| TO FACE PAGE | |
| Delena Children | [8] |
| Two Convenient Handles | [8] |
| “I Protest!” | [9] |
| Parent and Child | [9] |
| Would he Take a Prize? | [24] |
| Throwing the Spear | [25] |
| Whip-tops in Season | [25] |
| Paroparo | [28] |
| The Snake Game | [29] |
| Delena School Group | [29] |
| The Cuscus Game | [36] |
| A Fine Frizzy Head | [37] |
| A Friend Lends a Hand | [37] |
| A Tight-laced Dandy | [44] |
| Bringing in the Firewood | [44] |
| Bridal Procession | [45] |
| “Out like a Coal-scuttle Bonnet” | [45] |
| Firing Pots | [52] |
| Making Pots | [52] |
| Thatchers at Work | [53] |
| Delena House | [53] |
| Dressed up in Paint and Feathers | [56] |
| Cooking Supper | [56] |
| The Cradle | [57] |
| Waiting for Mother | [72] |
| The Front Steps | [72] |
| Papuan Treasures | [73] |
| Cooking Food under the House | [73] |
| Miria the Sorcerer | [76] |
| Delena Church | [76] |
| Nara Village and Church | [77] |
| Queen Koloka | [77] |
| Nara Dancers | [84] |
| Delena Man at Nara Dance | [84] |
| Who is He? | [85] |
| Round the Rocks | [85] |
| Breakfast on the Beach | [88] |
| The Papuan Tailor | [88] |
| A Long Drink | [89] |
| Oa | [89] |
| Hisiu Girls in their Best | [104] |
| Morabi Village | [104] |
| Bad Walking: Over the Mangrove Roots | [105] |
| Fafoa with her Boy and Papauta | [105] |
| Scramble in Front of Timoteo’s House | [120] |
| A Widower | [121] |
| A Crocodile | [121] |
| Kopuana School | [136] |
| Delena Mission House | [136] |
| Delena District Teachers | [137] |
| Motumotu Man | [137] |
| A Well-oiled Amazon | [152] |
| Ume and the Crocodile | [152] |
| Miria Making Fire | [153] |
| The Blow-pipe | [153] |
| The Kaiva-Kuku | [168] |
| Native Surgery | [168] |
| Basket-making at Delena | [169] |
| Smiles | [169] |
CHAPTER I
Games and School
Most visitors begin their Papuan experiences at Port Moresby, but you begin yours at a smaller place, where I have spent the last seventeen years. The village is called Delena, and you can find it on the shore of Hall Sound. Nothing grand will impress you as you draw near to the shore, but no matter at what time you land you will find a crowd of young children running to meet you; no matter what your age, whether you are man, woman, boy or girl; no matter what the time of day, you will be greeted with “Good-morning, sir,” and little hands will go up to the salute, many of them as awkwardly as though the joints belonged to wooden Dutch dolls. These are the youngsters I want to introduce to you first.
Several things will attract your attention. First, perhaps, that they have no clothes such as we wear. They do not need them and are content to be clothed for the most part in mud and sunshine. Neither mud nor sunshine allows much scope for originality in fashion, but you will notice that the ordinary originality comes in in the way the hair is served. Many of the youngsters will have their heads shaved clean. Some will have two tufts left, one in front and one behind, like convenient handles to hold on by. Some have a ridge left along the top of the head, like a cock’s comb. Some have alternate bands of hair and bare scalp, and some the full bushy head of hair which is so distinctive of the Papuan.
As a rule they keep to the patterns they learnt from their fathers, but one day in school I saw a stroke of decided originality. A little fellow came in with a new pattern, and gradually I worked out the bare lines into the first three letters of the native alphabet, A, E, I, and then followed this dialogue:—
Missionary.—“Who cut your hair in that fashion?”
Boy.—“My big brother.”
Missionary.—“What did he do it with?”