THIS PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS HOW PRISONERS WERE CARRIED OFF THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE "BAD OLD DAYS," TO BE AFTERWARDS COOKED AND EATEN.
However, we drifted peacefully along the coast, with an unvarying mountain range in the background, looking as though gigantic tiger-skin rugs had been thrown over it. The natives, I was informed, had produced this effect by burning the grass when hunting boars and wallabies. Occasionally we would pass groups of coco palms, which denoted the existence of a village beneath them. Then, one morning, quite suddenly we found ourselves at our destination, and I stepped ashore to be surrounded by crowds of excited natives, to whom the advent of a white woman had not lost the charm of novelty.
The village of Wedau, where I disembarked, had been, not many years before, the scene of frequent cannibal feasts. The Wedauans had lived in a state of continual feud with the hill-folk and other tribes at a distance, and had sallied forth on various occasions to fight with them on any convenient "merewa" or battlefield. The photograph here reproduced shows a group of natives on an old "merewa," and illustrates the method by which hapless captives were carried off the field in the bad old days, to be afterwards cooked and eaten.
The victim, sometimes only stunned or wounded, was lashed by the hands and feet to a stout pole, which was borne on men's shoulders through the village. Sometimes several of these unhappy wretches were captured at a time, and the treatment they received before being mercifully killed was cruel to a degree. Samuela Aigeri, a Wedauan Christian, once related to me incidents of great barbarity which had taken place in the village in connection with the slaughter of a man taken prisoner by the villagers. The poor wretch asked in vain for water to drink, and was stoned and otherwise tormented for a considerable time before being given the coup de grâce. This was customary.
I soon discovered that European housekeeping in Papua is charmingly simple. Everything arrived in a tin, for the most part ready for use. Meat, milk, butter, vegetables—all stood in tins in neat rows in the storeroom. A diet of tinned stuffs grew rather monotonous at times, but we were able occasionally to vary it. Sometimes a man would arrive with a live turtle, which he would sell for two sticks of tobacco, costing threepence. The wretched turtle would be killed and cut up, but would still insist on quivering in a most realistic manner even when placed on the fire to cook. Then, too, if the season was a good one, the kitchen would be found lined with joints of wallabies, and it would be hard to know what to do with so much fresh meat.
NATIVES FILLING WATER-BOTTLES AT A STREAM.
From a Photograph.
I remember once thinking that smoked wallaby would be a change, and I asked the little cook-boy if he could get some done for me. He assented willingly, and bore a leg off to where he said there was an "ovo" or platform for smoking meat. In a few days it was returned to me and looked most appetizing. We cut a dish full of delicate slices, and were just about to set it on the dining-table, when I thought of asking the cook-boy how it had been prepared. He told me quite cheerfully that he had given it to an old leper woman, who, being ill, could not leave the house, and so was sure to keep the fire alight. It was she we had to thank for so kindly smoking our meat. Needless to say, the dish did not appear on the table that night.