Atchin, New Hebrides by C. H. PARKER

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 30, 1914

Atchin, New Hebrides

By C. H. PARKER

C. H. PARKER

THE New Hebrides have been and are a very interesting field from a missionary standpoint. They have called forth a great deal of heroic effort and sacrifice upon the part of the Presbyterian mission. This mission has been operating here for the last sixty years. The work has been hard, and many lives have been given as foundation stones for the gospel structure to be reared thereon. Erromango, rightly called, has been baptized in the blood of John Williams, Mr. Harris, and the Gordons.

All the southern islands of this group have nominally accepted Christianity, with the exception of Tanna, which still has a large proportion of its population held in the darkness of heathenism. Few of the people of Ambrym, Mallicolo, and Espiritu Santo, which are the largest islands of the northern division, have exchanged their heathenism for Christianity. Mallicolo is the backbone of heathenism and cannibalism. Only a short time ago a boat’s crew were killed and eaten, and only four weeks ago seven native teachers of the Presbyterian mission were shot and eaten, almost in sight of our mission.

The men of the heathen population go about perfectly nude, with the exception of a bark belt around their waist, which serves as a place for carrying their pipes, matches, knives, cartridges, etc. The coast women wear a narrow strip of cloth around the loins, while those inland wear a sort of grass skirt. The children wear the dress they were born in until they become quite large. If an injury is done to any man, he retaliates upon the first man he meets: no distinction is made.

Their houses are thatched roofs set on the ground, with a hole through which to crawl in. There are no mats to cover the dirt floor; they lie in the dirt like the beasts. As a result, their houses are plague spots of vermin and disease.

When building a house, they make a feast, at which they kill a number of pigs. The one who kills the pigs cannot go down to the salt water for ten days. The owner of the house cannot go down for forty days. All this time they must keep their faces blackened, and of course water does not come in contact with their bodies.

Tusked pigs are at a premium, and we are told that the people have been known to pay as high as £60 ($300) for one. These pigs are used in making sacrifices to the dead.

Women are bought and sold for pigs, the number of pigs for a woman being, as a general thing, about ten, though it goes above and below at times. Often wives are bought when they are but mere children.

In their anils (heathen dancing grounds) the people set up carved figures to their departed friends. Before these figures they place a stone altar, upon which their pigs are killed. All food is offered before it is eaten.

Their worship is ancestral, and they make carved figures in memory of their dead. These figures are very grotesque. Over each of them is placed the form of a bird, like an, albatross, with outstretched wings. In the bush they have a house where they go and talk with their dead, asking them to give them good seasons, rain, plenty of yams, and to make them strong in war with other tribes.

Every time they kill a pig, they receive a new name. It is very hard to keep informed as to the names of the people, as they change so often. You call one by his old name, and you are stolidly told that that is not his name. He cannot tell you his own name, but some one standing by must speak it for him. I suppose that this is heathen etiquette.

Mr. Pig is king pig here, as he is waited on hand and foot. His food is prepared and cooked from the best, and the woman must feed him before she prepares her own food. When the tusks of the pig complete the circle, pierce again the jawbone, and come through, the pigs are considered very valuable. These pigs are kept tied up to a pole by a front foot, for fear they will break their tusks while fighting with other pigs. Female pigs are never offered in sacrifice.

Polygamy is practiced, and a man can have as many women as he has pigs to buy with. Thus some men have plenty of women, while others have none. This causes a great deal of immorality.

The men and women do not eat together, and in most instances the men cook their own food on separate fires. The men will not take food from a woman, not even from a white woman. When they work on a plantation, they are compelled to eat food prepared by the white people. When they return to their people, they have to kill a pig so that they can be restored to caste, as they have broken caste.

The women are the burden bearers, while the men stalk on before, carrying a gun, a bow and arrow, or a club. If a woman runs away, the sinew of one of her legs is often burned, so that she will not be able to repeat the offense.

At the death of a man or a woman, a great wail is set up by the men. To one not acquainted with it, it would be mistaken for the howling of dogs. The ones that will profit by land or other possessions of the deceased, howl the loudest and the longest. The body is buried almost immediately, and generally in the house in which the person died. Sometimes, I am told, the face is left exposed to view. In the event of the death of an old man, three young men have to stop for one hundred days in the house where he is buried. During this time they cannot leave the premises nor see a woman. One rainy day, while passing by a house where an old woman was buried, we noticed a fire burning at the entrance, and a covering of palm leaves above, so as to convey the heat inside. We asked what it was for, and were told that literi (the old woman) was cold.

These heathen people have no written language; their oral language is handed down from the father to the son. It is wonderful how exact and concise they are in their talking and word building. Upon this we shall have more to say at another time, as we are called upon to reduce one of these heathen languages to writing. Later, no doubt, we shall be required to do the same with other languages, as there is such a babel of

tongues in these islands. We find it very interesting in hunting for the different persons, numbers, cases, genders, articles, etc. All that is needed is perseverance, faith in God, and the controlling power of the Holy Spirit for the tongue of the dumb to speak.