After
some minutes the Lirongs drew off and rushed back to their boats as
wildly as they had come; and, strange to say, no blood was flowing,
no heads were rolling on the ground, no ghastly wounds were gaping,
in fact no one seemed any the worse. For it seems that this attack
was merely a well understood formality, a put-up job, so to say. When
two tribes, between whom there is a blood-feud not formally settled,
meet together to make peace, it is the custom for the injured party,
that is the tribe which has last suffered a loss of heads, to make an
attack on the other party but using only the butt ends of their spears
and the blunt edges of their swords. This achieves two useful ends-it
lets off superabundant high spirits, which, if too much bottled up,
would be dangerous; and it "saves the face" of the injured party by
showing how properly wrathful and bellicose its feelings are. So when
this formality had been duly observed everybody seemed to feel that
matters were going on well; they all settled down quietly enough for
the night, the Resident taking the precaution to send the Lirongs to
camp below the fort; and the great peace-conference was announced to
be held the following morning.
Soon after daybreak the people began to assemble beneath the great
roof of palm-leaf mats that we had built for a conference hall.
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