E-text prepared by Bryan Ness
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
([http://www.pgdp.net])
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
([https://archive.org])

PAPUAN PICTURES

Tima of Delena.

Frontispiece.

PAPUAN PICTURES

By
H. M. DAUNCEY
(Of Delena, Papua)

WITH SIXTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

LONDON
LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY
16, NEW BRIDGE STREET
1913

With greetings to the boys and girls whose meetings I had the happiness to attend in the Old Home Land and in Australia, and the hope that the memories of those meetings are as bright and lasting to them as they are to me.

H. M. DAUNCEY.

Contents

List of Coloured Plates

List of Illustrations

CHAPTER I
Games and School

Most visitors begin their Papuan experiences at Port Moresby, but you begin yours at a smaller place, where I have spent the last seventeen years. The village is called Delena, and you can find it on the shore of Hall Sound. Nothing grand will impress you as you draw near to the shore, but no matter at what time you land you will find a crowd of young children running to meet you; no matter what your age, whether you are man, woman, boy or girl; no matter what the time of day, you will be greeted with “Good-morning, sir,” and little hands will go up to the salute, many of them as awkwardly as though the joints belonged to wooden Dutch dolls. These are the youngsters I want to introduce to you first.

Several things will attract your attention. First, perhaps, that they have no clothes such as we wear. They do not need them and are content to be clothed for the most part in mud and sunshine. Neither mud nor sunshine allows much scope for originality in fashion, but you will notice that the ordinary originality comes in in the way the hair is served. Many of the youngsters will have their heads shaved clean. Some will have two tufts left, one in front and one behind, like convenient handles to hold on by. Some have a ridge left along the top of the head, like a cock’s comb. Some have alternate bands of hair and bare scalp, and some the full bushy head of hair which is so distinctive of the Papuan.

As a rule they keep to the patterns they learnt from their fathers, but one day in school I saw a stroke of decided originality. A little fellow came in with a new pattern, and gradually I worked out the bare lines into the first three letters of the native alphabet, A, E, I, and then followed this dialogue:—

Missionary.—“Who cut your hair in that fashion?”

Boy.—“My big brother.”

Missionary.—“What did he do it with?”

Boy.—“A bit of a broken bottle.”

Missionary.—“Did it hurt?”

Boy.—“Only a little.”

The letters were not well formed, but there was no doubt about them, and I wondered if the elder brother thought the younger so thick-headed that there was a doubt about his getting the letters inside and so made sure that he should have them outside. Be that as it may, there the letters were till the hair grew again.

As a rule there is no fuss when a little Papuan comes into the world, but occasionally his arrival is celebrated with quite royal pomp and pageantry, and the women of his tribe have their turn at wearing the family finery, and going in for a big dance. A few years ago I was fortunate enough to come across one of these celebrations at Maiva.

Some sixty women with wonderful feather head-dresses, gay as the brightest feathers of tropical birds could make them, and wearing all kinds of shell ornaments, took part. The central square of the village had been carpeted with cocoanut fronds to keep down the dust, and provide a stage. Down this came the women in two parties, chanting, swinging their grass skirts, and waving in front of them branches of vividly coloured crotons. At the end where we were standing, the two parties turned right and left, and then formed figures something like the spokes of a wheel, and each revolving round the group in the centre, worked their way back to the other end of the village.

In small parties the women went to the house where the new baby was, and he was brought out and presented to them. Bowing themselves away backwards from him they swept the ground with the branches they had in their hands, chanting all the time, and, so it seemed to me, trying to sweep the child’s pathway into life clean. (That is just what the missionary tries to do from the time the child is old enough to come to school.)

Another interesting feature was the by-play of four old women, each of whom carried something that would be used by the child when he grew up. One with nets represented hunting and fishing. One, with digging sticks, told of the time when he would have to take his part in the planting. What the third was I have forgotten, but of the fourth there could be no doubt. Her bow and arrows and stone club, and the ornament she carried in her mouth to make her look savage, all told of war. Right and left she pretended to shoot the onlookers, and at times it seemed as though she would let an arrow slip from the string and so start real trouble.

As a baby the little Papuan receives unlimited attention from both father and mother. One’s ideas of the savage have to be modified when big men are seen carrying their young children about and fondling them as tenderly as any white parent could do.

This fondness is, however, carried to excess, and starts the child on the wrong path. He is allowed to please himself from his very earliest days. If you ask a father why his child did something that was sure to result in injury to himself, or trouble to others, the only reply you will get is, “Ia sibona” or “Ia ura.” Both mean much the same, though in the first case the expression puts it that it was the child’s own action, while in the second case there is the direct statement that the child wished to do it. The father does not interfere with the child’s action, or thwart its wishes, and so arises one of the greatest defects in the Papuan character, and most serious obstacles in the way of progress. Of obedience the Papuan knows nothing, unless there is a big stick, or a heavy hand, or the fear of the sorcerer, at the back of the command.

From early childhood right on through life the boy gets the best of it, as far as the amount of work he has to do is concerned. Very soon the young girls have to fetch water; collect firewood; and nurse their younger brothers and sisters, while the boys amuse themselves. Most of their amusements take the form of preparation for what they will have to do in later life, and they put as much energy into their games as an English boy would into his cricket or football. During this free and easy time the Papuan boy is much better off than the dweller in the crowded street in a big town, and his preparation for adult life is a more pleasant process than the grind in a factory. He enjoys making and sailing his model canoe, or building his model house, and shouts with delight when he has got as far as throwing his toy spear so as to hit the mark. Usually two parties stand facing each other. From the one a cocoanut husk is hurled, and as it goes bounding along the members of the other party try to spear it before it breaks through their ranks. So for an hour at a time, it is kept up from end to end.

Only two games as far as I have seen are the same as in England, and each year the time comes round when “Whip tops are in season.” The top is all wood, and the whip usually a piece of fibrous bark that can be teased out into something like a cat-o’-nine-tails.

The second game that would be familiar is the swing, but you cannot sit comfortably in it as you can in those at home. A length of vine hangs from a slanting cocoanut palm, and on the bottom end is lashed a piece of stick T fashion, only the T is the wrong way up, like this—⊥. Holding on to this T you swing as far as the length of the vine will allow. If a tree can be found at the bend of a river so much the better, for then the fun is to start from one bank and drop off on the other. If ever you have the chance to try this, be sure you take a good run to start with, or you may be left swinging over the river like the pendulum of a big clock, and have to be hauled back by the laughing onlookers, as I once was.

As before the introduction of schools the Papuan child spent most of his time in play, I think I had better give you more information as to his games.

In Tom Brown’s School Days you can read the experience of a new boy when tossed in a blanket. A Delena boy could tell you something the same, except that there is no blanket in his case. In the game called “Paroparo,” or “The Frog,” he is tossed on the arms of two rows of his companions. Each boy grasps the arms of the one facing him, so forming a rough gutter at one end of which a small boy is placed face downwards. Gradually he is jerked forwards till his feet have left the couple who first held him. They run to the front and are ready to receive the head of the “Frog” when he has been jerked far enough along. In turn each couple comes to the front, and so “keeps the pot boiling” till an unlucky toss, or an intentional one, lands the poor “Frog” out on the sand, and his place is taken by another.

King of the Castle is suggested by another game, but the name is just “Eaea” and in playing it the girls are matched against the boys. A party of girls dig a hole in the sand and in it bury some of the fruit of the Nipa Palm, and then all sit down in a bunch on top and challenge the boys. The boys have to dislodge the girls, and dig up and take possession of the fruit, but as the girls are never out of play, and can struggle back as often as their strength will allow, it is some time before the boys capture the fruit and claim their turn at burying it. This is one of the games, and there are others, which beginning in play often end in a fight, drawing in the friends and relatives of the players.

The Papuan lack of self-control, unfortunately, often causes a game to end in a fight, and the reason for the winner only in a contest having a prize, they cannot understand. At Port Moresby there are three villages, and many years ago, hoping to add interest to the sports, we pitted the children of the three villages against each other in a tug-of-war. When B team was getting the best of the tug the parents of A team lent their children a hand. The parents of B team then tried to push away those who were helping A team. That led more to join in, and some good hard knocks were exchanged, and in the end the tug-of-war became a free fight, and our sports came to an abrupt end. The promoters had their work cut out to put a stop to the trouble they had unintentionally raised.

On another occasion when the people of several villages were gathered at Kerepunu there was a canoe race in which one canoe from each village took part. Near the end of the race when the Kerepunu crew had lost the leading place, a man got up from the bottom of their canoe and calmly put a spear into one of the paddlers in the leading canoe. The loss of one paddle enabled Kerepunu to again take the lead and win the race. When spoken to about his conduct the spearman replied, “What right have people from another village to come and win a race in our waters?”

Delena Children.

[See page 1.]

Two convenient Handles.

[See page 2.]

“I protest!”

[See page 3.]

Parent and Child.

[See page 5.]

Contending for a prize seemed quite foreign to the Papuan mind. In the first regattas at Port Moresby we had to try and introduce the idea. After four canoes had raced and the prize had been handed to the winners, those in the other canoes wanted to know where their payment was. We explained that the winners only received the prize, and were met by the question, “Why? We have brought our canoe as far as they have, and have paddled just as far as they have. They finished only a little ahead of our canoe.” They understand prizes now, but before they reached that stage those trying to introduce British pastimes had a real difficulty because the native looked upon the prize as payment for taking part in the event.

Only a few years ago the Delena people refused to take part in the Christmas sports, and when pressed for a reason said that the men from a neighbouring village had carried off most of the prizes the year before, and they were not going to put up with that as I lived in their village and belonged to them.

In a country where snakes are so plentiful it is not to be wondered at that a game takes both its name and its movements from a snake. The big carpet snake is, at Delena, called Auara, and the girls have a game of that name. A long string of girls, with arms outstretched, clasp hands, and then, swinging their grass petticoats to the rhythm, they chant repeatedly:—

“Auara ehaina. Auara kaito ehaina.”

Having worked up steam, the first girl, representing the head of the snake, twists round and passes under the arms of numbers two and three. Then numbers one and two pass under the arms of three and four, and so on to the end, the twisting representing the tortuous movements of the snake as it travels round and up a tree. The rhymes used in this and other games seem to have little more meaning than some of those repeated during English games. Very often neither the children nor the adults can give the meaning of the words used.

Another game takes its name from an animal. The Cuscus is common to all districts, and you will see in the picture the Papuan idea of representing its movements along the branch of a tree. The children cannot, however, come up to the real animal.

One of the most picturesque and exciting games is played in many districts under different names. In one it represents wasps stealing raw sago, while in another it is the wind and sea wrecking a lakatoi. (Lakatoi is the Motu name of a big trading canoe, or a ship). A dozen or so girls get together like a Rugby scrum. Away in the distance you can see boys waving branches and humming to represent the wind. As they come nearer the sound increases and the branches are waved more vigorously. The pace increases, and at last with a rush and a shout the branches are thrown on to the girls. These waves, though they may produce discomfort (especially if a few stinging ants have been left amongst the leaves), do not smash up the lakatoi, so the boys themselves commence the attack, and try to pull the girls apart so as to represent the breaking up of the lakatoi. Often it is a long job, for the girls can hold their own.

If all work and no play makes a dull boy, all play and no school will not fill an empty head. Part of the missionary’s aim is to fill the head as well as change the heart, so we will turn from play to school.

With schools all around you, books at your disposal from the time the first picture alphabet was put into your hands, and letters and papers always bringing you fresh news, it will be difficult for you to imagine a whole country where a few short years ago the people knew nothing of either writing or reading, and where it is still possible to go into a village where not a man, woman or child is able to read a word. There are many such in Papua. News is conveyed by word of mouth, and appointments made in the same way, with a little mechanical help thrown in. Only a short time ago I saw a man send word to a friend in another village that he should expect him to come in six days. He told the boy who was to take the message and then gave him a piece of string with six knots in it. The boy started on his journey, and that night before he slept he would bite off one of the knots. The next night he would bite off another, and the following morning hand the string, with its four remaining knots, to the friend to whom the message was sent. He would go through the biting performance till only two knots remained, and would then know it was time for him to start to keep his appointment.

This is the old-fashioned way, always used when there were no names to the days of the week, and no numbers to the days of the month, and no writing materials, nor any who would have known how to use them even if they had possessed a whole stationer’s shop full. Now school is changing all this, and much of the missionary’s time is spent in school.

At Delena school meets in the church, and at once you would notice the absence of seats and desks. So far we have followed the native custom, and all the children sit on the floor, but now we are busy making desks for the seniors from material given by Birmingham friends. As they come in the boys sit in rows on the one side and the girls on the other. To form into rows may seem a simple matter to those of you who have been through a course of drill, but it was long before the children could be got out of their native habit of squatting down in two compact bunches one on either side of the church.

Our numbers may be anything between 60 and 100, for except when they are away with their parents on trading or hunting expeditions, we have now little difficulty in getting the children to school. We begin sometimes with a hymn, and always with prayer, and then divide into classes. We aim mainly at teaching the children to read and write, but add arithmetic, some geography, and the Catechism and Bible knowledge.

While reading the children are indifferent as to which way they hold their books. Right way up. Wrong way up. Looking at them from either right or left side. Neither comes amiss. I could not understand this till I noticed that the South Sea teachers more often than not hold the card from which they teach the young children the alphabet, so that it is the right way up for themselves. Some of the children, therefore, see the letters the wrong way up, and some get only a side view. As the child does not always occupy the same position in the class, it comes to recognize the letter from any angle.

In one respect only is the Papuan scholar ahead of those who have to deal with the English language. He finds no difficulty in spelling any word in his language, unless it be one with a lot of H’s in it. It is a different matter, however, when it comes to writing. You will never find him wrong with a vowel, but he plays ducks and drakes with the consonants. T’s and D’s, P’s and B’s, L’s and R’s are interchanged as the fit takes him. Vada may be all right at the one end of the line, but at the other it will be vata. Pa does duty for ba. This does not matter so much in the language the native knows, but it is a serious difficulty in the way of teaching him to write English. The pig may loom big in importance in the eyes of the native, and the bigger he is the better they like him; but one does not want his name to be written big every time, and it is decidedly awkward when hat becomes had, and bat turns into bad. This careless use of the consonants seems to extend throughout most of the Islands of the Pacific, so the Papuan is not exceptionally dull or careless.

I remember reading that a chief in the South Seas once saw John Williams make some marks on a piece of wood, and was then asked to take the piece of wood to Mrs. Williams. She looked at the wood and then gave the chief an axe to take to her husband, afterwards throwing away the bit of wood. The man saw that the piece of wood had procured an axe so he picked it up, made a hole through it, and hung it round his neck for future use, no doubt looking forward to an unlimited supply of axes. Similar experience has produced a peculiar effect upon the Papuan. As soon as he can write he makes all his requests, even the most trivial, upon a bit of paper, and seems to think that no letter can be complete without a request for something. There is a difficulty about the practical application of some things we teach, but none whatever about writing.

If “multiplication is vexation” to young folks at home, what must it be in a village where written figures are quite modern? We are fortunate that the natives in our district have a good system of counting, but I have never been able to understand why they have words for ten thousand and a hundred thousand. They never use them in their daily life, and I cannot see that they ever could have had occasion to use them. Their counting is done upon their fingers. In school you can see a child adding away with the help of his fingers, and then if he wants to go beyond ten he has the advantage over an English child in that he wears no boots and can make use of his toes, and so can go to twenty without beginning again.

After a time a straightforward sum presents no difficulty, but there is no practical application as in the case of writing. The boys have never been taught to think a matter out, but they are beginning to do so, as the following story shows. Ume had got as far as addition of money, and could get his sums right nine times out of ten, except the farthings. Again and again I explained, and one day found out what his difficulty was. Here is his explanation: “I cannot understand the ways of you white men. You write one over four, and count it one; one over two and count it two; three over four and count it three. Why do you not count all tops or all bottoms, and then I could get my sums right.” He had thought the matter out and discovered why he had failed.

Another illustration of their thinking matters out for themselves. I had just given the English word for fingers, and then giving the native for toes asked what it was in English. A pause, and then one boy shot out, “Foot fingers.”

When the lessons are all finished the calling of the register would interest you if you allowed me to translate some of the names as we read them out. Kasiri does not seem to be troubled by the fact that his name means “unripe”; and Ogogame (the orphan) is decidedly out of place for a boy who has both father and mother living in the village. The cassowary and the rooster are represented by boys bearing the name of VIO and KOKO-ROGU. Death (Mate) and life (Mauri) are both lively youngsters, in fact it would not be easy to decide which is the more alive. Boio, the equivalent of “lost,” is rather appropriately the name of a girl who is not at all a regular attendant at school. Place names are rather poorly represented at present. One girl who was rescued from death by a Samoan teacher’s wife is called Papauta, after the Samoan girls’ school, and another girl has to answer to the name of Purari, because she was born while her father was away with Chalmers, on his first journey to the river of that name.

As English becomes more known we shall have boys and girls called after all sorts of things, for in one part and another of the country I know Smoke, Fishline, Teapot, Tar-brush, London, and Fish-hook.

CHAPTER II
The Conceited Youth

In early childhood the Papuan is often a charming little being, looking at you with eyes that can hardly be matched the world over for size and the beauty of their plum-like bloom. He grows out of this stage all too early, and in the next thinks only of making himself ornamental. He certainly is not useful.

Having been allowed his own way when a child he soon considers himself free from all parental control, and goes his own way. The girls help in the daily round of the household management, but the youth spends most of his time in the club house, decorating himself for the afternoon promenade. Conceited and useless would best describe the male Papuan at this time of his history, but to make the picture complete we must go a step further and say that he is constantly getting into trouble and dragging his parents and relatives into quarrels with others on account of his misconduct.

After dancing and promenading best part of the night he is always unwilling to turn out when the others do in the morning. As soon as he has sufficiently roused himself he begins his preparations for the day by spreading around him the requisites for his toilet. A strange assortment. His dress-suit consists of a strip of bark cloth with gay coloured patterns marked upon it. So simple a suit takes little time or thought for its proper adjustment. No beauty doctor can, however, spend more time and care over the face. Cocoanut shells containing various pigments are brought into use, together with a mirror (this is one of the few things the youth will work to procure), and lines and dots, triangles and circles, soon hide the natural colour of the skin. It is not at all necessary that the two sides of the face should match. One eye may be surrounded by white or yellow, while the other may look at you out of a frame of black.

Next comes the dressing of the hair. A friend may lend a hand in combing this out with a two or three-pronged comb, the youth taking his ease the while, as you can see in the picture. By the time the process is complete the youth gazes from under a frizzy mop which it would be hard to match the whole world over. This must be parted a little way back from the forehead, so as to allow the feather head ornaments to be adjusted in the right place and at the correct angle. A bead or shell frontlet must be placed round the forehead, and then the necklace and armshells; the anklets and garters (though he has no stockings to keep up) must all be nicely in position before the final touch is given to the toilet. A cocoanut is scraped, and the friend, filling his mouth with the soft white mass, chews it till he has extracted the oil, and then gently blows it from his lips over the body of the youth who gradually turns round in front of him, till, like the joint on the old-fashioned spit he is done all round. Sometimes plain oil does not meet the case, but it is coloured with red clay and then smeared over the body instead of being blown on.

Now try and imagine what the dandy looks like, and remember that often you can tell he is coming long before you can see him, for the remains of former oil dressings are not washed off. The picture will give you an idea, but unfortunately it lacks the colour. Crude as are many of the attempts at decoration, the native often shows skill in the way he blends the colours of his feathers and the artistic way in which he adjusts them at the correct angle.

Many people are willing to be uncomfortable if they can be in the fashion, and the Papuan dandy is no exception. The tight lacing he subjects himself to may be bearable while he is promenading about, but I have seen him suffer agony from it while trying to row in a boat, and yet all his suffering would not make him remove his belt.

If the Papuan youth’s life were only devoted to empty show it would be bad enough, but there is another and darker side. His parents and elders may care little what he does with his time; nor do they worry about his education, except in one particular. They never allow him to forget that he must avenge wrongs inflicted upon his family. Of forgiveness they know nothing, and the youth as he grows up is taught that for every wrong he must exact payment.

One of the first cases tried after a Court of Justice had been established in Papua illustrates this. A young man from a village near Port Moresby was charged with murdering a woman and two children. He admitted that he had killed them, but said it was “payment” for the people of the woman’s tribe having killed his father. He was quite a small boy at the time, but his uncles had repeatedly told him of the deed, and that he would not only have to take a life for a life, but if possible get something on the credit side, and so win a name for himself. With this in view they taught him to handle the spear and the club, and when he was a man and proficient, sent him to find his victim. It mattered nothing to him that the first persons whom he met belonging to the offending tribe were a woman and two children. He killed them all three and gloried in his deed of shame. He had however to reckon with our first Governor (Sir William MacGregor), who, being in the neighbourhood, had the offender marched off to Port Moresby, and there, during a long term of imprisonment, he had an opportunity of learning something of the new order of things introduced under British Government.

It is difficult to believe that this bloodthirstiness dwells in youths who are so vain, and so easily captivated by bits of finery, and have such queer ideas of what should be done with English things when they do get them.

I once took a youth to Sydney. Of course Papuan dress, or want of dress, would not do there, so I had to fit him out in a suit of clothes. The garments were not by any means worn out when we returned to Delena, but for a time they passed from my view. Later Master Poha was strutting about in the well ventilated vest, while two of his relatives divided the remainder of the suit between them. I cannot say that either looked fully clothed, but they were not so conspicuous as the boy at Port Moresby who used to stalk about in a silk hat.

That hat had a history. A high Government official found that his servant had packed it amongst his things when he was leaving London, and having no use for it in Papua, he handed it over to a youth who had taken up his quarters in the back premises of Government House. That youth was not only the introducer of a new fashion, the observed of all observers, but he was the envy of his companions, as he strutted around clothed in a top hat, and a very broad smile. Of course the hat lost its gloss, and took on the shape of a concertina, but that did not detract from its usefulness, and the last I heard of it was that the elder brother of the owner borrowed it to take on Hiri (the trading expedition), because, as he put it, “He should be cold without any clothes.”

The Papuan youth, however, with all these faults is a loyal, brave companion. He can be relied upon when accompanying a white man on a journey. The tighter the corner the more he shines, and many others as well as ourselves would have ended their days in Papua long ago had not our boys stuck to us in time of need.

CHAPTER III
Keeping House

The Papuan comes of age in fewer years than the white boy. From his babyhood preparations have been made for starting him in life. His father having settled that he shall marry the daughter of some friend, begins to pay the stipulated price for the girl. Now a pig is paid on account, and if accepted by the girl’s father, as a native who could talk a little English of a kind told me, “He all same as finger ring.” Next it may be an armshell, or some feathers. Later on some sago; and so the price is gradually paid.

When the boy and girl are old enough to start for themselves, the girl’s father often manages to screw an extra pig or a few additional knives or axes out of the boy’s family, on the ground that his daughter is either very good-looking, very strong, or a particularly smart pot maker or gardener. When there is no chance of a higher price, or before if the young couple take the matter into their own hands, the marriage takes place. The couple eat from the same dish and the knot is tied. At first they do not set up housekeeping on their own account, but usually settle in the house of the bridegroom’s father. There is no honeymoon, unless it has been a runaway match, and then the fugitives think it advisable to stay away long enough for the anger of the old folks to cool down. In the ordinary course of events the bridegroom at once takes his part in whatever hunting or fishing or planting may be going on, and the bride settles in her place in the household and garden work.

Sometimes there is a little more ceremony, and a touch of display. I remember once at Orokolo seeing a procession going along the beach. It was unlike anything I had seen before, so I gave chase. It was a long chase, for all were going at top speed to get over the hot sand as quickly as possible, and I was only just in time to see the bride, the chief figure in the procession, and decked out in the finery belonging to her family, vanishing into the house. Her friends had been carrying suspended from poles the feathers, armshells, necklaces, and other ornaments that had been paid as her price. These poles were fastened to the front of the house she had entered like barbers’ poles in England, but I doubt if they were left out overnight. Too many of the valuables might have been missing in the morning.

Would he take a Prize?

[See page 4.]

Throwing the Spear.

[See page 5.]

Whip-Tops in Season.

[See page 6.]

On another occasion at an inland village, the bridal procession crossed the river in canoes. This time no ornaments were carried, but nearly all the people were carrying large sago puddings—round hard balls larger than a football, and all covered with grated cocoanut, which made them look as though coated with white sauce or sugar icing.

The houses in which the Papuans live are of all shapes and of all sizes, and some at least are built in strange places: some in the tops of tall trees like big birds’-nests; some on piles in the sea like the old lake dwellings in Europe; some half in the sea and half on land, as though they were just starting to paddle on the beach; some on platforms over swamps, and others on the dry land. Oblong buildings are the fashion in most villages, but in others the ends of the oblong are curved, and in others again the one end of the house goes up and out like an old coal scuttle-bonnet. The ridgepole is usually straight, but at the east end of Papua concave meets with more approval, while in the west the ridgepole looks like a hog’s back. Small conical houses are to be found inland, but in only one district do I remember to have seen houses that were not built upon piles. At Maiva, in the central district, the sides and ends of the house are carried right down to the ground so as to give protection from mosquitoes, and the building looks like a hayrick.

Usually the house is only large enough for one family, but in the Fly River each building is really a street under one roof. The longest I have measured, though not the longest I have been in, was 360 feet long by about 60 feet wide. You could enter at either end by means of a sloping platform, and then at once have to stop till your eyes became accustomed to the difference between the glare of the sunlight outside and the semi-darkness inside. Gradually you would make out that you were standing at one end of what looked like an unusually long cow-shed. The path ran down the middle, and on either side were stalls. There the similarity ended, for in each stall was a fireplace, and instead of quiet cows, painted and feather-bedecked natives could be seen walking about, and bows and arrows, drums and nets, mats and paddles hung from the posts and partitions in place of the three-legged stools and milk pails.

No matter how poorly a cowhouse might be lighted, it would not be as dark as that house at Kiwai. Imagine its 360 feet of length without a single window, and its roof without one chimney, though the fires in the stalls were burning wood, and they did smoke. You did not quite need an axe to cut your way through that atmosphere, but before reaching the far end of the house I found my pace had quickened, and when once again in the pure outside air there was the same feeling of relief as when I came up out of the sea from my only experience of going below in a diving-dress.

Of all the Papuan houses I like those best which are built over the sea on piles. It is true that to get from one to the next you need to be something of a Blondin, if you take the high road, which consists of a single pole. On the other hand, if you are fond of a swim there is your opportunity all around you. From platform, door or window, you can dive or tumble in, and when you climb up into the house you want to visit there is no need to worry about wet clothes. The host has no carpets to spoil, and the hot sun and a strong sea breeze will soon dry thin cotton clothing.

In England men of many trades are required to build a house, and the materials are gathered from many different places. In Papua each man builds his own house, with the assistance of his own family and some of his friends, and gathers the materials from the supply he finds around him. The forest gives him his timber. The Sago palm or the Nepa palm supplies his thatch. In place of nails and screws he uses the cane and vines which he can find in almost any patch of forest, or strips of bark from many different kinds of trees. On the coast his flooring boards are made by splitting up the old dug-out canoes, or by the more laborious process of dividing a tree lengthwise and then adzing each half into a plank.

In some districts the native is not content with just putting his material together and providing a place to sleep in, but spends much time and a certain amount of skill and taste upon the decoration of his house. The best in this way are to be found in the eastern part of Papua, with elaborately-carved barge boards, or woven mat gables, with patterns worked out in white cowry shells.

All round Delena the houses lack ornamentation, though they differ in both plan and details of building. Perhaps the most interesting part of the work to watch is the putting on of the palm-leaf thatch. When the framework of the house is up, and the rafters all in position, the place of the slater’s battens is supplied by either strips of palm bark or strings of fibre. The palm leaves, doubled across the middle, are then pushed with one limb on either side of the strip and allowed to lie one on the other, much like the bits of carpet in the old cottage hearth rug. In this way a good thatch roof is made which will keep the water out for four or five years.

Another plan is to sew the palm leaves together and make long sheets of thatch, but this is not so tidy nor does it make so watertight a roof, and it needs some repair each year.

Paroparo.

[See page 7.]

The Snake Game.

[See page 9.]

Delena School Group.

[See page 11.]

Even in the most civilized parts of the country at the present time the stock of tools with which a native starts building his house would be considered absurdly inadequate by a British workman. A pointed stick takes the place of a pick and a cocoanut shell a shovel for sinking the holes for the posts. An axe and a knife are probably the only cutting tools, and the point of the knife has to serve for boring holes and the back of the axe for a hammer. Ill equipped as the native may be, he is ahead of his fathers. They only had stone axes, and to cut down a tree and adze two planks from it with such a tool was slow work indeed.

When I look at the size of some of his buildings, and see the way he overcomes his difficulties, and remember his scanty stock of tools and rough material, I consider him a clever man.

Sometimes the arrangements and calculations of the Old Folks as to the marriage are all upset by the girl refusing to marry the boy chosen for her. Then a long time of trouble begins. The boy’s father demands the return of the payment he has made, but that is not possible. The pigs have been eaten, and probably some of the neckshells, armshells, and necklaces have been passed on by the father of the girl in part payment for a wife for one of his sons. They are not allowed to fight it out now, so a war of words goes on every night. If the houses are one at either end of the village it is a war at long range, and there is little chance for those not interested to sleep, till the combatants are too hoarse to continue shouting. In the end a compromise is arranged, and perhaps the young people live happy ever after.

The married women are as a rule very patient, but at times they take matters into their own hands and free themselves from what they consider an unusually unfair share of the work. Two illustrations of this come to my mind. When I started at Delena a young man became my cook and general factotum. He claimed to be a cook because he could use a tin-opener, and his other qualifications were about on the same level. Early marriage being the rule I wondered why he was single and one day asked him. He said that he had been married, but that his wife was dead. Evidently he did not wish to go into details; but from another man I heard that the wife was so tired of her husband’s lazy habits, and of having to do all the garden work, that one day she cleaned up the garden and then hanged herself.

The other story ends better. At Tupuselei there lived a man who had great ideas of his personal appearance and his skill as a dancer. He was afflicted with the idea that if he dressed up in all his paint and feathers and let people admire him, that was enough to free him from garden work. His wife did not agree with him, and thought out a way of giving him a lesson. One evening he came home and did not find her waiting to give him his meal. Though he called, she did not show up; but the houses were close enough together for the neighbours to hear, and one of them answered—

“Your wife has gone to see her father.”

“What about my supper?”

“You will find your wife has left it in the pot on the fire to keep warm.”

In no sweet mood my gentleman removed the banana leaf wrapping from the top of the pot, and the smell made him wonder what he was going to have for supper. He certainly was not prepared for the new dish his wife had concocted. The first thing his wooden fork brought out of the pot was a bunch of his much-prized feathers. Then followed his pearl shell breast ornament, his armlets, his necklaces, and all the articles of personal adornment upon which he had so prided himself, and by way of gravy his precious paints.

His temper was not improved when he found his neighbours, who were in the secret, laughing at him, and delivering a farewell message from his wife, to the effect that she was tired of doing all the work and providing all the food. If he would not make a garden he had better try to live on his ornaments.

What became of the man for a time I do not know, but the woman continued to live with her father at a neighbouring village.

About a year later she found, morning by morning, a fine bunch of bananas on the verandah of the house, and told her father it was evident someone wished to marry her. Her father kept watch and found it was the former husband who was putting the bananas on the verandah, and knowing his character, asked him from whose garden he had stolen them. With a meekness quite new to him the husband replied that he had not stolen them at all. They were grown in his own new garden, the result of his own work, and he had brought them to show his wife that he had learnt his lesson, and could, and would, provide food for her and the children, if she would return to him. She did return to him, and they lived happy ever afterwards.

John Bunyan tells us that he and his wife started life “as poor as poor might be, not having as much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both.” The young Papuan couple are not quite so badly off as that, but few of us would like to set up housekeeping with their scanty stock. The bride will at least have a few pots, perhaps the result of her own work, or if she lives in a district where pots are not made, procured by barter from another district. She will have at least one big spoon, made by fastening part of a cocoanut shell to the end of a stick, and perhaps a smaller spoon also cut from cocoanut shell and carved. Her wardrobe will vary according to the district in which she lives, and may be as extensive as a few fibre skirts, or as scanty as a length of parcel string, or be absolutely nothing. Arms and ornaments are what the bridegroom brings to the common stock, for his clothes are scarcely worth counting.

Rocking the Cradle.

[See page 33.]

In time the cradle is wanted, and the young mother has not been able to buy one after the English pattern; but fortunately most of the real wants can be supplied by what grows around the native home, and the cradle comes from the banana plant. The fibre found in the stump is cleared of the soft pith that surrounds it, washed clean, and then twisted into a string as fine and nearly as evenly laid as whip cord; and the woman does all the twisting by rubbing the fibre between her hand and her thigh. When she has her string she makes the big bag that serves for the cradle, dyeing portions of the string as she goes along so as to work out her pattern. All the work is done without shuttle, mesh, or needle of any kind, and in the most used pattern there is only one length of string and only two knots—one at the beginning and one at the end of the work.

It would puzzle an English mother to put her baby comfortably into such a cradle, and perhaps puzzle her more to rock such a cradle. The picture will show you how the child is settled, and will make plain the ease with which it can be rocked. Just a push and away it goes like the pendulum of a big clock.

A mail cart would be of little use in a country where there are no roads, but this strange cradle can be used instead of one. When the mother wants to go to the garden or call upon a friend, all she has to do is to take the cradle from the rope by which it is suspended, and hang it down her back with what we may call the handle of the bag over her head. While the mothers are at work the children are hung up in strange places, and in walking through a banana plantation in which a number of women are at work, one might be forgiven for thinking that the plants were growing cradles with babies inside, instead of bunches of bananas, for the mothers make use of the shade given by the beautiful broad leaves to protect the children from the sun.

So far we have remained outside the house and talked about it. Now let us pay a visit to someone living in an ordinary house in Delena. We will find out if the owner is at home not by ringing a bell and then asking, but by standing in front of the house and calling his name. If he is inside he will answer by asking us to “Come up.” His front steps are about equal to the ladder in a poor hen roost, and with your boots on you will have to be careful. The rough poles that answer for the treads of the steps are far apart, and have no agreement as to angles, and when you have safely mounted to the last you will only have reached the verandah. Hobble skirts would never do for such steps. It was a stretch before you were up, but it will need a stoop, perhaps even you will have to go on your hands and knees before you can get through the small opening which does for a doorway.

Inside, as there is neither window nor chimney, and the house may be full of smoke, it will be well to wait a few minutes before beginning to explore, or you may knock your head against a spear or a net. As a rule the most the host can do for you is to spread a small mat on the floor, and invite you to sit upon it tailor fashion. He may have added a little to the small stock with which he began married life, but it is still a very small stock, and shows us how little one can go through life with. No tables, chairs, bedsteads or cupboards. No long list of kitchen utensils. No wardrobes stocked with clothes, or bottom drawer well filled with linen. No shelves lined with books. The floor takes the place of table, chair and bed. The native pots supply the means of cooking the native food. A few extra grass skirts for the wife, or an extra loin cloth for our host, may be hanging from the roof, and in the corner or stuck in the thatch are the spears, paddles and nets, and a few pointed sticks for use in the garden. The real valuables, the feathers and ornaments, are stowed away in a box if our friend is fortunate enough to possess one, or carefully wrapped up in strips of bark.

That you may know what the Papuan’s treasures are like, and be able to identify them in the museums, I have been to the village and borrowed a friend’s store box, and taken a photo of some of the contents. The feathers are not included, as they are all tied up in bunches, and later on you will see a picture of the head-dress made up and in wear.

Please now look at the picture and listen to the amateur showman as he proclaims, “Here, ladies and gentlemen, you have a collection of jewels from a far-off land.” It is often reported that anything may be bought from the simple savage for a few beads, a bit of red cloth, or a mirror, but much as you might wish to purchase this collection, nothing you could offer would persuade the owner to part with it.

The long necklace running along the bottom of the picture, and a little way up the sides, is made of dogs’ teeth. Only the canine teeth please remark, and if all the dogs who contributed to that necklace had their full compliment of ivory, then nearly forty had to be sacrificed. A man who does not possess such a necklace will find it impossible to purchase a wife for his son.

The thin necklace like a border round the picture is called taotao by the Motu people, but movio by the Maivans, and requires patience in the making. Each little bead is a small white cowry shell, and each has been ground flat before it could be sewn on to the string.

The greatest treasures of all are the koios, the one in the centre and four to the left of the picture. The dark part is a fretwork pattern cut from real turtle-shell, and then moulded into a white saucer cut from a large white shell. Do not ever call the man a duffer who can cut a koio with a boar’s tusk, or a shark’s tooth, or an old nail as his tool. Koios are only made by the people immediately round Hall Sound.

The Cuscus Game.

[See page 10.]

A fine frizzy Head.

A Friend lends a Hand.

[See page 18.]

Precious stones increase rapidly in value when the little ones are left behind. So do the Toeas, or arm shells. A small one may be worth little, but there is a rush when it is known that one large enough to go up to a man’s shoulder is on the market. I have known a native who was earning twelve pounds a year willingly pay £5 for such a Toea.

The half-moon pearl shell is worn on the breast, and no marriage is complete without one or more of these changing hands.

Above the pearl shell are two nose sticks, both cut from a clam shell and carefully ground into shape. Some of these are so long and so heavy that when worn through the septum of the nose an old sailor would be inclined to suggest that a topping lift might ease the strain, and add to the comfort of the wearer.

The two large pendants are made from wallaby teeth, and are worn on the breast on state occasions, with a few dry husks at the end that will rattle as the wearer walks about.

Seven small turtle-shell ear-rings only are shown, but it is nothing uncommon for a woman to wear as many as twenty of these in one ear at the same time.

Such, ladies and gentlemen, are the treasures of my friend Noi of Delena. You would probably only value them as curios, but to him they are treasures, and valued as heirlooms.

The Papuans are very conservative if asked to do anything contrary to the customs of their forefathers, but are not too conservative to adopt the customs of the white men when by so doing they can lighten the daily task, or add to their own comfort. They willingly take to steel tools instead of stone, and think a blanket a great improvement upon bark cloth, and like rice and bread to be added to their daily menu. Comparatively few, however, copy any of the household arrangements of the foreigner.

I remember one who did. He was chief of his village, and his house, though built of purely native material, was in shape something like my own, and was divided into two rooms and had home-made doors and windows. He had even gone so far as to make a table, a chair, and a sofa, and asked me to sit on the chair when I visited him. One glance, however, was enough to convince me that I might as well go comfortably to the floor, as find my way there in a hurry amidst the broken fragments of the chair.

A Hearth.

[See page 39.]

On the small table were three books which I quickly recognized as the Motu New Testament, a Hymn book, and the Catechism, and on top of the books a small bell. A few questions led Tanokari up to telling me he had been to my house, and seen the books and the bell and the use we made of them. When he had learnt to read he also bought books and a bell, and called his friends together at night so that he might have family prayers with them.

Many others have followed the lead of this chief as far as the books are concerned, and have learnt to make use of them as he did, but things sometimes seem strangely mixed. I have seen a native take down his netted bag, produce his book, and then with the greatest gravity put on a pair of spectacles and begin to read. His clothing would not have made a wrapping for a pair of boots, and perhaps the only other European things in the house were his hatchet and knife.

The hearth is in the centre of the floor, and the fire upon it serves as the light at night. An open fire in a thatch house suggests danger of the owner losing house and all his belongings by fire. The only precaution taken is that of putting earth on the boards where the fire is lighted, and surrounding all by four pieces of wood.

Fires are not so common as one would expect but when they do take place the whole village is usually swept away. In nearly every case the fire originates from the careless leaving about of a fire stick, but at Delena one Sunday afternoon we had excitement from another cause. An unusual wave of quarrelsomeness seemed to be passing over the village, and I had been preaching from the words, “Inai, au momo lahi maragi e haraia.” As that language is not taught in the English schools, I had better refer you to James iii. 7, and the latter part of the verse. By way of illustration I reminded the people that one fire stick would be enough to start a fire that would burn down the whole village. Less than half an hour after the service was finished there was a cry of “Fire” and a general rush to a house where the thatch was alight. Fortunately the fire was soon extinguished, and then the cause was sought. My sermon had produced an effect I neither expected nor desired. A little girl wanted to test the truth of my statement, and her experiment would have resulted in the destruction of the village but for the timely discovery of what she was doing.

This story of the little girl has taken us away from the inside of the house. We will go back to the hearth and notice the way in which the fire is built. When once it has been started sticks are placed like the spokes of a wheel, but they are only three in number. They meet in the centre of the hearth under the pot, and as they burn away have only to be pushed in a little till they again meet and replenish the fire. Three old cooking pots, turned the wrong way up, form a rough tripod on which the pot in use rests, and between them the three pieces of firewood are pushed to the centre of the hearth.

When first we came to Delena one of my wife’s great annoyances was the way the natives frequented the kitchen, and their curiosity as to the contents of the saucepans on the stove. Quite calmly they would walk in and lift the lid, and ask questions as to what they saw. I am not sure that they did not sample too, when they had a chance. You of course would not attempt to satisfy your curiosity in that way in a Papuan house, but I feel sure you would want to know something about the food, and I am equally sure you would not always care to share the Papuan’s meal, no matter how sharp set your appetite might be, for he is not at all particular as to what he eats.

For the most part his diet is a vegetable one, consisting of yams, sweet potatoes, taro, bananas, sago, and cocoanuts, but at one time and another I have seen the native eating and enjoying, not only his beloved pork, but wallaby, cuscus, rat, dog, snake, iguana, lizard, birds of nearly every kind, though there are a few he will not eat, shark, crocodile, the large fruit bat, and maggots as big as one’s thumb, which thrive in rotten palm stumps. These maggots are a great delicacy, and an old man once offered me a length of bamboo full and seemed surprised that I did not jump at the chance of purchasing them. In the Nara district they are so prized that an intertribal war was kept up for some years because two villages claimed certain land where the maggots were breeding freely in decayed sago palms.

The Papuan is not a great eater, and can go for long on very little food indeed, and then make up for it when he has the opportunity; but one wonders most at the little he drinks. He may have a green cocoanut after his meal, if he can get it, or may drink a little of the water the food was cooked in. At other times he drinks but little, and three or four men will start off for a day’s hunting with only a cocoanut shell of water between them. Certainly not more than a quart.

CHAPTER IV
Grandfather and Grandmother

Whatever may be the faults of the Papuan, neglect of the old folks is not one of them. The grandmother or grandfather is always sure of kind treatment and a full share of all the good things that may come to the larder. There is no chimney-corner for him to sit and doze in, but he has the comfortable corner of the verandah, and spends his time there looking after his grandchildren and occasionally making or mending the fishing nets.

To deal with him needs a very short chapter indeed. His active part in the work of life is over, and one is glad to be able to tell of how well he is looked after in his old age. A long talk with some of these old men brings home how great has been the change in the life of the native during the last forty years. They talk proudly of their deeds when they were strong young men, and cause the rising generation to envy them, but white grandfathers have been known to do the same, and we think none the worse of them.

CHAPTER V
The Sorcerer

If sorcerers could be banished from Papua, nearly all troubles would be banished with them. There are nominal chiefs in the villages, but their power is as nothing beside that of the sorcerer. In fact the chief seems only to have such power as comes from having a fist that can strike a heavier blow than any one else, or a voice that can be heard above all others. The sorcerer, on the other hand, is feared by all, and there is no doubt about his word often carrying death with it.

The Papuan knows nothing of the laws of Nature, and he usually traces home to the sorcerer the reason for all that happens to himself and his belongings. The sorcerer is the great trouble of his life, and his influence is ever present from birth to death. It cannot be dodged, and so has to be bought off. The power of the sorcerer is hereditary, but does not always pass to the eldest son. It seems to depend upon the possession of certain charms, and these may be almost anything from a stone to a bone.

A tight-laced Dandy.

[See page 19.]

Bringing in the Firewood.

[See page 23.]

Bridal Procession.

[See page 24.]

“Out like a Coal-scuttle Bonnet.”

[See p. 25.]

With so many to choose from it is difficult to decide which sorcerer shall be introduced, but perhaps it will be better to take Miria, the hereditary chief of Delena. He would probably strike you as the most friendly man in the village, as he is certainly the most vain. After I had taken his photo once or twice he seemed to think I never took the camera out for any other purpose, and I had to dodge in all sorts of ways so as not to offend him and yet save my plates. Smilingly he will readily admit that there are plenty of sorcerers in the neighbourhood, and that his father was one with much power. If asked as to his own connexion with the craft, he will smile still more blandly and tell you that he had a little to do with it in the past, but that was before he knew better. Exactly what he would mean by that remark I do not know. Perhaps his idea of time is vague, for he has only this month returned from serving his fourth term of imprisonment for sorcery.

My first contact with Miria as a sorcerer was soon after I landed at Delena. Late one night when all was quiet, a slight cough told me some one was near, and Miria, as silently as a ghost is supposed to move, came within the range of the light of my lamp. Sitting down in front of me, he began to explain that certain bad persons had accused him of having caused the death of a man by sorcery, and that the police were after him to take him to prison. Then he began to unwrap the parcel he had taken from his bag. It contained various smaller parcels, and from these he produced a bird-of-paradise plume, a small armshell, a very inferior nose stick, and one or two other bits of native finery. Evidently the greatest treasure was contained in a carefully wrapped-up matchbox. It was a shilling, and placing this by the side of the other things at my feet, Miria said all should be mine if I would tell the police they were not to take him to prison. I had some difficulty in persuading him that it was not through ill will that I refused his present, and offered the advice that he should give himself up, take his punishment like a man, and then have nothing more to do with sorcery.

The advice as to giving himself up he took, and I heard from the magistrate that he was an exemplary prisoner, gave no trouble to the warders, and, much to my surprise, gathered the other prisoners for prayers each morning and evening during the time of relaxation they were allowed. I had hopes that Miria would take the other part of the advice and have nothing more to do with sorcery, but in that I was disappointed. He had not long been back in the village when there were fresh complaints, and the police were again on his track. This time he tried to put out of sight the proof of his guilt, by bringing me a peculiar stone and asking that I would keep it.

I can remember our conversation, and give you the chief questions and answers.

“Well, Miria, what is this stone you have brought me?”

“Father, it is a great medicine (charm), with such power that any one looking upon it will die at once.”

“Should I die if I looked at it?” “Yes.”

“Well, I shall not sleep to-night till I have had a look at it. Where did you get it?”

“From a mountain man with whom I was in prison. He was also there because he was a sorcerer.”

“Had he the stone with him in prison?”

“No, but we made all the arrangements about it while we were in prison, and when we were liberated he got the stone from its hiding-place in the forest, and handed it over to me after I had paid him a big price.”

“Where was it hidden?”

“In a white ants’ nest. The man made a hole in the nest, put the stone in, and the ants soon built all round it and covered it up, and the man only knew where to look for it.”

“You really believe the stone has all the power you claim for it?”

“Yes; and I do not want the police to get it.”

“Well, now we will unwrap it and put the matter to the test.”

“You must not look at it. I will not stay to see you look at it.”

With that Miria cleared out of the house and left me to my fate. I looked at the stone—a queer water-worn piece, weighing about three pounds. I wondered what was its history, and how many lives it had ended, for there is no doubt that the natives do die because of the charms. The sorcerer has made use of his charm and said they will die, and that is enough. Die they do. However, I did not die as the result of looking at that stone, nor did any of the many boys and girls who during the next few months, saw it used as a door stop to my room. When at last I told them what it was, they were horrified, and gave my room a wide berth till I had put the stone away.

Parting with the stone did not save Miria. He was accused of having caused the death of a man at a neighbouring village, and the dead man’s friends, finding courage in numbers, came in a body and tried to settle accounts with Miria. I managed to save him from their spears, but in the end he had to serve another term in prison. When released he promised amendment, and however much he was suspected while I was in England, he was allowed to continue at liberty. Whether from love of power, or love of gain, it is hard to say, but he has fallen again. This time he was supposed to have made a man very ill, and the magistrate was determined to take all his charms from him. In the end Miria told where they were hidden, and there was no little excitement when the police arrived and began to pull to pieces a small house under the one in which Miria and his two wives and two families lived. They had to dig as well as pull down, and then the treasures were found. Up till then all the braver spirits in the village had lingered round the working party, but when the parcels were dug up the sight was too much for their nerves. In a few minutes the only people in the village were the police, the Rarotongan teacher’s wife, and two young boys who lived with us at the mission. They told my wife of the strange things the parcels contained, amongst them being the thigh-bone of Miria’s father, and the hand of his own dead child.

I do not know if you would think as much as I did of those two boys Anederea and Aisi remaining to watch the unwrapping of the charms. Probably not; but I realized how different their outlook had become from that of their friends and relatives and was thankful to see such a result of our teaching. All they expressed was disgust that Miria should have desecrated the bodies of his father and child, and pity for those who believed such remains possessed the power of life and death.

Whether Miria will ever cease from being a sorcerer I cannot tell, but sometimes I am sorry for him and think he would like to have done with the whole business, despite the gain it brings in the shape of payment for the use of his powers. He finds it difficult to cut himself adrift from the old life. If people come with presents and he receives them, then he is accused of accepting payment to practise sorcery. On the other hand, if he refuses the present, and any one even distantly connected with those who offered it becomes ill or dies, the trouble is put down to Miria, and it is reported that he is angry as the present was not of sufficient value, and the sickness or death has been the result of his anger.

It is not necessary to go very far back in history to find queer practices used in England in both surgery and medicine, but even that backward glance is not necessary in Papua. The strange practices are in use every day. A man is sick and a sorcerer is called in from a neighbouring village. He brings his outfit with him and, spreading the strange articles around him, begins to examine his patient. More often than not he pronounces it a case of a snake or a stone somewhere inside the patient, but occasionally the cause of the trouble may be as bulky as a whole wallaby skin. He then looks at the present offered him and begins manipulations with a view to removing the snake, stone, or wallaby skin. With various grunts and exclamations, and dives here and there, he says that it is coming away, but at last in despair he announces that he cannot manage it. The payment is not enough. Another pig must be added. If the sick man’s people have not the required pig they borrow one, and then the sorcerer begins again. “’Tis the little pig as done it.” Away comes the cause of all the trouble. At least so says the sorcerer, but no one ever sees it. He is careful to hide it in his blanket, or bark cloth.

The belief the people have in the power of the sorcerer to heal them may be useful to them, but unfortunately they believe that he can kill them. At times there is little doubt he uses poisons, and that he has power over real snakes, but it is a question as to how much the sorcerer deceives himself as well as the people and just what use he makes of the snakes. Rarely is any one bitten by a snake without its being put down to the account of some sorcerer, and many cases can be recalled of snakes being found in or near a house immediately after the sorcerer has threatened death, but in only one case can I remember the snake being in the possession of the man.

The magistrate of the district was making a raid upon the sorcerers, and though the man escaped he left his “kit” behind him. Amongst other things were two earthenware pots fitting the one over the other, and forming a closed vessel. Inside was a human skull, and while the magistrate was examining this a snake popped out. You may be sure the skull was promptly dropped and the snake killed, but unfortunately it was not examined to find out whether it was a poisonous one, and if so whether the fangs had been extracted.

There are many unsolved mysteries about the sorcerer, but all, Government officers, missionaries, and natives, vote him a nuisance.

Firing Pots.

Making Pots.

Thatchers at Work.

[See page 28.]

Delena House.

[See page 28.]

CHAPTER VI
A Sandalwood Church, and an Incident

About a year before I came to Delena sandalwood had been found in the neighbourhood, and at once traders began to get it cut and to export it to China. Till then the people had no idea that the wood growing around them was of any special value. “What has this to do with the Delena Church?” you may ask, and my reply is “Dohore,” the word that has been used to me so often that I am tired of it, and pass it on to you. It just means, “Wait a bit. Don’t be in a hurry.”

A very fair church can be built in Papua at a cost of from three to five pounds, but the trouble is they do not last long, and the one I found at Delena was in a sadly dilapidated condition when I began to use it. An expenditure of a couple of pounds would have put the building in good repair, but Sunday after Sunday we held our services in the shabby church, which let the rain in on us, and the people had their attention repeatedly drawn to the fact, and were told what other villages had done to supply themselves with a good church. They were slow to move, and nothing had been done when I left for my first holiday, with the conviction that there was nothing for it but to repair the church at the expense of the Mission.

Upon landing again at Delena my attention was attracted by a pile of freshly cut sandalwood stacked just inside the Mission fence. For a moment I wondered whether my teacher had been doing a little trading on his own account, or whether a trader had stacked his wood inside our fence for safety. “Dohore,” said the teacher, “you shall know all about the wood when you are in the house and I can talk to you.”

South Sea men usually go a long way round when they have a story to tell, and once in the house Matapo settled himself comfortably and got ready for a real good time. His story would be too long, so I will condense it.

“You remember,” said he, “that when you went to Thursday Island with Tamate in the Mary you took Naime and Henao. They saw many strange and many new things there, and when they returned to Delena they talked to their friends of what they had seen, and told of the stone church you took them to on the Sunday (the Quetta Memorial Church, now the Cathedral). How many times they told of that Church I do not know, but one evening some of the men came from the village, and said it would be good if they had a Beritani church in their village like the one Naime and Henao had seen in Thursday Island. “Such a church,” said Matapo, “costs a lot of money. It is no good your asking Donisi to build you one like that. He could not afford it.”

“We have talked of that,” answered the Delena men, “and we think we can pay for it ourselves.”

“How? You have no money.”

“Just so, but ‘dohore’. We have sandalwood growing on our land. That is worth money. We can cut it and sell it, and so pay for our church.”

As good as their word they went to work, cut and brought in the wood I found stacked inside the gate, and asked me to sell it and buy material for their Beritani church. It realized £72, and to that a friend in England added £30, and some friends in Sydney a few pounds more.

A concrete building was out of the question, but timber and iron were bought in Sydney, and the children’s ship, the John Williams, helped by bringing it all to Delena. Before we could build there was pick and shovel work to do, for the side of the hill had to be cut away to provide a site, and then we all turned carpenters and builders, and are rather proud of our work—partly because we think we made a good job of it, but more because the Delena men and women, and boys and girls—for they all had a share in it—contributed most of the cost, and that when they had little, if any, money in the village. The sandalwood they got for that church would have made them rich for a time, but they handed it over, and I have never heard one man regret that they did so.

Dressed up in Paint and Feathers.

[See page 30.]

Cooking Supper.

[See page 31.]

The Cradle.

[See page 32.]

Delena having taken the lead Matareu, the teacher at Queen Koloka’s village, tried to persuade his people to build themselves a new church. They would not undertake one of “Beritani” material, but began to collect, oh so slowly, the wood necessary for a new church after the old style. Plenty of patience is needed, even when you have engaged Papuans to do a piece of work and can tell them what they are to do each day, but when they are doing the work as a favour the man in charge wants to be a regular Job. Little by little the material was gathered, and now and then a few posts cut the required size, but Matareu and his own boys had to do most of the work. At last the frame was up and the thatch all ready to be put on. A day for this was appointed, but when it arrived the men all wanted to go hunting. Another day was chosen, but when that arrived the men found that the pigs were in their gardens and it was necessary for them to go and repair the fences. So it went on till at last Matareu was fairly tired of the “dohore” and the excuses, and when another appointed day arrived and the men did not put in an appearance, he and his boys set to work and before sundown had half the thatch in its place.

Little did he expect the trouble that was in store. Instead of being pleased when they saw how much had been done the men looked at it, and then passed sullenly on to their houses, and later on held a meeting in the club house. Matareu wondered what was the matter, but was not long in doubt, for along came Keo, the village policeman, evidently with some weighty message to deliver.

“Who has been putting the thatch on the church?” he asked.

“I have, with the help of my boys,” answered Matareu.

“Why have you done it?”

“Because I was tired of your saying ‘dohore’ so often.”

“You should have waited till we were ready.”

“I waited so long that I was tired. It was always ‘dohore,’ and I was afraid we should not have the roof on before the rains began.”

“You should have waited. You have done wrong. If these were the dark days we should take our axes and cut down the church and your house, and probably kill you.”

“Why? What have I done wrong?”

“You have broken our custom. When we are building a new club house no one is allowed to touch the thatching till Koloka’s husband has put the first piece in position. I am glad for your sake that the dark days have passed. As it is the village men are all very angry.”

Matareu explained to the village assembled that he had offended in ignorance, but he and his boys had to finish the work themselves. They could get no more help.

This incident not only illustrates the difficulty there is in getting work done in Papua, but shows how a man with the best of intentions may get into trouble with the natives.

CHAPTER VII
A Chapter of Accidents

For the most part a missionary leads a hum-drum life, but at times excitements come in, and are as welcome as the plums in a sailor’s “plum-duff” if not too exciting. Most of these incidents occur in connexion with travelling. In the chapter dealing with visiting our district I shall tell you how we travel, but the experiences described in this chapter are chosen from different journeys, some of them in distant parts of the country.

After four years at Port Moresby I was ordered away so that I might try and get free from the fever. Communication with Australia was not frequent, and the first stage, as far as Thursday Island, was made with Tamate in the Mary, the little boat built by the Mission on Murray Island. Our captain was a character. Formerly a pearl diver, he had been compelled to give up his occupation owing to diver’s paralysis. His qualification for the post was his experience of small boats, and never was a man more sure of himself. Few sailors take ships through the Torres Straits without having an anxious time, and as we sat on the deck in the moonlight Tamate remarked, “Well, cap’n, I hope you are not going to put us on the Portlocks or Eastern Fields”—both dangerous reefs. “No, Mr. Chalmers,” replied the captain, “I know just where we are. We shall see the opening in the Barrier Reef at about nine to-morrow morning, if this wind holds.” With that we went below. It was a tight pack the three of us in the little cabin, but two out of the three were soon sleeping soundly. Later on the third, who is now writing this, heard one of the boys on deck shout “’bout ship,” an unexpected order when we were supposed to be many miles from any land and on a sea rarely visited by vessels. That the reason for the order was a solid one there was no room for doubt, for the next minute crash, and the little Mary trembled all through, and Number Three was shaken from his shelf-like berth right on the top of the little captain. Bump, bump, bump, went the Mary, and as soon as the little hatchway would allow we got on deck, there in the glorious moonlight to have a view of the reef much before the time the captain had promised. We were right on top of it. In a few minutes both rudder and false keel had been wrenched off, and left behind, and after each wave had lifted the little vessel she came down with a crash that threatened to jump the masts out of her. That she did not go to pieces was owing to the good sound work that had been put into her on Murray Island.

Returning from Fishing.