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

by A. F. R. Wollaston

The junction we had then reached was formed by a wide river coming, apparently, from due North and a much smaller branch, not more than ten yards wide, but deep and swift, joining it from the West. It appeared to be quite certain that the river we were in search of must be the Northern branch, and we should have followed it at once had not a number of natives appeared on the bank, and asked us to go and visit their village, which, they explained, was a short distance up the Western branch.

VISIT TO OBOTA

We soon reached Obota, as the village was called, a collection of about one hundred huts on both banks of the narrow river, and there we were accorded the usual welcome by a large crowd of people. As it was still early in the day we were anxious to continue our journey, and we proposed to go up the Northern branch, but the natives assured us that that led to nowhere and broke up into branches in the jungle, while the small stream which flowed through the village was the river flowing directly from the mountains.

It should be explained that this information was conveyed to us partly by long speeches of which we understood little or nothing, but chiefly by means of maps drawn on the ground. Some of the men drew their rivers crossing one another in a rather improbable manner, but many of them drew charts very intelligently, and at different times we obtained from the natives a good deal of geographical information which was substantially correct. On this occasion their maps all agreed in tracing the big river to branches in the jungle, and the small river to the mountains, so we were rather reluctantly persuaded that they were right, and we tried to induce some of them to go with us. Many of them offered to go the next day, but not one would start then—it was too late, it was going to rain, they had not eaten, and many other excuses—so we got into our canoes and attempted to paddle up the stream and found, what the natives doubtless knew, that we could not advance at all. Several times we tried, but were always driven back by the strong current, to the great delight of the natives who lined the banks and laughed at our feeble efforts, so there was nothing for it but to make a camp near the village and wait till the next day.

RIVER OBSTACLES

There was some difficulty about inducing the men to start in the morning, for it was raining, and, like other naked peoples, the Papuans dislike being wetted by rain, but we got off eventually with two natives, one at the bow and one at the stern, in each canoe, in addition to the crews of four Javanese soldiers and convicts. It was soon evident that without the help of the natives we could not possibly have ascended the river. For a mile or two above Obota the water ran like a mill-race in a very narrow channel full of rocks and sunken trees, and it was only by the most skilful poling and, when a chance occurred, by hauling the canoes along a side channel that we were able to proceed. When we returned a few days later, we skimmed in fifteen minutes down the rapids which we had taken more than three hours to ascend.

Above the rapids the river widened to about forty yards and the strength of the current was proportionately less, but in a few miles we met with another difficulty. At a sharp bend of the river the whole channel was blocked by an enormous barrier of huge trunks and limbs of trees piled high upon each other and wedged below into a solid mass. For larger boats this might have meant a delay of many days spent in cutting a channel, but the dug-out canoe is narrow and, if not flexible, it can be squeezed through the most unlikely openings, so that we passed the barrier without the loss of many hours.

When we started from Obota we had been doubtful whether it was possible that so small a river could possibly come from the mountains; but a little way above the barrier of logs our doubts were set at rest, when we found that our river was a mere off-shoot from another more than twice its volume, which flowed down to the sea at a village called Periepia. The main river, the Kapare, where we joined it, was more than a hundred yards wide, and in the next two days’ journey it hardly diminished at all in size. The character of the river differed markedly from that of the Mimika; its bed was of sand, denoting its mountain origin, in contrast to the brown mud of the Mimika and other jungle rivers, and its course was a procession of magnificent bends, quite unlike the paltry windings of the Mimika.

Paddling slowly up the river we disturbed companies of Hornbills (Rhytidoceros plicatus) which were feeding at the tops of the trees. These peculiarly hideous birds bark like dogs, and the loud “swishing” of their wings, as they slowly take flight, has been likened (not inaptly) to the starting puffs of a railway train. On this and on the other rivers we were often pleasantly reminded of home by the note of the Common Sandpiper (Totanus hypoleucus) which seemed to be quite as much at home in New Guinea as in its northern haunts. The last of these were seen in early April, and they began to reappear before the end of July. Very interesting birds, of which we saw a great number on this river, are the black and white Tree Ducks (Tadorna radjah). They have the curious habit of perching very cleverly on the topmost branches of the trees, and they make a pretty whistling by night.