While cooking, we heard dismal howling and weeping from a neighbouring hut; it was a woman mourning her husband, who had been dead ninety-nine days. To-morrow, on the hundredth day, there was to be a death-feast, to which all the neighbours were invited. Of course, this man, too, had been poisoned.
The fire of revolt was smouldering in my boys. They sat round the camp-fire in groups, whispering and plotting, grumbling and undecided; but I felt safe enough, as they were evidently divided into two parties, one faithful and the other mutinous, and the former seemed rather more influential. They proved their goodwill to me by delightful servility, and took excellent care of me.
Next morning we were wakened by the howls of the unhappy widow, and soon the guests appeared, some from far off, and all bringing contributions to the feast. They killed several pigs, and while the men cut them up in a manner rather more clever than appetizing, the women prepared the fires by lighting large quantities of wood to heat the cooking-stones. This lasted several hours. Meanwhile, every person present received his share of a half-rotten smoked pig, of the freshly killed pigs, yam, taro and sweet potatoes. The women took the entrails of the pigs, squeezed them out, rolled them up in banana leaves, and made them ready for cooking. When the fire was burnt down they took out half of the stones with forks of split bamboo, and then piled up the food in the hole, first the fruit, then the meat, so that the grease should run over the fruit; then the hole was covered with banana leaves, the hot stones piled on top and covered with more leaves. Food cooked in this way is done in three or four hours, so that the "stoves" are usually opened in the afternoon, and enormous quantities eaten on the spot, while the rest is put in baskets to take home. The amount a native can eat at one sitting is tremendous, and one can actually watch their stomachs swell as the meal proceeds. Violent indigestion is generally the consequence of such a feast. On the whole, no one seemed to be thinking much of the dead man in whose honour it was given,--such things are said to happen in civilized countries as well.
I stayed in this village for another day, and many chiefs from the neighbourhood came to consult me, always complaining of the one thing--poison. Each secretly accused the others, each wanted me to try my glass on all the others. I did not like my reputation of being a magician at all, as it made the people still more suspicious of me and more afraid of my instruments and my camera.