Papuan Pictures

by H. M. Dauncey

I do not remember seeing the performance that particular afternoon, but may as well tell you now what goes on when a girl is having a new dress. The materials are three in number, and can all be found near the village. The fibre is obtained from the sago palm, and the dye from a root and some dark mud, boiled together in a cooking-pot. The fibre is teased out till it looks like lengths of untwisted manilla rope. Small bunches of this are knotted on to a string, which is to form the waist-band, and in sufficient numbers to hang like a kilt all round the girl. For the present no uniformity of length is aimed at, but care is taken to have panels of red and yellow alternating, and across some of these panels will be dark stripes. When all is dry the girl has to be fitted, and this is not done in the privacy of the dressmaker’s room. The girl mounts a stump or a stone in front of an old relative, with the new dress hanging in uneven lengths around her. The relative takes a knife, if she has one; if not, a shell; and if even that cannot be found handy, then the teeth can be used as scissors, and going all round trims off the dress till it hangs just right. That means that enough has been taken off the sides, and enough left on the back to enable the girl, as she goes along, to swing her tails behind her. Many a sly glance have I seen directed over the shoulder with a view to finding out whether the effect was all that could be desired.

If two girls are seen with the same markings on their skirts it may be taken for granted that they belong to the same family, or are at least cousins. Each family has its own particular pattern, and woe betide those who try to infringe the copyright.

The sick man having been attended to, on the way back to Matareu’s house we notice that big pigs have begun to gather in the village. They have been away foraging all day, but as it is nearing the time for the evening meal they have not only put in an appearance, but are loudly demanding attention. Some go so far as to put their forefeet on the ladders as though they would mount and help themselves to what they could find. In Nara wooden troughs much like small canoes are provided, and when the food is put in some one has to mount guard to see that a stranger does not get his snout into the wrong trough.

A sure way to gather a crowd at any village is to show the magic lantern, and word is soon passed round that there will be an exhibition in the church that evening. Many a strange experience have I had with the lantern.

At one village where some twenty years ago they had scarcely seen a white man, and where a teacher had only been settled for a few months, the people took some persuading before they would come in to the church after dark. When the circle of light was thrown upon the sheet a deep gasping breath was taken by all, and a mixture of a sigh and a shudder was quite audible. All might have gone well had the operator been content to proceed quietly from this point, but the spirit of mischief prompted the desire to see what would be the result of a chromotrope. It was fatal. No sooner did the coloured rings begin to revolve as though they would overwhelm the audience, than with one yell men, women and children made for the doors and windows. Each one was blocked by a struggling mass and there seemed danger of the building being carried away. For that night the show was over as far as the village people were concerned.

At Ukaukana, years later, the church was cleared in another way. A large head of a former chief of the village was thrown upon the sheet, the operator forgetting for the moment that the man was dead. A great stillness fell upon the gathering, so noticeable that the operator looked the other side of the sheet. There were the people with their heads as low as they could get them without knocking their noses on the floor, all crawling to the doors as fast as they could. Then the mistake was recognized, but too late. Naime had a bad name as a sorcerer while still alive, and the ordinary size for a big well-built man. If he was bad then, what must he be now when he was many sizes larger. Something of his power might hang about the enlarged picture, so that people would not take the risk. Once more the teacher and my own boys formed my audience.

A third experience was of a more exciting kind. At Hula the people were taking but little interest in the pictures, and to stimulate them two boys were placed between the lantern and the sheet, and after their shadows had been recognized by their friends were told to wrestle. All went well at first, but when the youngsters began to put more energy into the business one of them got hurt. His friends came to his rescue. Then the other boy’s friends joined in, and in a moment there was a tangled mass of sheet, rope, and human beings on the floor, and to save a fire I snatched up the lantern and made my way out of the building by the back door.

Nara people are accustomed to the lantern, and there were no accidents that evening. All the pictures interested them, and they listened to the description of a set illustrating the life of Moses. At first the natives do not seem able to see the picture, or fail to connect ideas with it. Then comes in the use of pictures of their own village and their own people. They can connect the idea and the picture, and so pass to ideas conveyed by pictures of things and places they do not know.

It was a relief to find there was to be no dancing on this night, and that we were able to get a good night’s rest and be ready for the start the next morning. Carriers had to be engaged and then there was all the packing up to be done again.

The village we were making for was Ala-ala, and to get there we had to traverse a long switch-back. Down from the village into the valley; then up again as high as the village we had left; down again and up again. In this way some three hours were spent, but as part of the time we were in a tunnel cut through the forest, it was pleasant. Out on the grass land the sun gave trouble and the sea breeze was missed. Ala-ala is but a small village and the teacher an old man who in his younger days had travelled much with Tamate. His wife’s idea of cleanliness and Donisi Hahine’s did not at all agree. The one thought that if a piece of new calico was spread over a pillow or a mat it did not matter what was underneath. Donisi Hahine wanted to see what was underneath, and then there was a lot of changing and cleaning before the camp for the night was arranged.