[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

18 MALEKULA '
their work and to the great task of acquiring wealth by means of
which they may purchase their way up the social ladder. The
responsibilities of a husband and father are theirs, and the light-
hearted irresponsibility of youth gives place to a certain roughness
which characterizes the middle-aged. This in its turn passes, and
among the older men there emerges an ease, a dignity, even a
certain courfliness, but unless an old man be a person of high social
standing, age is all too often accompanied by loss of activity and
premature senility oi mind and body."
In these terms docs Deacon write of the men. Of the general
character of the women he says nothing, and so little has he
recorded of the women's life that it is not possible to make any
deductions on this subject. About the children, however, we can
glean something. Deacon remarked that there is among them
a great deal of spontaneous affection and quick intelligence.
When he was in Lambumbu he wrote :—
" I remember especially one small boy, Sam, who was always
coming to see me. I was evidently to him something of a hero,
with perhaps not a little of the glamour of the unknown about me.
He would sit chattering or listening intently to what I Was saying
for hours. He was very fond of making me talk the native
language (though he himself spoke English surprisingly well) and
would painstakingly make me repeat words and sentences, ending
up often by sitting thinking for a few moments and then adding
with an air of reflective ï¬Ånality: ‘White man speak; me, me
speak.’ Ile was very interested in my parentage; whether my
grandfather was alive. In return for this information he would
give me his history ; what happened when his father had died, etc.
He was insatiably curious about all the appliances of civilization ;
a little nervous but very eager to know how to use them. He would
often stroke my hair affectionately and adrniringly with the
remark that it was ‘good too much ' ; his own because it was
curly he considered to be ' no good '. Once after sitting silent for
some time, contemplating me, he observed: ‘Master you good
more.’ This was probably because not long before I had given
him a. candle which threw him into an ecstasy of delight. On
another occasion he counted my ï¬Ångers and was considerably
astonished to find that there were ï¬Åve of them, exactly like his
own."
Narrvr. Coum-nous To-mv‘
The ï¬Årst Europeans to land on Malekula were Captain Cook
and his men in I774, but they remained there only for a very short
1 The letters and notes from which the following pages have been compiled
were written, and represent conditions, in H726.-—C. H. W.