tS CANNIBALISM. 



people of the village, who have generally the best of it, pursue their 

 visitors to the outskirts of their district ; and from henceforth a 

 long period of hostility begins. 



Such is not an uncommon sequence of a bea, and I am told that 

 the natives of the district, in which such a gathering is to be held^ 

 look f orwai'd to it with considerable apprehension. A human body 

 is usually procured for these occasions ; and the payment of the 

 persons who procured it is made from contributions collected at the 

 bea. Each leading chief endeavours to surpass his rival in the sum 

 he gives ; and flinging his string of shell money down from the 

 stage on which he stands, he looks contemptuously at his rival's 

 party. The body is apportioned out after the -gathering is over ; 

 and if no contention has arisen, all assembled partake of the feast. 

 Taki told Mr. Stephens that in order to obtain a body for his son's 

 bea, he would have to start on another man-hunting expedition. A 

 bea was also soon to be held in Ugi by Rora, the fighting chief of 

 the village of Ete-ete, on behalf of his brother who had died about 

 two years before. Cannibalism is however dying out in Ugi; and in 

 this case a pig was to supply the place of a human body. 



Whilst the ship was anchored at Sulagina Bay on the north 

 coast of St. Christoval, I visited the village of that name and saw 

 the chief who is named Toro. He received me civilly and shook 

 hands. Outside the front of his house five skulls were hanging 

 which belonged to some unfortunate bushmen who had fallen at his 

 hands. On inquiring of a native who spoke a little English, I arscer- 

 tained that their bodies had been " kaied-kaied," i.e., eaten, although 

 it was with a little hesitation that he admitted the fact. Numerous 

 spears were thrust in among the pole overhead which supported the 

 roof, one or two of them being broken at the point with some 

 suspicious-looking dried-up substance still adherent. The same 

 native explained to me, in a matter-of-fact way, that the points had 

 broken off in the bellies of the victims. 



Cannibalism is rarely if ever practised at the present day in the 

 islands of Bougainville Straits. The people of the western extremity 

 of Choiseul Island in the vicinity of Choiseul Bay are reputed by 

 the Treasury Islanders to be still cannibals. During our stay in 

 this bay we had no opportunity of satisfying ourselves in this 

 matter. Bougainville, however, who visited this bay in 17G8, re- 

 cords, as I have previously observed, that a human jaw, half-broiled, 

 was found in one of the canoes which liad been deserted by the 



