Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate

by C. A. W. Monckton

“Here is a pretty mess!” I said to old Oiogoba Sara. “I have thoroughly frightened those people, who have done us no harm, and now we shall see nothing further of them.” Fortunately we had in our hands the canoe in which the first two men had come; it was unlike any other Papuan canoe on the north-east coast, being hollowed from a single log and without an outrigger; it was also as thin as an egg-shell, round bottomed and extremely light, and neither my constabulary nor the Baruga could get into it without its capsizing immediately. I might just as well have asked them to mount and ride at once an old-fashioned high bicycle, as expect them to navigate that thing without long practice. “If I could only get some of my people over to the village of the Agaiambu with presents, I think that we could get at least one man to come here, and then the rest would be easy; they have no steel tools, and would run any risk to possess your tomahawks or adzes!” said Oiogoba. “Fit the canoe with an outrigger,” I told the police. “It’s too fragile to stand such,” they reported, after examination of the craft. “Make two outriggers, then,” I ordered, “and lash the canoe firmly between them to the cross-pieces.” This was done; two Baruga then embarked, taking with them a new tomahawk, a long knife, and some bright-coloured beads and print, and started for the agitated Agaiambu village, in which we could see great excitement was prevailing.

As our embassy approached, the inhabitants hastily crowded into their fragile cranky canoes, and began to bolt from their village. The two Baruga, shouting and yelling professions of friendship, held up their gifts and slowly forced their canoe through the water-lilies and weeds; the Agaiambu, seeing the slow progress of the captured canoe encumbered with its outriggers, hovered in the close vicinity, until the two Baruga had deposited our gifts upon the platform of one of the houses; after which they retired; whereupon the Agaiambu returned and inspected the—to them—untold wealth. “There is plenty more like that,” yelled the two Baruga, “if you will only come ashore and sell us fish, and let our master look at your feet.”

The Agaiambu discussed the matter, and then picked out one of their number, whom they apparently considered of slight value or little loss if we did kill him, and handed him over to the two Baruga, who brought him to me. The man selected kept up an unholy wailing all the way, and then nearly died of funk when he saw the—to him—awful colour of Acland, Walker, and myself. Hastily I gave him an adze, a tomahawk, some print, beads, and a mirror, and ordering the police to strip the outriggers from the canoe, told him he could take it and return to his people whenever he liked; immediately if he saw fit; he got into the canoe with his gifts, and pushing off a few yards from the edge, conversed with us at ease. “What do you want with us?” he asked. “Only to look at you and your village,” I replied, “through Oiogoba your fame as swimmers and fishers has spread through the land, and I wanted to know whether you were as clever as he said you were; also I want some of those birds,” at the same time pointing to the geese and ducks that were crowding in the vicinity. “We can get you those,” he answered. Meanwhile his fellow villagers, seeing he had not been hurt, approached in canoes. “Tell him, Oiogoba,” I said, “that I’ll get some for myself with a noise and in a manner strange to him, and that if he is not frightened and brings me the birds I have killed, I will give him yet another tomahawk.” Oiogoba told him, and added that he was to yell to the approaching canoes that he was all right and not to be frightened; which he did.

I then hastily beckoned to my boy to bring my gun, and shot a duck, blazing the second barrel into the brown of a rising flock, half a dozen of which fell, some of the cripples scurrying off; the Agaiambu man collapsed with a yell of funk, and was just making a bolt of it, when Oiogoba yelled, “Catch our birds! It is all right!” The man looked at the birds, picked up the dead, and then started off after the cripples, and within one minute was yelling to the other hastily departing canoes to come and help him catch them. The instinct of the chase had overcome his fears; we were now brother hunters in pursuit of a common quarry. A very few minutes now saw the remaining Agaiambu landing amongst us; I ordered the police to start pitching camp and to take no notice of them, whilst I sat on the ground with Oiogoba Sara, and merely noticed the still very timid Agaiambu by chucking any man he induced to come within a few yards of us, a gift of some sort.

“What is this strange-coloured being?” they asked Oiogoba, “a man or a devil?” “A man, whom I now serve,” he answered; “he is very wise and very powerful, and, if you don’t offend him, very kind; if you wish to please him, bring fish and sago for his people, and he will pay you most generously.” Off went the Agaiambu, and shortly returned with vast quantities of fish and sago; also a pig, very fat indeed, but whose feet were as soft and tender as a blancmange; this they brought as an offering to me. They were getting reassured by now, and my gifts in return for the pig included penny whistles and Jews’ harps, which delighted their simple souls; soon indeed their women, who were hovering in canoes a short distance away, and whose curiosity had brought them, were told by their lords and masters to come ashore as we were quite safe people.

The work of pitching camp was steadily going on, and beastly work it was, for the police had to drive poles into the squidgy marsh and build platforms on them, upon which to pitch the tents; at last my tent was complete, whither I at once retired to change my wet things, followed by the curious eyes of the Agaiambu. My cook, Toku, was busily engaged outside preparing our midday meal, when suddenly I heard his voice raised in exhortation. “Oh!” he said, “you must not come here!” and peeping out, I saw an Agaiambu woman depositing at his feet a string of fish. “What does she say?” I asked Oiogoba, who was sitting on my platform ready to act as interpreter if necessary. “She says they are for you,” he answered. “Tell her to send her husband for payment,” I replied. This being done the husband waddled up. “I don’t want paying,” he said, “you are good people, I give the fish to you.” On the man’s shoulder he had suspended a stone-headed adze for hollowing canoes, a clumsy tool at the best. “Ask him, Oiogoba, to give me that adze,” I said. Somewhat reluctantly he handed over his most valued tool. “Barigi,” I then said to that worthy, who, although my corporal, always insisted upon fussing about me and my clothes when camp was being pitched, “fit a plane iron to the head of this, instead of the stone, and give it back to him.” Barigi did so, and that Agaiambu sat and gloated over a tool such as in his wildest dreams he had never previously imagined. I had now gained the full confidence of the Agaiambu: taking advantage of this, Walker, Acland, and I put in that afternoon shooting ducks and geese, assisted by them and furnished with their canoes, they rendering them suitable for our purpose by lashing them together in groups of two or three; they also acted as retrievers of the shot game.

AGAIAMBU MAN

Now for a description of this remarkable people, the only authentic account that can ever be written, as they are now practically extinct; and Acland, Walker, and I are the only Europeans who ever had an opportunity of fully observing them and their habits. Sir Francis Winter, when Acting Governor, saw them on a later occasion, and described such as he saw; and after that Captain Barton; I accompanied both Administrators, but neither had as full nor as good an opportunity as I, their discoverer, had upon my first visit.

Firstly, the true type of Agaiambu differed from other natives in these respects—I say advisedly the true type, because there were certain members of the tribe who nearly approached the ordinary type of Baruga native; but this was explained by the purchase of their mothers from the Baruga people. Placing an Agaiambu man alongside a Baruga native of the same height, one found that his hip joints were three or four inches lower than that of the Baruga, one also found that his chest measurement was at least on an average three inches greater, while his chest expansion ran to as much again. The nostrils of the Agaiambu were twice the size of those of any native I have ever seen, they appeared to dilate and contract like those of a racehorse. Above the knee on the inside of the leg was a large mass of muscle; on the leg below the knee there was no calf whatsoever, but on the shin bone in front there was a protuberance of a sinewy nature. The knee joints were very wrinkly, with a scale-like appearance; the feet were as flat as pancakes, with practically no instep, and the toes long, flaccid, and straggling. Walking on hard ground or dry reeds, the Agaiambu moved with the hoppity gait of a cockatoo. Across the loins, instead of curving in fine lines as most natives do, there was a mass of corrugated skin and muscle. The skin of their feet was as tender as wet blotting-paper, and they bled freely as they crawled about upon the reeds and marshy ground of our camp. They had a slight epidermal growth between the toes, but nothing resembling webbing as alleged by the Baruga; the term “duck footed,” therefore, had only meant tender footed, or, more literally, “water-bird footed.”