A Yankee doctor in paradise

by S. M. Lambert

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I have remarked on the crude killings of the puri-puri men, and their more subtle methods of removing unwanted tribesmen by what seemed to be the power of suggestion; the Pacific native is almost universally a believer in ghosts and devils. Am I going too far when I say that man’s first religion was a form of spiritualism? Life departs, but the soul lingers, and the simple believer listens to hear the testimony of the grave.

I had been working in Melanesia for years before I began to appreciate how much they are governed by the powers of darkness, by the casting of spells to kill or cure. In the days when cannibalism and war were unchecked, tribal and personal grudges were settled in a more horrid way. In these milder times it is enchantment upon which the clansman depends for vengeance.

I wrote to Dr. Walter Bradford Cannon of Harvard’s Physiology Department, in reply to a query of his:—

“Your letter brings up a very interesting question which is much in dispute. Dr. A. Montague, Chief Medical Officer of Fiji and a resident in the group for thirty years, did not believe in ‘voodoo death,’ that is, death caused by fear. Personally, I believe he was wrong, as I know of several instances.

“Dr. Phillip S. Clarke, of North Queensland, formerly practised just north of Cairns where he had a kanaka come to his hospital and announce that he was going to die; that he had had a spell put on him, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Dr. Clarke had been acquainted with this man for some time. He gave him a most thorough examination including examination of stool and urine, and found everything normal. The man kept on eating and smoking, but lay in bed and gradually seemed to grow weaker. Clarke was friendly with a better-educated kanaka, a foreman, whom he brought to the hospital ward; this man leaned over the patient, then turned to Clarke and said, “Yes, Doctor, close up [soon] he die.” The bewitched man died at eleven next morning, lying in bed with a cigarette in his mouth. Clarke did a postmortem on him and found nothing that could in any way account for the death.

“I stayed ten days at a Seventh Day Adventist mission station, Mona Mona, a few miles above Cairns. On the outskirts was a group of non-converts, among them Nebo, a famous witch doctor. The missionary’s right hand man was Rob, a convert. I had been there before and knew Rob. Now the missionary told me that Rob was ill in bed and wanted me to see him. I found that he had no temperature, no pain, no symptoms or signs; but he was evidently quite ill. He had told the missionary that Nebo had ‘pointed a bone’ at him, therefore he was going to die ‘close up.’ We got Nebo in, put the fear of God in him and—more important—told him that his supply of food would be shut off if anything happened to Rob; so Nebo leaned down and assured Rob that it was all a mistake, a joke, and that he had never pointed a bone at him. The relief was almost instantaneous; that afternoon Rob was back at work.

“The witch doctor can ‘point a bone’ from a great distance and the bone is supposed to pierce his victim’s body. However, it is necessary for the victim to know that he has been worked upon. Volumes have been written upon this subject, and I can recall endless illustrations of this magic, many of which have come under my personal observation.

“Among native medical students in the senior year I devote one period to the subject of magic, partly because of personal interest in the reactions I get, partly for the emphasis I try to lay on the foolishness of sorcery. There are records of Native Practitioners themselves having died of draunikau, and the medical class is always composed about half of Fijians and the rest Polynesians with an occasional Micronesian. The Polynesians of the present generation do not know this magic; but to the Fijians, even to the educated ones, draunikau is a dreadful word. When it is mentioned the student’s face becomes a mask; I catch the look of worry and fear.

“The practice is still in evidence back in the hills and remote places where in Christian Fiji, with 93 per cent literacy, there are still famous witch doctors. The only Fijian I have ever known to be unafraid of draunikau[4] is a man named Malakai, who has been working for me now for thirteen years. He has actually defied one of the most powerful witch doctors in Fiji to do him any harm. Incidentally, the native theory is that magic cannot affect the white man.”