The Mafulu: Mountain People of British New Guinea

by Robert Wood Williamson

The ceremony of removal of the mourning may take place after an interval of only a week or two, or of so much as six months, the date often depending upon the occurrence of some other ceremony, at which the removal of the mourning can be carried out without necessitating a ceremony for itself only. Visitors from some other community attend. The ceremony only applies to the nearest relative—the person who wears the string necklace; but, on his or her mourning being ceremoniously removed, the mourning of all others in respect of the same deceased ceases automatically.[7] This nearest relative has to provide a village pig. There is a feast, and dancing and pig-killing and distribution of food and pig, in the usual way, and this may be in the village of the deceased or in some other village of the community. The pig-killing is done by the pig-killer under the platform of a chiefs platform grave, or on the site of it. The pig, specially provided by the nearest relative, is bought and paid for by some person, as in the case of some of the ceremonies already described, and this person, after the killing of the pig, without special ceremony, cuts off the mourner’s string necklace, dips it in the blood of the pig, and throws it away; then he takes some coloured paint, usually red, and with it daubs two lines on each side of the face across the cheek of the mourner, who of course at this ceremony will still have his black paint. If the mourner has been refraining from food, instead of wearing the necklace, the ceremony is confined to the paint-daubing. Then the mourner pays this ceremonial pig-buyer for his services, probably in feathers or dog-teeth, and the mourning is at an end.

There will at a later date be a purification ceremony, at which wild pigs will be killed, such as has already been described.[8]

Death and Burial.

(Chiefs.)

A dying chief is attended by the special woman and others in the way above described, except that many women of the clan are there, and that this special attendance and its accompanying wailing begin earlier, perhaps two or three days earlier, than in the case of an ordinary person, and that all the women of the clan who are not in the house wail outside it.

In this case, however, there is a special ceremony for ascertaining whether or not the chief is in fact going to die—a ceremony which is usually performed at his own request. Some vegetable food, probably sweet potato, or perhaps sugar-cane or taro, is given him to eat; and this he will do although he may be very ill, and may not have been taking food, though of course, if he were insensible or unable to eat, this special ceremony could not be carried out. The inedible portions of this food, e.g., the peel of the potato or the hard fibres of the sugar-cane, are then handed to certain magical persons of the community, whose special duty it is to perform the ceremony about to be described, but as to whom I was unable to ascertain who and what they are, and whether they have any other special functions besides those of this ceremony. Some of these portions of food may even be sent to some similar magic person of high reputation in another community, in order that he also may perform the same ceremony. Each of these magic persons also has handed to him a portion of a perineal band belonging to, and recently worn by, the ailing chief.

Each of the magic men then wraps up the portion of food which has been given to him in the piece of band; and this he again wraps up in leaves, and continues doing so until the parcel has become a round ball 4 or 5 inches in diameter. The men then separate, and each of them goes off alone to a spot outside the village, where he collects some very dry firewood, and heaps it up against the trunk of a tree to a height of, say, 6 feet. He then engages in an incantation, after which he puts the ball inside the bottom of the wood pile, and lights the pile at the bottom. Then he lies down by this fire and closes his eyes. After an interval of perhaps two to five minutes he gets up, as though awakening from a bad dream, and hears the wailing in the adjoining village, and asks himself what all this wailing is about; and he then appears to remember for what purpose he is there, goes to the fire, and takes out the ball. If the fire has burnt or scorched the food wrapped up in the ball, it is an indication that the chief is to die. If not, it indicates that he will live. These magic men then return to the village, and report the result. If their report be that the chief is going to live, the people cease their wailing, but if it be that he is to die, the wailing continues.

Pausing here for a moment, I may admit that, though I have told the tale of this ceremony, with its private cogitations—real or pretended—of the magic men, as it was told to me, the tale is open to obvious questions. How can a magic man from a distant community hear the wailing? What would happen if the results of the ceremonies of the various magic men were to differ? What would be the situation if a chief whose death was indicated by the ceremony lived, or if one whose recovery was foretold became worse and died? All these points I tried to elucidate without success; but possibly the answer to the query as to divergence of results may be that the men take care that the results of their experiments shall not differ.

It is believed by the natives that, if a hostile community can secure some of the food remnants and band, and hand them to their own magic man, for him to go through the same ceremony, he may maliciously bring about an unfavourable result, and thus may cause the death of the chief. If the belief that such a thing had happened arose, it would be a casus belli with that other community; and a case is known in which an inter-community fight did occur on this ground.

If the report be that the chief is to die, the special woman attendant will give him the blow on the head, as in the case of the ordinary villager. The shouting of the men outside when the chiefs death is announced is much louder than in the case of a commoner; and as they shout they brandish their spears, and strike the roof of the chiefs house with the spear points, and some of the men strike it with adzes and clubs. The spreading of the news to other communities is on a wider scale, and the number of people who respond to the news and come to the funeral is very great, and includes a larger number of chiefs and prominent men; there are more, and much larger, parties of them. The funeral song of the women, commenced on the announcement of death, lasts much longer—indeed for hours. In fact, as numerous large bodies of people keep coming in, and some of these coming from a distance may not arrive until just before the funeral, and as the funeral song has to be recommenced as each fresh party comes in, and lasts so much longer each time, it follows that this funeral song practically continues without ceasing from the moment when death is announced until the actual funeral. The immediate smearing by men and women of their bodies with mud is done by all the members of the entire community. When the guests reach the village, they are all, both men and women, smeared with mud, and they loudly call on the dead chief by his title amidi, or as babe (father). Also the various chiefs’ wives among the guests remain in the house after seeing the body, instead of coming out with the other guest women.