It is not too much to say that the chief problem in dealing with an erstwhile savage race is to overcome the universal loss of interest and decline in energy which inevitably follows upon the development of that semblance of civilization which is enforced with the advent of the white man. The establishment of manual training schools wherein arts and crafts which may be profitably practiced by the natives as life-professions, is a first essential to the salvation of the race. These schools should and would in no manner interfere with the religious teaching received from missionaries, but would indeed be a most potent factor in the spread of true Christianity among the natives. Whether Christianity be true or false does not affect the case, for the natives are destined to be dominated by Christian peoples, and it primarily essential that they should understand at least the rudiments of Christian ideals and behavior.
The realization of the importance of training them to the pursuit of useful arts and trades, which would enable the natives to become self-supporting in the European sense, has been perceived by certain thinkers among the missionaries themselves, and in certain regions efforts are being made the success of which should revolutionize our whole method of dealing with the problem of introducing civilization among a primitive people.
Keep their minds active and their hands employed in self-supporting work and their morals and religion will safely fall into accord with Christian standards.
Up to the present native education has been left to the devoted efforts of the missionaries, who have more than 10,000 pupils under their charge, but the time is coming when the government should cooperate in establishing trade schools wherein crafts, providing life-vocations to the natives, may be taught.
There may be more than 275,000 natives in Papua, but, due to lack of knowledge of the country, the actual number is unknown.
Among the mountain fastnesses, defending themselves in tree-houses, one finds a frizzly-headed black negrito-like race hardly more than five feet in height. These are probably remnants of the "pigmy" pre-Dravidian or Negrito-Papuan element, which constituted the most ancient inhabitants of the island and who long ago were driven inland from the coveted coast.
The burly negroid Papuans of the Great River deltas of western Papua differ widely from the lithe, active, brown-skinned, mop-headed natives of the eastern half of the southern coast; and Professors Haddon and Seligmann have decided that in eastern New Guinea many Proto-Polynesian, Melanesian and Malayan immigrants have mingled their blood with that of the more primitive Papuans. Thus there are many complexly associated ethnic elements in New Guinea, and often people living less than a hundred miles apart can not understand one another; in fact, each village has its peculiar dialect. Social customs and cultural standards in art and manufacture vary greatly from the same cause, and each tribe has some remarkable individual characteristics. In the Fly-River region, the village consists of a few huge houses with mere stalls for the families, which crowd for defence under the shelter of a single roof. Along the southern side of the eastern end of the island, however, each family has its own little thatched hut, and these are often built for defense upon piling over the sea, reminding one of the manner of life of the prehistoric Swiss-lake dwellers.
Nearly 12,000 natives are at present employed by the whites as indentured laborers in Papua, their terms of service ranging from three years, upon agricultural work, to not more than eighteen months in mining. Their wages range from about $1.50 to $5.00 per month, and all payments must be made in the presence of a magistrate and in coin or approved bank notes.
At every turn both employer and employed are wisely safeguarded; the native suffering imprisonment for desertion, and the employer being prohibited from getting the blacks into debt, or from treating them harshly or unjustly. Their enlistment must be voluntary and executed in the presence of a magistrate, and, after their term of service, the employer is obliged to return them to their homes.
One is impressed with the many manifestations of a fair degree of efficiency on the part of the native laborers, who are really good plantation hands and resourceful sailors. In fact, trade has always been practiced to a considerable extent by the shore tribes, the pottery of the eastern end of the coast being annually exchanged for the sago produced by the natives of the Fly River Delta. It is a picturesque sight to see the large lakatois, or trading canoes, creeping along in the shadow of the palm-fringed shores under the great wall of the mountains, the lakatoi consisting of a raft composed of six or more canoes lashed together side by side, and covered by a platform which bears a thatched hut serving to house the sailors and their wares. The craft is propelled by graceful crescent-shaped lateen sails of pandanus matting and steered by sweeps from the stern. Trading voyages of hundreds of miles are often undertaken, the lakatois starting from the east at the waning of the southeast trade wind in early November and returning a month or two later in the season of the northwest monsoon.