The Solomon Islands and Their Natives Part 14

[132] "Voyage autour du Monde:" 2nd edit. augment. Paris, 1772; Vol.

II., p. 187. In this work there is an engraving of one of these canoes.

[133] "Discoveries of the French to the South-East of New Guinea,"

by M. Fleurieu. London, 1791 (p. 139).

For sea-pa.s.sages, greater stability is sometimes given to the large canoes of the Straits, by temporarily fitting them with an outrigger on each side, in the form of a bundle of stout bamboos lashed to the projecting ends of three bamboo poles placed across the gunwales of the canoe. The large canoes, in crossing from one island to the other in the Straits, employ often a couple of small lug-sails which are made from calico or light canvas obtained from the traders. I never saw any sails of native material: but it was worthy of remark that in 1792, when Dentrecasteaux approached close to the west coast of the Shortland Islands, he noticed "large canoes under sail," which, to quote directly from the narrative, "annoncoient une navigation active dans cet archipel d'iles extremement pet.i.tes."[134] Why the natives of these Straits no longer employ sails of their own manufacture, it is difficult to say.

The very recent introduction of trade calico cannot have caused them to be set aside for those of the new material, since when a native wants to have a sail, and has no calico, he has no recourse to sails of his own manufacture. Rather, it would appear, that the canoes under sail, which navigated these Straits a century ago, belonged to a people more enterprising than the present inhabitants of these islands.

[134] "Voyage de Dentrecasteaux," redige par. M. de Rossel, Paris, 1808: tom. I, p. 117.

To the stem of the canoe, just above the water-line, is sometimes attached a small misshapen wooden figure, which is the little tutelar deity that sees the hidden rock, and gives warning of an approaching foe. One of these figures is shown in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration.

They are similarly employed by the natives of the adjacent island of Simbo, and of other islands in this part of the group. Often they are double-headed, so that the little deity may keep a watchful look-out astern as well as ahead; and then they are placed on the tops of the high beaks of the Faro canoes. Probably the Chinese custom of painting eyes on the sides of the bows of the junks, and the similar practice of the Maltese, in the case of their boats, may date back to the little G.o.ds of wood that were attached to the bows and stems of the canoes of their barbarous predecessors. The origin of the figure-heads of our s.h.i.+ps may perhaps be traced back to times of savagery when a similar superst.i.tious practice prevailed.

"Dug-out" canoes are only to be found in the sheltered waters of Treasury Harbour. They are from 16 to 18 feet long, are provided with an outrigger, and are so narrow that the occupant sits on a board placed on the gunwales with only his feet and legs inside the canoe. In the quiet waters of the anchorage at Simbo, the natives make use of a raft of poles lashed together somewhat after the manner of a catamaran, such as I have seen on the coast of Formosa.

A few remarks on the mode of paddling, and on the paddles employed, may be here fitting. The long tapering blade,[135] which is in common use in the eastward islands, gives place in Bougainville Straits to the oval and sub-circular blades. All the paddles which I saw had cross-handles.

Those used by the women of the Straits are unusually light, more finished, and are sometimes decorated with patterns in red and black.

According to the length of the journey, one or other of two styles of progression is adopted. In short distances, they often proceed by a succession of spurts with a stroke of 60 and more to the minute, each spurt lasting a few minutes, and being followed by a short interval of rest. In longer distances they employ a slower stroke of from 40 to 50 to the minute, which is varied by occasional spurts. On one occasion when taking a journey of 12 miles in a war canoe, I was much struck with the different kinds of strokes by which my crew of eighteen men varied their exertions. They usually paddled along easily at about 50 strokes to the minute: but every ten or fifteen minutes they began a series of spurts, each spurt beginning with a short sharp stroke of about 60 to the minute, and pa.s.sing into a slow strong stroke of about 28 to the minute. After a succession of these spurts, which occupied altogether about five minutes, they settled down again into their previous easy stroke of 50 to the minute. Frequent stoppages occur during the course of a long journey, either for enjoying a chew of the betel-nut or for smoking a pipe; and the average speed, from this reason, would not exceed three miles an hour, whilst a day's run, between daylight and dusk, in fine weather would be from 25 to 30 miles.

[135] See ill.u.s.tration.

When a corpse is being transported in a canoe to its last resting-place in the sea by the natives of the Shortlands, they adopt a funeral stroke, pausing between each stroke of the paddle, and by a slight back-water movement partly arresting the progress of the canoe. I remember on one occasion, whilst watching a large canoe starting from Ugi to the opposite coast of St. Christoval, remarking their singular style of paddling. At every other stroke each man raised his arm and paddle much higher in the air, and gave a vigorous dig into the water, a very effective style as regards speed, and one likely to impress a timid enemy with fear... . Before leaving this subject, I should refer to the paddling-posture of these natives. All of them in the different islands we visited squat down with their legs crossed, facing the bow.

The New Guinea practice of standing up to paddle a canoe did not come under my observation except in the case of outrigger canoes, and in such canoes it was not the rule. I should infer that the posture of sitting or standing to paddle a canoe varies in accordance with the use of or non-employment of an outrigger. If, as in the case of the Solomon Island canoes, outriggers are rarely used, then the sitting posture will be found to be the one adopted, since the unaided stability of the canoe does not permit of the standing posture. If, on the other hand, outriggers are usually employed, it follows that, as in certain parts of New Guinea, the more effective posture of standing is preferred.

As fish form a staple diet of a large proportion of these islanders, much ingenuity is shown in the methods devised for catching them. In the eastern part of the archipelago, kite-fis.h.i.+ng is commonly employed. A kite[136] is flown in the air from the end of a canoe, and to it a fis.h.i.+ng-line is attached in place of the usual tail. Whilst the man in the canoe paddles slowly ahead, the movement of the kite whisks the bait about on the surface of the water; and when the fish bites, the kite goes down. Instead of a hook and bait, the natives usually employ for this mode of fis.h.i.+ng some stout spider-web, which gets entangled around the teeth and snout of the fish, and can be used several times. The explanation of this plan of catching fish is probably as follows. The kite swaying in the air offers some resemblance to an aquatic bird hovering over the water where a shoal of small fish occurs. It thus attracts the larger fish, who are said to follow the movements of these birds, and are thus guided in the pursuit of the smaller fry. It is with this object that the natives of the Society Group tie bunches of feathers to the extremities of the long-curved poles which, projecting from the fore-part of the canoe, support the lines.[137] As bearing on this subject, I may remark that it is not uncommon in these seas to observe porpoises, large fish, and sea-birds joining together in the pursuit of small fry. On one occasion, when in my Rob Roy canoe, I got into the thick of the fray. A large number of sea-birds were hovering over the water, which was alive with fish, about a foot in length, which, in pursuit of small fry, were themselves pursued by a shoal of porpoises, and were pecked at by the birds as, in their endeavour to escape, they leapt out of the water. It was a lively spectacle. The fish jumped out of the water all around me, whilst the birds hovering within reach of my paddle swooped down on them; and the huge porpoises, joining lazily in the sport, rose quietly to the surface within a few feet of the canoe, showed their dorsal fins, and dived again in pursuit of their prey. I stupidly fired three shots with my revolver into the hovering flock of birds; but it was not until after the third report that they temporarily suspended the chase... . Another common method of fis.h.i.+ng in the eastern islands, which resembles in its idea that of the kite-fis.h.i.+ng, consists in the use of a float of wood about three feet in length and rather bigger than a walking-stick. It is weighted by a stone at one end, so that it floats upright in the water, a fis.h.i.+ng-line with the spider-web bait being attached to its lower end. The upper end of the float, which is out of the water, is rudely cut in imitation of a wading-bird; and here we have the same idea exhibited which I have described above in the case of kite-fis.h.i.+ng, the figure of the bird being _supposed_ to attract the larger fish. There is, however, this difference. A glance at one of these floats, one of which is figured elsewhere, will convince anyone that a fish is not likely to be deceived by such a sorry representation of a bird. Doubtless we have here an instance of the survival of a more effective method of fis.h.i.+ng, in which the idea has been retained, but the utility has been lost. This plan is in fact nothing more than the employment of a float, which is thrown into the water by the fisherman, who follows it up in his canoe and looks out for its bob.

[136] Some of these kites, which I saw, had a form rudely representing a bird with expanded wings. Others had a squarish form and were made of palm leaf.

[137] Ellis's "Polynesian Researches," Vol. I., p. 149-50.

In the eastern islands the fis.h.i.+ng spear is frequently employed. With this weapon in his hand, the native wades in the shallow water on the flats of the reefs, and hurls it at any pa.s.sing fish. The night-time is often chosen for this mode of fis.h.i.+ng. A party of natives provided with torches, spread themselves along the edge of the reef and stand ready to throw their spears as the fish dart by them. During the day, when the reef-flats at low-tide are covered only by a small depth of water, the fishermen advance in a semicircle until a fish is observed, when the two wings close in, and the fish is surrounded. The kind of fish-spear which they use much resembles that which Mr. Ellis describes in his account of the Society Islands.[138] As shown in the engraving (p. 74), the head of the fish-spear is composed of five fore-shafts of hard wood, notched at their sides, and arranged around a similar fore-shaft. These are bound together, and the whole is fitted into the end of a stout bamboo, giving the weapon a total length of about seven feet..... The fish-spear does not appear to be so commonly used by the natives of Bougainville Straits. There, its place is often taken by the bow and arrow, which are weapons that are not in use amongst the natives of St. Christoval and the adjacent islands at the eastern end of the group.

[138] "Polynesian Researches," vol. I., p. 143.

I should here remark that, when fis.h.i.+ng on the reefs, natives are sometimes struck by the gar-fish with such force that they die from the wound. The possibility of this occurrence has recently been doubted. But that such is the case, we incidentally learned from the natives of the Shortlands. The people of Wano, on the north coast of St. Christoval, believe that the ghosts which haunt the sea, cause the flying-fish and the gar-fish to dart out of the water and to strike men in the canoes; and they hold that any man thus struck will die.[139] This superst.i.tious belief could only have arisen from the circ.u.mstance of natives having met their death in this manner; and it is probable that in this respect the larger flying-fish would be quite as much to be feared as the gar-fish. Mr. Moseley, in his "Notes by a Naturalist," p. 480, refers to such an event as not of uncommon occurrence in some of the Pacific Islands.[140]

[139] "Religious Beliefs and Practices in Melanesia," by the Rev. R.

H. Codrington, M.A. Journal of Anthropological Inst.i.tute, vol. X.

[140] _Vide_ also "Nature," index of vol. XXVIII., for some further correspondence on this subject.

The material, from which the natives of Bougainville Straits manufacture the twine for their fis.h.i.+ng-nets and lines, is usually supplied by the delicate fibres lining the bark of the young branches of a stout climber, which is known to the natives as the "awi-sulu." This climber, which is probably a species of _Lyonsia_, has a main stem of the size of a man's leg, which embraces a tree, whilst it sends its offshoots for a distance of some 40 or 50 feet along the ground. It is the delicate fibres lining the inside of the skin of the young proc.u.mbent branches that the native selects for his purpose. By sc.r.a.ping the thin bark or skin with the edge of a pearl-sh.e.l.l, the fibres are first cleared of other material: they are then dried in the sun; and when dry, they are arranged in small strands, three of which are twisted together into a fine line by rolling them with the palm of the hand on the thigh. The natives sometimes obtain the material for their nets and lines from the common littoral tree, the _Hibiscus tiliaceus_, which they name "dakatako."

In making their nets, our common netting-st.i.tch is employed, the needle being of plain wood, 18 inches long, and forked at each end; whilst the mesh employed is a piece of tortoise-sh.e.l.l, having for a width of an inch a length of 2 inches. The method of netting familiar to ourselves appears to be generally employed amongst the native races of this portion of the globe. We learn from the Rev. George Turner that in Samoa the same st.i.tch and the same form of needle are employed which are in use in Europe.[141] The natives of Port Moresby, in New Guinea, net "so precisely in our mode that the seamen of H.M.S. "Basilisk" took up their shuttles and went on with their work."[142] The needle employed at Redscar Bay, on the coast of the same island, is more like our own, the mesh being of tortoise-sh.e.l.l, two to three inches long.[143] When Captain Bowen, of the s.h.i.+p "Albemarle," was visited in 1791 by some natives of the Solomon Islands who came off to him in their canoes, he thought he had found in the apparently European workmans.h.i.+p of their nets a clue to the fate of La Perouse, a very pardonable error which receives its explanation from the above facts.[144]

[141] "Nineteen Years in Polynesia" (London, 1861), p. 272.

[142] Moresby's "New Guinea" (1876), p. 156.

[143] These specimens are in the British Museum Ethnological collection.

[144] Dillon's "Discovery of the Fate of La Perouse" (1829), vol I., p. lxix.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Fis.h.i.+ng on the reef-flats with large hand-nets is a common occupation of the men in the islands of Bougainville Straits. Some five or six men form a party, each man carrying a pair of long hand-nets in which the netting is stretched on a long bamboo some 20 feet in length and bent like a bow, as shown in the accompanying figure. The fis.h.i.+ng party wade about on the flat near the edge of the reef, each man being about 20 paces apart, and dragging behind him a pair of these clumsy-looking nets, one in each hand. When a fish is perceived they close round; and every man spreads out his nets, one on each side like a pair of wings, thus covering an extent of some 40 feet. By skilfully dropping his nets, when it makes a rush in his direction, the native secures the fish, which, das.h.i.+ng head first against one of the nets, gets its snout caught in the meshes; and a couple of blows on the head complete the capture. I have seen fish of the size of an ordinary ba.s.s caught in this manner.

Smaller nets, 4 to 6 feet in length, with a finer mesh, are used for catching fish of less size. The large hand-net is known as the "sorau,"

and the small hand-net as the "saiaili." Such is one of the commonest methods of fis.h.i.+ng in the Straits. For this purpose, fis.h.i.+ng parties often visit the uninhabited small islands and coral islets that lie off the coasts. There they erect temporary sheds and remain for one or two weeks. In the numerous uninhabited islets and small islands which I visited, I frequently came on the temporary habitations erected by fis.h.i.+ng parties; whilst propped up against the trees were the long bamboo poles on which the nets are stretched. The natives of St.

Christoval and the adjacent islands employ a similar method in fis.h.i.+ng on the reef-flats. Fis.h.i.+ng parties often spend a week or two on the small islands and reefs which lie off the St. Christoval coast; thus the men of Wano visit for this purpose the islet of Maoraha, about 12 miles down the coast; whilst those of Sulagina cross over to the Three Sisters, which are about the same distance away.

Dip-nets, such as I have seen in common use on the banks of the Chinese rivers, are here employed, though on a smaller scale, for catching small fish. They are usually 7 or 8 feet across, and are stretched on two crossed bamboos. Seine-nets, much prized by the natives on account of the labour expended in making them, and buoyed up with floats of the square fruits of the _Barringtonia speciosa_, are commonly employed.

There are other modes of net-fis.h.i.+ng, of which I am ignorant, some of which probably came under the notice of the officers of the survey: and I hope that in reading these remarks they may be induced to supplement them with additional information.

The fish-hooks employed vary in form and workmans.h.i.+p in different parts of the group. In the sheltered harbour of Makira, the natives whiff in small outrigger-canoes for a small fish of the size of a smelt, using very fine lines and small delicately made hooks of mother-of-pearl.

During our stay at the island of Simbo or Eddystone, one of the princ.i.p.al articles of exchange between the natives and ourselves was a somewhat clumsy kind of fish-hook used for catching large fish. The shank is of pearl-sh.e.l.l cut in the shape of the body of a small fish, 2 to 2 inches long, and rather less than half an inch wide. The hook itself, which is dest.i.tute of barbs and is made of tortoise-sh.e.l.l, is bound by strong twine to the tail-end of the shank. Considerable labour must be expended in making one of these hooks: but so eager were the natives for tobacco, that we were able to obtain them for small pieces of this article which could not have been worth more than half a farthing. It is worthy of note that in the island of Treasury, about 80 miles to the north-west, these hooks are not made by the natives, who were anxious to obtain from us those which we had brought from Simbo.

Very similar, though larger, hooks are used by the natives of other Pacific groups; amongst them I may refer to those employed by the Society Islanders[145] for catching dolphins, albicores, and bonitos.

These hooks, wherever they are used, as I need scarcely add, answer the purpose of both hook and bait. The fish-hooks of European manufacture, which are one of the articles used in trading with the natives, are in demand in many islands, though not in all. In some islands, in fact, the native fish-hook is preferred.

[145] Ellis's "Polynesian Researches," vol. I. p. 146.

The various ingenious methods of ensnaring and decoying fish, which are employed by the natives of this archipelago, would alone afford, to a true enthusiast in the sport of fis.h.i.+ng, materials for a small volume. A plan which I saw employed at Ugi consisted in tying a living fish to the end of a bamboo float and using it as a decoy for other fish. The fisherman repairs to the reef when it is covered by a depth of between 2 and 3 feet of water. Placing the fish and bamboo float in the water, he follows them up either in his canoe or on foot. The fish swims along, drawing the bamboo float after it: it soon decoys some other fish from its retreat, when the fisherman watches his opportunity and catches his fish in a hand-net which he carries with him.

A singular mode of fis.h.i.+ng, which Mr. Stephens of Ugi described to me as being sometimes employed in that part of the group, may be here alluded to. A rock, where fish resort, which lies 3 or 4 feet below the surface, is first selected. On the surface of the water is placed a ring of some supple stem so as to include within its circ.u.mference the rock beneath.

No fish on the rock will pa.s.s under this ring, which is gradually contracted in size until the fish become crowded together, when they are scooped up with a hand-net.

The following ingenious snare was employed on one occasion by my natives in Treasury, when I was anxious to obtain for Dr. Gunther some small fish that frequented one of the streams on the north side of the island.

I was very desirous to have some of these fish, and my natives were equally anxious to display their ingenuity in catching them. They first bent a pliant switch into an oval hoop, about a foot in length, over which they spread a covering of a stout spider-web which was found in the wood hard by. Having placed this hoop on the surface of the water, buoying it up on two light sticks, they shook over it a portion of a nest of ants, which formed a large kind of tumour on the trunk of a neighbouring tree, thus covering the web with a number of the struggling young insects. This snare was then allowed to float down the stream, when the little fish, which were between 2 and 3 inches long, commenced jumping up at the white bodies of the ants from underneath the hoop, apparently not seeing the intervening web on which they lay, as it appeared nearly transparent in the water. In a short time one of the small fish succeeded in getting its snout and gills entangled in the web, when a native at once waded in, and placing his hand under the entangled fish secured the prize. With two of these web-hoops we caught nine or ten of these little fish in a quarter of an hour.

As in other Pacific groups, the natives sometimes catch fish by throwing small bits of some poisonous fruit on the water, when in a short time the fish rise dead to the surface. The crushed kernels of the fruits of the common littoral _Barringtonia_ (_B. speciosa_) are thus employed by the natives. I tried them on one occasion in a fresh-water lake in Stirling Island, which abounded with fish, but after the lapse of two or three hours, no dead fish appeared at the surface.

The use of dynamite for destroying fish, by white men in the group, has led to its occasional employment for a similar purpose by the natives, whenever white men have been thoughtless enough to give them this substance. In August, 1882, I visited a village in the Bauro district on the north coast of St. Christoval, which had lost its chief, a few days before, from an injury to the hand, resulting from an accidental explosion of dynamite whilst fis.h.i.+ng. Such occurrences must not be uncommon in these and other islands. In the previous April, we met with a native teacher at Mboli Harbour who had lost one of his hands from a similar cause.[146] At the end of May, 1884, I removed the left hand of Captain Smith, the master of the labour-schooner "Lavina," who had received a very serious injury of the hand whilst fis.h.i.+ng with dynamite on the coast of Malaita. Some of the fresh-water fish which I sent to Dr. Gunther were obtained in this way through the kindness of Mr.

Curzon-Howe, the Government agent of the "Lavina;" and as I witnessed the operation, I am in a position to p.r.o.nounce on the hazardous nature of the mode in which the dynamite was employed..... With reference to the natives, there are two very obvious reasons why this explosive substance should not be permitted to get into their hands, even if we disregard the hazard that would attend its use. In the first place, they might employ it against white men and against their fellows; and in the next place, its employment for obtaining fish would tend to encourage the already too indolent habits of these islanders.

[146] Since writing the above, I have learned from my friend, Dr.

Luther, late of H.M.S. "Dart," that he had to amputate on two occasions in the cases of natives who had sustained severe injuries of the hand whilst fis.h.i.+ng with dynamite.

I pa.s.s on now to the subject of pig-hunting in these islands. Wild pigs occurred in most, if not all, of the islands which we visited. I was frequently warned by the natives, when undertaking a solitary excursion, to look out for the boars, who attain a ferocity which, on account of their powerful curved tusks, it would be dangerous to provoke unarmed.

On more than one occasion when alone, I came unexpectedly in the bush on one of these boars, who are in appearance by no means despicable antagonists. When they stand their ground, it is necessary to be prepared for their onset; but as a rule they only indicate their presence by the noise which they make when scampering away. In the islands of Bougainville Straits, where there are numerous plantations of sago palms, the wild pigs are very fond of the fruit of this palm before the alb.u.men of the seed attains its stony hardness. They often select as their retreats the hollow trunks of the palms which have been felled and emptied of the sago. Their habit of frequenting the plantations of sago palms, and of feasting on the remains of the palms that have been lately cut down and the pith removed, was observed by Captain Thomas Forrest in the island of Gilolo, in the Indian Archipelago.[147] On the approach of any special occasion of feasting, pig-hunting becomes a necessary sport with the natives; but in addition, they frequently take to it for the sake of replenis.h.i.+ng their larders. With his spear and a couple of dogs, a man is usually successful in getting his pig. The dogs bring the animal to bay, when he is speared by the hunter, who, if alone, at once sets to work to quarter and roast his quarry, and thus considerably lightens the weight he has to carry back. During my excursions, my natives used to frequently leave me when their dogs had roused a pig in the bush; and on one occasion, when, much to my indignation, they had been absent for an hour, they came back triumphantly with two large boars. Captain Forrest, in his account of his voyage to New Guinea, gives an ill.u.s.tration of "Papua men in their canoes hunting wild hogs"[148] off the island of Morty, near the large island of Gilolo.

These men are represented with the spear, bow, and arrow, and a dog.

Such a method of hunting pigs never came under my notice in the Solomon Islands and must necessarily be rarely employed.

[147] "A Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas." London, 1779 (p.

39).

[148] Ibid., Plate XI. of book of plates.

Wild dogs are numerous in the bush in the interior of Alu. They never attack the natives or the pigs and, as they always slink away when alarmed, they are not often seen. They subsist on the opossums (_Cuscus_), waiting to catch them at the foot of the trunks of the trees as they descend to the ground at nightfall. When I was away on an excursion with Gorai the Alu chief, the native dogs that were with us ran down a wild dog and worried it to death. I came in at the death, and was not very much pleased with the spectacle which afforded much amus.e.m.e.nt to Gorai and his men. The unfortunate dog was apparently of the native breed. How these animals have come to prefer this mode of life I could not learn.