Stirring scenes in savage lands

by James Greenwood

Polynesian Weapons.

When the chiefs decided on war, every man and boy under their jurisdiction old enough to handle a club, had to take his place as a soldier, or risk the loss of his lands and property and banishment from the place. In each district there was a certain village or cluster of villages known as the advance troops. It was their province to take the lead and in battle their loss was double the number of that of any other village. Still they boasted of their right to lead, and would on no account give it up to others, and talked in the current strain of other parts of the world, about the glory of dying in battle. In a time of peace the people of these villages had special marks of respect shown to them, such as the largest share of food at public feasts, flattery, etc. While war was going on the chiefs and heads of families united in some central spot, and whatever they decided on, either for attack or defence, the young men endeavoured implicitly to carry out. Their weapons were of old, clubs, spears, and slings; subsequently, as iron was introduced, they got hatchets, and with these they made their most deadly weapon, viz., a sharp tomahawk with a handle the length of a walking stick. After that again, they had the civilized additions of swords, pistols, guns, and bayonets. Around the village where the war party assembled, they threw a rough stockade, formed by any kind of sticks or trees cut into eight feet lengths and put close to each other upright, with their ends buried two feet in the ground. The hostile parties might be each fortified in this way, not more than a mile from each other, and now and then venture out to fight in the intervening space, or to take each other by surprise at weak or unguarded points. In their war canoes they had some distinguishing badge of their district hoisted on a pole, a bird it might be, or a dog, or a bunch of leaves. And for the bush-ranging land forces, they had certain marks on the body by which they knew their own party, and which served as a temporary watchword. One day the distinguishing mark might be blackened cheeks, the next two strokes on the breast, the next a white shell suspended from a stripe of white cloth round the neck, and so on; before any formal fight they had a day of feasting, reviewing, and merriment. In action they never stood in orderly ranks to shoot at each other. According to their notions that would be the height of folly. Their favourite tactics were rather of the surprise and bush skirmishing order. Prisoners, if men, were generally killed; if women, distributed among the conquerors. In the battle which was fought in 1830, to avenge the death of Tamafainga, a fire was kindled, and prisoners to the extent of four hundred, some say, were burned, but probably it did not reach the half of that number.

Their heroes were the swift of foot, like Achilles or Asahel; men who could dash forward towards a crowd, hurl a spear with deadly precision; and stand for a while, tilting off with his club other spears as they approached him within an inch of running him through. They were ambitious also to signalize themselves by the number of heads they could lay before the chief. No hero at the Grecian games rejoiced more over his chaplet than did the Samoan glory in the distinction of having cut off a man’s head. As he went along with it through the villages on the way to the place where the chiefs were assembled, waiting the hourly news of the battle, he danced and capered and shouted, calling out every now and then the name of the village, and adding, “I am so and so, I have got the head of such a one.” When he reached the spot where the chiefs were met, he went through a few more evolutions and then laid down the head before them. This, together with the formal thanks of the chiefs before the multitude for his bravery and successful fighting, was the very height of a young man’s ambition. He made some giddy frolicsome turns on his heels and was off again to try and get another victim. These heads were piled up in a heap in the mapae or public assembly. The head of the most important chief was put on the top, and as the tale of the battle was told they would say, “There were so many heads surmounted by the head of so-and-so,” giving the number and the name. After remaining for some hours piled up they were either claimed by their relatives or buried on the spot.

A rare illustration of this ambition to get heads occurred about ten years ago. In an unexpected attack upon a village one morning, a young man fell stunned by a blow. Presently he recovered consciousness, felt the weight of some one sitting on his shoulders and covering his neck, and the first sounds he heard was a dispute going on between two as to which of them had the right to cut off his head. He made a desperate effort, jostled the fellow off his back, sprang to his feet, and with his head all safe in his own possession, soon settled the matter by leaving them both far behind him.

The headless bodies of the slain scattered about in the bush after a battle, if known, were buried, if unknown left to the dogs. In some cases the whole body was pulled along in savage triumph, and laid before the chiefs. One day when Mr. Turner was in a war-fort, endeavouring to mediate for peace, a dead body of one of the enemy was dragged in, preceded by a fellow making all sorts of fiendish gestures, with one of the legs in his teeth, cut off by the knee.

If the war became general, and involved several districts, they formed themselves into a threefold division of highway, bush, and sea fighters. The fleet might consist of three hundred men in thirty or forty canoes. The bushrangers and the fleet were principally dreaded, as there was no calculating where they were or when they might pounce unawares upon some unguarded settlement. The fleet met apart from the land forces and concocted their own schemes. They would have it all arranged, for instance, and a dead secret, to be off after dark to attack a particular village belonging to the enemy. At midnight they land at an uninhabited place some miles from the settlement they intend to attack. They take a circuitous course in the bush, surround the village from behind, having previously arranged to let the canoes slip on quietly and take up their position in the water in front of the village. By break of day they rush into the houses of the unsuspecting people before they have well waked up, chop off as many heads as they can, rush with them to their canoes, and decamp before the young men of the place have had time to muster or arm. Often they are scared by the people who during the war keep a watch night and day at all the principal openings in the reef; but now and then the plot succeeds and there is fearful slaughter. In one of these early morning attacks from the fleet the heads of thirteen were carried off. One of them was that of a poor old man who was on his knees at his morning devotions, when off went his head at a blow. In another house that same morning there was a noble instance of maternal heroism in a woman who allowed herself to be hacked from head to foot bending over her son to save his life. It is considered cowardly to kill a woman, or they would have dispatched her at once. It was the head of her little boy they wanted, but they did not get it. The poor woman was in a dreadful state, but, to the surprise of all, recovered.

To the king of Samoa was reserved the power of sparing life. When led to the king’s presence the captive warriors usually prostrated themselves before him, and exclaimed: make paha e ora paha-i runa te ars? i raro te aro. “To die, perhaps to live, perhaps upward the face!” If the king did not speak, or said “The face down,” it was sentence of death, and some one in attendance either despatched the poor captive in his presence or led him away to be slaughtered. But if the king said, “Upward the face,” they were spared only to be slaves or to be sacrificed when the priests should require human victims.

When the king, or any chief of high rank, was known to be humane, or any of the vanquished had formerly been on terms of friendship with him, avoiding carefully the warriors, an individual risking his life on the conqueror’s clemency would lie in wait for him in his walks, and prostrating himself in the path, supplicate his compassion, or rush into his house and throw himself on the ground before him. Though anyone might have killed him while on his way thither, none dared touch him within the king’s enclosure without his orders. When the king did not speak, or directed the fugitive to be carried from his presence, which was very unusual, he was taken out and slain. Generally the prince spoke to the individual who had thus thrown himself into his power; and if he did but speak, or only recognise him, he was secure. He might either join the retinue of the sovereign, or return to his own house. No one would molest him, as he was under maru shade or the screening protection of the king. These individuals, influenced by feelings of gratitude, generally attached themselves to the person or interest of the prince by whom they had been saved, and frequently proved through subsequent life the most faithful attendants on his person and steady adherents to his cause.

The gentleman just mentioned furnishes us with an account of the massacre of the teachers which some few years since took place at the Isle of Pines. There were three of them. They were blamed for causing sickness. Mantungu, the chief, ordered them away, and as Captain Ebrill, of the brig “Star,” was there at the time and offered to take them to Samoa, they left in his vessel. Captain Ebrill first went to Sydney, came back, was on his way to Samoa with the teachers, but touched at the Isle of Pines to procure some more sandal-wood. He anchored at Uao, some little distance from the residence of the chief. The natives went off to the vessel. “Where are Mantungu and his sons?” said a person on board. “Dead,” replied the natives in a joke. “Dead, dead; that is good,” said the same person; “let such chiefs be dead, and let the common folk live, and help us cut sandal-wood.” For some reason which we cannot ascertain, Captain Ebrill and his crew were angry with the old chief, and as a further proof of it, when he sent a present of food to the teachers, who he heard were in the vessel, it was not allowed to be received on board. Those who took it had pieces of wood thrown at them and two musket shots fired at them. None were killed, but one man was wounded in the knee. “What can this mean,” said Mantungu, “wishing me and my sons dead in our own land? and why commit such outrages upon my people who went with a present?” Whether he had any intentions previously to take the vessel we know not; but any one who knows the old despot can imagine how such treatment would make his savage heart flame with revenge. Next morning thirty select men were off, determined to kill all on board. They took some sandal-wood with them to sell; and as a further trick did not arm themselves with clubs or axes, but with the adzes which they use in dressing off the bark and sap from the wood. They reached the vessel. The sandal-wood pleased all on board, was immediately bought, and the natives were allowed to go up on deck to grind their adzes on pretence that they were going off for more wood. One of the crew was turning the handle of the grindstone, a native grinding an adze, and the captain close by. Seizing a favourable moment the native swung his adze and hit the captain in the face between the eyes,—this was instant death to Captain Ebrill, and the signal for attack all over the vessel. In a few minutes seventeen of the crew were killed—viz., ten white men, including the captain, two Marquesans, two Mangarans, one Aitutakian, one New Zealander, and a Karotongan teacher. The cook fought desperately for awhile with an axe and killed one man, but was at length overpowered and fell. This occurred on the afternoon of the 1st of November, 1842. A young man named Henry, two Samoan teachers, and a native of the New Hebrides made their escape below. Henry loaded muskets and fired up the companion, but without effect. It only exasperated the natives on deck, who threw down upon them billets of sandal-wood. The teachers then collected their property, six red shirts, eight axes, etc., called up and offered all for their lives, but there was no mercy. Night came on. The natives divided; a party went on shore in the boat, and the rest remained on deck to guard those below. In the morning the natives called down to Henry and the Samoans to come up, take the vessel further in, and then go on shore, as Mantungu had come and declared they were to live. The poor fellows felt they were entirely in the hands of the natives, came up, ran close in shore, and again dropped anchor. They were then taken to the shore. A son of Mantungu, with a tomahawk in his right hand, met Henry as he stepped out of the boat, held out his left hand with a feigned grin of friendship to shake hands; but the moment he got hold of Henry’s right hand, the villain up with his axe and laid the poor fellow dead at his feet. Others were up and at the remaining three. Lengolo, the New Hebrides native, and the Samoan Taniela, were killed at once. Mantangu and a party of natives were sitting under the shade of the cocoa-nuts looking on. Lasalo, the other Samoan teacher, escaped streaming with blood, threw himself at the feet of the old chief and begged for life. Mantungu was silent for a minute or two, but soon gave the wink to a Lifu man. Lasalo was now dragged away to be killed, but he sprang from the fellow as he lifted his axe and darted off to sea. The savages were at his heels, he was hit repeatedly, but escaped to the deep water, struck out and swam off to a little island. Four men jumped into a canoe and after him; he climbed a pine tree and talked for awhile with them; they assured him Mantungu had determined to spare him, and at last he came down. It was treachery again. They sprang upon him like tigers; but again he extricated himself, and rushed to the canoe; there, however, at length the poor fellow was overpowered and fell.

After the massacre the bodies were divided. There were people there from Caledonia, Mare, and Lifu, and each had a share. Then followed the plundering of the vessel; deck, cabins, and forecastle were stripped of everything. They cut down the masts to get at the sails and rigging, and then set fire to her without opening the hold. As the fire reached the powder there was a terrific explosion, but no lives lost. She burned to the water’s edge and then sank.