The Mafulu: Mountain People of British New Guinea

by Robert Wood Williamson

It is placed with the knees bent up to the chin, and the heels to the buttocks. In the meantime men of the village dig a grave 2 or 3 feet deep in the village open enclosure. When all is ready the funeral song begins again, the singers this time being the female relatives of the deceased and the women who have come from outside villages, but not the other women of the village of the deceased. Men of the village then carry the corpse, wrapped and doubled up, and place it, lying on its back, in the grave. There is no real procession from the house to the grave, though all the people assemble at the latter; but during the whole of the time, until the body is in the grave, the singing by the women of the funeral song continues. As soon as the body is in the grave, all the men, both villagers and visitors, shout again as before, and for the same purpose. The grave is then filled up, the women in the meantime singing as before; and when this is done the funeral is over.

The relatives of the deceased now go into mourning. The widow or widower or other nearest relative wears the mourning string necklace already described. He or she, and also the other near relatives, smear their faces, and sometimes, but not always, their bodies, with black, to which, as regards the face, but not the body, is added oil or water. Some more distant relatives, instead of blackening themselves, wear the mourning shell necklace. And all this will continue, nominally without break, until the mourning is formally removed, in the way to be explained hereafter. As a matter of fact, the insignia of mourning are not worn without interruption, and the black smearing is by no means so retained; but on any special occasion the person would take care to appear in mourning. There is a custom under which the widow or widower or other nearest relative may, instead of wearing the mourning string necklace, abstain during the period of mourning from eating some particular food, of which deceased was most fond.[2]

In connection with mourning, I should also mention a curious custom, which I understand is common, though not universal, for a woman who has lost a child, and especially a first-born or very clear child, to amputate the top end of one of her fingers, up to the first joint, with an adze. Having done this once for one child, she will possibly do it again for another child; and a woman has been seen with three fingers mutilated in this way.[3]

The family of the deceased invite men and women from some other community, but only one community, to a funeral feast, which is held after an interval of two or three days from the day of the funeral. On the day appointed these guests arrive. They are all well ornamented, but, with one exception, they do not wear their dancing ornaments. One of them, however, usually a chief or the son of a chief of the community invited, comes in his full dancing ornaments. All the guest men bring with them their spears, and perhaps adzes or clubs.

When they arrive the following performances take place, the village enclosure being left by the villagers empty and open:—First two guest women enter the village enclosure at one end, and run in silence round it, brandishing spears in both hands, as at the big feast; but they make no hostile demonstration. When these two women have reached their starting point, they again do the same thing, brandishing their spears as before, and all the guest men, except the specially dressed one, follow them by advancing with a dancing step along the enclosure, they also brandishing their spears, and also being silent. Thus the whole group goes to the other end of the village, passing the grave of the deceased as they do so; then they turn round, and come back again in the same way, but on their return they stop before they reach the grave.

Then the specially ornamented guest man enters alone, without his arms, but with his drum, which he beats. He dances up the village enclosure in a zigzag course, going from side to side of the enclosure, and always facing in the direction in which he is at the time moving; and during his advance he beats his drum., but otherwise he and all the other people are silent. When in this way he has reached the grave, the chief of the clan of the village where the funeral takes place, who does not wear any dancing ornaments, approaches him, and removes his heavy head ornament. This ends the first part of the ceremony; and the villagers and guests then chat and conduct themselves in the ordinary way.

Plates [82] and [83] illustrate scenes at a funeral feast in the village of Amalala. In the former plate the grave is very clear, and the remains of an older grave are visible behind the post a little to the left. At the upper end of the village enclosure are the visitors, who are about to dance along the enclosure past the grave, and then back again up to it. The figures in the emone behind are Amalala men, watching the performance. In the latter plate the visitor chief is seen dancing along the village enclosure towards the grave.

In the meantime the members of the family of the deceased bring in one or more village pigs and some vegetables. A number of sticks are laid upon the ground over the grave, the sticks crossing each other so as to form a rude ground platform (this is not done by any particular person), and these sticks are covered with banana leaves.[4] The pigs are placed on this platform, and are then killed by the pig-killer and cut up, and the vegetables and pieces of pig are distributed by the chief of the clan, helped perhaps by the family of the deceased, among the male visitors. The one specially dressed visitor, being the only one who has really danced, gets much the largest share. For example, if there be two or more pigs, he will get an entire pig for himself. Then the ceremony is over, and the guests return home. The wood of the platform is not removed from the grave, but is left to rot there. The killing of the pigs at this ceremony is regarded as the act which will, they think, finally propitiate or drive away the ghost of the departed.

It will be noticed that, though representatives from several communities may be invited and come to the funeral, only one community is invited to the subsequent funeral feast, just as only one community is invited to the big feast, which latter we must, I think, associate with the general superstitious idea of laying the ghosts of past departed chiefs and notables. I cannot say what is the reason for the confinement of these invitations to one community only, but it must, I think, have had some definite origin[5]; and as to this I am struck by the similarity of the Massim idea, referred to by Dr. Seligmann, that an individual’s death primarily concerns the dead man’s hamlet and one other hamlet of his clan, with which certain death feasts are exchanged, other members of the clan being comparatively little affected.[6]

As soon as possible after the funeral pig-killing, they catch some wild pig or pigs, and kill and eat them, and sweep down the village by way of purification ceremony, very much as they do in the case of the big feast, except that it is on a very much smaller scale, and that the people do not afterwards leave the village.