They Held Wild And Exciting Festivals To
Propitiate These Deities Or Demons, And Believed That Men Could
Be Changed By Them Into Animals - Either During Life Or After
Death.
Here we have a picture of true savage life; of small isolated
communities at war with all around them,
Subject to the wants and
miseries of such a condition, drawing a precarious existence from
the luxuriant soil, and living on, from generation to generation,
with no desire for physical amelioration, and no prospect of
moral advancement.
Such was their condition down to the year 1822, when the coffee-
plant was first introduced, and experiments were made as to its
cultivation. It was found to succeed admirably from fifteen
hundred feet, up to four thousand feet above the sea. The chiefs of
villages were induced to undertake its cultivation. Seed and
native instructors were sent from Java; food was supplied to the
labourers engaged in clearing and planting; a fixed price was
established at which all coffee brought to the government
collectors was to be paid for, and the village chiefs who now
received the titles of "Majors" were to receive five percent of
the produce. After a time, roads were made from the port of
Menado up to the plateau, and smaller paths were cleared from
village to village; missionaries settled in the more populous
districts and opened schools; and Chinese traders penetrated to
the interior and supplied clothing and other luxuries in exchange
for the money which the sale of the coffee had produced.
At the same time, the country was divided into districts, and the
system of "Controlleurs," which had worked so well in Java, was
introduced. The "Controlleur "was a European, or a native of
European blood, who was the general superintendent of the
cultivation of the district, the adviser of the chiefs, the
protector of the people, and the means of communication between
both and the European Government. His duties obliged him to visit
every village in succession once a month, and to send in a
report on their condition to the Resident. As disputes between
adjacent villages were now settled by appeal to a superior
authority, the old and inconvenient semi-fortified houses were
disused, and under the direction of the "Controlleurs" most of
the houses were rebuilt on a neat and uniform plan. It was this
interesting district which I was now about to visit.
Having decided on my route, I started at 8 A.M. on the 22d of
June. Mr. Tower drove me the first three miles in his chaise, and
Mr. Neys accompanied me on horseback three miles further to the
village of Lotta. Here we met the Controlleur of the district of
Tondano, who was returning home from one of his monthly tours,
and who had agreed to act as my guide and companion on the
journey. From Lotta we had an almost continual ascent for six
miles, which brought us on to the plateau of Tondano at an
elevation of about 2,400 feet.
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