Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

by Alfred C. Haddon

We photographed the tracks of a turtle where she had gone up the sand beach to lay her eggs, and had returned to the sea. We prodded the sand about the apex of the converging tracks in the orthodox fashion, with a pointed stick, but could not find the nest.

When we had worked our way round to the side of the island from which we had started we found that Mrs. Canoe had laid out some banana leaves on the sand in an inclosure round her house. On this native tablecloth she had placed four heaps of coconut chips and a central heap of warm roasted green bananas, and four green coconuts were prepared for us to drink from. We much enjoyed this al fresco repast.

WAIER

I knew from various legends and other information that the island of Waier was of some importance, so I arranged for a visit there, and as part of the island belonged to our friend Smoke I endeavoured to get him to act as cicerone. We sailed across to Dauar, where Smoke was working in his garden, and we waited some time in vain for him to come to us.

Eventually Smoke’s elder brother, Keriba, consented to accompany us, and as he is an old man and had officiated at the zogos we could not have done better. His first excuse was that already that morning he had been round Waier fishing and was tired, which was doubtless true.

We waded across the reef which joins Dauar and Waier, as it was then low tide, and went round the southern side of this extinct crater. As I have already mentioned, Waier is a remarkable island, consisting of a crescentic, greatly fissured wall of volcanic ash, with the upper edge pinnacled and battlemented like an old castle. In the hollow of the crescent is a narrow sand beach, behind which, close to the rocks, is a little vegetation.

As we went along Keriba pointed out the interesting places, and gave us names of the prominent rocks and objects. It was stimulating to see the old sacred places, many of which Wilkin and I photographed, and to hear what happened there. Keriba seemed a little nervous about touching or interfering with some of the zogos, but when he saw us tidying them, and removing overgrowing grass and weeds, he too gave a hand.

The first one we came to was Zab Zogo, which consists merely of a few giant clam shells within a recess in the cliff, and protected by a row of stones. This gives good fishing, but only for a small kind of fish, which is speared at night by the light of torches made of dry coconut leaves.

Close by is a longish oblong rock on the beach, which is called Geigi-baur, i.e. “Geigi’s fish-spear.” Geigi was a hero of Waier who lived with his mother Nageg, about whom there are legends. Later in the day I was shown a flat rock on the sand beach in the bay of Waier, which was the mother’s mat. Geigi ultimately became a “king-fish,” and his mother a “trigger-fish.” Seligmann had already collected a specimen of the lady, and the “king-fish” is well known. One of the string puzzles represents Geigi, and another Nageg.

Shortly after we had rounded the southern point of Waier, and were walking along the bay, we came to a black stone about fifteen inches in length lying broken in the grass, on a heap of stones and shells at the foot of the cliff. We stuck it upright and cleared away the weeds, in order to get a photograph of the gentleman, who is named Waipem, but who after all has no particular shape, though a little pit on each side of the head does duty for the eyes. Formerly the men who belonged to this zogo erected in front of the image three bamboos like a football goal, on the crossbar of which was hung various kinds of fruit, and “man think inside himself, ‘If we give you plenty fruit I think you give us plenty turtle.’” They would then go to the two points of the island and look out for the turtles, which would be sure to come. This little ceremony was only performed about January—that is, during the turtle season.