Part 11 (1/2)
Pentecoste, a long, narrow island running north and south, resembles Maevo in shape. My host here was a missionary who seemed to connect Christianity with trousers and other details of civilization. It was sad to see how many quaint customs, harmless enough in themselves, were needlessly destroyed. The wearing of clothes const.i.tutes a positive danger to health, as in this rainy climate the natives are almost constantly soaked, do not trouble to change their wet clothes, sleep all night in the same things and invariably catch cold. Another source of infection is their habit of exchanging clothes, thus spreading all sorts of diseases. That morals are not improved by the wearing of clothes is a fact; for they are rather better in the heathen communities than in the so-called Christian ones. It is to be hoped that the time is not far off when people will realize how very little these externals have to do with Christianity and morality; but there is reason to fear that it will then be too late to save the race.
We undertook an excursion into the interior, to a district whose inhabitants had only recently been pacified by Mr. F., my host; the tribes we visited were very primitive, especially on the east coast, where there is little contact with whites. The people were still cannibals, and I had no difficulty in obtaining some remnants of a cannibal meal.
We frequently tried to obtain information about the organization of the family among these natives, but, being dependent on b.i.+.c.he la mar, we made small progress. My observations were supplemented later by the Rev. Mr. Drummond, for which I am very much indebted to him; some of these observations may be of interest.
The population is divided into two clans--the Bule and the Tabi. The former is supposed to have originated from the tridacna sh.e.l.l, the latter from the taro. Every individual knows exactly to which clan he belongs, although there are no external signs. There is a strict rule forbidding marriage within the clan, and an offence against this law was formerly punished by death; to this day, even in Christian districts, marriage within the clan is extremely rare. No one can change his clan. Children do not belong to the clan of the father, but to that of the mother, and property cannot be alienated from the clan. The father has no rights over his children, and the head of the family is not the father, but the eldest brother of the mother, who educates the boys and helps them along in the Suque. Land belongs to the clan, which is like a large family, and indeed seems a stronger organization than the family itself; but the clans live together in the villages, and as such they form a whole with regard to the outside world. Quarrels between two clans are not so rare as those inside a clan, and the vendetta does not act inside the clan, whereas a murder outside the clan must be avenged. Uncles and aunts within the clan are called father and mother, and the cousins are called sister and brother.
However, this exogamic system could not prevent inbreeding, as there was always the possibility that uncles and nieces might marry, so that a ”horizontal” system was superimposed across this ”vertical”
one, forbidding all marriages between different generations. Thus, all marriages between near relations being impossible, the chances to marry at all are considerably diminished, so that nowadays, with the decreased population, a man very often cannot find a wife, even though surrounded by any number of girls. I do not mean to imply by this that the whole clan-system was organized simply to prevent inbreeding.
As I have said before, young men, as a rule, either cannot marry, being too poor to buy a wife, or, at best, can only afford to pay for an old widow, a low-priced article. The young, pretty girls are generally bought by old men, who often buy them when children, paying half the price down, and waiting till the girl is of marriageable age. As soon as she is old enough, she has to work for her future husband, and is under the care of one of his wives. Later on, the husband pays the rest of the money, builds a house for the girl, and the marriage takes place without any ceremony beyond a dinner to the nearest relatives of the couple. In most islands the girl cannot object to a match otherwise than by running away from a disagreeable husband. Generally, when she has run away several times, and repeated beatings have not changed her mind, her parents pay back the money and the husband gives up his wife. What is valued highest in a woman is her capacity for work; but the young men have a marked taste for beauty, and there are girls that are courted by all the young fellows of the village, and who, although married to an old man, accept the addresses of a young one. The husband does not seem to mind much, provided the woman continues to work well for him.
There is such a thing as love even here, and it has been known to grow so powerful as to lead, if unrequited, to suicide or to rapid pining away and to death.
On the whole, the women are treated fairly well by their husbands, but for an occasional beating, which is often provoked by foolish behaviour; and they are taken care of, as they represent a great value. There are old ruffians, however, who take a perverse pleasure in torturing their wives, and these unhappy women are quite helpless, as they are entirely in the power of their husbands. Otherwise, the fate of the women is not as bad as many people think, and the severest rules have never yet prevented Eve from finding and taking her pleasure.
During babyhood the children stay with their mothers; but from the age of four on the boys spend most of their time in the gamal, while the girls remain under their mother's care. Clothes are not worn by the boys till they have joined the Suque, which, in some cases, takes place long after p.u.b.erty. The girls seem to begin to wear something whenever the mother thinks fit, generally between the ages of four and seven. From that moment every connection between brother and sister ceases; they may not speak to each other, not meet on the road, in some regions not even see each other, and to mention the sister's name before the brother is, if not an actual insult, certainly very tactless. Similar rules regulate the relations between parents- and children-in-law.
The parents are very lenient to their children, and pa.s.s over every impertinence; they get small thanks for their kindness, and the boys, especially, often treat their mothers very badly. The natives' fondness for children makes them very good nurses, and it is a source of the greatest pride to a native boy to take care of a white child.
The father's death is of little importance to the children, and not much to their mother, who, as a rule, goes over to her husband's oldest brother. If the mother dies, the children are adopted by a maternal aunt or some other woman of the clan. One reason why all this is of no great importance is the far-reaching communism which is a feature of native life, every one sleeping and eating wherever he pleases.
Mr. F. took me up north, where I wished to study the population. I must not omit to mention that the population of Pentecoste is divided into two distinct types: the people in the south are like those of Ambrym, those in the north resemble the inhabitants of Aoba. This is evident not only in the dress, but also quite distinctly in the exterior of the people. Yet in spite of the close relations with Ambrym, the art of sculpture, so highly developed in the other island, is entirely lacking in the south of Pentecoste.
In the north we find a dress similar to that of Aoba: the men do not wear the nambas, while the women have a small mat around the waist. The art of braiding is brought to great perfection here, and the mats from Pentecoste are surpa.s.sed only by those from Maevo. The material is panda.n.u.s, whose leaves are split into narrow strips, bleached and then braided. Some of the mats are dyed with the root of a plant, by boiling in a dyeing vat of bark. Besides the small mats, chiefly used for the women's dress, there are larger ones which serve as money and represent a great amount. They are as much as 1 metre wide and 4 long, and are always dyed. The manufacture of these mats is very laborious, and only high-caste men with many wives can afford to have them made. The patterns for dyeing are cut out of banana-sheath, which is then tied tightly on the mat, and the whole rolled round a thick stick. The dyeing takes almost an entire day. These mats are used, for example, to buy the valuable tusked pigs.
The only form of wood-carving in this region are clubs, and those made here are the most elegant of the whole group, and so much in demand in all the islands that they are quite largely exported. At present they are mostly used as ceremonial clubs at dances. All those of modern make are inferior to the old ones in regard to hardness, elegance of shape, polish and strength. Here, in Pentecoste, I found the first basket-plates I had ever seen. They are frequent farther north, in the Banks Islands, but do not exist in the south. These plates had no centre, and had to be lined with leaves to make them serviceable, being mere rings. They are used to carry cooked food about. In the Banks Islands the natives have learned to braid the centre too.
Up in these northern mountains I spent a most unpleasant week in wet, cold weather, in a wretched house; but I had the satisfaction of finding two boys to take the place of Lingban, who had, by this time, become semi-idiotic with home-sickness.
I returned to the coast and waited for an opportunity to cross to Aoba, but the weather was so bad that even Mr. G., an old sea-dog, would not risk the voyage; so we tried to get to Ambrym instead, where I could meet the steamer for Aoba. We waited for a calm day, and started out in the tiny whale-boat. Soon we were caught by one after another of the ill-famed Pentecoste squalls, and though my skipper was known as one of the best sailors in the islands, one squall struck us so suddenly that the boat heeled over, and only a very quick turn of the wheel saved us from capsizing. The escape was such a narrow one that even Mr. G. turned pale, and decided to go back, especially as the boys sat on deck, quite useless, green with fear and incapable of helping us in any way.
It took us a long time to beat back, and we were all glad to feel solid ground under our feet once more. After a few days we started again, but luck was against me on this occasion, and inside of twelve hours I missed the steamer no less than three times, which, in the New Hebrides, implies a delay of four weeks.
So, in a heavy whale-boat, I rowed along the coast toward Olal with some natives. A dull rain drenched us, followed by glaring suns.h.i.+ne that stewed us in heavy dampness. Like the ruins of a giant wall, black lava blocks lay here and there along the coast. The surf foamed white in the creva.s.ses, and the forest rose, sallow and greenish-yellow, above the high bank. Here and there naked natives squatted on the rocks, motionless, or looking lazily for crabs; among the huge boulders they looked tiny, and their colouring scarcely distinguished them from their surroundings; so that they seemed rather like animals, or the shyest of cave-dwellers. Floating slowly on the grey sea, in the sad broken light, I thought I had never seen a more inhospitable coast.
Owing to the heavy swell, we had difficulty in pa.s.sing through the narrow channel inside the reef. The great rollers pounded against the coral banks, and poured back in a thousand white streamlets, like a wonderful cascade, to be swallowed by the next wave.
I found my friend, Mr. D., in a sad state with fever, cold and loneliness; wrapped up in woollen caps, blankets and heavy clothes, he looked more like an Arctic explorer than a dweller near the Equator. He spoke of leaving the islands, and, indeed, did so some months later.
On my way to Aoba I had to spend a few days off Pentecoste, in such rainy weather that I went ash.o.r.e but once in all that time. The day was fine, and I shall never forget the beauty of that woodland scene. A lovely creek winds through reeds, reflecting the bright sand and the bushes on its banks. Dark iron-woods rise in stiff, broken lines, and their greyish needles quiver like a light plume against the blue sky, where white clouds float serenely. Inland the forest swells in a green wall, and farther off it lies in rounded cupolas and domes of soft green, fading into a light around the distant hills. Under overhanging branches I lie, sheltered from the sun; at my feet the ripples caress the bank; delicate lianas hang from the branches and trail lazily in the water. Swallows dart across the stream, and sometimes the low call of a wood-dove sounds from far away. A cricket shrieks, and stops suddenly, as if shocked at the discordant sound of its own voice. Far off in the hills I can hear the rus.h.i.+ng of the wind, like a deep chord that unites in a sacred symphony with the golden sun and the glittering water to voice the infinite joy of living that penetrates all creation to-day.
Down-stream I can see the heavy coast banks, with a narrow strip of brilliant blue sea s.h.i.+ning above them, and now and then a glint of snowy foam. Two panda.n.u.ses frame the view, their long leaves waving softly in the breeze that comes floating down the valley. Half asleep, I know the delights of the lotus-eaters' blessed isle.
CHAPTER XIII