There was, luckily for us, the one skilled workman on the island, the French carpenter who had made his way from New Caledonia; his name was Vincent, but he answered to the appellation of “Varta” (the figure in fig. 37); the difficulty was to obtain his services as he was constantly employed on the estate. One of our few retainers, Mahanga (fig. 89), was not a native of Easter, but had come from the Paumotu Islands; he served faithfully for many months, the goal in view being the possession of one of the tin huts, which passed into his keeping when we left the island. It was related that having been at one time afflicted with some skin disease, he had taken the heroic remedy of plunging into a vat in which the sheep were being dipped, with painful but beneficial results. The native girls make quite tolerable servants, and I was fortunate in never being without one (fig. 29). They take a keen interest in their own clothes and some of them are surprisingly good needlewomen; in some of the houses there are even sewing-machines. But to obtain labour, whether for camp work or excavation, was always difficult, and for a while circumstances rendered it almost impossible.
CHAPTER XI
A NATIVE RISING
It was stated a little while back that we were left on the island with statues and natives. The statues remained quiescent, the natives did not. The inhabitants, or Kanakas to give them their usual name[[13]] (fig. 26), are on the whole a handsome race, though their voices, particularly those of the women, are very harsh. They are fortunate also in possessing attractive manners, from which they get the full benefit in their intercourse with passing ships. The older people we found always kind and amiable, but the younger men have a high opinion of their own merits, and are often difficult to deal with. Their general morality, using the word in its limited sense, is, in common with that of all Polynesians, of a particularly low order; it is true that the Europeans with whom they have come into contact did not initiate this condition, but they have seldom done anything to show that that of their own lands is in any way higher; a fact which should be remembered when complaint is made that Kanakas “have no respect for white men.” The native love of accuracy also leaves a good deal to be desired, and their lies are astonishingly fluent; but lack of truthfulness is scarcely confined to Kanakas. In common with all residents in the South Seas, or indeed elsewhere, they exert themselves no more than is necessary to supply their wants; unfortunately these, save in the matter of clothes, have scarcely increased since pre-Christian days. The food-supply of sweet potatoes and bananas, with a few pigs and fowls, can be obtained with a minimum of labour; the keeping of sheep and cattle is not permitted by the Company, owing to the impossibility of discovering or tracing theft. Their old huts, which were made with sticks and grass, have been replaced by small houses of wood or stone, but, except in a few cases, there is no furniture, and the inhabitants continue to sleep on the floor, in company with hens, which freely run in and out (fig. 27). There seems no desire to improve their condition; “Kanakas no like work, Kanakas like sit in house,” was the ingenuous reply given by one of them, when my husband pointed out the good results which would accrue from planting some trees in village territory.
FIG. 26.
A GROUP OF EASTER ISLANDERS OUTSIDE THE CHURCH DOOR.
FIG. 27.
HANGA ROA VILLAGE.
Native houses and church. Rano Kao in the distance.
Perhaps the greatest barrier to native progress lies in the absence of security of property; they steal freely from one another, as well as from white men, so that all individual effort is rendered nugatory. At the same time they are curiously lacking in pugnacity, and if detected in theft quietly desist or return the property: as a typical instance our cook once met a man wearing one of his, Bailey’s, ties; he looked steadily at him, the man’s hand went up, he took off the tie and handed it back. Their own native organisation was peculiarly lax, no kind of justice being administered, and they have never had for any duration the civilising effect of religious instruction or civil power. The missionaries were replaced by a native lay reader; there is a large church where services are regularly held, which form important functions for the display of best clothes, but it is difficult to say how much they convey to the worshippers. The older ones, at any rate, have two names, both a native and Christian appellation. Mr. Edmunds had, on our arrival, the status of a Chilean official, and was both just and kind in his dealings, but he had no means of enforcing order; the two policemen who had been at one time on the island had been withdrawn owing to their own bad conduct. The marvel is not that the Kanakas are troublesome, but that they are as good as they are.
We had heard in Chile rumours of native unrest, owing to the action of a white man, who had been for a short while on the island, and who had done his best to undermine the authority of the Manager. We had before long unpleasant evidence that they were out of hand. The wool-shed, which contained our minutely calculated stores, was broken into, and a quantity of things stolen, the most lamented being three-fourths of the stock of soap; no redress or punishment was possible. On June 30th, while we were still at the Manager’s, a curious development began which turned the history of the next five weeks into a Gilbertian opera—a play, however, with an undercurrent of reality which made the time the most anxious in the story of the Expedition. On that date a semi-crippled old woman, named Angata (fig. 30), came up to the Manager’s house accompanied by two men, and informed him that she had had a dream from God, according to which M. Merlet, the chairman of the Company, was “no more,” and the island belonged to the Kanakas, who were to take the cattle and have a feast the following day.[[14]] Our party also was to be laid under contribution, which, it later transpired, was to take the form of my clothes. Later in the day the following declaration of war was formally handed in to Mr. Edmunds, written in Spanish as spoken on the island:
“June 30th, 1914.