We witnessed also a dance of the Mombare people, who are likewise members of the native police. With the dancers was one woman. Their method was to jump up and down, and thus they worked slowly round the oval enclosure formed by spectators. They held themselves erect all the time, and their demeanour was not serious, the dance being accompanied by loud shouting and great perspiration. During all these dances the Orgiasts fell into a terrible state of excitement, and often could not stop dancing until they fell quite exhausted. Mountain dances are sometimes accompanied by tragedies, for the confusion of the revel is made the occasion for wiping off old scores, and a dancer will suddenly fall dead, struck through by the spear of his enemy.
CHAPTER XVI
BURIAL, WITCHCRAFT, AND OTHER THEMES
A Short-lived Race—An Aged Man a Curiosity—Burial Customs—The Chief Mourner painted Black—Period of Mourning brief except for the Chief Mourner—No Belief in Natural Death—Poison always Suspected—Religion all but absent—Vague Belief in Magic—Fi-fi a Form of Divination—How practised—Its Utter Childishness—No Idea of Number—Forest Warnings—“Wada,” another Form of Sorcery—Mavai’s Hideous Magical Compounds—A People seemingly without History or Legends—Pictures understood—Fear of the Stereoscope—The “Bau-bau” or Social Pipe—How Made and Smoked—Incidents of Travel—The Stinging Trees—Ideas of Medicine—Sovereign Remedies—Bleeding—How practised—Hunting—The Corral—A Strange Delicacy—Story of Native Trust in Me—A Loan of Beads—Children and their Sports—Thirty Ways of Cat’s-Cradle.
CHAPTER XVI
BURIAL, WITCHCRAFT, AND OTHER THEMES
The Papuans are not a long-lived race. The mountain people die off about forty: at Googooli, high up on the mountains, we saw one very old man, who may have been sixty years of age—the only example of longevity that we came across. He was a very pathetic spectacle: his features were almost gone, the skin was terribly shrivelled, and the eyes sunken. He was bent almost double, and had a long white beard. His fellow-tribesmen regarded him as a great curiosity, and brought him to see us. Despite the decrepitude of his body, however, there was no trace of senility: his senses were unimpaired; and the poor old creature showed great gratitude for a gift of tobacco.
Of the mountain people’s burial customs I have no precise knowledge, but at Hanuabada we were able to observe a coast funeral. The dead body was wrapped in a net and lashed to a pole, which was borne by two bearers. To the funeral, which was celebrated the morning after death, the whole village turned out, and followed the corpse without any regard to precedence, except that the chief mourner—in this case, the mother—walked immediately behind the bier. The chief mourner is invariably blacked all over with charcoal, but the others wear no token of sorrow. Just as the procession started the women set up a tremendous wailing, which was continued all the way to the grave. On reaching the burial-place, which was some seven minutes’ walk from the village, the corpse was set down, and the mother, seating herself at its head, encircled it with her arms, the hands being clasped below the chin, and began with shrill cries to try to call her son back to life. For twenty minutes, while the shallow grave was being dug, this ceremony proceeded, while the rest of the mourners sat around. The corpse was then lifted into the grave without much reverence and was covered up, the mourners waiting until this was done, whereupon they walked away and, as far as they were concerned, the mourning was over, and far from being a cause of sorrow, it had become merely an interesting topic of conversation. The chief mourner, however, if a woman, keeps the house, and sees no one after the funeral for a space that may extend to three weeks. It is indeed very difficult to persuade a mourner to leave the house. Another method of disposal of the dead is tree-burial. A light framework of bamboo or sticks is laid in the fork of a tree. On this the corpse, wrapped in bark, is exposed. When nature has done its work on the remains, the bones are afterwards distributed among the friends of the deceased.
1.—YOUNG NATIVES’ CURIOSITY ABOUT MY CAMERA.
2.—WOMEN CARRIERS ON THE WAY TO PORT MORESBY.
They do not believe in a natural death, and attribute every decease to poison in a vague and general sort of way. Belief in another world they have none, and the most elementary ideas of religion do not seem to exist. There is not even any definite superstition, but only a sort of vague and particularly childish belief in some kind of magic under the name of “Fi-fi.” This is a sort of divination, and is practised at night by a recognised medium, usually a girl, who is “Fi-fi,” and yet who is, at the same time, believed to represent this mysterious power known as “Fi-fi.”