Tuesday, June 30, 1908.
At length, we came to a log bridge, over a shallow stream of water. Mrs. London was not allowed to go over—she must wade through, as this bridge is taboo to women. Jack could not resist chaffing Mrs. London, for up to this time she has been treated like a lady by the natives we have come in contact with, but here a woman is only a woman, and has none of the rights of men. Poor Mrs. London was humiliated, but Jack enjoyed it. We came into the village. Men and women too old and feeble to walk would peep at p294 us through their grass houses. We came upon a mammoth grass house, facing the sea. This place was as large as a good-sized store-room. From the front protruded the ends of war canoes. We wanted to see them better; but Mrs. London was again stopped, and in company with Peter, Jack and I went inside and inspected two canoes large enough to hold fifty men each, and a dozen smaller ones. These were the war canoes, used only for the fighting. At the rear of the house was a large coffin-shaped grass box. We looked in, then stepped back in horror; and holding our noses, Jack and I beat a hasty retreat, for inside the box was the body of a man, looking like a pin-cushion, so full was he with sharp barbs. Peter told us that he was the best king that ever ruled them, that he had been dead a week, and that the points in his body were the arrow-points used in their envenomed arrows. Everyone knows that a dead body contains the most virulent poison in the world. By steeping their arrow-points in a chief's body, they think that the poison will be more effective. I bought one hundred and fifty of these arrows. But I shall have to be careful how I touch them.
As we passed out, we saw several old men squatted in front of the house, making hollow wooden fishes by the use of stone axes. We were told by Peter that these men were chiefs, and that after they die their bodies will be allowed to putrify. Then, after the arrow-points have been poisoned in their decaying flesh, p295 their bones will be put in one of the hollow fishes and set on a shelf in the canoe-house, where we saw about a hundred such fishes. The old men were making their own coffins.
We went through the village, which is closed in by a fence of small sticks woven together. The houses touch one another, so that the whole village covers only a few acres, with streets about ten feet wide. In a small square at the centre stand tall carved images. At the foot of the village, in a small enclosure about twenty feet square, they showed us the graveyard. Every body goes into the same hole. The pit is simply opened up, the body tossed in, and then it is covered over again. Scores of naked women and children followed us about, and large men with clubs and spears. I really did not feel any too safe. They showed us another boat house in which rested a big log-fish, filled with the bones of chiefs. I made photographs of the women and men. Jack made head studies. Then, walking back through the streets, I took pictures of houses. For Jack I made a picture of two men whom the sharks had bitten. One had his leg bitten clear off; the other had all the flesh stripped from the bone.
We then went back to the clearing in the centre of the village, where the men gave a dance for us, while half a dozen old rascals sat in the centre making dance music on hollow logs. We gave the dancers tobacco and each a handful of cheap candy; and then Peter took us to see his wives—two of them, and fine looking p296 ladies they were. They were not naked, but each wore a short fringe of grass, the smallest dresses I have ever seen, and, I believe, the smallest dresses in the world. I bought one of them from Peter's elder wife.
We went back to the trader's house, where five young girls danced a very pretty dance, making a hissing sound for music. Mrs. London gave them a string of beads each. We came back to the boat and ate supper; then for several hours on deck the Japanese boys danced, and Wada acted out some pantomime. Tehei danced the Tahitian hula-hula and Henry did the Samoan seva-seva. Nakata is a fine dancer. All the while, Mrs. London played Hawaiian hulas on her ukelele. We had a good time until so late that I did not have to stand my watch, and Tehei stood only part of his. We have to keep "anchor watch," for a little wind from the west might make us swing on the reef—and then, we can't trust the natives.