Near Mount Bellamy, in the main range, five powerful tribes—Baura, Agi, Manari, Hagari, and Efogi—a few years ago entered into a sort of confederation, but only for aggressive purposes. A native, in describing this, illustrated his meaning in the following way: he was chewing sugar-cane at the time, and he gathered up the dry fibres into a heap, and then scattered them apart to express the dispersal of the tribes after a foray.
This confederation has harassed an extent of country that cannot be less than some fifty miles in length and thirty miles in breadth; over a large tract of this area the country has been depopulated and numerous villages entirely destroyed. The intermediate country being thus subjugated, the confederation had commenced operations quite close to the coast, when it was broken up by the Government; but it does not appear that even now the Hagari have been properly reduced, though their influence has been diminished.
The hill tribes of the interior have also played a similar game on the coast tribes. There was little to choose between them and the main range tribes, except that the latter were the more powerful.
We spent the rest of our time at Port Moresby in various ways. Wilkin went for a little trip inland, and photographed some tree-houses at Gasiri. Very few of these remarkable edifices are now extant, as the need for them has passed away in all places reached by the strong arm of the law. Seligmann wanted to see more of the country than would have been practicable had he stayed with us, so he left us on June 25th to visit Mr. English at Rigo; but before doing so he studied the collection of charms got together by Mr. Ballantine, and made notes on magic and native remedies, subjects that he investigated in other parts of New Guinea. Ray did what he could in studying the language of available natives, and made a collection of native potters’ trade marks.
Port Moresby is the headquarters of the pottery industry in the central district of British New Guinea, and when the season comes round great activity is displayed by the women, for pottery-making is entirely women’s work. The men build up the lakatois, or trading boats, each of which consists of at least three ordinary canoes lashed together and provided with large crates to hold the pots in safety. The large sails, shaped like crabs’ claws, and the flying streamers attached to the rigging give these strange craft a most picturesque appearance as they scud before the wind. It is not unusual for a fleet of twenty lakatois to sail with a crew of some six hundred men, each of whom would take about fifty pots.
These great trading voyages take place in October—that is, at the end of the south-east monsoon—and the lakatois wend their way up the coast, mainly to the Gulf of Papua, where the cargoes of pottery are exchanged for bundles of sago; as many as thirty thousand pots have been known to be bartered in one year for a hundred and fifty tons of sago. The voyagers return during the north-west monsoon with the sago and new canoes; they thus have a fair wind each way.
As no one had previously photographed the method of pottery-making, I was anxious to get a complete set of photographs, and Mr. Ballantine arranged for three women to go through the whole process in order that we might photograph it under favourable conditions. Wilkin and I also photographed various women at work in the native villages.
PLATE XX