Spontoon Island
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Capt. Gary's Log

a record of events and memories
sailing along with the Sloop, RED WOLF
transcribed and edited by Wm. Van Ness

TABOO
by Wm. Van Ness

Log of Sloop RED WOLF
6/1/30

At anchor off Albert Isle while visiting some old friends ashore.

Spent a quiet day fishing in the lagoon with my old shipmate Ti N’Kualita who’s now High Chief of the Island.  He’d pulled in one nice one, but said it was a kind Taboo to a chief, so he had to throw it back.  This got us talking on the subject of Taboo in general & I said that I thought they caused a lot of inconvenience.  N’Kualita replied that was often true, & told me a story about an incident that happened maybe a year after last visited his island.

This was still some time before the declaration of the Great Peace on Albert Island, and the neighboring villages of Aluona and Haamau were still in their usual state of war.  One evening, however, the High Priestess of the island saw something she didn’t like in a pig’s liver, so she declared an island-wide Taboo against any islander killing another for three days and nights. Unfortunately, one of the Aluona warriors had been hunting alone up in the mountains and didn’t hear of the Taboo.  He hadn’t had any luck hunting either, so he was quite hungry as he returned home and, chancing upon a young Haamau woman in the jungle, he naturally killed and ate her.  When he carried the rest of her back for him family in Aluona, he learned of the High Priestess’ Taboo that he’d inadvertently broken!  While it was an accident that could have happened to anyone, a Taboo was still a Taboo and the only way his village could escape a disaster was to make amends by sending the unlucky warrior’s own head, hide, and meat to the Haamauians along with a number of pigs as presents and one of his sisters to be adopted in place of their slain tribeswoman.  Most inconvenient.

In any case, N’Kualita assured me that sort of thing wouldn’t happen on the island now.  Besides the Great Peace  that had been sworn between all the tribes and villages some years back, most hunters nowadays never left their villages without putting a few tins of bully beef in their packs just in case!

G-