Chapter 21

CHAPTER VIIIINACTION AND AN EXCURSION

CHAPTER VIII

INACTION AND AN EXCURSION

As there was really nothing to be done until the beginning of the year, we settled down at Port Moresby in some spare rooms which Sam, my Cingalese head-man, let me have in his house.

We occupied our time with the despatch of our collections. The herbarium, of course, had perished, but the moths, butterflies, and birds had come safely down from Dinawa. We did not disturb the boxes already packed, but merely stowed them in large cases, packing them with cocoanut fibre and straw to resist concussion. Each box was tin-lined, and on receiving its full complement was soldered up.

For the procuring of empty cases I was greatly obliged to the courtesy of Mr. Ballantine, the Curator of the Intestate Office at Port Moresby. This work occupied us in all over a fortnight, and finally we despatched our collections to England by way of Australia.

Thereafter the days were very dull and uneventful. Christmas was fast approaching, but there was very little hope of its being a merry one—for us, at any rate. The stores of provisions were running very short, and our Christmas dinner was probably one of the queerest that was ever set before an exiled Britisher. I left the task of preparing the mealentirely to Sam, who managed somehow to procure some wallaby, a piece of bacon, and biscuits. Instead of pudding we had a Cingalese plum-cake, made by Sam’s daughter, and a glass of claret rounded off the banquet. Harry and I dined together on the verandah, and remembered absent friends, but we were not very festive.

There is one curious observance of the Port Moresby Christmas which may be worthy of mention here. At that season any Cingalese resident in the place may, on obtaining a Government permit, be served with spirits at the Stores.

The effect of this privilege on one Port Moresby worthy was truly deplorable. I saw him in the road, and I have little doubt that he saw more than one of me, but then, of course, it was a year since he had permission before. He was quite a character, and his residence was as peculiar as himself. It was built entirely of flattened paraffin tins and other oddments, a style of architecture which I have also noticed in the West Indies.

A PIEBALD TRIBE: THE MOTU-MOTU PEOPLE OF HOOD’S BAY, AND A TYPICAL KALO HOUSE.The piebald people are one of the mysteries of New Guinea, and their origin is unexplained. The spear in the warrior’s hand is made of hard redwood, sharpened, and has no metal. The house is built on an open wooden framework, and the flooring of the dwelling-room begins at the bottom of the closed-in gable. On this inflammable floor, within the thatch of flag-grass, they actually have a fire on a mud hearth. The slanting pole is a ladder for the inhabitants. In some cases they have little ladders for the dogs.

Another Port Moresby character was Weaver, the greengrocer; he has a history, but no man knows it, and it is popularly reported that he has a family in Australia. He has been in New Guinea for some years, and lives quite alone in an isolated district where he built a house and took up some land. He stands 6 feet 2 inches, and is a curious eccentric fellow whom nobody understands. He does not care for visitors, and has even been known to threaten distinguished personages with his gun when they dared to knock at his door! Twice a week Weaver brings in his vegetables, packed on two ponies, and sells them to Europeans at Port Moresby. It is said that he is accumulating money. He is perfectly independent, and quite a character; utterly illiterate, he has the dogged opinions which usually accompany lack of education. He believes in himself, has no one to help him in his work, and tells you quite frankly that he thinkshecould run New Guinea better than any one. On all subjects under the sun the opinion of Weaver is absolutely right and that of the world absolutely wrong.

As the days dragged on Harry and I thought we would vary the monotony of our life, and obtain a change of diet, by taking a small excursion down to Hula, the great fishing-place. By the courtesy of a trader, who was going down in a whaleboat, we obtained a passage. A voyage of a few hours took us down, and we found the village fairly large, built like Hanuabada, only most of the houses stood in the water on piles. The shore is thickly fringed with cocoanut plantations. The people, who belong to the Motuan tribe, as those of Hanuabada do, live by supplying the inland natives with fish. They go down to the fishing-ground, about two miles from shore, in small dug-out canoes, and this industry affords a very delightful touch of colour to the scenery of this part of the Papuan coast. The fishing is done at night, and just as the sun sinks the canoes come up past Hula in great crowds. In each boat are four or five fishermen, who pole up the shallows and paddle when they come to deeper water. As the darkness deepens the flotilla suddenly bursts into flame, for their method ofattracting gare-fish, which is their chief quarry, is by burning huge flares of dried palm leaves. Each of these flares is made up of a considerable bundle of leaves, and the men brandish them about in their hands. The light lasts for a considerable time. The effect of these many fires, reflected in long tracks on the water, is extremely picturesque. The fishing lasts all night, and at dawn the fleet returns with its catch.

The work is not unattended with danger, for sometimes the gare-fish, which are armed with a sharp sword-like projection of bone from the front part of the head, will, as they leap in blind terror of the light, strike the fishermen and kill them. The natives set up a stick in the water where any one has been killed by gare-fish.

Another interesting feature of Hula was the presence there of a piebald people. For the most part their bodies were brown, but they were marked with pinkish patches unevenly distributed. It is not improbable that this marking might be due to a disease, contracted from a too constant fish diet, but if it were a disease I could not discover that it gave any discomfort. Against this theory must be set this fact, that I observed one man in whom the light markings predominated. In fact, he was quite fresh-coloured, like a European, and had light hair. These piebald people were not a class apart from the rest of the Hula villagers, but shared their life in every respect.

The piles on which the Hula houses are built look quite insufficient to support the superstructure. The pitch of the gables is not always uniform in thesame house, and in these cases the ridge-pole is not horizontal.

Before we came to Hula, however, we had paid a visit to Kappa-Kappa, one of the very few localities in New Guinea that show any immediate result of missionary effort and of a direct attempt to introduce the methods of civilisation. There resides the agent of the London Missionary Society, Dr. Laws, who has been perhaps longer in British New Guinea than any other white man, for his stay now extends over thirty years. The missionary has a fine house standing on a slight elevation and commanding a magnificent view to the north and south. A remarkably fine road leads up to Dr. Laws’ residence, and 300 yards away is the Christian village, built in detached houses along the rise and forming a regular street. We were very much amused to notice that the houses were all numbered, and that many of them had Scotch names inscribed on a little piece of wood fastened over the door.

There were about sixty houses in all, and a really fine church and school. This last we visited and heard the children sing. They gave not at all a bad performance for coast natives, to whose discordant tones I have already alluded, and if my good friends, the mountain people, with their beautiful voices and their fine idea of music, had had the same training, the effect would have been little short of charming. We saw the place at a slight disadvantage, for the drought had greatly withered the vegetation, and Dr. Laws’ fine orange trees were all dead. The natives, I was glad to see, wore their ordinary dress, and no ridiculousattempt had been made to thrust them into European clothes. Dr. Laws did everything in his power to render our visit pleasant, and to him and his wife we are indebted for much kind hospitality. There is much that is enviable in his pleasant dwelling-place, and he seems to be on excellent terms with the natives. As I have elsewhere had occasion to remark, it is doubtful whether this generation of Papuans is capable of much spiritual enlightenment at the missionary’s hands, but the seeds of industrial progress at any rate are being sown, and the order and apparent prosperity of Kappa-Kappa say much for the work of the pioneer. There is no Paradise, however, without its serpent, and the scourge of Kappa-Kappa is the black snake, which attacks the natives.

The poison is most virulent, and Dr. Laws told me that if he could see the sufferer immediately he could save him, but if only a few minutes elapse before help is available death must inevitably ensue within an hour. This snake also kills the missionary’s horses, which it invariably bites on the instep. He keeps the horses for his little trap, in which, at the close of our visit, he drove us down to the coast, a distance of about four miles.

Besides the things I have mentioned, we found little else to interest us in Hula, and after a short stay we set off to walk round Hood’s Bay to Kalo, the next village of any importance, situated a little way from the coast. On the way we passed the little village of Babacca, the headquarters of a copra trader called Joher.

Formerly Kalo was the centre of strange ceremonialdances, connected with the worship of the reproductive powers of Nature.

Initiatory rites were celebrated, and the orgies taken part in by the young men and women were often of the most indecorous character. By the decree of a paternal Government these celebrations have now ceased to exist. It is possible that they were accompanied by cannibalism, but I am not aware that there is any proof of this. Descriptions are extant, but it is doubtful whether these have been given at first hand, for the natives would certainly not have admitted visitors to their mysteries.

The houses at Kalo are the most substantial I saw in New Guinea. They were built upon 9–inch posts and were raised 10 or 11 feet off the ground. It was extraordinary to me how these posts were secured, the soil seemed so loose and sandy; about one-third distance up occurred a cross-piece, above which there were two others. The lower parallelogram thus formed was crossed by two diagonal pieces of bamboo, the third and upper parallelogram by one diagonal piece; these were the steps giving access to the house, and their arrangements will be easily understood by reference to the photograph. The third cross-piece, above which the gable is enclosed, marks the level of the floor. There was an open verandah at one end, and the house had only one room. The house was eaved, and was thatched with flag-grass, and the whole structure measured 30 feet by 15 feet. On the inflammable floor, within the thatch, they actually have a fire on a mud hearth. The strangest sight of all was the elaborate carvings hungup outside, and it was a singular thing that no two houses at Kalo bore carvings of the same pattern.

We stayed only a few hours at Kalo, and then went on to Kerapuna, where we arrived about dusk after a long day’s march. At one point our advance was barred by a small river, very still and muddy and fringed with rank vegetation, the whole aspect of the place proclaiming it the haunt of the crocodile. It would have saved time had we swum across, but the mere look of the place obviously made it unwise to do so, so we fetched a slight détour until we came to a little village where we were able to hire a canoe.

Kerapuna is a fairly large fishing village on the east side of Hood’s Lagoon, just within the entrance. It possesses its missionary, Mr. Pearce, who lives there with his wife in great isolation. It is many years since he has been home, and it is not often that a European knocks at his door. With him we found hospitality. He is pleasantly housed and seems very comfortable and is on good terms with the natives, to whose spiritual needs he ministers in a little hall. It is doubtful how far the Papuan can be reached through theological channels at this stage of his development. A great deal, however, can be done towards training him in the simpler industries.

From Kerapuna we went out for a short shooting expedition in the flat, trackless forest that lies inland. The region is very gloomy; tall Pandanus trees with aërial roots and thickly matted branches obscure the daylight, but there is no dense undergrowth. There the gaura pigeon abounds, and we were fortunate enough to shoot some.

A HOUSE IN THE VILLAGE OF KALO.The floor of the house is on a level with the eaves.

The little expedition, however, was rather uneventful, except at one point, where we discovered somewhat to our anxiety that we had lost the trail. The two natives we had brought with us went, one to the right and the other to the left, searching for it, and we kept shouting to each other all the time. At last, after a couple of hours’ search, we found the track, which would have been visible only to a Papuan, as there was no well-worn path. We required native guidance also to get us back to the creek where we had left our canoe.

If there were no division between the piebald people and the ordinary inhabitants of Hula, at Kerapuna we noticed a curious class distinction, founded not on any physical peculiarity, but upon the mere question of occupation. One part of the village was occupied by the fisher tribe, the other part by a purely agricultural people. The latter were extremely lazy, and, as I have noted elsewhere, the lazier Papuan tribes are never fishermen, and always employ some more active people to do this work for them. The tillers of the soil and the spoilers of the sea hold rigidly aloof from one another at Kerapuna, and only meet on the common ground of an exchange of commodities—the fish being purchased for bananas and cocoanuts. Yet, strangely enough, the more active tribe was evidently there on sufferance, and was allowed to remain only because of the fish they supplied. Another remarkable point was, that the fishing populations dwelt on land and not on pile-built houses, as at Hula and Hanuabada. In this district we could get on without any other “trade” than tobacco.

As there was nothing to tempt us to remain, and as Kerapuna, even at the best, was a dull place, we did not stay longer than four or five days. I was very anxious, too, to get back to Port Moresby to make my preparations for a second journey into the interior to resume my work. We determined to make the return journey by water, and accordingly hired a little canoe from a native, who, with a companion, came with us to act as our navigator.

The little craft was hardly more than 18 inches wide, and just held the four of us in a rather cramped position. We set our course, which lay twenty miles across Hood’s Bay to Hula, and started about 10A.M.in fine weather. When we had got about half-way, however, the wind rose, and a tremendous swell began to come in from the point where the reef opens seawards, and very soon the dug-out was dancing like a cork and was continually shipping seas, so that Harry and I had to bale constantly.

I must say, however, that our natives knew how to handle their craft, and were very expert watermen. They kept the little square sail of matting under excellent control, and steered with the flat of a paddle from the side at the stern. Although they were very frightened, they did their best, and kept the canoe’s head up to the seas very neatly. For a time, I must confess, I myself was doubtful whether we should get through safely. We were dripping wet and in rather a sorry plight, but after rounding the point close to Hula we got into calmer water, and we landed safely, but very stiff and cold.

Two or three days later we bade good-bye to Hula,and the same whaler’s trading boat that had got us down took us back to Port Moresby, where I at once set about active preparations for my second journey inland.

On my return to Port Moresby I heard, to my great regret, the news of the death of Mr. Flood, the American naturalist. When I went up to Dinawa, while on my first journey, I left Flood in Port Moresby. Some time after he went up the Venapa River, seeking land shells. He was foolish enough to go alone, and his folly was the greater because he was very deaf. At length the authorities got alarmed about him, and Mr. Ballantine headed a search party, but the only trace of the naturalist was one of his camp fires. It is thought almost certain that he may either have strayed away and died of hunger, or he may have been devoured by a crocodile. It was not the first time that a party had gone out to seek Flood after his prolonged absence had given cause for alarm, and it was doubly absurd of him to go alone, because, even with Papuan attendants, it is difficult—as I myself have found—to pick up the trail when once it has been lost. I was much distressed about Flood, for he was a most unselfish enthusiast in the pursuit of science.

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