Pygmies & Papuans: The Stone Age To-day in Dutch New Guinea

by A. F. R. Wollaston

[CHAPTER V]

Arrival of our Ambonese—Coolie Considerations—Canoes of the Natives—Making Canoes—Preliminary Exploration of the Mimika—Variable Tides—Completing the Camp—A Plague of Flies—Also of Crickets—Making “Atap”—Trading with the Natives—Trade Goods.

AMBONESE COOLIES

After all the stores and equipment of the expedition had been landed at Wakatimi, an operation which took six days and some ten or more journeys of the steam launch towing many boats to accomplish, the Nias returned to Dobo, and brought back from there on the 14th January our Ambonese coolies, who had arrived there by mail steamer from Amboina. To those of us who had had experience of native carriers in other countries, the appearance of the ninety-six Ambonese came as something of a shock. When the boats crowded with them came within sight of the camp the natives cried out that our women were coming, and they might well be excused for their mistake. With their wide straw hats and coloured coats and shirts and gay sarongs they had not much the appearance of men, and we wondered what sort of people they would be to force a way through the trackless country. When they landed, our first impression of their unsuitableness was rather strengthened than otherwise. Every man (to give them a dignity which very few of them deserved) had a large wooden or tin box as well as a huge bundle of bedding and mats. Their average age appeared to be about sixteen years, and though they were said to be the best men obtainable in Amboina, the physique of most of them was wretched. It was evidently useless to keep so many feeble creatures, so it was decided to keep fifty of the more promising and send the rest back to Amboina by the Nias, which was waiting at the mouth of the Mimika until the following day. The whole gang was paraded and a more hopeless looking lot it would be hard to imagine. With great difficulty we picked out fifty who, though they had little appearance of strength, were not obviously crippled by disease, and the forty-six others were sent away without having done a single day’s work.

CANOE-MAKING: ROUGHLY SHAPING THE FELLED TREE.

AMBONESE COOLIES

The question of coolies, as we were to find by bitter experience during the ensuing months, is the point that determines the success or failure of an expedition. Mr. Stalker had left England charged with the duty of engaging coolies for this expedition. It was hoped that he would be able to get a number of men in the Ké Islands, but failing to engage them there he had seen in Amboina his only chance of recruiting a sufficient number of men. No blame can be attached to him, for he had had no experience of the kind before and his instructions were not very detailed, but it was a mistake which seriously delayed the progress of the expedition.

As well as the trouble involved in trying to make a silk purse of efficient coolies out of the sow’s ear of the Amboina rabble we were confronted by another difficulty of transport. It has been mentioned above (page 43) that before we arrived in the country it was expected that we should find rising ground close to the sea, and that in a few days’ journey at the most we should reach an altitude of three thousand feet or upwards, but the discovery that there was a tract of level country hardly above sea level extending from the coast to the foot of the mountains thirty miles inland entirely upset our calculations. Had we known this before we should necessarily have brought a launch and boats to tow our stores up the many miles of navigable river, and by so doing we should have saved ourselves many weeks of valuable time and an infinity of labour. It is worth while to record this fact, not for the object of drawing attention to any deficiencies in the organisation of the expedition, but to demonstrate the uselessness of entering an unknown country without having made a preliminary reconnaissance.