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

by A. F. R. Wollaston

The distribution of tobacco in New Guinea is rather a puzzling question. There are many places on the coast where its use was unknown until quite recently, while at the same time the mountain people, for example, in the Arfak Mountains and on the upper reaches of the Fly and Kaiserin Augusta Rivers, have been accustomed to cultivate it and to barter it with their neighbours in the lowlands. The Tapiro pygmy people, who live in the mountains, cultivate tobacco and exchange it with the Papuans of the upper Mimika who grow none themselves. These facts have led some people to suppose that the tobacco plant is indigenous in New Guinea.

The people of Obota were rich in worldly possessions, for as we walked through the village we saw two Chinese brass gongs and a large porcelain pot, which they told us came from “Tarete.” It may be that at some time a Malay or Arab trader from Ternate came over to this part of the coast, but it is impossible to know; perhaps the things had been stolen and exchanged from one village to another, from the West end of the island, which is often visited by Ternate traders.

SAGO

But the chief reason for the prosperity of Obota is the fact that it lies at the edge of an extensive sago swamp, and sago is the mainstay of the food of the Papuans. Sago is made from a palm (Sagus rumphii) which always grows in wet places, generally in low ground near the sea, and it will even grow where the water is brackish.[7] The palm is thicker than a man’s body, and its height is about 25 or 30 feet. The trunk is covered with large leaves bearing long hard spines. A mature tree produces a large vertical spike of flowers and then dies. When they wish to collect sago, the natives cut down a full-grown palm and clear it of its leaves and leaf-sheaths. A wide strip of the bark is then cut off from the side of the tree which lies uppermost and the sago is exposed. The bark of the tree is really nothing more than a shell about an inch in thickness, enclosing the pith or sago, which is a brownish pulpy substance separated by fibrous strands. The pith is separated from the bark by means of the sago-beater, which is a sort of wooden hammer made in two pieces, a handle about a foot and a half long, carrying a head about twelve inches long; the hitting face of the head is about two inches in diameter, and it often bears a rather sharp rim which is useful in clearing the pith from the bark.

PAPUAN WOMAN CARRYING WOODEN BOWL OF SAGO.

When all the pith has been beaten out of the shell of the tree it is carried away to the nearest water, where the sago is extracted. A trough made of two wide basin-like leaf-bases of the sago palm is set up on crossed sticks about three feet from the ground in such a way that one basin is a little higher than the other. Lumps of the pith are then kneaded in the upper part of the trough with water which is constantly poured into it; the water carries away the sago into the lower part of the trough, and nothing remains above but the coarse fibrous stuff which is thrown away; the lower trough gradually becomes filled with sago and the water flows away. The sago, a dirty white substance with a rather sour smell, is made into cylindrical cakes of about 30 lbs. weight, and neatly wrapped up in leaves of the palm to be carried back to the village. Most of the work of collecting and preparing the sago is done by the women.

According to Mr. Wallace, one fair-sized sago palm will supply one man with food for a year, so it will be seen that the amount of labour required to feed a community in a district where sago is plentiful is not very overwhelming.

The usual method of cooking employed by the Papuans is to roll the sago into lumps about the size of a cricket ball and roast them in the embers of a fire. On one or two occasions I saw them prepare it in a different way, which was to wrap up the sago in banana leaves and cook it on hot stones; the result was probably more wholesome food than the charred lumps that they usually eat.

Very often the natives of the Mimika eat the crude sago, that is to say, the pith simply as it is cut out of the tree, without having been washed or pounded. The stuff is roasted in the usual way and the separation of the sago is done in the mouth of the eater, who spits out the uneatable fibre.