Chapter 35

CHAPTER XVPAPUAN MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND SUPERSTITIONS

CHAPTER XV

PAPUAN MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND SUPERSTITIONS

My object in visiting New Guinea, as the reader already knows very well, was not to prosecute the proper study of mankind, according to Mr. Alexander Pope, but it was impossible to live daily with those unspoilt children of nature without observing a good deal that was curious and noteworthy. I cannot pretend to be a trained ethnologist, and accordingly the notes that I have set down in this chapter on manners and customs make no pretension to any scientific co-ordination. I shall not therefore venture to draw conclusions, nor advance any theories such as would fall within the province of the professed anthropologist. My notes, too, were fragmentary, and often, owing to the stress of our journeyings and the pressure of the work which it was incumbent on me to prosecute, I had perforce to leave unrecorded at the time many things that might be useful to the student of primitive peoples. Such observations, however, as I am able to make, however incomplete, may safely be regarded as at first hand, and it is probable that in the majority of cases they were taken under exceptionally favourable conditions for observing the people just as they are. During our journeyings in the interior we depended on native help alone, and the people whom we employed were not, one mightsay, scared out of their usual way of life by the presence of a large body of white men. I and my son went absolutely alone into the wilds with no white lieutenant. We cast ourselves, as it were, on the hospitality of the aboriginal Papuan (and cannibal at that), but as the reader has seen, we had no reason to regret our draft on the bank of savage fidelity.

In my second chapter I described the warlike Tugeri of Dutch New Guinea, a tribe whose ferocity has been such a thorn in the side of British and Netherland officials alike. I certainly should not have cared to trust myself with the Tugeri, but with the gentler people of the south-east portion of the island there was comparatively no great risk. My first close acquaintance with the Papuans was with the Motuan tribe, who lived around Port Moresby, and my earliest acquaintances were made among the potters of Hanuabada. The Motuans are fairly numerous, numbering, it is said, about 1400 in the Port Moresby district; they may be taken as the type of coast natives in this quarter, and roughly, for the purposes of this account, I may distinguish between “coast-men” and “hill-men,” taking the former to extend as far up as Epa. The Motuan men are well-grown, standing about 5 feet 10 inches on an average, the height of the women being from about 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inches. Their features are very varied, and do not incline to any single type. The colour is of a rich bronze, and they are well and sturdily made. Most of them have mop-like hair very much frizzed, and some wear it tied up, while others have it short and curly, looking almost as if it had been cropped and lying close to the scalp. What we may call the “cropped” hair required little dressing, but to keep the mop hair in order they use a comb like a wide fork with five prongs and a fairly longish handle. With this implement they comb out their hair elaborately.

HANUABADA WOMEN WEARING THE RAMI, OR PETTICOAT MADE OF LEAVES.

For ceremonial dances, and on festal occasions, they wear a wonderful head-dress made of cockatoo feathers, which looks, when it is assumed, like an enormous flat horseshoe, passing over the top of the head and slightly in front of the ears. It conceals the ears entirely when the observer looks the wearer full in the face.

The most cherished ornament, however, is the necklace of dogs’ teeth, which is prized by the Papuans beyond any article of “trade” that the traveller can give them. Not even a knife or an axe is so welcome, nor can the traveller get so much work out of the Papuan for any steel implement as he can for one or two teeth. I knew of a case where a missionary, not with any fraudulent intention, but merely from a desire to test Papuan intelligence, manufactured imitation dogs’ teeth very cunningly out of bone, and offered them to a native. The man, however, had too keen an eye to be done; he weighed the teeth critically in his hand for a moment, and then handed them back with a scornful “No good.”

A further adjunct of their very simple costume is the armlet, which is knitted from grass fibre with a pointed cassowary bone. This primitive needlehas a hole running up its entire length through which the grass fibre is threaded, and then the ornament is woven either in a diagonal pattern or in straight horizontal stripes, with strands of various colours. They often actually knit it round the arm or the wrist quite tightly, and when this is done the ornament is permanent, and is never removed until it is worn out. Sometimes they wear a bunch of flowers stuck into the armlet, and these not particularly fragrant, but the Papuans are persuaded that it is quite otherwise, and, pointing to their bouquet, they say with delightful naïveté, “Midina Namu”—“Good smell.” Alas! it is really the reverse, and the wearers of flowers in this manner are by no means pleasant neighbours.

They also wear anklets of feathers and strings of beads, and in some of their dances I have seen them decorated with huge bunches of grass, which hang from between the shoulders and sweep the ground. Some also affect a light band at the knee, and light cane anklets which rattle as they dance.

Indispensable to the men is the little bag which carries their few personal possessions: their betel-nut, their lime gourd and knife, the invariable adjunct of the delightful vice of chewing betel—as every traveller in the Malay Archipelago knows—and the “Paw-paw,” a fruit with which a little European tobacco is often eaten. The coast women carry a much larger bag of knitted fibre, which may be best described by saying that it resembles a hammock with the ends tied together; in this they carry potatoes and wood, and sometimes it is borne uponthe head, the centre of it being brought over so that it is supported by the forehead, while the tapering ends hang down over the shoulders. At other times it is carried round the neck.

The chief costume of the women of the coast tribes is the extraordinary petticoat made of grass or of a wide-bladed weed, each leaf of which would be about 3 inches wide. The blades composing this garment fall down perpendicularly from a waistband, to which layer after layer is attached, until the “Rami” has that fine spread which used to be attained by more civilised women by a contrivance which I believe was called a “dress-improver.” As we went inland and rose gradually higher and higher in the mountains, we observed that the “Rami” was growing shorter and shorter, until at length, just after we had passed Epa, it disappeared altogether; and one may reasonably consider the absence or presence of this garment as the great symbol of division between the coast natives and those of the highlands proper.

Among the men, both highland and lowland, the great symbol of dandyism is the “Chimani,” or nose ornament. This is made from a section of a shell about ⅜ of an inch thick in the middle, and tapering most beautifully towards the ends. It is accurately made, perfectly round and polished, and a good example would be about a span long. A fine “Chimani” very often has two black rings painted round it, about 1 inch distant from the end. These things are manufactured by the coast people, and they drift by exchange through the whole country.Very few young blades can afford to possess one, and accordingly it may be lent, either for a consideration or as a very special favour. The possessor of one of these ornaments could easily buy a wife for it, and sometimes it is paid as a tribal tribute by one who may have to pay blood-money, or is unable to give the statutory pig as atonement for a murder.

Another shell ornament is the armlet, made from the lower part of one species of a conical shell; a section of this adornment would present the figure of a pointed oval, and, according to the part of the shell from which the armlet has been cut, its ends either meet or overlap without touching. To it they sometimes attach European beads or little fragments of tin. Its manufacture entails a great deal of work and a long continued grinding on stone or other hard substance. Sam had a very fine one which he presented to a man in order that that man might buy a wife, and my head-man’s generosity will be understood when I mention that one of these armlets fetches £5 at Port Moresby. A very affluent person will wear one on each arm, or two on one arm, as I sometimes observed was the case among the coast natives. This occurred chiefly at Hula.

As regards households and tribal government, the Papuan customs are simple in the extreme; there is no augmentation of households on the patriarchal system of the sons bringing the wives under the parental roof. Each household consists of the father, mother, and children. The sons when they marry set up a separate establishment, and when all have married the grandparents usually remain alone.

BUYING A WIFE: A NEW GUINEA WOOING.The suitor is depicted making an offer for the girl seated in the hammock beside her father.

The men marry after they are eighteen and the girls much younger, for they are considered ready for double-blessedness at fourteen. In the case of the men, there are exceptions to this rule, for we met an experienced young gentleman of fourteen, Kaukwai, who confided to us, with an air of deep wisdom, that he had already had two wives and had dismissed them both.

In the villages there was no clearly defined form of government. There was, of course, invariably a chief, but his authority was not great, and nowhere did I see an autocrat, except Mavai, with whom the reader is already well acquainted. There is no regular council of elders, but in isolated instances the younger men may go to the elder for advice. The villagers, however, are wonderfully conservative in their institutions, and marriage between distant villages is uncommon. The man who dares to bring a wife from a distance gains great credit for an enterprising person. At Amana, for instance, we found an interpreter who had married a Foula woman, and this person was accounted strong-minded. He had either learnt the Foula dialect from his wife or had acquired it while he was staying at Foula courting her.

The method of wooing is, as with all primitive peoples, more commercial than romantic. The intending suitor generally comes to the point during a tribal dance which has been arranged by calling from hill to hill. If the woman agrees to the match, the wooer does not think it at all necessary to make overtures to her father, but should negotiations be required he is neither laggard nor bashful. He puts the price in hisbag and approaches the house of the sire, entering boldly and sitting down unbidden. Not infrequently the girl also comes in and sits probably in a hammock, listening to the debate on which her destiny hangs. The suitor at once names his price; if the old man thinks this is a promising bargain, he shows himself quite willing to discuss matters. If there is tobacco, the suitor takes up his host’s “Bau-bau,” draws a few whiffs, passes it to the father, scratches his head violently with both hands, and proceeds to haggle. Should the father think the match a good thing, he seldom withholds his consent long, but if he considers the young man is under-bidding, he holds out stiffly till the youth has raised the price sufficiently. As soon as the father consents, the bride is taken away at once and without any fuss. There is no ceremony and no wedding feast.

The women are the agricultural labourers of Papua. Early in the morning they go out to till the gardens and the yam- or taro-patch; they are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. Every night at Hanuabada we used to watch the long files of them wading across the shallow channels to the villages, carrying the great bundles of wood they had collected. Their families are not large, seldom more than two or three children, and though they treat them quite kindly, there is no demonstrative affection. At seven years old the children are expected to assist in domestic affairs, and begin to take their little part of carrying water and firewood to the village. Their faggots are tied up with wild cane string and are carried home on the women’s backs.

When the women go out to the garden, or when they aid in heavy transport service, as in the case of my expedition, the baby always accompanies them, and I counted at least six different ways of carrying the infant. 1. In the net-bag, slung behind, and supported by the band passed across the mothers forehead; to save abrasion a leaf was placed between the forehead and the knot made by tying the two ends of the bag together. Among many of the women I noted a patch of white hair, just at the point where the knot had pressed. 2. The child on the top of the load, supported by the mother’s left arm. This, of course, refers to the time when they were carrying for us, and had a particularly heavy burden. 3. Astride of one shoulder; this was practised by the men, and the infant was so placed as to face the side of his father’s head. 4. Also a man’s method, pick-a-back, with the little legs round the father’s neck. 5. The child with the arms clasped round the father’s neck and no other support at all. 6. Similar to the last, except that the child in this instance was carried by the mother, who, being blessed with an exceptional spread of “Rami” behind, could allow the little one’s feet to rest comfortably on that.

In the village communities on the hills there was no very regular observance of meal times. They ate when they wanted to, but on the coast a meal was taken in the morning, in the afternoon, in the early evening, and sometimes at night. The cooking was done by the women in the round earthenware pots mentioned in the description of the Hanuabada potters.

In point of dress and appearance the mountain people differ widely from those of the coast. The place of the “Rami” is taken by the cheebee, or perineal band, a simpler garment than even the fig-leaf. They are a shorter people, with better developed legs than the coast natives, which is no doubt owing to the extraordinary exercise imposed on the limbs by the difficulties of the ground.

The women wear fewer adornments than the men, their principal ornaments being the dogs’ teeth necklace and armlet, and on the breast a pearl shell, ground with a stone night and day for three weeks until the outer shell is gone and the mother-of-pearl is left bare and polished. They tie up their hair with bark so that the hair itself can hardly be seen, and sometimes they plait it up into small tails. They carry the customary bag of small odds and ends, and their weapons are distinctly formidable. These consist of the spear and club only. The spear is pointed and jagged, and is made of very hard redwood; the club has a heavy stone top, elaborately hewn into sharp bosses. The Dinawa people do not know how to make these clubs, which are manufactured in the Keakama district, and their presence in the hills proves that there is some system of commercial distribution.

1.—A STONE-HEADED CLUB.2.—VARIOUS FORMS OF THE BAU-BAU, OR TOBACCO PIPE, SHOWING DIFFERENT KINDS OF ORNAMENTATION.Note on the left of the pipes the butt of one, showing how the end is closed by the natural section of bamboo.3.—A STONE AXE.

But the most splendid of all the articles of the Papuan costume is the feather head-dress, 16 feet high, which forms the central point of attraction when it occurs in a tribal dance. This ornament is extremely rare, and is always an heirloom, for it has taken generations to complete. It is a wonderful, fantastic device of feathers, built upon a light framework. The Bird of Paradise and the Gaura pigeon are laid under tribute for its construction, and the feathers of the different birds, and of different species of the same bird, are kept carefully apart, and are arranged in rows according to their natural order. A few lines of Bird of Paradise, a few lines of Gaura pigeon, then a few lines of another species of Bird of Paradise, and so on. The whole contrivance is most fantastic, and looks really impressive in the weird light of the torches as the dancers, decorated with flowing bunches of grass behind, proceed with their revel.

The dances of the hill tribes are not elaborate in form, and consist principally of violent jumping up and down, accompanied by wild singing and noise, but the coast dances, as carried out by the members of the native police at Port Moresby, by permission of the authorities, although less effective in point of costume—for little dress at all is worn—have something of the orderly and progressive arrangement of the ballet of civilisation. On the day set apart for the dance at Port Moresby, a circle of native drummers would seat themselves on the ground, and would begin their monotonous performance—bang, bang, bang; bang, bang, bang—apparently without end, and with a wearisomely monotonous rhythm. Suddenly, to the orchestra and the spectators would enter two members of the Fly River police off duty, carrying a long, thin reed. These would begin the performance. They jumped up and down in regular rhythm, crouching lower and lower as the dance proceeded, their movements getting quicker and quickeras the drums “gave them pepper.” Then, still crouching and still jumping up and down with incredible swiftness, they would back out and disappear round the side of the house. This ended the first figure. For the second figure probably twenty of the force would enter, marching sedately in Indian file, the drums playing a slower rhythm. Suddenly the performers would stop, then they would turn their heads from side to side, and begin to move their legs slowly in time to the drums. Still wagging their heads, and without any increased motion of the limbs, they would proceed right round the ring of spectators and retire, without any perceptible quickening of pace. For the third figure they reappeared in files, moving their heads, the limbs still going in slow time. They advanced and retreated to and from the spectators several times, singing as they went, and finally backed out.

We witnessed also a dance of the Mombare people, who are likewise members of the native police. With the dancers was one woman. Their method was to jump up and down, and thus they worked slowly round the oval enclosure formed by spectators. They held themselves erect all the time, and their demeanour was not serious, the dance being accompanied by loud shouting and great perspiration. During all these dances the Orgiasts fell into a terrible state of excitement, and often could not stop dancing until they fell quite exhausted. Mountain dances are sometimes accompanied by tragedies, for the confusion of the revel is made the occasion for wiping off old scores, and a dancer will suddenly fall dead, struck through by the spear of his enemy.

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