LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 487 



I can not conclude my description of the natives and their cus- 

 toms without some reference to cannibalism and head-hunting. I 

 may state that very few white men have ever had the good for- 

 tune to see a cannibal feast, as the natives, knowing the detesta- 

 tion in which the practice is held by white men, always keep the 

 occurrence as quiet as possible. On one occasion only did I ever 

 see human flesh, and the owner assured me he was not going to 

 eat it. I never heard of cannibalism the whole (six months) time 

 I was living at Aola on Guadalcanar, and the natives, in answer 

 to my inquiries, most strenuously denied the practice, but this, of 

 course, they would do. On San Cristoval it is said to be common, 

 and bodies are hawked about for sale from town to town, and 

 the same is the case on Malayta. The head-hunters of Few Geor- 

 gia and the neighboring islands are also notorious cannibals, while 

 my own boy, Hogare, who was a native of the island of Buka, 

 confessed to me that the practice was common there. Not only 

 will the New Georgian natives eat the bodies of those killed in bat- 

 tle, or prisoners, but they will exhume the bodies of people re- 

 cently buried for their disgusting purpose. 



Throughout the group one constantly sees human skulls hung 

 up either in or outside the houses, but it is from New Georgia and 

 the adjacent islands that head-hunting is carried on to its fullest 

 extent. Among these natives it appears to be a perfect passion. 

 No canoe-house can be completed and no canoe launched without a 

 head being obtained. They make long voyages in their large toma- 

 Tcos, or head-hunting canoes, for the purpose of securing heads, 

 the chief hunting-ground at the present time being the two islands 

 of Choiseul and Isabel, ninety to one hundred miles away, which, 

 however, are becoming somewhat "worked out." The basest 

 treachery is often employed. They will at times visit a village as 

 friends, and, after staying for a day or two, at a given signal turn 

 upon their hosts, and either kill them or take them alive. Such a 

 case occurred while I was at Rubiana. At other times they will 

 surprise or cut off a party fishing on the reef, and no matter 

 whether they are men, women, or children, the heads count. The 

 heads, after being slightly smoked, are stuck up along the rafters 

 of the roof in the canoe-houses, and I have myself counted thir- 

 teen recent heads in a house at Sisieta. Occasionally the head- 

 hunters themselves meet with reverses ; and while at Rubiana I 

 inquired the reason of some particularly fine cocoanut -trees hav- 

 ing been cut down ; I was told that it was in consequence of the 

 death of a chief who was killed on a head-hunting expedition to 

 Isabel. 



