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THE SOLOMON ISLANDS

London: Swan Sonnenschein & C^o.

[Large image] (1500 x 990 px., 421 kB)

THE
SOLOMON ISLANDS
AND
Their Natives.

BY

H. B. GUPPY, M.B., F.G.S.
LATE SURGEON, R.N.

LONDON:
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LOWREY & CO.,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE,
1887.

S. Cowan & Co. Strathmore Printing Works, Perth.

PREFACE.

When, in the beginning of 1881, H.M.S. “Lark” was being prepared for her commission as a surveying ship in the Western Pacific, I was selected by Sir John Watt Reid, the Medical Director-General of the Navy, to be appointed as Surgeon. For this selection I was also in some measure indebted to the late Sir Frederick Evans, then Hydrographer, who was desirous that a person possessing tastes for natural history should be chosen. I subsequently received some instructions from Dr. Günther, Keeper of Zoology in the British Museum, to whom I may take this opportunity of expressing my sincere thanks for the encouragement he gave to me during the commission. Unfortunately there were no public funds from which I could be assisted; and, as a matter of fact, I may state that all expenses had to come out of my pay as a naval surgeon. At the close of the commission I received, mainly through the influence of Dr. Günther, a promise of a grant of £150 from the Royal Society of London for the exploration of the interior of the large island of Guadalcanar; but a very serious illness prevented me from carrying out my intention, and thus an expedition, which I had looked forward to as a fitting completion of my work in these islands, was never undertaken. However, my disappointment was in some measure diminished on my arrival in England, after being invalided, by the important results arising from the examination by Dr. John Murray, Director of the Challenger Commission, of that portion of my geological collection which threw light on the formation of coral reefs, and which exhibited the deep-sea deposits of the Challenger Expedition as rocks composing islands in the Solomon Group. To Dr. Murray I am indebted for much kindness in many ways, and I gladly take this opportunity of expressing my sincerest thanks.

In this volume I have chiefly confined myself to my observations on the anthropology, natural history, botany, and meteorology of the group, having originally reserved my account of the geology and of the coral reefs, together with my special descriptions of the islands, for another volume, which I hoped to publish shortly, if my first undertaking proved a success. My reasons for thus acting were to be found in a lack of funds and in the necessity of not overlading my first venture, which, like a ship carrying a heavy though perhaps a valuable cargo, might founder within sight of the port of departure. This difficulty has been met by a generous arrangement of my publishers, in consequence of which both volumes will be brought out together. All my notes relating to these islands are there embodied, with the exception of my coral reef observations, which have been recently published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in their Proceedings (1885-1886). However, to make this volume more complete, I have added a short [introductory chapter] containing a general description of the islands.

It is necessary that I should here briefly allude to the circumstances under which my observations and collections were made. Had I been previously aware of the difficulties and discomforts that would attend me, I should have hesitated to have performed more than a tithe of what I finally accomplished “per varios casus per tot discrimina rerum.” Inexperienced and deprived of any official support or recognition of other than my professional duties, I was only urged on by the consciousness of the importance of the work I had voluntarily undertaken. At length my health began to give way, and it was with mixed feelings of satisfaction and apprehension that I returned to the islands for the third and last year. One cause of continual worry lay in the fact that for two-thirds of the time spent in this region, I had only my cabin for the disposal of my collections, the size of the ship (a schooner of about 150 tons), and the arrangements made before leaving England, not permitting of any other plan.

Under these circumstances I received the greatest assistance from Lieut.-Commander C. F. Oldham, who, notwithstanding that he had received no instructions concerning myself, smoothed the way for me and gave me the opportunities I desired, often, it should be added, at the expense of much anxiety to himself. To the officers, Lieut. C. F. de M. Malan, Lieut. T. H. Heming, and Lieut. A. Leeper, I am lastingly indebted, not only for their constant aid, but also for the sympathy they evinced towards myself and my pursuits. From the petty-officers and crew I received much voluntary help, and I was often indebted to the services of Mr. Samuel Redman and Mr. Albert Rowe. My right-hand man was Mr. William Isabell who had been sent to the ship as Leading-Stoker to take charge of the condenser. Without his aid in the packing away of my collections and his cheerful readiness to assist me in every way throughout the commission, I should have broken down long before I did. To his careful attendance during my illness I owe my life.

With reference to the different sections of this work, I should remark that the anthropological notes are for the most part now published for the first time. The translation of [Gallego’s Journal] and the historical sketch of the [re-discovery] of the group will, I hope, have a general as well as a special interest. In my natural history notes it will be seen that I am greatly indebted to the papers on my collections of shells and reptiles by Mr. Edgar Smith and Mr. G. A. Boulenger. For the identification of the greater part of my botanical collection, I am indebted to the courtesy of the officials at Kew and particularly to that of Prof. Oliver. I take this opportunity of acknowledging the kind assistance I received at Melbourne from Baron Ferd. von Mueller. My inexperience in botanical collecting considerably diminished the value of my collections, which have further suffered from the fact that I have been unable after repeated application to learn anything of a collection of ferns that I presented to the British Museum. During the commission I profited greatly by Lieut. Malan’s previous experiences of the Pacific Islands. To Lieut. Leeper I am greatly indebted, as shown in the chapters on the [vocabulary] of Bougainville Straits and on the [meteorology] of the group. The enumeration of the many disinterested services I have received would carry me far beyond the limits of a preface. Of all of them I shall retain a lasting remembrance.

HENRY BROUGHAM GUPPY.

17 Woodlane, Falmouth.

INTRODUCTION.

The Solomon Islands cover an area 600 miles in length. They include seven or eight large mountainous islands attaining an extreme height, as in the case of Guadalcanar and Bougainville, of from 8,000 to 10,000 feet, and possessing a length varying from 70 to 100 miles, and a breadth varying between 20 and 30 miles. In addition, there are a great number of smaller islands which range in size from those 15 to 20 miles in length to the tiny coral island only half a mile across. The islands fall naturally into two divisions, those mainly or entirely of volcanic formations and those mainly or entirely of recent calcareous formations.

In the first division, St. Christoval may be taken as a type of the large mountainous islands possessing massive profiles, such as Guadalcanar, Malaita, Isabel, etc. St. Christoval, which rises to a height of 4,100 feet above the sea, is composed in the mass of much altered and sometimes highly crystalline volcanic rocks (such as, in their order of frequency, dolerites, diabases, diorites, gabbros, serpentines, and saussuritic felspar-rock) which, as I learn from Mr. T. Davies, have been both formed and altered at considerable depths and indicate great geological age and extensive denudation. Recent calcareous rocks, such as will be subsequently referred to in the description of the second division of islands, flank the lower slopes at the sea-border up to an elevation of 500 feet. Fragments of similar diorites, dolerites, and other dense basic rocks, all much altered and often schistose, have been transported by trees to the coral islets off the coasts of Guadalcanar and afford evidence of the geological structure of that island. Serpentines were obtained by Dr. Hombron in 1838[1] from St. George’s Island, which is “ipso facto” a portion of Isabel. Bougainville and New Georgia are largely of more recent origin, as is indicated by their numerous symmetrical volcanic cones. However, the geological evidence at present at our disposal points generally to the great antiquity of the larger islands. The significance of this fact will be subsequently referred to. There can be little doubt that some of the mountainous islands will be found to yield in quantity the ores of tin and copper. A resident trader, Captain John Macdonald, has discovered arsenical pyrites and stream tin at the head of the Keibeck River in the interior of St. Christoval. A sample of stream tin from the south-east part of Bougainville was given to me by the Shortland chief. Copper will not improbably be found in association with the serpentine rocks of these islands.

[1] “Voyage au Pole Sud et dans L’Océanie,” (D’Urville). Géologie: part ii., p. 211.

The smaller islands of volcanic formation group themselves into two classes:

(1.) Those which, like Fauro and some of the Florida Islands, are composed partly of modern rocks, such as hornblende and augite-andesites with their tuffs and agglomerates, and partly of ancient and often highly crystalline rocks such as, as I am informed by Prof. Judd and Mr. T. Davies, quartz-diorites, quartz-porphyries, altered dacites and dolerites, serpentines, saussuritic felspar-rock, etc.

(2.) Those that are composed entirely or in the main of recently erupted rocks, islands which preserve the volcanic profile, possess craters, and sometimes exhibit signs of latent activity. Eddystone Island, which I examined, is probably typical of the majority of the islands of this class, such as Savo, Murray Island, and many others. It is composed of andesitic lavas of the augite type, is pierced by many fumaroles, and has a crater in the solfatara stage. Savo, though quiescent in the present day, has been in eruption within the memory of living men, and was in a state of activity in 1567 when the Spaniards discovered the group. Fumaroles and sulphur-deposits occur in Vella-la-vella. It may, however, be generally stated that the volcanic forces in these regions are in a quiescent condition at the present day, there being only one vent in active eruption, viz., Mount Bagana in the interior of Bougainville. Many small islands with volcanic profiles show no evidence of a latent activity. Amongst them I may mention those of Bougainville Strait, which are composed of andesitic lavas of the hornblende type.

I now pass to those islands which are composed mainly or entirely of recent calcareous formations.[2] Excluding the innumerable islets that have been formed on the coral reefs at the present sea-level, we come first to those small islands and islets less than 100 feet in height, such as the Three Sisters and Stirling Island, which are composed entirely of coral limestone. In the next place there are islands of larger size and greater height, such as Ugi, which are composed in bulk of partially consolidated bedded deposits containing numerous foraminifera, and possessing the characters of the muds which were found by the “Challenger” Expedition to be at present forming around oceanic volcanic islands in depths probably of from 150 to 500 fathoms. Coral limestones encrust the lower slopes of these islands and do not attain a greater thickness than 150 feet. The next type is to be found in Treasury Island which has a similar structure to that of Ugi, but possesses in its centre an ancient volcanic peak that was once submerged and is now covered over by these recent deposits. Then, there are islands, such as the principal island of the Shortlands, in which the volcanic mass has become an eccentric nucleus, from which line after line of barrier-reef has been advanced based on the soft deposits. These soft deposits contain amongst other organic remains, the shells of pteropods and the tests of foraminifera in great abundance. In such islands I did not find that the coral limestone had a thickness of as much as 100 feet. In this island the upraised reefs are based upon hard foraminiferal limestones. Lastly, we have the upraised atoll of Santa Anna which within the small compass of a height of 470 feet displays the several stages of its growth; first, the originally submerged volcanic peak; then, the investing soft deposit resembling in character a deep-sea clay and considered to have been formed in considerable depths, probably from 1500 to 2000 fathoms; and over all, the ring of coral limestone that cannot far exceed 150 feet in thickness. The islands formed mainly of the soft foraminiferous deposits have long level summits free from peaks. Judging from their profiles, the islands of Ulaua and Ronongo will be found to possess the structure of Ugi and Treasury. The western end of Choiseul has a very significant profile, and I have little doubt from my examination of the lower slopes that this extremity of the island is mainly composed of the recent soft deposits.

[2] Vide my paper on this subject (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin.: vol. xxxii., p. 545), and my work on the geology of this group.

I now proceed to refer very shortly to the coral reefs[3] of these islands. The three principal classes are to be found in this region; but of these, the fringing and barrier-reefs are more commonly distributed, whilst the atolls are comparatively few in number and of small size. A line of barrier-reefs, probably not much under 60 miles in length and bearing innumerable islets on its surface, fronts the east coasts of the islands of New Georgia at a distance of from one to three miles from the shore. Extensive reefs of the same class, having a broad deep-water channel inside them, lie off the large island of Isabel and off the south-coast of Choiseul. Barrier-reefs, of smaller extent, also skirt the west end of Guadalcanar and the southern end of Bougainville. I have referred particularly to these reefs because at the time that Mr. Darwin wrote his work on “Coral Reefs,” fringing-reefs were alone believed to exist in these islands.

[3] Vide my paper on this subject. (Proc. Roy. Soc., Edin., 1885-86.)

The larger islands of the Solomon Group are often separated from each other by depths of several hundred fathoms. St. Christoval, for instance, is separated from the neighbouring islands of Guadalcanar and Malaita by straits in which casts of 200 fathoms fail to reach the bottom. On the other hand, the same 100 fathom line includes both Bougainville and Choiseul. Judging, however, from the soundings obtained by Lieut.-Commander Oldham between the islands lying off the north coast of St. Christoval, it would appear probable that depths of 400 fathoms commonly occur between the islands of the Solomon Group. Although the soundings hitherto made in this portion of the Western Pacific go to show that this archipelago, together with New Ireland and New Britain, are included within the same 1,000 fathom line, which extends as a loop from the adjacent borders of New Guinea, we can scarcely urge this fact as evidence of a former land connection, seeing that one of the most interesting features in the geological history of this region is that of the enormous elevation which these islands have experienced in recent and probably sub-recent times. Independently of the character of the deposits discovered by me in the Solomon Islands, I arrived at the conclusion that there had been a recent upheaval of at least 1,500 feet. The characters of some of the deposits, as examined by Dr. Murray in the light of the “Challenger” soundings, however, afford indications of an upheaval of a far more extensive nature. I am informed, in fact, by Mr. H. B. Brady, that the foraminifera of some of the Treasury Island rocks indicate depths of probably from 1500 to 2000 fathoms. Geologists may look forward with the greatest interest to the results of the examination by Mr. Brady of the foraminiferous deposits of the Western Pacific. One of the most important results will be to establish the great elevation which has occurred in this region during Post-Tertiary times. We are therefore justified in regarding the island groups of the Western Pacific as having always retained their insular condition, situated, as they are, in a region of upheaval, and separated, as they are, from each other and from the Australian continent by depths of from 1,000 to 2,400 fathoms. I have already pointed out that the volcanic rocks of the large islands of the Solomon Group are geologically ancient. Their elevation and the great subaerial denudation which they have experienced afford indications of the insular condition having been preserved from remote ages. It is this prolonged isolation that explains the occurrence of the peculiar forms of the amphibia which I discovered in Bougainville Straits, and that accounts for many of the peculiarities of the fauna of this archipelago.

Having thus briefly considered the leading geological and hydrological features of this group, I pass on to consider these islands in the point of view of an intending settler. They are for the most part clothed with dense forest and rank undergrowth, and it is only here and there, as in the western portion of Guadalcanar and in limited localities in St. Christoval, that the forest gives place to long grass and ferns, a change often corresponding with the passage from a clayey and calcareous to a dry porous and volcanic soil. As a rule, the calcareous districts of a large island possess a rich red argillaceous soil, often 5 or 6 feet in thickness, and in such localities the streams are large and numerous. In the districts of volcanic formation the soil is dry, friable, and porous, whilst the streams are few in number and of no great size. In the principal island of the Shortlands the difference in the character of the soil between the volcanic north-west part and the remaining calcareous portion is well exhibited. In the smaller islands the soil varies in character according to the formation, those of volcanic origin being singularly destitute of streams.

In [chapter XVII.] I have dwelt with some detail on the climate. The healthiest portion of the group would, as I think, be found in the eastern islands, and the healthiest part of each island would be that which is exposed to the blast of the south-east trade during a large portion of the year. The excessive annual rainfall, the humid atmosphere, together with the enervating season of the north-west monsoon, are amongst the chief evils of the climate. Malarious districts can be readily avoided by shunning the low-lying damp districts on the lee sides of islands. Dysentery is rare on account of the general purity of the water. But, if we believe native testimony, which I have found most reliable and which in this instance agrees with my own, the streams draining calcareous regions are least liable to suspicion. Should an intending settler ask me whether the climate is suitable for the European, I would reply that with proper precautions as to his habits and the selection of a site, the white-man can here preserve his health as well as in most other tropical islands in these latitudes.

I will conclude this introduction with some remarks on the vexed question of making annexations and forming protectorates in the Western Pacific. From the eagerness of our Australian colonies to control them and of France and Germany to possess them, the presumption arises that the islands in this region are worth holding. Yet, how surprising have been the changes within the last four years! When in 1882 I was in the Solomon Islands, British influence was recognised as paramount in New Guinea and throughout the Western Pacific. At the present time the British flag has been almost squeezed out of the Western Pacific. In April of this year (1886), the British and German Governments came to an arrangement by which the northern side of New Guinea together with New Britain, New Ireland, and the adjacent western half of the Solomon Group passed under the protection, or in other words into the practical possession, of Germany; whilst Great Britain by this arrangement was to consider the remaining islands of the Western Pacific and the south coast of New Guinea as her sphere of action. It is only in New Guinea that Great Britain has exercised her right. Amongst the remaining islands of the Western Pacific she has little scope either for acquiring territory or for establishing a protectorate. France possesses New Caledonia and in a geographical sense she can claim not only the Loyalty Islands but the New Hebrides Group. There only remains then for Great Britain the Santa Cruz Islands and the adjacent eastern half of the Solomon Group, in which, if she chooses, she can exercise her rights without dispute.

England’s wisest policy in the Western Pacific is to recognise the existing condition of things, and to deal with France as generously as she has dealt with Germany. Stifling my own patriotic regrets, I cannot but think that the presence of Germany in these regions will be fraught with great advantage to the world of science. When we recall our spasmodic efforts to explore New Guinea and the comparatively small results obtained, when we remember to how great an extent such attempts have been supported by private enterprise and how little they have been due to government or even to semi-official aid, we have reason to be glad that the exploration of these regions will be conducted with that thoroughness which can only be obtained when, as in the case of Germany, geographical enterprises become the business of the State.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

A Traveller’s Difficulties—Islands of which Science has no ken—Bush-Walking a Tedious Process—Ascent of Stream-Courses—Heavy Annual Rainfall—Native Companions—Mysterious Influence of the Fragrant Weed—Odd-looking Party of Geologists—A Night on the Summit of Treasury Island—Experiences in a Rob Roy Canoe—Narrow Escape from Drowning—Nature of the Work performed by the Officers of Survey—An Apparent Injustice[pp. 1-12]

CHAPTER II.

GOVERNMENT—HEAD-HUNTING—SLAVERY—CANNIBALISM.

Hereditary Chieftainship—St. Christoval—Coast Tribes and Bush Tribes—Their unceasing Hostility—Head-Hunting and Head-Money—Greater Power of the Chiefs of Bougainville Straits—Gorai, the Shortland Chief—How the Treasury Islanders became our Friends—Fauro and its Chief—Choiseul Bay—In the calmest Seas there are occasional Storms—A Tragedy, in several Acts—Hostilities between Alu and Treasury—Væ Feminis!—Tambu Ban—Slavery, an easy Servitude if it were not for one grave Contingency—A Purveyor of Human Flesh—Cannibalism—A Béa—Fattening for the Market[pp. 13-40]

CHAPTER III.

THE FEMALE SEX—POLYGAMY—MODES OF BURIAL, &c.

Position of the Female Sex—Infanticide—The Women are the Cultivators—A Plea for Polygamy—Marital Establishments—Kaika, the principal Wife of the Shortland Chief—Her Death—The Obsequies—Modes of Burial—Superstitious Beliefs—Sorcerers—Method of Recording Time—The Pleiades[pp. 41-56]

CHAPTER IV.

DWELLINGS—TAMBU-HOUSES—WEAPONS—TOOLS.

Villages—Houses—Pile-Dwellings—Mat-Making—Domestic Utensils—Pottery Manufacture—Modes of Producing Fire—Torches—Tambu-Houses—Deification of the Shark—Weapons—Polished Stone Implements—Ancient Worked Flints—Whence did they come?—Who were the Artificers? [pp. 57-80]

CHAPTER V.

CULTIVATION—FOOD, &C.

Cultivation—Sago Palm—Diet essentially Vegetarian—Common Vegetables and Fruits—Modes of Cooking—Articles of Animal Food—Modes of Cooking—Tobacco Smoking—Betel Chewing[pp. 81-97]

CHAPTER VI.

THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS AND RACE-AFFINITIES OF THESE ISLANDERS.

Race Affinities—Migrations of the Pacific Islanders—Evidence derived from the Native Names of Littoral Trees—A Typical Solomon Islander—Variations in the Type—Physical Measurements—Height—Weight—Limbs—Skull—Features—Hair—Colour of Skin—Powers of Vision—Colour-sense—Gestures and Expressions of the Emotions—Disposition—The Estimation of Dumont D’Urville—My Own[pp. 98-129]

CHAPTER VII.

DRESS—TATTOOING—SONGS, &C.

Dress—Personal Ornaments—Fondness for Decorating Themselves with Flowers—Tattooing—Head Coverings—Ornamentation—Songs—Musical Instruments—Dances—Boys’ Games[pp. 130-145]

CHAPTER VIII.

CANOES—FISHING—HUNTING.

Canoes—Paddles and Paddling—Fishing—Kite Fishing—Fish-Spear—Nets—Hooks—Snares—Dynamite—Pig Hunting—Wild Dogs—Opossums—Path-Finding[pp. 146-162]

CHAPTER IX.

PREVALENT DISEASES.

Medicine-Men—Indifference to the Sick—Great Recuperative Powers after Severe Injuries—The Hot-Stone Treatment—Nostalgic Melancholy—Ulcers—Solomon Island or Tokelau Ringworm—Very Widely-spread and very Prevalent in the Western Pacific—Has spread Eastward from the Indian Archipelago—Pustular Eruptive Disease of Children—Epidemics of Influenza and Mumps—Elephantiasis—Congenital Deformities—Venereal Diseases—Susceptibility to Small Falls of Temperature—Mental Diseases rare[pp. 163-179]

CHAPTER X.

A VOCABULARY OF BOUGAINVILLE STRAITS.

Vocabulary of Bougainville Straits—Divisions of the Solomon Island Languages—Affinities of the Vocabulary—Important Clues afforded [xv]by the Comparison of the Native Names of Common Littoral Trees in the Indian Archipelago and in the Pacific Islands—Other similar comparisons—Imitative Words[pp. 180-191]

CHAPTER XI.

THE JOURNAL OF GALLEGO.

Prefatory Remarks—The Journal—Prologue—Voyage from Peru—Its Length—Crew disheartened—Isle of Jesus—Candelaria Shoals—Arrival at Estrella Harbour—Exploring Cruise of the Brigantine—Florida, Sesarga, Guadalcanar—Ships proceed to Guadalcanar—Second Cruise of the Brigantine—Malaita, Ulaua, Ugi, St. Christoval—Massacre of the Spaniards at Puerto de la Cruz—Ships proceed to St. Christoval—Capture of a Town—Third Cruise of the Brigantine—Conflict at Santa Anna—The Islands aroused—Council of the Captains and Pilots—Decide to return to Peru—Heading Northward—Reflections on the Discoveries and on the Conduct of the Spaniards—In the vicinity of the Gilbert Group—San Bartolomeo identified with the Musquillo Islands—San Francisco I. identified with Wake’s I.—Perilous Voyage—Ships separated—Storms and Squalls—Provisions failing—The Gambler’s Ration—Sickness—Despair—“We resolved to Trust that God Would Send us Aid”—“He provided for us in His Great Mercy”—Old California—The Ships meet at Santiago—Mexican Coast—A strange Scotch People—Peru[pp. 192-245]

CHAPTER XII.

THE STORY OF A LOST ARCHIPELAGO.

A Pious Fraud—Drake’s appearance in the South Sea—Jealousy of the Spaniards—“It being considered better, as things were then, to let these Islands remain unknown”—“Omne ignotum pro magnifico” Mendana’s Expedition to form a Colony in St. Christoval—An unsolved Mystery of the Sea—A Colony formed at Santa Cruz—Mutiny and Disaster—Abandonment—Unsuccessful Attempt to find the Solomon Islands—“All her sails set, and All her People Dead and Rotten”—Quiros leads another Expedition from Peru to reach these Islands—They elude his Search—Jealous Attitude of the Spaniards towards other Nations—Suppression and Destruction of Journals and Documents—Confusion of Geographers—The Existence of the Solomon Islands treated as a Romance—Fabulous Accounts—After Two Centuries—Carteret—Bougainville—Surville—Maurelle—Shortland—French and English Geographers—Dentrecasteaux—Jacobs—D’Urville—Boyd—Denham—Melanesian Mission[pp. 246-271]

GEOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX.

Gallego and Figueroa compared—Isle of Jesus—Candelaria Shoals—Gallego’s Latitudes—Isle of Ramos—Islands between Cape Prieto and Guadalcanar—Islands of San Bartolomeo and San Francisco—List of Islands obtained by Quiros at Taumaco—Eddystone Rock, &c. [pp. 272-279]

CHAPTER XIII.

BOTANICAL NOTES IN BOUGAINVILLE STRAITS.

Knowledge of Plants possessed by these Islanders—Ascent of a Stream-Course—Interior of the Forest—Up to the Summit of Faro Island—Littoral Vegetation—-How a Coral Island is stocked with Trees—List of Plants—Flotation of Fruits—Weeds and Rubbish-Plants—Tuber regium[pp. 280-307]

CHAPTER XIV.

REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS.

Unexpected Discoveries—List of Reptiles—Crocodiles—Lizards—Snakes—Batrachians—A New Family—A region of great promise to future collectors[pp. 308-318]

CHAPTER XV.

GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY NOTES.

Robber-Crab—Nut-cracking-Gizzard of the Nicobar Pigeon—Megapods—Edible Birds’ Nest—Scorpions—Millipedes—Hermit-Crabs—Scypho-Medusæ—Legends of Anthropoid Apes—New Cetacean[pp. 319-335]

CHAPTER XVI.

LAND AND FRESHWATER SHELLS.

Several New Species—Variation of Species—Bulimi—Neritinæ—Mode of Dispersal—Suggestion as to the Origin of Tree-Nerites—The capability of Neritinæ to adapt themselves to different climates—List of my Collection of Shells—Description of New Species—Littorina scabra[pp. 336-351]

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CLIMATE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.

Rainfall—The Black Squall—Rain Records of Ugi and Santa Anna—Ship Record—Annual Rainfall of the Coasts and Higher Regions—Barometric Pressure—Temperature—Humidity—Sun-burns—Winds—Table of Meteorological Observations—Wind Record—The Effects of the Climate on the Weight of the Body[pp. 352-370]

INDEX[371]

THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

Those who have never been tempted “to seek strange truths in undiscovered lands,” will perhaps find it difficult to appreciate the disappointments, inconveniences, and petty difficulties which beset the traveller, however favourably circumstanced he may be. Patience and perseverance enable him finally to disregard these lesser hindrances and to devote his undisturbed attention to the principal objects he has in view: and thus, when writing at some future time the narrative of his experiences, he gives but little prominence to matters which affected very materially at the moment both his personal comfort and his chances of success.

Amongst the Solomon Islands the student of nature may be compared to a man who, having found a mine of great wealth, is only allowed to carry away just so much of the precious ore as he can bear about his person. For there can be no region of the world where he experiences more tantalisation. Day after day he skirts the shores of islands of which science has no “ken.” Month after month, he may scan, as I have done, lofty mountain-masses never yet explored, whose peaks rise through the clouds to heights of from 7,000 to 10,000 feet above the sea. He may discern on the mountain-slopes the columns of blue smoke which mark the abodes of men who have never beheld the white man. But he cannot land except accompanied by a strong party; and he has therefore to be content usually with viewing such scenes from the deck of his vessel. Fortunately, however, there are some parts of the Solomon Group where the hostility of the natives has been to a great extent overcome by the influence of the missionaries and of the traders; but the interiors of the larger islands are almost without exception inhabited by fierce and treacherous tribes who forbid all approach.

In this chapter I have endeavoured to give some idea of my experiences during my rambles in different islands of the group. When geologising in these islands, one labours under the very serious disadvantage of being unable to get any view or form any idea of the surroundings, on account of the dense forest-growth clothing both the slopes and summits of the hills, which is often impassable except by the rude native tracks that are completely hemmed in by trees on either side. Bush walking, where there is no native track, is a very tedious process and requires the constant use of the compass. In districts of coral limestone, such traverses are equally trying to the soles of one’s boots and to the measure of one’s temper. After being provokingly entangled in a thicket for some minutes, the persevering traveller walks briskly along through a comparatively clear space, when a creeper suddenly trips up his feet and over he goes to the ground. Picking himself up, he no sooner starts again when he finds his face in the middle of a strong web which some huge-bodied spider has been laboriously constructing. However, clearing away the web from his features, he struggles along until coming to the fallen trunk of some giant of the forest which obstructs his path, he with all confidence plants his foot firmly on it and sinks knee-deep into rotten wood. With resignation he lifts his foot out of the mess and proceeds on his way, when he feels an uncomfortable sensation inside his helmet, in which, on leisurely removing it from his head, he finds his old friend the spider, with body as big as a filbert, quite at its ease. Shaking it out in a hurry, he hastens along with his composure of mind somewhat ruffled. Going down a steep slope, he clasps a stout-looking areca palm to prevent himself falling, when down comes the rotten palm, and the long-suffering traveller finds himself once more on the ground. To these inconveniences must be added the peculiarly oppressive heat of a tropical forest, the continual perspiration in which the skin is bathed, and the frequent difficulty of getting water. There are therefore many drawbacks to the enjoyment of such excursions undertaken without an aim. But let there be some object to be gained, and it is astonishing how small a success amply repays the naturalist for all the toil. As an example of the tedious nature of bush walking in these regions, I may state that crossing the small island of Santa Anna from south to north—a distance of 2¹⁄₂ miles—occupied on one occasion five hours. For nearly the whole distance my path lay either through a dense forest-growth which had never been cleared since this little island first rose as a coral-atoll above the waves, or amongst tangled undergrowth which often succeeded effectually in barring the way. Rarely could I obtain a glimpse of my surroundings, and in consequence it was on my pocket-compass that I entirely depended. Coral-rock honeycombed into sharp tearing edges covered the slopes, my way lying between the large masses of this rock that lay about in strange confusion, the smaller blocks swaying about under my weight as if eager to rid themselves of their unusual burden. At one place the coral-limestone over a space of about a hundred yards was perforated like a sieve by numerous holes two to three feet across and five to ten feet deep: but now and then a deep fissure appeared at the bottom of one of these cavities—leading Heaven knows where—in all probability the swallow-hole of some stream that once became engulphed in the solid rock. The spreading roots of trees, together with ferns and shrubs, often nearly concealed these man-traps from my view; and I found it necessary to clear the way for every step, a very tedious process at the close of a tiresome day’s excursion.

In many places that I visited, the ascent of the stream-courses afforded the only opportunity of learning anything of the geological structure on account of the thick forest and the depth of the soil on the hill-slopes. Only at times are the sun’s rays able to penetrate the dusky ravines through which the streams flow, being usually intercepted by the matted foliage overhead. Even in the hottest day, such a walk is pleasantly cool, since the necessity of wading waist-deep and sometimes of swimming is not unfrequent in the deeper parts of the stream. However, I found on more than one occasion, after having been wading for several hours along one of the streams in the cool damp air of the ravine, that I experienced a sudden sensation of chilliness accompanied by lassitude and nausea, the thermometer at the time registering 80° in the shade. Probably the depressing effects of the gloom and damp air of the ravine, and the wading for several hours under these conditions, may explain these symptoms.

I should have before referred to another very frequent inconvenience which, in more senses than one, dampened the ardour with which I set out on many of my excursions amongst these islands. The annual rainfall in these regions is probably about five times as much as the average annual rainfall in England. The showers themselves are usually very heavy, and often rain falls at the rate of an inch in the hour, which means a thorough wetting in less than a minute. When in the eastern part of the group, I rarely used to return on board without having had half-an-inch, or an inch, of rain distributed over my person. Such wettings, however, do but little harm as long as a flannel suit is worn, since the weather generally clears up after each shower and the powerful rays of the sun dry the clothes in a very few minutes without there being the necessity of stopping to take them off.

In spite of the numerous drawbacks, my excursions never lost their interest. Although accustomed to traverse districts which have been upheaved in recent times to elevations of several hundred feet above the sea, the finding of an ancient coral-reef high up a densely-wooded hill-slope, or the picking up of sand and recent sea shells in the interior of an island now supporting a luxuriant vegetation, always excited the same feelings of wonder and interest that I experienced on first landing on one of the recently upheaved islands of the Solomon Group. My thirst, fatigue, and bruises, were forgotten, as whilst contemplating my surroundings over a pipe I attempted to picture to myself the stages in the history of the island on which I was standing, and reflected on the unwritten past of the natives sitting smoking on the ground around me.

I was rarely unaccompanied in my excursions, since with the prospect of getting tobacco and pipes at the close of the day, natives were always found eager to accompany me. Frequently the boys and lads of the village were only too glad to assist me in carrying my bags. The young imps were always full of fun and frolic, making themselves useful in all kinds of ways, and enlivening the time by their singing, laughing, and continual chattering. Many were the speculations made concerning the nature of my pursuits, and many were the questions to which I had to give some reply. Gorai, the chief of the Shortland Islands, was very desirous to know what I made with the rocks I collected; but I found it somewhat difficult to give him an explanation which he could understand. On one occasion I was the cause of much amusement and perplexity to the natives of the village of Sinasoro in Bougainville Straits. Hitherto I had been known to them chiefly on account of my rock-breaking propensities, but during that particular visit I was making a collection of plants. The chief men of the village received me very civilly, made me sit down, and began at once to speculate on the nature of my new pursuit, the botanical line being a new object for wonder with them. “Patu, he finish?” (patu meaning stone) was the question put to me by more than one of their number; and on my telling them that I was going to turn my attention to “bulu-bulu”—their general name for plants they have no name for—I had to explain to further inquirers that a particular fern, named “sinimi” in the native tongue (a species of Gleichenia), which flourished on the higher slopes of their island, was one of the objects of my excursion.

My usual plan on arriving at a village, which I had never visited before, was to distribute a little tobacco amongst the curious throng that pressed around, and then to light my pipe and look pleasant whilst my guides were endeavouring to explain the character of my pursuits. A white man without tobacco in these islands is worse off than a man without any money in his purse in London: for very little is given for nothing by these natives, and the acceptance of a gift binds you to give an equivalent in return. I remember once when landing on the beach of a village where the natives seemed a little uncertain as to what kind of reception they should give me, what a rapid transformation was produced by the gift of a little tobacco to the chief. Where there had been scowls and sullen looks a few moments before, smiles and laughter now prevailed. The chief led me into his house, introduced me to his principal wife, and in another minute I was dangling his little son of about two years old upon my knee. This pleasing transformation had been effected by the expenditure of a halfpennyworth of tobacco; and I could not resist framing at the time the following doggrel rhyme, the excuse for which must be the occasion that gave rise to it.

Shade of Exeter Hall! emerge from thy pall,
Learn the token of union ’twixt white man and black:
Not a brisk cannonade, nor the attractions of trade,
But the mysterious influence of the fragrant tambak.[4]

[4] This is the manner of pronouncing “tobacco” amongst these islanders. In the Malay Archipelago it is pronounced “tambaku.” (“Crawfurd’s Malay Grammar and Dictionary.”)

Although I was rarely absent from the ship more than a couple of days at a time, my excursions had occasionally, as regards the number of my attendants, somewhat of an imposing appearance. Being anxious to visit a district named Komalia, on the north-west side of Alu, the principal of the Shortland Islands, that being the locality from which the natives obtained their slabs of a hard, crystalline diorite, upon which they used to sharpen their knives and axes, Gorai, the chief, volunteered to take me there. Accordingly, he appeared alongside the ship the next morning in a large war-canoe, fifty feet long, and manned by eighteen paddle-men. We started, twenty-four all told, including Gorai, three of his sons, and myself. The chief and I sat beside each other, on the second bow thwart, the post, I believe, which is usually occupied by a chief. Leaving the Onua anchorage shortly before ten A.M., we proceeded easily along at about three miles an hour, coasting the north side of Alu and passing numerous islets on the way. The day was fine but very hot, and there was no protection from the glare of the sun on the water. About half-past one, we reached the north-west point of Alu, where we put into a small cove to get water. Here we saw the tracks of a crocodile on the sand; and on proceeding on our way we saw another on the beach, which, however, soon dived into the sea. Shortly after this, two-thirds of the crew of the canoe jumped overboard after a small turtle, which managed to evade them. The men in the water disturbed another crocodile, which rushed boldly through the line of swimmers, and, diving under our canoe, soon disappeared. Three dugongs came up to the surface close to us; and the old chief fired a shot with his snider at one of them, but without much apparent effect. About half-past two, we reached our destination, and we at once proceeded in search of the volcanic rocks, which we soon succeeded in finding. There was not the slightest reason to question on what errand we were employed, and I doubt if there was ever a more odd-looking party of geologists. The old chief, distinguished from the rest of his men by a shirt, his only article of apparel, led the way; and I followed with about a dozen of his natives. Taking the cue from me, the whole party immediately began breaking up the rocks, and I was in a very short time supplied with an abundance of material to select from. Courtesy, however, compelled me to take all the chief brought to me, which was somewhat inconvenient since the old man displayed much energy in using my geological hammer. On returning to the beach where the canoe had been drawn up, we found that some of the natives had captured a wild boar by the aid of their dogs and spears. The animal was already disembowelled and was being quartered. Whilst we were preparing our evening meal, some of the men made temporary couches for the chief, his three sons, and myself, these couches being merely a layer of poles resting at their ends on two logs and raised about six inches above the ground, the materials being quickly obtained in the adjoining wood. As night fell, we lay down on our couches and smoked, whilst the natives, who had lit about half-a-dozen fires, were waiting for their roast pig, the quarters of which had been placed on a large pile of burning logs, built up in layers to a height of three feet, with three poles placed like a tripod over the pile to draw the fire up. When it was quite dark, the numerous fires lit up the wood around, whilst the natives made the place resound with their singing and laughter. Over our pipes, Gorai and I had some conversation on his ideas of a future state, which he summed up concisely in the phrase “go ground.” In the middle of the night heavy rain came on; and since there was no shelter, I had simply to lie still and let it come down. My companions, however, used their pandanus mats to cover themselves from head to foot, and did not appear to be, in the slightest degree, inconvenienced by the wet.

On another occasion, I spent a night on the summit of Treasury Island, in the company of four natives, one of whom, named Erosini, knew a little English. Leaving the anchorage in the early morning, a three hours’ tramp brought us to the large stream named Tella-tella, on the north-east side of the island. Another four hours were occupied in wading up the stream, when we commenced to ascend the hill-slopes, arriving at the summit late in the afternoon. From here we could see, at a distance of about sixty miles, the lofty peaks of Bougainville, and midway between us lay the white beaches of the Shortland Islands. As it was getting dusk, we began to look around for what Erosini had described to me as a house where we might pass the night. It turned out, however, to be a very dilapidated “lean-to,” which had been temporarily occupied by a native who had come up to look after his sago palms a year or more before. My men immediately set to work to make it habitable for the night, and then they began to prepare their evening meal, consisting of a two-pound tin of beef, three opossums, and a large fresh-water eel which had been captured during the day. With the night-fall, the concert of frogs, lizards, and insects began. One could readily distinguish amongst the notes of the various contributors in the evening chorus, the “kooroo” of the lizard, and the “appa-appa” of the frog, sounds from which the native names for these creatures are derived, viz., “kurru-rupu” and “appa-appa.” Numerous fire-flies lit up the recesses of the forest, as if to disclose the hiding-places of the performers in the general discord, but to no purpose; and soon, rather fatigued by our day’s exertions, we fell asleep. So little had my companions been used to wander over their island, that I found three out of the four had never been in that locality before.

Not unfrequently, after having carefully chosen my guides, I have found it necessary to lead instead of to follow; but as a rule my men have been very willing to trust to the directions of the compass, which I have found absolutely necessary in crossing the smaller islands with no track to guide the course. Some of my pleasantest memories are associated with my traverses across these smaller islands. After forcing my way during some hours through a tangled forest, irritated by the numerous obstructions in my course and sweltering under the oppressive heat, I have suddenly emerged from the trees on the weather coast of the island, where the invigorating blast of the trade in a few moments restores the equilibrium of mind and body as one drinks in the healthful breeze. After such an experience, I have found myself with my native companions standing on the brink of a bold line of coral-limestone cliff with the surf breaking below us, which even in the calmest weather sends up one continued roar, whilst away to seaward, across the blue expanse of water, extended the horizon unbroken by any distant land. On the edge of the cliff the pandanus and the cycad competed with each other for the possession of the seaward margin of the island. The scene was peculiarly Pacific; and as we sat alone on the brink of the cliffs enjoying a smoke and contemplating the scene spread out below us, I fancied even the minds of my natives shared with me that feeling of awe with which one views the grander of nature’s forces in actual operation. . . . . Equally pleasant are my recollections of numerous tramps during fine weather along the sandy beaches on the windward coasts of coral islands. On such occasions the sea itself seemed to revel in the glory of the day. Wave after wave, white-tipped with foam and reflecting the brightest of the sun’s rays, pursued each other merrily over the surface of its unfathomable blue. Against the edge of the reef broke the surf unceasingly, sending its whitened spray high into the air, and joining its hoarse bass with the hum of insect life from the neighbouring wood.

During the greater portion of our sojourn in the Solomon Islands, I had a small Rob Roy canoe made for me by Mr. Oliver, boat-builder of Auckland, N.Z. It was built of kauri pine, and measured 8¹⁄₂ feet in length and 3 feet in beam, being intended to combine compactness with stability. This little craft turned out a great success and was extremely handy, as I could haul it up on the beach with ease, and its stowage capability was something surprising. Numerous and varied were my experiences in this small canoe, but the most enjoyable were those when in the loveliest of weather I paddled gently along from one coral islet to another, admiring the variety in form and colour of the groves of coral over which my little craft smoothly glided. At other times in the sleepy hours of the afternoon I would tie up my canoe to the overhanging branch of a tree, and would land to enjoy a cocoa-nut, a pipe, and perhaps a nap. When lazy, I would get a tow from my native companions in their larger canoe; and in this manner I was towed for more than a mile up one of the large streams that empty into Choiseul Bay. I used to penetrate into all kinds of solitary inlets, now disturbing the siesta of some unsuspecting crocodile as I paddled through the dismal tract of the mangrove swamp, or surprising a turtle in the shallow water of the lagoons inside the coral-reefs. In the deeper water I have passed through a shoal of clumsy porpoises, some of which I could have touched with my paddle; whilst occasionally some huge shark, twice the length of my canoe, would come almost within reach, and then, after satisfying its curiosity, dive down into the depths again. Now and then my little craft would be borne on the shoulders of natives to some inland lakelet which I was anxious to explore. In its lightness I found this great advantage, that I could sometimes considerably shorten my journey by what I may describe as terrestrial navigation. On more than one occasion I have crossed the weather edge of a coral-reef, watching for my chance between the breakers, and keeping warily clear of the numerous coral nobs, any one of which would have upset the canoe and its contents; but these are experiments which I should not care to repeat. I was only twice upset, and on both occasions my canoe displayed two other serviceable qualities, shipping but little water and losing none of its contents although bottom upwards. One of these upsets was rather ludicrous. I was crossing Alu harbour in tow of a large native canoe, setting out on a two days’ excursion with all my stores on board, when my scientific zeal induced me to lean over to pick up a piece of floating pumice. At that moment the large canoe gave a sudden tug and I found myself in the water with my canoe bottom upwards beside me. The men in the other canoe turned her over on her keel, and I got in over the bow, finding very little water inside, but quite sufficient to soak our store of biscuit. However, nothing was lost, although my watch stopped half-an-hour afterwards and refused duty during the rest of the season, and my aneroid was never of any use again, both these articles having been carried in my belt.

On the weather coasts of cliff-girt islands exposed to the continuous trade-swell, much caution is needed in skirting the shore, as every ten minutes or more a huge roller suddenly rushes in, exposing rocks covered usually by three or four fathoms of water, and rising up the face of the cliffs to a height twice as high as the usual level reached by the breakers. From my foolhardy disregard of this circumstance, I very nearly lost my life in July, 1884, on the weather coast of Stirling Island. Having stood for some moments on the edge of the cliff admiring the magnificent breakers that broke at the foot, there having been a strong south-easterly gale during the two preceding days, I commenced to clamber down the face of the cliff to reach a ledge that rose about twenty feet above the usual level of the breakers. Whilst I was pausing in the descent to examine the numerous embedded corals in the cliff-face, a huge wave rose over the ledge, swept up the face of the cliff over my head, and carried me off as if I had been a feather. I thought my last moments had come, knowing that if swept off the ledge into the breakers below, I should be dashed by the next roller against the base of the cliff. As I was being carried off, I clutched a projecting point of coral-rock with all my energy, and in a few moments the wave had left me lying flat on my face on the ledge within two yards of its brink. The next roller was fortunately of much smaller size, and in less than a minute I had clambered up the face of the cliff again to a position of safety, pretty well bruised and scratched about the arms and legs, but otherwise none the worse. My compass and other things had fallen out of the pouches in my belt, showing that I had described a somersault during the immersion. Whilst waiting to dry my clothes in the sun, I noticed that another ten minutes elapsed before a breaker of similar size rolled in.

I will conclude this chapter with some observations on the nature of the work performed by the officers of the survey. The usual experiences of a nautical surveyor, when detached from his ship for periods varying from a few days to a fortnight or more, are little known outside the circle of those more immediately interested in the work of the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty. They would afford, as I have often thought, materials for an interesting volume, the perusal of which would give the general reader some idea of what nautical surveying really is. It is a work often hazardous and tedious to those engaged in the boats, and frequently full of anxiety for the commander who has to direct the survey.

The work in the Solomon Islands had its peculiar, and none the less trying, features. To be detached in a boat for a week off a coast, on which it was not considered prudent to land, except on particular points selected for the establishment of theodolite-stations, was a not uncommon experience with the surveying parties. The alternation of heavy rain and scorching heat served to vary the experience, but not to increase the comfort of those employed from sunrise to sunset in mapping the intricacies of an unsurveyed coast; and the kindheartedness of the surveying officer was often sorely tried, when, after a tedious day’s work under these conditions, he had to tell off his men to keep a look-out for canoes, and a sharp eye on the land, to see that the boat did not drag. There were, of course, other occasions when the detached parties were engaged in surveying islands, the natives of which were friendly disposed; and then, if the weather favoured them, the week’s absence from the ship partook almost of the nature of a pleasant picnic. In the Solomon Islands, however, a considerable experience of the inhabitants of an island is required before a boat can be sent away with the certain assurance that its occupants will meet with no mishap. The unfortunate massacre of Lieutenant Bower of H.M.S. “Sandfly,” and of most of his boat’s crew in 1880, whilst employed in the survey of the Florida Islands in this group, is but an example of the uncertainty that there always will be in dealing with these races. Although similar disasters have been recently almost of monthly occurrence in these islands, during our intercourse of 21 months with the natives we did not fire a single shot in anger, and in our turn we never witnessed a spear hurled or an arrow discharged except in sport.

The navigation of a sailing ship, such as H.M.S. “Lark,” whilst engaged in the survey of a passage dotted with unknown, sunken coral-reefs, and skirted by islands inhabited by a race of savages who have obtained a notorious reputation on account of the ferocity they display to the white man, cannot but tax to the uttermost the capacity and nerve of the officer in command. I can recall more than one anxious moment, and probably there were others known only to those concerned in the navigation of the ship, when on our suddenly getting soundings in the middle of the night in a place where we expected to find “a hundred fathoms and no bottom,” I set about putting my journals together in order not to lose what I had been at so much pains to obtain. Towards the completion of the survey, however, it was ascertained by Lieutenant Oldham that the ship might have sailed without danger over any of the isolated reefs which were not indicated at the surface by either a sand-key or an islet; but this was a character of the reefs that was only ascertained by a process more pleasing to talk about than to undergo.

Before quitting this subject, I should refer to an apparent injustice which exists in the apportioning of no extra pay to the men employed in detached boat-work in the surveying service. With the exception of an issue of clothing, gratis, the boats’ crews receive little or nothing in the form of a reward. I am strongly inclined to believe that the recognition, even in a slight degree, of the arduous character of their work, which is of quite an exceptional character as compared with the routine-employment on board the ordinary man-of-war, would do much towards increasing the interest usually displayed by the men employed in such a service.

CHAPTER II.
GOVERNMENT—HEAD-HUNTING—SLAVERY—CANNIBALISM.

The following anthropological notes are the result of my own personal observation and research, and are necessarily of a somewhat fragmentary character. I had no intention when I first visited these islands of making any special observations on the habits and manners of their inhabitants. When, however, I saw the apparent want of interest displayed by those who had it in their power to enrich the world with their accumulated experiences, I determined to jot down in my diary the things which came in my way during my intercourse with the natives. I cannot of course lay claim to the accuracy and more intimate knowledge such as missionaries and traders resident in the group must possess; and it is to be deplored that such valuable sources of materials for a comprehensive work on the anthropology of this region should be allowed to lie fallow. My lengthened intercourse with the natives of certain parts of the group removed to some extent the disadvantages under which the traveller must always labour when not actually resident among them. My field of observation, however, was limited to but a small area of the whole region: and the greater part has yet to be explored and described.

Commencing my remarks by referring to the system of government usually adopted in these islands, it should be observed that the form of hereditary chieftainship, which prevails throughout the Pacific, here predominates. Every island that supports a number of natives may possess as many distinct chiefs—each claiming independence of the others—as there are villages in the island; and this statement holds equally good whether applied to a large island like St. Christoval or to those of small size as Santa Anna and Ugi. Yet there is not unfrequently to be met a chief who, by the power of his wealth or by the number of his fighting men, assumes a degree of suzerainty over the less powerful chiefs in his vicinity. Thus, the influence of Gorai, the Shortland chief, is not only dominant over the islands of Bougainville Straits, but extends to the adjacent coast of the large islands of Bougainville and Choiseul, and reaches even to Bouka, more than a hundred miles away. The small island of Simbo or Eddystone, the Narovo of the natives, is under the sway of a powerful chief who resides, together with nearly all his fighting men, on an islet bordering its south-east side. His influence extends to the neighbouring larger islands, and is probably as despotic as that of any of the numerous chiefs with whom I was brought into contact. I might mention other instances in this group where a comparatively small island becomes the political centre of a large district. Similar instances are familiar amongst the other Pacific archipelagos, and notably in the case of Bau in Fiji; and they may all be attributed to the fact that the coast-tribes are of more robust physique and of more enterprising character than the inhabitants of the interior of the larger island, or “bush men” as they are often termed.

The large island of St. Christoval is divided amongst numerous tribes between which there are constant feuds, each tribe having its own chief. A wide distinction exists between the inhabitants of the interior and those of the coast; and an unceasing hostility prevails between the one and the other. The distinction often extends to language, a circumstance which points to a long continuation of these feuds; and from it we may infer that the isolation has continued during a considerable period. The bush-tribes find their best protection on the summits of the high hills and on the crests of the mountain-ridges which traverse the interior of the island. I passed one night in the bush-village of Lawa, which is situated on a hill-top about 1,400 feet above the sea near the north coast of St. Christoval. As I was in a locality where probably no white man had been before, the novelty of my situation kept me awake the greater part of the night; and very early the next morning I rose up from my mat in the tambu-house to view, undisturbed, the interior region of the island. It was a gloomy morning. Thin lines of mist were still encircling the loftier summits or lingering in the valleys below. Here and there on the crest of some distant hill a cluster of cocoa-nut palms marked the home of a bush-tribe effectually isolated by deep intervening valleys from the neighbouring tribes. I gazed upon a region which had for ages worn the same aspect, inhabited by the same savage races, the signs of whose existence played such an insignificant part in the panorama laid out before me. Standing alone on this hill-top, I reflected on the deeds of barbarity which these silent mountains must have witnessed “in the days of other years,” deeds which are only too frequent in our own day when the hand of every tribe is against its neighbour, and when the butchery of some unsuspecting hamlet too often supplies the captors with the materials for the cannibal feast.

By the unusual success of their treachery and cunning—the two weapons most essential to savage warfare in St. Christoval as well as in the other islands—some chiefs have acquired a predominance over the neighbouring villages, and their name inspires terror throughout the island. Amongst them, I may mention Taki, the chief of the large village of Wano on the north coast of this island. He has obtained the double reputation of being a friend to the white man and of being the most accomplished head-hunter in St. Christoval; and, as may be readily imagined, the efforts of the Melanesian Mission, by whom a station has been for many years established in this village,[5] have been greatly retarded by the indifference of this powerful chief. The resident teacher in the village was his own son, who had been selected by Bishop Selwyn and had undergone the usual training of teachers in Norfolk Island. I regret to write that he greatly lapsed during our stay in the group, that he appears to have accompanied his father on a head-hunting foray, and that he finally met with an untimely fate, being so severely wounded by a shark when fishing on the reef that he died a few hours afterwards. Taki, although not a Christian convert, was fond of displaying his connection with the Mission. He showed me a certificate which he received from Bishop Patteson in July, 1866; and in fact he is always ready to do the honours of his village to the white man. Of his head-hunting propensities, Captain Macdonald, an American trader resident in Santa Anna, told us the following tale: Not long before the arrival of H.M.S. “Lark” in the Solomon Islands, he was sailing along the St. Christoval coast, when he met Taki in his war-canoe proceeding on one of these expeditions. He endeavoured to place hindrances in the chief’s way by telling him that he had native-traders living at the different places on the coast where he intended to land. But it was to no purpose. Taki saw the ruse, and taking it in good part remarked to Captain Macdonald that he had apparently a large number of natives trading for him. Waiting patiently until some unfortunate bushmen ventured down on the reefs to fish, the Wano chief surprised them, slaughtered many and carried the living and the dead in triumph to his village. When Mr. Brenchley visited this village in H.M.S. “Curacoa” in 1865, he saw evidence of a head-hunting foray, in which probably Taki had taken part in his youthful days. The skulls of 25 bushmen were observed hanging up under the roof of the tambu-house, all showing the marks of the tomahawk.[6] In our time, this chief conducted his forays less openly, and I saw no evidence of his work in the tambu-houses of his village.

[5] The Rev. J. Atkin was resident at Wano in 1871, shortly before he met his death with Bishop Patteson in Santa Cruz.

[6] “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curacoa’” (p. 267); by J. L. Brenchley, M.A.

The practice of head-hunting, above referred to, prevails over a large extent of the Solomon Group. The chiefs of New Georgia or Rubiana extend their raids to Isabel, Florida, and Guadalcanar; and thus perform voyages over a hundred miles in length. Within the radius of these raids no native can be said to enjoy the security of his own existence for a single day. In the villages of Rubiana may be seen heaps of skulls testifying to the success of previous expeditions. Captain Cheyne, when visiting Simbo or Eddystone Island in 1844, found that the natives had just returned from a successful expedition, bringing with them 93 heads of men, women, and children. In these expeditions, he says, they sometimes reached as far as Murray Island which lies about 135 miles to the eastward.[7] Their reputation, however, had extended yet further, since D’Urville, who visited Thousand Ships Bay in 1838, tells us that the Isabel natives knew the land of Simbo and pointed to the west to indicate its direction.[8] The Rev. Dr. Codrington, in referring to these head-hunting raids,[9] remarks that the people of the south-west part of Isabel have suffered very much from attacks made on them year after year by the inhabitants of the further coast of the same island and of neighbouring islands, the object of these attacks being to obtain heads, either for the honour of a dead or living chief or for the inauguration of new canoes. He observes that a new war canoe is not invested with due mana, i.e., supernatural power, until some man has been killed by those on board her; and any unfortunate voyagers are hunted down for the purpose on the first trip or afterwards. The Rubiana natives are said to have introduced head-hunting and human sacrifices into the neighbouring islands. They carry off not only heads but living prisoners, whom they are believed to keep, till on the death of a chief, or launching of a canoe, or some great sacrifice, their lives are taken.

[7] “A Description of Islands in the Western Pacific Ocean” (p. 66), by Andrew Cheyne, London, 1852.

[8] “Voyage au Pole Sud,” Paris, 1843; tom. v., p. 31.

[9] Journal of Anthropological Institute, vol. x., p. 261.

White men have sometimes been the victims of these head-hunting expeditions. As is well known, Lieutenant Bower, of H.M.S. “Sandfly,” met his death, together with the greater number of his boat’s crew, on the islet of Mandoleana, in 1880, at the hands of a similar expedition undertaken by the Florida natives. Kalikona, the most influential chief of the Florida Islands, was freed from implication in this tragedy mainly through the efforts of Bishop Selwyn, to whose influence the subsequent surrender of the five natives concerned in the raid was chiefly due. More often than not, these head-hunting forays are unconnected with cannibalism, the mere possession of skulls being the principal object of the expedition. In some islands, there is a rude idea of justice perceptible in this practice. It is the custom in the eastern islands of the group to place out head-money for the head of any man who may have rendered himself obnoxious to any particular village. The money—a considerable amount of native shell-money—may be offered by the friends of a murdered man for the head of the murderer. Months, sometimes years, may elapse before the deed is accomplished and the money paid. The task is generally undertaken by a professional head-hunter, such as we met in the person of Mai, the second chief of the village of Sapuna, in the island of Santa Anna. To make a thorough examination of the home and surroundings of his victim, and to insinuate himself into that intimacy which friendship alone can give him, are necessary initiatory steps which only the cunning head-hunter can know how to carry to a successful issue. Time is of no moment. The means employed are slow, but the end is none the less secure; and when the opportunity arrives, it is the friend of months, if not of years, who gives the fatal blow.

In the above description of the head-hunter, I have had before my mind some of the reminiscences of Captain Macdonald, to whom I have before alluded. By his judicious treatment of the natives in the eastern islands, he has acquired a powerful influence for good amongst them; and it is to his past discretion that many a white man, myself among the number, has owed his safety when landing on St. Christoval.

When this island was being surveyed by the officers of H.M.S. “Lark,” in 1882, we learned that there was head-money out for a white man’s head in a district on the north side and nearly opposite Ugi. It appeared that about a year before a fatal accident had occurred on board a trading-vessel through a revolver going off unexpectedly and killing a native belonging to the district. It was the current opinion of resident traders that sooner or later the required head would be obtained. As characteristic of a trader’s experience in these islands, I may add that on one occasion when visiting Mr. Bateman, a trader residing then on the north coast of Ugi, I was told by him that about a month before a friendly Malaita chief had arrived in a large canoe at Ugi with the information that head-money had been offered by another Malaita chief for the head of a white man. The chief who brought the news advised Mr. Bateman to remove his residence to the interior of the island; and the natives in his vicinity were very solicitous that the warning should be heeded.

I learned from Mr. Stephens, who has resided on Ugi for several years, that on one occasion when he was resident on Guadalcanar, on returning from an excursion up the bed of one of the streams, a message was received from the chief of a village in the interior warning him not to make any more similar excursions or he would take his life. The chief of the village, under whose protection Mr. Stephens was residing, took up the matter as an insult to himself; and sent a reply to the effect that if the neighbouring chief wished to remain on terms of amity with him, he should at once send a head in atonement for the threats directed against the white man. A day or two afterwards, Mr. Stephens saw the head, which had been duly sent.

The little island of Santa Anna, although but 2¹⁄₂ miles in length, supports two principal villages, Otagara and Sapuna, which are as often as not at war with each other, although only separated by the breadth of the island. Such was the state of affairs during one of our visits to Port Mary in this island; and the fact that the natives of the two villages were connected by inter-marriages did not act as a deterrent in the matter. Through the restless spirit of Mai, the head-hunter before referred to, some old grievance had been dug up, the murder, I believe, some years before of the brother of Mai by the Otagara natives. The outcome of it was that in the middle of the night all the fighting men of Sapuna assembled at the tambu-house of Mai, and started off along the coast to pounce upon their fellow islanders on the other side. The utmost that could have happened would have been the slaughter of some unsuspecting man or woman on the skirts of the village: but, as it chanced, a thunderstorm with heavy rain overtook the party when near their destination; and this dampened their courage to such a degree that they returned to their own village with the excuse that the rain, by running down their faces, would have hindered them in throwing their spears and avoiding those of their opponents. On the following day, Mai led a party of Sapuna men to make another attack, and on returning in the afternoon from one of my excursions into the interior of the island, I learned that the party had returned triumphant, having killed one of their neighbour’s large pigs, an act which is regarded as a “casus belli” in native politics.

In the person of Mai, we have a typical example of a Solomon Island head-hunter. The cunning and ferocity which marked his dealings, were sufficiently indicated in his countenance and his mien. He had established for himself the position of war-chief in his village of Sapuna, the reigning chief being of a more peaceable disposition. During one of our visits to this island we found that this war-chief had been very recently displaying his heroism in the most approved native fashion. He had led a war-party across to Fanarite 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 Fanarite where he was killed. The excuse, although somewhat circuitous, was quite sufficient for Mai, who in his disinterestedness thought more of this chance of gaining new laurels than of the untimely end of the native whose death he was so eager to avenge. Having reached the part of the coast where this man had been 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. Having dipped their weapons in the gore of their victims, Mai and his party returned to Santa Anna. I was sorry to learn that a native, named Pukka-pukka who had served in the “Lark” as an interpreter during the previous year, had taken an active part in this expedition. It appeared that the chief had aimed at him, but his musket missed fire, when Pukka-pukka shot him through the back with his snider. The scene of the tragedy was familiar to me, as I had landed there the year before. Pukka-pukka, who is a sensible young man and of by no means a bloodthirsty disposition, did not like my taking him to task for the part he took in this raid; and he protested more than once in a somewhat injured tone that his people did not fight without good cause. In his case, I felt confident that he was not tempted by the mere love of bloodshedding, the truth being that through the able tutorship of Mai, all old feuds are kept alive in the minds of the young men of the village, who, in their desire to distinguish themselves, come to regard such grievances as fair grounds for war. We soon learned that the Fanarite natives would seize the first opportunity to retaliate; and that head-money to a large amount had been offered for the head of a native of Santa Anna, and particularly for the head of Pukka-pukka.

The chiefs of the islands of Bougainville Straits possess far greater power over their peoples than that which is wielded by most of the chiefs we encountered at the St. Christoval end of the group. At Santa Anna and at Ugi, the position of the chief is almost an empty honour; and some man of spirit, though not of principle, such as Mai in the former island and Rora at Ugi, usurps by his fighting prowess a large share of the power. On the St. Christoval coast I met several such chiefs, who possess no influence beyond their own district, and often very little in that. Occasionally, as I have before observed, a chief is found who, like Taki at Wano, exercises a powerful influence over the less pretentious chiefs of neighbouring islands and districts. Some of the Guadalcanar chiefs are very powerful; but with them I had no personal intercourse; and I prefer to confine my remarks to those portions of the group with which I became acquainted. Returning, then, to the chiefs of the islands of Bougainville Straits, I may enumerate them in their order of importance—Gorai in the Shortland Islands, Mule at Treasury, Kurra-kurra and Tomimas in Faro or Fauro, and Krepas at Choiseul Bay. There is constant communication between the natives of these islands, more particularly between those of Treasury, the Shortlands, and Faro, the distances between the islands varying between 15 and 25 miles. Intermarriages are frequent between the natives of these islands. They all speak the same language; and not uncommonly a man shifts his home from one island to another. The chiefs are all connected either by blood-relationship or by marriage, and together form as powerful an alliance as might be found in the whole group. Visits of condolence are exchanged in times of bereavement between the chiefs; and presents are conveyed from one to another. On one occasion we carried a present of sago from Mule to Gorai; and I have on more than one occasion during our passages between these islands been made the bearer of a message from chief to chief.

1

2

1. Gorai, his principal Wife, and his Son Ferguson.

2. Four of the Wives of Mule.

[To face page 21.

Gorai, the well-known Alu chief, Alu being the name of his principal island, exercises a kind of suzerainty over the neighbouring chiefs. But his reputation and influence extend far beyond the islands directly or indirectly under his rule. From Treasury northward and eastward, throughout the Shortlands, across the straits to Choiseul Bay, through Faro, and along the coast of Bougainville, extending even to Bouka, his influence is predominant. Masters of vessels, recruiting labour on the coast of Bougainville, have a sufficient guarantee for the good behaviour of the natives of the places they visit, if they have been fortunate enough to secure the presence on board of one of the sons of Gorai. This chief has been the trusted friend of the white man for many years. On our first visit to Alu we were therefore prepared to think favourably of him. We found him on the beach, surrounded by a considerable number of his people. Shaking hands with us, he told us in his imperfect English that he was a friend of the white man. Rather beyond middle age, and somewhat shorter than the average native, he has an honest, good-humoured expression of countenance, which at once prepossessed us in his favour. Whilst seated in the dingy interior of one of his houses, surrounded by several of his wives, Gorai related to us the story—well known to all acquainted with the Solomon Group—of his reprisal a few years before on the natives of Nouma-nouma, a village on the east coast of Bougainville, for the murder of Captain Ferguson of the trading steamer “Ripple.” The master of the “Ripple” was an old friend of Gorai, and traded extensively with him. On hearing the news, the chief mustered his men and despatched them in canoes, under the command of his eldest son, to the scene of the massacre, about a hundred miles away. The natives of the offending village were surprised, and about twenty of them were killed, including men, women, and children—“all same man-of-war,” as Gorai too truthfully observed. One of the chief’s sons has received the name of the unfortunate master of the “Ripple;” and I may here refer to the good name which Captain Ferguson has left behind him, not only amongst the natives of the Solomon Islands, but also amongst his fellow-traders in those seas. The inhabitants of the Shortland Islands, Gorai’s immediate rule, live in great awe of their chief; and the number of natives who gathered round us when we first met the chief showed us by their manner that in the friendship of the chief the white man possessed the goodwill of his subjects. We were unable to see very much of the mode of exercising his power; but I suspect that Gorai, like other chiefs, places but little value on the lives of his people. Punishment is summarily dealt by the spear or the tomahawk; and I learned from natives of the adjoining islands that the offence may be of a very trivial nature.

On one occasion, Gorai took me in his war-canoe on a geological excursion to the north-west side of Alu. During our return, the sun set when we were about twelve miles from the ship, and left us to pursue our way in the darkness. Seated alongside the chief on the second bow thwart of the canoe, I could not help reflecting how many times he must have occupied the same seat in his war-canoes when engaged in those expeditions which have made his influence dominant on this part of the group. On our way we skirted the beach of an islet on which were squatting a party of Alu natives who had gone there to fish. Although we passed a few yards from these men, not a word of recognition was exchanged. The sight of a large war-canoe with Gorai and a white man in the bow passing them in the dusk of evening must have been a novel one to them, yet neither they nor our men exchanged a word. There they sat squatting motionless on the beach, and we passed them in silence. Gorai subsequently explained to me that the reason of this was that the men were “too much fright,” or rather awed, by the presence of their chief.

The chief of the Shortland Islands has two or more elderly men who act as his ministers. Many years ago he was living at Treasury, of which island he was chief; but being unwilling to take part in the hostility displayed by the Treasury natives towards the white men, he left the island under the chieftainship of Mule, the present chief, who still remained in some degree under the rule of Gorai. The Alu chief takes a pleasure in asserting that he is “all same white man,” at the same time deprecating the inferior position of his race with the remark, “White man, he savez too much. Poor black man! He no savez nothing.”

I now come to Mule, the Treasury chief, who numbers amongst his wives a sister of Gorai, Bita by name; whilst the Alu chief has returned the compliment by making Mule’s sister, Kai-ka, the principal amongst his hundred wives. Mule, also known as Mule-kopa, has rather the appearance and build of a chief of one of the more eastern Pacific groups. He has a sedate expression of countenance, a prominent chin, and strongly marked coarse features. A large bushy head of hair adds to the dignity of his appearance; and his powerful limbs, depth of chest, breadth of shoulders, and greater height distinguish him pre-eminently from his people. His rule is as despotic in Treasury as that of Gorai in the Shortlands; and he maintains his sway rather by the fear he inspires than by possessing any feeling of respect on the part of his subjects. On more than one occasion I have heard the natives use threatening language towards their chief, when he had made some arbitrary exercise of his power. He had a habit of sending away to the bush any native who from his superior knowledge of English seemed to be supplanting him in the intercourse with the ships that visited the harbour. Even his right-hand man, who prided himself on his name of Billy, experienced his wrath on one occasion in this manner. Like other chiefs, Mule is grasping and covetous, shortcomings which are rather those of the race than of the individual. Although of the chiefs of Bougainville Straits I liked him the least, the contrast was rather due to the exceptionally good estimate we had formed of his fellow chiefs. The visits of H.M.S. “Lark” to this island have been the means of removing the very bad reputation which the natives had deservedly possessed: and I would especially invite the attention of my readers to the history of this change in the attitude of these natives towards the white man.

Captain C. H. Simpson, who visited this island in H.M.S. “Blanche” in 1872, described its people in his report to the Admiralty,[10] as being “the most treacherous and blood-thirsty of any known savages;” and the officers employed in making a sketch of the harbour had ample evidence of their ferocity. About seven years before, the natives had cut out a barque and had murdered her crew of 33 men. Previously they had captured several boats of whalers visiting the islands, and had massacred the crews. The Treasury natives were always very reticent to us when we tried to learn something more of the fate of the barque; but we learned little except that she was American, and was named “Superior.” The captain, whose name the natives pronounced “Hoody,” was carried away into the interior of the island and killed, and the scene of his murder was once pointed out to Lieutenant Oldham when crossing the island. As Captain Simpson charges the natives with cannibalism, there can be little doubt of the ultimate fate of the crew of the American barque. In the interval between the occurrence of this event and the arrival of the “Blanche,” no vessel had anchored in the harbour, the ships always heaving-to off the north coast, where the natives resided when Captain Simpson visited the island. Treasury retained its bad reputation up to the date of our visit; and but few traders had much knowledge of the place, as they generally gave the island a wide berth. We met but one man who spoke well of these natives, and he was Captain Walsch of the trading schooner “Venture.” All others gave them the worst of characters: and led me to believe that my acquaintance with Treasury would not extend beyond the deck of H.M.S. “Lark.” When Lieutenant Oldham first visited this island in May, 1882, he had every reason to place but little confidence in the natives; and in truth we all thought that the appearance and behaviour of the natives justified the treacherous reputation which they had obtained. Only two days were spent there, but no landing was effected: the chief made no response to the invitations to visit the ship; and we left the harbour without much feeling of regret. In June of the following year we again visited this island; and if the same procedure had been followed we should have been a very long time in gaining the confidence of the natives. Lieutenant Oldham, however, paid an official visit to the chief, accompanied by Lieutenant Malan and myself. Mule and one of his sons returned the visit within a couple of hours. Presents were exchanged; and the foundation of mutual confidence was thus laid. The result may be briefly stated. In a few days I was rambling all over the island, usually accompanied by a lively gathering of men and boys. An intimacy was established with the natives, which lasted until we bade farewell to the group in the following year; and the return of the “Lark” from her cruises was always a cause of rejoicing amongst the natives. The men of the ship were known by name to most of the people of the island: whilst Mr. Isabell, our leading-stoker, made a deep impression upon them by his readiness to employ his mechanical skill for their various wants, so much so that Mule offered, if he would remain, to make him a chief with the usual perquisite as to the number of his wives. For my own part, I reaped the full benefit of our amicable relations with the natives; and for the proof of this statement I must refer the reader to the remarks on my intercourse with them, and to my observations on the geology, botany, and other characteristics of the island.

[10] “Hydrographic Notices, Pacific Ocean,” 1856 to 1873 (p. 106).

Coming now to the chiefs of Faro or Fauro Island, I must mention more particularly Kurra-kurra the chief of Toma, and Tomimas the chief of Sinasoro, Toma and Sinasoro being the two principal villages of the island. Kurra-kurra is, I believe, a half-brother of Gorai. He has not, however, the same dignity of manner, and has resigned most of his power into the hands of his son Gorishwa, a fine strapping young man. Both father and son are friends of the white man. Tomimas, the Sinasoro chief, also related to Gorai, is somewhat taciturn even with his own people, but a chief to be thoroughly trusted. On one occasion whilst assisting Lieutenant Heming and myself in demolishing our dinners in a tambu-house at his village, Tomimas broke a long silence by informing us through a native interpreter that the men of Sinasoro were very good people, that they did not kill white men, and that their chief was like Gorai. It is needless to write that we appreciated the good intention, though hardly the elegance of the chief’s solitary remark. In the following year, when I was returning from a botanical excursion to the peak of Faro, I received an invitation from Tomimas to visit him on the side of the harbour opposite to the village. The chief, who awaited me on the beach, received me cordially, telling me through one of the natives, who could speak a little English, that he had collected for me the fruits and leaves of the “anumi”—a tree of the genus Cerbera—which he had heard I had been anxious to find. The kindly manner of the old chief attracted me towards him, and I sat down, as he wished me, by his side on the log of a tree, having first presented him with a large knife which greatly pleased him. Close by, stood his four wives, to whom he introduced me, pointing out to me the mother of his eldest son Kopana, an intelligent young man of about twenty-two. A bunch of ripe bananas was laid beside me, of which I was bidden to partake. This was followed in a short time by a savoury vegetable broth, which the chief brought with his own hands in a cooking-pot. It was especially prepared for me on their learning that I had found the plant (an aroid, Schizmatoglottis) in my excursions. There was the spirit of true politeness displayed in the manner of the chief and his wives, as they endeavoured to show that in the exercise of their simple hospitality they were receiving, instead of conferring, an honour. I felt that I was in the presence of good breeding, although sitting attired in a dirty flannel suit in the midst of a number of almost naked savages. My own party of Sinasoro natives, who had been fasting for many hours, politely asked me to partake of their meal which the generosity of the chief had prepared, before they thought of touching it themselves. I of course complied with their request by tasting a cooked banana, when, this piece of etiquette having been duly observed, they attacked the victuals without ceremony.

Such was my pleasing experience of this Faro chief. During the survey of this island, the natives showed every disposition to be friendly towards us. In my numerous excursions I always met with civility, and frequently with unexpected acts of kindness; and I soon became known to them by the name given to me by the Treasury natives, “Rōkus” or “Dōkus.”

The principal chief of the district, immediately north of Choiseul Bay, is named “Krepas.” Several years before he had been living at Faro, which he left on account of the death of all his wives. When we first visited Choiseul Bay in September, 1883, we found the natives very coy in approaching us, on account of the reprisal of H.M.S. “Emerald,” two years before, on the people of the neighbouring village of Kangopassa for the cutting out of the trading-vessel “Zephyr,” and the murder of a portion of her crew. After two days, however, Lieutenant Oldham succeeded in removing their suspicions, and the chief came on board. Subsequently Krepas and his son, Kiliusi, accompanied me in a canoe during my ascent of one of the rivers that empty themselves into this bay. I found the chief and his son very useful guides, and was prepossessed in their favour. On our return to Treasury, I was surprised to learn from Billy, Mule’s prime minister, as we termed him, that Krepas was a practised cannibal, and would not think much of killing a white man. Billy was deeply impressed by the circumstance of my having shared my lunch with the chief of Choiseul Bay, about two miles up one of the rivers. It was in this bay that the French navigator, Bougainville, intended to anchor his ships in 1768, being opposed by the hostility of the natives. The boats, which had been sent in to find an anchorage, were attacked by 150 men in ten canoes, who were only routed after the second discharge of fire-arms. Two canoes were captured, in one of which was found the jaw of a man half-broiled. The number of shoals, and the irregularity of the currents prevented the ships coming up to the anchorage before night fell; and Bougainville, abandoning his design, continued his course through the Straits.[11] The description which the French navigator gave of these natives in 1768, applies equally well to those of the present day. When H.M.S. “Lark” revisited Choiseul Bay in October, 1884, not a single native was seen; so that it would behove future visitors to be very cautious in their dealings with these natives. Whilst off the coast north of this bay, a fishing-party of half-a-dozen men came off to the ship from the village of Kandelai; but they showed great suspicion of us. They would not come alongside for some time; and when a present of calico was flung to them at the end of a line, they were divided amongst themselves whether to come and take it, some paddling one way and some another. At length they took the present and came alongside, but did not stay long, and soon paddled towards the shore, their suspicions by no means allayed. What had happened to cause this change of attitude, we could not learn. Evidently, the good impression which we had left behind us a year before, had borne no fruit. Probably, some inconsiderate action on the part of the crew of a trading-vessel had undone our work.

[11] “Voyage autour du Monde,” 2nd edit. augm. vol. II., Paris, 1772.

The professional head-hunter of the eastern islands of the group does not appear to be represented amongst the islands of Bougainville Straits. Raids are occasionally made on the villages of the adjoining Bougainville coast, but more, I believe, for the purpose of procuring slaves, than from the mere desire of fighting. There is, however, frequent friendly communication between the natives of the islands of the Straits and those of certain Bougainville villages, the former usually exchanging articles of trade for spears and tortoise-shell, and acting as middle-men in the traffic with the white men. It is however singular that the natives of the Straits trade with different villages on the Bougainville coast; and that, although on usually such friendly terms with each other, they are often on terms of hostility with the particular Bougainville village with which their neighbours trade. Thus, Mule, the Treasury chief, trades with the people of the village of Suwai, over which his brother Kopana is chief. Gorai, the Alu chief, on the other hand, is at war with the natives of Suwai, but maintains friendly communication with Daku, the chief of the village of Takura, and with Magasa the chief of the harbour of Tonali. Whilst spending a night at Sinasoro with Lieutenant Heming and his party, I with the rest had to share the tambu-house with a party of ten natives from Takura. They had come across for pigs and taro. The natives of the adjoining coast of Bougainville, possessing a different language, are not able to make themselves understood by the people of the Straits except by interpreters. I have seen one of these natives just as little able to make himself understood by the natives of Faro, as if he had been suddenly removed to some very distant country instead of only 30 miles away.

I have previously referred to the close friendship which usually prevails between the inhabitants of the islands of Bougainville Straits, linked together as they are by inter-marriages and by the possession of a common language. But in the calmest seas there are occasional storms; and I will proceed to relate an extraordinary chain of events which came more or less under our observation whilst in this portion of the group. Shortly before our return to Treasury in April, 1884, there had been a terrible domestic tragedy, which at one time threatened to embroil all the chiefs of the Straits in actual war. It appeared that Kopana, the eldest son of Gorai had, in a fit of temporary madness, shot one of his wives dead with his rifle, the unfortunate woman being a daughter of Mule, the Treasury chief. On hearing the news, Mule at once crossed over to Alu to exact vengeance on Kopana; but Gorai would not permit him to harm his son; and it was arranged between the two chiefs that Mule should be allowed to shoot one of the other wives of Kopana, as the price of blood. Early one morning the Treasury chief, armed with his snider rifle, took his way in a canoe up a passage I had often traversed in my Rob Roy, and surprising his selected victim at work in a taro patch, he shot her dead. At the same time he wounded her male attendant, an elderly native named Malakolo, the bullet passing through the left shoulder-joint from behind. When I saw this man six or seven weeks afterwards, he was fast recovering from the injury, although with a useless limb. Kopana, who is a headstrong son and beyond his father’s control, naturally resented this act of Mule, and appears to have meditated a descent on Treasury. Collecting his followers and the remainder of his wives, he disappeared on what was given out as a tortoise-shell expedition. We found the Treasury people in a great dread of the daily arrival of Kopana; and I had some difficulty in getting natives to accompany me in my excursions about the island. They did not care to leave the vicinity of the village; and I found many of the bush-paths familiar to me in the previous year partly overgrown. Apparently through a sense of shame, Mule and his natives avoided telling us anything about the act of retaliation; they were, however, loud in their endeavours to cast aspersions on Kopana. On our arrival at Alu, we learned the truth from Gorai to whom Mule had sent a native, who took a passage with us, asking him not to be too communicative in case we made inquiries. As it happened, however, the Treasury native was kept on board, and Lieutenant Oldham, on landing, learned the part Mule had played. Kopana was apparently quite conscious of his own responsibility in the matter, as he had left a present with Gorai to be given to the captain of any man-of-war who should come to punish him. Thus closed the first scene of this tragedy.

Whilst we lay at anchor off Gorai’s village, it was evident that there was trouble brewing. The natives accompanying me in my geological excursions carried arms contrary to their usual practice. On the same day the two principal villages were found deserted; and Gorai shifted his residence to another islet. Rumours became rife that the Treasury and Shortland natives had met with bloodshed; but the men we questioned made so many wilful misstatements that it was impossible to learn what had really happened. At length the truth came out. Being in Gorai’s house one morning, I was told by the chief that his son had been attacked five days before by the Treasury natives on the islet of Tuluba, off the west coast of Alu, that Kopana’s canoe had returned without his master, bringing a man and a woman badly wounded, and that he shortly expected the return of two large war-canoes which he had sent to the scene of the encounter. These two canoes returned whilst I was talking to the chief on the beach, bringing a few more survivors but without Kopana. The old chief then took it for granted that his eldest son was dead, and in telling me so showed no emotion whatever. In the evening, however, we learned, to our astonishment, that Kopana had returned, having not been engaged in the fray. It seemed that at the time of the encounter he was on a neighbouring islet. After some difficulty, I was able to get an account of the affair.

Two Treasury war-canoes, it appears, attempted to land at Tuluba Islet one evening, where the crews were going to encamp for the night. Ostensibly the Treasury men were on their way to Bougainville to buy spears; but since they were led by Olega, the brother of Mule and the fighting-chief of the island, it is probable that they were intending a descent on Alu from this islet of Tuluba. When the Treasury men discovered Kopana’s party were already there, the fighting at once began. During the conflict, for which the Alu natives were ill-prepared, seeing that they were largely composed of Kopana’s wives, one of the Treasury canoes was dashed to pieces on a reef and all the occupants were thrown into the water. In this unequal contest, the Alu natives had a man and a woman killed and a man and a woman wounded, both the women being wives of Kopana. In addition four other of Kopana’s wives were captured by the Treasury men, who returned to their own island in the remaining canoe with a loss of four men wounded, of whom one subsequently died.

The unfortunate wives of Kopana had indeed borne the brunt from the very beginning. Within two months, three of them had suffered violent death, one of them was wounded apparently beyond recovery, and four had been carried off prisoners to Treasury. The singular feature of this breach between the Treasury and Alu natives, was that the animosity of the former was directed against Gorai’s eldest son and not against the old chief, his father, who did not think it incumbent on him to interfere except for the purpose of pacifying the two parties.

I visited the two wounded brought back to Alu. Five days had already elapsed since the fight, and I found the wounds of both in a horrible condition. The wife of Kopana had a severe tomahawk wound of the thigh just above the knee, smashing the bone and implicating the joint. The man had a rifle-bullet wound through the fleshy part of the thigh and a pistol-bullet wound in the opposite groin. Nothing had been done in either case, and after the lapse of five days in a tropical climate, the condition of the wounds could be scarcely described. I was allowed to do but little, and considered recovery in either case most improbable. Both, however, recovered to my great astonishment. I found afterwards, on visiting the wounded at Treasury, that one man had been shot through the elbow-joint by one of his own party.

The subsequent events in connection with this outbreak of hostilities in the Straits may be soon related. Although there was now open war between Alu and Treasury, it assumed a passive character, each side awaiting or expecting an attack from the other. Gorai was much concerned at this turn of events, seeing that, as he told me, he thought he had come to an amicable arrangement with Mule when he allowed him to take the life of one of his son’s wives. The canoe-houses at Alu were usually filled during the day by a number of natives, all carrying their tomahawks and debating on the topic of the day. In the midst of them I once found Gorai talking in his quiet way to an attentive circle of armed natives. In the meanwhile the Treasury natives held a feast in celebration of their success; and the four wives of Kopana were distributed about the village, but they experienced no ill treatment. In a few weeks the animosity displayed between the peoples of the two islands began to cool down; and it soon became evident that the war was one only in name. At length peace was once more restored. In the beginning of October a number of Treasury natives came over to the west coast of Alu where Gorai was then residing, bringing with them Mule’s principal wife, Bita, the sister of the Alu chief, together with a large present of bananas, taro, and other vegetables; and lastly, what was the most significant act of all, they brought with them the four wives of Kopana who had been captured on the islet of Tuluba. Gorai told me that amity was now perfectly restored, and that he was going to exchange visits with the Treasury chief to confirm the compact. Fortunately for the happiness of the natives of Bougainville Straits, war rarely disturbs the peaceful atmosphere in which they live.

I cannot doubt that, in the lives of the natives of these straits, we have the brighter side of the existence of the Solomon Islander; and this result may, I think, be attributed in the main to the influence of Gorai, the Alu chief, who in his intercourse with white men, not always the best fitted to represent their colour, as I need scarcely remark, has learned some lessons in his own crude way which he could hardly have learned under any other conditions. Natives of the islands of the Straits can count with some confidence on the tenure of their lives, but this is simply due to the influence of the name of the Alu chief. And yet, however secure the surroundings of a native may be, he will never be entirely off his guard. Suspicion is a quality inherent in his mind, and it shows itself in most of the actions of his life. Even of those natives, who, in the capacity of interpreters, lived on board the ship for weeks together, one was always keeping watch over his comrades during the long hours of the night whenever we were at any anchorage away from their own island; and I have been told by the officers in charge of the detached surveying parties, that even after a hard day’s work in the boat, they have found their natives keeping a self-imposed watch during the night.

I pass on now to the subject of the power of the “tambu,” or “taboo” as it is more usually termed. The tambu ban constitutes the real authority of a petty chief in times of peace. In the eastern islands, the tambu sign is often two sticks crossed and placed in the ground. In such a manner, the St. Christoval native secures his patch of ground from intrusion. In the islands of Bougainville Straits, posts six to eight feet in height, rudely carved in the form of the head and face, are erected facing sea-ward on the beach of a village to keep off enemies and sickness. Similar posts are erected on the skirts of a plantation of cocoa-nut palms to warn off intruders. On one occasion, whilst ascending the higher part of a stream in Treasury, my natives unexpectedly came upon the faint footprint of a bushman; and my sheath-knife was at once borrowed by the chief’s eldest son, who happened to be one of the party, to cut out a face in the soft rock as a tambu mark for the bushman, or in other words to preserve the stream. I have only touched on the exercise of the right of tambu in its narrowest sense. Scattered about in the pages of this work will be found numerous allusions to customs which would be comprised under this head in its widest meaning: for the power of the tambu is but the power of a code which usually prohibits and rarely commands; and in enumerating its restrictions and defining its limits, one would be in reality describing a negative system of public and private etiquette. It is worthy of note, that the term “tambu” is not included in the vocabulary of the language of the natives of Bougainville Straits, its equivalent being “olatu.”

It may be here apposite to make some observations on the slavery which is practised in connection with the bush-tribes of these islands. As already remarked, a wide distinction usually prevails in the Solomon Group between the inhabitants of the coast and those of the interior; and although this distinction is most evident in the case of the larger islands, it also prevails, but to a less degree, in those of smaller size. It is a noteworthy fact that the bushmen are always looked down upon by their brethren of the coast. “Man-bush” is with the latter a term of reproach, implying stupidity and crass ignorance. I have frequently heard this epithet applied to natives who handled their canoes in an awkward manner or who stumbled in their walk whilst accompanying me in my excursions. On one occasion, when trying to obtain stone axes from the natives of Alu, I was referred with a smile to the bushmen of the neighbouring island of Bougainville, who still employ these tools. In the larger islands the bush-tribes and the coast natives wage an unceasing warfare, in which the latter are usually the aggressors and the victors—the bushmen captured during these raids either affording materials for the cannibal feast or being detained in servitude by their captors. But there prevails in the group a recognized system of slave-traffic, in which a human being becomes a marketable commodity—the equivalent being represented in goods either of native or of foreign manufacture. This custom which came under the notice of the officers of Surville’s expedition, during their visit to Port Praslin in Isabel, in 1769,[12] obtains under the same conditions at the present time. These natives were in the habit of making voyages of ten and twelve days’ duration with the object of exchanging men for “fine cloths covered with designs,” articles which were manufactured by a race of people much fairer than their own, who were in all probability the inhabitants of Ontong Java.

[12] “Discoveries to the south-east of New Guinea,” by M. Fleurieu, p. 143, Eng. edit.

The servitude to which the victims of this traffic are doomed is not usually an arduous one. But there is one grave contingency attached to his thraldom which must be always before the mind of the captive, however lightly his chains of service may lie upon him. When a head is required to satisfy the offended honour of a neighbouring chief, or when a life has to be sacrificed on the completion of a tambu-house or at the launching of a new war-canoe, the victim chosen is usually the man who is not a free-born native of the village. He may have been bought as a child and have lived amongst them from his boyhood up, a slave only in name, and enjoying all the rights of his fellow natives. But no feelings of compassion can save him from his doom; and the only consideration which he receives at the hands of those with whom he may have lived on terms of equality for many years is to be found in the circumstance that he gets no warning of his fate.

There are in Treasury several men and women who, originally bought as slaves from the people of Bouka and Bougainville, now enjoy apparently the same privileges and freedom of action as their fellow islanders. It is sometimes not a matter of much difficulty to single out the slaves amongst a crowd of natives. On one occasion I engaged a canoe of Faro men to take me to a distant part of their island: and very soon after we started I became aware from the cowed and sullen condition of one of the crew that he was a slave. On inquiry I learned that this man had been captured when a boy in the island of Bougainville, and I was informed that if he was to return to his native place—a bush village named Kiata—he would undoubtedly be killed. Although in fact a slave, I concluded from the bearing of the other men towards him that his bondage was not a very hard one; and he evidently appeared to enjoy most of the rights of a native of the common class. Sukai, however, for such was his name, had to make himself generally useful in the course of the day; and when at the close of the excursion we were seated inside the house of a man who provided us with a meal of boiled taro, sweet potatoes, and bananas, he was served with his repast on the beach outside.

Mule, the Treasury chief, had adopted a little Bougainville bush-boy, named Sapeku, who was purchased when very young from his friends. In 1883 he was six or seven years old, and was the constant companion of the sons of the chief. He was a fat chubby little urchin, with woolly hair, and was known on board under the name of “Tubby.” His wild excitable disposition full of suspicion showed to great contrast with the calmer and more confident demeanour of his companions. He was, however, a general favourite with us, although I should add he did not possess half the pluck of his associates. Mule also possessed, at the time of our visit, a young girl, twelve or thirteen years old, who had been not long before purchased from the Bougainville natives.

I have previously referred to the existence of bushmen on some of the smaller islands. In the interior of Treasury there are a few hamlets containing each two or three families of bushmen, who live quite apart from the other natives of the island. On more than one occasion I experienced the hospitality of these bush families, who in matters of dress are even less observant than the harbour natives. They are probably the remnants of the original bushmen who occupied this island. Over our pipes, I used frequently to converse with the natives on the subject of the past history of their island; and I gleaned from them that the enterprising race at present dominant in the Bougainville Straits came originally from the islands immediately to the eastward, using Treasury as a stepping-stone to the Shortlands and Faro, and ousting or exterminating the bushmen they found in the possession of these islands.

I will turn for a moment to the subject of slavery in the eastern islands of the group. In Ugi it is the practice of infanticide which has given rise to a slave-commerce regularly conducted with the natives of the interior of St. Christoval. Three-fourths of the men of this island were originally bought as youths to supply the place of the natural offspring killed in infancy. But such natives when they attain manhood virtually acquire their independence, and their original purchaser has but little control over them. On [page 42], I have made further reference to this subject.

Connected in the manner above shown with the subject of slavery is the practice of cannibalism. The completion of a new tambu-house is frequently celebrated among the St. Christoval natives by a cannibal feast. Residents in that part of the group tell me that if the victim is not procured in a raid amongst the neighbouring tribes of the interior, some man is usually selected from those men in the village who were originally purchased by the chief. The doomed man is not enlightened as to the fate which awaits him, and may, perhaps, have been engaged in the erection of the very building at the completion of which his life is forfeited. The late Mr. Louis Nixon,[13] one of those traders whose name should not be forgotten amongst the pioneers who, in working for themselves, have worked indirectly for the good of their successors in the Solomon Group, once recounted to me a tragical incident of this kind on the island of Guadalcanar, of which he was an unwilling spectator. Whilst looking out of the window of his house one afternoon, he observed a native walk up to another standing close to the window and engage him in conversation. A man then stole up unperceived, and raising his heavy club above his head, struck the intended victim lifeless to the ground. Knowing too well the nature and purpose of the deed, Mr. Nixon turned away quite sickened by the sight.

[13] Mr. Nixon died at Santa Anna in the end of 1882.

The natives of the small island of Santa Anna enjoy the reputation of being abstainers from human flesh: but, inasmuch, as Mai the war-chief has acquired a considerable fortune, in a native’s point of view, by following the profitable calling of purveyor of human flesh to the man-eaters of the adjacent coasts of St. Christoval—a trade in which he is ably assisted by those who accompany him on his foraging expeditions—we can hardly preserve this nice distinction between the parts taken by the contractor and his customers in this extraordinary traffic. I learned from Captain Macdonald that in their abstinence from human flesh, the Santa Anna natives are not actuated by any dislike of anthropophagy in itself; but that the custom has fallen into abeyance since the chief laid the tambu-ban on human flesh several years ago, on account of a severe epidemic of sickness having followed a cannibal feast. On one occasion through the instrumentality of this resident, Lieutenant Oldham had the satisfaction of rescuing two St. Christoval natives whom Mai was carefully keeping in anticipation of the wants of the man-eaters of Cape Surville. As the result of an interview held with this chief, the two prisoners were sent on board the “Lark;” but Mai gave them up with a very bad grace, protesting that he was being robbed of his own property. It is difficult to speculate on the reflections of the victim as he lives on from day to day in constant expectation of his fate. I am told that there is a faint gleam of tender feeling shown in the case of a man who, by long residence in the village, has almost come to be looked upon as one of themselves. He is allowed to remain in ignorance of the dreaded moment until the last: and, perhaps, he may be standing on the beach assisting in the launching of the very canoe in which he is destined to take his final journey, when suddenly he is laid hold of, and in a few moments more he is being ferried across to the man-eaters of the opposite coast. All persons whom I have met that have had a lengthened experience of the St. Christoval natives confirm these cannibal practices. They may sometimes be observed with all the horrible preliminaries which have been described in the cases of other Pacific groups; whilst, on the other hand, it may be the habit to purchase and partake of human flesh as an extra dainty in the daily fare.

Captain Redlich, master of the schooner “Franz,” who visited Makira on the south side of St. Christoval in 1872, states that he found a dead body in a war-canoe dressed and cooked whole. He was informed by Mr. Perry, a resident, that he had seen as many as twenty bodies lying on the beach dressed and cooked.[14] In 1865, Mr. Brenchley noticed at Wano, on the north coast of this island, the skulls of twenty-five bushmen hanging up under the roof of the tambu-house, all of which showed the effects of the tomahawk and all had been eaten.[15] At the present time it is not an easy matter for any person not resident in the group to obtain ocular evidence of cannibalism, since the natives have become aware of the white man’s aversion to the custom. I have, however, frequently seen the arm and leg bones of the victim consumed at the opening of a new tambu-house, as they are usually hung up over the entrance or in some other part of the building. The natives, however, are generally reluctant to talk much about these matters; and I believe the residents, in such matters, prefer to trust more to the testimony of their own eyes than to the statements of the natives.

[14] Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1874 (vol. 44), p. 31.

[15] “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curaçoa,’” by J. L. Brenchley.

I have previously referred to the death of the son of Taki the Wano chief, who was attacked by a shark whilst fishing on the St. Christoval reefs. When we arrived at Ugi in April, 1883, shortly after this event, we learned that his death would probably lead to a further sacrifice of life, and that a human victim from some neighbouring hill-tribe would be required to remove the tambu-ban, or in other words to propitiate the shark-god. At the completion of the time of mourning, a gathering of the tribes of the district known as a béa was to be held at Wano; and I obtained from Mr. Stephens of Ugi the following particulars of this singular custom. From a raised staging some fifteen feet in height, each of the warriors of any renown addresses in turn the assembled people. The gathering is composed not only of his own tribesmen but also of parties of fighting men from all the neighbouring villages, each party standing aloof from the others. The orator, declaiming on the valour of his own people and on his individual prowess, soon works himself into a condition of excitement, and should any tribe be there represented with whom there may have been some recent cause of ill-feeling, it is probably made the object of the taunts of the speaker. The assembled natives, who are all armed, soon participate in the excitement. The people of the village support their champion, and openly display their ill will against those at whom the diatribes of the orator have been directed. The suspected strangers return the taunts; and the feeling of irritation reaches its acme when a threatening gesture or the throwing of a spear sets ablaze the suppressed passions. Every man darts into the bush and the village is empty in a moment. A desultory contest then ensues in which the people of the village, who have generally the best of it, pursue their visitors to the outskirts of their district; and from henceforth a long period of hostility begins.

Such is not an uncommon sequence of a béa, and I am told that the natives of the district, in which such a gathering is to be held, look forward to it with considerable apprehension. A human body is usually procured for these occasions; and the payment of the persons who procured it is made from contributions collected at the béa. Each leading chief endeavours to surpass his rival in the sum he gives; and flinging his string of shell money down from the stage on which he stands, he looks contemptuously at his rival’s party. The body is apportioned out after the gathering is over; and if no contention has arisen, all assembled partake of the feast. Taki told Mr. Stephens that in order to obtain a body for his son’s béa, he would have to start on another man-hunting expedition. A béa was also soon to be held in Ugi by Rora, the fighting chief of the village of Ete-ete, on behalf of his brother who had died about two years before. Cannibalism is however dying out in Ugi; and in this case a pig was to supply the place of a human body.

Whilst the ship was anchored at Sulagina Bay on the north coast of St. Christoval, I visited the village of that name and saw the chief who is named Toro. He received me civilly and shook hands. Outside the front of his house five skulls were hanging which belonged to some unfortunate bushmen who had fallen at his hands. On inquiring of a native who spoke a little English, I ascertained that their bodies had been “kaied-kaied,” i.e., eaten, although it was with a little hesitation that he admitted the fact. Numerous spears were thrust in among the pole overhead which supported the roof, one or two of them being broken at the point with some suspicious-looking dried-up substance still adherent. The same native explained to me, in a matter-of-fact way, that the points had broken off in the bellies of the victims.

Cannibalism is rarely if ever practised at the present day in the islands of Bougainville Straits. The people of the western extremity of Choiseul Island in the vicinity of Choiseul Bay are reputed by the Treasury Islanders to be still cannibals. During our stay in this bay we had no opportunity of satisfying ourselves in this matter. Bougainville, however, who visited this bay in 1768, records, as I have previously observed, that a human jaw, half-broiled, was found in one of the canoes which had been deserted by the natives after the repulse of their attack upon the French boats.[16] The Shortland natives accredit the Bougainville people who live around the active volcano of Bagana with the regular practice of cannibalism; and there can be little doubt that this custom is extensively practised amongst the scarcely known bush-tribes in the interior of this large island. Of the natives of New Georgia or Rubiana, Captain Cheyne avers that human flesh forms their chief article of diet; they were in his opinion, when he visited this part of the group in 1844, the most treacherous and bloodthirsty race in the Western Pacific.[17] These natives have of late years come more under the direct influence of the traders and probably would merit now a better name.

[16] “Voyage autour du Monde”; 2nd edit, augment; vol. ii., Paris, 1772.

[17] “A Description of Islands in the Western Pacific Ocean.” by A. Cheyne (London, 1852).

I will close this chapter with a short account, to some extent recapitulative, of the history of three natives of St. Christoval after they were recruited by the boats of the Fiji labour-vessel “Redcoat” in 1882. It will serve to illustrate some points already alluded to. Amongst the occupants of a tambu-house in which I slept on one occasion in the village of Lawa, in the interior of St. Christoval, were five men who were intending to offer themselves as recruits to the government-agent of the “Redcoat.” Three of these men, one of whom was the chief’s son, came under my observation again not many weeks after they had been received on board the labour-vessel. They escaped from the ship at Santa Anna, and seizing a canoe reached the adjoining coast of St. Christoval. Here they were pursued by Mai, in his capacity of purveyor of human flesh to the Cape Surville natives. Two of them were captured; but the third, who was the chief’s son, had died at the hands of a local chief, who, wishing to remove the tambu-ban arising from the recent death of his wife, had effected his object by spearing his guest. Mai returned to Santa Anna with his two captives, and immediately became imbued with the idea that he had been insulted by the chief who, in successfully removing the tambu-ban from the shade of his departed spouse, had deprived him of one of his victims. Then the raid was carried out, which I have already described, as having resulted in the slaughter of three women and the chief of Fanarite. Mai now devoted his attention to preparing his two prisoners for the market on the opposite coast, and was thus employed when H.M.S. “Lark” arrived at Port Mary and rescued the prisoners When these two natives were brought on board, I at once recognised my tambu-house companions in the village of Lawa; and I learned to my regret that the chief’s son, who had been killed, was the sprightly young native who had on one occasion carried my geological bag. It is but just to remark that under Mai’s care the condition of the two prisoners had considerably improved since I last saw them. However, their troubles were not all over. They were landed at Ugi; but the older of the two, on hearing that his life would be probably required by the people of his own village to atone for the death of the chief’s son, preferred to remain at Ugi. A report reached me in the following year, whether true or not I was unable to ascertain, that he had been killed on returning to his village.

CHAPTER III.
THE FEMALE SEX—POLYGAMY—MODES OF BURIAL, ETC.

The position of the female sex amongst the natives of the eastern islands of the Solomon Group would appear to differ but little from the position which it holds amongst races in a similar savage state. The women are without doubt the drudges of the men, and pitiable examples of this often came under my observation. On one occasion, when I was returning to the coast from an excursion into the interior of St. Christoval, I was accompanied by some half-a-dozen natives of both sexes who were bringing down yams to sell to the traders on the beach. The men were content with carrying their tomahawks; whilst the women followed up with heavy loads of yams on their heads. When a feast is in preparation, it is the work of the women to bring in the yams and taro from the “patches,” which may be one or two miles away. In my excursions, I frequently used to see at work in their “patches” these poor creatures, whom drudgery had prematurely deprived of all their comeliness.

Women are excluded from the tambu-house. They are not permitted to remain in the presence of a chief at his meal; and even the wife after preparing her husband’s meal leaves her lord alone, returning to partake of what remains after he has finished his repast. In the island of Santa Catalina we found that we had temporarily received the rank of chief when a bevy of young girls, who had been following us all the morning, walked solemnly away as we began our lunch; but no sooner had we lit our pipes than back came the little troop with smiling faces. In Ugi, a man will never, if he can help it, pass under a tree that has fallen across the path, for the reason that a woman may have stepped over it before him. On one occasion, in the village of Sapuna, in Santa Anna, I saw a man, whilst lighting his pipe, throw the piece of smouldering wood contemptuously on the ground, when a woman, in order to light her own pipe, stretched out her hand to take it from him.

The custom of infanticide throws a shade over not a few of these islands. During my frequent walks over the island of Ugi, where one may pass through a village without seeing a single child in arms, I often experienced a feeling of relief in leaving behind such a village where the prattle of children is but rarely heard. In Ugi, infanticide is the prevailing custom. When a man needs assistance in his declining years, his props are not his own sons but youths obtained by purchase from the St. Christoval natives, who, as they attain to manhood, acquire a virtual independence, passing almost beyond the control of their original owner. It is from this cause that but a small proportion of the Ugi natives have been born on the island, three-fourths of them having been brought as youths to supply the place of offspring killed in infancy. Yet some bright experiences, brighter, perhaps, in the contrast, recur to my mind. In the small island of Orika (Santa Catalina) the visitor will be followed about by a little train of children, of both sexes, with smiling, intelligent faces, and clad only in the garb which nature gave them. Whilst having an evening pipe in front of the house of Haununo, the young chief, Mr. W. Macdonald and I were surrounded by a varied throng of the natives of the village, both old and young. Numerous young children, from babes in arms to those three or four years old, formed no inconsiderable proportion of the number around us. Bright-looking lads, eight or nine years of age, stood smoking their pipes as gravely as Haununo himself; and even the smallest babe in its father’s arms caught hold of his pipe and began to suck instinctively. The chief’s son, a little shapeless mass of flesh, a few months old, was handed about from man to man with as much care as if he had been composed of something brittle. It would have taken many shiploads of “trade,” as Mr. Macdonald remarked to me, to have purchased the hopeful heir of the chief of Orika.

But to return to the subject of the position held by the women. When away with a recruiting party from the labour-ship “Redcoat,” on the St. Christoval coast, I was present at the parting on the beach of six natives, who had elected to proceed to Fiji to work for a term of three years on the plantations. But little regret was observable in the faces of those whose friends were leaving them. Son parted with father, and brother with brother with apparently as little concern as if they were merely parting for the hour. The mother or sister played no part in this scene, a characteristic negative feature of the social life of these natives. However, amongst the six natives was an elderly woman who was following her husband to Fiji; and her departure was evidently keenly felt by a small knot of female companions on the beach. One poor creature stood at the edge of the water, looking wistfully towards the boat as it was being pulled away, and crying more after the manner of a fretful child. It was the bond of a true affection that knit together the heart of these poor women. In this episode I saw, to employ those beautiful lines of Milton,

“The sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night.”

In it was evinced the only sign of the tenderer feelings which was displayed in the whole of that day’s proceedings.

It is necessary for me to touch lightly on a subject, which, although less pleasing, is none the less essential to the short sketch which I have presented to my readers of the domestic relations of the natives in the eastern islands. Female chastity is a virtue that would sound strangely in the ear of the native. Amongst their many customs which when narrated strike with such a discordant note on the ears of the European reader, the inhabitants of St. Christoval and the adjacent islands have a usage which sufficiently enlightens us as to the unrestrained character of their code of morality. For two or three years after a girl has become eligible for marriage, she distributes her favours amongst all the young men of the village. Should she be unwilling to accept the addresses of anyone, it is but necessary for her admirer to make her parents some present. Fathers offer their daughters to the white man in the hope of a remunerative return; and the white men, sometimes less scrupulous in their advances, provoke the hostility of the natives, and not unfrequently a lamentable massacre results. Conjugal fidelity is usually preserved in the limits of the same community; but the men of Santa Anna, when they exchange their wives for those of the men of the adjoining St. Christoval coast, see in such a transaction no loosening of the marriage-tie, and restore their wives to their original position on their return to their homes.

In considering the domestic relations of the inhabitants of Bougainville Straits, we enter upon a more agreeable topic. The white man on first visiting these islands is struck with the shyness of the women as compared with those of St. Christoval and its adjacent islands. The unmarried girls are rarely seen; whilst, on the other hand, in Santa Anna and Santa Catalina there appears to be no restriction placed on their movements. The following incident in the island of Faro will serve to illustrate this shyness. Whilst following a path in the interior of the island, unattended by any companion, I suddenly surprised a woman sitting on a log with a child in her lap. She bolted away into the wood leaving the child, a little boy three or four years of age, on the ground in the middle of the path. The little urchin at once set up a terrific yell; but a present of a gilt necklace softened the tone of his distress, although it did not remove his fears. However, I passed along and soon had the satisfaction of hearing the mother returning to her child.

This fear of the white man is soon dispelled by kindly treatment. When I first visited Treasury Island my entrance into the village was the signal for every woman to rush into her house, and I could only catch a glimpse of their retreating figures. This shyness soon wore away during the lengthened visits of the “Lark;” and in a short time when I walked through the village I was surrounded by a troop of young boys shouting out my name of “Dokus” or “Rokasy” at the top of their voices. This was the signal for all who were indoors to turn out to greet me. The old people would hobble out to the door; and the married women with their babes in their arms would walk up to me calling me by name and holding up their little ones for me to see, as if only too proud to show me the confidence the visit of the “Lark” had inspired.

The females in these islands of the Straits perform most of the work in the “patches” or plantations. Towards the evening, they may usually be seen returning in their canoes from the more distant “patches” bringing home a goodly quantity of taro, bananas, and other vegetables. There is generally a man in the stern who steers with a paddle; whilst the crew of eight or ten women, sitting in pairs, paddle briskly along with their light paddles.

The powerful chiefs of the islands of Bougainville Straits usually possess a large number of wives of whom only the few that retain their youth and comeliness enjoy much of the society of their lord. The majority, having been supplanted in the esteem of their common husband, have sunk into a condition of drudgery, finding their employment and their livelihood in toiling for the master whose affections they once possessed. I learned from Gorai, the Shortland chief, who has between eighty and a hundred wives, that the main objection he has against missionaries settling on his islands is, that they would insist on his giving up nearly all his wives, thereby depriving him of those by whose labour his plantations are cultivated and his household supplied with food. A great chief, he remarked, required a large staff of workers to cultivate his extensive lands; or, in other words, numerous women to work in his plantations and to bring the produce home. Such a plea for polygamy is in this condition of society somewhat plausible. The domestic establishment of such a chief may be compared in its internal economy to a social community of bees. The head of the society is, in this case, a male who, whilst living on the fat produce of his lands and increasing his species, performs no active office for the good of the community. The workers consist of his numerous cast-off wives, who having been supplanted in their lord’s affections as their personal attractions diminished in the course of years, have at length subsided into the position of drudges to procure food for the king and his progeny.

Mule’s marital establishment is on a smaller scale than that of the more powerful Shortland chief. This Treasury chief possesses between twenty-five and thirty wives, and has numerous young sons who were my frequent companions during my excursions in this island. In both establishments there is a favourite wife who exercises some authority over the others, and is known among white men as the queen. The principal wives are generally distinguished from the others by a more dignified deportment, a slim graceful figure, and more delicate features. The coarser features, bigger limbs, and more ungainly persons of many of the wives at once mark the women of more common origin. The chief secures the fidelity of his wives by the summary punishment of death, suspicion being tantamount to proof, and an unwary action being held presumptive of guilt. Many of their wives are obtained by purchase from the Bougainville natives; whilst others represent the tribute owed by some of the smaller chiefs.

The majority of the Treasury men have two wives who are usually widely separated by age. They are originally obtained by making a handsome present to the parents. Each wife in working on her husband’s land has her own patch allotted to her to which she confines her labours. My association with the natives of Treasury gave me some insight into their social life, in which, I should add, the women occupy a somewhat better position than in the islands we visited to the eastward. Men have introduced me to their wives with an air of politeness which supplied an index of the social status of their helpmates: and to show that the position of authority may be reversed—although from the absence of clothing one cannot employ the expressive phrase applied to those women who rule their husbands in more civilized lands—I may here observe that on one occasion an able-bodied man complained to me that his wife chastised him on the previous night.

I had one very pleasing experience of the domestic establishment of the Treasury chief. Having informed Mule that I was desirous to witness the manufacture of the cooking-pots employed by the natives, he despatched four of his wives into the interior of the island to get the clay; and in due time I was summoned to his house where I found myself in the midst of a dozen of his wives who were already hard at work, for the women are the potters here as in other parts of “savagedom.” Mule’s wives received me with much politeness, and made me sit down on a mat to watch the proceedings, being evidently much pleased with the idea of exhibiting their skill. For about five minutes there was but little work done as my curiosity led me to look more closely into the different steps of the process, a proceeding which caused much hilarity and elicited frequent exclamations of “tion drakono,” often preceded by “Dokus,” which implied that the doctor was a very good man. At last, after I had smiled on them to the best of my ability, and had gained their further approbation by taking on my knee a little well-scrubbed urchin that could hardly toddle, who in the most matter-of-fact manner made a vigorous onslaught on my chin and then went tooth-and-nail at my shirt-cuff, all in the best of humour and seemingly in an absent-minded kind of fashion as though its little mind was already occupied by far weightier matters—after all this, the more serious part of the entertainment became fairly under way. At its conclusion, I gave the principal wife a quantity of beads and a number of jews-harps to be distributed among her companions.

The marital establishment of Tomimas, one of the principal Faro chiefs, is small as compared with those of Gorai and Mule. He has only four wives who are named respectively, Domari, Duia, Bose, and Omakau, the first being the mother of the chief’s eldest son, Kopana, an intelligent young man about twenty-two years of age.

In connection with the names of the women of Bougainville Straits, I should observe that there was always some reluctance on the part of the men to give me such names; and that when they did so, they usually uttered them in a low tone as though it was not the proper thing to speak of the women by name to others. This is especially noticeable when a man of the common class is asked the name of one of the chief’s wives. On more than one occasion, when referring by name to the chief’s principal wife in the course of a conversation with a native, I learned from the look of surprise, which the mention of the name elicited, that I had, unwittingly, been guilty of a breach of etiquette.

During the surveying season of 1883, which we passed among the islands of Bougainville Straits, we were witnesses of the mourning ceremonials that were observed in connection with the death of Kaika, the principal wife of the Shortland chief, or the queen as Gorai was pleased to call her. It was in the beginning of July that I first made the acquaintance of Kaika, Gorai having asked me to visit her as she was suffering from some indisposition. A month passed away before I again saw my royal patient, and on this occasion the chief accompanied me to his house. Here I found Kaika quite recovered from her illness, a result which she attributed to some medicine which I had given her. She was reclining in a broken down easy-chair, the gift of a trader, engaged in working an armlet of beads, and clad only in the usual “sulu” or waist-handkerchief. In age Kaika was probably between 25 and 30, her general appearance being that of a woman superior in caste to most of her fellow-wives. For a native, her features were good and regular, her figure slim but well proportioned, her carriage graceful. Her clean skin and bushy head of hair, dyed a magenta hue by the use of red ochreous earth, added to the general effect of her appearance.

Whilst sitting down beside Gorai and his spouse, the latter showed me her little boy who was nearly blind. I was much struck with the tenderness displayed in the manner of both the parents towards their little son, who, seated on his mother’s lap, placed his hand in that of his father, when he was directed to raise his eyes towards the light for my inspection.

The work of the ship took us away from Alu; and when we returned after an absence of five weeks, we learned that Kaika was dying. Landing on the ensuing day to see if I could be of any service, I was told that Kaika was dead; and as I stepped out of my Rob Roy, I received a message from Gorai to come and visit him. I found the old chief seated on the ground in front of his house, looking very dismal. Near by, there were nine or ten of his wives all well past the prime of life, withered and haggish, with heads shaven and faces plastered with lime as a token of mourning. They were squatting on the ground, and were engaged in droning out a dismal chant, reminding me of a group of witches. Accompanying Gorai into his house, I found there a numerous gathering of his wives all with their faces plastered with lime; their dead-white features, peering strangely at us through the gloom of the building, gave the whole scene quite an uncanny look. The old chief appeared to feel the loss of his favourite wife and broke down more than once when talking to me of her. He told me that the end came when we dropped our anchor in the bay, and he excused himself on account of his grief from coming off to the ship—“too much cry,” as he remarked of himself to me. When I was leaving him, he asked me on the arrival of the ship at Treasury to inform Mule of his loss, Kaika being the sister of the Treasury chief, and to request that his own sister, Bita, who was Mule’s principal wife, should come and visit him. Returning to my canoe I passed some of Gorai’s head-men who had plastered their foreheads and a part of their cheeks with lime, an observance, however, which was not followed by either the chief or his sons.

The next morning most of the men of the village were engaged in fishing on the reef to obtain material for a great funeral feast that was to be held in the afternoon. When I landed with Lieutenant Leeper in the latter part of the day, we found ourselves on the beach in the midst of about a hundred men carrying their tomahawks, and assembled together on the occasion of the queen’s demise. On entering the chief’s grounds, which are tabooed to all the men of the village except those on the staff of the chief, we came upon about eighty women performing a funeral dance. Some of them were Gorai’s wives; whilst others were the principal women of the neighbouring villages. With their faces white with lime they formed a large circle, in the centre of which were four posts placed erect in the ground, each about ten feet high, charred on one side and rudely carved in imitation of the human head, two of them painted red and two white. Enclosed in the ring and grouped around the posts were six women bearing in their hands the personal belongings of the deceased, such as her basket, cushion, &c. To the slow and measured time of the beats of a wooden drum, a hollowed log struck by a man outside the circle, the dancers of the ring adapted their movements, which consisted merely in raising the feet in turns and gently stamping on the ground. The central group of women danced around the posts, partly skipping, partly hopping, each woman holding up before her the article she bore, and regulating her steps to the beats of the drum. Now and then the man at the drum quickened his time, and the movements of the women of the ring became more spirited; whilst the central group of dancers skipped more actively around, the foremost woman sprinkling at each bound handfuls of lime over the dancers of the ring. As the weather was rainy, many of the women—all of whom wore a “sulu” reaching down to the knees—had their shoulders covered by their mats of pandanus leaves. This dance was repeated on the following day but with a smaller number of dancers. I was anxious to ascertain the manner in which the body had been disposed; but beyond the fact that interment had taken place in the ground some distance away, I could learn but little. It is, however, very probable that the body was first burned between the charred posts, around which the dance was performed, which would have served as supports for the funeral pyre. Further reference to this custom will be found on [page 51].

In making inquiries as to the obsequies paid to the dead queen, I was much struck with the reluctance of the natives to refer to the event. They mentioned the name of the deceased in a low subdued tone as if it were wrong to utter the names of the dead. This mysterious dread which is associated with the mention of the names of the dead is found, as Dr. Tylor points out in his “Early History of Mankind” (3rd edit., p. 143), amongst many races of men. The example of the Australian native who refuses to utter them may be here cited as an extreme instance of this superstition.

Three days after the death of Kaika, all the men of Alu, with the exception of the chief and his sons, cut off their hair close to the scalp as a symbol of mourning for the deceased, an observance which produced a surprising change in the appearance of men whom I had been familiar with as the owners of luxuriant bushy periwigs. A similar custom of either shaving the scalp or of cutting the hair close prevailed in other islands of the group which we visited, as at Simbo and Ugi. In the latter island the shaving is restricted to the posterior half of the scalp. With this digression I will continue my account of the mourning ceremonials observed at the death of Kaika.

The news of the death of the principal wife of the Alu chief was soon carried to the other islands of Bougainville Straits. Visits of condolence were paid to Gorai by Tomimas and Kurra-kurra, the two Faro chiefs; and parties of the women of Faro went to display in person their sympathy with the Alu chief on the occasion of his bereavement. We were the first to convey the news to Treasury; and as Mule stepped on deck shortly after the ship had come to an anchor in Blanche Harbour, I informed him of his sister’s death and of Gorai’s request that his own sister Bita should go and visit him at Alu. The news of Kaika’s death was received by her brother with much composure. Several weeks passed away before Bita could accomplish the long canoe voyage to her brother’s island, as it is only practicable for a canoe in settled weather. There was a sudden demand for pairs of scissors in Treasury when the news of the death of Gorai’s wife became generally known. Mule, his sons, and several of the men of the island showed their regard for the deceased by neatly trimming their bushy periwigs, not cropping their hair close as in the case of the Alu natives; and in accordance with custom the wives of the chief plastered their faces with lime.

A week after our arrival at Treasury feasts were prepared as offerings to the Evil Spirit—the nito paitena of the natives—to appease the wrath of that deity. For to his anger, as I was informed by an intelligent native named Erosini, the death of Kaika was attributed. Whilst walking through the village one evening, I came upon the “remains” of one of these feasts. The essence of the viands had doubtless been extracted by this direful spirit, inasmuch as I learned on the authority of Erosini that the “devilo,” as he termed him, had already satiated his appetite; but to the eyes of ordinary mortals like myself, the dishes had not been touched. However, it was not long before numerous natives were helping themselves freely to the roasted opossums, boiled fish, taro, bananas, etc., which formed the feast. Although pressed to join in the banquet, I did not take to the idea of eating a vicarious meal for his infernal majesty; and I resisted the persuasion of one of my would-be hosts who, having scooped up with his hands a mixture of mashed taro and cocoa-nut scrapings, licked his fingers well and remarked it was very good “kai-kai.” On the following day an old rudely carved tambu-post that had been erected on the beach was used as a target, at which, from a distance of about fifteen paces, the natives fired their muskets and discharged their arrows. This proceeding, so we learned, was to intimidate the “devilo” in case the feasts of the previous day had not propitiated him.

Memorial of a Treasury Chief.

[To face page 51.

The mode of burial employed by the natives of the islands of Bougainville Straits varies according to the position of the deceased. The bodies of the chiefs and of any members of their families are usually burned; and the ashes are deposited together with the skull and sometimes the thigh-bones in a cairn on some sacred islet, or are placed in charge of the reigning chief. The natives were always reticent on this subject, a circumstance which prevented my ascertaining how the skull and thigh-bones were preserved from the flames. In the village of Treasury there are some memorials of departed chiefs, one of which is shown in the accompanying [engraving]. The one in best condition is that of the late chief, whose skull and thigh-bones were deposited on one of the islets in the harbour. They evidently mark the site of the funeral pyres. A wooden frame of the dimensions of a large coffin is placed on the ground and contains some young plants and the club of the deceased chief. Four posts charred on their inner sides and decorated on their outer sides with patterns in red, white, and black, are placed one at each corner of the frame. They are rudely carved at the top in the form of a face, and in all respects resemble those around which the funeral dance was performed at Alu, as described on [page 49]. A sprouting cocoa-nut is placed at one end of the frame, and a club is placed erect in the ground at the other end.

In the vicinity of Gorai’s house, I noticed three small enclosures, apparently graves, two of them round and one oblong, and all fenced in by a paling of sticks. Lying on the ground within each enclosure were such articles as strings of trade-beads, clay-pipes, betel-nuts long since dried up, and dishes of palm leaves such as the natives use for serving up their food. A communicative old man informed me that a few months before a woman and a girl belonging to the chief’s household had died, and that their bodies had been first burned between four posts and the ashes had been placed in the oblong enclosure. They bore, so he told me, the pretty names of Événu and Siali. On my asking the reason of placing articles such as beads and betel-nuts on the grave, he told me that in addition cocoa-nuts and other food had been placed there previously in accordance with the native custom, which the old man endeavoured to explain by pointing his fingers towards the skies. I should here mention that on the spot, where the body of Kaika had been burned some months before, there was placed a wooden framework in the form of a long box, the materials being obtained from a ship’s fittings. Inside it were placed some beads and coloured calico.

The custom of depositing skulls in cairns on the points of islands, which is prevalent in the eastern portion of the Solomon Group, is not generally practised amongst the islands of Bougainville Straits: and I rarely came upon them in my excursions. However, on an islet in Choiseul Bay, I found two cairns, one of which was tenanted only by hermit-crabs with their cast-off shells, and the other contained two skulls that had apparently lain for years in their resting-place to which they were attached by the tendrils of creeping plants. On the summit of Oima, I came upon a heap of stones under which was supposed to be the remains of a Bougainville native killed in a fight, but I failed to find any of his bones after examining the heap.

The sea is generally chosen as the last resting-place for the natives below the rank of chief in the islands of Bougainville Straits. Lieutenant Malan, whilst engaged in sounding at the entrance of the Alu anchorage, passed two large canoes in one of which were being conveyed, for burial in deep water, the remains of a woman who had died during the previous night. The relatives of the deceased accompanied the corpse, but took no share in the paddling, being employed in wailing and bemoaning their loss after the conventional manner of the Chinese. A peculiar style of paddling was adopted by the funeral party; each man, pausing after every stroke, partially arrested the motion of the canoe by a backwater movement of his paddle.

In Simbo or Eddystone Island, the bodies of the dead are sometimes placed amongst the large masses of rock which lie at the base of Middle Hill on the west coast of the island. My attention was first attracted to this custom by the stench that came from this spot as I passed it in a canoe. Some human bones were observed on the reef which lies off the anchorage. In the eastern islands the dead are often buried at sea. In Ugi and in Florida the skulls are sometimes preserved in a cairn of stones built on the edge of a sea cliff, or at the extremity of a point, or in some remote islet. A dwarf cocoa-nut, which attains a height of from eight to twelve feet, frequently marks the grave of the chief in the island of Ugi. In one of the villages of this island I was shown the shrine of a chief, a small house in which suspended from the roof in a basket were the skulls of the chief and his wife concealed from view by a screen of palm leaves. Some articles of food, including a portion of an opossum, together with a large wooden bowl, were hung up before the screen.

The burial place for men in the village of Sapuna in Santa Anna is an oblong enclosure in the midst of the village which measures 24 by 18 feet, and is surrounded by a low wall of fragments of coral limestone. In this space all the bodies are buried at a depth of five or six feet; and after some time the skulls are exhumed and placed inside the wooden figure of a shark about three feet in length, which is deposited in the tambu-house. One of these wooden fish, which lay on the surface of the burial ground at the time of my visit, had recently been removed from the tambu-house on account of its being rotten through age, and the skull was to be re-interred. The body of a chief is placed at once in the tambu-house in a wooden shark of sufficient size. Women are buried in another ground, and the wooden sharks containing their skulls are deposited in a small house by the side of the tambu-house.

Into the subject of the superstitions and religious beliefs which are held by the natives of the Solomon Islands I shall barely enter, as only those who have become familiar with the natives by long residence among them, and who have acquired an intimate knowledge of their language, can hope to avoid the numerous pitfalls into which the unwary observer is so likely to fall. I would, therefore, refer the reader for information on this subject to a paper by the Rev. R. H. Codrington, entitled “Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia,” which was published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (vol. x., p. 261). Through Lieutenant Malan’s knowledge of the Fijian tongue, a language understood by the men who had served their term on the Fiji plantations, I learned that the natives of Treasury and the Shortlands believe in a Good Spirit (nito drekona) who lives in a pleasant land whither all men who have lived good lives go after death, and that all the bad men are transported to the crater of Bagana, the burning volcano of Bougainville, which is the home of the Evil Spirit (nito paitena) and his companion spirits. That the natives of the Shortlands really believe in some future state is shown in the following singular superstition which came under my notice at Alu. I was returning one night in Gorai’s war canoe from one of my excursions, when I noticed that the chief and his men were looking towards the coral island of Balalai which lies a few miles distant from the anchorage. They told me they were looking for a bright light which was sometimes to be seen shining at night in this island in the winter months of the year. This light they believed to be the spirit of Captain Ferguson of the “Ripple,” who had been killed some years before by the natives of Nouma-nouma on the Bougainville coast. I suggested that it might be the watch-fire of a party of the Faro natives who had gone there to fish, or to hunt turtle; but my suggestion was pooh-poohed. Balalai was evidently a haunted island in the minds of my companions, and I desisted from making any further remarks which would be likely to disabuse them of this idea. Often and often when we were anchored within sight of this island I remembered the story, but never saw the light.

The natives of Ugi believe that the souls of the dead pass into fireflies: and should one of these insects enter a house, those inside quickly leave it. The spirits of the dead in human shape are believed to frequent certain islets in Treasury Harbour, where they are occasionally seen by the women. Certain spirits, who are usually accredited with the power of sending sickness or other calamities, are said to take up their abodes in particular districts. Such a spirit haunts the picturesque glen of Tetabau on the northern slope of the summit of Treasury, if we may accept the statement of one of the islanders; and any native who is bold enough to enter this glen will, according to the general belief, provoke the anger of its invisible occupant. The party of natives who accompanied me to the summit of Tarawei Hill in the island of Faro refused to go further than the brink of the hill, because, as they said, there dwelt on the top some evil spirits who would send sickness and death on any intruder. I had therefore to walk along the crest of the hill alone. The echoes which the shouts of my men awakened as we descended the steep slopes to the west were, as I was told, but the voices of the spirits who haunted the summit of the hill.

In the island of Ugi the superstition of “ill-wishing” is very prevalent. When a man cuts off his hair, as in mourning, he buries it unobserved so that it may not fall into the hands of any one who may by sorcery bring sickness or some other calamity upon him; and he adopts the same precaution with reference to the husks of betel-nuts and similar refuse. Whilst I was obtaining some samples of hair from the natives of this island, I was told that if in the immediate future any sickness should befall those who had parted with their hair, they would assign the cause to me; yet, native-like, they allowed me to take a sample with their free consent, for it is their custom never to refuse to each other anything that is asked. The professions of the sorcerer and medicine-man are usually combined in the same individual. These men in the Shortlands have a great reputation in the minds of the natives, being accredited by them with a knowledge almost universal; and the precincts of their dwellings are tabooed even to the chief. One of them named Kikila, a sinister-looking individual with but one eye, had obtained much repute in the practice of his profession. When on one occasion Lieutenant Oldham complained to the chief that some of the calico had been removed by the natives from the surveying-marks, the services of Kikila were employed to bring about the death of the unknown culprit. The sorcerer was not himself aware who the man was; but we were told that for one of so much repute this was quite unnecessary. We never learned the result of his incantation; but in all probability they effected their purpose soon enough by working on the fears of the unfortunate offender. How it was to be done we could not satisfactorily ascertain; but there was no doubt as to the efficacy of the means employed in the minds of the natives.

Amongst the powers of the sorcerers are those of influencing the weather. But such powers are not confined to men of this class alone. In Ugi, different natives are accredited with being able to bring wind and rain; and I knew one man who had earned for himself a considerable reputation as a “wind-prophet.” These powers are claimed by Mule, the Treasury chief, amongst his other prerogatives.

As far as I could ascertain, these natives keep no record, even in the memory, of the lapse of years. Nor are they acquainted with their own age. More than once when trying to obtain the date of particular events, I received the wildest replies. The safest method to employ in making such inquiries is to get the native to refer a recent event to some epoch in his own life, or in the case of earlier occurrences to associate them with his boyhood, manhood, or marriage. When he asserts that a certain event occurred whilst his father was a child, he is probably to be trusted; but when he goes back to the time of his grandfather, no further reliance can be placed on his statements, except as implying an indefinite number of years. I have observed elsewhere ([page 76]) that a grandfather is deemed a personage of such a high antiquity that these islanders, when referring to past events, seldom care to go beyond.

The only method of reckoning that came under my notice was in the instance of a Treasury native, who, whilst serving as interpreter on board the “Lark,” kept a register of the time he was away from his island by tying a knot daily on a cord and marking Sunday by a piece of paper, the knots being about an inch apart. I learned from a Faro man that this is the method of recording days which is commonly employed by the inhabitants of Bougainville Straits, the “moons” or months being alone distinguished by a piece of native tobacco tied in the knot. Such a practice, however, would appear to be followed only during the temporary absences from their islands, as when they are away on canoe expeditions. A native, captured in 1769 by Surville, whilst at Port Praslin, in Isabel, kept count of the days of absence from his country by tying knots in a “lacet.”[18] It is scarcely necessary for me to point out that in the “knotted cord” of the Solomon Islanders we have the elementary form of the “quipu” of the Incas.

[18] From an extract of this voyage given in “Voyage de Marion.” Paris, 1783: p. 274, circâ.

Amongst the constellations, the Pleiades and Orion’s Belt seem to be those which are most familiar to the natives of Bougainville Straits. The former, which they speak of as possessing six stars, they name “Vuhu;” the latter, “Matatala.” They have also names for a few other stars. As in the case of many other savage races, the Pleiades is a constellation of great significance with the inhabitants of these straits. The Treasury Islanders hold a great feast towards the end of October, to celebrate, as far as I could learn, the approaching appearance of this constellation above the eastern horizon soon after sunset. Probably, as in many of the Pacific Islands, this event marks the beginning of their year. I learned from Mr. Stephens that, in Ugi, where of all the constellations the Pleiades alone receives a name, the natives are guided by it in selecting the times for planting and taking up their yams.

Village of Suenna in Ugi.

[To face page 57.

CHAPTER IV.
DWELLINGS—TAMBU-HOUSES—WEAPONS—TOOLS.

The villages in the eastern islands of the group vary much in size. They usually contain between 25 and 40 houses, and between one and two hundred inhabitants. There are however some much larger, as in the case of Wano on the north coast of St. Christoval, which probably does not possess a population much under five hundred. In the larger villages the houses are generally built in double rows with a common thoroughfare between; and the tambu-house occupies usually a central position. In the village of Suenna, as shown in the [engraving], which is one of the largest villages in Ugi, the houses are built around a large open space free of buildings. The usual dimensions of the dwelling-houses are as follows: length 25 to 30 feet, breadth 15 to 20 feet, height 8 to 10 feet. The gable-roof, which is made of a framework of bamboos thatched with the leaves of pandanus trees, or of cocoa-nut or areca palms, is supported on a central row of posts. The sides are low and made of the same materials as the roof. The only entrance is by an oblong aperture in the front of the building, which is removed 2¹⁄₂ to 3 feet above the ground, so that one has literally to dive into the interior, which from the absence of any other openings, is kept very dark. Such are the dimensions and mode of structure of an ordinary dwelling-house in the eastern islands. The chiefs, however, have larger buildings, which in some instances, as in those of the more powerful chiefs, rival in size and in style the tambu-houses themselves. Many houses have a staging in front, which is on a level with the lower edge of the aperture that serves as the entrance. On this staging, protected by the projecting roof the inmates are wont to sit and lie about during the day; and the men occasionally pass the night there. In the houses of the chiefs and principal men, there are generally spaces partitioned off for sleeping and containing a raised stage for the mats; but in the dwelling-house of an ordinary man no such partitions usually occur. Single men sleep on the ground on a mat, which may be nothing more than the leaves of two branches of the cocoa-nut palm rudely plaited together. Each man lays his mat by the side of a little smouldering wood-fire, which he endeavours to keep up during the night, and for this purpose he gets up at all hours to fan it into a flame.

There is but little attempt made to please the eye in the way of external or internal decoration in the ordinary dwelling-house of a native in the eastern islands. Rows of the lower jaws of pigs with the skeletons of fishes and the dried skins of the flying-fox are to be seen suspended from the roof over the entrance; whilst the spears, clubs, and fishing implements are either thrust between the bamboos of the roof or slung in a bundle over the entrance. Of furniture there is but little except the large cooking-bowls, the mats, and a circle of cooking-stones forming a rude hearth in the centre of the floor. I have seen in temporary sheds or “lean-tos,” erected by fishing parties on the southern island of the “Three Sisters,” fire-places formed of a circle two to three feet across of medium-sized Tridacna shells, the enclosed space being strewn with small stones.

The houses of the chiefs usually display more decoration. Amongst others I recall to my mind the brightly-coloured front of the residence of Haununo, the intelligent young chief of Santa Catalina. I am not aware how long a native house will last. The white residents, however, tell me that houses built for their own use, which are more substantial than the ordinary native dwellings, will stand some five or six years; and that, notwithstanding the heavy rainfall of this region, the thatch remains admirably waterproof.

I now come to the description of the houses in the islands of Bougainville Straits. In the villages of Treasury and the Shortlands, the houses are arranged in a long straggling row; and although close to the beach they are for the most part concealed by the trees from the view of those on board the ships in the anchorage. In the materials used, in their style, and in their general size, these houses resemble those of St. Christoval and the adjacent smaller islands. A thatch made of the leaves of the sago-palm or of the pandanus, covers the gable-roof and the framework of the walls. The usual dimensions of a dwelling-house are: length 25 to 30 feet, breadth 12 to 15 feet, height 10 to 12 feet. Since there are no means of admitting light except by the door, the interiors are very dark, insomuch that on entering one of these houses from the bright sunlight the eyes require some time before they can see at all. In the out-lying hamlets in the interior of these islands, the houses are often smaller and more rudely constructed; and the owner supplies the place of a door by placing a couple of large plantain leaves or a branch of a cocoa-nut palm before the entrance. Many of these small hamlets are only occupied during the planting season.

There is a far greater difference in size between the dwellings of the chiefs and those of the ordinary natives than exists in the eastern islands of the group, a distinction which might have been expected on account of the greater power of the chiefs of Bougainville Straits. Gorai, the powerful Shortland chief, has appropriated to himself more than an acre of ground on which stand the several buildings required for the accommodation of his numerous wives, children, and dependents. Its precincts are tabooed to the ordinary native; but the old chief is always ready to extend to the white man a privilege which he denies to his own people. His own residence when we first met him, had no great pretensions in size or appearance, measuring 40 by 20 feet in length and breadth, and possessing a very dingy interior from the absence of any opening except the entrance to admit light. There was, however, a larger and better constructed building situated near his own for the accommodation of his female establishment. It measured 60 by 30 by 20 feet in length, breadth, and height; and was subsequently appropriated by the chief for his own use.

The residence of Mule, the Treasury chief, was one of the largest native edifices that I saw in the Solomon Group. It is a gable-roofed building, measuring about 80 feet in length, 50 feet in breadth, and 25 to 30 feet in height. The front of the house, which is at one of the ends of the building, has a singular appearance from the central part or body of the building, being advanced several feet beyond the sides, a style which is imitated in some of the smaller houses of the village. Its interior is very imperfectly lighted by small apertures in the walls. I should here refer to the large and neatly built house of the powerful chief of Simbo, who, contrary to the usual practice, prefers light to darkness in his residence.

Pile-Dwellings in Fauro Island.

[To face page 60.

In the two principal villages of Faro or Fauro which are named Toma and Sinasoro, a number of the houses are built on piles and raised from 5 to 8 feet above the ground, as shown in the accompanying [plate]. But this custom is by no means universal in the same village, and depends, as far as I could learn, on the personal fancy of the owner. Both these villages are situated on low level tracts bordering the sea; but their sites are free from moist and swampy ground, to the existence of which one might have attributed this practice. The houses built on the ground are about 30 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 12 or 13 feet high; whilst those raised on piles are considerably smaller, measuring 22 by 15 feet in length and breadth, the building itself being supported on a framework of stout poles lashed on the tops of the piles by broad stripes of rattan. These pile-dwellings are reached by rudely constructed steps made after the style of our own ladders. The roofs of the houses in these villages have a higher pitch than I have observed in houses of the other islands of the Straits. Their eaves project considerably beyond the walls, and the roof is often prolonged at the front end of the building forming a kind of portico. A neat thatch of the leaves of the sago palm covers the sides and roof of each building.

After remarking that the houses in the Florida Islands are often similarly built on piles not only at the coast, but also on the hill-slopes some distance from the sea, I pass on to briefly refer to the purpose of these pile-dwellings on land. It seemed to me probable that in previous years, when the natives of Faro were not on such friendly terms with their neighbours, the houses were built on piles for purposes of defence against a surprise; and that when comparative peace and order reigned, some persons preferred the more commodious house on a ground site to the smaller and less convenient building on piles. Various explanations have been advanced with reference to this custom of building pile-dwellings on dry land, some of which I will enumerate. It is held by some that this custom is but the survival of “the once purposeful habit of building them in the water.” The exclusion of pigs and goats and the protection against wild animals have been suggested as probable objects of this practice; whilst by others it is urged that the purpose of these pile-dwellings is to obviate the effects of excessive rain and to guard against damp exhalations from a tropical soil. Whatever may be the cause or causes of this custom, it is one which is widely spread, being found in New Guinea, in the Philippines, amongst the tribes on the north-eastern frontier of India, and in Guiana.[19]

[19] Those of my readers who desire further information on this subject should refer to the works of Tylor, Mosely, etc., and to “Nature” for the last few years.

With regard to the internal arrangements of the houses in this part of the Solomon Group, but little remains to be said. In many houses a portion of a space is partitioned off for sleeping purposes, usually one of the corners; in others, again, the interior is divided into two halves by a cross-partition. More attention is here paid to the comfort of repose than in the eastern islands. In the place of the single mat laid on the ground, they have low couches, raised a foot to eighteen inches above the floor, on which they lay their mats; whilst a round cylinder of wood serves them as a pillow. These couches, which the natives can improvise in the bush in a few minutes, are usually nothing more than a layer of stout poles, such as the slender trunks of the areca palms, resting at their ends on two logs.

Mat-making is one of the occupations of the women of the Straits, the material employed being the thick leaves of a species of Pandanus which is known by the natives as the pota. The leaves are first deprived of their thin polished epidermis by being rubbed over with the leaves of a plant, named sansuti, which have a rough surface giving a sensation like that caused by fine emery paper when passed over the skin. The pandanus leaves are then dried in the sun, when they become whitened and leathery, and are then sewn together into mats. These mats are not only used to lie upon, but are also worn by the women over their shoulders as a protection in wet weather. They are especially useful, as I have myself found, when sleeping out in the open in wet weather. They are sufficiently long to cover the whole length of a native; and when he is sleeping out in the bush, he lies down on his couch formed, as above described, from the slender trunks of areca palms ready at his hand, and covering himself completely with his mat, he may sleep through a deluge of rain without being touched by the wet. The mat has a crease along the middle of its length, so that when placed over the body it resembles a “tente d’abri;” and the rain runs off as from the roof of a house. To intending travellers in these islands, I strongly recommend this form of couch. A native mat and a blanket are all he requires to carry. Almost anywhere in the bush he can find the areca palms, the slender trunks of which, when placed as a layer of poles on two logs, will serve him as an excellent couch.

With regard to the domestic utensils in use amongst the natives of Bougainville Straits, I should observe that cocoa-nut shells pierced by a hole of about the size of a florin, are employed as drinking-vessels. The outer surface of the shell is usually coated over with a kind of red cement formed of a mixture of red ochreous earth and the resinous material, obtained from the fruit of the “tita” (Parinarium laurinum), which is employed for caulking the seams of the canoes. The exterior of these vessels is frequently ornamented by double chevron-lines of native shell-beads. Sometimes a tube of bamboo is fitted into the orifice of the vessel to form a neck, the whole being plastered over with the red cement and looking like some antique earthen jar. Both of these kinds of drinking-vessels are shown in the accompanying [plate]. Drinking water is always kept at hand in a house in a number of these cocoa-nut shells which, being hung up overhead, keep the water pleasantly cool, a plug of leaves being used as a stopper. The native, in drinking, never puts the vessel to his mouth, but throwing his head well back, he holds the vessel a few inches above his lips and allows the water to run into his mouth. The milk of the cocoa-nut is drunk in the same manner. The scoops or scrapers used in eating the white kernels of the cocoa-nuts are generally either of bone or of pearl-shell. Sometimes for this purpose a large Cardium shell is lashed to a handle, a small hole being made in the shell for this purpose. . . . . Wooden hooks of clumsy size, though showing some skill in their design and workmanship, are employed as hanging-pegs in the houses.

1

2

1. Model Canoe made by a St. Christoval Native.

2. Pan-pipes. Cocoanut Drinking Vessels. Cooking-pot with Cushion and Trowel. Fan.

(All these Articles are from Treasury Island.)

[To face page 63.

The cooking-vessels in use in the islands of Bougainville Straits are circular pots of a rough clay ware, usually measuring about nine inches in depth and breadth, but sometimes more than double this size. Cleansing these vessels out between the meals is deemed an unnecessary refinement. These cooking-pots, one of which is shown in the accompanying [plate], are made by the women in the following manner: A handful of the clay, which is dark-reddish in colour and would make a good brick-clay, is first worked together in the hands into a plastic lump; and this is fashioned rudely into a kind of saucer to form the bottom of the vessel by basting the mass against a flat smooth pebble, three or four inches across, held in the left hand, with a kind of wooden trowel or beater held in the right hand. (One of these wooden trowels is figured in the [plate].) Whilst one woman is thus engaged, a couple of her companions are occupied in flattening out, by means of a flat-sided stick, strips of the clay six to twelve inches in length and an inch in breadth, their length increasing as the making of the vessel progresses. One of these strips is then placed around the upper edge of the saucer; and the potter welds or batters it into position, employing the same tools in a similar manner, the pebble being held inside. The cooking vessel is thus built up strip by strip; and to enable the worker to give symmetry to the upper part of the pot, a fillet of broad grass is tied around as a guide. An even edge is given to the lip by drawing along the rim a fibre from the cocoa-nut husk, and the interior and neck are finished off by the fingers well moistened. Whilst being made, the cooking-pot is rested on a ring-cushion of palm leaves, as shown in the same [engraving]. The time occupied in making one of the ordinary sized pots is about three-quarters of an hour. Thus made, they are kept in the shade for three or four days to become firm; and they are finally hardened by being placed in a wood-fire. No glaze appears to be used, and the vessels themselves show no signs of its employment. Their outer surfaces are indistinctly marked by odd-looking patterns in relief, reminding one somewhat of hieroglyphics, which are produced by the same patterns cut into one of the surfaces of the wooden beater (as shown in the [engraving]) for the purpose of giving the tool a better hold on the clay. Some cooking-pots, as in the case of the one illustrated, are ornamented with a chevron-line in relief below the neck and partly surrounding the vessel.[20] This ware compares but poorly with the finish and variety of design displayed by the glazed pottery of Fiji. The Fijian women, however, employ similar tools and accessories, namely, a flat mallet, a small round flat stone, and a ring-like cushion of palm leaves; but they do not appear from the accounts given of the process by Commodore Wilkes,[21] Messrs. Williams and Calvert,[22] and Miss Gordon Cumming,[23] to fashion the clay in the first place into strips. I may here refer the reader to the illustration, given by Commodore Wilkes in his narrative (vol. iii. p. 348), of pottery-making in Fiji, as it exactly suits my description of pottery-making in these islands of Bougainville Straits.

[20] Specimens of the pots, the implements, the clay, and the other accessories, have been placed in the Ethnographical Collection of the British Museum.

[21] “Narrative of the U.S. Explor. Exped.:” vol. iii., p. 348.

[22] “Fiji and the Fijians:” 3rd edit., 1870, p. 60.

[23] “A Lady’s Cruise in a French Man-of-War:” London, 1882, p. 247.

It will be interesting, perhaps, to briefly notice some of the gradations in the art of pottery manufacture amongst the savage races in this quarter of the globe. A very simple method, as recorded by Captain Forrest[24] more than a century ago, was employed by the women of Dory Harbour, New Guinea. They formed “pieces of clay into earthen pots; with a pebble in one hand to put into it, whilst they held in the other hand, also a pebble, with which they knocked, to enlarge and smooth it.” The natives of the Andaman Islands[25] advance another step in the process. We learn from Mr. Man that the only implements employed are, an Arca shell, a short pointed stick, and a board. The clay is rolled out into strips with the hand. One of these strips is twisted to form the cup-like base; and the pot is then built up strip by strip. The method employed by the natives of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, may be considered to be an improvement on the plan adopted by the Andaman Islanders. As already described, they also fashion the clay into strips and build up the vessel in a similar manner, but in the employment of a special implement as the wooden beater, in the use of the ring-cushion, and probably in the more artistic details of the process, they make a nearer approach than do the Andaman Islanders to the pottery-making of the Fijians. Then we come in the ascending scale to the method employed by the women of the Motu tribe around Port Moresby, New Guinea. By the Rev. Dr. W. Turner,[26] we are informed that they use a round smooth stone and a wooden beater but no cushion, the vessel being made without the aid of strips of clay into two pieces, the body and the mouth, which are moulded together. This method, as employed by the Motu women, may not be superior to that followed amongst the women of Bougainville Straits; but inasmuch as the former manufacture three kinds of vessels, one for holding water, another for cooking, and a third to be used as a plate, whilst the latter confine their art to the cooking-pot, I have assigned the first place to the former.[27] From the work of the Motu women to the pottery of the Fijians, and between the different processes employed, there is a considerable advance in the art of pottery manufacture, as already described in the case of Fiji. There, a glaze is for the first time employed; whilst in their finish, their comparative elegance of design, in their multiplicity of pattern, and in the various purposes for which they are employed from the cooking-pot up to the ornamental jar, these Fijian vessels are greatly superior to all I have referred to, whether the work of a woman of Port Dory, of an Andaman Islander, of a woman of Bougainville Straits, or of a woman of the Motu tribe in New Guinea.[28]

[24] “A Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas,” by Captain T. Forrest: London, 1779, p. 96.

[25] Journal of the Anthropological Institute: vol. xii., p. 69.

[26] Ibid: vol. vii., p. 470.

[27] In the Ethnological Collection of the British Museum there are specimens from this quarter of New Guinea of the wooden beaters employed in the pottery making. They are highly carved and much more finished than those of Bougainville Straits, being labelled “blocks” in the collection, as if their chief use was for imprinting patterns on the clay. It seems to me, however, that their principal purpose is as beaters, the simply cut patterns of the beater of Bougainville Straits, which serve to give the tool a better hold on the clay, being elaborated in the case of the New Guinea beater into ornamental patterns which have the same purpose.

[28] Two kinds of earthen pots from the Admiralty Islands are figured in the official narrative of the cruise of the “Challenger” (figs. 242 and 243). They differ in shape from those of Bougainville Straits and are probably made in a different manner.

The Polynesian plan of producing fire, which is known as the “stick-and-groove” method, was that which was occasionally employed by my native guides during my excursions in St. Christoval and in the island of Simbo. At the risk of being charged with undue prolixity, I will briefly describe it as I saw it performed. A dry piece of wood is first taken, and one side of it is sliced so as to form a flat surface. A small bit of the same wood is then pointed at one end and worked briskly along a groove which it soon forms in the flat surface. The friction in some three or four minutes produces smoke; and finally a fine powder, which has been collecting in a small heap at the end of the groove, begins to smoulder. After being carefully nursed by the breath of the operator, the tiny flame is transferred to a piece of touch-wood, and the object is attained. In most native houses in districts not often visited by the trader, pieces of the wood used for this purpose are left lying about on the floor. Wax matches, however, form an important item in the large quantities of trade-articles which pass into the hands of the natives of some of the islands; and in such islands any other method of producing fire is not generally employed. In most cases, when I had omitted to take matches with me in my excursions, my natives, although very desirous of getting a light for their pipes, were too lazy to obtain it by making use of the more laborious method of the “stick-and-groove.” When making their own journeys in the bush, they carry along with them a piece of smouldering wood, a precaution which I used to encourage them to adopt when accompanying me, in order to save myself being pestered every few minutes for a light for their pipes.

Burning-glasses are in common use amongst the natives of some of the islands, as at Simbo. The reason of their being not always favourite articles of trade in other islands, I was at a loss to understand. The numerous fumaroles varying in temperature between 160° and 200° Fahr. which pierce the hill-sides of the volcanic island of Simbo, are employed by the natives for the purposes of cooking, as I have elsewhere observed ([p. 86]).

Fans serve the double purpose of nursing a fire and of cooling the person. Those in use in Treasury are made of the extremities of two branches of the cocoa-nut palm, the midribs forming the handle, whilst the long “pinnæ” are neatly plaited together to form the fan. One of these fans is figured in the pottery engraving. Although more coarsely made, they are of a pattern similar to the fans of Fiji and Samoa. The shape appears to have originated from the nature of the materials employed; and I suspect that in Fiji and Samoa, where different materials are used, the original shape which depended on the plaiting of the cocoa-nut leaves has been retained, whilst the material itself has been discarded.

The natives of Bougainville Straits burn torches during their fishing excursions at night and during festivals. For this purpose they use resins obtained from the “anoga,”[29] probably a species of Canarium, and the “katari,” a species of Calophyllum, two tall trees which rank among the giants of the forest in this region. The resin of the “anoga” should be more properly described as a resinous balsam. It is white, is easily pulverised, and has a powerful odour, as if of camphor and sandal-wood combined. It concretes in mass inside the bark and in tears on the outer surface of the tree, and is usually obtained by climbing up and knocking it off the bark; but sometimes the tree is ringed at a height of four feet from the ground, a process which drains it of its resin but causes its death. The torch of this material is simply prepared by wrapping up compactly the powdered resin in a palm-leaf, which although outside answers the purpose of a wick. . . . The “katari” resin, which is less frequently used, is a dark-coloured material that burns with a tarry and somewhat fragrant odour. Other resins and gums are yielded by the trees, one of which somewhat resembles the “kauri” gum of New Zealand, and occurs in a similar situation beneath the soil; but I was unable to find the tree.

[29] From Surville’s description of his visit to Port Praslin in Isabel in 1769, it would appear that the natives burned torches made of this resin. (“Voyage de Marion.” Paris, 1783; p. 274.)

In the tambu-houses of St. Christoval and the adjoining islands we have a style of building on which all the mechanical skill of which the natives are possessed has been brought to bear. These sacred buildings have many and varied uses. Women are forbidden to enter their walls; and in some coast villages, as at Sapuna in the island of Santa Anna, where the tambu-house overlooks the beach, women are not even permitted to cross the beach in front. The tambu-houses of the coast villages are employed chiefly for keeping the war-canoes, each chief being allowed, as an honourable mark of his position, the privilege of there placing his own war-canoe;[30] but in the inland villages, these buildings are of course no longer employed for this purpose. Another use to which these buildings may be put is described on [page 53], in connection with the tambu-house of Sapuna in Santa Anna, in which are deposited, enclosed in the wooden figure of a shark, the skulls of ordinary men and the entire bodies of the chiefs.

[30] Mr. C. F. Wood, in his “Yachting in the South Seas” (London, 1875), gives, as the frontispiece of his book, an autotype photograph of the tambu-house of Makira in St. Christoval, in which the war-canoes are well shown.

The front of the tambu-house in his native village is, for the Solomon Islander, a common place of resort, more especially towards the close of the afternoon. There he meets his fellows and listens to the news of his own little world; and it is to this spot that any native who may be a stranger to the village first directs his steps, and on arriving states his errand or particular business. In my numerous excursions, when thirsty or tired, I always used to follow the native custom in this matter, being always treated hospitably and never with any rudeness. The interior of these buildings is free to any man to lie down in and sleep. On one occasion, when passing a night in an island village of St. Christoval, I slept in the tambu-house, the only white man amongst a dozen natives. Bloodshed, I believe, rarely occurs in these buildings; and they are for this reason viewed somewhat in the light of a sanctuary.

The completion of a new tambu-house is always an occasion of a festival in a village. The festival is often accompanied by the sacrifice of a human life; and the leg and arm bones of the victim may be sometimes seen suspended to the roof overhead. In the tambu-house of the village of Makia, on the east coast of Ugi, I observed hanging from the roof the two temporal bones, the right femur, and the left humerus of the victim who had been killed and eaten at the opening of the building; and similarly suspended in the tambu-house of the hill-village of Lawa on the north side of St. Christoval, in which I passed the night, I noticed over my head as I lay on my mat the left femur, tibia, and fibula, and the left humerus of the unfortunate man who had been killed and eaten on the completion of the building twelve months before. At these feasts there is a great slaughter of pigs that have been confined for some previous time in an enclosure of strong wooden stakes, which may be allowed to remain long after the occasion for its use has passed away. After the feast, the lower jaws of all the pigs consumed are hung in rows from the roof of the building. In one tambu-house I remember counting as many as sixty jaws thus strung up.

The style of building and the size and relative dimensions of the tambu-houses are very similar in all the coast-villages of the eastern islands, a correspondence which may be explained from the necessity of the structure being long enough to hold the large war-canoes. As a type of these buildings, I will describe somewhat in detail the tambu-house of the large village of Wano, on the north coast of St. Christoval. Its length is about 60 feet and its breadth between 20 and 25 feet. The gable roof is supported by five rows of posts, the height of the central row being some 14 or 15 feet from the ground; whilst on account of its high pitch the two outer lateral rows of posts are only 3 or 4 feet high. The principal weight of the roof is borne by the central and two next rows, each of which supports a long, bulky ridge-pole. The two outer lateral rows of posts are much smaller and support much lighter ridge-poles. In each row there are four posts, two in the middle and one at each gable-end. These posts, more particularly those of the central row, are grotesquely carved, and evidently by no unskilled hand, the lower part representing the body of a shark with its head upwards and mouth agape, supporting in various postures a rude imitation of the human figure which formed the upper part of the post. In one instance, a man was represented seated on the upper lip or snout of the shark, with his legs dangling in its mouth, and wearing a hat on his head, the crown of which supported the ridge-pole. In another case the man was inverted; and whilst the soles of his feet supported the ridge-pole, his head and chest were resting in the mouth of the shark.[31] Long after the tambu-house has disappeared, the carved posts remain in their position and form a not uncommon feature in a village scene as shown in the [engraving] of a village in Ugi. . . . The roof of the Wano tambu-house is formed of a framework of bamboo poles covered with palm-leaf thatch, the poles being of equal size, whether serving as rafters or cross-battens, the latter affording attachment for the thatch. The same materials are used in the sides of the building. . . . . With reference to tambu-houses generally in this part of the group, I should remark that they are open at both ends, with usually a staging at the front end raised about four feet from the ground, which may be aptly termed “the village lounge.”

[31] Mr. Brenchley, who visited Wano, or Wanga as he names it, in 1865, refers briefly in his “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curacoa’” to these carved posts (p. 267).

The tambu-house of the interesting little island of Santa Catalina or Orika—the Yoriki of the Admiralty [chart]—is worthy of a few special remarks. Its dimensions are similar to those of like buildings in this part of the group, the length being between 60 and 70 feet. Placed in front of each of its ends are three circles of large wooden posts driven into the earth, each circle of posts being 4 or 5 feet in height and enclosing a space of ground a few feet across, into which are thrown cocoa-nuts and other articles of food to appease the hunger of the presiding deity or devil-god. The ridge-poles and posts are painted with numerous grotesque representations in outline of war-canoes and fishing-parties, of natives in full fighting equipment, of sharks, and of the devil-god himself, with a long, lank body and a tail besides. On a ridge-pole there was drawn in paint the outline of some waggon or other vehicle with the horses in the shafts: whether this was a reminiscence of some native who had been to the colonies, or was merely a copy from a picture, I did not learn. Some of the representations on the ridge-poles were of an obscene character. The central row of posts were defaced by chipping, which I was informed was a token of mourning for the late chief of the island, who had died not many months before. Mr. C. F. Wood met with a similar custom in 1873 in the case of a native of a village at the west end of St. Christoval, who on the death of his son broke and damaged the carved figures of birds and fish in his house.[32] I am inclined to think that this house was a sacred building of some kind. . . . . Mr. William Macdonald, through whose kindness I had the opportunity of visiting this island, pointed out to me that two or three of the posts of the building had been carved into the figures of women, an innovation in the interior of a tambu-house which I observed in no other building of this kind.