The South Pacific. The first Europeans to sail these waters
took back to their chilly northern homes stories of islands of paradise,
where the warm sea abounds with fish,
coconuts drop from the trees and life is easy.
The islands lie thickest in the southwest.
But the explorers soon found that the people who lived here,
were far from gentle innocents wandering through a garden of Eden.
Some were head... hunters, others cannibals.
And they were all haunted, even tormented, by their gods.
(Drumming)
The people of Melanesia, as this part of the world is called,
created numberless images of their spirits.
They constructed them from bark cloth, they wove them from fibre,
they carved them in wood and hung them with human hair.
Some resembled human beings,
some creatures that have never been seen in the natural world.
(Pipes)
(Pipes and screeching)
(Drumming and handclaps)
Many of the people who created these things stopped doing so long ago.
Their islands were small and easily policed by government officers and missionaries
but there are also large islands in the South Pacific,
some so big that even today, few outsiders have visited the people living in the interior.
0ne such lies in the New Hebrides, Malekula.
The only roads in Malekula run round the coast and then only in short, unconnected lengths.
Inland, rivers alone break the carpet of dense jungle.
Villages are very difficult to see from the air,
so deeply buried are they in the tall forest.
That brown spot is, in fact, the roof of a hut.
All that can be seen of a whole settlement.
This is the hut and also the highest point of Malekula.
Only a handful of outsiders have ever been here.
And the reason is not difficult to discover. The journey is not an easy one.
You have to wade across river 26 times... I know cos I counted them.
And climb up very steep, muddy slopes.
And it rains. And if it rains heavily,
well, you may come up here thinking you're gonna spend days,
and end up spending weeks, because the rivers will become impassable.
But it's a marvellous place to be because this is not so much a village,
as a great ritual centre, a holy place.
These huge log gongs, this is the mother gong,
sound through these mountains to the many people
who have their huts scattered in the forest and who will come here for the big ceremonies.
It's planted with special ceremonial plants.
This is the tanket, the croton plant,
which is an essential part of many of the ritual sacrifices.
Over here they are food plants... bananas, paw paws, coconut,
cassava, yam, taro, bread fruit, but there are not just food plants.
There also grow other plants that otherwise are only found
in some remote parts of these mountains, but whose blossoms
and whose leaves are essential for many of the rites that are held here.
No woman is allowed anywhere inside this enclosure
and I myself may not pass an invisible line which crosses the path just here.
For beyond lies the entrance to the namao,
a house that is shielded from view by this palisade of leaves.
The namao is the men's sacred house where all the important tribal decisions are taken,
where the great ceremonials are held.
No stranger, no white man has ever seen inside a namao.
And so we only know what is in there from what the men themselves tell us.
One thing is quite certain. Inside, there are great quantities of carvings
and sculptures of all kinds.
Mulumulanassar is the most important man here.
He knows more about the supernatural world than anyone else
and he will decide whether we may see any sculptures from the namao.
A man becomes important by sacrificing pigs
in a series of rituals that only the most dedicated can complete in his lifetime.
The spirits require not just ordinary pigs,
but tuskers that have been specially mutilated.
This is the most valuable kind. Its upper tooth was knocked out
so that its lower tusk could grow in a complete circle.
Mulumulanassar during his long life has sacrificed over 300 pigs.
By doing so he's reached such a high grade
and become so holy that he is already partly dead,
already spending some of his time in the next world among the spirits.
It's through him that they convey their wishes to the living.
Without warning, a Numpuki spirit has come out of the namao.
Normally, this only happens on a day one month after the death of an important man.
More men emerge from the sacred enclosure.
These are Metenyeli boards.
The staring eyes represent the unblinking gaze of a dead man.
For this is the spirit face that glares down on a boy
during the painful, terrifying rites of his initiation.
Mulumulanassar is permitting us to see much more than we could have hoped.
It was out of the question that we should go inside the namao
but now its sacred objects are being brought out to us.
The people tell us the names of each of them.
These are Nangar.
This, Nimelaloks.
They're made from clay and cobwebs.
Some incorporate the curving tusks of sacrificed pigs.
All undoubtedly are used in the long ceremonial dramas
that are enacted in the namao, the cult house.
We are taken to an outlying hut.
This is not the namao,
but a place where other sacred objects are being stored.
All these things are so ritually powerful that no woman or child may see them.
It may be that the women too have images of their own in houses of their own,
but I, as a man, will never be told about that.
These boards form the ceiling of the initiation hut
where boys are confined for a whole year.
- Rambaramp? - Rambaramp.
Him?
And these are the most spectacular of all.
A Rambaramp is an effigy of a dead man painted with designs that proclaim his status.
Its head is his actual skull,
fleshed out with clay, mixed with vegetable fibre.
Mulumulanassar takes us to a special place in the village.
Here, beneath a shroud of painted bark,
lies the body of his son.
Above, symbols of fruit bats and doves.
His son died six months earlier.
The body is now headless
for the skull has been removed and made into a Rambaramp,
which will be displayed in a great funeral ceremony.
The rites are being held for six other men as well as Mulumulanassar's son.
It is the biggest funeral ceremony to be held for decades.
The women have assembled carrying branches of croton leaves.
Specially large yams have been grown for the occasion.
They will be presented to the spirits of the dead men.
This is Iblabnambump from a nearby village.
The only man in all these mountains
who has has reached a rank higher than Mulumulanassar.
He alone knows the full rituals.
Without a man of his rank, the ceremony could not be held.
When he and Mulumulanassar are dead, there may be none who knows
how to perform a similar service for their spirits.
A long screen of leaves has been put up in front of the namao
and above it, mysterious figures begin to dance.
The people call these in pidgin, Pikinini Blong Rambaramp.
The children of the Rambaramp.
Their dances may be the acting out of one of the myths of creation
in which they took part in a titanic battle.
But no outsider knows exactly what this puppet play does mean.
And now the Rambaramps appear.
(Drumming)
(Drumming stops, singing)
More and more are brought out from behind the screen
until there are seven standing in a row.
0fferings are piled up in front of the Rambaramps,
and their living relatives lament before them.
(Mournful singing)
0nly very high ranking men like Iblabnambump
are entitled to carry such a ceremonial spear or perform such dances as this,
the dance of a man hawk on its way to heaven.
The spirits of the dead have at last received their due
in yams, pantomime and dance.
They can now rest in peace in the land below the sea.
Five hundred miles away to the northwest, still in Melanesia, the Solomon Islands.
Here things are very different.
White explorers first came here back in the 16th century,
and European influence today is almost overwhelming.
This is Lao lagoon, where the people have built artificial islands of coral blocks
in order to escape from the mosquitoes of the mainland
and, in the old days, to give themselves protection from marauding head... hunters.
Even here, one of the remoter parts of the Solomons' Western influence is all pervasive.
(Children singing)
In the old days, the Solomon Islanders built cult houses
just as they do in the New Hebrides.
The last traditional priest in Lao lagoon took me into his.
There was only one sculpture to be seen.
A crudely carved image of a bird cut out from a plank.
The priest said that he sometimes came to sit here and chant the old songs
but few people ever joined him.
Beyond the cold fireplace,
a simply carved post containing the skull of his father
and a battered tin trunk in which he said there were other human bones.
But once the spirit houses of the Solomons
were filled with images as splendid as any in the Pacific.
Images of the gods.
The gods give manna, supernatural power.
If a warrior is strong, if a chief is wise, it is because he has manna.
Animals and even inanimate things
like strangely shaped stones or dangerous reefs possess manna.
It is neither good nor bad.
It is power.
But it all derives from the spirits and unless they're given sacrifices,
they might deny it to a man.
Some spirits are those of long... dead ancestors.
0thers have never inhabited a human body.
Spirits for example, from the realm of the sea.
It is such a one as this that a man must placate
if he is to ensure success in his hunt for bonito fish, dolphins or turtles.
And the help of spirits may be gained not only by ceremonies in the spirit house
but by enacting, in dance and mime,
the story of a fishing expedition in which a sea spirit comes to the aid of men.
(Singing)
A turtle has been spotted and now the boats must quickly encircle it with nets.
(Singing)
Splashing makes a noise underwater,
which frightens the turtle and drives it towards the nets.
(Singing continues)
(Excited cheering)
(Whooping)
Not a big turtle but nonetheless a cause for jubilation.
It will provide food for a whole family for days.
If you live on an island in a lagoon,
the one thing you lack is fresh water.
And so every day the lagoon people go across to the mainland
to collect it and to wash.
(Children singing)
In the old days, this was the one time
when head... hunters from the interior could creep up unseen
on the islanders from the lagoon and kill.
A head was a head whether it belonged to a warrior or a woman or a child.
This construction is one of the last relics of those old savage days.
Today this is a game.
A century ago it was a way for warriors to steel their nerves
and train themselves for bravery.
Those days are not so long past.
Even in 1912, there were plenty of men in the Solomons
who needed no encouragement or coaching to demonstrate to a missionary,
who was also an enthusiastic amateur film... maker,
how they set out on head... hunting raids
in tomakos, the black sea... going canoes
which they paddled for hundreds of miles through the islands.
(Excited shouting)
Even then the people had enough skulls to set up on poles
so that the triumphant warriors could dance around them
just as they used to do when they returned from a successful raid.
The men wore on their heads discs cut from the shells of giant clams
and overlain with a filigree pattern of turtle shell
designed and cut with the greatest delicacy.
They carried dancing shields made of plaited cane
and covered with a mosaic of pearl shell cut from nautilus.
Their paddles too were often carved with designs of ancestral spirits,
shown squatting in the position in which a man used to be buried.
Almost everything connected with the sea was richly decorated.
A dolphin spirit made of blackened wood and inlaid with pearl shell,
a technique that was a Solomon speciality.
The Muzomuzu, the all... seeing god
which they fixed to the prow of their head... hunting canoes,
whose gaze was so ferocious that none would dare cross in front of it.
In all the Solomons today, one seaworthy tomako still survives.
It can still reach speeds of 15 knots or more
just as it did when it was one of the most feared craft in the Pacific.
Tomakos were up to 50 feet long and could carry 40 warriors.
They were made from planks only half an inch thick
sewn together edge to edge with split cane and sealed with the pulp of putty nuts.
The old man who made this one is now over eighty.
These are cowry shells, aren't they?
Do they have a special meaning, these?
- They are custom decoration. - They are custom decoration?
But supposing a tomako did not have those, why would that be wrong?
It's... A tomako would be regarded as ugly.
As ugly? Yes, I see.
These are decorations after raids in several places.
They are... He place here for that, er, thing.
After head... hunting? You must have?
(Singing)
0ne craft flourishes if anything more vigorously than ever...
the making of shell money.
Small pieces of rock oyster shell are roughly chipped into discs with stone hammers.
Then they are ground smooth and flat.
Each little disc of shell has a hole drilled in its centre
using a bow drill tipped with flint.
The most sought... after and therefore most valuable shell is deep pink.
It's difficult to get but you can turn ordinary white ones pink
simply by putting them on a hot stone.
Then they are strung and given a final smoothing.
And from the one or two villages that make it,
shell money is traded to places as far away as parts of New Guinea,
a thousand miles to the west.
Here in the Solomons, it is still essential currency for many transactions
and particularly in weddings.
The family of a young man is coming to one of the islands in Lao lagoon
to claim a bride for him.
The wedding party have brought with them shell money,
the bride wealth which the bridegroom's family must, by tradition, pay to the bride's parents
as part of the wedding settlement.
Each of these belts is worth about L100 in European currency.
There are also necklaces of dolphin teeth.
The bride is decked with the riches that she has brought to her parents.
As everywhere else, weddings are times of mixed feelings.
Husbands rejoice to get wives but fathers grieve to lose daughters.
(Man wailing)
After this traditional ceremony,
the couple will have their marriage consecrated in a Christian church.
For over a century now, Christianity has been preached throughout Melanesia
and that, together with European influence in general
has meant that most of the old religions and practices have disappeared.
But now, in the wake of Christianity, new, strange religions have begun to emerge.
Odd amalgams of Western practices and the old traditional ones.
Behind me is the southern coast of Guadalcanal in the Solomons
and there, 20 years ago a man named Moro had a vision.
As a result of it he founded a new religion which today has several thousand followers.
We sent a message down to Moro to ask if we might visit him
but we have no idea what sort of reception we're going to get.
(Shouting)
Welcome. How do you do?
- Some more people? - Some more come later time.
- Later? - Yeah, later.
- You come first? - I come first now.
(Talking in native language)
- All right, we go? - Yes, please.
Thank you.
(All) # God save our gracious queen
# Long live our noble queen
# God save our queen
# Send her victorious
# Happy and glorious
# Long to reign over us
# God save the queen
# Send her victorious
# Happy and glorious
# Long to reign over us
# God save the queen #
- We will go, please. - Thank you.
There.
Good day.
Thank you.
Good day. This is very kind of you.
(Pipes playing)
We would like to give you a hearty welcome...
Moro's spokesman is David, once a fully... trained teacher in a missionary school.
And we would like to let you know the main history of this island Isatab.
In the beginning there was nothing but darkness.
It was Irogali the creator.
Irogali came down to the dry land and form three eggs.
Two of the eggs hatched
and there were two dogs.
Irogali named them Lauwala and Lauwili.
And there were people without mouth, limbs,
and a voice appeared.
These people's work is to keep the life and the power exist in the island.
- Will you translate for me? - Yes, sir.
Moro, and all people from this village.
(Translates)
I would like to thank you on behalf of all my companions
for this great welcome that you have given us.
(David translates)
We know very little in London, where I come from,
about the house of memories here.
(Translates)
And of all the things that you are teaching your people.
(Translates)
And I give you my thanks and my greetings from all the people that I represent
for welcoming us so handsomely.
(Translates)
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you, Moro.
Thank you.
Moro's vision had come to him in a trance.
Irogali the creator, had told him to disregard the Christian god
and revive the old ways that were dying.
The people must learn once more how to weave and carve and fish in the traditional manner.
They must once again become men blong custom,
for that was their birthright.
Those ways are their ways.
(Singing)
But this revival of old crafts
does not mean that everything from the outside world should be ignored.
The people should take just what suited them.
The white men had special cult houses that they called museums
where they venerated treasures from the past.
Very well, the people of Makaruka wanted to do just the same sort of thing,
so they too should build such a place.
But a stranger might only go into this house of memories
if he showed proper reverence to the ancient gods
and discarded his alien Western clothes
and like everybody else in the settlement, wore only custom clothes.
Reviving old dances is an important part of the life that Moro has planned for his people.
20 years ago, anthropologists could find no sculpture whatever
in this part of the island.
All had been destroyed by missionaries
or discarded by their Christian converts and carried away by visitors.
Moro and his people had been forced, therefore,
to reinvent the images they needed for their house of memories.
Someone had seen labels on the exhibits in the white man's museums,
so they provided the same here.
"The memory of opposum. How the oppossum got plenty. "
That is to say, brought wealth.
The memory of Irogali the creator bird god that Moro saw in his trance.
The memory of Lawili, the first man.
From the house of memories, Moro took me to the most holy place of all.
It is, in part, the community's treasury,
for it's hung with hundreds of strings of shell money.
- Well, what is this on the floor? - (Speaking local language)
- It's, er... the island. - The island?
And this one is oldest thing, huh?
And this one?
So that is... that is Irogali.
I understand.
And snakes?
Are these ordinary snakes or are they spirit snakes?
- They're not made by man. - They're not made by man?
Picked by man but they're not made by man.
- You mean you find them? - Find them from the ground.
You found them in the ground. I see, so no man he cut this?
- No one cut this. - No man.
When we came out the people had assembled to hear Moro talk to me
through David the interpreter.
Why does Moro keep in the custom house these many things?
He told me before when started that
he would like to keep all these memories
in order to prove that the people living in the island
are true natives of the island.
And it also shows that all these things
will prove which line owns each part of the ground.
Now, whenever they want to build business in the future nobody will pluck them out.
This my land and I live in the land.
Everything that is from the land is mine
and anyone who wants it may... will pay for it.
Why do Moro's people no longer wear any European clothes?
This is to show how my people lived in the olden days.
(# Pipes playing)
All over the Pacific, people have lost the likenesses of their gods.
It seems to many of them that in doing so
they have lost their manna, their power,
and that they will never regain their ancient dignity without it.
So in Makaruka, Moro and his people are striving to create new images
so that they may recapture some of the splendours of their past.