THE MONKEY PEOPLE
At daylight we pulled anchor and set the sails and started the engine.
With the wind to help us, we made good progress. In three hours we had
reached our next anchorage, a small bay said to be the last frequented
by the Big Numbers people. We were in the territory of the largest tribe
on the west side of Malekula. Moran told me that no white man had ever
penetrated the bush and that the people were very shy and wild. We
landed, but saw no signs of savages. We thought we had the beach to
ourselves, and I set about making pictures of a beautiful little river,
all overhung with ferns and palms, that ran into the sea at one side of
the bay. As I worked, one of the boys ran up to me and told me in very
frightened _bêche-de-mer_ that he had seen “plenty big fellow man along
bush,” and we beat a hasty retreat from the river, with its beautiful
vegetation, well fitted for concealing savages.
I was very anxious to secure some photographs of the savages, and all
the more so because they were said to be so difficult of approach, so I
walked along the beach until I came to a trail leading into the
interior. It was easy to locate the trail, for it was like a tunnel
leading into the dark jungle. At its mouth, I set up my camera, attached
a telephoto lens, bundled up a handful of tobacco in a piece of calico,
placed my bait at the entrance of the trail, and waited. A half-hour
passed, but nothing happened. Then, quick as a wink, a savage darted
out, seized the bundle and disappeared before I had time to take hold of
the crank of my camera. My trap had worked too well. Now I was
determined to get results, so I had our armed crew withdraw to the edge
of the beach and asked Captain Moran and Osa to set their guns against a
rock so that the savages could see that we were not armed. I knew that,
in case of emergency, we could use the pistols in our pockets. Then I
sat down on my camera case and waited. At noon we sent one of the boys
back to the boat for some tinned lunch. We ate with our eyes on the
trail. It was two o’clock before four savages, with guns gripped tight
in their hands, came cautiously out of the jungle, ready to run at the
first alarm. I advanced slowly, so as not to frighten them, holding out
a handful of tobacco and clay pipes. They timidly took my presents, and
I tried to make them understand, by friendly gestures and soft words,
which they did not comprehend, that we could not harm them. To make a
long story short, I worked all afternoon to gain their confidence—and it
was work wasted, for I could get no action from them. They simply stood
like hitching-posts and let me take pictures all around them. At sundown
we went back to the ship, with nothing to show for our day’s effort.
Next morning, we set sail betimes. It did not take us long to reach
Lambumba Bay, on the narrow isthmus that connects northern and southern
Malekula. I had been anxious to visit this region, for I had heard
conflicting tales concerning it. Some said that it was inhabited by
nomad tribes; others said that the nomads were a myth—that the region
was uninhabited. I wanted to see for myself. So I instructed Captain
Moran to find a good anchorage, where the ship would be sheltered in
case a westerly wind should spring up. I wanted him to feel safe in
leaving the Amour in charge of a couple of blacks, for I needed him and
his brother and the majority of the crew to accompany us into the
interior. We found a small cove at the mouth of a stream and with the
kedge anchor we drew the Amour in until the branches of the trees hung
over the decks. At high tide we pulled the bow of the schooner up into
the sand. At low tide she was almost high and dry, and she was safe from
any ordinary blow. Since this was not the hurricane season, no great
storm was to be expected. In the evening, Osa made up the lunch-bags for
the following day, and early next morning, we struck inland along a
well-beaten trail. We followed this trail all day, but we saw no signs
of natives. Next day we took a second trail, which crossed the first.
Again we met no one. But we found baskets hanging from a banian and the
embers of a fire, still alive under a blanket of ashes.
Though we were accomplishing nothing, we were having a very enjoyable
time, for this was the most beautiful part of Malekula we had seen. The
trails were well-beaten and for the most part followed small streams
that cut an opening in the dense jungle to let the breeze through. Here,
as elsewhere, we were surrounded by gay tropical birds, and in the trees
hung lovely orchids. Osa kept the boys busy climbing after the flowers.
They were plainly amazed at the whim of this white “Mary,” who filled
gasoline tins with useless flowers, but they obeyed her willingly
enough, and she, with arms full of the delicate blossoms, declared that
she was willing to spend a month looking for the savages.
We discovered them, however, sooner than that. On the third morning we
took a new trail. We were walking along very slowly. I was in the lead.
I turned a sharp corner around a big banian—and all but collided with a
savage. The savage was as astonished as I, but he got his wits back more
quickly than I did mine, and flitted off into the jungle as quietly as a
butterfly. When the others came, I could scarcely make them believe that
I had seen him; for he left no trail in the underbrush, and they had not
heard a sound. In the hope of surprising other natives, we agreed to
stay close together and to make as little noise as possible. In about
half an hour four natives appeared on the brow of a low hill, directly
in front of us. They, too, turned at the sight of us and ran off.
We followed along the trail by which they had disappeared. In about
fifteen minutes we stopped to rest near a great banian. Now the banian,
which is characteristic of this section of Malekula, begins as a
parasite seedling that takes root in a palm or some other tree. This
seedling grows and sends out branches, which drop ropelike tendrils to
the ground. The tendrils take root and gradually thicken into trunks.
The new trunks send out other branches, which in turn drop their
tendrils, and so on, indefinitely. The banian near which we had stopped
was some twenty feet in diameter. Its many trunks grew close together
and it was covered with a crown of great heart-shaped leaves. Since
conditions seemed favorable for a picture, I got a camera ready and
turned to the tree to study the lights and shadows before I adjusted the
shutters. As I grew accustomed to the light, I saw dimly, peering from
behind the tendrils, four intent black faces. We had caught up with the
men we had surprised on the trail.
I spent an hour in trying to coax them into the open. I held out toward
them the things most coveted by the natives of the New Hebrides—tobacco,
salt, a knife, a piece of red calico. But they did not stir. I made an
attractive heap of presents on the ground and we all stood back, hoping
that the shy savages would pick up courage to come out and examine them.
But they refused to be tempted. At last I lost patience and ordered the
boys to surround the banian. When I was sure that we had the natives
cornered, I went under the tree and hunted around among its many trunks
for my captives. There was not a sign of them. But in the center of the
banian was an opening in which hung long ladders fashioned from the
tendrils. The savages had escaped over the tops of the trees. We did not
get another glimpse of them that day, but when we returned to the Amour,
we saw footprints in the sand of the beach. And the two boys we had left
in charge said that a number of savages had inspected the vessel from a
distance, disappearing into the jungle just before our arrival.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE MONKEY MEN]
I was convinced by this time that we had really discovered the nomads,
but I began to despair of ever getting a close-up of them. Early next
morning, however, as we were eating breakfast, a native who might have
been twin brother to those of the banian marched boldly down the beach
and up to the side of the ship. In bad _bêche-de-mer_ he asked us who we
were and where we came from and what we wanted. We learned that he had
been “blackbirded” off to Queensland long before and had made his way
back home after a year’s absence. He knew all about the white men and
their ways, he told us, and proved it by asking for tobacco.
I gladly got out some tobacco and gave it to him. Then he informed us
that he had no pipe and I made him happy with a clay pipe and a box of
matches.
I invited him to come on board, but he refused; one “blackbirding”
experience had been enough for him. He squatted on the sand, within
talking distance, and told us what a great man he was. He was the only
one of his tribe who knew “talk belong white man.” He was a famous
fighter. The enemies of his people ran when they saw him. He had killed
many men and many pigs. He recited his virtues over and over, utterly
ignoring my questions about his people. But finally I succeeded in
extracting from him an agreement to guide us to the headquarters of his
tribe.
When we stood on the shore, ready to go, Nella—for that was the name of
our visitor—looked Osa over from head to foot. She wore her usual jungle
costume of khaki breeches and high boots. When he had completed his
inspection, he turned to me and said wisely, “Me savvy. He Mary belong
you.” Then, adding in a business-like tone, “Me think more better you
bringem altogether tobacco,” he turned and led the way into the jungle.
He took us along one of the trails that we had followed in vain during
the preceding days. But presently he turned off into another trail that
we had not noticed. The entrance was masked with cane-grass. After about
ten feet, however, the path was clean and well-beaten. When we had
passed through the cane, Nella returned and carefully straightened out
the stalks that we had trampled down.
When we had traversed a mile or so of trail, Nella called a halt and
disappeared into the depths of a banian. Soon he returned, followed by
three young savages and an old man, who was nearer to a monkey than any
human being I have ever seen before or since—bright eyes peering out
from a shock of woolly hair; an enormous mouth disclosing teeth as white
and perfect as those of a dental advertisement; skin creased with deep
wrinkles; an alert, nervous, monkey-like expression; quick, sure,
monkey-like movements. He approached us carefully, ready to turn and run
at the slightest alarm. I endeavored to shake hands with him, but he
jerked his hand away. The friendly greeting had no meaning for him. My
presents, however, talked to him. Reassured by them and the voluble
Nella, who was greatly enjoying his position as master of ceremonies,
the savages squatted near us.
I began digging after information, but information was hard to get.
Nella preferred asking questions to answering them. All that I could
learn from him was that there were many savages in the vicinity and that
we would see them all in due time.
The conversation became one-sided. The five savages sat and discussed us
in their own language of growls and ape-like chattering. They tried to
examine the rifles carried by our boys, but the boys were afraid to let
their guns out of their hands. Osa, more confident, explained to the
savages the working of her repeater. Then they focused their attention
on her. They felt her boots and grunted admiringly. They fingered her
blond hair and carefully touched her skin, giving strange little
whistles of awe. Osa was used to such attentions from savages and took
them as a matter of course.
In spite of their grotesque appearance, there was little that was
terrifying about our new acquaintances. They seemed not at all warlike.
Only two of the five carried weapons, the one a bow and arrow, the other
a club. I was interested to observe that the old man, who apparently was
a chief, wore the Big Numbers costume—a great clout of pandanus
fiber—while the others were still more lightly clothed according to the
style in vogue among the Small Numbers. I tried to find out the reason
for the variation. But Nella was not interested in my questions.
Finally, I realized that there was no use in trying to get information
in a hurry. Time means nothing to savages. We examined the banian from
which our visitors had come. Like the tree we had seen on the previous
day, it had a hole in the center, in which hung a ladder for hasty
exits. Empty baskets, hung from the branches, showed that the place was
much frequented.
After a while about twenty natives came along the trail. They joined the
five natives already with us, and the examination of us and our
belongings began all over. Osa went among the newcomers with her kodak,
taking snapshots, and I set up my moving-picture camera on a tripod,
selected a place where the light was good, and tried to get the savages
in front of my lens. They would not move; so I pointed my camera at them
and began to turn the crank. Like lightning, they sprang to their feet
and ran to the banian. They scampered up the tendrils like monkeys, and
by the time I could follow them with the camera, I could see only their
bright eyes here and there peering from the crevices.
Through Nella we coaxed them back, and down they came, as quickly as
they had gone up, while I ground out one of the best pictures I ever
got. Osa at once dubbed them the “monkey people.” And indeed they were
nearer monkeys than men. They had enormous flat feet, with the great toe
separated from the other toes and turned in. They could grasp a branch
with their feet as easily as I could with my hands. For speed and
sureness and grace in climbing, they outdid any other men I had ever
seen.
When luncheon-time came, we spread out our meal of cold broiled
wood-pigeon, tinned asparagus, and sea-biscuit and began to eat. After
watching us for a few moments, two or three savages went and fetched
some small almond-like nuts, which they shared with their companions.
They seemed more like monkeys than ever as they squatted there, busily
cracking the nuts with stones and picking out the meats with their
skinny fingers.
By dint of many presents, I won the confidence of the chief and, before
the afternoon was over, I was calling him by his first and only name,
which was, as near as I can spell it phonetically, Wo-bang-an-ar. He was
a strange crony. He was covered with layer after layer of dirt. No one
who has not been among savage tribes can image a human being so filthy.
His hair had never been combed or cut; it was matted with dirt and
grease. His eyes were protruding and bloodshot and they were never
still. His glance darted from one to another of us and back again. But,
like Nagapate, he proved to be a real chief, and his people jumped
whenever he gave a command. He ordered them to do whatever I asked, and
I made pictures all the afternoon.
[Illustration: WO-BANG-AN-AR]
That night we slept in the banian, and next day Nella led us through the
jungle to a clearing some five miles distant. There we found about a
hundred men, women, and children. All of them, save Wo-bang-an-ar, who
had his food supplied to him by his subjects, looked thin and drawn.
Some of the men wore the Big Numbers costume, some that of the Small
Numbers. The women wore the usual Small Numbers dress of a few leaves. A
few men carried old rifles, but they had only about half a dozen
cartridges among them; a few others had bows and arrows or clubs, but
the majority were unarmed. This seemed strange, in the light of our
experience among the tribes of northern Malekula, but even stranger was
the fact that these people had no houses or huts—no dwellings of any
kind. They lived in the banians. Sometimes they put a few leaves over
the protruding roots as a shelter from rain. Occasionally, they built
against the great central trunk of the tree a rough lean-to of sticks
and leaves. Beyond that they made no attempt at constructing houses.
During the three days we spent among them, I picked up fragments of
their history, which runs somewhat as follows:
Years ago, before the white men came to Malekula, there were many more
people on the island than there are to-day. In the north and in the
south there were great tribes, who were fierce and warlike. They fell
upon the people who dwelt in the isthmus, and destroyed their villages.
Again and again this happened. The tribes that lived in the isthmus grew
smaller and smaller. Their men were killed and their women were carried
off. Finally the few that were left no longer dared to build villages;
for a village served merely to advertise their whereabouts to their
enemies. They became nomads, living in trees. They even ceased the
cultivation of gardens and depended for their food on wild fruits and
nuts, the roots of trees, and an occasional bit of fish. Their number
was augmented from time to time by refugees from the Big Numbers tribes
on the north and from the Small Numbers on the south—a fact that
explained the variation in dress we had noticed. They were unarmed,
because their best means of defense was flight. They could not stand
against their warlike neighbors, but they could elude them by climbing
trees and losing themselves in the dark, impenetrable jungles.