The old head-curer was an artist, with an artist’s pride in his work. He told me that he was the only one left among his people who really understood the complicated process of drying heads. The young men were forsaking the ways of their fathers. Of the old men, he was the most skilled. All the important heads were brought to him for curing, and he was employed to dry the bodies of great chiefs, smearing the joints with clay to keep the members from falling apart, turning each rigid corpse in the smoke of a smoldering fire until it was a shriveled mummy, painting the shrunken limbs in gay colors, and substituting pigs’ tusks for the feet. The old man told me that heads nowadays are not what they were in olden times. He said what I found hard to believe—that the craniums of his ancestors were twice as long as those of present-day islanders.
Specimens of the head-curer’s art were displayed in every hut in the village. The people of Tomman are not head-hunters in the strict sense of the word. They do not go on head-raids as do the men of Borneo. But if they kill an enemy, they take his head and hang it up at home to frighten off the evil spirits. The heads of enemies are roughly covered with clay and hastily and carelessly cured, but those of relatives are more scientifically treated, for they are to be cherished in the family portrait gallery. While the natives of Tomman do not produce works of art comparable to the heads treated by the Maoris of New Zealand, the results of their handiwork show a certain dignity and beauty. One forgets that the heads were once those of living men, for they are dehumanized and like sculptures. Each household boasted a few mummies and a number of heads, and, to our surprise, the people willingly showed us their treasures and allowed us to photograph them. In northern Malekula, as we had learned, it is as much as a white man’s life is worth to try to see the interior of a head-hut, and demands for heads—or skulls, rather, for the natives of the northern part of the island do not go in for head-curing—are usually met with sullen, resentful silence. Here, the natives not only brought out heads and bodies for us to photograph, but in exchange for a supply of tobacco permitted me to make a flashlight picture of a big ceremonial hut containing about fifty heads and fifteen mummified bodies.
This hut seemed to be a club for the men of the village. Almost every village of the New Hebrides boasts some sort of a club-house, which is strictly taboo for women and children. Here, the devil-devils are made and, it is rumored, certain mysterious rites are performed. Be that as it may, club-life in the New Hebrides seemed to me to be as stupid and meaningless as it usually is in the West. Instead of lounging in plush-covered armchairs and smoking Havana cigars, the men of the New Hebrides lay on the ground and smoked Virginia cuttings in clay pipes. Each man had his favorite resting-place—a hollow worn into the ground by his own body. He was content to lie there for hours on end, almost motionless, saying scarcely a word; but the women and children outside thought that he was engaged in the strange and wonderful rites of his “lodge”!
A CLUB-HOUSE IN TOMMAN WITH MUMMIED HEADS AND BODIES
Toward evening the women of the village appeared with loads of firewood and fruits and vegetables. On top of nearly every load was perched a child or a young baby, its head fitted snugly with a basket to make the skull grow in the way in which, according to Tomman ideals of beauty, it should go. The women of Tomman we found a trifle more independent than those of other islands of the New Hebrides. Of course, their upper front teeth were missing—knocked out by their husbands as part of the marriage ceremony. The gap was the Tomman substitute for a wedding-ring. But on Tomman, as elsewhere in the New Hebrides, wives are slaves. Since a good wife is expensive, costing from twenty to forty pigs, and the supply is limited, most of the available women are cornered by the rich. A young man with little property is lucky if he can afford one wife. He looks forward to the day when he will inherit his father’s women. Then he will have perhaps a dozen willing hands to work for him. He will give a great feast and, if he kills enough pigs, he will be made a chief.
When we went back to the ship at sunset, the old man was still doing his solitary dance in front of the devil-devil. In the morning, when we returned to the village, he was already at it, one foot up, one foot down. When we left Tomman, four days after our arrival, he was still going strong. I tried to discover the reason for the performance, but the natives either could not or would not tell me.
Although Tomman was an interesting spot, we did not remain there long. I was looking for cannibals, and experience had taught me that head-hunters were rarely cannibals or cannibals head-hunters. So, since our time in the islands was growing short, we decided to move on.
CHAPTER XII
THE WHITE MAN IN THE SOUTH SEAS
We chugged away from Tomman and for a week we cruised along the southern end of Malekula. In this region, the mountains come down to the sea. Beyond them lies dangerous territory. It was not safe for us to cross them with the force we had; so we had to be content with inspecting the coast. There we found only deserted villages and a few scattered huts inhabited by old men left to die alone.