CHAPTER VIIIGOOD-BYE TO NAGAPATE
The Euphrosyne, with the British Commissioner aboard, was about two weeks overdue and we were growing impatient to be off. It was not the Euphrosyne, however, but the queerest vessel I have ever seen, that anchored off Vao, one night at midnight. She was about the size of a large schooner and nearly as wide in the beam as she was long. She had auxiliary sails, schooner-rigged. Her engine burned wood. And her name—as we discovered later—was Amour. Queer as she was, she was a Godsend to us, marooned on Vao. We went out in a canoe and found, to our surprise, that the commander and owner was Captain Moran, whom we had met in the Solomons two years before. We asked him where he was bound for. He said that he had no particular destination; he was out to get copra wherever he could get it. I proposed that he turn over his ship to us at a daily rental, so that we could continue our search for signs of cannibalism among the tribes of Malekula. He assented readily. Osa and I were delighted, for we knew that there wasn’t a better skipperthan Captain Moran in the South Seas. Both he and his brother, who acted as engineer, were born in the islands and had spent their lives in wandering from one group to another. They knew the treacherous channels as well as any whites in those waters, and they knew the natives, too, from long experience as traders.
The next morning, while the crew of the schooner were cutting wood for fuel, we packed our supplies on board the Amour. When all was ready, we pulled up anchor, set the sails, and started the engine. After a few grunts, the propeller began to turn, and we were on our way.
Her ungainly shape served to make the Amour seaworthy, but it did not conduce to speed. We wheezed along at a rate of three knots an hour. Though we left Vao at dawn, it was nearly dark when we again reached Tanemarou Bay, the “seaport” of the Big Numbers territory. There was no one on the beach, but we discharged a stick of dynamite and rolled ourselves in our blankets, sure that there would be plenty of natives on hand to greet us next morning.
We slept soundly, in spite of the pigs that roamed the deck, and were awakened at daylight by cries.About a hundred savages had gathered on the beach. We lost no time in landing, but to our disappointment, Nagapate had not come down to greet us. Only Velle-Velle, the prime minister, was on hand, I and he was in a difficult mood. He gave me to understand that I had slighted him, on my previous visit, in my distribution of presents. I soon averted his displeasure with plenty of tobacco and the strangest and most wonderful plaything he had ever had—a football. It was a sight for sore eyes to see that dignified old savage, who ordinarily was as pompous as any Western prime minister, kicking his football about the beach.
At about ten o’clock, I took a few boys and went inland to get some pictures. Osa wanted to accompany me, but I set my foot down on it. I knew there was no danger for myself, but I felt that Nagapate’s interest in her made it unsafe for her to venture. I went to the top of a hill a few miles back, where I made some fine pictures of the surrounding country, and was lucky enough to get a group of savages coming over the ridge of another hill about half a mile away. My guides became panicky when they saw the newcomers, and insisted that we return to the beach at once, but I held firm until the last savageon the opposite hill had been lost to sight in the jungle. Then with enough film to justify my morning’s climb, I returned to the beach.
On the following morning, Nagapate made his appearance, and told me, through Atree, that he had brought his wives to see Osa. I sent the boat to the schooner for her, but when she appeared, Nagapate said that his wives could not come to the beach and that Osa, accordingly, must go inland as far as the first river to meet them. I did not like the idea, but decided that no possible harm could come to her if the armed crew of the Amour and Captain Moran and I accompanied her. It turned out that my distrust of Nagapate was again unjustified. We found the wives waiting at the designated spot with sugar-cane and yams and a nice, new Big Numbers dress for Osa. They had not come to the beach because the newest wife was not permitted to look at the sea for a certain time after marriage—which seemed to me to carry the taboo on water a bit too far.
Osa was pleased to add the Big Numbers dress to her collection of strange things from Melanesia. And indeed it was quite a gift. For in spite of their apparent simplicity, the making and dyeing of the pandanus garments is a complicated process. Sincethe grass will not take the dye if it is the least green, it has to be dried and washed and dried again. When it is thoroughly bleached, it is dyed deep purple.
After Osa in turn had presented the wives with salmon and sea-biscuits (which I afterward saw Nagapate and his men devouring) and strings of bright-colored beads, Nagapate agreed to get his men to dance for me, if I would come to his village. I did not relish the idea of the long trip into the hills, but I wanted the picture. Osa returned to the schooner, and Captain Moran and I, with five boys, went inland. We made the village in four hours. When we arrived, I was ready to drop with exhaustion, and lay down on the ground for half an hour to recover. Savages squatted about me and watched me while I rested, then crowded about me while I got my cameras ready for action. Nagapate sent out for the men to come to the clearing, and they straggled in, sullen and cranky. They did not want to dance, but Nagapate’s word was law. At his command, a few men went to the great boo-boos and beat out a weird rhythm that seemed to me to express the very essence of cannibalism. At first the savages danced in a half-hearted fashion, but gradually they warmed up. Soon they were doing a barbaric dance betterthan any I had ever seen. They marched quickly and in perfect time around the boo-boos. Then they stopped suddenly, with a great shout, stood for a moment marking time with their feet, marched on again and stopped again, and so on, the march becoming faster and faster and the shouting wilder and more continuous, until at last the dancers had to stop from sheer exhaustion.
I got a fine picture, well worth the long trip up the mountains, but it was very late before we got started beachward, accompanied by Nagapate and a number of his men. We went down the slippery trail as fast as we could go. I should have been afraid, in my first days in the islands, that the boys might fall with my cameras if we went at such a rate, but by now I had found that they were as sure-footed as mountain sheep. They carried my heavy equipment as if it had been bags of feathers and handled it much more carefully than I should have been able to.
In spite of our haste, it grew dark before we reached the beach. The boys cut dead bamboo for torches and in the uncertain light they gave, we stumbled along. When we were within about a quarter of a mile from the sea, we fired a volley to let Osa know that we were coming. To our surprise, whenwe came out on the beach, we were greeted by Osa and Engineer Moran and the remainder of the crew of the Amour, all armed to the teeth. Osa was crying. It was the first time I had ever known her to resort to tears in the face of danger. But when she learned that we were all there and safe, and that the volley had been a signal of our approach and not an indication that we had been attacked, her tears dried and she scolded me roundly for having frightened her.
I went to the boat and got a crate of biscuits and a small bag of rice and took them back to Nagapate for a feast for him and his men. Then I said good-bye. I believe that the old cannibal was really sorry to see us go—and not only for the sake of the presents we had given him. Some day I am going back to see him once more.