The Isle of Vanishing Men: A Narrative of Adventure in Cannibal-land

by W. F. Alder

When pig is scarce and there has been no fresh meat in the kampong for a long time, he says, the old women begin to whine and complain that the hunters are no good, and if they are unable to bring in meat after a long, hard hunting-trip, the women gather in a clearing and make wady. When the wady is ready the men are called to the clearing and each receives a small portion, but not enough to make him at all hilarious. The younger women then gather in the center of the circle of men, who are sitting cross-legged around the edge of the open space, and dance.

At first the dancing is done quietly, merely to amuse the men, and some of the younger men beat the drums and sing. The men under the stimulating influence of the wady join in, singing at the top of their voices, their bodies swaying to and fro to the time of the music. When all are singing, the old women, who have been waiting for the party to reach this stage, bring from the houses all the smoked human heads that they have on hand, decorated with bird-of-paradise feathers for the occasion. These they give to the youngest and most comely of the dancers, although in some cases the old women themselves swing into the moving throng, and, after marching up and down with measured tread for a time, finally break into a wild dance, swinging the heads in their hands.

They screech and scream the praises of their warrior ancestors and reproach the men present. As the dance goes on they grow hysterical, and it becomes a frenzied whirl of twisting, contorting women, who swing around the circle and thrust into the men’s faces the heads they carry, upbraiding them for their laziness and inability to bring in meat for their women. They again threaten the men with total exclusion from all intercourse with themselves and with promises and cajolery seek to rouse them from their apathy.

Here and there in the circle are a few men who by their tense attitude and sparkling eyes show the women that their interest is awakened. The women play up to these and by means of blood-curdling screeches and much waving of the grisly trophies excite the men to the point where they leap to their feet and join the dance. Some of them take the heads themselves and endeavor to stir in their fellows a like spirit of enthusiasm. One by one the others respond to the appeal, until all are dancing in a twisting, milling mass of yelling savages. When this point is reached the old women bring the weapons from the houses and the scene becomes one of the wildest, most barbaric imaginable. More wady is given the men, and they gradually muster up enough courage to take to the war-path.

This does not mean that they go boldly forth to attack their enemies; it means only that they have decided to have a feast the main attraction of which will be the bodies of as many victims as they can collect without undue risk to themselves. The procedure is to bedeck themselves in their finest fashion and visit a kampong remote from their own. They choose one which lies on the far side of one or two others with which they themselves are friendly. When they pass through these kampongs they tell their neighbors that they are going hunting and in no manner hint at their real errand.

Upon arrival at the kampong selected for their visit, they stroll in from the jungle as though tired out from a not very successful hunting-excursion and, being hospitable, their hosts immediately prepare food and places for them to rest. Friendships are struck up and two or three days are loitered away while the lay of the land is being observed. Two or three victims—who live in shacks remote from the main houses of the village, as a rule—are selected, and the final plans are laid. One or two of the visiting tribe strike up a friendship with the victims and go with them to their shacks at night, ostensibly to gossip and sleep. A signal is arranged: the cry of a nightbird or a song by one of their own men, purposely awake and watching with some of his fellows by the fireside, is the usual indication that all is ready.

When the silence tells those on guard that their hosts are all asleep, the signal is given; the visitors who are feigning sleep rise cautiously and, with weapon ready, each suddenly wakens his intended victim. Aroused from a deep slumber, the poor fellow usually wakes with some sort of exclamation or cry. At the first word spoken the stone-bitted war-club descends with terrible finality and the victim lapses into a slumber from which he never wakens. The deed is done quietly, with every precaution taken to guard against the awakening of the rest of the kampong. In many instances several small shacks have been erected for the convenience of the visitors and the victims are lured into these to be murdered.

Some of the girls of the place may take a liking to the visitors, in which case there may be one or two men and a like number of girls in the shacks of the strangers. The result is the same, and girls are highly prized, as Intelligence tells us that they are more tender than the men. In fact, he says that there is no morsel that equals the left shoulder-blade of a ten- or twelve-year-old girl. Immediately upon killing their victims, the visitors stealthily remove the bodies from the kampong, and in the concealing darkness of the jungle decapitate them. After trussing up the bodies upon bamboo poles for ease in carrying them, they depart in haste for their own kampong, taking a circuitous route to avoid other kampongs between them and home.

The head of each victim is the property of him who delivered the fatal blow, and the murderer struts into his family circle very proud of his success. While the men were away the women have prepared the roasting-pit for the bodies that they know will be brought.

The pits in which the bodies are roasted are dug well away from the kampong as a rule, and are filled with alternate layers of wood and stones. By the time the wood is all burned away the stones are intensely hot, and they are kept so with a great fire built over them, until the warriors return. After all ornaments such as necklaces and bracelets have been removed, the bodies are placed in the pits without further preparation, upon bars of ironwood or some similar hardwood which keep them from actual contact with the red-hot stones, and covered with green palm-branches and a layer of earth to exclude the air.