[Illustration: MEN OF ESPIRITU SANTO]
CANNIBAL-LAND
_Adventures with a Camera in the New Hebrides_
BY
MARTIN JOHNSON
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE AUTHOR’S PHOTOGRAPHS
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY ASIA PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY MARTIN JOHNSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE 3
I. INTRODUCING NAGAPATE 6
II. SYDNEY AND NEW CALEDONIA 23
III. THE THRESHOLD OF CANNIBAL-LAND 39
IV. NAGAPATE COMES TO CALL 49
V. IN NAGAPATE’S KINGDOM 71
VI. THE BIG NUMBERS SEE THEMSELVES ON THE SCREEN 94
VII. THE NOBLE SAVAGE 100
VIII. GOOD-BYE TO NAGAPATE 116
IX. THE MONKEY PEOPLE 123
X. THE DANCE OF THE PAINTED SAVAGES 138
XI. TOMMAN AND THE HEAD-CURING ART 152
XII. THE WHITE MAN IN THE SOUTH SEAS 161
XIII. ESPIRITU SANTO AND A CANNIBAL FEAST 175
ILLUSTRATIONS
MEN OF ESPIRITU SANTO _Frontispiece_
THE WATCHER OF TANEMAROU BAY 14
NAGAPATE 18
A BEACH SCENE 24
LOOKING SEAWARD 36
DANCE OF TETHLONG’S MEN 46
A CALL FROM NAGAPATE 62
THE SAFE BEACH TRAIL, TANEMAROU BAY 68
LOOKING OVER NAGAPATE’S KINGDOM FROM THE HIGHEST PEAK IN
NORTHERN MALEKULA 74
WOMEN OF THE BIG NUMBERS 78
RAMBI 84
ATREE AND NAGAPATE 88
HUNTING FOR THE MAGIC 98
A CANNIBAL AND A KODAK 98
NAGAPATE AMONG THE DEVIL-DEVILS 110
ONE OF THE MONKEY MEN 128
WO-BANG-AN-AR 134
SOUTHWEST BAY 138
WOMAN AND CHILD OF THE LONG-HEADS, TOMMAN 142
THE PAINTED DANCERS OF SOUTHWEST BAY 148
THE OLD HEAD-CURER 154
A CLUB-HOUSE IN TOMMAN WITH MUMMIED HEADS AND BODIES 158
TOMMAN WOMEN, SHOWING GAP IN TEETH 162
DWARFS OF ESPIRITU SANTO 182
THE CANNIBAL DANCE 188
CANNIBAL-LAND
PROLOGUE
Twelve years ago, from the deck of the Snark, I had my first glimpse of
the New Hebrides.
I was standing my trick at the wheel. Jack London and his wife,
Charmian, were beside me. It was just dawn. Slowly, out of the morning
mists, an island took shape. The little ship rose and sank on the
Pacific swell. The salt breeze ruffled my hair. I played my trick calmly
and in silence, but my heart beat fast at the sight of that bit of land
coming up like magic out of the gray water.
For I knew that of all the groups in the South Seas, the New Hebrides
were held to be the wildest. They were inhabited by the fiercest of
cannibals. On many of the islands, white men had scarcely trod. Vast,
unknown areas remained to be explored. I thrilled at the thought of
facing danger in the haunts of savage men.
I was young then. But my longing for adventure in primitive lands has
never left me. News of a wild country, of unvisited tribes, still
thrills me and makes me restless to be off in some old South Seas
schooner, seeing life as it was lived in Europe in the Stone Age and is
still lived in out-of-the-way corners of the earth that civilization has
overlooked.
I have been luckier than most men. For my lifework has made my youthful
dreams come true.
On my first voyage, in the Snark, I met with a couple of pioneer
motion-picture men, who were packing up the South Seas in films to take
back to Europe and America. They inspired in me the idea of making a
picture-record of the primitive, fast-dying black and brown peoples that
linger in remote spots. Into my boyish love of adventure there crept a
purpose that has kept me wandering and will keep me wandering until I
die.
Two years ago, I again found myself in the New Hebrides at dawn. London
had taken the last long voyage alone; and the little Snark, so white and
pretty when we had sailed it south, hung sluggishly at anchor in Api,
black and stained, and wet and slimy under the bare feet of a crew of
blacks. My boat now was a twenty-eight-foot open whaleboat, with a jury
rig of jib and mainsail; my crew of five, squatting in the waist,
looking silently at us or casting glances, sometimes down at the water,
sometimes with sudden jerks of the head upward at the little mast, like
monkeys under a coconut tree, were naked savages from Vao; and my
companion, seated on the thwart beside me, was my wife, Osa. We were
nearing the cannibal island of Malekula.
But to start the story of our adventures in Malekula at the beginning, I
must go back and describe the reconnoitering trip we took fourteen
months earlier.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCING NAGAPATE
Osa and I were nearing the end of a long cruise through the South Seas.
We had come in contact with many wild peoples, but none of them were
quite wild enough. I had made motion-pictures of cannibals in the
Solomons. They were _bona-fide_ cannibals, fierce and naked. But
somehow, I never quite felt that they were the real thing: they so
obviously respected the English Government officers and native police
boys who accompanied and protected us. I wanted to get among savages who
were unspoiled—to make photographs showing them in their own villages,
engaged in their ordinary pursuits. I felt sure, from what I had seen
and heard and read, that the pictures I wanted were waiting to be taken
in the New Hebrides and nowhere else.
Savagery has been pretty well eliminated from the South Seas. The
Solomon Islander is well on the road to becoming a respectable citizen
of the British Empire. Most of the Fiji Islanders have left off
cannibalism and have settled down and turned Methodist. If you except
New Guinea and Borneo, the New Hebrides are probably the only islands in
the Pacific where there are natives who live as they did before the
white man’s coming.
The savages of the New Hebrides probably owe their immunity from
civilization to an accident of government. For many years the ownership
of the islands was disputed. Both British and French laid claim to them.
Neither would relinquish hold; so finally, they arranged to administer
the islands jointly until a settlement should be made. That settlement
has been pending for years. Meanwhile, both governments have been
marking time. Each party is slow to take action for fear of infringing
on the rights—or of working for the benefit—of the other. Each maintains
but a small armed force. The entire protection of the group consists of
about sixty or seventy police boys, backed up by the gunboats which make
occasional tours of the group. It is easy to understand that this is not
an adequate civilizing force for a part of the world where civilizing is
generally done at the point of a rifle, and that the savages of the more
inaccessible parts of the group are as unsubdued as they were in the
days of the early explorers.
I had heard that there were parts of the island of Malekula, the second
largest island of the group, that no white man had ever trod, so I
decided that Malekula was the island I wanted to visit. “The Pacific
Islands Pilot,” which I had among my books, gave a solemn warning
against the people of Malekula that served only to whet my interest:
“Although an appearance of friendly confidence will often tend to allay
their natural feeling of distrust, strangers would do well to maintain a
constant watchfulness and use every precaution against being taken by
surprise.” So said the “Pilot.” “... They are a wild, savage race and
have the reputation of being treacherous.... Cannibalism is still
occasionally practiced. Nearly all are armed with Snyders. The bushmen
live entirely among the hills in small villages and are seldom seen.
Being practically secure from punishment, they have not the same reasons
for good behavior that the salt-water men have, and should, therefore,
be always treated with caution.”
A recruiter who had been for years in the New Hebrides enlisting blacks
for service in the Solomons described Malekula to me in detail. It was a
large island, as my map showed me, shaped roughly like an hour-glass,
about sixty miles long and about ten miles across in the middle and
thirty-five or so at the ends. He said that there were supposed to be
about forty thousand savages on the island, most of them hidden away in
the bush. The northern part of the island was shared between the Big
Numbers and the Small Numbers people, who took their names from the
_nambas_, the garment—if it could be called a garment—worn by the men.
In the case of the Small Numbers, said my informant, it was a twisted
leaf. In the case of the Big Numbers, it was a bunch of dried pandanus
fiber. The recruiter said that the central part of the island was
supposed to be inhabited by a race of nomads, though he himself had
never seen any one who had come in contact with them. In the southern
region lived a long-headed people, with skulls curiously deformed by
binding in infancy.
Of all these peoples the Big Numbers were said to be the fiercest. Both
British and French had undertaken “armed administrations” in their
territory, in an attempt to pacify them, but had succeeded only in
sacrificing a man for every savage, they had killed. No white man had
ever established himself upon the territory of the Big Numbers and none
had ever crossed it. I decided to attempt the crossing myself and to
record the feat with my cameras.
Every one to whom I mentioned this project advised me against it. I was
warned that experienced recruiters of labor for the white man’s sugar
and rubber plantations, who knew the islands and the natives well, never
landed upon the beach unless they had a second, “covering” boat with an
armed crew to protect them against treachery, and that the most daring
trader planned to stop there only for a day—though perforce he often
stayed for all eternity. But I had the courage born of ignorance, and
ventured boldly, taking it for granted that the tales told of the
savages were wildly exaggerated. Traders, missionaries, and Government
officials all joined in solemn warning against the undertaking, but as
none of them had ever seen a cannibal in action, I did not take their
advice seriously. When they found that I was determined in my course,
they gave me all the assistance in their power.
My recruiter friend suggested that I make my headquarters on Vao, a
small island about a mile off the northeastern coast of Malekula, where
a mission station was maintained by the French fathers. He said that
between the mission and the British gunboat, which stopped there
regularly, the natives of Vao had become fairly peaceable, we would be
safe there, and at the same time would be in easy reach of Malekula.
Osa and I lost no time in getting to Vao, where Father Prin, an aged
priest, welcomed us cordially, and set aside for us one of the three
rooms in his little stone house. Father Prin had kind, beautiful eyes
and a venerable beard. He looked like a saint, in his black cassock, and
when we had a chance to look about at the degenerate creatures among
whom he lived, we thought that he must, indeed, be one. He had spent
twenty-nine years in the South Seas. During the greater part of that
time he had worked among the four hundred savages of Vao. The net result
of his activities was a clearing, in which were a stone church and the
stone parsonage and the thatched huts of seventeen converts. The
converts themselves did not count for much, even in Father Prin’s eyes.
He had learned that the task of bringing the New Hebridean native out of
savagery was well-nigh hopeless. He knew that, once he had left his
little flock, it would undoubtedly lapse into heathenism. The faith and
perseverance he showed was a marvel to me. I shall always respect him
and the other missionaries who work among the natives of Vao and
Malekula for the grit they show in a losing fight. I have never seen a
native Christian on either of the islands—and I’ve never met any one who
has seen one!
When he learned that we were bent on visiting Malekula, Father Prin
added his word of warning to the many that I had received. Though he
could speak many native languages, his English was limited to
_bêche-de-mer_, the pidgin English of the South Seas. In this grotesque
tongue, which consorted so strangely with his venerable appearance, he
told us that we would never trust ourselves among the natives if we had
any real understanding of their cruelty. He said he was convinced that
cannibalism was practiced right on Vao, though the natives, for fear of
the British gunboat, were careful not to be discovered. He cited
hair-raising incidents of poisonings and mutilations. He told us to look
around among the savages of Vao. We would discover very few if any old
folk, for the natives had the cruel custom of burying the aged alive. He
had done everything he could to eradicate this custom, but to no end. He
told us of one old woman whom he had exhumed three times, but who had
finally, in spite of his efforts, met a cruel death by suffocation.
Once, he had succeeded in rescuing an old man from death by the simple
expedient of carrying him off and putting him into a hut next to his own
house, where he could feed him and look after him. A few days after the
old man had been installed, a body of natives came to the clearing and
asked permission to examine him. They looked at his teeth to see if he
had grown valuable tusks; they fingered his rough, withered skin; they
felt his skinny limbs; they lifted his frail, helpless carcass in their
arms; and finally they burst into yells of laughter. They said the
missionary had been fooled—there was not a thing about the old man worth
saving! We could not look for mercy or consideration from such men as
these, said Father Prin. But despite his warning, Osa and I sailed away
to visit the grim island.
With the assistance of Father Prin, we secured a twenty-eight-foot
whaleboat that belonged to a trader who made his headquarters on Vao,
but was now absent on a recruiting trip, leaving his “store” in charge
of his native wife. With the aid of five Vao boys, recommended by Father
Prin as being probably trustworthy, we hoisted a small jib and a
mainsail, scarcely larger, and were off.
At the last moment, Father Prin’s grave face awoke misgivings in me and
I tried to dissuade Osa from accompanying me. Father Prin sensed the
drift of our conversation and made his final plea.
“Better you stop along Vao,” he urged. “Bush too bad.” His eyes were
anxious. But Osa was not to be dissuaded. “If you go, I’m going, too,”
she said, turning to me, and that was final.
We landed at a point on the Vao side of Malekula, where there were one
or two salt-water villages, whose inhabitants had learned to respect
gunboats. We picked up three boys to serve as guides and carriers and
then sailed on to Tanemarou Bay, in the Big Numbers territory. The
shores along which we traveled were rocky. Occasionally we saw a group
of natives on the beach, but they disappeared as we approached. These
were no salt-water savages, but fierce bushmen. Their appearance was not
reassuring; but when we reached Tanemarou Bay, we boldly went ashore. We
were greeted by a solitary savage who stepped out of the darkness of the
jungle into the glaring brightness of the beach. He was a frightful
object to behold, black and dirty, with heavy, lumpy muscles, and an
outstanding shock of greasy hair. Except for a clout of dried pandanus
fiber, a gorget of pig’s teeth, and the pigtails that dangled from his
ear-lobes, he was entirely naked. As he approached, we saw that his
dull, shifty eyes were liquid; his hairy, deeply seamed face was
contorted frightfully; and his hands were pressed tight against his
stomach. Osa shrank close to me. But the first words of the native,
uttered in almost unintelligible _bêche-de-mer_, were pacific enough.
“My word! Master! Belly belong me walk about too much!”
[Illustration: THE WATCHER OF TANEMAROU BAY]
The nervous tension that Osa and I had both felt snapped, and we burst
out laughing. I saw a chance to make a friend, so I fished out a handful
of cascara tablets and carefully explained to the native the exact
properties of the medicine. I made it perfectly clear—so I thought—that
part of the tablets were to be taken at dawn and part at sunset. He
listened with painful attention, but the moment I stopped speaking he
lifted the whole handful of pills to his slobbering lips and downed them
at a gulp!
By this time we were surrounded by a group of savages, each as
terrible-looking as our first visitor. As they made no effort to molest
us, however, we gained confidence. I set up a camera and ground out
several hundred feet of film. They had never seen a motion-picture
camera before, but, as is often the way with savages, after a first
casual inspection, they showed a real, or pretended, indifference to
what they could not understand.
Through the talented sufferer who knew _bêche-de-mer_, I learned that
the chief of the tribe, Nagapate, was a short distance away in the bush,
and on the spur of the moment, never thinking of danger, I made up my
mind to see him. Guided by a small boy, Osa and I plunged into the dark
jungle, followed by our three carriers with my photographic apparatus.
We slid and stumbled along a trail made treacherous by miry streams and
slimy creepers and up sharp slopes covered with tough canes. At last we
found ourselves in a clearing about three thousand feet above the sea.
From where we stood we could see, like a little dot upon the blue of the
ocean, our whaleboat hanging offshore. The scene was calm and beautiful.
The brown-green slopes were silent, except for the sharp metallic calls
of birds. But we knew that there were men hidden in the wild, by the
faint, thin wisps of smoke that we could see here and there above the
trees. Each marked a savage camp-fire. “That’s where they’re cooking the
‘long pig,’” I said jocularly, pointing the smoke wisps out to Osa. But
a moment later my remark did not seem so funny. I heard a sound and
turned and saw standing in the trail four armed savages, with their guns
aimed at us.
“Let’s get out of this,” I said to Osa; but when we attempted to go down
the trail, the savages intercepted us with threatening gestures.
Suddenly there burst into view the most frightful, yet finest type of
savage I have ever seen. We knew without being told that this was
Nagapate himself. His every gesture was chiefly.
He was enormously tall, and his powerful muscles rippled under his skin,
glossy in the sunlight. He was very black; his features were large; his
expression showed strong will and the cunning and brutal power of a
predatory animal. A fringe of straight outstanding matted hair
completely encircled his face; his skin, though glossy and
healthy-looking, was creased and thick, and between his brows were two
extraordinarily deep furrows. On his fingers were four gold rings that
could only have come from the hands of his victims.
I thought I might win this savage to friendliness, so I got out some
trade-stuff I had brought with me and presented it to him. He scarcely
glanced at it. He folded his arms on his breast and stared at us
speculatively. I looked around. From among the tall grasses of the
clearing, there peered black and cruel faces, all watching us in
silence. There were easily a hundred savages there. For the present
there was no escape possible. I decided that my only course was to
pretend a cool indifference, so I got out my cameras and worked as
rapidly as possible, talking to the savages and to Osa as if I were
completely at ease.
I soon saw, however, that we must get away if we were not to be caught
by darkness. I made a last show of assurance by shaking hands in
farewell with Nagapate. Osa followed my example; but instead of
releasing her, the savage chief held her firmly with one hand and ran
the other over her body. He felt her cheeks and her hair and pinched and
prodded her speculatively.
She was pale with fright. I would have shot the savage on the spot, but
I knew that such a foolhardy act would mean instant death to both of us.
I clenched my hands, forced to my lips what I hoped would pass for an
amused grin, and stood pat. After a moment that seemed to both Osa and
me an hour long, Nagapate released Osa and grunted an order at the
savages who surrounded us. They disappeared into the bush. This was our
opportunity. I ordered the three carriers to pick up the apparatus, and
we started for the trail.
[Illustration: NAGAPATE]
We had gone only a few steps when we were seized from behind. We had no
chance to struggle.
In the minutes that followed, I suffered the most terrible mental
torture I have ever experienced. I saw only one slim chance for us. Osa
and I each carried two revolvers in our breeches’ pockets; so far, the
savages had not discovered them, and I hoped there might come some
opportunity to use them. Every ghastly tale I had ever heard came
crowding into my memory; and as I looked at the ring of black, merciless
faces, and saw my wife sagging, half-swooning, in the arms of her
cannibal captors, my heart almost stopped its beating.
At this moment a miracle happened.
Into the bay far below us steamed the Euphrosyne, the British
patrol-boat. It came to anchor and a ship’s boat was lowered. The
savages were startled. From lip to lip an English word was passed,
“Man-o’-war—Man-o’-war—Man-o’-war.” With an assumption of satisfaction
and confidence that I did not feel, I tried to make it clear to them
that this ship had come to protect us, though I knew that at any moment
it might up anchor and steam away again. Nagapate grunted an order, my
carriers picked up their loads, and we were permitted to start down the
trail. Once out of sight we began to run. The cane-grass cut our faces,
we slipped on the steep path, but still we ran.
Halfway down, we came to an open place from which we could see the bay.
To our consternation, the patrol-boat was putting out to sea! We knew
that the savages, too, had witnessed its departure; for at once, from
hill to hill, sounded the vibrant roar of the conch-shell boo-boos—a
message to the savages on the beach to intercept us.
The sun was near setting. We hurried forward; soon we found that we had
lost the trail. Darkness came down, and we struggled through the jungle
in a nightmare of fear. Thorns tore our clothing and our flesh. We
slipped and fell a hundred times. Every jungle sound filled us with
terror.
But at last, after what seemed hours, we reached the beach. We stole
toward the water, hopeful of escaping notice, but the savages caught
sight of us. Fortunately our Vao boys, who had been lying off in the
whaleboat, sighted us, too, and poled rapidly in to our assistance. We
splashed into the surf and the boys dragged us into the boat, where we
lay, exhausted and weak with fear.
It took us three days to get back to Vao, but that nightmare story of
storm and terror does not belong here. Suffice it to say that we at last
got back safely and with my film unharmed.
On my return to Vao, one of the native boatmen presented me with a
letter, which had been left for me at Tanemarou Bay, by the commander of
the patrol-boat, who had been assured by our boys that we were in the
immediate vicinity of the beach and were about to return to the boat.
MATANAVOT, _10th November, 1917_
DEAR SIR:
I have been endeavoring to find you with a view to warning you
against carrying out what I understand to be your intentions. I am
told that you have decided to penetrate into the interior of this
island with a view to coming in contact with the people known as the
“Big Numbers.” Such a proceeding cannot but be attended with great
risk to yourself and all those who accompany you. The whole interior
of this island of Malekula is, and has been for a considerable time,
in a very disturbed condition, and it has been necessary in
consequence to make two armed demonstrations in the “Big Numbers”
country during the last three years. For these reasons, on the part
of the Joint Administration of this group, I request that you will
not proceed further with this idea, and hereby formally warn you
against such persistence, for the consequences of which the
Administration cannot hold itself responsible.
Yours faithfully
(Signed) M. KING
_H.B.M. Resident Commissioner for the New Hebrides_
In any case I trust you will not take your wife into the danger zone
with you.
M. K.