Papuan Pictures

by H. M. Dauncey

It would puzzle an English mother to put her baby comfortably into such a cradle, and perhaps puzzle her more to rock such a cradle. The picture will show you how the child is settled, and will make plain the ease with which it can be rocked. Just a push and away it goes like the pendulum of a big clock.

A mail cart would be of little use in a country where there are no roads, but this strange cradle can be used instead of one. When the mother wants to go to the garden or call upon a friend, all she has to do is to take the cradle from the rope by which it is suspended, and hang it down her back with what we may call the handle of the bag over her head. While the mothers are at work the children are hung up in strange places, and in walking through a banana plantation in which a number of women are at work, one might be forgiven for thinking that the plants were growing cradles with babies inside, instead of bunches of bananas, for the mothers make use of the shade given by the beautiful broad leaves to protect the children from the sun.

So far we have remained outside the house and talked about it. Now let us pay a visit to someone living in an ordinary house in Delena. We will find out if the owner is at home not by ringing a bell and then asking, but by standing in front of the house and calling his name. If he is inside he will answer by asking us to “Come up.” His front steps are about equal to the ladder in a poor hen roost, and with your boots on you will have to be careful. The rough poles that answer for the treads of the steps are far apart, and have no agreement as to angles, and when you have safely mounted to the last you will only have reached the verandah. Hobble skirts would never do for such steps. It was a stretch before you were up, but it will need a stoop, perhaps even you will have to go on your hands and knees before you can get through the small opening which does for a doorway.

Inside, as there is neither window nor chimney, and the house may be full of smoke, it will be well to wait a few minutes before beginning to explore, or you may knock your head against a spear or a net. As a rule the most the host can do for you is to spread a small mat on the floor, and invite you to sit upon it tailor fashion. He may have added a little to the small stock with which he began married life, but it is still a very small stock, and shows us how little one can go through life with. No tables, chairs, bedsteads or cupboards. No long list of kitchen utensils. No wardrobes stocked with clothes, or bottom drawer well filled with linen. No shelves lined with books. The floor takes the place of table, chair and bed. The native pots supply the means of cooking the native food. A few extra grass skirts for the wife, or an extra loin cloth for our host, may be hanging from the roof, and in the corner or stuck in the thatch are the spears, paddles and nets, and a few pointed sticks for use in the garden. The real valuables, the feathers and ornaments, are stowed away in a box if our friend is fortunate enough to possess one, or carefully wrapped up in strips of bark.

That you may know what the Papuan’s treasures are like, and be able to identify them in the museums, I have been to the village and borrowed a friend’s store box, and taken a photo of some of the contents. The feathers are not included, as they are all tied up in bunches, and later on you will see a picture of the head-dress made up and in wear.

Please now look at the picture and listen to the amateur showman as he proclaims, “Here, ladies and gentlemen, you have a collection of jewels from a far-off land.” It is often reported that anything may be bought from the simple savage for a few beads, a bit of red cloth, or a mirror, but much as you might wish to purchase this collection, nothing you could offer would persuade the owner to part with it.

The long necklace running along the bottom of the picture, and a little way up the sides, is made of dogs’ teeth. Only the canine teeth please remark, and if all the dogs who contributed to that necklace had their full compliment of ivory, then nearly forty had to be sacrificed. A man who does not possess such a necklace will find it impossible to purchase a wife for his son.

The thin necklace like a border round the picture is called taotao by the Motu people, but movio by the Maivans, and requires patience in the making. Each little bead is a small white cowry shell, and each has been ground flat before it could be sewn on to the string.

The greatest treasures of all are the koios, the one in the centre and four to the left of the picture. The dark part is a fretwork pattern cut from real turtle-shell, and then moulded into a white saucer cut from a large white shell. Do not ever call the man a duffer who can cut a koio with a boar’s tusk, or a shark’s tooth, or an old nail as his tool. Koios are only made by the people immediately round Hall Sound.