THE FEAST
The presentation of skulls is but the prelude to a great entertainment.
It has been planned for our especial benefit. As a sort of opening
chorus and introductory number, we are entertained with the Kia Kia song
of welcome as the circle of witnesses to the skull-presentation ceremony
breaks up.
The medicine man—who, by the way, is supposed to hold communion with the
spirits that every native believes inhabit the jungle—leads in the
opening number, which is an ensemble of all the adult males of the
kampong. He is attended by two others, who circle around him with heads
bowed, rattling castanets made of the great pincers of the crayfish with
which the coast abounds. These have a sound which reminds one of the
never-to-be forgotten but hard-to-describe warning of the diamond-back
crotalus or rattlesnake of America.
[Illustration: The circle breaks up and a dance takes place for our
entertainment]
[Illustration: They sang for us at the top of their leather lungs]
The medicine man is grotesque with his barbaric adornments. Surmounting
his head and securely fastened to his ordinary headdress, is a fish
carved of wood, of a light pithy variety. The fish is nearly two feet in
length and though its general color is white, the markings representing
its fins and eyes are in red. As the man walks it bobs up and down in a
funny way as though nodding its approval of the ceremony. While the
medicine man and his feather-bedecked attendants perform their dance
with extreme gravity, the others who are at some distance in the
background, nearer the water’s edge, stride up and down the beach in
close formation, singing at the top of their lungs a refrain that seems
to be a continuous repetition of perhaps a dozen notes.
They walk briskly ten or twelve yards past the little group of three in
the foreground and then reverse, those who had been in the rear now
becoming the leaders, and walk an equal distance to the other side of
the medicine man. Meanwhile, the song goes on and the castanets continue
their dry, menacing rattle. We watch them for a space of ten minutes,
but after that the dance begins to grow monotonous. The thump of the
drums keeps up with mechanical precision the even rhythm of the
walking-dance. The performance becomes a bore. While the dance is still
in progress we leave the beach to return to the camp. Once warmed up, as
they now are, they will continue to dance without interruption for
hours. As the older men become fatigued they will drop out and younger
ones take their place. When they have rested sufficiently, they will
return, and so the dance goes on.
While the men are dancing the women are not idle. The fires are burning
brightly in the kampong and over them the girls are roasting fish and
sago cakes, while three women are carefully turning the pig that
squealed this afternoon, in a pit dug for the purpose of roasting him
according to their method. The pit is filled with red-hot stones, we
find upon examination, and the odor that rises from the place makes us
hungry. We begin to wonder how we can refuse to partake of his porkship,
for we know that they will surely offer us some of the meat. That pig,
like all their others, has been too careless in its diet to suit us as
food, no matter how delicious the cooking may smell. In order that we
may have some semblance of an excuse to refuse the meat we order Moh to
watch the roasting and have our dinner ready to serve the moment the pig
is ready for the natives. We can then plead satiety without hurting
their feelings.
As it happens, we are able to evade the issue gracefully, for the women
take the food to the dancers on the beach, where they line up and
receive it upon broad palm-leaves the women provide for the purpose.
When all have eaten, the dancing is resumed. A great fire is built on
the sand and the dance goes on in its light,—the most savage scene
imaginable. Though our hosts began the party in our honor, now all are
joining in for the sheer pleasure it gives them, with no thought of us.
After our dinner we go down and watch them for an hour before turning
in. As the excitement heightens the affair becomes a wild orgy in which
all participate, and we beat a hasty retreat to the chaste seclusion of
our tent, there to conjure sleep in the midst of this most unholy
uproar.
Long into the night the mad festival continues, until one by one the
participants drop out from utter exhaustion and make their way to the
shacks, where they gossip in loud tones, much to our annoyance.
The sun is overhead when the natives emerge the next day. Unaccustomed
to violent exercise such as that of the night before, some of them
wearily drag themselves to the shade of the groves with the air of
persons trying to show signs of animation merely to save their friends
the trouble of a funeral.
[Illustration: Long into the night the mad festival continues. To exert
themselves in any productive occupation to a like extent would kill
them]
[Illustration: The drums are tuned in a peculiar manner. Having no
strings fastened to the heads with which to tighten them, they place
small lumps of resin mixed with clay on the heads to produce the desired
sound]
The women seem to be absolutely fagged out, and their feet drag as they
prepare food for the men. There is little to interest one in the kampong
to-day, but later on, when the heat of midday is past, the women gather
in groups to prepare _wady_, the fermented drink of the Kia Kias. Its
preparation is neither nice nor sanitary. The female of the species
being more deadly than the male, the women macerate in their mouths the
ingredients of the drink, to extract the juices. For the killing mixture
that produces wady, they chew up cocoanut meat, certain roots and leaves
they gather in the jungle, and the acrid outer husk of the cocoanut.
This juice mixed with saliva is diluted with water and stored in gourds.
It is allowed to ferment, enough sago starch being added to aid the
process. After the mixture has stood a day or two in the heat of the
sun, it has sufficient “kick” to floor a mule. While the wady is
ripening the kampong rests and visitors from a distant kampong drop in
to attend the coming wady party, for an invitation has been sent them by
messenger.
While the feast was in progress there seems to have developed a real
love-affair between two members of the community. They have decided that
they are for each other and that henceforth they will live together. The
decision is a momentous one, for it involves a ceremony so utterly
incomprehensible to the white man that we are aghast at its unbridled
license.
According to Kia Kia ideas, a woman, to remain true to her husband, must
have removed from her mind any desire for male companionship other than
his. She therefore must submit herself to every man of her tribe before
the marriage is recognized. This ceremony is made the occasion for an
orgy, and though the participants are severely punished by the Dutch
officials when discovered, it is still in vogue clandestinely.
It is due to this that many of the women prefer to remain single and
free to choose. Those who undergo the frightful ordeal are never
molested, we are told. Indeed, it is said that two out of every five
women succumb after such an experience. Preparations are in progress for
the ceremony, which is to take place this evening, and the bride is even
now adorning herself with feathered finery and besmearing her dusky body
with oil and paint. After night has settled down, all the natives repair
to a clearing where the drums are calling and a huge fire is built. The
occasion is one of merriment and the ceremony continues far into the
night.
The day that the wady is ready the natives gather in the shade for the
express purpose of becoming thoroughly and most comfortably inebriated.
As the liquor begins to take effect they dance and sing. While they
dance more wady is given them, until they are overcome and perforce must
stagger away and lie down. Soon they fall asleep, not to waken until
late the next day, when they experience the most depressing of “mornings
after.” By this time the wady is all gone, and, too, there is no
ice-water! After a wady party of this kind the men do not fully recover
for days, for the stuff is almost paralyzing in its effect.