PENTECOSTE
The term of service of my Ambrym boys being over, I tried to replace
them in Paama, but failed; but Mr. G. kindly took me to Epi, where
I engaged four new boys. However, they proved as sulky as they were
dirty, and I was disgusted with them, and quite glad they had refused
to sign for more than a month. As they were all troubled with many
sores, they were of very little service to me, and I gladly sent them
home by steamer when their month was up.
I returned to Dip Point, and a few days later Dr. B. escorted me to
Olal, where I took up my quarters with Mr. D., a young Australian
who was trying to make a living by the coprah trade. In Olal, at
the northern point of Ambrym, the alcohol trade is particularly
flourishing, and numerous settlers along the coast earn large sums
by selling liquor. Everybody knows this, and numbers of intoxicated
natives are always to be seen, so that it is somewhat surprising that
the authorities pretend not to have sufficient proof to punish these
traders. If ever one of them is fined, the amount is so minute that
the sale of half a dozen bottles makes up for it, so that they go on
as before. I myself witnessed two cases of death in consequence of
drinking, alone and at one sitting, a bottle of pure absinthe.
The house of Mr. D. was typical of the dwellings built by the
colonists. In a circumference of about 50 metres, the bush had
been cleared, on a level spot somewhat off the shore and slightly
elevated. Here stood a simple grass hut, 3 metres wide and 6 long;
the floor was covered with gravel, and the interior divided into
a store-room and a living-room. On the roof lay a few sheets of
corrugated iron, the rain from which was collected in a tank to provide
water. A few paces off was another hut, where the coprah was smoked
and the boys slept, and on the beach was a shed for storing the coprah.
The actual work a coprah trader has to do is very small, amounting
to little besides waiting for the natives who bring the coprah or
the fresh nuts, to weigh them and sell his goods. Occasionally he
may visit a distant village by boat to buy coprah there; but there is
plenty of unoccupied time, and it is not surprising that many of the
settlers take to drink from pure boredom. Not so Mr. D., who tried
to educate the neighbouring natives, but with small success.
I did not see much of interest here, or learn anything new about
the natives, but I was able to obtain some interesting objects, and
my collection of skulls was nicely started, until some one told the
natives not to bring me any more skulls, as on the day of resurrection
the former owners would not be able to find their heads. The same
person created all sorts of difficulties when I attempted some
excavations, and at last insinuated that I was a German spy. It is
sad to see that the very people who, by virtue of their education
and position, ought to help one most, work against one, while very
often poor and plain people make sacrifices to help one along.
A young Ambrymese who had worked for me for some days, wanted to
enlist in my service when I left, although he grew tearful at the
thought of Malekula, where I intended to go next, and where he was
convinced he would be killed. Lingban was a light-haired native,
very nice-looking, and a favourite with the ladies; this fact had
brought him into considerable trouble, and he was obliged to leave
his home. He stayed with me for three months, and was not killed,
but suffered much from home-sickness. He finally settled at the south
end of Pentecoste, whence he could see his beloved Ambrym, count the
cocoa-nut trees on the shore and see the heavy clouds over the volcano.
From Dip Point Mr. S. took me over to Aunua on Malekula, the station
of the Rev. F. Paton, a son of the celebrated J. G. Paton, the founder
of the Presbyterian missions in the New Hebrides. He lived there as a
widower, devoting all his strength, time and thought to the spiritual
and physical welfare of the natives.
Malekula has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous islands
in the group. The natives in the north, the Big Nambas, are certainly
not very gentle, and the others, too, are high-spirited and will not
submit to ill-treatment from the settlers. Malekula is the second
largest island of the group, and its interior is quite unexplored. I
could not penetrate inland, as I was unable to find boys and guides
for a voyage they all thought extremely dangerous. Mr. Paton, who
had traversed the island at various points, consoled me by telling
me that the culture inland was much the same as along the coast. So
I gave up my plan, though with some regret.
Mr. Paton took me to the south end of Malekula, and left me on one of
the flat coral islands, which are all connected under the surface by
an extensive reef. The landscape is charming, the sea above the reef
shining in all possible shades, and small flat islands enlivening
the view in all directions. In these islands only Christians live,
the few remaining heathen having retired to the mainland.
Here on the south coast the strange fashion obtains of deforming the
head. This habit is very rare in the Pacific, and restricted to two
small districts. It is now purely a matter of fashion or vanity,--the
longer the head, the handsomer the individual is thought to be,--but
probably there was originally some religious or hygienic notion at
the bottom of the peculiar custom. The operation is begun about a
month after birth, by rubbing the child's head with grease and soot,
and then putting on a small cap of braided pandanus fibre, which is
very tight and allows the head to develop only in the direction of the
crown. When the cap becomes too tight, it is cut off, and another,
a little larger, put on, until the parents are satisfied with the
shape of the child's head. These baby skulls have an extreme shape
which is very ugly, and the whole process can hardly be agreeable to
the patient; but the operation does not seem to have any prejudicial
effect on the intellect, and in later years the shape of the head
becomes somewhat less marked, although a man from the south of Malekula
is always unmistakable.
This region is remarkable, too, for its highly developed
ancestor-worship. Although the general ideas on the subject are
the same here as elsewhere in the archipelago, there is a special
veneration here for the head or skull of deceased ancestors. The
bones are generally used in making arrow-heads and lance-points,
and the head, which is useless, is thrown away in most islands,
or buried again; but in the south of Malekula, the heads are kept,
and the face is reproduced in a plastic material of fibres, clay and
sticky juice. The work is very cleverly done, and the face looks quite
natural, with fine, slightly Semitic features. The surface is varnished
and painted with patterns corresponding to the caste of the dead. Often
the face has eyes made of bits of shell, the real hair is stuck on,
and the plumes and nose-stick are not forgotten, so that the whole
becomes an exact portrait of the deceased. Whether this head is to have
a body or not is a question of caste. The higher the caste of the dead,
the more completely is his body modelled. The heads of low castes are
simply stuck on poles, higher ones have bodies of carved wood, often
branches to indicate arms; but the bodies of the highest castes are
composed of bamboo, fibres and straw, and modelled throughout in the
same way as the head. They are covered with varnish, and every detail
reproduced, including dress, ornaments and caste signs. In their right
hands these statues carry a "bubu" or shell horn, and in their left,
a pig's jaw. The shoulders are modelled in the shape of faces, and from
these, occasionally, sticks protrude, bearing the heads of dead sons,
so that such a statue often has three or four heads. These figures
stand along the walls of the gamal, smiling with expressionless faces
on their descendants round the fires, and are given sacrifices of food.
Side by side with this ancestor-worship there goes a simpler
skull-cult, by which a man carries about the head of a beloved son
or wife, as a dear remembrance of the departed. Among a flourishing
population it would naturally be impossible to obtain such objects,
but here, where the people are rapidly decreasing in number, a statue
often enough loses its descendants, whereupon others have no objection
to sell it.
The taste for plastic art shows in other things as well. I found
several grotesque dancing-masks and sticks, made for some special
dance. The feeling for caricature expressed in these articles is
extraordinary and amusing even, from a European point of view. Here,
too, the Semitic type appears, and the natives seem to delight in the
hooked noses, thick lips and small chins. I gathered a rich harvest of
these curios near the little island of Hambi; unfortunately Mr. Paton
came to take me home before I had time to pack the objects carefully,
and I had to leave them in charge of natives until the arrival of the
steamer; when I found them again, after six months, they had suffered
a good deal.
Towards evening, while rounding the south-east corner of Malekula,
our motor broke down, and we had neither oars nor sail. Fortunately
the tide was in our favour, and we improvised a sail from a blanket, so
that we drifted slowly along and reached the anchorage late at night.
Mr. Paton then took me to Malo, where a Frenchman, Mr. I., was
expecting me. On the east coast there was but little to be done,
as the natives had nearly all disappeared; but I was able to pick
up some skulls near a number of abandoned villages. I found very
considerable architectural remains,--walls, mounds and altars, all
of masonry; buildings of this importance are to be found nowhere else
except in Aore and the Banks Islands, and it seems probable that the
populations of these three districts are related.
I had an interesting experience here. Mr. I. and his neighbour did
not enjoy the best of reputations as regarded their treatment of
natives. One day Mr. I. took me over to N.'s place. N. was just
returning from a recruiting trip to Malekula. We saw him come
ashore, staggering and moaning; on being questioned, he told us
that he had been attacked by the natives, and his crew eaten up. He
was in a frightful state, completely broken, weeping like a child,
and cursing the savages, to whom, he said, he had never done any
wrong. His grief was so real that I began to pity the man, and
thought he had probably been paying the penalty for the misdeeds
of another recruiter. Mr. I. was just as emphatic in cursing the
bloodthirstiness of the natives, but while we were going home, he
told me that Mr. N. had kidnapped thirty-four natives at that very
place a year before, so that the behaviour of the others was quite
comprehensible. From that moment I gave up trying to form an opinion
on any occurrence of the kind without having carefully examined
the accounts of both parties. One can hardly imagine how facts are
distorted here, and what innocent airs people can put on who are really
criminals. I have heard men deplore, in the most pathetic language,
acts of cruelty to natives, who themselves had killed natives in cold
blood for the sake of a few pounds. It requires long and intimate
acquaintance with the people to see at all clearly in these matters,
and for a Resident it is quite impossible not to be deceived unless
he has been on the spot for a year at least.
While waiting at Dip Point for an opportunity to cross to Pentecoste,
I saw the volcano in full activity, and one day it rained ashes,
so that the whole country was black as if strewn with soot, and the
eruptions shook the house till the windows rattled. I made a second
ascent of the mountain, but had such bad weather that I saw nothing
at all. We came back, black as chimney-sweeps from the volcanic
dust we had brushed off the bushes. I heard later that the extinct
eastern crater had unexpectedly broken out again, and that several
lava streams were flowing towards the coast.
Pentecoste, a long, narrow island running north and south, resembles
Maevo in shape. My host here was a missionary who seemed to connect
Christianity with trousers and other details of civilization. It was
sad to see how many quaint customs, harmless enough in themselves,
were needlessly destroyed. The wearing of clothes constitutes a
positive danger to health, as in this rainy climate the natives are
almost constantly soaked, do not trouble to change their wet clothes,
sleep all night in the same things and invariably catch cold. Another
source of infection is their habit of exchanging clothes, thus
spreading all sorts of diseases. That morals are not improved by
the wearing of clothes is a fact; for they are rather better in the
heathen communities than in the so-called Christian ones. It is to be
hoped that the time is not far off when people will realize how very
little these externals have to do with Christianity and morality; but
there is reason to fear that it will then be too late to save the race.
We undertook an excursion into the interior, to a district whose
inhabitants had only recently been pacified by Mr. F., my host; the
tribes we visited were very primitive, especially on the east coast,
where there is little contact with whites. The people were still
cannibals, and I had no difficulty in obtaining some remnants of a
cannibal meal.
We frequently tried to obtain information about the organization of
the family among these natives, but, being dependent on biche la mar,
we made small progress. My observations were supplemented later by
the Rev. Mr. Drummond, for which I am very much indebted to him;
some of these observations may be of interest.
The population is divided into two clans--the Bule and the Tabi. The
former is supposed to have originated from the tridacna shell, the
latter from the taro. Every individual knows exactly to which clan
he belongs, although there are no external signs. There is a strict
rule forbidding marriage within the clan, and an offence against this
law was formerly punished by death; to this day, even in Christian
districts, marriage within the clan is extremely rare. No one can
change his clan. Children do not belong to the clan of the father,
but to that of the mother, and property cannot be alienated from the
clan. The father has no rights over his children, and the head of the
family is not the father, but the eldest brother of the mother, who
educates the boys and helps them along in the Suque. Land belongs to
the clan, which is like a large family, and indeed seems a stronger
organization than the family itself; but the clans live together
in the villages, and as such they form a whole with regard to the
outside world. Quarrels between two clans are not so rare as those
inside a clan, and the vendetta does not act inside the clan, whereas
a murder outside the clan must be avenged. Uncles and aunts within
the clan are called father and mother, and the cousins are called
sister and brother.
However, this exogamic system could not prevent inbreeding, as there
was always the possibility that uncles and nieces might marry, so
that a "horizontal" system was superimposed across this "vertical"
one, forbidding all marriages between different generations. Thus,
all marriages between near relations being impossible, the chances to
marry at all are considerably diminished, so that nowadays, with the
decreased population, a man very often cannot find a wife, even though
surrounded by any number of girls. I do not mean to imply by this
that the whole clan-system was organized simply to prevent inbreeding.
As I have said before, young men, as a rule, either cannot marry,
being too poor to buy a wife, or, at best, can only afford to pay
for an old widow, a low-priced article. The young, pretty girls are
generally bought by old men, who often buy them when children, paying
half the price down, and waiting till the girl is of marriageable
age. As soon as she is old enough, she has to work for her future
husband, and is under the care of one of his wives. Later on, the
husband pays the rest of the money, builds a house for the girl,
and the marriage takes place without any ceremony beyond a dinner to
the nearest relatives of the couple. In most islands the girl cannot
object to a match otherwise than by running away from a disagreeable
husband. Generally, when she has run away several times, and repeated
beatings have not changed her mind, her parents pay back the money
and the husband gives up his wife. What is valued highest in a woman
is her capacity for work; but the young men have a marked taste for
beauty, and there are girls that are courted by all the young fellows
of the village, and who, although married to an old man, accept the
addresses of a young one. The husband does not seem to mind much,
provided the woman continues to work well for him.
There is such a thing as love even here, and it has been known to
grow so powerful as to lead, if unrequited, to suicide or to rapid
pining away and to death.
On the whole, the women are treated fairly well by their husbands,
but for an occasional beating, which is often provoked by foolish
behaviour; and they are taken care of, as they represent a great
value. There are old ruffians, however, who take a perverse pleasure in
torturing their wives, and these unhappy women are quite helpless, as
they are entirely in the power of their husbands. Otherwise, the fate
of the women is not as bad as many people think, and the severest rules
have never yet prevented Eve from finding and taking her pleasure.
During babyhood the children stay with their mothers; but from the
age of four on the boys spend most of their time in the gamal, while
the girls remain under their mother's care. Clothes are not worn by
the boys till they have joined the Suque, which, in some cases, takes
place long after puberty. The girls seem to begin to wear something
whenever the mother thinks fit, generally between the ages of four and
seven. From that moment every connection between brother and sister
ceases; they may not speak to each other, not meet on the road, in
some regions not even see each other, and to mention the sister's
name before the brother is, if not an actual insult, certainly very
tactless. Similar rules regulate the relations between parents-
and children-in-law.
The parents are very lenient to their children, and pass over every
impertinence; they get small thanks for their kindness, and the boys,
especially, often treat their mothers very badly. The natives' fondness
for children makes them very good nurses, and it is a source of the
greatest pride to a native boy to take care of a white child.
The father's death is of little importance to the children, and not
much to their mother, who, as a rule, goes over to her husband's oldest
brother. If the mother dies, the children are adopted by a maternal
aunt or some other woman of the clan. One reason why all this is of
no great importance is the far-reaching communism which is a feature
of native life, every one sleeping and eating wherever he pleases.
Mr. F. took me up north, where I wished to study the population. I must
not omit to mention that the population of Pentecoste is divided into
two distinct types: the people in the south are like those of Ambrym,
those in the north resemble the inhabitants of Aoba. This is evident
not only in the dress, but also quite distinctly in the exterior of
the people. Yet in spite of the close relations with Ambrym, the art
of sculpture, so highly developed in the other island, is entirely
lacking in the south of Pentecoste.
In the north we find a dress similar to that of Aoba: the men do
not wear the nambas, while the women have a small mat around the
waist. The art of braiding is brought to great perfection here, and
the mats from Pentecoste are surpassed only by those from Maevo. The
material is pandanus, whose leaves are split into narrow strips,
bleached and then braided. Some of the mats are dyed with the root of
a plant, by boiling in a dyeing vat of bark. Besides the small mats,
chiefly used for the women's dress, there are larger ones which serve
as money and represent a great amount. They are as much as 1 metre
wide and 4 long, and are always dyed. The manufacture of these mats is
very laborious, and only high-caste men with many wives can afford to
have them made. The patterns for dyeing are cut out of banana-sheath,
which is then tied tightly on the mat, and the whole rolled round a
thick stick. The dyeing takes almost an entire day. These mats are
used, for example, to buy the valuable tusked pigs.
The only form of wood-carving in this region are clubs, and those made
here are the most elegant of the whole group, and so much in demand in
all the islands that they are quite largely exported. At present they
are mostly used as ceremonial clubs at dances. All those of modern
make are inferior to the old ones in regard to hardness, elegance of
shape, polish and strength. Here, in Pentecoste, I found the first
basket-plates I had ever seen. They are frequent farther north, in
the Banks Islands, but do not exist in the south. These plates had
no centre, and had to be lined with leaves to make them serviceable,
being mere rings. They are used to carry cooked food about. In the
Banks Islands the natives have learned to braid the centre too.
Up in these northern mountains I spent a most unpleasant week in wet,
cold weather, in a wretched house; but I had the satisfaction of
finding two boys to take the place of Lingban, who had, by this time,
become semi-idiotic with home-sickness.
I returned to the coast and waited for an opportunity to cross to Aoba,
but the weather was so bad that even Mr. G., an old sea-dog, would not
risk the voyage; so we tried to get to Ambrym instead, where I could
meet the steamer for Aoba. We waited for a calm day, and started out
in the tiny whale-boat. Soon we were caught by one after another of
the ill-famed Pentecoste squalls, and though my skipper was known
as one of the best sailors in the islands, one squall struck us so
suddenly that the boat heeled over, and only a very quick turn of
the wheel saved us from capsizing. The escape was such a narrow one
that even Mr. G. turned pale, and decided to go back, especially as
the boys sat on deck, quite useless, green with fear and incapable
of helping us in any way.
It took us a long time to beat back, and we were all glad to feel
solid ground under our feet once more. After a few days we started
again, but luck was against me on this occasion, and inside of twelve
hours I missed the steamer no less than three times, which, in the
New Hebrides, implies a delay of four weeks.
So, in a heavy whale-boat, I rowed along the coast toward Olal with
some natives. A dull rain drenched us, followed by glaring sunshine
that stewed us in heavy dampness. Like the ruins of a giant wall, black
lava blocks lay here and there along the coast. The surf foamed white
in the crevasses, and the forest rose, sallow and greenish-yellow,
above the high bank. Here and there naked natives squatted on the
rocks, motionless, or looking lazily for crabs; among the huge boulders
they looked tiny, and their colouring scarcely distinguished them
from their surroundings; so that they seemed rather like animals, or
the shyest of cave-dwellers. Floating slowly on the grey sea, in the
sad broken light, I thought I had never seen a more inhospitable coast.
Owing to the heavy swell, we had difficulty in passing through the
narrow channel inside the reef. The great rollers pounded against
the coral banks, and poured back in a thousand white streamlets,
like a wonderful cascade, to be swallowed by the next wave.
I found my friend, Mr. D., in a sad state with fever, cold and
loneliness; wrapped up in woollen caps, blankets and heavy clothes, he
looked more like an Arctic explorer than a dweller near the Equator. He
spoke of leaving the islands, and, indeed, did so some months later.
On my way to Aoba I had to spend a few days off Pentecoste, in such
rainy weather that I went ashore but once in all that time. The day was
fine, and I shall never forget the beauty of that woodland scene. A
lovely creek winds through reeds, reflecting the bright sand and the
bushes on its banks. Dark iron-woods rise in stiff, broken lines,
and their greyish needles quiver like a light plume against the blue
sky, where white clouds float serenely. Inland the forest swells in
a green wall, and farther off it lies in rounded cupolas and domes
of soft green, fading into a light around the distant hills. Under
overhanging branches I lie, sheltered from the sun; at my feet the
ripples caress the bank; delicate lianas hang from the branches
and trail lazily in the water. Swallows dart across the stream,
and sometimes the low call of a wood-dove sounds from far away. A
cricket shrieks, and stops suddenly, as if shocked at the discordant
sound of its own voice. Far off in the hills I can hear the rushing
of the wind, like a deep chord that unites in a sacred symphony with
the golden sun and the glittering water to voice the infinite joy of
living that penetrates all creation to-day.
Down-stream I can see the heavy coast banks, with a narrow strip of
brilliant blue sea shining above them, and now and then a glint of
snowy foam. Two pandanuses frame the view, their long leaves waving
softly in the breeze that comes floating down the valley. Half asleep,
I know the delights of the lotus-eaters' blessed isle.