The Lunatic at Amana
In the village of Amana we met the only halfwitted Papuan we saw in New Guinea. He had been imbecile from his birth, and at the time we saw him his age was probably from 28 to 30, but it might have been less. He could not speak and was very deaf. He was of a very pale coffee colour, and might probably have stood about 5 feet 6 inches, but he was strangely bent and very thin. He communicated with his fellows by means of signs, and was regarded in the village as quite an amusing character. In fact, to the best of my belief, he was maintained by the villagers simply because of the amusement they got out of him. He had a mother alive who was quite sane, but he himself lived alone, and was very nervous about coming out to see the white man. The tribesmen, however, were determined to show him off, and after a great deal of persuasion he was brought up to me.
They made signs to him to dance, and this was evidently a common pastime, for, without the least reluctance, he began his performance, which was unskilled enough and slightly repulsive. His dancing consisted of wobbling the head and feet at a tremendous rate and putting out his tongue. As soon as he began to show off, the Amana people sat down in front of him and enjoyed the spectacle. He took his mission of purveyor of diversion with deadly seriousness, and all the time he danced he made a strange mumbling noise. He was popular with the children also, and they would bring him out and set him dancing whenever they felt dull. For clothes he wore the usual native costume of the mountains, except the tight belt, which was perhaps too much an adjunct of dandyism for this unfortunate to affect. Not only would he dance at the word of command, but he would take off all his clothes to order, and carrying his meagre garments over his arm, he would run from one end of the village to the other clapping his hands in slow time. It was considered superexcellent fun to make him dance with his clothes off, and all the time the Philistines made game of the poor creature, who, however, was no Samson!
Another primitive jest was to give him unpalatable and impossible things to eat, but they had the decency never to let him actually eat a gift of charcoal—a not uncommon present—although they allowed him to come within an ace of doing so. He was tremendously greedy, and when cooking or eating was going on he would try to grab all he could. As soon as we began to prepare a meal he lost all fear of us, and pursued his usual tactics. He would snatch at our plates like a dog, seize as much as he could, and long before one could say that curiously cumbrous phrase “Jack Robinson,” he would have it all stuffed into his mouth. If we told him to go away, he would remove himself for about five yards and sit down. In a very few minutes he had crawled up again and would make another raid upon our dishes.
We had some most interesting conversations regarding the lunatic with Ow-bow, who told us what was to be known of his family history. Ow-bow said descriptively that he was “bad inside,” and added oracularly, “Olana lakuana,” which means, “Head no good.” We asked particularly if such a person would have been allowed to marry, whereupon Ow-bow gave an emphatic negative, saying, “Wabeeni daba kadena enai makana affi?” which is literally, “Woman what kind this fellow have?” (“What sort of woman would have this fellow?”) The poor unfortunate was, however, extremely harmless. One could do what one liked with him, for he was never known to lose his temper.
1.—LOOKING DOWN A NATIVE HANGING BRIDGE.
2.—A SIDE VIEW OF THE SAME BRIDGE.
“Aug. 13th.—Several carriers came, and we started at 10 A.M. and arrived at Foula at 3 P.M. It is a fairly large village for this part. They speak quite a different language from that of the Kebea and Dinawa. We rigged up a temporary verandah for our work. To-day we got a few good butterflies, but few moths at night; too much light. The height of our camp here is 2600 feet. We bought a pig to-day, killed it, and found it quite a treat; the meat was very good, and it afforded us fat for cooking.”