The Solomon Islands and Their Natives Part 16

[161] "Voyage de Dentrecasteaux," par M. de Rossel, tom. I. p. 329, Paris 1808.

I may appear to have entered with unnecessary detail into this subject, but it is apparent that this fungoid skin disease, disseminated as it is by personal contact and other similar agencies, would have reached these sub-central Pacific Groups long ago if they had been occupied through ages by their present inhabitants. The same evidence, therefore, which can be brought forward to prove the recent appearance of this disease amongst the natives of these groups may also be advanced in support of the recent occupation of these islands by the eastern Polynesians.

From the previous remarks on the distribution of Tokelau Ringworm it may be inferred that in New Guinea and in the islands of the Malay Archipelago we have the home of the disease. From this region it has spread eastward towards the centre of the Pacific; and we may also infer that this eastward extension of the disease has occurred within the last three hundred years, since in the accounts which Gallego and Quiros give of the natives of the Solomon, Santa Cruz, and New Hebrides Groups at the time of their first discovery by the Spaniards, there is no reference to the prevalence of any cutaneous disease, which, if it had existed, would most certainly have attracted the notice of these early navigators.

I only had one opportunity of treating this affection, and that was in the person of a native of Guadalcanar, who was shipped on board as an interpreter, and who had been the subject of the disease for about five months. Partly from its obstinacy, and partly from the difficulty of ensuring that the remedies were regularly and thoroughly employed, my experience was not very satisfactory. Sulphur ointment, mercurial ointment, tincture of iodine, and a lotion of hyposulphite of soda (1 in 12) were severally used, and after about three weeks the skin was almost clean. Some weeks afterwards, the eruption re-appeared on the forearms in the form of the characteristic small circ.u.mscribed patches of body-ringworm. The local remedy, which I found most rapid in its effect as a parasiticide in the treatment of this case, was the tincture of iodine of which two applications completely removed the disease from the fore-arms. The lotion of the hyposulphite of soda and the mercurial ointment had apparently but little influence on the disease. The sulphur ointment, however, had a gradual curative action. To many of the vessels which leave Queensland and Fiji to recruit labour in the Solomon and New Hebrides groups, sulphur ointment is supplied; and the government-agents are instructed to use it in all cases of this disease amongst the natives recruited. I learned from some of these gentlemen that, when the remedy is applied thoroughly, and under superintendence, they usually succeed in thoroughly cleansing the skin from the eruption before the ships return to the colonies.

A pustular eruptive disease peculiar to children, which has been referred to by various authors as prevalent in the New Hebrides, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa groups, affects many of the young children of the Solomon Islands, usually occurring about the age of five. A number of large papules, twice the size of a split pea, which subsequently become filled with a pustular fluid, appear on the face. These pustules by rupturing tend to unite and form unhealthy-looking sores of the size of a florin. The disease pursues a regular course of papule, pustule, and sore; and is said never to recur. As far as I could learn, the natives interfere but little with its progress; and, as in Fiji where it is known as _c.o.ko_,[162] they regard the disease as having a salutary influence on the future health of the child.

[162] "Fiji and the Fijians," by Messrs T. Williams and J. Calvert.

3rd edit. 1870, p. 151.

That peculiar spinal disease, which produces so many hunch-backs in the Society and Samoan groups, and which is so well described by Mr. Ellis in his "Polynesian Researches" (2nd edit., 1831, vol. iii. pp. 39, 40), does not prevail among the Solomon Islanders. I can only recall one instance of spinal deformity which came under my observation. It was in the person of a little boy about ten or eleven years old, who was the subject of lateral and posterior curvature of the spine. The little fellow, who was a native of Simbo, apparently experienced no inconvenience from the deformity, since a firm ankylosis had occurred.

He was able to accompany me in my ascents to the summit of his island, which is elevated about 1,100 feet above the sea.

An epidemic catarrhal disease, which is allied to influenza, is very prevalent amongst the natives of these islands. It is commonly followed by lung-complications, which not infrequently cause the death of the sufferer. Such an epidemic in running through a village sometimes carries off several of the inhabitants. The elderly natives are, in fact, very liable to pulmonary affections; such diseases usually terminate their lives.

From the occurrence of an epidemic of this catarrhal disease, a village often obtains an unhealthy reputation; and the natives abandon it for some other situation, which is selected rather for the convenience of its position than for its freedom from unhealthy influences. A generation ago, one of the princ.i.p.al villages in the island of Ugi was situated on the level summit of a hill overlooking Selwyn Bay on the west coast, a site which would have at once been chosen both for its salubrity and for its capability of defence. However, a number of deaths occurred in the village from epidemic catarrhal disease; and the inhabitants shifted their homes to the low-lying unhealthy situation where the village of Ete-ete now stands.

Epidemics of mumps occur occasionally amongst these islanders. In October, 1882, whilst we were taking to Ugi the crew of the "Pioneer," a schooner which had been wrecked off the coast of Guadalcanar, some cases of this disease appeared among the natives belonging to that ship, affecting ten out of the twenty on board, and pursuing its usual course.

It was evident that the disease had been originally brought from Brisbane, as the ship which was engaged in returning natives from the Queensland plantations, had had three cases previously, the first having occurred on her arrival at Makira harbour, just a week after she left Brisbane. That mumps is sometimes a fatal disease amongst these races, there is no reason to doubt. Mr. Stephens of Ugi informed me that a few years since, some natives of Lord Howe Islands, whom he was employing on his premises, rapidly succ.u.mbed to this disease.

Men who were the subjects of _Elephantiasis arab.u.m_ were occasionally seen in the different islands we visited. Instances of "lymph-s.c.r.o.t.u.m"

most frequently typify this disease, but now and then cases of "swollen leg" occur. In the island of Faro or Fauro in Bougainville Straits, the natives attribute this disease to the water of particular streams. There is a stream on the west side of the island, the water of which when drunk is said to produce "swollen legs." For this reason the water is never employed; and the ban is even extended to the cocoa-nut trees on its banks.

Natives, who are the subjects of such congenital deformities as "hare-lip," are rarely seen. Very probably in such cases life is destroyed by the parents soon after birth. I only observed one instance of "hare-lip" which occurred in the case of a man of Simbo. This malformation, which was of the single character, was a.s.sociated with abnormal development of crisp hair on the body and more particularly on the back. As an instance of another kind of congenital deformity, which however came but rarely under my observation, I may refer to a man of Ugi who had six perfect toes on the right foot, both fifth and sixth toes being provided with nails and apparently arising from a common metatarsal bone. None of his family had the same deformity, which in his case was probably inconvenient in more ways than one, as the print of his foot was familiar to every native in the island.[163]

[163] Mr. Romilly, in the work referred to on page 168, alludes to the strange prevalence of these congenital deformities of the hands and feet in New Britain.

Strabismus is not uncommon amongst the natives of these islands, and appears to occur with the same relative frequency as amongst more civilised people.

Venereal diseases, both const.i.tutional and local, are said by traders to be very frequent in certain islands, as in Ugi, which have had most intercourse with the outer world. I rarely however came upon unequivocal evidence of the const.i.tutional form of these diseases, those cases which came under my immediate observation being of the non-const.i.tutional types which, as in other tropical regions, are often of a rapidly destructive character. The natives of Ugi a.s.sert that these diseases have not been introduced within the memory of any living man, and no tradition prevails with reference to their origin. I shall scarcely enter into the question of the introduction of these diseases into the more central groups of the Pacific, a subject which is discussed in most of the narratives of the early expeditions to those regions, but in a spirit of unfairness and mutual recrimination which goes far to invalidate the conclusions arrived at. Negative evidence, however, must be of a very exhaustive character before it would warrant the inference that to the licence, so freely permitted to the crews of the English and French expeditions during the latter half of the last century, must be attributed the presence of these diseases among the Polynesian races.

M. Rollin, who, as surgeon of the frigate "Boussole," accompanied La Perouse on his ill-fated voyage, adduces evidence to show the probability of these diseases having existed in the Pacific before the discoveries of the French and English navigators in that region;[164]

and La Perouse himself approaches very near the truth when he suggests that the free intercourse, which prevailed between the natives and the crews during those expeditions, may have increased the activity and destructive tendency of the pre-existing diseases.[165] For, not only has M. Parrot of Paris demonstrated from an examination of the skulls of some South American aborigines the existence of Syphilis in the New World before Columbus set foot on its sh.o.r.es, but he affirms without hesitation, after examining three fragments of infant skulls from a dolmen in central France, that this disease existed in prehistoric times ("Lancet," May 10th, 1879). We are not therefore surprised at finding references to venereal diseases in the ancient literature of China, India, Arabia, Greece and Rome (Aitken's "Medicine," 6th edit, 1872, vol i. p. 859); and having regard to the ethnological past of the Pacific, we can with some confidence a.s.sume that the original stock, derived in the first place from the Asiatic continent, brought with them these diseases.

[164] "Voyage round the World, by La Perouse," edit. by Milet-Mureau: London: vol. iii., p. 180.

[165] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 52.

The susceptibility of these islanders to comparatively small falls of temperature is an element in their predisposition to disease which should not be disregarded. This susceptibility was strikingly shown to me on one occasion, at the end of August 1882, when I was following up the course of a stream at Sulagina on the north coast of St. Christoval.

Accompanied by a party of natives, I was wading up the stream for several hours, the water often reaching the waist, whilst a steady deluge of rain completed the wetting. Although the air was merely comparatively cool for this lat.i.tude (10 30' S.), the thermometer in the shade standing at 80 Fahr, my natives were shivering with the cold; whilst I myself felt only the inconvenience of having been soaked through for so many hours. As soon as we returned to the coast, all my party huddled themselves together around their wood-fires in a little hut and warmed their hands and feet as eagerly as we should in winter-time at home. As I stood in the hut looking comfortably on at my naked companions who, shivering and with their teeth chattering, were endeavouring to warm themselves around the fires, I recalled to my mind an incident which Mr. Darwin relates in his "_Journal of the Beagle_"

(p. 220), which although a.n.a.logous, ill.u.s.trates the converse of these conditions. "A small family of Fuegians"--he writes--"soon joined our party round a blazing fire. We were well clothed, and though sitting close to the fire were far from too warm; yet these naked savages, though further off, were observed, to our great surprise, to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting."

Instances of mental weakness or of insanity amongst the natives of these islands rarely came under my notice. However, more than one of the chiefs whom we met had a half-witted individual on his staff, who made himself generally useful to his master. The chief's fool, as we called him, was frequently my guide in the island of Santa Anna. He was the general b.u.t.t of the village; and I was told the girls would sometimes seize hold of him and roll him about in the sand. Insanity would appear to be of uncommon occurrence amongst these islanders; but I suspect that such individuals are not permitted to live. Whilst the "Lark" was engaged in the survey of Faro Island in Bougainville Straits, I learned that there was a madman, who was partially dumb, living in the bush in the interior of the island. Having murdered his wife about five months before our visit, he had taken to the forest where he led a solitary life at enmity with his fellow-islanders, who would have killed him, as they told me, if they found him. He frequently used to steal from the plantations; and during our stay in the island he was observed by a woman near one of the yam patches. The chief's son came up to me one afternoon, after I had returned to the coast from an ascent of one of the princ.i.p.al summits, to advise me to shoot this unfortunate being if ever I saw him; and he added that if this madman should see me, un.o.bserved, he would either run away or take his opportunity of killing me. However, I made several excursions into the interior afterwards; but I never fell in with him.

CHAPTER X.

VOCABULARY OF THE ISLANDS OF BOUGAINVILLE STRAITS--TREASURY ISLAND, THE SHORTLAND ISLANDS, FARO OR FAURO ISLAND, WITH CHOISEUL BAY.

THIS vocabulary was formed in great part by Lieutenant A. Leeper, to whom I may take this opportunity of expressing my thanks for his kindness, in thus placing it at my disposal. I have supplemented this list from smaller vocabularies made by Lieutenant C. F. de M. Malan and by myself. It is to be regretted that, owing to Lieutenant Malan taking up a Colonial appointment in Fiji during the last year of the commission, we were unable to avail ourselves in a further degree of his knowledge of the Fijian tongue, and of his general acquaintance with the construction of the Polynesian languages. We are, however, especially indebted to him for the recognition of the p.r.o.nominal suffixes.

The spelling follows to a great extent the mode adopted in the missionary alphabet of Professor Max Muller, as given on page 116 of the Anthropological Notes and Queries drawn up at the request of the British a.s.sociation. The vowels and diphthongs are p.r.o.nounced as in the following examples;--_a_ as _a_ in father, _e_ as _a_ in fate, _i_ as _i_ in marine, _o_ as _o_ in note, _u_ as _oo_ in moon, _ai_ as _ai_ in aisle, _au_ as _ou_ in proud. Where there has been an evident want of agreement in the three vocabularies, I have given the different words or the different spellings, as the case may have occurred. We have thus been, in some degree, "checks" to each other: and I hope we have avoided, in this manner, many of those errors into which the una.s.sisted framer of a vocabulary is so liable to fall. The accented syllable is thus indicated (') in most instances where it is needed, the accent being usually placed on the penultimate.

_Miscellaneous Words_

Afraid Fulau.

Angry Fangolu; Gafolu.

Armlet Pago.

Arrow Iliu.

Ashes Oafu.

Awl Nila.

Axe Libba-libba; Levo-levo.

Back Aro.

Bad Paitena.

Bag Ko-isa.

Basket Koko; Besa.

Beat (to) Lapu.

Before Gaga.

Behind Arogu.

Big Yolulla; Kana-kana.

Blood Masini.

Blow Ifu.

Bow Lili.

Boy Taui.

Break (to) Taposha.

Bring Galomi.

Brother Manai-ina.

Bury (to) Nafu.

Buy Funa-aili.

Calico Bauro.

Canoe Obuna.

Cap So-so.

Capsize (to) Igomo.

Charcoal Sibi.

Chew Tatau.

Chief Lalafa; Yolona.

Chief's eldest son Natuna.

Clean Lapu; Sapolu.

Club Peko.

Club (dancing) Toko; Toku.

Cold Lulu-gulu.

Comb Supi.