Part 15 (2/2)

”And don't the others resist?”

”Resist! No! It would be the height of rudeness. Do _you_ resist when people leave cards at your house, 'with kind inquiries'? It's just like that; a way they have of showing a friendly interest.”

”But what can be the origin of such an extraordinary custom?”

”_I_ don't know. Guess it has a kind of civilizing effect, as you'll see. Resources of civilization get handed on to the Bush tribes, but that can't be what it was started for. However, recently the tribes have begun to run cunning, and they hide themselves and all their goods when they have reason to expect a friendly visit. This was what they had done the day we landed. But, while we were jawing with the interpreter, we heard a yell to make your hair stand on end. The Bush tribe came down on the village all in their war paint,--white clay; an arrangement, as you say, in black and white. Down they came, rushed into every hut, rushed out again, found nothing, and an awful rage they were in. They said this kind of behaviour was most ungentlemanly; why, where was decent feeling?

where was neighbourliness? While they were howling, they spotted the hog, and made for him in a minute; here was luncheon, anyhow,--pork chops. So they soon had a fire, set a light to one of the houses in fact, and heaped up stones; that's how they cook. They cut you up in bits, wrap them in leaves--”

”En papillotte?”

”Just that, and broil you on the hot stones. They cook everything that way.”

”Are they cannibals?”

”Oh yes, in war-time. Or criminals they'll eat. I've often heard the queer yell a native will give, quite a peculiar cry, when he is carrying a present of cold prisoner of war from one chief to another. He cries out like that, to show what his errand is, at the border of the village property.”

”Before entering the Mark?” I said, for I had been reading Sir Henry Maine.

”The pah, the beggars about me call it,” said the beach-comber; ”perhaps some n.i.g.g.e.rs you've been reading about call it the Mark. I don't know.

But to be done with this pig. The fire was ready, and they were just going to cut the poor beast's throat with a green-stone knife, when the interpreter up and told them 'hands off.' 'That's a taboo pig,' says he.

'A black fellow that died six months ago that pig belonged to. When he was dying, and leaving his property to his friends, he was very sorry to part with the pig, so he made him taboo; n.o.body can touch him. To eat him is death.'

”Of course this explained why that pig had been left when all the other live stock and portable property was cleared out. n.o.body would touch a taboo pig, and that pig, I tell you, was tabooed an inch thick. The man he belonged to had been a Tohunga, and still 'walked,' in the shape of a lizard. Well, the interpreter, acting most fairly, I must say, explained all this to the Bush tribe, and we went down to the boat and lunched.

Presently a smell of roast pork came drifting down on the wind. They had been hungry and mad after their march, and they were cooking the taboo pig. The interpreter grew as white as a Kaneka can; he knew something would happen.

”Presently the Bush fellows came down to the boat, licking their lips.

There hadn't been much more than enough to go round, and they accepted some of our grub, and took to it kindly.

”'Let's offer them some rum,' says Thompson; he never cruised without plenty aboard. 'No, no,' says I; 'tea, give them tea.' But Thompson had a keg of rum out, and a tin can, and served round some pretty stiff grog.

Now, would you believe it, these poor devils had never tasted spirits before? Most backward race they were. But they took to the stuff, and got pretty merry, till one of them tried to move back to the village. He staggered up and down, and tumbled against rocks, and finally he lay flat and held on tight. The others, most of them, were no better as soon as they tried to move. A rare fright they were in! They began praying and mumbling; praying, of all things, to the soul of the taboo pig! They thought they were being punished for the awful sin they had committed in eating him. The interpreter improved the occasion. He told them their faults pretty roundly. Hadn't he warned them? Didn't they know the pig was taboo? Did any good ever come of breaking a taboo? The soberer fellows sneaked off into the bush, the others lay and snoozed till the Coast tribe came out of hiding, and gave it to them pretty warm with throwing sticks and the flat side of waddies. I guess the belief in taboo won't die out of that Bush tribe in a hurry.”

”It was like the companions of Odysseus devouring the oxen of the Sun,” I said.

”Very likely,” replied the beach-comber. ”Never heard of the parties.

They're superst.i.tious beggars, these Kanekas. You've heard of buying a thing 'for a song'? Well, I got my station for a whistle. They believe that spirits twitter and whistle, and you'll hardly get them to go out at night, even with a boiled potato in their hands, which they think good against ghosts, for fear of hearing the bogies. So I just went whistling, 'Bonny Dundee' at nights all round the location I fancied, and after a week of that, not a n.i.g.g.e.r would go near it. They made it over to me, gratis, with an address on my courage and fort.i.tude. I gave them some blankets in; and that's how real property used to change hands in the Pacific.”

Footnotes:

{1} From Wandering Sheep, the Bungletonian Missionary Record.

{6} 1884. Date unknown. Month probably June.

{23a} The original text of this prophecy is printed at the close of Mr.

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