The horses were left here in charge of one of the party to be afterwards fetched by natives by a long détour. The rest of us had a steep climb up a detached hill, on the top of which was the small village of Atsiamakara. To the east of this hill is another higher one and with precipitous sides, but separated from it by a deep ravine; to the north and west is open, wooded, hilly country.
It is characteristic of these bush tribes to build their villages on the top of hills for the sake of safety from attack. Many of the villages formerly had tree-houses, but there are now very few of these left, as the country has been pacified. This village itself had some tree-houses, but no trace of them now remains. These tree-houses were used as places of refuge when the village was attacked. It might strike the reader that it would be very easy to chop down the tree and so destroy the refugees at one fell blow, but it must be remembered that these were designed by men still in their Stone Age, and it is by no means an easy or rapid matter to cut down a large tree with stone axes, especially when overhead foes are hurling down stones and spears. Savages are by no means fools, and they would not continue to build structures that experience proved to be useless; besides, it is against custom to fell these trees, thus, insecure as they appear to us, these tree-houses were real refuges.
PLATE XVIII
UDIA AND DAUBE, TABURI, KOIARI
ELEVARA, PORT MORESBY, WITH THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY’S STATION IN THE BACKGROUND
At the time of our visit there were but eleven houses in the village. Two had verandahs along their sides on to which the door opened, a type of house that was new to me as Papuan, but it is a characteristic type among the hill tribes. The four of us slept for two nights, and sat and had our meals and rested for nearly two days on the verandah of a house. Two natives slept inside.
This was a populous village before it was raided by the mountaineers of the main range, although these depredations have ceased in this particular district for ten years; two epidemics have since then reduced the population very considerably. We saw but five men, some half a dozen women, and a few children; this did not represent the entire population, as it is the custom for these bush tribes to reside but little in their own houses, the rest of the time being spent in the bush, making gardens and doing a little hunting. As a matter of fact, these people are good agriculturists; we saw some native tobacco growing in the village.
It was interesting getting a glimpse, for it was nothing more, of a real Papuan village, entirely unchristianised and scarcely at all affected by European civilisation.
Daube, our host, behaved very nicely; indeed, he was quite gentlemanly. He and a boy about the place looked after us in various ways, got water, made fires, and cooked yams and sweet potatoes. The ladies of the village were particularly shy, and consequently we took very little notice of them. They wore a common sort of leaf petticoat, not of so good a quality as is usually worn by the coast women. The men had the narrowest string of bark I have as yet seen worn—clothing it could not be called.