CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
A Traveller’s Difficulties—Islands of which Science has no ken—Bush-Walking a Tedious Process—Ascent of Stream-Courses—Heavy Annual Rainfall—Native Companions—Mysterious Influence of the Fragrant Weed—Odd-looking Party of Geologists—A Night on the Summit of Treasury Island—Experiences in a Rob Roy Canoe—Narrow Escape from Drowning—Nature of the Work performed by the Officers of Survey—An Apparent Injustice[pp. 1-12]
CHAPTER II.
GOVERNMENT—HEAD-HUNTING—SLAVERY—CANNIBALISM.
Hereditary Chieftainship—St. Christoval—Coast Tribes and Bush Tribes—Their unceasing Hostility—Head-Hunting and Head-Money—Greater Power of the Chiefs of Bougainville Straits—Gorai, the Shortland Chief—How the Treasury Islanders became our Friends—Fauro and its Chief—Choiseul Bay—In the calmest Seas there are occasional Storms—A Tragedy, in several Acts—Hostilities between Alu and Treasury—Væ Feminis!—Tambu Ban—Slavery, an easy Servitude if it were not for one grave Contingency—A Purveyor of Human Flesh—Cannibalism—A Béa—Fattening for the Market[pp. 13-40]
CHAPTER III.
THE FEMALE SEX—POLYGAMY—MODES OF BURIAL, &c.
Position of the Female Sex—Infanticide—The Women are the Cultivators—A Plea for Polygamy—Marital Establishments—Kaika, the principal Wife of the Shortland Chief—Her Death—The Obsequies—Modes of Burial—Superstitious Beliefs—Sorcerers—Method of Recording Time—The Pleiades[pp. 41-56]
CHAPTER IV.
DWELLINGS—TAMBU-HOUSES—WEAPONS—TOOLS.
Villages—Houses—Pile-Dwellings—Mat-Making—Domestic Utensils—Pottery Manufacture—Modes of Producing Fire—Torches—Tambu-Houses—Deification of the Shark—Weapons—Polished Stone Implements—Ancient Worked Flints—Whence did they come?—Who were the Artificers? [pp. 57-80]
CULTIVATION—FOOD, &C.
Cultivation—Sago Palm—Diet essentially Vegetarian—Common Vegetables and Fruits—Modes of Cooking—Articles of Animal Food—Modes of Cooking—Tobacco Smoking—Betel Chewing[pp. 81-97]
CHAPTER VI.
THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS AND RACE-AFFINITIES OF THESE ISLANDERS.
Race Affinities—Migrations of the Pacific Islanders—Evidence derived from the Native Names of Littoral Trees—A Typical Solomon Islander—Variations in the Type—Physical Measurements—Height—Weight—Limbs—Skull—Features—Hair—Colour of Skin—Powers of Vision—Colour-sense—Gestures and Expressions of the Emotions—Disposition—The Estimation of Dumont D’Urville—My Own[pp. 98-129]
CHAPTER VII.
DRESS—TATTOOING—SONGS, &C.
Dress—Personal Ornaments—Fondness for Decorating Themselves with Flowers—Tattooing—Head Coverings—Ornamentation—Songs—Musical Instruments—Dances—Boys’ Games[pp. 130-145]
CHAPTER VIII.
CANOES—FISHING—HUNTING.
Canoes—Paddles and Paddling—Fishing—Kite Fishing—Fish-Spear—Nets—Hooks—Snares—Dynamite—Pig Hunting—Wild Dogs—Opossums—Path-Finding[pp. 146-162]
CHAPTER IX.
PREVALENT DISEASES.
Medicine-Men—Indifference to the Sick—Great Recuperative Powers after Severe Injuries—The Hot-Stone Treatment—Nostalgic Melancholy—Ulcers—Solomon Island or Tokelau Ringworm—Very Widely-spread and very Prevalent in the Western Pacific—Has spread Eastward from the Indian Archipelago—Pustular Eruptive Disease of Children—Epidemics of Influenza and Mumps—Elephantiasis—Congenital Deformities—Venereal Diseases—Susceptibility to Small Falls of Temperature—Mental Diseases rare[pp. 163-179]
CHAPTER X.
A VOCABULARY OF BOUGAINVILLE STRAITS.
Vocabulary of Bougainville Straits—Divisions of the Solomon Island Languages—Affinities of the Vocabulary—Important Clues afforded [xv]by the Comparison of the Native Names of Common Littoral Trees in the Indian Archipelago and in the Pacific Islands—Other similar comparisons—Imitative Words[pp. 180-191]
CHAPTER XI.
THE JOURNAL OF GALLEGO.
Prefatory Remarks—The Journal—Prologue—Voyage from Peru—Its Length—Crew disheartened—Isle of Jesus—Candelaria Shoals—Arrival at Estrella Harbour—Exploring Cruise of the Brigantine—Florida, Sesarga, Guadalcanar—Ships proceed to Guadalcanar—Second Cruise of the Brigantine—Malaita, Ulaua, Ugi, St. Christoval—Massacre of the Spaniards at Puerto de la Cruz—Ships proceed to St. Christoval—Capture of a Town—Third Cruise of the Brigantine—Conflict at Santa Anna—The Islands aroused—Council of the Captains and Pilots—Decide to return to Peru—Heading Northward—Reflections on the Discoveries and on the Conduct of the Spaniards—In the vicinity of the Gilbert Group—San Bartolomeo identified with the Musquillo Islands—San Francisco I. identified with Wake’s I.—Perilous Voyage—Ships separated—Storms and Squalls—Provisions failing—The Gambler’s Ration—Sickness—Despair—“We resolved to Trust that God Would Send us Aid”—“He provided for us in His Great Mercy”—Old California—The Ships meet at Santiago—Mexican Coast—A strange Scotch People—Peru[pp. 192-245]
CHAPTER XII.
THE STORY OF A LOST ARCHIPELAGO.
A Pious Fraud—Drake’s appearance in the South Sea—Jealousy of the Spaniards—“It being considered better, as things were then, to let these Islands remain unknown”—“Omne ignotum pro magnifico” Mendana’s Expedition to form a Colony in St. Christoval—An unsolved Mystery of the Sea—A Colony formed at Santa Cruz—Mutiny and Disaster—Abandonment—Unsuccessful Attempt to find the Solomon Islands—“All her sails set, and All her People Dead and Rotten”—Quiros leads another Expedition from Peru to reach these Islands—They elude his Search—Jealous Attitude of the Spaniards towards other Nations—Suppression and Destruction of Journals and Documents—Confusion of Geographers—The Existence of the Solomon Islands treated as a Romance—Fabulous Accounts—After Two Centuries—Carteret—Bougainville—Surville—Maurelle—Shortland—French and English Geographers—Dentrecasteaux—Jacobs—D’Urville—Boyd—Denham—Melanesian Mission[pp. 246-271]
GEOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX.
Gallego and Figueroa compared—Isle of Jesus—Candelaria Shoals—Gallego’s Latitudes—Isle of Ramos—Islands between Cape Prieto and Guadalcanar—Islands of San Bartolomeo and San Francisco—List of Islands obtained by Quiros at Taumaco—Eddystone Rock, &c. [pp. 272-279]
BOTANICAL NOTES IN BOUGAINVILLE STRAITS.
Knowledge of Plants possessed by these Islanders—Ascent of a Stream-Course—Interior of the Forest—Up to the Summit of Faro Island—Littoral Vegetation—-How a Coral Island is stocked with Trees—List of Plants—Flotation of Fruits—Weeds and Rubbish-Plants—Tuber regium[pp. 280-307]
CHAPTER XIV.
REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS.
Unexpected Discoveries—List of Reptiles—Crocodiles—Lizards—Snakes—Batrachians—A New Family—A region of great promise to future collectors[pp. 308-318]
CHAPTER XV.
GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY NOTES.
Robber-Crab—Nut-cracking-Gizzard of the Nicobar Pigeon—Megapods—Edible Birds’ Nest—Scorpions—Millipedes—Hermit-Crabs—Scypho-Medusæ—Legends of Anthropoid Apes—New Cetacean[pp. 319-335]
CHAPTER XVI.
LAND AND FRESHWATER SHELLS.
Several New Species—Variation of Species—Bulimi—Neritinæ—Mode of Dispersal—Suggestion as to the Origin of Tree-Nerites—The capability of Neritinæ to adapt themselves to different climates—List of my Collection of Shells—Description of New Species—Littorina scabra[pp. 336-351]
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CLIMATE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.
Rainfall—The Black Squall—Rain Records of Ugi and Santa Anna—Ship Record—Annual Rainfall of the Coasts and Higher Regions—Barometric Pressure—Temperature—Humidity—Sun-burns—Winds—Table of Meteorological Observations—Wind Record—The Effects of the Climate on the Weight of the Body[pp. 352-370]
INDEX[371]
THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Those who have never been tempted “to seek strange truths in undiscovered lands,” will perhaps find it difficult to appreciate the disappointments, inconveniences, and petty difficulties which beset the traveller, however favourably circumstanced he may be. Patience and perseverance enable him finally to disregard these lesser hindrances and to devote his undisturbed attention to the principal objects he has in view: and thus, when writing at some future time the narrative of his experiences, he gives but little prominence to matters which affected very materially at the moment both his personal comfort and his chances of success.
Amongst the Solomon Islands the student of nature may be compared to a man who, having found a mine of great wealth, is only allowed to carry away just so much of the precious ore as he can bear about his person. For there can be no region of the world where he experiences more tantalisation. Day after day he skirts the shores of islands of which science has no “ken.” Month after month, he may scan, as I have done, lofty mountain-masses never yet explored, whose peaks rise through the clouds to heights of from 7,000 to 10,000 feet above the sea. He may discern on the mountain-slopes the columns of blue smoke which mark the abodes of men who have never beheld the white man. But he cannot land except accompanied by a strong party; and he has therefore to be content usually with viewing such scenes from the deck of his vessel. Fortunately, however, there are some parts of the Solomon Group where the hostility of the natives has been to a great extent overcome by the influence of the missionaries and of the traders; but the interiors of the larger islands are almost without exception inhabited by fierce and treacherous tribes who forbid all approach.
In this chapter I have endeavoured to give some idea of my experiences during my rambles in different islands of the group. When geologising in these islands, one labours under the very serious disadvantage of being unable to get any view or form any idea of the surroundings, on account of the dense forest-growth clothing both the slopes and summits of the hills, which is often impassable except by the rude native tracks that are completely hemmed in by trees on either side. Bush walking, where there is no native track, is a very tedious process and requires the constant use of the compass. In districts of coral limestone, such traverses are equally trying to the soles of one’s boots and to the measure of one’s temper. After being provokingly entangled in a thicket for some minutes, the persevering traveller walks briskly along through a comparatively clear space, when a creeper suddenly trips up his feet and over he goes to the ground. Picking himself up, he no sooner starts again when he finds his face in the middle of a strong web which some huge-bodied spider has been laboriously constructing. However, clearing away the web from his features, he struggles along until coming to the fallen trunk of some giant of the forest which obstructs his path, he with all confidence plants his foot firmly on it and sinks knee-deep into rotten wood. With resignation he lifts his foot out of the mess and proceeds on his way, when he feels an uncomfortable sensation inside his helmet, in which, on leisurely removing it from his head, he finds his old friend the spider, with body as big as a filbert, quite at its ease. Shaking it out in a hurry, he hastens along with his composure of mind somewhat ruffled. Going down a steep slope, he clasps a stout-looking areca palm to prevent himself falling, when down comes the rotten palm, and the long-suffering traveller finds himself once more on the ground. To these inconveniences must be added the peculiarly oppressive heat of a tropical forest, the continual perspiration in which the skin is bathed, and the frequent difficulty of getting water. There are therefore many drawbacks to the enjoyment of such excursions undertaken without an aim. But let there be some object to be gained, and it is astonishing how small a success amply repays the naturalist for all the toil. As an example of the tedious nature of bush walking in these regions, I may state that crossing the small island of Santa Anna from south to north—a distance of 21⁄2 miles—occupied on one occasion five hours. For nearly the whole distance my path lay either through a dense forest-growth which had never been cleared since this little island first rose as a coral-atoll above the waves, or amongst tangled undergrowth which often succeeded effectually in barring the way. Rarely could I obtain a glimpse of my surroundings, and in consequence it was on my pocket-compass that I entirely depended. Coral-rock honeycombed into sharp tearing edges covered the slopes, my way lying between the large masses of this rock that lay about in strange confusion, the smaller blocks swaying about under my weight as if eager to rid themselves of their unusual burden. At one place the coral-limestone over a space of about a hundred yards was perforated like a sieve by numerous holes two to three feet across and five to ten feet deep: but now and then a deep fissure appeared at the bottom of one of these cavities—leading Heaven knows where—in all probability the swallow-hole of some stream that once became engulphed in the solid rock. The spreading roots of trees, together with ferns and shrubs, often nearly concealed these man-traps from my view; and I found it necessary to clear the way for every step, a very tedious process at the close of a tiresome day’s excursion.
In many places that I visited, the ascent of the stream-courses afforded the only opportunity of learning anything of the geological structure on account of the thick forest and the depth of the soil on the hill-slopes. Only at times are the sun’s rays able to penetrate the dusky ravines through which the streams flow, being usually intercepted by the matted foliage overhead. Even in the hottest day, such a walk is pleasantly cool, since the necessity of wading waist-deep and sometimes of swimming is not unfrequent in the deeper parts of the stream. However, I found on more than one occasion, after having been wading for several hours along one of the streams in the cool damp air of the ravine, that I experienced a sudden sensation of chilliness accompanied by lassitude and nausea, the thermometer at the time registering 80° in the shade. Probably the depressing effects of the gloom and damp air of the ravine, and the wading for several hours under these conditions, may explain these symptoms.
I should have before referred to another very frequent inconvenience which, in more senses than one, dampened the ardour with which I set out on many of my excursions amongst these islands. The annual rainfall in these regions is probably about five times as much as the average annual rainfall in England. The showers themselves are usually very heavy, and often rain falls at the rate of an inch in the hour, which means a thorough wetting in less than a minute. When in the eastern part of the group, I rarely used to return on board without having had half-an-inch, or an inch, of rain distributed over my person. Such wettings, however, do but little harm as long as a flannel suit is worn, since the weather generally clears up after each shower and the powerful rays of the sun dry the clothes in a very few minutes without there being the necessity of stopping to take them off.
In spite of the numerous drawbacks, my excursions never lost their interest. Although accustomed to traverse districts which have been upheaved in recent times to elevations of several hundred feet above the sea, the finding of an ancient coral-reef high up a densely-wooded hill-slope, or the picking up of sand and recent sea shells in the interior of an island now supporting a luxuriant vegetation, always excited the same feelings of wonder and interest that I experienced on first landing on one of the recently upheaved islands of the Solomon Group. My thirst, fatigue, and bruises, were forgotten, as whilst contemplating my surroundings over a pipe I attempted to picture to myself the stages in the history of the island on which I was standing, and reflected on the unwritten past of the natives sitting smoking on the ground around me.
I was rarely unaccompanied in my excursions, since with the prospect of getting tobacco and pipes at the close of the day, natives were always found eager to accompany me. Frequently the boys and lads of the village were only too glad to assist me in carrying my bags. The young imps were always full of fun and frolic, making themselves useful in all kinds of ways, and enlivening the time by their singing, laughing, and continual chattering. Many were the speculations made concerning the nature of my pursuits, and many were the questions to which I had to give some reply. Gorai, the chief of the Shortland Islands, was very desirous to know what I made with the rocks I collected; but I found it somewhat difficult to give him an explanation which he could understand. On one occasion I was the cause of much amusement and perplexity to the natives of the village of Sinasoro in Bougainville Straits. Hitherto I had been known to them chiefly on account of my rock-breaking propensities, but during that particular visit I was making a collection of plants. The chief men of the village received me very civilly, made me sit down, and began at once to speculate on the nature of my new pursuit, the botanical line being a new object for wonder with them. “Patu, he finish?” (patu meaning stone) was the question put to me by more than one of their number; and on my telling them that I was going to turn my attention to “bulu-bulu”—their general name for plants they have no name for—I had to explain to further inquirers that a particular fern, named “sinimi” in the native tongue (a species of Gleichenia), which flourished on the higher slopes of their island, was one of the objects of my excursion.
My usual plan on arriving at a village, which I had never visited before, was to distribute a little tobacco amongst the curious throng that pressed around, and then to light my pipe and look pleasant whilst my guides were endeavouring to explain the character of my pursuits. A white man without tobacco in these islands is worse off than a man without any money in his purse in London: for very little is given for nothing by these natives, and the acceptance of a gift binds you to give an equivalent in return. I remember once when landing on the beach of a village where the natives seemed a little uncertain as to what kind of reception they should give me, what a rapid transformation was produced by the gift of a little tobacco to the chief. Where there had been scowls and sullen looks a few moments before, smiles and laughter now prevailed. The chief led me into his house, introduced me to his principal wife, and in another minute I was dangling his little son of about two years old upon my knee. This pleasing transformation had been effected by the expenditure of a halfpennyworth of tobacco; and I could not resist framing at the time the following doggrel rhyme, the excuse for which must be the occasion that gave rise to it.
Shade of Exeter Hall! emerge from thy pall,
Learn the token of union ’twixt white man and black:
Not a brisk cannonade, nor the attractions of trade,
But the mysterious influence of the fragrant tambak.[4]
[4] This is the manner of pronouncing “tobacco” amongst these islanders. In the Malay Archipelago it is pronounced “tambaku.” (“Crawfurd’s Malay Grammar and Dictionary.”)
Although I was rarely absent from the ship more than a couple of days at a time, my excursions had occasionally, as regards the number of my attendants, somewhat of an imposing appearance. Being anxious to visit a district named Komalia, on the north-west side of Alu, the principal of the Shortland Islands, that being the locality from which the natives obtained their slabs of a hard, crystalline diorite, upon which they used to sharpen their knives and axes, Gorai, the chief, volunteered to take me there. Accordingly, he appeared alongside the ship the next morning in a large war-canoe, fifty feet long, and manned by eighteen paddle-men. We started, twenty-four all told, including Gorai, three of his sons, and myself. The chief and I sat beside each other, on the second bow thwart, the post, I believe, which is usually occupied by a chief. Leaving the Onua anchorage shortly before ten A.M., we proceeded easily along at about three miles an hour, coasting the north side of Alu and passing numerous islets on the way. The day was fine but very hot, and there was no protection from the glare of the sun on the water. About half-past one, we reached the north-west point of Alu, where we put into a small cove to get water. Here we saw the tracks of a crocodile on the sand; and on proceeding on our way we saw another on the beach, which, however, soon dived into the sea. Shortly after this, two-thirds of the crew of the canoe jumped overboard after a small turtle, which managed to evade them. The men in the water disturbed another crocodile, which rushed boldly through the line of swimmers, and, diving under our canoe, soon disappeared. Three dugongs came up to the surface close to us; and the old chief fired a shot with his snider at one of them, but without much apparent effect. About half-past two, we reached our destination, and we at once proceeded in search of the volcanic rocks, which we soon succeeded in finding. There was not the slightest reason to question on what errand we were employed, and I doubt if there was ever a more odd-looking party of geologists. The old chief, distinguished from the rest of his men by a shirt, his only article of apparel, led the way; and I followed with about a dozen of his natives. Taking the cue from me, the whole party immediately began breaking up the rocks, and I was in a very short time supplied with an abundance of material to select from. Courtesy, however, compelled me to take all the chief brought to me, which was somewhat inconvenient since the old man displayed much energy in using my geological hammer. On returning to the beach where the canoe had been drawn up, we found that some of the natives had captured a wild boar by the aid of their dogs and spears. The animal was already disembowelled and was being quartered. Whilst we were preparing our evening meal, some of the men made temporary couches for the chief, his three sons, and myself, these couches being merely a layer of poles resting at their ends on two logs and raised about six inches above the ground, the materials being quickly obtained in the adjoining wood. As night fell, we lay down on our couches and smoked, whilst the natives, who had lit about half-a-dozen fires, were waiting for their roast pig, the quarters of which had been placed on a large pile of burning logs, built up in layers to a height of three feet, with three poles placed like a tripod over the pile to draw the fire up. When it was quite dark, the numerous fires lit up the wood around, whilst the natives made the place resound with their singing and laughter. Over our pipes, Gorai and I had some conversation on his ideas of a future state, which he summed up concisely in the phrase “go ground.” In the middle of the night heavy rain came on; and since there was no shelter, I had simply to lie still and let it come down. My companions, however, used their pandanus mats to cover themselves from head to foot, and did not appear to be, in the slightest degree, inconvenienced by the wet.
On another occasion, I spent a night on the summit of Treasury Island, in the company of four natives, one of whom, named Erosini, knew a little English. Leaving the anchorage in the early morning, a three hours’ tramp brought us to the large stream named Tella-tella, on the north-east side of the island. Another four hours were occupied in wading up the stream, when we commenced to ascend the hill-slopes, arriving at the summit late in the afternoon. From here we could see, at a distance of about sixty miles, the lofty peaks of Bougainville, and midway between us lay the white beaches of the Shortland Islands. As it was getting dusk, we began to look around for what Erosini had described to me as a house where we might pass the night. It turned out, however, to be a very dilapidated “lean-to,” which had been temporarily occupied by a native who had come up to look after his sago palms a year or more before. My men immediately set to work to make it habitable for the night, and then they began to prepare their evening meal, consisting of a two-pound tin of beef, three opossums, and a large fresh-water eel which had been captured during the day. With the night-fall, the concert of frogs, lizards, and insects began. One could readily distinguish amongst the notes of the various contributors in the evening chorus, the “kooroo” of the lizard, and the “appa-appa” of the frog, sounds from which the native names for these creatures are derived, viz., “kurru-rupu” and “appa-appa.” Numerous fire-flies lit up the recesses of the forest, as if to disclose the hiding-places of the performers in the general discord, but to no purpose; and soon, rather fatigued by our day’s exertions, we fell asleep. So little had my companions been used to wander over their island, that I found three out of the four had never been in that locality before.
Not unfrequently, after having carefully chosen my guides, I have found it necessary to lead instead of to follow; but as a rule my men have been very willing to trust to the directions of the compass, which I have found absolutely necessary in crossing the smaller islands with no track to guide the course. Some of my pleasantest memories are associated with my traverses across these smaller islands. After forcing my way during some hours through a tangled forest, irritated by the numerous obstructions in my course and sweltering under the oppressive heat, I have suddenly emerged from the trees on the weather coast of the island, where the invigorating blast of the trade in a few moments restores the equilibrium of mind and body as one drinks in the healthful breeze. After such an experience, I have found myself with my native companions standing on the brink of a bold line of coral-limestone cliff with the surf breaking below us, which even in the calmest weather sends up one continued roar, whilst away to seaward, across the blue expanse of water, extended the horizon unbroken by any distant land. On the edge of the cliff the pandanus and the cycad competed with each other for the possession of the seaward margin of the island. The scene was peculiarly Pacific; and as we sat alone on the brink of the cliffs enjoying a smoke and contemplating the scene spread out below us, I fancied even the minds of my natives shared with me that feeling of awe with which one views the grander of nature’s forces in actual operation. . . . . Equally pleasant are my recollections of numerous tramps during fine weather along the sandy beaches on the windward coasts of coral islands. On such occasions the sea itself seemed to revel in the glory of the day. Wave after wave, white-tipped with foam and reflecting the brightest of the sun’s rays, pursued each other merrily over the surface of its unfathomable blue. Against the edge of the reef broke the surf unceasingly, sending its whitened spray high into the air, and joining its hoarse bass with the hum of insect life from the neighbouring wood.
During the greater portion of our sojourn in the Solomon Islands, I had a small Rob Roy canoe made for me by Mr. Oliver, boat-builder of Auckland, N.Z. It was built of kauri pine, and measured 81⁄2 feet in length and 3 feet in beam, being intended to combine compactness with stability. This little craft turned out a great success and was extremely handy, as I could haul it up on the beach with ease, and its stowage capability was something surprising. Numerous and varied were my experiences in this small canoe, but the most enjoyable were those when in the loveliest of weather I paddled gently along from one coral islet to another, admiring the variety in form and colour of the groves of coral over which my little craft smoothly glided. At other times in the sleepy hours of the afternoon I would tie up my canoe to the overhanging branch of a tree, and would land to enjoy a cocoa-nut, a pipe, and perhaps a nap. When lazy, I would get a tow from my native companions in their larger canoe; and in this manner I was towed for more than a mile up one of the large streams that empty into Choiseul Bay. I used to penetrate into all kinds of solitary inlets, now disturbing the siesta of some unsuspecting crocodile as I paddled through the dismal tract of the mangrove swamp, or surprising a turtle in the shallow water of the lagoons inside the coral-reefs. In the deeper water I have passed through a shoal of clumsy porpoises, some of which I could have touched with my paddle; whilst occasionally some huge shark, twice the length of my canoe, would come almost within reach, and then, after satisfying its curiosity, dive down into the depths again. Now and then my little craft would be borne on the shoulders of natives to some inland lakelet which I was anxious to explore. In its lightness I found this great advantage, that I could sometimes considerably shorten my journey by what I may describe as terrestrial navigation. On more than one occasion I have crossed the weather edge of a coral-reef, watching for my chance between the breakers, and keeping warily clear of the numerous coral nobs, any one of which would have upset the canoe and its contents; but these are experiments which I should not care to repeat. I was only twice upset, and on both occasions my canoe displayed two other serviceable qualities, shipping but little water and losing none of its contents although bottom upwards. One of these upsets was rather ludicrous. I was crossing Alu harbour in tow of a large native canoe, setting out on a two days’ excursion with all my stores on board, when my scientific zeal induced me to lean over to pick up a piece of floating pumice. At that moment the large canoe gave a sudden tug and I found myself in the water with my canoe bottom upwards beside me. The men in the other canoe turned her over on her keel, and I got in over the bow, finding very little water inside, but quite sufficient to soak our store of biscuit. However, nothing was lost, although my watch stopped half-an-hour afterwards and refused duty during the rest of the season, and my aneroid was never of any use again, both these articles having been carried in my belt.
On the weather coasts of cliff-girt islands exposed to the continuous trade-swell, much caution is needed in skirting the shore, as every ten minutes or more a huge roller suddenly rushes in, exposing rocks covered usually by three or four fathoms of water, and rising up the face of the cliffs to a height twice as high as the usual level reached by the breakers. From my foolhardy disregard of this circumstance, I very nearly lost my life in July, 1884, on the weather coast of Stirling Island. Having stood for some moments on the edge of the cliff admiring the magnificent breakers that broke at the foot, there having been a strong south-easterly gale during the two preceding days, I commenced to clamber down the face of the cliff to reach a ledge that rose about twenty feet above the usual level of the breakers. Whilst I was pausing in the descent to examine the numerous embedded corals in the cliff-face, a huge wave rose over the ledge, swept up the face of the cliff over my head, and carried me off as if I had been a feather. I thought my last moments had come, knowing that if swept off the ledge into the breakers below, I should be dashed by the next roller against the base of the cliff. As I was being carried off, I clutched a projecting point of coral-rock with all my energy, and in a few moments the wave had left me lying flat on my face on the ledge within two yards of its brink. The next roller was fortunately of much smaller size, and in less than a minute I had clambered up the face of the cliff again to a position of safety, pretty well bruised and scratched about the arms and legs, but otherwise none the worse. My compass and other things had fallen out of the pouches in my belt, showing that I had described a somersault during the immersion. Whilst waiting to dry my clothes in the sun, I noticed that another ten minutes elapsed before a breaker of similar size rolled in.
I will conclude this chapter with some observations on the nature of the work performed by the officers of the survey. The usual experiences of a nautical surveyor, when detached from his ship for periods varying from a few days to a fortnight or more, are little known outside the circle of those more immediately interested in the work of the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty. They would afford, as I have often thought, materials for an interesting volume, the perusal of which would give the general reader some idea of what nautical surveying really is. It is a work often hazardous and tedious to those engaged in the boats, and frequently full of anxiety for the commander who has to direct the survey.
The work in the Solomon Islands had its peculiar, and none the less trying, features. To be detached in a boat for a week off a coast, on which it was not considered prudent to land, except on particular points selected for the establishment of theodolite-stations, was a not uncommon experience with the surveying parties. The alternation of heavy rain and scorching heat served to vary the experience, but not to increase the comfort of those employed from sunrise to sunset in mapping the intricacies of an unsurveyed coast; and the kindheartedness of the surveying officer was often sorely tried, when, after a tedious day’s work under these conditions, he had to tell off his men to keep a look-out for canoes, and a sharp eye on the land, to see that the boat did not drag. There were, of course, other occasions when the detached parties were engaged in surveying islands, the natives of which were friendly disposed; and then, if the weather favoured them, the week’s absence from the ship partook almost of the nature of a pleasant picnic. In the Solomon Islands, however, a considerable experience of the inhabitants of an island is required before a boat can be sent away with the certain assurance that its occupants will meet with no mishap. The unfortunate massacre of Lieutenant Bower of H.M.S. “Sandfly,” and of most of his boat’s crew in 1880, whilst employed in the survey of the Florida Islands in this group, is but an example of the uncertainty that there always will be in dealing with these races. Although similar disasters have been recently almost of monthly occurrence in these islands, during our intercourse of 21 months with the natives we did not fire a single shot in anger, and in our turn we never witnessed a spear hurled or an arrow discharged except in sport.
The navigation of a sailing ship, such as H.M.S. “Lark,” whilst engaged in the survey of a passage dotted with unknown, sunken coral-reefs, and skirted by islands inhabited by a race of savages who have obtained a notorious reputation on account of the ferocity they display to the white man, cannot but tax to the uttermost the capacity and nerve of the officer in command. I can recall more than one anxious moment, and probably there were others known only to those concerned in the navigation of the ship, when on our suddenly getting soundings in the middle of the night in a place where we expected to find “a hundred fathoms and no bottom,” I set about putting my journals together in order not to lose what I had been at so much pains to obtain. Towards the completion of the survey, however, it was ascertained by Lieutenant Oldham that the ship might have sailed without danger over any of the isolated reefs which were not indicated at the surface by either a sand-key or an islet; but this was a character of the reefs that was only ascertained by a process more pleasing to talk about than to undergo.
Before quitting this subject, I should refer to an apparent injustice which exists in the apportioning of no extra pay to the men employed in detached boat-work in the surveying service. With the exception of an issue of clothing, gratis, the boats’ crews receive little or nothing in the form of a reward. I am strongly inclined to believe that the recognition, even in a slight degree, of the arduous character of their work, which is of quite an exceptional character as compared with the routine-employment on board the ordinary man-of-war, would do much towards increasing the interest usually displayed by the men employed in such a service.
CHAPTER II.
GOVERNMENT—HEAD-HUNTING—SLAVERY—CANNIBALISM.
The following anthropological notes are the result of my own personal observation and research, and are necessarily of a somewhat fragmentary character. I had no intention when I first visited these islands of making any special observations on the habits and manners of their inhabitants. When, however, I saw the apparent want of interest displayed by those who had it in their power to enrich the world with their accumulated experiences, I determined to jot down in my diary the things which came in my way during my intercourse with the natives. I cannot of course lay claim to the accuracy and more intimate knowledge such as missionaries and traders resident in the group must possess; and it is to be deplored that such valuable sources of materials for a comprehensive work on the anthropology of this region should be allowed to lie fallow. My lengthened intercourse with the natives of certain parts of the group removed to some extent the disadvantages under which the traveller must always labour when not actually resident among them. My field of observation, however, was limited to but a small area of the whole region: and the greater part has yet to be explored and described.
Commencing my remarks by referring to the system of government usually adopted in these islands, it should be observed that the form of hereditary chieftainship, which prevails throughout the Pacific, here predominates. Every island that supports a number of natives may possess as many distinct chiefs—each claiming independence of the others—as there are villages in the island; and this statement holds equally good whether applied to a large island like St. Christoval or to those of small size as Santa Anna and Ugi. Yet there is not unfrequently to be met a chief who, by the power of his wealth or by the number of his fighting men, assumes a degree of suzerainty over the less powerful chiefs in his vicinity. Thus, the influence of Gorai, the Shortland chief, is not only dominant over the islands of Bougainville Straits, but extends to the adjacent coast of the large islands of Bougainville and Choiseul, and reaches even to Bouka, more than a hundred miles away. The small island of Simbo or Eddystone, the Narovo of the natives, is under the sway of a powerful chief who resides, together with nearly all his fighting men, on an islet bordering its south-east side. His influence extends to the neighbouring larger islands, and is probably as despotic as that of any of the numerous chiefs with whom I was brought into contact. I might mention other instances in this group where a comparatively small island becomes the political centre of a large district. Similar instances are familiar amongst the other Pacific archipelagos, and notably in the case of Bau in Fiji; and they may all be attributed to the fact that the coast-tribes are of more robust physique and of more enterprising character than the inhabitants of the interior of the larger island, or “bush men” as they are often termed.
The large island of St. Christoval is divided amongst numerous tribes between which there are constant feuds, each tribe having its own chief. A wide distinction exists between the inhabitants of the interior and those of the coast; and an unceasing hostility prevails between the one and the other. The distinction often extends to language, a circumstance which points to a long continuation of these feuds; and from it we may infer that the isolation has continued during a considerable period. The bush-tribes find their best protection on the summits of the high hills and on the crests of the mountain-ridges which traverse the interior of the island. I passed one night in the bush-village of Lawa, which is situated on a hill-top about 1,400 feet above the sea near the north coast of St. Christoval. As I was in a locality where probably no white man had been before, the novelty of my situation kept me awake the greater part of the night; and very early the next morning I rose up from my mat in the tambu-house to view, undisturbed, the interior region of the island. It was a gloomy morning. Thin lines of mist were still encircling the loftier summits or lingering in the valleys below. Here and there on the crest of some distant hill a cluster of cocoa-nut palms marked the home of a bush-tribe effectually isolated by deep intervening valleys from the neighbouring tribes. I gazed upon a region which had for ages worn the same aspect, inhabited by the same savage races, the signs of whose existence played such an insignificant part in the panorama laid out before me. Standing alone on this hill-top, I reflected on the deeds of barbarity which these silent mountains must have witnessed “in the days of other years,” deeds which are only too frequent in our own day when the hand of every tribe is against its neighbour, and when the butchery of some unsuspecting hamlet too often supplies the captors with the materials for the cannibal feast.
By the unusual success of their treachery and cunning—the two weapons most essential to savage warfare in St. Christoval as well as in the other islands—some chiefs have acquired a predominance over the neighbouring villages, and their name inspires terror throughout the island. Amongst them, I may mention Taki, the chief of the large village of Wano on the north coast of this island. He has obtained the double reputation of being a friend to the white man and of being the most accomplished head-hunter in St. Christoval; and, as may be readily imagined, the efforts of the Melanesian Mission, by whom a station has been for many years established in this village,[5] have been greatly retarded by the indifference of this powerful chief. The resident teacher in the village was his own son, who had been selected by Bishop Selwyn and had undergone the usual training of teachers in Norfolk Island. I regret to write that he greatly lapsed during our stay in the group, that he appears to have accompanied his father on a head-hunting foray, and that he finally met with an untimely fate, being so severely wounded by a shark when fishing on the reef that he died a few hours afterwards. Taki, although not a Christian convert, was fond of displaying his connection with the Mission. He showed me a certificate which he received from Bishop Patteson in July, 1866; and in fact he is always ready to do the honours of his village to the white man. Of his head-hunting propensities, Captain Macdonald, an American trader resident in Santa Anna, told us the following tale: Not long before the arrival of H.M.S. “Lark” in the Solomon Islands, he was sailing along the St. Christoval coast, when he met Taki in his war-canoe proceeding on one of these expeditions. He endeavoured to place hindrances in the chief’s way by telling him that he had native-traders living at the different places on the coast where he intended to land. But it was to no purpose. Taki saw the ruse, and taking it in good part remarked to Captain Macdonald that he had apparently a large number of natives trading for him. Waiting patiently until some unfortunate bushmen ventured down on the reefs to fish, the Wano chief surprised them, slaughtered many and carried the living and the dead in triumph to his village. When Mr. Brenchley visited this village in H.M.S. “Curacoa” in 1865, he saw evidence of a head-hunting foray, in which probably Taki had taken part in his youthful days. The skulls of 25 bushmen were observed hanging up under the roof of the tambu-house, all showing the marks of the tomahawk.[6] In our time, this chief conducted his forays less openly, and I saw no evidence of his work in the tambu-houses of his village.
[5] The Rev. J. Atkin was resident at Wano in 1871, shortly before he met his death with Bishop Patteson in Santa Cruz.
[6] “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curacoa’” (p. 267); by J. L. Brenchley, M.A.
The practice of head-hunting, above referred to, prevails over a large extent of the Solomon Group. The chiefs of New Georgia or Rubiana extend their raids to Isabel, Florida, and Guadalcanar; and thus perform voyages over a hundred miles in length. Within the radius of these raids no native can be said to enjoy the security of his own existence for a single day. In the villages of Rubiana may be seen heaps of skulls testifying to the success of previous expeditions. Captain Cheyne, when visiting Simbo or Eddystone Island in 1844, found that the natives had just returned from a successful expedition, bringing with them 93 heads of men, women, and children. In these expeditions, he says, they sometimes reached as far as Murray Island which lies about 135 miles to the eastward.[7] Their reputation, however, had extended yet further, since D’Urville, who visited Thousand Ships Bay in 1838, tells us that the Isabel natives knew the land of Simbo and pointed to the west to indicate its direction.[8] The Rev. Dr. Codrington, in referring to these head-hunting raids,[9] remarks that the people of the south-west part of Isabel have suffered very much from attacks made on them year after year by the inhabitants of the further coast of the same island and of neighbouring islands, the object of these attacks being to obtain heads, either for the honour of a dead or living chief or for the inauguration of new canoes. He observes that a new war canoe is not invested with due mana, i.e., supernatural power, until some man has been killed by those on board her; and any unfortunate voyagers are hunted down for the purpose on the first trip or afterwards. The Rubiana natives are said to have introduced head-hunting and human sacrifices into the neighbouring islands. They carry off not only heads but living prisoners, whom they are believed to keep, till on the death of a chief, or launching of a canoe, or some great sacrifice, their lives are taken.
[7] “A Description of Islands in the Western Pacific Ocean” (p. 66), by Andrew Cheyne, London, 1852.
[8] “Voyage au Pole Sud,” Paris, 1843; tom. v., p. 31.
[9] Journal of Anthropological Institute, vol. x., p. 261.
White men have sometimes been the victims of these head-hunting expeditions. As is well known, Lieutenant Bower, of H.M.S. “Sandfly,” met his death, together with the greater number of his boat’s crew, on the islet of Mandoleana, in 1880, at the hands of a similar expedition undertaken by the Florida natives. Kalikona, the most influential chief of the Florida Islands, was freed from implication in this tragedy mainly through the efforts of Bishop Selwyn, to whose influence the subsequent surrender of the five natives concerned in the raid was chiefly due. More often than not, these head-hunting forays are unconnected with cannibalism, the mere possession of skulls being the principal object of the expedition. In some islands, there is a rude idea of justice perceptible in this practice. It is the custom in the eastern islands of the group to place out head-money for the head of any man who may have rendered himself obnoxious to any particular village. The money—a considerable amount of native shell-money—may be offered by the friends of a murdered man for the head of the murderer. Months, sometimes years, may elapse before the deed is accomplished and the money paid. The task is generally undertaken by a professional head-hunter, such as we met in the person of Mai, the second chief of the village of Sapuna, in the island of Santa Anna. To make a thorough examination of the home and surroundings of his victim, and to insinuate himself into that intimacy which friendship alone can give him, are necessary initiatory steps which only the cunning head-hunter can know how to carry to a successful issue. Time is of no moment. The means employed are slow, but the end is none the less secure; and when the opportunity arrives, it is the friend of months, if not of years, who gives the fatal blow.
In the above description of the head-hunter, I have had before my mind some of the reminiscences of Captain Macdonald, to whom I have before alluded. By his judicious treatment of the natives in the eastern islands, he has acquired a powerful influence for good amongst them; and it is to his past discretion that many a white man, myself among the number, has owed his safety when landing on St. Christoval.
When this island was being surveyed by the officers of H.M.S. “Lark,” in 1882, we learned that there was head-money out for a white man’s head in a district on the north side and nearly opposite Ugi. It appeared that about a year before a fatal accident had occurred on board a trading-vessel through a revolver going off unexpectedly and killing a native belonging to the district. It was the current opinion of resident traders that sooner or later the required head would be obtained. As characteristic of a trader’s experience in these islands, I may add that on one occasion when visiting Mr. Bateman, a trader residing then on the north coast of Ugi, I was told by him that about a month before a friendly Malaita chief had arrived in a large canoe at Ugi with the information that head-money had been offered by another Malaita chief for the head of a white man. The chief who brought the news advised Mr. Bateman to remove his residence to the interior of the island; and the natives in his vicinity were very solicitous that the warning should be heeded.
I learned from Mr. Stephens, who has resided on Ugi for several years, that on one occasion when he was resident on Guadalcanar, on returning from an excursion up the bed of one of the streams, a message was received from the chief of a village in the interior warning him not to make any more similar excursions or he would take his life. The chief of the village, under whose protection Mr. Stephens was residing, took up the matter as an insult to himself; and sent a reply to the effect that if the neighbouring chief wished to remain on terms of amity with him, he should at once send a head in atonement for the threats directed against the white man. A day or two afterwards, Mr. Stephens saw the head, which had been duly sent.
The little island of Santa Anna, although but 21⁄2 miles in length, supports two principal villages, Otagara and Sapuna, which are as often as not at war with each other, although only separated by the breadth of the island. Such was the state of affairs during one of our visits to Port Mary in this island; and the fact that the natives of the two villages were connected by inter-marriages did not act as a deterrent in the matter. Through the restless spirit of Mai, the head-hunter before referred to, some old grievance had been dug up, the murder, I believe, some years before of the brother of Mai by the Otagara natives. The outcome of it was that in the middle of the night all the fighting men of Sapuna assembled at the tambu-house of Mai, and started off along the coast to pounce upon their fellow islanders on the other side. The utmost that could have happened would have been the slaughter of some unsuspecting man or woman on the skirts of the village: but, as it chanced, a thunderstorm with heavy rain overtook the party when near their destination; and this dampened their courage to such a degree that they returned to their own village with the excuse that the rain, by running down their faces, would have hindered them in throwing their spears and avoiding those of their opponents. On the following day, Mai led a party of Sapuna men to make another attack, and on returning in the afternoon from one of my excursions into the interior of the island, I learned that the party had returned triumphant, having killed one of their neighbour’s large pigs, an act which is regarded as a “casus belli” in native politics.
In the person of Mai, we have a typical example of a Solomon Island head-hunter. The cunning and ferocity which marked his dealings, were sufficiently indicated in his countenance and his mien. He had established for himself the position of war-chief in his village of Sapuna, the reigning chief being of a more peaceable disposition. During one of our visits to this island we found that this war-chief had been very recently displaying his heroism in the most approved native fashion. He had led a war-party across to Fanarite on the opposite coast of St. Christoval, to avenge the death of a fugitive from a labour vessel who, having escaped at Santa Anna, subsequently found his way to Fanarite where he was killed. The excuse, although somewhat circuitous, was quite sufficient for Mai, who in his disinterestedness thought more of this chance of gaining new laurels than of the untimely end of the native whose death he was so eager to avenge. Having reached the part of the coast where this man had been killed, the war-party lay in ambush and slaughtered a chief and two women as they were returning from their yam patches; whilst they severely wounded another woman who escaped into the bush with a spear through her back. Having dipped their weapons in the gore of their victims, Mai and his party returned to Santa Anna. I was sorry to learn that a native, named Pukka-pukka who had served in the “Lark” as an interpreter during the previous year, had taken an active part in this expedition. It appeared that the chief had aimed at him, but his musket missed fire, when Pukka-pukka shot him through the back with his snider. The scene of the tragedy was familiar to me, as I had landed there the year before. Pukka-pukka, who is a sensible young man and of by no means a bloodthirsty disposition, did not like my taking him to task for the part he took in this raid; and he protested more than once in a somewhat injured tone that his people did not fight without good cause. In his case, I felt confident that he was not tempted by the mere love of bloodshedding, the truth being that through the able tutorship of Mai, all old feuds are kept alive in the minds of the young men of the village, who, in their desire to distinguish themselves, come to regard such grievances as fair grounds for war. We soon learned that the Fanarite natives would seize the first opportunity to retaliate; and that head-money to a large amount had been offered for the head of a native of Santa Anna, and particularly for the head of Pukka-pukka.
The chiefs of the islands of Bougainville Straits possess far greater power over their peoples than that which is wielded by most of the chiefs we encountered at the St. Christoval end of the group. At Santa Anna and at Ugi, the position of the chief is almost an empty honour; and some man of spirit, though not of principle, such as Mai in the former island and Rora at Ugi, usurps by his fighting prowess a large share of the power. On the St. Christoval coast I met several such chiefs, who possess no influence beyond their own district, and often very little in that. Occasionally, as I have before observed, a chief is found who, like Taki at Wano, exercises a powerful influence over the less pretentious chiefs of neighbouring islands and districts. Some of the Guadalcanar chiefs are very powerful; but with them I had no personal intercourse; and I prefer to confine my remarks to those portions of the group with which I became acquainted. Returning, then, to the chiefs of the islands of Bougainville Straits, I may enumerate them in their order of importance—Gorai in the Shortland Islands, Mule at Treasury, Kurra-kurra and Tomimas in Faro or Fauro, and Krepas at Choiseul Bay. There is constant communication between the natives of these islands, more particularly between those of Treasury, the Shortlands, and Faro, the distances between the islands varying between 15 and 25 miles. Intermarriages are frequent between the natives of these islands. They all speak the same language; and not uncommonly a man shifts his home from one island to another. The chiefs are all connected either by blood-relationship or by marriage, and together form as powerful an alliance as might be found in the whole group. Visits of condolence are exchanged in times of bereavement between the chiefs; and presents are conveyed from one to another. On one occasion we carried a present of sago from Mule to Gorai; and I have on more than one occasion during our passages between these islands been made the bearer of a message from chief to chief.
1
2
1. Gorai, his principal Wife, and his Son Ferguson.
2. Four of the Wives of Mule.
[To face page 21.
Gorai, the well-known Alu chief, Alu being the name of his principal island, exercises a kind of suzerainty over the neighbouring chiefs. But his reputation and influence extend far beyond the islands directly or indirectly under his rule. From Treasury northward and eastward, throughout the Shortlands, across the straits to Choiseul Bay, through Faro, and along the coast of Bougainville, extending even to Bouka, his influence is predominant. Masters of vessels, recruiting labour on the coast of Bougainville, have a sufficient guarantee for the good behaviour of the natives of the places they visit, if they have been fortunate enough to secure the presence on board of one of the sons of Gorai. This chief has been the trusted friend of the white man for many years. On our first visit to Alu we were therefore prepared to think favourably of him. We found him on the beach, surrounded by a considerable number of his people. Shaking hands with us, he told us in his imperfect English that he was a friend of the white man. Rather beyond middle age, and somewhat shorter than the average native, he has an honest, good-humoured expression of countenance, which at once prepossessed us in his favour. Whilst seated in the dingy interior of one of his houses, surrounded by several of his wives, Gorai related to us the story—well known to all acquainted with the Solomon Group—of his reprisal a few years before on the natives of Nouma-nouma, a village on the east coast of Bougainville, for the murder of Captain Ferguson of the trading steamer “Ripple.” The master of the “Ripple” was an old friend of Gorai, and traded extensively with him. On hearing the news, the chief mustered his men and despatched them in canoes, under the command of his eldest son, to the scene of the massacre, about a hundred miles away. The natives of the offending village were surprised, and about twenty of them were killed, including men, women, and children—“all same man-of-war,” as Gorai too truthfully observed. One of the chief’s sons has received the name of the unfortunate master of the “Ripple;” and I may here refer to the good name which Captain Ferguson has left behind him, not only amongst the natives of the Solomon Islands, but also amongst his fellow-traders in those seas. The inhabitants of the Shortland Islands, Gorai’s immediate rule, live in great awe of their chief; and the number of natives who gathered round us when we first met the chief showed us by their manner that in the friendship of the chief the white man possessed the goodwill of his subjects. We were unable to see very much of the mode of exercising his power; but I suspect that Gorai, like other chiefs, places but little value on the lives of his people. Punishment is summarily dealt by the spear or the tomahawk; and I learned from natives of the adjoining islands that the offence may be of a very trivial nature.
On one occasion, Gorai took me in his war-canoe on a geological excursion to the north-west side of Alu. During our return, the sun set when we were about twelve miles from the ship, and left us to pursue our way in the darkness. Seated alongside the chief on the second bow thwart of the canoe, I could not help reflecting how many times he must have occupied the same seat in his war-canoes when engaged in those expeditions which have made his influence dominant on this part of the group. On our way we skirted the beach of an islet on which were squatting a party of Alu natives who had gone there to fish. Although we passed a few yards from these men, not a word of recognition was exchanged. The sight of a large war-canoe with Gorai and a white man in the bow passing them in the dusk of evening must have been a novel one to them, yet neither they nor our men exchanged a word. There they sat squatting motionless on the beach, and we passed them in silence. Gorai subsequently explained to me that the reason of this was that the men were “too much fright,” or rather awed, by the presence of their chief.
The chief of the Shortland Islands has two or more elderly men who act as his ministers. Many years ago he was living at Treasury, of which island he was chief; but being unwilling to take part in the hostility displayed by the Treasury natives towards the white men, he left the island under the chieftainship of Mule, the present chief, who still remained in some degree under the rule of Gorai. The Alu chief takes a pleasure in asserting that he is “all same white man,” at the same time deprecating the inferior position of his race with the remark, “White man, he savez too much. Poor black man! He no savez nothing.”
I now come to Mule, the Treasury chief, who numbers amongst his wives a sister of Gorai, Bita by name; whilst the Alu chief has returned the compliment by making Mule’s sister, Kai-ka, the principal amongst his hundred wives. Mule, also known as Mule-kopa, has rather the appearance and build of a chief of one of the more eastern Pacific groups. He has a sedate expression of countenance, a prominent chin, and strongly marked coarse features. A large bushy head of hair adds to the dignity of his appearance; and his powerful limbs, depth of chest, breadth of shoulders, and greater height distinguish him pre-eminently from his people. His rule is as despotic in Treasury as that of Gorai in the Shortlands; and he maintains his sway rather by the fear he inspires than by possessing any feeling of respect on the part of his subjects. On more than one occasion I have heard the natives use threatening language towards their chief, when he had made some arbitrary exercise of his power. He had a habit of sending away to the bush any native who from his superior knowledge of English seemed to be supplanting him in the intercourse with the ships that visited the harbour. Even his right-hand man, who prided himself on his name of Billy, experienced his wrath on one occasion in this manner. Like other chiefs, Mule is grasping and covetous, shortcomings which are rather those of the race than of the individual. Although of the chiefs of Bougainville Straits I liked him the least, the contrast was rather due to the exceptionally good estimate we had formed of his fellow chiefs. The visits of H.M.S. “Lark” to this island have been the means of removing the very bad reputation which the natives had deservedly possessed: and I would especially invite the attention of my readers to the history of this change in the attitude of these natives towards the white man.
Captain C. H. Simpson, who visited this island in H.M.S. “Blanche” in 1872, described its people in his report to the Admiralty,[10] as being “the most treacherous and blood-thirsty of any known savages;” and the officers employed in making a sketch of the harbour had ample evidence of their ferocity. About seven years before, the natives had cut out a barque and had murdered her crew of 33 men. Previously they had captured several boats of whalers visiting the islands, and had massacred the crews. The Treasury natives were always very reticent to us when we tried to learn something more of the fate of the barque; but we learned little except that she was American, and was named “Superior.” The captain, whose name the natives pronounced “Hoody,” was carried away into the interior of the island and killed, and the scene of his murder was once pointed out to Lieutenant Oldham when crossing the island. As Captain Simpson charges the natives with cannibalism, there can be little doubt of the ultimate fate of the crew of the American barque. In the interval between the occurrence of this event and the arrival of the “Blanche,” no vessel had anchored in the harbour, the ships always heaving-to off the north coast, where the natives resided when Captain Simpson visited the island. Treasury retained its bad reputation up to the date of our visit; and but few traders had much knowledge of the place, as they generally gave the island a wide berth. We met but one man who spoke well of these natives, and he was Captain Walsch of the trading schooner “Venture.” All others gave them the worst of characters: and led me to believe that my acquaintance with Treasury would not extend beyond the deck of H.M.S. “Lark.” When Lieutenant Oldham first visited this island in May, 1882, he had every reason to place but little confidence in the natives; and in truth we all thought that the appearance and behaviour of the natives justified the treacherous reputation which they had obtained. Only two days were spent there, but no landing was effected: the chief made no response to the invitations to visit the ship; and we left the harbour without much feeling of regret. In June of the following year we again visited this island; and if the same procedure had been followed we should have been a very long time in gaining the confidence of the natives. Lieutenant Oldham, however, paid an official visit to the chief, accompanied by Lieutenant Malan and myself. Mule and one of his sons returned the visit within a couple of hours. Presents were exchanged; and the foundation of mutual confidence was thus laid. The result may be briefly stated. In a few days I was rambling all over the island, usually accompanied by a lively gathering of men and boys. An intimacy was established with the natives, which lasted until we bade farewell to the group in the following year; and the return of the “Lark” from her cruises was always a cause of rejoicing amongst the natives. The men of the ship were known by name to most of the people of the island: whilst Mr. Isabell, our leading-stoker, made a deep impression upon them by his readiness to employ his mechanical skill for their various wants, so much so that Mule offered, if he would remain, to make him a chief with the usual perquisite as to the number of his wives. For my own part, I reaped the full benefit of our amicable relations with the natives; and for the proof of this statement I must refer the reader to the remarks on my intercourse with them, and to my observations on the geology, botany, and other characteristics of the island.
[10] “Hydrographic Notices, Pacific Ocean,” 1856 to 1873 (p. 106).
Coming now to the chiefs of Faro or Fauro Island, I must mention more particularly Kurra-kurra the chief of Toma, and Tomimas the chief of Sinasoro, Toma and Sinasoro being the two principal villages of the island. Kurra-kurra is, I believe, a half-brother of Gorai. He has not, however, the same dignity of manner, and has resigned most of his power into the hands of his son Gorishwa, a fine strapping young man. Both father and son are friends of the white man. Tomimas, the Sinasoro chief, also related to Gorai, is somewhat taciturn even with his own people, but a chief to be thoroughly trusted. On one occasion whilst assisting Lieutenant Heming and myself in demolishing our dinners in a tambu-house at his village, Tomimas broke a long silence by informing us through a native interpreter that the men of Sinasoro were very good people, that they did not kill white men, and that their chief was like Gorai. It is needless to write that we appreciated the good intention, though hardly the elegance of the chief’s solitary remark. In the following year, when I was returning from a botanical excursion to the peak of Faro, I received an invitation from Tomimas to visit him on the side of the harbour opposite to the village. The chief, who awaited me on the beach, received me cordially, telling me through one of the natives, who could speak a little English, that he had collected for me the fruits and leaves of the “anumi”—a tree of the genus Cerbera—which he had heard I had been anxious to find. The kindly manner of the old chief attracted me towards him, and I sat down, as he wished me, by his side on the log of a tree, having first presented him with a large knife which greatly pleased him. Close by, stood his four wives, to whom he introduced me, pointing out to me the mother of his eldest son Kopana, an intelligent young man of about twenty-two. A bunch of ripe bananas was laid beside me, of which I was bidden to partake. This was followed in a short time by a savoury vegetable broth, which the chief brought with his own hands in a cooking-pot. It was especially prepared for me on their learning that I had found the plant (an aroid, Schizmatoglottis) in my excursions. There was the spirit of true politeness displayed in the manner of the chief and his wives, as they endeavoured to show that in the exercise of their simple hospitality they were receiving, instead of conferring, an honour. I felt that I was in the presence of good breeding, although sitting attired in a dirty flannel suit in the midst of a number of almost naked savages. My own party of Sinasoro natives, who had been fasting for many hours, politely asked me to partake of their meal which the generosity of the chief had prepared, before they thought of touching it themselves. I of course complied with their request by tasting a cooked banana, when, this piece of etiquette having been duly observed, they attacked the victuals without ceremony.
Such was my pleasing experience of this Faro chief. During the survey of this island, the natives showed every disposition to be friendly towards us. In my numerous excursions I always met with civility, and frequently with unexpected acts of kindness; and I soon became known to them by the name given to me by the Treasury natives, “Rōkus” or “Dōkus.”
The principal chief of the district, immediately north of Choiseul Bay, is named “Krepas.” Several years before he had been living at Faro, which he left on account of the death of all his wives. When we first visited Choiseul Bay in September, 1883, we found the natives very coy in approaching us, on account of the reprisal of H.M.S. “Emerald,” two years before, on the people of the neighbouring village of Kangopassa for the cutting out of the trading-vessel “Zephyr,” and the murder of a portion of her crew. After two days, however, Lieutenant Oldham succeeded in removing their suspicions, and the chief came on board. Subsequently Krepas and his son, Kiliusi, accompanied me in a canoe during my ascent of one of the rivers that empty themselves into this bay. I found the chief and his son very useful guides, and was prepossessed in their favour. On our return to Treasury, I was surprised to learn from Billy, Mule’s prime minister, as we termed him, that Krepas was a practised cannibal, and would not think much of killing a white man. Billy was deeply impressed by the circumstance of my having shared my lunch with the chief of Choiseul Bay, about two miles up one of the rivers. It was in this bay that the French navigator, Bougainville, intended to anchor his ships in 1768, being opposed by the hostility of the natives. The boats, which had been sent in to find an anchorage, were attacked by 150 men in ten canoes, who were only routed after the second discharge of fire-arms. Two canoes were captured, in one of which was found the jaw of a man half-broiled. The number of shoals, and the irregularity of the currents prevented the ships coming up to the anchorage before night fell; and Bougainville, abandoning his design, continued his course through the Straits.[11] The description which the French navigator gave of these natives in 1768, applies equally well to those of the present day. When H.M.S. “Lark” revisited Choiseul Bay in October, 1884, not a single native was seen; so that it would behove future visitors to be very cautious in their dealings with these natives. Whilst off the coast north of this bay, a fishing-party of half-a-dozen men came off to the ship from the village of Kandelai; but they showed great suspicion of us. They would not come alongside for some time; and when a present of calico was flung to them at the end of a line, they were divided amongst themselves whether to come and take it, some paddling one way and some another. At length they took the present and came alongside, but did not stay long, and soon paddled towards the shore, their suspicions by no means allayed. What had happened to cause this change of attitude, we could not learn. Evidently, the good impression which we had left behind us a year before, had borne no fruit. Probably, some inconsiderate action on the part of the crew of a trading-vessel had undone our work.
[11] “Voyage autour du Monde,” 2nd edit. augm. vol. II., Paris, 1772.
The professional head-hunter of the eastern islands of the group does not appear to be represented amongst the islands of Bougainville Straits. Raids are occasionally made on the villages of the adjoining Bougainville coast, but more, I believe, for the purpose of procuring slaves, than from the mere desire of fighting. There is, however, frequent friendly communication between the natives of the islands of the Straits and those of certain Bougainville villages, the former usually exchanging articles of trade for spears and tortoise-shell, and acting as middle-men in the traffic with the white men. It is however singular that the natives of the Straits trade with different villages on the Bougainville coast; and that, although on usually such friendly terms with each other, they are often on terms of hostility with the particular Bougainville village with which their neighbours trade. Thus, Mule, the Treasury chief, trades with the people of the village of Suwai, over which his brother Kopana is chief. Gorai, the Alu chief, on the other hand, is at war with the natives of Suwai, but maintains friendly communication with Daku, the chief of the village of Takura, and with Magasa the chief of the harbour of Tonali. Whilst spending a night at Sinasoro with Lieutenant Heming and his party, I with the rest had to share the tambu-house with a party of ten natives from Takura. They had come across for pigs and taro. The natives of the adjoining coast of Bougainville, possessing a different language, are not able to make themselves understood by the people of the Straits except by interpreters. I have seen one of these natives just as little able to make himself understood by the natives of Faro, as if he had been suddenly removed to some very distant country instead of only 30 miles away.
I have previously referred to the close friendship which usually prevails between the inhabitants of the islands of Bougainville Straits, linked together as they are by inter-marriages and by the possession of a common language. But in the calmest seas there are occasional storms; and I will proceed to relate an extraordinary chain of events which came more or less under our observation whilst in this portion of the group. Shortly before our return to Treasury in April, 1884, there had been a terrible domestic tragedy, which at one time threatened to embroil all the chiefs of the Straits in actual war. It appeared that Kopana, the eldest son of Gorai had, in a fit of temporary madness, shot one of his wives dead with his rifle, the unfortunate woman being a daughter of Mule, the Treasury chief. On hearing the news, Mule at once crossed over to Alu to exact vengeance on Kopana; but Gorai would not permit him to harm his son; and it was arranged between the two chiefs that Mule should be allowed to shoot one of the other wives of Kopana, as the price of blood. Early one morning the Treasury chief, armed with his snider rifle, took his way in a canoe up a passage I had often traversed in my Rob Roy, and surprising his selected victim at work in a taro patch, he shot her dead. At the same time he wounded her male attendant, an elderly native named Malakolo, the bullet passing through the left shoulder-joint from behind. When I saw this man six or seven weeks afterwards, he was fast recovering from the injury, although with a useless limb. Kopana, who is a headstrong son and beyond his father’s control, naturally resented this act of Mule, and appears to have meditated a descent on Treasury. Collecting his followers and the remainder of his wives, he disappeared on what was given out as a tortoise-shell expedition. We found the Treasury people in a great dread of the daily arrival of Kopana; and I had some difficulty in getting natives to accompany me in my excursions about the island. They did not care to leave the vicinity of the village; and I found many of the bush-paths familiar to me in the previous year partly overgrown. Apparently through a sense of shame, Mule and his natives avoided telling us anything about the act of retaliation; they were, however, loud in their endeavours to cast aspersions on Kopana. On our arrival at Alu, we learned the truth from Gorai to whom Mule had sent a native, who took a passage with us, asking him not to be too communicative in case we made inquiries. As it happened, however, the Treasury native was kept on board, and Lieutenant Oldham, on landing, learned the part Mule had played. Kopana was apparently quite conscious of his own responsibility in the matter, as he had left a present with Gorai to be given to the captain of any man-of-war who should come to punish him. Thus closed the first scene of this tragedy.
Whilst we lay at anchor off Gorai’s village, it was evident that there was trouble brewing. The natives accompanying me in my geological excursions carried arms contrary to their usual practice. On the same day the two principal villages were found deserted; and Gorai shifted his residence to another islet. Rumours became rife that the Treasury and Shortland natives had met with bloodshed; but the men we questioned made so many wilful misstatements that it was impossible to learn what had really happened. At length the truth came out. Being in Gorai’s house one morning, I was told by the chief that his son had been attacked five days before by the Treasury natives on the islet of Tuluba, off the west coast of Alu, that Kopana’s canoe had returned without his master, bringing a man and a woman badly wounded, and that he shortly expected the return of two large war-canoes which he had sent to the scene of the encounter. These two canoes returned whilst I was talking to the chief on the beach, bringing a few more survivors but without Kopana. The old chief then took it for granted that his eldest son was dead, and in telling me so showed no emotion whatever. In the evening, however, we learned, to our astonishment, that Kopana had returned, having not been engaged in the fray. It seemed that at the time of the encounter he was on a neighbouring islet. After some difficulty, I was able to get an account of the affair.
Two Treasury war-canoes, it appears, attempted to land at Tuluba Islet one evening, where the crews were going to encamp for the night. Ostensibly the Treasury men were on their way to Bougainville to buy spears; but since they were led by Olega, the brother of Mule and the fighting-chief of the island, it is probable that they were intending a descent on Alu from this islet of Tuluba. When the Treasury men discovered Kopana’s party were already there, the fighting at once began. During the conflict, for which the Alu natives were ill-prepared, seeing that they were largely composed of Kopana’s wives, one of the Treasury canoes was dashed to pieces on a reef and all the occupants were thrown into the water. In this unequal contest, the Alu natives had a man and a woman killed and a man and a woman wounded, both the women being wives of Kopana. In addition four other of Kopana’s wives were captured by the Treasury men, who returned to their own island in the remaining canoe with a loss of four men wounded, of whom one subsequently died.
The unfortunate wives of Kopana had indeed borne the brunt from the very beginning. Within two months, three of them had suffered violent death, one of them was wounded apparently beyond recovery, and four had been carried off prisoners to Treasury. The singular feature of this breach between the Treasury and Alu natives, was that the animosity of the former was directed against Gorai’s eldest son and not against the old chief, his father, who did not think it incumbent on him to interfere except for the purpose of pacifying the two parties.
I visited the two wounded brought back to Alu. Five days had already elapsed since the fight, and I found the wounds of both in a horrible condition. The wife of Kopana had a severe tomahawk wound of the thigh just above the knee, smashing the bone and implicating the joint. The man had a rifle-bullet wound through the fleshy part of the thigh and a pistol-bullet wound in the opposite groin. Nothing had been done in either case, and after the lapse of five days in a tropical climate, the condition of the wounds could be scarcely described. I was allowed to do but little, and considered recovery in either case most improbable. Both, however, recovered to my great astonishment. I found afterwards, on visiting the wounded at Treasury, that one man had been shot through the elbow-joint by one of his own party.
The subsequent events in connection with this outbreak of hostilities in the Straits may be soon related. Although there was now open war between Alu and Treasury, it assumed a passive character, each side awaiting or expecting an attack from the other. Gorai was much concerned at this turn of events, seeing that, as he told me, he thought he had come to an amicable arrangement with Mule when he allowed him to take the life of one of his son’s wives. The canoe-houses at Alu were usually filled during the day by a number of natives, all carrying their tomahawks and debating on the topic of the day. In the midst of them I once found Gorai talking in his quiet way to an attentive circle of armed natives. In the meanwhile the Treasury natives held a feast in celebration of their success; and the four wives of Kopana were distributed about the village, but they experienced no ill treatment. In a few weeks the animosity displayed between the peoples of the two islands began to cool down; and it soon became evident that the war was one only in name. At length peace was once more restored. In the beginning of October a number of Treasury natives came over to the west coast of Alu where Gorai was then residing, bringing with them Mule’s principal wife, Bita, the sister of the Alu chief, together with a large present of bananas, taro, and other vegetables; and lastly, what was the most significant act of all, they brought with them the four wives of Kopana who had been captured on the islet of Tuluba. Gorai told me that amity was now perfectly restored, and that he was going to exchange visits with the Treasury chief to confirm the compact. Fortunately for the happiness of the natives of Bougainville Straits, war rarely disturbs the peaceful atmosphere in which they live.
I cannot doubt that, in the lives of the natives of these straits, we have the brighter side of the existence of the Solomon Islander; and this result may, I think, be attributed in the main to the influence of Gorai, the Alu chief, who in his intercourse with white men, not always the best fitted to represent their colour, as I need scarcely remark, has learned some lessons in his own crude way which he could hardly have learned under any other conditions. Natives of the islands of the Straits can count with some confidence on the tenure of their lives, but this is simply due to the influence of the name of the Alu chief. And yet, however secure the surroundings of a native may be, he will never be entirely off his guard. Suspicion is a quality inherent in his mind, and it shows itself in most of the actions of his life. Even of those natives, who, in the capacity of interpreters, lived on board the ship for weeks together, one was always keeping watch over his comrades during the long hours of the night whenever we were at any anchorage away from their own island; and I have been told by the officers in charge of the detached surveying parties, that even after a hard day’s work in the boat, they have found their natives keeping a self-imposed watch during the night.
I pass on now to the subject of the power of the “tambu,” or “taboo” as it is more usually termed. The tambu ban constitutes the real authority of a petty chief in times of peace. In the eastern islands, the tambu sign is often two sticks crossed and placed in the ground. In such a manner, the St. Christoval native secures his patch of ground from intrusion. In the islands of Bougainville Straits, posts six to eight feet in height, rudely carved in the form of the head and face, are erected facing sea-ward on the beach of a village to keep off enemies and sickness. Similar posts are erected on the skirts of a plantation of cocoa-nut palms to warn off intruders. On one occasion, whilst ascending the higher part of a stream in Treasury, my natives unexpectedly came upon the faint footprint of a bushman; and my sheath-knife was at once borrowed by the chief’s eldest son, who happened to be one of the party, to cut out a face in the soft rock as a tambu mark for the bushman, or in other words to preserve the stream. I have only touched on the exercise of the right of tambu in its narrowest sense. Scattered about in the pages of this work will be found numerous allusions to customs which would be comprised under this head in its widest meaning: for the power of the tambu is but the power of a code which usually prohibits and rarely commands; and in enumerating its restrictions and defining its limits, one would be in reality describing a negative system of public and private etiquette. It is worthy of note, that the term “tambu” is not included in the vocabulary of the language of the natives of Bougainville Straits, its equivalent being “olatu.”
It may be here apposite to make some observations on the slavery which is practised in connection with the bush-tribes of these islands. As already remarked, a wide distinction usually prevails in the Solomon Group between the inhabitants of the coast and those of the interior; and although this distinction is most evident in the case of the larger islands, it also prevails, but to a less degree, in those of smaller size. It is a noteworthy fact that the bushmen are always looked down upon by their brethren of the coast. “Man-bush” is with the latter a term of reproach, implying stupidity and crass ignorance. I have frequently heard this epithet applied to natives who handled their canoes in an awkward manner or who stumbled in their walk whilst accompanying me in my excursions. On one occasion, when trying to obtain stone axes from the natives of Alu, I was referred with a smile to the bushmen of the neighbouring island of Bougainville, who still employ these tools. In the larger islands the bush-tribes and the coast natives wage an unceasing warfare, in which the latter are usually the aggressors and the victors—the bushmen captured during these raids either affording materials for the cannibal feast or being detained in servitude by their captors. But there prevails in the group a recognized system of slave-traffic, in which a human being becomes a marketable commodity—the equivalent being represented in goods either of native or of foreign manufacture. This custom which came under the notice of the officers of Surville’s expedition, during their visit to Port Praslin in Isabel, in 1769,[12] obtains under the same conditions at the present time. These natives were in the habit of making voyages of ten and twelve days’ duration with the object of exchanging men for “fine cloths covered with designs,” articles which were manufactured by a race of people much fairer than their own, who were in all probability the inhabitants of Ontong Java.
[12] “Discoveries to the south-east of New Guinea,” by M. Fleurieu, p. 143, Eng. edit.
The servitude to which the victims of this traffic are doomed is not usually an arduous one. But there is one grave contingency attached to his thraldom which must be always before the mind of the captive, however lightly his chains of service may lie upon him. When a head is required to satisfy the offended honour of a neighbouring chief, or when a life has to be sacrificed on the completion of a tambu-house or at the launching of a new war-canoe, the victim chosen is usually the man who is not a free-born native of the village. He may have been bought as a child and have lived amongst them from his boyhood up, a slave only in name, and enjoying all the rights of his fellow natives. But no feelings of compassion can save him from his doom; and the only consideration which he receives at the hands of those with whom he may have lived on terms of equality for many years is to be found in the circumstance that he gets no warning of his fate.
There are in Treasury several men and women who, originally bought as slaves from the people of Bouka and Bougainville, now enjoy apparently the same privileges and freedom of action as their fellow islanders. It is sometimes not a matter of much difficulty to single out the slaves amongst a crowd of natives. On one occasion I engaged a canoe of Faro men to take me to a distant part of their island: and very soon after we started I became aware from the cowed and sullen condition of one of the crew that he was a slave. On inquiry I learned that this man had been captured when a boy in the island of Bougainville, and I was informed that if he was to return to his native place—a bush village named Kiata—he would undoubtedly be killed. Although in fact a slave, I concluded from the bearing of the other men towards him that his bondage was not a very hard one; and he evidently appeared to enjoy most of the rights of a native of the common class. Sukai, however, for such was his name, had to make himself generally useful in the course of the day; and when at the close of the excursion we were seated inside the house of a man who provided us with a meal of boiled taro, sweet potatoes, and bananas, he was served with his repast on the beach outside.
Mule, the Treasury chief, had adopted a little Bougainville bush-boy, named Sapeku, who was purchased when very young from his friends. In 1883 he was six or seven years old, and was the constant companion of the sons of the chief. He was a fat chubby little urchin, with woolly hair, and was known on board under the name of “Tubby.” His wild excitable disposition full of suspicion showed to great contrast with the calmer and more confident demeanour of his companions. He was, however, a general favourite with us, although I should add he did not possess half the pluck of his associates. Mule also possessed, at the time of our visit, a young girl, twelve or thirteen years old, who had been not long before purchased from the Bougainville natives.
I have previously referred to the existence of bushmen on some of the smaller islands. In the interior of Treasury there are a few hamlets containing each two or three families of bushmen, who live quite apart from the other natives of the island. On more than one occasion I experienced the hospitality of these bush families, who in matters of dress are even less observant than the harbour natives. They are probably the remnants of the original bushmen who occupied this island. Over our pipes, I used frequently to converse with the natives on the subject of the past history of their island; and I gleaned from them that the enterprising race at present dominant in the Bougainville Straits came originally from the islands immediately to the eastward, using Treasury as a stepping-stone to the Shortlands and Faro, and ousting or exterminating the bushmen they found in the possession of these islands.
I will turn for a moment to the subject of slavery in the eastern islands of the group. In Ugi it is the practice of infanticide which has given rise to a slave-commerce regularly conducted with the natives of the interior of St. Christoval. Three-fourths of the men of this island were originally bought as youths to supply the place of the natural offspring killed in infancy. But such natives when they attain manhood virtually acquire their independence, and their original purchaser has but little control over them. On [page 42], I have made further reference to this subject.
Connected in the manner above shown with the subject of slavery is the practice of cannibalism. The completion of a new tambu-house is frequently celebrated among the St. Christoval natives by a cannibal feast. Residents in that part of the group tell me that if the victim is not procured in a raid amongst the neighbouring tribes of the interior, some man is usually selected from those men in the village who were originally purchased by the chief. The doomed man is not enlightened as to the fate which awaits him, and may, perhaps, have been engaged in the erection of the very building at the completion of which his life is forfeited. The late Mr. Louis Nixon,[13] one of those traders whose name should not be forgotten amongst the pioneers who, in working for themselves, have worked indirectly for the good of their successors in the Solomon Group, once recounted to me a tragical incident of this kind on the island of Guadalcanar, of which he was an unwilling spectator. Whilst looking out of the window of his house one afternoon, he observed a native walk up to another standing close to the window and engage him in conversation. A man then stole up unperceived, and raising his heavy club above his head, struck the intended victim lifeless to the ground. Knowing too well the nature and purpose of the deed, Mr. Nixon turned away quite sickened by the sight.
[13] Mr. Nixon died at Santa Anna in the end of 1882.
The natives of the small island of Santa Anna enjoy the reputation of being abstainers from human flesh: but, inasmuch, as Mai the war-chief has acquired a considerable fortune, in a native’s point of view, by following the profitable calling of purveyor of human flesh to the man-eaters of the adjacent coasts of St. Christoval—a trade in which he is ably assisted by those who accompany him on his foraging expeditions—we can hardly preserve this nice distinction between the parts taken by the contractor and his customers in this extraordinary traffic. I learned from Captain Macdonald that in their abstinence from human flesh, the Santa Anna natives are not actuated by any dislike of anthropophagy in itself; but that the custom has fallen into abeyance since the chief laid the tambu-ban on human flesh several years ago, on account of a severe epidemic of sickness having followed a cannibal feast. On one occasion through the instrumentality of this resident, Lieutenant Oldham had the satisfaction of rescuing two St. Christoval natives whom Mai was carefully keeping in anticipation of the wants of the man-eaters of Cape Surville. As the result of an interview held with this chief, the two prisoners were sent on board the “Lark;” but Mai gave them up with a very bad grace, protesting that he was being robbed of his own property. It is difficult to speculate on the reflections of the victim as he lives on from day to day in constant expectation of his fate. I am told that there is a faint gleam of tender feeling shown in the case of a man who, by long residence in the village, has almost come to be looked upon as one of themselves. He is allowed to remain in ignorance of the dreaded moment until the last: and, perhaps, he may be standing on the beach assisting in the launching of the very canoe in which he is destined to take his final journey, when suddenly he is laid hold of, and in a few moments more he is being ferried across to the man-eaters of the opposite coast. All persons whom I have met that have had a lengthened experience of the St. Christoval natives confirm these cannibal practices. They may sometimes be observed with all the horrible preliminaries which have been described in the cases of other Pacific groups; whilst, on the other hand, it may be the habit to purchase and partake of human flesh as an extra dainty in the daily fare.
Captain Redlich, master of the schooner “Franz,” who visited Makira on the south side of St. Christoval in 1872, states that he found a dead body in a war-canoe dressed and cooked whole. He was informed by Mr. Perry, a resident, that he had seen as many as twenty bodies lying on the beach dressed and cooked.[14] In 1865, Mr. Brenchley noticed at Wano, on the north coast of this island, the skulls of twenty-five bushmen hanging up under the roof of the tambu-house, all of which showed the effects of the tomahawk and all had been eaten.[15] At the present time it is not an easy matter for any person not resident in the group to obtain ocular evidence of cannibalism, since the natives have become aware of the white man’s aversion to the custom. I have, however, frequently seen the arm and leg bones of the victim consumed at the opening of a new tambu-house, as they are usually hung up over the entrance or in some other part of the building. The natives, however, are generally reluctant to talk much about these matters; and I believe the residents, in such matters, prefer to trust more to the testimony of their own eyes than to the statements of the natives.
[14] Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1874 (vol. 44), p. 31.
[15] “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curaçoa,’” by J. L. Brenchley.
I have previously referred to the death of the son of Taki the Wano chief, who was attacked by a shark whilst fishing on the St. Christoval reefs. When we arrived at Ugi in April, 1883, shortly after this event, we learned that his death would probably lead to a further sacrifice of life, and that a human victim from some neighbouring hill-tribe would be required to remove the tambu-ban, or in other words to propitiate the shark-god. At the completion of the time of mourning, a gathering of the tribes of the district known as a béa was to be held at Wano; and I obtained from Mr. Stephens of Ugi the following particulars of this singular custom. From a raised staging some fifteen feet in height, each of the warriors of any renown addresses in turn the assembled people. The gathering is composed not only of his own tribesmen but also of parties of fighting men from all the neighbouring villages, each party standing aloof from the others. The orator, declaiming on the valour of his own people and on his individual prowess, soon works himself into a condition of excitement, and should any tribe be there represented with whom there may have been some recent cause of ill-feeling, it is probably made the object of the taunts of the speaker. The assembled natives, who are all armed, soon participate in the excitement. The people of the village support their champion, and openly display their ill will against those at whom the diatribes of the orator have been directed. The suspected strangers return the taunts; and the feeling of irritation reaches its acme when a threatening gesture or the throwing of a spear sets ablaze the suppressed passions. Every man darts into the bush and the village is empty in a moment. A desultory contest then ensues in which the people of the village, who have generally the best of it, pursue their visitors to the outskirts of their district; and from henceforth a long period of hostility begins.
Such is not an uncommon sequence of a béa, and I am told that the natives of the district, in which such a gathering is to be held, look forward to it with considerable apprehension. A human body is usually procured for these occasions; and the payment of the persons who procured it is made from contributions collected at the béa. Each leading chief endeavours to surpass his rival in the sum he gives; and flinging his string of shell money down from the stage on which he stands, he looks contemptuously at his rival’s party. The body is apportioned out after the gathering is over; and if no contention has arisen, all assembled partake of the feast. Taki told Mr. Stephens that in order to obtain a body for his son’s béa, he would have to start on another man-hunting expedition. A béa was also soon to be held in Ugi by Rora, the fighting chief of the village of Ete-ete, on behalf of his brother who had died about two years before. Cannibalism is however dying out in Ugi; and in this case a pig was to supply the place of a human body.
Whilst the ship was anchored at Sulagina Bay on the north coast of St. Christoval, I visited the village of that name and saw the chief who is named Toro. He received me civilly and shook hands. Outside the front of his house five skulls were hanging which belonged to some unfortunate bushmen who had fallen at his hands. On inquiring of a native who spoke a little English, I ascertained that their bodies had been “kaied-kaied,” i.e., eaten, although it was with a little hesitation that he admitted the fact. Numerous spears were thrust in among the pole overhead which supported the roof, one or two of them being broken at the point with some suspicious-looking dried-up substance still adherent. The same native explained to me, in a matter-of-fact way, that the points had broken off in the bellies of the victims.
Cannibalism is rarely if ever practised at the present day in the islands of Bougainville Straits. The people of the western extremity of Choiseul Island in the vicinity of Choiseul Bay are reputed by the Treasury Islanders to be still cannibals. During our stay in this bay we had no opportunity of satisfying ourselves in this matter. Bougainville, however, who visited this bay in 1768, records, as I have previously observed, that a human jaw, half-broiled, was found in one of the canoes which had been deserted by the natives after the repulse of their attack upon the French boats.[16] The Shortland natives accredit the Bougainville people who live around the active volcano of Bagana with the regular practice of cannibalism; and there can be little doubt that this custom is extensively practised amongst the scarcely known bush-tribes in the interior of this large island. Of the natives of New Georgia or Rubiana, Captain Cheyne avers that human flesh forms their chief article of diet; they were in his opinion, when he visited this part of the group in 1844, the most treacherous and bloodthirsty race in the Western Pacific.[17] These natives have of late years come more under the direct influence of the traders and probably would merit now a better name.
[16] “Voyage autour du Monde”; 2nd edit, augment; vol. ii., Paris, 1772.
[17] “A Description of Islands in the Western Pacific Ocean.” by A. Cheyne (London, 1852).
I will close this chapter with a short account, to some extent recapitulative, of the history of three natives of St. Christoval after they were recruited by the boats of the Fiji labour-vessel “Redcoat” in 1882. It will serve to illustrate some points already alluded to. Amongst the occupants of a tambu-house in which I slept on one occasion in the village of Lawa, in the interior of St. Christoval, were five men who were intending to offer themselves as recruits to the government-agent of the “Redcoat.” Three of these men, one of whom was the chief’s son, came under my observation again not many weeks after they had been received on board the labour-vessel. They escaped from the ship at Santa Anna, and seizing a canoe reached the adjoining coast of St. Christoval. Here they were pursued by Mai, in his capacity of purveyor of human flesh to the Cape Surville natives. Two of them were captured; but the third, who was the chief’s son, had died at the hands of a local chief, who, wishing to remove the tambu-ban arising from the recent death of his wife, had effected his object by spearing his guest. Mai returned to Santa Anna with his two captives, and immediately became imbued with the idea that he had been insulted by the chief who, in successfully removing the tambu-ban from the shade of his departed spouse, had deprived him of one of his victims. Then the raid was carried out, which I have already described, as having resulted in the slaughter of three women and the chief of Fanarite. Mai now devoted his attention to preparing his two prisoners for the market on the opposite coast, and was thus employed when H.M.S. “Lark” arrived at Port Mary and rescued the prisoners When these two natives were brought on board, I at once recognised my tambu-house companions in the village of Lawa; and I learned to my regret that the chief’s son, who had been killed, was the sprightly young native who had on one occasion carried my geological bag. It is but just to remark that under Mai’s care the condition of the two prisoners had considerably improved since I last saw them. However, their troubles were not all over. They were landed at Ugi; but the older of the two, on hearing that his life would be probably required by the people of his own village to atone for the death of the chief’s son, preferred to remain at Ugi. A report reached me in the following year, whether true or not I was unable to ascertain, that he had been killed on returning to his village.
CHAPTER III.
THE FEMALE SEX—POLYGAMY—MODES OF BURIAL, ETC.
The position of the female sex amongst the natives of the eastern islands of the Solomon Group would appear to differ but little from the position which it holds amongst races in a similar savage state. The women are without doubt the drudges of the men, and pitiable examples of this often came under my observation. On one occasion, when I was returning to the coast from an excursion into the interior of St. Christoval, I was accompanied by some half-a-dozen natives of both sexes who were bringing down yams to sell to the traders on the beach. The men were content with carrying their tomahawks; whilst the women followed up with heavy loads of yams on their heads. When a feast is in preparation, it is the work of the women to bring in the yams and taro from the “patches,” which may be one or two miles away. In my excursions, I frequently used to see at work in their “patches” these poor creatures, whom drudgery had prematurely deprived of all their comeliness.
Women are excluded from the tambu-house. They are not permitted to remain in the presence of a chief at his meal; and even the wife after preparing her husband’s meal leaves her lord alone, returning to partake of what remains after he has finished his repast. In the island of Santa Catalina we found that we had temporarily received the rank of chief when a bevy of young girls, who had been following us all the morning, walked solemnly away as we began our lunch; but no sooner had we lit our pipes than back came the little troop with smiling faces. In Ugi, a man will never, if he can help it, pass under a tree that has fallen across the path, for the reason that a woman may have stepped over it before him. On one occasion, in the village of Sapuna, in Santa Anna, I saw a man, whilst lighting his pipe, throw the piece of smouldering wood contemptuously on the ground, when a woman, in order to light her own pipe, stretched out her hand to take it from him.
The custom of infanticide throws a shade over not a few of these islands. During my frequent walks over the island of Ugi, where one may pass through a village without seeing a single child in arms, I often experienced a feeling of relief in leaving behind such a village where the prattle of children is but rarely heard. In Ugi, infanticide is the prevailing custom. When a man needs assistance in his declining years, his props are not his own sons but youths obtained by purchase from the St. Christoval natives, who, as they attain to manhood, acquire a virtual independence, passing almost beyond the control of their original owner. It is from this cause that but a small proportion of the Ugi natives have been born on the island, three-fourths of them having been brought as youths to supply the place of offspring killed in infancy. Yet some bright experiences, brighter, perhaps, in the contrast, recur to my mind. In the small island of Orika (Santa Catalina) the visitor will be followed about by a little train of children, of both sexes, with smiling, intelligent faces, and clad only in the garb which nature gave them. Whilst having an evening pipe in front of the house of Haununo, the young chief, Mr. W. Macdonald and I were surrounded by a varied throng of the natives of the village, both old and young. Numerous young children, from babes in arms to those three or four years old, formed no inconsiderable proportion of the number around us. Bright-looking lads, eight or nine years of age, stood smoking their pipes as gravely as Haununo himself; and even the smallest babe in its father’s arms caught hold of his pipe and began to suck instinctively. The chief’s son, a little shapeless mass of flesh, a few months old, was handed about from man to man with as much care as if he had been composed of something brittle. It would have taken many shiploads of “trade,” as Mr. Macdonald remarked to me, to have purchased the hopeful heir of the chief of Orika.
But to return to the subject of the position held by the women. When away with a recruiting party from the labour-ship “Redcoat,” on the St. Christoval coast, I was present at the parting on the beach of six natives, who had elected to proceed to Fiji to work for a term of three years on the plantations. But little regret was observable in the faces of those whose friends were leaving them. Son parted with father, and brother with brother with apparently as little concern as if they were merely parting for the hour. The mother or sister played no part in this scene, a characteristic negative feature of the social life of these natives. However, amongst the six natives was an elderly woman who was following her husband to Fiji; and her departure was evidently keenly felt by a small knot of female companions on the beach. One poor creature stood at the edge of the water, looking wistfully towards the boat as it was being pulled away, and crying more after the manner of a fretful child. It was the bond of a true affection that knit together the heart of these poor women. In this episode I saw, to employ those beautiful lines of Milton,
“The sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night.”
In it was evinced the only sign of the tenderer feelings which was displayed in the whole of that day’s proceedings.
It is necessary for me to touch lightly on a subject, which, although less pleasing, is none the less essential to the short sketch which I have presented to my readers of the domestic relations of the natives in the eastern islands. Female chastity is a virtue that would sound strangely in the ear of the native. Amongst their many customs which when narrated strike with such a discordant note on the ears of the European reader, the inhabitants of St. Christoval and the adjacent islands have a usage which sufficiently enlightens us as to the unrestrained character of their code of morality. For two or three years after a girl has become eligible for marriage, she distributes her favours amongst all the young men of the village. Should she be unwilling to accept the addresses of anyone, it is but necessary for her admirer to make her parents some present. Fathers offer their daughters to the white man in the hope of a remunerative return; and the white men, sometimes less scrupulous in their advances, provoke the hostility of the natives, and not unfrequently a lamentable massacre results. Conjugal fidelity is usually preserved in the limits of the same community; but the men of Santa Anna, when they exchange their wives for those of the men of the adjoining St. Christoval coast, see in such a transaction no loosening of the marriage-tie, and restore their wives to their original position on their return to their homes.
In considering the domestic relations of the inhabitants of Bougainville Straits, we enter upon a more agreeable topic. The white man on first visiting these islands is struck with the shyness of the women as compared with those of St. Christoval and its adjacent islands. The unmarried girls are rarely seen; whilst, on the other hand, in Santa Anna and Santa Catalina there appears to be no restriction placed on their movements. The following incident in the island of Faro will serve to illustrate this shyness. Whilst following a path in the interior of the island, unattended by any companion, I suddenly surprised a woman sitting on a log with a child in her lap. She bolted away into the wood leaving the child, a little boy three or four years of age, on the ground in the middle of the path. The little urchin at once set up a terrific yell; but a present of a gilt necklace softened the tone of his distress, although it did not remove his fears. However, I passed along and soon had the satisfaction of hearing the mother returning to her child.
This fear of the white man is soon dispelled by kindly treatment. When I first visited Treasury Island my entrance into the village was the signal for every woman to rush into her house, and I could only catch a glimpse of their retreating figures. This shyness soon wore away during the lengthened visits of the “Lark;” and in a short time when I walked through the village I was surrounded by a troop of young boys shouting out my name of “Dokus” or “Rokasy” at the top of their voices. This was the signal for all who were indoors to turn out to greet me. The old people would hobble out to the door; and the married women with their babes in their arms would walk up to me calling me by name and holding up their little ones for me to see, as if only too proud to show me the confidence the visit of the “Lark” had inspired.
The females in these islands of the Straits perform most of the work in the “patches” or plantations. Towards the evening, they may usually be seen returning in their canoes from the more distant “patches” bringing home a goodly quantity of taro, bananas, and other vegetables. There is generally a man in the stern who steers with a paddle; whilst the crew of eight or ten women, sitting in pairs, paddle briskly along with their light paddles.
The powerful chiefs of the islands of Bougainville Straits usually possess a large number of wives of whom only the few that retain their youth and comeliness enjoy much of the society of their lord. The majority, having been supplanted in the esteem of their common husband, have sunk into a condition of drudgery, finding their employment and their livelihood in toiling for the master whose affections they once possessed. I learned from Gorai, the Shortland chief, who has between eighty and a hundred wives, that the main objection he has against missionaries settling on his islands is, that they would insist on his giving up nearly all his wives, thereby depriving him of those by whose labour his plantations are cultivated and his household supplied with food. A great chief, he remarked, required a large staff of workers to cultivate his extensive lands; or, in other words, numerous women to work in his plantations and to bring the produce home. Such a plea for polygamy is in this condition of society somewhat plausible. The domestic establishment of such a chief may be compared in its internal economy to a social community of bees. The head of the society is, in this case, a male who, whilst living on the fat produce of his lands and increasing his species, performs no active office for the good of the community. The workers consist of his numerous cast-off wives, who having been supplanted in their lord’s affections as their personal attractions diminished in the course of years, have at length subsided into the position of drudges to procure food for the king and his progeny.
Mule’s marital establishment is on a smaller scale than that of the more powerful Shortland chief. This Treasury chief possesses between twenty-five and thirty wives, and has numerous young sons who were my frequent companions during my excursions in this island. In both establishments there is a favourite wife who exercises some authority over the others, and is known among white men as the queen. The principal wives are generally distinguished from the others by a more dignified deportment, a slim graceful figure, and more delicate features. The coarser features, bigger limbs, and more ungainly persons of many of the wives at once mark the women of more common origin. The chief secures the fidelity of his wives by the summary punishment of death, suspicion being tantamount to proof, and an unwary action being held presumptive of guilt. Many of their wives are obtained by purchase from the Bougainville natives; whilst others represent the tribute owed by some of the smaller chiefs.
The majority of the Treasury men have two wives who are usually widely separated by age. They are originally obtained by making a handsome present to the parents. Each wife in working on her husband’s land has her own patch allotted to her to which she confines her labours. My association with the natives of Treasury gave me some insight into their social life, in which, I should add, the women occupy a somewhat better position than in the islands we visited to the eastward. Men have introduced me to their wives with an air of politeness which supplied an index of the social status of their helpmates: and to show that the position of authority may be reversed—although from the absence of clothing one cannot employ the expressive phrase applied to those women who rule their husbands in more civilized lands—I may here observe that on one occasion an able-bodied man complained to me that his wife chastised him on the previous night.
I had one very pleasing experience of the domestic establishment of the Treasury chief. Having informed Mule that I was desirous to witness the manufacture of the cooking-pots employed by the natives, he despatched four of his wives into the interior of the island to get the clay; and in due time I was summoned to his house where I found myself in the midst of a dozen of his wives who were already hard at work, for the women are the potters here as in other parts of “savagedom.” Mule’s wives received me with much politeness, and made me sit down on a mat to watch the proceedings, being evidently much pleased with the idea of exhibiting their skill. For about five minutes there was but little work done as my curiosity led me to look more closely into the different steps of the process, a proceeding which caused much hilarity and elicited frequent exclamations of “tion drakono,” often preceded by “Dokus,” which implied that the doctor was a very good man. At last, after I had smiled on them to the best of my ability, and had gained their further approbation by taking on my knee a little well-scrubbed urchin that could hardly toddle, who in the most matter-of-fact manner made a vigorous onslaught on my chin and then went tooth-and-nail at my shirt-cuff, all in the best of humour and seemingly in an absent-minded kind of fashion as though its little mind was already occupied by far weightier matters—after all this, the more serious part of the entertainment became fairly under way. At its conclusion, I gave the principal wife a quantity of beads and a number of jews-harps to be distributed among her companions.
The marital establishment of Tomimas, one of the principal Faro chiefs, is small as compared with those of Gorai and Mule. He has only four wives who are named respectively, Domari, Duia, Bose, and Omakau, the first being the mother of the chief’s eldest son, Kopana, an intelligent young man about twenty-two years of age.
In connection with the names of the women of Bougainville Straits, I should observe that there was always some reluctance on the part of the men to give me such names; and that when they did so, they usually uttered them in a low tone as though it was not the proper thing to speak of the women by name to others. This is especially noticeable when a man of the common class is asked the name of one of the chief’s wives. On more than one occasion, when referring by name to the chief’s principal wife in the course of a conversation with a native, I learned from the look of surprise, which the mention of the name elicited, that I had, unwittingly, been guilty of a breach of etiquette.
During the surveying season of 1883, which we passed among the islands of Bougainville Straits, we were witnesses of the mourning ceremonials that were observed in connection with the death of Kaika, the principal wife of the Shortland chief, or the queen as Gorai was pleased to call her. It was in the beginning of July that I first made the acquaintance of Kaika, Gorai having asked me to visit her as she was suffering from some indisposition. A month passed away before I again saw my royal patient, and on this occasion the chief accompanied me to his house. Here I found Kaika quite recovered from her illness, a result which she attributed to some medicine which I had given her. She was reclining in a broken down easy-chair, the gift of a trader, engaged in working an armlet of beads, and clad only in the usual “sulu” or waist-handkerchief. In age Kaika was probably between 25 and 30, her general appearance being that of a woman superior in caste to most of her fellow-wives. For a native, her features were good and regular, her figure slim but well proportioned, her carriage graceful. Her clean skin and bushy head of hair, dyed a magenta hue by the use of red ochreous earth, added to the general effect of her appearance.
Whilst sitting down beside Gorai and his spouse, the latter showed me her little boy who was nearly blind. I was much struck with the tenderness displayed in the manner of both the parents towards their little son, who, seated on his mother’s lap, placed his hand in that of his father, when he was directed to raise his eyes towards the light for my inspection.
The work of the ship took us away from Alu; and when we returned after an absence of five weeks, we learned that Kaika was dying. Landing on the ensuing day to see if I could be of any service, I was told that Kaika was dead; and as I stepped out of my Rob Roy, I received a message from Gorai to come and visit him. I found the old chief seated on the ground in front of his house, looking very dismal. Near by, there were nine or ten of his wives all well past the prime of life, withered and haggish, with heads shaven and faces plastered with lime as a token of mourning. They were squatting on the ground, and were engaged in droning out a dismal chant, reminding me of a group of witches. Accompanying Gorai into his house, I found there a numerous gathering of his wives all with their faces plastered with lime; their dead-white features, peering strangely at us through the gloom of the building, gave the whole scene quite an uncanny look. The old chief appeared to feel the loss of his favourite wife and broke down more than once when talking to me of her. He told me that the end came when we dropped our anchor in the bay, and he excused himself on account of his grief from coming off to the ship—“too much cry,” as he remarked of himself to me. When I was leaving him, he asked me on the arrival of the ship at Treasury to inform Mule of his loss, Kaika being the sister of the Treasury chief, and to request that his own sister, Bita, who was Mule’s principal wife, should come and visit him. Returning to my canoe I passed some of Gorai’s head-men who had plastered their foreheads and a part of their cheeks with lime, an observance, however, which was not followed by either the chief or his sons.
The next morning most of the men of the village were engaged in fishing on the reef to obtain material for a great funeral feast that was to be held in the afternoon. When I landed with Lieutenant Leeper in the latter part of the day, we found ourselves on the beach in the midst of about a hundred men carrying their tomahawks, and assembled together on the occasion of the queen’s demise. On entering the chief’s grounds, which are tabooed to all the men of the village except those on the staff of the chief, we came upon about eighty women performing a funeral dance. Some of them were Gorai’s wives; whilst others were the principal women of the neighbouring villages. With their faces white with lime they formed a large circle, in the centre of which were four posts placed erect in the ground, each about ten feet high, charred on one side and rudely carved in imitation of the human head, two of them painted red and two white. Enclosed in the ring and grouped around the posts were six women bearing in their hands the personal belongings of the deceased, such as her basket, cushion, &c. To the slow and measured time of the beats of a wooden drum, a hollowed log struck by a man outside the circle, the dancers of the ring adapted their movements, which consisted merely in raising the feet in turns and gently stamping on the ground. The central group of women danced around the posts, partly skipping, partly hopping, each woman holding up before her the article she bore, and regulating her steps to the beats of the drum. Now and then the man at the drum quickened his time, and the movements of the women of the ring became more spirited; whilst the central group of dancers skipped more actively around, the foremost woman sprinkling at each bound handfuls of lime over the dancers of the ring. As the weather was rainy, many of the women—all of whom wore a “sulu” reaching down to the knees—had their shoulders covered by their mats of pandanus leaves. This dance was repeated on the following day but with a smaller number of dancers. I was anxious to ascertain the manner in which the body had been disposed; but beyond the fact that interment had taken place in the ground some distance away, I could learn but little. It is, however, very probable that the body was first burned between the charred posts, around which the dance was performed, which would have served as supports for the funeral pyre. Further reference to this custom will be found on [page 51].
In making inquiries as to the obsequies paid to the dead queen, I was much struck with the reluctance of the natives to refer to the event. They mentioned the name of the deceased in a low subdued tone as if it were wrong to utter the names of the dead. This mysterious dread which is associated with the mention of the names of the dead is found, as Dr. Tylor points out in his “Early History of Mankind” (3rd edit., p. 143), amongst many races of men. The example of the Australian native who refuses to utter them may be here cited as an extreme instance of this superstition.
Three days after the death of Kaika, all the men of Alu, with the exception of the chief and his sons, cut off their hair close to the scalp as a symbol of mourning for the deceased, an observance which produced a surprising change in the appearance of men whom I had been familiar with as the owners of luxuriant bushy periwigs. A similar custom of either shaving the scalp or of cutting the hair close prevailed in other islands of the group which we visited, as at Simbo and Ugi. In the latter island the shaving is restricted to the posterior half of the scalp. With this digression I will continue my account of the mourning ceremonials observed at the death of Kaika.
The news of the death of the principal wife of the Alu chief was soon carried to the other islands of Bougainville Straits. Visits of condolence were paid to Gorai by Tomimas and Kurra-kurra, the two Faro chiefs; and parties of the women of Faro went to display in person their sympathy with the Alu chief on the occasion of his bereavement. We were the first to convey the news to Treasury; and as Mule stepped on deck shortly after the ship had come to an anchor in Blanche Harbour, I informed him of his sister’s death and of Gorai’s request that his own sister Bita should go and visit him at Alu. The news of Kaika’s death was received by her brother with much composure. Several weeks passed away before Bita could accomplish the long canoe voyage to her brother’s island, as it is only practicable for a canoe in settled weather. There was a sudden demand for pairs of scissors in Treasury when the news of the death of Gorai’s wife became generally known. Mule, his sons, and several of the men of the island showed their regard for the deceased by neatly trimming their bushy periwigs, not cropping their hair close as in the case of the Alu natives; and in accordance with custom the wives of the chief plastered their faces with lime.
A week after our arrival at Treasury feasts were prepared as offerings to the Evil Spirit—the nito paitena of the natives—to appease the wrath of that deity. For to his anger, as I was informed by an intelligent native named Erosini, the death of Kaika was attributed. Whilst walking through the village one evening, I came upon the “remains” of one of these feasts. The essence of the viands had doubtless been extracted by this direful spirit, inasmuch as I learned on the authority of Erosini that the “devilo,” as he termed him, had already satiated his appetite; but to the eyes of ordinary mortals like myself, the dishes had not been touched. However, it was not long before numerous natives were helping themselves freely to the roasted opossums, boiled fish, taro, bananas, etc., which formed the feast. Although pressed to join in the banquet, I did not take to the idea of eating a vicarious meal for his infernal majesty; and I resisted the persuasion of one of my would-be hosts who, having scooped up with his hands a mixture of mashed taro and cocoa-nut scrapings, licked his fingers well and remarked it was very good “kai-kai.” On the following day an old rudely carved tambu-post that had been erected on the beach was used as a target, at which, from a distance of about fifteen paces, the natives fired their muskets and discharged their arrows. This proceeding, so we learned, was to intimidate the “devilo” in case the feasts of the previous day had not propitiated him.
Memorial of a Treasury Chief.
[To face page 51.
The mode of burial employed by the natives of the islands of Bougainville Straits varies according to the position of the deceased. The bodies of the chiefs and of any members of their families are usually burned; and the ashes are deposited together with the skull and sometimes the thigh-bones in a cairn on some sacred islet, or are placed in charge of the reigning chief. The natives were always reticent on this subject, a circumstance which prevented my ascertaining how the skull and thigh-bones were preserved from the flames. In the village of Treasury there are some memorials of departed chiefs, one of which is shown in the accompanying [engraving]. The one in best condition is that of the late chief, whose skull and thigh-bones were deposited on one of the islets in the harbour. They evidently mark the site of the funeral pyres. A wooden frame of the dimensions of a large coffin is placed on the ground and contains some young plants and the club of the deceased chief. Four posts charred on their inner sides and decorated on their outer sides with patterns in red, white, and black, are placed one at each corner of the frame. They are rudely carved at the top in the form of a face, and in all respects resemble those around which the funeral dance was performed at Alu, as described on [page 49]. A sprouting cocoa-nut is placed at one end of the frame, and a club is placed erect in the ground at the other end.
In the vicinity of Gorai’s house, I noticed three small enclosures, apparently graves, two of them round and one oblong, and all fenced in by a paling of sticks. Lying on the ground within each enclosure were such articles as strings of trade-beads, clay-pipes, betel-nuts long since dried up, and dishes of palm leaves such as the natives use for serving up their food. A communicative old man informed me that a few months before a woman and a girl belonging to the chief’s household had died, and that their bodies had been first burned between four posts and the ashes had been placed in the oblong enclosure. They bore, so he told me, the pretty names of Événu and Siali. On my asking the reason of placing articles such as beads and betel-nuts on the grave, he told me that in addition cocoa-nuts and other food had been placed there previously in accordance with the native custom, which the old man endeavoured to explain by pointing his fingers towards the skies. I should here mention that on the spot, where the body of Kaika had been burned some months before, there was placed a wooden framework in the form of a long box, the materials being obtained from a ship’s fittings. Inside it were placed some beads and coloured calico.
The custom of depositing skulls in cairns on the points of islands, which is prevalent in the eastern portion of the Solomon Group, is not generally practised amongst the islands of Bougainville Straits: and I rarely came upon them in my excursions. However, on an islet in Choiseul Bay, I found two cairns, one of which was tenanted only by hermit-crabs with their cast-off shells, and the other contained two skulls that had apparently lain for years in their resting-place to which they were attached by the tendrils of creeping plants. On the summit of Oima, I came upon a heap of stones under which was supposed to be the remains of a Bougainville native killed in a fight, but I failed to find any of his bones after examining the heap.
The sea is generally chosen as the last resting-place for the natives below the rank of chief in the islands of Bougainville Straits. Lieutenant Malan, whilst engaged in sounding at the entrance of the Alu anchorage, passed two large canoes in one of which were being conveyed, for burial in deep water, the remains of a woman who had died during the previous night. The relatives of the deceased accompanied the corpse, but took no share in the paddling, being employed in wailing and bemoaning their loss after the conventional manner of the Chinese. A peculiar style of paddling was adopted by the funeral party; each man, pausing after every stroke, partially arrested the motion of the canoe by a backwater movement of his paddle.
In Simbo or Eddystone Island, the bodies of the dead are sometimes placed amongst the large masses of rock which lie at the base of Middle Hill on the west coast of the island. My attention was first attracted to this custom by the stench that came from this spot as I passed it in a canoe. Some human bones were observed on the reef which lies off the anchorage. In the eastern islands the dead are often buried at sea. In Ugi and in Florida the skulls are sometimes preserved in a cairn of stones built on the edge of a sea cliff, or at the extremity of a point, or in some remote islet. A dwarf cocoa-nut, which attains a height of from eight to twelve feet, frequently marks the grave of the chief in the island of Ugi. In one of the villages of this island I was shown the shrine of a chief, a small house in which suspended from the roof in a basket were the skulls of the chief and his wife concealed from view by a screen of palm leaves. Some articles of food, including a portion of an opossum, together with a large wooden bowl, were hung up before the screen.
The burial place for men in the village of Sapuna in Santa Anna is an oblong enclosure in the midst of the village which measures 24 by 18 feet, and is surrounded by a low wall of fragments of coral limestone. In this space all the bodies are buried at a depth of five or six feet; and after some time the skulls are exhumed and placed inside the wooden figure of a shark about three feet in length, which is deposited in the tambu-house. One of these wooden fish, which lay on the surface of the burial ground at the time of my visit, had recently been removed from the tambu-house on account of its being rotten through age, and the skull was to be re-interred. The body of a chief is placed at once in the tambu-house in a wooden shark of sufficient size. Women are buried in another ground, and the wooden sharks containing their skulls are deposited in a small house by the side of the tambu-house.
Into the subject of the superstitions and religious beliefs which are held by the natives of the Solomon Islands I shall barely enter, as only those who have become familiar with the natives by long residence among them, and who have acquired an intimate knowledge of their language, can hope to avoid the numerous pitfalls into which the unwary observer is so likely to fall. I would, therefore, refer the reader for information on this subject to a paper by the Rev. R. H. Codrington, entitled “Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia,” which was published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (vol. x., p. 261). Through Lieutenant Malan’s knowledge of the Fijian tongue, a language understood by the men who had served their term on the Fiji plantations, I learned that the natives of Treasury and the Shortlands believe in a Good Spirit (nito drekona) who lives in a pleasant land whither all men who have lived good lives go after death, and that all the bad men are transported to the crater of Bagana, the burning volcano of Bougainville, which is the home of the Evil Spirit (nito paitena) and his companion spirits. That the natives of the Shortlands really believe in some future state is shown in the following singular superstition which came under my notice at Alu. I was returning one night in Gorai’s war canoe from one of my excursions, when I noticed that the chief and his men were looking towards the coral island of Balalai which lies a few miles distant from the anchorage. They told me they were looking for a bright light which was sometimes to be seen shining at night in this island in the winter months of the year. This light they believed to be the spirit of Captain Ferguson of the “Ripple,” who had been killed some years before by the natives of Nouma-nouma on the Bougainville coast. I suggested that it might be the watch-fire of a party of the Faro natives who had gone there to fish, or to hunt turtle; but my suggestion was pooh-poohed. Balalai was evidently a haunted island in the minds of my companions, and I desisted from making any further remarks which would be likely to disabuse them of this idea. Often and often when we were anchored within sight of this island I remembered the story, but never saw the light.
The natives of Ugi believe that the souls of the dead pass into fireflies: and should one of these insects enter a house, those inside quickly leave it. The spirits of the dead in human shape are believed to frequent certain islets in Treasury Harbour, where they are occasionally seen by the women. Certain spirits, who are usually accredited with the power of sending sickness or other calamities, are said to take up their abodes in particular districts. Such a spirit haunts the picturesque glen of Tetabau on the northern slope of the summit of Treasury, if we may accept the statement of one of the islanders; and any native who is bold enough to enter this glen will, according to the general belief, provoke the anger of its invisible occupant. The party of natives who accompanied me to the summit of Tarawei Hill in the island of Faro refused to go further than the brink of the hill, because, as they said, there dwelt on the top some evil spirits who would send sickness and death on any intruder. I had therefore to walk along the crest of the hill alone. The echoes which the shouts of my men awakened as we descended the steep slopes to the west were, as I was told, but the voices of the spirits who haunted the summit of the hill.
In the island of Ugi the superstition of “ill-wishing” is very prevalent. When a man cuts off his hair, as in mourning, he buries it unobserved so that it may not fall into the hands of any one who may by sorcery bring sickness or some other calamity upon him; and he adopts the same precaution with reference to the husks of betel-nuts and similar refuse. Whilst I was obtaining some samples of hair from the natives of this island, I was told that if in the immediate future any sickness should befall those who had parted with their hair, they would assign the cause to me; yet, native-like, they allowed me to take a sample with their free consent, for it is their custom never to refuse to each other anything that is asked. The professions of the sorcerer and medicine-man are usually combined in the same individual. These men in the Shortlands have a great reputation in the minds of the natives, being accredited by them with a knowledge almost universal; and the precincts of their dwellings are tabooed even to the chief. One of them named Kikila, a sinister-looking individual with but one eye, had obtained much repute in the practice of his profession. When on one occasion Lieutenant Oldham complained to the chief that some of the calico had been removed by the natives from the surveying-marks, the services of Kikila were employed to bring about the death of the unknown culprit. The sorcerer was not himself aware who the man was; but we were told that for one of so much repute this was quite unnecessary. We never learned the result of his incantation; but in all probability they effected their purpose soon enough by working on the fears of the unfortunate offender. How it was to be done we could not satisfactorily ascertain; but there was no doubt as to the efficacy of the means employed in the minds of the natives.
Amongst the powers of the sorcerers are those of influencing the weather. But such powers are not confined to men of this class alone. In Ugi, different natives are accredited with being able to bring wind and rain; and I knew one man who had earned for himself a considerable reputation as a “wind-prophet.” These powers are claimed by Mule, the Treasury chief, amongst his other prerogatives.
As far as I could ascertain, these natives keep no record, even in the memory, of the lapse of years. Nor are they acquainted with their own age. More than once when trying to obtain the date of particular events, I received the wildest replies. The safest method to employ in making such inquiries is to get the native to refer a recent event to some epoch in his own life, or in the case of earlier occurrences to associate them with his boyhood, manhood, or marriage. When he asserts that a certain event occurred whilst his father was a child, he is probably to be trusted; but when he goes back to the time of his grandfather, no further reliance can be placed on his statements, except as implying an indefinite number of years. I have observed elsewhere ([page 76]) that a grandfather is deemed a personage of such a high antiquity that these islanders, when referring to past events, seldom care to go beyond.
The only method of reckoning that came under my notice was in the instance of a Treasury native, who, whilst serving as interpreter on board the “Lark,” kept a register of the time he was away from his island by tying a knot daily on a cord and marking Sunday by a piece of paper, the knots being about an inch apart. I learned from a Faro man that this is the method of recording days which is commonly employed by the inhabitants of Bougainville Straits, the “moons” or months being alone distinguished by a piece of native tobacco tied in the knot. Such a practice, however, would appear to be followed only during the temporary absences from their islands, as when they are away on canoe expeditions. A native, captured in 1769 by Surville, whilst at Port Praslin, in Isabel, kept count of the days of absence from his country by tying knots in a “lacet.”[18] It is scarcely necessary for me to point out that in the “knotted cord” of the Solomon Islanders we have the elementary form of the “quipu” of the Incas.
[18] From an extract of this voyage given in “Voyage de Marion.” Paris, 1783: p. 274, circâ.
Amongst the constellations, the Pleiades and Orion’s Belt seem to be those which are most familiar to the natives of Bougainville Straits. The former, which they speak of as possessing six stars, they name “Vuhu;” the latter, “Matatala.” They have also names for a few other stars. As in the case of many other savage races, the Pleiades is a constellation of great significance with the inhabitants of these straits. The Treasury Islanders hold a great feast towards the end of October, to celebrate, as far as I could learn, the approaching appearance of this constellation above the eastern horizon soon after sunset. Probably, as in many of the Pacific Islands, this event marks the beginning of their year. I learned from Mr. Stephens that, in Ugi, where of all the constellations the Pleiades alone receives a name, the natives are guided by it in selecting the times for planting and taking up their yams.
Village of Suenna in Ugi.
[To face page 57.
CHAPTER IV.
DWELLINGS—TAMBU-HOUSES—WEAPONS—TOOLS.
The villages in the eastern islands of the group vary much in size. They usually contain between 25 and 40 houses, and between one and two hundred inhabitants. There are however some much larger, as in the case of Wano on the north coast of St. Christoval, which probably does not possess a population much under five hundred. In the larger villages the houses are generally built in double rows with a common thoroughfare between; and the tambu-house occupies usually a central position. In the village of Suenna, as shown in the [engraving], which is one of the largest villages in Ugi, the houses are built around a large open space free of buildings. The usual dimensions of the dwelling-houses are as follows: length 25 to 30 feet, breadth 15 to 20 feet, height 8 to 10 feet. The gable-roof, which is made of a framework of bamboos thatched with the leaves of pandanus trees, or of cocoa-nut or areca palms, is supported on a central row of posts. The sides are low and made of the same materials as the roof. The only entrance is by an oblong aperture in the front of the building, which is removed 21⁄2 to 3 feet above the ground, so that one has literally to dive into the interior, which from the absence of any other openings, is kept very dark. Such are the dimensions and mode of structure of an ordinary dwelling-house in the eastern islands. The chiefs, however, have larger buildings, which in some instances, as in those of the more powerful chiefs, rival in size and in style the tambu-houses themselves. Many houses have a staging in front, which is on a level with the lower edge of the aperture that serves as the entrance. On this staging, protected by the projecting roof the inmates are wont to sit and lie about during the day; and the men occasionally pass the night there. In the houses of the chiefs and principal men, there are generally spaces partitioned off for sleeping and containing a raised stage for the mats; but in the dwelling-house of an ordinary man no such partitions usually occur. Single men sleep on the ground on a mat, which may be nothing more than the leaves of two branches of the cocoa-nut palm rudely plaited together. Each man lays his mat by the side of a little smouldering wood-fire, which he endeavours to keep up during the night, and for this purpose he gets up at all hours to fan it into a flame.
There is but little attempt made to please the eye in the way of external or internal decoration in the ordinary dwelling-house of a native in the eastern islands. Rows of the lower jaws of pigs with the skeletons of fishes and the dried skins of the flying-fox are to be seen suspended from the roof over the entrance; whilst the spears, clubs, and fishing implements are either thrust between the bamboos of the roof or slung in a bundle over the entrance. Of furniture there is but little except the large cooking-bowls, the mats, and a circle of cooking-stones forming a rude hearth in the centre of the floor. I have seen in temporary sheds or “lean-tos,” erected by fishing parties on the southern island of the “Three Sisters,” fire-places formed of a circle two to three feet across of medium-sized Tridacna shells, the enclosed space being strewn with small stones.
The houses of the chiefs usually display more decoration. Amongst others I recall to my mind the brightly-coloured front of the residence of Haununo, the intelligent young chief of Santa Catalina. I am not aware how long a native house will last. The white residents, however, tell me that houses built for their own use, which are more substantial than the ordinary native dwellings, will stand some five or six years; and that, notwithstanding the heavy rainfall of this region, the thatch remains admirably waterproof.
I now come to the description of the houses in the islands of Bougainville Straits. In the villages of Treasury and the Shortlands, the houses are arranged in a long straggling row; and although close to the beach they are for the most part concealed by the trees from the view of those on board the ships in the anchorage. In the materials used, in their style, and in their general size, these houses resemble those of St. Christoval and the adjacent smaller islands. A thatch made of the leaves of the sago-palm or of the pandanus, covers the gable-roof and the framework of the walls. The usual dimensions of a dwelling-house are: length 25 to 30 feet, breadth 12 to 15 feet, height 10 to 12 feet. Since there are no means of admitting light except by the door, the interiors are very dark, insomuch that on entering one of these houses from the bright sunlight the eyes require some time before they can see at all. In the out-lying hamlets in the interior of these islands, the houses are often smaller and more rudely constructed; and the owner supplies the place of a door by placing a couple of large plantain leaves or a branch of a cocoa-nut palm before the entrance. Many of these small hamlets are only occupied during the planting season.
There is a far greater difference in size between the dwellings of the chiefs and those of the ordinary natives than exists in the eastern islands of the group, a distinction which might have been expected on account of the greater power of the chiefs of Bougainville Straits. Gorai, the powerful Shortland chief, has appropriated to himself more than an acre of ground on which stand the several buildings required for the accommodation of his numerous wives, children, and dependents. Its precincts are tabooed to the ordinary native; but the old chief is always ready to extend to the white man a privilege which he denies to his own people. His own residence when we first met him, had no great pretensions in size or appearance, measuring 40 by 20 feet in length and breadth, and possessing a very dingy interior from the absence of any opening except the entrance to admit light. There was, however, a larger and better constructed building situated near his own for the accommodation of his female establishment. It measured 60 by 30 by 20 feet in length, breadth, and height; and was subsequently appropriated by the chief for his own use.
The residence of Mule, the Treasury chief, was one of the largest native edifices that I saw in the Solomon Group. It is a gable-roofed building, measuring about 80 feet in length, 50 feet in breadth, and 25 to 30 feet in height. The front of the house, which is at one of the ends of the building, has a singular appearance from the central part or body of the building, being advanced several feet beyond the sides, a style which is imitated in some of the smaller houses of the village. Its interior is very imperfectly lighted by small apertures in the walls. I should here refer to the large and neatly built house of the powerful chief of Simbo, who, contrary to the usual practice, prefers light to darkness in his residence.
Pile-Dwellings in Fauro Island.
[To face page 60.
In the two principal villages of Faro or Fauro which are named Toma and Sinasoro, a number of the houses are built on piles and raised from 5 to 8 feet above the ground, as shown in the accompanying [plate]. But this custom is by no means universal in the same village, and depends, as far as I could learn, on the personal fancy of the owner. Both these villages are situated on low level tracts bordering the sea; but their sites are free from moist and swampy ground, to the existence of which one might have attributed this practice. The houses built on the ground are about 30 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 12 or 13 feet high; whilst those raised on piles are considerably smaller, measuring 22 by 15 feet in length and breadth, the building itself being supported on a framework of stout poles lashed on the tops of the piles by broad stripes of rattan. These pile-dwellings are reached by rudely constructed steps made after the style of our own ladders. The roofs of the houses in these villages have a higher pitch than I have observed in houses of the other islands of the Straits. Their eaves project considerably beyond the walls, and the roof is often prolonged at the front end of the building forming a kind of portico. A neat thatch of the leaves of the sago palm covers the sides and roof of each building.
After remarking that the houses in the Florida Islands are often similarly built on piles not only at the coast, but also on the hill-slopes some distance from the sea, I pass on to briefly refer to the purpose of these pile-dwellings on land. It seemed to me probable that in previous years, when the natives of Faro were not on such friendly terms with their neighbours, the houses were built on piles for purposes of defence against a surprise; and that when comparative peace and order reigned, some persons preferred the more commodious house on a ground site to the smaller and less convenient building on piles. Various explanations have been advanced with reference to this custom of building pile-dwellings on dry land, some of which I will enumerate. It is held by some that this custom is but the survival of “the once purposeful habit of building them in the water.” The exclusion of pigs and goats and the protection against wild animals have been suggested as probable objects of this practice; whilst by others it is urged that the purpose of these pile-dwellings is to obviate the effects of excessive rain and to guard against damp exhalations from a tropical soil. Whatever may be the cause or causes of this custom, it is one which is widely spread, being found in New Guinea, in the Philippines, amongst the tribes on the north-eastern frontier of India, and in Guiana.[19]
[19] Those of my readers who desire further information on this subject should refer to the works of Tylor, Mosely, etc., and to “Nature” for the last few years.
With regard to the internal arrangements of the houses in this part of the Solomon Group, but little remains to be said. In many houses a portion of a space is partitioned off for sleeping purposes, usually one of the corners; in others, again, the interior is divided into two halves by a cross-partition. More attention is here paid to the comfort of repose than in the eastern islands. In the place of the single mat laid on the ground, they have low couches, raised a foot to eighteen inches above the floor, on which they lay their mats; whilst a round cylinder of wood serves them as a pillow. These couches, which the natives can improvise in the bush in a few minutes, are usually nothing more than a layer of stout poles, such as the slender trunks of the areca palms, resting at their ends on two logs.
Mat-making is one of the occupations of the women of the Straits, the material employed being the thick leaves of a species of Pandanus which is known by the natives as the pota. The leaves are first deprived of their thin polished epidermis by being rubbed over with the leaves of a plant, named sansuti, which have a rough surface giving a sensation like that caused by fine emery paper when passed over the skin. The pandanus leaves are then dried in the sun, when they become whitened and leathery, and are then sewn together into mats. These mats are not only used to lie upon, but are also worn by the women over their shoulders as a protection in wet weather. They are especially useful, as I have myself found, when sleeping out in the open in wet weather. They are sufficiently long to cover the whole length of a native; and when he is sleeping out in the bush, he lies down on his couch formed, as above described, from the slender trunks of areca palms ready at his hand, and covering himself completely with his mat, he may sleep through a deluge of rain without being touched by the wet. The mat has a crease along the middle of its length, so that when placed over the body it resembles a “tente d’abri;” and the rain runs off as from the roof of a house. To intending travellers in these islands, I strongly recommend this form of couch. A native mat and a blanket are all he requires to carry. Almost anywhere in the bush he can find the areca palms, the slender trunks of which, when placed as a layer of poles on two logs, will serve him as an excellent couch.
With regard to the domestic utensils in use amongst the natives of Bougainville Straits, I should observe that cocoa-nut shells pierced by a hole of about the size of a florin, are employed as drinking-vessels. The outer surface of the shell is usually coated over with a kind of red cement formed of a mixture of red ochreous earth and the resinous material, obtained from the fruit of the “tita” (Parinarium laurinum), which is employed for caulking the seams of the canoes. The exterior of these vessels is frequently ornamented by double chevron-lines of native shell-beads. Sometimes a tube of bamboo is fitted into the orifice of the vessel to form a neck, the whole being plastered over with the red cement and looking like some antique earthen jar. Both of these kinds of drinking-vessels are shown in the accompanying [plate]. Drinking water is always kept at hand in a house in a number of these cocoa-nut shells which, being hung up overhead, keep the water pleasantly cool, a plug of leaves being used as a stopper. The native, in drinking, never puts the vessel to his mouth, but throwing his head well back, he holds the vessel a few inches above his lips and allows the water to run into his mouth. The milk of the cocoa-nut is drunk in the same manner. The scoops or scrapers used in eating the white kernels of the cocoa-nuts are generally either of bone or of pearl-shell. Sometimes for this purpose a large Cardium shell is lashed to a handle, a small hole being made in the shell for this purpose. . . . . Wooden hooks of clumsy size, though showing some skill in their design and workmanship, are employed as hanging-pegs in the houses.
1
2
1. Model Canoe made by a St. Christoval Native.
2. Pan-pipes. Cocoanut Drinking Vessels. Cooking-pot with Cushion and Trowel. Fan.
(All these Articles are from Treasury Island.)
[To face page 63.
The cooking-vessels in use in the islands of Bougainville Straits are circular pots of a rough clay ware, usually measuring about nine inches in depth and breadth, but sometimes more than double this size. Cleansing these vessels out between the meals is deemed an unnecessary refinement. These cooking-pots, one of which is shown in the accompanying [plate], are made by the women in the following manner: A handful of the clay, which is dark-reddish in colour and would make a good brick-clay, is first worked together in the hands into a plastic lump; and this is fashioned rudely into a kind of saucer to form the bottom of the vessel by basting the mass against a flat smooth pebble, three or four inches across, held in the left hand, with a kind of wooden trowel or beater held in the right hand. (One of these wooden trowels is figured in the [plate].) Whilst one woman is thus engaged, a couple of her companions are occupied in flattening out, by means of a flat-sided stick, strips of the clay six to twelve inches in length and an inch in breadth, their length increasing as the making of the vessel progresses. One of these strips is then placed around the upper edge of the saucer; and the potter welds or batters it into position, employing the same tools in a similar manner, the pebble being held inside. The cooking vessel is thus built up strip by strip; and to enable the worker to give symmetry to the upper part of the pot, a fillet of broad grass is tied around as a guide. An even edge is given to the lip by drawing along the rim a fibre from the cocoa-nut husk, and the interior and neck are finished off by the fingers well moistened. Whilst being made, the cooking-pot is rested on a ring-cushion of palm leaves, as shown in the same [engraving]. The time occupied in making one of the ordinary sized pots is about three-quarters of an hour. Thus made, they are kept in the shade for three or four days to become firm; and they are finally hardened by being placed in a wood-fire. No glaze appears to be used, and the vessels themselves show no signs of its employment. Their outer surfaces are indistinctly marked by odd-looking patterns in relief, reminding one somewhat of hieroglyphics, which are produced by the same patterns cut into one of the surfaces of the wooden beater (as shown in the [engraving]) for the purpose of giving the tool a better hold on the clay. Some cooking-pots, as in the case of the one illustrated, are ornamented with a chevron-line in relief below the neck and partly surrounding the vessel.[20] This ware compares but poorly with the finish and variety of design displayed by the glazed pottery of Fiji. The Fijian women, however, employ similar tools and accessories, namely, a flat mallet, a small round flat stone, and a ring-like cushion of palm leaves; but they do not appear from the accounts given of the process by Commodore Wilkes,[21] Messrs. Williams and Calvert,[22] and Miss Gordon Cumming,[23] to fashion the clay in the first place into strips. I may here refer the reader to the illustration, given by Commodore Wilkes in his narrative (vol. iii. p. 348), of pottery-making in Fiji, as it exactly suits my description of pottery-making in these islands of Bougainville Straits.
[20] Specimens of the pots, the implements, the clay, and the other accessories, have been placed in the Ethnographical Collection of the British Museum.
[21] “Narrative of the U.S. Explor. Exped.:” vol. iii., p. 348.
[22] “Fiji and the Fijians:” 3rd edit., 1870, p. 60.
[23] “A Lady’s Cruise in a French Man-of-War:” London, 1882, p. 247.
It will be interesting, perhaps, to briefly notice some of the gradations in the art of pottery manufacture amongst the savage races in this quarter of the globe. A very simple method, as recorded by Captain Forrest[24] more than a century ago, was employed by the women of Dory Harbour, New Guinea. They formed “pieces of clay into earthen pots; with a pebble in one hand to put into it, whilst they held in the other hand, also a pebble, with which they knocked, to enlarge and smooth it.” The natives of the Andaman Islands[25] advance another step in the process. We learn from Mr. Man that the only implements employed are, an Arca shell, a short pointed stick, and a board. The clay is rolled out into strips with the hand. One of these strips is twisted to form the cup-like base; and the pot is then built up strip by strip. The method employed by the natives of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, may be considered to be an improvement on the plan adopted by the Andaman Islanders. As already described, they also fashion the clay into strips and build up the vessel in a similar manner, but in the employment of a special implement as the wooden beater, in the use of the ring-cushion, and probably in the more artistic details of the process, they make a nearer approach than do the Andaman Islanders to the pottery-making of the Fijians. Then we come in the ascending scale to the method employed by the women of the Motu tribe around Port Moresby, New Guinea. By the Rev. Dr. W. Turner,[26] we are informed that they use a round smooth stone and a wooden beater but no cushion, the vessel being made without the aid of strips of clay into two pieces, the body and the mouth, which are moulded together. This method, as employed by the Motu women, may not be superior to that followed amongst the women of Bougainville Straits; but inasmuch as the former manufacture three kinds of vessels, one for holding water, another for cooking, and a third to be used as a plate, whilst the latter confine their art to the cooking-pot, I have assigned the first place to the former.[27] From the work of the Motu women to the pottery of the Fijians, and between the different processes employed, there is a considerable advance in the art of pottery manufacture, as already described in the case of Fiji. There, a glaze is for the first time employed; whilst in their finish, their comparative elegance of design, in their multiplicity of pattern, and in the various purposes for which they are employed from the cooking-pot up to the ornamental jar, these Fijian vessels are greatly superior to all I have referred to, whether the work of a woman of Port Dory, of an Andaman Islander, of a woman of Bougainville Straits, or of a woman of the Motu tribe in New Guinea.[28]
[24] “A Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas,” by Captain T. Forrest: London, 1779, p. 96.
[25] Journal of the Anthropological Institute: vol. xii., p. 69.
[26] Ibid: vol. vii., p. 470.
[27] In the Ethnological Collection of the British Museum there are specimens from this quarter of New Guinea of the wooden beaters employed in the pottery making. They are highly carved and much more finished than those of Bougainville Straits, being labelled “blocks” in the collection, as if their chief use was for imprinting patterns on the clay. It seems to me, however, that their principal purpose is as beaters, the simply cut patterns of the beater of Bougainville Straits, which serve to give the tool a better hold on the clay, being elaborated in the case of the New Guinea beater into ornamental patterns which have the same purpose.
[28] Two kinds of earthen pots from the Admiralty Islands are figured in the official narrative of the cruise of the “Challenger” (figs. 242 and 243). They differ in shape from those of Bougainville Straits and are probably made in a different manner.
The Polynesian plan of producing fire, which is known as the “stick-and-groove” method, was that which was occasionally employed by my native guides during my excursions in St. Christoval and in the island of Simbo. At the risk of being charged with undue prolixity, I will briefly describe it as I saw it performed. A dry piece of wood is first taken, and one side of it is sliced so as to form a flat surface. A small bit of the same wood is then pointed at one end and worked briskly along a groove which it soon forms in the flat surface. The friction in some three or four minutes produces smoke; and finally a fine powder, which has been collecting in a small heap at the end of the groove, begins to smoulder. After being carefully nursed by the breath of the operator, the tiny flame is transferred to a piece of touch-wood, and the object is attained. In most native houses in districts not often visited by the trader, pieces of the wood used for this purpose are left lying about on the floor. Wax matches, however, form an important item in the large quantities of trade-articles which pass into the hands of the natives of some of the islands; and in such islands any other method of producing fire is not generally employed. In most cases, when I had omitted to take matches with me in my excursions, my natives, although very desirous of getting a light for their pipes, were too lazy to obtain it by making use of the more laborious method of the “stick-and-groove.” When making their own journeys in the bush, they carry along with them a piece of smouldering wood, a precaution which I used to encourage them to adopt when accompanying me, in order to save myself being pestered every few minutes for a light for their pipes.
Burning-glasses are in common use amongst the natives of some of the islands, as at Simbo. The reason of their being not always favourite articles of trade in other islands, I was at a loss to understand. The numerous fumaroles varying in temperature between 160° and 200° Fahr. which pierce the hill-sides of the volcanic island of Simbo, are employed by the natives for the purposes of cooking, as I have elsewhere observed ([p. 86]).
Fans serve the double purpose of nursing a fire and of cooling the person. Those in use in Treasury are made of the extremities of two branches of the cocoa-nut palm, the midribs forming the handle, whilst the long “pinnæ” are neatly plaited together to form the fan. One of these fans is figured in the pottery engraving. Although more coarsely made, they are of a pattern similar to the fans of Fiji and Samoa. The shape appears to have originated from the nature of the materials employed; and I suspect that in Fiji and Samoa, where different materials are used, the original shape which depended on the plaiting of the cocoa-nut leaves has been retained, whilst the material itself has been discarded.
The natives of Bougainville Straits burn torches during their fishing excursions at night and during festivals. For this purpose they use resins obtained from the “anoga,”[29] probably a species of Canarium, and the “katari,” a species of Calophyllum, two tall trees which rank among the giants of the forest in this region. The resin of the “anoga” should be more properly described as a resinous balsam. It is white, is easily pulverised, and has a powerful odour, as if of camphor and sandal-wood combined. It concretes in mass inside the bark and in tears on the outer surface of the tree, and is usually obtained by climbing up and knocking it off the bark; but sometimes the tree is ringed at a height of four feet from the ground, a process which drains it of its resin but causes its death. The torch of this material is simply prepared by wrapping up compactly the powdered resin in a palm-leaf, which although outside answers the purpose of a wick. . . . The “katari” resin, which is less frequently used, is a dark-coloured material that burns with a tarry and somewhat fragrant odour. Other resins and gums are yielded by the trees, one of which somewhat resembles the “kauri” gum of New Zealand, and occurs in a similar situation beneath the soil; but I was unable to find the tree.
[29] From Surville’s description of his visit to Port Praslin in Isabel in 1769, it would appear that the natives burned torches made of this resin. (“Voyage de Marion.” Paris, 1783; p. 274.)
In the tambu-houses of St. Christoval and the adjoining islands we have a style of building on which all the mechanical skill of which the natives are possessed has been brought to bear. These sacred buildings have many and varied uses. Women are forbidden to enter their walls; and in some coast villages, as at Sapuna in the island of Santa Anna, where the tambu-house overlooks the beach, women are not even permitted to cross the beach in front. The tambu-houses of the coast villages are employed chiefly for keeping the war-canoes, each chief being allowed, as an honourable mark of his position, the privilege of there placing his own war-canoe;[30] but in the inland villages, these buildings are of course no longer employed for this purpose. Another use to which these buildings may be put is described on [page 53], in connection with the tambu-house of Sapuna in Santa Anna, in which are deposited, enclosed in the wooden figure of a shark, the skulls of ordinary men and the entire bodies of the chiefs.
[30] Mr. C. F. Wood, in his “Yachting in the South Seas” (London, 1875), gives, as the frontispiece of his book, an autotype photograph of the tambu-house of Makira in St. Christoval, in which the war-canoes are well shown.
The front of the tambu-house in his native village is, for the Solomon Islander, a common place of resort, more especially towards the close of the afternoon. There he meets his fellows and listens to the news of his own little world; and it is to this spot that any native who may be a stranger to the village first directs his steps, and on arriving states his errand or particular business. In my numerous excursions, when thirsty or tired, I always used to follow the native custom in this matter, being always treated hospitably and never with any rudeness. The interior of these buildings is free to any man to lie down in and sleep. On one occasion, when passing a night in an island village of St. Christoval, I slept in the tambu-house, the only white man amongst a dozen natives. Bloodshed, I believe, rarely occurs in these buildings; and they are for this reason viewed somewhat in the light of a sanctuary.
The completion of a new tambu-house is always an occasion of a festival in a village. The festival is often accompanied by the sacrifice of a human life; and the leg and arm bones of the victim may be sometimes seen suspended to the roof overhead. In the tambu-house of the village of Makia, on the east coast of Ugi, I observed hanging from the roof the two temporal bones, the right femur, and the left humerus of the victim who had been killed and eaten at the opening of the building; and similarly suspended in the tambu-house of the hill-village of Lawa on the north side of St. Christoval, in which I passed the night, I noticed over my head as I lay on my mat the left femur, tibia, and fibula, and the left humerus of the unfortunate man who had been killed and eaten on the completion of the building twelve months before. At these feasts there is a great slaughter of pigs that have been confined for some previous time in an enclosure of strong wooden stakes, which may be allowed to remain long after the occasion for its use has passed away. After the feast, the lower jaws of all the pigs consumed are hung in rows from the roof of the building. In one tambu-house I remember counting as many as sixty jaws thus strung up.
The style of building and the size and relative dimensions of the tambu-houses are very similar in all the coast-villages of the eastern islands, a correspondence which may be explained from the necessity of the structure being long enough to hold the large war-canoes. As a type of these buildings, I will describe somewhat in detail the tambu-house of the large village of Wano, on the north coast of St. Christoval. Its length is about 60 feet and its breadth between 20 and 25 feet. The gable roof is supported by five rows of posts, the height of the central row being some 14 or 15 feet from the ground; whilst on account of its high pitch the two outer lateral rows of posts are only 3 or 4 feet high. The principal weight of the roof is borne by the central and two next rows, each of which supports a long, bulky ridge-pole. The two outer lateral rows of posts are much smaller and support much lighter ridge-poles. In each row there are four posts, two in the middle and one at each gable-end. These posts, more particularly those of the central row, are grotesquely carved, and evidently by no unskilled hand, the lower part representing the body of a shark with its head upwards and mouth agape, supporting in various postures a rude imitation of the human figure which formed the upper part of the post. In one instance, a man was represented seated on the upper lip or snout of the shark, with his legs dangling in its mouth, and wearing a hat on his head, the crown of which supported the ridge-pole. In another case the man was inverted; and whilst the soles of his feet supported the ridge-pole, his head and chest were resting in the mouth of the shark.[31] Long after the tambu-house has disappeared, the carved posts remain in their position and form a not uncommon feature in a village scene as shown in the [engraving] of a village in Ugi. . . . The roof of the Wano tambu-house is formed of a framework of bamboo poles covered with palm-leaf thatch, the poles being of equal size, whether serving as rafters or cross-battens, the latter affording attachment for the thatch. The same materials are used in the sides of the building. . . . . With reference to tambu-houses generally in this part of the group, I should remark that they are open at both ends, with usually a staging at the front end raised about four feet from the ground, which may be aptly termed “the village lounge.”
[31] Mr. Brenchley, who visited Wano, or Wanga as he names it, in 1865, refers briefly in his “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curacoa’” to these carved posts (p. 267).
The tambu-house of the interesting little island of Santa Catalina or Orika—the Yoriki of the Admiralty [chart]—is worthy of a few special remarks. Its dimensions are similar to those of like buildings in this part of the group, the length being between 60 and 70 feet. Placed in front of each of its ends are three circles of large wooden posts driven into the earth, each circle of posts being 4 or 5 feet in height and enclosing a space of ground a few feet across, into which are thrown cocoa-nuts and other articles of food to appease the hunger of the presiding deity or devil-god. The ridge-poles and posts are painted with numerous grotesque representations in outline of war-canoes and fishing-parties, of natives in full fighting equipment, of sharks, and of the devil-god himself, with a long, lank body and a tail besides. On a ridge-pole there was drawn in paint the outline of some waggon or other vehicle with the horses in the shafts: whether this was a reminiscence of some native who had been to the colonies, or was merely a copy from a picture, I did not learn. Some of the representations on the ridge-poles were of an obscene character. The central row of posts were defaced by chipping, which I was informed was a token of mourning for the late chief of the island, who had died not many months before. Mr. C. F. Wood met with a similar custom in 1873 in the case of a native of a village at the west end of St. Christoval, who on the death of his son broke and damaged the carved figures of birds and fish in his house.[32] I am inclined to think that this house was a sacred building of some kind. . . . . Mr. William Macdonald, through whose kindness I had the opportunity of visiting this island, pointed out to me that two or three of the posts of the building had been carved into the figures of women, an innovation in the interior of a tambu-house which I observed in no other building of this kind.
[32] “A Yachting Cruise in the South Seas:” London, 1875 (p. 133).
The tambu-house of the village of Sapuna in Santa Anna, which is shown in the accompanying [plate], is higher, broader, and more massive in structure than the other buildings which I have visited in the adjacent islands. As in other tambu-houses, the forms of the shark and of the human figure are given to parts of the posts; and in the hollow cavities of wooden representations of the shark on the sides of the interior of the building are enclosed the entire bodies of departed chiefs and the skulls of ordinary men. The carved central post, which is seen in the accompanying [engraving], affords a superior specimen of native workmanship. It was originally brought, as I was informed by one of the natives of Santa Anna, from Guadalcanar. The walls of this building are made more rain-proof by long slabs, measuring 36 by 6 by 2 inches, which are cut out from the dense matted growth of fibres and rootlets that invests the base of the bole of the cocoa-nut palm.
The principal tambu-house in the village of Ete-ete, on the west side of Ugi, is between 60 and 70 feet in length, from 25 to 30 feet broad, and 11 or 12 feet in height. Here also the sculptured posts represent the body of a shark with its head uppermost and supporting in the gape of its mouth the figure of a man, on whose head rests the ridge-pole of the roof. The front of the building is decorated with red and black bands, some straight, some wavy, and others of the chevron pattern. Mr. Brenchley in his account of the “Cruise of the ‘Curacoa’” gives a sketch of this tambu-house, which he visited in 1865 (p. 258). Forming the frontispiece of his work is a chromo-lithograph showing the two sides of an ornamental tie-beam from the roof of a “public hall” at Ugi, which he presented to the Maidstone Museum. It represents on one side sharks, bonitos, and sea-birds supposed to be frigate-birds, and on the other side four canoes with sharks attacking the crew of one of them, which is bottom upwards.
Tambu-House in the Island of Santa Anna.
(Preparations for a Feast.)
[To face page 70.
The deification of the shark appears to arise from the superstitious dread which this fish inspires. Its good-will may be obtained by leaving offerings of food on the rocks before undertaking a long journey in a canoe. The natives of the neighbouring island of Ulaua, or Ulawa, propitiate the shark with offerings of their own shell-money and of porpoise teeth, which they prize even more than money; and, if a sacred shark has attempted to seize a man who has been able to finally escape from its jaws, they are so much afraid that they will throw him back into the sea to be devoured.[33] We learn from Mr. Ellis[34] and from Messrs. Tyerman and Bennet,[35] that in the Society Islands sharks were deified, that temples were erected for their worship in which the fisherman propitiated the favour of the shark-god, and that almost every family had its particular shark as its tutelary deity to which it bowed and made oblations.
[33] “Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia,” by the Rev. R. H. Codrington, M.A. “Journal of the Anthropological Institute.” Vol. x.
[34] “Polynesian Researches:” London, 1853. Vol. i., pp. 167, 329.
[35] “Voyages and Travels of the Rev. D. Tyerman and George Bennet, Esq.:” London, 1831. Vol. i., p. 247.
At Alu and Treasury in Bougainville Straits, the tambu-house, which is such a prominent feature in the villages of the eastern islands, is represented by a mere open canoe-shed, for the most part destitute of ornament, and apparently held in but little veneration. Rows of the lower jaws of pigs, which are strung up inside the buildings, signify, as in the eastward islands, the number of animals slaughtered for the feast that was held to celebrate the completion of the canoe-shed. In the island of Faro, the canoe-houses are only temporary sheds built over the large war-canoes, and can have no sacred character in the mind of the native, the tambu-houses in the two principal villages of Toma and Sinasoro having no connection with the war-canoes. The tambu-house of the village of Toma is a neat-looking building about 18 feet high, 45 feet long, and 25 feet broad. It is open at the ends and partly open at the sides, and is built of much the same materials as the dwelling-houses. The roof, which is neatly thatched with the leaves of the sago-palm, is supported on stout ridge-poles by a central and two lateral rows of posts. There is no carving and but little decoration about the building; and from the circumstance of its being sometimes converted into a temporary drying-house for copra, we may draw some inference as to the degree of sanctity in which such a building is held.
The weapons in common use in these islands are spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and tomahawks. An indication of the disposition of the natives may be usually obtained by observing whether arms are habitually carried. In islands where the men go unarmed, the white man, from the absence of intertribal conflicts, has an additional guarantee for his own safety. On the other hand, amongst natives who never leave the vicinity of their villages without a spear or a club, he will require to be very cautious in all that concerns his safety.
The spears are usually 8 to 9 feet in length, with no foreshaft, and are made of a hard palm wood. Those of the natives of Bougainville Straits are very formidable weapons. They are armed with long points or barbs of bone, some of them 4 or 5 inches in length, and they are coloured white and red, are curiously carved, and are ornamented with bands of the same plaited material of which the armlets are made. The barbs and bands are imitated in the colouring of the head of the spear. These spears are made by the natives of Bougainville, and are exchanged with the people of the Straits for European articles of trade. I have seen them in the hands of the men of Simbo. In St. Christoval and the adjacent islands at the other end of the group, the spears are of dark wood, with carved heads and blunt wooden points and are uncoloured. As compared with those of Bougainville Straits, they are not very formidable weapons. They are only armed with blunt barbs cut out of the wood, which are rather more ornamental than useful.
In throwing a spear, the men of Bougainville Straits, whilst poising the weapon, extend the left arm in the direction of the object and often point the forefinger as well. None of the contrivances for assisting the flight of the spear, such as the throwing-stick or the amentum, were employed by the natives of the islands we visited. These weapons are used both as hand-weapons and as missiles. The natives of St. Christoval spear their victims through the abdomen, and as a mark of their prowess they often allow the gore to dry on the point of the weapon. A man in this island usually keeps his spears slung in a bundle under the projecting eaves of the roof in front of the entrance to his house.
Bows and arrows are much more commonly employed by the natives of Bougainville Straits than by the St. Christoval natives. The bows are stoutly made, and are from 6 to 7 feet in length. The string is of a strong cord. The arrows used in the first-mentioned locality are usually 41⁄2 to 43⁄4 feet in length. They have a long reed shaft, with a pointed foreshaft of a hard heavy palm wood inserted into the end, and measuring about one-fourth the length of the arrow Although most of the arrows have simple pointed foreshafts, destitute of barbs, a few terminate in arrow-heads carved out of the hard wood. A kind of dart, much shorter than the arrow and armed with points of bone, is also used. About nine out of every ten arrows are notched for the bowstring. Feathers are not used; but the hinder shaft of each arrow is decorated with etchings as if in imitation of plumes. These arrows are essentially Melanesian in character, and much resemble those in the British Museum Collection from New Guinea and the New Hebrides.[36] At short distances of 25 or 30 yards, the natives make good shooting with the bow and arrow; but on account of the length of the arrow it is not to be depended on at greater ranges. For shooting fish and pigeons, the natives of these Straits sometimes employ small arrows fashioned out of the large leaf of a kind of reed. The midrib serves as the shaft, and a narrow strip of the blade of the leaf, which is left attached on each side of the shaft, serves the purpose of the plume. The end is pointed and hardened by fire. Such arrows are easily made, and are not generally sought for after they have been shot away.[37] On one occasion I observed a boy of Alu shooting a pigeon with an arrow terminating in fine points like a miniature fish-spear.
[36] To those who have never had their interest specially engaged in the subject of savage weapons, the above detailed description of these arrows may seem unnecessary; but, as Colonel Lane Fox originally pointed out, it is in the absence or presence of the feather and notch, in the length and formation of the shaft and its point, and in other characters, that the arrows of different races are distinguished from each other. Thus, in many parts of New Guinea, in Melanesia generally, and throughout the Pacific, the arrows are destitute of feathers; while those from Europe and Asia are always feathered. (Vide “Catalogue of the original Lane Fox Collection,” pp. 87-95; also, paper on “Primitive Warfare.” “Journ. Unit. Ser. Inst.,” 1867-68, for a general treatment of the subject.) Prof. Morse has shown that in the different methods of releasing the arrow from the bow, important race-distinctions are to be found. An abstract of his interesting paper is given in “Nature,” Nov. 4th, 1886.
[37] Mr. Mosely in his “Notes by a Naturalist,” p. 381, describes and figures very similar arrows which are used by the Ke Islanders for the same purposes.
Poisoned spears and arrows are rarely employed by the natives of the Solomon Group. They did not come under our observation in any of the islands that we visited. In the island of Savo, however, the natives are said to poison their spears and arrows by thrusting them into a decomposing corpse, where they are allowed to remain for some days.
The clubs vary in form in different parts of the group. In St. Christoval, they have flat recurved blades cut out of the flange-like buttresses of a tree having very hard wood which bears a polish like that of mahogany. In other islands, as in those of Florida, they have flattened oval blades like that of a paddle. Other clubs again, like those of Guadalcanar, are more cylindrical, and have their ends but slightly enlarged; they are often ornamented with the so-called “dyed grass.” No weapons of the character of maces came under my observation. Most clubs are pointed at the butt-end to enable them to be stuck upright in the ground. These weapons are rarely seen in the hands of the natives of Bougainville Straits, if I may except an ornamental club which is carried at the dances.[38] The St. Christoval club is also a defensive weapon. Its flat recurved blade is used to turn aside a spear or an arrow just as the bat is employed to slip a cricket-ball. Some have considered that these weapons are merely paddles. I never saw them put to this use, and I should add that they are most unsuited for such a purpose, being very heavy and sinking in water. I have frequently met natives, when away from the coast, carrying them on their shoulder; and I often learned from them of the true character of the weapon. Traders, who had been years in this part of the group, spoke of them to me as war-clubs. Together with their spears, the St. Christoval natives carry them during their hostile incursions against the bushmen. A singular W pattern that occurs on the flat blades of these St. Christoval clubs was for a long time a puzzle to me. However a very probable explanation of its origin has been given by Major-General Pitt-Rivers.[39] It is one which goes to show that these curved flat-bladed clubs originated as paddles, and that in proportion as they came to be employed also for purposes of defence, their form and material were in time changed, until their original use was either lost or forgotten. In the early forms of this paddle-club, the swell of the blade suggested the shape of the body of a fish; and the profile of a fish’s head with the jaws agape was added to complete the resemblance. In course of time the blade lost its fish-like form, but the outline of the snout with jaws agape was still retained as an ornament. In this manner the W pattern of the present clubs originated. The steps in the production of this pattern may be illustrated in a series of clubs from those with most marked fish-like form to those where the profile of the fish’s snout in the form of a W alone remains; and this again by the omission of the mouth is often replaced by a triangular nob.
[38] These ornamental clubs exactly resemble, both in form and decoration, some clubs from New Ireland in the British Museum.
[39] “Nature,” July 14th, 1881. I differ from the writer in considering these articles as clubs, not paddles.
- Fish-Spear.
- Spears from Bougainville Straits.
- St. Christoval Spears.
- Head of a Florida Club.
- St. Christoval Clubs.
- Dance-Club of Treasury.
- Canoe-Ornament, placed on the prow.
- Hanging-Hook (Treasury I.).
- Fish-Float.
- Canoe-God, lashed to the stem.
[To face page 74.
Tomahawks and muskets, which have been introduced by the trader, are frequently possessed by natives of the coast. The owner of the tomahawk fits it with a long straight handle which he often decorates with inlaid pearl-shell. It is a formidable weapon in the hands of a native, and it is one which he usually employs very effectively, whether against his fellow islanders or against the white man. The muskets are often of little use on account of the lack of percussion caps and powder.
The defensive arm carried by these islanders is usually a narrow shield measuring 3 feet in length by 9 or 10 inches in breadth. With the exception apparently of St. Christoval, these shields are to be observed amongst the natives of most of the larger islands of the group. They appear usually to be made of a layer of light reeds or canes lashed together by rattan. In some islands, as in Florida and in Guadalcanar, they are worked over with fine wicker-work, and are ornamented with beads in the case of a chief. In other islands, as in Isabel and Choiseul, they are often more rudely constructed and have no wicker-work. In the two last islands they are rectangular in form. In Florida and Guadalcanar they are more oval and are slightly contracted in the middle. Mr. Brenchley figures one of the Florida shields in his “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curacoa,’” (p. 281); whilst a sketch of a shield of the Port Praslin (Isabel) natives is to be found in the narrative of Surville’s visit to this group.[40] The Port Praslin shield is deeply notched at one end. I did not observe these shields amongst the inhabitants of St. Christoval and the adjacent islands, a circumstance which may be explained by the fact that spears, and not bows and arrows, are the offensive weapons usually carried by these islanders. Yet we learn that three centuries ago it was with their bows and arrows that the St. Christoval natives usually assailed the Spaniards (vide [pages 228], [231].) It should be remembered that the flat-bladed curved clubs of these natives also serve the purpose of a defensive weapon.
[40] Fleurieu’s “Discoveries of the French in 1768 and 1769.”
The tactics employed in war are those which treachery and cunning suggest. Very rarely, I believe, does a fair, open fight occur. In their sham fights, one of which we witnessed on the beach at Santa Anna, two parties confront each other in open and irregular order and hurl their spears with all the excitement of a real contest. Every man keeps constantly on the move as in dancing a jig, in order to be able to more easily avoid the missiles hurled at him. The boys of Treasury sometimes amuse themselves with a game of the same character, when they use as their weapons the stalk and bulb of the large taro. I was on one occasion much surprised at their skill in aiming apparently at one boy and hitting the one next to him.
The polished stone implements of their fathers have been to a large extent discarded by the natives of the coasts; but the natives of the interiors of the large islands, such as Bougainville, who may have been rarely, if ever, in communication with the trader, are said to be still in a large degree dependent on their stone axes and adzes. On account of the extensive introduction of trade axes, adzes, and knives, it was often difficult to obtain the polished stone implements from the people of a coast village, and natives were wont to express their surprise at my wanting such inefficient and old-fashioned tools. My inquiries as to when these stone implements were used usually received some such reply as the following: “Father, belong father, belong me, he all same”—the purport of which was that they were in use a long time ago, the native’s grandfather being deemed a person of so high antiquity, that in referring to past events he seldom cares to go beyond. These stone axes and adzes are generally made of the hard volcanic rocks of this region. A few are fashioned out of the thick portion of the shell of Tridacna gigas.
The upper surface of a large mushroom-coral (Fungidæ), serves as an effective rasp for scraping canoes; and the large shell of a Cyrena and the sharper edge of a boar’s tusk are similarly used for scraping spears and bows, which are ultimately rubbed smooth with powdered pumice.
The “bow-drill,” armed with a steel point, was employed by Mule, the Treasury chief, in piercing the holes for the rattan-like thongs in the planks of his canoes. This was the only “bow-drill” that came under my notice, and I could not tempt its owner to part with it. In the British Museum Collection, however, there are two smaller tools of this kind from other islands of the group. Without describing it, I may remark that a similar “bow-drill” is figured in Commodore Wilkes’ account of the Bowditch Islanders,[41] by Dr. G. Turner[42] in his account of the Samoans, and by Signor D’Albertis in his book on New Guinea.[43] The history of the “bow-drill,” as we learn from Dr. Tylor,[44] is an interesting one. It originated with the “fire-drill,” which is simply a pointed piece of wood that is twirled between the hands. This was then made more efficacious by winding a cord around it, when it became a “cord-drill.” By substituting for the cord a bow with a loose string, a still more useful tool was obtained: and from this simple form of “bow-drill” the Pacific islanders have obtained the improved boring-tool they now employ.
[41] “Narr. U. S. Expl. Exped.,” vol. v., p. 17.
[42] “Nineteen years in Polynesia,” p. 273.
[43] Vol. ii., p. 378.
[44] “Early History of Mankind:” pp. 237-246.
I should here allude to the round stones, rather larger than a cricket-ball, which are employed as “cooking-stones” and for cracking the hard kanary-nuts. They are to be seen in the majority of the dwellings in the eastern islands; and they often mark the sites of old villages and the temporary homes of fishing-parties.
The grinding slabs and blocks of rock, which were used for rubbing down the stone axes, are still to be seen in the coast villages, their surfaces being sometimes worn into a hollow. At present these blocks are used for grinding down the shell bead-money and for sharpening the iron tools. I have sometimes come upon them marking the position of an old village, the site of which had been long concealed by the growth of trees and scrub. In some islands where it is not possible to obtain stones of a sufficient hardness, these blocks have been transported from considerable distances. A large block of a crystalline trap-rock, more than a third of a ton in weight, which now lies on the reef-flat in the vicinity of the village of Vanatoga on the east side of Santa Anna, was originally brought down from the summit of the island to be used as a grinding block. Slabs of a quartz-diorite, which is found in the north-west part of Alu, and which is much valued for its hardness, have been transported in canoes to Treasury Island more than twenty miles away and to the other islands of the Straits. From their size, they would weigh usually five or six hundredweight.
Amongst the interesting discoveries which I have made in the Solomon Group, I should refer to that of the occurrence of worked flints, which are commonly found in the soil when it is disturbed for purposes of cultivation, and are frequently exposed after heavy rains. My attention was first directed to this matter on noticing a specimen of flint in the possession of Mr. Howard at Ugi, and I soon obtained a number of specimens from this island, and from the adjacent large island of St. Christoval. The majority of them were of common flint, but fragments of chalcedony and cornelian were frequent, and a jasper also occurred. The largest specimen, which was nearly 4 lbs. in weight, clearly showed traces of artificial working, and, as I am informed by Professor Liversidge, was evidently a large, stone axe or tomahawk. Of the rest, some were cores, others were flakes, resembling in their form, and often in their white colour, the flakes of the post-tertiary gravels; whilst one specimen possessed the shape of an arrow-head. Some of these flints presented the appearance of having been re-fashioned after lying disused for ages. In such specimens, there were two sets of facets or fractured surfaces, the one whitened by weathering or exposure, the other displaying the natural colour of recently broken flint. All were, in fact, of the palæolithic type. The specimens, that I obtained in the islands of Treasury and Alu in Bougainville Straits, were usually of chalcedonic flint, and possessed the form of hammer-stones, scrapers, etc. Worked flints will probably be found in most of the islands of the Solomon Group, except, perhaps, in those of purely volcanic formation (vide [page 80]). They are said to occur in Santa Anna, and I had a specimen given to me from Ulaua.
There are two interesting circumstances in connection with these flints to which I should allude. In the first place, the inhabitants of these islands are ignorant of their nature and their source. I was gravely informed by the natives of Treasury Island, that the flints which they brought me from the disturbed soil of their plantations had tumbled from the sky, a superstition which reminds one of a similar belief prevalent in some rural districts of our own country as to the origin of the polished stone implements or celts. In a similar way the men of the Shortland Islands explained to me the occurrence beneath the soil of lumps of gum, which, like the masses of the kauri gum of New Zealand, mark the original position of the trees from which they were derived.
Concerning these flint implements, we may fitly ask: Who were the race of men that formed and used them? How long a period has elapsed since these men inhabited this region? Whence did they come? Where are their descendants to be sought? Are they to be found amongst the present inhabitants of this group, who, having discarded the rude flint implements for polished stone tools of volcanic rock, regard, with ignorant contempt, the handiwork of their ancestors? To these queries we may with some confidence reply that the original inhabitants of these islands belonged to the once widely spread Negrito race, of which we find the remnants in our own day in the aborigines of the Andaman and Philippine Islands, and that their characters, both physical and linguistic, have been fused with those of other races which have reached the Solomon Islands both from the Malay Archipelago to the west, and from the islands of Micronesia and Polynesia to the east. The present natives of this group may, in truth, be considered as the result of the fusion of the Negrito aborigines with the Malayan, Micronesian, and Polynesian intruders.
The second interesting point with reference to these ancient flint implements is concerned with their original source. Professor Liversidge, in drawing attention to my specimens, which he exhibited at a meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales in December, 1883, remarked that this discovery of flints in these regions afforded a very strong proof of the probable presence of true chalk of cretaceous age in the South Sea Islands, and he alluded to a soft white limestone undistinguishable from chalk, which had been previously brought from New Ireland by Mr. Brown, the Wesleyan missionary.[45] Chalk-rocks came under my observation in the Solomon Islands; but in no case was I able to find embedded flints (vide Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., Vol. 32, Part 3). I think it, however, highly probable that when the interior of one of the large islands such as Guadalcanar has been explored, older chalk formations containing flints will be discovered. The island of Ulaua, which I was unable to visit, would probably afford some clue as to the source of these flints. Although in all likelihood this island possesses the general geological structure of the neighbouring island of Ugi, which is described on [page vii.] yet it possesses one peculiar feature. Mr. Brenchley,[46] when landing on the beach of this island of Ulaua in 1865, picked up a great many pieces of flint scattered about among the broken-up coral, and he wondered where they came from. Captain Macdonald, a resident trader in this part of the group, informed me that flints are abundant on the beaches of this island, together with fragments of a white chalk-like rock.[47]
[45] “Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales:” vol. xvii., p. 223; vide also “Geolog. Mag.” Dec., 1877. Mr. H. B. Brady is at present engaged in working out the Foraminifera of this New Ireland rock. Its age, though still sub judice, is probably comparatively recent.
[46] “Cruise of the ‘Curacoa,’” p. 255.
[47] Should any of my readers in the Western Pacific have the opportunity of visiting the island of Ulaua, it would be well worth their while to pay careful attention to the mode of occurrence of these flints. I am of the opinion that imbedded flints will be found in the recent rocks of this island.
In the island of Faro, which is entirely of volcanic formation, flints are not known to the natives, and it would be interesting to ascertain whether they are similarly absent from other islands of the same character. When in search of the source of these flints, I was more than once led off on a false scent. It was on one such occasion, when accompanying Gorai, the Shortland chief, on an excursion in his war-canoe to the north-west part of the island of Alu, that I experienced a great disappointment. Learning from the chief that he could direct me to the place where the flints (“kilifela”) were found, I was in great hope of at last finding them imbedded. The locality, however, proved to be of volcanic formation, and a pit or cave in which the flints were to be found, successfully eluded our efforts to discover it. I would, however, recommend future visitors to endeavour to find this pit which lies a little way in from the beach and close to the north-west point of Alu. Its examination might throw some fresh light on the aborigines of these regions.
The occurrence of flints on the south-east coast of New Guinea has been recorded by Mr. Stone.[48] He tells us that the small island of Tatana at the head of Port Moresby is “strewn with pieces of a cornelian-coloured flint, called by the natives vesika, and used for boring holes through shell, bone, or other hard substances.” In 1767, Captain Carteret found spears and arrows pointed with flint in use amongst the natives of the Santa Cruz Group and of Gower Island, one of the Solomon Islands.[49] M. Surville, when anchored in Port Praslin in the Solomon Group in 1769, observed that the natives employed “a sort of flint” as knives and razors and for obtaining fire.[50] In my own intercourse with these islanders I did not find flints in use among them; but it is very probable that in some islands the ancient flint implements are occasionally employed for cutting purposes.[51]
[48] “A few months in New Guinea,” by O. C. Stone. London, 1880, p. 72.
[49] Hawkesworth’s “Voyages”: vol. i., pp, 296, 297.
[50] Fleurieu’s “Discoveries of the French in 1768 and 1769,” etc: p. 144.
[51] In Raffles’ “History of Java” (1830; vol i., pp. 25, 33) it is stated that common flints, hornstone, chalcedony, jasper, cornelian, etc., are frequently found in the beds of the streams of this island. If not already inquired into, further information should be sought concerning the shape and the source of these flints.
CHAPTER V.
CULTIVATION—FOOD, ETC.
The inhabitants of the islands of Bougainville Straits display far more interest in the cultivation of the soil than do those of St. Christoval and its adjacent islands. Whether this circumstance may be attributed to the greater powers wielded by the chiefs of these islands, and to the consequent tranquillity which their peoples enjoy, or whether it is due to the comparatively isolated position of these islands of the Straits which has secured to their inhabitants a freedom from the attacks of neighbouring tribes, I can scarcely distinguish. It is, however, probable that the explanation of the extensive cultivated tracts with the consequent abundance of food in the one region, and of the meagre patches of cultivation with the resulting dearth of food in the other, lies more in the surroundings than in the individual character of the natives.
In the island of Treasury acres and acres of taro and banana plantations lie in the immediate vicinity of the village; and I passed through similarly cultivated tracts in the east and west districts of the island. The wide and level region, which constitutes the margin of the island, is covered with a deep productive soil. Cultivation is not confined, however, to the more level districts. Large cultivated patches lie on the hill-slopes behind the village; and in other places fire and the axe are constantly employed in the preliminary work of clearing the hill-side. The islands of the Shortlands exhibit a corresponding degree of industry on the part of their inhabitants. When crossing the eastern part of the island of Morgusaia, I traversed for nearly a mile one continuous tract of cultivation. In the midst of the taro and banana plantations stood groves of the stately sago palm and clumps of the betel-nut palm. An occasional bread-fruit tree towered over all; and now and then a lime tree was pointed out by my guides. This extensive tract belonged to the chief. Some of the cultivated patches in the Shortlands are marked out by lines of poles laid flat on the ground into long, narrow divisions, about twenty feet in width, each wife of the owner of the patch confining her labours to her own division.
On the east side of the island of Fauro, the interval between the villages of Toma and Sinasoro is to a great extent under cultivation, and is occupied chiefly by banana and taro plantations. Similar indications of the prosperity of the inhabitants are displayed in the number of cocoa-nut palms and bread-fruit trees, with here and there a grove of sago palms, which occupy the low tract of land on which the village of Toma stands. In the planting season natives of the Straits spend weeks in their distant plantations in the interior of their islands; and in the instance of Fauro Island, many of them possess other plantations in the small outlying uninhabited islands which they visit in parties at the regular periods.
In the islands of Bougainville Straits, the banana, taro, and the sweet potato are the vegetables which are grown in greatest quantity. The yam does not appear to be such a favourite article of food as in the eastern islands. I observed in Treasury that the natives protect the short stems of the large taro against the depredations of the large frugivorous bats (Pteropidæ) by lashing them round with sticks.
Here, as in the eastern islands, the following method of climbing the cocoa-nut palm and other trees prevailed. A lashing or thong around the ankles supports much of the weight of the body, and serves as a fulcrum for each effort of the climber towards the top. When the cocoa-nut palm is rather inclined to one side, I have seen a native adopt the mode of the West Indian negro, and walking up the trunk on all fours, after the style of monkeys. . . . . It is a singular circumstance, as residents in the group inform me, that natives never seem to be struck by a falling cocoa-nut, notwithstanding that they must be frequently exposed to injury from this cause. I have often, when sitting amongst a group of natives in a village under the shade of the cocoa-nut trees, been warned by those around me that the nuts might fall on us. On two occasions I have had heavy cocoa-nuts fall to the ground within reach of my arm, which, if they had struck my head with the momentum imparted by a drop of some fifty feet, would undoubtedly have stunned me.
I may here refer to the sago palm, which is grown in far greater numbers in the islands of Bougainville Straits than in St. Christoval and its vicinity. It furnishes not only the vegetable-ivory nut of these islands and the sago, which is an important item in the native dietary, but its leaves supply the thatch for the roofs and sides of the houses. Although belonging to the same genus, Sagus, it is evidently distinct in species from the sago palm of Fiji (Sagus vitiensis), which, according to Mr. Home, grows on the low-lying swampy land, and attains a height of about 35 feet.[52] In the Solomon Islands, the height of full-grown sago palms varies between 60 and 70 feet; whilst the situations in which they are usually found, lie on the hill-slopes and in the drier districts of the islands. In the islands of Fauro and Treasury groves of sago palms occur both on the lower slopes and in the higher districts. They occur on the summit of Treasury at a height of a thousand feet above the sea; and I observed a few at Fauro at a height of 1400 feet. I found them in the middle of the breadth of St. Christoval, between Wano and Makira. . . . . The sago palm in these islands is the finest specimen of the Palmaceæ. I often used to admire its heavy bole terminating above in its handsome crown of massive branches.[53]
[52] “A Year in Fiji,” by John Horne, F.L.S. London, 1881, p. 68.
[53] Although this palm, when full grown, has the appearance of great age and durability, it does not live for more than 20 years, when it flowers, bears, and dies.
In the extraction and preparation of the sago, the natives of Bougainville Straits employ the following method. After the palm has been felled and all the pith removed, either by scooping it out or splitting the trunk, the pith is then torn up into small pieces and placed in a trough extemporised from the broad sheathing base of one of the branches of the felled tree. The trough is then tilted up and is kept filled with water, which running away at the lower end passes through a kind of strainer, made of a fold of the vegetable matting that invests the bases of the branches of the cocoa-nut tree, and is then received in another trough of similar material. The fibrous portion of the pith is thus left behind, and the sago is deposited as a sediment in the lower trough. When this trough is full of sago, the superfluous water is poured off, and the whole is placed over a fire so as to get rid of the remaining moisture. This method of sago-washing is similar to that which is employed in the islands of the Malay Archipelago. The sago is now fit for consumption, and is wrapped up in the leaves in the form of cylindrical packages 11⁄2 to 2 feet in length. For the convenience of the water-supply, sago-washing is carried out usually on the side of a stream. The refuse is afterwards allowed to decay on the banks, and the water of the stream is contaminated for a long time after, whilst the air in the vicinity is impregnated with the unpleasant sour odour of the decaying debris.
The diet of these islanders is essentially a vegetable one, and most of the common articles of food have already been referred to. Yams, sweet potatoes, two kinds of taro,[54] cocoa-nuts, plantains, and sugar-cane form the staple substances of their diet. In St. Christoval and the adjacent islands the yam is more extensively cultivated; whilst in the islands of Bougainville Straits the taro and the sago-palm are more usually grown and the yam is less preferred. The bread-fruit appears to be but an occasional article of food; and it was only now and then, as in the vicinity of the village of Toma in Fauro Island, that I observed the tree in any numbers. In Bougainville Straits there appears to be but one variety of the bread-fruit tree (Artocarpus incisa) which ripens in August. Its leaves are deeply lobed (pinnatisect) and have an even surface; and the fruit are stalked, seedless, rough, and of a somewhat oval shape. In Santa Anna there is another variety of the Artocarpus incisa, the fruit of which has seeds and ripens in October. In the plantations of Treasury Island I came upon a tree which is apparently a variety of the Jack-fruit tree (Artocarpus integrifolia); it is known to the natives as the “tafati,” whilst the bread-fruit tree is known in this part of the group as the “balia.” Two cucurbitaceous fruits are commonly grown in the islands of Bougainville Straits. One is a large pumpkin, and the other is an oval “pepo,” about six inches long, known to the natives as the “kusiwura;” it is a variety of Cucumis melo, and is a very good substitute for the ordinary cucumber. Amongst other vegetables grown in the cultivated patches of this region are two varieties of a species of Solanum, probably repandum, which are known to the natives as “kobureki” and “kirkami;” and a second species of yam, Dioscorea sativa (“alapa”).[55]
[54] The small taro, which also grows wild on the sides of the streams and is called “koko” in Bougainville Straits, is apparently Colocasia esculenta. The large taro, which grows to a height of 7 or 8 feet, and is known as the “kalafai,” may be the same as the “via kana” of Fiji (Cyrtosperma edulis). I cannot, however, speak with any authority on this subject, as I collected no specimens.
[55] Traders occasionally introduce foreign vegetables. Gorai, the Shortland chief, grows a little maize in one of his plantations.
Amongst the fruit-trees grown by the natives of Bougainville Straits in their plantations are the Papaw-tree (Carica Papaya): a species of Lime which the Alu chief grows in his extensive cultivated patches; a Mango, probably Mangifera indica (“faise”); the “borolong,” a species of Barringtonia (probably B. edulis) which, when in flower, is at once known by its handsome pendent yellow spikes 21⁄2 feet in length; the kernel of the fruit is eaten, but it is not equal in flavour to the similar kernels of the “saori” (Terminalia catappa) and the “ka-i” (Canarium sp.); the “sioko,” is apparently another species of Barringtonia, the fruit of which ripens in May; the “usi,” a tall tree 60 or 70 feet high (not determined), the fruits of which are juicy, seedless, and have a pleasant flavour; the leaves have an acid taste and are eaten by the natives.
Such are the principal fruits and vegetables cultivated by the natives of this part of the group; but before proceeding to the methods of cooking and of serving them up, I should refer to the white kernels of the “ka-i,” a species of Canarium, which form one of the staple articles of vegetable food throughout the Solomon Group. My specimens sent to Kew were only sufficient for generic identification. It is, however, probable that this tree is identical with, or closely allied to, Canarium commune, which is the familiar “kanarie” of the Malay Archipelago, and the “kengar” of the Maclay-Coast, New Guinea.[56] This tree is mainly indebted to the fruit pigeon for its wide dispersal. The fruit is of a dark purple colour, oval in shape, and 2 to 21⁄2 inches in length. Its fleshy covering, which is also eaten by the natives, invests a triangular stony nut inclosing the white kernel which sometimes rivals the almond in delicacy of flavour. It requires a little practice to crack the nut readily. For this purpose the natives employ a rounded stone of the size of a cricket ball, the nut being placed in a little hollow on the surface of a flat stone. The fruit-pigeons are very fond of the fleshy covering of this fruit; and it is their disgorgement of the hard nuts which collect at the foot of the trees, that often saves the native the necessity of climbing up and picking the fruit for himself. This nut, which is familiarly known in this group as the Solomon Island Almond, and in the Malay Archipelago as the Kanary Nut, is in fact an article of considerable importance in the dietary of the inhabitants of these regions, and it is often stored up in large quantities. In order to keep them, the natives of Treasury Island hang the nuts up in leaf-packages from the branches of the cocoa-nut palms. The Spanish discoverers of the Solomon Islands under Mendana, seized and carried off to their ships the stores of these almonds, as they called them, which they found in the houses of the unfortunate natives. According to Miklouho-Maclay, the inhabitants of the Maclay Coast of New Guinea store up the nuts of the Canarium commune between May and July.[57] Labillardière, writing at the end of last century, tells us that the natives of Amboina lay in a large stock of the kernels of the Canarium for their voyages.[58]
[56] “Proceedings, Linnean Society, N.S.W.” Vol. x., p. 349.
[57] “Proc. Lin. Soc. N.S.W.,” Vol. x., p. 349.
[58] “Account of a Voyage in Search of La Pérouse.” London. 1800 (Vol. i., p. 377).
With reference to the mode of cooking employed, I should remark that it varies in different parts of the group. In St. Christoval and the adjacent islands very palatable cakes are produced by mashing together the taro, cocoa-nut, plantain, and kanary-nut. Portions of the paste are placed between leaves in a pit in the ground in the midst of hot ashes and heated cooking-stones, and the whole is covered over with earth and left undisturbed for some time. The vegetables may be also cooked entire in this manner. Stone-boiling is also employed in this part of the group in cooking vegetables and fish. A large wooden bowl, about two feet long and containing water, is filled with yams, breadfruit, and other vegetables. Red hot cooking-stones of the size of the two fists are then taken out of the fire and dropped into the bowl until the water begins to boil. The top is then covered over with several layers of large leaves which are weighed down by stones placed on them. The heat is thus retained in the bowl, and after an hour the leaves are removed when the contents are found to be daintily cooked.[59] In volcanic islands, such as Simbo, the natives utilise the steam-holes or fumaroles for cooking their food. Whilst I was examining a solfatara in this island, I found that I had unconsciously trespassed within the precincts of a public cooking-place; and in order to silence the clamour of the native women, I had to distribute necklaces to all.
[59] This method of cooking, aptly termed “stone-boiling” by Dr. Tylor (“Early History of Mankind:” 3rd edit., p. 263), which is often employed by savage races unacquainted with the art of pottery, is represented in our own day by the old-fashioned tea-urn. As late as 1600, the wild Irish are said to have warmed their milk with a stone first cast into the fire. (“Tylor’s Primitive Culture:” vol. i., p. 40.)
In the islands of Bougainville Straits, where the art of pottery is known, the vegetables are usually boiled in the cooking-pots which are not cleaned out after use. The leaves of the small taro are thus cooked and make an excellent substitute for spinach. The plantains are boiled in their skins, and are to the European palate when thus cooked most insipid. The sago, which is a common article of food in this part of the group, is not sufficiently dried during its preparation and it soon turns sour; but this is no objection with the native who devours it with the same eagerness whether it is rancid or sweet. It is usually only half-cooked in a little packet of leaves; but when required for keeping, it is well baked, and in the form of cakes is a favourite food with children. The Solomon Islander, however, has not the forethought of the inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago in laying by a store of sago for future use. When a sago palm is felled, there is usually no lack of friends to assist the owner in consuming the sago. The native of Bougainville Straits serves up the cooked vegetables in trays made of plaited palm leaves or of the sheathing base of the branch of the “kisu” palm. A pleasantly flavoured dish is made of mashed taro,[60] covered with cocoa-nut scrapings; and in such mixed dishes the kanary-nut (“ka-i”) often occurs.
[60] The taro and other vegetables are often pounded in a mortar made from the hollowed trunk of a small tree and pointed at its lower end so that it can be implanted in the ground.
Although the native of Bougainville Straits to a great extent subsists on the produce of his plantations, there are a great number of edible wild fruits and vegetables which he also employs as food, and which in times of scarcity would supply him with ample sustenance. I have already referred to the kanary-nut, the fruit of the Canarium, as forming a staple article in his diet. The nuts of the “saori” (Terminalia catappa) have a small edible kernel which has an almond-like flavour and is much appreciated by the natives. It is the “country almond” of India and, as Mr. Horne tells us, it is extensively eaten in Fiji where the tree is known as the Fijian almond tree.[61] In Tanna in the New Hebrides, as we learn from Mr. Forster, it is also eaten.[62] The fruit of the common littoral tree Ochrosia parviflora (“pokosola”) contains an edible flat kernel. The three common littoral species of Pandanus also furnish sustenance in times of dearth; the seeds of the drupes of the “sararang” and the “pota” contain small edible kernels, and the pulpy base of the “darashi” is also eaten. The pulpy kernels of the fruit of Nipa fruticans are occasionally eaten as in the Malay Archipelago; but the natives of Bougainville Straits do not seem to be acquainted with the alcoholic liquor which this palm yields to the inhabitants of the Philippines. The fruit of the “aligesi” (Aleurites ?), a stout climber common in the woods of Treasury, has a pleasantly flavoured kernel like that of the kanary-nut; and on one occasion my party and I lunched on these kernels; the outer pulp of the fruit has a dry scented but by no means unpleasant flavour. The kernels of the fruit of a stout tree that grows on the verge of the mangrove-swamps in Fauro Island, and which is probably Sapium indicum, are said to be edible by the natives; my natives and I partook of them on one occasion when one man became very sick for some time, and I afterwards found that it was an euphorbiaceous tree, a circumstance which explained his illness; I should therefore doubt the edibility of these nuts. This tree is known by the same native name (“aligesi”) as the preceding, which apparently belongs to the same order. The white kernels of the “kunuka,” a species of Gnetum, are cooked and eaten by the inhabitants of Fauro; this tree grows to a height of sixty feet and has a cylindrical prominently ringed trunk.
[61] “A Year in Fiji.” London, 1881: (p. 88).
[62] “Observations made during a Voyage round the World.” London, 1778.
The growing tops of several species of palms are much appreciated by the natives of Bougainville Straits; and on several occasions I have largely made my lunch off them. They are usually eaten uncooked. The top of the common Caryota palm (“eala”) is often preferred. Mr. Marsden[63] and Mr. Crawfurd[64] inform us that in the Malay Archipelago the growing top of the same or of an allied species of Caryota (C. urens) is a favourite article of food. It is there known as the true “mountain cabbage,” and Mr. Marsden tells us that in Sumatra it is preferred to the cocoa-nut. Amongst other palms which in Bougainville Straits supply in their growing tops the so-called cabbage are the “momo,” a species of Areca, the “sensisi,” a species of Cyrtostachys, and the “kisu.”
[63] “History of Sumatra.” London, 1811: p. 89.
[64] “History of the Indian Archipelago.” Edinburgh, 1820: vol. i., p. 447.
I have already referred to the fact that the small taro grows wild in the ravines and on the banks of the streams in this region. A very savoury vegetable soup is made from the leaves and unopened spathe of a small arum that grows wild on the banks of the streams in Fauro Island. It is a species of Schizmatoglottis and is known to the natives as the “kuraka.” I should here allude to a wild yam which I found during one of my excursions in this island. The mountain-plantain, which grows on the sides of the valleys, and in moist, sheltered situations as high as a thousand feet above the sea, furnishes in its small seeded fruits, when cooked, an occasional substitute for those of the cultivated plantain; it grows to a height of 35 feet, and on account of its striking appearance it often forms a conspicuous feature in the vegetation at the heads of the valleys. It is known as the “kallula.”
Amongst the wild fruits which are eaten by the natives in this part of the group, are those of two trees named the “natu” and the “finoa.” As my specimens were insufficient for the determination at Kew of the characters of these trees, I may add that the “natu” grows to a height of a hundred feet, its fruit being of the size of a small melon and having a pleasant flavour. The “finoa” grows to a height of fifty feet; it is occasionally found in the plantations.
The natives of the Shortland Islands informed me that the neighbouring people of Rubiana were accustomed to eat the fruits of the common littoral tree Morinda citrifolia (“urati”), but that they did not themselves eat it. The shoots of a tree named “poporoko,” which belongs probably to the Olacineæ, are eaten by the inhabitants of Fauro, who also consider as edible the tiara-like cones (?) of the Gnetum Gnemon (“meriwa”).
The fronds of ferns are in some species edible; amongst them, I may particularly refer to the “quaheli” (unfortunately not identified), which is eaten by the natives of Treasury Island. Fungi, which are generally known in this part of the group as “magu,” are often cooked and eaten; but through inadvertence I am now unable to refer particularly to the edible species. A delicacy with the natives of Treasury is an alga, a species of Caulerpa, which grows in the sheltered waters just below the low-tide level at the western end of the harbour. They eat it with keen relish, when freshly picked from the rocks, holding it over the mouth and munching at it just as if it were a bunch of grapes, which it somewhat resembles in appearance. There is another non-edible species of Caulerpa which grows in the broken water on the weather or outer side of the reef-flats.[65]
[65] I am indebted to Mr. Moore of Sydney, for the identification of the genus.
Tacca pinnatifida (“mamago”), commonly known as the South Sea or Tahiti Arrowroot, is often seen on the coral islets in Bougainville Straits. The natives, though acquainted with the nutritious qualities of the plant, make little if any use of it. Mr. Horne,[66] writing of it in Fiji, says that the arrowroot obtained from the roots of this and another species of Tacca (T. sativa) is even more nutritive than the ordinary arrowroot which is obtained from a very different plant (Maranta arundinacea). This leads me to remark on the singular fact that the inhabitants of one Pacific group are often unacquainted with, or make but little use of, sources of vegetable food which in other groups afford a staple diet. Whilst the Fijians and the Society Islanders make use of the arrowroot obtained from Tacca pinnatifida, the inhabitants of the Radack Archipelago, as Chamisso informs us,[67] seldom use it, although the plant is very frequent on the islands; and I have already remarked that the natives of Bougainville Straits make little if any use of the same plant. The Fijians were unacquainted with the nutritious qualities of their sago palm (Sagus vitiensis) until Mr. Pritchard and Dr. Seemann extracted the sago.[68] On the other hand we have seen that the natives of Bougainville Straits largely consume the sago of their palm which belongs to another species of Sagus growing not in the swamps as in Fiji, but in more elevated and drier situations. In the instance of Cycas circinalis, one of the common littoral trees in the Pacific, we find considerable variation in the knowledge possessed by the inhabitants of different regions of its value as a source of food. Its growing top produces a cabbage which, as we learn from Mr. Marsden, is much esteemed by the people of Sumatra.[69] Its fruits, when their noxious qualities have been removed by maceration or by cooking, are largely consumed in seasons of scarcity by the inhabitants of the Moluccas, New Ireland,[70] south-east part of New Guinea, and North Queensland.[71] Its central pith yields an inferior kind of sago to the inhabitants of some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago; and a gummy exudation resembling tragacanth, which is yielded by this tree, has probably a medicinal value. The natives of Bougainville Straits are not acquainted with the sago-producing character of this tree nor with the fact that its fruits are edible; they, however, prepare an application for the ulcers from which they often suffer by macerating the fruits in question. Mr. Horne observes that the Fijians do not make use of the Cycas circinalis as a sago-yielding plant:[72] we learn, however, from Dr. Seemann, that its sago is reserved for the use of the chiefs.[73] . . . . I may here refer to the fact that the Treasury Islanders, although acquainted with the common Caryota palm (“eala”) as yielding a kind of sago, do not often avail themselves of it.
[66] “A Year in Fiji,” p. 104.
[67] “A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea,” by Otto von Kotzebue: London, 1821: vol. III., pp. 150, 154.
[68] “A Mission to Viti,” by Dr. Berthold Seemann; p. 291.
[69] “History of Sumatra,” p. 89.
[70] Labillardière’s “Voyage in search of La Pérouse:” London, 1800: vol. I., p. 254.
[71] “Work and Adventure in New Guinea,” by Messrs. Chalmers and Gill; p. 310.
[72] Horne’s “Fiji,” p. 104.
[73] Seemann’s “Viti,” p. 289.
Fish,[74] opossums (Cuscus), and pigs supply the natives of Bougainville Straits with the more nitrogenous elements of food. But as with vegetable so with animal food, the term “kai-kai”[75] is a very comprehensive one with the Solomon Islander. Shellfish furnish occasional sustenance. Amongst them I may mention Tridacna gigas, and species of Hippopus, Cardium, Turbo, and of many other marine genera. The Cyrenæ, that lie sunk in the black mud of the mangrove swamps, are much esteemed: and those natives who have their homes in these gloomy and unwholesome regions employ as food Pyrazus palustris which thrives in little clusters on the mud, and in the puddles around the mangrove roots. The Unios and the freshwater Nerites are also eaten. The flesh of the large monitor-lizard, Varanus indicus, is much prized. The crocodile is not rejected; and, as the following anecdote will show, the past misdeeds of all its tribe are heaped upon it, whilst the victors at the same time satisfy their sense of hunger, and glut their feelings of revenge. . . . . The freshwater lake of Wailava in Santa Anna is frequented by crocodiles which occasionally attack natives fishing on the banks. At the end of 1882, one of these animals was shot by Mr. Charles Sproul, an American resident. The news of its death caused great rejoicing amongst the people of the village; and Mr. Sproul, who was looked upon as a great hero, received presents of yams as an acknowledgment of his prowess. After he had skinned it, he gave the carcase to the village, and a feast was held. One old man, who had been nearly carried off by a crocodile at the lake a few years before and had had his leg broken, was positive that this was the identical animal, and he was so delighted at its death, that, as Mr. Sproul told me, there was nothing he would not have done for him. The old man claimed as his share the portion of the head attached to the carcase, and bones and all were eaten with that additional relish which the sensation of feasting on his enemy would naturally produce.
[74] I came upon some bushmen from the interior of Bougainville, who, although they were staying some time at a village on the coast of Fauro, would not eat fish; and I learned from the Fauro natives that the Bougainville bushmen abstained from fish, even when they were able to get it.
[75] “Kai-kai” is a term for “food”: but, like “tambu,” it has been introduced by traders.
The Solomon Islanders are very fond of fatty food. They have been observed to drink the liquid fat of pigs with the same gusto with which a white man would quaff an iced drink on a hot day. They much appreciate the fat in the abdomen of the Cocoa-nut Crab (Birgus latro); and, without much regard for the feelings of the crab, they may throw it alive on the hot cinders of a fire in order to cook its fat.
A depraved taste for decaying flesh would appear not to be peculiar to the upper classes of civilized nations. Mr. Stephens of Ugi tells me that he has known natives of Ontong-Java, which lies off the Solomon Group, to allow the carcase of a pig to remain buried in the ground until it was rotten, when they dug up their treasure and enjoyed their feast under cover of the night as though conscious of the depravity of the act. It was the strong odour which penetrated his dwelling that attracted the attention of Mr. Stephens to their proceedings.
The methods of cooking animal food may be here referred to. In the eastern islands of the group, it may be boiled in a wooden bowl by means of hot-stones as described on [page 86]. In Bougainville Straits, when a fishing-party returns towards nightfall with their capture of fish, they erect on posts a large framework or grating of sticks, which is raised about three feet from the ground. On this the fish is placed, a large fire is kindled beneath, and, by a combined process of scorching and smoking, the fish is cooked. As the portion of the grating on which the fish lies is usually almost burned away, the framework is made some ten feet in length by five feet in breadth, and the next fish to be cooked is placed on a fresh part of it. On a framework of this size a considerable number of fish may be thus cooked. Fish such as eels are cut up into pieces, and each piece after being compactly wrapped around with leaves is kept on the wood-fire for about half an hour. When an opossum is to be cooked, it is first placed for a short time on the fire in order to singe the hair off. It is then cut open, and the viscera are removed: of these, the intestines are subsequently cleaned and eaten. The body is then placed, without any further process, on top of the fire; and there it remains until, after being well scorched as well as roasted, it is considered to be cooked: when thus prepared, the flesh is juicy and tender, but has a strong flavour. Pigs are first quartered, and then placed on a pile of logs built up in layers to a height of about three feet, over which three poles are placed like a tripod about six feet in height, in order to draw the fire up. When thus roasted, the flesh of the wild pig is very good eating, and may be thought by some white men to be superior in flavour to the flesh of our farm-bred pigs.
There are usually two meals in the day (viz., at its commencement and at its close) in the case of those who are working in the cultivated patches; whilst those who remain in the village may indulge in a mid-day repast. Often during my excursions I have been glad to take advantage of the simple hospitality of the natives; and I have found a light meal of boiled bananas or of partly cooked sago, when taken in the middle of the day, a convenient, though not a palatable, form of nourishment for a hard day’s work in these islands.
I was once present at a feast in the village of Sapuna in Santa Anna. Each man’s contribution was added to the general store. Heaped up in large black wooden bowls, such as are in common use in St. Christoval and the adjacent islands, the materials for the feast were first placed in front of the tambu-house, and then carried to the house of the chief, where they were distributed. For several days before, the women had been engaged in bringing in the yams and other vegetables from the “patches” in the interior of the island, whilst their indolent spouses had been lounging about with empty pipes in the village. The feast was held at night, and was accompanied by much shouting. The natives gave vent to the exuberance of their spirits, and mingled the most demoniacal yells with their peals of laughter. The feast may be fitly described as a “gorge.” When it was concluded at an early morning hour, silence came over the village, and everyone retired to their homes, where they remained in a torpid condition during the rest of the day; and, in fact, for some days afterwards the men were incapacitated for active labour.
I should have previously referred to a kind of wild honey (“manofi”), the work of a bee about the size of the ordinary housefly, which is much esteemed by the natives of Bougainville Straits. It is more fluid than our own honey, and has a scented flavour. It is drunk off like water by these natives. The honeycomb is merely a collection of bags of brown wax of the size of a walnut and aggregated together in an irregular mass, which is often found in a hollow in the lower part of the trunk of a tree. The inhabitants of this region have apparently no acquaintance with the uses of wax, and thus differ from the Andaman Islanders, who employ it for caulking the leaks in their canoes and for waxing their bowstrings.[76]
[76] Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. VII., p. 463.
The Solomon Islanders are inordinarily fond of tobacco-smoking, a habit which prevails with both sexes and almost at all ages. Tobacco has in fact established itself as the principal currency between the trader and the native; and without it a white man would be as destitute in these islands as the beggar is in more civilized lands. In a village the visitor will sometimes be followed by a knot of little urchins five or six years of age who have slipped down from their mothers’ backs to pester him for tobacco; and I have seen a child in its mother’s arms allowed to take the pipe from its parent’s lips and puff away with apparent enjoyment. Should there be a scarcity of tobacco in a village when a ship arrives, the trader may drive a cheap bargain, and the curiosity-seeker may readily purchase anything he desires. We were able on such occasions to obtain, for a piece of tobacco of the size of the thumb-nail, articles, such as fish-hooks, which required for their manufacture days of tedious labour. In the waste-ground of villages a few tobacco plants are often grown. This is very frequently the case in the villages of the islands of Bougainville Straits, where native-grown tobacco is often preferred to the trade-tobacco. This home-grown tobacco is there known as “brubush.” The leaves are never cut up for smoking, but are usually rolled roughly into twists; and when the native is going to smoke, he stuffs two or three large pieces into his pipe. Claypipes obtained from the traders are always used. These islanders very rarely make wood pipes for themselves, although they must often see them in the mouths of white men. I never met with a native who, having broken or lost his clay pipe, had the energy to manufacture a pipe of wood. There is, however, such a specimen of native work in the British Museum collection. I could not ascertain any information relative to the introduction of tobacco-smoking. It was, however, probably introduced from the West independently of the influence of the trader. The natives of the Maclay Coast and of the South Coast of New Guinea allege that the habit was unknown two generations ago, and that the seeds of the plant, with the knowledge of tobacco-smoking, have been introduced from the West. In the Louisiade Archipelago and in South-East New Guinea, tobacco was unknown until the last few years.[77]
[77] Miklouho-Maclay in Proc. Lin. Soc., N. S. W., vol. X., p. 352.
Crawfurd makes some interesting remarks on the introduction of tobacco into the Malay Archipelago, whence, as I have shown above, the plant has been evidently introduced into the Western Pacific. The Java annals affirm that tobacco was introduced in 1601; and, as supporting this statement, Crawfurd observes that the plant is not mentioned by European travellers in this region before the beginning of the 17th century. (Malay Grammar and Dictionary, vol. I., p. 191.)
The practice of chewing the betel-nut is prevalent through the group, and is accompanied by the usual accessories, the lime and the betel-pepper (Piper Betel). In St. Christoval and the neighbouring small islands, the lime is carried in bamboo boxes, which are decorated with patterns scratched on their surface. In the islands of Bougainville Straits, gourds are employed for this purpose, the stoppers of which are ingeniously made of narrow bands of the leaf of the sago palm wound round and round in the form of a disc and bound together at the margin by fine strips of the vascular tissue of the “sinimi” fern (Gleichenia sp.). Plain wooden sticks, like a Chinese chop-stick, are used for conveying the lime to the mouth; but frequently the stick is dispensed with, when the fingers are used or the betel-nut is dipped into the lime.
The Piper Betel, which is known in Bougainville Straits as the “kolu,” is grown in the plantations, where it is trailed around the stems of bananas and the trunks of trees. In these straits, as on the Maclay Coast of New Guinea,[78] the female spike, or so-called fruit, is more usually chewed with the betel-nut. Around St. Christoval the leaves are generally preferred.
[78] Miklouho-Maclay: Proc. Lin. Soc., N. S. W., vol. X., p. 350.
The betel palm, the “olega” of the natives, which is apparently identical with, or closely allied to, Areca catechu, the common betel-nut tree, is grown in clumps and groves in the vicinity of villages. The fruits of other species of Areca, which grow wild, are occasionally used as substitutes for the ordinary betel-nut; in Bougainville Straits the fruits of the “niga-solu,” “niga-torulo,” and “poamau” are thus employed, those of the “poamau” being appropriated by the women.
Betel-chewing is practised by both sexes. It has a marked stimulant effect; but the natives allege that no harm results from its constant use. The betel-pepper gives the betel-juice the “bite” of a glass of grog; by the natives it is considered to remove the taint of the breath. The betel-juice is the active agent in the production of the red colour which stains the saliva and the mouth of the betel-chewer. I satisfied myself that the saliva was not necessary for producing this colour, which may be readily obtained by mixing the betel-nut and lime in rain water.
When away on an occasion with a party of natives, I once was tempted by curiosity to chew a betel-nut which I afterwards swallowed in order to experience its full effect. Very shortly afterwards my head began to feel heavy, and I had an inclination to lie down, whilst my sight was sensibly dimmed. These effects passed away in about twenty minutes. In my cabin I tried the effect on my circulation of merely chewing a single nut. Five minutes afterwards I found my pulse had increased in force and in frequency from 62 to 92 beats per minute. There was a sensation of fulness in the head and temples, but no perceptible effect on the vision. The pulse retained this frequency for another five minutes; but it did not resume its previous rate until more than half-an-hour had elapsed since the beginning of the experiment. Subsequently I tried the effect of chewing two betel-nuts. The first increased the pulse by twenty beats per minute, and gave rise to restlessness and a feeling of fulness in the head. The second sustained, but did not increase the frequency of the pulse. On account of nausea I chewed the second nut with difficulty. No effect was produced on locomotion by these two nuts; but my sight was sensibly dimmed. On turning-in for the night soon afterwards, I experienced during the first hour rather vivid dreams characterised by rapid shifting of the scene and change in the “dramatis personæ.” Some of the crew who, at my desire, tried the effect of chewing a single nut, informed me that it affected them much the same as a glass of spirit would. The natives themselves are usually content with chewing one nut at a time, two nuts, as they told me, produced unpleasant symptoms, and a bad head.
The betel-nut, in truth, possesses far greater stimulating properties than I had previously suspected. A single nut had much the same effect on me as a glass of sherry would have had. I believe that the extent of its intoxicating qualities is not generally known.
I may here remark that I did not come upon the custom of kava-drinking in these islands. According to the Rev. Mr. Lawes, the kava plant (Piper methysticum) grows wild in the forests of the South-Coast of New Guinea, but its use is unknown. It may similarly be found in the Solomon Islands. On the Maclay Coast, as we are informed by Miklouho-Maclay, the custom of kava-drinking has been introduced not very long ago.[79]
[79] Proc. Lin. Soc., N.S.W., vol. X., pp. 350, 351.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS AND RACE-AFFINITIES OF THESE ISLANDERS.[80]
[80] My observations on the physical characters of these islanders were embodied in a paper read before the Anthropological Institute in July, 1885. They were to be published in the Journal of that society.
I will in the first place briefly refer to the position assigned to these islanders in the classification of the different races of man. Professor Flower, in a recent address,[81] divided the different varieties of the human species into three principal divisions, the Ethiopian, the Mongolian, and the Caucasian, a system of classification which, although often advanced and as often disputed, has now been preferred to other more complicated methods of classifying the different varieties of man. Around or between these three types all existing varieties can be ranged.
[81] The President’s Anniversary Address to the Anthropological Institute, Jan. 27th, 1885.
The Solomon Island natives are usually referred to the Melanesian group of the Ethiopian division, a group which includes the Papuans of New Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of the Western Pacific; but my observations on the physical characters of these natives have shown that the type of a Solomon Island native varies considerably in different parts of the group, in some islands approaching the pure Papuan, in others possessing Polynesian affinities, and in others showing traces of the Malay. The prevailing characters, however, are distinctly Melanesian or Papuan. The Melanesians, who, according to Professor Flower, are chiefly distinguished from the African negroes by the well developed glabella and supra-orbital ridges in the male, greatly excel the true African negroes, the Hottentots and Bushmen, and the Negritos of the Andaman and Philippine Islands, who are included in the Ethiopian division, in all that affects their social condition. In their usuages, their rites, their dwellings, their agriculture, their canoes, and in many other respects, the Melanesian or Papuan peoples display a far greater intellectual capacity than we find exhibited by the other members of the Ethiopian division.
I cannot here enter at length into the question of the peopling of the various groups of islands in the Pacific. It is a question on which conclusions drawn from the linguistic and physical characters of the inhabitants of these islands do not always agree. Professor Keane[82] holds that the three principal divisions of the varieties of man are represented in this region; the Caucasian in the Polynesians inhabiting the islands of the south-central Pacific (Marquesas, Samoa, Tonga, &c.); the Mongolian in the Micronesians of the islands of the north-central Pacific (Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, Ladrone Islands); and the Ethiopian, or as he terms it the Dark Type, in the Papuans of the Western Pacific (to whom he restricts the name Melanesian), New Guinea, and the adjacent islands of the Indian Archipelago. It is to the different mingling of these three principal types, that the widely varying characters of the peoples dwelling in the several regions of the Pacific are attributed. According to Professor Keane, the Polynesians of the south-central Pacific are almost purely Caucasian, without a trace of Mongolian blood. This view, however, is not supported by Professor Flower who contends that the combination of the Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian characters, in varying proportions and under varying conditions, would probably account for all the modifications observed among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands.
[82] Vide a series of three papers in vol. XXIII. of “Nature” on the Indo-Chinese and Oceanic Races.
The theory advanced by Professor Keane with reference to the peopling of the Pacific Islands, is one on which some of my observations in the Solomon Islands, although not directly connected with the subject, have some bearing. The primitive Negrito race, as now exhibited in the Andaman Islander, according to this view is the original stock of all the dark races. From its home in the Indian Archipelago, it extended westwards to Africa across the now lost continent of Lemuria, and eastwards “across a continent of which the South Sea Islands are a remnant—to become slowly differentiated into the present Papuan or Melanesian peoples of those islands.” Subsequently, the Caucasians of southern Asia, impelled before the southerly migration of the Mongols from higher Asia, occupied the islands of the Indian Archipelago and extended eastwards to their present homes in the south-central Pacific (Samoa, Tonga, the Marquesas, Society Islands, &c.). The Mongols following close upon them, finally reached the groups of islands together known as Micronesia in the north-central Pacific (Ladrone, Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert Islands, &c.).
The reference to the supposed sunken continents in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which served as stepping-stones in these migrations, merits my attention. From our most recent knowledge of the geological structure of tropical islands, to which my observations in the Solomon Islands have in some measure contributed, it may be inferred that there is but little geological evidence to support the view of the existence of these submerged continents. The theory of subsidence, on which Mr. Darwin’s explanations of atolls was based, cannot now be urged in support of prolonged periods of subsidence in the tropical regions of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The groups of atolls, which there occur, were formed, as shown by recent investigations, around and over oceanic peaks of volcanic formation, and independently of any movement of subsidence.[83]
[83] Vide the writings of Murray, Agassiz, Geikie, and others. In my volume of geological observations, to be shortly published, I have referred at length to this subject.
With reference to the migration eastwards of the Eastern Polynesians, I would allude to a piece of evidence which was advanced by Mr. Hale in support of the view that the island of Bouro in the Malay Archipelago was the starting-point of the migration. Quiros, the Spanish navigator, was informed in 1606 by a native captured at Taumaco, near the Santa Cruz Group, that there was a large country named Pouro in the vicinity of that region. This Pouro, however, was without doubt the neighbouring island of St. Christoval (one of the Solomon Group) which retains the native name of Bauro at the present day, and as we learn from Gallego’s journal,[84] was called by the natives Paubro rather over three centuries ago. Mr. Hale, however, who of course was not acquainted with the native name of St. Christoval, endeavours to identity this Pouro, of which Quiros was informed, with the distant Bouro of the Indian Archipelago. (Vide [note xv.] of the Geographical Appendix). . . . The foregoing remarks have not been offered with any object of criticising a view on which I am not competent to speak. The misconception having come under my notice, I considered it my duty to refer to it.
[84] Vide [page 229] of this work.
In the course of my researches I came upon a circumstance which appears to point in an unmistakeable manner to the Indian Archipelago as being the highway by which the Eastern Polynesians have reached the Pacific. The circumstance, to which I refer, is that it is possible to trace the native names of some of the common littoral trees, such as the Pandanus, Barringtonia speciosa, &c., from the Indian Archipelago across the central Pacific to the Austral and Society Islands. In illustration, I will take Barringtonia speciosa, referring the reader, however, for the other trees to [page 186] of this work. In the Indian Archipelago, I find the native names of this tree to be Boewa boeton and Poetoen.[85] In the islands of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, it is known as Puputu. In Fiji, it is known as Vutu;[86] in the Tongan Group, as Futu;[87] and in the Hervey and Society Islands as E-Hoodu[88] or Utu.[89] It is interesting to notice the modifications which the name of this tree undergoes, as one follows it eastward from the Indian Archipelago to the centre of the Pacific Ocean, a distance of between 4,000 and 5,000 miles; and it is equally instructive to reflect that without the intermediate changes, intermediate it should be added in a geographical as well as in an etymological sense, the names at the end of the series would scarcely seem to be related. The Indian Archipelago would appear to be the home of this littoral tree, which on account of the buoyancy of its fruits has not only been spread over Polynesia, but has reached Ceylon and Madagascar.[90] From its home in the Indian Archipelago, it has therefore extended to the eastward as far as the central Pacific, and to the westward nearly across the Indian Ocean. . . . It is obvious that much information of this kind might be collected which would be of considerable value to philologists; and even in the case of this single tree I have only, so to speak, broken the ground. The tedious character of the research necessary to collect the scanty information I have obtained on this subject, will be amply compensated for, if my remarks should prove suggestive to residents in the different islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
[85] “De Inlandsche Plantennamen,” by G. J. Filet (vide reference on [page 186]).
[86] “Year in Fiji,” by J. Horne: p. 70. (1881.)
[87] “Ten years in South-Central Polynesia,” by the Rev. T. West: p. 146. (1865.)
[88] “Observations made during a Voyage round the World,” by J. R. Forster. (1778.)
[89] “Jottings from the Pacific,” by Wyatt Gill: p. 198. (1885.)
[90] “Report on the Botany of the Challenger,” by W. Botting Hemsley: vol. I., part iii., p. 152.
The physical characters of a typical Solomon Islander.—Notwithstanding the variety in some of the characters of these natives, it is not a difficult matter to describe a typical individual who combines their most prominent and most prevalent characteristics. Such a man would have a well-proportioned physique, a good carriage, and well-rounded limbs. His height would be about 5 feet 4 inches; his chest-girth between 34 and 35 inches; and his weight between 125 and 130 pounds. The colour of his skin would be a deep brown, corresponding with number 35 of the colour-types of M. Broca;[91] and he would wear his hair in the style of a bushy periwig in which all the hairs are entangled independently into a loose frizzled mass. His face would have a moderate degree of subnasal prognathism, with projecting brows, deeply sunk orbits, short, straight nose, much depressed at the root but sometimes arched, lips of moderate thickness and rather prominent, chin somewhat receding. His hairless face would have an expression of good humour, which is in accord with the cheerful temperament of these islanders. The form of his skull would be probably mesocephalic. The proportion of the length of the span of the extended arms to the height of the body, taking the latter as 100, would be represented by the index 106·7. The length of the upper limb would be exactly one-third the height of the body; and the tip of his middle finger would reach down to a point about 31⁄3 inches above the patella. The length of the lower limb would be slightly under one-half (49⁄100) of the height of the body; and the relations of the lengths of the upper and lower limbs to each other would be represented by the intermembral index 68. I was only able to obtain the measurement of six women who belonged to the small islands of Ugi and Santa Anna, off the St. Christoval coast. Their average height was 4 feet 101⁄2 inches, which corresponds with the rule given by Topinard in his “Anthropology,” that for a race of this stature 7 per cent of the height of the man (5 feet 31⁄2 inches, in this part of the group) must be subtracted to obtain the true proportional height of the woman. The hair of the women has the same characters as that of the men. Their figures have not usually that breadth of hip which the European model would possess. The general appearance of the younger women is not unattractive, but they soon lose their good looks after marriage. In Bougainville Straits, it was often possible to notice amongst the wives of the chiefs two castes of women of very different appearance, the one with elegant figure and carriage, slim limbs and more delicately cut features, the other more clumsily proportioned with stout ungainly limbs and a coarse type of features.
[91] The colour-types employed were those given in the “Anthropological Notes and Queries,” published by the British Association in 1874.
| 1 | 3 | 2 |
4
- Women of Santa Anna.
- Men of Ugi wearing Sunshades.
- Man of Ugi.
- Man of Ugi.
[To face page 102.
I found that two constant variations in the type of the Solomon Island native are presented by the natives of the islands of Bougainville Straits (including Choiseul Bay), and the natives of St. Christoval and its adjoining islands at the opposite end of the group. In the former region there exists a taller, darker, more robust, and more brachycephalic race; whilst in the latter locality the average native is shorter, less vigorous, of a lighter hue, and his skull has a more dolichocephalic index. From 35 to 40 natives were examined in each region, and some of the principal distinctions may be thus tabulated:
| Average Height. | Colour of Skin. | Cephalic Index of living subject. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. Christoval, | 5 | ft. | 31⁄2 | in. | Colour-types, | 35 & 28 | 76 | |
| Bougainville Straits, | 5 | „ | 41⁄4 | „ | Col„ur-ty„es, | 35 & 42 | 80 | ·7 |
In the districts of Urasi and the Uta Pass on the north coast of Malaita,[92] there would appear to exist an almost brachycephalic race, of a lighter hue than is possessed by the natives of Bougainville Straits. Differences are in fact constant in their localities throughout the group, the most marked that came under my observation being between the natives of Bougainville Straits and those of St. Christoval at the opposite end of the group, as already alluded to. D’Urville, the French navigator, who visited this group in 1838, contrasts in a similar way the natives of St. Christoval and Isabel with those of Bougainville. The former appeared to him small and feeble in comparison with the more vigorous, sturdier, and much blacker natives of the latter island. He was particularly struck with the diminutive and wretched appearance of the natives of Isabel around “Thousand-Ships Bay,” as compared with the vigorous well-made natives of Bougainville.[93] . . . . . In some islands of small size, we find the natives markedly different from those around them. In the small island of Santa Catalina, off the eastern end of St. Christoval, the natives are distinguished from all others in this part of the group, by their finer physique, lighter colour, and greater height. They do not appear to intermarry much with the surrounding tribes; but they are, strange to relate, in friendly communication with the natives of some district on the coast of Malaita, with whom they probably intermarry. On the coasts of Guadalcanar there would appear to be some of the finest types of the Solomon Islander. Unfortunately, I had but little opportunity of observing them.
[92] I was indebted to the Hon. Curzon-Howe, Government Agent of the labour schooner “Lavina,” for the opportunity of examining these Malaita natives.
[93] “Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l’Océanie,” (Tome V., p. 105, hist. du voyage.)
Having briefly referred to some of the general facts resulting from my observations on the physical characters of these islanders, I now come to refer to the observations themselves. They were confined for the most part to the natives of the opposite extremities of the group—at the eastern extremity to the natives of St. Christoval and of the adjoining small islands of Ugi, Santa Anna, and Santa Catalina; and towards the opposite extremity to the natives of the islands of Bougainville Straits, which include Treasury Island, the Shortland Islands, Faro Island, together with Choiseul Bay. Observations, although fewer in number, were also made on the natives of the following intermediate islands, viz., Malaita, the Florida Islands, and Simbo or Eddystone Island.
All the measurements, unless otherwise stated, refer to male adults.