PORT OLRY AND A "SING-SING"
The event just described reduced my chance of finding servants in Vao
to a minimum, as all the able-bodied young men had been taken away. I
therefore sailed with the missionary for his station at Port Olry. Our
route lay along the east coast of Santo. Grey rain-clouds hung on
the high mountains in the interior, the sun shone faintly through the
misty atmosphere, the greyish-blue sea and the greyish-green shore,
with the brown boulders on the beach, formed a study in grey, whose
hypnotic effect was increased by a warm, weary wind. Whoever was not
on duty at the tiller lay down on deck, and as in a dream we floated
slowly along the coast past lonely islands and bays; whenever we looked
up we saw the same picture, only the outlines seemed to have shifted
a little. We anchored near a lonely isle, to find out whether its
only inhabitant, an old Frenchman, was still alive. He had arrived
there a year ago, full of the most brilliant hopes, which, however,
had not materialized. He had no boat, hardly ever saw a human being,
and lived on wild fruits. Hardly anyone knows him or visits him,
but he had not lost courage, and asked for nothing but a little salt,
which we gave him, and then sailed on.
In Hog Harbour we spent the night and enjoyed a hearty English
breakfast with the planters, the Messrs. Th., who have a large and
beautiful plantation; then we continued our cruise. The country
had changed somewhat; mighty banks of coral formed high tablelands
that fell vertically down to the sea, and the living reef stretched
seaward under the water. These tablelands were intersected by flat
valleys, in the centre of which rose steep hills, like huge bastions
dominating the country round. The islands off the coast were covered
with thick vegetation, with white chalk cliffs gleaming through them
at intervals. A thin mist filled the valleys with violet hues, the
sea was bright and a fresh breeze carried us gaily along. The aspect
of the country displayed the energies of elemental powers: nowhere can
the origin of chalk mountains be more plainly seen than here, where we
have the process before us in all its stages, from the living reef,
shining purple through the sea, to the sandy beach strewn with bits
of coral, to the high table mountain. We anchored at a headland near
a small river, and were cordially welcomed by the missionary's dogs,
cats, pigs and native teacher. There was also a young girl whom the
father had once dug out of her grave, where a hard-hearted mother
had buried her.
I had an extremely interesting time at Port Olry. The population
here is somewhat different from that of the rest of Santo: very
dark-skinned, tall and different in physiognomy. It may be called
typically Melanesian, while many other races show Polynesian
admixture. The race here is very strong, coarse-featured and lives
in the simplest way, without any industries, and is the primitive
population in the New Hebrides.
A few details as to personal appearance may be of interest. Among the
ornaments used are very large combs, decorated with pigs' tails. Pigs'
tails also are stuck into the hair and ears. The hair is worn very
long, rolled into little curls and plentifully oiled. A most peculiar
deformation is applied to the nose and results in extreme ugliness:
the septum is perforated, and instead of merely inserting a stick,
a springy spiral is used, which presses the nose upward and forward,
so that in time it develops into an immense, shapeless lump, as if
numberless wasps had stung it. It takes a long time to get used to
this sight, especially as the nose is made still more conspicuous
by being painted with a bright red stripe on its point, and two
black ones on each side. A more attractive ornament are flowers,
which the men stick into their hair, where they are very effective
on the dark background. In the lobes of the ears they wear spirals
of tortoise-shell or thin ornaments of bone; the men often paint
their faces with a mixture of soot and grease, generally the upper
half of the forehead, the lower part of the cheeks and the back of
the nose. The women and children prefer the red juice of a fruit,
with which they paint their faces in all sorts of mysterious designs.
The dress of the men consists of a large belt, purposely worn very low
so as to show the beautiful curve of the loins. About six small mats
hang down in front. Formerly, and even at the present day on festival
occasions, they wore on the back an ovoid of wood; the purpose is
quite unknown, but may originally have been a portable seat, as the
Melanesian does not like to sit on the bare ground. Provided with
this article of dress the wearer did not need to look about for a seat.
If the appearance of the men, while not beautiful, is at least
impressive, the women are so very much disfigured that it takes
quite some time to grow accustomed to their style of beauty. They
are not allowed to wear many ornaments, have to shave their heads,
and generally rub them with lime, so that they look rather like
white-headed vultures, all the more so as the deformed nose protrudes
like a beak and the mouth is large. The two upper incisors are broken
out as a sign of matrimony.
Their figures, except in young girls, are generally wasted,
yet one occasionally meets with a woman of fine and symmetrical
build. The dress is restricted to a small leaf, attached to a thin
loin-string. Both men and women generally wear at the back a bundle of
leaves; women and boys have strongly scented herbs, the men coloured
croton, the shade depending on the caste of the wearer. The highest
castes wear the darkest, nearly black, varieties. These croton bushes
are planted along the sides of the gamals, so as to furnish the men's
ornaments; and they lend the sombre places some brightness and colour.
Half for ornament and half for purposes of healing are the large
scars which may frequently be seen on the shoulders or breasts of
the natives. The cuts are supposed to cure internal pains; the scabs
are frequently scratched off, until the scar is large and high,
and may be considered ornamental. Apropos of this medical detail
I may mention another remedy, for rheumatism: with a tiny bow and
arrow a great number of small cuts are shot into the skin of the
part affected; the scars from these wounds form a network of fine,
hardly noticeable designs on the skin.
The life and cult of the natives are as simple as their dress. The
houses are scattered and hidden in the bush, grouped vaguely around
the gamal, which stands alone on a bare square. No statues stand there,
nor tall, upright drums; only a few small drums lie in a puddle around
the gamal.
The dwelling-houses are simply gable-roofs, always without side-walls
and often without any walls at all. They are divided into a pig-stable
and a living-room, unless the owners prefer to have their pigs living
in the same space with themselves.
A few flat wooden dishes are the only implements the native does
not find ready-made in nature. Cooking is done with heated stones
heaped around the food, which has been previously wrapped up in
banana leaves. Lime-stones naturally cannot be used for that purpose,
and volcanic stones have often to be brought from quite a distance,
so that these cooking-stones are treated with some care. In place of
knives the natives use shells or inland bamboo-splinters, but both
are rapidly being replaced by European knives.
On approaching a village we are first frightened by a few pigs, which
run away grunting and scolding into the thicket. Then a pack of dogs
announce our arrival, threatening us with hypocritical zeal. A few
children, playing in the dirt among the pigs, jump up and run away,
then slowly return, take us by the hand and stare into our faces. At
noon we will generally find all the men assembled in the gamal making
"lap-lap." Lap-lap is the national dish of the natives of the New
Hebrides; quite one-fifth part of their lives is spent in making
and eating lap-lap. The work is not strenuous. The cook sits on the
ground and rubs the fruit, yam or taro, on a piece of rough coral or a
palm-sheath, thus making a thick paste, which is wrapped up in banana
leaves and cooked between stones. After a few hours' cooking it looks
like a thick pudding and does not taste at all bad. For flavouring,
cocoa-nut milk is poured over it, or it is mixed with cabbage, grease,
nuts, roasted and ground, or occasionally with maggots. Besides this
principal dish, sweet potatoes, manioc, bread-fruit, pineapples,
bananas, etc., are eaten in season, and if the natives were less
careless, they would never need to starve, as frequently happens.
The men are not much disturbed by our arrival. They offer us a log to
sit on, and continue to rub their yam, talking us over the while. They
seem to be a very peaceful and friendly crowd, yet in this district
they are particularly cruel and treacherous, and only a few days
after my departure war broke out. The gamal is bare, except for a
few wooden dishes hanging in the roof, and weapons of all kinds, not
in full sight, but ready at any moment. We can see rifles, arrows and
clubs. The clubs are very simple, either straight or curved sticks. Old
pieces are highly valued, and carry marks indicating how many victims
have been killed with them: I saw one club with sixty-seven of these
marks. In former years the spear with about two hundred and fifty
points of human bones was much used, but is now quite replaced by
the rifle. The bones for spear-points and arrow-heads are taken from
the bodies of dead relatives and high-castes. The corpse is buried in
the house, and when it is decayed the bones of the limbs are dug out,
split, polished and used for weapons. The idea is that the courage and
skill of the dead man may be transmitted to the owner of the weapon,
also, that the dead man may take revenge on his murderer, as every
death is considered to have been caused by some enemy. These bones
are naturally full of the poisons of the corpse, and may cause tetanus
at the slightest scratch. On the arrows they are extremely sharp and
only slightly attached to the wood, so that they stick in the flesh
and increase the inflammation. Besides, they are often dipped in some
special poison.
All over the archipelago the arrows are very carefully made, and
almost every island has its own type, although they all resemble
each other. Many are covered at the point with a fine spiral binding,
and the small triangles thus formed are painted in rows--red, green
and white. Much less care is bestowed on the fish- and bird-arrows,
which are three-pointed as a rule, and often have no point at all,
but only a knob, so as to stun the bird and not to stick in the
branches of the trees.
Shields are unknown. It would seem that the arrow was not, as
elsewhere, the principal weapon, but rather the spear and club,
and the wars were not very deadly, as the natives' skill in handling
their weapons was equalled by their skill in dodging them.
Having inspected the gamal, we received from the highest caste present
a gift of some yam, or taro, which we requited with some sticks of
tobacco. The length of the gamal depends on the caste of the chief
who builds it. I saw a gamal 60 metres long, and while this length
seems senseless to-day, because of the scanty population, it was
necessary in former days, when the number of a man's followers rose
with his rank. Not many years ago these houses were filled at night
with sleeping warriors, each with his weapons at hand, ready for a
fight. To-day these long, dark, deserted houses are too dismal for
the few remaining men, so that they generally build a small gamal
beside the big one.
To have killed a man, no matter in what way, is a great honour,
and gives the right to wear a special plume of white and black
feathers. Such plumes are not rare in Port Olry.
Each man has his own fire, and cooks his own food; for, as I have
said, it would mean the loss of caste to eat food cooked on the
fire of a lower caste. Women are considered unworthy to cook a man's
meal; in fact, their standing here is probably the lowest in all the
archipelago. Still, they do not lack amusement; they gather like the
men for social carousals, and are giggling and chattering all day
long. Their principal occupation is the cultivation of the fields,
but where Nature is so open-handed this is not such a task as we might
think when we see them coming home in the afternoon, panting under
an immense load of fruit, with a pile of firewood on top, a child on
their back and possibly dragging another by the hand. Port Olry is the
only place in the New Hebrides where the women carry loads on their
heads. Everywhere else they carry them on their backs in baskets of
cocoa-nut leaves. In consequence the women here are remarkable for
their erect and supple carriage.
The work in the fields consists merely of digging out the yam and
picking other fruit, and it is a sociable affair, with much talking and
laughter. There is always something to eat, such as an unripe cocoa-nut
or a banana. Serious work is not necessary except at the planting
season, when the bush has to be cleared. Then a whole clan usually
works together, the men helping quite energetically, until the fields
are fenced in and ready for planting; then they hold a feast, a big
"kai-kai," and leave the rest of the work to the women. The fences are
made to keep out the pigs, and are built in the simplest way: sticks
of the wild cotton-wood tree, which grows rankly everywhere, are stuck
into the ground at short intervals; they immediately begin to sprout,
and after a short time form a living and impenetrable hedge. But they
last much longer than is necessary, so that everywhere the fences
of old gardens bar the road and force the traveller to make endless
detours, all the more so as the natives have a way of making their
fields right across the paths whenever it suits them.
The number of women here amounts only to about one-fourth of that
of the men. One reason for this is the custom of killing all the
widows of a chief, a custom which was all the more pernicious as the
chiefs, as a rule, owned most of the young females, while the young
men could barely afford to buy an old widow. Happily this custom is
dying out, owing to the influence of the planters and missionaries;
they appealed, not unwisely, to the sensuality of the young men, who
were thus depriving themselves of the women. Strange to say, the women
were not altogether pleased with this change, many desiring to die,
for fear they might be haunted by the offended spirit of their husband.
When a chief died, the execution did not take place at once. The
body was exposed in a special little hut in the thicket, and left to
decay, which process was hastened by the climate and the flies. Then
a death-feast was prepared, and the widows, half frantic with mad
dancing and howling, were strangled.
Ordinary people are buried in their own houses, which generally decay
afterwards. Often the widow had to sleep beside the decaying body
for one hundred days.
Being short of boys, I could not visit many of the villages inland,
and I stayed on at the mission station, where there was generally
something for me to do, as the natives frequently came loitering
about the station. I made use of their presence as much as possible
for anthropological measurements, but I could not always find willing
subjects. Everything depends on the humour of the crowd; if they make
fun of the first victim, the case is lost, as no second man is willing
to be the butt of the innumerable gibes showered on the person under
the instruments. Things are more favourable if it is only fear of
some dangerous enchantment that holds them back, for then persuasion
and liberal gifts of tobacco generally overcome their fears. The best
subjects are those who pretend to understand the scientific meaning
of the operation, or the utterly indifferent, who never think about
it at all, are quite surprised to be suddenly presented with tobacco,
and go home, shaking their heads over the many queer madnesses of white
men. I took as many photographs as possible, and my pictures made quite
a sensation. Once, when I showed his portrait to one of the dandies
with the oiled and curled wig, he ran away with a cry of terror at his
undreamt-of ugliness, and returned after a short while with his hair
cut. His deformed nose, however, resisted all attempts at restoration.
The natives showed great reluctance in bringing me skulls and
skeletons. As the bones decay very quickly in the tropics, only skulls
of people recently deceased can be had. The demon, or soul, of the
dead is supposed to be too lively as yet to be wantonly offended; in
any case, one dislikes to disturb one's own relatives, while there
is less delicacy about those of others. Still, in course of time,
I gathered quite a good collection of skulls at the station. They
were brought carefully wrapped up in leaves, fastened with lianas,
and tied to long sticks, with which the bearer held the disgusting
object as far from him as possible. The bundles were laid down, and
the people watched with admiring disgust as I untied the ropes and
handled the bones as one would any other object. Everything that had
touched the bones became to the natives an object of the greatest
awe; still they enjoyed pushing the leaves that had wrapped them
up under the feet of an unsuspecting friend, who presently, warned
of the danger, escaped with a terrified shriek and a wild jump. It
would seem that physical disgust had as much to do with all this as
religious fear, although the natives show none of this disgust at
handling the remains of pigs. Naturally, the old men were the most
superstitious; the young ones were more emancipated, some of them
even going the length of picking up a bone with their toes.
Most of them had quite a similar dread of snakes, but some men handled
them without much fear, and brought me large specimens, which they
had caught in a sling and then wrapped up in leaves. While I killed
and skinned a big snake, a large crowd always surrounded me, ever
ready for flight, and later my boys chased them with the empty skin,
a performance which always ended in great laughing and dancing.
I had been in Port Olry for three weeks, waiting anxiously every
day for the Marie-Henry, which was to bring the luggage I had left
behind at the Segond Channel. My outfit began to be insufficient;
what I needed most was chemicals for the preservation of my zoological
specimens, which I had plenty of time and occasion to collect here. One
day the Marie-Henry, a large schooner, arrived, but my luggage had been
forgotten. I was much disappointed, as I saw no means of recovering
it in the near future. The Marie-Henry was bound for Talamacco,
in Big Bay, and took the Rev. Father and myself along.
One of the passengers was Mr. F., a planter and trader in
Talamacco, and we soon became good friends with him and some of the
others. Mr. F. was very kind, and promised to use all his influence to
help me find boys. The weather was bad, and we had to tack about all
night; happily, we were more comfortable on the big schooner than on
the little cutters. At Talamacco Mr. F. offered us his hospitality,
and as it rained continually, we were very glad to stay in his
house, spending the time in sipping gin and winding up a hoarse
gramophone. Thus two lazy days passed, during which our host was
constantly working for me, sending his foreman, the "moli," to all
the neighbouring villages, with such good results that at last I was
able to engage four boys for two months. I took them on board at once,
well pleased to have the means, at last, of moving about independently.
We sailed in the evening, and when, next morning, we rounded Cape
Quiros, we found a heavy sea, so that the big ship pitched and
ploughed with dull hissing through the foaming waves. She lay aslant
under the pressure of the wind that whistled in the rigging, and the
full curve of the great sails was a fine sight; but it was evident
that the sails and ropes were in a very rotten condition, and soon,
with anxious looks, we followed the growth of a tear in the mainsail,
wondering whether the mast would stand the strain. A heavy sea broke
the rudder, and altogether it was high time to land when we entered
Port Olry in the late afternoon.
A few days later I started for Hog Harbour, for the plantation
of the Messrs. Th., near which I meant to attend a great feast,
or "sing-sing." This meant a march of several hours through the
bush. My boys had all put on their best finery,--trousers, shirts,
gay handkerchiefs,--and had painted their hair with fresh lime.
"Well, boys, are you ready?" "Yes, Masta," they answer, with
conviction, though they are far from ready, as they are still tying
their bundles. After waiting a while, I say, "Well, me, me go." They
answer, "All right, you go." I take a few steps and wait again. One
of them appears in front of the hut to look for a stick to hang his
bundle on, another cannot find his pipe; still, after a quarter of an
hour, we can really start. The boys sing and laugh, but as we enter
the forest darkness they suddenly become quiet, as if the sternness
of the bush oppressed their souls. We talk but little, and only in
undertones. These woods have none of the happy, sensuous luxuriance
which fancy lends to every tropical forest; there is a harshness,
a selfish struggle for the first place among the different plants, a
deadly battling for air and light. Giant trees with spreading crowns
suppress everything around, kill every rival and leave only small
and insignificant shrubs alive. Between them, smaller trees strive
for light; on tall, straight, thin stems they have secured a place and
developed a crown. Others look for light in roundabout ways, making use
of every gap their neighbours leave, and rise upward in soft coils. All
these form a high roof, under which younger and weaker plants lead a
skimped life--hardwood trees on thin trunks, with small, unassuming
leaves, and vulgar softwood with large, flabby foliage. Around and
across all this wind the parasites, lianas, rotang, some stretched
like ropes from one trunk to another, some rising in elegant curves
from the ground, some attached to other trunks and sucking out their
life with a thousand roots, others interlaced in the air in distorted
curves. All these grow and thrive on the bodies of former generations
on the damp, mouldy ground, where leaves rot and trunks decay, and
where it is always wet, as never a sunbeam can strike in so far.
Thus it is sad in the forest, and strangely quiet, as in a churchyard,
for not even the wind can penetrate the green surface. It passes
rushing through the crowns, so that sometimes we catch an upward
glimpse of bright yellow sunshine as though out of a deep gully. And
as men in sternest fight are silent, using all their energy for one
purpose, so here there is no sign of gay and happy life, there are
no flowers or coloured leaves, but the endless, dull green, in an
infinity of shapes.
Even the animals seem to shun the dark forest depths; only on the
highest trees a few pigeons bathe in the sun, and as they fly heavily
over the wood, their call sounds, melancholy as a sad dream, from
afar. A lonely butterfly flutters among the trees, a delicate being,
unused to this dark world, seeking in vain for a ray of sun and a
breath of fresh air. Sometimes we hear the grunt of an invisible
pig, the breaking of branches and the rustling of leaves as it runs
away. Moisture and lowering gloom brood over the swampy earth; one
would not be surprised if suddenly the ground were to move and wriggle
like slimy snakes tightly knotted around each other. Thorns catch the
limbs, vines catch the feet, and the wanderer, stumbling along, almost
fancies he can hear the spiteful laughter of malicious demons. One
feels tired, worried, unsafe, as if in an enemy's country, helplessly
following the guide, who walks noiselessly on the soft ground. With
a branch he sweeps aside the innumerable spider-webs that droop
across the path, to keep them from hanging in our faces. Silently
the other men follow behind; once in a while a dry branch snaps or
a trunk creaks.
In this dark monotony we go on for hours, without an outlook, and
seemingly without purpose or direction, on a hardly visible path, in
an endless wilderness. We pass thousands of trees, climb over hundreds
of fallen trunks and brush past millions of creepers. Sometimes we
enter a clearing, where a giant tree has fallen or a village used to
stand. Sometimes great coral rocks lie in the thicket; the pools at
their foot are a wallowing-place for pigs.
It is a confusing walk; one feels quite dizzy with the constantly
passing stems and branches, and a white man would be lost in this
wilderness without the native, whose home it is. He sees everything,
every track of beast or bird, and finds signs on every tree and vine,
peculiarities of shape or grouping, which he recognizes with unerring
certainty. He describes the least suggestion of a trail, a footprint,
or a knife-cut, or a torn leaf. As the white man finds his way about
a city by means of street signs, so the savage reads his directions
in the forest from the trees and the ground. He knows every plant and
its uses, the best wood for fires; he knows when he may expect to find
water, and which liana makes the strongest rope. Yet even he seems
to feel something of the appalling loneliness of the primeval forest.
Our path leads steeply up and down, over loose coral blocks, between
ferns and mosses; lianas serve as ropes to help us climb over coral
rocks, and with our knives we hew a passage through thorny creepers
and thick bush. The road runs in zigzags, sometimes turning back
to go round fallen trunks and swampy places, so that we really walk
three or four times the distance to Hog Harbour. Our guide uses his
bush-knife steadily and to good purpose: he sees where the creepers
interlace and which branch is the chief hindrance, and in a few deft
cuts the tangle falls.
At last--it seems an eternity since we dived into the forest--we hear
from afar, through the green walls, a dull roaring, and as we go on,
we distinguish the thunder of the breakers like the beating of a great
pulse. Suddenly the thicket lightens, and we stand on the beach,
blinded by the splendour of light that pours on us, but breathing
freely in the fresh air that blows from the far horizon. We should like
to stretch out on the sand and enjoy the free space after the forest
gloom; but after a short rest we go on, for this is only half-way to
our destination, and we dive once more into the semi-darkness.
Towards evening we reach the plantation of the Messrs. Th. They are
Australians of good family, and their place is splendidly kept. I
was struck by the cleanliness of the whole establishment, the good
quarters of the native labourers, the quiet way in which work was
done, the pleasant relations between masters and hands, and last,
but not least, the healthy and happy appearance of the latter.
The brothers had just finished the construction of what was quite a
village, its white lime walls shining invitingly through the green
of the cocoa-nut palms. There was a large kitchen, a storehouse, a
tool-shed, a bakery, a dwelling-house and a light, open summer-house,
a delightful spot, where we dined in the cool sea-breeze and sipped
whisky in the moonlight, while the palm-leaves waved dreamily. Then
there was a large poultry yard, pigsty and paddocks, and along the
beach were the boat-houses, drying-sheds and storehouses, shaded by
old trees. The boys' quarters were roomy, eight sleeping together in
an airy hut, while the married couples had houses of their own. The
boys slept on high beds, each with his "bocase" underneath, to hold his
possessions, while all sorts of common property hung in the roof--nets,
fish-spears, bows, guns, etc.
Such plantations, where the natives lack neither food nor good
treatment, can only have a favourable influence on the race, and it is
not quite clear why the Presbyterian missionaries do not like their
young men to go in for plantation work. Owing to the good treatment
of their hands the Messrs. Th. have always had enough labourers, and
have been able to develop their plantation wonderfully. It consists
almost exclusively of cocoa-nut palms, planted on ground wrested from
the forest in a hard fight. When I was there the trees were not yet in
full bearing, but the proprietors had every reason to expect a very
considerable income in a few years. The cultivation of the cocoa-nut
is extremely simple; the only hard work is the first clearing of the
ground, and keeping the young trees free from lianas. Once they are
grown up, they are able to keep down the bush themselves to a certain
extent, and then the work consists in picking up the ripe nuts from
the ground, husking and drying them. The net profit from one tree
is estimated at one shilling per annum. Besides the cultivation of
their plantation the Messrs. Th. plied a flourishing trade in coprah
and sandalwood all along the west coast of Santo, which they visited
frequently in their cutter. This same cutter was often a great help to
me, and, indeed, her owners always befriended me in the most generous
way, and many are the pleasant hours I spent in their company.
After dinner that first day we went to the village where the
"sing-sing" was to take place. There was no moon, and the night was
pitch dark. The boys had made torches of palm-leaves, which they
kept burning by means of constant swinging. They flared up in dull,
red flames, lighting up the nearest surroundings, and we wound our
way upwards through the trunk vines and leaves that nearly shut in
the path. It seemed as if we were groping about without a direction,
as if looking for a match in a dark room. Soon, however, we heard
the dull sound of the drums, and the noise led us to the plateau,
till we could see the red glare of a fire and hear the rough voices
of men and the shrill singing of women.
Unnoticed, we entered the dancing-ground. A number of men were standing
in a circle round a huge fire, their silhouettes cutting sharply into
the red glare. Out of a tangle of clubs, rifles, plumes, curly wigs,
round heads, bows and violently gesticulating arms, sounds an irregular
shrieking, yelling, whistling and howling, uniting occasionally to
a monotonous song. The men stamp the measure, some begin to whirl
about, others rush towards the fire; now and then a huge log breaks
in two and crowns the dark, excited crowd with a brilliant column of
circling sparks. Then everybody yells delightedly, and the shouting
and dancing sets in with renewed vigour. Everyone is hoarse, panting
and covered with perspiration, which paints light streaks on the
sooty faces and bodies.
Noticing us, a man rushes playfully towards us, threateningly swinging
his club, his eyes and teeth shining in the darkness; then he returns
to the shouting, dancing mob around the fire. Half-grown boys sneak
through the crowd; they are the most excited of all, and stamp the
ground wildly with their disproportionately large feet, kicking and
shrieking in unpleasant ecstasy. All this goes on among the guests;
the hosts keep a little apart, near a scaffolding, on which yams are
attached. The men circle slowly round this altar, carrying decorated
bamboos, with which they mark the measure, stamping them on the ground
with a thud. They sing a monotonous tune, one man starting and the
others joining in; the dance consists of slow, springy jumps from
one foot to the other.
On two sides of this dancing circle the women stand in line, painted
all over with soot. When the men's deep song is ended, they chant the
same melody with thin, shrill voices. Once in a while they join in
the dance, taking a turn with some one man, then disappearing; they
are all much excited; only a few old hags stand apart, who are past
worldly pleasures, and have known such feasts for many, many years.
The whole thing looks grotesque and uncanny, yet the pleasure in mere
noise and dancing is childish and harmless. The picture is imposing and
beautiful in its simplicity, gruesome in its wildness and sensuality,
and splendid with the red lights which play on the shining, naked
bodies. In the blackness of the night nothing is visible but that
red-lit group of two or three hundred men, careless of to-morrow,
given up entirely to the pleasure of the moment. The spectacle lasts
all night, and the crowd becomes more and more wrought up, the leaps
of the dancers wilder, the singing louder. We stand aside, incapable
of feeling with these people or sharing their joy, realizing that
theirs is a perfectly strange atmosphere which will never be ours.
Towards morning we left, none too early, for a tremendous shower came
down and kept on all next morning. I went up to the village again, to
find a most dismal and dejected crowd. Around the square, in the damp
forest, seedy natives stood and squatted in small groups, shivering
with cold and wet. Some tried to warm themselves around fires, but
with poor success. Bored and unhappy, they stared at us as we passed,
and did not move. Women and children had made umbrellas of large flat
leaves, which they carried on their heads; the soot which had formed
their festival dress was washed off by the rain. The square itself
was deserted, save for a pack of dogs and a few little boys, rolling
about in the mud puddles. Once in a while an old man would come out
of the gamal, yawn and disappear. In short, it was a lendemain de
fete of the worst kind.
About once in a quarter of an hour a man would come to bring a tusked
pig to the chief, who danced a few times round the animal, stamped his
heel on the ground, uttered certain words, and retired with short,
stiff steps, shaking his head, into the gamal. The morning was over
by the time all the pigs were ready. I spent most of the time out of
doors, rather than in the gamal, for there many of the dancers of the
evening lay in all directions and in most uncomfortable positions,
beside and across each other, snoring, shivering or staring sulkily
into dark corners. I was offered a log to sit on, and it might have
been quite acceptable had not one old man, trembling with cold,
pressed closely against me to get warm, and then, half asleep,
attempted to lay his shaggy, oil-soaked head on my shoulder, while
legions of starved fleas attacked my limbs, forcing me to beat a
hasty though belated retreat.
In the afternoon about sixty pigs were tied to poles in front of
the gamal, and the chief took an old gun-barrel and smashed their
heads. They represented a value of about six hundred pounds! Dogs
and men approached the quivering victims, the dogs to lick the blood
that ran out of their mouths, the men to carry the corpses away for
the feast. This was the prosaic end of the great "sing-sing."
As it is not always easy to borrow the number of pigs necessary to rise
in caste, there are charms which are supposed to help in obtaining
them. Generally, these are curiously shaped stones, sometimes carved
in the shape of a pig, and are carried in the hand or in little baskets
in the belt. Such charms are, naturally, very valuable, and are handed
down for generations or bought for large sums. On this occasion the
"big fellow-master" had sacrificed enough to attain a very high caste
indeed, and had every reason to hold up his head with great pride.
Formerly, these functions were generally graced with a special feature,
in the shape of the eating of a man. As far as is known, the last
cannibal meal took place in 1906; the circumstances were these: Some
young men were walking through the forest, carrying their Snider
rifles, loaded and cocked as usual, on their shoulders. Unluckily,
one of the rifles went off, and killed the man behind, the son of
an influential native. Everyone was aware that the death was purely
accidental, but the father demanded a considerable indemnity. The
"murderer," a poor and friendless youth, was unable to pay, and fled to
a neighbouring village. He was received kindly enough, but his hosts
sent secretly to the offended father to ask what they were to do with
him. "Kill him and eat him," was the reply. They therefore prepared a
great feast, in honour, as they said, of their beloved guest, and while
he was sitting cheerfully near the fire, in anticipation of the good
meal to come, they killed him from behind with an axe. The body was
roasted, and the people of his village were asked to the feast. One
man had received the forearm and hand, and while he was chewing the
muscles and pulling away at the inflectors of the fingers, the hand
closed and scratched his cheek,--"all same he alive,"--whereupon the
horrified guest threw his morsel away and fled into the forest.
On my return to Port Olry I found that the Father had gone to visit
a colleague, as his duties did not take up much of his time. His
post at Port Olry was rather a forlorn hope, as the natives showed no
inclination to become converts, especially not in connection with the
poor Roman Catholic mission, which could not offer them any external
advantages, like the rich and powerful Presbyterian mission. All
the priests lived in the greatest poverty, in old houses, with very
few servants. The one here had, besides a teacher from Malekula,
an old native who had quarrelled with his chief and separated from
his clan. The good man was very anxious to marry, but no girl would
have him, as he had had two wives, and had, quite without malice,
strangled his second wife by way of curing her of an illness. I was
reminded of this little episode every time I looked at the man's long,
bony fingers.
One day a native asked me for medicine for his brother. I tried to find
out the nature of the ailment, and decided to give him calomel, urging
his brother to take it to him at once. The man had eaten a quarter of
a pig all by himself, but, of course, it was said that he had been
poisoned. His brother, instead of hurrying home, had a little visit
with his friends at the coast, until it was dark and he was afraid to
go home through the bush alone; so he waited till next morning, when
it was too late. The man's death naturally made the murder theory
a certainty, so the body was not buried, but laid out in the hut,
with all sorts of finery. Around it, in spite of the fearful odour,
all the women sat for ten days, in a cloud of blow-flies. They burned
strong-scented herbs to kill the smell, and dug a little trench across
the floor, in order to keep the liquids from the decaying corpse from
running into the other half of the house. The nose and mouth of the
body were stopped up with clay and lime, probably to keep the soul
from getting out, and the body was surrounded by a little hut. In the
gamal close by sat all the men, sulky, revengeful, and planning war,
which, in fact, broke out within a few days after my departure.
The Messrs. Th. had been kind enough to invite me to go on a recruiting
trip to Maevo, the most north-easterly island of the group. Here I
found a very scanty population, showing many traces of Polynesian
admixture in appearance and habits. The weather was nasty and our
luck at recruiting poor, so that after a fortnight we returned to
Hog Harbour. I went to Port Olry to my old priest's house, and a few
days later Mr. Th. came in his cutter to take me to Tassimaloun in
Big Bay; so I bade a hearty farewell to the good Father, whom I have
never had the pleasure of meeting again.