Two Years with the Natives in the Western PacificSpeiser, Felix
History
Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific
Speiser, Felix
Ethnology -- Vanuatu; Vanuatu -- Description and travel
The houses on Tanna are poor huts of reed-grass, probably because the
perpetual wars discouraged the people from building good dwellings. The
principal weapons are the spear and club, the arrow, as elsewhere
in Polynesia, playing a subordinate part. A weapon which is probably
peculiar to Tanna are throwing-stones, carefully made stone cylinders,
which were hurled in battle. If a man had not time to procure one of
these granite cylinders, a branch of coral or a slab of stone, hewn
into serviceable shape, would serve his turn; and these instruments
are not very different from our oldest prehistoric stone implements.
Quite a Polynesian art is the manufacture of tapa: bark cloth. The
Tannese do not know how to make large pieces, but are satisfied with
narrow strips, used as belts by the men, and prettily painted in
black and red.
The dress of the men is similar to that of Malekula, that of the
women consists of an apron of grass and straw; and they often wear
a hat of banana leaves, while the men affect a very complicated
coiffure. The hair is divided into strands, each of which is wound
with a fibre from the head out. A man may have several hundred of
these ropes on his head all tied together behind, giving a somewhat
womanish appearance. It takes a long time to dress the hair thus,
and the custom is falling into disuse.
On the whole, the culture of the Tannese is low; there is no braiding
or carving, and the ornaments worn consist only of a few bracelets
and necklaces, with an occasional nose-stick; the only conspicuous
feature are ear-rings of tortoise-shell, of which as many as a dozen
may hang in one ear.
On the other side of Tanna is Lenakel, where the Rev. W. was working
with admirable devotion and success in a hospital. I crossed the
island several times, and enjoyed the delightful rides through the
shady forest, on very good bridle-paths the natives had made.
Tanna's most striking sight is its volcano; there is hardly another
in the world so easily accessible; for in half an hour from the
shore its foot may be reached, and in another half-hour one is at
the top. It is about 260 m. high, a miniature volcano, with all its
accessories complete, hot springs, lake, desert, etc., always active,
rarely destructive, looking like an overgrown molehill. A wide plain
stretches inland, utterly deserted owing to the poisonous vapours
always carried across it by the south-east trade-wind, and in the
centre of the plain is a sweet-water lake.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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