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Thus he terrorizes the country, becomes chief, and after death he joins the other ghosts as a powerful member of their company. The "Suque" transferred the hierarchy of the spirit-world into this world, and regulated the number of castes and the method of rising in caste; it also originated the rules for entering into connection with the other world.
Real chiefs do not exist in the northern part of the New Hebrides, but the chiefs are the high-castes, who, according to their rank and the strength of their personality, have more or less influence. They cannot give direct orders, but rule indirectly through pressure, threats and encouragement. Officially, all decisions are taken in a meeting of the whole "Suque."
They are more energetic, warlike and independent than those up north, and their mode of life is different, the Suque and everything connected with it being entirely absent. Instead, we find hereditary chieftainship, as in all Polynesia, and the chiefs are held in the highest veneration by their subjects.
I was much struck by the fact of these men and women living together, a most unusual thing in a Melanesian district, where the separation of the sexes and the "Suque" rules are so rigorously observed. We started off once more in the icy rain, keeping along the crest of the hill, which was just wide enough for the path.
Similar work is done on carvings showing the different species of fish and birds; the drawing is exquisite, and shows fine feeling for ornamental composition. The position of women in Santa Cruz is peculiar, although the Suque does not exist, and therefore no separation of fires is enforced.
This was interesting to me because of certain scientific details, though on the whole the life was much the same as elsewhere in Melanesia, with the Suque, etc. I collected a number of charms and amulets, which the people sold willingly, as they no longer believed in their power. Formerly, they were supposed to be useful for poisoning, as love-charms, or for help in collecting many tusked pigs.
It is not improbable that the Suque has developed from one of these organizations. Their decay is another symptom of the decline of the entire culture of the natives; and other facts seem to point to the probability that this decadence may have set in even before the beginning of colonization by the whites.
The people of Aoba are quite different from those of the other islands, light-coloured, often straight-haired, with Mongolian features; they are quite good-looking, intelligent, and their habits show many Polynesian traits. The Suque is not all-important here: it scarcely has the character of a secret society, and the separation of the sexes is not insisted on.
Here men and women live together, and a separation of the fires does not seem to exist, nor does the "Suque" seem to have penetrated to this district. We passed several hamlets where the mode of life was the same as in this one. The dress of the men is the same as at the coast, except that they wind strings of shell-money about their waists in manifold rows.
During babyhood the children stay with their mothers; but from the age of four on the boys spend most of their time in the gamal, while the girls remain under their mother's care. Clothes are not worn by the boys till they have joined the Suque, which, in some cases, takes place long after puberty.
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