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 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS
 
 AGENTS 
 
 America . The Macmillan Company 
 
 64 & 66 Fifth Avenue, New York 
 
 Canada . The Macmillan Company of Canada, Ltd. 
 27 Richmond Street West, Toronto 
 
 India . . Macmillan & Company, Ltd. 
 
 Macmillan Building, Bombay 
 
 309 Bow Bazaar Street, Calcutta
 
 OFF TO THE DUBU DANCE, BRITISH 
 NEW GUINEA
 
 THE SAVAGE 
 SOUTH SEAS 
 
 PAINTED BY NORMAN H. HARDY 
 DESCRIBED BY E. WAY ELKINGTON 
 PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK 
 SOHO SQUARE ■ LONDON • MCMVII
 
 NOTE 
 
 There are various ways of spelling some of the 
 place-names of the South Sea Islands, e.g. 
 Samari, Tupusuli, and Elevera are so spelt in 
 this book, but the forms Samarai, Tupuselei, 
 and Ela-Vara are commonly met with. Ambryn, 
 however, is a misprint for Ambrym.
 
 ! 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chiefly historical — Concerning certain discoverers, their 
 aims and ambitions — The story of New Guinea, the 
 Solomons and New Hebrides, and some things that 
 might be altered ....... 5 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 New Guinea natives — Port Moresby and its two native 
 villages — Huts on poles and trees — Native super- 
 stition and its result on two tribes . . . . 13 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Natives who grow crops of hair — A word or two about 
 the women — Duties of married women— How they 
 carry their babes, and the philosophy of childhood . 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Concerning love and grief — How love is made in New 
 Guinea, and some of the charms used to ensure love 
 and constancy — The grief of a New Guinea widow . 37 
 
 v 
 
 * *~*>f* 
 
 1C 36
 
 vi THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Some native dances and queer costumes — Novel black- 
 mailing methods — Woman's vanity and a censured 
 dance ......... 48 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Outrigger Canoes, their appearance and construction — 
 The famous Lakatois — How the natives catch their 
 fish ; and a few words about fish that climb trees — 
 A trip down the coast, and an unpleasant experience 57 
 
 PART II 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 South Sea traders good and bad ; their ups and downs — 
 Nicolas the Greek — The Mambare river massacre — 
 Some queer creatures with queerer ways — " A fitting 
 end to a wasted life " . . . . . . 71 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Natives who have had no chance ; their villages without 
 streets and their curious huts — The tambu and 
 canoe houses — An unlucky trader .... 84 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Solomon Islands — Ingova's head-hunters — How whole 
 tribes were wiped out — Savage invasions and clever 
 tactics ......... 94
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Clothes and the men — Love of adornment — Natives 
 who are not keen on eating — Methods of cooking 
 their food — Betel-nut chewing . . . .104 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Some clever ways of catching fish — How the bonito 
 is landed — Native nets — Pig -hunting — The sly 
 opossum and the crocodile . . . .113 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A curious religion — Burying the dead, and some grave- 
 yards — Dances and music — Native artists and how 
 fire is made . . . . . . . .124 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 What "hope" is to the Solomon islander — The use of 
 
 the evil eye . . . . . . . .134 
 
 PART III 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Islands that are advancing rapidly — Native houses with 
 modern improvements — A horrible method of getting 
 rid of the old men, and other burial ceremonies . 143 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Ancestor worship the religion of the New Hebrides — 
 Temples and strange figures, and some sacred 
 dances . . . . . . . . .153
 
 viii THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 Concerning witchcraft — More about burials — The gentle 
 
 art of making love — The rain-makers . . .163 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Native clothing and ornaments — Their arts and industries, 
 
 their canoes and weapons, and their way of fishing . 172 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 The cultivation of copra — The labour traffic when 
 slavery really existed, and the traffic in natives of • 
 to-day 183 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A short sketch of the missionary work in the South Seas — 
 Concerning John Williams, James Chalmers, and 
 others 193
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 1. Off to the Dubu Dance — British New Guinea 
 
 2. By Reef and Palm 
 
 3. Off to Market, British New Guinea . 
 
 4. Motu Village from the Sea 
 
 5. The Island of Elevera from the Mission Station, Port 
 
 Moresby, British New Guinea 
 
 6. Tree House in British New Guinea . 
 
 7. Motu Village, Port Moresby, British New Guinea 
 
 8. In the Pile Dwellings at Hanuabada, Port Moresby 
 
 British New Guinea ...... 
 
 9. Native of British New Guinea, showing the manner 
 
 of wearing the hair 
 
 10. A New Guinea Dandy .... 
 
 1 1 . Woman with Baby in bag. Fairfax Island, British 
 
 New Guinea ..... 
 
 12. Dinner Time at Kwato, British New Guinea 
 
 13. A Kaivakuku, Roro Tribe, Central Division, British 
 
 New Guinea ..... 
 
 14. Harvest Dance, New Guinea 
 
 15. Ready for the Dubu Dance 
 
 ix 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 6 
 
 14 
 
 18 
 
 20 
 22 
 
 24 
 
 26 
 
 30 
 32 
 
 34 
 36 
 
 48 
 50 
 52
 
 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 16. 
 17. 
 
 18. 
 19. 
 20. 
 21. 
 
 22. 
 23. 
 
 24. 
 
 25. 
 
 26. 
 
 27. 
 28. 
 
 29- 
 30. 
 81. 
 
 32. 
 33. 
 
 34. 
 35. 
 
 36. 
 
 The Dubu at Rigo, British New Guinea 
 Tattooing, British New Guinea .... 
 
 Large Trading Canoes, British New Guinea 
 Old Women making Pottery, British New Guinea 
 Spearing Fish, British New Guinea . 
 Marine Village, Tupusuli, British New Guinea . 
 Natives of the New Hebrides having a drink 
 Gold Miners leaving a trading ship, British New 
 Guinea ....... 
 
 Johnnie Pratt with his Ivory Nuts at Simbo 
 Solomon Islands ...... 
 
 Solomon Island Boy climbing after green cocoa-nuts 
 near Gavutu, New Florida .... 
 
 Solomon Island Village, near Marau Sound, New 
 Florida ....... 
 
 Early Morning, Gavutu, Solomon Islands . 
 
 Old Ingova's War Canoe House, Rubiana Lagoon 
 
 New Georgia, Solomon Islands 
 On the Fringe of a primaeval Forest, Solomon Islands 
 Portrait of a Solomon Island Cannibal 
 Sacred Skull Shrines, British Solomon Islands . 
 Ingova's Head-hunters, British Solomon Islands 
 A Canoe showing the " Totoishu," New Georgia 
 Solomon Islands ...... 
 
 A Lagoon in New Florida, Solomon Islands 
 
 Native of New Georgia wearing Sunshade ; a sort of 
 
 crownless hat made of grasses : it can be worn at 
 
 any angle ........ 
 
 A Rubiana Native, Solomon Islands .... 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 54 
 
 56 
 58 
 60 
 62 
 64 
 66 
 
 72 
 
 74 
 
 80 
 
 84 
 86 
 
 90 
 92 
 94 
 96 
 98 
 
 100 
 
 102 
 
 104 
 106
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 37. A Stormy Day in Rubiana Lagoon, Solomon Islands . 108 
 
 38. Cooking the Meal, British New Guinea . . . 110 
 
 39. The Reef near Simbo, Solomon Islands . . . 114 
 
 40. Native Archer shooting Fish, British Solomon Islands 116 
 
 41. Searching for small Octopi on the Reef at low tide, 
 
 Samari, British New Guinea . . . . .118 
 
 42. The Home of the Crocodile, British Solomon Islands 122 
 
 43. A Shrine or Tomb of a Chief at Simbo, Solomon 
 
 Islands 126 
 
 44. Solomon Islander playing the " Ivivu " or Flute 130 
 
 45. A Tapu Virgin, British Solomon Islands . . .136 
 
 46. Beneath a Banyan Tree, Malekula Island, New 
 
 Hebrides 142 
 
 47. The Rapids, Williams River, Island of Eromanga, 
 
 New Hebrides 144 
 
 48. Mount Marion, the active Volcano, Island of Ambryn, 
 
 New Hebrides . . . . . . .146 
 
 49. A Village in Santo, New Hebrides . . . .148 
 
 50. Chief's House, Ambryn, New Hebrides . .150 
 
 51. The "M'aki" Ground and the Jaws of the sacred 
 
 Pigs, New Hebrides . . . . . .154 
 
 52. A Memorial Effigy, Malekula, New Hebrides . . 156 
 
 53. Drum Grove at Mele, New Hebrides . . .158 
 
 54. Leaving Santo, a view of the Mountains, New Hebrides 162 
 
 55. A Sacred Man, Aoba, New Hebrides . . .164 
 
 56. The Stone " Demits," or the Souls, with their attendant 
 
 wooden figures, Malekula Island, New Hebrides . 168 
 
 57. Old Cannibal Chief whom the Artist met on the Island 
 
 of Aoba, New Hebrides . . . .172
 
 xii THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 58. Type of Man from the Island of Tanna, New Hebrides 174 
 
 59. Finishing off a Canoe, British New Guinea . . 1 76 
 
 60. Old War Canoes, near Malekula, New Hebrides . 178 
 
 61. Havannah Harbour, Rathmoy, New Hebrides . . 180 
 
 62. Passing the Reef, Aoba, New Hebrides . . .182 
 
 63. The Island of Samari, British New Guinea . . 184 
 
 64. A Trader receiving Cocoa-nuts, Aoba, New Hebrides 186 
 
 65. Copra Boys off to the Shore, New Hebrides . . 188 
 
 66. The " Blackbirders " in the Solomon Islands . 190 
 
 67. A Yam Shed on the Island of Tierra Espiritu Santo, 
 
 New Hebrides . . . . . . .192 
 
 68. The Artist's Guide on Malekula, New Hebrides . 196
 
 PART I 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Chiefly historical — Concerning certain discoverers, their aims 
 and ambitions — The story of New Guinea, the Solomons, 
 and New Hebrides, and some things that might be altered. 
 
 In these days when distance hardly counts, when 
 the cry is heard that new outlets are wanted for 
 capital, when there are thousands of unemployed 
 crowded in London, and people are anxious to 
 find adventure, eager to see new things, to conquer 
 new lands, exploit new industries and gain more 
 knowledge, it is worth while turning our atten- 
 tion to the South Sea Islands. 
 
 It is strange that so little is known of them, 
 and that so few people have bothered themselves 
 to visit them. A few missionaries, explorers, and 
 adventurers have written about and spent a few 
 months on them, but what is this when there are 
 miles and miles of the most beautiful country crying 
 out for people ; there is wealth, both mineral and 
 vegetable, waiting for the industry and enterprise
 
 4 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 of good men to reap, and, above all, there is a 
 delightful climate and a race of savages who in 
 themselves repay the inconveniences of the journey. 
 
 The chief island is New Guinea, which is the 
 largest in the world and contains some 340,700 
 square miles, much of which has never been trodden 
 by white men. There are no sandy, dried-up dis- 
 tricts in New Guinea or the Solomon Islands, and 
 no long droughts ; but rather a full fall of rain 
 which makes the ground bring forth its produce in 
 abundance. 
 
 There is land out there which some day will 
 surprise people, and when one considers the diffi- 
 culty Australia had to persuade the British Govern- 
 ment to annex it, one cannot help laughing at the 
 ignorance and short-sightedness of the, men of those 
 times. It was not until 1884 that the Government 
 sent Commodore Erskine to the south - eastern 
 portion of New Guinea to proclaim a protectorate 
 over it, and then only after receiving a guarantee 
 from the Queensland Government that they would 
 undertake to find £15,000 per annum towards the 
 cost of its administration. 
 
 The Queensland Government had, a year before 
 this, already annexed it. They knew its value, and 
 had it not been for their prompt action these
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 5 
 
 valuable islands would now all have been in the 
 possession of the Dutch and Germans. 
 
 Accounts of the islands date back to 1512, but 
 many things go to suggest that both the Malays and 
 Chinese knew of their existence and had visited 
 them long before that date. The first Europeans 
 we hear of who sighted them were the Spanish 
 sailor, Alvaro de Sacedra, and a Portuguese whose 
 name is not known. 
 
 Prior to the arrival of Captain Cook, in 1770, 
 there were numerous adventurers who gave accounts 
 of these islands. Luis Vaez de Torres, after whom 
 the Torres Straits were named, passed them in 1660 
 and sent to the world a full account of his voyage, 
 but little notice was taken of it. We next hear of 
 De Bougainville, the French navigator who arrived 
 there in 1768 ; then came Captain Cook, and after 
 him many others sighted the shores of New Guinea. 
 
 It was, however, the Dutch who first made any 
 movements to attempt to find out its geographic 
 and scientific value. They began in a neat business- 
 like way by annexing that section west of the 141st 
 meridian of east longitude, and despatching the 
 Dourga, commanded by Lieutenant Kolff, to ex- 
 amine and report on it. He was a zealous man and, 
 like many other enthusiastic sailors who have visited
 
 6 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 new lands, found many things there which no one 
 else has been able to find, and which have since been 
 proved never to have existed. But some excuse for 
 him can be found, owing to the disadvantages he 
 was under and the savageness of the natives. He 
 probably thought that no one in his time, if they 
 followed him, would live to tell the tale, so he 
 wrote what he thought " might have been." Then 
 came the Postillion Expedition in 1853, followed 
 by the Trinton Expedition and the Scientific 
 Expedition of Van der Crab in 1871. Dr. Meyers 
 followed in 1873, and many other Dutch enthu- 
 siasts came after him during the next few years. 
 
 During this time, however, England was not 
 quite asleep. In 1842 H.M.S. Fly was sent on a 
 survey expedition and remained there till 1846, 
 attention being devoted to that part of the island 
 now known as British New Guinea. The Ex- 
 pedition also discovered and named the rivers Fly 
 and Aird, in districts where later on many brave 
 and good men lost their lives at the hands of the 
 natives. 
 
 Following this ship, in 1846, came H.M.S. Rattle- 
 snake, and good work was the result of her stay. 
 Captain Moresby visited the island in 1871, and 
 thoroughly explored many parts of it which were
 
 BY REEF AND PALM
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 7 
 
 unknown before his time. He landed at the 
 harbour now known as Port Moresby, and gave 
 such glowing accounts of the island that it was 
 visited by many eminent naturalists immediately 
 afterwards ; and then the work of the pioneer 
 missionaries, who had been busy there for some 
 time, began to be talked about, and considerable 
 interest in these islands was aroused. 
 
 Queensland, acting under the advice of Mr. 
 Chester, a prominent man well up in the value of 
 New Guinea, sent out Sir Thomas M'llwraith to 
 take possession of it in the name of the Queen. 
 But the British Government refused to acknow- 
 ledge this act, and thereby aroused the indignation 
 of the Australians. A conference was held in 
 Sydney and the British Government communicated 
 with, with the result stated, that they saw their 
 mistake and Sir Peter Scratchley was sent to New 
 Guinea to act as High Commissioner. 
 
 His term of office was short, as he contracted 
 malaria in 1885 and died. The man who took his 
 place was a Queenslander, the Hon. John Douglas, 
 who understood the position, and did valuable 
 service to his country by making a study of the 
 natives and the possibilities of the country. 
 
 In 1888 Sir William MacGregor, M.D.,
 
 8 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 K.C.M.G., was finally appointed Governor, and 
 during his ten years of office showed that he was 
 the right man in the right place. He was succeeded 
 by George Ruthven L»e Hunte, Esq., C.M.G. 
 
 To-day the affairs of British New Guinea are on 
 an excellent basis. An Administrator is appointed 
 by the Crown, whose duty it is to consult with the 
 Governor of Queensland and report to that Govern- 
 ment on all matters of importance. The Adminis- 
 trator is supported by two State Councils, the 
 Executive and the Legislative, the first being 
 composed of the Administrator, the Chief Judicial 
 Officer, the Government Secretary, and a Resident 
 Magistrate. The second is composed of the 
 Executive Council, together with any officers they 
 may appoint. 
 
 Petty Sessions Courts are also established and 
 presided over by a Resident Magistrate, who has 
 the same powers as a Police Magistrate in the 
 Colonies. Europeans and natives have equal rights 
 in the courts, and an appeal is allowed under certain 
 circumstances. Native police preserve order in 
 the towns. An amusing thing about them is that 
 they are chiefly ex-convicts, and are given the 
 appointment as a reward for good behaviour whilst 
 in gaol.
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 9 
 
 The discovery of the Solomon Islands is 
 credited to Don Alvaro Mendana de Meyer, who 
 went out there in the hope of discovering from 
 whence King Solomon's wealth came — the sup- 
 position was that the islands of the Pacific supplied 
 much of it. That supposition no longer exists. 
 
 On sighting the Solomon Islands, and believing 
 them to be the islands he was seeking, he named 
 them Islas de Salomon. This was in the year 1567. 
 After this he thoroughly explored many of them 
 and gave them the names they now bear — Guadal- 
 canal San Christoval, and Isabel. Whilst thus 
 engaged he decided to found a colony, and with 
 that end in view he returned home and gathered 
 together a number of men anxious to make their 
 fortunes. He returned with them, landed at a place 
 he thought was part of the Solomon Islands, and 
 called it Santa Cruz. The colony was not a 
 success, as most of the immigrants, including the 
 discoverer, died, and the survivors returned to 
 South America. 
 
 One of these survivors was De Quiros, who 
 subsequently discovered the New Hebrides. 
 
 Bougainville and others, many years afterwards, 
 again came across these islands, and later they 
 were identified as those Mendana de Meyer had
 
 10 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 discovered and thought were part of the Solomon 
 Islands. 
 
 In 1873 the Solomon Islands came into notice 
 through the labour traffic. There was at this 
 time a demand in Queensland for black labour, and 
 traders who visited the islands found that they 
 could kidnap strong, sturdy natives and sell them 
 for good prices to the Queensland and Fiji planters, 
 with the result that, unknown to the Powers, a 
 big and scandalous trade was carried on. 
 
 The group consists of seven large islands and 
 no end of small ones, which are dotted about over 
 some 600 miles of sea at a distance of about 400 
 miles south-east of New Guinea. 
 
 Great Britain and Germany shared the islands 
 nearly equally until England ceded Samoa to 
 Germany in exchange for territory in the Solomons. 
 Now Great Britain owns the whole group with the 
 exception of Bougainville and Buka. 
 
 The story of the discovery of the New Hebrides 
 is also interesting. It was first sighted by Spanish 
 explorers, De Quiros and Luis Vaez de Torres, who 
 set sail from Peru in two ships to seek the Great 
 Southern Continent, which tradition told them was 
 somewhere in the South Pacific. De Quiros, as 
 before stated, came across the New Hebrides group,
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 11 
 
 striking first one of the largest islands in the 
 northern part of it. This he named Tierra 
 Australis del Espiritu Santo, thinking possibly it 
 was an enormous tract of land instead of a small 
 island. Fired with ambition and the example of 
 his late confrere, Mendana de Meyer, he also 
 attempted to found a colony there, but, like de 
 Meyer, he had to return with his few survivors 
 and write " failure " across his enterprise. 
 
 Luis de Torres left De Quiros at the New 
 Hebrides, and it was then that he sailed through 
 the Torres Straits, which he named and reported 
 on in 1606. 
 
 For over a hundred years after the departure of 
 De Quiros from Santo nothing more was heard of 
 the New Hebrides. 
 
 De Bougainville then came across them, and 
 opened the way for the ubiquitous Captain Cook, 
 who sighted, made charts of, and named the 
 principal islands and headlands. The Spaniards, 
 though the first to settle there, never laid claim 
 to them, and they are now conjointly owned by 
 Great Britain and France. 
 
 Owing to their proximity to Australia they 
 have received more attention than the other islands, 
 and the Commonwealth of Australia has shown
 
 12 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 considerable interest in them and inaugurated an 
 emigration scheme to endeavour to wrest from 
 them some of their enormous mineral and vegetable 
 wealth. The results of the past few years show 
 great promise of future prosperity. In fact, in these 
 islands, in particular, there are resources which will 
 repay the labour and capital of any enterprising men, 
 and, according to those who are most fitted to judge 
 and advise, the New Hebrides is a veritable Eldorado. 
 But, until the natives are more civilised and certain 
 taxes are altered, men prefer to give them a wide 
 berth and seek their fortunes in lands less dangerous. 
 
 Another trouble that has lately arisen, is that 
 France, seeing the great possibilities in this new 
 colony, has inaugurated a preferential tariff for 
 French subjects. Had the same been done in 
 England and Australia no bother would have 
 arisen, but it was not, and, in order to compete 
 successfully with the French traders, the English 
 and Americans applied for naturalisation papers 
 which were granted, and though the Englishmen by 
 birth far exceed the Frenchmen, by naturalisation 
 the French, if not now, will soon be in greater force. 
 
 This is a matter of vital importance, and should 
 have the earnest attention of those who are interested 
 in the welfare of British subjects in our Colonies.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 New Guinea natives — Port Moresby and its two native villages — 
 Huts on poles and trees — Native superstition and its result 
 on two tribes. 
 
 There are no islands in the new world which have 
 been the scene of greater adventures, more daring- 
 exploits, and more exciting times than those in the 
 South Seas. From the earliest days New Guinea, 
 New Britain, Solomon Islands, and the New 
 Hebrides have been inhabited by a race of savages, 
 on whom neither the efforts of missionaries nor the 
 oaths of traders have been able to make much 
 impression. For years the white man has tried in 
 vain to break the spirit of these cannibals ; with fire 
 and sword whole villages have been swept away, 
 but neither by fear nor by kindness have the natives 
 been weaned from their worst customs, and it will 
 take many years and much education, and perhaps 
 the complete extinction of the old generation, be- 
 fore they cease to be savages. For over sixty years 
 
 13
 
 14 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 the missionaries have been working amongst them 
 and have taught many to read, and sent them out 
 amongst their brethren armed with Bibles and tracts 
 in their native languages, but all this has been of 
 little avail ; every day we hear of massacres and 
 risings, and missionaries and traders are pounced on 
 and murdered, and there is no accounting for these 
 outrages which make the problem more difficult 
 to solve. For months or even years men may live 
 on the friendliest terms with a tribe, and then 
 suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the natives 
 will rise up and slay them. The whim of a chief, 
 an angry word, a bad bargain, a superstitious fear, 
 any of these trivialities may be the cause of a rising, 
 and may mean the death of dozens of innocent 
 people. 
 
 But with all their disadvantages these islands 
 have a fascination for the traveller that no others 
 have, and when once the taste of the free and 
 adventurous life of the South Seas has been 
 acquired, there is always a longing to return to them 
 which nothing will suppress. Neither stiff joints nor 
 old age make one iota of difference, the yearning 
 will not be satisfied by anything short of a speedy 
 return. 
 
 The deep blue of the sea, the clear bracing air,
 
 OFF TO MARKET. BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 15 
 
 the screech of the wild sea-birds, and the roar of 
 the surf, as it breaks on the reefs, are sounds that 
 echo in the memory. To awaken and hear all 
 these things is the longing that clings to one. To 
 feel a good ship gliding through the still waters on 
 the way to the islands ; to rise from one's bunk 
 and through the port-hole to catch a glimpse of the 
 rugged shores and the dark, shining skins of the 
 natives as they paddle out in swarms from the 
 villages to the ship's side ; to hear them calling to 
 one another and yelling their greetings to the crew, 
 are things which, when once experienced, can never 
 be forgotten, and will ever haunt the memory. 
 
 But come, let us see these islands where the sun 
 pours down on bright yellow sands through the 
 long, waving, rustling leaves of the palm trees, and 
 glistens on the skins of the crocodiles basking in 
 the rivers, and on the strong, brown arms and 
 tanned faces of the traders, who have braved all 
 dangers for a life of adventure. Let us look into 
 the quaint lives of the natives — the last relics of bar- 
 barism ; let us see their huts and join in their weird 
 ceremonies and listen to their songs and learn 
 their superstitions, for in a few years these things 
 will be gone, and the cyclist and the tripper will be 
 crowding these savage islands, whilst the sturdy
 
 16 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 head-hunters will be dead, and their sons will be 
 cadging pennies, whilst the dark, shy girls will 
 be bold and talk with nasal accents. 
 
 Civilisation is coming, coming quickly. Even 
 here, back in the dense bush on a still night when 
 the insects are too lazy to fly and the silence almost 
 speaks, if you listen you can hear the steady tramp 
 of the ghostly army coming nearer and nearer, 
 crushing through everything, sparing nothing — the 
 army of civilisation. 
 
 The capital of New Guinea is Port Moresby, a 
 quaintly picturesque village facing a large bay with 
 a natural harbour. In the vicinity are densely 
 wooded hills, which stretch up and disappear in the 
 distance — a dark-green and black mass. But when 
 the sun is on them they dance with colour, and the 
 tints of marvellous brilliancy turn them into a lovely 
 fairyland, full of romance and adventure. It is 
 wonderful what strange tales flit across the mind 
 when looking at these hills ; what scenes have been 
 enacted there in times gone by, and now, how calm 
 they seem ! 
 
 Granville, the small business part of Port 
 Moresby, consists of a few corrugated iron-roofed 
 houses, the head store of Messrs. Burns Philp, the 
 great Australasian Trading Company, and the
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 17 
 
 homes of a few Government officials, and Govern 
 ment House, which lies back a little and looks 
 solitary and out of place in this weird land of pile- 
 built huts. 
 
 There is the Mission House also, a low, white 
 wood house with a big verandah running round it 
 and a garden of palms and beautiful flowers. 
 
 Hanuabada and Elevera are the names of the 
 two native settlements near Port Moresby. At 
 certain tides Elevera is an island, at other tides it 
 is a peninsula, but at all tides and all times it teems 
 with interest. Quaint huts built on long poles 
 line the shore and look like nothing one has ever 
 seen before. When the tide is high the water 
 washes right under them, swishing merrily against 
 the stout poles, and if you want to inspect one at 
 these times a canoe is necessary, but even then 
 it is a hazardous job unless you are used to it. 
 
 No one knows exactly why the natives went to 
 such trouble in building their huts, unless it was 
 with a view to protecting themselves against the 
 attack of an enemy from the land. There were no 
 wild animals for them to fear. 
 
 A regular street divides these rows of huts, all 
 exactly alike, but the inhabitants seem to know 
 where their friends live, though I am sure the most 

 
 18 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 experienced London postman would suffer from 
 oontinual confusion if his services were required in 
 these parts. In the distance these villages look 
 very much like rows of haystacks built on stakes, 
 but on closer inspection they are particularly 
 interesting and have a very imposing appearance. 
 On reaching the piles one clambers up a rude ladder 
 and arrives on a platform made of ordinary poles 
 with gaps of a foot or two between each. Here it 
 is that the natives squat all day and do what work 
 they have, or, more generally, idle the hours away. 
 Above the platform is a kind of porch built on a 
 slant and projecting from the roof, which acts as a 
 protection against the sun or rain. Under this is 
 an open doorway which leads into the house. 
 
 From a sanitary point of view, no habitation 
 could be better than these pile dwellings, but for 
 comfort give me a modern hotel. 
 
 No furniture or mats are to be seen in these 
 dwellings to catch the dust, and you can squat on 
 the floor and see through the planks the waves 
 washing and swelling a few yards below. The 
 floor consists of the same kind of piles, only flatter 
 and broader than those used for supporting the 
 house. The platforms are arranged like big steps, 
 and many of the boards are beautifully carved.
 
 MOTU VILLAGE FROM THE SEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 19 
 
 Some of them are immense pieces of timber, which 
 must have required a deal more energy to cut 
 than the Papuan of to-day is capable of exerting — 
 much less would he put them into position. 
 
 The wood used for the flooring is the hardest 
 obtainable, and seems to be of a material which takes 
 no heed of wear and tear ; the planks are sometimes 
 heirlooms, and have been handed down from father 
 to son for many generations. One log tougher 
 than the rest is placed in position by the door, and 
 on this a fire will probably be burning and a woman 
 squatting by it cooking her lord and master's 
 evening meal. 
 
 The rank yellow smoke which curls round her 
 does not inconvenience her in the least. She takes 
 no heed of it, but blows away at the embers, regard- 
 less of smarting eyes and choking throat, probably 
 because she feels neither. She never fears that the 
 fire will spread and burn down her home, but just 
 goes on cooking. If you speak to her she may 
 stop blowing for a second and glance up at you, 
 but never a word passes her lips, and soon she will 
 be blowing again as if it was quite an ordinary 
 thing to have a white man staring at her. But 
 though the smoke does not trouble her a bit, 
 it blinds you, and you soon hurry on to the
 
 20 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 next hut, and there confine your attention to its 
 outside. 
 
 The roofs are thatched with palm leaves which, 
 though scant, keep out the rain and sun. The sides 
 and back are also composed of a kind of thatch on 
 a framework of bamboo or thin wood. 
 
 Unlike the habitations of many other branches of 
 this race, these huts show very little artistic work 
 inside. They are quite bare. A few cooking-pots 
 may be seen lying about, and these are the only 
 things which lead one to suppose that the huts are 
 inhabited. The resemblance of the interiors of all 
 of them is only equal to the sameness of the 
 exteriors, which makes it impossible to know which 
 one you have been in and which you have not. 
 This, added to the extreme difficulty a new chum 
 experiences in getting from one house to another, 
 does not add to the equability of his temper. It 
 needs a steady head and good balancing powers 
 to keep footing on these planks, many of which are 
 quite loose and wobble when you are treading on 
 them. After half an hour of such walking a 
 giddiness seizes you, and a strong desire comes over 
 you to kneel down and scramble along on hands 
 and knees to the next hut. But with practice, and 
 a certain amount of patience and indifference to the
 
 THE ISLAND OF ELEVERA FROM THE 
 MISSION STATION, PORT MORESBY, 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA.
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 21 
 
 nasty fall one would get by slipping, walking can 
 eventually be accomplished with ease. 
 
 The natives themselves run along the poles as 
 quickly as if they were on paved streets, whilst the 
 little kiddies scramble, and slip, and tumble about 
 as if they were on an ordinary floor. A fall through 
 the piles is almost an unknown calamity to them. 
 
 Under the houses, when the tide is out, the 
 natives can be seen cutting out their canoes, making 
 their pottery, repairing their fishing gear and 
 attending to other duties ; but they much prefer to 
 loll about on the verandahs of their huts, looking 
 out at the sea, thinking of nothing. 
 
 The whole of Elevera only covers about ten acres, 
 but in that space the huts are crowded together, 
 and give cover to hundreds of healthy and pros- 
 perous-looking inhabitants. On the mainland the 
 houses are built on small pile platforms, only three 
 or four feet from the ground, whilst others in the 
 back country are built in trees and look like gigantic 
 birds'-nests. This last custom, however, has quite 
 died out, for with the introduction of the axe the 
 protection of a house in a tree would be of little 
 use, for one blow would fetch the whole construction 
 down. Also the introduction of the police and the 
 work of the Government have so diminished the
 
 22 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 chances of tribal wars that the native no longer 
 goes to such trouble. In the old days the inmates 
 of these nests kept a supply of stones and spears on 
 their verandahs, and were able to use them with 
 great effect on their troublesome neighbours below. 
 Now such a position would only make them good 
 marks for a rifle shot. 
 
 The bush men, or " men belong bush, " to speak 
 in native parlance, are far more industrious than 
 the " men belong sea, " they who live by the shore. 
 For besides cultivating the land, growing yams, 
 bananas, and taro, they make a fair living by hunting. 
 
 Two distinct tribes inhabit the villages in Port 
 Moresby, the Koitapus and Motus. They live ami- 
 cably enough together now, but seldom intermarry. 
 The Koitapus were undoubtedly the original in- 
 habitants, and in colour are somewhat darker than 
 their friends, and have narrower heads, otherwise it 
 is very hard to distinguish one from the other ; but 
 in their manners, customs, and language there is a 
 marked difference. The Motu tribe consider them- 
 selves the superior of the two, though they live in 
 great fear of the mysterious powers the Koitapus 
 are said to possess, and were it not for this supersti- 
 tion the Motus would soon overrule and probably 
 vanquish the other tribe.
 
 TREE HOUSE IN BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 23 
 
 So strong is their superstitious belief in the 
 powers of the Koitapus, that directly one of them 
 falls ill, presents are immediately despatched to a 
 Koitapu man or woman with instructions to remove 
 the evil influence that has brought the sickness or 
 calamity. The weather also is supposed to be in 
 the hands of the Koitapus, and be it wet or fine the 
 Motus have to pay up, that is if they want it 
 changed. 
 
 As a tribe the Motus undoubtedly are superior, 
 especially in such things as cleanliness, cooking, and 
 eating. The Koitapu natives will devour almost any- 
 thing with a relish unknown in civilised countries, 
 but the Motu is careful and particular both about 
 the cooking of his food and the article cooked. 
 Most of the Motus have their eatables boiled in 
 earthenware jars, whilst the Koitapu cooks his in 
 an earth oven. 
 
 The Motus gain their living chiefly by fishing 
 and making pottery, and they exchange both fish 
 and pots with the Koitapu for animal food, veget- 
 ables, and the results of their agricultural pursuits. 
 
 The position of the two tribes is summed up 
 thus : — 
 
 " Yours is the sea, the canoes, the nets, " says 
 the Koitapu man, " ours the land and the wallaby.
 
 24 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Give us fish for our flesh, and pottery for our yams 
 and bananas." 
 
 It is on this understanding that the two tribes 
 live amicably together in Hanuabada and Elevera. 
 
 Altogether Port Moresby is as quaint and pic- 
 turesque a spot as ever was seen. A bright blue sky 
 and a sea the colour of which is for ever changing, 
 a stillness only broken by the roaring surf, the hum 
 of insects, the occasional cries of the sea-birds, and 
 the chatter of the natives, make up this delightful 
 haven of rest. No roaring train or smoking chimney 
 is there to distract the wayfarer ; no newspaper 
 boy yelling out his " disasters " to cause one a sleep- 
 less night. A spot in which to rest and dream, 
 ay, and study the curious customs of one of the 
 most interesting savage races in the world, if you 
 like that sort of employment.
 
 MOTU VILLAGE, PORT MORESBY, 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Natives who grow crops of hair — A word or two about the 
 women — Duties of married women — How they carry their 
 babes, and the philosophy of childhood. 
 
 The natives of New Guinea are fine specimens of 
 human nature, but taken as a race they cannot be 
 compared to the Maoris of New Zealand or even 
 to the Fijians. The men are infinitely better- 
 looking than the women, and their splendid stock 
 of hair, which they wear bunched up all over their 
 head, sets off their appearance in a remarkable 
 manner. The young women are bright and cheer- 
 ful-looking, and amongst them there are some 
 striking creatures ; but there are many sad-looking 
 specimens, some of the old women are veritable 
 hags, and many fine young girls are quite spoilt by 
 the quaint habit they have of shaving their heads, 
 whilst some of the best specimens of men are 
 disfigured by their yellow, bloodshot eyes, so 
 noticeable in contrast to their dark skins. 
 
 25 4
 
 26 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 As workers the New Guinea natives are prob- 
 ably in advance of many natives of the adjoining 
 islands. They are, of course, better than the 
 aboriginal of Australia, who would as lief die as do 
 an honest day's work, but that does not say much 
 for them. There is no doubt about it, they do not 
 love work, though they get through a certain 
 amount. 
 
 In Port Moresby the natives of Hanuabada and 
 Elevera live chiefly by fishing, canoe-building, and 
 pottery - making. The men do the fishing and 
 canoe-building, whilst the women and children 
 loiter over the pottery-making. There is a complete 
 absence of hurry ; all the natives work as if they 
 had a lifetime to complete their job ; there is a 
 calmness in them that is only rivalled by the sky 
 over their heads and the air that blows over this 
 island, and perhaps it is from nature they have 
 learnt that calm and stolid indifference to just those 
 things over which we believe it is necessary to 
 hustle. 
 
 One extremely peculiar trait in the character of 
 the natives of British New Guinea is their dislike 
 to inquisitiveness. You can implore a native to 
 tell you his name, and even offer him coin to pay 
 him for that information, but it has no effect. He
 
 IN THE PILE DWELLINGS AT HANUA- 
 BADA, PORT MORESBY, BRITISH NEW 
 GUINEA.
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 27 
 
 will tell you some name, if you press him hard 
 enough, but it won't be his, as you will discover if 
 you try to find him again. As an instance of this 
 peculiarity, Mr. Norman Hardy was particularly 
 struck by a canoe he saw lying on the sand in the 
 main street of Elevera, and seeing a native standing 
 by, he asked him if the canoe belonged to him, as 
 he would like to buy it. The native smiled blandly 
 and shook his head. 
 
 " Don't you know whose it is ? " asked Mr. 
 Hardy. 
 
 " Don't know ; man over there, p'r'aps," said 
 the native. 
 
 " What's his name ? " Mr. Hardy pursued. 
 
 " No name." The native shook his bushy head. 
 
 " Well, show me which is the hut he lives in." 
 
 At this question the man began to fidget, and 
 then, glancing carelessly at the row of huts, all as 
 like each other as peas, he swept his hand past the 
 whole lot and said : 
 
 "That one." 
 
 And that was all the information concerning the 
 name and possessor of the canoe that Mr. Hardy 
 obtained. Subsequently he learned that the owner 
 of it was the very man he had been questioning. 
 
 The same kind of reticence has been found by
 
 28 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 all travellers who have been anxious to find out 
 the ways, the customs, and secret rites of the 
 natives ; but, luckily, now and then a man who will 
 talk has been found, and then, by using the know- 
 ledge gained from him and showing the others that 
 you know a certain amount about the matter, it is 
 possible to get a fund of information ; though it is 
 always necessary to corroborate everything you 
 hear, as the art of lying has been brought to a 
 perfect science in these islands — probably by the 
 march of civilisation and the example the natives 
 have been set by the traders — nearly all natives 
 become liars when they are civilised. 
 
 Throughout the island the bulk of the work is 
 done by the women-folk, the men being little less 
 than pampered loafers. There is some sort of an 
 excuse for this, which, it is only fair to state, is the 
 result of altered circumstances. In the early days 
 the men were ever on the watch for enemies, and 
 lived in constant preparedness for a surprise attack. 
 By day they carried their spears and clubs about 
 with them, and by night they slept alongside them. 
 There were very few organised fights compared 
 with those of other islands, except when a big head- 
 hunting expedition was on, but at these times the 
 natives would get wind of it ; what they had to
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 29 
 
 guard against were small surprise attacks, and of 
 these they could not obtain information, as they 
 were generally planned on the spur of the moment. 
 Most of these stalking excursions were undertaken 
 to supply a sacrifice for a feast, and a native would 
 be singled out in some adjoining village to fill the 
 want, or else some chief would require the wife of 
 some other chief, and she would have to be stolen, 
 or a child had to be kidnapped to spite its parents, 
 and so the men in every village had to be constantly 
 on the watch, which, of course, hindered them 
 from working, and left the bulk of the labour to 
 the women ; but now that civilisation has altered 
 the relationship of the tribes and lessened the 
 chances of these attacks, the occupation of the 
 men has practically ceased ; under the new regime 
 they have gradually become loafers, and the 
 women still continue the duties they have per- 
 formed for generations. 
 
 Organised labour is almost unknown, but certain 
 yam patches are owned by certain natives, and the 
 women work them as they do the banana and the 
 cocoa-nut groves. In Port Moresby Messrs. Burns 
 Philp employ a number of men and women for 
 their stores, and for loading and unloading the 
 trading vessels, but even the heavy work of carrying
 
 30 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 the timber is sometimes done by the women, 
 whilst the men loiter about doing as little as they 
 possibly can. The police, who are clothed in blue 
 with white facings, are perhaps the busiest natives 
 in the township ; what is more, they are extremely 
 proud of their clothes and their work, and their 
 exalted position as Government officials makes them 
 scorn their less fortunate brethren. Their duties, 
 beyond keeping law and order, are very slight, and 
 amount to an occasional job of rowing Government 
 men about and mounting guard over stray prisoners. 
 The native costume of British New Guinea is 
 meagre. With the men, when they are not 
 absolutely nude, a narrow girdle round their 
 waist is considered sufficient, whilst a bunch of 
 dogs' teeth hung from their ears, a pointed, carved 
 bone run through their noses, and armlets of 
 vegetable fibre, would comprise a big outfit and 
 make its owner as proud as a peacock. At festivals, 
 dances, and funerals their clothing is more elaborate, 
 and they are more highly decorated with masks, 
 mats, and feathers. And when in mourning, they 
 are so over-dressed that it is impossible to recognise 
 that the bundle before you is really a human being. 
 The state or ceremonial costumes of New Guinea 
 vary considerably in the different parts of the
 
 NATIVE OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA, 
 SHOWING THE MANNER OF WEAR- 
 ING THE HAIR.
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 31 
 
 island, and each tribe has its own particular fancy 
 as to what ought really to be worn, and what 
 ought not ; the only consistency concerning clothes 
 throughout the island is found when the men are 
 either loafing about or working, and then they 
 wear as little as possible. 
 
 The women and young girls usually wear fibre 
 aprons hanging from their waists to a distance of 
 about eighteen inches, whilst for dancing and 
 religious ceremonies more luxurious and more 
 lengthy ones, dyed in different colours, are worn. 
 When dancing the aprons of the unmarried women 
 are left open at the right side, so that the tattooing 
 on their hips and thighs can be seen. This bit of 
 coyness is to show that they are ready to be 
 married, and that they are still heart-whole, for 
 directly a girl reaches the marriageable age, and 
 wants all the men to know it, she is carefully 
 tattooed. Another mark of distinction between the 
 married and unmarried women is in the hair : the 
 married ones wear it very closely cut, while the 
 single ones pride themselves, like the men, on their 
 enormous bushy crops. This custom, however, 
 varies in different tribes, and the hair is arranged 
 in numerous ways, according to the fashion of the 
 part of the island in which the native is born.
 
 32 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 The Papuan dandy takes no end of care over 
 his hair, which grows to a great length and is 
 frizzled and bunched up all round his head, and 
 some of them, farther up the gulf, arrange their 
 hair in this fashion purely for sale, and when a full 
 crop is ready they shave it off and sell it up country. 
 
 What " the man belong bush " uses it for I 
 don't know, though some kind of string is seen in 
 different places which is probably made from it. 
 As in Fiji and Samoa and Honolulu, it is common 
 to see bleached hair. It is done for sanitary 
 reasons primarily, and fashion has helped the 
 custom. Tattooing, however, is not fashionable 
 amongst the men. 
 
 The children, like those of other savage races, 
 are completely nude. They are bright and happy 
 little beggars, and as a rule are free from nervous- 
 ness in the presence of strangers and whites. They 
 will stand round you in groups, with wide-open 
 mouths and eyes, but they have a tendency to 
 catch hold of each other, and those who are shyest 
 keep slightly behind the bolder ones. They are 
 born swimmers and divers, and seem to spend half 
 their days in the water, prancing, splashing about, 
 and diving, utterly regardless of time or season, 
 and I don't think they ever catch cold.
 
 A NEW GUINEA DANDY
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 33 
 
 Amongst the children's games there are two at 
 least that look familiar to Europeans — a kind of 
 leap-frog and pig-a-back. The former is played 
 in all the varying ways of the English schoolboy, 
 single leaping and leaping whole rows ; whilst pig- 
 a-back riding is quite the same game that our 
 children indulge in. Another game which is 
 interesting to watch is that known as evanena : 
 in this two rows of players stand facing each other 
 at a distance of about a foot apart, and when they 
 are thus arranged each boy catches hold of the 
 arm of the one facing, and grips it below the elbow 
 with one hand, and with the other he takes a firm 
 hold of his own arm with his disengaged hand, 
 thus forming a platform of human arms. A 
 boy then gets up on to this platform and runs 
 forward. Immediately he has passed over the 
 first pair they let go of each other and run 
 forward, and place themselves in front of the others 
 at the end of the row, thus making a continuous 
 passage, enabling a constant race to be kept up 
 with the boy on the platform and those forming 
 it. Roars of laughter greet the youth who is fast 
 enough to reach the end of the platform before 
 another lap is ready for him, and if he succeeds in 
 doing this he is a proud winner, but if, on the
 
 34 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 other hand, he stumbles and falls he is anything 
 but a hero, and becomes one of the figures of the 
 platform, taking the place of one of the end boys. 
 
 Many of the other games are rough, boyish 
 imitations of the sacred ceremonies which their 
 elders conduct with such decorum. Of course they 
 are not true imitations, because many of these 
 ceremonies are secret and none but authorised 
 natives are allowed to take part in them. 
 
 The girls have a few games of their own, but 
 very seldom join in with the boys. From their 
 earliest days they are trained to work, and playing 
 is considered frivolous and unwomanly. One sees 
 many more young women paddling canoes than 
 young men ; the men prefer to play and watch 
 their sisters work. Chivalry is not a forte of 
 theirs. 
 
 As soon as the girls are old enough they are 
 initiated into the art of pottery-making, cooking, 
 and other domestic duties, but what they all take 
 most pleasure in is dancing. Their sole ambition 
 in life seems to be to excel in this art — and become 
 wives ; though the latter occupation has few 
 benefits, and, to the outsider who has studied the 
 life of the married women, marriage would seem 
 a grievous calamity to be avoided at all costs —
 
 WOMAN WITH BABY IN BAG, FAIRFAX 
 ISLAND, BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 35 
 
 at least a Papuan one. The work of the married 
 women is most arduous, and their whole existence 
 seems to be taken up in waiting hand and foot on 
 their loafing lords, bearing children, and bringing 
 them up. All the cares and worries of the pre- 
 carious lives of these natives seem to be thrown on 
 to the shoulders of wives, who bear it with a stolid 
 philosophy that defies imitation. 
 
 One of the most remarkable things about the 
 mother is her unique way of carrying her child, a 
 method totally different from that of any other savage 
 or civilised race. From its infancy the baby is put 
 into a sort of miniature hammock made of vegetable 
 fibre, with a very fine mesh, through which the 
 little bundle of humanity can be seen kicking 
 merrily. When carrying the child, the ends of this 
 hammock, which are woven together and make a 
 circle of the net, are placed over, and rest on the 
 mother's head. Thus the baby hangs suspended 
 in this arrangement just below the woman's breasts 
 or over her back. It is a convenient arrangement, 
 for the mother is perfectly free to walk about and, 
 if necessary, work a little with her hands. As a 
 rule, however, when she is working she hangs her 
 child up on one of the cross-beams of her hut, and 
 many can be seen thus suspended under the
 
 36 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 verandah-like shades of the roofs, when they look 
 very much like cocoons. 
 
 This form of carrying a weight, however, is not 
 peculiar to the Papuan, as instances of it can be seen 
 in Egypt. A native porter will often suspend a 
 heavy portmanteau by straps from the top of his 
 head and jog along serenely with it. Child-carrying 
 in this way is, however, quite original and is, I 
 believe, only seen in New Guinea. The Maori 
 method of carrying them on their backs, wrapped 
 in a shawl which the woman crosses over her chest, 
 is infinitely better in some respects, as it enables her 
 to do hard labour without any inconvenience. 
 
 One trait that is particularly noticeable among 
 all the children of savage races is their silent philo- 
 sophy. No matter what happens these babes re- 
 main serenely calm ; they may be left for hours 
 without food or drink, they may be hung upside 
 down, dropped, trodden on, — in fact, any calamity 
 may befall them, — but still they are silent. The 
 only difference that is evident is when they have 
 been uncomfortable for hours and are suddenly put 
 right, when they resume their kicking, but very soon 
 even this form of exuberance subsides, and silence, 
 unmoved silence, is restored.
 
 DINNER TIME AT KWATO, BRITISH 
 NEW GUINEA
 
 M ■
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Concerning love and grief — How love is made in New Guinea, 
 and some of the charms used to ensure love and constancy — 
 The grief of a New Guinea widow. 
 
 To the marriageable young lady in civilised 
 countries, leap year, and with it her chance of 
 proposing, comes but a few times before she is 
 " on the shelf," but in some parts of New Guinea 
 the proposal of marriage always comes from the 
 girl. 
 
 Some may think that this sort of love-making 
 and marriage lacks romance, but to the Papuan it 
 is the event of his or her life. It is in the hope of 
 receiving a proposal that a man will go through 
 endless adventures ; it is to win the admiration of 
 some good buxom girl that he risks his life head- 
 hunting, and it is with pride and glory that he 
 glances at his string of skulls which hangs from the 
 poles of his hut, because he knows how brave the 
 women will think him. 
 
 37
 
 38 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 It is for this same object that he studies the 
 art of dancing, that he cultivates his bushy hair 
 (after he is married lie often sells it) and the fine, 
 healthy glow of his skin. His lithe limbs also 
 come in for a deal of attention, and, as he struts 
 proudly about, it is always with the hope that his 
 superior charms and manhood may bring him the 
 love and admiration of a young maiden. 
 
 When a Papuan boy comes of age an interest- 
 ing ceremony takes place. At about twelve years 
 old, if he is of good stature, healthy and generally 
 fit, his parents think it is time to prepare him for 
 marriage, or, in their own language, make him 
 ibitoe. The initial stage of this ceremony is merely 
 a form of introduction to youths of his own age 
 who are also ibitoe. In England more or less the 
 same thing happens when a girl " comes out." 
 She is then supposed to be on a footing with 
 "grown-ups," and this is practically what happens 
 to the youth of British New Guinea. From the 
 day of his " coming out " he occupies his hours in 
 pleasure-seeking and has a good time generally ; 
 this goes on for a certain period and then he 
 sallies forth alone into the bush to make his drum. 
 This drum-making is the most serious part of his 
 "coming out," and is conducted with a deal of
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 39 
 
 formality and ceremony which is quaintly mixed 
 with superstition. 
 
 Drums seem to be the most important possession 
 a young Papuan has ; in shape they are not unlike 
 a golf bag on a somewhat larger scale. One end 
 is covered with lizard skin drawn taut and bound 
 round the end of the drum with fibre, leaving a 
 frill below the binding ; the other end is open, and 
 at about the centre the instrument narrows off and 
 a handle carved out of the wood protrudes. By 
 this the drum is held when being beaten. 
 
 The making of this musical instrument is an 
 arduous task ; it is hewn out from a solid block of 
 wood by means of the crudest instruments, the 
 hollow centre is made by burning it out with 
 cinders of red-hot wood. 
 
 In order to manufacture one of these the young 
 native retires into the bush, cutting himself off from 
 all intercourse with human beings. His food is 
 brought to him by his friends and left in some 
 secret places which are decided on before he takes 
 his departure. This is done so that the young 
 man can secure it without catching sight of those 
 who bring it, for it is believed by the Papuan that 
 if any human being sees him, or is seen by him, 
 during this period of ibitoe that his drum will
 
 40 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 be spoiled, or that when it is completed it will 
 sound as if it were cracked. Many other curious 
 superstitions relating to the eating of certain foods 
 are attached to this operation ; for instance, if a 
 man who is ibitoc eats food cooked in the wrong 
 way, he will grow fat and be a laughing-stock to the 
 girls ; whilst if he drinks fresh water it will quench 
 the fire with which he is trying to hollow out his 
 drum, and other things too numerous to mention 
 will happen if equally trifling details are not 
 adhered to ; but provided he comes through this 
 important time without any calamities, and com- 
 pletes his drum to his own satisfaction, he steps 
 forth from his seclusion to conquer the heart of a 
 maiden. 
 
 In the different tribes and parts of the country 
 the customs relating to love and matrimony vary. 
 In some the young men waylay the girls they admire, 
 and endeavour, by force or persuasion, or the offer- 
 ing of presents, to obtain their consent. This 
 method often leads to amusing incidents, as the 
 girls have the privilege of scratching and fight- 
 ing their would-be lovers to any extent, and 
 the lover may not retaliate, or he would bring 
 down upon his woolly head the anger of the girl's 
 parents.
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 41 
 
 Sweet music of a sensuous nature is often re- 
 sorted to by the lovesick swain, and, leaning against 
 a tree, he will stand and play all day long, hoping 
 to attract the attention of his inamorata and bring 
 from her a proposal of marriage. 
 
 Tight-lacing and other forms of personal adorn- 
 ment are also indulged in by these amorous youths, 
 and a more ridiculous sight could not be seen than 
 a young native with his waist so strapped in as to 
 form an enormous, ugly bulge above and below his 
 belt, but it is greatly admired by the girls and shows 
 he wants a wife badly. 
 
 In those parts of the western islands, already 
 alluded to, where the women propose, directly a 
 girl falls in love with a man she makes him a 
 string armlet, which, according to Professor Haddon, 
 she presents to his sister or to one of his con- 
 fidential friends. The confidential friend bides her 
 time, and when an opportunity arises she goes to 
 the man and says : 
 
 " I've got something for you." 
 
 " Show it to me," replies the young man if he 
 is anxious. 
 
 This the friend does. 
 
 After learning the girl's name, and being satisfied 
 that he is not throwing himself away, the youth
 
 42 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 will accept the armlet and in return make a present 
 of two leglets to his fiancee. 
 
 Another custom in vogue is for the girl to send 
 food for the young man. At first on receiving it 
 he is generally obstinate and refuses to eat it, as 
 he has no desire to be caught — or pretends he has 
 none — but really he is very proud that at last he 
 has been noticed. The woman understands all 
 this and does not despair, but steadily pursues her 
 course, and day after day sends food to her lover, 
 until her constancy makes the parents of the young 
 man feel satisfied that he is not being led astray 
 or fooled by a changeable woman. As soon as 
 the parents feel sure of this, they go to their son 
 and command him to eat the food. 
 
 This is the signal which the girl's friend has 
 been wanting, and she hurries to bear the news to 
 the waiting girl, who immediately prepares more 
 food which she sends him. Now the critical time 
 is past, and she knows he will be allowed to see 
 her. 
 
 All arrangements for the meeting are conducted 
 by the go-between, and when the young man is 
 presented to her, she hands him fresh food which 
 he takes from her and eats. At this act of con- 
 descension great joy is shown on both sides, and
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 43 
 
 the two lovers retire to the seclusion of their hut, 
 and without any further ceremony they become 
 man and wife. 
 
 The divorce laws of New Guinea are similar to 
 those of America, and a man or woman can get a 
 divorce on the slightest provocation — the general 
 cause is incompatibility of temper. Plurality of 
 wives is allowed if a man be rich enough to support 
 more than one. The first one, however, is chief 
 amongst them all and her word is law ; the last 
 one acts as a go-between ; she carries the messages 
 of number one to the others and sees that they 
 are properly attended to. If any of the wives 
 refuse to obey her, she and her husband are laughed 
 at, as it is generally considered that he has under- 
 taken more than he can manage. 
 
 The following is an interesting sample of a 
 missionary-taught, native girl's love-letter, or form 
 of proposal. It was shown to Professor Haddon 
 when he was studying in those islands. The letter 
 was written to one Peter by name, whose own 
 translation of it reads thus : — 
 
 " Peta, what do you say ? I try you. My 
 heart he like very bad for you. You send me back 
 a letter. Yes this talk belong me. Pita you 
 Good-bye. Me Magena."
 
 44 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Peter's affirmative reply was : 
 
 " Magena I make you know. Me just the same, 
 I want very bad for you. My talk there. If you 
 true like me, all right just the same ; good for 
 you, good for me. Yes all right. Finish. You, 
 Magena. Good-bye. Me Pita." 
 
 The natives of New Guinea, like all other savage 
 races, still have their love charms, and when a man 
 or maid fails to win the heart of the one they love 
 by ordinary methods, they try the sorcerer and, 
 then, if that love they are seeking for cannot be so 
 obtained, their affection turns to hate and a desire 
 for revenge fills them, and they seek the other's 
 death by resort to magic. There is a wonderful 
 similarity in human beings all over the world, be 
 they white or black, savage or civilised. But the 
 extraordinary part of the magic in savage lands is 
 that it always works, and if men or women are 
 properly cursed and their death prophesied by the 
 magician, they die, and in the way their death has 
 been foretold. The same strange superstition is 
 noticeable amongst the Maoris. I once was at the 
 death-bed of an old chief, who was supposed to be 
 dying of typhoid, but the real cause of his death 
 was fear. In some way he had offended another 
 chief, and that man had him cursed by a Tohunga
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 45 
 
 or priest. I was unable to ascertain exactly what 
 he had done, but the result of it was that an image 
 made of clay, which was supposed to represent him, 
 was placed in a creek, and as the water washed 
 away the figure, so the chief gradually sank ; and, 
 when the last particle was softened by the slowly 
 trickling water and vanished down the stream, so 
 that moment the soul of the old chief passed over 
 the border. 
 
 So strong is the superstition regarding these 
 things that a man who is cursed never dreams of 
 attempting to overcome the disaster foretold him ; 
 he simply goes home and dies, and it is in this way 
 that this particular superstition, and others like it, 
 live. No one has the pluck or the common sense 
 to try and oppose their influence. In New Zealand 
 this kind of witchcraft is termed Tohunganism, 
 and in spite of the civilised condition of the Maoris 
 of to-day, there are still cases of death recorded and 
 put down to it. 
 
 In the same certain way that death is brought 
 about by a mental process — cursing — so miraculous 
 cures are effected, and Urio Moquru is one of the 
 most useful gods in New Guinea for this sort of 
 thing. When a person of importance falls sick, food 
 is placed before this grotesque image, and the friends
 
 46 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 and relations beseech Urio to remove the evil spirit 
 from their beloved one. But should the god fail 
 and the sick one die, the natives do not lose faith 
 in their god, but decide that the patient was either 
 too good to live, or so bad he had to die. 
 
 When death does visit a village there is a terrible 
 time of mourning, the women sit and cry round 
 the death-bed all day, and in the streets they can 
 be seen squatting in corners moaning. You can 
 meet women all huddled up giving vent to the most 
 despairing groans, and they look as if they were 
 literally wrapped up in grief; yet they may have 
 never cared a snap of the fingers for the dear 
 departed. But it is the custom for the women to 
 mourn ; and a more awful sight and sound than 
 this moaning cannot be heard. The men show very 
 few signs of grief, and evidently trust to their 
 women-folk to do a double share. 
 
 When a woman loses her husband she goes into 
 mourning and will on no account be disturbed ; for 
 this rite her dress varies ; certainly she looks a 
 terrible fright, and I'm not surprised at her shrink- 
 ing from public gaze. There is a special dress and 
 general attire for this state of grief. They shave 
 their heads completely, cover themselves all over 
 with charcoal, and then put on long petticoats with
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 47 
 
 tassels of seeds. They also cover their necks with 
 necklaces and their arms with trinkets. Having 
 done all this they retire into a corner of their hut 
 and remain there, away from the gaze of the public, 
 until their sorrow is worn out or they are tired of 
 being alone. 
 
 One thing noticeable is that, however loud their 
 moaning is, however hard they are crying, they will 
 always stop to answer any question you like to put 
 to them about their "late lamented," if you have 
 courage enough to beard them and refuse to go 
 away. Then, as soon as you have gained all the 
 information you require, they will quickly resume 
 their tears as if nothing had happened to interrupt 
 them. But this is not unique to the savage of 
 New Guinea. I have met with the same extra- 
 ordinary species of grief amongst the women of 
 Great Britain, — it is world-wide, this interruptable 
 
 grief.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Some native dances and queer costumes — Novel blackmailing 
 methods — Woman's vanity and a censured dance. 
 
 For some reason, unknown to the ordinary layman, 
 the Church has taken a dislike to nearly all forms 
 of savage dancing, and many missionaries, brave 
 and good fellows though they be, have seen evil in 
 these performances where other less cultivated men 
 have seen nothing that suggests immorality. But 
 often what appears immoral to the Western mind 
 is quite free from any such suggestion to the mind 
 of the savage. I do not say that these natives are 
 paragons of virtue and morality, but in deference to 
 them it is only fair to say that they stick to their 
 code of morals, though it is not ours and may seem 
 rather lax to us. 
 
 Owing no doubt to the missionaries disliking 
 certain dances, the natives are now very shy about 
 permitting a white man to witness them ; some, 
 however, can still be seen, and these I will try 
 
 48
 
 A KAIVAKUKU, RORO TRIBE, CENTRAL 
 DIVISION, BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 49 
 
 to describe. There are several different dances in 
 New Guinea, all distinct in their movements, in 
 the costumes worn at them, and the music ac- 
 companying them ; there are the war dances, the 
 marriage dances, the fishing, festival and agricultural 
 dances, and for all these the costumes vary, some 
 of them being unique, for there is no island in the 
 world which can rival its assortment of ceremonial 
 regalia. In some of the dances the women are most 
 strangely attired, whilst in others the grotesque 
 costumes of the men are startling. 
 
 When the fish dance, or any other semi-religious 
 dance is to be held the men wear masks, for the 
 making of which they are famous, and then the 
 performance is indeed weird. In the Mekko 
 district, south-east of Port Moresby, most elaborate 
 masks of hideous design cover the heads of the 
 dancers, whilst their bodies are concealed by capes 
 which are nearly two feet thick and cover the 
 wearer completely, leaving only the lower part of 
 the legs visible, and these, in contrast to the bulk 
 above, look strangely thin and out of place. The 
 heat and weight of these costumes must be 
 enormous, but the natives would undergo any 
 discomfort rather than be without them. 
 
 The masks, which vary in shape and size, are
 
 50 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 generally not shorter than three or four feet, and 
 occasionally they run to six or seven. They are 
 held in position on the man's head by a cross-bar 
 which he grips between his teeth, and they are 
 constructed on canework frames, and shaped like 
 an enormous hock bottle. A thin bark covering is 
 stretched over the frame, which is then completely 
 smeared with white lime, and a hideous face is 
 generally worked or painted on the front of it, with 
 the mouth and eyes enormously big and distorted. 
 When one considers that these masks and their 
 attendant costumes are also used for blackmailing 
 dances their thorough ugliness is warranted. 
 
 Blackmailing is a favourite pastime, and when 
 they are intent on it they don their ugliest masks 
 and steal round to the hut of the man or woman 
 from whom they wish to extort money, or frighten, 
 and in the dim moonlight begin a wend and un- 
 earthly dance accompanied by horrible noises, which 
 they continue until the desired effect has been 
 obtained, and the man is frightened out of his wits 
 and ready to agree to his assailant's proposals. 
 This dance is closely allied to the dook-dook dance 
 of New Britain. In New Guinea when the mask 
 and cape are worn the steps of the dance are slow, 
 and the movements are supposed to be majestic and
 
 HARVEST DANCE, NEW GUINEA 
 
 When the yams and bananas are ripe, the natives 
 hold a celebration, in which as a rule men dance 
 in close formation with the girls on the flanks. 
 Occasionally a girl edges her way in and takes the 
 arm of a man, as is seen in the illustration, where 
 the red head-dresses are those of women. The white 
 plumes of the men denote that they have slain an 
 enemy in single combat. The streamers down the 
 back of the man on the left are those of his head 
 fillet. Behind the dancers are the bananas suspended 
 on a scaffold. The celebration takes place in the 
 summer.
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 51 
 
 awe-inspiring, making the performances more like 
 stately processions than dances. One of the most 
 interesting of these is the festival dance for a suc- 
 cessful agricultural season. It is considered a kind 
 of prayer to the gods of agriculture, and it generally 
 takes place once a year and is conducted by 
 different tribes on each anniversary. 
 
 The dancing ground having been picked, the 
 villagers squat by their huts, or form a large ring 
 on the ground, and then when all is ready a troop 
 of men strangely dressed, each carrying his drum, 
 comes prancing on to the ground. 
 
 From the back of their heads long waving 
 strings, made of leaves, are hung, flying out behind 
 them and touching the ground. Their woolly hair 
 is gaily festooned with bright-coloured feathers, 
 white and red, pure white, pure red, and reddish 
 brown and green ; and above these there is often a 
 brilliant red cockade which stands straight up. 
 
 Armlets adorn their arms, and a narrow belt with 
 a scanty attachment suffices for the covering of the 
 lower part of their bodies. Long streamers of palm 
 leaves hang, in some cases, from both armlets and 
 leglets. Their drums are also gaily decorated with 
 strings and streamers. 
 
 On arrival on the ground they form up in rows
 
 52 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 and begin a peculiar crouching movement by bend- 
 ing their knees and rising on toe and heel, to the 
 accompaniment of a monotonous dull thumping on 
 the drums. Every now and then a different beat is 
 sounded, and instantly the men change their posi- 
 tions. Whilst this peculiar shuffling movement is 
 going on a crowd of girls appears and begin to dance 
 in and out among the men, and then vanish again 
 almost as quickly as they appeared. Their costumes 
 are equally quaint, the chief adornment being 
 a mat hung round their waists and open on one 
 side. The remaining portions of their bodies are 
 nude, with the exception of necklaces and curious 
 feather adornments on their heads. 
 
 Fine creatures some of them are, and as they 
 prance about in striking attitudes, dodging in and 
 out of the rows of men, swaying their skirts back- 
 wards and forwards, they present a fascinating- 
 picture and, as they warm to the dance, the con- 
 tinued shuffling movements of the men, the swirling 
 of the women's skirts, their swaying bodies, and 
 glimpses of elaborately tattooed legs, and the 
 measured beating of the drums, the only sound that 
 breaks the silence, a giddiness steals over the spec- 
 tators and a weird feeling of monotony takes hold 
 of them.
 
 READY FOR THE DUBU DANCE
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 53 
 
 Then suddenly the whole scene will change, the 
 girls, who a few seconds before were swirling round 
 the men, vanish, the drumming ceases, the long 
 rows are broken up, and the men too disappear, 
 leaving only the crowd of eager spectators who 
 remain gazing at nothing. 
 
 A wonder comes into one's mind if it is all a 
 dream, for throughout the whole dance no sound has 
 escaped the performers, and the silence and the half- 
 darkness produce a scene of peculiar uncanniness. 
 But soon all is movement again and other perform- 
 ances have to be gone through. New figures are 
 introduced as in our round dances, but there seem 
 to be no set places for the girls ; they appear and 
 dance independently in and out of the rows of men 
 as if to show off their fine figures, their beautiful 
 skins, and bewitching ways, some dancing and acting 
 more or less demurely, whilst others throw them- 
 selves about with an abandonment and coyness that 
 it would take a most practised Western flirt to excel. 
 
 Every attitude and every movement seem to be 
 accompanied by an action of the apron or skirt, 
 which is swerving with a perfect rhythm backwards 
 and forwards, or from side to side. But this is not 
 the women's dance, they are merely adjuncts to the 
 performance and use their admission to it more for
 
 54 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 love-making than anything else. Their real dance 
 comes later when they mount the Dubu, and this 
 is the dance so strongly objected to by the mission- 
 aries, but, strange to say, the natives themselves 
 seem to take very little interest in it ; they call it 
 " the dance belong women " ; and were it such an 
 immoral proceeding, surely the men would crowd 
 to see it. 
 
 The ordinary Dubu is a rough platform about 
 four feet high and built upon stout piles. More 
 elaborate ones are to be seen in some districts, and 
 these are decorated with weird designs and strange 
 carvings, with flanges reaching out right and left and 
 long beams carved like gigantic bullocks' horns and 
 decorated with gaudy tassels that add a quaintness 
 to them ; they stand some ten feet off the ground, 
 whilst others have posts rising fifteen feet above the 
 ground and ending in a half-moon design, but these 
 bigger ones are not used for the girls to dance on, 
 but are kept for ceremonial purposes. 
 
 A score of girls, dressed up to the nines in their 
 twine skirts (reaching about as far down as a 
 Parisian ballet girl's dancing costume) and com- 
 pletely tattooed, suddenly begin prancing through 
 the village, swinging in their hands a long string at 
 the end of which is a ball. By practised movements
 
 THE DUBU AT RIGO, BRITISH 
 NEW GUINEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 55 
 
 they make it curve in grotesque shapes around their 
 bodies, and all the time this is going on they are 
 swinging their skirts backwards and forwards by a 
 peculiar movement of their bodies, from their waists. 
 This extraordinary performance of pirouetting 
 maidens goes on for some time to the accompaniment 
 of drums. Then, at a given signal, they mount the 
 Dubu and discard their skirts, and stand unadorned 
 before the spectators who, as I said before, are nearly 
 all women. Then married women anoint them, 
 whilst others bring them baskets of areca nuts and 
 yams. The yams they cut up in pieces, and whilst 
 doing so go through graceful movements which 
 display their figures to the best advantage. Then 
 suddenly, at another given signal, they start pelting 
 the onlookers with the nuts, which are scrambled 
 for by the women amid laughter and screams of 
 delight ; they are like children at a fair, and almost 
 as simple. When all the nuts are finished the 
 girls slip on their skirts and jump down, and so 
 ends this, the most terrible dance of the modest 
 maids of Papua. There is another famous dance 
 which takes place on the departure of the Lakalois 
 for the annual trading expedition up the Gulf. 
 
 Professor Haddon, in his book the Head 
 Hunters, relates an amusing thing he saw at Veifaa,
 
 56 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 of which this dress incident reminds me. He says 
 that though the natives in this place are never seen 
 in any but native costume, the missionaries have 
 insisted on the women wearing calico gowns whilst 
 attending divine service, and it was an amusing 
 sight, he continues, to see the girls and women 
 arriving at the church, for — on entering the court- 
 yard — they pulled these European costumes over 
 their half-nude bodies ; but it was still more comic 
 to see the way they pulled themselves out of them 
 directly the service was over. He adds, that in spite 
 of their scant clothes and the above peculiarity, 
 the women are extremely modest. 
 
 Tattooing cannot be said to be as general in New 
 Guinea as in many other places, but in some districts 
 the women are particularly well tattooed, the whole 
 of the upper part of their bodies being completely 
 covered with intricate designs. The methods of 
 making the patterns vary, but as a rule, the woman 
 lies on the ground whilst two others work them 
 out with a stick dipped in burnt resin. When the 
 whole is finished it is pricked in by means of a sharp 
 thorn attached to a stick and bound tightly to it 
 with fibre. Most of the women have extraordinary 
 designs on their thighs, which they make a point 
 of showing when they are dancing.
 
 TATTOOING, BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Outrigger canoes, their appearance and construction — The 
 famous Lakatois — How the natives catch their fish ; and a 
 few words about fish that climb trees — A trip down the 
 coast, and an unpleasant experience. 
 
 If you can imagine a cloudless sky of a deep blue 
 colour, a sea so smooth that not a ripple is visible, 
 and so clear that you can look down into it and 
 see the dark rocks and the sandy bottom and 
 strangely shaped fish swimming idly about amongst 
 bushes of seaweed, which wave and curl with the 
 ebb of the tide ; and floating masses of jelly which 
 occasionally double themselves into balls and then 
 become floating masses again. If you can picture 
 all this you will have an idea how clear the waters 
 of the South Seas are when the sky is cloudless. 
 The hot sun is overhead, and the still air is full of a 
 sweet fragrance. Just above you you will see a 
 frigate bird sailing lazily about, and by the sea 
 shore just a faint ripple and a line of white show 
 
 57 8
 
 58 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 you quaint and picturesque canoes — not the 
 ordinary mere dug-out things which are so narrow 
 in body that there is only room for a medium-sized 
 man to sit, but long curiously shaped ones with 
 poles stretching across and extended far out over 
 the side ; they are slightly arched, and at the end 
 there is a log which rests in the water and lies 
 parallel to the boat. 
 
 These outriggers are queer constructions, but 
 no sea can upset a boat possessing them, and with 
 the light shining full on the bright skins of their 
 half-naked occupants, they look still more eccentric. 
 To see a dozen of these queer craft being swiftly 
 paddled through the water by men with bushy 
 heads and fine massive bodies, and women more 
 nude than dressed, but with their hair cropped 
 close to their skulls, is not a sight to be seen 
 everywhere, and well repays all the thousand 
 little disadvantages that journeying to these parts 
 entails. 
 
 There is a safety in an outrigger canoe that one 
 cannot feel in ordinary native boats. There is not 
 the same swift movement that one experiences 
 when skimming through the water rowed by a half- 
 dozen muscular Maoris in their light-built canoes, 
 or flying down rapids in a Canadian canoe, but in
 
 LARGE TRADING CANOES, BRITISH 
 NEW GUINEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 59 
 
 place of it there is the calm repose of absolute 
 security, and at times this latter condition is not 
 to be scorned, especially when every moment you 
 can see the fin of a shark rise out of the water. 
 Clumsy looking as these boats are, it is wonderful 
 what complete control the natives have over them, 
 how swiftly they swing them round or skim them 
 between dangerous rocks, and dash over the surf 
 through waves that would swamp and capsize an 
 average lifeboat. These irresponsible creatures 
 paddle on through the worst of waters, laughing at 
 the spray as it breaks over them, and shouting 
 with glee as they mount the great waves, which 
 carry them high and dry on to the shore. 
 
 Then the stately Lakatois with their queer- 
 shaped sails, looking as unlike sails as the body of 
 a boat is unlike a canoe. They resemble an elon- 
 gated kite with a semicircle cut out of the top, 
 and if you saw one for the first time coming to- 
 wards you on a dark night, it would give you a 
 fright, so grotesque and weird is it. In daylight, 
 however, its horrors disappear and the ingeniousness 
 of its construction appeals to you ; after watching it 
 sailing placidly out to sea, steered as easily as any 
 yacht, a feeling of admiration for the savage in- 
 ventor of it comes over you.
 
 60 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 To explain its construction would be a task too 
 difficult for me, but, roughly, it consists of two or 
 three large canoes lashed together and boarded 
 over. On these boards is a kind of barn cut down 
 and spread out considerably. This is used both 
 for shelter and for carrying the pots and articles of 
 barter. From the centre of this raft-like barge the 
 two enormous sails project straight into the air ; 
 the two horn-like points of the top are decorated 
 with long streamers ; whilst others ornament 
 the sails, making it look like a carnival barge. 
 How the wind is caught or how the boats are 
 moved about is a mystery to any but those who 
 work them ; if you ask a native he will explain it 
 all to you : " He good fellow belong salt water, go 
 easy." And that is as much information as T can 
 give. So with this vivid, though somewhat tech- 
 nical description of how the boat travels, you too 
 must be satisfied, and look rather at its beauty 
 than its ways of working. 
 
 The method of building canoes in these parts is 
 interesting. A log of soft wood is obtained from 
 an up-country tribe in exchange for fish or some 
 other produce, and its outside is shaped by means 
 of an ordinary English axe, while the inside is 
 hewn out with the native stone adzes. These
 
 OLD WOMEN MAKING POTTERY, 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 61 
 
 they still prefer for delicate work, though they 
 often attach the head of them to an ordinary axe 
 handle. When a sufficiently deep hollow is made, 
 the native lights a fire in it and works it about 
 until the rough edges are smoothed down and 
 other faults are rectified. 
 
 Firing is also used to finish the outside, and 
 if the fire goes out, or anything but a perfect result 
 is finally obtained, they put the cause of it down to 
 some accident, or wrong action which they have 
 done in their youth. Nearly all their calamities 
 are thus explained. 
 
 The small canoes when finished often have the 
 outriggers completely boarded over, thus turning 
 them into big rafts, and making them capable of 
 carrying enormous quantities of barter ; for it is by 
 boat they carry their goods from village to village 
 along the coast. The Lakatois are always used for 
 long trips, and carry big crews, being often loaded 
 to their full carrying capacity. When leaving Port 
 Moresby for these periodical trips they carry 
 pottery and exchange it for sago and other food. 
 
 The pottery industry flourishes at Port Moresby, 
 and at most times it is possible to see the women 
 at work. Men never assist them in this in- 
 dustry ; generally very thin old hags seem
 
 62 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 to superintend all the most difficult part of 
 the work. The clay used for it is, I believe, a 
 natural clay brought down from the interior and 
 exchanged for some other article. Instead of 
 using a pottery wheel, each pot is literally built up 
 from the inside and rounded with a stick or by 
 hand — the sphere getting larger and larger, whilst 
 the inside, towards the top, gets smaller. When 
 finished a fire is lit and stones built up over it, and 
 directly the right heat is obtained, the newly made 
 pot is placed on them and baked. 
 
 Nearly all the cooking is done in these con- 
 trivances, and they seem capable of standing any 
 heat as well as a good deal of rough usage. 
 
 Sago, yams, bananas, sweet potatoes, cocoa-nuts, 
 and fish are the staple foods which the New Guinea 
 natives fatten on. The fish is often smoked and 
 cooked in the earthenware pots or eaten raw. The 
 method of smoking it varies, but generally it is 
 roughly done in a hut. 
 
 Owing to the extensive coral reefs all round 
 these islands, fishing by means of nets is a difficult 
 task, and one that does not often pay, as they get 
 torn to pieces on the reefs. Line fishing suffers 
 from the same disadvantage, so that when a big haul 
 of ground fish is wanted a method introduced by the
 
 SPEARING FISH. BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 63 
 
 traders is adopted — fishing with dynamite. This 
 sounds somewhat peculiar, but it is most effective. 
 
 Directly a shoal of fish is seen a charge of 
 dynamite is exploded in the water, which has a 
 most disastrous effect on the fish, as it stuns all 
 within a tremendous distance of the discharge. 
 Boats are then run out, and with the aid of the 
 natives the unconscious fish are picked up and 
 thrown into them. 
 
 The Papuans thoroughly enjoy the sport, and 
 dive and swim after the floating things with 
 great glee, laughing, and the shouting and splash- 
 ing as they swim through the water with a 
 fish in their mouth and one in each hand, is 
 tremendous. On reaching the boat they throw 
 them in and are away again as quick as lightning 
 after more. 
 
 Spearing is another method the natives have, 
 for which purpose they erect platforms in the 
 water. The fisher will stand on this platform with 
 a long spear in his hand attached to which is a 
 long thin cord. Holding the spear in the air, 
 ready to throw, he waits like a statue till his eyes 
 catch sight of a big fish in the clear waters 
 beneath. Then suddenly you see the spear fly 
 from his hand, and the next minute he is yelling
 
 64 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 with delight and hauling in a struggling fish at the 
 end of his spear. 
 
 The young natives are also fond of shooting fish, 
 and go off in parties armed with bows and arrows, 
 seldom returning without a good bag. 
 
 One often hears extraordinary tales of fisher- 
 men, and perhaps there is none better than the 
 one told by Jerome K. Jerome of the plaster cast 
 that every one claimed to have caught, but even 
 this has to take a back seat when you are first 
 told that a man has seen fish climbing trees. But 
 in spite of the apparent tallness of such a yarn it is 
 nevertheless true. In New Guinea these pisca- 
 torical gymnasts can be seen, and Mr. Hardy, 
 when visiting Tupusuli (one of the most unique 
 marine villages in New Guinea, lying a few hours' 
 sail south of Port Moresby), had the pleasure of 
 seeing these fish at their exercises. 
 
 The trip was an interesting one and worth 
 relating. At the invitation of the Rev. Dr. Brown, 
 whose missionary work in these parts is well known, 
 Mr. Hardy accompanied him on a trip down the 
 coast to Tupusuli. Among the doctor's guests 
 were Dr. Wyllie who was out there on scientific 
 work, Prof, von Yost, a German journalist who 
 at certain times claimed direct relationship to
 
 MARINE VILLAGE, TUPUSULI, BRITISH 
 NEW GUINEA

 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 65 
 
 Bismarck, and a few others who also can verify the 
 following, as they too were among the party. It 
 was a jolly expedition, and the yacht, which belonged 
 to Dr. Chalmers the head of the missionaries in 
 New Guinea, was captained by a Raratongan chief 
 who was noted for his enormous strength. The 
 scenery along the coast is wild and broken ; here 
 and there little villages backed by palm groves 
 can be seen, and natives running about on the 
 shore add to the beauty of the scene. 
 
 Tupusuli lies in a little bay, and is protected from 
 intrusion by coral reefs and mud-banks, but the 
 yacht safely manoeuvred these, and then the village 
 came in sight. At low tide it looks extremely 
 weird, as some of the huts are built on very high 
 piles a considerable distance from the shore, right 
 out in the mud. The village proper is also com- 
 pletely surrounded by water at high tide ; behind 
 it is a row of splendid palms, and a broad street 
 dividing some huts where the men are generally 
 seen canoe-making. As the tide was out when 
 the yacht anchored, the party had to be taken off 
 in the gig and landed on the nearest mud-bank, 
 from which they waded into the village. 
 
 On the way they passed a clump of mangroves, 
 partly surrounded by water, and it was here these
 
 66 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 quaint little fishes were seen climbing up the bark 
 of the mangoes. In appearance they look like a 
 very small mackerel, though the head is rounder 
 and more nobby, and from the breast two little legs, 
 like those of a caterpillar, protrude. The tail and 
 fins are exactly the same as those of other small fish. 
 They seemed very shy, and on the approach of the 
 strangers they scuttled down the trunk and sprang 
 back into a pool of water at the foot of the tree, 
 and nothing would induce them to show up again. 
 Here at Tupusuli are the ruins of an old Dubu 
 house, which looks as if it had been an exceedingly 
 large one. 
 
 After examining the canoes and many of the 
 houses the party made their way back to the gig, 
 and as the tide was now in they had not far to 
 walk. On reaching the yacht, however, it was 
 found that the anchor had got jammed, and as the 
 wind was blowing pretty hard and the tide running 
 in, the captain feared that they would go aground 
 on a very nasty reef unless they got away quickly. 
 All hands were brought to bear on the chain, but to 
 their horror they found that their pulling was of 
 no avail ; all the time the yacht was swinging round 
 and getting dangerously near the reef. Suddenly 
 from the shore a dozen canoes were seen coming out
 
 NATIVES OF THE NEW HEBRIDES 
 HAVING A DRINK
 
 BRITISH NEW GUINEA 67 
 
 full pelt. The natives had guessed what was wrong 
 and were rowing out to help. Soon the water was 
 black with canoes, and the shouts of the natives 
 were almost deafening. At last they were along- 
 side, and one standing in the bow of his boat looked 
 up at our captain. " Me fix him, captain, you get 
 anchor all right, " he shouted, and the next instant 
 he had dived head foremost under the yacht. No 
 sooner was he out of sight than another followed, 
 and so on till the water was in a regular foam with 
 diving and swimming natives, there must have been 
 dozens of them, whilst crowds of others hung 
 round in their canoes anxiously watching for their 
 comrades to come up and report progress. As each 
 woolly pate shot out of the water the watchers 
 called out questions, but without answering they 
 dived again — they had only come up for breath 
 — and neither the party nor the natives were 
 able to find out what was wrong. After nearly 
 ten minutes' work they all came up, and their 
 disappointed faces told the tale. It was no good, 
 the anchor was completely jammed, and in spite 
 of all their efforts these good fellows could do 
 nothing. 
 
 To save the yacht from grounding the chain had 
 to be cut, and shortly after that the yacht rode out
 
 68 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 of the bay clear of the rocks, amid the cheers of 
 the natives. 
 
 Jamming of anchors in these parts is not an 
 uncommon experience, and to avoid losing them 
 many skippers carry a charge of dynamite about 
 with them, which they slide down the anchor chain 
 at the end of a piece of slack rope. If the charge 
 is timed properly and all goes well, the coral, between 
 which the anchor is fixed, is blown to smithereens. 
 Some skippers, however, have had any but pleasant 
 results from this experiment, and have not only lost 
 their anchor but considerably damaged their boats.
 
 PART II 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 
 
 69
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 South Sea traders good and bad ; their ups and downs — Nicolas 
 the Greek— The Mambare river massacre — Some queer 
 creatures with queerer ways — A fitting end to a wasted life. 
 
 There is a grim uncertainty about the life of a 
 South Sea trader. To-day he is alive and the 
 centre of a crowd of cringing natives who bow 
 down before him, offering their goods in ex- 
 change for others, obeying his every word, for 
 he is their lord and they are his slaves. But 
 to-morrow may alter everything, and find that all 
 that is left of the once boastful trader is a mangled 
 corpse. 
 
 He may curse the Papuan, he may cheat him 
 and rob him of his wives up to a certain point, 
 then the worm turns, and one dark night, when 
 the trader is lying unsuspectingly in his lonely hut, 
 murder steals through the jungle in the shape of 
 a naked savage whose eyes gleam with revenge. 
 Yes, there are no half-measures with these savages, 
 
 71
 
 72 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 no gentle stabbing, no single shot, but absolute 
 mangling in a ghastly form. 
 
 Sooner or later death has come to nine-tenths of 
 the traders ; sometimes it has been unjust, but 
 more often richly deserved. The remaining one in 
 ten lives free from all trouble and in harmony with 
 his men, and he prospers and enjoys his life. 
 
 The majority of the men who trade out there 
 are rough, uncouth beggars, but they have a jovial, 
 devil-may-care way with them, taking both life and 
 death as they come ; they rise in the morning, not 
 knowing if they will ever see their beds again in 
 this world, but they don't mind that. Some of 
 them are as plucky as they are coarse, and as jolly 
 as they are muscular ; but it is deplorable to think 
 that they are the men who are civilising and form- 
 ing the future of the natives, and with such guides 
 it is not surprising that they steal and murder, and 
 that in some parts no trader dare leave his store for 
 a night lest it be sacked by daybreak. A trader's 
 existence is no life for a peaceful white man ; it 
 means, as Louis Beck so aptly puts it, " a pistol in 
 one hand and your life in the other." Yet there is 
 room for the honest man and plenty of money to 
 be made, for these islands abound in untouched 
 wealth, as the success of Messrs. Burns Philp
 
 GOLD MINERS LEAVING A TRADING 
 SHIP, BRITISH NEW GUINEA
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 73 
 
 shows. They have made money, and their advance- 
 ment shows that with honesty and enterprise there 
 is plenty of room for good men. A few more such 
 firms and the place would soon change and become 
 a prosperous colony, where decent folks could live 
 with some certainty of dying a natural death. 
 
 There are tales galore, all filled with a grim 
 humour, of the small traders in these islands ; 
 many of them are characters in their way, who have 
 drifted over the whole world and finally settled, or 
 become stranded, on these shores. 
 
 Perhaps one of the best known about New 
 Guinea was Nicolas the Greek, whom Mr. Hardy 
 met at Samarai and describes as a man of medium 
 height and burly build, with a dark complexion 
 and a clean-shaven, Yankee-cut face. He dealt 
 chiefly in pearls, and had come on board the Titus 
 (the boat on which Mr. Hardy was) to sell some. 
 That day he wore a pair of canvas trousers, soiled 
 and very much damaged, a soft hat that had at one 
 time been black, and a dirty white jersey, which 
 was tucked up in a roll at his waist. In this roll 
 he kept his valuable pearls, and to get at them he 
 would unroll a little of the jersey, and then having 
 got hold of his pearl box he would work it up his 
 
 chest and bring it out below his chin. His life 
 
 10
 
 74 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 was not a rosy one, as he was wanted in all quarters 
 by white and black men, and several attempts had 
 been made to kill him, but he generally managed 
 to get the first shot home, and so lived on. He was 
 quite used to wrecks, for it almost seems that the 
 sea required his life too, but that also went dis- 
 appointed, for nothing seemed to be able to kill 
 Nicolas. He was a dangerous man to chaff, even 
 when he was well filled with wine, and most men 
 kept clear of him, or when they did have dealings 
 with him they were very civil and never gave him 
 a chance of picking a quarrel. 
 
 Old Harry Hutten, who blew his arm off with 
 a charge of dynamite whilst fishing, was a man with 
 a history as long as your arm, but he fell foul of 
 the natives, and was, I believe, found dead one 
 morning. Johnnie Pratt, one of the most decent 
 men out there, married a native bush girl, and by 
 doing so offended the shore natives, who eventually 
 killed him and carried her off, to show how hurt 
 they were at his not choosing a wife from the 
 " Women belong Sea." 
 
 But Dick Eade is one of the straightest traders 
 there, and will tell you, if ever you meet him, more 
 tales of the ups and downs of a trader's life in half 
 an hour than you will hear elsewhere in a lifetime.
 
 JOHNNIE PRATT WITH HIS IVORY NUTS, 
 AT SIMBO, SOLOMON ISLANDS 
 
 At the time when I did the original sketch from 
 which this picture was made, Johnnie Pratt, a French 
 trader, was in health and prosperity. He had his 
 small house with the copra and boat sheds down on a 
 narrow beach under the shelter of a tropical forest 
 that spread upwards over the hills round a lovely little 
 bay. He was a jolly chap, and when last I saw him 
 was singing among his " boys "' at work. He had 
 married a native girl, daughter of a local chief, and 
 at the birth of their child this chief gave him the 
 fore-shore round the bay. He seemed to have had a 
 happy time as times go in these parts, though his life 
 had been attempted more than once on a neighbouring 
 island. I do not remember now when it happened, 
 but not far from his place he was murdered, and so 
 came to the end many traders do in the wild 
 Solomons. 
 
 The drawing shows Pratt taking tally of the 
 weight of the sacks of ivory nuts which the "boys" 
 are bringing from the sheds to be put into boats. The 
 native in the foreground is wearing a sunshade.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 75 
 
 A few years back he decided to take a trip home 
 to the Old Country, as he had made enough money 
 for a good holiday, so he left his partner in charge 
 of his store and sailed away. But directly he 
 reached Melbourne a letter was sent to him to say 
 that his partner had been killed, and that his boat 
 was high and dry on the rocks with a perforated 
 bottom. So instead of going home he had to 
 return and make a fresh start. 
 
 There is plenty of excitement in the South Seas, 
 and a glorious uncertainty in the life, and none 
 know it better than the traders and miners. The 
 most surprising thing is that often no cause can 
 be found to account for the natives rising. The 
 Mambare river massacre was one of these strange 
 risings, and when the survivors came to Port 
 Moresby the story they told of that mining venture 
 was grim indeed. 
 
 It appears that a party of miners, under the 
 leadership of a man named George Clark, went up 
 the river on a prospecting tour. They succeeded 
 in making friends with all the natives they came 
 across near the mouth of the river, and purchased 
 several canoes from them. 
 
 For the first week or so all went well, and in 
 every village they came to they were well received
 
 76 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 by the natives, who even assisted them to get their 
 canoes over the rapids which abound in the river. 
 In spite of these friendly demonstrations the 
 miners noticed that several canoes were following 
 them and that each one contained armed natives, 
 but as they showed no hostility and kept some 
 distance behind, it was decided to take no notice 
 of them. 
 
 They had travelled about forty miles up the 
 river, when they reached a point where it was found 
 necessary for all to disembark in order to get the 
 boat up a particularly difficult rapid. Clark, how- 
 ever, remained in the boat to steer it, whilst the 
 other miners, assisted by the natives, hauled the 
 boat along with a tow-rope ; the white men were 
 at the far end of the line whilst the natives were 
 close to the bow of the boat, there being in all about 
 a dozen natives. 
 
 Suddenly, when the boat was nearly at the top 
 of the rapid, the tow-line snapped, and after a 
 moment's confusion one of the miners sprang back 
 and tried to seize the piece still attached to the 
 boat, when to his horror he saw it had been cut. He 
 yelled to his mates, but before they could come 
 half-a-dozen natives had sprung into the boat and 
 were being carried swiftly down the stream.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 77 
 
 All thought that they had done this to assist 
 Clark in managing the boat, and no one suspected 
 treachery. Even Clark appears to have been 
 unalarmed, as he continued to guide the boat by 
 means of the steer oar. 
 
 From the banks the miners watched the boat 
 drifting until it reached the native canoes behind. 
 Then the truth flashed upon them ; in a moment 
 a shower of spears were sent at Clark, and the 
 natives in the boat rushed at him. From the 
 banks the miners fired their revolvers, and two 
 of them sprang into the river and swam to rescue 
 Clark. In the meantime he fought like a Trojan, 
 but several spears had struck him, and suddenly 
 the miners saw him leap into the river, but directly 
 he came to the surface one native struck him full 
 on the head with a paddle, and just as he was sink- 
 ing another drove a spear into him. 
 
 The whole ghastly episode happened before the 
 swimmers could reach Clark, for the tide was strong 
 and the men were carried helplessly along. As 
 soon as Clark was disposed of, the natives threw 
 all the firearms out of the boat ; the provisions 
 were taken to the other canoes and the boat 
 abandoned, whilst the perpetrators of the crime 
 beat a hasty retreat, but not before they had been
 
 78 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 well peppered by the miners, who by now had all 
 come to the scene of the tragedy. 
 
 Clark's body was never found, and the miners, 
 having lost all their provisions, tools, and practically 
 all their arms, decided to return to the mouth of 
 the river. On the way down they were greeted 
 with spears and jeers, and had to clear their way 
 every now and then with a shower of bullets from 
 their revolvers, and yet when they had come by 
 these same villages on their way up the river they 
 had met with nothing but friendliness. 
 
 To this day the reason of the attack is not 
 known, in spite of the fact that the Queensland 
 Government sent an expedition to inquire into the 
 matter, and to capture the natives responsible for 
 Clark's death. 
 
 Besides the grim stories of the Pacific there 
 are plenty of amusing ones, and sometimes funny 
 anecdotes are told of weird traders who have taken 
 up their quarters along the coast. No one can 
 go round far without meeting one, if not more, of 
 these oddities. 
 
 Aoba, in the New Hebrides, however, stands 
 unique in possessing the most original, if unortho- 
 dox, trader who has visited these islands for many 
 a long year. Maybe the old chap is dead and
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 79 
 
 buried now, for I am writing of 1894 when " Tartan 
 Jock " lived on Aoba. He was a wild Highlander 
 with chest and shoulders like an ox. His face was 
 as rugged as the mountains of his native country, 
 and his accent was one you could cut with a knife. 
 From his youth upwards he had led a life of 
 adventure, and had come at last to the most God- 
 forsaken island in the world to finish his days in 
 peace and quietness, and to this end he had chosen 
 the most dangerous and cut-throat part of the 
 New Hebrides. Yet he seemed to have no 
 particular desire that his death should be a sudden 
 one. A year or so before going to Aoba he had 
 paid a visit to his birthplace to see the old folks, 
 but his stay there had been a short one, and the 
 only result of it was that the brogue had gotten 
 into his nostrils again, and judging by the sound of 
 it would remain there till the sharp spear of one 
 of his black neighbours let it out. 
 
 As tough a customer as ever trod these islands 
 was Jock, but, strange to say, the natives rather 
 liked him, as was proved by the fact that his 
 tenancy of the tumble-down trader's house on 
 the beach had been longer than that of any of 
 his predecessors. 
 
 Aoba has a reputation for being a trader's burial
 
 80 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 ground, but, as far as I know, Jock is still above 
 ground ; he was a man, too, who seemed to love it. 
 If ever you managed to come across him unawares 
 he was stretched out at full length on the bright 
 warm sand, with his arms at right angles to his 
 body, and his great legs spread out like young logs. 
 Jock could sleep all day like this, when there was 
 nothing else to do and no trading boats about where 
 he could get a " wee drappie " — Jock's wee drops 
 were bottles. But when the wine was in, his wits 
 were out, and then it was a case of " look out for 
 yourself," for at these times Jock was dangerous, 
 but basking on the beach he was a picture, and a 
 quaint one too, for he had an absolute horror of 
 civilisation and clothes, and a tartan shawl and a 
 Tarn o' Shanter hat, with more than one hole in it, 
 constituted his complete attire. 
 
 Stretched out at full length he could often 
 be seen on the beach, with his shawl wrapped 
 round his shoulders and chest, a great pair of bare, 
 brown, hoary legs sticking out, and his woollen hat 
 pulled right over his face with the nob of it where 
 his nose ought to have been. Like this he was a 
 sight that would have scared the life out of his 
 " puir mither." But such was Jock, and when sober 
 a more amusing man would be hard to find.
 
 SOLOMON ISLAND BOY CLIMBING AFTER 
 GREEN COCOA-NUTS, NEAR GAVUTU, 
 NEW FLORIDA. 
 
 Nothing was to me more refreshing after or during a 
 hot clay in these islands than a long draught of milk 
 from the green nut. On arrival at a trader's or settler's 
 station, if you did not care for a " tot " of rum or 
 "square face," young cocoa-nuts were brought. If there 
 were none about, a boy was sent up the nearest palm 
 to fetch some down ; when he brought them, one end 
 was cut off with a large knife, and then you could drink 
 long and deep. A large nut will hold more that one 
 man can take at once. If you felt inclined you could 
 eat the soft inside with a spoon. 
 
 In the South Seas no one thinks of eating the nut 
 when the hard shell has come, it is then " Kaikai, 
 belong pig," and also made into copra.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 81 
 
 His hut lay a hundred yards back from the sea, 
 hidden away in the densest part of a clump of bush, 
 and not a white man slept within miles of him, 
 yet Jock was happier there than he had been for 
 years, and when the boat called he always had 
 plenty of copra and as good a show of ivory nuts 
 as any of the traders. 
 
 Fifty miles from here there was one day a 
 curious scene enacted : James Clark, a new trader, 
 whom Messrs. Burns Philp were starting, had 
 refused to go ashore at the island for which he was 
 destined, owing to some ghastly reports he had 
 heard whilst the steamer was lying outside it. The 
 supercargo, a splendid fellow, was puzzled to know 
 what to do, but at last suggested that he should 
 try Aoba, where a trader was waiting to give up 
 his store. Clark jumped at the idea, though he 
 was warned it was, if anything, worse than the 
 place at which he had refused to stop : he was 
 sure, he said, no place could be. 
 
 A more depressed man than Clark during the 
 remaining week of his voyage could not have been 
 met, for bad accounts of murdered and boycotted 
 traders were in the air just then. However, Aoba 
 was reached at last, and after having supplied 
 
 "Tartan Jock" with his goods and relieved him of 
 
 11
 
 82 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 his copra, the steamer sailed on to Clark's landing- 
 place. 
 
 Here a most awful picture presented itself to 
 the unhappy man. 
 
 The retiring trader rushed to the shore as he 
 sighted the boat and waved frantically. He was 
 an old worn-out man in a filthy pair of pyjama 
 trousers and a coat torn and ragged. He looked 
 as if he had neither washed nor slept for weeks, 
 and he afterwards told the crew he hadn't had a 
 decent feed for a month. His account of the place 
 was horrible in the extreme. 
 
 For some unknown reason the natives there 
 had strong objections to traders in their territory : 
 the one before him had been killed, and this man, I 
 do not know his name, had been warned several 
 times that, unless he went, he too would share the 
 fate of the last. The natives had point blank 
 refused to bring him copra, and to add to his dis- 
 comforts had stolen nearly all his food. Day and 
 night he had had to watch lest they killed him. 
 His copra shed had been burnt down, and all his 
 clothes, except those he stood in, had been seized 
 and distributed. 
 
 This was the place on which poor Clark was 
 landed, and his misery was too awful for words ;
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 83 
 
 but there was no other station vacant, and so the 
 only thing he could do was to stay. 
 
 Accompanied by the supercargo and a few of 
 the crew he was taken to his hut, which lay a 
 little way from the beach. It was almost in 
 ruins, and contained nothing but a bed, a few 
 empty boxes, and some soiled pages of illustrated 
 magazines. After looking inside, he turned to one 
 of the crew, who had shown sympathy for him, 
 and said in the most plaintive tone : — 
 
 "This is a fitting end to a wasted life." 
 
 Fifteen minutes later the steamer left the bay, 
 and the last those on board saw of Clark was as he 
 stood by his boxes on the shore waving a farewell 
 to them. 
 
 Bad as the natives were to him they did not 
 butcher him, and some months after a vacancy 
 was found at Tanna Island which Clark took. 
 His stay there was very short, for within a month 
 a bullet sent him to a better land. 
 
 Such were the lives of the majority of the 
 traders a few years ago, but things are better now, 
 though there is still room for improvement, and 
 still plenty of opportunities for good men.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Natives who have had no chance ; their villages without streets, 
 and their curious huts — The tambu and canoe houses — An 
 unlucky trader. 
 
 Wild and ferocious as the natives of the Solomon 
 group are they possess some fine characteristics. 
 Many of them far surpass the rough European, in 
 those parts, in generosity and disposition. 
 
 The more you travel, the more you find that 
 both men and beasts treat you in much the same 
 way as you would treat them under similar con- 
 ditions. There is undoubtedly a silent telegraphy 
 which tells a savage or a wild beast, more plainly 
 than it would a civilised human being, the attitude 
 you are holding towards him, and he instinctively 
 holds that same attitude towards you. 
 
 The Solomon islanders have a name for being 
 the most treacherous and bloodthirsty race in 
 existence, but when one remembers the way they 
 were treated by the first invaders of these islands, 
 
 84
 
 SOLOMON ISLAND VILLAGE, NEAR 
 MARAU SOUND, NEW FLORIDA
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 85 
 
 the Spaniards and French, and afterwards by the 
 whalers and the roughest traders that ever stepped 
 aboard a schooner, it is really a wonder that they 
 permit a white-faced man to pass within coo-ee of 
 their islands. 
 
 From the earliest days they have learned to fear 
 the white men, and, acknowledging their superior 
 powers and weapons, they naturally resorted to 
 treachery and cunning to outwit them. If they 
 had known the white man only as a benefactor, 
 their attitude towards him and their state of 
 civilisation would have been very different from 
 what it is now. The possibility is that they would 
 have developed into as fine and intelligent a race 
 as the Maoris. 
 
 Had the Maori war been at the beginning of 
 the white man's career in New Zealand, that 
 country would not be the paradise it is to-day, nor 
 would the coloured natives be the men of know- 
 ledge and wisdom some of them are. They would 
 have been given such a bad start that they would 
 not have got over it. 
 
 From the very beginning the Maoris were 
 treated with respect, and their naturally fine dis- 
 position answered to the call, and thousands of 
 them so trusted the Englishman that had the war
 
 86 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 gone on for another thirty years their faith in 
 him would not have been shaken. 
 
 The Solomon islanders have had no chance, 
 they have been feared from the beginning and shot 
 down on the slightest provocation. It is only now 
 that they are beginning to discriminate between 
 the bad and the good white man, and I am perfectly 
 safe in saying that a straight man can go amongst 
 them unarmed, and if he treats them well he will 
 be as safe with them in the densest bush as he 
 would be in crowded Piccadilly. 
 
 The native villages are very different from those 
 in New Guinea. Very few of them are built on 
 piles, but in some of the small interior villages pile 
 dwellings can still be seen. They are, however, 
 only some two to four feet off the ground, like 
 many others found in the countries of all savage 
 races. Streets, too, are not discovered as often in 
 the Solomons as elsewhere, the houses being built 
 with no particular design. A clump of bush will be 
 dotted with houses, with only small paths leading 
 from one to the other. The houses are of the typical 
 hut shape, built of wood and thatched. A ridge 
 pole resting on two uprights supports the roof which 
 is triangular in shape, and the sides are formed in a 
 similar fashion. Before thatching, both the roof
 
 EARLY MORNING, GAVUTU, SOLOMON 
 
 ISLANDS
 
 n
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 87 
 
 and sides are formed by poles lashed together on 
 which the thatch is worked. The door, if it can be 
 so called, is merely an aperture which opens from a 
 raised platform, and to get into the hut it is necessary 
 to step — one generally falls — down into the room. 
 
 There are no windows, and the door is the only 
 place for letting in the light and letting out the 
 smoke of the fire, which is generally burning in the 
 centre of the hut on the floor. Most dwellings are 
 divided into two parts ; one is used for sleeping 
 purposes, whilst the other is occupied in the day 
 time. The Solomon islander is luxurious and likes 
 a bed to lie on, which is made very much like an 
 ordinary miner's bed : two logs form the top and 
 bottom on which rest a dozen or more long poles 
 lashed together. The whole is covered with mats. 
 A pillow made of a small round log is used by the 
 particularly luxurious. 
 
 Beyond the actual necessities, such as these beds 
 and a few cooking-pots, and weapons of war and 
 field, there is nothing else in the huts, and the in- 
 teriors are gloomy and depressing. 
 
 The platform outside is used by the owners to 
 sit and lounge on. The roof of the house projects 
 over the platform and protects those sitting on it 
 from the sun and rain.
 
 88 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Each house belongs to its individual owner, 
 and not, as in many other places, to the village. 
 There are strict laws governing property, and on 
 the death of the owner it is handed down to his or 
 her nearest relation. The same law applies to yam 
 patches and land plots. Each man holds certain 
 rights which are protected by the people, and 
 though the laws are unwritten, they are closely 
 adhered to — superstition playing a great and im- 
 portant part in preventing any violation of them. 
 
 The chief of the village generally inhabits a 
 much larger house than his subjects, and in 
 many cases he has other houses round him for 
 the accommodation of his wives, relatives, and 
 descendants. 
 
 Palavanua is the name by which the smaller 
 houses are called, and Euro is the name given to the 
 larger ones. Though the Euros are of similar con- 
 struction, they are far more elaborately built and 
 are generally used as a shelter for war canoes or for 
 the spare habitation of a chief. Nearly all villages 
 have an Euro in their centre, and they are sometimes 
 used on state occasions for meetings and ceremonies. 
 The chief's private house is taboo, or sacred, and no 
 one but he may enter it ; an awful calamity would 
 befall an intruder.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 89 
 
 Some chiefs have a separate compartment in 
 their own home where their wives sleep, whilst 
 others prefer to have them a little distance off. 
 
 Each house has one particular pole in front of it, 
 holding the ridge pole which is " Hope," or sacred. 
 It is grotesquely carved with figures in threatening 
 attitudes ; and all manner of rubbish is laid at 
 the foot of this household god, piled up loosely, 
 and looking very much like an ordinary rubbish 
 heap. Old axe-heads, tins, shells, worn-out hats, 
 canes, old cooking -bowls, and pipes, are amongst 
 the most popular articles given to this god. 
 
 There seem to be no particular laws regarding 
 sleep, the married women only are partitioned off, 
 whilst every one else is at liberty to sleep where he 
 or she feels most inclined. 
 
 The canoe houses are very well built. Ingova's 
 at Rubiana was a particularly good one, having 
 two large doors with slits above them running 
 nearly to the roof to admit the long and high prows 
 of his canoes. The sides of the house were par- 
 titioned off into shelves where his favoured guests 
 were allowed, and expected, to sleep. On three 
 sides it is surrounded by dense scrub, or was a few 
 years ago, and the front looked out on to the lagoon. 
 This place, Rubiana, is one of the most difficult 
 
 12
 
 90 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 places in the world to enter, and it was probably 
 chosen by the wily old chief for that very reason. 
 One entrance from the sea, termed the "back 
 passage," is simply a maze of small islands, and it 
 requires a man not only of extraordinary courage 
 but of consummate skill to navigate a boat through 
 them without damaging it. Having safely manipu- 
 lated the passage all is well, and the wide expanse 
 of clear calm water which fronts Rubiana well 
 repays the anxiety spent in reaching it. 
 
 There is little wonder that in this stronghold 
 Ingova was able to defy his enemies, and with his 
 army of head-hunters carry terror into the villages 
 of his neighbours, but of these exploits anon. 
 
 Tambu houses are also built and used as meeting- 
 houses, and being freed from " taboo," in the sense 
 that any one may enter them, they are used by the 
 young men of the village as a kind of rendezvous, 
 and crowds of natives can always be seen lounging 
 about in them or sitting in rows gossiping. They 
 are also used for general meetings, councils, and 
 certain ceremonies. It is customary, and etiquette, 
 to go direct to the tambu house on arriving at a 
 village, and there, before the crowd, state your 
 business. In this way you are sure to win the 
 good opinion of the natives. There are always
 
 OLD INGOVA'S WAR CANOE HOUSE. 
 RUBIANA LAGOON, NEW GEORGIA, 
 SOLOMON ISLANDS. 
 
 Fifteen years or more ago, old Ingova, the notorious 
 head-hunting chief of Rubiana lagoon, was about at 
 the height of his power, anil his raids of slaughter to 
 neighbouring islands were of dreadful frequency. It 
 was to this canoe house that he returned after a 
 successful expedition in his great TOMAKO (war 
 canoes) laden with ghastly trophies, but ever since 
 Rear-Admiral Davis, then of H.M.S. Royalist, sacked 
 this place in 189 1, all has been comparatively quiet, 
 though I did hear, while I was there, that Ingova had 
 led a head-hunting raid or two. 
 
 The old shed, for it looks very like one, stands 
 near the margin of the lagoon, not far from the fringe 
 of the thick bush and forest. All is fast falling into 
 lecay, and the whole place has a haunted feeling 
 about it. Inside was an old war canoe and the re- 
 mains of former splendour. Till you came to look 
 carefully at the structure its size did not strike you, 
 but I found it was about 72 feet long by 30 broad. 
 and quite 30 odd feet to the top pitch of the roof; 
 the high slots above the two doors were made to let 
 out the tall fore-peaks of the canoes.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 91 
 
 plenty of them waiting to hear anything of 
 interest. 
 
 The erection of a tambu house is generally an 
 excuse for a big festival, and at one time required a 
 human head to be sacrificed and eaten, and was 
 thus the cause of many a head-hunting expedition. 
 
 Bones of human beings can still be seen hanging 
 in these houses. The body of the victim was 
 always eaten at the feast, and, besides it, pigs, 
 fish, and other animals were devoured in large 
 quantities. Gorging is anything but a crime in 
 the Solomon Islands ; in fact, it is not an un- 
 common sight to see a native so puffed up with 
 over-eating that his friends have to lay him out on 
 the ground and then gently knead his back — this 
 operation they find helps to digest the food, though 
 personally I would not like to recommend it to a 
 dyspeptic. 
 
 At Santa Catalina there is a very fine specimen 
 of a tambu house, over sixty feet in length. All 
 the principal posts are carefully carved with weird 
 representations of fishing expeditions, fights, war 
 canoes, head-hunting expeditions, and other pictures 
 of the daily life and occupations of the Solomon 
 islander. The ridge pole, which is bigger than the 
 usual run of these poles, is carved all over with
 
 92 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 pictures which no modern journal would care to 
 reproduce. The roofs of most tambu houses are 
 more or less alike in general construction. They are 
 supported on four or five rows of posts, the central 
 one being about fourteen or fifteen feet high, whilst 
 the outside ones do not run to more than three 
 or four feet high, owing to the slant of the roofs. 
 
 Throughout the group there is not one village 
 standing out above all others, and there is no 
 capital town, but on every island there are villages, 
 and the chief in each considers his the capital. 
 
 The two largest islands of the Solomon group 
 are Bougainville and Guadalcana ; Bougainville, the 
 larger of these two, belongs to Germany. 
 
 Guadalcana, from the sea, is an uncanny look- 
 ing place — a great dark mountain gradually rising 
 to a height of 8000 feet, covered with dense, dark 
 foliage and culminating in a volcano. The 
 Lion's Head near by is a ragged cluster of grey 
 rocks. Here and there patches of sage green 
 relieve the monotony of colour and show where 
 clumps of palms are growing. A thin line of bright 
 yellow sand, and the white foam of the sea as it 
 breaks over the reefs, add colour to the island and 
 make of it a strange picture. 
 
 On the east side of Guadalcana is a little trading
 
 ON THE FRINGE OF A PRIM/EVAL 
 FOREST, SIMBO, SOLOMON ISLANDS 
 
 One of the most impressive sights to be seen on some 
 of these islands was the real tropical forest. This 
 picture shows just the commencement of one, through 
 which a native track wound its way. Though it was 
 a brilliantly fine day, yet I remember when we were 
 fairly into the forest depths it was just like twilight ; 
 while here and there long streaks of sunlight were 
 streaming through the tree-tops, reminding us of the 
 lights coming through the windows of a cathedral. 
 We all went Indian file, and in many places the bush 
 was so thick that we lost sight of each other ; now 
 and then we came upon a small native village.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 93 
 
 station, where not long ago " French Jack " resided, 
 until at an untimely moment the blacks swooped 
 down on him, carried away his wife and cut him to 
 pieces ; the crew of the little trading-boat, when 
 it called for his copra, found his remains and buried 
 them. But this is an old story, one of the many 
 that come from these islands. A call from the 
 Governor and the arrest of a few of the culprits is 
 the way in which these stories end, and the captives 
 eke out the rest of their existence in durance vile 
 at Fiji, or if proved guilty pay the proper penalty. 
 
 For his place of residence poor " French Jack " 
 had chosen one of the brightest spots on the island 
 and built his hut in the most approved style, with 
 an uninterrupted view of the sea. Close by his hut 
 was a long shed where his servants, or " boys " as 
 they are called, slept after their work of drying 
 the copra, husking ivory, and attending to the other 
 light duties of a trader's establishment. At the back 
 of his house was his yam patch and banana grove ; 
 behind that the wild thick scrub and the bush. 
 
 A lonely spot for any one to live, but such are 
 many of the settling places of a trader, and to those 
 who live in the bush there is no feeling of loneliness : 
 in the crowded streets of a big city these same men 
 might be overpowered by their solitude.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Solomon Islands — Ingova's head-hunters — How whole tribes 
 were wiped out — Savage invasions and clever tactics. 
 
 The Solomon Islands, not being of such importance 
 as New Guinea, have had much less attention paid 
 to them. 
 
 No doubt the extreme danger which has always 
 attached to a visit to these islands has made the 
 white man give them as wide a berth as possible, 
 only going there when compelled to either for 
 trading or scientific purposes. It is here that 
 cannibalism flourishes, and the head-hunters go 
 forth on expeditions in all their savage grandeur to 
 strike down the unsuspecting neighbour. 
 
 If there is uncertainty about life in New Guinea, 
 there is precious little in the Solomon Islands, for 
 the chances are ten to one against one's living to 
 tell the tale, unless he keep strictly to the trading 
 parts of the islands. 
 
 Travellers, scientists, and traders still visit the 
 
 94
 
 PORTRAIT OF A SOLOMON ISLAND 
 CANNIBAL 
 
 This man was said to have " kaikaied-man plenty" 
 (to have eaten plenty of men). He told me in 
 island English that I /was no good to eat. His teeth 
 were stained red by chewing the betel-nut.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 95 
 
 interior, and some come out all right, but to every 
 one that survives a dozen succumb, simply because 
 cannibalism is to a certain extent a religious 
 ceremony to these natives. 
 
 They do not kill and eat human beings for the 
 sake of their taste, or because they are hungry, as 
 some writers will insist on having us believe. The 
 cause is farther back than this ; in nearly every 
 case when human beings are killed and eaten, it is 
 on occasions when such a sacrifice is necessary, 
 according to the natives' religious beliefs. 
 
 Like the prophets and priests of old they believe 
 in sacrifices ; they honestly consider that they are 
 doing the correct thing when they kill, cook, and 
 eat a man or woman, and it will take many years 
 and many missionaries to persuade them to the 
 contrary. Of late, however, there are indications 
 that in some of the islands head-hunting: is losing 
 favour, particularly with the younger generation, 
 which sounds satisfactory, for if the rising generation 
 decide against the practice it will soon die out. 
 Other causes sometimes arise which may help to 
 stop the custom. For instance, in one part of New 
 Georgia the chief, some years ago, gave orders that 
 no more human flesh was to be eaten, which to 
 many might look as if his cannibalistic views were
 
 96 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 chansrin^, but the cause of it was not a moral, but 
 a physical one : the last feast of man they had 
 indulged in caused an epidemic of sickness to run 
 through the tribe, and the chief did not wish such 
 a thing to occur again. He felt that either the 
 digestion of his tribe had altered, or that the par- 
 ticular tribe on which he had been feasting was no 
 longer palatable, so he stopped it. Again, in other 
 parts certain chiefs boast that they do not eat human 
 flesh, and hope is again raised that these savages are 
 reforming, but a little closer inquiry shows that the 
 particular chief deals in human flesh, trading it to 
 other natives, and, like the man who makes the 
 sausage, he does not eat it. 
 
 Throughout these islands there are very few 
 tribes who are still actually cannibals, in the sense 
 of the word as it is generally accepted, but in spite 
 of this grain of promise life is just as uncertain, 
 because one can never tell when a head is needed 
 for a religious ceremony. You may live on the 
 most friendly terms with a tribe for months, and go 
 away with the idea that cannibalism is dead, and 
 laugh at those who have tried to make you believe 
 otherwise, but had you remained one day longer, or 
 the chiefs son died one day sooner, that laugh would 
 never have come off, but instead your head would
 
 SACRED SKULL SHRINES, BRITISH 
 SOLOMON ISLANDS 
 
 The skull houses are small erections supported, in 
 this case, on pedestals ; the length is about three feet, 
 with an overhanging roof. The box is open at the 
 back as well as in the front, and charms of Tredacua 
 shell and leaves are suspended in front. The houses 
 in the background are made of canes and grass ; that 
 in the foreground is of wood. The native is carrying 
 a shield.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 97 
 
 have, and your comely carcase would have been 
 frizzling in the kai-kai dish ; and the very men 
 who had made so much of you a little before, would 
 with equal glee have made less of you then. 
 
 When standing before a chief, who is smiling at 
 you and treating you to all the courtesies his nature 
 can conjure up, and knowing that with him you 
 have trusted yourself for many an hour's smoke or 
 solitary ramble in the bush, it is difficult to 
 realise that the same chief a week before was on 
 the warpath, concocting the most devilish schemes, 
 and carrying out the most fiendish atrocities on 
 men, women, and children in his pursuit of heads. 
 But such is the case, and one can only account for 
 the inconsistency of it by putting these acts down 
 to a religious mania, and thus giving these otherwise 
 amiable and interesting creatures a certain excuse 
 for actions which to us would seem inexcusable. 
 
 Tribe after tribe has been completely wiped out 
 by certain powerful chiefs through a continued 
 series of head-hunting expeditions. The methods 
 adopted by the aggressive party are simple and 
 generally most effective. The Rubiana natives are 
 perhaps the most bloodthirsty of all the Solomon 
 group, and, being both rich and powerful, they can 
 descend on a village and overpower it by sheer 
 
 13
 
 98 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 force of numbers, even without the use of modern 
 weapons, which are now owned by nearly all the 
 important tribes. The most notorious head-hunter 
 in later years was Ingova of Rubiana lagoon, New 
 Georgia, to whom I have already alluded. He is 
 old and wizened now, and his hand trembles as 
 he lifts the glass of grog he begs from you, after 
 telling a yarn of the good old days. Yes, Ingova's 
 strength and valour are gone now, and could the 
 departed spirits of the hundreds he has killed in 
 days gone by see him as he is to-day — his feeble 
 limbs, his shaking hand, his bloodshot eyes, and 
 seared face — they would indeed wonder what it 
 was they feared in him. Where is the great spirit 
 that once possessed him ? they would ask. They 
 would scorn him now, and the women would laugh 
 at him — poor, feeble, tottering Ingova. 
 
 Years ago Ingova's Euro was hung with skulls, 
 hundreds of them were strung in the cross-beams, 
 with staring, vacant eyeholes, which looked out of 
 nothing and yet seemed to see everything. Their 
 drooping lower jaws, showing sets of white teeth 
 which glistened in the rays of the moon, made 
 Ingova's heart throb with pride as he stood and 
 tried to count them. White naked skulls of brave 
 men all hung in rows — they had all belonged to
 
 INGOVA'S HEAD-HUNTERS, BRITISH 
 SOLOMON ISLANDS

 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 99 
 
 men, for a woman's head is not worthy of such an 
 honour. 
 
 One day, soon after one of Ingova's rash 
 ventures amongst white men, Commander, now 
 Rear- Admiral, Davis played havoc with his village, 
 burning and sacking it. It was no ordinary attack 
 but a clean sweep he made of Rubiana, and then 
 the shore was littered with Ingova's skulls : skulls 
 that he and his fathers had collected for generations 
 were scattered in all directions, and lay bleaching 
 on the beach, some half burnt and others cracked 
 and broken. 
 
 That was an awful day for Ingova, and for 
 months after he was a broken-hearted man. But 
 the savage spirit was still in him, and he was 
 not long in recovering from the shock, and to 
 rectify his loss he set out on a big head-hunting 
 expedition. 
 
 His mode of attack was an ingenious one. He 
 would start out with every war canoe he possessed 
 (some twenty or thirty, manned with a force of five 
 or six hundred men — swarthy, hard, muscular, dark- 
 skinned men), and a British built whaling -boat. 
 Having previously decided on the island he meant 
 to surprise, he would send out two flanking parties 
 and probably land a small force lower down the
 
 100 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 coast. Then, accompanied by the whaling-boat, he 
 would make straight for the front of the village 
 like an innocent trader, and having enticed the 
 natives to the shore he would commence his 
 slaughter. The two arms of his force would close 
 in and kill all those who failed to get away, the 
 others he would drive back to the centre of the 
 island where the land force would be waiting to 
 drive them to the shore again, killing men all the 
 time. Thus hustled and attacked on both sides they 
 were trebly trapped, and would fall like sheep before 
 the shots and tomahawks of Ingova's five hundred. 
 
 But with all his efforts Ingova never regained 
 the long rows of heads of which he used to be so 
 proud, and now he is too old to go out and look for 
 more, but not too old to forget Captain Davis's 
 little visit to Rubiana. 
 
 He wears no necklace round his neck now, for 
 Admiral Davis has it, it having been given him 
 by Ingova many years after that little visit as a 
 kind of peace offering — they are quite friendly 
 now. 
 
 Mai was another chief whose reputation for 
 head-hunting and absolute brutality was a house- 
 hold word in the South Pacific. He was chief of 
 Sap una in Santa Anna, and periodically raided
 
 A CANOE SHOWING THE "TOTOISHU," 
 NEW GEORGIA, SOLOMON ISLANDS 
 
 The idea of this carved wooden head on the prow is 
 to frighten off the evil spirits, or kesoko, of the 
 waters and look out for dangerous reefs.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 101 
 
 the adjoining islands, killing and butchering every- 
 one who crossed his path. 
 
 Dr. H. B. Guppy, in giving an account of his 
 acquaintance with him, says, that on his (Dr. 
 Guppy's) arrival at Santa Anna he learned that 
 Mai had just been out on one of his raids. He had 
 led a war party across to Fanarita, on the opposite 
 coast of St. Christoval, to avenge the death of a 
 fugitive from a labour vessel, who, having escaped 
 at Santa Anna, subsequently found his way to 
 Fanarita, where he was killed. 
 
 The excuse, although somewhat circuitous, was 
 quite sufficient for Mai, who really thought more 
 of this chance of gaining new laurels than of the 
 untimely end of a native whose death he pretended 
 to be so eager to avenge. Having reached the 
 part of the coast where this man was killed, the 
 war party lay in ambush and slaughtered a chief 
 and two women as they were returning from their 
 yam patches, whilst they severely wounded another 
 woman who escaped into the bush with a spear 
 through her back. 
 
 Mai had a knack of keeping his followers up to 
 the mark by working on their superstitions and 
 never letting old feuds die out. 
 
 The islands of Isabel and Guadalcanar were the
 
 102 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 hunting grounds for the New Georgia chiefs, whilst 
 occasional visits to Florida Island helped them 
 along. From ninety to a hundred heads were 
 often brought in by some of these chiefs, the result 
 of a long and successful raid, and many travellers 
 who visited these islands between forty and fifty 
 years ago state frankly that the lives of the natives 
 in the less powerful islands were not worth a day. 
 They never knew when a canoe might land with a 
 force superior to theirs and wipe them all out ; the 
 wonder is that there are so many still alive. It is 
 only owing to the falling off of these ghastly 
 expeditions that they have had time to recover and 
 repopulate their villages. 
 
 With such massacres going on and the practice 
 of infanticide always in vogue, the present state of 
 the natives is almost marvellous, and only shows the 
 hardiness and regenerating powers of these islanders. 
 
 Nowadays head - hunting, as I have already 
 stated, is only resorted to on certain occasions, and 
 when a head is needed a sum of money will often 
 be offered for one, and the chiefs of different 
 villages are acquainted with the fact. A hunt 
 round is immediately made, and any native who has 
 made himself objectionable to his neighbours is 
 sold for the purpose.
 
 A LAGOON IN NEW FLORIDA, 
 SOLOMON ISLANDS
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 103 
 
 Neither the time of his death nor the fact that 
 he is to die is told him, so that he is relieved from 
 all worry. He is watched most carefully, and a 
 certain hunter is told off to procure his head. It 
 may not be for weeks after the sentence has been 
 passed that it is carried out, but when once the 
 decree has gone forth the man is as good as dead. 
 The hunter may have been ingratiating himself 
 in his victim's good books, and thus waiting his 
 opportunity for months ; then one day, when the 
 unsuspecting victim is quite off his guard, the flash 
 of a spear or the dull thud of a tomahawk is all 
 that he knows. The next day his head is carried 
 to the chief and the shell money paid over for it. 
 Then the feast or ceremony for which this ghastly 
 object is required takes place amid much rejoicing. 
 White men have often fallen victims to this custom, 
 and many a trader has only received warning from a 
 friendly native just in time to escape the same fate. 
 Money has often been paid down for the head of a 
 white man, and if he has not heard of it in time to 
 escape, his death has followed. 
 
 The missionaries, however, have seldom suffered ; 
 they are tolerated, and seem to go on in a quiet and 
 peaceful way, quite secure where every other white 
 man's life is in his hand.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Clothes and the men — Love of adornment — Natives who are not 
 keen on eating — Methods of cooking their food — Betel-nut 
 chewing. 
 
 The native dress of the Solomon islanders is 
 even more scanty than that of their neighbours 
 the New Guinea natives. Usually the sole 
 clothing of the men consists of a "T "-shaped 
 garment encircling their waists and passing 
 between their legs. Unmarried women and 
 children fail to see any necessity for clothing at 
 all, except those in places where the missionaries 
 have brought their influence to bear ; then a loin 
 cloth is worn similar to that used by the natives 
 of Fiji, Samoa, and Honolulu, to cover their 
 nakedness. 
 
 Though the Solomon islanders do not clothe 
 their bodies with cloth, they endeavour to cover as 
 much flesh as they can with ornaments and flowers, 
 and a keen competition is kept up in the discovery 
 
 104
 
 NATIVE OF NEW GEORGIA WEARING 
 SUNSHADE, A SORT OF CROWNLESS 
 HAT MADE OF GRASSES: IT CAN 
 BE WORN AT ANY ANGLE.
 
 t »*»*»M.UAMiy
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 105 
 
 of new ornamental shells, and in trade articles with 
 which to adorn themselves. 
 
 The men are always attempting to rival each 
 other in this respect, and go through endless torture 
 as a result. They wear tight armlets, heavy ear- 
 rings, anklets, and nose-rings, the weight and dis- 
 comfort of which would be more than most white 
 men could stand. 
 
 Shell necklaces are among the most handsome of 
 native ornaments, and they are made from various 
 kinds of shells, cut and ground down, and in some 
 cases beautifully polished. The Tredacua shells are 
 most popular, and portions of them are converted 
 into most artistic ornaments. Armlets are made of 
 these shells, but it is a most tedious job and takes 
 the maker ages to accomplish, as the circle is 
 generally cut out with a rough piece of iron and 
 then finished off by a course of rubbing with sand. 
 Both men and women wear armlets, and, as most of 
 them are placed on their arms when they are quite 
 young, they become extremely tight as the wearer 
 grows up, and look as if they would destroy the use 
 of the, limb. For some unexplained reason, these 
 bracelets seem to have little or no effect on the cir- 
 culation of the blood, which compels one to notice 
 that custom is responsible for many quaint problems. 
 
 14
 
 106 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 The most extraordinary ornaments, however, are 
 the grotesque ear-rings worn by the men. When 
 quite young, a small hole is pierced in the lobe of 
 the ear, generally with a stone, and the opening thus 
 made is filled with a piece of banana leaf wound up 
 and twisted so that it acts as a spring, continually 
 enlarging the hole until it is big enough to be filled 
 by a piece of wood, or circular looking-glass, or any 
 other quaint thing the possessor of the hole can get 
 to put in it. 
 
 Some of these holes are considerably bigger than 
 the man's ear. Lieutenant Boyle T. Somerville, 
 who made a point of studying these particular 
 natives, says that he measured one native's lobe hole 
 and found it was four inches in diameter, and Dr. 
 Guppy states that he has seen natives carrying their 
 pipes and matches in these gaps, and on one occa- 
 sion he saw Taki, the Wano chief, with a heavy 
 bunch of native shell money hanging from each 
 ear. Taki said it was a sign of mourning for a 
 recently deceased wife — it certainly needed some 
 explanation. 
 
 Nose-rings and other nose ornaments form an- 
 other disfigurement for which these natives have a 
 weakness. Lately the women have taken to making 
 very pretty ornaments of trade beads, which they
 
 A RUBIANA NATIVE, SOLOMON ISLANDS 
 
 This portrait shows a native wearing large ear-rings ; 
 the lobe of the ear passes round the wooden ring. 
 In travelling through dense forest they take the 
 wooden rings out and tie the long ear-lobes under the 
 chin. The gorget of pearl shell with a fretted-out 
 MBELEMA (frigate-birds) suspended round the neck 
 is supposed to invite the protection of the spirit called 
 ''PONDA." The man's hair is turned yellow by 
 the use of lime. The armlets are of shell and hair 
 or grass ; the design on the ear-rings may be a 
 frigate-bird motive ; it is made of pearl shell let into 
 the wood.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 107 
 
 work into curious designs and arrange with peculiar 
 mixtures of colour ; some are also ornamented 
 with wild flowers, and present an almost artistic 
 appearance. 
 
 In Rubiana strange native methods of hair doing 
 can be seen. Some men's is cut in the most 
 fantastic way and ornamented with bright plumes 
 and flowers, and occasionally one possessing an 
 extra fine crop of bushy hair will have it propped 
 up with a piece of old hoop iron, and then if he can 
 get hold of a comb, as he often can, he sticks it 
 through the hair and the effect is weird. 
 
 Some also bleach their hair and make it the 
 colour of straw, though this is not met with as often 
 as in Samoa, where I have seldom seen a native 
 without bleached hair, or without hair that shows 
 signs of having been bleached at one time. 
 
 The same custom of shaving the head when 
 in mourning is in vogue here as in New Guinea. 
 Tattooing, however, is not nearly so popular, and 
 very few natives in New Georgia show any signs of 
 it. In place of it they paint their faces with lime, 
 and look rather like clowns. 
 
 Raised cicatrices are very popular, and some 
 quaint designs are worked on their bodies. Lots of 
 natives have a porpoise and a frigate bird carved in
 
 108 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 this fashion on their bodies. Most of the designs 
 are extremely crude, owing, no doubt, to the custom 
 of the boys who cut them on each other with rough 
 shells. 
 
 Regarding their food and their ways of cooking 
 it, and even the hours of having it, the natives are 
 very happy-go-lucky, and there seems to be a free 
 and easy sort of dropping in on each other when 
 the smell of cooking is in the air, and of partaking 
 of anything that is going. Mr. Hardy himself 
 witnessed a peculiar incident of this kind at Simbo. 
 A native had been out collecting eggs laid by some 
 bird which hides them in the sand, and on returning 
 the native went into an old chief's house near the 
 shore, where a small fire was burning on the floor 
 just inside the door, and began stirring the inside of 
 the eggs up in a piece of cocoa-nut shell. This he 
 placed on the fire and continued stirring for a few 
 minutes. Then apparently getting tired of the 
 operation he got up and sauntered off. His place 
 was immediately taken by another native, who also 
 stirred for a while and then ate some of the 
 mixture. Whether the eggs were not to his taste, 
 or the mixture was too hot is not known, but he 
 made a terrible face, put the shell back on the fire, 
 and walked out of the hut.
 
 A STORMY DAY IN RUBIANA LAGOON, 
 SOLOMON ISLANDS
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 109 
 
 Two other natives tried their hand at the con- 
 coction and left it as he had, and presently the 
 original owner came back and finished the remnants. 
 During the whole of this scene the old chief sat 
 unconcerned, and amused himself playing with a 
 club for which Hardy gave him a piece of tobacco. 
 The chief's heart having thus been won, he 
 pulled down a magnificently carved club from the 
 eaves of the house, It was carefully wrapped up 
 in palm leaves, and the old man handled it with the 
 greatest reverence and care, but beyond the fact 
 that it was a ceremonial club he was unable to 
 explain anything about it or for what special cere- 
 mony it was used, as his English was not over strong. 
 
 No amount of tobacco, however, would tempt 
 him to part with it — the very idea of selling it 
 seemed to hurt him. 
 
 After hiding it away he next produced an old 
 musical box and requested Hardy and Dr. Willey 
 to "make him sing." The instrument was sadly 
 out of order, but after a little manipulation they 
 were able to get it to grind out fragments of 
 Faust, with long stops between every few bars. 
 This, however, did not bother the old man in the 
 least, the delight on his face was grand, and he was 
 so pleased that, after hearing the noise for about
 
 110 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 ten minutes, he took the musicians all over the 
 little village. 
 
 It was a curious place, huts were dotted here 
 and there in an artistic disorder among the palms 
 and banana trees. The chief led the way, and behind 
 him, following like a well-trained dog, was his 
 slave, a man belonging to some other tribe, and 
 quite different in appearance and physique from the 
 natives in Simbo. It is customary to keep slaves 
 for various reasons besides that of service — if a 
 human head is needed in a hurry, the slave's is 
 handy. Crowds of little children and pigs were 
 running in and out amongst the scrub, and both 
 seemed to take a great interest in the white visitors. 
 
 After endeavouring to explain many interesting 
 things, the chief took his guests to his private house, 
 which was a well-built roomy place, after the style 
 of an ordinary farm-barn, with low walls and a deep 
 slanting roof. The inside was perfectly destitute 
 of furniture, and the only place on which to sit 
 was the floor, or a low shelf, which the old man 
 probably used for a bed when he wanted one. 
 Close to the house, and sheltered from the burning 
 sun, was a very fine kai-kai dish, which the chief 
 showed them with much pride. 
 
 It was on a small platform raised some four feet
 
 COOKING THE MEAL, BRITISH 
 NEW GUINEA
 
 N.-< Mt.p,
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 111 
 
 from the ground, and underneath it there were signs 
 of a recent fire. In size the trough was consider- 
 ably larger than an ordinary coffin and somewhat 
 like one in shape, though at each end there was a 
 piece of carved wood. This one, the chief explained, 
 was not used for cooking human beings, but for 
 mixing and cooking food on feast days. 
 
 When explaining this fact, Mr. Hardy says, 
 though I can only take his word for it, as I was not 
 there, that the chief looked at him with a hungry 
 eye and murmured to Dr. Willey, " He go in nicee, 
 make good kai-kai." 
 
 But to return to native diet : sago, taro, sweet 
 potato, sugar-cane, bananas, and a very poor kind 
 of bread fruit, constitute their chief vegetable food ; 
 fish and occasionally a pig are their only other 
 eatables. The cooking of these articles is generally 
 done in rough bowls or in a European iron pot. 
 When anything special is going to be eaten it is 
 broiled in an earth oven. Betel-nut chewing, 
 however, seems almost to satisfy these natives, for 
 their meals are most erratic, and they often only 
 take a small piece of fish with them when they are 
 going out for a whole day's tramp or work. 
 
 The method of chewing betel-nut is rather 
 interesting. The nut is about the size of a walnut.
 
 112 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 This they place in their mouth with a green leaf 
 and chew it. When it is well under way they dip 
 a small stick into their lime gourds and add a 
 modicum of lime or ground coral to it. The effect 
 of this mixture is, so some say, equal to a glass of 
 good grog, but, though it acts as a strong stimulant, 
 the natives do not seem to suffer any ill effects 
 from it. Chewing is in no way restricted to the 
 males, both women and young girls favour the 
 practice, and relish the betel-nut as a great dainty.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Some clever ways of catching fish — How the bonito is landed — 
 Native nets — Pig- hunting — The sly opossum and the 
 crocodile. 
 
 Lazy as the Solomon islanders are they are 
 excellent sportsmen, and be it man-hunting, pig- 
 hunting, or fishing, it is all the same, they go in 
 for it with a fine relish. Cunning and dexterity 
 play an important part in their methods, and make 
 up for their want of up-to-date appliances. 
 
 At fishing they surpass most native races, their 
 ingenuity in this sport being remarkable. Where 
 the white man will fail with all his latest improve- 
 ments in fishing tackle, these uncultivated men 
 will succeed with quickly improvised and crude 
 materials. 
 
 For bonito -fishing they have a remarkable 
 device, and entice these large fish from the deep 
 sea and catch them as easily as an English boy 
 will secure a stickleback. It is one of the most 
 
 113 15
 
 114 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 exciting of their sports to watch. A man stands on 
 a rock, for preference, and throws out a line some 
 thirty or forty feet in length, attached to the end 
 of which is a floating bait of some fatty matter ; 
 below him and bending double into the water is 
 another native, who works a little piece of bamboo 
 cut off at the joints and having a hollowed-out 
 groove in it. With his thumb in the end of the 
 hollow and his hand gripping the stick he works 
 this backwards and forwards in the water, giving it 
 a peculiar twist, which makes it send forth a weird 
 and uncanny noise. This sound, so they say, is in 
 imitation of the cry of female or male, I forget 
 which, bonito, and so attracts to it a mate. 
 
 Whilst one man is steadily working in this 
 manner, the other on the rock is watching every 
 movement of the native with an alertness and 
 excitement which is shown by his tense attitude. 
 Long before the untrained eye has noticed anything 
 peculiar, this fisher has gradually begun to draw in 
 his bait, and soon the great head of the bonito is 
 seen rising out of the water in an endeavour to 
 catch the bait. But the fisher, who by now is in a 
 perfect steam of excitement, adroitly snatches the 
 bait away only just quickly enough to save it. The 
 bonito dives, and the next instant he is up again
 
 THE REEF NEAR SIMBO, SOLOMON 
 ISLANDS

 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 115 
 
 and after the tempting morsel at full swing. From 
 that moment a most exciting chase begins, and the 
 extraordinary way in which the native gradually 
 entices the great fish to within a few yards of the 
 shore without frightening it, or allowing it to seize 
 the bait, is as fine a performance as one could wish 
 to see. 
 
 All this time the other man is working away at 
 his bonito call. Then suddenly the water is lashed 
 into foam, and the man on the rock is straining 
 every muscle. The fish is hooked, and three or four 
 adroit tugs at the line bring him in to the foot of 
 the rock, where he is pounced on by the two men, 
 speared, and landed. Even then the game is not 
 ended, for a bonito dies hard, and a struggle of no 
 mean order is sometimes gone through before the 
 natives have conquered. 
 
 To see two black figures struggling with a fish 
 nearly as big as themselves is an extraordinary sight, 
 and is perhaps the most exciting part of the sport. 
 More than one native has been injured in the last 
 act, but that only adds to their keenness to conquer, 
 for they have unlimited courage, as every one who 
 has lived amongst them knows — except, I may add, 
 when superstition plays a part, then they are the 
 most abject cowards.
 
 116 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Kite -fishing, though less exciting, is another 
 popular form of fishing and is conducted in the 
 following manner. A large kite is sailed behind a 
 canoe, and attached to the tail of the kite is a line 
 with a bait which just touches the water. The 
 gentle bobbing of the kite makes the bait jump on 
 the surface, in the same way that an ordinary angler 
 makes his fly play on the water. This is supposed 
 to suggest the presence of a small fish, and the kite 
 is there to represent a bird hovering over it. In 
 this way large fish are attracted and caught. 
 
 Ordinary line and hook fishing is also used, 
 and the hooks are beautifully made, sometimes of 
 mother-of-pearl and sometimes of turtle shell. 
 
 On a moonlight night a party of natives will go 
 out in their canoes to fish for the makasi, a large 
 fish which feeds round the mouth of rivers and 
 lagoons. This is a somewhat dangerous sport, owing 
 to the captive fish occasionally being attacked by a 
 shark just as it is being landed, which sometimes 
 results in the canoe being upset, and its occupants, 
 the fish, and the shark all getting mixed up. Such 
 an excitement and noise is caused by the yelling 
 fishermen that the shark is often frightened, and 
 clears off without even tasting either the fish or 
 the fishers.
 
 NATIVE ARCHER SHOOTING FISH, 
 BRITISH SOLOMON ISLANDS
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 117 
 
 The most ingenious devices in the way of nets 
 are used in different parts of the island. Some are 
 even made of a tough spider's web ; whilst others 
 are almost the same in construction as the English 
 net and, strange to say, are knotted in a similar 
 manner. The hand-net varies in length to about 
 eighteen inches and is made on different kinds of 
 wood, often bamboo. The mesh is small, and the 
 handle is, as a rule, most elaborately carved with 
 representations of sharks, frigate birds, etc., and 
 is made of wood. For ordinary purposes a two 
 and a half inch mesh is used, but a six inch is used 
 on the larger nets for big fish. 
 
 A party of natives will often be seen carrying 
 peculiar flat hand-nets made of light bamboo, with 
 an arched top, varying in length to some eighteen 
 feet. Armed with these queer-shaped things they 
 wade out into the shallow water, where they know 
 a shoal of fish is at play, and by pushing their 
 nets before them they form a circle round the 
 shoal and thus have it at their mercy. They are 
 wonderfully sharp in knowing when a school of fish 
 is about, and they show a surprising amount of 
 energy in capturing it. 
 
 Dynamite is now frequently used by the natives 
 here as in New Guinea, as they have learned from
 
 118 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 the traders that it is an easy method of obtaining 
 big hauls, and anything that saves them labour they 
 immediately adopt, as long as it does not interfere 
 with their old customs. 
 
 There is another form of fishing which is pretty 
 general all round the coasts of the different islands. 
 Beche-de-mer, or the Malayan trepang. It is a 
 curious-looking thing like a piece of india-rubber, 
 very tough and flexible, and is found on coral 
 reefs. It has no eyes, nor does it seem to possess 
 any means of getting about. In length it varies 
 from six to twelve inches and is between two and 
 three inches thick. 
 
 The natives gather them off the rocks or catch 
 them in very low water ; and immediately after 
 they have got a basket full they clean and dry them, 
 and then boil them for about a quarter of an hour. 
 Some are cut open like a herring and smoked over 
 an ordinary wood fire for about a day. The Beche- 
 de-mer industry is a big one, and Chinamen are 
 very fond of it, as they can make good money 
 by it without a large outlay. Great care has to 
 be taken in storing the fish, as the slightest damp 
 causes them to rot. 
 
 Spearing fish from a platform built on piles a 
 little way out to sea is also popular here amongst
 
 SEARCHING FOR SMALL OCTOPI ON THE 
 REEF AT LOW TIDE, SAMARI, BRITISH 
 NEW GUINEA. 
 
 While sketching at Samari I remember seeing these 
 men ; they were busy poking under stones and coral 
 with short sticks for octopi. These sticks very soon 
 became soft and bent at the end j they then came 
 to me to have them sharpened with my penknife. 
 These small octopi form a part of the natives' food. 
 In the distance is the island of Sariba.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 119 
 
 the boys, and their well-trained eyesight comes into 
 play ; having once spotted a fish they seldom miss 
 him with their spear. 
 
 In mentioning the native eyesight, personally, 
 I don't think any of the savage races are better 
 equipped in this respect than we are. What 
 appears to be keenness of vision is only training, 
 and I have noticed the same keen-sightedness 
 amongst cattle-men in the Colonies. They will 
 recognise a cow miles away in the scrub, which 
 unaccustomed eyes cannot even see when the 
 animal and place in which it is are pointed out. 
 A little practice, however, soon overcomes this, 
 and in a very short time the new chum is as quick 
 as the old Colonial in spotting cattle. I mention 
 this experience, as I have seen a good deal of 
 nonsense written on the subject, and the extra- 
 ordinary strength of the natives' eyesight in these 
 parts has been commented on. I know that, 
 with a little practice, any one possessing average 
 good sight can equal these so-called extraordinary 
 creatures. 
 
 The same thing applies to the power shown by 
 natives of throwing the voice. Necessity has made 
 these men speak to each other from long distances, 
 and so they have unconsciously dropped into the
 
 120 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 right method of doing it. They cannot tell you 
 how it is done — they just do it. 
 
 To return to island sports, there is nothing from 
 an Englishman's point of view to beat a good pig- 
 hunt, and in the Solomons it can be enjoyed better 
 than in most places. In all parts of the bush pigs 
 can be found, in fact, the one thing the traveller 
 has to look out for more particularly than anything 
 else, is the sudden rush of an angry boar. There 
 are no dangerous snakes or ferocious animals 
 inhabiting the bush, and you can pass a night 
 under a tree with perfect safety, and sleep 
 as securely as in your own bunk, provided, of 
 course, you are on friendly terms with the natives. 
 Pigs are the only things that need watching. 
 When a sow has a litter and you accidentally 
 come too close to her haunt, then there is 
 trouble, and the nearest tree is the safest spot to 
 make for. 
 
 In hunting pigs the native dogs come in useful, 
 but only for starting and rounding them up, for 
 it is seldom they will actually attack and kill them. 
 That part of the business, including the long chase 
 over fallen trees and through masses of vines and 
 the thousand and one other obstructions, is left to 
 the hunters. The natives themselves are keen on
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 121 
 
 the game, and are very smart with their spears and 
 tomahawks. The white men tackle them as a rule 
 with gun or knife. One of the most exciting pig- 
 hunts I was ever in was when our whole party 
 was armed with sheath knives only. The pig 
 was bailed up against a big tree and we closed in 
 on him, knives in hand, and, whilst his attention 
 was being attracted by one of the party, another 
 rushed in and struck the fatal blow. 
 
 Those bush pigs are larger than the ordinary 
 unfattened farm pig, and the boars have very fine 
 curved tusks almost equal to the Indian pig. The 
 young ones have a delicious taste, and when properly 
 cooked in a native oven make very good eating ; 
 they are as tender as chickens. 
 
 The wily opossum leads its hunters a rare 
 dance, but the natives, who are its chief hunters, 
 enjoy the game thoroughly. It is a sport at 
 which white men are no good as it necessitates 
 remarkable agility in tree climbing. The boys run 
 up the trunks of the trees and give chase to the 
 little animal from tree to tree. They follow the 
 opossum as quick as lightning, until the poor 
 creature is driven to the ground. Then, of course, 
 he is captured easily, as his clumsy movements 
 prevent him from running at any great speed — all 
 
 16
 
 122 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 his powers of swinging by his tail are lost when he 
 gets on the ground. 
 
 Owing to the thickness of the undergrowth in 
 the bush hunting is not over enjoyable, and it 
 generally resolves itself into a track - making 
 expedition, and the only way to ensure a safe 
 return to the village is to mark the trees as one 
 goes. There is such a similarity in shape of the 
 trees and the lay of the country that it is impossible 
 to remember the way one has come, and as the 
 light only penetrates dimly into the thickest parts, 
 one cannot get any knowledge as to the shape of 
 the tops of trees, a method by which one is often 
 able to travel with certainty in less thickly growing 
 bush. This darkness also prevents one from getting 
 one's bearings by the sun, so that tree scarring is 
 the only sure method of avoiding unnecessary delay 
 in the bush. 
 
 Crocodiles are met with pretty frequently in the 
 swampy districts and in the rivers. They are of 
 the usual type, ranging from six to fourteen feet in 
 length. They do not seem to mind salt water in 
 the least, and are often observed quite a distance 
 out from the shore, in fact, when they are chased 
 they generally make for the sea. I do not know 
 whether this is common with crocodiles in other
 
 THE HOME OF THE CROCODILE, 
 BRITISH SOLOMON ISLANDS
 
 T aa?
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 123 
 
 lands, but those in the South Sea islands appear to 
 prosper and be contented in both fresh and salt 
 water. 
 
 The natives seldom hunt them, and do not hold 
 them in fear. They will even bathe in a river 
 known to be frequented by them. Whereas in 
 Queensland rivers no sensible man would dream of 
 such a thing, his life would not be worth more than 
 the first two strokes. The crocodiles there are of 
 a far more ferocious disposition, and have been 
 known to chase men a considerable distance on 
 land, while such a thing has never been heard of in 
 these islands. 
 
 Beyond these few forms of sport there is nothing 
 to attract the tourist sportsman to the Solomons, 
 as the country is devoid of all other animals worthy 
 of the chase, and the fishing is such that any 
 island far nearer and less dangerous will supply ; 
 but being in these quarters these few sports help 
 to pass the time, and give one opportunities of 
 seeing the bush at its best. Its grandeur cannot 
 be appreciated unless one gets right into it, and 
 feels its solitude and silence, then and then only 
 does the bush speak and show itself.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A curious religion — Burying the dead, and some graveyards — 
 Dancers and music — Native artists, and how fire is made. 
 
 To try and discover the actual religious beliefs of a 
 savage race is even more difficult than attempting 
 the same experiment on the religion of any par- 
 ticular European sect. It is almost impossible to 
 find two people agreeing consistently on even the 
 main principles. Exactly the same trouble exists 
 in savage races ; if you are lucky enough to dis- 
 cover a principle you will immediately get a dozen 
 different interpretations of it, and only where a sect 
 follows implicitly the ruling of one leader, and does 
 not question or argue against his teachings, can you 
 gain any knowledge worth the trouble and time 
 you may expend on it ; but in these cases I have 
 found that neither reason nor understanding play 
 any part in the belief, and it therefore lacks interest. 
 But, strange to say, throughout the savage and 
 civilised races there seems to be a belief in a 
 
 124
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 125 
 
 heaven and a hell. These two ideas, though varying 
 in detail, are world wide, but notions of the way to 
 get there, however, differ considerably. 
 
 The Solomon islanders nearly all believe that when 
 a man or woman dies he goes to live with a good 
 spirit (nito drekona) in a far off but pleasant land, 
 where his companions will be as good as he is, or 
 nearly so. The bad man, so judged by his com- 
 panions, goes to a place of fire, the abode of the 
 Evil One (nito paitena), where he has anything but 
 a happy time. During his existence there he does 
 his best to make things unpleasant for the friends 
 he has left behind him, by becoming one of the 
 many evil spirits who are supposed to do harm to 
 the living. 
 
 To obtain any further information on this sub- 
 ject is extremely difficult, and, as in other races, 
 each man and woman has a different idea of the 
 future state, some of which are particularly quaint. 
 The Solomon islander's idea of a heavenly condition 
 would be anything but heavenly to us, in fact 
 some of our worst ideas of the other place would 
 pale before their crude notions of heaven. 
 
 Another fancy they all seem to hold is that 
 the spirits of the departed return to earth, some 
 as fireflies, and some as birds, etc. They all
 
 126 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 believe that the Supreme Spirit is the embodiment 
 of good, and yet in the same breath they will tell 
 you that He becomes angry and needs that His 
 anger should be appeased either by incantations 
 or the sacrifice of human beings. 
 
 On the death of a chief, a great personage, male 
 or female, universal mourning is adopted, accom- 
 panied by feasting, which they believe helps the 
 spirit on its journey to the better land — for all 
 great people and chiefs go there direct, a fact 
 about which they seem to deplore, as they will 
 talk of the departed one as the " poor chief. 1 ' The 
 names of the dead are held in great reverence, and 
 in some islands they are never mentioned except 
 under the breath, or in the greatest secrecy. 
 
 Funeral rites differ a good deal on the various 
 islands, but the most common ones constitute a 
 feast which is celebrated when a powerful personage 
 dies. Directly the news of his death is announced 
 the natives of his tribe set about procuring a supply 
 of food, and calling together all the natives, and 
 then they commence the feast, which is followed by 
 a dance and the last rites peculiar to these islands. 
 
 Most of the ceremonies take place round the 
 house of the departed one, who is laid out and 
 covered with leaves ; subsequently his head is cut off
 
 A SHRINE OR TOMB OF A CHIEF, AT 
 SIMBO, SOLOMON ISLANDS
 
 NoRfAAN
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 127 
 
 and prepared in the approved style, which is either 
 by placing it in the bush near an ant-hill until all 
 the flesh is eaten off, or skinning it and afterwards 
 scraping it. This last horrible act is enjoyed by 
 the lucky native who is chosen to do it. After 
 this the skull is bleached to a perfect whiteness and 
 adorned with rings, which represent the chief's 
 worldly possessions, and are bound to the skull by 
 a kind of flax. Thus prepared the head is placed 
 in a head house. 
 
 At Simbo there is a regular graveyard of these 
 houses just above the beach, a mile from the 
 trader's house. It looks horrible, but is rather 
 interesting. It consists of about a dozen small huts 
 built on poles, some three or four feet from the 
 ground ; in each of these are the heads of important 
 men. Those in front are elaborately decorated 
 with rings, whilst those at the back are bare. 
 Most of the houses contain about a dozen heads, 
 but one, rather larger than the others, contains 
 more, and is partly built of stone, the front 
 being barred like a rabbit hutch. This contains 
 the heads of the chiefs only, and is looked upon 
 with great reverence by the natives. 
 
 Luckily this weird cemetery is hidden by the 
 dense bush which grows almost to the water's edge,
 
 128 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 or visitors, unaccustomed to such sights, might 
 receive a ghastly shock, as a more uncanny spectacle 
 to come across on a moonlight night than these 
 hutches, with white skulls staring vacantly through 
 the bars, cannot be realised. At the back of them 
 is the heavy dark bush, and before them the rocks 
 and the sea. 
 
 The women play the part of the chief mourners, 
 and show their grief by plastering their faces with 
 lime and chanting melancholy dirges. The men in 
 many parts shave their heads, some completely, 
 some only partially, but all cover their faces with 
 lime. 
 
 The funeral dance which follows the feast in 
 the Solomon Islands differs considerably from the 
 dances in the other islands for the same occasion. 
 A double circle of women is formed round four 
 posts, between which other women sit holding in 
 their arms the possessions of the departed one. 
 Round these the dancers gather, and with slow, 
 measured steps, timed to the tune of a beating 
 drum, they keep up an unearthly row with their 
 feet. Whilst these are marking time, the others 
 and younger ones, bearing the possessions, dance 
 round the inner circle and skip in and out of the 
 posts, always keeping in time with the beating of
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 129 
 
 the drum. It is not an interesting dance, nor is 
 it awe-inspiring like many others I have seen, 
 whilst from an artistic point of view it falls very 
 short. 
 
 There are many others in which both men 
 and women take part, but none particularly inter- 
 esting. The war dance is done in crouching move- 
 ments, and should look impressive when carried 
 out by a well-trained crowd, but as few travellers 
 have witnessed it it can only be surmised that it is 
 grand. It is danced by the natives bearing their 
 shield and spears in hand, and the performers 
 sing a peculiar droning song during the ceremony. 
 The words of it, and two other native songs, were 
 given in a paper before the Anthropological Insti- 
 tute by Lieutenant Boyle T. Somerville, R.N. 
 They run thus : — 
 
 War Song 
 
 Peka peka turo, Peka peka turo, 
 
 Po lo lu u asa na 
 Enoria chacharveli Turu sanjri. 
 
 A Favourite Song 
 
 Kele mai Kolo nioruna Kawo Konji Kili mai 
 Keli mai Kawo Tsa lu M — m — m — m — m — 
 
 Jew's-Harp Song 
 Koroso pe pa Koiro pipa 
 
 17
 
 L30 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 These Solomon Island natives appear to have 
 fairly good ears for music, and have many popular 
 tunes and songs besides those quoted above. The 
 majority of them have only a few words and a 
 simple air, but the singers make the most of them 
 by repetition, so that what appears to be a long 
 song or tune is often quite short, and contains only 
 a few lines as in the above instance. 
 
 The Jew's-harp has become very popular on 
 these islands, and both men and boys become 
 accomplished players on it. The native instrument 
 of the same class is made from a piece of bamboo 
 with a narrow groove cut out of the centre about 
 six inches long. A string is passed over the groove, 
 or tongue, and the end is placed against the mouth, 
 and the sound is produced by jerking the string 
 to make it vibrate. 
 
 The Pandean pipe, which is made on the same 
 principle as the classic pipe of that name, is of 
 native origin, and it is composed of short, hollow 
 lengths of bamboo lashed together with vegetable 
 fibre. Attached to the ends of each pipe are 
 streamers of the same substance. 
 
 The native flute (Ivivu) is composed of a thick 
 piece of bamboo nearly three feet long, hollowed 
 out but closed at each end. It contains four holes.
 
 SOLOMON ISLANDER PLAYING THE 
 "IVIVU," OR FLUTE 
 
 This instrument, when played by a native, has a very 
 sweet tone.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 131 
 
 The first one is about five inches from the top 
 and is made for the mouth of the player. At a 
 distance of another five inches is another hole for 
 the first finger of the right hand, and the remaining 
 two holes are at the far end separated by a few 
 inches. The tone obtained from this peculiar in- 
 strument is not at all unpleasant. 
 
 They possess still another instrument, known in 
 England as the mouth fiddle, which is roughly made 
 of a bent stick and has two strings. The player 
 holds one end of it between his teeth and mani- 
 pulates the strings with his fingers after the style 
 of a big Jew's-harp. 
 
 Besides their musical accomplishments the 
 natives are very fair draughtsmen, and some of 
 their drawings are surprisingly good. Shark fish- 
 ing, head - hunting, and scenes of murder, are 
 amongst their favourite pictures. The frigate 
 birds and human heads figure in nearly all their 
 designs — especially the former, which are fish- 
 hawks as large as big seagulls, but somewhat darker 
 in plumage. When soaring overhead in search of 
 prey to swoop down on, the frigate bird shows the 
 peculiar shape of its wings, which, roughly speaking, 
 form the letter " M." Like the shark it is more or less 
 sacred, and therefore not eaten and seldom harmed.
 
 132 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 All the drawings are done on wood with a red- 
 hot stick, in much the same way as poker-work is 
 done in England. There is no particular shape or 
 size or even design in the instruments used for 
 drawing. Nowadays the natives beg a little iron 
 or wire, which they make red hot and go to work 
 with to burn out their designs. 
 
 Fire was produced in the old days, and still 
 is in the bush, by rubbing two pieces of wood 
 together. One is a flat piece in which a small 
 groove has been made, and the other is a stick 
 pointed at the end. The operator holds the stick 
 in his two hands and rubs steadily up and down 
 in the groove. This rubbing makes a small powder 
 collect in the end of the groove, and after a few 
 minutes it begins to smoulder, and, finally, with 
 the aid of gentle blowing, it ignites sufficiently 
 for other dry wood to be lighted by it. 
 
 Wax matches and magnifying glasses have 
 quite superseded this method in the shore villages, 
 and as traders get farther into the country, native 
 fire producing will die out, as many other customs 
 have done and are doing daily. 
 
 The making of war weapons is already on the 
 wane, and old Winchesters and modern rifles are 
 quickly taking their places. Even for hunting
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 133 
 
 purposes the natives prefer to purchase a weapon, 
 rather than go to the trouble of making one. The 
 only sort of war weapon to be seen to-day is a 
 composition of the English axe-head, sold by 
 the traders, mounted on a handle of native 
 manufacture. These are crude but useful, and 
 are as a rule well carved. 
 
 The bow and arrow are in pretty general use in 
 the Solomon Islands, though they are not seen so 
 often in New Georgia. In Bougainville and St. 
 Christoval bows and arrows are used for all hunt- 
 ing purposes. Spears and clubs form their other 
 weapons ; the spears are not poisoned, only a few 
 have barbs on them, and the majority are made 
 with hard wood points. Bougainville supplies most 
 of the specimens showing barbs. The clubs used 
 in St. Christoval rather resemble in shape an 
 Australian boomerang with a straight handle. 
 Other clubs belonging to different islands are of 
 the policeman's truncheon order. 
 
 Shields are also carried, and are made generally 
 on a bamboo frame lashed together with native 
 string and thatched. They are between three and 
 four feet lon<r and one foot broad.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 What " hope " is to the Solomon islander — The use of 
 the evil eye. 
 
 Sacred places in the Solomons are called hope, 
 the word being used in very much the same way 
 as tapu (taboo) is by the Maoris of New Zealand, 
 and other savage races, but, unlike the Maoris, 
 the Solomon islanders use " hope " to keep a place 
 free from trespassers ; thus if a native has a cocoa- 
 nut grove or a yam patch he erects a " hope," and 
 so prevents any other native from going to it. 
 
 It is a strange custom and difficult to fathom, 
 but the belief in it is so strong that the most daring 
 native would not dream of testing its powers. There 
 are various kinds of " hopes," some will result in the 
 death of any one trespassing on them, whilst others 
 will only bring sickness upon him. A death "hope" 
 will have a skull on it, or a piece of shell, or part of 
 an ant's nest, and on seeing these signs the intruder 
 knows what to expect — that he will die as the man 
 
 134
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 135 
 
 has died whose skull is there, or die as surely as the 
 fish which once lived in the shell has died, or as 
 the ants which inhabited the nest. A " hope " in 
 which coral takes the place of the above objects 
 announces sickness to the trespasser. 
 
 A chiefs house and the grounds adjoining it 
 are nearly always " hope," and only his wives are 
 allowed to go into them, other intruders will either 
 die or fall sick. Certain animals and places are 
 also " hope," and little altars are built on some 
 of the small islands which make them sacred. In 
 fact, " hope " is a most extraordinary thing and can 
 be used in the most eccentric ways. I heard of 
 one place which was once " hope," and yet had the 
 " hope " taken away from it for no particular 
 reason. Then, again, crocodiles are in some parts 
 " hope " and are not allowed to be killed ; but in 
 one of the rivers where crocodiles abound a youth 
 was killed by them, and the chief took the " hope " 
 off until the boy's father had slain a sufficient 
 number to satisfy his anger, and then back went the 
 " hope." 
 
 Another kind of " hope " was seen by Lieutenant 
 B. T. Somerville, and was made by putting a festoon 
 of a certain creeper across the entrance to a cocoa- 
 nut grove, with pieces of the same material along it
 
 13G THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 at regular intervals, hanging perpendicularly down - 
 wards and secured to the ground. " I had two 
 natives with me at the time," he states, " and at first 
 they did not like to land on the islet bearing this 
 mark as it had been ' hoped ' by their chief, Bera. 
 They did land eventually, however, and one of them 
 went under the hope barricade, picked the central 
 tiny shoot of a large fern — in appearance like the 
 English hart's-tongue fern — from which he nibbled 
 a little bit, and then handed it to the other man 
 who did the same. They assured me that now the 
 hope would have no effect as long as they did not 
 steal any nuts." 
 
 There seem to be various methods of over- 
 coming "hope," the chief being by a payment to 
 the owner of it. He will extort what he considers a 
 sufficiently large sum of money to take away the ill 
 effects which would otherwise have followed if the 
 " hope " had been scouted. " Hope " altars are also 
 built in various parts of the bush as a means of 
 warding off certain evil spirits. On these food and 
 other things are placed, such as broken pots, shells, 
 old pipes, and worn-out musical instruments, and 
 the evil spirit dare not come near them. 
 
 In spite of the fact that the white men scorn 
 these " hopes " and do not suffer any bad results,
 
 A TAPU VIRGIN, BRITISH SOLOMON 
 ISLANDS 
 
 At the launching of a new war canoe in New Georgia, 
 two virgins are taken from the tribe ; one is publicly 
 sacrificed, and the other kept in seclusion from four 
 to five years. During this time an old woman acts 
 as guard over her. Should she break the tabu she 
 is put to death. The skulls on the sticks are a 
 sign to all that if they molest her their heads will be 
 stuck up in the same way. The object in the back- 
 ground is a skull-box ; the large necklace is of dogs' 
 teeth, and the small necklet of spiral shell ground 
 down ; the ear-rings of pieces of Tredacua.
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 137 
 
 it has in no way brought discredit on them ; the 
 belief is quite as strong now as it ever was, but the 
 natives think that the white man is guarded by a 
 special providence and so cling to their belief. 
 
 There are many peculiar legends relating to 
 monsters living in certain parts of the bush country 
 and on certain mountains and islands. One tells of 
 an enormous clam-shell which lives on the summit 
 of Vonggi, a mountain some sixteen hundred feet 
 high covered to the top with thick bush. If any 
 native ventured near it the clam-shell would kill 
 and eat him. 
 
 Superstition and ancient custom make up the 
 chief characteristics of these natives, and though 
 civilisation has made some difference in their mode 
 of living, they have not marched with the times as 
 the natives of some of the adjoining islands have. 
 The men still think it their duty to be ready for 
 attacks and leave their wives to do the work, and 
 though the chances of sudden attack have practically 
 ceased and left them without employment, they 
 have not taken up fresh work. Even the natives 
 who have returned from the sugar plantations of 
 Queensland, after their three years' service, do not 
 endeavour to instil new ideas into their fraternity 
 by example. They simply throw off all signs of 
 
 18
 
 138 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 civilisation and become as the others are, or if 
 anything lazier, but to these men and their term 
 of service in Australia I will devote a portion of 
 the next chapter. It is no doubt owing to the 
 old days of slave traffic, or black-birding as it was 
 called, that the natives here are shy and backward. 
 
 Dr. Guppy mentions a peculiar incident relat- 
 ing to the superstitions of the Solomon islanders 
 regarding the power of thinking evil of a person 
 and so bringing disaster upon him. He says that 
 when the natives cut off locks of their hair for 
 him, which he desired for scientific purposes, they 
 told him that if any sickness or calamity befell 
 them they would put it down to him. 
 
 The fear of evil wishing is very strong amongst 
 them, and when they are in mourning, and so have 
 to shave their heads, they bury the hair in order 
 to prevent enemies getting hold of it. Thought 
 transference is no speculative theory with them, 
 and they have the most unbounded faith in its 
 power where evil is concerned, but very few seem 
 to think it can be used for good. They also 
 imagine that certain people possess an evil eye or 
 can conjure it up on occasions. They often put 
 down the death of a chief to an evil eye having 
 been cast on him. This sometimes results in an
 
 THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 139 
 
 unfortunate creature being picked out and killed 
 through suspicion having fallen on him or her. 
 At other times, when the supposed culprit has not 
 been found, a terrible panic has taken place and 
 the whole village has been deserted and a new one 
 built. The old village then becomes " hope," and 
 no amount of persuasion will induce the tribe to 
 go back and settle in it, unless, as in one or two 
 cases, the " hope " is removed by some great chief 
 or medicine man. 
 
 Medicine men here, as in most other places, hold 
 unique positions, and many a smart villain prospers 
 owing to the belief that he has power over the 
 unseen — to kill or cure at will. Their houses are 
 taboo or " hope," the same as a chiefs, and in 
 many villages they are held in far greater awe 
 than the chief himself.
 
 PART III 
 NEW HEBRIDES 
 
 141
 
 BENEATH A BANYAN TREE, MALEKULA 
 ISLAND, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Islands that are advancing rapidly — Native houses with modern 
 improvements — A horrible method of getting rid of the old 
 men, and other burial ceremonies. 
 
 There is a remarkable difference between the 
 natives of the New Hebrides group and any of the 
 inhabitants of the adjoining islands. In character, 
 disposition, mode of living and religion, they are in 
 many respects far ahead of their neighbours, and, 
 strange to say, so are the islands. The soil is better 
 and the climate is more to the liking of the Euro- 
 pean, and, owing to the proximity of the islands to 
 Sydney, they are better served and more up-to- 
 date. Port Vila in Sandwich Island, the chief 
 centre, is only five days' sail from that city. 
 
 Settlement in the New Hebrides has been going 
 on for some time, and the white population has 
 nearly doubled itself within the last few years. 
 In 1901, the French residents and traders far out- 
 numbered the English, but to-day another tale is 
 
 143
 
 144 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 told, and British enterprise and power of colonisa- 
 tion have made a difference in this group ; so much 
 so that they are hardly recognisable, and they only 
 need careful legislation to enable them to overcome 
 the obstacles mentioned earlier in this book. 
 
 Where dense, uncleared bush grew a few years 
 ago in tangled confusion, blocking out even the 
 light by its thickness, acres of cultivated ground can 
 now be seen, which bring to their owners results 
 worthy of twice the toil that has been expended 
 on them. 
 
 The Hebrides is a veritable paradise for the 
 pioneer settler who loves the wild freedom of 
 island life and is not afraid of work. 
 
 A good deal of the prosperity of these islands 
 is undoubtedly owing to the strenuous efforts of 
 the missionaries, the Australian Government, and 
 that gigantic trading firm of Messrs. Burns Philp, 
 who have established a monthly service of steamers, 
 which call at all the important islands to deliver 
 and take away produce. Throughout the South 
 Seas they have trading stations, but in New 
 Hebrides their success has met with better returns 
 than elsewhere, owing to the greater number of 
 settlers who have gone there and made their homes 
 in these beautiful islands.
 
 THE RAPIDS. WILLIAMS RIVER, ISLAND 
 OF EROMANGA, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 145 
 
 The chief industry is, as in the Solomon Islands, 
 copra, but coffee, maize, tobacco, bananas, pine- 
 apples, and many other tropical products, are being 
 cultivated successfully, and each year shows some 
 new advance in agriculture ; it is safe to say that 
 before long these islands will not be far behind the 
 West Indies. 
 
 Another feature that has assisted the prosperity 
 of this group is the fact that those natives who 
 have served their three years on the plantations in 
 Queensland have not gone back to idleness, as the 
 Solomon islanders have, but, in the majority of 
 cases, have set to work on a patch of ground of 
 their own, from which they have earned good 
 money and so have assisted the prosperity of their 
 country. 
 
 It is needless to say that with all these changes 
 the ancient customs of the natives are fast dying 
 out, which in some cases is rather sad ; but, as may 
 be supposed, in others it is a good thing, and the 
 sooner their worst ceremony, that of burying the 
 old men alive, is wiped out the better. 
 
 Even to-day, in Malekula, this custom, which 
 has prevailed evidently since the beginning of the 
 race, is only kept alive by the old men ; the 
 younger ones show an absolute distaste for it. 
 
 19
 
 146 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Directly a man or woman shows signs of decrepi- 
 tude or helplessness, those who are nearest to that 
 stage themselves tell him that his time has come, 
 and that his burial will take place on such and 
 such a date. 
 
 On the arrival of the day, the grave for the 
 intended victim is dug, and, in front of a large 
 crowd, the old man is led or carried to it — if he 
 be too weak to get into it himself. He is then 
 stretched out at full length, and, whilst incantations 
 are sung, the earth is thrown over him, and willing 
 hands soon have the ground level and solid above 
 him, and the old man is left there to die. The 
 spectators of this ghastly scene then adjourn to a 
 feast, which is to many of them the most important 
 part of the ceremony. 
 
 In some cases the buried man has had sufficient 
 strength left in him to upheave the earth and rise 
 out of his grave, and has even attempted to join the 
 feast, but he has been still considered dead, and no 
 one has given him food. If he be strong enough 
 and can obtain food for himself, he is buried again 
 and again, until at last he has to die from pure 
 exhaustion, if nothing else. Should, however, a 
 very tough customer be met with, and it is found 
 that he refuses to die, and each time gets out of
 
 MOUNT MARION, THE ACTIVE VOLCANO, 
 ISLAND OF AMBRYN, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 147 
 
 his grave, he is strangled before being buried again ; 
 for once his death sentence has been passed it 
 must be carried out — he is a dead man from that 
 hour and nothing can save him. I may add that 
 directly the man is buried his property is divided 
 amongst the villagers, so that if he were allowed 
 to come back he would be a homeless wanderer, 
 and no one would have anything to do with him. 
 
 In deference to the other islands it is only 
 fair to state that Malekula is the most savage one 
 of the group. From a missionary point of view 
 the island of Tanna is perhaps the worst, as it is 
 stated that, after sixty years of labour on this island, 
 the converts to Christianity can all be counted on 
 the ringers of two hands. 
 
 Aoba and Sandwich Islands are both beautiful 
 spots and more favoured than any of the other 
 islands, when beautiful scenery is required. There 
 are two fine volcanoes, which add considerably to 
 the interest of the New Hebrides. One of them 
 is at Ambryn, which almost rivals Etna, and is 
 generally belching forth fire and fumes and now 
 and then a heavy stream of lava, which makes it 
 somewhat dangerous — as was proved not a dozen 
 years ago by an eruption there which played 
 havoc with the place, absolutely destroyed a whole
 
 148 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 village, and discoloured the sea for miles round. 
 The roar of the other one at Tanna can be heard 
 quite distinctly at Port Resolution. One of the 
 peculiarities is that an eruption occurs systematic- 
 ally every five minutes, though it is not a bad 
 one. The walk to the volcano through the dense 
 forest from Port Resolution is very beautiful, and 
 if one keeps on the weather side of it, so as to 
 avoid the fumes, a more enjoyable half-hour's climb 
 cannot be found. On reaching the top the full 
 view of the enormous chasm is appalling, and 
 the rugged, torn, and blistered sides, the curling 
 smoke and fumes, and the great gulf, present 
 a picture rivalling our worst ideas of the lower 
 regions. The explosion which shakes the whole 
 mountain puts a finishing touch to the scene. 
 
 In spite of their more civilised condition the New 
 Hebrides natives are intensely interesting, owing 
 to the fact that they can speak English, and like 
 to boast about their acquaintance with Englishmen 
 in Queensland, and therefore think it necessary to 
 speak the English language to show they have 
 been there. This enables a visitor to get informa- 
 tion regarding their customs and ceremonies much 
 more easily than in the other groups. 
 
 The natives themselves, taking them as a whole,
 
 A VILLAGE IN SANTO, NEW HEBRIDES 
 
 In the foreground are seated two men, the one on 
 the left with a bow. The women behind them have 
 their heads shaved in the usual way, with only a 
 mane down the top of the head. On the ground are 
 ordinary native pots. The long poles in the thatch 
 are for the purpose of keeping it from being blown 
 off, and the poles in front are a defence against pigs 
 and dogs, one of which is seen coming round the 
 corner.
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 149 
 
 are better built and of a more striking appearance 
 than those of the Solomon Islands. They resemble 
 more nearly the Fijian type than any of the in- 
 habitants of the sister islands. 
 
 A peculiarity most noticeable in the villages is 
 that there is greater cleanliness and order ; the 
 houses are mostly built in groups of four or five, and 
 are low, broad, barn-like huts in which you have to 
 climb up a few feet and down again in order to gain 
 admittance to the living rooms. They are built 
 on the ground and not on piles, and each group 
 is surrounded by a coral wall on which are stuck 
 long bamboo canes. These take root immediately, 
 as the wall is built when the coral is soft, and 
 present an interesting sight The bamboo canes 
 form a fine high fence, which, unfortunately, in time 
 totally obscures the houses. 
 
 A gap in the wall is left for the residents of these 
 queer compounds to pass backwards and forwards. 
 Between the houses and the wall a large cleared 
 space is left where the pigs, the dogs, and the 
 babies play. 
 
 The interiors of the houses are not quite as 
 pleasant or artistic. The whole place inside is 
 blackened with smoke and soot, owing to the 
 smoke from the fire having no proper outlet. The
 
 150 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 fire is usually lit as near the door as possible, but as 
 the doors are very low the smoke has first to fill 
 the room before it finds its way out. The thatch 
 being thicker than is usual there is very little 
 room for escape in that quarter. Bamboo is used 
 chiefly to build the frames on which to thatch 
 the grass. Forked sticks of a stouter material 
 bear the main weight of the roof, flimsy bamboo 
 canes are bent right over the ridge pole about six 
 inches apart, and secured to another stout pole 
 near the ground, lathes are then run across the 
 bamboo and lashed to them with fibre, and on this 
 framework the outside of the house is made. 
 
 The floors are covered with mats on which the 
 natives squat by day and sleep at night. Screen 
 mats also divide the interiors of the huts and cut 
 off the sleeping apartments. A few cooking 
 utensils and worn-out, soot-begrimed weapons are 
 generally to be seen lying about, but beyond these 
 articles and the natives themselves, nothing else 
 takes up any room in these dark abodes. 
 
 Each island has its own particular way of build- 
 ing a house, and those in Malekula are perhaps 
 the best and most modern. Light is admitted 
 to them through a window at the back, which is 
 boarded up at night or in rough weather.
 
 CHIEF'S HOUSE, AMBRYN, NEW HEBRIDES 
 
 Round these houses are dry-built stone or coral walls. 
 I saw more huts on this island encompassed in this 
 way than on any other. The large shell hanging 
 from the pole is a sign of a tapu.
 
 «1^*N H H**
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 151 
 
 The usual custom of natives to build near a 
 fresh-water stream is not carried out in the New 
 Hebrides ; they seem to object to fresh water and 
 seldom, if ever, drink it. 
 
 Occasionally they bathe in the sea ; but here 
 again they show a marked difference to the other 
 islanders, for they seldom swim except when 
 necessity compels them to do so, and so averse are 
 they to water that they will actually walk an extra 
 half-mile to avoid having to wade or swim through 
 a creek. 
 
 The sanitary arrangements of the village are, of 
 course, conspicuous by their absence, and were 
 it not for the crowd of dogs, pigs, and fowls, no 
 visitor could go near them. The work of the 
 missionaries, however, has done much to improve 
 the home life of the natives, and in many villages 
 their influence shows itself in the better construc- 
 tion of the houses and the greater neatness of the 
 villagers ; and much as the searcher after " original 
 conditions" might object to these improvements, 
 he must declare that from an artistic point of 
 view, if from no other, these villages surpass those 
 where the missionaries have not been able to make 
 headway. 
 
 The blending of savage ideas and European
 
 152 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 methods makes a quaint and interesting picture. 
 A thatched squat native house with a neat coral 
 path is infinitely better than the muddy, sloppy 
 places of the past, and a hut where one can see 
 when inside it, and where one is not blinded by 
 the smoking fire, is surely much better than one 
 in its native condition, smoke-begrimed and smell- 
 ing, however natural its former condition was. 
 
 The tambu houses are more carefully con- 
 structed here, and are thatched with banana leaves. 
 They are of course much bigger than the living 
 houses, and are to be seen close to the dancing 
 grounds in each place. In them are kept all the 
 accessories to the dances, for dancing plays a more 
 important part in the life of the New Hebridean 
 than it does elsewhere, and very elaborate grounds, 
 houses, and regalias are used. But this side of 
 the life we will leave for another chapter, as to 
 understand it a further insight into their other 
 ceremonies is necessary.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Ancestor worship the religion of the New Hebrides — Temples 
 and strange figures, and some sacred dances. 
 
 Ancestor worship was undoubtedly the original 
 religion of the New Hebrideans, and in many 
 islands the present form of worship is based upon 
 it. According to Mr. Macdonald, a resident in 
 Exate, the followers of it believe that after death 
 the soul passes through six stages before it finally 
 dies. When its earthly life is over it goes to the 
 gate of Hades, which is situated at Tukitaki, 
 at the western extremity of the island. Here it 
 meets Seritan the cannibal executioner, and his two 
 assistants Vanas and Maxi. Certain questions are 
 then put by them to the soul, and if it does not 
 answer them satisfactorily it is passed on to Maseasi, 
 who cuts out its tongue, splits its head open, and 
 twists it back. If the questions asked by these 
 officials at the gate are well answered, then the 
 
 153 20
 
 154 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 soul is permitted to go on in peace through its 
 various stages. 
 
 Seritan in olden days was a noted cannibal 
 chief, hence his work now in Hades seems particu- 
 larly suitable to his past experience. This idea of 
 the hereafter has a faint resemblance to the Maori 
 beliefs ; they hold that there are certain stages to 
 be gone through, and the same belief of questions 
 being asked is adhered to — though their final end, 
 if they be worthy men and true, is not annihilation, 
 as far as I could gather from the older chiefs, but a 
 life of pleasure. 
 
 The trouble is, however, that they have un- 
 doubtedly got their ideas mixed up — a fault one 
 finds with nearly all the savage races of to-day. 
 
 In Efate there are certain classes of people who 
 are allowed to pass unquestioned into Hades — those 
 belonging to the Namtaku tribe, and others who 
 have certain figures carved on their bodies. Why 
 they don't all go through this operation and escape 
 the chance of having their necks broken is a mystery, 
 but they are not the only believers in certain 
 religious rites who do not bother about testing 
 them. 
 
 Modifications of the above belief are also held 
 in other islands, and in Malekula it is supposed
 
 THE "M'AKI" GROUND AND THE JAWS 
 OF THE SACRED PIGS, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 155 
 
 that three stages only are gone through before the 
 perfect spiritual condition is reached, and that the 
 soul then fades away into nothingness. 
 
 The sacred men of these islands will tell you 
 that they periodically visit the first stopping-place 
 of the departed souls, and they say it is a long way 
 under the ground. In this place all the important 
 affairs of the world are discussed and arranged, and 
 it is from here that the spirits work and punish 
 those who do not follow the dictates of the sacred 
 men. These priests or sacred men in this way have 
 gained a tremendous control over their fellow-men, 
 for superstition is strong and no native dare disobey 
 a sacred man. 
 
 Sacrifices of pig and other foods have to be made 
 to inhabitants of the under world, and feasts are laid 
 out for them, which they are supposed to devour 
 when no one is near — a spiritual feast, so spiritual, 
 indeed, that none but those who believe in these 
 things can see the slightest signs of any of the food 
 having been touched. Such incredulity, however, 
 has no effect on the natives, they look at you in a 
 pitying way when you infer that the food has not 
 been touched — such is belief. 
 
 In connection with their religion certain pecu- 
 liarly shaped stones are denominated sacred and
 
 156 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 are said to contain the spirits of departed relatives. 
 In the case of a chief the stone is placed in a hut to 
 preserve it from rough weather, and round it are 
 arranged effigies of the chief, and perhaps of one 
 or two of his nearest relations. 
 
 These images, or demits as they are called, are 
 ghastly looking things, and when one comes suddenly 
 up against them their full horror is apparent. After 
 death the chief is decapitated and the skull is cleaned 
 and bleached, and then, with a preparation of clay 
 and fibre, a face representing his, as it was while he 
 was alive, is modelled on the bare skull ; his peculiar- 
 ities in feature are emphasised to a degree bordering 
 on caricature, but they are not meant as caricatures, 
 but are intended only to bring back to the beholders 
 the characteristic points of the chief's face. 
 
 The body of the effigy is built up on a frame- 
 work of wood, and covered with the same prepara- 
 tion of clay and fibre and modelled in a like manner, 
 but, as a rule, it is seriously out of proportion. 
 When this imitation body is finished it is coloured 
 in three shades, red, black, and white (sometimes 
 blue is found on them, but as the natives are 
 unable to obtain this colour naturally it is only 
 used where the traders can supply it). Down the 
 trunk of the body long stripes are made, running
 
 A MEMORIAL EFFIGY, MALEKULA, 
 NEW HEBRIDES 
 
 This figure represents a departed chief who has gone 
 to the under world and become a " Demit." 
 
 The figure is made on a framework of wood or 
 bamboo, covered with clay and vegetable fibre. The 
 head is the real skull of the chief covered in the same 
 way as the body with real hair and beard ; the arms, 
 round which are pigs' tusks, are made from a small 
 plant, the root forming the hands. One of the 
 reasons the natives have for making figures in this 
 way is that the chief may still be able to look upon 
 his friends. At the side of the figure is a bundle of 
 sacred pigs' jaws ; in front is a priesj.
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 157 
 
 vertically or horizontally, and round the legs bands 
 of these alternate colours are painted. The 
 shoulders and knees are decorated with grotesque 
 faces, surmounted by tufts of fibre which often rise 
 to a distance of three or four inches. A bamboo 
 cane is stuck in each of these tufts, and on the top 
 of it splendid specimens of boars' tusks are some- 
 times to be seen. 
 
 The hands of these idols are made from the 
 roots of a sapling, and add to the weirdness of the 
 picture. Bracelets of boars' tusks are also found 
 on some of these effigies. 
 
 Other sheds and places of worship contain 
 somewhat different things. The sacred stone is 
 guarded by nude wooden figures of men and women, 
 cut in the roughest style and free from ornament. 
 The posts holding up the shed have also elaborate 
 figures of strangely misshaped heads with shapeless 
 bodies attached. 
 
 But to the more important part of their religion. 
 In every village there is a " sing-sing " ground laid 
 out — this is the slang term for it, but it is 
 appropriate. These grounds are kept for dancing, 
 not the frivolous dancing of the Europeans, but a 
 sacred, awe-inspiring, religious ceremony. The 
 very idea of frivolity seems wrong in such a place.
 
 158 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 The cleared space is surrounded by a dense, dark 
 bush, and on the edge of the clearing high wooden 
 posts slanting in various directions are stuck into 
 the ground. These drums, for such they are, are 
 grotesque things, standing from four to six feet 
 high, with a dark slit down the centre, and a fear- 
 some face carved on the front ; some are all face 
 and look like terrible nightmares, and each has 
 behind it a carved stone. 
 
 Picture yourself on one of these grounds on a 
 warm moonlight night, when a dance is to take 
 place. Dense clouds are rolling over the sky and 
 now and then obscuring the moon or sending fitful 
 shadows across the bare space ; beyond is black 
 bush so thick that it looks like a weird inferno. 
 You wait and listen, and hear nothing but the roar 
 of the distant volcano. Presently a crowd of stark 
 naked natives make their appearance and take up 
 their position each by the side of a drum, and begin 
 a dull beating noise to call the dancers. In the 
 centre of the ground is a circle of five or six white 
 poles, some thirty feet long, bent and crooked and 
 leaning all ways. 
 
 When deserted these "sing-sing" grounds are 
 uncanny enough, but on a dance night they are 
 worse, and when the drumming commences, which
 
 DRUM GROVE AT MELE, NEW HEBRIDES 
 
 These drums are made of large tree-trunks, burnt 
 out in the centre through the long slot down the 
 middle ; both the slot and the round openings are 
 sound -holes. The meaning of the designs on the 
 drums is unknown. A heavy round drum-stick of 
 wood is used. Every one of the drum-groves I have 
 seen appeared to be haunted by an old man or two. 
 Round the drums the " M'AKI " ceremony takes 
 place.
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 159 
 
 sounds as if it came from the bowels of the earth, 
 and makes the flesh of your back feel as if it wanted 
 to come off, the climax is reached. You become 
 chock-full of the supernatural, and would not be 
 in the least surprised if the earth opened up and 
 the dancers appeared amidst flames and smoke. 
 Nothing quite as bad does happen, but, presently, 
 lights are seen flashing in the bush, and dark objects 
 holding torches come out and calmly take up their 
 position in the circle, till nearly a hundred human 
 beings, naked save for paint and streamers, are 
 moving about. 
 
 Suddenly the drumming noise changes to a sort 
 of tattoo, and then a file of men line up and begin 
 to keep time to the drums with their feet ; slowly 
 at first, and then faster and faster till the very earth 
 shakes, and the dull thudding echoes through the 
 dark bush. Then a savage song is heard, a low 
 chanting, and the men begin to whirl round and 
 round the posts till the eye becomes glazed and 
 the flickering light from the torches conjures up a 
 thousand things that never happen, but the drum- 
 ming, monotonous beating of those wooden images 
 goes on and the tapping of the feet. The crowd 
 of women over by the bush stand watching in 
 an almost hypnotic state, their bodies swaying
 
 160 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 unconsciously to the beating of the drums and the 
 feet — black naked women with vermilion-coloured 
 faces, and white, staring, rolling eyes watching every 
 movement of the dance. Then a sudden dying 
 away of the drums and the shuffling of the feet 
 and silence. It is weird indeed. 
 
 The women step forward, it is their turn now, 
 and a wild scene commences. More weird and 
 more noisy than ever. Their shrill voices, mingling 
 with the thumping of the drums and the gruff 
 monotones of the men, make the bush resound. 
 This is kept up for a long time, and then suddenly 
 they all rush off and the place is left in darkness. 
 
 On the morrow a big feast is held and the chief 
 kills the sacred pigs. The ceremony attached to 
 this is worth seeing, as it is one of those customs 
 that are so time-worn that both their significance 
 and original meaning are lost and only the outward 
 ceremony remains. For this the natives are highly 
 decorated with flowers and paint, and their frills 
 and plumes are extra well attended to. After a 
 few preliminary canters round the dancing ring to 
 drive away the evil spirits, the chief and sacred 
 men appear, carrying spears. To the accompani- 
 ment of drums these worthies pirouette round the 
 ground. When this exercise is finished a band of
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 161 
 
 natives face them and sing a wild song. Girls next 
 appear before the chief, highly be-plumed and be- 
 feathered and with faces stained bright red. They 
 in their turn dance and sing. Next comes the 
 procession composed of men only, who carry the 
 pig, which, like Paddy's, has a string tied to its leg 
 in case it tries to get away. The procession goes 
 round the whole circle while the drums are beaten 
 in a quick tattoo — the squeals of the pig do not in 
 the least affect these stolid drummers, who ever 
 keep time and never smile. At last, when the 
 circle is complete, the pig is cast at the feet of the 
 chief, who spears it with much gusto and then 
 flings the spear away. The pig is sometimes 
 properly killed afterwards, but it is not considered 
 necessary. It is then carried away to where the 
 spear, thrown by the chief, has fallen. This is the 
 way the pig is sacrificed to the sacred stone. Each 
 stone has to have its pig, so the killing goes on 
 until the right number has been slain. Then comes 
 the cooking of all the dead and dying grunters, and 
 the biggest feast of the season is commenced. So 
 fat is the feast that at least half-a-dozen of those 
 taking part in it have to be removed and rubbed 
 down by their comrades, or the women -folk, to 
 save them from death from over-gorging. 
 
 21
 
 162 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 There are many other ways of performing these 
 dance and pig ceremonies, and each island, in fact 
 each village, varies the performance, but they all 
 begin with a dance and end with a feast, which is 
 the usual programme for savage functions.
 
 LEAVING SANTO, A VIEW OF THE 
 MOUNTAINS, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Concerning witchcraft — More about burials — The gentle art 
 of making love — The rain-makers. 
 
 Superstition and witchcraft are strongly in 
 evidence in the New Hebrideans, and the natives 
 have more than their share of both. Besides those 
 things to which I have already alluded, there is a 
 peculiar idea held in some of the islands that certain 
 sacred men have the power of killing by witchcraft. 
 The method adopted by them is similar in many 
 respects to the usual custom, that of making an 
 image of the man or woman whose death is re- 
 quired, and then doing to it what it is wished shall 
 happen to the original. In the island of Tanna 
 the method differs slightly, for here, instead of an 
 image being made, part of the person's property 
 is stolen and taken to the sacred man who works 
 destruction to its late owner, but he must have 
 this property in his possession, or his maledictions 
 will fail. 
 
 163
 
 164 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 The sacred men who are supposed to possess 
 these powers are called Narak-burners, and they 
 hold their position through being the possessors of 
 certain stones known as Narak stones, which they, 
 or their fathers, have at some time found and 
 buried in the vicinity of their house. Some of 
 these stones are in the British Museum and show 
 no signs of anything supernatural about them, 
 but the natives hold them in great dread and 
 reverence. 
 
 When a man desires the death of any one, he 
 visits the Narak — he may only desire to give 
 him a disease, but it is usually death he is 
 after when calling on the Narak -burner — and 
 brings with him some hair or food or some particle 
 of clothing belonging to the man he wishes shall 
 suffer. This he presents to the Narak, who doctors 
 it up and then wraps it in leaves and burns it over 
 a sacred fire, lit, it is persumed, over or near the 
 place where the Narak stones are hidden. As 
 the article begins to burn, so sickness falls 
 upon the owner, who goes on getting worse until 
 the article is completely turned to ashes ; then 
 death comes. 
 
 Such is the superstition, but of its power I 
 cannot speak. A large payment of shell-money
 
 A SACRED MAN, AOBA, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 165 
 
 or pigs has to be made to the Narak-burner before 
 he starts his work, and if a man hears that his 
 effigy is being thus dealt with, or fancies it is 
 because he feels sick, he will hurry off to the 
 "burner" and offer him a bigger price for his 
 freedom than his enemy has paid for his death. 
 The result of this may be guessed, and a keen 
 bidding often results ; if he be rich he is allowed to 
 live, but a poor man has no chance. 
 
 It is through the fear of Narak burning and evil 
 wishing that the natives bury their hair when they 
 cut it off, and also take care never to leave any 
 half-finished food about. They throw all their 
 refuse into a stream of water, which it is believed 
 removes the power of the Narak-burner. 
 
 There are so many quaint ceremonies connected 
 with the lives of these natives that a whole volume 
 might be devoted to them alone ; and even then 
 to deal with them all thoroughly the volume would 
 have to be a big one. In this book I only intend 
 touching on the outskirts of those which affect 
 their lives most closely, and even then many of the 
 details must be left out, partly because they can 
 only be explained in a scientific work, and partly 
 because they are so intricate. The whys and the 
 wherefores would lead into endless paths.
 
 166 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 If a native is rich, the first way he shows it is 
 by changing his name, and, as in England, money 
 has to be spent for this privilege ; in the New 
 Hebrides it means a feast, and a big one at that. 
 On announcing his desire for a new name to the 
 chief, and proving that he has the means of paying 
 for it, the native goes away by himself for a few 
 weeks, during which time he is considered "duli" 
 and is not allowed to see a woman, and only per- 
 mitted to eat certain things, as in the case of the 
 New Guinea natives when they become ibito. 
 
 After his seclusion he is known by his new 
 name, and attends the big religious feast which he 
 himself has provided. 
 
 Other ways are found for changing names, and 
 certain natives are rewarded for their bravery and 
 good deeds by being given a new one, in much the 
 same way as a man is knighted in England. 
 
 The marriage laws are similar to those in the 
 other islands ; and pigs are often given to the 
 parents in exchange for their daughter. The girl 
 being chosen more often for her working capabilities 
 than for her beauty. 
 
 The burial ceremony and disposal of the corpse 
 vary considerably in the different islands, but since 
 the introduction of Christianity they are changing
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 167 
 
 to the ordinary Christian burial. In Oceania the 
 author says that in old days " In Efate the body 
 was carefully prepared for burial and then dressed. 
 The burial was accompanied with much solemnity, 
 and great wailing, and animals were slain in sacrifice 
 to the dead at the grave. It was supposed that 
 the spirits or essence of the animals slain would 
 accompany the souls of the deceased to the spirit- 
 world, the entrance to which was the westermost 
 point of Efate, at a place called Takituki." 
 
 " In Malekula," says Lieutenant Boyle T. 
 Somerville, " a sort of mummy is made, of which 
 specimens were brought to his ship by a white 
 trader, who had procured them in exchange for a 
 rifle at the conclusion of a ' sing-sing.' They are 
 said to be the effigies of the chief, whose skull (the 
 only portion retained of all his remains) formed 
 the head. This is plastered with mud to repre- 
 sent a living face, a body of bamboo twigs and 
 mud, highly coloured in black, white and red and 
 purple stripes, forms the figure. On each shoulder 
 a highly conventional face is moulded, looking 
 to right and left respectively, and in each hand is 
 a pig's lower jaw." 
 
 During Mr. Hardy's travels in these islands, he 
 came across a kind of graveyard where chiefs were
 
 168 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 supposed to be buried underground, and a heap of 
 stones and rocks marked the spots where they lay. 
 
 The skull-huts, already alluded to, show that 
 this is still another form of burial — they are in- 
 numerable. 
 
 Rain-making is almost as universal as feeding, 
 and every race has its rain-maker, who, for a con- 
 sideration, will tap the cloudless sky and bring 
 torrents of water down to quench the thirst of the 
 dry earth. In the New Hebrides the rain-maker 
 s:oes into the forest and there collects the branches 
 of a certain tree, which he cuts into lengths and 
 lays a dozen or so of them parallel to each other. 
 He then takes another dozen and threads them 
 through the parallel ones, forming a kind of flat 
 basket-work hurdle. Over this contrivance he 
 mutters prayers, and then buries it in a dried-up 
 creek where the water should be running. 
 
 More incantations follow this proceeding, and 
 then heavy stones and rocks are placed over the 
 rain producer, and the inhabitants all wait for the 
 rain, which, strange to say, generally comes. 
 
 There is no lack of faith in these natives, and 
 when once they have applied to the rain-maker they 
 set to work to make preparation for the rain, which 
 reminds me of an amusing anecdote I heard in
 
 THE STONE " DEMITS," OR THE SOULS, 
 WITH THEIR ATTENDANT WOODEN 
 FIGURES, MALEKULA ISLAND, NEW 
 HEBRIDES.
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 169 
 
 America. In Belmont there had been a tremendous 
 drought, and the farmers were in such a fright that 
 they unanimously decided to appoint a certain day 
 on which rain should be prayed for. On the Sunday 
 chosen, the farmers, their wives, and families rose 
 early and started off to church. Just as one party 
 were leaving home a little child of five or six years 
 old suddenly sprang down from the buggy and cried 
 out for them to wait a minute, as she disappeared 
 into the house. Every one wondered what was 
 the matter, and presently, when the child appeared 
 carrying a great big carriage umbrella, they all 
 burst into roars of laughter. " Why, " said the 
 father, "you silly child, there's not a cloud in 
 the sky." 
 
 For a moment the child looked perplexed. " But, 
 daddy," she said in a tone of wonder, "aren't we 
 going to pray for rain ? " 
 
 The natives of the New Hebrides are very much 
 like this little girl, and perhaps their faith brings 
 about the results they desire. Who knows ? Some- 
 times, however, they get more than they desire. 
 
 One writer gives an amusing description of what 
 happened in 1890, at Ambry m, an island adjoining 
 Malekula, when rain was asked for. 
 
 "Make us rain," said the natives to the rain- 
 
 22
 
 170 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 maker, "or our yams will not grow and we shall 
 starve. " 
 
 The wise man consented, and after the machine, 
 described above, was duly placed in a dry water-hole, 
 the rain came down in torrents and did not cease 
 for forty-eight hours. It was so severe that the 
 entire surface of the harbour was fresh to the depth 
 of three or four inches ; and the water-hole, where 
 the machine had been placed, had ten feet of water 
 in it ; whilst the yams in the plantation were being 
 literally washed out of the ground. So great was 
 the consternation of the natives that they were 
 beside themselves with fear, and rushing to the 
 rain-maker implored him to stop the rain. This, 
 however, was no easy task, as the old man explained, 
 because his machine was buried under ten feet of 
 rushing: water. Being; unable to dive he could not 
 get it out, and until it was fished out the rain would 
 continue. The scene can be better pictured than 
 described. At last in desperation the aid of the 
 shore natives, who are good divers and swimmers, 
 was sought, and soon the machine was brought 
 out of the creek, and the rain stopped immediately 
 afterwards. 
 
 The most remarkable thing about these and like 
 superstitions is that more often than not they come
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 171 
 
 off as the sages predict they will ; and when once 
 one does there is no longer any room for doubt, in 
 the minds of those who wish to believe. That in- 
 cident of rain-making in 1890 will be talked about 
 for years, and the name of the rain-maker will be 
 handed down to future generations.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Native clothing and ornaments — Their arts and industries, their 
 canoes and weapons, and their way of fishing. 
 
 In Malekula, Efate, and Tanna the natives wear as 
 many adornments and cram as many ornaments on 
 their bodies as they can, and since this weakness of 
 theirs has been found out, both visitors and mission- 
 aries trade on it, when endeavouring to get on the 
 right side of them. Everybody going to these 
 places nowadays takes with him a good supply 
 of trumpery adornments, and exchanges them for 
 native things of ten times their value. Ivory rings 
 and shell rings were the most precious ornaments 
 the New Hebrideans originally wore, but the less 
 wealthy covered themselves with armlets, fibre 
 belts, flowers, and if they could get a comb to stick 
 in their hair they fancied themselves immensely 
 superior to those who had not such a mark of 
 distinction. Trade beads are now added to their 
 possessions, and they work them into most artistic 
 
 172
 
 OLD CANNIBAL CHIEF WHOM THE 
 ARTIST MET ON THE ISLAND OF 
 AOBA, NEW HEBRIDES.
 
 I
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 173 
 
 patterns and wear them round their necks. A small 
 mirror will often be seen hanging from a native's 
 ear-ring, and many other strange combinations of 
 savagedom mixed with civilisation are met with in 
 these islands to-day. A native wearing a calico loin- 
 cloth and a top-hat poised on his woolly head and 
 kept in position by a string round his chin is not an 
 uncommon sight. Another may be seen wearing a 
 pair of knee-breeches, a tennis shirt, with the collar 
 turned up, and a trader's hat. Another, perhaps 
 dispensing with the breeches, will wear only the 
 hat and shirt. Altogether they seem to do their 
 very best to imitate an English clown, though of 
 course they are not aware of the fact. 
 
 To meet a burly native witli elaborate ear-rings, 
 an ivory spike through his nose, and his face well 
 marked, with a collar and dickey hanging round his 
 neck, seems absolutely ridiculous, but the proud 
 possessor of such a costume will strut about as if he 
 were the best-dressed man in the islands. As may 
 be supposed they look particularly coy, some of 
 them, and only require a banjo and a pair of trousers 
 to make ideal Christy Minstrels. The humour of 
 their costumes, needless to say, does not strike 
 them, and their less-clothed neighbours look on 
 them with envy, whilst the girls bill and coo at the
 
 174 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 sight of them — such is fashion. A tappa loin-cloth, 
 similar to the Fijian cloth, was originally the fashion 
 amongst the women in parts of this group of islands, 
 prior to the coming of the white man, and it was 
 held round the waist by a belt of fibre and orna- 
 mented with coloured or stained grass. But, back 
 in the bush, the married women were the only ones 
 who wore anything that could be really called a 
 costume, the younger women's attire being only 
 flimsy grass mats made of streamers, and tied 
 round their waists — which from a point of decency 
 would be equal to a piece of mosquito netting. 
 The men were always clothed to a certain extent, 
 owing to a peculiar belief they hold that they must 
 not be seen naked. 
 
 Feathers play a prominent part in head dress on 
 special occasions, such as at the dance I have already 
 mentioned. The hair is never shaved off the men's 
 heads but left to grow wild, and some of them 
 possess very fine beards and moustaches, but all 
 cannot boast such growth. I have seen a good few 
 with moustaches like boarding-house tooth-brushes. 
 
 Tattooing is not common, but cicatrices are, 
 and most men bear curious marks on their bodies. 
 These are made when they are quite young by 
 cutting a pattern on the skin and then continually
 
 TYPE OF MAN FROM THE ISLAND OF 
 TANNA, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 175 
 
 removing the scab until a deep kind of scar is 
 formed. It takes a long time to become perfect, 
 but when it is they are exceedingly proud of it. 
 
 Paint is sometimes used for decorating their faces 
 and bodies in place of tattooing, but it is very ugly 
 and disfigures both the men and women. Red, 
 black, and white are the chief colours used, and 
 no particular design characterises the work ; the 
 painter generally puts what his fancy suggests, 
 and no meaning is attached to it, as is generally the 
 case with the native markings. 
 
 The women are the workers here as elsewhere, 
 and at basket-making and mat-plaiting they are 
 splendid hands. Clothes used to be made by them 
 and bartered for food to villagers on the coast. 
 The mats are made from fibre, which in its turn 
 is made from the pandanus leaf by cutting it into 
 long shreds with a piece of shell and then allowing 
 it to dry. Most of the mats have some sort of a 
 pattern on them, and are now greatly prized by 
 collectors. In the New Hebrides they are put on 
 the floor of the huts, and are also used as screens to 
 cut off the sleeping apartments from the day room. 
 Some more artistic than others are fringed with 
 feathers or tassels of discoloured grass. These, 
 however, are generally made to sell to the tourist.
 
 176 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Baskets are also manufactured in some of the 
 islands. Pottery, however, is a forgotten art here, 
 and a legend accounting for the number of old and 
 broken pieces which may still be found in the bush 
 is worth relating. 
 
 The natives believe that their islands at one time 
 in the world's history were brought up out of the 
 sea by a beautiful goddess, Li Maui Tukituki ; they 
 say that when the world was quite new she was 
 carrying home some water in jars, but, owing to 
 the rocky state of the land she spilled the water, 
 which made her so angry that she threw the jars at 
 the ground and in that way punished it and made 
 it still. From that day to this it has not moved. 
 So tradition says, and these broken pieces of pottery 
 are known as the water jars of Li Maui Tukituki 
 and are held in great reverence by the natives. 
 
 The tools used for hut-building and canoe-build- 
 ing are made of stone, shell, and iron, but there 
 are very few of the real stone adzes to be found 
 now, except in the museums, as the trade articles 
 have taken their place and are in use all over the 
 islands. Exactly the same kind of canoe is made 
 here as in New Guinea, and the same methods of 
 making it are adopted. The largest canoes are 
 made in Malekula, from whence the natives go
 
 FINISHING OFF A CANOE, BRITISH 
 
 NEW GUINEA
 
 Norman 
 
 H HAKT5/
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 177 
 
 long voyages to trade with other islands, and, I 
 suppose, in the old days went hunting heads ; some 
 of the canoes are made out of the trunks of the 
 bread-fruit trees. The poles supporting the out- 
 rigger are run through holes in the side of the 
 canoe and lashed into position. There are no fine 
 lines in the curves of these boats, they are roughly 
 made and have very little decoration about them. 
 The outrigger itself is just a heavy log of wood 
 pointed at each end. 
 
 The sails of the larger boats are now made of 
 trade canvas, though they were originally made of 
 matting. The rowers or paddlers sit in the boat 
 upon the cross beams of the outrigger poles which 
 pass through the gunwale. The steersman sits 
 right aft, and can swing the boat round with 
 marvellous rapidity. 
 
 On Rano, a little island near Malekula, are three 
 or four very fine specimens of large war canoes 
 lying on the beach. I mention this, as it has been 
 said by many writers, who have visited these parts, 
 that the New Hebrides natives never possessed 
 large canoes, whereas these are far larger than any 
 in the Solomons, but, judging by their appearance, 
 they have not been in use for ages and ages, nor 
 can the natives there tell anything of their history. 
 
 23
 
 178 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 There is, of course, a possibility that they may 
 have been stranded there in a storm, but it is not 
 likely, as the stern of one of them is protected by 
 a shed, which looks as if it had always been its 
 resting-place, also, the whole construction is of the 
 Hebridean style. The larger of the two is con- 
 siderably over thirty feet from stem to stern, and 
 the bow rises up to a height of over ten feet, and is 
 made of a solid dug-out log curved and tapering 
 off to a point, where evidently a figure-head of 
 some sort has been, but now only a rudimentary 
 bird's head remains, and suspended from the bird's 
 neck are a pair of boar's jaws. 
 
 The boat prow is ornamented and boxed and 
 laced with sinnet. The depth inside allows more 
 room than is usually found in like structures, and to 
 get this depth the sides have been built up by lacing 
 planks to each other in a curious and ingenious 
 way. The crew to man one of them must have 
 consisted of thirty or forty men at the very least. 
 The stem of the canoe is a high peaked one, 
 curving gently outwards and elaborately carved. 
 
 The outrigger is an enormous log, and is 
 attached in the ordinary way, though, of course, 
 owing to its great size, nearly a dozen pegs help to 
 keep the poles in position.
 
 OLD WAR CANOES, NEAR MALEKULA, 
 NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 179 
 
 Though reliable information regarding these 
 relics cannot be obtained, it is evident that they 
 are highly prized, as periodically they are covered 
 with freshly fallen leaves to keep the sun from 
 warping them. They are evidently the last of 
 their kind, and show signs of having been occasion- 
 ally used as sailing canoes with a great mat sail, 
 probably after the style of the smaller craft of 
 similar construction often seen around Pentecost 
 Island. Rano Island, where these boats are, is a 
 pretty little place with a fine beach running up on 
 one side to a densely wooded shore. The village 
 lies back behind a line of scrub, and is completely 
 hidden from the view of the sea. This method of 
 building villages is common in the New Hebrides, 
 and is done to enable the inhabitants to get the 
 first sight of an attacking party. 
 
 The weapons of war used by these islanders 
 differ in many respects from those in the other 
 groups. Here the bow and arrow play a con- 
 spicuous part in warfare and in hunting. The 
 bows are between six and eight feet long on some 
 islands, whilst at Malekula they are seldom more 
 than five feet ; most of them are very roughly made, 
 neither the manufacturers nor owners seemed to 
 mind if the curve of the bow was exact or not.
 
 180 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 But in Malekula, again, both the workmanship and 
 artistic taste are more advanced. 
 
 The arrows are similar all over the group, and 
 measure about three feet in length ; they come to 
 a sharp point at the end, which is charred to make 
 it harder. They are each composed of a piece of 
 hard wood pointed at the end, about a foot long, 
 let into a cane shaft and bound at the junction 
 with grass. 
 
 On Aoba Island the points of the arrows are 
 very long and are composed of sharpened human 
 bone. It was the custom in the old days to 
 poison the arrows before use, but what method 
 was adopted is not known, possibly they were 
 dipped in rotten fish or human flesh, the favourite 
 method of many savages. 
 
 The arrow used for fishing is a much longer one 
 and has three prongs, others of different design are 
 used for shooting birds. 
 
 Fish, birds, and a few small animals form the only 
 wild diet for which hunting is necessary. Neither 
 lines nor hooks are used in the New Hebrides for 
 fishing, they scorn this method, in spite of the 
 demonstrations by the whites, and the greater 
 chance they would have of securing big catches. 
 Sometimes, however, they use a small hand-net, but
 
 HAVANNAH HARBOUR, RATHMOY, 
 NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 181 
 
 only for small fish, and they are not keen on its use. 
 They stick to their spears, and as a rule they choose 
 a bright moonlight night when the tide is going out, 
 and armed with spears, bows and arrows, they crowd 
 down to the reefs with torches, and dart in and 
 out of the pools where fish are sure to be ; then, 
 with a sharpness that is almost incredible, the 
 spears are seen to dart into the water, and come 
 out again an instant after with fine, struggling 
 fish on them. It is great sport, and there is little 
 wonder they enjoy it. Both sight and feeling are 
 brought into play during this pastime. The large 
 fish can be seen and are speared easily, but others 
 which just skim past the fisher's legs are not as 
 quickly taken, and try the skill of the natives. 
 Others occasionally need a deal of chasing, for 
 once a native has felt his prey he will not rest until 
 he has secured it. He seems to be untiring, and 
 does not stop fishing until he has quite a good 
 haul. 
 
 Turtle fishing is not gone in for much, as the 
 natives are superstitious about the turtle, and 
 civilisation has not yet been able to dispel their 
 fears. One of the chief ones is that the eggs are 
 sacred and may not be eaten. But one by one 
 their superstitions are going, for they see how the
 
 182 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 white man prospers in spite of scorning all their 
 sacred ideas, and that now and then makes them 
 courageous enough to break through the barrier, 
 and when once a superstition has been found untrue, 
 they are not slow in testing another, if by challeng- 
 ing it they can see any gain for themselves.
 
 PASSING THE REEF, AOBA, 
 NEW HEBRIDES
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 The cultivation of copra — The labour traffic ; when slavery really 
 existed, and the traffic in natives of to-day. 
 
 Copra is the staple industry of the New Hebrides, 
 as they say in the geography books, but the out- 
 put of it is about as reliable as the rainfall, for the 
 supply depends not, as might be expected, on the 
 demand, but on the whim of the natives ; if they 
 feel industrious, or are hard pressed for tobacco and 
 provisions, they will go into the bush and bring in 
 a sufficient quantity to meet their needs ; but as a 
 rule they will only collect it from their own par- 
 ticular trees near their village and will not go far 
 afield, where they could get double the amount 
 for half the labour. 
 
 Cocoa-nut palms grow in patches all over the 
 islands, and particularly along the coast, and they 
 make a charming picture viewed from the sea, with 
 their swaying trunks, and the quaint cluster of 
 leaves at the top : storm-tossed as they are, owing to 
 
 183
 
 184 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 being top-heavy, they all lean in one direction, the 
 way the wind blows strongest, and give the islands 
 a wild appearance. The rustle of their leaves as 
 one walks beneath them makes a strange noise, 
 and the falling of the nuts on a windy day is a 
 thing one has to be careful to avoid, as a good- 
 sized nut would seriously injure, if not kill, the 
 person on whom it fell. 
 
 I have seen a natural grove of these trees nearly 
 a mile long ; the dark stems and sage-green leaves 
 against a blue sky, a bright yellow road under- 
 neath which scintillated in the sun, and at its far 
 end was all blurred by the heat which rose as heat 
 does from a stove making everything quiver, 
 presenting a beautiful picture not easily forgotten. 
 
 All along the coast of Malekula and Tanna the 
 cocoa-nuts grow in abundance. At Samari, New 
 Guinea, there is one giant tree standing by two 
 others and away from the rest, the height of which 
 has been the means of many a sovereign changing 
 hands. For the first thing a new chum, fresh 
 trader, or captain is asked is to guess its height, and 
 few ever guess it correctly, for a more deceptive- 
 looking tree was never born. It grows just behind 
 the village and towers over everything, and is a land- 
 mark that guides many a wanderer by land and sea.
 
 THE ISLAND OF SAMARI, BRITISH 
 NEW GUINEA
 
 I
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 185 
 
 The copra trade is of course carried on all over 
 these and the adjoining islands, but one sees more 
 of it going on in the New Hebrides than in the 
 Solomons or New Guinea. 
 
 Copra is the white of the cocoa-nut and is not 
 eaten by the natives at all ; all they do with the 
 nuts is to drink the milk and use the fibre. Nearly 
 everything out there is made either of the leaves or 
 fibre, and even the trunks of the tree come in very 
 handy for manufacturing articles. When gathering 
 copra the natives scale the trees to get at the nuts, 
 and having collected a good supply they sit down, 
 break them open, and lay them out to dry in the 
 sun. 
 
 The oil of the cocoa-nut is chiefly made in 
 England and America, and the only process the 
 nut goes through in the islands is that of drying. 
 When the nuts have been collected they are split 
 in halves very carefully with an axe, and then the 
 halves are laid out in the sun. Very soon the heat 
 loosens the kernel, which comes away and is then 
 broken up into pieces. It is again put in the sun on 
 mats, where it remains until it is thoroughly dried ; 
 then it is collected in sacks and sold by weight. 
 Some traders, however, go in for making cocoa-nut 
 oil, but not many, and if they do, a different process 
 
 24
 
 186 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 has to be gone through. The nut, instead of being 
 split open, has the husk cracked on a sharp pointed 
 stake, it is then torn off and the inside split in 
 two. Next the kernel is scraped out on an iron 
 scraper, which is attached to a stool on which the 
 native squats during the operation, and the white 
 part drops from the scraper into a vessel under- 
 neath, and is then put into a cask to rot, after 
 which it is pounded and made into a pulp and 
 placed at the end of a tilted trough — a hollo wed- 
 out log or old canoe — until all the oil runs out of 
 it. This oil is then strained and put into casks. 
 
 The stench of a copra boat is proverbial, and 
 this, without the copra bugs, is enough to make one 
 keep clear of them as much as possible. Each trader 
 has his copra shed and drying ground, and when 
 Burns Philp's trading boats call, the sacks of copra 
 are taken out by the resident trader's " boys " and 
 again sold, this time to be shipped home for further 
 handling. When the oil is extracted in England, 
 nearly double the quantity is obtained from the 
 same amount of nuts, and the refuse is made into 
 cakes for cattle. 
 
 When the trading steamers come it is quite an 
 event in the monotonous life of many of the small 
 traders. Mails and provisions are sought with an
 
 A TRADER RECEIVING COCOA-NUTS, 
 AOBA, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 187 
 
 eagerness that is delightful, for when a man has 
 talked nothing but native languages, and seen 
 nothing but black men for weeks, these visits are 
 naturally the important event, and a newspaper or 
 two, if such luxuries can be found, no matter how 
 old, are seized on by traders as if they were gold. 
 
 Copra is practically the only industry that 
 flourishes without artificial aid. Even that is now 
 being helped along, as the natives see there is 
 money in it, and some of the thrifty chiefs are mak- 
 ing their men plant the trees and look after them. 
 
 Traders and settlers now have plantations of 
 coffee, bananas, and a few other profitable products, 
 as I have already mentioned, and this industry is 
 beginning to be successful. Taros and yams are 
 cultivated by the natives, and require a good deal 
 of attention, and so nearly all the work is left to 
 the women. Yams vary from about the size of a 
 small marrow to a much larger affair. The " Chief's 
 Yam " is pale pink in colour, and the ordinary ones 
 are like a white mealy potato. In taste they 
 resemble a cross between an artichoke and a potato. 
 Nearly all the villages possess a yam-house, which 
 is a sort of platform made of bamboo with a 
 thatched roof over it ; the yams are hung from the 
 top or lie on the platform to dry.
 
 188 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 There is a kind of arrowroot which grows wild 
 in the bush, besides a few other native vegetables, 
 but the latter are not of much account unless they 
 are cultivated. 
 
 The knowledge of agriculture learned by some 
 of the natives who have returned from Queensland 
 comes in useful. Sometimes evidences of it are to 
 be seen here and there, but it is a lamentable fact 
 that they do not make better use of their oppor- 
 tunities. 
 
 Whilst in Queensland they work well, especially 
 the women, and nowadays there is no difficulty 
 experienced in getting labour from these islands. 
 When the labour boat calls, the recruiting agent is 
 soon able to fill his vacancies, and the men he 
 brings back laden with goods make an excellent 
 bait for others. 
 
 When engaging the natives a small quantity of 
 money in advance is, I believe, paid to them as an 
 inducement to go, and then they sign on for two, 
 three, or more years to work at the Queensland 
 Sugar Refining Company's places at Bundaberg, 
 Mackay, and elsewhere on the Queensland coast. 
 
 When there, they live chiefly in compounds, 
 and seem to enjoy the change of life. Their chief 
 duties are to cut the sugar-cane, stack it, and put
 
 COPRA BOYS OFF TO THE SHORE, 
 NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 189 
 
 it on the trolleys, which carry it to the refinery 
 works. 
 
 The tremendous heat of these fields is beyond 
 description, owing to the number of the canes. 
 
 Many of the natives who have gone for a term 
 of three years become so fond of the life that 
 they remain on for much longer periods. Many 
 have been known to petition the Queensland 
 Government to be allowed to remain in the country 
 altogether. They mix up with natives from all 
 the islands, and intermarry in quite a friendly way. 
 If by chance a native of Malekula happened to 
 be left, on his return, in the Solomon islands by 
 mistake, he would probably be made into mince- 
 meat : but abroad they get on very well together. 
 
 The labour trade in New Guinea was stopped 
 some years ago, partly by Governor Macgregor, 
 and partly through the natives' objection to work. 
 In this trait they resemble the Fijians, and consider 
 work is a form of slavery and so beneath them. 
 
 There is very little real affection between the 
 natives, they part from one another when going to 
 Queensland with hardly any show of regret. Some- 
 times when a woman is going her companions cry, 
 but such scenes are exceptional. 
 
 On their return, however, things are very
 
 190 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 different, for they come laden with new and 
 interesting goods and money. 
 
 The chief immediately appropriates all the best 
 of these articles, and by so doing confers a great 
 honour on the home-comer. The returned one's 
 relatives then swarm round him, and each takes 
 what he or she fancies ; and the welcoming party, 
 consisting of fellow-tribesmen, receive their little 
 lot for having welcomed the returned one home. 
 The remainder of the goods are taken to their 
 owner's shed, where they probably remain a few 
 days. Other claimants soon come forward, so 
 that in less than a week the hut is empty of all 
 save the worker and his three years' experience. 
 
 In the old days the labour traffic, or "black 
 birding " as it was called, was one of the most dis- 
 graceful trades ever carried on by British subjects. 
 So bad did it finally get that the Government 
 stepped in, and warships were kept on the look- 
 out for these slave-traders, and eventually, after a 
 lengthy period and, strange to say, much opposition, 
 the labour traffic was made into an honest business. 
 
 The method adopted by the early kidnappers 
 was to fit out a schooner in Australia in much the 
 same way as a slave-boat, with a large hold arranged 
 with tiers of platforms, on which the natives slept
 
 THE "BLACKBIRDERS." THE LABOUR 
 TRADE IN THE SOLOMONS
 
 9 
 
 T — ■ ■H" 
 
 
 
 ^tf^^Mk 
 
 / 
 
 hi 
 
 
 I ■ 
 
 
 1 kml 
 
 
 
 1 ■ ■• v *3? 
 
 KP^*-v 
 
 jMm
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 191 
 
 at night. The owners would start out, having 
 secured orders from the Queensland sugar-planters 
 for so many natives at so much per head, and with 
 these signed orders they would visit the islands. 
 At first some of them, according to reports, did 
 try persuasion, and even went so far as to barter 
 with the chiefs for a certain number of natives, 
 but if this failed, as it often did, they simply went 
 ashore and carried off every man or woman they 
 could lay hold of, rowed them out to the ship, and 
 then literally pitched them into the hold. Others 
 they would entice on board by offering to give 
 them presents, and when once on board they never 
 saw the shore again. 
 
 During the commission of inquiry into the ways 
 of these slave -dealers some ghastly facts were 
 brought to light, not only on the part of the dealers, 
 but also of the planters, particularly in Fiji where 
 many of the natives were sold. Here it came out 
 that two Englishmen, who were in the habit of 
 brutally ill-treating the natives, once overstepped 
 the mark by tying a woman to a tree and thrash- 
 ing her, and afterwards they rubbed the juice of 
 the Chili pepper into the wounds. This was quite 
 an ordinary form of punishment ; but when they 
 cut the same woman's toes off, the natives banded 
 
 /**
 
 192 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 themselves together, burned down the whole planta- 
 tion, and killed the planters' children. The two 
 planters, sad to relate, escaped. 
 
 But those days are passed now, and the planters 
 are very different men, and live their lives in peace 
 and tranquillity, and many of them treat the natives 
 so well that they will do anything for them.
 
 A YAM SHED ON THE ISLAND OF TIERRA 
 ESPIRITU SANTO, NEW HEBRIDES
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A short sketch of the missionary work in the South Seas — Con- 
 cerning John Williams, James Chalmers, and others. 
 
 I can do no better than conclude this short sketch of 
 the three most important groups of the South Sea 
 islands by touching on the work and lives of those 
 brave fellows the missionaries, who have left all the 
 comforts of their English homes — their best friends 
 and everything else that was dear to them— to 
 teach the gospel of their Master and bring peace 
 and happiness to these wild savages. 
 
 It is an easy thing to sneer at these " Gospel 
 punchers" as they are so often called "out west." 
 But in spite of all the little things against them, 
 one cannot help asking : Is it not through the 
 work of the best of them that we are to-day able 
 to go amongst these savages ? 
 
 The most bigoted unbeliever if he thinks, and 
 if he knows the sort of lives that many of these 
 pioneers have led, must acknowledge their bravery, 
 
 193 25
 
 194 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 even if he doubts their beneficial influence ; but 
 only the most ignorant could do that. 
 
 Mercenary reasons have always been assigned 
 to account for the presence of the missionary in 
 savage lands and all over the world, and particularly 
 in New Zealand, one hears tales of the way the 
 early missionaries piled up the gold. In Australia 
 the same stories are told, but there was little in 
 these savage South Sea islands to attract the seeker 
 for gold at the time missionaries first began their 
 work, for whatever they made would be at such a 
 risk that it would not be worth their while. 
 
 In Australia and New Zealand, of course, there 
 is a difference, in the latter place particularly, for 
 there the Maoris were owners of large tracts of 
 valuable land, and, undoubtedly, one or two of the 
 lukewarm missionaries were tempted and fell. 
 
 One story I was told by an old Maori of a 
 certain missionary is worth relating, as his acts 
 rather upset the work of many honest men who 
 were really trying to do good to these noble 
 savages. 
 
 " Your clergyman be all right," said the old 
 man, when I mentioned missionary work. "He 
 teach us about God, but He too greedy. He want 
 all the Maori got."
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 195 
 
 " Nonsense," I said ; " who told you that 
 yarn ? " 
 
 A smile went round the little crowd as the old 
 
 man glanced at his friends. "Mr. he told 
 
 us to look to God and we looked, while we 
 
 looked Mr. took our land. Then one day he 
 
 come to us and he say, ' God wants more land,' and 
 we gave him more land. Then some time soon he 
 came again and he say, ' God wants cattle to put on 
 the land.' And we give him cattle. Then he say, 
 'God wants sheep.' And we give him sheep. 
 Then long time after he come again and he say, 
 i God want money to keep the cattle and the sheep.' 
 But we had no money and so we had no more 
 God." 
 
 It is acts like these, committed by a few of 
 the black sheep, that have made the bushmen, the 
 cattlemen, and the traders sneer at the missionary, 
 and in their ignorance they have condemned the 
 whole for a part. 
 
 The trader and the kidnapper of the South Seas 
 have for years fought tooth and nail against the 
 missionaries, and it is they who have spread wild 
 tales of the misconduct and strange practices of 
 these noble men. They had an end in view, as they 
 knew their worst foe was not the savage but the
 
 196 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 missionary ; it is the missionary who has been the 
 means of stopping the ghastly trade in black men ; 
 it is the missionary again who has seen that the 
 native was dealt with fairly ; and these are the sins 
 he has committed and can never be forgiven. 
 
 As early as 1796 the London Missionary 
 Society, then the Missionary Society, undertook 
 the work of sending men to these islands in the 
 hope of winning their inhabitants to better lives. 
 At that time the lives they were living were as bad, 
 if not worse than those of savage beasts, and the 
 publication of Captain Cook's Voyages in these 
 islands aroused men of Christian feeling, and was 
 the means of the Society sending out men to Tahiti ; 
 most of whom eventually died of sickness or were 
 butchered by the natives. 
 
 For years these men and others worked their 
 hardest against fearful odds, and for ten years they 
 made little or no progress. Reports show that in 
 1813 one Tahitian had become a Christian. But 
 this was the beginning, and during the next few 
 years progress was as rapid as it had been slow 
 before. Eventually the king of the island acknow- 
 ledged the Christian belief, and set to work to 
 destroy the heathen gods. 
 
 The adjacent islands were next approached, and
 
 THE ARTIST'S GUIDE, ON MALEKULA, 
 NEW HEBRIDES
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 197 
 
 the Tahitian Missionary Society was formed with 
 the avowed object of devoting all its energies to 
 the conversion of the natives of these islands. 
 Amongst its teachers the Society had a large body 
 of natives, and it was not only assisted in this 
 way but financially also by the very men who a few 
 years before would have nothing to do with it. 
 
 Then came one of the greatest of the great men 
 to these islands ; John Williams, who was not only 
 a splendid worker but a magnificent organiser. He 
 soon had a boat fitted out in which he was able 
 to visit the adjoining islands ; finally confining his 
 labours to New Guinea and the New Hebrides. 
 
 In 1823 Williams discovered Raratonga, an 
 island in the Hervey group, and he seems to have 
 devoted more of his time to the natives of this 
 island than any other. It was his island, " dear 
 Raratonga," as he always called it. The population 
 of it when he landed he estimated as about 7000, 
 and in less than a dozen years he wrote of them in 
 the following way : — 
 
 " I cannot forbear drawing a contrast between 
 the state of the inhabitants when I first visited 
 them, and now in 1834. In 1823 I found them all 
 heathens, in 1834 they were all professing Christians. 
 At the former period I found them with idols and
 
 198 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Maraes ; these in 1834 were destroyed, and in their 
 stead there were three spacious and substantial 
 places of Christian worship, in which congrega- 
 tions amounting to 6000 persons assembled every 
 Sabbath day. I found them without a written 
 language, and left them reading in their own tongue 
 the wonderful works of God." 
 
 And again he said — 
 
 " In reference to the island generally, it may be 
 observed that the blessings conveyed to them by 
 Christianity have not been simply of a spiritual 
 character, but that civilisation and commerce have 
 invariably followed in her train." 
 
 Succeeding this noble man in the islands were 
 men of fine characters, the Revs. William Gill, 
 E. W. Krause, and Messrs. Pitman and Buzacott, 
 and then in 1867 came the man whose sterling 
 good qualities will never be forgotten — James 
 Chalmers, or " Tamate," the name by which he was 
 always known by the natives. 
 
 "Tamate" was bred and born in Scotland, and 
 it was there he grew muscular and learned to 
 love open-air life. Quite as a youth he became 
 enthusiastic to devote his life to missionary work in 
 savage lands ; but subsequent events, and probably 
 his companions, who were young men keen on
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 199 
 
 mischief and adventure, helped to make him forget 
 his early aspirations. In fact, in that splendid 
 biography of his written by Cuthbert Lennox, it is 
 stated that young Chalmers' religious ideas went 
 through a period of uncertainty, and it was not 
 until 1859, when he was eighteen years of age, 
 that he had occasion to remember his early vow. 
 
 It was during a great religious revival, which was 
 bringing in thousands of converts in Scotland, that 
 Chalmers was persuaded to attend one of the meet- 
 ings. This meeting he himself said that he and 
 his friends had previously determined to do all in 
 their power to upset. The result of it was that 
 the true James Chalmers was roused, and from that 
 hour he never wavered in his determination to 
 teach the gospel to savages. 
 
 For years he worked steadily away at his studies, 
 and in 1861 he was appointed to a position in the 
 Glasgow City Mission. His good work brought 
 him recognition, and finally he applied to the 
 London Missionary Society for a position as 
 missionary. The application was accepted, and 
 Chalmers then went into training and was ordained 
 as a missionary in 1865. He sailed almost im- 
 mediately afterwards in the missionary boat John 
 Williams II. for Raratonga island.
 
 200 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Prior to leaving England James Chalmers 
 married, and to his wife he gives the credit of half 
 the successes of his life. The passage out to the 
 South Seas was a terrible one, as the following 
 extract shows : — 
 
 Whilst still in the English Channel the vessel en- 
 countered a terrific storm, memorable as being that in which 
 the London was lost. Three passengers were thrown out 
 of their bunks, the pilot was knocked insensible, the compass 
 binnacle was damaged, the whale-boat was carried away, and 
 the seamen were constrained to ask the missionaries to pray 
 for a change of wind. With difficulty the John William* II. 
 made the Portland Roads, and escaped the fate of some 
 twenty-one vessels which foundered in the storm. 
 
 But this was only the beginning of the trials of 
 that journey. Another storm met them in the 
 Bay of Biscay, and a third one off the Cape of Good 
 Hope, but they reached Adelaide eventually, and 
 were there able to rest. 
 
 On the 21st of August the missionary ship which 
 was to carry them to the islands left Sydney, and was 
 in less than a fortnight high and dry on a reef, but 
 she did not become a total wreck. She was taken 
 back to Sydney for repair, leaving there again on 
 the 15th of November, to become a total wreck on 
 the 8th of January ; her passengers were landed, 
 minus all their belongings, on an almost unknown
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 201 
 
 and uninhabited island. The notorious Bully 
 Hayes, however, rescued them from this spot and 
 took them to Samoa. Eventually James Chalmers 
 and his wife reached Raratonga safely after a voyage 
 extending over seventeen months — the passage now 
 takes about six weeks. 
 
 " Tamate's " life in the South Seas was a life of 
 sheer hard work, but he always felt, and properly so, 
 that he was making headway. At the beginning 
 of his career at Raratonga he set to work on the 
 young men, as he thought in them lay the future 
 hopes of the civilisation of the islands. When one 
 knows the risks he ran in going back into the bush, 
 where white men were so dreaded that they were 
 often shot on sight, one cannot help feeling that a 
 special providence was looking after him. He took 
 no half measures and made few concessions, but 
 went boldly to work at the start as he intended to 
 go on to the end. 
 
 Many of the natives had been in the habit 
 of fancying that the missionaries were weak 
 men, but in " Tamate " they met one who was 
 their equal in most things and could beat them at 
 many. 
 
 As a sportsman and a man of pluck he im- 
 mediately won their hearts, in fact every one who 
 
 26
 
 202 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 came in contact with him speaks of him as a Man 
 before all else. 
 
 One missionary said at the court in Sydney that, 
 in his dealings with the natives, he remembered 
 before all else that he was an Englishman, then a 
 man, and lastly a missionary ; but in " Tamate " 
 every one recognised the Man. 
 
 From Raratonga Chalmers worked diligently 
 amongst all the adjacent islands, and when later he 
 had his yacht he was able to extend his operations 
 and win many of the worst savages to better ways, 
 and by joining in with the other missionaries some 
 splendid work was accomplished. Throughout he 
 saw the need of native teachers, and it was this 
 branch of the work he set himself to push on, 
 with the result that now there are native teachers 
 and preachers in every island in the Pacific. 
 
 The chief trouble with which he and other 
 missionaries had to contend was the climate ; the 
 unhealthy districts they had to visit often laid them 
 up for weeks at a time. Finally Tamate's wife, 
 after a long and distracting illness, died and left him 
 broken-hearted, for through all his difficulties she 
 had been his mainstay. She died at sea on the 25th 
 of October 1900. Her end was a very sad and 
 disappointing one, as is shown by a letter Chalmers
 
 NEW HEBRIDES 203 
 
 wrote to one of his friends at the time. " We had 
 dreamt of a little rest together in a cottage out of 
 London somewhere, before we crossed the flood. 
 We shall dream no more, she waits on the other 
 side, as she said ' I shall be waiting for you all.' ''' 
 
 It was not long she had to wait either, for on the 
 7th of April of the following year James Chalmers 
 was massacred in the Aird River district, a part of 
 the islands where he was not well known. The 
 following account of the massacre was written 
 by the Rev. A. E. Hunt, who accompanied His 
 Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony 
 on a punitive expedition. " The Nine (Chalmers' 
 yacht) anchored off Risk Point on the 7th of April, 
 and a crowd of natives came off. As it was near sun- 
 set Tamate gave them some presents, and made signs 
 that they were to go away and the next day he 
 would visit them ashore. At daylight the next 
 morning a great crowd of natives came off and 
 crowded the vessel in every part. They refused to 
 leave, and in order to induce them to do so Tamate 
 gave Bob, the Captain, orders to give them presents. 
 Still they refused, and then Tamate said he would 
 go ashore with them, and he told Tomkins (his 
 right-hand man) to remain on board. The latter 
 
 declined and went ashore with Tamate, followed by 
 
 26 a
 
 204 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 a large number of canoes. When they got ashore 
 the whole party were massacred and their heads 
 cut off. The boat was smashed up, and the 
 clothing, etc., distributed. All the bodies were 
 distributed and eaten." 
 
 Chalmers evidently felt that his end was coming, 
 though it cannot be supposed he knew how it 
 would come. A few weeks before his death he 
 wrote to a friend : " Time shortens, and I have 
 much to do. How grand it would be to sit down 
 in the midst of work and hear the Master say, 
 ' Your part is finished, Come.' " 
 
 Some time before Chalmers' death Williams 
 and many other missionaries were massacred ; in 
 fact it is in this way most of them have died, but 
 their work will always remain as a memento. As 
 Robert Louis Stevenson said, when bunching the 
 good and bad missionaries together : 
 
 " With all their gross blots, with all their 
 deficiency of candour, honour, and of common 
 sense, the missionaries are the best and most useful 
 whites in the Pacific."
 
 ^ 
 
 SKETCH MAP OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Administrator, an, 8 
 
 Adornments, trumpery, 172 
 
 Adventurers, 3, 15, 16 
 
 Agricultural pursuits, 23 
 
 Aird, river, 6 
 
 Ancestor worship, 153 
 
 Anchor, 66 
 
 Anchors, jamming of, 68 
 
 Amhryn, 147, 169 
 
 Americans, 12 
 
 Aoba, 78, 79, 81, 147, 180 
 
 Armlets, 42, 51 
 
 Arrowroot, 188 
 
 Arrows, the, 180 
 
 Attack, mode of, 99 
 
 Australasian Trading Company, 
 
 16 
 Australia, 11, 12 
 
 aboriginal of, 26 
 Australians, 7 
 
 Bamboo, 20 
 
 Bananas, 22, 24, 62, 187 
 
 Baskets, 176 
 
 Beck, Louis, 72 
 
 Betel-nut, chewing of, 111 
 
 Bibles, 14 
 
 " Blackbirding," 190 
 
 Black labour, 10 
 
 Blackmailing, 50 
 
 Boat, the labour, 188 
 
 prow, 178 
 Bonito, call, 115 
 
 fishing, 113 
 
 Bougainville, de, 5, 9, 10, 11, 92, 
 
 133 
 Bow and arrow, 133 
 Bracelets, 157 
 Bread-fruit trees, 177 
 British Government, 7 
 British New Guinea, 6, 8, 26, 30 
 
 youth of, 38 
 British subjects, 12 
 Brown, Rev. Dr., 64 
 Buka, 10 
 Bundaberg, 188 
 Burial ceremony, 166 
 Burial ground of the traders, 79, 
 
 80 
 Burns Philp, Messrs, 16, 29, 72, 
 
 81, 186 
 Bush, men of the, 22, 32 
 
 Call by bonito, 115 
 Canoe, 17, 23, 27, 58 
 
 buying of, 27 
 
 houses, 89 
 Canoes, big, 178 
 
 building of, 26, 60, 176 
 
 small, 61 
 Cannibalism (Sol. Is.), 95 
 Capes, 49 
 
 Ceremonial purposes, 54 
 Ceremonies, sacred, 34 
 Ceremony, 38, 43 
 Chalmers, James, 65, 198, 199, 
 200 
 
 death of, 204 
 
 205
 
 206 
 
 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Chester, Mr., 7 
 
 Child, carrying of, 35, 36 
 
 Children, 32, 36, 
 
 games of, 33 
 Cicatrices, 174 
 
 raised, 107 
 Civilisation, 16 
 Clark, George, 75, 77 
 
 death of, 78 
 Clay, 62 
 
 for pottery making, 62 
 Climate, 4 
 Climbing fish, 64 
 Clubs, 28 
 Cocoa-nut groves, 29 
 
 oil of the, 185 
 
 palms, 183 
 Cocoa-nuts, 62 
 Coffee, 187 
 "Coming out," 38 
 Compounds, 188 
 Cook, Captain, 5, 11 
 Cooking, 34, 111 
 
 pots, 20 
 Copra, 183, 185, 187 
 
 boat, 186 
 
 trade, 185 
 Costumes, ceremonial, 30 
 
 humour of, 173 
 
 queer, 49 
 Crab, van der, 6 
 Crocodiles, 15, 122 
 Cures effected, 45 
 Custom, another, 42 
 
 Dance costumes, 49, 52 
 
 description of festival, 51 
 
 dook-dook, 50 
 
 the fish, 49 
 
 the funeral, 128 
 
 for love-making, 54 
 
 the war, 129 
 Dances, 30, 49 
 
 native, 49 
 Dancing, 31 
 
 art of, 38 
 
 ground, the, 51 
 
 Dancing, skirt, 52 
 Davis, Rear-Admiral, 99 
 Death of a husband, 46 
 
 visit of, 46 
 Demits, 156 
 Dook-dook dance, 50 
 Douglas, Hon. John, 7 
 Draughtsmen, 131 
 Drawings on wood, 132 
 Droughts, 4 
 Drum-making, 38 
 Drums, 39, 51, 158 
 Drying ground, 186 
 Dubu, 54 
 
 dance for women, 54 
 
 house, an old, 66 
 Dutch, 5, 6 
 Dynamite fishing, 63, 117 
 
 Eade, Dick, 74 
 Ear-rings, grotesque, 106 
 Earth oven, 23 
 Earthenware jars, 23 
 Education, 13 
 Efate, 153, 154, 167, 172 
 Effigies, 156, 157 
 Elevera, 17, 21, 24, 26, 27 
 Emigration scheme, 12 
 Enemies, 28 
 England, 12 
 Equal rights, 8 
 Erskine, Commodore, 4 
 Euro, 88 
 Evanena, 33 
 Evil spirits, 46, 160 
 
 wishing, fear of, 138 
 Expedition, hunting, head, 28 
 
 of Postillion, 6 
 
 of Trinton, 6 
 Explorers, 3 
 
 Faces, decorating of, 175 
 Faith, 168 
 Fanarita, 101 
 Feast, 29 
 
 Festival dance, description of, 
 51
 
 INDEX 
 
 207 
 
 Festivals, 30 
 
 Fiddle played by mouth, 131 
 
 Fiji, 10, 32 
 
 Fijians, 25 
 
 Fire, 19 
 
 producing of, 132 
 Fish, 62 
 
 climbing, 64 
 
 dance, 49 
 
 spearing of, 63, 118 
 Fishing, 26, 180 
 
 by bonito, 113 
 
 with dynamite, 63, 117 
 
 by kite, 116 
 
 by moonlight, 116 
 
 by nets, 62 
 
 by spears, 118 
 
 for turtles, 181 
 Florida Island, 102 
 Flowers, 104 
 Food, 23, 108 
 
 eating of certain, 40 
 France, 11, 12 
 "French Jack," 11, 93 
 
 residents, 143 
 Fresh water, objection to, 151 
 Frigate bird, 57, 107 
 Funeral rites, 126 
 Funerals, 30 
 Furniture, 18 
 
 Games, 34 
 
 rough boyish, 34 
 Germans, 5 
 Germany, 10 
 Gill, Rev. William, 198 
 Girl's love-letter, 43 
 Girls, 34 
 
 Glasgow City Mission, 199 
 Gorging, 91 
 Government House, 17 
 
 officials, 17 
 Granville, 16 
 Graveyard, 127 
 Great "Britain, 10, 11, 
 Great southern continent, 10 
 Guadalcana, 9, 92, 101 
 
 Guppy, Dr. H. B., 101, 138 
 
 Habitations, 20 
 
 Haddon, Professor, 41, 43 
 
 Hair, 25, 31, 174 
 
 arrangement of, 31 
 
 bleached, 107 
 
 bushv, 38 
 
 sale of, 32 
 Hanuabada, 17, 24, 26 
 Harbour, 16 
 Hardy, Mr., 27, 64, 73, 108, 109, 
 
 167 
 Hayes, Bully, 201 
 Head-hunter, notorious, 98 
 
 hunters, 16 
 
 hunting, 37, 97, 102 
 
 hunting, big expedition, 28 
 Heads, shaving of, 25 
 
 wanted, 102 
 Hebrides, 144 
 Heirlooms, 19 
 H.M.S. Fly, 6 
 H.M.S. Rattlesnake, 6 
 Honolulu, 32 
 " Hope," 89, 134 
 
 altars, 136 
 Houses, construction of (Sol. Is.), 
 86 
 
 interiors of the, 149 
 Human beings, cooking of, 111 
 Hunting, 22 
 Hunting pigs, 120 
 Husband, death of, 46 
 Huts, 17, 20 
 
 building of, 1~'> 
 
 interiors of, 87 
 
 of skulls, 168 
 Hutten, Old Harry, 74 
 
 Ibitoe, 38, 39, 166 
 Idols, 157 
 Immigrants, 9 
 Industry, the chief, 145 
 Infanticide, 102 
 
 Ingova of Rubiana Lagoon, New 
 Georgia, 90, 98
 
 208 
 
 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Ingova, head-hunters of, 98 
 Ingova's Euro, 98 
 
 house at Rubiana, 89 
 Isabel, 9, 101 
 Islas de Salomon, 9 
 Ivivu, 130 
 
 Jammed, 66 
 
 Jew's harp, 130, 131 
 
 Kai-kai dish, 110 
 Kidnapped, 10, 29 
 Kite fishing, 116 
 Kolff, Lieutenant, 5 
 Krause, Rev. E. W., 198 
 
 Labour, 29 
 
 boat, the, 188 
 
 organised, 29 
 
 trade in New Guinea, 189 
 Ladder, 18 
 Lakatois, 59, 61 
 
 construction of, 60 
 Laws of marriage, 166 
 Leap-frog, 33 
 Legends, 137, 176 
 Leglets, 42 
 Le Hunte, George Ruthven, Esq., 
 
 8 
 Lion's head, the, 92 
 Loafers, 29 
 Loafing, 31 
 
 Loin-cloth of tappa, 174 
 London Missionary Society, 196, 
 
 199 
 Love, 40, 41 
 Love charms, 44 
 Love-making, 37 
 Lovesick swain, 41 
 Lying, art of, 28 
 
 Macdonald, Mr., 153 
 Macgregor, Governor, 7, 189 
 M'llwraith, Sir Thomas, 7 
 Mackay, 188 
 Mai, 100, 101 
 Malayan trepang, 118 
 
 jYliltivs £\ 
 
 Malekula, 145, 147, 150, 154, 167, 
 169, 173, 176, 177, 179, 180, 
 184 
 Mambare river massacre, the, 
 
 75 
 Mangoes, 65, 66 
 Man and wife, 43 
 Maori method of carrying, 36 
 Maoris of New Zealand, 25, 44, 
 
 45, 194 
 Marriage, 34, 40 
 laws, 166 
 
 preparation for, 31 
 proposal of, 37 
 Masks, 49 
 
 construction of, 50 
 hideous design of, 49 
 Massacred, 204 
 Massacres, 14, 102 
 Mats, 18, 150, 175 
 Medicine men, 139 
 Meeting, arrangements for the, 
 
 42 
 Mekko district, 49 
 Men, burying alive of, 145 
 Meyer, Don Alvaro Mendana de, 
 9,11 
 Mendana de, Islands, 9 
 Meyers, Dr., 6 
 Mineral, 3 
 Mission of the City ot Glasgow, 
 
 199 
 Mission House, 17 
 Missionaries, 3, 7, 14, 65, 193 
 
 tales of, 194 
 Missionary Society of London, 
 
 196, 199 
 Missionary Society of Tahiti, 197 
 Moonlight fishing, 116 
 Moresby, Captain, 6 
 Mother", 35 
 Motus, 22, 23 
 Mourners, the chief, 128 
 Mourning, 30, 46 
 special dress, 46 
 universal, 126
 
 INDEX 
 
 209 
 
 Mouth fiddle, 131 
 Music, ears for, 130 
 
 Narak-burners, 164, 165 
 
 stones, 164 
 Native babies, 35 
 
 costume, 30 
 
 dances, 48 
 
 diet, 111 
 
 eyesight, 119 
 
 iuquisitiveness, 26 
 
 instrument, 130 
 
 police, 8 
 
 police clothes and duties, 30 
 
 villages, 86 
 Natives, 15, 21, 23, 168 
 
 of New Guinea, 25 
 
 swimming, 67 
 Naturalisation papers, 12 
 Necklaces, 52 
 Nets, 117 
 
 hand, 117 
 
 fishing, 62 
 New Britain, 13 
 New Georgia, 95, 107 
 New Guinea, 4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 
 36, 37, 47, 49, 56, 176, 184 
 
 divorce, laws of, 43 
 
 labour, trade in, 189 
 
 natives of, 25, 26, 44 
 New Hebrides, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 
 78, 79, 143, 185 
 
 settlement in, 143 
 New Zealand, Maoris of, 25 
 Nicolas the Greek, 73 
 Nose-rings, 106 
 
 Oil of the cocoa-nut, 185 
 Opossum, 121 
 Ornaments, 104 
 Outrages, 14 
 Outriggers, 58, 177 
 Over-gorging, 161 
 
 Paint, 175 
 Palavanua, 88 
 Pandean pipe, 130 
 
 Papuan, 35, 36, 37, 39 
 
 boy, comiug of age, 38 
 
 dandy, 32 
 Paradise, veritable, 144 
 Pentecost Island, 179 
 Petty Sessions Courts, 8 
 Pig-a-back, 33 
 
 ceremonies, 162 
 
 hunting of, 120 
 
 sacrifices of, 155 
 Pile dwellings, 86 
 Pioneer settler, 144 
 Pitman and Buzacott, Messrs., 198 
 Planters, 10 
 Platform, 18, 21 
 Police, the, 21, 30 
 
 magistrate, 8 
 Port Moresby, 7, 16, 17, 22, 24, 
 26, 29, 61, 75 
 
 Resolution, 148 
 
 Vila, 143 
 Postillion expedition, 6 
 Pottery, 24, 61, 176 
 
 industry, the, 61 
 
 making, 26, 34 
 Pratt, Johnnie, 74 
 Preferential tariff, 12 
 
 Queensland, 7, 188 
 
 coast, 188 
 
 Government, 4, 78 
 
 sugar refining, 188 
 Quiros, de, 9, 10, 11 
 
 Rain-maker, the, 168 
 
 making, remarkable, 170 
 Rano Island, 177, 179 
 Raratonga, 197, 201 
 Religion, 124, 155 
 Resident magistrate, 8 
 Residents, French, 143 
 Hubiana, in, 97, 107 
 
 Sacedra, Alvaro de, 5 
 Sacred ideas, 182 
 
 stone, 161 
 Sacrifice, 29
 
 210 
 
 THE SAVAGE SOUTH SEAS 
 
 Sacrifices of pig - , 155 
 Sago, 61, 62 
 St. Christoval, 101 
 Sale, 32 
 Samari, 184 
 Samoa, 10, 32 
 San Christoval, 9 
 Santa Anna, 100 
 
 Catalina, 91 
 
 Cruz, 9 
 Sanitary arrangements, 151 
 Sapuna, 100 
 Savage song, 159 
 
 lauds, magic in, 44 
 Savages, 13 
 
 Scratchley, Sir Peter, 7 
 Sea, men of the, 22 
 Secret rites, 28 
 Shaving, 107 
 Shed, 186 
 Shell-money, 164 
 
 necklaces, 105 
 Shields, 133 
 Shooting fish, 64 
 Silent philosophy, 36 
 Simbo, 127 
 " Sing-sing " 167 
 
 grounds, 157, 158 
 Skull-huts, 168; 
 Skulls, string of, 37 
 Slave-dealers, 191 
 Solomons or New Guinea, 185 
 Solomon Islands, the, 9, 10, 13, 84, 
 86, 91, 94, 145 
 
 islanders, clothing of, 104 
 
 King, 9 
 Somerville, Lieut. Boyle T., R.N., 
 
 129, 167 
 Song, a savage, 159 
 Sorcerer, the, 44 
 South Pacific, 10 
 
 Sea Islands, 3, 13, 14 
 
 Seas, excitement of, 75 
 
 trader, 71 
 Spaniards, the, 11 
 Spanish explorers, 10 
 Spearing fish, 63, 118 
 
 Spears, 28 
 
 and clubs, 133 
 Sports, 120 
 Staple foods, 62 
 State councils, 8 
 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 204 
 Stories, amusing, 78 
 Streamers, 174 
 Street, 17 
 String armlet, 41 
 Superstition, 22, 39, 44, 45, 88, 
 
 115, 137, 163, 170 
 Superstitions, 14, 15, 23, 40 
 Surprise attack, 28, 29 
 Sweet potatoes, 62 
 Swimmers and divers, born, 32 
 Swimming natives, 67 
 
 Taboo, 88 
 
 Tahitian Missionary Society, 197 
 
 Taki, 106 
 
 " Tamate," 198, 201 
 
 Tambu houses, 90, 91, 92, 152 
 
 Tanna Island, 83, 147, 148, 172, 184 
 
 Tappa loin-cloth, 174 
 
 Taros, 22, 187 
 
 " Tartan Jock," 79, 81 
 
 Tattooing, 32, 56, 107, 174 
 
 Thatch, 20 
 
 Tierra Australis del Espiritu 
 
 Santo, 11 
 Tight-lacing, 41 
 Tohunga, 44 
 Tohunganism, 45 
 Tools, the, 176 
 Torres, Luis Vaez de, 5, 10, 11 
 
 Straits, 5, 11 
 Trade beads, 172 
 Traders, 14, 15, 28, 186 
 
 burial-ground, 79, 80 
 
 experiences of, 81 
 
 of the South Sea, 71 
 
 risks of, 72 
 
 small, tales of the, 73 
 Tredacua shells, the, 105 
 Tree-houses, 21 
 Tribal wars, 22
 
 INDEX 
 
 211 
 
 Trinton expedition, 6 
 Trumpery adornments, 172 
 Tupusuli, 64, 65, 66 
 Turtle fishing, 181 
 Twine skirts, 54 
 
 Urio Moquru, 45, 46 
 
 Vegetable, 3 
 Verandahs, 21, 22 
 Veritable paradise, 144 
 Villages, 149 
 Volcano, 148 
 
 Wallaby, 23 
 
 War, weapons of, 132, 179 
 Western islands, 41 
 Wild animals, 17 
 
 Wild diet, 180 
 Willey, Dr., 109 
 Williams, John, 197, 204 
 AVitch craft, 163 
 Wives, plurality of, 43 
 Women, 29, 31 
 
 folk, 28 
 
 and gilds, costumes of, 31 
 
 labour of the, 34 
 
 married, work of the, 35 
 
 workers, 175 
 
 young, 25 
 Worship, places of, 157 
 Wyllie, Dr., 64 
 
 Yacht, saving of, 67 
 Yams, 22, 24, 62, 187 
 
 the chiefs, 187 
 Yost, Prof, von, 64 
 
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 By Mortimer Menpes, R.I., R.E. 
 
 Rembrandt 
 
 With an Essay on the Life and Work of Rembrandt by C. Lewis Hind 
 demy quarto, cloth, gilt top (nx8J inches). PRICE 1 2s. 6d. NET ; Post free, 13s. 
 
 16 EXAMPLES OF THE MASTER'S WORK, REPRODUCED IN COLOUR-FACSIMILE BY A SPECIAL PROCESS 
 
 By 
 
 Walter Scott 
 
 By W. C. Stewart 
 
 The Practical Angler 
 The Lady of the LaRe Qr the Artof Trout Fishing> more 
 
 large crown octavo, cloth, gilt to! particularly applieJ to Clear Water 
 
 LARGE CROWN OCTAVO, CLOTH 
 
 PRICE 5 s. NET 
 Post free, 5s. 5d. 
 
 50 FULL-PACE ILLUSTRATIONS (8 OF 
 
 THEM IN COLOUR, FROM PAINTINGS 
 
 BY SUTTON PALMER) 
 
 PRICE 3s. 6d. NET 
 Post free, 3s. iod. 
 
 CONTAINING COLOURED FACSIMILES OF 
 THE FLIES USED BY MR- STEW ART 
 
 (6 PI.^TFsl 
 
 THE PORTRAIT BIOGRAPHIES SERIES- 
 
 Size 6}X4 ins. 
 
 By Mortimer and Dorothy Menpes 
 
 Sir Henry Irving 
 
 CONTAINING 8 PORTRAITS OF IRVING 
 IN COLOUR 
 
 PRICE 2s. NET 
 Post free, 2s. 3d. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY A. AND C. BLACK • SOHO SQUARE • LONDON • W. 
 AND OBTAINABLE THROUGH ANY BOOKSELLER AT HOME OR ABROAD
 
 i.U-Ui\i- 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 £ p\ Los Angeles 
 is l*»ok is IH E on the last date stamped below. 
 
 ocU* 
 
 ,Ǥ> DEC 8- 186S 
 
 m NOV 25 
 
 JO**-* 6 
 
 DISCHARGE-URL 
 
 w JAN 2 4 1981 
 
 MN 1 mi 
 
 Form L9-Series 444
 
 3 1158 OoSsTSSSS 
 
 iiiiBliiSI l S NAL LI8RARY FAC,LlTY 
 
 AA 000 948 489 o 
 
 DU 
 28 
 Ek3s 
 
 m