Part 13 (1/2)

[123] Exhibited in the British Museum Ethnological collection.

Caution is required in studying the modes of ornamentation of these islanders. The remark made by the Rev. Mr. Lawes, in reference to the women of the Motu tribe in New Guinea,[124] that they are glad to get new tattooing patterns from the printed calicoes, is equally applicable to some of the Solomon Island natives. On one occasion I was gravely informed by a native, as a fact likely to add to their interest, that some designs I was copying had this origin.

[124] Journ. Anthrop. Inst. vol. VIII., p. 369.

The Solomon Island songs, although often monotonous to the cultivated ear, appeared to me to be in consonance with the wild character of these islanders. Often when I have stopped to rest and enjoy a pipe in the midst of my excursions, it may have been beside a stream in the wood or on the edge of a tall cliff overlooking the sea, my native companions have sat down and commenced their monotonous chanting, which, discordant as it may have sometimes seemed to me, appeared to be in unison with my surroundings. Now raised to a high key, now sinking to a low, subdued drone, now hurried, now slow and measured, these rude notes recalled to my mind rather the sounds of the inanimate world around me, such as the sighing of the wind among the trees or the shrill whistle of the gale, the noise of the surf on the reef or the rippling of the waves on the beach, the rus.h.i.+ng of a mountain torrent or the murmuring of a rivulet in its bed. My thoughts at such times recurred to those unpolished ages in the history of nations when the bard attuned his melody to the voices of the waves, the streams, and the wind, and found in the mist or in the cloud his expression for the shadowy unknown. At no time have the poems of Ossian appeared to my mind to be invested with greater beauty than when I have been standing in solitude in some inland dell or on some lofty hill-top in these regions. The song of the bard of Selma, despite its ruggedness, on such occasions, appealed more powerfully to my imagination than many more finished verses, and seemed more in keeping with scenes that owed to man nothing, remaining as they had been for ages, Nature's handiwork.

Frequently whilst descending some steep hill-slope or whilst following the downward course of a ravine, my natives were wont to make the woods echo with their shouts and their wild songs. The natural impulse to make use of the vocal organs whilst descending a mountain is worth a moment's remark. Often I found myself involuntarily shouting with my savage companions, when their loud peals of laughter attracted my attention.

Some years ago, when visiting the Si-shan Mountains which lie behind the city of Kiukiang on the south bank of the Yang-tse, I remember listening to the cries of the Chinese wood-cutters as they returned in the evening down the narrow gorges that led to their homes. As their shouts died away in the higher parts of the mountain, the echo was caught by the wood-cutters below, and was answered back in such a manner that the men further down the gorges took up the cry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAR DANCE and CANNIBAL SONG.

_Tempo di marcia._

(Music)

Ko-pi-e-e Ko-pi-e-e ta-li Sor-si-o u-la mu-la ta-li Ko-pi-e-e-e Ko-pi-e-e-e ta-li Sor-si-o u-la mu-la ta-li

No. 2.

(Music)

No. 3.

(Music)

Li-li a-ma-lo-o Li-li a-ma-lo-o A- -ma-lo na-va-ka-ro ka-ro Si-si na-ka-ri-e.

NOTE.--The vowels to be p.r.o.nounced as follows: _a_ as in ”tar,” _e_ as in ”obey,” _i_ as in ”ici,” _o_ as in ”so,” _u_ as in ”rule.”]

The training of natives of these islands by the Melanesian Mission at Norfolk Island has shown that the compa.s.s of their voices and their ear for music are capable of much cultivation. When staying with Bishop Selwyn at Gaeta in the Florida Islands, I heard familiar hymn-tunes sung with as true an appreciation of harmony as would be found in the Sunday School of an English village, and sung by a congregation of natives of both s.e.xes, who, with the exception of their teachers, had never left their island.

During our lengthened sojourn in Bougainville Straits, we became very familiar with the popular tunes of the natives; and through the exertions of Mr. Isabell, I have been able to reproduce in this work three of the commonest airs.[125] The songs are usually sung in chorus, and a droning accompaniment is often introduced by some of the men which is especially well given in the second tune. There appear to be four or five common airs. All are short and most of them have refrains which are repeated over and over again. The first tune is a cannibal song and is sung at the war dances. Its words, as I learned from Gorai, the Shortland chief, are the address of a man to his enemy, in which he informs him of his intention to kill and eat him. The second tune, though not possessing words, is often sung or rather chanted by the men.

When sung by a number of persons, its wild music is to an imaginative mind very suggestive of the savage life. I have heard it sung by about forty men whilst pa.s.sing the night with them in the village of Sinasoro in Faro Island. The tambu-house, in which we were, was dimly lighted, and the natives were squatting around a wood-fire chanting their wild song in chorus, and terminating it in a fas.h.i.+on that sounded very abrupt to the white man's ear. The third tune is a pretty air which the men of the ”Lark” used to play with the concertina in waltz time. The words, accompanying it, have a music of their own. I learned from the natives of Treasury Island that this tune was brought from Meoko (Duke of York Islands) not long since.

[125] Mr. Isabell was indebted for a.s.sistance to Mr. Tremaine of Auckland, N.Z.

The Pandean pipe is the musical instrument in common use amongst the natives of the Islands of Bougainville Straits. I did not notice it in St. Christoval and the adjacent islands at the other end of the group, where it is either not known or but rarely used. The distribution of this instrument in the Pacific is interesting. It is figured by D'Albertis in his work on New Guinea, and there are specimens in the British Museum Collection from Brumer's Island off this coast, as well as from the Admiralty Islands, the New Hebrides, the Tonga Group, and New Zealand. The instruments from all these localities are distinguished from the Solomon Island pan-pipe by the reeds being arranged in a single row and being of a much smaller size. They are also more neatly made.

Those used by the Treasury and Shortland natives are composed of a double row of from 6 to 8 reeds, the second row being merely added to give support to the instrument. The longest reed is usually a foot in length and three quarters of an inch in bore; whilst the shortest reed is about 5 inches long and rather less than half an inch in bore. Some natives prefer instruments having twice this length. The Pandean pipes, played at the public dances of Alu, are of very large size, the length of the longest reed of one which I measured being between 3 and 4 feet.

At such performances, the air is given by the smaller pipes; whilst the ba.s.s notes of the larger pipes form a droning but harmonious accompaniment. The music of these instruments, being in the usual contracted compa.s.s, is of a somewhat monotonous character. Those of Treasury Island are said to be only adapted for playing one tune, which is the second air given on the page. I learn from Mr. Isabell, who was interested in this matter, that the natives vary the number of reeds in the instrument according to the air it is intended to play. The musician accompanies his melody with a nodding of the head and a swaying of the body on the hips, movements which are anything but expressive and are in fact rather ludicrous.

Jew's harps of foreign manufacture are much in demand amongst persons of both s.e.xes and all ages throughout the Solomon Group. In the eastern islands they fas.h.i.+on them of bamboo, as in the New Hebrides and New Guinea;[126] but I did not observe any native-made instruments amongst the people of Bougainville Straits. The women of Treasury Island produce a similar though softer kind of music by playing, somewhat after the fas.h.i.+on of a Jew's harp, on a lightly made fine-stringed bow about 15 inches long. This is held to the lips and the string is gently struck with the fingers, the cavity of the mouth serving as a resonator... .

That school-boy's delight, the ”paper-and-comb instrument,” finds its counterpart in these islands. On one occasion, when I was enjoying a pipe and watching the surf on the south coast of Stirling Island, a young lad, who accompanied me, amused himself with some rude music by holding in front of his lips, as he hummed a native air, a thick leaf in which he had made a hole about half an inch wide, leaving the thin transparent epidermis intact on one side; the vibration of this thin membrane gave a peculiar tw.a.n.g to his voice.

[126] Mr. Mosely in his ”Notes by a Naturalist” gives an ill.u.s.tration of a Jew's harp from the New Hebrides.

The drum in common use in the different islands we visited was made of a portion of the trunk of a tree, 8 to 10 feet long, hollowed out in its interior and possessing a slit in the middle. It is placed lengthways on the ground, and is struck by two short sticks. Similar drums are employed by the inhabitants of the New Hebrides[127] and the Admiralty Islands.[128] This pattern may therefore be described as the Melanesian drum. A kind of sounding-board, placed in a pit in the ground and struck by the feet of the dancers, is described in my account of the dances of these islanders (_vide_ page 144).

[127] ”A year in the New Hebrides” by F. A Campbell, p. 108. The drums are placed erect in the earth.