FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF HEATHENDOM.
MY first impressions drove me, I must confess, to the verge of utter
dismay. On beholding these Natives in their paint and nakedness and
misery, my heart was as full of horror as of pity. Had I given up my
much-beloved work and my dear people in Glasgow, with so many delightful
associations, to consecrate my life to these degraded creatures? Was it
possible to teach them right and wrong, to Christianize, or even to
civilize them? But that was only a passing feeling; I soon got as deeply
interested in them, and in all that tended to advance them, and to lead
them to the knowledge and love of Jesus, as ever I had been in my work
at Glasgow. We were surprised and delighted at the remarkable change
produced on the Natives of Aneityum through the instrumentality of Drs.
Geddie and Inglis in so short a time; and we hoped, by prayerful
perseverance in the use of similar means, to see the same work of God
repeated on Tanna. Besides, the wonderful and blessed work done by Mrs.
Inglis and Mrs. Geddie, at their Stations, filled our wives with the
buoyant hope of being instruments in the hand of God to produce an
equally beneficent change amongst the savage women of Tanna. Mrs. Paton
had been left with Mrs. Inglis to learn all she could from her of
Mission work on the Islands, till I returned with Dr. Inglis from the
house-building operations on Tanna; during which period Mr. and Mrs.
Mathieson were also being instructed by Dr. and Mrs. Geddie.
To the Tannese, Dr. Inglis and I were objects of curiosity and fear;
they came crowding to gaze on our wooden and lime-plastered house; they
chattered incessantly with each other, and left the scene day after day
with undisguised and increasing wonderment. Possibly they thought us
rather mad than wise!
Party after party of armed men going and coming in a state of great
excitement, we were informed that war was on foot; but our Aneityumese
Teachers were told to assure us that the Harbor people would only act on
the defensive, and that no one would molest us at our work. One day two
hostile tribes met near our Station; high words arose, and old feuds
were revived. The Inland people withdrew; but the Harbor people, false
to their promises, flew to arms and rushed past us in pursuit of their
enemies. The discharge of muskets in the adjoining bush, and the horrid
yells of the savages, soon informed us that they were engaged in deadly
fights. Excitement and terror were on every countenance; armed men
rushed about in every direction, with feathers in their twisted
hair,--with faces painted red, black, and white, and some, one cheek
black, the other red, others, the brow white, the chin blue--in fact,
any color and on any part,--the more grotesque and savage-looking, the
higher the art! Some of the women ran with their children to places of
safety; but even then we saw other girls and women, on the shore close
by, chewing sugar-cane and chaffering and laughing, as if their fathers
and brothers had been engaged in a country dance, instead of a bloody
conflict.
In the afternoon, as the sounds of the muskets and the yelling of the
warriors came unpleasantly near to us, Dr. Inglis, leaning against a
post for a little while in silent prayer, looked on us and said, "The
walls of Jerusalem were built in troublous times, and why not the
Mission House on Tanna? But let us rest for this day, and pray for these
poor Heathen."
We retired to a Native house that had been temporarily granted to us for
rest, and there pled before God for them all. The noise and the
discharge of muskets gradually receded, as if the Inland people were
retiring; and towards evening the people around us returned to their
villages. We were afterwards informed that five or six men had been shot
dead; that their bodies had been carried by the conquerors from the
field of battle, and cooked and eaten that very night at a boiling
spring near the head of the bay, less than a mile from the spot where my
house was being built. We had also a more graphic illustration of the
surroundings into which we had come, through Dr. Inglis's Aneityum boy,
who accompanied us as cook. When our tea was wanted next morning, the
boy could not be found. After a while of great anxiety on our part, he
returned, saying, "Missi, this is a dark land. The people of this land
do dark works. At the boiling spring they have cooked and feasted upon
the slain. They have washed the blood into the water; they have bathed
there, polluting everything. I cannot get pure water to make your tea.
What shall I do?"
Dr. Inglis told him that he must try for water elsewhere, till the rains
came and cleansed away the pollution; and that meanwhile, instead of
tea, we would drink from the cocoa-nut, as they had often done before.
The lad was quite relieved. It not a little astonished us, however, to
see that his mind regarded their killing and eating each other as a
thing scarcely to be noticed, but that it was horrible that they should
spoil the water! How much are even our deepest instincts the creatures
of mere circumstances! I, if trained like him, would probably have felt
like him.
Next evening, as we sat talking about the people, and the dark scenes
around us, the quiet of the night was broken by a wild wailing cry from
the villages around, long-continued and unearthly. We were informed that
one of the wounded men, carried home from the battle, had just died; and
that they had strangled his widow to death, that her spirit might
accompany him to the other world, and be his servant there, as she had
been here. Now their dead bodies were laid side by side, ready to be
buried in the sea. Our hearts sank to think of all this happening within
ear-shot, and that we knew it not! Every new scene, every fresh
incident, set more clearly before us the benighted condition and
shocking cruelties of these Heathen people, and we longed to be able to
speak to them of Jesus and the love of God. We eagerly tried to pick up
every word of their language, that we might, in their own tongue, unfold
to them the knowledge of the true God and of salvation from all these
sins through Jesus Christ.