The Solomon Islands and Their Natives Part 5

On one occasion, when pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 princ.i.p.al 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 w.a.n.ga 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 s.p.a.ce 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-G.o.d. 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-G.o.d 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.

[32] "A Yachting Cruise in the South Seas:" London, 1875 (p. 133).

The tambu-house of the village of Sapuna in Santa Anna, which is shown in the accompanying plate, is higher, broader, and more ma.s.sive in structure than the other buildings which I have visited in the adjacent islands. As in other tambu-houses, the forms of the shark and of the human figure are given to parts of the posts; and in the hollow cavities of wooden representations of the shark on the sides of the interior of the building are enclosed the entire bodies of departed chiefs and the skulls of ordinary men. The carved central post, which is seen in the accompanying engraving, affords a superior specimen of native workmanship. It was originally brought, as I was informed by one of the natives of Santa Anna, from Guadalcanar. The walls of this building are made more rain-proof by long slabs, measuring 36 by 6 by 2 inches, which are cut out from the dense matted growth of fibres and rootlets that invests the base of the bole of the cocoa-nut palm.

The princ.i.p.al tambu-house in the village of Ete-ete, on the west side of Ugi, is between 60 and 70 feet in length, from 25 to 30 feet broad, and 11 or 12 feet in height. Here also the sculptured posts represent the body of a shark with its head uppermost and supporting in the gape of its mouth the figure of a man, on whose head rests the ridge-pole of the roof. The front of the building is decorated with red and black bands, some straight, some wavy, and others of the chevron pattern. Mr.

Brenchley in his account of the "Cruise of the '_Curacoa_'" gives a sketch of this tambu-house, which he visited in 1865 (p. 258). Forming the frontispiece of his work is a chromo-lithograph showing the two sides of an ornamental tie-beam from the roof of a "public hall" at Ugi, which he presented to the Maidstone Museum. It represents on one side sharks, bonitos, and sea-birds supposed to be frigate-birds, and on the other side four canoes with sharks attacking the crew of one of them, which is bottom upwards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TAMBU-HOUSE IN THE ISLAND OF SANTA ANNA.

(Preparations for a Feast.)

(_To face page 70._)]

The deification of the shark appears to arise from the superst.i.tious dread which this fish inspires. Its good-will may be obtained by leaving offerings of food on the rocks before undertaking a long journey in a canoe. The natives of the neighbouring island of Ulaua, or Ulawa, propitiate the shark with offerings of their own sh.e.l.l-money and of porpoise teeth, which they prize even more than money; and, if a sacred shark has attempted to seize a man who has been able to finally escape from its jaws, they are so much afraid that they will throw him back into the sea to be devoured.[33] We learn from Mr. Ellis[34] and from Messrs. Tyerman and Bennet,[35] that in the Society Islands sharks were deified, that temples were erected for their worship in which the fisherman propitiated the favour of the shark-G.o.d, and that almost every family had its particular shark as its tutelary deity to which it bowed and made oblations.

[33] "Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia," by the Rev. R.

H. Codrington, M.A. "Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute." Vol.

x.

[34] "Polynesian Researches:" London, 1853. Vol. i., pp. 167, 329.

[35] "Voyages and Travels of the Rev. D. Tyerman and George Bennet, Esq.:" London, 1831. Vol. i., p. 247.

At Alu and Treasury in Bougainville Straits, the tambu-house, which is such a prominent feature in the villages of the eastern islands, is represented by a mere open canoe-shed, for the most part dest.i.tute of ornament, and apparently held in but little veneration. Rows of the lower jaws of pigs, which are strung up inside the buildings, signify, as in the eastward islands, the number of animals slaughtered for the feast that was held to celebrate the completion of the canoe-shed. In the island of Faro, the canoe-houses are only temporary sheds built over the large war-canoes, and can have no sacred character in the mind of the native, the tambu-houses in the two princ.i.p.al villages of Toma and Sinasoro having no connection with the war-canoes. The tambu-house of the village of Toma is a neat-looking building about 18 feet high, 45 feet long, and 25 feet broad. It is open at the ends and partly open at the sides, and is built of much the same materials as the dwelling-houses. The roof, which is neatly thatched with the leaves of the sago-palm, is supported on stout ridge-poles by a central and two lateral rows of posts. There is no carving and but little decoration about the building; and from the circ.u.mstance of its being sometimes converted into a temporary drying-house for copra, we may draw some inference as to the degree of sanct.i.ty in which such a building is held.

The weapons in common use in these islands are spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and tomahawks. An indication of the disposition of the natives may be usually obtained by observing whether arms are habitually carried. In islands where the men go unarmed, the white man, from the absence of intertribal conflicts, has an additional guarantee for his own safety. On the other hand, amongst natives who never leave the vicinity of their villages without a spear or a club, he will require to be very cautious in all that concerns his safety.

The spears are usually 8 to 9 feet in length, with no foreshaft, and are made of a hard palm wood. Those of the natives of Bougainville Straits are very formidable weapons. They are armed with long points or barbs of bone, some of them 4 or 5 inches in length, and they are coloured white and red, are curiously carved, and are ornamented with bands of the same plaited material of which the armlets are made. The barbs and bands are imitated in the colouring of the head of the spear. These spears are made by the natives of Bougainville, and are exchanged with the people of the Straits for European articles of trade. I have seen them in the hands of the men of Simbo. In St. Christoval and the adjacent islands at the other end of the group, the spears are of dark wood, with carved heads and blunt wooden points and are uncoloured. As compared with those of Bougainville Straits, they are not very formidable weapons. They are only armed with blunt barbs cut out of the wood, which are rather more ornamental than useful.

In throwing a spear, the men of Bougainville Straits, whilst poising the weapon, extend the left arm in the direction of the object and often point the forefinger as well. None of the contrivances for a.s.sisting the flight of the spear, such as the throwing-stick or the amentum, were employed by the natives of the islands we visited. These weapons are used both as hand-weapons and as missiles. The natives of St. Christoval spear their victims through the abdomen, and as a mark of their prowess they often allow the gore to dry on the point of the weapon. A man in this island usually keeps his spears slung in a bundle under the projecting eaves of the roof in front of the entrance to his house.

Bows and arrows are much more commonly employed by the natives of Bougainville Straits than by the St. Christoval natives. The bows are stoutly made, and are from 6 to 7 feet in length. The string is of a strong cord. The arrows used in the first-mentioned locality are usually 4 to 4 feet in length. They have a long reed shaft, with a pointed foreshaft of a hard heavy palm wood inserted into the end, and measuring about one-fourth the length of the arrow Although most of the arrows have simple pointed foreshafts, dest.i.tute of barbs, a few terminate in arrow-heads carved out of the hard wood. A kind of dart, much shorter than the arrow and armed with points of bone, is also used. About nine out of every ten arrows are notched for the bowstring. Feathers are not used; but the hinder shaft of each arrow is decorated with etchings as if in imitation of plumes. These arrows are essentially Melanesian in character, and much resemble those in the British Museum Collection from New Guinea and the New Hebrides.[36] At short distances of 25 or 30 yards, the natives make good shooting with the bow and arrow; but on account of the length of the arrow it is not to be depended on at greater ranges. For shooting fish and pigeons, the natives of these Straits sometimes employ small arrows fashioned out of the large leaf of a kind of reed. The midrib serves as the shaft, and a narrow strip of the blade of the leaf, which is left attached on each side of the shaft, serves the purpose of the plume. The end is pointed and hardened by fire. Such arrows are easily made, and are not generally sought for after they have been shot away.[37] On one occasion I observed a boy of Alu shooting a pigeon with an arrow terminating in fine points like a miniature fish-spear.

[36] To those who have never had their interest specially engaged in the subject of savage weapons, the above detailed description of these arrows may seem unnecessary; but, as Colonel Lane Fox originally pointed out, it is in the absence or presence of the feather and notch, in the length and formation of the shaft and its point, and in other characters, that the arrows of different races are distinguished from each other. Thus, in many parts of New Guinea, in Melanesia generally, and throughout the Pacific, the arrows are dest.i.tute of feathers; while those from Europe and Asia are always feathered. (_Vide_ "Catalogue of the original Lane Fox Collection," pp. 87-95; also, paper on "Primitive Warfare." "Journ.

Unit. Ser. Inst.," 1867-68, for a general treatment of the subject.) Prof. Morse has shown that in the different methods of releasing the arrow from the bow, important race-distinctions are to be found. An abstract of his interesting paper is given in "Nature," Nov. 4th, 1886.

[37] Mr. Mosely in his "Notes by a Naturalist," p. 381, describes and figures very similar arrows which are used by the Ke Islanders for the same purposes.

Poisoned spears and arrows are rarely employed by the natives of the Solomon Group. They did not come under our observation in any of the islands that we visited. In the island of Savo, however, the natives are said to poison their spears and arrows by thrusting them into a decomposing corpse, where they are allowed to remain for some days.

The clubs vary in form in different parts of the group. In St.

Christoval, they have flat recurved blades cut out of the f.l.a.n.g.e-like b.u.t.tresses of a tree having very hard wood which bears a polish like that of mahogany. In other islands, as in those of Florida, they have flattened oval blades like that of a paddle. Other clubs again, like those of Guadalcanar, are more cylindrical, and have their ends but slightly enlarged; they are often ornamented with the so-called "dyed gra.s.s." No weapons of the character of maces came under my observation.

Most clubs are pointed at the b.u.t.t-end to enable them to be stuck upright in the ground. These weapons are rarely seen in the hands of the natives of Bougainville Straits, if I may except an ornamental club which is carried at the dances.[38] The St. Christoval club is also a defensive weapon. Its flat recurved blade is used to turn aside a spear or an arrow just as the bat is employed to slip a cricket-ball. Some have considered that these weapons are merely paddles. I never saw them put to this use, and I should add that they are most unsuited for such a purpose, being very heavy and sinking in water. I have frequently met natives, when away from the coast, carrying them on their shoulder; and I often learned from them of the true character of the weapon. Traders, who had been years in this part of the group, spoke of them to me as war-clubs. Together with their spears, the St. Christoval natives carry them during their hostile incursions against the bushmen. A singular W pattern that occurs on the flat blades of these St. Christoval clubs was for a long time a puzzle to me. However a very probable explanation of its origin has been given by Major-General Pitt-Rivers.[39] It is one which goes to show that these curved flat-bladed clubs originated as paddles, and that in proportion as they came to be employed also for purposes of defence, their form and material were in time changed, until their original use was either lost or forgotten. In the early forms of this paddle-club, the swell of the blade suggested the shape of the body of a fish; and the profile of a fish's head with the jaws agape was added to complete the resemblance. In course of time the blade lost its fish-like form, but the outline of the snout with jaws agape was still retained as an ornament. In this manner the W pattern of the present clubs originated. The steps in the production of this pattern may be ill.u.s.trated in a series of clubs from those with most marked fish-like form to those where the profile of the fish's snout in the form of a W alone remains; and this again by the omission of the mouth is often replaced by a triangular n.o.b.

[38] These ornamental clubs exactly resemble, both in form and decoration, some clubs from New Ireland in the British Museum.

[39] "Nature," July 14th, 1881. I differ from the writer in considering these articles as clubs, not paddles.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

1. Fish-Spear.

2. Spears from Bougainville Straits.

3. St. Christoval Spears.

4. Head of a Florida Club.

5. St. Christoval Clubs.

6. Dance-Club of Treasury.

7. Canoe-Ornament, placed on the prow.

8. Hanging-Hook (Treasury I.).

9. Fish-Float.

10. Canoe-G.o.d, lashed to the stem.

(_To face page 74._)]

Tomahawks and muskets, which have been introduced by the trader, are frequently possessed by natives of the coast. The owner of the tomahawk fits it with a long straight handle which he often decorates with inlaid pearl-sh.e.l.l. It is a formidable weapon in the hands of a native, and it is one which he usually employs very effectively, whether against his fellow islanders or against the white man. The muskets are often of little use on account of the lack of percussion caps and powder.

The defensive arm carried by these islanders is usually a narrow shield measuring 3 feet in length by 9 or 10 inches in breadth. With the exception apparently of St. Christoval, these shields are to be observed amongst the natives of most of the larger islands of the group. They appear usually to be made of a layer of light reeds or canes lashed together by rattan. In some islands, as in Florida and in Guadalcanar, they are worked over with fine wicker-work, and are ornamented with beads in the case of a chief. In other islands, as in Isabel and Choiseul, they are often more rudely constructed and have no wicker-work. In the two last islands they are rectangular in form. In Florida and Guadalcanar they are more oval and are slightly contracted in the middle. Mr. Brenchley figures one of the Florida shields in his "Cruise of H.M.S. 'Curacoa,'" (p. 281); whilst a sketch of a shield of the Port Praslin (Isabel) natives is to be found in the narrative of Surville's visit to this group.[40] The Port Praslin shield is deeply notched at one end. I did not observe these shields amongst the inhabitants of St. Christoval and the adjacent islands, a circ.u.mstance which may be explained by the fact that spears, and not bows and arrows, are the offensive weapons usually carried by these islanders. Yet we learn that three centuries ago it was with their bows and arrows that the St. Christoval natives usually a.s.sailed the Spaniards (_vide_ pages 228, 231.) It should be remembered that the flat-bladed curved clubs of these natives also serve the purpose of a defensive weapon.

[40] Fleurieu's "Discoveries of the French in 1768 and 1769."

The tactics employed in war are those which treachery and cunning suggest. Very rarely, I believe, does a fair, open fight occur. In their sham fights, one of which we witnessed on the beach at Santa Anna, two parties confront each other in open and irregular order and hurl their spears with all the excitement of a real contest. Every man keeps constantly on the move as in dancing a jig, in order to be able to more easily avoid the missiles hurled at him. The boys of Treasury sometimes amuse themselves with a game of the same character, when they use as their weapons the stalk and bulb of the large taro. I was on one occasion much surprised at their skill in aiming apparently at one boy and hitting the one next to him.

The polished stone implements of their fathers have been to a large extent discarded by the natives of the coasts; but the natives of the interiors of the large islands, such as Bougainville, who may have been rarely, if ever, in communication with the trader, are said to be still in a large degree dependent on their stone axes and adzes. On account of the extensive introduction of trade axes, adzes, and knives, it was often difficult to obtain the polished stone implements from the people of a coast village, and natives were wont to express their surprise at my wanting such inefficient and old-fashioned tools. My inquiries as to when these stone implements were used usually received some such reply as the following: "Father, belong father, belong me, he all same"--the purport of which was that they were in use a long time ago, the native's grandfather being deemed a person of so high antiquity, that in referring to past events he seldom cares to go beyond. These stone axes and adzes are generally made of the hard volcanic rocks of this region.

A few are fashioned out of the thick portion of the sh.e.l.l of _Tridacna gigas_.

The upper surface of a large mushroom-coral (_Fungidae_), serves as an effective rasp for sc.r.a.ping canoes; and the large sh.e.l.l of a _Cyrena_ and the sharper edge of a boar's tusk are similarly used for sc.r.a.ping spears and bows, which are ultimately rubbed smooth with powdered pumice.

The "bow-drill," armed with a steel point, was employed by Mule, the Treasury chief, in piercing the holes for the rattan-like thongs in the planks of his canoes. This was the only "bow-drill" that came under my notice, and I could not tempt its owner to part with it. In the British Museum Collection, however, there are two smaller tools of this kind from other islands of the group. Without describing it, I may remark that a similar "bow-drill" is figured in Commodore Wilkes' account of the Bowditch Islanders,[41] by Dr. G. Turner[42] in his account of the Samoans, and by Signor D'Albertis in his book on New Guinea.[43] The history of the "bow-drill," as we learn from Dr. Tylor,[44] is an interesting one. It originated with the "fire-drill," which is simply a pointed piece of wood that is twirled between the hands. This was then made more efficacious by winding a cord around it, when it became a "cord-drill." By subst.i.tuting for the cord a bow with a loose string, a still more useful tool was obtained: and from this simple form of "bow-drill" the Pacific islanders have obtained the improved boring-tool they now employ.

[41] "Narr. U. S. Expl. Exped.," vol. v., p. 17.

[42] "Nineteen years in Polynesia," p. 273.

[43] Vol. ii., p. 378.

[44] "Early History of Mankind:" pp. 237-246.