Macalister — On Crania of Natives of the Solomon Islands. 775 



that the suhsequent success of years might not suffice to compensate 

 the loss." Even when brought as labourers to Fiji, Dr. Forbes describes 

 their condition as not much improved. In the work from which I 

 have just quoted [Tivo Years in Fiji, p. 64.) he says, "All, however" 

 (of the Polynesian labourers), "of whatever nationality, seem to regard 

 the Solomon islanders with especial aversion, and even fear." From 

 Dr. Forbes' experience of this transport Polynesian labour, he does 

 not seem to regard it as such a potent civilizing influence for the island 

 native as the late Anthony TroUope represents it to be in his work on 

 Australia and New Zealand {vol. i. p. 133). These Solomon islanders, 

 however, in Fiji, even after a short period of residence among others, 

 have been known to steal, kill, cook, and eat any unfortunate 

 people they might find straying near their huts. This cannibalism 

 is habitual. Captain Eedlich, of the schooner "Franz," saw a num- 

 ber of men who had cooked a captive whole, and then sold the body 

 in parts, and on expressing his disgust to Mr. Perry, was informed by 

 that gentleman that he had seen as many as twenty bodies cooked at 

 one time for a single feast. Captain lledlich, however, says they 

 seemed to him inoffensive when not excited. They keep the skulls of 

 those whom they have eaten suspended in their canoe houses, along with 

 other ornaments, such as the bones of fishes and curious wood carvings. 

 Mr. Brenchley saw twenty- five such skulls in one place in San Chris- 

 toval (at Wanga), all of which showed the effects of clubs or tomahawks. 

 They do not seem, like the people of New Ireland, to hang the heads in 

 their own huts. Mr. Brown (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 

 vol. xlvii., 1877, p. 142) saw in one house in the latter island thirty-five 

 human jawbones hanging from the rafters blackened with smoke: " a 

 smoke-dried hand was hanging in the same house, and just outside I 

 counted seventy-six notches in a cocoa tree, each notch of which the 

 natives told us represented a human body which had been cooked and 

 eaten there." These heads hung up in the canoe sheds have been for the 

 most part robbed of their teeth, of which they make necklaces, such 

 as the one I exhibit. These necklaces are not easily got. Commodore 

 Sir W. Wiseman offered two guns for one and was refused. The late 

 lamented Bishop Pattison, however, brought home three ; and Dr. 

 Goode obtained the specimen which is on the table from the island of 

 Ulakua. 



Scherzer says of these islanders that they were the most intrac- 

 table and savage of all the tribes that he visited in the entire Novara 

 voyage ; and Brenchley describes them as being intensely excitable — 

 stirred up to madness in a minute. It was here that Mr. Boyd, the 

 owner of the " Wanderer," perished in 1862. 



In appearance there is a great variety among the natives. Those 

 of the inland parts of San Christoval, who live in the forest and on 

 the slopes of the hills (which here rise to a height of 4000 feet), are 

 called by the coast-dwelling natives Bushmen, and with these the 

 fishermen, as they name the littoral tribes, are constantly at war. 



R. I. A. PROC. SER. II., VOL. III. — SCIENCE. 4 F 



