America Spreads Her Sails by Clayton R. Barrow Jr

Author:Clayton R. Barrow Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612519777
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2015-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

U S Exploring Expedition, Volume III

Observatory Point, highest point on the island of Waya, was named by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, U.S. Navy.

While off the landing, Caldwell was able to communicate with the natives on shore, and he learned that they had been awaiting his arrival at the island. Returning to the anchorage, he found Ravata awaiting him with the information that the natives were decidely hostile. Ravata thought that they would resist any demonstration Caldwell’s party might make. Late that afternoon, the official answer of Lomati was delivered to Caldwell.

One chief spoke for all:

. . . Do you suppose that we have killed the two white men for nothing? No, we killed them and we have eaten them. We are great warriors, and we delight in war; we have heard of the Papillangi; we wish to meet them in battle. We are glad to see the little man of war; why did not you bring the large one? Come, Papillangi, our fires are lighted, our ovens are hot; has not the evil spirit given you to us? Come . . .

The chief added his personal challenge. “. . . We have killed all our hogs and tonight we offer them in a great feast to the evil spirit; tomorrow we will offer in a greater feast to the same spirit, the bodies of the white men . . .”

From Ravata, Caldwell learned that the savages believed in a good spirit and a bad spirit; they believed that it was only the bad spirit that needed mollifying, so it was he who commanded most of their attention.

Caldwell realized that the insolent attitude of the savages was due to their belief in the invulnerability of Lomati. In his report to Sinclair, he explained:

. . . with an abundance of all the necessaries of life, and no wants but what their own resources could easily supply, with a free and hardy population, and three hundred ferocious warriors to guard their passes and defend their strong-hold from attack; they have always practiced entire exclusion and have defied and defeated all attempts at their subjugation.

This unbroken course of success had at last induced the belief that they were invincible; not only to the combined efforts of other tribes . . . but even to the dreaded ‘Papillangi’ . . .

They are feared and hated by all the neighboring tribes, and wo(e) to the members of any of them that fall into their hands . . . They have no pity, and they never spare . . . ‘Has not the evil spirit sent you to us’ is the only reply to the tale of misfortune, or the appeal for mercy . . . It is not a matter of surprise that the tribes along our route, learned with the most intense satisfaction, the nature of our expedition . . .

It would have been small comfort, as Caldwell prepared for battle with the inhabitants of Lomati, to have read the Wilkes journals, wherein he described the callous disregard for human life in a chapter “Customs of the Feejee Group.

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