H. M. Dauncey

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.