GOOD-BYE TO NAGAPATE
The Euphrosyne, with the British Commissioner aboard, was about two
weeks overdue and we were growing impatient to be off. It was not the
Euphrosyne, however, but the queerest vessel I have ever seen, that
anchored off Vao, one night at midnight. She was about the size of a
large schooner and nearly as wide in the beam as she was long. She had
auxiliary sails, schooner-rigged. Her engine burned wood. And her
name—as we discovered later—was Amour. Queer as she was, she was a
Godsend to us, marooned on Vao. We went out in a canoe and found, to our
surprise, that the commander and owner was Captain Moran, whom we had
met in the Solomons two years before. We asked him where he was bound
for. He said that he had no particular destination; he was out to get
copra wherever he could get it. I proposed that he turn over his ship to
us at a daily rental, so that we could continue our search for signs of
cannibalism among the tribes of Malekula. He assented readily. Osa and I
were delighted, for we knew that there wasn’t a better skipper than
Captain Moran in the South Seas. Both he and his brother, who acted as
engineer, were born in the islands and had spent their lives in
wandering from one group to another. They knew the treacherous channels
as well as any whites in those waters, and they knew the natives, too,
from long experience as traders.
The next morning, while the crew of the schooner were cutting wood for
fuel, we packed our supplies on board the Amour. When all was ready, we
pulled up anchor, set the sails, and started the engine. After a few
grunts, the propeller began to turn, and we were on our way.
Her ungainly shape served to make the Amour seaworthy, but it did not
conduce to speed. We wheezed along at a rate of three knots an hour.
Though we left Vao at dawn, it was nearly dark when we again reached
Tanemarou Bay, the “seaport” of the Big Numbers territory. There was no
one on the beach, but we discharged a stick of dynamite and rolled
ourselves in our blankets, sure that there would be plenty of natives on
hand to greet us next morning.
We slept soundly, in spite of the pigs that roamed the deck, and were
awakened at daylight by cries. About a hundred savages had gathered on
the beach. We lost no time in landing, but to our disappointment,
Nagapate had not come down to greet us. Only Velle-Velle, the prime
minister, was on hand, I and he was in a difficult mood. He gave me to
understand that I had slighted him, on my previous visit, in my
distribution of presents. I soon averted his displeasure with plenty of
tobacco and the strangest and most wonderful plaything he had ever had—a
football. It was a sight for sore eyes to see that dignified old savage,
who ordinarily was as pompous as any Western prime minister, kicking his
football about the beach.
At about ten o’clock, I took a few boys and went inland to get some
pictures. Osa wanted to accompany me, but I set my foot down on it. I
knew there was no danger for myself, but I felt that Nagapate’s interest
in her made it unsafe for her to venture. I went to the top of a hill a
few miles back, where I made some fine pictures of the surrounding
country, and was lucky enough to get a group of savages coming over the
ridge of another hill about half a mile away. My guides became panicky
when they saw the newcomers, and insisted that we return to the beach at
once, but I held firm until the last savage on the opposite hill had
been lost to sight in the jungle. Then with enough film to justify my
morning’s climb, I returned to the beach.
On the following morning, Nagapate made his appearance, and told me,
through Atree, that he had brought his wives to see Osa. I sent the boat
to the schooner for her, but when she appeared, Nagapate said that his
wives could not come to the beach and that Osa, accordingly, must go
inland as far as the first river to meet them. I did not like the idea,
but decided that no possible harm could come to her if the armed crew of
the Amour and Captain Moran and I accompanied her. It turned out that my
distrust of Nagapate was again unjustified. We found the wives waiting
at the designated spot with sugar-cane and yams and a nice, new Big
Numbers dress for Osa. They had not come to the beach because the newest
wife was not permitted to look at the sea for a certain time after
marriage—which seemed to me to carry the taboo on water a bit too far.
Osa was pleased to add the Big Numbers dress to her collection of
strange things from Melanesia. And indeed it was quite a gift. For in
spite of their apparent simplicity, the making and dyeing of the
pandanus garments is a complicated process. Since the grass will not
take the dye if it is the least green, it has to be dried and washed and
dried again. When it is thoroughly bleached, it is dyed deep purple.
After Osa in turn had presented the wives with salmon and sea-biscuits
(which I afterward saw Nagapate and his men devouring) and strings of
bright-colored beads, Nagapate agreed to get his men to dance for me, if
I would come to his village. I did not relish the idea of the long trip
into the hills, but I wanted the picture. Osa returned to the schooner,
and Captain Moran and I, with five boys, went inland. We made the
village in four hours. When we arrived, I was ready to drop with
exhaustion, and lay down on the ground for half an hour to recover.
Savages squatted about me and watched me while I rested, then crowded
about me while I got my cameras ready for action. Nagapate sent out for
the men to come to the clearing, and they straggled in, sullen and
cranky. They did not want to dance, but Nagapate’s word was law. At his
command, a few men went to the great boo-boos and beat out a weird
rhythm that seemed to me to express the very essence of cannibalism. At
first the savages danced in a half-hearted fashion, but gradually they
warmed up. Soon they were doing a barbaric dance better than any I had
ever seen. They marched quickly and in perfect time around the boo-boos.
Then they stopped suddenly, with a great shout, stood for a moment
marking time with their feet, marched on again and stopped again, and so
on, the march becoming faster and faster and the shouting wilder and
more continuous, until at last the dancers had to stop from sheer
exhaustion.
I got a fine picture, well worth the long trip up the mountains, but it
was very late before we got started beachward, accompanied by Nagapate
and a number of his men. We went down the slippery trail as fast as we
could go. I should have been afraid, in my first days in the islands,
that the boys might fall with my cameras if we went at such a rate, but
by now I had found that they were as sure-footed as mountain sheep. They
carried my heavy equipment as if it had been bags of feathers and
handled it much more carefully than I should have been able to.
In spite of our haste, it grew dark before we reached the beach. The
boys cut dead bamboo for torches and in the uncertain light they gave,
we stumbled along. When we were within about a quarter of a mile from
the sea, we fired a volley to let Osa know that we were coming. To our
surprise, when we came out on the beach, we were greeted by Osa and
Engineer Moran and the remainder of the crew of the Amour, all armed to
the teeth. Osa was crying. It was the first time I had ever known her to
resort to tears in the face of danger. But when she learned that we were
all there and safe, and that the volley had been a signal of our
approach and not an indication that we had been attacked, her tears
dried and she scolded me roundly for having frightened her.
I went to the boat and got a crate of biscuits and a small bag of rice
and took them back to Nagapate for a feast for him and his men. Then I
said good-bye. I believe that the old cannibal was really sorry to see
us go—and not only for the sake of the presents we had given him. Some
day I am going back to see him once more.