The Savage South Seas

IV • Concerning love and grief—How love is made in New Guinea, and some of the charms used to ensure love and constancy—The grief of a New Guinea widow • 37

VII • South Sea traders good and bad; their ups and downs—Nicolas the Greek—The Mambare river massacre—Some queer creatures with queerer ways—“A fitting end to a wasted life” • 71

In these days when distance hardly counts, when the cry is heard that new outlets are wanted for capital, when there are thousands of unemployed crowded in London, and people ar...

There no islands in the new world which have been the scene of greater adventures, more daring exploits, and more exciting times than those in the South Seas. From the earliest...

The natives of New Guinea are fine specimens of human nature, but taken as a race they cannot be compared to the Maoris of New Zealand or even to the Fijians. The men are infini...

To the marriageable young lady in civilised countries, leap year, and with it her chance of proposing, comes but a few times before she is “on the shelf,” but in some parts of N...

For some reason, unknown to the ordinary layman, the Church has taken a dislike to nearly all forms of savage dancing, and many missionaries, brave and good fellows though they...

Outrigger canoes, their appearance and construction—The famous Lakatois—How the natives catch their fish; and a few words about fish that climb trees—A trip down the coast, and...

South Sea traders good and bad; their ups and downs—Nicolas the Greek—The Mambare river massacre—Some queer creatures with queerer ways—A fitting end to a wasted life.

Wild and ferocious as the natives of the Solomon group are they possess some fine characteristics. Many of them far surpass the rough European, in those parts, in generosity and...

No doubt the extreme danger which has always attached to a visit to these islands has made the white man give them as wide a berth as possible, only going there when compelled t...

The native dress of the Solomon islanders is even more scanty than that of their neighbours the New Guinea natives. Usually the sole clothing of the men consists of a “T”-shaped...

Lazy as the Solomon islanders are they are excellent sportsmen, and be it man-hunting, pig-hunting, or fishing, it is all the same, they go in for it with a fine relish. Cunning...

To try and discover the actual religious beliefs of a savage race is even more difficult than attempting the same experiment on the religion of any particular European sect. It...

Sacred places in the Solomons are called hope, the word being used in very much the same way as _tapu_ (taboo) is by the Maoris of New Zealand, and other savage races, but, unli...

There is a remarkable difference between the natives of the New Hebrides group and any of the inhabitants of the adjoining islands. In character, disposition, mode of living and...

Ancestor worship was undoubtedly the original religion of the New Hebrideans, and in many islands the present form of worship is based upon it. According to Mr. Macdonald, a res...

Superstition and witchcraft are strongly in evidence in the New Hebrideans, and the natives have more than their share of both. Besides those things to which I have already allu...

In Malekula, Efaté, and Tanna the natives wear as many adornments and cram as many ornaments on their bodies as they can, and since this weakness of theirs has been found out, b...

Copra is the staple industry of the New Hebrides, as they say in the geography books, but the output of it is about as reliable as the rainfall, for the supply depends not, as m...

I can do no better than conclude this short sketch of the three most important groups of the South Sea islands by touching on the work and lives of those brave fellows the missi...