# The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
SOCIAL REGULATIONS. CHIEFS.
It has been shewn that the social structure in these Melanesian islands is not tribal, and it will have been observed therefore that there can be no political structure held together by the power of tribal chiefs; but chiefs exist, and still have in most islands important place and power, though never perhaps so much importance in the native view as they have in the eyes of European visitors, who carry with them the persuasion that savage people are always ruled by chiefs. A trader or other visitor looks for a chief, and finds such a one as he expects; a very insignificant person in this way comes to be called, and to call himself, the king of his island, and his consideration among his own people is of course enormously enhanced by what white people make of him. The practice moreover of the commanders of ships of war by which local chiefs are held responsible for the conduct of their people, and are treated as if they had considerable power, undoubtedly increases their importance, nor can that result be regretted. As a matter of fact the power of chiefs has hitherto rested upon the belief in their supernatural power derived from the spirits or ghosts with which they had intercourse. As this belief has failed, in the Banks' Islands for example some time ago, the position of a chief has tended to become obscure; and as this belief is now being generally undermined a new kind of chief must needs arise, unless a time of anarchy is to begin. It will be well probably at the outset to give the account of a chiefs power and government in the Solomon Islands, the Banks' Islands, and the New Hebrides, as supplied by natives ​of those groups respectively, who well knew what they were speaking about. A Florida Vunagi kept order in his place, directed the common operations and industries, represented his people with strangers, presided at sacrifices and led in war. He inflicted fines, and would order any one to be put to death. At Saa in Malanta the chief, Maelaha, is such by virtue of descent, a remarkable difference existing in many points between this people and Melanesians generally; the people work in his gardens, plant for him, build a house or canoe for him at his word. He inflicts fines, and can order a man to be put to death. At Banks' Islands the Tavusmele or Etvusmel in former days kept order, gave commands about the common concerns of the place, arranged difficulties with neighbouring villages, could order an offender (one for example who had bewitched or poisoned another) to be put to death, or to pay a fine of pigs. In Lepers' Island the Ratahigi commands or forbids in such matters as fishing, voyaging, and building; he can order an offender to be shot or clubbed, or to give a fine of pigs. In each of these cases it may be added that the chief has with him young men who have attached themselves to him and carry out his commands, and that the chief has no more property in or dominion over land than another man. Further details as to the position and power of chiefs in the various islands will be hereafter given.
A point of difference between the Polynesian and Melanesian sections of the Pacific peoples is the conspicuous presence in the former, and the no less conspicuous absence in the latter, of native history and tradition. In the Melanesian islands, with one notable exception, the enquirer seeks in vain for antiquity; the memory of the past perishes quickly where all things soon pass away, where every building soon decays, where life is short, and no marked change of seasons makes people count by longer measures of time than months. While any one lives who remembers some famous man of the past his fame lingers, but it dies with the personal remembrance; a man's ancestry goes back so far as living memory extends; historical tradition can hardly be said to ​exist. It is true that in Motlav, part of Saddle Island in the Banks' group, the people who now live in the islet of Ra and the coast opposite know where their families came from, from neighbouring islands, Mota, Vanua Lava, or from other parts of Saddle Island; but it was only lately they say that they came to live where they are. In Araga, Pentecost Island of the New Hebrides, they shew their original seat at Atabulu, a village still remaining and held in high respect. But the little history that remains, and is vouched for by a multitude of sepulchral stones, is lost in the legend attaching to a sacred stone, of winged shape, tying in the village place. It is called Vingaga, Flyer with webbed wings, and represents one Vingaga, who came floating in a canoe to shore and founded that town. People, ata, collected and abode with him, bulu; after a time he flew back to heaven. Ancient house sites, raised perhaps a yard above the ground, are to be seen at Atabulu, and at Anwalu near by, with stones over the graves of forgotten chiefs. In Maewo great heaps of stones mark the graves of great men of old times, such as none have been of late. In Motlav, near a famous and enormous natu tree, is a house-mound five feet high, where no habitations are now, and men say that it came down from his ancestors to the last man whose house stood on it; and this is but a single known representative of the yavu of a Fiji family of rank. The remarkable exception to this absence of history or tradition is found at Saa in Malanta, and is so remarkable and characteristic of native life that the story must be told at length. The larger and principal part of the present inhabitants of Saa ani menu came from Saa haalu, inland not very far off, eleven generations ago. The migration took place under the following circumstances. There were four brothers at the ancient Saa, of whom the eldest was the chief; two were named Pau-ulo, the eldest Pauulo paina, the great, the second Pauulo oou, the champion; ​the two younger had the same name, Ro Ute sen oo'u. The chief was a quiet man; the two youngest, aided by the second, were always fighting and damaging their neighbours' property; all Pauulo Paina's money was spent in paying compensation for their injuries and in making peace, and he told them he must leave them and go away. The neighbouring people, however, determined to make an end of their trouble; they collected, and began to surround the village of Saa as night fell. Before their circle was complete the Saa people learnt their danger, gathered their women and children, and escaped unseen and unheard in the darkness, carrying with them three drums, which remained at the present Saa within the memory of old men yet alive. But when they were clear of the enemy and safe outside their line, they remembered that a bunch of areca-nuts from which Pauulo Paina had already taken some to chew with his betel leaves, and which would furnish means to the enemy of working his death with charms, was left behind. The two Ute agreed that one of them, if he died for it, must go for the nuts to save the elder brother, and the younger of the two took on himself the danger because he was the younger. The circle was now closed round the village, but it was still dark, and the enemy knowing nothing of the escape sat waiting for the dawn to make their onset. The young Ute took his seat among them as one of their party, and after a while said to them that he would steal in and see whether the Saa people were safe in their houses and could be surprised. Thus he passed through to the empty village, climbed the palm with a rope round his feet, gathered all the nuts remaining on the tree, and as he came down so twisted the stem that when his feet touched the ground it split into four, and fell with a crash upon the house. The enemy hearing the sound thought that the Saa people were not yet all asleep, and sat still; Ute managed to pass through them unperceived with his nuts, and joined his friends. Thus they escaped and descended towards the coast; ​and when they came to a fork where the path divided Pauulo Paina made a speech, saying that no fighters, bullies, thieves, or wizards were to follow him. One party then branched off with Pauulo Oou; and lower down a second separation was made, so that in the end three settlements were formed of people who counted themselves of kin. The inhabitants of what is now Saa ani menu received the fugitives with Pauulo Paina, and his descendants in the male line have ever since been the hereditary chiefs. The descendants of the old inhabitants are now but few and of the lower orders, but they are still the owners of the land. It has never occurred to the Saa immigrants to dispossess them; the new-comers remain, even the chiefs, landless men, except so far as a little has been given to them and a little sold; they have always been allowed what they wanted for their gardens, and have been content. When the move was made there was no great difference in speech, and there is none now in words; but the older race speak very slowly, and may be distinguished now by that slow habit of speech.
There are then at Saa, and at the other two settlements founded by the refugees from the ancient Saa, a family of chiefs with a history, and with descent in the male line. All of that family are born in a certain sense chiefs, the eldest son succeeding to the position of his father as principal chief unless he be judged incompetent. If he turns out a bad, vicious man he loses respect and power, and his brother insensibly replaces him. Sometimes a man will retire because he knows his own unfitness. The chief's power therefore ​at Saa comes from his birth and personal qualities, not from his intimacy with supernatural beings and his magical knowledge; he may have these, and is in fact pretty sure to have them, but if one, like Dorawewe now, sacrifices for the family, it is not as chief, but because he has had the knowledge how to do it passed on to him. In the same way the chief curses in the name of a lio'a, powerful ghost, forbidding something to be done under the penalty of death, taboos, because of his ancestral connexion with that lio'a. He inherits wealth from his father, and adds to it by the fines he imposes and by the gifts of the people; but no wealth or success in war could make a man a chief at Saa if not born of the chief's family.
The hereditary element is not absent in the succession of chiefs in other islands, though it is by no means so operative as it appears to be. A story hereafter to be narrated illustrates the manner in which a man becomes a chief in Santa Cruz. The most conspicuous chief in Florida at the time and in the place in which Europeans became acquainted with that island was Takua of Boli, whose position it may be safely said was never so exalted in the eyes of the natives as in the eyes of their visitors. He was not a native of Florida but of Mala, and his greatness rested in its origin on a victory in which as a young man he took a principal part, when a confederation of enemies attacked the people of Ta na ihu in Florida, where he was then staying. His reputation for mana, spiritual power, was then established; and from that, as a member of a powerful family of the Nggaombata, with his brothers Sauvui and Dikea, his ​influence increased. Thus according to a native account of the matter 'the origin of the power of chiefs, vunagi, lies entirely in the belief that they have communication with powerful ghosts, tindalo, and have that mana whereby they are able to bring the power of the tindalo to bear.' A chief would convey his knowledge of the way to approach and to use the power of the tindalo to his son, his nephew, his grandson, to whom also he bequeathed as far as he could his possessions. Thus he was able to pass on his power to a chosen successor among his relations, and a semblance of hereditary succession appeared. A man's position being in this way obtained, his own character and success enhanced it, weakness and failure lost it. Public opinion supported him in his claim for a general obedience, besides the dread universally felt of the tindalo power behind him. Thus if he imposed a fine, it was paid because his authority to impose it was recognized, and because it was firmly believed that he could bring calamity and sickness upon those who resisted him; as soon as any considerable number of his people began to disbelieve in his tindalo his power to fine was shaken. But a chief had around him a band of retainers, young men mostly, from different parts of the island some of them, of various kema, who hung about him, living in his canoe-house, where they were always ready to do his bidding. These fought beside him and for him, executed his orders for punishment or rapine, got a share of his wealth, and did all they could to please him and grow great and wealthy with him. They would marry and settle round him if strangers in the place; and thus a chief and his retainers would be by no means always the representatives of the people among whom they ruled, and who sometimes have suffered for their misdeeds. The influence of a chief, if his band of retainers is large, and the district in which he rules is populous, extends widely in the island; his brother chiefs aid him, and, for a consideration, carry out his wishes. The power to impose a ​fine was an active one; a chief forbids under penalty of a fine, which is a form of taboo; he orders one who has done wrong or has offended him to pay a certain sum of money to him. Thus Takua imposed a heavy fine on the man who had proposed to marry within the prohibited degrees, and the offender had to hire an advocate to state his case discreetly, apologize, and beg off a part of the fine. The chief sends women or boys to fetch the fine he has imposed; these sit at the man's door and dae, dun him by their presence and demands, till he pays. If he refuses, the chief sends his retainers to destroy and carry away his property. It is evident that a chief of sense, energy and good feeling, will use his power on the whole to the great advantage of the people; but a bad use of a chief's power is naturally common, in oppression, seizing land and property, increasing his stock of heads, and gaining a terrible reputation. For example, a man who had a private enemy would give money to a chief to have him killed, as one did not long ago to Dikea; Dikea would send one of his young men to kill him. But sometimes the man would know his danger and send more money to the chief to save his life. Dikea would take both sums and do as he pleased.
The power of a chief naturally diminished in old age, from inactivity, parsimony, and loss of reputation; and, to the credit of the people, also if, like Takua when he took the daughter of one who was already his wife, he did what was held by them to be wrong. In any case some one was ready, it might be by degrees, to take the place of one whose force was waning. A chief expecting his death prepared his son, nephew, or chosen ​successor, by imparting to him his tindalo knowledge; but this "could not always be done, or the choice made might not be acceptable. The people then would choose for themselves, and make over the dead chief's property to their chosen head. Sometimes a man would assert himself and claim to be chief, on the ground that the late chief had designated him, or because he had already a considerable following (belonging perhaps to an increasing kema, as the dead chief to a decreasing one), or boldly standing forth and crying out to the people that he was chief. Without a chief a village would be broken up.
The very great part played in the native life of the Banks' Islands by the secret societies hereafter to be described, the Suqe and Tamate, has always obscured the appearance of such power as a chief would be expected to exercise. Any man whose influence was conspicuous was certainly high in these societies, and it would be wholly inconsistent with the social habits of the people that a man whose place in the Suqe was insignificant should have any considerable power. Hence chiefs as such have hardly been recognized by the missionaries engaged in this group, though traders have found chiefs and kings. When Mala many years ago forbade the use of bows, it was taken to be done by the power he had in all the societies ​in Vanua Lava and Mota. Still there was a name meaning chief, etvusmel, tavusmele, and a native of Motlav who resided some weeks in Florida, in the district where Takua was counted a great chief, bears witness that he saw no great difference between that vunagi and the etvusmel of his own home. The succession of the Etvusmel is declared by him to have been from father to son, as far as can be remembered, an important point to notice where descent in family goes by the mother; and it is said that the chief was always of the great clan or kin, the veve liwoa, an expression which also requires explanation. The explanation is that in practice, as in the devolution of property and in the handing on of religious and magic rites, a man always put as far as he could his son into his own place, and a rich and powerful man would secure a high place in the Suqe for his son in very early years; thus the great man's son would succeed to his place, and become to some extent an hereditary chief. The father and the son would always be of different sides of the house; and, as at Florida the chiefs were generally of the kema which happened to be most numerous at the time, so in the Banks' Islands, where the divisions are but two, and each of them in alternate generations more numerous than the other, the chief man was regularly found on the most powerful side of the house. Thus it can be said that the succession of Etvusmel at Motlav has been from father to son as long as can be remembered, and will so continue, though with lessened consequence. Besides those who were really chiefs many men were called 'great men,' and had considerable influence in their villages, men who had been ​valiant and successful in war, and were high in the Suqe; that is to say, men who were known to have mana, for a man's charms and amulets made him the great warrior, and his charms and stones made his pigs and yams to multiply, so that he could buy his steps in the society. The cleanliness and order of a Banks' Island village are not now what they were, since the authority of the 'great men' has been diminished by the increasing enlightenment of the young people.
In the Northern New Hebrides the position of a chief is more conspicuous; though perhaps only because those who first made themselves acquainted with those islands have always taken them to be very important people. A man high in the Suqe, or a successful leader in war, had authority in his village in the northern part of Aurora, but seems to have had no designation as a chief. In Araga, Pentecost Island, and in Omba, Lepers' Island, the remarkable designation of a chief is Ratahigi, the word which stands for 'mother' in those islands, and is no doubt identical with the Mota ratasiu, brothers. The probable origin of the use of a word meaning brotherhood or sisterhood as the name for the mother has been already suggested (page 28); the use of it to designate a chief seems certainly to point to the fact that the chief is looked upon as the representative of the brotherhood, of the kin. As has been pointed out, where there are two kindreds, and the son is not of the father's kin, it is natural that each kindred should preponderate in influence, because more in number, alternately, and that as son succeeds father, one of this kindred and the other of that, each in his turn should belong to the kin which is in his time the great one. Hence they say that chiefs are hereditary, father being succeeded by son, or uncle by sister's son, in a general way as a matter of fact, though not always nor by rule. The son does not inherit chieftainship, but he inherits, if his father can manage it, what gives him chieftainship, his father's mana, his charms, magic songs, stones and apparatus, his knowledge of the way to approach spiritual beings, as well as his property. The present chief will teach his son his knowledge of supernatural ​things, and hand over his means for using it; he will buy him up high in the Suqe society, and give him and leave him property; so the younger man is ready to take the place of chief when his father dies or fails through age. If a man has no son competent he may take his nephew; sometimes, the son perhaps being too young, a chief's brother will succeed him; sometimes a man will set himself up when no successor is acknowledged, or the people will choose some one to lead them. Some years ago Mairuru, the chief of Walurigi, was a very great man; he sent his son, a young boy, to be educated at Norfolk Island, and it was at once understood that a Christian education which shut out belief and practice of mana, shut him out from succession as a chief. If this son had settled in his father's village before the old man's death, he would no doubt have succeeded to some of his property and some of his consideration, but he was absent. When Mairuru died without an apparent successor, a certain man attempted to take his place; he went into the late chief's sacred haunt, his tauteu, in which he used to have his intercourse with the wui, spirits, and he declared that he heard some one whistle to him there. He told the people also that afterwards in the night he felt something come upon his breast, which he took in his hands, and found to be a stone in shape like the distinguishing part of a valued kind of pig: then Mairuru, he said, himself appeared to him and gave him the mana, the magic chant, with which he was to work the stone for producing abundance of those pigs. When he showed the stone the people believed his story; but in the event nothing came of his mana, and Mairuru had no successor. It appears, therefore, that in Lepers' Island and in Araga, as elsewhere, the real ground on which the power of a chief rests is that of belief in the mana he possesses, with ​which also the wealth he has inherited with it, and all his success in life, are connected. The power of such a man is exercised directly over the people of his own village, and if his reputation for mana spreads abroad, he will have a wide influence in his islandnd even beyond it; young men from other parts, as well as the youths of his village, will come and live in his gamali, his Suqe club-house, and will carry out his orders even to the punishment of death in peace, and fight for him in war.
* ↑ Mr. Fison writes, The higher the house-mound, the higher its occupant's rank: sa cere na nodra yavu, their house-mound is high, is still used to express that a family is of high rank.' The yavu is described as the ancestral town-lot on which the house is built.
* ↑ The two having the same name were the 'Bonito-gutter champions'; the Saa oo'u being the Mota wowut, a fine fellow, a favourite, a hero.
* ↑ The eleven generations from Pauulo to the present chiefs are kept in mind by the invocation of their successive names in sacrifices.
* ↑ At the time of writing the above there were three chiefs of high rank at Saa: the ostensible and acting chief was Dorawewe, but he is only the third son of his father, the late head chief. The son and heir of the eldest son was not yet grown up; respect was paid to him for his birth, but he had little power, and the less because his character was bad and he went after women, and so did not gain personal respect. Watehaaodo, uncle on the mother's side to the young man, and himself of the chief's family, was guardian to him, and thence was an important man. It should be observed that thus the particularly close relation of the mother's brother to his nephew maintains itself where the system has become patriarchal.
* ↑ The word used to designate a chief in Malanta, Ulawa, and San Cristoval, ma'eraka, ma'elaha, means literally great death or war, and shews that to the native mind a chief is a warrior. It is customary both at Saa and in Arosi, San Cristoval, to adopt by purchase into the chief's family a boy who promises to be a stout warrior, and to bring him up to be the fighting man and champion of the town. Such a one I remember to have seen at Ubuna in Arosi, a dwarf, whom his purchasers had taken to be a remarkably strong and sturdy child, when he was really a boy much older than they thought. He turned out to be a maeraha indeed who scorned to use a shorter spear than full-grown men.
* ↑ Julian Avenal, not Fergus M$^c$Ivor, represents such a Melanesian chief.
* ↑ Some years ago the captain of one of Her Majesty's ships laid upon Takua of Mboli the duty of apprehending a certain offender, and keeping him a prisoner till his return; so at least the captain's orders were interpreted to the chief. Takua complained; he could have him killed easily, he said, it would cost him but a trifle to get that done, but to catch a man and keep him for ten months would be very difficult and very expensive. Things are now changed at Florida. Dikea of Ravu accused two men of taking fragments of his food to charm him; they fled to Olevuga; Dikea sent money to Lipa, chief of that place, to have them killed; Lipa sent it back. Dikea then sent money to Tambukoru of Honggo, asking him to attack Olevuga; that chief refused, but kept the money.
* ↑ Some years ago Lipa, the chief of Olevuga, was carried off as 'labour' to Queensland, and the chiefless place was in confusion; but Dikea of Ravu in the neighbourhood, one of the same Nggaombata family, sent directions to Olevuga that the people should choose their chief, and then came over with his party, and took Kosapau, whom they had chosen, by the hand, putting him forward as their chief. The people then knew that he would be supported, and obeyed him. But Lipa came back after a time, and Kosapau quietly took the second place. When Kalekona of Gaeta died there was no one to succeed him; the chiefs of the other districts, his cousins, came to get their share of the property, and were hospitably entertained; but the chiefs of Honggo, Liukolilia and Tambukoru, of the Manukama kema, would have attacked the Gaeta people in their headless state, if Charles Sapimbuana, the Christian teacher, himself a Manukama, had not got pigs and money together and bought them off. Without a chief the Gaeta people would have dispersed; no Christian could be a chief of the ancient sort, and the Christian teachers had all agreed among themselves that they would take no place of such authority.
* ↑ The name no doubt refers to the rank obtained in the Suqe club by killing pigs; Ta vus mele is the man who kills for the mele. Even now when the population of Motlav is Christian, they still among themselves call Stephen Etvusmel at Losalav, and Abraham at Melwo, 'o sul we toga alalanrara, pa gate nom mava tama we tuai, the people remain under those two, but do not regard them with the same respect as in old days.' At Losalav the former Etvusmel, Molovlad, left a son who is now under Stephen; and when the latter dies this John Semtambok will succeed. So they agree among themselves now, on the ground that he is the son of the late chief, high in the Suqe club, and of the side of the house that now predominates, i.e. of the veve liwoa.
* ↑ In certain breeds of pigs in the Banks' Islands and New Hebrides, which are much valued on this account, there occur individual females which simulate the male sex. These are in the Banks' Islands rawe; they furnish the finest tusks. Dr. Shortland has observed that the word rawe has in the Maori of New Zealand a sense which accounts for its application to these pigs.