Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

by Alfred C. Haddon

Tut, or Tud, or Warrior Island as it is now generally called, is situated at the southern end of the great Warrior Reefs. The island is very low, not more than ten feet above sea-level in any part, and is a true coral island, having been formed by the sea heaping coral sand and detritus on the reef, till these formed barriers which keep the sea itself at bay. As is usually the case in these parts, the soil is rendered fertile by the disintegration of pumice drifting on to the island from distant volcanoes.

Tut is evidently an island in process of formation, and is, roughly speaking, hook-shaped, the curved space being a lagoon, which is filled during the whole of the north-west monsoon, but dry except at high tide, during the south-east trade, i.e. during the greater portion of the year. This lagoon is evidently gradually silting up, and will ultimately form a permanent part of the island.

The vegetation is scrubby, but there are some old trees near the middle of the island. In old times the people were often short of food. At my visit in 1888 they were comfortably off, owing to the fact that most of the men were engaged in the fishing industries of the Straits, and were therefore able to buy provisions. On that occasion Maino met us, and after visiting a house and noticing a woman playing at cat’s cradle, we walked across the island to the village. There was a good deal of orange-coloured dodder festooning the shrubs and grass; one coconut palm bore the inscription of BILI FIJI, to announce the fact of that tree being owned by Billy, a native of Fiji. A coconut lying on the ground was sending up two vigorous sprouts.

After passing the mouth of the lagoon we reached the village, and after a little persuasion the natives got up a kŏpa-kŏpa, or native dance, for our entertainment.

It was, however, too hurriedly arranged, and there were not enough performers for it to be very effective. Two men and about eight women and girls danced. The latter, obeying a message sent on by Maino in advance of us, had donned their garments of civilisation, from a mistaken wish to show us due honour; but after some difficulty they acceded to our request, and with much laughing and chattering retired to take off their ugly long calico gowns, and reappeared more suitably clad in their pretty native leaf petticoats, but they had added coloured girdles and wraps round their chests.

Maino played the drum for the dance, and was surrounded by his wife and children and other women and children who joined in singing a chant and encouraging the dancers. A largess of tobacco closed the proceedings.

Mr. Milman, who was then Acting Resident Magistrate, offered to take Maino to Mawatta on the New Guinea coast, as that was his wife’s native place. At daybreak next morning Maino came to the steamer, and we paid him a tomahawk, five yards of calico, and some tobacco for a mask and other articles he brought us. He remarked he should give the tomahawk and calico to his mother-in-law, as he had not yet “paid” for his last baby!

The anchorage at Tut is at the opposite end of the island from Maino’s camp, and a few bêche-de-mer fishermen and their staff of Australian blacks then occupied that part of the island. Tom Randolf, a Dane, kindly lent me a small galvanised iron shed with a thatch roof; part of it was occupied by sacks of flour, rice, and miscellaneous stores. At the other end he put a couch for me, and two native mats formed a mattress, on which I was comfortable enough. The door of the shed was fastened with handcuffs, of which I kept the key, and so did not feel a prisoner. Randolf gave me some fowls, eggs, and a chunk of turtle-meat, which formed a pleasant change after a long course of tinned meats. He also allowed me to use his fresh water, of which there is a very scanty supply, there being only a very little brackish water on the island, which Europeans cannot use. The natives as well as the settlers procured their drinking water from the island of Yam, some fifteen miles away.

Maino gave me a good deal of valuable information respecting the initiation of boys into manhood, and took me into the bush to show me where their ceremonies formerly took place. With Maino’s assistance I could fairly well conjure up the past appearance of this tabooed kwod.