Two Years Among New Guinea Cannibals / A Naturalist's Sojourn Among the Aborigines of Unexplored New Guinea

by A. E. Pratt

THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY OF NEW GUINEA.
The natives shout their news from hill-top to hill-top, thus conveying it with amazing rapidity.

The first precaution was to take measures for the preservation of our moths and birds, so we made deep trays from the logs we had already sawn and held over from our house-building, each tray being strong enough to resist concussion, for as it would be carelessly carried, swung on a long bamboo, and allowed to dash against trees and other obstacles, the antennæ and legs of our specimens would be easily jarred, and very probably shaken off. The butterflies did not require such care, for each specimen was wrapped in paper and laid in sago boxes. Inside the wooden cases we placed the moth boxes proper, and in other two cases we laid our birds. Outside everything we pasted paper, treated with arsenic, to keep out insects when we should come to the lower ground, for the tiny ants at Port Moresby are legion and can penetrate the smallest aperture; once the ants enter a naturalist’s collection, woe betide it! Our only trouble during these packing operations was that we had not any nails small enough, for the huge ones we had brought from the coast very often split the wood.

During our last fourteen days at Dinawa we had one small gleam of good fortune in our collecting, for, curiously enough, we had quite a run of good nights with the moths. The nights were dark and misty, and we very often had sufficient success to encourage us to remain on the verandah and work until the small hours.

The second morning after the day we had our first news of Gaberio there was more calling, and shortly we heard that our follower was still at Kea-ka-mana, and that he had after all decided to go to the Kebea, and would return that way. The next day, while we were hard at work on our packing, we heard that Gaberio was on the Kebea—very pleasant news—for he was right in the heart of the best locality for the blue bird of paradise and for heterocera. There was another reason why this news was encouraging, and that was that a native feast was pending at Kea-ka-mana, and we had feared that Gaberio might be tempted to waste his time there in savage orgies. According to the latest intelligence, Gaberio would still be absent four or five days, and as he was in such a fine collecting country we hoped he would stay out to the end of his tether. Gaberio, however, did not fulfil our expectations in this respect, for the next day, shortly after noon, we heard that he was not at the Kebea at all, but that he was approaching the village on the ridge opposite, about 500 or 600 feet above Dinawa. Three hours later the intelligence department lied. It announced that Gaberio was at hand, the fiction being invented, no doubt, out of the savage’s fondness for creating a little pleasurable expectation. Unconsciously, however, Gaberio himself disproved the story, for we heard his gun far away on the heights, and we were able to locate him. Before nightfall we knew that he was really at the village first mentioned, for we could clearly distinguish his tent.

The next morning, September 21, both Harry and I slept late, for we had had an extremely heavy day. While we were still in bed we heard a shot from Gaberio, whom we welcomed back about eleven o’clock. He brought a really good collection, which included three blue birds of paradise and four longtails. Gaberio’s news, however, was not all good, for he had to report that one of his boys had been murdered. Whether the chief of Baw-boi had a hand in it, or whether there was a private reason for the crime, I cannot say. It was not on the Baw-boi side of the river, so perhaps if it was not fortune of war it may have been misfortune of love, for the eternal feminine is as potent in Papua for evil as she has been in other lands since Eden or Troy was lost. Be that as it may, the lad, a carrier from the village of Kowaka, about a day’s journey from Dinawa, went out from camp at Ta-poo-a one night into the forest, and there the adversary overtook him. It is probable that he was laid wait for, or he may merely have fallen to the spear of some wandering marauders. The natives in camp heard his cry and were speedily on the spot, but it was too late. He had been speared through the cheek, and his jugular vein had been severed. In a very few minutes he died. The victim’s own kindred came in to take charge of the body, arriving even before Gaberio’s messenger could reach their village, so swift and mysterious is the communication of news in New Guinea.

Now that Gaberio was back we were more than ever anxious to leave, for our provisions were running very low, and we were living principally on cockatoo soup. To make matters worse we had almost run out of ammunition, and for some time not even a pigeon broke the monotony of our poor fare. Occasionally we procured one or two sweet potatoes, but the natives were naturally very unwilling to sell them. A further difficulty stared us in the face, for the exhaustion of the natives through famine was now so great that I did not know how we were to get our baggage down to the coast, but relief dropped, if not from the clouds, at least from the hills.

One day we heard that the people of Ibala, who had heard of the white men’s coming, had been sufficiently overcome with curiosity to make the journey from their distant home to visit us. At that home of theirs, far away on one of the greater mountain sides of the Owen Stanley range, I had often gazed with wonder and all the explorer’s longing. Some five or six days’ journey to the north towered a great and mysterious peak, higher than Mount Yule, the northern slopes of which I imagine were in German territory. Close to this mountain was a range of low foot-hills, bare of trees, but clothed, as far as we could make out through our glasses, with rich pasturage, and it seemed an ideal spot for some future stock-breeder in New Guinea, for such open spaces for grazing-grounds are uncommon in the island. From these foot-hills there rose continually into the clear air countless columns of pale blue smoke, telling of a numerous population. On the mountain the forests hung dense to the summit, but the strangest thing of all was that through these masses of trees there ran what seemed like a drive, rising straight to the highest ridge, its sides as sharply and clearly marked as though it had been cleared by the hand of man. There were no straggling trees dotted here and there at irregular intervals from the sides. The forest left off sharply in an ascending line, but the space seemed to extend for at least 300 yards, and then the forest began again, being as clearly defined as the side of a well-built street. On the very summit we could make out through our glasses the presence of giant araucarias, of which I obtained some specimens from Sam, who, while absent on one of his short expeditions, sent a native up the mountain for seedlings. I hoped that one of these might find a home in some British collection, but, unfortunately, it died of the drought.

NATIVES OF ENUMAKA IN THE OWEN STANLEY RANGE.

It was from that region that the Ibala people hailed, and certainly, had the difficulties of transport not been so great, I should long ere this have visited them in their fastnesses. These fine northern men entered camp very shyly, and sat down with great diffidence. In appearance they were really handsome. Each man stood 5 feet 8 inches on an average; all were of fine physique and of a rich copper colour. Their women, of whom they brought a few, were not quite so tall. They were all in full finery, the men decorated with feathers, their faces painted in regular stripes with the juice of a scarlet berry. Between each red stripe ran a line of charcoal to set off the colour. A few of them wore the transverse pencil of tapering shell thrust through the septum of the nose, a form of decoration much affected by Papuan dandies. The women’s chief article of apparel was the customary dogs’ teeth necklace.