THE SOLOMON ISLANDERS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 6, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 14.

THE SOLOMON ISLANDERS.

A PASSENGER from the Solomon Islands, one who has had some years' experience trading with the natives, and who arrived recently in Sydney, gives a melancholy account of life among the black fellows. One might have thought that the days of head hunting were at an end, and that in view of the commercial intercourse which for many years has been carried on between the whites and the islanders of the Solomons, this barbarous custom would have passed with many others into history. But it appears that quite the contrary is the fact. Head hunting is openly carried on both at Malayta and San Cristoval, and the native is regarded as young and inexperienced by his fellows who has not shed human blood.

Then, as to cannibalism, it is undoubted that it exists and is largely practiced by certain tribes. The custom is to cut up the bodies of the victims and sell them piecemeal, pretty much after the style of an itinerant butcher, and evidence in the shape of human bones left after the cannibal feasts is abundant on the islands. To what fearful extent it is carried on in the bush on Malayta or San Cristoval can only be conjectured from what

is absolutely known to occur on the coast.

It is said to be more than a white man's life is worth to venture far inland, or for the matter of that a black fellow's either, if he belongs to a beach tribe, for the "man of the bush" is by no means particular.

Why they tolerate a white man's presence at all on their territory is explained, apparently, by the fact that they are fond of tobacco and of a few manufactured wares he is in a position to supply them with.

He receives in return copra, bèche de mer, or ivory nut, and the intercourse is so far mutually satisfactory; but there are few, if any, white men who would care to trust themselves far away from their hut or store without firearms, for, however friendly the natives in the immediate vicinity may appear, there are few to be implicitly trusted.—San Francisco Chronicle.