The grave Spaniard Mendaña, the discoverer of the Santa Cruz group, little knew how prophetic was this name of Holy Cross, which, in his religious zeal, he had bestowed on the island of Ndeni. To-day memorial crosses stand in Carlisle Bay and in Graciosa Bay on Ndeni, and on the beach at Nukapu, facing the setting sun.
What a host of memories the name Santa Cruz calls up to the student of Melanesian history! The ill-fated Spanish admiral Don Alvaro de Mendaña, after sailing twice across the Pacific, found his last home in the bay which he had named Graciosa, on the island of Ndeni. Three hundred years later the noble-hearted James Goodenough, commodore of Her Britannic Majesty's squadron on the Australian Station, met his death at the hands of the natives of Ndeni. "Poor Santa Cruz! poor people!" was the exclamation of Edwin Nobbs and Fisher Young, the faithful Norfolk Island lads in the company of Bishop Patteson, as they writhed in the agonies of tetanus brought on by wounds from those terrible Santa Cruz arrows. Mano Wadrokal, the native deacon from the Loyalty Islands, the first missionary to Santa Cruz, braved the fury of these excitable people time and again in his efforts to win them for Christ and for peace. Mr. Lister Kaye's name will go down to posterity as that of the first white man to live on Santa Cruz after Mendaña and his company. Mr. Forrest was the next white man to live there and for the whole of his time his life was constantly in danger. Dr. John Williams was content to sacrifice his worldly prospects and to devote himself to the healing of ulcers and the curing of ringworm on Santa Cruz bodies. Mr. O'Ferrall and Mr. Nind endured innumerable dangers and perils by waters, visiting the islands in their whaleboats. The last victim claimed by Santa Cruz was the mission priest Guy Bury, who died in 1911 after a short residence of a few months, the victim not of poisonous arrows, but of malignant island ulcers.
Forty miles north of Santa Cruz lies the Swallow Group, commonly called the Reef Islands, and on the smallest of these, Nukapu, there perished the great mission hero Bishop Patteson. On the island of Vanikolo, 60 miles south of Santa Cruz, the famous French explorer La Pérouse, who just failed of annexing Australia to the French crown, was ingloriously cast away.
A brilliant galaxy of names--explorers, sailors, missionaries, admirals, bishops, priests, deacons--and still to-day Santa Cruz and its neighboring islands are mainly Heathen.
Santa Cruz was discovered and named by Mendaña in 1595, sailing from Callao in his endeavor to reach again and colonize the isles of Solomon, which he had himself discovered on a previous voyage in [233/234] 1566. The night before the expedition sighted land the Almiranta, the fourth ship of the squadron, disappeared, being wrecked possibly on one of the Reef Islands or on the Duff Group, 95 miles northeast of Santa Cruz. Mendaña made a settlement in a bay at the northeast end of the island, which he named Graciosa Bay. Here the expedition stayed for two months, their ranks being gradually thinned by disease and the arrows of the natives. Mendaña died and was buried at Santa Cruz. The rest of the company abandoned their ideas of colonization and set out for Manila, just failing to sight the Solomons when two days' sail from Santa Cruz.
The Swallow Group was discovered and named by Carteret in 1766 after his ship, the Swallow. The Duff Group, Taumako, was named after the mission ship of the London Missionary Society, the Duff, which sighted them when on a voyage returning from Tahiti in 1797. The fate of La Pérouse was discovered by Dillon, who landed in Vanikolo in 1826.
The Santa Cruz Group lies to the east of the Solomons, and the large island Ndeni, which Mendaña named Santa Cruz, is 200 miles from Ulawa and a little less from Santa Anna, the small island at the southern extremity of San Cristoval. Ndeni is 22 miles long and 10 or 12 miles broad. Like most of the Melanesian islands, there is but little flat land on it; the center ridge rises to a height of 2,000 feet and the ridges which offset from it terminate right on the coast. The whole island is covered with the usual dense vegetation. The climate is wet and steamy and very trying to Europeans. The average number of days on which rain falls is probably in excess of the number of rainy days in the Solomons, which Dr. Guppy reckons as about 180. There seem to be hardly any bush villages at all, the population living in large villages on the shore. Graciosa Bay in particular, a deep indentation at the north end, has a large number of populous villages. The total population may be 8,000, but numbers died of dysentery in 1915.
Agriculture is followed to some extent, yams, and what are known in the Solomons as "pana," being grown. The "pana" is a yam that has a prickly vine. Coconuts are comparatively few in number, but Santa Cruz is renowned for its large canarium nut (almond). These are smoked and preserved in leg-of-mutton-shaped baskets plaited out of coconut leaf. These baskets of nuts are brought off to the ships for trade, but the Cruzians are quite capable of filling them with rubbish and then palming them off on the unwary.
The weapons of the peoples in all the islands of the group are bows and arrows. The bow is made of very rough wood, is of great length, and exceedingly hard to bend. The bowstring is twisted out of fiber made from the bark of a garden tree which in Ulawa is called su'a. The su'a tree has berries the size and appearance of coffee berries. These are boiled in wooden bowls by means of placing hot [234/235] stones in the bowls and are esteemed a great relish. The young shoots of the su'a are eaten as spinach, and so are the catkins of the male tree. Fishing-lines are made from the same bark, and some of the lines are strong enough to hold a shark. They are coated with a preparation made from the inner skin of the casuarina.
The arrows of Santa Cruz are much to be dreaded. Dr. Codrington writes that they are uniformly 4 feet long and weigh about 2 ounces. The bone point is 7 inches long and the foreshaft (of hardwood curiously carved and colored) is 16 inches long. The bone head (human bone) is covered with a preparation of vegetable ashes which is supposed to give great supernatural power. The common result of a wound from any of these arrows is certainly tetanus. However, it is quite certain that no vegetable poisons are consciously used in the preparation of the arrows, but all the preparation is done while charms are being said to fasten supernatural qualities on the arrow. What the native seeks for is an arrow which shall have mana to hurt. The truth of the matter seems to be that while the arrows are poisonous, they are not deliberately poisoned. A punctured wound in the tropics may easily be followed by tetanus, especially if dirt be adhering to whatever caused the puncture; and the breaking off of a fine point of bone in a wound is sure to be dangerous and likely to be fatal. The introduction into the wound of an acrid or burning substance will increase the inflammation in it. In the case of natives, it is always expected that tetanus will surely follow and the expectation may go a long way to cause the symptoms. One would think that the rigidity of the bows and the weight of the arrows would militate considerably against the accuracy of the shooting; the Malaita bow is much more easily bent and the arrow is lighter, though a little longer.
The men in the whole of the group wear a turtle-shell ring hanging from the septum of the nose. These rings are made out of the tail-piece of the turtle shell, which is of considerable thickness and has an aperture where it fits on to the carapace. This particular piece of the shell, called popo (stern) in Ulawa, is much sought after. When the man wishes to eat he has to lift up his nose ring. Numbers of rings made of strips of turtle shell are hung in the ears, the lobe of which becomes much distended, and it is a common thing for the rings to touch the shoulder. Great heavy discs of pure white clam-shell are suspended from the neck. The best of these are said to be made from clam shell of immemorial antiquity found inland in the bush and dating back to the time when the land was upheaved. On these discs (called te ma, moon) a piece of turtle shell is tied, cut into the conventional shape of the man-of-war hawk. Some of the discs are 10 inches in diameter.
The boys are clad in a native mat after attaining a certain age and the men all wear the native mat as a loin-cloth. The women also [235/236] wear the native mat. In the Melanesian islands of the group the women are kept much in seclusion and do not mingle freely with the men, and in all the islands alike there is not as much freedom of intimacy between the sexes as one sees in the Solomons. Yellow ocher is much used and everything gets stained by it. The men plaster their hair with lime, thus bleaching it, and one often sees the hair done up by wrapping a piece of paper mulberry bark around it. The women's heads are shaven.
Some 20 miles north of Graciosa Bay, and in full view, there towers the active volcanic cone called Tamami by the Ndeni people and Tinakula by the Reef Islanders. This volcano is about 2,000 feet high and rises straight out of the sea. Its top is generally covered with a cloud which is half mist and half steam, and at nights the red lava is often seen coursing down the steep face to the sea on the northwest side of the island. On his last voyage, as he lay becalmed near the volcano, Bishop Patteson noticed that it was in action, and Bishop John Selwyn saw pumice and gravel descending the sides. The earthquakes which are so common in the neighbourhood, and which are felt so frequently at Ulawa in the Solomons, are probably caused by disturbances at this volcanic center. The weather coast of Ulawa is frequently covered with pumice-stone carried there by the southeast winds. Tinakula is uninhabited, but coconuts appear round the coast and the neighboring peoples of Nupani are said to be in the habit of visiting it to collect what food it offers. There is a striking likeness between Tinakula and Meralava in the Banks Group, and were Tinakula to cease its activity the fertility of its soil would doubtless equal that of Meralava.
The Swallow Group, or Reef Islands, lie about 40 miles northeast of Graciosa Bay. These islands are all small and low-lying, the largest of them, Fenua Loa, is 6 or 8 miles in length and very narrow, while others (like Pileni and Nukapu) are tiny places which one could walk round in half an hour. There is a deep-water passage on the east side of Fenua Loa, between it and the cluster of islands marked Lomlom on the chart. Lomlom is really the name of a village on Fenua Loa, and, so far from the Lomlom of the chart being one island, it is really a group of five clustered round a lagoon. The largest of these is named Ngailo, and the entrance to the lagoon is by a passage facing Fenua Loa. The lagoon is dotted with villages and the people of each island maintain their separate lives, often being at war with their next-door neighbors. There is a passage through to the south, but owing to the prevailing southeast wind this is negotiable only in calm weather. Two small islands lie off Ngailo, called Bange Netepa and Bange Ninde. These differ from the rest of the group in having no encircling reef and rise precipitously to 150 feet, with no beach and with bad landings.
[237] Fenua Loa is separated only at high water from its northern neighbor Nifilole. Huge reefs stretch out west in a great arm from Fenua Loa, and inside the encircling reef lies Matema. When journeying from Ndeni by whaleboat to the Reef Islands the missionaries made for an opening in the reef opposite Matema and then sailed or rowed up in the quiet water under the lee of Fenua Loa. The little island Pileni lies 3 miles away from Nifilole, and there is a deep water passage between the two; Pileni, like Nifilole, Nukapu, and Nupani, is raised only a few feet above sea-level, but it differs from them in having no encircling coral reef. Nukapu is 15 miles west of Pileni and Nupani 20 miles still farther west. All the islands are covered with dense forest.
The population of the Reefs is probably now not much more than 500 all told, and two distinct types of language are spoken--Melanesian and Polynesian--each type being split up again into what almost amounts to local dialects. On Fenua Loa and Nifilole and the islands to the eastward the language is Melanesian and is akin to that spoken on Ndeni; on Matema, Pileni, Nukapu, and Nupani the language is a much-decayed form of a Polynesian language. It is probable that these four Polynesian-speaking islands do not differ to any very great extent in language, but that the differences in the Melanesian-speaking islands of the group are far more noticeable. It is worthy of note that of the Melanesian islands Fenua Loa (Long Island) has a distinctly Polynesian name, and Nifilole is almost certainly of the same language stock.
On the Reef Islands there is but little food and no good fresh water. The people live largely on fish, coconuts, and breadfruit. Frequent journeys are made to Ndeni in the sailing canoes to get food, which is bartered for fish, dried breadfruit, and woven mats. The breadfruit is dried and made up in little plaited packets of cane or is kept in a silo in the ground and eaten when required. The smell of the breadfruit thus preserved is too much for European nostrils. Fish abound in the shallow waters of the lagoons and are shot with arrows or caught with nets or hooks. The shells found in these waters are particularly numerous and beautiful.
The Santa Cruz group claims particular notice for three reasons: its languages, its looms, its canoes. There has never been any attempt made to learn the Polynesian language spoken in the Reefs. Bishop G. A. Selwyn and Bishop Patteson were both Maori scholars and were able to hold converse with the Nukapu people. Dr. Codrington has published a small grammar of the Nifilole language and one a little fuller of the Ndeni language.
The eating of areca nut with pepper leaf and quicklime, which is characteristic of all the groups from the Solomons westward to India, proceeds no farther eastward than Santa Cruz and Tikopia. In the [237/238] rest of Melanesia, the New Hebrides, Banks, Torres, Fiji, and in the whole of Polynesia there is no eating of areca nut, but kava-drinking is found instead. In the Solomons and in New Guinea the lime is conveyed to the mouth from the lime gourd or the bamboo by means of a spatula or a stick, but the Cruzian scorns such delicate ways and, wetting his first finger, plunges it into the lime and thence into his mouth. As a result of this excessive use of lime the lips of the elders are caked quite hard and distinct articulation becomes impossible, so that it is from the lips of the children that the languages must be learned.
The Melanesian languages of the group have vowels which in certain parts of speech are inconstant, being attracted to the sound of the neighboring vowels. Thus a certain preposition may be ma, me, mo, according to the vowel in the word which it governs. All the vowels except i have a secondary or modified sound. The consonants also vary greatly; k and g constantly interchange, also k and ng, and d and t; p, b, and v are used indifferently in the same word; l and n also interchange. The personal pronouns differ materially from those in ordinary use in Melanesia, there being only one set (instead of two or three) which is suffixed to nouns as possessive, to verbs as objects, to a stem ni as subjects. With the verbs the same use prevails as in the Solomons, the personal pronouns being suffixed as objects, the sense conveyed being, however, rather participial or gerundival. The transitive termination of verbs so common elsewhere in Melanesia does not seem to appear in Santa Cruz.
But very little of the Bible has ever been translated into any of the Santa Cruz tongues. Parts of the Prayer Book were rendered by Mr. Forrest into the language of Ndeni, but the translation is reported to be very faulty and has practically been set aside. There is a great and honorable work awaiting someone who shall set himself to learn one of these tongues, to use it for the dissemination of Christian truths, to ascertain its rules and methods of speech, to produce its grammar and dictionary. Dr. Codrington has laid the foundations for such study in his specimen grammars of Ndeni and Nifilole. The main requisites for learning a native language are a good ear to catch the sounds and a good memory to be able to repeat the words and phrases, and a sympathetic mind that can put itself en rapport with the minds of the natives.
In view of the special difficulty of the languages spoken in the Santa Cruz islands, the Melanesian Mission would be well advised to set one of its scholars to work on some one particular language in order to import the information thus gained to others no so well qualified to work on a new language. The Rev. H. N. Drummond was of the opinion that one of the Polynesian tongues, say that of Pileni or Matema, should be made the standard tongue for the Reef Islands, [238/239] and that it should be used as the basis for all linguistic work. The peoples speaking Polynesian never learn the Melanesian tongues, whereas those who speak Melanesian are nearly always bilingual. It would be advisable to take the language of some one island and definitely adopt it as the standard language for all translational work. To learn one language well and to make that the lingua franca seems a feasible project.
Undoubtedly one of the chief reasons for the present religious stagnation in Santa Cruz is the Mission's failure to learn any one of the languages and to make translations. Many boys have been taken from the neighborhood to Norfolk Island and have returned home in order to impart to their fellows what they had learned of Christianity. They might have done much even without assistance from the whites had they been provided with books, but with the exception of the good Henry Leambi hardly one of them has risen to a sense of the duties of his calling and has kept to his post. A Matema boy, Ben Teilo, has done excellent work on Vanikolo and Utupua, and has lately been ordained deacon.
The Santa Cruz boys never throve when taken to Norfolk Island. As a whole they failed to show much sign of intellectuality, though some of them were sharp enough; they were always the first to fall ill, and during any epidemic they were a constant source of anxiety. It is reported that during one epidemic of meningitis five Cruzians died within a few days of one another, some sickening and dying within the day. In former years vessels endeavored to recruit laborers at Santa Cruz for Queensland, but the recruiting was stopped owing to the heavy mortality which occurred through nostalgia, men simply giving up the ghost in their homesickness. In later years the Mission has been taking Santa Cruz boys for training as teachers to the central school at Vureas, Banks Islands. There they seem to have kept in better health, but nevertheless they have been a source of great anxiety and some have died.
Santa Cruz can also claim distinction as being the only place in Melanesia where the people use a hand loom. Looms do not appear in Polynesia at all, but the one used at Santa Cruz has great likeness to those used in the Carolines. Looms also appear in the Philippines and in Borneo. The Spaniards in 1595 remarked on the presence of these looms. The fiber used in the weaving is derived from the stem of a certain banana and is made into mats for wearing as dresses and into kits for men's use to carry their lime-boxes, etc. The weaving is done by the men.
The wonderful sailing canoe of the Cruzians is called loju or tepukei. These are made principally in the Duff Group, Taumako. The foundation of the canoe is a large hollowed-out log, the aperture being covered eventually to keep out the water. On this log a big stage is [239/240] built up with cross-timbers projecting on both sides, the timbers being tied with sennit. To keep the log upright there is a float of light wood into which strong stakes are driven; these are then fastened with sennit lashings and the other ends are made fast to the timbers of the stage. On the outrigger side of the stage there is a little apartment with walls and roof of sago palm, where a fire can be made, and on the opposite side is a sloping platform where the steersman stands holding his long paddle and where the merchandise is carried.
The sail of these canoes is shaped like that of the New Guinea sailing canoes, a swallow tail, and is made of sago-palm leaf. The canoes sail either end first. The Cruzians make great voyages in these canoes, the Matema people journeying to Vanikolo, the better part of 100 miles away. At times the sailing canoes are driven out of their course and reach the Solomon Islands. In one of the schools at Ulawa a large, wide plank, which was part of the well of one of these canoes, served as a table in the school-house. The wood was that beautiful rosewood known in Ulawa as liki and had been cut from the big flanges of the tree; it was a rich red in color and the graining was beautiful. The plank was sawed up to make the credence of the Mwadoa Church, Ulawa.
The voyagers in these canoes experience great hardship at times when driven out of their course by rough winds. The Southern Cross rescued recently some natives out of a tepukei far out of sight of land. They had been at sea for a fortnight. A case is reported of a canoe with Christians on board returning from Taumako. The wind proved unfavorable and for ten days they were out of sight of land. Then water gave out and in their despair they prayed for rain. The next day a favorable wind sprung up accompanied by heavy showers, and they were able to catch some water, and then, marvellous to relate, they knew their position and steered for home.
Ulawa has frequently received these tempest-driven canoes. In former days the crews were killed, but during Christian times their lives have been preserved. Some of them have married and settled down in Ulawa; Ngorangora village had a Reef Island woman who had married there. Some of these castaways have built small outrigger canoes and set off for home paddling. At night they steered by the stars and they generally managed to reach home. Bishop Selwyn in 1878 wrote of a Nupani man who had paddled his way back from Ulawa. Some years ago, on the weather coast of Ulawa, just as the darkness was coming on, we sighted two Cruzians in one of their small canoes. Fires were lighted and every attempt was made to induce them to land, but they evidently were afraid of the reception which might be awaiting them and they paddled away into the darkness. Their power of locating their position is wonderful. Captain Bongard, of the old Southern Cross, used to tell the story of Te Fonu, one [240/241] of the two Nifilole men driven away from Nupani, whom Bishop Selwyn rescued from Port Adam on Malaita in 1877 and returned to their homes and thus opened up the way again to Santa Cruz. In order to test Te Fonu's knowledge of the direction of Santa Cruz the captain used to call him up at night as they were sailing and ask him where Santa Cruz lay. Te Fonu would look at the stars and then would point unerringly in the direction of his home, no matter on what course the ship was lying. Santa Anna, one of the two small islands at the east end of San Cristoval, has a considerable number of Cruzians, who after being shipwrecked made their home there.
The smaller paddling canoe of Santa Cruz is well worthy of mention; it is called jaolo in Ndeni. It is built in the same way as the sailing canoe, a hollow log with an outrigger and with a platform joining the two parts. The aperture in the log is very narrow and the paddlers sit on the lip and have their legs crossed. Both the small canoes and the sailing ones are coated with lime. The paddles have a large, heavy blade and a long handle, and look very clumsy in comparison with the long, tapering blades used in the eastern Solomons.
When the coming of the ships was somewhat of a rare event, it was a great sight to see the number of canoes that came flocking out to barter their goods at the ship's side. Two men sat in each canoe, one on each side of the platform, and often a boy would be squatting on the platform among the goods brought for barter. These goods consisted of bows and bundles of arrows, paddles, dancing clubs, mats, kits, looms, fishing nets and lines, lassoes for shark catching, flying fish floats, shell armlets, shells and shell spoons for scraping coconut, bundles of smoked canarium nuts, coconuts, dried and green breadfruit, a few yams and pana, areca nuts and pepper leaves, wild wood pigeons, parrots, and native fowls. The scene alongside the ship was one of the wildest excitement, the men all shouting their loudest, some holding up various articles of barter and hissing to attract the attention of the people on the ship, some maneuvering for place alongside, canoes getting foul of one another and occasionally one filling. To be capsized is no hardship for a Cruzian; his canoe may even turn turtle, but owing to the outrigger it will never sink. They are quite able to right an overturned canoe; then, catching hold of the end, they pull the canoe backward and forward, jerking the water out, and finally, jumping on board, they bail furiously till the craft is afloat again.
To allow the Cruzians to come on board is fatal to the peace of the ship. They pester everyone to buy, thrusting their wares into one's face and muttering tambaika (tobacco). The price is arranged by the buyer holding up as many fingers as he thinks the article to be worth in sticks of tobacco, whereupon the Cruzian says mondu, i. e., more, and the buyer airs his knowledge of the language by saying tëge kalinge, "no, my friend," and so the process goes on. Great hands are laid [241/242] on one's arm; huge mouths red with areca nut and lime are thrust in one's face; the scent of strong-smelling herbs worn in the shell armlets almost overpowers one; clothes are marked with stains of yellow ocher; an unmistakable odor of natives pervades everything, and keen eyes follow every movement; great heads bleached with lime or wrapped up in bark cloth are thrust into the windows; everything movable has to be put out of reach, and portholes have to be shut. Captain Bongard told the story of a Cruzian who endeavored to purloin one of the iron ringbolts fastened to the deck, returning time and again to have a pull at it. Cats are much prized by these peoples, and the ship's cat has to be guarded carefully when they are on board.
As soon as the ship begins to move ahead and the decks are cleared the confusion becomes appalling. Men hang over the ship's side waiting for their canoes and expostulating furiously with the ship's company; others have to be forced to leave, offering their wares all the time. The ship's people throw tobacco into the water alongside the canoes and instantly men dive over (the white soles of their feet showing up plainly), seize the tobacco, and come up shaking the water out of their mops of hair and wiping the salt off their faces; then, leaping aboard and grasping their paddles, they start off after the rest of the flotilla. Tobacco wet with salt water would not tempt a white man, but the Nupani men are reported to have smoked tobacco mixed with dried shark fins! It requires skill to extricate the legs from the narrow openings in the canoe, and occasionally as the man goes to leap overboard his leg is caught and broken bones are the result.
Those who are the last to leave the ship calmly drop into the water over the side, holding their wares extended in the left hand. So quietly do they slip into the water that the left hand is seldom submerged; then, swimming with the right, they make their way to their friends.
The catching of sharks by the Cruzians deserves a word of notice. Each canoe carries a number of half coconut shells strung on a length of rattan cane. On arriving at a place frequented by sharks the hoop of cane is jerked up and down in the water and a kind of gurgling noise is produced by the shells which certainly attracts the sharks. The noise is popularly supposed to imitate the sound made by a shoal of bonito leaping out of the water, and sharks are always found were there are bonito. As soon as a shark is seen, a bait (usually consisting of a fish) is thrown out; this is tied to a string and is pulled in towards the canoe. The shark becoming bold follows the bait until (after a few throws) he gets right alongside the canoe. A man is sitting ready holding a noose in his hand and, as the shark passes him, the end of the noose is slipped over the shark's nose. The noose gradually tightens as the shark turns and then the battle begins. Eventually the shark is pulled alongside the canoe and is dispatched with blows on the head from a heavy club. The shark lines are twisted out of fiber [242/243] made from the bark of the tree su'a, described previously. Shark is esteemed a great delicacy, but Europeans would be well advised if they refrained from visiting the villages where the flesh or the fins are being prepared, for the odor is almost unbearable.
Mr. O'Ferrall noted that the Pileni men were sorry for themselves in that no sharks were left round their island!
In 1906 Rev. H. Hawkins, now archdeacon in charge of the Maoris in the diocese of Auckland, went on the Southern Cross with a Maori priest round the Polynesian-speaking islands of the Mission to inquire into the practicability of sending Maori missionaries to work on these islands. In addition to Matema, Pileni, Nukapu, and Nupani in the Reefs, there is Tikopia to the southeast, and in the Solomons Rennell and Bellona, west of San Cristoval, and Sikaiana, north of Ulawa, islands all lying out of the ordinary track. They were able by talking Maori to make themselves understood in all these islands, and were quite confident that Maori missionaries would be able to get on there from the very first without much hindrance. However, the isolation in which they would have been compelled to live their lives was felt to be a complete barrier against the Maoris taking up the work. The only chance of their being visited was during the biennial trips of the Southern Cross. For white men thus to be isolated is hard enough, but in the case of Maoris such isolation would be quite fatal. Nevertheless, several Maoris volunteered for the work, and now that the Marsden Centenary has been celebrated the project is being revived and Maoris of the diocese of Waiapu are raising funds to support some of their own number as missionaries to Melanesia.
But it can not be said that the problem of frequent communication with these islands has yet been solved. A small auxiliary schooner, the Selwyn, was built for the purpose of intercommunication between the various stations in the Solomons, but so far she has not proved a success and has spent a great deal of her time lying up in harbor, owing to engine defects. A new engine has now been installed, and better things are expected of the Selwyn, but her small size would militate against her making frequent and regular voyages to the outlying Polynesian islands in the Solomons, and it would be quite out of the question to think of her visiting Santa Cruz. If the Maoris are to go as missionaries, then they must be regularly visited, for their health's sake as well as for the supervision of their work, and this would demand the presence of a powerful auxiliary schooner stationed possibly in the Solomons.
In any case, it is quite out of the question for the work at Santa Cruz, when it is revived, to go on any longer without the missionaries being provided with some better means of locomotion than a whaleboat. Mr. Nind's breakdown in health was caused by prolonged journeys by boat. With their boats fitted with a small dipping lug-sail, when [243/244] crossing over to the Reefs from Ndeni they had to get up as far east as possible, their sail being small and the westerly set very strong, and it was often doubtful whether they could make Matema or not; if they failed, they had to risk the reefs in the night and make for Nukapu. On the return journey they were lucky if they could make land at the west end of Ndeni, at Te Motu, and should the wind fail them or veer round there was the prospect of a steady pull for hours, often with an inferior crew, against wind and tide and current. With the settling of white missionaries again in the group, it will be absolutely necessary to provide a launch for the purpose of work round Ndeni itself, and in order to insure regular and easy voyages to the Reefs, even if no Maoris are sent. Utupua and Vanikolo lie too far away to be reached from Santa Cruz in a launch, but were there a powerful auxiliary schooner in the eastern Solomons regular visits could be paid to all these places.
The Heathen religion in the Santa Cruz group consists of the worship of the dead. The people of importance become ghosts, duka, after death, and a stock of wood is set up in their houses to represent them. Offerings of pigs' flesh and of the first fruits of the crop are made to the duka from time to time and are laid in front of the stock. These offerings are not allowed to lie there for long, and are soon eaten by the offerers on the plea that the duka having now eaten the immaterial substance of the gifts, the offerers are free to eat the fleshy part.
The duka, when offended, causes sickness, and the doctor called in is one who possesses spiritual power, malete, and who owns a duka himself. These wizards, mendeka, control the weather on a sea journey, taking the stock of their duka with them and setting it up in the deckhouse; they also control the sunshine, the rain, and the wind. In the large villages on Ndeni and in the island of Nupani a number of these stocks are set up in one house, manduka, and the ghost-house is often a building showing some considerable artistic taste in the decoration of the pillars or in the carvings. The fear of the duka controls every department of life.
Feather money is peculiar to Santa Cruz; it is made of the red breast-feathers of a small honey-eater, a bird of the glossiest black plumage all over save for the breast-feathers; the bill is long and curved. The birds are caught with birdlime, and they are sometimes worn alive tied by the legs to a man's waist-belt. The red feathers are gummed to pigeon's feathers, and these are bound on a prepared foundation in rows, so that only the red is seen. A length of this money is about 15 feet.
Bishop G. A. Selwyn visited Santa Cruz in 1852, but did not land. Four years later he visited the place again and endeavored to make friends with the people. Mr. Patteson and the Bishop in the same year landed at Utupua, Vanikolo, and Nukapu. At the latter place their knowledge of Maori stood them in good stead. In 1862 Bishop [244/245] Patteson went ashore in several places at Santa Cruz and was well received. Two years later an attack was made upon his boat in Graciosa Bay, and Edwin Nobbs and Fisher Young were shot with arrows and died of tetanus. The reason for the attack was that they probably were taken for ghosts, duka, and ghosts being really unsubstantial could not be harmed by arrows. The natives have short-lived memories and are slow to receive impressions, and to have no power of making comparisons or of drawing inferences, and though the news of the white men's coming must have been generally spread abroad, yet it would be long before it got into the minds of the people that these were real men like themselves, and came from a real country in a real canoe like their own sailing canoes, loju, and were not merely unsubstantial ghostly figures, embodied spirits of their ancestors.
In 1870 Bishop Patteson landed at Nukapu, and in the following year he was killed there, Mr. Atkin and Stephen Taroaniaro being shot at the same time and dying afterwards of tetanus. The reason for the attack was to avenge the abduction and, to their mind, death, of five natives who had been kidnapped by a labor vessel a few days previously. In 1875 Commodore Goodenough was killed at Carlisle Bay, on Ndeni, a few miles east of Nelua. The attack on him seems to have been caused by jealousy between two villages, the attacking party being unfriendly to his guides and resenting his approaching them from the enemy's village, whereas had he not thus gone through the villages no attack would have been made.
In 1877 communications were opened up again with the group after these two murders. Bishop John Selwyn was rescued and returned to Nupani with Te Fonu, one of two men who had been blown away and who were being kept at Port Adam, Malaita, as "live heads," ready for killing when needed. Mano Wadrokal, the native deacon from Nengone, with his wife, Carrie, volunteered the next year to leave Bugotu, where he had settled, and begin a school on Nifilole, Te Fonu's home. Wadrokal reported that the population of Nukapu had been greatly reduced by sickness; he himself was ill owing to want of food and of good water and was taken away from the Reefs. The following year the Bishop took a party of men from Nifilole accompanied by Wadrokal, and thus made friends with the people of Ndeni. While Wadrokal was at Nifilole a number of people from the mainland crossed over to the Reefs and visited him and made friends, and at his own request he was set down at Nelua to endeavor to start a school. All honor must be paid to the brave Wadrokal settling thus alone in the midst of these excitable and warlike people. His own spirit seems to have been a mettlesome one, and his white fathers found him hard to control, but he was ever a pioneer, and he paved the way for gentler and less fiery successors.
[246] In 1881 Mr. Lister Kaye joined Wadrokal at Nelua, and thus was the first white man after Mendaña's party to live on Santa Cruz. Wadrokal had made friends with the people and they had built him a good house, and a few of them were coming for instruction. The natives were found to be hospitable and friendly, and the attitude of suspicion and distrust with which they had been regarded owing to their attacks on the whites now seemed likely to be dispelled. Wadrokal was withdrawn in 1883 owing to illness, and the Bishop lamented that he had no native volunteer helper to place at Santa Cruz. One or two attempted to stay, but the excitable character of the people and the loneliness proved too much for them. Wadrokal returned in 1884, and was present at Nukapu when the Bishop and Mr. Kaye erected Bishop Patteson's cross there. Boys were taken the same year to Norfolk Island from Santa Cruz for the first time, but some of them died. Little progress was made with the mission work in these years, and there were no baptisms except those of scholars at Norfolk Island.
The son of the chief of Nelua, Natei, and his affianced bride were allowed to go up to Norfolk Island, where they were afterwards baptized and given the names of James Goodenough and Monica. James was named after the Commodore, and Mrs. Goodenough was responsible for the cost of his education, but he never seemed to be satisfactory, and eventually had to be disrated. His wife was a very good woman and proved very helpful in keeping the women together. Santa Cruz has all along suffered from a want of firm and reliable head teachers, though Daniel Melamakaule did good work at Te Motu and Henry Leambi was ever a gentle and quiet Christian gentleman.
In 1887 Mr. Forrest started a school at Te Motu, a village on the island Guerta, at the west entrance to Graciosa Bay, and he had Dr. Welchman to assist him. Mr. Forrest and Daniel Melamakaule were shot at near Te Motu, on account of jealousy between two villages, they having had occasion to cross from one village to another, thus incurring the enmity of their attackers. Their courage and firmness alone saved them. The first adult baptisms were also held this year, six people being baptized at Nelua. The separation of the sexes is very closely observed in Santa Cruz, and separate schools had to be kept for the women; the one at Nelua was ably managed by Monica and Fanny. At Nifilole the men and women are never together in public, not even in the gardens or in performing any household work, and the absence of capable women teachers in the Reefs has proved a great hindrance.
[247] Sixteen adults were baptized in 1890 at Nelua, and a small beginning was made on Nukapu. Natei, the Heathen chief of Nelua, caused a great deal of trouble by attempts to blackmail some of the teachers. The following year baptisms were held both at Nelua and Te Motu, and a beginning was made on Pileni. In 1894 Mr. Forrest made a journey in a sailing canoe to the Duff Group, and George Domo consented to stay and start a school there. In 1895 the baptized Christians in the group numbered 116. Schools had been started at three places on Ndeni and the Reef Islands had two struggling schools.
Dr. J. Williams was in charge during 1896 and he staid at Santa Cruz for a while with Mr. O'Ferrall during the following year. Daniel had done good work at Te Motu, and in 1896 Bishop Wilson consecrated a new church there. The first baptism in the Reef Islands was held in 1897 at Nifilole; there were two candidates. The next year both of the schools on Ndeni were closed, the one owing to the teacher's sin, the other owing to the complete indifference and the practical lapse into Heathenism of the male teachers. The two women, Monica and Fanny, still persevered and saved the place from complete spiritual death.
The Te Motu school was reopened in 1898 on the teacher's repentance, but nothing could be done at Nelua, and from then on till about 1915 Christianity practically ceased at Nelua. Te Motu has somewhat relieved the darkness of the picture, but even there the work proceeded but fitfully. School work in the Reef Islands was greatly interrupted by the constant absences of the men on trading and fishing expeditions; there was also a lack of good teachers, the boys who were sent to Norfolk Island having to return before their time on account of ill health. During this year the British Protectorate was proclaimed over this group, but the resident commissioner was stationed in the Solomons. Traders were now being established on Ndeni and steamers were making occasional calls. The following year French vessels recruited illegally, but were ordered to return the natives and to pay a heavy fine. It does not appear that the punishment was enforced, but all recruiting ceased.
In 1899 George Domo reopened the school on Pileni and a school was begun in one of the villages on Fenua Loa. Nothing much ever came of this, and the death of one of the school people brought the work to an end. A boy, Govili, was sent from Nukapu to Norfolk Island, but had to be returned owing to ill health. In 1900 there were 120 baptized people in the group. In this year Mr. Nind arrived to assist Mr. O'Ferrall. A new school was opened on Matema by Andrew Veleio, but the Reef Islands had no teachers for the women and the men were forever travelling about.
In 1901 the first confirmation was held in Santa Cruz, at Te Motu, there being 14 candidates. Nimbi, a village close to Te Motu, sent four boys to Norfolk Island and new boys were obtained from Ngailo [247/248] in the Reefs. In 1904 Mr. Drummond was relieving at the Reefs. Ben Teilo, a Matema boy, made good use of the trading connection existing between his home and Vanikolo, visiting the later place and beginning a school there. George Domo also started a school on Nukapu, but died soon after. By the end of 1905 the Christians numbered 127. In 1906 a house was built for the missionaries in Graciosa Bay, for the purpose of starting a central training school for teachers. The site was easy of access, but proved to be too much on the highway for canoes passing up and down to allow of any quiet.
A few small schools were opened on Ndeni, but the supply of teachers was not sufficient. Henry Leambi was the only one of the past who was still holding on. At Nifilole the people, never many in number, were nearly all dead; Pileni was in an unsatisfactory state, and the two teachers at Matema were making gallant efforts to hold their own. Teilo opened a new school on Utupua in 1908, having several Reef Island assistants, one of them being Govili of Nukapu. While home for a holiday Teilo had done good work in preaching and exhorting in Matema, Nukapu, and Pileni. A number of Reef Island boys were now at Vureas. The statistics for 1908 show the Christians as numbering only 77. No white missionary was available now for the group.
The following year an attempt was made to work the group by means of a Brotherhood, consisting of Rev. H. N. Drummond, Rev. C. Turner, and Mr. Blencowe; Mr. Drummond had left his work on Raga for this purpose. Taumako, in the Duff Group, was visited and a boy was obtained, and an attempt was made to start a school. Nupani, which had asked in vain in former years for a teacher, was now found closed against Christianity, owing to the devotion and respect paid to the ghosts, who had given them great success in fishing. Some catechumens on Nukapu were being instructed for baptism. Meanwhile nothing much was doing at Ndeni, except at Te Motu; the church at Nelua had fallen into ruins, and the people were content to lapse into heathenism. At the end of the year Mr. Drummond returned to Raga, and the next year Mr. Blencowe was the only missionary left. Rev. G. Bury had come to assist, but died after only three months' work, the victim of malignant ulcers caused by scratches. In his ignorance he had healed them over with idoform and subsequently died of blood-poisoning. Despite the mission's long history, and the fact that all the missionaries suffered more or less from these ulcers on the legs, no certain means was known of preventing the scratches caused by coral, etc., from festering and turning into these ulcers. Corrosive sublimate, lysol, witch hazel, poulticing, idoform, carbolic acid, all these had been tried in vain. No satisfying treatment was known, but the writer eventually found that antiphlogistine is a remedy and safeguard in the event of the legs being scratched.
In 1919 the first baptisms were held on Nukapu, one of the persons baptized being the sister of Bishop Patteson's murderer. Volunteers [248/249] from the Reef Islands offered for work in Tikopia, Utupua, Vanikolo, Taumako, and Santa Cruz. Mr. Blencowe left for England to read for holy orders, and the group was left in charge of a San Cristoval native teacher, Ben Monongai. Ben Teilo was taken in 1913 to the Solomons to read for deacon's orders, and Bishop Wood ordained him the same year.
For the present all active mission work has ceased on Santa Cruz. It is the intention of Bishop Wood to make an attempt to open up things there again with Mr. Blencowe in charge, and with that object in view he is asking all the friends of the Mission to unite in prayer that the reproach of Santa Cruz may be wiped away. Already the prayers are being answered. On the main island, Ndeni, schoolhouses have been put in order and the people have shown themselves desirous of returning to Christian ways. In the Reef Islands volunteers have offered to go as teachers wherever they may be sent. Up to the present, however, no white men are available to act as leaders. Mr. Blencowe is serving as an army chaplain and the smallness of the Mission's staff precludes the idea of anyone being delegated for this special work. We can only wait in the certainty that our prayers will be answered and that leaders will be forthcoming.
The difficulties to be overcome are undoubtedly great--climate, language, isolation, indifference, instability on the part of the people. However, the Christian influence of the past will have made itself felt, and there will not longer be the fear of the missionaries' lives being endangered by attacks from the natives. Volunteers are being called for among the native Christians in other parts of the Mission, and if picked men are sent and provision made for their instruction in the various languages, and also for a regular visitation of the stations, then it is quite certain that the success which has attended the work elsewhere will also attend it in Santa Cruz.
"O God, our loving Father, we humbly ask Thee to send priests and teachers full of the Holy Ghost and of power to revive Thy Church in Santa Cruz; that the faithful may be strengthened, the lapse restored, and the Heathen converted, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Amen.