Such nose ornaments are characteristic of the blacks of the South Seas. The Solomon Islander wears a ring fashioned from bone or shell and highly polished and ornamented. The native of Santa Cruz adorns himself with a piece of polished tortoise-shell shaped like a padlock. But the man of the New Hebrides thrusts into his nose anything that he happens upon—usually a stick picked up along the trail.
To my great delight, the Santo men wore a geestring of calico. As I have said before, the dress of the men of Malekula, if you can call it dress, draws attention to their sex rather than conceals it. On my first visit among them, I had taken motion-pictures of them as they were. When I returned to America, I found that naked savages shocked the public. Some of my best films were absolutely unsalable. On this second trip, accordingly, I managed, whenever possible, to persuade the savages to wear geestrings or loin-cloths or aprons of leaves. Since “costuming” was very difficult (the blacks, naturally enough, could see no reason for it), I was glad that I should not have to spend time in persuading the men of Santo to put on more clothing.
At daybreak on the following morning, we started for the hills. With us were Powler and three of his boys and fifteen trustworthy Tongoa natives. We were bound for a village of pottery-makers—but we never got there. We had tramped for about three hours when we came suddenly upon a group of little men. They were too surprised to run, and too frightened. They were all, with the exception of one of their number who carried a gun as big as he was, armed with bows and arrows, but they did not show any hostility. Instead, they just gathered close together and stared at us in terror.
These were the dwarfs I had heard about. I got out some presents for them. Soon their timidity wore off, and I persuaded them to walk one by one under my outstretched arm. Although their fuzzy wool stood out in great bushy mops, not a hair touched my arm as they passed under. There were sixteen of them, all told. Five were old fellows with grizzled whiskers, ten were of middle age, and one, the tallest of them all, was a boy of about fifteen.
We settled down near a stream and I took pictures as long as the light lasted. That night, our little friends camped close by, and the next day, when we set out for the beach, they followed us. We showed them everything we had in our trunks. They were as pleased as children, and, when I allowed the old chief to shoot my big automatic revolver, he fairly danced with excitement.
DWARFS OF ESPIRITU SANTO
The next day, I sent messengers into the hills to hunt for a chief about whom Mr. King had told us. This chief had achieved a great reputation as a prophet and a worker of magic. A year before, he had been nobody—just a savage. Then he had gone mad. He had once been recruited as a member of the crew of a mission ship, where he had heard hymns and Bible stories, which he now adapted to his own use. He told the natives there was going to be a great flood, which would cover Santo. He himself, however, would not be drowned, for he was going to bring Hat Island, a little island off the coast, over to rest on Santo Peak. Hat Island was a barren and undesirable piece of real estate, but the prophet said that he had made arrangements to have twenty European steamers come regularly with food and tobacco for the inhabitants. Since he had been fairly successful in foretelling the weather, the natives believed in him, and each clamored for a place on Hat Island. But the salvation offered by the old savage came high. Reservations on Hat Island could be secured only at the price of ten pigs each. Soon the prophet had cornered most of the pigs in that section of Santo. Seeing his power, he raised the price of admission. He secured, in addition to the pigs, the most desirable women in the vicinity. In fact, he appropriated everything he wanted, and occasionally he ran âmok and killed several of his compatriots—as he said, to put the fear of God into them.
The next recruiter that came to Santo was besieged with savages begging to be allowed to go to work on copra plantations. He soon learned that the natives had not suddenly grown industrious, but that even work seemed pleasant in contrast with the reign of terror of the inspired chief. The chief saw possibility of profit in the desire of his people to escape and made the recruiter pay heavily in tobacco and calico for every native taken away.
Reports of his rule had reached the Government officers at Vila, and Commissioner King, who had sent for him several times to no avail, had given me a letter to present to the old fellow, in case I should go to Santo. I now sent word to the chief that I had an important message that could be delivered only to him in person. To my surprise, two days after the message had been delivered, the prophet appeared.