The Solomon Islands and Their Natives

by H. B. Guppy

Fans serve the double purpose of nursing a fire and of cooling the person. Those in use in Treasury are made of the extremities of two branches of the cocoa-nut palm, the midribs forming the handle, whilst the long “pinnæ” are neatly plaited together to form the fan. One of these fans is figured in the pottery engraving. Although more coarsely made, they are of a pattern similar to the fans of Fiji and Samoa. The shape appears to have originated from the nature of the materials employed; and I suspect that in Fiji and Samoa, where different materials are used, the original shape which depended on the plaiting of the cocoa-nut leaves has been retained, whilst the material itself has been discarded.

The natives of Bougainville Straits burn torches during their fishing excursions at night and during festivals. For this purpose they use resins obtained from the “anoga,”[29] probably a species of Canarium, and the “katari,” a species of Calophyllum, two tall trees which rank among the giants of the forest in this region. The resin of the “anoga” should be more properly described as a resinous balsam. It is white, is easily pulverised, and has a powerful odour, as if of camphor and sandal-wood combined. It concretes in mass inside the bark and in tears on the outer surface of the tree, and is usually obtained by climbing up and knocking it off the bark; but sometimes the tree is ringed at a height of four feet from the ground, a process which drains it of its resin but causes its death. The torch of this material is simply prepared by wrapping up compactly the powdered resin in a palm-leaf, which although outside answers the purpose of a wick. . . . The “katari” resin, which is less frequently used, is a dark-coloured material that burns with a tarry and somewhat fragrant odour. Other resins and gums are yielded by the trees, one of which somewhat resembles the “kauri” gum of New Zealand, and occurs in a similar situation beneath the soil; but I was unable to find the tree.

[29] From Surville’s description of his visit to Port Praslin in Isabel in 1769, it would appear that the natives burned torches made of this resin. (“Voyage de Marion.” Paris, 1783; p. 274.)

In the tambu-houses of St. Christoval and the adjoining islands we have a style of building on which all the mechanical skill of which the natives are possessed has been brought to bear. These sacred buildings have many and varied uses. Women are forbidden to enter their walls; and in some coast villages, as at Sapuna in the island of Santa Anna, where the tambu-house overlooks the beach, women are not even permitted to cross the beach in front. The tambu-houses of the coast villages are employed chiefly for keeping the war-canoes, each chief being allowed, as an honourable mark of his position, the privilege of there placing his own war-canoe;[30] but in the inland villages, these buildings are of course no longer employed for this purpose. Another use to which these buildings may be put is described on [page 53], in connection with the tambu-house of Sapuna in Santa Anna, in which are deposited, enclosed in the wooden figure of a shark, the skulls of ordinary men and the entire bodies of the chiefs.

[30] Mr. C. F. Wood, in his “Yachting in the South Seas” (London, 1875), gives, as the frontispiece of his book, an autotype photograph of the tambu-house of Makira in St. Christoval, in which the war-canoes are well shown.

The front of the tambu-house in his native village is, for the Solomon Islander, a common place of resort, more especially towards the close of the afternoon. There he meets his fellows and listens to the news of his own little world; and it is to this spot that any native who may be a stranger to the village first directs his steps, and on arriving states his errand or particular business. In my numerous excursions, when thirsty or tired, I always used to follow the native custom in this matter, being always treated hospitably and never with any rudeness. The interior of these buildings is free to any man to lie down in and sleep. On one occasion, when passing a night in an island village of St. Christoval, I slept in the tambu-house, the only white man amongst a dozen natives. Bloodshed, I believe, rarely occurs in these buildings; and they are for this reason viewed somewhat in the light of a sanctuary.

The completion of a new tambu-house is always an occasion of a festival in a village. The festival is often accompanied by the sacrifice of a human life; and the leg and arm bones of the victim may be sometimes seen suspended to the roof overhead. In the tambu-house of the village of Makia, on the east coast of Ugi, I observed hanging from the roof the two temporal bones, the right femur, and the left humerus of the victim who had been killed and eaten at the opening of the building; and similarly suspended in the tambu-house of the hill-village of Lawa on the north side of St. Christoval, in which I passed the night, I noticed over my head as I lay on my mat the left femur, tibia, and fibula, and the left humerus of the unfortunate man who had been killed and eaten on the completion of the building twelve months before. At these feasts there is a great slaughter of pigs that have been confined for some previous time in an enclosure of strong wooden stakes, which may be allowed to remain long after the occasion for its use has passed away. After the feast, the lower jaws of all the pigs consumed are hung in rows from the roof of the building. In one tambu-house I remember counting as many as sixty jaws thus strung up.

The style of building and the size and relative dimensions of the tambu-houses are very similar in all the coast-villages of the eastern islands, a correspondence which may be explained from the necessity of the structure being long enough to hold the large war-canoes. As a type of these buildings, I will describe somewhat in detail the tambu-house of the large village of Wano, on the north coast of St. Christoval. Its length is about 60 feet and its breadth between 20 and 25 feet. The gable roof is supported by five rows of posts, the height of the central row being some 14 or 15 feet from the ground; whilst on account of its high pitch the two outer lateral rows of posts are only 3 or 4 feet high. The principal weight of the roof is borne by the central and two next rows, each of which supports a long, bulky ridge-pole. The two outer lateral rows of posts are much smaller and support much lighter ridge-poles. In each row there are four posts, two in the middle and one at each gable-end. These posts, more particularly those of the central row, are grotesquely carved, and evidently by no unskilled hand, the lower part representing the body of a shark with its head upwards and mouth agape, supporting in various postures a rude imitation of the human figure which formed the upper part of the post. In one instance, a man was represented seated on the upper lip or snout of the shark, with his legs dangling in its mouth, and wearing a hat on his head, the crown of which supported the ridge-pole. In another case the man was inverted; and whilst the soles of his feet supported the ridge-pole, his head and chest were resting in the mouth of the shark.[31] Long after the tambu-house has disappeared, the carved posts remain in their position and form a not uncommon feature in a village scene as shown in the [engraving] of a village in Ugi. . . . The roof of the Wano tambu-house is formed of a framework of bamboo poles covered with palm-leaf thatch, the poles being of equal size, whether serving as rafters or cross-battens, the latter affording attachment for the thatch. The same materials are used in the sides of the building. . . . . With reference to tambu-houses generally in this part of the group, I should remark that they are open at both ends, with usually a staging at the front end raised about four feet from the ground, which may be aptly termed “the village lounge.”

[31] Mr. Brenchley, who visited Wano, or Wanga as he names it, in 1865, refers briefly in his “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curacoa’” to these carved posts (p. 267).

The tambu-house of the interesting little island of Santa Catalina or Orika—the Yoriki of the Admiralty [chart]—is worthy of a few special remarks. Its dimensions are similar to those of like buildings in this part of the group, the length being between 60 and 70 feet. Placed in front of each of its ends are three circles of large wooden posts driven into the earth, each circle of posts being 4 or 5 feet in height and enclosing a space of ground a few feet across, into which are thrown cocoa-nuts and other articles of food to appease the hunger of the presiding deity or devil-god. The ridge-poles and posts are painted with numerous grotesque representations in outline of war-canoes and fishing-parties, of natives in full fighting equipment, of sharks, and of the devil-god himself, with a long, lank body and a tail besides. On a ridge-pole there was drawn in paint the outline of some waggon or other vehicle with the horses in the shafts: whether this was a reminiscence of some native who had been to the colonies, or was merely a copy from a picture, I did not learn. Some of the representations on the ridge-poles were of an obscene character. The central row of posts were defaced by chipping, which I was informed was a token of mourning for the late chief of the island, who had died not many months before. Mr. C. F. Wood met with a similar custom in 1873 in the case of a native of a village at the west end of St. Christoval, who on the death of his son broke and damaged the carved figures of birds and fish in his house.[32] I am inclined to think that this house was a sacred building of some kind. . . . . Mr. William Macdonald, through whose kindness I had the opportunity of visiting this island, pointed out to me that two or three of the posts of the building had been carved into the figures of women, an innovation in the interior of a tambu-house which I observed in no other building of this kind.