Part 6 (1/2)
A few days later I started for Hog Harbour, for the plantation of the Messrs. Th., near which I meant to attend a great feast, or ”sing-sing.” This meant a march of several hours through the bush. My boys had all put on their best finery,--trousers, s.h.i.+rts, gay handkerchiefs,--and had painted their hair with fresh lime.
”Well, boys, are you ready?” ”Yes, Masta,” they answer, with conviction, though they are far from ready, as they are still tying their bundles. After waiting a while, I say, ”Well, me, me go.” They answer, ”All right, you go.” I take a few steps and wait again. One of them appears in front of the hut to look for a stick to hang his bundle on, another cannot find his pipe; still, after a quarter of an hour, we can really start. The boys sing and laugh, but as we enter the forest darkness they suddenly become quiet, as if the sternness of the bush oppressed their souls. We talk but little, and only in undertones. These woods have none of the happy, sensuous luxuriance which fancy lends to every tropical forest; there is a harshness, a selfish struggle for the first place among the different plants, a deadly battling for air and light. Giant trees with spreading crowns suppress everything around, kill every rival and leave only small and insignificant shrubs alive. Between them, smaller trees strive for light; on tall, straight, thin stems they have secured a place and developed a crown. Others look for light in roundabout ways, making use of every gap their neighbours leave, and rise upward in soft coils. All these form a high roof, under which younger and weaker plants lead a skimped life--hardwood trees on thin trunks, with small, una.s.suming leaves, and vulgar softwood with large, flabby foliage. Around and across all this wind the parasites, lianas, rotang, some stretched like ropes from one trunk to another, some rising in elegant curves from the ground, some attached to other trunks and sucking out their life with a thousand roots, others interlaced in the air in distorted curves. All these grow and thrive on the bodies of former generations on the damp, mouldy ground, where leaves rot and trunks decay, and where it is always wet, as never a sunbeam can strike in so far.
Thus it is sad in the forest, and strangely quiet, as in a churchyard, for not even the wind can penetrate the green surface. It pa.s.ses rus.h.i.+ng through the crowns, so that sometimes we catch an upward glimpse of bright yellow suns.h.i.+ne as though out of a deep gully. And as men in sternest fight are silent, using all their energy for one purpose, so here there is no sign of gay and happy life, there are no flowers or coloured leaves, but the endless, dull green, in an infinity of shapes.
Even the animals seem to shun the dark forest depths; only on the highest trees a few pigeons bathe in the sun, and as they fly heavily over the wood, their call sounds, melancholy as a sad dream, from afar. A lonely b.u.t.terfly flutters among the trees, a delicate being, unused to this dark world, seeking in vain for a ray of sun and a breath of fresh air. Sometimes we hear the grunt of an invisible pig, the breaking of branches and the rustling of leaves as it runs away. Moisture and lowering gloom brood over the swampy earth; one would not be surprised if suddenly the ground were to move and wriggle like slimy snakes tightly knotted around each other. Thorns catch the limbs, vines catch the feet, and the wanderer, stumbling along, almost fancies he can hear the spiteful laughter of malicious demons. One feels tired, worried, unsafe, as if in an enemy's country, helplessly following the guide, who walks noiselessly on the soft ground. With a branch he sweeps aside the innumerable spider-webs that droop across the path, to keep them from hanging in our faces. Silently the other men follow behind; once in a while a dry branch snaps or a trunk creaks.
In this dark monotony we go on for hours, without an outlook, and seemingly without purpose or direction, on a hardly visible path, in an endless wilderness. We pa.s.s thousands of trees, climb over hundreds of fallen trunks and brush past millions of creepers. Sometimes we enter a clearing, where a giant tree has fallen or a village used to stand. Sometimes great coral rocks lie in the thicket; the pools at their foot are a wallowing-place for pigs.
It is a confusing walk; one feels quite dizzy with the constantly pa.s.sing stems and branches, and a white man would be lost in this wilderness without the native, whose home it is. He sees everything, every track of beast or bird, and finds signs on every tree and vine, peculiarities of shape or grouping, which he recognizes with unerring certainty. He describes the least suggestion of a trail, a footprint, or a knife-cut, or a torn leaf. As the white man finds his way about a city by means of street signs, so the savage reads his directions in the forest from the trees and the ground. He knows every plant and its uses, the best wood for fires; he knows when he may expect to find water, and which liana makes the strongest rope. Yet even he seems to feel something of the appalling loneliness of the primeval forest.
Our path leads steeply up and down, over loose coral blocks, between ferns and mosses; lianas serve as ropes to help us climb over coral rocks, and with our knives we hew a pa.s.sage through th.o.r.n.y creepers and thick bush. The road runs in zigzags, sometimes turning back to go round fallen trunks and swampy places, so that we really walk three or four times the distance to Hog Harbour. Our guide uses his bush-knife steadily and to good purpose: he sees where the creepers interlace and which branch is the chief hindrance, and in a few deft cuts the tangle falls.
At last--it seems an eternity since we dived into the forest--we hear from afar, through the green walls, a dull roaring, and as we go on, we distinguish the thunder of the breakers like the beating of a great pulse. Suddenly the thicket lightens, and we stand on the beach, blinded by the splendour of light that pours on us, but breathing freely in the fresh air that blows from the far horizon. We should like to stretch out on the sand and enjoy the free s.p.a.ce after the forest gloom; but after a short rest we go on, for this is only half-way to our destination, and we dive once more into the semi-darkness.
Towards evening we reach the plantation of the Messrs. Th. They are Australians of good family, and their place is splendidly kept. I was struck by the cleanliness of the whole establishment, the good quarters of the native labourers, the quiet way in which work was done, the pleasant relations between masters and hands, and last, but not least, the healthy and happy appearance of the latter.
The brothers had just finished the construction of what was quite a village, its white lime walls s.h.i.+ning invitingly through the green of the cocoa-nut palms. There was a large kitchen, a storehouse, a tool-shed, a bakery, a dwelling-house and a light, open summer-house, a delightful spot, where we dined in the cool sea-breeze and sipped whisky in the moonlight, while the palm-leaves waved dreamily. Then there was a large poultry yard, pigsty and paddocks, and along the beach were the boat-houses, drying-sheds and storehouses, shaded by old trees. The boys' quarters were roomy, eight sleeping together in an airy hut, while the married couples had houses of their own. The boys slept on high beds, each with his ”bocase” underneath, to hold his possessions, while all sorts of common property hung in the roof--nets, fish-spears, bows, guns, etc.
Such plantations, where the natives lack neither food nor good treatment, can only have a favourable influence on the race, and it is not quite clear why the Presbyterian missionaries do not like their young men to go in for plantation work. Owing to the good treatment of their hands the Messrs. Th. have always had enough labourers, and have been able to develop their plantation wonderfully. It consists almost exclusively of cocoa-nut palms, planted on ground wrested from the forest in a hard fight. When I was there the trees were not yet in full bearing, but the proprietors had every reason to expect a very considerable income in a few years. The cultivation of the cocoa-nut is extremely simple; the only hard work is the first clearing of the ground, and keeping the young trees free from lianas. Once they are grown up, they are able to keep down the bush themselves to a certain extent, and then the work consists in picking up the ripe nuts from the ground, husking and drying them. The net profit from one tree is estimated at one s.h.i.+lling per annum. Besides the cultivation of their plantation the Messrs. Th. plied a flouris.h.i.+ng trade in coprah and sandalwood all along the west coast of Santo, which they visited frequently in their cutter. This same cutter was often a great help to me, and, indeed, her owners always befriended me in the most generous way, and many are the pleasant hours I spent in their company.
After dinner that first day we went to the village where the ”sing-sing” was to take place. There was no moon, and the night was pitch dark. The boys had made torches of palm-leaves, which they kept burning by means of constant swinging. They flared up in dull, red flames, lighting up the nearest surroundings, and we wound our way upwards through the trunk vines and leaves that nearly shut in the path. It seemed as if we were groping about without a direction, as if looking for a match in a dark room. Soon, however, we heard the dull sound of the drums, and the noise led us to the plateau, till we could see the red glare of a fire and hear the rough voices of men and the shrill singing of women.
Unnoticed, we entered the dancing-ground. A number of men were standing in a circle round a huge fire, their silhouettes cutting sharply into the red glare. Out of a tangle of clubs, rifles, plumes, curly wigs, round heads, bows and violently gesticulating arms, sounds an irregular shrieking, yelling, whistling and howling, uniting occasionally to a monotonous song. The men stamp the measure, some begin to whirl about, others rush towards the fire; now and then a huge log breaks in two and crowns the dark, excited crowd with a brilliant column of circling sparks. Then everybody yells delightedly, and the shouting and dancing sets in with renewed vigour. Everyone is hoa.r.s.e, panting and covered with perspiration, which paints light streaks on the sooty faces and bodies.
Noticing us, a man rushes playfully towards us, threateningly swinging his club, his eyes and teeth s.h.i.+ning in the darkness; then he returns to the shouting, dancing mob around the fire. Half-grown boys sneak through the crowd; they are the most excited of all, and stamp the ground wildly with their disproportionately large feet, kicking and shrieking in unpleasant ecstasy. All this goes on among the guests; the hosts keep a little apart, near a scaffolding, on which yams are attached. The men circle slowly round this altar, carrying decorated bamboos, with which they mark the measure, stamping them on the ground with a thud. They sing a monotonous tune, one man starting and the others joining in; the dance consists of slow, springy jumps from one foot to the other.
On two sides of this dancing circle the women stand in line, painted all over with soot. When the men's deep song is ended, they chant the same melody with thin, shrill voices. Once in a while they join in the dance, taking a turn with some one man, then disappearing; they are all much excited; only a few old hags stand apart, who are past worldly pleasures, and have known such feasts for many, many years.
The whole thing looks grotesque and uncanny, yet the pleasure in mere noise and dancing is childish and harmless. The picture is imposing and beautiful in its simplicity, gruesome in its wildness and sensuality, and splendid with the red lights which play on the s.h.i.+ning, naked bodies. In the blackness of the night nothing is visible but that red-lit group of two or three hundred men, careless of to-morrow, given up entirely to the pleasure of the moment. The spectacle lasts all night, and the crowd becomes more and more wrought up, the leaps of the dancers wilder, the singing louder. We stand aside, incapable of feeling with these people or sharing their joy, realizing that theirs is a perfectly strange atmosphere which will never be ours.
Towards morning we left, none too early, for a tremendous shower came down and kept on all next morning. I went up to the village again, to find a most dismal and dejected crowd. Around the square, in the damp forest, seedy natives stood and squatted in small groups, s.h.i.+vering with cold and wet. Some tried to warm themselves around fires, but with poor success. Bored and unhappy, they stared at us as we pa.s.sed, and did not move. Women and children had made umbrellas of large flat leaves, which they carried on their heads; the soot which had formed their festival dress was washed off by the rain. The square itself was deserted, save for a pack of dogs and a few little boys, rolling about in the mud puddles. Once in a while an old man would come out of the gamal, yawn and disappear. In short, it was a lendemain de fete of the worst kind.
About once in a quarter of an hour a man would come to bring a tusked pig to the chief, who danced a few times round the animal, stamped his heel on the ground, uttered certain words, and retired with short, stiff steps, shaking his head, into the gamal. The morning was over by the time all the pigs were ready. I spent most of the time out of doors, rather than in the gamal, for there many of the dancers of the evening lay in all directions and in most uncomfortable positions, beside and across each other, snoring, s.h.i.+vering or staring sulkily into dark corners. I was offered a log to sit on, and it might have been quite acceptable had not one old man, trembling with cold, pressed closely against me to get warm, and then, half asleep, attempted to lay his s.h.a.ggy, oil-soaked head on my shoulder, while legions of starved fleas attacked my limbs, forcing me to beat a hasty though belated retreat.
In the afternoon about sixty pigs were tied to poles in front of the gamal, and the chief took an old gun-barrel and smashed their heads. They represented a value of about six hundred pounds! Dogs and men approached the quivering victims, the dogs to lick the blood that ran out of their mouths, the men to carry the corpses away for the feast. This was the prosaic end of the great ”sing-sing.”
As it is not always easy to borrow the number of pigs necessary to rise in caste, there are charms which are supposed to help in obtaining them. Generally, these are curiously shaped stones, sometimes carved in the shape of a pig, and are carried in the hand or in little baskets in the belt. Such charms are, naturally, very valuable, and are handed down for generations or bought for large sums. On this occasion the ”big fellow-master” had sacrificed enough to attain a very high caste indeed, and had every reason to hold up his head with great pride.
Formerly, these functions were generally graced with a special feature, in the shape of the eating of a man. As far as is known, the last cannibal meal took place in 1906; the circ.u.mstances were these: Some young men were walking through the forest, carrying their Snider rifles, loaded and c.o.c.ked as usual, on their shoulders. Unluckily, one of the rifles went off, and killed the man behind, the son of an influential native. Everyone was aware that the death was purely accidental, but the father demanded a considerable indemnity. The ”murderer,” a poor and friendless youth, was unable to pay, and fled to a neighbouring village. He was received kindly enough, but his hosts sent secretly to the offended father to ask what they were to do with him. ”Kill him and eat him,” was the reply. They therefore prepared a great feast, in honour, as they said, of their beloved guest, and while he was sitting cheerfully near the fire, in antic.i.p.ation of the good meal to come, they killed him from behind with an axe. The body was roasted, and the people of his village were asked to the feast. One man had received the forearm and hand, and while he was chewing the muscles and pulling away at the inflectors of the fingers, the hand closed and scratched his cheek,--”all same he alive,”--whereupon the horrified guest threw his morsel away and fled into the forest.
On my return to Port Olry I found that the Father had gone to visit a colleague, as his duties did not take up much of his time. His post at Port Olry was rather a forlorn hope, as the natives showed no inclination to become converts, especially not in connection with the poor Roman Catholic mission, which could not offer them any external advantages, like the rich and powerful Presbyterian mission. All the priests lived in the greatest poverty, in old houses, with very few servants. The one here had, besides a teacher from Malekula, an old native who had quarrelled with his chief and separated from his clan. The good man was very anxious to marry, but no girl would have him, as he had had two wives, and had, quite without malice, strangled his second wife by way of curing her of an illness. I was reminded of this little episode every time I looked at the man's long, bony fingers.
One day a native asked me for medicine for his brother. I tried to find out the nature of the ailment, and decided to give him calomel, urging his brother to take it to him at once. The man had eaten a quarter of a pig all by himself, but, of course, it was said that he had been poisoned. His brother, instead of hurrying home, had a little visit with his friends at the coast, until it was dark and he was afraid to go home through the bush alone; so he waited till next morning, when it was too late. The man's death naturally made the murder theory a certainty, so the body was not buried, but laid out in the hut, with all sorts of finery. Around it, in spite of the fearful odour, all the women sat for ten days, in a cloud of blow-flies. They burned strong-scented herbs to kill the smell, and dug a little trench across the floor, in order to keep the liquids from the decaying corpse from running into the other half of the house. The nose and mouth of the body were stopped up with clay and lime, probably to keep the soul from getting out, and the body was surrounded by a little hut. In the gamal close by sat all the men, sulky, revengeful, and planning war, which, in fact, broke out within a few days after my departure.
The Messrs. Th. had been kind enough to invite me to go on a recruiting trip to Maevo, the most north-easterly island of the group. Here I found a very scanty population, showing many traces of Polynesian admixture in appearance and habits. The weather was nasty and our luck at recruiting poor, so that after a fortnight we returned to Hog Harbour. I went to Port Olry to my old priest's house, and a few days later Mr. Th. came in his cutter to take me to Ta.s.simaloun in Big Bay; so I bade a hearty farewell to the good Father, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting again.