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
tiresome march, up and down through thick bush on slippery clay,
quite willingly. In the evening we reached a few huts in a clearing
at a height of about 1200 feet, and went into camp for the night.
While cooking, we heard dismal howling and weeping from a neighbouring
hut; it was a woman mourning her husband, who had been dead ninety-nine
days. To-morrow, on the hundredth day, there was to be a death-feast,
to which all the neighbours were invited. Of course, this man, too,
had been poisoned.
The fire of revolt was smouldering in my boys. They sat round
the camp-fire in groups, whispering and plotting, grumbling and
undecided; but I felt safe enough, as they were evidently divided
into two parties, one faithful and the other mutinous, and the former
seemed rather more influential. They proved their goodwill to me by
delightful servility, and took excellent care of me.
Next morning we were wakened by the howls of the unhappy widow,
and soon the guests appeared, some from far off, and all bringing
contributions to the feast. They killed several pigs, and while
the men cut them up in a manner rather more clever than appetizing,
the women prepared the fires by lighting large quantities of wood
to heat the cooking-stones. This lasted several hours. Meanwhile,
every person present received his share of a half-rotten smoked pig,
of the freshly killed pigs, yam, taro and sweet potatoes. The women
took the entrails of the pigs, squeezed them out, rolled them up in
banana leaves, and made them ready for cooking. When the fire was
burnt down they took out half of the stones with forks of split
bamboo, and then piled up the food in the hole, first the fruit,
then the meat, so that the grease should run over the fruit; then the
hole was covered with banana leaves, the hot stones piled on top and
covered with more leaves. Food cooked in this way is done in three or
four hours, so that the "stoves" are usually opened in the afternoon,
and enormous quantities eaten on the spot, while the rest is put in
baskets to take home. The amount a native can eat at one sitting
is tremendous, and one can actually watch their stomachs swell as
the meal proceeds. Violent indigestion is generally the consequence
of such a feast. On the whole, no one seemed to be thinking much of
the dead man in whose honour it was given,--such things are said to
happen in civilized countries as well.
I stayed in this village for another day, and many chiefs from the
neighbourhood came to consult me, always complaining of the one
thing--poison. Each secretly accused the others, each wanted me to
try my glass on all the others. I did not like my reputation of being
a magician at all, as it made the people still more suspicious of me
and more afraid of my instruments and my camera.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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