Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

by Alfred C. Haddon

One day Cowling invited us to go in his centre-board cutter to Pulu, as he knew we were anxious to visit that sacred islet, and we took with us Gizu, Tom, and Peter to act as guides. We had a spanking sail round the eastern and southern sides of Mabuiag, and soon reached Pulu, a small rocky island on the reef on the western side of Mabuiag. We landed at Mumugubut, a pretty little sandy bay surrounded by granitic rocks, which were fissured and undercut in an extraordinary manner. To the right, projecting high from massive boulders, was a gigantic Γ-shaped rock, which is called Kwoiam’s throwing-stick. This redoubtable hero implanted his weapon here after the slaughter of a number of Badu men who had humbugged him. Kwoiam had followed these men from Mabuiag, and landing elsewhere on the island, walked close to this tiny bay. Natives point out a rock lying on the ground against which Kwoiam pressed his foot when preparing to throw his spear against his sleeping foes, but concluding this spot was not suitable he made a détour inland, and took up a position whence he commanded a better view of the unconscious Badu men. He again prepared to hurl his spear, pressing hard with his right foot against the ground, which immediately became a shelf of rock to give him a better purchase for his foot. A little inland from the bay are a number of large slabs of rock which represent the bodies of the men killed and decapitated by Kwoiam.

To the left of Mumugubut are some smoothed rocks on which are perched immense boulders. A casual observer seeing similar rocks in Europe would not hesitate to describe these also as glaciated rocks and blocs perchés. As a matter of fact, they are due to the same kind of weathering that carves out the Devonshire tors, and which leaves the large granite boulders on the flanks of Dartmoor.

We passed round these rocks, and then struck inland. A short way from the beach is a cleft in the rocks, which in some places is very narrow, but in others widens out to leave two or three various-sized but small open spaces, which were utilised in former days as the retiring-rooms of the men engaged in certain ceremonies. One compartment was the cooking place, another the “green-room”; and in this latter was a great overhanging rock, under the shelter of which were kept the “properties.” No women were allowed to come near this spot.

We scrambled over rocks and through scrub, and soon came to an open bay, with a fair amount of level ground below it.

The southerly end of this area was the kwod, or tabooed camp of the men. To the left, and at high-water mark, is a huge boulder with an overhanging smooth surface facing the kwod. On this smooth surface are some nearly effaced paintings in red of various animals, also some handprints made by placing the outstretched palm and fingers on the rock, and splashing the rock with powdered charcoal mixed with water. The handprint thus appears white on a black background. The legend of the origin of this rock is as follows.

Once upon a time, when the Mabuiag people were camping there, the boys and girls, in spite of the prohibition of their parents, were fond of continually twirling round on the beach with their arms extended. They played in this way every night till this great rock fell from the sky as a punishment, and killed every man, woman, and child on the island, with the exception of two sweethearts, who fled and crossed over to Mabuiag at Kakalug. They bit a piece of a kowai tree that grew there, and “that medicine stop that stone.” This pair of lovers became the progenitors of the present population. Parents still tell their children never to play this game (gugabidĕ tiai) at night, lest a similar catastrophe should recur. The rock is called menguzikula, or “the stone that fell.”

Near the centre of the kwod is a large oblong heap of dugong bones, koi siboi. At short distances from this were the fireplaces of the five chief clans. These were so arranged that the Sam (cassowary), Kodal (crocodile), and Tabu (snake) fireplaces were comparatively close together, whereas the Kaigas (shovel-nose skate) and Dungal (dugong) were much further apart. This corresponds to a grouping of the three first as the “children of the big augŭd,” the name of which was named kotibu.

The two last were the “children of the little augŭd,” which was called giribu. Kotibu and giribu were two crescentic ornaments, or insignia, made by Kwoiam of turtle-shell; the former was worn on the upper lip, and the latter on the chest.

It appears to me that we here have a most interesting stage in the transformation of totemism, since we have the two main groups of the old totem (augŭd) clans associated with relics of a national hero. There are other facts which point to the rise of a local hero cult, the hero himself (although he belonged to the Kaigas clan) being augŭd, as were also kotibu and giribu.

It is very rarely that artificial objects are adopted as totems, and I believe this is the only instance of an individual man being spoken of as a totem. Although the natives called him augŭd, they were evidently extending the use of that term to a point beyond which it could logically be applied; but having no name for the idea they were striving after, they were forced to employ an old term, though the meaning was strained.