In New Ireland girls are confined for four or five years in small cages, being kept in the dark and not allowed to set foot on the ground. The custom has been thus described by an eye-witness. “I heard from a teacher about some strange custom connected with some of the young girls here, so I asked the chief to take me to the house where they were. The house was about twenty-five feet in length, and stood in a reed and bamboo enclosure, across the entrance to which a bundle of dried grass was suspended to show that it was strictly ‘tabu.’ Inside the house were three conical structures about seven or eight feet in height, and about ten or twelve feet in circumference at the bottom, and for about four feet from the ground, at which point they tapered off to a point at the top. These cages were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus-tree, sewn quite close together so that no light and little or no air could enter. On one side of each is an opening which is closed by a double door of plaited cocoa-nut tree and pandanus-tree leaves. About three feet from the ground there is a stage of bamboos which forms the floor. In each of these cages we were told there was a young woman confined, each of whom had to remain for at least four or five years, without ever being allowed to go outside the house. I could scarcely credit the story when I heard it; the whole thing seemed too horrible to be true. I spoke to the chief, and told him that I wished to see the inside of the cages, and also to see the girls that I might make them a present of a few beads. He told me that it was ‘tabu,’ forbidden for any men but their own relations to look at them; but I suppose the promised beads [pg 033] acted as an inducement, and so he sent away for some old lady who had charge, and who alone is allowed to open the doors. While we were waiting we could hear the girls talking to the chief in a querulous way as if objecting to something or expressing their fears. The old woman came at length and certainly she did not seem a very pleasant jailor or guardian; nor did she seem to favour the request of the chief to allow us to see the girls, as she regarded us with anything but pleasant looks. However, she had to undo the door when the chief told her to do so, and then the girls peeped out at us, and, when told to do so, they held out their hands for the beads. I, however, purposely sat at some distance away and merely held out the beads to them, as I wished to draw them quite outside, that I might inspect the inside of the cages. This desire of mine gave rise to another difficulty, as these girls were not allowed to put their feet to the ground all the time they were confined in these places. However, they wished to get the beads, and so the old lady had to go outside and collect a lot of pieces of wood and bamboo, which she placed on the ground, and then going to one of the girls, she helped her down and held her hand as she stepped from one piece of wood to another until she came near enough to get the beads I held out to her. I then went to inspect the inside of the cage out of which she had come, but could scarcely put my head inside of it, the atmosphere was so hot and stifling. It was clean and contained nothing but a few short lengths of bamboo for holding water. There was only room for the girl to sit or lie down in a crouched position on the bamboo platform, and when the doors are shut it must be nearly or quite dark inside. The girls are never allowed to come out except once a day to bathe in a dish or wooden bowl placed close to each cage. They say that they perspire profusely. They are placed in these stifling cages when quite young, and must remain there until they are young women, when they are taken out and have each a great marriage feast provided for them. One of them was about fourteen or fifteen years old, and the chief told us that she had been there for five years, but would soon be taken out now. The other two were about eight and ten years old, and they have to stay there for several years [pg 034] longer.”[91] A more recent observer has described the custom as it is observed on the western coast of New Ireland. He says: “A buck is the name of a little house, not larger than an ordinary hen-coop, in which a little girl is shut up, sometimes for weeks only, and at other times for months.... Briefly stated, the custom is this. Girls, on attaining puberty or betrothal, are enclosed in one of these little coops for a considerable time. They must remain there night and day. We saw two of these girls in two coops; the girls were not more than ten years old, still they were lying in a doubled-up position, as their little houses would not admit of them lying in any other way. These two coops were inside a large house; but the chief, in consideration of a present of a couple of tomahawks, ordered the ends to be torn out of the house to admit the light, so that we might photograph the buck. The occupant was allowed to put her face through an opening to be photographed, in consideration of another present.”[92] As a consequence of their long enforced idleness in the shade the girls grow fat and their dusky complexion bleaches to a more pallid hue. Both their corpulence and their pallor are regarded as beauties.[93]
Seclusion of girls at puberty in New Guinea, Borneo, Ceram, and Yap.
In Kabadi, a district of British New Guinea, “daughters of chiefs, when they are about twelve or thirteen years of age, are kept indoors for two or three years, never being allowed, under any pretence, to descend from the house, and the house is so shaded that the sun cannot shine on them.”[94] Among the Yabim and Bukaua, two neighbouring and kindred tribes on the coast of German New Guinea, a girl at puberty is secluded for some five or six weeks in an inner part of the house; but she may not sit on the floor, lest her uncleanness should cleave to it, so a log of wood is placed for her to squat on. Moreover, she may not touch the ground with her feet; hence if she is obliged to quit the house for a short time, she is muffled up in mats and walks on two halves of a coco-nut shell, which are fastened like sandals to her feet by creeping plants. During her seclusion she is in charge of her aunts or other female relatives. At the end of the time she bathes, her person is loaded with ornaments, her face is grotesquely painted with red stripes on a white ground, and thus adorned she is brought forth in public to be admired by everybody. She is now marriageable.[95] Among the Ot Danoms of Borneo girls at the age of eight or ten years are shut up in a little room or cell of the house, and cut off from all intercourse with the world for a long time. The cell, like the rest of the house, is raised on piles above the ground, and is lit by a single small window opening on a lonely place, so that the girl is in almost total darkness. She may not leave the room on any pretext whatever, not even for the most necessary purposes. None of her family may see her all the time she is shut up, but a single slave woman is appointed to wait on her. During her lonely confinement, which often lasts seven years, the girl occupies herself in weaving mats or with other handiwork. Her bodily growth is stunted by the long want of exercise, and [pg 036] when, on attaining womanhood, she is brought out, her complexion is pale and wax-like. She is now shewn the sun, the earth, the water, the trees, and the flowers, as if she were newly born. Then a great feast is made, a slave is killed, and the girl is smeared with his blood.[96] In Ceram girls at puberty were formerly shut up by themselves in a hut which was kept dark.[97] In Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, should a girl be overtaken by her first menstruation on the public road, she may not sit down on the earth, but must beg for a coco-nut shell to put under her. She is shut up for several days in a small hut at a distance from her parents' house, and afterwards she is bound to sleep for a hundred days in one of the special houses which are provided for the use of menstruous women.[98]
§ 3. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in the Torres Straits Islands and Northern Australia.
Seclusion of girls at puberty in Mabuiag, Torres Straits.
In the island of Mabuiag, Torres Straits, when the signs of puberty appear on a girl, a circle of bushes is made in a dark corner of the house. Here, decked with shoulder-belts, armlets, leglets just below the knees, and anklets, wearing a chaplet on her head, and shell ornaments in her ears, on her chest, and on her back, she squats in the midst of the bushes, which are piled so high round about her that only her head is visible. In this state of seclusion she must remain for three months. All this time the sun may not shine upon her, but at night she is allowed to slip out of the hut, and the bushes that hedge her in are then changed. She may not feed herself or handle food, but is fed by one or two old women, her maternal aunts, who are especially appointed to look after her. One of these women cooks food for her at a special fire in the forest. The girl is forbidden to eat turtle or [pg 037] turtle eggs during the season when the turtles are breeding; but no vegetable food is refused her. No man, not even her own father, may come into the house while her seclusion lasts; for if her father saw her at this time he would certainly have bad luck in his fishing, and would probably smash his canoe the very next time he went out in it. At the end of the three months she is carried down to a fresh-water creek by her attendants, hanging on to their shoulders in such a way that her feet do not touch the ground, while the women of the tribe form a ring round her, and thus escort her to the beach. Arrived at the shore, she is stripped of her ornaments, and the bearers stagger with her into the creek, where they immerse her, and all the other women join in splashing water over both the girl and her bearers. When they come out of the water one of the two attendants makes a heap of grass for her charge to squat upon. The other runs to the reef, catches a small crab, tears off its claws, and hastens back with them to the creek. Here in the meantime a fire has been kindled, and the claws are roasted at it. The girl is then fed by her attendants with the roasted claws. After that she is freshly decorated, and the whole party marches back to the village in a single rank, the girl walking in the centre between her two old aunts, who hold her by the wrists. The husbands of her aunts now receive her and lead her into the house of one of them, where all partake of food, and the girl is allowed once more to feed herself in the usual manner. A dance follows, in which the girl takes a prominent part, dancing between the husbands of the two aunts who had charge of her in her retirement.[99]
Seclusion of girls at puberty in Northern Australia.
Among the Yaraikanna tribe of Cape York Peninsula, in Northern Queensland, a girl at puberty is said to live by herself for a month or six weeks; no man may see her, though any woman may. She stays in a hut or shelter specially made for her, on the floor of which she lies supine. She may not see the sun, and towards sunset she must keep her eyes shut until the sun has gone down, otherwise it is thought that her nose will be diseased. During her seclusion [pg 038] she may eat nothing that lives in salt water, or a snake would kill her. An old woman waits upon her and supplies her with roots, yams, and water.[100] Some tribes are wont to bury their girls at such seasons more or less deeply in the ground, perhaps in order to hide them from the light of the sun. Thus the Larrakeeyah tribe in the northern territory of South Australia used to cover a girl up with dirt for three days at her first monthly period.[101] In similar circumstances the Otati tribe, on the east coast of the Cape York Peninsula, make an excavation in the ground, where the girl squats. A bower is then built over the hole, and sand is thrown on the young woman till she is covered up to the hips. In this condition she remains for the first day, but comes out at night. So long as the period lasts, she stays in the bower during the day-time, but is not again covered with sand. Afterwards her body is painted red and white from the head to the hips, and she returns to the camp, where she squats first on the right side, then on the left side, and then on the lap of her future husband, who has been previously selected for her.[102] Among the natives of the Pennefather River, in the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, when a girl menstruates for the first time, her mother takes her away from the camp to some secluded spot, where she digs a circular hole in the sandy soil under the shade of a tree. In this hole the girl squats with crossed legs and is covered with sand from the waist downwards. A digging-stick is planted firmly in the sand on each side of her, and the place is surrounded by a fence of bushes except in front, where her mother kindles a fire. Here the girl stays all day, sitting with her arms crossed and the palms of her hands resting on the sand. She may not move her arms except to take food from her mother or to scratch herself; and in scratching herself she may not touch herself with her own hands, but must use for the purpose a splinter of wood, which, when it is not in use, is stuck in her hair. She may speak to nobody but her mother; indeed nobody else would [pg 039] think of coming near her. At evening she lays hold of the two digging-sticks and by their help frees herself from the superincumbent weight of sand and returns to the camp. Next morning she is again buried in the sand under the shade of the tree and remains there again till evening. This she does daily for five days. On her return at evening on the fifth day her mother decorates her with a waist-band, a forehead-band, and a necklet of pearl-shell, ties green parrot feathers round her arms and wrists and across her chest, and smears her body, back and front, from the waist upwards with blotches of red, white, and yellow paint. She has in like manner to be buried in the sand at her second and third menstruations, but at the fourth she is allowed to remain in camp, only signifying her condition by wearing a basket of empty shells on her back.[103] Among the Kia blacks of the Prosperine River, on the east coast of Queensland, a girl at puberty has to sit or lie down in a shallow pit away from the camp; a rough hut of bushes is erected over her to protect her from the inclemency of the weather. There she stays for about a week, waited on by her mother and sister, the only persons to whom she may speak. She is allowed to drink water, but may not touch it with her hands; and she may scratch herself a little with a mussel-shell. This seclusion is repeated at her second and third monthly periods, but when the third is over she is brought to her husband bedecked with savage finery. Eagle-hawk or cockatoo feathers are stuck in her hair: a shell hangs over her forehead: grass bugles encircle her neck and an apron of opossum skin her waist: strings are tied to her arms and wrists; and her whole body is mottled with patterns drawn in red, white, and yellow pigments and charcoal.[104]
Seclusion of girls at puberty in the islands of Torres Straits.