A LARGE CANOE ON UREPARAPARA.
Next morning, while being pulled ashore for my excursion inland, I saw Macao on the beach, crying, waving and behaving like a madman. He called out that Bourbaki was dead, and that we must come to the village. I took him into the boat and we returned to the cutter. Macao was trembling all over, uttering wild curses, sighing and sobbing like a child. Between the fingers of his left hand he frantically grasped his cartridges, and nervously kept hold of his old rifle. We could not get much out of him; all we could make out was that Bourbaki had been shot towards morning and that he himself had run away. We guessed that Bourbaki must have committed some misdemeanour; as there was a possibility of his still being alive, we decided to go and look for him; for satisfaction it was idle to hope.
According to Macao the village was quite near, so we took our rifles, armed the boys, and in ten minutes we were ashore. The youngest, a fourteen-year-old boy, was left in the whale-boat, so as to be ready to pick us up in case of need. His elder brother, a tall, stout fellow, also preferred to stay in the boat; we left him behind, and this left five of us for the expedition. Macao showed us the way, and as we followed him we watched right and left for a possible ambush. It was a disagreeable moment when we dived into the thicket, where we expected to be attacked any moment, and I could hardly blame another fat boy for dropping behind, too, to “watch the shore,” as he said. Not wishing to lose any time, we let him go, for we were anxious to be in the village before the natives should have time to rally and prepare for resistance.
The path was miserable—slippery slopes, wildly knotted roots, stones, creeks and high reeds. We were kept quite busy enough watching our path, and were not careful at all about watching the bush; but we were confident that the natives, being very poor shots, would betray their presence by a random shot. We were exposed, of course, to shots from close quarters alongside the path, but we trusted to Macao’s sharp eyes to detect a hidden enemy. After an hour’s brisk walk, we asked Macao whether the village was still far off; every time we asked, his answer was the same: “Bim by you me catch him,” or, “Him he close up.” However, after an hour and a half, we began to feel worried. We had no idea whether we would find a peaceful village or an armed tribe, and in the latter case a retreat would doubtless have been fatal, owing to the long distance we would have had to go in the forest, where the white man is always at a disadvantage. But we had undertaken the adventure, and we had to see it through.
After two hours we unexpectedly came upon a village. A dozen men and a few women were squatting about, evidently expecting some event. The presence of the women was a sign that the people were peacefully inclined. An old man, a relative of Macao’s, joined us, and a short walk through a gully brought us quite suddenly into a village square. About thirty men were awaiting us, armed with rifles and clubs, silent and shy. Macao spoke to them, whereupon they laid down their rifles and led us to a hut, where we found Bourbaki, lying on his back, dead. He had been sitting in the house when some one shot him from behind; he had jumped up and tried to fly, but had broken down and fallen where he was then lying. He must have died almost at once, as the bullet had torn a great hole in his body. His rifle and cartridges were missing, that was all.
The villagers stood around us, talking excitedly; we could not understand them, but they were evidently not hostile, and we told them to bury Bourbaki. They began at once, digging a hole in the soft earth with pointed sticks. We then asked for the rifle, the cartridges and the murderer, and were informed that two men had done the killing. After some deliberation a number of men walked off, one of them a venerable old man, armed after the old fashion with a bow and a handful of poisoned arrows, which he handled with deliberate care; he also carried a club in a sling over his shoulder. Of all those strong men, this old one seemed to me the most dangerous but also the most beautiful and the most genuine. After a while they returned, and two other men slunk in and stood apart.
The natives seemed undecided what to do, and squatted about, talking among themselves, until at last one of them pulled me by the sleeve and led us towards the two newcomers. We understood that they were the murderers, and each of us took hold of one of them. They made no resistance, but general excitement arose in the crowd, all the other natives shouting and gesticulating, even threatening each other with their rifles. They were split in two parties,—one that wanted to give up the murderers, and their relatives, who wanted to keep them. We told them that the affair would be settled if they gave up the murderers; if not, the man-of-war would come and punish the whole village. As my prisoner tried to get loose, I bound him, and while I was busy with this I heard a shot. Seeing that all the men had their rifles ready, I expected the fight to begin, but George told me his prisoner had escaped and he had shot after him. The man had profited by George’s indecision to run away.
This actual outbreak of the hostilities excited the people so that we thought it best to retire, taking our single prisoner with us. A few of the natives followed us, and when we left the village the relatives of the murderer broke out in violent wailing and weeping, thinking, as did the prisoner, Belni, himself, that we were going to eat him up, after having tortured him to death. Belni trembled all over, was very gentle and inclined to weep like a punished child, but quite resigned and not even offering any resistance. He only asked Macao anxiously what we were going to do with him. Macao, furious at the death of his comrade, for whom he seemed to have felt real affection, put him in mortal fear, and was quite determined to avenge his murdered friend. We shut Belni up in the hold of the cutter and told the natives that they would have to hand over Bourbaki’s rifle and cartridges, and pay us two tusked pigs by noon of the next day.
On this occasion we learned the reason for the murder: Belni’s brother had had an intrigue with the wife of the chief, and had been condemned by the latter to pay a few pigs. Being too poor to do this, he decided to pay his debt in an old-fashioned way by killing a man, and Bourbaki was unlucky enough to arrive just at the right time, and being a man from a distant district, there was no revenge to be feared. Belni, therefore, chose him as his victim. The two brothers chatted all night with him and Macao, and asked to see Bourbaki’s rifle, which he carelessly handed to them. When, towards morning, Macao left them for a few moments, they profited by the opportunity to shoot Bourbaki from behind, and to run away. Macao, rushing back, found his friend dead, and fled to the shore. By this deed the wrong to the chief was supposed to be made good—a very peculiar practice in native justice. It may be a remnant of old head-hunting traditions, inasmuch as Belni’s brother would have given the dead man’s head to the chief in payment, this being even more valuable than pigs.