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- [Voiceover] We headed out into the Pacific Ocean

200 miles off the coast of California

to pick up the trade wind that would carry us

down toward the equator.

Salsbury and his party made the round the world

expedition aboard The Gypsy.

It was a yacht 161 feet long.

It had a crew of 18 and there were

13 scientists aboard.

We had a laboratory for the development

of moving picture film and the preservation

of specimens to be collected,

an ice machine

and we were well stocked

for a long cruise in the tropics.

But, just before reaching the equator,

you run into the Doldrums.

That's a vast expanse of water where there

is very little, if any, wind.

We had a diesel engine

and we turned on our power and had no difficulty

getting across this quiet expanse of ocean.

The boys, during that time, mended everything

but their ways.

And, here you see Captain Salsbury's cleaners at work

and, boy, could they clean.

They invented the game of Blackjack.

And, they had me cleaned the first day in the tropics.

Very few of the sailors, today, know the knots

that are necessary in the making of a hammock.

This old fellow had been a deep water sailor,

he had been to the tropics before

and he knew that a very necessary part

of the equipment was a hammock.

When you pick up these clouds known as

a trade clouds on the other side of the Doldrums,

you know that you're just about to get

the trade wind that will carry you on to the equator.

And, when that shot of the sun was taken,

we were just 75 miles northeast

of the Marquesas Group.

Each man wanted to be the first to sight land

so he appointed himself a lookout.

The Marquesas Group is to be our first destination.

It belongs to the French.

And, is formed by a number of small islands.

The missionaries compel a man to wear cotton pants

and shirts and they put hideous Mother Hubbard

wrappers on the women.

The natives were not accustomed to this.

They became very warm.

Their clothing became saturated with perspiration

and they'd sit in the cool trade winds.

The wind blowing through the wet cloth

gave them colds and this turned into pneumonia.

And, thousands of them died.

Today, I doubt very much if there are 300 Marquesans left.

They lead a carefree life, these Marquesans.

Getting as much joy as possible out of each day.

(mysterious music)

They don't need fish hooks, they use spears underwater.

And, a Marquesan always gets his fish.

Fish are very plentiful and the Marquesan is clever.

That's a good combination.

Frying pans weren't used.

They eat 'em raw.

And, I guess the fish, if given his choice,

would rather be bitten by the white teeth

of a Marquesan maiden than the teeth

of a hungry shark.

At least, I would.

On shore, we found fruits and vegetables

growing in perfusion.

This is a mango, a very delicious tropical fruit.

If you don't object to the slight taste of turpentine.

But, that taste is very slight.

You don't notice it after you've eaten

the fruit several days.

It's delicious and you don't care how much juice

runs down your chin and inside of your shirt.

And, believe me, that's plenty.

The bred fruit grows on a fine, large tree.

It's a staple article of diet of the Marquesan.

Flowers were everywhere and of every imaginable color.

And, there's another beautiful thing

found in the Marquesas Group, the girls.

They're lovely.

They're just happy, grown up children.

They spend their days dancing, swimming

and singing on the beach.

They wear a single garment called a pareu.

It's about twice as wide as a bath towel and twice as long.

They take this and give it a quick flip

around their bodies and tuck under the ends.

There are no buttons or hooks or pins or suspenders

but I'm darned if I ever saw one of them fall off.

And, believe me, I watch carefully.

(mysterious music)

Some day, when the picking is good,

this girl oughta pick herself a shirtwaist.

So lucky your captain can visit one of these islands

and get away with his entire crew

because some of the boys are tempted to dessert.

But, you can't blame the fellas.

The girls are friendly.

It's really a great place for a young man.

Or for an old man with young ideas.

We had no difficulties getting these girls to dance

but it was difficult to get them to stop.

Whenever they heard music and saw the camera set up,

they danced.

Well, they insisted on getting into the picture.

We're gonna let 'em wriggle out of it the best way they can.

The natives told us that it rains

everyday in the year in Samoa.

But, it generally takes the form of hard showers at night.

Plenty of sunshine during the day

results in a luxurious growth of tropical vegetation.

Part of the coast of Somoa, of the island of Tutuila,

is rocky, which may differ from your idea

of a South Sea island beach.

But, they have these palm lined beaches

and whenever you find one,

you generally find a collection of native huts.

To be a good South Sea island dancer

requires years of training.

You have to start almost from the cradle.

This little kiddie got a pretty early start.

But, imagine exercising like this

in the hot sun when you don't have to.

The sitting siva dance of the women of Somoa,

according to Robert Louis Stevenson,

who spent a great many years in the South Seas

and who is buried in the Samoan Group,

is the most graceful dance in the world.

Every movement made by these women tell a story.

They tell of their past lives, of their present existence

and of their hopes and fears for the future.

The women are good dancers in Samoa

but they men are better.

The women have a few tasks to perform.

But, when America took possession of Samoa,

the men learned that in America,

the politicians didn't work so all the men

in Samoa have become politicians.

They don't work, all they do is dance and talk politics.

And, in their dance, their movements

tell of the history of Samoa.

The Samoans kept no written record of their history.

All of the incidents were handed down from one generation

to another in the movements of the siva.

It must be very interesting to one who can

interpret the movements of this dance.

Now, you've had your glimpse of Polynesia.

You've seen the natives and you've seen

the happy, carefree lives they lead.

Now, you can compare all this with what

you're going to find in Melanesia,

for we're just about to cross the 180th Meridian

and we'll be among the Blacks.

It's in Melanesia we find the cannibals

and the head hunters.

Our first stop will be at the Fiji Islands,

a British strong colony.

75 years ago, to speak of the Fiji Islands

brought up visions of cannibalism.

But, today, according to the British government

and the missionaries, cannibalism has ceased.

The natives are trained to police the islands

of the group wherever there are Whites.

It may be possible that the Fiji Islander

living so close to the dividing line

between Polynesia and Melanesia

has had the Melanesian blood softened

by the Polynesian strain and proves

more susceptible to the influences of civilization.

The children are very intelligent looking,

considering the fact that their grandparents

were cannibals.

But, they have the queerest types of haircut.

Each one had his or her idea of beauty in a haircut.

This girl washed her hair that morning

and couldn't do a thing with it.

And, this fella cuts his hair with a hammer and a chisel.

They just reverse our method of building a house.

They build the framework of the roof and lift it

and then build the underpart of the hut.

Then, they thatch the whole thing with palm leaves

and grass and reeds.

And, it may surprise you to know that a hut,

built in this way, is waterproof.

The rainfall in the Fijis is very heavy.

They have a great many bananas in this group,

practically all the bananas used in Australia

and New Zealand are shipped from the Fiji Islands.

They break each banana from the bunch

and package separately.

The bananas are brought down the rivers

on great bamboo rafts.

After the raft is unloaded, it's burned.

For it's a great deal easier to go back up the river

and build another raft then it would be

to pull this one back up the swift current.

Their fish lines and nets are made of coconut fiber.

That's a very valuable article in the South Seas.

This old fellow is making a line of coconut fiber

that he will later weave into a fishnet.

Tortoise shell hook tied with coconut fiber

to a pearl oyster shell attractor makes

a very good fish lure for the large

saltwater game fish.

A Fiji Island sailing canoe will give

you nervous frustration.

It's a long, narrow canoe held upright by an outrigger.

The sail is made of grass cloth and the lines

and halliards are made of coconut fiber.

When the wind blows very hard,

it's necessary for the passengers

to ride out on the outrigger to prevent

the canoe turning over.

But, it's a speedy craft and safe

if you know how to distribute your weight

in a blow.

The most interesting part of it, though,

is their method of maneuvering.

They go as far as they want in any direction

and when they wanna retrace their course,

they don't cut into the wind with a lot

of fuss and baller, like a White man,

they merely change the position of the sail.

And then, the bow becomes the stern

and the stern becomes the bow.

And, merrily they sail along on the way home.

The clever White man hasn't thought of that.

I think we secured the only moving picture

ever made of a tidal wave.

You'll notice the water rushes in

and covers those reefs to a depth

of 11 or 12 feet in a very few minutes.

For many of the low islands,

a great deal of damage was done

and some of the natives lost their lives.

Some of the South Sea Islands are only

three or four feet above high water mark.

Ports sliding down this natural chute on a hot day.

But, it was so hard on the elbows,

we couldn't sit down for about a week.

And, the women become very expert boatmen.

They do all of the hard work in Melanesia

which includes the Fiji Island.

You think a Melanesian would make

a woman do any part of the hard work?

No, sir, he makes her do it all.

Women carry the wood, the man carries the ax.

These women are making tapa cloth,

the only cloth they have for garments

prior to the arrival of the trader.

On the edge of one piece pounded into the edge of the other.

In this way, they can make a piece of any desired sign.

We saw some of the chief strings that were 75 feet long.

And, with vegetable dyes, they stencil on the designs

using a palm leaf for a stencil.

Fiji Islanders always give everyone of importance a feast.

They thought we were important because

we came with an expedition.

We wanted to see what it was all about,

so we didn't dispel their illusion.

They dig a hole and fill it with rocks

which they get very hot.

They put leaves on top of the rocks.

The food on top of the leaves,

more leaves over the food and then cover

everything with dirt.

Pigs, chicken, fish, turtles.

Everything imaginable goes into that fire hole.

And, the food cooked that way is very delicious

if you can just forget that they haven't cleaned anything.

But, before you eat, you must go through

the Kaaba Ceremony and like it.

Kaaba is a peppery root that is mixed up with water

for the graviolist ceremony.

Now, can you imagine drinking that stuff

he's washing his hands in?

He said he was straining it

but I noticed his hands were a great deal cleaner

when he got through it than when he started.

The guests drinks this vile mixture

from a coconut shell bowl.

And, brother, if you think a coconut shell

doesn't hold a lot, you try it sometime.

After the guest drinks, he spins the bowl

and the other's applaud.

It looked like a lot of hooey to us.

Here's Chief Rampezee and his long tapa cloth train.

(whistle)

The Chief is followed by his warriors dressed in leaves,

bark, tapa cloth and grass.

That's the national costume of the Fiji Island warrior.

They have a very nice custom of giving presents.

They gave us a great many presents,

a great many sweet potatoes.

They call them yams and some of them reach

a weight of 50 pounds.

Then, the women arrive bringing more presents.

More sweet potatoes.

We had enough sweet potatoes aboard the yacht

when we left the Fiji Islands to stock

all the markets in the state.

In the sitting siva dance of the women

of the Fijis, as in the sitting siva in Samoa,

those movements tell a story.

The women wear shirtwaist made of grass,

leaves and flowers.

Those are made fresh everyday.

I think that's a very nice custom.

Captain Salsbury remarked during the progress

of this dance that he should like very much

to have one of those tapa cloth skirts.

At the conclusion of the dance,

all the women filed passed him

and each women took off her skirt

and presented it to him.

Every women had another skirt underneath.

The women are good dancers but, remember,

they do all the work.

They have less time to dance than have the men.

The men are all warriors.

They haven't had a war for 75 years,

nevertheless, they're warriors and they won't work.

All they do is dance.

And, are they good?

They've got to be good.

They go through this dance of the war clubs

requiring hours, hundreds of intricate movements.

Absolutely without music, not even the beating of a tom-tom.

We watched them for hours and didn't see one mistake

or hesitation on the part of a dancer.

I doubt very much if anywhere in the world

is a ballet as perfect in synchronized movement

as these warriors of the Fijis dancing

the dance of the war clubs.

They keep time very much as a musician

keeps time on his instrument.

They told us that they always dance

this dance of the war clubs before starting on a raid.

Perhaps, for the same reason that the

North American Indian danced his war dance

before he went on the war path.

Now, note their features.

Remember, 75 years ago the Fiji Islanders were cannibals.

(mysterious music)

We leave the land of the batiks

and travel up this Malacca Strait

in search of new adventure.

We pass the Nicobar Islands on the left

and we approach the Andaman Islands

in the Bay of Bengal, where we found the Pygmies.

The Jarawaian pygmies.

Perhaps, the most primitive people on earth.

We were very fortunate in finding this collection

of natives who had lost their fear of the White man

and their enmity for him.

These pygmies on the Andaman Islands are man killers.

The men are above four feet in height.

The women about three feet eight inches.

You can get a comparison there.

The man is about five feet eight.

This is a full grown man and woman

and when they meet, they shake hands as we do

and the visitor sits on the host's lap

and they carry on a conversation

that sounds like the chattering of magpies.

And, they showed us their games.

They play 'Blind Man's Bluff' and 'Leap Frog'.

There was a forester located on this island

in the interest of the British government.

And, he told us that back in the jungle

and even down on the beach when

the wilder creatures came down to saltwater

that they played these games.

It's really a mystery where they learned them.

And, they let the devil or the evil spirits out

of the children by puncturing their flesh

in thousands of places with a piece of sharp clam shell.

Practically, all of the adults' bodies

were literally covered with those scars.

They have a custom of wearing some part

of the mate's head when he dies.

Some of the widows wore the jawbone only.

But, others prefered the whole skull.

It's a custom that has its merits

because you can easily tell a widow.

Course, you can't tell a widow very much

but you know who's who and you can watch your step.

But, imagine making love to a woman

that wears a skull of her departed husband

hanging on her breasts.

Reports had come out of the Andaman Islands

that these pygmies have tails.

That is one reason that Captain Salsbury's

expedition went to the islands to secure

pictures of the natives.

They're very primitive.

As I stated, perhaps, the most primitive

humans on earth for they have never

learned to build a fire.

They eat all of their food raw

and it's a very primitive race, indeed,

that has no habitation or hut.

But, they live in trees wherever night overtakes them

and we were very fortunate, indeed,

to be able to get these creatures

because it's only occasionally that

they come down to the saltwater in search of turtle.

But, these, the natives we show you,

have made friends with this forester.

And, he understood their language

and acted as an interpreter and in that way,

we understood the ceremonies that they showed us.

And, what they signify.

A turtle on its back is absolutely helpless.

You can go away and leave it and come back

and find it just where you left it.

There canoe is merely a hollowed log

held upright by an outrigger.

A girl formally marks her transition

from girlhood to womanhood by adorning

her body with the costume of designs

drawn in clam shell line.

Rather disavailed but the girls

are very proud of their makeup.

The costume consists of the design on the forehead

and the design on the body,

a little grass behind

and not much before.

The girl at the left has an open face,

wide open, in fact.

We never knew whether she was smiling at us

or getting ready to bite.

Now, there's another ceremony that

they must pass through before they are

considered fit to be women.

It consists of being kept wet for three days

with cold seawater while the older women fan her.

If she doesn't die of pneumonia, she's considered fit.

And then, they showed us their wedding ceremony.

Where the groom sits in the bride's lap.

And, the members of the immediate family

form in a semicircle around the couple.

After awhile, the friends arrive.

They act more like enemies

but they're supposed to be friends.

And, they go into a football huddle around the couple

and howl like dogs for about an hour.

And then, they showed us the wedding dance.

The dance that makes the couple man and wife.

(foreign music)

Well, they thought they'd given us a good show

and one day they made their way up this trail

into the jungle.

A jungle so thick that a White man

must cut every foot of his way.

Going up this waterway, we told them goodbye.

Now, we're going to take you to one more

group of erstwhile cannibals.

These are the Papuans occupying islands

along the coast of New Guinea.

And, according to the Australian government

and the missionaries, the Papuans were cannibals

from 13 to 18 years ago.

Here, the missionaries have done a very good work.

They have raised these natives from

the very depth of primitive existence

up the scale of civilization to where they are

quite civilized in action, if not in dress.

They load catamarans with these pucks

and set sail on a trading expedition.

The catamaran is a couple of hollow logs

with a platform of bamboo,

the mast stepped over to one side

and the crew composed very often

of women and boys.

Now, they have to wait for the wind

to blow from the right direction

to take them where they wanna go

for it's impossible to maneuver these catamarans.

Then, at the other end, they sometimes

wait for months for the wind to blow

from the right direction to bring them home.

So, you can see the schedule of a traveling man

in New Guinea is rather uncertain.

I doubt very much if you'll ever see

another picture of these crab claw

grass cloth sails.

They're called crab claw sails on account of the shape

and they're made of grass cloth woven by the women.

It takes the women months to make one of these sails.

It was the only material they had for sail making

prior to the arrival of the trader.

But, he brought cotton duck

and he had very little sales resistance

to overcome to get the natives to substitute

the cotton duck for the grass cloth.

That also released the women from sail making

to the gathering of ivory nuts

and other things for which the traders

were willing to give trade goods.

But, these sails are very fragile.

If they become damp, they mildew

and if they mildew, they're very easily torn by the wind.

So, today, I doubt very much if you

will see a dozen of these sails left

along the coast of New Guinea.

And, it's the only place in the world

where these crab claw grass cloth sails were found.

Well, when they reached their destination,

they run they catamaran up as far

as they can up the beach at high tide

and when the tide goes out it leaves

their craft high and dry.

And, they can do their trading right on the catamaran.

There's a lot of fuss and bother when

they reach a port because they must lower

these sails and furl them and carry them ashore

and keep them covered.

Whereas, I stated, they're very fragile

and if they become damp, they mildew.

The arrival of one of these trading

expeditions is quite a social event.

On this part of the New Guinea coast,

visitors are few and far apart.

Building your houses in this way

has its advantages because when the tide

goes out, it leaves a good yard for the kiddies to play in

and when the tide comes in,

it gives the backyard a good cleaning.

Their schoolroom is the great outdoors

and they're going to their reading,

writing and rithmetic in a big way.

The missionary teachers told us that they

very seldom had to mark a student absent.

We're gonna take you first to the islands

of the New Hebrides Group.

This is a French and British possession.

Now, when we approach a cannibal island

it's advisable to anchor the boat off a wide beach.

So, that when you go ashore in your small boats

the water's edge will be quite a ways from the jungle.

You won't see the natives at first.

They'll be back in the bush watching you

just as suspiciously, perhaps, as you'll watch them.

And, they have very good reason to be

suspicious of a White man.

You may have to spend several days

at the water's edge displaying trinkets

before the natives come out of the bush.

They first send out the small boys

and if nothing happens to the small boys,

then the men come out.

They'll bring out pigs and chickens,

vegetables and fruit to trade for the trinkets

they know we'll have for them.

These are real cannibals.

They're the Melanesian type.

And, the pipe was the favorite article we had.

They wanted some paint.

The only thing we had was enamel.

They took it and painted their faces with it.

It was guaranteed not to come off

with steam or hot water so I guess

they're still wearing it.

They had the mentality of three or four year old children

and the bodies of adults.

These hats were supposed to frighten

undesirable visitors away from their island.

And, they didn't want us to go back into the interior.

This always worked on the superstitious

tribes from other islands but naturally

it had no effect on us.

So, they finally gave it up and disappeared in the jungle.

Sometime later when we followed them,

we found their village.

A very evil, vile smelling place.

We found the men and boys living

in a compound by themselves.

The women live with the pigs.

The man's compound is absolutely taboo to women.

If a woman enters a man's compound,

she is killed instantly.

That may sound silly in this day of civilization

but I assure you, it's one of the many

brutal customs practiced by the cannibals

of the New Hebrides.

A cannibal has one virtue,

he will generally tell the truth.

We asked these fellows if they

had eaten human flesh and they grinned

and grunted and readily admitted it.

But, they also admitted that they prefer

the flesh of the Black man to that of the White man.

They claim that a White man smells bad and tastes salty

and that is very likely true because every race

has its own particular body musk.

(mysterious music)

The deep note of the tom-tom has called

in these savages from all over the island

for their ceremony.

And, deep in the jungle, they have clearings

called sing sing grounds where they

hold their hideous feasts.

The cannibal woman is not permitted to eat

human flesh but she prepares it for cooking.

(suspenseful music)

One of these ceremonies starts with a dance

early in the morning.

It starts in an orderly manner.

But, as the hours go by, the men become frenzied.

They tear their hair, they scream like demons,

tear off their covering, if any,

and they dance until the fall exhausted.

Their kicked out of the way and others take their places.

The whole spectacle is a very disgusting

and revolting one to a White man.

Then, in the afternoon, they bring in the pigs.

They sacrifice some of the male pigs to the Gods.

And, the men dance with the female pigs.

They go through many repulsive

and obscene actions which naturally

the censors would not permit us to show

in a moving picture theater.

We show this ceremony up to the point

where the censors compelled us to cut it.

We were at Malakula Island

about 10 days before we could get

these natives out of the jungle in a group.

They'd come out one or two at a time.

But, we wanted a group picture.

It was impossible to go back in the jungle

and photograph them due to the fact

that the light at noon is just like twilight.

This is due to the dense vegetation.

We finally got them out on the beach

and made pictures of the boys first.

The boys are not too hard looking

although they do have very cruel eyes

and treacherous mouths.

But, the adults are very fierce

and very treacherous.

Every man wears a piece of bamboo

through the cartilage of the nose

and among these savages, too,

the pipe was the favorite article.

We have found that no matter

how primitive a race it knows how to smile.

You have to wonder when a cannibal

smiles at you, what he's thinking.

And, you're pretty apt to hope

he isn't thinking of calories.

Here's a jolly, little playmate.

Many of them had guns and they claimed

that they had killed White men for them.

You can believe this because it's about

the only way they can get a gun.

It's a very serious crime against

the British government to sell them guns

or ammunition.

And, that's the thing that they want

more than anything else.

Missionary boat put into this bay

and cannibals came out to the missionary boat

to listen to the organ.

They call it the sing sing bacus.

They can't say bacs they say bacus.

Now, these being the best dressed man in the tribes,

we decided to have a style show.

We're going to show you what the well dressed

cannibal will wear this year.

Captain Salsbury had made a previous trip

to this island and he had a copy of Asia

containing pictures of these men, which he had taken.

They got a great bang out of seeing

their own pictures in that publication.

(mysterious music)

The Solomon Islands belong to the British

and here we found both cannibals and head hunters.

There's a large island of Malaita in this group.

And, years ago, they pushed cannibals,

drove the shore cannibals away.

The survivors took up refuge on coral reefs

that surround this island of Malaita

and during the past several hundred years

they've been going back to the mainland,

bringing out canoe loads of rocks and dirt.

They've built those small islands up

until the can live on them very comfortably.

The little pickaninny isn't much help to the old man

but he looks good in the picture.

This fellow showed us what would happen

if he sat one inch off balance

in this little 10 pound canoe.

But, he could climb into that canoe

over the gun, oh, a hundred times

without capsizing it.

That's quite a stunt.

There wasn't a member of our party

that could sit in that canoe and paddle it

one minute without capsizing it.

The man on the small islands are known as saltwater men.

All the small islands are protected by rock walls.

These walls serve two purposes.

They protect the inhabitants from the raids

of the cannibals and head hunters

from the other islands.

And, they also protect them from the storms.

Life in the Western Pacific is pretty much

a case of the survival of the fittest.

The boys are diving here for trinkets and tobacco cans.

But, they dive in the same manner for the clam shell

which is used in making the shell money,

the medium of exchange in the Solomon Islands.

This clam shell money is not a coin.

It's an ornament.

But, it's highly valued by all the tribes.

Most of the tribes are too lazy to make it.

The man on these small islands

never go to the mainland.

They're afraid of the bush cannibals.

But, once a week, they send the women over

with the fish they catch in these fish traps

and shell money to trade with the bush cannibals

for vegetables and fruits.

Things they are unable to produce on the small islands.

The bush cannibals declare this truce once a week.

The women set sail on a trading expedition.

We followed to see what would happen

and as it happens so often in life, nothing happened.

The bush cannibals came out of the interior,

the men carrying nothing, the women heavily laden

and they met the women coming over

from the small islands.

Now, we're going to show you the Solomon Island cannibals.

You'll notice that he looks cleaner and more intelligent.

But, I assure you that he's just as treacherous,

just as blood thirsty and just as fond of human flesh

as the cannibals of the New Hebrides.

In fact, these men have a very evil reputation.

They're known as killers.

I believe they'd kill their father

for a half a string of shell money.

The British government is constantly

sending expeditions after these men.

Not long ago, the natives of this village

killed the crew of a trading schooner.

And, the government sent a gun boat out,

shelled this village and kill some of these men.

Those that they capture, they'd take

to their settlement at Tulagi where they

have a stockade and a gallows

and where they're executed.

It's very possible that some of the very men

you see in this picture have been either

killed or captured.

When they reach the shore, the women drop

exhausted from their hard journey.

But, the men dance for hours.

They dance to the music of the

most primitive instrument of man.

The hollow log.

To the rhythm that comes from this log

when men beat it, these fellows dance.

You'll notice some of them are wearing undershirts.

We traded our undershirts for war clubs and spears.

When we left this island, we had plenty of weapons

but were short on underclothes.

Now, we'll take you over and give you

a glimpse of Tulagi, the headquarters

of the British in the Solomons.

Just a handful of British and a number

of native guards populate this small settlement.

Here is where they can find the cannibals they capture

after depredations against the White man.

And, they give them the little neck tie party

on this gallows.

It's always a very splendid lesson to the man they hang

but it doesn't seem to make any impression

at all on the others.

We went in too close to this island

and the current put us ashore on that reef.

It was necessary to lighten the boat

and we went ashore and took up

our headquarters in a hut.

This sacred bush turkey is a very ambitious bird.

Whenever she wants to lay an egg,

she digs a hole four feet deep,

deposits her egg in the hole

and then fills the hole with sand.

The heat of the sand hatches the egg

and the little chick is forced

to make its way up through four feet

of sand to the surface.

It emerges fully feathered

and glances around, locates the jungle

and flies away almost immediately.

It receives no care at all from the parent birds.

The natives gather the eggs.

But, they never kill the birds themselves.

We soon ran out of presents after

going ashore on this island.

And, the men became very surly and solemn.

They got off at the jungle's edge and glared at us.

When we saw these fellows coming in

from other islands and other parts

of this island dressed in their war paint

and carrying their weapons and putting on

these dances, we knew what it was all about.

We had been among cannibals long enough

to know that this meant that we should

get that boat off the reef and get our things aboard

and set sail.

We got our things aboard

and took some shots with a telephoto lens

of these dances and then were on our way.

Our first view of the head hunters

showed them shooting fish.

Literally, shooting fish.

Then, the cannibal, he has a higher mentality,

that of a six or eight year old child,

he keeps himself in splendid physical condition.

They bind their ankles loosely and are able

to go up these trees like a monkey on a stick.

Only a man in splendid physical condition

can perform this stunt.

Or they run up the trees in this fashion

with their ankles unbound.

The coconut tree is a very valuable plant

in the South Seas.

I doubt very much if the natives

could exist five years without it.

The fronds of the palm furnish covering for their huts.

The natives eat the meat of the coconut

and drink the milk.

And, coconut fiber has hundreds of uses.

For everything that we use,

wires, screws, pins, tacks, pastes, nails,

they use coconut fiber.

Then, another vegetable that is very valuable

is the climbing vine.

They use this when they need a heavier binding

to take the place of rope.

And, two men with several loops of this vine

can go to the top of the tallest tree

no matter how large the tree is in diameter.

The man below passes the loop to the man above.

And, when they wanna come down,

they use a long length of this,

get it between their toes to act as a brake

and they slide down.

Every stalk of the traveler's palm

contains a drink of cold, pure water.

It's quite the purest water found

in that part of the world.

They make fire as do many primitive races

by rubbing hard and soft wood together.

This friction produces a heat

that in turn produces a spark which they place

in the tinder, in this case coconut fiber,

just another use for the coconut tree

and by blowing on this bark, they have a fire

almost as quickly as we could make one with a match.

But, they don't have to do this very often.

They keep their fires burning month after month.

Never let them go out.

The canoes of the head hunters are not the crude

hollowed logs of the cannibals

but they're constructed more scientifically.

They cut the boards to a good shape

and fit with crude stone implements,

bore holes along the edges and then lace

the boards together using vegetable fiber.

And, then with a nut that grows there,

they waterproof the seams.

They rub it on a rock, fill in the cracks

and it acts as a waterproof cement.

We saw canoes that have been in use 35 years.

They were just as sea worthy as the day they were made.

The chore of the bigul nut puts a piece

of the nut in his mouth, some lime from

his lime pod and a piece of wild pepper leaf

and, boy, he gets the kick of a mule.

His heart action goes up a number of beats.

They're very proud of their personal appearance.

They put lime in their hair to kill the insects

and then comb them out with those bamboo combs.

And, when they shave, they use a pair

of clam shell tweezers and pull the whiskers out

by the roots.

It doesn't seem to cause them any discomfort at all.

I doubt very much if they have the same

nervous system that we have.

I think he missed one.

When the boys are five or six years old,

they're taken from the mothers

and kept in the compound with the men

and they're taught how to handle their weapons

and the steps of the war dances.

For it is the desire of every head hunter

to be a good warrior.

And, when nine years old, they pierce his ear with a thorn.

They keep increasing the size of this plug

until the earlobes are stretched enough

to hold a couple of tin cans and he's all dressed up.

You'll notice the lobe of the ear

goes entirely around the can.

The old men make ornaments of clam shell

and tortoise shell.

This fellow has a piece of coconut fiber

tied to his big toe and he's working down

a tortoise shell ornament.

And, notice his earlobes.

That tortoise shell ornament goes over a clam shell backing

and that is worn on the forehead of a chief.

A part of the picture is showing Gow's rise

to power and the great raid that followed

was reenacted for Captain Salisbury

by Gow and his tribes.

This is a very important event in the history

of the head hunter.

But, we photographed it not because of its

historical importance but because it is,

perhaps, the only opportunity that civilized

people will have of seeing actual head hunters

engaged in a raid in the head hunter country

and over the ground that the original action took place.

(mysterious music)

The canoes were taken from their places

of concealment in the jungle.

For the head hunters must keep these canoes

concealed because the English destroy them

whenever they're flown.

The English know that they'll only be used

at the time of a raid.

And, every raid is a very bloody affair.

They all gathered at Beerwa

for a great council of war.

All the chiefs and their warriors.

And, at this council, the plan of action was discussed.

And, it was also decided that only the young men

should be taken on the raid.

This didn't please the old fellows.

They wanted to go.

This old man pointed to the ring on his breast.

He says that shows I've killed a chief.

And, for every ring on my arm,

I've got a skull in my skull house.

Head hunters take the heads of their enemies

as a religious ceremony.

If anything of an unfortunate nature occurs,

such as a stealing of that girl

or the shipwrecking of a canoe,

they think their God, the Ori Ori, is angry

and that they must secure heads of their enemies

to pacify him.

(suspenseful music)

It's 150 miles to the island of Savo

where their enemies reside.

These men are great paddlers.

They take advantage of the shelter

offered by the different islands

and whenever they come to a rough place,

they paddled furiously.

They can keep up this stroke for hours.

And, they're fatalists, they're great warriors.

(exciting music)

The victors hold a three day celebration.

This gives 'em an opportunity to

prepare the skulls to place in their skull houses.

They keep only the skull.

The flesh is removed.

Back on Beerwa, the women are overjoyed

to see so many of the warriors returning from this raid.

There was great rejoicing when they found

that Nibu had been rescued unharmed

and she's led ashore by a young chief.

The boys are kept prisoners so that

if any heads are needed in a hurry,

they won't have to go on a raid.

The islands of the Western Pacific cast

a strange spell over a White man at any time.

Particularly, is this true

if the White man is witnessing the return

of a victorious tribe of head hunters from a raid.

The queer chant and the very weird ceremony

sends a strange sensation up and down

a White man's spine.

I can't describe that sensation.

You've just got to go down there

and find out for yourselves.

The warriors bring the skulls ashore

wrapped in leaves.

And, there's one more ceremony that must be performed

before the skulls are placed in the shrines.

This consists of placing the skulls on the beach

in a large pile and then they dance

a dance around this pile of skulls

that is dedicated to their Ori Ori, their God.

In this dance, they tell the story of the raid.

How they attacked the Savo islanders,

how they killed the men, women and girl children

and how they brought back these skulls

to present to their great God.

There are a great many of these skull houses

in this part of the Solomon Island Group.

Some of them are very pretentious.

Others, mere lean-tos.

But, every head hunter takes his religion very seriously

and it would be sect religious for him to keep

any of the victims possessions.

All the victims shell money and ornaments

are tied to the skull with coconut fiber.

And, they'll remain there as long

as the warrior who owns the skull house lives.

Gow is at peace now.

At peace until another raid.

(mysterious music)

(triumphant music)