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The National Geographic Magazine 



head is left to develop in the upward and 

 backward fashion that is so much ad- 

 mired. One fears the poor babies suffer 

 very much from the process. The child 

 I saw was fretful and crying and looked 

 as if it were constantly in pain ; but the 

 mother, forgetting for the moment her 

 fear of the strange white woman, showed 

 it to me quite proudly, pointing out the 

 cords with a smile. 



She had a normally shaped head her- 

 self, and it seemed that she had suffered 

 by her parents' neglect of this important 

 matter, for she was married to a man 

 who was of no particular account. A 

 young girl who was standing beside her 

 when I took the photograph had evidently 

 had a more careful mother, for her head 

 was almost sugar-loaf-shaped. It is in- 

 teresting to know that this well-brought- 

 up young woman had married a chief. 



STRANGE WOODEN IMAGES OE ANCESTORS 



A visitor to the island of Malekula, 

 Xew Hebrides, is greatly impressed by 

 the huge images in the amils, or village 

 squares ; they are rudely carved, bar- 

 barously painted, and are called "temes," 

 or images of the dead. 



These images differ greatly from each 

 other. Some are made of wood, others 

 of the butt of a fern tree ; some are 

 painted in scrolls or stripes, others in 

 rings ; some display only a head, others 

 are rude effigies of the whole human 

 body; in some the eyes are round, in 

 others oval-shaped. 



The colors employed in olden times 

 were coral lime, yellow ocher, a mineral 

 green, and charcial. Civilization, through 

 the trader, has supplanted the green and 

 yellow with the laundry blue and red 

 lead. They are more brilliant, no doubt, 

 but less in keeping with their surround- 

 ings. 



A remarkable fact is, that although the 

 images are rude in design and out of all 

 proportion, they are real attempts at por- 

 traying the human figure. Every part is 

 carefully put in ; yet, with the exception 

 of the boar's tusks on one, there is an 

 entire absence of the combination of the 



human and animal, as, e. g., in the 

 Hindu pantheon. This is possibly due 

 to imperfect and rudimentary notions of 

 divinity, if these are at all gods. There 

 are no figures, like the Ephesian Diana, 

 denoting the nourishment of man and 

 beast from many-breasted Nature. There 

 are no many-headed or many-eyed em- 

 blems of the omnipotence or omniscience 

 of the gods. We are still among the 

 lowest and rudest forms of religion. 



The people of Tanna, another island 

 of New Hebrides, are a remarkable 

 race and, in spite of their murderous 

 tendencies, have a great deal more char- 

 acter than the Malekulans. Oueenland- 

 ers know them well, for thousands of 

 Tannese have been emploved in the 

 Queensland sugar country from time to 

 time. Whatever they may have gathered 

 of civilization in Australia stays with them 

 but a little while after they leave. On 

 landing they generally take off all their 

 clothes, go back to their villages, paint 

 their faces, and take a hand in the latest 

 tribal row, only too glad to be back to 

 savagery again. 



Like the Fijians, who were at one time 

 the fiercest and most brutal cannibals 

 of the Pacific, and who are now a peace- 

 ful and respecting nation, worthy of the 

 crown that owns them, the Tannese will 

 in all probability "train on" into a really 

 fine race, as soon as they can be re- 

 strained from continuously murdering 

 each other on the slightest provocation, 

 and induced to clean their houses and 

 themselves and live decently and quietly. 



The yam gardens were weariful pict- 

 ures. In one that we passed nearly 

 all the women had blackened faces, 

 the Tannese sign of mourning. The 

 yam garden was a waste of parched 

 and powdery earth ; the bush around was 

 burned yellow and brown ; the pale-blue 

 sky above quivered with the fierce mid- 

 day heat. Stolid, ugly, and streaming 

 with sweat, the women worked dully on, 

 breaking off for a few minutes to stare 

 and wonder at the visitor, and then con- 

 tinued their heavy task. 



