"Trader Peter has worked 12 months for your firm and has not received any pay yet.He hereby wants 12 pounds." (At this point Peter began dictation)."Harry he gammon along him all the time too much.I like him 6 tin biscuit, 4 bag rice, 24 tin bullamacow.
Me like him 2 rifle, me savvee look out along boat, some place me go man he no good, he kai-kai along me.
"PETER."
Bullamacow means tinned beef.This word was corrupted from the English language by the Samoans, and from them learned by the traders, who carried it along with them into Melanesia.Captain Cook and the other early navigators made a practice of introducing seeds, plants, and domestic animals amongst the natives.It was at Samoa that one such navigator landed a bull and a cow."This is a bull and cow," said he to the Samoans.They thought he was giving the name of the breed, and from that day to this, beef on the hoof and beef in the tin is called bullamacow.
A Solomon islander cannot say FENCE, so, in beche de mer, it becomes fennis; store is sittore, and box is bokkis.Just now the fashion in chests, which are known as boxes, is to have a bell-arrangement on the lock so that the box cannot be opened without sounding an alarm.A box so equipped is not spoken of as a mere box, but as the bokkis belong bell.
FRIGHT is the beche de mer for fear.If a native appears timid and one asks him the cause, he is liable to hear in reply: "Me fright along you too much." Or the native may be fright along storm, or wild bush, or haunted places.CROSS covers every form of anger.Aman may be cross at one when he is feeling only petulant; or he may be cross when he is seeking to chop off your head and make a stew out of you.A recruit, after having toiled three years on a plantation, was returned to his own village on Malaita.He was clad in all kinds of gay and sportive garments.On his head was a top-hat.He possessed a trade-box full of calico, beads, porpoise-teeth, and tobacco.Hardly was the anchor down, when the villagers were on board.The recruit looked anxiously for his own relatives, but none was to be seen.One of the natives took the pipe out of his mouth.Another confiscated the strings of beads from around his neck.A third relieved him of his gaudy loin-cloth, and a fourth tried on the top-hat and omitted to return it.Finally, one of them took his trade-box, which represented three years' toil, and dropped it into a canoe alongside."That fella belong you?" the captain asked the recruit, referring to the thief."No belong me," was the answer."Then why in Jericho do you let him take the box?" the captain demanded indignantly.Quoth the recruit, "Me speak along him, say bokkis he stop, that fella he cross along me"--which was the recruit's way of saying that the other man would murder him.
God's wrath, when He sent the Flood, was merely a case of being cross along mankind.
What name? is the great interrogation of beche de mer.It all depends on how it is uttered.It may mean: What is your business?
What do you mean by this outrageous conduct? What do you want?
