The trail by which we were travelling was one of the worst I ever saw in the islands, and the weather did not improve. The higher up we went, the thicker was the fog; we seemed to be moving in a slimy mass, breathing the air from a boiler. At noon we reached the lonely hut, where a dozen men and women squatted, shivering with cold and wet, crowded together under wretched palm-leaf mats, near a smouldering fire. There were some children wedged into the gaps between the grown-ups. Our arrival seemed to rouse these poor people from their misery a little; one man after the other got up, yawning and chattering, the women remained sitting near the fire. We made them some hot tea, and then I began to measure and take pictures, to which they submitted quite good-humouredly.
I was much struck by the fact of these men and women living together, a most unusual thing in a Melanesian district, where the separation of the sexes and the “Suque” rules are so rigorously observed.
We started off once more in the icy rain, keeping along the crest of the hill, which was just wide enough for the path. The mountain sloped steeply down on either side, the thick mist made an early twilight, we could only see the spot where we set our feet, while all the surroundings were lost in grey fog, so that we felt as though we were walking in a void, far above all the world. At nightfall we arrived at a solitary hut—the home of our companions. After having repaired the broken roof, my boys succeeded in lighting a fire, though how they did it is a mystery, as matches and everything else were soaked. Soon tea and rice were boiling, while I tried to dry my instruments, especially my camera, whose watertight case had not been able to resist the rain. Then I wrapped myself up in my blanket, sipped my tea and ate my rice, and smoked a few pipes. It certainly is a reward for the day’s work, that evening hour, lying satisfied, tired and dreamy, under the low roof of the hut, while outside the wind roars through the valley and the rain rattles on the roof, and a far-off river rushes down a gorge. The red fire paints the beams above me in warm colours, and in the dark corners the smoke curls in blue clouds. Around a second fire the natives lie in ecstatic laziness, smoking and talking softly, pigs grunt and dogs scratch busily about.
In the morning the storm had passed, and I could see that the house was set on the slope of a high mountain, much as a chalet is, and that we were at the end of a wild ravine, from every side of which fresh rivulets and cascades came pouring. Owing to the mountainous character of the country there are no villages here, but numerous huts scattered all along the mountains, two or three families at the utmost living together. The structure of the houses, too, was different from those on the coast; they had side walls and a basement of boulders, sometimes quite carefully built. Here men and women live together, and a separation of the fires does not seem to exist, nor does the “Suque” seem to have penetrated to this district.
We passed several hamlets where the mode of life was the same as in this one. The dress of the men is the same as at the coast, except that they wind strings of shell-money about their waists in manifold rows. The women wear a bunch of leaves in front and behind. The weapons are the same as elsewhere, except that here we find the feathered arrows which are such a rarity in the Pacific. It is surprising to find these here, in these secluded valleys among the pygmy race, and only here, near Talamacco, nowhere else where the same race is found. It is an open question whether these feathered arrows are an original invention in these valleys, an importation or a remnant of an earlier culture.
The population lives on the produce of the fields, mostly taro, which is grown in irrigated lands in the river bottoms.
In appearance these people do not differ much from those of central Santo, who are by no means of a uniform type. The most important feature is their size, that of the men amounting to 152 cm., that of the women to 144 cm. The smallest man I measured was 138.0 cm., others measured 146.0, 149.2, 144.2, 146.6, 140.6, 149.0, 139.6, 138.4 cm. The maximum size is hard to state, as even here the small variety has mixed with taller tribes, so that we find all the intermediate sizes, from the pygmy 139.6 cm. high, to the tall Melanesian of 178.0 cm. My object, therefore, was to find a colony of pure pygmies, and I pursued it in many subsequent wanderings, but without success. The following description is based on the type as I constructed it in the course of my travels and observations.
The hair is very curly, and seems black, but is in reality a dark, yellowish brown. Fil-fil is less frequent than among the tall variety. The forehead is straight, very slightly retreating, vaulted and rather narrow, the eyes are close together, straight, medium-sized and dark brown. The superciliar ridges are but slightly developed. The jaw-bones are large, but do not protrude, whereas the chewing muscles are well developed, which gives the face breadth, makes the chin-line round and the chin itself small and pointed. The mouth is not very large, with moderately thick lips, the nose is straight, hardly open toward the front, the nostrils not thick. As a rule, the growth of beard is not heavy, unlike that of the tall Melanesians; there is only a light moustache, a few tufts at the chin and near the jaw. Up to the age of forty this is all; in later years a heavier beard develops, but the face and the front of the chin remain free.
Thus it will be seen that these people are not at all repulsive, as all the ridges of bone and the heavy muscle attachments which make the face of ordinary Melanesians so brutal are lacking. On the contrary, they look quite agreeable and childlike. Their bodies are vigorous, but lightly built: the chest broad and deep, the arms and legs fine, with beautiful delicate joints, the legs well proportioned, with handsome calves. Their feet are short and broad, especially in front, but the great toe does not stand off from the others noticeably. Thus the pygmy has none of the proportions of a child, and shows no signs of degeneration, but is of harmonious build, only smaller than other Melanesians.
The shade of the skin varies a good deal from a dull purple, brownish-black, to coffee colour; but the majority of individuals are light, and the dark ones probably inherited their shade from the tall race.