Natives who grow crops of hair—A word or two about the women—Duties of married women—How they carry their babes, and the philosophy of childhood.
The natives of New Guinea are fine specimens of human nature, but taken as a race they cannot be compared to the Maoris of New Zealand or even to the Fijians. The men are infinitely better-looking than the women, and their splendid stock of hair, which they wear bunched up all over their head, sets off their appearance in a remarkable manner. The young women are bright and cheerful-looking, and amongst them there are some striking creatures; but there are many sad-looking specimens, some of the old women are veritable hags, and many fine young girls are quite spoilt by the quaint habit they have of shaving their heads, whilst some of the best specimens of men are disfigured by their yellow, bloodshot eyes, so noticeable in contrast to their dark skins.
As workers the New Guinea natives are probably in advance of many natives of the adjoining islands. They are, of course, better than the aboriginal of Australia, who would as lief die as do an honest day’s work, but that does not say much for them. There is no doubt about it, they do not love work, though they get through a certain amount.
In Port Moresby the natives of Hanuabada and Elevera live chiefly by fishing, canoe-building, and pottery-making. The men do the fishing and canoe-building, whilst the women and children loiter over the pottery-making. There is a complete absence of hurry; all the natives work as if they had a lifetime to complete their job; there is a calmness in them that is only rivalled by the sky over their heads and the air that blows over this island, and perhaps it is from nature they have learnt that calm and stolid indifference to just those things over which we believe it is necessary to hustle.
IN THE PILE DWELLINGS AT HANUABADA, PORT MORESBY, BRITISH NEW GUINEA.
One extremely peculiar trait in the character of the natives of British New Guinea is their dislike to inquisitiveness. You can implore a native to tell you his name, and even offer him coin to pay him for that information, but it has no effect. He {27} will tell you some name, if you press him hard enough, but it won’t be his, as you will discover if you try to find him again. As an instance of this peculiarity, Mr. Norman Hardy was particularly struck by a canoe he saw lying on the sand in the main street of Elevera, and seeing a native standing by, he asked him if the canoe belonged to him, as he would like to buy it. The native smiled blandly and shook his head.
“Don’t you know whose it is?” asked Mr. Hardy.
“Don’t know; man over there, p’r’aps,” said the native.
“What’s his name?” Mr. Hardy pursued.
“No name.” The native shook his bushy head.
“Well, show me which is the hut he lives in.”
At this question the man began to fidget, and then, glancing carelessly at the row of huts, all as like each other as peas, he swept his hand past the whole lot and said:
“That one.”
And that was all the information concerning the name and possessor of the canoe that Mr. Hardy obtained. Subsequently he learned that the owner of it was the very man he had been questioning.
The same kind of reticence has been found by {28} all travellers who have been anxious to find out the ways, the customs, and secret rites of the natives; but, luckily, now and then a man who will talk has been found, and then, by using the knowledge gained from him and showing the others that you know a certain amount about the matter, it is possible to get a fund of information; though it is always necessary to corroborate everything you hear, as the art of lying has been brought to a perfect science in these islands—probably by the march of civilisation and the example the natives have been set by the traders—nearly all natives become liars when they are civilised.
Throughout the island the bulk of the work is done by the women-folk, the men being little less than pampered loafers. There is some sort of an excuse for this, which, it is only fair to state, is the result of altered circumstances. In the early days the men were ever on the watch for enemies, and lived in constant preparedness for a surprise attack. By day they carried their spears and clubs about with them, and by night they slept alongside them. There were very few organised fights compared with those of other islands, except when a big head-hunting expedition was on, but at these times the natives would get wind of it; what they had to {29} guard against were small surprise attacks, and of these they could not obtain information, as they were generally planned on the spur of the moment. Most of these stalking excursions were undertaken to supply a sacrifice for a feast, and a native would be singled out in some adjoining village to fill the want, or else some chief would require the wife of some other chief, and she would have to be stolen, or a child had to be kidnapped to spite its parents, and so the men in every village had to be constantly on the watch, which, of course, hindered them from working, and left the bulk of the labour to the women; but now that civilisation has altered the relationship of the tribes and lessened the chances of these attacks, the occupation of the men has practically ceased; under the new régime they have gradually become loafers, and the women still continue the duties they have performed for generations.
Organised labour is almost unknown, but certain yam patches are owned by certain natives, and the women work them as they do the banana and the cocoa-nut groves. In Port Moresby Messrs. Burns Philp employ a number of men and women for their stores, and for loading and unloading the trading vessels, but even the heavy work of carrying {30} the timber is sometimes done by the women, whilst the men loiter about doing as little as they possibly can. The police, who are clothed in blue with white facings, are perhaps the busiest natives in the township; what is more, they are extremely proud of their clothes and their work, and their exalted position as Government officials makes them scorn their less fortunate brethren. Their duties, beyond keeping law and order, are very slight, and amount to an occasional job of rowing Government men about and mounting guard over stray prisoners.
The native costume of British New Guinea is meagre. With the men, when they are not absolutely nude, a narrow girdle round their waist is considered sufficient, whilst a bunch of dogs’ teeth hung from their ears, a pointed, carved bone run through their noses, and armlets of vegetable fibre, would comprise a big outfit and make its owner as proud as a peacock. At festivals, dances, and funerals their clothing is more elaborate, and they are more highly decorated with masks, mats, and feathers. And when in mourning, they are so over-dressed that it is impossible to recognise that the bundle before you is really a human being. The state or ceremonial costumes of New Guinea vary considerably in the different parts of the {31} island, and each tribe has its own particular fancy as to what ought really to be worn, and what ought not; the only consistency concerning clothes throughout the island is found when the men are either loafing about or working, and then they wear as little as possible.
NATIVE OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA, SHOWING THE MANNER OF WEARING THE HAIR.
The women and young girls usually wear fibre aprons hanging from their waists to a distance of about eighteen inches, whilst for dancing and religious ceremonies more luxurious and more lengthy ones, dyed in different colours, are worn. When dancing the aprons of the unmarried women are left open at the right side, so that the tattooing on their hips and thighs can be seen. This bit of coyness is to show that they are ready to be married, and that they are still heart-whole, for directly a girl reaches the marriageable age, and wants all the men to know it, she is carefully tattooed. Another mark of distinction between the married and unmarried women is in the hair: the married ones wear it very closely cut, while the single ones pride themselves, like the men, on their enormous bushy crops. This custom, however, varies in different tribes, and the hair is arranged in numerous ways, according to the fashion of the part of the island in which the native is born. {32}
The Papuan dandy takes no end of care over his hair, which grows to a great length and is frizzled and bunched up all round his head, and some of them, farther up the gulf, arrange their hair in this fashion purely for sale, and when a full crop is ready they shave it off and sell it up country.
What “the man belong bush” uses it for I don’t know, though some kind of string is seen in different places which is probably made from it. As in Fiji and Samoa and Honolulu, it is common to see bleached hair. It is done for sanitary reasons primarily, and fashion has helped the custom. Tattooing, however, is not fashionable amongst the men.
The children, like those of other savage races, are completely nude. They are bright and happy little beggars, and as a rule are free from nervousness in the presence of strangers and whites. They will stand round you in groups, with wide-open mouths and eyes, but they have a tendency to catch hold of each other, and those who are shyest keep slightly behind the bolder ones. They are born swimmers and divers, and seem to spend half their days in the water, prancing, splashing about, and diving, utterly regardless of time or season, and I don’t think they ever catch cold.
A NEW GUINEA DANDY
{33}
Amongst the children’s games there are two at least that look familiar to Europeans—a kind of leap-frog and pig-a-back. The former is played in all the varying ways of the English schoolboy, single leaping and leaping whole rows; whilst pig-a-back riding is quite the same game that our children indulge in. Another game which is interesting to watch is that known as evanena: in this two rows of players stand facing each other at a distance of about a foot apart, and when they are thus arranged each boy catches hold of the arm of the one facing, and grips it below the elbow with one hand, and with the other he takes a firm hold of his own arm with his disengaged hand, thus forming a platform of human arms. A boy then gets up on to this platform and runs forward. Immediately he has passed over the first pair they let go of each other and run forward, and place themselves in front of the others at the end of the row, thus making a continuous passage, enabling a constant race to be kept up with the boy on the platform and those forming it. Roars of laughter greet the youth who is fast enough to reach the end of the platform before another lap is ready for him, and if he succeeds in doing this he is a proud winner, but if, on the {34} other hand, he stumbles and falls he is anything but a hero, and becomes one of the figures of the platform, taking the place of one of the end boys.
Many of the other games are rough, boyish imitations of the sacred ceremonies which their elders conduct with such decorum. Of course they are not true imitations, because many of these ceremonies are secret and none but authorised natives are allowed to take part in them.
The girls have a few games of their own, but very seldom join in with the boys. From their earliest days they are trained to work, and playing is considered frivolous and unwomanly. One sees many more young women paddling canoes than young men; the men prefer to play and watch their sisters work. Chivalry is not a forte of theirs.
WOMAN WITH BABY IN BAG, FAIRFAX ISLAND, BRITISH NEW GUINEA
As soon as the girls are old enough they are initiated into the art of pottery-making, cooking, and other domestic duties, but what they all take most pleasure in is dancing. Their sole ambition in life seems to be to excel in this art—and become wives; though the latter occupation has few benefits, and, to the outsider who has studied the life of the married women, marriage would seem a grievous calamity to be avoided at all {35} costs—at least a Papuan one. The work of the married women is most arduous, and their whole existence seems to be taken up in waiting hand and foot on their loafing lords, bearing children, and bringing them up. All the cares and worries of the precarious lives of these natives seem to be thrown on to the shoulders of wives, who bear it with a stolid philosophy that defies imitation.
One of the most remarkable things about the mother is her unique way of carrying her child, a method totally different from that of any other savage or civilised race. From its infancy the baby is put into a sort of miniature hammock made of vegetable fibre, with a very fine mesh, through which the little bundle of humanity can be seen kicking merrily. When carrying the child, the ends of this hammock, which are woven together and make a circle of the net, are placed over, and rest on the mother’s head. Thus the baby hangs suspended in this arrangement just below the woman’s breasts or over her back. It is a convenient arrangement, for the mother is perfectly free to walk about and, if necessary, work a little with her hands. As a rule, however, when she is working she hangs her child up on one of the cross-beams of her hut, and many can be seen thus suspended under the {36} verandah-like shades of the roofs, when they look very much like cocoons.
This form of carrying a weight, however, is not peculiar to the Papuan, as instances of it can be seen in Egypt. A native porter will often suspend a heavy portmanteau by straps from the top of his head and jog along serenely with it. Child-carrying in this way is, however, quite original and is, I believe, only seen in New Guinea. The Maori method of carrying them on their backs, wrapped in a shawl which the woman crosses over her chest, is infinitely better in some respects, as it enables her to do hard labour without any inconvenience.
One trait that is particularly noticeable among all the children of savage races is their silent philosophy. No matter what happens these babes remain serenely calm; they may be left for hours without food or drink, they may be hung upside down, dropped, trodden on,—in fact, any calamity may befall them,—but still they are silent. The only difference that is evident is when they have been uncomfortable for hours and are suddenly put right, when they resume their kicking, but very soon even this form of exuberance subsides, and silence, unmoved silence, is restored.