Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
however, a tradition, and I was glad to find they had anything of the kind. A long time ago,
they said, some strangers came to Aru, and came here to Wanumbai, and the chief of the
Wanumbai people did not like them, and wanted them to go away, but they would not go,
and so it came to fighting, and many Aru men were killed, and some, along with the chief,
were taken prisoners, and carried away by the strangers. Some of the speakers, however,
said that he was not carried away, but went away in his own boat to escape from the foreign-
ers, and went to the sea and never came back again. But they all believe that the chief and
the people that went with him still live in some foreign country; and if they could but find
out where, they would send for them to come back again. Now having some vague idea that
white men must know every country beyond the sea, they wanted to know if I had met their
people in my country or in the sea. They thought they must be there, for they could not ima-
gine where else they could be. They had sought for them everywhere, they said—on the
land and in the sea, in the forest and on the mountains, in the air and in the sky, and could
not find them; therefore, they must be in my country, and they begged me to tell them, for I
must surely know, as I came from across the great sea. I tried to explain to them that their
friends could not have reached my country in small boats; and that there were plenty of is-
lands like Aru all about the sea, which they would be sure to find. Besides, as it was so long
ago, the chief and all the people must be dead. But they quite laughed at this idea, and said
they were sure they were alive, for they had proof of it. And then they told me that a good
many years ago, when the speakers were boys, some Wokan men who were out fishing met
these lost people in the sea, and spoke to them; and the chief gave the Wokan men a hundred
fathoms of cloth to bring to the men of Wanumbai, to show that they were alive and would
soon come back to them; but the Wokan men were thieves, and kept the cloth, and they only
heard of it afterwards; and when they spoke about it, the Wokan men denied it, and preten-
ded they had not received the cloth;—so they were quite sure their friends were at that time
alive and somewhere in the sea. And again, not many years ago, a report came to them that
some Bugis traders had brought some children of their lost people; so they went to Dobbo to
see about it, and the owner of the house, who was now speaking to me, was one who went;
but the Bugis man would not let them see the children, and threatened to kill them if they
came into his house. He kept the children shut up in a large box, and when he went away he
took them with him. And at the end of each of these stories, they begged me in an imploring
tone to tell them if I knew where their chief and their people now were.
By dint of questioning, I got some account of the strangers who had taken away their
people. They said they were wonderfully strong, and each one could kill a great many Aru
men; and when they were wounded, however badly, they spit upon the place, and it immedi-
