Pagan Fears Kept Americans

From Secret Cave On Choiseul

From Gabrielle Lawson in Honiara Somewhere on Choiseul in the Western Solomons is a secret cave containing human skulls, strings of shell money and intricately-carved clam shells that would undoubtedly be of ex ceptional interest to Pacific anthropologists—if they were allowed to see it.

THE cave’s existence was revealed to a group of us one night recently by Belshazzar Gina, a well-known and rotund character of Honiara, when he got to reminiscing over a piece of cake and a cup of tea as the moon made a silvery path over the sea, and Melanesia (the Dark Islands) stood out like ghostly sentinels.

Gina, who is 55, is a native of Choiseul. His wife is the daughter of a paramount chief, and their sons and daughters all have Gina’s physical characteristics —they are big sideways.

Pagan Uncle

They are a Christian family and Gina is ambitious for the children, some of whom are still at school. The eldest son, John Gina, is a police sergeant in Honiara.

Gina, who often marvels at the changes that have taken place in the Solomons in his lifetime, told us that when he was 15 years old, it was de

cided to send him from Choiseul to school at Fiji.

At that time all his family line had, through Mission influence, become Christians, with the exception of an old uncle.

This uncle took Gina aside and said that before he went away he wanted to explain why it was so hard for him to give up the old way of life and worship only one God when in side his head he thought of many gods, just as his people did who lived and died as far back as 500 years ago.

He promised Gina that when he re turned from school he hoped to be able to accept the new God and be baptised. He would do it before he died, anyway.

However, he did not want to die before he had passed on to one of his own blood something he could see with his own eyes, and something that Gina could tell some day to his own son so that it would not be lost for ever.

“Many, many moons ago, there were two brothers who grew up in great rivalry,” Gina’s uncle said.

“Gradually one of them gathered to himself a lot of warriors, so the other one followed suit but he was not able to hold as much sway with his followers.

“They split up into two distinct tribes and settled themselves on two high mountains with a valley between.

“War and treachery went on for years. People of each side were buried in secret places in an upright position so that when the body was decom posed it was easier to cut off the head and take it away so that it could not be found by an enemy.

“Heads were very precious both as trophies of war and for family reasons.

The family ones were carefully smoked and cleaned and bleached in the sun.

“Great slabs of stone were cut with primitive tools and made into vaults, the locations of which were known Dnly to some members of the family :oncerned and there the skulls were slaced.”

Long Trek

The old uncle told Gina that he vas going to take him to one such )lace and that no one else at that ime knew where it was.

They set off on a long trek over )ush trails and hills, and through ungle, making sure they were not een. Eventually they came to a halt.

“I was tired and somewhat afraid,”

Jina told us, “but I was more afraid •f my uncle. So when he told me to tart clearing a place, moving bush nd stones, I did so until we found a

tunnel and we went through it for awhile and then before me was a place like a cave.

“The walls were built up with great slabs of stone and great clam shells were set in the stone.

“These were carved inside all over and a pattern could be seen in each one. All around there were human skulls and strings of shell money.

“My uncle took down one of the skulls and gave it to me. Inside it was full of a kind of honey which he told me to eat.

“I was very much afraid, but he told me I had to eat it. When I had finished, he said, ‘Now you will grow to manhood with the spirit of your ancestors inside you, all your line will be big and strong, and no harm will come to you.’

“My uncle told me that all the carv ing on the clam shells told the history of my ancestors, and all the wealth they had was there and no one would dare touch it.

“It would be there as long as the world was in the universe, and any one who took anything away would die within a week.

“There were tiny skulls there, too, and I was told that these were special ones.

Before they came to their resting places, certain things had to be done.

When a baby or a child died and finally its skull was white and clean, an old woman of the village put it in a basket and carried it about with her wherever she went for a period of time.

“Sometimes when she put it down by her side the basket would rock.

The old woman would immediately set up a cry, and weep and wail. The baby or child was not ready for the vault.

“Finally, all was well and the skull was put safely to rest.”

Fortune

Gina said he could still find the place today, and one day he thought he might show it to one of his family.

He was very much tempted during the war, when the Americans were pulling out of Munda on Choiseul, to take some of them to the place and make his fortune, he said.

But, remembering what his uncle had said, he was too afraid to do so -—and, it seems, he is still reluctant to do so now.