Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific Part 10

In general, the Ambrymese are more agreeable than the Santo people. They seem more manly, less servile, more faithful and reliable, more capable of open enmity, more clever and industrious, and not so sleepy.

a.s.sisted by my excellent guide, I set about collecting, which was not always a simple matter. I was very anxious to procure a "bull-roarer,"

and made my man ask for one, to the intense surprise of the others; how could I have known of the existence of these secret and sacred utensils? The men called me aside, and begged me never to speak of this to the women, as these objects are used, like many others, to frighten away the women and the uninitiated from the a.s.semblies of the secret societies. The noise they make is supposed to be the voice of a mighty and dangerous demon, who attends these a.s.semblies.

They whispered to me that the instruments were in the men's house, and I entered it, amid cries of dismay, for I had intruded into their holy of holies, and was now standing in the midst of all the secret treasures which form the essential part of their whole cult. However, there I was, and very glad of my intrusion, for I found myself in a regular museum. In the smoky beams of the roof there hung half-finished masks, all of the same pattern, to be used at a festival in the near future; there was a set of old masks, some with nothing left but the wooden faces, while the gra.s.s and feather ornaments were gone; old idols; a face on a triangular frame, which was held particularly sacred; two perfectly marvellous masks with long noses with thorns, carefully covered with spider-web cloth. This textile is a speciality of Ambrym, and serves especially for the preparation and wrapping of masks and amulets. Its manufacture is simple: a man walks through the woods with a split bamboo, and catches all the innumerable spider-webs hanging on the trees. As the spider-web is sticky, the threads cling together, and after a while a thick fabric is formed, in the shape of a conical tube, which is very solid and defies mould and rot. At the back of the house, there stood five hollow trunks, with bamboos leading into them. Through these, the men howl into the trunk, which reverberates and produces a most infernal noise, well calculated to frighten others besides women. For the same purpose cocoa-nut sh.e.l.ls were used, which were half filled with water, and into which a man gurgled through a bamboo. All this was before my greedy eyes, but I could obtain only a very few articles. Among them was a bull-roarer, which a man sold me for a large sum, trembling violently with fear, and beseeching me not to show it to anybody. He wrapped it up so carefully, that the small object made an immense parcel. Some of the masks are now used for fun; the men put them on and run through the forest, and have the right to whip anybody they meet. This, however, is a remnant of a very serious matter, as formerly the secret societies used these masks to terrorize all the country round, especially people who were hostile to the society, or who were rich or friendless.

These societies are still of great importance on New Guinea, but here they have evidently degenerated. It is not improbable that the Suque has developed from one of these organizations. Their decay is another symptom of the decline of the entire culture of the natives; and other facts seem to point to the probability that this decadence may have set in even before the beginning of colonization by the whites.

My visit to the men's house ended, and seeing no prospects of acquiring any more curiosities, I went to the dancing-ground, where most of the men were a.s.sembled at a death-feast, it being the hundredth day after the funeral of one of their friends. In the centre of the square, near the drums, stood the chief, violently gesticulating. The crowd did not seem pleased at my coming, and criticized me in undertones. A terrible smell of decomposed meat filled the air; evidently they had all partaken of a half-rotten pig, and the odour did not seem to trouble them at all.

The chief was a tall man, bald-headed, wearing the nambas, of larger size than those of the others, and with both arms covered with pigs'

tusks to show his rank. He looked at me angrily, came up to me, and sat down, not without having first swept the ground with his foot, evidently in order not to come into contact with any charm that an enemy might have thrown there. One of the men wanted me to buy a flute, asking just double what I was willing to give; seeing that I did not intend to pay so much, he made me a present of the flute, and seemed just as well pleased. Still, the others stared at me silently and suspiciously, until I offered some tobacco to the chief, which he accepted with a joke, whereat everybody laughed and the ice was broken. The men forgot their reserve, and talked about me in loud tones, looking at me as we might at a hopelessly mad person, half pitying, half amused at his vagaries. The chief now wished to shake hands with me, though he did not trouble to get up for the ceremony. We smiled pleasantly at each other, and then he took me to his house, which, according to his high rank, was surrounded by a stone wall. He rummaged about inside for a long time, and finally brought out a few paltry objects; I thought best to pay well for them, telling him that as he was a "big fellow-master," I was ready to pay extra for the honour of having a souvenir of him. This flattered him so much that he consented to have his photograph taken; and he posed quite cleverly, while the others walked uneasily around us, looking at the camera as if it were likely to explode at any moment; and as none of them dared have his picture taken, I left.

Rounding a bend of the path on my way home, I suddenly came upon a young woman. First she looked at me in deadly fright, then, with a terrified cry, she jumped over the fence, and burst into hysterical laughter, while a dozen invisible women shrieked; then they all ran away, and as I went on, I could hear that the flight had ceased and the shrieks changed to hearty laughter. They had taken me for a kidnapper, or feared some other harm, as was natural enough with their experience of certain kinds of white men.

Walking along, I heard the explosions of the volcano like a far-away cannonade. The dull shocks gave my walk a peculiar solemnity, but the bush prevented any outlook, and only from the coast I occasionally saw the volcanic clouds mounting into the sky.

From the old mission-house the view on a clear day is splendid. On the slope stand a few large trees, whose cleft leaves frame the indescribably blue sea, which breaks in snowy lines in the lava-boulders below. Far off, I can see Malekula, with its forest-covered mountains, and summer clouds hanging above it. It is a dreamlike summer day, so beautiful, bright and mild as to be hardly real. One feels a certain regret at being unable to absorb all the beauty, at having to stand apart as an outsider, a patch on the brightness rather than a part of it.

At night the view is different, but just as enchanting. A fine dust from the volcano floats in the air and the pale moonlight plays softly on the smooth surface of the bay, filling the atmosphere with silver, so that everything shines in the white light, the long, flat point, the forest; even the bread-fruit tree on the slope, whose outline cuts sharply into the brightness, is not black, but a darker silver. In the greenish sky the stars glitter, not sharply as they do elsewhere, but like fine dots, softly, quietly, as if a negligent hand had sprinkled them lightly about. And down by the water the breakers roll, crickets cry, a flying-fox chatters and changes from one tree to the other with tired wings, pa.s.sing in a shapeless silhouette in front of the moon. It is the peace of paradise, dreamlike, wishless; one never tires of listening to the holy tropical night, for there is secret life everywhere. In the quiet air the trees shiver, the moonlight trembles in the bushes and stirs imperceptibly in the lawn; and from the indistinct sounds of which the mind is hardly conscious the fancy weaves strange stories. We see all those creatures that frighten the natives under the roof of the forest, giants with crabs'

claws, men with fiery eyes, women that turn into deadly serpents, vague, misty souls of ancestors, that pa.s.s through the branches and appear to their descendants; all that we dream of in our northern midsummer night wakes in tenfold strength here.

Suddenly, violent shocks shake the house, explosions follow, like distant shots, and the thin, misty silver is changed to a red glow. The volcano is in action,--a dull, reddish-yellow light mounts slowly up behind the black trees, thick smoke rises and rises, until it stands, a dark monster, nearly touching the zenith, its foot still in the red glare. Slowly the fire dies out, the cloud parts, and it is dark night again, with the silver of the moon brooding everywhere.

But the charm is broken by this warning from the primitive powers that counterbalance each other behind the peace of the tropic night. By and by, one grows accustomed to the uncanny neighbourhood of the volcano, and only the more formidable eruptions attract notice. Sometimes, while at work, I hear one of the boys exclaim, "Huh, huh!" to call my attention to the fact that a particularly violent outbreak has taken place; and, indeed, half the sky is a dirty red, the smoke rises behind the trees as if from a gigantic bonfire, and the dull detonations resound. The glowing lava flies high in the air, and comes down in a great curve. One of these performances lasted several hours, presaging a wonderful spectacle for my visit to the volcano, which was set for the next day.

Several natives joined my party, evidently thinking it safer to go to see the "fire" in my company than alone. Yet the Ambrymese in general show remarkably little fear of the volcano, and regard it as a powerful but somewhat clumsy and rather harmless neighbour, whereas on other islands legend places the entrance to h.e.l.l in the craters.

Quite a company of us marched through the forest, accompanied by the cannonading of the volcano; we felt as if we were going to battle. We traversed the plain and mounted the foot-hills; halfway up, we observed an eruption, but we could see only the cloud, as the crater itself was hidden by hills. Through thick bush, we came to a watercourse, a narrow gully, formed by lava-streams. The rocks in the river-bed had been polished smooth by the water, and though the natives walked over them with ease, my nailed boots gave me great trouble, and I had to cross many slippery spots on my hands and knees, which greatly amused my companions. We pa.s.sed many tree-ferns, whose dainty crowns seemed to float on the surface of the forest--like stars, and often covered the whole bush, so that the slopes looked like a charming carpet of the loveliest pattern. This tree, the most beautiful of the tropical forest, far surpa.s.ses the palm in elegance, whose crown too often looks yellowish and unkempt.

For a few hours we followed the river, which led nearly to the edge of the plateau. When the path branched off, I called a halt for lunch, as we were not likely to find any water later on. We were now quite near the craters, and while we ate our rice, we heard the roaring, so that the boys grew nervous, till the joker of the company made them laugh, and then the meal absorbed their attention. Still, they occasionally sent furtive glances skyward, to see if any lava was coming down upon us.

Having filled all our vessels with water, we marched on, and after a short ascent, found ourselves on the great plain, 650 metres above sea-level, about 12 kilometres in diameter, and shaped like a huge dinner-plate, a chain of hills forming the rim. It would seem that the whole plain was formerly one gigantic crater; now only two openings are left, two craters 500 and 700 metres high, in the north-west of the plain.

The ground consists of black, coa.r.s.e-grained slag, which creaks when walked on, and forms a fine black dust. Naturally the vegetation in this poor soil is very scanty,--only bushes and reed-gra.s.s, irregularly scattered in the valleys between little hillocks ranged in rows. This arid desert-scene is doubly surprising to the eye, owing to the sudden change from the forest to the bare plain.

In this seemingly endless plain, the two craters rise in a bold silhouette, grimly black. One of them stands in lifeless rigidity, from the top of the other curl a few light, white clouds of steam. It is a depressingly dismal sight, without any organic life whatever on the steep, furrowed slopes.

We camped on a hillock surrounded by shrubs; on all sides spread the plain, with low hills, rounded by rain and storm, radiating from the craters, and where these touched, a confused wilderness of hills, like a black, agitated sea, had formed. The hilltops were bare, on the slopes there clung some yellowish moss. The farther away from the craters, the lower the hills became, disappearing at the edge of the plain in a bluish-green belt of woods.

The sky was cloudy, a sallow light glimmered over the plain, and the craters lay in forbidding gloom and lifelessness, like hostile monsters. Hardly had I set up my camera, when the western giant began his performance. The clouds of steam thickened, detonations followed, and at each one a brownish-grey cloud rose out of the mountain, whirled slowly upwards, and joined the grey clouds in the sky. The mountain-top glowed red, and red lumps of lava came flying out of the smoke and dropped behind a hill. Then all became quiet again, the mountain relapsed into lifelessness, the clouds dissolved to a thick mist, and only the steam curled upward like a white plume.

I had taken care to observe how far the lava flew, so as to know how near it would be safe to approach. The path towards the craters was the continuation of the one we had followed, and led to the north sh.o.r.e of the island, pa.s.sing between the craters. It is remarkable that the natives should dare to use this road, and indeed it is not much travelled; but it speaks for the courage of the first man who had the courage to cross the plain and pa.s.s between the craters. The sharp points of the lava caused great suffering to the bare-footed natives, and here I had the advantage of them for once, thanks to my nailed boots.

The clouds had disappeared, the sky shone deeply blue, everything reminded me of former trips in other deserts. The same dry air cooled the heat that radiated from the ground, the same silence and solemnity brooded over the earth, there was the same colouring and the same breadth of view. After the painful march through the forest, where every step had to be measured and watched, it was a joy to step out freely and take great breaths of clear, sweet air.

After a short, steep climb, I reached the ridge, sharp as a knife, that joins the two craters, and following it, I suddenly found myself on the brink of the crater, from which I could overlook the great bowl, 800 metres wide. The inside walls fell vertically to the bottom, an uncanny, spongy-looking ma.s.s of brownish lava, torn, and foaming, and smoking in white or yellowish clouds. The opposite side rose much higher, and the white cloud I had seen from below floated on top. There was a smaller crater, the real opening, and through a gap in it I had a glimpse inside, but failed to see much because of the smoke. The general view was most imposing, the steep, naked walls, the wild confusion in the crater, the red and yellow precipitates here and there, the vicious-looking smoke from the slits, the steam that floated over the opening, swayed mysteriously by an invisible force, the compactness of the whole picture, in the gigantic frame of the outer walls. There was no need of the oppressive odour, the dull roaring and thundering and hissing, to call up a degree of reverent admiration, even fear, and it required an effort of will to stay and grow used to the tremendous sight. The first sensation on seeing the crater is certainly terror, then curiosity awakens, and one looks and wonders; yet the sight never becomes familiar, and never loses its threatening aspect. Still, the inner crater may be a disappointment. From a distance, we see the great manifestations, the volcano in action, when its giant forces are in play and it looks grand and monumental. From near by, we see it in repose, and the crater looks quite insignificant. Instead of the fire we expected to see, we find lava blocks and ashes, and instead of the clash of elemental forces, we see a dark ma.s.s, that glows dully. We can hardly believe that here is the origin of the explosions that shake the island, and are inclined to consider the demon of the volcano rather as a mischievous clown than a thundering, furious giant.

I went to the slope of the eastern crater to find a spot from which I might be able to photograph an eruption, and returned to camp just as the sun sank down in red fire, and the evening mists formed a white belt around the two black mountains. The tops of the craters shone red against a cool evening sky.

Suddenly an immense cloud shot up, white and sky-high. One side of it shone orange in the last sunbeams, the other was dull and grey, and the top mingled with the evening clouds. It was a wildly beautiful sight, gone too soon. A hawk circled afar in the green sky, night crept across the plain, and soon the moon poured her silver over the tranquil scene. I hoped in vain to see an eruption equal to that of the last nights. Everything was quiet, the volcano seemed extinct, the fog thickened, covering the mountains and the moon. It became disagreeably cool, and there was a heavy dew. The natives shivered in their blankets, and I was most uncomfortable under a light canvas. We were all up long before daylight, when the volcano sent out a large cloud. The sun and the fog had a long struggle, when suddenly the clouds tore apart, and the welcome sunbeams came to warm us.

I went to the spot chosen the day before and dug my camera into the lava and waited. My impatience was quieted by the splendid view I enjoyed, embracing nearly all the islands of the group: Epi, Malekula, Aoba, Pentecoste, and higher than all, the cone of Lopevi. All these floated in a soft, blue haze, and even the two craters shone in a violet hue.

We waited for several hours, freezing in spite of the bright sun, between the damp, mossy walls of the gully where we sat, and the volcano remained quiet, merely hissing and roaring and emitting steam, but a real eruption did not occur then, nor for several weeks later. We returned to camp, packed up our things, and hurried down the slippery gullies and lava banks, diving back into the thick, heavy atmosphere of the sea-level; and at nightfall I washed off the heat and dust of the day in the warm waves of the ocean.

CHAPTER XII

PENTECOSTE

The term of service of my Ambrym boys being over, I tried to replace them in Paama, but failed; but Mr. G. kindly took me to Epi, where I engaged four new boys. However, they proved as sulky as they were dirty, and I was disgusted with them, and quite glad they had refused to sign for more than a month. As they were all troubled with many sores, they were of very little service to me, and I gladly sent them home by steamer when their month was up.

I returned to Dip Point, and a few days later Dr. B. escorted me to Olal, where I took up my quarters with Mr. D., a young Australian who was trying to make a living by the coprah trade. In Olal, at the northern point of Ambrym, the alcohol trade is particularly flourishing, and numerous settlers along the coast earn large sums by selling liquor. Everybody knows this, and numbers of intoxicated natives are always to be seen, so that it is somewhat surprising that the authorities pretend not to have sufficient proof to punish these traders. If ever one of them is fined, the amount is so minute that the sale of half a dozen bottles makes up for it, so that they go on as before. I myself witnessed two cases of death in consequence of drinking, alone and at one sitting, a bottle of pure absinthe.

The house of Mr. D. was typical of the dwellings built by the colonists. In a circ.u.mference of about 50 metres, the bush had been cleared, on a level spot somewhat off the sh.o.r.e and slightly elevated. Here stood a simple gra.s.s hut, 3 metres wide and 6 long; the floor was covered with gravel, and the interior divided into a store-room and a living-room. On the roof lay a few sheets of corrugated iron, the rain from which was collected in a tank to provide water. A few paces off was another hut, where the coprah was smoked and the boys slept, and on the beach was a shed for storing the coprah.

The actual work a coprah trader has to do is very small, amounting to little besides waiting for the natives who bring the coprah or the fresh nuts, to weigh them and sell his goods. Occasionally he may visit a distant village by boat to buy coprah there; but there is plenty of unoccupied time, and it is not surprising that many of the settlers take to drink from pure boredom. Not so Mr. D., who tried to educate the neighbouring natives, but with small success.

I did not see much of interest here, or learn anything new about the natives, but I was able to obtain some interesting objects, and my collection of skulls was nicely started, until some one told the natives not to bring me any more skulls, as on the day of resurrection the former owners would not be able to find their heads. The same person created all sorts of difficulties when I attempted some excavations, and at last insinuated that I was a German spy. It is sad to see that the very people who, by virtue of their education and position, ought to help one most, work against one, while very often poor and plain people make sacrifices to help one along.

A young Ambrymese who had worked for me for some days, wanted to enlist in my service when I left, although he grew tearful at the thought of Malekula, where I intended to go next, and where he was convinced he would be killed. Lingban was a light-haired native, very nice-looking, and a favourite with the ladies; this fact had brought him into considerable trouble, and he was obliged to leave his home. He stayed with me for three months, and was not killed, but suffered much from home-sickness. He finally settled at the south end of Pentecoste, whence he could see his beloved Ambrym, count the cocoa-nut trees on the sh.o.r.e and see the heavy clouds over the volcano.

From Dip Point Mr. S. took me over to Aunua on Malekula, the station of the Rev. F. Paton, a son of the celebrated J. G. Paton, the founder of the Presbyterian missions in the New Hebrides. He lived there as a widower, devoting all his strength, time and thought to the spiritual and physical welfare of the natives.

Malekula has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous islands in the group. The natives in the north, the Big Nambas, are certainly not very gentle, and the others, too, are high-spirited and will not submit to ill-treatment from the settlers. Malekula is the second largest island of the group, and its interior is quite unexplored. I could not penetrate inland, as I was unable to find boys and guides for a voyage they all thought extremely dangerous. Mr. Paton, who had traversed the island at various points, consoled me by telling me that the culture inland was much the same as along the coast. So I gave up my plan, though with some regret.

Mr. Paton took me to the south end of Malekula, and left me on one of the flat coral islands, which are all connected under the surface by an extensive reef. The landscape is charming, the sea above the reef shining in all possible shades, and small flat islands enlivening the view in all directions. In these islands only Christians live, the few remaining heathen having retired to the mainland.

Here on the south coast the strange fashion obtains of deforming the head. This habit is very rare in the Pacific, and restricted to two small districts. It is now purely a matter of fashion or vanity,--the longer the head, the handsomer the individual is thought to be,--but probably there was originally some religious or hygienic notion at the bottom of the peculiar custom. The operation is begun about a month after birth, by rubbing the child's head with grease and soot, and then putting on a small cap of braided panda.n.u.s fibre, which is very tight and allows the head to develop only in the direction of the crown. When the cap becomes too tight, it is cut off, and another, a little larger, put on, until the parents are satisfied with the shape of the child's head. These baby skulls have an extreme shape which is very ugly, and the whole process can hardly be agreeable to the patient; but the operation does not seem to have any prejudicial effect on the intellect, and in later years the shape of the head becomes somewhat less marked, although a man from the south of Malekula is always unmistakable.

This region is remarkable, too, for its highly developed ancestor-worship. Although the general ideas on the subject are the same here as elsewhere in the archipelago, there is a special veneration here for the head or skull of deceased ancestors. The bones are generally used in making arrow-heads and lance-points, and the head, which is useless, is thrown away in most islands, or buried again; but in the south of Malekula, the heads are kept, and the face is reproduced in a plastic material of fibres, clay and sticky juice. The work is very cleverly done, and the face looks quite natural, with fine, slightly Semitic features. The surface is varnished and painted with patterns corresponding to the caste of the dead. Often the face has eyes made of bits of sh.e.l.l, the real hair is stuck on, and the plumes and nose-stick are not forgotten, so that the whole becomes an exact portrait of the deceased. Whether this head is to have a body or not is a question of caste. The higher the caste of the dead, the more completely is his body modelled. The heads of low castes are simply stuck on poles, higher ones have bodies of carved wood, often branches to indicate arms; but the bodies of the highest castes are composed of bamboo, fibres and straw, and modelled throughout in the same way as the head. They are covered with varnish, and every detail reproduced, including dress, ornaments and caste signs. In their right hands these statues carry a "bubu" or sh.e.l.l horn, and in their left, a pig's jaw. The shoulders are modelled in the shape of faces, and from these, occasionally, sticks protrude, bearing the heads of dead sons, so that such a statue often has three or four heads. These figures stand along the walls of the gamal, smiling with expressionless faces on their descendants round the fires, and are given sacrifices of food.

Side by side with this ancestor-worship there goes a simpler skull-cult, by which a man carries about the head of a beloved son or wife, as a dear remembrance of the departed. Among a flourishing population it would naturally be impossible to obtain such objects, but here, where the people are rapidly decreasing in number, a statue often enough loses its descendants, whereupon others have no objection to sell it.

The taste for plastic art shows in other things as well. I found several grotesque dancing-masks and sticks, made for some special dance. The feeling for caricature expressed in these articles is extraordinary and amusing even, from a European point of view. Here, too, the Semitic type appears, and the natives seem to delight in the hooked noses, thick lips and small chins. I gathered a rich harvest of these curios near the little island of Hambi; unfortunately Mr. Paton came to take me home before I had time to pack the objects carefully, and I had to leave them in charge of natives until the arrival of the steamer; when I found them again, after six months, they had suffered a good deal.

Towards evening, while rounding the south-east corner of Malekula, our motor broke down, and we had neither oars nor sail. Fortunately the tide was in our favour, and we improvised a sail from a blanket, so that we drifted slowly along and reached the anchorage late at night.

Mr. Paton then took me to Malo, where a Frenchman, Mr. I., was expecting me. On the east coast there was but little to be done, as the natives had nearly all disappeared; but I was able to pick up some skulls near a number of abandoned villages. I found very considerable architectural remains,--walls, mounds and altars, all of masonry; buildings of this importance are to be found nowhere else except in Aore and the Banks Islands, and it seems probable that the populations of these three districts are related.

I had an interesting experience here. Mr. I. and his neighbour did not enjoy the best of reputations as regarded their treatment of natives. One day Mr. I. took me over to N.'s place. N. was just returning from a recruiting trip to Malekula. We saw him come ash.o.r.e, staggering and moaning; on being questioned, he told us that he had been attacked by the natives, and his crew eaten up. He was in a frightful state, completely broken, weeping like a child, and cursing the savages, to whom, he said, he had never done any wrong. His grief was so real that I began to pity the man, and thought he had probably been paying the penalty for the misdeeds of another recruiter. Mr. I. was just as emphatic in cursing the bloodthirstiness of the natives, but while we were going home, he told me that Mr. N. had kidnapped thirty-four natives at that very place a year before, so that the behaviour of the others was quite comprehensible. From that moment I gave up trying to form an opinion on any occurrence of the kind without having carefully examined the accounts of both parties. One can hardly imagine how facts are distorted here, and what innocent airs people can put on who are really criminals. I have heard men deplore, in the most pathetic language, acts of cruelty to natives, who themselves had killed natives in cold blood for the sake of a few pounds. It requires long and intimate acquaintance with the people to see at all clearly in these matters, and for a Resident it is quite impossible not to be deceived unless he has been on the spot for a year at least.

While waiting at Dip Point for an opportunity to cross to Pentecoste, I saw the volcano in full activity, and one day it rained ashes, so that the whole country was black as if strewn with soot, and the eruptions shook the house till the windows rattled. I made a second ascent of the mountain, but had such bad weather that I saw nothing at all. We came back, black as chimney-sweeps from the volcanic dust we had brushed off the bushes. I heard later that the extinct eastern crater had unexpectedly broken out again, and that several lava streams were flowing towards the coast.