The Solomon Islands and Their Natives

by H. B. Guppy

There are in Treasury several men and women who, originally bought as slaves from the people of Bouka and Bougainville, now enjoy apparently the same privileges and freedom of action as their fellow islanders. It is sometimes not a matter of much difficulty to single out the slaves amongst a crowd of natives. On one occasion I engaged a canoe of Faro men to take me to a distant part of their island: and very soon after we started I became aware from the cowed and sullen condition of one of the crew that he was a slave. On inquiry I learned that this man had been captured when a boy in the island of Bougainville, and I was informed that if he was to return to his native place—a bush village named Kiata—he would undoubtedly be killed. Although in fact a slave, I concluded from the bearing of the other men towards him that his bondage was not a very hard one; and he evidently appeared to enjoy most of the rights of a native of the common class. Sukai, however, for such was his name, had to make himself generally useful in the course of the day; and when at the close of the excursion we were seated inside the house of a man who provided us with a meal of boiled taro, sweet potatoes, and bananas, he was served with his repast on the beach outside.

Mule, the Treasury chief, had adopted a little Bougainville bush-boy, named Sapeku, who was purchased when very young from his friends. In 1883 he was six or seven years old, and was the constant companion of the sons of the chief. He was a fat chubby little urchin, with woolly hair, and was known on board under the name of “Tubby.” His wild excitable disposition full of suspicion showed to great contrast with the calmer and more confident demeanour of his companions. He was, however, a general favourite with us, although I should add he did not possess half the pluck of his associates. Mule also possessed, at the time of our visit, a young girl, twelve or thirteen years old, who had been not long before purchased from the Bougainville natives.

I have previously referred to the existence of bushmen on some of the smaller islands. In the interior of Treasury there are a few hamlets containing each two or three families of bushmen, who live quite apart from the other natives of the island. On more than one occasion I experienced the hospitality of these bush families, who in matters of dress are even less observant than the harbour natives. They are probably the remnants of the original bushmen who occupied this island. Over our pipes, I used frequently to converse with the natives on the subject of the past history of their island; and I gleaned from them that the enterprising race at present dominant in the Bougainville Straits came originally from the islands immediately to the eastward, using Treasury as a stepping-stone to the Shortlands and Faro, and ousting or exterminating the bushmen they found in the possession of these islands.

I will turn for a moment to the subject of slavery in the eastern islands of the group. In Ugi it is the practice of infanticide which has given rise to a slave-commerce regularly conducted with the natives of the interior of St. Christoval. Three-fourths of the men of this island were originally bought as youths to supply the place of the natural offspring killed in infancy. But such natives when they attain manhood virtually acquire their independence, and their original purchaser has but little control over them. On [page 42], I have made further reference to this subject.

Connected in the manner above shown with the subject of slavery is the practice of cannibalism. The completion of a new tambu-house is frequently celebrated among the St. Christoval natives by a cannibal feast. Residents in that part of the group tell me that if the victim is not procured in a raid amongst the neighbouring tribes of the interior, some man is usually selected from those men in the village who were originally purchased by the chief. The doomed man is not enlightened as to the fate which awaits him, and may, perhaps, have been engaged in the erection of the very building at the completion of which his life is forfeited. The late Mr. Louis Nixon,[13] one of those traders whose name should not be forgotten amongst the pioneers who, in working for themselves, have worked indirectly for the good of their successors in the Solomon Group, once recounted to me a tragical incident of this kind on the island of Guadalcanar, of which he was an unwilling spectator. Whilst looking out of the window of his house one afternoon, he observed a native walk up to another standing close to the window and engage him in conversation. A man then stole up unperceived, and raising his heavy club above his head, struck the intended victim lifeless to the ground. Knowing too well the nature and purpose of the deed, Mr. Nixon turned away quite sickened by the sight.

[13] Mr. Nixon died at Santa Anna in the end of 1882.

The natives of the small island of Santa Anna enjoy the reputation of being abstainers from human flesh: but, inasmuch, as Mai the war-chief has acquired a considerable fortune, in a native’s point of view, by following the profitable calling of purveyor of human flesh to the man-eaters of the adjacent coasts of St. Christoval—a trade in which he is ably assisted by those who accompany him on his foraging expeditions—we can hardly preserve this nice distinction between the parts taken by the contractor and his customers in this extraordinary traffic. I learned from Captain Macdonald that in their abstinence from human flesh, the Santa Anna natives are not actuated by any dislike of anthropophagy in itself; but that the custom has fallen into abeyance since the chief laid the tambu-ban on human flesh several years ago, on account of a severe epidemic of sickness having followed a cannibal feast. On one occasion through the instrumentality of this resident, Lieutenant Oldham had the satisfaction of rescuing two St. Christoval natives whom Mai was carefully keeping in anticipation of the wants of the man-eaters of Cape Surville. As the result of an interview held with this chief, the two prisoners were sent on board the “Lark;” but Mai gave them up with a very bad grace, protesting that he was being robbed of his own property. It is difficult to speculate on the reflections of the victim as he lives on from day to day in constant expectation of his fate. I am told that there is a faint gleam of tender feeling shown in the case of a man who, by long residence in the village, has almost come to be looked upon as one of themselves. He is allowed to remain in ignorance of the dreaded moment until the last: and, perhaps, he may be standing on the beach assisting in the launching of the very canoe in which he is destined to take his final journey, when suddenly he is laid hold of, and in a few moments more he is being ferried across to the man-eaters of the opposite coast. All persons whom I have met that have had a lengthened experience of the St. Christoval natives confirm these cannibal practices. They may sometimes be observed with all the horrible preliminaries which have been described in the cases of other Pacific groups; whilst, on the other hand, it may be the habit to purchase and partake of human flesh as an extra dainty in the daily fare.

Captain Redlich, master of the schooner “Franz,” who visited Makira on the south side of St. Christoval in 1872, states that he found a dead body in a war-canoe dressed and cooked whole. He was informed by Mr. Perry, a resident, that he had seen as many as twenty bodies lying on the beach dressed and cooked.[14] In 1865, Mr. Brenchley noticed at Wano, on the north coast of this island, the skulls of twenty-five bushmen hanging up under the roof of the tambu-house, all of which showed the effects of the tomahawk and all had been eaten.[15] At the present time it is not an easy matter for any person not resident in the group to obtain ocular evidence of cannibalism, since the natives have become aware of the white man’s aversion to the custom. I have, however, frequently seen the arm and leg bones of the victim consumed at the opening of a new tambu-house, as they are usually hung up over the entrance or in some other part of the building. The natives, however, are generally reluctant to talk much about these matters; and I believe the residents, in such matters, prefer to trust more to the testimony of their own eyes than to the statements of the natives.

[14] Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1874 (vol. 44), p. 31.