The villages in the eastern islands of the group vary much in size. They usually contain between 25 and 40 houses, and between one and two hundred inhabitants. There are however some much larger, as in the case of Wano on the north coast of St. Christoval, which probably does not possess a population much under five hundred. In the larger villages the houses are generally built in double rows with a common thoroughfare between; and the tambu-house occupies usually a central position. In the village of Suenna, as shown in the engraving, which is one of the largest villages in Ugi, the houses are built around a large open space free of buildings. The usual dimensions of the dwelling-houses are as follows: length 25 to 30 feet, breadth 15 to 20 feet, height 8 to 10 feet. The gable-roof, which is made of a framework of bamboos thatched with the leaves of pandanus trees, or of cocoa-nut or areca palms, is supported on a central row of posts. The sides are low and made of the same materials as the roof. The only entrance is by an oblong aperture in the front of the building, which is removed 2¹/₂ to 3 feet above the ground, so that one has literally to dive into the interior, which from the absence of any other openings, is kept very dark. Such are the dimensions and mode of structure of an ordinary dwelling-house in the eastern islands. The chiefs, however, have larger buildings, which in some instances, as in those of the more powerful chiefs, rival in size and in style the tambu-houses themselves. Many houses have a staging in front, which is on a level with the lower edge of the aperture that serves as the entrance. On this staging, protected by the projecting roof the inmates are wont to sit and lie about during the day; and the men occasionally pass the night there. In the houses of the chiefs and principal men, there are generally spaces partitioned off for sleeping and containing a raised stage for the mats; but in the dwelling-house of an ordinary man no such partitions usually occur. Single men sleep on the ground on a mat, which may be nothing more than the leaves of two branches of the cocoa-nut palm rudely plaited together. Each man lays his mat by the side of a little smouldering wood-fire, which he endeavours to keep up during the night, and for this purpose he gets up at all hours to fan it into a flame.

There is but little attempt made to please the eye in the way of external or internal decoration in the ordinary dwelling-house of a native in the eastern islands. Rows of the lower jaws of pigs with the skeletons of fishes and the dried skins of the flying-fox are to be seen suspended from the roof over the entrance; whilst the spears, clubs, and fishing implements are either thrust between the bamboos of the roof or slung in a bundle over the entrance. Of furniture there is but little except the large cooking-bowls, the mats, and a circle of cooking-stones forming a rude hearth in the centre of the floor. I have seen in temporary sheds or “lean-tos,” erected by fishing parties on the southern island of the “Three Sisters,” fire-places formed of a circle two to three feet across of medium-sized Tridacna shells, the enclosed space being strewn with small stones.

The houses of the chiefs usually display more decoration. Amongst others I recall to my mind the brightly-coloured front of the residence of Haununo, the intelligent young chief of Santa Catalina. I am not aware how long a native house will last. The white residents, however, tell me that houses built for their own use, which are more substantial than the ordinary native dwellings, will stand some five or six years; and that, notwithstanding the heavy rainfall of this region, the thatch remains admirably waterproof.

I now come to the description of the houses in the islands of Bougainville Straits. In the villages of Treasury and the Shortlands, the houses are arranged in a long straggling row; and although close to the beach they are for the most part concealed by the trees from the view of those on board the ships in the anchorage. In the materials used, in their style, and in their general size, these houses resemble those of St. Christoval and the adjacent smaller islands. A thatch made of the leaves of the sago-palm or of the pandanus, covers the gable-roof and the framework of the walls. The usual dimensions of a dwelling-house are: length 25 to 30 feet, breadth 12 to 15 feet, height 10 to 12 feet. Since there are no means of admitting light except by the door, the interiors are very dark, insomuch that on entering one of these houses from the bright sunlight the eyes require some time before they can see at all. In the out-lying hamlets in the interior of these islands, the houses are often smaller and more rudely constructed; and the owner supplies the place of a door by placing a couple of large plantain leaves or a branch of a cocoa-nut palm before the entrance. Many of these small hamlets are only occupied during the planting season.

There is a far greater difference in size between the dwellings of the chiefs and those of the ordinary natives than exists in the eastern islands of the group, a distinction which might have been expected on account of the greater power of the chiefs of Bougainville Straits. Gorai, the powerful Shortland chief, has appropriated to himself more than an acre of ground on which stand the several buildings required for the accommodation of his numerous wives, children, and dependents. Its precincts are tabooed to the ordinary native; but the old chief is always ready to extend to the white man a privilege which he denies to his own people. His own residence when we first met him, had no great pretensions in size or appearance, measuring 40 by 20 feet in length and breadth, and possessing a very dingy interior from the absence of any opening except the entrance to admit light. There was, however, a larger and better constructed building situated near his own for the accommodation of his female establishment. It measured 60 by 30 by 20 feet in length, breadth, and height; and was subsequently appropriated by the chief for his own use.

The residence of Mule, the Treasury chief, was one of the largest native edifices that I saw in the Solomon Group. It is a gable-roofed building, measuring about 80 feet in length, 50 feet in breadth, and 25 to 30 feet in height. The front of the house, which is at one of the ends of the building, has a singular appearance from the central part or body of the building, being advanced several feet beyond the sides, a style which is imitated in some of the smaller houses of the village. Its interior is very imperfectly lighted by small apertures in the walls. I should here refer to the large and neatly built house of the powerful chief of Simbo, who, contrary to the usual practice, prefers light to darkness in his residence.

In the two principal villages of Faro or Fauro which are named Toma and Sinasoro, a number of the houses are built on piles and raised from 5 to 8 feet above the ground, as shown in the accompanying plate. But this custom is by no means universal in the same village, and depends, as far as I could learn, on the personal fancy of the owner. Both these villages are situated on low level tracts bordering the sea; but their sites are free from moist and swampy ground, to the existence of which one might have attributed this practice. The houses built on the ground are about 30 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 12 or 13 feet high; whilst those raised on piles are considerably smaller, measuring 22 by 15 feet in length and breadth, the building itself being supported on a framework of stout poles lashed on the tops of the piles by broad stripes of rattan. These pile-dwellings are reached by rudely constructed steps made after the style of our own ladders. The roofs of the houses in these villages have a higher pitch than I have observed in houses of the other islands of the Straits. Their eaves project considerably beyond the walls, and the roof is often prolonged at the front end of the building forming a kind of portico. A neat thatch of the leaves of the sago palm covers the sides and roof of each building.

After remarking that the houses in the Florida Islands are often similarly built on piles not only at the coast, but also on the hill-slopes some distance from the sea, I pass on to briefly refer to the purpose of these pile-dwellings on land. It seemed to me probable that in previous years, when the natives of Faro were not on such friendly terms with their neighbours, the houses were built on piles for purposes of defence against a surprise; and that when comparative peace and order reigned, some persons preferred the more commodious house on a ground site to the smaller and less convenient building on piles. Various explanations have been advanced with reference to this custom of building pile-dwellings on dry land, some of which I will enumerate. It is held by some that this custom is but the survival of “the once purposeful habit of building them in the water.” The exclusion of pigs and goats and the protection against wild animals have been suggested as probable objects of this practice; whilst by others it is urged that the purpose of these pile-dwellings is to obviate the effects of excessive rain and to guard against damp exhalations from a tropical soil. Whatever may be the cause or causes of this custom, it is one which is widely spread, being found in New Guinea, in the Philippines, amongst the tribes on the north-eastern frontier of India, and in Guiana.[19]

With regard to the internal arrangements of the houses in this part of the Solomon Group, but little remains to be said. In many houses a portion of a space is partitioned off for sleeping purposes, usually one of the corners; in others, again, the interior is divided into two halves by a cross-partition. More attention is here paid to the comfort of repose than in the eastern islands. In the place of the single mat laid on the ground, they have low couches, raised a foot to eighteen inches above the floor, on which they lay their mats; whilst a round cylinder of wood serves them as a pillow. These couches, which the natives can improvise in the bush in a few minutes, are usually nothing more than a layer of stout poles, such as the slender trunks of the areca palms, resting at their ends on two logs.

Mat-making is one of the occupations of the women of the Straits, the material employed being the thick leaves of a species of Pandanus which is known by the natives as the pota. The leaves are first deprived of their thin polished epidermis by being rubbed over with the leaves of a plant, named sansuti, which have a rough surface giving a sensation like that caused by fine emery paper when passed over the skin. The pandanus leaves are then dried in the sun, when they become whitened and leathery, and are then sewn together into mats. These mats are not only used to lie upon, but are also worn by the women over their shoulders as a protection in wet weather. They are especially useful, as I have myself found, when sleeping out in the open in wet weather. They are sufficiently long to cover the whole length of a native; and when he is sleeping out in the bush, he lies down on his couch formed, as above described, from the slender trunks of areca palms ready at his hand, and covering himself completely with his mat, he may sleep through a deluge of rain without being touched by the wet. The mat has a crease along the middle of its length, so that when placed over the body it resembles a “tente d’abri;” and the rain runs off as from the roof of a house. To intending travellers in these islands, I strongly recommend this form of couch. A native mat and a blanket are all he requires to carry. Almost anywhere in the bush he can find the areca palms, the slender trunks of which, when placed as a layer of poles on two logs, will serve him as an excellent couch.

With regard to the domestic utensils in use amongst the natives of Bougainville Straits, I should observe that cocoa-nut shells pierced by a hole of about the size of a florin, are employed as drinking-vessels. The outer surface of the shell is usually coated over with a kind of red cement formed of a mixture of red ochreous earth and the resinous material, obtained from the fruit of the “tita” (Parinarium laurinum), which is employed for caulking the seams of the canoes. The exterior of these vessels is frequently ornamented by double chevron-lines of native shell-beads. Sometimes a tube of bamboo is fitted into the orifice of the vessel to form a neck, the whole being plastered over with the red cement and looking like some antique earthen jar. Both of these kinds of drinking-vessels are shown in the accompanying plate. Drinking water is always kept at hand in a house in a number of these cocoa-nut shells which, being hung up overhead, keep the water pleasantly cool, a plug of leaves being used as a stopper. The native, in drinking, never puts the vessel to his mouth, but throwing his head well back, he holds the vessel a few inches above his lips and allows the water to run into his mouth. The milk of the cocoa-nut is drunk in the same manner. The scoops or scrapers used in eating the white kernels of the cocoa-nuts are generally either of bone or of pearl-shell. Sometimes for this purpose a large Cardium shell is lashed to a handle, a small hole being made in the shell for this purpose. .... Wooden hooks of clumsy size, though showing some skill in their design and workmanship, are employed as hanging-pegs in the houses.

The cooking-vessels in use in the islands of Bougainville Straits are circular pots of a rough clay ware, usually measuring about nine inches in depth and breadth, but sometimes more than double this size. Cleansing these vessels out between the meals is deemed an unnecessary refinement. These cooking-pots, one of which is shown in the accompanying plate, are made by the women in the following manner: A handful of the clay, which is dark-reddish in colour and would make a good brick-clay, is first worked together in the hands into a plastic lump; and this is fashioned rudely into a kind of saucer to form the bottom of the vessel by basting the mass against a flat smooth pebble, three or four inches across, held in the left hand, with a kind of wooden trowel or beater held in the right hand. (One of these wooden trowels is figured in the plate.) Whilst one woman is thus engaged, a couple of her companions are occupied in flattening out, by means of a flat-sided stick, strips of the clay six to twelve inches in length and an inch in breadth, their length increasing as the making of the vessel progresses. One of these strips is then placed around the upper edge of the saucer; and the potter welds or batters it into position, employing the same tools in a similar manner, the pebble being held inside. The cooking vessel is thus built up strip by strip; and to enable the worker to give symmetry to the upper part of the pot, a fillet of broad grass is tied around as a guide. An even edge is given to the lip by drawing along the rim a fibre from the cocoa-nut husk, and the interior and neck are finished off by the fingers well moistened. Whilst being made, the cooking-pot is rested on a ring-cushion of palm leaves, as shown in the same engraving. The time occupied in making one of the ordinary sized pots is about three-quarters of an hour. Thus made, they are kept in the shade for three or four days to become firm; and they are finally hardened by being placed in a wood-fire. No glaze appears to be used, and the vessels themselves show no signs of its employment. Their outer surfaces are indistinctly marked by odd-looking patterns in relief, reminding one somewhat of hieroglyphics, which are produced by the same patterns cut into one of the surfaces of the wooden beater (as shown in the engraving) for the purpose of giving the tool a better hold on the clay. Some cooking-pots, as in the case of the one illustrated, are ornamented with a chevron-line in relief below the neck and partly surrounding the vessel.[20] This ware compares but poorly with the finish and variety of design displayed by the glazed pottery of Fiji. The Fijian women, however, employ similar tools and accessories, namely, a flat mallet, a small round flat stone, and a ring-like cushion of palm leaves; but they do not appear from the accounts given of the process by Commodore Wilkes,[21] Messrs. Williams and Calvert,[22] and Miss Gordon Cumming,[23] to fashion the clay in the first place into strips. I may here refer the reader to the illustration, given by Commodore Wilkes in his narrative (vol. iii. p. 348), of pottery-making in Fiji, as it exactly suits my description of pottery-making in these islands of Bougainville Straits.

It will be interesting, perhaps, to briefly notice some of the gradations in the art of pottery manufacture amongst the savage races in this quarter of the globe. A very simple method, as recorded by Captain Forrest[24] more than a century ago, was employed by the women of Dory Harbour, New Guinea. They formed “pieces of clay into earthen pots; with a pebble in one hand to put into it, whilst they held in the other hand, also a pebble, with which they knocked, to enlarge and smooth it.” The natives of the Andaman Islands[25] advance another step in the process. We learn from Mr. Man that the only implements employed are, an Arca shell, a short pointed stick, and a board. The clay is rolled out into strips with the hand. One of these strips is twisted to form the cup-like base; and the pot is then built up strip by strip. The method employed by the natives of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, may be considered to be an improvement on the plan adopted by the Andaman Islanders. As already described, they also fashion the clay into strips and build up the vessel in a similar manner, but in the employment of a special implement as the wooden beater, in the use of the ring-cushion, and probably in the more artistic details of the process, they make a nearer approach than do the Andaman Islanders to the pottery-making of the Fijians. Then we come in the ascending scale to the method employed by the women of the Motu tribe around Port Moresby, New Guinea. By the Rev. Dr. W. Turner,[26] we are informed that they use a round smooth stone and a wooden beater but no cushion, the vessel being made without the aid of strips of clay into two pieces, the body and the mouth, which are moulded together. This method, as employed by the Motu women, may not be superior to that followed amongst the women of Bougainville Straits; but inasmuch as the former manufacture three kinds of vessels, one for holding water, another for cooking, and a third to be used as a plate, whilst the latter confine their art to the cooking-pot, I have assigned the first place to the former.[27] From the work of the Motu women to the pottery of the Fijians, and between the different processes employed, there is a considerable advance in the art of pottery manufacture, as already described in the case of Fiji. There, a glaze is for the first time employed; whilst in their finish, their comparative elegance of design, in their multiplicity of pattern, and in the various purposes for which they are employed from the cooking-pot up to the ornamental jar, these Fijian vessels are greatly superior to all I have referred to, whether the work of a woman of Port Dory, of an Andaman Islander, of a woman of Bougainville Straits, or of a woman of the Motu tribe in New Guinea.[28]

The Polynesian plan of producing fire, which is known as the “stick-and-groove” method, was that which was occasionally employed by my native guides during my excursions in St. Christoval and in the island of Simbo. At the risk of being charged with undue prolixity, I will briefly describe it as I saw it performed. A dry piece of wood is first taken, and one side of it is sliced so as to form a flat surface. A small bit of the same wood is then pointed at one end and worked briskly along a groove which it soon forms in the flat surface. The friction in some three or four minutes produces smoke; and finally a fine powder, which has been collecting in a small heap at the end of the groove, begins to smoulder. After being carefully nursed by the breath of the operator, the tiny flame is transferred to a piece of touch-wood, and the object is attained. In most native houses in districts not often visited by the trader, pieces of the wood used for this purpose are left lying about on the floor. Wax matches, however, form an important item in the large quantities of trade-articles which pass into the hands of the natives of some of the islands; and in such islands any other method of producing fire is not generally employed. In most cases, when I had omitted to take matches with me in my excursions, my natives, although very desirous of getting a light for their pipes, were too lazy to obtain it by making use of the more laborious method of the “stick-and-groove.” When making their own journeys in the bush, they carry along with them a piece of smouldering wood, a precaution which I used to encourage them to adopt when accompanying me, in order to save myself being pestered every few minutes for a light for their pipes.

Burning-glasses are in common use amongst the natives of some of the islands, as at Simbo. The reason of their being not always favourite articles of trade in other islands, I was at a loss to understand. The numerous fumaroles varying in temperature between 160° and 200° Fahr. which pierce the hill-sides of the volcanic island of Simbo, are employed by the natives for the purposes of cooking, as I have elsewhere observed (p. 86).

Fans serve the double purpose of nursing a fire and of cooling the person. Those in use in Treasury are made of the extremities of two branches of the cocoa-nut palm, the midribs forming the handle, whilst the long “pinnÆ” are neatly plaited together to form the fan. One of these fans is figured in the pottery engraving. Although more coarsely made, they are of a pattern similar to the fans of Fiji and Samoa. The shape appears to have originated from the nature of the materials employed; and I suspect that in Fiji and Samoa, where different materials are used, the original shape which depended on the plaiting of the cocoa-nut leaves has been retained, whilst the material itself has been discarded.

The natives of Bougainville Straits burn torches during their fishing excursions at night and during festivals. For this purpose they use resins obtained from the “anoga,”[29] probably a species of Canarium, and the “katari,” a species of Calophyllum, two tall trees which rank among the giants of the forest in this region. The resin of the “anoga” should be more properly described as a resinous balsam. It is white, is easily pulverised, and has a powerful odour, as if of camphor and sandal-wood combined. It concretes in mass inside the bark and in tears on the outer surface of the tree, and is usually obtained by climbing up and knocking it off the bark; but sometimes the tree is ringed at a height of four feet from the ground, a process which drains it of its resin but causes its death. The torch of this material is simply prepared by wrapping up compactly the powdered resin in a palm-leaf, which although outside answers the purpose of a wick. ... The “katari” resin, which is less frequently used, is a dark-coloured material that burns with a tarry and somewhat fragrant odour. Other resins and gums are yielded by the trees, one of which somewhat resembles the “kauri” gum of New Zealand, and occurs in a similar situation beneath the soil; but I was unable to find the tree.

In the tambu-houses of St. Christoval and the adjoining islands we have a style of building on which all the mechanical skill of which the natives are possessed has been brought to bear. These sacred buildings have many and varied uses. Women are forbidden to enter their walls; and in some coast villages, as at Sapuna in the island of Santa Anna, where the tambu-house overlooks the beach, women are not even permitted to cross the beach in front. The tambu-houses of the coast villages are employed chiefly for keeping the war-canoes, each chief being allowed, as an honourable mark of his position, the privilege of there placing his own war-canoe;[30] but in the inland villages, these buildings are of course no longer employed for this purpose. Another use to which these buildings may be put is described on page 53, in connection with the tambu-house of Sapuna in Santa Anna, in which are deposited, enclosed in the wooden figure of a shark, the skulls of ordinary men and the entire bodies of the chiefs.

The front of the tambu-house in his native village is, for the Solomon Islander, a common place of resort, more especially towards the close of the afternoon. There he meets his fellows and listens to the news of his own little world; and it is to this spot that any native who may be a stranger to the village first directs his steps, and on arriving states his errand or particular business. In my numerous excursions, when thirsty or tired, I always used to follow the native custom in this matter, being always treated hospitably and never with any rudeness. The interior of these buildings is free to any man to lie down in and sleep. On one occasion, when passing a night in an island village of St. Christoval, I slept in the tambu-house, the only white man amongst a dozen natives. Bloodshed, I believe, rarely occurs in these buildings; and they are for this reason viewed somewhat in the light of a sanctuary.

The completion of a new tambu-house is always an occasion of a festival in a village. The festival is often accompanied by the sacrifice of a human life; and the leg and arm bones of the victim may be sometimes seen suspended to the roof overhead. In the tambu-house of the village of Makia, on the east coast of Ugi, I observed hanging from the roof the two temporal bones, the right femur, and the left humerus of the victim who had been killed and eaten at the opening of the building; and similarly suspended in the tambu-house of the hill-village of Lawa on the north side of St. Christoval, in which I passed the night, I noticed over my head as I lay on my mat the left femur, tibia, and fibula, and the left humerus of the unfortunate man who had been killed and eaten on the completion of the building twelve months before. At these feasts there is a great slaughter of pigs that have been confined for some previous time in an enclosure of strong wooden stakes, which may be allowed to remain long after the occasion for its use has passed away. After the feast, the lower jaws of all the pigs consumed are hung in rows from the roof of the building. In one tambu-house I remember counting as many as sixty jaws thus strung up.

The style of building and the size and relative dimensions of the tambu-houses are very similar in all the coast-villages of the eastern islands, a correspondence which may be explained from the necessity of the structure being long enough to hold the large war-canoes. As a type of these buildings, I will describe somewhat in detail the tambu-house of the large village of Wano, on the north coast of St. Christoval. Its length is about 60 feet and its breadth between 20 and 25 feet. The gable roof is supported by five rows of posts, the height of the central row being some 14 or 15 feet from the ground; whilst on account of its high pitch the two outer lateral rows of posts are only 3 or 4 feet high. The principal weight of the roof is borne by the central and two next rows, each of which supports a long, bulky ridge-pole. The two outer lateral rows of posts are much smaller and support much lighter ridge-poles. In each row there are four posts, two in the middle and one at each gable-end. These posts, more particularly those of the central row, are grotesquely carved, and evidently by no unskilled hand, the lower part representing the body of a shark with its head upwards and mouth agape, supporting in various postures a rude imitation of the human figure which formed the upper part of the post. In one instance, a man was represented seated on the upper lip or snout of the shark, with his legs dangling in its mouth, and wearing a hat on his head, the crown of which supported the ridge-pole. In another case the man was inverted; and whilst the soles of his feet supported the ridge-pole, his head and chest were resting in the mouth of the shark.[31] Long after the tambu-house has disappeared, the carved posts remain in their position and form a not uncommon feature in a village scene as shown in the engraving of a village in Ugi. ... The roof of the Wano tambu-house is formed of a framework of bamboo poles covered with palm-leaf thatch, the poles being of equal size, whether serving as rafters or cross-battens, the latter affording attachment for the thatch. The same materials are used in the sides of the building. .... With reference to tambu-houses generally in this part of the group, I should remark that they are open at both ends, with usually a staging at the front end raised about four feet from the ground, which may be aptly termed “the village lounge.”

The tambu-house of the interesting little island of Santa Catalina or Orika—the Yoriki of the Admiralty chart—is worthy of a few special remarks. Its dimensions are similar to those of like buildings in this part of the group, the length being between 60 and 70 feet. Placed in front of each of its ends are three circles of large wooden posts driven into the earth, each circle of posts being 4 or 5 feet in height and enclosing a space of ground a few feet across, into which are thrown cocoa-nuts and other articles of food to appease the hunger of the presiding deity or devil-god. The ridge-poles and posts are painted with numerous grotesque representations in outline of war-canoes and fishing-parties, of natives in full fighting equipment, of sharks, and of the devil-god himself, with a long, lank body and a tail besides. On a ridge-pole there was drawn in paint the outline of some waggon or other vehicle with the horses in the shafts: whether this was a reminiscence of some native who had been to the colonies, or was merely a copy from a picture, I did not learn. Some of the representations on the ridge-poles were of an obscene character. The central row of posts were defaced by chipping, which I was informed was a token of mourning for the late chief of the island, who had died not many months before. Mr. C. F. Wood met with a similar custom in 1873 in the case of a native of a village at the west end of St. Christoval, who on the death of his son broke and damaged the carved figures of birds and fish in his house.[32] I am inclined to think that this house was a sacred building of some kind. .... Mr. William Macdonald, through whose kindness I had the opportunity of visiting this island, pointed out to me that two or three of the posts of the building had been carved into the figures of women, an innovation in the interior of a tambu-house which I observed in no other building of this kind.

The tambu-house of the village of Sapuna in Santa Anna, which is shown in the accompanying plate, is higher, broader, and more massive in structure than the other buildings which I have visited in the adjacent islands. As in other tambu-houses, the forms of the shark and of the human figure are given to parts of the posts; and in the hollow cavities of wooden representations of the shark on the sides of the interior of the building are enclosed the entire bodies of departed chiefs and the skulls of ordinary men. The carved central post, which is seen in the accompanying engraving, affords a superior specimen of native workmanship. It was originally brought, as I was informed by one of the natives of Santa Anna, from Guadalcanar. The walls of this building are made more rain-proof by long slabs, measuring 36 by 6 by 2 inches, which are cut out from the dense matted growth of fibres and rootlets that invests the base of the bole of the cocoa-nut palm.

The principal tambu-house in the village of Ete-ete, on the west side of Ugi, is between 60 and 70 feet in length, from 25 to 30 feet broad, and 11 or 12 feet in height. Here also the sculptured posts represent the body of a shark with its head uppermost and supporting in the gape of its mouth the figure of a man, on whose head rests the ridge-pole of the roof. The front of the building is decorated with red and black bands, some straight, some wavy, and others of the chevron pattern. Mr. Brenchley in his account of the “Cruise of the ‘Curacoa’” gives a sketch of this tambu-house, which he visited in 1865 (p. 258). Forming the frontispiece of his work is a chromo-lithograph showing the two sides of an ornamental tie-beam from the roof of a “public hall” at Ugi, which he presented to the Maidstone Museum. It represents on one side sharks, bonitos, and sea-birds supposed to be frigate-birds, and on the other side four canoes with sharks attacking the crew of one of them, which is bottom upwards.

The deification of the shark appears to arise from the superstitious dread which this fish inspires. Its good-will may be obtained by leaving offerings of food on the rocks before undertaking a long journey in a canoe. The natives of the neighbouring island of Ulaua, or Ulawa, propitiate the shark with offerings of their own shell-money and of porpoise teeth, which they prize even more than money; and, if a sacred shark has attempted to seize a man who has been able to finally escape from its jaws, they are so much afraid that they will throw him back into the sea to be devoured.[33] We learn from Mr. Ellis[34] and from Messrs. Tyerman and Bennet,[35] that in the Society Islands sharks were deified, that temples were erected for their worship in which the fisherman propitiated the favour of the shark-god, and that almost every family had its particular shark as its tutelary deity to which it bowed and made oblations.

At Alu and Treasury in Bougainville Straits, the tambu-house, which is such a prominent feature in the villages of the eastern islands, is represented by a mere open canoe-shed, for the most part destitute of ornament, and apparently held in but little veneration. Rows of the lower jaws of pigs, which are strung up inside the buildings, signify, as in the eastward islands, the number of animals slaughtered for the feast that was held to celebrate the completion of the canoe-shed. In the island of Faro, the canoe-houses are only temporary sheds built over the large war-canoes, and can have no sacred character in the mind of the native, the tambu-houses in the two principal villages of Toma and Sinasoro having no connection with the war-canoes. The tambu-house of the village of Toma is a neat-looking building about 18 feet high, 45 feet long, and 25 feet broad. It is open at the ends and partly open at the sides, and is built of much the same materials as the dwelling-houses. The roof, which is neatly thatched with the leaves of the sago-palm, is supported on stout ridge-poles by a central and two lateral rows of posts. There is no carving and but little decoration about the building; and from the circumstance of its being sometimes converted into a temporary drying-house for copra, we may draw some inference as to the degree of sanctity in which such a building is held.

The weapons in common use in these islands are spears, clubs, bows and arrows, and tomahawks. An indication of the disposition of the natives may be usually obtained by observing whether arms are habitually carried. In islands where the men go unarmed, the white man, from the absence of intertribal conflicts, has an additional guarantee for his own safety. On the other hand, amongst natives who never leave the vicinity of their villages without a spear or a club, he will require to be very cautious in all that concerns his safety.

The spears are usually 8 to 9 feet in length, with no foreshaft, and are made of a hard palm wood. Those of the natives of Bougainville Straits are very formidable weapons. They are armed with long points or barbs of bone, some of them 4 or 5 inches in length, and they are coloured white and red, are curiously carved, and are ornamented with bands of the same plaited material of which the armlets are made. The barbs and bands are imitated in the colouring of the head of the spear. These spears are made by the natives of Bougainville, and are exchanged with the people of the Straits for European articles of trade. I have seen them in the hands of the men of Simbo. In St. Christoval and the adjacent islands at the other end of the group, the spears are of dark wood, with carved heads and blunt wooden points and are uncoloured. As compared with those of Bougainville Straits, they are not very formidable weapons. They are only armed with blunt barbs cut out of the wood, which are rather more ornamental than useful.

In throwing a spear, the men of Bougainville Straits, whilst poising the weapon, extend the left arm in the direction of the object and often point the forefinger as well. None of the contrivances for assisting the flight of the spear, such as the throwing-stick or the amentum, were employed by the natives of the islands we visited. These weapons are used both as hand-weapons and as missiles. The natives of St. Christoval spear their victims through the abdomen, and as a mark of their prowess they often allow the gore to dry on the point of the weapon. A man in this island usually keeps his spears slung in a bundle under the projecting eaves of the roof in front of the entrance to his house.

Bows and arrows are much more commonly employed by the natives of Bougainville Straits than by the St. Christoval natives. The bows are stoutly made, and are from 6 to 7 feet in length. The string is of a strong cord. The arrows used in the first-mentioned locality are usually 4¹/₂ to 4³/₄ feet in length. They have a long reed shaft, with a pointed foreshaft of a hard heavy palm wood inserted into the end, and measuring about one-fourth the length of the arrow Although most of the arrows have simple pointed foreshafts, destitute of barbs, a few terminate in arrow-heads carved out of the hard wood. A kind of dart, much shorter than the arrow and armed with points of bone, is also used. About nine out of every ten arrows are notched for the bowstring. Feathers are not used; but the hinder shaft of each arrow is decorated with etchings as if in imitation of plumes. These arrows are essentially Melanesian in character, and much resemble those in the British Museum Collection from New Guinea and the New Hebrides.[36] At short distances of 25 or 30 yards, the natives make good shooting with the bow and arrow; but on account of the length of the arrow it is not to be depended on at greater ranges. For shooting fish and pigeons, the natives of these Straits sometimes employ small arrows fashioned out of the large leaf of a kind of reed. The midrib serves as the shaft, and a narrow strip of the blade of the leaf, which is left attached on each side of the shaft, serves the purpose of the plume. The end is pointed and hardened by fire. Such arrows are easily made, and are not generally sought for after they have been shot away.[37] On one occasion I observed a boy of Alu shooting a pigeon with an arrow terminating in fine points like a miniature fish-spear.

Poisoned spears and arrows are rarely employed by the natives of the Solomon Group. They did not come under our observation in any of the islands that we visited. In the island of Savo, however, the natives are said to poison their spears and arrows by thrusting them into a decomposing corpse, where they are allowed to remain for some days.

The clubs vary in form in different parts of the group. In St. Christoval, they have flat recurved blades cut out of the flange-like buttresses of a tree having very hard wood which bears a polish like that of mahogany. In other islands, as in those of Florida, they have flattened oval blades like that of a paddle. Other clubs again, like those of Guadalcanar, are more cylindrical, and have their ends but slightly enlarged; they are often ornamented with the so-called “dyed grass.” No weapons of the character of maces came under my observation. Most clubs are pointed at the butt-end to enable them to be stuck upright in the ground. These weapons are rarely seen in the hands of the natives of Bougainville Straits, if I may except an ornamental club which is carried at the dances.[38] The St. Christoval club is also a defensive weapon. Its flat recurved blade is used to turn aside a spear or an arrow just as the bat is employed to slip a cricket-ball. Some have considered that these weapons are merely paddles. I never saw them put to this use, and I should add that they are most unsuited for such a purpose, being very heavy and sinking in water. I have frequently met natives, when away from the coast, carrying them on their shoulder; and I often learned from them of the true character of the weapon. Traders, who had been years in this part of the group, spoke of them to me as war-clubs. Together with their spears, the St. Christoval natives carry them during their hostile incursions against the bushmen. A singular W pattern that occurs on the flat blades of these St. Christoval clubs was for a long time a puzzle to me. However a very probable explanation of its origin has been given by Major-General Pitt-Rivers.[39] It is one which goes to show that these curved flat-bladed clubs originated as paddles, and that in proportion as they came to be employed also for purposes of defence, their form and material were in time changed, until their original use was either lost or forgotten. In the early forms of this paddle-club, the swell of the blade suggested the shape of the body of a fish; and the profile of a fish’s head with the jaws agape was added to complete the resemblance. In course of time the blade lost its fish-like form, but the outline of the snout with jaws agape was still retained as an ornament. In this manner the W pattern of the present clubs originated. The steps in the production of this pattern may be illustrated in a series of clubs from those with most marked fish-like form to those where the profile of the fish’s snout in the form of a W alone remains; and this again by the omission of the mouth is often replaced by a triangular nob.

Tomahawks and muskets, which have been introduced by the trader, are frequently possessed by natives of the coast. The owner of the tomahawk fits it with a long straight handle which he often decorates with inlaid pearl-shell. It is a formidable weapon in the hands of a native, and it is one which he usually employs very effectively, whether against his fellow islanders or against the white man. The muskets are often of little use on account of the lack of percussion caps and powder.

The defensive arm carried by these islanders is usually a narrow shield measuring 3 feet in length by 9 or 10 inches in breadth. With the exception apparently of St. Christoval, these shields are to be observed amongst the natives of most of the larger islands of the group. They appear usually to be made of a layer of light reeds or canes lashed together by rattan. In some islands, as in Florida and in Guadalcanar, they are worked over with fine wicker-work, and are ornamented with beads in the case of a chief. In other islands, as in Isabel and Choiseul, they are often more rudely constructed and have no wicker-work. In the two last islands they are rectangular in form. In Florida and Guadalcanar they are more oval and are slightly contracted in the middle. Mr. Brenchley figures one of the Florida shields in his “Cruise of H.M.S. ‘Curacoa,’” (p. 281); whilst a sketch of a shield of the Port Praslin (Isabel) natives is to be found in the narrative of Surville’s visit to this group.[40] The Port Praslin shield is deeply notched at one end. I did not observe these shields amongst the inhabitants of St. Christoval and the adjacent islands, a circumstance which may be explained by the fact that spears, and not bows and arrows, are the offensive weapons usually carried by these islanders. Yet we learn that three centuries ago it was with their bows and arrows that the St. Christoval natives usually assailed the Spaniards (vide pages 228, 231.) It should be remembered that the flat-bladed curved clubs of these natives also serve the purpose of a defensive weapon.

The tactics employed in war are those which treachery and cunning suggest. Very rarely, I believe, does a fair, open fight occur. In their sham fights, one of which we witnessed on the beach at Santa Anna, two parties confront each other in open and irregular order and hurl their spears with all the excitement of a real contest. Every man keeps constantly on the move as in dancing a jig, in order to be able to more easily avoid the missiles hurled at him. The boys of Treasury sometimes amuse themselves with a game of the same character, when they use as their weapons the stalk and bulb of the large taro. I was on one occasion much surprised at their skill in aiming apparently at one boy and hitting the one next to him.

The polished stone implements of their fathers have been to a large extent discarded by the natives of the coasts; but the natives of the interiors of the large islands, such as Bougainville, who may have been rarely, if ever, in communication with the trader, are said to be still in a large degree dependent on their stone axes and adzes. On account of the extensive introduction of trade axes, adzes, and knives, it was often difficult to obtain the polished stone implements from the people of a coast village, and natives were wont to express their surprise at my wanting such inefficient and old-fashioned tools. My inquiries as to when these stone implements were used usually received some such reply as the following: “Father, belong father, belong me, he all same”—the purport of which was that they were in use a long time ago, the native’s grandfather being deemed a person of so high antiquity, that in referring to past events he seldom cares to go beyond. These stone axes and adzes are generally made of the hard volcanic rocks of this region. A few are fashioned out of the thick portion of the shell of Tridacna gigas.

The upper surface of a large mushroom-coral (FungidÆ), serves as an effective rasp for scraping canoes; and the large shell of a Cyrena and the sharper edge of a boar’s tusk are similarly used for scraping spears and bows, which are ultimately rubbed smooth with powdered pumice.

The “bow-drill,” armed with a steel point, was employed by Mule, the Treasury chief, in piercing the holes for the rattan-like thongs in the planks of his canoes. This was the only “bow-drill” that came under my notice, and I could not tempt its owner to part with it. In the British Museum Collection, however, there are two smaller tools of this kind from other islands of the group. Without describing it, I may remark that a similar “bow-drill” is figured in Commodore Wilkes’ account of the Bowditch Islanders,[41] by Dr. G. Turner[42] in his account of the Samoans, and by Signor D’Albertis in his book on New Guinea.[43] The history of the “bow-drill,” as we learn from Dr. Tylor,[44] is an interesting one. It originated with the “fire-drill,” which is simply a pointed piece of wood that is twirled between the hands. This was then made more efficacious by winding a cord around it, when it became a “cord-drill.” By substituting for the cord a bow with a loose string, a still more useful tool was obtained: and from this simple form of “bow-drill” the Pacific islanders have obtained the improved boring-tool they now employ.

I should here allude to the round stones, rather larger than a cricket-ball, which are employed as “cooking-stones” and for cracking the hard kanary-nuts. They are to be seen in the majority of the dwellings in the eastern islands; and they often mark the sites of old villages and the temporary homes of fishing-parties.

The grinding slabs and blocks of rock, which were used for rubbing down the stone axes, are still to be seen in the coast villages, their surfaces being sometimes worn into a hollow. At present these blocks are used for grinding down the shell bead-money and for sharpening the iron tools. I have sometimes come upon them marking the position of an old village, the site of which had been long concealed by the growth of trees and scrub. In some islands where it is not possible to obtain stones of a sufficient hardness, these blocks have been transported from considerable distances. A large block of a crystalline trap-rock, more than a third of a ton in weight, which now lies on the reef-flat in the vicinity of the village of Vanatoga on the east side of Santa Anna, was originally brought down from the summit of the island to be used as a grinding block. Slabs of a quartz-diorite, which is found in the north-west part of Alu, and which is much valued for its hardness, have been transported in canoes to Treasury Island more than twenty miles away and to the other islands of the Straits. From their size, they would weigh usually five or six hundredweight.

Amongst the interesting discoveries which I have made in the Solomon Group, I should refer to that of the occurrence of worked flints, which are commonly found in the soil when it is disturbed for purposes of cultivation, and are frequently exposed after heavy rains. My attention was first directed to this matter on noticing a specimen of flint in the possession of Mr. Howard at Ugi, and I soon obtained a number of specimens from this island, and from the adjacent large island of St. Christoval. The majority of them were of common flint, but fragments of chalcedony and cornelian were frequent, and a jasper also occurred. The largest specimen, which was nearly 4 lbs. in weight, clearly showed traces of artificial working, and, as I am informed by Professor Liversidge, was evidently a large, stone axe or tomahawk. Of the rest, some were cores, others were flakes, resembling in their form, and often in their white colour, the flakes of the post-tertiary gravels; whilst one specimen possessed the shape of an arrow-head. Some of these flints presented the appearance of having been re-fashioned after lying disused for ages. In such specimens, there were two sets of facets or fractured surfaces, the one whitened by weathering or exposure, the other displaying the natural colour of recently broken flint. All were, in fact, of the palÆolithic type. The specimens, that I obtained in the islands of Treasury and Alu in Bougainville Straits, were usually of chalcedonic flint, and possessed the form of hammer-stones, scrapers, etc. Worked flints will probably be found in most of the islands of the Solomon Group, except, perhaps, in those of purely volcanic formation (vide page 80). They are said to occur in Santa Anna, and I had a specimen given to me from Ulaua.

There are two interesting circumstances in connection with these flints to which I should allude. In the first place, the inhabitants of these islands are ignorant of their nature and their source. I was gravely informed by the natives of Treasury Island, that the flints which they brought me from the disturbed soil of their plantations had tumbled from the sky, a superstition which reminds one of a similar belief prevalent in some rural districts of our own country as to the origin of the polished stone implements or celts. In a similar way the men of the Shortland Islands explained to me the occurrence beneath the soil of lumps of gum, which, like the masses of the kauri gum of New Zealand, mark the original position of the trees from which they were derived.

Concerning these flint implements, we may fitly ask: Who were the race of men that formed and used them? How long a period has elapsed since these men inhabited this region? Whence did they come? Where are their descendants to be sought? Are they to be found amongst the present inhabitants of this group, who, having discarded the rude flint implements for polished stone tools of volcanic rock, regard, with ignorant contempt, the handiwork of their ancestors? To these queries we may with some confidence reply that the original inhabitants of these islands belonged to the once widely spread Negrito race, of which we find the remnants in our own day in the aborigines of the Andaman and Philippine Islands, and that their characters, both physical and linguistic, have been fused with those of other races which have reached the Solomon Islands both from the Malay Archipelago to the west, and from the islands of Micronesia and Polynesia to the east. The present natives of this group may, in truth, be considered as the result of the fusion of the Negrito aborigines with the Malayan, Micronesian, and Polynesian intruders.

The second interesting point with reference to these ancient flint implements is concerned with their original source. Professor Liversidge, in drawing attention to my specimens, which he exhibited at a meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales in December, 1883, remarked that this discovery of flints in these regions afforded a very strong proof of the probable presence of true chalk of cretaceous age in the South Sea Islands, and he alluded to a soft white limestone undistinguishable from chalk, which had been previously brought from New Ireland by Mr. Brown, the Wesleyan missionary.[45] Chalk-rocks came under my observation in the Solomon Islands; but in no case was I able to find embedded flints (vide Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., Vol. 32, Part 3). I think it, however, highly probable that when the interior of one of the large islands such as Guadalcanar has been explored, older chalk formations containing flints will be discovered. The island of Ulaua, which I was unable to visit, would probably afford some clue as to the source of these flints. Although in all likelihood this island possesses the general geological structure of the neighbouring island of Ugi, which is described on page vii. yet it possesses one peculiar feature. Mr. Brenchley,[46] when landing on the beach of this island of Ulaua in 1865, picked up a great many pieces of flint scattered about among the broken-up coral, and he wondered where they came from. Captain Macdonald, a resident trader in this part of the group, informed me that flints are abundant on the beaches of this island, together with fragments of a white chalk-like rock.[47]

In the island of Faro, which is entirely of volcanic formation, flints are not known to the natives, and it would be interesting to ascertain whether they are similarly absent from other islands of the same character. When in search of the source of these flints, I was more than once led off on a false scent. It was on one such occasion, when accompanying Gorai, the Shortland chief, on an excursion in his war-canoe to the north-west part of the island of Alu, that I experienced a great disappointment. Learning from the chief that he could direct me to the place where the flints (“kilifela”) were found, I was in great hope of at last finding them imbedded. The locality, however, proved to be of volcanic formation, and a pit or cave in which the flints were to be found, successfully eluded our efforts to discover it. I would, however, recommend future visitors to endeavour to find this pit which lies a little way in from the beach and close to the north-west point of Alu. Its examination might throw some fresh light on the aborigines of these regions.

The occurrence of flints on the south-east coast of New Guinea has been recorded by Mr. Stone.[48] He tells us that the small island of Tatana at the head of Port Moresby is “strewn with pieces of a cornelian-coloured flint, called by the natives vesika, and used for boring holes through shell, bone, or other hard substances.” In 1767, Captain Carteret found spears and arrows pointed with flint in use amongst the natives of the Santa Cruz Group and of Gower Island, one of the Solomon Islands.[49] M. Surville, when anchored in Port Praslin in the Solomon Group in 1769, observed that the natives employed “a sort of flint” as knives and razors and for obtaining fire.[50] In my own intercourse with these islanders I did not find flints in use among them; but it is very probable that in some islands the ancient flint implements are occasionally employed for cutting purposes.[51]