BREAKING GROUND ON TANNA.
OUR small Missionary schooner, the _John Knox_, having no accommodation
for lady passengers, and little for anybody else except the discomfort
of lying on deck, we took advantage of a trader to convey us from
Aneityum to Tanna. The Captain kindly offered to take us and about
thirty casks and boxes to Port Resolution for £5, which we gladly
accepted. After a few hours' sailing we were all safely landed on Tanna
on the 5th November, 1858. Dr. Geddie went for a fortnight to
Umairarekar, now known as Kwamera, on the south side of Tanna, to assist
in the settlement of Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson, and to help in making their
house habitable and comfortable. Mr. Copeland, Mrs. Paton, and I were
left at Port Resolution, to finish the building of our house there, and
work our way into the good will of the Natives as best we could.
On landing, we found the people to be literally naked and painted
Savages; they were at least as destitute of clothing as Adam and Eve
after the fall, when they sewed fig-leaves for a girdle, and even more
so, for the women wore only a tiny apron of grass, in some cases shaped
like a skirt or girdle, the men an indescribable affair like a pouch or
bag, and the children absolutely nothing whatever.
At first they came in crowds to look at us, and at everything we did or
had. We knew nothing of their language; we could not speak a single word
to them, nor they to us. We looked at them, they at us; we smiled and
nodded, and made signs to each other; this was our first meeting and
parting. One day I observed two men, the one lifting up one of our
articles to the other, and saying, "Nungsi nari enu?"
I concluded that he was asking, "What is this?" Instantly, lifting a
piece of wood, I said, "Nungsi nari enu?"
They smiled and spoke to each other. I understood them to be saying, "He
has got hold of our language now." Then they told me their name for the
thing which I had pointed to. I found that they understood my question,
What is this? or, What is that? and that I could now get from them the
name of every visible or tangible thing around us! We carefully noted
down every name they gave us, spelling all phonetically, and also every
strange sound we heard from them; thereafter, by painstaking comparison
of different circumstances, we tried to ascertain their meanings,
testing our own guess by again cross-questioning the Natives. One day I
saw two men approaching, when one, who was a stranger, pointed to me
with his finger, and said, "Se nangin?"
Concluding that he was asking my name, I pointed! to one of them with my
finger, and looking at the other, inquired, "Se nangin?"
They smiled, and gave me their names. We were now able to get the names
of persons and things, and so our ears got familiarized with the
distinctive sounds of their language; and being always keenly on the
alert, we made extraordinary progress in attempting bits of conversation
and in reducing their speech for the first time to a written form--for
the New Hebrideans had no literature, and not even the rudiments of an
alphabet. I used to hire some of the more intelligent lads and men to
sit and talk with us, and answer our questions about names and sounds;
but they so often deceived us, and we, doubtless, misunderstood them so
often, that this course was not satisfactory, till after we had gained
some knowledge of their language and its construction, and they
themselves had become interested in helping us. Amongst our most
interesting helpers, and most trustworthy, were two aged chiefs--Nowa
and Nouka--in many respects two of Nature's noblest gentlemen, kind at
heart to all, and distinguished by a certain native dignity of bearing.
But they were both under the leadership of the war-chief Miaki, a kind
of devil-king over many villages and tribes.
The Tannese had hosts of stone idols, charms, and sacred objects, which
they abjectly feared, and in which they devoutly believed. They were
given up to countless superstitions, and firmly glued to their dark
heathen practices. Their worship was entirely a service of fear, its aim
being to propitiate this or that Evil Spirit, to prevent calamity or to
secure revenge. They deified their chiefs, like the Romans of old, so
that almost every village or tribe had its own Sacred Man, and some of
them had many. They exercised an extraordinary influence for evil, these
village or tribal priests, and were believed to have the disposal of
life and death through their sacred ceremonies, not only in their own
tribe, but over all the Islands. Sacred men and women, wizards and
witches, received presents regularly to influence the gods, and to
remove sickness, or to cause it by the _Nahak, i. e._ incantation over
remains of food, or the skin of fruit, such as banana, which the person
has eaten on whom they wish to operate. They also worshiped the spirits
of departed ancestors and heroes, through their material idols of wood
and stone, but chiefly of stone. They feared these spirits and sought
their aid; especially seeking to propitiate those who presided over war
and peace, famine and plenty, health and sickness, destruction and
prosperity, life and death. Their whole worship was one of slavish fear;
and, so far as ever I could learn, they had no idea of a God of mercy or
grace.
But these very facts--that they did worship something, that they
believed in spirits of ancestors and heroes, and that they cherished
many legends regarding those whom they had never seen, and handed these
down to their children--and the fact that they had ideas about the
invisible world and its inhabitants, made it not so hard as some might
suppose to convey to their minds, once their language and modes of
thought were understood, some clear ideal of Jehovah God as the great
uncreated Spirit Father, who Himself created and sustains all that is.
It could not, however, be done offhand, or by a few airy lessons. The
whole heart and soul and life had to be put into the enterprise. But it
could be done--that we believed because they were men, not beasts; it
had been done--that we saw in the converts on Aneityum; and our hearts
rose to the task with quenchless hope!