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

by A. F. R. Wollaston

FLIES AND CRICKETS

At that time when the ground was being cleared we began to be plagued by large blue-bottle flies, which swarmed about the camp and laid their eggs everywhere. One of their favourite laying grounds was in our bedding, which in a hot damp climate must always be hung out to air when the sun shines. You would find two folds of your blanket stuck together with horrible masses of eggs and if, as sometimes happened, you did not scrape them all away you would wake up at night and find yourself crawling with maggots. There are some people who are afraid of spiders, but the most timorous of mortals must find the homely spider preferable to the loathsome blow fly. The house where we mostly lived at Wakatimi and where we had our meals was immediately filled with blue-bottles the moment our food was brought in, so we encouraged the larger sort of spider to live there and one old fellow who lived under the corner of the table used to come out at meal times and take his toll of flies, and in the course of time he became so tame that he would take a living fly out of your fingers.

At the same time, and indeed during the whole of our stay in the country, we were greatly annoyed by the depredations of very large crickets. Not content with making a most distracting noise by night these horrible creatures did endless damage to our eatable possessions. They invaded the sacks in which we kept our scanty garments, socks, vests and the like, and riddled them into holes, and they appeared to have a special partiality for sponges and brushes, which they devoured completely. Even more serious were their attacks on folded tents or sacks of rice and flour, which had to be constantly taken out of the store houses and repaired. When these things were taken out of the house a large number of crickets were taken out too, and then was the chance for the Kingfishers (Halcyon sanctus) which darted down and snapped them up. A pair of these beautiful little birds haunted the camp and became so tame that they would fly down from the roof of a house and pick up a cricket within a foot or two of a man.

BUILDING MATERIAL

When the ground had been well cleared and levelled, we set about the business of building barracks for the men and store houses for the provisions and equipment. The Dutch contingent had brought with them regulation army barrack frames, pieces of seasoned wood of definite lengths which are fitted together by bolts and screws, and form the skeleton of excellent houses. We had nothing of the kind, but the jungle supplied plenty of wood and our houses, though less regular than those of the Dutch, were very soon built. It is easy enough to put up the framework of a house in a place where there is plenty of timber, but the walls and the roof are a more difficult matter. Fortunately the natives were adepts in the art of making “atap,” which they use for roofing their own huts, and they were soon eagerly making it for us in exchange for our trade goods.

MAKING “ATAP” FOR ROOFING.

The best “atap” is made from the leaves of the Nipa palm (Nipa fruticans) which grows abundantly in the swampy country. Almost equally good “atap” can be made from the Sago palm, but the leaves of the Coconut palm shrivel quickly and are of no use for the purpose. The method of the manufacture of “atap” is briefly as follows: Leaflets of the palm are stripped from the stem, which is then split into three or four sticks of about an inch and a half in diameter and five or six feet in length. The man begins by taking up a leaf and folding it in the middle, thus breaking the mid-rib of the leaf. He then frees the mid-rib from the surrounding leaf for a short distance and breaks off a piece about three inches long for use presently. Then holding the stick near the end he pushes the free end of the mid-rib, which is separated from the leaf, into the soft substance of the stick and folds the leaf once round the stick in such a way that its two free ends lie one upon the other. He then clips together the free ends with the short piece he had broken from the mid-rib. He then repeats the process with another leaf, making each one slightly overlap the last, until the stick is completely covered with folded leaves. It should be said that each leaf is about three inches wide and four feet long so that the free ends, when the leaf is folded, lie about two feet from the stick. “Atap” is always made by the men, never by the women, and a quick worker will make a complete piece in about ten minutes.

The method of roofing with “atap” is very simple. Pieces are fixed by strands of rattan to the timbers of the roofing beginning from below and overlapping each other like tiles. The stick end of the “atap” is uppermost and the free ends point downwards. When there is no lack of “atap” and the pieces can be laid on the roof very closely together it forms a most efficient thatch, which keeps the house tolerably cool in the hot weather and is impervious to the heaviest downfall of rain.

The demand for “atap” started our regular trade with the natives, it brought us into friendly relations with them and they soon discovered that they could put confidence in us. When they found that we really paid them, as we promised, in beads and cloth, there was keen competition in the “atap” trade and they brought us as much as we wanted. For a few pieces only they received beads, while for ten pieces and upwards we paid them in cloth and they adopted various tricks to obtain cloth, when they knew that the amount they brought was only worth beads. One of their dodges was to bring old pieces of “atap” from their own houses to increase the size of the pile, and sometimes a man would steal two or three pieces from the pile of another man who had already been paid, but they were always found out and were not in the least ashamed of themselves. It was important to keep the price low, because we very well knew that when the people had obtained as much cloth and as many beads as they wanted they would never do any more work, and that did occur after a few months. They greatly enjoyed a little foolery. For instance, when you were paying them in cloth it was much more appreciated if you wound it artistically about the recipient’s head than if you merely thrust it into his hands; and in paying a man in beads it was thought a great joke if you let them slowly trickle into his palm out of your closed fist. His smile would grow with the pile of beads in his hand, and he always hoped to find some more concealed between your fingers.