The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea CannibalsPaton, John Gibson
Religion
The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals
Paton, John Gibson
Missions -- Vanuatu; Paton, John Gibson, 1824-1907
Nelwang knew our customs. Every worshiper has to be seated, when our
Church bell ceases ringing. Aniwans would be ashamed to enter after the
Service had actually begun. As the bell ceased, Nelwang, knowing that he
would have a clear course, marched in, dressed in shirt and kilt, but
grasping very determinedly his tomahawk! He sat down as near to me as he
could conveniently get, trying hard to conceal his manifest agitation.
Silently smiling towards me, he then turned and looked eagerly at the
other door through which the women entered and left the Church, as if to
say, "Yakin is coming!" But his tomahawk was poised ominously on his
shoulder, and his courage gave him a defiant and almost impudent air. He
was evidently quite ready to sell his life at a high price, if any one
was prepared to risk the consequences.
In a few seconds Yakin entered; and if Nelwang's bearing and appearance
were rather inconsistent with the feeling of worship,--what on earth was
I to do when the figure and costume of Yakin began to reveal itself
marching in? The first visible difference betwixt a Heathen and a
Christian is,--that the Christian wears some clothing, the Heathen wears
none. Yakin had determined to show the extent of her Christianity by the
amount of clothing she could carry upon her person. Being a Chief's
widow before she became Nelwang's bride, she had some idea of state
occasions, and appeared dressed in every article of European apparel,
mostly portions of male attire, that she could beg or borrow from about
the premises! Her bridal gown was a man's drab-colored great-coat, put
on above her Native grass skirts, and sweeping down to her heels,
buttoned tight. Over this she had hung on a vest, and above that again,
most amazing of all, she had superinduced a pair of men's trousers,
planting the body of them on her neck and shoulders, and leaving her
head and face looking out from between the legs--a leg from either side
streaming over her bosom arid dangling down absurdly in front! Fastened
to the one shoulder also there was a red shirt, and to the other a
striped shirt, waving about her like wings as she sailed along. Around
her head a red shirt had been twisted like a turban, and her notions of
art demanded that a sleeve thereof should hang aloft over each of her
ears! She seemed to be a moving monster loaded with a mass of rags. The
day was excessively hot, and the perspiration poured over her face in
streams. She, too, sat as near to me as she could get on the women's
side of the Church. Nelwang looked at me and then at her, smiling
quietly, as if to say, "You never saw, in all your white world, a bride
so grandly dressed!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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