Saltus Grammar School - Yearbook (Hamilton, Bermuda)

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14 I must have been crazy, but the more I studied them, the more enthralled I became. In my spare time I would line them up on the mantlepiece and admire them as though [ was a very part of them. In November my grandfather died, leaving me a fortune of $10,000,000. After the usual taxes had been deducted I had $3,500,000 left. The following year I left for South America with my heads. I wanted to improve my collection and at the same time learn about it. My plane landed at Belem and, after a short stay at the President San Slavos Hotel, I left with my intimates, my heads, for the mouth of the Amazon. We sailed up the Amazon for twenty days, then up one of its tributaries, The Xingu. Now we were in the heart of the jungle. However, my guides were good men who knew their jungle well. I spoke to the chief about my heads. At first I thought he would have me boiled for supper or send me away, but my mind was changed when he smiled, and held up two very handsome heads. After conversing with the chief, who by some miracle knew English, I decided to equip an expedition to a tribe known as the Clamati, who are still headhunters. For ten days we were literally ploughing through a jungle of vines, snakes, tikers and monkeys. We were met by the big chief himself, a fat, toothless, ugly man. There was a stench of heads around the village, and in the huts new heads and old ones were displayed on shelves of clay. Enthusiastic collectors would have given their eye teeth to have seen them. The process of shrinking heads takes five to ten years for the best results. The head is separated from the body, then the skull and grey matter is removed. Sand or clay is put into the head. The whole thing is then put into an acid that cannot be described, but I may say that I would like to keep out of it. The heads, after they have been seeped in the acid for ten weeks, are removed and put into storage in a hole fifty feet in width. The chief presented me with fifty of the best heads I have ever seen. They were most realistic in appearance. I stayed in the village for two days studying the heads. As I was bidding farewell to the chief and presenting dimes to the natives, there was a whoop, and a mass attack, launched from the bush, began. Rather obviously the tribe was an unfriendly one, and taking advantage of the festivities, they

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13 I started to search the house, this time with a fishing net and a clothes line for emergencies. I looked out of the front door, received a bag of vacuum-cleaner sweepings on my head from above, raced upstairs again and, after getting tangled up in the net and being practically hung with the rope, I managed to lock the little devil in a closet until his parents came home. There are my experiences, in a nutshell. Do you still want to try babysitting? D. C. OUTERBRIDGE, Form 6A. Heads or Tails It was about ten years ago, on a rainy afternoon, when I received a telegram telling me of the death of my uncle. I was not quite sure what to do. The telegram declined to state whether he had left his affairs in order or whether I would have to pay a large sum in cash to cancel his debts. At this time I was with a Repertory Company in Toronto. 1 could not just up and leave but neither could I stay. I spoke to my producer and was given the next two weeks off. As I drove up the drive-way of my uncle ' s house in Lexington, Kentucky, I was very much surprised, and relieved, to see that my late uncle was not bankrupt by any stretch of the imagination. The house was huge, and was surrounded by a gold painted fence which shone in the sun. After the reading of the will I was in no mood for the steak dinner which my aunt offered me. My dear old uncle had left me something that would turn anyone ' s appetite for many a year, a collection of 169 shrunken heads! I was about to return to the company in Canada when Pearl Harbour was bombed. Within fourteen weeks I had my O.F.C. in the Air Force. During the war I was wounded in Germany and sent back to the States. In 1948 I was discharged from the Jackson Memorial Hospital. I could have returned to Canada, as my producer had sent me a letter offering me good roles in a tour to Bermuda. Somehow, though, I thought that I would return to my uncle ' s estate and help my aunt. I should be able to live on my Air Force pension. Three years passed peacefully and then it happened. On a summer afternoon I was looking through the attic and I found them. The Heads! As though they were an intoxicating drink, I took to them. I dusted them and combed their hair.

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15 attacked. I was put in the storage hole for protection. It was then that I began to think. Why had I taken to those heads so much in the first place? They were of no value to me at all. I guessed that I must have had too many of those Tom Collin ' s that a friend can concoct so masterfully. If I ever got out of my present predicament I would turn the heads over to a museum and wash my hands of the whole matter. The fight was soon over, in favour of the Clamati who were fine fighters. Already the natives were beginning to augment their fine collection of . . . I got out as fast as I could with an even faster goodbye. On arriving in Belem, I was arrested for entering the jungle without a permit. I faced a $10,000 fine or five years as a guest of the government. Those heads were the best example I had seen of bad luck. I paid the fine. On arriving in New York I disposed of my hard won collection and called Bruce York who was then in Bermuda. I got my job back. Thank goodness, I said to myself as I boarded the Pan American Clipper. When I arrived in Bermuda I was interviewed by a reporter from the Mid-Ocean News. What exactly do you want to know? I asked him. Oh, nothing in particular, he said, glancing about my room, but you have to fill up space. You actors have strange stories sometimes. Come, let ' s have a drink, I said to him. How about a Tom Collins? he said as we left the room. B. E. WHEELWRIGHT, Form 6B. A Famous Victory The town of Kaloe was a quiet town in Asia. The people of Kaloe had never heard of war and so were very peaceful. Kaloe was surrounded by a very high wall with one gate, which could be opened only from the inside. Inside the city there was a gold mine. The people of Kaloe did not know the high value of gold and made bracelets, rings, other jewellery and utensils that they might want for their own use. Although there was gold inside this city, there were no Vv ells nor springs. Therefore three times a day men would be sent to the nearby wells for water.