Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

by Alfred C. Haddon

For a long time I had been trying to get the natives of the village of Las, on the eastern side of the island, to give us a demonstration of the ancient initiation ceremonies connected with the Malu cult. All was supposed to be ready on Thursday afternoon, July 28th, so we walked over, but found no preparations made. We were greatly disappointed, and I spoke rather strongly to some of the influential men, but I did not feel at all hopeful as to the result.

After a meal in Gododo’s house, we spent the evening yarning and recording some songs on the phonograph.

Next day, after an early breakfast, I walked to Ulag to inquire after a star-shaped stone club that was used in the old Malu ceremonies; this I borrowed, and also arranged for a similar club and the sacred drum to be brought. Of all the paraphernalia appertaining to this cult only these three implements remain.

In the afternoon matters began to look more lively, and it was soon evident that something was about to happen.

We were taken to the taboo ground at Gazir, and shortly afterwards the men assembled and went through a representation of the first ceremony, at which the sacred masks were shown to the lads (kersi) who were to be initiated. Now no masks remain, and we had to be content with an exceedingly poor counterfeit of what must have been a very awe-inspiring ceremony. There were just sufficient echoes of it, as it were, to enable us to catch something of the old solemnity. The meaning of the reiterated couplet that was sung on this occasion is to the effect that Malu had bad teeth! Could anything be more trivial? It quite pained me when I heard the translation of the chant.

When this was over we hastened down to the sand beach at Las, and shortly afterwards the second ceremony was performed, very much as I had seen it ten years before. There were many discordant elements in the performance, but these it is now impossible to eliminate.

What threatened to be a fiasco turned out to be quite a success, and several points that were obscure to me before were cleared up. Myers helped me a great deal, and as he has noted down quite a number of the Malu songs and tunes, we can now restore the ceremonies at Gazir, Las, and Dam with a very fair degree of accuracy.

After this exhibition we spent many days in going over the details of the ceremonies and songs. Information of this kind which appears so simple when written is surprisingly difficult and tedious to collect. It is by no means easy to get the natives to understand precisely what one requires. There is also little doubt that they do not care to speak freely about the sacred rites they revered in the past. I allude, of course, to the old men, for even the middle-aged know very little of their ancient customs, and the young men nothing at all.

The habit of secrecy was too ingrained to be readily relinquished. In nearly every inquiry of this sort we found there were certain zogo mer, or “sacred words,” which it was always very difficult to obtain. Sometimes these are magical phrases, as in the charm for making rain, or a formula that was known to but a very few men, like that employed at Tomog Zogo. Naturally the zogo mer of the Malu ceremonies were not to be repeated lightly.

There were some sacred words which they disliked mentioning: for example, the culture hero in the “Myth of Origin” of these ceremonies is always spoken of as Malu, and this name is known to women and children—it is, in fact, what they call an au ne, i.e. a “big” or “general” name; but his real name is Bomai—this is the zogo ne (sacred name) or gumik ne (secret name), which only initiates may learn, and is one of those “unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”