Their sago is prepared in a simple manner. The palm from which the starch is derived is indigenous to their jungles, and we are told that one large trunk of, say, two-foot thickness and twenty-foot length will supply food for four persons for a year. When sago is to be prepared a palm is felled and the pithy center is scraped from it, macerated with pestles, and soaked in water. The water dissolves the starch content and, when evaporated, leaves the starch ready for immediate consumption.
The moist starch is molded into cakes which are dried bone-dry, and in this form it seems to keep indefinitely. In preparation for eating, the cake is simply softened with water and toasted over a fire until cooked sufficiently to suit the individual taste. With the exception of the surf-fish, the other articles of Kia Kia diet are seldom eaten except on some special occasion, as at a feast. The surf-fish are gathered with each full tide, but of course only the natives on the sea-coast get these. They are always cooked, never eaten raw. In fact, the Kia Kias eat everything but cocoanut cooked, and even cook that sometimes.
The heads of enemies, both animal and human, are kept as trophies denoting the prowess of the hunter or warrior. Boar tusks are made into armlets, and the greatness of a hunter is easily determined by the number of these that adorn his arms. In the case of a human enemy the head is severed from the body and smoked after the brains have been removed. It is kept carefully, within the house of the man who collected it, until the ravages of time and multitudinous insects have removed the last remaining traces of dried flesh from it, and it then becomes a mural decoration for the house or graces the doorway of the shack. In the case of the human enemy the body is always eaten; that is, when the feast can be compassed with no great danger of news of the orgy coming to the ears of the punishing white men who rule the country. These feasts are becoming increasingly infrequent, but cannibalism still exists and perhaps a dozen cases yearly are brought to the attention of the authorities. For each of the cases that come to the notice of the Assistant in Merauke there are many that never come to light, for the natives have held them in great secrecy of late.
The skulls of deceased foemen sometimes litter up the place to such an extent that the children play with them as with toys, and one little black rascal—the son of the chief, by the way—seems to take a particular delight in hearing his mother describe the affrays in which his father collected them. We are so fortunate as to get a snap-shot of her entertaining the youngster in this way, and later secure one of the little shaver trying to pile them one upon the other, like one of our kiddies at play with building-blocks. He is so engrossed in his attempt to balance them that he fails to notice that we are taking his picture.
As the savages have no matches, they obtain fire in a crude but very practical way. It takes several of them to do it, for they do not care to exert themselves much. In a piece of soft, very dry wood they make a small indentation into which they insert the point of a thin, round stick of ironwood or similar hard, close-grained wood three or four feet in length. Holding the stick between the palms of their hands, they rotate it rapidly, meanwhile pressing it into the softer wood, the pulverized fiber of which finally ignites from the friction. When the wood dust is smoldering, small bits of dried tinder are piled around it and the whole is blown gently into flame. The operation consumes about twenty minutes and on account of this and the labor involved their household fires are seldom allowed to go out; but a supply of the soft wood is kept on hand for use in an emergency.
The Kia Kias are extremely lazy, we find; in many little ways they show that they will not exert themselves in the slightest if they can avoid doing so. If one of them is walking along and happens to see something lying on the ground that he desires, will he stoop to pick it up? Never! He simply grasps the object between his great and second toe and raises the foot to his hand, and he does it gracefully, never losing his poise or missing his stride.
On an afternoon, shortly after the heat of midday, the men gather in the shade of the cocoas back of the kampong to discuss the latest scandal or politics. Inasmuch as the kapala kampong, or chief, holds his position solely by the sufferance of the others, or possibly because of some trait of natural leadership inherent in him, changes in administration frequently occur. These are in the main caused by the chief’s forming a liaison with the wife or daughter of another influential member of the tribe without giving sufficient remuneration. Then the fight is on. It takes the form of lengthy diatribes by the injured party and much muckraking. The daily papers (the ladies) drop in to listen at first and then monopolize the conversation, as is the general custom elsewhere. They settle the argument, for they get in the last word. Here in Kia Kia Land the women literally “run the ranch.” It behooves the aspirant for leadership to stand well with them, for in the end it is their will that is done. The only thing that the women have not been successful in is to make the men work. They often make them fight, but it is much easier for them to do the chores themselves than to try to force the men to do them. Hence, all Kia Kia men are gentlemen of leisure.
One little fellow takes great delight in hearing his mother describe the battles in which his father collected his trophies