In a few minutes they departed with their chief in quest of a certain kind of shellfish to be found about five miles up the beach, and we decided to take advantage of their absence and visit one of the villages in the prophet’s territory.
We walked for about three hours without seeing any signs of a village. Then we heard, faint in the distance, the sound of a tom-tom. Soon we were within hearing of a chanted song. We advanced with caution, until we reached the edge of a village clearing. From behind a clump of bushes we could watch the natives who danced there. The dance was just the ordinary native hay-foot, straw-foot, around the devil-devils in the center of the clearing, now slow, now gradually increasing in tempo until it was a run.
What interested me was the feast that was in preparation. On a long stick, over the fire, were a dozen pieces of meat. More meat was grilling on the embers of another fire. On leaves near by were the entrails of the animal that was cooking. I do not know what it was that made me suspect the nature of this meat. It certainly was not much different in appearance from pork. But some sixth sense whispered to me that it was not pork.
The savages had no suspicion of our nearness. As a matter of fact, the keenness of sight and hearing that primitive peoples are generally credited with are entirely lacking in the New Hebrideans. Many a time Osa and I have quietly crept up to a native village and stolen away again without being detected. Often on the trail we have literally run into blacks before they realized that we were approaching. Even the half-starved native dogs have lost their alertness. More than once I have come suddenly on a cur and laughed at him as he rolled over backward in an attempt to escape. With the natives lost in a dance, we were quite safe.
For an hour we watched and took long-range photographs. The dance continued monotonously. The meat sizzled slowly over the fire—and nothing happened. Then I gave one of the Tongoa boys who accompanied us a radium flare and told him to go into the clearing, drop the flare into the fire, and run to one side out of the picture. He did as I asked him. The natives stopped dancing and watched him as he approached. He threw the flare into the fire and jumped aside. As they stooped down close to the flame to see what he had thrown there, the flare took fire and sent its blinding white light into their faces. With a yell they sprang back and ran in terror directly toward us. When they saw us, they stopped so quickly that they almost tumbled backward. Then they turned and ran in the opposite direction. The half-minute flare had burned out; so they grabbed the meat from the fire and carried it with them into the bush.
THE CANNIBAL DANCE
My boys sprang into the clearing. I, with my camera on my shoulder, was just behind them. When I came up to them, they were standing by the fire, looking at the only remnant of the feast that was left on the embers. It was a charred human head, with rolled leaves plugging the eye-sockets.
I had proved what I had set out to prove—that cannibalism is still practiced in the South Seas. I was so happy that I yelled. After photographing the evidence, I wrapped the head carefully in leaves, to take away with me. We picked the fire over, but could find no other remainder of the gruesome feast. In one of the huts, however, we discovered a quantity of human hair, laid out on a green leaf, to be made into ornaments.
Some of the cannibals returned and, from a distance, watched us search their huts. I then took their pictures. They grinned into the camera, as innocent as children.