Part 6 (1/2)
I should here allude to the round stones, rather larger than a cricket-ball, which are employed as ”cooking-stones” and for cracking the hard kanary-nuts. They are to be seen in the majority of the dwellings in the eastern islands; and they often mark the sites of old villages and the temporary homes of fis.h.i.+ng-parties.
The grinding slabs and blocks of rock, which were used for rubbing down the stone axes, are still to be seen in the coast villages, their surfaces being sometimes worn into a hollow. At present these blocks are used for grinding down the sh.e.l.l bead-money and for sharpening the iron tools. I have sometimes come upon them marking the position of an old village, the site of which had been long concealed by the growth of trees and scrub. In some islands where it is not possible to obtain stones of a sufficient hardness, these blocks have been transported from considerable distances. A large block of a crystalline trap-rock, more than a third of a ton in weight, which now lies on the reef-flat in the vicinity of the village of Vanatoga on the east side of Santa Anna, was originally brought down from the summit of the island to be used as a grinding block. Slabs of a quartz-diorite, which is found in the north-west part of Alu, and which is much valued for its hardness, have been transported in canoes to Treasury Island more than twenty miles away and to the other islands of the Straits. From their size, they would weigh usually five or six hundredweight.
Amongst the interesting discoveries which I have made in the Solomon Group, I should refer to that of the occurrence of worked flints, which are commonly found in the soil when it is disturbed for purposes of cultivation, and are frequently exposed after heavy rains. My attention was first directed to this matter on noticing a specimen of flint in the possession of Mr. Howard at Ugi, and I soon obtained a number of specimens from this island, and from the adjacent large island of St.
Christoval. The majority of them were of common flint, but fragments of chalcedony and cornelian were frequent, and a jasper also occurred. The largest specimen, which was nearly 4 lbs. in weight, clearly showed traces of artificial working, and, as I am informed by Professor Liversidge, was evidently a large, stone axe or tomahawk. Of the rest, some were cores, others were flakes, resembling in their form, and often in their white colour, the flakes of the post-tertiary gravels; whilst one specimen possessed the shape of an arrow-head. Some of these flints presented the appearance of having been re-fas.h.i.+oned after lying disused for ages. In such specimens, there were two sets of facets or fractured surfaces, the one whitened by weathering or exposure, the other displaying the natural colour of recently broken flint. All were, in fact, of the palaeolithic type. The specimens, that I obtained in the islands of Treasury and Alu in Bougainville Straits, were usually of chalcedonic flint, and possessed the form of hammer-stones, sc.r.a.pers, etc. Worked flints will probably be found in most of the islands of the Solomon Group, except, perhaps, in those of purely volcanic formation (_vide_ page 80). They are said to occur in Santa Anna, and I had a specimen given to me from Ulaua.
There are two interesting circ.u.mstances in connection with these flints to which I should allude. In the first place, the inhabitants of these islands are ignorant of their nature and their source. I was gravely informed by the natives of Treasury Island, that the flints which they brought me from the disturbed soil of their plantations had tumbled from the sky, a superst.i.tion which reminds one of a similar belief prevalent in some rural districts of our own country as to the origin of the polished stone implements or celts. In a similar way the men of the Shortland Islands explained to me the occurrence beneath the soil of lumps of gum, which, like the ma.s.ses of the _kauri_ gum of New Zealand, mark the original position of the trees from which they were derived.
Concerning these flint implements, we may fitly ask: Who were the race of men that formed and used them? How long a period has elapsed since these men inhabited this region? Whence did they come? Where are their descendants to be sought? Are they to be found amongst the present inhabitants of this group, who, having discarded the rude flint implements for polished stone tools of volcanic rock, regard, with ignorant contempt, the handiwork of their ancestors? To these queries we may with some confidence reply that the original inhabitants of these islands belonged to the once widely spread Negrito race, of which we find the remnants in our own day in the aborigines of the Andaman and Philippine Islands, and that their characters, both physical and linguistic, have been fused with those of other races which have reached the Solomon Islands both from the Malay Archipelago to the west, and from the islands of Micronesia and Polynesia to the east. The present natives of this group may, in truth, be considered as the result of the fusion of the Negrito aborigines with the Malayan, Micronesian, and Polynesian intruders.
The second interesting point with reference to these ancient flint implements is concerned with their original source. Professor Liversidge, in drawing attention to my specimens, which he exhibited at a meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales in December, 1883, remarked that this discovery of flints in these regions afforded a very strong proof of the probable presence of true chalk of cretaceous age in the South Sea Islands, and he alluded to a soft white limestone undistinguishable from chalk, which had been previously brought from New Ireland by Mr. Brown, the Wesleyan missionary.[45] Chalk-rocks came under my observation in the Solomon Islands; but in no case was I able to find embedded flints (_vide_ Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., Vol. 32, Part 3). I think it, however, highly probable that when the interior of one of the large islands such as Guadalcanar has been explored, older chalk formations containing flints will be discovered. The island of Ulaua, which I was unable to visit, would probably afford some clue as to the source of these flints. Although in all likelihood this island possesses the general geological structure of the neighbouring island of Ugi, which is described on page vii. yet it possesses one peculiar feature.
Mr. Brenchley,[46] when landing on the beach of this island of Ulaua in 1865, picked up a great many pieces of flint scattered about among the broken-up coral, and he wondered where they came from. Captain Macdonald, a resident trader in this part of the group, informed me that flints are abundant on the beaches of this island, together with fragments of a white chalk-like rock.[47]
[45] ”Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales:” vol. xvii., p. 223; _vide_ also ”Geolog. Mag.” Dec., 1877. Mr. H. B. Brady is at present engaged in working out the Foraminifera of this New Ireland rock. Its age, though still _sub judice_, is probably comparatively recent.
[46] ”Cruise of the 'Curacoa,'” p. 255.
[47] Should any of my readers in the Western Pacific have the opportunity of visiting the island of Ulaua, it would be well worth their while to pay careful attention to the mode of occurrence of these flints. I am of the opinion that imbedded flints will be found in the _recent_ rocks of this island.
In the island of Faro, which is entirely of volcanic formation, flints are not known to the natives, and it would be interesting to ascertain whether they are similarly absent from other islands of the same character. When in search of the source of these flints, I was more than once led off on a false scent. It was on one such occasion, when accompanying Gorai, the Shortland chief, on an excursion in his war-canoe to the north-west part of the island of Alu, that I experienced a great disappointment. Learning from the chief that he could direct me to the place where the flints (”kilifela”) were found, I was in great hope of at last finding them imbedded. The locality, however, proved to be of volcanic formation, and a pit or cave in which the flints were to be found, successfully eluded our efforts to discover it. I would, however, recommend future visitors to endeavour to find this pit which lies a little way in from the beach and close to the north-west point of Alu. Its examination might throw some fresh light on the aborigines of these regions.
The occurrence of flints on the south-east coast of New Guinea has been recorded by Mr. Stone.[48] He tells us that the small island of Tatana at the head of Port Moresby is ”strewn with pieces of a cornelian-coloured flint, called by the natives _vesika_, and used for boring holes through sh.e.l.l, bone, or other hard substances.” In 1767, Captain Carteret found spears and arrows pointed with flint in use amongst the natives of the Santa Cruz Group and of Gower Island, one of the Solomon Islands.[49] M. Surville, when anch.o.r.ed in Port Praslin in the Solomon Group in 1769, observed that the natives employed ”a sort of flint” as knives and razors and for obtaining fire.[50] In my own intercourse with these islanders I did not find flints in use among them; but it is very probable that in some islands the ancient flint implements are occasionally employed for cutting purposes.[51]
[48] ”A few months in New Guinea,” by O. C. Stone. London, 1880, p.
72.
[49] Hawkesworth's ”Voyages”: vol. i., pp, 296, 297.
[50] Fleurieu's ”Discoveries of the French in 1768 and 1769,” etc: p. 144.
[51] In Raffles' ”History of Java” (1830; vol i., pp. 25, 33) it is stated that common flints, hornstone, chalcedony, jasper, cornelian, etc., are frequently found in the beds of the streams of this island. If not already inquired into, further information should be sought concerning the shape and the source of these flints.
CHAPTER V.
CULTIVATION--FOOD, ETC.
THE inhabitants of the islands of Bougainville Straits display far more interest in the cultivation of the soil than do those of St. Christoval and its adjacent islands. Whether this circ.u.mstance may be attributed to the greater powers wielded by the chiefs of these islands, and to the consequent tranquillity which their peoples enjoy, or whether it is due to the comparatively isolated position of these islands of the Straits which has secured to their inhabitants a freedom from the attacks of neighbouring tribes, I can scarcely distinguish. It is, however, probable that the explanation of the extensive cultivated tracts with the consequent abundance of food in the one region, and of the meagre patches of cultivation with the resulting dearth of food in the other, lies more in the surroundings than in the individual character of the natives.
In the island of Treasury acres and acres of taro and banana plantations lie in the immediate vicinity of the village; and I pa.s.sed through similarly cultivated tracts in the east and west districts of the island. The wide and level region, which const.i.tutes the margin of the island, is covered with a deep productive soil. Cultivation is not confined, however, to the more level districts. Large cultivated patches lie on the hill-slopes behind the village; and in other places fire and the axe are constantly employed in the preliminary work of clearing the hill-side. The islands of the Shortlands exhibit a corresponding degree of industry on the part of their inhabitants. When crossing the eastern part of the island of Morgusaia, I traversed for nearly a mile one continuous tract of cultivation. In the midst of the taro and banana plantations stood groves of the stately sago palm and clumps of the betel-nut palm. An occasional bread-fruit tree towered over all; and now and then a lime tree was pointed out by my guides. This extensive tract belonged to the chief. Some of the cultivated patches in the Shortlands are marked out by lines of poles laid flat on the ground into long, narrow divisions, about twenty feet in width, each wife of the owner of the patch confining her labours to her own division.
On the east side of the island of Fauro, the interval between the villages of Toma and Sinasoro is to a great extent under cultivation, and is occupied chiefly by banana and taro plantations. Similar indications of the prosperity of the inhabitants are displayed in the number of cocoa-nut palms and bread-fruit trees, with here and there a grove of sago palms, which occupy the low tract of land on which the village of Toma stands. In the planting season natives of the Straits spend weeks in their distant plantations in the interior of their islands; and in the instance of Fauro Island, many of them possess other plantations in the small outlying uninhabited islands which they visit in parties at the regular periods.
In the islands of Bougainville Straits, the banana, taro, and the sweet potato are the vegetables which are grown in greatest quant.i.ty. The yam does not appear to be such a favourite article of food as in the eastern islands. I observed in Treasury that the natives protect the short stems of the large taro against the depredations of the large frugivorous bats (_Pteropidae_) by las.h.i.+ng them round with sticks.
Here, as in the eastern islands, the following method of climbing the cocoa-nut palm and other trees prevailed. A las.h.i.+ng or thong around the ankles supports much of the weight of the body, and serves as a fulcrum for each effort of the climber towards the top. When the cocoa-nut palm is rather inclined to one side, I have seen a native adopt the mode of the West Indian negro, and walking up the trunk on all fours, after the style of monkeys..... It is a singular circ.u.mstance, as residents in the group inform me, that natives never seem to be struck by a falling cocoa-nut, notwithstanding that they must be frequently exposed to injury from this cause. I have often, when sitting amongst a group of natives in a village under the shade of the cocoa-nut trees, been warned by those around me that the nuts might fall on us. On two occasions I have had heavy cocoa-nuts fall to the ground within reach of my arm, which, if they had struck my head with the momentum imparted by a drop of some fifty feet, would undoubtedly have stunned me.
I may here refer to the sago palm, which is grown in far greater numbers in the islands of Bougainville Straits than in St. Christoval and its vicinity. It furnishes not only the vegetable-ivory nut of these islands and the sago, which is an important item in the native dietary, but its leaves supply the thatch for the roofs and sides of the houses. Although belonging to the same genus, _Sagus_, it is evidently distinct in species from the sago palm of Fiji (_Sagus vitiensis_), which, according to Mr. Home, grows on the low-lying swampy land, and attains a height of about 35 feet.[52] In the Solomon Islands, the height of full-grown sago palms varies between 60 and 70 feet; whilst the situations in which they are usually found, lie on the hill-slopes and in the drier districts of the islands. In the islands of Fauro and Treasury groves of sago palms occur both on the lower slopes and in the higher districts. They occur on the summit of Treasury at a height of a thousand feet above the sea; and I observed a few at Fauro at a height of 1400 feet. I found them in the middle of the breadth of St. Christoval, between Wano and Makira.
... . The sago palm in these islands is the finest specimen of the _Palmaceae_. I often used to admire its heavy bole terminating above in its handsome crown of ma.s.sive branches.[53]