Natives who have had no chance; their villages without streets, and
their curious huts—The tambu and canoe houses—An unlucky trader.
Wild and ferocious as the natives of the Solomon group are they possess
some fine characteristics. Many of them far surpass the rough European,
in those parts, in generosity and disposition.
The more you travel, the more you find that both men and beasts
treat you in much the same way as you would treat them under similar
conditions. There is undoubtedly a silent telegraphy which tells a
savage or a wild beast, more plainly than it would a civilised human
being, the attitude you are holding towards him, and he instinctively
holds that same attitude towards you.
[Illustration 26: SOLOMON ISLAND VILLAGE, NEAR MARAU SOUND, NEW
FLORIDA]
The Solomon islanders have a name for being the most treacherous and
bloodthirsty race in existence, but when one remembers the way they
were treated by the first invaders of these islands, {85} the Spaniards
and French, and afterwards by the whalers and the roughest traders that
ever stepped aboard a schooner, it is really a wonder that they permit
a white-faced man to pass within coo-ee of their islands.
From the earliest days they have learned to fear the white men, and,
acknowledging their superior powers and weapons, they naturally
resorted to treachery and cunning to outwit them. If they had known the
white man only as a benefactor, their attitude towards him and their
state of civilisation would have been very different from what it is
now. The possibility is that they would have developed into as fine and
intelligent a race as the Maoris.
Had the Maori war been at the beginning of the white man’s career in
New Zealand, that country would not be the paradise it is to-day, nor
would the coloured natives be the men of knowledge and wisdom some of
them are. They would have been given such a bad start that they would
not have got over it.
From the very beginning the Maoris were treated with respect, and their
naturally fine disposition answered to the call, and thousands of them
so trusted the Englishman that had the war {86} gone on for another
thirty years their faith in him would not have been shaken.
The Solomon islanders have had no chance, they have been feared from
the beginning and shot down on the slightest provocation. It is only
now that they are beginning to discriminate between the bad and the
good white man, and I am perfectly safe in saying that a straight man
can go amongst them unarmed, and if he treats them well he will be as
safe with them in the densest bush as he would be in crowded Piccadilly.
The native villages are very different from those in New Guinea. Very
few of them are built on piles, but in some of the small interior
villages pile dwellings can still be seen. They are, however, only
some two to four feet off the ground, like many others found in the
countries of all savage races. Streets, too, are not discovered as
often in the Solomons as elsewhere, the houses being built with no
particular design. A clump of bush will be dotted with houses, with
only small paths leading from one to the other. The houses are of the
typical hut shape, built of wood and thatched. A ridge pole resting
on two uprights supports the roof which is triangular in shape, and
the sides are formed in a similar fashion. Before thatching, both the
roof {87} and sides are formed by poles lashed together on which
the thatch is worked. The door, if it can be so called, is merely an
aperture which opens from a raised platform, and to get into the hut it
is necessary to step—one generally falls—down into the room.
[Illustration 27: EARLY MORNING, GAVUTU, SOLOMON ISLANDS]
There are no windows, and the door is the only place for letting in the
light and letting out the smoke of the fire, which is generally burning
in the centre of the hut on the floor. Most dwellings are divided into
two parts; one is used for sleeping purposes, whilst the other is
occupied in the day time. The Solomon islander is luxurious and likes
a bed to lie on, which is made very much like an ordinary miner’s bed:
two logs form the top and bottom on which rest a dozen or more long
poles lashed together. The whole is covered with mats. A pillow made of
a small round log is used by the particularly luxurious.
Beyond the actual necessities, such as these beds and a few
cooking-pots, and weapons of war and field, there is nothing else in
the huts, and the interiors are gloomy and depressing.
The platform outside is used by the owners to sit and lounge on. The
roof of the house projects over the platform and protects those sitting
on it from the sun and rain. {88}
Each house belongs to its individual owner, and not, as in many other
places, to the village. There are strict laws governing property, and
on the death of the owner it is handed down to his or her nearest
relation. The same law applies to yam patches and land plots. Each man
holds certain rights which are protected by the people, and though the
laws are unwritten, they are closely adhered to—superstition playing a
great and important part in preventing any violation of them.
The chief of the village generally inhabits a much larger house than
his subjects, and in many cases he has other houses round him for the
accommodation of his wives, relatives, and descendants.
Palavanua is the name by which the smaller houses are called, and Euro
is the name given to the larger ones. Though the Euros are of similar
construction, they are far more elaborately built and are generally
used as a shelter for war canoes or for the spare habitation of a
chief. Nearly all villages have an Euro in their centre, and they are
sometimes used on state occasions for meetings and ceremonies. The
chief’s private house is taboo, or sacred, and no one but he may enter
it; an awful calamity would befall an intruder. {89}
Some chiefs have a separate compartment in their own home where their
wives sleep, whilst others prefer to have them a little distance off.
Each house has one particular pole in front of it, holding the ridge
pole which is “Hope,” or sacred. It is grotesquely carved with figures
in threatening attitudes; and all manner of rubbish is laid at the
foot of this household god, piled up loosely, and looking very much
like an ordinary rubbish heap. Old axe-heads, tins, shells, worn-out
hats, canes, old cooking-bowls, and pipes, are amongst the most popular
articles given to this god.
There seem to be no particular laws regarding sleep, the married women
only are partitioned off, whilst every one else is at liberty to sleep
where he or she feels most inclined.
The canoe houses are very well built. Ingova’s at Rubiana was a
particularly good one, having two large doors with slits above them
running nearly to the roof to admit the long and high prows of his
canoes. The sides of the house were partitioned off into shelves where
his favoured guests were allowed, and expected, to sleep. On three
sides it is surrounded by dense scrub, or was a few years ago, and the
front looked out on to the lagoon. This place, Rubiana, is one of the
most difficult {90} places in the world to enter, and it was probably
chosen by the wily old chief for that very reason. One entrance
from the sea, termed the “back passage,” is simply a maze of small
islands, and it requires a man not only of extraordinary courage but of
consummate skill to navigate a boat through them without damaging it.
Having safely manipulated the passage all is well, and the wide expanse
of clear calm water which fronts Rubiana well repays the anxiety spent
in reaching it.
There is little wonder that in this stronghold Ingova was able to defy
his enemies, and with his army of head-hunters carry terror into the
villages of his neighbours, but of these exploits anon.
Tambu houses are also built and used as meeting-houses, and being freed
from “taboo,” in the sense that any one may enter them, they are used
by the young men of the village as a kind of rendezvous, and crowds
of natives can always be seen lounging about in them or sitting in
rows gossiping. They are also used for general meetings, councils, and
certain ceremonies. It is customary, and etiquette, to go direct to
the tambu house on arriving at a village, and there, before the crowd,
state your business. In this way you are sure to win the good opinion
of the natives. There are always {91} plenty of them waiting to hear
anything of interest.
[Illustration 28: OLD INGOVA’S WAR CANOE HOUSE, RUBIANA LAGOON, NEW
GEORGIA, SOLOMON ISLANDS.
Fifteen years or more ago, old Ingova, the notorious head-hunting
chief of Rubiana lagoon, was about at the height of his power, and
his raids of slaughter to neighbouring islands were of dreadful
frequency. It was to this canoe house that he returned after a
successful expedition in his great TOMAKO (war canoes) laden with
ghastly trophies, but ever since Rear-Admiral Davis, then of H.M.S.
_Royalist_, sacked this place in 1891, all has been comparatively
quiet, though I did hear, while I was there, that Ingova had led a
head-hunting raid or two.
The old shed, for it looks very like one, stands near the margin of
the lagoon, not far from the fringe of the thick bush and forest. All
is fast falling into decay, and the whole place has a haunted feeling
about it. Inside was an old war canoe and the remains of former
splendour. Till you came to look carefully at the structure its size
did not strike you, but I found it was about 72 feet long by 30 broad,
and quite 30 odd feet to the top pitch of the roof; the high slots
above the two doors were made to let out the tall fore-peaks of the
canoes.]
The erection of a tambu house is generally an excuse for a big
festival, and at one time required a human head to be sacrificed and
eaten, and was thus the cause of many a head-hunting expedition.
Bones of human beings can still be seen hanging in these houses. The
body of the victim was always eaten at the feast, and, besides it,
pigs, fish, and other animals were devoured in large quantities.
Gorging is anything but a crime in the Solomon Islands; in fact, it is
not an uncommon sight to see a native so puffed up with over-eating
that his friends have to lay him out on the ground and then gently
knead his back—this operation they find helps to digest the food,
though personally I would not like to recommend it to a dyspeptic.
At Santa Catalina there is a very fine specimen of a tambu house, over
sixty feet in length. All the principal posts are carefully carved
with weird representations of fishing expeditions, fights, war canoes,
head-hunting expeditions, and other pictures of the daily life and
occupations of the Solomon islander. The ridge pole, which is bigger
than the usual run of these poles, is carved all over with {92}
pictures which no modern journal would care to reproduce. The roofs
of most tambu houses are more or less alike in general construction.
They are supported on four or five rows of posts, the central one being
about fourteen or fifteen feet high, whilst the outside ones do not run
to more than three or four feet high, owing to the slant of the roofs.
Throughout the group there is not one village standing out above all
others, and there is no capital town, but on every island there are
villages, and the chief in each considers his the capital.
The two largest islands of the Solomon group are Bougainville and
Guadalcana; Bougainville, the larger of these two, belongs to Germany.
Guadalcana, from the sea, is an uncanny looking place—a great dark
mountain gradually rising to a height of 8000 feet, covered with dense,
dark foliage and culminating in a volcano. The Lion’s Head near by is
a ragged cluster of grey rocks. Here and there patches of sage green
relieve the monotony of colour and show where clumps of palms are
growing. A thin line of bright yellow sand, and the white foam of the
sea as it breaks over the reefs, add colour to the island and make of
it a strange picture.
[Illustration 29: ON THE FRINGE OF A PRIMÆVAL FOREST, SIMBO, SOLOMON
ISLANDS
One of the most impressive sights to be seen on some of these islands
was the real tropical forest. This picture shows just the commencement
of one, through which a native track wound its way. Though it was a
brilliantly fine day, yet I remember when we were fairly into the
forest depths it was just like twilight; while here and there long
streaks of sunlight were streaming through the tree-tops, reminding
us of the lights coming through the windows of a cathedral. We all
went Indian file, and in many places the bush was so thick that we
lost sight of each other; now and then we came upon a small native
village.]
On the east side of Guadalcana is a little trading {93} station,
where not long ago “French Jack” resided, until at an untimely moment
the blacks swooped down on him, carried away his wife and cut him to
pieces; the crew of the little trading-boat, when it called for his
copra, found his remains and buried them. But this is an old story, one
of the many that come from these islands. A call from the Governor and
the arrest of a few of the culprits is the way in which these stories
end, and the captives eke out the rest of their existence in durance
vile at Fiji, or if proved guilty pay the proper penalty.
For his place of residence poor “French Jack” had chosen one of the
brightest spots on the island and built his hut in the most approved
style, with an uninterrupted view of the sea. Close by his hut was
a long shed where his servants, or “boys” as they are called, slept
after their work of drying the copra, husking ivory, and attending to
the other light duties of a trader’s establishment. At the back of his
house was his yam patch and banana grove; behind that the wild thick
scrub and the bush.
A lonely spot for any one to live, but such are many of the settling
places of a trader, and to those who live in the bush there is no
feeling of loneliness: in the crowded streets of a big city these same
men might be overpowered by their solitude.
{94}