The Mafulu: Mountain People of British New Guinea

by Robert Wood Williamson

Eighth: There is now a distribution among the chiefs and more important male guests of the yam, taro, sugar-cane and bananas, which at the time of the hanging up on the village posts were kept back and put into the houses, and of tobacco. The chief of the clan, with help from others, makes a number of heaps of these things in the centre of the village enclosure, the number of heaps corresponding to the number of recipients. Then, standing successively before each of these heaps, he calls out in turn the names of the men who are to receive them, chiefs being given the first priority, and specially important people the next. Each man comes forward, usually bringing with him his wife or some other woman with a bag, picks up his heap, and takes it away. And so with all of them in turn, till all is finished. On each heap there is usually, but not always, a portion of a village pig, which has that morning been killed under the burial platform, before it was cut down. The guests, men and women, then return to the guest houses, where the women cook the food which has been given, and it is eaten by the men and themselves.

Ninth: The real dance now takes place, beginning perhaps at 9 or 10 in the evening, and lasting the whole night, and perhaps till 10 o’clock the following morning. The dancing is done by some only of the guest men, and none of their women, and none of the hosts, either men or women, join in it. The dancers are all arrayed in full dancing ornaments, including their heavy head feather erections, and chiefs also wear their cassowary feathers; and they all carry their drums and spears, and sometimes clubs or adzes. After the dance has begun, the chief of the clan in whose village the dance occurs distributes, with assistance, among the more important of these dancers, especially chiefs, the skulls and bones which had been put on one side after the cutting down of the burial platform, and probably some or all of the skulls and bones which had been hung upon the big posts; and the dancers receiving these skulls and bones wear them as additional decoration upon their arms throughout the dance. Guest chiefs dance with the others, but owing to the heavy weight of the head ornaments they have to carry, they will be tired sooner than the others. The dancing party enter the village at the entrance end, walking backwards. Directly after they have entered the village they, still having their backs to it, begin to beat their drums, after doing which for a short time they turn round, and the dancing begins. The dancers beat their drums whilst dancing, but neither they nor the other people sing during the actual dancing. There are, however, intervals in the dancing (not the mere rest intervals, such as they have in Mekeo, and which they also have in Mafulu, but intervals which are themselves an actual part of the dance), and during these intervals the drums are not being beaten, and the dancers and the other people, hosts, guests, men and women, all sing. I shall have something more to say about dancing generally later on. At a subsequent stage the skulls and bones with which the dancers have been decorated, including those which had fallen from the burial platform, are all again hung up among the other skulls and bones on the big posts.

Tenth: This is the stage at which occur various other ceremonies, which, though themselves quite distinct from that of the big feast, and performed, often several of them together, when there is no big feast, are also, some or all of them, generally or always introduced into it, as being a convenient occasion for them. The ceremonies in question are those connected with the assumption of the perineal band, admission to the emone and the giving of the right to carry a drum and dance, that of nose-piercing, and that on the devolution of chieftainship. The nose-piercing ceremony has already been described. The others will be dealt with later.

Eleventh: Next comes the general distribution among the guests of the vegetables and fruits, including all those which have been hung up and displayed, as above described, and the ine fruit, prepared in two ways, and malage fruit. Every male guest who has joined in the real dance is, speaking generally, entitled to have a share; though sometimes, where there are two or three members of one family, shares may be given to one or two of them only, instead of to each. The chiefs of the community giving the feast work together in carrying out the distribution. The various things are collected into a number of heaps about the village, the number of heaps corresponding to the number of portions to be distributed; and each heap contains something of everything. Excluded from these heaps, however, are the ine seeds which have been put on strings and preserved separately, as before explained. For these are erected stakes about 10 feet high, round which the strings of seeds are twined. The number of these stakes is less than the number of heaps, because they are only planted near to the heaps which contain none of the ine fruit prepared the other way, so that each dancing guest gets some of this fruit, done in either one way or the other. Then the chiefs of the hosts’ community stand round one of the heaps and shout wildly, calling upon the recipient. This may be done by name, or it may in the case of a chief be done by the name of a spot, say a mound or hollow, adjoining the village from which he comes. Here, again, priority is given first to chiefs, and next to important personages. The man so called upon comes running forward with his wife or another woman, picks up his vegetables and fruit, and runs back again with them. Then the chiefs go on to another heap, and again afterwards to the others, one by one, going through the same process in each case, until everything has been distributed. Some of the women then go back to their own villages, carrying with them a portion of the food which has been given to their husbands, but leaving the rest with the latter. Sometimes some of the guest men go home also. But anyone who is proposing to return to the village of the feast must leave some of his food, or bring food on his return, as no more will be given to him.

Twelfth: The next stage is the collection of the village pigs. This may take some time, as many of them are running about in the bush, and have to be caught; and some of them have been agisted out as above mentioned, and have to be fetched. This may involve a delay of a week or ten days, during which most or all of the guests remain, sleeping in their guest houses at night, and perhaps roaming about among other villages in the neighbourhood by day. During this interval there is neither singing nor dancing.

Thirteenth: The village pigs are all brought in alive, and placed under the houses of the village, each pig having its legs tied up and being tied to the house. When all is ready, the chief of the clan announces that the killing of the pigs will take place on the following morning.

Fourteenth: The next morning all the people, both hosts and guests, are in the village to watch the pig-killing; and people from other communities, who are not guests, and will not receive any pig, come too. The pigs are brought out one by one, and killed by hitting them on the head with clubs or adzes or anything else. This is not a chiefs duty. There is a man who is the recognised pig-killer, and who, as already stated, will probably be a man of some position, though not either a chief or a sub-chief. Where there are many pigs, as at the big feast, there will be a number of other men helping him. Each pig is killed on the site of the burial platform which has been cut down. As the pigs are killed, their bodies are carried away and placed on the ground in a row, commencing at the end of the village enclosure, and forming a central line along it; and it is usual also to place upon the row of dead pigs a continuous line of long thin poles, laid end to end, which are afterwards kept tied to the emone as a record of the total length of the line of pigs, and thus of the number of pigs killed. The number of pigs killed is generally very large in proportion to the size of the community giving the feast, much more so than is the case in the villages of Mekeo and the coast. It may be anything from fifty to over one hundred; in fact at a recent feast given by a community of seven villages, having between them about a hundred houses, they killed 135 pigs. Some chiefs of the hosts’ community then take some of the bones (not skulls) from the big posts, and dip them into the mouths of the pigs, from which the blood is flowing. They have been seen to dip one bone into several pigs. There does not appear to be any method of selection of the bones to be dipped. They then touch with the bones which have been so dipped the skulls and all the other bones on the posts, which include the skulls and other special bones of all the chiefs and members of their families and other prominent people buried in and by the villages of the community since the last previous big feast was held there. After this all the bones are again hung up on the posts. I may say here in advance that, when the feast is over, all the bones are removed from the posts; and, the ceremony as regards those bones having been performed, they will never again be the subject of ceremonial observance. They, or some of them, may be hung up in the emone, but if so it is known that they are not to be used again for ceremonial purposes; or they may be put in a box in a tree, or hung up on a tree, not necessarily of the special species used for burying; or they may be simply flung away anywhere in the bush. Whilst the bodies of the slain pigs lie in a line, and before the cutting up, it is the duty of each man who has had a pig fed up for him to pay the man who has done so, the payment probably being a string of dogs’ teeth, or head feather ornaments. Next, the hosts set to work to cut up the pigs. This is not done by a chief or special person, nor is there any ceremony connected with it. Each pig is cut into seven parts, namely, (1) the head, (2–5) the four legs, (6) the bowels and internal parts, and (7) the back and sides. I was told that each part of each pig is destined for a certain person, as arranged beforehand. It follows that, if there are, say, 100 pigs, there are 700 predestined pieces, which are known and remembered, though there are no means of recording them. It is difficult to believe the truth of this, but I was assured that it was correct. The pieces of each pig are placed on banana leaves, by the side of the spot where the body had lain, and all the pieces are distributed among the male guests. Everybody who has given a pig knows the length of each part of it, though he could not express it in numerals. Each male guest has a piece given to him, which, if the feast be a return feast, will correspond in some way, which I could not understand, with what he had himself provided at the previous feast. But dancers receive larger and better portions than do mere singers. People who have fed up pigs for members of the hosts’ community also receive portions. In the distribution of pig each man is called in turn as before, and in the same order of priority, and runs up and gets his piece of pig, and runs back with it; but in this case he is not accompanied by a woman.

Fifteenth: The feast is now over, and all the guests return to their homes, taking away with them everything that has been given to them.

Sixteenth: The village has, however, to undergo a process which I may perhaps call purification. As soon as possible after the guests have gone, the men of the community go off into the bush and capture wild pigs, for which purpose they may have to hunt for three or four days, or even for a week or more. They must have at least one pig, and they generally have two or more, even up to six. When caught, the pigs are brought alive into the village, and are killed upon the site of the cut-down burial platform, this being done by the pig-killer. The pigs are then cut up and eaten by the members of the villages of the community, those of the village itself eating their portions there, and those of the other villages taking their portions away and eating them in their own villages. Except as regards the killing of the pigs on the site of the grave, the whole performance appears to be quite informal. After the eating of the pigs, perhaps on the same day, or if, as is probable, the feast lasts until late in the evening, then on the next day, the women of the village clear away the filthy mess of blood and garbage by which the village enclosure is filled, and sweep the enclosure from end to end with branches of trees. Then the bulk of the villagers leave the village and go off into the gardens and the bush for a period of about six months. The feast has denuded the village of food, including even sweet potatoes, to which they have had no time to attend during the period before the feast, and which have been used up in the feeding of the village pigs required for it. New gardens are needed, and therefore new bush has to be cut down, and the land must be cleared and planted with various things, and especially with sweet potato. For this purpose it is requisite or usual for them to build temporary houses on the scene of their labours, in which the people live. The old people, however, remain in the village, as do also some of the younger ones, who have to tend the gardens close to it. At the end of the period they all return, and village life goes on as usual. What the idea in the native mind may be concerning what I have called the purification of the village is a matter upon which I was unable to find any clue, beyond what may be suspected from the actual facts of the proceeding; but I think it probably has a superstitious origin. Although in theory all the village pigs have been killed and given to the guests at the big feast, there are always some left wandering in the bush, which have not been caught. These pigs are, however, never used in the purification ceremony, in which they always kill wild pigs only. It has been suggested to me that a reason for this may be that, if they killed village pigs, they would thereby advertise the fact that they had not killed and distributed all their village pigs at the big feast; but this hardly seems to be a satisfactory explanation. It clearly falls to the ground as regards present intent if, as I was told, there always is an unkilled residue of village pigs after a big feast. The practice of killing wild pigs only would seem to associate itself with the fact that pigs killed at this ceremony are eaten in the village itself, for there seems to be no doubt that among the Mafulu people village pigs are never eaten in their own village on ceremonial occasions; and indeed it seems doubtful whether they are ever eaten there at all.

In fact, it appears to be a general custom in connection with all ceremonial feasts to which outside guests are invited, to kill village pigs only at the feast, and for these to be given to the guests to be eaten by them in their own villages, and afterwards to have a second feast, to which outside guests are not invited, and at which wild pigs are killed, and eaten by the villagers themselves within the village.