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This explains the all-important position of the "Suque" in the life of the natives, being the expression both of religion and of ambition. Frequently a young boy will join the "Suque," an uncle on the mother's side donating pigs to be sacrificed in his name after he has touched them with his hand. The boy is then free of the gamal, the "Suque" club-house.
Men and women live together, and the fires do not appear to be separated. As a result, there is real family life, owing in part to the fact that meals are eaten in common. The gamal is replaced by a cooking-house, which is open to the women; generally it is nothing but a great gabled roof, reaching to the ground on one side and open on the others.
If there are no more degrees to reach, the whole scale is run through again an octave higher, so to speak. The jaws of the killed pigs are hung up in the gamal in bundles or rows, as a sign of the wealth and power of the proprietor. These chiefs are in connection with the mightiest spirits, have supernatural power and are as much hated as they are feared.
These figures stand along the walls of the gamal, smiling with expressionless faces on their descendants round the fires, and are given sacrifices of food. Side by side with this ancestor-worship there goes a simpler skull-cult, by which a man carries about the head of a beloved son or wife, as a dear remembrance of the departed.
On some islands, Santo, for example, the caste-system is connected with a severe separation of the fires; each caste cooks over its own fire, and loses its degree on eating food cooked on the fire of a lower caste. In these districts the floor of the gamal is frequently marked by bamboo rods or sticks in as many divisions as there are castes each containing one fireplace.
The length of the gamal depends on the caste of the chief who builds it. I saw a gamal 60 mètres long, and while this length seems senseless to-day, because of the scanty population, it was necessary in former days, when the number of a man's followers rose with his rank. Not many years ago these houses were filled at night with sleeping warriors, each with his weapons at hand, ready for a fight.
We cross the village square to the gamal, a simple place, as they all are, with a door about a yard from the ground, in order to keep out the pigs which roam all over the village. In line with the front of the house is a row of tall bamboo posts, wound with vines; their hollow interior is filled with yam and taro, the remains of a great feast.
The houses are scattered and hidden in the bush, grouped vaguely around the gamal, which stands alone on a bare square. No statues stand there, nor tall, upright drums; only a few small drums lie in a puddle around the gamal. The dwelling-houses are simply gable-roofs, always without side-walls and often without any walls at all.
The feast I was to attend had been in preparation for some time. On all the dancing-grounds long bamboos were in readiness, loaded with yams and flowers, as presents to the host. Everything was brought to his gamal, and the whole morning passed in distributing the gifts, each family receiving a few yams, a little pig, some sprouted cocoa-nuts and a few rolls of money.
The nose and mouth of the body were stopped up with clay and lime, probably to keep the soul from getting out, and the body was surrounded by a little hut. In the gamal close by sat all the men, sulky, revengeful, and planning war, which, in fact, broke out within a few days after my departure. The Messrs.
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