Later Maino gave me the head-dress his father, “king” Kebiso, wore when on the war-path, and a boar’s tusk ornament which he stuck in his mouth to render his appearance yet more terrible.
Like a true gentleman, Maino did not let me know at the time of his reluctance to part with these relics of his famous father. I did not ask him for them, seeing how highly he valued them, but he offered them freely to me. I then asked what he wanted in return, and gave him what he asked for—a small oval looking-glass, a pocket-knife, a blue bead necklace, and seven sticks of tobacco for the head-dress; and for the tusk ornament a pocket-knife, two clay pipes, and four sticks of tobacco. He wanted me to have these mementoes of his father, partly because of our real friendship for each other, but also partly because he wanted them exhibited in a big museum in England, where plenty of people would see them and would know to whom they once belonged. They are now in the British Museum.
YAM
To return to the narrative of the present Expedition. We reached Yam in the afternoon, and all landed to have a look round. Maino took me to the old kwod, and I made a rough plan of it, and obtained a description of what it looked like formerly. After dinner I sketched a restoration, and later, when Maino and Jimmy Tut came off to the steamer, I got them to criticise it; and Maino made some sketches to elucidate details, the result being that I can with confidence restore what possibly no white man ever saw, or, at all events, no one has recorded it. The following day I returned to the kwod to take some photographs, and further information was given me.
There was in the kwod a low fence surrounding a space of about thirty-five feet square, in which were the shrines of the two great augŭds of the island. All that now remains are three heaps of shells, mainly of the gigantic Fusus.
Two of the heaps are about twenty-five feet long; the third is relatively small. Formerly, at the southerly end of each long row was a large turtle-shell mask, representing a crocodile and a hammer-headed shark respectively. These were decorated in various ways, and under each was a stone in which the life of the augŭd resided; stretching from each mask was a cord to which numerous human lower jawbones were fastened; at the opposite end was a stone on which a skull rested.
Fig. 22. Restoration of the Kwod in Yam
The small heap is the shrine of the augŭd Ger, or sea-snake, which originated from the hammer-headed shark (Kursi). These shrines were formerly covered over by long low huts decorated, like the fence, with Fusus shells.
Outside the fence were two heaps of shells which had a mystical connection with the shrines. These were the augŭdau kupar, or navel shrines of the augŭds.