Suicide is committed in Papua for what would seem very inadequate reasons to white people. For instance, if a man goes on a long journey without bidding farewell to his nearest relatives, one of them may feel it incumbent on him to climb a coco palm and fling himself off it to his death. A village girl who was very anxious to accompany me on a trip up the coast finally reluctantly refused to go. If she did, she said, her father would “throw himself from a high tree.”
Ridicule and opposition are always very trying to a Papuan, and a sad case of double suicide took place in consequence of the latter.
A girl and a young man became much attached to each other and met regularly. Each morning, however, the girl’s father and mother would say to her, “Why do you talk to that boy? He is poor, and has not enough food to give you.” At the same time the boy’s parents told him continually how foolish he was to have anything to do with a girl who would never do good work for him at the gardens. The constant opposition told on the unhappy couple and at last the girl’s patience wore out. She said to her lover—the speech is truly characteristic of a Papuan—“The tongues of our people will never be silent. Let us cease to live, and their talk will be done!” And the boy agreed.
The next night they decked themselves in their best ornaments—necklaces, shell armlets, and sweet-scented flowers—so that they appeared as though dressed for a feast. Then they took a piece of tough jungle creeper and, having made nooses, bade farewell to each other. They were found when morning came hanging dead in the same tree.
THE MISSION LAUNCH UNDER REPAIR—PRACTICALLY EVERY KIND OF MISHAP SHORT OF BEING BLOWN UP HAS BEFALLEN THIS HARD-WORKED LITTLE VESSEL.
From a Photograph.
The mission launch was, on the whole, my quickest mode of travelling—that is to say, as long as it was whole. As seen in the accompanying picture, it is being repaired after one of its many mishaps. It would be quite beyond me to relate all the adventures that have befallen it during its period of existence. It has not, I believe, been blown up yet, though it came perilously near it when on fire once, for an over-zealous native, imagining the benzine tank to hold water, was only hindered just in time from chopping it open with an axe!
(To be concluded.)