WAYS THAT ARE DARK

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 182, 30 April 1936, Page 8

WAYS THAT ARE DARK

Impressions of Solomon Islands Life BEACHCOMBERS’ CLUB Reminiscences of life in the Solomon Islands by Mr. Don Croll, of Wellington. at a recent meeting of the Beachcombers’ Club, carried his hearers back ou the magic carpet of memory to the savagery, beauty and loneliness of the wild islands of Melanesia. Mr. Croll was for some time stationed on Bougainville, northernmost of the Solomon Islands, and technically part of the mandated territory of Papua. It is a big island, about 140 miles long and 45 miles w’ide, with volcanic peaks towering to ten thousand feet above the sea, cloaked with impenetrable jungle to the water’s edge. There is quite as much scenery to the square mile as in Switzerland, says Mr. Croll. The prodigal growth of the jirnglft renders., cross-country travel difficult, even for snakes. There are bush tracks in the districts under Government control, but in the back country ten miles is a long day’s hike. Along the coast headlands, reef-enclosed lagoons with sandy beaches, and fringing reefs alternate with sinister mangrove swamps alive with crocodiles, land-crabs and mosquitoes. The few anchorages are precarious and exposed. The capital of the island is Kieta, a “city” of some thirty ■whites, a few score Chinese, and any .number of fuzzy-headed kanakas. Kieta is a delectable study in uninterrupted slumber. , “When I went up to the Solomons, said Mr. Croll, “I’d steeled myself to meet haggard, parchment-faced skeletons, their strength sapped by fever. I’d reconciled myself beforehand to the thought of my own enlistment into that corps of living corpses. To my surprise ’most everybody looked fit and hearty. Although malarial fever, and dysentery, are certainly rampant there, and the scourge of “Solomon sores” seldom passes anyone by, with ordinary care a fellow’s as liable to attain the age of a century in the Solomons as in any other place. Black Folk of the Islands. “The kanaka is, of course, the most interesting subject to the visitor. Solomon Islanders in general are not great big he-men. The average kanaka, fullgrown and reasonably fed, stands about five foot seven in his natal footwear. He is well-muscled, and in the welterweight class. He is lazy, some say inherently so, but it is problematic whether he was before the white man made him so. The survival of the fittest governed kanaka destiny in those bygone days. The morals of most tribes were strict, and lapses punishable by sudden death. Their code, however, has failed to withstand the encroachment of our cultured civilisation- ... “There are four stages in the lite history, of kanakadom:' piccanin, monkey, man, lapoon. Piccanins are of almost equal mentality to white children up to the age of nine or ten. After that further progress with the mental layout is definitely ‘tambu.’ From about six to sixteen the young islander qualifies as ‘monkey,’ but from maturity to the dusk of his days, when teeth no longer support his beloved clay pipe, when he can no longer chew betel, and when his black hide becomes wrinkled and dull, he is described just simply as ‘man.’ When ‘man’ no longer, the wreckage of warriordom must bear the ignominious nomenclature of ‘lapoon.’ “People who imagine they know the Melanesian often say he is surly and glum. That is quite incorrect, and unjust to a race that is reserved, unemotional and undemonstrative. Animallike, the kanaka is shy and sceptical, and apt to be terrified by strange happenings. But laughter and mirth are virtues far from foreign to him. Solomon Lingua Franca. “When you drift down there there’s no necessity to let the countless lingoes worry you. Pidgin English is the only linguistic necessity, and it comes naturally, having been evolved by the indolent for the indolent. But at times it demands a certain amount of mental effort. A gang of boys out in the bush were engaged in cutting up logs. Lusty blows of the axe were beginning to pall on the sweating kanakas. One had an idea. ‘Masta, me want something.’ ’lm something, ’e kaikai all the time. Two fella’ boy ’e work ’em. . . . Push ’im ’e come, pull ’im ’e go.’ Who would have picked that he wanted a cross-cut saw? “In my earlier days down there, I bade my gun-boy go forth and shoot some pigeons for my kaikai. In an hour or so my smiling black retainer returned girdled with feathered corpses, but with not a pigeon to show. None the less, he had fulfilled his instructions, ‘Pigeon,’ in pidgin, designates bosun-birds and brightly-plumed parrots just as much as the orthodox ingredients of a pie. “ ‘Mary’ signifies any old thing that nature manufactured female. The indigenous black ladies of Hie coral strand are all ‘Marys.’ Just as a heifer is ‘monkey bullamakau,’ a cow is ‘Mary bullamakau.’

“A new planter who demanded to be introduced to the personnel of his bullock teamsters had difficulty in making himself understood. After long pondering a broad grin illuminated the facial darkness of the puzzled bossboy. ‘Me savvy now, ,Masta. You want boat’s crew belong bullamakau. huh?’

“One of the most interesting features of Solomon life is the bush telephone, the talking drums, called garamut. These are hollowed logs of wood, which when beaten produce a bell-like note that can be heard for many miles. In practically every Bougainville village garamuts are to be found, and at some of the bigger places are regular ‘high-power stations,’ the house garamut containing whole . batteries of these wooden gongs. The secret codes will probably remain always tambu to white men. It is remarkable how an important message can be relayed from end to end of the island in the space of a few hours. “Perhaps the voice of the garamut is one of the most typical features of life on Bougainville, one of the Solomons’ most mystic wonders. I wish you could be transported to my bungalow on Bougainville, within sight .of the palms and the sea. Of a still night, from across the calm waters of the wide bay, you would hear the low throbbing of a distant garamut Then, from a nearer village, a louder tapping. Then, almost simultaneously, two points on the jungled hills pass the message to the mountain villages inland while from somewhere on the steep slopes above the house, comparatively loud and close at hand, begins the staccato clamour of the drums. There’s something intriguing about it in these peaceful times, as well as sinister memories of closed chapters of Solomon history, written in human blood.”