Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

We all like to know what has happened recently, or what will probably take place in the immediate future, and so we read the daily paper to learn the news. Savages, after all, are not very different in many ways from ourselves, and they, too, want to know what is going on. Although our Murray Island friends had no written language, and consequently could have no newspapers, they managed to invent a system for finding out about things which appeared to answer their purpose admirably—at all events they were very proud of it. The cynical might hazard a suggestion that the news imparted by the Murray Island oracle was not appreciably more fallible than that which appears in many of our newspapers.

I discovered the old Murray Island oracle ten years ago, and being anxious to renew my acquaintance with Tomog Zogo, as it is called, we went to have a look at it; but we found it dreadfully overgrown with vegetation. I grubbed about for some time, but gave it up as hopeless till we had some help; so we went on to visit some other relics of the past. As we were going through the bush to see a garden zogo stone that had “come by itself” from Erub, thirty miles off, we came across a party of men who had been collecting wood to burn the lime for the new church. They were having a “spell” and eating in groups; then some of them began to dance the Rotumah dance that they so often practised, and which they intended to perform on the occasion of opening of the new church at Erub. It was pleasingly unexpected to come suddenly upon a convivial group of twenty to thirty men. We chatted, joked, and passed on.

Next morning I sent the sergeant, Jimmy Dei, and some policemen to cut away the bamboos and undergrowth that obstructed Tomog Zogo, and Ray and I spent a long afternoon in mapping it. We placed two long bamboos east and west along each side of the large group of stones that constitute the zogo. Then we tied taut strings across from the one to the other bamboo at intervals of two feet. Next we marked on a sheet of squared paper the positions of the bamboos and strings, each square of the paper representing six square inches on the ground; there were thus four squares between each two lines of string on the paper. Ray measured the distance of every stone from the nearest bamboo and string, and thus I was able to put down each stone on paper with a very fair degree of accuracy.

The following afternoon we all went to the zogo; Bruce came too. Strangely enough he had not previously seen or heard of this zogo. We had with us the Mamoose, Enocha, Jimmy Dei, Ulai, and Kaige, all of whom belonged to the zogo. We learnt the names of the stones, and then at our request the zogo men placed themselves in the right position and attitude for consulting the zogo, and then they were photographed. It was very suggestive to see the reverent affection the old men had for the zogo, and they seemed gratified at the care with which it had been cleaned and mapped.

This famous zogo consists of a collection of stones, on each of which was formerly placed a large shell, usually a great Fusus or a helmet-shell; each stone, with its shell, represented a village or a district of the island. A little way off was a single stone and shell that stood for the whole island. Divination was accomplished by the voices and movements of birds, lizards, insects, or the appearance of natural objects. Anything that happened to the separate stone and shell concerned all the inhabitants of the island; but anything that happened to one of the grouped stones and shells related only to the man or men who live in the house or district represented by that particular stone and shell. There was thus a means for both analysis and synthesis.

At the eastern end of the group of stones were a large number of giant-clam shells; many were concentrically arranged, and formerly there were more of them, the smaller within the larger, so that the whole must have looked like a huge white rosette, and safely ensconced in the centre was a small star-shaped stone, the zogo itself; the concentric clam shells formed the “house of the zogo”. In other words, the small stone was the oracle, the clam shells were its shrine. Tomog Zogo acted as The Police News, The Hue and Cry, and a morning newspaper, with a little prophesying thrown in.

A very limited number of men belonged to this zogo, and they consulted it only at daybreak, “small fellow daylight.” Those who came to inquire of the oracle would stand up in a particular spot and say, “Tomog Zogo, you know everything, tell us the truth.” After they had asked the definite question for which they required an answer, they sat down on some leaves, with their legs crossed under them, with their closed fists on their knees.

It is a fixed belief amongst most savage peoples that no one gets ill or even dies from natural causes, but that all these misfortunes are due to magic, and it is necessary to find out who perpetrated this evil. Supposing, for example, someone in the island was sick, the friends of the invalid would approach the men who belonged to Tomog Zogo, and would ask them to find out who had brought this misfortune on their friend. Next morning the zogo men would start before sunrise, and would ask the zogo, “Who made So-and-so sick? where does he live?”

Then the inquirers would sit down in a row and wait. By-and-by a lizard might come out of one of the shells; this would indicate the house where the man lived, and later, by means of careful inquiries in the village, they would try to discover who he was. When they had satisfied themselves, they would tell him to take his sorcery stone and to put it in the sea. As the stone was cooled by the water, so the patient would recover from his illness. Whether the man had made sorcery or not, he would always own to it and do as he was told, partly to save trouble and partly because he was pleased to have the reputation of being able to perform this kind of magic.

The Tomog Zogo was also consulted if a man was very ill, in order to find out whether he would recover. If a dead lizard was seen, he would be expected to die, and it is pretty certain he would do so.

It was the custom to attend the zogo every morning to discover if anything was going to happen. If a spider’s web was seen hanging on the bushes, it would foretell the appearance of a white man’s ship coming from the direction in which the web was hanging.

The appearance of a certain wild fowl would foretell the approach of a canoe from that particular quarter whence the fowl emerged from the bush, and its behaviour would indicate how soon the canoe might be expected.

If a red spot was seen on a leaf it would mean a fight, and its position would show whence the danger would come.

When an evil-smelling fungus sprung up within the area of stones there would be a famine, or a scarcity of yams.

Should a stream of ants come from the bush to the northward of the zogo, the diviners would expect a visit from the natives of the mainland of New Guinea, and if the ants carried their cocoons (the so-called “ants’ eggs”) in their mouths, it would mean that the men would bring some sago with them.

If there was no “news,” nothing would happen.

Supposing the zogo was consulted for a definite purpose and no answer was vouchsafed. The men would sit watching patiently till the sun was high, then they would consult together, and probably would agree that the silence indicated a “big sick,” and that some sickness or epidemic was in store for the island.

As an illustration of the power of Tomog Zogo I was told the following story:—

The first missionaries to this island were Mataika and his wife; they had been brought from Lifu, in the Loyalty Islands, to Erub in 1872. Towards the end of that year, in a canoe of his own making, Mataika crossed from Darnley to convert the Murray Islanders. After Mataika had been there for some time, he wanted fresh stores, and so he went to the headquarters of the Mission, which were then at Somerset, Cape York.

Mataika was away such a long time that his wife became very anxious, and feared that he was dead. Being unable to bear the suspense any longer, she spoke to Obra, the father of Kaige the policeman, and said, “Very good; you go to your zogo, and ask him where Mataika he stop. I think him dead.” He said, “All right; to-morrow small daylight I go.”

On consulting Tomog Zogo at daybreak next morning, Obra could not see anything happen in the clearing in the direction of Somerset. After some time two kead birds came out from the bush which lay in the direction of Erub and looked at Obra, and immediately they disappeared.

Obra came back and said to the anxious wife, “Mataika, he leave Somerset long time ago; he go to Erub; close up he come.” Next morning Obra went up the hill Gelam, and espied a canoe coming from Erub. He told Mataika’s wife that her husband was on board, and sure enough he was, with one other man and three boys.

On his arrival Mataika was informed what had been done, and he told the natives to burn and break up all their other zogos, charms, and images. “They all devil-devil; but good thing you keep Tomog Zogo; he speak true. Ah! he all right; all same dream.”

I never heard whether this oracle was ever consulted again; at all events, Tomog Zogo has shared the fate of all the other zogos, and it is now broken and partially destroyed.

When one remembers how many civilised nations have believed in and consulted oracles, one need not be surprised if these people were reluctant to give up their old sacred places. The wonder is that they have so readily embraced the new faith and the new ideas.

The Mamoose promised to give us a private rehearsal of Tomog Zogo the next morning at daybreak. I was up in time, but he did not come. I had a little talk with him later in the day, and the following morning he arrived, and one or two of us went just before sunrise in the “old-time fashion.” We told the Mamoose we were anxious for the speedy arrival of the Mission vessel, the Nieue, and wanted to know when she was coming. We heard some birds twittering in the bushes, which Mamoose gravely assured us meant a boat was approaching. After sitting a long time on dew-bespangled dead leaves, we retired. The chief point of interest to me was the fact that the steady-going old chief, who had long been a deacon of the church, was still a believer in this famous zogo to which he and his ancestors belonged, and whilst he was sitting motionless in the old spot and intently gazing at the zogo and listening for the message from the birds, the church bell was ringing summoning the people to the early morning prayer-meeting.

Later in the day George Rotumah’s lugger came in and brought us a mail, so the birds had not twittered in vain.

On the opposite side of Murray Island from the Mission Station is the village of Las, perhaps the largest and most important village in the island in former times. As it was the main centre of the ancient Malu ceremonies, I thought it would be well for me to stay there for a day or two. So in the afternoon of Wednesday, May 18th, Rivers and I walked over along the new road, made by prison labour, that skirts the greater part of the island. Rivers went with me, as he wanted to see if it would be practicable to take some psychological apparatus over there to test those people who would not, or could not, come across to us.

We had a pleasant walk. The faithful Pasi accompanied us, as did Gadodo, Pasi’s cousin and our host. We found Gadodo had a large grass house of the now usual South Sea type—that is, oblong, with one doorway and no other opening. In the interior, along the end walls, were bamboo stagings, about three to four feet from the ground, which served as beds. All the houses of the eastern tribe of Torres Straits (i.e. Uga, Erub, and the Murray Islands) were formerly circular and quite small. There is only one beehive house remaining in Murray Island. After we had dumped our swag, or, as some people would say, after we had deposited our luggage in the house, we had the usual drink of coconut water, and squatted on a mat by Mrs. Gadodo’s side to have a chat. Then we had a walk along the sand beach. Our dinner consisted of a plate of boiled sweet potatoes, bananas, and pumpkin, all mixed up together, with a coconut for drink.

After the evening meal we sat on mats by the light of lamps in the village inclosure, and yarned and played “cat’s cradle.” Soon the bell sounded for prayers, and Enocha came with his service-book, and several others gathered together. Pasi started the hymn, read the lesson, and prayed, of course, all in Murray Island language.

Very soon after this the small boys arranged themselves round some branched posts which had been planted in the sand so as to inclose an oval space, and clamoured out for tamar. Tamar is a sort of market that was introduced here by Loyalty Islanders from Lifu and Mare, and which appears now to be firmly established, though its popularity waxes and wanes from time to time. I heard of it ten years before, but never witnessed it, so I was very pleased at the present opportunity.

A crowd soon collected, made up chiefly of children, and a fire was lit in the centre of the area. We sat apart, as this was our first appearance at a tamar. There was a great deal of noise and fun going on. The game is as follows. The players bring firewood (i.e. coconut-palm leaves and other fuel) and food; the “master” (of ceremonies) goes round the circle, standing in front of each player in turn. The latter holds up the object he has brought, saying, “Tamar,” and mentions what he holds up. The “master” asks, “Where did you get this?” And a reply is made which is supposed to be a true answer, but as a laugh often followed, I suspect some humbugging went on. This took some time. Then a prayer was made!—why, I don’t know; it seemed very comical in a game—and then “New man, new man!” was shouted out, and Pasi, Rivers, and I went into a circle near the fire, and a small mat was placed there too. Several brought us coconuts as a present, which were placed on the mat. Then the “master” pointed a glowing fire-stick at me, and said words to this effect: “You see this fire-stick; you go home and look after wife belong you. If you do not bring firewood and food next time, you will be thrown into the sea.” The tamar concluded after Rivers had been similarly introduced, and Rivers and I very shortly turned in, as we were very tired; but Pasi stayed up, as he wanted to hear the small boys practise their songs!

We were up early next morning, and got the local legend of the disreputable Iruam from Pasi and Gadodo. Soon after an early breakfast of wild sweet potatoes and green coconuts, and an attendance at morning prayers, I took my camera and notebook, and went along the beach to pick up some information of which I had previously gained clues.

Soon after starting I heard about an ancient fighting custom associated with Ziriam Zogo, at a place called Meket. There was a turtle-shell mask, which no woman was allowed to see, that was kept in a hole in the rock. I asked Pasi to sketch the mask for me in the sand; then I asked another man to do so. Of course I did not let either look at the other man’s representation until they had finished. As I found they differed, I made further inquiries, and found that an old man named Wano, who lived closed by, knew all about the ceremony; so he was fetched, and he drew a diagram on the sand. By dint of much questioning and pantomimic action, I found out something about the ceremony and the character of the mask. This consisted of a turtle-shell face, with pearl-shell eyes surmounted by a turtle-shell crescent about three feet across, decorated on each horn with a black-tipped feather of the white Torres Straits pigeon and two seed rattles. Attached to the chin of the mask was a rope about six feet long, to which a large number of human lower jawbones were tied. Before I left Murray Island Wano made a rough wooden model of the mask for me.

After a fight a number of men would come here with bows and arrows and clubs, especially with the former. The men formed a circle and danced with appropriate shooting gestures; two men painted red and wearing dance-petticoats danced in crouching attitudes in the centre, and all sang a weird song. One of the central dancers would wear the mask and would carry in his right hand a club, and in his left a bleeding, decapitated human head. The other man supported the rope of human jawbones.

At the back of my old friend Mamai’s house at Warwe was a shrine of stones and shells, on which were two stones called Zabarker. Zabarker was formerly a woman who came from New Guinea, and Mamai told me her short, but not very edifying story. She is now a somewhat pyramidal black stone resting on a saucer-shaped stone of granite, which represents her canoe. The upper stone is a piece of the local lava, but the granite occurs only in the western islands, some hundred and twenty miles or more away, or in the hill of Mabudauan, in New Guinea, also about the same distance from Murray Island. I now find there are quite a number of these foreign stones in the island, which evidently point to some forgotten migration from, or former intercourse with, the western islands.

A little further along the coast is the ancient and efficacious Wag Zogo, at the small cape called Tur Pit. In a sandy-bottomed recess in a block of lava on the foreshore lie an oval and a spherical granitic boulder, named respectively Neiu and Sager. Some four or five men used to take a number of plants called geribe and coconut leaves, which they pointed repeatedly at the stones, and “a big wind” would immediately come from the south-east. As long as the leaves remained there, so long would the wind continue. Here again we find foreign stones, which I was informed came from New Guinea. I asked if they could make a south-east wind during the north-west monsoon, but I was informed that the ceremony could only be done during the south-east season. In this, as in other cases, I found that the impossible was never attempted. A rain charm would not be made when there was no expectation of rain coming, or a south-east wind raised during the wrong season.

The sun beat fiercely on the sand beach, and the heat and glare, combined with the talking and excitement, tired us much, so we went back to Las and lay down for an hour or two in the cool, dark house. After another meal of boiled yams and a coconut drink, I went along the shore in the opposite direction and photographed an oblong stone on the beach, that was once a man named Iruam, who deservedly came to a bad end.

An old dancing-ground, Dam, associated with the Malu ceremonies, was next visited. It was situated to the north-east of Las in the bush, a few yards from the beach. This was overgrown by vegetation, so we set to work and cleared it. A quadrangular area of shells, mostly the large Fusus, amongst which were five stones, was laid bare. This had a general N.N.W. to S.S.E. direction. At right angles to this group of shells was a series of stones, arranged like a fish-hook, extending for a distance of about fourteen feet. About fifteen feet to the south-east was another stone, Zugared. Three of the stones were foreign; all the remainder were, I believe, local stones—two of them were blocks of coral.

When this particular ceremony was carried on, a taboo was put for some distance on each side of the sand beach to warn off all unauthorised persons. The four officiating men mixed the ashes of a scented root with oil in a couple of shells; two of them held the shells while the other two anointed the initiates between the first two toes and on the knee and shoulder of the right side. Four men next held a large Fusus shell in each hand, the first two stood side by side, the second two crouched behind them, and a number of pairs of men crouched behind these; this double row formed up between Zugared and the other stones. On the opposite side of the island stones the kersi clung in fright round the three zogole, who stood close together.

Finally all went and jumped in the sea; after swimming about for a short time the kersi were rubbed with coconut oil and painted in a particular manner and given a pigeon’s feather to wear. The boys were shown the stones and told their names, and were informed that they were placed there by Malu. There can be little doubt that these stones formed a kind of map, or chart, for the instruction of the youths, and to impress upon them the wanderings of Malu on his voyage to Murray Island. I could not help recalling a parallel instance to this that occurred during my former visit to Murray Island, when the white missionary was instructing, by means of a map, the young native teachers in the three journeys of St. Paul.

We next went up the hill to Gazir, where, in a thicket of bamboos, the first of the Malu ceremonies was held. These ceremonies have already been dealt with. There is no doubt that if reliable information is to be obtained on sacred customs, one must go to the very spot where the ceremony took place in order to gain it, for not only does a right comprehension often depend on a knowledge of local conditions, but the place itself, by the association of ideas, recalls incidents to the narrator’s memory.

On our way back we met Seligmann, who had come across to join us. We had the usual meal of boiled yams and coconuts. Prayers were followed by another tamar, which was a little better than that of the night before. Pasi and I joined the circle, and Seligmann was left outside. When the “master” came round to me I showed a piece of firewood, which I threw into the fire, then I said “Tamar —” (the native name for the variety of cooked yam Pasi had given me; I have forgotten what it was). The “master” said, “Who gave it you?” and I said, “My wife in England cooked it for me,” at which there was a laugh. Then I held up a coconut Gadodo had given me, and lastly some tobacco, a piece of which I gave to the “master.” Thus I fulfilled the injunction laid upon me the previous night, and I was not ducked in the sea. When the round was finished a prayer was offered, and Seligmann was next admitted as Rivers and I previously had been. After this preliminary ceremony a sort of auction, or market, is supposed to take place; but these were very small tamars, and very little trading was done. Bruce tells me that at large tamars a great deal of buying and selling may occur, and good prices are often realised. As in some other matters, the natives overdo tamar, and rivalry in buying food results in the paralysing of ordinary routine daily work.

After tamar I persuaded Enocha and another man to sing to me. Both belonged to the zŭgareb, or “drum” clan, the members of which used formerly to beat the drum and sing the songs at the ceremonies; they were, in fact, the bards of the islands. One quite beautiful mournful couplet was a funeral dirge for a deceased Malu initiate.

Another Malu chant, which ran as follows—“O welwa, O lelelewar, O welwatamera, O gulabatamera, O wei—wei, wei—wei,” etc., sounded most pathetic, and led one to expect a suitable meaning; but the translation, so far as I could make out, is—“O feathers! O yams! O feathered stone-club! O dry banana leaf!”

We were then interrupted by a “play.” The people from our side of the island had come over to give a return performance, and with them had come Ontong, our cook. Two of the men had painted their faces a bright pale red, and one or two lads and lassies had only one side of the face so ruddled. They had but one song, the sole words of which were—

This was sung ad nauseam. Usually they sang it “You mussa be,” which sounded like “You mustn’t be.” To this song various tricks were performed, and the serious polka which I have already described was danced to a very simple tune. The tricks consisted of string puzzles, turning round under one’s arm, the hand of which was resting on a stick, and the following well-known riddle: “Add five to six and make nine.” Six strokes were made in the sand, and the spokesman said the village would belong to him if no one could guess it. He then came up to me, and in a loud whisper said it was not meant for me, and besought me not to disclose the answer. Of course I did not dream of giving the show away. No one gave the answer, which, of course, was the addition of five strokes to the others to make nine. I was not sure whether the hosts did not know the answer, or whether those who did were too polite to give it. There was also a sham boxing-match. I found afterwards the Las people did not think very much of the performance.

After refreshments most of the visitors returned to their homes, and we retired to bed.

I spent most of the next morning in photographing Dam and in completing my notes on the ceremony there performed. I also took a group of Gadodo and his friends, as well as some views of the village of Las. We rested in the middle of the day and got more information. Gadodo gave me some stone fire- and rain-charms. When I first went to Las I showed them some photos I had taken ten years before, and they were continually asking to see them again; I also showed one or two prints of zogos that I had recently photographed at Dauar; and the photos of my wife and children, which I always carry about with me, were, as usual, hailed with great enthusiasm.

DAUAR

It will be remembered that the neighbouring island of Dauar consists mainly of two hills. The geologist recognises in these parts of an ancient volcano, but the natives have a different opinion concerning their origin. Two women of Dauar, named Pepker and Ziaino, had a race in the making of mud-pies with the object of deciding who could make the largest heap. Ziaino was soon tired, and called out, “You no finish? I finish now.” And that is why Kebe Dauar is such a small hill. I will conclude the story in the words in which it was told to me. “Him (Pepker) he sing out, ‘I no finish now.’ Make him, make him, make him that hill. He finish, he sing out, ‘I finish now.’” Pepker is now a rude stone figure, nearly a foot in height, and at the present time, together with several other “Lot’s wife” stones, is in the collection at Cambridge.

We paid several visits to Dauar, but, not to be tedious, I will only describe one. We sailed across in the early morning with Pasi, Smoke and his wife, and one or two others. On landing we were met by Keriba, and after knocking down and eating a little wild fruit, which, by the way, was scarcely worth the effort, we sat in the welcome shade of some umbrageous trees close to the beach and listened to a couple of legends of local heroes told by Keriba. One related to an old man named Iriam Moris, whose appetite and capacity would be the envy of the most “aldermanic” of City fathers. On one occasion he ate four large shellfuls of small fish, an immense king-fish, which was really a metamorphosed lad named Geigi, and he finished off with the fish-trap, cooking-stones, firewood and ashes—in fact, all he could lay hands on; and in the terse jargon of that part of the world: “He kaikai (i.e. eat) so much, he can’t walk about; he lay like a stone. He say ‘I feel good now’”! Later Geigi’s mother killed Iriam Moris and resuscitated her son. During this narration we were sitting on a slightly convex rock that was all but covered with sand, but was none other than the “big belly” of Iriam Moris.

We walked through beautiful and luxuriant “scrub” and native gardens and visited a zogo in a garden in the saddle between the two hills. The whole of the low land of the island has been more or less cultivated, so there is no old jungle anywhere; but it is all the owners of the land can do to prevent the rampant vegetation from overrunning their gardens of yams and sweet potatoes or smothering the bananas. It requires a more facile pen than I can wield and a better knowledge of plants than I possess to adequately describe such scenes. As is usually the case in most of the uncultivated tropical districts I have seen, there were but few flowers, and these were of no special beauty; but this is partly made up for by the varied form and hue of the green foliage and by the bold contrasts of light and shade that result from vertical sunshine. The smooth broad leaves of the bananas above and of aroids below give the eye welcome “areas of repose” amid the multiplicity of detail and the unceasing struggle for mastery that almost oppresses one in tropical vegetation.

The zogo, which was one object of our walk, was called Ziai Neur, that is, “the girl of the south-west,” but why this was her name I could not discover. The zogo consisted of two images, male and female, roughly carved out of vesicular lava. When a man has a “bad sick” they take the fluid of a green coconut and wet the image with it, and the patient gets well. After Wilkin had photographed them, I tried to purchase them from a man named Billy who had been working in a garden close by, and came to see what we were about. Billy refused to part with them. Pasi quietly told me that as this garden belonged to Billy’s wife and not to him, I should deal with the lady directly, and consequently Billy had nothing to do with it. The next day Pasi communicated with her, and the woman was willing to let me have the zogo; but the man was obdurate, and they had a quarrel over it. Eventually I had to forego the transaction, as it did not answer my purpose to have any unfriendly feeling springing up with regard to ourselves or our work.

Most of the shrines we visited on this and other occasions looked at first sight like confused masses of shells and stones. The preliminary business was to cut down overhanging branches, creepers, and the undergrowth generally, then to clear away the dead leaves and other rubbish. When this was done a certain amount of order became apparent. Occasionally a few stones required to be placed upright, or broken ones put together. The best view for the photograph had to be carefully chosen, and further clearing of the foliage was generally necessary; sometimes branches of trees a little way off had to be lopped if they cast distracting shadows. Usually little twigs, leaves, or tiny plants had to be removed from the ground or from between the stones and shells, so as not to unnecessarily complicate the picture.

As a rule it is worth while to find out the best time of day to photograph any particular object; usually, however, these shrines were so placed that the time of day made very little difference.

Very rarely did I turn a carved stone round so as to bring out its carving more effectively; occasionally I shifted shells a little, so as to make them show up better, but only when these originally had no definite position. Attention to small details such as these are necessary to produce intelligible photographs, but care must be exercised not to overdo it or in any way to modify the object or shrine.

When all was ready the photograph was taken generally by Wilkin; and we sat down, and a native told me the “storia” connected with it. This I wrote down as nearly as I could in his own words, or at all events with some phrases verbatim. It was most interesting to hear these yarns on the spot, told by natives who believed in them. In some cases we have brought away the chief stone so that it can be exhibited in the museum along with a photograph of it in situ. We could not always buy the stone, as sometimes the natives were not willing to part with it, and never did we take anything without permission or without full payment.

We crossed the island and came out in the bay named Sauriad, which is mentioned in the chief legend of these islands as being where Malu fled after he had been entrapped on the sand spit. At one spot, named Orme, there is the important U zogo, or coconut shrine. Only old men officiated here; they rubbed themselves with the fluid from a coconut, and this made the palms productive. The zogo now consists of a few large clam shells on some rocks. One large kaper tree had a great Fusus stuck into it, round which the bark had partially grown; under a smaller zom tree were two large blocks of stone, on which were one or two giant clam shells. I do not know if there was anything further. We visited two other zogos, but there was nothing of interest about them or anything worth photographing.

The most satisfactory translation of the word zogo is “holy” or “sacred”; or a holy or sacred spot such as an oracle or a shrine for magical rites; or a potent object or charm. As in all primitive religions, holiness is not an ethical idea; indeed, as Robertson Smith points out in his Religion of the Semites, “at the Canaanite shrines the name of ‘holy’ was specially appropriated to a class of degraded wretches devoted to the most shameful practices of a corrupt religion.” Zogo does not mean “tabooed” or “prohibited,” as the Miriam word for that idea is gelar.

When walking along a sand beach at the western end of the island we saw, close in shore, very dense shoals of small fish, locally called tup. At one spot two small sharks were preying on them, and wherever a shark swam there was a band of clear water, and the yellow sand could be seen beneath; elsewhere the water was solidly black with fish. It reminded me of a certain town and gown row in my undergraduate days, when the market-place was a dense mass of men, mainly undergraduates, but wherever the proctors moved there was always a clear space around them.

We photographed the tracks of a turtle where she had gone up the sand beach to lay her eggs, and had returned to the sea. We prodded the sand about the apex of the converging tracks in the orthodox fashion, with a pointed stick, but could not find the nest.

When we had worked our way round to the side of the island from which we had started we found that Mrs. Canoe had laid out some banana leaves on the sand in an inclosure round her house. On this native tablecloth she had placed four heaps of coconut chips and a central heap of warm roasted green bananas, and four green coconuts were prepared for us to drink from. We much enjoyed this al fresco repast.

WAIER

I knew from various legends and other information that the island of Waier was of some importance, so I arranged for a visit there, and as part of the island belonged to our friend Smoke I endeavoured to get him to act as cicerone. We sailed across to Dauar, where Smoke was working in his garden, and we waited some time in vain for him to come to us.

Eventually Smoke’s elder brother, Keriba, consented to accompany us, and as he is an old man and had officiated at the zogos we could not have done better. His first excuse was that already that morning he had been round Waier fishing and was tired, which was doubtless true.

We waded across the reef which joins Dauar and Waier, as it was then low tide, and went round the southern side of this extinct crater. As I have already mentioned, Waier is a remarkable island, consisting of a crescentic, greatly fissured wall of volcanic ash, with the upper edge pinnacled and battlemented like an old castle. In the hollow of the crescent is a narrow sand beach, behind which, close to the rocks, is a little vegetation.

As we went along Keriba pointed out the interesting places, and gave us names of the prominent rocks and objects. It was stimulating to see the old sacred places, many of which Wilkin and I photographed, and to hear what happened there. Keriba seemed a little nervous about touching or interfering with some of the zogos, but when he saw us tidying them, and removing overgrowing grass and weeds, he too gave a hand.

The first one we came to was Zab Zogo, which consists merely of a few giant clam shells within a recess in the cliff, and protected by a row of stones. This gives good fishing, but only for a small kind of fish, which is speared at night by the light of torches made of dry coconut leaves.

Close by is a longish oblong rock on the beach, which is called Geigi-baur, i.e. “Geigi’s fish-spear.” Geigi was a hero of Waier who lived with his mother Nageg, about whom there are legends. Later in the day I was shown a flat rock on the sand beach in the bay of Waier, which was the mother’s mat. Geigi ultimately became a “king-fish,” and his mother a “trigger-fish.” Seligmann had already collected a specimen of the lady, and the “king-fish” is well known. One of the string puzzles represents Geigi, and another Nageg.

Shortly after we had rounded the southern point of Waier, and were walking along the bay, we came to a black stone about fifteen inches in length lying broken in the grass, on a heap of stones and shells at the foot of the cliff. We stuck it upright and cleared away the weeds, in order to get a photograph of the gentleman, who is named Waipem, but who after all has no particular shape, though a little pit on each side of the head does duty for the eyes. Formerly the men who belonged to this zogo erected in front of the image three bamboos like a football goal, on the crossbar of which was hung various kinds of fruit, and “man think inside himself, ‘If we give you plenty fruit I think you give us plenty turtle.’” They would then go to the two points of the island and look out for the turtles, which would be sure to come. This little ceremony was only performed about January—that is, during the turtle season.

In a small cave a little further on were two slabs, which represented two women called Au kosker (“big women”). Their heads had fallen off; one had been much battered by the sea, but the other was in a better state of repair, and some white paint indicated the eyes, nose, and mouth. We replaced this head, but could not repair the other, which we placed by the side of the body. After a lot of trouble we focussed the camera and gave it an exposure of half an hour or so. When Wilkin developed it in the evening we found to our surprise that we had a fairly good negative.

So far as I could make out, all the Au kosker ever did was to come out in the night-time and dance in a circle on the sand beach, waving and crossing their arms. Waiad used to look at them and beat a drum; after that the two ladies retired to their cave.

I had previously heard about Waiad, and took this opportunity of finding out more about him. Whatever he was supposed to be in ancient times, Waiad was until recently represented by a turtle-shell human effigy about four feet in height that was kept in a cave high up in the Au kes, the large central fissure of Waier. At the time of the Waiad ceremony the fraternity assembled on the sand spit, which is also called Waier, and yarned about the lads (kersi) who were about to be initiated. Most of the men then walked round the southern side of the island to the tabooed ground. Three sacred men (zogole) took Waiad from his cave and placed him on a small column-like stone, which was pointed out to us. The stone is now overshadowed by vegetation, and there are still to be seen the great Fusus shells that radiated from it; but formerly the place was clear, and Waiad could be seen from afar. A zogole stood on each side of the image.

The lads who were to be initiated into this zogo were brought from the sand spit round by the north side of the island and hidden behind a great mass of rock that had fallen from the cliff. When the proper time came two men were sent by the zogole to fetch the kersi, who came kneeling and laden with presents of coconuts, bananas, and yams. Each kersi had in his mouth a large white shell painted red, which protruded from his lips. The boys had to traverse some eighty or ninety yards on their knees from their hiding-place to the shrine of Waiad. These Waiad ceremonies lasted for a fortnight, during which time there was more or less continuous singing and drum-beating.