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
About once in a quarter of an hour a man would come to bring a tusked
pig to the chief, who danced a few times round the animal, stamped his
heel on the ground, uttered certain words, and retired with short,
stiff steps, shaking his head, into the gamal. The morning was over
by the time all the pigs were ready. I spent most of the time out of
doors, rather than in the gamal, for there many of the dancers of the
evening lay in all directions and in most uncomfortable positions,
beside and across each other, snoring, shivering or staring sulkily
into dark corners. I was offered a log to sit on, and it might have
been quite acceptable had not one old man, trembling with cold,
pressed closely against me to get warm, and then, half asleep,
attempted to lay his shaggy, oil-soaked head on my shoulder, while
legions of starved fleas attacked my limbs, forcing me to beat a
hasty though belated retreat.
In the afternoon about sixty pigs were tied to poles in front of
the gamal, and the chief took an old gun-barrel and smashed their
heads. They represented a value of about six hundred pounds! Dogs
and men approached the quivering victims, the dogs to lick the blood
that ran out of their mouths, the men to carry the corpses away for
the feast. This was the prosaic end of the great "sing-sing."
As it is not always easy to borrow the number of pigs necessary to rise
in caste, there are charms which are supposed to help in obtaining
them. Generally, these are curiously shaped stones, sometimes carved
in the shape of a pig, and are carried in the hand or in little baskets
in the belt. Such charms are, naturally, very valuable, and are handed
down for generations or bought for large sums. On this occasion the
"big fellow-master" had sacrificed enough to attain a very high caste
indeed, and had every reason to hold up his head with great pride.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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