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Poor Ian died soon after, and his people strangled one of his wives and hanged another, and took out the three bodies together in a canoe and sank them in the sea. Miaki was jubilant over having killed his enemy by Nahak; but the Inland people now assembled in thousands to help Sirawia and his brother to avenge that death on Miaki, Nouka, and Karewick.
We will kill Missi before his next Sabbath comes round. Let all watch, for he will soon die and that without fail." I replied, "Very good! I challenge all your Priests to unite and kill me by Sorcery or Nahak. If on Sabbath next I come again to your village in health, you will all admit that your gods have no power over me, and that I am protected by the true and living Jehovah God!"
I have come again to talk to you about the Jehovah God and His Worship." The three Sacred Men, on being asked, admitted that they had tried to kill me by Nahak, but had failed; and on being questioned, why they had failed; they gave the acute and subtle reply, that I also was myself a Sacred Man, and that my God being the stronger had protected me from their gods.
Fourteen Chiefs, in turn, made speeches to the assembled multitude; the drift of all being, that war and fighting be given up on Tanna, that no more people be killed by Nahak, for witchcraft and sorcery were lies, that Sacred Men no longer profess to make wind and rain, famine and plenty, disease and death, that the dark Heathen talk of Tanna should cease, that all here present should adopt the Worship of Jehovah as taught to them by the Missionary and the Aneityumese, and that all the banished Tribes should be invited to their own lands to live in peace!
The challenge was accepted; the Natives looked terror-struck at the position in which I was placed! The ceremony of Nahak was usually performed in secret, the Tannese fleeing in dread, as Europeans would from the touch of the plague; but I lingered and eagerly watched their ritual.
Sacred men and women, wizards and witches, received presents regularly to influence the gods, and to remove sickness, or to cause it by the Nahak, i. e. incantation over remains of food, or the skin of fruit, such as banana, which the person has eaten on whom they wish to operate.
God only kept it from being thrown, and I, using every lawful precaution, had all the same to attend to my work, as if no enemy were there, leaving all other results in the hands of Jesus. This whole incident did, doubtless, shake the prejudices of many as to Sorcery; but few even of converted Natives ever get entirely clear of the dread of Nahak.
His people were angry at me for not consenting before to their shooting of Miaki; and Miaki's people were now rejoicing that Ian was being killed by Nahak. One night, his brother and a party came for me to go and see Ian, but I declined to go till the morning for fear of the fever and ague.
CHAFED at the upsetting of all their plans and full of revenge, Nouka and Miaki and their allies declared publicly that they were now going to kill Ian by sorcery, i. e. by Nahak, more feared by the poor Tannese than the field of battle. Strange to say. Ian became sick shortly after the Sacred Men had made the declaration about their Nahak-sorcery.
I said to the people, "Of course he can kill me with his spear, but he undertook to kill me by Nahak or Sorcery, and promised not to use against me any weapons of war; and if you let him kill me now, you will kill your friend, one who lives among you and only tries to do you good, as you all know so well. I know that if you kill me thus, my God will be angry and will punish you."
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