LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 



479 



in another village we visited there were five large head -hunting 

 canoes, profusely ornamented and inlaid with pearl-shell. The 

 house was about eighty feet long, with a high-pitched roof, the end 

 being closed in, but two narrow slits being left for the high prows 

 of the canoes to pass through (Fig. 2). In this house there were 

 eight heads ; I recognized among them the straight hair of natives 



Fig. 2.— Head-Hunting Canoe and Canoe-House at Rubiana. 



of the Lord Howe's group, and was told that a year or so previous- 

 ly a canoe containing sixteen of them had been driven from Lord 

 Howe's group to Isabel, where they have been caught from time 

 to time by the head-hunters. In another canoe-house in the same 

 town I counted thirteen heads. After some persuasion they car- 

 ried out the largest canoe for me to photograph. The Rubiana 

 men returned next day from Isabel with five heads, from three 

 men and two women ; they also brought five prisoners alive. 

 During the fortnight that I spent in the lagoon I heard of no 

 less than thirty-one heads being brought home, as follows : Ru- 

 biana village, five ; Sisieta, six ; Kokorapa, three ; Lokorokongo, 

 seventeen. 



I, for the second time, spent a fortnight at this place ; and hav- 

 ing on my previous visit gained the confidence of the two chiefs 

 of Sisieta, named Wange and Ingova, I went frequently ashore at 

 their town. On one occasion I saw the inauguration of a large 

 trough for preparing and pounding food, the ceremony taking 

 place in the chief canoe-house of the town. I was assigned a seat 

 next to Ingova, while above my head were the eight heads pre- 



