Vila, anchoring between two small
schooners in the bay. Vila has only a few white people, traders and
some governmental officials. And here is a queer government. These
islands are owned jointly by France and England; one governor will
make a law, then the other governor will make a law directly
opposed. It is all a joke among the traders. The schooners we saw
were _blackbirders_, which made a practice of going to other islands
and capturing natives, to be sold in the labour markets of Fiji and
Samoa. When I think of this practice, I do not really wonder that
the natives are so savage against the whites. As we came into this
port, the French flags were at half-mast for a captain that had been
killed in another island while trying to get labour.
It was now decided that the _Snark_ must be getting on faster, in
order that we might pass through the Indian Ocean before the typhoon
season. We went by the last of the New Hebrides and next day cruised
past the Banks Islands, but did not linger. For another day we
sailed past the Santa Cruz Islands. Then for three days we slid
through an open sea.
In my diary, kept during this part of the trip, I find some
interesting entries.
_Monday, June 22, 1908._--To-day we are about five miles off the
last of the New Hebrides. It is a big volcanic island, five thousand
five hundred feet high. We have only a three-knot breeze and the
sea is as smooth as I ever saw it. We have the awning under the
mizzensail amidships, where Jack and Mrs. London are lying on their
cots reading. Also, the awning is set over the cockpit. The sun is
shining brightly, without a cloud in the sky. Henry, Wada and Nakata
are asleep in the life-boat; and Tehei is at the wheel--nearly
asleep, too. I've been reading nearly all day, and as soon as my
work is through I'm going to crawl into the launch and go to sleep.
_Tuesday, June 23, 1908._--Last night late we sighted an island of
the Banks group. The stars shone so brightly that it was very plain
twenty miles away. To-day the breeze has freshened, and the sea is
pretty rough--so rough that one big wave came over the deck and down
my open skylight, drenching me as I was painting my big engine, so
that I have had to batten down and quit work in the engine room.
Tehei caught several large bonita on his pearl-hook, so that we have
plenty of fish on our table. No one will eat cooked fish now, for we
have at last learned to eat it raw. The fish is cut in strips,
soaked one hour in salt water and lime-juice, then eaten in a sauce
of lime-juice and olive oil. For a long time I could not stomach
this delicacy, but now I find it very good. The Kanakas do not even
wait for the salt water, but cut strips off the fish while it is
still struggling on deck.
_Wednesday, June 24, 1908._--Every day, Jack gives me a lesson in
navigation, and I in turn give Henry a lesson. Last night, as we
three were playing cards, Jack gave a yell and pointed to Mrs.
London's bunk, from which a centipede six inches long was crawling.
And Henry says he has seen several on deck. Not very pleasant
companions! But our worst enemies are the cockroaches--millions of
them. When I am in my bunk and they crawl over me I don't even
bother to brush them off; but, of course, we have to skim them from
our coffee and chase them out of the food.
_Friday, June 26, 1908._--A wild and woolly night. Lightning and
thunder everywhere. We are hove-to, for Jack says that land is not
more than twenty-five miles off in some direction, but we don't know
which, for it has been hazy all day. It's dark as pitch, except when
a flash of lightning shows several serious faces on deck. Wonder
what next! Last night we hove-to, but it was fine weather and we
three played cards during my watch. To-night we tried it, but we
could not keep our minds on the game with such a furious sky
overhead. In Kansas, I would say a cyclone was nearly on us, but
here in the South Seas I don't think it can be less than a
hurricane. I am in the cockpit watching the wheel, although we are
not moving; but should a current start us west, I must set the sails
to put us in another direction, and that very slow!
_Saturday, June 27, 1908._--This has been an awful day for me, and
I'm dead tired but not sleepy. Again we are hove-to, in about the
same position as last night, only we now know where we are. About
fifteen miles ahead is a low wooded island, and away back of it the
lofty peaks of several islands of the Solomons--the darkest and
least-known islands in the world.
They were discovered by Henry at daybreak this morning; and
immediately Jack told me to start the engines, for it was dead calm.
I did so, and No. 1 insulation plug on the igniters blew out, and I
stopped to repair it; then, as soon as I had her going, No. 4 blew
out; I repaired it, then started again, when the pump broke; I
repaired it, and then found my cylinders were not getting oil; and
so on, all day until to-night. I find my magneto "going bad"--and
Lord only knows how I can repair it! and the batteries are weak, and
we are just in a position to need the engines badly. With the
five-horse-power out of order and the seventy-horse-power trying to
get out of order, I feel pretty blue, but Jack takes it all right.
I'm going to call Tehei now and go to bed in the finest bed I've had
for a long time--the spinnaker sail folded up aft the cockpit. I am
wearing only a _lava-lava_, and this faint sea-breeze blowing over
me almost makes me forget the engines and their troubles. I have a
good lantern and a good book, so I'll get a little reading before I
go to sleep.
_Sunday, June 28, 1908._--Jack called all hands on deck to make sail
at six this morning, after which I went to the engine room just to
look at the engine and see if I could find some way to make it run.
I just turned the wheel over in order to test the spark, when she
started off as nice as could be. I turned on the propeller and
stuck my head out of the hatch to see everyone on board jumping for
the steering-wheel, for we had been in a dead calm, and no one was
in the cockpit. Ahead was a little blue patch of land, miles and
miles away, which we started for. Well, from six-thirty this morning
to one-thirty this afternoon that engine ran without a kick. In an
hour we picked up another island ahead, then another, two little
patches of land lying just off the mainland. The passage between was
about a mile and a quarter. Up this we steamed. We could see the
natives on both beaches running to their canoes, but we were going
too fast for them. We went in Port Mary on Santa Anna island.
Hundreds of natives ran down the beaches, and tumbling into canoes,
darted after us, all the time screaming at the top of their voices.
After edging through the small lagoon and dropping anchor, we were
surrounded in an incredibly short time by a hundred canoe-loads of
savages--people who in looks and actions fully justified my
expectations of what South Sea Islanders should be like. They
started aboard, but with guns we kept them back; and they circled
round the _Snark_, waving spears and clubs and shouting at the top
of their voices. And their looks certainly made necessary the
precautions we took, for they were a most savage-looking lot.
They had big heads of bushy hair. Half of them wore large nose-rings
of tortoise shell and of wild-boar tusks. All of them were adorned
with ear-rings. Some ears were plugged with small logs of wood, two
inches in diameter. One had the handle of an old teacup in his ear.
The men of the New Hebrides looked truly civilised beside these
fierce and grotesque figures. One of the islanders had the tin-wire
sardine-can openers in his ears; but the strangest of all was the
one who had the shell of a clock depending from the cartilage of his
nose. All had anklets and armlets, and wore short _lava-lavas_ of
native cloth. And all were armed with spears, bows and arrows, and
clubs. Some had immense bamboo combs in their hair; and through the
noses of fully half our visitors were thrust long bamboo
needles--clear through, so that the ends stuck out far beyond the
cheeks; and on these ends were, in some cases, hung little rings, or
pieces of shell. Their cheeks were tattooed in monstrous designs:
little boys ornamented and tattooed just as fantastically as were
the elders. Their teeth were filed to points, and were dead black;
their lips, large and negroid, were ruby red.
Their canoes were the prettiest and most graceful of any we have yet
seen. They are not mere dugouts with an outrigger, but long
double-ended light-shell boats, the bows making a graceful curve
several feet in the air. There is no outrigger. The canoes are
paddled with long, slim, strangely carved paddles. Each boat is
painted a different design, like a fine piece of tapa cloth. They
glided round the _Snark_ in the twinkling of an eye. It was all we
could do to keep the savages from boarding us. Not that they acted
hostile, but they looked it.
Soon other canoes arrived from the other island, and there is no use
denying that we were getting pretty well frightened, until, along
about the middle of the afternoon, a canoe with only one occupant
came alongside, and a big, naked savage, uglier than the rest,
paddled round and round the _Snark_, trying to attract our
attention. He smiled an ugly, ghastly smile that made us shudder,
and finally, when he had our attention, he stood upright in his
canoe, and with a bow that was meant to be graceful, said:
"How-de-do," and then, losing his balance, fell into the water, his
canoe turned over, and those three or four hundred cannibals laughed
until their sides ached. It turned the tide for us, for the native
swam to the side of the _Snark_ and we could not refuse to let him
aboard. Then he started talking English to us, real genuine English,
and so far as I can remember, this is what he said:
"What name he belong you? Peter he name belong me. You no fright
along people along Santa Anna, every people he stop along shore. He
good people. You come along shore along me, me make 'm good time
along you too much."
Being questioned, Peter told us that he had worked on a plantation
for a missionary, and that the missionary had taught him English. He
said that his people were good people, and asked us to go ashore
with him.
Only one white man is on this island, a trader named Tom Butler. He
had been to the other side of the island, but hearing of our
arrival, he came aboard from his cutter, which, loaded with
cocoanuts, was on the way home. Butler is nearly in his grave. He
could scarcely get aboard, for he seems to be nearly paralysed. He
was a sailor on a trading schooner until his mate was killed and
_kai-kai'd_ (eaten). He killed seven of the natives and could not
get aboard again, so made his way here, and has been trading ever
since. As he came over the rail, he whispered to Jack to watch out
for Peter, the native who speaks English. He said he had tried to
spear the manager of a big island trading concern who came here in
his own schooner six months ago. These natives are all head-hunters.
This village and the one across the bay are continually at war with
each other, and each tribe collects the heads of the other tribe.
Jack and Mrs. London went ashore with him, and brought back news
that it is the most heathenish place they ever saw. The women, they
say, are naked. Large carved totem poles in the centre of the
village are covered with obscene figures. The natives are all armed
with clubs, spears and bows. To-morrow I shall go ashore, and see
for myself. In the morning the natives are coming out with weapons
and other curios for us to buy. I'm very much frightened about my
right foot. On the shin a large sore, big as a dollar, has started,
and it is eating right into my leg. It seems that no medicine
aboard will cure it, and there is no doctor within thousands of
miles that we know of. My ankle and leg has swollen to twice its
natural size. Jack, I'm afraid, has one of these eating ulcers, too.
If no doctor is on Florida Island, and if we are no better when we
get there, I think we will sail for Sydney, Australia, for
treatment, and that without delay.
_Monday, June 29, 1908._--I meant to do some work to-day on the
engines, but early this morning the natives started coming with
things for us to buy. Jack and Mrs. London sat on their couch on
deck with a few hundred sticks of tobacco and a satchelful of beads
and red handkerchiefs, coloured calico and cheap jewellery, and
started buying. And here ended my attempt to work on the engines.
Jack asked me to let him buy anything I wanted, as he wished to keep
a uniform price. All morning he traded, then knocked off for dinner,
and started again in the afternoon. By night he had about two
hundred different curios. For me he got seven spears, all different,
two dancing-sticks, two war-clubs, two fine hair-ornaments, two
ear-plugs out of the same man's head, one sennit ear-stick, ten
anklets and armlets, one calabash (which has been used to drain
human blood), two hand-clubs, two fine big shells, and scores of
other little trinkets. The whole thing cost fifty sticks of tobacco
and one handkerchief. On our deck is a pile of fruit and yams and
pumpkins three feet high. Bunches of bananas are hanging to the
mainmast, along with eleven pigeons as big as chickens. One sucking
pig, cleaned and ready to cook, was sent out by the trader. About
one dozen large shell-fish, fine raw, lie aft.
All day canoes have come and gone, long, graceful, light, and
strangely painted. Sometimes there would be fifty naked men on deck
at one time, fierce-looking fellows, their ears full of rings and
plugs and sticks. Some carry their pipes there. Some wore great
shell nose-rings; others had porpoise teeth stuck in the ends of
their noses. Their faces were tattooed and cut in strange designs.
In their big bushy heads were feathers and bamboo combs. Of anklets
and armlets we bought nearly all they had--two yards of calico would
easily make breech-clouts for fifty of these men, so they effected
rapid exchanges.
[Illustration: CANNIBAL VILLAGE, FOATE, SOLOMON GROUP]
_Tuesday, June 30, 1908._--Again this morning we traded with the
natives until we are wondering where we will put the things. About
one hundred spears alone are hard to pack away. After lunch, Jack,
Mrs. London, and I went ashore in the launch. As we could not get
clear up to the beach, Tehei had to carry us out of the boat. We had
our guns strapped on, and carried four kodaks. We went up to the
trader's house. Imagine our surprise to find a whole beachful of
naked girls. Absolutely naked. Jack looked at me and then at Mrs.
London, and I looked back at them. Each was anxious to see how the
others would act. But these people did not appear sensual or
unnatural at all. They were just like animals. We each turned our
eyes shoreward and tried to look unconcerned and as if we had been
used to such things all our lives. We sat on the porch and talked
with the trader, while the girls got us cocoanuts. These girls, from
ten to twenty years of age, had a few strings of beads around their
waists, some had a single string hanging in front, and there were
anklets and armlets and necklaces; but of garments to hide their
nakedness there was nothing at all. Some of them were not bad
looking, save for the black, pointed teeth and the hideously red
lips. I was told that the teeth were coloured by chewing the
betel-nut. With Peter guiding us, we tramped about a quarter of a
mile to the village, a hundred natives in the path ahead and a
hundred behind. And we kept our hands on our guns all the time, for
this would be a fine place for the islanders to get some _kai-kai_
(food) for a cannibal banquet. And I have little doubt that our
heads are vastly coveted.
At length, we came to a log bridge, over a shallow stream of water.
Mrs. London was not allowed to go over--she must wade through, as
this bridge is taboo to women. Jack could not resist chaffing Mrs.
London, for up to this time she has been treated like a lady by the
natives we have come in contact with, but here a woman is only a
woman, and has none of the rights of men. Poor Mrs. London was
humiliated, but Jack enjoyed it. We came into the village. Men and
women too old and feeble to walk would peep at us through their
grass houses. We came upon a mammoth grass house, facing the sea.
This place was as large as a good-sized store-room. From the front
protruded the ends of war canoes. We wanted to see them better; but
Mrs. London was again stopped, and in company with Peter, Jack and I
went inside and inspected two canoes large enough to hold fifty men
each, and a dozen smaller ones. These were the war canoes, used only
for the fighting. At the rear of the house was a large coffin-shaped
grass box. We looked in, then stepped back in horror; and holding
our noses, Jack and I beat a hasty retreat, for inside the box was
the body of a man, looking like a pin-cushion, so full was he with
sharp barbs. Peter told us that he was the best king that ever ruled
them, that he had been dead a week, and that the points in his body
were the arrow-points used in their envenomed arrows. Everyone knows
that a dead body contains the most virulent poison in the world. By
steeping their arrow-points in a chief's body, they think that the
poison will be more effective. I bought one hundred and fifty of
these arrows. But I shall have to be careful how I touch them.
As we passed out, we saw several old men squatted in front of the
house, making hollow wooden fishes by the use of stone axes. We were
told by Peter that these men were chiefs, and that after they die
their bodies will be allowed to putrify. Then, after the
arrow-points have been poisoned in their decaying flesh, their
bones will be put in one of the hollow fishes and set on a shelf in
the canoe-house, where we saw about a hundred such fishes. The old
men were making their own coffins.
We went through the village, which is closed in by a fence of small
sticks woven together. The houses touch one another, so that the
whole village covers only a few acres, with streets about ten feet
wide. In a small square at the centre stand tall carved images. At
the foot of the village, in a small enclosure about twenty feet
square, they showed us the graveyard. Every body goes into the same
hole. The pit is simply opened up, the body tossed in, and then it
is covered over again. Scores of naked women and children followed
us about, and large men with clubs and spears. I really did not feel
any too safe. They showed us another boat house in which rested a
big log-fish, filled with the bones of chiefs. I made photographs of
the women and men. Jack made head studies. Then, walking back
through the streets, I took pictures of houses. For Jack I made a
picture of two men whom the sharks had bitten. One had his leg
bitten clear off; the other had all the flesh stripped from the
bone.
We then went back to the clearing in the centre of the village,
where the men gave a dance for us, while half a dozen old rascals
sat in the centre making dance music on hollow logs. We gave the
dancers tobacco and each a handful of cheap candy; and then Peter
took us to see his wives--two of them, and fine looking ladies they
were. They were not naked, but each wore a short fringe of grass,
the smallest dresses I have ever seen, and, I believe, the smallest
dresses in the world. I bought one of them from Peter's elder wife.
We went back to the trader's house, where five young girls danced a
very pretty dance, making a hissing sound for music. Mrs. London
gave them a string of beads each. We came back to the boat and ate
supper; then for several hours on deck the Japanese boys danced, and
Wada acted out some pantomime. Tehei danced the Tahitian _hula-hula_
and Henry did the Samoan _seva-seva_. Nakata is a fine dancer. All
the while, Mrs. London played Hawaiian _hulas_ on her _ukelele_. We
had a good time until so late that I did not have to stand my watch,
and Tehei stood only part of his. We have to keep "anchor watch,"
for a little wind from the west might make us swing on the reef--and
then, we can't trust the natives.
_Wednesday, July 1, 1908._--Again all morning Jack bought curios,
until we have just cleaned out the village. I got a few more things,
among them an arrow with a special poison tip. Jack made the chief
several presents to get up a dance for us in the afternoon, so right
after lunch we were taken ashore in the launch by Henry, and were
escorted to the village by a young chief. There we found more men
making the hollow fish-coffins. It took some time to get the dance
started, but finally fourteen young men lined up in two rows and
eight squatted in a circle with a flat board for a drum--one man
striking it with a stick, the rest chanting. I can't describe the
dance. It was similar to an Indian war-dance, and yet not the same.
They jumped around, yelled, alternately squatted and stood, keeping
up much the same thing for an hour and a half. Then Jack and I gave
out more candy and sticks of tobacco. The naked girls stood around
in the circle, curiously watching us. One old man with only a stump
of an arm asked for a stick of tobacco. We found out that he had
lost the arm while dynamiting fish--the explosive went off too soon.
On the way back, he stopped us at his hut, and made Mrs. London a
present of a sennit armlet. This was the only present given us by
the natives here. At length we got back to the _Snark_, where we
found that the trader had sent us a big string of fish. A native got
us a dozen pigeons to-day. We found several young breadfruit, and
with plenty of _kai-kai_ we sail out of here in the morning.
* * * * *
That night, Peter, the native came aboard, and told us that if we
wanted to get our washing done, his wife would do it for us; so it
was settled that early next morning Nakata was to go ashore and help
with it. Next morning, almost before sun-up, Nakata went ashore. A
little later we white people followed; but we found no washing done.
The Japanese are great practical jokers in their quiet way. We found
Nakata trying to show the naked women how to wear Mrs. London's
clothes. He succeeded very well, until he accidentally tickled one
of them, and immediately they all jumped a good arm's length away
from him; and as those on whom he had succeeded in getting dresses
did not know how to get them off, and for fear of being tickled
would not allow him to touch them, there was no washing done.
Next morning, Jack called all hands and they heaved anchor, while I
started the engine and we steamed out of the harbour. We went about
two miles before I shut down; then we flew along with an eight-knot
breeze up the coast of the big island of San Christoval (or Bauro),
an island seventy-two miles long by twenty-five wide. A missionary
lived on one end of San Christoval, and a trader on the other end,
and the people were killing and eating each other right along.
At three o'clock, Jack told me to start the engine, as the breeze
was dying out, and he was afraid of being caught on a bad coast with
no moon to steer by and reefs all about. We decided to stop at a
small island six miles off San Christoval--Ugi is its name, and it
has a good harbour. When we were about five miles off, a whale-boat
with a white man and half a dozen black boys came alongside, and I
stopped the engine until he got aboard; then we pushed on again with
his boat towing behind. He was a Mr. Drew, a member of the
Melanesian Missionary Society, stationed on San Christoval. He
accompanied us to Ugi, and decided to go to Florida Island with us.
We got in just at dark, and were met by a trader in his dingy, who
piloted us to a good anchorage alongside his little ketch, a hundred
yards off shore. His name was Hammond. He was an Australian who had
only been here one month. The last man got frightened and left, for
the natives of Malaita, a very savage island, had come down in
canoes and killed nearly every trader that ever set up in business
here; and he had got word from one of his boys that they were coming
again. Hammond had been in the Solomons for eleven years, however,
and spoke the language well. He told us that two years before he had
landed at Port Mary--our last anchorage--just as the natives were
coming back from San Christoval, victorious in a fight with one of
the hostile tribes; and these Port Mary natives were heavily laden
with war trophies, such as heads, arms and legs.
The two men stayed for supper, and we held long and interesting
conversations with them, in the course of which we learned many new
things of the dark islands into which we had poked the _Snark's_
nose.
The next morning, July 3, we had the best treat we had had for
ages--milk, sweet, fresh cow's milk! One glass apiece! Mr. Hammond
had sent it over before we were up. I had almost forgotten that milk
grew in anything except cans. Mr. and Mrs. London went ashore to see
the natives, while I stayed aboard to give my clothing a good
overhauling, and to sew for myself some _lava-lavas_. Several
natives came out to trade curios, but they had the same things we
had gotten in Port Mary, so I did not buy.
The next day, Saturday, was the Fourth of July. In the morning we
discharged a round of ammunition from each of our guns, and that was
our celebration--quite different from the one the year before at
Honolulu. At ten o'clock the trader came alongside in his
whale-boat, manned by his Santa Cruz boys, and we went to the
village. A crowd met us at the beach. The women here were clothed,
each in a yard of calico. They were all Christians, so they said;
but I confess that the heathens we had previously met were far more
hospitable and were better looking. The old chief led us around the
village, which, like the one at Port Mary, was enclosed by a low
fence. The huts all faced a narrow street, and the rear of the huts
was flush with the fence. The huts themselves were the dirtiest
things I ever saw--of grass and sides and roof, very low, with a
bamboo porch in front. On the inside was a dirty sleeping bunk of
bamboo. Of other furniture there was little or none.
We returned late that afternoon, and went aboard the _Snark_. Jack
went through the medicine chest, trying to find something that would
cure the large ulcer on my shin. Every day found this growing in
size and soreness; and I became seriously concerned. At Port Mary, I
had asked the trader, Butler, about it, and he had told me that it
was a "yaw," or Solomon Island sore, to which all white men were
subject. Corrosive sublimate, he further declared, was the thing to
cure it. Now the result of corrosive sublimate on a large raw
surface like that! It burnt like fire, but it seemed to help.
We now set out for a leisurely circuit of the larger islands. In
this circuit, it was our luck to see thousands of cannibals, and
also to observe the work done by the missionaries among these
benighted savages. Right here, let me explain that cannibalism is
not practised because of any love of human flesh, but rather because
the natives believe that they acquire the fighting qualities of the
men that they eat. Thus they hope to get the strength and prowess in
battle of their enemies; and for his reason, they like to eat white
men, whose skill and courage they admire.
We never saw a cannibal feast, but we saw plenty of evidence of the
practice in the thousands of human bones on shores and reefs.
All these cannibals are head-hunters. One may see tiny mummified
heads stuck up outside the huts. The more heads a man has, the
stronger he imagines himself to be. A man with fifteen heads reckons
himself as strong as fifteen men. The mummified heads are taken from
enemies in battle. The bones are all drawn out, and then the head is
dried until it is only the size of one's fist. To possess the head
of a white man is a special honour. A village with a white man's
head considers that it has a wonderful talisman. Naturally, we took
great care not to become luck-bringers for any of the natives among
whom we sojourned.
Some years ago, a party of German scientists landed at Malaita, one
of the most inaccessible islands in the group, to explore. They very
much wanted to take back some of these heads as relics, and offered
fifteen sticks of plug tobacco for each. The market was brisk for a
few days, but soon all the posts outside the huts had been stripped,
and the supply slackened. Then suddenly trade revived again--but it
was noticed that the heads brought in were fresh! It turned out that
the natives had been doing a little private killing in order to keep
up the supply. One native had sacrificed several relatives in his
desire to please the Germans and get their tobacco.
And then the missionaries. There are so many different kinds of
missionaries in the South Seas that I must divide them into their
classes and try to tell of these different classes as they appeared
to me. Probably another person going among them would see them in a
different light from what I did. Of course, I cannot pretend to know
all about what the missionaries are doing in the South Seas, but I
do know what some of them were doing. Some of them were engaged in
excellent work--the noblest work in the world. And some were doing
absolutely no work. Let me tell of both kinds, at the same time
explaining that if some of the missionaries are not doing what they
ought, it is no reason why we should shut our eyes to the fact that
there are others who toil eternally and well in their allotted
paths. For that matter, it is the frauds who make it so hard for the
missionary who works in good faith for the regeneration of the
savages.
Missionaries in Polynesia I have never considered in these pages.
For the eastern Pacific has reached such a stage of civilisation
that the missionaries are now called preachers, and have their
regular congregations, just as in civilised countries.
The first missionary I had met was Rev. Watt, at Tanna, New
Hebrides. After twenty-eight years at this same station, he had
managed to convert about two hundred mean, thieving little beggars.
He made the natives, as a sign of conversion, wear the ragged and
dirty clothing I have described, which clothes, once put on, were
probably never removed. As I have said, these missionary boys stole
everything they could get their hands on, but of the scores of bush
natives that came aboard, we never caught one taking a thing; and
the heathen natives had offered to give us a feast and to guide us
to see their island, but the missionary boys we had not been able to
hire to guide us, and for the fruit they brought aboard, they asked
many times its value. For my part, I can see no actual good Rev.
Watt has accomplished in all his twenty-eight years. Trader Wiley,
the big, genial Scotchman, has done more towards civilising than has
the missionary. Wiley brought about peace between many of the
tribes that before his advent were continually at war. He also
adjusts their quarrels; and the natives come to him for advice and
medicine, and for surgical operations.
Dr. Drew, the missionary we met at Ugi, is stationed on San
Christoval. Dr. Drew, when he first landed, started learning the
native language, and it was over a year before he began teaching the
word of God to the natives, but in that year he won the natives'
confidence. He worked on their pride by offering prizes for the
best-built house and the cleanest house. He helped them lay out
streets, and the dirty village, with its houses stuck anywhere they
could find ground to put them, gradually took on a healthful,
systematic look, and natives from other villages came in and built
neat grass houses. Then Dr. Drew gave away as prizes one yard of
blue calico, only the one colour, and soon the whole four hundred
natives were wearing _lava-lavas_ just alike in shape and colour.
Dr. Drew went no further toward dressing them, for he realised that
as soon as a native puts on white man's clothes he begins to imitate
the white man, and to imitate the white man in that part of the
world is bad policy. Dr. Drew did not attempt to become a native,
but maintained his dignity all the time he was learning the
language.
After he had mastered the language, Dr. Drew taught them to read in
their own tongue, and then translated the Bible for them. When we of
the _Snark_ went among his four hundred Christian natives, we were
treated better than any natives in the South Seas had ever before
treated us. And Dr. Drew caused this great revival by setting an
example, and not by trying to beat religion into them. I doubt if
any of the natives knew what was happening, so gradual was their
uplifting, until they finally found themselves full-fledged
Christians--and that kind of Christian will never backslide. If
there were more such missionaries in the South Seas, cannibalism and
heathenism would soon be a thing of the past. These natives now have
their cricket and football teams, and Dr. Drew teaches them English,
and cooking, and even boat-building and sailing.
Another missionary, Mr. Whittier, came up from Australia with a
scheme to adopt the simple life. He lived in a grass house, ate
native goods, wore no other clothing than the native _lava-lava_.
His idea was to live like the natives and become one of them,
thinking by this method that they would trust him better. But it was
no use, for when the white man lowered himself to their level, they
had no more respect for him.
As the little _Snark_ poked her nose in and out of savage ports, the
first thing we looked to see was the kind of _lava-lavas_ the women
wore. If they wore cloth _lava-lavas_, they were invariably
Christians, but if they wore grass _lava-lavas_, or were naked, they
were heathens. But we could never be sure of the men by this method,
for they received the cloth _lava-lavas_ from the traders in
exchange for cocoanuts. Of course, they kept all the traders gave
them, and left the women to hustle for themselves. As may be
imagined, it doesn't cost much to dress a woman in this part of the
world.
The principal good done by the missionaries--the sincere
missionaries--is that they take the natives out of their horrible,
dirty state and teach them self-respect; and surely this is a big
step toward civilisation.
The greatest good is being done by Church of England missionaries,
who own the finest mission ship in the world, the _Southern Cross_.
This ship, in its cruising among the islands, persuades the best and
most intelligent natives to go with them to Norfolk Island. Here
they are put in a mission school, and later returned to their homes
to start schools of their own. A white missionary is left with the
new convert until he has his church built and things are running
smoothly; then the native is left to shift for himself. Some of the
native missionaries have maintained good clean villages, but the
_Southern Cross_ is needed about twice a year to untangle the
mismanaged affairs of most of the stations, for however sincere the
native teacher may be, he seldom has any executive ability.
The native churches are generally the neatest buildings in the
village, and are used for schools as well as for churches. The
natives squat on the ground, and use rough log benches for desks.
Their church-bell is a hollow log, and their contribution-box is
always of cocoanut or shell. Their singing is wonderfully pleasing,
especially if a missionary has trained them.
The Christian natives and the heathen natives always seemed to be
the best of friends. As a consequence, the most incongruous things
sometimes occur. In one place, I saw a coffin-shaped box with a body
sticking full of barbs, and within a few hundred feet stood a
mission-house in charge of a native teacher. Native missionaries are
always called teachers. Why it is, I do not know, but I have never
heard a native Christian worker called a missionary.
The French traders ten years ago traded off about five hundred old
Snyder rifles to the savages, and as soon as a white man is known to
be about, these old rifles are gotten out for show. But they have no
cartridges, and if they had, I don't believe the guns would shoot,
for the muzzles of those I saw were stopped up with rust.
On the island of Florida, in the Solomons, a missionary made a whole
village of converts by playing on their childlike love for display.
This missionary had no influence with them for several months, until
one day a government schooner anchored and half a dozen black police
boys paraded the village, marching in time and carrying guns. As
soon as the government vessel had departed, the boys of the villages
were trying to imitate the drilling of the police boys, using their
old Snyder rifles. The missionary was quick to take advantage of
this opportunity to get into their confidence, and, by drilling the
boys, he was soon in their good graces; and gradually he turned
their love of pomp and display into more useful channels. And now he
has a well-founded mission-station and his chief asset is his teams
of drilled, athletic boys. Other teachers, encouraged by his
success, have taken up athletic work among their followers.
One great difficulty to be overcome by these wilderness apostles is
the lack of concentration in savage minds. It is difficult to keep a
native's attention long enough to teach him a lesson or to instill
moral precepts.
I have noticed that doctors always make the best missionaries. Their
medical treatment will give them a hold and win them confidence
where nothing else could. Also, a man is a better missionary than a
woman, among these savages. For a woman is not respected. A big,
strong, athletic man, who can do things that the natives see with
their own eyes are better than what they can do, will always have a
following, but the man who relies solely upon preaching will never
do any good. But to be perfectly fair, I must say that most of the
missionaries whom I saw were putting skill and enthusiasm into their
work, toiling by day and by night, and in most cases these simple
teachers were not putting forth their time and toil in vain.