The Solomon Islands and Their Natives Part 7

[63] "History of Sumatra." London, 1811: p. 89.

[64] "History of the Indian Archipelago." Edinburgh, 1820: vol. i., p. 447.

I have already referred to the fact that the small taro grows wild in the ravines and on the banks of the streams in this region. A very savoury vegetable soup is made from the leaves and unopened spathe of a small arum that grows wild on the banks of the streams in Fauro Island.

It is a species of _Schizmatoglottis_ and is known to the natives as the "kuraka." I should here allude to a wild yam which I found during one of my excursions in this island. The mountain-plantain, which grows on the sides of the valleys, and in moist, sheltered situations as high as a thousand feet above the sea, furnishes in its small seeded fruits, when cooked, an occasional subst.i.tute for those of the cultivated plantain; it grows to a height of 35 feet, and on account of its striking appearance it often forms a conspicuous feature in the vegetation at the heads of the valleys. It is known as the "kallula."

Amongst the wild fruits which are eaten by the natives in this part of the group, are those of two trees named the "natu" and the "finoa." As my specimens were insufficient for the determination at Kew of the characters of these trees, I may add that the "natu" grows to a height of a hundred feet, its fruit being of the size of a small melon and having a pleasant flavour. The "finoa" grows to a height of fifty feet; it is occasionally found in the plantations.

The natives of the Shortland Islands informed me that the neighbouring people of Rubiana were accustomed to eat the fruits of the common littoral tree _Morinda citrifolia_ ("urati"), but that they did not themselves eat it. The shoots of a tree named "poporoko," which belongs probably to the _Olacineae_, are eaten by the inhabitants of Fauro, who also consider as edible the tiara-like cones (?) of the _Gnetum Gnemon_ ("meriwa").

The fronds of ferns are in some species edible; amongst them, I may particularly refer to the "quaheli" (unfortunately not identified), which is eaten by the natives of Treasury Island. Fungi, which are generally known in this part of the group as "magu," are often cooked and eaten; but through inadvertence I am now unable to refer particularly to the edible species. A delicacy with the natives of Treasury is an alga, a species of _Caulerpa_, which grows in the sheltered waters just below the low-tide level at the western end of the harbour. They eat it with keen relish, when freshly picked from the rocks, holding it over the mouth and munching at it just as if it were a bunch of grapes, which it somewhat resembles in appearance. There is another non-edible species of _Caulerpa_ which grows in the broken water on the weather or outer side of the reef-flats.[65]

[65] I am indebted to Mr. Moore of Sydney, for the identification of the genus.

_Tacca pinnatifida_ ("mamago"), commonly known as the South Sea or Tahiti Arrowroot, is often seen on the coral islets in Bougainville Straits. The natives, though acquainted with the nutritious qualities of the plant, make little if any use of it. Mr. Horne,[66] writing of it in Fiji, says that the arrowroot obtained from the roots of this and another species of _Tacca_ (_T. sativa_) is even more nutritive than the ordinary arrowroot which is obtained from a very different plant (_Maranta arundinacea_). This leads me to remark on the singular fact that the inhabitants of one Pacific group are often unacquainted with, or make but little use of, sources of vegetable food which in other groups afford a staple diet. Whilst the Fijians and the Society Islanders make use of the arrowroot obtained from _Tacca pinnatifida_, the inhabitants of the Radack Archipelago, as Chamisso informs us,[67]

seldom use it, although the plant is very frequent on the islands; and I have already remarked that the natives of Bougainville Straits make little if any use of the same plant. The Fijians were unacquainted with the nutritious qualities of their sago palm (_Sagus vitiensis_) until Mr. Pritchard and Dr. Seemann extracted the sago.[68] On the other hand we have seen that the natives of Bougainville Straits largely consume the sago of their palm which belongs to another species of _Sagus_ growing not in the swamps as in Fiji, but in more elevated and drier situations. In the instance of _Cycas circinalis_, one of the common littoral trees in the Pacific, we find considerable variation in the knowledge possessed by the inhabitants of different regions of its value as a source of food. Its growing top produces a cabbage which, as we learn from Mr. Marsden, is much esteemed by the people of Sumatra.[69]

Its fruits, when their noxious qualities have been removed by maceration or by cooking, are largely consumed in seasons of scarcity by the inhabitants of the Moluccas, New Ireland,[70] south-east part of New Guinea, and North Queensland.[71] Its central pith yields an inferior kind of sago to the inhabitants of some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago; and a gummy exudation resembling tragacanth, which is yielded by this tree, has probably a medicinal value. The natives of Bougainville Straits are not acquainted with the sago-producing character of this tree nor with the fact that its fruits are edible; they, however, prepare an application for the ulcers from which they often suffer by macerating the fruits in question. Mr. Horne observes that the Fijians do not make use of the _Cycas circinalis_ as a sago-yielding plant:[72] we learn, however, from Dr. Seemann, that its sago is reserved for the use of the chiefs.[73]..... I may here refer to the fact that the Treasury Islanders, although acquainted with the common _Caryota_ palm ("eala") as yielding a kind of sago, do not often avail themselves of it.

[66] "A Year in Fiji," p. 104.

[67] "A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea," by Otto von Kotzebue: London, 1821: vol. III., pp. 150, 154.

[68] "A Mission to Viti," by Dr. Berthold Seemann; p. 291.

[69] "History of Sumatra," p. 89.

[70] Labillardiere's "Voyage in search of La Perouse:" London, 1800: vol. I., p. 254.

[71] "Work and Adventure in New Guinea," by Messrs. Chalmers and Gill; p. 310.

[72] Horne's "Fiji," p. 104.

[73] Seemann's "Viti," p. 289.

Fish,[74] opossums (_Cuscus_), and pigs supply the natives of Bougainville Straits with the more nitrogenous elements of food. But as with vegetable so with animal food, the term "kai-kai"[75] is a very comprehensive one with the Solomon Islander. Sh.e.l.lfish furnish occasional sustenance. Amongst them I may mention _Tridacna gigas_, and species of _Hippopus_, _Cardium_, _Turbo_, and of many other marine genera. The _Cyrenae_, that lie sunk in the black mud of the mangrove swamps, are much esteemed: and those natives who have their homes in these gloomy and unwholesome regions employ as food _Pyrazus pal.u.s.tris_ which thrives in little cl.u.s.ters on the mud, and in the puddles around the mangrove roots. The Unios and the freshwater Nerites are also eaten.

The flesh of the large monitor-lizard, _Vara.n.u.s indicus_, is much prized. The crocodile is not rejected; and, as the following anecdote will show, the past misdeeds of all its tribe are heaped upon it, whilst the victors at the same time satisfy their sense of hunger, and glut their feelings of revenge..... The freshwater lake of Wailava in Santa Anna is frequented by crocodiles which occasionally attack natives fis.h.i.+ng on the banks. At the end of 1882, one of these animals was shot by Mr. Charles Sproul, an American resident. The news of its death caused great rejoicing amongst the people of the village; and Mr.

Sproul, who was looked upon as a great hero, received presents of yams as an acknowledgment of his prowess. After he had skinned it, he gave the carcase to the village, and a feast was held. One old man, who had been nearly carried off by a crocodile at the lake a few years before and had had his leg broken, was positive that this was the identical animal, and he was so delighted at its death, that, as Mr. Sproul told me, there was nothing he would not have done for him. The old man claimed as his share the portion of the head attached to the carcase, and bones and all were eaten with that additional relish which the sensation of feasting on his enemy would naturally produce.

[74] I came upon some bushmen from the interior of Bougainville, who, although they were staying some time at a village on the coast of Fauro, would not eat fish; and I learned from the Fauro natives that the Bougainville bushmen abstained from fish, even when they were able to get it.

[75] "Kai-kai" is a term for "food": but, like "tambu," it has been introduced by traders.

The Solomon Islanders are very fond of fatty food. They have been observed to drink the liquid fat of pigs with the same gusto with which a white man would quaff an iced drink on a hot day. They much appreciate the fat in the abdomen of the Cocoa-nut Crab (_Birgus latro_); and, without much regard for the feelings of the crab, they may throw it alive on the hot cinders of a fire in order to cook its fat.

A depraved taste for decaying flesh would appear not to be peculiar to the upper cla.s.ses of civilized nations. Mr. Stephens of Ugi tells me that he has known natives of Ontong-Java, which lies off the Solomon Group, to allow the carcase of a pig to remain buried in the ground until it was rotten, when they dug up their treasure and enjoyed their feast under cover of the night as though conscious of the depravity of the act. It was the strong odour which penetrated his dwelling that attracted the attention of Mr. Stephens to their proceedings.

The methods of cooking animal food may be here referred to. In the eastern islands of the group, it may be boiled in a wooden bowl by means of hot-stones as described on page 86. In Bougainville Straits, when a fis.h.i.+ng-party returns towards nightfall with their capture of fish, they erect on posts a large framework or grating of sticks, which is raised about three feet from the ground. On this the fish is placed, a large fire is kindled beneath, and, by a combined process of scorching and smoking, the fish is cooked. As the portion of the grating on which the fish lies is usually almost burned away, the framework is made some ten feet in length by five feet in breadth, and the next fish to be cooked is placed on a fresh part of it. On a framework of this size a considerable number of fish may be thus cooked. Fish such as eels are cut up into pieces, and each piece after being compactly wrapped around with leaves is kept on the wood-fire for about half an hour. When an opossum is to be cooked, it is first placed for a short time on the fire in order to singe the hair off. It is then cut open, and the viscera are removed: of these, the intestines are subsequently cleaned and eaten.

The body is then placed, without any further process, on top of the fire; and there it remains until, after being well scorched as well as roasted, it is considered to be cooked: when thus prepared, the flesh is juicy and tender, but has a strong flavour. Pigs are first quartered, and then placed on a pile of logs built up in layers to a height of about three feet, over which three poles are placed like a tripod about six feet in height, in order to draw the fire up. When thus roasted, the flesh of the wild pig is very good eating, and may be thought by some white men to be superior in flavour to the flesh of our farm-bred pigs.

There are usually two meals in the day (viz., at its commencement and at its close) in the case of those who are working in the cultivated patches; whilst those who remain in the village may indulge in a mid-day repast. Often during my excursions I have been glad to take advantage of the simple hospitality of the natives; and I have found a light meal of boiled bananas or of partly cooked sago, when taken in the middle of the day, a convenient, though not a palatable, form of nourishment for a hard day's work in these islands.

I was once present at a feast in the village of Sapuna in Santa Anna.

Each man's contribution was added to the general store. Heaped up in large black wooden bowls, such as are in common use in St. Christoval and the adjacent islands, the materials for the feast were first placed in front of the tambu-house, and then carried to the house of the chief, where they were distributed. For several days before, the women had been engaged in bringing in the yams and other vegetables from the "patches"

in the interior of the island, whilst their indolent spouses had been lounging about with empty pipes in the village. The feast was held at night, and was accompanied by much shouting. The natives gave vent to the exuberance of their spirits, and mingled the most demoniacal yells with their peals of laughter. The feast may be fitly described as a "gorge." When it was concluded at an early morning hour, silence came over the village, and everyone retired to their homes, where they remained in a torpid condition during the rest of the day; and, in fact, for some days afterwards the men were incapacitated for active labour.

I should have previously referred to a kind of wild honey ("manofi"), the work of a bee about the size of the ordinary housefly, which is much esteemed by the natives of Bougainville Straits. It is more fluid than our own honey, and has a scented flavour. It is drunk off like water by these natives. The honeycomb is merely a collection of bags of brown wax of the size of a walnut and aggregated together in an irregular ma.s.s, which is often found in a hollow in the lower part of the trunk of a tree. The inhabitants of this region have apparently no acquaintance with the uses of wax, and thus differ from the Andaman Islanders, who employ it for caulking the leaks in their canoes and for waxing their bowstrings.[76]

[76] Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. VII., p. 463.

The Solomon Islanders are inordinarily fond of tobacco-smoking, a habit which prevails with both s.e.xes and almost at all ages. Tobacco has in fact established itself as the princ.i.p.al currency between the trader and the native; and without it a white man would be as dest.i.tute in these islands as the beggar is in more civilized lands. In a village the visitor will sometimes be followed by a knot of little urchins five or six years of age who have slipped down from their mothers' backs to pester him for tobacco; and I have seen a child in its mother's arms allowed to take the pipe from its parent's lips and puff away with apparent enjoyment. Should there be a scarcity of tobacco in a village when a s.h.i.+p arrives, the trader may drive a cheap bargain, and the curiosity-seeker may readily purchase anything he desires. We were able on such occasions to obtain, for a piece of tobacco of the size of the thumb-nail, articles, such as fish-hooks, which required for their manufacture days of tedious labour. In the waste-ground of villages a few tobacco plants are often grown. This is very frequently the case in the villages of the islands of Bougainville Straits, where native-grown tobacco is often preferred to the trade-tobacco. This home-grown tobacco is there known as "brubush." The leaves are never cut up for smoking, but are usually rolled roughly into twists; and when the native is going to smoke, he stuffs two or three large pieces into his pipe. Claypipes obtained from the traders are always used. These islanders very rarely make wood pipes for themselves, although they must often see them in the mouths of white men. I never met with a native who, having broken or lost his clay pipe, had the energy to manufacture a pipe of wood. There is, however, such a specimen of native work in the British Museum collection. I could not ascertain any information relative to the introduction of tobacco-smoking. It was, however, probably introduced from the West independently of the influence of the trader. The natives of the Maclay Coast and of the South Coast of New Guinea allege that the habit was unknown two generations ago, and that the seeds of the plant, with the knowledge of tobacco-smoking, have been introduced from the West. In the Louisiade Archipelago and in South-East New Guinea, tobacco was unknown until the last few years.[77]

[77] Miklouho-Maclay in Proc. Lin. Soc., N. S. W., vol. X., p. 352.

Crawfurd makes some interesting remarks on the introduction of tobacco into the Malay Archipelago, whence, as I have shown above, the plant has been evidently introduced into the Western Pacific. The Java annals affirm that tobacco was introduced in 1601; and, as supporting this statement, Crawfurd observes that the plant is not mentioned by European travellers in this region before the beginning of the 17th century.

(Malay Grammar and Dictionary, vol. I., p. 191.)

The practice of chewing the betel-nut is prevalent through the group, and is accompanied by the usual accessories, the lime and the betel-pepper (_Piper Betel_). In St. Christoval and the neighbouring small islands, the lime is carried in bamboo boxes, which are decorated with patterns scratched on their surface. In the islands of Bougainville Straits, gourds are employed for this purpose, the stoppers of which are ingeniously made of narrow bands of the leaf of the sago palm wound round and round in the form of a disc and bound together at the margin by fine strips of the vascular tissue of the "sinimi" fern (_Gleichenia_ sp.). Plain wooden sticks, like a Chinese chop-stick, are used for conveying the lime to the mouth; but frequently the stick is dispensed with, when the fingers are used or the betel-nut is dipped into the lime.

The Piper Betel, which is known in Bougainville Straits as the "kolu,"

is grown in the plantations, where it is trailed around the stems of bananas and the trunks of trees. In these straits, as on the Maclay Coast of New Guinea,[78] the female spike, or so-called fruit, is more usually chewed with the betel-nut. Around St. Christoval the leaves are generally preferred.

[78] Miklouho-Maclay: Proc. Lin. Soc., N. S. W., vol. X., p. 350.

The betel palm, the "olega" of the natives, which is apparently identical with, or closely allied to, _Areca catechu_, the common betel-nut tree, is grown in clumps and groves in the vicinity of villages. The fruits of other species of _Areca_, which grow wild, are occasionally used as subst.i.tutes for the ordinary betel-nut; in Bougainville Straits the fruits of the "niga-solu," "niga-torulo," and "poamau" are thus employed, those of the "poamau" being appropriated by the women.

Betel-chewing is practised by both s.e.xes. It has a marked stimulant effect; but the natives allege that no harm results from its constant use. The betel-pepper gives the betel-juice the "bite" of a gla.s.s of grog; by the natives it is considered to remove the taint of the breath. The betel-juice is the active agent in the production of the red colour which stains the saliva and the mouth of the betel-chewer. I satisfied myself that the saliva was not necessary for producing this colour, which may be readily obtained by mixing the betel-nut and lime in rain water.

When away on an occasion with a party of natives, I once was tempted by curiosity to chew a betel-nut which I afterwards swallowed in order to experience its full effect. Very shortly afterwards my head began to feel heavy, and I had an inclination to lie down, whilst my sight was sensibly dimmed. These effects pa.s.sed away in about twenty minutes. In my cabin I tried the effect on my circulation of merely chewing a single nut. Five minutes afterwards I found my pulse had increased in force and in frequency from 62 to 92 beats per minute. There was a sensation of fulness in the head and temples, but no perceptible effect on the vision. The pulse retained this frequency for another five minutes; but it did not resume its previous rate until more than half-an-hour had elapsed since the beginning of the experiment. Subsequently I tried the effect of chewing two betel-nuts. The first increased the pulse by twenty beats per minute, and gave rise to restlessness and a feeling of fulness in the head. The second sustained, but did not increase the frequency of the pulse. On account of nausea I chewed the second nut with difficulty. No effect was produced on locomotion by these two nuts; but my sight was sensibly dimmed. On turning-in for the night soon afterwards, I experienced during the first hour rather vivid dreams characterised by rapid s.h.i.+fting of the scene and change in the "dramatis personae." Some of the crew who, at my desire, tried the effect of chewing a single nut, informed me that it affected them much the same as a gla.s.s of spirit would. The natives themselves are usually content with chewing one nut at a time, two nuts, as they told me, produced unpleasant symptoms, and a bad head.

The betel-nut, in truth, possesses far greater stimulating properties than I had previously suspected. A single nut had much the same effect on me as a gla.s.s of sherry would have had. I believe that the extent of its intoxicating qualities is not generally known.

I may here remark that I did not come upon the custom of kava-drinking in these islands. According to the Rev. Mr. Lawes, the kava plant (_Piper methystic.u.m_) grows wild in the forests of the South-Coast of New Guinea, but its use is unknown. It may similarly be found in the Solomon Islands. On the Maclay Coast, as we are informed by Miklouho-Maclay, the custom of kava-drinking has been introduced not very long ago.[79]

[79] Proc. Lin. Soc., N.S.W., vol. X., pp. 350, 351.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERS AND RACE-AFFINITIES OF THESE ISLANDERS.[80]

[80] My observations on the physical characters of these islanders were embodied in a paper read before the Anthropological Inst.i.tute in July, 1885. They were to be published in the Journal of that society.

I WILL in the first place briefly refer to the position a.s.signed to these islanders in the cla.s.sification of the different races of man.

Professor Flower, in a recent address,[81] divided the different varieties of the human species into three princ.i.p.al divisions, the Ethiopian, the Mongolian, and the Caucasian, a system of cla.s.sification which, although often advanced and as often disputed, has now been preferred to other more complicated methods of cla.s.sifying the different varieties of man. Around or between these three types all existing varieties can be ranged.

[81] The President's Anniversary Address to the Anthropological Inst.i.tute, Jan. 27th, 1885.