solomon islands—ingova’s head-hunters—how whole tribes were wiped out—savage invasions and clever tactics.

the solomon islands, not being of such importance as new guinea, have had much less attention paid to them.

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 to either for trading or scientific purposes. it is here that cannibalism flourishes, and the head-hunters go forth on expeditions in all their savage grandeur to strike down the unsuspecting neighbour.

if there is uncertainty about life in new guinea, there is precious little in the solomon islands, for the chances are ten to one against one’s living to tell the tale, unless he keep strictly to the trading parts of the islands.

portrait of a solomon island cannibal

this man was said to have “kaikaied-man plenty” (to have eaten plenty of men). he told me in island english that i was no good to eat. his teeth were stained red by chewing the betel-nut.

travellers, scientists, and traders still visit the {95} interior, and some come out all right, but to every one that survives a dozen succumb, simply because cannibalism is to a certain extent a religious ceremony to these natives.

they do not kill and eat human beings for the sake of their taste, or because they are hungry, as some writers will insist on having us believe. the cause is farther back than this; in nearly every case when human beings are killed and eaten, it is on occasions when such a sacrifice is necessary, according to the natives’ religious beliefs.

like the prophets and priests of old they believe in sacrifices; they honestly consider that they are doing the correct thing when they kill, cook, and eat a man or woman, and it will take many years and many missionaries to persuade them to the contrary. of late, however, there are indications that in some of the islands head-hunting is losing favour, particularly with the younger generation, which sounds satisfactory, for if the rising generation decide against the practice it will soon die out. other causes sometimes arise which may help to stop the custom. for instance, in one part of new georgia the chief, some years ago, gave orders that no more human flesh was to be eaten, which to many might look as if his cannibalistic views were {96} changing, but the cause of it was not a moral, but a physical one: the last feast of man they had indulged in caused an epidemic of sickness to run through the tribe, and the chief did not wish such a thing to occur again. he felt that either the digestion of his tribe had altered, or that the particular tribe on which he had been feasting was no longer palatable, so he stopped it. again, in other parts certain chiefs boast that they do not eat human flesh, and hope is again raised that these savages are reforming, but a little closer inquiry shows that the particular chief deals in human flesh, trading it to other natives, and, like the man who makes the sausage, he does not eat it.

throughout these islands there are very few tribes who are still actually cannibals, in the sense of the word as it is generally accepted, but in spite of this grain of promise life is just as uncertain, because one can never tell when a head is needed for a religious ceremony. you may live on the most friendly terms with a tribe for months, and go away with the idea that cannibalism is dead, and laugh at those who have tried to make you believe otherwise, but had you remained one day longer, or the chief’s son died one day sooner, that laugh would never have come off, but instead your head would {97} have, and your comely carcase would have been frizzling in the kai-kai dish; and the very men who had made so much of you a little before, would with equal glee have made less of you then.

sacred skull shrines, british solomon islands

the skull houses are small erections supported, in this case, on pedestals; the length is about three feet, with an overhanging roof. the box is open at the back as well as in the front, and charms of tredacua shell and leaves are suspended in front. the houses in the background are made of canes and grass; that in the foreground is of wood. the native is carrying a shield.

when standing before a chief, who is smiling at you and treating you to all the courtesies his nature can conjure up, and knowing that with him you have trusted yourself for many an hour’s smoke or solitary ramble in the bush, it is difficult to realise that the same chief a week before was on the warpath, concocting the most devilish schemes, and carrying out the most fiendish atrocities on men, women, and children in his pursuit of heads. but such is the case, and one can only account for the inconsistency of it by putting these acts down to a religious mania, and thus giving these otherwise amiable and interesting creatures a certain excuse for actions which to us would seem inexcusable.

tribe after tribe has been completely wiped out by certain powerful chiefs through a continued series of head-hunting expeditions. the methods adopted by the aggressive party are simple and generally most effective. the rubiana natives are perhaps the most bloodthirsty of all the solomon group, and, being both rich and powerful, they can descend on a village and overpower it by sheer {98} force of numbers, even without the use of modern weapons, which are now owned by nearly all the important tribes. the most notorious head-hunter in later years was ingova of rubiana lagoon, new georgia, to whom i have already alluded. he is old and wizened now, and his hand trembles as he lifts the glass of grog he begs from you, after telling a yarn of the good old days. yes, ingova’s strength and valour are gone now, and could the departed spirits of the hundreds he has killed in days gone by see him as he is to-day—his feeble limbs, his shaking hand, his bloodshot eyes, and seared face—they would indeed wonder what it was they feared in him. where is the great spirit that once possessed him? they would ask. they would scorn him now, and the women would laugh at him—poor, feeble, tottering ingova.

years ago ingova’s euro was hung with skulls, hundreds of them were strung in the cross-beams, with staring, vacant eyeholes, which looked out of nothing and yet seemed to see everything. their drooping lower jaws, showing sets of white teeth which glistened in the rays of the moon, made ingova’s heart throb with pride as he stood and tried to count them. white naked skulls of brave men all hung in rows—they had all belonged to {99} men, for a woman’s head is not worthy of such an honour.

ingova’s head-hunters, british solomon islands

one day, soon after one of ingova’s rash ventures amongst white men, commander, now rear-admiral, davis played havoc with his village, burning and sacking it. it was no ordinary attack but a clean sweep he made of rubiana, and then the shore was littered with ingova’s skulls: skulls that he and his fathers had collected for generations were scattered in all directions, and lay bleaching on the beach, some half burnt and others cracked and broken.

that was an awful day for ingova, and for months after he was a broken-hearted man. but the savage spirit was still in him, and he was not long in recovering from the shock, and to rectify his loss he set out on a big head-hunting expedition.

his mode of attack was an ingenious one. he would start out with every war canoe he possessed (some twenty or thirty, manned with a force of five or six hundred men—swarthy, hard, muscular, dark-skinned men), and a british built whaling-boat. having previously decided on the island he meant to surprise, he would send out two flanking parties and probably land a small force lower down the {100} coast. then, accompanied by the whaling-boat, he would make straight for the front of the village like an innocent trader, and having enticed the natives to the shore he would commence his slaughter. the two arms of his force would close in and kill all those who failed to get away, the others he would drive back to the centre of the island where the land force would be waiting to drive them to the shore again, killing men all the time. thus hustled and attacked on both sides they were trebly trapped, and would fall like sheep before the shots and tomahawks of ingova’s five hundred.

but with all his efforts ingova never regained the long rows of heads of which he used to be so proud, and now he is too old to go out and look for more, but not too old to forget captain davis’s little visit to rubiana.

he wears no necklace round his neck now, for admiral davis has it, it having been given him by ingova many years after that little visit as a kind of peace offering—they are quite friendly now.

mai was another chief whose reputation for head-hunting and absolute brutality was a household word in the south pacific. he was chief of sapuna in santa anna, and periodically raided {101} the adjoining islands, killing and butchering every one who crossed his path.

a canoe showing the “totoishu,” new georgia, solomon islands

the idea of this carved wooden head on the prow is to frighten off the evil spirits, or kesoko, of the waters and look out for dangerous reefs.

dr. h. b. guppy, in giving an account of his acquaintance with him, says, that on his (dr. guppy’s) arrival at santa anna he learned that mai had just been out on one of his raids. he had led a war party across to fanarita, on the opposite coast of st. christoval, to avenge the death of a fugitive from a labour vessel, who, having escaped at santa anna, subsequently found his way to fanarita, where he was killed.

the excuse, although somewhat circuitous, was quite sufficient for mai, who really thought more of this chance of gaining new laurels than of the untimely end of a native whose death he pretended to be so eager to avenge. having reached the part of the coast where this man was killed, the war party lay in ambush and slaughtered a chief and two women as they were returning from their yam patches, whilst they severely wounded another woman who escaped into the bush with a spear through her back.

mai had a knack of keeping his followers up to the mark by working on their superstitions and never letting old feuds die out.

the islands of isabel and guadalcanar were the {102} hunting grounds for the new georgia chiefs, whilst occasional visits to florida island helped them along. from ninety to a hundred heads were often brought in by some of these chiefs, the result of a long and successful raid, and many travellers who visited these islands between forty and fifty years ago state frankly that the lives of the natives in the less powerful islands were not worth a day. they never knew when a canoe might land with a force superior to theirs and wipe them all out; the wonder is that there are so many still alive. it is only owing to the falling off of these ghastly expeditions that they have had time to recover and repopulate their villages.

with such massacres going on and the practice of infanticide always in vogue, the present state of the natives is almost marvellous, and only shows the hardiness and regenerating powers of these islanders.

nowadays head-hunting, as i have already stated, is only resorted to on certain occasions, and when a head is needed a sum of money will often be offered for one, and the chiefs of different villages are acquainted with the fact. a hunt round is immediately made, and any native who has made himself objectionable to his neighbours is sold for the purpose.

neither the time of his death nor the fact that he is to die is told him, so that he is relieved from all worry. he is watched most carefully, and a certain hunter is told off to procure his head. it may not be for weeks after the sentence has been passed that it is carried out, but when once the decree has gone forth the man is as good as dead. the hunter may have been ingratiating himself in his victim’s good books, and thus waiting his opportunity for months; then one day, when the unsuspecting victim is quite off his guard, the flash of a spear or the dull thud of a tomahawk is all that he knows. the next day his head is carried to the chief and the shell money paid over for it. then the feast or ceremony for which this ghastly object is required takes place amid much rejoicing. white men have often fallen victims to this custom, and many a trader has only received warning from a friendly native just in time to escape the same fate. money has often been paid down for the head of a white man, and if he has not heard of it in time to escape, his death has followed.

the missionaries, however, have seldom suffered; they are tolerated, and seem to go on in a quiet and peaceful way, quite secure where every other white man’s life is in his hand.