Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

by Alfred C. Haddon

We arrived at Siruwai, or Kăpăkăpă as it is generally called, about 12.30; after lunch we went ashore in a whale boat brought to us by the L.M.S. teacher, a native of Niue, an island in the South Pacific.

Kăpăkăpă is essentially a marine village, but there are a few houses on the land, also several elaborately carved wooden platforms, or dubus. The dubus which are found in this region of New Guinea are taboo platforms, or stagings, on which the men sit and feast; here also they discuss private and public affairs. A dubu is, in fact, a sort of skeletonised club-house, which may not be approached by the women. ([Plate XVII., A, p. 232.])

Close by, jutting above the level of the water, are a number of charred stumps which mark the site of the village of East Kăpăkăpă, which was destroyed by a band of Bulaa men. All, or nearly all, the inhabitants were killed, and the village destroyed by fire, a repetition of the history of the Swiss pile dwellings. Wilkin photographed the burnt piles, and also some houses in process of manufacture. He and Seligmann stayed here while Ray and I walked a mile and a quarter to Vatorata (Vatororuata) to see Dr. Lawes, the revered L.M.S. missionary and well-known Papuan scholar.

There is a fair road along an alluvial valley-plain, through which a small river runs. Most of the plain is covered with a tall, coarse, broad-leafed grass, with clumps of trees. Dr. Lawes’ house is situated on the spur of a moderately high steep hill. The Mission premises consist of 150 acres, all fenced in. The steep road immediately up to the house is lined by twenty students’ houses, each of which is named by or after the donor. These comfortable little houses cost but £5 apiece to build. Beyond these is a well-built handsome church and schoolhouse. The Mission residency is a large, comfortable, airy house, commanding a lovely view of mountains and lowland scenery.

Dr. Lawes, like most of the other white missionaries of the London Missionary Society, no longer does what may be termed ordinary evangelistic work in the midst of a village, this is performed by South Sea teachers, but he is practically solely occupied with the more important work of translating the Bible into Motu and in training native teachers, who here are all married men. The students, who come from various districts, can all read fluently, and are proficient in arithmetic up to fractions. They are well acquainted with the geography of Australasia, and are familiar with the position of Her Majesty the Queen with regard to the world and British New Guinea. Naturally they have mastered the main facts and principles of the Gospels. Their writing, as is generally the case in these native classes, is very good.

Mrs. Lawes superintends the domestic education of the teachers’ wives. Each wife cuts out and sews the clothes of the family, plaits mats, does the washing, makes the starch and dresses her husband’s shirts, prepares the food, and keeps the house clean and orderly. The husbands also work in their food-gardens, build the houses, and make the furniture. The advanced students conduct classes of younger ones.

I have gleaned most of the foregoing description from Sir William Macgregor’s final report, and I cannot do better than quote his summing up. “As far as an experience of ten years can enable one to judge, the system of education and training initiated and now in force at Vatorata is so suitable to the circumstances of the country and to the character and condition of the natives, that it would be difficult to suggest any change that would be an improvement” (p. 50). No one has had a better opportunity of judging the value of the work done by Dr. and Mrs. Lawes than has the late Lieutenant-Governor of British New Guinea, and it would be unseemly for me to do more than add my testimony to the wisdom of their methods of training teachers.

In dealing with primitive peoples the problem is constantly arising how far it is wise that their mode of living should be altered seriously. I imagine that nobody objects to the humanising of natives, a term which I prefer to the somewhat ambiguous one of civilising. At the same time I cannot refrain from pointing out that, according to some whose opinion carries weight, the less primitive peoples are Europeanised the better it is for them.

Dr. and Mrs. Lawes gave us a very cordial reception—the former is a veritable patriarch, the latter is very bright, and from all we have heard and seen has proved herself to be a splendid missionary’s wife. We had a most welcome shower-bath after the nearly as welcome afternoon tea. Dr. Lawes sent a note to Mr. A. C. English, the Government Agent for the Rigo District, who lives a mile and a half inland, to come across to see us. A pencilled reply came that he was lying on the floor shivering with a temperature of 104°, and all his blankets atop of him. Scarcely had we finished dinner than in he walked, having adopted his usual plan of taking exercise to shake off an attack of fever. We had a very pleasant chat about British New Guinea, and I made some rubbings of two pipes from an inland tribe, the type of decoration of which was new to me.

We walked back to the village of Kăpăkăpă, and happened on a dance. In most of the figures of the dance two parallel rows of dancers faced one another; the majority of the lads had drums, which they held in their left hand and beat with the extended fingers of the right. A number of lassies joined in the dance, and this was the first time in New Guinea I had seen both sexes dancing together. There was usually a girl between each lad, the girl on the boy’s right hand put her left arm round his right arm.