At about ten o’clock, I took a few boys and went inland to get some pictures. Osa wanted to accompany me, but I set my foot down on it. I knew there was no danger for myself, but I felt that Nagapate’s interest in her made it unsafe for her to venture. I went to the top of a hill a few miles back, where I made some fine pictures of the surrounding country, and was lucky enough to get a group of savages coming over the ridge of another hill about half a mile away. My guides became panicky when they saw the newcomers, and insisted that we return to the beach at once, but I held firm until the last savage on the opposite hill had been lost to sight in the jungle. Then with enough film to justify my morning’s climb, I returned to the beach.
On the following morning, Nagapate made his appearance, and told me, through Atree, that he had brought his wives to see Osa. I sent the boat to the schooner for her, but when she appeared, Nagapate said that his wives could not come to the beach and that Osa, accordingly, must go inland as far as the first river to meet them. I did not like the idea, but decided that no possible harm could come to her if the armed crew of the Amour and Captain Moran and I accompanied her. It turned out that my distrust of Nagapate was again unjustified. We found the wives waiting at the designated spot with sugar-cane and yams and a nice, new Big Numbers dress for Osa. They had not come to the beach because the newest wife was not permitted to look at the sea for a certain time after marriage—which seemed to me to carry the taboo on water a bit too far.
Osa was pleased to add the Big Numbers dress to her collection of strange things from Melanesia. And indeed it was quite a gift. For in spite of their apparent simplicity, the making and dyeing of the pandanus garments is a complicated process. Since the grass will not take the dye if it is the least green, it has to be dried and washed and dried again. When it is thoroughly bleached, it is dyed deep purple.
After Osa in turn had presented the wives with salmon and sea-biscuits (which I afterward saw Nagapate and his men devouring) and strings of bright-colored beads, Nagapate agreed to get his men to dance for me, if I would come to his village. I did not relish the idea of the long trip into the hills, but I wanted the picture. Osa returned to the schooner, and Captain Moran and I, with five boys, went inland. We made the village in four hours. When we arrived, I was ready to drop with exhaustion, and lay down on the ground for half an hour to recover. Savages squatted about me and watched me while I rested, then crowded about me while I got my cameras ready for action. Nagapate sent out for the men to come to the clearing, and they straggled in, sullen and cranky. They did not want to dance, but Nagapate’s word was law. At his command, a few men went to the great boo-boos and beat out a weird rhythm that seemed to me to express the very essence of cannibalism. At first the savages danced in a half-hearted fashion, but gradually they warmed up. Soon they were doing a barbaric dance better than any I had ever seen. They marched quickly and in perfect time around the boo-boos. Then they stopped suddenly, with a great shout, stood for a moment marking time with their feet, marched on again and stopped again, and so on, the march becoming faster and faster and the shouting wilder and more continuous, until at last the dancers had to stop from sheer exhaustion.
I got a fine picture, well worth the long trip up the mountains, but it was very late before we got started beachward, accompanied by Nagapate and a number of his men. We went down the slippery trail as fast as we could go. I should have been afraid, in my first days in the islands, that the boys might fall with my cameras if we went at such a rate, but by now I had found that they were as sure-footed as mountain sheep. They carried my heavy equipment as if it had been bags of feathers and handled it much more carefully than I should have been able to.
In spite of our haste, it grew dark before we reached the beach. The boys cut dead bamboo for torches and in the uncertain light they gave, we stumbled along. When we were within about a quarter of a mile from the sea, we fired a volley to let Osa know that we were coming. To our surprise, when we came out on the beach, we were greeted by Osa and Engineer Moran and the remainder of the crew of the Amour, all armed to the teeth. Osa was crying. It was the first time I had ever known her to resort to tears in the face of danger. But when she learned that we were all there and safe, and that the volley had been a signal of our approach and not an indication that we had been attacked, her tears dried and she scolded me roundly for having frightened her.
I went to the boat and got a crate of biscuits and a small bag of rice and took them back to Nagapate for a feast for him and his men. Then I said good-bye. I believe that the old cannibal was really sorry to see us go—and not only for the sake of the presents we had given him. Some day I am going back to see him once more.
CHAPTER IX
THE MONKEY PEOPLE
At daylight we pulled anchor and set the sails and started the engine. With the wind to help us, we made good progress. In three hours we had reached our next anchorage, a small bay said to be the last frequented by the Big Numbers people. We were in the territory of the largest tribe on the west side of Malekula. Moran told me that no white man had ever penetrated the bush and that the people were very shy and wild. We landed, but saw no signs of savages. We thought we had the beach to ourselves, and I set about making pictures of a beautiful little river, all overhung with ferns and palms, that ran into the sea at one side of the bay. As I worked, one of the boys ran up to me and told me in very frightened bêche-de-mer that he had seen “plenty big fellow man along bush,” and we beat a hasty retreat from the river, with its beautiful vegetation, well fitted for concealing savages.
I was very anxious to secure some photographs of the savages, and all the more so because they were said to be so difficult of approach, so I walked along the beach until I came to a trail leading into the interior. It was easy to locate the trail, for it was like a tunnel leading into the dark jungle. At its mouth, I set up my camera, attached a telephoto lens, bundled up a handful of tobacco in a piece of calico, placed my bait at the entrance of the trail, and waited. A half-hour passed, but nothing happened. Then, quick as a wink, a savage darted out, seized the bundle and disappeared before I had time to take hold of the crank of my camera. My trap had worked too well. Now I was determined to get results, so I had our armed crew withdraw to the edge of the beach and asked Captain Moran and Osa to set their guns against a rock so that the savages could see that we were not armed. I knew that, in case of emergency, we could use the pistols in our pockets. Then I sat down on my camera case and waited. At noon we sent one of the boys back to the boat for some tinned lunch. We ate with our eyes on the trail. It was two o’clock before four savages, with guns gripped tight in their hands, came cautiously out of the jungle, ready to run at the first alarm. I advanced slowly, so as not to frighten them, holding out a handful of tobacco and clay pipes. They timidly took my presents, and I tried to make them understand, by friendly gestures and soft words, which they did not comprehend, that we could not harm them. To make a long story short, I worked all afternoon to gain their confidence—and it was work wasted, for I could get no action from them. They simply stood like hitching-posts and let me take pictures all around them. At sundown we went back to the ship, with nothing to show for our day’s effort.