Weddsngs And War In The Loyalties

Natives Have Their Fun in Spite of Tojo

By H. E. L. Friday

IN joyous Lifou of the Loyalty group, where ancient laws still reign and each member of the community has a predetermined rank and duties according to his descent, the marriage was recently celebrated of Wagan Siwell, tall, young, petty chief of the tiny port of Chapenehe, and his smiling fiancee, Ginette Wagin.

Three large dining halls and nine kitchens were especially built for the occasion, and the many hundred native guests consumed 24 head of cattle, 19 pigs, 14 goats, 92 head of poultry, 1,100 lb. of fish, and immense quantities of yams, taros, and other vegetables and fruit.

The principal guest was grand chief Naisseline, of the neighbouring isle of Mare, who arrived with his royal family aboard his cutter “Laura,” with presents which included two tons of yams, 650 lb. of potatoes, two head of cattle, three pigs and many sacks of assorted vegetables, as well as 5,000 francs in money.

As a relative of the bridegroom, the honour of installing the newly-married couple in the chieftainship of Chepenehe fell to him. Altogether, the young people received 52,845 francs in money, of which 11.000 francs came as a gift from the bridegroom’s tribe, in addition to a huge contribution of foodstuffs, including 11 beasts. Other Lifou tribes brought similar contributions.

The wedding took place at the Protestant temple, in the presence of the French Resident and his wife (Dr. and Madame Languillon), the local gendarme

and his wife, and one or two of the very limited number of European inhabitants of this island, where white visitors are not encouraged and need a special permit from the Governor of New Caledonia.

These laughing, friendly, flowercrowned people, whom I recently visited as guest of Capt. H. R. Simms, now working for the American Army, on his ketch-rigged schooner, “Evaleeta.” began the festivities a fortnight before the wedding ceremony, and kept them up for two or three days afterwards. The first event was a re-union of the bride and bridegroom’s families, with an exchange of presents. Then, a week later, the young bride arrived at the place where the wedding was to take place, there to receive the good wishes of the native population.

The Loyalty natives are the great choral songsters of the South Pacific, and they can dance night after night and still go on dancing. Singing with them is an all-out performance, so willing that I know a Catholic priest who sometimes has to remind his parishioners that God is not deaf. They always stage a night’s entertainment whenever Capt. Simms arrives at any of their villages, and his crew of Papuan boys from Port Moresby region (they were on the “Lakatoi” when the BP steamer was sunk) are very popular with the Loyalty girls, who sing them eternal and extremely candid love songs and try to get them to sing in return — anything from “Tipnerary” in English to “Onward Christian Soldiers” in Papuan— and to dance their individual tap dances.

These islanders were formerly great cannibals divided on Lifore into three main clans who warred on one another in rotation to provide themselves with fresh meat, the island otherwise afford ing no flesh nourishment. They went to war as we go to market, and when the supply was sufficient, hostilities were suspended.

To-day all is friendly, and as a symbol of tribal goodwill the good ship “Trois Amis,” communally owned by the three grand chiefs, Boula, Clement and Zecula, on behalf of their respective peoples, puts to sea regularly to trade with Noumea, manned by a crew democratically elected at periodic election days by the village elders. Politically they are far from stupid, these Loyalty islanders, and they are some of the happiest people I know.

One remarkable thing about these islands is the giant size of the yams they can grow—l have seen them over six feet long. This is because they are individu ally planted in deep holes in the coral which are first scraped out with long bars and then filled with fine earth.

I found that three variations of the native language are still spoken—that of everyday life, that of grand and formal terms used in addressing the chiefs, and lastly a language of poetry and oratory.

Their languages—different on each island —were first written by the English Pro testant missionaries who were after wards replaced by the French. Thus the Old Testament God is called on Mare, Makase, meaning great sorcerer, and Our Lord is known as Retoe, or great chief.

When the Japanese first invaded the Solomons, the people of Mare spent a fortnight in their limestone caves, fear ing bombardment. Then veterans who had fought in France during the last war organised combat exercises. One tribe would represent the Japs and the rest

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would be the army of Mare. Machine guns were imitated by beating on pieces of corrugated iron, while sacksful of lemons took the place of bombs. When a man was hit with a lemon he was hors de combat and was supposed to lie dead where he was. These manoeuvres used to take place every Monday, start ing at 2 o’clock in the morning, and would end at about 10 a.m., when a conference was held, the last war veterans offering considered criticisms. Unfortunately, these exercises had been discontinued when I visited the island.

But last year, when a goodwill mission headed by Major John M. Cotton US Army medico, visited the group, Naisse line’s Home Guard put on a great show.

“You never saw anything like it,” Major Cotton remarked. “The natives, with more pride than can be imagined, marched past clad in their manou loincloth and tomahawk on shoulder, and went through all sorts of intricate military move ments. They even had a nurses’ corps dressed in white with white veils, proud as could be of their section. All the surviving Mare veterans of the last war were drawn up in ranks and saluted us in military style. Owing to religious differences one village, and only one, was unrepresented at the parade.”

That tough Australian, Capt. Simms, took this Franco-American mission to the island, and General Patch afterwards presented Naisseline with a baby Stan dard car as a goodwill gift on behalf of the American Army. It was in this car, a short time ago, that the chief’s native chauffeur drove Capt. Simms and me to Naisseline’s home at Netche, alongside which is the tomb of the wife of the

first English missionary, Susan Anne Creagh, who died in February, 1855.

At the present time, Naisseline is encouraging his people to grow vege tables to supply the Allied forces in New Caledonia. Several hundred Loyalty boys have also been regularly working on three-monthly contracts with the Allies, and, m addition, many are serving on the main island and overseas with the Free French Army and Navy.