I Married Adventure

by Osa Johnson

Osa drinks from the Borneo “water-vine” in the Kinabatangan jungle, 1917.

  Osa and native Borneo girl with baby gibbon ape.

  A gun may seem unsuited to Osa’s light summer dress, but that obviously did not affect her aim.

  Osa and a tame zebra on the Northern Frontier, 1921—her first trip to Africa.

  Watching a blow gun demonstration.

  Osa with Bessie, an orangutan.

  Osa with a sun-bear cub.

  Osa and juvenile pig-tailed macaques

  Osa and Kalowatt, a gray gibbon youngster.

  Martin and Osa on shipboard, en route to America, leaving Malaya, Ceylon, India, Africa, and England in their wake.

  Chapter 11

  Martin was a man of dreams, and of the will and vision to make his dreams come true. When next we debarked at Sydney, we had equipment with us that made our hearts proud. Sixty-five trunks, crates, and boxes, to be exact, as against the few trunks and suitcases that had accompanied us on our first trip.

  Ernie Higgins met us at the boat and insisted that we be his guests while we waited for the S.S. Pacifique, the island streamer on which we were to return to the New Hebrides. We had a wait of several weeks, during which Martin and Ernie checked our camera equipment and I ransacked secondhand stores for coats, vests, and hats to present to the natives. Trousers, I was told, were a useless garment in their eyes.

  Very important to our plan of making a complete film record of the Big Nambas was projecting the pictures we had taken of them on our previous trip. We wanted to observe their reaction to motion pictures, and we were certain this would also inspire their respect and awe.

  Finally, on the eighteenth of June, we were aboard the Pacifique, a small craft of less than two hundred tons, and on our way. We grew very fond of this ship. She had comfortable beds instead of the usual hard bunks, and the coffee was excellent.

  We put in at Nouméa, on the island of New Caledonia, for a week and then proceeded to Vila. Vila is a typical South Seas town and, as the capital of the New Hebrides, is the metropolis for the white people of the thirty islands of this group.

  I was more than pleased to run across Father Prin. Thinner and frailer than ever, he had finally resigned his difficult post at Vao and come to Vila to spend the rest of his too-few days. When we told him we were going back to Malekula, he shook his head and again warned us. “Big Nambas plenty bad,” he said in Bêche-de-Mer.

  We bought nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of food supplies and trade goods here but could get neither a schooner nor a native craft to take us on our voyage to Malekula. There was nothing to do but go on to the island of Espíritu Santo, two hundred miles to the north.

  The ship stopped at the little port of Epi to leave mail and supplies and to take on copra. Leaning on the rail, we were watching the activity in the harbor when Martin straightened suddenly. His face was drawn and tense. I followed the direction of his gaze, but all I saw was a small, dirty recruiting ship, swarming with greasy blacks. The paint had once been white under all that filth, and her lines were beautiful. Suddenly my breath caught in my throat.

  “Not the Snark!” I said.

  She was a pitiable sight. They could not alter her trim lines, but her metal, her paint, her rigging had been shamefully neglected and ill-treated. Frowzy and unbelievably dirty, she reminded me somehow of an aristocrat fallen upon evil days. I looked up at Martin. He shook his head.

  “I’m glad Jack and Charmian never saw her that way,” he said, swallowing hard.

  Off southeastern Santo we met with good fortune—we were able to make arrangements for three schooners to accompany us to Malekula. Mr. Thomas, of Hog Island, and Mr. Perrole, an experienced French recruiter, each agreed to send a schooner to Vao within a week. A third schooner was chartered from a young Frenchman, Paul Mazouyer, one of the most picturesque, happy-go-lucky daredevils I’ve ever met. He was like something out of a novel. Huge and powerful, he was the match of three ordinary men and took chances no other recruiter would dream of.

  The captain of the Pacifique graciously sailed fifty miles out of his course and landed us on the beach of Vao. While we knew our three schooners would be along in a few days, I was as lonely and desolate at that moment as I’ve ever been in my life, and so was Martin.

  The coming of the Pacifique had attracted scores of jabbering, naked natives, and when the ship sailed away, there we were—just Martin and I—sitting alone in the midst of our trunks, crates, and boxes, the only white people, and surrounding us in ever-increasing numbers a horde of the fantastic Vao black men with bones through their noses. We admitted to each other that everything had a different look with Father Prin gone.

  “Well,” Martin said, “even if I’m not in a cage, I’ll always know how a monkey feels.”

  “How do you suppose we could get them to quit staring and lift this stuff off the beach?” I asked.

  “The good old tobacco.” Martin grinned a little tiredly. I could see he was worrying again at having brought me along.

  The tobacco worked. Not only did the natives carry all our trunks and boxes up off the beach, but, under Martin’s direction, they repaired the little mud house abandoned by Father Prin. In an amazingly short time we had everything safe from the weather in a shipshape, three-room dwelling. I had learned a lot from our first trip and had included many comforts and some luxuries in our equipment.

  We had air cushions and mattresses, and, with an eye to giving Martin some good, wholesome food, I had brought a clear-flamed Primus stove. Bacon, hams, cheeses and other good things filled our chop boxes, and I settled down to make my home in what is considered one of the wildest lands of the world.

  * * *

  —

  Vao is not more than two miles in diameter and is inhabited by about four hundred natives, most of them refugees from Malekula that were vanquished in battle. Not long after our arrival, twenty of the Small Namba men, headed by a powerful savage named Tethlong, arrived from Malekula. The rest of his tribe had been killed, and the women and children taken captive. Tethlong and his men were welcomed by the natives of Vao as an addition to their fighting force. This wily heathen decided to set himself up as headman on Vao, so he sent his men to neighboring islands to buy up pigs and chickens and invited the entire population to a grand feast. It turned out to be a celebration never before equaled on the island. They sang, they danced, they beat on their boo-boos until exhausted, and seven hundred and twenty pigs were consumed. This went on for five days.

  I could see that Martin was afraid of the consequences of this orgy, afraid on my behalf. I told him that I thought the time he was spending watching for our schooners to come might better be spent winning Tethlong’s confidence—bribing it, rather, with trade stuff—and getting some pictures of the feast. Tethlong proved entirely agreeable to being bribed. Martin secured some fine pictures, and the next few days proved this tactical move to have been a wise one, for Tethlong was made chief of the Vao natives.

  There was a lull following this feast. Still there was no sign of our schooners. Martin worked feverishly, installing his laboratory in one of our three rooms, while I set about finding a native whom I could train as a servant among the dozen or so hanging around begging tobacco. Among these was one who claimed to be convert of Father Prin. His name, he said, was Atree. I had worked hard at learning Bêche-de-Mer, the accepted language of the South Seas. Atree spoke it quite well, but my efforts at training this young man had their ludicrous as well as maddening moments.

  I asked him on one occasion to heat an iron for me, and, after waiting for the greater part of the morning, I found he had put it in a pot and was gravely watching it boil. Again, I cured a sore on his leg with a little ointment. A few days later he brought me the medical kit and, pointing to his left eye, which was swollen nearly shut, said, “Me gotem sor
e leg along eye-eye!”

  There is something fascinating about this queer, garbled English, so much so that Martin and I often spoke it even when no natives were around. I discovered, too, that it was habit-forming, for I found myself actually thinking in this peculiar patois of the tropics.

  Martin put his new laboratory to the test by developing the still pictures he had taken of Tethlong’s feast, and it was a distinct success. I planted a vegetable garden, made Saturday my baking day and Monday my wash day, cooked bigger meals than either of us could eat—and watched for our schooners. Martin, trying to reassure me, said that nothing kept a schedule in this part of the world, but I could see his anxiety also growing. From the day that Tethlong took command of the Vao natives there had been an increasing friendliness with the bushmen of Malekula. Every night the Vao canoes crossed to the larger island and returned with fifteen or twenty Malekulans in each load, and every night we heard the persistent beat of the boo-boos. This, together with the changeless minor note of the natives’ monotonous chant, became almost unendurable.

  After dinner one hot evening, Martin and I went down to the beach. It was one of the most beautiful nights I had ever known. The reflections of a full moon were on the water, the stars of the Southern Cross were bright in a velvety sky, and the sea purred heavily as it stretched itself along the beach. The air had a bloom-like softness. We were idly watching the luminous trail of phosphorus marking the course of a shark when we heard the soft swish of canoe paddles. Martin drew me into the shadows of a cluster of palm. The canoe beached at the pathway leading to the village, and we saw the natives lift from it a long, heavy object wrapped in leaves. It took some six of them to carry it. Instead of the usual chatter, they were silent, and moved quickly and stealthily from view. Whether or not they saw us there on the beach we didn’t know, but obviously they wanted to keep secret whatever it was they were doing.

  We crept back to the house, where Martin handed me an automatic. Already the boo-boos were beating their horrible cadence, the natives beginning their weird chant. Martin sat with a rifle across his knees. The tropical night had lost its beauty and was filled with a grisly menace. We did not sleep that night nor until the boo-boos stopped, near morning. When we awoke, much later than our usual hour, we saw Paul Mazouyer’s schooner anchored not a hundred feet away. I can’t think when Martin and I had ever been happier.

  While the men were loading our apparatus aboard, I questioned Atree, and blandly and with relish he confirmed our suspicions. The long bundle had been a man, and the noises those of a cannibalistic orgy.

  Once aboard Paul’s sturdy schooner with his eight well-disciplined and well-armed men, and with our fine equipment all ready for use, I looked at Martin and drew a deep, long sigh of relief. Both tide and wind were with us. Soon we were sailing into Tanemarou Bay, and there, to our complete delight, we were met by our other two schooners.

  Before us lay the same broad, sandy beach across which we had dashed into the surf, tattered, bleeding, and exhausted, to escape Nagapate’s natives. Martin stared off toward it and pressed my hand. He too was living that scene of terror again. After a minute he turned his head and winked.

  “We’ve got a couple of surprises up our sleeve for the old boy this time, haven’t we?” he said.

  This time we were landing under entirely different circumstances. Three white men—Mr. Perrole, Mr. Thomas, and Martin—a local named Stephens, twenty-six trustworthy and experienced natives, and I formed our party.

  Paul was impatient to get ashore, so Martin and I stepped into his boat and we rowed to the beach, followed by the small boats from the other schooners. To our astonishment, some twenty of the Big Namba natives emerged from the bush and came down to the beach to meet us. At their head was none other than Nagapate.

  Oddly enough, Nagapate was now a screen personality to me rather than a native, and somehow I had lost my terror of him. Martin told me afterwards that he felt exactly as I did, and we both dashed forward to shake his hand. The cannibal chief seemed puzzled at first, but he could see we held no grudge for his apparent culinary intentions on our first visit and became almost genial.

  Paul, wise in the ways of natives, and knowing Nagapate’s reputation for savagery, was amazed at his good nature, and thought it wise to bide our time and encourage it. He had been doubtful whether Martin would ever succeed in his ambition to secure a complete motion-picture record of the tribe, but he was now as eager and hopeful as we were that this could be accomplished.

  After a little, Nagapate came and stood beside me on the beach and pointed toward our schooners. He went through this motion several times, patting his chest and pointing. I made out finally that he actually wanted to go aboard. And on my invitation the black chief stepped quickly with two of his men into our rowboat. It was an astonishing thing for Nagapate to do, inasmuch as he had reason to believe the white men fully as cruel as we thought him, Nagapate, to be, and yet he had put himself completely in our power.

  Aboard ship, I fed him and his two men some hardtack and trade salmon. While they had never tasted either, they accepted it very casually. They were casual about everything. Martin said this was a studied attitude and, with a grin, got some photographs he had made of the big chief. When Nagapate saw himself, he started incredulously and showed it to his two men. Then all three let out blood-curdling yells. Martin next spread before the black king a life-size colored poster of himself. Nagapate and his men were awed into a silence that lasted for fully an hour in which they’d alternately touch the picture and then settle back on their heels to stare at it.

  Their eyes apparently grew tired with all this staring. After a while they began to blink and look away. Martin now brought my ukulele.

  “Let’s try a little Hawaiian music on the old softie,” he said.

  He brushed my cheek with a kiss, and I saw how happy he was. In all our long months of earning enough money and getting our equipment together for this expedition, we had always thought of Nagapate—the “holy terror”—as the greatest obstacle to our success. We had brought armed men, and here, on the deck of our schooner, within three feet of us, blinking and content sat Nagapate, with no more violence in him apparently than might be found in an old, fat toad.

  The kiss Martin had put on my cheek proved rather mystifying to the cannibal king. He grunted and wagged his head from side to side, then jabbered to his two men about it.

  Martin and I hid our smiles. I strummed the ukulele a minute, tuning it, then began to sing “Aloha.”

  Nagapate gaped at me, his head first on one side, then on the other. His men did the same. This became a rhythmic motion. Then, to my astonishment, Nagapate’s mouth opened and out came a tribal chant timed perfectly to the song I was singing. His men, always cuing themselves to him, took it up. Out the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Paul, his eyes literally popping.

  Still playing the ukulele, I stopped my song, the better to hear Nagapate’s. His face was alight, his eyes closed, and he swayed from side to side. Suddenly he became aware of his own voice and stopped singing in embarrassment. Arranging his features quickly in the dignified scowl now familiar to people the world over, he indicated abruptly that he wished to leave. We piled his arms with tobacco, calico, knives, and a top hat—all of which he accepted with scarcely a glance at it, then allowed himself and his men to be rowed back to shore.

  Plainly the cannibal king was applying some self-administered kicks for having momentarily lost his dignity.

  Early the next morning a score of natives appeared on the beach, yelling and waving their arms. Paul and Martin went ashore. When they returned to the ship they said my presence was required. Nagapate had sent yams, coconuts, and wild fruit, not to Martin or the men but to me. It was unbelievable. Here, as is the case with nearly all primitive people, a woman does not count in the scheme of things except as a slave, to do the work of the village and bear the children
, and this with kicks and abuse for reward.

  Paul was plainly confounded by the whole thing, and I was doubtful until Nagapate’s men laid the offerings of their chief at my feet.

  “I suppose he figured it out,” Paul said, “that because we all treat you with respect, that’s how it is with white people—that our women hold some sort of position black people don’t know about.”

  Martin laughed. “No, it’s simpler than that. The old boy can see that Osa’s the boss of the expedition, and that is his way of opening diplomatic relations.”

  Paul, Perrole, and Stephens agreed with Martin and me that the sooner we could show Nagapate and his people the motion pictures we had taken of them on our first trip, the quicker we would have them awed into an acquiescent mood that would permit us to move on up into the village and really settle down to the purpose of our expedition. To attract as many of them to the beach as possible, we spread out our trade stuff. Martin set up his cameras, and we began to take pictures. By dusk it seemed to me that we must have had the larger part of the male population on the beach. Nagapate himself didn’t come until almost last. Apparently, after that slip in which he yielded to the temptation to sing with me, he had felt the need of retrieving his diginity.

  Rapidly, now, Martin worked to set up the screen and projection machine. Nagapate and his men seemed to think that with night coming they might as well get back to their village. To hold them became a problem. I played the ukulele, distributed more trade stuff, jabbered to Nagapate in my poor Bêche-de-Mer.

  “For goodness’ sake, Martin,” I cried out finally. “It’s dark enough, isn’t it? Why don’t you start the picture?”