The Mafulu: Mountain People of British New Guinea

by Robert Wood Williamson

Birds of all kinds, except cassowaries, are killed with bows and arrows. There is also a method of killing certain kinds of birds of paradise which dance on branches of trees, and certain other kinds and bower birds, which dance on the ground,[3] by means of nooses as above described, these being tied to the branch of the tree, or, in the case of ground nooses, tied to a stick or something in the ground. The natives know the spots where the birds are dancing, and place the noose traps there. Another method of killing birds is adopted on narrow forest-covered ridges of the mountains. An open space or passage about 2 or 3 yards wide is cut in the bush, across the ridge; and across this passage are suspended three parallel nets, the inner or central one being of a close and impassable mesh, and the two outer ones having a mesh so far open that a bird striking against it can get through. These nets are made of very fine material, and so are not easily seen, especially as they are more or less in shade from the trees on each side of the passage. A bird flying from the valley on either side towards the ridge is attracted by this open passage, and flies into and along it; it strikes against one of the more open outer nets, and gets through it, but is confused and bewildered, and so is easily stopped by the central close-meshed net, where it is shot with bow and arrow.

Fishing.

Fishing is carried on by the Mafulu people by means of weirs placed across streams, the weirs having open sluices with intercepting nets, and smaller nets being used to catch such fish as escape the big ones. They do not fish with spears, hooks, or bows and arrows, or with fishing lines, as is done in Mekeo; and even their weir and net systems are different from the Mekeo ones. Fishing with them is more or less communistic, as it is generally engaged in by parties of ten or twenty men (women do not fish), and sometimes nearly all the men of a village, or even of a community, join in a fishing expedition; and everyone in the village or community shares more or less in the spoil. The fishing season is towards the end of the dry season, say in October or November, when work in the gardens is over, and the rivers are low. I cannot give the names of the fishes caught, but was told that the chief ones are large full-bodied carp-like fish and eels.

The large weir nets are simply ordinary frameless nets about 3 to 5 yards long, and 1 yard wide, with a fairly small mesh. The smaller ones are hand nets, made in two forms. One of these is made of ordinary fine netting, and is bag-shaped, being strung on a round looped end of cane, of which the other end is the handle, the net being about the size of a good-sized butterfly net. The other form is also framed on a looped cane; but the loop in this case is larger and more oval in shape, and the netting is made of the web of a large spider. To make it they take the already looped cane to where there are a number of such webs, and twist the looped end round and round among the webs, until there is stretched across the loop a double or treble or quadruple layer of web, which, though flat when made, is elastic, and when used becomes under pressure more or less bag-shaped.

The fishers first make a weir of upright sticks placed close together among the stones in the river bed, the weir stretching across the greater part of, or sometimes only half-way across, the river. The side of the river left open and undammed is filled up with stones to such a height that the water flowing over it is shallow, and the fish do not escape across it. In the middle of the weir they leave an open space or sluice, behind which they fasten the big net.[4] [Plate 76] shows a weir on the Aduala river, a portion of the open sluice being seen on the left. After forming the weir, but before fixing the net, the fishers all join in a sort of prayer or invocation to the river. For example, on the Aduala river they will say, “Aduala, give us plenty of fish, that we may eat well.” This is the only ceremony in connection with the fishing, and there is no food or other taboo associated with it; but here again charms are often relied upon. The big net catches most of the fish which are carried down by the rush of water through the opening in the weir; but a group of fishermen stand round it with their hand nets, with which they catch any fish that leap out of the big net, and would otherwise escape, the ordinary hand nets being usually used for larger fish, and the cobweb ones for the smaller fish. They often have two or three of these weirs in the same stream, at some little distance from each other.

A fishing party will often stay and live for some days at the place where they are fishing, and eat the fish each day as they catch it; so that what they bring home for the village or community may only be the result of the last day’s sport. But the women will sometimes come to the fishers, bring them food, and take some fish back to the village or community. Each community has waters which it regards as being its own; but disputes as to this apparently do not arise.

A solitary individual sometimes goes off to catch fish with one of the hand nets above described or with his hands, and eats or keeps what he catches; but this is unusual.

Agriculture.

Agriculture is never communistic, being entirely an individual or family matter, men and households and families having their own gardens and plantations. The trees and plants chiefly cultivated are those already mentioned as being used for food.

The clearing of the ground is done by men, and is begun about the end of June. The trees and their branches are used for fencing, the fencing being also done by men. The clearing away of the undergrowth is done by women, who pile it in small heaps, which are spread over the cleared space, being so close together that they almost touch one another. When these have got quite dry, which may be in a few days, or not for some time, they burn them, and the ashes add fertility to the soil. There is no general digging up of the ground, as distinguished from the digging of holes for individual plants. The clearing of the trees is done with stone adzes, or in difficult cases by fire; but some of the people now have European axes, of which some have been acquired from white men, and some from plain and coast natives. In clearing for planting yam and plants of the yam type they leave the upright stems of some of the trees and shrubby undergrowth for the yams, etc., to trail over. Cultivation of some of the more usual plants is done as follows.