The Melanesians of British New Guinea

PREFACE

THE greater part of the material which has been utilised in this volume was collected in 1904 on the Daniels Ethnographical Expedition to New Guinea, towards which a small grant was made by the Royal Society. I have also made use of notes made during 1898 when I visited New Guinea as a member of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits. Major Cooke Daniels, however, is not in any way responsible for the production of this book, which it was for a long time intended should be published in a slightly shorter form as the first volume of a series of Reports dealing with the work of the Expedition, and it was with the most sincere regret that I found myself compelled to abandon this project. This is also the reason why the crafts and arts of the various groups have not been dealt with in this book.

It is difficult to express my gratitude to a number of friends who in one way and another have assisted in the production of this volume. Foremost among these are Captain F. R. Barton, C.M.G., late Administrator of the Possession, Dr A. C. Haddon, F.R.S., and Dr H. O. Forbes. All these gentlemen have placed their collections of New Guinea photographs unreservedly at my disposal and they have been equally generous with the contents of their notebooks.

I have received nothino- but kindness from the officials concerned in the administration of the Possession, who one and all assisted me to the full extent of their powers. Of these I would mention specially Mr D. Ballantine, The Hon. A. M. Campbell, Mr G. O. Manning, Mr A. C. English, Mr J. MacDonald and Dr W. Mersh Strong who was for vi Preface some time a member of the Expedition. I am especially indebted to Dr Strong for much valuable information concerning the Roro-speaking tribes and the mountaineers of the hinterland of his district which he collected after he had taken up the responsible position of Government Agent for Mekeo.

My sincere thanks are due to the Bishop of British New Guinea and to his energetic assistants the Rev. Henry Newton and Mr E. L. Giblin, who besides acting as interpreters in the field have sent me a great deal of valuable information. I am no less indebted to the members of the Mission of the Sacred Heart who, from the Archbishop to the humblest coloured assistant, showed me the greatest kindness. Without the active co-operation of the Rev. Fathers Vitali, Egldi, Guibaud and Cochard it would have been Impossible to gather more than a small part of the Information concerning the Roro-speaking tribes and those of Mekeo.

I received much kindness from the late Dr Lawes and Mrs Lawes. The Rev. H. M. Dauncey has lent me a number of photographs, while I owe the use of others belonging to the London Missionary Society to the courtesy of the Rev. C. W. Abel.

The title of the book was selected to emphasise the origin and the affinities of the immigrants who have occupied so much of British New Guinea; it does not deal with the Papuans, the original inhabitants of the Possession. In the Introduction I have given my reasons for dividing the immigrant Melaneslans into two great divisions, the Western Papuo-Melanesians and the Massim (Eastern Papuo- Melaneslans), and I have briefly described the principal tribes and ethnic groups of each division and Indicated the directions in which our knowledge is most defective.

In the first half of the book I have described certain of the tribes of the Western Papuo-Melanesians. It was impossible in the time at my disposal to make a lengthy investigation of the customs and habits of all the tribes of this great division with which I came in contact. I therefore resolved

Preface vii to select one of the tribes possessing a simple form of chieftainship and clan-system and to endeavour to obtain an outline, not only of the social organisation of this tribe, but of all its more important habits and customs, and then to do as much work as possible on the variations in the social system of other tribes among whom I knew there was a comparatively complicated organisation of the clans and a highly developed system of chieftainship. Circumstances prevented my carrying out this plan as fully as I had intended, and I am unable to give an account of the social system of a number of tribes of which the Aroma and Mailu must be taken as types, but some of the essential social characteristics of these tribes have been mentioned in the Introduction.

Following this scheme it will be found that the chapters on the Koita give a general sketch of the habits and customs of the tribe, while in the chapters on the Roro and the Mekeo I have limited myself to those matters of social organisation in which these tribes differ from the Koita and from each other.

The second half of the book is concerned with the Massirn (Eastern Papuo-Melanesians), but as these people present no well-marked groups which can be called tribes (cf. Introduction, p. 9), I have described their customs under two headings corresponding to the two main divisions, northern and southern, into which the natives of the Massim area can be divided (cf. Introduction, p. 7). In this part of the volume I have again been forced to follow the scheme adopted in the first portion. The organisation and customs of the Southern Massim are described at some length, but I have only been able to indicate some of the chief divergences in the fundamentals of their social organisation shown by the Northern Massim.

In the account of the politico-economic system and customs of the Southern Massim, I have described with as much detail as possible the communities of Discovery Bay (in Milne Bay), Tubetube (an island of the Engineer Group) and Bartle Bay viii Preface

(in Goodenough Bay). I regard the two first mentioned as typical Massim in culture, the last shows certain unusual features, doubtless due to the influence of non-Melanesian tribes to the west. I have then outlined, for my information allows me to do no more, the conditions prevailing among the Northern Massim, the inhabitants of the Trobriand and Marshall Bennet Groups, Murua (the Woodlarks) and Nada (the Laughlans), besides certain smaller groups of islands near these, such as the Egum Group and Tokunu (the Alcesters).

Since the Introduction was written I have received from Dr H. O. Forbes information indicating that the inhabitants of the Louisiades themselves recognize that they form a group differing from the more western islands. The people of the Redlick Islets lying south-east of the Deboyne lagoon divide the archipelagoes of the south-east into two divisions, viz. Konabeai and Roroman. The former term is applied to * all islands lying to the east of Mewstone [Moturina] and Brooker [Utian]' while Roroman includes 'all islands to the west.' Nevertheless the system of linked totems prevailing in the Louisiades is identical with that found over the remainder of the Massim area.

It may be assumed that the division discovered by Dr Forbes takes no account of the islands of the Northern Massim nor of the D'Entrecasteaux Group. I have no direct information concerning the social organisation of the inhabitants of the latter, but the results of physical examination show that the natives of this group are Massim, while the fact that the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Tubetube came from Duau, i.e. the western part of Normanby Island, may be taken to indicate that the politico-economic system of the D'Entrecasteaux islanders is that of the Southern Massim.

The trustworthiness and therefore the value of the information presented in this volume vary. This is not to be wondered at in view of the fact that the facilities for work varied greatly in different localities. I have, however, included nothing which I have not investigated myself or

Preface ix received from informants whose observation and judgment I can trust. The information relating to the Koita is probably the most trustworthy, having been gathered from Ahuia Ova, the hereditary chief of the Hohodai Koita, who, without becoming spoilt, has learnt to speak English and to write Motu extremely well. Our conversations were mostly held on the verandah of the house where he lived with his uncle Taubada, the old chief of Hohodai. This old man and a number of his friends and contemporaries were constantly in attendance, ready and anxious to explain any difficulties. After a rough draft of the chapters upon the Koita had been written it was sent to Captain Barton, who was then in New Guinea, and who criticised and cleared up a number of doubtful matters by inquiries made on the spot. Thus it is evident that the conditions under which this manuscript was produced were unusually favourable.

Part of the information dealing with the Roro-speaking tribes was obtained through the direct questioning of natives in 'pidgin' English, but much was elicited by Fathers Guibaud and Cochard, who often acted as interpreters and who placed their own knowledge freely at my disposal.

The material upon which the Mekeo chapters are based was obtained in the shape of answers to questions asked by members of the Sacred Heart Mission, who translated the answers given to them. To this material I was able to add much valuable information derived from manuscript given to me by Father Egidi, who most kindly read through and criticised a rough draft of those parts of my manuscript about which I felt doubtful.

My notes dealing with the Massim were on the whole collected under less favourable circumstances; I had visited the tribes already mentioned in 1898, but my first visit to the Massim was in 1904, and my information was everywhere collected through an interpreter by means of questions and answers in 'pidgin' English, except at Bartle Bay where Mr Newton and Mr Giblin acted as interpreters. 'Pidgin'

«5

X Preface

English was quite satisfactory at Milne Bay (whence my Interpreter came) and worked well at Tubetube, but during the whole of the time spent among the Northern Massim I was conscious that with a better interpreter I might have carried my inquiries further, and the time spent in these islands was all too short. Mr R. L. Bellamy who has been stationed for some years on the Trobriands has most kindly read through my manuscript relating to the Northern Massim and has made a number of corrections besides giving me much additional information. Mr Newton has not only contributed to those chapters dealing with Bartle Bay but has also read through and criticised the greater part of the manuscript dealing with information gathered in that part of New Guinea. Mr GIblln has contributed Information concerning the same part of the Possession as well as a number of folk tales, and the whole of the manuscript dealing with the Southern Massim has passed through his hands and received the benefit of his knowledge of the Taupota, whose customs appear to be the same as those of Wagawaga.

My Indebtedness to a number of friends In this country is very great. Dr W. H. R. Rivers has read through nearly the whole of this work In manuscript and those portions which he was unable to read owing to absence from England have been read by Dr H addon, who has also corrected a considerable part of the proofs. Mr C. H. Read and Mr T. A. Joyce have helped me In various ways and I have received much kindness from Professor RIdgeway. A number of animals and plants have been identified by the authorities at Kew and at the British Museum (Natural History Museum). The majority of the drawings have been made by Mr Norman H. Hardy and the index and glossary prepared by Miss M. C. Jonas.

C. G. S.

I^ai'. 1 909.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PAGB

V

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

Iduhu^ Clans — Iduhu Dagi, Clan-badges — Chieftainship — Duties and Privileges of Iduhu Rohi and Rohi Ketaike — Present Conditions — Tribal Status and Address Terms — The Dubu.

CHAPTER III

Kinship and Relationship — Functions and Privileges of Certain Kin — Friendship — Adoption — Name Giving — Heni Ceremony — Ear Piercing — Nose Boring — Assumption of Sihi — Tattoo.

CHAPTER IV

Courtship and Marriage — Divorce — The Regulation of Marriage — Intermarriage of Koita and Motu — Marriage within the Village — Marriage within the Iduhu — Marriage and Kinship — Polygyny.

CHAPTER V

Conception and Pregnancy — Labour and Care of Child — Puerperium — Twins.

xii Contents

CHAPTER VI

PAGE

Land Tenure— Women in Relation to Land— Personal Property- Inheritance of Personal Property— Inheritance of Real Property.

CHAPTER Vn

Markets.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ANNUAL TRADING EXPEDITION TO THE PAPUAN

Legend of the Origin of the //zW— Customs and Procedure before the Voyage— Arrival of Lakatoi in the Gulf— The Return Journey- Customs observed during the absence of the Lakatoi — Size of Asi and Lakatoi— Lakatoi Cargoes and Crew— The value and price of S3.go— Lakatoi Ehona — Return visits of Gulf Natives — Lakatoi Language.

CHAPTER IX

War— Homicide in relation to the Community — Homicide in relation to the individual.

CHAPTER X

Theft — Domestic and Sexual Morality — Homicide — Gambling.

CHAPTER XI

Taboo Signs— Death Taboos — Food Taboos— Place Taboos — Name Taboos — Sex Taboos.

CHAPTER XII

The Koriko Feast — The Hekarai Ceremony — The Tabu Feast.

CHAPTER XIII

Maf^inogo.

CHAPTER XIV

Bowa Feast— Venedairi Fe2iSt—/ta Feast.

/

Contents xiii

CHAPTER XV

PAGE

Sorcery — Popular and Minor Magic — Origin of Charms — Agricultural Charms — Hunting Charms — Fishing Charms — Dugong and Turtle Charms — War Charms — Love Charms — Weather Charms — Divination.

CHAPTER XVI

Mythical Beings — Omens — Eschatology — Cult of the Heavenly Bodies.

CHAPTER XVII

History and Migrations of the Roro-speaking Tribes — Distribution of Clans within the Villages — External Relations and Trade.

CHAPTER XVIII

Decay of Oaoa — Doubtful Oaba.

CHAPTER XIX

Insignium of Chieftainship.

CHAPTER XX

The Building and Inauguration of a Marea — Oaoa in relation to the Marea — Classification of Oaoa found in Marea — Ornaments in and upon Marea — Tables of Local Groups, Clans, Clan-badges and Clubhouses of the Roro-speaking Tribes.

CHAPTER XXI

Childhood — Assumption of the Perineal Bandage, Itaburi — The Ibitoe — ^ Initiation — Aruaru Ceremonies — Tattooing of Girls.

xiv Contents

CHAPTER XXII

PAGE

CHAPTER XXIII % FUNERAL AND MOURNING CEREMONIES . . . . .273

CHAPTER XXIV

Sorcery— Magic — Kaivakuku — Minor Magic.

CHAPTER XXV

Spiritual Beings— Oa Rove— Omens— Eschatology.

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

lAUAFANGAI, KANGAKANGA (CLAN-BADGES) AND UFU

Kangakanga — Ngopu Groups — Table of the Pangua of the Biofa and Vee, showing the Ngopu group to which each Pangua belongs — Clubhouses— Ngove.

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

List of Pangua of the Vee Villages, their Ufuapie and Iauafa7igai — Inawaia — List of Pangua of some of the Biofa villages, their Ufuapie and lauafangai — The P^unctions of the Ufuapie in connection with death and mourning ceremonies — The Ufuapie and the Regulation of Marriage.

Contents xv

CHAPTER XXXI

PAGE

SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY AND CONSTITUTION OF

Table of Mekeo Villages, Pangua (Clans), Ngopu Groups, lauafangai^ Ufii (Clubhouses) and Kangakanga (Clan-badges).

CHAPTER XXXn

CHAPTER XXXni

Wagawaga : The Birth of the Sun — How Fire came — The first Coconut— The Story of the snake Sinerogusi Sarasara — Hagwai the Cuscus — The Story of the Bat's Cave — How Drums came to Wagawaga — The Story of the Song Waiaga — Tanoduya — The Greedy Cave Dwellers — Tuisuheaia the red eel — The Story of Kwahohofi — The Ogre Kuporu — Gwarigwaridona and Faisi Uri. Taupota : The black Cockatoo — The Lily Root — Taumudukoro — Taukunugegewari — Sorcery — The Frog- Witch— The Origin of the White Man. Awaiama r The Fig Tree. GOODENOUGH BAY : (Bou) The Boa Constrictor— (Wedau) The Rat and the Butterfly — (Wamira) The Lizard and the Bird — (Wedau) The Cock — (Wamira) The Dun Pig — (Gelaria) Dabedabe — The Mapa Tree — (Mukaua) Gamey Leg and Sleepy Leg — (Menapi) Kukuku and Waima.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Wagawaga — Tubetube — Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin).

CHAPTER XXXV

Clans and Clan-Groups : Wagawaga— Tubetube— Bartle Bay. ToTEMiSM : Wagawaga — Tubetube — Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin).

xvi Contents

CHAPTER XXXVI

PAGE

Chieftainship : Wagawaga and Tubetube— Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin). CLUBHOUSES AND PUBLIC PLATFORMS: Wagawaga and Tubetube. Stone CIRCLES AND Squatting Places : Wagawaga— Bartle Bay. Ownership of Land : Wagawaga and Tubetube. Kimta and Eriam: Wagawaga and Tubetube — Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin)— Note by Mr Newton.

CHAPTER XXXVn

The Hamlet and the Family-Group. Kinship and Relationship: Wagawaga— Tubetube. FUNCTIONS AND Privileges of Certain Kin. Name Avoidance. Avoidance of Contact. Adoption. Infancy and Youth : Wagawaga— Tubetube. Adolescence: Tubetube. Initiation Ceremonies (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin): Initiation of Boys — Initiation of Girls.

CHAPTER XXXVHI

Wagawaga— Tubetube. COURTSHIP and Betrothal : Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin). Marriage: Wagawaga — Tubetube — Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin). The Regulation of Marriage: Wagawaga— Tubetube. Marriage in Relation to Gardens and House Land : Wagawaga — Tubetube — Polygyny — Divorce.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Inheritance: Wagawaga— Tubetube— Bartle Bay (by H. Newton).

CHAPTER XL

Wagawaga — Tubetube — Trading Voyages — Commercial Agents — Trade from beyond the Massim Area.

CHAPTER XLI

Peace- .making: Bartle Bay (by H. Newton).

CHAPTER XLII

Wagawaga — Tubetube.

Contents xvii

CHAPTER XLIII

PAGE

Domestic morality — Sexual Morality — Modesty — Homicide — Suicide — Theft — Commercial Morality.

CHAPTER XLIV TABOO

Limitations of the Taboo — Nature, Action, and use of the Taboo — Taboo Signs — Death Taboos— Food Taboos — Place Taboos — Name Taboos — Sex Taboos.

CHAPTER XLV

Feasts : Wagawaga — Tubetube. Dances : Wagawaga — Tubetube — Bartle Bay. Songs: Wagawaga — Tubetube. The Walaga Feast AND THE Cult of the Mango : Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin). The Walaga Feast at Diwari (by H. Newton).

CHAPTER XLVI

Death and Burial: Wagawaga— Tubetube— Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin). Mourning : Wagawaga — Tubetube. Mourning Feasts: Wagawaga — Tubetube— Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin). Burial at the Present Day : Tubetube. Avoidance of the Names of the Dead : Wagawaga — Tubetube. Destruction of the Houses of the Dead : Wagawaga — Tubetube. Toreha: Wagawaga. Wapa Ceremony: Bartle Bay (by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin). Dabadabagigira: Wagawaga.

CHAPTER XLVn

The production of disease and death by magical means.

CHAPTER XLVni .

Wagawaga — Tubetube — Bartle Bay. CuLT OF THE Heavenly Bodies. The Cult of the Mango. Omens : Wagawaga — Tubetube Bartle Bay. Dreams. Divination: Wagawaga. Eschatology: Wagawaga — Tubetube — Bartle Bay.

CHAPTER XLIX

The Trobriands — The Marshall Bennets — Murua and its Annexes.

xviii Contents

CHAPTER L

CLAN^ AND TOTEMS . . . •

The Trobriands— The Marshall Bennets— Murua.

PAGE . 677

CHAPTER LI

CHIEFTAINSHIP . . . ' . ' • • ' • • ' • • -692 The Trobriands— The Marshall Bennets.

CHAPTER LH

Childhood and Adolescence.

CHAPTER LHI

» COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 7o8

Tlie. Trobriands— The Marshall Bennets — Murua— Polygyny— The Regulation of Marriage.

CHAPTER LIV

V BURIAL AND MOURNING CEREMONIES 7i5

The Trobriands— The Marshall Bennets— Murua.

CHAPTER LV

APPENDIX No. I

THE LOUISIADES 73^

APPENDIX No. II

MUKAUA. (By E. L. GIBLIN) 74°

Totemism— Chieftainship— Betrothal and Marriage.

GLOSSARY .747

LIST OF PLATES

PLATE I.

II.

III.

IV. V.

VI. VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI. XII. XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX. XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV. XXV.

Hanuabada (Port Moresby). Frontispiece to face page

Pokao woman. (Captain F. R. Barton) 2

Two men of Hanuabada (Port Moresby). (Captain F. R.

Barton) 3

Ahuia Ova. (Captain F. R. Barton) i7

House dubu at Kalo, Hood Peninsula. (Dr A. C. Haddon) . 20 Agaiambo man and Goodenough Islander. (Captain F. R.

Barton) 33

Drawing by Ahuia of pig jaws on his veranda . . . . 5^

Old dubu at Hohodai 60

Dubu at Gaile. (Captain F. R. Barton) 61

Heni ceremony 72

Tattooed Girl. (Captain F. R. Barton) 74

Tattooed Girl showing ^^^^. (Captain F. R. Barton) . . 74 Port Moresby lakatoi. (Captain F. R. Barton) . . . .106 Part of interior of a lakatoi showing packages of sago. (Captain

F.R.Barton) "S

Tattoo assumed by homicide. (Captain F. R. Barton) . .130

Food prepared for the koriko feast i43

Food collected for the hekarai ceremony I45

Games preceding the tabu feast I45

Native drawing of dubu prepared for the tabu feast, the koniu ceremony is shown on the extreme right I49

The dubu at Pari dressed for the tabu feast. (G. O. Manning) . 148 Women with yams at the tabu feast. (G. O. Manning) . . 149

The takaka figure of the dance ma£-ino£^o I57

Native drawing of hill showing stone Eyamune . . . '157 Bisa and tobi in Guriu village. (Captain F. R. Barton) . .160

Exposure of corpse on ^/^^ 161

Koita widow .164

XX

List of Plates

PLATE

XXVI.

XXVII. XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII. XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

XLIII.

XLIV.

XLV.

XLVI.

XLVII.

XLVIII.

XLIX.

L.

LI.

LIL

LIIL

LIV.

LV.

LVI.

LVII.

LVIII.

LIX.

LX.

LXI.

(Rev. H. M

carved by

The robumomotno ceremony

Koita charms

Uriia and sese offerings

Hill on which lives Hara Tabu

De^i'ase .....

Vada and victim .

House at Waima. (Dr A. C. Haddon)

Feather dada of the Roro-speaking tribes.

Dauncey)

A marea at Waima. (Rev. Father Fillodeau)

A marea at Moii. (Dr A. C. Haddon)

Anapua marea of Siria village. (Dr A. C. Haddon)

Human-headed post in old clubhouse at Diumana, Poa Oa. (Rev. H. M. Dauncey) .

Waima girls showing tattoo ....

Waho at Waima. (Rev. H. M. Dauncey) .

Skull prepared for sorcery .....

Kaivakukii masks at Hisiu. (Captain F. R. Barton)

Part of Veifa village. (Rev. Father Fillodeau) .

Feather kangakanga, (Rev. H. M. Dauncey)

Popungapi ufu of Rarai village. (Captain F. R. Barton) .

Clubhouse in Aipiana village showing decoration borrowed from

Elema tribes. (Captain F. R. Barton) .... Ngove formerly existing at Veifa. (Rev. Father Fillodeau)

Chief's lime %o\xdi^ faonga

Diumana clubhouse. (Rev. H. M. Dauncey) Scene on Maivara River. (Dr H. O. Forbes) . Hamlet on Rogea Island. (Captain F. R. Barton) Hamlet on Teste Island. (Dr H. O. Forbes) . Houses at Boianai, Bartle Bay. (Captain F. R. Barton) House at Maivara, Milne Bay. (Captain F. R. Barton) . Carving on house at Maivara. (Captain F. R. Barton) . Skulls outside /^/?<wa. (Rev. C. W. Abel)

A ceremonial platform inaka) at Barabara, Milne Bay. (Rev C. W. Abel)

Restoration of a gahana at Taupota

\gahana on Fergusson Island. (Captain F. R. Barton) .

Armshells

A bagi and samakupa

Benam in ceremonial handle to face page

List of Plates

XXI

PLATE to face page LXII. ^<?;«^w in heavy ceremonial handle 520

LXIII. A 2£/^^« from Murua. (The Bishop of New Guinea) . . . 526

LXIV. Rough and partially polished adze blades 533

LXV. Carved end pieces of large waga from Kiriwina. (Captain

F. R. Barton) 534

LXVI. Carved end pieces of two large waga from Murua . . . 534

LXVII. Waga from Brooker Island (Louisiades). (Dr H. O. Forbes) . 534

LXVI II. Youths painted for rurepo dance. (Dr H. O. Forbes) . . 585 LXIX. The lizard dance at Wamira, Bartle Bay. (The Bishop of

New Guinea) 586

LXX. Grave at Teste Island. (Dr H. O. Forbes) . . . .608 LXXI. Grave at Farm Bay near Suau. (Rev. C. W. Abel) . . .608 LXXII. Aqueduct across the Davudavu creek (Bartle Bay) showing carved figures on posts. (The Bishop of New Guinea) . 643

LXXIII. A Trobriand village. (Dr H. O. Forbes) 662

LXXIV. House on Nada. (Captain F. R. Barton) 675

LXXV. Chief's house at Omarakana. (Captain F. R. Barton) . . 695

LXXVI. Yam houses on Kiriwina. (Captain F. R. Barton) . . . 695

LXXVII. Carved timbers forming well of chief's yam house. (Captain

F. R. Barton) 695

LXXVIII. Sepulchral pottery used on Murua 732

LXXIX. House on Misima. (Captain F. R. Barton) . . . .736

Table showing Marriages of the clans of Inawi village

• 364

MAP

British New Guinea At End

LIST OF TEXT FIGURES

FIG. PAGE

1. Diagram showing distribution of Papuans and Papuo-Melanesians . 6

2. Restoration of Aroma dubu 23

3. Map of coastal portion of Central District 40

4. Plan of Pari Village .46

5. Iduhu dagina of {a) Dubara, {b) Taurama, (tr) Keakone clans ... 52

6. Dried tail of dahudahu 57

7. Plan of dubu at Gaile 64

8. Lakatoi ornament, pepe 105

9. Z,^2y&^/t7/ mast ornament of cowrie shells 105

10. Native drawing of taboo signs 137

11. V>\2Lgx?iT:. oi maginogo . .156

12. Collar made of dead man's perineal band 163

13. Koita charms 174

14. Sketch map of Roro and Mekeo districts 194

15. O^Vz of the Roro-speaking tribes 208

16. Framework worn to support feather oada 209

17. Hau ani with head carved to represent the markings on the base of the hornbill's beak 212

18. £'a// rcT/^, the insignium of chieftainship 221

19. Hornbill derivatives on the posts of Airava marea of Abotaiara (Waima) 235

20. Designs on marea posts derived from the markings on the mandible of the hornbill 235

21. Plan of posts supporting anterior open portion of large marea of Mou . 239

22. Carved planks in the British Museum 241

23. Board belonging to the Ovia itsipana of Koae Kupunu itsubu of Siria village 243

24. Board belonging to the Ovia awarina of Koae Kupunu itsubu of Siria village 243

25. Ornamental board of bull-roarer shape 245

26. Papares exhibited upon Waidara marea of Waima 246

List of Text Figures xxiii

FIG. PAGE

27. Marea ornaments : {a) sun and vulva design, {b) dogs' teeth, {c) ornament made of dried grass 248

22). lu 262

29. Necklace found in sorcerer's bag 283

30. Objects found in sorcerer's bag 285

31. Necklace found in sorcerer's bag 286

32. Sword of swordfish mounted as a comb ; a kangakanga of Ongofoina . 326

33. Diagrammatic representation of a board on the house of the chief of

Inawi with conventional rendering of lopia pao .... 347

34. Plan of the hamlets of the Discovery Bay community .... 424

35. Plan of the hamlets of Tubetube 429

36. Plan of a Bartle Bay jnelagai 433

yj. Diagram showing relationship of the inhabitants of the six Wagawaga

Pupuna houses 478

38. Diagram showing relationship of the inhabitants of the five houses of

Kanabwahi 480

39. A bone spatula {potumd) from Wagawaga 515

40. GabaieraixQTXvyWs\TS\2i . . . 516

41. Dona and shell imitation 519

42. Bracelet made from human jaw bone . 558

43. Gwara 579

44. Plan of houses built for walaga ceremony (H. Newton) .... 599

45. Designs on horizontal bearers of houses built for walaga ceremony . 600

46. Map of the Trobriand Group 659

47. Sketch of Kiriwina showing districts 661

48. Carving of human-headed bird and head of reef-heron exhibited on

Trobriand houses ( x ^) 685

49. Spatula made of human bone 719

50. Turtle-shell ornament ( x ^ removed from zygoma of a skull exposed in a cleft in rocks at Murua 731

ERRATA

Page ii

20,

»>

20,

i

26,

»

j

44,

54,

»

62,

93,

)>

115,

5J

141,

))

163,

»

165,

»

165,

J>

171,

)

172,

?)

185,

»

263,

»

267,

J

328,

M

438,

»

449,

»>

459,

»

462,

»J

542,

641,

W

669,

»»

677,

J»

, line 10, /or platyrine rea^/ platyrhine.

, line II, /or hyperplatyrine r<?«^ hyperplatyrhine.

, fourth line from bottom, /or Western Papuans read Western Papuo-

Melanesians.

', line 25, /or Kerapunu read Kerepunu.

, line 25, /or Hulaa read Hula.

, line 4 of footnote, /or Chapter LXXI. read Chapter XXI.

, line 21, for Kaile read Gaile.

, line 35, and page 48, line 3, /or Kila Kila read Kilakila.

, in subheading /^r IDUHU KETAIKE read ROHI KETAIKE.

, line 8, /or Pare read Pari.

, line 35, /or Wamai read Waima.

, line 36, for turuturu read gorugoru.

, line 9, for venedaire read vendairi.

, line 5, for buibu read buibui.

, line 6, for roru read roro.

, line 7, for yaya read yaiya.

, line iSy/or Gaseri read Gasiri.

, line 4 of footnote, /or W. B. Fearnsides read W. G. Fearnsides.

, line 33, for maire read mairi.

, page heading, /or TATTOOING OF GIRLS read ARUARU CEREMONIES.

, line 5, /or Marihau read Marehau.

, in first column of table of pangua, /or ofa read Biofa.

, end of table of clans, /or Dabodabo read Dabodabobo.

, first column, line 8, /<7r Menabiri read Manabiri.

, heading, /or wagawaga and tubetube read wagawaga.

, after line 35 insert heading TUBETUBE.

, line 19, for kerepa read keripa.

, line 24, for giaana read gidana.

, line 7, /or Amphletta read Amphletts.

, line 4, and page 714, line 16, /or M. N. Gilmour read M. K. Gilmour.

. J>r»e 3, /or Father Tomassin read Father Thomassin.

It has long been recognized that the inhabitants of New Guinea present extraordinary differences In physical characteristics and culture, Indeed, the contrast between the relatively tall, dark skinned, frizzly haired inhabitants of Torres Straits, the Fly River and the neighbouring parts of New Guinea on the one hand, and the smaller lighter coloured peoples of that part of the coast line, stretching from the east of Cape Possession to the archipelagos of the eastern extremity of the Possession, is so striking that the two peoples must be recognized as racially distinct.

Directly the full significance of these distinctions Is realized the term Papuan which has been applied to the dark skinned frizzly haired natives of Western New Guinea, and also used to denote the inhabitants of the whole of New Guinea, becomes unsuitable for the latter purpose. Accordingly I propose to use the term Papuaslan to signify all the inhabitants of New Guinea and its archipelagos.

The term ' Papuan ' will not be discarded but will be limited to the geographically more western Papuasians, a congeries of frizzly haired and often mop-headed peoples, whose skin colour is some shade of brownish black. The eastern Papuasians that Is, the generally smaller, lighter coloured, frizzly haired races of the eastern peninsula of New Guinea and its archipelagos now require a name, and since the true Melanesian element is dominant in them, they may be called Papuo-Melaneslans. With regard to these eastern Papuasians, Dr A. C. H addon first recognized that they came into the country as the result of a ' Melanesian migration into New Guinea,' and further, 'that a single wandering would not account for certain puzzling facts'

^ The Decorative Art of British New Guinea^ 1894, p. 267. S. N. G. I

I have discussed this suggestion and the principles underlying the terminology which I use in this book elsewhere\ so that I need only say that I thoroughly agree with Dr H addon's conclusion and shall call the two great divisions of the Papuo- Melanesians the Massim (Eastern Papuo-Melanesians) and the Western Papuo-Melanesians respectively.

Although differences of colour and of size are generally the most obvious physical characters differentiating the peoples of the southern coast of British New Guinea, living respectively east and west of Cape Possession, there are certain other racial characteristics to which it is necessary to allude. The Papuan is generally taller and is more consistently dolichocephalic than the Papuo-Melanesian ; he is always darker, his usual colour being a dark chocolate or sooty brown ; his head is high and his face, is as a rule, long with prominent brow-ridges, above which his rather flat forehead commonly slopes backwards. The Papuo-Melanesian head is usually less high and the brow ridges less prominent, while the forehead is commonly rounded and not retreating. The Papuan nose is longer and stouter and is often so arched as to present the outline known as 'Jewish.' The character of its bridge varies, typically the nostrils are broad and the tip of the nose is often hooked downwards. In the Papuo- Melanesian the nose is generally smaller; both races have frizzly hair, but while this is universal among Papuans, curly and even wavy hair is common among both divisions of Papuo- Melanesians. Plate I represents a woman of the Nara tribe (Western Papuo-Melanesian) with wavy hair.

Although this book is concerned only with certain of the immigrant Melanesian (Papuo-Melanesian) tribes of British New Guinea it has been necessary to allude to some of the more important physical characters of the Papuans not only to contrast them with similar characters in the immigrant Melanesians, but because there is evidence that the immigrants have mixed with the Papuans at various places and times. For the same reason it will be necessary to consider some aspects of the culture of the Papuan tribes and to contrast them with the corresponding customs of the immigrant Melanesians. Plate II is a photograph, for which I am indebted to Captain Barton, of two men of Port Moresby. The shorter and

• *A Classification of the Natives of British New Guinea,' /^«^«. Roy.Anthrop
  Inst. Vol. XXXIX. 1909.

Plate I

Pokao woman

Two men of Hanuabada (Port Moresby)

slighter of these men presents qualities of build and feature which I regard as typical of one great division of the Papuo- Melanesians, the other, a somewhat taller man, seems to me to present certain Papuan features, a longer narrower face, a more beaklike nose and stronger limbs, in the place of the rounder and less harsh features of the immigrant Melanesians.

Port Moresby is situated so far east of Cape Possession, the present coastal limit of the Papuan tribes, that recent contact metamorphosis can safely be excluded and we thus reach the conclusion that the immigrant Melanesians have been actually superimposed on a former Papuan population. Once this idea is formulated a large number of facts appear to support it. Thus the physical difference between the two men shown in Plate II, both living at Port Moresby, can equally be found among the Sinaugolo, occupying the grassy uplands inland from the coast 60 miles east of Port Moresby, while the Sinaugolo who speak a Melanesian dialect scarcely differ from the Garia, their neighbours with whom they have long lived on most friendly terms, but who speak a Papuan language.

The Massim and the Western Papuo- Melanesians differ from each other physically, but on account of the considerable amount of variation within each of these great divisions these differences cannot be satisfactorily expressed without frequent and detailed references to the measurements taken by others as well as myself, which would be quite out of place in the present volume. I may however indicate that whereas the Massim (who vary comparatively little in cultural characteristics) show a more or less orderly change from west to east, from shortstatured dolichocephaly to brachycephaly associated with increase of stature\ the Western Papuo-Melanesians exhibit no

^ The inhabitants of the D'Entrecasteaux group appear to be the most doHchocephalic of the Massim. Sergi has examined ii8 skulls of both sexes from Dawson Straits, i.e. presumably the villages fringing the straits between Fergusson and Goodenough Islands ; the average cranial index (in round numbers) is 73 (min. 65, max. 88). This agrees well with the index of 73 given by a series of 34 skulls collected from a cave at Awaiama in Chads Bay. This cave was said to be the depository of skulls brought over from Goodenough or Fergusson, though it is possible that the skulls are in fact those of the inhabitants of Chads Bay or the coastal Taupota villages just east of it. The average cephalic index of 8 Goodenough natives is 75, so that if the two units usually deducted from living cephalic indices to make them comparable with skull indices be subtracted here the Uving and skull indices give identical figures. Two out of 1 1 Fergusson men measured were under 1*470 m. — i.e. considerably under 58 inches — while the average of the whole 11 men was 1530 m. (6o| in.). Seven Goodenough natives were taller averaging r588 m. (62^ in.). Passing to the mainland, 10 men of such orderly arrangement. But in spite of the many cultural and physical differences between the two divisions of Papuo- Melanesians they agree in certain cultural and physical characters which differentiate them from the true Papuans. Reference has already been made to the occurrence of wavy hair in both divisions, while on the cultural side they agree in the absence of long and rigid seclusion ceremonies for boys at puberty which seems a Papuan characteristic and is certainly found among Papuan tribes from Cape Possession to beyond the Netherlands boundary.

Many of the Papuo-Melanesians (including all the Massim) speak languages with a common Melanesian grammar. These languages are divisible into groups, the constituent languages of each of which contain numbers of common words, all related to the common stock language of Oceania. With the Papuan languages it is otherwise ; with regard to vocabulary they present a number of apparently unrelated stock languages, while of their grammar it can only be said that thoueh a number of them conform to certain rules, it is clear that none of them present Melanesian characters. A great difference is also seen in the system of enumeration of the two races. While the Papuo- Melanesian counts easily by the quinary or vigesimal system, the Papuan has only two numerals, one and two, and counts with certainty only up to five or six by combining these.

Wagawaga, which lies almost at the head of Milne Bay, give an average cranial index of 74, and 10 skulls from Milne Bay give an index of 73. Nine of the skulls are dolichocephalic and one brachycephalic with an index of 82. Much the same condition of things appears to prevail in the neighbourhood of East Cape, where five skulls from Nuakata (Lydia Island) including one brachycephal give an average index of 74. In the neighbourhood of the South Cape the average of seven skulls had risen to 76 (min. 71, max. 81).

The inhabitants of Tubetube in the Engineer group situated about halfway between Milne Bay and the Louisiades allege that they originally came from the eastern end of Duau (Normanby) ; the average index of 10 men was 74 (extremes 71 and 75) and their average stature 1*555 m. (61 in.).

Passing eastwards to the Louisiades there is a general rise in the cephalic index. The average of nine men, only one of whom was dolichocephalic, while three were brachycephalic, was 79. Measurements of 15 men from Gawa and Kwaiwata in the Marshall Bennet group give an average cephalic index of 80 showing that these islanders are predominantly brachycephals or high mesaticephals, the latter conclusion being borne out by the average cranial index of "jj (min. 70, max. 91) derived from 35 skulls collected on Kwaiawata.

The stature of the Marshall Bennet Islanders is low, 1577 m. (about 62 in.), though in other physical qualities they resemble the Trobriand Islanders who are taller, the average stature of 20 men being 1609 m. (63^ in.).

Passing still further west the average of 37 Murua skulls examined by Sergi is 79 and the average of the stature of six men 1-640 m. (64^ in.).

The sketch-map on page 6 indicates approximately the distribution of Papuans and Papuo-Melanesians and the two divisions of the latter are also indicated ; the condition of the unshaded area is not known with certainty. It will be seen that the Papuans occupy the greater part of the Possession extending eastwards from the Netherlands boundary to a line which runs approximately from Cape Possession in the south to Cape Nelson on the north coast. To the south of the main range the transition takes place about 147 deg. E. while to the north of the range it occurs in the neighbourhood of 149 deg. E., to the east of which lies the territory of the Massim, consisting of the eastern extremity of New Guinea and its many archipelagos. The Western Papuo-Melanesians occupy the remaining area, being found along the south coast from Cape Possession to the neighbourhood of Orangerle Bay or Mulllns' Harbour, and extending inland into the high mountains which form the backbone of the Possession.

This distribution suggests an explanation of the greater variability of the Western Papuo-Melanesians to which I have already alluded. Even if the Islands and eastern peninsula of New Guinea were fairly thickly populated by Papuans at the time of the Massim Invasion, they would not have offered such refuges and facilities for resistance as did the mainland. Indeed, while the condition actually existing in the Massim area suggests that there was no slow mingling of the invaders with a previous stock, the geographical features of the territory of the Western Papuo-Melanesians with its hills, mountains and swamps, are such, that invaders could not have speedily overrun the country, nor fail to have been influenced by the original inhabitants as they spread slowly from the coast.

Thus we should expect to find a certain amount of Papuan blood in all, or almost all, of the tribes of the Western Papuo- Melanesians and this is the condition that actually prevails. The Western Papuo-Melaneslan tribes not only have a very considerable Papuan element In their composition but many speak Papuan languages, which, as in the case of Papuan languages spoken by Papuans, may show no common features inter se. The existence of Papuo-Melaneslan tribes speaking perfectly distinct Papuan languages suggests a reason for the great range of variation met with among the Western Papuo-Melanesians, for there Is no reason why the different Papuan peoples who modified the incoming Melaneslans to the extent of imposing o a. a n3 rt vi rt a,

Ph be C

*^

o s

OS bJO

ba their languages upon them should not also have imposed their customs, or at least modified those of the invaders, as miscegenation modified their physical type.

Having somewhat cleared the ground I may now attempt a short preliminary survey of the culture of the two great divisions of the Papuo-Melanesians. Although we know more of the Western Papuo-Melanesians than the Massim I shall consider the latter first in as much as they present a number of particularly well defined features and speaking generally vary less than their western neighbours.

Ignoring Rossel Island at the eastern extremity of the Louisiade Archipelago because of our very slight knowledge thereof, the Massim area is bounded on the east by the 154th parallel of east longitude, on the north and south by the 8th and 12th degrees of south latitude respectively, and on the west, where its exact limit is unknown, by a line which roughly follows the 149th parallel and which, as already stated, may provisionally be regarded as running from the neighbourhood of Orangerie Bay on the south coast of the Possession to the neighbourhood of Cape Nelson on the norths This area can be divided into two parts, a small northern portion comprising the Trobriands, the Marshall Bennets, the Woodlarks (Murua) as well as a number of smaller islands such as the Lauglans (Nada) and a far larger southern portion comprising the remainder of the Massim domain. The northern portion is characterized by the absence of cannibalism, which, until put down by the Government, existed throughout the remaining portion of the district ; another peculiarity of the northern Massim is their recognition in each district or island (for the two may be coextensive) of a royal family ^ In this family there is an hereditary chieftainship

1 The area so defined corresponds closely to the Eastern and South-Eastern administrative divisions of British New Guinea and includes the Trobriands and Marshall Bennet groups, the Woodlarks (Murua), the Louisiade and D'Entrecasteaux archipelagos, besides numerous smaller groups and islands scattered between East Cape and the Louisiades and between the D'Entrecasteaux and the Trobriands. Excluding the latter, the Marshall Bennets and a number of smaller scattered coral islands, the whole of the district with the exception of a narrow coastal flat is distinctly hilly or mountainous. Allowing for our very scanty knowledge of the geology of the D'Entrecasteaux group there is abundant evidence of fairly recent elevation throughout the district, indeed, Gawa and Kwaiawata in the Marshall Bennet group are perfect atolls elevated to a height of over 400 ft., their inhabitants living in the old lagoon bed out of sight and sound of the sea.

2 Possibly Murua (the Woodlarks) may be an exception.

8 Introdtiction which really commands respect and the holder of which exercises considerable authority. On the physical side both the cephalic index and cranial capacity of the northern group are found to be higher than elsewhere among the Massim, indeed, on these islands two types can be recognized towards one or other of which the majority of the male population inclines. The chief differences in these types can be expressed by the nasal and facial indices. In one the nasal index is low mesorhine or even leptorhine and the face leptorosopic, while in the other type a platyrine or even hyper-platyrine nose is associated with a mesoprosopic or euryprosopic face. It does not seem that these linked qualities are especially associated with brachycephaly or dolichocephaly or with the quality of the hair, though it seems clear that in any given community individuals of the long-faced type are generally taller (often very notably so) than the individuals of the short-faced broad-nosed type, in whom the bridge of the nose is often low. Further, although I did not measure any Trobriand chiefs, the only two members of the royal house with whom I came in contact were of the longfaced tall type. Again, at Suloga on Murua and at Gawa in the Marshall Bennets certain men, who seemed to possess in a special measure the confidence of their comrades, and who certainly showed a degree of initiative or a readiness to help us in carrying out our plans which the majority of their companions did not, were also of this type.

The inhabitants of these northern islands of the Massim share with the inhabitants of the Louisiades the art and craft of building the big sea-going canoes, waga, that play such an important part in the life of the district, and it is in these islands that the decorative art, characteristic of the whole of the Massim district, has reached its highest expression in the carving of the ornaments for the prows of the waga, and in the patterns used to decorate the Trobriand lime gourds.

The dwellings of the communities of a great part of the Massim area are arranged in scattered groups which I propose to call hamlets. The members of each hamlet, excepting people who have married in or have been adopted, are closely related by blood, and are, or should be, of one clan, but in each community there may be, and usually are, a number of hamlets belonging to each of its constituent clans, each hamlet having Its own name and exercising a considerable degree of autonomy.

I use the term hamlet-group for the whole of the dwellings of a community, as it does not seem to me that the word village should be used for these scattered groups of houses and also for the compact and relatively large settlements which occur in other parts of New Guinea and even in some parts of the Massim area, as for instance the Trobriands. One of the most notable features about the communities of the extreme south-east of New Guinea and the neighbouring islands is the impermanence of portions of many apparently substantial communities ; two or three hamlets may leave the community and settle elsewhere, perhaps on an island thirty or forty miles distant. For this reason, and on account of the small size of many hamlet-groups and the intimate relations existing between many fairly distant communities, I have avoided the use of the word ' tribe ' in the Massim district as only likely to produce confusion.

The most characteristic cultural feature of the Massim is the existence of a peculiar form of totemism with matrilineal descent. The members of each clan have as totems a series of associated animals belonging to different classes of the organic kingdom ; ordinarily these linked totems are a bird, a fish, a snake and a plant, but a four-footed vertebrate (such as the monitor lizard or the crocodile) may be added to each series of linked totems, while one of the orders of the living kingdom which should be represented in the series of linked totems may be absent in a given locality, thus only one Tubetube clan, and that of different origin to its neighbours, has a plant totem. Towards the north-western borders of the district the typical arrangement of the totems into a linked series belonging to different classes of living organisms has disappeared, and rocks may be added to the totem list, and in a few instances the series of totems may be reduced to one or two. In this district the totem snake is of particular Importance in some Instances and may even be regarded as the creator of the world. In spite of these local variations It is certain that special Importance is attributed to the bird totem over the greater part of the Massim area. This Is perhaps best shown In one of the first questions commonly asked of a stranger: 'What Is your bird.'^' So too. If a man be asked his totem, he will commonly give his bird totem only.

lo Introdttction

Exogamy is strictly observed. In the old days it was even considered improper for a man to sleep with a woman of his father's totem, and in villages in which girl-houses [pottona) existed, a man avoided sitting near a girl of his father's totem when visiting these houses. Although no one would marry a girl of his father's totem, this rule was not rigidly observed even two generations ago and some of the bolder or more amorous men would sleep with such girls. Nowadays the condition of things has changed for the worse, and pre-nuptial connection is not at all limited by the old clan rules, for, althoueh it is not considered orthodox for a man to visit a girl of his father's totem, no objection is ever raised to this practice ; certainly the non-observance of the rule is considered too small an infringement of the clan laws to bring any harm on the lovers or their kin.

In some parts of the Massim district, e.g. Milne Bay and Bartle Bay, there is a dual or multiple grouping of the clans. Where this occurs, not only should no one marry into his or her own clan, but no one might take a mate from his or her own clan-group. In those communities in which a dual or multiple grouping of the clan exists this grouping regulates the terms by which every individual is addressed, and formerly it determined who should take part in the cannibal feast held to revenge a fellow villager killed by a hostile community. But with the extinction of warfare and cannibal feasts within the last few years the dual grouping has so fallen into decay as to be largely ignored in the regulation of marriage, although as already stated totem exogamy is still generally observed.

It seems that men are not usually considered to partake of any of the qualities of their totem birds, fish or snakes.

There are no totem shrines, and people are not believed to have particular influence over the birds or other animals which are their totems. There does not seem ever to have been any ceremony which had for its purpose the increasing of the totem, nor was there any tendency for a man to tame and keep his totem birds as pets ; in Milne Bay it was said that the keeping of pets was a habit recently introduced and learnt from Europeans.

All over the district a man shows more regard for his father's totem than for his mother's which is also his own; that is to say, everyone avoids his or her father's totem far more rigidly than his own. It was alleged that a man might kill and even eat his own bird totem, though it seemed uncertain that he would actually eat it\ In any case it may be noted that with the exception of the pigeon, the bird totems of the Massim are birds that are not commonly considered good food, and that even where this is not the case, the natives of south-eastern New Guinea are not keen hunters of birds except such as provide feathers for dancing ornaments. It was said that a man would catch and eat his own totem fish, and there is no doubt of the accuracy of this information. It was further stated that a man would not hesitate to kill his totem snake if it lay across his track, or to destroy his totem plant whenever it was convenient to do so.

On the other hand it was clear that no one would eat or destroy his father's totem birds, or would even approach a fire at which they were cooking. If a Milne Bay man saw his father's totem bird being killed he would go away for a short time or remonstrate with the killer, but he would not fight him, nor quarrel with him, and, with the exception of not touching the dead animal, he would show no special regard for it. If while fishing his father's totem fish were caught the fisherman would generally ask one of his companions to remove it from the net, but I do not think he would suggest that it should be returned to the water, though, on the other hand, he would not touch or eat it.

The relation of a man to his father's totem plant was less clear; it seemed that he would generally avoid injuring it.

No man would wear the feathers of his father's totem bird, although he would not hesitate to wear the feathers of his own totem bird. Indeed, these are his usual ornaments, and there is a feeling that it is especially appropriate that a man should wear the feathers of his totem bird, although he is not even theoretically limited to their use. The most commonly worn feathers are those of the white cockatoo ; with these the much rarer feathers of white individuals of the reef heron {boi) are worn when they can be obtained, but a man whose father's totem is the reef heron will avoid wearing the

^ The only case in which it is clearly recorded that an individual ate his bird totem occurred in the Trobriands and was observed by Mr R. L. Bellamy to whom I am indebted for a note of the case. A hungry woman with the pigeon as her bird totem, ate a pigeon which Mr Bellamy had shot. Mr Bellamy states that although such conduct was not considered to be really evil, jt was certainly not a common practice or one exempt from criticism.

1 2 Introdtiction feathers of the rare white variety of this bird ; while a man, whose father s totem is the cockatoo, will not wear this bird's feathers, but substitutes feathers of white individuals of the reef heron when these can be obtained. No information concerning the origin of bird, fish or snake totems could be obtained except in the northern portion of the area, in the Trobriands and Marshall Bennets, but a somewhat trivial legend accounting for the origin of plant totems was discovered at Milne Bay.

Totem birds, snakes and fishes are commonly represented upon houses and canoe prows, and upon lime spatulae and net floats and, in fact, upon practically all the wooden utensils and ornaments of the Massim. These carvings are executed by any man who has the necessary skill and art, and it is certain that no man is limited in his designs to the use of his own totems or the totems of the man for whom he is carving. In many places, including Milne Bay, certain totem animals have passed into the general art of the district, and in this connection their limitation to a particular group of people has been entirely forgotten, so that although the dominant patterns of a given area may be derived from an animal which is the totem of only a few people, and although it may be recognized that the pattern really does represent the totem of a small group of people, it is nevertheless used indifferently as a means of decorating the houses and utensils of folk whose totem it is, and of those entirely unconnected with it.

The worship of supernatural beings does not occur in those parts of the district with which I am acquainted, and though numerous mythical beings and ogres are believed to exist they are not propitiated. Speaking generally the dead pass under the earth to the ' other world ' where they are received by an old man who has always been there and who assigns to each his place, but this old man exerts no power over the living. The spirits of the dead are little regarded, but I came to the conclusion that they were considered, though in no very formal or definite manner, to know when the more important mourning feasts were held. It did not, however, seem that these spirits were commonly supposed to be present at the feasts, although the idea that these ceremonies are in fact held to ' lay ' the spirits of the deceased is perhaps their most reasonable interpretation. It must, however, be realized that this is nothing more than a working hypothesis, and that apart from this Idea two definite beliefs can be traced through the tangled skein of death customs and observance.

The first is that an individual's death primarily concerns the dead man's hamlet and one other hamlet of his clan with which certain death feasts are exchanged, other members of the clan being comparatively little affected. The second belief is, that it is necessary for all people not of the dead man's clan to dissociate themselves from him and all that belonged to him in every possible way\ This is the more remarkable since in such parts of the Massim district as were visited it was obvious that the spirits, ghosts, or shades of the deceased inspired no particular fear and were not thought to haunt, or even to visit, the scenes of their former existence. Nor could I discover that the shades brought disease and bad luck upon mankind or punished the latter If their funeral rites were neglected, or that in the opposite event they helped the living. On the contrary, in spite of a vague and ill-defined fear of the dead, the doctrine was held that the shades kept strictly to the ' other world ' and that the only intelligent communication between the two worlds occurred when certain men — strong In magical power — visited the other world of their own free will.

The house in which a married man or woman has died is very commonly allowed to rot or is destroyed, either immediately after his death or on the decease of the surviving partner^ The detailed accounts of the ceremonies and feasts following a death both at Wagawaga and Tubetube given in

^ In the light of our present very incomplete knowledge it seems that this does not apply to the Trobriands, the Marshall Bennets and Murua, but it certainly holds good over the southern portion of the Massim area.

2 Although the motives prompting the destruction of a house under these circumstances are avowedly doubtful, it seems probable that it is done, not on account of any fear of death as such, but because of the feeling (of which examples are given elsewhere) that any intimate association with objects connected with the dead of foreign clans is to be avoided at almost any cost. It may be suggested that the house of a married individual has been so intimately associated with the deceased man or woman, a member of a strange clan, that it may be regarded as having in some measure become identical with the dead stranger, so that after his death it becomes unfit to continue in existence among the folk of the hamlet. The custom, if this point of view be correct, is in fact an example of the intense dislike and horror which the natives have of anything associated with the dead of other clans and falls into line with such customs as the avoidance under all circumstances of the graves in which people of other clans have been buried, as well as the particularly strong objection that exists to the mention of the name of a dead husband or wife in the presence of the surviving partner.

Introdtiction chapter XLVi abounds in instances which show that even so close a relative as a child dissociates himself from every^ thing that concerned his father, that man of another clan, although the actual physical bond of relationship is fully recognized, and no Papuo-Melanesian ever thinks of treating his father with anything but kindness and respect however old and helpless he may become.

In some matters it even seems that the bond of close relationship exaggerates the horror of all that pertained to a dead man of another clan. Thus a man would fight if the name of his dead father or paternal uncle were mentioned in his presence, but it would only be a breach of etiquette entailing no immediate or even remote unpleasantness, to mention the name of some remote dead relative of his father's clan. Again the careful avoidance of taking food from a dead father's hamlet or of going there does not apply to the other hamlets of the dead man's clan, though a death might have occurred recently in these hamlets. The intense horror with which a dead father is regarded and the rigid avoidance of all that concerned him is excellently illustrated by an incident which occurred at Tubetube.

Mr A. H. Dunning while working at Paie hamlet having occasion to photograph certain baskets and being unsatisfied with the light in the hamlet, took the baskets in one hand and with his camera in the other, proceeded to look for a suitable place in which to photograph them ; in doing so he passed near a heap of stones on which there was some vegetation, with the result that there was an instant outcry among the natives from whom he had borrowed the baskets. On making inquiries as to the reason, I found that he had taken the baskets close to the grave in which was buried the father of the owner of one of the more valuable baskets of the kind called sinapopo. The owner of this basket absolutely refused to take it back, saying that if food were put into it, and if he afterwards ate of such food, he would certainly die in consequence.

The decorative art of the Massim area is extremely characteristic and is distinguished by the occurrence throughout almost the whole area of well executed wood carving, much of which shows real aesthetic feeling. The predominant 77iotif of this carving is the conventional representation of totem animals, the forms of which often degenerate into the spiral patterns so common throughout the district.

Among the crafts the most noteworthy features of the district are the built up canoes, the largest of which, called waga, are chiefly constructed on the raised coral islands occupying the northern part of the area. These are handy and at the same time very safe outrigger boats of comparatively large carrying capacity, and are used alike on raids and for carrying merchandise all over those parts of the district with which I am acquainted.

Pots are made with a varying amount of skill in different parts of the district and constitute an important article of export from Tubetube, Wari and the Amphlett group, but with the possible exception of the Amphlett pots the decoration of these vessels falls far below the standard attained in wood carving or exhibited in the burnt patterns commonly found on Trobriand lime gourds^

The most interesting as well as perhaps the most important articles manufactured within the district, are the stone adzes and the ceremonial axe blades, which until recently were made upon Murua by the inhabitants of Suloga, from a volcanic ash and a lava, out-crops of both of which occur upon Murua below Suloga peak. The Suloga adze blades were formerly traded from hand to hand for many hundreds of miles, passing westwards at least as far as the Papuan Gulf, while on the north coast of the Possession they are found to the west of Cape Nelson^

On the other hand, the ceremonial adze blades formerly made at Suloga do not pass beyond the south-eastern district, though within this area they are everywhere greatly valued and used as currency in the brisk trade which is carried on between the archipelagos.

The common weapon is the spear ; the bow and arrow and stone headed club are everywhere absent, their place being taken by slings and the very characteristic hard wood sword, the blade of w^hich is usually delicately carved.

It is far more difficult to give a summary of the cultural characteristics of the Western J^apuans than of the Massim for' ^'^^^^- ^^' the differences between tribes which must be included in this ('V^'" division is far greater than occurs among the Massim. It is however possible to make certain broad statements concerning

^ The Tubetube as well as the Wari pots are built up of strips of clay as described by Dr H. O. Forbes in Tke Decorative Art of British New Guinea^ p. 223.

^ For an account of the site from which this stone was obtained and its manufacture into adze blades, see Seligmann and Strong, 'Anthropological Investigations in British New Guinea,' Geographical Jour7ial^ 1906, pp. 348 et seq

1 6 Introdtiction the social organization of the Western Papuo-Melanesian tribes. Up to the present time no tribe of this group is known which has not a clan organization or the remains of one, and in all these tribes clan descent is patrilineal'. In a number of tribes there are signs of a former totemic condition, or at least of a stage in which animals were of importance in the beliefs of the people".

With the exception of the Motu tribe, exogamy is the absolute rule in all those tribes with which I am personallyacquainted, and I have little doubt that it runs through the whole series.

The coastal tribes of the neighbourhood of Port Moresby may be regarded as the typical representatives of the Western Papuo-Melanesians. The best known of these tribes is the Motu, with whom must be reckoned the Koita, a tribe speaking a Papuan language who have for generations intermarried with the Motu and whose villages are usually built near, or even in direct continuity with those of the Motu. Although the Koita still speak a Papuan language the majority of the males speak Motu, a Melanesian language, and have adopted to a greater or lesser extent certain Motu customs, such as the hiri, the annual trading voyage to the Papuan Gulf, while their women make pots, an art learnt from the Motu. Fourteen Motu men in whom there was avowedly more or less Koita blood gave an average cephalic index of 76 (min. 71, max. 81). The average stature of fifteen men is 1*621 m. (about 64 ins.), but this includes one exceptionally tall man of i'820 m. (7 if in.).

The rare occurrence of somewhat oblique eyes among the coastal tribes of the central district must be noted. They may be associated with curly or typically frizzly hair x and were first described by Stone who writing of the Koiari " says that in a few ' the eyes are slightly Mongolian, like those of Siamesel'

^ Traces of mother right still exist, and are most numerous among the Mekeo tribes. At Veifa a child is commonly given one of its mother's names and although descent is usually patrilineal among the Mekeo, chieftainship may descend through the female line. The ceremony performed when a Roro boy first assumes the perineal band (described in chapter xxi) is clearly reminiscent of a condition in which the relatives of the mother were of preponderant importance.

• The evidence upon which this statement is made is especially to be found in chapters XX and xxvii.

^ A Few Months in New Guinea^ London, 1880, p. 164, quoted by Haddon {Decorative Art^ p. 158). I have myself seen oblique eyes among the Koita and Motu and at Hula, while Captain Barton informs me that he has noticed them at Aroma.

\

Plate III

Ahuia Ova

The villages of the Motu and closely allied tribes include the great Hanuabada (Port Moresby) settlement and stretch along the coast from Redscar Head to Kapakapa, while in the neighbourhood of Kapakapa and stretching inland are three tribes the Ikoro, the Gaboni and the Sinaugolo all closely resembling the Motu. Another tribe called Balagwaia living somewhat to the east of the Sinaugolo is said to be hardly distinguishable from these, but of this tribe I have no personal knowledge\ The Ikoro and Gaboni are two small tribes whose villages are situated within a few miles of the sea. The Sinaugolo are a powerful and influential tribe whose villages extend from the edge of the hilly country some three miles from the coast behind Kapakapa, up the valleys of the Kemp Welch river and its tributaries, the Hunter and the Musgrave rivers.

The general appearance of the men of this group will be gathered from the photograph of the two Port Moresby men (Plate H) already referred to, while as a further example of a typical Western Papuo-Melanesian I may instance Ahuia, the hereditary chief of the Port Moresby Koita, whose full face portrait is given in Plate HP.

The Motu and their kindred tribes, already enumerated, are the only coastal people among whom the open ceremonial platforms called dubu exist, while among the Motu themselves Tupuselei and Gaile are the only settlements which have large dubu^. It must, however, be remembered that although Tupuselei is Motu-speaking, the tribal name of its people is Lakwaharu and they differ in some customs from the Motu of the Port Moresby villages, thus, they do not fit out lakatoi for the hiri^. With regard to Gaile, its inhabitants admit that it formerly contained a foreign ' bush ' element, and state that the founders of this now thoroughly Motu settle-

^ Mr A. C. English states that this tribe has two big villages named Gemaboro and Taurupu, both with big open dubu.

2 Ahuia, who was my chief informant concerning the sociology of the Koita, has a good knowledge of English, which he can write intelligibly. He also made a number of the native drawings which are reproduced in the chapters on the Koita, though I believe that the most elaborate of these are by Rabura" of Kilakila village.

^ Information concerning the dubu is given in chapters ii and Xll. These chapters also contain figures of dubu.

• Lakatoi are the composite craft consisting of a number of dug out canoes of the kind called asi used by the Motu on their sago trading expeditions to the Papuan Gulf. The conduct of these expeditions which are called hiri is described by Captain Barton in chapter vin of the Koita section of this volume.

ment were two 'bushmen' whose names De Bori and Gai Bori have been preserved. So that even if it be admitted that the Motu once made use of the dubu the custom was apparently obsolescent in many villages before the advent of European influence, and it is perhaps more reasonable to believe that the dtibu and its associated customs, which are most vigorous in the hill zone behind the coast, never took any firm hold of the purest of the Motu immigrants.

At the present day the open dubu are bigger, better carved, and appear to play a larger part in the life of the people in the Rigo district (that is, among the Sinaugolo, Garia and related tribes) than elsewhere, and according to the Sinaugolo it was among themselves that the dubu originated, being later adopted by the neighbouring tribes.

Their legend states that when the Sinaugolo came forth from their ancestral cave on the slopes of Mount Taborogoro, they had with them one carved post and taking this as their model made three others like it, and these posts became the corner posts of the first Sinaugolo dubu in their village on Taborogoro. Considering the size of the older Sinaugolo dubu and the importance attached to them, it is not unlikely that the open dubu originated with them or a cognate tribe in the neighbourhood of Taborogoro, and thence spread in a south-westerly direction towards the coast and westwards in the mountains through the Manukoro and Koiari territories behind the Koita-Motu domain towards the main range. It is at least certain that the Sinaugolo have migrated towards the coast from the neighbourhood of Taborogoro, while the Garia with whom they are connected by legend as well as politically, have migrated westwards across their track, each tribe carrying with them their dubu customs and in the case of the Sinaugolo quickly building one or more dubu in each settlement they formed. The same thing probably happened among the Garia, but I am not well enough acquainted with their villages or their history to be able to do more than make this suggestion. The Sinaugolo legend already referred to tells how, long ago, the Garia and Sinaugolo who, then as now spoke different languages, lived on the east side of the Kemp Welch river in a hole in the earth on Mt. Taborogoro. In time they increased in number and reached the surface of the earth, the Sinaugolo going in one direction and the Garia in another. After the Sinaugolo, or the Taborogoro Taliman

Introduction as they were then called, left Taborogoro they reached various village sites, and were known by the names of these sites, until they reached a mountain which they speak of as Sinaugolo where apparently they settled for some time and whence they took their present name. After many splittings and wanderings their advanced guard finally came to the very edge of the coastal plain which here stretches some three miles inland, where they founded the village of Gumori Dobo. Although this village hugged the edge of the hills, it was the first settlement of the Sinaugolo which was actually on the coastal plain, so that its dubu was named Ligodubu and its folk were sometimes known as Ligo Taliman and the first settlers took Ligo (Rigo) as the name of their clan {dogoro). The word ligo means 'gone down,' i.e. come down from the hills, and ligo taliman means simply ' men who have come down from the hills.'

Passing eastwards along the coast a somewhat different type is found extending from the Hood peninsula eastwards at least as far as the Aroma villages, the most important of which is Maopa. I do not know whether this group extends further to the east than the Upugau river, provisionally we may consider this river as its eastern boundary. So defined, this group includes the villages of the Hood Peninsula^ together with Kwaipo, Hula, Kerepunu

1 Dr Haddon says : ' The peninsula is divided into five lands, belonging to the Kalo, Kamali, Babaka, Makirupu, Oloko and Diriga people. The last three villages were so decimated by sickness some three generations ago that there were few survivors, and the smaller numbers that still remain have recently been driven to Babaka by the Bulaa. The Bulaa people have planted many coconuts on the land, but the greater part belong to the three tribes mentioned.. ..The Kamali state they have been in occupation for ten generations, and that the land was unoccupied at the time of their first settlement on it.

The village of Bulaa, or Hula, as it is generally called, consists of four groups of pile-dwellings in the sea, each group having its distinctive name. The Bulaa people have occupied this shore for about thirty-eight years only. Formerly they lived in the village of .^lukune, or Harukunu, which is adjacent to Keapara (Kerepunu). For generations the former have been subservient to the latter, who have been in the habit of levying toll from them in the shape of fish and other marine produce. The Alukune possessed no land, and were not allowed to acquire any, though their masters of Keapara had more than enough for their own wants. Vegetable food being a necessity, they bought it from the Keapara, giving fish in exchange, which Keapara, being the stronger tribe, were able to obtain at a very cheap rate. They were not only oppressed in this and other ways, but their women were seized and taken as wives by Keapara men. Half of the village, driven to desperation by the oppressions of these people, left in a body and settled at Hood Point, and built the village of Bulaa. Tlie other half who remained were still held in subjection by Keapara, and their condition was but little improved since the old days until very recently, and even now they do not appear to be in a happy or thriving condition.

and Aroma. The men of this group are on the whole taller and more brachycephalic than their eastern neighbours, while on the cultural side the group is distinguished from its western neighbours by not possessing open diibti, their place being taken by house dubuy which are usually spoken of as steeplehouses on account of the lofty spire which each possesses. These steeple-houses, called koge by the folk of the Hood Peninsula, seem strictly limited to this group and I am not certain whether these houses are found among its most eastern villages, that is at Aroma\

Structurally these koge are the finest buildings in British New Guinea west of the Papuan Gulf; Plate IV of a Kalo house dubu gives a good idea of the general appearance from the front of one of these structures, but it conveys little idea of the length of the building or of the massive quality of the posts which support it, features which are more readily appreciated in a side or even in a back view of the structure.

From Redscar Bay eastwards along the coast to Kapakapa and beyond in the Ikoro villages, that is to say throughout the area in which the open dubu occurs, skull trophies are not kept, but directly the open dubu gives place to the house dubu an area is reached where, until the Government enforced peace, skulls were collected and hung upon the dubu.

Although this custom and the form of the house dubu serve to differentiate the folk of Kerfpunu, Hula^ and the Hood Peninsula villages from the Sinaugolo and kindred tribes, the general sociology of all these peoples is much alike ; their villages are divided into clans which are, or until very recently were, exogamous, and in each of these there is a

Although the inhabitants of Alukune are fisherfolk, they obtain their canoes from Keapara, and for these they pay heavily. I was told it was half the catch, in other words, they traded on the half profits system. I believe a canoe debt is rarely cleared off.

Canoe-making is the great industry of Keapara, and it is an unusual sight in New Guinea to see men constantly actively at work, and to hear the rhythmic chops of the stone adzes hollowing out one or two canoes at a time.' 'Studies in the Anthropogeography of British New Guinea,' Geographical Journal^ 1900, pp. 286, 287.

• The most important of the Aroma villages is Maopa ; Captain Barton has given me the following names of its clans which I understand are called kwalw. Balubalu, Kwalu Bobo, Levapuka, Anoma, Kwalu Ivua, Agevogo, Egala Ivua, Kwalu Ragideagi, Vanuaraka, Pana Vanuna, Gawa Kala, Egala Auna. The names of the dubu are Galoirupu, Mavalarupu, Wamalarupu, Pomugalurupu, Gailerupu. Some account of the Aroma houses and certain wooden objects which are exhibited on their roofs is given by Finsch in Ethnologische Erfahrungen und Belegstiicke aus dem Sudsee^ pp. 102 and 103.

Plate IV

House dubu at Kalo, Hood Peninsula hereditary headman or chief whose status depends primarily upon his hereditary ownership of the right front post of his clan's open or house dubu. Moreover, whichever form the dubu assumes, the decoration on its corner posts consists of the same type of design worked out in small four-sided pyramids. ^

Further, although the dubu of the Hood Peninsula should be, and generally are, house dubu^ the house may in individual instances decay, and its platform, which is nevertheless used ceremonially as the dubu, alone remain. This was the case at Babaka where more than one dubu was represented by a low platform. Pigs were hung from horizontal poles at the front of these open platforms and in June 1898 I witnessed the initiation ceremony of seven girls on one of these platforms, devoid of all carving, situated in the centre of Babaka village. This ceremony has been described independently by Dr A. C. Haddon^ and the late R. E. Guise", so that it is only necessary to state that the genitals of the recently tattooed, that is the nubile girls of the year were anointed with oil by an old woman, while they stood upon the dubu, after which the girls, still upon the dubu, ceremonially cut up a number of yams and pelted the crowd with areca nuts for which the onlookers scrambled.

In the ceremony witnessed at Babaka, no pigs were hung upon the dubu, though one was laid upon the ground in front of it, but a photograph taken by Mr English of the same ceremony in Babaka village upon another occasion, shows at least nine pigs hanging to the dubu at the girl's feet. Skulls were formerly hung on certain of these detached platforms, one of which was often situated at the outskirts of the village, and it seems probable that of old there were certain erections in each of the Hood Peninsula villages upon which alone skulls might be hung. Mr English states that this was so at Babaka, while Chalmers says of a skull taken by Hula, a Kerepunu colony, that it was taken to Kerepunu to be hung there upon a ' dubu ' because there was no ' dubu ' at Hula upon which skulls might be hung. Further, speaking of Kerepunu, Chalmers says, ' ...the pigs appointed for this day's feast are ready to be carried into the sacred place, where they will be speared The sacred place is at the back of the village, and consists only of two platforms on a swamp,

1 Head Hunters^ Black, White and Brown, London, 1901, p. 217 et seq.

2 Journal of the Anthropological Institute^ Vol. xxvni. 1899

with a long pole in front The pigs are carried, one after another, and placed in rows in front, just under the long pole on which bananas are hung ^' and mention is subsequendy made of * the skulls hanging on a long pole in front of the platforms ^'

Figure 2 is from a sketch by Captain Barton made in accordance with the account of some of the old men of Aroma, who approved this restoration of the front of their old sacred platform, before which a fire was kept burning.

Besides being the centre of the great tabu festivals described in chapter xii, the open dubu of the Koita and allied tribes undoubtedly have a close association with the spirits of the dead and instances of this association are given in chapter 11.

A similar association of spiritual agencies with the house dtcbu of the Hood Peninsula probably occurs, though evidence is lacking on this point. It is, however, clear that the association of the chief of each clan or wagiworo as it is called at Kalo, with the house dubu, is especially close, and it is also clear that the clan chiefs exercise certain magical, it might almost be said priestly, functions. Thus the owner of the front right post takes a special part in the magical ceremonial which precedes and follows a turtle hunt^

Very little is known concerning the population of the country between Aroma and Mullins Harbour in the neigh-

1 Pioneering in New Guinea, London, 1887, p. 325.

2 Ibid.^ p. 327.

' Before going turtle fishing the men of each clan take their nets to the rupu of their clan where they leave them. The clan chief lives in the rupu, and it appears that the nets are usually brought to him early in the morning and left in one of the compartments of the rupu—noi upon its platform — till about 5 p.m. During a part of this time the chief is left alone with the nets which he 'medicines' wearing meanwhile his armshells and feathers, and bunches of certain herbs thrust between the armshells and his arm. In the evening, about 5 p.m., the nets are collected and piled in one large craft which is accompanied by a number of smaller canoes in which are the majority of the fishermen. After the drive — for the turtles are driven into the nets — each clan takes its nets and the turtle caught in them to the house of its clan chief where they are cut up and apportioned. The latter task falls to the clan chief who himself keeps the head which is cooked next day and placed on top of the nets, its flesh being eaten by all the clan except the chief. At the sharing out, the wife of the chief may receive a portion of the turtle which may be cooked and eaten in the chief's house, although he himself may not touch it. After the flesh of the head has been eaten the skull is painted red and kept in the rupu often being placed upon the fore end of the ridge pole, or on the end of one of the rafters of the building. This ceremony is gone through every time that turtle are caught with a net. After each hunt the nets must be left in the rupu for two or three days, after which their owners may remove them whenever the/j like. In this note rupu is used as a synonym for house dubu.

Introduction bourhood of which the territory of the Massim begins, in fact, this is one of the least known portions of British New Guinea. I have however seen a number of natives said to come from o to the Keveri valley a few miles from the coast behind Cloudy Bay, and the difference between them and the Hood Peninsula group was striking. They were shorter, darker and all had frizzly hair, besides this they were more long-headed. The average height of eight men was 1*584 m. (62| in.) and their cephalic index ^Z (min. 71, max. ^'^. These natives were said to resemble the coast natives of Cloudy Bay and like them to be specially fierce and little amenable to Government influenced

A people who may be called the Mailu inhabit the country around Port Glasgow and Milport Harbour in Orangerie Bay. They are predominantly mesaticephalic with an average cranial index of 78*6 and a medium stature of i'6oo m. (about 63 in.). Their skin colour is generally a light cafd-ati-lait and their hair is sometimes curly rather than frizzly ; although these people speak a Papuan dialect, the eastern portion of Orangerie Bay is inhabited by tribes speaking a Melanesian dialect, doubtless the most western of the Massim dialects of the south coast. Very little is known of this part of New Guinea, the linguistic relations of the tribes are shown by Mr S. H. Ray on the map given after p. 288 of Vol. iii. of the Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, and Captain Barton informs me that on the physical side all the Orangerie Bay natives are Melanesian rather than Papuan. This coincides with the opinion that I had previously formed of four Bonabona men said to come from Orangerie Bay. These men resembled the Mailu in general appearance but were more brachycephalic (average 82, min. 79, max. 84). It does not however seem possible to assign their final place to the Melanesian speaking inhabitants of Orangerie Bay, until more is known concerning the physical anthropology of the inhabitants of the coast between Orangerie Bay and South Cape, though we may suspect their relationship is to the Massim rather than to the Western Papuo-Melanesians.

I am indebted to the Rev. W. J. V. Saville for the following information concerning the social system of the

• No doubt there is some connection, perhaps only indirect and by trade, between the natives of Cloudy Bay and the tribes to the north of the main range. Mr Ray tells me that he has noted some likeness in the vocabularies of Cloudy Bay and the Musa river. Again the ophicalcite adzes vi'hich are traded down the Musa and Wakioki rivers to the coast, and are made of stone found in the neighbourhood of the N.W. slopes of Mount Suckling are also found on the south coast at Cloudy Bay, replacing the blades made of stone quarried at Suloga on Murua which extend as far west as the Papuan Gulf. (P'or an account of the distribution of ophicalcite adze blades on the north coast, see Seligmann and Joyce * On Prehistoric Objects in British New Guinea' in Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor, 1907.)

Mailu. Mr Saville states that in each Mailu village there are a number of divisions called mauru which appear to correspond to the Motu and Koita iduhu. Each mauru possesses, or should possess, a house in which skulls were formerly kept and which women may not enter. These houses, although their posts are said to be uncarved, are bigger and better built than the ordinary family houses of the village and should, or might, stand in the middle of the village street. In each mauru there is a chief or headman (vere) who is stated to be more or less responsible for the upkeep of the clubhouse. This information shows that the social organization of the Mailu is that of the Western Papuo- Melanesians, but there is no doubt that the Mailu have also felt the influence of the Massim culture, for Captain Barton's very valuable series of photographs and drawings of the tattoo patterns used by the Mailu women show that these employ the very patterns used by the Massim of Rogeia, Teste Island and Tubetube\

Further, although as Mr Ray informs me, the Mailu language shows no trace of Melanesian grammar, there are Melanesian words in the Mailu vocabulary.

Returning to Redscar Head and passing westwards along the coast we reach Yule Island, upon which is one of the principal settlements of the Roro, who also occupy the lowest reaches of the St Joseph river. The nearly related Roro- and Mekeo-speaking folk of the valley of the St Joseph river constitute the most western groups of the immigrant stock now under consideration, that is of the Western Papuo- Melanesians. These two peoples are so much alike socially and culturally that they must be considered together, although when any considerable number are examined physically it becomes evident that there are slight but constant differences. Thus the Mekeo, who inhabit the upper portion of the plain of the St Joseph river behind the coastal Rorospeaking zone, are somewhat shorter and distinctly more brachycephalic than the Roro. The latter extend westward towards Cape Possession, where their outlying villages,

• The Mailu also make pots the use of which seems limited to the neighbourhood of their site of manufacture, perhaps because of their brittle character. I do not know whether these pots are made by the method of coiling used by the Massim or not, they are somewhat profusely ornamented and in general appearance more closely approach the pots of the Massim than those made by the Motu of the Central Division.

Waima and KevorI\ speak a different dialect to the other Roro-speaking tribes. Further, the inhabitants of Waima (and probably also of Kevori), can be divided into two types, one showing affinity to the Elema group of the Papuan Gulf, the other resembling the more easterly Roro. Ignoring Waima and Kevori the average cephalic index of thirty Roro-speaking men is 79 and their average stature 1*617 "^- (about 63^ in.), while the average cephalic index of twenty-nine Mekeo men is Z-}^ with an average stature of i"585 m., i.e. about an inch less. The languages of Roro and Mekeo are Melanesian, but the language of Mekeo presents peculiarities in the phonetic system, such as the frequency of aspirates and gutturals which Mr Ray thinks may point to Papuan influenced

The Pokao who occupy a few square miles inland from the coast between Hall Sound and Cape Suckling and who have apparently been kept from the sea by the Roro-speaking tribes, are remarkable for the high percentage of individuals with curly, wavy or almost straight hair. Plate I shows a woman with a type of hair, by no means uncommon in this tribe, which at first sight might almost be called straight, though on more careful examination it is found to be wavy. In section such hair is almost circular, thus contrasting with the elliptical section of typical frizzly Papuasian hair. It is interesting to note that among this tribe wavy hair appears to some extent to be a secondary sexual characteristic, since it is far commoner in women than in men. Among the Pokao the brachycephalic element is reduced to a minimum, a low mesaticephalic condition tending to dolichocephaly prevailing^

^ Waima and Kevori clearly represent an area of contact metamorphosis due to Gulf influence. Not only do some of their inhabitants show this in their physique but there is no doubt that the long initiation ceremonies for boys (which are absent among the Roro) described in chapter /.xxi, have been borrowed from the Elema tribes of the Papuan Gulf. Further, much of the decorative art of Waima suggests Gulf influence, and it may be pointed out that the Gulf village of Jokea has an old traditional friendship with Inawi, an important village of Mekeo whose inhabitants they formally assisted against Rarai, another Mekeoi village. Although at the present day this friendship seems to have fallen into abeyance, its traces persist in the occasional decoration in Gulf style of certairf Mekeo clubhouses.

^ Mr Ray has pointed out to me that Mekeo is the only Melanesian language on the mainland with an ng sound which is elsewhere represented by r.

' Although the Pokao say that they originally came from inland and regard themselves as inland people who have migrated towards the coast, there can be no doubt that they represent a wave of immigrants who made their way inland, where they formed settlements, which they occupied long enough to allow them to

)f

KapatsI called KabadI by the Motu is the name of a small district inland from Galley Reach, through which flows the Aroa river. Although its inhabitants speak a dialect nearly related to the Motu, not very much is known about them ; according to an account gathered at Mekeo there is a large Mekeo element in the Kabadi population'.

So far we have dealt with a series of groups of Papuo- Melanesians inhabiting the coast, or the country immediately behind the coast, (in which case they have constant friendly intercourse with the coast natives), all of whom have certain characters in common, namely the more or less frequent occurrence of curly or wavy hair and a bronze coloured skin which in every tribe so far described presents individual variations running through the whole gamut of shades of caf^-ati-lait, from a lightish yellow with only a tinge of brown to a tolerably dark bronze colour. The lightest shades are everywhere uncommon, and in many localities appear to be limited to the female sex, in whom wavy as opposed to frizzly hair seems to be much commoner than among men, at least in its more characteristic forms.

There are two important features which distinguish this group (apart from those already referred to as shared by forget their connection with the sea. Doubtless they intermarried largely with the aborigines of the country among whom they settled, but in spite of this, I am inclined to see in these comparatively light skinned and often wavy haired people, the least modified descendants of the original immigrant stock, which must be regarded as the ancestors of the present Papuo-Melanesians. Measurements were made of 25 adult natives of Oroi and Diumana villages of whom 15 were males. The average cephalic index of these men was 75 (min. 70, max. 81), their nasal index averaged 83 (min. 'j'})^ max. 93), and their facial index 84 (min. 79, max. 88). The average height of 12 of these men was 1679 ^- about 66 inches. The cephalic index of 10 women was 735 (min. 70, max. 80). Their nasal index 79 (min. 64, max. 95), and their facial index 86 (min. 80, max. 95). The average height of nine of these women was 1*576 m. (about 62 in.). The skin colour is always some hue of cafd-au-lait, though in some girls it is so light that it might almost be described as brownish yellow. Some girls had eyes which were slightly oblique.

It is obvious that people presenting these physical characters can not be other than immigrants in spite of their own belief that they are inland people who have been forced towards the coast.

^ I am indebted to Dr Strong for the information that the Kabadi clubhouses in their general features resemble the Roro clubhouses. The three best known villages of Kabadi are Vanuapaka, Kopuana and Ukaukana. The names of the itsubu of these villages which Dr Strong gives as Ovia Kupunu, Koiitunu, Ivena, Idibana, Kopuana, Au Kupunu, Muri Kupunu, Poio Kupunu show that there is a strong Roro element in them, and this is borne out by the names of certain Kabadi clubhouses among which are Kaurama (Roro, Haurama), Gubara, Siau, Daiyo, Yarobe, Auwaipona, Doamopona. Probably the population of Kabadi springs from a number of different sources like that of Delena described in chapter xvii.

28 Introduction all Western Papuo-Melanesians). These are (i) the greater importance attached to the right than to the left side in matters of ceremony, and (2) the predominance of so called geometrical designs in the decorative art of all these tribes. With regard to the predominance of the ' right ' side, the clan chiefs of these, tribes are responsible for the upkeep of the right front corner post of the dubu (Motu, Koita, Sinaugolo, etc.) or clubhouse (Pokao, Hood Peninsula tribes, etc.) and the hereditary owner of the post Is necessarily the hereditary clan chief Among the Roro the regular title for the clan chief is ovia itsipana, ' chief of the right,' while his assistant is ovia awarina, ' chief of the left.'

The clans of a number of the tribes of the Central District (Motu, Koita, Sinaugolo, etc.) are also divided into right and left halves ; this feature was formerly well marked among the Sinaugolo within each of whose clans {dogord) there are usually two kavi. Each kavi (explained by Mr A. C. English as meaning side) possesses two of the big corner posts and the big carved horizontal on one side of the dubu. Although the rule is disregarded at the present day yet it is said that the kavi should strictly speaking occupy opposite sides of the village street, and that the terms ribana and kaurina, i.e. right and left, should be applied to the two kavi and used in speaking of them. If one kavi ^^x^ much weakened the stronger kavi would assist it in hunting, fishing and building'.

This condition of chieftainship associated with the right and left sides of the dubu or clubhouse is not found in Mekeo, as far as I know, but this may probably be accounted for by the specialization that has taken place in the functions of different classes of chiefs in thai district.

Such essential unity does not exist, or if it does, cannot at present be detected among the groups of natives who form the next series to be discussed. Broadly speaking these may be summarised as the hill and mountain men who occupy the hinterland of that part of the coast which is not mhabited by Papuan tribes. The majority— perhaps all—

' It must not be concluded that this division into sides is essentially a Mcianesian feature, Captain Barton having discovered its existence among the tlcma tribes fPapuans; of the Papuan Gulf. The clan man-houses {^eravo) are ajviacd into right and left halves called maitoavi ?.x^^ jnaiava respectively. Men Sleep and eat on their own sides of the building and although members of * right' ^??K . '^'^'•'es may intermarry, each clan is otherwise exogamous. The chief of the ♦ left ' '* ^'P^^'^^y the chief of the eravo and takes precedence of the chief

Introduction of these tribes speak Papuan languages, but as far as I know none of them have the stature or bulky physique that characterizes the Papuan tribes of the Mamba River and the Elema stock of the Papuan GulP. Further, although individuals with curly hair occur in some of these tribes, their number is small. The whole of this area is very little known, nevertheless, I believe we are in a position to define certain groups.

Koiari is the term applied by the Motu and their neighbours on the coast to the tribes inhabiting their hinterland, i.e. the foothills and the lateral spurs of the main range. I should provisionally regard the following tribes as belonging to the Koiari group, Gasiri, Sogeri, Uberi, Ebe, Agi, and Meroka. The villages of all these people consist of small groups of houses less well built than those of the coast peoples and usually containing one or two tree houses which act as citadels and refuges in time of need. Provisionally the Meroka may be considered the most easterly tribe of the Koiari group, while to the west the Vanapa river may be regarded as their boundary. Measurements taken on the living (10) show that the Koiari are mesaticephals with an average stature of 1*582 m. (rather under 63 in.)^

The older men of the Koiari tribes wear long beards, and I have several times noticed a reddish or gingery tinge in the hair of the face of members of this group.

Men of much the same build and height as the Koiari are met with in the higher mountains behind the Koiari zone. Captain Barton states that these tribes speak a dialect akin to Koiari but that they are distinguished in their native mountains by the sporran-like garment worn by the men. Four of these mountaineers, measured by Dr H addon, had an average cephalic index of 81 (min. y^y max. 2>2,)j and an

^ To these may be added the coastal tribes of parts of German New Guinea, e.g. Huon Gulf and the Tugeri (Kaiakaia) of Netherlands New Guinea.

2 There is however a curious discrepancy between the index calculated from measurements taken on the living and from skulls. Whereas the former (10) average 78 and show a min. of 72> ^^^ ^ ^^^- ^3> ^^^ average cranial index of seven Koiari skulls collected in the neighbourhood of Port Moresby is 70 with a min. of 67 and a max. of 73. The crania in question include three skulls collected on the road to Wariratta, and the explanation of the discrepancy is probably to be found in the fact that most, if not all, these skulls have been collected within twenty miles of Port Moresby, while some of the living subjects measured certainly came from further inland, whence no skulls have been collected, with the exception of a single skull having a cranial index of 77 collected by Captain Barton from the neighbourhood of Mount Victoria and which 1 think may be attached provisionally to this group.

o o Introduction average stature of 1-613 ^- (^si ins.). The men of some of these sporran-wearing tribes living in the neighbourhood of the 'Gap' at a height of over 5000 feet are described by Captain Barton as rather Hght-skinned men of excellent physique and pleasant, unconstrained manners. Their appearance conclusively shows that in spite of speaking a Papuan language they possess more Melanesian than Papuan blood.

Garia is the name of the best known of a number of tribes living to the west of the Koiari and speaking dialects of a Papuan language which differ from the various Koiari tongues', and the name Garia may be usefully applied to the group of which this tribe is a representative.

The Garia dialects — for I am told that there are at least two forms of a stock language spoken by different sections of the Garia — are spoken over a considerable area to the west of the Kemp Welch river, which constitutes their eastern boundary. The Governor Loch range may be regarded as the head quarters of the tribes speaking these dialects, whence they have spread in a westerly direction towards the coast, the most westerly tribe, the Manukoro, being in contact with the coastal peoples behind |^aile. Twenty men of the eastern branch of the Garia inhabiting the western bank of the Kemp Welch gave an average cephalic index of 77 (min. 72, max. 86) and were predominantly mesaticephalic. The average stature of these men is i "603 m. and their general appearance suggests that the Papuan element is decidedly subordinate. In many cultural matters they resemble their neighbours the Sinaugolo who speak a Melanesian dialect.

Of individuals speaking the western Garia dialect, which may be called Manukoro, as it is spoken by that tribe, I have seen and measured only five men belonging to the Lakumi tribe inhabiting the upper reaches of the Hunter and Musgrove rivers. As far as this limited number goes, they seem to be rather taller and more dolichocephalic than the eastern Garia and one of them had curly hair which was almost wavy. Behind the Garia, and rather to the east of them in the mountains between Mount Potter and Mount Obree, are found a tribe speaking a language which Mr A. C. English calls Barai and which he appears to consider a

' It seems likely that language will long remain an important factor in the differentiating and grouping of the comparatively little known tribes of the main range and its foothills.

dialect of Garia. Six men from the village of Seramine were mesaticephalic, with an average index of 77 and a stature of 1*578 m. {62 in.).

With the exception of Mekeo, the Roro-speaking tribes, the Pokao and the Kabadi, all in the west, the tribes of the Hood Peninsula and the coastal tribes east of this promontory, all the western Papuo-Melanesian tribes that have been mentioned (extending from Hall Sound to some distance east of the Kemp Welch river) are characterized by the use of the open dubtc.

The mountains inland of Mekeo, Nara and Kabadi are inhabited by a number of tribes of whom our knowledge is extremely limited. Some of these tribes speak Papuan languages, others Melanesian, but the slightest acquaintance with these people shows that language is not here a criterion of race, for broadly speaking the members of all these tribes are alike in general appearance, being short, dark, and frizzlyhaired. It is probable that there is also a substantial agreement in the customs of all these people, for their women all wear a narrow perineal band instead of the petticoat of their eastern neighbours the Koiari, and they all inhabit small settlements of an impermanent character perched on the summit of razor-backed ridges. These collections of houses which are generally stockaded appear to be known by the names of the crests on which they are built. As the tribal names of these people are doubtful or scarcely known, we may speak of these mountaineers as forming the Kovio group, Kovio being the name for Mount Yule around which these tribes are distributed, and I may hazard the opinion that the further differentiation of the components of the Kovio group will depend largely upon linguistics. Some of the communities of this group inhabiting the head waters of the St Joseph and its tributaries build suspension bridges across these torrents.

The Rev. Father Egidi has recently published an account of the sociology of the best known of the Kovio peoples whom he calls the Kuni ; they inhabit the mountains immediately behind Mekeo and Pokao and speak a Melanesian language^ Their social organization, though simpler than

^ Casa e Villaggio, Sottotribu e Tribu dei Kuni, A^ithropos, Vol. iv. 1909.

'The Kuni language is spoken further inland than any other Melanesian language with which we are acquainted, and it is remarkable for the paucity of its numerals. It extends over a considerable area including the small districts of Rapeka, Idoido, Keakamana, Devadeva, and is also spoken for some distance that of Mekeo, shows a remarkable resemblance to it and indicates, that part at least of the Mekeo social system is derived from the mountains. Concerning the sociology of the Papuan speaking members of the Kovio group nothing is known except that some, whom Captain Barton calls the Kamaweka, are cannibals and dispose of their dead by exposing their bodies on rough platforms in the jungle\

Mr C. A. W. Monckton's explorations of Mount Albert Edward and the head of the Chirima in 1906 have shown that people belonging to the Kovio group extend into the heart up the Dilafa valley. Possibly there are dialectic variations but little is known concerning this ; the Rapeka people certainly use some Mekeo numerals.' For this information I am indebted to Dr Strong. With regard to Rapeka this people has undoubtedly come into close contact with Mekeo and as is stated in chapter XXVI has contributed towards the peopling of the Mekeo plain. Another Melanesian language is spoken at Doura a small village at the head of Galley Reach. The Doura told Dr Strong that they formerly lived in the Pokao district but that they were driven thence by the Nara. On their dispersal a part of those who did not settle at Doura fled to the Kabadi village of Matapaile while the remainder travelled westwards to the Papuan Gulf where they settled on the Cupola, a rocky promontory immediately to the south-east of the Kerema. At the present time there are two settlements of people whom the Elema tribes regard as strangers on the Cupola, and another small one at its foot near the Elema village which is known to the .Motu as Silo. But the evidence that the 'strangers' have come from Doura is far from convincing, for language is the only test at present available, and its evidence does not support this hypothesis. Dr Strong has collected a vocabulary of the Tate language which is spoken on the Cupola. This has been examined by Mr Ray who considers that the Tate language is Papuan but quite distinct from the Elema, Namau and Bamu groups of Papuan dialects and also from the Papuan languages of German New Guinea. Further, although in the Tate language there are some words 'similar to Roro, Mekeo, Pokau and Kabadi, these apparently Melanesian words are all (except five) words which in the four languages mentioned are unlike Melanesian.'

• Seligmann and Strong, 'Anthropological Investigations in British New Guinea,' Geographical Journal^ 1906, pp. 234, 237.

Anriong the Papuan languages of the Kovio group Fuyuge is spoken along the meridian of 146 degrees 50 min. for a distance of at least some 40 miles, from the parallel of 8 deg. 30 min. S. lat. On the west it is bounded by the Kuni and on the south by Kabadi (Melanesian) ; its eastern extension is unknown though it certainly comes into contact with dialects of the Koiari group of languages. A different language, Afoa, is spoken in the villages on Mount Pitsoko and the northern slopes of Mount Davidson (Boboleva) and yet another in the neighbourhood of Mount Yule. The Afoa villages lie to the north of the Fuyuge-speaking communities, stretching westwards for an unknown distance behind Mount Davidson. These people have a heavy throwing spear and a narrow shield some six feet long, made from the section of a tree trunk. They also have a short bow, about three feet long. Although their villages are defended by palisades and pitfalls they build tree houses. They have large gardens of sweet potatoes occupying the fairly open country which in these hills is found at a height of from four to six thousand feet. For this information I am indebted to Dr Strong who writes: 'The vocabulary of the language spoken near Mount Yule bears no resemblance to any other with which I am acquainted. It is peculiar in that words often end in a consonant preceded by a short vowel. There is also an unusual consonant in the language which seems to vary between a "ch" and a "tch" sound.'

Plate V

Agaiambo man and Goodenough Islander

Introduction of the main range and the large number of the drawings with which Mr Monckton's report is illustrated render this of great interest^ Among them are undescribed forms of wooden racks for drying tobacco, and wooden clubs identical with specimens in the British Museum collected by Dr Strong from the neighbourhood of Mount Yule ; the adze figured is of the form used in Roro and Mekeo (where it is sometimes called kovio because it comes by trade from the neighbourhood of Mount Yule) and the mountainous hinterland of these districts, while the three stone tapa-beaters figured, suggest that this neighbourhood may be the site of manufacture of these implements, single examples of which have been collected in so many parts of British New Guinea^

The ethnic position of a number of tribes situated north of the main range between the Musa river and its tributaries and the head waters of the Kumusi is uncertain. Mr Monckton has told me of small moderately light coloured hill-men who until recently raided the Collingwood Bay villages, and inland from Ketakerua Bay there is a vast morass in which dwell the Agaiambo. The discovery of this tribe gave rise to the accounts of 'web-footed ' Papuans which were widely circulated a few years ago. Plate V is a reproduction of a photograph taken by Captain Barton of an Agaiambo man and a typical Massim from Goodenough Island. The short stature and the physiognomy of the Agaiambo both indicate that he is not a typical Papuan, and probably the Agaiambo are to be regarded as possessing both Papuan and Melanesian blood so that provisionally they may be classed with the Papuo-Melanesians. Their houses are built on platforms in the swamps and it seems that a great part of their time is passed in their canoes, which Captain Barton suggests may account for their somewhat weak lower limbs.

In the preceding pages I have referred to the smaller groups of the two great stocks into which the Papuo-Melanesians are

1 British New Guinea^ Ann. Rep. 1905-6, pp. 85-93.

2 I am indebted to an unpublished note by the Rev. P. J. Money for the following details of the natives of the Kambisa villages upon a south-east spur of Mount Albert Edward at the head of the Chirima valley at a height of about 6000 ft. : ' Short in stature and sturdily built.. ..Their skin is of a copper colour.. ..Their faces are smaller, flatter and rounder than those of the majority of the coastal tribes [i.e. of the north coast]. Their noses are flat and broad, and their eyes dark and widely set. Their hair is frizzly and long and is dressed in different ways.' Both sexes wear a perineal bandage. They do not bury their dead but place them on elevated platforms.

divided, and wherever I have been able to do so I have indicated the distinguishing characteristics of each tribe or group. Logically I should next discuss the crafts and then the arts of each group, but as stated in the preface, it is not my intention to dothis, though I consider it necessary to attempt to indicate the factors which I believe have contributed to the formation of the characteristic decorative art of the Papuo-Melanesians, which entitles them to a high rank among the artistic peoples of the Pacific.

In his important work The Decorative Art of British A'ew Guinea. Dr H addon has given many reproductions of objects which show the majority of the designs commonly employed by the Melanesians of New Guinea to decorate their implements and utensils. The plates in this volume give an excellent idea of the large number of objects which are habitually decorated, and the accompanying letterpress supplies an adequate explanation of the meaning and origin of the majority of the designs^

The Papuo-Melanesians feel no imperious necessity to attach a meaning to any of the forms they carve on wood or the patterns they tattoo on their bodies, the verses of their songs or the figures of their dances. If the reason for a particular carving, tattoo pattern or dance figure be asked, the answer ' our fathers did so before us ' is usually given as a sufficient and final explanation, and I have never received an answer implying that a carving or dance figure reproduced or commemorated the doings of ancestors, though certain lakatoi songs make mention of Edai Siabo who taught the Motu to sail westward to the Papuan Gulf for sago".

■* Considering that the author worked from museum material this volume shows great skill and extraordinary intuition. Indeed the only alteration of note which my experience leads me to regard as necessary, is the recognition of the fact that among the Massim no preponderant importance is attached to the frigate bird at the present day, and that many of the designs which Dr Haddon derives from the frigate bird, represent other birds which may be the totems of the people for whom they were carved, though more often their intent is merely decorative. At the time that Decorative Art was written it was impossible to give details concerning the decoration of the dubii of the Central District and the houses and built-up canoes of the Massim. The illustrations given in the present volume will enable the essentials of their decoration to be appreciated.

• These songs are archaic and only partly understood and the memory of Edai, who has become a mythological figure, is only kept alive in the legend given by Captain Harton in chapter viii dealing with the hiri. Another example of the absence of any attempt to keep in touch with the past is furnished by the Sinaugolo who, although they invoke their ancestors before hunting, only call upon the recent dead.

Introduction

As the greater part of the art of British New Guinea is assuredly not commemorative, it becomes necessary to consider how far Papuasian art is 'autotelic,' existing only for the purpose of embellishment and lacking any non-aesthetic significance. In studying this question the great difficulty is to make certain that an apparently aesthetic carving or action has no other significance than that of pure aesthetics. No object could appear more obviously aesthetic than the beautifully carved objects called munkuris which are fixed to the waga of the northern Massim, yet, as I have shown elsewhere, the natives of the Louisiades believe these munkuris to be essential to the safe navigation of the big canoes upon which they are exhibited \

The magical nature of these objects is not recognized by the people of Tubetube who import their waga from Murua, and Tokunu where the munkuris are made and where the end pieces of the canoes are carved with designs which are conventional representations of birds, fish and snakes, the totem animals of this part of New Guinea. Yet in spite of the Tubetube people having the same totemic system as that which has determined the ornamentation of these canoes, they are not only ignorant of the meaning attributed to these carvings by their makers, but they scarcely attempt to read any meaning into them^

No better example of the acceptance of a work of beauty as such, and the purposeful ignoring of any non-aesthetic value, could be adduced, and facts such as this certainly tend to support the belief that the Papuasian delight in art is largely autotelic. This idea is further strengthened when it is noted how many objects are covered with carving, with scratched or incised lines, or have patterns burnt on them, the great majority of which must, on the evidence of careful and repeated inquiry, be declared to be devoid of all magic or other non-aesthetic purpose. Thus, although the Tubetube folk are poor executants, they have a hereditary wood carver,

^ Man^ 1909, 16.

^ Several Tubetube men were questioned concerning the meaning of the carvings on a number of canoes that were hauled up on the sand, and though they recognized that the extremely obvious bird's heads did represent birds, they could not suggest what birds they were except in one instance, when one man pointed out that a bird with a particularly long neck might represent boi, the reef heron. Unfortunately at the time of my visit to Tubetube, I did not myself know the significance of these carvings and so my questions were necessarily couched in the most general terms.

3—2

they ornament many of their utensils in every-day use, and they appear to fully appreciate the designs carved not only on their big imported canoes, but also on smaller articles such as drums and spatulae. The same aesthetic appreciation is found in the Central Division where some tribes have copied decorations although avowedly ignorant of the significance of the designs they have borrowed, merely imitating objects that gave them pleasure because they were judged to be beautiful. The most obvious examples of such borrowings occur in the province of decorative art, but in chapter xiii an example is given of a community acquiring by purchase the right to perform a dance, which there is every reason to believe appealed only to the aesthetic sense of both the buyers and its original proprietors. It is certain that in a community so intensely democratic as the Koita village who bought this dance, the large sum paid would never have been collected unless the whole of the community had approved of the purchase.

Throughout Melanesian New Guinea the artistic tendency attains its highest expression in wood carving and in each community there is at least one expert in this art. These experts are hereditary craftsmen, having been taught their trade by their fathers or maternal uncles, and in turn take as pupils their own or their sisters sons. They are shown special consideration, and are fed by the men by whom they are employed, and there is no doubt that their work is appreciated by their fellows, many of whom also carve, though their work is generally inferior to that of the experts. Apart from their appreciation of decoration the Papuo-Melanesians undoubtedly delight in the effort involved in its production and a man with nothing particular to do will take up some half-made or partially ornamented utensil and work leisurely at it in a way that certainly betokens pleasured

The nature of the pleasure produced by effort of this kind seems to be a heightened appreciation of self, brought about as the result of skilled co-ordinate movements, or other

' A man may cut a series of notches in a suitable piece of wood with an adze, lakin;,' great care while doing this, although the wood when finished may be fit for nothing and may be thrown away immediately. I have no doubt that such activity, requiring little mental application but a delicate exercise of the muscular sense, is really greatly enjoyed, and I have seen an old man positively beam with interest and pleasure as he notched out the pyramidal elevations on a dubu post. In this instance the work done was ultimately utilitarian, but the effort put forth differed in no way from that exerted in the other instance referred to.

Introduction actions which allow a man to feel that he is impressing himself strongly on his environment. This point of view can perhaps be best made clear by considering the dances of the Motu and Koita tribes who live in the neighbourhood of Port Moresby. The routine preparation for dancing by natives of the tribes mentioned is to paint the face and to place feather ornaments in the hair. Nobody who watches the unassuming walk of a young buck going to the house of some friendly relative in which he assumes his paint and feathers, and compares this with the grandiose air with which he struts down the village street to join the dance will doubt that the process of decoration had added immensely to his self-consciousness. When feathers are scarce a few spots of paint may suffice to produce the same effect, and I have known a native apply a few dots of paint to the salient points of his face (nose, chin, and cheek-bones) when going ashore with his white master to visit a strange village, avowedly with the intention of drawing attention to himself and impressing the strangers he was visiting.

The story of the origin of the tahaka figure of the Koita dance maginogo (given in chapter xiii) appears to be another instance of this feeling, and shows how vague moods of wonder and perhaps uneasiness or perplexity may be translated into artistic production, which in its turn leads to an enhanced importance of the individual.

To determine whether the portrayal of natural objects or the production of pleasing forms was the original intention of the artist it is necessary to examine a series of the products of each ethnic group, for Dr Haddon has shown that the art of each ethnic group is characterized by a special style. In spite of the amount of conventionalization that has taken place but little experience is needed to make it clear that the Massim art was naturalistic in origin. The matter is far less certain among the Motu and the related tribes of the Central Division, who have the Massim as their eastern neighbours and Elema (Papuan) tribes of the Papuan Gulf on the west. These two peoples possess the two richest and most distinctive styles of decorative art in British New Guinea; yet, ignoring the slight amount of contact-metamorphosis which occurs on their borders, the Motu and cognate tribes, though good craftsmen, are the poorest artists in the Possession. An exception must however be made in the case of the tattoo marks of these people, which, though highly conventionalized, are certainly more complex, and to European eyes more beautiful than the tattooing of the Massim. It has already been stated that the decorative art of the Motu and kindred tribes is 'geometrical,' and the angular character of the figures is especially obvious in their tattooing which is always done by women. Nevertheless there is good evidence that certain geometrical designs originated as naturalistic representations, and I am inclined to believe that the whole of the art of the Motu and the cognate tribes of the Central Division has been developed from a naturalistic beginning\

Although art, and especially decorative art, plays a much larger part in the life of the majority of Papuo-Melanesians than it does among ourselves, certain motifs are unaccountably absent. In the first place the sexual element is scarcely to be found, not only is there an absence of pornographic detail in art, but even the female genitalia themselves are seldom represented. This reticence is the more surprising since Papuasians betray no such reserve in their speech, while the utmost freedom in sexual affairs is allowed to the unmarried. Again, landscape is never represented and plants only rarely, in spite of the fact that among the Massim many clans have totem plants as well as totem animals.

Another form of self-expression which cannot be ignored is the extreme boastfulness of the immigrant Melanesians. This tendency leads almost everyone to brag of his own doings and those of his clan and village. The inter-clan feasts of the Western Papuo-Melanesians afford ample occasion for this form of self-glorification when every individual will boast of the amount of food supplied by himself or his clan. On such occasions there is no tendency towards exaggeration for it would be useless, every man having taken good stock of the quantity of food provided by his fellows. When talking to strangers, however, the Melanesian puts little check on his imagination. The hekarai ceremony described in chapter xii is the result of a deliberate boast. If a man renders any service

• Captain Barton discovered that certain typical geometrical designs of the Roro and kindred tribes have a naturalistic origin, and with his assistance I have been able to verify the hypothesis I tentatively advanced in 1899 {Reports, Brit. Ass. 1899) that the geometrical carving on the posts of the dubu of the Central District IS derived from the scales of the crocodile.

Introdtiction 39

to a white stranger he will mention it repeatedly and with emphasis and pride, though often without any thought of deriving immediate advantage therefrom. If he does anything for a fellow Papuasian he will talk of it to the white man as soon as he becomes fairly intimate with him and the frequent repetition of facts which enhance the self-esteem of the individual, such as the amount paid for a wife or a canoe, or the amount and nature of food given at a feast is a universal theme.

Introduction

L

CHAPTER I

GEOGRAPHICAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS.

The villages of the Koita, called Koitapu by the Motu, lie scattered along the coastal region of the Central Division, for a distance of some forty miles, extending from Pari, which is about seven miles south-east of Port Moresby, to Manumanu at the mouth of Galley Reach in Redscar Bay. The Koita territory, however, is larger than this village area would seem to indicate. Beginning at Taurama in the east, it extends to the borders of Nara, west of Cape Suckling. Throughout this area the Koita are divided into a number of sections, some of which bear the names of the villages which their members inhabit. The following list gives the names of the sections and the villages belonging to each running from east to west :

Section. Village.

Gorobe inhabiting

Pari

Badili

)?

Kilakila

Yarogaha

M

Akorogo

Yawai

)

Korabada

Hohodai

)j

Hohodai

Guriu

)J

Guriu

Baruni

))

Buegarara, I boko, Bogemunime

Huhunamo

»»

Porebada

Roko

)>

Dobi, Eholasi

Idu

5}

Aimakara

Gevana

)J

PapaS Konekaru

Arauwa

1^

Lealea

Rokurokuna

Kido, Roauna.

The folk of Namura, an extinct section of the Koita, were exterminated shortly before the annexation of the country, by the repeated attacks of the eastern sections, sometimes by the whole seven acting together, but more often by a combination of from two to four sections. The Namura village stood between Boera and Lealea in the bush, a short distance from the coast.

1 Also called Veadi.

The Koita

The followine table shows the sections which were more or less constantly and reciprocally hostile, a cross, where horizontal and vertical lines meet, indicates that the sections referred to would be often at enmity. It is obvious that a line joining the island Lolorua to Pyramid Hill divides the Koita settlements into eastern and western moieties, which correspond geographically as closely as possible with the distribution of the sections at enmity. Although nothing was said by my informants to show that they recognized such a dual grouping, the enmity between eastern and western sections was so constant, that I have found it convenient to regard the Koita as consisting of eastern and western moieties, the former including Gorobe, Badili, Yarogaha, Yawai, Hohodai, Guriu and Baruni, the latter Huhunamo, Roko, Idu, Gevana, Arauwa and Rokurokuna, together with the now extinct Namura. With the exception of Baruni, the sections of the eastern moiety were said to come from one or other of two parent stocks originating at Idu and Koma. My informants were all Hohodai, Yarogaha or Gorobe men, and were ignorant of the history of Baruni, but they thought this section had come from the west ; and it also appeared to me that Baruni did not stand in the same close relationship to the other sections of the eastern group as the latter did to each other. Of the origin of the western group of sections, my eastern informants were frankly ignorant.

Gorobe

Badili

Yarogaha ...

Yawai

Hohodai ...

Guriu

Baruni

Huhunamo

Roko

Idu

Gevana

Arauwa

Rokurokuna, o

O

c«

O

O

o

PQ

o rA

C

o o rt

Cj

C

is

C3

cS

b o

<

X

X

O )-■

O

It follows that the information here given about the Koita as a whole, represents the views of men of the eastern moiety of the tribe, and although most beliefs and customs are probably common to the two groups, my information applies specifically only to the eastern moiety.

I could hear of no legend relating to the origin of the whole Koita tribe, but Chalmers gives the following story told him by the Motu : ' One night, sitting with a number of old men, they told me that, with the Koiari and Koitapu tribe, they came from two ancestors named Kirimaikulu and Kirimaikape, who came from the earth with one female dog which they took unto themselves. A son was born, then a daughter, and again a son, followed by a daughter. The first two grew up and married, and their children numbered fourteen. Two went back inland, and became the progenitors of the Koiari tribe ; two went in from the coast by the banks of the Laroge, and from them descended the Koitapu tribe; the others all went to Elema where they were increased'

With regard to Idu and Koma, which legend gives as the birthplaces of the eastern Koita, it was from Koma that the ancestors of Gorobe and Yarogaha sections came. Here, on the northern bank of the Laloki river, stood a huge erimo tree, within which lived the ancestors of both divisions. When they emerged from the tree, they crossed the Laloki, and built a village on Nebira (Saddleback Hill), and called it also Koma. Subsequently, Gorobe migrated to Pari, while Yarogaha, after successively building and deserting two villages on the hills behind Hohodai, moved to their present village site. Badili, Hohodai and Yawai sections, all originally came from the hill Idu, to which the shades of their dead still return. No definite information was obtained concerning the wanderings of Badili and Yawai sections, but after leaving Idu, the Hohodai section is reputed to have built a village at Borimana. This was in turn deserted and this section is said to have built two villages on or near Ela beach, and one upon a small island called Motu Motu, off the beach. At Naurihara, one of the beach villages. Ova Abau, the father of Taubada, the present chief of Hohodai, was born. Subsequently the villages were shifted to a neighbouring hill called Tauerina, and thence to Koko on the beach at its foot. This

1 ' On the Manners and Customs of the Tribes of New Guinea,' Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, Vol. XVIII. 1886, p. 57.

The Koita was considered an unsuitable site, and, accordingly, under the leadership of Ova Abau, the people migrated to Nara, where they lived inland, at a place called Sobu Kau'. Here sickness carried off many children, and caused the group to remove to Obo, on the Nara beach; there they signalled a number of lakatoi returning from the Papuan Gulf, and were taken on these vessels to Poreporena, and built houses at Hohodai. Gardens were made, a dubu built, and a tabu feast held by Dubara iduhu, but nevertheless, after about a couple of years, the section returned to Koke, where they remained some years, and held two tabu feasts. An epidemic, however, broke out, and they once more returned to Hohodai, to build the present settlement.

The size of the Koita village naturally varies somewhat according to the number and strength of their component clans. Hohodai and Guriu, the two Koita settlements of the Port Moresby village system, which may perhaps be looked upon as average villages, contain 20 houses with 129 inhabitants and 22 houses with 93 inhabitants respectively. The Koita houses of the Hanuabada village system stand upon piles, themselves about four feet longer than those (six to eight feet in height) supporting the verandah which each house has or should have. The verandah, which is shaded by an overhanging extension of the front thatch, is reached, in front by a ladder, and the house door by another shorter ladder from the back of the verandah. With the exception of the ladder leading to the house door, these features are well illustrated in the drawing (Plate IX)/of his house, made by Ahuia. Tree houses, used as refuges and fortresses during raids, formerly existed in the inland villages, but at the present time only one remains.

Many of the Koita villages are built in direct continuity with Motu settlements. The village sites of the two tribes may, however, be distinct, but close together, as in the case of KilajFCila, which stands on the ridge of a hill immediately behind the Motu settlement Vabukori. Intermarriage has

• Although this is the only mention of Nara as associated with the Koita in recent times, there are a number of facts which suggest that this association is of very old standing. There is a Koita tradition to the effect that the whole of the Nara district once belonged to the Koita, and in support of this there is a perfectly definite record that Nagu Kawea, the great-great grandfather of Ova Abau, and the founder of the chieftainship in the Dubara section of Hohodai, lived on Vauria, a hill in the Nara district.

always taken place so freely, that it seems doubtful whether there could be found in the eastern moiety any considerable number of people of Koita blood who have remained pure for three generations. With this miscegenation there has come about a considerable borrowing of Motu activities. Practically all Koita speak Motu, and although pot-making is essentially a Motu craft, many Koita women make excellent pots. Their male relatives take part freely in the hiri (the Motu trading voyages to the Gulf), and may even captain the composite craft {lakatoi) in which these voyages are made. But in spite of this few Koita take part in turtle and dugong fishing ; and even in the immediate vicinity of Port Moresby, where perhaps fusion has been most complete, no Koita possesses the strong large meshed net with which these animals are caught.

In inland villages inhabited by Koita only, the houses are arranged in two parallel rows, one on each side of a central open space across which they face each other. But where the Koita and Motu have settled together in coastal villages the houses of the Koita like those of the Motu are usually built in compact masses near or below high water mark. In both cases the houses of each clan are usually built close together.

The Port Moresby villages, commonly considered a single village and incorrectly called Hanuabada, constitute the largest village-system in the Koita- Motu territory. It consists of four villages, the correct name for which, when spoken of as a single village, is not Hanuabada, but Poreporena. Hanuabada, the name by which it is generally known, being really the name of one of its four component villages, as well as that of one of the two subdivisions into which its four villages are divided. Proceeding from east to west the villages of Poreporena are Hohodai (K.) and Hanuabada (M.) (which together constitute the subdivision Hanuabada) and Tanobada (M.) and Guriu (K.) together constituting Tanobada.

This is shown in the following scheme :

Hohodai (K.) ] u u j ^

u x. A r\it \ \ Hanuabada I

t^""k H^^ir^'^ \ Poreporena.

Tanobada (M.) Tanobada

Guriu (K.) j j

Between the villages of Hanuabada and Tanobada, the houses of which are built on piles on the sandy foreshore, and are mostly below high-water mark, there stands a bare grass-

The Koita

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Oh bJo covered hill on which the premises of the London Mission Society are situated.

The general character of the Port Moresby villages is well shown in the frontispiece which represents the view from a hillside above and slightly to the west of Port Moresby looking toward the island of Elevara which occupies the middle of the picture.

Although, as was first pointed out by Chalmers^ the Motu must be regarded as an immigrant stock which settled on and acquired Koita territory, it by no means follows that the Motu colonies invariably settled down in the close vicinity of the Koita villages where they are now found. In some instances already described, the reverse occurred, and it was the Koita who settled near or in continuity with Motu colonies. Probably both events happened in the case of the Poreporena villages. The Tanobada people were stated to have come long ago from the neighbourhood of Taurama in the east, whence the Motu state they originally came. Hanuabada village is a younger, but still an ancient settlement: its people originally lived at Gwamo, somewhere to the west of Tupuselei, whence they moved to an island Motuhanua, off the mouth of Bootless Inlet, where they stayed some time on terms of close friendship with Tupuselei. Presently quarrels occurred which led to continual fighting, and the Hanuabada folk were driven to make a village to the eastward on Taurama beach, whence after a severe defeat inflicted by Tupuselei by means of a night attack, they fled to their present site. Here they stayed for many years, as already mentioned, and were joined by the Hohodai Koita under their chief Ova Abau some three generations ago.

Nothing could be ascertained concerning the origin of the Koita village Guriu, which was said to have always existed at, or near its present site. The early existence of Koita villages near the present site of Guriu Is confirmed by Captain Barton, who, as the result of recent investigation, states, that the hills immediately behind Hanuabada which overlook Poreporena, are covered with old village sites, and suggests that ' the Koita had houses on the site of Poreporena before the Motu came.' Elevara is a recent colony from Tanobada, founded by one Ragagari of Botai iduhu who lived in terror of night-prowling Koiari sorcerers.

^ Pioneering in New Guinea^ London, 1887, pp. 13, 14, 15.

The Koita appear to have had comparatively little intimate intercourse with tribes other than the Motu. A very few ••V. women of Kilals:ila and Baruni villages married Koiari men.

A certain amount of trade took place between Koita and Koiari, and formerly a market was held at uncertain intervals. At times Koiari and Koita united to burn grass for hunting purposes, and in cases of serious sickness, a Koiari might be invited to treat a Koita invalid. In spite of these points of contact, and the infrequent tabu festival, to which all surrounding villages sent their contingent, there was little real amity between the two peoples. The Koiari were looked upon as pernicious sorcerers, indeed the dreaded Vatavata, according to many, were stated to be only these bushmen in a specially malicious mood.

On the western Koita frontier, Arauwa and Rokuro Kuna were constantly embroiled with Kabadi, and although a few Gulf and Waima (Maiva) canoes brought areca nut and vegetables at uncertain intervals, only in the east were peaceable conditions constant.

CHAPTER II

SOCIAL SYSTEM AND REGULATION OF PUBLIC LIFE.

IDUHU, CLANS.

The sections of the Koita, and the names of their villages, have already been given (p. 41). The inhabitants of every Koita village — and this applies to the Motu also — are divided into a number of groups called tduku, within which descent is counted in the male line. Although the word clan will not as a rule be substituted for iduhu, the term clansman or clanswoman will be used to avoid such cumbrous expressions as * men of the same iduhu!

The names of the iduhu composing the sections of the eastern moiety of the Koita are as follows :

Gorobe. Gorobe dubu or Gorobe vamaga {gorobe, well, spring ; dtibu, black ; vamaga, right). Gorobe kai or Gorobe vaga {kai, white ; vaga, left). Gorobe Badili. Keakone (the name both in Koita and Motu for a certain kind of banana. In Motu gea or kea means

'* gum tree " and kone " beach ").

Badili. Badili vamaga.

Badili vaga.

Badu {baduj Motu angry).

Koge {koge is the name for the Hood Peninsula spire house. It was alleged that the iduhu came from the direction of the Hood Peninsula, i.e. the east).

Dubara {dubara, crab).

Yarogaha. Yarogaha (a name for the Laloki river, from the banks of which the section came, and where they still have land). Uhadi.

Yawai. Yawai.

Venehako.

Hohodai. Dubara. Keakone.

Taurama (Taurama, a hill name, i.e. Pyramid Hill near Tupuseleia).

so

The Koita

Giiriii. Maha (Maha, a place name).

Variamana (Varimana, a hill, about half-a-mile inland from Guriu). Gaibodubu.

Baruni^ Mokagaha. Dabunari, Uraranu. Arutu. Baruni. Kaevage.

The local groups of certain iduhu have become extinct, as for instance Vaiau and Tupa, in certain villages of the eastern Koita. For an iduhu to become extinct, it is not necessary that every male member should die, for when greatly reduced, iduhu are often absorbed into a stronger iduhu, as in Hohodai village, Vaiau and Tupa have both been absorbed into Dubara iduhu, though two men, born Vaiau, and a few Tupa men, are still living. It was further stated that, whenever an individual or group of individuals settled in a village in which his or their iduhu was not represented, they would, after a time, assume the iduhu of their immediate neighbours, with whom they would probably have been on friendly terms for a long time. Thus, according to my informant Taubada, the parents of Amago, who belonged to Badili iduhu, assumed Tupa iduhu, when living in a village where there were no Badili folk. Later, when they settled at Hohodai, where again there were no Badili, they were considered Dubara, because they built their house alongside the Dubara houses. It was necessary for new-comers in a village to identify themselves with one of the established iduhu, as until they had done so they would not, as a rule, be permitted to take up land and make gardens. In spite of this, newcomers are not limited to the garden land of the iduhu with which they formally identify themselves, for in 1904 the men, formerly of Tupa iduhu, who were then living in Hohodai village as part of Dubara iduhu, made gardens, not only on Dubara and Taurama land, but even on the land which belongs to the technically extinct Vaiau iduhu. No meaning was obtained for the iduhu name Vaiau. Tupa is the name applied to roasted blocks of the interior of the sago pali which is eaten in times of scarcity.

' I am indebted to Captain Barton for this list.

Clan Badges 51

IDUHU DAGI. CLAN BADGES.

Certain iduhu were said to have the right of using particular conventional designs called dagina. These are carved on wood, or consist of special arrangements of dried grass and streamers of dried leaf, the whole sometimes pendant from a shell. Such objects were called iduhu dagi, dagi (M. toana) being the word for sign or witness, so that the meaning of dagi is best expressed by ' badge,' and iduhu dagi is equivalent to ' clan badge.'

With the exception of the toana flown on the composite trading rafts, lakatoi, during the trading voyages known as hiri (and which like the hiri itself are essentially Motu), iduhu dagi seem to be far advanced in decay among the eastern Koita, and at the present day to possess little real significance^ Figures ^ a, d, c are dagina on the ends of the rafters supporting the roofs of the verandahs of houses in Hohodai, and are said to be the dagina of Dubara, Taurama and Keakone respectively.

Careful inquiry was made in Hohodai and Pari as to the meaning of the dagina on the ends of the verandah rafters. Though the dagina were almost always called toana, and although an iduhu name was so often attached to a particular design, as to leave little doubt that the carving in question, was, or at one time had been, associated with that iduhu, it was unusual to find all the verandah rafters of a house ornamented entirely or predominantly with the design associated with its owner's iduhu. The house belonging to Taubada was, however, an exception, the ends of all his verandah rafters were ornamented with one dagina, said to be the toana of Dubara, of which he is still iduhu rohi. These rafters were carved by Hara, a Taurama man, as no Dubara was considered a sufficiently good craftsman.

The carvings at the top of the large corner posts of the dubu were also said to be toana. Excluding Baruni, which was not visited, there is now only one functional dubu among the eastern Koita, though the charred and delapidated remains

^ The hiri, and the customs associated with it, are dealt with by Captain Barton in chapter ix.

4—2

The Koita of other diihi still exist\ There seemed rather more certainty about the meaninof of these dubu toana than about the house toana, and their significance is dealt with in connection with Xh^ dubu (pp. 6^etseg.).

There is no dominant or paramount chief of the Koita, or of any group larger than a section. Each iduhu has its chief

(«) {^ kc)

Fig. 5. Iduhu da^ina of {a) Dubara ; {b) Taurama ; {c) Keakone clans.

or head man called the iduhu rohi (clan chief). The office was, as a rule, hereditary in the direct line, but a chiefs raim
(sister's son) might, and would succeed him if he were child^ less, or if his eldest son were too young. In such an event the son of the raimu did not as a rule inherit the chieftainshii

• This was the case in 1904, but Captain Barton informs me that a dubu has been built since then in Hohodai village, in front of the house of the village chief.

but at the death of his father (i.e. the raimu of the old chief) it reverted to the direct line. In this there was, however, no absolute rule, and the succession to the office of iduhu rohi might be discussed by the old men of the division for a long time. Examples of all conditions are met with in the history of the last three and the coming iduhu rohi of the three Hohodai iduhu, Dubara, Keakone and Taurama.

Dubara. As far as active work goes Ahuia must be regarded as the present iduhu rohi, though his maternal uncle Taubada (a by no means inactive, if somewhat crippled old man), who inherited the chieftainship from his father Ova Abau, still takes an active interest in village affairs. Doubtless part of the influence Ahuia already wields, as a comparatively young man, is to be traced to his being village constable, and the interpreter most commonly employed by the Government. His activity and intelligence are however so much above the average, that it seems certain he would have ultimately succeeded Taubada in the chieftainship, even without government assistance. At the death of Ahuia, the chieftainship will revert to Ova Tau, the eldest son of Taubada, who is now a small boy. As Ahuia lives with Taubada, there has never been any friction in the matter of the pig skull, or jaw trophies, described on page 56 which are always presented to Taubada.

Keakone. Goro Arua, the maternal uncle of the present iduhu rohi Hedu Gamika, inherited the office from his father Arua Boio. On the death or incapacity of Hedu Gamika, Homoka Goro, the son of Goro Arua, will become iduhu rohi,

Taurama. Until comparatively recently, there were two Taurama iduhu, i.e. Taurama Vamaga and Vaga. Taurama Vamaga became much weakened, and was absorbed into Taurama Vaga, which then became known as Taurama simply and had only one iduhu rohi. Three generations ago, the then iduhu rohi of Taurama Vaga, Maraga Kora, having no son, adopted Maraga Ganiga of his own iduhu, who on the death of Maraga Kora became chief. It is probable that Maraga Kora and Maraga Ganiga stood to each other in the reciprocal relationship of raimu, i.e. maternal uncle and sister's son, but unfortunately I omitted to inquire as to this. At the death of Maraga Ganiga, Ganiga Egahu the son of Egahu Soso, brother of Ganiga Soso, the true father of Maraga

Ganiga, became iduhti rohi, which office he now holds. Ahhough Maraga Ganiga was quite efficient and had a suitable son. it was generally thought that Ganiga Egahu should be iduliu rohi. which would add weight to the assumption made above. The successor to Ganiga Egahu has not yet been decided, though the question has been much discussed. Many hold that his son Arua Ganiga should succeed him, others think that Hera Maraga, the son of Maraga Ganiga, the late chief, should be iduhu rohi. A third party have suggested that Egahu Vani, son of Vani Erogo, the son of Erogo Abau (who two generations ago was iduhu rohi of Taurama Vagama, i.e. before its fusion with Taurama Vaga) should be iduhu rohi, in spite of his being unmarried and partially incapacitated by chronic ulceration of the legs.

In each section of the Koita, one particular iduhu rohi was always recognised as chief or head man of the whole section, and as such was called rohi ketaike or rohi baugi. Usually this office was constant in one iduhu, and since the individual filling it was necessarily the iduhu rohi, it was hereditary in the same sense, and to the same extent, as was the chieftainship of that iduhu. In Dubara iduhu of the Hohodai section, this sectional chieftainship was traced back to three generations before Ova Abau, when one Nagu Kawea, then iduhu rohi of Dubara, was recognized as the leader or chief of the whole of his section, this position being subsequently maintained by his son, and the latter's successors.

,1, DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF IDUHU ROHI AND fDUHXt

T^olNi KETAIKE.

The iduhu rohi is in charge of and is responsible for sharing out the food at the koriko feasts (chapter xii). He takes an important part in determining when these shall be held, frequently visiting the gardens of the iduhu and watching the ripening of their produce. The bananas for these feasts are brought to the house of the iduhu rohi oi the iduhu giving the feast, and are left hanging on his verandah until they are piled into the heaps described in chapter xii. The various iduhu rohi of sections discuss the dates and details of approaching feasts and ceremonies, and though they may, and often do, exert considerable influence in their iduhu, they have

Clan and Village Chiefs 55

no power to enforce their desires against the general sense of the older men of the iduhu who represent public opinion. But on the other hand the orders they give for the carrying out of the minutiae of a ceremony, such as the shifting of food to the most convenient spot, or the carrying of large quantities of food to another iduhu, are immediately and faithfully obeyed.

The iduhu rohi also exert their authority to keep the peace in the village, and to mitigate friction between the clans. Captain Barton ascertained, that if a man beat or otherwise maltreated his wife, the case would be referred to the iduhu rohi who would reason with the man. ' In the event of the man declining to listen to advice, the iduhu rohi washes his hands of the matter, and the result in the old days was a general row and fight between the woman's relatives and the man's — other people also joining in.'

Further, questions concerning land are formally brought before the iduhu rohi even when there is no quarrel or disagreement between the parties concerned. The procedure — communicated to me by Captain Barton — of the survivors of technically extinct local groups is a good example of this. Reference has been made on page 50 to two locally extinct iduhu, Tupa and Vaiau, the surviving members of which have identified themselves with Dubara iduhu. The four Tupa families, which in 1904 called themselves Dubara, not only made gardens on the land of Dubara iduhu, but also on Taurama land, after they had obtained permission from the Taurama iduhu rohi, and on Vaiu land after obtaining permission from the senior remaining member of that iduhu, but this permission was subject to confirmation by the iduhu rohi of Dubara iduhu. Probably the Dubara iduhu rohi is consulted in this instance, because the two remaining Vaiu families absorbed into Dubara iduhu are the owners of a quantity of land close to Hohodai which they brought to the local group of Dubara iduhu.

Iduhu rohi have certain rights to game killed by all the men of their section, as well as rights in all large fish caught, though the latter rights are less well defined or perhaps more often ignored. When a villager kills a pig, whether wild or domesticated, he brings the head, or more frequently half the head, sometimes only the lower jaw, to the iduhu rohi of an iduhu other than his own. Such gifts are cooked on the verandah of the iduhu rohi and eaten by the men of all the tduku of the section, including the donor and any guests from other sections or tribes. There is no special tduku to which a man of any particular tduku necessarily presents a portion of his kill, indeed the matter appears to be merely a special instance of the food exchanges so common throughout New Guinea, but it would be extremely bad form for a man not to present the appropriate portion to the tduku rohi of one of the iduhu of his section, even if his own iduhu owe no return for recent like gifts from other iduhu. The bones of half heads were not kept, but the whole skulls, or lower jaws of pigs, when presented, were carefully fixed on the verandah or front of the house of the iduku roki. Thus thirty-three jaws and three complete skulls adorn the verandah belonging to Taubada. These are frequently referred to with great pride by Ahuia, who made the drawing of which Plate VI is a reproduction. The loin of wallaby, including the kidneys and tail, is presented in the same way to an iduku rohi, and among the Motu one forejoint of every turtle is given also. The bones of these animals are not however hung up on the verandah of the iduku rohi. Big fish are also given to the iduhu rohi\ the whole fish is left on his verandah, where at his orders a clansman would clean and cook it preparatory to the invitation of the iduku roki to the men of the section to come and eat it. This fish is always eaten on the verandah of the iduku roki, a sick man may however have a portion sent to his house. The skulls, and often the vertebral columns of fish so eaten, were usually hung from the front eaves of the verandah, and the tail of a fish called dakudaku (Caranx sp.) is always carefully prepared and preserved (figure 6). Besides thesf-, all, or a portion of the withered haulms of bananas brought for feasts to the verandah of the iduku roki, are often left hanging for a long time. Each iduhu roki owns the front right corner post of the dubu, for the maintenance and renewal of which he is held responsible, and this is the invariable rule except in those cases in which an iduku joins with other iduku to build a common dubu.

When this occurs the iduku roki of the strongest or traditionally most nnportant clan becomes the owner {tauna, lit. 'master') of the front right post.

The tauna of the left front post acts as sub-chief, that is to say he would assist the tauna of the front right post in making

Plate VI

Drawing by Ahuia of pig jaws on his veranda

Clan and Village Chiefs

SI

arrangements for feasts and ceremonies connected with the dubu. Although the tauna of the two back corner posts of the dubu were not considered chiefs or headmen, their relation to their posts tended to make them somewhat influential persons.

The rohi ketaike would adjust land disputes between iduhu,

Fig. 6. Dried tail of dahudahu.

for until recently such disputes, when they began between individuals not of the same zduku, generally spread, and required mediation. It does not, however, appear that other quarrels such as those about women (the most frequent cause of trouble) and the splitting off of families, were referred to the rohi ketaike when the iduhu rohi of the folk concerned were powerless to effect a reconciliation. In most matters his opinion was of practically little more weight than that of any iduhu rohi. or perhaps that of any old and influential man. On the other hand, in war, his authority, though limited in extent, was ereater, as in consultation with the elder men of the tribe he would arrange what operations should be undertaken. Further, if he could make himself heard, he might by his orders stop a battle, or cause the pursuit of the enemy to be abandoned. It appears that strangers were not commonly put to death, though it was stated that in the old days rokt ketaikc would determine whether or no strangers were to be killed, and that if a man acting on his own authority had killed a stranger belonging to another division of the Koita, his rohi ketaike determined, or had a very large part in determining, whether the offender should be given up or fought for, in the event of the injured section coming to seek vengeance (cf. homicide, chapter ix).

PRESENT CONDITIONS.

At the present time the influence of the iduhu rohi and rohi ketaike is necessarily much diminished.

Where a number of clans are united into a village one man tended, even before the advent of the white man, to become headman of the whole village, and it seemed clear that in the old days no one who was not a tauna of the front right post of his clan's dubu would be accepted as occupant of this position. The amount of influence such a man might wield would have depended in the old days entirely upon his own force of character, while at the present day the backing given him by the government is of almost equal importance \

' This is illustrated by the condition of affairs at Kwalimarupu (Rigo) and Kapakapa. At Kwalimarupu, Seboke of Ligo dogoro^ the tauna of the front right post of his clan's dubu is admittedly chief of the whole village, but he exercises no authority over the Ligo clansmen in other settlements, even though these settlements have been formed by people who were themselves under his authority at Kwalimarupu. At Kapakapa the tauna of the front right post of the dubu of Geabada iduhu^ perhaps the most influential clan, is a man of no influence, and at the present day the recognized chief of Kapakapa is Wagi Seri the tauna of the left front post of the same dubu^ a man with a good deal of energy and backed by the government. Seboke of Kwalimarupu village and Wagi Seri afford fairly typical instances of the amount of influence generally wielded by chiefs or headmen in the Rij^o district and its neighbourhood ; but how greatly their influence can be exceeded when a suitable man arises is shown by the case of Geboka Namo. This man is not only chief of his own village (iosoro, but the whole of the eastern section of the Garia tribe to which he belongs, admit his authority and follow him status Terms 59

Among the Koita, as elsewhere in British New Guinea, in each village under government influence, a native is appointed to act as village constable, and is presented with a uniform, a truncheon and often handcuffs. It is his duty to arrest individuals who have offended against the Native Regulations, or whose action threatens a breach of the peace, and to bring them before the nearest magistrate. An active village constable obviously becomes a 'government chief,' and usually uses the prestige attaching to his position, his uniform and perhaps his handcuffs, to increase his influence. In many matters, however, the old men still continue to play a prominent part, their advice is usually sought and taken, and their directions obeyed. Thus the elders of the village still generally make and direct public opinion upon all important matters. In the village system of Poreporena the result of the fusion of the old and new methods of government may be seen working at its best, but here the position has been unusually simplified by the appointment of Ahuia Ova as village constable. Ahuia, besides being of quite unusual intelligence, is the nephew and heir of the hereditary rohi ketaike Taubada, and so far, his actions, which are usually well considered, have not brought him into conflict with older men of the tribe to whom * old time ' traditions are dear.

TRIBAL STATUS AND ADDRESS TERMS.

Certain terms referring to an individual's age and development, and consequently his social standing in the community, are in constant use. They are especially applied when discussing strangers, and imply some measure of the stranger's capacity, but they are never employed as terms of address, in the way that terms of relationship are constantly used. The corresponding Motu terms are given in a column parallel to the Koita words. These terms are :

in war as they did his father before him. His father indeed was so celebrated a fighter that the neighbouring Sinaugolo asked him to lead them in war, and to this day the son Geboka Namo, who is recognized as the war chief of the Sinaugolo as well as of the Garia, exerts a very real influence among the Sinaugolo. Captain Barton states that certain of the people of the Hood Peninsula believe Geboka Namo has inherited magical powers from his father. This belief, if shared by the Sinaugolo, cannot but have assisted him to attain the position he holds m the estimation of this tribe.

6o The Koita

Koita.

Motu.

baby (male)

rami karuka mero karukaru

„ (female)

maiaro karuka kekene karukaru from weaning to puberty (m.)

ra7ni mero

(f-)

7naiaro kekene at puberty but too young to marry (m.)

gara uhau

»» » t^ (*•/

mabi ulato marriageable (m.)

ata tau

V . (9

magi hahine a man in his prime erigabe erigabe a man past his prime, but still active and vigorous, though middle-aged ataraho taubadana old man ata ?naraga tau buruka old woman jnagi yahu hani badena.

Each of the above terms would be applied successively to every normal individual of appropriate sex, as he or she grows up and passes through the various social conditions which they imply ; but besides these, there are also terms applied to certain conditions, comparatively rare in New Guinea but common enough among ourselves. These are mabigora (K.), hane ulato ko7'ikori (M.), for an elderly unmarried woman and wado (K. and M.) applied to old bachelors, and to old unmarried women whose breasts have become flaccid.

Terms of address : These are the same whether or no the speaker is of the iduhu of the individual addressed.

If an erigabe — a man in his prime — were speaking, he would address :

a man older than his father as wahia ; a man of his father's generation as raimu ; a man of his own (the speaker's) generation as vasi or hi age ; a man of a younger generation as roro.

Relatives and connections by marriage are usually addressed by their kinship term with the possessive prefix and suffix.

THE DUBU.

The dubu is, or was, the structure around which centered much of the ceremonial life of the village. Plate VII is a native drawing (probably by Rabura of Kilakila village) of the old dubu of Taurama iduhu of Hohodai village, as it existed when the Hohodai section lived at Koge. Typically, the dubu consists of an oblong rectangular platform, supported by horizontals which pass between opposite pairs of massive

Plate VII

oiN

rfWif'ii

'kiUIB^^

^■4

\i.)

Xl. cl/^ ^^, i>^^L

Old dubu at Hohodai

The Dubu 6i carved wooden uprights, one of which stands at each corner, constituting the most characteristic features of the structure. The height of the platform may vary from 3 to lo feet from the ground, and in the majority of old dubu there were two platforms as in the dubu still standing in the Motu village of Gaile (Plate VIII).

My information regarding the dubu of the Koita is somewhat scanty since but few exist at the present day. Probably the dubu never bulked quite so largely in the life of these people as it did among the Sinaugolo, and cognate tribes further east. It certainly has not the same significance at the present day, when the majority of the old dubu survive only as charred remains or mere platforms of sticks \ In spite of this, a serviceable dubu was built by the Gorobe section living in Pari village in 1904, on the occasion of this section giving a tabu feast^ and the men of Hohodai, who in

1904 were talking of making a dubu, actually built one in

1905 or 1906.

The main points of the Koita dubu system are, however, clear. Even when an iduhu has local groups in different villages, each local group has the right to a dubu of its own, located in its proper village ; and each dubu of the same iduhu, wherever located, should bear the same name, though in practice the names are not always identical. Apart from these exceptions, for the origin of which no account could be given, the name of a particular dubu was always transferred to subsequent erections which might, in the course of time, replace the original named structure. Further, each of a number of iduhu may have the right to use the same name for their respective dubu. Where two iduhu are distinguished only by the terms idibana and laurina, i.e. ''right" and ''left," and are really, or are believed to be, divisions of a single iduhu, the reason for their dubu having a common name is clear, but a number of iduhu that do not acknowledge any relationship, may also have dubu with the same name, without being able to give any reason for this. For example, the three Hohodai iduhu are Dubara, Taurama, and Keakone, and their respective dubu were Gaibodubu, Taurama and Keasisi. In Guriu village, both Maha and Varimana iduhu were said to have each had a dubu called Ganisa. The dubu of the remaining

• Cf. Introduction, pp. 17 et seq, 2 Cf. pp. 62 and 63.

Guriu iihiku (Gaibodubu) was called Gaibodubu and this is the name of the dubu of Dubara iduhu of Hohodai village. Again, in a plan of Kilakila village given me by Captain Barton, a dubu called Gaibodubu is shown as belonging to an iduhu called Koge, which appears to have latterly fused with Dubara iduhu. At Vabukori another sketch by Captain Barton shows the site of a dubu called Gaibodubu belonging to Garobe Idibana iduhu, while the new dubu of Part, which belongs predominantly to Gorobe Idibana (also called Gorobe Kai or Vaga) iduhu has the same name as had the old Gorobe Laurina dubu.

The dubu is, in a limited sense, sacred, and the spirits (sua) of the dead are supposed to resort to it at certain times (cf. chapter xvi). It is the meeting place of the men when serious matters are to be discussed, and on it the successful homicide formerly sat in his newly won glory (cf. chapter xi). Except during the tabu ceremonial (chapter xii) no woman may come on the dubu, and even then the right is limited to unmarried girls who were related in a special way to the 'master' of the feast.

The corner posts of each dubu are named, the front right post vamaga varo being the most honourable. Next comes the front left post vaga varo, the back right post dura vamaga, and the back left post dura vaga. Each corner post, and indeed every plank of the dubu, is the hereditary property of a particular individual who is responsible for its upkeep, but the corner posts only are of ceremonial importance. When a dubu is built by one iduhu, the right front corner post belongs, or should belong, to the iduhu rohi of the iduhu, the other three posts belong to three other men. A certain prestige formerly attached to the possession of each of these posts ; this was highest in the case of the owner or ' master ' of the left front post, who, as far as I could determine, was looked upon only as second in the iduhu to the iduhu rohi. When the iduhu in a village are not sufficiently strong for each to keep up a dubu of its own, a number of iduhu may join to build a dubu in common. This is what happened at Pari in 1904, when the new Gaibodubu dubu was built. The three Gorobe iduhu of Pari, viz. Gorobe Kai, Gorobe Dubu and Gorobe Badili, all took part in building it, but two out of the four corner posts belong to men of Gorobe Kai iduhu, while the men of Gorobe Dubu and Gorobe Badili iduhu have

The Dubu 63

but one corner post each. As the resuh of this, Gorobe Kai is acknowledged to have a predominant interest in the dubu which is called Gaibodubu, i.e. by their dubu name. In cases such as this, in which several iduhu unite to build a dubu, the front right post belongs to the iduhu rohi of the dominant iduhu, the other corner posts being allotted to the iduhu rohi or other important men of the other iduhu.

A dubu has been built in Hohodai village since 1904 for information concerning which I am indebted to Captain Barton.

Ahuia Ova — acting iduhu rohi of Dubara iduhu and rohi ketaike of the Hohodai section of the Koita — is 'master' of the front right post. A man of Keakone iduhu, not iduhu rohi, though I believe related to him, is ' master ' of the front left post, and men of Taurama and Tupa iduhu are masters of the back right and left posts respectively. The mention of Tupa iduhu requires some explanation. The Tupa iduhu owns land near Korabada, a village about half a mile from Akorogo village. There are plenty of Tupa folk still living at these two villages, where they cultivate their hereditary garden sites, but they own no land close to Hohodai. One Iga Maba was the father of Mabata Iga, who left the village of Kaugere which is now extinct, but which formerly stood near Akorogo. He settled at Hohodai. His first wife was a woman of Kaugere, and he had issue by her a son, Mabata Iga, the * master' of the left back post of the new Hohodai dubu. He did not go to Hohodai until his first wife had died, but while living there, he married a woman named Ova Vateta, of the Taurama iduhu, by whom he had a number of children. These children should of course have belonged to Tupa iduhu, but as this iduhu was too weak to assert itself, the family temporarily merged its identity in Taurama iduhu. At the time of the building of the new dubu, this family, together with a number of Tupa families, who for some years had been living as part of Dubara iduhu, felt strong enough to assert their autonomy as an iduhu, and to claim the right to a corner post in the new dubu.

Most dubu — I believe I am justified in saying all dubu — are built in preparation for a tabu feast, and each is built in that part of the village in which the houses of the iduhu to which it belongs are situated and often on the site of a previous dubu. In the following account of the orientation of

The Koita the dubu, it has been assumed that all dubu are, or should be, first built on the occasion of a tabu feast. One aspect of the dubu is regarded as its front, and the dubu is so planned, that this faces the front of the dubu of the iduhu who gave that tab^l feast which was regarded as a challenge to the iduhu building the new dubu. I believe that if no recent tabu feast had been held, the dubu would have been built so that it faced the direction of the dubu or dubu site of the iduhu expected to give the next tabu feast. Captain Barton's plan of the dubu of the Motu village of Gaile (figure 7) shows how these dubu face each other.

9^

r -o

KonaLgoro DuVu.

o

E

-0

A

O

B

Mavara. Dvibix

A

■o

D

A

o

A

Mavara Diibu

O B

■O B

A - Keabada Idibana 8 ■ «• Laxtrina

D = Noutubuna Laiirina H * Nokoro LaTxrina E = Konagoro Idibana F = " Laiirina fVonjt* of Dubu. aKcKwn, Ouls I

Fig. 7. Plan of dubu at Gaile.

It was said that the carved terminals of the corner posts of the Koita dubu were iduhu dagina, i.e. belonged to the class of carvings that I have called clan badges. The same held true in some cases for the carved ends of the horizontals, whether these were massive and upheld the platform, or slender, and were themselves supported between the terminals of the corner posts, in which case they were used as supports for bunches of bananas hung there during certain feasts.

But as in the case of the horizontals of houses, so with the terminals of dubu posts ; there was no precision in the use of the iduhu dagi, for badges might be carved on posts belonging to men of iduhu with which they were not associated, and even the oldest men showed hesitation and doubt in identifying more than one or two iduhu dagi. Further I could not

The Dubu 65

ascertain the meaning of the head, carved on one of the corner posts of the new Gaibodubu dubu of Pari, or whether it is or ever was an iduhu dagi, though the fact that carved heads are represented in a native drawing as terminals of the corner posts of the old dubu of Taurama iduhu at Koge village, may be taken to show that the human head was a recognized carving for the corner posts of old Koita dubu^.

The Koita have no legends of the origin of the dubu, nor could any information be obtained on this point.

1 This matter could not, however, be investigated at all thoroughly. I was only able to visit the village after the dubu had been erected for a couple of hours, very shortly before leaving the Possession, and not only was my time short but I was without a competent interpreter.

I

S. N. G.

CHAPTER III

FAMILY LIFE.

Among the Koita, each house contains only members of a single family, and typically consists of parents and children, with perhaps a surviving grandparent or great aunt or uncle. Bachelor or widowed brothers and sisters, however, often live with their married relatives, and so help to swell the household w^hich, nevertheless, does not usually exceed half a dozen souls ; indeed, a count taken by Ahuia, shows that the average population per house in Hohodai and Guriu scarcely rises above five\

KINSHIP AND RELATIONSHIP.

Among the Koita, the system of kinship is ' classificatory.' The actual relationships implied by the Koita terms which I give below, were obtained by means of genealogies, and no reliance was placed on the English terms given to me as the equivalent of a Koita or Motu term^ For convenience, the corresponding Motu terms are given in brackets, Wahia (M. Tubu), grandfather, grandmother or any older ancestor, granduncles or grandaunts, grandchildren, grandnephews and nieces or any of these relations by marriage. Mama (M. Tama), father, paternal uncle. Nena (M. Sina), mother, maternal aunt.

• The actual figures are :

Hohodai. Dubara iduhu, 8 houses with 53 inhabitants.

Keakone

It n

» 32

Taurama

J)

•)i

» 45

Maha

)»

II

It

» 67

Varimana

)>

))

„ 16

Oaibodubu n

»

„ 21

Guriu. Owing to the destruction of a page of notes, this list is incomplete.

Privileges of Certain Kin 67

Ga7ne (M. Natu), son, daughter, brother's son.

Nana (M. Kaka), elder brother, sister or cousin.

Roro (M. Tadi), younger brother, sister or cousin.

Rairmi (M. Vava), maternal uncle, sister's child, father's sister's husband. Vazya (M. La/a), father's sister, maternal uncle's wife, brother's daughter. Sida (M. /ka), brother-in-law, sister-in-law, cousin's husband, or wife. Waru (M. Rawa), mother-in-law, father-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law. Mabara (M. Adawa), husband, wife.

There is no special reciprocal term of relationship in use between the children of two brothers or sisters.

FUNCTIONS AND PRIVILEGES OF CERTAIN KIN.

A boy usually receives his first perineal band {sihif from his maternal uncle [raimu), and in return owes him certain services. If with him in a canoe, the younger man does the greater part of the work, and prepares and cooks food. On land, he helps his maternal uncle in his garden work. In a general way he performs the same services for his mama, whether father or paternal uncle, though a maternal uncle is supposed to exert more authority than any mama. To illustrate this, Ahuia instanced the hiri, the annual trading cruise to the Gulf for sago. A man or boy might refuse to accompany his father or paternal uncle (mama), but would always go with his maternal uncle (raimu) without demur. Folk who are reciprocally raiTnu, freely borrow from each other even such valuable articles as nets or canoes, but on returning them, invariably mention any damage which may have befallen the property while in their possession. The owner then determines whether the borrower shall make this good.

Neither men nor women avoid their relations-in-law, even waru (father-in-law and daughter-in-law, mother-in-law and son-in-law) and siba (brother- and sister-in-law) associate freely, both in the house and gardens, and siba take food from each other's gardens, and borrow each other's canoes or other property. That the loan of these articles by a man to his

^ For assumption of sihi, cf. p. T^)-

5—2

sister-in-law is no part of the bride-price, is clear, for they are invariably returned, even when borrowed by a woman from her son-in-law or brother-in-law. Further, a man exercises an equal privilege with regard to the property of his siba and waru. As a rule borrowed property is returned in as good a condition as when borrowed ; thus a man who lends his brother a net would expect the latter to return it in good condition, and if it be torn, not to return it until he has mended it, but this rule does not apply to relations-in-law, and a relation-in-law might, if he wished, return a torn net with the scantest apology, without exceeding his rights.

Reference is made under death (chapter xiv) and revenge to the services incumbent on men united by the henamo bond of friendship.

FRIENDSHIP.

In a general way every member of a section knows and maintains friendly relations with all other members of his own sex, but he takes little notice in public of women or girls not closely related to himself. Outside a man's own section — it must be remembered that section and village are often synonymous — there are a number of villages with which traditionally friendly relations are maintained, and whose older men would certainly know, and be well known by the greater number of the people. But beyond this, certain families maintain a traditional and hereditary friendship with certain other families in villages comparatively little known to them, or with whom they were formerly hostile. As an example of this, Ahuia cited one Ganiga Soso, the friendship of whose family with a particular Idu family dated back three generations, i.e. to the time when Hohodai and Idu were constantly at enmity'.

Specially good friends, of whom a man may have any number, are called vasila (M. ketura). When visiting aliei villages, a man stays with his vasila^ no matter what his iduhi may be, and it is stated that he does not marry, or have connection with the sister of his vasila, whom he would cal|

' My informants could not give me any reason for this or other similal friendships.

Friendship 69

taihu^. The relationship of vasila is entered into after being duly discussed by the contracting parties. The ceremony consists in their formally smoking and chewing betel together.

A closer relationship than vasila is constituted by the henamo bond. Properly speaking this can only exist between children of the same sex, born on the same day, in certain villages and whose fathers have, on the occasion of their birth, exchanged certain presents. Nevertheless it is common to hear Motu and Koita children, when playing together, call each other henamo indiscriminately. Some of our Motu boys applied the term to certain men of the eastern extremity of the Possession, with whom they became friends on visiting their islands with us. It Is further stated, that boys going on a hiri together would sometimes become fast friends, and after an interchange of gifts would consider themselves henamo in the strictest sense of the word.

The folk of the following villages are said to be capable of becoming reciprocally henamo : Tatana, Elevara, Baruni, Tanobada, Hanuabada, Hohodai, Guriu, Akorogo, Kllaklla, Korabada. Thus Motu and Koita may be united In the henamo bond.

Soon after the birth of possible henamo, the father of one of the children presents the father of the other with a dog, a pig, or an armshell. In return, a present Is made of equal value, and nearly always of the same nature as that given. As far as circumstances allow, the children play and grow up together. When the time comes for them to receive their first sihi, they are presented to them by the maternal uncle (raimu) of one of them, in the customary manner described on p. 73. If the villages of the henamo are too far apart, each receives his sihi in the ordinary way from his own raim,u.

Ahula and Waigamu, a Motu of Mavara Idibana iduhu are henamo, and both received their sihi from the latter's raimu. After this, Ahula called this man raimu, and the mother, father, wife, brothers, sisters and children of his henamo were spoken of by the same relationship terms as those used to designate his own relatives.

1 Captain Barton points out that this is scarcely correct, and that a man does sometimes marry the sister of his vasila, but never has connection with her otherwise. The same authority in answer to a question says ' Taihu, a Motu word means a man's sister or female cousin, or a woman's brother or male cousm.'

yo The Koita

A man may not marry or have connection with the sister of his hetiarno. In following up a blood feud a kenamo comes before the dead man's brother. In spite of this, there is no customary obligation for a man especially to befriend the widow or children of his dead kenamo.

Girls may become kenamo in the same way as boys, but the relationship is not by any means so serious, and is often allowed to drop when one of the parties marries. Ahuia explained that experience had shown that girls were *no good for kenamo.'

Henamo are mates in every way, they share their food, and go hunting and fishing together, and in battle, they would, as far as possible, stay side by side. Instances of special functions pertaining to henamo are given under death (chapter xiv) and homicide (chapter ix).

ADOPTION.

Adoption, ubuia (M. keubu) is not uncommon. Girls are more commonly adopted than boys, because their fathers do not often care to part with the latter. Usually the adopter is a great friend of the father of the adopted child, and the latter asks the former to help him to feed one of his children. It seems that such a request is never refused ; the adopted child assumes its adopter's iduku, calls him father, and if a girl, her adopted father receives her marriage-price. It is not considered etiquette for a man to offer to adopt a child, he should wait until he is asked. A sick man may, before dying, ask a friend to adopt one of his children, or he may even divide his children among his friends, who will immediately take charge of them. If any of them be very small, the friends postpone the adoption until they are weaned. The mother has no right to suggest that her children be adopted, and it is stated that no Koita would think of asking a Motu to adopt one of his children, or vice versa.

A condition which may, for convenience, be called temporary adoption often occurs. If a man has more children than he can feed comfortably, he asks a friend to take charge of one of them for some years. In such circumstances, although the child calls its adopted father, and his relatives, by the same term as he would call his blood relatives, he keeps his true

Heni Ceremony 71

father's iduhu. Although, as above stated, a man does not, as a rule, offer to adopt a child, it is not considered bad form to offer to take charge of one for a few years. Occasionally if a man marries a widow with children, he adopts one or more of them. One Ganiga Soso, a man of Taurama iduhu of Hohodai village, lived for some time at Idu, where he married a woman Boio Seri ; after his marriage he remained at Idu for some time, and when his wife proved barren with him, he adopted Vaguya Ganiga, her child by her previous husband.

NAME GIVING.

The same names are used for individuals of both sexes. A child is usually named soon after its birth, but the name it is to bear may be determined before its birth. This was the case with Vaguya Momoru, so named before birth, after his dead brother of that name.

All children have two names, one of these must be one of the father's names, usually the first, the child's other name can be given by any relative or friend, who need not be of the child's iduhu : he, however, can only give the child one of his own names. Sometimes, as in the following instance, this is done when a favour is asked. Re Maraga, brother-in-law to Ahuia, recently became the father of his fifth child; soon after the birth, his wife sent one of her elder children to ask Ahuia for some calico. He immediately gave it, but when sending it he stated that he should like the infant to be named after him, and this was done, the child being called Ahuia Re.

Sometimes a child takes both its father's names in inverted order, but as far as I know this only occurs in the case of male children, and is by no means a common practice.

No actual or moral responsibility for the child is incurred by its name-giver.

HENI CEREMONY.

A special ceremony called heni, takes place in connection with a first born child of either sex. When the child is some three or four weeks old it is decked with as much New Guinea finery, toia, mairi, doa, tautau, as possible, and carried by its mother, similarly decked, to her mother's house'. She is accompanied by her sister-in-law who walks behind carrying an empty pot {hodji), a spear, a petticoat and a firestick. The child's father stays quietly in his own house. The infant's mother and her sister-in-law sit down in the house of the child's grandmother, smoke, yarn and chew betel. Presently the infant's yaiya, i.e. the wife of its maternal uncle, strips the ornaments off the mother and child, and these, with the spear, pot, and petticoat go to the raimu and wahia on the maternal side. These relations keep some, but give the rest away to their clansmen. In reality they do but repay such of their clansmen as have helped them to make up the precisely equivalent return present which should be given before the mother and child leave the house, and which will be divided amono- the infant's fathers relatives. Plate IX is a native o drawing of the ceremony, the child's aunt carries a firestick only, and on both figures the tattoo is much exaggerated.

EAR PIERCING.

For the following account I am indebted to Captain Barton :

' I have not seen this operation performed, and it is difficult to ascertain exactly how it is done. This is what I gather from my informants : the operation is performed when the child is about one year old. A split ring is formed either by grinding down one of the vertebrae of a shark, or by taking a narrow transverse section of a crab's leg, and cutting across the ring in one place. The lobe of the ear is stretched, and the ring then opened and slipped on to it, the points of the split ring being opposite each other, gradually penetrate the ear, and the place gets sore. As soon as the hole thus formed is considered large enough, the ring is taken off, and a piece of wood put in the ear lobe to keep the hole open.'

NOSE BORING.

The septum of the nose is pierced when a child is some eight or ten years old. A piece of the dark wood gari, of

• Toia^ main, doa, tautau, are the names of valuable ornaments described in chapter vi.

X

Hi

&

..:)

'^•i^C'"^^ ' •' ^^^ iauM«^^iHttS*li?^.

;^ i ^^ -^

i^

J -^.

u

X .^ 4 ^ J - ^

a o

B a>

u

Oi u amount of skin surface covered in different girls of the same age, there is a fixed general order in which the parts of the body are tattooed. The following account is contributed by- Captain Barton, who has also provided the photographs illustrating it, a matter of considerable difficulty, the camera scarcely differentiating between the bluish colour of the tattoo, and the copper coloured skin of the Koita, so that It was necessary to paint the patterns afresh, before the photographs could be taken. The painting was done with the mixture of soot and oil, which is used in the process of tattooing, but In spite of the skill with which this was applied, the lines of the design present a coarser appearance In the photographs than is warranted by the really beautiful harmony which exists between the tattoo patterns and the copper coloured skin into which they are pricked.

Girls at the age of five or thereabouts, are tattooed on the arms from the hands to the elbows, and from the elbows to the deltoid region ; soon after, the face is tattooed, beginning usually with the chin and nose. At the age of six or seven, the region around the vulva and upwards over the lower abdomen as far as the navel Is tattooed ; this region is known in tattooing as kiudori (vulva top). Next follows the region kiubadi (vulva trunk or base), that is the upper part of the front, and the Inner surface of the thighs. The girl is as a rule then left till she is about ten years old, when the armpits and the areas extending from each armpit toward the nipple are tattooed ; this region is called kadidiha (arm pit). Plate X represents a girl of about ten ; the whole of her thighs have however been painted for tattoo. The throat, from the suprasternal notch upwards to the chin is done next ; after this there follows an Interval, during which the existing markings are gone over. When puberty Is approaching or is actually reached, the back is tattooed from the shoulders downwards, then the buttocks and back of the thighs. The second figure on Plate X shows the shoulders, back, buttocks and thighs painted as they would shortly be tattooed'.

The final markings are those between the umbilicus and the breast, the gado (the V-shaped mark on the chest), the

• The marks tattooed on this girl's legs below the knees are lakatoi dagtna^ and may be assumed only by the daughters of men who have been doritauna or baditauna on a lakatoi^ cf. chapter viii.

Plate XI

Tattooed Girl showing gado

Tattoo 75

gadogado (on the nape of the neck) and the designs on the lower legs. The gado and the gadogado are added about the time that marriage is recognized, while the markings between the navel and the breast are assumed rather earlier, usually when it is decided that marriage shall take place. Plate XI represents the upper half of the body of a girl painted as if she were about to marry.

CHAPTER IV

COURTSHIP, BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.

Among the Koita as among the Motu, unmarried girls are perfectly free to receive their lovers at night in their parents' houses. The favoured boy waits until the house is quiet, and the fire low, when he slips into the house and makes his way to the girl's side. Conversation is carried on in low tones, and it is etiquette for the boy to retire quietly before daylight. Should he, however, oversleep himself nothing more serious than a little chaff results, marriage is not seriously suggested, it is certainly not looked upon as a duty or even as specially desirable.

Betrothal results as soon as a boy and girl who have been enjoying a period of unwedded happiness consider it well to get married. The proposal in the first instance always comes from the girl, while they are together at night, and is never directly refused by the boy. Should he not desire marriage he assents at the time, but later sends a friend, usually his henamo, to say that he does not wish to marry, and himself takes no further steps in the matter. A girl does not as a rule allow a boy who has refused her offer of marriage to visit her again. As soon as a girl is betrothed, the hitherto bare region from the level of the navel to the breasts, extending laterally to the mid axillary line, is tattooed, Koita and Motu using the same pattern. Any woman who is accustomed to tattoo may officiate, receiving a present of food for her good offices. The young couple continue their nocturnal meetings during the whole time of betrothal.

During the period of betrothal the boy gives the girl small presents of tobacco and areca nut, he is also supposed to pay similar small attentions to her relatives. He formally

Courtship and Marriage 77

announces his desire to marry the girl by sending a present to the girl's brother of a panicle of areca nuts, with an appropriate amount of pepper and lime, using his own brother or sister as intermediary. The girl's brother tells his sister that so-and-so wants to marry her and has sent areca nuts and asks her if he shall eat them. If she assents he takes the nuts to his own or his father's house, whence he sends invitations to his relatives to come and chew with him. His messenger at the same time spreads the news that so-and-so wishes to marry their relative. When the girl's relations have assembled the matter is talked over and her brother distributes the nuts. It is said that the nuts may be sent back if general disapproval be expressed, but it seems that in practice the matter does not reach this stage unless the marriage is to take place. If no objections be raised, everyone is soon busy chewing and discussing the marriage. After this the girl's relatives go home each taking the uneaten remains of his or her share of the nuts. A few days later the bridegroom gives the girl's brother another, and usually a larger present of areca nuts and pepper, which is distributed and eaten in the same way. If the bridegroom cannot provide sufficient nuts, he may give the girl's family sago instead. The bridegroom meanwhile sets about collecting the price he will have to pay for his bride. This, called damu (M. dava) is collected, not only from his near relatives, but from the whole of his iduhu. A man of a small or almost extinct iduhu must borrow as best he can from friends of other iduhu. No definite price is arranged with the girls' relatives, but there is a generally recognized amount which is made up. The Rev. Dr Turner recorded in 1876, that ten armshells was the price of a wife
At the present day the price is higher. Ahuia Ova paid for his wife Gali, 43 toia, of various sizes and value, three pigs and 100 dog's teeth (enough to make a neck ornament), while one Rahu paid 40 toia, four hatchets, two bush knives, and 200 dog's teeth for his wife Henaul

Shortly before marriage, or when the date is actually fixed, the V-shaped mark gado is tattooed on the bride elect. When the boy is ready to receive his bride he sends his mother, or if she be dead his sister, to tell the bride's mother

^ Turner, loc. cit.^ p. 479.

2 I am indebted to Captain Barton for these figures as well as for much of the information contained in this chapter.

j8 The Koita of his wishes. That night the bride prepares a sleeping mat for the bridegroom, who now comes to her pubHcly, before the house is quiet for the night. The bride is specially decorated on her marriage night. Her hair, in which she may wear scarlet hibiscus blossoms, is dressed with coconut oil and combed out to its fullest extent. In her ears she wears many earrings made of turtleshell and the ground down top of a small shell of the genus Conns. Her face is decorated with lines of red paint, her armlets, gana, are reddened, and in them she wears the leaves of an odoriferous plant segado (M. odu). The genitals, which have been previously epilated, and her thighs are smeared with coconut oil, and she wears a new petticoat. The bridegroom comes to her wearing a head-dress of cassowary feathers, beneath which, worn as a frontlet, are three rows of tautau. Behind the head-dress of cassowary feathers are placed white cockatoo feathers. He wears a number of the dried tails of village pigs in his ears and his face is painted with red and yellow streaks. His gana are reddened. At dawn husband and wife decamp to the husband's house, which is almost always his father's, but before going, the boy leaves on the mat on which he and his wife have slept, two toia or doa. These called, gabuato, are kept by the girl's parents, and not divided among the iduhu as is the damuy which is brought a little later to the house of the bride's parents by her husband's mother, sisters and yaiya. Each of the bride's female relatives then takes a pot (of the kind called hodu) full of water, to the house of one of the bridegroom's relatives, the bride's sister, or failing her the bride's brother's wife, taking her hodu to the bridegroom's house. After this each of the bride's relatives takes some food to the house of that relative of the bridegroom at which she has left her hodu. She there cooks the food which is eaten by the householder and his family.

Two days after the marriage the bridegroom's relatives send a further present, called betube (M. hetu), to the bride's parents. This consists of ornaments and nets or spears or a dog or pig with some vegetable food, and it is divided among the members of the bride's local group. Next day the bride's parents make a return present of equal value and as far as possible of similar objects to the bridegroom's parents. This also is called betube. For about the first fortnight of their married life, the bride and bridegroom sleep

Courtship and Marriage 79

In the bride's father's house. Although the behtbe Is the last of the presents exchanged In immediate connection with the wedding, reciprocal presents of food are made by the two families for years, in fact, an exchange of presents of food goes on for an indefinitely long period, and only ceases when one party omits to perform Its part of the exchange.

When a woman marries she takes her husband's iduhu, and should she become a widow she may stay with her husband's iduku, in which case she retains her rights In that zduhu, or otherwise she returns to her relatives and resumes her maiden iduhu. It seems that childless widows more often return to their own people, than do those with children. If a widow with children returns to her old iduhu, she only takes with her such children as have not yet attained to puberty. Although supported by their mother and her kin, these children keep their fathers iduhu, and later, the children return and build a house on the site of their father's house.

When a widow remarries, not only has her second husband to pay the usual damu to her maiden iduhu, but the relatives of her first husband also have the right to demand substantial payment laraha, even If her second marriage be into her deceased husband's local group.

No levirate exists. In fact It Is stated that marriage with a deceased husband's brother does not occur ; on the other hand, the marriage of a widow, with a son of a brother or sister of her deceased husband's father, although not compulsory, is considered an especially suitable match. Thus in the old days. If Garia had died, Vaguya Kalahu, Ganlga Egahu and Arua Egahu, all sons of his paternal uncles, would probably have settled among themselves who should marry his widow, Mabata Hedu. If Garia lost his wife, he should before turning elsewhere, have considered the desirability of marrying a daughter of one of his late wife's brothers or sisters. In this type of marriage a dowry, including laraha if the bride be a widow, is paid as in ordinary marriage \

Polygyny is not uncommon. As a rule each wife has a house of her own, built on her husband's village site, and it is said that these houses descend to her children.

^ The reason given by Ahuia, after some hesitation, was : ' Because if the woman has a child by her deceased husband it is desirable to keep the child in the iduhu ; if the widow married a man of another iduhu, the child would be absorbed into his iduhu.' But it is obvious that this reason does not explain why a widower should marry the daughter of one of his deceased wife's brothers or sisters.

8o The Koita

DIVORCE.

If a man desired he might send away his wife for infidelity, or he might simply give her a severe thrashing. If he actually discovered his wife with a lover, he might kill both, but this was only allowed if he caught them in flagrante delicto. Under other circumstances he could simply divorce the woman, and get damages from her lover. The usual proceeding is for a man to send his erring spouse to her lover with a request for the amount of the marriage price [damu) he has paid for her. This adultery price, like that paid for a widow, is called laraha, and must be paid ; if the lover's own local group will not help him, he has to make the amount up as best he can. Only a portion of the adultery price [laraha)y paid by a lover, is kept by the aggrieved husband, the rest he shares among his clansmen. The divorced woman may live with her lover, if he be unmarried, or if, being married, his wife make no objection. She may however return to her own folk, her children remaining with their father, except perhaps in the case of a very young child, who, if a boy, will later be sent back to his putative father. A girl child may or may not be sent back ; in the latter event she is considered to belong to her mother's iduku. Although her clansmen bring her marriage price to her putative father, who, I understand, inspects and approves it, he does not accept it but tells her clansmen to divide it among themselves.

Barrenness is not in itself a cause of divorce, and I am under the impression that childless marriages are not very uncommon. Bad temper and idleness on the part of a woman may lead to divorce. If a girl runs away from her husband on the score of his infidelity, unless she returns very shortly her father must hand over to her husband the damu which the latter has paid. A woman sometimes leaves her husband on account of constant neglect. This was done by one Vanitau who left her husband two months after marriage, and since then has lived with her own folk and resumed her maiden iduku. According to Ahuia Ova, she wiis justified in doing this, since not only did her husband not cohabit with her, but he avoided her on all possible occasions, and insulted her by refusing to eat the food she had cooked.

Marriage 8i

THE REGULATION OF MARRIAGE.

Seventy-six marriages were recorded in the genealogies of a number of Hohodai Koita.

These have been used as material for studying the regulation of marriage in the eastern moiety of the Koita. Although the direct continuity of Hohodai village with that of the Motu cannot but have increased the amount of local intermarriage, in other respects the conclusions reached will probably hold good for other sections of the eastern group of the Koita. Since tribal and clan {iduhu) descent is counted through the male line, the results arrived at cannot be taken as a measure, however rough, of the amount of ethnic intermixture that has taken place in the two tribes. Thus socially, a man would be considered a Koita, whether [a) he were of pure Koita stock for four generations, or [b) he had a Koita father, himself the progeny of a Koita man and a Motu woman, and a mother of pure Motu parentage for many generations. The examination of the recorded marriages does, however, roughly indicate to what extent the two people have united socially, and these unions are at once the explanation and the consequence of the adoption by the Koita of Motu crafts and customs. They also afford valuable information regarding such matters as marriage within the village and within the iduhu.

INTERMARRIAGE OF KOITA AND MOTU.

Of the 76 marriages recorded, 37, or 486 7o s-i'^ between individuals, both of whom are considered Koita. In nine instances, or 1 1 "6 7o» hoth parties are Motu. Of the remaining 30 unions, 28 or nearly 2il 7o' ^^^ mixed Koita-Motu marriages, while two instances constituting 26 °/^ of the total are doubtful, my informants being uncertain of the origin of one of the contracting parties.

MARRIAGE WITHIN THE VILLAGE.

This is customary among both Koita and Motu, and there is not the least reason to suspect, that of old, the custom was otherwise. On the whole, 1 am inclined to believe that it is more frequent among the Motu than the Koita, perhaps because the villages of the former are larger.

Of the 'i^'] pure Koita marriages, in no instance is either party a member of the western moiety of the Koita. In II of these marriages, the union is between individuals belonging to one or other of the sections of the eastern moiety, excluding Baruni. In only two instances has a Baruni man or woman intermarried with the other sections of the eastern moiety. In fact, with the exception of Baruni, which, as already stated, stands rather apart, the table given on page 43 illustrates intermarrying, as well as hostile groups, those sections which are not usually at enmity, intermarrying more or less freely. Of the 28 mixed Koita- Motu marriages, 27 are between neighbouring Koita and Motu villages. In one instance only, and that a very recent one, brought about by the bridegroom working for a white man, did union take place between a Koita boy and a Motu girl whose villages Hohodai and Gaile are some ten miles apart.

MARRIAGE WITHIN THE IDUHU.

It is frequently asserted by both Koita and Motu, that individuals ' if they like ' may marry within the iduhu, and it is said that this was so even in the old days. The figures on this point are striking ; of the 2il pure Koita marriages recorded, only one, and that a rather recent union, took place between members of the same iduku. Among the Motu such marriages are, however, common enough. In the nine Motu marriages recorded there were four instances, while in another series of twelve Motu marriages, five are within the iduku. Six of these marriages took place, two or three generations ago, and of these, three were within the iduku.

MARRIAGE AND KINSHIP.

Ultimately, the regulation of marriage depends on the avoidance of marriage within the forbidden degrees, which extend to third cousins ; it has been seen that marriage within the iduku is, and always has been, rare, in spite of there being no avowed objection to the practice. Further,

I

Marriage 83

it has been shown, that a large proportion of marriages take place between individuals of the same or neighbouring villages. This fact, perhaps, gives a clue to the rarity of marriages within the iduhu in spite of the fact that there is no avowed objection to the practice. Since even third cousins are not allowed to marry, experience may have shown, that it is generally impossible for men and women of the same iduhu to marry without infringing the law of consanguinity.

POLYGYNY.

The 76 marriages recorded include only four instances of polygyny, but it is probable that the custom was once more frequent than these figures indicate.

6—2

CHAPTER V

MIDWIFERY. CONCEPTION AND PREGNANCY.

Pregnancy is diagnosed by the darkening of the nipple and areola ; cessation of the catamenia is apparently considered a later and less reliable sign. It is stated that a single sexual act is not sufficient to produce pregnancy, to ensure which cohabitation should be continued steadily for a month. The Koita have remarked that the advent of the catamenia and the development of the breasts occur together, and I gathered that this led to the belief that the flow consisted of blood, which in some way had come from the breasts, and certainly the foetus was supposed to be formed of blood derived from the breasts.

While pregnant a woman must not cohabit, she continues in her husband's house, but she may not eat bandicoot, echidna, certain fish, and the large lizard ( Varanus sp.) known as iguana. She should also avoid walking about at night lest labour be unduly prolonged.

labour and care of child.

A woman is confined in her husband's or mother's house. She squats on a coconut husk grasping a rope which hangs from the rafters, and leans back against a woman, usually her sister, who sits behind her, and clasps her firmly round the waist. Two other women, usually another sister and her mother-in-law, squat in front, on each side of her. Each has charge of one abducted and flexed leg, on which she exerts counter pressure. Facing the parturient woman sits herj mother, ready to receive the child as soon as it appears. Should labour be unduly prolonged, the child's father is sent for. He, after having opened any boxes there may be in th(

Care of Child 85

house — and in the Port Moresby villages there are few housefathers who have not at least one camphor wood box — sits down near his wife and proceeds to untie the cord which confines his hair, and to remove the^^a:;^^ from his arms. If this does not improve matters her brother is sent for, and he in his turn removes hair band and gana ; should this fail a ' medicine woman ' is the last resource. She chews aromatic bark, and spits the fragments over the labouring woman's abdomen, and then embraces her tightly. For this she receives a big fee, which is, however, returned if the patient dies.

Directly the child is born, its maternal grandmother cuts the umbilical cord with a sliver of bamboo, at a point the length of the child's thigh from its navel. The cord is never tied or twisted, and no dressing is applied to the cut surface in continuity with the child's body, nor is any toilette of the stump attempted when the dried portion drops off The afterbirth, momo, is placed in a wide mouthed clay pot in which it remains till early the next morning. The young mother then wades shoulder high into the sea, and breaks the pot, leaving the fragments and the placenta to sink. It is considered important that the young mother should herself dispose of the afterbirth, but if she cannot, her mother will act for her.

The child is washed in warm water, by its maternal or paternal grandmother, and this is done daily, as long as its mother is confined to the house. After the first few washings, the child undergoes a process called towa, consisting of a certain amount of gentle massage and manipulation of its limbs. The muscles are gently kneaded with the bare hand, previously warmed at a fire, and the joints are fiexed and extended ; the head is stroked from before backwards, with one hand, both laterally and over the vertex, while the occiput rests in the hollow of the other.

The child is put to the breast soon after birth.

Retained placenta is stated to occur, but to be infrequent ; nothing is done, and the patient invariably dies.

PUERPERIUM.

A woman is confined to the house for some time after childbirth, her seclusion is not however absolute since she goes into the sea to dispose of the afterbirth. It is not clear for how long she is secluded, but my informants agreed that it was longer after the first than after subsequent births. Perhaps it would not be far from the mark to suggest a period of about three weeks for a first child and ten to fourteen days for subsequent children. The young mother is washed daily by her mother with hot water, and the vulva is cleaned over one of the large shallow open pots called nau. Green banana leaves, which however can have hardly any absorbing power, are worn under the petticoat to retain the lochia. During the puerperium, the young mother's sister-in-law, i.e. her husband's sister, looks after the husband, fetching water and food from the garden, and cooking for him. She also cooks for his wife, in different vessels but at the same fire, and she continues to do so until the young mother leaves the house, which she does with entire lack of ceremony. Children are suckled regularly for twelve months or more, after this they may be given the breast occasionally for another year. A little roasted ripe banana is given to a child as early as four to six weeks after birth, and soon after this it is given small quantities of other vegetable food and well cooked small fish. Pig or kangaroo flesh is not given until the child can toddle about by itself. During her puerperium, a woman must avoid the food forbidden to her during pregnancy. Large fish, pig and kangaroo are also forbidden, were she to eat these her child would probably become seriously ill.

While his wife is secluded in the house, the child's father must abstain from chewing betel, and observe the same food taboos as his wife, under penalty of his child becoming seriously ill. He does not avoid his newly born child, nor stay away from the house, in fact he lives in the house and may see the child directly it is born.

Cohabitation should not be resumed until the child can toddle about, if it is resumed before then the child will weaken, sicken and perhaps die.

TWINS.

Twins excite no surprise or disgust, and are well treated. It is well known that the tendency to bear twins is hereditary, and it is recognised that twin births may occur in families that have not produced twins for one or even two generations.

CHAPTER VI

PROPERTY AND INHERITANCE. LAND TENURE.

Each section of the Koita has its own land, that portion on which it is customary to make gardens being divided among its constituent iduhu. Each man has his share in the iduhu garden land, which descends to his children. When a man desires, for any reason, to take up more garden land, he discusses the matter with his clan chief {iduhu roki), who, after the usual discussion with the elders of the iduhu, assigns him an adequate amount. When this land is to be cleared, the whole iduhu turn out and help in the work. Land was never sold in the old days, and when heirs to any given area failed, it reverted to the iduhu. Garden making on another man's land is frequent, his permission being first obtained, and a portion of the crop being given him in return. Gardens may be made on another man's land for any length of time without alienating the land from its rightful owner and his heirs, but if a man overstep his boundaries, and plant on another man's ground without permission, he is told to remove his yams and bananas or pay for the privilege he has taken.

Except in gardens trespass seems to be an unknown offence ; any one may cross any uncultivated land belonging to his own or any other tribe with which there is peace, and even among gardens there are well defined tracks along which there is always a right of way.

Each section resents any individual of another section hunting on its land, and grass burning by another section, even when accidental, might in the old days have led to fighting. It is, however, usual for sections to join for the big hunts that take place when the grass is burnt, and sometimes even Koiari and Koita will unite for this purpose.

WOMEN IN RELATION TO LAND.

It is said that no woman really owns land, though a daughter is allowed the use of a fair share of her father's, which she cultivates, and on which her children, with the permission of her kinsmen, commonly make gardens. Even an orphan brought up by her mother's relatives, would, on her marriage, have the right to cultivate and keep the produce of a portion of her father's land. Land is never given as a dowry or paid as a portion of an adultery price.

The custom applying to widows in relation to land is considered on page 90.

PERSONAL PROPERTY.

A man's most valued possessions in these days are his pig and dog, his ornaments and dancing plumes, and in the days before the white man's coming, his weapons, adze and canoe were doubtless almost equally valuable. The presence of the store at Port Moresby, in the most accessible part of the Koita country, and the repression of feuds, has completely altered these values. Practically every man now has his axe and bush knife, often several of both, and the trade necessary to pay for a canoe can be speedily and easily earned at the white settlement. Even to-day a man will not readily part with his drum and fishing nets, doubtless because the introduction of trade articles has not, to any great extent, diminished the amount of labour that must be spent in making these. A hint of the former value of a good spear may perhaps be obtained from its association with articles of personal adornment in the heni ceremony described on page 71. With the advent of the store, one article has attained immense popularity. This is a camphor wood box, with the lock so arranged as to ring a bell when the key is turned. It is the ambition of every man to possess one of these, its key is often worn round the neck as a pendant, and it is certain that old keys may be worn for ' swagger ' by youths who have never owned a box, and by men who have traded or gambled away the box they once possessed.

Besides dancing plumes, pigs and dogs, the following native ornaments appear to have kept their old value, or much

Inheritance 89

of it. The Motu names by which they are commonly spoken of are given.

Tola, armshells made from the shell of Conus millepunctatMS.

Mairi, the crescent shaped * mother of pearl ' ornament made from the shell of Meleagrina margaritifera.

Doa, the chest ornament, worn as a pendant from the neck, consisting of the tusk of a boar pig which has grown in a spiral or almost a circle.

Tautau, strings of the ground down shells of Nassa callospira often worn as necklaces.

Dodomay a necklace of dogs' teeth.

INHERITANCE OF PERSONAL PROPERTY.

The perineal bandage, or petticoat, which belonged to, and had been worn by, a dead man or woman was burnt some months after his or her death during the robumomomo ceremony of the ita feast\ Certain of a man's relatives, his nana and roro, take his ornaments, canoes, spears and the rest of his personal property. His widow receives none of his personalty, but if he has young children, a certain amount is kept for, and given to them later.

A division of the property which passes to the nana and roro of the dead man according to tribal customs is made by the dead man's eldest son, if he be adult, who thus becomes his father's executor, but if he be too young, one of the dead man's brothers acts in that capacity, failing both these relatives, a cousin divides the property.

INHERITANCE OF REAL PROPERTY.

I have considered a man's house as real property, for although among the Koita it is commonly allowed to rot, the ground on which it stands descends rigidly in the male line. If a man die without wife, brothers, sisters or children, his house is allowed to rot, and later another house will be built on its site. If he leave no widow or children to occupy his house, his brother or sister may do so if they care to, but 1 gathered that this was very rarely done, and no one else could occupy the house.

1 Cf. chapter xiv.

go The Koita

A widow, whether childless or not, may either continue to live in her dead husband's house, or return to her family, as she prefers. If she be childless, and elects to return to her own family, the use of her husband's land immediately reverts to his nana and roro, as it does at her death or remarriage if she elects to stay in his house till then. If she has children and leaves her husband's house the boards forming the floor are divided between the dead man's nana, rorOy raimu, children and herself. These boards are often 4 metres long by one broad and 25 to 50 mm. thick, and in the old days of stone tools, took a long time to make and were really valuable on account of the labour expended on them. For this reason they were preserved when the rest of the house was allowed to rot.

A dead man's coconut trees are divided among his brothers, sisters and children, but of his children boys are said to get more than girls. His land is divided among his children, but strictly speaking his daughters have only a life interest in their portion, though as already mentioned this is commonly extended to their children, the latter being allowed to make gardens on their mother's land, on the clear understanding that the land does not belong to them but to their mother's kinsmen. If a man die childless, his land and coconuts go to his brothers, sisters and raimu.

The site on which a man's house stands descends to his sons, or failing these to his nearest male kinsman. Strictly speaking, a man's hereditary house site is the only place on which he may build a house, although as the site is generally bigger than the house, a married man will often build a house immediately behind his father's, if there be room on the hereditary house site.

The following instances of the disposal of property after the death of particular persons illustrate the actual working of the rules given above.

When Maiago died, no one moved into his house which, since he has no son, will be allowed to rot. It was stated that later on, his half brother Mabata Maiago would build his house on the site at present occupied by that of the dead man. It was said that even if Mabata Maiago were adolescent or fully grown, his dead brother's house would be allowed to rot, but this was apparently not an invariable rule.

1 he dead man's coconut trees will be divided between

Inheritance gi his sisters and his children ; his land, i.e. the right to cultivate it will go to his daughters. His half-brother Mabata Maiago, will get his dog, while a particularly fine armshell will go to his nana, Bogi Goada, who shaved his dead body. His dugong net will go to his raimu, Koikoi Goada of Tanobada, while other articles of personal property such as his knife, his dog tooth necklace and his strings of tautau will be divided among his nana and roro of both sexes \

Another instance of disposal of property that may be cited is the distribution that occurred when Ovaketa, uncle to Ahuia Ova died.

Rabura Kogi, son of Ovaketa, took possession of the latter's house ; it was stated that had Ovaketa been childless his brother might have done so. One of the dead man's wives, Keranoboka, continued to live in the house with her son Rabura Kogi. Diara Ova, his other wife, would also have stayed in the house had she not run away sometime before her husband's death. Harigeta and Getahari, the dead man's brothers, were already dead when Ovaketa died, hence Rabura Kogi, after distributing the customary armshells and other articles of adornment among his father's nana and roro, was practically residuary legatee. Ahuia Ova received nothing because his mother, Diara Ova, had run away, and he had been adopted by her brother Taubada. Had his mother not run away from Ovaketa, he would have lived in the latter's house with Rabura Kogi and later, when he married and built a house of his own, he would have taken his share of the valuables inherited by Ovaketa. Had Harigeta and Getahari not predeceased their brother Ovaketa, Rabura Kogi would have given each of them a certain customary share, generally one or more of the following articles, tola, doa, a pig or a dog.

^ This account was written shortly after Maiago died and before his property was distributed. It is quite unusual for a Koita to possess a dugong net.

CHAPTER VII

TRADE.

The trade and trading methods of the Kolta are practically the same as those of the Motu, with whom they are so closely associated in every way. For this reason, and because many Koita take part in it, Captain Barton's account of the hiri, the annual Motu trading expedition to the Papuan Gulf, is given immediately after the present chapter on the ordinary local trade of the Koita.

Formerly, certain rather unimportant markets, held at irregular intervals, were attended by Koita and Koiari, but it was stated that these ceased before the advent of the white man. At the present time (and probably for some considerable time past) by far the greater part of the Koita trade has been water-borne by the inhabitants of the coastal villages, from Toaripi in the Papuan Gulf to Aroma in the east. The bulk of this trade is done with the communities inhabiting the strip of coast some 90 miles long, stretching from Lealea to Hula. The safety of life and property in the coastal region of the Central District, as well as the presence of a store at Port Moresby situated in the midst of the eastern Koita, has materially increased the amount of coastal trade, while the proximity of Poreporena, the largest Koita-Motu- village system, to the white settlement at Port Moresby has caused these people to pay less attention to their gardens than formerly, and to become more and more a trading community dependent on imported food. More often than not such food is paid for in trade goods bought for cash at the Port Moresby store. The extent to which food is imported, and the readiness with which it is disposed of, is shown by the fact that it pays white traders to spend the four or ^v^ weeks necessary to run up the Papuan Gulf, load with sago and beat back against the S.E. monsoon for the sake of the profit to be

Trade ^3

obtained by selling the sago for cash in the Port Moresby villages.

In reading the following notes it must be borne in mind that at the present day trade goods may be substituted to a considerable extent for the older articles of native exchange among the eastern Koita. Kapakapa, Tupuselei and Gaile bring bananas, taitu (a kind of yam), and a limited number of toia (armshells), obtaining pigs, feathers, doa (spiral boar tusks) and ageva (shell discs used as beads) in exchange. Hula and Aroma bring coconuts and petticoats, and to a limited extent toia and shell beads, both of which come to them from Mailu or even further east, while Hula also brings the shell ornament called tautau^, and smoked fish. Hula folk also fish on the reefs near Port Moresby, usually using methods differing from those practised by Koita and Motu (e.g. the seine net) and sell their catch in the neighbouring villages. From the Motu and Koita, the Hula take pots and sago. Kerepunu sends petticoats and toia in exchange for pots. Within the last few years, a trade in canoes with Hula has sprung up, but formerly these came from west of Port Moresby. About a pound's worth of trade is the price now given for an average dug-out Hula canoe fitted with an outrigger but without sails, spars or ropes.

Ageva are only made at two villages within the Koita- Motu country, viz. at Tatana and Vabukori, whence they are traded to other Koita and Motu villages, the inhabitants of which act as distributors.

Toaripi and Lese bring sago, areca nut, betel pepper, coconuts and a few bananas. Bows and arrows are also traded, and are now used for shooting fish. Waima (Maiva) sends coconuts, sugar cane, bananas, sago and feathers. These are the only villages west of the Koita- Motu area with which a more or less constant trade is carried on, but trading canoes laden with coconuts, sago, and areca nuts from as far up the Papuan Gulf as Wame/^ are occasionally to be seen at Wc>Sy^a Port Moresby. Toia, tautau and 7nairi are the ornaments which the Gulf and Waima traders receive in exchange. The western sections of the Koita, and the Motu with whom they are associated, bring coconuts and bananas to the eastern moiety of the Koita. Lealea, Boiera and Porebada are especially prominent exporting villages. Manumanu brings

1 Cf. p. 89.

The Koita vegetable food, including govera (the fruit of a 'kind of mangrove'), petticoats made of split sago leaf, crabs and dug-out canoes, receiving in exchange toia, tautau and mairi.

A really good canoe without sails or spars, would, in the old days, have been worth three or even four tola, but at the present time, canoes are more usually paid for either wholly or partially in money or store-trade. A good dug-out recently changed hands for two tola, ten shillings and a mosquito net, while Captain Barton informs me, that Ahuia paid two toia^ one axe, one mosquito net, one blanket, three strings of tautau, and eight shillings in cash, for a rather unusually fine canoe.

Feathers are obtained by the western Koita from Nara and Kabadi, and are traded for shell ornaments with the Motu and eastern Koita.

MARKETS.

Markets, called by the Koita wotogo (M. utuka) are not held at the present day and never seem to have played any important part in the Koita economy. Formerly a market used to be held at a place called Yarokasaka, near the junction of the Goldie and Laloki rivers. The participants were the Gaseri (a Koiari people), and certain Koita villages. The Gaseri brought to the Koita bananas, yams, taro and wallaby flesh in exchange for fish and salt\ This market is said to have been held at very irregular intervals, and to have fallen into desuetude before the advent of the white man. One or other party would send a message, that in two or three days' they would come to Yarokasaka prepared to trade. Spears were always taken and carried at the market, where trouble often ensued and it was not uncommon for a man to be killed. In such circumstances the aggrieved tribe would seek revenge either immediately, or at a subsequent market. In the event of trouble being anticipated, the tribe who had killed a man would send a messenger to the other tribe, taking care that their messenger was in no way connected with the

' My informants, Taubada and the other old men of Hohodai village, repeatedly asserted that the Koita made salt in the old days, long before the coming of the white man. The process was stated to have been to collect salt water in shallow pots and fragments of the larger pots called hodu, and allow it to evaporate in the sun.

Markets family against whom there was a blood debt. Such a messenger would go straight to the house of one of the clan chiefs of the village he was visiting, and having stated the reason for his coming would be safe.

Credit was given freely in almost all transactions, and was seldom abused. To enforce certain payments special methods might be employed. Thus in connection with tahutahu, the borrowing of pigs for the tabu feast (cf. chapter xii), if the lender thought the borrower was making no effort to pay him back, or if he required a pig in a hurry, he would sleep a night in the borrower's house. Nothing would be said about the pig, but after this the borrower would strenuously endeavour to pay his debt, even should this entail borrowing from someone else. Interest (usury) does not exist.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ANNUAL TRADING EXPEDITION TO THE PAPUAN GULF^

By F. R. Barton.

Every year, at the end of September, or the beginning of October, the season of the south-east trade wind being then near its close, a fleet of large sailing canoes leaves Port Moresby and the neighbouring villages of the Motu tribe on a voyage to the deltas of the rivers of the Papuan Gulf. The canoes are laden with earthenware pots of various shapes and sizes which are carefully packed for the voyage in dry banana leaves. In addition to these, certain other articles highly valued as ornaments (and latterly foreign made articles of utility) are also taken for barter. The canoes return during the north-west monsoon after an absence of about three months, laden with sago which the voyagers have obtained in exchange for their pots and other articles.

The origin of these western trading expeditions, called by the Motu kiri, is veiled in obscurity. Everything goes to prove that the custom has been in existence for many generations. The fact that the Motu and the various Gulf tribes visited by them make use of a common trading dialect which is in some measure distinct from the very widely divergent languages of either, justifies the conclusion that the custom has existed for a very considerable period. The Motu have the following legend which purports to give the origin of the custom.

• [Although the annual pot trading expedition to the Papuan Gulf is a Motu custom, so many Koita participate in it that it now forms a part of the social life of the Koita of Port Moresby and the neighbouring villages.]

Origin of the Hiri 97

LEGEND OF THE ORIGIN OF THE HIRI.

A very long time ago there lived at the Motu village of Boera a man named Edai Siabo. One day he sailed with some other men in a canoe to the islands of Bava and Idiha (small coral islands on the barrier reef off Boera) to catch turtle. They were unsuccessful, and at night the other men went to sleep on the island, whilst Edai Siabo, who was varo biaguna (' master ' of the turtle net) slept alone in the canoe. During the night a being named Edai, of the kind called dirava, arose from the water, seizing hold of him and carrying him under water to the cave among the rocks which was his abode. The dirava drew Edai Siabo head-foremost into the cave so that he lay prone with his feet projecting from the entrance, and he then informed him that he had brought him there to tell him about lakatoi^ (composite trading canoes). 'Do not be afraid,' he said; ^ as soon as I have told you all about lakatoi, you can go back to your canoe.' The dirava went on to explain how these vessels should be made, and how, if he and his fellows went to the west in a lakatoi, they would be able to obtain plenty of sago to tide them over the season of scarcity. At daylight next morning the men who had slept ashore swam out to the canoe, and when they saw that Edai Siabo was gone they wept. While they were talking, and weeping, and wondering what had become of him, one of them looked over the side and saw their comrade's feet and called to the others to come and see. So they all dived into the sea and caught hold of his feet, and tried to haul him out of the cave, but the dirava held the shoulders of Edai Siabo, and the men could not move him, and they had to rise to the surface again to take breath. Again and again they dived down but were unable to pull him out for the dirava still held fast to Edai Siabo because he had not finished telling him about lakatoi. At last, when all had been told he allowed the men to haul Edai Siabo out of the cave to the surface of the sea, and they placed him in the canoe. He was apparently dead and the men wept sorely

1 Lakatoi is derived from laka and toi. Laka is the Motu form of the word {wa, waka, waga etc.) signifying canoe. These words properly mean a canoe with the sides heightened by planks, a mere dug-out has other names (Motu vanagi). Toi is the Motu form of tolu the numeral ' three.' For part of this information I am indebted to Mr S. H. Ray,

%

g8 The Koita over him, but after a while he opened his eyes and revived. His companions asked him what he had been doing, and he told them that he had seen and heard many strange things. When the men asked him what these things were, he told them that the dirava Edai had taken him into his rock-cave and instructed him as to the manner of making a lakatoi, and about the hiri (the trading voyage on which the lakatoi must sail). The men Inquired the meaning of these words, and Edai Siabo promised that he would repeat all that the dirava Edai had said to him when they had returned to Boera. So they made sail for that place. There Edai Siabo built a model of a lakatoi according to all that the spirit had told him, and when he put it upon the sea it sailed along quickly, and all the assembled people exclaimed : * Inai! (behold !) who taught you to make such a thing ? ' and he told them that the dirava Edai had taught him thus to make a big vessel, and to sail In It to the west for sago. Then he took the little lakatoi to his house, and the men of the village went there to examine It and ask questions. Edai Siabo explained to them how to lash the canoes together, and how to step the mast, and how to make the sail, and so forth. So the people went away and built a lakatoi, and they called it Oalabada. A Koita — a brother-in-law of Edai Siabo — tried to dissuade him from going to the west, telling him that in his garden there were plenty of bananas, and in his house good store of yams, so that he would not want, but Edai Siabo remained stubborn. When the lakatoi was finished it was loaded with earthenware pots, and as soon as all the pots had been stowed aboard the people wanted to dance on the lakatoi, and they called for their drums ; but Edai Siabo forbade them to beat drums on the vessel. He told them that instead of drums they must use sede (a percussion instrument made of bamboo), and he explained to them how these should be made. So the men went into the jungle, and cut bamboos and made sede, and when they beat them they were delighted with the sound given forth. After that they went aboard again, and poled the lakatoi xhrow^ the shallow^ water, intoning meanwhile the following words :

^ Dokaimu Oalabada dokaimu, Ido-Ido, Ido-ido-ido-ido^^

• The Motu people, like other Papuasian tribes, have no knowledge of the meaning of many old songs which they know by heart. In transcribing them it is! difficult to know where the words begin and end. On examination it is possible to]

Origin of the Hiri 99

and all the while they kept beating the sede. Presently they asked what song they should sing, and Edai Siabo then told them the words and tune of the lakatoi ehona (song) as the dirava Edai had taught him, and the words of it were these :

' Oalabada Oviria nanaia Ario Visiu O Veri Auko Bogebada Eraroia Nanaia

Irope Umanai Ela Dauko^

(and many other verses).

When the song was ended those who were not going on the hiri went ashore, and the others hoisted the sail and left. They sailed for many days into the west until they came to a large village on the banks of a river, and there they stopped. The people received them with great joy inasmuch as they never before had pots in which to boil their sago. The travellers remained there until all the pots had been bartered for sago and then the lakatoi being loaded they set sail for home.

Now Edai Siabo was married to a woman named Oiooio, and when he sailed away to the west, he told her that after fifty days were past, her daughter-in-law was to climb every day to the summit of the hill called Taubarau, to look out for the lakatoi returning. Day after day she returned to Oiooio saying she could see nothing. The wives of the men who had gone, believing that their husbands would never come back, took other husbands, but Oiooio remained faithful, in the sure belief that her husband would return, till one morning her daughter-in-law said she had seen something near Varivari islets, but she could not be sure that it was not a piece of floating driftwood. Oiooio told her to hurry back and look again. As it came nearer and grew larger she saw it was indeed the lakatoi and ran down to tell the good news. •Oiooio swept the house, washed herself, put oil upon her body and in her richest ornaments paddled off to the lakatoi when it rounded the point to the village. There she told those aboard that their wives had been faithless, and that she and her daughter-in-law had alone been obedient to the commands imposed on them by Edai Siabo before leaving. She took some sago from the lakatoi and returned to her trace the meaning of a word here and there. ' Dokaimu' signifies the propelling of a lakatoi by poling. ' Oalabada' is of course the name of the vessel. I cannot find any meaning for the final re-duplicated word.

7—2

loo The Koita house, and after Edai Siabo had washed in the sea, he and those with him went ashore. The men were greatly grieved to find that Oiooio had spoken the truth about their wives, for many of them were big with child by other men. Then Edai Siabo told all the people that the words of the dirava were all true, and he admonished the faithless women and the men who had taken them as their wives. The women were very ashamed of themselves, and some of them were taken back by their husbands.

Since that time the lakatoi have gone every year to the west, and there has consequently been food in plenty during the season of scarcity.

CUSTOMS AND PROCEDURE BEFORE THE VOYAGE.

During the early part of the S.E. season, that is in April or May, certain of the leading men in the different villages will each secretly make up his mind to organize the equipment of a lakatoi to go west in the following autumn. Such a man communicates his intention to his wife, and about the same time he ceases to cohabit. This man is known as the baditauna, the correct translation of which is probably * the man who originates ' or ' the causing man.' Soon after he has formed his resolution he speaks to another man of the village, who need not necessarily belong to his iduhu, and if the latter agrees it is arranged that he shall go as doritauna (a satisfactory translation of this term is not deducible ; it may mean 'top man'). He, too, thenceforth ceases to cohabit. These two men may therefore be termed : ' the man at the root,' and ' the man at the top.'

Upon a certain pre-arranged day the baditauna descends j from his house and sits upon the ground in front of it, A small boy, his son or nephew \ then hands to him a baubaiA (bamboo pipe), tobacco, and a leaf in which to roll the! tobacco before placing it in the pipe. He is presently joined] by the doritauna and the pair smoke together. After a while, two men who have arranged to go as ' mast-captains,' and two as 'sail-captains,' saunter up to the pair, and the one mast-captain and the one sail-captain who have elected to go under the baditauna sit beside him, and the other two men sit

^ [Almost certainly his sister's son, cf. p. 67.]

The Hiri loi by the doritauna. The baubau is passed round and they all smoke and talk. Then the respective crews of the two chief men gather at the spot, and allot themselves in the same manner. Nominally it would seem that these men have not been previously selected, but apparently it is always by prearrangement that they come forward. The whole party is therefore divided into two separate commands, and it does not appear that the one takes actual priority of the other. From this time forth until the S.E. season has passed its climax, the ' mast-captains ' and ' sail-captains ' and the crews follow their usual avocations.

About the month of August the baditauna and doritauna call upon those who have agreed to go as crew to begin the demademay i.e. the overhauling and caulking of the large dugouts known as asi, of which the lakatoi is composed \ The baditauna and doritauna now become especially helaga"^. Husband and wife keep apart as much as possible. They sleep in the same house but on opposite sides of it. Should the husband be on the house platform, his wife cannot leave the house, as there is commonly but one mode of entrance and exit to the house. In speaking of his wife he calls her haniulato (maiden), and the wife speaking of her husband calls him tauhau (youth). They have no direct conversation or dealings with each other. If he wishes to communicate with her he does so through a third person, who is usually a relative of one of them. Both refrain from washing themselves, and he from combing his hair. The wife's position indeed becomes very much like that of a widow.

The demadefna operation being completed, it is followed by that known as lailai. This consists of floating the caulked asi, and lashing them together, and constructing the platform or deck. The baditauna and doritauna now each choose their udiha. The udiha is generally the man's son or raimu, and should properly be a boy who has not reached puberty I In the event of a man being childless he can appoint a fullgrown man to be his udiha, the latter, however, is subject

^ [A number of asi distinguished from ordinary dug-outs {vanagi) by their greater size and the ' beaked ' appearance of their ends are seen floating in the water between the mainland and Elevara in the frontispiece.]

2 [This word conveys something of the idea of ' sacred,' ' set apart,' ' charged with virtue.']

3 If the tidiha is a boy who has not arrived at puberty, this will be the first occasion on which he has worn a sihi.

#02 The Koifa to the same restrictions as an ordinary udika. These forthwith become helaga, and are carried by four men to a canoe, and paddled out to the lakatoi, great care being taken to prevent the feet of the udika coming in contact with salt water. Each carries a new mat and his master's vaina (netted bag); the latter containing a diniga (bone fork), bedi (coconut shell spoon), tobacco, etc. The udika is dressed in a new sihi (perineal band). Having been put on board the lakatoi, he spreads the mat beneath a shelter constructed amidship, and hangs the vaina above it. The mats of the daditauna and doritauna are spread end to end, and invariably on the darima (outrigger) side of the lakatoi^. Thenceforth the baditauna and doritauna and their two udika sleep aboard the lakatoi, the latter never leaving it, except for one day when the pots are being stowed aboard. Food is cooked at the usual times by their wives, or sisters-in-law, in a particular form of pot called keikei, and when ready it is taken out to the lakatoi by a boy and handed to the udika. Neither the woman who cooks the food nor the eaters thereof may touch it with their fingers ; it must always be handled or conveyed to the mouth by a diniga. The udika eats first, and when he has satisfied himself he passes the kibo, the pot in which the food is served, to his baditauna or doritauna as the case may be, who then eats his portion. Should any food remain over, it may not be eaten by any person save the udika and the baditauna or doritauna.

Certain foods are taboo to these men and boys, and the udiha may not drink water, but only coconut milk. The forbidden foods are rabia (sago), buatau (areca nut), oroa (a plantain), tuara (another plantain), batakaru, malao, lebeta (three kinds of yam), and the following fish : paroparo, balala, manii, daedae, tabare, taguma, barubaru (distinct from paroparo), noku, nape, managi, bebe.

When the asi have been lashed together to form the lakatoi a ceremony of charming takes place at night. A lakatoi sorcerer burns a root taken from a certain wild plant together with bits of cassowary claw and garfish snout in an ataga (potsherd)'. With the smoke which rises therefrom he

The lakatoi being a raft has no outrigger, but the two sides are always known as darima and eno-eno^ as in an ordinary canoe with an outrigger.

' [Cassowary claw and garfish snout are used because the animals from which they are derived move quickly, cf. chapter XV.]

The Hiri 103

fumigates the gunwale of that asi upon which the mats of the doritauna and baditauna are spread. This process is said to bring good luck and to give the lakatoi superior sailing powers. In addition — to doubly ensure this result — the sorcerer ties up parcels of the green leaves from the same wild plant, inside dry banana leaves, and fixes them inside the square holes in the gunwales of the asi, through which the lashings of the deck cross beams pass.

The next operation is the stepping of the masts. These are made from the trunks of a kind of tree growing near high- water mark in Port Moresby harbour : they are apparently a kind of mangrove, without aerial roots, and with small leaves. The tops of the masts have a natural crook which takes the place of a block, the halyards passing over and being guided by the crook. The tree of which the mast is made is taken out with the larger roots attached, and these are cut off to a convenient length and strongly lashed to the deck cross beams, thus giving the required stability.

Meanwhile the 'crabclaw' shaped sails are made in the village by the 'sail captains.' They are made of plaited mats sewn together, and attached on either side to long tapering mangrove poles. While under construction the sails are carefully measured to ensure that the two horns of each are of an equal length.

A lakatoi is invariably moored or anchored from the end of the vessel belonging to the doritauna. The anchor is a large stone encased in a network of heavy lashings, and the cable is composed of lengths of rattan knotted together. Anchors are regarded as being in the highest degree helaga. Should it be found necessary to anchor during the voyage, owing to unfavourable wind or other causes, the cable is watched continually by three men, one sitting on either side of it, and one in the centre with his hands on the cable. These men should be varavara (relations by blood or iduhu) of the doritauna. The anchor being helaga nobody is allowed to step across the cable when the anchor is down.

The lakatoi are named according to the iduhu to which the baditauna and doritauna thereof belong — each iduhu having its own assigned lakatoi name. There are but three lakatoi names, viz. Bogebada, Oalabada and Kevaubada, except in the case of the village of Vabukori which does not

I04 The Koita make use of the above names and uses instead the following, Vaigabada, Moubada and Buabada\

If the baditaicna and doritauna belong to iduhu having different lakatoi names, half the vessel is called by the one name, and the other half by the other name. A lakatoi recently went to the Namau district of which the baditauna was Guba Oala of the Tubumaga iduhu, while the doritauna named Sere Maku belonged to the Kwaradubuna iduhu ; the former's half of the vessel was called Oalabada, the latter's half Bogebada. The lakatoi are decorated with the specific iduhu toana (clan badges) called pepe belonging to the iduhu of their captains. These pepe, one of which is shown in figure 8, are of large size ; the leaf strips of the example figured being several feet long. Pepe are only used on the hiri though after the expedition is over the baditauna and doritauna remove them from the lakatoi and hang them from their ridge poles in front of their houses.

An ornament (figure 9) consisting of a framework of cane on which are mounted the shells of the large white cowrie {Ovulum ovum) fits over the top of each mast.

Plate XII represents a lakatoi in Port Moresby Harbour showing Elevara in the background ; the ends have not yet been roofed in.

All being now ready competitive trial sailings are made by the several Port Moresby lakatoi, backwards and forwards across the harbour, the air resounding with the metallic clink of the sede being beaten aboard, and the voices of those singing. During these short runs to and fro, bevies of young girls collect on the projecting platform (called maramara) of that end of the vessel which for the time being is the bowend, and dance there with great vigour, the springy nature of the platform adding largely to their lively movements. The after-end platform is occupied by the steersmen, of whom there are five or six, wielding heavy steering oars. The vessel does not go about in the usual manner but merely reverses ends, and then the steersmen and the girls change places. The baditauna and doritauna do not take part in this celebration, nor do the "sail captains" who remain ashore

• Bogebada means fish-hawk. Boge is 'night' in nearly all dialects but it also means reef-heron. Oalabada is surely ualabada — big crocodile. Oala is a common surname in Motu. Kevaubada is 'big rainbow.' The words in several dialects for rainbow and lightning are the same, or nearly the same ; in Motu lightning is kevara.

The Hiri

Fig. 8. Lakatoi ornament, pepe.

Fig. 9. Lakatoi mast ornament of cowrie shells.

io6 The Koita in their houses. The lakatoi for the time being are manned by the young men belonging to the iduhu which has constructed each lakatoi, but the **mast captains" also take part in the festival.

Everything having been found satisfactory, the vessels are taken back to their moorings, and they are shortly afterwards loaded with their cargoes of pots. Those which are the property of the baditauna and doritauna are placed in the kalaga, a square cradle fixed to the deck amidship ; the rest are packed carefully in dry banana leaves in the shelters called ru7naruma at each end of the lakatoi, and inside the asV-,

As the lakatoi is poled out of harbour, care is taken that the end which belongs to the baditauna becomes the bow, and this end remains the bow until the Gulf is reached. On the return journey the end belonging to the doritauna becomes the bow, and remains so for the whole voyage unless a head breeze springs up, when the opposite extremity becomes the forward end of the lakatoi. Although lakatoi may anchor at night, if there is no chance of trouble with the people off whose coast they are, yet with a perfectly favourable breeze they usually sail all night.

It is difficult to ascertain by questioning, to what extent the baditauna and doritauna exercise the duties of commanders during the voyage. It is probable that they interfere scarcely at all with the ordinary navigation of the vessel, but that in positions of difficulty they take charge and give their orders, which are obeyed. The two udiha are confined to their shelter beside the kalaga, and only leave it to obey nature's behests. Their two masters move about the vessel as it pleases them. Only they and the udiha have access to the shelter alongside the kalaga, with the exception of two cooks who have, one each, been chosen for the voyage by the baditauna and doritauna. Cooks, to be orthodox, must be unmarried youths, and the cooking operations are conducted with the same restrictions in handling the food as applied to the women who cooked the food before departure.

Importance is attached to the necessity for the vaina hung above the udiha being free from motion. If the vessel rocks

• When the destination of the lakatoi is Elema, the nearer portion of the Gulf district, the kalaga is not used : it is only constructed when the vessel is to proceed to Namau, the further portion of that district.

o o

Oh

The Hiri 107

and sets the vaina swinging, they are steadied by guy strings. During the voyage the same articles of food are taboo to the ' captains ' as before starting, but no food taboos are imposed upon the crew.

The actual conduct of the hiri will be best understood by the following short account of the voyage of the lakatoi Kevaubada going to Kaimare in 1906.

The first night from home the lakatoi anchored at Meabada, the crew collected firewood and erected piuy i.e. rails at either end of the craft, used as fulcra by the man or men using the big steering oars. The lakatoi left next morning at daylight and went outside Yule Island. Passing Yule Island the older men put bananas and yams at the foot of either mast ; this food is cooked and eaten on the same day by the crew, but the baditauna, doritauna and their udiha do not partake thereof This operation is known as irutahuna hana^noa, irutahuna being the name of the space between the masts. The lakatoi was off Bailala by the evening and the next morning sighted Kaimare. The lakatoi entered the creek through its westerly opening without awaiting permission and was accompanied up the creek by a large escort of Kaimare canoes. The lakatoi anchored between the Kaimare villages.

[In the old days a ceremony took place near Hall Sound, but whether it is ever performed at the present time is uncertain, Chalmers describes the ceremony as follows. ' When in front of Hall Sound entrance, the lakatoi was brought right up the wind, and the robber-chief took his little nephew by the hand and handed him two wisps of cassowary feathers, stood in front shaking them with a peculiar motion of the body, and turning to the foremast did the same, then came aft, and turning to the mainmast went through the same performance. When breaking her off again all shouted, as if driving something away.'

' Long ago, it seems, the Motuans, to keep an open coast, killed many Lolans, who had interfered with one of their canoes, and since then the Lolo spirits have been troublesome in that one place, detaining the lakatois ; hence the above incantation to drive them away. We were successful, and got beyond the passage alright, the tide being on the slack at the time'

^ Pioneering in New Guinea^ p. 29.

io8 The Koita

Captain Barton discussed this matter with an old man named Keori who accompanied Chalmers on his lakatoi voyage. Keori said it was true that in the old days a ceremony of the sort described was performed at Hall Sound as the result of a command given by Edai when he taught Edai Siabo the management of the lakatoi trip, but Keori was perfectly definite in his statement that the ceremony had no reference to the spirits of the people killed by the Motu. It is however true that the Motu did long ago come into conflict with the Roro in this neighbourhood.]

ARRIVAL OF LAKATOI IN THE GULF.

The following account of the customs attending the arrival of lakatoi in the west is given as the result of repeated conversations with men who have taken part in the hiri, but I have not myself witnessed the arrival of the lakatoi^.

The arrival of the lakatoi at its destination in the Gulf is an occasion for great rejoicing. As soon as the vessel is moored in the river opposite the village to which it is bound, taboos cease to exist, the baditauna and doritauna and their tcdiha leap into the water to wash off the accumulated dirt of months. A ceremonial visit is then paid by the head men of the Gulf village with their escort to the lakatoi and during it each man of the crew selects an individual to be his tarua (friend), and they make much of each other.

Baditauna and doritauna each select two headmen for their tarua^ and they adorn these men with the personal ornaments they have brought to barter. As soon as this has been done — but not before — the crew produce their ornaments, and each one proceeds to decorate with them his chosen friend. Every article so bestowed has its recognized value, and — if accepted — the corresponding value will be given in exchange'. The villagers then return to their houses and kill a pig or a dog which is thereupon cooked and given to the visitors.

' [Chalmers {^Pioneering in New Guinea, London, 1887, pp. 14-37) has given a popular account of the hiri in which he participated in 1883. He also relates in an abbreviated form the legend of Edai Siabo, his narrative corresponds to the account given by Captain Barton, but his report of the voyage and his arrival in the Gulf is so sketchy and incomplete that it has not appeared advisable to make use of the incidents he relates.]

• [The recognized values of barter are given at the end of the present chapter.]

The Hiri 109

Next day the pots are unpacked and set in rows upon the river-bank, each man keeping his own pots apart from those of his fellows. The purchasers then come forward and select this or that lot, and the owner of the pots forthwith breaks a number of short slivers of stick {kae) as tallies and places two in each pot. The seller and the purchaser then pass together down the rows of pots, and as each pot is passed the two kae are taken out, the purchaser retains one and the seller the other. These are in each case tied carefully into a little bundle, and each man retains his bundle in his keeping until the return payment in sago is made some weeks later. This tallying system is only followed in the Elema district (extending from Lese to Orokolo) ; not in the Namau district. The explanation given by the Motu people is that sago grows in the Namau district in such prodigious quantities that the inhabitants do not place any definite value upon it. The pots are removed meanwhile to the houses of the purchasers. Each of those men in the lakatoi who may be driven to purchase new asi — either for themselves or on commission — will have given a large shell armlet to his tarua. Asi are invariably made of a soft-wood tree of great size which grows close to rivers in their low alluvial reaches, and is known as ilimo. The Gulf natives who have accepted payment for asi go into the forest and bring back the girth measurements of the required trees, and if these are satisfactory, the trees are felled by the Gulf men who float them down stream to the lakatoi. There the trees are hauled on to the bank of the river and the visitors hollow them out and shape them into asi. Fire is not employed in this operation. While the lakatoi crew are thus engaged, the bulk of the local natives are living in the swamps making the required quantity of sago. The new asi having been made, the lakatoi is taken to pieces, and reconstructed on a larger plan. Sede may not be beaten nor songs sung until the reconstruction is complete, but any of the lakatoi songs may then be sung except 'Lara toa.' When the sago is brought down the parcels in which it is packed called gorugoru and turua are put aboard first. These have been paid for in toia (shell armlets), inairi (pearl shell crescents or, generally in the Gulf the whole shell for the people there prefer a rather shorter and deeper crescent and so grind down the shell themselves), tautau [Nassa necklaces), etc. Next day the smaller parcels called kokohara are put aboard and the quantity of each man's sago is carefully checked by the kae.

During the time that the lakatoi remains alongside the Gulf village the tidi/ia lose to a large extent the sacredness attaching to their office. They may go ashore and walk about with the others, and their diet is not restricted. But they still remain in charge of the vaina which are kept always aboard the lakatoi, and whenever the udiha go ashore they must take off their sihi and leave them hanging beside the vaind^,

THE RETURN JOURNEY.

On the return journey the baditauna end of the lakatoi remains as before the bow-end so long as the wind is northerly {77tirigind). If the wind should change to southerly {takodiko) the doritauna end of the vessel becomes the bow. The baditauna and doritauna and their two udiha resume the same footing and observe the same restrictions as obtained on the outward voyage. The taboo is not raised until they reach either Boera or Borebada — Motu villages near Port Moresby and lakatoi returning east of these villages always put in at one or the other on the homeward voyage. Here the baditauna and doritauna bathe In the sea, and adorn themselves with coconut oil, red pigment and the leaves of a strongly scented shrub called hebala, and put on their newest sihi. The food taboo is removed also, and a final meal of sago and grated coconut Is cooked in the keikei. Sometimes the keikei and the kibo are broken to pieces after this last meal and the bits thrown Into the sea, but I have not been able to ascertain whether this is always done. It would appear that it is sometimes omitted and in such cases no importance seemingly attaches to the pots In question.

As the time approaches for the fleet of lakatoi to return, an Intermittent watch Is kept for them by men of the Koita tribe from the summit of a hill called Huhunamo^ and as soon as they are sighted the news is passed on to the Port Moresby villages. The view from this hill being a wide one,

^ [Presumably this only applies when the udiha have not reached puberty, cf. p. loi, footnote.]

2 The hill called Huhunamo, which rises at the north-west end of Port Moresby harbour (1400 feet), in bygone times had a Koita village on its summit. The remnants of its people are now settled at the Motu village of Borebada, where they form the Huhunamo iduhu.

Rehtrn of the Lakatoi in the lakatoi are sighted twenty or thirty miles away, and as they stay for a day at Boera or Borebada, the people at Port Moresby have at least two days' clear warning before their arrival. As soon as one is sighted in the offing and recognized, the wives of the baditauna and doritauna bathe themselves, put on their whole store of ornaments, and go out in canoes to meet the returning vessel, together with the wives and relatives of the members of the crew. Each woman then receives from her husband a kokohara of sago with which she hurries back to the village and divides it among her relations-in-law, reserving a portion to be cooked at once for her husband.

[The following is a continuation of Captain Barton's short account of the voyage of the lakatoi Kavaubada given on page 107, and refers to the arrival of the lakatoi at Kaimare, and subsequent events.] The Kaimare men came aboard the lakatoi and much embracing took place. The baditauna and doritauna presented toia and other valuable ornaments and also their respective lots of pots to two Kaimare notables and these were put into the canoes. The two notables went ashore and killed a pig or dog which was eaten on the lakatoi by everybody including baditauna, doritauita and their udiha. The Kaimare men also ate some when given to them by the lakatoi crew, but the pig was definitely the property of the Motu. The lakatoi was then converted into a house, a spar was tied between the two masts as ridge pole, and a roof thatch of bi^d put on.

Negotiations then took place for obtaining asi (anybody on the lakatoi can obtain an asi by giving an armshell to a Kaimare man). The Kaimare men went into the bush and came back with measurements (circumference) of the trees for asi, these being satisfactory, the trees were felled by the Kaimare and floated to the lakatoi where the Motu shaped them into asi. Every night the Kaimare women and girls sang, but their men took no part in this ; nor did they dance ; the singing went on all night, the women and girls sitting in a group and beating drums and singing. When the asi were finished they were taken by the visitors a short distance from the shore and wood was cut and houses built for the Motu on piles in the river. The lakatoi was taken to pieces, and an enlarged lakatoi reconstructed. When completed the Kaimare men, women and children went into the bush to make sago ; all went so that their village was deserted by all but the old men and women. During this time the Motu ate sago which was brought and sold to them by the people of Koriki and Vaimuru, who received in return pots and beads which had been retained by the Motu for this purpose. After about one month the Kaimare folk returned with the sago, and during this time of waiting the IMotu did nothing. When the sago was prepared it was brought back to the village and each Motu on hearing that his share of sago had arrived went ashore, placed it aboard a dug-out, and took it to the lakatoi. The Kaimare women cooked food in the village and the Motu people went ashore and ate it.

The lakatoi did not anchor on the way home (no lakatoi does). Off Jokea the baditauna and do7'itauna put some sago and areca nuts in the iTiitahuna and called everybody to come and eat. No sexual intercourse ever takes place between the Motu and women or girls of the Gulf villages they visit.

CUSTOMS OBSERVED DURING THE ABSENCE OF THE LAKATOI.

During the period of absence of the fleet of lakatoi from Port Moresby the wives of the baditatma and doritauna refrain from washing themselves. The same articles of food which are taboo to their husbands are taboo to these women'.

Each morning at sunrise they visit and do some work in their husbands' gardens, but they return long before the customary hour to the village. While they are so engaged the house is left in charge of a daughter or niece who keeps the doors shut and attends to the fire which is never allowed to go out till the lakatoi return. Suspended from a rafter inside the house is a length of fibre {doi), and for every day that the lakatoi are absent, a knot is tied, beginning at the top. On every tenth day, that knot is distinguished by having a short piece of fibre tied round it, and a small feast called boioda takes place in each house, food for the purpose being brought by the relations of the men who have attached themselves as crew to the baditauna or doritauna. The men may enter the house when the food is brought, but have to eat their portion on the verandah, women only being allowed to eat inside the house.

• Cf. p. I02 for a list of these foods.

Return of the Lakatoi 1 1 3

The wives of the baditauna and doritauna may visit each other's houses, but may not enter any other house. When fifty days have passed, viz. : when the fifth big knot has been tied, the return of the fieet is expected daily.

It is known by omens whether matters are going well or ill with those who are away. These omens sometimes take the form of twitchings or ticklings of the body — usually in the feet or hands. Should these be felt on the right side of the body it is a good sign ; on the left side it is a bad omen. In the case of dreams the woman consults a sorcerer or sorceress, and the dream is interpreted to her. Examples of good and bad omens shown by dreams are as follows : Good (i) to see grass burning, (2) to see a dog running after a wallaby, (3) to be carrying a heavy load of bananas. Bad (i) to see a big rock or big stone, (2) to be standing on a piece of wood suspended over, or floating in water, which sinks, (3) to see a lakatoi being loaded with sago until it sinks.

On the lakatoi nocturnal seminal emissions (enogegeva) are likewise regarded as bad omens. In the event of the baditauna or doritauna having one he always tells those aboard the lakatoi. This sign of ill fortune can only be counteracted if the man in question refrains for one or two nights from sleeping on his mat.

SIZE OF ASI AND LAKATOI.

The following measurements of an unusually large asi were taken by the late Mr F. E. Lawes, in 1886.

ft. ins. Overall length from the extremity of one rostrum to the extremity of the other... 47 8

Length of bottom (outside) 36 7

Length of rostrum (each) 2 3

Greatest circumference 15 7

Depth (inside) 3 2

Width Middle (inside) 2 7

In 1884 the late Rev. Dr Lawes measured the largest lakatoi on its return from the Gulf. This craft consisting of 14 asi measured 59 ft. by 51 ft. and two smaller craft measured 54 ft. by 2>7 ^t.

S. N. G.

114 ^-^^ Koita

LAKATOI CARGOES AND CREW.

The average size of the fleet for several years past has been twenty lakatoi. The villages which equip lakatoi are as follows :

Hanuabada]

Elevara [- Port Moresby Manumanu

Tanabada )

Borebada Tatana

Boera Vabukori

Lealea ,. Pari.

All of these villages make pots with the exception of Vabukori, whose people buy their supply from other villages, giving in exchange strings of agevd^. A string of ageva buys about 1 2 pots {uro). Tatana until recently was also forced to obtain its pots from Port Moresby and although the women are gradually acquiring the craft, the bulk of the pots taken west by Tatana lakatoi are still bought with ageva made by these peopled

The average number of men who go in a lakatoi is 29. In 1885 four lakatoi left Port Moresby each carrying an average number of 1628 pots^ In 1903 the Kwaradubuna iduhu {idibana and laurina) equipped a lakatoi^ named Bogebada, consisting of 4 asi. The total number of pots carried in this lakatoi v^diS 1294, giving an average therefore of 324 pots per asi. Assuming that 20 lakatoi sailed that year, and that each was composed of 4 asi, the total number of pots taken was 25,920. In addition to the pots the Kwaradubuna lakatoi took in that year 57 toia, 2 mairi, and 8 tautau, besides a certain quantity of trade tobacco and other imported articles. This vessel on her return voyage consisted of 10 asi, and her cargo of sago would therefore have been about 25 tons

Dr Lawes informed me that in 1884 the largest lakatoi

^ [A^eva are pierced shell discs of a reddish colour obtained by chipping and grinding down pieces of the lip of a marine bivalve {spondylus sp.). Tatana and Vabukori are the only two villages within the Motu district that make ageva^

2 The Motu women make pots in seven shapes or sizes bearing the following names (i ; uro, (2) hodu^ (3) kibo, (4) oburo, {s)keiket, (6) iohe, (7) nau. The women of the villages of Tupeselei (Lakwaharu), Gaile, and Kapakapa, are all potters, and the people may be said to be of the Motu tribe ; the men are first class sailors yet they equip no lakatoi a,nd their pots are chiefly bartered with the bush tribes for food.

3 From figures given to me by the late Dr Lawes.

Plate XIII

Part of interior of a lakatoi showing packages of sago

Price of Sago 1 1 5

consisting of 14 asi returned with 34 tons, and two others with 30 tons each.

Before the white men came to British New Guinea, stone adze blades were taken to the Gulf as articles of trade. The Motu got them from Koiari, and the Koiari are said to have got them from people further inland, and these from somebodyelse, but nobody here knows where they came from originally. The value of a large stone adze was equal to the value of a large toia. The Motu people have an amusing tradition of the origin of stone adzes. They say that only certain men among the tribe from whence they came were able to procure the adze blades. The way they procured them was by wading in the streams with a hand-net like a bushman's fishing-net. The stone adzes, ready made, swam like fish, and they caught them in their nets. The Motu say that they have heard that it was easy to know an helaga stone adze catcher, because his legs were always covered with scars inflicted by the stone adzes when these were trying to evade the net.

THE VALUE AND PRICE OF SAGO.

The sago is put up in three kinds of packages (i ) gorugoru, (2) turua, (3) kokohara.

A gorugoru is a package of the shape of an inverted cone, and is constructed of several pieces of the leathery spathe which grows at the base of the leaves of the sago-palm {goru), these being sewn together. A gorugoru contains from 6 to 14 kokohara, the weight varying from 250 to 350 pounds.

A ttirua is a bag made of the fibrous leaf spathe of coconut palm, and contains about 80 lbs. of sago.

A kokohara is a parcel bound together by leaf fragments of sago palm leaves; the average weight of a kokohara is about 40 lbs.

One large toia buys one large gorugoru of sago or one asi. One large uro buys one turua of sago. Small uro and keikei buy each a kokohara of sago.

Plate XIII shows part of the interior of a lakatoi after its return from the Gulf Four jUcxiOm^ Siud two turua, the ^(.>u^'»i« / </ latter hanging to the side rail, appear in the picture.

LAKATOI EHONA.

(Songs sung on lakatoi.)

I have spelt and divided the words of these songs as they sound to my ear.

I.

Bogebada o viria nanaia Ario visuaia o veri auko Bnebada e laloi nanaia I rope umanaia ola Dauke.

Ario visiua O vert au ko Ela lao nau a uro diaimu Iru ovo e no iru ovo.

Maino ava ori ovo Nadori eva bodo?nu Irofie uma naia ola Dauko.

Ela lao nace a uro diaimu Iro evo e no iru ovo Maino ava ori ovo Nadori ava e bodomu.

Bogebada Is the Motu word for fish-hawk and is a commonly used- name for a lakatoi {oS.. pp. 103 — 4). Here and there a definite modern word occurs, such as nau and uro. It appears as though the lakatoi 'Bogebada' were being addressed and told to go in the direction of a village called Anal or Hanai, on the island of Daugo off Port Moresby. The site of this village is still known by the same name, but all that remains of it is a large accumulation of broken pottery, and sea shells. The only tradition the Motu people have concerning it is that once — in a time of great drought — their forefathers went there and lived for a long time on fish. This, however, probably refers to a much later period.

II.

Edai siabo idiha dakivai Ba negea dobi Edai siabo, Edai-a-siabo^ Edai tu mai.

Bava a dakivai ba laru dobi Edai-siabOj Edai-a-siabo Edai-a-siabo, Edai-siabo Idiha dakwai.

This song is evidently associated with the legend.

Songs sung on Lakatoi 1 1 7

Idiha and Bava are two small adjacent Islands on the barrier reef off Boera village. ' DakwaV is a kind of bag net generally used for catching the mullet as they jump over the net with which they are encircled. ' Ba ^nagea dobi' literally means ' Throw (thou) it down.'

III.

Kaimegore lalodia Ido Ido at ena pale aunakoia Boi ka oini aoma oini kuro Ne raro ido do binaia doka Ido at e ena nale e aunakoi Oinoi ka asi nai ba rabara.

This song is associated with a certain lakatoi legend telling how two men named Kaimegore and Idogore went respectively as baditauna and doritauna of a lakatoi named Bogebada of

Boera. They quarrelled about an ^.yz when waiting at the Gulf village, and the result was a split. One took six of the ^5/ and the other six, and each made his own lakatoi. Idogore reached home but the lakatoi belonging to Kaimegore when close to home, disappeared over the horizon, and those aboard it were never seen again. In this song it is almost impossible to follow the meaning. Idogore is apparently called *Ido' in the song.

IV.

Danea leb lelena Niera viase^ mo Niere mase Dabe kava ovona Rote fat mo rote tat Niere mase^ Niere mase Idibana idia ?nase Rote taia, rote tai Laurina idia tai.

This is a sad little song, and is apparently descriptive of the loss of a lakatoi at sea with those on board. ' Niere' is, I imagine, the name of a man or of an iduhu, and the song relates how he (or it) is dead, and continues * The right is dead, mourn, mourn; the left all mourn.'

V.

Lara toa ilimo raana O molere a molere Lara loa a daga raana Makere makere Molere vasia 7iua7ii e dagu Makere vasia e senepo.

This refers, I think, to the preparation of a lakatoi for a voyage. Ilimo is the tree from which asi are made. Lele ii8 The Koita or Icrc (in second line) is " to swim." Lara a lakatoi sail also a part of the caulking, daga is also something to do with caulking. The meaning is, however, very obscure.

VI.

Vamo vafHO e kano ai asi ela laomo

Aiva vinaia e lao peopeo

A peke ovi peke ovi a e dovia

Davana imo epina ovi

Vamo vamo rarua daonaia

Rarua e daona daona.

Vamo vamo is a sweet-smelling herb worn in the armlet. I can make nothing of this song.

VII.

Rau abi ta no abia abio Doai doai

Rau barua a doi dot Vavaia fnai vedia vavai Kala ras ranadia kala.

A favourite song. Meaning obscure.

VIII.

Nuia oro mama data aru divo

Nawaia Kedaia nawaia

Noa bia davai nakore

Diva diva inamo karua dava ovoma

IX.

Nu seri volovolo Nuseri moka mokua Maleira divo^ akoria daina Kadina ai nopena, kadina leri i nopena Leri adava i nopena.

RETURN VISITS OF GULF NATIVES.

The Toaripi people used to pay a return visit, making lakatoi similar to the Motu lakatoi. They would arrive toward the end of the north-west monsoon and return with the beginning of the south-east season. They still do so sometimes ; two such lakatoi arrived at Port Moresby this year [1906]. Enquiries which I made pointed to the customs in vogue by the Toaripi on lakatoi being the same, but less strictly ceremonial than on the Motu lakatoi. I gathered from the Toaripi people that they had adopted the custom from the Motu\ Concerning these expeditions the Rev.

' [Romilly {The Western Pacific and Mashonaland, London, 1893) makes nnention of the Motu-Motu (Toaripi) fleet coming to Port Moresby and many of ihem being drifted ashore in hostile territory at Ardha (p. 258), while on p. 214 he

Trading Language

J. H. Holmes says : — * During the north-west monsoon many of the tribes of Elema send large canoes of sago to the various villages of the Motuan tribe.... Prior to setting out on this journey, Avaralaru, the god of the north-west wind, has to be conciliated. To this end the village sorcerer is engaged at a good fee to intercede with Avaralaru and the god of the sea, that they may give to the voyagers a safe journey and bring them back safely to their village and friends. Two old men, who are considered to be sacred during the voyage, are especially commissioned to accompany those expeditions, that they may use their influence in appealing to the gods of the winds and the sea to refrain from bringing any calamity upon the party '

The following is a vocabulary of the trading language spoken by the Elema natives and their visitors.

LAKATOI LANGUAGE.

Breadfruit

Bring

Brother

...(elder)

...(younger)

Burn

Bury

Butterfly

Buttocks

Buy

Call

Calm

Canoe

Cape

Carry (on shoulder)

Centre

Chief

Child

Cloth

Club (stone)

Coconut

Cold (I am cold)

Comb

Come

Cooking pot (clay)

Cord

Crab

Crocodile

Dance

Dark

Daughter

Day

Dead

1 Journ. Anthrop. Inst.Wol. xxxii. 1902, p. 431.

Adze omu

Afternoon tariowaia

All igogoida

Anger babadu

Areca nut epere

Arm mae

Arrow kipa

Ashamed maridinai

Baby titu-ma-kenakena

Bad eka

Baggage etau-etau

Bale ikumi

Bamboo kika

Banana vivai

Bark (tree)

tora-ruru

Basket kepai

Beach miri

Beads seloa

Beautiful meda

Belly boka

Belt gava

Big eabo

Bird ori

Black mai-au

Blind omo eka

Blood ovo

Body mai-ea

Boil aredia

Bone udi

Lime (bottle for)

oro

Bow (for arrows)

apo

Bowl (wood)

tutu

Bowl (pottery)

taia says 'A big trading fleet from a tribe strongest tribe on the south coast '

vira-kupa amaia-bosi mare apauweka marekena au maro ire rari mea itari ori-ori ikiri inara aboisi roi o meda oroti harihari puasia aru tau-wa-lohio ature pura vahoro au-utu mai akakiri kobi abuisi uro konou mita itape keresi muru mare tari emasi naia

The Koita

Deceit

Difficult

Distant

Do

Dog

Door

Drink

Drum

Ear

Eat

Enemy

Evening

Face

Falsehood

Farewell

Fasten

Fear

Feast

Feather

Fat

Fire

Fish

Flog

Flood

Flood-tide

Forenoon

Forest

Forget

Freshwater

Friend

Fruit

Gale

Give

Good

Grass

Great

Hair

Hang (v)

Haste

Head

Hear

Heavens

Here

Hole

House

Hunger

Kangaroo

Kill

Knife

Laugh

Leg

Lie down

Life ''alive)

Little

Long

Louse

Man

Many kara pai

Mat kise koko

Moon papare tai eka

Mosquito aparea koro a maia

Most au buia ave

Mountain raepa umi abe

Mouth abe roia bunari

Name rare gaba

Night muru am ago

No lasi abunari

Old omena iri

Paddle taita paira

Path adi omopa

Payment dava abe karapai

Peace tairu mahuta naia

Petticoat (ramu)

mase pataia

Piece perepere dori

Pig poroma purai

Rain simo fue

Red omohari sapare

Rejoice area naia ahari

Ripe turn tavaia

River sinavai aputari

Sago bai siahu

Sail lara roio seraia

Salt water kaikara daba

See ) Come and see (?) \

fatu ome a mai idi kamena naia (?)

Ship mevara roio

Shoulder toro pamora

Sit amasi au toro

Skin ruru kuku ruru

Sleep mahuta anaia

Smell muwe meda

Snake ekaroa kumkuru

Sorcery mena mena mina eabo eabo

South East laula bada utai tue

Speak sina sina naia arari pataia

Stay meda damase name name

Stone pame haro

Strike tuari (?)

iapasi

Sugar cane ase kauri

Tail uke marc

Taro toera ura

Tattoo karoro umi

Teeth tao hitolo

There ma gabuna paitaru

Throat kamore aputari

Tobacco kuku toi

To-day matau area

To-morrow meme seri mora

Tree tora hekure naia

Turtle ake ake makuri

Village tau-ua kenakena

Weep piuaia taieka

White sea rie

Who naia mina

Yam maho igogoida

Yes oibe

CHAPTER IX

WAR AND HOMICIDE. WAR.

The western sections of the Koita, especially Arauwa and Rokurokuna, were formerly involved in almost continual warfare with Kabadi ; apart from this long continued struggle the Koita appear to have carried on little inter-tribal fighting. The usual method of fighting, where the combatants were of different tribes, or where the quarrel was of old enough standing to have become embittered and passed on as a hereditary affair, was the night attack. In this, a village was, as nearly as possible, surrounded quietly during the hours of darkness, and the attack made at dawn ; if all went well for the attacking party, they killed the majority of the inhabitants regardless of age and sex, and looted and perhaps burnt the village. The account given by Chalmers of some episodes of the fighting on the western borders of the Koita well illustrates the methods of warfare in vogue, and shows that a considerable number of people fell in these encounters\

The passages quoted are not very clear as they stand but they become more definite when it is remembered that Lealea is the name of the village of the Arauwa section of the Koita, and that Manumanu is a mixed Koita-Motu village.

'Towards the end of 1880 I arrived at Manumanu, intending to proceed up the Edith River, hoping thereby to reach Doura, and thence advance to the spurs on the western side of Mount Owen Stanley. The old chief of Manumanu, Naime, on my arrival told me it would be madness to proceed, as the Koitabuans of Lokurukuna, a district in Redscar Bay, had gone up the day before to revenge the deaths of several of their people, killed years

^ Pioneering in New Guinea^ 1887, pp. 91 — 1 15«

ago by the Dourans, and that very morning several Douran bodies had floated down the stream.'

• Several months afterwards I visited the Dourans, going in from Caution Bay, and found them living away from their villages, still keeping a good lookout for the Koitabuans. On my return to the coast I found that the Koitabuans were quite satisfied with the ''payment" they had given [? taken], and were now willing to make peace, and be In the future friendly with the Doura : but the latter, although pretending to wish for peace, really meant revenge when the suitable time came.'

• Time wore on, and we were in hopes things would take a favourable turn, and from the long silence thought it possible the Koitabuans might move first in proposing peace and invite the Dourans to an exchange of presents, or the Dourans might even sue for peace ; but a few weeks ago showed that the savage's feelings of revenge are not decreased by length of time '

• I must here explain the relation in which the Kabadi stood to the Doura and the Koitabu tribes. They were one with the former and very friendly, while with the latter they were at bitter enmity.'

' Many years ago, when the western sago trading expedition had gone, the Kabadi, to revenge the murder of one or two of their youths, attacked Lealea, a village in Caution Bay, and killed a large number of women and children.-...'

' On the return of the trading canoes, great was the sorrow of the crews... and when the first overwhelming feeling of grief... had subsided, the Koitabuans, with the Lealeans, resolved on signal and terrible revenge '

' Some time after, both parties arranged to attack the Kabadi on the same night. The Koitabuans assembled in great force. They came from Badili, Barune, Lealea, and all the villages of Lokurukuna, and were led by the real Lealeans, who knew only of one village in the Kabadi country, Matapaila. They surrounded it very early one morning when the inhabitants were fast asleep, and killed men, women and children, plundering the village and setting fire to it. A very few escaped, and they made good use of ^ their time '

• There are several other villages in the district, and tdj these the refugees hurried with their tale of woe.... Soon fresh, i

Warfare 123

strong men, full of wrath and revenge, surrounded the rejoicing victors, and the work of death began. A terrible morning it was, as only two escaped to tell the tale. Since that time there has been constant war between the tribes, each killing individuals as occasion offered.'

• So a few weeks ago the Dourans, wishing for revenge, knew well where to apply. They went to the Kabadi with pigs, etc., and found in my old friend Maimearua of Keveo a glad and willing ally '

' The Manumanuans had hitherto kept out of the whole affair. They had grievances against the Dourans and the Kabadis, but waived them all for the sake of peace and friendship, and perhaps because they were afraid of the Port Moresby natives, who looked upon the Kabadi country as their winter market. Although the Manumanu were one tribe with the Port Moresby natives, should the former punish the Kabadi by killing a Kabadian, the market would be closed, and the Port Moresby natives might wipe them out, relations or no relations.'

' The Dourans arranged the night of attack, and selected two small villages of the Lokurukuna district for their revenge. The Kabadi joined them in the river, and in two large canoes the united forces proceeded stealthily down one of the creeks of the river, landed, and surrounded both villages. It was early morning, before the sunlight appeared over the great Owen Stanley Mountains, that the work of murder and rapine began.'

'The Koltabuans, finding themselves hemmed In, seem to have thought of revenge rather than defence, and the men seized their arms and shields, cut their way through the enemy, leaving the women and children to their fate. In the rush, fifteen Koitabuans were killed, the others escaped. The Dourans, led by my big friend Adu, and the Kabadis by Naimearua, began their horrible work, and killed all the women and children they could get, in all forty... .When the work of blood was over, they began to loot and burn, then prepared to leave, happy in their morning's work.... When the sun appeared well over Mount Owen Stanley, all embarked In their canoes. They returned by the same creek to the river, and, as they ascended, those not paddling were horn-blowing, dancing, and singing ; but, to their horror, some distance up, the river was blocked by a large fleet of Koltabu canoes,

124 ^^^ Koita packed with men wild with revenge, consisting not only of the warriors who escaped, but numbers from other villages* The conquerors put about; and paddled back, to get into the bay and pull up to the mouth of the river at Manumanu.'

'All night a strong south-east wind had been blowing, and by that time it blew a gale, causing a heavy sea on the bar of the creek entering the bay. A few got through, but other canoes went adrift, and had to be abandoned. The warriors returned to the shore determined to walk overland to Manumanu. They were hotly pursued by the Koitabuans, who had previously sent on two messengers to inform the Manumanuans of the morning's work. When at the point near the village, the latter, after having wept for the dead, came out and met the conquerors of the morning hard pushed by the pursuers ; several Dourans had already fallen, and the flush of victory had quite gone. The Manumanuans joined in the fight, and assisted the Koitabuans. The Kabadis who were successful in crossing the bar landed, hoping to help the Dourans, but they soon saw that it was of little avail to contend against the combined forces of Koitabuans and Manumanuans, and rushed for the village, a hundred yards off, and secreted themselves in one of the houses. Two young chiefs, Seri and Taera, Manumanuans, arrived from the other side of the river, and at once set to work to save the secreted fugitives. Two had been killed in the fight, ^v^ ran and took to the river, and were there drowned or carried off by crocodiles ; all the others were landed safely on the other side. The Kabadis, however, say none were drowned or taken by crocodiles, but that the whole seven were killed by the Manumanuans.'

• The Dourans held out long and well. For them there was no hope of escape, and they fought to the bitter end. Four got to the village and secreted themselves in one of the houses. Three youths of Manumanuan mothers were saved by their relatives, the others were seized by the strong men, and the youths and little children were called upon to take spears and despatch them. Children just able to carry a spear were tattooed, and will in future boastfully speak of having slain a man. Those secreted in the house were burnt out and then speared....'

' Except two men, all the Manumanu men and boys claim

I

Warfare 125

to have killed, or helped to kill, one or more ; several claimed the honour of killing the same man.'

Another episode of the ' state of war ' which existed on the western frontier of the Koita territory is narrated by Chalmers as follows :

' One attack by the Koitabuans last October was, even for savages, a cruel and mean affair. The Lealea Koitabuans, also some from Kevana, Baruni, and Euria, assembled close by where our camp now is. Two Koitabuans, the same who led us in three years ago, who were considered very friendly and trusted by the Dourans, left the fighting party about midday, and, knowing the district well, searched for and found a party of Dourans in by the range. The latter asked why they had come, and the former answered, '' Peacefully, and to bring you messages of peace and friendship. There has been killing enough and the Koitabuans are satisfied." The poor Dourans were woefully deceived. Men, women, and children came down to the river bank and camped there that night. The. following morning they were surrounded, and very few escaped. One villain from Port Moresby — a half Motuan — killed three with one spear. He transfixed a mother with her infant, which she was pressing to her breast....! have just heard the reason why the half-Motuans joined the party that so treacherously attacked the Dourans. Some one told Bemo Raho Bada, an old Koitabuan, that the Kevana natives were going to wipe out the remnant of the Dourans, and advised him to join and pay off some very old score. He cried bitterly, saying, ''Alas, alas! I am old, and unable to walk so far, and have only two daughters, who are with their husbands. Oh ! who can go "^ I have no one who cares for me. Who will take my spear and seek payment ? " Long he wailed and loudly he wept, and wished he had only a son. Some one came to Hitolo, the half-Motuan, who is married to one of the daughters, and said, " Do you not care for your father-in-law's tears and loud wailing? Arise, take his spear, and go for him." 'T cannot; we are now at peace, and the missionaries will be angry." ''Ah, you are weak and frightened, and dare not go." " No, I am not ; I have strength ; I will take his spear and join the party, and wipe off the old score.

From these passages it will be seen that although the tactics of the Koita and their opponents were equally directed to avoiding pitched battles in which both sides would necessarily ^lose heavily, the Koita when cornered fought well and when sufficiently provoked by their losses did not hesitate to make counter-attacks on successful raiding parties in broad daylight, under circumstances in which there could be no element of sudden surprise. Further, these accounts suo-o-est that although the state of war existed especially beWeen the Koita and the Kabadi, the Motu sometimes joined the Koita, in fact the Koita-Motu settlements appear at times to have acted as a single fighting unit, that is to say as if the inhabitants of one of these villages all belonged to one tribe. My own information supports this view, and Captain Barton supplies an instance in which visitors, with no direct concern in the quarrel, joined a mixed Motu-Koita war party in taking the offensive, at some distance from the village of the attacking party.

' A fight took place between Poreporena and Boera about the year 1870, or it may have been a few years earlier. The cause of the fight, as far as I can recollect from the account given me by an old Motu who was present, was an insult given by the Boera people to some Porebada men who were fishing near Boera. Angry words were exchanged between the Porebada and Boera men on the fishing ground, which ended in the Boera men giving the Porebada men a beating with sticks. The Porebada hurried overland to Poreporena, and called upon the men at that place to help them to revenge the insult ; some Gulf natives who happened to be at Poreporena joined the party, and an attack was planned and carried out. Half the attacking force went to Boera by land and half in canoes by sea ; the Boera people were thus caught between the two forces, and several were killed and perhaps the village burnt.'

An individual of the attacking party would sometimes warn special friends or members of his iduhu in the threatened village that an attack was pending, and advise them to go away quietly without saying anything about the warning received. Whether they did this or told their fellow villagers and thus frustrated the attack, the informer does not appear to have been punished or regarded as a traitor. In point of fact individuals, or families so warned, seem to have very generally kept the warning to themselves. Accidental homicide within the tribe might lead to a good deal of loud talk,

IVarfare 127

but not to war, and payment would be accepted for the dead man, but if the victim of the accident were a member of another tribe the blood price heni (M. kwarava) might be refused, and war result, though it seemed that matters were generally settled peaceably^

The following incident related by Ahuia well illustrates how suddenly trouble, leading perhaps to war, might arise, and how it would be dealt with.

A man of Dubara iduhu, Daure Garia of Kilakila village, had assembled a party to burn certain grass land called Varitete. Among the party were a number of Koiari, one of whom Magani Numuru, was accidentally killed. The Koiari had thrown at and missed a wallaby which passed between him and Daure Garia. Daure Garia immediately threw his spear, which missing the wallaby, hit Numuru in the neck, and wounded him so severely that he died in a short time.

Daure Garia and his father immediately returned to Kilakila, the Koiari meanwhile hotly discussing what should be done. Opinion was much divided, some wanted to kill Daure Garia, while others held that the matter should be adjusted amicably. The visiting Koiari were staying with the Akorogo and Yawai sections of the Koita, who were then united at a site called Kaugeri near the present village of Akorogo. Finally the peace party prevailed and the Koiari agreed to accept heni.

Daure Garia had meanwhile been sent from Kilakila to Hohodai, to stay there under the protection of his clansman Taubada.

The Kilakila men settled among themselves how much it would be fair to give the Koiari, and when they had agreed, the latter were brought to Kilakila by one of the then iduhu rohi of Kaugeri, to see the amount offered, and, if satisfactory, to accept the same. The heni provided was accepted, it included one big pig, and more than ten articles of value including toia, doa, tautau, mairi and dodoma. If these had not been accepted a vendetta would undoubtedly have arisen, since a homicide was never given up to another tribe.

1 It has already been stated on p. 71 that heni is the name for the ceremony observed soon after the birth of a first born child, and that in this ceremony the child, decked with valuable ornaments, is carried by its mother to her parents while the child's father stays quietly in the house.

I do not know whether sections of the eastern and western Koita would, when fighting against each other, employ night attacks, but probably they did, since the eastern moiety annihilated Namura. That the sections of the eastern group did not thus attack each other was quite clear, indeed they were only at enmity when a blood feud existed, and even then certain amenities were observed which were omitted between hostile tribes, and in long-standing and embittered quarrels.

HOMICIDE IN RELATION TO THE COMMUNITY.

If a man stole from the garden of a fellow villager of a different idiihu, there would be some loud talk and very likely a rough and tumble scuffle with sticks, stones and clubs between the members of the iduhu concerned. There would be no intention of killing anyone, and the minor wounds which resulted would not be paid for. If life were lost there might be talk of starting a vendetta, but the community led by their rohi ketaike would see that this was not done, and after more or less discussion a blood price would be accepted. A stranger, even though a Koita, might be killed if he were caught stealing in a garden. Under these circumstances a blood feud would result, which might be carried on in one of two ways, explained by Ahuia by the following hypothetical instance.

Supposing a Hohodai man killed a Baruni man who was trespassing in and stealing from his garden ; the Hohodai would on his return to his village tell his iduhu rohi, and the latter would talk over the matter with the rohi ketaike, who, after consultation with the old men, would decide whether under certain circumstances the slayer should be defended or given up. In any case nothing would be done until Baruni made a move, for it was certain that this would not take the form of a night surprise since in a general way the two communities were friendly. Baruni might do nothing at the time, but quietly await a favourable opportunity of killing a man, woman or child of Hohodai and so settle its debt. Or Baruni might consider that the dead man was worth fighting for. In this case the Baruni men send no herald or intimation of their intention but one afternoon, fully armed and making no attempt at concealment, they would i

Homicide approach Hohodai, yelling and crying that they had come to revenge their murdered fellow-villager. On this a fight might ensue, which would usually stop as soon as one Hohodai man was killed, unless Hohodai had previously killed other Baruni. In this event the fight was supposed to continue until Baruni had killed one more man than Hohodai. As, however, a war party usually fled when once two or three members had been killed, and was cut up by the victors to some extent in the flight, battles such as these, instead of terminating a blood feud often started new ones, and in time might lead to a chronic state of enmity, punctuated by new murders and reprisals.

If the Hohodai men did not wish to fight they might agree to give up the murderer. This took place with considerable ceremony. The murderer retired into his house where he ornamented and painted himself. In this he was usually helped by his henamo. His pig was killed, or if he had not one, then one belonging to his hena^no. The Baruni men had meanwhile surrounded his house and lit fires, round which they would squat all night. The pig was cooked and eaten in the murderer's house by his fellow-villagers, his iduhu rohi and rohi ketaike joining in the feast. It was a point of honour for the condemned man to eat, though his near relatives and friends showed their sorrow at his approaching fate by abstaining. Throughout the pig-eating, which was kept up all night, the women wailed. At dawn the murderer was stripped of his ornaments, and the rohi ketaike, taking him by his right hand and upper arm, led him down his house ladder. As soon as they reached the ground the rohi ketaike sprang back on to the ladder, while the Baruni speared and clubbed their victim to death. The rohi ketaike would then say ' Now finish, you kill no more man, we been give you this man.' The Baruni yelling war cries would retire, and their victim would be buried in the usual way.

HOMICIDE IN RELATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL.

When a man had killed another, whether the victim were male or female, the blood was not washed off the spear or club but carefully allowed to dry on. The homicide bathed in salt or fresh water on his way to the village, and went straight to his house, in which he stayed secluded for about a week. He was aina^, and might not approach women, and though there apparently were no food taboos, he Hfted his food to his mouth with a single-pronged fork made of pig or kangaroo bone. His womenfolk did not necessarily leave the house, though they took care not to approach him. At the end of a week, he built a rough shelter in the bush, in which he lived for a few days, often in the company of other men of about his own tribal status. During this time he made a new sihi which he wore on his return to the village. A dance, called bago^^, was then held, after which the homicide and others sat and ^yarned' on the dubu until nightfall; he then returned to his house, and ceased to be aina.

A homicide was entitled to wear certain decorations which varied somewhat with the sex of his victim. For a man, certain tattoo marks were also worn, viz. a longitudinal line down the back on each side of, and about two inches from, the middle line, and a design on the deltoid region of each upper arm ; further, designs were tattooed on the chest and over the shoulder, as is shown in Plate XIV. This mans decoration was gained in the attack on Boera, mentioned on page 126. As ornaments the homicide wears the mandible of a hornbill stuck point first into his hair, a shell frontlet called seribu, and on his head a rosette of white cockatoo feathers called kaidodu. For a woman, a homicide would wear a frontlet of cassowary plumes called yadeu, and in his hair kaidodo and panapa, the plumes of Paradisea raggiana.

A man who had killed another was stated to get thin and to lose condition. This was because he had been splashed with the blood of his victim, and as the corpse rotted, so he too wasted. So firmly was this believed, that in the old days a man who got thin without losing his health, and for no obvious reason, would have been suspected of having killed somebody.

^ Aina corresponds to the Motu helaga. Cf. footnote, p. loi. ^ The words which were sung at the bago dance are given in chapter xni, like many other of their songs their meaning is unknown to the Koita.

Plate XIV

Tattoo assumed by homicide

CHAPTER X

MORALS.

It will be shown in the section on Religion, that the Koita have no deity or superior power in relation to whom a sense of responsibility could arise. The clan, or village chiefs, the iduhu rohi and rohi ketaike, have not the authority requisite to initiate or decide any important matter without first discussing it with the elders of the community. And even these discussions are carried on as informally as possible ; they take place not on the dubu but on the verandah of the rohi ketaike, and no formal notice is given that they will take place. Above all, there is no one person to apportion praise or blame, or even to confer rewards for actions of advantage to the community. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the sense of responsibility and of effort is communal and not individual, and that the Koita system of morals does not teach or express individual effort and individual salvation, but on the contrary teaches the due subordination of the individual and his efforts in the sum of the tribal activities, which, broadly speaking, allow no room for individual initiative. Hence homicide and theft are not considered reprehensible in themselves, but only become so when directed against members of the community or tribe, or against outsiders strong enough to avenge themselves on the tribe.

But although individual morality scarcely exists, and although there are no initiation ceremonies for members of either sex, and no special instruction in behaviour and etiquette is given, both boys and girls seem invariably to conform to the traditions of the tribe, so that there are no spoiled children to be seen. Indeed disrespect to parents or elders is unknown among the elder children, any of whom will usually promptly obey or courteously fulfil any order or request made by an elderly man, even if he be in no way related to them.

There is one noteworthy fact which, although its exact relationship is not obvious, must, apart from a certain strength of character of the people, ultimately depend upon their nonindividual system of morality. This fact is the comparatively small extent to which the Koita have been influenced by the habits and beliefs of Europeans. The Koita and their Motu neighbours have been in intimate association with white men comprising government officers, missionaries and traders for over thirty years. This association has been particularly intimate in the Hanuabada villages where there has been a mission for the last thirty years, while the villages themselves are only a mile and a half from the white settlement which is the seat of government of the Possession, and has a large store. It is not too much to say that during the greater part of this time, the abolition of his social system of morality has tacitly but constantly been held before the native as a good and desirable thing. The government have insisted on the idea of individual effort, rewards and punishments, and the care taken to inflict punishment only on actual criminals has forced the Koita and Motu to recognize the white man's doctrine of individual, as opposed to tribal, communal, or family responsibility in criminal matters. The Mission has with equal constancy preached the doctrine of individual salvation, and although the trader has not intentionally taught the doctrine of individual gain, the unit to be served is clearly the individual, not the family or clan. The native has thus continually before him the example of effort directed to individual gain. It is therefore remarkable that the teaching and example of a people, whom the Koita look up to on account of their skill, and the mechanical appliances they control, though brought to bear on a small population, have not proved sufficient to deeply influence these people, or to produce the degradation and degeneration which the white man's influence so often exerts, and has exerted in other parts of New Guinea. The Koita keep their old clan and village organisation, there is no very marked tendency to wear white men's clothes and finery, they have kept the majority of their old customs and their old dances, and it seems that the old beliefs, in the case of the great majority of the tribe, have not been given up, and are in a fair way

Morals 1 33

to being passed on to the rising generation. Even the general health of the villages that I saw was good, and all this, In the face, not only of white influence, but also of another even more potent factor making for degeneration in a native population, viz. the presence of the white man's followers, that large undesirable class of coloured aliens who throughout the East dog the white man's steps. Malays, Polynesians and alien Melaneslans, astonishing half-breeds and a few Chinese, examples of all these have drifted to New Guinea, and some have lived in or near the Port Moresby villages for some time ; yet even their presence has not produced any deep change In the Kolta and Motu. It seems certain then, that the moral disposition and system of the Koita not only suited their environment fifty years ago, but have been strong enough to bar the approach of some of the worst evils consequent on bringing civilisation to the natives of the Pacific. This result is doubtless largely due to the success with which the government has kept alcohol from the natives of the Central Division. Perhaps a hint of what might have happened under a different policy — for alcohol could hardly have failed to prove seductive — may be gathered from what is said on page 135 concerning the introduced habit of gambling.

THEtT.

Petty theft is not common, and when it occurs little notice is, as a rule, taken of It, unless the thief be caught in the act, when he may be severely handled or thrashed by the Injured Individual and his friends ; or the sufferer may consult a sorcerer, who often really discovers the thief, using, it is alleged, magical means (cf. Divination, chapter xv). The thief will then return the stolen property or make good its value.

Stealing food from the gardens even in small quantities is considered a much more serious matter. In the old days a member of a foreign tribe, or even of a distant section caught stealing food might have been killed, while a fellow villager would have been roundly abused for this offence, and a brawl in the village would probably have resulted. It has, however, always been allowable for a hungry man to take and eat bananas from another man's garden, provided the legitimate owner were told of it on an early occasion. If he were not told, and subsequently discovered his loss, the incident would have led to a good deal of abuse, and probably a villaore brawl. In tradinof transactions in which credit was given, that part of the payment which was deferred was always paid at the appointed time, indeed a fresh debt of identical character would usually be incurred, if this were necessary, in order to pay off the older debtor.

DOMESTIC AND SEXUAL MORALITY.

Both sexes make excellent parents, the men especially often seeming absurdly indulgent to their children who are never ill-treated nor even punished. In their turn the children grow up imbued with kindliness and consideration for their elders, and especially for the old men. Although the men make undemonstrative husbands, wives are usually well treated. They are seldom beaten or neglected, and nowadays a native will often spend a considerable part of his wages on calico for his wife. The women make good wives, and are generally faithful, willing and cheerful workers, and divorces have probably never been frequent.

Unmarried girls and boys are allowed to act very much as they please in regard to their sexual relations. Continence, except when ceremonially imposed on the man, is practically unknown, and the girls are habitually unchaste. The greatest decorum is, however, observed between the sexes, while in public they usually avoid each other. In spite of the prevailing licence, illegitimate children are very rare, and although abortion is undoubtedly still brought about, it seems that even in the old days this practice was less common than might have been expected. Unnatural practices seem to be unknown.

HOMICIDE.

Homicide seems only to have been considered reprehensible when the death of the individual was likely to get the section, village or iduhu into difficulties with the dead man's kin, or the victim was a clansman, relative or friend. In intertribal warfare no mercy was shown to the women and children of a captured village, all were killed^

Revenge was formerly a sacred duty which fell especially to the dead man's brothers and henamo.

Cf. War and Homicide, pp. 121 — 125.

I

Gambling ' 135

Abortion was formerly produced without any feeling of doing wrong.

Strangers were not killed simply because they were strangers, indeed generally speaking they seem to have been well treated. Moresby's description of his treatment by, and of his relations with, the natives in the neighbourhood of Port Moresby, conveys the Idea that the Koita and Motu were kindly, unsuspicious folk\ Later when a Mission was started at Port Moresby nothing worse than some pilfering, blustering talk and threats occurred. In spite, as it appears, of the sometimes tactless attitude of ' native,' i.e. Polynesian teachers.

GAMBLING.

The result of the most careful inquiries showed that formerly the Koita knew nothing of any game in which a gambling element occurred, nor did anything in the nature of betting exist. Yet at the present day all the young, and some of the middle-aged men of all the sections of the tribe with which I am acquainted, are Inveterate gamblers, willing to stake not only the whole of their wages but their personal property as well. As far as I know, they have adopted but one method of gambling. One of their number holds a pack of cards from which he takes a card, and bets are made on the colour or suit of the card turned up. The young adults of the Koita and Motu tribes — the class from which the greater part of the servants at Port Moresby are drawn — will. If undisturbed, spend the whole night playing this game, meeting under boatsheds, or other available shelters, with the result that they are not fit to work the next day. So great a nuisance has the gambling habit become, that recently a regulation was enacted, that no native servant should be out of doors within the precincts of the white settlement after 9.30 p.m. without a written permission from his master.

^ J. Moresby, Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea and the d^ Entrecasteaux Islands^ p. 154 ^/ seq.

CHAPTER XI

TABOO. TABOO SIGNS.

Certain forms of taboo signs have special names, but the general word for taboo as applied to trees and garden produce generally, seems to be tora (M. aurago), though really this Is the word used to signify the taboo sign on coconut trees which can only be erected with the consent of the old men of the village after public discussion.

Bodibo (M. ikivato). This Is the common form of taboo sign on a single coconut or other tree. Of old this taboo was made with magic ceremonial, and If Infringed would bring sickness on the wrongdoer. Ahula thought, that some old men might still use magic In making this taboo, but that recently government influence had so much increased that any medicine used would be made secretly. The taboo sign consists of a wisp of grass, tied In a single knot, which Is not pulled tight ; through the loop of this knot a string is passed and tied round the trunk of the tree.

Garabi (K. and M.) was the name for the ordinary taboo sign applied to a single tree, made by plaiting a series of coconut or sago leaves round the tree trunk, or If this were small, tying a single leaf round It.

The taboos of which bodibo and garabi are the signs may have magical sanction, but whether In any particular case they are * medicined ' or not would depend largely on their maker's fancy. But since there is no doubt that any example of either of these taboo signs may indicate magical protection of the objects to which they apply, they are quite efficacious safeguards, and it is certainly to the fear of the results of infringing their magical properties, that their efficacy is primarily due.

Taboo

Tora is the name applied to the comparatively imposing taboo sign which is put by the side of a path, or in a garden,

Fig. 10. Native drawing of taboo signs.

The translation of a note by Ahuia sent with this drawing is as follovvs : 'This thing is named thus, tora. Bananas and yams, also coconuts and all other thmgs will be carefully watched after the manner of a law. Koita tora, Motu tongue doha.^

and which protects all the coconut palms, or even all the produce of a garden or series of gardens. The tora carries with it no direct magical power or sanction. It is, as Ahuia puts it, 'native law,' and it could not be erected without the consent of the older men of the village, while if infringed its violation would ensure the full force of public opinion being directed against the offender. Two tora and one garabi are shown in figure 10, drawn by Ahuia.

Water was never tabooed, though a tora might be erected by the side of a water hole in order to taboo the surrounding trees.

The track to a new garden, and consequently the garden itself might be tabooed by planting a stick on each side of the track, carrying a length of creeper between, and suspending from it one or more of the knotted wisps of grass, bodibo, to which allusion has already been made, as is shown in figure 10. Here a certain amount of magical protection is implied. A rough and ready, but generally recognized form of taboo on a garden track, is for the owner to cut down a tree so that it blocks the road.

Firewood may be tabooed, even before being cut up, by tying a wisp of grass round the tree, or, after cutting, round the faggots. This is called umuraumura (M. nanainanai) and implies no magical protection. If a man hunting by himself kill any game which it is inconvenient for him to carry, he can safely leave this by the side of a track covered with broken branches, or even slung in the fork of a tree. Here, again, although the covering with branches implies no magical protection, his quarry would not be touched. A Koita calls such broken branches koava ; a Motu would say they were toana.

From what has been said it will be noted that generally speaking little or no difference in respect is accorded to property taboos magically enforced, and to those having only the force of custom or public opinion behind them.

DEATH TABOOS.

Mourning taboos are considered with death and mourning ceremonies (chapter xiv), but besides these there are a number of miscellaneous taboos in connection with death. Those relating to Homicide are considered on page 130, but

I

Taboo in the ordinary way, the neighbours of a dead man, whatever his iduhu, may not go to any new garden until after the lahidairi ceremony (cf. chapter xiv), though they may visit and fetch food from their old gardens. Strangers visiting houses near that in which the death has occurred, must observe the same rule. Ahuia made it clear that the reason for this avoidance was the actual proximity of the corpse, which is considered highly aina, or as the Motu would say helaga. The custom itself is called taubu.

FOOD TABOOS.

Neither among Koita nor Motu are there food taboos binding only on one village, iduhu, or family.

The following fish may not be eaten by young folk and adolescents, under penalty of their skin becoming harsh, which would cause members of the opposite sex to dislike them, daiadai a sting ray, taritari a shark, balala, barubaru, nohu, gudu, napi, dikaka, wairamoku, magoa, kwatakwata, kudima.

For the same reason the intestines of wallaby are not eaten, while the liver is eaten by girls only.

Two fish, beke and gani with spines, which are described as poisonous, may be eaten by boys, but must be avoided by girls, under penalty of their tattoo becoming extremely sore.

The food taboos associated with pregnancy and the puerperium are given on pp. 84 and 86.

PLACE TABOOS.

Except on the occasion of the tabu ceremony (cf. chapter xii) women are not allowed upon the dubu, but I could hear of no other place taboos or holy places, although certain localities associated with the spiritual agencies, called tabu, are rigidly avoided by both sexes. Visiting these might entail evil results, as in the case of the hill known as Hara Tabu (chapter xvi). The names of these places are freely mentioned.

NAME TABOOS.

There are no taboos on the names of the dead, but some relatives and connections by marriage are not addressed by their names, which certain members of the family should not even mention.

Most of the younger men object to mentioning their own name, and when asked it in public, generally allow, or ask, one of their comrades to answer for them.

SEX TABOOS.

Continence is insisted on when making a new garden. If a man so employed approach his wife his yams will grow but poorly. The same restriction among the Motu applies to the ' master ' of a turtle or dugong fishing party, or to any one connected with making new turtle or dugong nets. The sexual restrictions imposed on the captain and crew of a lakatoi are given on p. loi, those connected with pregnancy and the puerperium on pp. 84 and 86.

A menstruous woman may not enter a * new ' garden, i.e. one made during the last planting season, whether it is bearing fruit or not. She may, however, enter and fetch food from a garden of any previous season, and she may fetch water and cook food. She occupies the same house as her husband, but sleeps apart from him, and she should not leave the house at night.

There is no special ceremony when the catamenia first appear, nor is a girl at this time specially avoided or considered especially dangerous.

CHAPTER XII

CEREMONIAL FEASTS.

Feasts play an important part in the life of the Koita, indeed there is probably no occasion of importance in the life of the individual, the clan or the village, that should not normally be marked by the consumption of food, especially prepared for people who come together for the express purpose of eating it. The size and importance of these meetings vary from small family gatherings, on such occasions as that on which a youth is given his first perineal bandage, to the elaborate mourning feasts bowa, i^cnedair^, and ita the uyUm^] observance of which colours the life of the whole iduhu for '

months. The feasts which are the prominent feature of and may indeed be said to constitute the tabu ceremonial (the occasion on which new dubu are generally built), affect the life of the community for even a longer period, since the amount of food required usually necessitates the making of extra gardens, the produce of which is not gathered till just before the feast.

I heard of only six ceremonial feasts among the Koita of Port Moresby. The time spent upon this subject was, however, too short to enable me to satisfy myself that there were not others, though doubtless those described by my informants are the most important.

The three mourning feasts bowa, venedairi and ita are described in the section on death and mourning, in chapter xiv.

Of the remaining feasts koriko, tabu, and hekarai only the first is of frequent occurrence. It is a comparatively small festivity, unaccompanied by dancing, and consists of the distribution of vegetable food to neighbouring friendly villages. It seems likely that it arose as a convenient way of disposing of surplus food, it being assumed that the recipients would return the compliment, when they, in their turn, had more

1^2 7"/^^ Koita food than they could consume. But as existing at the present day, it Is a highly conventionalised affair necessitating frequent and anxious visits to the gardens, on the part of all concerned, and particularly by the iduhu rohi or rohi ketaike In charge of the ceremony. It is, in fact, an example of those more or less ceremonial exchanges of food that are so common in this part of New Guinea, an example of which, on a smaller scale, has already been given on page 79, In the chapter on marriage. Of the hekarai ceremony, it is difficult to say anything, except that it clearly takes place as the result of rivalry between two prominent men, each of whom has a following in the village, and that its preliminaries curiously resemble those of the hiri, the annual trading voyage to the Papuan

Gulf.

The tabu is probably the most important feast of the Koita, Motu, and the neighbouring folk, and a feast bearing the same name, and presenting essentially similar features, but often conducted on an even ampler scale. Is found among the coastal tribes of the Central Division eastward as far as the Hood Peninsula. At these feasts the whole country side assembles, and they are so long recollected that the tabu held by the Dubara and other clans during their migrations under Ova Abau were remembered, and even used In argument, to fix the order of their migrations. Few tabu are now held among the Koita and Motu, indeed the tabu held in 1904 at Pari was distinctly In the nature of a revival, and It Is pleasing to record, that in spite of the veneer of civilization attained by the coast natives of the Central Division, it was a complete success.

THE KORIKO FEAST.

In this feast all the iduhu of the village take part. Bananas are gathered and brought Into the village by the men and the men only, of its constituent iduhu, who pile the bananas In heaps, called teri, In front of the house of an iduhu rohi. The progress of the ceremony will be best made clear by an account of a koriko seen at Hohodal in October 1904.

By 2 p.m. about 100 bunches of bananas had been collected In the village, these were piled In eight heaps In the village street, opposite the house in which Taubada and

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Ahuia live. A large number of yams were also piled on the verandah of this house. Each of these had one or more pieces scooped out of them where ' eyes ' for planting had been removed. These ' eyed ' portions, it was stated, would be planted as seed yams after two or three days, while the yams themselves would be distributed with the bananas. Every man contributes a share of his yams, but not all the yams which provide seed for the next crop are distributed at the koriko, nor are the yams which are given away necessarily the last of the year's crop.

After much consideration by the old men, the teri were divided into smaller heaps called karoa, under the supervision of Taubada and Ahuia. To each karoa was added a quantity of yams, the heaps so constituted being distributed among the neighbouring Koita villages. Although of old the Motu would have received no karoa, an exception (in Hohodai) is nowadays made in favour of the people of Hanuabada and Tanobada, because they are such near neighbours. They, however, do not make return karoa, as it is not a Motu custom, but %.^^ Hohodai a present of sago. Eighteen karoa were made, of these Kilakila, Pari, Akorogo, Korabada, Guriu, Hanuabada and Tanobada received 17, one, it was said, was sent to the local Polynesian missionary, while the equivalent of two karoa were kept at Hohodai for consumption there.

The karoa that were distributed were carried to their recipients' villages by Hohodai youths who left one karoa on the verandah of each of the iduhu rohi of those villages, where the bananas and yams would be cooked and eaten by the men of the village. At Hohodai the food reserved would be cooked on the verandah of the house in which Taubada and Ahuia live, and eaten by all the men of Hohodai.

Plate XV represents a drawing by Ahuia of the koriko ceremony. The uprights represent sugar cane, the heaps of yams and bananas are sufficiently obvious, but I do not know the contents of the open pots, of the kind called 7iau, which are drawn by the side of the yams and bananas. As these pots are generally used to hold boiled vegetables, e.g. in mourning feasts, it seems reasonable to suppose that they contain cooked yams\

^ No sugar cane or boiled vegetables were distributed at the koriko seen in October 1904.

144 ^^^^ Koita

THE HEKARAI CEREMONY.

The hekarai is a feast, or more correctly a series of feasts, brought about by the deliberate rivalry of two men, each of such importance as to be able to secure the unqualified assistance of every man in his own iduhu, and so perhaps each of the two men is necessarily an iduhu roku The rivalry is, however, of a perfectly friendly nature, and there is no animosity between either the protagonists or their followers. Hekarai are rare ; Ahuia could recall only one, that between Taubada and Hedu Ramika, the latter was iduhu rohi of Keakone idtihti of Hohodai village, as Taubada is of Dubara iduhu, and it was this hekarai that he had in his mind when giving the information, which with Captain Barton's assistance, has been elaborated into the following description. The preliminaries, as already noted, bear a striking resemblance to the preliminaries of a lakatoi equipment. One of the protagonists boasts that he has a better garden than his rival with more food in it. Early one morning, soon after his boast, the challenger descends from the platform of his house and sits on the ground in front of it, where he makes a little fire and smokes. He is called baditauna. The man who has been challenged has been on the look-out for this, and he comes and squats down by the fire. He is called doritauna. The adherents of both baditauna and doritauna muster, and join their leaders, and all smoke. For the next six days or so the baditauna and doritauna each make presents of food to the other on every possible occasion, it being each man's duty to make a return present as soon as possible similar in quantity and kind to that received. The food is given and received quite politely, and is eaten by the recipient and his family. On a given day, a series of vertical poles are erected along one side of the village street, and between these, at a height of six or eight feet from the ground, horizontal poles are lashed. This arrangement is called geva (M. eva). The rivals have meanwhile been collecting all the bananas possible from their own gardens and those of their friends. Since the greater part of the villagers on an occasion such as this espouse the cause of one of the rivals, practically all the bananas from the village gardens are requisitioned, and the villagers themselves are divided into two opposing parties. Each side begins to

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The Hekarai Ceremony 145

hang its bananas at one end of the geva, and a mark is made where the bananas of each party end. The bananas are left upon the geva for one or two days. At night, the youths of each party watch their portion of the geva, because if they did not, their opponents would assuredly remove some of their bananas to their own part of the geva. At the time of the feast, each of the rivals collects all his bananas and sugar cane, and makes them into a huge pile, called tarirako, at one end of the village. The rivals exchange much valuable property, such as toia, doa and the string bags called kiapa, each straining every nerve to meet and out-do the other. No pigs are killed on this occasion, but hunting parties go out and bring in plenty of wallaby.

If the two piles are adjudged even, the hekarai is finished, if not, another hekarai must be held, and it was stated that a number of hekarai might be held until the rivals provided an equal number of bananas, when the contest finished. Large numbers of yams are also heaped together by the rivals, and although only bananas are counted in determining whether the hekarai shall or shall not be final, it is etiquette for the man who provides the smaller number of yams to take an early opportunity of presenting his rival with a number of yams equal to the difference between their heaps. Plate XVI is one of two drawings of the hekarai feast sent by Ahuia. The resemblance of the streamers — which can scarcely be other than iduhu dagina (cf. page 51) — to certain of the pepe displayed on lakatoi (page 104) is very striking. The thickness of the pole or board on which the bananas are supported is not particularly noticeable in this drawing, which, allowing for the amount of decoration not mentioned by Ahuia, conforms to the account given by him. That this support is broad enough for men to stand upon, and that they do so at some part of the hekarai ceremonial, is, however, shown by the other drawing, which depicts a number of men on the support.

THE TABU FEAST.

When a tabu is suggested, the condition of the gardens is very thoroughly discussed in the village, and if it is determined to give it, certain games, native drawings of which are shown in Plate XVII, are held. The first of these, veriabuto

(M. keveH kanai), is a tug of war, men against women, but unfortunately I did not learn what steps, if any, were taken to render the contest a fair one. In the second game, bureka (M. libainaino), it appeared from the account given by Ahuia that sides were formed, each of which tried to push through the other \ Everyone took part in these games, even the idiihu rohi, but I could not learn that there was any difference in the amount of actual or ceremonial work for the tabu falling on the victors and vanquished in the bureka.

Next day each woman of the village goes to her garden, and brings back a certain amount of food, which she cooks and gives to any man who is not a member of her family or closely connected by marriage. On the following day the men go fishing and hunting, each man giving his spoil to the woman who had given him vegetables the day before. The woman cooks this food, and the man and woman may eat it together, but it was stated that she generally eats it with her own family.

A platform called pata (K. and M.), about the size of an ordinary house verandah, is then built under the direction of the tabu biagu, the manager or 'master' of the tabu. Probably 'master' most nearly expresses his functions. It is his business to see that all goes well, to meet difficulties as they arise, to feed his helpers liberally, and, when necessary, to spare neither his own gardens nor those of his clansmen. He initiates the tahutahu, the borrowing of pigs, in which the whole village joins, which insures a worthy show of pork when the great day comes. To this end the villagers go round to their relations and friends of other iduhu and villages, and borrow as many young pigs as possible, which are brought back and carefully fattened. When the pata is built, the

' I surmise that this is the game described as follows by the Rev, Dr Brown.

"Then the natives had one of their own games, which they enjoyed, but which seemed to us a very rough one, though very pretty. First a lot of girls formed themselves into a compact body on the beach. This was supposed to represent a ship. They commenced singing, while the young men and boys went and provided themselves with small branches, which they waved over their heads, making a hissing noise, which was supposed to represent a gale of wind. Then, advancing _ from a distance of two or three hundred yards, they came on, gradually increasing ■ the pace, until they all rushed at once upon the interlocked body of girls with the object of breaking them apart, and so destroying the ship. The game then resembled a regular hard scrimmage at football. The girls stood firm for a while, but gradually the superior weight of the attacking force prevailed, and the ship was broken up The boys then formed the ship, and the girls represented the storm, but failed to break the ship, though for some time the issue was very doubtful." George Brown^ D.D.^ Pioneer Missiojiary and Explorer^ An Autobiography^ p. 470.

The Tabti Feast 147

villagers, regardless of clan, go to their gardens, dig yams, and cut down bananas. The former are boiled, and piled with the latter on \h^ pata. A number of men and unmarried girls ascend the pata^ among the men the tabu biagu. The girls on the pata always include daughters of the tabu biagu and other important men of the clan, as well as the daughters of the sisters of these men. Married women are not allowed on the pata. The unmarried girls, on the other hand, are necessary, or at least it is customary for them to be there. They stand with their feet almost still, as in the common Motu and Koita dance, and gently swing their petticoats from side to side as they flex and rotate their bodies from their hips.

Care is taken to let the surrounding villages know when \h^ pata will be finished, so that when the food is piled on it there may be representatives in the crowd from each village. Then the tabu biagu calls out the name of the iduhu rohi of each clan in the friendly villages, and presents a bunch of bananas to the youths of that clan, who come forward and take charge of it. Such dances as vaura, konedoi and vaurabada are then held, and many of the visitors join in them.

This preliminary ceremonial practically amounts to a public intimation that a tabu will be held, and that the matter is well in hand.

If the clan which is about to hold the tabu possesses a dubu in a good state of repair, the boards forming its platform are examined and perhaps renewed, so that it may stand unlimited stamping and dancing. If the dubu be considered old or unsuitable, a fresh one is built, and in every case a ladder similar to that leading into a house leads to the dubu platform. At times, a number of weak clans may unite to give a tabu as they may join to build a dubu. Things are always so arranged, a new dubu being built if necessary, that the dubu faces the direction of the iduhu or one of the iduhu not giving the tabu, but who it is expected will give or share in giving the next tabu^.

The dubu itself is dressed and piled with food to its utter-

^ Or perhaps in some cases the dubu should face toward the iduhu who gave the last tabu in the village. As a matter of fact tabu were when possible held alternately by the iduhu of the village, but iduhu so often joined for this purpose that the givers of the last past and the nearest future tabu are often the same folk. In some villages indeed this division into two feast-giving divisions is so marked as to lead to the idea of the existence of a dual grouping of the clans which subsequent experience does not confirm.

10-

most. Young trees are cut down, and their branches lopped, except a few which are cleaned and left at the top. These are planted round the diibu. A palisade of sugar cane is built round each tree, the canes being planted so closely together that a long cylindrical crate is formed round each tree trunk. These spaces are crammed with yams ; four or five bunches of bananas, and numerous coconuts, and panicles of areca nut are hung to the branches of each tree. Between the trees, great bundles of sugar cane lean against the dicbu, and other canes laid across the dubu horizontals form a sort of roof. Fishing nets full of yams and coconuts are piled under the dtibu, and bundles of sugar cane are erected on each side of the ladder leading on to the dubu platform, on which are heaped bunches of bananas.

The native drawing of Gaibodubu (Plate XVIII), the old dubu of Dubara iduhu of Hohodai village does not do justice to the amount of food piled on and round the dubu, but Plate XIX, showing the new dubu at Pari prepared for the tabu held in 1904, will enable this to be appreciated\

On the morning of the feast pigs are killed on the ground near the dubu, cut up, and their flesh piled on the platform. This is done by the tabu biagu and his clansmen, who then wash in the sea preparatory to painting and ornamenting themselves. When fully decorated, they assemble on the dubu, and there eat a portion of pig flesh that has been specially cooked for them.

Meanwhile members of the neighbouring villages collect in the bush around the village giving the feast, but they may not enter until a conch shell, called kibo, is blown. The men of each village keep more or less to themselves, and although the men are fully armed, fighting, which at this stage is contrary to etiquette, does not seem to have often occurred, even in the old days. The sound of the conch, which is blown on the dubu is the signal for the visitors to enter the village. In the old days, fights often arose at this time, though little damage appears to have resulted. As the visitors poured into the village beating drums and brandishing spears and clubs, they were met by a number of couples of men, each member of each couple holding one end of a bundle of sugar cane with which they knocked down the spears and clubs, as represented

^ f'or this photograph, and that reproduced in Plate XX, I am indebted to Mr G. O. Manning.

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Women with yams at the tabu feast

The Tabic Feast 149

in Plate XVIII. It was not considered good form to continue hostile demonstrations after the men with sugar cane had been through the crowd. Behind these men came a number of women swinging their petticoats, and bearing a large yam in each hand which they presented to the idichu rohi, and to the other important men of the visiting villages. The beginning of this part of the ceremony is shown in Plate XX. During the entry of the visitors, girls who are game, 7iana or roro to the tabu biaguna have climbed the dubu posts, and standing on the horizontals (as in Plate XVIII) or clinging to the carved capitals, with their feet on the collar or ledge carved below the capital, briskly swing their petticoats. In the old days when the dicbti were sometimes extremely massive, temporary platforms on which the girls stood were at times built round the capitals.

The men of the feast-giving clan or clans sit quietly on the dtibu while their visitors enter the village, and as the excitement subsides squat round the dubu where they all chew and smoke. Presently the tabu biaguna calls from the djtbu to the women of the visitors to gather round the dubu. His clansmen then descend and fill their visitors' big string bags (kiapa) with yams which have been stored in the houses for this purpose. This is called gidu (K. and M.), and it is a point of honour to fill the bag of each visitor to overflowing
After this the women stand aside or squat on the verandahs, and the feast-givers again mount the dubu. The idtchu rohi and the grown men among the visitors are now presented with food, each receiving a piece of pork tied to a bunch of bananas, which is lowered at the end of a piece of rope, as the recipient's name is called. The men take no notice of their presents, which are carried away by youths of their clan. After this, joints of pork are similarly tied to lengths of fishing net containing yams. These also are let down at the end of pieces of rope, but for these each man's name is called thrice, the bundle of food not being let down low enough for it to be reached from the ground until the third cry. This time they are easily taken, and when every adult has received his share his women carry it back to his village, and the dancing

1 A somewhat diagrammatic representation of this part of the ceremony is shown in the native drawing, Plate XVIII. In reality the women squat all round the dubu, and the fillmg of their bags by the hosts is an extremely brisk and lively process.

begins. Two small feasts limited to the clan or clans giving the tabu take place after it. The first is held the day after the visitors have left, when the men of the clan giving the tabu have a small feast. The lower jaws of the pigs killed at the tabuy which have been specially reserved for this purpose, are eaten on the dubu. The second feast is held when the ciub2c decorations and the supports of the remaining yams, coconuts and sugar-cane are taken down. This feast is held on the verandah of the tabu biaguna ; both men and women take part in it, but it is not held till a supply of wallaby and wild pig-flesh has been obtained.

CHAPTER XIII

SONGS AND DANCES.

Dancing takes place at almost all feasts, and most dances are accompanied by songs and the beating of drums or the thudding of dancing sticks and the shaking of rattles. These rattles are made of the seeds of Pangium edule and are often tied to the dancing sticks, while small wooden gongs, called sede, take the place of drums in the dances associated with the hiri. Dancing is not limited to ceremonial occasions, and the majority of the Koita dances are not obviously pantomimic and, according to their exponents, are not imitative or memorial in intention. Many dances may be performed at any time, and for amusement only, but I believe that certain dances seldom take place except on the appropriate occasions, to which, according to general feeling, they should be restricted. Indeed it seems that at one time, before the spread of white influence, particular dances may have been less freely and commonly danced than at the present day.

The majority of dances are accompanied by special songs, and songs appropriate to particular occasions are grouped together to form classes, which have definite names.

Such songs are usually sung together, or used on like occasions, though one or more of these may be regularly used for some other and different purpose. Songs are generally identified by their first few words, from which both dances and songs are often named, thus a particular song of the class berasi is known by its first word Iruregaio.

Both songs and dances are strictly copyright, and In the old days the unauthorised use of a song or dance might have led to war. The only legitimate manner for people to obtain the right to a dance or song not their own was to buy It, as the folk of Hohodai village bought the right to use the song maginogo.

Four generations ago, Abau Rohi, grandfather of Taubada, when visiting the then Yarogaha village on the hill above the present Hohodai site, saw this dance and was so greatly impressed by it, that he asked the Yarogaha chief, Keta Vahu, to visit his village and teach his folk the dance and song. After some discussion this was agreed to, Keta Vahu being handsomely paid in axe blades, pearl shells, arm rings and boar tusks for sharing his right to perform the dance with the Hohodai people.

The names of the different classes of songs are :

Berasi — songs sung while fencing gardens, also sung as dirges.

Ehona (M.) — Lakatoi songs, learnt from the Motu by the Koita, sung on lakatoi^ also sung by the Motu as dirges. As these songs have been borrowed by the Koita and are only sung by them in connection with the hiri, the annual trading journey to the Papuan Gulf, they are given at the end of the account of the hiri on pp. 1 16 to 118.

Vaura — vaura^ vaurabada, gerukome^ konedoi sung at dances and feasts especially at the tabu feast.

Maginogo, maisi and bago are songs which are not classed with any of the above. Maisi is sung at the funeral feast ita^ at hekarai and as a dance song. Maginogo is sung at the funeral feast turia, at hekarai and as a dance song for some months after a death. Bago is sung by homicides (cf. p. 130).

The origin of most of the songs is utterly obscure, and the words for the most part unintelligible. A few songs are however of recent invention. Taubada remembered Keta Morata, the composer of the song Ogonimabia, as an old greyheaded man when he was a little boy. The Vaura group of songs are said to have travelled up the coast from the east, their words do not resemble modern Koita.

Maisi and the berasi song iruregaio are said to come from Idu ; maginogo traditionally comes from Koma, cf. p. 44.

Berasi. The meaning of Iruregaio is entirely unknown ; it goes : Iruregaiyo ninivaiyo wabu mageta reremo ro gaiyu sorure gaiyo ninivayo taitau mageta gosigorogaio.

The following song Irimabera is sung when fencing a garden, but only when the singer or singers have passed the preceding night with a girl. When sung as a dirge it does not imply recent cohabitation. With each word is given what was stated to be its meaning in the song; iri is the Koita sunblind, made of dried banana leaves which makes a comfortable mattress.

Irimabera yaganuyo (on an; iri we sleep (on)

irigaitabu another iri yaganuyo we sleep n oikegin uegore we with somebody (on an)

irimabera iri yaganuyo we sleep

Songs noikedobiegore we with girls (on a)

gabumabera bed of iri gabugaitabu (on) another pile gatanuyo we sleep yaganuyo we sleep irima behi we sleep tog kaihu kaihu we sleep in couples gatanuyo we sleep gatanuyo we sleep.

gatanuyo we sleep behi behi we sleep in couples yaganuyo we sleep gabuma kaihu we sleep together

Another berasi song, ogonimabiay was made by a Yawai boy, who on his return from an assignation with a girl of Ogoni village was overtaken by a storm.

Ogonimabia an Ogoni girl

Ogoniguma road from Ogoni rauraveni the south-easterly rain orotoveni heavy rain ivaimagatege sent a message mairigaio go by that road goromorogaio rain falls bobigorogaio a. heavy rainfall.

enemagarata (to) a young Venehako man goromorogaio rain fell dobigorogaio rain falls heavily

Vaura. My informants could attach no meaning to the following songs belonging to the vaura group ; they were said to have come from the East, but whether up the coast or inland, was quite uncertain. It is said that the words of which they consist are not Koita and do not even resemble that language.

Gerukome : Gerukome koma yoweyauwa pasiyauwa reye gerukojne

Gerukoine kome obukome obukome koine yewaauwa madpreauwa beyo

Obukojne obukotne koine. Vaura: i. Vaura kira yereivaiori kekevakira gamiinaiyori

Vereuenagi bonaruago nekwatunagi bonoritago

Ruago ritago.

2. Guninagoia mairigimo gimo sebainu gosi gosi guninagoia sinaugurena Gabamureva sebamutura beriegaba weawagitu nomurabta

Gaba nonibene vanigumiro

3. Mainoseri varoyagara geinugarai Gediimukapa varinagewa boromatugu Botauguya yawaguyo tagunabeiia

4. Vanigemu geguyamore vanigemu yegusiago Diroyabora turoguyamu taborokuni inataguyamo Yaunebari yaunebari

Kipiriporu porutaia iregas kaparaporu

Porutaia irorae kipiriporuta

Kaparaporiita nama?tagoroaiya kerukeke raiyano kekeraiiano

Maisi rnaiteiiwa rawauenaia maiteuwa

Maiteu raukere rokaia yainu ovenio

Marere maiteu rauhero rohaia kouko venio marere.

Bago. Vasese o vaoru rai e rikoroape vasese vaoru raw Vasese o vaoru rai o ii>ainaiape vaoru raio Vasese o vaoru raio Karama ape casese vaoru raio Kakaraia kakaraia e kuna?na kutna aiainu kunamana Kukureke kukureke o Revana viro revana viro Kawa 7iiro j/iakana kuku reke kukureke o Konevabada avaunage morana eko vaia rave raia rave Nave veie nape vori a paparuna napevorio sie vori e paparu7ia.

Mr S. H. Ray has kindly looked through these songs concerning which he says :

'Be7'asi\ cf. Toaripiy"^r^z sing, «^^/ grow/

' Bago ; some words seem to show the Toaripi past tense in ape, and paparu-na and mora-na suggest the Toaripi mora leg and papere moon ; nave in the last line suggests the Namau nava a fish.'

' Irimabera ; yaga sleep, nu ending of present or indefinite tense, gore a suffix meaning " with," noi or noihe we/

^ Ogonimabia) guma occurring in ogoniguma means **road." Of the last five words, only two contain the word vent meaning ram.

The movements of the Koita dances are generally slow, the dancers commonly moving with short prancing steps in parallel columns, which extend laterally, keeping their distance apart, or more rarely alternately advancing and receding. Small groups often detach themselves from the main parallel rows, and stand at right angles a few paces apart, or from this distance advance towards the parallel columns following these up as they retreat before them. Men and unmarried girls take part in the dances, in all of which the most perfect rhythm is maintained. The men only beat drums or carry dancing sticks. Some idea of the precision of their motions can be gathered from the fact that not only do the fingers of each man rest on his drum in the same position, but in instantaneous photographs they seem to exert the same amount of pressure on each tympanum. The rhythm of these dances is further exemplified by the movements of the girl dancers, which consist essentially of a slow rocking of the pelvis on the thighs, each leg being alternately slightly flexed and the heel being lifted from the ground. At the same time the muscles of the back give a rotatory movement to the pelvis causing the petticoat to swish from side to side. When dancing in columns, the movement is usually slow and dignified, but when one or two girls dance by themselves behind, or at

Dances the side of the columns, it is customary for them to dance so violently, that the component strips of the petticoat tied over the right hip, fly up in a spray of fibres, allowing the tattoo on the buttock and thighs to be seen. In a general way these dances of the Koita accompanied by drums resemble the dandes of the Motu, but those which are danced to the accompaniment of bamboo dancing sticks, appear to be unlike any dances known to the Motu.

Maginogo was the most popular of the bamboo dances with the Hohodai Koita, indeed this was frequently danced for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and was the only one of their own dances that I saw them perform spontaneously, though Koita often joined in the dances got up for amusement by the Motu.

MAGINOGO.

Of all the songs mentioned to me by name, it was only possible to obtain a story of origin for maginogo, which is now regarded as the dance song of the Yarogaha section. It has already been stated that, according to legend, the ancestors of the Yarogaha and Gorobe sections of the Koita originally inhabited a giant erimo tree in the neighbourhood of Nebira, that is. Saddleback Hill, a few miles from Port Moresby. Within this tree the song maginogo was invented by the men of the Gorobe section, the Yarogaha dance song at that time being one known as mada^. For some reason these sections exchanged dances, so that mada came to belong to Gorobe, while maginogo became Yarogaha property. Legend states that within the tree maginogo was sung without any accompaniment such as drums or bamboo dancing staffs, but when it was danced outside, it was felt that some accompaniment was required. In vain were drums and sede tried, then two sticks were beaten together, and it was only when all these devices had failed that a Yarogaha suggested bamboo staffs, which were tried, and proved satisfactory.

The dance maginogo begins with the formation of two parallel columns in which men and women as far as possible alternate, though more males than females took part in the particular dance seen. Two men (A) stand a few paces from one end of the columns which they face, the dancers in the two columns (B) standing at right angles to these men though

^ In Koita this word has no meaning, but in Motu it signifies bandicoot.

facing each other as in figure 11. Group A advances toward group B which moves sideways to meet A. When A reaches B the two men part, each passing up one side of the parallel columns, the members of which follow in series. Sometimes the two men (A) pass one behind each of the parallel columns, at other times they do not separate but pass together between

^-» T y T V T 'J' T

♦-^ •-» •-^ <K3 ^-# <0<-#-e-0 -^-#

A. 3. ©

Fig. II. Vi\2Jgx2S^ oi maginogo.

the columns. Whichever manoeuvre is adopted, all the dancers follow the ' A ' man who initiates the movement, until two columns are formed in which each dancer stands facing his neighbour's back, when a half turn inward brings the dancers into two parallel columns facing each other again. Then, after some moments' dancing, i.e. singing and stamping of bamboos, the terminal members of one end of the two columns pass inwards, and accompanied by some of their neighbours, pass down the whole length of the columns the members of which again follow these men round until, as above described, two parallel lines are again formed.

I

Plate XXI

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The tahaka figure of the dance maginogo

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Maginogo i^^'^

In another figure three rows of three men advance between two parallel columns which face each other. When the front row of three has reached the end of these columns, all halt and vigorously stamp their bamboos upon the ground.

Variants of these figures are repeated again and again, until at the end the bowl figure tahaka takes place. This part of the dance is represented by the native drawing reproduced in Plate XXI.

Concerning the origin of the bowl figure the following story is told.

One day a man, whose name has been forgotten, was working in his garden, covering the young bananas with dry leaves to protect them from fiying foxes. On his way back to the village he saw a stone, afterwards named Eyamune, with an oval depression in it, resembling one of the wooden food bowls, called dihu. This hollow was full of peculiarly clear still water; he drank some, and washed his hands in the remainder, a portion of which he splashed over his body. He then combed his hair, sat down, and made a song about this incident. On returning to his village, he found his people dancing; he did not join them, but when they had ceased, he told them what he had seen, and the song he had composed about it. This story and song so pleased them that it was added to the dance, and maginogo thus acquired its most striking figure.

Plate XXII is a portion of a drawing of Eyamune sent me by Ahuia. Unfortunately no account was forwarded with the drawing so that the significance of the dark areas is not certain, but presumably they are patches of jungle and streams on the hill side. As danced in Hohodai the bowl figure began by a number of dancers arranging themselves as in the lowest diagram of figure 1 1. The four end men of group A took a pot with some water in it (which as far as I remember was brought them from one of the houses) and placed it on the ground at t, at the side of, and a little distance from, group B ; they laid their bamboos on the ground by the bowl, and moving in a squatting position around it, splashed its contents over themselves. The bowl was then taken to x and the figure repeated, the bowl bearers then passed to j^ and again repeated the figure before finishing the dance by passing out between the parallel columns of group B. This dance was seen on more than one occasion and each time minor differences in the action, order, and number of the figures were noted.

Besides magmogo there are other dances performed with bamboo staffs; two of these dances are called aume yado and kwikzvz respectively, the former was danced on the occasion of the ' durbar ' of the tribes of the Central Division arranged by Captain Barton in 1904.

r

CHAPTER XIV

FUNERAL AND MOURNING CEREMONIES.

When a Koita dies, messengers belonging to the dead man's local group are sent to his relations, both Kolta and Motu, In all the neighbouring villages. These come to the dead man's village without painting or decorating themselves In any way, and Immediately on arrival proceed to the dead man's house, where they ' kiss ' his face, I.e. they touch his face with their noses, but do not Inspire as they do when

• kissing' the living.

Soon after the death, a younger brother, or falling him the henamo of the deceased prepares the corpse for exposure on the death chair, bisa. The face and pubes are shaved, and a new sihi Is put on. The face Is oiled by being rubbed with grated coconut and decorated with lines of red paint, reaching from either lower eyelid outwards and backwards to the angle of the jaw and to the ear, as well as from the edge of the scalp In the middle line to the tip of the nose. Through the hole In the nasal septum Is placed a nose ornament oi garahota wood, on both arms are shell armlets, round the neck strings of tautau, and pendant on the breast Is hung the boar's tusk ornament doa ; ga7ia encircle the leg just below the knee, and above the ankle, and are also slipped on the upper arm. Meanwhile the corpse has been lying on Its back on a mat, in the house, its head supported In the lap of the widow, who sits with one leg extended on either side of the corpse. Men and women surround the corpse, and watch and wail during the night, and sing as dirges the songs maginogo and maisi, as well as any vaura or berasi^. Wailing Is kept up all night, during this time no one may eat, though smoking Is allowed. At sunrise the wailing stops, and the visitors disperse to their

^ Cf. pp. 152, 153. For a dead Motu, the lakatoi songs ehona would be sung.

i6o The Kotta houses for rest and food, friends from other villages eating on the verandah of the dead man's house, being invited to do so by the widow. After this the dead man's nana, roro, and iha make the bisa or death chair, which consists of a rough wooden framework of about the height of an ordinary European chair, and so arranged as to support the body in a sitting posture. The plank which forms the seat of the bisa is long enough to seat three people, so that in reality a rough bench is prepared, as is shown in Plate XXIII. The corpse is carried to the bisa, which is generally, but a few paces distant from the house of the deceased, by folk who may be of any iduJm so long as they are not closely related to the dead man. The deceased is placed in the centre of the bisa, his wife sitting on the bisa on his right side, and his eldest sister on his left : if he had two wives, one would sit on each side, the sister squatting on the ground at the feet of the corpse. Villagers and friends form a half circle facing the bisa, and for about an hour beat drums and sing dirges, after which the dead man is carried back to his house by the men who bore him to the bisa, his head on both occasions being steadied by his eldest brother. With certain exceptions, the dead man's chief possessions, all carefully broken, are arranged by the side of the bisa ; the centre of the bundle thus formed consists of broken spears thrust into the ground around which the other articles of property are wrapped and tied. The whole is called tobi, and presents the appearance of an unusually large faggot, standing upright. Plate XXIII, is a photograph taken at Guriu by Captain Barton of the bisa and tobi of one Maigo and in this photograph the constitution of the tobi is well seen. The actual objects noted were spears, arrows, bows, a bamboo pipe, a netting needle, a dancing staff of bamboo called ageru, coconut drinking cups, a drum, koda and dakwai, nets for stopping the rush of a pig and catching mullet respectively, and a couple of broken pots'. All these were so thoroughly broken as to be quite useless, but the dead man's bible — a mission has been established in Poreporena for 25 years — which entered into the composition of the tobi had not been torn up. Valuable personal orna-

• The broken objects enumerated were collected when the tobi was destroyed, and with the exception of the pots which were smashed in transit, have been mounted as nearly as possible in their original position in the British Museum, in one of the wall cases of the ethnographical gallery.

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Plate XXIV

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Exposure of corpse on bisa

Death and Mourning Ceremonies i6i merits and such costly nets as that called reke appear to have always been excluded from the tobi.

Plate XXIV is a native drawing of a bisa ; in the original, the alternate feathers of the feather ornament on the head of the corpse are coloured red, as are the lines of paint on the face. The object to the side of the bisa is a papaw tree (Caric a papaya) in fruit, on the opposite side of the bisa there is drawn a disproportionately small tobi attached to the uprights of which a drum and two nets can be recognized. Three of the women are represented as wiping away their tears, and the man on the left in the foreground has just lit a baubau\ in the original illustration the glowing end of the brand in his right hand is indicated by a patch of red colour.

A tobi is made for a married man, a married woman and an unmarried male if adult, but not for an unmarried girl or a child.

After the body has been carried back to the house, the dead man's sister removes all the ornaments from the corpse with the exception of the gana and nose ornament. The siJii is also left undisturbed. The ornaments removed are placed in a string bag, of the kind called kiapa, and will eventually be divided among his near relatives. The corpse is again

• kissed' by everyone present, and is then lifted on to a new mat in which it is tightly rolled, the bundle so formed being roped to a pole longer than itself for convenience of carriage.

Meanwhile the grave has been dug, this may be done by anyone, the diggers receiving a present of food to which each man establishes his claim by giving to one of the dead man's nana or roro (usually a brother) a piece of stick which the latter collects into a bundle and keeps as a tally. Any men not nearly related to the dead man may bear him to his grave, but the bearers give place to others at almost every other pace, since the body is now highly aina. Ahia is used in this instance to indicate a contagious quality which is harmful to those in contact with it, but the danger of which is lessened by shortening the time of exposure to its influence.

Formerly people were buried in the village in front of their houses. This was done because ' man no like pig and dog, take him [i.e. pig or dog] long way from village, must bury him in street.' For the first four nights after a burial, i.e. till the feast venedairi has been held, fires were lit on and round the grave, around which the dead man's wife and near

S. N. G. II

relatives slept. His other relatives and friends slept in his house. This, called ahatabtcbu (M. tauhalo) was said to be done as a sign of sympathy with the widow left alone by reason of her husband's death. Now that the government insists on burial in a recognized graveyard remote from the village, the grave is lightly thatched over to keep off the rain, and no one sleeps on or near it, but all the relatives sleep in the dead man's house. This change is due partly to government influence, and partly to fear, ' too much he 'fraid long way from village.'

BOWA FEAST.

On the first or second day succeeding a burial, a feast Bozua (M. Powa) is held. Members of all the iduhu cook in their own houses as much vegetable food as they can spare and place it on the ground in front of the dead man's house. His friends and relatives from other villages also contribute food, so that a large amount is collected. His nana and roro, having first paid the grave diggers, send a portion of the food to the iduhu rohi of other iduhu, and divide the rest among those present.

VENEDAIRI FEAST.

On the fourth day after burial a much more important feast venedairi (M. lahidaili) takes place. Until this, fires have burned nightly on the grave round which the dead man's wife and nearest relatives formerly slept. It did not appear that any individual fire was kept burning for the whole four days, but that the fires were lit nightly, as people gathered round the grave.

The dead man's clansmen collect and cook a large quantity of food which is deposited in front of the house of the deceased. Much of this is given to the men who dug the grave and carried the corpse to it, that is to say the greater part is distributed among those who have helped in the death ceremonies, the remainder being eaten by the other men present. After this the dead man's brother's wife blackens the widow from head to foot, and her head is shaved.

The dead man's coconut shell spoon [bedi), his comb (geni), and his lime gourd [popou) are broken, and fragments of these, together with his armlets [gana), his perineal band,

Death and Mourning Ceremonies and Jocks of his hair (carefully preserved for this purpose when cut during life) are made into small bark cloth parcels, and worn by the widow round her neck. Nowadays this custom is falling into disuse, but the outside of this ceremonial object, buibul^xs still sometimes thickly set with trade beads //a/iw* represented in the old days by the more valuable drilled shell discs called ageva.

Bidbui are extremely difficult to get, figure 12 is a

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Fig. 12. Collar made of dead man's perineal band.

drawing of one collected by Captain Barton and now in the British Museum. The thick part, which goes round the neck, consists of the dead man's perineal band wrapped in bark cloth, to this his lime gourd, an armlet and the handle of his coconut shell spoon are attached, as well as three small bark cloth bundles of hair. Besides this the widow wears a petticoat reaching to her ankles, and a frondet of beads, made of the seeds of Coix lachry7nae, from which pendants of coix beads reaching her shoulders hang in front of each ear.

II

On her body she should wear two netted vests called yarasz, one above the other, the outer being ornamented with cotx seeds, and Eclectics and cockatoo feathers. On her head she should wear a network cap similarly ornamented, which is also called jK<^r^^/. The habit of \Ne'ds\xi<g yarasi has for some years been in abeyance, though the other mourning customs are for the most part faithfully followed. Plate XXV represents a widow in full mourning costume, in the original drawing many of the Eclectus feathers attached to the yarasi are indicated by red chalk marks. For six months the widow wears her mourning ornaments ; during this time she may show herself but little in public, she should not speak much or loudly, neither may she walk along the main village street nor leave her house by the front verandah. There are no cooking or fire taboos on the widow, but she and all other relatives of the dead man must abstain from such articles of food as he specially cared for until after the feast, called ita, some six months later.

I am Indebted to Captain Barton for information which seems to show, that in addition, a number of folk abstain from various articles of food, In order to have a big supply at the ita feast. Captain Barton's translation of an account written for him In Motu is as follows : * To some people, food is sacred by reason of the man's death. At the time of assembling... some resolve (to abstain) from eating yams, some from bananas, some from pork, some from wallaby, some from fish, some from coconut, some from sugar-cane, some from tobacco. This Is done in order that they may be able to bring together plenty of the sacred^ food when the feast is held. After that they can eat as they please regardlessly.' The only point that Is not absolutely clear, is whether this abstinence begins at the time of the venedairi, though I think there Is no reasonable doubt of this.

For the six months between the venedairi and the ita (M. turia) any one of the dead man's clansmen, who kills a pig or wallaby, or catches a big fish, or In whose garden a specially good bunch of bananas ripens, will bring the food to the bisa, where it will be hung for a while, then cooked by men, but not by women, and eaten In front of the bisa by men of any clan.

After the bananas have been cooked, the stripped haulms

^ Presumably helaga corresponding to the Koita aina.

Plate XXV

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Koita widow

Plate XXVI

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The robumomomo ceremony

Death and Moiirnijig Ceremonies 165

(a number of these haulms are to be seen in Plate XXIII) or in the case of the pig the lower jaw, will be left hanging on the transverse pole above the seat of the bisa.

ITA FEAST.

At the end of about six months, that is approximately the time required for a banana crop to ripen, the ita feast is held. The dead man's kinsmen, viz. raimic, 7iana, rorC, oj(i.[»».u. j)^^, siba, and the relatives of the widow collect as many i^m .ic. J vams and bananas as thev can. the mass of these are made into a number of piles in front of the dead man's house, each pile being topped by some green coconuts. It appeared that each pile was composed of food presented by two persons, and it is certain that a great part, if not the whole of this food, is presented by the folk who undertook to abstain from special articles of food at the veriedairi feast. Some of the bananas and yams are boiled and placed in open pots {7iau) by the side of the heaps. The number of 7iau put by the side of each heap varies from four to ten. A little later, after the heaps have been inspected and appreciated by every one, the men who have provided them distribute the food among the relatives. But the most important part of the ita is the robiirnomorno (M. wabickzuadaia) ceremony, by which the widow is relieved of her mourning. The dead man's brother's wife, and often his sister, go into his house, carrying a clean petticoat of the ordinary pattern which the widow now assumes. Thev then lead the widow down the house ladder to the side of the piles of food, where they strip off her mourning ornaments, and, taking a number of green coconuts from the pile, open them one after another, pouring their water over the widow and rubbing her down, thus removing the black pigment. After this the widow returns to the house ; the bisa is burnt but the tobi is not yet destroyed\

Plate XXVI is a drawing of the robumomomo ceremony. The attendant women are about to remove the widow's yarasi. One of them holds a half coconut in her hand, the other a brush with which to remove the pigment. The objects in front of the group represent piles of vegetables. About

^ The mourning petticoat worn by the widow until this ceremony is burnt about this time, but I cannot say whether this is done privately or at the feast.

a month after the ita, the dead man's clansmen go out hunting ; when a pig or kangaroo is caught, it is brought to the village and left hanging in the dead man's house over night. In the morning a clansman places two or three bunches of bananas on the dead man's verandah. A couple of clansmen cut up the pig or wallaby, peel the bananas, and boil the mess in a large pot on the ground. When cooked, the food is turned into a big dish on the dead man's verandah, where it is eaten by the villagers, including the dead man's clansmen, but not his near relatives. When the food is finished, the dead man's brother makes some such speech as this : ' We have been eating for and in remembrance of the dead, now let us worry no more about him since he has ceased from among us.' The tobi is then cast into the bush at the border of the village, where it speedily rots.

The complete costume of a man mourning for his wife is now never worn in the Port Moresby villages where the widower is usually content with blackening himself all over. In the old days cassowary feathers were worn, as well as a special form of headgear from which a long pendant hung down the widower's back.

CHAPTER XV

MAGIC AND SORCERY.

SORCERY.

It is probably no longer possible to obtain an accurate account of the more esoteric portion of Koita sorcery and the magic that accompanied or was allied to it. That the Motu believe, or believed, that the Koita had the power of exorcising certain malevolent agencies seems clear, while perhaps the Koita have, or had, the same belief about the Koiari. It did not seem that the Koita were generally credited with producing pestilence, or even with causing individual cases of sickness, but there is no doubt that in the case of sickness a Motu would generally send for a Koita man, or more often woman, to treat him. This was generally done by charms, and a big fee would often be paid. In 1898 a woman, with a considerable reputation as a sorcerer, was given three baskets of yams, a fishing net, and ten shillings to cure a man who was not very sick. Her method was to pass a charm three times round the patient's head and body, muttering incantations the while\ Romilly has described at length the treatment of a child, in which the singing of incantations to exorcise a malevolent spirit was combined with massage and suction, terminating with the extraction from the patient of a number of foreign bodies. ' She (the sorceress) ...made her appearance clothed in the dress of the country, and bearing round her neck a small bag of charms. Immediately she commenced operations, and at the first sound of her voice a great silence fell over the whole village.. ..The incantation finished, she made some passes over the child, which seemed to have the effect of sending it to sleep.... After this... she suddenly produced the barbed point of a spear,...

1 This charm, shown in Plate XXVI, figure i, consists of the small carved coconut-box from the Papuan Gulf which had been split in half. The two halves were tied together and reddened.

from the child's body, and shortly afterwards a large stone... was produced in the same way. She next extracted several mouths-full of blood which she spat out on the floor. It looked like blood, but was, I believe, chewed betel nut. In a bona fide performance the spirit at this period should have entered into her, and no one would have dared to remain in the house. She would finally, during one of her convulsions, have rolled off the house into the salt water, and the spirit would then have departed. This last part we took for granted, as she said she was not now a " Papalau " woman and the spirit would not come to her' The incantation was in 'an almost or quite obsolete form of the Koitapuan dialectl' It was translated into Motu by the sorceress, and thence into English by Chalmers :

• There are three spirits appealed to. The first is Devase, the second Horumagi, and the third, a female spirit, Vaganamagi. All got hold of the woman, and they insisted that she should speak. She put her fingers in both ears, and then on her eyelids, and she spoke. She then forbade all people from inland being near, and she prayed, *' Inland people (spiritual) forbidden, inland people (spirits) forbidden, spirits of the grass forbidden," and she then says : '' I alone open myself, my stomach, I now open, and now the prayer comes my stomach being opened." When she has finished that, she then makes the sick one sacred, and she herself eats some food provided by the people of the house where the sickness is, and for eight nights she may drink no water, only coconuts. She eats no fish, and at the end she is sacred. Then the spirit says ''stand up," and she does it, and calls the name of the spirit Devase. She then cries out '' Devase, come come ; Devase, come, oh ! come to this house." The spirit answers "swing, oh! swing the rami (petticoat) at once," and she says "Swing, yes swing, and swing in this house does Devase's wife," and repeats it several times. When she has finished she descends to the road, and then she blesses the house, and says, *' I bless the house, with my hands I bless it, with my presence I bless it, when you fish be blessed, when you seek turtle or dugong be blessed, and when you fish for all kinds be blessed." Then she praises Devase and says to all the people, " Come quick, come quick, oh! Devase, come quick. In the darkness come quick your

^ From my Verandah^ pp. 91, 92. ^ Op. cit. p. 94.

Sorcery 169

wife calls you to come. Come all, come quick, come to this house." The sorceress and spirit Devase then ascend to the house. The sorceress partakes of food prepared by the people, and the spirit teaches the woman (sorceress) what she is to say. When standing over a sick person she says '' Return oh spirit, return ! {repeat nine times). Enter this person again. Come, oh ! come, come, oh ! come {repeat six times). Enter this person again." She then strikes her foot with force on the floor, and sits down to mesmerise the body, and says : '' Away sickness, away sickness {repeat four times) ; open eyes, open eyes {repeat four times).'' She then strikes on the floor with her hands, and the spirit of life returns and the sick one is better^'

In this, as in all Romilly's accounts of spirit invocation, there is a certain vagueness which is increased by his lack of distinction between what he saw and what he was told.

It seems, however, that the object of the incantation was essentially to restore the wandering sica (M. lauma) to its owner. But it appears that before an incantation could be effectual it was necessary for both the sorceress and her patient to become 'sacred,' doubtless aina (M. helaga), and that to produce this result one or more spirits were invoked. Of these, Devase apparently became immanent in the sorceress, who alludes to herself as the wife of Devase, and it is apparently only by his presence and aid that she is able to conjure the missing sua (called by Romilly ' spirit ' or ' spirit of life ') back into the sick individual. It does not appear to me that the words ' away sickness ' towards the end of the incantation necessarily imply that the sickness is looked upon as an actual entity, or due to the entrance into the body of a definite spiritual agency. Apart from the question of translation, it were vain to expect a strictly logical pathology or therapeusis in the stone age. In fact it was clear that two aetological beliefs co-existed. The account of the removal of foreign bodies already quoted shows that they were considered capable of causing disease, and this is confirmed by the incantation, given by Romilly', which the sorceress is supposed to mutter while removing the foreign bodies. On the other hand I was constantly told that the great factor in non-epidemic disease was the loss of the sick individual's sua.

' Op. cit. pp. 94, 95. ^ Op. cit. p. 96.

lyo The Koita

• When she takes things out of the body in sickness, such as stone, wood, rope, &c., she says ''Stand up, sickness {repeat three times), come out, evil {repeat twice), come blood {repeat twice), flow freely " {repeat three times). When she has finished, she produces the sickness in blood from her, or wood or stones, or pieces of spear, or whatever she has willed. The person feels better, and then she says " Be strong stomach {repeat once), be strong chest {repeat once), head ache no more {repeat twice) y ear hear {repeat twice), live body {repeat twice), oh open eyes ! " {repeat three times).'

Romilly also gives the following incantation :

' For driving away sickness she (the sorceress) cries in a loud voice to the inland spirits " Stay inland {repeat often), look not at me {repeat often), let not your eyes on me rest {repeat) ; inland rest your eyes {repeat), remain with the rocks {repeat), on the mountains stay " {repeat). The spirit of sickness leaves, and the sorceress says, *' Let my hands be clean {repeat), let my feet be clean " {repeat). Then she goes out by a circuitous route and returns to the village^'

It is not, however, stated when this incantation was used, or whether it was appropriate to sporadic or endemic sickness. Probably it applies to the latter, for it seems to tally with what Romilly says elsewhere of an epidemic which raged in Hanuabada in 1886. * Torches were burnt, horns^ were blown, and the hereditary sorcerers sat up all night, cursing. ...Then it was decided that the land spirits were working this harm, and the whole population moored their canoes out in the bay, and slept in them at night ; but still the people died. Then they returned to their village and fired arrows at any moving object they saw, so that many native dogs came to an untimely endl'

Ahuia gave the following account of one method of killing people by magic, the sorcerers practising this method being called vada^ though they were clearly not spirits or other non-human beings.

One or more (often two or three) men who were sorcerers would follow their intended victim to his garden, or into the bush. There he would be speared and clubbed, and when dead cut to pieces. One end of a length of rope is

^ Op. cit. p. 95.

2 There are of course no horns in British New Guinea, probably conch shells are meant.

3 op. cit. p. 78. * Cf. also pp. 187, 188 and Plate XXXI.

Popular and Minor Magic 171

then looped round the dead man's hand or knee, while the opposite end is steeped in certain 'medicine' [gorto). This 'go along rope make man get up,' i.e. the virtue in the medicine passing along the rope to the dead man would restore him to life. Often the medicine of the sorcerer who first endeavours to revive the dead man is not strong enough. Then his colleagues would be asked to help. The dead man on his revival is dazed, ' he mad,' and knows not where he is, or what has befallen him. He is told that he will die shortly ; he does not subsequently remember this, but manages to return to his village, where his friends know what has happened to him by reason of his feeble, silly condition, though the victim himself does not know, and can give no account of what has occurred. According to Ahuia in November 1904, there was in gaol a Koiari, Yohia Wagira of Gas^ri, who had killed i/r/. rtu/i at least one man by sorcery. This man was in prison under remand on a charge of sorcery, and Ahuia made no secret of his fear that the government would not keep him in prison long enough, and looked forward with apprehension to his release, as he had threatened to put ' medicine ' in all the wells when he came out. That this medicine was magical seemed clear, and I do not think that Ahuia considered that poison in the European sense was ever used\

POPULAR AND MINOR MAGIC.

Apart from the more esoteric magic and sorcery already alluded to, there is a large body of magic which is essentially popular in character. Standing as it does in relation to the daily recurring wants of the people, it is practised to a greater or less extent by every adult. This class of magic is for the most part frankly sympathetic in action and includes, or included, garden, hunting, fishing and fighting magic, but it also embraces certain magical processes which cannot be included under the above headings. The magical element consists in the employment of certain natural objects, immanent in which is a virtue communicable under appropriate circumstances to certain objects with which the first series of objects are brought into mediate or immediate contact. This virtue which may be considered to be ' static ' in the charm-

^ Jequirity {Abnis precaiorius) is almost everywhere abundant but its poisonous properties do not appear to be known, or even suspected.

stone becomes ' dynamic ' when communicated. Thus a yam charm brought into appropriate contact with seed yams produces a good crop, but the seed yams, or the harvest produced from them, can not pass on the quaHty to another lot of yams.

Although charms of the kind under consideration are highly valued, there was, as a rule, no particular difficulty in acquiring specimens, though it was sometimes necessary to pay a comparatively high price for them. This was especially the case with the bark of certain trees brought from the Papuan Gulf to be used as hunting charms and for which the Koita themselves paid highly. I have personally collected a number of charms in the neighbourhood of Port Moresby and eastwards along the coast as far as Kerepunu, while at Port Moresby the magnificent collection of local charms got together by Mr D. Ballantine was examined and discussed with Ahuia and other Koita'. The charms in this collection, which is now in the British Museum, coincide generally in character with those I have seen and collected in the Central District from Port Moresby to the Hood Peninsula.

ORIGIN OF CHARMS.

Probably the majority of charm stones are picked up in the district in which they were used. Some, however, may come from the Papuan Gulf as does the bark of certain trees. Although I could hear nothing of the use of charm stones of the usual type at Jokea, in the Papuan Gulf, where I spent a few days in 1898, there are in the Berlin Museum a couple of the usual yam charms, one of which (No. 2>^']']) is said to come from Vailala, while the other (No. 3892), a black water worn stone, has red lines on it, resembling in general character the red lines so often seen on the heads of Gulf clubs. Both these were presented by Chalmers, who notes that at Port Moresby, 'and other parts along the coast they have many charms used in planting, fishing, etc. These are obtained from Vailala'-.

• I examined and made notes on this collection while in Port Moresby in 1898 as a member of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition. I take this opportunity of thanking Dr Haddon for allowing me to make use of information then acquired. To Dr J. E. Marr and Mr W. % Fearnsides my thanks are due for information relating to the nature of the stones used as charms. My thanks are also due to the authorities of the British Museum for having made for me the photographs reproduced on Plate XXVII.

^ Museum records.

X

Charins

A charm In use by an old woman near Port Moresby for restoring folk to health was seized by the Resident Magistrate in 1898, and proved to consist of the reddened halves of an old broken Gulf coconut charm box, of the usual type, tied together.

The qualities which lead to a natural body being recognized as a suitable charm, i.e. as capable of exercising a beneficial effect on a particular class of object, are generally (i) similarity in contour, or in other qualities, to the object to be influenced, or (11) rarity, or (HI) unusual shape in not very uncommon objects.

As examples of the first class may be cited the general shape of many yam and banana charm stones, especially those yam stones In which the regularity of their usual roughly spherical or oval contour Is broken by small, Irregularly rounded, projections, resembling the sprouting eye of a yam (figure 1 3 <^, b, d). Cassowary claws and crocodile teeth are adjuvant to other charms, and are of value themselves since the animals they are derived from are big and strong.

Examples of the quality of rarity alluded to under (11) are the irregular conchellln masses (figure 13^,/) and the fragment of fossil coral (Plate XXVII, figure 2), the nature and origin of which are quite unknown to their possessors. The origin of the worked tubercles from the shells of species of Cassis appended to the charm In Plate XXVII, figure 3 is also unknown.

Quartz fragments and especially crystals when well formed, are rare enough to be considered charms. The unusually fine crystal shown in Plate XXVII, figure 4 was a banana charm. There are two common moulded glass stoppers, such as are used to close bottles of cheap scent, in the Ballantlne collection. One of these (Plate XXVII, figure 5), in association with the more usual charm objects, was exposed on the hill side above its owner's garden, where the rain water would flow over it, and thus acquire added virtue to Increase the fertility of the garden.

Stones with natural holes in them are examples of class (iii).

Charms are sometimes found by means of dreams. Under these circumstances it Is the spirits [sua) of dead Koita who send the dream, and who usually Indicate where the charm is to be sought, and for what it is to be used. This was the history given to me of a number of the conchellln masses already alluded to : ' Man he dream him he find him along

The Koita reef and although no native ever had the least Idea that they were derived from any marine animal, the microscope shows that these charms are in fact * blisters ' of great size, which probably come from the shells of the giant clam Tridacna gigcis. Rom illy mentions an instance of a spirit, who in his sleep

Fig. 13. Koita charms.

presented a sorcerer with certain charms which would produce rain and abundant crops^

Certain charm stones — as far as my knowledge goes these

^ Op. cit. pp. 76, 'J'].

i

Agricultural Channs 175

are always of quartz — are so highly charged with magical power that it is not considered safe for them to be touched with the hand, even by the man who is about to bring their power into play\ One charm of this sort which I saw was kept in a small bamboo cylinder out of which it was lifted by means of a bone fork, the pointed end of which was thrust through the loosely netted covering which surrounded the stone. Unfortunately I could not ascertain for what purpose this charm was used.

AGRICULTURAL CHARMS.

When planting coconuts a few leaves of a tree, called abekeru, are placed under the coconut. This tree bears a large quantity of fruit, which is not however eatable.

Yam and banana crops are supposed to be favourably influenced by allowing water to drip over certain stones or other charms, and to fall on the seedling yams and banana suckers before these are planted.

Chalmers gives the following incantation which should be repeated while this is being done though I believe this was not always considered necessary.

Asinanari daudau, asinavari daudau^ asinavari daudau. Huevara daudau^ huevara daudau^ huevara daudau. Bedovari daudau^ bedovari datidau., bedovari daudau. Naevari daudau^ naevari daudau^ naevari daudau. Eogovari daudau., eogovari daudau^ eogovari daudau'^.

Yam stones are rounded, oval or oblong, and almost always waterworn (figure 13^); they usually consist of a volcanic or highly metamorphic rock, or a basic tuff More rarely yam charms consist of pieces of trachytic larva, or waterworn fragments of vein quartz, or even the large irregular hollow ' blisters ' which probably arise in the giant clam [Tridacna gigcis). When these blisters are used as charms they are sometimes reddened, and water is left in them for a few minutes before being sprinkled on the yams.

Among the yam charms sent by Mr Ballantine to the British Museum are waterworn pebbles of the following minerals :

Serpentine, a diorite or hornblende schist, ophitic diabase,

^ Cf. chapter xxiv on Magic and Sorcery among the Roro-speaking tribes. 2 ' On the Manners and Customs of the Tribes of New Guinea.' Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow^ Vol. XVlii. 1886.

augite andesite, iron pyrites and a not obviously waterworn piece of chert.

More or less spherical stones with a single slight conical or rounded projection are especially valued as yam charms. One such specimen has been completely reddened. Dr Marr thinks that these stones have been derived by weathering from the dumb-bell shaped stones (figure 13 >^) which are probably always volcanic in origin. These latter are very highly prized ; it was alleged that the ownership of one of these charms was alone sufficient to ensure the abundance and excellent quality of the yam crop, and it is not necessary for water to drip from them on to the seed yams.

Certain oval, highly polished, stout, elongated stones were particularly valuable (figure 13^). When a specially big yam was dug up It would be touched with one of these stones. It would then be put away. Later, it would be found that, thanks to this procedure, many shoots had formed on It, and when these were planted, more large yams would result.

The following are examples of banana charms in the Ballantine collection :

A waterworn fragment of fossil coral.

A more or less elongated banana-shaped waterworn pebble (figure 13/).

A somewhat weathered spherical object, probably a child's marble.

A large mass of crystalline calclte.

Irregular, somewhat weathered pieces of limestone, with transverse and longitudinal lines scored on them.

Waterworn pebbles of limestone, vein quartz and a basic volcanic rock.

A mass of beekite and an Irregular fragment, probably of laterite.

Three waterworn pebbles of a metamorphic rock contained in a netted cover.

A collection of charms consisting of a boar's tusk, two Cassis shell ornaments, a lump of resin, and a fragment ofj titaniferous iron ore, the last two In small string nets (Plate] XXVII, figure 3).

A flattened circular disc of an intermediate or basic laval rough and unpolished, even at the edges. A hole has been bored through its centre, so that it has come to resemble the head of a small disc club. A few ^pirorbis shells adhere

Htmting Charms 177

to its surface, showing that after it had been made, it must have lain in salt water for some time. Water is not sprinkled upon this charm. To ensure a good banana crop it is only necessary to walk round the garden in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock, with this charm carried in the left hand and turned towards the centre of the garden.

Certain charms are considered to have a beneficial effect on everything in the garden, and it appears that their presence in the gardens during planting time is sufficient to produce this result. An example in the Ballantine collection consists of four pieces of a resin, and a spherical waterworn pebble, each in a separate net, two echinus spines complete the charm (Plate XXVII, figure 6).

Chalmers records that the following incantation * is repeated in the plantations ' at the time that * the yams are just above the ground.'

Sinari kenikeni^ sinari keftikeni, sinari kenikeni. Hueri kenikeni^ hueri kenikeni^ hueri kenikeni. Kuela kenikeni., kuela kenikeni., kuela kenikeni. Naera kenikeni.^ naera keniketii^ naera kenikeni^.

HUNTING CHARMS.

Hunting charms, generally speaking, consist of the bark of roots or trees, or of shrubs having an odoriferous or strongly tasting bark. Before hunting pig, wallaby or cassowary, scrapings of these barks, boiled with sago or other food, are given to the dogs. The efficacy of the charm is increased if pieces of mullet are added to the mess, because these fish jump ' quick and strong ' and these qualities are especially desirable when hunting cassowary. According to Ahula, the use of some of these barks as charms was learnt from men of the Papuan Gulf whence many of these charmbarks come, a valuable object, such as a small axe, being sometimes paid for a piece of bark a few inches square.

Stones removed from the stomach of the Goura pigeon are also used as hunting charms, as are stones said to be found In the stomachs of pigs or alligators. Before going hunting a man would gently strike his dog's teeth with these stones.

^ ' On the Manners and Customs of the Tribes of New Guinea,' Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow., Vol. xviii. 1886.

One of the carpal or tarsal bones of a pig is sometimes worn in the arm band while pig hunting, this is supposed to compel distant pigs to approach, and a hunted pig '^driven a long distance, will presently turn back towards the hunter. When hunting wallaby, a man might partially blacken his face with charcoal made by burning the odoriferous bark of a tree. No reason could be discovered for this practice.

FISHING CHARMS.

In the Ballantine collection there are two irregularly fractured pieces of quartz crystal. Both show well marked striation. Two nicks, obviously purposeful, have been made in one of the edges of the larger specimen. A firestick is applied to one end of the charm, until it is judged to be sufficiently hot to make a corner of the net smoke when momentarily held against it, in this way the nets are charmed immediately before being taken to the beach. The following are other fish charms in the Ballantine collection, apparently they were used by placing them in contact with the nets.

(i) Two lumps of quartz ; one irregularly fractured the other waterworn ; both are in rough string bags which are connected by a piece of string.

(ii) Two irregular pieces of quartz in rough string bags similarly connected.

(iii) An irregularly fractured piece of quartz which is connected by a short piece of string with a string knot to which are attached ^w^ small netted string bags containing charms and two other charm objects. The latter are a piece of resin and an irregularly fractured piece of jasper or jasperlike rock. The five netted bags contain respectively a slightly polished pebble, a clam {Tridacna) pearl, two clam pearls, fragments of resin, a fragment of quartz. The whole charm is shown in Plate XXVI 1, figure 8 and one of the pearls in figure 13 [m),

DUGONG AND TURTLE CHARMS.

The dried claw of a large raptorial bird is left under the spread out dugong net for a few minutes before it is used, or fragments of a gum resin^ (Plate XXVII, figure 7) are placed

Perhaps more than one kind of resin is used. I have seen samples varying in colour from bright amber to dark brown.

i_

War Charms 179

on glowing embers in the canoe, so that the fumes rise through the net held above the smouldering mass. In the same way fragments of gum resin are burnt under turtle nets, which may also be treated by leaving fragments of quartz under them for a few minutes. The sexual restrictions imposed on the leader of a turtle or dugong fishing party have already been referred to on page 140.

WAR CHARMS.

spears would be rubbed with ginger, or stabbed into the roots of this plant, to make them go straight. When guns were introduced the belief was extended to them. At one time when Ahuia was a * shooting boy,' he used to carry a small piece of ginger root in his pouch with his cartridges, in order that his gun might shoot straight. In spite of the belief in the general efficacy of ginger, it had, however, been discovered, that no amount of magic would turn a poor spearsman into an accurate thrower.

When fighting, a piece of the bark of a tree with specially tough wood was held in the hand along with the handle of the shield. This made the shield strong, and prevented it splitting.

Chalmers gives ' the following prayer ' used before battle by Mabata 'a great man in the tribe, and a kind-hearted fellow, though a sorcerer,' who said that it made ' the fighter's hands hang down with weakness, and their knees tremble.'

Tuanugu i ae 7nai^ tuanugu i ae mat, tuanugu i ae mat.

Koinanugu i ae mai^ koinanugu i ae mai, komanugu i ae mai.

Vatigu i ae niai^ vaugu i ae mai^ vaugu i ae mai.

Korubuie^ korubuie.

Tuaurn e ae a^ tiiauru e ae a.

Gorigori e ae a, gorigori e ae a.

Kuru e ae «, kuru e ae a.

Gaubu i ae^ gaubu i ae.

Suuri I ae ??iai^ suuri i ae mai^ suui'i i ae mai.

Guboioboio^ guboioboio^ guboioboio^ guboioboio.

Koieri gatnia a^ koieri gamia <?,

Gairiaki boioboio, gairiaki boioboio.

De umu ba ba^ de ti?nu ba ba^.

LOVE CHARMS.

Charms of the usual type, composed of a group of objects, .each of which is usually contained in its separate string net,

1 'On the Manners and Customs of the Tribes of New Guinea,' Proceedings of ^the Philosophical Socieiy of Glasgow, Wo.yiWUl. \2>Z6.

12 — 2

i8o The Koita were said to be love charms, though unfortunately the method of using them was not clear. A piece of quartz was sometimes used as a love charm ; one fragment shown to me, obviously the oblique broken-off top of a prism, would be immersed for a few minutes in the milk of a young coconut, and while moist rubbed over his face, by the youth using the charm, who naturally thinks intently of the particular girl he desires while he is doing this, and also when walking about the village or dancing. When the girl sees the boy the charm begins to work, the girl feels drawn to him and usually responds to his advances. It seemed clear that this charm would work only on the particular girl desired, and not on other girls, and this was said to be due to the fact that the boy was continually thinking about her.

WEATHER CHARMS.

' They [the Koita] are supposed to be able to prevent rain from falling. Last year was one of prolonged drought. A Koitapuan village was said to have been the cause, and a party of Motu ultimately went to wreak their vengeance on... that village. Some eight or ten were killed, and as the drought had long continued, rain soon followed this murder' The Koita are or were supposed to be able to influence the weather over a considerable distance of coast line. In 1876 the returning hiri fell in with bad weather, ' The sea became rough, and they were obliged to throw a good deal [of sago]

overboard to save their frail canoes A tribe from Hood

Point had been waiting for a share of the sago, and were angry at the small quantity, but instead of venting their anger on the tribe who had been unfortunate, they laid in wait outside the Koitapu village and killed the first man who passed. This was done, they said, to revenge their bewitching the canoes and making them unfortunate^' Romilly mentions an old Koita sorcerer digging up one of the 'most powerful of their spirits [.-^ charms], which produced rain and abundant crops. It consisted of a fragment of pottery and two small round stones from the river, apparently iron nodes I'

This appears to refer to an incident recorded by Chalmers

• W. G. Lawes, ' Ethnological notes on the Motu, Koitapu, and Koiaii Tribes of New Guinea,' Journ. Anthrop. Inst.y Vol. viil. 1887, p. 2>73- ^ Lawes, /oc. cit. ^ Op. cit. p. 76.

JVeather Charms i8i as follows: 'There is a place In the bush near to Port Moresbysacred to the Koitapuans, where no one ever treads ; to do so would be instant death.... The name of this Koitapu place is Varimana. Long ages ago, mighty men went inland to Sogeri, and carried away a very large stone. On the way down many died, and when the stone arrived near the coast range, the whole tribe begged that it might be left at Varimana, lest all should be exterminated. Long after it was carried to Koiari, and they too died in large numbers. Again it was returned, and buried at Varimana, close by a young tree ; the tree has grown very large, and now the stone is quite covered by it, but no one ever goes near the place. The stone before burial was carefully wrapped in native cloth, and bound round with well-made twine.'

'Such was the story often told from generation to generation. When the hunting season came round, and the grass in the vicinity of the tree was to be burned, Mabata, a great chief and sorcerer among the Koitapuans, might be seen clearing a wide space so that the fire might not approach near the tree. A threat by Mabata to dig up the stone and turn it over would at once strike terror Into the whole Motu tribe, and many large presents would be brought him.'

' Time after time we tried to persuade Mabata to let us see the stone, but not until last year were we able not only to see it, or rather them, but to secure them. I offered the chief what was to him a very valuable present, and I accompanied him inland. On arrival at the tree he walked round it, and then asked if I was not afraid ? On my replying — " Certainly not," he got a pointed stick, dug down a little distance through very hard soil that did not appear to have been touched for a very long time, until he came on a piece of an earthenware pot which covered another piece, in which were two small pebbles — the source of all the discomfort of many generations. He was very loath to let me have them, but after some persuasion, and leaving tobacco as a present for the spirit, 1 was allowed to carry them away'

1 ' Manners and Customs of some of the Tribes of New Guinea,' Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow^ Vol. xvni. 1886, p. 61.

DIVINATION.

As far as could be ascertained, divination was only used to discover thieves. The injured individual might consult a sorcerer, who would pull his own fingers while calling over a series of names, and, should a joint crack, the name last mentioned was that of the thief. Or the sorcerer might collect certain * bush medicine ' and put it under his sleeping mat. That night he would dream of the thief.

Plate XXVIII

-■rr-'

^SV

\J

■^%

ife(x7 /tM4^. 7'"-'£

• //

Lotl-K-

.<yi

./

ur^

■Jf"

;'>^

y. y :.^

Urita and sese offering

-f^JjL^

CHAPTER XVI

RELIGION. MYTHICAL BEINGS.

The Kolta believe in a number of mythical beings with various external characteristics, all more or less malicious. The most Important of these, called tadti, Inhabit definite areas, and in some Instances at least have spheres of Influence to which their power Is limited. The places they inhabit are discovered by the occurrence of sickness or death after camping, eating, sitting or urinating in these areas. The bites of insects, and accidental wounds received In such localities, are thought to produce especially severe and intractable sores.

Fits and convulsions called inunu (at least one case of true epilepsy was included under this term) are attributed to the agency of tabu. Tabu may exist in fresh water springs, where they are occasionally seen as starfish or crabs, or in the bush. In the form of snakes \ Tabu have no sua, and their existence is Indefinitely long. A creature called urita, living in wells and springs in the shape of a cephalopod, or in the form of a fish (probably an eel) described as being like a snake, was allied to, or perhaps considered a special example of tabu. The water in such wells or springs is thought to be due to the presence of urita, and if the latter were killed the well or spring would dry up. Plate XXVI 1 1 is a reproduction of a spirited drawing of urita sent by Ahula and probably made by Rabura of Kllaklla. A specially powerful and malicious tabu lives in a spring below Saddleback Hill, a few miles from Port Moresby.

A tabu called Hara Tabu is immanent in a small hill some 150 feet high, about a mile from Waifana village, near the

^ My informants were perfectly certain that spiritual beings having the forms of starfish and cephalopods existed in fresh water and Ahuia told me that he had himself seen something like a cuttlefish in a fresh water spring.

Laloki river. This hill, which Is surrounded by dense jungle and covered with loose limestone rocks, is the only one of its kind in the immediate neighbourhood, but it does not rise as sharply from the surrounding plain as is indicated in the drawing reproduced in Plate XXIX. No native would approach this hill and when a party of white men, of which I was a member, ascended it, the neighbouring Kolari prophesied that evil would follow and that the white men would suffer, or the least that might be expected was that the native gardens in the vicinity would be destroyed by a storm. Further, when Ahuia who accompanied the party was thrown from his horse on the return journey, the fall was attributed to the anger of the tabu. A club or a spear, made from a tree growing anywhere near this hill, is thought to inflict an especially severe wound, though not necessarily a fatal one. If a man killed a wallaby anywhere near the hill, he would take care that none of its blood dropped on the ground, and if the ground were accidentally soiled with blood, the dust and dirt or the leaves on which the blood had fallen would be gathered and thrown into the river. This was done to protect from sickness the folk who would subsequently eat the wallaby, for if the blood or any portion of the wallaby were left behind, it would be eaten, or in some way absorbed by the tabu, who would then be able to Inflict illness on any one partaking of the same wallaby.

Like the urita, this tabu was connected with fresh water, for he originally lived in the Laloki River. Legend tells that one day a man caught a number of fine prawns In the river which were claimed by the tabu who appeared In the form of a huge carpet snake. The man ran away but could not out-distance his pursuer, and finally, when breathless and exhausted, the snake came up with him and explained that he would for the future accompany him everywhere, and entered his house with him. In vain the man besought him to go away, day and night the snake never left his side. At last the man resorted to a stratagem. His fellow villagers went hunting, and killed a number of wallaby ; they erected a barbecue over a big hole in order to preserve their meat, but its supports were so arranged that a single blow on one of the props would let whatever was upon the platform fall into the deep hole dug beneath. When plenty of wallaby had been caught a message was sent to the village where

Plate XXIX

// .

!i :

' Ij

Hill on which lives Hara Tabu

Mythical Beings 185

the man and the tabu were, saying that if they would come to the place where the meat was being barbecued they could have as much as they cared to eat. When they had eaten their fill, the snake was invited to ascend the barbecue and rest there. After he had made himself comfortable, the supporting prop was knocked away, the barbecue dropped to pieces, the tabu fell Into the hole, and all the men present Immediately filled it with earth and stones, and then returned to their village. All that night they stayed awake in their village in fear of the dire vengeance the tabu might be expected to take, but nothing more horrible than a slight earthquake occurred, and In the morning they saw that the hill, now called Hara Tabu, had arisen on the spot where their barbecue had stood.

Should a man who has been in the bush shake with fever, as he often does soon after his return to the village, it is assumed that he has fallen down and become temporarily unconscious In the bush while a tabu had taken his sua.

Captain Barton supplies the following additional example of a tabu. 'A water hole near the Lalokl, named Agure Tabu, is haunted by a tabu. People drinking therefrom must pinch a hole in the bottom of the conically rolled leaf from which they drink, so that the tabu may fall out through the hole. If this is not done, the tabu will enter the man, who will swell up and die. A " South Sea^ " man (name unknown to Ahula) once drank there without this precaution, and he swelled up and died almost immediately afterwards.'

Another tabu, having the power of making folk sick, is regarded as Immanent in a large tree [Ficus rigd) just below Government House. It appeared that this tabtc was thought of as having a human form to some extent, or at certain times.

A special ceremony Is necessary to Induce the tabu to give up a stia which he has captured. Toia, mairjt and other valuable ornaments are tied to a long bamboo, and taken by the sick man (whose sua has been stolen) and his friends to the place where he asserts he fell down and lost consciousness. The bamboo decked with ornaments is called sese, and is supported horizontally by two men over a pot which has

^ The term 'South Sea' man in pidgin English is applied alike to Polynesians and foreign Melanesians. As foreigners were unknown in the country 30 years ago, the fact that the name of the alleged victim was unknown to Ahuia points strongly to the story being apocryphal.

been brought from the village. The pot lies on the ground, and the blades of a kind of grass {siriho), which grows in damp places, are put in it, together with a live firestick. As the siriho crackles and burns, the men standing round the pot, each with a stone in his hand, strike the pot which is thus broken, every one groaning as it breaks. After this, the sese is carried back to the village by the same two men who carried it out, and on the return journey neither the sick man nor his attendants may look behind them.

When he reaches the village, the sick man lies down in his house, and the sese is hung above him. Ahuia volunteered the statement that the tabu kept the sua of the sick man in the ground, and that he would accept the sua of the ornaments in exchange for that of the man, and it appeared that if the exchange had been successfully negotiated, the invalid would get well in a couple of days. The upper part of Plate XXVI 1 1 represents the sese ceremony ; the figure nearest the pot is a sick boy, behind him is a man with a stone in his hand. The mouth of the pot is filled in with red chalk, to indicate that fire and smoke come from it. The ornaments, three armshells, two boar tusks and one Tnaire hanging from the bamboo support carried by two men, are all well seen\ No meaning could be elicited for that part of the ceremony in which the pot is broken.

Children may be attacked by tabu, and for them sese would be similarly made. If a child has convulsions and, as may well happen, falls off a verandah, it is suggested that the child's sua has been taken by a being called Atani Tano who lives in the sea, and in outward form resembles a man with very long hair but without arms or legs. Another being called Godiva resembles a man with long frizzly hair but has no toes on his feet. If his name be mentioned when fishing or hunting bad luck will ensue. Godiva wanders about the bush carrying a short spear, described as being about three feet long, with which he stabs people, who go home, sicken, and die.

Reference is made on page 193 to the almost harmless sua of the forgotten dead who wander about the bush where men have died. Devase (Plate XXX) is the name of a

• liy the side of the drawinfj the following description is written : 'This boy's mother ben to the wartter springs for get wartter and his boy geting ske (sick). So they get all the things to the springs and pot and mak fier insid pot. And boy st down longsid the pot the other boy get stoen for brek the pot.'

Plate XXX

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I

Mythical Beings 187

class of beings without arms and legs, or sometimes thought of as having arms and legs but no hands or feet. All devase have lonof hair.

Vadavada or vatavata are certain creatures who frequent the bush. The Rev. Dr Turner says of the Motu : 'They connect a sudden attack of illness with an evil spirit whom they call Vata... supposed to live in the bush When a person is taken suddenly ill they say Vata has killed him, his life is despaired of, and little or nothing is done with him' But the name appears to have been applied to predatory bushmen, who might fall upon and kill a wandering Koita, as well as to certain non-human beings stated to. kill men with an egg-shaped stone club, make medicine of the body, and then bring the victim to life again. The attempt to bring the victim to life again is shown in Plate XXXI. A man attacked by vada returns desperately weak and ill to his village, where he dies in from three to six days. In form the vadavada look and dress like ordinary men, but invariably travel at night. It was not clear how far the majority of the older men regarded the vadavada as true non-human beings, or how far they used them as bogies to keep the women and children from straying into the bush at night. Certainly some of the older, and almost all the younger men believed in their non-human nature ; others it appeared to me considered them to be Koiari. Although every Koita believes in the existence and harmful influence of vata or vada, the above account shows how elastic is this belief, and how it varies from man to man. As no definite conclusion seemed possible, Captain Barton kindly investigated the matter, and interrogated Ahuia, with the following result, from which it appears that to Ahuia vadavada are sorcerers.

' A vata is not a ghost or spirit ; it is really a man. A vata may enter a house and kill an inmate and then bring him to life again, but next day the inmate becomes sick, and in two or three days is dead. Hence a vata is a sorcerer. Vata also go about during the night and steal. Generally they go in bands of three, four, six or twelve. All vata are sorcerers. If a vata is killed he becomes harmless for all time. A vata (one of twelve) was killed by an arrow one night in Hanuabada. His companion vata took his body

' 1 \V. Y. Turner, ' On the Ethnology of the Motu,' Joum. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. XII. 1878, pp. 470 et seq.

away during the night. There were blood marks on the ground in the morning. News soon afterwards came from Makibiri (a Koiari village) that the dead man {vatd) belonged to that village. Ahuia saw six vata coming to a hunting camp one night, and one of them advanced to the smoking platform and stole a piece of wallaby. He tried to catch him but could not. Ahuia says [he knew] they were vata because [another man by name] Kunia told him so afterwards.'

Romilly refers to three spirits, Devase, Horumagi and a female spirit V^aganamagi, invoked to cure disease by an old woman whom he calls by the Motu term Papalau\

OMENS.

Most of the omens believed in by the Koita and Motu apply to hunting and fishing. It is lucky when going after turtle or dugong if a flying fish leaps into a canoe. A small garfish jumping on the right side of a canoe brings good luck, if it jump on the left side the omen is bad. When going hunting or fishing it is lucky for a man to strike his right foot against a stone or a bit of wood, and unlucky to strike his left. To sneeze once brings luck, but to sneeze twice or three times is unlucky.

Certain creatures are especially thought to betoken good or bad luck. If the cry of a bird called kisahu be heard, a hunting party will immediately go in the direction of the sound and in no circumstances would kisahu be killed. Another bird, yohu, a small green dove, is of evil omen, and if a hunting party meet one of these flying from the direction in which they are going they would immediately turn back and do nothing until the next day. It is said that this bird is sometimes killed and eaten.

The above omens are said to be due to the spirits [sua) of dead tribesmen who send the birds and fish so that men may know what will befall them. In spite of this, ancestors are not, as far as I could discover, invoked before hunting or fishing, though among the Sinaugolo living some thirty miles east of the Koita territory this custom prevails.

^ Romilly, loc. cit.^ pp. 94, 95. Mr Teina Materua of Mangaia, who knows the Motu well, states that a Papalau is one who not only knows why folk sicken and die, and how to cure disease, but he has also some knowledge of the future since he knows when the hiri will return from the Papuan Gulf, and he further does a trade in love charms, besides practising extortion in various ways.

Eschatology 1 89

Certain omens foretell death. If many dogs howl at midnight someone will die, and if the cry of a certain night bird, an pwl or night jar called doa, be heard an old or important man will die. If when fishing a man finds a dead fish of any sort, someone has recently died in his village, or one of his relatives has died in some other village, and if, while the lakatoi are away on the hiri, a small octopus called manegi is found dead, someone on the hiri has recently died.

A sudden disturbance among cockatoos, or the green and red parrots {Eclectus polychloros) is recognized as a valuable sign that strangers were about in the bush, and since predatory Koiari are more likely to be moving through the bush than any others, it is taken as a warning. No nonhuman agency is invoked here : ' Bird he smell man and sing out.'

ESCHATOLOGY.

A man's shadow is called va^Hva (M. laulau), the same word is applied to his reflection in water, and nowadays to his photograph or image in a mirror.

Sua (M. laumd) on the other hand is something which at death leaves a man to lead an independent existence. In this sense sua means ghost or shade, and it is thus that the Koita usually employ the term. But a sua may also temporarily leave the body or be enticed therefrom, its absence causing the sickness, or if unduly prolonged, the death of the individual in whose body it was immanent. In this sense sua corresponds to soul, life, or vital essence of the individual, and evil inflicted on the sua is reproduced in the individual.

Animals have no sua, but information was volunteered to the effect that the reason for a certain magical ceremony (pp. 185, 186) was to give the sua of armshells and other valuables to an offended spiritual agency.

The late Dr Lawes told me, that among the Motu pigs, dogs and wallaby have a laulauma but no lauma. When they die it is their end, for laulauma have no separate existence. Suppose a pig looks very big but when killed appears small, they may say ' la mat laulau7na ida ta gaubadabada^ 'he was big because his laulauma v^2L^^\\(\r) him.'

Koita sua go to a mountain called Idu ; Koiari and Motu shades go elsewhere. The sua on Idu lead a life resembling

I go The Koita that led on earth, good and bad, strong and weak, warrior and child, all fare alike on Idu, but should a body be buried with its nasal septum unpierced, the sua would be compelled to wear as nose ornament {inoki) a creature tehena described as something like a slowworm. Hence a post 77iortem operation would be performed on any Koita who might die with an unpierced septum.

When a man dies his sua goes immediately to Idu, whence it quickly returns, accompanied by other sua who help the newly freed spirit to carry away the sua of objects which the dead man had cared for in this life (this information was volunteered, no questions had been asked). Further, the sua of the articles ceremonially destroyed at a man's death to make his tobi (p. i6o) exist on Idu\ Stca have gardens, houses and wives on Idu, where they live for an unknown period, which is longer than the life of man, but at length they weaken and utterly cease to exist. Perhaps the period of their existence is the time during which their memory or the memory of their names is retained on earth, for some Gaile men discussing this subject suggested that when their names were lost, they also must have vanished. The habits and amusements of the sua on Idu are those of mankind.

Sua are seen in dreams and a few men who would probably be called sorcerers have the power of seeing them in the waking state. They frequently return to their villages and indeed tend to haunt the place of their death. In spite of this and many other statements to the effect that sua are not seen in the waking state, the belief of the majority of the Hanuabada villagers on this point is so indefinite that in 1900 four Motuan girls had no difficulty in persuading many of the Port Moresby folk that they could cause to appear in bodily form a youth named Tamasi, who died in 1897. Three of the girls were aged about sixteen, the fourth about twelve, Mea the leader of the party being one of the older girls. The following account of what occurred was sent to me by Mr Teina Materua of Mangaia, who is in the government service at Port Moresby, to whom my best thanks are due.

' Eventually the mother and relatives of Tamasi paid the long price in native money, the sorceress demanded for her

^ Idu is also the legendary original home of the Badili, Hohodai and Yavvai sections of the Koita, cf. pp. 43 and 44.

Eschatology 191

services. On a certain night when it was arranged that Tamasi should be evoked, his relatives and friends squatted in a house at Taora (behind Hanuabada village) waiting for his appearance. Among the group was myself (Teina Materua of Mangaia) and a Manila man, named Lario. We arranged that if anything material appeared one should hold the "ghost" while the other struck a light. Tamasi's incarnation did appear and went round shaking hands with his expectant relatives; when, however, he came round to us Lario held the incarnation fast while I struck a light, with the result that the supposed dead man turned out to be a Hanuabada girl named Mea. The girl was afterwards brought before a Magistrate's Court and punished with a short term of imprisonment for practising sorcery. Also the Magistrate collected from the sorceress all native money and a quantity of tomahawks and knives which had been paid to her by people in Hanuabada, Pari and Hula for her services.'

Sua may leave the body during sleep ; if a man wake before his sua has returned, he will probably sicken. Sneezing is a sign that the sua has returned, and if a man does not sneeze for many weeks together it is a bad sign, his sua *go long way away somewhere.' That sua return from Idu in an unsubstantial form is due to the disobedience of a woman. Long, long ago the sua of a dead man returned to his wife, he was in a terrible condition of early decay, his eyes bulged from their sockets and his tongue hung from his open mouth beyond his chin. The sua told his wife to boil water and wash him, but she was too afraid to do this. When the sua found that she would not do this for him, he told her that if she had done as he directed other sua would have been able to return in their bodily form, but now this could never be.

Sua on their visits to their former sphere of existence show little benevolence or loving kindness to their descendants. The sua of recently dead folk would punish any neglect or infringement of their funeral rites, they especially frequent the neighbourhood of their houses, and this seemed the chief reason for the ceremonial desertion of houses in which a death had occurred (cf. p. 89). A dead man's stia, it was admitted, would not hurt a relative unless something was done to annoy it, but even a son who did not show I proper zeal for his father's funeral rites would be punished.

while any Infringement of tribal custom might determine the sua to smite the offender with sickness, or bring bad luck in hunting or fishing.

On the other hand sua may be asked to help the living. Dr Lawes records the death of a Motu woman of Port Moresby. 'When the body was laid in the grave, the husband threw himself on it and quietly sobbed out his grief. After a while his friends attempted to lift him off, but he said ** Stop a minute." He then put his mouth to her ear, whispered for a minute or two He asked her when they should go inland hunting, or to sea fishing, that she should watch and protect them'

Children who play in the immediate neighbourhood of a ceremonially deserted house may sicken, and food hung up in a house where a death had recently occurred may cause sickness, if eaten by folk other than members of the family. Sua are said to visit the dubu at feast time where, according to one informant, they eat the variva (shadow) of the food hung up. Folk may talk to sua on the dubu and, although the latter cannot be appreciated by the waking senses, they might answer in dreams. Charms, too, have been brought to men during their sleep by sua, thus Romilly records that an * old [Koita] sorcerer came to Chalmers and said the spirit had appeared to him while he slept and was very angry and put two more stones on his chestl' It has already been stated that bird and fish omens while hunting and fishing are sent to men by the sua, so that the former may know where to go and what to do. At Gaile the spirits of the dead would be seen in dreams before feasts, and they might say that they would be with their descendants. No matter how emaciated or with what ulcers a man had died, in dreams his sua would appear as the man was before being stricken with disease, and would often be painted and decorated for dancing. At Gaile it was held that only the spirits of known and remembered men frequented the dubu, but according to my informants the spirit of De Bori, the reputed founder of the settlement (who was, however, a hillman from inland) was not thought to come to the dubu.

At a feast a few fragments of food would often be left on the dubu for the sua, this was not done with any particular

^ Op. cit. p. 371. ^ From My Verandah, p. tj.

Eschatology 193

ceremony, but one of the old men would generally suggest or see that it was done, after they had themselves eaten. In spite of the close relationship between the living and the dead implied by these beliefs concerning the sua, I could not discover that ancestors were invoked before hunting, or that cooked food was offered to the sua^, nor could I hear of any special connection between the big carved corner posts of the dubu and the sua of the man to whom they belonged, or by whom they had been carved and set up, though as noted on page 62, ownership in them as well as responsibility for their repair descends strictly from father to son.

The fear of his victim which a homicide formerly felt, was in some way due to fear of the sua of the dead man, but when a homicide resorted to the dubu ceremonially, he was said to do so, not to obtain the protection of the sua of his dead kinsfolk, but because in the first pride and joy of his deed he would wish to be in touch with the spirits of the mighty dead of his people.

Certain sua are, however, quite harmless and no notice is taken of them. They appear to be the sua of the forgotten dead who are thought to haunt the bush, and cause only the slightest annoyance to the living, their presence being recognized by their snapping sticks and tickling sleepers to whom, however, they do no harm. According to another account, these harmless sua wander about the bush at night when they appear as bright bluish flames. They are absolutely harmless, nevertheless the living feel afraid when they see them.

CULT OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES.

On the first sight of the new moon the people of the Port Moresby villages give a prolonged somewhat shrill cry which is taken up by all and repeated in chorus. Captain Barton in answer to a letter on this subject says, ' All the heavenly bodies are more or less venerated, or perhaps more correctly, may be said to be regarded with awe. The sun, moon and morning star {hisiu bada) are the chief ones. They only "yell" for the new moon ; I do not know the words used.'

^ These practices do, however, occur among the Sinaugolo some miles to the east of the Koita territory. These folk call upon their ancestors by name while driving pig, and at Kwalimarupu, one of their biggest villages, I heard of the custom of cooking food and taking it to the gardens where it is left for the spirits of the dead {balau). It was said that this was especially done before undertaking a journey.

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CHAPTER XVII

GEOGRAPHICAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS.

The Roro- speaking tribes occupy a territory at the mouth of the St Joseph river extending from Kevori, east of Waimatuma (Cape Possession), to Hiziu in the neighbourhood of Galley Reach. But Hiziu and the village of Nabuapaka^ are comparatively recent colonies ; and Delena, which is in part composed of the descendants of a Rorospeaking stock, should probably be considered the old eastern limit of the Roro district. Inland of the Roro-speaking tribes is a region called by them Mekeo, which is inhabited by two closely related tribes, the Biofa and Vee, and the word Mekeo will be used in this limited sense in this book (cf. chapter xxvi). The common name of Yule Island is Roro, and this is also the name of one Roro-speaking tribe ; but in this volume Yule Island will be called by its English name, and 'Roro' reserved for the tribe.

The Roro-speaking tribes are divisible linguistically into two sections employing slightly different dialects which, for convenience, may be called {a) Roro and (d) Waima, these being the names of the most important tribe speaking each dialect.

The Roro dialect is spoken by three tribes :

(i) Roro, comprising the villages Siria, Pinupaka, Pokama, Baara^ Rerena^ and a portion of Delena.

^ Called Geabada by the Motu.

2 Baara is almost certainly identical with Nikura also known as Arabure.

^ A small colony consisting of two houses only.

13—2

(ii) Paltana, comprising the villages Rapa, Mou, Bioto and Babiko.

(iii) Marehau^ constituting a portion of the inhabitants of Delena.

The Waima dialect is also spoken by three tribes :

(i) Waima (Maiva), (ii) Kevori, (iii) Bereinal

HISTORY AND MIGRATIONS OF THE RORO-SPEAKING TRIBES.

Formerly the Roro tribe dwelt near the coast, at Maiaera, about six miles to the west of Pinupaka and only a few hundred yards inland from the beach. There its members remained until some 35 years ago when, harassed by continual warfare with Waima, Mekeo and Paitana, they moved to Araha, near Pinupaka, where they stayed some ten years, until an epidemic broke out. The majority then shifted to Yule Island, at that time uninhabited ; but some went to Pinupaka, a few settled at Pokama after a short stay at Rerena, and another party went to Baara, near the mouth of the Ethel river, whence some migrated later to Delena, and others to Erierine on Yule Island.

The history of the Paitana tribe resembles in its broad outlines that of Roro, as is shown by the following account of the history of Mou (the most important of the Paitana villages) derived from information supplied by Father E. Joindreau.

At one time the people of this village lived on the plain of Maiaera, near the settlement of the Roro tribes. As the result of more or less continual petty warfare they moved to the bank of a salt water creek called Ararana, about three quarters of an hour's walk from the site of the present Mou. Here they remained until some forty years ago when, as the result of an attack by Elema natives in which many were J killed, they moved to the neighbourhood of the present

^ The whole population of Delena is at the present day Roro-speaking, and has I adopted the Roro form of chieftainship ; but the village at one time contained j members of two tribes in no way closely related to each other. The original inhabitants of Uelena were folk of the nearly related Roro-speaking tribes of Roro and Paitana, but to these were early added members of two iduhu (clans) from the Motu village of Boiera, one of which was called Marehau. It appears that this name has been extended to include both iduhu, and that the Roro-speaking Marehau are in fact the descendants of these Motu whose tribal identity has been completely merged in that of the earlier Roro-speaking settlers.

^ Dr Strong states that Bereina had formerly a dialect (Melan^ian) which differed from that of V^aima and which one old man is said still to know.

History 197

village, forming at first a congeries of small settlements, each presumably occupied by a part, or the whole of a single clan, and so resembling the Waima congeries.

The Waima tribe of to-day is estimated by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to contain about 1 100 people, inhabiting some twenty settlements, scattered over an area of rather less than two miles along the coast, about seven miles west of Pinupaka, and extending nearly a mile inland. Here the low sandy coastal fiat is met by a range of hills, some 400 feet high, forming a continuous ridge between which and the sea, the Waima settlements lie. These hills reach the coast a few miles further west at the promontory called Cape Possession (Waimatuma), the eastern slopes of which constitute the western boundary of the Roro-speaking tribes.

Between Waima and Cape Possession live the Kevori tribe, in a series of settlements resembling generally the Waima congeries, with which in the old days Kevori was more or less constantly at enmity, in spite of a certain amount of intermarriage, and although certain Waima settlements were avowedly colonies from Kevori. Dr Strong ascertained that the Kevori settlements include Ereparu and Kevori, and that the latter is divided Into two groups called respectively Kevori Kone, that is Kevori-on-the-coast, and Kevori Gunekai, i.e. Kevori-In-the-bush.

All the Waima villages with the exception of Araha Ereana are situated close to the coast, but the land belonging to them extends back almost as far as Bereina, a good hour's walk from the seashore, and formerly reached westwards to a place called Ovia Poklna, where Waima and Kevori faced 6ach other, some three miles west of the present Waima settlements. The abandonment of Ovia Pokina is so recent, that a number of coconut palms still exist there, which belonged to folk living in the present Waima villages, until they were sold to the Sacred Heart Mission. There too were buried the men of Waima who fell in the wars with Kevori, which by native computation took place some thirty to forty years ago, but it was clearly later than this that Waima ceased to use land at Ovia PokIna\

The villages or settlements of the Roro-speaking tribes

^ Dr Strong points out that the last serious fight between Waima and Kevori took place in il mostly take the form of a double row of houses facing each other across a bare straight sandy space, some 30 feet broad, constituting the village street, and in the shore villages usually more or less parallel with the trend of the beach. Where two itsubu (clans) are represented in a village, the line dividing them usually runs at right angles to this street, at the opposite ends of which each itsubu generally has its 7narea (clubhouse), each facing towards the centre of the village. Where there are more than two marea in a settlement, one or more of them are necessarily built among the houses bounding the street, when they are usually surrounded by the houses of the clan to which they belong.

Architecturally the villages of the Roro-speaking tribes vary little from each other, appearing rather like Motu villages, except that no houses are built actually on the beach, or in the sea, and at Waima the houses are rarely raised on piles\ The houses are rectangular and oblong, and vary in size, but are usually about twice as long as they are broad. The thatch which slopes fairly steeply to within about 6 feet from the ground, comes down nearly vertically the rest of the way, and is carried round the back to make the rear wall. The front of the house is generally made of the midribs of sago leaves, and through this the entrance is cut so as to leave a raised sill. The door itself is usually made of two coconut palm leaves so plaited together as to form a flat piece of moderately stiff basket work ; the whole lies in one plane and so closes the doorway.

Plate XXXII shows an unusual type of house photographed at Waima in 1898 by the late Anthony Wilkin. Houses which when seen from the front resemble a beehive are not very uncommon at W^airna, though they are never circular. It is however very unusual for such houses to have an ornamental projection built round the ridge pole as in clubhouses^ I cannot give any information concerning this curious house but since the pole which supports the anterior projection of the roof has a carved and painted board attached to it, it is probable that the house belongs to a chief

The Waima build such good fences that their gardens are pig-proof so long as the fences are in good repair.

^ At Kevori too the houses are largely built on the ground.

• Cf. chapter xx for decorated boards on the houses of chiefs.

Plate XXXII

House at Waima t^,.^jijii^''^^^^e^^

History 199

A few of the houses in some villages are surrounded byfences almost as stout and high as those protecting the gardens ; but some houses have only a low fence about 18 inches high, and most have no fence at all. Houses with no fence may be surrounded by, or front upon, a small rectangle, marked out by lengths of bamboo laid on the sand, and kept in position by an occasional peg which appears to represent the area which is sometimes fenced in.

The Roro-speaking tribes are each divided into a number of clans called itsMbii^ with descent in the male line, and whose members until recently adhered strictly to clan exogamy. Although there is not the least doubt that these itsubu are the units which correspond with the clans {iduhu) of the Motu and Koita tribes, the members of many of the local groups of Waima (and I believe of Kevori), show a strong tendency to consider and speak of themselves as forming a unit equivalent to an itsubu, although all the Waima settlements contain only a part, i.e. a local group of one, or rarely more than one itsubu. The feeling among the members of a strong local group that they are really the equivalent of the itsubu seemed to be particularly marked in the case of Roroaiera settlement, a local group of the Arabure itsubu of Waima, although this settlement is not obviously stronger than a number of other Waima settlements.

At the present day a difference is noticeable in the grouping of the houses of the settlements or villages of the clans composing the Roro-speaking tribes, but this difference does not appear to be of long standing, or of great significance. In one series of communities which include Waima, Kevori and Bereina, the people live in a number of small settlements grouped more or less compactly within a limited area. The householders of each settlement in these tribes are usually members of a single itsubu, and so form a local group. As already stated, the folk of Kevori, constituting the greater portion of the Kevori tribe, are divided into two groups of settlements, one situated near the beach, the other a little way inland. In the case of the numerically weaker Roro and Paitana tribes whose habitations are spread over a considerable area, there is a tendency to form compact villages containing representatives of many clans, although settlements consisting entirely or dominantly of one clan also occur.

Allusion has already been made on page 196 to the fact that the present village of Mou at one time consisted of a number of settlements, and it may be assumed that these were clan settlements.

DISTRIBUTION OF CLANS WITHIN THE VILLAGES^

Roro. The names of the Roro clans are Ovia Pokina, Koae Kupunu, Parama Kupunu, Aitsi Noobera and Altsi Kupunu.

The words pokina, kupunu, ovia, which occur frequently in the clan, and to a less extent in the geographical names of the Roro-speaking tribes, have the following meanings:

Pokina — origin, beginning, and secondarily the steering paddle of a canoe.

Kupunu — origin, root, the lower part of the trunk of a tree.

Ovia — chief. Thus Ovia Pokina signifies the stock of the chief, Aitsi Kupunu the origin or stock of Aitsi (literally crawfish but also a widely distributed proper name).

Siria is the largest and most important of the settlements of the Roro tribe, and is situated on Yule Island. At the extremity of the village, separated only by a shallow depression which in the rainy season becomes a small creek, lies a smaller settlement called Erierina which Is usually considered a portion of Siria ; and in this larger sense Siria contains representatives of each of the Roro clans, two of which, Aitsi Kupunu and Aitsi Noobera, are very small and weak.

Pinupaka and Pokama villages each contain a portion of one clan, Parama Kupunu.

Delena village, the mixed nature of the population of which has already been alluded to (footnote, p. 196) contains representatives of Koae Kupunu, Ovia Pokina and Aitsi Noobera clans.

No information was obtained concerning the two-house settlement of Rerena, or concerning Baara.

Paitana. The villages of the Paitana tribe are Mou, Rapa Bioto and Babiko the latter being sometimes known as Paitana. These four villages contain eleven clans the

• The information given under this heading will also be found tabulated in the lists of the villa;jes, clans, clan-badges and club-houses of the Roro-speaking tribes given at the end of chapter xx.

Distribution of Clans 201

names of which are Mou, Paitana, Korena, Altsi Kupunu, Mainahauna, Meauri, Watiwati, Ovia Pokina, Sivotaina, Akavaru and Bereina. Like the Roro, the Paitana build their houses upon piles usually from 3 to 5 feet high. Mou, the largest and most important of the Paitana villages, contains seven itsiibu. These are Mou, Herina, Korena, Mainahauna, Paitana, Mare Kupunu, and Ure Kupunu. The two latter are derived from two brothers of an itsubu called Aitsi Kupunu, and these clans, probably immigrant and of Roro origin, are even now often called by the common name Aitsi Kupunu.

At Babiko village there are three itsubu : Ovia Pokina, Bereina, and Watewate. Separated by a few steps from the rest of Babiko, but generally included with it by the natives of the district, is the settlement of Meauri, a split from the itsubu of that name in Rapa village. The latter village was not visited but Dr Strong gives the names of its itsubu as Ovia Pokina, Sivotaina, Meauri and Akabara, the last an immigrant group from the Kuni tribe living in the mountains behind Mekeo.

The people of Bioto village originally came from Paitana village-site, but before settling at Bioto they lived for some time on a limestone ridge near the mouth of the Bioto creek. This ridge, called Uaiiauona, is practically converted into an island by the Ufafa river and the mangrove swamps which surround it. Bioto contains four itsubu, namely Meauri, Korina, Watewate, and Paitana ; the representatives of these itsubu came to Bioto in the order in which their names are given. Dr Strong, who supplied the information concerning Bioto, points out that Paitana can hardly have been deserted more than fifty or sixty years ago, since one old man of Paitana itsubu is still alive who lived at Paitana village as a boy.

Waima. Excluding for the moment certain Kevori colonies settled at Waima, which will be referred to later, the Waima folk derive their descent from four original stocks called Ereere, Hauramiri, Arabure, and Abiara, and these stocks have given their names to the present Waima itsubu,

Ereere is said to have been originally an off-shoot from the people whose present village site is Bereina, but who long ago lived further inland than the present Bereina.

Hauramiri is usually regarded as an independent stock,

202 The Roro-speakmg Tribes but certain of my informants stated that ' long, long ago ' it was united with Ereere.

Arabure is sometimes stated to have been an offshoot from the Kevori clan of that name, but the split took place so long ago that Arabure is usually considered one of the original Waima stocks, and not regarded as originating from Kevori, as are certain more recent colonies from that tribe. The settlements derived from the four original Waima stocks, now the Waima itsubu, are as follows :

Ereere stock {itsubu) gave rise to Ereere, Arabu Kupunu, Ereere Aiera, Ehoho and Tonauna. Hauramiri stock {itsubu) gave rise to the settlements of Aihoa Kupunu, Abotaiara, Abotaiara Koikoi, Hauramiri Ororo Pokina, Hauramiri Koko, Taroba and Oa Ovia.

Aihoa Kupunu, Abotaiara, Abotaiara Koikoi and Taroba, each contain portions of the single itsubu Hauramiri. Oa Ovia settlement and Hauramiri each contain two local groups who, although both sprung from the original Hauramiri stock, call themselves two itsubu named respectively, Hauramiri Koko and Hauramiri Oki Pokina. Hauramiri settlement contains in addition a number of folk descended from the Ereere stock, who form a local group called Hauramiri Ereere, whose members consider themselves almost an independent itsubu.

A second small settlement of Aihoa Kupunu lies to the west of Ereere. It consists of but six houses, all rather poorly built, and contains no marea. Its members, who split from the parent village by reason of a quarrel about a woman, still acknowledge the chieftainship of Makani Bio, the chief of Aihoa Kupunu.

Arabure stock {itsubu) gave rise to the settlements of Roro Aiera including Roro Aiera Koikoi, Arabure, Arabure Ororo Pokina, Herahera, Robaiarobaia, Puro Erau, Komo Kupunu.

Roro Aiera contains representatives of two itsubu, viz. Arabure and Abiara. Roro Aiera Koikoi consists of a small number of rather badly built houses and is perhaps not a permanent settlement. It arose as an agglomeration of garden houses, built by folk not closely related to each other, shordy after the old village of Korina, which stood nearer the shore than the present village, had been overwhelmed by a tidal wave. Three men, all said to be more or less important,

Distribution of Clans 203

used to go and sleep in their garden houses because they were frightened of the sea, and after a while one of them named Here Arauka persuaded the others to stay there permanently and make a small village. This they did, and though there have been no fresh accessions from the parent settlement, the children of the original founders have remained and built their houses on the new site.

The Abiara stock {itsubu) came originally from Oroi, a now deserted village site between Waima and Bereina, and not far from the latter. Like Waima, whose dialect it spoke and with whose people it freely intermarried, Abiara was more or less constantly at enmity with Kevori.

The Abiara stock gave rise to the settlements of Barai Kupunu, Paru Kupunu, Roio Kupunu, Barai Kupunu of Abiara and Araha Ereana, the last being a recent settlement from Barai Kupunu. It was said to lie east of the other Waima settlements at a little distance from the beach, but so surrounded by swamp as not to be readily reached.

Kevori furnished colonies to Waima, as has been already stated, but it is extremely difficult to estimate how much of Waima is of Kevori origin. Two settlements, Korina and Taroba, are somewhat recent colonies from Kevori, and it is said that a Kevori element entered into Ereere ; while it is alleged by some that Arabure was originally a Kevori stocks

Bereina. Bereina village, situated a few miles inland from Waima, consists of four itsubu called Koae Kupunu, Paitana, Aihoa Kupunu and Ereere, inhabiting three settlements quite close together. Two of the settlements Aitsi Benuna and Komana — the latter consisting only of some seven houses with no marea — belong to Koae Kupunu itsubu, while the remaining settlement of Eauna contains men belonging to Paitana, Ereere and Aihoa Kupunu itsubu.

Kevori. As already mentioned the villages of the Kevori tribe are Ereparu and Kevori, the latter divided into two groups, Kevori Gunikai, that is Kevori-in-the-bush, and Kevori Kone, Kevori-on-the-coast. Dr Strong gives the itsubu of Kevori Gunikai as Kevori, Arabu Kupunu, Ovia Pokina, Uai Kupunu and Arabure. Kevori Kone is a younger settlement than Kevori Gunikai from which it sprang and its itsubu are Avepa, Herehauwana, Abiara, Napuaemena, Aiyo and Kui.

1 There is an Arabure clan or stock at Kevori at the present time.

204 ^^^^ RorO'Speaking Tribes

EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND TRADE.

The Roro-speaking tribes are not great traders, and their relations with other tribes appear always to have been limited. Canoes are made locally both at Siria and Walma, and probably at other villages of the Roro-speaking tribes, but they are also bought from the Toaripi. Further, one tribe, the Roro, have learnt from the Motu to build Lakatoi as they have to make pots, and one lakatoi called by the Roro-speaking tribes au nohi usually starts each year from Yule Island for ToarIpI\ Besides this, Waima has for long done a small coastal trade with the Papuan Gulf, taking especially shell ornaments, which come from further east, and the locally made fretted turtle shell ornaments called koiyu. The shell ornament called by the Motu tautau, and made to the east of the Motu territory, e.g. at Hulaa, is called at Waima mobio, or movio, and this ornament reaches the Rorospeaking tribes from Port Moresby and the neighbouring settlements as do some of the much valued armshells made from the shell of Conus maculatus and called tola. Indeed all the armshells which reach the Roro-speaking tribes are made In the east, though the majority travel by an indirect route, reaching them from the Papuan Gulf, whither they are taken by the Motu to exchange for sago on their annual trading voyage. Sometimes a Waima double-canoe bearing a cargo of coconuts may visit Port Moresby.

The members of the Mekeo and the Roro-speaking tribes exchange garden produce for fish and shellfish, usually meeting at specially appointed market-places about midway between the two districts. Besides this, the Roro-speaking tribes formerly obtained practically their whole supply of adze blades, clubheads and dancing feathers through Mekeo, for although there Is abundant evidence that the mountaineers who made these articles, or obtained them from their makers, came to Kabadi on trading expeditions, it seemed that they never pjassed through Mekeo so as to trade with the Rorospeaking tribes directly.

^ The whole conduct of this expedition is so like that of the Motu hiri^ already described by Captain Barton in chapter viii, that it has been thought unnecessary to give a detailed account of the voyage of the au nohi and the customs observed on it.

External Relations 205

The intercourse of the Roro-speaking tribes and Mekeo is not confined to trade, for there is a Hmited amount of intermarriage, though in the old days this bond was not sufficiently strong to prevent numerous petty wars between Mekeo on the one side, and Roro, Paitana and Waima on the other. Even individual villages of Mekeo sometimes come to blows with these tribes ; but none of this fighting appears to have been very serious, except perhaps that which drove the Roro and Paitana from Maiera, and even in this instance it is probable that the unhealthiness of the crowded site was to some extent responsible for the migration. An exception is found, however, in the former enmity between Waima and Kevori, which appears to have been more constant than most of the feuds of the Roro-speaking peoples. Apart from this the only serious attacks to which any of the Roro-speaking folk were exposed were those delivered by the Elema tribes of the Papuan Gulf. It has already been noted on page 196 that some forty years ago the people of Mou, then settled at Ararana, were attacked and suffered great loss at the hands of Gulf natives, while more recently almost the whole population of Paitana village was killed in a carefully planned night attack delivered by the men of Lese, one of the most eastern of the Elema communities^

There was an old-standing friendship between certain Roro-speaking villages and the Nara village Oroi^ a friendship in which all the Nara villages were not included and which appears to have been especially firm between Waima and Oroi. Parties of Waima folk would visit Oroi for weeks at a time to hunt wallaby on the grassy uplands of Nara, paying their hosts in coconuts ; and Poa Oa, one of the deftest woocj carvers of Waima, carved certain of the posts of the big loe (clubhouse) built on the Waima model, which until recently stood in the village of Diumana, a few miles beyond Oroi.

Those neighbouring villages with which the Roro-speaking tribes were on terms of intimacy (which intimacy did not, however, formerly preclude intermittent petty warfare), are probably fairly represented by the villages from which, it was

1 A rather vivid account of this attack is given by Chalmers in Pioneering in New Guinea^ pp. 330-4.

2 Often called Nara and perhaps best known as the village of the chieftainess Kaloka.

2o6 The Roro-speaking Tribes stated, guests would be invited to come to the inauguration of the big new niarea of Mou clan of Mou village. This list includes all the villages of Roro and Paitana, Waima (but not its colony Hisiu), Bereina, Kevori and Delena, the Mekeo villages of Veifa, Aipiana, Eboa, Inawabui, Inawi and Inawaia and the Nara village Oroi but not the neighbouring villages of Alaala and Diumana.

CHAPTER XVIII

CLAN BADGES.

Within certain limits prescribed by custom, the members of each itsubu — and its members only — have the right to wear on their persons, on certain ceremonial occasions, and to display on their marea, certain designs or objects which when so used or displayed are regarded by the natives as distinctive clan badges, called by the Roro-speaking tribes dada. Although it appeared that among these tribes all native dada were in a broad sense the property of groups of individuals of common descent, the term was extended to objects which distinguish or betoken various classes of Europeans. Thus the cross is regarded as the bada of the Sacred Heart Mission settled in the district, and the blue ensign as that of the Government.

This need not be considered to imply that the Rorospeaking tribes consider all missionaries or Government officers as of common descent, for although the word dada is commonly used to mean badge or sign, it has a wider significance to the native mind, and is sometimes applied to a whole group of customs distinguishing one set of people from another. Very little information could be obtained concerning the origin of dada ; a legend which states how in the beginning one of the Roro dada was associated with a certain clubhouse is given in chapter xx.

The most important dada are undoubtedly (i) the feather and other ornaments worn when dancing on ceremonial occasions, and (ii) the designs carved on the end of poles, precisely as the Koita carve their iduhu dagi (cf page 51). But as the use and importance of such wooden dada is slight, except in connection with the marea, these will be fully discussed under the heading ' Qada in relation to the marea in chapter XX and it is only necessary here to call attention to figure 1 5 (a)

The Roro-speaking Tribes and {b) of certain dada of this class representing respectively the head and jaws of a kind of garfish called akumu, and the tail of another fish called paia. In no case is any special regard shown for the animal from which a clan derives its oada ; thus both the Roro and Paitana men of itsubu having the fishes akiwm and paia as their oada, eat them freely and the men of the Abotaiara settlement at Waima eat their dada, the hornbill.

The dada, which are commonly worn on important cere-

/f^^^i

HI ill

Fig. 15.

I" II I

'A

(a) (b)

Oada of the Roro-speaking tribes.

monial occasions, generally consist of extremely elaborate feather head-dresses used with or without the addition of one or more of the beautiful fretted turtle-shell ornaments made in this district and called koiyu. On the other hand the dada may be some perfectly simple, common and widely distributed object worn in a particular manner, thus the mandibles of the hornbill become an dada when worn in the manner

Clan Badges peculiar to the members of the Abotalara settlement of Waima, that is just above the forehead in the median line of the head and pointing vertically upwards, although in other

Fig. 16. Framework worn to support feather oaoa.

S. N. G.

2IO The Roro-speaking Tribes

Waima settlements the mandibles of the hornblll are commonly worn as an ornament, and are devoid of any special significance. The two figures of Plate XXXIII reproduced from photographs taken by the Rev. H. M. Dauncey are examples of daiki in the form of elaborate feather-dancing headdresses such as are w^orn by the Roro-speaking tribes, but unfortunately I cannot identify the particular itsitbu to which they belong. The feathers composing them are mounted on a frame of wood or cane w^hich is adapted to fit the wearer's head and shoulders (figure i6).

The following information concerning the feather dada of the Roro clans of Yule Island was obtained from a man named Aitsi Bera of Siria village.

Ovia Pokina. The feathers worn by this itsubu were mounted on a framework called uria, shown in figure i6. Attached to this might be worn two or three small wooden carvings of the conventional aku7nu jaw pattern. The whole arrangement appears to have been called ibiri paia.

Parama Kupunu. A differently arranged framework called ovie was used as a base for the feather headdress of this clan. Small fiat slabs of wood carved in the manner shown in figure 15 {b) and called /^^'^ might be attached to the ome.

Koae Kupunu. This itsiibit mounts its feathers in a radiating manner on a fanlike basis of cane or wood.

Aitsi Noobira. This clan employs a bifid frame called mahana rua (literally, two eyes) upon which feathers are mounted. The small slabs of wood Q,2S[^di paia may also enter into the composition of the headdress.

Oada are also represented on Kaivakuku masks, one of the false cloisso7is on these masks representing the design
Again, minor but distinctive architectural details of dwellinghouses may be regarded as baoa, and cannot be copied by folk of other itsMbit or local groups without offence. Thus when the men of Pinupaka village recently built some houses in which the gable ends crossed each other at the roof ridge, and were prolonged for a short distance upwards and outwards, the men of the Marehau itsubu settled at Delena (who habitually build their houses in that fashion), complained that Pinupaka was infringing their rights.

^ Plate XLI shows three kaivakuku masks in the special hut in which they were kept at Hisiu, but I cannot say whether any of the cloissons on these represent oaba or whether the feather ornaments or hornblll mandibles have this significance ; for matters connected with the kaivakuku^ cf. chapter XXIV.

I

I

Clan Badges 2 1 1

DECAY OF OAOA.

It seems probable that among the Roro-speaking tribes da'da retaining their full value as such might be sold, as are the kangakanga of the Mekeo tribes; indeed it is practically certain that at one time, patterns carved in low relief upon certain boards, which were recognized as hereditary oada in the families of chiefs, were bought and sold (cf pp. 242 to 244). In these instances, as in the case of the ka^igakanga of Mekeo, although the right to the use of the oada was extended to people not originally possessing it, this extension occurred in a limited and particular manner, which is very different from the condition of decay which allows conventional representations or derivatives of the oada scratched on wooden or bone utensils to be used as the scheme of decoration, regardless of the stock or settlement of the folk making or using them.

At Waima a number of patterns admittedly derived from the hornbill — the oada of the people of a number of settlements of certain itsttbu — are used by any itsubu as decorative schemes upon such bone utensils as spatulae and forks, although these patterns have kept their especial character as distinguishing marks of different itsubu in the marea, where they are carved upon the capitals of posts. The usual decoration upon the bone implement called hau a7ii (figure 17), used for removing the interior of a coconut, is an example of this.

These A-shaped marks exactly resemble the A-shaped marks on the side posts of Airava 7narea of Abotaiara settlement, and both were said to be derived from the marks on the beak of the hornbill. Although nearly all such coconut scrapers have similar marks on them, it was stated by Abotaiara men that such markings are truly the property of Abotaiara, and that strictly speaking the folk of other settlements have no right to copy them. From a number of scrapers shown to him, an Abotaiara man selected two, which had been most carefully finished, and claimed that these were of Abotaiara make, while the other rougher examples were copies; but whatever may once have been the case, it is certain that there is now no effective copyright in this pattern upon bone implements such as hau ani, and lime spatulae.

The occurrence of the crocodile upon the posts of many

14 — 2

The Roro-speaking Tribes

7narea Is another instance of the degradation of an dada to the position of an ornament. The crocodile is the dada of the Roroaiera local group of Arabure itsubu, and it was generally agreed that stricdy speaking the crocodile should only appear on the Roroaiera marea. In spite of this not only are crocodiles carved in the vtarea of unrelated local groups, but Poa Oa who was the hereditary carver of the Roroaiera local group did not hesitate to carve the crocodile on the posts of the Diumana clubhouse belonging to a neighbouring friendly peopled

The designs carved in turtle-shell, which when mounted on a piece of white shell of Melo diadema, constitute the beautiful ornament called koiyu, were also said to be clan property, though it is probable that at the present day no maker limits himself to one design.

Considering the examples of the decay of the dada just recorded, it is not surprising to find that it is often difficult to discover the dada of a particular local group. This is especially true at Waima, where partial and often temporary fusions of groups of diverse origin (the results of quarrels within a clan or local group) appear to have been common. Hisiu, a Waima colony, is a good example of this ; Dr Strong was told that it consisted of families from Korina, Ereere and Roroaiera settlements, who formed fresh settlements, i.e. local groups. There are in addition representatives of Arabure and Hauramiri itsubu, the latter with certain members of the Komo Kupunu settlement united with families (?) called Ere Kupunu and Opi Kupunu to constitute a settlement, apparently regarded as a local group called Komo

■■^'^

Fig. 17. Hail ani with head carved to represent the markings on the base of the hornbill's beak.

^ A man who carves specially well will generally train his son or his sister's son, so that the position tends to become hereditary. The paternal uncle of Poa Oa taught the latter who taught his son, who says that he will in turn instruct his son when he is old enough.

Clan Badges 213

Kupunu. Like the Waima parent settlement of Komo Kupunu, the daughter settlement has a marea called Airava and airava (the hornbill) as its dada. This bird is the dada of the settlements of Arabure itsubu (Waima) and also of a number of the settlements of Hauramiri itsubu (Waima), but if Eri Kupunu and Opi Kupunu families (?) in time to come exhibit their dada — assumed not to be the hornbill — on the marea it is easy to see how confused the dada of the Hisiu settlement of Komo Kupunu may become.

The instance just quoted is comparatively simple, but in some cases there seems to be a bewildering multiplicity of dada, the relationship of which it is not always possible to disentangle.

This condition does not, as far as my experience goes, prevail in the Roro tribe, but it is especially marked at Waima so that the Waima dada, given in the list at the end of chapter xx, must be accepted with this reserve. Sometimes an dada is given because there was a consensus of opinion among my informants in favour of its being the dada of the clan, though there was often evidence suggesting the actual or former existence of other dada of less importance. Probably the same condition will be found to exist at Kevori, and perhaps to a lesser extent at Mou. At Waima, and doubtless at Kevori also, there is another fact to be considered which has probably had even more effect in confusing dada than the frequent partial splittings and fusions to which allusion has been made. This fact is the proximity of the powerful Elema stock of the Papuan Gulf who have exerted an obvious physical and cultural influence on the folk of Waima and Kevori. In a short account given by Captain Barton of the Social System of the Gulf village of Lese, each clan has a number of tcalare, mostly animals, representations of which are exhibited outside the clubhouses (eravo). The representations of these ualare, themselves certainly totems, may be regarded as clan badges, and it seems likely that their number and prominence on the Elema clubhouses has led to the multiplication of dada in the Waima 7narea. That the remarkable decoration of the Elema clubhouses has actually influenced a people less closely connected with the Gulf than Waima is shown by the decorations, typical of Elema, exhibited upon the clubhouse of the Mekeo village of Aipiana. The photograph of this clubhouse, reproduced in Plate XLV,

214 ^/^^ Roro-speaking Tribes was taken by Captain Barton who stated that the Aipiana men avowedly imitated the decoration of an Elema clubhouse on account of its beauty and attractiveness, although they possessed only the most general knowledge of the significance of the ornaments they had adopted.

DOUBTFUL OAOA.

Besides such important clan-badges as the carvings exhibited on viarea and the feather headdresses used in ceremonial dances, there are a number of customs and methods of performing the common acts of life which are peculiar to certain groups of men, and which, in the broad sense, noted on page 207, are regarded as dada, although many of these acts and customs shade off imperceptibly into matters which are not oaoa.

Although it could not be satisfactorily determined whether canoe names are really regarded as oaoa, each itsubu or local group of the Roro and Paitana tribes seems to have the exclusive right to a particular name for its canoes, all of which are called by the same name.

The following information supplied by Dr Strong applies specifically to Waima, which, as already noted, consists of some twenty distinct settlements belonging to four itsubu. Here the common canoe name is limited to the canoes of each settlement, and with each name is associated a particular sign or badge ; the majority of canoe names appear to be the names of fish, thus, pehera the swordfish, and nepuwai the name of another fish are both canoe names, as are also the names of some birds, e.g. inanukai, a kind of pigeon \ It is noticeable that of these canoe names nepiiwai is also the name of a marea (clubhouse). It was said that the majority of canoe names had been bought or stolen from the Motu: one canoe name veregai almost suggests vanagai, which is the Motu word for an ordinary outrigger canoe.

It is obvious that these canoe names, if not oaoa in the strictest sense, approach very near to them, for their use by people of foreign itsubu would be resented. But so would the performance of a dance by unauthorised folk, for all dances

^ It must be remembered that most of the Waima settlements are local groups, and there is little doubt that each canoe name is in fact limited to the craft of a local group, or perhaps of a number of local groups belonging to a single itsubu.

Clan Badges 215

were strictly copyright, and the property of larger or smaller groups of people, and it is clear that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between property and dada, and this is especially the case with the names of certain classes of objects such as nets and weapons. Fishing nets are certainly named among the Roro-speaking tribes, and I believe, but am not certain, that these names are private rather than family property.

Dr Strong discovered that at Walma there are also bow and arrow names which are not strictly private property, though whether these names, which may certainly be bought, sold or stolen, are looked upon as dada is not quite clear. The names are usually those of fish bearing one or more sharp spines, or of thorny trees; thus basika, a fish with a strong sharp spine, gives its name to the bows and arrows belonging to a group representing either a family or local group of the Ereere itsubii of Waima. Other bow and arrow names are Taivai and Boihoa, the names of fish with three and two dorsal spines respectively. As instances of bow and arrow names derived from thorny plants may be quoted Rabia, also the name of the sago palm, the leaf stalks of one species of which are set with sharp thorns and Amaama, the name of a thorny tree. Some bow and arrow names are derived from the names of ^medicine' which is rubbed on the arrows in order to make them deadly, thus dota, a plant which grows among the mangroves and is rubbed on arrows, is also a bow and arrow name. It must be remembered that the use of the bow has been introduced into the Roro district from the neighbourhood of Toaripi, in the Papuan Gulf, and it was said that bow and arrow names, too, had all been bought or stolen from the Toaripi.

Spears may also be given names derived from 'medicine' rubbed on them to make them go straight, and the spear name Boborabi was said to be so derived'. Successful bow and arrow names may be bought, and the same applies to spear names, though it seems that the names applied to spears are individual and not common to all the spears of a given family, local group or itsubu.

1 Boborabi is also the name of the paiha marea (cf. chapter xx) of the Arabu Kupunu settlement of Waima.

CHAPTER XIX

CHIEFTAINSHIP.

In each itsubit, or in each local group of an itsubu, there is a head man or chief called the ovia itsipana, and next to him in dignity comes a second chief called the ovia awarina who, besides fulfilling certain functions of his own, enforces the orders of the ovia itsipana when necessary. It was, however, pointed out that a few weak itsubu had no acknowledged ovia awarina.

The titles ovia itsipana and ovia awarina mean 'chief of the right' and 'chief of the left' respectively. Both offices are hereditary, and these titles express, and have perhaps been derived from, the positions assumed by their respective bearers to the right and left of the median line of the clan clubhouse (marea) during all important ceremonies.

Besides taking the principal part in all ceremonies in which more than one itsubu is involved, the ovia itsipana of any of the contending clans had the right of stopping faction fights in his village. Subjects likely to lead to minor quarrels in the village were not brought to him for settlement, but as soon as a few blows had been struck he would interfere, the fighting would generally cease, the matter be discussed and terms usually arranged. The most prominent ovia itsipana, who was in practice the chief of the strongest clan, would have the right of stopping fights between usually friendly tribes or villages. He would, also, in the event of his people not wishing to fight, use his influence to settle quarrels which might lead to such somewhat formal fights as occurred between the Roro and the Paitana tribes. To stop a fight it was sufficient for any ovia itsipana to get between the combatant lines, scatter lime from his gourd, and wave the leafy crown of a dracaena\ If an ovia itsipa7ia of one faction

' The success of this manceuvre would, however, largely depend on the influence exercised by the ovia itsipana and his discretion in applying it at the right moment.

did this, it was etiquette for an opposing ovia itsipana to assist in the task of pacification by following his example. If a village were invaded by the men of a usually friendly community demanding payment for blood shed, the most prominent ovia itsipana of the invaded village would, if peace were desired, advance to meet the invaders. He would carry a spear but also his lime gourd and mahawa, the netted bag in which a native carries his most cherished trifles and often his most valuable ornaments; and he would also wear armshells as a sign of peace. He would be met by the ovia itsipana of the opposing party to whom he would tender his spear, which the invading chief would break. He would similarly break the invading chief's spear and matters would then be discussed and a satisfactory settlement usually arrived at.

Each ovia itsipana had the right to pronounce a taboo on the coconuts belonging to the local group of his itsubu, but this was not done without previous consultation with the old men.

The ovia awarina exercised to a certain extent the functions of a substitute for the ovia itsipana when the latter was away, and might even be left in charge of a settlement indefinitely (as e.g. the result of a split), though he was supposed to consult his ovia itsipana before taking any decisive step. Thus Arua Baki, the present ovia itsipana of Herehauwana itsubu of Korina settlement of Waima, lives at Taroba; while the ovia awarina lives at Korina and to a certain degree replaces his chief in that village, but when a taboo had recently to be proclaimed on the Korina coconuts it could not be done until Arua Baki had been consulted. The ovia awarina was responsible for the policing of the village, and endeavoured to prevent petty thefts and to adjust quarrels arising from that cause.

In each Roro-speaking community there are one or more war-chiefs who are leaders of their clan or community in war, but who must not be confused with the paiha chiefs who are experts in battle magic and who assure success in war. It was difficult to obtain details concerning these war chiefs (ovia ahuahtc), who, however, were never clan chiefs {pvia itsipana), but on the other hand were generally though perhaps not invariably ovia awarina\ indeed, ovta awarina as such were so generally confused with ovia aJmaJm that it is

2i8 The Roro-speaking Tribes a question whether every ovia awarina was not formerly a potential or actual war chief. Each ovia akuahu has, or had in his capacity of war chief, a marea which differs in certain features from other marea (cf. chapter xx) and which should be distinct from the rnarea which an ovia awarina in his official capacity (as ovia awarina) may have or share with his ovia it sip ana.

In the Roro and Waima tribes and probably also among the Paitana, each ovia itsipana might have an assistant who, although the office is often if not always hereditary, has not the rank of a chief It appeared that these assistants were generally men of some wealth and influence and that the office was considered a desirable one. As far as I could ascertain the only duties of the incumbent are to be near his chief and prepared to render assistance in all ceremonies in the clubhouse, and generally to save him trouble and see that things go smoothly. Often the ovia awarina would also have an assistant of this class.

Although the ovia ahuahu was the organizer of his clan in war, it appears that his authority on the battle field was entirely subordinated to that of the paiha chief or chiefs, who appeared to be responsible for the disposition of the whole force while in the presence of the enemy. This, however, only applied to serious intertribal warfare; in faction fights and quarrels between groups generally on friendly terms the paiha chief was not consulted, the ovia ahuahu being the leader of the war party. In spite of the importance of the paiha chiefs in intertribal warfare the larger question of the expediency of undertaking any given plan of campaign or policy was discussed by the old men of the village and settled with the concurrence of the ovia itsipana'^.

Invitations to important feasts are always given in the name of the ovia itsipana, the invitations being issued as follows : two or three weeks before a feast the ovia itsipana instructs the ovia awarina to send round messengers to invite the chiefs of the neighbouring itsubu, and it is an

^ The paiha chiefs here referred to, besides being leaders in the field, are experts in the maj^ic ceremonial pertaining to the successful conduct of war, and as such their functions are discussed in the section on Magic and Sorcery (cf. chapter xxiv), but it must be noted that apart from their magical functions paiha chiefs are either ovia iisipana or ovia awarina, and therefore in their double capacity would exert a particularly strong influence in the village councils when matters connected with warfare were being discussed.

essential part of the invitation that the messengers should take with them bunches of areca nut, and hang one of these In the marea of the ovia itsipana of each of the local groups of the itsubu summoned to the feast, at the same time stating when the feast will take place. Although the Invitation is formally conveyed only to the ovia itsipana it Is understood to apply also to as many of his clansmen as care to come with him.

All big feasts are given In the name of the two chiefs of the clan providing the food, but smaller feasts may be given In the name of one of the chiefs. The chief or chiefs whose names are attached to a feast, distribute the food, but do not themselves eat of it although they ceremonially taste the food before it is allotted. In this distribution the chiefs of visiting itsubu (in order of their importance) are given the head or half the head, the hams, and the forelimbs of the pigs killed for the feast.

Parama Kupunu Is looked upon as being the oldest Roro itsubu, and before the advent of the government It was probably the strongest. Its ovia itsipana exercised a certain authority over the whole of the Roro tribe, and was known as ovia pakana kauna, literally ' big chief man.' Now that there are no weighty problems of war and peace to be discussed his influence has much diminished; but he still takes precedence at feasts, and might ask the ovia itsipana of other villages to taboo their coconuts in preparation for a feast.

Besides the ovia itsipana and ovia awarina there is a dignitary called ovia akiva or 'chief of the knife' who ceremonially cuts up the pigs at big feasts, although he does not assist In killing or cooking them. He is of far less importance than the ovia awarina, and indeed can scarcely be considered a chief in the true sense of the word, but rather as an hereditary office-bearer, having a special ceremonial function, in fact, as a carving expert. There is generally but one ovia akiva for several itsubu, and at the present day there is but one for a number,, of, or perhaps all, the itsubic of the Paitana tribe.

The magic chiefs called paiha ovia are so obviously looked upon as magical 'departmental experts' that paiha matters are discussed in chapter xxiv which deals with magic.

Chieftainship, whether 'of the right,' 'of the left,' or

220 The RorO'Speakmg Tribes

'of war' and the akiva function, is hereditary, and as far as possible passes from father to son. If an ovia itsipana has no son, his eldest daughter may and often does act until her eldest son is old enough to assume office. The ovia akiva of a number of vlllao-es of the Paitana tribe Is a woman who will o transmit the office to her son\ When a woman is ovia itsipana or ovia akiva, she does not herself enter the marea or take any part in the ceremonies which centre round It, her husband or son taking her place on the marea, and at all festivals, although the invitations are issued In her name. A woman could not be ovia awarina, since In the old days the ovia aiva7'i7ta had practically always killed his man and was usually, If not Invariably, the leader of his clan in war. Among the Paitana, and presumably among the other Roro-speaking tribes, when the direct male line of the ovia awarina died out a substitute would be sought in the person of his brother, or failing this, the brother of an ovia awarina of the same itsiibu of another village. Although a man might admittedly be heir to a chieftainship, he would not be recognized as chief on the death of his father, unless he had taken part in the ceremony called at Siria bearai, which qualified him for the office.

INSIGNIUM OF CHIEFTAINSHIP.

The most important feature of the qualifying ceremony which usually takes place before the young chiefs have reached puberty is the public Investiture of the youths with the eaii rove, the ornament which only chiefs may wear. This is done In the clubhouse of one of the chiefs whose son is qualified by the ceremony.

The eaii rove consists essentially of a double row of boar tusks ground thin, though these themselves may be variously ornamented. This ornament, shown in figure i8, Is worn suspended on the chest by a string passing round the neck. Further, a chief will sometimes carve a representation of the eaii rove on the main pole of his marea. Thus at Pinupaka, the human face carved on the main pole of Kevori marea represents the face of the ovia itsipana of the marea, and

' A different custom appears to prevail at Waima where Dr Strong was told that when an ovia akiva died, leaving no sons but one or more daughters, these would be passed over, and his brother would become ovia akiva.

I

Chieftainship a series of curved lines beneath the face represent his eaii rove.

\

Fig. 1 8. Eaii rove J the insignium of chieftainship.

The houses of chiefs have names of their own, which should be distinct from the names of the clubhouses of the clan and. the name of the clan itself. There is, however, a tendency to confuse the names of chiefs' houses with those of clubhouses. Dr Strong, who inquired into this matter, found that the names of chiefs' houses might be the names of hills, or might be derived from the names of particular areas, which it may be suggested are the sites of land originally owned by the clan. The following are the examples of the names of chiefs' houses which, he states, are stricdy hereditary and are never bought or sold: Araburepaka, i.e. 'the great Arabure,' Erumiri, Makabiri, and Muniavi.

Plate XXXIV

A marea at Waima

CHAPTER XX

MAREA, CLUBHOUSES.

Each local group of each clan has, or should have, at least one marea, which serves as the meeting place for the men of the local group, and is their clubhouse in the fullest sense of the term. Though varying in size and in the amount of care lavished on their decoration, niarea are always built on a perfectly definite though somewhat complicated plan.

A marea is always built on piles, and must have at its front an unroofed platform raised 2 — 4 feet from the ground ; behind this, except in very small ina7'ea, there is another platform raised from a few inches to two feet higher than the first. A bare couch or bench about four feet wide runs at a comfortable sitting height along the sides and back of this platform. At the back, this bench Is continuous with the floor of the Inner compartment of the marea, which is separated from the outside platforms by a partition reaching to the roof. In this partition a small door Is cut, which alone gives access to the interior of the 77iarea. The posts supporting the roof joists and the ridge pole pass through the platforms and flooring mentioned, and on these posts the clan badge is often carved. The roof, with Its thatch descending to the level of the flooring of the inner compartment, forms the back and sides of the 7narea and Its ridge Is continued In front over the front and lowest platform as a long narrow overhang, called kaiva, often decorated with pendants of dried leaves and carved boards, the latter commonly attached horizontally to the under surface of the kaiva, just where it Is most difficult to see them.

The photograph of the 77iarea of one of the Hauramlrl settlements of Walma, reproduced In Plate XXXIV, gives a good Idea of the general appearance of 77iarea as they exist at the present day among the Roro-speaking tribes, though those of the Paitana villages usually have a longer projecting overhang In front and present more decoration, as is shown

224 ^^^^ Roro-speaking Tribes in Plate XXXV of one of the Mou clubhouses^ The clubhouses of the Roro tribe are smaller and less well decorated than those of Walma, but probably only because the tribe is weak and has to a certain extent fallen upon evil days ; Kevori via^^ea, the largest clubhouse of Siria the strongest Roro village, is approximately 24 feet long by 19 feet wide, with a height from floor (itself raised some 5 feet from the ground) to ridge pole of from 8 to 10 feet, according to position. Plate XXXVI represents Anapua marea of Koae Kupunu idichtt of Siria village as it appeared in 1898.

There were no legends concerning the origin of marea, at least repeated inquiries at Siria and Waima failed to elicit any. The name of the alleged first builder was, however, preserved at Siria, where it was stated that long, long ago one Obia first made a marea and that other folk imitated him, but his itsubu and the name of his marea have been forgotten.

At the present day there should be two inarea in each local group of every clan, one belonging to the ovia itsipana the other to the ovia awarina, but although this arrangement is of old standing it appeared that long ago there was but one marea to each local group of every clan. This belonged to the two chiefs, the ovia itsipana the chief of the right, and the ovia awarina the chief of the left, whose respective functions have already been considered in the chapter on chieftainship. Each chief was responsible for the upkeep of his half of the marea, and this custom is still in force in certain villages such as Mou, where some clans have but one m.area at the present day. In spite of this, the habit of building separate marea for the ovia itsipana and the ovia awarina appears to have been firmly rooted before the great dispersal from Maiaera.

Each marea has a name, and originally there was but one name for all the marea of each clan, but at the present day each local group has its marea name or names, which generally do not include among their number the original 7narea name of the clan or local group. Marea names descend from Tnarea building to marea building of each clan or local group, and although it seems likely enough that

^ The presence of the picture attached to one of the posts supporting the roof of the marea shown in Plate XXXIV is due to European influence which is also responsible for the girls posing on the platform.

Plate XXXV

A viarea at Mou

Plate XXXVI

Anapua rtiarea of Siria village

Clubhouses 225

these names may still be intentionally changed at times, as among the neighbouring Mekeo tribe, no instance of such recent change of name was actually discovered. A single example was noted of a condition which may probably be regarded as anti-dating the present arrangement of two chiefs, each with their own niarea, bearing a specific hereditary name. In the Aitsi Benuna settlement of the Koae Kupunu clan of the Bereina community, there are two 7na7'ea both called Kevoripaka which face each other from opposite ends of the village street, and belong respectively to the ovia itsipana and ovia aiua7'ina of the local group of Koae Kupunu. It was stated that the existing arrangement was somewhat of an innovation, for the second Kevoripaka 7narea belonging to the ovia awa7'ina had only been in existence some twenty years, and it may be suggested that here is represented a stage in which the ovia awarina has not long acquired a 77ia7'ea of his own, and has not yet dropped the original name of the 7na7'ea of his clan or local group, in favour of a distinguishing name for his own newer marea^.

The information given in the present section applies only to the ordinary 77ia7'ea of the ovia itsipana and the ovia avja7'ina, the former being known as ovia 7}ia7'ea7ia or itsipana r7ia7^ea7ia. It has already been mentioned that certain ovia awarina in their capacity of war chiefs each possess a 7?ia7^ea, and these buildings which are called ahuahti 77iareana, literally battle 77iarea, or sometimes arawae 7narea7ia, i.e. spear 77ia7^ea, differ entirely in their use from the 77ta7'ea which the same chiefs possess or share in their capacity of ovia awarina. But besides the ovia and ahitahu 77iarea7ia, there are a limited number of 7)ia7'ea which exist only in connection with certain special functions and ceremonies ; these 7}iarea are marked off from others by the fact that only a few clans possess the right to build them, although they are used ceremonially on appropriate occasions by all the male members of the community. Such 77iarea form two

^ This does not necessarily imply that a single Kevoripaka viarea shared by the ovia itsipana and ovia awarina had survived among the ancestors of the folk now constituting the Koae Kupunu group of Bereina since the time when each local group possessed but one marea. It seems more probable that the group under consideration once followed the custom of building separate clubhouses just as their neighbours did, but that some accident, conceivably a period of weakness and isolation, led them to again adopt the single tnarea until twenty years ago, when they were able to build a second. Then as there was no traditional name for the marea of the ovia awarina this building was naturally called Kevoripaka.

classes, the artiani marea described in chapter xxi, and formerly used for initiation ceremonies, and the paiha marea concerned with warfare in its magical aspect and described in chapter xxiv.

As regards the meaning of the 77tarea names but little could be discovered. The meaning of Iwamuru is discussed upon page 228, bitre re-duplicated in the name of Burebure of the Parama Kupunu marea of Siria village means ' ungovernable' or 'derelict,' and would especially be applied to a derelict canoe. It was denied that Kevori, the name of the Ovia Pokina marea of Siria, as well as that of one of the Roro-speaking tribes, had in its former application anything to do with its latter significance. Airava and Haurama, the names of certain Waima marea, mean 'hornbill' and 'black snake' [Psetcdechis sp.) respectively. Rabi, which occurs in the name of three Waima marea of Ereere stock, means 'night' and Rabau or Ravau is a native name for Yule Island.

There can, however, be little doubt that the names of a number of Waima mai^ea were derived from the names of Mekeo clubhouses, indeed although this fact is not recognized at Waima at the present day, the etymological identity of the names of certain Waima and Mekeo clubhouses seems to place the matter beyond dispute. Thus Maivauku, the name of the marea belonging to Aihoa Kupunu and Arabure Ororo Pokina settlements of Waima has scarcely altered from the Mekeo name Maipa ufu, and Oaibua, the name of the battle marea of Aihoa Kupunu, is obviously the same as Oafua, the name of a group of Mekeo clubhouses (cf. chapter xxviii)\

Socially a marea is a clubhouse in the fullest meaning of the word, of which all men of the local group of the itsubu are ■ members by right of birth, though there is a specially intimate I connection between the ovia itsipana and the marea of the ■! clan or local group ; indeed, the titles of the chief and sub-

^ Perhaps the assumption by Waima of the names of Mekeo clubhouses for their marea may have been an act of courtesy in return for hospitality received, for I know of an instance in which the name of a Mekeo clubhouse was changed to that of a Yokea eravo in which the men of the clan had been hospitably entertained. There seems no doubt that Oaibua is really a battle marea, but probably the quarrel said to have led to the building of the battle marea really led to the building of a jnarea by the ovia awarina, not in his capacity as war chief but simply as ovia awarina.

Clubhouses 227

chief, ovia itsipa7ia, chief of the right, and ovia awarina, chief of the left, have reference to, or embody, the positions assumed by these men on the marea verandah during a number of important ceremonies. Oaoa, the badges of the clan, are carved on the posts of the marea, and in it are hung boards carved with the patterns which are the hereditary property of the ovia ttsipana, the high chief of the clan. On the marea platform ceremonial feasts are held, and here the men of the itsubu gather in the evening, to chew areca nut and discuss village affairs. Here, too, the older men gossip or idle away the hot tropic afternoons, while the ibitoe sleep within the closed inner chamber of the marea of the ovia awarina until thev are married and often after, should their wives prove troublesome.

Strangers are received in the marea of the ovia itsipana, and usually sleeping there and for some days being fed there. If the strangers were 'official' visitors — ambassadors bearing perhaps an invitation to some big ceremony — it would be a breach of etiquette not to sleep in the marea. The marea of the war-chiefs stood on a very different footing with regard to strangers ; in the old days any stranger who on first entering a village stepped upon the platform of one of these marea, even by accident, was killed.

Dead men are exposed on the marea platform where they are mourned for by their relatives, and it was said that the dead wife of a chief would be exposed on the marea, but I was not able to inquire into this matter thoroughly. The members of the family in which a death has occurred are forbidden to enter the marea until after one of the feasts which are an essential part of the ceremonial mourning.

It seemed that vegetable food was never hung up or displayed in any quantity upon the m.area previous to a feast, as is the custom throughout the area of the open dubu.

As amoncr the Mekeo tribes a warrior mis^ht call out the name of his marea when striking a blow or when very tired'.

^ Father Cochard who gave this information knew of no reason tending to make him believe that this betokened any conscious animism, and instanced the similar practice of the Roro of calling out the names of their nets when taking fish from them. Each net was said to have its own name. Probably these customs have little or no connection with animism in the ordinary sense of the word, but are rather examples of ' tnana ' with which the 7narea are so highly charged that 'virtue' is inherent even in their name.

15—2

228 Tlie Roro-speaking Tribes

At the Paitana village of Mou, Father Cochard told me that marea other than those of the ovia itsipana, were called wamunc rnarihana, literally 'jealousy marea^ while from another source I learnt that Iwamuru, the name of the marea of Aitsi Noobira clan of Siria village, meant 'jealousy' This information tallies well with the result of independent inquiries as to why certain ovia awarina each had a marea of his own. Thus at Arabure Ororo Pokina of Waima, the father (or grandfather) of Beata Oa, the present ovia itsipana, disgusted with the truculent behaviour of the then ovia awarina, told him to build a m^area for himself. This the latter did, and called his marea Maivauku. Again, it was said that five generations ago there was but one marea, called Maivauku, in the Aihoa Kupunu settlement of Waima. My informants did not know whether at that time there was an ovia awarina in this settlement or not, but subsequently, probably three generations ago, the ancestor of the present ovia awarina quarrelled with the ovia itsipana to such an extent, that the latter told him to build a 7narea of his own. This he did, and called it Oaibua, a name he is said to have invented, and the meaning of which is not known at the present day^

As a rule the ovia awarina seem as tenacious of their more recently acquired right to build marea as the ovia itsipana, and even when a clan is weak in numbers its ovia awarina may sometimes, by a special expedient, contrive to have his marea built, even when none is built for the ovia itsipana. It is not unusual for two weak clans to unite to build a marea in common, when the right side of this marea will be built by the ovia itsipana of one clan, while the left side may be built by the ovia awarina of the other. Each half of the marea bears the name proper to the marea of the ovia itsipana or ovia awarina responsible for its building, and _ is considered to be a marea itself, though as a matter of fact I the building is usually spoken of by one name, and this is the 11 name proper to the marea of the local group or clan who built its right side. This is the case at Siria where the marea
usually spoken of as Kevori really consists of two halves, Kevori and Boaiota, representing two distinct marea and built

^ This term would actually be used when speaking of sexual jealousy. ' Maivauku and Oaibua are really derived from the names of Mekeo clubhouses, cf. p. 226.

Clubhouses 229

respectively by the ovia itsipana of Ovia Pokina itsubu, and the ovia awarina of Koae Kupunu itsubu ; a similar instance exists at Waima.

Bones are sometimes attached to the walls of the niarea ; these trophies of the chase, such as the lower jaw of a pig with good tusks, or the skulls of pigs or dogs consumed at a feast given by some other clan, might be temporarily exhibited in the 7narea, partly perhaps as a memento of the ceremony at which they were presented, but definitely as a memorandum to the men of the clan or local group that they must bestir themselves to return the compliment. Father Cochard informed me that some years ago when one of the Siria clans gave a feast to Pinupaka, the skulls of the dogs eaten were hung in the Pinupaka mai^ea, since the feast was recognized as the return for one previously given by Pinupaka to the same Siria clan. Further the same authority states that when a return feast had been given, a skull would sometimes be taken from the riiarea and thrown away.

Although the chiefs were responsible for the upkeep of the marea, including the provision of the carved marea posts, and in theory at least for the carving of them, there were in each settlement certain men, experts in their craft, who appear to have been expected to execute, and as a matter of fact, did produce all the really good carving that their comrades required. Thus, at the Waima settlement of Roro Aiera, one Poa Oa was said to have done most of the carving for his clan in his day. His work is still spoken of as being unusually fine and was held in such esteem, that the men of the Nara village Diumana asked him to come to them and help them with their clubhouse, which was to be built on a plan closely resembling that of the Waima mai^ea, but without the itara. The major part of the carving on the posts of this clubhouse was done by Poa Oa, or under his direction. He taught his craft to his son Maoni Poa who, after his father's death, was considered nearly as good a workman, and who, in July 1904, was carving the posts for a new marea, three posts of which were nearly finished at that date. It was said that Maoni Poa would in turn teach his craft to his son Oa Maoni, then a small boy.

Spears and clubs were never brought into or upon the marea of the ovia itsipana, but these, and bows and arrows were brought to the batde marea, where they were kept, and

230 TJie RorO'Speakmg Tribes where reserves of weapons were stored as they were also in certain other marea known as paiha marea, which at the present day have fallen into disused

THE BUILDING AND INAUGURATION OF A MAREA.

When a new inarea is built, an inauguration ceremony is held before it is used for any ceremonial purpose, though men may go there to gossip and may also sleep in it before the ceremony has taken place. The itsttbu building the marea collect and prepare the wood and other necessaries, and carry the lightest of these to their village. Any doubtful matters concerning the 7narea are settled by the two chiefs, but the ovia itsipana takes the lead. The chiefs and the old men carve the posts and make rope ; the younger men dig the holes and generally do the rougher work. On the day before the actual erection is to be begun, the ovia itsipana sends bunches of areca nut to the chiefs of itsubu in neighbouring settlements. This is an intimation that their help, or rather that of their clans, is required in the task of setting up the posts. No notice is sent to villages outside the tribe, though many of these will be Invited later to the inauguration feast of the new marea. On the appointed day, all the men of the local group of the itsubu to whom the new marea will belong, and those helping them, join in the work of carrying the heavy posts, which have generally been carved away from the village in the forest or on the shore. All assist in setting up the piles, the local group owning the new marea providing food for its visitors.

On the first day all the posts, piles and rafters are put up, and in the evening pig and dog meat is distributed to all concerned in the work. The same evening there is a dance in which both men and women take part. The women gather leaves, and the men fix them on strips of creeper and twine them on the marea posts. The itsubu alone proceeds with the work on the following day, and fixes the small rafters called robu ; a few days later the ovia itsipana summons all the chiefs of other local groups and itsubu to help in putting on the roof, the invitation being given as before by sending

^ Among the Roro-speaking tribes warfare is now a thing of the past, and though doubtless spears are still plentiful enough they are never paraded about the village, a caution which recent difficulty with the government over burial regulations has intensified at Waima. Paiha marea are described in chapter xxiv.

Chibhouses 231

round areca nut. The remainder of the work is done by the itsubu alone ; the platform, itara, in front, is put up only a day or two before the official opening ceremony, and the carvings on the posts should be concealed from view. Sometimes the front of the marea is veiled with a curtain of coconut leaf mats, but after the roof is put on men may use and sleep in the ina7'ea, though the official opening has yet to take place. At the time of my visit the carvings on the posts and rafters of the then unfinished marea in Pinupaka village were carefully enveloped in dry banana leaves.

In preparation for the opening ceremony the men of the itsubu go fishing and smoke their catch. At the same time they erect eheteharana, that is, they set in the ground bamboo poles on which are hung food and streamers of palm leaf When the itaj^a is made, some three days before the official opening of the marea, the chiefs of the local group go round with areca nut inviting friendly villages to come to the inauguration and the dance which is held on the eve of the ceremony. It is understood that each chief coming will bring with him six to twelve bunches of bananas in return for which he and his people receive food from the itsubu inaugurating the new marea. The women collect wood for the fires and the men prepare their feather gear for the dance. That evening the pigs intended for the feast are caught, and the visitors are received informally. The dance begins about 10 or II p.m. but before this the people of the local group perform a small dance for which its members do not put on much ornament ; this is said to be for the purpose of entertaining their visitors and keeping them awake. When the big dance begins, the curtains of coconut leaves, ariari, on the front of the ma^^ea are drawn aside, and the chiefs of the local group speak in turn from the itara ; then the carvings are uncovered. The dance goes on till morning ; sometimes rival villages or clans seek to determine which of them can keep it up the longest ; the tail of a perineal bandage {itaburi) tucked into its wearer's leglet is a challenge to this contest\

On the following morning a number of pigs, all provided by the local group inaugurating the marea, are put on the ground in front of the marea on heaps of coconut leaves, and the chiefs of the local group portion them out to the various

1 At the opening of the new Waima church the dance was kept up for twentysix hours when the performers were, with difficulty, persuaded to go home.

232 Tlie RorO'Speaking Tribes visiting chiefs. The pigs are then beaten to death with clubs ; the club used for this purpose is not the pur'da or black wood club, but the ibarapu made from a palm, da, which is also used in carrying bananas. The pigs are cut up by the ovia akiva and the pieces of pig-flesh are laid in rows and named as the portions of various persons in the itsubu of the chief to which each pig has been given, the female relatives of each individual so named taking charge of and ultimately carrying away his portion. The ovia itsipana giving the feast is said to reserve one or two pigs for his own people. Besides the pigs, the local group provides a vast amount of vegetable food, to produce which specially large gardens may be made a year before the ceremony. The women of the village cook a mess of the entrails of the pigs with bananas ; this with yams and mashed bananas is eaten about midday on the itara by the visiting chiefs, who sit and eat, first the bananas and then the mess of entrails. The chiefs of the local group which is inaugurating the marea do not eat, its ovia itsipana saying before the other chiefs begin eating : ' See, I have prepared this for you, now eat.' At the end of the feast areca nut is distributed and chewed. During the afternoon the women of the village cook yams and bananas ; about four or five p.m., the food is laid out in two or three lines down the centre of the village street on leaves or in pots, the portions of food being grouped in twos or threes ; this setting out of food is termed wakaro. When the food has been laid out, all the chiefs inspect it, and the ovia itsipana of the new marea walks round with a banana haulm, striking each collection of food and saying * soand-so, your food.' When food has been assigned to all, the women help each man to carry off his portion to be eaten with his own people in his own village. In the evening there is sometimes a dance.

GAGA IN RELATION TO THE MAREA.

Reference has already been made on pp. 208 and 210 to certain dada used as clan badges by the itsubu of the Rorospeaking tribes ; dada are, however, perhaps most in evidence upon the marea, but before describing these and their relation to the marea it seems advisable to give two legends concerning the origin of one of the dada found upon certain Roro and

Origin of Oada 233

Paitana marea. It must, however, be noted that everything said concerning the relation of oada to the marea applies only to the marea of the ovia itsipana, not to the marea of the ovia awarina in his capacity of chief ' of the left ' or to aruaru marea, for both Dr Strong and I were assured independently that oada were not exhibited on war or paiha 7narea.

The following legend explains how akimiu the garfish came to be the oada of a Roro clan, while Mainahauna another Paitana clan accounted for their dada which represents a crab claw (rata) by saying that long ago some of their people looked out to sea and saw sails of this shape upon canoes and, being much struck with them, took them as their dada and represented them upon their mai^ea posts.

At Pinupaka where there is but one itsubu, Parama Kupunu, there was, at the time of my visit in June 1904, no finished marea in the village, but one named Kevori was being built by the ovia awarina of Parama Kupunu. Here the following story was told as to the origin of the Parama Kupunu dada.

Long ago the men of Parama Kupunu went fishing and caught akumu only. When asleep that night in the marea the ovia itsipana had a dream in which Paipai, who in this account appeared to be regarded as a benevolent spirit\ told him to go and ask the folk of other clans who had caught other kinds of fish, to exchange some of these for the akumu caught by Parama Kupunu. The other clans refused, and again the chief had a dream in which Paipai told him that, inasmuch as the other clans refused to exchange their fish for akumu the latter should be the sign of the Tnarea of Parama Kupunu. Meanwhile a big snake had eaten all the akumu, leaving only their heads, and in another dream Paipai insisted on the head of the akicmu with its long prominent jaws becoming the dada of Parama Kupunu.

The Aitsi Kupunu local group of Mou village account for their dada which represents the tail of the fish called paia by the story that their ancestors once caught a fish of this kind, the tail of which continued to fiap long after the fish had been killed. Much impressed they took this for their dada and carved the paia tail on their marea posts.

^ This name {^paipai) is more generally applied to certain malevolent beings who afflict men with disease.

234 TJie Roro-speaking Tribes

CLASSIFICATION OF OAOA FOUND IN MAREA.

The oaoa found upon marea will be grouped for purposes of description as follows :

(i) Oaoa which are the badges of the itsubu or local group to which the ma7'ea belongs.

(ii) Foreign oaoa, that is, oaoa which are the badges of foreign itsubic, i.e. itsuhi or local groups to which the viarea does not belono-.

(iii) Oaoa, the property of the ovia itsipana of the itstcbu or local group to which the marea belongs.

(iv) Oaoa which were stated to belong to, or to be associated with the marea building as such, that is to saycertain marea with a given historic name and belonging to a particular clan or local group, had associated with them certain oaoa.

(i) Oaoa the badges of the itsubu to which the marea belongs.

Figure 15 (p. 208) shows the oaoa of the local groups of Ovia Pokina and Koae Kupunu itsubu exhibited respectively on the marea Kevori and Boaiota of Siria village. Both these oaoa were carved on the projecting ends of rounded poles of about \ inch diameter, constituting the roof stringers which projected in front of the gable end over the entrance. The bifid free extremity of the Ovia Pokina oaoa represents the jaws of a species of garfish called akumu. For the oaoa of Koae Kupunu called paia, no meaning could be elicited at Siria, but at Mou where it is the oaoa of the local group of Aitsi Kupunu itsubu, this represents the tail of a fish called paia. This type of oaoa is commonly to be found carved on the projecting ends of the horizontals, carrying the roof of the marea, and sometimes on the projecting ridge pole, as at Siria where the ridge pole of Kevori m.area terminated in the aku7nu pattern, the oaoa of the local group of Ovia Pokina itsubu.

Designs representing the oaoa of a clan or local group are, or may be, carved upon the side posts, meke, which sustain the greater part of the weight of the building, on the front end of | the ridge pole kapahene, upon the free ends of the inside longitudinal stringers kopakopa, the outside main longitudinals utsubi, and upon the free forward projecting ends of some

Oada in Clubhouses of the floor rafters aru. The oada may also appear beneath the kaiva, either carved from the soHd or in low relief upon a board attached horizontally to the dome of the kaiva. Airava marea of Abotaiara settlement of the Hauramiri stock

Fig. 19. Hornbill derivatives on the posts of Airava 7narea of Abotaiara (Waima).

of Waima affords the best example of the representation of an oada in the marea. As already noted on page 208, the men of Abotaiara settlement wear the mandibles of the hornbill on ceremonial occasions. Their marea has the capitals of its side posts carved to represent hornbill heads with

Fig. 20. Designs on inarea posts derived from the markings on the mandible of the hornbill.

exaggerated beaks bent downwards which, at their tip, join the base of the capital. A rather narrow pedicle springing from the back of the base of each capital constitutes the neck. The wood between the neck and the beak has been cut away, and through the open space thus formed, the horizontal poles bearing the greater part of the weight of the roof are passed. Figure 19 represent hornbill carvings in this marea.

On the front central post (kupua) which supports the ridge pole just behind the kaiva, the upper and lower mandibles of the two hornbills are secured, while from the roof near the top of this pole there is hung a roughly carved wooden figure of a bird with extended wings which was said to represent a hornbill. Further the kupua and another smaller post just behind it are carved with angular designs derived from the markings on the mandible of the bird.

In certain other marea, e.g. Maivauku of the Waima settlement of Aihoa Kupunu in which the airava dada was carved upon the posts, it had degenerated to such an extent as to be unrecognizable.

Figure 20 gives two diagrammatic representations of capitals which were said to represent the airava dada. I believe that both these figures are from Waima marea, certainly capitals which resemble these are to be found at Waima.

Reference has been made to the effigy of the hornbill, the dada of the men of Abotaiara suspended beneath the kaiva of their m.area. Although the boards exhibited beneath the kaiva of a m.area are usually only decorative (cf. page 244) the dada of the clan may sometimes be represented on them. Thus in Tautaa marea of the Waima settlement of Herahera, there is a board upon the under side of which is carved a lizard called ibaboro [Varanus sp.), a bird and a chelonian. The significance of the two latter, which are of smaller size and nearer the edges of the board than Is the lizard, is discussed on p. 238, and all that need be said here is that ibaboro is the dada of the men of the Herahera settlement^

(ii) Foreign dada in the marea.

The second class of dada upon marea, namely those not the badges of itsubu or local groups owning the marea, fall into two series.

^ In Decorative Art (figure 137, Plate IX) Dr Haddon has figured a panel on a pipe in the Glasgow Museum 'labelled from Kerama, possibly from Mai va [Waima] containing a lizard, probably a Varanus, and three birds.' The style of this panel resembles that of the board beneath the kaiva of Tautaa marea and I have no doubt that the pipe is of Waima make, while the shape of the panel suggests the possibility that the design was copied from a board which decorated a clubhouse.

Oaoa in Clubhoitses 237

(i) In the special aruaru marea referred to in chapter xxi and used in initiation ceremonies, the bada of the clans participating in the aruaru ceremonies held in these marea were formerly represented on the marea.

The capital of the front right lateral post of the aruaru marea Tautaa of the Herahera settlement of Waima is carved in the manner already described on p. 2 11, as the conventional representation of the hornbill. This post belongs to Roro Aiera settlement of the Arabure stock, one of whose bada is airava the hornbill. The second right lateral post belongs to one of the Hauramiri local groups, and is also carved to represent the hornbill, but on this capital the marks on the beak of the bird have not been quite so highly conventionalised, and their character can still be recognized.

The left front lateral post belongs to the Ereere stock, and has upon it an admirable representation of the crab-claw canoe sail, which is one of the baba of some, or perhaps of all, the Ereere local groups. The carving on this post is incomplete, for it was said that its capital should represent two sails with their surfaces parallel and their edges turned towards the centre of the village. The second left lateral post belongs to Herahera settlement. Its capital is broken but should represent the baba of Herahera, i.e. one of the Arabure local groups.

Each of the posts was supposed to have been carved by the chief of the settlement or local group, whose baba it bore, and certainly each ovia itsipana was responsible for the carving of the baba of his settlement or local group, but as a matter of fact many men assisted in the carving of the capitals of these posts, and when a man who was not a chief, was particularly expert, he would do the greater part of the work as in the jnarea of his own local group. While the chiefs of foreign itsubu and local groups were working at the posts of Tautaa marea in Herahera village they were given food by the men of Herahera, but this was really far less a gift than an exchange, since later each ovia itsipana would present Herahera with as much or more food than he and his men had consumed.

It seemed that the baba of the clans participating in the arua7'u ceremonies might be represented in or upon parts of the marea other than the posts which support the building, thus, as already mentioned, representations of a lizard, ibaboro,

238 Tlie RorO'Speakhig Tribes a chelonlan, and a bird, occur upon a board beneath the kaiva of Tautaa marea. The Hzard which is drawn so as to occupy the centre of the board, and upon a larger scale than the bird and the chelonian, represents the dam of Herahera settlement, and it seems likely (though unfortunately this question was not directly asked) that the bird and chelonian represent the dada of some other of the itsubu or local groups which took part in the aruaru ceremonial. Airava, the hornbill, which is modelled in effigy in the marea of Abotaiara, with wings spread exactly as is represented on the flat on the kaiva in Tautaa marea, is the dada of the folk of a number of Hauramiri and Arabure local groups, while aieri a chelonian, perhaps the fresh-water turtle, is one of the dada of the Hauramiri groups, Hauramiri Koko and Hauramiri Oki Pokina.

Another example of a clubhouse which is probably an aruaru marea may be referred to, namely the big new marea called Rabau, built in July 1904, but not then inaugurated\

The Paitana settlement of Mou consists of six local groups, representatives of all of which are responsible for the upkeep of certain of the posts of the new marea, built in 1904 by the local group. of Mou itsubu, the leading group of the village. Further, certain of these posts, if not all, have carved on them the dada of the local group to which the individual responsible for their upkeep belongs. This marea is a very fine building; it has two of the central posts called kupua and eight of the lateral posts called meke (four on each side) in front of the closed-in chamber which constitutes the greater part of the building. The ownership of these

^ The seclusion of initiates in aruaru marea has quite ceased at Waima and the details were only elicited with difficulty. My visit to Mou was so short, that I had no opportunity of ascertaining directly from the villagers whether or no this fnarea is an arjiaru marea, although the conjecture is borne out by a piece of information supplied by Father Cochard, who states that at Mou, aruaru is the name of a ceremony in which folk of all itsubu meet and are shut up in a marea. It was said that this ceremony could only take place when no death had occurred within a period of about a year. This statement is particularly interesting in connection with a remark made by an elderly native of Waima to the effect that there were no aruaru marea now because so many people have died. On the other hand the natives of Siria professed to have no knowledge of aruaru marea, and Father Joindreau who inquired after 1 had left the district, concerning the numerous oaoa of Mou marea writes : 'When the marea belonging to the oldest itsubu (or perhaps the most powerful) is being built, each of the lateral posts of the marea is put up by one of the chiefs of the other itsubu.^ It will be noted that Father Joindreau's information does not contradict the idea that Rabau is an aruaru marea, indeed it seems to suggest a possible origin of these marea.

{

_

Oada in Chlbho^tses 239

posts will be most easily understood by consulting figure 21, which is a ground plan of the front of the marea.

A and B, the two kupua, which support a great part of the weight of the ridge-pole and are the most 'honourable' posts of the marea, belong to Naime Aitsi and Paru Oa respectively, these two men being the ovia itsipana and ovia awarina of the local group of Mou itsubu.

C, the front right, 7neke, probably belongs to Naime Aitsi, but on this point my note is not absolutely clear.

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FLOOE OF CLOSED PORTION OF NAB E A.

Fig. 21. Plan of posts supporting anterior open portion of large 7narea of Mou.

D belongs to Aitsi Kawa, the ovia itsipana of the local group of Paitana itsubu.

E belongs to Oanu Aitsi of the local group of Mainahauma itsubu, of which he is probably the ovia itsipana.

F belongs to a man called Are Kairuku, information as to his itsubu is unfortunately lacking.

G belongs to Aitsi Bio, ovia itsipana of the local group of Korena itsubu.

H belongs to one Rabu Aua, itsubu not noted.

K belongs to Aitsi Erere, ovia itsipana of the local group of Uri Kupunu itsubu.

L belongs to Lakani Nehara, itsubu not noted.

One of the three posts, the itsubu of whose owners is uncertain, belongs to the ovia itsipana of the local group of Herina itsiibu, H being probably the post in question.

Dr Strong gives the following list of oada formerly exhibited on the Waima aruaru niarea,

Airava, the hornbill.

Aktwiu, a garfish.

Itapa, probably representing another fish, but said to be simply a piece of wood carved in much the same way as that representing the akumu,

Uala, the crocodile.

Rata, representing a crab-claw sail or perhaps a crab's claw.

Elaiielati, a snake.

Koiytiy an ornament consisting of a piece of worked turtle shell attached to a disc of the shell of Melo diadeina.

laveiave, the white cockatoo.

Tau, 2l figure of a man.

Mairi, the crescentic ornament cut from the shell of the pearl oyster Meleagrina margeritifera.

This list, though undoubtedly accurate as far as it goes, is probably not complete; there seems little doubt that the large lizard called ibaboro {Varanus sp.) was also represented on aruaru marea. There are in the British Museum two carved planks, each some five feet long and about half a foot broad, which were undoubtedly produced by one of the Roro-speaking tribes. One of these boards (figure 22) has carved upon it two representations of a lizard which can be recognized as ibaboro, while on the other is carved a human figure and a lizard. There is no reasonable doubt that these boards stood at the entrance of a marea, and the designs upon them as well as their size, point very strongly to this having been an aruaru marea. During a short stay at Waima in 1898 I saw two partially burnt and rapidly decaying posts of a large m^areavc^^on which a crocodile and a human figure were carved respectively. The technique of the carving of the crocodile was good, that of the human figure, which was almost life-size, was very rough, and as far as my memory serves resembled that shown in figure 22.

It may, perhaps, be questioned whether the oada on aruaru marea really represent foreign oaoa, and whether aruaru marea are not to be regarded as in fact the common

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property of several clans. But it seemed that the aruaru marea really and essentially belonged to one clan though used by others, and the fact that the chiefs of artia^m marea were always the ovia itsipana and ovia awarina of the clan or local group said to own the niareay appeared to put the matter beyond doubt.

(ii) The second series of cases In which foreign da'da were introduced Into the vtarea form a rather miscellaneous group, individual instances being, as we should judge them, acts of individual courtesy rather than imperious custom, or else serving to bring to mind events In the history of the local group. It seemed that all these cases were looked upon by the natives themselves as rather unimportant.

The following are examples of the circumstances which may lead to the introduction of foreign dada.

In Bobo Rabi the marea of Arabu Kupunu settlement, a local group of the Ereere itsubu of Waima, the capital of a post is carved so as to present a slight variant of the hornbill design already figured as occurring on the posts of Maivauku marea of Aihoa Kupunu settlement, of which Makani Bio is chief. It was said that this post was actually carved by Makani Bio because Naime Miria whose marea is Bobo Rabi helped Makani Bio with the roofing of his marea.

The following instance occurred at Siria village. One Araha Aitsi of a Roro-speaking tribe on the mainland came to Siria when young and married there. He lived with and was closely

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Fig. 22. Carved planks in the British Museum.

242 The RorO'Speakmg Tribes associated with the local group of Koae Kupunu itsubu and was allowed to carve the usual conventional figure of his bada, akicmit, in Boaiota marea. It must, however, be noted that this man was a successful fish charmer, and it is possible that this may have had something to do with the ready admission of his fish bada to the marea.

(iii) Oaoa, the property of the chiefs of the clan.

In most but not in all marea a number of carved boards are to be seen, either suspended from the forward projecting overhang of the roof, or attached to the under side of the thatch, where they can only be seen with difficulty; sometimes, however, they are prominently placed under the eaves of the building or attached to the front of the main post. The designs on such boards generally represent conventional renderings of common ornaments, often arranged in series, and as a rule not forming any design which can be recognized as an baba distinguishing a particular local group or itsubu.

The greater number of boards of this class are the property of the marea chiefs and must be regarded as their baba, as there is no doubt that they are recognized as belonging to the families of these chiefs to which public opinion strictly limits their use. As in the case of other baba the right to use a particular board might be sold, but only to other chiefs ; no instance was discovered of any recent sale of these chiefs baba, but it seems probable that old and forgotten sales afford the explanation of the similarity, or even identity, of carved boards exhibited in fiiarea belonging to chiefs of different local groups, itsubu or tribes. Father Guibaud stated that at Mou, a Paitana village, there is, or was a Tnarea called Anapua with a chief's baba resembling that exhibited on the Siria marea Anapua, though the two local groups belong to different tribes and to itsubu that do not bear the same name. A similar instance is said to have occurred at Kevori, while the pattern represented on the board belonging to the ovia awarina of Koae Kupunu of Siria (figure 24) and until recently exhibited on a board in Boaiota marea is almost identical with a portion of the design to be seen on boards fixed under the eaves, and attached to the main post (Jcupud) of Maivauku marea of Arabure Ororo Pokina settlement of Waima. It was said that of old no ovia awarina had the right to hang such carved planks in the m.area. I am not

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Oada in Clubhouses

Fig. 23. Board belonging to the Ovia itsipana of Koae Kupunu itsubu of Siria villajre.

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Fig. 24. Board belonging to the Ovia aunirina of Koae Kupunu itsubu of Siria village.

16 — 2

244 ^^^^ Roro-speaking Tribes sure whether this Implied that he had no hereditary right to such planks, or only that he might not exhibit them In the marea. The carvings themselves are generally in low relief, both Intaglio and relief often being accentuated by paint of different colours.

Figures 23 and 24 are boards, belonging to, and considered the dada of, the ovia itsipana and ovia awarina of the local group of Koae Kupunu itsubu at Siria; these were exhibited on Anapua and Boalota marea respectively. At Siria the patterns on these boards could not be identified; it was said that their meaning, If ever they had any, was forgotten, but the pattern on the board belonging to the ovia awarina appears to be derived from the fretted turtle shell ornament koiyu which is the name given to this pattern at Waima. The designs upon the carved boards under the kaiva of Airava marea of the Waima settlement of Abotaira, represent a number of mairi (the crescentic pearl-shell neck ornament), koiyu and something called aria^H, the nature of which could not be determined. Again on Maivauku marea of Arabure Ororo Poklna settlement of Waima there are two boards respectively attached to the main post (kupua) of the marea, and to the partition separating the inner chamber of the marea from Its itara. Both these boards have carved upon them in low relief a design called rairai, which was the property of the ovia awarina, and this design is again found on the same marea on one of the boards attached to its kaiva.

It was not clear to what extent the carved boards attached to the under surface of the kaiva of the marea were the property of the marea chief or chiefs but some certainly were, and there can be no doubt that they owned the boards hung in the front of the marea, such as those shown in figure 24. It seems, however, that some of the carved and painted boards under the kaiva were not regarded as the personal property of any chief, but were simply ornamental, and I formed the opinion that this was so In the case of a number of the boards in Airava marea, upon one of which a snake is represented. These ornamental boards, which are usually square-ended, may pass Into the bull roarer form, and figure 25 is a drawing of a 'bull roarer,' In the style of a kaiva board, the history of which could not be determined but which was said to come from one of the Roro villages \

^ The specimen alluded to is now in the British Museum where its catalogue number is 1906, 10 . 13 . 48 ; allusion may here be made to a bull roarer derivative i baoa m Clubhouses

(Iv) Oada associated with the marea as such.

There is a certain class of oada, apparently of no great importance, which appeared to be more closely associated with the 7narea as a building than those baoa already described, and which was not to be considered the property of the folk using the marea in quite the same way as those previously referred to. The heading of this paragraph probably accentuates a difference which no native was able to clearly explain to me, nevertheless it appeared that some such division was necessarv for a certain class of daba. The oada referred to seem to have ceased to exist in the villaQfes of the Roro tribe, but the following information was obtained at Siria regarding their former occurrence.

Anapua inarea of the local group of Koae Kupunu itsubu formerly had a carved and painted plank hung from the projecting kaiva of the marea. Two small pots of the kind known as eiei were attached to the lower end of this plank ; a similar ornament still exists on one of the ma7^ea of Babiko village, while two small pots are to be seen hanging from the front of the Mekeo clubhouse represented in Plate XLV.

Kevori ma^'ea of Ovia Pokina had a single eiei hung from the front overhang of the roof and designs or

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some four feet long, collected by Dr Strong in an Elema clubhouse which is also in the British Museum (1906 — 16). A snake cut in high relief extends for almost the whole length of this specimen, the head and tail of the animal being so much undercut as to be partially free from the board from which it Jtands out for the remainder of its length.

Fig. 25. Ornamental board of bull-roarer shape.

TJie Roro-speaking Tribes patterns were painted upon these pots on high ceremonial occasions.

Figure 26 represents a carved wooden board called /^/^r^5, said to have been used also as a canoe ornament, and which was associated with Waidara marea of the Ereere Aiera local group of Ereere itsubu of Waima. No doubt this ornament is derived from the waxing or waning moon. Its ornamentation suggests Gulf influence, and the word for moon in the Elema languages of the Papuan Gulf is papare.

Certain animals appear to have been looked upon as peculiar to given marea and were carved upon them. Thus on the main posts of the new Kevori marea at Pinupaka there is a rough carving of a snake, immediately above the human face already described on p. 222; this snake was said to

Fig. 26. Papares exhibited upon Waidara marea of Waima.

commemorate or represent Paipai, a shape-changing ancestor, and to have originally been carved at his command. Again, it was said that until recently a snake was represented upon Haurama marea of the Waima settlement of Arabu Kupunu, while Rabao Rabi marea of the Waima settlement of Hauramiri formerly exhibited an effigy of a man armed with a bow and arrow.

This fourth class of dada was said to have been absent from war marea.

ORNAMENTS IN AND UPON MAREA.

Marea usually appear to be more or less profusely decorated, for the dada carved upon their posts and the boards exhibited in them are often coloured black and carved in low

Plate XXXVII

Human-headed post in old clubhouse at Diumana, carved by Poa Oa

Ornaments in Chtbhoiises 247

relief, the intaglio areas being picked out in white or red.

Further the edge of the kaiva is usually hung with a closely set series of strips of dried palm leaf, all of which are cut to the same length ; this gives a decorative effect to the kaiva, and when a similar fringe is continued along the edge of the eaves to within a few feet of the itara an extremely pleasing effect is produced. Some idea of this may be gathered from the pictures of marea given in Plates XXXIV and XXXV. It has already been explained that the majority of carvings upon marea are dada, but certain carvings occur upon the marea posts which are not daba at the present day, whatever may have been the case formerly, and which, when they appear upon newly built marea must be regarded as decorative in intent as well as in fact. Figure 27 (a) is a diagrammatic drawing of one of these carvings upon a post recently made for Kevori marea, the Roroaiera clubhouse, which it was expected would be built towards the end of 1904. This design was said to represent the sun and a vulva, but no reason could be given for this combination, and no meaning was attached to the rectangular pattern connecting the two objects \ Another instance of decorative carving in the marea is afforded by the human headed post which stands by the side of Kevori marea of Roroaiera, this is one of the posts of the old Kevori 7narea which preceded the present small building, and was carved by Poa Oa, and there are, or were until recently, posts of other old Waima marea terminating in the same type of human head. These heads occur again as the capitals of posts of the clubhouse of the Nara village of Diumana, which were also carved by Poa Oa, or under his direction. One of these posts is shown in Plate XXXVII.

Figure 27 {b) is an instance found in a marea, of a design in low relief which is not an bada ; this pattern is by no means limited to marea, but is also found upon boards which enter into the structure of other buildings. The white triangles were said to represent dogs' teeth.

Another ornament found upon marea is shown in figure 27 (c), and a series of these ornaments made of the cortex of a climbing palm were worked round the free ends of a number

^ Although it was not recognized, it can be shown that in all probability the vulva and rectangular design connecting it with the sun are derived from conventional representations of the crocodile.

The Roro-speaking Tribes of horizontals forming part of the framework of the marea roof in Ekapaka marea of Barai Kupunu settlement of Waima.

{a)

{b)

{c)

Fig. 27. Marea ornaments ; {a) sun and vulva design ; {b) dogs' teeth ; {c) ornament made of dried grass.

TABLES OF LOCAL GROUPS, CLANS, CLAN-BADGES AND CLUB- HOUSES OF THE RORO-SPEAKING TRIBES.

The information embodied in these tables concerning the Roro tribe was collected by myself, that concerning the Paitana and Kevori tribes by Dr Strong, who is also jointly responsible with me for the information concerning the Waima tribe and the Bereina community.

The fish itaba, the oaoa of a number of Waima local groups, was so constantly confused with another fish, akumu, that it would probably be equally correct in the list of Waima oaoa to substitute akumu (which is an oaoa of a number of local^ groups of the Roro tribe) for itaba.

Clans, Clan-Badges and Clubhouses 249

THE RORO.

Village

Itsubu

Oaoa

Marea

Remarks ia

Ovia Pokina

Akumu (gar-

Kevori ^

Marea of the ovia itsipana.

fish)

Aurama

Not built, the marea of ovia awarina.

ia

Koae Kupunu

Paia (a fish)

Anapua Boaiota^

Marea of the ovia itsipana. A battle marea\ its chief the ovia awarina.

ia

Parama Kupunu

Aktimu

Tsipiri Burebure

Not built, the marea of the ovia itsipana.

A battle marea., its chief the ovia awarifia, a poor building in bad repair.

ia

Aitsi Noobi-

A sea bird

Iwamuru

Not built.

ra2

(perhaps the frigate bird)

Kamora

Not built, a battle marea\ its chief the ovia awarina.

ia

Aitsi Kupunu

Paia

Aribaia^

Not built at Siria, marea of ovia itsipana.

lupaka

Parama Kupunu

Akumu

Kakitsupu Kevori

A paiha marea., not built, but it was said that it would shortly be erected. Dr Strong was told that its left side represented the ?narea of a war chief.

Marea of ovia awarina^ it was unfinished but fast approaching completion in June, 1904.

kama

Parama Kupunu

This is a small settlement of little importance and in 1904 had no ?narea.

^ These two marea together constitute the marea building commonly called Kevori marea, standing at i southern end of Siria village.

' A very weak and scattered clan with no recognized chief.

' This is the name of the Aitsi Kupunu marea now existing at Mou where Aitsi Kupunu clan appears oave settled.

The RorO'Speaking Tribes

THE PAITANA.

Village

Itsubu

Oaoa

Marea

Remarks

Mou

Mou Paitana

Korena^

Aitsi Kupunu

Rabau

Rabau

Maneva Haurama Kaurirabi Aribaia

Possibly an aruaru marea^ p. 238.

Mainahauna

Rabau

Anapua

This marea no longer exi in the old marea there w one or more posts on wh a crocodile was carved.

Bioto

Meauri

Airava (the hornbill)

Airava

Korena

Wowo (a lizard)

Anapua

Watevvate

Apena (cockatoo)

Maneva

Paitana

Mairi (a crescentic ornament of pearl-shell)

Kevori

Rapa

Ovia Pokina

Rabia (sago)

Overoroi Hauramiri

A battle marea.

Meauri

Airava

Airava Anapua

A battle marea.

Sevotaina

An ornament of pigs' teeth

Haurama Poko

A battle marea.

Akavaru

Akumu

Mimiri Anapua

A battle marea.

Babiko

Bereina Ovia Pokina

Watewate

Rabau

Haurama Oroi

Hauramiri Maneva

Meauri

Airava

Airava

Not to be confused with Korina settlements of Waima.

Clans, Clan-Badges and Chtbhouses 251

THE WAIMA.

Settlement

Itsubu

Oaoa

Marea

Remarks iauramiri

Ereere

Itaba^ a fish resembling a garfish and perhaps nini a, small bird

Rabau Rabi

The figure of a man armed with a bow and arrow was said to have been formerly associated with this marea, which contained either an effigy of this man or a post carved with this design.

'Hauramiri

Hauramiri

Aieri (a che-

Roabu

Not built. Dr Strong states

Koko lonian, ? the that there is a post called

Hauramiri fresh water hauramiri itutu which ap-

Oki tortoise)

pears to be associated with

Pokina i ,'// >«j-

Hauramiri the Hauramiri stock of Hauramiri and Aihoa Kupunu settlements. It is a post with the vulva carved upon it. An aruaru marea and nonexistent at the present time.

Vihoa Kupunu

Hauramiri

Airava, and itaba

Maivauku Oaibua

There is some reason to believe that this settlement once had another marea called Poiyotupu.

Marea of ovia awarina and a battle marea (cf. p. 226).

ibotaiara

Hauramiri

Airava

Airava ibotaiara

Hauramiri

Airava

Rokoroko

KQikoi aroba

Hauramiri

Airava

Anapua

Probably an aruaru 7narea.

'.obaiarobaia

Arabure

Airava

Nenehituputupu

A paiha marea. For feasts, and the usual marea ceremonies Robaiarobaia uses Kevoripaka marea of Roroaiera local group of Arabure itsubu.

omo kupunu

Arabure

Airava

Airava rabure

Arabure

Airava and perhaps a snake called elauelau

Arabure Hiyohiyokia

Anapua

An aruaru marea.

Only two posts left standing, one with a crocodile carved in low relief upon it.

')nauna

Ereere

Itaba

Mimiritupu

The Roro-speaking Tribes

Settlement

Arabu Kupuna

Ereere Aiera Ereere

Ereere

Ehoho

Oa Ovia

Roro Aiera

Puro Erau

Arabu re Ororo Pokina

Ereere

Abiara Ereere

Hauramiri Arabure

Arabure Arabure

Itaba

Itaba and perhaps iaveiave the white cockatoo

Itaba and raia^ the 'crabclaw' lakatoi sail

Pehera{swordifish)

Uala (crocodile) and airava

Airava

Haurama

Bobo Rabi

Waidara

Itau Rabi

Kereivua

Oroioroi

Nepuwai Kevoripaka

Airava Maivauku

Burebure

Remarks

There is some doubt whethe this settlement at one tim had another marea caller Oroi.

A paiha marea^ a snake of th kind called awara was i: some way associated wit this inarea^ in or on whic there was said to have bee formerly an effigy or carvin of this snake.

Papares^ an "ornament" wa said to be associated wit this marea (cf. p. 246).

This marea does not now exisi it is said to have belonged to an Ereere group fror Bereina. This ?narea does not now exisi The name of the Ereere mare, of this settlement is uncer tain.

This is a comparatively youn; settlement in which no 7naf ea have yet been built.

At Roroaiera there is a sing! post of the old Kevori inare bearing a crocodile carve in low relief standing by th side of the itara of the pr( sent Kevoripaka marea. Th old Kevoripaka was an aru aru marea.

Uses the marea of Roro Aier settlement.

A battle marea was said to t connected with veraura th sun in some unexplained wa;

Burebure was an aruaru ma) ea., and is now represente by a single burnt post i Arabure Ororo Pokina. is said that before Burebui marea was built, there Wc' upon this site a marea calle Meauri Rabi, about whic nothing could be learnt.

Clans, Clan- Badges and Clubhouses 253

Settlement

Itsubu

Oaoa

Marea

Remarks jrahera

Arabure

Airava ? and Ibaboro ? ( Varanus sp.) and perhaps raia

Tautaa

An arua7'u marea. Dr Strong was told that the oaoa of Herahera settlement were a lizard something like a small crocodile and raia the crabclaw sail. There is some little doubt whether airava is an oaoa of this settlement, the fact that Tautaa was an aruaru marea made it difficult to distinguish the oaoa associated with it (cf. p. 238).

rai Kupunu

Abiara

Ekapaka

An aruaru marea.

ru Kupunu

Abiara

•

Kaurirabi Muniavu

Both aria., a lizard 'like a small crocodile' and baravoa the monitor lizard were at different times given as the oaoa of this settlement.

)io Kupunu

Abiara

Iwamuru

An aruaru inarea.

aha Ereana

Abiara

?

ivori Kone^

Herehauwana

Itapa

Anapua

Mamurova

Tarewa

An aruaru marea.

Abiara

Airava

Muniavu Arabure

An aruaru marea.

Napuemena

Toro Meaurirabe

An aruaru marea.

Aiyo

Hauramiri

Kui

Itapa

Boborabi Ravau

Avepa

Airava

Airava Beoreburi^

An aruaru marea.

2vori Gunikai

Kevori

Itapa

Kevoripaka Bororelavi

Arabu Kupunu

Boborabi

A paiha marea.

Uai Kupunu

This local group or itsubu is said to have no 7narea and to have fused with Arabu Kupunu.

Arabure

Arabure Erevai

A war 7narea. An aruaru marea.

1 * Bereina, Kevori Kone and Kevori Gunikai are the names of groups of houses which are larger than I Waima settlements though they cannot be regarded as villages in the ordinary sense of the word. "^ [Probably the name of this marea might equally correctly be spelt Burebure the name of a former naru marea of one of the Waima settlements of Arabure itsubu.']

The Roro-speaking Tribes

THE BEREINA.

Settlement

Itsubu

Oaoa

Marea

Remarks

Bereina

Koae Kupunu

Aktimu

Kevoripaka

There are two marea of th name (cf. p. 225).

Aihoa Kupunu

Rabau^

Rouna

The left side of this marea used by and is considered belong to the local group Ereere itsubu.

Paitana

Airava

Haurama Viorai

A battle marea.

Ereere

Kene

Taleva

Not built in 1 904, probably tl left side of Rouna marea called by this name.

^ Rabau is one of the names of Yule Island, I cannot say what else it may mean, or if, as an bada, means the Island, in what sense this is a clan-badge.

CHAPTER XXI

FAMILY LIFE. CHILDHOOD.

Among the Roro, names are derived from animals, plants and natural features, such as Aitsi (crawfish), Bio (cassowary), Kibia (red ant), Waia (dog), Abara (rain), Tou (river), Warupi, Kaima, Miria (names for different kinds of bananas), Kepa (banana haulm), and these names are given indifferently to girls or boys\ There is no obligation for anyone to avoid eating or even injuring the particular plant or animal after which he is called.

Children are named when quite young, and it is usual for a child of either sex to receive two names, the second being its father's first name, and the first the name of a relative, or of any animal, plant or natural feature that might please the parents-.

It was considered a compliment to choose a friend's name, but the friend would be equally honoured if his name were given to a favourite pig.

Very often a child bears his father's names Inverted, thus, the son of Aitsi Bera is called Bera Aitsi.

Name-changing does not take place, and Father Guis notes that the Roro do not use nicknames.

Recently a Roro woman, who was seriously ill during childbirth, was carefully tended by a woman of another clan who was also a connection by marriage, and who suckled the sick woman's child for the first few days of its life. In gratitude, the child was given her foster-mother's name.

^ This list is taken from Guis, Missions Catholiques^ 1898.

2 Thus the best wood carver of the last generation in Waima was named Poa Oa, his son Maoni Poa, and his grandson Oa Maoni.

256 TJie Roro-speaking Tribes

Sometimes a name may be agreed upon before the child is born, thus a Roro woman who was pregnant during our visit had determined that if her child were a boy she would give it the name of a dead kinsman. Similarly an adopted child, if the arrangement has been made before the child is born, may take its adopter's name\ In such cases it appeared that if the man were a chief, the child might assume his adopted father's rank in the same way as an actual descendant, for by early adoption the child assumes the clan of its adopted father, into which it will not be allowed to marry, though marriage into the clan into which it was born would, it was said, as likely as not take place. Children are weaned comparatively late, so that a child is given a considerable amount of vegetable and fish food before it is weaned^

The ears are pierced when the child is from six to eight years old, two holes being made in each ear, one in the lobe and the other in the concha just below the tip of the ear. The septum of the nose is pierced a year or two later, that is when the child is ten or eleven years of age^ There is no ceremony about either of these operations, which are usually performed with a stout thorn, the blood is washed away with water and a roll of leaves inserted into the wounds to prevent them closing. The boy who has been styled a miori since babyhood is still called miori after his ears and nose have been pierced.

ASSUMPTION OF THE PERINEAL BANDAGE, ITABURI.

Some time after a boy has had his ears pierced and while he is still a miori, his father kills a dog which he first hangs to the front of his house, and then takes to the house of the boy's maternal uncle to whom he gives it^ If

^ Guis notes that the right to impose a name may be bought, but does not say under what circumstances this occurs.

^ At Waima I heard of a ceremony which takes place a few weeks after the birth of a child, but whether it occurs after the birth of every child, or only the firstborn, I cannot say. It was stated that at this ceremony one or more women carried bows or spears, so that possibly it is the analogue of the Koita ceremony described on pp. 71, 72.

' The ages given in this section are based on the examination of a number of children in Siria village.

• Guis states that hanging a dog to the front of a house is practically a public announcement to the effect that a son of that house is to be invested with the itaburi.

Initiation 257

a dog is not available, a pig may be used, but this is not considered the right thing. Members of both sexes of the boy's mother's family eat the dog, and the boy is then sent to his uncle, who in his own house puts the itaburi on his nephew. The boy then returns to his father. The boy's father and his paternal relatives are not present when the itaburi is first put on the boy. Careful inquiry was made concerning this ceremony at different times and from different folk. It appeared that the dog given is in some sense the price paid for the assumption by the boy of the itaburi \ the dog is brought to the boy's mother's brother with explanations and excuses: "See we have killed this dog for you; it's a good fat dog ; you can't want anything more or be displeased with it ; suffer now that my son assume the itaburi.'' In one recent case the only dog a man had was killed by a baulk of wood falling on it ; although his son was then too young to assume itaburi he took the dead dog to the boy's maternal uncle, explaining that this was the only dog he had and that it had been accidentally killed, and that, when the time came for his boy to be invested with the itaburi, he expected that the uncle would remember this dog and ask for nothing more, and this was agreed.

THE IBITOE.

A boy when he has assumed the itaburi is still called miori, and remains so until or just before he reaches puberty, when at Roro he is called ibitoe ibitoe. As an ibitoe ibitoe a boy may, and does still take part in childish games as he did as a viiori, but he devotes less and less time to them. As puberty advances he becomes an ibitoe and should cease to sleep in his father's house, resorting to the marea instead. Although privileged, in that no very regular work was expected of them, the ibitoe of Roro and Paitana tribes were subject to certain restrictions and disabilities, and were further subjected to certain conditions entailing in theory a certain amount of physical hardship.

Except when dancing, no ibitoe should make use of the open space between the houses, which constitutes the main street of the village ; he must enter or leave the village by the clear space at the back of the houses. Ibitoe must not be seen eating by members of the opposite sex\ nor would ibitoe as a rule eat with or in the presence of married men. The ibitoe were expected to obey the chief of their clan when big fishing, hunting or bush clearing operations were on hand, and also, if the occasion arose, to assist in building their 7narea. In theory the ibitoe should fend for themselves, obtaining their food in the bush and from the sea by their own efforts. In point of fact they do catch a considerable quantity of hsh which they supplement by petty raids on the gardens and houses, no one thinking of objecting to such depredations, so long as the raiders take care not to be caught red-handed. Dancing and preparations for the dance are important factors in the life of an ibitoe, and many make drums for themselves, for although not compulsory this is considered the proper thing for an ibitoe to do. While making their drums, for which purpose three or four generally unite, they must live in the bush and avoid being seen by women. Many foods are forbidden to them, and they may only drink the water found in the axils of banana leaves or the milk of the coconut, and should avoid any contact with fresh water before the hollow of their drum has been charred and scraped into shape, under penalty of the embers, with which the hollow is charred, refusing to glow. Their food must be cooked in a particularly small pot called eiei, or they will themselves grow too stout to dance well, and if any of them eat fish, a fishbone will puncture the tympanum of the taboo-breaker's drum^

INITIATION.

Careful inquiries made at Yule Island failed to elicit anything in the nature of a definite initiation ceremony for the ibitoe^ though it is obvious that the restrictions to which the ibitoe are supposed to submit would, if rigorously enforced, produce a good deal of bodily discomfort and, to a certain extent be the equivalent of the physical training so often given when boys enter manhood. At Waima on the other hand an elaborate ceremonial, with seclusion, was formerly undergone by boys, about the time of puberty. It is said that this

^ The reason alleged for this is, that a girl who saw any of them eating would fear to contract marriage with a man requiring so much food and therefore, so much toil in the gardens from his wife.

'^ These taboos and the penalties for infringing them are taken from Guis, op. cit.

Initiation ceremonial is now entirely obsolete, and it was difficult to obtain details, so that while the following account is probably substantially correct as far as it goes, there are likely to be numerous omissions. The seclusion, which appears to have been the essential part of the aruaru ceremonial, as the initiation process was called, took place in marea called aruaru ^narea which were built especially for this purpose, and at Waima at least, put to no other use.

Of the original Waima stocks {itsudu) Hauramiri, Arabure and Abiara each had an aruaru marea. Roro Aiera, a thriving settlement of the Arabure stock, which although originally an ordinary local group of this itsubu seems to have early attained a recognized position of comparative independence, also had an aruaru marea. Ereere stock was said to have had no aruaru m,area of its own, and its members used that of one of the other stocks. Aruaru marea were never used as sleeping places by the men, nor were feasts given there, except such as were connected with the initiation ceremonies carried on within them. From the remains of aruaru fnarea which have been pointed out to me, it is clear that in certain instances they were far bigger than any other marea\ some of the posts still standing betoken a length of no less than fifty yards.

The three early or original Waima aruaru marea were probably :

Hauramiri m.area of Hauramiri Oki Pokina settlement of Hauramiri stock.

Hiyohiyokia marea of Arabure settlement of Arabure stock.

Kevoripaka marea of Roro Aiera settlement of Arabure stock.

Other marea were built later, and the following additional aruaru marea still exist or did so until recently :

Tautaa marea of Herahera settlement of Arabure stock.

Burebure marea of Arabure Ororo Pokina settlement of . Arabure stock.

I Iwamuru marea of Roio Kupunu settlement of Abiara stock.

Ekapaka marea of Barai Kupunu settlement of Abiara stock.

Probably Anapua marea of Taroba settlement of Hauramiri stock should be added to this list.

17 — 2

26o The Roro-speaking Tribes

All the youths about to be initiated, no matter what their itsubii might be, were initiated together in one marea, and each aruarii marea appears to have been in turn the scene of the ceremony.

In connection with the artiarti ceremonial it is necessary to point out that Waima has been considerably influenced on both the physical and social sides by its proximity to the Elema tribes of the Papuan Gulf, and it seems probable that the aruarii customs are a modification of the more elaborate Elema initiation ceremonies which take place in the eravo (clubhouses) during the long period of seclusion of the initiates. It is much in favour of this view that the aruaru ceremonial does not occur among the Roro, the furthest removed from Gulf influence of the Roro-speaking tribes. Further, when it is found that a portion of the Elema initiation ceremonial consists of periods of residence in the eravo (clubhouse) during which the boy is taught to make armbands and dancing ornaments, the matter seems to admit of no dispute\

ARUARU CEREMONIES.

Boys about ten years of age as well as older lads approaching puberty, all called miori, were initiated together. They were painted red and taken to one of the aruaru marea in the back compartment of which they were confined during the hours of daylight, for about two months. At night they were allowed to slip out but not to visit their parents' houses.

^ The evidence showing that on the physical side Waima has been much influenced by its proximity to the Elema tribes will be given elsewhere. This is not the place to discuss the matter from the social standpoint, but reference may be made to the striking fact that Gulf masks not found among the Roro or Paitana tribes, are used by the Waima tribe who call them kaivakuku. I am indebted to Captain Barton for the following account of the first part of the boy's initiation ceremonial at Lese, a village of one of the Elema tribes.

• When a boy is about five years old his father makes a hibiscus bark belt, called kuva, with a dependent tassel in front and fastens it round the boy's waist. From time to time as the boy grows bigger, the old /cava is cast away and a larger one made, boys of about seven years and upwards making their own kava. When the boy's pubes begin to enlarge he pushes an extra tassel inside the front of the belt, and goes on adding one from time to time until he has four such tassels. He then goes into seclusion in his eravo and remains there for some months, during which time he is taught to make arm-bands and other ornaments. He lives in the back part of the eravo and at night sleeps in the upper storey. When his seclusion is over his hair is allowed to grow, and he covers his face and chest with coconut oil, coloured with paira (red earth), he decorates himself with fragrant herbs and saunters about in the company of the boys who have passed the first seclusion period with him.'

Initiation 261

Under the direction of the older men who daily visited them they made armlets, belts [ropo), leglets {apa), anklets [abde), and wristlets {prope). Their food was prepared for them by their relatives in the usual way and given to boys, too young to be themselves initiated, who passed it to the aruaru initiates through small holes broken in the sides of the back compartment of the 7narea. The whole affair was under the supervision of the aruaru chief who was the ovia itsipana of the particular aruaru marea in which the initiates were confined. When he considered that the boys had been sufficiently trained, he told the people to make a feast. Everyone killed pigs and brought cooked food, which was placed on the ground in the middle of the village, or in front of the aruaru marea, and a dance was held in which both men and women took part. In this dance the men wore the peculiar gong or rattle-like instrument called iu shown in figure 28\ When the dance was finished the chief announced from the marea platform that the boys within had completed their belts, anklets and so forth. The initiates, still called aruaru, left the ^narea without any ceremony and went to their parents' houses w^here their mothers at first feigned not to recognize them.

After this the aruaru stay about the village for a period estimated at about two months, they are said to carry on numerous flirtations, and when dancing, wear the iu. They are then secluded in the marea for another month. At the end of this time they are supposed to fast for one day, but it seems to have been a point of honour for every two boys to open and eat at least one coconut without making any noise while breaking the shell. Towards the evening of the day of fasting, the chief mounts the verandah noisily and looks through the chinks between the sago stalks forming the anterior wall of the back compartment of the marea. He sees the aruaru lying about in attitudes indicative of exhaustion due to hunger and fatigue, which were assumed when his step was heard on the verandah. He sees that they are hungry and calls for food, which he and other old men take to the aruaru, who eat it. During this period of

^ The iu is worn on one side suspended from the waist. It consists of the basal portion of the axis of a sago frond in front of which are suspended two sticks, so arranged as to strike against the sago frond whenever the leg is raised in dancing. A more elaborate example of the iu, presumably from the Papuan Gulf, is figured by Mr J. Edge Partington {Album of the Pacific Islands, Series i, p. 301).

The Roro-speaking Tribes seclusion the old men have shown the initiates how to make iu, the framework {ita7'etare) of the dancing masks called vera, dancing plumes and pearl shell crescents. The initiates wear these ornaments some time later when they leave the seclusion of the marea to dance, but they discard their finery on their return after a couple of days. They again stay in the marea, while each boy makes a mask called bahoro, described as being Mike a hat' When these are made the initiates leave the marea for one day wearing the bakoro, and take part in a dance. They then return to the marea for a short time, perhaps one day, and make a basket-work

Fig. 28. lu.

ornament, after which they dance for one day. Again the initiates return to the marea and make another basket-work ornament called kokoai. The next day they come out fully decked with vera, iu, itaretare and three or four mairi ; they stay about the village for a couple of days and then return to the marea, where they discard their ornaments, which now become the property of the older, fully initiated men called buiapu who have taught the aruaru to make them. The buiapu and the initiates go wallaby hunting, the latter leaving the village at night and meeting the former soon after daybreak. The wallaby, as well as any other game killed, is brought to the

^aUooing of Cirh 263

chief by the buiapu of the aruaru marea. The initiates stay in the bush, and only approach the village at dusk, when they slip into the marea. Here the chief asks them if they are not yet weary of their seclusion ; although the aruaru return no answer, they know that it now rests with them to end their seclusion, which terminates as soon as one of their number has had connection.

It has already been stated that the initiates are allowed to leave the marea at night, when they should be so wrapped in bark-cloth as to be unrecognizable. Like all natives of this part of New Guinea when moving about at night they go in couples ; accordingly, when the time to terminate the seclusion of the initiates has arrived, one or more couples quietly leave the marea, and look for girls willing to receive them whom they usually marry later.

Initiation was considered complete at the termination of the period of seclusion, and the initiates previously called m,iori were afterwards called buiapu.

The following additional information was collected by Dr Strong at Waima. ^ Every male had formerly to go through the aruaru ceremonial, as a rule this was done before marriage, but apparently there were exceptions. The ceremony appears to have begun about the time of the south-east monsoon, that is in April, and lasted for about a year ; during the period of initiation four ceremonial dances were held ; the aruaru initiates performed a special dance at each, while the older men of the tribe danced the ordinary dances at some little distance, the initiates, also, wore special decorations for each danced The first dance was called bite, and took place soon after the beginning of the seclusion period and while the south-east wind was still moderate. It was said that for this dance the initiates were ornamented with feathers ; the second dance took place when the south-east wind was at its height; It was called oare and, while dancing It, the initiates wore some kind of cover which prevented them from being recognized. The third dance was called aunapaka and was held when the south-east wind had nearly blown itself out; in this dance, again, the initiates were covered, their bodies being more completely hidden than In the previous dance. The last dance was called vakivaki and for this the boys were decorated with the leaves of a plant, perhaps a palm ; this

^ [Doubtless the ornaments they had made while secluded in the marea.'\

dance took place at the beginning of the north-west monsoon, that is, about the end of December. During the whole of their seclusion the initiates were only allowed out at night
and then they were completely covered with wraps made of the spathe sheathing the leaves of the coconut palm, or some similar covering. Seclusion ended for the whole batch of initiates when one of their members had had connection with a girl who afterwards would become this boy's wife. Soon after their release from the marea the initiates made gardens, called iciama, for the chiefs of the marea in which they had been secluded.'

A circular piece of basket-work, lopo, was worn as follows : the hair was passed through the central opening, so that the inner rim of the basket-work rested on the head, and the hair, or part of it, was then plastered down (presumably with clay) so that it lay iiat on the basket-work, when ornamental markings were made on it with lime and perhaps red ochre. A half-moon shaped basket is called kokoai ; it was worn by the initiates while they walked about and was also part of the full dress of the boys at one of the ceremonial dances. It was worn vertically upon the head, the hair being described as compressed between the two halves of the basket-work.

TATTOOING OF GIRLS.

There is no ceremony when a girl is first put into petticoats, which are here called kiva, nor is there any fixed age for this, the matter depending upon the fancy of the child's mother, but always taking place at an earlier age than that at which boys assume the itaburi, indeed it is not uncommon to see tiny children who cannot be more than three years old tottering about in a kiva. From infancy until a girl is considered nubile, i.e. until her face has been tattooed, she is called wawaho. While quite young a girl accompanies her mother to the garden, and insensibly begins to pick up a knowledge of the work, and to be a help to her mother.

The women of the Roro-speaking tribes are all tattooed from head to foot. Tattooing is begun when a girl is 5 — 10 years of age, the hands and arms being first treated; tattooing these parts produces no great pain. Later the belly, chest

^ Except of course during the dances already alluded to.

Plate XXXIX

Copyright l^y the Rev. II. M. Dauncey

Waho at Waima

Tattooing of Girls 265

and back are done. The work is performed by some old woman skilled in the art, and generally a relative of the girl ; in any case she is fed by the girl's mother if she does not do the tattooing herself, but is apparently not otherwise paid for her services. The pigment used consists of the soot from the bottom of a pot, mixed with a little water, and this is applied with a fragment of wood, the end of which has been frayed out so as to form a coarse brush, and the colour is pricked in. This is done by gently tapping with a mallet consisting of a short piece of wood round one end of which is wound a strip of native cloth, upon the back of a piece of wood from the opposite aspect of which one or more thorns project at right angles to the long axis of the instrument. The designs tattooed upon the body are well shown in Plate XXXVIII.

When the girl is considered to be of a marriageable age the buttocks, legs, and last of all the face, are tattooed, a small feast being given before work on the buttocks is begun. On the day the head and face are to be tattooed, the head is shaved, and the girls' relatives fix the date for a feast, which is usually held five days later, because experience has shown that this time is required for the soreness to become less severe, and for the crusts to separate. On the day of the feast the necessary finishing touches are given, and that afternoon the girl is considered nubile and is styled waho. She is ornamented with all the valuable shell and other ornaments that her family can borrow for her ; members of both her father's and mother's clan lending their valuables.

Plate XXXIX reproduced from a photograph by the Rev. H. M. Dauncey, shows the number and beauty of the ornaments worn by the waho. It will be noted that two of the girls are wearing ornaments which closely resemble the insignium of chieftainship shown in figure 18 ; presumably this indicates that they are related to chiefs.

No dance takes place, but a feast is made in the afternoon, in the girl's father s house, at which the girl may eat some of the food, though, as a matter of fact, she is usually too sore to do more than taste it, for tattooing the face, especially around the lips, is an extremely painful process. Decked in her finery, the girl parades ceremonially up and down the centre of the village for a short time, and for five days after this she should sit upon the verandah of her father's house for the greater part of each day, wearing all her ornaments. During this time she is rove, she may only walk down the centre of the village, she may not help her mother with her garden, neither may she cook food nor fetch water ; she may not touch her food with her hands, but must pick it up with a fork, the handle of which is wrapped in a banana leaf. Part of the time may be spent in visiting and gossiping with other waho. After five days the ornaments borrowed from all except her very near relatives are returned, but she keeps those provided by her own people. Although she is now allowed to feed herself and help her mother in the gardens, she still wears her ornaments each afternoon, and saunters about the village street, or sits publicly upon her father's verandah. She also joins in all the dances that take place. This sort of life continues for four or five months, by which time her hair has grown again, and she is considered fit for matrimony, when her status-term is buiapu (Waima).

CHAPTER XXII

MARRIAGE.

Until about forty years ago when the Roro left the neighbourhood of Maiaera on the mainland, their men generally took wives from their own or from other Roro villages, though there were always a few marriages with the Waima, Paitana and jMari^ai) tribes, and less commonly with kdjihthL /Cf Mekeo. Matters have not altered much in this respect, ^'«'^''"'*

though of late years marriages outside the tribe are stated to have become somewhat more common.

The marriage ceremonies of the Roro have been most picturesquely described by the Rev. Father Guis and his description has been taken as the basis of the following account. The only part of the celebration which I have witnessed is the highly ceremonial first visit of the bride to her parents' house after her marriage\

When a youth is of an age to be married, his father asks the members of his local group to help him to collect the brideprice, Ae^e, for his son". No difficulty is made, and when sufficient valuables have been got together the boy's father, carrying the bride-price, goes with two or three of his itsubtt to the house of the father of the girl he wishes his son to marry. The convention is that at this stage of the proceed-

^ My thanks are due to the Rev. Father Ernest Guibaud for additional information about the Roro marriage ceremonies, as well as for much tedious interpreting in connection with these and cognate matters.

2 The value of the ornaments collected and paid is considerable. Aihi Naime of the Waima settlement Ereere stated that his folk had paid for his wife Aiva of Taroba settlement 3 pearl-shell neck ornaments {jnairi)^ 3 conus arm shells {toia
10 fathoms of Nassa shell currency {?novio\ 5 headdresses made of the feathers of a species of Channosyna called enehi and one dogs' teeth necklace, i pig and 2 ibabiri, the latter a feather ornament, the exact nature of which was not clear. The greater part of this payment went, not to the father of Aiva, but to the members of her local group, all of whom helped to eat the pig at a feast held in her father's house.

ings the bride has no idea of what is going on. The boy's folk lay out the bride-price on the verandah, and seat themselves gravely by it without saying a word, leaving the next move to the girl's father. The presents offered are mairi, tola, some fathoms of movio, birds of paradise feathers, one or more dancing petticoats, and invariably a panicle of ripe areca nut.

The girl's family who have gathered in the house in anticipation come out and criticise the presents, but are careful not to touch anything, as that would imply acquiescence, before which there is usually some bargaining. The head of the girl's family, usually her father, will say that the bridegroom's folk have not offered enough. The latter dissent, but add further valuables, until the girl's people are satisfied.

It was stated that, in theory, should the girl's family be averse to the marriage, its members would retire into the house without saying a word, when the boy's people would go home. But if all goes well the girl's father piles the brideprice into a heap, and, taking an areca nut from the bunch brought by the bridegroom's father, tears off the husk with his teeth, and biting it in half gives one piece to the bridegroom's father. As soon as each of the contracting parties has chewed his half of the nut, the relatives of the bride and bridegroom smoke and chew together, boasting of the number of pigs that will be killed for the marriage and discussing the possibility of a fat dog forming part of the feast. After the boy's relatives have left, the bride's father shares the bride-price among his relatives and the members of his local group.

On the wedding day a party of men belonging to the bridegroom's local group but not including the bridegroom, surround the house of the girl's parents and carry it by mimic assault, with great fury and shouting. The bride rushes out, and runs away as fast as she can, and although she is soon overtaken and caught, she defends herself to the best of her ability, with hands, feet and teeth. Meanwhile a sham fight rages between the adherents of the bride and bridegroom. In the midst of the commotion is the bride's mother armed with a wooden club or digging stick, striking at every inanimate object within reach and shouting curses on the ravishers of her daughter. Finding this useless, she collapses, weeping for the loss of her child. The other women of the village

Marriage 269

join in the weeping. The girl's mother should keep up the appearance of extravagant grief for three days, and she alone of the girl's relations does not accompany the bride to her father-in-law's house. With the bride go the members of both local groups, who form a small procession, the bride's kin giving her advice, while her friends, the young girls of the village, express their regret for her future absence from their dances. If any of the bride's relatives strongly disapprove of the marriage, they may refrain from joining the procession.

When the bridegroom sees the bridal procession coming, he hides in the marea, but his companions, the ibitoe of the village, soon drag him forth, and then, disregarding his complaints, they paint and decorate him, and so bring him to his father's house to which the bride has already come. Here he is made to sit down near the bride w^hile the onlookers call out, 'So-and-so is married to so-and-so! Hou ah! ... Hou ah! ... Hou ah! ....' Guis notes that this constitutes the formal recognition of the marriage by the tribe.

The bridegroom and bride take no notice of each other, the former talks to his friends and ignores his bride, who equally pays no attention to him. In the evening the bridegroom leaves the house to sleep in the marea, while the bride sleeps in her father-in-law's house.

Next morning, the bride's father stands outside the house of the bridegroom's father, and abuses the latter, until he is pacified by the gift of a dog, which is killed for him. A mock pillage of houses and gardens of the boy's local group also takes place, though it is clear that no expensive shell ornaments or other really valuable property, such as fishing nets, would be taken. Cooking pots and dishes are taken or broken, and ripe fruit is carried off from the gardens, but care is taken to do no permanent harm to the crops, and the damage effected seems to be further limited by the common understanding that only the near relatives of the bridegroom should be plundered. In the afternoon the bridegroom's relatives paint the bride, and deck her with their best shell ornaments, and her husband is again brought to the verandah ot his father's house. Again, the young couple ignore each other, though the next day, when they are again brought together, an understanding is usually established. Guis states that this occurs when the bride hands her husband betel and lime.

On the fourth day the girl's mother usually comes to visit her daughter, and when she sees her weeps more copiously and groans more loudly than ever, until a pig is brought in and killed for her. Then her groans give place to praises of the generosity of her son-in-law and his family.

Although the young couple have been reconciled to each other, cohabitation is not supposed to begin for a few weeks, and the boy still sleeps in the Tnarea, while his wife sleeps in her father-in-law's house. It appeared, however, that in most cases intercourse takes place in or near the gardens soon after marriage. It was stated that formerly it was not customary for a woman to have children until her garden was bearing well, that is to say, until she had been married from one to two years. To what extent this rule was adhered to, and how this result was brought about, I am unable to say.

For the first few weeks after marriage the bride decorates herself each afternoon, as she did when her face was tattooed, and spends the end of the day visiting and gossiping with her friends, as she did at that time.

The second part of the marriage ceremonies takes place some three to eight weeks later, and although it appeared that this might tally with the official consummation of the marriage I am not certain of this.

The bride's kin give notice to the bridegroom's folk that they are ready to receive them. They then catch many fish and bring a big supply of bananas to their village. The bridegroom's local group bring pigs and valuable feather headdresses and shell jewellery and march to the village of the bride's father with the bride, who is decked in some of the best of the jewellery, at the head of the procession. The pigs are slung upon a pole carried by two men in the usual New Guinea way, and the feather ornaments though not unrolled or displayed in any way are similarly carried. The pigs and feathers are given to the bride's father, after a little talk the bride is stripped of the ornaments she has worn which are given to her father, who in return gives fish and bananas to the bridegroom's folk. This food is carried to their village where all who have helped to provide the bride-price partake of it.

Until this ceremony takes place the bride is not allowed to visit her father's village or to eat food brought from it.

Marriage 271

The bridegroom's people leave their pigs at the house of the bride's father. They are killed and eaten next day by all the men of the bride's local group, and if the bride be a chief's daughter these pigs are eaten upon the 77zarea. After this feast the presents brought by the bridegroom are distributed, but, this time, only among the near relatives of the bride. A few days later, the young couple again visit the bride's village, when presents are made to them. If the bride has an unmarried sister the bridegroom's share of the gifts are presented to him by this girl.

The above elaborate ceremonial only takes place when all has gone regularly, when the young couple have been betrothed by their parents, and the dowry paid in the regular manner. But elopements, which seem always to have occurred, are common at the present time, and may be expected to become even more frequent, since the members of the Sacred Heart Mission having found that such love matches commonly turn out well, exert themselves to conciliate the offended parents. The chief cause of elopements seems to be unwillingness on the part of the girl's father to accept what is generally considered to be a fair price for his daughter. The young folk will then take to the bush for a couple of days, after which the bridegroom leaves the bride in charge of his clan and bestirs himself to make his peace with the girl's relatives, the gift of a pig being an early and generally successful step in this direction, after which a price agreeable to both local groups is arranged.

Clan exogamy is strictly insisted upon, but it seemed that a widow was allowed to remarry into her first husband's clan. Although a married woman does not formally retain her maiden itsubu, her relatives and kin continue to take sufficient interest in their clanswoman to actively resent injury done to her, and even to attempt to start a vendetta directed against her husband, should he be considered responsible for her death, as in the following instance.

Abia Koai, a young woman of Ovia Pokina itsubu, said to be about twenty years of age, married Koaba Warupi of Korena itsubu^. Abia Koai is described as being less than averagely intelligent, and, after a few months of continual quarrelling with her mother-in-law, she hung herself in her

^ Unfortunately no note was made of the village or villages of this couple.

house. Her itsubu sought vengeance on her husband and her father tried, to kill him ; he was however protected by the members of his itsubu. In this particular case quiet was restored by the Mission before bloodshed had taken place.

I

CHAPTER XXIII

FUNERAL AND MOURNING CEREMONIES.

Wailing for the dead begins Immediately after death. All the women who are at all nearly related to the deceased take part, and most of them succeed in producing a series of piercing wails which, with intermission for rest, they manage to keep up for some hours. The widow of the deceased and other near female relatives will rub, embrace and lick the corpse, crying to the dead man to return to them. Meanwhile the father, brother and cousins of the deceased arrange the limbs and close the eyes of the corpse, which lies on its back, its head propped forward on its chest by a shield held in position by two spears struck into the floor boards of the house. Father Guibaud informed me that the occurrence of a death is notified by the blowing of a shell trumpet, the note produced being the same whatever the sex or rank of the deceased. All the women of the village were said to wail around the deceased, and, until lately, his wife and near female relatives would gash their scalps with sharp fragments of shell until the blood streamed from their heads, and it was said that so much blood was sometimes lost that fainting ensued. For a commoner a death chair, called aiyaiyai^ is prepared and set up in the midst of the village, but for a chief it is set up on the verandah of his marea. The dead man would be decked in his full dancing costume and painted as for a dance. In the case of a chief his insignium of chieftainship, the ornament eaii rove, made of boars' tusks, would be hung round his neck.

Father Guibaud told me that there was usually a certain amount of unrest in a village after a death had occurred ; there would be the question of how, and on whom, vengeance should be taken for the death of a clansman by sorcery, and It was common to meet men with spears in their hands and in a more or less excited conditIon\

At Waima a death chair, aiyaiyai, was seen on the verandah of a marea ; it resembled the Koita sede (cf. p. i6o) but was low-backed, and only just big enough to seat the corpse. Above it, from the front of the ma^'-ea, were hung a kaivakuku mask, and a number of mouldering yams. Guis, without mentioning the village, gives a drawing of a * dead chief which shows the body of an adult native on the floor of the verandah of a house or marea supported in a more or less sitting posture by a shield lashed to a couple of uprights^

On the day after a man's death many of his effects, but not his jewellery, are broken or damaged and hung beneath the eaves of his house, which usually is not again inhabited and is allowed to decay. It was said that when the vegetables planted by the dead man became ripe they were also hung to the eaves of the house and allowed to rot. Probably this is the explanation of the yams to which reference has already been made.

After about twenty-four hours' exposure on the aiyaiyai, the corpse is stripped of its ornaments and wrapped in a mat, which at Waima is splinted round with midribs of the fronds of the sago palm. A pole is attached to the bundle for the purpose of transporting it to the place of burial, formerly under the floor of the house of the deceased. Here the men of the local group dug a shallow grave, not more than from one to two feet deep, in which the corpse was placed, usually with the head turned towards the rising sun. When the body

^ Recently there was strong feeling on Yule Island and at Pinupaka against one Miria Aitsi of Delena who was considered to have slain a number of men by sorcery. Captain Barton landed at Pokama and found a number of Yule Island canoes which had landed their crews of armed men while others were coming across the straits. A dance, the object of which was to excite the warriors, was in progress on the beach, and Captain Barton was told that the party intended to make a demonstration against Miria. Captain Barton hurried across the neck between Pokama and Delena ahead of the hostile party and stood in front of the house upon the verandah of which sat Miria and his wife. Two or three men spoke fiercely against Miria, his side being maintained by his fellow villagers. About this time a number of the native constabulary came up and both parties became profoundly pacific, the Yule Islanders assuring Captain Barton that nothing was further from their minds than bloodshed, and that they had only come to warn Miria to amend his ways.

^ Missions Catholiques^ April, 1902, where it is stated 'that a commoner lies on his back on the marea with his head somewhat raised, leaning against the "post of honour," by which presumably is meant the front central pole {kupua) of the mareay

Funeral Ceremonies 275

is in the grave, a near male relative takes a branch of a tree, no special kind is prescribed, and strokes the corpse twice from foot to head to drive away the spirit of the dead man which was said to be called beriwa, a rather general term for spirits and one not limited in its application to the spirits of the dead\ For a month or two afterwards a relative lights a fire on the grave at nights. It was stated that this was done to keep the dead man warm.

A part of the dead man's property was formerly buried with him. Chalmers, speaking of the burial of a chief of Waima, whom he calls Oa, says : ' On arriving at Maiva I was first led into Oa's house, and made to sit on a mat spread on the top of his grave.... The present I intended for him I placed on his grave, and retired. Many things had been buried with him, and at the head of his grave were stuck spears, bows and arrows, and, hanging on them, frontlets, armlets, necklaces, and large ear-pendantsl'

Further a few of the objects which had belonged to a chief would be exposed in the ;;^^r^^ after his death. In 1904 the front central post (kupua) of Oroi marea of the Waima settlement Ehoho, had attached to it a small tightly corded bundle of hair of the recently dead chief, as well as a cassowary bone spatula, a feather headdress and a bamboo tobacco pipe, all of which were the property of the deceased.

A whole village will mourn for a chief, and perhaps for an influential man, for from six to ten days, by abstaining from fishing, hunting, and pot-making, and by reducing gardenwork to a minimum. This village mourning was said to terminate when the near relatives of the deceased removed from the aiyaiyai a number of coconut leaves hung over it when first built. When these are taken down a small feast is held. Only the adults of the family and local group of the deceased take part in the prolonged mourning ceremonies that take place subsequent to the burial. Guis,

^ Guis notes that at Yule Island the body is buried with its feet directed towards Mt Yule, which hereabouts is called Kovio. This is done to prevent the (spirit of the) dead man scaring away the fish by walking along the strand. Then, according to the same author, two men stroke the corpse from head to foot to drive away the spirit. This is done with a herb called periine^ apparently a species of Ocwium^ and after the spirit has been swept from the corpse it is chased by the same two men shouting and brandishing sticks and torches beyond the borders of the village to the edge of the bush where with a last curse they hurl at it the sticks or torches they have in their hands.

2 Pioneering in New Guinea^ London, 1887, p. 272.

18—2

however, notes that at Waima children may cut off a few locks of their hair as a sign of mourning. The widow or w^idower has to remain in the house as much as possible for from four to eight or ten months after the death of his or her spouse. Further, a widow or widower must go out only by the back of the house, and must then be so well wrapped up that his or her face cannot be seen by any person of the opposite sex. A widow or widower may not pass along the main street between the houses while still wearing any signs of mourning, but, when entering or leaving the village, must slip quietly along the back of the houses.

Guis states that for the first few weeks after her husband's death a widow should not leave her house in the usual manner, but should let herself down heavily so as to simulate falling or rolling from her house ; she should for some little time after the death of her husband be supported on the arms of her friends whenever she goes abroad. Should she have heard of her husband's death while working in the garden she may not return to the village on foot, but must be carried on another woman's back. Both sexes shave the head as a sign of mourning.

Certain kinds of yams and bananas are forbidden to widows and widowers. A widow may not eat wallaby, pig, fish or banana, though she would eat the cooked haulm of the banana, too poor a food to be eaten on other occasions except in times of scarcity. A widower avoids shell fish and eats only two kinds of banana called warupi and kaima, he does not eat yams, though he may eat sweet potatoes.

At some period after a death, but whether this period is measured by days or weeks I cannot say, a big feast is held. The relatives of the deceased provide a large supply of fish and game, and the chief mourner is blackened from head - to foot. After this feast he or she may leave the house ik freely, though the open space constituting the centre of the village must still be avoided and the chief mourner, if a woman, must still keep her head and face covered.

An indefinite number of net collars called waro and of armlets are worn round the neck and on the upper arms of widows and widowers ; both are assumed at the time of the blackening. A widower in addition wears leglets, a belt, and he should adopt a special form of string for holding up his perineal bandage. The widow wears a long petticoat, and

Mourning Customs 277

mourners, other than widow and widower though they blacken the rest of their bodies, leave the face untouched.

The widow or widower wears the above mourning garb for one or two years (unless, as rarely happens, a widow remarries before this time has elapsed), that is until it is removed by a relative of the deceased at the last mourning feast.

There are no taboos on the name of the deceased. If unusual noises and creakings are heard coming from the dead man's deserted house, it is a sign that his spirit has returned, and it was said that special measures might be taken to drive the spirit away.

CHAPTER XXIV

MAGIC AND SORCERY.

The belief in magic and sorcery is at least as firmly rooted in the Roro-Mekeo region as elsewhere in the Possession, and certainly bulks more largely in the daily life of the people of this area than in the other parts of British New Guinea with which I am acquainted.

Great difficulty was experienced in both the Roro and Mekeo districts in obtaining information on all matters connected with sorcery and magic. This was due not only to the natural dislike entertained by the natives to discussing secret and mysterious processes with strangers, but also to a very real fear of the results of government interference, for sorcery is an indictable offence in British New Guinea, and a number of sorcerers have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment in the gaol at Port Moresby for having exercised their profession.

A further reason for secrecy was the close association with warfare of a certain class of ' medicine man ' or departmental expert, the paiha chiefs (alluded to on p. 217), which, as the village constable of Rapa village told Dr Strong, made him afraid to speak to white men of their clubhouses, the paiha marea (cf. pp. 295 et seq.\

It was indeed impossible to obtain first hand accounts of the processes employed in order to produce disease and death, and what follows on these subjects, is no more than the embodiment of the views of a number of averagely intelligent lay natives, and the experience of a few white men, for the most part government officers, who have had the belief in magic and sorcery brought to their notice by proceedings in the law courts.

Before discussing the technique of supposed magical processes it is necessary to say something concerning the attitude of the Roro-speaking folk towards their sorcerers and

Magic and Sorcery 279

practitioners of magic\ It must in the first place be remembered, that except in the case of very old folk, death is not admitted to occur without some obvious cause such as a spear thrust. Therefore when vigorous and active members of the community die, it becomes necessary to explain their fate, and such deaths are firmly believed to be produced by sorcery. Indeed, as far as I have been able to ascertain, the Papuasian of this district regards the existence of sorcery, not as has been alleged, as a particularly terrifying and horrible affair, but as a necessary and inevitable condition of existence in the world as he knows it, so that the Roro-speaking tribes look on sorcery in the abstract with no more horror or fear than Europeans in their prime regard old age and death. Hence the attitude of lay natives towards sorcerers, the practitioners of this necessary art, is not theoretically characterised by any particular fear or horror, nor does any fear or horror appear in practice, though there are undoubted instances when sorcerers who have presumed on their powers to interfere in the domestic affairs of their comrades, have been killed or driven out of a village^ With exceptions such as these the attitude of the natives towards the individuals they recognize as sorcerers is one of perfect good fellowship; indeed a sorcerer may have great influence in his own village, and not only may not be feared but may be regarded generally as a real protection, for besides being able to thwart the acts of sorcerers of other villages, the latter will, it is supposed, refrain from hostile magic in order not to provoke reprisals. I have no doubt that in many instances sorcerers actually believe in their own powers, and a well-known sorcerer explained to Captain Barton that he was scarcely a free agent in the matter, since his father had been a sorcerer before him, and it was but natural that the power should pass to him.

At Mou I had the opportunity of watching the relations

^ In this section I have endeavoured to limit myself to the magic and sorcery of the Roro-speaking tribes, but since these and the Mekeo folk appear to have many substantially similar, if not identical beliefs and practices in matters of sorcery, it is certain that a portion of the information given as applying to the Roro-speaking tribes is equally applicable to those of Mekeo.

2 Tata Ko, well known throughout the district as a sorcerer, fled from Waima to Mou in fear of his life, but he had admittedly been interfering in the domestic affairs of a number of Waima folk. It was stated that Beata Ko, an elder brother of Tata Ko, was killed as a sorcerer by the chief of Korina, one of the Waima settlements, whose son Beata Ko was supposed to have slain by sorcery.

28o The Roro-speaking Tribes between Tata Ko, a celebrated Walma sorcerer who had fled to Mou, and the natives of that village. Tata Ko is rather bigger than the average Mou man, he is in fact one of those Waima men who physically approximate to the larger and more muscular type of the Elema natives of the Papuan Gulf. When we arrived in the village, Tata Ko readily took a hand in preparing camp, and in this he was assisted by a number of other natives who showed him no particular deference, and, to all appearance, treated him as casually as they did one another, although, as I was assured, they believe that Tata Ko can kill them at will, while there is no reason to doubt that they endeavour to placate him by presents, when misfortune threatens. To Europeans Tata Ko strenuously denies that he is a sorcerer at all, and when at one time he was under arrest on a charge of sorcery he put the case to Captain Barton in ' this way : * If a man falls sick, his family come to me and ask me to make him well. If I don't do something for them they say " Tata Ko the sorcerer desires to kill our brother," and they are angry and will perhaps try to kill me. If I do give them something they insist on paying me well for it ; should I refuse to take their presents they would not understand it, and they would think I was trying to kill their friend, but when I do take what they give me, you arrest me on a charge of sorcery or blackmail.'

Although much of the magic and sorcery of the Rorospeaking tribes has for its aim the production of death or illness, or the curing of illness, produced as it is believed by magic, there are many charms appropriate to the common occurrences of everyday life. Some of these are very generally known, though it was usually impossible to predicate whether a particular charm would be a matter of common knowledge, or known only to a select few. Thus, while practically every hunter knows and employs pig and wallaby charms, the number of men who are recognized as able to prevent folk being bitten by crocodiles while fishing in the creeks is much smaller, although the process of muttering a charm and at the same time bringing together two valves of a bi-valve shell so that the crocodile may pass with a closed mouth, is not obviously more intricate than the technique of charming dogs for pig hunting. Men such as those who procure immunity from crocodiles for the members of a fishing party are certainly not considered as sorcerers, though their magical powers are

Magic and Sorcery 281

not doubted. Their magic seems to occupy a somewhat illdefined position between the magical knowledge common to the majority of laymen and that possessed only by the 'departmental experts ' to be immediately described. A limited number of men in each tribe are held to have more or less effective control over the more important departments of native activity, but apparently no single individual exerts influence over more than a single department. The hunting ceremonies described on pp. 292 to 294 show how complicated may be the ceremonial over which these departmental experts preside, and although no detailed record was obtained of the procedure in other departments there is no reason to suppose that it is less intricate or less highly specialized. The knowledge demanded by the position of departmental expert was handed down by tradition, an expert usually training one of his own, or one of his sister's sons, and the knowledge so handed on, although in part consisting of magical processes and formulae, was doubtless also largely the result of years of observation and thought.

As is only natural, the Roro-speaking tribes make the strongest distinction between (i) the magic that produces disease and death, which may be called sorcery, (2) the specialized and the beneficent magic of departmental experts and .(3) minor magic, a class of magical practices known to many of the laity, and consequently used by them in their daily life without special ceremony. It must be remembered that the practices included in the third category do not imply to the native mind that element of strangeness or disorder in the usual course of events, which Europeans invariably associate with the term magic.

SORCERY.

In the present section on the Roro-speaking tribes the term sorcery is limited to magical practices directed towards the production of disease and death, and to the efforts made to cure disease so produced. The attitude of sorcerers and lay natives towards this form of sorcery has already been defined so that here it is only necessary to consider the agents and materials used, and to cite such instances of sorcery as I was able to collect. The two media believed to be most frequently used by sorcerers to produce disease and death are snakes and certain magical stones, but besides these the leaves and roots of a number of plants form part of every sorcerer s kit.

The black snake {Pseudechis sp.), called by the natives aiirama, is the animal held to be commonly employed by sorcerers to kill folk who have offended them, but I have also heard of instances in which crocodiles were thought to have been sent by sorcerers to take a man, and one sorcerer is reputed to have admitted that In the case of a particular woman taken by a crocodile, the animal had obeyed his instructions.

Although it was admitted that men might be bitten by snakes which were not sent by sorcerers, the greater number of cases of snake-bite, especially of such as are fatal, are attributed to the machinations of the sorcerer. Indeed, not only do sorcerers kill people by causing them to be bitten by snakes, but they are also able to obtain from the black snake a deadly stone which instantly kills any Individual touched with it, even the sorcerer who uses it Is said to take every precaution not to come into immediate contact with the stone. No native of the Roro district could or would state how a sorcerer obtains his snakes or his snake stone. It was indeed alleged that a sorcerer had no difficulty In obtaining as many snakes as he wished, and one informant volunteered the information that there is a certain plant known to sorcerers which, when rubbed upon the hands, enables a man to handle snakes without fear of being bitten. But no information further than the statement that such things existed could be obtained locally concerning the snake stone, and for the following account of how this stone is procured I am Indebted to Ahuia who heard the story some years ago when he visited the Roro district.

A sorcerer who desires to obtain a snake stone fasts for two weeks, his food being limited to a few roasted bananas. During this time he stops in the bush by himself, and is especially careful to avoid the sight of women. Sooner or later he dreams of a black snake, the most poisonous snake of the district, which lives in a hole in a hollow tree, or in the banks of a creek. The sorcerer, who carries an instrument described as something like a fishing spear with about twenty closely set points, rolls a number of perineal bandages, i.e. long strips of native cloth, round his hands, arms and legs as

Sorcery a protection against the snake. The snake is worried until it moves, when as it glides away it exposes a small stone which is picked up by thrusting the 'spear' points against it, so that it is held between them. It is not touched, but is dropped into a length of bamboo and carried off by the sorcerer. The snake may follow the sorcerer in order to recover the stone, but such pursuit was said to be neither usual nor long continued. The stone is kept carefully tied up in a jar or length of bamboo. To kill a man. It is sufficient to touch him with

Fig. 29. Necklace found in sorcerer's bag.

the snake stone, which is described as red and ' hot ' and about the size of a filbert. A snake stone Is rendered innocuous if it be dropped into a bowl of salt water which immediately hisses and bubbles as though boiling. When no more bubbles arise the stone is 'dead,' I.e. harmless.

The sorcerer is alleged to keep his snakes in pots such as are commonly used for cooking, either in the bush or in a dark corner of his house. When a snake is to be induced to bite someone It is said to be treated as follows : A fragment of native cloth, or some object held to retain the body scent of the individual to be attacked, is placed in the pot with the snake ; the whole is covered up and the pot warmed. The snake, annoyed at the heat, strikes at the cloth, then the sorcerer takes the snake and, hiding himself in the bush by the side of the track, awaits the coming of his victim when he lets loose the snake. The latter, recognizing the body scent of the cloth in the heated pot, follows the man until he can bite him. A modification of this method is for the sorcerer to await an opportunity of touching his intended victim with a magic stone, previously smeared with some strongly smelling substance. In this case, too, the snake is confined with the odorous body until it can be liberated near the victim when, attracted by the scent, the snake seeks out the man touched with the odorous substance and bites him.

The magical stones already referred to are mostly greyish water-worn pebbles, including water-worn fragments of vein quartz crystals. All these with many other objects, some of which have apparently no connection with magic, are carried in a netted bag of the kind called mahawa, in which a native usually carries certain of his most treasured trifles, as well as his lime gourd and other objects of daily use. How miscellaneous the contents of a sorcerer's mahawa may be, is shown by the following list of the contents of one seized by the Resident Magistrate of the Central Division.

A necklace, consisting of alligator teeth and small packets of

• medicine ' (figure 29). One stone lashed in a bamboo holder (figure 30 b
  A mass of netted stuff, apparently mourning gear. One small bamboo cylinder of ' mountain ' type, containing a number of bone needles (figure 30 cY- One carved hair comb, from the Papuan Gulf One vessel of unusual shape, made from a young coconut, partially covered with string netting. One partly made stone adze.

Two pieces of crystalline quartz, apparently from a vein. The lower jaw of a large lizard ( Varanus sp.). The two halves of the jaw are held together by slivers of bamboo and twine. The remains of the claw of a rather large bird in a carved wooden case (figure 30 d). One bamboo cylinder which had contained red paint, a bone pointer was thrust through its stopper.

^ The decoration of this cylinder shows that it was made in the mountainous district behind Mekeo.

Sorcery

One smaller bamboo cylinder containing red paint and a bone needle.

One slightly ornamented (scratched) bamboo cylinder.

One small netted bag with various charms attached.

One small netted bag containing seeds and fragments of wood (figure 31). This bag has attached to it a long netted loop which suggests that it was worn round the neck. A packet of 'medicine' is attached to the loop on each side where it joins the bag.

(^)

kb)

ic)

{d)

Fig. 30. Objects found in sorcerer's bag.

One large bamboo cylinder containing a powdery vegetable mass done up in red rag and a bone pointer. One piece of very dirty much-frayed cloth, in which was stuck a bone needle (figure 30 a). One bone needle, stained red, was loose in the inahawa.

The bag of another sorcerer, also seized by the government, contained a number of fragments of broken arrows and a large number of cassowary claws. Although the bone

The Roro-speaking Tribes needles in one rnahaiva suggest the existence of some form of

• pointing ' magic, nothing could be ascertained concerning the existence of sorcery of this kind, nor, except in the case of the pasty mass of vegetable matter contained in a bamboo cylinder, was it possible even inferentially to ascertain the

Fig. 31. Necklace found in sorcerer's bag.

method in which any of the other objects in this mahawa were employed.

The nature and use of the vegetable mass seems clear from the following instance of sorcery, which came under Dr Strong's notice. A native of Kevori was charged with attempting to bewitch a man against whom he had a grudge ; a small bamboo cylinder containing some dried leaves was

Sorcery 287

produced in court. The accused admitted that the leaves were ' medicine,' which he had obtained from Oiyapu, to the west of Cape Possession, and that they were used in sorcery. He also admitted that he had collected some fragments of sugar cane which the prosecutor had chewed and spat out again. He had then placed the fragments of chewed sugarcane with the leaves and clearly expected that the plaintiff would suffer as the result of this. In the same bamboo cylinder there were also a few fibres of a woman's petticoat. The accused refused to give any information concerning these, but the natives in the court agreed that they must have been put in the cylinder for the purpose of harming the woman from whose petticoat they were taken \

Some of the smaller stones carried in a sorcerer's mahawa, especially those consisting of fragments of water-worn vein quartz, are enclosed in roughly made tightly fitting nets; sometimes two such nets, containing charm-stones, are joined together by a few centimetres of string, when the pebbles may be spoken of as male and female. It was not possible to obtain any information concerning the significance of this ascription of sex to the stones, nor how it affected their magical properties. Chalmers states that he obtained certain charm stones which were male and female, while others were father and child, however, he does not state how they were used. Speaking of a sorcerer whom he calls Veata he says :

• The thing produced was a small net bag containing two large seeds ; attached to one was a very good, clear, and well-shaped crystal, and underneath small shells to represent noes and ayes ; that was the male, and the other unadorned was the female. They were never appealed to except for death, and were the cause of death to many. He now asked me if I felt fear. "Oh, dear no," I replied, "go on." He next produced a piece of bamboo ten inches long, in which there was a black stone of basalt, and another very small one. The one was

^ An interesting case that illustrates the same form of belief recently occurred at Inawi, in the Mekeo district. Dr Strong writes : 'Two Inawi natives, both old men, quarrelled ; probably each was jealous of the other's influence in village affairs. One collected some faeces belonging to the other, and, placing them in an empty meat tin, took them to Mangemange, a Rarai man, who formerly had a great reputation as a sorcerer. He asked Mangemange to so treat the faeces that the man from whom they were derived would die. Mangemange, who is a village constable, replied that he now wore government clothes and would have nothing to do with the matter, and ordered one of the villagers to take the faeces to Inawi and to throw them into the river there. This was done....'

288 The Roro-speaki7ig Tribes father and the other child ; these were for the seasons, and gave plenty or scarcity. In taking the large stone out it fell, which much disconcerted him, and he had again to go over his incantations. Next came a cup-like spongiole, obtained from the end of an aerial root of the pandanus. He took the lid off, and, wrapped in various kinds of weeds was another stone, which he handled very carefully. This was a partner with the last one, and together they produced sickness and death. The latter was the female. He then laid down a small parcel done up in native cloth very carefully, and whilst undoing it maintained a very solemn demeanour, muttering all the time. From this another stone was produced, wrapped in weeds with two small stones, enclosed in a small net-bag, besides some other substance wrapped up in leaves. These had power to bring children, and were appealed to by the barren, only they were never to be seen by women. He then said that was all, but went away and in about an hour returned with a small parcel of crystals... and then in great secrecy he brought out a large piece of clear quartz in a small net-bag, and said that was what I had heard about, and no one must look upon it, but myself It was the "death stone" of which all the Maivians were afraid '

No layman would willingly touch or even look at the stones and other objects used by sorcerers, and any contact with them, even when not expected to produce death would be avoided as unlucky. Chalmers records that he bought some of the charm stones shown him by Veata, and also the effect on his native crew of the knowledge that they were in the whaleboat. ' It was noised all over Maiva that I had obtained possession of these things, and my inland friends begged me to have nothing more to do with them, or our boat would sink, or we should all die, or I might live, but Motu would suffer.... No one on board knew where I had them until after leaving Yule, when my stroke asked me, and I told him they were in a box under his feet. He resigned his oar, and on no account during the voyage would Jhe return to it. In crossing Redscar Bay we had dirty weather, and it was a very dark night. All this arose from Veata's things, so there was but one wish among the crew, that I would throw all overboard. They were terribly frightened, they begged for a reef to be taken in, but, anxious to get to Redscar Head by

^ Pioneering in New Guinea^ London, 1887, p. 316.

I

Skull prepared for sorcery

Sorcery 289

daylight, I would not consent. I heard them saying amonp-st themselves, "What folly to keep these things on board! He is not afraid; they will not affect him but what of us^?'" When, a few weeks later, Chalmers had an attack of fever it was generally considered that the charms bought of Veata were- responsible.

The most careful inquiries failed to suggest that the sorcerers have any knowledge of vegetable or mineral poisons, and although jequirity {Abrus precatorius) is common in the district, no native appears to have any knowledge of its toxic properties, nor are children warned to avoid its brightly coloured seeds.

But although there is no evidence of the use of poisons by the sorcerers of the Roro-speaking tribes, it is commonly believed that they have a knowledge of certain plants which when administered inevitably produce illness or death, and that these results would be brought about equally if these plants were administered by a layman. That is, these plants are poisons, using the term in its commonly accepted sense. One plant of this nature was said to produce delirium, and then idiocy, when administered in small and repeated doses, but to kill if a single large dose were given. The condition of a youth of Siria village, who is almost an idiot, is considered by some to be due to the action of this drug administered to him while on a visit to Bereina.

There is a general belief that sorcerers endeavour to obtain access to freshly dead human bodies, portions of which they use as charms, and Father Guis suggests that this may have contributed to the practice of burial under the house of the deceased (Waima) or in the village street. But, except that a penis enveloped in clay is thought to be a potent love charm (cf. p. 302), I could hear of no part of the freshly dead body being actually used in sorcery. Skulls are, however, used and for this purpose may be prepared with great care, as in the instance shown on Plate XL. The skull was obtained at Port Moresby whither it had been sent (as I was told) as evidence of the sorcery practised in the Roro district, where the charm was made. It was unfortunately impossible to ascertain the precise circumstances attending its preparation. The skull is that of a young adult, probably a female and it must have lain exposed in the jungle for some time previous to

^ Pio7teering in New Guinea^ London, 1887, pp. 31 7) 3^8-

290 The Roro-spedking Tribes its use as a charm, since the roots of various plants can still be seen intertwined in the vd^xioviS fossae and occupying the interior of the cranium.

As shown in the plate It Is fixed between two split cane uprights, connected by two cross-pieces. Above the last named is a slender framework of canehoops, covered with reddened B^^oussonetia bast. In this the skull is supported resting on the occipital bone, so that the base is presented vertically to the observer.

In this aspect it is taken to resemble a face, the nose being represented by a straight piece of cane attached to the framework, and similarly covered with reddened bast. From its lower extremity projects a cane loop, through which is thrust a wooden skewer representing a shell nose ornament. Below this again, also suspended from the framework supporting the skull, is an ornament made of two boars' tusks fastened root to root by a string lashing. This corresponds to the fighting ornament (called at Port Moresby musikaka), which is held In the teeth during a battle. The eyes of this face are formed by the zygomatic fosses, and two thin cane loops on either side represent the ears. A strip of cane is lashed by either end to the zygomatic arches, and forms an arch over the maxillary portion of the face, the extremities extending back almost as far as the auditory meatus. To this arch is attached a dense fringe of human hair and white feathers ; tufts of the former are fastened at intervals to the framework supporting the skull, and cover the whole of the frontal and a portion of the parietal bones. Between the skull and the framework at the back (and not shown in the figure) is thrust a bunch of white cockatoo feathers.

A number of charms are fastened here and there to the pieces of cane which support the skull ; most of these consist of bunches of herbs, but there are also, a fragment of dead coral, the mandible of a fish, and a waterworn pebble of vein quartz.

As to the purpose of the charm, the natives asserted that it was used to procure the death of an enemy, though they could not explain the method adopted to bring about the desired result. Quartz pebbles, such as that attached to this charm, are themselves considered of deadly potency, and reference has already been made to Chalmers' description of one particular quartz crystal which was notorious throughout Waima for its death-dealing powers.

Sorcery 291

Although not only sorcerers, but also certain mythical Deings alluded to on page 303, are considered to produce disease and death, these two aetiological factors do not jsually tend to become confused. There is, however, a :omparatively small class of cases in which it is clear that :here exists an ill-defined but real belief in disease-producing spiritual agencies controlled by a sorcerer. Both Dr Strong md I have independently met with such cases and when, as n one instance, footprints were alleged to have been seen under the house of the supposed victim the evidence ^'as considered to be undeniable. Dr Strong says : ' I lave met with this idea at Siria. It was supposed that a

• spirit" of some kind had come to bewitch someone in the i^illage, and it seemed to have been a ''spirit" sent by or belonging to a sorcerer, but the natives themselves seemed to lave only a very confused idea of what they really did believe. K footprint was found under the house of the supposed victim ind this was considered good confirmatory evidence. Another nstance occurred at Waima where a member of the mission :ook me to see a woman w^ho believed she was the victim of 1 sorcerer. Her account was that she went out one night and that she was taken by the hand, and in consequence she was now sick. It w^as impossible to understand who or what took tier by the hand. At times it seemed to have been a real man ; at other times only a sort of invisible ''spirit " belonging to a man, presumably the sorcerer. She was really ill and had been very constipated, her breath was offensive and her tongue foul. I advised a brisk purgative and moral suasion and later I heard that she had recovered.'

MAGIC.

There are hunting, fishing and planting experts, and it is noteworthy that there are specialists for coconuts and bananas, and perhaps for other crops. There are also rain experts, and formerly there were war experts, and in all these departments of knowledge, the art and practice is usually passed from father to son\ It appeared that experts never asked for presents, or demanded payment for their

^ Much of what has been said of experts among the Roro-speaking tribes dually applies to their neighbours of Mekeo, thus one family, that of .\itjda chief 3f Inawae Ikoiko, a small weak clan, has for generations had power over the veather and is firmly believed to be able to produce rain at will.

19 — 2

services, but presents were made them on appropriate occasions by those who would profit by their efforts.

Before arranging a big hunt the wallaby expert called itpiinahauna is consulted ; he fixes the date, some time before which the villagers, each one carrying his nets, meet in front of his house, and there pile their nets in a heap. A coconut is placed on the nets and the expert breaks this with a single blow of a wooden club. A fire has been burning on the verandah and the expert carries the cinders from this fire to the place where it is expected the hunting will begin. If, for any reason, the hunt is postponed the cinders are scattered as a sign that the hunt will not take place. For about a week the expert daily visits the place where the hunt is to begin, and here he burns certain roots supposed to have the power of attracting game\

Not only is cohabitation forbidden to the expert, but he may not eat food cooked by his wife or any other woman, he may not eat yams, nor the flesh of wallaby, nor pig, though he may eat the flesh of the kangaroo-rat and drink the milk of unripe coconuts which have been more or less roasted. The day before the hunt the expert, if he lives in a coastal village, washes himself in sea water, but inland fresh water may be used. At night a number of fires are lit, about a couple of miles from where the drive is to begin and here the hunters meet and thrust their spears into the ground. Each man brings with him his net which will form a portion of the wall of netting into which the game will be driven". The men form a rough semicircle facing the direction in which the game will be driven, and the nets are placed on the ground around the expert who stands with his spear thrust into the ground, rather in front of the hunters,

1 Father Cochard, to whom I am indebted for the greater part of the account of the procedure of the wallaby expert given here, stated that at least one of these roots is smoked as a love charm, and used as a stimulant preliminary to warfare.

2 The big communal hunts of this part of the country are carefully organized attempts to drive all the game scattered over a considerable area against a wall of netting which is perhaps a couple of hundred yards long. This stop net consists of a number of lengths of netting, the ends of which overlap each other. Rattles, made of the shells of the nuts of Pangiuin ediile, are tied to the nets, and to the stakes supporting them, and a number of men armed with spears and small portable pig nets mounted on cane hoops, hide in the bushes on each side of the stop net. When an animal is driven into the net the men who are hidden rush out and spear it ; usually this is not difficult, but it was pointed out that well-grown pigs would sometimes charge through the net or even disentangle themselves and turn back upon the spearmen, who carry the small pig-nets in order to stop a rush oi this kind.

Hunting Magic 293

none of whom may pass beyond him in the direction of the drive. The expert recites spells, consisting of appeals to male ancestors for as many as seven generations back, to prosper the hunting, and further he insists that many wallaby will be killed, and the hunters sing hunting songs called ori
these songs consist largely of excuses for their going hunting, thus they may say that owing to their wives having recently born children they require wallaby to eat, as yams are not sufficiently nourishing. The expert chews areca nut during the whole ceremony, and holds in his hand a portion of the leafy axis of a species of dracaena, called topi, on which he spits after every invocation. After a short time he puts on a specially prepared perineal band (itaduri) with a tail about four metres long, which has been hanging on his spear handle during his invocations. Then the men stand up in two parallel rows facing each other at right angles to the direction of the beat, each man holding his net, the greater part of the weight of which is supported on the shoulder. The expert walks down the clear space between the two rows and strikes each net with his branch of topi, then, returning to the starting point, he imitates a wallaby by hopping on all fours down the space between the rows. The men he passes first pretend to try to catch him with their hands but are not successful, and it is not until he has reached the far end of the row that he is caught. He is immediately liberated and leads the hunters to the place where they will begin to beat. The expert, imitating the gait of a wallaby, goes quietly aside, and at the same time some of the hunters move quickly and silently away, in order to put up their nets. The expert, who is said to be able to imitate the cries of wallaby, is supposed to call them together and urge them in such a direction that they will be driven easily into the nets. On his return to the beaters he announces loudly that all is ready and that many wallaby will be caught for their ancestors will help them.

Father Cochard, speaking of the hunting customs of Mou village, informed me that the expert's spear was left where it had been thrust into the ground at the beginning of the ceremony, and that a few areca nuts were left near it for Oa Rove.

Dr Strong gives the following additional information concerning the charms employed preliminary to wallaby hunting : ' Wallaby '' medicine " consists of leaves, the barks of different trees and white stones. For a month before the hunt is due to take place, the expert avoids intercourse with his wife ; he also makes for himself a new perineal bandage and adds to his wallaby "medicine" some of the grass or leaves from the thatch of the marea. He then burns off a certain quantity of grass and scatters the wallaby " medicine " over the bare area, calls out a wallaby name '' avia aku'' and says ''All you wallaby, fat ones, thin ones, big ones, small ones, male and female, young and old, come here ! This is your place ! " Then he returns to his house, but next morning comes back and sees the tracks made by the wallaby during the night. In two or three days he comes back again. By this time the young grass will have sprung up and the wallaby will have gathered to eat it. More medicine is now scattered about including the heads of wallaby and turtle. He buries the skull of a wallaby and a white " wallaby stone," and once more summons the wallaby to come. " Fat ones, thin ones, big ones, small ones," etc. The hunt takes place in a few days, nets are put up into which the wallaby are driven, but before the hunt begins the expert either goes to sleep or pretends to go to sleep in the cleared area, being covered all over in "native cloth" made from the sheath of the spathe of the coconut palm. After a short time the hunters rouse him up and ask where are the wallaby.' Dr Strong does not say whether the expert answers this question or whether he is supposed to have seen the animals to be hunted during his sleep ; but continues : ' He eats areca nut and smokes, and many wallaby are hunted and killed.'

Dr Strong was told that presents of food were made to the fish expert before the larger and more important communal fishings were held. This food is eaten by the expert and his relatives, and ' the refuse put into the creek where the fishing is to take place.' The expert and his relatives seemed to eat little after this present of food until the fishing began, which was not until the expert gave the word, and invited everyone to participate in the proceedings which he directed.

In the case of banana experts, food is presented to them when the gardens are made, and later when the young banana suckers are planted out, some of these are given to the expert. Dr Strong points out that this is considered specially good policy, since the expert will certainly see that the conditions are favourable to the growth of his own bananas, and naturally

Paiha Magic 295

the bananas belonging to other people will be subjected to the same conditions.

Dr Strong writes that if the rain expert Is lazy, and stays much in his house wrapped in his blanket, rain is likely to come ; on the other hand by getting up and walking about the village he is able to stop rain. He also has certain charm stones which are suspended by strings over vessels full of water ; when rain is required the stones are let down so as to touch the surface of the water, when enough rain has fallen, the stones are drawn up again. Bats are said to frequent the house of the rain expert, and should he build a new house these animals forsake the old house and fly to the new one of their own accord. In Waima there are said to be three rain experts, two of whom live at Abiara settlement, and one at Oa Ovia.

Although the paiha chiefs, alluded to on page 217, have their own clubhouses and, in the old days, were seemingly more important than hunting, fishing, or planting experts, there is no doubt that in the matter of their paiha functions they were not looked upon as chiefs in the ordinary sense of the word but as departmental experts, whose business it was to ensure success in war by the aid of their magical powers. There was everywhere the greatest unwillingness to discuss paiha matters, and at Waima only was it possible to obtain any definite information concerning paiha chiefs, so that the following account is certainly Incomplete, though there is every reason to believe it is accurate as far as it goes, as the greater part of it has been separately verified by Dr Strong and myself. Waima possesses t^o paiha chiefs, namely Rohi Aihl, the ovia itsipana of Robalarobaia settlement of Arabure itsubu, and Naime Miria, the ovia awarina of Arabu Kupunu settlement of Ereere itstibu. Each paiha expert has a 7narea of his own which is called a paiha inarea. As already mentioned, Arabure and Ereere are two of the four original Waima itsubit ; the remaining two original itsubu, Hauramiri and Abiara, were said not to have had paiha experts and so to have always lacked paiha inarea, their members visiting Nenehi Tuputupu, the Arthur & paiha marea or Bobo Rabi the ^v'6&r& paiha viarea for 2\ paiha ceremonies. At the present day the marea of Naime Miria, the paiha expert of Ereere itsubu, Is represented only by the left side of Bobo Rabi. Arabu Kupunu settlement, in which Boborabi stands, has

296 The Rorospeaking Tribes also a ' peace ' marea or ovia inaj^ea of which, one, Baki Oa is ovia itsipa^ia, and Baki Oa is the ovia ' chief of the right side ' of xh.^ paiha 7narea Bobo Rabi, though admittedly he is in no sense ?ipaika expert.

Dr Strong found that Rohi Aihi, the Arabure paiha expert, took precedence of Naime Miria of Ereere itsubu in paiha matters and that both chiefs had official titles which applied only to their paiha functions. Rohi Aihi was called autai pakana, i.e. 'the gr^dX autai,' Naime Mir'm au^ai irina, doubtless a contraction of autai awarina, 'the autai of the left' ; autai was stated to be the name of a bark which, when eaten, makes people 'talk plenty,' and the chewing of this bark by the paiha chiefs appears to have been one of the necessary preliminaries to a fight. When Waima decided to attack some other community their line of battle was led by the autai pakana and the autai irina, who were always men. Behind them walked two paiha women, who were related to the paiha chiefs, and who it was said were not afraid because they were 'paiha! Behind these came all the ovia awarina 'war chiefs' (cf. page 217) who were followed by the tuari, i.e. the bulk of the war party. The autai pakana would lead the attack on the right side of the van, while the station of the autai irina was on the left. The former was supposed to make the actual frontal attack, the autai irina apparently being in command of a reserve who joined in the main attack at a favourable moment and made flank attacks, or endeavoured to cut off their opponents' retreat. The presence of the two paiha women, who were always near relatives of the autai pakana and autai irina respectively, was said to be necessary, and these women were in fact an essential part of a war party. It was said that the women ' danced ' as they went to the fight and that they did not themselves take any part in the fighting, but that if they ran away the fighting men would follow them\

The names of the two paiha women are Aiva Ikupu and

Poni Biri. Aiva Ikupu is attached to Rohi Aihi the autai pakana, and Poni Biri to Naime Miria, the autai irina.

I am indebted to the Rev. Father Joindreau for important information concerning the blood relationship of each of the paiha women to the paiha chief, with whom she is officially connected. This relationship goes far back, for the maternal

^ Presumably .\iQ paiha quality of these women protected them from attack.

Paiha Marea 297

grandfather of Rohl Aihi (the autai pakand) and the great grandmother (on the father's side) of Aiva Ikupu, were brother and sister, their common ancestor being one Enehe Aitsibara who lived five generations ago. As regards Poni Biri and Naime Miria (the autai irina) the father of the former was brother to the paternal grandfather of Naime Miria, their common ancestor being Rao Ikupu. Naime Miria, who, it must be remembered, is ovia awarina of Arabu Kupunu settlement as well as autai irina, is not related to Baki Oa, the ovia itsipana of Arabu Kupunu, whose marea is the right half of the building, the left half of which is Bobo Rabi, representing the 7narea of th^ paika chief. Poni Biri, the paiha woman, is however distantly related to Baki Oa, who is a grandson of one of her maternal uncles.

The paiha chiefs medicined their men before the attack was made, this being done with a portion of the leafy axis of the plant called topi, in the way already described on page 293, as a preliminary to hunting. Th^ paiha chiefs also carry with them into battle various charms, such as leaves, fragments of the bark of certain trees, and pieces of broken weapons.

Dr Strong was told that formerly presents were made to the paiha chiefs in order to induce them to take up a private quarrel, and make it a communal affair ; for instance, if a Kevori man killed a native of Waima, the relatives of the latter made presents to their two paiha chiefs.

Arms were kept in the paiha marea which, like the marea of the war chiefs, might fairly be called arsenals, and it was in t\i^ paiha marea that warriors met before going to battle, and that the feast made after the return of the warriors from successful fighting took place. Here, too, the homicides underwent a ceremonial seclusion while being purified from the taint of blood, which was supposed to cling to them. This seclusion was not, however, very strict, for during the hours of daylight the warriors would paint and adorn themselves, and assemble outside the marea and dance. It was, however, necessary that they should sleep in the marea and not go out at night ; further, they should eat little and avoid handling their food, which they must pick up on a bone fork, the handle of which was wrapped in a banana leaf. It was not clear how long this partial seclusion lasted but after a certain time, perhaps when the food taboo was to be removed, the homicides would deck and paint themselves, and stand drumming on the ground in front of the marea, while the paiha chief addressed them from its platform and then filling his mouth with water spurted this over them. It was apparently shortly after this, that the homicides went to the sea-shore, where they all entered the water each accompanied by two older warriors, who had killed their man. These warriors rubbed the paint off the younger homicide with the back of their hands. After this the party returned to the marea where the young homicides still slept for a period which perhaps lasted a month. During this time they were allowed to eat as much food as they liked, and might pick it up with their bare hands. At the end of this period they were freshly painted and taken to the sea-shore where the older warriors again rubbed the paint with the backs of their hands from the bodies of their young comrades. The final stage of the seclusion ceremonial was that at which warriors who had not before killed a man, assumed the beautiful ornament made of fretted turtle shell called kotyu, which only homicides were allowed to wear displayed in their headdress in a particular manner. The koiyu was tied to the headdress of each warrior in xh^ paiha ma7^ea by \h& paiha chief, after a feast had been held. Then came a dance, and on the same night, a pretence was made of chasing the newly decorated homicides about the village. Embers were thrown at them and firebrands waved towards them, in order, it would appear, to drive away the spirits of the hostile dead which, as far as I could understand, appeared in some sense to be regarded as immanent in the headgear of the homicide or specially connected with this.

Warriors, when returning from a successful campaign, would throw their spears at the roof and sides of both the paiha and war marea which alike appear to have been used as sleeping places for young men. It was said that clan dada were not exhibited upon paiha marea, but Dr Strong was told that they formerly had a distinguishing mark in the shape of certain gaps left in the roof, and that these gaps were filled up when spears were thrown at them by successful warriors.

Plate XLI

Kaivakuku masks at Hisiu

J

Kaivakuku 299

KAIVAKUKU.

These are men who alone have the power of pronouncing the most dreaded, and consequently the most rigorouslyobserved, form of taboo on vegetable food. They are in fact taboo experts. Among the Roro-speaking tribes they exist only at Waima, Hisiu, and perhaps at Kevori, and there is not the slightest doubt that the custom has been introduced from the Elema tribe of the Papuan Gulf\ The huge masks covering the whole of the body in which the kaivakiiktt officiate are shown in Plate XLI, which were taken at Hisiu, by Captain Barton, who found that the masks were kept in a hut roughly put together but specially erected for this purpose. I have been told that the masks are also kept in the closed inner chamber of the marea, and in 1898 I saw that portion of the mask which is made of bark cloth, separated from the body-covering and hanging on the verandah of a marea over the death-chair aiyaiyai of a recently dead chief, though I cannot say whether the dead man was a chief ' of the right ' or 'of the left.' The mask was said to have belonged to the dead man, so that at Waima at least it would appear that the kaivakuku are, or may be, chiefs.

Although the kaivakitku were taken seriously at Waima, they were not, as far as could be ascertained, as much dreaded as among the Elema tribes. It seemed that among the latter the taboo they proclaimed was never infringed, whereas at Waima Dr Strong found that there was a recognized form of punishment for men caught breaking the taboo. The kaivakuku men would formally complain to the ovia itsipana of the local group to which the culprit belonged, and then raid his possessions, killing his pigs and dogs, and only desisting when a present was made to them. The kaivakuku men would promenade the village in the afternoon, taking care to disguise their gait, and walk on the side of their feet, so that they might not be recognized. At night they would swing bull-roarers. Neither among the Elema tribes nor at Waima could the kaivakuku decide to proclaim a taboo, this rested with the chiefs and old men, and the functions of the kaivakuku were

^ It appeared, however, that the Waima folk considered the custom their own, though Dr Strong writes that Inawi, the one village of Mekeo who have kaivakuku, admit that they acquired the custom from the Gulf. Other examples of Gulf influence are given on pp. 259 and 314.

limited to translating into action the decision made and of punishing transgressors. The office is hereditary, but at the present time the custom is decaying in Waima. Dr Strong was told in 1906 that there were but five kaivakuku in Waima, whereas formerly there were twenty. I am indebted to Mr A. McAlpine of Port Moresby for an account of the kaivakuku of the Elema tribes among whom the name for these men and the masks they wear is haiHhu, Only garden produce is tabooed by kariku, and any other taboo imposed by the owner is not treated with anything like the amount of respect that a harihu taboo commands. This taboo is imposed by the hariku after planting and fencing, and when the erecting of trellises for the yam vines is complete, and takes the form of forbidding anyone to dig or remove anything from the garden until such time as the harihu decide that the crop is ripe for gathering. They decide this by occasionally digging up a plant, and when the crop is fit to eat, they inform the chief, and he announces from the verandah of the clubhouse that the people may go and gather the food. When a lot of food has been brought in, a feast is prepared, in which the whole village join, the harihu, who remain in the clubhouse while the feasting lasts, alone holding aloof.

In the case of coconuts, the ha7dhu give warning of their intention to impose a taboo, by planting a ripe nut, setting it up on its end in the usual manner. A period of grace from the time of planting the nut until the appearance of the first shoot is allowed, and during this time nuts may be collected by their owners. The taboo lasts until the harihu remove it. The sign that a garden is tabooed is a small stone of a special shape placed at the entrance to the garden. It has on it certain 'private marks' of the harihu, to tamper with which would render the offender liable to instant death at the hands of the vada of the harihu. The word vada occurs in Mr Mc Alpine's manuscript, but although its employment suggests that the punishment for tampering with the taboo sign is immediate and automatic, and in some way due to the spiritual powers of the harihu, this Motu word clearly has not on the present occasion the special significance discussed on pages 187 and 188.

Each Gulf village has its own harihu, the office descending from father to son or, in the event of a man not having male issue, to his brother's or sister's children. Only the men

Minor Magic 301

of the tribe know that the harihu are human beings, the women are taught that they are spirits from the bush, and they and the uninitiated youths firmly beHeve this, and are extremely afraid of them. Any woman daring to come near a harihu would be killed, and any children, whose curiosity gets the better of them so far as to approach a harihu, are mercilessly beaten. When the harihu make their appearance, they always come in from the bush side of the village, and for some time previously they live in a shelter erected in the scrub near by, where they are visited from time to time by a few old men. It is part of the initiates' instruction, while secluded in the eravo (clubhouse), to be told all about the harihu, but such is the terror they inspire in the uninitiated, that (as Mr McAlpine's informants told him) it was often extremely difficult to persuade a novice to let a harihu come near him in the eravo.

The mask of each harihu is said to differ from all others, and the clan badge of the owner is often worked on it, though it is not perhaps absolutely necessary that this should be so
Further, Mr McAlpine was told that after each occasion the masks were burnt, and that, although all the Elema villages have harihu, they never appear simultaneously in neighbouring villages.

MINOR MAGIC.

There was no opportunity of systematically studying the minor magic of the people, but dogs were medicined before hunting in much the same way as that in use among the Koita, described on page 177. Further, Dr Strong met with the following hunting custom, which he learnt officially in his position of magistrate. In order that a dog should be successful in hunting wallaby, it is necessary for its owner to steal some food and give it to the dog. If the man from whom the food is stolen is angry at the theft, his rage is supposed to influence the dog, and make it a keen and fierce hunting dog.

The taboos imposed on youths while making their drums, given on page 258, are typical examples of the common forms of sympathetic magic prevailing in the district.

^ If this is to be taken literally it would seem to imply that each local group or itsubu (Waima) has but one kaivakuku, and from this standpoint it is interesting that Dr Strong was told that there were formerly twenty kah'akuku in Wamia, twenty being about the number of the Waima settlements, most of which, as it has been seen, are local groups.

A number of love charms are well known at Siria and are apparently frequently employed. One of these is made by mixing a small quantity of dried umbilical cord, with tobacco that the chosen girl will smoke, or with lime that she will use when chewing areca nut, or with a little of the dried and powdered skull of a shark.

Another love charm is an excellent example of imitative magic. The would-be lover hides in the bush, in such a position that he commands a view of the track along which he expects the girl to pass. He has with him a germinating coconut, and the spine of a sting ray. The young shoot is broken off flush with the husk, and, when the boy sees the girl approaching, he slowly thrusts the spine of the ray into the eve of the coconut, and moves it backwards and forwards in the soft spongy substance of the nut. This was said to be a particularly efficacious but not widely known love charm, and probably had been recently introduced.

It has already been mentioned that sorcerers are supposed to use portions of the human body for magical purposes ; a human penis enveloped in clay, in which condition the sorcerers were said to keep it, was believed to be a potent love charm, and a youth would borrow this from a sorcerer and wear it round his neck so that the girl whom he wished to influence might see it as he spoke to her.

CHAPTER XXV

RELIGION.

SPIRITUAL BEINGS,

The majority of the spiritual beings, in which the Rorospeaking tribes beHeve, resemble In their attributes those of the Kolta already described. It Is, however, probable that the beliefs of Individuals not nominally Christian, or only partly under the Influence of the Sacred Heart Mission, may have already been modified to some extent by Mission Influence. Thus, although It was clear that death and all that had to do with It partook of the physical quality of ' cold,' yet an ' evil spirit like fire ' who marshalls the spirits of the dead will be presently alluded to, and although there is no direct evidence of Christian influence this belief indicates the necessity for caution. It does not, however, seem necessary to exercise this quality In the case of the tale of Oa Rove Maral, a spiritual being of greater power than others known to the Roro-speaking tribes, for a story published by Romilly^ in 1889, although slightly more exuberant than the version collected in 1904, is obviously the same legend, the main features of both being identical.

There is a being or group of beings called paipai which afflicts people with sickness and other bodily hurts, and was considered to be the cause of most illnesses. Leucoderma, rheumatoid arthritis, and severe ulceration of the face were alike attributed X.o paipai, who seem to be simply malevolent, although in legends connected with the marea (p. 233) Paipai appears as a remote shape-changing ancestor. Dr Strong was told that paipai, who in this instance were thought of in the plural and as constituting a species, are specially

^ From My Verandah in New Guinea, London, 1888, pp. 143 et seq.

304 The RorO'Speakmg Tribes common in damp, fertile ground near springs, where some exist as snakes, and others in more or less human form.

Again, although the word beriwa was sometimes used to signify the spirits of the dead, all beriwa were not of this nature, some were malicious agencies who had never been human, while the same word is used for the bull-roarer\

The agency Boubou is so closely connected with the dead, that his functions are given on page 310, in connection with Eschatology.

OA ROVE.

The characteristics and attributes of Oa Rove Marai will best be understood by the legends concerning him set out in this chapter, but it may be mentioned that he differs from other spiritual agencies known to the Roro-speaking tribes in several respects, especially in the fact, explicitly stated, that Oa Rove would never grow feeble or cease to exist. Concerning other spiritual beings, this was at most implied, or more commonly the point was ignored, and when questions were asked it was found that no definite views were held. The parentage of Oa Rove was unknown ; when apparently a boy of no experience he had power over hunted animals and made his fellows jealous by the number of wallaby that were caught in his net. According to one account a number of areca nuts are left in the bush for Oa Rove before the big communal hunts, the magical preliminaries to which are described in the chapter on Magic and Sorcery.

Oa Rove could change his shape as he wished, and, in revenge for unfair treatment, sent mosquitoes, gave men weapons and taught them how to kill each other. The word rove corresponds to the Motu kelaga, and like it has something of the sense of * sacred,' 'set apart,' 'esoteric,' and men who become rove must submit to many restrictions, while objects to which this term is applied receive special treatment or care in handling. Oa is a proper name which occurs frequently among all the Roro-speaking tribes.

The legend of Oa Rove Marai relates that an old widow living near Arabure who had been gathering wood for fuel was returning to her house with her bag full, when she heard

• Perhaps in this sense the term has been borrowed from the people living in the Nara district, immediately to the east of the Roro-speaking tribes, for these folk who swing the bull-roarer to make their crops grow, also call it beriwa.

Oa Rove a cry like the squeak of a bat or a rat, which seemed to come from the bag, in which, however, she could find nothing to account for the sound. When she got back to her house she heard the cry again, but could not determine whence it came. During the night while she was asleep a child came to her and said : ' I am not a rat, as you thought, when I chickered in your bag. I am Oa Rove Marai and you must treat me as your child.' But the woman grumbled : ' I am old and a widow ; who will hunt and fish for you ? ' The child said : ' I will see to that.' At daybreak she found the child in her hut and soon after he started for Arabure on the Ufafa River, and spread his nets and caught many wallaby and cassowary. At this the men of Arabure got angry, holding that they were shamed in that a child caught more than they, and so they took his game from him. Oa Rove returned to his adopted mother with only one small wallaby ; he did not tell her of the way he had been treated but simply said : ' I have only brought this small wallaby.' Then he blew on it and immediately a number of big wallaby lay dead in the hut, and on these he and the old woman feasted.

One day Oa Rove went to the mouth of the river and saw many fish there. Early next morning he said to his mother :

• While the Arabure men are all away hunting wallaby, I will go fishing.' His mother asked him where he was going to fish, but he only said : ' I have seen many fish and I will catch them.' He went to Arabure where he found a canoe and, taking with him his mother and all the better looking women, leaving only the older women in the village, he started upstream. Oa Rove caused fish to gather so thickly round the canoe that the women caught them with their hands, scooping them into their coconut leaf baskets till they bulged with them. They continued to catch fish till the evening, when the canoe was so overladen as to be dangerously low in the water. When the women saw that the night was coming on they thought of their men who would be waiting impatiently for them to come and cook their wallaby, and begged Oa Rove to take them back to the village, but he said : ' Wait till the water is higher, it is too low now.' Soon the women said : ' We are hungry ; where are we to find vegetables and wood }' Then Oa Rove made yams and banana leaves in which to wrap the fish and lighted fires at which to cook them. When the food was done they asked him for areca nuts and these

3o6 The Roro-speaking Tribes also he gave them. After much talking and jesting all the women including the mother of Oa Rove went to sleep on the canoe, for it was late and quite dark. While the women were asleep Oa Rove carried them and the canoe up and up towards the sky, but stopped on the top of a high mountain. There one woman woke up and passed water, which falling on the earth gave rise to crotons in the world below. Then this woman woke the others, and they too passed water, and so gave rise to more crotons. The mother of Oa Rove woke last of all and immediately began to abuse her adopted son saying : ' Why have you stolen these women '^. The men of the village will be angry.' But Oa Rove said : * The Arabure men stole my pig and wallaby : I am angry with them, so I have taken their wives.' Then Oa Rove let the women fall, and as they fell they became rocks, and hills, and mountains.

When the people of Arabure saw that their women did not come back to them, they sought Oa Rove everywhere, and he answered to their cries : * If you had not stolen my game and my fish, I should not have revenged myself by taking your women, if you had behaved well to me I would have made you rich in yams and bananas, and in areca nuts, but as you treated me badly I have taken your women ; this is my revenge.' Then Oa Rove called together all the inhabitants of the Roro and Mekeo villages in the plain of the St Joseph River, and told them that the Arabure people had treated him badly, but that if they had treated him well, everyone would have been happy and always have had plenty of food. Then he gave them spears and black palm-wood clubs, and he sent battle, theft, and adultery among them, and sorcerers who kill people. Thus death came to these villages.

But * Oa Rove still lives, our ancestors have told us so.' In the variant given by Romilly, a child was born long ago, who often changed his skin after the manner of snakes, but nevertheless, grew no bigger, yet he was so wise that his tribe would leave him in sole charge of their village and women, while they were away hunting. On one such occasion he lit a firestick and wandered into the bush, travelling on and on until he came to what was to him a new country when, feeling exhausted, he crawled into a hollow log, and went to sleep, | leaving his firestick on the ground by the side of the log. | When he awoke he heard women's voices speaking in a strange [ dialect and, after a time, he understood that they were I

Oa Rove gathering firewood. One of the women picked up the log in which he was hidden, and Oa Rove made himself known to her and persuaded her to adopt him. As he grew up, he took no part either in hunting or fishing, but often told his adopted mother that her folk knew little about either, and that he could show them how to do both properly. At length he went fishing with the other men and all the fish taken were caught in his net. In the same way when he joined a hunting party, pig and wallaby were caught only in his net. On each occasion, the men of the village beat him, and took away the greater part of his fish or game, barely leaving him enough to eat. He did not accompany the other men of the tribe when they next went hunting, but told his mother to gather together all the girls and women of the village and come fishing with him. No fish were caught, so after a time Oa Rove secretly changed himself into a big fish which no one was able to hold. He next annoyed the women by assuming the shape of a wallaby which none of them could kill. After this he quietly reassumed his own shape, and the party paddled up-stream to near the place where he had been picked up in the log of firewood. There he picked some twigs of a small shrub, pounded them, and threw them into the river, with the result that so many fish died, that they could not be collected before dark, and the whole of the party were obliged to sleep there. At daylight the women woke and felt very cold ; they looked around, heard a great noise, and noticed that the ground was rising, and presently they recognized their village far below them. They threatened the boy, but he only laughed at them, saying they could not hurt him as he was now in his own place, and that he had done this because their foolish husbands would not believe him, and had treated him badly.

The rest of the story relates how, when the injured husbands came to get their wives back, they found Oa Rove sitting on an inaccessible rock from which he threw into their midst a spear, a bow and arrow, and a club successively, killing a man each time. Finally he threw them a stone with which people could be killed without external marks of violence. He told the men they were to copy the weapons he had thrown among them and instructed them in the use of each, so that they might be able to kill each other easily, and he taught them how to use the charm stone. Oa Rove next threw a dead body into their midst, and told them that had they

20-

3o8 The Roro-speaking Tribes caught it in their arms, and so prevented it from touching the ground, the weapons he had previously given them would have been useless for they would have been immortal, as he was.

There are many variants of the latter part of the story. According to one version the women, who appeared to fall to earth, did not really fall, for their spirits stayed with Oa Rove. Before he flung their bodies down he told the people on earth to stand in couples, clasping each others hands, so as to catch and hold from earth what he would throw to them. But the men were not sufficiently strong and when the bodies of women wrapped up like corpses fell from the skies, the people could not hold them up, their hands separated, so that the bodies fell to the ground and from them arose a bad smell, flies and mosquitoes. Then Oa Rove said : * If you had been strong and done as I told you, you would not have died. Now you will perish and your bodies will rot like those of the women at your feet.'

In another story Oa Rove presented the tribes with a closed bamboo, with injunctions to put it in water or fire as they pleased : something was heard buzzing inside the tube and the tribesmen elected to open it in water, with the result that the first mosquitoes appeared and mosquitoes still multiply in water.

Dr Strong, who inquired independently concerning Oa Rove, writes : * I obtained the legend with some modification and of course with some of the incidents in your account left out. I will only note modifications and additions.'

' Oa Rove was found in a house in the evening when the woman on whom he forced himself returned from getting water. Oa Rove blew on the small wallaby and it became one big one. Oa Rove went fishing in the Ethel or Ufafa river, he took his canoe to a place near Eboa and there made the hill appear on which the Eboa folk expose their dead to the present day. All the inhabitants of all the villages of the Papuasian world, especially the people of Toaripi and the Motu, went to this hill to try to get back their women from Oa Rove, who gave to each tribe the special weapon in the use of which it excels, viz. spears and wooden clubs to the Roro-speaking tribes, and bows and arrows to the people of the Papuan Gulf He also taught or gave the Mekeo tribes their sorcery which kills people. I could not hear of Oa

Eschatology 309

Rove ascending any hill but this one, but when he threw the women to their husbands, he apparently turned them into other hills.'

OMENS.

Dr Haddon, on the authority of Father Cochard, gives the following examples of belief in omens\

' When the hauba bird comes into a village and cries in the night, someone will die. If a kangaroo hops into a village when the men are out hunting, someone will die.' Dr Haddon adds that probably the kangaroo ' was the spirit of the dead hunter,' pointing out that this interpretation is borne out by the belief that ' if men are voyaging and a gale of wind suddenly springs up, the mariners know that someone has died, as the gust of wind is the passage of the spirit.' It is necessary to keep a fire alight in the house of each of the ' captains ' of the au nohi (Motu lakatoi) during the whole of the time that the craft is away on a sago-trading expedition to the Gulf. Should this fire go out ill luck might befall the au nohi.

It is of evil omen to dream of being bewitched by a sorcerer, and it is said that men have sickened and died after such dreams.

Slight bodily aches may be regarded as omens, thus if the right shoulder aches, good news may be expected, but if the left shoulder, bad news, or even news of the death of friends may be expected.

ESCHATOLOGY.

It appears that auba, which etymologically seems to be equivalent to the Motu lauma, does not signify the spirit, shade or ghost of a dead man, but rather the likeness or reflection of a man, and thus corresponds to the Motu laulau. The usual term for the spirit or ghost of a dead man seems to be tsirania or tsirava, though the term beidwa is also sometimes used. The term tsirava is also used to express the vital forces or essence within an individual precisely as the Koita use the term sua (pp. 189 and 190). Oriorena is the term for a shadow and it was stated the tsirama are sometimes seen as shadows.

^ Headhunters, Blacky White and Brown ^ p. 259.

3 ID The RorO'Speaking Tribes

Tsirama are considered to frequent the villages of their people ; if they . deserted the village, the inhabitants would have no luck in anything, and it was stated that if the tsirama are suspected of having left a village, measures are taken to brincr them back. The benevolence of the tsirama is, however, not unconditional, for if they are annoyed in any way, as for instance by too many quarrels among the women, theV will send bad luck in hunting and fishing, and in these circumstances it seemed that steps might be taken to conjure them out of the village. To see the tsirama of a dead relative in dreams, although a terrifying experience, is not considered to be unlucky.

Tsirama steal away the souls {tsirama) of others and so make them ill, and beriwa, which in some cases seem to be considered as identical with tsirama, behave in the same way. It seemed that it was principally fear of tsirama and beriwa that prevented any native leaving the village after dark unless accompanied by a companion, even if he desired to go only a few yards.

The tsirama or beriwa of dead men go to Ariyo in the bush behind Waimatuma (Cape Possession) where there is a big garden cultivated by the shades. There food abounds, and all are happy. If a living man reaches Ariyo he dies ; if plants from Ariyo are brought to mortal gardens, they are transported back by spirits. This information was obtained at Siria, but at Mou it was stated that living men had reached Ariyo and brought back plants from the Ariyo gardens, but they withered and died when transplanted to the gardens of mortals, which for some time after produced only small crops.

Boubou, an 'evil spirit like fire,' was said to intercept the tsirama on its way to Ariyo, and to ask if its ears and nose had been pierced during life. After receiving an affirmative answer, Boubou asks how the person died and, according to the answer, directs the spirit to one of a number of roads, all of which, however, reach Ariyo. Nothing could be discovered as to the origin or physical characteristics of Boubou, but there was no reason to believe that his existence was due to misunderstood Mission teaching.

CHAPTER XXVI

GEOGRAPHICAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS.

Mekeo, or the Mekeo district, is in British New Guinea the generally recognized term for the neighbourhood of Yule Island and the country in the region of Hall Sound, extending from the Ufafa river on the east, to Kevori in the west, and stretching inland to the foothills of the main range\ This area, constituting the alluvial flat and delta of the St Joseph River — here called the Angabanga — is inhabited by a number of tribes which may be divided into two groups, namely Roro and Biofa-Vee, according to the language spoken by each, and the system of chieftainship which prevails^ But to apply the single term Mekeo to the whole valley inhabited by these two groups is confusing since the Roro-speaking tribes on the coast use it themselves to denote their inland neighbours, the Biofa-Vee. It is in this restricted sense that the word Mekeo will be used in this book, that is to say it will be applied only to the territory and language of the two tribes, the Biofa and Vee, who speak a common language and who, in spite of chronic warfare, have long intermarried and have even formed colonies in each other's villages. A small but uncertain number of villages on the middle reaches of the Biaru River must be considered to constitute an ethnographical annexe to Mekeo, for physically and in their customs

^ Further, Mekeo is sometimes used as a synonym for the Government Station, " near the village of Aipiana, which was until recently the administrative headquarters of this district, and it is in this sense that Mekeo is marked on some maps.

2 The results of physical examination, to which reference has already been made in the Introduction, show that the division here made is a natural one with a well-marked physical basis.

generally their Inhabitants resemble the Mekeo folk among whom they have formed many colonies and with whom they intermarry to a limited extent.

Two of the Roro-speaking tribes, the Roro and the Paitana, have already been described as inhabiting the land lying between the Biofa-Vee territory and the coast, while on the west following the trend of the coast are the Waima and Kevori, both speaking dialects of Roro. To the east of Mekeo lies the domain of the Pokao-speaking tribes, while further inland is the hilly country known as Lapeka. Thus the whole of the Biofa-Vee territory lies west of longitude 146° 40' E. and, with the exception of the Vee village of Inawabui Kipo, north of the parallel of 8^40' s. latitude. The lowest reaches of the St Joseph River are thus outside Mekeo territory, as is the whole of the St Joseph River delta.

The position of Mekeo villages is shown on the map given on p. 194. The village names in the map are those by which they are generally known, though some of them are really the Roro names for the villages, the names applied by the Mekeo natives themselves being either the names of the village sites or of the dominant clan (pangua) in the village^ Although villages are sometimes called by the names of their sites, and although the idea of a village (existing as a unit made up of individuals belonging to a number of clans) is not foreign to the native mind, no word for village could be found other th^in pangua which properly means clan.

The houses are built in parallel rows facing each other on opposite sides of the open space which constitutes the village street, often one or more houses face inwards at the ends of the parallel rows, so that the houses of the village form a rough parallelogram. Plate XLII is a view of part of Veifa village, the tallest building being a clubhouse. Each village consists of portions of a varying number of pangua (clans or local groups), representatives of each of which are found in few or many villages, according to the strength and amount of dispersion of particular clans. As a rule the houses of each clan are built close together and near or among them stands the m/u, i.e. clubhouse of the local section of the clan.

• Sometimes the names of villages are tribal, perhaps pointing back to a time when pangua and tribe were coextensive. Thus Veifa is sometimes called Biofa and the Mekeo name for the village commonly called Rarai is Vee. Oriropetana (Onginofeka) and Aipiana (Aivea) are other Mekeo villages, commonly known by their Roro names.

i

PlateXLII

Part of Veifa villagfe i

The missionaries of the Sacred Heart into whose care the Mekeo and the greater part of Roro-speaking districts fell, have published certain figures, in which no distinctions of sex or age are drawn, which show the population of a number of Mekeo villages in 1897. These figures indicate that at the date mentioned, Inawi had a population of 408, Inawae 89, Veifa 634, Amoamo 140, Aipiana 444, Oriropetana (Onginofeka) 190, Bebeo 185, Inawaia 315, Yeku Baibua 178, Eboa 300, Inawabui Kipo 2 2o\

The Mekeo population consisted originally of single Vee and Biofa settlements, which were within a mile or so of each other, on the eastern bank of the river in the neighbourhood of the present site of Oriropetana. Dissensions arose, and at various times groups split from these villages and retired to the neighbourhood of their garden and hunting lands where they formed the nuclei of the present Mekeo villages, though it is clear that the original sites selected by these young communities were often other than those occupied by the present villages.

At the present day the Biofa villages are Inawae, Inawi, Aipiana, Veifa, Oriropetana, Amoamo, and Afai. All except the last named form a compact group on the banks of the Angabanga, interposed between the northern and southern Vee villages. The Vee seems to have been frequently worsted by the Biofa in the days of chronic warfare before the coming of the white man. Perhaps this was on account of their more scattered position. Their villages are Rarai, Ififu, Inawauni, Inawabui Kaenga and Bebeo to the north of the Biofa villages, while to the south of the latter lie Yeku (Inawaia Koko) Eboa, Inawaia and Inawabui Kipo.

From their geographical position the external relations of the Mekeo tribes were necessarily limited. The people of Inaukina and other villages on the middle reaches of the Biaru have so settled among and intermarried with the Mekeo tribes that they must be considered rather as a factor in the composition of these tribes than as strangers in frequent relation with the Biofa and Vee. The mountains behind Mekeo support a scattered population, rich only in feather ornaments, stone adzes and clubs, all of which were brought for barter to the Mekeo villages ; these trade relations were

^ Album des Missions de la Nouvelle-Guin^e confines a la Society des Missionaires du Sacre-Cceur^ p. 28.

particularly constant with the mountain communities of Inauvarene and Lopiko. Frequent fighting took place between Mekeo and the Roro-speaking tribes, though their enmity was not sufficiently bitter to prevent a certain amount of intermarriage between Mekeo on the one hand and Waima, Roro, Bereina, Rapa and probably Mou on the other. With Waima indeed frequent markets were held, which took place especially at Motura, a convenient meeting place, well shaded by big trees on the banks of the Oriki creek about halfway between Bereina and Babiko. To these markets Mekeo brought bananas and other garden produce to exchange for all kinds of fish, especially shell fish. It was stated that long ago there was war with Epa, a village of Nara on the extreme eastern frontier of Mekeo. Extending from Epa northwards to the hills behind Inawabui Kaenga are the little known Lapeka or Rapeka, who have in the past contributed towards the peopling of the Mekeo villages and are still not infrequent visitors to the St Joseph River valley, where they intermarry to some extent with Inawauni, Eboa and Bebeo\ Their position north-east of Eboa distinguishes them from the Lopiko, a scarcely known people situated among the mountains of the Mount Yule range.

There has been frequent contact between Mekeo and the more eastern of the Elema tribes of the Papuan Gulf, and a few Mekeo villages, the most important of which is Inawi, have adopted certain customs such as kaivakuku (cf. pages 299 to 301) as well as much of the Gulf decoration for their ufu which they display on ceremonial occasions (cf. Plate XLV). The Biofa are on the best of terms with Yokea and considerable parties sometimes visit their friends of the coast. Matters stand otherwise with the Vee, for the warriors of Yokea would formerly ascend the Biaru River and attack the Vee sometimes in concert with the Biofa. Once indeed the men of Veifa united with an Elema tribe and rushed Rarai ; the inhabitants took to their coconut trees in the crowns of which they were safe from the weak archery of the Biofa, but they had forgotten the Gulf natives who leisurely picked them out from the tree tops with their arrows.

It has already been stated that the Mekeo villages are

As noted in the Introduction, Dr Strong considers that the Lapeka rtion of the mountain tribe of Kuni, somewhat modified by contact with M

typically composed of the representatives of a number of clans {pangua) though a few villages such as Inawae recently consisted of one clan only\

The tables on pages 369 to 372 show the clans at present existing in each village, and the diagram on pages 328 and 329 the group to which each belongs by descent {iigopit). But although it is clear that portions of the same clan exist in villages far apart, and that Vee clans are found in predominantly Biofa villages, it is not until an attempt is made to obtain the history of the events leading to the present grouping that it becomes obvious how complicated were the movements which preceded the present geographical distribution of the clans.

The history of Afai, a small Biofa community at present settled between Aipiana and Kevori, illustrates the number of times that portions of clans have come together and after having seemingly coalesced so as to form a village, have separated to fuse again partially before once more wandering apart.

The first migration from Afai, of which details could be obtained, was traced to faction fights in the village alleged to have arisen over a difference of opinion as to how the ' laugh ' of a laughing jackass originated. Long ago when Afai was a powerful village, the old men assembled in the ttfu had just lit a fire on the verandah, when they noticed a bird ongoye — the laughing jackass — perched on a tree close to the ufu ' laughing ' and jerking the posterior part of its body. This gave rise to comment and discussion ; some said the sound came from the bird's mouth, others from its rectum. It is alleged that two factions were formed each supporting its own views, and bloodshed took place. The stronger faction composed of the local groups of the clans Inawefia, Inawongai, Mimingi, Inaupio and Maipa stayed at their village site, the weaker party removed to near Kevori, where they began to build a new village. When the village was partly built they again heard the jackass ' laughing ' on a neighbouring tree. This reminded them of the old days before the split and so saddened them, that they again moved, this time as far as

^ The village of Inawae formerly consisted of a single pa?igua, Inawae Ipiau. Recently a few families from Ikoiko have come to Inawae, but to a certain extent keep their autonomy and within the village are considered to form a group by themselves. Besides these there are a few Roro at Inawae (cf p. 319).

3i6 The Mekeo Tribes

Yule Island. Here again the jackass laughed and they moved to Nara, near the present site of Vanumae, finally migrating eastwards to Kapatzi, where they settled. According to the Mekeo folk, they constitute the people marked Kabadi on the maps and whom the Afai people still speak of as ' admai akirndi,' i.e. 'older and younger brothers ' Later the five local groups remaining at the old Afai site dispersed ; parts of each of these went to Inawi where all remained for some time. The greater part of Mimingi, however, migrated to Ififu, where this clan is now reduced to a single family. Subsequently a portion of Inawefia left Inawi, the remainder of the clan then migrated to the present site of Afai, there joining a number of Inaukina folk and w^ith them forming the clan Ikomongemonge. At the same time certain Maipa families went to Inaukina where they still persist. Again a dispersion took place, with the final result that Inaupio is still at Afai with a single Mimingi family ; with these there are one or two families of Inawongai. Maipa moved to Aipiana and a single Mimingi family went to live at Inawi where its members retain their autonomy. Subsequently Ikomongemonge split from Afai and moved to the other side of a creek and there made a small villagel

From this account of the wanderings of the people who at one time or another formed Afai, it is clear that the chief causes of the repeated splittings and migrations were faction fights within the village, and perhaps a certain migrant tendency which seems to exist everywhere among the Mekeoand Roro-speaking tribes. But other causes were at times j operative, though certainly in a smaller number of cases ; thus % a weak stock might be driven from the site upon which it had
settled, possession being taken by the conquerors. At one time one of the Afai local groups settled near Inawi, but their powerful neighbours drove them away and seized the site of the settlement, where they still enjoy the coconuts planted

• Kabadi is the Motu name for this people ; I have not myself visited Kabadi, but the language which closely resembles Motu makes it tolerably certain that no body of Mekeo folk large enough to form the basis of the Kabadi population has migrated thither in historic times, though doubtless an Afai group emigrated and joined the Kabadi people. At Nara Dr Strong was told the 'jackass' story as accounting for the secession of the present Doura community from Nara, so that too much stress need not be laid on the authenticity of this story in any particular instance.

' Since this was written Afai has once more dispersed ; Inaupio and Inawefia are for the most part at Inawi, Maipa among the Roro-speaking tribes at Waima, and the remainder of the former Afai folk at Aipiana. I

by the men they evicted. Sometimes, too, land was ceded in payment for a blood-price, this is probably far from common, but the following instance was related by Father Egidi. Certain men of Waiaka clan killed a man of Inawefae clan and for a long- time were so careful that the Inawefae had no opportunity of taking revenge. The ufuapie relationship (cf. p. 349) exists between Inawefae and Waiaka, and accordingly members of these clans met under the restraint imposed by the solemn ceremonial of the rites by which a village is purged of its grief w^hen mourning ceases. After a time the matter was discussed and the men of Inawefae agreed to forego their revenge, accepting as blood-price a particular strip of land which became their absolute property.

The history of Afai, as already given at some length, was obtained in the course of inquiries into the history of the little known Kapatzi (Kabadi) district, but its intricacy, as well as the situation of the village, which is rather difficult of access, did not encourage research into the present condition and internal relations of its pangua. Accordingly, the village of Inawi was selected for the purpose of studying the social system of the Mekeo tribes. Not only is Inawi one of the oldest settlements of the district, but matters have here been less confused by the wholesale adoption of immigrant stocks than in many other villages, especially those belonging to the Vee. The selection of Inawi for study was indeed particularly fortunate for when I subsequently met the Rev. Father V. M. Egidi of the Sacred Heart Mission, he informed me that he had taken a complete genealogy of the village, and this together with his store of knowledge and experience he placed freely at my disposal.

The village of Inawi consists of seven pangua, namely Waiaka (Inawi) Paiapaia, Ongofoina Kipo, Ngangai, Okope, Ungo and Ipange, the last xhx^^ pangua are immigrant, and did not originally belong to either the Biofa or Vee.

Besides these there is a considerable settlement at Inawi of folk of \x\2^nA2. pangua, who properly speaking belong to Afai, where they still possess land, although they spend most of their time at Inawi.

The history of Inawi is as follows: certain Waiaka men and their families appear to have been the first to leave loiovina which according to history is the original home of the Biofa tribe. Soon after Paiapaia split from loiovina, and settled on the present site of Inawi, the Waiaka settlement at that time beinj^ further down stream near the present site of Inawae. There Waiaka was joined by certain families of the Okope clan who came down the river, war-driven fugitives from their own country. This was perhaps on the Biaru and may have been Amoamo Inaukina, in which case they would apparendy belong to the stock known as Ipange. The fucritives appear to have been well received by Waiaka, and soon after moved up-stream with them and built their houses in continuity with those of the Paiapaia settlement, where they were joined by a number of Ongofoina and Ngangai families who had been unable to agree with the majority of their respective fellow villagers. It does not seem possible to determine exactly when the representatives of Ungo and Ipange joined what was then a rapidly growing settlement. Ipange is an immigrant stock from the neighbourhood of Amoamo Inaukina on the Biaru river (cf p. 311), which, in course of time, has become widely distributed throughout Mekeo, and has given rise to many weak local groups. The history of Ungo is less clear, but according to Father Egidi Ungo is part of an emigrant stock which comprises Meaunge of Aipiana village, Kalau of Veifa village and Afanga of Ififu village. The recent settlement by Inawefia has already been alluded to and was clearly due to constant harassing wars waged by Waima against Afai.

The history of the constitution of Inawae village is simpler than that of Inawi. This village contains three local groups, but the d.omm'dSir. pangua Inawae Ipiau is alone strong enough to be of importance, and for some time this pangua constituted the whole village. The first historical division of the original I nsiwa^ pa ngua produced Inawefae and Inawefia. Soon after a further split gave rise to the thveQ pangua Inawae Angamea, Inawae Ipiau and Inawae Aungako, a certain number of people remaining in the neighbourhood of the original Inawae settlement constituting Inawae Ipuko. There is no definite information as to why certain Ikoiko families (Vee) settled at Inawae where they now are, and where, to some extent, they preserve their autonomy, but probably their settling was due to faction fights in their own village. Finally there is at Inawae a single family of Roro origin, descended from one of the children of the chief of a Roro settlement which formerly existed on the coast between Babiko and Waima. The Roro colony was attacked by the men of Inawi and Inawae and the chief s young children carried off as prisoners of war\

^ As a general rule the Mekeo tribes did not make prisoners of war, and it appeared that when an exception was made, the captives were always young children who would be adopted into the village of their captor. Father Egidi, to whom I am indebted for the substance of this note, says that when he first came to Mekeo there was at Veifa a native of Waima who had come into the community as a child-prisoner, and who has since returned to his own people. Further, both at Inawi and Aipiana there are families descended from children brought into the villages as captives. Aiai, a boy carried off from Waima and adopted into the \Vaiaka^rt/?o«« of Inawi, was always considered as a brother of Opungu Ongopaina, because adopted by an uncle of the latter. Young girls were carried off and adopted even more commonly than boys.

The history of how the particular Roro family now settled at Inawae first came as captives to that village is an interesting comment on what has been said above, since it shows that what may technically be described as the taking of child prisoners is for practical purposes the adoption of individuals from a tribe with whom, in spite of periodical disagreements and killings, more or less constant communication and intermarriage took place so that neither party entertained any feeling of embittered enmity. Of the Roro family settled at Inawae, Father Egidi says : 'A group of Roro natives formed a settlement on the bank of the creek Ariopa, between Babiko and Waima. Here they commanded the coastal plain and prevented free intercourse between the inhabitants of the coastal and inland villages. The coastal people determined to attack the interlopers, but these appealed for help to the Mekeo villages Inawi and Inawae into which Roro had at that time freely married. The Roro, with the help of Inawi and Inawae, repulsed their adversaries, but could not agree among themselves as to the distribution of the loot, so the Mekeo men attacked the Roro, defeated them, killing every one except the children of the chief whom they carried off and brought up at Inawae, making themselves masters of the site of the Roro settlement, and retaining this land until driven out by the men of the coast. As the adopted children grew up the elder of these returned to their father^s village where one of them resumed the dignity of chief, while the youngest boy remained at Inawae with his sister who had married into this viUagre.'

CHAPTER XXVII

lAUAFANGAI, KANGAKANGA (CLAN-BADGES) AND UFU (CLUBHOUSES).

laicafangai, kangakanga and uftc are so closely connected in the minds of the natives of Mekeo that before discussing the two latter at length something must be said as to the relation in which all three stand to each other.

Each pangua (clan) has as iauafangai an animal or plant, which is often the same for the majority or even {ox 2}\ pangua said to be ngopu, that is, of common descent. Probably at one time all the pangua of each ngopu group had the same iauafangai, as is still the case for the pangua of the Inawi ngopu group of the Biofa tribe, whose iauafangai is ongoi the breadfruit tree. In few instances a pangua may have more than one iauafangai, and this occurs in a number oi pangua of the Ngangai ngopu group of the Vee tribe.

Besides the iauafangai, which if edible may be eaten, each pangua has one or more kangakanga, i.e. distinctive ornaments which are in fact clan-badges, and which take the name of the animals or plants, or parts of animals or plants, or more rarely of certain inanimate objects, from which they are derived. Each kangakanga is connected in a special manner with the people of the pangua of which it is the badge, and broadly speaking the animals providing the kangakanga are not eaten, though they may be and often are killed for their feathers (the majority of animals providing kangakanga being birds) which the members of the pangua wear, often worked into special designs.

Each of the or\g\n2i\ pangua possessed, and each local group of every pangua should still possess, at least one ufu, that is clubhouse. It was stated that of old the names of the ufu belonging to a single ngopu group, and therefore originally to men having a common iauafangai, were or should have lauafangai and Chibhottses 321

been identical ; and that the changes which have occurred in the names of the ufu were either due to a desire to commemorate some historical event, or were names given to their ufu hy pangua which had newly arisen. The result of careful inquiry shows that ngopu groups, iauafangai and ufu, were united in the manner indicated in the following scheme.

Tribe Ngopu lauafangai Ufu

Biofa i^'^^^^'^ Ongoi Maipa

(Inawae Imou Apiongai

Vee |Ngangai Ongoi Pupungapi

(Kuapengi Imou Oafua

Some little doubt exists as to whether imou is really the original iauafangai of the Inawae ngopu group and this doubt is very typical of the condition of things throughout the whole of Mekeo at the present day, and is probably not due to white influence to any large extent. Certainly there are men still active and energetic, who were important members of their communities before the early nineties when white influence first began to be exerted in the district, who confuse iauafangai and kangakanga and the names of these with those of clubhouses. In fact it must be assumed that Mekeo had, apart from white influence, reached a state at which iauafangai (perhaps representing the earliest clanbadges) had become degraded and were confused with kangakanga which in their turn were thus subjected to an influence making for degeneration. Father Egidi states that the weak local group, Inawaia Koko of Yeku Baibua village, actually assert that oolo is alike their iauafangai, and one of their kangakanga. Further, it was obvious that the names of ufu tended to be confused with the names of iauafangai.

It is not easy to see why the names of clubhouses and iauafangai should be thus confused, but there is no doubt of the fact concerning which Father Egidi writes in answer to a question.

' Ufu, iauafangai and kangakanga are three terms very often confused by the natives, and although they all know the name of their own ufu, few trouble to remember those of the ufu of other pangua. I have even found children who did not know the name of their own ufu which, perhaps, may be explained by the small importance which the rising generation attaches to the customs observed by the older men.

Further, the name of the ufu is quite commonly confused with the iaiiafangai '. I recollect having met people who on my asking '' What is the ufu of that clan ?" answered " They invoke, or celebrate (for this, I think, is the meaning of the verb iatiafangai whose noun is iauafangai) such and such a thing," so that to be really sure of discovering the iatcafangai of a clan and learning whether it differs from the name of their ufu, it is necessary to make careful enquiry among the pangua of each village.'

KANGAKANGA.

Sometimes the distinguishing feature of a clan-badge, that is to say the quality that makes it a kangakanga, is the special arrangement of ornaments, commonly worn singly or uncombined, without any particular significance being attached to them. Thus there are several combinations of two or three of the fretted turtle shell ornaments called kefe^, which are proper to certain clans, and are thus clan-badges kangakanga. Further Conus shell armlets worn on one arm constitute the kangakanga of Oala Aivea.

There is apparently some little difference in the attitude of the different clans towards the animal from which their kangakanga is derived. As already stated the general rule is that the animal providing the kangakanga may be killed but not eaten ; this rule holds e.g. in the cases of the Veifa clans Fopafoina and Alo Fopafoina whose kangakanga is derived from the cockatoo. Ongofoina, on the other hand, will not kill the cock oolo, but plucks its feathers, while the men of Inafokoa both kill and eat the wallaby from which their kangakanga is derived. In the latter case the explanation is probably found in the importance of this creature as the only common source of animal food, while in the case of the cock it is clearly improvident as well as unnecessary to kill the birds whose much prized tail feathers can be easily removed. If an individual of -^pangua forbidden to eat the animal from which its kangakanga is derived should commit this offence, evil would fall not only on the wrong doer but also on other members of the clan. Thus if an Ongofoina man ate a certain kind of banana his fellows would be unsuccessful in their

• The koiyu of the Roro-speaking tribes, from whom the Mekeo people obtain these ornaments.

Clan-Badges 323

hunting, and if the swordfish ikiio were eaten, deaths would result among the members of the clan.

Married women eat the animals from which their husbands' kangakanga are derived, often becoming the special recipients of the flesh of these animals which have been killed and plucked by their husbands. As would be expected under these circumstances a man takes no special precautions to avoid handling the dead body of his kangakanga.

It was stated that the men oi Kvci02svi0 pangua would eat the young shoots of the palm funguka, which provides one of their kangakanga.

No general statement can be made concerning the origin of kangakanga nor did it seem that the natives had any clear idea of their origin or significance. They were ' old time fashion ' though it seemed certain that they were in some instances regarded as much less ancient than the iauafangai. Perhaps many of the kangakanga were assumed as badges at the time of the migrations from loiovina and loiofaopo. This was, I understood, the opinion of Father Vitali, who has fifteen years' experience of the Mekeo district. Again, although the actual stories told concerning the origin of the kangakanga are trivial, the fact that no legends at all existed concerning the origin of the iauafangai suggests that the latter are older than the former.

The men of Amoamo are said to have selected their kangakanga, the palm funguka, on account of the strength and toughness of its wood ; the same reason was alleged for the name of the Amoamo ufu, the posts of which are made of funguka.

The following story is told in explanation of the adoption of the cock as the kangakanga of Ongofoina :

Long ago the fowl and the megapode lived together in the bush. Apparently the fowl at that time made a large nest, perhaps like the mound of the megapode, for the story relates that the fowl became lazy and would not trouble to protect its eggs but laid them in the open. As lizards and other animals eat these eggs the birds came nearer and nearer to the villages, for protection, when men, seeing the beauty of their feathers, adopted a special arrangement of them as their kangakanga.

It was stated that the palm im'du, one of the kangakanga of ¥^o\om\o pangua, does not represent the ordinary palm of that species, but refers to a particular two-headed individual called iyndu a^igaiiga ngua which appears to have been selected as kangakanga on account of its striking and very uncommon peculiarity. It is shown in the tables given on pages 369 to 372 that a number of clans have as kangakanga special arrangements of the fretted turtle-shell ornament kefe and the Comis armshell called auau. The occurrence of these as kaiigakajiga is explained by the legend that long ago a woman gave birth at loiovina to a girl child called Ururi Kefe, who was born with armshells on her arms and kefe on her head, arms and legs.

Where, as is usually the case, a kangakanga is derived from an animal or plant, the members of the clan with which it is associated wear a definite part of the animal or plant, or a representation of one of its characteristic features, as a badge when dancing. Such representations, when the animal providing the kangakanga is a bird, are made of its feathers and may in addition imitate some feature of the species. This occurs in the case of the dancing headdress of the Ofiko clan of Rarai village described on page 326. As an example of the wearing of a single characteristic feature of the animal from which the kangakanga is derived may be cited the sword of the swordfish ikuo (figure 32), worn in the hair by men of Ongofoina/^^^^^a, whose kangakanga it is.

Apart from certain cases in which a clan sells or exchanges with another clan the right to wear its kangakanga, the right of each clan to the exclusive use of its kangakanga as a badge is universally recognized^ So much is this the case that at Veifa it was considered almost a duty, for anyone who had not the sword of the swordfish as kangakanga, to give the swords of any of these fishes he might catch to the men of Ongofoina pangua. Although each clan had alone the right of wearing its specific kangakanga, and though this right was as a rule jealously guarded, a clan might sell or exchange its right, thus in 1904 Inaukina pangua of Rarai village came to Veifa and sold to Ongofoina pangua the right to wear the feather kangakanga called fole. Ongofoina now has the right to sell this again if it should wish to do so. As an instance of exchange the action of Oala Aivea and Alo Aivea

• Dr Strong points out that even at the present day nothing excites 2^ pangua so readily as a threat of 'stealing' its kangakanga.

Plate XLIII

Copyright by the Kev. II. M. Dauncey

Feather kangakanga

Clan-Badges 325

pangua may be cited, these pangua extended their conjoint right to wear in a special manner, the fretted turtle shell ornament kefe to Ng^LUgai pangua, in return for the right to wear the latter's feather headdress mengunge, which is said to represent the mountain Boboleva. Many kangakanga are extremely elaborate headdresses which have worked into their fabric portions of a particular animal or plant. Others imitate some characteristic feature of the animal or plant, but all such headdresses are very elaborate and resemble in general appearance the feather oada of the Roro-speaking tribes which are also clan badges (cf. Plate XXXIII).

Plate XLIII shows three Mekeo headdresses, for permission to reproduce which I am indebted to the Rev. H. M. Dauncey. Unfortunately I am unable to name the clans to which they belong or the kangakanga they represent ; however, they show sufficiently the elaborate nature of these headdresses. It is clear that, besides differentiations which at one time may have been regarded as all-important, the beauty of the result produced is distinctly one of the objects sought at the present day.

Where the kangakanga represents a mountain or mountain peak, feathers are worked into a design which is supposed to reproduce a characteristic outline of the mountain. I was quite unable to discover the origin of the opposed chevrons of red and yellow feathers which, when united into a single piece of feather work, is called aungapa and is one of the kangakanga of \[ 2a2^2. pangua.

The following are examples of headdresses or other dancing ornaments made from, or imitating a characteristic feature of, the animal or plant from which they are derived.

Vsf d^k.2i pangua makes its headdress in imitation of one of its ka7zgakanga the kapoc tree.

Y^oXormo pangua of Rarai village mimics the outline of the particular double-headed palm of the species known as zmou which was stated to have been chosen as kangakanga on account of this peculiarity.

The plant called pingu from which the kangakanga of Bebeo pangua of Bebeo village is derived, is a palm with leaves which bleach easily, and which resembles the Australian

• cabbage palm.' It is not imitated, but narrow strips of its bleached leaves are worn attached to the dancers' wrists and knees ; each strip is folded transversely many times and the

The Mekeo Tribes

I f whole Is pressed together so as to resemble accordion pleating.

The men of Ngangai Ipuaina pangua of Rarai village and of Ngangai pangtta of Inawi village wear as their kangakanga an extremely beautiful feather headdress called 7nengunge in which, according to a sketch I have seen, the plumes of Paradisea raggiana predominate ; it is said to represent the outline of Boboleva, Mount Davidson.

The people of Oxi^oio\x\2L pangua wear as kangakanga the sword of the swordfish ikuo, projecting from their front hair as a Papuasian commonly wears a comb ; further, leaves, or sometimes an ornament said to represent the leaves of the plant foame, which is also a kangakanga, may be worn projecting backwards from their waistbelts.

O^^io pangua of Rarai has as headdress and kangakanga a framework of radiating bars covered with feathers, said to represent the radiating feather shafts in the crest of the goura pigeon and each bar is said to terminate in one or more actual goura crests.

The men of Ngangai /<3;^^^^ of Inawi village when dancing wear aulda, a feather headdress consisting of hornbill feathers mounted in two lateral series on a central axis which terminates in a plume of the tail feathers of a cock. The hornbill feathers are held in place by pinupinu, i.e. string on which is mounted a closely set series of the small red breast feathers of a species of parrot (Charmosyna sp.).

The dance ornament of y[2iung^ pangua of Rarai village consists of bleached Fig 32. Sword of crinkled strips of the leaves of the pingu nnn'!t^'"'''''T'^ ""^ Paln^ pendant from an erect axis covered ofOngofoina. ^N\U\ pinupinu.

Clan-Badges 327

Kangakanga were never worn in war when men of all pangua decked themselves with cassowary plumes and painted themselves black, and no effort was made on the part of the combatants to recognize and avoid attacking men of their own iauafangai or kangakaiiga. The painting on the faces of dancers does not refer to iauafangai or kangakanga though at Veifa an old man, whose information could neither be verified nor contradicted, was understood to say that at Inaukina on the Biaru River the method of painting the face varied according to clan.

A list of villages, pangua, ngopu groups, iauafangai, clubhouses and kangakanga is given on pages 369 to 372.

As regards the kangakanga in this list, it is probable that many pangua have more than are indicated, but it seems certain that the kangakanga given are the most important. In the table no attempt is made to distinguish between the animal providing the kangakanga and the part of the animal that is actually the clan-badge. In this I conform to native use which in many cases speaks of both the animal providing the kangakanga and the kangakanga itself by the same name.

NGOPU GROUPS.

It has already been stated that a number of pangua claiming common descent form a ngopu group. In each of the Mekeo tribes there are two ngopu groups which respectively bear the names of the earliest /^/^^//^ with which at one time the ngopu groups were coextensive, i.e. the names of the Biofa ngopu groups are Inawi and Inawae, those of the Vee being Ngangai and Kuapengi. All these names are also the names of villages^

The table on pages 369 to 372 which gives the present geographical position of the ^i^^o pangua according to villages, with their iauafangai and kangakanga, also gives the ngopu

^ In Mekeo itself, Inawi village is commonly spoken of as Waiaka by the natives, the name for the site on which the village stands and whence its dominant patigua has derived its name. Father Egidi points out that when a Mekeo native speaks of Inawi he commonly means the pangua of this name in the village of Veifa. The Roro-speaking tribes on the other hand when speaking of Inawi commonly mean the village called Waiaka by the Mekeo tribes but marked on all the maps as Inawi, though at times they loosely apply Inawi as a name for almost any of the Biofa communities. Waiaka village will be spoken of as Inawi in this volume since it is marked Inawi upon all the maps and because it has always been spoken of by this name in all publications on British New Guinea.

The Mekeo Tribes group to which each pangua belongs, but this latter information Is far more conveniently given in the following table, In the construction of which I received much assistance from Father Egldl. It also shows the subdivisions which have in the course of time sprung up in the majority of the primary 7igopu groups.

TABLE OF THE PANGUA OF THE BIOFA AND VEE,

SHOWING THE NGOPU GROUP TO WHICH

EACH PANGUA BELONGS.

This table is meant to be used with those given on pages 369 to 372 but in order to avoid confusion the site of ^2s:\i pangua is denoted by a village name in brackets in those cases in which difficulty might arise. My knowledge of the composition of the village of Afai is too slight to permit me to give the origin of its pa7igua, the names of which are noted on pages 315 and 316.

'^Onginofeka Waiaka sometimes called Inawi

Paiapaia

,t • \ n^ c • f Ong-ofoina ( Veifa)

P"^^^ ^ Ongofoma ion|ofoina Kipo (Inawi)

Fopafoina Alo Fopafoina

Lainapa Unawi (Veifa) Oala Aivea Alo Aivea Inawae

/Inawi ...^

5iofa

VAivea

^Inawae

Inawae Ipuko (Oriropetana) Inawae Aungako

''Inawae ...\ Inawae Ipiau u

Inawefae nawae Angamea (Inawabui)

l^lgniuma JVmoamo... j

(Amoamo (Oriropetana)

Clan-Badges

^Ngangai

-<

^Kuapengi

Ngangai ,

'Ngangai Ipangenga (Rarai) Ngangai (Inawi)

Ngangai Ipuaina (Rarai) Ngangaifua

Ikoiko

Paiapangua

Bebeo Inaupako jlkoiko (Rarai) Ikoiko (Inawae)

iofiko (Rarai)

^Inawauni

^Kuapengi (Rarai, Aipiana)

I" Lolokanga lAmaama

Kolomio

Inawaia

Inawabui

,Oaki f Kolomio (Rarai, Veifa) j Kuapengi of Kolomio

(Rarai)

[ifupaina jPangua Ifupaina

^ ^ (Langi Ifupama

^Inawaia Laiina

Inawaia Koko

^Poloka (Jeku Baibua)

finaukiki j{"^"™Kipo

1 (Inaukiki Kaenga llnawabui f Inawabui Kipo

(Inawabui Kaenga f Oaki (Bebeo) lOaki (Jeku Baibua)

Since the clans of each ngopu group are descended from a single pangua which originally gave its name to a ngopu group, it is reasonable to suppose that at one time all the clans of a given ngopu group had a common iauafangai and a common name for their ufu. The older natives who were consulted agreed that this was the case, and even at the present time, after such migrations, fusions and ruptures as have been described when considering the history of Afai village, the condition met with in the Inawi ngopu group of ' the Biofa tribe, and the Ngangai ngopu group of the Vee, is so nearly that described as originally prevalent, that there can be no doubt but that all the clans of a single ngopu group should have the same iauafangai and a common name for their ufu.

Certain pangua are pointed out as being isolated and belonging to no ngopu group. This is the case with Maunge

330 TJie Mekeo Tribes of Rarai, Afanga of Ififu, Fopa Onge of Bebeo and Okope of Inawi, all these being immigrant stocks not belonging to either Vee or Biofa and probably not related among themselves. Further certain immigrant pangua have so far retained their sense of common origin and are so largely autonomous, that the Biofa and Vee hold that they constitute a ngopu group by themselves, thus Eboa pangtia and the various divisions of Inafokoa which together form Eboa village are considered by the true natives of Mekeo to constitute a foreign ngopu group which is sometimes spoken of as Eboa- Inafokoa.

CLUBHOUSES.

Each local group of a clan [pangua) possesses, or once possessed, at least one clubhouse, called ufu by both the Biofa and Vee. In function these correspond closely to the Roro niarea but speaking generally are smaller and less substantially and elaborately built than the latter. War andy^2*^ ' experts,' in Mekeo always called y"^^*^ chiefs^ may, and in some cases do, have their own ufu, but these should bear the same name as the ufu of the lopia fda^ that is to say, each pangua should adhere to a single name for all its ^^^ and formerly this rule was strictly observed. It was further stated that of old the names of the ufu belonging to the pangua of a single ngopu group were identical, and that changes in name were due to a desire to commemorate some historical events

As the result of many inquiries Father Egidi concludes that the ufu names of the ngopu groups of the two Mekeo tribes were originally as follows :

Ngopu group Ufu

Biofa IJ"^^^ Maipa3

(Inawae Apiongai

Vee {Ngangai Popungapi

IKuapengi Oafua*

' The functions of these are identical with those of the Waima jzJrt/>^« experts, cf chapter xxiv.

2 Dr Strong points out that the custom of recording an historical event by an appropriate name which shall keep its memory green also occurs in the mountains behmd Mekeo, for a native of the Mount Yule range has recently named the settlement of which he is headman Inawi because of his admiration for Inawi village which he visited and also to celebrate the fact that he had made peace with Mekeo and the Government.

J Maipa is the name of a bird, which Captain Barton states is a kind of shag. Otifua means 'rippling' or ' ripples,' the term being applied to the movement of the surface of still water caused by throwing in a stone. It does not necessarily follow that this is the original meaning of the word or the meaning of the ufu name.

Chtbhouses 331

These, as will be seen on referring to the tables on pages 369 to 372, are still to a very considerable extent the names of the ufu of the pangua of the respective ngopu groups. When changes were of recent occurrence it was generally possible to find out the reason for the change and the meaning of the new names, as in the following instances.

The present ufu of the ^/^<^V section of Oala A'w^di pangua of Aipiana village — a pangua of the Inawi ngopu — is called Laila in memory of a Jokea clubhouse of that name in which a number of Oala Aivea visitors to Jokea were entertained
The ufu of the war chief has retained its former name, i.e. Maipa, but the ufu of xkv^fda chief is now known as Mimingi; the reason for this change could not be discovered. The ufu of Afanga pangua of Ififu village is called Angopu meaning literally ' a village fallen into decay,' and this name was given it on account of the weakness of its builders' pangua. Again the name of the ufu of the Waiaka pangua at Inawi and Oriropetana (Onginofeka) which was formerly Maipa has comparatively recently been changed to Aungama (the black snake Pseudechis) as a public advertisement that these two clans had themselves begun to make 'medicine' on a serious scale, to defend themselves from the sorcerers of other villages. Such defence would not be passive, limited to neutralising the sorcery of others, but would in the main be offensive, and it was as a warning of their intentions that aungama — the name of the snake by means of which the most deadly magic is believed to be worked — was selected as the name of their ufu.

In other instances the meaning of the secondarily acquired ufu name is unknown, as Mopina ufu of both Inawefae and Yi\i2L^^x\g\ pangua of Aipiana village. In some cases the bare meaning of the ufu name could be stated, but no reason for the change could be given. Paia ufu of Bebeo pangua of Bebeo village is an example of this as also the ufu names of the pangua Upunga and Amoamo of Oriropetana village, the name of whose ufu Funguka is also the name of a tree the hard wood of which is particularly durable and is often used as piles for ufu"^.

^ For the meaning of the term ek'ei (and its opposite /iVi«^/^«) see p. 337- 2 The toughness of the wood seems a possible reason for its adoption as the name of the ufu, but it could not be determined that this was really the reason, though it would be quite in accord with the habit of thought of the natives of this part of New Guinea.

The Mekeo Tribes

Among the Vee the change of ufu names seems to have occurred to a greater extent than among the Biofa. Lolokanga and Amaama the two pangua of Inawauni have ufu names Foyo and Eleia, the names of two mountain peaks ; Foyo is also the name of the ufu of ^2iwn<g^ pangua of Rarai. The two Inaukiki pangtca of Ififu village and of Inawabui pangua of Inawabui village have as tifu name Langina, the North-west wind. Again Kolomio, Pangua Ifupaina and Langi Ifupaina, all pangua of the Kuapengi ngopu group, have as 2ifu name Lainapa, the hornbill.

Sometimes the ufu name is identical with that of the iauafangai or kangakanga, but this is not common ; the instances in which this occurs are summarised in the following table :

Clan

Iauafangai

Ufu

Kangakanga

Amoamo (B)^

Funguka

Funguka

—

Kolomio (V)

Lainapa

Lainapa

—

Pangua Ifupaina (V)

Lainapa

Lainapa

Lainapa

Langi Ifupaina (V)

Lainapa

Lainapa

Lainapa

Oaki of Bebeo (V)

Aikimo

Aikimo

—

Oaki of Yekubaibua (V)

Aikimo

Aikimo

—

Angafua (I mm.)

Ongeonge

Ongeonge

—

A warrior would call out, I may perhaps say invoke, the name of his ufu when striking a blow, and Father Egidi adds that warriors returning from a war party would embrace the main piles of the ufu * invoking and praising them.' A man who was tired or one whose muscles were stiff might in the same way speak the name of his ufu on stretching himself, but would more usually under these circumstances ' invoke ' his village by its geographical name, thus two men, one of Paiapaia pangua of Inawi village and the other of one of the Rarai pangua would respectively cry * Ah-h Waiaka inaenga ' and 'Ah-h Maea inaenga' Inaenga means 'belly,' 'centre,' and thus the ejaculation is equivalent to ' Heart of my village^'

Besides being the clubhouse of the men of the pangua

^ B = Biofa ; V = Vee ; Imm. = Immigrant stock.

"^ Dr Strong thinks that a less literal translation would convey the idea better, and he considers my use of the word 'invoke' scarcely justified. Instead of 'heart of my village' he would translate very freely 'Would I were in my village' and adds that his servant, a Gaile (Motu) boy, when tired would often exclaim 'Sivitoi' or 'O Sivitoio' or even ' iMekeo,' Sivitoi being the name of the Government station and thus the boy's temporary home. Sometimes gabu namo^ i.e. 'good place' might be added, also when homesick (for Gaile) he would say 'hanua.' accordmg to Dr Strong clearly meaning ' Would I were in my village.'

I

Clubhouses 333

certain of the Mekeo ufu play an Important part In the ceremonial observed by warriors newly returned from war, who, on entering their villages, throw their spears at and into the ufu of the war and faia chiefs. The men themselves are said to be ngove — a term which corresponds to the rove of the Rorospeaking tribes (Motu helaga) — and spend a considerable time In strict seclusion in the ufu of \ki^ faia chiefs. On these occasions the front of the ufu is closed with plaited coconut leaves. They are said to spend most of their time of seclusion squatting round the fire ; they may eat but little and may not touch their food with their hand, but must convey It to their mouth w^th a fork. At the end of the period they wash themselves In water in which have been infused the leaves of a herb called fefu and of another herb the fruit of which is said to resemble a wild orange, and Is perhaps a species of Eugenia. After this they may leave the ufu during daylight, though they still return to it at night ; they may do no work, nor may they wear their ornaments, or approach their wives.

They persevere In this conduct for some time, perhaps for two or three months, when a feast Is made in the ufu of one or more of the clans which had engaged in the war. Probably each pangua would kill pigs for the occasion, and although it appeared that the members of some clans might resort to the ufu of their war chiefs, the ufu of certain faia chiefs were the places set apart by old custom for holding this feast. It appeared that particular ufu were used only by the men of certain pangua, perhaps those of a particular ngopu group, thus It was pointed out that after warfare all the warriors of Inawi village would resort to the ufu of }i^ faia chief of Fopafolna pangua or If he had no ufu to that of the war chief of Ongofoina pangua^. After this feast the men who had killed their man during the recent fighting were decorated with kefe, the whole ceremony resembling that described on page 298 as taking place in like circumstances among the Walma.

Ufu have no special designs, badges, or carvings attaching to them. The designs usually carved on the poles supporting the front overhang of the thatch, and occasionally found in other parts of the ufu, are the property and distinctive badge of the chief who has hereditary charge of the ufu. The

1 Three of the Inawi clans including the only two strong ones belong to the Inawi ngopu group, the remaining four clans are all immigrant and weak.

334 ^^^^ Mekeo Tribes same carvings might be used on ordinary dwelling-houses of individuals if these were members of the families of chiefs. The very striking addition to the general plan of the ufu shown in Plate XLIV is a special design stated to be the property of Mangemange the high chief {lopia f'da) of Ikoiko pangiia of Rarai village, who added it to Popungapi the ufu of his pangua, or as is more commonly said in colloquial talk, to his 7if2c. The ornament resembling a circular hut in outline, is produced by carrying the front central post of the u/u through the roof, and building round it the structure shown in the plate', which is said to represent Mount Drew, called Kafarua by the Mekeo people.

In some Mekeo villages the decoration of the ufu on ceremonial occasions may rnimic that of the Papuan Gulf without the Mekeo folk having any accurate idea of the meaning of the decorations they have adopted. Thus as is shown in Plate XLV, which represents one of the ufu of Aipiana village, the whole apparatus of decoration has been borrowed including ' bull-roarer derivatives ' on which are portrayed conventional human figures representing the ancestors of the Elema tribes^

NGOVE.

Besides the ufu in which every adult male of xh^ pangua is interested and where, as already stated, strangers on official business and the chiefs of the ufuapie group are received and feasted, each village contains a number of ngove. These are houses of the usual size sometimes built on especially high piles but more often in no way differing outwardly from the common dwelling-houses of the village. Like the ufu each rigove is a clubhouse for men, but only the folk of the ikupu or family group who build a ngove have the right to use it. Every chief may build a ngove and each head-man of an ikupu has the same right. The men of the ikupu take part in the work of building the ngove, but the man who is recognized as head of his ikupu and who has the hereditary right to build the ngove is, in a broad sense, responsible for its upkeep, and each ngove is known by the name of the man having the

' The photograph from which the plate is reproduced was taken by Captain Barton, but the information concerning it is given on Dr Strong's authority.

• Cf. J. Holmes, 'Notes on the Religious Ideas of the Elema Tribes of the Papuan ^\A{i Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. XXXI I. 1902.

Plate XL IV

Popungapi ufu of Rarai village

Plate XLVl

Ngove formerly existing at Veifa

Clubhouses hereditary right to build it. Thus Ofe Lala yenga ngove, i.e.

• Ofe Lala his ngove' was the name applied to the ngove for the upkeep of which Ofe Lala was responsible in virtue of his hereditary right, but which was used by all the males of the ikupu of which he was head. The building on tall piles in Plate XLIV behind Popungapi ufu is a ngove belonging, I believe, to Mangemange, the ovia fda of Ikoiko pangua of Rarai village. It will be noted that it has a front overhang projecting from the roof and a window in the thatch closing in the front of the building. These features are quite uncommon in ngove but I cannot say whether they are the personal property of Mangemange as the structure above the roof of his ufu is. In former days ngove were sometimes constructed on piles or rather slender poles between twenty and thirty feet long, standing clear above the houses of the village and the greater part of the surrounding vegetation as is shown in Plate XL VI reproduced from a photograph lent to me by Father Fillodeau of a former ngove at Veifa village. It seemed that ngove of this extreme height were built in order to frustrate the effects of sorcery.

In a general way the purpose of the ngove is that of the ufu though it is not used on highly ceremonial occasions. No women may come into the ngove or upon its verandah, for the ngove is a clubhouse, the membership of which is limited to the members of a single ikupu. Lads who have attained to puberty and widowers sleep in the ngove and guests often pass the night in the ngove of the ikupu they are visiting. Although the head of each pangua has the right to build a ngove and although each chief, including the high chief or lopia fda, usually builds a ngove in virtue of this right, it appeared that he would not usually decorate its posts or even its main post with the carvings or ornaments to which he has an hereditary right, although his ufu, and perhaps also his dwelling-house, would be beautified in this way.

CHAPTER XXVIII

DIVISIONS WITHIN THE PANGUA.

In the account given on pp. 315 and 316 of the wanderings of the clans which at one time constituted Afai and in the sketch of the history of Inawi (pp. 317, 318), no mention has been made of any divisions within xSx^pangua though these divisions play an important part in the life of the village and may give rise to v^^ paitgua.

Within the pangua the unit is the ikupu which represents a family group, though often this term must be understood in the broadest possible sense. Thus while small weak ikupu may be composed of only a few householders, strong ikupu commonly consist of from thirty to fifty households. But, however large an ikupu may become, its members, other than those introduced by marriage or adoption, are always able to trace their origin to a common ancestor who may, however, be so remote that his name may have been forgotten by all except a few old men\

By making use of information supplied by Father Egidi and with the help of his genealogy of the Inawi clans, it becomes possible to give with considerable accuracy the composition of each of the clans now settled in Inawi village, or in other words the composition of the village itself.

At Inawi, as in most other villages, the ikupu of the stronger clans are divided into two groups called respectively fdangiau, which may be translated ' first born,' and ek'ei meaning 'subsequently born.' This division appears to be the result of the relatively slight feeling of solidarity existing between the members of the various ikupu forming one pangua. As X^mi pangua ages and becomes more populous the

• Father Egidi points out that in those cases in which no common male ancestor is known the family tree is traced to a female ancestor. Weak pangua may have only two or three ikupu^ sUong pangua more than half-a-dozen.

Divisions within the Pangua 337

name and qualities of the common ancestor of its ikupu become forgotten or ignored in the welter of recent migrations and ambitions. Certain ikupu, however, continue to form a group acknowledging their close relationship, and the feeling of unity of origin and purpose becomes more intense within this limited circle until, stimulated by the desire for independence, or perhaps by the ambition of its leading man or by the lustre of some brilliant feat of war, these ikupu publicly declare their autonomy and invite the chiefs of their ufuapie group to come to their village so that by their presence at the appropriate feast they may acknowledge and make clear to all other pangua the social and political status of the newly constituted unit\

It by no means follows that all or any of the chiefs of the ufuapie group will assent to the request, and should they not do so the emerging group will approach other pangua with whom they are on good terms and propose that the ufuapie relationship be established between them. In any case it seems that when a numerically strong group feels the advisability of asserting their relative independence they carry the matter through, even if this necessitates prolonged bickering with the conservative party, and perhaps a struggle with the lopia fda, the chief of xh^ pangua. Ultimately the new unit gives the necessary big feast, all the chiefs of the district, including their own lopia fda, come to it, the leader of the new unit is declared a chief, and the new section, while retaining the old name, is declared free and independent. The dignity of chief being hereditary the chief of the old section retains the title of lopia fda, and the old section is distinguished by the name oi fdangiau (first born) and the new one by that of ek'ei (subsequently born), the chief of this latter section being officially termed lopia ek'ei ; there is, however, a tendency to use this term in an unofficial sense for the head-man of a strong party in a pangua even before there has been any official recognition of the new party.

In those cases in which the new division separates entirely from the section in which it was formed, it takes another name and becomes a new pangua. Such new pangua have little difficulty in obtaining official recognition for their chiefs as lopia fda if they are numerically strong, and above all if they

^ For the meaning of the term ufuapie and the important part the men of this group play, cf. chapter XXX.

are rich enough to be generous to their ufuapie and so secure their whole-hearted support. In these circumstances it is onlynecessary for the men of the new pangua to make a feast grand enough to please everybody concerned. There are, at the present time, a number of pangtia who as yet have no generally recognized lopia fda. Such pangua are Ngangai Ipangenga of Rarai village (a split from tho. pangua Ngangai of Inawi village), certain other pangua of Ngangai, Ofiko pangua of Rarai, and IndMngom^ pangua also of Rarai, whose lopia fda died leaving no real or adopted heir. On the other hand the Ongo{o\\2i pangua of both Inawi and Veifa villages have iopia fda and although the lopia fda of the Ongofoina pangua of Veifa lost his local dignity soon after he seceded and founded Ongofoina Y^'i^o pangua of Inawi village, another lopia fda was soon declared in his place. At the present time the people of Ngangai I pa.ngtnga. pangua of Rarai village are numerically strong enough and have enough influence to make it certain that no difficulty w411 be made about raising their chief to the dignity of lopia fda whenever they are prepared to give the necessary feast.

The history of the formation of Or^go{o\x\2. pangua of Veifa village affords another instance. The first division into sections was the ordinary division into jdangiau and ekei. The members of the fdangiau section fought among themselves ; the defeated party with the lopia fda at their head returned to the site of their former settlement at Inawi village and there formed the pangua Ongofoina Kipo (whose members still call the victors akiTnai, ' our younger brothers ') ; the victorious party, which consisted of one very populous ikupu, remained on the Veifa site and, reorganizing themselves and the village, formed three new ikupu. Later the ikupu of this ek'ei section of Ongofoina pangua also fought among themselves, with the result that one party moved to Amoamo village where they formed Igniuma pangua while the other remained at Veifa.

Besides being divided into fdangiau and ek'ei sections there is a further dual grouping of the ikupu. One of these divisions, which contains the ikupu of the lopia fda and as such is always a portion of the fdangiau section, is called fda aui or lopia aui, while the other which includes the ikupu of the war chief io lopia is called io aui and may be a portion of €\t\^r fdangiau or ek'ei section. This double division was

Divisions within the Pangua 339

made in Waiaka where the genealogy shows that both lopia fda and io lopia are descended from a single ancestor Maino Amaa. This grouping will be made clear by the following scheme.

[Fdangiau ^^^^!^^orloptaauz r, 1^0 aui

Ekei (or this section may contain the io aui group).

It is now possible to consider the actual building up of the Waiaka clan of Inawi village from its constituent ikupu. There are at the present day eight ikupu in Waiaka, of which five originate from a single ancestor, while the three remaining ikupti also spring from a common stock, and although they cannot give the name of their common ancestor they do not hesitate to assert their single origin and call themselves brothers.

Seven generations ago, one Maino Amaa then living at loiovina had among his children three sons. Two of these sons, Amewa Kaiokuau and Opungu Kaiokuau, were among the first of their pangua to leave loiovina, crossing the river and settling between the present sites of Inawi and Inawae. Neither Amewa Kaiokuau nor Opunga Kaiokuau were fda chiefs, but first on the site of their settlement, and afterwards on the present Inawi site, their descendants increased until at the present day five ikupu trace their descent to Maino Amaa through Amewa and Opungu Kaiokuau. The war chieftainship was in the family of the descendants of Amewa Kaiokuau, but as already stated the high chieftainship was not, and did not come into the family until the then lopia fda was publicly put to shame at a feast by one of his wives and so made over his authority and its symbol, the lime ^owx A faonga used only by chiefs, to an ancestor of Opungu Ongopaina (the present lopia fda) descended from Amewa Kaiokuau. A descendant of the latter's brother Opungu Kaiokuau (whose most important descendant at the present day is Keaeke Ifoilako) became war chief (io lopia). With the direct descendants of Alua Alu, the great grandson of the old fda chief who resigned his chieftainship, there is united a small collateral family, who together form an ikupu under the leadership of Ifongai Aiva the son of a brother of Alua Alu. Two other men from loiovina have also given rise to families at the present day

22 — 2

The Mekeo Tribes forming an ihipii having as leader Amewa Aivapala\ The ekei division of Waiaka forms a small iktipu under the leadership of Foeape Aape.

The ihipu of Waiaka and Paiapaia /^^^^^^ of Inawi and their grouping is shown in the following table. The numbers and figures in brackets, thus (i b) refer to the headings in Father Egidi's genealogy and are used in the table of marriages given in chapter xxx. (Ngangai, Ongofoina Kipo, Okope, Ungo and Ipange are omitted since at Inawi they are each represented only by small and weak ikupu.)

( Ikupu No. \ {\ a) consists of the descendants of Amewa Kaiokuau with Chief Opungu Ongopaina, the lopiafda of Waiaka.

Ikupu No. 2 (2 «, b) consists of the descendants of the old fda chief. Ifangai Aiva is head of this ikupu.

Ikupu No. 3 (2 tr, ^ consists of descendants of Oaia Pealapou and one other man, both from loiovina and has as head man Amewa Aiva- Fdangiau J y parla.

^ Ikupu No. 4 {i b) descended from Opungu Kaiokuau has as Chief Keaeke Ifoilako the io lopia of Waiaka.

Ikupu No. 5 (i ^) descended from Opungu Kaiokuau.

Ikupu No. 6 (i ^) descended from Opungu Kaiokuau.

Ikupu No. 7 (i (?) descended from Opungu Kaiokuau.

Ekei The whole of this section forms ikupu No. 8 (17^

3 a) under the leadership of Foeape Aape.

' Fdangiau auiy Ikupu No. {\a^b) under the leadership of the lopiafda

Ongongo Aiamaia. (/(C? <2wz, Ikupu No. 2 (2 <2, b). {Lopia aiii^ Ikupu No. 3 (3 a).

[Lopia aui -{

^lo aui

Paiapaia...

Ekei

The actual birth of an ikupu seems to take place somewhat as follows :

As the parent ikupu becomes larger and stronger, parties are naturally formed in it, and groups consisting of families closely united by blood and marriage begin to cling together more and more, and to hold somewhat apart from the general life of the community. This goes on, and probably nothing is said until one day an Individual with somewhat more force of

' The descendants of one of these men (Oaia Pealapou) or perhaps of both were known as hpia ejiga imoi which literally means 'children of the chief The exact significance of this term could not be determined in the present instance ; according to Father Egidi the expression is sometimes used to include all the ikupu of the lopia aui section oi 2i pangua.

I

Divisions within the Pangua 341

character and perhaps ambition than his neighbours, suggests building a ngove. In this he naturally seeks only the assistance of his relatives and friends. If the rest of the ikupu offers no strong objection, and if above all they can be assured that a feast will be given and that the thing will be managed decently according to Papuaslan standards, the split takes place. Inversely when an ikupu has for any reason become weakened and reduced In numbers it joins a nearly related ikupu, builds no ngove and Is for the time merged in its related ikupu, though probably ready enough to re-assert its individuality when strong enough to do so.

If the process of differentiation goes a stage further, the new ikupu after a shorter or longer period separates from the rest of the village and builds houses removed perhaps by only a few score yards from the parent stock, yet forming a new settlement, which, when It has given the necessary feasts will take a new name. If the new settlement distinguishes itself In war, or has among its members a recognized expert In sorcery i^faia lopia) the process of gaining recognition becomes specially easy. The village, as It would now call itself, would naturally seek to attract other families so as to strengthen Itself further. But the only families likely to be attracted to a new village are the remnants of old weakened clans whose names are on the verge of extinction already, or recent immigrants from the hills. Such folk may really lose their autonomy in the new settlement, or after a time, during which they increase In number and importance, they may proclaim their limited Independence as new clans within the village. This explains how it Is that In so many of the Mekeo villages there are pangua often very little known, and therefore scarcely recognized outside the village, though very distinct to the villagers themselves. If a stranger were asked for the pangua of Aipiana (Alvea) he would almost certainly answer that there are but three, viz. : Alvea, Inawefae and MeaungI, or perhaps the last two would be confused and spoken of as Inawefae. As a matter of fact the group called Alvea by a stranger really includes }ii^ pangua 02\2. Alvea and Apangoa; Inawefae Includes also the pangua Kuapengi and Inafokoa; and MeaungI includes several families from Amoamo, which In time may easily come to form a separate pangua. Naturally these mQ\id.^A pangua — if the term is permissible — generally adopt ufu, iauafangai and sometimes the kangakanga of the people among whom they settled.

CHAPTER XXIX

CHIEFTAINSHIP.

In each clan there are or should be two chiefs ; these are called lopia f'da and io lopia in order of authority, and are the high chief and war chief respectively. The lopia f da corre^ sponds more or less closely to the ovia itsipana of the Rorospeaking tribes, as does the io lopia to the ovia awarina in the matter of war. The Mekeo folk say that there is also a class of chiefs {lopia) called faia lopia^ but these are really departmental 'experts' corresponding exactly to xh^ paiha ^experts' of the Roro-speaking tribes and like them exercising their powers not for gain but to give victory to the community. The division of many pangua Into two sections distinguished disfdangiau and ekeihdiS already been described on page 336, and the head-man or leader of the ekei section Is regarded as a chief and is officially given the title of lopia ekei. Although this title may be applied to the head-man of any strong or Important ikupu except that which possesses a lopia fda, its official use appears to be limited to the chief of the ekei section of a clan, in which sense only the following Information concerning the duties of the lopia ekei applies. His functions will be considered immediately with those of the lopia fda whose henchman he Is. Rarely, as In KuapengI pangua of Rarai village does an io lopia act as lopia ekei, but as might be expected, in many weak pangua no one Is regarded as an actual or potential lopia ekei.

Again, in small or weak pangua, and these seem to occur especially in the Vee villages as well as In Immigrant clans, war chiefs are absent or the functions of fda chief and leader in war may be said to be united in the person of one man, thus in Kolomio pangua of Veifa village Amola Akalna was considered to be both fda and war chief Similarly Aame Aipa is considered as fda and war chief of Kalau pangua of

PlateXLVII

Chief's lime gourd, faonga

Veifa village and this man is also 2ifaia expert. The village of Inawae consisting of a single /^«^^^, viz. Inawae Ipiau has no war chief but joins other Biofa villages in warfare.

The high chief or lopia fda of each clan has certain rights which he never deputes to his sub-chief the lopia ekei. The lopia faa takes precedence at all feasts given by his clan's ufuapie, his lopia ekei carrying and spreading for him the sheet of bread-fruit bast-cloth on which he sits when he reaches the ufu of the clan giving the feast. If he is ill and unable to fulfil any of his ceremonial duties, a substitute is chosen from his own family, his lopia ekei never acts for him. The lopia ekei receives gifts of food, especially of pork, which he passes on to his high chief He sits by his high chief, but apparently always on his left, and practically the lopia fda are the only prominent actors in the ceremonies connected with the ufuapie feasts, the lopia ekei being merely spectators and assistants. At big feasts each lopia fda carries with him the insignium of his rank, a special lime gourd called y*^^^^^, with which he produces an almost continuous rattling noise by working his lime spatula (transversely grooved for this purpose) up and down against the edge of its mouth. This gourd was described as larger than the ordinary lime gourd of the district. It was stated to be covered entirely with a dark wax which was studded with teeth of various animals and was kept carefully wrapped up in the ufu belonging to the lopia fda and was never brought out except on ceremonial occasions. Until a few months ago, when the specimen shown in Plate XLVII was found among some recent purchases of the Horniman Museum, I had never seen ^faonga and the above description was given me by Father Egidi to whom one was shown as a great and special favour. Mekeo chiefs also wear the lopia pao, the ornament called eaii rove by the Rorospeaking tribes and shown in figure 18 (p. 221).

There is no doubt that among the Mekeo clans there was a feeling of affectionate consideration for their lopia fda and a ready recognition of the pre-eminence of the families to which these chiefs belonged, that in many cases may be fairly described by saying that the ikupu most nearly related to the lopia fda were intensely loyal to their chief This naturally fostered a sense of dignity, importance and responsibiHty on the part of the fda chief which is quite uncommon among Papuasians, and the circumstances (for an account of which I

344 ^^^^ Mekeo Tribes am indebted to Father Egldi) which four generations ago led to the lopia fda of the Walaka clan resigning his chieftainship show how seriously chiefs took their ceremonial responsibilities. The chief referred to was taking a leading part in an Important ceremony in his ufu when it was accidentally discovered that his wife had secretly reserved a joint cut from a pig which should have been ceremonially presented to the guests of his pangtca. The chief held himself so shamed by this conduct that he not only resigned his position as lopia fda but left his village. In spite of this the nobility of his family is recognized at the present day and the name of the descendant (Ifangal Alva) of the old lopia fda who resigned his chieftainship Is often linked with that of the present chief (Lala Opu, son of Opu Ongopaina) on the occasions when the names of chiefs are ceremonially called from the ufu.

In spite of the Influence and position which the strict observance of the hereditary descent of their office gives to the members of the families of chiefs, adoption is common among them, especially among chiefs of the smaller Immigrant clans. An adopted son Is treated In every way as if he were really the son of his adopted father, and thus when adopted by ^fda chief may succeed to the chieftainship. And since It Is not uncommon for the chief of dipangua to adopt the son of the leader of any immigrant group which joins the village, It comes about that the lopia fda Is sometimes not of the blood of the hereditary chiefs of the clan. Thus, as pointed out by Father Egidi, the chief of Ipange /^;^^^<^ (of Raral village) belongs by blood to ^x<g2.'^M pangiia, and the chief of ImLW^fae pangua of Aipiana is really by blood a native of KuapQUge pangua.

As at Roro the io lopia, the clan war chief, may have his own ufti whence, when his clan is thinking of carrying on war, he sends round panicles of areca nuts as an invitation to other war chiefs to join him. All who accept and chew his nuts must help him for he is now both commander-in-chief and an active combatant. Before actually joining battle, he usually invokes the name of his ufu. During the feasts and ceremonies which follow successful warfare the io lopia acts in every way as chief, receiving presents and in all matters taking the lead very much as the lopia fda does In civil affairs. The lopia fda would not as a rule take any part In a fight, unless the battle were the result of a surprise attack at night. In ordinary fights the lopia fda of either party could (like the ovia itsipana of the Roro-speaking tribes) stop hostilities by parading without arms between the combatant lines and shaking lime from his gourd.

There may be more than one io lopia in a local group of a pangua, for both f'dangiau and ekei sections may have their io lopia, although this does not very often occur, for so long as the two sections remain more or less closely united a single io lopia suffices for both. It has already been mentioned that a new pangua usually establishes itself slowly, first the lopia ekei becomes the chief of the pangua [pangtia lopianga), who subsequently may become a lopia f da, and it is not until after the lopia fda has been officially recognized that an io lopia becomes possible. And since a big feast is needed for the public and official declaration of an io lopia there are many pangua who have a lopia fda but no io lopia. This dignity could only be assumed by a man who had killed an enemy, but it sometimes happened that an individual qualified by influence and courage for the post of io lopia was not able to give the necessary feast, and allowed himself to be superseded perhaps by a member of his own family. At the present time Keaeke Ifoilako is by right the hereditary war chief of Waiaka pangua but one Kuangungu Ongongo belonging to a different ikupu but of the same io aui section of ih^ pangua is generally called io lopia and would, it was said, assume the active duties of io lopia \i these were any longer possible.

Although the io lopia organized and led his men it was the magic of the faia expert that gave victory to his party and it was the faia expert, not the war chief, who medicined the warriors of his group of villages before fighting^ Only a few pangua possess a faia expert so that one with the requisite knowledge might, and generally did, act as faia chief for a number of pangua often spread over more than one settlement while simultaneously exercising the functions of a chief in his own pangua. Thus Ofe Lala of Velfa is lopia ekei of Alo Fopafoina (his pangua) and Fopafolna of Velfa as well as the faia expert of Ongofoina, Inawl, Fopafolna, Alofopafoina, Inafokoa and Kolomio pangua of

1 Father Egidi writes that he has been unable to discover any times other than during war and the subsequent ceremonies by which a homicide was purified, during which the faia lopia exercised his special functions. This agrees well with what has already been said as to the correspondence of the paiha experts of the Roro-speaking tribes and \S\t.faia chiefs of Mekeo.

o

Veifa as also of Alo Aivea, Ipange and Apangoa pangua of Alo Aivea, that is to say he ^^s faia expert for the whole village of Veifa and the smaller village of Alo Aivea.

Part of the procedure of th.Q fata expert was described by Ofe Lala, who accompanied his words by a lively pantomime, as follows : Supposing a night, or rather an early morning, attack is to be made, the fata expert accompanies the attacking force on its march to the hostile village. When within a certain distance a halt is called and the expert spits upon a portion of the leafy axis of a plant called ofe {Dracaena sp.), and delivers an overhand blow with this, striking downwards in the direction of the hostile village ; he then passes the ofe under his right leg and again strikes downwards. While performing this he murmurs spells in a low tone which should cause the enemy to sleep heavily. The march is resumed and when the attacking party is very near the village, that is to say when it is so near that a rush can be made, ih^ fata expert strikes the spears of the attacking party with his ofe. He crouches on the ground doubling the ofe under his belly and blocking his ears with his fingers, so causing the enemy to become deaf, and then as the rush is made each warrior jumps over the crouching faia lopia.

In Mekeo I could hear of no inferior chiefs or hereditary office bearers comparable with the ovia akiva of the Roro and Paitana tribes and it seemed clear that the lopia f da, when he cut up a pig, would himself remove the fat in large slices, and that when a youth went through the ceremony qualifying him for his hereditary chieftainship an old chief advised him, and if need were, actually guided his hand while he ceremonially dismembered a pig.

The offices of lopia f da and io lopia are strictly hereditary from parent to child or adopted child with the qualification in the old fighting days that no one who was not a successful warrior could be war chief It is not uncommon for a chief to pass over his elder children and transmit his office to one of his younger sons. The Oriropetana lopia f da is his father's third son, his elder brothers having been ignored in his favour, while the chief of Inafokoa pangua of Inawefae (now settled at Aipiana) has recently arranged that the eldest son born to his first wife shall be passed over in favour of a younger son born to his second wife. A woman may be lopia fda, indeed thisj

Chieftainship is actually the case at the present day in the pangua Inawae Ipiau constituting the village Inawae. This woman, Inau Oaia, will transmit her office of fda chief to her children, but only if the latter are brought up at Inawae. It was stated that it was not very uncommon for children of noble families to assume their mother's pangua and that this mode of descent,

Fig. ^■7>- Diagrammatic representation of a board on the house of the chief of Inawi with conventional rendering oi lopia pao.

though unusual among commoners, was not strictly limited to the families of chiefs.

It has already been stated that a lopia fda might, and generally did, ornament the if m oi \ns pangua with the carved designs which had descended to him with the chieftainship. As a rule there is nothing distinctive about a chiefs house, the house of the lopia fda of Inawi village is however an exception, for it is of an altogether unusual style Q.2}^^difaifanga, It is built in the form of a cross with limbs of equal length and a hanging plank called ipopi, resembling that found in some Roro and Paitana clubhouses, hangs from the front of the house. The carved side planks which still further increase its resemblance to a marea are called alipa ikanga. It was the exclusive hereditary right of one of the chiefs of Inafokoa to build houses of xho. faifanga type until the lopia fda of Inawi acquired an equal right by purchase from the Inafokoa chief and this right now descends in his family in the direct line. The carved planks are derived from Afai, whence the right to make and display them was acquired by purchase by one of the ancestors of the present chief, from the Afai family who owned them\ The leaf-like objects near the base of the swinging plank shown diagrammatically in figure 33 belong to a different class to the rest of the carving, being merely conventionalized representations of the boar tusk ornament lopia pao which every Mekeo chief has the right to wear and display.

^ The history of the origin of the carving is as follows : —

An Afai woman who was planting taro looking down the hole made by her diggji^g stick, saw men carving boards in the manner of that now hanging from the chief's house ; she noted the fashion of these, and told her husband, who, under her direction, carved similar boards and exhibited them at feasts. It was said that the folk whom the woman saw carving the planks when she looked down the hole were non-human creatures called faifai. As already stated, this ornament is identical with that worn by Roro chiefs, an example of which is drawn in figure 18, and a carved conventional representation of which occurs on the main post of the Pinupaka marea. According to a Waima legend this ornament was invented by Bereina and 'stolen,' i.e. copied, by Mekeo folk who carved a representation of it in the ufu of Inawi, which act caused prolonged warfare between Bereina and Waima on the one side, and Mekeo on the other.

CHAPTER XXX

THE UFUAPIE.

Each pangua, or In some cases certain ikupu within the pangua, stand in a special relationship to certain oihtr pa^igua, or ikupu in one or more pangua. Each pangua or ikupu calls the pangua or ikupu with which it is thus linked its ufuapie, which, according to Father Egidi, signifies ' clubhouse of the other side of the village^'

At the present day the function of the ufuapie Is to take a perfectly definite part in certain ceremonies, especially those connected with death and mourning, but no ekei group of an ikupu can be officially recognized as such, and therefore as partly autonomous, without the consent of its ufuapie publicly declared at a big feast held for this purpose. The public assent of the ufuapie is equally necessary when a n^^^ pangua comes into existence.

Further, the ufuapie should assist in the building of an ufu though their assistance is by no means always sought, indeed it is often avoided when this is possible, for the ufuapie are likely to be exacting in their ideas as to the amount of feasting and entertainment that Is their due in return for their help.

Although my information points to the whole of one pangua usually being ufuapie to one or more other pangua this is not invariably the case, for only certain ikupu in a pangua may belong to a given ufuapie group, and in these cases the line of division which determines the adhesion of certain ikupu to a given ufuapie group while other ikupu in

1 Father Egidi suggests that the term ufuapie was originally applied in the old days when there were but x^o pangua '\n each tribe, and when these, e.g. Inawi and Inawae, may have occupied opposite sides of the village street. Perhaps this was the case at loiovina, in any case the folk living on one side of the village street still sometimes speak of their neighbours opposite as 'apse au' explained as 'those on the other side of the village street.'

the same panpm belong to another ufuapie group, is that which spHts 2i.pangua mio fdangiau and ^/^<^V sections.

Thus at Rarai, Ipange pangiia has amongst its ufuapie that division of Ngangai Ipangenga /^?^^2^^ which is of the lopia fiia, while hw^dj^w pangua has the same ufuapie with the exception that it has that portion of Ngangai Ipangenga which is of the lopia ek'ei. Again while both Paiapangua paugua and Wimmgi pangtca of Ififu village have among their ufuapie that division of Kuapengi pangua of Rarai village which is of the lopia ekei, that division of Kuapengi which is of the lopia f da is among the ufuapie not of F2iia.p3.ngua, pangua and Mimingi but of N ga.nga[fua. pangua of Rarai village.

Something has already been said on page 337 concerning the part played by the ufuapie in the origin of ek'ei sections in established /^;/^^^ and the rise of n^^ pangua ^ but the origin of the iifuapie of new pangua, or of new sections within the pajigua, is so important that at the risk of some reiteration the matter must be described here at some length.

As soon as an ikupti or pangua determines to assert its independence it chooses an ufuapie for itself, for nothing can be done until it has the consent of its ufuapie, in addition to which the consent of the pangua to which it is most closely related is also usually required. As a rule the ufuapie selected by the new unit is the same as that of xkv^ pangua from which it originated, but sometimes the new unit would seek its ufuapie partially or wholly a.mong pangua not ufuapie to the ikupu or pangua from which it sprang. An instance has already been cited, in the case of Kuapengi pangua of Rarai village of which the ek'ei section has its ufuapie in part different to that of Xho. fdangiau section of th^ pangua.

Very often the ufuapie of the new unit are at any rate in part determined by the site on which it builds its houses, for if the new unit moves to a strange village it not unnaturally becomes one of the ufuapie of the clan or clans with whom it now comes into the closest relationship. How close this relationship may become is shown by the fact already referred to, that the new unit when weak may sometimes take the iauafangai, ufu and even kangakanga of its neighbours, while if a new unit moves away from its site of origin, it is in almost every case considered one with its nearest neighbours of old established strength and prestige, at least as far as external affairs are concerned. In any case the unit seeking inde-

The Ufuapie 351

pendence selects its ufuapie, whose part It is publicly to declare the new unit partially independent as an ekei section of a pangua or wholly independent as 2. pangua itself. This ceremonial is lengthy and extremely solemn. The new unit gives a big feast, the chiefs of all neighbouring villages come to the ufu in which this is made and the fda chiefs of the ufuapie present a lime gourd of the sort called faonga (cf. Plate XLVII) to the leader of the new unit and declare him a chief like themselves.

It now becomes necessary to consider whether the units which together form an ufuapie group have as a rule a common iauafangai and whether a new unit in choosing its ufuapie narrows its selection on the one hand to those sharing with it a common iauafangai or on the other to groups having an iauafangai not the same as its own, or whether the iauafangai are ignored in selecting the ufuapie. At first sight it seems that the tables given on pages 269 to 272, with their immigrant stocks and bewildering variety of iauafangai — some of the latter admittedly of recent adoption — do not offer material of a sufficiently homogeneous nature to allow of this question being answered, indeed it is perhaps scarcely reasonable to expect to learn much from weak immigrant stocks forced by circumstances to adopt the habits of the people they settle among, and who would readily lose many of their old habits unprotected by outward ceremony. But if immigrant pangua be neglected and if it be remembered that pangua with common iauafangai have a common origin and together form a ngopu group, the matter resolves itself into the simpler problem of determining the relation existing between ufuapie groups and 7igopu groups. The first step in this direction must be to consider the historical evidence on the subject.

As the result of inquiries made concerning the original Vee and Biofa settlements loiofaopo and loiovina it is certain that the sites of these were in the open country, on the left bank of the St Joseph River, somewhere between the present Oriropetana and Bebeo. My informants state that at this time both Biofa and Vee had but two ngopu groups, each of which was ufuapie to the other. The names of the Biofa ngopu groups were Inawi and Inawae, the Vee 7igopu groups were called Ngangai and Kuapengi, that is to say the ngopu groups now existing bear the same names as those in existence some 150 years ago when at the dawn of history in Mekeo the whole of the Mekeo population was gathered into two villages which, according to native lore, were by no means large.

From this account it is clear that the natives hold that the original iifuapie groups were simply the inhabitants of single villages in each of which there were but two stocks {ngopu groups). It has been stated on page 321 that each stock had its own ia2tafa7igai and so people who were ufuapie to each other were necessarily of different stocks and had different lauafangai.

If this conception be tested by comparison of the ufuapie of the V ^^ pa7tgua, it will be found on reference to the tables given on pages 269 to 272 (which form an almost complete list of the Vee pangua and their ufuapie for which I am indebted to Father Egidi) that if immigrant stocks be excluded, the conditions actually existing at Rarai are almost exactly those required by the hypothesis founded upon native history. Rarai, it will be remembered, is called Vee in the Mekeo tongue and is the most important of the Vee settlements. In the smaller villages matters have become more confused and a number oi pangua are ufuapie .o pangua belonging both to their own and to foreign ngopu groups. But even here the agreement required by theory exists in some instances as in the case of Inawabui pangua which forms the whole of Inawabui Kaenga village, and Paiapangua pangua of Ififu village.

LIST OF PANGUA OF THE VEE VILLAGES, THEIR UFUAPIE AND lAUAFANGAI.

In the first column are given the names of the pangua of each village, the second column gives the pangua which are ufuapie to each of these. lauafangai are italicised ; the capital letters in parentheses indicate the ngopu group to which each pangua belongs ;

N. Ngangai ; K. Kuapenge ; Imm. Immigrant stock ; In. Inawae (Biofa).

RARAI.

Kolomio (K) Ikoiko (N) ongoi lainnpa Ngangai (N) ongoi

Kuapengi of Ikoiko (N) 07tgoi

Kolomio (K) Ngangai Ipuaina (N) ongoi

? imou

I

Maunge (Imm.) koikoi

Ngangai Ipuaina (N) ongoi^foe^ lainema

Angapu (Imm.)

Ngangai Ipangenga (N) ongoi^foe,, lainema

Ipange (Imm.) okafu

Angafua or Inaungome (Imm.) ongeonge

Ofiko (N) ikango

Ikoiko (N) ongoi

Kuapengi (K) okafu

Ngangaifua (N) oftgoi

The Ufuapie

Ngangai Ipuaina (N) Kuapengi of lopia ekei (K)

Kolomio (K) Maunge (Imm.) Kuapengi of Kolomio (K)

Ipange (Imm.) Angapu (Imm.) Ikoiko (N) Angafua (Imm.)

Ikoiko (N)

Ngangai Ipangenga oi lopia f da (N)

Ngangai Ipangenga (N)

Ngangai Ipangenga (N)

Kuapengi (K) Ipange (Imm.) Kolomio (K) Angapu (Imm.) Kuapengi of Kolomio (K) Maunge (Imm.)

Ikoiko (N) Ngangaifua (N) Paiapangua (N) Maunge (Imm.) Ikoiko (N)

Kuapengi {oi lopia f da) (K) Lolokanga (N) Amoamo (In.)

ongoi okafu lainapa koikoi ? imou lainapa ongoi ongeonge ongoi ongoi, foe^ lainefna ongoi, foBy laine?na ongoi, foe, lainema okafu lainapa lai?tapa ?

? i?ndu koikoi ongoi ongoi ongoi koikoi ongoi okafu koko funguka

Inaukiki Kipo (K) fai

Inaukiki Kaenga (K) fai

Paiapangua (N) ongoi

Afanga (Imm.) fopa

Pangua Ifupaina (K) lainapa

Mimingi okafu

Langi Ifupaina (K) lainapa

S. N. G.

IFIFU. Pangua Ifupaina (K)

Afanga (Imm.)

Kuapengi oi lopia ekei (K) Kolomio (K)

Inaukiki Kaenga (K) Langi ifupaina (K) Pangua ifupaina (K)

Inaukiki Kipo (K) Afanga (Imm.)

Kuapengi of lopia ekei (K) Afanga (Imm.)

lainapa fopa okafu lainapa fai lainapa lainapa fai fopa fopa

The Mekeo Tribes

Lolokanga (N) Koko

Amaama (N)

INAWAUNI.

Inawabui Kipo (K) Inawabui Kaenga (K) Ngangaifua (N) Bebeo (N)

As Lolokanga Koko fat fat ongoi ongeonge

Inawabui Kaenga (K)

INAWABUI KAENGA.

Amaama (N) Lolokanga (N) Bebeo (N)

koko ongeonge

Inawabui (K) fai

Inawae Angamea (In.) vangama

INAWABUI KIPO.

Inawae Angamea (In.) Inawaia Koko and Laina (K) Inafokoa (Imm.)

Inafokoa (Imm.)

Inawabui Kipo and Kaenga (K)

Inawaia Koko and Laina (K)

vangama lainapa lainapa fai ?

Bebeo (N) ongeonge

Fopa Onge (Imm.)

Inaupako (N)

Oaki (K) cdkwio

BEBEO.

Oaki (of Bebeo) (K) Inawabui Kipo and Kaenga (K) Lolokanga (N) Amaama (N)

? Oaki of Bebeo (K)

Bebeo (N) Inaupako (N)

aikimo fai koko ?

aikimo ongeonge

The remaining villages are given for the sake of rendering this list as complete as possible, but they have little bearing on the point immediately under discussion, since they consist so largely of immigrant stocks.

Eboa (Imm.) lainapa

Inafokoa Faingunga

(Imm.)

laifiapa

Inafokoa Lapulapu

(Imm.)

lainapa

EBOA.

Inawaia Koko and Inawaia Laina (K) ?

Oaki !'of Yeku Baibua) (K) aikimo

Inawabui Kipo and Inawabui Kaenga (K) fai

Inawaia Koko and Inawaia Laina (K) Inawabui Kipo and Inawaia Kaenga (K)

As Inafokoa Faingunga

? fai

The Ufuapie 355

YEKU BAIBUA.

Inawaia Koko (K) Oaki (of Yeku Baibua) (K) aikimo oolo Inafokoa (Imm.) lainapa

Poloka (K) oolo

Oaki (K) Eboa (Imm.) lainapa aikimo Inawaia Koko (of Yeku Baibua) (K) oolo

Inafokoa (Imm.) lainapa

INAWAIA.

In this village there are four pangua, Inawaia Laina, Inawaia Koko, Ungokapia, and Apangaikoa. The first two are of Kuapenge ngopii group, the two last are immigrant stocks from the hilly district to the north-west of Mekeo known as Lapeka. All four pangua have the same ufuapie, the Lapeka stocks having adopted those of Inawaia which are :

Inafokoa lapulapu (Imm.) lainapa

Inawae Angamea (In.) vangama

Eboa (Imm.) lainapa

In the list of ufuapie of the clans of certain of the Biofa villages given on pages 357 and 358 in collecting which I received much help from Father Vitale, very much the same condition of things is found as among the Vee, but in the case of Inawi its fairly simple and well known history allows certain seeming discrepancies to be cleared away in a fashion not at present possible in the case of other villages. Nothing need be said concerning the ufuapie of the two weak immigrant pangua Okope and Ungo which are not even of true Mekeo origin. Turning to the two most important pangua Waiaka and Paiapaia (of the Inawi ngopu group), whose members I estimate make up four-fifths of the village with a total population of about 450, it is evident that of the four pangua which are ufuapie to Waiaka — the strongest /^;i;^^^^ of the village — three belong to the Inawae ngopu group. It has already been stated that this ngopu group was ufuapie to the Inawi ngopu group in the first Biofa settlement at loiovina. The ioM'c^ pangua which is ufuapie with Waiaka is Inafokoa, a portion of the immigrant stock Eboa-Inafokoa.

The next strongest pangua of Inawi village is Paiapaia. Of its three ufuapie two, Inawefae and Inawae Aungeko, belong to the Inawae ngopu group while the appearance of Ngangai pangua among its ufuapie is to be explained by

23—2

the presence of a settlement of the Vee pangua Ngangai in Inawi villaee, i.e. this is a case of the kind alluded to on page 350, where it is stated that when a foreign stock enters a village it usually establishes the ufuapie relation with one of its nearest neighbours, both parties in these instances appearing to neglect their ngopu grouping.

The third pangtia of Inawi village is the Vee pangua Ngangai and nothing further need be said concerning its connection with Paiapaia. It is also ufuapie with the two immigrant stocks Ungo apd Okope and its connection with Ongofoina Kipo will be immediately explained.

The fourth pangua of Inawi is Ongofoina Kipo ; the history of the quarrels which gave rise to the formation of this tangua is given on page 338 where it is explained how this clan came to settle in Inawi village, and although the matter does not appear to have been specifically inquired into there seems no reason to doubt that its ufuapie relation with Paiapaia is to be explained as is the same relation between Ngangai and Paiapaia. The ufuapie relation exists between Ongofoina Kipo on the one hand and Oala Aivea and Alo Aivea on the other, all of the Inawi ngopu group, because Ongofoina of Veifa from which Ongofoina Kipo sprang is ufuapie with these pangua. The ufuapie relation was established with Ipange simply because the latter was a weak immigrant stock.

The list of the ufuapie of the pangua of the large village of Veifa with its small dependent settlements of Alo Aivea and Alo Fopafoina conforms less obviously to the historical arrangement but even here if immigrant stocks be omitted there are as many ufuapie relations between /^//^2^<2; of different ngopu groups as between pangua of the same ngopu group. It may reasonably be suggested that the size and complexity of the village accounts for this, and probably if time and circumstances had allowed of a special study being made of the history of this village, as was done at Inawi, the apparent exceptions to the historic rule would be equally susceptible of explanation.

In the small village of Amoamo the ufuapie of Amoamo pangua (the only noxi-\vcim^x2SiX, pangua) of the Inawae ngopu group are 2^ pangua belonging to the Inawi ngopu group with the exception of Amoamo Inaukina, which is a foreign stock coming from a village on the upper waters of the Biaru River about a day's journey from the Mekeo plain.

The Ufiiapie

ZSl

LIST OF PANGUA OF SOME OF THE BIOFA VILLAGES, THEIR UFUAPIE AND lAUAFANGAI.

In the first column are given the names of xh^ pangua of each village, the second column gives the pangua which are ufuapie to each of these.

lauafangai are italicised and the capital letters in parentheses indicate the ngopu group to which each pangua belongs.

N. Ngangai ; K. Kuapenge ; Imm. Immigrant stock ; In. Inawae ; I. Inawi.

V^aiaka (I) ongoi

Inawae Ipiau (In.) Inawae Aungako (In.) Inawefae (In.)

Inafokoa (of Aipiana) (Imm.)

Paiapaia (I) ongoi

Inawefae (In.) Ngangai (N) Inawae Aungako (In.) Ongofoina Kipo (I)

Ngangai (N) foe

Paiapaia (I) Ungo (Imm.) Okopi (Imm.)

Ongofoina Kipo (I) ongoi

Paiapaia (I) Oala Aivea (I) Alo Aivea (I) Ipange (Imm.)

Okope (Imm.) foe

Ngangai (N) Inawefae (In.)

Ungo (Imm.) imou

Ngangai (N)

Ipange (of Alo Aivea) (Imm.)

Paiapaia (I)

VEIFA.

Ongofoina (I) ongoi

Alo Aivea (I) Oala Aivea (I) Inawefae (In.) Kalau (Imm.)

Amoamo (In.)

Inawi (I) ongoi

Fopafoina (I) Inafokoa (Imm.) Meaunge (Imm.)

Fopafoina (I) ongoi

Amoamo (In.) Inafokoa (Imm.)

Inawi (I)

vangama vangaina itnou lainapa i??tdu foe vangaina ongoi on^oi imou foe ongoi ongoi ongoi okafu foe imou foe ongoi (by adoption) ongoi ongoi ongoi imou angava piki fungiika ongoi lainapa ongoi (by adoption)

funguka lainapa ongoi

The Mekeo Tribes

Inafokoa (I mm.) lainapa

Kolomio (K) lainapa

Kalau (Imm.) angava piki

Meaunge (Imm.) ongoi (by adoption)

Amoamo (In.) funguka

Fopafoina (I) Inawi (I) Alo Aivea (I) Oala Aivea (I)

IMeaunge (of Aivea) (Imm.) Ipange (of Alo Aivea) (Imm.) Meaunge of Ongofoina (Imm.)

Ongofoina (I)

Ipange (of Alo Aivea) (Imm.)

Ipange (of Oala Aivea) (Imm.)

Inawi (I) Oala Aivea (I) Kolomio (K)

AMOAMO.

Fopafoina (I) Ongofoina (I) Onginofeka (I) Amoamo Inaukina (Imm.)

ongoi ongoi ongoi ongoi ongoi (by adoption)

ongoi „

)

ongoi „

»>

ongoi ongoi „

j ongoi „

J)

ongoi ongoi laijtapa ongoi ongoi ongoi

As has been seen the ufuapie group is composed usually of two or movQ pangua, but in almost every case each pangua considers one pangua, or section within the pangua as its principal tcfuapie although still recognizing the right of the other pangua to the title. For example, the ufuapie of the f'dangiau section of Waiaka is formed of three pangua, Inawefae (with which must be reckoned as forming a single pangua for external affairs Kuapengi and Inafokoa of Aipiana), Inawae Ipuko and Inawae Ipiau. The last is specially considered the ufuapie of the section of the io lopia (war chief) while the two first are respectively considered the ufuapie of certain ikupu of the section belonging to the lopia aui section. The ekei section of Waiaka appears to have as ufuapie only the people of Inawae Ipuko.

THE FUNXTIONS OF THE UFUAPIE IN CONNECTION WITH DEATH AND MOURNING CEREMONIES.

Before considering these it is necessary to point out that when a woman marries she goes to live in her husband's village, and that when she dies she is carried back to her own village by her kin, who come and fetch her body. Her husband's village mourns only until her body is removed to her own village, where all subsequent ceremonies take place, and where such ceremonial taboos as abstinence from dancing

The Ufuapie and Mourning Cerefnonies 359

are enforced, and where mourning affects not only the dead woman's clan but all the clans of the village.

At the ceremony at which mourning is put away, the chief of the ufuapie group comes to the village of the deceased in order to remove ceremonially the waist belts as well as the armlets and leglets worn by the relatives of the deceased. This chief also frees the relatives of the deceased from certain food taboos which they have imposed on themselves as part of their mourning. To effect this he takes in his hand some portion of the particular food of which each individual has deprived himself and, waving it round the mourner's head, says something to the following effect : ' On account of the death of your brother you have deprived yourself of tobacco... now I, chief of the ufuapie, tell you to use it as was your custom, without fear that others will cry shame on you for doing so.' Later, domestic pigs must be killed and a feast made for the men of the ufuapie for then only may dancing take place in the village of the deceaseds Often a village prefers not to kill the majority of its pigs, and then gives only wild pigs to the ufuapie, in this case dancing with drums may not take place but dances accompanied by chants are allowed. The pangua of the ufuapie usually send a number of their women to sing dirges at the funeral ; these women do not carry away the food given them on this occasion by the pangua of the deceased, for it is the custom that the people of the pangua to which the deceased belonged should carry their presents of food to the villages of their ufuapie. It appeared that the chief of any of the clans that are ufuapie to the deceased could perform the ceremony which ended the period of mourning, but that when a number of ufuapie chiefs are present, the chief of that ufuapie clan which has been longest or most closely connected with the section of the clan to which the deceased belonged acts as master of the ceremonies.

The following account of the behaviour of the ufuapie at the great feast at which mourning is put away from a village is summarised from a paper [Missions Catholiques, 1898) by the Rev. Father Guis of the Sacred Heart Mission.

When everything is ready for the feast, and a sufficient

1 Village is here used in its European sense and so implies the whole community of a village site belonging to many clans, thus a death occurring in Paiapaia/a;?^?^a would stop all dancing in Inawi village.

number of pigs have been fattened and the gardens planted specially for the occasion are bearing well, the men of the village that is in mourning go hunting, and do not return until they have killed much game. Then invitations are issued by means of messengers bearing a bunch of areca nuts who are sent in all directions. A large number of people from the neighbouring villages are invited to the feast as a matter of courtesy, but strictly speaking the ufuapie are alone entitled to an invitation. The ceremony cannot begin before the men of the ufiiapie have arrived, and these will often delay until they have received sufficient inducement in the way of presents.

The chiefs of the ufuapie solemnly leave their ufu chewing areca nut, and from time to time making a rattling noise by rubbing iheir lime spatulae against the neck of their lime gourds. This produces a loud clicking noise, which is a warning to keep the track clear. The chiefs of the ufuapie then make a move towards the village whither they are bound but usually stop after a few steps, and rattle their spatulae on their gourds pretending to be too tired to go on. They are immediately given a present of food and begged to forget their fatigue and to remember only the sorrow of the village to which they are bringing relief When they have received sufficient presents they proceed on their way. They are thus 'refreshed ' two or three times every hour until they reach the outlying coconut trees of the village that is in mourning. Then a number of men of the ufuapie who have painted themselves for dancing form a compact mass. They are all decked in their best, some wearing the great feather headdresses which are their kangakanga. Each dancer holds a drum in his left hand, on a level with his eyes. At a signal from the leader of the dance they beat their drums, then follows a few seconds of silence, then again beating their drums they advance into the village amidst the shouting of the villagers,

At this the family of the deceased try to stop the dance, saying to the performers, ' It is well that you have come at last to take away the *'cold" from our village but do not dance, the noise of your drums still makes us feel sad.' But the dancing continues in spite of the remonstrances of the widow and near relations of the deceased, who, pretending to get '^"^^Yj feign to attack the dancers and even threaten them with glowing embers. This, too, produces no result and after a while the mourners are appeased, for if the pretence of

The Ufuapie and Mourning Ceremonies 361

sorrow were kept up too long the dancers might really retire, in which case fresh presents would have to be given them for their services.

Dancing proceeds all night and on the next day when the dancing stops for a while the performers are each presented with a big cake of sago, rolled in a ball and boiled, which is called ketsiketsi. Although considered a choice morsel the dancers may not eat it themselves, but must share it among such of their kinsfolk as have lent them feathers and ornaments to make up their headdresses, for the great kangakanga worn on such occasions are usually far beyond the means of a single man, and are really a collection of feathers and other valuables lent for the occasion.

When the ketsiketsi have been distributed, the dancers with the kangakanga headdresses rest, while men wearing the smaller ordinary headdresses dance. These men continue to dance until the chief of the, pangtm giving the feast asks them to rest and offers them areca nut. All this time the women and girls are very busy cooking vegetable food and pigs are being killed.

In the open space in the centre of the village a structure called kou has been built. This is made of two or more big bamboos planted in the ground from which the small branches bearing the leaves have been cut off a few inches from the main axis, so that the short pieces left attached form hooks from which all sorts of food including fish and joints of meat are hung.

The whole of this day is given up to the preparation of the feast, but late in the evening the village resounds with the clicking of lime spatulae on the necks of lime gourds when suddenly the crowd becomes perfectly quiet. The chiefs of the ufuapie, who are often quite old men, come out of the ufu decked with priceless ornaments. They are even graver and more dignified than when they arrived, and it takes them several minutes to walk the few paces to the kou where they stand motionless amidst the respectful silence of the crowd. The chief who is giving the feast comes forward laden with the limb of a pig and places it at their feet and then brings slabs of pigs' fat and other presents for them. Then he makes a speech which varies little on such occasions. Addressing the visiting chiefs by name he says or rather intones: 'Oh, oh — h — h — h...you have come and we are filled with joy, you have come and our village is once more ** warm." We were "cold," but now you have come we are ''warm.'' Take then our vegetables and our pigs, for we have fished, hunted and worked for you. We know that our bananas are poor, our taro watery, our yams fibrous, our sugarcane hard, our coconuts old and dry, our pigs small and thin, and we have killed but few wallaby. All this we know and are ashamed, but pity us rather than be angry with us, since we are poor and like little children. Deign to eat our food though your teeth ache and your hunger be not satisfied.'

The chief, who speaks for the rest of the ufuapie, replies condescendingly: 'The vegetables are bad, the game is poor and there is not much of it, still you cannot give more than you have, but remember that a few months back we — the tifuapie — gave twenty pigs and you must not forget to return as many, when you can.'

After this the period of mourning is ceremonially ended. All the relations, connections and friends of the deceased who have abstained from some form of food ' in honour ' or * in memory ' of the deceased, arrange themselves in a semi-circle near the kou, each holding the food from which they have abstained during the period of mourning. Supposing a woman has died, the widower may hold a pipe and a few bananas of the kind called warupi. The chief of the uftiapie takes the pipe, lights it, and swinging it two or three times round the head of the widower, intones:

' Because your wife died, you put your pipe aside and did not smoke, from now your mourning is over and you may smoke again. Ho! ho — o — o — .'

The widower replies ' Now I smoke again,' and inhales smoke from the pipe which the chief presents to him.

' Because your wife died, you have not eaten bananas, that is two things you abstained from. Ho! ho — o — o — .'

The chief then swings the bananas twice round the widower's head and stuffs one of them into his mouth, after which the chief opens an areca nut and gives it to the widower.

But this is not all ; the chief removes the widower's mourning, ornaments, his bracelets, collars, leg-ornaments and belts. When he has relieved him of his mourning gear the chief of the uftiapie group places upon him the ornaments which constitute the ordinary full dress of a Mekeo man.

The Ufuapte and Marriage 363

• Henceforth,' the chief says to him, 'you may again wear a mahawa (string bag) like other men. Ho ! ho — o — o — ,' and he hangs the mahawa on his shoulder. * Henceforth, you may wear a mairi (crescentic pearl shell ornament) on your chest. Ho! ho — o — o — ,' and he puts the mairi round his neck.
• Henceforth, you may carry and use your lime gourd. Ho ! ho — o — o — ,' and he gives it to him.

' Henceforth, you may let your hair grow. Ho ! ho — o — o — ,' and he removes the cap worn by the widower.

THE UFUAPIE AND THE REGULATION OF MARRIAGE.

The effect, if any, on the regulation of marriage exercised by the ufuapie must now be considered \ In discussing this matter with natives of Mekeo the impression left on my mind was that it was considered better to marry within the ufuapie group, though this was not necessary. Dr Strong independently arrived at the same conclusion, and Father Guis in his account published in 1898 also takes this view, indeed he goes so far as to say that ' the young men of a village may only marry the girls of their allied village... (...ufuapie, auai at Mekeo).... By these words is understood... a village that in every contingency and under all circumstances acts with another [en tout et pour tout est de moitie avec une autre]. For example the folk of Beipaa [Veifa] feed pigs and bring up dogs but these pigs and dogs are not for them, they are for the village of Amoamo, their ufuapie, and in return the pigs and dogs of Amoamo come to Beipaa. When a death occurs at Beipaa a tazu [feast] is given which is eaten by the folk of

^ As among the Roro (cf. chapter xxii) two forms of marriage are recognized : (i) elopement, 'marriage by robbery,' the young couple disappearing for a few days while informal negotiations take place between their families, and (ii) 'marriage by contract,' the bride-price being settled after more or less prolonged haggling. Father Egidi states that the bride price is provided by contributions from both the paternal and maternal relatives of the bridegroom and though the bride's clansmen (i.e. her father's relatives) take the greater part of this, some is given to her mother's relatives. The mock pillage which follows the marriage affects the gardens of the local groups of both the bridegroom's parents.

Traditions of an older form of marriage by capture still linger, for according to Father Egidi there are both among the Biofa and the Vee stories in which a young man who surprises a girl while bathing and without her petticoat exercises his right to make her his wife. In the stories the marriage is consummated on the spot after which the young man himself fastens the girl's petticoat. Although the right to obtain a wife in this manner no longer exists, I believe that the fastening of the girl's petticoat by her husband still has a place in the Mekeo marriage customs.

Amoamo, and when one of the latter dies the reverse takes place. When the period of mourning is to be ended the ufuapie are invited to come and dance ; the group comes, dances, eats, performs certain other ceremonies and the period of mourning is ended. The same condition holds in the matter of marriage ; the girls of a village, according to the accepted rule, should not marry any others than the men of the ufuapie. This rule is only broken in the event of elopement or when the girl's parents are too greedy in the matter of the bride-price/ Father Guis is certainly in error when he speaks of the uftiapie group as though it were identical with a village ; further, I could not discover the existence of any special arrangement, such as is described above, by which members of an ufuapie group living in different villages bring up pigs and dogs for each other\

As regards the question of marriage within the ufuapie Father Egidi's genealogy of Inawi shows that not only are these marriages not predominant, but that they occur to only a slight extent. Although it was agreed that in each of the original settlements of loiovina and loiofaopo the original figopu groups were at the same time the two pangua of the village, and also the two exogamous ufuapie groups (for then, as now, no one could marry within the pangua), it does not appear that this was due to any actual objection at that time to the marriage of individuals with the same iauafangai. The earliest marriages of which Father Egidi was able to obtain records were unions in which couples with the same or different iauafangai married indiscriminately. At the present day the same condition prevails and marriage, though not sexual intercourse, is forbidden between members of the same pangua. As regards this Father Egidi points out that no objection is made to a member of the pangua to which a girl belongs having access to her, whereas the girl's parents see that no boy of another pangua, whether belonging to the

^ As a matter of fact no ikupu will eat the pigs of its own rearing, and an ikupu giving a feast distributes the meat entirely to its guests. It seemed that it was only when the ikupu or pangua giving the feast could not provide a sufficient supply of pork that they accepted the pigs of other communities for which, on account of their urgent need, they were compelled to pay an unduly high price. Of course the folk who take charge of a man's young pigs are often his relations, such as daughters who have married, and in this way no doubt in individual instances pigs are kept and fed by members of the ufuapie group, but it did not appear that it was a general custom.

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■■

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Table showmj; mairuigLS of llie clans of In.ivvi viU.igc. I'repaied by Mr N. W. Thomas from Father Egidi's genealogies, which go back for seven generations (cf. p. 339). The numbers printed in thick type refer to marriages rcrorded

The Ufuapie and Marriage 365

ufuapie group or not, has the opportunity of making off with the girl without paying the bride-price. The Hberty allowed within ih^pangua is simply due to the knowledge that marriage within t]& pangua cannot take place, so that when expostulated with for the license allowed to a girl the answer may be : Avakuai fou ke opua, moe faungina, that is, ' they are but brethren and amuse each other, they do no harm so why interfere ? '

In spite of the statement that no one marries within the pangua, Father Egidi's genealogies show that to a limited extent the members of large clans such as Waiaka, have contracted endogamous marriages. The figures given in the table indicate that such marriages were never frequent and the genealogies show that no cases have occurred recently.

CHAPTER XXXI

SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY AND CONSTITUTION OF

MEKEO.

It is now possible to summarise the past history of Mekeo and the social organization of its people. Each of the two tribes, the Biofa and Vee, which (ignoring for the moment immigrant groups) together form Mekeo, originally consisted of X.v^o pangua (clans) whose tauafangai yj^y^ trees. These, namely ongoi, the breadfruit tree, and a palm called t7ndu, were in each tribe assigned to one of its pangua which stood in the reciprocal relation of ufuapie to the other pangua of the tribe. Since in both tribes marriage is not, and never was, allowed within the pangua, the original ufuapie groups were intermarrying groups, but this does not seem to have been due to any conscious desire to avoid marriage between individuals having the same iauafangai, for in the past as at the present day the only bar to marriage was identity of payigua or near blood relationship. Nothing could be learnt concerning the kangakanga of the two primitive pangua of either the Biofa or Vee.

Each tribe occupied a village situated in the open country to the east of the St Joseph River, between the present sites of Oriropetana and Bebeo, the Biofa settlement was called loiovina, that of the Vee loiofaopo. These centres must have been near each other, for in a story recorded by Father Egidi, a youth of one of these villages, by blocking the track, compelled two girls, returning from collecting firewood, to accompany him to his village after which he escorted them to theirs. Each pangua had a chief, lopia fda, whose office is, and was, strictly hereditary, and who was especially responsible for the upkeep of the clubhouse {ufu) of the pangua, and represented xhe pangua officially in all important

The History of Mekeo 367

ceremonies, which appear always to have centred round the clubhouse. There was an early differentiation of the functions of chiefs and perhaps this was as complete when the Mekeo tribes were first heard of at loiofaopo and loiovina as it is at the present day. This led to the existence of war chiefs, io lopia, and of another class of chief, the lopia ekei, who, officially, was but the assistant of the high chief on ceremonial occasions, though as the community increased in size the lopia ekei often became the de facto head of a group of families, and as such might exercise considerable influence. Often the war chief had an ufu of his own ; this, though early, is probably not a primitive feature, for an instance still exists in which the left side of the ufu which the war chief shares with ]\s fda chief, is assigned to the former. Whether the existence of the second tfu dates from an early period or not, there is little doubt that this tfu was generally called by the same name as the ifu of the_/^^ chief, in spite of the tendency on the part of war chiefs to commemorate their deeds by giving their ufu a new name. Besides the ufu of the fda, war, and perhaps (in more modern times) the ekei chiefs, there were ufu especially set apart for the preparation and celebration by ih^faia experts (faia lopia) of the magical aspects of warfare. The magic of these men, who it appeared were always chiefs, either y"^<2, war, or ekei, gave victory to the community, and must not be confused with the art of sorcery, which appears always to have exerted a considerable influence on these tribes.

The original ^\oi^ pangua were Inawi and Inawae, those of the Vee tribe being Ngangai and Kuapengi. There is no evidence to show whether the term ngopu, now applied to pangua of common descent, was in use in the early days; there is no obvious reason why it should have been, but as new groups were formed within the pangua and then thrown off, the term was applied to the original {our pangua, their names becoming the names of ngopu groups oi pangua, i.e. oi pangua tracing their common descent from one of the original stocks the ramifications of which are shown diagrammatically in the scheme on page 328. There is, and apparently always has been, a centrifugal tendency which, with the absence of a central dominating authority, has permitted the formation of a large number of pangua by fission from the parent stock. These, though retaining the iauafangai and often the tfu name of the t>angua from which they have sprung, have taken new kangakanga (clan badges) and have in some cases given new names to their clubhouses so that at the present day in Mekeo there are a number of clans or local groups, each possessing one or more clubhouses though belonging to a single ngopu group. The names of the clubhouses of all the clans forming each ngopti group should be the same, but in practice this rule is observed to a limited extent only. The pangua of each 7icropu group have, generally speaking, retained their old iauafangai, but have taken kangakanga as they wished without reference to ngopu group or ufuapie group, the latter relationship at the present day retaining none of the importance which it once had — whether purposely or accidentally — in the regulation of marriage, though still of importance in mourning rites and in the ceremonial which accompanies the official recognition of a n^ys pangua or ekei group within ih^ pangua.

Besides loiofaopo and loiovina, the historical centres of origin of the Biofa and Vee clans now distributed throughout Mekeo, Father Egidi recognizes certain definite centres of orio-in of the immigrant stocks now settled in the Mekeo villages. These are :

(i) Vaingu, in the neighbourhood of Lapeka whence sprang Eboa and I na.(oko3. pangua of Eboa village;

(ii) A centre near Amoamo Inaukina on the Biaru River here called the Maakunga. The people of this stock constitute the immigrants known as Ipange, perhaps originally the name of a ngopu group or possibly a tribal name. The Ipange immigrants seem to include families from three once populous villages on the Maakunga. These villages were :

Malepa, of which the remains constitute Meaungi of Aipiana and Kalau of Veifa.

Ungofaa, now represented by the single weak clan Ungo of Inawi.

Ipange, the origin of the Ipange and Apangoa pangua which are now found throughout Mekeo. Perhaps Inaungome, Angapu and Angafua pangua of Rarai village are derived from this stock.

Clans, Clubhouses and Clan-Badges 369

TABLE OF MEKEO VILLAGES, PANGUA (CLANS), NGOPU GROUPS, lAUAFANGAI, UFU (CLUBHOUSES) AND KANGAKANGA (CLAN- BADGES).

Pangua the names of which are printed in italics are of more or less recent immigrant origin. Ufu names in brackets are the former names of the ufu.

BIOFA VILLAGES.

Village Pangua

Ngopu lauafangai

Ufu

Kangakanga

Inawi

Waiaka

Inawi

Ongoi (breadfruit)

Aungama

Famua (Kapoc tree), aukina, aungapa(apiece of feather work)

Paiapaia

Inawi

Ongoi

Aungama (Maipa)

Famua, aukina

Ngangai

Ngangai

Foe ('White Ibis')

Pupungapi

Mengunge (a feather headdress), aulaa (a feather headdress), oolo

.(fowl)

Kipo Ongo-

Inawi

Ongoi

Maipa

Oolo, ikuo foina

(swordfish), foame (a plant)

Okope

Foe

Aungama

Famua, aukina, aungapa

Ungo

Imouanganga ngua (a two headed palm of the species called imou)

Aungama

Famua, aukina, aungapa

Ipange

Ongoi no ufu

Inawefia

Aipiana

Gala Aivea

Inawi

Ongoi

Ufufda^ Mimingi

Ekei ufu^ Laila lo ufu, Mai-

Kefe (turtle shell ornament), Auau (Conus armshell)

Apangoa

Ongoi (Lainapa)

pa

Mimingi (Oafua)

Kefe, Auau

Kuapengi

Kuapengi

Ongoi

Mopina

(Oafua)

Koikoi (a palm)

Inawefae

Inawae

Imou anganga ngua

Mopina

(? )

Koikoi

Meaungi^

Ongoi

Mainangapi

Oolo

^ Originally lived with Kalau in the bush and were brought here by Ongofoina (whose iauafangai and kangakanga they have adopted). Kalau is now settled at Veifa.

S. N. G.

The Mekeo Tribes

Village

Pangua

Ngopu lauafangai

Ufu

Kangakanga

Inafokoa

Lainapa (hornbill)

Mopina (Foyo, a mountain)

Koikoi

Amoamo

Amoamo

Inawae

Funguka

Funguka (a palm)

?

ipange

Funguka

Funguka

?

Upunga

Funguka

Funguka

?

Igniuma

Inawae

Funguka

Funguka

Opo

Veifa

Ongofoina

Inawi

Ongoi

Maipa

Oolo, ikuo, foame (a plant)

Inawi

Inawi

Ongoi

Maipa

Foame

Fopafoina

Inawi

Ongoi

Maipa

Eenge (cockatoo)

Alo Fopa-

Inawi

Ongoi

Maipa

Eenge foina

Inafokoa

Lainapa

Foyo (a mountain)

Pongu (wallaby)

Kolojnio

Kuapengi

Lainapa

Lainapa

Ikango a tree)

Kalaii

Angava Piki (a bird)

Maipa

Eenge

Brought here from bush by Fopafoina whose ufu and kat ngakanga they have adopted

Alo Aivea

Alo Aivea

Inawi

Ongoi

Maipa

Kefe, auau

Ipange

Ongoi

Maipa

Kefe, auau

Doubtless iauafangai^ ufu and kangakanga have been i idopted from Alo Aivea

Apangoa

Lainema (a

Maipa

Angava piki water bird)

(doubtless by adoption)

(a bird)

Inawae

Inawae Ipiau

Inawae

Vangama

Apiongai

Mengunge, famua, ungaa (goura pigeon)

Ikoiko

Ngangai

Ongoi

Apiongai

Kefe, mengunge,

Lainema

(Pupungapi)

auau

Orirope-

Lainapa

Inawi

Ongoi

Maipa

?Kefe tana

Onginofeka

Inawi

Ongoi

Aungama (Maipa)

? Famua

Inawae

Inawae

Vangama

Apiongai

Ungaa

Ipuko

Inawae

Inawae

Vangama

Apiongai

Ungaa

Aungako

Amoamo

Inawae

Funguka (a tree)

Funguka

Opo upunga

? Oolo

Funguka

?

Clans, Clubhouses and Clan-Badges 371

VEE VILLAGES.

Village

Pangua

Ngopu lauafangai

Ufu

Kangakanga

Ififu

Inaukiki

Kuapengi

Fai (a tree)

Langina (N.

Aukina, iapo, ko-

Kipo

W. wind)

ko (a leguminous plant)

Inaukiki

Kuapengi

Fai

Langina

Aulaa, oolo

Kaenga

Paiapangua

Ngangai

Ongoi

Popungapi

Mengunge, oolo

Afanga

?

Fopa (? a stone or rock)

Angopu

Iapo, eenge

Pangua

Kuapengi

Lainapa

Lainapa

Lainapa (horn-

Ifupaina bill), engefungefunge (a tree)

Mimingi

Okafu

Imou anganga ngua

Langi

Kuapengi

Lainapa

Lainapa

Lainapa, enge-

Ifupaina fungefunge

Inawauni

Lolokanga

Ngangai

Koko (a

Foyo (a

Aulaa, eenge, plant bemountain)

aluki longing to the Leguminosae)

Amaama

Ngangai

Eleya (a mountain peak)

Poo (? a treeclimbingkangaroo)

Kaenga

Inawabui

Kuapengi

Feina (a bird)

Langina

Mengunge, oolo

Inawabui

? Opino (a hardwood tree)

Bebeo

Bebeo

Ngangai

Ongeonge

(a tree)

Paia

Opo, pingu (a palm)

Oaki

Kuapengi

Aikimo (a tree)

Aikimo

?

Fopa Onge

Inaupako

Ngangai

Rarai

Kolomio

Kuapengi

Lainapa

Lainapa

Ikango

Kuapengi

Kuapengi

? Imou

Owafua

Imou anganga of Kolomio ngua

Maunge

Koikoi

Foyo (a mountain)

Pingu

Ngangai

Ngangai

Ongoi

Popungapi

Mengunge, kefe,

Ipuaina

Foe Lainema auau

A ngapu

Angapu

Oolo

Ngangai

Ngangai

Ongoi

Popungapi p jpangenga

Foe Lainema ipange

Okafu (a constrictor snake)

Owafua

Imou anganga ngua

24 — 2

The Mekeo Tribes

Village

Pangua

Ngopu lauafangai

Ufu

Kangakanga

Angafua

Ongeonge

Ongeonge

Upu (the crest of

Inaungome

(a tree)

the cockatoo)

Ofiko

Ngangai

Ikango

Popungapi

Ungaa

Ikoiko

Ngangai

Ongoi

Foe

Lainema

Popungapi

Mengunge, kefe, oolo

Kuapengi

Kuapengi

Okafu (a constrictor snake)

Owafua

Imou anganga ngua

Ngan-

Ngangaifua

Ngangai

Ongoi

Popungapi

Mengunge, kefe, gaifua

Foe Lainema auau

Eboa-Ina-

Eboa

Lainapa

Foyo

Pongo, pinupinu.

fokoa aulaa

Inafokoa

Lainapa

Foyo

Pongo, pinupinu,

Faingunga aulaa

Inafokoa

Lainapa

Foyo

Pongo

Lapulapu

Inawabui

Inawabui

Kuapengi

Fai

Langina

Aulaa oolo

Kipo

Kipo

Inawae

Inawae

Vangama

Apiongai

Ungaa

Angamea

Yeku Bai-

Inawaia

Kuapengi

Oolo

Mimingi

Oolo, opo bua

Koko

Poloka

Kuapengi

Oolo

Mimingi

Oolo, opo

Oaki

Kuapengi

Aikimo

Aikimo

Opo, pingu

Inawaia

Inawaia Laina

Kuapengi

?

U/ufda,M.-

mingi lo ufu^ Agniaufu

Oolo

Inawaia

Kuapengi

?

Mimingi

?

Koko

Ungokapia

Apangaikoa

CHAPTER XXXII

NOTE ON POKAO.

POKAO or Nara is the name given to a small district lying east of Roro and Mekeo. The coast is bordered by a narrow mangrove fringe and is uninhabited, the villages being situated in the pleasant open uplands which lie behind the coastal zone. This country, though far less fertile than the valley of the St Joseph River, swarms with game, and formerly Pokao and Roro carried on a lively exchange of smoked wallaby flesh for coconuts and other garden produce.

The social organization of the Pokao villages resembles that of the Koita. The inhabitants of Pokao are, however, specially interesting on account of the number of individuals with wavy or almost straight hair that are found among them. Reference has already been made to this in the Introduction (page 2), and Plate I represents a woman with wavy hair of Oroi (Nara) village.

The Pokao villages are: — Oroi (Nara), Alaala, Diumana, Bokama, Tubu, Lalime, Vanuamae. These with Epa speak a dialect generally known as Pokao, but it appeared that Epa did not intermarry with the other villages and it was even stated that a generation ago Vanuamae joined Epa and Inawabui, a village of Mekeo, and fought Oroi and Alaala and perhaps other of the Nara villages. Characteristic of the Nara villages are the houses, oval in section from the roof to the floor and opening on to a verandah, the latter being often common to several houses.

I am indebted to the Rev. H. M. Dauncey for the following history of Nara, or Pokao as the district is sometimes called.

'In the old times all the Nara people lived in one village away towards Vanuamae called Vanuaboada. There were too many people for the immediate neighbourhood to support, so at the suggestion of Ova Vala they split up into separate smaller villages. Some of the idubu .seemed to have moved from place to place, and become reduced in strength by fighting with Epa, Mekeo and Kabadi, till Nemi Oroi (the father of Kaloka) gathered a lot of them together and persuaded them to unite under him, and try to hold their own. The present people do not seem quite sure how many uiubiL joined, but the three most important idubu were Siagauna who came from Guguba inland of Geabada, Babu who came from near the present site of Oroi, and Oroi who came from Unuma near the same place. Of Siagauna idicbu only one man is now alive ; of Babu only two. Nemi Oroi of the Oroi idubu was the head of the village, and

374 Note on Pokao

Ume Kame of Babu idubu (who died only a short time ago) was the second in command. They had but one big clubhouse, on the site of the previous one, built after the pattern of the ruined one at Diumana. It was called Ivamuru, and Naimi Oroi was the head man in it.... Kaloka (a woman) is the head of the village now, but on all ceremonial occasions her place is taken, not by her husband, but by her son Naime. At a feast he and Ume Kama (son of Ume Kama the old leader of the Babu idiibii) kill the first two pigs, and make the first cut in them. Then all take part in the killing but the distribution is made by Oa Idoa and Taba Oa, both of the Oroi idubu!

As regards the external relations of the Nara villages there was no doubt of their old standing friendship with the Koita, a party of whom at one time settled in their district, and who appear to still claim an unexercised right to a portion of the Nara territory. There is also an old and really intimate friendship with Waima, and a considerable trade with the people of Delena who bring pots to Nara and receive in return yams, bananas and tobacco.

At the present time there appear to be no clubhouses in the Nara territory, their place being taken by lightly built open platforms, roofed in above but open upon all four sides. No attempt is made to carve the posts, which are generally no stouter than house piles, and the only ornamentation common is the weaving under the eaves of the roof of a series of diamond shaped ornaments of the kind shown in figure 27.

One of the old clubhouses {Joe) of this district survived until recently at Diumana, where the remains of its carved posts are still to be seen, though partially destroyed by the fire which burnt the loe. The posts of this clubhouse were carved by Poa Oa of Waima, or under his direction (cf p. 247). The photograph given in Plate XLVIII, for permission to reproduce which I am indebted to the Rev. H. M. Dauncey, shows that the loe in general aspect resembled the marea of the Roro-speaking tribes, and like these was decorated with boards carved in low relief, but lacked the front platform and the closedin back compartment of the marea.

The terminals of the massive side posts which bear the greater part of the weight and which support the roof were carved into the shape of a human head, and each post had upon it a conventional carving of a crocodiled

Judging from the position of the posts still standing and information obtained on the spot, the floor of the loe, some sixteen yards long by five broad, must have stood about /our feet off the ground. The ridge pole was at least thirty feet above the floor and, as at Waima, there was an overhanging projection of the front of the roof beneath which were attached carved and painted boards. Three of the carved lateral posts which support the greater part of the weight of the roof upon the right side of the loe are still standing, their tops

• A photograph by Mr Dauncey of one of these posts is reproduced in Plate XXXVII.

Plate XLVIII

Copyright by the Rev. II. M. Dauncey

Diumana clubhouse

Note on Pokao 375

being- some twelve feet above the ground. On the left side of the building the posts have all fallen and are more or less damaged by fire\

The clan system of Nara is in all probability essentially the same as that of the Koita and Motu. In the village of Oroi there are four clans iidiibii) and descent generally takes place in the male line.

Mr Dauncey points out that the number of idubu in a village varies; in both Alaala and Diumana there is only one, in Bokama there are two, and it has been mentioned that Oroi has four.

' As far as I can make out when there is only one idubic the same name serves for both idiibii and clubhouse. This is so at Alaala and also at Diumana where the one name is Elevai.'

'Each idiibii had its head man but one of these was the head and chief of the village and this man was the owner of the right hand front post of the clubhouse.'

' At Diumana (old village) and Bokama the chiefs house faced the front of the clubhouse. At Oroi, Alaala and Lalime the chiefs house is the house to the right of the clubhouse.'

Certain men called loe kaima were responsible for the upkeep of the loe and corresponded to the diibii tauna of further east. They would tell each man how much food he was expected to bring to the loe on the occasion of a feast, and would when necessary superintend the repairs to the loe which were carried out under the directions of one or more of their number.

I am indebted to Captain Barton for the names of the Oroi idubu, which are Rumabada, Miakeni, Avoolana, Uboolana. Although as stated above, descent is commonly in the male line, the reverse is sometimes the case in the families of chiefs, and women may be chiefs. Thus, a woman Kaloka is not only head of her clan but has always possessed so much influence in her village Oroi, that she was presented with the regulation bdtou and made village constable by the Government. On her death her authority will pass to her son Naime who belongs to her clan (Rumabada) and not to his father's.

^ One of these posts was brought home and is now in the British Museum.

CHAPTER XXXIII

FOLK TALES. (By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

The following folk tales were all collected from the people of the mainland of South-eastern British New Guinea.

The Wagawaga tales were taken down from the old men of the community in the evening ; sometimes in the clubhouse {potuma) frequented only by the old men, at other times in the house of one Ipunesa, who proved himself a reliable interpreter. In either case one or more of the old men told the story to the interpreter, who translated it into ' pidgin ' English sentence by sentence. Once, in order to check, as far as possible, the reliability of this method, a story told by Ipunesa was taken down and about a week later the same story, told by an old man, was translated and the results compared. The two versions showed no substantial discrepancies and we believe these Wagawaga stories to be, in the main, reasonably accurate translations of the stories told to the interpreter, although it is of course possible that in some cases details were summarised in the translation into pidgin English. In every case where the meaning of a pidgin English expression was not clear, the matter was threshed out on the spot ; here of course another chance of misunderstanding is introduced, but we are convinced that the occurrence of this form of error was reduced to a minimum.

The stories from Taupota, Awaiama and Goodenough Bay (collected by E. L. G.) labour under none of the disadvantages inherent in the use of an interpreter ; the recorder's knowledge of the dialects used, enabled him to make rapid translations from the native language. In all these folk tales many of the incidents are related in so bare a manner, and there appear to be such gaps in the narrative, that the story is rendered absolutely Incoherent to one not already acquainted with it, or thoroughly conversant with native habits and customs. It was therefore often necessary to ask our informants what was meant or implied, and the stories as presented contain the necessary explanations and interpolations.

With the exception of the story No. 13 none of the tales here given show any signs of white influence, and it must be remembered that twenty years ago there was no intelligent intercourse with white men in any part of the district under consideration. The customs and habits of the people of Taupota show that they are so nearly related to the Milne Bay people, that the stories collected from these two localities should probably be considered to form a single group. Whether the single tale from Awaiama should be connected with this group or with those of Goodenough Bay is uncertain ; geographically Awaiama lies in the neighbourhood of Cape Frere to the west of Taupota. The natives of Goodenough Bay differ sufficiently from those of Taupota, and probably from those of Awaiama, to make it certain that the tales collected from them should be considered to form another group.

It does not seem possible to form any idea of the age of these stories, any one who knows how rapidly the natives of this part of the world forget their own history will hardly be prepared to attribute any value, as evidence of antiquity, to the frequent occurrence of rock or cave dwelling folk in these tales. They do however throw light on certain phases of belief which a current acquaintance with the people who tell these tales does not at first reveal. Such stories as Nos. 3, 5, 15 and 26, show that from one aspect, man and animals, are considered as essentially similar ; and this in spite of the belief, certainly held by many If not by all the natives of Wagawaga, that man alone has a spirit that survives after death. Again the belief in the existence of a number of non-human and non-animal beings, subserving no particular functions in the general order of the Papuasian universe, but usually more or less malevolent, was quite unexpected. To such creatures, who are usually thought of as sharing the ideas and span of life of man, we have ventured to apply the term ogre, when, as is commonly the case, they are harmful or malevolent.

I. THE BIRTH OF THE SUN.

(Wagawaga.)

There was once a woman who spent all her time weeding her garden which lay just above the beach. One day the woman saw a big fish playing in the surf, so she went down on to the reef where the surf broke and walked out Into the sea. The fish, which was of the kind called wadumo, rubbed against her legs and nuzzled her thighs and every day the woman went Into the sea to play with the fish the same thing happened^ After some time the woman's thigh began to ,\ swell and got bigger and bigger, in spite of the poultices of JLl^^ hot leaves with which she treated it. As it became very painful she asked her father to scarify it with an obsidian fragment, in the usual way. He did so, and a boy child burst from one of the Incisions he had made. The woman took the boy, washed him and cut the cord, then she lay down by the fire and gave her baby to suck.

The child grew up with the other village children, but one day when they were playing at throwing spears at trees and bushes, the leg-child, Dudugera, instead of throwing his toy spears at the stumps of trees threw them at his companions. The other boys got angry and abused him saying that his father was a fish and that he had better go back to him. Then the children went back to the village and told their mothers that Dudugera had been throwing spears at them. Although the culprit's mother was angry, she was also frightened that her boy might suffer on account of his misconduct, and so she asked her mother where she could send him for safety and at last determined to follow her mother's advice and give him to his father.

So the mother of Dudugera went to the beach with her son, and the great fish came swimming up and took the child in his mouth and carried him to a far-away country in the east. Now before Dudugera left his mother he told her to advise her relations to uproot their sugar cane and taro and bananas, and to make their gardens in the shadow of the overhang of the great rock called Duyau, and they were also to go and live in the shelter of that rock ; for, soon after he

• Wadumo is a totem throughout a considerable portion of the south-eastern district, though it is not a totem of any of the Wagawaga clans. At Tubetube this_ fish is called warumo and has the fish-hawk as linked bird totem. ~

left them he would climb into a pandanus, and thence into the sky, and all the trees and plants and people in all the villages would die, but they his friends would be saved, if they obeyed him, and took shelter under the rock, Duyau.

As Dudugera had prophesied, the water soon dried up, the trees withered, the gardens ceased to bear, and pigs and dogs, and last of all, even the men of the country, died on account of the great heat.

But one morning the mother of Dudugera took a lime pot and climbed a hill, and, as the sun came up, she sprinkled the lime from the gourd across the face of the sun and so made him shut his eyes, and then it was not so hot as before and presently there was a little rain, and the next morning there were clouds, and the sun came up behind these clouds just as he so often does at the present day.

2. HOW FIRE CAME\

(Wagawaga.)

Long ago, before men had fire, there lived at Maivara at the head of Milne Bay an old woman whom all the boys and youths called Goga^.

At this time people used to cut their yams and taro into thin slices and dry them in the sun. Now the old woman prepared food in this way for ten of the youths, but when they were away in the bush hunting wild pig she cooked her own food. She did this with fire taken from her body, but she cleared away the ashes and scraps before the boys came back so that they should not know how she cooked her taro and yams.

One day a piece of the boiled taro got among the boys' food, and inadvertently she put it in their dish, and when all the boys were eating their evening meal, the youngest boy picked up the piece of boiled taro and tasted it and was surprised to find it so good. He gave it to his comrades to taste and they all liked it, for it was soft instead of hard and dry like their taro, and they could not understand how taro came to be so nice. Accordingly next day when the boys

1 This story was given me under the title of 'The Story of the Okioki tree,' and it was said that formerly yams and taro were sometimes eaten after being sliced and sun-dried in the way described.

2 Goga is the ordinary term employed in addressing a man or woman of a generation older than that of the speaker, when the individual addressed does not belong to the clan of the speaker or to his (or her) father's clan (cf. chapter XXXV).

went to the bush to hunt, the youngest boy remained behind and hid in the house. He saw the old woman dry his and his comrades' food in the sun, but before she cooked her own food she took fire from between her legs. That night, when the boys came back from hunting, and while they were all eating their evening meal, the youngest told his story. And the boys saw how useful this fire was, and determined to steal some from the old woman, and to this end they made a plan.

In the morning they all sharpened their adzes and cut down a tree as big as a house ; then they all tried to jump over it, but only the youngest boy succeeded, so he was chosen to steal fire from the old woman. Next morning all the boys went out to hunt in the bush as usual, but when they had gone a little way they all turned back and nine boys hid themselves, but the youngest went quietly back to the old woman's house, and when she was going to cook her taro slipped behind her and snatched a brand from her. He ran as fast as he could to the felled tree and jumped over it, and the old woman could not follow him over the tree. But as he jumped the brand burned his hand and he let it fall and set light to the grass, and then a pandanus (into) caught fire.

Now a snake called Garubuiye lived in a hole in this pandanus and its tail caught fire and burned like a torch
The old woman caused rain to fall in great torrents so that the fire was put out, but the snake stayed in his hole in the pandanus tree, and his tail was not extinguished.

When the rain had ceased the boys went out to look for fire, but found none, till at last they saw the hole in the pandanus and pulled out the snake and broke off its tail which was still glowing. Then they made a great pile of wood and set fire to it with brands lighted from the snake's tail, and folk from all the villages came to that fire to take some home with them, and the different folk used different kinds of wood as fire brands, and the trees from which they took their brands became xh^ir pianai (totems).

3. THE FIRST COCONUT.

(Wagawaga.)

Once upon a time there were no coconuts and this is the story of the first coconut palm.

^ Garubuiye is an important snake since it is the snake totem of Garuboi clan of Wagawaga.

A long time ago a woman lived In a village on the top of a hill, and she used often to go down the hill to the sea to catch fish. And this is how she caught the fish ; when she was on the beach she took off her head and placed it on the sandy bottom in shallow water. After a little time the fish swam into the head, and then she would shake the fish out of her head and put it on her shoulders again.

And day after day she fished in this manner. One day a man from another village saw the heap of fish bones lying near the woman's house and he wondered how they came there, so he watched the woman, and when she went down to the sea he followed her very cautiously so that she did not see him. When she put her head in the sea the man picked It up and pitched it into the scrub behind the beach. Then, when the woman returned to take her fish and put her head on her shoulders again, she could not find it and so she died.

The head lay where it fell on a patch of grass in the scrub, and after a while it sprouted and grew into a coconut palm. Time went on and the tree bore fruit, and the fruit ripened, and the nuts fell to the ground. Then the man who had thrown the woman's head into the scrub came there, and he picked up the nuts, husked them, and broke them open, and found they were full of blood.

So the man climbed up the tree and picked some young nuts and these he husked and opened, and they too were full of blood. Then he put charcoal in the nuts he had opened, but still the blood remained. So he sprinkled them with lime, and left them in the sun to dry, and the blood disappeared. Then he took half the nut and scraped and shredded the meat inside it, and squeezed the shreds with water in a leaf, and when he reached home his wife was cooking food, so he poured the juice he had squeezed from the coconut over the food, and it was better to eat than it had ever been before. And since then people have always used the ' oil ' of the coconut in this way.

One day a bird Pwakua smelt the scraped coconut, so he looked for it and at last found the island where the man lived ; but when the bird had seen what it was that smelt so good he flew home again. That night when the sun went down he slept, but he woke with the dawn, and flew back to the island, and by watching the man found the coconut palm, stole a

V

nut, and brought It home with him to Nada (the Laughlans)
Then he made a clearing in the bush and planted the nut, but when he went back to his village and the folk asked him where he had been, he would not tell them.

At last the nut he had planted became a tree, and the tree bore fruit, and then he took a canoe and went to the island from which he had carried off the coconut, and the nuts were ripe on those palms, so he threw down many of them, and took them back to Nada, and gave them to the folk there, and told them how to plant the nuts and tend the young trees. But when they asked him whence they came he only answered

• I went a long way and stole them.'

After this everybody planted coconuts and this Is how they came to the villages.

4. THE STORY OF THE SNAKE SINEROGUSI SARASARA.

(Wagawaga.)

There was once a snake of great size called SInerogusI Sarasara who lived beneath the ground. One day a woman asked her daughter to come to the garden to help her in her work, but the girl, saying that she would look for shell fish of the kind called dihara, went down to the beach and dug for the shells, and while digging found one of the eggs of Sinerogusi Sarasara, which she brought home and ate, not knowing what it was. Every day she went to the beach to look for dihara, and every day she found an ^g^ which she brought home and ate. Now the eggs were laid in a row stretching from the body of the snake, so that the girl dug nearer the snake every day, till at last she saw the sheen of the snake's back in the hole she had made. At this she became much afraid and ran back to the village as fast as she could, and there sought shelter in a house. By-and-by the snake, who had known all along that a girl was finding and eating his eggs, forced his way out of the ground, and followed the girl to the village, where the folk showed him the house in which she was hiding. So he went there and found her, and entered her belly, per vulvam, and coiled himself up within

^ It was explained that Pwakua was alternately a man or bird as he wished. Pwakua is also a totem to the north of East Cape. Nada is a rather barren atoll about 40 miles to the east of Murua ; it is, however, famed for its coconuts, which, with fish caught on its reefs, form the staple food of its inhabitants.

her, but when he moved his head stuck out of her mouth. The girl was horribly frightened at all this and cried bitterly. Although the folk of her community were furiously angry, they could not at first see any remedy ; but presently they thought of a scheme by which the girl might be rid of the snake. They built a large number of sailing canoes and raced them against each other in order to find the fastest. When they had found this, it was given out that the whole community would go fishing on the reefs off an island at a little distance from the village. Now the island on which the people would be obliged to live for two or three days was waterless, and had been selected for the site of the fishing party for this very reason.

Next morning the canoes were loaded with food, and the girl, with the snake still coiled up in her belly, was put into the fastest, but no water was put in this canoe although it contained plenty of food. That night they all had water to drink on the island except those who had been travelling in the fastest canoe. Next morning the girl complained to her father of thirst and he asked the snake why he did not get water for his wife, ' More better you come out and you get water, wife belong you no got water.' So the snake left the girl's body and asked her father where water was to be found, and the old man directed the snake to go round three headlands of the island, saying that there was plenty of water on the far side of the third point. But when the snake had got past the first point, the canoes pushed off and made their way as quickly as possible to their village, and the fastest canoe carrying the girl led the way. The snake came back, and when he found his wife gone he swam after the canoes, asking the occupants of each if his wife were in it. At last he overtook the girl's canoe, but the men in that canoe had sharpened their adzes, and when the snake attempted to climb into the canoe they cut him to pieces with their wellground blades. As the men were cutting at him the snake asked why they were killing him, and they said that if they did not he would kill the girl. And when the snake was dead they cut him into many pieces, which sank, and became the big reefs that stretch away from Tokunu.

5. HAGWAI THE CUSCUS.

(Wagawaga.)

There was once a boy whose name was Hagwai; now this boy was also a cuscus.

Hagwai built a potuina with his ail, and he lived in a house with his ail and his wife.

The ail told his wife to feed Hagwai well, but when he was away in the garden she only gave him scraps, yam and banana skins, and she never gave him any good food.

One day when the woman was working in her garden, the ail asked the boy to come to the gardens with him. On the way they came to a tree with ripe fruit on it, and Hagwai climbed up this and began to eat the fruit. His ail called to him to come down, but Hagwai did not answer, so his ail called again, and then Hagwai told him that he was hungry because the woman never gave him any good food, but only scraps and parings. Again his ail called to Hagwai to come down, but the boy jumped into another tree, and when his ail cut this tree down, the boy jumped into another bigger tree, and there turned into a cuscus.

Then his ail sharpened his adze, and went on to the gardens and found his wife, who called to him to come and help her plant taro, but the man said nothing for he was 'wild,' and he caught her by the hair and asked her why she had not fed his sister's child, and he told her that the boy had turned into a cuscus. Then he killed her and returned to his village.

6. THE STORY OF THE BAt's CAVE.

(Wagawaga.)

Once, in a village near Wagawaga, there lived a man who found such favour with the women folk that all the other men became jealous of him.

Now near the village there was a great cave and men used to go down into it by a rattan to catch flying foxes. One day the man went down and before he could climb back his fellow villagers came and cut the rattan. He called to his clansmen and asked why the cane had been cut, so one of them told him it was because the villagers were jealous of him. Then the man begged one of his clansmen to lower his two dogs and a basket of taro ; they did this and then went away.

The man thought he would never be able to get out and so must die, but he gave a piece of taro to each of his dogs and ate some himself, then he fell asleep. Next day the dogs began scraping and scratching and so started to bore a tunnel. They went on working for many days, and each day he fed the dogs with taro and ate some himself. At last, when there was very little food left, the hole opened on the beach and the sea came up and washed in and made the opening bigger, so that the man was able to crawl out carrying one of the dogs with him, but the other was washed back into the hole by a wave. When the man came out of the cave his hair was partly scraped off his head, his body was scratched all over, and he was very thin and weak. And although he was very pleased to be in the warm sunshine again he was so weak that he went to sleep on a stone, and he slept all that day till night came again.

Now it happened that an old woman in a village near the sea dreamt that night that there were fish to be caught near a big stone on the beach, so she got up and went to the stone, and there she saw the man sleeping. She asked him where he came from and he told her his story; then she returned to her village and cooked food and brought it to the man, and afterwards took him to her village. And by-and-by the man grew strong again and went to hunt for wild pig, and after hunting all day he found he was near his own village, so he went to see his mother, but he told her to be sure not to let any of the villagers know that he was still alive. Then he told his mother not to drink any water, because he was going to poison the water so that all the villagers would die because they had tried to kill him\

So his mother did as he told her, and she also warned his ail and his cousins, but all the rest of the folk died, because the man poisoned the water. And when they were all dead he came and lived in his own village with his mother and his ail.

7. HOW DRUMS CAME TO WAGAWAGA.

(Wagawaga.)

Once upon a time there were no drums in Wagawaga. But the people who lived beneath the ground had good drums, to the beating of which they danced.

Once a man went hunting and strayed a long way from home. He was about to return when suddenly he heard a

^ It was said that the poison referred to was not the common fish poison, although it was used in the same way, but something more subtle because tasteless.

muffled sound coming from beneath the earth. He found a way into the earth, and followed the sound until he came upon two men beating drums, so he went up to one of them and asked him to lend him his drum. The drummer consented and the Wagawaga man slipped away quietly, and ran with the drum as fast as he could towards Wagawaga.

Soon the men noticed that their drum was gone, so they came above ground and saw the Wagawaga man a long way off. They followed him but could not overtake him, and so turned back before they reached Wagawaga. Now when the man got home, he hung up the drum in his house, and next day, while the men of the under-world were asleep, he went back and stole some more drums and brought them to W^agawaga\

So men copied them and have used drums for dancing ever since.

8. THE STORY OF THE SONG WAIAGA.

(Wagawaga.)

Once a man was killed and eaten at Boihatu Aipaina, which is near Wagawaga. His skull was hung up in the pot2ima in the usual way. One day, when all the villagers were away in the gardens, a man came on a visit from Dagama, which is near Maivara, and hearing a voice singing in the potunia, he listened. The voice came from the skull, but when he went into the potuma the song stopped.

When the villagers returned from the gardens they welcomed the Dagama man, and asked him to stay the night but he refused. After a few days he came again, and again his friends asked him to stay, but once more he refused, and although they offered him bagi^ benam and samakupa, he would not take any of these, and it was only when they asked him if there was anything he would care to have, that he said there was a skull in the pohtma which he would like. Tt was not a good skull,' he said, 'but he had taken a fancy to it.' So they gave him the singing skull and he took

^ There seemed to be some confusion in our informants' minds between the inhabitants of the other-world, the under-world of Hiyoyoa (cf. chapter XLVill), and a special class of men and women who, it was alleged, lived beneath the earth, but not in Hiyoyoa. These folk were said to have passed underground during an earthquake, and in every respect resembled ordinary mortals except that they lived longer. They were called Orotu, the ordinary name for men and women, and on cross examining our informants it was agreed that the story did not apply to the inhabitants of Hiyoyoa.

it away with him. When he had left the village it sang all the way to Dagama and only stopped when he told it to, just before reaching his village.

There he hung it up in a tree near his house and it sang continuously, and all Dagama learnt its song. But one day when everyone had gone to the gardens and the skull was singing as usual, a man came from Bohuro in the bush behind Dagama. He heard the song and looked about to see where it came from, but when he found the singing skull he was afraid and broke it in pieces with a stone.

But all the men of Milne Bay had learnt the song and they taught it to the folk of Rogea.

9. TANODUYA.

(Wagawaga.)

Many years ago a toreha was held at Yoyowaga\ and one night while all the young people of the village and their guests were dancing, a number of the folk of Tanoduya, beneath the ground, passed through the secret opening on the hillside into the upper world, and came to Yoyowaga to watch the dancing. The villagers took no notice of them, and before daylight they all went back to Tanoduya except one woman who had fallen asleep on the verandah of a house.

Like all her kinsfolk this woman had a long nose as white men have, and her eyes were set obliquely. In the morning the villagers found her seeking vainly for the opening in the rock leading to Tanoduya. At last she fell, and lay exhausted on the ground until the evening, when the villagers carried her on to the verandah of one of their houses, and covered her with a mat. As they did not know her name they called her Tanoduya.

Next afternoon she awoke and was very hungry, and the village folk brought her all kinds of yams and taro and other food, but she could not eat any of them; at last someone brought her bananas, and these she was able to eat as well as a fresh water prawn (uhari) and a crab (neptta).

When she had eaten she again tried to find her way to Tanoduya but could not do so. So she stayed in Yoyowaga, and after a while she married a man of Bolama and went with him to live at Dapaana, where she had many children. And

1 The site of a deserted village, toreha is the name of a big mourning feast, cf. chapter XLVI.

25—2

when she died her body was taken up the hillside which overlooks the bay and placed under a boulder.

10. THE GREEDY CAVE DWELLERS.

(Wagawaga.)

Once upon a time there were two boys who had no father or mother, so they lived with their grandmother. Now these boys always went with the men to hunt wild pig, but when the pigs were divided the boys were given only the skin. The boys told their grandmother how unfairly they were treated, and as she possessed magic power she determined to punish the men.

Now in those days everyone lived in a cave 'inside great stone,' but the old woman and the boys were not allowed this shelter, and were forced to sleep in the open.

So one night when everyone was in the cave the old woman charmed Its walls so that the entrance closed. In the night a child woke and cried to go outside, so his mother got up, but she could not find the opening, and when she blew the embers of the fire into a blaze to find her way out, she saw that she was shut in by rock on every side. She woke her kinsfolk and everyone was afraid but they could do nothing, for the opening had gone, and there was only a small hole in the roof of the cave just large enough for a man to put two fingers through.

All the people wondered why the entrance to the cave had closed, and one old man bewailed their former greediness, for he guessed how the old woman had revenged herself on them all. And as they had no food they soon died, and at last only the old man was left, and then the boys from outside called out 'is everyone dead?' And the old man answered, 'Only I live, give me a little food.' But the boys would not give him any, so he too dled\

II. TUISUHEAIA THE RED EEL.

(Wagawaga.)

Once upon a time there was a red eel called Tuisuheaia, and he lived in the stream Habaria at Gubugabuna.

He married a woman who also lived under the water, in a village In another stream called Fala, which is on the main-*

^ Our informant drew the moral that at Wagawaga everyone, even women an(^ children, were given their fair share of food.

land opposite Samarai, and Tulsuheala went to live in his wife's village.

Now in Birobirolo there lived a man and his wife, and the woman had just born a child, so she stayed in the house and her husband went to fish in the creek. At sundown the eel assumed his man form and took a rough coconut basket of, the kind called hiliga, such as the women used to carry food, and filled it with wood which had become rotten in water. With this he went to Birobirola to the woman's house and passed the basket to her saying ' here are many fish.' The house was dark, so the woman thought that Tuisuheaia was her husband, and when he said to her * give me the child ' she did so and the eel took it away. Soon the real husband returned and asked for the child, and the woman said ' I gave the child to you but a short while back.'

'That cannot be,' said the man, 'for I am only now returned from fishing in the creek.' Then they argued for some time but at last they knew that the child was lost, so they both went to look for it, and they searched all that night but they could not find their child, and they cried with grief.

Now the eel had taken the child and dashed out its brains on a rock and had eaten it. In the morning the woman saw the blood on the rock and showed it to her husband, and together they found the place where the eel had gone to his village in the bed of the river.

The man thrust a pole into the river and found the hole among the rocks in which the eel's village lay, then he drew the pole out and lit its end, and again thrust it down into the eel's village. And the village caught fire and burned, and the eel knew that it was a man that had done this. A great storm came, and there was thunder and rain both on the land, and in Fala under the river, and the man and his wife were both killed, and they were turned into rocks.

And the people call these rocks Papi, and you can see them to this day.

12. THE STORY OF KWAHOHOFI.

(Wagawaga.) Once upon a time by a big hill called Aramidai there lived a man called Kwahohofi. Every one was afraid of Kwahohofi for he ate many people ; he used to find men by watching for the smoke of their fires, and then he would catch and kill them. He ate so many men that his father and mother and ail became very angry and reproached him. But it was useless, he went on till there were scarcely any people left in the district, and he even ate his brother-in-law and his aii.

Then his surviving relatives were very troubled, and met together and consulted as to what should be done, and at last they hit upon a plan.

They called Kwahohofi and began talking in a friendly way, and they talked of panic, and each man said that there was one thing above all others of which he went in fear ; some men said they feared a great wind, others thunder and rain, and then they asked Kwahohofi what his special fear was. And he said he feared neither storm nor rain, there was but one thing that made him afraid and that was the wave after an earthquake.

So the men were pleased for now they knew they could trap him.

Kwahohofi always slept on the top of the cliff so as to be out of the way of the tide, but he slept very near the edge. And when he was asleep men came and made a great fire, and it roared and flared, and some one threw some of the milk of a young coconut over Kwahohofi crying * The great wave has come.'

Then Kwahohofi snatched at his spear and shield, but in his great fear of the wave he fell over the cliff and was killed^

13. THE OGRE KUPORU.

(Wagawaga.)

The ogre Kuporu lived in the bush in the mountainous country behind Milne Bay. He was a giant and his hand was as big as any man's thigh, and he used to eat men whom he pounced on while they were diving for fish on the reefs. He would catch them under water and take them to the bush, and there kill and eat them.

One day, near Modewa, many white men came from a schooner in two whale boats, and they sought Kuporu and

• An exaggerated fear or dread of a particular object or of a natural phenomenon is perhaps not very uncommon among the Papuasians of south-eastern British New Guinea ; at least our informants clearly considered it nothing very unusual, and instanced an otherwise perfectly normal man of Wagawaga who was stated to become ill and practically helpless with fear during every severe thunderstorm.

I

killed him. But they wrapped his body in a large sheet of canvas and took it on the schooner to the island Igwari, which is at the entrance of Milne Bay. Here they cut up the ogre and all partook of his flesh except one man from Sariba who would not touch it. Next day the schooner sailed away, and that day a man died. And each day one or two of the crew died, until only the Sariba man who had not touched the monsters flesh remained alive\

14. GWARIGWARIDONA AND FAISI URL

(Wagawaga.)

Once upon a time Gwarigwaridona lived in the bush : he was a kind of ogre with short spears ' like horns ' growing from all his joints and from his forehead, and in his time he had killed and eaten many men and women of Wagawaga and the neighbouring villages.

Now a man called Faisi Uri also lived in the bush and hunted wild pig with his two dogs. One day when he had taken a big pig, he danced, sang, and shouted with delight so loudly that Gwarigwaridona heard the noise, and came to him. Now Faisi Uri was frightened because of the spears that grew on the body and forehead of Gwarigwaridona, but Gwarigwaridona said ' Alright, let us together carry this pig to my house.'

They did so and killed the pig, and Falsi Uri cut it up ready for cooking. But he said to his dogs ' When I give a big joint of meat to Gwarigwaridona you go and bite him.* So he gave him a large piece of flesh, and immediately the dogs tried to bite him, but when Gwarigwaridona gave the meat back to Faisi Uri the dogs let him alone. So Faisi gave him a smaller piece of pig-flesh.

Then Faisi Uri and Gwarigwaridona boiled their meat, each one in his own pot, but the meat cooked by Faisi Uri

1 This story was implicitly believed, though it was agreed that it was unlike the common practice of white men to eat human flesh, for, in spite of his ogreish qualities it was clear that Kuporu was considered essentially human. An explanation was offered by a couple of rather advanced natives which sheds a humorous light on the instruction given by some native teachers to their pupils. A native who took an active part m evangelical work in the village pointed out, that there was no reason why this story should not have been true, since the white men referred to might have come from some other country than ' Beretane,' perhaps, as he suggested, from Germany. To refute scepticism, one of the neckbones of the ogre was produced for inspection which it was said would give some idea of how large Kuporu was. The bone in question was a cervical vertebra of small whale.

was good while that boiled by Gwarigwaridona remained half raw. Gwarigwaridona praised the way Faisi Uri had cooked his share and helped himself to some of it, at the same time putting some of his own badly cooked meat before Faisi Uri. The latter then asked the ogre where there was water to drink. Then Gwarigwaridona brought some skulls with water in them and passed one to Faisi Uri, but he was afraid to drink from a skull.

One day Gwarigwaridona thought he would kill Faisi Uri, so he cut down a bamboo and made a knife from it. But Faisi Uri knew that Gwarigwaridona had made a bamboo knife, and guessed that the ogre intended to cut off his head, so he ran away to his own village and told the villagers to cut down trees to make shields, so as to be prepared to attack Gwarigwaridona. When they had done this, they all came to the cavern in a great rock where Gwarigwaridona lived. Gwarigwaridona easily split all the men's shields with the spears growing from his body, except three of them which were of very hard wood, so he lowered his head and butted one of the men who carried one of these shields, seeking to kill him with the spears growing from his forehead, but the man received his charge on his hardwood shield and this was so tough that the spears snapped, and Gwarigwaridona fell dead.

The men of the attacking party would not eat Gwarigwaridona, but left his body where it fell at the entrance of the cavern.

15. THE BLACK COCKATOO.

(Taupota.)

Once upon a time a woman gave birth to a son, she nursed him until he could carry a digging stick, and then she left him every day while she went to work in the garden.

One day as she was going home she noticed a wild cucumber plant ; she picked one of its fruits and took it home to her son ; when he tasted it he said ' Mother, I must come with you to-morrow and get some more,' and his mother agreed^

In the morning his mother slipped away before daybreak, but she brought him another wild cucumber when she came home at night.

• The plant referred to is called kapukapurika and bears a mottled fruit about the size of a large gooseberry.

The boy said to her ' What did you leave me for, I wanted to go with you,' but his mother put him off with ' We will go to-morrow.' In the morning the boy woke up very early, and when his mother went to the gardens he walked in front of her.

Now when the boy saw the wild cucumber he ran to it and began to eat its fruit greedily ; he ate until he had eaten all the fruit, both ripe and unripe ; afterwards he ate the leaves, and while he was eating them his mother called him and said 'See, the sun is setting, let us go home,' but he only answered

• By-and-by, I am eating,' and he went on and ate the leaves and the stalk, and he even pulled up the roots and ate them. When there was nothing more to eat his mother said to him impatiently ' Come along, come along, it is quite dark, let us go home.'

When he stood up he could not help crying out, his stomach pained him so much that he was quite unable to walk. However, his mother said she would carry him on her back, but when she put him in her basket he was so heavy that he smashed the basket and fell through ; the same thing happened when she tried to carry him in her string bag. The boy was now groaning in great pain.

So there was nothing to be done but for his mother to leave him while she went home to tell his father, who would come and carry him home : so she covered him up very carefully and left him. After dusk had set in, an ogre, Wavineruatonu by name, came to see how the cucumber he had planted was getting on, and he saw it had disappeared. As he was looking about to see what had become of it he muttered to himself: 'I'd like to know who has eaten up my plant.' The boy thought it was his father, and called out ' Father, father.'

Then the ogre discovered him and said ' At any rate if you have eaten my cucumber I can eat you,' so he lifted him on to his shoulder and turned his steps homewards.

Arrived there he placed the boy upon the ground, and covered him with a big pot and slept until the morning.

Early in the morning he got up and in a voice loud enough for all to hear, said, ' Oho, my brothers, oho, my children, all of you may carry my digging stick to-day and take my adze for me and let your own yams and taro and other food remain, and you shall all partake of what I eat to-night'.' Now when

^ 'Carry my digging stick. ..and take my adze....' It was explained that this

394 T^^^ Southern Masstm they had all gone to the gardens there was only an infirm old woman left to mind the little ones, and when the boy found this out, he said ' Old woman, won't you open my cage for me ? ' but the old dame said * Why should I lift up your cage ?' It took the men a long time to get enough food, and their children who were at home playing said to each other, ' Who is in the big pot ? ' and they tilted up the side of the pot.

Then the boy said : ' Let me out children,' and one of them said * Let us free him and we will play with him,' so they let him out and they played with him, moving as they played until they came to the outskirts of the ogre's village.

Now his mother and father had been searching for their son, and they too came to the outskirts of the village, where they found the boy and said to him ' Shall we go home ? ' but he answered ' Give me your spears,' so they gave him their spears ; his father gave him a spear of peto wood and another spear of common wood, and his mother gave him a spear of kakoro wood, and with these three spears he climbed to the top of a tall coconut palm.

Now the boy had left his excreta in the pot, and the men brought the pot containing the vegetable food and took the pot containing the boy, as they supposed, and cooked the contents.

When it was cooked they uncovered it and all partook of the stew, then the men went away. After the children had eaten their share they were left to play in the village, and when the boy saw them he began to sing softly :

*You have eaten my dirt and not touched me My body is here at the top of the tree.'

After he had repeated this two or three times they heard him and said ' We only had his dirt to eat, there he is up in the tree,' so they called the men back.

Presently one of the men began to climb the coconut, but the boy thrust one of his spears into his eye so that he dropped and was killed. Then another man attempted to climb up but he too was speared in the eye, and so with all of them until they gave up trying to climb the tree. But the ogre's wife said ' Let us cut our coconut down and so we will meant ' I'm in luck to-day and so I'll stand treat for all.' [The rest of the sentence refers to feasting customs. In some feasts all the food is provided by the hosts, in other instances only flesh food, the guests bringing the vegetables.]

get him,' so they cut down the palm, but as the tree was falling the boy turned into a black cockatoo and flew away. And ever since then he sits in the tree tops or flies round them\

16. THE LILY ROOT.

(Taupota.)

There was once a little girl who preferred the yellow lily root to any other foodl One day she went into the jungle and brought one back to the village, and put it down in her home ; her mother said to her ' Go to the beach and get some salt water to make our food nice,' so she went. While she was away her mother and aunts ate the lily root and by the time she got back it was all consumed. When she saw it was gone she was very much disgusted.

'Taro is your taro My food is the lily root'

she sang again and again.

On the morrow she searched for lily roots again and brought back a supply, but her aunts and mother treated her as they had done on the previous day, and again she complained bitterly, but they said to her ' Oh we will all go and dig lily roots to-morrow and you shall have all we find.'

Next morning they said to her 'Let us go.' * Go yourselves,' she retorted, ' I have no wish to go,' so seeing she was sulking, they left her.

When they were gone, she stayed in the house for some time and then got a coconut and husked it, after that she scraped the kernel up and put it in the sun to make it oily, she used the specially good kind called waduwadu, and was not satisfied with one nut but prepared three. When the nut scrapings were ready, she oiled herself with them, one for her legs, one for her body from her waist up and one for her head. Then she laid out all her ornaments and finery and put them

^ Variants of this story are found also at Mukawa, Bolanai and Wamira, but in each case the ending is different : in Wamira there appears to be some confusion with another story called 'The black cockatoo.' [Mr Giblin's manuscript attached no title to the translation of the version of this story obtained at Taupota, but it seemed reasonable to call it the ' Black Cockatoo.']

2 The root of this plant is called kanioga. The flower is white and the leaves are very like those of Crinum ornatum. The root is the chief source of the yellow dye used by the coastal natives of the district. It is not generally used for food, and is by some said to be poisonous.

The Southern Masshn on, necklaces of shell beads and quills, shell armlets, anklets and a new grass petticoat, then taking her pet dog in her arms, she began to sing slowly * Because of the lily root, because of the lily root am I going.' Presently she went into the bush weeping * Because of the lily root, because of the lily root I am goingV'

Now her mother was returning, and hearing the noise in the scrub by the beach said to the girl's father, * Listen, the child is crying,' but he only answered 'my back is tired, and it is evening, she will come back by-and-by.'

When the girl came to a lofty wakola tree which was easy to climb, she climbed it, and her mother running up saw her. ' Come down deary, come down,' she said, but the girl answered ' No, too late,' and then looking down she saw a crocodile in the sea close beneath her, for the tree leaned out over the water ; and weeping she sang :

• Whence, oh crocodile ? A crocodile from Makamaka A bloody crocodile Bembemlo.'

She sang this verse three times, and then she took off her ornaments one by one and threw them to the crocodile who snapped them down hungrily, she then threw her dog, and finally her petticoat until, when naked, she threw herself down and the crocodile took her, but her head floated away and the waves tossing it washed it near to the shore. Now the girl's cousin came down to the beach to get salt water, and seeing the head ran and told her mother, who took a hand net in which to bring it ashore, but whenever she managed to get the head into the net it leapt out again, so she finally gave it up, and the head still floats about, and sometimes when the waves are big it comes close in shore, but it can never be caught^

' The girl is an only daughter, and as such would wear all her mother's ornaments as well as any she considered her own. Probably some of the ornaments enumerated such as the shell armlets would have been the property of such near relatives as her mother's sisters.

^ C^u^stions about the head only annoyed the raconteur who said it was a bariaua head which implied that it could not be expected to conform to ordinary uses or custom.

.Suicide is common in this district, five cases having come under observation in SIX years.

The crocodile is not usually associated with suicide, and its presence in the story seems to have been a matter of chance. For the frequency of suicide, and the trivial causes which may bring it about, cf. chapter XLIII.

17. TAUMUDUKORO.

(Taupota.)

There was a girl born, and she had no mouth, but only a hole in the top of her head ; and she grew up to be a woman and without cohabitation conceived and bore a child, and hid her offspring in a hole in a tree\ Her friends came to visit her and brought food, and stuffed the food in the hole in her head so quickly that it hurt her, and the pain was so great that she tried to cry out and so she burst a hole in her face, which became her mouth.

Two of her friends were young girls and she said to them 'Stay with me and be my servants,' so they lived with her and helped her.

One day she said 'Take this food to my son.' One of them took it to the hole in the tree but started back afraid, for a long snake's neck came out for the food.

Next day the woman said ' Take this food to my son,' and the girl was frightened to go alone, so her friend accompanied her and carried the food. Now this friend was not at all afraid, but went boldly into the tree, and there found a youth of good countenance, and she at once desired him and told him she would live with him. When the other girl saw this comely youth, she too wanted to live with him, so he married them both.

In due time one of them conceived and bare a son, and soon after the two wives went to another village to a feast, and the old woman, their mother-in-law, explained the path to them.

• Know,' said she, 'that there are two paths, the big wellworn one is the path to the village, but the cross track which is much overgrown is the path used by the Taumudukoro. Do not dare to go by that way, or perhaps she will kill you.'

The two women started off, and when they came to the cross tracks each one proposed to follow a different path. They argued about it, but the young mother said ' I am going by the overgrown track, I know it is the right one.'

After some time the track led down into a steep valley, and there was a rocky cave half-way down, and there lived the

1 This was a virgin birth. Some of the folk who told this story said that the girl had no genital passage, and it was clear that she was looked upon as a monstrosity.

Taumudukoro. Now the Taumudukoro is covered with horns and spines and is very prickly, but for all that she loves to nurse young children. When the Taumudukoro saw them she came out of her hole, and ran to meet them. * Give me baby to nurse,' she said, and snatched the child away from them before they could prevent her.

She smelt it all over and hugged it regardless of its cries, and led the women into her cave.

• You must stay with me,' she said, and they demurred in vain, as the Taumudukoro would not leave off nursing the child, but continued hugging and smelling it, although it was dripping with blood.

By-and-by it ceased to cry and soon died. When she saw it was dead she spoke affectionately of it, and gave it back to its mother. Then she sent the two women away and they came to their home.

Now when the snake husband saw those two women coming with the dead body of the baby, he said * What have you two done to my child .^' The mother was silent but the other woman told the story.

Next day he said ' You two come, let us go fishing.*

When the canoe was over the reefs he said to the young mother * Do you see that large clam down there on the reef .'^' She looked and saw it, and he said to her, ' Dive down and clutch its substance and tear it out, the shell will be heavy for you to lift.'

The woman put off her petticoat and left her ornaments in the canoe and dived down. And the man and his other wife saw her put her hand between the valves of the great clam to drag out its flesh, and they saw the valves come together on her hand and although she struggled, she struggled in vain.

When she was quite still they returned to land and told the old woman. And when the tide went out the clam was hungry and released its hold of the woman, and she was cast up by the waves so that her co-wife found her corpse in the morning, and her relatives buried her.

18. TAUKUNUGEGEWARI.

(Taupota.)

There were once a couple of enchanters of the kind called Buimoremore and the female one bore a child to the other.

She warned him against putting coconut husks on the fire

• Or,' said she, 'the smell will be blown up to the hill Kamkarago to my mother, and she will know that my child is born and will come down and take it from me.'

He took no notice of what she said, and one day when there was a sea breeze the smoke was carried up to Kamkarago to the old woman, she smelt it and said ' They have been picking coconuts down there and are burning the husks, my grandchild must be born,' so she went to her garden and dug the best taro and sweet potatoes and filling her largest basket, slung it from her head and went down to the beach \

When she got to the house she was pleased with the baby and wanted to nurse it ; the mother did not want to give it to her but she said ' Take this food I have brought you and cook it, your food is poor stuff, this is good food.' So the young mother took the food, and as soon as the old woman got the baby she ran off with it as fast as she could up the hill path. Its mother dropped the food and followed, crying out from time to time ' Oh Buimoremore, the old woman snatched my child and is going off with it into the hills.'

The woman would not wait for her daughter, and so neither rested until at last they both came to Kamkarago.

There the old woman said ' Have a look at the place, it's a long while since you saw it/ so the young mother went and looked at the garden and the place where the water was drawn.

When she came back the old womeaie^^^ '^i;ill dandling the baby and said to her 'Go and see my \ .r^.'^o she went and looked at the animals belonging to the old woman, wallaby cuscus, dogs and pigs, parrots, cockatoos and snakes, some in cages, and some tethered with cane or creeper. On her return her mother was nowhere to be seen, but she remembered the charm whereby she could open the door of the cave in which the old woman lived. So she stood in front of the rock and said :.

'Oh rock, be cleft,'

^ [In answer to a question as to whether this story illustrates a particular feature of mother-right or refers to any birth custom, Mr Giblin says that probably nothing more is meant than that the woman was fond of children and would want to take her grandchildren to live with her, and that it was for this reason that the pregnant woman had left her mother and gone no one knew where. If her mother saw the smoke she would perhaps search for her in that direction, guessing that she was having food cooked for her after her delivery or making water hot in order to wash her child.]

400 The Soitthern Massim and the rock door lifted and she went in ; and inside she said :

• Oh rock, be closed ! '

and the entrance closed up behind her.

Now when her husband came home and found the food, he knew his mother-in-law must have brought it, so he cooked some, and after he had eaten his evening meal went to sleep, and next morning started off on the track of his wife and mother-in-law.

When he got to Kamkarago he could not find any house, so he sat down on the track leading to water, until in the evening his wife came along it and she taught him the charm, so that he could come in and out of the cave.

They all lived in the cave, and every time the man said

• I am going,' the old woman said 'then I shall keep the boy,' so they stayed a long time. One day when the old woman was at work in the garden, the woman and her husband and child left Kamkarago and returned to their home on the beach and to their pigs. The boy grew up, and when he was about five years of age he went to see his grandmother, for his mother taught him the charm with the help of which he could enter the cave and go along the passage in the rock, until he found his grandmother's dwelling-place. He went to see her twice for his mother had explained to him * If it is easy to cause the rock to open, then the old woman, my mother, is alive, but if it is hard then .'

Now when he v^-nt for the third time he charmed the rock

, Oil again and again, bi ^^ao entrance appeared so he knew that she had passed away. He went home and told his mother and father and they went up to gather the food from the old woman's garden, and afterwards no one ever went near that hill and it was called Taukunugegewari.

19. SORCERY.

(Taupota.)

There was a witch who married a man who did not know that she was a witch. One day they went to the gardens and worked until the sun was low on the horizon.

• Let us go home,' said he, * it will be dark before we reach home.* * No,' she said, *by-and-by,' so they worked on and on.

Sunset came and the man wanted to leave. ' There is no house here, no fireplace, and it will rain to-night and yet you hold me back, what do you want ? '

When it was so dark that they could not see to work, the woman said, ' Now, sit on the food basket which is on my back,' and the man did so. Then the woman climbed a tree, muttered a long spell and launching into the air flew so fast that they arrived home very quickly. ' Oh, is that the way.-^' said he, 'you must teach me the spell'

Next day the same thing happened, but the woman did not say the last part of the spell very loudly and the man only caught the first part.

On the third day she said, ' I am going to stay at home to-day.' 'Never mind,' he said, 'I know the spell, I will go alone.'

All day he worked in the hot sun and In the evening he loaded himself with so much food that he could hardly climb the tree. When he reached the top he repeated all he knew of the spell and then let himself go, but he fell to the ground and was smashed to pieces.

His wife soon began to be anxious. 'Where has he gone to sleep .^ ' she said. * I'll go and look for him in the morning.'

So as soon as it was light she took her basket and digging stick and went to look for her husband. She looked all through the garden and in the scrub, and then went to the tree from which she had flown, and there lay the battered body of her husband.

20. THE FROG-WITCH.

(Taupota.)

One evening two girls decked themselves with ornaments and sweet herbs and went to a dance which was to be held at a village some distance inland.

They had to pass through a dark scrub near a rivulet and as they were in the middle of it they heard a croak like that of a big frog. ' Oh, there's a swamp frog,' cried one, 'let us go and catch it and we can take it with us to the dance, and when we tickle it, it will croak.'

So they left the track to look for the frog ; but there was no frog there for it was an old witch who looked and croaked

402 The Sotithern Massim like a swamp frog. As soon as she saw them she said, 'Come along children and have some food with me,' and she led them to a cave by the rivulet where everything was wet and mouldy.

There was no door but the witch muttered 'Open, open, rock,' and the rock opened and they went in. There was a fire and a small pot upon it, and the witch said, * You sit down, children, and rest, and I will go and get you food.' As she went out they heard her muttering, ' What shall I eat with them, taro or yams or modara ?'

• She is going to eat us and has gone to get vegetable food,' said one of the girls; Met us go!' 'First let us see what we can take,' said the other. So they searched all round and they found a large shell necklace of the kind called geynogemo and this they took, and calling to the rock to open, they left the cave.

When the old frog-witch got back with her basket of food the girls were not there, but she tracked them to a village on the beach. When she saw them she cried, ' Children, where is my gemogemo, where is my gemogemo ? ' So they left that village and went to their uncle's house in the next village, whither she followed them crying, ' Where is my gemogemo, where is my gemogemo ? ' They left that village and went to their father's house and told him all about the old frog-witch and he waited for her, and so soon as she arrived he speared her and she died.

21. THE ORIGIN OF THE WHITE MAN.

(Taupota.)

There was a man named Duagau who went hunting with his dog, and as they were going through thick jungle, the dog found a flying fish on the ground. Now there was no sea in those days, only land everywhere. When the dog found the fish he barked, and his master came and picked up what the dog had found. Duagau carried it home and ate it, and it tasted better than 'suckers' or any other river fish. Next day as he was hunting in the same place his dog found another fish which he took and ate. On the following day early in the morning he went to where he had found the fish and waited to see where they came from, and after watching till noon he heard a splashing inside a huge modewa tree and presently a fish fell from its branches. He climbed the tree and found that its trunk was hollow and that there were a lot of fish swimming about inside the tree.

Duagau took the fish home and this time gave it to his old mother and told her whence it came. She ate it and afterwards went to sleep, and slept all through the afternoon and the next night and did not wake in the morning. When the sun was high people said, ' Is the old woman sick .'^ Why has she not come out } '

They went to look and she was still sleeping, so they roused her and at once she said, ' All ye men get your adzes and together go and chop down that tree and get more of those fish, for they have no equal for flavour, they are so savoury that I cannot compare them to anything.'

So the men of the two clans Lavarata and Aurana took their adzes and went with Duagau as leader and chopped and chopped, but the tree was bigger than any other tree for it was a bariaua tree\

When evening came the men returned to the village and slept, but as soon as they had left the tree all the chips made by their adzes found the places in the tree trunk from which they had been cut and grew together again. So in the morning when the men came back the tree appeared untouched and as strong as ever, and although they hacked away all day they could not fell that tree, and in the night the chips and splinters joined together once more.

The next day the men again attacked the tree, and a little boy took a large chip to play with, and used it as a shield in playing a spear game with the other children; and when that child went with his mother to the hills in the evening he dropped his toy shield and it sprouted. They call the name of that village Modewa to this day because of the tree that grew there'". In the morning the men found that though the

• For use of the term bariaua see footnote, p. 396 and chapter XLViii.

^ It is not unlikely that the village of Modewa, the origin of which is here described, is identical with the original or legendary village of origin of the folk of the Modewa clan of Wagawaga (cf. chapter xxxiv). At Taupota it is stated that certain of the Taupota clans are derived from the same stock or stocks as some Milne Bay clans, and certain of the Milne Bay and Taupota clans still continue a more or less regular interchange of food. Local groups of the Lavarata clan mentioned in the story are found as far west as the head of Goodenough Bay where the clan may have originated, for Lavarata is a far-reaching word in this district for the north-west wind or the north-west monsoon, and hence has come to mean the north-westerly direction.

26 — 2

wound in the tree had nearly healed there was a gap left which looked as if a single large chip were missing.

At first they all wondered at this until one man remembered his boy's toy shield, so that day they collected all the chips as soon as they fell and made a fire and burnt them. Next day they felled the tree and as it crashed to the ground a great mass of water gushed out and settled on the low-lying land.

On the following day the Lavarata clan lied to the Aurana clan, for they said, ' To-day let us rest and feast, to-morrow we will go and collect fish ' ; but while the Aurana clan were dancing in a clearing the people of the Lavarata clan went to where the tree lay, taking with them all the best ornaments and pots and weapons and nets in the village. They pushed the tree trunk into the water and used the branches as paddles, and they were able to live within the hollow trunk of that tree, on account of its great size.

Presently the men of the Aurana clan missed the Lavarata folk, and when they looked, saw them disappearing away to the north-west and there were no fish and no utensils of any sort left to the Aurana'.

Now the people of the Lavarata clan had light-coloured skin just like albinos. The Aurana people waited for them to bring back the utensils and weapons they had taken, but they waited in vain. After this men made canoes, for in those days they had no canoes, in which to cross the sea.

When the white people came to Taupota everyone knew that they were the descendants of the old Lavarata clan, but because their fathers had taken all the utensils and weapons they had grown wise and become people of property, while the Aurana and other folk had stayed as they were.

22. THE FIG TREE.

(Awaiama.)

Once upon a time a woman gave birth to a child, and soon afterwards her husband went to the islands fishing for turtle and dugong ; he intended to smoke their flesh where he killed them but expected to come back next moon. Now the old woman, his mother, had powers of sorcery, and she said to

^ Aurana is said to be the name of an old village site.

Folk Tales her daughter-in-law, ' There are ripe figs on a fig tree not far away, cHmb up and get them'

But the young woman was still weak and did not want to go ; but the old woman urged her until she consented and climbed the tree. When she had got to the fork of the tree, the hag began to weave her spell, and she got excited and called out quite loudly, ' Hold her, hold her.'

'What's that you say, mother .f^' said the woman. * Nothing! nothing! I was talking to your children and telling them to gather up the figs quickly.' Then she began again calling vehemently and ending with, * Hold her tight, hold her tight.'

At this the fork of the fig tree (which was covered with a viscid substance) held the young mother so tightly that she could not struggle free. Then the old woman climbed up and cut off one of her daughter-in-law's hands. She climbed down and took the hand to her house and left it there while she went to get vegetable food to eat with it. As soon as the old hag had passed along the path and was out of hearing, the young woman called, ' Little ones ! little ones ! come and milk me, to feed your youngest brother,' and the children said, ' It is our mother, let us sfo and milk her.'

So they took two coconut cups and milked her into them and then fed the baby with this milk. Hardly had they finished when the hag came back again. ' What are you doing with those cups.^' she asked the children suspiciously. ' We were getting water from the stream for baby,' they said.

Next day the hag cut off the forearm and went as before to get taro to eat with her meat. As soon as she had gone the performance of the previous day was repeated, the children climbed up, milked their mother and fed the baby; the hag returned as they finished, but thought it was a repetition of the previous day's play.

The same thing happened on three successive days, the hag taking first the upper arm, next the shoulder and finally the breast.

After this the children listened for their mother's cry in vain, and they said, ' She is dead, now to-morrow the hag will try to kill us so we must hide.'

^ The tree referred to bears a fruit of a rich red colour when ripe. Dugong are occasionally speared in Goodenough Bay, the islands referred to in the story are probably the D'Entrecasteaux group.

4o6 The Southern Massim

The eldest child went to gather beetles, spiders, snakes, scorpions, centipedes, wasps, ants, and everything that stings. The second-born collected food and cups and bamboo-knives and utensils.

When this was done the eldest went to a gomida tree which grew close to a tall palm, he stood by it and said:

'Oh Gomida, big Gomida, bend down your top to help us, to help us little ones.'

Then the gomida bent down and the children all got in its branches with the stinging creatures and the food and utensils.

• Oh Gomida, straighten out your back to help us little ones.' And th^ gomida sprang back until its top leant against the palm Into which they all climbed, and then the gomida flew back to its usual place. When they were ensconced in the palm top they put the beetles and other stinging creatures around the trunk below them, and then ate nuts to appease their hunger.

By and by the old hag came back but could not find the children. * Little ones, little ones, where are you ? ' she called aloud ; and mumbled to herself, ' I'm afraid I've lost my little meats, perhaps they know about their mother.' Just then the children heard her and said, * Oh grandmother, we are here, up in this palm tree.' 'All of you ? ' ' Yes, all of us.' 'Good luck,' she said to herself, ' I was afraid my little meat provisions had run away from me.'

Next day she was hungry and wanted one of the children to eat. So after she had collected vegetable food she came and said, ' How does one get up?' ' Upside down,' said the eldest-born. So the hag began to climb up feet first, but no sooner had she got to the scorpions than they stung her. *Oh! oh! oh!' she said and got down and rubbed the part, with ashes. That day she had nothing to eat, so in the morning she came back and again asked how she ought to climb up. ' Side first,' said the eldest-born. So she climbed up side first and the snakes bit her in the side, and she cried out ' Oh ! oh ! oh ! ' and fell to the ground and covered her side with ashes.

Next day she was very hungry and said to the children, 'Little ones, how can you get up.'*' 'Head first,' said the eldest-born. Then she climbed up head first, but a wasp stung her in the cheek when she was half-way up and she fell

I

Folk Taies again, and covered her head with ashes and lay muttering and moaning.

Now it happened that their father dreamt of the children and changed his plans, and taking his nets and spears and fish came back to his home. Now when he got to the woman's house there was no one there. 'Ah!' said he, ' where are the little ones and their mother ? '

As he went down the river to bathe he was startled by a coconut falling quite close to him ; looking up he saw his children. ' How did you get up there ? Where is your mother?' said he. 'Our grandmother killed her,' said the eldest-born, 'and we fled here to avoid being killed.' Then calling to the gontida tree to let them down they descended to the ground and greeted their father.

He went to his house and began sharpening his long cutting tool and he ground and ground it until it was very sharp \

Then he called, * Mother, come and get your share of my fish, I know you are hungry for fish meat, come and get it ! ' But the hag who was moaning ' Oh my legs ! Oh my back ! Oh my head !' said, ' Let the eldest-born bring it.' ' He has gone to cut wood ! ' the father answered. ' Then let the second-born bring it.' ' She has gone to get water ! ' ' Then let the baby bring it.' ^ He is cleaning fish for me ! ' So she crawled out until she was under the ladder of the house. ' Throw it out here,' she said.

'No, it is good fish, come up here and get it.'

So she climbed up the house ladder groaning in pain as she did so, and as soon as her head appeared across the threshold her son cut her throat. Then he took all his things and burnt the two houses and went down to the beach and got on board his canoe with all his belongings and his three children, to cross over to the islands^ Now there

• ' Cutting tool,' i.e. anibori, literally ' a thing to cut with,' bori is ' to cut with a drawing motion,' ani is a prefix indicating instrument. It might of course be made of bamboo, but the verb used for sharpening is literally grind, whence may be supposed a stone instrument. This apparent reference to a cutting instrument of stone is especially interesting since a few prehistoric obsidian implements have recently been obtained from the northern coast of the Possession and from Goodenough Island. But these tools have all been made by flaking, not by grinding. Cf. Seligmann and Joyce, Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor. Oxford, 1907, pp. 326 — 328.

2 The houses were probably burnt to destroy anything personal that might be left in them, such as hair, teeth, or fragments of native cloth once worn by their former inhabitants, which if they fell into the hands of any sorcerer might be used

4o8 The Southern Massim was a strong current and the canoe made no headway, so the man threw out his youngest born to Hghten the canoe. But by-and-by the waves grew higher and higher and the man threw his second born overboard, and he and his eldest son bailed hard to keep their canoe afloat. And when night came on the canoe filled and as they were in the open sea, they soon drowned.

23. THE BOA CONSTRICTOR.

(Bou, Goodenough Bay.)

A boa constrictor gave birth to a daughter who looked like an ordinary girl. When she was full grown she began to go to other people's gardens and steal food.

One day a certain woman finding her food stolen said to herself, 'Who has come here and broken down sugar-cane and 07^abu and taken my food away.^*' Although she looked carefully she could find no traces of the thief, so she dug up her day's supply of vegetables and went back to her home on the beach.

As soon as she was out of sight, the snake's daughter, who had been hiding, came and pulled up more taro and carefully filled the holes in again, she also broke off an ample supply of sugar-cane and orabu^.

Now in the morning the woman again came to her garden and soon saw that food had been taken away, but she could not find any trace of the thief. This happened once more, so the woman told the men about it and one of the men remained in hiding to see who the thief could be.

Very soon the snake's daughter came and as usual dug up taro and took sugar-cane and orabu, she put it in her basket and slinging it over her shoulder prepared to go off

Then the man jumped up and seized her, and she cried for help, saying, 'Mother, mother, I am dying,' but the man said to her, ' Don't be frightened, I have caught you, and you shall be my wife.' So she went home with him to his house and lived there.

to bewitch their former owners. This custom of burning down their houses when a village site is entirely deserted is generally observed by the people of Awaiama and Taupota lying immediately to the east of Goodenough Bay.

• Orabu is the flower or more properly the bud of a species of bamboo-like rush common in the district. It is eaten roasted in its sheath or boiled.

After a while she bore a son, and one day she said to her husband, 'You stay here and be nurse, I will go to the gardens and get our food, if my mother should come while I am away don't be frightened.'

He remained by the child till noon, when suddenly an enormous snake came gliding along the path, every now and then she paused to look about her, and presently she came to the steps, leading up to the house, after satisfying herself that all was safe she entered and coiled herself under the net bag in which the child was sleeping. Then she raised her head to the bag and smelt and licked the young child and remained on the watch for some time and presently moved away into the bush.

By-and-by the woman came home and questioned her husband, saying, 'Has anyone been here .^' He answered her, 'No! but a snake came here.' 'Oh,' said the woman, 'that was my mother, why didn't you tell her to stay?'

That night while they were sleeping, the snake returned and woke the woman up and said, 'Let your husband go to the gardens to-morrow and you stay at home.'

So next day the man went to the gardens, and at midday the snake came just as before, and as there were no strangers about the snake came into the house, and coiled herself up under the net bag, smelt and licked the child, and the woman prevailed on her mother to stay with them.

When the man came home with the food they cooked it and all ate of it, and the old snake said, 'To-morrow both of you can go to work at the gardens, and I will mind the baby'; so both of them went, and about midday the snake took the baby and lengthened its legs so much that not only could it stand and walk, but it ran about and played outside the house.

When the woman and her husband came home the mother missed her child. 'Where is baby?' she asked her mother. 'Can't you see?' said the old woman, 'he is playing about outside.' 'My poor little son,' said the woman, 'why have you made him able to run about like that?' Then the old snake called out, 'Come here, sonny,' and the child came to her and she shortened his legs and said, 'The sun is from Tanama to Tauaga now, when it is from Kurada to Obiro then run about again'

1 'The sun is from Tanama to Tauaga now,' was stated to imply that the

4IO The Southern Massim

The woman said to her mother, 'To-morrow you go to the gardens,' so on the morrow the old snake went off to work and she broke off a single leaf of orabu and it became orabu buds, and a single leaf of sugar-cane became a stack of sugarcane and a taro leaf became a heap of taro, and then she came home again.

When they saw the food the man said to his wife, 'Tell our mother that she brings food from the gardens excellently well,' so she told her mother, who said, 'You two can go to the gardens to-morrow and I will stay.' But when they reached the gardens they found as much food as there had been and no sugar-canes were broken, and they looked at each other in surprise for there were no traces of food having been taken from that garden.

And this is why the mountain people have plenty of food, but it is not nice for it has been enchanted.

24. THE RAT AND THE BUTTERFLY.

(Wedau, Goodenough Bay.)

A rat and a butterfly made a canoe out of a chip of w^ood and adorned it with carvings and small cowry shells. They embarked in it and when they were out on the deep sea the rat broke wind. If you do that again, you will split our canoe,' said the butterfly. Presently the butterfly broke wind, 'Why did you talk to me just now.'' said the rat, 'it is you who will burst a hole in our canoe.'

'I don't care for I shall fly,' said the butterfly. 'And I shall have to swim,' said the rat.

So they went on, and first one and then the other broke wind, until at last the rat did it so vehemently that he split the bottom of the canoe, and it filled with water and sank.

The rat swam and the butterfly flew ahead. ' Don't leave incidents of the story took place about June or July. Tanama is one of the commonest names for Mount Victory a high mountain lying inland from Cape Nelson. Tauaga is a place on Normanby Island, so that the direction from Tanama to Tauaga is not, even roughly, the path of the sun in June or July. Kurada lies due west of the Bou district inland from Bartle Bay and Obira is a mountain nearly due east of the same area. From Kurada to Obira is not the path of the sun at any time. If the direction were reversed, from Obira to Kurada would indicate the direction of the sun's movement at the ecjuinoxes, so that an interval of either three or nine months would be indicated m the story as the time during which the child's legs were to grow.

me,' the rat called out to him, 'come back and we will keep together.'

When the butterfly got tired he came back and perched on his friend's head. 'Get off! we shall sink,' said the rat. 'It was you who split the canoe,' said the butterfly, 'I am on your head and you must swim to land.'

So the rat swam on while the butterfly was sitting on his head.

At last they reached shallow water and waded ashore, and the rat was so tired that he did not shake the water from his coat, but lay down to rest while his friend the butterfly started off in quest of food. The butterfly went to a banana garden and sucked the juice exuding from over ripe bananas, and presently the rat went to a sugar-cane patch, climbed a juicy cane and began to gnaw it. He gnawed and he gnawed, till suddenly the cane broke, and falling over towards him held him in the notch he had made. 'Ki ki ki,' he cried out and the butterfly came to help his friend, but he was already dead: so he wrapped him up in an aravi mat and called to all his fellows.

Many butterflies came and together they carried the rat to the grave they had prepared for him. Now the kite saw the procession and said, 'What feast is this of yours, my friends.-^' But they would not tell him. The osprey said, 'What meat have you got wrapped up there, you fellows.'^' But they didn't answer him. The other carrion birds also asked them, but the butterflies carried the rat away and buried him safely.

25. THE LIZARD AND THE BIRD.

(Wamira, Goodenough Bay.)

One day a green tree lizard went fishing with a bird ; they built a dam, and when the stream was turned aside they fished in the pools of the river bed. As it was a good season they were very successful, and after they had collected their fish, they placed them in two heaps and wrapped them in leaves and rushes. Then they went up stream to wash themselves after their work.

After they had bathed the lizard said to the bird, 'Try how long you can dive and hold your breath.' The bird

412 The Southern Masshn dived but had to come up almost immediately. 'What a short breath you have,' said the lizard, 'watch me.'

Saying this, he dived, and when under water swam down stream until he reached the bundles of fish. He gfot out stealthily and ate the bird's share, but packed the bones and head in the bundle again which made it look as if it had not been touched. Then he dived in again, swam back and came up in front of the bird who was beginning to believe the lizard was drowned.

'What a long breath is yours,' said the bird; 'I was thinking you were drowned.'

They went back and got their parcels of fish. ' How light my bundle is,' said the bird; 'so is mine,' said the lizard, and they went to the village.

When the poor bird opened his bundle and found only bones he thought some enchanter had eaten his fish, and so went to sleep supperless.

Next day they went fishing together and after they had caught their fish they had a diving match, and again the bird found that his bundle contained only bones. But when the bird saw that his fish had disappeared while the lizard's had not, he began to suspect the lizard's diving, and so when the same thing occurred next day he put a spring in the water near to the place where they had left their fish. When the lizard dived, all was still for a few moments and then something began to move rapidly in the water downstream, the bird ran down and found the lizard in his snare.

Upbraiding him for his deceit the bird took a big pole and hit him repeatedly on the head so that he soon killed him, then taking him out of the snare he made a fire and roasted the lizard. When he had made a good meal of his former friend and hidden some parts to eat on the morrow he went home with a double bundle of fish.

The lizard's wife asked where her husband had gone and the bird answered, T don't know, he came home by himself along the plantation path, I came by the river path.'

And next day the bird ate the remainder of the lizard and threw the bones into the stream.

I

26. THE COCK.

(Wedau, Goodenough Bay.)

Once there lived a cock at Diriuna, and it was his duty to give a return feast to the other birds, so he asked some of them who were Hving in his own community to go and get the fire with which the food was to be cooked. But they all refused, saying that they would have to go far before they would find fire, and so the cock set out to get the fire for himself He hurried along, and in the evening reached an uninhabited beach called Lavolavora, and slept there; next day he again travelled as quickly as he could, seeking fire in all the villages through which he passed, until he came to Porotona which is about thirty miles east of Diriuna. Here at last he found fire and a girl gave him a firestick. He was about to hurry back with this, when the girl asked him where he lived. He told her and explained that he was making a feast, and since she had given him the brand he invited her to come and take part in the feast, of course expecting her to bring such food as coconuts which men possessed but the birds had not. The girl told her father of the cock's invitation, and because her father coveted the cock and its beautiful plumage, he agreed to take his daughter to the feast, bringing coconuts with him, in the hope that they would be able to catch the bird. When the father and his daughter arrived at Diriuna they found all the birds assembled ready for the feast ; and the girl pointed out the cock to her father. Now the girl and her father had travelled to the feast in a canoe, and after hailing the cock, they tried to induce him to swim out to them, tempting him with the coconuts and areca nuts which they had in their canoe. Perhaps, too, they feared the other birds, but as the cock would not swim out to them they were forced to bring their canoe to land, and when the cock came for the areca nuts they seized him, flung him into the canoe and pushed off All the birds, including hawks, cassowaries and flocks of smaller birds, rushed to rescue the cock, but as they came the man cursed them, saying: 'If you attack us you will never be able to fly again and will be forced to crawl or walk for ever.' This so frightened the birds that they all gave up the pursuit, except a few, who on account of the curse lost their power of flight.

The cassowary was one of these and since then he has lived in thick forests and can only run away when attacked. The man carried the cock eastward and kept him near his house and fed him, and only the cassowary and a few other birds who had brought the curse upon themselves by trying to rescue the cock remained at Diriuna.

27. THE DUN PIG.

(Wamira, Goodenough Bay.)

There was in former time an enormous pig which used to make fearful inroads on the gardens, and not satisfied with this, it devoured men and women, so that the villagers all crossed over to the islands for fear of the pig\

Now there was a certain woman great with child, and she dared not embark in the canoe, but dug out a hole in a hollow tree stump and remained there. After a few days she orave birth to a son ; she still remained in the hollow tree and in time the youngster was weaned and crawled about, and later he grew into a strong young man.

When he had attained full manhood he remembered his mother's words, for one day when he asked her where the children and village people were of whom she talked, she had said, 'Do not play in the open, our people have all crossed over to the islands, because of an ogre, a pig, who ate many of them; if he sees you he will kill you and eat you.' So remembering this he went into the scrub and began cutting down trees for spears; when he had cut a number he split them, notched and barbed them, and put them in the smoke to season.

On the morrow and the next day he did the same until after many weeks he had an enormous number of spears. Then he built a series of long and high platforms and on these he stacked the spears, and it was a strange sight that no one had ever seen before.

Now the pig ogre espied this building of platforms from

^ The native name is Poro Gwale and the word gwale is equivalent to the English word dun or perhaps red-brown. The title distinguishes this story from another, the succeeding one, called Paro or Dabedabe. Presumably the word gwale is merely put in to distinguish the story as in none of the three other versions (Awaiama, Taupota, Bolanai) of this story of which we know does it occur except in the title, A variant of this story was found in the Trobriands.

his lair in the mountains, and on the morrow he came down and arrived at the edge of the first platform.

When the young man saw him he began to rain his spears on him, but the pig only shook himself in his rage and got more and more furious as the huge spears pricked and battered him. Each time he shook himself, the spears snapped off in his flesh and before long he broke down the platform, however, the young man leapt nimbly on to the next platform and again showered his spears on the pig- As fast as the pig demolished one platform, the youth leapt to another, until on the last platform there was a spear, the like of which has never been seen, this he thrust into the great beast's mouth and killed him.

Now when the pig was dead the youth plucked out all the great bristles on his body, and lashing a raft together put them on it and said, 'Go away, go away, and arrive at a country where people are sad and mourning, do not stop where folk are happy.'

So the raft floated away, until it came to the country where the exiles were sojourning and when they saw it they knew that their enemy the pig ogre was dead, and that they could return in safety; so they came back to their country, and after making a great feast of the pig, they lived there in peace.

28. DABEDABE.

(Gelaria, Goodenough Bay.)

There was once a sow who gave birth to a litter consisting of a number of pigs and a boy. A man returning from his garden found the litter, took the boy home, and gave him to his wife to suckle. As the boy grew up he worked in the garden with the other villagers, and shared their food, but one day when they were going hunting they told him to stay behind and work in the garden. In the evening when he returned to the village he saw pots of meat cooking and asked, 'What meat is that.'^'

'Only wild pig.'

'You have killed my mother and brothers,' he said, and refused to eat any. When the food had been consumed, he collected all the bones and put them in a bag, and at night he

4i6 The Southern Massim went with them over the mountains, until he came to a river. Here he washed himself and one of the bones — this bone immediately became a pig and he allowed it to escape in the bush. As he travelled westwards he washed himself and some of the pig bones in a number of rivers, and wherever he did so pigs were formed and took to the bush.

At last he came to a village whose folk he joined and with whom he lived, but because his body was covered with sores he had but one friend, a little boy who looked after him.

One day news was brought to the village, of a big feast to be held inland and some of his neighbours went to this, while the sick man sent the little boy to see if the report were true, and to ascertain whether wallaby meat or man would be eaten at the feast.

In due time the boy came back and said: 'When I poked the animals they said, "Oh, oh, don't do that."'

' They must be men, then,' said Dabedabe (this is the first mention of his name), ' I will go there.'

Taking his bag containing the remainder of the pig bones he set out, and when he arrived at the scene of the feast he bathed all the bones, with the result that they all became pigs. Then he persuaded the people of that village to set the captives free and to feast on the flesh of the pigs he had given them instead.

They did so, and held a walaga, and ever since pigs instead of men have been eaten at walaga^.

29. THE MAPA TREE.

(Goodenough Bay.)

Once upon a time there was a mapa tree and it was the largest mapa tree in the country, for it was a bariaua tree and it bore only five nutsl

By-and-by one of the nuts ripened and fell to the ground, and there in place of the nut stood a boy adorned with paint and feathers and bearing a spear, shield and string-bag. After speaking affectionately to the four nuts still upon the tree he

^ The walaga is the biggest ceremony of the peoples living in the neighbourhood of Hartle Bay. Cf. chapter XLV,

^ Mapa is the Polynesian chestnut Terminalia catappa.

Folk Tales walked along the beach, spearing several fish as he went along, until at last he came to a village.

In that village a woman was cooking and her husband had gone to the bush to look for game. She saw the boy and said, ' Come here, my son, put your fish and bag down in the house and go and climb that coconut tree and get yourself a nut to drink.' When he reached the top of the tree, he asked, * How many nuts shall I pick '^ '

' Pick two,' she said, so he picked two. * Now,' she said, 'climb down head first,' so he climbed down head first and she cut his head off with her sharp pearl-shell. She threw the body away but put the head in a cooking-pot and boiled it and she ate it and it was delicious.

Her husband came back and saw the fish. 'Where did you get this fish .^^ ' said he. 'Ah,' said she, 'if you fished where I fished you would get the fish that I get.' And as she was already satisfied she let him have all the fish for himself. Now the second nut fell, and became a boy, and it happened to him even as to the first. And it was the same with the third and fourth, all were killed by the woman with the sharp pearl-shell. When the fifth fell and became a boy, he spoke affectionately to the tree, and said farewell to it before he started along the beach. He speared several fish, and coming to the old woman's village found her sharpening her pearl-shell knife. He saluted her, 'How do you do, my mother } Have you seen my four brothers go along this way 1 '

'Yes, my son,' she said. 'Do you put your fish down, and climb up and get a young coconut for your drinking as they did, and then we will cook your fish.' He obeyed her and called from the top of the tree ' How many nuts?' ' Two,' she replied, but the boy picked every nut on the tree ripe, and unripe, and threw them down. ' Now,' she said, ' climb down head first.' ' That is not the method where I was born,' said he, ' I shall come down feet first,' and in spite of her persuasions he came down feet first and jumped the last few feet.

Snatching the pearl-shell from the old woman he cut her head off with it, and then hiding her body prepared the head and left it in the pot to cook. Then he climbed into an areca palm and waited.

In the evening the husband came back and looked in vain

4i8 The Southern Massim for the wife, but seeing the pot sat down and began to eat the stew inside. The boy saw this and began to chaff him making insulting remarks about him, but his voice was distant and thin and the old man said, ' That must be a parrot.'

When he had finished eating he again looked for his wife and this time he came upon her body. The boy called out again, and the man saw him, and the boy told the man how he had eaten his own wife's head and the man was very angry, and ran and got a sharp adze. He came back and began to hack at the areca palm but just before it fell the boy jumped into another palm, so the man began to cut that down ; but before it fell he jumped Into another, and then to another, until all the areca palms were cut down, then he crossed to a coconut and so on until all the coconut palms were cut down except one. Then the boy threw a coconut down and hit the man on the head and killed him.

30. GAMEY LEG AND SLEEPY LEG.

{Mukaua, Goodenough Bay.)

One day two men went to the gardens, one of them had a game leg and his friends poked fun at him on account of his leg and said, 'Supposing the Hill people were to come down and surprise us, what could you do .'^ ' 'Why, I should run,' answered he.

'You run, I'd like to see you,' laughed his friend.

When they got to the gardens they worked for awhile and then taking some stone flakes shaved each other's heads.

All of a sudden the man with sound legs cried out: ' Look, look ! There are the Hill folk coming, let us run away,' but he had been sitting on his leg and it had gone to sleep, so that as soon as he stood up he fell down again.

Gamey leg jumped up and hobbled away, but the Hill people caught Sleepy leg before his leg had recovered and they cut him up and ate him.

31, KUKUKU AND WAIMA.

(Menapi, Goodenough Bay.)

Once upon a time an ant [waima) lived with a bird called Kukuku and they were very great friends.

I

One day they made a big pig-net and Kukuku said, ' Let us go and hunt with our new net.' So they started off and soon reached the grass country which was to be their hunting ground, and they agreed that the ant should watch by the net while the bird beat for pigs.

By and by Kukuku found a big pig, and started him off towards the net, at the same time crying out, ' Where are you, Waima ? Look out well ! There's a pig coming along,' so the ant stood up and when the pig got tangled in the net stung him in both eyes, and when he couldn't see he speared him and hid him in the grass.

When Kukuku came up he said, ' Well '^. What has happened to the pig } ' At first the ant lied to him, saying, ' I don't know,' but after a while he said, ' Go and cut a sapling and pull down some lengths of creeper,' and whea the bird came back Waima showed him the pig and said, 'You bring the spears and net along and I'll carry the pig^'

When they got home they cleaned and cut up their pig and debated which of them should take the entrails down and wash them in the sea } After a little while Kukuku said, ' Brother, I'll take them and wash them and you cook the pig.'

Now when he went to the beach a fish-hawk swooped down and snatched the entrails from him and flew off with them and he had to go back empty handed.

' Where are the entrails ? ' demanded Waima when Kukuku got back. ^ Our master the fish-hawk fancied them,' said Kukuku, so there was nothing to do but to eat their pig, and then lie down and sleeps

Next day they went hunting again and this time it was agreed that Kukuku was to stand by the net whilst Waima did the beating.

^ The sapling and creeper would be used in carrying home the pig. The legs of the dead pig would be tied together and the sapling passed between them ; a pig slung in this way is comfortably carried by two men, though in the story it appears that one man would carry the pig.

2 'Our master' is used as a term of respect for the fish-hawk {manubada) is looked upon as the chief of the birds.

Further, the members of the Aurana clan who have 7na?iubada for their bird totem out-number the folk of any other clan in Goodenough Bay, and so hold the highest position among the clans of this part of the coast, so that it is with pride that a man says ' I am of the Aurana.'

Again, girls will sometimes speak of another older girl as '•au bada^ that is 'my master,' 'mistress' or 'lord,' where probably European children would say 'So-andso is a friend of mine, I know her well.'

27 — 2

By-and-by the ant roused a big pig from his lair and called out, ' Kukuku, Kukuku, there's such a big pig coming towards you,' but when he heard this Kukuku was frightened and hid in the bushes until the pig had passed when he took his spear and struck it into a gaguma tree so that the red sap flowed on to the spear.

When he could find no more pigs Waima came along and said, ' Where's our pig ? ' Kukuku pointed to his spear and said, ' I speared it but it was too big, it broke down the net, shook my spear out and got away.' And the ant asked, ' Where did it go .'^ ' 'I don't know,' said Kukuku, ' I speared it but it got away.'

So that night they had no meat to eat.

Next day the ant was in charge of the nets and killed a nice pig, and they cleaned it as on the first day, but this time a kestrel carried off the entrails when Kukuku should have washed them.

The ant found out that whenever Kukuku took the intestines to wash he became frightened and let them fall when other birds came near, and so when they next killed a pig he said, * I am not going to lose the tit-bit again, I will take the intestines and wash them myself, while you get wood and make a fire and cook our pig.'

When Waima reached the beach a hornbill swooped down and tried to carry off the intestines, but Waima stung him in both eyes and killed him and carried him back after he had washed the intestines.

When Kukuku saw the dead hornbill he was horrified :

• What have you done, brother ? All the birds will seek vengeance for this and will make war on us for killing our master, alas ! alas ! '

' If they do,' said Waima, ' I shall hide in a tutuana tree.' ' But where can I hide ? ' said Kukuku, * wherever I go the birds can follow me.' So Waima went and hid in a tutuana tree and Kukuku remained alone thinking of the flocks of birds who would soon miss the hornbill and set out to find or avenge him.

When the birds came they soon found Kukuku and hunted him into the long grass, but they looked in vain for Waima because the ant had returned to his relations and together they built their homes in the tutuana tree, which is thick and leafy. But when they had built many houses the birds saw

Folk Tales them and met together and took counsel as to what they should do.

One bird said, ' I will try and break into their houses,' but when he tried the ants stung his eyes and he fell dead, other birds tried with the same result until nearly all lay dead beneath the tutuana tree. The crow, however, had been looking on from a tree near by, and he said to the few left, ' Let me try,' and he began to tear the leaves off the ants' houses, but they could not sting his eyes for he kept them shut, and so he broke up all the leaf houses to the very top of the tree, and there were hardly any ants left, save only a few who hid in the bark of the tree. But the crow came down and feasted on the dead ants under the tree.

And this is why all the birds fear to live in tutuana trees, because the ants build there, and the kukuku never again dared to perch in trees, and to this day lives hidden in the long grass.

CHAPTER XXXIV

GEOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS AND HISTORY. Wagawaga.

The south-eastern extremity of the mainland of British New Guinea is formed by two peninsulas, enclosing between them a considerable sheet of water known as Milne Bay. This bay is some ten miles across at its mouth, and extends westward between its containing peninsulas for rather more than twenty miles. Both peninsulas are hilly, and on both, jungle-clad hills which soon become tall enough to be called mountains, approach closely to a narrow beach. Passing in a westerly direction, beyond the head of the bay, these hills rise to a height of some 3,500 feet, not in a solid line but rather as a succession of bush-clad knolls and slopes, separated by shallow valleys and scored everywhere by zigzag gullies. Only the south shore of Milne Bay was visited ; the land between the sea and the hills is a flat fertile plain, only a few feet above high-water mark, narrow to the eastward but widening rapidly till it sweeps round the head of the bay and narrows again on the north shore. The drainage of the country about the bay is effected by a number of small streams and creeks and two rather larger rivers at its head. The banks of the lower reaches of these streams are thickly planted with coconuts, areca nuts, palms and other trees among which are situated the houses of their owners ; Plate XLIX is a view taken on the Maivara River at the head of the bay.

Discovery Bay, where we anchored, is a roughly semicircular bay some three-quarters of a mile across, in the southern peninsula containing Milne Bay. Here the flat coastal zone is about three-quarters of a mile wide, with, the natives say, a narrow belt of swamp land close to the hills. The surface soil

Plate XLIX

Scene on Mai vara River

Plate L

Hamlet on Rogea Island

I

Plate LI

Hamlet on Teste Island

Geographical Relations and History 423

is a rich clay of no great thickness, judging by sections cut by the small streams, but deep enough to make excellent gardens. A crescent of coconut trees stretches along the edge of Discovery Bay, among which are many houses standing alone or in small groups such as are shown in Plate L. The photograph reproduced in this plate was taken from the fringing reef off Rogea Island and similar small settlements stretch a little way up each of the two rather insignificant streams which empty into Discovery Bay and supply the natives of Wagawaga with fresh water.

At first sight the houses scattered around the curve of the bay appear to form one village, using this term in the ordinary European sense, and they are so regarded by the white men who visit it, be they government officers, traders, or missionaries, all of whom apply the word Wagawaga to the whole of the scattered houses around this bay.

This however is a misapplication of the name, each group of houses constitutes a hamlet in the sense defined in the Introduction (p. 8), and Wagawaga is merely the name of one of the strongest hamlets.

It is as a matter of convenience that a number of hamlets built in contiguity with each other and acting together for purposes of offence and defence are collectively spoken of by one name. As stated in the Introduction (p. 9) I apply the term hamlet-group to such a collection of hamlets.

The hamlets of Wagawaga and Tubetube vary considerably in size. Etuyawa hamlet of Wagawaga has but a single house, while large hamlets contain from twelve to twenty houses. Such a large number of houses is not however usual, and I am under the impression that from four to eight houses is the ordinary number constituting one hamlet-group. • Plate LI shows a two-house hamlet on Wari (Teste Island) which is in every way typical of a Massim hamlet.

The relative position of the hamlets of Wagawaga, to use the term commonly applied to the whole of the Discovery Bay hamlet-group, are shown in figure 34. Their names from West to East are : Kanabwahi.

Duria, inhabited by an immigrant stock, originally from near I^st Cape, who have assumed a Wagawaga clan and whose foreign origin has been almost forgotten.

The Southern Massim s a o o

Geographical Relations and History 425

Hehego, where there are a few folk of the same immigrant stock from Basilaki as those who have settled at Yabarawa. Modewa. Suaiaro. Kasaiauura. Taradiu.

Wagawaga Pupuna. Wagawaga. Etuyawa. A one-house hamlet, its owner being a rather recent immigrant. Yabarawa. A portion of the old land of this hamlet has been occupied by immigrants from Basilaki, and these folk practically constitute an additional hamlet. Tubetube and Birobiro. These hamlets are extinct, but their sites still bear their old names. Dobuapa. Excluding certain immigrants the inhabitants of the hamlets of Wagawaga belong to three stocks or clans — for the terms are here synonymous — called respectively Garuboi, Modewa and Hurana. The oldest of the present Wagawaga settlements are almost certainly those of the Garuboi stock who now inhabit the hamlets of Wagawaga, Wagawaga Pupuna, Kasaiauura, Suaiaro and Kanabwahi, and it is noteworthy that the name of one of these hamlets is that given to the whole hamlet-group when the latter is spoken of in its broadest sense.

It is said that long ago each of the three Wagawaga stocks lived in the bush, the name of the site being perpetuated in that of the stock, but it was so long ago that even the direction of these ancestral settlements has been forgotten and the actual known origin of the Garuboi stock of Wagawaga is from a bush settlement called Bobowa, in the neighbourhood of a place called Dagama\

Long ago there was a settlement called Bobowa near Dagama, which is far away in the bush. The story tells how once upon a time a party of Bobowa men attempted to eat certain edible roots called rikedi (apparently a kind of taro), before they were properly cooked, but finding that they were not yet soft, put them in the hot ashes again. When they

1 My notes suggest that this is the name of a hill, but the matter is by no means clear.

were properly cooked another Bobowa man took them away and ate them. The original owners of the taro were much annoyed, and when they discovered the thief a good deal of recrimination followed and a few more or less harmless blows were struck. Each clan took the part of their clansman, and the next morning finding the matter had not been settled by a night's rest, a party of men left Bobowa, and came to a place called Gumeni, described as being between Gibara and Maivara. Here they made a settlement, and stayed long enough to give a big feast (toreha). Among the visitors to this feast was a man from the coastal settlement of Bwari Keroro, in Milne Bay. Here a woman of Gumeni, one Sinedadaiya, took a violent fancy to him, and apparently without waiting to attract his attention asked him to give her some areca nut, which was equivalent to a declaration of attachment. When the Bwari man returned to his home, Sinedadaiya followed him, and when his folk asked the man what the stranger was doing among them, and even suggested that they might kill and eat her, he explained that she had come with him because she wished to live with him ; this was accepted as a valid reason for her presence, and from their children the present Garuboi stock of Wagawaga are said to have sprung.

The eastern extremity of the Wagawaga hamlet-group, namely the folk of Dobuapa and Yabarawa and those who formerly inhabited the hamlets of Birobiro and Tubetube, as well as those living at Modewa, belong to the Modewa stock and have not been settled in Discovery Bay for more than four generations. Duria hamlet, which came originally from near East Cape, is to-day counted as belonging to the Modewa stock, into which its inhabitants have been absorbed by adoption.

The early history of the Modewa stock is stated to be as follows : — Bwari is the name given by the inhabitants of Wagawaga to the remains of an island off Rogea, which is nearly opposite the hamlet of Logeapata. Long ago there were plenty of people with gardens on Bwari, but an earthquake shattered the island and sank the greater part of it beneath the sea. Many of its inhabitants met their death instantly, others climbed into a big tree, and of these many fell into the sea owing to the snapping of the branches, and were drowned. Soon the tree broke off short and split into fragments, but men held to the largest branches and so drifted

Geographical Relatioiis and History d;ij from the scene of the disaster. One piece, with men upon it, drifted to Wari (Teste Island), another reached Tubetube, a third came ashore at DahunI near Bonabona, another drifted to the foot of the hill on the mainland, opposite Samarai, on which stands the settlement of Pihoho. A Pihoho woman, going to the beach to get salt water, saw the remains of the tree with men clinging to it in a thoroughly exhausted condition, but being afraid to go near them she returned and told the Pihoho men to go to the beach. They did so, and, finding the castaways brought them to Pihoho, where, after taking the totems of their rescuers, they settled, took up land, and were adopted into Pihoho. About three generations ago, when Pihoho was much reduced, its people moved to what is now the eastern extremity of the Wagawaga hamlet-group, where they settled and fused with its people. The historical site of origin of the Hurana stock is said to have been near a large mass of rock called Tokea, which is within a day's walk of Discovery Bay.

The immigrants from Yabarawa and a few living at Hehego come from Basilaki where their parent hamlet Is Bagomanl. The householder of the one-clan hamlet Etuyawa comes from another hamlet-group in Milne Bay.

The total population of the Wagawaga hamlet-group including children may at the present day be taken to be between 300 and 400. The six houses of Wagawaga Pupuna and the five houses of Kanabwahi together contain 52 inmates, or counting people recently dead 58, giving an average population to a house of 47 or 5*2, according to which method is adopted.

Tubetube.

Geographically considered the hamlets of the island of Tubetube form three groups, one on the west coast and two on the south, separated from each other by spurs of that great central hill which occupies so large a portion of the island. Besides these groups one hamlet, Hanawesu, lies apart a little distance south and east of the other settlements. The division between the western and the most northern of the southern settlements consists of a narrow but steep and high ridge terminating in an abrupt rocky promontory. It is only possible to pass comfortably around the promontory at low water, while the path over the hill entails a stiff climb.

The houses are all built on sandy fiat ground fringing the beach, along the south and west coasts of the island, never on the slopes of the central hill, and with the exception of Hanewesu they are limited to the groups already mentioned \

Some of the gardens lie behind the houses, but much of the comparatively flat land on the north coast is used for cultivation.

The hamlets of Tubetube which, as already mentioned, occupy only its western and southern sides are called : Paie.

Topabarira. Simuroroi. Marapisi. Gerediwa.

Dagedagera includes its offshoots Wailakera and Tupwana, as yet only partly independent and still generally spoken of as part of Dagedagera. Mr Giblin points out that tupwana literally means a portion or fraction.

Dekwasoso, a colony from the neighbourhood of East

Cape. Kasapai.

Panare, a colony, but not from Duau, whence came the founders of the Tubetube community ; it is said to be originally of common origin with the Modewa stock of Wagawaga.

Lekekeu, a deserted hamlet, the old men having died out and the younger folk shifted to Hanavesu. K wasak wasauusi. Tearuwasi. Dekawaiisa. Hanawesu. The Tubetube community originated as a colony from the hamlet of Bebwaiya on Duau. The colonisation was a peaceful split from Bebwaiya, the first Tubetube settlement being formed by men of the Gegera totem on the site now called Dagedagera. After these came more Gegera men and people of other totems, Paie, Marapisi, and Dakawaiisa being the original colonies of the Kisakisa, Maidaba, and Magesubu men respectively. It was said that at this time the traffic to and from Duau was carried on in moderate sized Duau-built canoes of the pattern now known at Tubetube as kebwaii.

It was said that previous to settling at Bebwaiya the founders of Tubetube lived at Dobu, before which their home

• The shallow wells which give the only supply of water constant enough to depend upon in the dry season are also situated on the flat behind the beach.

Geographical Relations and History 429

sue tSAKISA

^ TopaI>arira. r-n KISAKISA

MarapisL MAIDABA

SimuLroroi GEGCRA

Jera.

GELSERA

■>"Wailaki GEGERA r — iTapwBcna. GEGCRA

(""^MISSION COMPOUND

□ DeksTBSos KISAKISA

□ Kasapai GEGERA

IPaxuare GEGERA

' ' KISAKISA

Fig. 35. Plan of the hamlets of Tubetube.

430 The Southern Massitn was on an Island near Duau called Wagilona, while some informants carrying the history of their ancestors even further back, stated that they originally lived at Kelrara (Keherara) near East Cape.

At the present day certain Tubetube men have rights in land upon the neighbouring Island of Narunaruwari, where the present Hanawesu stock at one time formed a settlement as the result of a quarrel between Lekekeu and themselves. The return of the Hanawesu people to their present site on Tubetube is a comparatively recent event, and certainly took place within the past thirty years, while a quite recent immigration of a stock or stocks, called Koiaria by the men of Tubetube, has peopled Naruwaruwari, though it is not clear whether the Koiaria alone constitute its present inhabitants.

Bartle Bay. (By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. GIblin.)

Bartle Bay is a shallow indentation, roughly of crescentic shape, in the south coast of Goodenough Bay, lying some 50 miles to the west of East Cape. The distance from horn to horn of the crescent is about 5 miles, the direction of a line joining the two being roughly east and west. The country surrounding Bartle Bay is generally speaking hilly and broken, without any strikingly preponderant mountains, hills or valleys, though the loftiest hills in its vicinity reach a height of about 3,cxxD feet. At the eastern extremity of Bartle Bay, the hilly promontory which constitutes Cape Frere juts into the sea, but west of this the hills recede from the shore, leaving a narrow plain and a series of terraces between the beach and the hills behind the bay. The plain, which is traversed by the Wamira River and another smaller stream, is remarkably fertile, and bears the gardens of the folk of Wedau and Wamira, the two communities whose settlements stretch along the greater part of the edge of the pebbly beach of the bay. The houses are usually low and oblong, and built upon the ground as in Plate LII, but a few are raised upon piles. The people of Wedau and Wamira present practically no differences in physical character and habit, and share many customs, so that it has not seemed necessary to separate them in the following pages, though in every instance where it cannot be positively

Plate LI I

"^

Houses at Boianai, Bartle Bay

Geographical Relations and History 431

asserted, as the result of specific inquiry, that a custom holds good for both communities, the locality in which information was obtained is recorded.

The people of the small settlements situated among the hills behind Bartle Bay closely resemble the people of Wedau and Wamira, though they speak a different dialect. Our notes on these people were obtained from the inhabitants of a small area or district called Gelaria, some five miles up the Wamira River, which discharges into Bartle Bay somewhat to the east of Wedau. Gelaria was also the name of a now extinct settlement inhabited by the people of Madawa Deba which, together with the existing hamlets Kirawa and Olavui, constitute the existing Gelaria community. Tanopota, Yadiyadina, Dola, Topa, communities further up-stream as far as Garagaradi, some 20 miles from the mouth of the river, speak the same language. The houses of all these inland communities are built on piles.

At the present day Wamira consists of two parts only a few yards from the sea, which they face. The older and more westerly part is called Wadubo, the easterly part is called Rumaruma, and is only three generations old, for the present Rumaruma site was occupied by the gardens of Wadubo folk in the time of the grandfather of the present chief [gulau) of Wadubo. It is said that Wadubo became so populous that some of its people began to live more and more in their gardens, and to build better garden houses, till the settlements (apparently Inibuena was the first) of the present Rumaruma came into existence. Gradually Rumaruma became to some extent estranged from Wadubo and, not knowing the chief [gulau) of Wadubo well, paid little attention to his authority and elected a chief of its own. During a time of scarcity a number of people of Radava (one of the two groups into which the settlement usually known as Boianai is divided') came to Wamira and, making friends with the Iriki clan who gave them garden land, settled at Wadubo.

Each moiety of Wamira comprises a number of small settlements called melagai which, although they may consist of members (i.e. house-owners) of a single clan, are more usually

^ Of Boianai Mr Newton says : ' Boianai consists of two distinct settlements almost intermingling, but socially very distinct indeed. In fact, I am not sure they were not enemies in the olden days. One settlement is called Radava, the other Boianai. Both consist of many clans.'

made up of a small number of houses belonging to two, three, or four clans, though even within these small settlements the houses of each clan are generally grouped together\

Obviously these melagai are not the equivalent of hamletgroups of INIilne Bay and Tubetube, while even the smaller groups of which they consist are not necessarily hamlets in the sense defined in the Introduction (page 8). These points may be illustrated by considering the constitution of Damaladona, the largest of the melagai of the Wadubo moiety of Wamira. This contains fifteen houses belonging to four clans, the houses of each of which are grouped together to form four named groups as shown in figure 36, for which I am indebted to the Rev. P. J. Money.

These groups are :

(i) Gunupora, with three houses belonging to clan Nabunabu.

(ii) Gora, with one house belonging to clan Gora and two houses belonging to clan Anibolanai.

(iii) Damaladona or Waduduvuna, with five houses belonging to clan Iriki, two houses belonging to the Radava clan and one to clan Derama. There is also a potuma and this is used by men of the Damaladona clans and perhaps by other men of Wamira. Sometimes the part of Damaladona marked on the plan Waduduvuna is spoken of as a separate settlement under that name.

(iv) Gado, with one house belonging to clan Iriki.

It will be noted that only two of the groups enumerated, namely, Gunupora and Gado, are hamlets in the sense in which the term is used in this volume.

The Wedau community resembles that of Wamira and contains some eighteen settlements, each having a name of its own and composed of from one to five houses. Almost every settlement has inhabitants, i.e. house-owners, of more than one clan, though this of course was not the case with one-house settlements, of which there were three in 1904, nor with a three-house settlement called Wanabu. The whole of Wedau, which consists of forty-seven houses belonging to members of fourteen clans, acknowledges the chieftainship of Bamdiri of Ari settlement of the Manibolanai clan.

Wedau, Damaladona and several other groups of houses

^ Literally melagai appears to mean the clear dancing place belonging to a particular group of people.

I

Geographical Relations and History 433

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434 The Southern Massini are named after coral or other rocks situated in these settlements, the names being applied to particular rocks. One of us has seen a native kick a rock, of which only about two cubic feet are above ground, and say pointing to it, ' That is Wedau.' At Imimira, one of the melagai of Wamira, there is a small coral rock, called Garuboi, which scarcely projects above the soil. The most strenuous endeavours failed to discover any connection between this stone and the Gelaria clan of the same name, and it appeared that to the people of Wamira the word itself has no meaning.

In Garia there are three clans : Garuboi, Girimoa and Elewa. The settlements of the three clans are distinct, but are situated within a few yards of each other. Each hamlet consists of from one to three houses, some i8 feet long by 1 2 broad, raised on piles. The houses are roughly made and by no means strongly put together. A flimsy barrier about 1 8 inches high runs across the centre of each house separating it into two parts for the men and women respectively. The houses in spite of their limited size accommodate the whole family, using the term in its widest significance, i.e. the younger married members of the family would not as a rule build fresh houses for themselves, but would continue to inhabit the house of their parents or parents-in-law, bringing their spouses to live with them. One of us (E. L. G.) visited a house at Mapiovi in which four married couples were living, but unfortunately the relationship they bore to each other was not ascertained.

Kirawa, belonging to the Elewa clan, the first hamlet reached when walking up-stream, has two houses with the remains of a third. All are in a more or less decayed condition. In one of the houses live the taniwaga (clan chief) and his wife, his sister and her husband, his two unmarried sisters, and his younger brother. The other house contains only its owner and his wife. Kirawa is a colony from Dola, and is perhaps some twenty years old.

Madawa Deba, belonging to the Garuboi clan, formerly had four houses but now has only three, the owner of one house which had become much decayed having shifted to a small hill above Olavui.

Olavui, the settlement of the Girimoa clan, consists of one house. In it are ten people, viz. father, mother, sons and daughters, and daughters-in-law.

CHAPTER XXXV

CLANS AND TOTEMS. CLANS AND CLAN-GROUPS.

Wagawaga.

Omitting certain Immigrant folk who are still looked upon more or less as strangers, there are three clans in Wagawaga the names of which are Garubol, Modewa and Hurana. Each of these has at least one bird totem with, in each case, a linked fish, snake and plant totem, all of which are Q.2S[^di pianai.

Referring to the history of Wagawaga given in the last chapter, It will be seen that the names of the Wagawaga clans are In two Instances the names of old bush settlements whence the clans or stocks are derived.

Excluding the people of Yabarawa and Etuyawa hamlets who, as already stated, are rather recent immigrants, there Is a dual grouping of the Wagawaga clans into clan-groups, as in the following scheme :

Clan-group Clan

Garuboi Garuboi

Modewa

Modewa ) Hurana (

As will be seen Immediately this dual grouping of the clans regulates the terms by which each person is addressed, while it formerly decided who should take part In the cannibal feast held In revenge for a member of the hamlet-group killed by a hostile community. Further, until recently it determined a particular form of exogamy, but with the extinction of warfare and cannibal feasts within the last few years, the dual grouping has so fallen Into decay as to be largely ignored In the regulation of marriage, although totem exogamy Is still quite generally observed \

^ These clan-groups resemble phratries in that a man may not marry a member of his own clan-group, and may marry a member of the other clan-group of the

28—2

Terms of address vary according to the clan-group of the individual spoken to. A native of Wagawaga of either sex In addressing an old man of his own clan-group, would call him ail (maternal uncle), and the speaker would be answered by the same term (meaning In this case sister's child). An old woman of the same clan-group as the speaker would be addressed as Jiina (mother), and In reply would use the term 7iat7i (child). A man will address an individual of his own sex, status, and clan-group, as ivarihi (brother or cousin), while he will address a woman of his own status and clan-group as nowe (sister or cousin). Both these terms, i.e. warihi and nowe^ are reciprocal.

A man or woman would address any man belonging to his or her father's generation and clan-group as mahia (paternal uncle) and would reciprocally be called mahia (brother's child), while the speaker of either sex when addressing an individual of his or her father's clan-group of equal status or younger than himself (or herself), would use the term oina, which would be used reciprocally In answering. A native of either sex would address an old woman of his or her father's clangroup as ea (paternal aunt) and would be answered by the same term ; when addressing an individual of either sex belonging to his or her father's clan-group and of the same age as, or younger than, the speaker, the latter would employ the term oina, which in answering would be employed reciprocally. A man speaking to a man or woman not of his own or his father's clan-group but of a generation older than himself, would address such an old man or woman as goga ; and the same term would be used by the old man or woman in answering. This term was also used in addressing a paternal grandfather since he and his grandchildren were never of the same clan. A man would address a comrade or a girl of his own generation who Is not of his own or his father's clan-group as ivarihi. An old man or an old woman, respectively addressing a man or a girl of a younger generation would call either of them warihi.

community, if that clan-group be not barred to him by its being the clan-group to which his father belongs. I tend to regard the clan-groups as originally phratries, which, as the importance and avoidance of the father's totem became marked, ceased in a very large number of instances to be intermarrying groups although the old prohibition of marriage within the clan-group persisted. It is obvious that the Massim are generally in a condition of transition from matrilineal to patrilineal descent while at the extreme west of the Massim area the transition has actually taken place. (Cf. Appendix II.)

Clans a7id Claji-grotips 43'7

Tubetube.

Nothing was known of any dual grouping of the clans In the south-eastern district at the time that I visited Tubetube, and nothing that occurred on the island led me to suspect its existence there. It must, however, be remembered that the dual grouping had decayed at Wagawaga although the natives there were far less spoilt than on Tubetube. In other matters the customs of Wagawaga and Tubetube so closely resemble each other that it is only reasonable to suppose that at Tubetube a grouping of the clans, having the general characters of that observed at Wagawaga, may have prevailed at one time, although the Rev. J. T. Field makes no mention of a grouping of the clans in his paper on Exogamy at Tubetube'.

It is certain that there is a grouping of the clans into clan -groups in the Wamira, Wedau and Gelaria communities. The condition prevailing at Gelaria will be first considered as this small community contains fewer clans than either of the others. Further, at Gelaria I obtained a legend which suggests that the clans forming one of the clan-groups are of common origin.

The three Gelaria clans are grouped as follows :

Clan-group Clans iGaruboi irimoa Elevva Elewa

Garuboi \r^- •

It was said that to the south-west of Gelaria there was a double-peaked mountain, whose peaks were called Viara and Gaova. On Viara was born the great snake, gartcboi, who made ' us, the beasts, earth, and we know not what other things.' Long ago he separated mankind into clans (banaga) and named them. To Garuboi he said: ' You are Garuboi after my name,' to Girimoa, ' You are Girimoa, but remember

1 This paper is published in the Report of the Eighth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advance?nent of Science. It may be noted that the assumption that formerly there may have been a grouping of the clans, although rendering incomplete the information obtained at Tubetube upon such subjects as marriage and cannibalism, does not make the actual facts given under these headings less true, but it becomes necessary to read them in the light of what has been said concerning the grouping of the clans at Wagawaga.

The Southern Massim that although you and Garuboi are two clans, you are friends and must not intermarry.'

The Wamira and Wedau clans are grouped as follows^:

Clan-group Mara

WAMIRA.

Clans Mara Logaloga Iriki Nabunabu lanibolanai lanibolanai

Aaiakeikei

Derama

Radava

Radava Inagabadi Bouni Labolabo laronai laronai Ewa

Diguma

Wadobuna (not at Wamira, at Wedau) Diguma

Aurana

Gebai Vava

WEDAU.

Aurana

Aurana

Iriki

Nabunabu

Ewa

Ewa Gaugau

Bouni

Bouni Mutuvia Manabira Debana Mutuvia Taubi^

Manibolani

Manibolani

Derama

Togatoga

Wadobuna

Wadobuna Diguma

Garuboi Biniwata Lavarata

Garuboi Modidi

Biniwata , Dabodabo6<j /

y (y f^tiU .

Cora

The rule that intermarry is not members of a single clan-group may not limited to the Gelaria community, but

^ For this information I am indebted to the Rev. H. Newton.

• The Taubi people came originally from Paiwa to the north-west of Wedau.

Tote7nism occurs also at Wamira and Wedau, and in the last two communities only the members of the clan-group to which a dead man belonged could eat the funeral feasts called banivi. Further, although the matter is not absolutely certain, there is every reason to believe that when a man was killed as an act of revenge for a comrade killed and eaten, only men of the latter's clan-group might eat of the body of the man killed in revenge (cf. chapter xlii).

TOTEMISM.

The arrangement of linked bird, fish, snake, and often plant totems which prevails throughout the south-eastern district has been alluded to in the Introduction on page 9. The totems of Wagawaga and Tubetube and many of the customs and usages to which they give rise are described in this chapter under separate local headings, but there are also a number of usages, more widely spread, but for the most part less specifically mandatory than those referred to, which may be conveniently described here, because they are subject to no modification on passing from Milne Bay to Tubetube.

It seemed that men were not usually considered to partake of any of the qualities of their totem birds, fish or snakes. In spite of this a rather sophisticated native of Rogea whose bird totem called kiki is a small white-crested long-shanked bird, probably a wader and runner, said that if the folk of his clan attacked any other men who let the attacking party get fairly near to them, and then suddenly fled, it would be attributed by the attackers to their own kiki character, since the bird kiki would allow a man to approach fairly close to him, and then run away suddenly and very quickly. It was quite clear that the native in question had not been misunderstood, though to Europeans it does not appear reasonable to transfer the kiki character of himself and his clansmen to their enemies, who, it was asserted, would similarly explain the sudden character of their flight by the kiki qualities of their attackers*.

The absence of totem shrines and ceremonies having for

1 Commenting on this Mr Giblin points out that although he does not consider that my informant wilfully misled me, he believes that the answer was m fact made up in reply to my question. ' ...it seems to me that the native never having asked the "why" himself, did so when you asked him and then out of his inner consciousness evolved the theory, no doubt holding it afterwards himself. I have seen this kind of thing lots of times.'

their purpose the increasuig of the totem has been referred to in the Introduction on page lo.

The following account of a particular kind of fishing float seems to show that a portion of a totem bird may be used by folk of other totems who desire to benefit by the qualities of the bird, which were apparently believed to exist even in its feathers after the bird's death. At Tubetube a feather of the fish-hawk forms an essential part of a fishing float used by men of every totem, though as far as could be ascertained it is really no better fitted for this purpose than any other feather. This kind of float called douiapa is used as a tell-tale on the surface of the water, being attached by a taut line to the upper edge of a gill-net set on the bottom^

I have stated in the Introduction (p. 12) that totem birds, snakes and fishes are commonly represented upon houses, canoes and implements of every sort without reference to their being the totems of the owners or makers of these objects. The following incident is noted here as it so thoroughly illustrates the result of this practice. Among the canoe paddles collected on Tubetube were two ornamented with carvings of birds and snakes which were bought from their makers, but in only one instance did the bird and snake represent its maker's totem.

On the other hand, an individual belonging to a particular totem might make a practice of carving one or more of his totems upon his utensils, though the fact that a totem was carved on an object was no proof that the article belonged to a man of the clan whose totem was thus carved upon it. The hereditary wood carver of Tubetube, one Taumawai of Tearuwasi hamlet, having the fish-hawk as bird totem, certainly identified himself with his totem more than many other men. The horizontal poles which support the greater part of the weight of the two houses occupied by Taumawai and his mother both terminate in typical bird designs, which were said to represent the fish-hawk, while one of the piles supporting his house has a snake carved upon it, which represents his totem snake. Further, a large number of floats attached to his seine net {inai) were carved to represent his totem bird, and although it was said that the nets of men

• This description of the use of the douiapa is taken from the catalogue of Tubetube specimens collected by the expedition and sent to the British Museum.

Totemisni 441

of other totems might have fish-hawk floats, it did not appear that this was actually the case.

Although it was Impossible to determine the exact reason why the mentioning of the name of a dead father or dead paternal relative was regarded as so flagrant an insult, it apparendy had something to do with totemism. Thus, if a visitor heard the name of his dead father or paternal uncle spoken, he would spear the man who spoke it, or if the culprit were a woman, he would ' swear at ' her, and perhaps strike her. The reason given for this intense avoidance of the name of a dead father or paternal relative was ' He no one sulu (clan), he no proper man belong my place.' On the other hand it was not an insult but only bad taste, to speak the name of a mother, brother or sister, or maternal uncle, 'That fellow he belong my place, he one suhc^'

Wagav^aga.

The clans, hamlets and totems of Wagawaga are summarised in the table on the next page, but considerable uncertainty attaches to the fish, snake and plant totems of Yabarawa, Hehego and Etuyawa.

It was clear that at Wagawaga a man paid more attention to his father's totems than to his own, that is to say there was very much more ceremonial avoidance of his father's totems than of his own. This matter has been dealt with in the Introduction (p. 11). If a man did not respect his father's bird and fish totems he would, it was stated, suffer severely from boils. His companions would consider him foolish and greedy, but it seemed that there would be no strong public feeling of resentment against the culprit. Probably the rule was seldom infringed and one man whose father had settled down at Wagawaga and had been adopted into a Wagawaga clan, avoided eating both his father's old totems and those acquired on his adoption.

A man respects his father's totem snake and seeks to avoid it, he would certainly not kill It. The relation of a

1 The actual words quoted are those used by a Tubetube man, but the same explanation was given whenever the matter was not dismissed simply as 'old time fashion.' It must be remembered that the names of the dead were never spoken by their relatives or mentioned in their presence. Further, every one rij^^orously avoided approaching the graves of individuals of all hamlets other than his own. Cf. chapter XLVi.

The Southern Massim

Totems

Clan

Hamlet

Bird

Fish

Snake

Plant

Garuboi

Kanabwahi Suaiaro Kasaiauura Wagawaga Wagawaga Pupuna

Waiwai (crow, Corone orru) and Boi (reef h^ron^Demtgretta sacra)

Ipi (Skate)

Garuboi

Okioki

Modewa

Duria Modewa Yabarawa Dobuapa

Siai {Pa?'adisea raggiana) and Kulokulo

Kurau

Mota idaidaga

Modau

Hurana

Hehego Taradiu Hurana (of Wagawaga)

Wikiwiki (a hawk)

Bahibahi

Gabadi

Daberima

Im imigrant Stocks at

Yabarawa

Hehego Etuyawa

Kehoi (white cockatoo) Kekoi Gimo (a dove)

Kukori (?)

Kukori (?)

(?)

Monauri (?)

Monauri (?)

(?)

Marewa (?)

I

man to his father's totem plant is less clear; it seemed that he would generally avoid injuring it. A number of Modewa men, whose fathers were of Garuboi clan, agreed that they would not injure their father's totem plant okioki when met with while in the bush, but if it interfered with their gardenmaking operations they would destroy it. This partial avoidance of a father's totem plant did not, in the case of okioki, extend to lying-in women, whose diet for some time after parturition consists of a decoction of yams and okioki fruit or leaves. It was repeatedly and independently asserted, that every woman, no matter whether okioki were her own or her father's totem plant, would eat this food during her puerperium. A man would not marry a woman with the same totems as his father, and one informant stated that all women of his father's totem were 'half-mother' to him. In the old days he would not sleep with a woman of his father's totem (cf Introduction, p. lo), but the breach of this regulation was considered too small an infringement of the clan laws to bring any harm on the lovers or their clansfolk.

Totemism 443

A man would eat his wife's totem fish as he would his own, and the same rule applies to the wife's treatment of her husband's totem fish; it was said that a man would be no more and no less frightened of his wife's totem snake than he would be of any other snake in which he had no special interest.

The feathers usually worn for the purpose of decoration and while dancing or visiting girls in their potuma are those of the cassowary, lory, cockatoo and various pigeons, while cassowary, cockatoo and bird of paradise plumes were the feathers commonly worn in the old days when fighting.

In the Introduction (p. 11) I have stated that no man would wear the feathers of any of these birds if they were his father's totem birds. This applied even to the special headdresses worn during certain ceremonies, thus during the toreha (cf. chapter xlvi) the older men of the community wear on their heads the beaks of two, three, or four hornbills. A man wears these whether his own totem is the hornblll or not, but on this as on other occasions, he would avoid coming in contact with the bird or its feathers, if the hornbill were his father's totem. Another instance of the avoidance of the feathers of a father's totem bird occurs at the waiapa ceremony, when bird of paradise feathers were worn by all whose fathers have not that bird as totem. Similarly, a man whose father's totem is the reef heron will avoid wearing the feathers of the rare white variety of this bird, while a man whose father's totem is the cockatoo, would not wear this bird's feathers but would substitute feathers of white individuals of the reef heron when they could be procured.

No information concerning the origin of bird, fish and snake totems could be obtained ; the legend accounting for the origin of plant totems is given in Chapter xxxiii, pp. 379, 3S0.

Tubetube.

At Tubetube as at Wagawaga, each individual has linked bird, fish and snake totems, but with the exception of Dekwasoso no hamlet has plant totems, and the plant totem of this hamlet is not held in any respect.

I The following table gives the hamlets of Tubetube and the totems of each.

The Southern Massitn

Totems

Hamlets

Bird

Fish

Snake

Plant

Simuroroi D aged age ra Kasapoi Panare

Gegera (scarlet lory, Lorius erythrothroax)

Nohu

Sarama (a venomous snake)

Tearuwasi

Dekawaiisa

Kwasakwasa-

Magesubu (fish-hawk, Pa7idion leucocephala)

Warumu

Gabadi (a constrictor snake)

uasi

Hanawesu

Gerediwa

Marapisi

Maidaba (a kind of parrot)

Bwasilili

Kenokenomogu

Paie

Topabarira Lekekiu Dekwasoso

Kisakisa (a hawk)

Busumarawi {Afrioji virescens)

Daridariri (a tree snake)

Kaikuari

Tubetube differs from Wagawaga In one Important matter of totemic practice, namely, the greater respect In which a man holds his own bird totem. A Tubetube man will not eat his totem bird, nor will he touch It when dead, In fact he seems to treat his totem bird with something of the same outward measure of respect that he shows towards his father's, except that he wears Its feathers. At the present day Tubetube men do not hesitate to eat their totem fish, but it was not clear whether this was a modern innovation. The balance of opinion seemed to be that it had always been customary to eat these fish.

In spite of the fact that distinguishing totem marks or badges were not painted on men before fighting, and although no attempt was made to avoid fighting with clansmen, a man who had killed a clansman in the heat of the fight would regret it, * bymbye he sorry, he no take him, let another fellow man take him/ that is to say, the slayer would not help to carry the body to the canoes, but It must be remembered that on a war party a man would always avoid his own kill. It was never really clear whether in the old days, a man would or would not have helped to eat a man of his own totem belonging to another and hostile community. Probably the occasion did not often arise, but it seemed that the balance of opinion tended against his having done this.

Toternism 445

It was clear that he would avoid eating a man of his father's totem if such a one were killed, though no guilt would attach to the killing in the heat of battle. It was said that if prisoners were taken they would be interrogated as to the totem of a dead man, and if no information were forthcoming anyone would help to carry away and eat the corpse.

In other matters totemic practice at Tubetube is much the same as at Wagawaga, as is shown by the following condensed account. A man will not eat his father's totem bird or fish, nor will he wear the feathers of his father's totem bird. On the other hand a man will wear the feathers of his own totem bird, indeed it is clear that men would make a point of wearing feathers derived from their totem birds, and a man who killed the totem bird of another clan would often give its feathers to a friend of that clan.

Marriage never took place within the clan, and connection was avoided as much as possible, but if a girl were particularly amorous and worried a man, he might sleep with her once or twice. Although such clan-incest was clearly recognized as immoral, it did not seem that any special bad luck followed the act, or that steps were taken to punish either party. It was pointed out that an intrigue with a girl was a preliminary to marriage. This was certainly the case in the old days so that there would, in the ordinary course of events, be no particular tendency for boys and girls of the same totem to come together for any prolonged period. Now, under the partial influence of the teaching that all fornication is wrong, any boy will make love to any girl as occasion offers. When a man or woman married he or she customarily abstained from eating the totems of his or her partners father. It was explained that this was a matter of mutual courtesy and convenience, since a husband or wife would tend to feel uncomfortable, and even to quarrel with a partner who had recently killed and eaten his or her father's totem.

Two old men of Dekwasoso, the only Tubetube hamlet with plant totems, agreed that even in the old days their plant totem, a tree called kaikuari, would have been cut down, and if convenient used as firewood, but as Dekwasoso is a colony from the mainland and has the only plant totem on Tubetube, it is likely that respect for it had ceased upon the island even before the coming of the white man\

1 At Rogea the following are regarded as totem birds, though except in the case of binam (the hornbill), it was not possible to ascertain, in the short time

Bartle Bay. (By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

The Wamira, Wedau, and Gelaria communities are formed by a number of clans which take their name from real or hypothetical bush settlements or stocks. Thus the clan (dam) to which Magala the chief [gulaic] of the Wadubo moiety of Wamira belongs is Iriki, the name of either an old site or the stock who lived there, both being often spoken of by the same name. When cross-examined as to the location of the original Iriki, Magala spoke of his clan as Irikie Daba, i.e. folk of that portion of the old Iriki stock who formed a settlement at Daba, near DIrluna (to the west) and of himself and his clan he said, ' We are people of Daba.'

Each clan had one or more totems, the Wamira word used for totem being bariaua, a term used for any supernatural or uncanny agency, and applied equally to white men — certainly until they became well-known — to totem animals, and to such non-human anthropomorphic beings as a one-legged creature called Aetago who kills men. In an unpublished paper by the Rev. Copland King it is stated that ' this [totem] animal, reptile or bird Is spoken of as the father or grandfather of the family. None of the family will eat its flesh'

at my disposal, their linked fish, snake and plant totems : Gabubu (a pigeon), magesubu (the fish-hawk), gegera (the scarlet lory), boi (the reef heron), boioboio (crow), katakea (cockatoo), siai {Paradisea raggiana), binam (hornbill), kiki (a wader ?), and mariboi (the flying fox, Pterop^is sp.). The totems linked to binam are baiwa (a shark), gabadi (a constrictor snake), and a tree called kaiyabu.

The opportunity occurred of questioning a few men from Basilaki and Rogea concerning their attitude towards their own and their fathers' totems. These were all youngish men, probably none of them were over twenty-five, and they all asserted that they would not eat either their own or their fathers' bird or fish totems.

^ Mr King gives the following additional information :

' Dariaua is the word that describes the ogres in the fairy tales. It is also used of the totem, the animal or bird with which each family has an ancestral connection. And lastly it is used of white men, because we are not ordinary men, but men with strange powers and uncomprehended origins. "Did you ever have mothers ? " they asked us at first. " Were you ever suckled ? Our noses are flat from pressing against our mother's breasts, but yours are not flat, you must have come mto being some other way." When the native speaks of the white pigeon or a snake being his father or grandfather, and calls it his bariaua^ and refuses to eat or kill it, he fancies that his ancestry was, like ours, mysterious, the legends of old times and the fairy tales have got mixed up, and he can no longer separate fancy from history. Totemism is mysterious, and I can trace no deeper reason for it than what I have here described.'

I

Toternism 44-7

All the Irlkl folk of Wamira, i.e. all Irlkie Daba people have the same totems, namely the fowl (kokorereko), a dove {bunebune) and a poisonous snake (irikei). Both clan and totem descent is matrllineal, and exogamy is the absolute rule, and in addition no one will marry into his father's clan, though it was stated that they eat their father's totems. It was clear that one who married into his father's clan was considered to be doing a very reprehensible thing, though sickness would not necessarily follow such an event, as was expected to be the case if a man married into his own (i.e. his mother's) clan. Our informants could cite no instance of the latter Qccurring.

In Gelaria there are three clans : Garuboi, Girimoa and Elewa, and with each of these are associated totems called maimaitua, given by the snake Garuboi when he separated mankind into clans.

We are indebted to the Rev. H. Newton for the followlnof list of the clans of the Wamira and Wedau communities and their totems. These lists suggest that the totemic system of Wamira and Wedau is a modification of the common southeastern system of linked totems, for many of the clans have linked bird, fish and snake totems. Further, where this typical arrangement does not prevail, there are still linked couples of bird and fish, bird and snake, or bird and a four-footed vertebrate. With regard to the clans Gora and Lavarata, Mr Newton notes that the former is a very small clan with no one to eat its banivi. The significance of this remark is discussed elsewhere, and it is now only necessary to point out that it indicates that Gora is a degenerate and a typical clan probably of recent immigrant origin.

Although we believe that the totemic system now under discussion Is a modification of the common south-eastern system, the totems of each clan are not tabulated in the usual order of importance, but in the order given by Mr Newton, the relative importance of the different totems being indicated by a numeral within brackets after each totem. Where the same number occurs after more than one totem of a single clan, it indicates that Mr .Newton considers these totems as of equal importance.

The Southern Masshn

Clan

Totems

Marai

Gabugabu (i) (white pigeon)

Kiora (2) (mountain bird)

Logaloga

Gewara (red parrot)

Iriki

Nabunabu

Kokorereko (i) (cockerel)

Bunebune (2) (blue pigeon)

Irikiei (i) (a red poisonous snake)

lanibolanai

Umara (i) (lizard)

Manutoa (i) (seagull)

Kivivi (2) (quail)

Aiakekei

Boruboruei (i) (small bird)

Lamagara (2) (a fish)

Derama

Binama (hornbill)

»

Radava

Matagumai (i) (cassowary)

Moga (2) (fish)

Gabadi (i) (snake)

Beulo (2) (a red bird)

Bouri (2) (fish)

Inagabadi

Matagumai (i) (cassowary)

Gabadi (i) (snake)

Bouri (fish)

Moga (fish) •

Bouni

Wega(i) (a bird)

Lamagara (2) (fish)

Garuboiei (i) (snake)

Labolabo

The same as Radava and Inagabadi laronai

(white pig)

Kivivi (quail)

Ogaoga (crow)

Kawakio (eel)

Ewa

Gabubu (i) (white pigeon)

Kiore (2) (mountain bird)

Wadobuna

Not at Wamira, at

Wedau

Diguma

Kapikoa (black cockatoo)

Iwalo (crocodile)

Vava

Kitave (i) (hawk)

Dabedaburei (2) (small bird)

Vagewa (shark)

Gebai

Kitave (i) (hawk)

Dabedaburei (2) (small bird)

Vagewa (shark)

Garuboi

Ogaoga(i) (crow)

Garuboi (2) (snake)

Lamagara (fish)

Wega (bird)

Lavarata

Modawa (tree)

Gora

Togatoga

Madega (sun)

' Imara is sometimes given as a clan name, it is probably the same as Mara.

I

Toteinisrn

WEDAU CLANS.

Clan

Totems

Aurana

Manubada (i)

Kitave (2)

Kokorereko (2)

(sea hawk)

(hawk)

(cockerel)

Nawari (3)

Vagewa (i)

(snake)

(shark)

Iriki

Kokorereko (2)

Bunebune (i)

Irikiei (i)

(cockerel)

(blue pigeon)

(snake)

Nabunabu

Beulo (red bird)

Ewa

Gabubu (white pigeon)

Gaugau

Gabubu (i)

Ogaoga (2)

(crow)

Bouni

Lamagara (i)

Wega

Waigama

(sea tish)

(bird)

(freshwater fish)

Mutuvia

Wega (i)

Lamagara

Waigama

(bird)

(fish)

(fish)

Sisipara (stone)

Warorovuna (stone)

M^nabira

Weguwegu (bird)

Dabana

Lamagara (i)

Wega (i)

Waigama (2)

Mutuvia

(fish)

(bird)

(fish)

Taubi

Lamagara (i)

Wega (i)

(fish)

(bird)

Manibolanai Manutoa (i)

Kivivi (2)

Korekore (2) Nawari (i)

(seagull)

(quail)

(sea bird) (snake)

Umara (i)

(lizard)

Derama

Umara (i)

Kivivi (2)

Manutoa (i) Korekore (

(lizard)

(quail) .

(seagull) (sea bird)

Nawari (i)

(snake)

Togatoga

Wadobuna

Kapikoa

(bird)

Diguma

Iwalo (i)

Paepaewa

Nawawara (i)

(alligator)

(bird)

(snake)

Garuboi

Nawaravi (2)

Garuboiei (i)

(the moon)

(snake)

Modidi

Biniwata

Dabodabobo

Lavarata

Modewa

Kelado

Lanirupi

(tree)

(stone)

(stone)

Gora

Madega

Gewara

(the sun)

(parrot)

S. N. G

TJie Southern Massim

The Gelaria clans and their totems are as follows

Clan Garuboi

Girimoa

Elewa

Garuboi (i) (a constrictor snake)

Garuboi (i) (a constrictor snake)

Dagasi (i) (dog)

Totems

Gabubu (2) (pigeon)

Binama (2) (hornbill)

Binama (2) (hornbill)

Poro (3) (pig)

Careful inquiry failed to elicit the purpose of the totems to the native mind. That the great snake Garuboi ordained and distributed them all Gelaria folk agreed, but while one man held that they were useful merely as signs of clans to prevent clan incest — using the word for a woman seeking a man — another suggested that they were in some vague way made of the same material as their clansmen, and that therefore there was some special though undefined affinity between a totem animal and the clan whose totem it was. It was always denied that the totem animal was helpful, but an exception occurs in the case given below of the dog, the totem of Elewa clan. It should be noted that in obtaining the above information leading questions were carefully avoided. Clan descent took place in the female line, and members of the same clan might not intermarry, though this simple exogamy was complicated by other regulations already referred to. It appeared that a man would not eat the flesh of his totem animals, but in some instances he might kill them.

A Garuboi man (Gelaria) said that if he injured a hornbill Mt' (i.e. the hornbill) 'would be sorry.' An Elewa man (Gelaria) would not eat dog, and dogs would not bite him, even in strange hamlets. Elewa men are fond of dogs and would bury a dead one. Men of other clans would not do this, though they might say something to the following effect to an Elewa man : ' We saw one of your dogs dead up there, better go and bury it.' The word for 'your' used in this sentence was the word meaning 'yours not to eat' It was said that the Elewa clan gave their dogs the same food that they themselves ate, instead of a large proportion of scraps, and thereby produced better hunting dogs. Whether their dogs were really superior to those of other clans or not, there is no doubt the Elewa believed that their dogs helped

Totemisin them more than dogs belonging to men of other clans helped their owners \

A man of Logaloga clan (Wamira) will kill his totem bird gewara, the red parrot, and he will wear its feathers, but he will not eat it. An lanibolanai man will not kill or eat the monitor lizard, his most important totem, but he will use a drum, the tympanum of which is formed of its skin. An laronai man, as reported by Mr Newton, 'will keep white pigs but will not eat them, though he will eat black or sandy pigs.' A Lavarata man 'will not collect Modewa wood for firewood or burn it, although men of other clans do so readily.' Gora clan (Wamira), whose totem is given by Mr Newton as the sun, is a small weak clan and is probably immigrant. Mr Newton states that ' clans have different calls for their dogs and pigs.'

Information concerning the stones which are totems of certain Wedau clans was available in one instance only, namely the stone Warorovuna. Concerning this Mr Newton says : ' Warorovuna is a stone, pieces of which were chipped off and boiled, the water being drunk to give strength in war. People came from far and near to get this ; it was only given to allies.' As mentioned in the chapter on Cannibalism, this was the stone on the ground near which the skulls of enemies were placed.

A man would go round his totem snake on the road to avoid touching it, the same occurred if he saw a dead garuboi, when he would feel sorry, whatever his clan. It was while discussing this point that the idea, already alluded to, that there was some ill-defined but real affinity or sympathy between a man and his totem was suggested, but it seemed that this was not thought to imply any actual physical or psychical resemblance.

In battle a man would not throw spears at men of his clan, but would turn aside and seek another part of the fight. He would recognize his clansmen by their gia (lit. nose), probably meaning face, having previously met them at the feasts given for miles around, for no distinctive clan-badge is worn in battle.

Mr Newton states that If a man killed one of his own clan

1 It may be worth noting here that practically all the dogs seen in the eastern and south-eastern divisions were well nourished and in good condition, contrasting strongly with the miserable curs of the central division.

29 — 2

in battle he would be reproached, but nothing further would be done. * It would be taken for granted that it was an accident. Thus it might happen that by a movement in the grass or by a noise, an enemy would be known to be in hiding, and a spear thrown might kill one who was afterwards found to be a totem friend. It does not seem that any precaution was taken to prevent this ; ordinarily a man would see whom he was attacking and he would know his totem friends by face. Also the New Guinea native has such good eyes that he would know a man by his walk or other physical signs or peculiarities. This only applies to fighting with neighbouring and usually friendly villages, for in foreign fighting a man would not know his clansmen.'

A man would not eat his father's totem, nor would he injure it, he would avoid it if it were a snake and would probably be frightened, though he would believe that it would not hurt him. It was clear that a man might not marry into his father's clan\

Ordinarily a visitor would stay with a clansman, or if married, he might stay in his father-in-law's house.

It seems clear that totems are sometimes regarded as omen-giving, but we are quite unable to state to what extent this belief is held. Nor is it certain whether meeting the most important totem invariably betokens good luck, though we were told that if a man saw his most important totem when hunting he would know that if he met with a pig he would certainly be successful in spearing it, though it did not follow that he would see one.

^ These totem abstinences are confirmed by Mr Newton who points out that personal feeling is of importance with reference to the amount of regard a man pays to his father's totems.

I

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE REGULATION OF PUBLIC LIFE.

Wagawaga and Tubetube.

There are no big chiefs either at Milne Bay or Tubetube, nor are there even clan chiefs or heads of clans In any definite or executive sense. There were not even war chiefs, but merely leaders of Individual war parties. The leader of a party seeking revenge — and In nine cases out of ten this was the cause of war In the south-eastern district — was always of the totem of the man for whom vengeance was being sought. Accordingly a close kinsman of the deceased was appointed chief or leader of the war party, and however well he conducted operations, It was only an accident that could again make him leader of a war party\ Certain men were, however, recognized as 'big' or Important. In every case these were oldish men and their Importance had not, as It appeared, come to them from their maternal uncles, their high repute being largely due to the prominent part they took In feasts. The fact that such men would readily be credited with some knowledge of magic, would Increase their reputation and cause their opinions to carry weight In the councils of the old men. Further they were usually rich men, who had In their time bought many canoes and traded, I.e. travelled, extensively, or were known as specially successful fishermen. The Importance of one man called Taumawal, of TearuwasI hamlet of Tubetube, was especially due to his skill In carving. He was In fact the only tolerably good carver on the Island, but he had learnt the art on which his reputation rested from his maternal uncle, who in his time was the only good carver in the community, and so considered an important person. Six or more

1 Cf. chaper XLI.

454 The Sotithem Massim drums were usually to be seen hanging under the eaves of the house occupied by Taumawal, and it was explained that many of the young men of Tubetube kept their drums in his house, it being the old custom for drums to be kept in the house of some 'big' man\ But however influential a man might be, there was no question of his being presented with fish, or a portion of the pig killed, by men not closely related to him, though in hamlet-groups in which there were man-houses, he would of course share in whatever food was sent to the potuma he frequented.

There is a status term, bada or taubada, meaning old man, which throughout the parts of the south-eastern district visited Is used in the form taubada as a term of respect in speaking of, and to some extent when addressing, old men of superior status. It is also the common mode of polite address by natives to white men and is in fact employed very much as Malays use the word tuauy to which it nearly approaches In siofnificance.

Although there Is no chieftainship at Wagawaga there is an elaborate system of distribution and division of food, which ensures that much of the best food obtained by members of the community falls to the share of the old men. No man until he is past middle age may eat dog, turtle, or big specimens of the fish called kurau^ and no woman, however old, is allowed to eat dog or turtle, though after middle age she may eat kurau. If a middle-aged man catches a turtle he hands it over to his father, not, be It noted, to his maternal uncle, who takes It to the potuma of the old men where it is cut up and eaten, and he would treat a big fish which he could not himself eat in a similar way. When a middle-aged man catches a big fish which is not taboo to him he must take some of it to xh^ potuma for the old men, although he cuts it up and cooks It in his own house, where he and his wife

' The same custom prevails in the Trobriands.

2 This prohibition amounting to a taboo of custom (cf. chapter XLIV) is enforced by the belief that to eat the forbidden foods will render a man unpleasing to the opposite sex. Kurau is the totem fish of the Modewa clan, so that this condition of things explains the statement sometimes inaccurately made by natives that only old men will eat their totem fish.

At Tubetube two fish ivetoa and nohu^ the former a kind of ray, might not be eaten by young folk, the reason given being that both these fish were of lethargic habits and generally stayed in one place, and therefore no young man or woman should eat of them for fear of contracting similar habits. But nohu is the totem fish of the Gegera clan, so that here again the prohibition which prevented certain young people eating their totem fish does not depend directly on totemism.

probably eat a portion. Custom equally decrees that he shall give some to his relatives living in his own hamlet and some to the men of his father's totem. If a fishing party of youngish and middle-aged men caught plenty of fish, including two or three big fish, the latter would be brought to the potuma to be cooked and eaten there by the old men, while the smaller fish would be divided among the younger men, to be cooked and eaten in their own hamlets. At VVagawaga a man, if old enough, may eat his own pig or his own dog, but any man killing a dog would be expected to take it to the potuma where it would be eaten by the old men, including the giver of the dog. When a man killed a pig he would be expected to dispose of its flesh in the same way as that of the big fish already mentioned. When a wild pig is killed part of it is always given to the owners of the pig nets employed in hunting it, but a portion, including the head and jaw, is always taken to \h^ potuma. If a dugong be killed a portion of its flesh is taken to all the potuma, but it appears that its head and jaw goes to the old m^ris potuma.

Bartle Bay. (By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

There is no doubt that in all the Bartle Bay settlements certain men are recognized as headmen or chiefs, and that these men possess a considerable amount of influence and authority. Magala of Wamira and Bamdiri of Wedau, whose names have already been mentioned, are men to whom this applies. But besides these chiefs [gulau), there are a number of men called taniwaga, who may exert considerable influence. The taniwaga are experts whose special knowledge is exerted for the benefit of the community of which they are members, and often for the benefit of foreign communities also. Probably the most important taniwaga are those whose spells cause the gardens to yield good crops, but in his own community each taniwaga is supreme in his own department, and no one can interfere with him. We do not know how many taniwaga there are, or should be, in each community, that is to say how many departments are ruled beneficially by the charms {pari) of experts, but there are certainly water, rain, wallaby, fish and taro i)ari which are known only to special men who are the taniwaga of these />ari. A taniwaga does less hunting and gardening than other men (for much is done for him by the men of his community), and all taniwaga probably observe certain taboos which are special to them, though the only one of these with which we are acquainted is the rule which forbids the wallaby taniwaga to hunt or eat wallaby. In its simplest sense the word taniwaga means the possessor or owner of something, thus each householder is the taniwaga of his house, but the idea of control is also generally included in the term, so that taniwaga means the controller of a particular process or thing. This matter will be again referred to when considering Mr Newton's information concerning status in the Bartle Bay communities. A taniwaga generally passes on his knowledge to his brother or his sister's son. A taniwaga of an important form oi pari may be chief [gtclau) of a community, thus Bamdiri who is gulau of Wedau is, in his magical aspect, taniwaga oi pari which bring rain and control the winds. He is greatly respected by all and given many presents of awawara^ a yellow tuber which appears to be more or less strictly reserved for men of importance and altogether denied to women and children. It appeared that a taniwaga received no authority from his office to decide matters of peace and war, and the larger policy of the people. Doubtless he and all other old men would exercise a very real influence upon, and would in fact largely shape, public opinion, but the final decision was in theory left to the gulau, the chief recognized by the whole community. The office of both gulau and taniwaga is strictly hereditary, the two being often combined in the same person. Thus Magala is recognized as taniwaga of Damaladona, forming part of the four-clan melagai of the same name (cf chapter xxxiv) of which he is gulau, as he is also of the whole of the Wadubo moiety of Wamira.

The term taniwaga is applied not only to the chiefs of local groups of clans, but also to leaders chosen for particular purposes, thus every feast has its taniwaga as have all war and big hunting parties. Gulau is sometimes used much as the substantive 'noble' is used in English, but when qualified by the possessive pronoun refers to the speaker's paramount chief or overlord, thus ai gulau, 'our overlord.' Certain folk were recognized as lamolamona ; the exact meaning of this term was not clear, but it seemed to be applied to men of little substance and influence, whose gardens It was stated were smaller than those of other people.

The whole question of status, and especially the quality which makes a man a gulau, and the relation of taniwaga to gttlau, is very puzzling to a stranger, though the natives themselves never show the least doubt or hesitation in placing a man. Mr Newton, who has inquired into the matter for us, writes: 'The chief terms used to mark distinctions amongst the village folk are bada (pi. babada), taniwaga, tuakareina, gulau^ lamolaniona, momolakana. Of these bada refers chiefly to age and, unless an old man were poverty stricken, the mere fact of his age would give him a position of authority ; the amount of property a man possessed was probably the greatest deciding influence fixing his social position.'

' Taniwaga and tuakareina seem to be interchangeable terms meaning the owner of, or the controller of, something. Thus the man who knew and had the right to use an incantation was a pa7H taniwagana ; there would be the uri (taro) parina taniwagana, waira (water) parina taniwagana, toa (cause) taniwagana, etc. etc. The taniwaga or tuakareina is not necessarily a man of substance, but of course his knowledge oi pari may provide the opportunity for the accumulation of wealth. A gulau is a man of substance, having good gardens, plenty of pigs, ornaments, etc., the opposite of lamolainona. One mark of a gulau may be a number of wives, but a man would need to be a gulau to be able to keep a number of wives, and then having them his gulau quality would be intensified.... Gulau may mean hereditary paramount chief, but this would be with reference to feasts, dancing and such like ; the other use o{ gulau is perhaps a loose one. Magala Is certainly the main chief, but there may be many gulau in a clan. The combination of age and wealth would probably decide the amount of influence exerted by each, but as property would descend according to fixed rules of descent, this would naturally bring about a sort of hereditary authority.*

' Lamolamona and momolakana are nearly interchangeable in meaning, but lamolamona would be rather a term of reproach. Both words mean poverty stricken — though this may be relative. The laralaraga, who are the younger members of the clan, might be called mo7nolakana. Thus a bada may call or order his laralaraga to do things or his momolakatia, the two terms being interchangeable.'

458 TJie Southern Massiin

• The bahada would tell their laralaraga what they wanted done, and would direct them, but when the work was finished in all probability the bada would provide a feast for his laralaraga. In the case of a canoe, for instance, when a new one is made and launched, the laralaraga take the canoe about to visit different places, and the people give presents. These presents are distributed amongst those who worked at the canoe, but the bada would retain some, and give some to his children. The babada expect their laralaraga to help them in garden work, and also in house-building, in fact in housebuilding the laralaraga do nearly all the work, but after any special work a feast is provided.'

It was stated that each of the Gelaria clans had a taniwaga or head man, and that the taniwaga of clan Garuboi was gtilau of all Gelaria.

At Yauyau, an inland community of the same type as Gelaria, to which the following also applies as it does to Wamira, a man would not come close to his gulau unless he wished to speak to him but would keep a little distance away, and in passing would probably turn his face towards him. When speaking to 2i gulau, a man would approach with neck or body somewhat bent, and would speak in a low voice. He would not touch the property of a gulau unless specially directed to do so. A gulau does not eat in public, nor would he pass his jk lime pot to commoners ; to other gulau he would say ' this " is our lime pot,' using the inclusive plural. A taniwaga would pass his gulau guardedly, but would not look back or turn his head. ^

The greater part of the heavy work of making a chiefs garden would be undertaken by his near relatives, while the chief might stand by and watch; his wives would, however, do their share of the labour. Other men would assist, for 'if they did this their own gardens would be good,' though custom nowadays decrees that a chief shall make a small feast for these helpers.

A man killing a wild pig would present \\s gulau with the whole or a part of its head, and a portion of the meat of the flank or belly, while his taniwaga would also be given some of the flesh, though no part was specially set apart for him.

Plate LI 1 1

House at Maivara, Milne Bay

Plate LIV

Carving on house at Maivara

Clubhouses and Public Platfonns 459

CLUBHOUSES AND PUBLIC PLATFORMS.

Wagawaga fand Tubctubqf. c^JC^'nJa.

In Wagawaga there are numbers of houses which no woman may enter\ These are the clubhouses and talking places of the men [poluma) and are of about the same size and are built in much the same manner as the better class of dwelling houses, but are decorated with painted boards along their front, back and sides.

Plate LI 1 1 shows the best type of dwelling house built in Milne Bay ; it will be seen that the longitudinal curve of the roof is less well marked than in the houses of Teste Island (Plate LI), which resemble those of Tubetube. Like the rest of the Wagawaga houses they are always built upon piles, a flat disc sometimes being interposed between the floor of the house and the top of the pole (Plate LIV) so as to baflle the rats and mice which would otherwise make their way into the building. Sometimes the potuma may be built in the sea below high water mark, as that of Kasaiauura, the position of which is indicated on the plan on page 424.

Although the potuma is ornamented with carved and painted boards on which are represented birds, snakes and fishes, there is no tendency to represent only the totem animals of the folk who built the potuma and to whom it belongs.

Inside the potuma there are either one or two fireplaces ; daam (pandanus leaf) sleeping mats and wooden pillows lie scattered about, and fishing nets are piled or hung along the side walls. The almost straight front and back thatch which forms the inside of the gable ends and which comes down nearly to the level of the floor, is hung inside with the backbones of fish, the leg bones of turtle, and the skulls of fish and pig, all kept as evidence of the abundance of food that has been eaten in the potuma. In the old days the pig jaws were generally arranged in rows upon the outside of the front thatch. The bottom of this thatch was prolonged by a carved and ornamented board hung from it. It was stated that in the old days the human skulls taken by the men to whom the

1 It was stated that if a woman entered a potuma it would soon take fire and be totally destroyed, but I could hear of no case in which this was supposed to have happened.

potiuna belonged were attached to the inner surface of this board. Instead of attaching these trophies to a board, the men of the communities hving in the bush behind Wagawaga sometimes lashed them to the poles of the potuma as is shown in Plate LV.

A platform watara is generally built, either in front of the potuma so as to form a verandah, or, as in the case of the

• old man's ' potuma of Wagawaga, beneath the floor. Ceremonial feasts are not held in the potuma and no food is cooked there, nevertheless many men habitually eat in the potuma, or rather upon its platform, whether this be in front of it or beneath its floor. A man may say to his wife or mother ' send my food to the potuma ' and at meal time she brings him his pot of food. Other men who happen to be on the luatara have no right to demand a share of this food, but he will invariably ask them to join him, probably among their number there will be two or three who are also having their food sent to the potuma and thus, without any definite prearrangement, there is usually a supply of food in th^ potuma for those who propose to eat there.

This arrangement was of course greatly helped by the system of food distribution already described, and in addition a man of any importance who had been to a big feast in the neighbourhood, such as a toreha, would be expected to bring, and really would bring, the greater portion of the pig-meat given to him at the feast to the watara of the potuma, to be consumed by all who cared to attend. Here again it must be noted that no young man came into the old men's potuma or on to its watara unless he were specially invited. Recently when a rather prominent man of Garuboi clan returned from a neighbouring feast with about a quarter of a pig done up in banana leaves and brought it to the watara of the old men's potuma (where it was eaten by the old men), not a man of under 35 or so came near xh^ potuma.

It appeared that, in theory at least, each clan should have its own potuma, while it was said that in the old days when people were more numerous there were a large number of potuma, and if every hamlet did not have one there were at least two to each clan. At the present day this allotment of a potuma to each clan has broken down, and the Modewa clan has no potuma of its own. But although the potuma IS in a limited sense the specific property of the hamlet

Plate LV

Skulls outside potuma

I

Chibhotises mid Ptiblic Platforms 461

and perhaps in a wider sense of the clan to which the hamlet belongs, there is not and never has been any narrow exclusiveness in its use. A man of any clan may sleep in any potmna and his selection appears to be entirely a matter of choice or caprice. Similarly boys and young men may paint themselves for dances in any pohtma, and a man retreats to any potuma he may fancy in the event of a quarrel with his wife, besides usually sleeping there while she is pregnant. Again, although the younger men use the pohi^na more than their elders, there were always one or more potmna to which the old men would especially resort and where without any definite rules being made no young man would come uninvited. The ' old men's potuma ' was, and in fact still is, a perfectly definite institution, and it is here that public opinion is moulded by the old men, many of whom habitually have their food sent there, so that the watara of the old men's potuma at Wagawaga became at the time of the evening meal the town-hall of the Wagawaga hamlet-group, for all the old men of importance met here without regard to clan or hamlet. It was stated quite definitely that it was on the watara of the old men's potuma that in the old days such important communal events as war and peace were discussed, but the smaller troubles of everyday life were not debated there, at any rate not until they had been considered in the local potuma of the hamlet involved.

Besides ih.^ potuma, the front half of any well-built dwelling house such as that shown in Plate LI 1 1 constitutes an area for the use of men only and into which no woman may come. In all Wagawaga houses w^ith any pretension to completeness in building, the floor is divided into two approximately equal portions by a light transverse rail some eighteen inches high. The front half of the floor is the men's half and is called nakanaka, the posterior half is the women's and is called gwigwi. Any man belonging to any clan may sleep in the nakanaka portion of any house, and although it appeared that men, other than members of the family, did not often sleep in a strange nakanaka, there was at Wagawaga a house of which it was said ' he \i2{ potuma' A man of clan Garuboi lives there with his wife and two children (one of whom is married) ; the house is decorated in the same style as the potuma, though to a slighter extent, and it was said that men of other hamlets would not uncommonly sleep in its front portion. But although such a house might in the old days have had its row of pig jaws on the outside of its front gableend thatch, it differed from a true potuma in that the skulls of slain enemies were not kept in it, but were taken to a potuma.

The men of each hamlet take the main part in building their potuma, but other hamlets of their own and other clans help them, the visitors being fed by the members of the hamlet in which the new potuma will stand. One man was recognized as the ' master ' of each pottcma. This office was not hereditary, but seemed to depend on a man of a certain amount of influence being found ready to assume the responsibility of providing food for the visitors who would help to build xh^pottwta, and with his relatives cutting and preparing the greater part of the wood required for the building. Although the selection of a ' master ' was apparently a matter to which no rules applied, once elected his duties were quite clearly defined. It was his business to provide, or to cause his womenfolk to provide, the firewood required for the use of th^ potuma, and it was the master himself who was responsible for keeping ih^pottwia clean. He did not appear to have any privileges in xh^ pottcma or to take a more prominent part in the counsels of the old men than other men of similar standing. On the other hand when the master died, his potuma would be burnt with everything in it, no matter to what clan this property belonged. A brother or the child of a sister of the dead master would light the fire, and even the skulls contained in the potuma would be consumed in situ^. Of old when a potuma was built its fireplace was left open and could not be closed in, that is to say no hearth could be built and consequendy no fire could be lit, until a man or woman of some other community had been killed and his or her skull hung up to dry in the smoke of the freshly kindled fire, the body having been cooked in the cannibal gahana (stone circle) and eaten in the usual way.

= At Tubetube there were no potuma and it appeared that there never had been any on the island. Their place for ceremonial purposes was to a large extent taken by the open

' Although my note on this subject implies that a new potuma was built whenever its master died, it states no more than that a new potuma was built when its master was killed in a fight. At Rogea there are no potuma at the present time, but these existed here formerly and were called basin.

d rt a ■*->

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S <u

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Cbibhottses and Pttblic Platforms 463

platforms called naka or nakanaka, of which there were supposed to be at least one in each hamlet. As a matter of fact where a hamlet contained more than one family group, it appeared that it was not uncommon for each family group to have its own naka. No women might come upon them in the ordinary way though they were apparently allowed to do so on certain ceremonial occasions, as for instance at a feast called sot. At the present day little attention is paid to the naka in the Tubetube hamlets and although women and small children still avoid them they are quite commonly used to store canoe furniture, pieces of old pots and other raffle. It seemed clear that naka were not named at Tubetube and the same, I believe, holds good for Rogea, where they seem to have declined less from their old estate and are still kept clean and used as a convenient resting place, when, as is often the case upon this island, they are comfortably situated in the shade, as is that of Numabwasi hamlet, which though not so elaborately carved, resembles the naka of a Milne Bay hamlet shown in Plate LVI. A naka properly constructed in the old manner was usually floored with the side planks of worn-out canoes [waga), while the longitudinal floor supports were often old canoe outriggers, but this old time care in the choice of materials is not always taken now, and all sorts of comparatively rough timber appear in the naka. They are about the same size and height from the ground as the ordinary house platforms and at the present day they have usually no other ornamentation than may chance to be on the wood of which they are built.

STONE CIRCLES AND SQUATTING PLACES.

Wagawaga.

At Rogea and apparently on very many islands of the south-eastern district, the majority of the hamlets have in or near them a collection of large stones, or a heaped mass of smaller stones used as the squatting and yarning place of the men. At Rogea these were called daru or dahi, and their practical utility was insisted upon, as it was explained that when all else was sodden these quickly dried, and so formed a convenient sitting place'. It was said that ba7'u were not

^ Probably these are essentially similar in origin and purpose to the non-

464 The Southern Massini made in Tubetube even In the old days, and there was so general a consensus of opinion as to the accuracy of this statement that it must, I think, be assumed to be correct. It is, however, remarkable that heaps of stones used as squatting places for men are found all over the D'Entrecasteaux group, the most eastern island of which, Duau, is the old home of the Tubetube communitv.

The stone circles [ga/iana) appropriated to cannibal feasts are described in chapter XLii, but besides these each clan of many hamlet-groups, such as Wagawaga, also had noncannibal gahana, that is to say stone circles such as that figured in Plate LVII, which were the squatting and debating places of the men of a clan and corresponded to the daru of Rogea. These gahana were entirely built by the men of the clan to which they belonged. I did not hear of strangers being received in the non-cannibal gahana at Wagawaga, but this mav have occurred.

The followinof account of this use of stone circles in a bush settlement behind Wagawaga is taken from two descriptions, one by the Hon. H. N. Chester, the other by the late James Chalmers, of a visit they together paid to Bagofigofi. The men of this place, who had been warned of the approach of the party, were seated within a stone circle, and a shout of welcome greeted the party but nobody rose. The 'chief Kuania who had accompanied the visitors from Catamaran Bay marched them round the outside of the circle, chewing areca nut vigorously and spitting it out right and left as he went along. W^hen Kuania had spat all round the circle he addressed the men in the circle, ' Here are great foreign chiefs come to see you and here am 1 Kuania with a number of my people.'

Room was made for the white visitors within the stone circle but Kuania remained without it in front of some of the houses of the settlement, when the men who had been sitting in the circle sprang out and rushed up to Kuania feigning to attack him, at least one being armed with a spear. Kuania then threw down his trade tomahawk at the feet of the leader of the natives of the village, and his son-in-law Berigi did the same with two pieces of hoop iron. After this one or more cannibal gahana of Milne Bay and the rows of stones found in many of the Bartle Bay villages (described on pp. 465, 466), and as is the case with both of these no women may approach the Rogea baru.

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Pu c o stone Circles and Sqitatting Places 465

grey-headed women came forward and embraced Kuania and peace was held to have been thus happily concluded'.

Plate LVII is a restoration by Mr N. H. Hardy of the non-cannibal gahana at Taupota which in every essential resembled that still existing in Taradiu hamlet. A shallow pottery vessel full of water was formerly kept in the centre and used, as far as I could ascertain, as a mirror by the men who frequented the gahana. In some parts of the Massim area the floor of the gahana consisted of slightly raised stone slabs as is shown in Plate LVII I, which represents a gahana on Fergusson Island. Similar flagged gahana are recorded by J. W. Lindt as formerly existing on Rogea'.

Bartle Bay.

A number of stone circles and lines of stones exist scattered among the Wamira settlements. Both the circles and lines of stones are called bolabola, and obviously correspond to the gahana of Wagawaga in Milne Bay. Unfortunately the connection existing between stone circles and cannibalism at Milne Bay was unknown at the time of the visit of the expedition to Bartle Bay, where lack of time prevented an adequate inquiry into the cannibalism which formerly prevailed there. It is, however, certain that particular bolabola, notably that at Irere (Wamira), were used during cannibal feasts. Concerning this circle Mr Newton writes: 'The body was taken to the bolabola and there cut up, taken to the shore, washed in fresh water and brought back to the bolabola, where it was cooked and eaten.' Of Wedau, Mr Newton says : ' The cannibal feast took place outside the village, not on the bolabola! The information that the circles and rows of stone were 'old-time fashion,' and were only used as squatting and debating places by the men, is doubtless correct for certain of them, and there does not seem to be any reason to doubt that some of the Bartle Bay circles are debating places for the men, and correspond to the non-cannibal gahana of Milne Bay. This is confirmed by Mr Newton's statement that the circles of stones seem to

^ Further correspondence respecting New Guinea [C. -3617], 1883, pp. 83 and 92.

2 Picturesque New Guinea^ p. 87.

have been mainly meeting and debating places for the old men\

The bolabola consisting of rows of stones were I believe entirely unconnected with cannibalism and were simply squatting places. A few of the stones of these bolabola as well as some of those entering into the composition of the stone circles bore lightly incised designs, but not much could be ascertained relative to the meaning of these. An isolated circle with a central dot on an incised stone in the Irere circle was called iibona and represented the 'morning star,' a scroll design upon the same stone had no name. A small circle with radiating hook-like processes at the bottom of the stone was considered to represent either a star or an eye. A cross on the back of this stone was said to represent a starfish.

The Irere bolabola forms a circle some i6 feet across. The upright stones in this bolabola are family property and descend, on their owner's death, to his brother and then to his sister's son. It was said that certain of these stones had names, thus one Incised stone was said to be called Garuboi although the lines on it bear no particular resemblance to a snake. It was not clear whether formerly each clan had its own bolabola, or whether, as was asserted of the circle of the two clan settlement of Irere, both clans might share a single bolabola.

No woman might enter a bolabola or in the old days come near one, and it appeared that visitors would not make use of their host's bolabola, but whether this prohibition applied to clansmen from other places was not clear. New upright stones which became hereditary might be added to the bolabola. Nowadays a fire is sometimes lit in the centre of a stone circle, but formerly this place was occupied by a large shallow pottery dish called noma, brought specially for the purpose from east of Cape Erere where pottery was made. This dish was not taken into any house except perhaps the clubhouse before being brought to the bolabola.

^ The following lines from Mr Newton's letter support this view : 'At Wedau the bolabola seems to have no special significance, and it seems matters would be discussed in the potu?na (clubhouse) as readily as at the bolabola.. . The straight bolabola is quite modern, having been put there by order of the Government. Last April I was over on Goodenough Island searching for boys who had been blown away from here in a dinghy, and while travelling I came to a village at night, and was taken to a circle of stones to sit down and tell the people what we were after ; but there the ground would be wet and muddy, and it would be necessary to have a dry place to sit upon. I think it has always to be remembered that the natives realize the danger of sitting on damp ground and that this may have something to do with the circles of stones.'

Ownership of Land 467

OWNERSHIP OF LAND.

Wagawaga and Tubetube.

In Milne Bay the whole of the ground extending for some little distance in the neighbourhood of each hamletgroup is regarded as the property of that community, while land in the immediate neighbourhood of the gardens of any particular hamlet is regarded as the property of the clan to which that hamlet belongs. In theory all the members of a clan should make their gardens together, but in practice only contiguous hamlets of the clan do this. Thus at Wagawaga, while Yabarawa and Dobuapa made their gardens in actual continuity with each other, Duria, almost at the other end of the Wagawaga hamlet-group, found it more convenient to make its gardens apart and near to its houses. Within the community uncultivated bush is common property and clearing and garden-making gives the hamlet of the clearer a complete hereditary right to the land.

Information obtained at Tubetube concerning land tends to show that the same arrangement prevailed there. The bush is common property and each clan knows what cultivated land it possesses. The gardens of each hamlet are dotted about the island and the gardens of different hamlets of the same clan are often, though not necessarily, contiguous.

Communal and clan land (as above defined) is kept rigidly for the use of members of the community and the clan to which it belongs, so that the whole question of the adoption of strangers into even a weakened community turns on their willingness to adopt the totems of one of its clans. Until they do this they receive no land and however long their stay they are treated as visitors, even if they have left their community on account of famine or some other reason such as a quarrel implying that they will not soon return. Under these circumstances they would be well treated and would be given food and lodging; in return for which they would be expected to help their hosts in fishing and garden-making, and, in a general way, to take part in the life of the hamlet which received them. But they would not be allowed to make gardens for themselves unless they stated their desire to settle permanently with their hosts, and expressed their

30—2

468 TJie Southern Massim willingness to assume their totems. It was only after they had taken their host's totems and had thus identified themselves with their hosts' clan that they were allowed to plant gardens and were looked upon as belonging to the hamletgroup. The following instance occurred at Wagawaga, some years ago. A number of men, having a dove as bird totem, came from Nuakata an island off East Cape and settled temporarily at Dobuapa, one of the hamlets of the Wagawaga community. Nuakata was a community friendly with Wagawaga, and its men left it on account of famine. These Nuakata men stayed for about a year at Wagawaga, when some of them returned to Nuakata, while those who stayed were asked by the old men of Dobuapa to join the Modewa clan and to adopt its totems. They did this and were then given an adequate amount of the clan land. Matters were managed in the same way at Tubetube.

Neither at Wagawaga nor at Tubetube is there enough game to permit of its being hunted regularly by combined effort. As a matter of fact comparatively little hunting is done at either place ; indeed it seemed that the only hunting carried out by a number of individuals working together were drives for wild pig. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that it was said at Wagawaga that any man might hunt in any part of the bush, so long as he did not trespass on the land of another community.

Each clan has rights to the fishing on certain reefs which are often situated in the neighbourhood of its hamlets.

KIMTA AND ERIAM.

Wagawaga and Tubetube.

A particular relationship exists between certain men who call each other eriani. The term and the relationship exist at both Tubetube and Wagawaga, but nothing even remotely resembling its distinguishing feature at Bartle Bay, i.e. the right of access that each eriam had to the wives of his eriam, could be elicited at either place, though Wagawaga was visited after Bartle Bay and a careful search was made for the custom as well as for the existence o{ kimta\

^ The eriam relationship at W^agawaga and Tubetube is discussed in this chapter on account of its undoubted relationship to the kimta grouping of Bartle Bay which is of great social importance.

Kimta and Eriain 469

The reciprocal relation of eriam exists between certain men who are never of the same clan, but between whom there Is friendship so close, and conferring such practical rights, that a condition approaching to consanguinity in its results is set up. If a man be short of food or tobacco his eriam will help him, providing if necessary for him and his family, and It was said that in battle eriam would stay together. Formerly eriam would not call each other by name but simply address each other as eriam. Unlike the eriam relationship at Bartle Bay, there was at Wagawaga no levlrate between eria77i, In fact it was stated that a man might not marry the widow of his e^Ham. It was explained that she had cooked food for her husband's eriam and that the latter had frequented the house that she and her husband had occupied, so that a man should look upon her as a sister. On the other hand a man would not usually go to the house of his eriam unless he believed that the latter would be at home, and he should not talk to the wife of his eriam If she were by herself. If a man were away on a journey, his eriam might give his wife some tobacco and talk to her but only In public. A man would to some extent avoid close contact with the mother-in-law of his eriam, but could talk to and approach any sister of the wife of his eriam as he pleased.

I could not satisfy myself how the eriam bond arose at Wagawaga ; in the case of Ipunesa whose bird totems were siai and kulokulo^ his three eriam, Demes, *Tom,' and Porewarutu were all men of clan Garuboi with bird totems whaiwhai and boi, that Is to say they belonged to the clan to which the father of Ipunesa belonged.

A man calls the wife of his eriam nowe (brother, sister), by which term she would also address him, the children of his eriam he calls ail (maternal uncle, sister's child), which Is also the term by which they reciprocally address him. The reciprocal term of address between eria7n and the sister of an eriam is warihi (cousin). The brother of an eria^n is addressed as e^Ha^n, his father as goga, the term of address for any old man not of the speaker's or his father's clan, or if he were of the same clan as the father of his eriayn he would address the latter as mahia (paternal uncle). A man addresses the mother of his eriam as ea and he also applies this term to the sisters of the wife of his eriam with whom he need not avoid marrlaee. The brother of the wife of an eriam is addressed as oi7ia.

At Tubetube the eriam bond also existed and there, as at Milne Bay, I could not determine how the eriam relationship was constituted. It was stated that the most usual method of becoming e^'iam was for two boys to court and sleep with two girls living in the same house, but grave doubt attaches to the accuracy of this information. Eriam do not marry or even sleep with each other's sisters, but a man and the sister of his eriam would reciprocally address each other as dugti and the relationship existing between them was said to be much the same as that between sister and brother, so that between them there is not even name avoidance. A man will address the mother of his eriam as sina and the father of his e^nam as tamay but too great a significance must not be attached to this use of these relationship terms, for it is obvious that there is a tendency to address as sina any elderly woman — whatever her clan — with whom the speaker is on friendly terms.

Bartle Bay. (By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

In the Bartle Bay communities, including Gelaria, all the individuals of the same sex, who are of approximately the same age, that is to say, all the boys and girls who are born within a given period, are respectively considered as members of a class called a kimla.

The members of a kimta form a sort of association or company having certain rights to each other's fellowship and help, which — if the analogy be not pressed too far — may be compared on the psychological side to the feeling existing between the men of a ' year ' at a college, or perhaps better a hospital or other school, where everyone is working at the same subject. The male children born in every period of about two years constitute a kimta at Bartle Bay, which is roughly the geographical centre of the country in which, according to our Wedau informants, the system is in force. Bamdiri, one of the leading men of Wedau, stated that his kimta relationship would be recognized by men of his kimta in all the coastal settlements eastwards as far as Awaiama,

Kimta mid Einani 471

while to the west, he would find kimta mates at Boianai, at Menapi, 20 miles across Goodenough Bay, at Mukaua some 35 miles from Wedau, as also in certain places inland, such as Gelaria. Beyond these limits is 'another country.'

A ki7nta would be identified by the name of any of its members, but in speaking of a kimta a man would naturally call it by the name of an individual known in the district. There is no form of admitting a child to a kimta, nor are presents exchanged between the parents of kimta mates at their birth, but the mothers in one community when speaking of their children will say ' well they will be of one kimta!

The members of a given kimta would help and show hospitality to each other, those of a male kimta would hunt together, whilst those of a female kimta go fishing together in the Wamira river. Similarly the men of a kimta would work together in the making of irrigation dams and ditches. Further, at many of the small feasts, the members of a kimta eat together, and there is a special expression am kimta for this eating by kimta, which was stated to have been particularly carefully observed before any fighting was undertaken. Men always eat by kimta at cannibal feasts and, although Wamira women were said never to partake of human flesh, they would eat other food by kimta, while the men were feasting. This was stated to be the only occasion on which women formally eat by kimta. Whenever boys or men eat by kimta the food so eaten is gathered, brought from the gardens, and cooked by members of their own sex. Acts of communal importance such as large hunts are followed by small feasts at which the eating is by kimta\

We are indebted to Mr Newton and Mrs Newton for grouping the children attending school at Wedau into kimta.

BOYS GIRLS

Kimta

No. of s

Estimate(

Individuals age

A

4-6

B

6-7

C

8-9

D

10— II

E

II — 12

/^

-N

Kimta

No.

of

Estimated

Individuals age

A I

4-5

B I

6—8

C I

8—10

D I

10—11

E I

II — 13

1 Although kimta mates would work and eat together in the circumstances stated in this paragraph because they were of one kiinta, it must be remembered that in many instances kimta mates would be members of one community and thus connected by the even more intimate eriam bond.

All except four of these children were seen and were judged to be between four and thirteen, for those not seen we accepted Mr Newton's classification. Some of the youngest children of both sexes wore no clothes. None of the girls of kivita E I had reached puberty, i.e. in none of these girls had the catamenia appeared, though in at least two of them the breasts were well developed, and the belly had assumed the feminine curve. The girls of the kiinta next above E i were marriageable\

It appeared that the kimta fellowship was not recognized as existinor between ki77zta mates of different communities until they were old enough to eat together in kimta. A man would observe the same attitude of cautious reserve towards the womenkind of his own kimta mates in a foreign community as he would towards those women whose men-folk were not of his ki7nta and, when speaking to the wife or sister-in-law of a kivita mate he would address her by name and not by any term of relationship^

A child would call his father s kimta mates and their wives, even from other communities, awau (my father), and alou (my mother), and these would call the child natu (my child), but it must be remembered that a child speaking to an older man may address him as ' father ' (or perhaps grandfather) and be addressed as 'child.'

A man's kimta mates in his own settlement would be called eriam., and between eriaTn there was the closest friendship. Although a man would not in a general way take food from the gardens of his eriaTn without permission, he would have no hesitation in making use of them for himself and his family if his own crop failed. Again a man would not hesitate to borrow fishing nets from his eriam, though he would not take them without asking permission. In warfare the eriam would as far as possible keep together and endeavour to look after each other. If one of them speared an enemy and brought him to the ground, the other would probably spear

^ There is, however, some doubt whether the division of the girls into kimta in the manner indicated in the table is genuine ; it may have arisen through a misunderstanding, for unmarried girls are, perhaps, all considered of one kimta and take their husband's kifnta on marriage.

• The great difference in this respect in the kimta bond existing between (i) men of diffierent communities and (ii) men of the same community {eriam) may be emphasised by comparison of a man's attitude to the wives of his kimta mates described here and his relation to the wives of his eriam.

I

Kimta and Rrimn 473

him as he lay even If he were dead. It seemed that the idea underlying this was that the enemy, before his overthrow, had attacked not one of the eriam only but the whole group in the person of one of their members. The members of each eriam group eat together before fighting, but here this relationship is merged in the wider circle of kimta fellowship already described.

The eriam. fellowship was most marked in the relations between a man and the wives of his eriam. mates. Not only would the eriam. determine which of them should marry the widow of one of their comrades, but each member of the fellowship has marital rights over the wives of his fellow eriam of which he does not hesitate to avail himself. The only bar to these rights are those laws of clan-group and totem or individual consanguinity which would have prevented a man himself from marrying these women. A man who wished to have connection with the wife of one of his eriam. would see her and arrange to meet her at an appointed spot in the bush, where he would prepare a small clearing if there were not one already. It was not bad form or unusual for a man to avail himself frequently of this privilege even when his own wife was able to receive him, but when she was pregnant he naturally resorted to the wives of his eriam more frequently. It was pointed out that under these circumstances a man usually preferred the wife of one particular eriam, and sought her company more frequently than that of the wives of his other eriam. The wife makes no secret of having been visited by one of her husband's eriam and will generally mention it to her husband, but it was said that she would not receive more than one man on the same day. In spite of the advantages accruing to the eriam on the marriage of one of their number, they found no portion of the present which the bridegroom and his people took to the bride's father as a marriage gift. A man would address the wives of his eriam as au eriam (my eriam). A child calls each of his or her father's eriam, awau (my father), and will be given food by all of these, though it is the business of a girl's putative father to provide the return present made to the bridegroom's parents on the occasion of her marriage. A child calls his or her mother alou (my mother) and the same term is applied to the wives of his or her father's eriam. A man would call his wife's younger sister au tevara or var'eiu, and the same term is applied to the

474 ^^^^ Southern Massiin younger sisters of the wives of his eriam. The children of two eria7n may not marry or even have connection, for ' our father Is one, our mother is one ' (said Bamdiri), and it appeared that a man would not marry the sister of his eriam, with whom he should not even have connection.

When a man dies the wives of his eriam mourn for him as does his own wife, but their period of mourning is shorter. Thus, although the wives of the eriam. wail for a dead eriam., crying * my husband, au eriam (my eriam), au kim^kimta,' and although they are blackened and wear the special form of widows' petticoat and don mourning armlets, they get rid of these signs of mourning earlier than does the wife of the deceased, since the petticoat is cast at the time of the first banivi, while the blackening is abandoned after a short time, perhaps about a fortnight.

These notes concerning the duties and privileges of the eriam relationship were collected at Wedau. We cannot definitely say whether they formerly applied equally to Wamira, where the present occurrence of the custom is denied, or to Gelaria where the term for kimta is waba, but the kimta and eriam. customs of Wedau exist in a westerly direction all round Goodenough Bay as far as Mukaua.

At Bolanai a kim.ta is called pata, and the word for eriam Is rikam. All men of the same pala in a community are rikam to each other, and males if they are betrothed within the village will usually be betrothed to girls of a pata nearly corresponding to their own. In this district, as throughout the greater part of south-eastern New Guinea, a man abstains from connection with his wife from the time pregnancy Is diagnosed until the child is weaned, and during this period as at other times this abstinence is rendered easier by his ready access to the wives of any of his rikam who are not themselves pregnant, or forbidden to him on account of their clan. A man would tell the woman that he proposed to have connection with her, and It would generally take place in the bush or in the garden. In any case she would not make any secret of it, and would not hesitate to tell her husband. A man would usually have from 8 to 12 rikam; three Bolanai men had respectively 10, 12 and 10 rikam.

Kinita and Eriam

Note by Mr Nezvton.

' I do not think that there is necessarily any connection between kimta and eriam, and in fact to avoid confusion I think the two things should be kept distinct. Thus the essence of kimta relationship is the fact of being born at or about the same time, during the same year. The essence of eriam relationship is that a man and his eriam have rights over each other's wives, and certain duties resulting from this privilege. The eriam relationship is a marital affair ; the kimta relationship is the consequence of the accident that a number of children were born about the same time. It is well to remember that the Wedau, Wamira and Taupota expression for '' my friend " is respectively turau, au kera, au eriam, and though perhaps turau is a wider term than the other two, au eriam and au kera being perhaps more confined to people of the same kim.ta, the Taupota expression tends' to confuse the true eria^n relationship as known in Wedau.'

' All children of the same age were looked upon as belonging to the same kimta, in which they normally remained for the rest of their lives. From time to time a sort of local feast was held in which the males of the various kimta ate together ; this is called am kimta. It sometimes happened that young people were degraded in kimta, or older folk either degraded or advanced. Thus if a child did not develop physically as rapidly as his mates he was passed into a lower kimta. On the other hand when people got older and their kimta mates died out, two or more kimta would be combined.'

' The chief object of the am kimta seems to have been to impress upon the people, especially the rising generation, the positions with regard to age that the different members of the community held. In the am kimta there were no distinctions made as to clan or relationship. The different ki77ita of all clans eat together irrespective of clan or social distinction (social distinction being marked by wealth). Boys would am kimta about the time they pulled food grown by themselves, and they would expect to be invited to other villacres to eat with their kimta mates about this time. They would not go unless they were invited, but if not invited they would consider they were treated meanly. At the sarne time it must always be remembered that each community was a close

476 TJie Southern Masshn corporation with little Intercourse of an ordinary nature with the outside world. They visited for feasts, for commerce, or for consultation on various matters, but rather for some set purpose than for mere friendly intercourse.'

• The results of the kimta relationship were the friendly relations that naturally arose from the fact that the members of a kiynta grew up together As they grew older, they experienced the duties that came from age and the privileges they acquired about the same time. And they naturally always had a good deal in common, past experiences to talk over, future duties and privileges to discuss.'

' The eriam relationship is really distinct from the kimta bond, though duties and privileges which are concerned with the eriam relationship may appear to be to some extent connected with kimta, because boys and men of the same age and of the same ki7nta would be mutually eriam. Also, there is a loose use of the word eriam^ probably modern and due to Taupota influence, so that a man may call his kimta mates au eria^n as being his friends or chums, and this idea Is strengthened by the fact (of which I am fairly sure) that at Taupota men would not call older men au eriam., it being too familiar, nor would they address younger men by this term, it being too condescending. Thus when a man Is asked whether so-and-so of the same kim.ta Is his eriam. he will say ''yes," but on being asked whether he has rights over his wife he will say ''no" and explain that he is eriam just for friendly relations, walk together, work together, and so on.'

' The essence of the true eriam. relationship Is the right that a man has of access to the wife of his eriaTn, and the duties and privileges In the way of mutual help and assistance that flow from this relationship. Here (In Wedau) it seems that the same limitations to the eriam. relationship exist that exist for marriage. Thus a man cannot have as an eriam a man of his own clan, or one whose wife is of his own clan, nor can two men whose wives are of the same clan be eriam to each other. A man may be eriam. to a man of a younger kimta, but he would more often be eriam to men of his own kimta. Another point worth noticing is that the eriam. relationship Is hereditary. Thus if A and B are eriam., A's son C would be eriam to B's son D In the ordinary course of events, but the eriam relationship can be mutually dissolved

I

Khnta and Eriam 477

by C and D ; also men may inaugurate a new eriam relationship not hereditary.'

' A man will help his eriam in trouble or need. Thus if A and B are eriam and B is in want, A will feed him, but Bs wife will take the initiative, not B himself; this probably is due to shyness.'

• If a man with one wife is eriam to a man with several wives, his rights only extend to the first or one wife ; he has no rights over the others.'

' A wife mourns for her husband's eriam. as for a near relation, as a widow '

' The kimta arrangements at Wamira and Wedau seem to be the same. Unmarried women eat as one kimta^ after marriage they form a number of kimla corresponding to those of their husbands. Married and unmarried kimta mates eat together ceremonially.'

'At Wamira it seems the eriam relationship does not carry marital rights, for that custom came from Boianai to Wedau and did not reach to Wamira. A man having connection with the wife of his eriam would be punished as an ordinary adulterer.'

'At Wamira a man is eriam with men of other tribes, but this only implies an exchange of food and other presents. It seems strange that there should be such a difference in neighbouring villages, but the conservatism of the New Guinea native is very strong.'

1 [This mourning though similar to that of a widow is shorter, cf. p. 474.]

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CHAPTER XXXVII

FAMILY LIFE. THE HAMLET AND THE FAMILY-GROUP.

It has already been stated that the Inhabitants of each hamlet are all more or less closely related either by birth, marriage or adoption, so that besides constituting the functional social unit of public life the hamlet, in the majority of cases, Is coextensive with a family group. Figure 37 Is a short genealogy of the inhabitants of the hamlet of Wagawaga Pupuna. In this diagram (as In figure 38) the dotted lines represent houses and the space they enclose contains in each case the names of people living in one house. Individuals who have come in through marriage are Indicated by signs of sex and young children by a C, with a figure after It indicating the number of children : thus C. 5 indicates five children.

It will immediately be seen that, excluding Individuals who were brought In by marriage, the Inhabitants of Wagawaga Pupuna belong to a single family, descended from a man and woman who lived three generations ago. This condition of descent from a single couple must be regarded as the commonest form of relationship between the Individuals of a hamlet In the south-eastern district, and as representing the most typical form of hamlet population. As the Inhabitants of a hamlet Increase In number, new houses may be built In the hamlet or a movement of only a few yards may convert one or more freshly erected houses into a new hamlet. In any case it must be remembered when dealing with southeastern hamlets that there Is a strong tendency for married children and even grandchildren to continue to live in the house with their elder relatives for an Indefmite time, and that the custom where constantly observed tends to limit fe o

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Kinship and Relatiojtship 481

the rapid extension of old hamlets, and the production of new\

A more complicated position of affairs exists in hamlets into which strangers have been adopted and have built houses, as at Kanabwahi where the original stock has been joined by two men, one from near East Cape, the other from near Awaiama. Both men were adopted into the clan Garuboi and built their houses in the hamlet of their adoption, being given Kanabwahi garden land to cultivate. When a hamlet is composed of various stocks in this way there is naturally more tendency for individuals to split off, each stock often makes a nakanaka but the observance of prohibitions in force on the old site may be observed quietly for a considerable time. Thus to take a concrete instance in the Awaiama family of Kanabwahi, I may refer to the respect with which Tauweoko still treats his father's original totem bird gimo, a dove.

KINSHIP AND RELATIONSHIP.

Neither at Wagawaga nor Tubetube did time permit of the taking of a sufficient number of genealogies to allow the system of relationship to be worked out at all completely, and, in the list of relationship terms, only those simple connotations of each word of which I am reasonably certain are given.

Wagawaga.

Goga, grandfather, grandmother I

Aina, father.

Ina or hina, mother, maternal aunt, paternal uncle's wife.

Natic, son, sister's child (woman speaks).

Au, maternal uncle, sister's child (man speaks).

Nowe, brother, sister.

Tugo, elder brother, elder sister (both sexes use this term).

1 As far as my limited experience of the south-eastern district extends, this custom attains its maximum intensity at Bartle Bay ; at Tubetube the population has diminished so rapidly that no judgment of any value could be formed, but probably the condition of affairs described at Wagawaga has not substantially altered since the old days and mav be taken as typical of the whole of Miine Bay.

2 Goga was used both for maternal and paternal grandparents in spile ot the fact that by the rules for the regulation of marriage no individual is ot the same clan as his paternal grandfather or grandmother, or his maternal grandfather, while on the other hand by the simple rule of matrilineal descent he necessarily belongs to the same clan as his maternal grandmother.

S. N. G. ^^

Tewera, younger brother, younger sister (both sexes use this term).

Iwa, brother-in-law, sister-in-law.

IVarihi, cousins on mother's side.

Pohia, mother-in-law, son-in-law, father-in-law, daughter-inlaw, husband's maternal uncle, husband's maternal aunt.

Ea, maternal uncle's wife, husband's sister's child, paternal aunt.

Mahia, paternal uncle, brother's child, maternal aunt's husband, wife's sister's child.

Tura, husband, wife, friend.

Tubetube.

Tubu, grandfather, grandmother, wife's grandfather, or orrandmother.

Tatna, father, paternal uncle.

Sina, mother, maternal aunt, maternal grandmother, paternal uncle's wife.

Natti, child, grandchild, sister's child (woman speaks), brother's child (man or woman speaks).

Game, sister's child (man speaks).

Bara, maternal uncle.

Madia, paternal uncle.

Du, brother (sister speaks), sister (brother speaks).

Kaukaua, brother (brother speaks), sister (sister speaks)\

Nubai, children of brother and sister.

Bwasza, father-in-law, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, sonin-law.

Rawa, brother-in-law, sister-in-law (either speaks).

Eguiya, brother-in-law (man speaks).

Yaiya, maternal uncle's wife, husband's sister's child.

Taubara, husband, really a status term applied to old men.

Keduruma, wife, really a status term applied to old women. It seemed that there was an inclination to avoid calling

^ Kaukaua appears to be a general term for brothers and sisters and also for cousins, the children of brothers and sisters, when these cousins are not nubai, but it is also used in the more limited sense indicated in the text. On the other hand, du is properly applied only to brothers and sisters by individuals of the opposite sex.

A paper by the Rev. J. T. Field indicates that among cousins the term kaukaua should be used only between individuals of the same sex, when they are of opposite stxdu should be employed. 'Exogamy at Tubetube, 13ritish New Guinea.' Report of the eighth meeting of the A ustralasian Association for the Advance?nent of Science^ 1900, p. 301.

I

Functions and Privileges of certain Kin 483

people by name throughout the whole of the south-eastern district and that this was generally managed by the substitution of a term of address which was often a status term or a relationship term not strictly applicable to the person addressed. Thus any old woman might be addressed as mother.

FUNCTIONS AND PRIVILEGES OF CERTAIN KIN.

Information concerning the functions and privileges of certain kin, including customs of avoidance, was obtained at both Wagawaga and Tubetube, but since custom on these points is identical, only one account is given which Is to be taken as applying specifically to these two places. It is certain that a very large number of the facts elicited apply equally to a large area which embraces the Louisiades and Murua, indeed it is probable that the whole of the Information given under the present heading is valid throughout the greater portion of the south-eastern district.

A man owed obedience and help to his father and his maternal uncles. It seemed that from the practical standpoint of service rendered, a boy's father came off as well as his maternal uncle, though there were perhaps more occasions on which the latter might require service. It is a father's part to teach his son the various methods of fishing and gardenmaking, but in these duties he would be assisted by his wife's brothers who shared his responsibility. If a boy's father died his maternal uncle acted in his stead In every way. In the same way a child's maternal aunt replaces its mother, this being especially the case if the child be a girl.

A man would not grumble If his sister's child borrowed his gear during his absence, or helped himself to his garden produce, and it seemed that a boy or man would more readily borrow property from his maternal uncle than from his father, and in the former case, even If the property borrowed were returned in a damaged condition nothing would be said. A boy had to give a portion of the fish he caught or pig he speared to his maternal uncle. When travelling with his uncle he would do the hard work such as gathering firewood and cooking food, and in a canoe journey he would be required to make himself generally useful to his uncle. Properly speaking, only maternal uncle and sister's son could

31—2

take the important part of chief mourners at funerals, while, as explained in chapter xxxix, a man's sisters' children inherit the whole of his garden land and take a large share of his personal property.

A man would help his maternal aunt — at any rate if she were unmarried — in making a garden, and his mother, to whom he would naturally give a portion of any fish he might catch, would usually present some of this food to her unmarried sisters. A man or woman would usually, and without any formal return, help his or her brothers and sisters in garden-making and house-building.

A man would assist his father-in-law and his wife's brothers in house-building, garden-making and fencing, although he would get little help from these connections in return for his services. To his wife's sisters his position is particularly well defined: although he may not come in contact with them in any way, and must avoid speaking of them by name, they have full right to help themselves to his most valuable possessions and to borrow, even returning in a damaged condition and without any explanation or apology, his most valuable nets and canoes, knowing that no complaint will be made. To a smaller extent a man's mother-in-law may help herself to his belongings, but his father-in-law has no such right. A man will help his sister's husband in garden-making and house-building and will in return receive similar assistance.

Cousins of opposite sex do not avoid each other ; they call each other by name, but may not sleep together or marry. The restriction as to intercourse and marriage is still valid as regards second, and probably extends at least to third, cousins.

NAME AVOIDANCE.

Every native avoided speaking the name of a large number of people who may be grouped as follows : — (i) Living relatives.

(2) Dead relatives.

(3) Connections by marriage.

(i) Names of living relatives. The most rigid name avoidance was observed towards a father or paternal uncle. Not only would a man never address these relations by name, but further, to speak the name of a man's father or paternal uncle before his son or brother's son was in the highest degreei

Name Avoidance 485

insulting and might lead to a quarrel in which blows would be struck.

An individual would not address his or her paternal aunt by name and the latter in replying would use the relationship term, it also appeared that these two relatives would not speak of each other by name.

(2) Names of dead relatives. Although the names of all dead folk are banished from the official spoken language of the community so that it becomes a matter of extremely bad taste to speak the names of any dead individual, such special reprobation attached to the mention of the name of a dead father or paternal uncle that the matter merits particular notice ; this has already been referred to on page 441 where the small amount of information that could be gathered upon this subject is given.

(3) Names of connections by marriage. There is name avoidance between:

Father-in-law and daughter-in-law. Father-in-law and son-in-law. Brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Brother-in-law and brother-in-law. Sister-in-law and sister-in-law. Husband and wife\

AVOIDANCE OF CONTACT.

The majority of connections by marriage who are of opposite sexes and between whom there is name avoidance also avoid coming into contact with each other.

A man would most rigidly avoid talking to a sister of his wife whether he met her alone or in the company of others. If he met her alone he would avoid coming near her at all; if this were impossible, as when meeting on a jungle track, brother-in-law and sister-in-law would turn their backs to each other in passing and one, usually the woman, would step aside into the bushl

A man avoids his mother-in-law less rigidly than his wife's sisters, although if he meets her alone he treats her in the same way, and even in public does not usually enter her

1 At Tubetube this is dying out.

2 It was stated at Wagawaga that men of South Cape and the bush villages inland from Milne Bay, would not avoid their wives' sisters, and it was said that at both places a man might marry two sisters.

house unless he is living there. In his own house he may talk to her a little, and he may eat food she has cooked, but he does not take the pot containing food directly from her. Father-in-law and daughter-in-law avoid each other very much as do mother-in-law and son in-law. A man does not avoid his brothers' wives.

ADOPTION.

Adoption is not uncommon at both Wagawaga and Tubetube, where it was said that a child might be adopted by either a man or a woman, although in both cases it was clear that only a child of the same totem as the man or woman adopting it would be selected. Perhaps adoption by a woman is commoner than adoption by a man, certainly as regards children of their own sex, though at Tubetube it was not uncommon for a man to adopt his brother's child. Formerly, children approaching puberty captured in war were sometimes adopted into the clan. In these cases whatever the sex of the prisoners, they assumed the totems of the man adopting them, so that it became impossible for a man to marry a female prisoner adopted by himself or, in the old days, to have prolonged intercourse with her. It was repeatedly stated that these rules were formerly most stringently adhered to, and a female prisoner adopted into the clan was in fact looked upon as the sister of the man adopting her. Instances in which adult strangers with their families are adopted into a clan are dealt with in chapter xxxix under the heading ' Property.' When a child was adopted it was not as a rule taken from its mother until it was weaned.

INFANCY AND YOUTH.

Wagawaga.

Soon after birth the infant's joints are extended and flexed one by one and its head is stroked from front to back and its muscles undergo a certain amount of gentle kneading, but there does not seem to be any intention of altering the shape of the head by the pressure of the hands and the process takes place only once. If the child is the first-born, the stump of the cord when it falls off is taken by the father or mother to the garden and placed in the sheath of one of the leaves growing near the base of a banana. As soon as

I

Infancy and Youth 487

the tree bears fruit, the first of a series of feasts termed sipupu is given to the child's maternal uncles {au), and the produce of this tree forms a part of the feast. Sipupu are given only for the first child, a series of four or five being usually held, each taking place about a month after the last. No pigs are killed, but the child's parents prepare and cook from three to six pots of vegetables and fish, which are taken away by the child's ail and eaten by them and their relatives, not including the child's mother. The first sipupu should be given about a month after the child is born and it appeared that the banana plant selected to receive the umbilical cord was, when possible, chosen so as to bear ripe fruit about this time.

For at least a month after child-birth the mother is restricted to a mixture of boiled taro and the fruit of the tree okioki (also called demaia).

After each sipupu, other kinds of food are added to the mother's diet, and at the end of two or three months she may eat fish and may work in the garden which has been tended previously by her mother.

In the case of a first-born child the father stays in the potu7na for some six months. He may eat fish, but must abstain for about a month from dog, pig, turtle and all birds; and from banana, coconut, cuscus, goda (porridge made of taro and coconut milk), mango, sago, sugar cane, winau (roseapple, Eugenia sp.). He may eat yams, but according to one account should abstain even from these. The penalty for violation of any of these taboos is the illness of the child.

The husband does not see the child for about the first month of its life and for some time after this he avoids approaching or passing close to his wife while the child is with her, and he takes care not to touch his child until the mother has tied strings of the shell-beads called sapisapi round the infant's wrists and above its elbows. This taboo on coming in contact with the child is in force until it is irom five to eight months old, and the putting on of the sapisapi \s a sign that the father may now handle the child without its ceasing to thrive or becoming dangerously ill, as might have occurred had he touched it earlier. This taboo only applies to a first-born child. The father may return to the house and sleep there as soon as the child can crawl about; but it is

488 The Southern Massiin not until It can play with other children that he is permitted to have access to his wife\

A first-born child Is termed halafwau ; other children halabeafa, A first-born child Is not allowed to eat bananas, goda, mango, sago, sugar cane, yam, pig, and certain fish, until he Is two or three years old ; according to another statement the yam taboo persists until the age of four or five.

Twins are generally regarded with disfavour though no special hypothesis Is Invoked to account for their occurrence, and although they are not considered a disgrace, public opinion formerly permitted their mother to suffocate one soon after its birth.

Children are given their names soon after birth, being very often called after their near relatives and friends, and it is especially common to name a boy-child after his aii (maternal uncle) and a girl-child after her maternal aunt but not, it was stated, after her mother^ Boys and girls always have different names and those of the latter often begin with the prefix sine, the common word used by itself to denote woman or female, and in the form sina also meaning mother and maternal aunt.

It was considered a compliment to name a child after a friend, and a friend's name might even be assumed as a token of admiration or friendship after childhood had passed, the Individual thus changing his or her name entirely discarding the old name. Luta, sister to Ipunesa, is an example of this ; her real name is, or was, Pampam, pa^n meaning taro leaf boiled for eating as a vegetable, but she assumed the name of Luta, that of the wife of the local native teacher, on account of her friendship and admiration for her.

No child received more than one name, but that bestowed soon after birth might be replaced as the child grew up by a nickname, given on account of some physical peculiarity, and when this occurred an Individual would usually be so con-

^ At Bartle Bay a father will not ordinarily touch his child until the umbilical cord has dropped off, nor will he go on a journey until this has occurred, though soon after this he will nurse the child or swing it in the string bag, while the mother is away fishing or in the gardens. An unmarried woman must not nurse a firstborn child, unless she gives it a present.

^ Since the names of the dead may not be mentioned before their surviving relatives, the practice of naming children after their maternal uncles {au) and aunts gave rise to much confusion and renaming at the death of any one of them. This matter is dealt with at the end of the chapter on Funeral and Mourning Ceremonies.

Infancy and Youth 489

sistently called by his nickname, that his real name might be forgotten by all except his intimate friends and relations. In this way a certain man came to be generally known as Paarofa, a name which is an allusion to his particularly steep and flat occipital region.

A child's ears are pierced while he or she is still a baby, the method being the same as that described later in this chapter as occurring at Tubetube.

Nose boring, which was said to be a matter of no great importance, was often not done until about or after puberty^

There are no initiation ceremonies for boys at puberty, but when hair begins to show on their pubes and axillae they begin to sleep in th.^ pohcma if they have not done so before, for it appears that as a matter of fact a boy often sleeps fairly regularly in a potuma during the year or two preceding puberty. A boy called Gabiau, a case of precocious puberty, who judging from his general appearance is about ten years old has a hairless face and hairless axillae but fully developed genitals and hair on his pubes. This lad sometimes sleeps in ih.^ pottima and sometimes in his parents' house.

Girls are not tatooed nor do initiation or seclusion ceremonies occur at puberty, further, they were said not to abstain from gardening, cooking or fetching water even during their first period, before which it was alleged many girls began to frequent th^ potu77ia.

The following words are used as status terms to describe approximately the age and condition of children and adolescents. Koko and tewera and to a lesser extent wawine are used as terms of address.

Hagokagagoa, a baby, boy or girl.

Kenukenu, a girl child about 3 years old.

Koko, a boy from 3 to 5 years or even older, this word literally means 'testis.' Pah'ei, 3. girl-child about 5 to 6 years old. Tewera meameana, a boy from about 5 to i o or 12 years of age. Tewera, a boy approaching puberty. Tewe7'a guguhini, a girl approaching puberty.

1 It was alleged that the usual method of performing the operation was for a friend of the individual who desired to be operated on, to thrust a sharpened stick through the nasal septum of the latter during his sleep. This statement could not be confirmed, and it seems unlikely that the septum could be pierced durmg sleep with no better instrument than a sharpened stick.

490 The SoiitJiern Massim

Hewariy a youth from puberty upwards through young manhood. Wawine, a girl from puberty upwards through womanhood.

All these terms, except those which imply the advent of puberty in girls, are used even more loosely than the above list implies ; it was said that a boy might begin to chew areca and wear armbands while still called koko, and a boy at this or the next stage, i.e. tewei^a meameana, would be told his totems, but he would not as a rule begin to smoke until shortly before puberty when he would be called tewera,

Tubetube.

A baby usually sleeps in the hollow of its mother's arm, lying upon a petticoat and being covered if necessary by a daarn mat. During the day protection is afforded by folding a mat somewhat as a filter paper is folded and putting the baby within the sack so formed ; if it be cold the child will be covered with another daa^n mat.

Children are named within a few days of their birth often after their maternal uncle, but it appeared that any clansman might suggest that his name should be given to a baby not yet named or whose name had not been decided upon. Any one proposing his or her name for a child would, as a rule, take care to discover whether the mother wished to give it any particular name before making the proposal, but if the child's name had not been selected the suggestion of a clansman or clanswoman would not be refused. There are different names for boys and girls. As a child grows up a nickname, generally derived from some physical peculiarity, may be substituted for the real name and when this occurs a man is ever after addressed by his nickname. Mwakasoki, the name by which the most prominent man of Tubetube is always known and to which he answers when addressed, is really a nickname and means ' big teeth ' or ' tushes ' ; this name was given him because his teeth were thought to be particularly large, suggesting those of a boar.

The child is usually suckled until a number of teeth have appeared, but before this he is given taro, yam or banana, which has been first masticated by his mother.

The ears are bored by the mother before the child is weaned. She puts several of the turtleshell earrings called

I

Infancy and Youth 491

komako7na close together upon one spot on the lobe of the ear, so that after five or six days a single slough which leads to perforation is formed. While the formation and loosening of the slough is going on the child is naturally very uncomfortable and fretful and requires constant watching ; \h^ komakoma are left in the hole they have formed which is kept reasonably clean by washing.

Each komakoma consists of a turtleshell ring some 15 mm. in diameter upon which is placed a single sapisapi disc. The ring is cut through at one spot. When it is desired to use one or more of these to perforate the ear the two limbs of the circle are slightly drawn apart and placed one on each side of the lobule, they are then released and grip the tissue between them so tightly that a hole is formed by sloughing.

The child's nose is bored any time from its fourth to its eighth or tenth year ; if this is done at the younger age the mother generally officiates, if done later the father. The process consists of placing one or more komakoma on the septum when sloughing leading to perforation of the septum ensues\ When this has occurred the turtleshell circle is removed, being generally broken in the process ; the wound is washed and a small stick, the size of which is gradually increased, is inserted in the wound.

Children up to the age of six or eight years are not allowed to eat turtle or the following fish : pzcrau, marabwanay and kusuri, the latter being a fish which closely resembles ' kingfish.' A child would not be told its totems till seven or eight years old, when its mother would teach it first its own totems and then its father's. The perineal bandage is generally assumed about the same time ; there is no ceremony about this, it is generally put on by the father of the boy and at first the latter often removes it to play and it is only later he learns that he must wear it constandy. In the same way girls are put into petticoats without any ceremony ; though

1 Neither at Wagawaga nor at'Tubetube was any reason given for the boring of the ear lobes or the perforation of the nasal septum, but the Rev. C. W. Abel mentions a boy, apparently from the neighbourhood of Rogea, who in spite of all entreaties had his ears perforated in order to avoid being chaffed by his companions who called him suaa?ia, i.e. a wild or bush pig, in opposition to sarai^ the term for a domestic pig which has been brought up in the family in the usual New Guinea way, and had its ears split to denote that it is no bush pig but some man's valuable property.

Commenting on this Mr Giblin says, 'we have had repeated cases at Dogura amongst mission youngsters.' Dogura is the mission station in Bartle Bay.

this is done at an earlier age than that at which boys assume the perineal bandage.

ADOLESCENCE.

Tubetube.

When about ten or twelve years of age, i.e. before puberty, boys begin to chew areca nut, and perhaps to blacken their teeth, though this makes the mouth sore and is not usually done until after puberty. This custom is generally practised on Tubetube by youths and young adults of both sexes, but only occasionally by men and women passed middle age.

A black bituminous semi-fossilised wood called tari is found in the mud of certain swamps upon Basilaki, whence it is imported into Tubetube for the special purpose of blackening the teeth. The tari is prepared for use as follows: a number of the leaves of the badira tree are chopped fine and roasted, after which they are mixed with a few fragments of tari and a little water and the whole reduced to a paste. To blacken the teeth some of the mass is spread on a piece of dried leaf (usually I believe a portion of a dried pandanus leaf such as is used in making mats), which has been cut to fit the outer surface of the front teeth. The plaster is placed in position between the lips and teeth at night and is not removed till next morning, when its wearer scrapes the paste from his teeth, which have now become a dark brown-black.

^ The usual reason assigned for blackening the teeth is that it is ornamental, and it was clear that they were blackened as a means of personal adornment and to attract the opposite sex.

The following status terms are applied to various stages of] childhood and adolescence :

Gagageri, boys from the time they can toddle up to the age at which a perineal bandage is worn ; perhaps the term meru is applied to the whole or a portion of the same stage of growth.

Game, boys who have assumed the perineal bandage but have not passed puberty.

Kipi, sinekuku and ganiagamasineo are all names applied to a girl-child before puberty and probably correspond more or less closely to the stages ^^^^r^ and ^^;;^^ in the male.

Sinekuku seems to specially apply to a girl nearing puberty but whose breasts have not yet developed.

\

ji

Adolescence 400

Ktrakat, boys after puberty and young men whether married or not.

Wesara, a girl at and after puberty whether married or not.

Sznematuana, this term is also applied to a girl past puberty.

At the present day many of the younger men and boys who have been away working have a few tattoo marks upon their chest, arms, or cheeks. These are generally some form of the common south-eastern scroll pattern, but of old no male was tattooed except for sickness'. Women, on the other hand, were always tattooed profusely, and the reason given for this is that it makes the girl look nice and accentuates her good skin. A girl's face would be tattooed some time before puberty but usually after her nose had been pierced, the scalp and neck apparently not being touched. Nothing more is done until the girl reaches puberty, when the chest, belly, flanks, arms and hands are tattooed after the first catamenia ceases. There are no initiation ceremonies for boys or girls, but about the time of puberty the former begin to sleep away from home and the tattooing of the latter is proceeded with, the parts of the body being treated in the order given above".

There are no special marriage or betrothal marks, and there are apparently no feasts connected with the process of tattooing.

^ I believe that the scroll pattern is used habitually as a tattoo pattern for males on Duau (Normanby Island) in the D'Entrecasteaux group.

2 No legend of the origin of tattooing could be elicited on Tubetube or at Wagawaga, but Captain Barton was given the following story upon Rogea :

'A woman man-eater, her village on Bonarua: she lived in a hole in the rock : also a small girl, her village was Bonarua. This girl was given to wandering about. At all times her mother and father they said, "Don't wander, or else the sorceress in the bush will eat you." The girl didn't listen, she walked about. The old woman saw the girl and called her and said, "You come." The girl went and with the woman came to the cave and stood outside. The sorceress said to the door of the cave "Open !" and it opened. The two entered the cave, whereupon she tattooed her. She commenced at the face and went down even to her feet. She boiled the blood and ate it. When she had finished the tattoo on another day the sorceress said to the girl, "You stay, I go and seek our food." She lied to the girl, her idea was to go far searching, that she might eat her on the morrow.

'Therefore she, the girl, considered : she thought, "I will speak to the door to open." She said, "Door, you open," and the door itself opened and the girl ran away to her mother and father. She said, "The sorceress caught me, to-day she wouid have eaten me." Therefore her father baked a stone wherewith to kill the sorceress. The sorceress arrived at her cave and found no girl. Then she sought and went to the girl's father and mother and asked. They said, "She is here." Then she said, "My grandchild there bring to me." The girl's father said, "Yes," then spoke down and said, "Open your mouth and I will show your grandchild to you and you can swallow her." And the girl's father threw the hot stone and she swallowed it and died. Therefore the girfs tattoo they afterwards imitated.'

494 ^^^^ Southern Masshn

No special ceremonial is observed when a girl first menstruates, but at this as at subsequent periods she maywork in the gardens though she may not fetch water or cook for others. During the actual flow a girl or woman will usually wear two or three petticoats and an especially old and soft one, which at night is tucked tightly between the legs, is worn next to the body. A married woman would occupy her usual sleeping place near the front fireplace at the time of her periods, though she would not cook for her husband, whose food would be prepared by his daughter, or if he has not one old enough, by his mother-in-law.

The menstruating woman may not eat out of the family pot or dish but cooks her own food at the common fire in a special pot of small size from which she eats. This pot is not broken or thrown away at the end of the period, but is kept for the future use of the woman on a shelf forming the floor of the small loft under the roof, where firewood is commonly stored. A woman at the end of her period washes in the sea or fresh water after which she is considered clean.

INITIATION CEREMONIES.

(By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

INITIATION OF BOYS. ■

Bartle Bay. '^

There are no Initiation ceremonies at Milne Bay or Tubetube. At Wamira initiation Is said to have been instituted by a superhuman being, but although nothing could be discovered about him, and It was said that nothing was known, it was generally agreed that if the initiation ceremonies were neglected, the boys would not grow up properly. In olden days initiation ceremonies were probably celebrated about every three or four years ; now, however, as the result of the presence of a mission in the neighbourhood and of its school in the village, a magisterial order has been promulgated to the effect that children up to the age of 12 or 13 must attend school three mornings a week, so that initiations are held at longer intervals and the age of initiation is later than it used to beapi At the present day the general development of the boy does not seem to play any part in determining when he is initiated. 1

Initiation Cereinojties 495

One boy who, it was said, would be initiated in about four months had no axillary hair, and another who had been initiated more than six years ago showed down sprouting on the axillae and pubes. With the former boy were initiated two others who now appear to be about 18 or 20. From the age of about seven up to the time of initiation the boys sleep in the ordinary male potuma, but formerly the custom was different. We are indebted to Mr Newton for the following note on this matter. ' It seems that in olden days there were potuma for people of different ranks ; babada ai potuina, dogadogara at pohcma, rava vouna at potuma, lai^alaraga aipohtma. The men using xhts^potmna were differentiated almost entirely by their age, that is by their tribal status and were divided into babada, old men, dogadogara, men rather past middle age, rava vouna, young married or middle-aged men, i.e. men in the prime of life, and laralaraga, young men, usually not married \ I fancy that boys of about sixteen would sleep in the laralaraga ai potu77ia. Younger children, say from four or five years and upwards, might be taken by their father to sleep in the potu7na with him, but they would not go to any potuma of their own accord to sleep ; they would naturally sleep with their mothers in their own houses. The old men might object to children coming to the potu^na, chiefly because they might commit a nuisance. It might happen that a bada took a young child to sleep with him in the babada at potu7na, but this seldom happened, and by the time that a man became a bada, it would be unusual for him to have such a young child.'

Initiation takes place after the flowering of the 'edible rush,' arable. The boys' fathers talking together in the evening will decide that their sons shall be initiated when this year's orabzc has flowered. When the rush is in flower and the mango ripening, the father of each boy tells him that his orabu has flowered. Each boy then gets an unripe mango, wild or otherwise, and scrapes it into the empty shell ot a coconut. He goes to the beach and mixes salt water with the scrapings, which he drinks, and washes down with more salt water ; he then dives into the water with his mouth open, drinking as he swims along beneath the surface of the water. Before diving he removes his perineal bandage and waistband,

1 Children might also build a potuma, but this would be merely play, imitation of their elders.

but wears a girdle of leaves as Is usual in this district when bathing. He does not remove his armlets. Swallowing so much salt water was said not to cause vomiting (as might have been expected), since the boys who perform these ceremonies under the supervision of the old men, subsequently drink the milk of green coconuts, which is held to prevent vomiting, though conducive to the purging that always takes place. When the boys come out of the water they put on a coarse perineal bandage {ara) fashioned from the leaf spathe of the coconut, which is fastened to a waistbelt made of a variety of pandanus leaf from which the serrated edges have been roughly stripped. After this they comb out their hair, and again drink the milk of green coconuts, and after oiling themselves in the customary manner, they go back to their homes, where their mothers have cooked food, such as taro, orabu, and pawpaw. No one eats the food prepared by his own mother, but each boy takes his portion of food and leaves it in a pot outside the house in which one of his fellow initiates lives. Meat, fish, fish-spawn, and taro leaf are forbidden foods. Sexual indulgence is forbidden to the initiates, and it seems to have been considered well for all boys to abstain from intercourse with the opposite sex until after Initiation, the penalty of disobedience being that the hair would not grow well.

After eating the food the initiates go to the gardens and work in the usual way till about 1 1 a.m., i.e. until the heat of the day becomes severe, when they come back from the gardens and begin to build their sleeping hut. This is built away from all the other houses and near the outskirts of the settlement. The house is called by the same name as the clubhouse, viz. potuma, and the initiates are termed agariria. It takes about three days to build the house and during this time the boys sleep on the sand, and avoid the settlement, through which they may only pass at night when all are asleep. They sleep in the house as soon as it is finished, but do not frequent it in the daytime, their days being passed in the gardens and on the seashore. During the period of initiation, food is cooked by the boys' mothers In the ordinary way, but special small pots are used as food-vessels. The initiates work daily in the gardens, and though seen by the others, are avoided by them. There is no special time set apart for moral instruction, but during the time of seclusion and after Initiation many questions will be asked of the old

I

Initiation 40-7

men, who go and talk to the boys in the potuma, and repeat the taboos that the initiates must not break.

There is no separation of the clans or kimta (cf. chapter xxxvi) in th^ potuina during seclusion, but the ceremony does not seem to have any influence in the direction of fusing the kimta. The seclusion lasts from the flowering of the rush iyOrabu) until the sun has reached its most northerly direction, that is to say, four, five or six months.

During their seclusion the initiates may hunt and fish, but must give their quarry to their mothers, fathers, and mothers' brothers. On the day before the termination of the period of seclusion there is a hunt in which both the agariria and others take part. On the following day the boys go to their own houses and receive back the belts and ara which they put off on the first day of their seclusion. They then go down to the shore where they strip, and put on girdles of leaves and thoroughly cleanse themselves in the sea. When they come ashore they put on their former perineal bandage and comb their hair, in which they are allowed to wear a comb for the first time. The initiates then oil themselves and return to the settlement, where they paint their faces black and red, though no special pattern seems to be prescribed. The initiation is now concluded and the boys return to their fathers' houses, the initiation potuma being allowed to rot.

At Gelaria a boy with no hair on his genitals is called ilaike and ceremonial observances take place before his pubic hair begins to grow. His father tells him when he is big enough to begin his ceremonial abstinence from flesh and fish, which is called viginana. During this time he may eat all vegetable food, and although he does no work in the garden he may hunt. He sleeps and sits about the house in the usual way, but he may no longer step across the partition to the women's side of the floor. His food, which must be boiled, is prepared for him by the women of the household and passed to him by a man, in a pot specially reserved for his use. He may not himself return the pot to the women, but must return it to one of the men. His father instructs him how to behave as a man, telHng him to do as he is commanded in war and to share out food fairly (so that the same may be done to him). The period of viginana is from one flowering of the orabu until the next. At the end of this time the boy goes to the river and bathes and his father gives him a new belt and ara, which is put on upon the river bank. His father combs his hair publicly, and the initiate now wears a comb and lets his hair grow. After his hair is combed, his face is blackened, and armlets and other ornaments are put on him. He may wash the black off his face, but usually this is allowed to wear off. A feast, of which the whole settlement partakes, is prepared when the boy's face is blackened.

Initiation of Girls.

The following information was obtained at Wamlra.

Girls who before the appearance of the catamenia were known as gidara were formerly secluded about the time of puberty, but this custom has now quite fallen into abeyance. The girls were confined in a house in the settlement which was not built specially for the occasion, but was generally an old house standing empty, or the house of the parents of one of the initiates who were willing to vacate it. The girls' seclusion lasted from one to three months, and did not appear necessarily to coincide with the first appearance of the menses, but rather to antedate them. The initiates were visited by the women of the community who came to see them when they liked, and although they might leave the house as they cared to and even visit their own homes by daylight, they were not allowed out of the initiation house at night, lest they should intrigue with men. They did not visit the gardens, their food being brought in and cooked for them, and they abstained from all flesh food.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

COURTSHIP, BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE.

The greatest freedom is allowed to both sexes before marriage nor does public opinion in any way condemn the full enjoyment of the liberty permitted to both boys and girls so long as the rules of totem and blood relationship are not violated. Within the restrictions imposed by these rules a girl may have whom she wishes for her lover and as advances are commonly made from her side she has full opportunity of exercising her choice. Love affairs of short duration entered upon for amusement certainly occur at the present day as they did formerly. It is true that in the old days a youth might properly only have intercourse with those girls whom he could marry, but this restriction was never very rigidly observed and it is certain that it is now frankly ignored, as the whole former system of life breaks down under the white man's influence.

Many questions which at present cannot be answered arise in relation to the free intercourse allowed between the sexes. The subject of courtship is one of the most difficult as well as the most interesting of these. Over a large area marriage does not normally take place except after more or less prolonged sexual connection which must be looked upon as the normal method of courtship, but it is equally clear that connection may occur under circumstances which do not lead to marriage and which are not expected to do so.

Whatever be the outcome of future investigations I believe it can be stated that love affairs undertaken lighdy, under conditions which render marriage impossible or very unlikely, are in a sense excrescences upon a system in which intercourse was in theory at any rate the mode of courtship, although the greatest freedom was permitted to members of both sexes in selecting their partners.

32—2

Another puzzling feature of the licence undoubtedly permitted throughout the Massim area is the very small number of illegitimate births which take place. Wherever the confidence of the natives was gained it was admitted that abortion was induced, but the most careful inquiries failed to produce evidence that the practice was as frequent as might be expected considering the prevailing liberty. In fact with ^v^xy a priori reason for expecting abortion to be commonly produced I came to the conclusion that in fact it was a somewhat infrequent events

I believe that the only deduction from the facts I have set forth is that Papuasian girls are less easily impregnated than the women of the white race. Whether this is in any degree due to early coitus, early and strenuous work in the gardens, or is a racial peculiarity I do not venture to surmise, but the point of view taken becomes perhaps more comprehensible when it is remembered that the Sinaugolo, a thriving hill tribe of the Rigo district in the central division, hold that a single act of coitus is insufficient to produce conception, so that a Sinaugolo girl does not expect to have a child unless visited fairly regularly for a comparatively lengthy time, perhaps not less than a months

The manner of obtaining access to an unmarried girl varies somewhat according to whether there are special girlhouses i^potuma) in the hamlet-group or not.

Wagawaga.

I

Certain houses are dedicated to the use of unmarried girls above the age of puberty who habitually pass the night in them. These, like the local man-houses, are called potuma, and are usually old houses, which when their owners build new ones, are given over to the girls. The girls resort to these houses in the dusk, and after dark a number of young

^ Careful inquiries showed that there was no reliable system of prophylaxis, though magical means, such as the wearing of certain plants, were used to avert conception.

2 Smce writing the above I have received the following information from a source which I believe to be thoroughly trustworthy: Indigena quidam mulierem alienam nee suam uxorem ubi haud minus ac | horam permoluerat, tandem fatigatus, et, ut dixit, venere infecta, ultro desiverat. Nee mihi mentiri visus est. Alter etiam mihi narravit se viginti diebus cum pluribus coiisse at bis tantum semen emisisse ; feminam autem neutram voluptate fructam esse summa.

Courtship, Betrothal and Marriage 501

bachelors of the community will proceed to such a potunia, and with the^ exception of one of their number, squat down outside. This youth enters the house and asks the girls if any of them are willing to receive any of the boys whose names he repeats. If one of the latter finds favour the girl says, 'All right, you tell him byemby he come.' Usually each girl selects a partner, and after finding out which girls want companions, the ambassador comes out and tells the boys which of them have been selected ; the latter resort to the potuma, while the unchosen remainder may proceed to another girl-house and there go through the same programme. Sometimes if the first boy is unsuccessful in allotting partners another may take his place. In ^2,0^ potuma the evening is spent in singing and yarning, but it is understood that in most cases connection will follow. Each couple goes to sleep together, but without discarding petticoat and perineal band ; when a boy wakes up and sees that the others are asleep he has connection with his partner.

A stranger visiting a community containing a girl-house would usually visit the girls' potuma in the evening, unless he were married and travelling with his wife ; he would be introduced in the usual way already described in the case of the members of the community, and the local man acting as ambassador would take care not to slur his name or in any way place him at a disadvantage. It was clear there was no jealousy felt as to the introduction of strangers to lh(t potu7na, nor did it seem that a stranger would be snubbed by the girls, in fact on putting the hypothetical case that the girls might prefer the companionship of members of their own community so that the visitor might come off badly, the suggestion was received with shaking of heads and grunts of incredulity. It is therefore evident that a stranger is under no disadvantage and perhaps even has some small advantage on account of his coming from a distance. If a visitor does not care to go to the potuma he is not pressed to do so, and it is no breach of etiquette for a stranger not to avail himself of this form of hospitality.

Tubetube.

The following information was obtained at Tubetube. where there are no girl-houses, and holds good over a considerable part of the south-eastern district. A youth desiring to have connection with a girl, or willing to accede to her advances, takes an opportunity of asking her whether she will receive him. If she assents he spends the evening loitering about the house in which she is living, until all sounds of talking cease, and the older occupants may be presumed to be asleep, for this waiting is wholly a formality, and no one would in any event interfere. Then he will enter by the back, that is to say the woman's door, and find the girl awaiting him by the woman's fireplace near that end of the housed Here he will stay with her during most of the night, talking in low tones so as not to disturb the other occupants. The youth always goes away before daylight, by the door he used in entering ; and throughout the whole affair decorum requires that an appearance of secrecy shall be preserved, although the people in the house may be perfectly aware of what is going on and discuss it among themselves. It was indeed no serious matter if the youth overslept himself and was discovered in the morning. Marriage would then generally be suggested, and apparently this would often be agreed to, but the boy might if he chose boldly face the situation when he would not be threatened or even abused, and might return some other night. If after their first night together the girl asked the boy to return, he would do so, but not otherwise, and the proposition to spend a second night together never came from the male.

COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL.

A more or less prolonged period of connection precedes marriage, and that this, in the ordinary way, constitutes courtship is shown by the method in which betrothal is brought about. After a time, said to extend from one to three months, during which a girl has constantly received the same boy, she may propose marriage if she still cares for the man, and considers he would make a suitable husband. The above applies equally to Wagawaga and Tubetube and it is quite clear that in neither place would the initiative in proposing marriage be taken by the youth. It seemed that an intimacy seldom lasted as long as two or three months unless one or

Mn a family in which there are marriageable girls the parents usually sleep round the front fireplace, while the girls lie round the back fireplace ; the brothers, if ihere be any, usually sleep in the houses of their paternal uncle, even if these be some distance away.

Courtship and Betrothal 503

both of the partners were willing that marriage should result. This point was more strongly insisted upon at Wagawaga than at Tubetube, but the natives of the latter place seemed generally to be more sophisticated and less reliable than those of Milne Bay, where it was said that the intimacy did not continue unless the boy assented to the girl's proposal.

When two people desire to be married they each at once notify their parents. If the parents of either refuse their consent, the marriage does not take place, but as no instances of elopement or marriage without the parents' consent appeared to be known, it must be very unusual for parents to make difficulties. At Wagawaga it was stated that in the rare event of the girl's parents refusing their consent, she would inform the boy when next he visited her in xh^ potunia, in which case he would spend the night with her but would not return the next night. If, on the other hand, the boy's parents are obdurate, the girl is informed that marriage cannot take place, but probably cohabitation is not broken off immediately.

Bartle Bay.

(By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

At Wamira, Wedau and Gelaria and in some of the coast settlements to the east of Bartle Bay, a custom called viagagavu (at Wedau and Wamira) prevails. Our information concerning this custom is far from adequate, but certain usages of which we have a sure though incomplete knowledge show that the custom is essentially a preliminary to marriage. A boy and girl pass the night together, sleeping in each other's arms, either in a rough shelter built in the bush, or in the house of the girl's parents. Only members of intermarrying clans and individuals who are not prevented by social restrictions from marrying each other, come together in this way. In many, perhaps in the majority of cases, connection does not take place ; it is even possible that in some instances no liberties are taken, though this is by no means certain. It seemed usual that if connection occurred, marriage should follow ; without connection, marriage might or might not ensue. Viagagavu may certainly be entered into as a jest, a mere piece of fun, and a boy may boast of the number of partners he has had, when it is certain that he has not had connection with them. Thus viagagavu may, and generally does, occur many times in the life of each boy and girl, and is assuredly not necessarily a preliminary to marriage with the girl with whom it is first practised. On the other hand a widow or widower about to marry would practise viagagavu with his or her future spouse.

At Gelaria it was stated that a boy would watch for a chance to meet and speak privately to a girl he fancied. He would say: 'Let us sleep together,' and, unless she disliked him much, she would assent at once, when the boy would name their meeting place which would be either in an empty garden house, or in the bush, where he would build a rough shelter ; the couple would meet' in their usual dress. The boy may caress his partner, and put his hands and arms round the upper part of the body. The boy and girl separate before dawn, and according to native informants connection rarely takes place on these occasions. The boy does not introduce the subject of marriage, but the girl may use some such form as * I don't care for other men,' and that would be considered an acceptance of the boy's tacit offer of marriage, or being bashful the girl might say nothing ; this, too, would be considered an acceptance, in fact unless she definitely gave the boy to understand that she did not care for him he assumed that his suit was accepted. This bush-sleeping only occurs once with the same person. Next day or soon after, the boy announces to his parents and the girl to her mother, that he or she has slept with so-and-so, each naming their partner.

MARRIAGE.

Wagawaga.

A binding marriage is constituted by the relatives of the girl and boy exchanging certain presents of food and by the young people living together publicly. The boy's mother fetches her daughter-in-law and brings the latter to the house in which she and her son are living. Here the mother, father, sisters and maternal and paternal uncles of the young husband prepare food which is carried by the bridegroom and his brothers and cousins to the girl's hamlet, and left upon the watara' to be later divided among the bride's maternal and

• The watara is the more or less ceremonial platform which exists, or should

Marriage 505

paternal relatives. On the following day the bride's people prepare food and take it to the bridegroom's hamlet, where it is eaten by his family. Neither the bride nor the bridegroom partake of these reciprocal feasts which are repeated after about a month and are termed muri or viuli. This term is extended to the licensed depredations of the wife's sister, mother and ail, all of whom have a definite right to plunder, which is recognized as part of 'muri belong that girl.' A man's wife's sister, whether she be older or younger than his wife, can take anything she Hkes belonging to her brotherin-law and however unreasonable she is in this matter, or however severely she damages an article which she has only borrowed, he may make no objection and is supposed not even to grumble ; this rule applies strictly to such articles as canoes, fishing nets, house furniture and personal jewellery, but does not apply to garden produce until it has been gathered.

A man's sister has no right to take any property belonging to her brother's wife, in fact no member of the husband's family has any right of this kind.

Tubetube.

A binding marriage is constituted as at Wagawaga, but here, besides reciprocal presents of food, the boy's father takes an armshell or bagi and gives it to the girl's mother ; the next day the girl's father makes a return present of a similar gift or one of equivalent value to the boy's mother.

Bartle Bay. (By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

Marriage takes place freely within the community,^ while intermarriage between Wamira, Wedau, Gelaria, Givari, near Cape Frere, and Lavora east of Cape Frere has apparently always been common. Gelaria also intermarries with the people living further up the Wamira river, and with Wanama, on a river called Magavara.

When the bridegroom announces his approaching marriage exist, in each hamlet. I believe the word 'cousins' in this sentence applies to both paternal and maternal cousins of the bridegroom, but on this pomt my notes are not explicit.

5o6 The Southern Massim to his father, the latter takes one or more pearl shells or other valuables to the bride s folk, and later he takes them a present of food. After this the bride's father gives a return present, probably of the same kind and value and also an equivalent amount of food. The food supplied by the bridegroom's family is not eaten by the young couple, but by the girl's parents and family.

At Wedau and Wamira the boy brings his bride to his father's house, having already made a garden, the produce of which is ready for use when the marriage takes placed We are not sure whether a married man must stay some time in his wife's hamlet, but he and his wife are certainly expected to assist the father-in-law in garden making, without receiving any compensation for the work done. Mr Newton states that this is *a sort of payment for the wlfel'

At Gelaria, a woman would generally go to her husband's hamlet at the time of marriage, and would stay there for a short time, perhaps about two months, and cultivation would be begun upon his ground. Then man and wife go to the home of the wife, staying about the same length of time and starting a garden and then returning to the husband s people. This routine would very likely be kept up for years, though not with extreme regularity, but when the bride's parents were dead, visits to her home would be suspended or become much less frequent.

THE REGULATION OF MARRIAGE.

Wagawaga. J

The totemic restrictions on marriage formerly prevailing at Wagawaga have already been incidentally alluded to In

^ The man sleeps on the man's side of the house, i.e. in the front, and the girl on the woman's side, connection taking place by day in the gardens. This is the usual habit, for although a married man may cross the division and sleep by his wife, connection probably never occurs inside the house.

2 Although clan descent is in the female line there is no doubt that the Bartle Bay communities are within the sphere of influence of the area of male descent lying to the west, and which, as shown in the appendix contributed by Mr Giblin, includes Mukaua some 30 miles from Bartle Bay. In fact both Bartle Bay and Mukaua have influenced each other, and in such matters as inheritance have experienced contact metamorphosis. With regard to Mukaua the evidence for this statement is given in the appendix, while concerning Bartle Bay, in addition to the facts already given, Mr Newton writes that a son may exert authority derived from his father's position, while orphan boys may go to live with their father's relations.

The Regulation of Marriage 507

chapter xxxv, but they are repeated here at greater length. No man or woman might contract marriage with a member of his or her own clan-group, nor might any individual marry a member of his or her father's clan. Thus Ipunesa, a man of Modewa clan, might not marry into either of the clans Modewa or Hurana since these composed his own clangroup. Nor might he marry into the clan-group Garuboi (the other clan-group of the Wagawaga hamlet -group), since this contained but one clan, Garuboi, to which his father belonged. Hence Ipunesa in the old days would have necessarily married out of his own hamlet-group. But, besides the limitations above referred to there was, and still is, the very real limitation imposed by consanguinity ; howfar this extended was never clear, but it certainly seemed that third cousins might not marry. Further, a man might not marry his wife's sister, even were he a widower, nor might he marry his brother's widow, but it was said that the bushmen of Buhutu, the hilly upland country behind Milne Bay, would marry their wives' sisters.

At the present time the clan-group restrictions alluded to above have broken down, but it seems that marriage between individuals of the same clan never occurs, while the prohibition of marriage into the clan of an individual's father is still equally observed as are the rules of consanguinity. The licence existing at the present day in the matter of connection between people unable to marry and which to some extent undoubtedly existed even before white influence was felt has been alluded to in the Introduction (p. 10).

Tubetube.

As at Wagawaga no man marries within the clan or into his father's clan. It has already been stated that no evidence of a former dual or multiple grouping of the Tubetube clans was elicited, so that in this respect no comparison can be made with Wagawaga. The Rev. J. T. Field {pp. r//.) gives the following account of ' three classes of non-marriageable persons, two of these coming under the classification of consanguinity, the third under that of the totem. The terms employed to express these are " Natunatuleia," " Karidiatupuana " and '* Kariianasa." These three terms are applied to three different classes, but express the same meaning, equivalent to non-marriageable.'

5o8 The Southern Massini

' Under the first expression, Natunatuleia are included all who are related as Natu and Nubai.'

'Under the second, Karidiatupuana (literally, ''they are part of the womb "), are included all who are related as Game, Du, Kava \Katia\ and Tubu.'

' Under the third, Kariianasa, are included all who have the same totem, and who are connected, not necessarily related, under a term toto, a word carrying the meaning brotherhood.'

• All others are Kasoriegogoli — marriageable.'

' The nearest consanguineous marriage permitted is between the children of Nubaili (the third generation), and even then the grandchildren of two sisters, their Tubuli (grandmothers), cannot intermarry. But the grandchildren of two brothers can marry the grandchildren of two sisters if they do not belong to the same totem.'

MARRIAGE IN RELATION TO GARDENS AND HOUSE LAND.

Wagawaga.

When a man married it was customary that he should first work upon his wife's garden and land, and it was usual for him to go to live in his wife's hamlet, but when a man married a woman of a hamlet close to his own he might, if he wished, take her to live at his hamlet without giving offence, so long as he worked on her garden land as soon as he was married. Practically the matter worked out somewhat as follows.

It was optional whether a man first went to live in his wife's hamlet or not ; very often he did, especially if their homes were not close together, but it was obligatory that the first garden made after his marriage should be on his wife's land. As soon as a good garden had been made there, he would usually make a garden in his own hamlet, where he would probably take his wife to stay for some time before he again visited her hamlet, and a semi-migratory existence between the hamlet-groups of the husband and wife might sometimes be kept up for years.

But whether or not a man lived often or long at his wife' hamlet, he almost invariably returned to his own when gettin

I

Polygyny 509

old, the exception being where a man had married a woman of a hamlet of his own hamlet-group\

Tubetube.

Very much the same condition of things is found on Tubetube, but on account of the importance of the subject (as showing the path from matrilineal to patrilineal descent) the information obtained at Tubetube is given at some length.

It appeared to be a matter of little importance whether the girl came to the house of her husband's parents or whether the boy spent the first few months of married life in her parents' house. Whichever happened the husband built a house in his wife's hamlet, and made a garden on his wife's ground. Generally speaking he would also make a garden in his own hamlet on his own ground and he would often share his time between the two hamlets. To take an instance, Mwakasoki of Tubetube married Turia of Kwaburaki hamlet on Rogea Island. Turia came to the house of the parents of Mwakasoki at Hanawesu hamlet for the first two or three months of her married life, after which she and Mwakasoki went to Kwaburaki where, with the aid of his wife's relatives, Mwakasoki built a house and made a garden. Apparently they stayed at Kwaburaki for about a year and then returned to Tubetube, where Mwakasoki built a house and made a garden on Dagedagera ground, that is, on his mother's ground and in his mother's hamlet. Although he has lived at Tubetube for the most part he still keeps up and sometimes visits his house and garden on Rogea, which are looked after during his absence by his wife's relatives.

POLYGYNY.

At Wagawaga it is denied that any man has more than one wife at the present day, and it is stated that even in the old days very few men had two, as it was found that the old and new wife quarrelled so persistently as to cause discomfort to their common husband. It was also said that if a new wife were taken the first wife would not infrequently return to her parents.

^ The course pursued by one Tauyareke of Wagawaga Pupuna hamlet is recorded under the heading Polygyny.

5IO The SoutJieni Massim

At Tubetube polygyny was stated to have prevailed formerly to a limited extent, each woman had her own house and quarrels between co-wives were apparently uncommon. There was no rule as to the amount of attention a man should pay to each of his wives ; it seems to have been assumed that one would naturally become the favourite.

But although polygyny appears never to have been common at Wagawaga and Tubetube, and although I believe this applies equally to a very considerable area of the southeastern district, there is no doubt that formerly many perfectly valid marriages lasted only a short time, being dissolved by mutual agreement or without any strong opposition, and where government and missionary influence has not been exerted this is still the case.

Where no considerable wedding price is paid by either party, and where the wedding celebrations consist rather of reciprocal presents of equivalent value and often of identical nature, one strong element tending to the permanence of marriage is obviously absent. There is certainly no doubt that the same individual might be successively married to various women in neighbouring hamlet-groups, or even in hamlets of one hamlet-group, without the death of any one of them having occurred. The experience of one Tauyareke, a rather prominent member of the Wagawaga community, may be cited as fairly typical :

His first wife Bonowaia whom he married when he was about 1 8 years old was a Maivara woman with whom he lived for about two years at Maivara, during one of the periods of peaceful intercourse between that community and Wagawaga. Although his daughter by his first marriage, who is herself unmarried, sometimes comes to Wagawaga to be with her father, her mother never accompanies her. His next wife was Sinebea of the Rabi hamlet-group, on the north coast of Milne Bay, who was stopping at Wagawaga at the time of the marriage ; she came to his hamlet at Wagawaga Pupuna where she lived with him for two years. No children were born. Later still he took another wife, Hewaako, of Taradiu hamlet of Wagawaga ; he built a house at l^aradiu and made his first garden upon Taradiu ground, but after a few months made another garden on the ground belonging to his own hamlet Wagawaga Pupuna. He and his third wife still keep both gardens going, but since his last

Divorce ^ 1 1

marriage he has Hved at Taradiu hamlet, where he says he \yill remain. His mother-in-law Is dead and his father-in-law lives In the old man's potuma, his food being given him and cooked for him by his married daughters.

DIVORCE.

A man would divorce a woman for prolonged neglect of her garden or If she were constantly careless or unpunctual in the cooking of his food. Such carelessness is, however, very unusual unless a woman has a liking for, or an intrigue with, some other man and desires to be rid of her husband, In which case one method of bringing this result about is for the woman to neglect the garden and her husband's food to such an extent that the latter returns to his own hamlet-group, or if living In his own hamlet, tells his wife to go to hers. Most husbands, however, before proceeding to such extreme measures will try the effect of one or more severe thrashings. A man may also get rid of his wife, if the latter prove barren or suffers from a chronic disease severe enough to Incapacitate her\ When a man does separate from his wife he generally returns to his own hamlet-group, taking his personal property with him, while the woman stays in the house they have hitherto occupied, if the latter be In the woman's hamlet. Although a man might and often did divorce his wife for Infidelity, It did not appear that there was any considerable practice of infidelity on the part of women for the special purpose of obtaining a divorce. There were, as a rule, no particular difficulties In the way of a woman leaving her husband, while In the old days, besides a fair risk of being speared there was the reasonable certainty of a severe thrashing for the unfaithful wife ; for although in theory an injured husband should not kill his unfaithful wife It appeared that he not Infrequently did so. There Is no doubt that in these cases public opinion condoned the slaying, and the husband of an adulterous wife had an admitted right to kill her lover'-.

A woman may divorce her husband for confirmed laziness when he will not do his share of the hard work in the garden, or for acts of infidelity ; if the woman Is living in her

1 Mr Giblin writes, ' I think he is tolerably certain to get rid of his wife if after three wet seasons there is no child.'

2 Cf. chapter XLin.

husband's hamlet she simply takes her children, petticoats and cooking pot and goes with these to her mother's hamlet. In such a case a man has no remedy, he has no right to bring his wife back by force, even if he were able to do so, nor is he allowed by public opinion to take vengeance on the people of her hamlet. If man and wife are living in the latter's hamlet and the woman wishes to be rid of her husband, she tells him to go and it seemed that under these circumstances a man would leave his wife's hamlet without making any difficulty.

There is no special form or ceremony of divorce, the husband will merely send his wife back to her relatives, or himself leave the house, according to the hamlet in which they were living together.

X

(A

CHAPTER XXXIX

PROPERTY AND INHERITANCE.

Apart from a man's house and garden lands his most valuable property consists of canoes, spears, fishing nets and articles of personal adornment made of such enduring material as shell, to which must be added, as an article of trade, the finely polished ceremonial axe blades made in certain Murua villages and traded thence over the whole of the Massim area. These axe blades, called benam in the Tubetube language, and certain shell ornaments constitute the currency of the South-eastern district. Pigs so often form part of the price paid for any valuable object that they may almost be regarded as currency and must not be omitted from any list of articles of value. In the following list mention is made of the more valuable articles of shell jewellery and of the ceremonial axe blades, all of which are used as currency.

(i) Armshells. Armshells are made from the shell of Conus millepunctatus and probably other closely allied species of Conus. There are three grades of armshells of which only the largest and most valuable is large enough to be worn on the upper part of a man's arm. These armshells, called masiwa7^u in the Tubetube language, are made in the Trobriands where they are known as mwale. The two smaller and less valuable kinds of armshells are known as kaipapa and bwabwakipa respectively. These also are made in the Trobriands, but not I believe exclusively, for among the specimens collected on Tubetube and now in the British Museum is an armshell called bwabwakipa said to have been made on the island.

Plate LIX shows a number of armshells in the British Museum. The smallest with an internal diameter of scarcely 5 cm. is undoubtedly a well-made bwabwakipa. The largest with an internal diameter of 8 cm. may I think be regarded

S. N. G. Z2i as a mashvani. The two armshells linked together each have a diameter of about 7 cm. I think they may be regarded as niasiwaru or perhaps as exceptionally fine kaipapa.

Masiwaru are so valuable that individual names are given to them. One of the armshells given by Mwakasoki in payment for his big sea-going canoe was called Gaigaiba. The early history of this armshell was unknown but it came to Mwakasoki from Normanby Island. Another armshell belonging to one Lolusa of Tubetube, and which came from Dobu, is called Siai. The names of armshells are always given them by their makers but nowhere do they appear to be thought of as possessing a soul, spirit or ghost.

All armshells are commonly traded in pairs, while the two superior kinds are generally also counted in pairs, thus 7nasiwaru kaigeda, literally 'one masiwaru,' means ' one pair of masiwaru!

(ii) Sapisapi. This is a widely distributed name for the small red or purple discs made from the lip of a bivalve shell which I believe is Chama pacifica. There are various qualities of sapisapi, and these discs are worn singly as earrings (on a ring of turtle shell), or made up into such standard ornaments as bagi or the necklaces called samakupa at Tubetube. Bagi are always imported and never made locally either at Tubetube or Milne Bay, in both of which localities they constitute the most valuable portable property a man can acquire.

A bagi and a samakupa are shown in Plate LX, where they are represented about one-fourth their real size. This plate shows at a glance two extreme variations in size of sapisapi (limiting the term to the shell discs made by the Massim), it also indicates the darker colour of the larger discs. I do not know the object of the white discs on each side of tjie banana seeds in the centre of the samakupa. The bagi is the poorer of two specimens in the British Museum, but it has been photographed as it shows the essential features of this ornament. Every bagi consists of a conical mass cut from one of the large shells of the genus Cassis from the periphery of which there depend a number of short fringes of sapisapi, while to the summit of the cone there is attached a length of sapisapi which is sufficient to go loosely at least twice round the neck and permit the central cone to hang

Plate LX

A bagi and saniakiipa

I

Property down the back below the shoulder blades. The small pearl shells attached to the fringes, and which I have been told are found only in Trobriand waters, are a common feature of bagi but they are not essentials. The finest and most valuable bagi may have two metres or more of sapisapi attached to them. The high esteem in which bagi are held may be appreciated from the fact that a really fine specimen is worth from £^ to £^, this being the price which natives earning from ten to fifteen shillings a month are prepared to pay in cash to any trader possessing a really good one. Bagi are worn by women at certain feasts, when the two longest strings of shell beads attached to the cone would be tied round the neck, allowing the cone and its shorter pendants to dangle at about the level of the small of the back, that is just above the top of the petticoat.

(iii) Wanepa. Nose ornaments, worn in the nasal septum, made from the yellowish area only found near the hinge of the shell of the giant clam and perhaps other kindred species of Tridacna.

(iv) Potuma. Lime spatulae made from the bone of a small species of whale. They are commonly ornamented with sapisapi discs attached to small perforations made at regular distances round the periphery of the handle.

Figure 39 shows the simplest form of potuma] many more elaborate forms exist, and sapisapi fringes may be attached to the finest of these, which are usually lanceolate in shape and may be a foot long. The specimens of this description w^hich I have seen show no signs of having been used for eating lime and must I think be regarded as purely ceremonial, but the smdW^r potu7na are used freely. The special development of the lime spatula shown in figure 40 is found in the Louisiades, where it is called gabaiera at Misima and 'nga at Tagula (Sud-est). For this and the following information I am

33—2

u I '

ll'lll.

Fig. 39. A bone spatula {poiuina) from Wagawaga.

5i6

The Soiithem Massim indebted to Captain Barton who collected the specimen figured as well as a very beautiful example made of turtle shell.

Fig. 40. Gabaiera from Misima.

Probably this was made at Tagula, but most of these objects are carved at Misima, the shell discs being put on by the

Plate LXI

Benam in ceremonial handle

Property 5 1 y maker or added by the purchaser at a later date. Small gabaiera are used as lime spatulae, but such large examples as that illustrated (shown one-third of its full size) are held by women while dancing, or possibly perhaps only by married women. They also form part of the bride-price upon Tagula and perhaps upon other islands of the group.

(v) Dona. The common New Guinea ornament consisting of the tusk of a pig which has grown into a spiral or nearly complete circle. Sometimes this ornament is imitated in shell, in which case a circle not a spiral is cut from a giant clam shell or the rubbed down top of a cone shell. Figure 41 shows a do7ia and its shell imitation.

(vi) Benam. Ceremonial axe blades, called benam in the Tubetube dialect. In order to be classed as benam these blades must be highly polished and must be too large and thin to be used as tools. They are made on Murua from stone obtained from the neighbourhood of Suloga. As the result of the examination of typical specimens selected from a large number of stone implements and flakes collected on Murua, Dr J. E. Marr and Mr W. G. Fearnsides recognize that these fall geologically into two series : —

(i) those composed of an ash often banded, and always more or less silicified ;

(ii) those composed of lava showing well marked flow structure (rhyolite), and containing inclusions, the latter giving rise to the lighter bands\

The value of benam varies immensely. The larger and thinner the stones the more valuable they are; their value is also increased by the presence of light bands and inclusions which in the polished condition show as streaks; thus, were the two stones of equal size and equally fine workmanship, that shown in Plate LXI would be worth far more than that illustrated in Plate LX.

Although these stones are, or were, made on Murua (the craft is now extinct) they reach the Engineers and the islands west of this group from the Trobriands, where different names are applied to them according to their excellence. Concerning this the Rev. M. K. Gilmour has written to me as follows : — ' The most valuable which are well mottled or streaked are

1 I quote from the Geographical Journal for 1906 (p. 353) which contains a paper by Sehgmann and Strong (' Anthropogeo^^raphical Investigations in British New Guinea') in which is described the site from which the stone was obtained.

called giriwakuma ; those not so well marked but still with some mottling kaibuloveka ; the poorest unmarked kaikukiiviata.' All the best benam, or giliwaku as they are called on Murua, are named. I was able to ascertain the names of a number of Suloga blades made three generations ago, their manufacture being attributed to one Nevan, an ancestor of my informant, whose work seemed to have been regarded as specially fine.

The names of these stones are : —

Kisie, perhaps the name of a forest tree.

Kwewos, said to mean 'hot water.'

Aunenoo, i.e. heap of dirt or perhaps 'midden,' the blade being given this name because it was hidden in a heap of dirt for fear of theft.

Kima, this name was given on account of an incident which occurred during the manufacture of the blade. Nevan, its maker, was anxious to borrow a giliwaku ; the man to whom he applied refused to lend him this unless he made a small feast which he would not do. To commemorate this event Nevan called the blade he was then making Kima, which from the information furnished to us appears to signify 'mean fellow' or 'stingy brute.'

Budia, said to be a man's name.

Siganavan, the name of a fern {Nephrolepis exaltatd),

Wau, the name of a tree with edible fruit.

Kudemetas, which appears to mean ' useless ' or 'damaged.' It was said to have been given this name in memory of another blade spoilt by an inexpert pupil.

The purposes for which these ceremonial blades are used in the Trobriands have been summarised by Mr Gilmour thus: — ' They are used according to value to buy pigs, food, canoes and land; to procure sorcery; to pay for those slain in battle; to appease an enemy ; to make peace ; to procure the death of an enemy; to buy dances... as an exchange for other wealth; under the head of the dying and upon the breast of the dying they are placed to appease Topileta, the keeper of the ways in the underground world of spirits ; at the time of the great harvest rejoicing and dancing they are brought out on view so that the spirits of the departed may see and be glad; they are used as gifts to the relations of her whom the man would marry; sometimes they are buried with the dead. These stones are kept buried and sometimes when a man feels that

Property

Fig. 41. Dona and shell imitation.

520 Tlie Southern Mas sun the end Is drawing near he will hide them away so that no one will Inherit his wealth.'

With the exception of the use of these stones In relation to the dead, all that Mr Gilmour writes would equally apply to their use among the southern Massim. The ' harvest rejoicing' almost certainly corresponds to the toreha feast of Milne Bay and the soi of Tubetube, Basilaki and Rogea. At the dances held at these ceremonies the benam are carried and exhibited by women and this is also done at Suau, presumably on a similar occasion, but concerning this I have no certain knowledge.

These stones are hafted Into light artistic handles (Plate LXl), or into heavier larger handles (Plate LXII), which are, however, equally unsuitable for all practical use. The distribution of the two types of handle Is a matter of considerable Interest which requires speedy investigation. Throughout that part of the Massim area visited^ the preponderance of the slighter form of haft (Plate LXI) was very noticeable; Indeed, I can remember seeing only one specimen of the heavier haft, while many examples of the lighter form were seen and collected. This observation accords well with Information subsequently sent me by Mr Gilmour who tells me that the slighter form Is 'the old KIrlwIna handle simply called valela vaigua, *'its handle Is wealth." The other Is a form made further east and south, supposed to have come originally from Mislma and called taramasima, 'we went to our Islands" or ''we went to Mislma.' Both forms are now made in Kiriwina and their use Is Identical.'

Mr Gilmour's Information concerning the meaning of the name for the handles Is particularly interesting for I found that old and well-carved specimens were undoubtedly considered valuable, though worth very much less than the stones that were hafted Into them.

It will be noted that all the objects described as constituting the most valuable property of the Massim possess two characteristics in common. These are (I) the refractory nature of the material of which they are made, necessitating prolonged work in order to produce the finished article, and (11) durability. The most valued articles were made of stone

^ I refer especially to Tubetube in the Engineer Group, Milne Bay and the Trobriands, for no attention was paid to the matter during the short stay made by the expedition at Murua, and this applies equally to Bartle Bay.

Plate LXII

Benam in heavy ceremonial handle

Inheritance 521

or shell, the hardest materials the natives possessed. The rarity of certain of the raw materials was also of importance as was the skill required to work them.

All these factors in the production of value are exemplified in the various forms of armshells. All these are equally durable, and the labour and skill required to produce the smallest shells which cannot be worn are not vastly less than must be expended in order to produce the large masiwaru. Yet the latter are worth many times as much as the smaller kinds of armshells, and this is largely due to the rarity of Conus shells of sufficient diameter for making an armshell which can be worn by an adult. Nevertheless the small shells are manufactured into armshells in large numbers at a great expenditure of labour, though they cannot be worn or used in any way except as currency.

INHERITANCE.

Wagawaga.

The greater part, if not the whole, of a man's garden land passes to his sisters' children who, if all be married, divide it equally between them. If some of the children are unmarried their married brothers and sisters look after the land. It was said that a portion of a dead man's land might sometimes pass to his maternal uncle or to his own mother, but it appeared that this only occurred when his sisters' children were young, and that his land would in due course revert to them. It is explained in the section on Death and Funeral Ceremonies that after his death a man's house is not infrequendy destroyed or allowed to rot'; but where this is not done the house, assuming that it is built in the dead man's own hamlet, commonly passes to a brother, sister, or sister's child. In any case if the house be destroyed the house-site descends in this manner. There does not seem to be any very rigid precedence between a brother, sister, or sister's child, the succession to the house-site being apparendy made a matter of convenience, for any of the individuals mentioned who happened to have a good new dwelling would waive his or her claim to the site.

1 On this subject Mr Giblin writes as follows : ' I think the point is this, if any one dies in a house it is allowed to rot, not if he or she dies elsewhere. It may be only if the owner dies in the house, but I think very strongly that the house is always deserted after a corpse has been in it for any time.'

522 The Sotithern Massim

By reference to the chapter In which marriage is discussed, it will, however, be seen that ultimately the house-site usually passes to a brother or the son of a sister of the dead man.

A woman's garden property including her coconut trees is equally divided between her children, nevertheless, if there be an elder married brother or sister he or she will hold the property in trust for the younger brothers and sisters, who do not formally obtain possession of their share of the garden property until they are married, although they are expected to help work in the garden as soon as they are big enough. If none of the dead woman's children are grown up, their maternal uncles and aunts would look after the garden property and feed the children, using the surplus food themselves. Such valuable property as armshells descend partly to the dead woman's sisters, and partly to her children ; this applies especially to property coming to a woman from her clan, for it was stated that armshells and other valuable jewellery which a native generally speaks of ^having given' to his wife, are, as a matter of fact considered the woman's property only so long as her husband is alive, since at his death such jewellery commonly passes either to his gariauna or to his brothers\ In the same way shell jewellery given to a woman by her husband would at her death, should she predecease him, pass back to the widower who would probably give some of this property to his own as well as to his sisters' children in his lifetime. I believe that at Wagawaga as at Tubetube, some portion of the dead man's jewellery always passed to his children, but here stress was laid on the fact that he would, in the ordinary course of events, give them their share during his lifetime, and unfortunately no questions were asked as to what would occur in the event of a man dying suddenly.

A woman's cooking pots always passed to her daughters if they were adult, but if they were young, her pots would go to her sisters.

Tubetube.

A man's landed property, that is to say his share in the clan garden land and any land in the bush that he might have

^ The gariauna are the men who perform certain functions at death and at the subsequent ceremonies. Cf. chapter XLVI.

Inheritance 523

cleared and planted during his lifetime, would be equally divided among his sisters' children.

It is usual for married couples to make and tend gardens on the property of both man and woman at the same time, each usually providing half the seed for the crops in their respective gardens. As a result of this it is incumbent on a widow to give to the brothers, sisters and mother of the deceased one half of the first crop raised on her garden ground after the death of her husband. A dead man's house, if he were living in his own hamlet at the time of his death, would pass to one of his brothers or sisters or sisters' children. As at Wagawaga, convenience rather than any strict custom, appeared to determine which of these relations should benefit: indeed, the house in which a dead man or woman has lived is so often allowed to rot or is destroyed that the heirs inherit the house-site rather than the house itself.

As regards inheritance two categories of personal property must be recognized. A man's drums, lime pots, lime spatulae and canoe or canoes would, it appeared, always pass to his sisters' children [game)^ even if these were all girls, since at their death the property would pass to their children, among whom there would presumably be men able to use the drums and canoes, if these were still in existence. In the event of a man having no game^ his maternal uncle would take his canoe and other property, such as drums and fishing nets, and only after the death of the maternal uncle would the property revert to the dead man's own brothers and sisters. The second class includes such valuable property as armshells and sapisapi necklaces {sa7nakupa), which would in part go to a man's own children, and it seems that some of a dead man's pigs might sometimes pass to his children who would, however,, not dare to eat these themselves^ It seems that as much as half of a man's shell jewellery might pass to his own children, the remainder going to his sisters' children, but that presents of valuable jewellery made by a man to his own children at any time during his life would be remembered, and the items so given figure against the children after their father's death. There is also some reason to believe that a man might, when ill, express a desire that particular articles of jewellery should descend to his children,

1 Cf. chapter XLVI.

524 The Southern Masshn and his wishes would be respected \ When a man is childless and has no surviving brothers or sisters his sisters' children take the whole of his property.

This is probably a fairly accurate account of the disposal of what we should term a man's personal property ; the difficult question of the inheritance by children of a portion of their dead father's shell jewellery was discussed with a number of natives, and the above account has been compiled from instances cited by them.

A woman's garden property Is divided equally among her children. If they be young their mother's brothers will look after the gardens for them, themselves making use of any part of the crops raised not required to feed the children. A woman's personal property passes to her brothers and sisters in equal parts if her children are small at the time of her death, but later a portion of such valuable property as armshells would be given to the children. If the latter were grown up the girls would inherit their mother's baskets and pots, while boys and girls would alike inherit a portion of her more valuable property such as armshells and other jewellery; but whatever number of children a woman left, a part of her valuable jewellery would go to her brothers and sisters.

Bartle Bay. (By H. Newton.)

When a man dies a good deal of his personal property is used to pay for offices connected with his burial, but some is reserved to be burnt at the to7^ela which completes his death feasts. His coconut palms and fruit trees go to his sisters' children, but to a limited extent a man can intimate his desires as to the disposal of his property after death, and his wishes will be respected. Thus an old man of Wedau told me that a certain tree of the kind called mapa {Terminalia catappa), the nuts of which are edible, would belong to his son after his death, for he had so arranged it.

A widow remains for a short time only in the house of her dead husband; she usually goes to live with a brother, taking her children with her, who thus come to live under the immediate care of one or more of their maternal uncles who,

^ This certainly is the case at Bartle Bay.

Inheritance 525

as their natural guardians, are responsible for the education of the boys. Further, when a woman dies, her brother is more responsible for the children than their father. When the Mission took an infant from Boianai whose mother had died, it was the child's maternal uncle who came to us to make arrangements. In a second case in which the mother was alive but unable to suckle the infant, the mother herself brought the child. In olden days, the house in which a man died was usually shut up and left to rot, but if it were a new and a good house it might be used by the dead man's sisters' children, the difficulty being got over by closing up the old doorway and cutting a new one. If the house were shut up and left to rot, the site would be unoccupied for some time, but ultimately the dead man's sisters' children would build there.

When the house is deserted or destroyed the idea may be that this is done as a sign of sorrow, but it is also thought that were this not done evil spirits would come back again and other members of the family be affected \

As already stated, orphan children should live with their mother's relatives, usually with her brothers, but this rule has many exceptions, such considerations as strength of clan and willingness and ability to support the children all have considerable weight.

^ [The evil spirits here referred to are doubtless the spirits of the dead.]

CHAPTER XL

TRADE.

A GLANCE at the map of the Massim area suggests that by far the greater part of its trade must be sea-borne. Inquiries bear this out and show that there is the greatest difference between the volume of trade carried on by such islands as Tubetube and Teste Island on the one hand, and places on the mainland such as Wagawaga, which supports at least as large a population as Tubetube. The list given later in this chapter suggests that it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that everything in daily use, including food, was imported into Tubetube at one time or another. The exports from Tubetube are pots and shell ornaments ; the pots made upon the island are traded over a wide area and a considerable number of the nose ornaments called wanepa are made locally, but with the exception of these two articles there are no local manufactures to exchange for the many articles imported into the Island. The pottery industry Is not worked on any such large scale as it is in the Motu villages of the Central ' District, nor Is there any place to which the pots are regularly exported In large quantities year after year in exchange for a special commodity, as is the custom among the Motu. Thus Tubetube has become a trading community whose inhabitants are recognized as traders and middlemen over a very considerable area extending westwards beyond Basilaki (Moresby Island) to Rogea and eastward to Tokunu (the Alcesters) and Murua. It is from the last mentioned islands that Tubetube obtains the majority if not all of the large built-up canoes called waga in which the trading voyages are undertaken, and one of which Is shown in Plate LXIII. ' Here, then, the waga are built and brought in one step or in a series of stages to Tubetube, carrying with them almost always and wherever they go the original names given to

Plate LXIII

A "waga from Murua

Trade v^n them by their makers. Without entering in detail into the technology of their building, it will be sufficient here to point out that these craft seem to represent the highest development of Papuasian shipbuilding. Their length over all is often quite fifty feet, and their sides are built up with three or four broad hewn planks to a moulded depth of four or five feet, yet without a nail being used anywhere in their construction, and no wooden pegs are employed except in connection with the outrigger. Nevertheless, the hull is strong enough to bear, not only the strains of heavy loads and high seas, but the even more trying stresses of continual beaching and launching. It is sufficiently rigid to hold the caulking in the seams, yet with a pliancy lent by its lashed fastenings which allow it to give when a rigid nailed fabric, unless enormously stout and heavy, would be very apt to tear itself apart and break up. The canvas of the waga consists of a single oval sail made of strips of pandanus leaf sewn together, while the ropes made, at any rate when repairs are necessary at Tubetube, of Hibiscus bast, form excellent stays and running rigging. Its size makes the waga unhandy to paddle without a very large crew, or else at a very slow rate, and though a few paddles of the ordinary sort are carried, as well as the large one used for steering, they are seldom called into service, except In such an emergency as the wind falling and a current drifting the canoe into some position of danger'^

In 1904, Tubetube possessed a fleet of such craft, half-adozen of which were generally to be found beached on its western shore in the neighbourhood of Marapisi hamlet. The conditions were very different at Wagawaga ; here, no waga were to be seen, but many small canoes and a fair number of long, narrow dug-outs, without sail or outrigger, boats that could carry little or no cargo but could transport a comparatively large number of men for a short distance at a relatively high speed, when the majority of the company assisted in paddling, as was the practice In the old days when these boats were used on raids.

These preliminary considerations make clear the essential differences between the trade of a Milne Bay community such as Wagawaga and an island of merchant venturers as it is scarcely an exaggeration to call Tubetube. The whole ot

^ Geographical Journal^ 1906, p. 238. A few verbal alterations have been made in quoting.

the southern Massim, Including such almost self-supporting communities as Wagawaga, relies upon the northern Massim for the manufacture of certain articles of great value and upon the middlemen of islands such as Tubetube for their supply.

These articles are the finest armshells {nzasiwaru), ceremonial axe blades (denam), and the various valuable ornaments made by combining large numbers of shell discs [sapisapi). The most valuable of these are the bagi and satnakupa described in the last chapter. Another object of great value locally is the ceremonial lime spatula of the Louisiades (figure 40) described in the last chapter. These gabaiera are sometimes made of turtle shell, and when of smaller size do not differ essentially from the lime spatulae [potimta) set with sapisapi and used as minor currency throughout the district.

All these articles are also currency among the northern Massim who manufacture them, and among whom the minor currency includes the narrow belt trimmed with sapisapi cdiW^d wakisoa in the Trobriands. One of these belts measured at Kavitare on Kiriwina was y;^ cm. long by 5 cm. broad and was thickly covered with sapisapi discs sown on flat. Each disc was roughly i cm. in diameter and the whole belt was said to be worth a large pig. The built-up canoes waga must also be considered as currency among the northern Massim. Lastly there is the boar's tusk ornament, which, though less abundant and less highly rated by the Massim than by the Western Papuo-Melanesians, is still valued sufficiently for it to be imitated in shell. These imitations, of which one is shown in figure 41 by the side of a boar's tusk, were made among the northern Massim, for the Rev. M. K. Gilmour mentions that ' pig's tusks and imitations made of shell are exported from Kiriwina' and the expedition collected specimens in the Marshall Bennet Group. The inhabitants of Murua formerly valued the boar's tusk ornament highly. Father Thomassin of the Marist Mission who laboured on Murua in the latter part of the first half of the nineteenth century wrote : * Their principal article of commerce is the teeth of the Babirussa', which these islanders probably obtain in the Louisiade Archipelago and which they exchange at Murua for beads [shell discs]. These teeth and beads are the money and jewellery of the country.... A nativeof Moioa[as the Marists

^ The Babirusa of Celebes and Buru does not occur in New Guinea.

Trade q2Q

called Murua] wearing a necklace of beads and a Bablrussa tooth on his chest has reached the height of his ambition''.

Before discussing the actual trade of Wagawaga and Tubetube I shall indicate how the articles of currency above enumerated come into circulation among the southern Massim. The Trobriands appear to be the chief centres of manufacture of all these ornaments and the exports of this group will be considered first. Besides shell currency, beautifully carved wooden dishes, bowls and lime spatulae are imported from the Trobriands and form part of many exchanges though they cannot be regarded as currency.

All the best armshells appear to come from the Trobriands as do all the bagi and many, if not all, of the sapisapi which are especially made on Vakuta, the most southern island of the group. There is an annual trading expedition to the D'Entrecasteaux group from Kavatari, but besides this a brisk export trade was maintained concerning which Mr Gilmour says : ' The natives of the Trobriands being the chief manufacturers of many native articles trading relations of necessity exist. The destinations of various expeditions are determined by physical and meteorological considerations : hence, Vakuta and the Sinaketa districts traded with the inhabitants of the Amphletts, Fergusson, and the islands adjacent, as far as the north side of the Dawson Straits, catching an easterly wind or crawling under the lee of the reef, and running home with the south or south-east ; Kavatari and district being further to windward made the east end of Fergusson and sometimes the lee islands of the Amphlett Group ; and Kaileuna and islands made still further leeway to the north end of Goodenough. In addition to these, there were trips to Kitava, made by the Omarakana and Vakuta people, which were returned by the visited ; as were also the trips made by the Vakutians to the Amphletts and P^ergusson.'

' The trips to the west — Kavatari and Kaileuna — were pure trading expeditions ; the others — Vakuta and Senaketa to Fergusson, and Vakuta and Omarakana to Kitava — were principally concerned in the exchange of the circulating articles of native wealth, the mwale (armshells), and the solava and Bagidou-bagi (shell-money), and in which trade was only a secondary consideration 'I

^ Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, Vol. XXV. p. 391. 2 Annual Report^ i904-5) P- 7i-

Besides the articles of currency carried on these expeditions Mr Gihiiour gives the following list of exports to the D'Entrecasteaux : ' Siiiata (combs); kaho7na and iaiseku (wooden dishes) ; kailuia and katatuia (wooden bowls) ; iagiuna and gmiptinapu (lime gourds) ; iwasi (armlets) ; kauia (three-tier baskets) ; kaneku (mussel shells) ; kena (lime spatulae) ; doga (pigs' tusks and the imitations made of conus shell) ; doba (grass skirts) '\

From the D'Entrecasteaux currency and the ordinary articles of trade were carried to the east past Cape Plerson (Duluna Pt.) the most northerly point of Duau (Normanby Island) southwards at least as far as Tubetube and probably to Teste Island. The Rev. W. E. Bromllow states that natives of Dobu on the southern side of Dawson Straits between Fergusson and Normanby Islands visit Gabulne and Tubetube, and the men of Tubetube think nothing of a cruise to the eastern coast of Normanby. From Tubetube the main current of trade passes In a northern direction to the Alcesters and Murua though, as already Indicated, Tubetube also trades to the west. There does not seem to have been any trade between Tubetube and MIsIma or Indeed with any of the Loulsiades, though this cannot be considered certain without further Investigation. It Is however known that Murua waga frequently visit the Loulsiades and doubtless these bring the products of the northern Massim to this archipelago. The carving and painting on the waga built in the Loulsiades are so different from that of the Trobrlands, Marshall Bennets and Murua as to be easily recognized. Yet among the many waga I saw while In the Massim area I noticed none that had been built In the Loulsiades.

Upon Murua is Suloga the site whence was obtained the celebrated banded stone, from which not only the adze and axe blades used for several hundreds of miles on the south coast of the Possession were made, but also the ceremonial blades called benam in the Tubetube language. Both kinds of stones passed into trade via Tubetube to some extent, but far the greater number of those exported from Murua travelled westwards to the Marshall Bennets and the Trobrlands whence they were carried to the Amphlett and D'Entrecasteaux

^ op. cit., p. 72. Besides the articles I have quoted armshells and other forms of shell currency are mentioned in Mr Gilmour's list.

Trade groups and so launched on their course round the trade circle that I have already indicated.

The strongest and best decorated pots in the Possession are made on the islands of the Amphlett Group whence they are traded in two directions, northwards to the Trobriands and southwards and eastwards to Milne Bay and the neighbouring islands. These handsome pots do not reach Tubetube, at least I saw none upon the island and as far as my experience goes they are very much less common in Milne Bay than pots made elsewhere.

In endeavouring to express the value of various articles of currency it will be convenient to begin at Murua and trace the ceremonial axe blades which are, or were, its chief article of export westward and southward. The manufacture of these blades ceased some years ago, but as every ceremonial blade in the Massim area originally came from Murua and was almost certainly made in a small district of that island, the prices paid for these stones at different places on their course are particularly interesting. The names of a number of particularly well known benam said to have been manufactured by Nevan three generations ago have been given in the last chapter. The few remaining men of Suloga gave me the followingf account of the travels of these benayn.

Kisie. This passed to a Gawa man as part payment for a large canoe which he brought to Murua to sell. From Gawa the stone passed to Kwaiawata, for a particularly good bagi and some sapisapi ; thence to Kitava and thence to the Trobriands for a bagi and certain other objects which are not specified, finally it was said, reaching Dobu, where it is alleged to be at present.

Kwewos. This stone was sold by Nevan to a Murua man for five pigs, one pair of masiwarii and one small canoe, apparently a small dug-out. The Murua man was said to have sold it to a Lachlan boy for ten pigs and five canoes full of coconuts.

Anapwas. This was sold to a Murua man for a bagi, four pigs and certain other articles not specified.

Aunenoo. This was sold to a Tokunu man for ^v^ basketsful of sonsimwan, that is conus shells. From Tokunu it passed to Misima for three pairs of masiwaru and two pigs.

Kima. This blade was bought by a Murua man for one bagi, three pigs and certain other articles not specified. He

34—2

sold it to Gawa for one bagi and one waga^, whence It passed to Kwaiawata for two bagi and a sapisapi belt wad, such as is known as wakisoa in the Trobriands.

Yarove. This was traded to Gosop on Murua for two pigs, one pair of masiwaru, four gaiva and one small canoe.

Budia. This stone was sold to a Yanaba man for one canoe, one sapisapi belt and certain other articles, and then to an Egum man for one pair of masiwaru, two pigs and certain other unspecified articles.

Siganavan. This was bought by a Nada man for two pigs, two canoes full of coconuts and some other objects unspecified. Another ceremonial adze blade was spoken of as Giriwaku, the Murua term for any ceremonial adze blade. Its real name could not be ascertained as it was the same as that of the dead wife of my informant Tudaiva the most important man on Suloga. Even when spoken of as Giriwaku Tudaiva did not care to discuss this stone, but later it was ascertained that it was kept by Nevan and at his death passed to his brother, then to a sister and then either to sister's or brother's children who exchanged it with a Kwaiawata man for a bagi, a wakisoa {sapisapi belt), two pigs, some sapisapi, a small canoe (probably a dug-out) and a canoe full of coconuts.

Atagagoia. This is still somewhere in Suloga but In the short time at my disposal it was quite Impossible to obtain any definite information about It".

Wau. This was sold to someone of Dekwoias village upon Murua for one bagi, a sapisapi belt, and a pig; then to Gawa for a canoe, a belt and some sapisapi.

Kubumetas. This was sold to one of the Murua villages for three pigs, one pair of masiwaru, one belt and a good deal of food. It is said that this stone is still In the village of Kwavaiega of Murua.

The value of the stone adzes and axes used as tools was very much less than that of the ceremonial blades. The trade

' Quite small waga are built on Gawa as well as the big craft described at the beginning of this chapter. I saw one which could not have carried more than three or tour men without being dangerously overloaded.

^ The natives of the whole of the south-eastern district are extremely loath to exhibit their most valued possessions or even to talk of them freely when there is the least chance of being asked to show them. The only really good bagi I saw was shown me with considerable reluctance at Wagawaga, and it was almost as difficult to see the best bejiam.

Plate LXIV

Rough and partially polished adze blades

Trade . 533

in these must have been very brisk and the numbers exported in the course of years enormous. The evidence for this is to be found not only in the vast number of axe blades of Murua stone collected by every traveller from all over south-eastern New Guinea, but also in the acres of ground near Suloga which are covered inches deep in chips, the result of the work of generations of stone workers \

On account of the short time I spent on Murua and the disorganization introduced into native life by the mines upon the island I was unable to satisfy myself of the value of the ordinary adze and axe blades. These were exported in both their finished (ground and polished) condition and also when only roughly flaked into shape. I beheve that the number of rough stones exported to the south was small, certainly the bulk of these stones passed eastwards from Murua to the Marshall Bennets, the Trobriands and probably the Egum Groupl At Gawa in the Marshall Bennets such unground stones as that shown in Plate LXIV, figures i and 2, were formerly worth one sapisapi belt or necklace, the thicker narrower stones such as that shown unground in figure 3 and ground and polished in figure 4 of the same plate were not worth so much, perhaps a full third less. It appeared that stones were very commonly paid for in sapisapi. Rough stones were partly or wholly ground on the islands of the Marshall Bennet Group and used or exported to the Trobriands whither unground stones were also taken.

These facts are well illustrated in the stones shown in Plate LXIV. No. I is a roughly fiaked stone collected at Suloga upon Murua. No. 2 is a more delicately worked stone obtained on Gawa in the Marshall Bennets. No. 3 comes from Iwa in the same group, while the highly finished stone No. 4 was collected in the Trobriands. The edge of No. 5 has been very slightly ground, this stone was obtained on Gawa where it was said that in the old days it would have been worth a sapisapi belt. No. 6, collected at Kwaiawata, has been partially ground, while the last two stones are from Gawa and show more advanced grinding.

^ A photograph reproduced on page 348 of the Geographical Journal for 1906 shows a corner of Suloga hamlet, the beach in the foreground being composed almost entirely of flakes among which I found numerous rejects.

2 Unpolished adze-heads called wekutau were however seen on Tubetube where they were hafted into long almost straight handles and used to extract sago. A number of these are now in the British Museum.

534 • ^^^^ Southern Massim

From the Trobriands the trading expeditions described by ]\Ir Gilmour carried bena??z, adze blades and valuable articles of shell currency to the D'Entrecasteaux whence they passed eastward and to the south as already described. The great built-up canoes called zuaga were built at Murua and numbers of them appear to have been exported to Tubetube whence some at least passed to the islands nearer the mainland. The waga built on the Marshall Bennets and the Trobriands may have been traded to the D'Entrecasteaux, though I doubt whether this occurred to any considerable extent, for though I did not visit the D'Entrecasteaux I gathered that these islanders used smaller built-up canoes (called kebwaii at Tubetube) on their journeys. It is, however, certain that the waga built in the Marshall Bennets and Trobriands do not pass to the south in any quantity ; I inquired into this matter in the Trobriands and Marshall Bennets and not only could I not hear of canoes traded in this direction, but in those parts of the territory of the southern Massim which I visited I saw no waga made in the Marshall Bennets or the Trobriands, the origin of these craft being easily identified by the carving on the wooden cross pieces {ragim) which close in their ends above the keel plank. Plate LXV shows a typical piece of this sort, the original having been carved in the Trobriands, while Plate LXV I is taken from a photograph of two ragim collected on Murua and now in the British Museum.

The carving on the Louisiade waga differs from both these as will be readily appreciated from Plate LXV I P.

I have notes of the following prices paid for waga by the northern Massim. A waga built upon Gawa was sold to a man of Panamoti in the Egum Group for four pairs of armshells (probably all masiwaru but of this I am not certain), three benam, three sapisapi belts and one pig. A Tokunu man bought a waga from a native of Koata, a small outlying island of the Trobriand group ; for this canoe he paid a first instalment of two white man's axes, two big knives, two looking-glasses, a string of large-sized trade beads and one pound of tobacco. He will later pay a number of good armshells, either two or three pairs, and two pigs. Another man

^ It is possible that a comparatively small craft like that shown in this plate would not be called a waga^ since at Tubetube the term is limited to built-up canoes of a certain size. Probably the number of planks above the keel plank determine the class of the craft.

X

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I

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u

U

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li^iiiiiiiE^iii^ii^ii^jeiii^dQiiii

Plate LXVU

Waga from Brooker Island (Louisiades)

»- " ^■i

4^- — - •

Trade 535

sold his waga for six pairs of armshells and one spiral boar's tusk, he will receive further payment of armshells and benarn and pigs. It was stated that no bargain was made as to the amount of the future payments but the former owner of the waga was perfectly confident that he would receive a fair price.

Wagawaga.

I have indicated at the beginning of this chapter that Wagawaga had no fleet of built-up sea-going canoes and that therefore the men of the community did not fare abroad on trading expeditions. Nevertheless the hamlet-group was obviously prosperous and the heavy blood-price paid at the peace-making described in chapter XLi shows that there was no lack of the most valuable articles of currency which were all imported. Yet as already mentioned there were no manufactures of importance. If I may trust my memory a small number of pots were manufactured for local use, but these did not suffice to meet the needs of the home market for pots from Tubetube, Teste Island and the Amphletts were all in use at Wagawaga.

Articles of currency were largely brought to Wagawaga by Tubetube canoes in exchange for pigs and vegetable food, and I was told that the Milne Bay hamlet-groups were visited in preparation for the soi feast not only by the men of Tubetube but by the inhabitants of Basilaki and Rogea, bringing with them shell jewellery to exchange for pigs. I believe that formerly feathers, especially the plumes of the birds of paradise obtained from Buhutu (the mountainous hinterland of the Bay), were exported from Wagawaga and the other Milne Bay hamlet-groups. Probably a small quantity of imports arrived from the D'Entrecasteaux group by a more direct route than by way of Tubetube, coming perhaps by Nuakata and East Cape, but on this matter I have no precise information. Lastly the hamlet-groups behind the head of Milne Bay had at least occasional intercourse with the people in the neighbourhood of the head of Mullins Harbour on the south coast, and there is reason to believe that there was formerly a trade route (never perhaps of great importance) from Mullins Harbour to the head of Milne Bay and thence to the north coast in the neighbourhood of Taupota.

Tubetube.

Although Tubetube manufactures only pots and nose ornaments for export, the position of the islanders as middlemen has enabled them to have in their possession at one time or another almost every article made and used by the communities with whom they trade. I shall make no attempt to enumerate these, though a catalogue of the specimens collected from the island and presented to the British Museum shows how varied were the articles imported. The following list is mainly prepared from this catalogue and includes only those articles which I have reason to believe are, or were formerly, imported with some constancy. All these articles made in the Trobriands come via Duau, and include wooden dishes, shallow bowls, lime spatulae and lime gourds, drums (large and small), wooden swords [keripd) and armshells of less value than masiwaru. From Duau come obsidian {nabtika), slivers of which were formerly used for shaving and scarification, and the slabs of stone used for the hearth of fireplaces and also formerly as whetstones. A stone called patimomoni was also imported, fragments of which were formerly employed as points for the common pump drill of the district. Duau is also the place of origin of the reed called igo, which is made into a flute bearing the same name. A number of forms of basket are imported from Panamoti, the most interesting of which are the beautifully made baskets of small size called sinapopo. These were imitated locally with but indifferent success. From Panamoti are also imported the model waga used as toys and which are faithful reproductions in miniature of the waga built by the northern Massim.

Certain kinds of wood were imported from Duau and Basilaki as well as the semi-fossilized wood called tari used for blackening the teeth (cf chapter xxxvii).

Lastly pigs and many forms of vegetable food are imported in large quantities.

All these articles are, or were, brought to the Island in waga in payment for which the Tubetube men give armshells, benam and bagi. Unfortunately I have notes of only one transaction of this kind. Keworkewor is the name of the waga which Mwakasoki, the most important man on Tubetube, bought at Panamoti from one Yabwa, who had obtained

Trading Voyages 537

the canoe at Murua where it was built. Mwakasoki asked a friend, one Dawia, who I believe was a Tubetube man, to go to Panamoti and arrange the matter for him. Yabwa brought the canoe to Tubetube where he received a first payment said to consist of nine pairs of armshells and ten be7ia7n. The next instalment, paid some months later, consisted of six pairs of armshells, and this was followed by a further payment of benavi and a last instalment consisting of pigs and vegetables. Many of the armshells and benam must have been small and inferior, nevertheless my informants insisted that the majority of the armshells were masiwaru (including all of the first instalment) and that the benam were good stones. I am inclined to believe that the account of the number of instalments is reliable, while the number of armshells and benam paid on each occasion has been exaggerated and the quality of these articles misstated. Probably the value actually paid over was but little greater than the amount which changed hands in the case of the sale of the Gavva-built waga recorded early in this chapter.

TRADING VOYAGES.

The greater part of the information regarding these voyages has already been published in the Geographical Joic7^nal from which almost all the following information is taken.

Waga are essentially sea-going craft intended only for off shore work and deep water voyages. As already mentioned waga are built so as to be exactly suited for the work expected of them, and what with good ships and good handling disasters were so rare that the oldest inhabitants of the island could not remember a shipwreck.

' Tubetube seamen aimed as far as possible to make a fair wind of it when they put out to sea, and the fortunate location of their island enabled them to go and come between many places during both seasons of the year, with at the worst a wind with which they could lay their course out and back. They could, however, work the waga to windward when their work lay that way, and although this was but slow travelling, their destination would be reached with speed enough to satisfy the easy-gomg natives.

'The voyages of these folk are intensely interesting

538 Tlie Southern Massim examples of primitive trading trips. Their crew always aimed to make a harbour every evening, and arranged their itinerary with this end in view, but they were not seriously disturbed If they had to spend a night at sea, either through failure of the wind, or when, as sometimes happened, they desired to reach a port more than a single day's sailing from the nearest starting-point. Without sufficient knowledge of the stars to sail by them at night, they could, in their islandstrewn sea, if the weather were clear, generally see some land to guide them, and so kept on their way. If the night were thick, they lay to where darkness overtook them and waited for daylight. The storms of the north-west monsoon were probably the severest trial to their seamanship, for furious storms come up then almost without warning. These are, however, only of a few hours' duration, and when good management or good luck did not give them a haven somewhere under their lee, they downed sail, keeping the waga head to the sea, and rode It out as best they might' \

Under the most favourable conditions their longest voyages, namely those to Duau and Murua, could be accomplished in four days. It is, however, doubtful whether these ideal voyages were ever made, certainly they were rare and It was not uncommon for the voyage to Murua to take two or three weeks either because of adverse winds or foul weather, or because the crew found business to transact or pleasure to entice them to linger at the various ports.

'Their trade route to Murua, where... many of the waga were built, was, as they made it, about 120 to 135 miles. They would usually go during the monsoon and come back on the trade, as those winds served their itinerary best. Presuming that wind and weather served them throughout the passage, they slept the first night on an Island called Ore, a couple of miles or so from Dawson Island, the next night they made PanamotI, the third night they slept at Tokunu (the Alcesters), and by the fourth night they might reach Murua'l

Basilakl (Moresby Island) lying little more than ten miles east of Tubetube was easily approached In a day at almost any time. Coasting along Its southern shore Sariba and Rogea were then reached. From either of these islands it was but

^ op. cit.^ p. 239. I have departed from the spelling in the original to the extent of writing Tubetube as one word and of printing waga in italics.

• Op. cit, p. 239.

Commercial Agents 539

a short run to the mainland along which the Tubetube canoes would coast for some distance, travelling, I believe, as far west as Suau (South Cape). But this was probably a less common route than one to the north of BasUakl, Salaoni Island lying midway in China Strait, between Basilisk Island and the mainland, being used as a resting place. From Salaoni it was easy to make Milne Bay.

COMMERCIAL AGENTS.

While in the Marshall Bennet Group I was several times told that the pots, which I afterwards ascertained from Captain Barton came from the Amphletts, were brought from Islands in the neighbourhood of the D'Entrecasteaux group by gumasi. I assumed this was the name of the inhabitants of an island in the direction indicated and after vainly endeavouring to ascertain what island my Informants alluded to, I let the matter drop. Nor did I again pay any attention to the matter till I met Captain Barton after I had left the south-eastern district. When I asked him whether he could tell me who the gumasi were he informed me that they were agents, and some months later he forwarded to me a copy of a note sent to him at Port Moresby by the Rev. W. E. Bromilow. The substance of this note is so highly compressed that its meaning is not everywhere clear, nevertheless it contains certain perfectly definite statements concerning gumasi or gumagi which must form the basis of future inquiries. Mr Bromilow writes : ' The natives of Dobu on the southern side of Dawson's Strait visit Cape Pearson, Gabulne, Tubetube to get bagi. Each head of a family has an agent called gumagi in the places visited whose duty it is to look out for good bagi. Return visits are paid to Dobu to secure moari (shell armlets). The people to the south have gumagi or agents at Dobu. In fact it Is a reciprocal agency.'

' The natives of Bwalo on the northern side of the straits (Dawson's) \i2M^ gumagi 2X the Amphletts and the Trobriands, from whom they get moari (armshells). There are gumagi^ between Dobu and Bwalo— hence the exchange takes place....'

• Gaganumore Is the principal gumagi [? at Dobu] and visits the south for bagi and Bwalo for moari He does not go further north than Bwalo for moa7'i but goes as far south as Tubetube for bagi....'

TRADE FROM BEYOND THE MASSIM AREA.

In the photograph reproduced In Plate LXVIII, three men are wearing" ornaments made of 7nelo shell such as are manufactured at Mailu, and the shell discs ornamenting the cord by which one of these is suspended round the neck of the man to the right of the picture, are made only in the Mailu district. Dr Forbes who took this photograph could throw no light on the matter, but I have recently heard from Mr Abel that Mailu canoes journey eastwards trading with a number of islands of the Massim.

CHAPTER XLI

WARFARE.

The embittered and long continued feuds which formerly lasted for years with but short intervals of peace between certain of the communities of south-eastern New Guinea and the neighbouring archipelagoes were the commonest cause of homicide, and as a rule alone gave rise to what we should term warfare. Each hamlet-group appears to have had a traditional enemy with whom the greater part of Its fighting was done, always in theory at least, to avenge the losses caused by its hostile neighbour. This warfare was carried on by a series of raids made in canoes both in Milne Bay and at Tubetube. Its object was the carrying off of captives and pigs as food, the burning of houses and the destruction of coconuts, sugar-cane and other vegetable food. It appeared, however, that the burning of houses and the looting and destruction of orardens, did not often occur and It certalnlv formed no essential part of this class of warfare, which was in almost every case undertaken to avenge a specific act of homicide committed by the hostile community. Hence every effort was made to kill or capture an enemy and as this could usually be most easily and safely effected by a night attack and a rapid retreat to the canoes to prevent reprisals, this became the usual method of warfare over a considerable area of the coast line of the south-eastern peninsula of British New Guinea and Its neighbouring archipelagoes^ The conduct of such warfare is illustrated by the account of the events which

1 In my notes the Wagawaga word for this form of fighting is given as bi^^o^ but Mr Gibhn points out that this word means 'vengeance' or *to revenge' and suggests that since the Taupota word for this kind of warfare is aii^dtu, it is likely that this is also its name at Milne Bay. At Tubetube I understood that this form of fighting was called saiye. At both places it was clear that the qualities distinguishing this from other forms of fighting were, that as much damage as possible was done to property, and that prisoners and those killed in the lighting were eaten.

542 The Sotcthem Massim led to the death of Keorl and of the revenge taken for him, as well as by the narrative of an imaginary raid by Tubetube on Basilaki given later in this chapter. Although warfare of this kind with its accompanying cannibalism was almost always waged to avenge the death of a member of the hamlet-group, it appeared that sometimes folk from communities with which there was no enmity might be killed and eaten for sheer love of the food. This was only done when there was no reason to dread immediate reprisals, e.g. when strangers were travelling in weak parties which could be easily overpowered, although the attacking folk might quite well recognize that they were starting a feud with a hamlet-group fully able to take the matter up and for which they would probably have to pay sooner or later.

There was no special war dress, but the members of a war party were usually blackened all over and plumes of cassowary feathers were sometimes worn upon the head. Each man carried one or more spears and a wooden sword '•^^•' called keripa, many, but not all, of the warriors carried a shield. Very generally the attacking party was successful in effecting a surprise though it does not follow that they always managed to kill a man or take a prisoner. Dr Loria gives the following account of the stratagem employed by Rogea to effect a surprise\

• Much care is taken during the voyage not to be seen by the enemy. Should the expedition be obliged to camp during the night, they land one canoe after the other without pronouncing a single word, and no fire is lit.'

'When close to the village some of the bravest men (they are called Tau Tahutahuloro) go to spy on the enemy and report.'

' Early in the morning, much before the sun has risen, two warriors (called Boe) lead the way. Very cautiously they advance whilst all the other men stand still. After a few hundred yards one of the Boe remains where he is ; the other rushes back to the crowd of warriors to let them know that they may advance. When they meet the other Boe they stop to let the two Boe go first as previously. If the Boe who stays on guard sees an enemy coming towards him, he rushes back to his companions, who in this case hide themselves in the bush, wait till the solitary enemy is close to them, and all at once attack and capture or kill him.'

• Annual Report^ 1894-5, pp. 39 to 41.

Warfare r^o

• During the times that the warriors are thus advancino-, the canoes, guided by the children and old men who (although accompanying the expedition, are not fit to fight) follow them, and stop in front of the village, to cut off the retreat by the sea.'

'When the warriors are close to the village, they divide into three or four parties, surround the village, attack it by surprise if they can, capture and kill as many people as they are able, steal anything on which they can lay their hands (dogs, pigs, native ornaments, &c.), damage the plantations and gardens, burn the village, and so on, all this being accompanied by the most infernal yelling and shouting.'

• This happens, of course, when the attacking party completely routs its opponents. But this seldom occurs. It has to be borne in mind that war is made to avenge one person's death. Therefore, when the assailants succeed in capturinoor killing one person they do not care to run the risk of losinoany of their men, and gladly listen to the voice of any one of them who says, '' Let us go back and eat him," and return to their canoes carrying with them the slain or captured person.'

A much milder form of warfare, which in many cases scarcely merits the name (shading off as it does into the clan brawl in a single hamlet-group), was that which resulted when a quarrel broke out between two usually friendly communities, here coconuts would not be cut down and houses would rarely or never be burnt, nor would pigs usually be carried off, and any men killed would be left lying where they fell, that is to say they would not be eaten and their heads would not be taken. This sort of quarrel might be brought about as the result of a man receiving no present of food at such an important feast as a toreha, when he might express his dissatisfaction and perhaps injure a man of the hamlet-group giving the feast, the quarrel so started would spread to both communities and ultimately a mild state of war might ensued

^ Fighting took place a few years ago near Cape Pierson, the north-eastern extremity of Normanby Island, owing to a man not receiving what he considered was his due share of food at a feast. Mr N. H. Morton records that about six miles from Cape Nelson 'the Sigasiga natives, a bush tribe, had been fighting the Maruwata people, another bush tribe, but that no deaths had occurred. The fight was caused through a feast given at Kekula ; it appeared that when the customary presents of food, etc., were being distributed, and after the names of the recipients had been called out and the presents given, a man named Sarokiko of Gomagaboina, got angry because his name was not mentioned. He thereupon threw a stone at a house, and proceeded to chop down the platform on which the yams

544 ^^^^ Soiither7i Massim

Boasting of success in love affairs, of which apparently a good deal went on among the young men at gatherings for feasts, and the jealousy thus aroused was another recognized source of minor warfare, as were also certain insults resorted to when it was desired to bring about a fight. It has already been stated in chapter xxxv that it was in the highest degree insulting to say to a man tamam i matt, ' your father is dead,* or to pronounce the name of his dead father, and other equally flagrant insults were to say stnam kwa peri or dum ku okaz, which reproached a man with committing incest with his mother and sister respectively. No one would use any of these expressions unless he were prepared to fight on the spot, as the man so abused would not usually hesitate to attack with any weapon which happened to be handy. Of course each man's clan or community joined in the fray and although little damage was usually done one or more men might be killed before peace was made. A less serious insult, but one which might result in a brawl, was to say to a man that he did no work and that his food came from the gardens of others.

A brawl between members of a community arising over women or pigs might lead to wounding or killing, but in either event the matter would usually be settled by the handing over of valuables to the injured man if he were only wounded, or to his relatives if he were killed. In the latter event the homicide would be reproved by all and he would, for a long time, run a certain risk of being speared by the relatives of his victim should a favourable opportunity arise. Mr Giblin informs me that brawls of this sort are called raua at Taupota, and are therefore probably known by the same name at Wagawaga. At Tubetube they appear to be called sasara ipaua.

PEACE-MAKING.

A formal peace-making was customary when it was felt that a respite was necessary from such severe inter-community feuds as were perpetual between Wagawaga and Maivara, Probably such peace-makings did not often occur until the blood accounts between the two communities were were placed ; he also cut the hand of a boy named Suwaro of Gogo. This caused bad blood between the two tribes, and fighting ensued.' {Annual Report^ 1900-1, App. O, p. 70.)

Warfare 245

tolerably even, and in these formal peace-makings, even when the number which had been killed on either side was the same, each side paid rigorously for those it had killed. The following account was given of a peace-making between Wagawaga and Maivara which took place a few years ago
About twenty Maivara canoes, carrying spears and shields so as to be prepared for hostilities, came to Wagawaga to propose peace. There had been no formal discussion of the question previously, though the matter must have been more or less in the air, but if this were so, I could not hear of it from my informant. The Maivara canoes lined up silently in a single row stretching across Discovery Bay at a distance of about 200 yards from the shore. Some of the older Wagawaga men went off in a small canoe and discussed whether it should be peace or war, deciding after a short time for peace. Some of these men stayed in the Maivara canoes while their own canoes paddled back to the shore where a rapid collection of such valuables as armshells, bena7n, samakupa and bagi was made. One man of each hamlet called up one of the Maivara canoes which paddled In and was tied to a stake thrust Into the sand quite close to the shore, then these Wagawaga men walked into the water and each presented one or more articles of value to the canoe he had called up and In which he sat for a short time. Wagawaga also provided young coconuts for the Maivara men. After a short time the Wagawaga men waded ashore and the Maivara canoes left the bay. The following list of the valuables presented to Maivara was readily obtained, and Is probably substantially accurate.

Kanabwahi gave 4 pairs of armshells, 5 samakupa, 3 benam, 4 wanepa and I pig. Modevva gave i pair of armshells, i benam and i boar's tusk ornament

{dona). Taradiu gave 2 pairs of armshells, 2 benam, i samakupa and i pig. Wagawaga Pupunu gave 2 pairs of armshells, 2 benam and i bone spatula {potuma) ornamented with the shell discs called sapisapi. Etuwaya gave 5 pairs of armshells, I benam and i dona. Wagawaga gave i benam, i pair of armshells and 2 samakupa. Yabarawa gave a bagi. Dobuapa gave i pig.

All the armshells were said to have been masiwaru.

1 An incomplete account of a peace-making obtained at Tubetube shows that the procedure closely resembled that which took place at Wagawaga.

Before leaving Wagawaga in their canoes the Maivara men told the Wagawaga men to come to their hamlet-group in three days' time. This the Wagawaga men did taking their canoes and going through a precisely similar ceremonial. It was stated that if either party had gone ashore from their canoes on the occasion of their first visit it would have been considered an attack, but that after the double ceremony above described the two communities could freely visit each other's hamlet-groups\ When the Wagawaga canoes visited Maivara the individuals who had presented bagi, samakupa and so forth to the Maivara men received presents of corresponding value from the latter.

Bartle Bay. (By H. Newton.)

Wamira and Wedau appear to have had the same enemies in the old days, these being the people up the Wamira River and on the Magavata watershed, as well as the people on the coast range towards Boianai. On the other hand, the people of Boianai on the range behind Wamira were their friends.

Warfare was divided into two classes : neighbourly warfare and warfare between enemies. Wedau and Wamira people fought each other from time to time and each fought their other ' friends,' but in such warfare there was no cannibalism, the dead were buried either by their own people, or by those who killed them. In such frays a man would not knowingly kill a clansman, all of whom he would recognize, having met them at feasts, etc. These frays originated out of such things as disputes over pigs, adultery, water-rights and so on, and were probably of a mere desultory character.

Fighting between enemies was a sterner affair, the dead would be eaten, and women could not save the wounded by throwing a grass petticoat over them as in fights between ' friends.' Also in these fights a man might kill a clansman, though this would be done in ignorance, for in the old days when fighting took place friendly relations did not exist between peoples living some distance apart, and neither party knew the clans of the individuals with whom they fought.

^ It was after the peacemaking just described that a Wagawaj^a man, Tauyareke, went to Maivara, where he married and lived for about two years, cf. p. 510.

Warfare 247

Before going to battle a concoction of a vile nature was prepared in a dish, some of the constituents being human urine, pigs' excrement, dogs* excrement, and scraped coconut. This was placed in the potiima in Wedau, in the stone circle at Irere, and those going to fight eat of it to make them fierce. In addition to this there was a stone in Wedau called Warorovuna, pieces of which were chipped off and boiled and the fighting men drank of this'. Also, close to this stone was placed a peculiar kind of coconut called wadttwadu and the fighting men came with spears which they threw at the coconut ; the spears that struck the coconut were aieia govi (lucky spears), and these were used in fighting. Those that missed were rejected. After consuming the liquor to give them fierceness they sharpened their spears and prepared for battle.

A man having killed an enemy in battle would not withdraw his spear or touch the body in any way. Others would carry the body to the hamlet-group, and the killer would have nothing to do with it. The idea is that in carrying the body, the blood of the dead man coming into contact with the body of the killer, would cause sickness, sores and perhaps death.

A woman could save a man struck down in battle by throwing her airipa (grass petticoat) over his body. She would use the small short skirt that she wears next her skin, not the longer outside skirt. I have heard of two cases of this.

Rekota, a Wedau woman, saved the life of Gaireko, a Wedau man, when there was fighting between Wedau and Wamira, about twenty years ago. Another Wedau woman saved the life of a Wamira man in the same way, the Wamira man being a relation of hers.

^ [This stone is one of the totems of the Mutuvia clan of Wedau hamletgroup, cf. chapter xxxv.]

35—2

CHAPTER XLII

CANNIBALISM.

In the vast majority of cases of cannibalism in the southeastern district the eating of human tiesh was part of the solemn act of revenge which it was the duty of each community to take on behalf of its own members killed and eaten by other communities with whom it was at enmity. The account given a few pages further on of an occasion on which such a revenge was actually taken, as well as the hypothetical instance which follows it, show how such matters were managed and the ceremonial and customs observed.

In a smaller number of cases human flesh was undoubtedly eaten for the pleasure it afforded, and complete strangers were commonly killed and eaten ; but there was of course no large or constant supply of food of this kind\

Mr Campbell quotes the following graphic account of evidence given by a woman named Laido, in what is probably a case of this sort, though it is not clear that the people eaten were absolute strangers to the Duau men who killed them.

' It is true that the people of my village ate the four people belonging to the Kurada village. It was in this way : A man called Wariwarubu saw the Kurada canoe off our shore. It was full of water, and four people were clinging to it. He went off in a canoe, and brought these four persons

^ The often repeated account of the killing and eating of over 300 Chinese by the natives of Rossel Island may certainly be considered untrue. The natives say that after the St Paul (carrying Chinese coolies to Sydney) was wrecked, the Chinese landed and took water and as much food as they could find and then left in rafts or boats proceeding in a northerly direction, which Sir William Macgregor points out is the only direction which in such crafts they could well take at the time of the year (September) at which the wreck occurred. The same authority mentions that the tribes all along the southern coast of the island are small and by no means warlike, and further points out that '300 Chmese could undoubtedly have conquered the island with such weapons as they could pick up.' {Annual Report^ 1892-3, p. 6.)

Cannibalism c^q on shore. There were two men and two women, and they looked very tired and weak, because of their having been, so they said, two days and two nights in the water. They had been to an island called Nuakata, and when they were returning from that place to their own place a great wind had arisen, causing a big sea to get up, and the canoe in which they were was filled with water, and they could do nothing but let it drift, and the wind and tide carried it towards our village. Wariwarubu got them out of his canoe, and a man named Lakapona speared one of the men ; then came Taubara, who took his tomahawk and killed the other man with two blows upon the neck. Wariwarubu then killed a woman with a blow of a tomahawk. He held her hair in one hand, and struck her on the neck with a tomahawk held in the other hand. Gilinua then killed the other woman also by a blow with a tomahawk. I saw those four people killed. I saw with mine own eyes the four men I have named kill them. When the four persons were dead, the people made a big fire and scorched the bodies on it, and then they cut pieces off with knives, and put these pieces into pots and cooked them, and when they were cooked the people, and there were many, sat down and ate of the flesh.... This was the custom of my country before the Government came to it'

Sometimes a community apparently for no other reason than the lust of flesh, would attack such visitors as the relatives of an individual who had married into one of their hamlets, or even friendly traders, if these were a weak party, although in the latter case they might well know that the result would be a feud in which they themselves would sooner or later suffer.

I heard of an instance of this at Tubetube, and the Rev. C. W. Abel has described a similar incident. A party of men in three canoes from the hamlet-group of Barabara in Milne Bay went to Maivara to barter for areca nuts ; the canoes were beached near the mouth of the Maivara river, towards which the men walked in order to reach the Maivara settlement. They had gone only a short distance when an alarm was raised ; they turned back to reach their canoes but found themselves cut off from them by a band of Maivara men armed with spears. Naturally they took to the bush and made their way to where they had left their canoes, but

1 Annual Report^ 190 1-2, p. 18.

550 The Southern Massint found that the Maivara men had taken the precaution of removing the craft. Again, the Barabara men took to the bush and being by this time scattered each man made his way back to Barabara (some 25 miles distant) as best he could, taking the precaution to strike inland, as a number of the coast settlements near the head of the Bay were at enmity with Barabara. Six of the party failed to reach home, and it was later ascertained that Maivara had killed and eaten them. The man who told this story to Mr Abel pointed out that the Maivara men had treated them well on a former visit and that Barabara had counted the Maivara settlements as friendly^

A much rarer form of cannibalism was that which consisted of the eating of bodies exhumed for this purpose soon after they had been buried. Concerning this practice it was impossible to obtain any reliable information at Wagawaga, and I do not know whether it ever occurred at Tubetube ; indeed, the information that I was able to collect on the subject was meagre in the extreme, but the following case, reported by Sir Francis Winter as occurring in 1895, shows that the practice formerly existed in Milne Bay.

'While at Samarai, the Central Court tried a case of desecration of sepulchre ; two adult women and a girl being the offenders. The oldest woman was the mother of the other two. The little child of the elder daughter had died and been buried in the usual manner. About a day after the burial the accused had dug up the body and eaten it. The three women belonged to a village near the head of Milne Bay. The evidence on the question of whether the practice of eating dead relations in this district had ever been so common as to be entitled to rank as a custom was conflicting:. 1 ne excuse the women gave was that it was a custom. The accused were sentenced to a short term of imprisonment'.'

Formerly this practice also occurred near South Cape, for Chalmers mentions a Bonarua woman who dug up her buried husband to feed her friends. Chalmers relates that in this instance the matter created a good deal of indignation, apparently not because there was anything wrong in eating human flesh exhumed for the occasion, but because the men all felt that they would not like to be eaten by their wives'.

^ Savage Life in New Guinea^ pp. 1 36 et seq.

2 Annual Report^ 1894-5, App. G, p. 10.

3 Pioneering in New Guinea^ London, 1887, p. 264.

Cannibalism

It is, I think, permissible to doubt the adequacy of the explanation given by Chalmers as to the reason for the indignation felt at this practice. My information shows that the practice formerly prevailed (probably more or less sporadically) over a wide area perhaps attaining its greatest intensity in the D'Entrecasteaux Groups

Although very little is known about this matter, the common opinion throughout the district that sorcerers commonly exhume and eat corpses seems to indicate that the object of the deed is the performance of an act of magic. This is the view held by Mr Abel, who tells me that the natives themselves believe — without any satisfactory evidence — that very many graves are opened by sorcerers. The view imputing a magical significance to the act is strengthened by information given me by Mr Giblin, who writes: — 'What I have to say is really only to offer an hypothesis, for none of those I have come in contact with would be likely to do such a thing for food. The fact of the three accused being females and that they said it was a custom leads me to think that these women were anxious to become parau7na (as it is called along the coast from East Cape to the head of Goodenough Bay). I remember once asking a girl how women became parauma, she dissembled at first and made various suggestions, one of these was that ''perhaps she eats a buried body.'* Once too when telling a fairy story to the natives (children) I told of a witch who was deserted and had no food and so lived in a cemetery and frightened people. One boy said, " was she a flesh-eating /^r^//;;m } Did she eat the corpses ? " '

It appeared that children, especially illegitimate children, were sometimes killed and eaten ; that they might formerly have been killed if they were a nuisance to their mother was clear enough, but I am not prepared to say that they were often eaten, although I obtained unconfirmed information concerning the rather recent killing and eating of an infant in one of the Milne Bay hamlet-groups.

The conditions which allowed an individual or prevented him from taking part in a cannibal feast on any particular occasion are noted on pages 557, 562, while the ceremonial abstinence imposed on the men who actually had taken prisoner or killed the subject of the feast is described on pages 557, 563.

1 In 1904 there were four of five men undergoing a term of imprisonment m the Samarai gaol for having cut up and eaten a human body.

552 The Southern Massiin

Even In non-ceremonial cannibalism, as when a complete stranger was eaten, it was the custom to observe certain restrictions; thus children might not eat human flesh, though any man or woman who had attained to puberty was allowed to do so. Some women, however, appear to have always avoided eating this food ; the only reason given was * he too much fright.' There was also a smaller number of men who apparently seldom or never ate human flesh, and old men who had lost their teeth would usually abstain from this otherwise favourite food.

No reason could be elicited for this abstinence, which was, however, so well recognized that at Wagawaga the names of toothless old men were not as a rule called when human flesh was being distributed.

Human flesh was generally boiled or more rarely cooked In a native oven, though the penis which was specially esteemed was usually split and roasted on hot ashes. The best pieces were the tongue, hands, feet and mammae ; the brain, broken up and extracted through the foramen magnum of the boiled skull, was considered a special delicacy. The Intestines and solid viscera as well as the testes and vulva were also eaten. Waieraiena of Wagawaga, a man rather beyond middle life, was considered rather an amusing, if somewhat peculiar individual, in that, contrary to the usual custom, he used to insist on eating his portion of human flesh raw.

It seems certain as the result of many inquiries that public cannibalism had no magical significance either at Wagawaga or Tubetube, and this probably holds good throughout the south-eastern district. The dead man's community was supposed to be more or less Insulted by having one of its members eaten, but this was really a very small element in the matter. Nowhere, as far as could be ascertained, did the eaters gain any of the dead man's wisdom In peace or prowess in war, and it is clear that the two factors concerned in the cannibalism of south-eastern New Guinea were the duty of taking vengeance for a member of the hamlet-group killed and the desire for human flesh, for which there undoubtedly was a very strong liking.

Human flesh Is stated to resemble pig in flavour, but to make better food since, although they both taste much alike, the former has the more delicate flavour, as well as the further advantage (stated by everyone who talked freely on the

Cannibalism 553

subject), that it never produces any painful feeling of satiety or induces vomiting. It was pointed out that if too much pig flesh were eaten a man's stomach would swell up and he would be sick, but that human flesh might be eaten until a man found it impossible to swallow any more without producing these unpleasant symptoms; it was however admitted that it was very rare for any one to get as much of this food as he would have been pleased to eat.

Wagawaga.

The individual or individuals eaten in revenge for a comrade who had been eaten by a hostile community were called maia or maiha. The usage connected with such warfare undertaken to obtain maiha and the ceremonial observed at the ensuing cannibal feast can best be illustrated by taking an actual instance.

It became known at Mai vara that a Wagawaga canoe was about to visit Basilaki, so three canoes put off quietly at night and an ambush was formed behind an island called Seraumi (Salaoni) close to which the Wagawaga canoe would pass. The ambush was successful, and the Maivara men drove the Wagawaga canoe ashore where the majority of its crew took to the bush, leaving two prisoners in the hands of the men of Maivara, namely, Keori a man of clan Garuboi and Bonadiero a girl of about ten belonging to Modewa clan^; the prisoners were bound and flung into one of the Maivara canoes which leisurely started home taking care to pass Wagawaga on the way. When opposite Wagawaga the Maivara canoes approached to within some two hundred yards of the shore, the majority of their crew drumming, shouting, gesticulating and blowing conch shells. Then they halted and gave the dance besa or boriri used on such occasions. Their captives were made to stand up, and stripped naked while the girl's petticoat and the man's perineal band were waved in the air by their captors, who yelled the names of the prisoners and detailed how they would be cooked and eaten. Bonadiero cried and made repeated efforts to escape, Keori appeared to those on shore to be resigned. Wagawaga was

1 Keori was a man of Wagawaga hamlet, his father who had as bird totems siai, the bird of paradise, and kulokulo, came from Bogohodu m the bush behind Discovery Bay.

wild with anger but nothing could be done and when the Maivara men had amused themselves enough, they paddled on to their own hamlet-group, where Keori was duly eaten after the usual preliminaries which I shall describe when considering the death of the Maivara man who was afterwards killed in revenge for him. The girl was not mjured but was adopted by one Taumaia, who did not, however, keep her long, for shortly afterwards at a big dance some Rabi guests kidnapped her and restored her to her own folk\

Boys as well as girls might be adopted. Romilly records that a party of Tubetube men visiting a Milne Bay hamletgroup were surprised and massacred. * The boy was to have been killed with the others in spite of the prayers and tears of the women. When they found that those were of no avail they took off their petticoats and flung them over the boy's body, and there was not a man there who would have dared to so much as touch him while under their protection. The boy was subsequently adopted by the tribe^

At Wagawaga talk ran high and revenge was determined upon, but nothing was done for some six weeks, for a surprise was aimed at, and it was thought advisable to allow time for the abatement of the first suspicious watchfulness of the people of Maivara. Then canoes and weapons were prepared and the necessary feast ogatard^ or losuma was held without which no party could seek for maiha. At this feast the older

^ Taumaia was said to have as bird totems waiwai and boi^ i.e. the birds belonging to the Garuboi clan of Wagawaga. Bonadiero, as already mentioned, belonged to Modewa clan having as totems siai and kulokulo. It was pointed out that a man would be sorry for a prisoner having the same totems as himself who was to be killed and eaten, but that in spite of this he might be unable or unprepared to make the sacrifices necessary to get together sufficient articles of value to ransom the prisoner. In a case of this sort he would endeavour to secure the help of a friend (.? eriarn) or connection who was also a near relative of the man who had captured the prisoner, the idea being that the friend thus brought into the matter might, by exerting his influence and authority on the prisoner's captor, persuade the latter to accept a comparatively small sum as ransom. This plan was especially likely to succeed when the connection whose aid was invoked by the prisoner's clansman stood in the relation o{ aii to the captor of the prisoner.

Mr Giblin remarks that he does not know Taumaia as a personal name, but that it is a noun formed from the noun tau ' man ' and the verb maia ' to pay,' and thus means the payer or the redeemer. It seems reasonable that Taumaia should be known by this name at Wagawaga since he ransomed the girl Bonadiero. Maia or maiha is the common verb for paying or repaying and the noun maia is applied to the payment or price of an object.

2 Annual Report, 1887, App. H.

^ Mr Giblin points out that ogatara means 'a decision,' 'a finishing of the discussion,' and is derived from oe^a a ' talking,' or ' to talk,' and tara ' to cut off",' so that ogatara is the 'cutting off' or 'cutting short' of a discussion.

Cannibalism 555

warriors exhorted the war party to be courageous, yet to run no unnecessary risks, but the leader of the war party did not himself make a speech. This applied also to those (brothers and aii) closely related to the dead man for whom vengeance was to be taken. Rerenia of Wagawaga Pupuna hamlet was leader of the war party and was therefore also taniwaga or master of the feast, and he alone killed pigs though everyone else contributed a share of vegetable food. The ogatara was eaten in the afternoon on the watara, that is the lower platform of a potuma, by all the warriors except Rerenia, who because he was taniwaga of the war party might eat only in his own house\ The women and children sat round the potuma, but took no part in the feast, during which speeches inciting to valour and revenge were made. Near sundown the war party started, the men being fully armed and provided with drums and conches, called hhnorgo, made of Cassis and Triton shells. They set out in ten canoes, each of which was stated to hold from twenty to thirty men, and paddling quietly they entered the Maivara river about midnight. Landing noiselessly they surrounded and rushed a potuma from which, however, all the inmates escaped with the exception of one man taken prisoner by Rerenia. This man was securely bound and thrust into a canoe. To avoid a possible counterattack the attacking party took to their canoes and gained the mouth of the river as quickly as possible, where they lingered till daylight, when with beating of drums and blowing of conches they danced besa, replying with shouts and insults to the Maivara men, who from the safety of the shore were heartily abusing them. Then the canoes returned triumphantly to Wagawaga, where their captive was pitched into the shallow water, speared by as many warriors as could reach him and dragged ashore. The greatest care was taken not to kill the captive at this stage, for it was necessary that he should be more or less severely wounded by the next of kin of the man for whom revenge was being taken. In this instance Bakaiya, the brother of the dead man, who was not

1 The taniwaga of the war party and the feast preceding It would always be of the clan to which the dead man for whom vengeance is to be taken belonged. Usually he would be closely related to the dead man, in which case he would probably be of his hamlet, and might be his brother or aii (sister's son or mothers brother). Unfortunately no question was asked as to who was leader of a war party setting out with the avowed intention of exacting revenge for the death of members of more than one clan or clan-group.

a member of the war party, slashed him across the shoulder with a tomahawks If Keori had no brother his au would have inflicted a wound. Even now the victim was not killed, and if, as rarely happened, he was mortally injured, it was looked upon as a regrettable mishap. As soon as the maiha was dragged to land the next of kin of the man whose death was being revenged made a considerable present, called gudu, to the captor, and Bakaiya paid Rerenia one denam, one shell necklace {samakupa), three shell nose ornaments, one boar's tusk, one pig and one bagi. It seemed clear that Rerenia received these things not because he had given the ogatara or led the attacking party, but because he had himself taken a prisoner who would be maiha for Keori. If the dead man left a widow she should now transfer her mourning ornaments to the maiha, but if vengeance were not exacted for so long a time after a comrade's death that his widow was no longer in mourning, this ceremony was omitted; unfortunately no inquiries were made as to whether the maiha was blinded by the widow, as was done at Tubetubel The victim was then dragged to the stone circle [gahana) of the clan which was reserved for cannibal feasts. There he was enveloped in dry coconut leaves and lashed to the tree, usually a coconut, which always stood in these gahana. The leaves were then lighted and as a rule the victim soon expired. Instances are recorded where a badly burnt prisoner managed to leave the gahana and even reach the sea. When it was possible the spear and shield of the first man killed (for whom the maiha is slain in payment) is carefully preserved and burnt with the maiha. One cannibal gahana still exists at Wagawaga ; it consists of a circle of blocks of coral rock loosely piled upon each other to a height of about two feet.

The burnt corpse was laid on a pandanus mat, cut up and eaten partly within and partly without the gahana. Only

• It seemed that there was no formal or ceremonial reason or custom requiring that the brother of the dead man for whom payment was to be taken should not accompany the war party. In the instance given the aii of Keori took part in the fighting.

2 Mr Giblin states that the whole of the above description would be equally true for the Taupota villages, all of which were formerly at enmity with the people of Chad's Bay, a few miles to the east of them. Mr Giblin adds that if the Taupota took two prisoners, one would usually be killed and roasted before the eyes of the other, so that the latter might fully appreciate the agony he would presently suffer. Further, splinters of wood were said to be thrust into the victim's flesh, lighted and allowed to burn down to the skin. The pith contained in the midrib of a coconut leaf was considered particularly suitable food to eat with human flesh.

Cannibalism rr^-j clans with whom Intermarriage was not allowed might enter another clan's cannibal gahana. At intervals, while the corpse was being cut up and cooked, the successful warriors held a dance rurepo, to single beats of the drum and blowing of conches. The skulls from previous cannibal feasts were brought from the potuma and decorated with croton leaves, while the handle of a canoe paddle or a stick some six feet long was thrust into the foramen magnum of each, and the skull thus supported was held in both hands above each dancer's head. After the burning the victim's captor made a return present to the next of kin of the man for whom maiha was taken. In this instance Rerenia gave Bakaiya a bagi. The aii of Keori who, as was customary, had helped Bakaiya to make up x\^ gudu, received nothing from Rerenia. It has already been stated in chapter xxxv that a dual grouping of the clans existed by which Modewa and Hurana could not intermarry, but together they formed the clan-group which intermarried with Garuboi or with other clans outside the Wagawaga community. When 7naiha was taken for a Wagawaga man, the dual grouping was adhered to, but in the opposite sense, i.e. neither individuals of the intermarrying clan-group nor those belonging to outside clans might take part in the feast, which was strictly limited to the dead man's clan-group. The same limitation applied to the right of entry into each clan's cannibal ^^Z^^/^^. Hence the maiha taken for Keori was eaten only by Garuboi men; had Keori been a member of either Modewa or Hurana clan, Garuboi would have abstained from eating his maiha, but both these clans together forming the clan-group Modewa would have shared In the feast. It follows that in no instance should the father or the paternal relatives of the dead man for whom maiha was exacted take part In the cannibal feast, and this was found to be the case. On the other hand, a mother would eat her son's maiha as would all relatives on the maternal side. Further, no one would eat a man of his own killing, or a prisoner he had taken, though it appeared that he might eat a man of his own or even of his father's clan, killed or captured by another Individual. The killer or captor of the man who was to be eaten would go straight to his own house and stay there for about a month, living on roast taro and hot coconut milk; his wife continues In the house but sleeps apart. He stays In the house because he Is afraid of the 'blood' of

The Southern Masshn the dead man and it is for this reason that he does not join in eating him, if he did his belly would become ' full of blood ' and he would die. But there is something more subtle than the actual blood, though connected with it, of which he goes in terror. Ipunesa explained this as the smell or vapour of

Fig. 42. Bracelet made from human jaw bone.

the blood, but both of these terms I believe to be too precise. It seemed rather as if certain imperceptible qualities emanating from the blood lingered about the scene of the cannibal feast, and adhered to a certain extent to those who had taken part in it long after all physical traces had been removed, and that

Cannibalism ccq these influences were specially injurious to the provider of the feast. It was to avoid these that the house seclusion lasted a whole month and the provider of the feast — probably for the same reason — would not for some considerable time take lime from the lime gourd of anyone who had taken part in the feast. The older men agreed that whatever these qualities were they were not expressed by the word arugo used for the ghost, shade or spirit of a dead man.

The homicide's brother or ail would prepare the skull and take it to the potuma. Both these relatives had an equal right to wear on the upper arm an armlet made of the lower jaw of their maiha (figure 42), while his cervical vertebrae might be worn attached to their back hair, which is often allowed to grow long at Wagawaga.

A man or woman killed and eaten otherwise than as payment for the death of a clansman was called idaidaga. Strangers might be so treated for no other cause than the desire for a favourite food. Whoever killed the victim had to abstain from his flesh and follow the rules already given for the killer of 7naiha. With this exception anyone above puberty, no matter what his or her clan might be, could share in the feast. The victim, if taken alive, was dragged to his captor's gakana, speared, but not mortally wounded, and burnt and cut up in the usual way. His flesh was distributed by his captor's aU and brother, who called the name of each recipient in much the same manner as at a toreha^. Those who could not enter the gakana of the clan who had killed the man had their portions passed to them outside. Human flesh, whether ida'idaga or maiha, might not be taken into a house, and those who might not enter and eat in the gakana usually ate it on the platform of a potunia or, in the case of women, sitting round the potuma'^,

1 Cf. chapter XLVI.

2 At Wedau and Wamira all the adult males would eat the flesh of an enemy killed in battle, so long as he was not killed in revenge (payment) for a fellow comrade. For this information I am indebted to Mr Newton, who writes, ' in the latter event the body would be eaten only by members of the clan [? clan-group] one of whose members was thus revenged. At Wedau, the body was usually cut up and eaten on the beach or in a gully, never in a house, except during heavy rain when it was taken to the potinrui. The bolabola seems to have had no connection with cannibal feasts at Wedau ; the skulls were placed on the ground near the stone Warorovuna, which is also a totem (cf. pp. 449, 45')- '^^^e flesh was cooked between hot stones. At Wamira the stone circles bolabola played an important part in cannibal feasts.

Women and children did not as a rule eat human flesh, but a small portion might be given to a woman that she might bring forth a strong child.'

560 Tlie Southern Massim

Tubetube.

The following account was given of what would happen if a Tubetube man had been killed by the men of a hostile community on Basilaki. It was assumed that a trading canoe from Tubetube had been ambushed, or that a portion of its crew had carelessly gone ashore on a hostile part of the coast and had lost one of their number in a hasty return to their canoe. It should be noted that, although the information given did not avowedly refer to any particular act of warfare, it was obtained from men past middle age who had taken part in raids such as the one here described, and most of whom (if not all) had actually fought against certain of the Basilaki settlements with which Tubetube was more or less constantly at enmity.

The men in the canoe returning without one of their party, paddled slowly, and wailed for their dead comrade as they approached the Tubetube beach. The people on shore asked what had happened and were told that the brother of so-and-so had been killed. Thereupon the usual mourning customs were initiated by the felling of two of the coconut trees belonging to the deceased.

When it had been determined that vengeance should be taken, a leader of the war party was selected whose title was taniwaga". The taniwaga always belonged to the same clan as the dead man and generally to the same hamlet, but in any case he and his near relatives provided the greater part of the food eaten at the feast called losuma, held shordy before the war party started.

As soon as the men were aboard, the canoes drew a little way off shore, when amid a general silence the taniwaga made a short speech such as the following: 'You fellow look out for spear good along fight, look out good for spear or some boy he get him spear. You fellow strong along fight : you take h'xmgum (payment) belong me.' At the close of the address no conches were blown, nor was there any shouting, but the canoes set off quietly, the voyage being so arranged that the canoes arrived at their destination before daybreak. It was

^ In the hypothetical case under consideration it was assumed that Mwakasoki of Dagedagera hamlet, and a member of the Gegera totem, the most important man on Tubetube, was taniwaga^ and from him most of the information given in this section was obtained.

Cannibalism ^61

said that in order to avoid being seen a dark night was selected, the direction in which to sail being judged by the wind.

When Basilaki was reached the canoes were moored to poles driven into the sandy bottom of some quiet bay at a little distance from the hamlet to be attacked, and men were left in them so that all might be ready for a quick retreat, should this become necessary. When the hamlet had been surrounded, that is to say when three or four parties of armed men had been stationed near it, the leader of the war party mounted the platform of one of the houses and attempted to break his way in, generally using his blackwood sword (keripa) as a lever \ In doing this he generally made enough noise to waken the inmates, who on realizing they were being attacked would cry out in order to rouse their comrades and bring them to their aid. The noise made by the attacked was the signal for the raiders to rush the houses, into which they endeavoured to force their way before the inmates had escaped, as the only chance of killing or taking prisoners was to seize them before they could reach the darkness outside. Generally a hamlet surprised in this way made a rush for the bush. There was never any pursuit, but if there was little fear of immediate reprisals the hamlet was looted and burnt, coconut trees were cut down, and as much damage as possible was done to the community attacked.

Assume that in the attack one prisoner has been taken and one man killed. Both would be dragged to the canoes irrespective of their totems, so that at this stage of the struggle it was a matter of indifference whether a man mishandled the living or dead body of one of his own or even of his father's totem. Prisoner and dead man were often placed in the same canoe, but it was not clear whether this usually belonged to the taniwaga. The canoes would paddle a little way so as to be quite safe, and when a couple of hundred yards or so from land, assuming it was now daylight, they formed a line and each man took a drum or conch shell, and after making as much noise as he could, took part in the dance called besa which was given simultaneously by all the men not needed to handle the canoes. The slayer of the dead man

1 In the old days houses were more or less effectually closed at night, and although the ideal of the war party was to break into a house and kill or captureits inmates without raising an alarm, this was seldom accomplished.

and the captor of the prisoner respectively, took no part in these drummings and dances, but sat quietly with bent head and downcast eyes; according to one informant, no one in the canoe containing the prisoner and the dead body took part in the drumming or dancing.

After this, sail was hoisted and the canoes were navigated in the ordinary way until near Tubetube when the sail would be lowered, drums beaten and conch shells blown while besa was again danced, only the killer of the gum and the captor of the prisoner not taking part, but sitting as before, silent with head sunk on chest.

When the canoes were seen approaching the island the whole population gathered on the beach and as soon as the signs of victory had been recognized, began a dance called railsi. When the canoes were close to shore this dance was stopped and men rushed into the water and brought the body of the dead enemy ashore amidst great rejoicing, and laid it on a naka. Here it lay till the time came to distribute portions in the same way as the flesh of a pig would have been divided.

It has been noted at the beginning of this chapter that a prisoner might be adopted into his or her captor's community, that is to say if the beaten party had paid their blood debt, life for life. But if he is to die he is killed upon one of the naka belonging to the clan of the man in revenge for whom his life is taken. In some cases it was clear that he would be killed upon the naka of the dead man's hamlet, and, although it is not certain, it is probable that this invariably occurred. If the widow of the dead man were still in mourning her mourning necklace and armlets were transferred to the victim who, however, was not blackened. If the widow had ceased to mourn, this part of the ceremony was omitted. The widow then thrust pointed sticks into the eyes of the victim, while taunting him somewhat as follows : ' With your eyes you saw my husband killed, well your eyes won't be much more use to you.' Then the dead man's game (sisters' children) speared the victim so that he died, and the body was cut up upon the naka by the men of the clan. It was stated that the flesh might be eaten by all the inhabitants of Tubetube with the exception of the man who had killed the gum or taken him (or her) prisoner, and certain relatives of the man for whom payment was taken.

Canmbalisfn

I am not able to give a list of the relatives who abstain from eating the gum but such a list would include the widow and children of the man for whom the gum is taken, and the wives and children of his game\ Besides relatives, certain other people abstain from eating the gum in order to avoid bringing death on its provider by a possible future act of carelessness. I believe these folk are the game of the provider of the gum, for if any of them eat the flesh of the gtun and subsequently chanced to take lime from the lime-pot of the provider of the gum, the latter would die xi he subsequently used his own lime-pot. It would be equally dangerous for him to take lime from the gourd of anyone who had helped eat the gum, or for any of these people to contaminate his lime-pot by using it, and for this reason men who had eaten the gum would most carefully abstain from eating, possibly for years, from the lime-pot of the game of the man who had killed the gum. ' He full up blood, he kill him,' were the words of my informant who, at the same time, made a motion with his hand from the pit of his stomach upwards, as though something would rise from the stomach to the throat of anyone who neglected to observe this custom.

Men killed and prisoners taken by the war party do not seem to belong in any special sense to the taniwaga. The payment [gaioiyai), which is made in return for the gum by the dead man's hamlet or perhaps clansmen, is made, not to the leader of the war party, but to anyone who has killed or taken prisoner the man or woman who is eaten as gtcm. It was said that a pig and four pairs of armshells would be considered a usual gaioiyai and this should be paid in the canoe, before or as soon as the guTn was brought ashore.

The warrior who has taken a prisoner or killed a man, immediately on landing goes to his own house which he enters by the back door, taking especial care to avoid going near to the naka on which his prisoner or the man he has killed lies. He conveys his food to his mouth with his hands but is restricted to food roasted in the fire, and he must cook this for himself. After three days' seclusion in the house he bathes in the sea and is free from his food taboos. After

1 It must be remembered that nothing was known of a dual grouping of the clans at the time when Tubetube was visited : if this formerly existed it may well have influenced the practice of ceremonial cannibalism as it has in Milne Bay. In the above account nothing is said about singeing the body before cutting it up, though probably this occurred at Tubetube as elsewhere in the district.

36—2

bathing he blackens his forehead, temples and cheeks, and remains in this condition for a further period of three days, at the expiration of which he washes and is free to go about as he likes. No food restrictions were imposed on those taking part in the cannibal feast, which was eaten with the bare hands, but it was stated that continence was observed for a few days after eating human flesh.

After the skulls of victims killed as gum have been boiled and cleaned they are kept above the front entrance on the outside of the house of the man who received payment for the guvi. This man has also the right to wear the lower jaw of the gu7n as an armlet and the cervical vertebrae attached to the leglets commonly worn below the knee.

No taboos seem to have been imposed on the folk who stayed at home during the absence of a war party, but if fires would not readily light this was regarded as of bad omen for the success of the absent warriors.

CHAPTER XLIII

MORALS.

The old morality of the people of the south-eastern district is at the present day everywhere in a state of decay, owing to the coming of the white man, that is to say of Government officers and missionaries, all of whom are able to impose their presence upon any community.

A reconstruction of the old morality as it can still be obtained from men not much past middle age, shows that it was almost entirely a group morality, and that the idea of individual responsibility and individual effort had scarcely emerged. The natives lived and still live their whole life in a condition of publicity, which, even when with them, it requires an effort to realize, so that in spite of the comparatively loose structure of the hamlet-group, every man, woman and child is being constantly judged in regard to matters which appear to be of the smallest importance by a relatively large number of his fellows, whose verdict constitutes the public opinion of the community.

It is true, at least in theory, that individuals only, and not the hamlet or clan, suffer for certain breaches of communal opinion; thus a thief may be punished by being made to pay the value of whatever he has stolen, and it is right and proper that an injured husband should kill an adulterer. ^ In these two instances there is no intention to make the relatives of the criminal suffer for his crime, but even here family and clan responsibility is not abolished for any length of time. It is certain that if a thief has not the valuables necessary to make good his atonement, he would borrow from his family who would not say him nay, while the life of an adulterer, rightly killed according to communal custom, would yet have to be paid for by his slayer, who in the majority of cases

566 The Sotttherii Massim would not be wealthy enough to do so without borrowing from his relatives and clansmen.

Further, it must be remembered that in inter-community war, the death of any member, man or woman, of the opposing community formerly constituted adequate revenge, and that the inheritance of the whole or almost the whole of any individual's property is automatically provided for from the moment it comes into his possession.

DOMESTIC MORALITY.

In the vast majority of cases family life seems to be calm and happy in spite of the sudden gusts of uncontrollable passion to which many Papuo-Melanesians seem liable at times\ The men are usually affectionate husbands and treat their wives well ; the wives in turn usually fulfil their part of the contract, tending their gardens and punctually preparing and cooking food for their husbands and children. Both sexes make affectionate and indeed over-indulgent parents, while the children brought up under these conditions make as a rule excellent sons, daughters and even relationsin-law, and no old man or old woman — too old and worn to work — is neglected by his or her children or grandchildren, including in this term, as the native does, nephews and nieces on the maternal side.

SEXUAL MORALITY.

It is clear that there was, and, where the natives have come but little under white influence, there still is, nothing reprehensible about the sexual act so long as it did not entail

^ An example of such uncontrollable passion in a native of Goodenough Bay is given by Mr A. M. Campbell.

'The following case shows what a violent passion a native can at times get into with little, if any, provocation. A man's wife one day cooked some food for their pig, and, putting it on some leaves, placed it outside the house for the pig to eat. Her husband's dog came up and, chasing the pig away, began to eat the food. The woman then took up a small stone and threw it at the dog, with the mtention of driving it away. Her husband in a frenzy of passion immediately jumped up from the place where he had been sitting, and seizing a pointed stick drove it with such fatal effect into his wife's body, that she expired on the spot. This occurrence nearly caused a free fight in the village, as the woman's relations insisted "upon taking payment" (killing the husband) for the woman's death. Fortunately better counsels prevailed, and the murderer was handed over to the village constable for conveyance to Samarai.' Annual Report^ 1902-3, p. 26.

Sexual Morality Kjbn adultery or take place between individuals who should keep apart on grounds of consanguinity or social custom, in fact, so long as these limitations were not infringed, a girl before she was married might dispose of her person as she pleased. This matter is discussed at some length in chapter xxxviii so that it is only necessary here to point out how largely this diminishes the category of sexual crimes, and, as might be expected under these conditions, rape or attempted rape is and always has been very rare. When it did occur the attempt whether successful or not, if made by an unmarried man on an unmarried woman, was not punished. At Tubetube one informant said, ' Father, mother, he no wild, bymbye, all men laugh along that boy, he no good, what for he do that if girl no want him ? '

There is every reason to believe that the great majority of married women were, and are, faithful wives, although adultery seems to be becoming commoner everywhere, now that the death of one or both of the adulterers cannot be brought about without coming into conflict with the Government. The white man's law provides that adultery shall be punished by a fine or Imprisonment, which seems as inadequate to the native as the means of enforcing It are cumbersome.

It was agreed that an unfaithful wife should not be killed and it was stated that even in the old days the proper course was to tell her to go back to her own, that is to her parents', hamlet or to give her a sound beating. This implies that in theory a man had no right to kill his adulterous wife, though if he did kill her public opinion In his own hamlet would not be strongly against him ; however, it seemed that unfaithful wives were more often thrashed or sent away than killed. If a man does not send away a woman who has been unfaithful he regards any child born to her as his and treats it as such, and this is done even when a man suspects that a child may not be his own. A married woman's lover might on the other hand be killed, even if he belonged to the same clan and even to the same hamlet as the aggrieved husband. In the latter instance, after the man had been killed the husband of the unfaithful woman, considering how much damage she had caused, would probably spear her too, but it was not considered a point of honour to do this. It was said repeatedly that in the old days a man might be killed for even talking to another man's wife if he met her alone In the bush or on the seashore, and that no married woman would speak to a stranger unless other women were present. It seemed that when an adulterer was killed there was no attempt made to stalk him and kill him quietly in the bush ; the injured husband would follow his man and attempt to kill him wherever he could find him, even in his own hamlet. In these quarrels, however, the injured husband would always be backed up by his own hamlet who, on the first sign of trouble, would turn out armed, with the usual result that a fight took place between the hamlets of the men most concerned. If the adulterer were killed in the brawl but the hamlet to which he belonged did not succeed in killing a man of the opposing hamlet, a vendetta would not as a rule be started, for public opinion was against the adulterer, and the injured husband's family would generally find the requisite amount of valuable shell ornaments to atone for the adulterer's death. When a man killed an adulterer in the bush the homicide generally returned to his own hamlet and told his clansmen what he had done, when an attempt was usually made to pay for the dead man immediately and thus avert a blood feud.

MODESTY.

The folk of all those parts of the south-eastern district visited were absolutely modest in their behaviour and nowhere was an indecent gesture seen. The men carry their physical modesty further than do Europeans, for no one takes off his perineal bandage when bathing, and a native would be almost as much ashamed to remove this before a single kinsman as he would be to stalk naked through his hamlet. Women are equally particular and are said never to strip before one another^

HOMICIDE.

Throughout the south-eastern extremity of British New Guinea there is an absence of any feeling against homicide, the propriety of any given act of killing being entirely judged by whether the murdered individual was a friend of those discussing the matter, or whether reprisals were to be feared. Foeticide and infanticide are, or were, common, and there is

• The essential decency of the women was noted even on the Trobriand Islands inhabited by one of the most notoriously unchaste peoples in the Possession. The Trobriand girls even when most desirous that one of the party should have connection with them never made the least attempt to incite by exposure.

Homicide 569

some reason to believe that infants were sometimes killed in order that they might be eaten. Formerly strangers and castaways were invariably killed and eaten, and the same fate often befell straying bushmen, as here reprisals would not as a rule be feared, and the opportunity for a cannibal feast would prove too tempting to be missed. A special term ida'idaga, meaning a debt or an unpaid score that is not going to be paid, is applied to such feasts made off strangers or members of weak distant communities who were so unlikely to take vengeance that none was feared (cf. p. 559).

Sorcerers might be paid to produce sickness and death or they might — as they believe — inflict these on their own account, but in these cases no stigma attached to any of the parties concerned in the matter, though they of course exposed themselves to the risk of reprisals on the part of the injured individual and his friends, who would have the weight of public opinion on their side. To bring home a dead body to be eaten, the skull of which would be preserved in the potuma, was in the highest degree commendable, and lustre was added to the deed if the body were that of a member of a hamlet-group with whom there had been a long-standing feud caused by alternate acts of murder and murderous reprisal. In such warfare not only was it meritorious to kill, but if possible prisoners were taken who were carried off to be tortured before they were eaten. Such vengeance was looked upon as a duty, and to this feeling must be attributed the greater number of the murders of white traders that took place some fifteen to twenty years ago among the archipelagoes of the south-eastern extremity. Natives had been taken from many islands for the labour trade, and when they failed to return and no compensation was paid for their assumed deaths, these were avenged by the kilhng of the first stranger who gave himself into their keeping. But in spite of the importance that the native attaches to the taking of revenge, I could not discover that the view stated or implied in some of the earlier Government reports, namely that the spirit of a dead man could not rest until vengeance had been taken, is prevalent at the present day, or indeed ever formed an important element of belief

Reference has already been made to the fact that prisoners taken in warfare were brought alive to the hamlet-group, where they would be tortured before being killed and eaten.

This apparently occurred only when a prisoner was to be killed in payment for the death of a member of the captor s community, and in spite of the pleasure to be derived from a cannibal feast it was clear that commonly prisoners would only be tortured and killed in such numbers that their deaths made the score even between their community and that of their captors'. When they were not killed, prisoners were often treated with extreme kindness and were generally adopted Into the community. Women prisoners, who were just as liable to be killed and eaten as men in order to bring the score level, if not killed were never mishandled, and as far as I could ascertain nothing in the nature of assault or rape ever occurred when female captives were taken. Further, it was clear that when such female captives were adopted Into the community their captor had no sexual rights over them, on the contrary being commonly adopted Into his clan they became his kinsfolk.

Wounds caused by trouble over a woman or a pig or by accidents, such as might occur at Wagawaga during the wapa ceremony (cf chapter XLVi), would be compounded for even if they resulted in death. If an individual were merely wounded It would not, as a rule, be difficult to placate him and his family ; if he were killed a larger sum would have to be paid, and although the atonement would be accepted. It seemed that the offender would do well to be careful for some time to come, as it was not very unusual for revenge to be taken on some slight excuse even after a settlement had been effected. However, such revenge was illegal in the sense that it was not the correct thing under these circumstances and so was against public opinion, although It was generally condoned. At Wagawaga the blood price for a man killed in a brawl arising about a woman or a pig was said to be about one pair of really good shell armlets {inasiwaru), one shell nose ornament \wanepa\ and one necklace of sapisapi discs [samakupay.

At Tubetube it was understood that homicide occurring In a brawl between two usually friendly hamlets was more or less accidental, and the matter was not carried to extremes. It was said that such damage as a broken arm would 'be amply atoned for by a payment of three armshells and a

^ The names used here are those used in the Tubetube dialect.

Suicide 57 1

sapisapi necklace {samakupd) ; an eye was worth far less than an arm^

A blood price such as that already mentioned would be paid to the brother of the deceased. If there were no brother, the mother or maternal uncle would take It, and It appeared that even the sister might be compensated, especially If the mother were not alive. When deaths on both sides occurred In a brawl, the surv^Ivors did not as a rule cry quits Immediately even If the number killed were equal ; but ceremonial atonement was made for each. It was pointed out that the blood price was a matter which concerned the family rather than the hamlet-group (though these two groups were often Identical), and this was one of the Instances where the relationship of a man to his father was practically acknowledged ; It was distinctly the duty of a father to help find the blood price paid for his son's misdoings^ As already mentioned, the hamlet and the family group are often co-extensive, but where this was not the case payment would have to be made for accidental killing within the hamlet but outside the family. The blood price was said to be the same for a man, woman or child.

SUICIDE.

Suicide by hanging was said to be not very uncommon, more rarely a man might climb a coconut-tree and fling himself from It. A man would sometimes commit suicide if his wife were unfaithful to him and he did not wish to kill her, or was not prepared to attempt to kill her lover. It appeared that as a general rule an individual Intent on suicide would say nothing about his purpose, but It seemed that sometimes a man would state his intention to a brother or sister, whose duty It would then be to endeavour to frustrate his purpose by constant shadowing. It was said that a woman would sometimes kill herself In consequence of long continued neglect and Infidelity on the part of her husband.

Mr A. M. Campbell notes that a woman would some-

^ Unfortunately no note was made of what kind of armshell was meant ; from what has already been said they could hardly be tnasiwaru, and probably the smaller and much less valuable kinds, kaipapa or bwabwakipa, were m my informant's mind. , . ,

2 The word family is here used to include father, mother, children and mothers brothers, perhaps it should be extended so as to embrace mother's sisters.

times destroy herself in a sudden fit of jealousy, but that such instances are rare\

THEFT.

Theft does not seem to have been common formerly, and it is said that stealing from the gardens is now commoner than in the old days when the practice prevailed of waiting for a thief in the garden and killing him there and then if he were a stranger. A fellow-clansman would not be killed, or even punished, for stealing from gardens, but he would be expostulated with, and would probably be so ashamed that he would not again offend, or he might be thrashed on the spot, though it seemed that this was not often done. It was said that it was not very uncommon for women to commit petty thefts from each others' gardens ; if the thief were caught in the act the aggrieved proprietor would probably attempt to thrash her then and there with her digging stick. This might lead to a small fight after which the matter would be dropped.

It is difficult to form an opinion as to the frequency of petty thefts from houses; it was admitted that fishing lines and tobacco and other trifles would be likely to disappear ; if the culprit were discovered there might be some strong talk and perhaps a small brawl, but there the matter seems to have ended. Often a man who suspected that something had been stolen would say nothing but simply wait until he had

' There is some reason to believe that the differences observed in Europe in the chosen methods of suicide of the two sexes also occurs in New Guinea, since Mr Campbell makes the interesting observation that 'the usual method of selfdestruction adopted by the male is to climb to the top of a coconut tree, and then spring to the ground, death being in most cases instantaneous ; the woman, on the other hand, will as a rule, when bent on committing suicide, hang herself to the limb of a tree.' Annual Report, 1902-3, p. 26.

Throughout the south-eastern district suicide is far from rare, Mr Giblin knows of a number of instances, and a suicide is related in the folk-tale, 'The Lily Root' (chapter xxxiii, No. 16). For the following two instances of suicide I am indebted to Mr Campbell who does not however state in what part of the district they took place. 'A youth cohabited with a small girl. His mother found this out, and got angry, not because he was having connection with the girl, but because it was not the girl she wished him to go with. One day meeting the girl with whom her son was intimate, she gave her a tongue thrashing, the girl thereupon went away into the bush and tearing off a piece of pliable bark she hanged herself to the limb of a tree with it. The boy upon hearing what the girl had done immediately rushed to a coconut tree, crying out that his mother did not deserve to have such a son, and climbing up to the top, threw himself down and was instantly killed.'

' There are many other cases of suicide. A small boy was eating a piece of sugar-cane and his father coming up told him not to eat it and took it away, the boy at once climbed up a coconut tree and threw himself to the ground.'

Commercial Morality 573

an opportunity of stealing something belonging to the man whom he suspected, and this was probably one reason why nearly all valuable personal ornaments were carefully hidden, or else carried about the person, being even taken to the gardens by their owners. But It must be remembered that each man had also to guard against the licensed depredations of his wife's sisters and to a lesser degree of his wife's mother and maternal uncles, and the fear of these relatives was the reason habitually given, when a man was asked why he hid the greater part of his valuables or carried them about his person.

If a man killed another man's pig the owner of the dead pig would generally kill or steal one of the offender's pigs, or perhaps he might attempt to wound or kill the man whom he now regarded as his enemy. Generally the matter seems to have been discussed and settled without bloodshed, for in theory there was a certain license to kill another man's pig If it was destroying his crops. Thefts of nets, pots, and other moderately bulky portable property appear to be, and to have always been, rare, and when discovered the property stolen was returned or paid for In kind.

COMMERCIAL MORALITY.

Everywhere In the south-eastern district there seems to be a strong sense of commercial morality, indeed it Is difficult to see how the extensive trading operations elsewhere alluded to could persist without this. Credit is freely given, and payments are often by Instalments. Partnerships formally entered into as such, do not seem to exist, and a man who is buying a canoe will borrow from his neighbours In order to pay for It, and although it may be long before he can pay them back he Is regarded as the owner of that canoe, not as a part owner. On the other hand when a man died his sisters' children had an equal right in his canoe, and so something resembling partnership came about.

CHAPTER XLIV

TABOO.

Two classes of taboo must be recognized in the southeastern district of New Guinea, viz. those of a magical kind, the infringement of which is believed to be followed automatically by the physical penalty of illness, and those having no magical force so that their neglect involves no certain penalty and the force causing them to be obeyed is merely the weight of public opinion and long established custom. The former class of taboo can only be imposed by certain individuals, who are recognized as being able by their magic to render the breaking of the taboo physically painful or dangerous.

The second class includes two very different forms or species of taboo. The first of these embraces all those cases in which objects are protected by signs which imply that the taboo is imposed as an expression of the wishes of the owner by the old men of the hamlet or hamlet-group, or as an expression of public opinion after the matter has been discussed. The other form of taboo includes all those cases of abstinence from naming or doing things at special times, prohibitions which have the binding force of old established habit, and to which every native submits as a matter of course under the appropriate circumstances, and which for the sake of brevity may be called taboos of custom. To disregard either form of the second class of taboo would so infringe tribal custom and outrage public opinion that the culprit if discovered would assuredly suffer in one way or another, but as already stated this class of taboo has no magical sanction, and the infringement if undiscovered involves no inevitably unpleasant consequences.

In the case of certain foods not protected by 'medicine,' the imposition of the taboo is notified by taboo signs, which

Taboo are, generally speaking, the same as those used for objects protected by taboos with magical content. But although there is no obvious outward indication whether the object tabooed is protected by 'medicine' most natives, after consideration of the taboo sign and the objects it protects and their surroundings, are able to say whether they are protected by 'medicine' or not. Nevertheless it seems likely that the very slight element of doubt present in many instances does increase the practical value of the protection imposed by public opinion, and there is no doubt that, in the case of private property tabooed at the wish of the owner, the fear that the taboo sign may have been 'medicined' enhances the protection it affords.

LIMITATIONS OF THE TABOO.

The only things reserved at Wagawaga and Tubetube for a special purpose or put under any special protection are various forms of food, especially garden produce of all sorts, and the fish on certain reefs. At Wagawaga pigs may be protected by a taboo having a special sign\

NATURE, ACTION, AND USE OF THE TABOO.

It is essential to the operation of the taboo that some sign of its existence should be affixed to one or more of the things which it protects or should be erected in their immediate vicinity, the general name of such signs being hato at Wagawaga and dederi in Tubetube. These signs have no force of themselves and act only as warnings that the objects to which they apply are specially protected, either by the wish of their owner, by public opinion or by ' medicine,' i.e. by what we should term magic.

I could discover nothing as to the nature of this 'medicine' or the charms which at Wagawaga were reputed to be used on these occasions. The 'medicine' it was said could only be made by certain old men who had acquired repute as sorcerers and were well paid for their services, but sorcery is an indictable offence under the Government Code, and its practice

1 Mr Giblin feels confident that areas of hunting grass land are also reserved at Wagawaga. At Awaiama where the same dialect is spoken as at Wagawaga 'the sign of reservation was the tying of grass and putting in of stakes at the corners of the ground reserved.'

576 The Sottthern Massim is therefore firmly denied, though everyone readily admits that others make use of it.

The Wagawaga name for one of the commonest taboo signs, a sago or coconut leaf tied round the trunk of a tree, is halo. In theory at least, the kato has no magical sanction, it merely indicates that a particular individual or group of individuals (in the latter case the old men of the hamlet or hamlet-group) desire that the produce of one or more trees shall be protected. A different name, giribay is given to the sago or coconut leaf knotted round the trunk of a tree when power of producing disease has been added to this sign
This is done by smearing it with certain ' medicine ' applied by an old man who knows the correct formulae to recite while doing this. The protection thus given to a tree is absolute, and in no sense selective. Should the owner of the tree infringe the taboo he would suffer as severely as a stranger, in fact he would not himself think of taking any fruit from the tree until the taboo had been removed by the ' medicine man ' who had imposed it I The latter, after the removal of the taboo, would receive some of the fruit of the tree as payment for his trouble.

Neither at Wagawaga, Tubetube nor elsewhere in the district does there seem to be any development of that system of personal influence {mana) taboo whereby the thing made taboo receives, as it were, a dynamic charge from contact with an individual, which is dangerous to everyone not rendered immune by the possession of an equal or greater powerl

The circumstances under which reefs and other fishing grounds at both Wagawaga and Tubetube may be protected by a taboo are as follows. The reefs and fishing grounds in the immediate neighbourhood of each hamlet are in a special

1 Mr Giblin points out that hato is the name of any prepared coconut leaf whether used for mat making or as a taboo sign. Giriba he would translate 'speir from the verb meaning to 'cast a spell' to 'bewitch' isi giribei^ and this casting of a spell has always to be accompanied by a charm or 'prayer' whether audible or not,

2 This is also the case at Dobu where, according to the Rev. W. Bromilow, the 'tabu of the sorcerer' called didila 'can only be taken off by the man who puts it on, unless in the case of his decease, when another of his class can take it off.' Annual Report^ 1893-4, p. 78.

3 As far as I could judge the magical influence of the 'medicine' was preponderantly due to the spells said over it, and I believe that the will of the mdividual muttering the charms was of importance. I do not however think that the ' vehicle ' was altogether neutral.

Taboo Signs ^'-jn sense considered the property of that hamlet, and its old men have the power of protecting them by a taboo which is valid against the whole hamlet-group. Such a taboo absolutely protects the reef or fishing ground against all comers, but when no such taboo sign is exhibited upon a reef any one may fish there, regardless of hamlet rights. Usually men of hamlets other than that having the taboo right on a particular reef join in the first fishing after the removal of the taboo. In this case the whole of the catch is brought to the hamlet having the taboo right, where an old man divides the catch between the men of his own and other hamlets. It appears that on such occasions the division is into equal shares, one of which goes to each individual who has taken part in the fishing.

TABOO SIGNS.

It must be remembered that everybody in a community knows roughly to whom each garden and every areca and coconut tree belongs, so that it is difficult for an unintentional mistake to occur even when a single sign does duty for several fenced enclosures or a considerable grove of trees.

Many of the different taboo signs are widely spread throughout the district, but where definite information was obtained the name of the place is mentioned to which it especially applies.

(i) A taboo sign having a special name hato at Wagawaga is made by fastening round a coconut or areca palm a short length of coconut leaf (about eighteen inches or two feet), the midrib lying along the tree trunk, around which the leaflets are brought and tied on the far side. At VVagawaga a sago leaf is often substituted for a coconut leaf. A modification of this sign is the use of two coconut or sago leaves on opposite sides of the trunk of the tree to be protected, the end of the leaflets of these being knotted together halfway between the two midribs.

(ii) A taboo sign sometimes called gwara or gwala at both Wagawaga and Tubetube from the name of the general taboo it indicates, is made by stretching a coconut leaf (or two leaves joined end to end) between two trees or between two stakes set up for the purpose, at such a height that the

S. N. G. ^'^

leaflets hanging downwards touch the ground\ At Wagawaoa the coconut leaf is often supported horizontally or obliquely at a greater height from the ground, being tied across the limbs of a Y-shaped branch or young tree which is thrust into the ground. Figure 43 is a drawing of ^ gwara at Rogea. This taboo sign when erected upon a reef either at Wagawaga or Tubetube protects the fish upon the reef.

(iii) Another taboo sign is made by roughly plaiting coconut leaflets to the shape of a round basket about two feet across and proportionately deep, which is placed upside down on two or three low stakes set in the ground for that purpose.

Of the foregoing taboo signs the first is especially used on areca and coconut trees, while the second and third may be equally used for these or for other plants. In the old days at Tubetube these three signs were supposed to denote the presence of 'medicine.'

(iv) Another simple taboo sign is made by tying one or two coconut leaflets to the lower branch of a fruit tree which is in bearing. In such a case the taboo sign marks the finder's right which is supposed to be, and generally is, respected by subsequent comers I

(v) The taboo sign reserving food for a mourning feast consists of a string of dunali shells [Ovulum ovum). When a Tubetube man dies a string of a dozen or more of these shells is tied round the trunk of one of his coconut trees and serves to taboo their produce till a certain mourning feast called rigariga has been held I Certain of his gardens may be made taboo in the same manner and with a similar sign ; this is usually done if the amount of land he had under cultivation would permit it and still leave enough food for the support of his family.

At Wagawaga where pigs may be tabooed the sign by which a man intimates that his pigs are under the protection of a taboo consists of a young tree or of a limb, the branches of which form a Y, planted upright in the ground. Two

^ Mr Giblin writes concerning ^•ze'<2r(2, 'You might say that this taboo sign with the same name extends from Rogea, past Milne Bay and up the coast to Cape Vogel'

^ Mr GibHn writes, 'Still another device and one employed to prevent tracks being used when sugar-cane adjacent to them is ripe is to tie two stalks of the sugar-cane across the track, this may be done with a spell or merely as a barrier to easy progress.'

2 Cf. chapter XLVI.

Taboo Signs cyo

Triton or Cassis shells should be tied at the point of bifurcation of the Y, across which is stretched the usual coconut or sago leaf with its pinules bent downwards, and one or more pig skulls are tied to the horizontal midrib of this leaf. It was explained that the advantage to the owner of tabooing

Fig. 43. Gwara.

his pigs was that if they should break into a neighbour's garden, the latter would not exercise his theoretical right of killing them, but instead of proceeding to this drastic remedy he would come and expostulate with their owner and claim compensation from him.

37—2

580 The Sottthern Masshn

DEATH TABOOS.

The many taboos of custom associated with death and the ceremonies that follow It are considered in chapter XLVi. I have also referred to the taboo on the names of the dead in the chapter on Totemism with which it seems to be connected. Further, it is not only in the highest degree insulting to mention the name of a dead relative, especially of a foreign clan, but It is equally an outrage to say tama^n imati, ' your father is dead,' whether the father of the man spoken to was dead or not. This phrase would not be used except when it was desired to bring on a fight, when tamamiao si mati * your fathers are dead ' would be shouted as a challenged

FOOD TABOOS.

The foods which are forbidden to young men and women and to older women are mentioned in chapter xxxvi, and old men generally abstained from human flesh as is mentioned in chapter xlii. At Bartle Bay the unmarried of both sexes would not eat wallaby, lest this food should cause the members of the opposite sex to dislike them. They would also avoid eating the root of a ' plant like a lily,' as this may bring out a rash on the body and produce general enervation, thus rendering connection unsatisfactory.

There are numerous food taboos associated with pregnancy and the puerperium. At Wagawaga a pregnant woman may not eat fish caught in a net ; sugar cane Is also forbidden, but there is no taboo on fish caught with a line or speared, nor on pig and wallaby. The woman cooks food, works In the garden and fetches water ; but the food for her own use is cooked in a special saucepan, smaller than the usual one in which when not pregnant she cooks for her husband as well as herself.

At Tubetube she may not eat turtle or the fish tuai, nor may she eat any fish caught In the short-handled scoop nets called kware. This is because kware have a small mesh, and were she to eat fish caught therein her labour would be much prolonged and she would probably die undelivered. On the other hand, fish caught in the net inai

^ This information was obtained at Tubetube but it applies with equal force to Milne Bay.

Food Taboos 581

may be eaten with Impunity, since the meshes of this net are large.

At Wagawaga a mother is restricted to a mixture of boiled taro and the fruit of the tree okioki (also called demaia) for at least a month after childbirth. The fruit is not cut up but boiled whole and the mixture eaten from the small and new pot in which the woman's food is cooked. It was stated that a woman would eat taro boiled with okioki fruit and would have done so in the old days even if she belonged to clan Garuboi whose plant totem is okioki, or if her father were a Garuboi man, and at the present day the sister of Ipunesa eats okioki after childbirth in spite of the fact that okioki is her father's plant totem. Even after the first month the mother may not drink cold water ; as a rule she keeps to taro and okioki ]\i\c^, but it was also stated that she might mix the scrapings of dried coconut with water warmed in a pot and she may eat taro and dried coconut.

At Tubetube the young mother may drink only warm water during the puerperium, and must avoid eating fish, turtle or pig under penalty of her child sickening, and probably dying.

Mr Newton supplies the following information concerning Bartle Bay. Every mother observes certain complicated customs of fasting after the birth of each child, especially after the birth of the firstborn ; some foods are forbidden while certain other foods are specially eaten by the mother.

When a woman is pregnant with her first child 'her women friends, not necessarily her relations, prepare some special food — a dish of dainties — and cook it and present it to her. The food is given to husband and wife, and the wife is called by the special term meumeu in the husband's hearing, and Is known by this until the child is born, after which she is called kamoti. From the time she is first called meumeu until the child is born the mother prepares and cooks her food and eats it by herself, and the peelings are thrown into running water'\

The husband of a meumeu must not plant sugar cane or uri, and he must observe certain precautions in the case of food destined for his wife. He may tie vegetable food

1 Mr Newton's notes indicate that the mother is subject to some special rd^^i me from the time of childbirth till the stump of the cord drops off, but what this may be is not stated.

destined for her into bundles, but he must on no account bend down the leaves or tops and tie them in a bent position. The husband of a kamoti is not restricted in this way.

PLACE TABOOS.

No woman may come into a man-house or upon the ceremonial platforms called naka or nakanaka. Nor may she enter any stone circle [gahana) nor use the heaps of stone which in some parts of the district are the squatting places of the men. I could not hear of any sacred places. As recorded in chapter xlvi a child should not enter his or her father's hamlet for a long time after his death.

NAME TABOOS.

The strict taboo on speaking the names of the dead has been alluded to above. The names of a number of relatives and connections by marriage may not be spoken (cf. chapter xxxvii).

SEX TABOOS.

Both at Wagawaga and Tubetube cohabitation ceases as soon as a woman becomes pregnant and should not be resumed until the child can toddle.

CHAPTER XLV

CEREMONIAL FEASTS, DANCES AND SONGS.

FEASTS.

Wagawaga.

The most important feasts, namely the banahivi and toreha, are described in the section on Death and Funeral Ceremonies and those connected with cannibalism are described under that heading. The other smaller and less important feasts of which I have notes are as follows :

Ogatara. A feast held before a war party starts is called by this name. According to my notes the same name is applied to a feast having no connection with warfare, made by one hamlet of a community to which people of all the other hamlets are invited \ A feast of this kind is held when one hamlet has a surplus of a particular article of food. For instance a hamlet that had plenty of areca nuts would build a platform (watara) and would bring together as much vegetable food as it could collect, which would be cooked and piled upon the watara with the panicles of areca nut. In the afternoon the old men from all the hamlets of the community would assemble on the wataj^a to eat the food provided and to chew areca, while areca nuts and vegetable food, if the supply held out, would be given to folk of all the visiting hamlets.

Sipupu. These birth feasts are described in chapter xxxvii.

Hiwoga. This is the name of a small feast made when a canoe is to be built. The tree trunk which is to form the future canoe is roughly shaped but not hollowed out in the

1 Commenting on this Mr Giblin writes, 'Ogatara simply means "decision." Both feasts are similar in that they are provided by those anxious to be leaders m the matter in hand....' It is however clear that the ogatara before the starimg of a war party was not held until after the leader {taniwaga) had been selected. Cf. chapter XLii.

584 The Southern Massim bush, and when this Is done It Is dragged to the water's edge; this usually takes place during the afternoon. The next morning the man to whom the canoe will belong kills a pig if he has one, or if he cannot afford this provides plenty of vegetable food, the whole of his hamlet helping him in this. The food is laid out on the beach near the canoe, and when all is ready the giver of the feast blows a conch shell, which is the signal for people from all the hamlets of his community to come and obtain their share of the food which they take away to eat. The folk of the hamlet of the man to whom the canoe will belong eat none of the food, although they are the people who will help him in cutting down and preparing the tree, indeed the only service that men of other hamlets perform is that a number of them have almost certainly helped the canoe builder to drag the roughly hewn tree trunk from the jungle to the sea-shore.

Tubetube.

The only feasts that appear to be still kept up at Tubetube are the death feasts [rigartga and kanekapu) described in chapter xlvi, and the big feast called soi, which is only held occasionally at irregular intervals and corresponds to the Wagawaga toreha. A i-^^ was held at Tubetube in 1903, and in June 1904 a soi was being held at one of the Basilaki hamlets called Siriki. According to information gathered at Tubetube, soi are always held during the south-east monsoon. A very considerable amount of preparation is necessary to accumulate the large amount of food required, and some time before the expected date canoes go from Tubetube to East Cape, RabI, Mai vara, Wagawaga, and other friendly communities for the express purpose of buying pigs and vegetable food. Payment for these is made largely in pots which are manufactured on Tubetube, but also in part by such items of general currency as benam and sapisapi.

The most Important part of the ceremony is the cutting up of the pigs and the distribution of their flesh. The night before the ceremony a big dance is held to which come folk from all the neighbouring communities. Next day the pigs are killed, and cut up upon the nakanaka around which the ground is covered with heaps of sprouting coconuts. These coconuts, together with portions of pig flesh and yams, are

I

o a o

(U

ni a*

o

Dances 585

distributed among the visitors and men of other Tubetube clans than that giving the soi.

DANCES.

Wagawaga.

The only dance spontaneously performed at Wagawaga during the stay of our party took place one evening In the dusk as we were leaving. The performers were intensely shy and stopped as soon as we approached at all closely, but it could be seen that a number of men with drums formed a circle some 5 metres in diameter, around the outskirts of which non-performers of both sexes were grouped. The dance appeared to consist of one man leaving the circle and leaping into the air holding his drum above his head\

It proved possible to arrange a small rehearsal of rurepo, which was formerly danced during the cutting up, cooking and eating of an enemy. It was stated that rurepo was danced to the accompaniment of booing of shell conches and single beats of the drum, played by men who were not themselves dancing. The dancers each held in their hands a stout stick or a canoe paddle, the top of which was inserted into the foramen magnum of a skull brought from the potuma and decorated with croton leaves.

The sticks with the skulls upon them were raised and lowered as their holders jumped and stamped up and down. The face of each performer was painted white, a dark line starting at the roots of the hair and extending downwards In the middle line of the face over the nose, the lips and the chin. It was stated that any performer might dance the rurepo with any skull from \h^ potuma, a man neither seeking nor avoiding the skull of his own kill'. I believe that the youths shown in Plate LXVIII (the original of which was

1 Dancing, as far as my limited personal knowledge goes, is less frequent in the south-eastern district than in any other part of British New Gumea, and it niay be that it is here less of an amusement and more purely ceremonial than in other districts. This view is perhaps supported by the unwillingness of the natives of Wagawaga to dance 'to order' in spite of persuasion and the promise of tobacco, which in the Central Division would certainly have proved effective.

•^ The skulls used in the rehearsal of rurepo were four in number. They were not kept in Xh^ potuma and where they were hidden was never discovered, but that these skulls were still valued was obvious from the fact that it proved possible to collect only two of them in spite of the high price off"ered.

taken at Taupota), are painted in the orthodox manner for the rtirepo dance, and face painting of this kind Is certainly customary on certain other occasions.

Tubetube.

At Tubetube it was said that no dancing took place at the present day, and that this was due to the opposition of the native teacher stationed upon the island who, it was alleged, had taken away their dancing feathers.

Bartle Bay,

Many of the dances at Bartle Bay are pantomimic ; a number of figures danced at Wamira for the benefit of the party made this clear, but these figures also showed that the pantomime was very highly conventionalized, for I found it impossible to guess what actions were represented by the movements I witnessed even when I had been told the name of the dance. I was not able to investigate the matter in the time at my disposal, but Plate LXIX which is reproduced from a snap-shot of the * lizard dance ' is given because It shows the general character of the figures I saw. It appeared that the dances performed at the walaga ceremony were not pantomimic.

SONGS.

Wagawaga.

The shyness already noted in the matter of dancing prevented the collection of songs In Wagawaga itself, but on taking the men who were considered the best singers to the schooner all difficulty in obtaining the words and phonographic records of their songs disappeared. The following songs are all sung while dancing.

Where possible the meaning of each word Is placed under its native equivalent; in this Mr GIblin's assistance has been most valuable.

Pediri.

Tokadau Tubetube mana

(A man) he sails about (to) Tubetube (the) wind

J''^''^ . f yomumuraia Dagedagera ya kuke igu

(the) wind it blows hard Dagedagera start from my

J

Plate LXIX

The lizard dance at Wamira, Bartle Bay

Songs 587

waga Porububuni si aruma dowei canoe Porububuni is bailed out the frigate bird (screeches)

mana i yomumuraia

(the) wind it blows hard.

This song was stated to mean that a man went to Tubetube but that on returning from Dagedagera such a storm arose as to necessitate constant baiHng. Porububuni was the name of the canoe.

Nuauuro.

Dibiri i towiwira magu i to i

High water it runs out very low water it runs out it toyauyau runs out continually.

This song was stated to mean that when it is high water the tide runs out steadily until low water is reached. A second part of this song was given as :

Kubona tareluo bagi Dutnodumoia i tiituri

The star it will approach

I pesama kubona tete i nihima he comes down morning star it will come here.

The meaning of this part of the song was unknown ; bagi is the most valued shell ornament of the district, Dumodumoia was said to be the name of the village-system or island.

Ogoogo.

Maimaiwapa A man with long locks hanging down the back of his neck tatiodi tanorai tanorere tanodunioduinoria their land our land a flat land the land of Dumodumoia.

The meaning of this song is not known.

Damorea.

Sapidobu yaruyaruna budibudi kauyare kauyare dogedoge dogem doge.

It was said that yaruyaruna was 'no proper word belong talk,' while dogedoge dogem doge conveyed absolutely no meaning to my informants. Sapidobu may mean * earring' and budibudi ' mist.'

The above four songs were said to be true Wagawaga songs; the following three songs have been learnt from * bush ' natives.

588 The Southern Masshn

Mai Del laulauiia mai Del

People of De have been talking people of De gonugonua have been grumbling.

The meaning of these words which were said to have travelled to the coast from an inland bush village was quite unknown at Wagawaga, the translation given above is by Mr Giblin.

Kwabiai.

Kivabiai noyanoayana i gae

From Kabiai (all) news it goes eastward.

This song comes from Dapaiina in Milne Bay to the west of Wagawaga and perhaps means that ' news travels about.'

Walawalaiiru.

Gana ge tomei ge rieriei

Fence cut it down collect it together.

It was stated that this was 'only a song' having no meaning and certainly did not imply that a number of men came together to cut down a fence. This is a ' bush ' song said to come from Rafarafa in the bush not far from Wagawaga.

Tubetube.

At Tubetube the favourite dancing songs were said to be called rausi, pediri and waia. Of these rausi would especially be danced during the soi festivities. Pediri and waia were introduced from Rogea, the former probably being the same as the Milne Bay song pediri already given.

Besa is the name of the dance and song given on the return of the canoes from a successful war party.

Losuma was the name of the dance held before the starting of a war party and was given to the beating of the drums but without singing.

A song called gumgum is said to have come from Kwararo^ and is sung without the accompaniment of drum or dance. It is commonly sung in canoes while paddling or sailing, but may be sung at other times.

• Mr Giblin points out that raiia means simply 'song.'

2 This island is probably one of the Deboyne group in the Louisiade Archipelago.

IValaga Feast qSo

THE WALAGA FEAST AND THE CULT OF THE MANGO.

(By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. GIblin.)

Bartle Bay.

The walaga Is the largest and most spectacular feast held in the Bartle Bay district, and is important because it brings together communities from a distance, many of whom are indifferent to each other, or even hostile'. It was said that a walaga would be held when a community had many pigs of Its own, and when much food Including pigs was owing to It by neighbouring peoples.

The feast takes Its name from a big dancing platform {walaga) which is built specially for the occasion. Walaga is also the name of a dance performed In single file by both sexes upon saplings placed round the outer edge of the dancing platform round which the dancers move.

The following description of the ceremonies leading up to and comprising the walaga has been compiled In this country by one of us from the answers given to questions put by the other (E. L. G.) to a considerable number of natives. Free use has also been made of a written description of the Gelaria walaga kindly given us by the Rev. H. Newton, who was present during a portion of the ceremony ; quotations from his account are placed in inverted commas. Under these circumstances, although it has been Impossible to follow out every point In detail, there is, we believe, no reason to doubt that the following account Is substantially accurate. Since the above was written Mr Newton has attended another walaga, held towards the end of September, 1907. His account of this walaga Is so valuable that In spite of a certain amount of repetition involved, it is quoted in full at the end of this section.

The head man of one of the more powerful clans of the community giving the walaga becomes taniwaga, that Is to say, chief or master of the ceremonies oi the whole walaga

1 Lack of time prevented any adequate inquiry concerning other feasts except the banivi and torela, which are mourning feasts and are described in the chapter on Death and Mourning ceremonies. At Gelaria the feast called ioi corresponds to the Wamira torela. At this feast platforms arc built, and for every five pigs killed a mango tree is cut down, the number of pigs being subsequently enumerated by the number of mango trees destroyed.

ceremonial. He sends out messengers to all the people owing pigs to him or to his community, and, when he has ascertained that a sufficient number of pigs will be forthcoming to do credit to himself and his people, preparations for the feast begin, notice being sent at least 25 miles up and down the coast months before the ceremony takes place. As soon as the actual time of the feast is determined, i.e. some five or six weeks before the event, the taniwaga goes to the jungle and selects a wild mango tree. No particular ceremonial is observed in choosing this tree, but it must be self-sown, that is really wild, and so young that it has never flowered. Some eight to twenty men of the community, but not necessarily of the clan of the taniwaga, go with him into the jungle and clear a circle around the tree some ten feet in diameter^ From the time that this Is done the taniwaga and the men who have cleared the ground around the tree are sternly differentiated from all others, being in the highest degree vivivireina, i.e. set apart or * holy/ They may not w'ash or drink water, nor even allow it accidentally to touch their person ; they may not eat boiled food, nor drink that common Papuan delicacy, the hot broth in which food has been boiled, nor may they eat the fruit of any mango tree. They may drink only the milk of a young coconut which has been baked, and they may not eat such fruit and vegetable foods as sugar cane and pawpaw (Carica papaya)^ unless they have been baked, though it is worthy of note that the most nominal cooking seems to satisfy the requirements of ceremonial baking. It appears that these men, coadjutors of the taniwaga, who will in this description be called the fasting men, build themselves a special house in which they sleep. The evidence for this is not conclusive, but the fact that our informants are agreed that the fasting men slept by themselves in a house into which no one else might intrude suggests that they did build the house.

All rubbish such as the husks of areca nuts and coconuts, and the refuse of sugar cane, and other fragments of their food is stored in baskets in the sleeping house, whence it may not be removed until after the walaga. Mr Newton mentions that he saw about seven very large houses, constituting a temporary village, built on piles with the floor about

• This is confirmed by Mr Newton who states that there are men of many clans among them, though he believes they all belong to one community.

IValaga Feast ^oi six feet above the ground, most of them divided by a low partition into two parts, one for men and the other for women. The house of the fasting men was close to or among these houses, though there was nothing to show whether all were built at the same time or by the same people.

On the day that the men begin their fast a number of women of the clan of the taniwaga, usually about six or ten, begin to avoid the company of the opposite sex, and abstain from water, all boiled food, and the fruit of the mango tree'. These women are in fact subject to the same taboos as those imposed on the fasting men, but they do not sleep in any special house, nor is the rubbish from their meals treated as described above.

Men and women alike practise the steps of the dance which they will perform at the walaga, on a section of a log laid on the ground, the practice usually taking place at night. After a period of some three to six months, the exact period being probably settled by the ripening of the taro crop, and some five or six days before a full moon, word goes round that the walaga is to be held within that moon. The taniwaga and his fasting men repair to the jungle and cut the posts and timber required for the walaga platform, which they alone may cut and carry to the village. The holes, too, In which the piles supporting the walaga will be stepped have been dug by the fasting men. Before the holes are dug the taniwaga has notified all the gweri ravai (medicine men) of the district, that the piles of the walaga are to be stepped. These gweri ravai assemble, bringing with them their charms, ginauri^ which consist of leaves, bones, fragments of ash, and so forth. One or more gweri ravai squat down at the side of each hole, muttering their spells, pari, and putting some of the ginauri at the bottom of the hole. This is done in order to prevent people who come to the walaga from getting sick. The fasting men now place the posts In the holes, which they fill In with earth and stamp down firmly, the gweri ravai meanwhile stand by muttering spells. Perhaps this is not done at every walaga; It was difficult to obtain satisfactory information as to what the gweri ravai really did, Indeed It appeared that their action varied at different times, perhaps

1 Mr Newton confirms the statement that these women are of the clan of the taniwaga.

592 The So lit hem Massim according to their place of origin. Mr Newton supplies the following important information.

' The gweri ravai, who acted at the stepping posts of the walaga, were probably all mountain people. What happened, according to a man who was present, was something like this. When the holes were ready, the gweri ravai rubbed the posts and gathered their hands together as they do when rubbing the skin of a man to extract a foreign substance causing disease (cf. chapter xlvii). Then they sucked through their hands, making a loud sucking noise ; their object was to extract the arua (shade, spirit) of any dead man that might happen to be present in the post, so that it should not be injured by the erection of the post. The gweri ravai then carried the soul away and released it in the grass or bush. Apparently no other pari ravai were present' At Awaiama and Taupota, to the east of Bartle Bay, bull-roarers are said to be swung by the fasting men all the time that the posts are being stepped ; they were said to be used at no other time and no reason for their use could be elicited on this particular occasion. The building of the platform is soon completed, this structure presenting no features of particular interest, except that the planks at the edge are generally made of the wood of the tree called dabedabe^.

Messengers now announce in the neighbourhood and surrounding districts that the walaga is built, and that the feast will take place in five or six days. The visitors generally begin to arrive on the day before the feast proper, and on this day the fasting men cut a track to the chosen mango tree. Having cleared this path they place nets on the ground to catch any leaves or twigs which may fall when the tree is cut down, and new sleeping mats are arranged all round the tree, supported at a height of about two feet from the ground, so that no chips may fall to the ground when the trunk is cut through above the mats.

One of the fasting men cuts down the tree; no spells are recited but a stone adze is used, and this adze must not be

^ Although no legend is attached to this tree, the story known as Dabedabe, which is recorded in chapter xxxiii, was told concerning a man Dabedabe who first provided pigs for the feast now termed walaga. The story was not spontaneously connected with the walaga by our informants, and on being questioned whether the feast referred to was the first walaga., two of our informants said ' No,' while a majority said they thought it was ; others pointed out that there was really no information upon this point, and that it did not matter.

JValaga Feast qoo used for anything else. Concerning this adze Mr Newton says: 'The stone adze need not necessarily be a new one.... The handle is of wood called koirepa, used only for the walaga and torela adzes. The Bartle Bay people get all their stone adze blades and such like implements from Fergusson Island, but that is a matter of commercial convenience, for they might also be got from the head of Goodenough Bay, though as a matter of fact they come from Fergusson to these parts.' After being used for the walaga the adze is not used for ordinary purposes, but is stored away with other things connected with the walaga. Although at the present day there are plenty of iron tools in the Bartle Bay district, an iron adze should never be used for this purpose, for although no one knew for certain that disaster would follow the use of an iron adze, it was agreed that it would be most unwise to use one. When the tree is cut down, all chips, leaves and debris of every kind are carefully wrapped in the sleeping mats which have been arranged round the tree. A number of the fasting men now bear the tree to the village, the procession being headed by two women (presumably of the number of those who have fasted) carrying pearl shells. These women run forward a few paces towards the village, and then turning round so as to face the mango tree, walk a few paces backwards, still approaching the village. Behind these women come the taniwaga and the fasting man who Is to be the leader of the dances, the former carrying on his shoulder the adze with which the mango has been cut down. Then come the majority of the fasting men with the mango, the rear being brought up by those carrying the sleeping mats containing the chips and other debris, and a large number of people beating drums, shouting and dancing. There is some doubt whether the pearl shells carried by the women are specially prepared in any way, but we believe they are not. They are not used again though they need not be new when they are brought to the walaga, and at the end of the ceremony they are stored in the house with the other zualaga things. They do not appear to be known by any special name.

Dancing takes place when the party reaches the collection of specially built houses ; the mango tree is carried to the house of the fasting men, the greatest care being taken not to allow it to come into contact with the ground.

' The houses round the walaga had been decorated, and

594 T^^ Southern Massiin from the top of the mango to the houses were tied long vines, decorated with streamers of coloured calico, bits of tin and other shining things. The masters of the feast were all painted, white streaks on a black background, or red on a white background, the eyes and nose in particular being picked out in this way.'

Many of the guests now begin to arrive and bring pigs with them which are laid out *in view of the mango tree, though in answer to a specific inquiry, it was elicited that the mango tree could not see them.'

*As each party bringing pigs approaches the village they form some sort of procession, and when they are nearly in sight of their destination, they would blow conch shells and raise a great shout. Some of the people of the village giving the walaga, including both men and women, would then go to meet their guests, the bearers of the pigs, the women being gaily dressed in parti-coloured petticoats of strips of coconut or sago leaves, and with croton leaves and streamers of kinked bleached pandanus leaf stuck in their waistbands and armlets. These people accompany the pigs into the village in procession, singing and dancing, usually those in front moving backwards so as to face their guests and the pigs.'

'As the men passed a house they speared the wall with the branches they had been waving, and left them stuck in the walls. They said that the particular house speared indicated some connection between the head of the family or clan living in the house, and the pigs in the procession'. One other preparation seen was the carrying in solemn procession of a long mango pole, having some leaves left on it, which had been cut down close to the ground (or with some of the roots attached }). One or more of the masters of the ceremonies walked at the head of the procession but did not bear any of the weight. I did not see what was done with the long mango pole but I think it was placed along the wall of the house of one of the heads of the feast. I have been told there were three mango poles, one in the centre of the platform, and one in the house of each of two chief men.'

• The dancers,' i.e. the men and women who had fasted

^ [It is not clear whether Mr Newton here refers to the folk bringing the pigs, or to the men of the community giving the walaga^ who went out to meet them, but probably the reference is to the people bnnging the pigs.]

JValaga Feast 595

since the mango tree was chosen, 'arrived about 4 p.m. and began to dance. Their decorations had been carried by others, who, after the dancers had washed in the river and had been oiled, dressed them in the scrub or grass near the place of the feast. They had not broken their fast, and would not do so till they got home. The men were decorated with gay feathers in the hair and with armlets and streamers, and with anklets, new girdles and perineal bandages. The women wore many-coloured petticoats, ornaments on their heads and arms, and sprigs of various coloured croton leaves in their waistbands, which waved as they danced. There seemed no particular order of men and women in the dance and when late-comers arrived they joined the others.'

' The dancing stopped at sundown, and just as the moon was rising — it was the day after the full moon — over the shoulder of the hill to the eastward, two of the chiefs of the feast mounted the gable ends of two of the houses on the eastern side of the square [i.e. of the collection of houses which are built in a square] — the adjacent ends — and held forth. They stood out against the moonlight distinctly and addressed the evil spirits, charging them to keep away from the assemblage and do no harm, and also addressed the crowd, bidding them keep the peace and do nothing to disturb the harmony of the proceedings. First one spoke and then the other, the latter evidently only to emphasize what the other had said, or to touch on points he had left unsaid. The people listened intently. Then the Bishop and a native Christian had a short service on the platform, but this had no connection with the ceremonies except that we made a point of asking to be allowed to shoot the pigs, so that their death might be a merciful one. (The need for this had been made evident by our seeing a dog killed during the afternoon; it was held by the hindlegs and its head dashed against a log, being left in a dying condition so that it had to be shot.)'

'Then the dancing began again, and was kept up all night. A sort of choir was gathered in the centre of the platform round the mango pole, and they chanted (and beat drums?) as long as the dancing lasted.'

'At daylight the pigs are killed, being speared as slowly as possible, so that the maximum amount of squealing takes place; their cries are now said to be heard by the mango

38—2

tree, and it is absolutely necessary that they should cry loudly and for some time before dying. The pigs are cut up and portions of pork and vegetables are distributed by the taniwaga, who sits on the walaga platform, directing the fasting men how to make up each portion, and whose name to call out as they throw it on the ground. The recipients cook and eat the food just given them in their own villages, the taniwaga and the folk of his village of course abstaining from eating any of this.'

' At daylight the pig-killing began, but they had all to be viewed and passed as worthy of the occasion beforehand: many were not passed but spared for another feast. As it was decided that a pig was to be killed, word was sent to the Bishop or to me, until about midday the Bishop was asked to leave one to be killed by the spears, so that it might squeal and the mangoes hear it, or otherwise they would not be fruitful'

' The dancing did not continue long in the morning, the pigs were singed and cut up, and stored on the walaga platform, and divided ready for distribution. All the visitors came and seated themselves in groups round the platform, when one of the chiefs of the feast (almost certainly one of the pari ravai) climbed the mango pole in the centre of the platform and chanted what sounded like a prayer, to which the other people on the platform connected officially with the feast seemed to respond with what sounded like an answer.'

' Then a portion of pig was thrown on the ground and a head of a clan or family called upon by name. I was first called as head of Dogura (the mission station). The etiquette was to allow the most insignificant member to go and take up the portion. Two were given out, not successively, for me. Vegetable food was also, but not always, given out with the pork, the food and pork being taken away by the eaters. The end of the distribution of the food was the end of the ceremony, and the guests dispersed.'

During the afternoon dancing takes place, the fasting men and women being the chief dancers ; it is not clear where the dancing occurs, but probably upon the walaga platform. The songs sung were said to be peculiar to the occasion. The next day the mango is taken down from the platform, wrapped in new sleeping mats, and carried by the

JValaga Feast cgj fasting men to their sleeping house, where it is hung from the roof. The feast proper is now ended, and the fasting men return to their own homes. They should continue to abstain from a number of foods, but some of them do not, although the old men say that they ought to continue to do so, and that it is in direct disregard of old custom that they eat boiled fish and consort with their wives. Mr Newton, writing in September, 1904, says: 'Those who were connected with the feast are still fasting from mango, pio-, eels, and water, and to break the fast would entail risk of breaking out into sores.'

After an interval, the length of which it was impossible to determine, but which, in the case of the Gelaria walaga held in 1 90 1, was said to be twenty-two months, the mango is again brought out from the sleeping house of the fasting men, where it had been preserved^ Some informants could not state what determined the bringing forth of the mango, others said that this was done when the house containing the mango began to rot, while others stated that the mango would speak to the taniwaga in his dreams, saying to him, ' Let me smell smoking pigs' fat, so your pigs will be healthy, and your crops will grow,' and that the mango was exhibited according to its own command. The fasting men prepare a new house some little distance from the old one, and all the people in the neighbourhood, i.e. within about 10 miles, are notified, and visitors soon begin to arrive. The taniwaga and the fasting men go to the house in which they slept before the mango was cut, decked in their dancing costumes, as when they cut the mango ; the taniwaga and one man enter the house and hand out all cups, lime spoons, pots, and so forth, formerly used by the fasting men, and also the bags of rubbish which contain the refuse of sugar cane and areca nut already referred to. Then come the mats containing the mango leaves and chips, and finally the mango tree wrapped in its mat; as these things are handed out the men present rush up and, wiping the dust off them, smear it over their bodies. The mango is carried in procession into the centre of the temporary village in exactly the same way as it was brought from the jungle when it was cut. Near the houses the procession is met by that one of the pari ravai who is

1 This assumes that the houses built specially for the feast are at least semi-permanent and are inhabited.

called pigula, because he apostrophised the spirits on the night of the zva/aga ; he brandishes a spear as he meets the procession'. On arriving at the village the procession stops and ' puts the mango down ' ; it is not stated where it is put down, but it is certainly not allowed to touch the ground. The gugula now takes from a basket a number of young green mangoes provided for the purpose and, cutting them into pieces, places them with his own hands in the mouths of the fasting men or, according to other information, places the fragments in the hands of the fasting men, who chew the mango small, and turning, spit the fragments in the direction of the setting sun. This is done, according to certain informants, in order that 'the sun should carry the mango bits over the whole country and everyone should know.' The taniwaga then breaks off a part of the mango tree, which he places on one side together with the old mats containing leaves, food, refuse and so forth. The mango is then wrapped in new mats, and later on, after sundown, the portion placed with the mats and refuse is burnt with the latter at an ordinary fire, over which no spells are said, and which, in the case of the Gelaria walaga, was lit with matches. The ashes of this fire are gathered by the people, and the remains of the mango tree, freshly wrapped up, are carried to the house of the taniwaga where it is hung over the fire-place, whence it will be brought out and exhibited at intervals, the duration of which could not be determined^ At each exhibition a piece is broken off and burnt. Apparently the mango will be kept at Gelaria until such time as a new walaga is arranged at that place. When the old mango is finished a new one can be cut. But it appears that a walaga in another village, to which the whole district will be invited, may take place before the mango from the last walaga is

• Mr Newton says : 'The brandishing of the spear seems to have no meaning, he wanted something to shake.' Gugula means orator and has no special significance in reference to the walaga.

2 The fate of these ashes is doubtful ; according to one group of informants they are mixed with the food given to their pigs, but other informants denied this. All thnt can be said is that there seems no doubt that the ashes are taken to the house of the taniwaga., where they are kept perhaps indefinitely. The following information is given here as a help to future inquirers, but until verified it must be regarded as inaccurate, and perhaps utterly false. It appeared to take about 15 years before the whole mango would be consumed, and it was stated that no man in the district could give a feast at any time — death feasts banivi^ and marriage feasts mataope., being excepted— unless he had some of the ashes of the mango from the last walaga in his possession.

IValaga Feast at Diwari 500

consumed, for Mr Newton states that early in 1907, the folk of the district were preparing for another walaga at Diwari on Cape Frere, though the mango at Gelaria was not yet finished.^ The arrangement as to who will give the next walaga is made when the mango is cut down.

Evra

Ewa 'Ganibo

£ola.iLaLi Imaro.

Evira.

VnlalcnTTia

PlaA^omn

Ribom.

Potujna

Fig. 44. Plan of houses built for walaga ceremony (H. Newton).

THE WALAGA FEAST AT DIWARI.

(By H. Newton.)

A walaga was held in the mountains behind Diwari on Sept. 24th and 25th, 1907. A village had been built in the scrub on a fairly level spot about 1200 or 1500 feet above the sea. There seems to have been no special reason why the feast should have been held in the mountains, but when the people were consulting as to the site, one old woman said :

The SoiUhern Massim

' I shall have to prepare a lot of taro, I must be near the gardens, I am not going to the beach.' The others saw the force of her argument and agreed.

A village was built in the form of a rough square, as is shown in the plan reproduced as figure 44, all the houses except one being built specially for the occasion on piles about 6 feet from the ground. The houses belonged to different clans, though the Ewa clan had more than one house, probably because they took relations by marriage into their house.

Each house was divided by a partition about 3 feet high into two compartments, one end for men, the other for women. The men's doorway in every case was towards the inside of the square, the women's doorway generally in the side and

Fig. 45. Designs on horizontal bearers of houses built for walaga ceremony.

their end of the house towards the scrub. There were five houses on piles, besides the potuma and another long house on the ground.

All the houses raised off the ground had a mark on the main centre bearer, the mark in each case being different from others. The marks on the central horizontal bearers of some of these houses are shown in figure 45, in which the oblique lines represent the original wood, the designs being carried out in black and white. Figure 45 {a) was drawn on the house of the Ribom clan, [U) on the two houses of the Ewa clan which were also ornamented with black circles with white centres. Two black circles, one within the other, were drawn on the houses shared by the clans Bolanai and Imara

Walaga Feast at Diwari 60 1

and on the house belonging to the Matakama clan, while the potuma bore a single black circle'. The potuma in which the fasting men were to sleep was not closed in at the ends. The gable ends were walled in to the level of the top of the side walls and the rest closed by plaited mats at night, but all the fasting men did not sleep there. The chief {taniwaga) of the feast, Tebari, slept in his own house. No great care seemed to be taken of the refuse of chewed sugar cane, etc., indeed when I went into the potuma and into the house of Tebari during the walaga, the refuse was heaped in the corners and some must have fallen on to the ground ; but this was rather in keeping with the general carelessness of this walaga. I also saw the sacred mango in the potuma just pushed in with no covering, and there was not the slightest objection show^n to my handling it.

The Platform,. The platform was about seven feet from the ground to the top of the urupou. The timber for it was cut and brought in some weeks before, and while it was lying on the ground waiting to be put up, the walaga mango was cut down. The platform was erected by people of various communities in the neighbourhood. Gweri ravai (medicine men) were present and they placed charms in the post holes and said that from one post they extracted a human bone. The charms were to prevent people who came to the walaga from getting sick.

In the centre of the platform (and placed in the ground) was a high pole some 30 feet high from the ground. This is known as the dawati\ the timber used being of the kind called megirara. Strings had been tied from the top of the dawati to the gable ends of the houses, but most had been broken by the wind and all looked bedraggled. Round the edge of the platform were placed poles about 5 to 6 inches in diameter, on which the walaga was danced. These are called urupou ; the platform was built by people of various places, after the walaga mango was cut.

The mango. The walaga mango (and this must be kept distinct from other mangoes and will be called the walaga mango whenever it is referred to) was cut on Aug. 27th, 1907.

1 [Although Mr Newton does not say on what part of the bearers these designs were drawn I do not doubt that they were placed on the circular face of the end of the bearer, for this was the position similar designs occupied at Wagawaga, wncre it was stated that the designs were purely decorative in intent,]

6o2 The Southern Massim

People from various districts were present. It is a little difficult to say exactly what happened for accounts are conflicting, but it seems that a space was cleared and round the stem mats were placed to catch the chips. The leaves were covered with a network of string to prevent their falling. It is said that the tree was struck with a stone axe, but was cut down with a plane iron attached to the handle of New Guinea wood similar to that used for the strong axe. The man who cut the tree down was Tebari, of the Ewa tribe. Tebari and his son both said the implement used was a plane iron
When the tree was ready to fall, it was held up and the names of various districts called out. Will the people of Wedau take it ^. Will the people of Wamira ? and so on. The representative of Daigogo, a mountain district in the neighbourhood of Diwari, accepted the offer and an old man named Tetebani, of the Durubi clan, caught the mango leaves as the tree was lowered. He thus became responsible for the next walaga. The tree was then solemnly carried to the new village, and should have been left all day to dry in the sun, but as it was very wet the tree was hung up in xh^ potuma and a fire lit under it. The tree was cut early in the morning, it was a very small sapling, about 8 inches round at the butt (I could just make my thumb and second finger meet). The leaves were wrapped up carefully in sleeping mats, and the tree remained in the potuma till Sept. 24th, the day of the dancing, when it was carried out and tied to the dawati. At the same time(?) certain things belonging to two or more dead men of the Garuboi clan were hung on to the dawati above the top of the walaga mango, and above these again a lime pot belonging to one of the chief men of the feast, and higher than this a few pieces of taro and a coconut. (I noticed the next day that this coconut was gone, and when I asked who took it no one seemed to know it was gone, they were quite unconcerned and seemed to think one of the men on the platform had taken it to eat.)

The Pigs. Soon after the erection of the platform the pigs began to come in. They were brought from all directions singly, or by twos, etc., according as the people were able or

' There were various and conflicting^ statements about the axe used for the cutting of the walaga mango, but I think it is and remains the property of the tribe who cut it ; it does not pass on to the next tribe as some said. I was explicitly told that the axe used at Diwari was the same as at Gelaria, also that the house m which the Gelaria axe was kept was burnt down and the axe lost !

I

JValaga Feast at Diwari 603

disposed. If five pigs were brought this was called a mango, and a small mango tree was cut down. I saw one procession of pigs brought in on Sept. 24th. There were four, but a man carried a mango with the branches left on the top. As the people danced he danced this mango up and down, and another man carried an axe (stone) erect and danced it up and down. The pigs were carried to the house of the clan taniwaga, to whom they were to be given, and the women and men danced round backwards and forwards with a good deal of singing and wailing. When the pigs were laid down a man took a dog by the hind legs and dashed its head on the poles by which the pigs were carried. (This may have been to make up the number to five.) The mango was then laid on the top of the pigs ; there was some discussion about the pigs, apparently a protest about the size of the animals or something of that kind made by the man to whom they were given. The pigs were then laid under the house of the clan, and the mango taken to the potuma and put with others in a bundle.

When fewer pigs were brought than one 'mango,' the people bringing them in carried branches of trees or pieces of stick with a wisp of grass tied to the end, and with these speared the house of the man to whom the pigs were given. These sticks and branches which are called dabedabe were afterwards collected from the houses. All pigs it seemed were in some way payment for something or other.

The dancing. The weather was very wet during the time of preparation and at the time of the full moon, but it cleared just after the full moon, and word went round on Monday Sept. 23rd that the dancing would be on Sept. 24th if the weather were fine. Unfortunately we could not get to the place in time to see the beginning of the dance or the zualaga mango put in position. There were a great many dancers, men and women, the men mostly decorated with beautiful headdresses or red bird-of-paradise plumes and their bodies oiled and coloured with red to almost exactly the same tint as the plumes. Most of them carried a branch of a palm with half the leaves stripped off and the other leaves crinkled and bleached. There were two men with spears in their hands. The men decorated themselves in secrecy in the bush, and we saw one procession of late arrivals led to the platform. In front was a friend of the dancers carrying a branch of what looked like a species of hibiscus, followed by

6o4 The Southern Massim one of the ta^iiivaga of the feast, then a male dancer, then women and the rest of the assembled crowd.

This man, Magala, chief or head man of Demaladona, one of the \ amira settlements, did not dance long. He was on the platform about an hour and then went home. I do not think he had fasted, and I believe, though he would not admit it, that he had seen a sorcerer he was afraid of, and so left. The women had variegated dresses and carried pearl shells, lime gourds, or pieces of cloth. The dancing was continued till daylight ; men beating the drums and others singing, filled the platform \

Unfortunately we had to go to the beach for the night to sleep, so we were not able to see what went on at night, whether for instance, as at Gelaria, men mounted to the gable ends of houses and held forth.

The killing of the pigs. All the pigs brought to the feast were not killed. All told I counted 71 pigs on the Tuesday. Some it seems were given to people from a distance in payment for banivi (a death feast, cf. chapter xlvi), and one I know was to be carried to Lavora alive to be killed there for a banivi. Also some were killed and distributed at the time of the walaga but independently of that feast. In fact it seemed as though the opportunity was taken of the large gathering for people from outside places to settle certain accounts of their own or to transact business of a more private nature. Very much as at a fair or race meeting there were 'side shows,' only of a business nature, going on most of the time. I fancy also that some of the men who had had pigs brought to them felt justified in using some for the entertainment of their visitors or for the payment of their debts, though of course these pigs may have been given them by their friends for this purpose.

We were too late in arriving to see the pigs killed. We did not get up to the place till nearly ten o'clock on account of various delays. The dancing it seems had stopped at daylight or shortly after, and the killing of the pigs began. The walaga mango was taken down from the dawati and the leaves cut off. These leaves and the property of the dead

•

^ Dancing was not strictly limited to the urupou^ sometimes a dancer would be on the platform itself and occasionally a man or woman would stand on one of the extreme projecting ends of the horizontal bearers supporting the platform and dance there without altering his or her position.

I

Walaga Feast at Diwari 605

men — which had been suspended from the dawati were burnt in the fire over which the pigs were singed whole. The pigs were then carried whole to the platform and there cut up, apparently the helpers in the butchery belonging to the clans who owned the pigs. Taro had been heaped round the foot of the dawati.

The distribution. The distribution began about 2.30 p.m. and lasted for two hours. Just before this a few tribes had retired and decorated themselves, and marched in procession to the place of the feast, taking up different positions in groups — tribes here meaning people of different villages, thus each group was composed of men of many clans. The Wedau and Wamira people, who had not (and there were many of them) been present before, timed their arrival to be just before the distribution. They arrived over 150 strong but not in anything like the order or dignity they showed at Gelaria in 1901. It seems that the distribution was a little delayed owing to my fault. I had taken some tobacco up to give the taniwaga Tebari, and they were anxious to know whether the pork they had set apart for me was sufficient, and also wanted me to take it away first without any ceremony. I wanted them to give it out as at Gelaria, calling out my name and so refused to take any interest in the heap of pork. At last they called up the Dogura boys who took the pork, and the distribution began. One man made a little speech. There was no sort of religious ceremony as at Gelaria, when one of the taniwaga climbed the dawati, and seemed to pray while the company on the platform responded. There was a little criticism on the proceedings from an old man from Wamira, apparently about the tobacco not having been distributed and about things not being done properly, but I could not catch what it was. One old man on the platform answered: 'Your friend Magala danced yesterday, is he dead yet .^ ' which seemed to imply that there had been something said about sorcery. The distribution was as usual. It was kept up from all sides of the platform, apparently each clan distributing its own pork, and sometimes two people at a time were talking. The name of an important man in a family was called out and his pork thrown out on to the ground with a few pieces of taro. Occasionally jocular remarks were made. Most often as the pork was thrown out it was with the remark am bova, which means * your payment.'

6o6 The Southern Massim

It is an expression I think almost confined to feasts. Another meaning of bova is ' it stinks,' but I do not know that there is any connection. Possibly the idea is 'your old stuff is paid for,' i.e. ' what you gave before.' At all events no insult or reflection of any kind is intended. Younger members of the family invariably collected the pork and the taro, and heaped it up before the recipient. In no case did one man's supply seem to be given out at once or in succession.

When the distribution was over, the feast came to an end. The young people packed up the gifts in baskets or bags or carried them in their hands or on sticks over the shoulder, and the crowd dispersed.

It is said that when the people are waiting for the walaga, if they have no food, they are at liberty to raid the gardens and the coconut palms of the hosts, and if they are asked what they are doing, they call out oiara, oiara, and they are exempt from interference. It may be that this privilege is due to a wish to prevent unnecessary delays in getting the feast ready \

When I saw the walaga mango in the potuma after it had been taken down from the dawati, the leaves having been cut off I noticed that a piece of stick about 1 2 ins. long, charred at one end and about the diameter of the butt of the mango, was tied to the latter. All I could find out was that this had been used to thrust at something (the mango ?), but I could not determine what this was or on what occasion the stick was used. There were present many old men having a few of their hairs tied in a knot with string as a charm against sorcery. These knots were tied for them by medicine men I believe.

^ At the bigger torela it is said that anyone picking up a piece of property or food can by saying gerio, gerio^ claim it as his own, and is free from any charge of theft.

CHAPTER XLVI

FUNERAL AND MOURNING CEREMONIES.

In the Introduction I have indicated the dominant ideas upon this subject held by the people of the Massim area, and I may therefore refer immediately to information gathered at Wagawaga, Tubetube and Bartle Bay. As in all these localities the actual process of inhumation has been profoundly modified by the Government, it is advisable to say a few preliminary words concerning burials.

In the old days before Government enforced burial in cemeteries the graves of the greater part of the south-eastern district, including those of Wagawaga and Tubetube, were dug on the outskirts of the hamlet, and sometimes even within a couple of yards of the houses. In these, in the ordinary course of events, every native of the hamlet would be buried, the only exceptions being those who died when away from the hamlet whose bodies could not be carried back.

If a visitor to a foreign community died, his body would be taken back to his own hamlet if this were possible, but if impossible he might be buried in any hamlet of his own clan. The bodies of visitors belonging to clans unrepresented in the hamlet-group were taken back to their own community, or they were buried at some distance from any grave of the hamlet-group. In either event there was nothing in the nature of subsequent exhumation or removal of the bones \

Since the area devoted to inhumation in each hamlet was small, previous burials were frequently disturbed, no difficulty being made in handling the remains (which were never offensive) and reburying them in the new grave. These

1 In the folk tale (Tanoduya) given in chapter xxxiii, the body of the foreign woman who has married into the community is not buried in the hamlet but is taken up the hillside and left under a rock.

6o8 The Sottthern Massim burial sites were in fact hamlet-graves, corresponding with family burial plots and vaults in other countries. At the present day old graves are often indicated by a heap of stones more or less covered with shrubs, as at Numabwasi hamlet on Rogea, or by the presence of a few shrubs on an otherwise cleared site, as on the old burial site of Paie hamlet on Tubetube. This is not due to any intentional planting of shrubs or collecting of stones on old grave sites, but as these are now undisturbed, vegetation tends to flourish upon them while the stones are simply the loose boulders which when plentiful are commonly placed on the ground outside and against the fence round the grave.

The actual appearance of the graves of the south-eastern district is illustrated by Plates LXX and LXXI. The first of these represents a grave at Teste Island and is a reproduction of a photograph taken by Dr H. O. Forbes about twenty years ago. The neat fencing round the grave resembles that in vogue at the present day at Tubetube in the Government burial ground, but no roof is now built over the graves. The presence of a young coconut palm by the grave is probably due to the germination of one of the coconuts usually placed on posts round the grave. From the appearance of the ground it is obvious that this grave was not a new one at the time that the photograph was taken.

Plate LXXI represents a grave at Farm Bay about six miles west of Suau ; this very closely resembles one I saw upon Rogea.

I may now refer to the question of exhumation. In chapter XLii I have alluded to the practice of digging up and eating corpses which occurs sporadically among the southern Massim ; I now propose to discuss disinterment for a very different purpose. The elaborate practices attending exhumation among the northern Massim of the Trobriands, Marshall Bennets and Murua are described in chapter liv. The question to which I now desire to refer is to what extent does exhumation normally prevail among the southern Massim ? In the Introduction (p. 3, footnote), I refer to 34 skulls procured from a ' cave ' at Awaiama in Chad's Bay. I have reason to believe that this was really a crevasse in the rock. The local natives were reticent as to all that concerned these skulls, but no long bones or any other bones were seen with these skulls by their collector. Mr Abel informs me

Plate LXX

-A^i':'::r-%t:

Grave at Teste Island

X

X

Death and Burial that there is a 'place of skulls ' called moiaru at Gogowari on Rogea, this is a deep crevasse in the rock within which skulls are, or formerly were, deposited. He regards the taking of the skulls from the graves and their deposition in these places as a sign of love or friendship, and instances a man of Farm Bay who kept the dried body of his son in his house because he had loved him dearly. I do not know whether in this instance desiccation was allowed to occur, or whether the whole body was dug up. As bodies are buried upright in a squatting posture with the head but little below the su^rface of the ground there would be no difficulty in removing the skull after decay had done its work.

From these examples it will be clear that there is nothing necessarily alien to the beliefs and customs of the southern Massim in partial exhumation. I do not think that the practice is general throughout the district, but these and many other questions connected with the practice must be left to future observers.

DEATH AND BURIAL.

Wagawaga.

If a man living in the potuma be considered dangerously ill he is usually removed to the house of one of his children ; failing that he is taken to a brother's or sister's house. In either case he is tended by the inhabitants of one particular hamlet, viz. that which subsequently eats the funeral feasts, known as banahivi. Although folk of other hamlets would visit him, the members of this hamlet would sit up with him at night, and would bring him firewood and probably some food. His wife and children and near relatives also look after him. A dying man is supported in a sitting position by his wife and children or by his brothers' and sisters' children. When he is dead he is propped up in the middle of the house, and his wapa is cut off by his brother to be preserved for the toreha ceremony \ His face is painted by his sisters' children, one straight band of black being drawn on the forehead and two on each cheek. A clean perineal bandage (ara) is put

1 Wapa is the name given to the long tangled hair at the back of the head often plastered into a mass some two inches broad to which one or more large white cowrie shells may be attached.

6io The Southern Masstm on the corpse, and if the deceased possessed them, a shell nose ornament (wa7tepa) may be placed in the perforation in the nasal septum and a necklace of shell discs [samakupa) put round the neck ; if the deceased had no wmiepa nothing is substituted. The dead man's eyes are closed by his wife or children ; no special measures are taken to prevent the dropping of the jaw. The corpse of a woman is dressed in a new petticoat and the face is painted by the dead woman's mother or sister.

As soon as a man or woman is dead every one wails without regard to the clan or clan-group to which the deceased belonged.

In the case of a man the grave {kokoaga) is dug by his sisters' children, or failing these, by men of his clan. A woman's grave is dug by her brothers or in their absence by her sisters' children. A new digging stick is used to excavate the grave ; this is broken when the fencing round the grave is being completed, and the pieces are used to form part of the fence.

A mat is put at the bottom of the grave upon which the body is placed in a squatting posture. Over the body canoe planks are placed, being so arranged as to enclose the body in a small chamber without pressing upon it, above these again one or two mats, and then earth on top of all. If the body has to be removed for burial, it is placed in a canoe, which is paddled to its destination at the usual working speed by persons of either sex. The ail are not sent for, but they would be told of the death and would officiate as bearers when the canoe arrived at their (i.e. the dead man's) hamletgroup. The body is wrapped in a mat for the funeral and is carried to the grave by the ail of the deceased who, while taking part in funeral and mourning customs, are called gariauna. At the edge of the grave, the ornaments are removed from the body by the gariauna and kept by them. The body is placed in the grave facing the east, with the hands under the chin. The reason for this is that if the body faced any other way, the dead man, or his spirit (my informants did not distinguish very definitely between the two), would not be able to reach Hiyoyoa, the other world: *all same dark, you can't see,' Ipunesa explained.

A man's wife and children do not follow him to the grave but those relatives who belong to his clan attend, together

Death and Burial 6 1 1

with as many other of his clansmen as choose to do so. A woman's children follow her body as they belong to her clan.

Immediately after the funeral the gariauna go down to the sea and bathe, as do also the widow and children of the deceased because they have supported the dying man. When the gariauna return they proceed to cut down three to five of the dead man's coconut trees ; both nuts and tree are left to rot, but the mother and sisters of the dead man may use the leaves of these coconuts to make petticoats or a basket of the kind called iniliga, commonly used for carrying fish. Coconuts are cut down for a woman in the same way as for a man. During the first two or three weeks after the funeral the gariauna may not eat boiled food but only roast ; they may not drink water but only the milk of young coconuts made hot, and although they may eat yams they must abstain from bananas and sugar cane. They may not eat pig till after the last of the funeral feasts called banahivi\ until this takes place they give their share of pork to their sisters' children.

After bathing in the sea the widow and children shave their heads ; if the death occurred in the hamlet of the deceased, they remove to the widow's hamlet. When a woman dies her children remain in their father's house till the first banahivi, and then they remove to their dead mother's hamlet.

Tubetube.

A sick man would be visited by his clansmen living in his own and other hamlets wherever he is lying ill. They bring him small presents of food such as fish and young coconuts, and sit by him. A 'medicine man ' may be summoned, but the islanders were so reticent on this subject that no details of any value could be elicited. However, it was stated that the ' medicine man ' would be paid for his services, whatever the issue of the illness, and that his fee might consist of armshells and wooden dishes called gaiba made in the Trobriands. A dying man is propped u]) in a squatting position, his hands lying in his lap ; the duty of supporting him in this posture falls to his wife in the hrst instance, failing her to his first-born child, and in the last resort to his mother. The person who supports him sits

39—2

6i2 The Southern Massim behind the dying man and passes his or her legs on each side of him. After death this posture is retained till burial.

A sister squats in front of the corpse and closes its eyes, failing a sister the office is performed by a brother, who also holds the dead man's legs, flexing them into the correct position. Wailing is begun directly after death and continued for some hours. Meanwhile the body is decked with armshells and a necklace of shell discs. A nose ornament (wanepa) is passed through the septum of the nose and a pattern is painted in black on the face of the dead man. The body is dressed in a new perineal bandage and earrings {komakoma), consisting of circles of turtle shell carrying sapisapi discs, are placed in the ears. The hair on the pubes is not shaved or pulled out. Certain specified persons perform the toilette of the body ; the dead man's brother puts on the perineal bandage, his children place the wanepa in his nose and the samakupa and armshells round his neck and on his arms respectively, while his brother combs and dresses his hair.

In the morning, usually about lo a.m., the body is placed upon a sort of litter called nabanabwau^ on which it is supported by sticks in the same sitting posture, and so it is carried to the grave.

The grave has already been dug by the dead man's sisters' sons, i.e. by his ga7ne, who during the burial and mourning ceremonies are known as gariauuna. Four of these should officiate, where this is not possible any men of the same totem may undertake their duties, but though these substitutes are frequently relatives, it is the totem relationship that determines their undertaking the office.

The gariauuna are not painted in any way, they wear no special dress, nor do they wail or sing. They are followed by the rest of the people of their totem and by any friends of other totems who wish to go, but the dead man's children do not follow the corpse.

The grave is dug by the gariauuna who use a new digging stick freshly cut in the bush with which they loosen the soil before throwing it out with their hands. The depth of the grave is between four and five feet, and it is practically always so fenced as to be proof against pigs. A mat is placed at the bottom of the grave. One gariauuna gets down into the grave to receive the body which is wrapped in a daam mat and is passed down by the other three and placed

Death and Burial 613

in a squatting position in which attitude it is held by means of a stick running under the chin. This stick is fixed in the sides of the grave and so prevents the head from falling forward on the breast. Before the body is carried to the grave the ornaments with which the corpse was decorated, consisting of armshells, samakupa and wanepa, are removed and wrapped in a daam mat which is left in the house of the deceased for the gariauuna whose property they now become and who wear them without any purificatory or cleansing ceremony.

The gariauuna provide a number of sticks long enough to stretch across the grave, their ends are wedged into its sides so that they form the roof of a cell containing the body. Two, three, or even four daam mats are laid upon the upper surface of the sticks and upon these coconut leaves and perhaps more mats are piled so as to form a fairly firm roof capable of sustaining the weight of the soil which is subsequently replaced. A strong fence is built round the grave, fragments of old canoes, driftwood or any other material being used for this purpose, the only point of ceremonial observance being that the sticks used in digging the grave are broken and their fragments used as part of the material for the fence. Sticks and branches of trees are laid across the fence, and these are covered by old mats and coconut leaves so that the surface of the grave is fairly well sheltered.

Formerly it was not uncommon to hang mats on the side of the fence and to arrange the roofing poles so as to form a central ridge, across and along which leaves and grass would be laid, so that the fence around and the covering over the grave formed a small chamber in which the gariauuna could sit during the time they spent upon the grave. Such graves still exist in some of the Rogea hamlets, and erections^ of this kind over old graves are shown in Plates LXX, LXXI.

If bones previously buried were disturbed while diggmg a fresh grave they were rolled in a daam mat and reinterrcd by the side of the new occupant of the grave. The actual grave in which an individual was buried would not be opened again for a short time, therefore if a second member of the hamlet died another grave would be dug adjoining the first.

Immediately after the funeral, a brother of the dead man cuts down two or three of the coconut trees belonging to the deceased. This might also be done by the son, the game or

6i4 ^ f^^ Southern Massiin the bara of the deceased whose gariauuna might eat the nuts. The dead man's other coconut trees are not as yet tabooed. Their nuts may be eaten by the brothers, sisters and other relatives of the deceased, but not by his children ; in fact a child would eat neither pig fattened, nor coconuts grown, in his dead father's hamlet, nor even any garden produce grown near to the hamlet. If, however, the garden where such produce was grown was some distance away, this taboo did not apply, ' Bush stop far off, gardens there, he kaikai.'

The gariaimna remain by the grave after the interment is complete, and for the next five to ten days the whole of their time is spent at the graveside. Each night they sleep on or by it, and if it rains they all huddle into the shelter built over the grave. Meanwhile the task of feeding them falls to the brothers of the dead man and to the near relatives of his totem ; failing these, other kinsmen undertake the duty. The gariauuna drink no water and are allowed only a little heated coconut milk during their watch on the grave, and are supposed to eat only a small amount of yam and other vegetable food. The gariaumia cease to watch and sleep by the grave after five to ten days ; then, after bathing in the sea, they return to their own houses ; nevertheless they continue to receive food from the dead man's wife and children, and at the time of the first feast called kanekapu they are given a present consisting of cooked vegetables and uncooked pig-fiesh. This is brought by the deceased's brother to the gariauuna who divide it, each gariauuna taking his portion to his own house.

Bartle Bay.

(By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

The wife supports the head of her dying husband on her lap, and the husband performs the same office for the wife. A dying man is visited by his kimta mates and though no special announcement of the death is made, numbers of people of the community, as well as the kimta mates of the deceased from neighbouring communities, come to the door of the dead man's house and wail for him\ It is not the practice to close

^ Concerning this Mr Newton writes : * The commonest mourning cry is au eda^ but whether only used for children or by older for younger people, I do not know. Eda means "a child that is weaned," au signifies "my," so the cry may mean " the child or person I cared for or nursed."'

I

Death and Burial 615

the eyes of the dead, for these ' close of themselves.' A man's kimta mates stand at the side of his body, and gripping the nose of the corpse between finger and thumb, slide their fingers down the nose saying kapore au kimta ; kapore is an untranslateable word implying the idea of affection and also commiseration, and would be used in speaking of absent friends especially on hearing their names, or nowadays seeing their photographs. After death the father of the deceased, or failing him a son or brother, recites a spell standing either by the side of the body or outside the dead man's house. This spell is usually a garden charm, but if the deceased has been a celebrated warrior or fisherman, a spear charm or a fish charm may be recited. Concerning this, Mr Newton has sent the following valuable information : 'It seems that the spells are the repetition of the taro, pig and wallaby pari to instruct the dead man in what he needs and so that he can take x)pi^ pari to the spirit world. ...We could not hear of anything else. It did not appear certain that the dead man's spirit would need the pari in the spirit world, but it is all rather hazy'

In the old days the burials took place near the house of the deceased, but apparently not actually in the house, except perhaps in the case of infants. Stones were placed upright at the head of the grave, and pots, spears, dishes, cups, and digging sticks were broken and put on the grave. Crotons and other ornamental trees were planted on the grave, and a hut was generally built over it'. Members of the family of the deceased blacken the face of the corpse and place many of his ornaments upon him ; no special pattern is employed, but lines are drawn across prominent features. As soon as the body is painted it is placed outside the house, where it rests on its back on a sleeping mat and a woman sup}3orts the head on her lap while the grave is being dug. There are no special features about the digging of the grave, which is termed kokoaga ; the stick used is thrown away in the bush. The grave is dug by the gariauna, who may be the varina

1 Mr Newton says they seem to see a connection, or rather a parallel, between these /tzrz and our burial service. The/^r/ were said in order to bless or comfort the spirit. , , ,

2 Mr Newton points out that the wooden pillow of the deceased was placed on the grave, but not broken. He also states that the graves were respected to some extent. This was shown by avoidance, and Mr Newton has hmiselt been asked to walk round, instead of crossing, a particular place m which a man was buried.

6i6 The Southern Massim

(brothers and cousins) or ail (sisters' children) of the deceased, assisted by the dead man's kimta mates, or falHng these any member of the clan. The wife lies beside the body and embraces it ; she does not, however, expostulate with it nor ask why her husband has left her but simply weeps quietly. If the body has to be carried any distance to the grave
it Is placed on a wooden bier called ratirati upon which it lies on Its side, somewhat in the position of a foetus in utero. The bier Is brought by the gariauna, of whom there are usually four, to the front of the house where the body is lifted on to it ; the gariauna act as bearers. None of the mourners or other persons taking part in these ceremonies so far described blacken their faces. No one precedes the bier, but every one In the community, Including all the relatives of the deceased, follow it to the grave. On reaching the grave the bier is put down by the bearers, and two of them descend into the grave, while the others pass the body down to them. It is buried on its side, the head in the direction of the legendary place of origin of the dead man's clan, with the dish of food near the face of the corpse I

At the edge of the grave the gariauna remove the ornaments and objects which are not to be burled ; these are subsequently taken back to their houses without any special ceremony since no Infection is attached to them.

Certain personal ornaments of little value are burled with the deceased. Such ornaments are earrings and armlets not made of shell, leglets of small cowrie shells, a hair belt, perhaps a nose ornament of poor quality, and sometimes a necklet of seeds and cassowary quills. These are placed on the top of the mat, which is rolled round the corpse, together with the various kinds of food which the sick man has eaten during his last Illness. It seems that the food is for the sustenance of the deceased on his way to the other world, probably he would not need it when he had reached his destination. Mr Newton explains that tamaina, the word used for the food that Is buried, Is the word for provision for an ordinary journey in this life, but both Mr Newton and one of us (C. G. S.) independently heard of another reason for placing food In the grave.

• The old time custom was to take men and women who had died away from their homes back to their own folk.

2 This applies to Wedau only, at Wamira the feet of the corpse are towards the direction whence came the clan to which the deceased belonged.

Death and Burial 617

The wife of the dead man may not eat the same kinds of food that he ate during his last illness, and the burial of food in the grave is said to serve as an advertisement of the kinds of food that the dead man ate during his last illness, and that are thus taboo to his widow or widows till after the last of the funeral feasts known as banivi. Without expressing any opinion whether the food put in the grave is placed there for any other purpose than to provide the spirit of the dead with nourishment on its journey, it must be stated that a widow really does abstain from these foods, even if she be reduced to living on a few wild roots. This custom is so rigorously enforced that formerly a widow could sometimes get into a very low state of nutrition \ At the present time this result, if threatened, is usually obviated by a widow buying imported food, such as yams (which are scarcely grown in the district) or rice, which a widow may eat with impunity.

The gariatma then take stones and place them upon the edge of the mat which is folded over the body; earth is then pulled into the grave and stamped down. On the top of the grave a small shelter of coconut leaves is built, and a fence is put round it. In olden time the father and mother slept by the grave of their child two or three nights in succession, in order to prevent pigs from disturbing the grave. For a woman the duty was undertaken by the husband and eldest son, for a man by his widow and eldest son ; in the case of parents two brothers were the guardians. In theory the watchers were supposed to wail all night. Each clan-group of a settlement has its own grave. Graves are frequendy reopened, and the space available being limited, the bones are treated as at Tubetube. They are not kept in the houses.

1 Concerning this Mr Newton says : ' It seems very strange, but while people in mourning (widows etc.) fast very strictly, almost reducing themselves to a state of inanition, they are quite ready and willing to eat food of any kmd belonging to and introduced by white people, such as rice, bread, biscuits, etc., and of these foods they will eat to repletion. It seemed certain that the reason for this was that an absolutely foreign food was not considered to possess or to have the power of provoking the evil effect which New Guinea food eaten in defiance of the custom would bring about. It was not clear what particular evil the eating of the forbidden food would produce, but it seems certain that this matter tails among that class of beliefs of which the most typical instance is the lack of power of a New Guinea evil spirit to injure a white man because he is not of IScw (,ume.i. So among the rank heathen, the white man's medicine cannot affect a New (.uinea man's illness or overcome the New Guinea evil spirit that causes the sickness Similarly to feed largely on rice will not break the fast, or entail the evil effects ot breaking the fast, while to eat New Guinea food would produce these evil results.

6i8 The Southern Massim

On the night of a death no one in the neighbourhood will leave his house. It was said that this was not due to fear of the dead man's ghost but was merely a custom, although there is some reason to suppose that the belief exists at Taupota (some thirty miles to the east of Wamira) that the ' soul ' of the dead man Is looking for a new habitation. In a modified form the custom is kept up till the next new moon, inasmuch as people will not walk about casually at night, nor use the path near where a death has taken place\

MOURNING.

Wagawaga.

Three or four days after her husband's death a widow blackens herself all over with a mixture of soot and coconut oil and puts on a neck ornament {maura) made of the cortex of a climbing palm called moieu, and armlets also known as 7?iaura, and a long petticoat (weroro)\ the number of armlets varies but does not seem to depend on the number of pigs which belonged to the dead man. Until the first banahivi is over the widow either stops in the house or, if she goes out, avoids the ordinary paths, slipping out by the back of the house and avoiding people on the way to the gardens, and keeping apart in every way. After the first banahivi she mixes with other people, fetches water and goes to the gardens as usual.

Until the last banahivi the widow does not put off her mourning, nor may she eat taro, pig or kangaroo. The children of the deceased wear necklaces, armlets and leglets; they blacken themselves all over and continue blackened until the last banahivi\ the sons of the dead man wear an ordinary belt but, as a sign of mourning, their perineal bandage is made of old fishing net. Children of the deceased use the tracks in the neighbourhood in the ordinary way. A man may not eat coconuts grown in his dead father's hamlet, nor

• In connection with this Mr Newton writes : 'A woman died at Dogura one night, April 14th, 1907, about 8 o'clock. Relations came to weep before the body was taken away, and wailed all night. (The old father-in-law grumbled at her dying at night, because it was so hard to keep awake, and for so long a time. Why couldn't she die in the daytime ?) With the exception of the near relatives of the deceased no one would come up to Dogura that night, except one man who said he was not afraid ; the others all said parauma were too many and too active about Dogura.'

I

Mourning 6 1 9

pigs and areca nuts from it during the remainder of his Hfe. Neither would he sit in the potuma of his dead father's hamlet, nor would he as a rule loaf about the hamlet itself; if any necessity arose for him to go to the hamlet he would squat outside the potuma. Even passing through the hamlet was generally avoided by following the seashore.

The father of a dead man wears mourning similar to that worn by the children of the deceased ; the dead man's mother wears a long petticoat, mourning necklaces, and arm-bands in the same manner as the widow, but unlike the latter she does not avoid the common tracks nor submit to food taboos. Ail do not wear mourning. Brothers wear one or more cane armlets and blacken themselves all over for the banahivi, while the sisters of the deceased do not blacken themselves at all, but wear armlets until the first banahivi and a mourning necklace until the last.

A woman's children go to their mother's hamlet after the first ba7iahivi and stay there with their mother's sisters, sharing the garden work with them. Black is not worn for a mother, but both sexes wear armlets and necklaces until the last banahivi.

A widower submits to the same food taboo as a widow. He blackens himself for the first banahivi and continues to wear this mourning until the last. Sego, a man of some importance, who was ' master ' of the old man's potuma in 1904, and who had never been married, gave as one reason for his celibacy his dislike of the idea of blackening his skin when his wife died. A widower wears a matira (neck ornament) of sago leaf till after the first banahivi, and retains his fishing-net perineal bandage, belt, and cane armlets until the last.

Tubetube.

The widow and children of the dead man remain in the house occupied by them and the deceased until the first funeral feast is over; then, if the widow has been living m her husband's hamlet, she goes with her children to her own hamlet. Although the younger children are permitted to play and run about outside the house without restriction, the elder children, in theory if not in practice, remain secluded in the house as long as the gariauuna remain on the grave and only go out when they are compelled to do so, and then at the back of the house. The widow is under the same restrictions ; when she goes out she must wrap herself in a daam mat, so that only a small part of her face can be seen.

On the second or third day after a man's burial his widow and children blacken themselves and begin to abstain from fish, taro and pig. They remain secluded in the house for about ten days, i.e. until the gariauuna have left the grave, when the widow and children go quietly to the garden and bring back food. Two or three days later they kill a pig for the first kanekapu ceremony.

After this the widow and children are permitted to mix with other people, and if the widow has been living in her husband's hamlet, she now returns to her own. The widow wears a number of string necklaces (kokoand), a basket-work cap {sinabubic), armlets (kuakua) made of the cortex of a creeper, and a long petticoat called name.

The widow continues to wear the name when she leaves the house, but she removes some of the kokoa^ia and kuakua ; she retains the cap {sinabubtt) and does not wash off the black paint, so that she may neither wash In fresh nor salt water. The widow observes her taboos and continues to wear her mourning for some months, until it is time to prepare a feast called rigarzga, when a brother of the deceased comes for her and takes her and her children to her dead husband's hamlet. Here the dead man's own sister, or, failing a sister, his mother, strips the widow and children of their mourning. The widow's long petticoat {name) Is cut short at the side of the grave and the severed pieces hung on the fence of the grave, but the reason for this could not be ascertained.

MOURNING FEASTS.

Wagawaga.

Some two to four weeks after a death the family of the dead man, including his father and widow, prepare the first of a series of feasts called banahivi. The vegetable food is supplied In part from their own gardens, in part from those of the dead man, and pigs belonging to all of them are also killed; at the last banahivi all the remaining pigs belonging to the dead man must be slaughtered, and the dead man's coconut palms are no longer taboo as they have been hitherto.

I

Mourning Feasts 621

Each banahivi is cooked by the widow and other people of her hamlet. The folk who take away and eat the banahivi give a return present of food to those relatives of the dead man who have given and prepared the banahivi food. This return present called melum, consisting of two or three pots of cooked vegetables, is made at each banahivi, and is left in the hamlet of the dead man by the people of his totem who come to fetch away the banahivi.

At the banahivi half the food is deposited in one heap for the gariauna of the deceased; the other half goes to one hamlet of the dead man's totem and is taken away by the men of that hamlet or their wives. Particular hamlets always exchanged banahivi but no reason was elicited for this ; certain hamlets had always done so, and would continue to do so as long as the custom lasted.

But although banahivi are as a rule eaten by one particular hamlet of the dead man's totem, an extension is sometimes made to other hamlets of the totem and, as might be expected, this occurs especially when the folk of these hamlets are closely related, or when one or more of them has only recently split from the parent hamlet, that is to say when the individuality of the new hamlet is not fully recognized.

Thus of old Dobuapa, Birubiru and Tutube hamlets used to eat banahivi given by Modewa; at this time Modewa and Dobuapa also ate banahivi provided by Duria hamlet inhabited by the immigrant stock from near East Cape, and both these hamlets contributed towards the return present {nielum) given to Duria. At this time there was no Yabarawa hamlet, but when a portion of the Tutube family group shifted to a new site a few yards distant, the hamlet so formed was called Yabarawa and exchanged banahivi with Dobuapa and Modewa. Birubiru and Tutube became extinct; Dobuapa came to feel more closely related with Yabarawa than with Duria and Modewa, and the distance between Duria and Dobuapa was now noticed. Soon Modewa failed to make adequate return for a feast provided by Yabarawa, with the result that the exchange of banahivi between Yabarawa and Modewa dropped, so that the latter only exchanged banahivi with Duria, while Yabarawa paired with Dobuapa. It was said that at one time Modewa exchanged feasts with a hamlet called Dalyo in another hamlet-group.

At the present time banahivi are exchanged between the followinof hamlets : —

Wagawaga and Wagawaga Pupuna.

Kanabwahi and Kasaiauura.

Kanabwahi and Suaiaro.

Taradiu and the Hurana stock of Wagawaga.

Modewa and Duria.

Modewa and Dobuapa.

The immigrant (Basilaki) stock of Yabarawa and the immigrant stock of Hehego.

Etuyawa would exchange banahivi with one of the hamlets of its own totem in another hamlet-group. Unfortunately no note was made with regard to the banahivi of the folk of Hehego hamlet.

Part of the food of the gariauna would very likely be given to their small children, though their wives might perhaps protest that the children were of their clan, not of their father's, and therefore should not eat the food.

Banahivi succeed one another at intervals of one or two months. After a particular feast, usually the third, a taboo {gwara) is put on all the coconuts in the dead man's hamlet, but the property of his clansmen in other hamlets is unaffected.

The last banahivi, ten or twelve months after the first, is similar to the others, but larger. Ten or twelve pigs may be killed including all that belonged to the dead man. All his coconuts, upon which there has been a taboo since perhaps the third banahivi, are knocked down and hung on fences and cane strips running from palm tree to palm tree around the hamlet. They are thus preserved to be eaten later with the rest of the food provided for the banahivi. After this the taboo ends.

One of the banahivi made for a dead man of the immigrant stock of Yabarawa occurred during my visit to Wagawaga. The sister of the dead man provided a pig, as she had none of her own this was borrowed from her husband's mother living at Wagawaga Pupuna. It was brought to Yabarawa with much blowing of conch shells and laid down by the house of the dead man's sister. Meanwhile the cooking of the vegetable portion of the banahivi had been taking place. When this was complete the pig was killed and cut up ; its flesh with the vegetables constituted the

Mourning Feasts 623

banahivi, which in this particular instance was fetched by folk of the immigrant stock of Hehego. The people who fetched away the banahivi brought with them three pots of cooked taro constituting their melum\ this, it was stated, might be ^ provided and prepared by any member of the dead man's totem, but some of it must be eaten by his brothers and sisters.

Tubetube.

About ten days to three weeks after the burial the first of the feasts called kaiiekapu is given by the people of the dead man's hamlet to the people of one other hamlet of the dead man's totem. Only those of the dead man's totem may eat any portion of the food given to the gariauuna. Thus the food which the gariauuna take home should not be touched by his wife and children; an exception might be made if a very young child cried for a piece, in which case his or her father would probably give it to the child, and although its mother would certainly remonstrate, the father would excuse himself, saying, ' all right, he small now, bymbye he big, he savy that another kind,' meaning that as the child grew older it would learn not to eat of the funeral feasts of folk of other totems, and meanwhile, well, the child was small, and although the proceeding was not orthodox, it really did not greatly matter.

The food constituting the kanekapu and presented to the people (not including connections by marriage) of the other hamlet of the dead man's clan consists of garden stuff and uncooked joints of pig-flesh. As soon as the food is ready, i.e. in the afternoon, the people of the hamlet of the dead man send a message calling on their kinsfolk to come and fetch food prepared for them, by far the greater part of which is carried away to be eaten, though it was stated that the younger men might eat some of their food at the hamlet of the dead man. The people receiving the kanekapu make a smaller return present of vegetables to the hamlet of the dead man; unfortunately the name of this gift of food was not noted. After the kanekapu, coconuts are hung by one of the gariauuna upon the posts of the railing round the grave. The coconuts are stated to be put up 'so man he savy this fellow grave'; but I could not discover that the recognition or

624 The Southern Masstm knowledge of this fact implied any duty\ No man or woman may eat or even touch these coconuts which are left to rot upon the posts until the fence decays.

It is not clear whether in every case more than one kayiekapii is held, probably the number is regulated by the amount of food and quantity of pigs available, although in every case a feast is given some months, perhaps as many as ten months, after a death, and this is the occasion for a widow to quit her mourning. This feast, which resembles a kanekapUy in that food is provided for the gariauuna and for a particular hamlet of the dead man's totem, is called rigariga. As much food as possible is brought from the gardens of the dead man, which have been lightly dealt with in view of this ceremony, and pigs are killed. A present of pork and vegetables is sent to the particular hamlet of the dead man's totem that received vegetables and pig-flesh at the kanekapu, and an equal portion destined for the gariauu7ia is taken to the dead man's hamlet.

It has been already mentioned that a brother of the dead man brought the widow to her dead husband's hamlet, where she is stripped of her mourning gear by the side of the grave. However, since the Government has compelled the establishment of a cemetery at some little distance from the Tubetube j hamlets the ceremony can no longer take place by her husband's grave, but it is still carried out in a modified form in her husband's hamlet.

A portion of the rigariga ceremony as it took place when the change due to white influence was only beginning to be : felt on Tubetube has been described by the Rev. J. T. Field, ; who points out that 'yams, pork, fish, taro, ...sago are all
tabooed... whilst the mourning tokens are worn and the body blackened A man had died... and the gathering was on J

account of this; ...yam trophies had been built by this people" around the grave of the deceased, but, by request, the old chief used his influence with the people to get them to give up this part of the custom, and at his direction the trophies were made in the village and around the house of the widow.

^ The practice of placing coconuts round the grave occurs over a very large part of the Massim area and is perhaps connected with a custom I heard of on Tubetube but omitted to investigate. It was said that on approaching a grave anyone carrying a burden would shift it from his or her head or shoulder. This taboo of custom is doubtless connected with one recorded by the Rev. W. E. Bromilow {Annual Report, 1893-4, p. 78), who writing of Dobu says, 'if a man dies it is tabu for either a man or woman to carry as a man does — on the shoulder^ and 'if a woman dies it is tabu. ..to carry on the head, as women do.'

I

Mottrning Feasts 625

There were about thirty of these trophies, the foundation being made by a large basket of yams; round the basket, sticks from three to four feet in length were driven into the ground about four or five inches apart, and a piece of bark passed round the outside of these, like a string or rope, and fastened near the top, thus binding the whole together, and keeping the sticks or frame from falling when the yams were piled upon those in the basket, and the space enclosed by the sticks was filled up ; then from the top of the sticks the pile was gradually diminished until it terminated in a single yam. The whole represented a great quantity of food. In addition to these, pigs, coconuts, prepared sago, and numbers of yams were suspended over the platforms of the houses on frames of wood. When all the preparations were completed, the widow threw herself down on the ground, and gave utterance to loud wails and sobbing cries, in which she was joined by several relatives. A woman now took a piece of cooked yam, and held it to the nostrils of the widow for her to inhale the odour from it, and then gave it to her to eat, calling out at the same time, so that all present could hear, '' Kanii kaniia !'' "Yam she eats now!" Similarly a piece of pork, a piece of fish, a piece of taro, and sago were offered in turn, and partaken of by the widow. As each piece of food was accepted by her, the woman called out as above, giving the name of the food eaten.'

' This ceremony ended the period of fasting from these things by the widow and her clan, and then the mourning tokens or dress were removed from the woman's neck'\

After the removal of the black mourning pigment the widow is free from her taboos, and as soon as the process is concluded the food intended for the gariauuna is given to them by the brother of the dead man.

Brothers wear no mourning for each other ; a sister sorrowing for a brother wears the mourning neck ornaments {kokoan^ made of string, but she does not blacken herself nor put on a long petticoat, nor abstain from going into the sea. It is said that a woman's hair mats up into long curling locks so as to present the form known as doiona, a common sign of mourning in women. This matting was attributed to the fact that she does not wash in fresh water while mourning, but it

1 'Burial Customs at Tubetube, British New Guinea,' Reports of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science^ 1901, p. 306.

seemed probable that this form of headdress was not strictly Hmited to women in mourning.

When a woman dies, the chief part in her funeral ceremonies is taken by her bara or game who are h^r gariatmna. A woman is maintained in the same position at the time of death as a dying- man, she is supported in this posture by her husband, or by her children, who close her eyes. A new petticoat is put on her by her sister, mother or daughter, and the same ornaments as those put upon a male corpse are placed in position by her children, who also arrange her hair. After her ornaments have been removed she is carried to the grave by h^r game or failing these by her children; h^r gariauuna who receive the ornaments stay by the grave in the manner that has already been described. Her children follow her to the grave but her husband does not do so.

The death feasts are the same as those already described ; the food being provided by her children, or should they be unable to provide sufficient her sisters would supply the deficit. Her husband remains in the house wearing a daam mat in which he wraps himself, and he must wear an old perineal bandage until after the first kanekapu. He blackens himself on the second or third day after his wife's death; it is optional whether he wears kuakua and kokoana, and he discards the daa?n mat when the first kanekapu is over. At the rigariga his children wash ofT his black mourning pigment; this is still done in his wife's hamlet though nowadays everyone is buried in the cemetery imposed by the Government.

Bartle Bay. (By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

A widow wears a petticoat of specially coarse shredded coconut leaf. She also blackens herself and places round her neck the mourning ornaments worn by widows, but we are uncertain at what time this is done. It appears that she does not put on cane mourning armlets until one or more of the dead man's pigs are fit to be killed for the first of the mourning feasts (banivi). This feast is usually held about a month or two after her husband's death, when people seeing the armlets recognize that she is going to kill one or more pigs ; it is said that she wears one cane armlet for each of the dead man's pigs.

Mourning Feasts 627

We are Indebted to Mr Newton for much of the information Incorporated in the following account of the banivi. It has been mentioned already in chapter xxxv that the clans of Wedau and Wamira are united into clan-groups practisinogroup exogamy, and it is between individuals of the component clans of each clan-group that banivi are reciprocally exchanged. It seems probable that where a clan-group contains more than two clans, each clan exchanges banivi with a particular clan within its clan-group, it is even possible that the folk of a particular hamlet habitually exchange ba?iivi with one or more special local groups of a particular clan, but Information is lacking on these points. In order to make clear the extent of the available information on this subject, the following table of the Wedau clans which exchange banivi is given. With the exception of the Lavarata clan which exchanges banivi ^Nixh Taubi^ clan only it follows the grouping of the clans given in chapter xxxv, p. 438.

Iriki, Nabunabu Iriki, Aurana Gaugau

Taubi, Dabana Mutuvia etc. Togatoga, Derama Nabunabum Aurana Ewa Lavarata

Maninolanai, Togatoga Manibolanai, Derama Bouni, Taubi etc. etc. Taubi (only) Diguma Wadobuna Mutuvia, Taubi etc. ?

Modidi Garuboi Dabodabobo Biniwata.

The offer and acceptance of a banivi takes pkice as follows :

One of the dead man's avu goes to the settlement of a clan of his own clan-group with a coconut which he places in front of the taniwaga who either takes or rejects it according he wishes to eat the banivi or not. The liberty here

Aurana an

Nabunabu

Ewa

Bouni f)

Manibolanai

Iriki

«

Gaugau

»

Taubi

»

Derama

?7

Togatoga

»)

Mutuvia

Lavarata

Wadobuna

Diguma

Manabira

Gora

J>

Garuboi

»

Modidi

J)

Biniwata

Dabodabobo as

1 Taubi is an immigrant clan from Paewa to the north-west of Wedau, and he list of the totems of the Lavarata clan given in chapter XXXV .s so "nl.ke he usual scheme of the totems of the Wedau clan that a foreign origin for this clan may be suspected.

40 — 2

indicated is, however, only permissible when the number of banivi exchanged by the two local groups is equal. Thus if group B have eaten the banivi of group A, group A must eat the banivi offered by group B so long as the number of banivi eaten by both groups is not even. But if neither group is in the other's debt in this respect the taniwaga can refuse to eat the banivi, and send the dead man's avu to another group. It is said that the friends of the dead man may be sent from one group to another, backwards and forwards for a long time, until at last one is shamed into accepting the responsibility.

The pig or pigs are killed by the man who accepts the bafiivi, and this man provides the vegetable food constituting the gift called bibiko, which is cooked and sent to the dead man's settlement\ It is unusual for more than two pigs to be eaten at one baiiivi but, since all must be eaten before the banivi can come to an end, there will necessarily be more banivi when the deceased was a rich man owning many pigs. The subsequent banivi do not differ from the first one, and are not necessarily accepted by the same man, though, as in the first ceremony, all the recipient has to provide is the bibiko.

When the last pig has been eaten, specific mourning for the deceased is over, and dancing which has hitherto been forbidden may again take place. If, however, someone else has died in the community a man will wear some sign, such as a hair band and two cowrie shells above the elbow, until dancing again begins, to signify that he has mourned. The widow removes one armlet for each pig killed, and when the lara, as the taniwaga of the community accepting the banivi is called, comes to take the last pig he strips the last armlet off her arm. She then takes off her necklace and washes herself, but does not put on a fresh petticoat until the drums sound for the torela, which corresponds to the Milne Bay toreha, and like it is held only when no deaths have occurred recently in the settlement.

The widow discards her food taboos after the last banivi, but does not eat pig until the torela. Soon after her husband s death she goes to live with a near relative, usually a brother or sister, but returns to her house ceremonially to meet the

^ The following information is less certain than that already given. The offer of the banivi is made by saying * Shall we put your food allotment towards you ?' The man accepting the banivi is said not to eat of it himself, though his children, grandchildren, his sisters' children, and perhaps his wife do so.

I

Avoidance of the Names of the Dead 629

iara on the occasion of the banivi. Her children divide their time between their father's settlement and the houses of their maternal uncles. If there is more than one wife, each of them goes through the same ceremonies. If a widow remarries, everyone of her late husband's local group must give his assent, otherwise a quarrel will probably result.

The last banivi — determined by the number of pigs left by the deceased — is followed by the big feast called torda.

BURIAL AT THE PRESENT DAY.

Tubetube.

The graves are irregularly scattered over an area about 1 50 yards long which faces the sea at the northern corner of the island. There are no obvious divisions between the areas used for burial by the different hamlets, but it was clear that these were known to the natives.

Burial — as of old — takes place at about 10 a.m. on the morning after death, that is to say if a man dies during the night he would be buried in the morning. Should he, however, die during the morning the body would be kept during that day and night and buried the next morning.

AVOIDANCE OF THE NAMES OF THE DEAD.

Wagawaga.

The names of the dead become taboo immediately after death. This avoidance of the name of a dead person is carried so far that their names are actually dropped from the common spoken language of the district while their memory lasts. As a result of this many words are permanently lost, or revived with modified or new meanings. Reference has already been made to the fact that it is a deadly insult to mention the name of any man's dead father or paternal uncle in his presence, while it is a particularly unfriendly act to mention the name of a dead husband or wife before the surviving partner. Further, the mention of the name of the dead was particularly avoided in the hamlet to which the deceased belonged, apparently because of the chance of offending or insulting some relative ; when not in the neighbourhood of any possible relative of the deceased there was far less constraint about mentioning it. It seemed that courtesy and fear of annoying a comrade dictated the usual careful attitude.

It has been stated in chapter xxxvii that a child is usually named after its maternal uncle or aunt, and this custom naturally gives rise to a great deal of name-changing. Two instances may be cited in illustration.

The child of the sister of my informant (Ipunesa) was named Israela, after Ipunesa's maternal uncle ; when this uncle died the young Israela was called Ipunesa, and when Ipunesa dies his sister's child (the young Ipunesa) will of course have to change his name again. Poliwarutu is the name by which a particular man of clan Garuboi is always known, his real name is, or rather was, Botuau, the name of a bird, and he was so named after his ail who was a native of a bush hamlet. When his all died he dropped the name Botuau and took that of a song, Poliwarutu, and on his death this word will be dropped from the current language of the Wagawaga hamlet-group.

The new name given to a man or woman on the death of his or her eponym was, and still very generally is, that of some object of common use, and when a person to whom a name of this sort has been given dies his eponymous object must be given a new name. This leads to much inconvenience, and nowadays the custom of using foreign words as substitute names, which always prevailed to some extent, has become very usual and pidgin-English is commonly used for this purpose, as the following examples show.

Until recently the word for a large bush-knife was kwasikwasi, but a man named Kwasikwasiakero died not very long ago, so a bush-knife is now known as ' go-to-hell.' For a similar reason a coconut water vessel is now called ' finish.' Sometimes two foreign words may be used indifferently as the substitute names for one individual. Thus when a man called Diudiubara died, a youngster named after him came to be indifferently known as Ketaroi (a name from Bartle Bay or its neighbourhood) and Guduhoi, the latter being the name of a Rabi man meaning literally 'open door.'

The custom by which any word resembling the name of a deceased person is replaced by another word appears to be called /o/^/a. With reference to this Mr Giblin writes : Tf the

Destruction of the Houses of the Dead 63 1

name of the dead is inadvertently repeated by a child or a stranger, someone says, '' Hush, that is polo la,'' and if a word with a similar sound is pronounced the speaker is told what the new word is, thus a man named Binama (his totem by-thebye was binama the hornbill) died and all the people of Taupota', whether of his own or other clans, adopted the new name ambadina (literally ''the plasterer") for the bird''.

Tubetube.

As at Wagawaga no man's name is mentioned after his death, and since people are commonly named after their elder clansman a large amount of name-changing takes place. Two examples must suffice : it has been explained that the name Mwakasoki by which the most prominent man of Tubetube is always known is really a nickname meaning ' pig-tusk ' or ' big tooth,' his real name being Waiaga, the name of a particular song. When Mwakasoki dies a pig's tusk will be called dojia, the name in the Tubetube dialect for a boar's tusk which has grown into a spiral and is used as an ornament. But although Mwakasoki is never known as Waiaga, this name will be dropped, and the particular song it denotes will be called karagado, which word it seems is a general name for songs of any description. It might of course be necessary to refer to Mwakasoki after his own death and if the matter could not be intelligently managed by such a periphrasis as so-and-so's brother or nephew, he would be called shark, because a shark, too, has large teeth. Captain Pim independently asked Mwakasoki whether ' shark ' would be his name after he were dead and found that he knew all about it, as he certainly knew the name by which a pig's tusk would be called after his death.

DESTRUCTION OF THE HOUSES OF THE DEAD.

Wagawaga.

Very much the same condition of things prevails here as at Tubetube and although it was said that a sister might move into a dead sister's house, it seems that it does not usually happen.

1 It must be remembered that Wagawaga and Taupota are closely related and speak the same dialect. ■,, r i

2 This name refers to the remarkable habit of the male hornbill of plasienng up the female when she sits on her nest in a hollow tree. A small hole is left through which the male bird feeds the female.

632 The Soitthern Massim

Tubetube.

The following examples of this custom were given at Tubetube. If Dauwia dies before her husband Mwakasoki who, it must be remembered, is childless and has no living brothers and sisters, he will probably continue to live in his present house which is built in his own hamlet, but at his death his house will certainly be broken up or burnt by his kaiikaiia.

Usually a widower who has brothers, sisters or married children living will reside with one of these, in which case his old house may be destroyed soon after he has left it. If a man be living in his wife's hamlet at the time of the latter's death his children would go to live with their maternal uncle or aunt, and the house which the widower would leave may be broken up or perhaps allowed to rot.

A widow may continue to live in the house formerly inhabited by her dead husband in her own hamlet, and perhaps her children after her might also occupy the house, but this seems to have been unusual ; in any case if a widow died childless the house in which she had lived with her husband would be broken up or perhaps burnt.

TOREHA.

'Wagawaga.

This Is the name of the big feast which should be held about a year after a death has occurred, but there might be, and in fact there often was, a much longer interval between any given death and a toreha in the same hamlet-group. This Is because no toreha can take place so long as there are banakivi due, or to put it another way each death delays the toreha till its banahivi are over, so that no toreha can be held in a particular hamlet-group until a period of about a year has elapsed in which no deaths have occurred. When at last a toreha is held, a single feast suffices for all the deaths since the last toreha In the particular community to which the hamlet giving the toreha belongs.

Before a toreha, new houses are built in the hamlet giving the feast, but In spite of this the male guests sleep in the potuma and only the female guests In the women's half of the

Toreha Feast 633

new houses. This building of new houses, in which the whole hamlet-group helps, appears however to be an invariable custom, and while they are being built the youths and girls of the community pass a great part of each night in dancing. The men form an inner circle round the outside of which the girls move clockwise, or the girls give the dance damorea during which they carry and manipulate ceremonial stone axes. Care is taken to finish the houses two or three days after a new moon, and a few days after this the whole community begin to collect pigs and garden produce; the women of the hamlet giving the toreha spend a week or ten days in collecting vegetable food and stack it in the new houses, in which the folk of the hamlet have already taken up their quarters. Pigs are collected from all round the Bay, even Malvara contributing now, though It did not do so formerly. A small present, called ptiyo, consisting of two or three pots of vegetables which are taken away to be eaten, is given to anyone of another hamlet who gives or lends a pig for the toreha. Before this the young men of the hamlet giving a toreha have spent two or three days in collecting wood which, after it has been cut into convenient lengths for burning and stacked in their hamlet, Is used for cooking the vegetables given away as piiyo.

A day or perhaps two days after the fire-wood is brought in, the pigs for the feast are caught and secured under the houses of the hamlet giving the toreha. As many as 20 or even 40 pigs may be killed for the feast ; these are singed by holding burning coconut leaves under them and are cut up on the seashore. On the day that the pigs are killed a platform called watara is built, the material required having been previously collected. The wata7^a Is described as about 8 or 10 feet high and about as large as the floor of one of the best Wagawaga houses. It is put up without any special ceremonial. The pigs when cut up are taken to the watara upon which a great part of the vegetable food has already been heaped.

A toreha was held in the Wagawaga community about four years ago in Kanabwahi hamlet. One Woka took the chief part in directing afiairs and was tanki^aga, that is chiet of the feast or master of ceremonies. Woka belonged to Garuboi clan, but unfortunately I have no note of his relationship it such existed, to any of the dead men on account of whom the to7'eha was held\ The following description of the Kanabwahi toreha is compiled from information derived from men who witnessed or took part in the ceremony.

When the morning of the toreha arrived the men of all the Wagawaga hamlet except Kanabwahi blackened themselves and put such feathers in their hair as they would in the old days have worn for warfare, in preparation for the mock assault called waiapa, which they delivered as they entered Kanabwahi. When the Kanabwahi folk were ready to receive them, that is to say, when pig-flesh and vegetables had been piled upon the watara, the men of Kanabwahi, who on this occasion were not decorated, blew conch shells. This was really the beginning of the ceremony. On hearing the sound of the conch shells the men of the other hamlet of Wagawaga rushed Kanabwahi, throwing their spears at the Kanabwahi men but of course endeavouring not to injure them. They also threw stones and spears into the Kanabwahi houses, and thrust their spears into the thatch of these and into the watara. After a time, when the noise had abated, the men of Kanabwahi mounted the watara while the visitors stood round. Then a Kanabwahi man taking a joint of pig's flesh threw it on the ground shouting the name of the visitor for whom it was intended, thus * Oh-h-h Kerumoio ! Oh-h-h!'' The recipient in every case takes no notice and someone, generally a younger man, though there is no rule, picks it up for him. This is continued until the pig-flesh is all disposed of, each visitor receiving one portion and some important men perhaps two or three. Then the taro and the other vegetable food is similarly shared out. These portions of meat and vegetable food called yope are distributed to all visitors alike, and even the gariauna and those who have exchanged banahivi and meluTn are given yope exactly as other people, receiving no more and no less.

The visitors and guests from neighbouring hamlets do not dance at the toreha, but take the food presented to them to their own hamlet where it is cooked and eaten. After

• Probably he was ail to the last man who had died in the hamlet.

^ Mr Giblin points out that the man who calls out the visitor's name and flings the pig-flesh on the ground 'may add remarks about the character and conduct of the recipient. On some occasions the recipient's clan [? community] take up the matter and avenge the insults received, thus at a toreha (locally torela) at Divari (Barile Bay) a whole village was burnt and several of the feast-givers killed because of an insulting remark made by one of them.'

I

I

IVapa Cere^nony 635

sundown, the younger men return and dance, and this is continued for many evenings. Although there are many dances performed on these occasions, each evening is reserved for a single dance, and from all accounts pediri seems to be the favourite. Dancing upon the watara is said not to occur.

WAPA CEREMONY.

At the toreha the first part of the ceremony connected with the wapa of the dead man takes place ; this, as is stated at the beginning of this chapter, is removed from the body of a dead man by his brother, who keeps it in his house until the toreha. At the toreha he presents a large pig to the ail of the dead man, and the wapa is tied to one of the forefeet of the pig as it lies on the ground with a pole passing beneath its fettered fore and hind feet in the usual New Guinea manner. When the aii have carried away the pig one of them removes the ivapa, which is burnt as soon as the pig is singed. The dunali shells from the wapa are kept, and later the dead man's sisters fatten a large pig which they present to their brothers\ When this pig has been presented one of the ail breaks the dunali and the dead man is now completely 'finished.'

Both these presentations are called ga7napuyaga, and the explanation volunteered by Ipunesa, who was my most efficient interpreter, was * Brother dead, more better I feed you good, you feed me good before we die.'

Bartle Bay.

(By C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin.)

It is not clear how long after the last banivi the tore/a should be held ; certainly subsequent deaths in the community, except in the case of infants, lead to a postponement of the torela until all the banivi for the last death have been eaten. This usually takes from eight months to a year, so that broadly speaking the torela takes place a year after the last death in the community.

1 It seemed that the relationship in the mind of my in^orniants was not so much that of brother and sister as man's brother and sister s child. Probably the reason the mother of the aii fattens the pig is that the ./// would often be too^ young to possess a good pig, or since they would often be livmg m their parents house would not possess the means of fattening one.

636 The Soitthern Massim

The torela Is eaten only by people who are not of the community which provides it. The visitors often bring food in return for smaller clan feasts, but this has nothing to do with the torela, although it might easily give rise to the idea that visitors regularly contributed to the feast and eat their own food at the feast.

We are indebted to Mr Newton for the following additional information. * The death of an influential person would have more effect in postponing a torela than the death of a less important individual. You doubtless remember that the people would not dance for you or beat the drums at Damaladona while they did at Imara. This was due to the death of a young man (married) of some importance. The taboo was not taken off till June 5th, 1905. A new potuma was built and there was a big torela which closed all the ba7tivi for the young man. During the feast certain women came to the chief and he gave them small portions of certain food — vegetable and flesh — which he put in their mouths, and the drums were struck and (I think) mourning badges taken off the women. At the distribution of the food the names of people were called out and the pork and food thrown down for them.... At the same time the opportunity was taken to discuss the bad behaviour of certain people, and their evil deeds were recounted. One man in particular was accused of something and he got up very indignantly to refute the charge.'

• The length of time that would elapse between a death and a torela would depend on the social status (judged by his wealth in pigs and food) of the dead man.'

'At Gelaria, a few miles up the Wamira river, the death ceremonies resemble closely those of Wamira, but the corpse is carried to the grave in a squatting posture, while the clenched fists are placed beneath the lower jaw which they support, the legs being tied together and the arms lashed to the body so that a compact bundle is made. The face of the dead man is not blackened, though if he were a chief he would be buried in some of his ornaments. The body of a chief is deposited in the grave in a squatting position ; a commoner, on the other hand, would be buried lying upon his side. In either case, the body faces the direction whence the dead man's clan is supposed to have come. The children of the deceased would wear mourning for their father, the boys being blackened

Dabadabagigira Feast 637

and wearing armlets, the girls each assuming armlets and a mourning necklace.'

DABADABAGIGIRA.

Wagawaga.

When the toreha is over the people of the hamlet who have given it make a small feast called by this name. It is held the day after the toreha, when two or three pigs which have been specially reserved are killed by a man of the hamlet and eaten. A part of the flesh is given to the women to cook for themselves and their relatives, the other portion is cooked outside the houses and eaten by the men on the watara. It was said to be a matter of indifference whether the pigs eaten on this occasion were home-bred or had been borrowed from another hamlet.

After the pigs are eaten the coconut husks and other debris of the feast are thrown into the sea and the women sweep out the hamlet. This seems to be a purely practical measure, and although like the hamlet feast it bears the name of dabadabagigira, it was emphatically stated that it formed no part of the ceremony of the toreha. The watara is not taken down but is simply left to decay \

1 The watara does not seem to be regarded as specially 'honourable' and raffle was allowed to accumulate on the old Kanabwahi luatara, but on the other hand I never saw a woman go near it. As regards the sweeping up of the hamlet a number of questions ending in frank leading questions were asked as to whether there was any idea of sweeping away the spirits of the dead, but this was always denied, indeed it did not appear that the spirits of the dead were thought of as being present at any part of the toreha.

Mr Giblin points out that the literal translation of dabadabagigira is ' sweeping the scraps away.'

CHAPTER XLVII

MAGIC AND SORCERY.

In chapter xxiv I have alluded to the difficulty experienced among the Roro-speaking tribes in collecting information with regard to magic and sorcery. In the south-eastern district the difficulty of eliciting facts bearing on magic was enhanced by my known connection with a schooner flying the blue ensign which every native regards as the badge of the Government which treats sorcery as an indictable offence.

There is no doubt that magical means were, and still are, believed to be used in order to kill people. Some of the more striking cases which occurred during the year 1902-3 in the Eastern Division (including the part of New Guinea under consideration) are to be found in the official report of Mr A. M. CampbelP, the resident magistrate for the division. Further, the number who have served and are serving terms of imprisonment in Samarai gaol for sorcery is considerable, and although almost every native I questioned denied all knowledge of sorcery occurring in his own community, not one made any difficulty about confessing his belief in the magical powers of neighbouring communities, even when on tolerably friendly terms with the majority of their members.

THE PRODUCTION OF DISEASE AND DEATH BY MAGICAL MEANS.

In Milne Bay Barau appears to be a general term for t disease-producing magic, concerning which the following information was obtained : —

There is a tree called gom, the young shoots of which when chewed to the accompaniment of certain muttered spells are believed to become capable of bringing about death, and

^ Annual Report ^ 1902-3, pp. 26, 27.

Maleficent Magic 639

are used for this purpose. A sorcerer about to use this tree would by the aid of charms make himself rogau, which seemed to mean invisible.^ He would then spit the chewed shoots in the direction of his victim, who in two or three days would feel ill and lie down by the fire in his house, becoming gradually worse until he dies. Although it is not necessary for the chewed o-om shoots actually to touch a man in order to make him ifl, it seemed that the rogau sorcerer would endeavour to come close to his victim before spitting \h^ gom at him. Only the sorcerer who had produced the illness could cure the stricken man, and the cure could only be effected by chewing another root and spitting it upon the victim while muttering spells. Sometimes ginger is mixed with the gom shoots to increase their deadly quality.

There are certain other plants which, when mixed with a man's food, are said to produce vomiting and purging ending in death in one or two days. Whether these are poisons in our sense of the word, or whether the effect stated to be produced is to be attributed to magic, is not clear, and it is obvious that these methods of action are scarcely differentiated in the native mind. There was stated to be another plant which, when rubbed on a man's lime spatula, would in two or three days produce such swelling and ulceration of the tongue in any one eating lime with it that he would die from exhaustion and inanition. This form of poison or magic was said to be invariably fatal.

At Tubetube it was asserted that there were no sorcerers or medicine men on the island, but it was admitted that there were many such upon the neighbouring islands ot Basilaki and Kitai. It was held that almost all deaths were due to the magic of Basilaki folk or other strangers, and it was also said that when anyone was ill any Basilaki man who was on the island might be asked to come to the sick man and see if he could help him. According to Pandea (the maternal uncle of Mwakasoki), who came from Kitai, a sorcerer who desires to kill a man first drinks salt water until he is purged ; he then mixes ginger with the leaves of two trees, dagaiiuari and wakimoi, and secretes a small pellet of the pounded mixture in the cleft between his index and middle finger. When the sorcerer meets his victim he makes some excuse for touching him with the pellet, such as asking him for a chew of areca nut. Presendy the victim of this sorcery becomes feverish, and feeling cold makes a fire and lies close to it ; soon he goes to

640 Tlie Southern Massim sleep, when he becomes comatose and dies. If the friends of a man in this condition could determine who was the sorcerer responsible for the Illness they might bribe him to make the sick man well again, but only that sorcerer who inflicted the disease could remove it. The Tubetube term for a sorcerer or medicine man appeared to he gwanewa.

At Bartle Bay I had the assistance of Mr Giblin while investigating this subject, and although there are doubtless many methods of Injuring and killing people by magical means, we were able only to study that method by which, as it is believed, disease and death are brought about most frequently. This is by means of a ' sending ' projected from the body of the sorcerer or witch ; particular interest attached to the ' sending ' because it is thought of as leading a separate life after the death of the individuals in whom it is normally immanent. The 'sending' is most commonly projected from the body of a woman, and after her death may pass to her daughter, or with her spirit or shade (aru) pass to the other worlds

In the section on warfare Mr Newton has stated that a woman can save the life of a man struck down in battle by throwing her petticoat over him, and that the petticoat used for this purpose is the short petticoat worn next the skin. In explaining this Mr Newton says: 'The fear of witchcraft caused the man to be unmolested.' It seems probable that this custom may be connected with the power believed to reside in the body of the woman, and it is significant that it is the petticoat worn nearest the skin that confers protection.

At Gelaria the ' sending' was called labuni. Labuni exist within women and can be commanded by any woman who has had children. By certain processes unknown to my informant the labuni — which resembles a shadow — emerges from the woman who appears to be sleeping normally at the time. It was said that the labuni existed in, or was derived from, an organ called ipona, situated in the flank and literally meaning ^gg or eggs. The labuni was said actually to leave the body and afterwards to re-enter it per rectum. Although labuiii resemble shadows they wear a petticoat which Is shorter than that worn by the women In this part of the country. Labuni produce

^ This is independently confirmed by Mr Newton ; further Mr Giblin has heard a story in which a ' sending ' /(2r<2«wa is mentioned as entering the other world where it met a man who had also reached the other world.

Labuni Sorcery 641

disease by means of a sliver of bone, or fragment of stone or coral, called gidana, which they insert into their victim's body. A fragment of human bone or a man's tooth is a specially potent gidana. The labmii is said to throw the gidana at the individual to be injured from a distance of about 60 yards, and although it was stated that only the spiritual part of the gidana entered the victim's body, it was also said that if the illness it had produced was cured the gidana would be removed by the medicine man in its material form. An individual into whom the gidana has entered aches all over, at least this seems to be the meaning of the native expression which literally means that the whole of the skin hurts. Labuni produce sickness which is often, though not always, fatal, and it is because of the labuni that folk are afraid to go out at night. Should anyone see a labuni it immediately turns into a snake, wallaby or bandicoot, in which form it wanders about until it can find the i:\QC^s,sdirY gidana, when it reassumes its human form\

Labuni are said rarely to enter a house, and to be frightened away by the howling of dogs who can see them. If no game were found when hunting, it might be attributed to a labuni having crossed the track. A woman might be bribed to send her labuni to injure an individual against whom she had no personal grudge. It was stated that as soon as anyone realized that he had a gidana within him he would cast about for the d I '/./'■ authoress of the mischief, and having fixed upon someone by guesswork or by divination, would beseech her to deal kindly with him, giving her substantial presents of food, pearl shells and other valuables.

Whether the woman, to whose labuni a special case of sickness is thought to be due, be known or not, the gidana producing the sickness can be removed only by the usual^ process called gweri, the woman who had sent the labuni being paid not to remove the sickness, but in order that once her victim is cured she should not again send her labum to injure him. The process of gweri, as the removal of the gidana is called, consists of massage of the body until the

1 Among the Maisin tribe of Collingwood Bay the noxious emanation from a woman which is cAledi parauma at Wedau and Wamira, and labunt at Uelaria is called farum. In a Maisin story the farum is described as a limbless old woman who turned herself into a mosquito and sucked the blood of her victim nighi a ler night. Every morning before daylight the old woman resumed her limbless human form. The girl on whom xht/aruni preys becomes thinner and thinner and is only saved by her sister's son killing iYiQ/arum.

S. N. G. ^'

642 TJie Southern Massim imaginary lump held fast under the skin is sucked out through the closed hands. After the gidana so extracted has been shown to the sick man it is crushed or broken and thrown away. Sometimes, in spite of the application of gweri, the injured man or woman dies. If the gidana cannot be extracted it is believed that it has dissolved in the body, when death surely follows.

The sender of a labuni, even when she had been placated, would not herself gweri her victim, but unless she consented to let him off, the work of the man performing gweri would be in vain, as she would send her labuni to injure him again and again until he died. This does not always occur, as either through ignorance of his recovery, or pity, she does not usually further molest her victim. Some women were known to our informant as being almost entirely supported by persons who, having once, as they thought, experienced their malice, were desirous of avoiding their ill-will \

No instance was known of anyone trying to punish by physical means a woman who had sent a labuni \ indeed it seemed doubtful whether an expert labuni woman would be killed by any ordinary means, for a man once came to Mr Giblin and very mysteriously asked if the white men could give him any poison strong enough to kill a woman who had bewitched his pig.

A case was cited in which a woman, who thought her child had been killed by the labuni of one of her neighbours, herself exerted her power and by means of her labuni killed her neighbour's child.

Reference has been made to the discovery by divination of the woman responsible for sending a labuni ; this was done as follows. A stone would be put in a bundle of grass, which was then swung round the head ; the direction in which the stone flew indicated the direction from which the labuni had come.

Adepts at gweri may teach the process to others, whether they are relatives or not, but the number of those in a given

• Concerning g^weri, Mr Newton says : 'The gweri man comes and finds out ■who the woman is that is responsible for the illness, and the friends of the patient must make presents to this woman, for, unless she be willing to remove the charm, the i^weri man can do nothing. The gweri man is a friend, the woman responsible for the labuni an enemy ; of course the gweri man must be paid, but the sorcerer or witch would bear the gweri man no grudge for his interference.'

Plate LXXII

Aqueduct across the Davudavu creek (Bartle Bay) showing carved figures on posts

Labitni Sorcery 5^0

locality who are considered to be capable of practising p;weri does not appear to be large.

Old men have within them, and can expel from their body at will, an agency called baravu, which is essentially similar to the labuni. Ordinary folk cannot see these, but men who know gweri can. The baravu works in the same way as the labuni, but was said to be far less frequently employed. Senders of baravu need not have had children.

Parailma is the Wamira name for the agency that Gelaria folk call labuni \ pa^^ailma cannot cross flowino- water without some physical support, and the carved figures called kokoitau (Plate LXXII) on the posts supporting the aqueduct across the Davudavu creek are placed there to frighten )2.zV paraiima which seek to cross the creek clinging to the sides of the aqueduct. It is worthy of note that their virtue was said to be in the kokoitau themselves and not to depend on any spiritual power associated with them. As this was quite well understood, and their power of frightening and turning back parailma was considered a simple and perfectly intelligible fact, these figures presented were not classed as bariaua.

Concerning th^ parailma of the Wamira people, Mr Newton says: ' The witch is awake when xhe parailma goes forth on its work of mischief, and returns and leaves the woman's stomach, but I could not find out how it comes out or how it returns.... She would be more dangerous when past child-bearing. The parailma survives the death of the body. Sometimes it passes with the soul to the spirit world ; sometimes it is passed on to a daughter.'

My information relating to beneficent magic points to there being many men, experts in their own departments, whose knowledge causes the gardens to flourish, water to flow in irrigation trenches, and fish and wallaby to be caught. It has been mentioned in chapter xxxvi that one man, Bamdiri, the chief of Wedau, was alleged to be able to bring rain and control the wind'. The coast people of Bartle Bay say that

1 The Rev. Copland King has published some notes on taboo at Bartle liay which show how highly specialised the work of experts may be. {Annual Report, 1893-4, pp. 76, -]-].) After describing a number of taboo signs which have no magical sanction, Mr King gives the following taboos each of which can be imposed by specialists only. All these taboos are imposed by a sign and spell (■6ari).

' People are told whose tabu it is. The man who erects a sign pronounces an incantation which carries a curse on anyone who ventures to break the tabu. Une man can inflict toothache, another pains in the thighs and belly, or pams in the

41 — 2

The Southern Massim men with these powers are especially common at Garagaradi, near the source of the river in the hills. To work their magic one or more of them deck themselves with their dancing ornaments and go to an irrigation dam and splash the water upwards, reciting a charm the while. The same men could stop excessive rain by chewing an odoriferous bark resembling cinnamon and spitting the chewed fragments at the clouds while reciting a spell.

The men who knew the charms appropriate to all these purposes were considered the benefactors of the community, and exerted influence and authority in proportion to the benefits they conferred \ But besides these individuals there privates. In one of them (No. 2), if the fruits get ripe before it is advisable to take the tabu off, the owner of it covers his sign up with a mat ; and when the people have picked what they want he uncovers it again....'

' Some men know wallaby incantations. When hunting is carried on they tabu certain patches of grass, by erecting stones, knotting grass, and saying their incantations. The grass within the tabu is left unburnt till the end of the season, and the wallaby who take shelter in it are believed to remain there, being unable to pass the tabu and go away....'

' The only other tabu is that in which a man from another tribe was brought into Wamira about six months ago. He was asked to come by the chief men, who said the coconuts were all being finished. He planted a special kind of banana and some dracaena, and buried a stone, and shouted his incantation. He was well paid for it, and his tabu can be removed only by himself...,'

'These incantations are the property of those who know them. They were bought from former owners, since deceased, and are sold to those who will preserve them in the future. A good price is paid for them ; they were sold to me for a stick or two of tobacco, but I was known as not likely to want to use them. They are not in the ordinary dialect. Of those written down, one had been bought and learnt at East Cape, another at Awaiama, while a third was said to be in a language spoken by ancestors. Their owners can only give some sort of translation of them, but do not seem quite certain about it. Those which carry a curse seem to be descriptions of the pain of the disease inflicted. The wallaby incantation describes the process of fixing the stones, knotting the grass, and also pictures the wallaby chase. The man who makes the "toothache tabu" has to abstain from ordinary food, eat ginger and spit it out, as when he is driving rain away. Of course all these incantations are softly monotoned in a high pitched voice. ..and are heard by no one except, perhaps, the man who is being taught the performance.'

' It must be noticed that there is no mystery in any part of the tabu, except the incantation. There must, one may suppose, be some unseen power at the back of it, but no one can explain what that power is. I asked the chief, Magaia, of Wamira : but his only answer was, " Who knows ? " — i.e. no one knows.'

' Although this magic is beneficent in intention there is some evidence that when misapplied it may produce injurious effects. I am indebted to Mr Newton for the following instance which seems to indicate this point of view, though it may perhaps be urged that the explanation given is merely the sudden expression of popular wonder and not a reasoned attempt to find an origin for the monster.

'Some little time ago a woman in Wedau gave birth to a monstrosity, with eyes in its forehead and having generally a fishy appearance. The child was born on June 22nd, 1905. ...The natives accounted for the monstrosity by saying that the mother had drunk water from the irrigation canal in the garden, I think after the

I

Beneficent Magic 645

are also people of both sexes, concerning whom we were unable to obtain particulars, who had magical powers and who might succeed where the legitimate practitioners of a department of magic had failed, but who were held in no esteem and were feared rather than liked and respected. Mr Giblin has a slight knowledge of one woman of this description whose advice was sought when an irrip-ation trench, dug by the folk of Wamira with the aid of European tools, failed to carry water. Early next morning she went to the trench, in which she bathed while repeating spells, and according to my informants puddled the clay at the sides of the trench at the same time. As the result of her endeavours water flowed through the trench, and for her assistance she was paid one or more mother-of-pearl shells by the tankijaga of each of the hamlets whose gardens were irrigated by the water carried by this trench.

At Wagawaga the bark of a tree called hurawa is powdered or cut into shavings which are mixed with the shredded meat of a coconut. The mixture so obtained when rolled in a leaf and roasted becomes a powerful means of provoking love. In order to use it, it is necessary that the girl or boy desirous of making a particular member of the opposite sex amorous should squeeze the juice from this mixture over the face of the desired person while he or she is asleep, the result of which is that in a few days the person so charmed will fall violently in love with the user of the charm. It appears that this charm is more generally used by boys than by girls, and while it is said never to fail, the difficulty of squeezing the juice on the face of the desired girl while asleep is freely admitted.

There are certainly many other forms of magic, and the occasions on which they are practised are very numerous, but unfortunately the information given above is all that I was able to learn in the time at my disposal.

water /^rz man had used his incantation. There was no proof that I know of that she had drunk from the canal, but the people assumed she had done so.'

CHAPTER XLVIII

RELIGION.

No cult of a superior being or of the heavenly bodies could be discovered. Nor could I discover any definite cult of ancestors or of the spirits of the dead, though I formed the opinion that in Milne Bay the shades were certainly considered to know when toreha (and perhaps other feasts) were held
Another point of view, not very clearly defined and not readily detected, even when in daily intercourse with the people, is the essential similarity of men and animals and perhaps even trees. This idea is, however, well brought out in the folk tales from Wagawaga as well as those from Taupota and Awaiama.

But though there is no cult of a superior intelligence, nor as far as I could discover any attempt to enter into personal relation with any spiritual beings, there is a sturdy belief in the existence of a large number of mythical beings. Most of these unite malevolent qualities with a bodily form or mental attitude which approach those of man sufficiently closely to permit of these creatures being characterised as ogres. The folk tales abound in examples of such ogres which need no further consideration here, though mention must be made of certain mythical, generally harmless and rather futile beings, with no special functions, and exercising but little influence on mankind or their affairs. It is not always easy to distinguish between these beings and ogres, but it seemed that the former were considered to exist in such numbers as to constitute a race or species and to perpetuate their kind, while ogres were regarded as sports or * freaks ' and were not expected to leave progeny resembling themselves.

• At Bartle Bay the shades were supposed to know when a walaga and perhaps other feasts were held, and the walaga ritual shows that the mango is regarded with a certain reverence.

Non-human Beings 647

Wagawaga.

The individuals of one species of these non-human beings, called niatagaigai, live among the branches of trees and are said to be either male or female. The male is described as an ordinary man, but the female has one large and one small breast. Matagaigai are not regarded as hurtful beings, but when people are ill they appear to them and push their fingers into the patient's flesh in order to discover whether the sick man or woman will recover or die. If their fingers sink in, as they would into a rotten banana, the patient will die.

Another species, called matabiri, live in swamps and among mangroves. They, too, are male and female. Both old and young matabiri have huge protuberant bellies and vast swollen cheeks. They are malevolent and put ' medicine ' on sleeping folk, ' bymbye belly and face swell up and man he die.'

Other non-human beings, called bariaua, who live in trees, are harmless beings who, like the bariaua of Tubetube, cannot themselves make sea-going craft, and are therefore compelled to borrow the canoes of mortals. Bariaua are intensely timid and shy, and above all things dread being seen by man ; nevertheless a story is told of how two bariaua once borrowed a small dug-out canoe ; they fished in it all night, but were surprised as they came on shore in the dusk of the dawn by an unusually early riser, one Burea, now a very old man. As usual, they took to their heels direcdy they knew that they were seen, but on this occasion they left a plentiful supply of fish and a net in the canoe. Burea and his companions ate the fish, and the bariaua net was taken to 2. potunia, where it was hung up, according to the usual practice. Next morning the net had disappeared, and no one doubted that during the night the bariaua had taken their own. No misfortune or bad luck followed the eating of the fish caught by the bariaua.

Tubetube.

Creatures called karawatoniga were thought to live in the bush or among rocks near the seashore. They were said to be perfecdy harmless, but were most frequently seen after a death, for this was their favourite time to 'walk about, and the wailing of the mourners was thought to attract tliem. Everyone was not able to see karaimtoniga, although in form and colour they are human, and like mankind they breed and die. My informants differed as to whether karawatoniga are of the same size as man or smaller. They wear their hair in long ringlets called doione, and their features are either indistinguishable or ill-developed, although it was stated that they had eyes, nose, and a mouth containing teeth. In connection with their presence during the time of mourning, it is worth noting that the manner of wearing the hair in long ringlets {doione) is essentially a mourning custom at Tubetube. Although karaivatoniga were said to exist on Tubetube they are considered to be less plentiful there than on other bigger islands.

Another class of non-human creatures is called susukaikaigeda. They are of both sexes and resemble mankind, but are shorter and excessively pot-bellied and have only one breast. They are described as harmless creatures who live in wet and swampy places where they move about during the daytime. It appeared that special susukaikaigeda are most frequently seen in particular localities which they appear to haunt, and although they are not hurtful anyone seeing them would feel frightened. They are born and die like mankind.

As at Wagawaga another class of non-human beings is called bariaua. They live within the trunks of big old trees, but they were not in any way regarded either as the life or spirit of the trees in which they lived or of vegetation generally\

Like the Wagawaga bariaua those of Tubetube are intensely shy, though it was said that they were not infrequently seen by persons coming quietly round the rocky point at Dagedagera.

It was near here that one Sividaiyoa saw a bariaua fishing. It was in the evening twilight, as is usual with these beings, the bariaua kept peering in all directions, in order to discover the approach of any human being, and directly he saw Sividaiyoa he ran away.

' The Taupota legend of the bariaua tree of the kind called modewa^ which gave its name to an early settlement in the bush of the Modewa stock, is given in chapter XXXIII (No. 21). In this case the term banaua is used in the sense of ' unusual,' i.e. ' not conforming to everyday experience,' ' spiritual ' or ' supernatural.'

Non~human Beings 649

Bartle Bay.

The following species of non-human beings were believed to exist.

Badabada : these are male and have only one leg, they get about with the help of a staff They are rather larger than the ordinary native and live amidst the branches of trees, from which they throw missiles at anyone who approaches them. Their food is unknown, possibly they require none.

Yagarua : these are exclusively male, they are slightly bigger than men and have tangled locks of hair. Each yagarua haunts a given place more or less constantly. One frequenting a hill called Moriri is particularly well known, and although generally harmless, sometimes throws stones at people. Yagarita are stated to have come into existence of their own accord, the words used by my informants meaning literally * of their own will'

Taudo7nbi : these are said to live in springs and swamps. They never die, or at least they live a very long time. They wear the same dress as human beings, but look like white people, and they marry, breed and make gardens as men do. They are invisible to all men except those conversant with the process oi gweri (cf chapter xlvii). Taitdombi laugh at anyone they may see, and though their laughter cannot be heard by mankind they throw real stones which may produce quite serious injuries\

Yoyo : these are male dwarfs. They support the earth, and when they rest or put it down it shakes, hence earthquakes and other volcanic phenomena.

I heard of no cannibal beings, except the ogres of the stories, nor could I discover that there were spiritual beings or other agencies having special control of the gardens, or to whose good offices fertility was attributed.

CULT OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES.

Neither at VVagawaga nor at Tubetube could I obtain any information concerning living beings associated with the sun, moon or stars, but speaking of Rogea, Dr Loria mentions a

• man living in the moon ' called Eaboahine. of whom he says :

• The natives have not been able to tell me where Eaboahine

1 It is probable that in this hilly country small landslips are common.

comes from and how it is that he lives in the moon. They have stopped all my inquiries by saying to me, pointing to the moon: "We have never been there; but don't you see his two eyes, his nose, and his mouth ? " '

He further gives the following ' prayer' to Eaboahine, used when a war party starts on a cannibal raid, which he does not however translated

Eaboahine e ku geba gauma Tnetau Poroporohe gu ku tauiei.

Eaboahine e ku tauiegu gauna ku Piriegu pirika be pitagu be Piriunu ^unuagu be.

Mr C. O. Turner has given me the following account of his experiences at Boianai in Goodenough Bay during an eclipse of the moon :

'About 11.30 p.m. I was awakened by a very loud and uncanny noise. I jumped out of the cabin (Ruby) to see what was the matter and found the noise ashore. One of the police came and asked me what was the matter with the moon. I then noticed that she was clouding over and that an eclipse was about to take place. The noise on shore was the men, women, children, pigs and dogs yelling and screaming at the top of their voices. The villagers were very frightened, and I went ashore and explained to the people what was happening. In about a quarter of an hour the moon re-appeared and the people became calm and quiet again. I asked them why they had caught their dogs and pigs and made them scream. They told us it was always their custom to do that when they were very afraid of anything they did not understand, that the screaming of the dogs and pigs frightened away the ^' devildevil." '

THE CULT OF THE MANGO.

No meaning could be attached to the cult of the mango, of which the walaga ceremony at Bartle Bay seems to be an expression. Neither the ceremony nor the cult appear to exist at Wagawaga or Tubetube. Mr Newton, whom I have consulted on this matter, says : ' The mango is common, and the fruit when in season is eaten by all men and women and children. While not actually a standard food it is very com-

• Annual Report^ 1894-5, p. 41.

The Cult of the Mango 65 1

mon and liked very much. If the old men do not eat it, it is only because the fibre catches in their teeth and annoys them, or their teeth are not strong enough. So far as food is concerned it does not seem to be sacrosanct in any way.' It is never cultivated, nor does it seem to be directly connected with any garden magic beyond that which the zva/aga ceremony itself may be considered to imply. Mr Giblin, whose opinion I also sought, has not been able to connect mangoes and garden magic, but he states that there is a feeling against the unnecessary felling of mango trees, though it is clear that this feeling is not strong. ' When a man cuts down a mango tree for his canoe, as he sometimes does, his comrades reprove him, though no other explanation than the food value of the tree was given for this.'

As regards the significance of the walaga, I believe that in some rather ill-defined way this feast is associated with the spirits of the dead. Mr Newton has independently come to the same conclusion, for he says : ' It seems that in some way the walaga is specially the finale for all death feasts, and the idea is that the spirits of the dead should be gratified by knowing that all duties have been performed. If not, they would take revenge by causing sickness, death and failure of crops ; yet the spirits of the dead do not seem to be present. I tried to get a connection between the mango and the spirits as a sort of link, thinking the expression " We must make one pig squeal so that the mango may hear and be fruitful " might mean that the mango or spirits connected with the mango carried word to the spirit land to let the spirits know all was done well, but this line of enquiry yielded no results. It seems that there is no legend of the origin of the walaga!

It is advisable to state here certain facts connected with the mango, although in the present condition of our knowledge they do not appear to bear directly on the relation possibly existing between mangoes and garden magic or the ideas linking mangoes and the spirits of the dead. At very many, if not all, feasts in the neighbourhood of Bartle Bay the bringing of five pigs is called a 'mango,' and a young mango is cut and carried in procession with the pigs as they are brought in. Concerning this Mr Newton says : ' This mango (usually a branch, not a young tree, I think) is handed to the recipient of the pigs, who keeps it and returns it when payment is made.'

• Seven units, of which the pigs are five, are in some wayconnected together ; the five pigs themselves, the mango and the native stone axe. All these come in procession, the mango and the axe being danced up and down perpendicularly. The axe handle has a special name, koitorua. The man who brings in the mango must abstain from eating mangoes until payment is made.'

The following information, also given by Mr Newton, presumably applies to the walaga and perhaps to other important feasts, such as the torela. ' I have been told, but cannot vouch for the truth of the story, that when a pig is being killed and squeals, a man inside the house — I believe a taniivaga who has been fasting — says " Whose pig is that ? " He is told, and if it is his he rolls on to his right side. At the squeal of the second of his pigs he rolls on to his left side (he is lying down of course) ; at the third pig's squeal he rolls over again, as he does at the fourth. At the fifth pig's squeal it is a "mango" and he leaves the house.'

OMENS.

Wagawaga.

It was not considered specially lucky for a man to see his totem birds before fighting or at any other time. On the other hand, omens were taken from the behaviour of the totem tree. If a man were working in his garden and his father's totem tree were to shed a leaf which moves, or, as my informant said, * walks ' along the ground, he would know that his father was dead. If his own totem tree should behave like this he will be prepared to hear of the death of his mother or sister^

If the cry of a bird called bunebune [PHlopus ornatus) is heard while a man or woman is ill, the patient will die. Bunebune is a kind of pigeon which, subject to totemic restrictions, is said to be eaten as occasion offers in many of the communities of Milne Bay.

It was said that if a beche-de-mer were entangled in a fishing net, no fish would be caught, but it appeared that this was not so much an omen as a statement of facts which had

' An example of the life token occurs in the Taupota story of Taukunugegewari (chapter xxxiii, No. 18).

Omens been repeatedly noticed, and may have depended on some quality of the sea-bottom, or the position in which the net was set.

Tubetube.

On a fighting expedition it was a good thing for a man to hear or see his totem bird when approaching the shore belonging to a hostile community, and it appeared that hearing the bird's cry was more important than actually seeing it. If the totem birds were not seen or heard the party could hardly expect to be victorious. It was a matter of indifference whether an attacking party met or saw their totem fish or snakes, for to see them did not betoken luck, indeed it was repeatedly said that the only omens which were of any value on the war-path were the seeing and hearing of totem birds ; the position in which they were heard or the direction of their flight did not matter. It was stated that for a man to see his totem birds on other occasions than before a fight did not betoken good luck.

When fishing on the reef at night, it is good to hear the cheeping of the flying fox mariboi, while the cry of the bird called lowiri betokens such bad luck that a fishing party hearing it will usually return at once.

Bartle Bay.

The following note on omens is sent by Mr Newton: — ' If a firefly enter a house at night, it is a sign that someone in the house will die.'

' If a man working in the garden or away from home cut himself with his digging stick so that the blood flowed, he would say : '' What has happened or is happening to my people at home.-^" And he would expect to find an accident had happened to one of his relations.'

DREAMS.

No reliable information could be obtained concerning dreams, though it was ascertained that dreaming was common and some men certainly had erotic dreams, though I think not frequently. Visits paid to the other work! by Wakuri and his like are probably to be regarded as examples of particularly vivid dreams, partly perhaps the result of autosuggestion. Dreams have a direct influence on the action of individuals both in real life and in folk tales.

Romilly records that a party of Tubetube men 'started on a trading voyage to a village in Milne Bay.... They had often traded there before and anticipated no danger. They had started at an inauspicious time, however, as an old woman the nio"ht previous to their departure had dreamed a dream and warned them against going. On their arrival in Milne Bay they were received in an apparently friendly manner, but at a given signal the whole party with the exception of one young man and a little boy were treacherously tomahawked^'.

Again In the Wagawaga story ' The Bat's Cave ' (chapter XXXIII, No. 6) an old woman who dreamt that fish were to be caught at a certain place went there In the morning in obedience to her dreaml

DIVINATION.

Wagawaga.

Thefts were detected by a form of divination which is apparently called sula. Some man ' who savy ' takes the leafy branches of certain trees and sings spells over them ; then he swings the branches to and fro, the motion being from the shoulder-joint while the elbow is stiffly extended. As he does this the branch pulls him in the direction of the thief, who. It was stated, when taxed would always give the stolen property back. Another method of detecting wrongdoers, which was said always to have been practised at Awaiama, has recently been introduced into Wagawaga, where it appears usually to be applied to the detection of a wife's lover, though it may also be used to detect a thief If a man suspects his wife of infidelity and she denies the allegation,

1 Annual Report^ 1887, App. H.

' Instances of the importance of dreams can also be cited from other parts of the Massim area. In the Awaiama story 'The Fig Tree' (chapter XXXIII, No. 22) a father fishing at some distance from home dreams of his children, which causes him to neglect his fishing and come home. With reference to Wakuri and his visits to the other-world other instances from the Trobriands and Murua are given in chapter LV, while Mr Giblin writes : 'There seem to be one or two such visitors in every district.'

Concerning Murua the late W. Tetzlafif wrote : 'They are also very superstitious as regards dreams ; what they dream of at night they firmly believe will take place ' {Annual Report^ 1890-1, p. 105).

Rschatology (^rr he takes the leaves of a tree called popori and certain other leaves and squeezes the red juice from these into a piece of an old pot or another shallow open vessel. Then in the quiet of his own house the man stares into the pot where he sees the face of his wife and her lover ; should his wife still deny the alleged infidelity he may bid her look into the fluid when It IS said that she will recognize her own face and that of her lover. When applied to the detection of thieves this method seems to be implicitly believed in; the accused would not brazen it out and deny that the image seen was true for

• inside belong him no good, man he savy.'

ESCHATOLOGY.

Wagawaga.

The name given to the 'spirit,' 'shade' or 'soul' of a dead man is arugo, another word yautu being used for the breath. Arugo is also the name for a man's shadow and for his reflection in a glass or in water, and though trees and animals have no active living 'spirit,' their reflection bears the name of amtgo. At death the arugo leaves the body and goes to the other world, Hiyoyoa, under the sea near Maivara at the head of Milne Bay.

Hiyoyoa in all respects resembles this upper world except that it is day there when it is night at Wagawaga, and its inhabitants speak of the upper world by names in use among the folk of Milne Bay. Hiyoyoa is presided over by one Tumudurere, who lives on a hill in the underworld with his wife and children, who are white-skinned and smooth-haired as he is himself. It was said that Tumudurere had always lived in Hiyoyoa, and my informants were certain that he never existed as a man on earth. To say that Tumudurere presides over the underworld is perhaps an exaggeration, for although it was recognized that he was a ' big' man, the only definite act of authority assigned to him was that he received the shades as they arrived at Hiyoyoa and told them where to make their gardens. No information was forthcoming concerning any work done by Tumudurere or his wife in their own gardens, or how they obtained their food sup{)ly, but my informants did not think that Tumudurere set the shades to work to make gardens for him.

It is not uncommon for living men and women to journey to Hiyoyoa and return to this world. The arugo alone is said to perform the journey, though in speaking of it Wakuri of Wagawaga, who says he has been to Hiyoyoa many times, and can go and return whenever he pleases, uses the personal pronoun and clearly identifies himself with his arugo. In order to reach Hiyoyoa Wakuri 'medicines' himself, generally in his own house, smearing certain bush * medicine ' upon his body, when he falls asleep, to awake in Hiyoyoa. No details could be elicited concerning the road to Hiyoyoa or of adventures sustained upon the journey thither. A day and a night is the longest stay made by Wakuri in Hiyoyoa, where he states that he has a wife and children, admitting, however, that he made no bridal feast. The shades did not invite him to partake of their food until he had paid several visits to Hiyoyoa, because they knew that the result of his eating their food during an early visit would have prevented his return to the upper world. It appeared that the majority of the folk of Wagawaga fully believed in the truthfulness of those who asserted that they had been to Hiyoyoa, and certain shrubs were pointed out as having sprung from plants brought back from the underworld. A certain Tokeri, who was subsequently imprisoned by the Government for a short time for making ' fool along altogether man,' as my informants put it, also knew how to go to Hiyoyoa. As the result of his journeyings thither he warned the people of Milne Bay to kill their pigs and to build houses in the bush, for, said he, a great wave would presently come from Hiyoyoa and, flooding the coast, would sweep their dwellings away. Following the wave Hiyoyoa would appear at the head of Milne Bay, beneath which it now exists. At Gabugabuna, his own hamlet, his words were believed, and many pigs were killed and houses built in the bush. At Wagawaga they were content to build houses in the bush without slaughtering their pigs, while Maivara remained sceptical and refused to act on his prophecies. As time passed and there were no signs of the fulfilment of the prophecy, the feeling of the Bay turned strongly against the prophet. Tokeri could not, however, be killed out of hand, because Samarai, the seat of the Government, was too near. He was threatened with death so often on account of the pigs he had caused to be killed and for the trouble he had caused in the Bay, especially to

Eschatology (^r-j the old folk, that the Government rose to the occasion, and interned the prophet for a short time upon some technical plea of extortion connected with the pig-killing, until the heat of resentment had abated.

Tubetube.

At Tubetube the ^soul,' 'spirit,' or 'life' is C2^^d yaruyariia, and the same term is applied to the ghosts of the dead, but a different word kwanukwanuna is applied to the shadows of the living. The yaruyarua of dead people might be seen in dreams when they might talk to the dreamers, and they always appeared as the dead were in their prime; thus the yaruyarua of a man who had died of the foulest ulcers would, in a dream, appear in perfect physical condition.

The yaruyarua does not leave a corpse immediately after death, but stops near it, though not within it, until it is buried, and is thus sharply distinguished from the breath of living creatures [yawasi). Yaruyarua do not get old nor die but persist on Bebweso, a wooded hill close to Rebudoa village on Duau (Normanby Island). To reach Bebweso they leave Tubetube at the rounded headland to the north of Paie hamlet, travelling by an imaginary or submerged reef called Yaruauneti (literally the step of shades) to Digaragara near Bebweso. Yaruyarua marry, breed, and make gardens as mankind ; their gardens have been seen by folk from hamlets near Bebweso, and it is notorious that one man, Maritaiyedi of Gesiwe near Bebweso, has frequently visited the ' other world,' where he eats with the shades without experiencing any difficulty in returning to his home.

Bebweso is also believed to be the abode of spirits by the folk of that part of Normanby Island in which this 'striking looking hiir is situated. Sir Francis T. Winter mentions that Mr Bromilow stated that the natives had endeavoured to prevent him from approaching this hill, saying that if he did so the spirits would be angry and would do him serious harm'.

Bartle Bay.

A man's spirit or soul is called aru ; after death it goes to Maraiya in the south-east 'where is the Lord of the dead

S. N. G.

1 Annual Report, 1894-5, p. 10.

4a

Tauurnariri (for Wedau) who prepares the place for each and assigns to each his place.'

For this information I am indebted to Mr Newton, who says concerning the Wamira people : ' When a man dies, the spirits in the spirit world know of the death by the falling of something called obu from a tree, and one then remains on the look-out to see who is coming from the upper world. When the spirit comes it passes up the Uruam, the further river, into the mountains — for the soul knows its way — the ** older" dead man sits with his back to the newcomer and asks him *'Why have you come?" The answer is *'So-and-so (naming the witch or sorcerer) has sent me." Some more conversation goes on, and apparently the new arrival asks where he should go if not to his own friends, and he is then taken to the village where he lives henceforth. The skins of the spirits are white and there is plenty to eat. No sickness or evil assails them, but on the other hand, it was said that the wealthy here are wealthy in the other world, and so on

Each community has its own place. The spirits can go out fighting as they did here, and it seemed that anyone then killed was destroyed for ever, indeed all could die again and that would be the end. They would know their own friends and, on the whole, life in the other world is a repetition of life here.'

A man's shadow or his reflection in water or a mirror is also called aru. A man may sneeze when he becomes angry, otherwise sneezing is considered a sign of approaching illness.

MAP

of the

TROBRIAND GROUP

Stajtute Mile* I 2 3 ♦ s 6

Coral, reef «Kx)wn. thus

\ ffioijiva^

XYBTuri.fKudd,

Touw

KADAWAGA

Itinleldi xbwaqec 'laliijotu.

•m. I :1-.

£a£bolxL

Sturi'

KaJnuroJox, • 'OlonwcaKta

OltopoJia.' •OlcaiJcodxi

• Labai. Obu-oxIxL V

Liifculilnilj.. .n v_ •iKcLuXaVa.

Kotttwo-* •Btjilavoi, 'Ittlxtrnga,

MUIA.U BAY

SaJiahoho

KcLduJuvoilLeLa lalaJca.

'BoitaJbjL

• OabxijbuTnjcr .LohxLa .GumiJbaJbaha

• OaouuLo. 'OViyTlrx. .OIcopuLkopu. VvLoIijnja.

KIRIWINA

^^^'

-ATxiii

KITAVA

^

YagxOi

'.i)V.\KUTA

Kau-iakn.

Fig. 46.

42 — 2

CHAPTER XLIX

GEOGRAPHICAL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS.

The Trobriands.

The Trobriand Islands consist of a number of low-lying coral Islands, the largest of which, commonly known as KIrlwIna, though Its real name seems to be Bwalyor, is some 25 miles long and varies in breadth from about i-^ to 7 miles
The two Islands of this group next in size are much smaller, and are roughly about equal In area. One of these, marked Kaileuna on the maps and charts but known to the natives as Kadawaga, lies Immediately to the west of KIriwIna, and Is some 7 miles long by about 2 broad. The other Island Vakuta is roughly of horse-shoe shape, and lies off the extreme southern point of KIrlwIna, from which it Is separated by a boat passage only. A few miles to the west of Kadawaga lie an intricate series of reefs and small Islands constituting the Lusancay Islands and Reefs. One of these Islands, called Tuma, situated on the northern edge of the sunken barrier of this reef field and lying about 9 miles N.W. of Cape Denis, the most northern point of KIrlwIna, Is of interest as being the reputed other-world to which the spirits of the dead from the Trobriands, the Marshall Bennets, Murua, Tokunu and probably Nada all go. Other small Islands, such as Nuata and Nubian on the eastern edge of Lusancay Reefs, are generally considered to belong to the Trobriands, and were

^ I am not certain whether Bwaiyor, the name undoubtedly applied to the northern portion of the largest island of the group, is also used by natives when speaking of the whole island, and accordingly the well-known term Kiriwina is retained for the latter.

Fig. 47.

said, like the latter, to build some of the large sea-going canoes called waga.

The dwelling-houses of the Northern Massim are all built upon the ground and closely resemble the Murua house shown in Plate LXXIV, p. 675.

i\Ir Bellamy points out that Kiriwina and Kadawaga are divided into a number of districts, each with a native name, as shown in his sketch map of Kiriwina (figure 47), but it is not clear how far these districts correspond to the areas over which individual chiefs {guyau) hold sway\ Mr Bellamy adds that although ' nominally all the land of a village belongs to the chief, there is individual ownership behind this, as is obvious enough when purchasing land on Government account.'

Some villages on Kiriwina consisted of closely packed masses of houses, arranged in no obvious order, as is the case in the large village of Kavatari, with an estimated population of about 1000, and in many smaller villages such as that shown in Plate LXXIII. In other villages two more or less parallel rows of houses were arranged facing each other on opposite sides of a broad village street. Boitaru is an excellent example of this form of village, and here the members of each of the constituent clans of the village have their houses arranged together. A roughly circular arrangement of the houses is found in some Kiriwina and Kadawaga villages, the yam houses being arranged concentrically round a clear space and the dwelling-houses outside these. An indication of this arrangement is to be seen in Plate LXXVI which represents part of a village on Kiriwina ; the low dwelling-houses are all in the background of the photograph behind the decorated yam houses. A single instance may be mentioned here illustrating how the fusion of hamlets into a tolerably large village may influence the politicosocial system and make for solidarity: a widow when vacating her dead husband's house would in many instances remove to the other end of the village in which she had been living as a married woman, instead of going to another hamlet.

There are no clubhouses in the Trobriand villages, the nearest approach being a roofed-in platform called boimaviaka,

' Only two of the districts shown in the map have names to which any meaning can be attached. These are Kulomata meaning 'sand beach' and Kudouia signifying 'big stones.'

X X

bo

•a c

.2

o h <

on which the men sit during the day and sometimes sleep at night. In large villages there may be two or even three of these roofed platforms, upon which women may not come, though they may sit on the ground near them. Besides the boimaviaka there are also other much rougher platforms, on which women are permitted to sit, and it seemed clear that this was allowed even in the old days before white influence was felt.

With the possible exception of Murua, chieftainship appears to be more highly developed in the Trobriand Group than elsewhere in British New Guinea. This matter is discussed at some length in chapter li, so that it is here necessary only to point out that in this group chieftainship is hereditary, and it is no exaggeration to speak of an aristocracy.

I have given a brief description of the physical characters of the islanders elsewhere \ but it may be noted here that some chiefs are bigger men than the commoners. This was quite obvious at Kavatari, where Pulitari and his brother were noticeably taller than the other men seen in the village which I visited on two occasions.

The islanders do not tattoo to any extent, except a few men who have worked with Europeans and so come in contact with natives of other parts of the Possession. The custom may perhaps be regarded as steadily spreading here, as it is over a large part of the south-eastern district, although it is certain that in the old days neither sex tattooed, or produced cicatrices with any decorative intent.

Of old a good deal of fighting seems to have gone on between different villages, and hostilities were not restricted to communities acknowledging different paramount chiefs ; indeed, in one instance, occurring in 1897, in which a fight was formally arranged by the contending communities, both of them, according to the information gathered in 1904, acknowledged the supremacy of Enamakala. This instance is referred to by Sir William Macgregor as follows : —

• Latterly there had been a serious quarrel between the villages of Kadukwaikera and Gumalababa. It arose out of the ownership of a piece of planting ground which both sides claimed. No accommodation could be arrived at by diplomatic

1 'A classification of the Natives of British New (Guinea' in Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. Vol. XXXIX. 1909, pp. 272, 273.

means, so it was finally determined to leave the solution to the arbitrament of the spear. The field was accordinglyselected and cleared for combat. They fight always in the afternoon, and it was found before it was too late that the rays of the afternoon sun would be in the eyes of one side. A new field was thereupon cleared, which the rays of the declining sun would traverse obliquely. There the warriors met but unfortunately two men of Kadukwaikera were killed and several more were wounded.... The wounds were from spears and on the leg ; presumably the shield protected the upper part of the person but left the leg exposed, but numbers of shields were split by spears thrown against them, and this of course left a few men more defenceless than others '\

The warlike propensities of the islanders led not only to fighting on a considerable scale, a number of villages attacking the chief Enamakala, but to an attempt to ambush a Government party as recently as 1899. Although the attack was never pushed home, its failure cannot in the first place be attributed to lack of courage, but to one of the four attacking parties coming in contact with the constabulary prematurelyl The attacking party in this instance consisted of men who had but recently driven Enamakala and a number of his adherents from their villages which were burnt. After peace had been established, Moliasi, the active leader of this faction, stated that the reason for the attack was that he and

^ Annual Report^ 1896-7. App. I, p. yj.

2 Mr M. H. Moreton gives the following account of this attack : 'We started from Kavatari at 9.40 a.m. to visit Enamakala. The party consisted of seven constabulary, five boys who had been in the employ of the Government before, some carriers and myself. We went through the villages of Gumilababa and Kapupu. The chief of the latter place named Giogaga accompanied us and led the way from his village. After we had walked about twelve minutes, and half of us had got over a garden fence into the bush, I halted to allow the tail to get over. Whilst waiting I heard a great commotion in our rear, and on doubling back found that it was bemg attacked. There was a large number of natives with shields and spears hanging about our rear, and some had approached to within about thirty yards. However, twenty-five shots sent them scattering with the police at their heels, but the coral was too much for the police, and no captures were made The police returned bringing a shield bespattered with blood, and a bullet hole through it, together ,with a few spears. On continuing our route, we found where a large party had been lying in ambush about sixty to eighty yards ahead of where I turned back from, so it seems that they had laid their plans fairly well, had it not been for the impetuosity of the others, who must have been spoiling for a fight. I was told afterwards that there had been four parties round us — one as I have just mentioned, in ambush, one in the bush on either side, and the one that attacked us.' Annual Report, 1899-1900, App. B, p. 10.

JVarfare 665

his men 'had heard so much about the fighting with rifles that they were curious to know what it really was like ' \ The cause of the rising against Enamakala was, that 'in years gone by — some fifteen years, may be — when Enamakala was a much younger man, he had harried and burned down the villages of Lukulikuli, Kwabaku, Wakaise, Obwaria, Toboada, Boiatavaia, Megegila, Molukalaya, Waraibido, Koboko, Okaikoda, Wagarimu, Oboada and Kulua,' and the warfare of 1899 was the revenge (mapuld) for this. The dissatisfied party, which included the people of the villages ' Oboada, Okaikoda, Kwabuku, Toboada, Boitavaia, Kulua, and other smaller ones,' also complained that Enamakala did not perform his duties as a chief satisfactorily, inasmuch as he was niggardly in distributing food, and also that * his brother and successor Tauulu was a sorcerer and a bad man.' As the result of'the fighting, Enamakala, whose resistance was of the feeblest, was driven out of his village of Omarakana, which was burnt down, its gardens, coconut and areca palms being destroyed, and its pigs and fowls killed or driven away. ' They also looted the mission station there, and destroyed the teacher's garden, killing the pigs and fowls, but they did not burn the church nor his dwelling-house. Eleven other villages were treated in the same way, namely : Kwapani, Yuwada, Mitava, Liluta, Savi, Kokokabidi, Kaulaga, Kwabagi, Yolawota, Tilakaiwa, Wakailu. Many houses full of yams were burnt at the same time, causing great loss.' And the defeated party were ' driven to Giugwa, about two miles from Tukwauku, where they had formed a temporary encampment ' '. In warfare conducted on the scale of that just described, it was formerly the custom to keep the defeated party out of their village sites for some time — according to Mr Fellowes ' at least one year ' — and although equal presents were given and received at the peace meeting, peace was only made when the 'defeated chief after seeking and receiving permission, has... come to the village of his conqueror' and there made ' his offering of atonement ". An account of the actual peace-making ceremony (kabiluLa) which took place in 1900 between Taolu, successor to Enamakala, and Moliasi his conqueror, has been given by Mr Fellowes.

1 ^««i^rt/7?^jZJ^r/, 1899-1900, App. B, p. II. . , . / r>.>,^/ f^r

2 This accoimt is condensed from that given in the Annual Report for 1 899-1 900, pp. 9 to II.

3 Annual Report, 1899- 1900, App. D, p. 20.

• Last Saturday Moliasi came to see me. He informed me that Taolu had visited him the day before, in his village Kabwaku On Tuesday, Taolu came to ask me to accompany him on the morrow to the kabilula. We arranged to meet at the inland village of Obweria. I was there early, and about 9 o'clock Taolu arrived with a numerous retinue, all fully armed with spears and shields and long knives. Taolu carried no weapons, but I noticed that, in addition to the ordinary ornaments by which 2. guiau is distinguished, he was also wearing the sacred emblems of royalty — the armlets and wristlets previously held by Enamakala and his predecessors for many generations in the office of supreme guiau in the ruling Labai family of Kiriwina. As Obweria was the first village in Tilataula territory entered by Taolu, he was here formally received by a Tilataula chief. This man, named Kunol, rushed Into the centre of the village and began jumping about and gesticulating like a madman, never once looking at Taolu, but addressing him, and him only, all the time. In effect, he said: ** Taolu, we are glad to see you, we acknowledge you as our guiau, in succession to Enamakala. We have had enough of fighting, and everything is ready for making the atonement to-day. All the Tilataula chiefs are waiting for you in Kabwaku. Let us go and make peace. Then come back and live in your village, Omarakana, and rule the country as a guiau should. Make peace and keep the peace ; put away all the spears so that there be no more war." Then, striking his forehead with the palm of his hand — the usual pledge of a chief that he would defend from danger — he made a leap to where Taolu stood, grasped his hand, and drew him to the path leading towards Kabwaku. As a dramatic performance Kunoi's action was perfect ; its effect on the men standing round was electrical. They simply roared out their acclamation to the guiau, and shouldering their spears, they crowded pell-mell into the narrow track after their leaders. Beyond the village the procession was marshalled. A band of warriors took the lead, headed by a sorcerer, who, with his continuous Incantations, cleared our path of all evil spirits. Following these came about twenty women, carrying on their heads the appeasing gifts of the kabilula, then the chiefs with more warriors, and behind came the crowd.'

• Going In single file, the column stretched out to a great

Warfare 667

length. At frequent intervals a wave of cheering ran down the line. The excitement increased as we went along, and reached its climax in deafening acclaims as we entered Kabwaku, where Taolu was welcomed by Moliasi in fine dramatic style. This was a proud day for so young a chief as Moliasi, and he was equal to the occasion.*

' A clear space was quickly made in the middle of the village in front of Moliasi's house. The multitude of armed men with their spears in their hands eagerly crowded round. At one end of the rough circle stood Moliasi, stern and silent, surrounded by other chiefs of his side ; at the other end, Taolu and his friends were busy unpacking their things. The proceedings were opened by Taolu rushing into the ring and carrying aloft a valuable armlet, which he laid on the ground, at the same time crying out in a loud voice Kamilula Moliasi (thy atonement, Moliasi). He immediately turned and retired, and the armlet was instantly snatched up and handed in by one of Moliasi's men. Again and again Taolu repeated this performance, each time bringing only one vaigua (article of wealth), and calling out the name of the chief to whom he was giving it. Some of his friends also did the same. In this way between thirty and forty different vaigua, consisting of armlets, old stone tomahawks, necklaces of native money, etc., etc., were presented and received. Then Taolu ran in and made a speech to Moliasi and his people, simulating furious passion as he sprang from side to side of the circle, and swung his arms about in energetic gesture. He addressed them as Bodagua (my younger brothers) and said : '' I am weak to-day through the death of my elder brother Enamakala. Had he been alive to-day he would have brought more vaigua than you have men. I have brought you my own vaigua as your lula ; let that suffice. We are living in the bush, permit us to return to our villages. Put away your spears and let us work at our gardens that there may be plenty of food for ourselves and our families. Then Moliasi and the other Tilataula chiefs began to present the return lula to Taolu. In the same manner, one by one. article for article, they laid down the exact equivalent of the vaigua they had received. After this they made their speeches, all of them definitely accepting Taolu as thc-ir guiau ' ,11 r

'A young chief, Meiosivalu, the right-hand man ot

Moliasi, said that though he was young when Enamakala and his men had driven his people out of their village, he remembered the death of his relatives and the burning of his home. It was to take the mapula (payment) for this that he had fought, but the present kabilula settled all....'

• Then Taolu made his way into the midst of Moliasi's men and, holding high a stick of tobacco, he called out, '* Which of you will take this tobacco and distribute it so that we may smoke a pipe of peace together ? " Twenty eager hands were stretched out to grasp it. With the acceptance of this tobacco the kabilula was completed, and the ceremony concluded' \

Mr Fellowes adds that about a fortnight later when Taolu and his people settled once more In their villages * the men, who three months ago fought and drove them away, now welcomed them back with presents of food, and helped them to clean up their villages and build new houses.'

This account illustrates the scale on which fighting formerly took place In the Trobrlands, and is also Interesting because it shows the aristocratic tradition in action, though it seems certain that Mr Fellowes Is not correct in attributing an almost kingly supremacy to Enamakala and his predecessors. Working independently, neither Mr Bellamy nor myself could find any evidence that at any period either Taolu or Enamakala held supreme authority over even the whole of KIriwina, much less the whole Trobrland Group. Again, Mr Fellowes' account of peace-making is perhaps somewhat coloured.

Taolu, who is a member of the Tabalu family of the Malasi clan, i.e. the family providing chiefs [guyau), undoubtedly has some fine native jewellery, especially armshells and kaipwesi (walstbelts of shell discs) and many neku (ceremonial axe blades). Much of this wealth he obtained upon the death of his brother Enamakala, but it is hardly correct to speak of any portion of it as the 'sacred emblems of royalty, etc.,' for this property is absolutely his own and can be sold or given away as he (Taolu) wishes. This matter will be further discussed in the section on Chieftainship.

In spite of the formal and highly ceremonial usages of peace-making and the absence of cannibalism (for the existence of which neither Mr Bellamy nor myself could discover any

• Annual Report^ 1899- 1903, PP* 20, 21.

Trade evidence), it seems that prisoners were not taken, *no quarter' being the rule\

The Trobriand islanders are, as a rule, keen traders, though it seems that there is a good deal of difference in the amount of foreign trade carried on by the different islands of the group. It appears that the island of Vakuta breeds the boldest sailors, their canoes making their way to the Amphlett^, i ///d./* Fergusson and the adjacent small islands in the neighbourhood of Dawson Straits. The people of Kadawaga (Kaileuna of the maps) on the other hand acknowledged themselves to be less bold sailors, and this in spite of the fact that some of the villages, such as Koma, build waga, the sea-going craft of the district. The owner of a waga that was being built at Koma village said that he would use the canoe for coasting purposes only, and would make no long trips in it.

The manufactures and thus the exports of the various districts, and even villages, vary a good deal. Vakuta is said to manufacture the greater part of the shell discs called sapisapi, and its inhabitants are reputed to be specially skilled in wood carving. The Rev. S. B. Fellowes says, * Luia people make the hand baskets (three tiers, with strong handles), which are used to carry a lime bottle and small articles. This manufacture is almost exclusively confined to Luia.' The energy and skill with which the people of Boitaru turn out wooden bowls, and combs for the hair, is remarkable, and a considerable trade is done in them. Mr Fellowes notes that Boitaru makes wooden clubs and bowls, fibre armlets, and combs for the hair, and the ' Oabutuma people make lime bottles out of gourds... Vilalima grows the finest bananas* while 'Koma, on Kaileuna Island, grows the best sugar-cane''. Mr Gilmour informs me that there are but five villages in

^ In spite of the savagery this imphes, accidents were readily atoned for by payment of native valuables ; such payment would usually be accepted in full discharge of all responsibility in the matter, though in some cases Mr Bellamy has 'come in contact with an actual vendetta.' For the following most mterestmg instance of extended responsibility I am indebted to Mr Bellamy.

' Recently a case came under notice in which payment was made by a man who was not actually the cause of death. This man was in his canoe with three others, one of whom was a youth of about 14 years. Seemg a shark in shallow water this man drove his spear into it ; the spear broke off leaving five inches or so m the shark, which plunged upward and struck the canoe, knocking the youth into the water. The shark turned quickly and seized the boy, tearing out the whole of one side from shoulder to groin. He died, of course, and the owner of the canoe, the man who had speared the shark, paid the relatives just as if he hinibelf had speared the boy.'

2 Annual Report^ 1897-8, App. GG, p. I47-

KIrlwina in which the rough adze blades brought from Suloga were ground. These villages are Mudakavala, Okaikoda, Okabobo, Obowada and Wagabuna, and the grinding was done with sand called maia brought from the D'Entrecasteaux group for this purpose.

The Marshall Bennets'.

The Marshall Bennet Group consists of five islands lying between the west end of Murua and the Trobriands. They are named Gawa, Kwaiawata, Iwa, Dugumenu, and Kitava ; the last is sometimes considered to belong to the Trobriand group from which, however, it is nine miles distant. Dugumenu is a low coral island, about half a mile in diameter, covered with vegetation and bearing many coconut palms ; there is said to be no permanent habitation on this island, though it is often visited by canoes from other islands for the purpose of fishing and of gathering coconuts, when camps lasting a week or two are said to be formed. The remaining islands of the group are all elevated atolls. At Iwa the coral wall has been elevated to a height of about 350 feet at the south-eastern extremity of the island ; at Gawa and Kwaiawata the reef is about a hundred feet higher. Only the northern end of Kitava was visited, and here the edge of the reef rises to a height of about 300 feet. All the islands are more or less terraced, and on Iwa this terracing is particularly marked, and the ascent is easy after a short but almost vertical portion of the cliff face, immediately above the beach, has been climbed. On some of the islands, notably on Kwaiawata, a portion of the cliff face is so sheer that it can only be scaled by ladders, which have been made and placed in position by the natives. On Gawa the floor of the old lagoon is from 60 to 100 feet below the edge of the atoll, and much the same condition exists upon the other islands. The soil covering the old lagoon bottom is a rich heavy vegetable mould and appears to be extraordinarily fertile. The usual small hamlets of the district and extensive gardens alternate over the greater part of its area. The parts of the central depression not under cultivation are covered with a thick growth of young timber and ferns, contrasting with the trees of large girth on the

• There is some doubt as to the correct spelling of the name of this group, I follow that used in Sailing Directions, uncultivated lip of the coral reef. Kitava, the largest island of the group, is said to have an area of ^v^ or six square miles, the other islands are all much smaller. Gawa, the easternmost and second largest, is roughly circular and not more than about two miles in diameter'. On Kitava there are many gardens on the limestone terraces leading to the edge of the old lagoon reef The ascent to the summit of the island is less steep than that of Gawa or Kwaiawata, and on the terraces and the slopes between them grow a large number of the bushes of a species of Morinda, the ripe fruit of which forms an important addition to the diet of the inhabitants.

The islanders have a clan organisation, and every clan upon each island has a chief or head man, the chief of the traditionally strongest and most influential clan being chief {guyau) of the whole island. Although there is at least as much wavy hair among the natives of this group as on the Trobriands — betokening, as I believe, Polynesian influence — and although many of the islanders have fairly narrow noses with high roots, the chiefs are not obviously distinguished by their greater stature, as they are sometimes upon the Trobriands.

In spite of their small size, these islands formerly fought with each other, Gawa and Kwaiawata being frequently at enmity ; but there is no evidence that cannibalism was ever practised in this group, and the islanders quite consistently deny it. Gawa also fought with the folk of Tokunu (the Alcesters), but the feud does not seem to have been of long standing nor very bitter. These people, indeed, appear to be unusually warlike for natives of the south-eastern district, and real battles on a small scale have been fought between opposing factions on a single island. It appears that there has long been enmity between two of the Kitava hamlets called Larena and Kumageya : a dispute about a pig was the origin of the trouble, though ill-feeling concerning the chicfi Sections of these Islands prepared by Captain Pirn are reproduced in the Geographical Journal for 1906. C. G. Seligmann and W. Mersh blron^', Anthropological Investigations in British New Guinea, in which Captain 1 ims detailed account of Kwaiawata is quoted at length. •• , /- a

All the islands of this group except Dugumenu were visited; on c.awa ana Kwaiawata two plants, a fern {PolyPodium phymatodes) and Scllagincla -^'^(^';^'". everywhere covered the uncultivated ground, but on Iwa and Kitava, alihougn tjoin these plants were present, they were not specially abundant and certainly were not sufficiently numerous to impress an observer with no special botanical interests as they did on Gawa and Kwaiawata.

The Northern Massim tainship of the island complicated matters still further. When Kitava was visited in the latter part of 1902 by the Hon. M. H. Moreton a small pitched battle had just been fought in the open, resulting in a victory for the people of Larena, who killed six of their opponents. In spite of a number of arrests made by Mr Moreton the Larena men again attacked their opponents and drove them out of Kumageya, taking their pigs and yams, and it was only after a second visit and further arrests that peace was made. Speaking of Larena Mr Moreton adds: 'These people also wanted to have their chief as head chief over the whole island, which was objected to by all the other villages ' '.

In all the Marshall Bennet islands the houses are gathered into small groups, each inhabited by members of a single clan and their consorts, that is to say they form typical hamlets of the south-eastern district which are here called weru. There were in 1904 thirty such hamlets on Gawa, the island upon which the greater part of our short stay in the group was spent. The majority of hamlets consisted of from four to eight dwelling-houses, though at least one hamlet consisted of a single house onlyl The houses are built on the ground as are those of the Trobriands and Murua. The houses for the storage of yams are built on piles and in every way resemble those shown in Plate LXXVI. The number of yam houses makes each hamlet look larger than it really is, and at first sight suggests a larger population than the island carries.

Such hamlets, consisting of dwelling-houses and yam houses, are found on the other islands of the group, the only difference in the case of Iwa and Kitava — the most westerly islands and so nearest the Trobriands — is that the houses, and especially the yam houses of the paramount chief and his

^ Annual Report^ 1902-3, p.

2 The ham lets of Gawa classified according to the totems of their inhabitants are as follows

: —

Lory ■!

Fish hawk

Tarakaka

Frigate-bird

Pigeon

Kavaken

Urogu

Umeraka

Korgeta

Damelabwaga

Kileu

Kanyabwada

Dibua

Bunagai

Gibutaiye

Nuria

Gugau

Dagidagera

Dagam

Matamyawana

Kwaidaban

Kiruru

Kotaura

Kimtu

Tamelaura

Mwanebu

Giagawa

Saburu

Biliuna

Waiyavata

Waiyai

Bodagara

Kaleola

Katalabusa

Okaipeo

Osaisia

I

heir, are decorated with carved and painted boards just as on the Trobriands. In many hamlets dwelHng-houses and yam houses are dotted about the open space which constitutes the building ground of each hamlet in no particular order, but a clear space is often left for dancing, and sometimes a dead tree, which may bear some rough carving, stands in the centre of this area. In other hamlets the yam houses, although irregularly disposed, tend to form a series of buildings lying within an outer line of dwelling-houses.

Murua and its annexes.

Murua, or Woodlark Island, is about 35 miles long by some 7 miles broad and lies about 80 miles directly to the north of Misima, the most northerly island of any size of the Louisiade Archipelago. A number of small islands trending southwards lie off its eastern extremity ; I have no information concerning these nor does Sailing Directions mention them. Two or more probably three groups of more distant islands must be considered as ethnographical annexes of Murua ; these are the Laughlans (Nada), the Alcesters (Tokunu) and the Egum atoll. The schooner was weather-bound off the Alcesters, thus some opportunity was afforded of investigating their ethnography.

Nada, or the Laughlan Group, forms an atoll consisting of seven low islands on a horse-shoe shaped coral reef situated about 35 miles to the east of Murua; the diameter of the lagoon is stated to be about three miles and the greatest width of any island to be not more than two or three hundred yards.

I have not visited these islands but natives of them were consulted and it was ascertained that the Nada islanders are colonists from Murua with whose inhabitants they intermarry.

The following information concerning Nada is derived from a short report by the late Wilhelm Tetzlaff

The population is chiefly dependent for subsistence on fish and other marine produce, for although there are many coconuts on the island these are now largely converted into copra. In 1890 there were 'about 62 families, consisting of about 240 souls distributed over the group ' ^ From the description given it is clear that the houses are distributed m

1 Annual Report, 1 890-1, App. EE, p. 104,

S. N. G.

674 T^^^ Northern Massim hamlets or small settlements each of which recognizes one of its older men as head man.

The Alcesters are two coral islands, the highest part of the larger island, which is about 2\ miles long, being about 180 feet high. The smaller island is less than a mile in length and is separated from the larger by a narrow passage. The outline of the islands is concave towards the south and is obviously a portion of the wall of a raised atoll. Over almost the whole of its periphery the lower island presents a sheer cliff edge to the sea, but on its northern shore there is a small area of tolerably flat beach where the cliff recedes about a hundred yards from the sea ; the intervening space is a slope of broken highly crystalline coral rock, filled in with black mould and more or less thickly forested. A single village community, consisting of nine houses so disposed as to appear to form four hamlets, occupies this comparatively flat area. In the Sailing Directory of the Pacific it is stated that Tokunu ' is inhabited by a roving tribe of natives, who are reputed to be the most skilful canoe builders in this part of the Pacific' This information appears to have been gathered from the Reports for British New Guinea for 1888, in which it is stated that many large canoes are built on Tokunu and that there are no gardens on the island. The latter statement is certainly incorrect, since there is a large area of cultivated ground in the western part of the plateau forming the summit of the island, and there is no reason to believe that the large canoes called waga are, or ever were, built on Tokunu, in fact all the evidence points the other way. The small population of Tokunu has been referred to, and there is but scanty space on the strip of beach which constituted the landing place, for the building of any large canoe. Further, there was nowhere in the neighbourhood of the beach any sign of trees having been cut into planks, or planks smoothed and fitted, necessary operations which, as noted at Gawa, produce a mass of chips and debris which could scarcely have been overlooked had they existed.

Murua and its dependencies are closely related with the Trobriand and Marshall Bennet Groups, and this conclusion is borne out both by the results of physical examination of the people and by their sociology. As on the Trobriands there are chiefs whose houses are alone decorated with carved and painted boards.

Plate LXXIV

House on Nada

Houses

The houses of the natives of Murua are built on the ground as shown in Plate LXXIV. They are arranged in smaller or larger groups, but It Is uncertain whether these are ever true hamlets, i.e. one-clan settlements. Captain Barton says in a letter, ' there Is no law regarding the relative position of the sites of houses belonging to men of different totems,' and his accompanying plan of Krupan village shows that here certainly there are men of more than one clan In one settlement. Probably the typical condition on Murua, as on the Trobriands, is a village consisting of members of a number of totems ; but where a community Is small or where a man lives with his relatives apart from a larger community, a condition mimicking or even Identical with a true hamlet settlement may arise, and this seems to have actually occurred In the neighbourhood of Suloga.

The view that a single village, and not a succession of hamlets, forms the usual Murua community (as on the Trobriands), Is borne out by a statement made by Sir William MacGregor, who in describing one of his early visits to the island says : ' The first village seen was a new one of about half a score of houses, belonging to a division of the tribe that had partially split off from the main stock.... Next to them at a distance of about a quarter of a mile, there Is a village of about a score of houses... .The principal village of the V/amana tribe Is about half a mile further inland.... The houses, about fourscore, are arranged in a double row...''.

The first view of Tokunu from the sea suggests the existence of typical hamlets. There are but eight inhabited houses which are built in groups along the strand ; at the western end at Wapuru there are three houses, then comes Roguau with two houses, SIpwararo with one inhabited and one deserted house, and lastly Lasinawia with two houses. Yet the clans composing the community are located mdiscriminately in the various houses^

1 Annual Report, 1891-2, App. G, p. 29. , , r^ • v.- a a v k

2 Wapuru and Lasinawia contain householders of the Fngate-bird and H^hhawk totems, and at Wapuru one house belongs to a married man from Murua called Kadamunawea of the Cockatoo totem, who was said to have paid a Ocy ^^ pig, and some sago to the Frigate-bird men of the settlement to be '^''"^^'e^^ ^^ '^^ [here and to make his garden on their land. Unfortunately it was not clear whether this right would cease at his death or descend to his he.rs. Koku.iu contains householders of the Frigate-bird totem only, ''^"V^^'''''''''''°rnn?{.n house Pigeon totem. Although the settlements of Wapuru and L.-^sinau.a con a n hou c^ holders of two totems, it was clear that the men of the Fngaie-b. d tme.n ^^crc held to be the more important, and these two settlements were, I belies e, in some sort regarded as belonging primarily to the Frigate-bird men.

43— »

Captain Barton states that in the larger villages of Murua there are houses set apart for the use of boys and girls respectively, and points out that even in the small village of Krupan the boys of the community sleep in the house of the head man.

CHAPTER L

CLANS AND TOTEMS.

The Trobriands.

In preparing the following account of the totemism of the Trobriand Islands, I have received the greatest assistance from Mr R. L. Bellamy, and I am also indebted for information to the Rev. M. N. Gilmour of Kavatari in the Trobriands.

The totemism of this Group undoubtedly belongs to the system of linked totems found elsewhere in the south-eastern portion of British New Guinea, but although this is certain, different degrees of importance are attached to different members of the linked totem series by Mr Bellamy, Mr Gilmour and myself. We all agree, however, in the supreme importance of the chief totem birds of the four Trobriand clans, viz. : the pigeon [bubuna)^ the fish-hawk (muloviakd), the green parrot (karaga), and the lory [gegila). With regard to the totems linked with each of these Mr Gilmour says: ' Connected in a vague way with each of their totems are certain animals, fish, and trees or creepers ' \ Mr Bellamy considers that a four-footed vertebrate and a plant are associated with each of the bird totems given above, but does not regard fish, snakes, or the numerous birds given later in this chapter as subsidiary totems upon Kiriwina. My own information leads me to regard each of the supreme totem birds as havinof linked with it a four-footed vertebrate, a fish, and a plant, besides a number of less nnportant birds.

Mr Bellamy's list of plant totems agrees with that I obtained on Kiriwina and Kadawaga, his four-footed animals show no discrepancies that are not readily explained by the

^ This and other quotations from Mr Gilmour given in this chapter arc from a letter written in 1908.

limitations of time and difficulties as regards language under which I worked, and he is probably right in regarding the snake as not being a totem in the Trobriands at the present day, in spite of the undoubted occurrence of snake totems in other parts of the district. However, considering the quite definite information I obtained as to the existence of fish totems, my belief in these remains unshaken, and I also think it probable that numerous birds are associated with the chief bird totems, though I admit the slight importance of these and of the fish in comparison with the other totems.

The word for a clan is kum or kumila, and Mr Bellamy gives the names of the Trobriand clans as follows, the chief bird totem of each clan being given after the clan name as a matter of convenience: Malasi (pigeon), Lukuba (fish-hawk), Lukosisiga (green parrot), Lokulobuta (lory).

It is now possible to summarise this information concerning clans and their most important totems as follows:

TOTEMS. Clan Bird Animal (four-footed) Fish Plant

Malasi Bubuna (pigeon) Bunuka (pig) ? Mawa Kaiaula

Lukuba Muloviaka (fish-hawk) Kunuku (dog) ? Mamila Meku

Lukosisiga Karaga (green parrot) Urigoa (crocodile) "i Kaisoa Girigiri

Lokulobuta Gegila (lory) Kailavasia (monitor .? Mwaluya Butir lizard)

The names of the clans with certain prefixes apparently proper to each sex are used in naming the clan to which an individual belongs. Mr Bellamy gives the following list:

Clan

Clansmen

Clanswomen

Malasi Lukuba Lukosisiga Lokulobuta

Tamalasi Tolukuba Tolukosisiga Tolokulobuta

Mimalasi Imkuba Imkosisiga Imkulobuta

Thus to the question : kumila avaka f ' what is your clan .-^ ' a man, if of the Lukuba clan, would reply, tolukuba aigu, 'a Lukuba man am I,' and a woman, imkuba aigu.

In each clan there are a number of family groups called dalela, all the members of each of which trace their origin to a common ancestor. Mr Bellamy gives the following family groups for each clan:

Malasi clan has four family groups, Tabalu, Karaibida, Molailawa, Bwaitaitu.

Lukuba clan has four family groups, Gumgweguia, Tudava, Duborakolava, Minamwadoiia.

Clans and Totems

Lukosislga clan has four family groups. Kwainama, Toliwaga, Sakapu, Boiaku.

Lokulobuta has two families, Kaitutu, Milagaua. ^ On Kiriwina it was stated that each clan had linked to its chief totem a large number of other birds'. These, in the case of the Malasi clan, are katakea (the white cockatoo) and other birds, the names of which are kwarolo, buriburi, sikwaiikwa, sakwau, kuru and tutua.

The Lukuba clan have the birds called sina and pipihda.

The Lokulobuta clan have the birds called kilakila, maikela, and puroii.

The Lukosisiga clan have the birds called irukwaiwai, ulegamtula and wakia.

At Osiwasiu on Kaileuna each clan has only that bird totem which is the most important totem of the clan. But, as on Kiriwina, the pig and dog are totem animals, the pig being associated with the Malasi, Lukuba and Lukosisiga clans, while the Lukuba clan also has the dog associated with it.

These linked totems were explained by a myth resembling that found on the Marshall Bennets.

The world was originally colonized from Tuma — the other world — men and women being sent to the upper world by Topileta who himself stopped underground ; the reason for the peopling of the upper world was that the population increased too rapidly in Tuma and a famine was feared. It is said that there is a deep hole called Rabai between Mwatawa and Kiriwina, through which men first emerged from the lower world; first came the men of the Malasi clan, accompanied by their bird totem and carrying their pi,L(. The folk of the Lukuba clan came next bringing with them the fish-hawk, the pig and the dog; then came the Lukosisi.i^^a people bringing the green parrot and the pig, and then the men of the Lokulobuta clan bringing only their totem bird, the lory. Nothing could be learnt at Osiwasiu as to how the men of its clans obtained their fish and plant totems. Before the coming of men to the upper world there were no yams, and no stones upon which to support their cooking pots, and it was Topileta who told them to bring these from the under world, where men had already learnt to build houses and make gardens.

1 It has already been mentioned that Mr Bellamy does not regard this information as reliable.

68o The Northern Massim

In spite of these legendary close associations of men and totem animals, there does not appear to be any generally recognized physical or psychical resemblance between men and their totems, nor are the latter regarded as omen-glvlng. A man should not eat his totem bird, the penalty for transgressing this rule being a swollen stomach and perhaps death. But even this fundamental rule Is breaking down under foreign Influence, for Mr Bellamy writes: 'I have known a hungry woman break this rule and, though a MImalasI, eat a pigeon which I had shot. If she had suffered from any sickness afterwards, either Immediately or after some little time, this would have been put down to the breaking of the rule. There appears to have been no actual tribal punishment for eating the totem.' Under these circumstances the difficulty of ascertaining the attitude of the Islanders to their less Important totems Is not surprising ; probably there Is a large personal element In the matter, and the following statements must be considered In this light. It Is not certain whether a man would kill his bird totem, probably he would not; but it seemed clear that once the bird was dead he would not object to touching It. I believe that a man will not usually eat his totem fish, though If It be taken alive he does not release It, but gives It to a man of some other totem. Probably he takes no special care to keep It alive.

I was told that a man would usually avoid injuring his plant totem, but Mr Bellamy states that a man clearing a garden would destroy his totem plant without any hesitation.

As has already been mentioned, one of the subsidiary bird totems of the MalasI clan Is katakea, the white cockatoo, whose feathers are used in making a much admired dancing ornament, yet the men of the MalasI clan use its feathers in the same way as other men.

It has already been mentioned that at Oslwasiu on Kaileuna the pig is linked with the bird totems of the Malasi, Lukuba and Lukosislgfa clans. It was said that in this village no one would eat wild pig, for if they did their bellies would swell up, but they would sometimes hunt bush pig and sell it to another village, such as Boltaru on KIriwina, where wild pig was eaten. Further, men of all the clans of Osiwasiu would eat village pig, whatever its colour, but no one ate dog, though everyone, including the Lukuba men, kept dogs. At Osiwasiu It was said that no one of either

I

Clans and Totems 68 1

sex would eat shark or stIng-ray, and although there is no reason to believe that these prohibitions can be directly referred to totemism at the present day, they are included here since they may be supposed to have been connected therewith at one time\

At Boitaru on Kiriwina where pig is one of the totems of the Malasi clan, no men of this clan would eat bush pig, though here, as on certain of the Marshall Bennet Islands, they would eat black-skinned village pig, but would not eat pig of a yellowish-brown colour, for this, it was explained, was the colour of man. Men of the Malasi clan kept pigs and would not hesitate to kill black village pigs, but brownish pigs would be sold or exchanged with men of other clans who were stated to be indifferent to the colour of the pigs they ate. Mr Bellamy considers that what has been said as to the eating of brownish pigs applies only to the Tabalu family group of the Malasi clan. This, as is noted later, is the family group to which belong the chiefs i^guyau) of the Malasi clan. Mr Bellamy writes: 'The brownish-red pig of the Trobriands is a village pig and not a bush pig. Individuals of the Tabalu family are forbidden to eat this pig, although it is freely eaten by other chiefs and by commoners {tokai)! Further, Mr Bellamy was told that a Tabalu might not eat a village pig which has been speared or killed in any other way than by being roasted alive over a fire, having previously been caught by hand and tied to sticks which are supported over the fire. Mr Bellamy did not hear of any reason for abstinence from brownish-red pigs, and in answer to a question he was told 'our fathers did not eat it.' The penalty for infringing this rule was a swollen belly and perhaps death.

In this group, as indeed everywhere in south-eastern New Guinea, pigs were well treated, and although this may possibly have nothing to do with totemism, the fellowship existing between a man and his pig is at times very marked, and an instance of the dog-like attachment of a pig lor its

1 The following avoidance may be noted here, although it probably has nothing to do with totemism. ,. , , ., ,

Certain fish were only eaten by old men ; it was believed that if unmarried or only recently married men ate these they would become unpleasant ^o the opi»ositc sex who would not then permit free access. The fish which were ^^vo.dcd fo h s reason were kurasi, jnamila, inilabwaga, sigau, and uibobo. Ihere were no birds which were avoided on this account.

master Is recorded by Sir William MacGregor. On leaving the village of Obweba, his guide ' was unable to separate himself from a pig — a fine half-grown animal. This creature would insist on following him like a dog, of which the poor man was greatly ashamed, and he several times in ill-temper severely punished the pig in trying to send it home ' \ This, however, led to no result for the animal * if driven off at one point soon appeared on the path ahead, waiting for its owner'".

At Boitaru, people of the Lukosisiga clan are related to dogs in the same way that the Malasi men are to the pig, that is to say the dog is one of their totems, and it was stated that the chief of this clan would ' medicine ' the dogs of his own and other clans before they were taken pig-hunting. Although at first sight this looks as if it might be due to totemism, it probably is not, for concerning this Mr Bellamy says : —

' Chiefs do not medicine dogs or canoes more than commoners ; certain people, both chiefs and commoners, have inherited reputations as medicine men, because they are supposed to have been initiated into the secret by their predecessors, either fathers, mothers or uncles. No man limits his magic to the property of his own family or clan.'

Although snakes figure so largely in the art of the whole of this district, and although there is reason to suppose that at one time they may have been totem animals on the Trobriands, it is not usual to pay special attention to them. Sir William MacGregor has, however, recorded an instance observed by the Rev. S. B. Fellowes at Kavatari, which shows that some regard was paid to snakes. 'A snake had found its way into a house. ..and efforts were being made to propitiate it by exposing to it peace offerings. They were no doubt surprised by the rude treatment bestowed on the reptile by the missionary, but they did not resent it ' ^ Although I believe that the incident is not connected with totemism, but rather with sorcery, it has seemed advisable to refer to the matter here, since at first sight it certainly suggests the existence of a snake totem\

^ Annual Report^ 189 1-2, App. A, p. 5.

• Loc. cit.

3 Annual Report^ 1897-8, p. 47. 1

• In support of this view Mr Bellamy writes : — 'Some snakes are supposed to be
  sorcerers in disguise, but it would appear there are no special snakes into which a J

Clans and Totems 683

As elsewhere in the district, regard for a father's totems has decayed greatly since the coming of the white man, thus while some Osiwasiu men alleged that they would eat their fathers' fish and bird totems, other men said they certainly would not, and these generally added that they would not in the old days have married into their fathers' clan ; all seemed to be agreed that there was little avoidance of the father's plant totem.

The chief of Osiwasiu village, Motuparara, belongs to the Malasi clan ; his father was a man of the Lokulobuta clan, into which he would not marry. He does not eat his father's bird or fish totems, nor would he cut down his father's plant totem when garden-making; a certain amount of care would be taken not to use the wood of his father's plant totem in fires made in his house, but it did not appear that any disaster would happen if this plant were burned inadvertently.

According to one Bokaiakau of Osiwasiu, whose father was of the Malasi clan, the reason for his not daring to eat his father's totem fish was that if, after he had partaken of this fish, he were to help himself from his father's lime-pot, or take water from his father's bowl, his father, by subsequently using either of these vessels, would become poisoned, his belly would swell up and he would die. But it is to be noted that a man, even after his father's death, still avoids eating his father's totem animals. Referring to this, Mr Bellamy points out that contact with white traders is rapidly destroying the importance of the totemic system, and he regards the avoidance of a father's totem animals as optional at the present day.

Concerning sexual connection within the clan he says: ' Avoidance of marriage within the clan holds out. but even this begins to weaken. I know of one case in which a man is married to a woman of his own totem. He is jeered at by the others who say: ''This man has married his sister." Cases of sexual connection between people of the same totem are not infrequent, but great secrecy is maintained, and there is a feeling of shame about admitting it.'

Totemism appears to have exerted no influence on the battle-field. Mr Bellamy writes : ' In the inter-village fighting sorcerer enters. If a snake is found on the track and it does not attempt to escape when approached, then it is not really a snake but a inan, and must not be k.llcd. It may be offered food, but this is not necessary. There .s no question about snake worship at all.'

which formerly took place in the Trobriand Group, it appears that no one took any special care to avoid killing a man of his own totem. In every village there were representatives of each of the four totem families, and whatever the custom may have been in remote times, there is certainly no evidence that within any recent period any attention was paid to totems during actual fighting. A Malasi would ''go for" a Malasi without any thought of brotherhood, for the quarrel would, overshadow and swamp any actual or totemistic relationship.'

' No distinctive style or war-dress was adopted in order to avoid killing or injuring a clansman, and all shields were uniformly blackened.'

Rough carvings of birds are found on a certain number of houses on the Trobriands. Sometimes these represent birds which are totems, though I believe they are not necessarily the totem birds of the man on whose house they are exhibited. At other times they represent birds which are not known to be totems, and sometimes these birds have human heads as in the example shown in figure 48. It seems probable that these carvings may have been connected with totemism at one time, and it is interesting to find human-headed birds in the Massim area where birds are the most important totems.

The Marshall Bennets.

The usual system of linked totems prevails upon these islands, and each clan has a name. Unfortunately I cannot give a complete list of these, though I was able to ascertain that individual members of clans with the same linked totems as on the Trobriands were known by the same names. Thus there is a Malasi clan on the Marshall Bennet Group as on the Trobriands, and its men and women are spoken of as Tamalasi and Mimalasi respectively.

Throughout the Group the snake totem is obviously of little importance, some clans being said to have none, and many men being unable to give the name of their totem snake. Sometimes a man, when pressed, would admit that he might have a snake totem, but did not know it, and one man pointed out in extenuation of his lack of knowledge, that his maternal uncle had died while he was young, and so his ignorance on this unimportant point was excusable.

Clans and Totems

The plant totems of these islands are also of no great importance, and though clearly held in higher estimation

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t a than the snake totems, it was noted that men when interrogated as to their plant totems hesitated, and at times seemed uncertain of their answers. The fish totems, though far less important than the bird totems, are probably held in more estimation than the plant totems, and are certainly more respected than the somewhat doubtful snake totems of these islands. In each island an attempt was made to obtain a list of the linked totems of its clans, but the lists obtained in the short time available for the purpose were so doubtful and tallied so badly with each other that it has been thought best to omit them.

Besides the usual linked totems of the south-eastern district, certain four-footed vertebrates, the dog, pig, and the large monitor lizard, are totem animals upon some if not upon all the islands \

There is no doubt that there are five clans on Gawa having the fish-hawk, the pigeon, the frigate-bird, the lory, and a bird called tarakaka as their most important totems. Although only the same five clans were stated to occur on Kwaiawata, it is by no means certain that there are not other clans on the island, since men having as bird totem wakeke, the cockatoo, were spoken of, and no opportunity arose of ascertaining whether they were visitors.

There are four clans upon Iwa with the fish-hawk, the pigeon, the frigate-bird and the lory as their chief totems, and with the exception of the frigate-bird clan, these occur on Kitava, where a clan is also found with the green parrot i^Eclectus polychlorus) as Its most Important totem.

Upon each Island one particular clan Is recognized as traditionally the strongest and most Influential, and its head man or chief — for in this group each clan upon each island has its leader — is acknowledged as chief of the island. In the case of Gawa and Iwa, the dominant clans are those having the fish-hawk and the pigeon as their respective totem birds; upon Kwaiawata the frigate-bird folk appeared to be the most important though this was less certain.

The origin of the different clans and their association with their totem animals Is explained at Iwa by a legend which states that each clan came out of a different hole in the ground, and that when its members emerged Into the upper world, they brought with them their totem animals, while

• I am certain of the occurrence of these animals as totems on Iwa and Kitava and believe they are totems on Gawa and Kwaiawata.

Clans and Totems their totem plants grew in each case near the hole from which they emerged.

The fish-hawk people were the first to emerge, ascending from a hole called Okaipwas, on Gawa, and bringing with them their linked totems, including the dog.

The frigate-bird people were reported to have reached the upper world through a hole called Kapepe, upon Kwaiawata.

The pigeon and lory folk both came out of holes upon Iwa, called Moraiiba and Widua respectively.

The holes through which the members of the fish-hawk, frigate-bird and pigeon clans reached the upper world are situated upon the islands of Gawa, Kwaiawata, and Iwa respectively, and on each that clan is the strongest which traditionally made its entrance into the world upon that island.

It did not appear that there was any generally recognized similarity, physical or psychical, between an individual and his or her totem bird or fish, but at Iwa it was said that a man of the fish-hawk totem would catch plenty of fish, while other men of such totems as the lory and pigeon ' no savy catch plenty fish.' This was, however, the only 'correspondence' elicited. Totem birds do not play any considerable part in omens, only one example of an omen taken from a totem bird was found at Iwa, where it was said that in going fishing a man would be lucky if he saw his totem bird coming towards him, but unlucky if he saw the bird crossing behind him. A man would not injure or eat his totem bird or fish. This avoidance of the totem bird probably means but little ; the Marshall Bennet islanders have no easy means of catching any birds, and on Gawa it was pointed out that in the case of the tarakaka people, even if they desired to eat their totem bird they would have been unable to do so except under the rarest circumstances, because it flew too fast, and so nobody ate it. But abstinence from the totem fish is quite another matter, for these are often caught when fishing with nets and then, according to a group of Gawa informants, a man would give his totem fish to a person of another totem. A Kwaiawata man stated that if he could extricate his totem fish from the net alive, he would not give it to a man of another clan, but would let it escape. The same man said that if the fish were dead it would be given to a member of another clan, but it was not clear whether he would remove it from the net himself, or call another man to do so. It was, however, asserted that he would avoid touching a dead specimen killed by any one else. The objection to coming in contact with a totem fish is carried so far that a married man or woman, who has the opportunity of eating his or her spouse's totem fish will not bring the latter into the house but will cook and eat it on the beach.

Marriage, even at the present day, never takes place within the totem.

The above information concerning totems was obtained at Gawa and Kwaiawata, precisely similar information was obtained at Iwa, with the addition that, although a man would not injure his own totem plant he might, if it were a nuisance in his garden, ask a man of another totem to cut it down for him.

At Iwa people who had the pig for one of their totems showed the same reluctance to eat brown or yellowish pigs as the Trobriand islanders, and they gave the same reasons for their avoidance.

A man would wear the feathers of his totem bird as dancing ornaments, but he was not limited to their use alone, and throughout the group the feathers of pigeons and lories were alike worn by men of these and other totems. It was customary in the old days for a man who killed a totem bird not to keep all of its feathers for himself but to give some of them to a man belonging to the clan whose totem he had killed.

Everyone shows very much the same respect for his father's totem animals as he does for his own. No one will eat or kill his father's bird or fish totems ; if one of the latter be caught it is given to a member of another clan who, according to my Gawa informants, would be asked to remove it from the net. Nor is a father's totem plant uprooted or injured, and on Kwaiawata it was said that a man would not readily ask another to cut or remove his father's totem plant from his gardens. Here, too, it was alleged that a man would generally avoid killing a snake.

In the old days no individual would marry into his or her father's clan, though at the present day this custom is falling into desuetude, and Kutopara the chief of the tarakaka folk of Gawa has recently married a woman of his father's clan.

A man will not wear the feathers of his father's totem bird nor, if one of his father's totem animals be the pig, will he wear a boar's tusk ornament.

Clans and Totems

Murua.

At Murua the name for a totemic clan is man. Captain Barton was told that totems were originally distributed by an old man of Suloga who gave a bird and a fish totem to each clan'. When Murua folk die they go down into the earth and are there received by this old man, who, as they arrive, assigns them places, saying, ' You go there and you go over there,' and so on.

The following information applies specifically to the villages of Dekoias, where, although everyone has linked totems belonging to different orders of vertebrates, no one has plant totems. Further, although it appeared that snakes were totem animals it was clear that comparatively little respect was felt for them.

Captain Barton who has compiled the list of totems of Krupan village given on page 690, stated that the blue pigeon totem of Murua had linked with it the snake, instead of a fish". At Suloga my own inquiries showed that the Torres Straits pigeon had linked with it the fish gudowara and the snake, and a Murua boy who had drifted as far as Port Moresby, when interrogated there said that he came from the village of Komduku and had as totems the Torres Straits pigeon, the fish gudowara, the snake {inwatei), and the pig [dorod). In these cases the word used for snake was mwatet, which is the general word for snake and not the name for a particular species, while it seemed that Tudaiva (the head man of the small settlement of Suloga), who claimed as his totems the Torres Straits pigeon and the fish gudowara as well as the snake, attached less importance to the last than to his bird and fish totems.

At both Murua and Tokunu there was some difference of opinion as to how a man would treat his totem bird, though it was perfectly clear that no one would hesitate to kill and eat his totem fish. One man whose bird totem was daiita (the frigate-bird) alleged that he would eat this bird but would not

1 The late W. Tetzlaff speaks of seven 'communities' on Nada which he calls kuhtn. These are clans, and kuhin is obviously the same as kum, the I robriand word for clan. The names of the seven kiim are said to be Meres, Schnauis, Lekusis, Kumuro, Kunithau, Fretock, and Labes. tx i ■ j

2 Captain Barton notes that his information was derived from Uckoias and Suloga men, and so may apply to these villages only.

S. N. G. . •**♦

kill it, while another individual with the blue pigeon as his totem said that he would kill and eat this bird as readily as his totem fish when he got the chance. These discrepancies seem to show that at the present day there is really no general strong feeling against killing and eating the totem bird, though it must be remembered that such birds as the frigate-bird are not easily killed.

But, even if the attitude of an individual to his own totem bird were doubtful, it was perfectly obvious that no one would kill, eat, or in any way come in contact with his father's totem bird or fish if he could avoid doing so. A man of the frigate-bird totem wears the feathers of this bird when dancing, if he can procure them, and men of other totems may do so, but no man whose father had the frigate-bird as totem would handle its feathers ; the same rule holds good concerning the feathers of atakeia (the white cockatoo), though these feathers constitute the commonest dancing ornament of the district. It was said that even at the present day no man would marry into his father's totem, and there is no doubt that formerly this rule was strictly observed. It did not appear that a person was supposed to present any of the physical or psychical characters of any of his totem animals. As a matter of courtesy to his wife, a man would not eat her father's totem bird or fish, though probably this rule requires qualifying to the extent that it would be observed only in the presence of the wife, or when a man expected to come into intimate contact with her.

At the time of Captain Barton's visit in 1904 there were eight men in the six houses of Krupan settlement. Three of them had the crow and shark as their totems, the remaining five having the lory and turtle. The three men of the crow totem were married to women having respectively as totems the flying fox and a large predatory fish gagatu, the cockatoo (atakeia) and a fish called digbosara, the lory and turtle. The five men of the lory totem — one of whom had been married twice — contracted three marriages with women of the flying fox totem, with women of the crow and cockatoo totems respectively, and one with a woman having as her totems the Torres Straits pigeon and the fish CTiXiitA gudowara.

Captain Barton's list of the totems of Murua (collected from men of Dekoias and Suloga villages), is as follows :

The Torres Straits pigeon [bobana) and a large fish called giidowara.

I

Clans and Toteins

The scarlet lory {gagere) and turtle {goanamo).

The fish-hawk {bunibiva^ia) and rock-cod {tauwiya).

The cockatoo \atakeia) and a large red fish called digbo sai^a.

The crow (kawana, auwaii or buaiobitaio) and shark (koau).

The flying fox [udaweda) and a big predatory fish called gagalM.

The megapod (korautd) and dugong {tamadaic).

The blue pigeon (bunakukii) and snake [mwatet).

The frigate-bird (ddutd) and crocodile {vmgoru).

With the frigate-bird is linked a bush dove called debrekita having a green body and magenta crown.

The linked totems of Tokunu were given as follows :

The frigate-bird, the crocodile {tonafiawaia), a fish called berabe7^a and a snake called U77iara.

The blue pigeon and two fish called busu^narawi and koriwara.

Kadamunawea, a stranger from Murua, had as totems the cockatoo {atakeid) and a fish called inipora, while two women who had married into Wapuru had as totems the fish-hawk (bunibwand) and a fish called tauwia.

44—2

CHAPTER LI

CHIEFTAINSHIP.

The Trobriands.

The question of chieftainship In the Trobrland Group Is an extremely difficult one, and it has proved impossible to give even a moderately complete outline of the system in spite of the help rendered by Mr Bellamy. Although my information on some points is tolerably complete, on others, notably the genesis of the position of the village headman, both Mr Bellamy and myself have been unable to come to any conclusion.

On each of the Marshall Bennet Islands one of the clan chiefs is of superior importance to the rest, and in fact stands to them in the relation of over-lord or, as I propose to call it, paramount chief. Owing to the distance of the islands of this group from each other, and to the fact that each clan has an acknowledged hereditary leader, head man or chief, who exerts a good deal of authority within his clan, the arrangement upon the Marshall Bennet Islands is a simple one. On the Trobriands there are also paramount chiefs who, like the Marshall Bennet chiefs, are called guyau, and who are in origin clan chiefs, since in each clan they spring from a single family. It has already been noted in the chapter on Totemism that the four Trobrland clans are divided into families called dalela. The Lokulobuta clan has no paramount chiefs [guyau), but in each of the other clans there is one family, members of which are hereditary chiefs of the districts into which the Trobriand islands are divided. The aristocratic family of the Malasi clan is named Tabalu, that of the Lukosisiga clan Kwainama, and that of the Lukuba clan Gumgweguia, and there is no doubt that as the Malasi clan is considered the most important on Kiriwina, so the

Chieftainship 5q^

Tabalu is considered the most honourable and important of the families into which the clan is divided. So far the condition on the Trobriands is closely comparable with that found on the Marshall Bennets, but here the matter becomes more complicated for, on investigating the territorial boundary of authority possessed by a guyau, it is found that the island is divided into districts, over each of which there rules one paramount chief guyau, who is over-lord of the village headmen {toriwaga) of all the villages in his district. It has already been pointed out that the natives of the Trobriands are gathered into villages. Each of these villages contains people belonging to a number of the Trobriand clans, and in each village there is a toriwaga, 'village chief or head man, who since he exercises equal authority over all the inhabitants of his village is certainly not exclusively a clan chief. These matters may now be illustrated by a record of the actual condition existing on KIriwina and Kadawaga In 1904.

One Tokalyaku of the MalasI clan was the giiyaii or paramount chief of at least the northern half of Kadawaga, the second largest island of the group. Tokalyaku lived In a village called Kawakena and the following villages were said to acknowledge his authority: Oslwaslu, Koma, Yuwaigini, Tawema, Kadawaga, Kaislga, Bwrako and Lebola. Time did not allow of this list being effectually checked by a visit to each village, indeed the only villages on this Island of which I have personal knowledge are Koma and Oslwasiu, but Tawema and Kadawaga (spelt Kadlovaga), are marked on the map (4 miles to the inch) Issued In 1899 by the Queensland Government. Each of the villages acknowledging the supremacy of Tokalyaku had a toriwaga or village head man who, though enjoying certain privileges, is treated with less ceremony than the paramount chief.

The same condition of things was found to exist in the northern portion of Kirlwlna, or Bwalyor as the natives usually call it, where Enamakala was on his death succeeded by his brother Taolu, who was paramount chief of a number of villages In Bwalyor though not, as has been stated, of the whole island or group. The following villages, the first eight of which are marked on the map (p. 661), are said to acknowledge the supremacy of Taolu who, like his deceased brother Enamakala, lives at Omarakana : Kapwapo, Gumilababa. Luia, Yaraka (on map lalaka), Obweria, Oboada, Ok.iikoda.

694 ^^^^ Northern Massim

Kabwaku, Kulua, Tubowada, Gurumugu, Wabutuma, Kudukaikera.

Concerning his supremacy over these villages, Mr Bellamy points out that this is in part due ' to a crystallisation of the actual position of affairs at the moment that internal fighting was stopped by the incoming of the Government.' It must be remembered that the fighting of 1899 and 1900 was to revenge the looting and destruction of a number of villages by Enamakala in a previous war. Among these villages were some that at the coming of the Government were under the sway of Enamakala, and now recognize the authority of his heir Taolu, against whose authority they revolted in 1899. Further Mr Bellamy considers that some part of the latter's influence is 'due to his marriages, for he has some 19 or 20 wives.' Behind this chief's authority, and indeed at the back of every Trobriand chief's power over his people, is the fear of sorcery (bwagau), without which, says Mr Bellamy, ' I feel sure he is little more than a cipher. The Trobriand islander respects and obeys the man he fears and no other.' Discussing the whole matter of the authority of Taolu, Mr Bellamy says : ' Taolu is a Tabalu, a member of the chief family of the Malasi clan [Mr Bellamy describes this as of "royal blood"], but Pulitari of Mulosaida and Tokwaiaku of Kaileuna are also Tabalu, and both ridicule the idea of Taolu possessing any authority over them. They claim an equality of rank, but seniority seems to meet with the same respect as is found among white folk.... Taolu happens to be head of a large district, but if there be a senior or supreme chief It is Pulitali of Mulosaida, his elder brother. Taolu is a man who, being wealthier, has earned a reputation for getting his enemies quietly put out of the way. Pulitali is a quieter man altogether. The chief object in holding ''native money" in former days seems to have been the power this gave of paying someone to poison any disagreeable acquaintance. This is still supposed to be done, and threats are constantly made. All chiefs are frightened at tokai or commoners possessing large gardens, pigs and native jewellery, and this fear arises, not so much from jealousy, as from the fact that their possession enables a man to pay for the '* putting away " of his enemies either by actual poisoning with the gall of the soaka fish, or by apparent sorcery, behind which of course is either soaka or some other poison. Often enough

Plate LXXV

Chiefs house at Omarakana

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the fact that a man knows another man has threatened him with bwagau will be sufficient to kill him. He becomes miserable, goes in fear of food, tobacco and water, in fact he suspects everything and dies from sheer fright. The word tobwagau is generally translated sorcerer...', "xhe word bwagau.., '^\iO\Adi I think be translated "to poison." Howmuch truth there is in the tales now told of former tobivagau I cannot say; at the present day it is a very real fear, and in court cases it is practically impossible to get reliable evidence against an alleged tobwagau, because death is apparently the result of ''giving away" the sorcerer.'

The houses of paramount chiefs, including those in which their wives live, as well as their yam houses {boi?na), are the only houses on which carved and painted boards are displayed. Plate LXXV represents the house of a chief at Omarakana while Plate LXXVI shows a group of yam houses. The houses and yam houses of Pulitari at Kavatari village were decorated in the same way. Mr Bellamy notes that the ri^^ht to decorate their yam houses with the large white shells of Ovulum ovum, called by the islanders buna, is limited to the families of the chiefs of the Malasi and Lukuba clans. The family of the chiefs of the Lukosisiga may not decorate their yam houses with these shells, and Lokulobuta having no aristocratic family cannot do so. The arrangement of the shells varies according to the clan of the family upon whose yam house they are used. The Tabalu (Malasi clan) arrange the shells in rows on the woodwork on the front of the yam house, while the Gumweguia (Lukuba clan) place the shells in small squares of four each. One of the yam houses in Plate LXXVI is ornamented with buna shells in a manner showing that it belongs to a chief of the Malasi clan. The timbers forming the well of a chief's yam house may be carved, as is shown in Plate LXXVH.

Besides decorating his yam house a guyau has certam rights and privileges.' One of these concerns pig kt-eping. though I am not clear as to the exact nature ot this right ; perhaps no one but a paramount chief may keep pigs in his own name. Mr Bellamy points out that although there are

1 * Sirkness and disease are generally ascribed to sorcer)', o'cn accidents are referred back in most cases to this. I n the event of acc.den ts. say a man f.dls fr^mtu"' or'^s'aUaXd by a fish or wounds himself wu ,^,,^n.fc 'n gardcn.n^^

J- . 1 ..-^\ ^ . " Mnvv wVin has a L'^rudize auamst me." Ana navmj, uctiuc* immediately thmks : Now wno nas a k' "'^o Jf ,. .,. , this point he fixes the blame for the accident accordingly.

696 The Northern Massi7n no ornaments worn exclusively by paramount chiefs, the chiefs of the Tabalu family alone have the right to wear a belt covered with shell discs (called zuakisoa) hanging down the back from the hair, and kwasia (fibre armlets) on the wrists, although all paramount chiefs and commoners may alike wear kwasia over the biceps, and a shell disc belt round the waist.

There is no food which paramount chiefs are allowed to eat which is forbidden to village head men or commoners of the same clan. There is no special form of address when speaking to a paramount chief, nor any special salutation, but a commoner must not be on a physically higher level than a gtiyau. Thus, when a paramount chief appears all squat down, and a commoner will not pass a chief without bending his body, while if the guyau be sitting, a commoner desirous of passing would ask the chief to rise, so that in walking past he may not be higher than the sitting chief The observance of this rule recently led the Mulosaida people to ask Pulitari if they might build him a high platform on which he could sit, as their backs ached with much bending when he sat on a low one. This platform was accordingly put up and is in daily use.

Every guyau is, at least in theory, supreme head of the people living in his territory, and before the Government exerted its authority a few men such as Enamakala of Omarakana village and Pulitari of Kavatari village appear to have been absolute autocrats. They might be carried when tired, and would tell people of any clan to do the heavy work in their gardens and to build their houses, yam houses, or houses for their wives. They would of course feed men working for them in this way, but it was distinctly recognized that they had the right to demand such services. A paramount chief might send any young man to catch fish for him, and Mr Bellamy notes that the first-fruits of the yam gardens were presented to the paramount chiefs. On the other hand, there were certain matters which it appeared were always attended to by his own family ; his wife or wives made their own gardens, though the rough work of clearing and turning up the soil was done for them, and members of his own family fetched water and food for him and themselves.

When a paramount chief required a new house or yam house he would send word to all his villages, whose inhabitants would come on a given day headed by their respective toriwaga, and they would soon put up the house, since the men of the village in which the paramount chief lived would have previously cut, prepared and roughly shaped all the wood necessary for the house and have provided a supply of binding and roofing material. It was stated that on these occasions the guyau would feast everyone with pork and vegetable food, \k^ guyau with his toriwaga feeding apart from the commoners who, however, would receive the same quality of food as their chiefs.

It is not possible to say much concerning the magical powers of chiefs. Magic, megua, to make the gardens productive, is performed by both chiefs and commoners, indeed this magic is so little esoteric that Mr Bellamy considers that in every family there is a man with the necessary knowledge ^either on the husband's or the wife's side.' The megua tau
who performs this magic, is not limited to 'medicining' the gardens of his own clansmen, but will act for anyone able and willing to pay him. Certain herbs are chewed and spat about the garden by the megua lau, and everyone is warned to keep away during the charming. This is all that could be elicited, but it was stated that part of the food given to a chief, which would often consist largely of fish, was in fact a return for this assistance. In famine the chiefs would also be expected to bring rain by magical means, but during the last period of scarcity, due to drought, in the Trobriands, the chiefs although they 'made medicine' in the usual way were quite unsuccessful in bringing rain, and men who were not aristocrats were spoken of as having been more successful than any chief

It was not easy to gauge the exact amount of authority possessed by the village head man or toriwaga. Makuniga of the Malasi clan, the toriwaga of Osiwasiu village, a usually reliable informant, stated that the people of his own villaire would do whatever he suggested, but on the other hand he admitted that in any weighty matter he would consult with the elders of his village. Probably he is correct in saying that his people do as he suggests in such matters as making gardens for him, and they certainly bring him a share of fish they have caught, and it seems that he really wields very considerable influence in the informal councils of the village, but, as far as could be judged in a short time, it did not seem that his word was in any sense law, even in his own village, although his villagers clearly did a good deal of work for him.

» Cf. footnote, p. 704-

Thus a village head man {toriwaga) when building a newhouse would call on the men of his village of every clan to cut down and prepare wood for him, and the girls and women to bring grass for roofing his house. He would feed everyone who helped him in this way, but a feast of vegetable food is all that would be expected from him, and it appears that a to7nivaga on these occasions never provided pork for his helpers.

It was said that feuds in the village such as might arise over women would not be referred to the toriwaga for settlement, for instance, an injured husband would assemble his friends and try and exact vengeance from the evildoer without any previous appeal to the toriwaga, who would, however, interfere to the extent of endeavouring to limit bloodshed, and would use all the influence he possessed to bring about a settlement.

It was said that thefts from the gardens, especially if constantly repeated, would be reported to the toriwaga who would caution the offender if he belonged to his own settlement ; if the culprit belonged to a neighbouring village he would not himself reprove him, but would see the toriwaga of the offender's village and ask him to look after his people better and especially to reprove the thief and warn him not to offend again. This information was obtained from Makuniga of Osiwasiu village, but there was no opportunity of checking it.

Above all it was a chiefs duty to preside at the feasts and ceremonies of his village or villages, and to distribute food suitably to visitors upon these occasions.

Difficult as it proved to obtain any satisfactory idea of the extent and nature of the authority exerted by the toriwaga, the exact relation of the toriwaga to the guyau proved even more puzzling, indeed neither Mr Bellamy nor myself are prepared to make any definite statement in this intensely puzzling subject. The toriwaga has not the pig privilege alluded to on page 695, and everyone agrees that he is not a guyau and yet he is permitted to build a big yam house, which an ordinary native is not allowed to do. Further, although he is a commoner, Moliasi, a toriwaga, recently disputed the authority of Toalu the most important guyau of the leading family of the Trobriand Group, and drove him from his village which he burnt.

It has already been stated that at the feast given after a house has been built for 2i guyaii, xki^ guyau and his toriwaf^a eat together, apart from the commoners, and although a guyau would not share his lime-pot with a commoner, or eat with one, he would chew betel and eat freely with all toriwaga. Any of the latter when approaching a paramount chief would do so without stooping and would speak without waiting to be addressed first. There is no ceremony at which a village chief humbles himself before a paramount chief or acknowledges his supremacy in any ceremonial way, and it was pointed out that if a paramount chief wished to talk with a village chief, he would not send for the latter but would usually himself come to his village.

Women were allowed upon all platforms except those of the yam houses of paramount and village chiefs; these are reserved strictly for the men, and on them, or hanging above them under the eaves of the house, the drums of the village are kept habitually. The yams in these houses are stored and removed as may be necessary by men only, who in the case of village chiefs are usually of the chiefs clan. These rules do not appear to apply to the yam houses of commoners.

Thus there are many points of similarity in the customs concerning a paramount chief and village head man, but there is one obvious difference. It has been stated that a commoner approaches his chief in a more or less stooping attitude, often with his hands behind him or held open at his sides, and does not, as a rule, speak without giving the giiyau the opportunity of speaking to him first. Nothing comparable with this marks the intercourse of a toriimga and his villagers, at the most there may be (I believe) a slight momentary inclination of the head, though this is unusual, and I have seen a toriwaga sitting on the platform of his yam house surrounded by a jostling throng of his villagers, no one of whom thought of taking steps to avoid being physically in as high a position iis his village head man. The same practice regulates the descent of authority of guyau and toriivaga, for on the death of one of these the office passes to one of the brothers of the deceased, or failing a brother to a sister's son. If these direct heirs do not exist, an heir is provided during the hfetime of the guyau or toriwaga by the adoption of a member ol his own clan, who will succeed him in office. It seemed clear that, if the family of a village head man became •extinct, the giiyatc would not nominate the new village head man.

Before leaving the subject of chieftainship it is perhaps advisable to say something concerning the alleged existence of one chief of greater authority than the other paramount chiefs of the Group, who Is the acknowledged over-lord of all of these. This idea, which Is generally held in New Guinea, is doubtless due to some extent to the verbally expressed opinion of Sir William MacGregor which naturally carries considerable weight, as well as to the remarks concerning the Trobrlands which occur in his reports.

The Information set forth in this chapter does not however afford evidence of the existence of a supreme over-lord.

The opportunity did not arise of visiting Taolu, the brother and successor of Enamakala, but Inquiries made at the villages of Osiwasiu and Koma upon Kadawaga and at Kavatari and Lobua upon Kiriwina, led in every case to a hearty denial that the late chief Enamakata of Omarakana was in any sense an over-lord of the other paramount chiefs of the group, or that the latter were subject to him. It was emphatically declared on Kadawaga that no brother of Enamakala ever looked after the Island, or the other smaller islands lying to the west of Kiriwina. Certainly at the present day Kadawaga does not acknowledge the sway of Taolu, even In an * easy sort of way ' as the islands * to the windward of Kiriwina' are said to do by Sir William Mac- Gregor \ It was repeatedly asserted that all paramount chiefs are of equal dignity ; and if jealousy of Enamakala be considered sufficient reason to lead Pulitari to deny that Enamakala was his over-lord, this will scarcely explain the repeated denials of the Kadawaga men that Enamakala was a greater or more important chief than other paramount chiefs such as Pulitari. Further, it was pointed out that any paramount chief, if tired, might be carried on men's backs, as Enamakala was often carried at Kiriwina I

^ Annual Report^ 1896-7, App. I, p. 38. 2 Annual Report^ 189 1-2, App. G, p. 29.

Chieftainship n^ j

The Marshall Bennets.

Upon each island one man is regarded as the head man or chief of each clan, and the chief of one particular clan traditionally the most important upon that island, is recognized as chief of the whole island.

The following list gives the chiefs of the Gawa clans, and shows the hamlets in which they live respectively. Yoseli of the fish-hawk totem is chief of the whole island.

'r°t^"^ Chief Hamlet

Fish-hawk {Mulovzaka) Yoseli Osaisia

Pigeon {Bubuna) Suluyowa Korgeta

Frigate-bird {Dawei) Kwadui Umeraka

Lory {Gegila) Kuboma Bihuna

Tarakaka Kutopara Gugau

As has been already stated in the section on totemism the fish-hawk totem is said to have been always the most important on Gawa, and the chief of this totem is recognized as chief of the whole island community. Indeed he seems to occupy very much the same position in relation to other chiefs, as a paramount chief does to his village head man {toriwaga) in the Trobriands. The name for a chief is guyau, and this term is applied equally to all the clan chiefs of the island, including Yoseli, at once the chief of the fish-hawk totem and of the whole island. Each form of chieftainship is strictly hereditary, passing first to the brothers and then to the sons of the sisters of a reigning chief Considerable difficulty was experienced in forming opinions as to the difference in status that existed between a clan chief and the chief of a whole island, or paramount chief, as I propose to call him. It was obvious that Yoseli took some trouble to keep out of the way of our party, and, when talked to, proved himself a singularly unsatisfactory informant, though it seemed certain that this was not due to any lack of intelligence on his part. The natives on the island regarded him as considerably more important than the other clan chiefs, whom they approached with no particular ceremony, whereas every man not himself a clan chief who approached Yoseli did so slowly and quietly, and in a more or less stooping attitude, in the same way as the Trobriand commoners approach a paramount chief

In each island the chief of a clan is shown considerable

702 The Northern Masshn deference and enjoys certain privileges : if he does not care to go fishing he need not do so, it is the duty of men of his own clan to bring him a portion of their catch if he has no fish in his house. It appears that commoners of other clans might sometimes present fish to the chief of a foreign clan, but this seems never to have been in any sense a duty. The men of his clan clear the bush for a paramount chief when he requires to make a garden, and he would feed them while they were working for him. It was said that when planting a new garden the members of his own clan would contribute a number of seed yams and bananas, and that his clanswomen would assist his own wife and family in planting them. On the other hand, when a chief required a new canoe he would generally work on the canoe himself, assisted by the men of his clan. At the inter-clan feasts called rmirukaru, a clan chief will receive a larger share of food than any commoner ; this, of course, only applies to chiefs of clans other than that giving the feast, for at murukaru no member of a clan giving the feast eats any portion of the food. It was stated that the clan chiefs (as such) had no special power over the weather, and did not know any rain or wind charms, nor were they able to ensure a prosperous trading voyage ; on the other hand, it was the duty of each clan chief to charm the gardens of his clan, and at Kwaiawata it was pointed out that it was in return for this, for which he received no direct pay, that a chief had a large amount of his garden work done for him and received presents of garden produce and fish.

In 'medicining' the garden it is necessary to turn up a portion of the ground with a long stick while a spell is muttered ; this turning up and charming of the ground is generally done in three places, but no ' medicine ' is actually put into the ground. At Iwa it was said that sticks of different wood were used according to the crop which was to be planted and that each crop had its appropriate charm. For sugar cane, the stick used would be made of bus ; for bananas, of a tree called kaiboga, while a stick cut from a tree called tabarua was used when it was desired to make certain yams grow well. When coconuts were to be planted, a stick made of wood of a plant called beawam was used, and in order that this charming of the young plants should prove effective when the time came for them to bear fruit, it was advisable that the stick used to break up the ground should

I

have previously rested for some time In contact with a germinating coconut or a young coconut palm.

It was probably a duty of the clan chief to compose troubles between the men of different clans and within his own clan, but of this I have no reliable note, and it certainly seemed that ' medicining ' the gardens and taking a prominent part in feasts were the chief functions of the clan chief.

Besides the clan and paramount chiefs it was clear that in many hamlets a considerable amount of authority rested in the hands of one old man who, on account of his seniority, was recognized as head of the family to which the members of the hamlet belonged. When discussing matters connected with chieftainship there was a tendency on the part of informants to speak of the heads of families and to quote their decisions as though they were chiefs. This indicates that even the comparatively advanced idea of chieftainship which prevails in the Marshall Bennets is so closely akin to the authority wielded by the head of the family, that it was felt that this might be cited with advantage in order to elucidate the privileges and functions of the clan and island chiefs.

CHAPTER LII

FAMILY LIFE, YOUTH AND ADOLESCENCE.

Mr Bellamy says: 'Children are desired, especially boy children. A barren woman is not perhaps despised, but in the event of a quarrel with another woman, her childlessness might be ''thrown in her face" as a reproach. A Tnegua tau (medicine man) is occasionally called in to " doctor " the barrenness; his mode of procedure is incantation and a harmless drink, a decoction of some native root'\

'Intercourse is recognized as the cause of children, although single girls who become pregnant have a curious habit of blaming some or other portion of their diet.'

'There is no special ceremony at the seventh month of pregnancy, although when it becomes certain that the woman is pregnant, the husband and wife give a feast to their friends and relatives to celebrate the event. There are no dietetic rules during pregnancy. After childbirth for three months or so, a woman avoids drinking cold water, she always warms it. In the out-patient department of the Trobriand Special Hospital such a woman will refuse to swallow a pill unless the water is tepid.'

Before and durino- the actual birth of a first child the husband sleeps in the verandah of the house, but in the case of subsequent children he goes in and out of the house freely, even sleeping there while his wife is confined. He is allowed to see the newly-born child immediately, there is no ceremonial avoidance of the mother and child, and he only keeps out of the way as a matter of convenience. There are no

^ *A megua tau differs from a iobivagau^ although sometimes the professions are combined in the same individual. Tobwagau is a sorcerer whose help is obtained and paid for to get rid of an enemy, while a inegica tau medicines people, dogs, gardens, canoes, winds, weather and so forth.' [The 7negua tau is in fact an expert practising beneficent magic]

Children -705

ceremonies at childbirth. The navel string [sileula) and placenta {umsa) are buried in the bush without ceremony.

A married man should not have intercourse with another woman, be she single or married, during the time his own wife has a child at her breast, although lactation lasts for an average period of two years. The penalty for breaking this rule is the illness and perhaps death of the child.

No man likes a family of girls, and if a couple have no sons and three girls are born in succession, the last born might be killed. Formerly this was the open and recognized practice, now it can only be done secretly. The reason for the unpopularity of a family of daughters only is that these girls would have no brothers to make gardens for them, and a man hesitates to marry into such a family, saying to himself: 'Where are the brothers to make a garden for my wife, their sister?'^ Brotherless girls find it extremely difficult to find husbands; on the other hand, one girl in a family of about five boys will have numerous suitors, and large quantities of property, perhaps reaching a trade value of as much as ^20 or ^30, may be presented to her father and other relatives as the bride-price. For this information I am indebted to Mr Bellamy.

A woman who has twins or triplets is compared to a pig and is ridiculed.

Children take the mother's totem, and although adoption is practised the adopted child retains its true totem.

CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE.

Children are not infrequendy named after a maternal uncle or aunt, and instances were found in which people were named after their maternal grandfather or grandmother ; I could hear of no case in which a man was called alter his father or father's relatives, but my inquiries m this direction were unduly limited by the short tune at my disposal. Often the name for a child would be suggested by one of its mother's relations, thus the girl-child recently born to Makuniga is called Namdoga, a name which is said to have occurred many times in his wife's family and to have

1 It is the custom for brothers to each make a garden for their married .islcr and continue to help her as long as she and they live.

S. N. G.

7o6 The Northern Massim been suggested In the present Instance by his mother-In-Iaw. Sometimes children are named after valuable articles of shelljewellery; at Kavatarl there Is a woman called Pllapala, this being the name of a well-known armshell.

Children are told to what totem they belong at a fairly early age, indeed it seems that their parents explain the privileges and prohibitions attaching to their membership of their clan as soon as the children can be expected to understand them. About the same time boys are given their first perineal bands, which are put on them by their father in his own house and without any ceremony. When naughty, children of either sex are gently beaten by their mother upon the cheeks or shoulders, never upon the buttocks, though sometimes a stick may be used. As long as a boy's parents are alive It seems that the maternal uncle does not have much to do with his upbringing; If a man caught a youngster thieving in his garden, he would take the child to his mother for punishment, and would point out to her that she must really teach him better manners. There Is no Initiation ceremony at puberty, but about this time the boys are said to sleep In a separate building, often an empty yam house, which is shared by members of all the clans, and as the sleeping-place of the boys is called burukuku matura. Sometimes a special sleeping-place is built for the boys; at Siviagela, a village between Lobua and Boitaru, there was. In 1904, a roofed-over platform which in general shape and appearance resembled the degenerate present day loe of the Pokao-speaking people of the Central Division, and which was said to be the sleeping-place of the unmarried boys of the village. There are no girl-houses at the present time, and It is said that there never were any. There Is no ceremonial seclusion even at the first period, though, as Mr Bellamy points out, a girl's teeth are blackened at puberty, and at this time she eats out of a special dish, although her food is cooked at the common fire. A woman who has borne one or more children was stated to wear two petticoats. «

Concerning relationship terms Mr Bellamy gives the following information. Blood relations in general are called kadala, which is the specific reciprocal relationship term In use between mother's brother and sister's child. Relations by marriage are called vaivai. The following summary of i

Relationship Terms 707

relationship terms has been prepared from two lists collected respectively by Mr Bellamy and Dr Rivers': —

Tama, father, paternal uncle, maternal aunt's son, maternal aunt's husband.

Ina, mother, maternal aunt, paternal uncle's wife, maternal uncle's wife.

Luguta, sister, paternal uncle's daughter, maternal aunt's daughter.

Tua, elder brother, elder sister, paternal uncle's child, maternal aunt's child, wife's sister, husband's brother.

Bwada, younger brother, younger sister, paternal uncle's son, maternal aunt's son, wife's sister, wife's sister's husband, husband's brother, husband's brother's wife.

Latu, child, brother's child, maternal uncle's child.

Kada, maternal uncle or aunt, sister's child, maternal aunt's husband.

Tabu, grandfather, grandmother, grandchild, paternal aunt, paternal aunt's husband, paternal aunt's daughter-.

lauwa, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-inlaw.

Lubo, wife's brother, sister's husband.

luaguta, husband's sister, brother's wife.

Ulo mala, husband.

Ulo kwava, wife.

There is a word lubai or nubai which means dear friend or darling and is never applied to blood relations; thus a man who sleeps constantly with the same girl previous to marriage is her lubaila. The term lubai is never applied to a fellow-clansman or clanswoman, though many connections by marriage including father-in-law and mother-in-law are called by this name. The lubai play an important part in funeral and mourning ceremonies (cf. chapter liv).

1 Dr Rivers collected his information from a Trobriand man whom he met away from his group. „ , . ,^ „• ^^> i:c»c

2 This relation occurs as tabu in both Mr Bellamy's and Dr Rivers list..

45-2

CHAPTER LIII

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.

The Trobriands.

As elsewhere in the Massim area, courtship consists of more or less prolonged cohabitation, the girl receiving her lover's visits in her parents' house at night, and it is only when it seems that the couple are not carrying on a merely temporary intrigue that the girl's parents suggest to her lover or his parents that the young people should marry \ A match might sometimes be made without the boy and girl having previously slept together ; it is not clear whether the girl would herself suggest marriage to the boy, as elsewhere in the south-eastern district, though it is very likely that this does occur. Apparently there is no bargaining as to the bride-price; when the match is agreed on and the marriage is regarded as consummated, the boy takes the girl to spend the night with him in his father's house ; the next day the bridegroom's father sends a considerable present to the girl's relatives. In one instance occurring at Lobua village, the bridegroom's father sent a pair of armshells (quality not stated) and two steel axes. A return present is made by the bride's folk, but this usually consists only of food, and the valuable shell jewellery sent by the boy's people is not repaid. When Makuniga, the toriwaga of Osiwasiu village, was about to marry, his people sent three ceremonial axe blades, one pair of armshells and one sapisapi necklace, here called karob
this present was actually delivered to the bride's mother who, it was said, kept the armshells for herself but distributed the axe blades and necklace to her sisters and brothers. A woman comes to her husband's village at the beginning of

1 Mr Bellamy says that intercourse is very free between the unmarried, and that it begins at a very early age.

I

Courtship and Marriage -jq(^

married life, and gardens are first made on the husband s land, though a garden would commonly be started on the wife's land as soon as possible afterwards; this rule that a bride comes first to her husband's village and makes a garden there is stated to hold equally for paramount chiefs, villao-e chiefs and commoners. ^

A married man visiting his wife's village would stay with his father-in-law, instead of in the house of a clansman, as an unmarried visitor would do. Mr Bellamy states that a man may speak to his mother-in-law, and a woman to her fatherin-law.

A divorced woman returns to her parents' house, usually taking her children with her.

The Marshall Bennets.

The inhabitants of the different islands of the Marshall Bennet Group seem to intermarry freely in spite of the fact that fighting formerly took place between certain of these islands, notably Kwaiawata and Gawa. Gawa did not intermarry with the Trobriands to any extent, but it appeared that the people of Kwaiawata, which is situated nearer to the Trobriands, did intermarry with Kiriwina, the largest island of the Trobriand Group. Even at the present day no one marries into his own clan, and formerly no one would marry into his or her father's clan, though recently this has been done by so prominent a man as Kutopara, the clan chief of the tarakaka totem of Gawa. As is usual in the southeastern district, courtship consists of more or less prolonged cohabitation; the marriage proposal apparently always comes from the girl, or sometimes, as it was said, from the girl's father. If the man assents, the matter is discussed with the parents of both parties. When all has been arranged the father of the boy gives a large present to the bride's parents, who in return bring to the boy's parents a present of uncooked vegetable food and a large pig. Usually, perhaps indeed in every case, a certain amount of shell jc-wellery is also given to the bridegroom's parents by the bride's people, but as a general rule the girl's parents receive more than they give. The father of Kutopara of Gawa on the occasion of his son's marriage gave the bride's father as many as twenty pieces of valuable property, including ceremonial a.xe blades, yio The Northern Massim bagi and armshells; the bride's father in return presented a bagi, a pig, and a large quantity of vegetable food. A Kwaiawata man stated that when he married, his father sent to his bride's parents five pairs of really good armshells and a pig, and received in exchange one bagi and two sapisapi belts ; this man was careful to point out that the present sent by his father was more valuable than that which he received in return. Although it is always stated that the father of the bridegroom provides the valuable shell ornaments, they are in part collected from other relatives of the bridegroom. In the Kwaiawata instance just quoted, the bridegroom's maternal uncle found one pair of armshells, and so received one of the sapisapi belts of the return present, the remaining belt and the bagi being kept by the bridegroom's father. An Iwa man of some importance stated that his father-in-law was given five pairs of armshells, three bagi, and one ceremonial axe blade, besides some beads and calico, but I have no note of what his own father received in return.

Similarly, it was stated that although a girl's father actually received the bride-price, it would be distributed between her mother, father, brothers and sisters, and her maternal and paternal uncles and aunts.

The bride is usually brought to the bridegroom's hamlet by her mother, who brings with her the food and ornaments that constitute the return present made by the bride's family. The young couple generally live together for some time in the house of the bridegroom's father. The food presented by the bride's mother is eaten by the bridegroom's father and mother and their relatives, but not by the bride and bridegroom. Immediately after marriage a garden is made on the husband's land, the folk of his hamlet helping him to clear the scrub, if this be necessary. At the same time it is usual, if the hamlets of the husband and wife are close together, for a garden to be made on the land belonging to the bride's hamlet, the young couple doing or being supposed to do half the work of each garden, and receiving half the produce thereof, the other half being taken by their respective parents. At Iwa it was stated that if the bridegroom living on the island did not work on his wife's garden land, his parents-inlaw would probably feel so aggrieved that they would suggest to their daughter that she should leave her husband, and

Marriage ^ i j although It was not absolutely necessary that a man should work in his wife's garden, it was clear throughout the Group that the gardens of both bride and bridegroom were worked by the young couple whenever possible.

It was said that sometimes a man would go and live in his wife's hamlet for a time, but this was quite unnecessary.

Murua.

Marriage usually takes place after more or less prolonged cohabitation, when an exchange of valuable presents is macle. Perhaps the tendency is increasing for the bridegroom's gifts to be more valuable than those given in exchange by the bride's relatives, and one informant at least seemed to think that the influence of the white miners, of whom there are now many upon the island, had something to do with this. One elderly man stated that on his marriage his people provided a pair of armshells, a bagi, and ten ceremonial axe blades, a return present of roughly the same value being made. Another who had recently married said that he had paid for his wife two steel axes, two large knives, half a case of tobacco and some calico ; this man explained that his people had not received anything approaching the equivalent of what they had given, and he pointed out that of old if the bride's father did not voluntarily make what was considered an adequate return present, he would have been shamed into doing so, as his son-in-law might have sent his bride to her father to ask for what he considered a fair exchange. It was said that when once the marriage price had been settled, no further payments were made on the birth of children.

On Tokunu marriage was said to be brought about in the same way as on Murua, but in the only instance of a Tokunu wedding of which I have a note, the bridegroom's father presented two pairs of armshells and one canoe to the bride's parents, who gave in return two pairs of armshells. two /^r7«^ and one canoe. According to Gaimagawa, my informant in this instance, the excess given by the wife's relatives was cheerfully paid because the bridegroom (himself) was considered to be unusually wise in all that concerned the making of a garden. Gaimagawa further stated that this exchange of presents had been arranged before the marriage was finally agreed to ; it seems likely enough that the actual exchange of presents mentioned took place, but the accuracy of the statement made by Galmagawa concerning the reason for this arrangement may well be doubted. At Murua and Tokunu a bride would come and live in her husband's village and a garden would be made upon her husband's garden-land, but it appeared that a wife's garden-land would usually be cultivated by her husband also, if the newly married couple lived in a village from which it was conveniently accessible. Although the Tokunu community is so small, and although its members intermarry freely with Murua, it did not seem that there was a tendency to avoid marriage within the community, since Dinebala of the blue pigeon totem of Sipwararo married a woman of the fish-hawk totem of Wapuru, and a man of the frigate-bird totem of Lasinawia married a woman of the same settlement of the fish-hawk totem ; a son resulting from this latter union was living in Lasinawia with his crippled mother in 1904.

POLYGYNY.

Throughout the domain of the Northern Massim polygyny is a privilege theoretically restricted to the families of chiefs, that is to say to paramount and village chiefs, their brothers' and their sisters' children, in other words to men standing in the direct line of descent of the chieftainship. Mr Bellamy points out that this rule is not strictly kept since on the Trobriands wealthy commoners, especially if they have a reputation as sorcerers (bwagau), not infrequently take more than one wife, knowing that no one will dare to challenge their right to do so. A chief already married would not sleep with the unmarried girls of the village, nor would he take these in marriage unless his first wife assented ; it appeared, however, that she would seldom object, and after discussing the matter with her own parents would usually act as intermediary between her husband and the girl he desired to marry. The girl's parents would be first approached, though there was seldom any difficulty about allowing a girl to become one of the wives of a chief; similarly it appeared that the girl would not object, although in theory at least she had the right to refuse the match. The presents sent to the parents of the first and of all other wives are of the same value, and the status of the first wife did not appear to differ from that of the others, though it must be remembered that no opportunities for practical observation on this point occurred.

sen

Polygyny 713

It seemed that great consideration was shown to the lior wives even when they became old and ugly, and there is no doubt that the senior wives directed and exerted a good deal of influence over the younger wives. Each wife has her own house which, since it is regarded as belonging to her husband, is carved and decorated as are only the houses of chiefs. The consideration shown to the older wives has been alluded to by Sir William MacGregor who, speaking of Enamakala, says :

' I was... invited by him to come and see his wives. Their houses are built at a distance of a few yards from each other in the form of a crescent.... In each were a sleeping platform, a fireplace, and cooking utensils. They were seventeen in number, one for each wife. The mistress of each house had in most cases seated herself at the door. They were not all young, and some at least did not present a very attractive appearance ; but I have never known a Papuan repudiate a wife because she was old and ugly. It is a peculiarity of their domestic relations that the old and apparently worn-out wives are treated with greater consideration than the younger ones. The second chief of the place continued the circuit with the five houses of his five wives, there being a decent interval between the last of Enamakala's houses and the first of the minor chief.

In another report it is said of the same chief:

' There are scores of very handsome girls all around him, but the good points in his own nineteen wives would not, if all united in the person of one of them, make her an attractive woman.... Toura, the second chief, and next younger brother of Enamakala, had lost one wife by death, but had married another since my previous visit, so that he still numbers five. The younger brother had the difficult task of dividing two sticks of tobacco among his 'hv^ wives, and the chief had to ^ive out five sticks among his nineteen. If they had any favoured ones in the number it cannot be discovered m the scrupulous evenness with which they divided this artirlcamong them''. , . ^ . . .^ u;^

The widows of a paramount chief pass in part to his successor, in part to his other brothers. 1 aolu who succeeded Enamakala took over eight of his brother s widows, the rest of the widows being distributed among his brothers.

1 Annual Report, 1891-2, App. G, p. 28. ^ Ibid. .893-4, App. U, p. ^^

Mr Bellamy has furnished the following information col cerning the widows of commoners {tokai). A commoner does not take his dead brother's wife. A widow leaves her late husband's house and goes to the house of one of his relatives, * never, it appears, to her own father's or mother's house.' The relative usually selected is the brother of her dead husband, and she stays in his house until she marries again, which she is free to do.

THE REGULATION OF MARRIAGE.

Marriage is not permitted within the clan, nor should anyone select as partner a member of his or her father's clan. Further, blood relations are forbidden to marry, this prohibition extending to at least third cousins.

It has already been stated in chapter l that there is no dual grouping of the clans, and this point has been confirmed by the Rev. M. N. Gilmour of Kavatari, who writes : ' Going over my marriage register, in which very many of the entries are simply a Christian confirmation of a native marriage contracted before the whites had any influence in the place, I find mixed marriages of every possible combination. There is absolutely no trace of a dual grouping of the totems '\

^ In spite of this testimony which agrees with the results of inquiries made for me by Mr Bellamy, it is worth referring to a Report on venereal disease in the Trobriands, because this report shows how valueless apparently good circumstantial evidence may be. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that, without the result of careful inquiries made on the spot, it would have been scarcely possible to avoid believing that the substance of this footnote indicated a dual grouping of the clans.

During 1905 a special hospital for venereal cases was established in the Trobriands under the care of Mr R. L. Bellamy, who, in his first annual report upon this hospital — for a copy of which I am indebted to Captain Barton — makes a number of very interesting remarks. The totems of 247 cases of venereal disease occurring in the Trobriands are analysed as follows : —

82 were of the Karaga kin,

72 were of the Bubuna kin,

48 were of the Gegila kin,

45 were of the Muloviaka kin. Further Mr Bellamy then considered that folk of the Karaga and Bubuna totems and of the Gegila and Muloviaka totems especially tended to intermarry, for in this report he says: — *I have noticed that there appears to be a greater matrimonial tendency generally between Karaga and Bubuna, and Bubuna and Karaga, than between, for instance, Karaga and Gegera [Gegila] or Bubuna and Muloviaka. The Gegera and Muloviaka people seem likewise to marry more frequently than with either the Karaga or Bubuna.'

i

CHAPTER LIV

BURIAL AND MOURNING CEREMONIES.

The first mention of the burial customs of the Northern Massim^ was made more than fifty years ago by Father Tomassin who noted the most startHng feature about the funeral rites of these people, namely the exhumation and the careful preservation of the skull and certain other bones. Father Tomassin's description applies to Murua and will be given at length when describing the mourning customs of that island.

The Trobriands.

A man would generally be buried on the morning of the day following his death. A black band is traced on the dead man's forehead, he is decorated with a necklace of sapisapi, here called karob, and with armshells, and a shell ornament called nauwa is placed in the nasal septum, a new perineal bandage is also put on him. All this is done by the lubai, this word being used as a reciprocal term of relationship applied to certain connections by marriage, and, I believe, to certain near relatives who are never of the same clan. It was said that a man's lubai also dig his grave, remove his ornaments before he is buried, and sometimes build a small house above the grave, in which they may sleep for three nights. Until three or four years ago when the Government interfered actively, graves were dug in the village; Mr Bellamy says concerning this: 'The only reason is one of respect, as one man said, when I removed his father's body from under his verandah, " Is my father a dog that he should be buried in the bush .? " ' A dead man's body would be kept in the house until burial, and during the whole of the time that it is above ground there would be almost continuous wailing by the women of the whole village ; the men. too,

7i6 The Northern Massim would sorrow, showing their grief by pressing their noses and sniffing so as to extrude as much nasal mucus as possible which is taken between the fingers and thrown upon the ground.

As soon as a man dies, whether he be chief or commoner, the yams stored in his yam house are shared out to the near relatives of his own totem, who, I believe, add these to the food they themselves provide for the funeral feast called sagali. Four or five of his coconut trees are cut down by his brothers, children and sisters' children. It was repeatedly asserted that anyone might eat of these nuts and that the leaves might be used by the women of any clan for basketwork or for making petticoats.

The brothers of the dead man and his sisters' children make a pretence of cutting down his house and yam houses soon after he is dead, but I cannot say whether this occurs before or after his burial. Their attempts are stopped by other relatives before they have done any damage other than defacing the carved and painted boards in the front of the house and yam houses of chiefs.

After the body has been placed in the grave, food is provided by all the near relatives of the deceased who are of his own totem, i.e. his mother, brothers and sisters, and sisters' children, and this food is eaten by all the other clans of the village. The widow, children and father of the dead man blacken themselves before this and all take part in this feast which is called sagali, this being the name for the heaps in which the food provided for the feast should be stacked. The sagali is held about a week after the death, and, as noted by Mr Bellamy, until this feast is over the other men of the village in which the death occurred may not sit on the ceremonial platforms called boimaviaka. When a village chief dies, his clansmen from all the neighbouring villages bring food to his burial feast ; the food so provided is added to that piled by his relatives in the heaps called sagali, in the clear central space of the village where dancing takes place.

The widow's hair is cut and she wears mourning for some time, perhaps for about ten months. Her mourning costume consists of a long petticoat called saipwan with a special form of neck ornament; her legs are covered with leglets from the ankle to the knee, and her arms with armlets from the elbow to the shoulder. These were said to be provided by her lubai who, in this instance, are her dead husband's sisters.

Burial and Mourning yiy

She is not confined to the house except for about three days, but she wears her mourning garments until the end of her period of mourning; these are then removed by her husband's sisters, who shorten her petticoat and cut her armlets and leglets, after which the widow goes to the seashore and washes herself. The hair of the dead man's children is cut, and they are smeared with black pigment which they retain for about a month, during which time they also wear a special mourning necklet called kua\ they avoid fish and yams for one and a half months.

When a woman dies her lubai — in this case her husband's brothers and, I believe, her father — dig the grave and bury her, after which the usual feast called sagaLi takes place. The greater part of the food is provided by the mother and maternal uncle and sisters of the deceased. Mr Bellamy adds that widower and widow both abstain from yams and fish for one and a half months after the death of their consort, but that all the people of the same totem living within reasonable distance would bring food and help to cook it. As in the case of a man this feast is eaten by people not of the same totem as the deceased.

A widower blackens himself and wears mourning for his dead wife in much the same manner as a widow does for her husband, some, or all, his mourning gear being given him by his dead wife's sisters.

Children of either sex, whether young or old, do not cut their hair, blacken their bodies, or abstain from any food when their mother dies, and a woman does not blacken her body or cut her hair on the death of a child. Simil.irly when a brother or sister dies there are no outward signs of mourning, though on the death of their sisters' children both men and women blacken their bodies, and I believe cut their hair (but on this point I am uncertain).

When the paramount chief of a district dies his village chiefs come to his village for the burial and burial feast, those of his own totem bringing with them a large quantity of yams, areca nut and bananas. Members of other totems who come to the funeral feast do not bring any food with them, though it is only the people of the dead man's totem who do not partake of the feast. No coconut palms would be destroyed at the death of a paramount chief in the villages subject to him, and it seemed clear that this rule held even in the case

7i8 The Northern Masshn of trees belonging to commoners or village chiefs of the dead man's totem. It was, on the other hand, quite certain that a number of coconuts would be cut down in his own village, and also that the nuts would be thrown down from a number of trees which would not be destroyed. It appeared that these nuts would be eaten at the funeral feast, but it Is not clear whether they belonged exclusively to the members of the dead chief's totem or not. The dead chief would be carried to his grave and buried in the same way as a dead commoner. Here, as at Kitava, black mourning pigment would be worn by all his subjects, except those belonging to his own clan. This applies even to women and children in all villages which acknowledge his suzerainty. The same custom as to the assumption of mourning prevails when the village chief dies, and his paramount chief will go into mourning for him if the dead man is not of his own totem. In all these cases It was said that the mourning pigment should be worn for about one month.

After the death of a paramount chief his father or his sister's husband removes the bones from the arms and legs and perhaps even some of the ribs ; these bones are distributed to people of all the totems, except that of the dead man, each village chief of the district over which he had ruled receiving one bone provided he does not belong to the dead chief's totem. It was said that these bones would finally be placed in the grave of a near relative of each recipient who would *take the bone to Tuma.' It should be noted that the whole of this statement was volunteered and was not given in reply to questions ; on the other hand, Mr Bellamy could find no evidence of the burying of any bones. Besides the bones which are distributed, enough are reserved to make lime spatulae which are * used ' ceremonially by the dead chief's father, children, and sisters' husbands^ Figure 49 is a spatula made from a humerus; the specimen from which this figure was drawn was collected in the Marshall Bennet Group.

It was said that the body of a paramount chief would be placed in the grave early in the morning and lightly covered with planks and mats amidst continuous wailing ; after a

^ And perhaps also by the dead man's sons-in-law though this is quite doubtful. As is explained later in this chapter only a pretence is made of using the spatulae made from human bones.

Burial and Mourning yio couple of hours or so the corpse would be taken out of the grave and more wailing would take place, then it would be put back in the grave from which it might be taken once or twice more and wept over, before being finally placed in the grave about sundown.

After the body had been in the grave for some time it would be exhumed and the skull made into a lime-pot by the children of the deceased, which they and perhaps also their father's widows might use. The corpse of a village chief is treated in the same manner as that of a paramount chief

When the first wife of a paramount chief dies, one of her brothers-in-law removes a bone from her fore-arm which he makes into a lime spatula. When a brother of a paramount chief dies, his (i.e. the dead man's) brother-in-law takes out the fibula and makes it into a lime spatula. When a son of a paramount chief dies, one of his paternal uncles removes and uses the dead man's fibula.

Fig. 49. Spatula made of human bone.

At Kavatari the following information was obtained: a man would be buried in the morning of the day following his death. The following night the grave is opened and the bones of the leg and fore-arm are removed by the dead man's father; but if he were dead or absent I believe the dead man's sister's husband might officiate. A man is placed in his grave by his father, brother-in-law and children, and these relatives make the bones removed from the arms and legs into lime spatulae, which they alone may use ceremonially. The terminal joints of the phalanges of a dead man are worn by his children, and in some cases the dead man's jaw is worn as a bracelet, but it is not clear whether this custom is limited to chiefs, or their sons, or extends to all commoners.

Although children will not eat food from their dead father's' village for some time after his death, it was clear

1 My notes on these points are so short as to be unsatisfactory. I have thouKhi it best not to go beyond the originals in the text, but to pomt out m a footnote thai probably 'dead fathers' gardens if near the village and coconuts near the house of the dead man' should be substituted for 'dead fathers'.'

that they would ultimately do so, and it was further noted that not only have sons no objection to hearing the name of their dead father spoken, but make no difficulty in speaking his name themselves. The names of the dead were not dropped from the spoken language ; thus Makuniga, the village chief of Osiwasiu, mentioned his predecessor in office, Karuodela, who was also his maternal uncle, before a large number of villagers, and unhesitatingly spoke of his dead father Topilimaidona and his brothers by name.

Mr Bellamy, who confirms the statement that the names of the dead are not stringently avoided, adds : ' A certain delicacy exists about speaking them. The exact term of relationship would be used rather than the actual name of the dead person.' On the other hand the names of certain of the living, near relations or connections of the deceased, are not used for some time after a death. Thus a widow or widower is spoken of as nakakatt or tokwakau respectively, until he or she marries again or removes the black mourning pigment with which the body is covered. A female whose father or paternal uncle dies is known as namilabova and a male as tomilabova ; here again these terms are used only until the mourning pigment is removed from the body. On the death of a brother or sister, a woman is spoken of as navaleta, a man as tovaleta,

A man whose child or whose brother's child dies, loses his name and becomes tomakapa during the period of mourning, his wife being known as namakapa.

Mr Bellamy could find no reason for these observances

• except that the dead were in the habit of calling one's name. One man explained that it was because they were " ashamed " to hear their names mentioned when the dead could no longer call them, but where the shame came in I could not discover.'

It has already been mentioned in the section on marriage that a widow does not remain in the house after her husband's death, but goes to the house of one of her husband's relatives, if possible a brother, or the child of one of his sisters. The dead man's house is not burnt, avoided, or allowed to rot, but passes to a brother of the deceased or, if none exist, to a sister's child. His garden property is divided between his brothers, sisters, and sisters' children; the same rule applies to his yam houses and to the bulk of his valuable personal

Burial and Motirnmg 721

property, such as shell ornaments. But as a matter of fact a man's children come to possess a considerable part of his wealth, for both during his vigour and shordy before death a man may hand over property to his children, though he takes the precaution of telling his brothers and sisters' children what he has done, so that there may be no disputes after his death. A woman's garden-land ultimately passes to her children, though apparendy if these are young all or some of her brothers, sisters, and maternal uncles will look after the land and make use of its produce.

The Marshall Bennets.

The most striking feature of the funeral customs of these islands is that the skull and certain bones are taken from the body, the skull being kept and the bones worn, while certain limb bones are made into spatulae, with which certain relatives feign to take lime. The habit of burying in the hamlet or village, which is associated with these customs, has led to much friction with the Government, and the greatest difficulty was experienced in getting information upon all points referring to the treatment of the body at and after burial. Indeed upon Gawa it was impossible to get reliable information upon these points. There is, however, no reason to doubt tlie substantial accuracy of the general information concerning death and mourning obtained upon Iwa and Kitava, but as the subject is full of difficulties all the available information is given under the name of the particular island upon which it was obtained, even where this entails some re[)etition. Further, it should be remembered that, although the information given is probably correct as far as it goes, it certainly is not in any sense complete.

At Iwa a man is buried in his own village, but his grave is dug by his lubai, i.e. certain relations-in-law, including at least his mother-in-law and his wife's brothers and sisters, and perhaps also his wife's sisters' children. A feast is made at or soon after the burial by the mother, brothers and sisters, and sisters' children of the deceased, and this is said to be eaten by the members of all clans other than that of the dead man, even his wife and children being alleged to partake of the food About this time the lubai open the grave and

S. N. G. ^

with the widow remove the skull, the bones of the fore-arm, the fibulae, and the cervical vertebrae. These are taken to the beach, where they are cleansed, after which the skull is given to the widow and children to take care of and keep in their house, while the lubai make the long bones into spatulae which they subsequently use, if this expression may be applied to their purely ceremonial treatment of the spatulae. It is the duty of the lubai to redden the blades of the spatulae to some extent, so as to imitate the appearance of a spatula actually used for conveying lime to the mouth. It was, however, explained that these spatulae would not really be used for this purpose, because the result of doing so would be that the eaters' teeth would fall out. The course pursued in these circumstances is as follows: a man about to colour one of these spatulae takes a good chew of areca nut and lime, and then, when his mouth is full of red saliva, lightly passes the spatula between his lips previously well wetted with saliva, so that some of the red colouring matter is deposited upon the spatula.

The jawbone of the dead man is worn by his widow, and his vertebrae and phalanges by his wife's brothers and his own children of both sexes.

The bones of a dead woman are removed by her husband, his mother, his brothers and sisters, and his sisters' children, all of whom help in cleaning the bones of the deceased, the skull being finally kept in the widower's house. The widower's brothers and his sisters' sons make spatulae from the bones of the deceased and keep and colour the spatulae so made. The dead woman's lower jaw is worn by her husband, while her cervical vertebrae are worn by her mother-in-law and her husband's sisters, the former also wearing a number of her phalanges.

At Kitava, in September 1904, every second or third individual wore some sign of mourning. This was said to be due to the recent death of the paramount chief of the island, who belonged to the pigeon totem. His successor, his sister's child, Toabiu by name, is said to have larger gardens than the other islanders and generally to be more influential than the other clan chiefs, but at the time of our visit it was clear that he was treated with less consideration than was usually shown to paramount chiefs in the Marshall Bennet Islands. It was, however, stated that his dead uncle had been treated

Burial and Motirning •72-5

with the greatest respect, that Toabiu would receive the same marks of respect when he was older, and that any commoner approaching him would do so with the body bent forward and the hands held behind the back\

The grave in which the late paramount chief had been buried was open, his skull, fibulae and fore-arm bones having been recently removed in order that they might be treated in the way already described. Around the dwelling and yam houses of the late chief and of the present chief Toabiu, was a taboo sign consisting of a fence of coconut leaves, each leaf placed horizontally with its pinules drooping towards the ground. Among these coconut leaves were many coconuts, each impaled on a single upright stick some two or three feet long thrust into the ground. Within the enclosure formed by the coconuts, and just in front of the late chief's dwellinghouse, was his open grave, an oblong hole some four feet deep, but appearing deeper because a frame some eighteen inches high, formed by two boards set on edge, was fitted exactly round the mouth of the grave. A number of large white cowrie shells (Ovulum ovum) were suspended at the head and foot of the grave. The ornamental front of the dead chief's yam house was unusually well carved, but the carvings had been ceremonially defaced by a number of slashes made by Toabiu, on account (as it was alleged) of his grief for the loss of his uncle. The graves of commoners are much less elaborate than those of chiefs; upon Kvvaiawata, the only outward sign of a burial was a roughly built fence surrounding a number of ornamental foliage plants which had been planted on the grave. At Kitava, although no difficulty was made in allowing me to visit the dead chiefs hamlet, none of the natives from other hamlets who followed the party about the island more or less constantly entered the hamlet or even came to its outskirts. No reason for this could be elicited, beyond the statement that it was customary for the people of strange hamlets to avoid a hamlet in which mourning was in full progress.

At Gawa custom does not require that a dying man shall be supported in any specific attitude, the recumbent posture is accordingly the usual one. The eyes of the deceased are closed by his brother or mother, the body is ornamented with

1 This is the position in which the paramount chiefs of the Trobrianda arc approached.

46 — 2

bagi, armshells, and the shell nose ornament worn in the septum and here called naur\ black lines are also drawn on the face starting below the eyes and ending over the lower jaw midway between the point of the chin and the angle of the jaw. These lines are drawn by the dead man's sisters' children, who, with the brother of the deceased, place the ornaments described above and a new perineal bandage on the corpse.

If a death takes place in a strange hamlet, the remains are removed for burial. The corpse is wrapped in a mat in which it is carried to the grave, which is dug in the hamlet of the deceased, usually in front of his house or yam house. It appears that no shelter is built over the grave. Neither the widow nor the children of the deceased follow the corpse to the grave, but they all wear mourning. The widow blackens herself and wears a long petticoat called doba, and cross-shoulder belts called 77iagula, these articles being made for her by her dead husband's sister, but she is said to wear no armlets. The children of the deceased blacken themselves and wear cross-shoulder belts and armlets called pegara. It was said that if there were any delay on the part of the children in assuming mourning or any tendency to shirk this duty, their dead father's sisters and sisters' children would expostulate with them, and so shame them into it. Neither the brother of the deceased nor the children of his sisters wear any mourning ornaments.

Some little time after burial (the exact time could never be ascertained) the grave is re-opened and the remains taken out, when the skull and certain of the limb bones are extracted and taken to the seashore to be cleaned. No special dress is worn at the exhumation or while cleaning the bones, but a feast called sagali, provided by the brothers, sisters, and the children of the sisters of the deceased, is made when the remains are dug up.

When a woman dies away from the hamlet to which she belongs, her body is brought back to it and burial takes place in the manner already described in the case of a dead man, but the face of the corpse is painted by her children as well as her sisters' children. A few days after the death the husband blackens himself and puts on cross-shoulder bands {magula) made of a creeper, and armlets [pegara) made of a

Burial and Motirnmg -25

species of Calamus. It is the duty of the dead woman's sister to make these ornaments and give them to him.

As in the case of a male, so when a woman dies, the skull and bones are removed from the corpse \

The widow discards the mourning ornaments some ten months after her husband's death, but before doing so she and her relatives make a feast for the brothers, sisters and sisters' children of the dead man. After this her sisters-in-law take the widow to the seashore where they wash her and so remove the black with which she has freshly painted herself for the occasion. They also cut short the long mourning petticoat which she has worn hitherto. A widower undergoes a similar process at the hands of his dead wife's sisters who take him to the foreshore, scrub the black pigment from his body, and remove the magula and pegara which they had originally made for him. A dead man's children are similarly treated, but it was said that in this case the sons of the sisters of the dead man, i.e. his kada, officiate.

At Kwaiawata the body of a man who dies away from his own village is said to be fetched by his sisters' children who are summoned for this purpose by the people among whom he dies. The grave is dug by the dead man's mother and his sisters' children, never by his father, and the corpse is placed in the grave by the deceased's mother-in-law and his sisters' husbands. A feast called sagalz, provided by the near kinsfolk of the deceased, is held one or two days after the corpse is buried, this is eaten by the folk of all the clans except that to which the dead man belonged.

It is not certain who take the bones of the dead man. but in any case his mother-in-law, and I believe his widow, share in this duty. The bones of the fore-arm, the fibulae, the phalanges of the feet and hands, the skull and the cervical vertebrae are removed from the corpse, and the dead man's mother-in-law and some others, including perhaps his widow, take these bones to the beach to be cleaned, and only bring them i)ack to the house when this has been done. The bones ol the fore-arm and often the fibulae are made into spatulae by certain lubai, among whom are the children or the brother of the dead man, and the use of these spatulae is said to be confined to these ludai.

1 Unfortunately I have no reliable information as to the precise relationship to the deceased of those who remove and wear the bones.

The clean skull Is kept In their house by the dead man's widow and children, and the latter also wear round the neck or in the hair their father's atlas bones and phalanges. Male children also wear their father's lower jaw, but if the dead man has no son it is worn by his widow. The skull, the cleaned bones and the spatulae are kept In the house till ' inside belong him no more sorry ' ; that is, perhaps, for a period of about twenty months during which time the skull is kept regularly oiled and (to judge from the surface of specimens collected) frequently rubbed and polished. At the end of this time the skull and many of the bones of the trunk and limbs are finally deposited on rock platforms and In shallow rock shelters in the cliffs above the shore.

Besides the skulls and femora which were the most conspicuous bones In the rock shelters visited at Kwaiawata, ribs, vertebrae, tibiae and many other bones were present, showing that all the bones of the body are removed at some time. The greatest difficulty was experienced in obtaining reliable information on this point, for on these islands the burial regulations which the Government attempted to enforce were held in extreme disfavour. It is obvious that all the bones might be removed at the time that the skull was taken, or the grave might be re-opened at some later date and the remaining bones collected. It is probable that the latter course was adopted, for, although my evidence on this point is far from complete. It seemed that the re-opening of the grave took place at the time that the skulls and other bones kept in the houses were finally disposed of by exposure on the cliffs above the shore.

When a Kwaiawata woman dies, her grave Is dug by her husband and children, the former actually placing the corpse in the grave ; the widower and his brothers and perhaps sisters take out the bones in the way that has already been described for a dead man. Spatulae made from the arm and leg bones are ' used ' by the widower and certain lubai of the deceased. The skull, treated as already described. Is kept by the widower who wears his dead wife's lower jaw. The widower and his brothers, when they have kept the skull and spatulae made from the long bones for some time, appear to dig up the remaining bones, now described as tolerably clean, and place them in a shallow cave or rock shelter.

The bones when taken to the shallow cavities in the cliffs are

Burial and Mourning 727

deposited there, without any special arrangement of the bones themselves and regardless, it was said, of the clans to which the dead persons had belonged. The cliff exposures or burials, if they may be so called, which I was allowed to visit on Kwaiawata, were in no sense hamlet or clan burial places, and it was extremely interesting to note the different attitude of the natives towards these collections of bones and towards the bones and skulls of their relatives or connections kept in their own houses. As already stated, the skulls kept in the houses were oiled and carefully tended and there was at least a pretence of eating lime with spatulae made from the bones of certain deceased relatives. On the other hand no amount of persuasion would induce any native to approach closely the sites of these cliff burials, and they were obviously greatly surprised at our venturing to do so. No reason for this avoidance other than custom could be discovered for a long time, finally it was said that these were old bones and so highly dangerous. Repeated questions failed to elicit any other answer, but from analogy it seems clear that the reason was the fear of contact with the bones of the dead of foreign clans.

Murua.

Father Thomassin's note on the funeral rites of the natives of Murua is as follows: 'Sobs, cries, or, more generally, howls, which gradually abate, and end by a lugubrious song, occasionally reach us ; it is the announcement of a death. If the defunct is of low estate they content themselves with exposing him for a couple of days in his hut, during all which time his friends come there to weep, men and women follow one another in turn. The mourners retire, receive a present, and immediately return home as gaily as they came. Burial is the duty of the women ; they hollow a trench in the neighbourhood of the village, there they deposit the dead, and prompdy cover it with earth, in order to hasten to cat the funeral feast. If the defunct is a person of quality— a chicl— there are several more ceremonies ; no one, in this case dare omit to RO and weep over the corpse, otherwise he would be held to be a sorcerer. All the tribe, also, goes into mourning for some months ; the mourning consists of blackening the whole body with charcoal. In some villages ^^ey light a hre on the grave, which the parents of the deceased should tend during a fortnight. The whole of this Interval is for them a period of complete seclusion. Their food is brought to them, they take it without saying a word, and their silence is only interrupted by funeral songs in honour of the dead. On a fixed day the fire is quenched ; women respectfully exhume the bones of the defunct, and they hand them over to the nearest relation. These bones are to him a sacred trust ; and when it is a woman who thus receives the relics of her husband, she places them in a basket which she decorates as well as she is able, and always carries it with her, especially on feast-days, visits, and receptions '\

I am indebted to Captain Barton for the greater part of the information upon which the following outline of the treatment of the Murua dead is based, his informants being men of Suloga and Dekoias. It appears that the body is placed in the grave by women of clans other than that to which the deceased belonged. ' After death and until burial the widow remains inside the dead man's house holding erect the dead man's head, the body meanwhile being supported in a sitting posture. The corpse remains In this position... the length of time depending upon the state of decomposition... . Until burial the widow does not sleep and should wail continually. The body is buried beneath the house of the dead man.'

• Two months after burial, the women of the same clans as those who put the body In the grave exhume the body and collect the bones, which are taken by them to the seashore or into the bush and are there smoked over the fire. When this operation, which takes one day, is complete, the same women make a basket and put the bones inside it. They then take this basket to the widow who, since the burial, has remained inside the house, and hand It to her. She takes charge of the basket, keeping it always by her side. Three months later a feast is given by men of the dead man's totem. Only after this feast may the widow go to the gardens, but each time, before doing so, she gives the basket containing her dead husband's skull into the care of one of her children — a girl by preference — whose duty it is to guard it until the widow returns to the house... .The basket is kept in the house for ten months and is then taken away and put in a cleft of

' Annales de la Propagation de la Foty xxv. 1854, cited by Haddon in Folk-Lore^ 1894,?. 320.

Burial and Moiirnmg 729

a cliff... .The widow paints a horizontal black mark across the forehead of the skull before the bones are placed in the cleft.'

Captain Barton adds : ' It is not the custom in Murua to make spatulae from the bones, or to use the skull as a limepot''.

The grave of Agiatau of the frigate-bird totem, the head man of the three house settlements of Wapuru upon Tokunu, who died some time in 1903, resembles those of Teste Island (Plate LI) though it is smaller and lacks a roof The interference of the white man, whether Government officer or missionary, in Tokunu affairs has been of the slightest, and this made the opportunity of studying the attitude of the folk of the Tokunu community towards the dead man particularly interesting. Here, indeed, as on Murua, the interpreting constituted a difficulty, for all questions had to be interpreted from ' pidgin ' English into the Tubetube tongue by an interpreter and answered in that dialect by a native of Tokunu.

It has already been stated that of the Tokunu settlements Wapuru, Roguau and Lasinawia belong predominantly to the frigate-bird totem, the remaining settlement of Sipwararo belonging to the blue pigeon totem. With the exception of Lasinawia each of the Tokunu setdements has a ceremonial platform or nakanaka (to use the Tubetube word), and when people of more than one clan live in the setdement the platform is said to belong to the local representatives of the frigate-bird totem. The nakanaka of Wapuru. the dead man's settlement, was covered (in 1904) with sproutincr coconuts, and other coconuts were supported all around it impaled on the end of sticks varying from three to six feet in height. Besides these a transverse stick decorated with a pendant row of the white shells of Ovulum ovum was supported at a height of some two feet above the platform by the trunks of two saplings, which for this purpose had been thrust into the ground at the corners of the platform. It was explainrc that this nakanaka was decorated on account of the death o Agiatau, the principal man of the settlement. It was said that all the coconuts of Wapuru would be preserved until the

1 When communicating this information Captain ^^'^^^^^ ^^^jf ^ll^-;;;,;,^;;:!"'-;;;; his disposal for inquiries was limited, and that ^'^^''^^^^^V w% w.th hoVc S by be placed on his account, but his statements agree so well with those niaac d> Father Thomassin that they are clearly reliable.

last funeral feast (corresponding to the Wagawaga toreha), and that the coconuts on the nakanaka acted as a taboo sign on the coconuts of the settlement as well as constituting a supply for the feast. If a less important man died the coconuts in his settlement would not have been preserved from the time of his death onward, but only from the time of the feast corresponding to one of the Wagawaga banakivi. There was no display of coconuts on the nakanaka of the frigate-bird settlement Roguau, and Lasinawia, the remaining frigate-bird settlement, had no nakanaka in 1904.

It thus seems clear that at Tokunu only the coconuts of the dead mans settlement become taboo on his deaths As a matter of fact this conclusion was not arrived at without a good deal of trouble and cross-questioning, since on the 7iakanaka of Sipwararo settlement of the blue pigeon totem there were also a number of sprouting coconuts, which it was explained had no reference to the dead man (Agiatau) but would be taken to Murua to form part of a feast to be held there.

Pigs for the feast for which the coconuts of Wapuru were being preserved would be brought from such far off islands as Tubetube, Murua, Kwararo, Gawa and Misima, and vegetable food would be collected by all the settlements of Tokunu and stacked in the house of Kamtau of Wapuru hamlet. When the pigs had been killed, singed, and washed, they would be taken to the nakanaka and there cut up, the vegetable food having been previously brought from the house in which it had been stored and piled upon the nakanaka, Kamtau, who was looked upon as the giver of the feast or as its 'master,' would then stand on the nakanaka, 2LX\d. calling each man, woman and child by name, would throw down a present of pork and vegetables. The pork is cooked at the settlement which is giving the feast, and after a part or the whole of it had been eaten by the visitors, dancing would begin and be continued through the night. No one of the dead man's clan partakes of this feast, and the sons-in-law of the deceased and their children also abstain.

Upon this island a man may not eat pig from his dead father's settlement, nor coconuts, yams and bananas from his dead father's garden. If these rules were infringed the belly

^ Or possibly only the coconuts belonging to members of the dead man's totem in his settlement.

Burial and Mourning yoi and face of the offender would swell up and he would die • the same rule applies to the dead man's brothers' children' Everyone avoided mentioning the names of the dead

A number of cliff burials between Suloga and Wanai Bay afforded the opportunity of examining the final sta^e of the disposal of the Murua dead. About half-way between these two bays the dolomitic limestone, of which the cliffs are here composed, is fretted into pinnacles of extreme sharpness, some of which are very steep. Amidst these pinnacles are numerous crevices and hollows, some forming shallow rock shelters and caves. Many of these contain human bones, which had obviously been scraped clean before being brou^^ht there. The smaller bones of the extremities were generally

Fig. 50. Turtle-shell ornament (x^) removed from zygoma of a skull exposed in a cleft in rocks at Murua.

absent, and vertebrae were few ; no patellae were noted, and only one tarsal bone and astragalus were seen and not more than three carpal bones. It did not seem that the absence of these bones could be attributed to their having dropped down between the crevices of the rock since a fair number of first ribs were found. The bones present in greatest number were scapulae, pelvic bones, the larger long bones and skulls. Many of the latter and some long bones had been painted red in part. Often the bones of more than one individu.il were contained in large clay pots identified by Captain Barton as coming from Kwatota in the Amphlett Group. In some cases, if not in all, a small round hole existed in the oot, which suggested that it had not been made accidentally'. One skull had large turtle-shell ornaments (figure 50) of the kind

1 Some of the pots had a hole in their bottom when found, but owin^' to ^ in transport all the Murua sepulchral pots were more or less broken bclDrc i England, so that in the absence of any note on this point it is irnpossiblc i<. . whether the bottoms of all were damaged when they were collected.

worn as earrings attached to each zygoma, and I have heard of a Murua skull picked up in a cliff shelter which was profusely decorated with sapisapi.

The pots in which the bones were deposited were usually approximately hemispherical bowls, though in some cases they were certainly less than a hemisphere. Their rims are often ornamented with impressed or incised patterns, and the latter generally form a band running round the pot immediately below the rim. Two of these pots are shown in Plate LXXVIII.

One skull was found almost covered with mould lying in a shallow pottery dish of an unusual type (the upper figure in Plate LXXVIII); the outer surface of the dish with the exception of a clear central space is covered by an impressed pattern.

Plate LXXVin

Sepulchral pottery used on Murua

CHAPTER LV

RELIGION.

It was said that the shades of the dead called barom go to Tuma, a small island lying some ten miles to the north-west of the Trobriands. It is known that Tuma is inhabited, but the spirits of the dead do not stay in the upper world with the living, but descend into the other world below the earth. There they find a track which leads them to the place of the shades, presided over by Topileta who first sent men into the upper world, bidding them take with them their totem animals.

Topileta resembles a man in every way except that he has huge ears which flap continually ; he is according to one account of the Malasi clan, and seems to lead very much the ordinary life of a Trobriand islander, with his wife Tenupanupaia who looks after his garden. He has, however, certain magical powers, causing earthquakes at will, and when he becomes old making 'medicine' which restores youth to himself, his wife and children.

At Koma and Osiwasiu, the village of the dead upon Tuma was called Wilakatutara, and Topileta was said to be far bigger than a mortal man and covered with tattoo, but in other respects to resemble man.

All men come at last to Topileta and share equally m the life of the other world, whether they have been good or bad. strong or weak in this world. Chiefs still retain their authority in Tuma, and Topileta, though himself the most important being in Tuma, is stated to have always lived there and never to have come to the upper world, and is so obvious y regarded as different from all dead chiefs that he cannot, in the ordinary sense, be said to rule over the dead. Indeed, it was d.tficult to discover that Topileta exerted any authority in the other world, though it was perfectly clear that in the hrst instance the shades of the dead were regarded as going to a country which belonged to Topileta.

At Lobua, one old man stated that Toplleta asks the barom why they have died, and all reply alike that they do not know, but that they have come to him.

At Osiwasiu it was stated that pigs, dogs, and all birds have a soul or spirit, which like that of man is called barom, fish too have barom, but not trees. On the other hand some Kiriwina men think that only mankind have barom. It even seemed that some men considered that shadows (if this be the correct translation of the word kaikwabuna, which seemed to be applied to the shadows of living men) have a subtle essence also called barom which goes to Tuma. The breath of man or other living creatures is called kaiyawos, and it appeared that the kaiyawos actually accompanied the barom. to Tuma.

It was represented that barom might leave the body without death ensuing, and this may occur not only in sleep, when the experiences of the barom, may be translated into dreams, but may also be brought about intentionally. There are individuals who say that they have visited Tuma and returned to the upper world. One Marogus of Kavatari became ill, and was said to have lain motionless and scarcely breathing for seven days ; during this time his barom visited Tuma and saw Topileta, who ultimately sent him back to the upper world. At the present time Marogus is said to be perfectly healthy and takes part in the life of his village, doing his share of the heavy work of gardening. I was unfortunately unable to meet Marogus himself, but there seems to be no doubt that he has frequently stated that when at Tuma he saw and talked with the shades of the dead who, like the inhabitants of the other world, make gardens, marry and beget children. It was pointed out that Marogus had not eaten or smoked with the shades, since if he had done so he would have been unable to return to the upper world. In an independent account of Tuma obtained in the village of Koma the same point was made, viz. that living folk visiting Tuma may not eat food with the shades and yet return to the upper world. The barom, of the dead are seen in dreams when they talk to the living in a curious whistling speech, inviting them to visit Tuma and extolling the abundance and excellence of its crops and the size of its yams.

It was not clear to what extent the shades were held to return to the villages in which they once lived, but they were certainly thought of as visiting a feast called kaiwos womi-

Religion '70-

lama/a, which appeared to be held some ten or more months after a death had occurred^ From the eschatological standpoint the importance of the feast is that on Kadawaga food is especially cooked for the spirits {barojn) of the dead*^ and that this food is left for them over night, and the next morning is usually found to have partly or entirely disappeared. There is no calling of the shades or notification conveyed to them when this feast is to be held, but it was asserted that the shades would know when a large quantity of food had been gathered for this feast, and that they would naturally visit it at night, the time regarded as natural for the shades to be moving, since, with few exceptions, they are seen only in dreams.

Time did not allow of any inquiry into the existence of supernatural beings of such classes as those described at Milne Bay and at Tubetube, but there was at least one creature called Modulele, of whom no coherent account could be obtained and who caused sickness and death ; individuals of this species were stated to be especially common on Wakoia, an island near Dobu. It was said that men know charms to make rain to fall, the sun to shine, and to stop adverse winds, and that such knowledge is usually transmitted in certain families, men teaching their sons or their sisters' children. A charm tor stopping rain is to chew ginger which is then expectorated in a fine spray, a formula which ends in a high-pitched sibilant — s — s being muttered the while. The same process with different words is used when it is desired to make the wind abate, and I believe that this process with appropriate words is used to propitiate or avert any possibly dangerous influence, as for instance, that which a stranger may reasonably be expected to exert. Certainly Government parties and camps have been charmed by a man walking round them, muttering and spraying chewed ginger from his mouth.

1 Probably this corresponds to the toreha of Milne Bay, and the soioi Tubetube

APPENDIX No. I

THE LOUISIADES.

The Louisiades were not visited but information obtained at Samarai from natives of the islands of this Group makes it certain that the social system is substantially the same as that of those parts of the south-eastern district with which I am personally acquainted.

The major part of the following information was obtained from Toakina, a particularly intelligent native of Panatinani (Joannet Island) employed in Government service at Samarai. The houses of Panatinani appear to be arranged in hamlets called totoilni. The houses themselves are of a different shape from those found on the islands west of the Louisiades, and are commonly spoken of as turtle-backed. Plate LXXIX shows one of these houses on Misima with the characteristic roof and entrance at the side of the house. In each village-system there are a number of clubhouses called yunu in which the adolescent youths sleep, and in which the married men often pass the night.

Everyone has a number of linked totems which may consist of one or more birds with a fish, a snake and often a tree. One of the bird totems is more important than the others, and the place of the fish totem may be taken by a turtle or alligator, while a lizard sometimes takes the place of the snake. The Panatinani word for totem is man, the same word as that used at Murua.

The following are instances of some of the linked totems of Panatinani :

Dawat (frigate-bird)

|Sakuku (a bird like a

J crow) and

(Gegera (crimson lory) Nagobi (fish-hawk) Rumrum /'blue pigeon) Kisakisa (hawk;

Mami Kumakai (monitor ?

lizard) Bwarken (green turtle) Mataiisi , lyawo

Nabwarere Varagori (alligator) Marabwani

Bweroi Papwabu Sosoman (banded sea snake)

Atalaki

? ?

Totemism and Marriage -737

The following examples of linked totems were obtained from a native of Tagula (Sud-est) :

Kariboki (flying fox) Nowa Boorli Madai

Walua(crow) Tawia Giolai Buyaua (bearing an

T . . , ,, edible fruit)

Liriwaba Mami Gingu Lati (a creeper)

Mamukwen Topuru Tauula Vera

^^^^ Moroiime Langawadamai Umbatwongo

My inquiries appeared to elicit that there is no dual or multiple grouping of the clans on any of the islands of the Louisiades, but the matter must be considered uncertain until further inquiries are made.

Toakina would not eat his own or his father's totem birds or fish, though if necessary or convenient he would destroy his own or his father's totem tree. He thought that in the event of his catching his totem fish he would take it home and give it to a friend belonging to some other clan. He would not marry into his father's clan, and after his father's death he would abstain from eating coconuts grown in his father's hamlet for some time, probably for the remainder of his life. Neither males nor females tattoo.

Marriage is brought about in the usual manner of the south-eastern district, that is to say, after a certain amount of intercourse the girl proposes marriage to the boy and to this he usually assents. In addition the consent of the parents of both the contracting parties appears always to be asked, and never to be withheld. Besides this method marriages are often arranged between the parents of the boy and girl while the children are quite young. In these cases the mother of the boy takes her future daughter-in-law to live in her own house as soon as the girl's breasts begin to become rounded and her whole appearance to suggest the approach of puberty, the idea being that the girl will be so well looked after that other youths will not visit her. The bride elect stays with her future mother-in-law for one or two years, but during this time she does not receive her future husband. Some little time after puberty the girl returns to her parent's house where the boy joins her and is now recognized as her husband An en^a^ement in childhood such as that above described is stated to constitute a fairly binding contract thougii u might be broken if the bride elect intrigued with other boys before coming: to her husband.

^ 47

S. N. G.

738 The Lotiisiades

The first gardens are made on the land of the bride's hamlet. Gardens are also made on the bridegroom's land, and these are the more important because after a time a man usually builds his house in his own hamlet. Two or three days after the marriage is consummated, that is to say after the boy joins the girl in her mother's house, his folk prepare a quantity of food, and carry it to the house of the girl's parents, together with such New Guinea valuables as armshells and sapisapi. It was not clear who really eat the food, Toakina said 'everybody.' Return presents of similar value are made, and reciprocal presents of food continue for an indefinite time. A wife's sister may take anything she likes belonging to her brother-in-law without any objection being raised ; she may even borrow and damage a big canoe without incurring blame. This is all 'pay belong girl.' The bride's brothers have similar rights. Her mother's rights are somewhat less well defined : she would probably not take things without asking, but would be likely to prove a shameless beggar. It would not occur to the bride's father to ask for anything. Toakina stated that he found it advisable to keep his more valuable jewellery constantly on his person in order to be sure of retaining it for himself. No payment is made to the wife's parents on the birth of the first or any subsequent child, and Toakina asserted that he had never heard of such a custom. A son-in-law avoids his mother-inlaw, and a father-in-law avoids his daughter-in-law ; a wife avoids her husband's brothers, and a husband avoids his wife's maternal and paternal aunts ; he will also avoid his wife's sisters' daughters. A wife does not avoid her husband's sisters' sons.

It was stated that a man had the right to marry his brother's widow after the latter had completed her mourning, and that the widow would not refuse such a marriage ; it was even said that her new husband would not pay for her. If another man wished to marry the widow he would have to pay the dead man's brother the price that the dead man had paid for the woman, even if he were a clansman of the deceased. When a woman dies her husband may take an unmarried sister of his late wife without fresh payment, and the latter cannot, or does not, refuse to come to him. If a man and his dead wife's younger sister do not care to marry, and the girl subsequently marries some one else, her husband must pay her

Inheritance nnc\

bride-price to her dead sister's husband instead of to her own people. Although a man might and should marry his deceased wife's sister he should not approach her closely or hold prolonged conversation with her during his wife's lifetime, nor should he speak to her alone in the bush; if he were to do this, the girl might tell her sister, i.e. his wife, the result of which would be that the latter would consider that she had cause for jealousy, and trouble would probably ensue. When a man dies his land goes to members of his clan, his brothers, sisters, and sisters' children, but a man may leave his personal property in part to his children by telling his clansmen, on whom such property should devolve, that he wishes such and such a piece of property to pass to a particular child. Further, such valuables as armshells given to his children during his lifetime would not at his death revert to his clan, but under no circumstances does a man's land go to his children. A woman's land passes to her children, and if they be young it will be looked after by her brothers, sisters and sisters' children. As her children grow up about half her land is given to them to cultivate ; the older generation look after the other half of the dead woman's land, and regard it, for the time, as their property, although at their death it reverts to the dead woman's children. A man's house goes to his brother, sister or sister's son, anyone of whom may occupy the house after his death although it is more commonly allowed to rot or is destroyed. A widow returns to her hamlet taking her children with her. No details concerning burial or mourning customs were elicited.

47— »

APPENDIX No. II

MUKAUA. (By E. L. Giblin.)

The Mukaua community inhabits six settlements lying some 35 miles west of Bartle Bay and separated from each other by a distance of 80 to 200 yards. These groups of houses and a small district in the neighbourhood are called Mukaua by the inhabitants, but are known as Akauvisi to the people situated south-east of them and as Ari to their neighbours on the west. Four of the settlements of the Mukaua village-system are hamlets containing only households of a single clan; the remaining two settlements contain two clans each, the houses of which although built close together are held to form separate hamlets, each hamlet having its proper name and clan headman.

The houses of Mukaua and of Bogaboga, some four miles to the east of Mukaua, are built on piles and thatched with sago leaf; there is a platform in front of each house which is covered by a forward extension of the roof

Mukaua and Bogaboga speak the same language and observe the same customs ; in neither village are there stone circles, although stone is abundant in the vicinity. At the present day there are no clubhouses and no obvious places of assembly for the men, though there is a word boru which is given as the equivalent of the Barde Bay word potuma, so that man-houses may once have existed at Mukaua and Bogaboga.

The names of the settlements of the Mukaua village-system are Kaminaura, Yausika, Awanori, Mukaua, Yabayabata, and Kurakura,the first and last named including respectively Pupumina and Bave built in continuation with them though inhabited by members of foreign clans. The houses in the majority of

Totemis7n y^i these settlements are arranged to form a rectangle, but at Mukaua where all inter-tribal and inter-village feasts are said to be held, the houses form a very fair circle? The people of Mukaua settlement state that they are the original inhabitants and that Awanori came from the north across the sea, while the settlement Yausika was built by people coming from the south-east.

The people of Mukaua do not tattoo.

TOTEMISM.

Each clan has a number of totems, and in the Mukaua district these descend through the father. The people of the settlement of Kaminaura are of clan Murimuri. Their totems are wabarua, Goura pigeon ; ogaoga, crow ; kwaiva, mosida, kuras, siriwayu, matamera, all fish, the last apparently a kind of sea-perch ; ragi, a clam ; and vitavita, a cephalopod.

The settlement Yausika consists of about 15 houses, and all its householders are of the clan Wairapia, which has the following totems: — kukuo, the dog; keuya, the cuscus; iveyapa, the bandicoot ; kaiwunu, a fish ; kuinakara, a large lizard, perhaps varanus sp. ; ku7ie and apakure, two kinds of banana.

Awanori settlement is of clan Kaiwunu (six houses) and has as totem kaiwunu, a fish\

The people of Mukaua setdement (about 15 houses) are all of Inauboana clan and have as totems: diboga, the turtle; dubo, a constrictor snake ; and kaisomo and )narabaya, both fish.

The people of Yabayabata are of Yabayabata clan and have as totems : gorodua, the red parrot ; vitavita, a cephalopod; matamera, a fish, perhaps a kind of sea-perch: and ku7ie, a kind of banana.

Kurakura consists of ^v^ houses ; the people thercm are said to be strangers who came from one of the D'Entrecasteaux Islands some 40 or 50 years ago. It is alleged that they have no totem system similar to that of Mukaua.

In Pupumina (about five houses) all the people are of clan Kaukepo and have as totems: kuirika, the tlying fox; dubo. a

1 [Mr Giblin's visit to Mukaua was short, and it may well be that this clan has other totems besides kaiwunu.']

742 Miikaua constrictor snake; diboga, the turtle; simadaua, the dugong; and bomigegadara, which is perhaps a small whale.

The people of Bave, who are of clan Natuwosa, occupyabout six houses, and have as totems: diboga, the turtle; kumakara, a lizard; and the fish siriwayu and bare, the latter being the sting ray.

The Mukaua people do not kill or eat their totems, though they use feathers of their totem birds if they find them or if anyone gives them to them. They will also buy these feathers, as they do cuscus tails and the skin of the monitor lizard (for their drums), even should either of these animals be one of their totems. It was stated that if a man having the monitor lizard or cuscus as totem killed either of these animals, the headman of their clan would be very angry, and the man who killed the animal would suffer from boils. A totem fish caught by accident would be removed from the hook or net by a man of another totem, who would not hesitate to keep and eat it. Totem fish are not returned to the water nor are they shown any special consideration ; a man would not bury his dead totem if he found it on the road or in the bush, in fact he would take care not to touch it.

A man with banana totems would plant his totem bananas and pick their fruit, which he might not eat himself although his wives would be allowed to do so.

No forest trees or uncultivated plants are totems at Mukaua, but at Bogaboga, many people have forest trees among their totems. Further, the Mukaua natives state that they know of people who have rocks, mountains, and even rain for their totems, but these do not occur among themselves. No story was elicited concerning the origin of their totems, but it was said 'they are our grandparents'; the general term for ' ancestor ' was not used on this occasion.

There are three communities in Bogaboga territory among which five clans are distributed. Rausewa contains members of clans Maniugu, Kibiris and Buabuara. Triapunu and Yorogu are each inhabited by a single clan, namely Inaboana and Mariuna respectively. Men of the Inaboana clan have as their chief totem manubada, the fish-hawk. They also have kisakisa, the hawk; kokorereko, the fowl; six kinds of fish, two varieties of banana, a plantain, and seven kinds of trees. Inaboana has no snake totems. The people

Totemism 743

of clan Manlugu have simadmia, the dugong, as their chief totem, and also fish, plantains and forest trees.

The people of clan Kibiris have a prominent mountain as their chief totem, also fish and trees.

The people of clan Mariuna have gagawa, a banana, as their chief totem, also fish and birds.

At Bogaboga, people with tree totems must not use the wood of these trees for building purposes, firewood, or making canoes, nor may they chop down or injure such trees. When the totem is a mountain, the people must never look at it or set foot upon it. One of my Bogaboga informants and his brother once ate one of his totem fish of a kind called didimana. For this they were severely rated by their clan and their family, and sure enough within a week's time they both suffered from boils. I was able to satisfy myself that these two men did really suffer from boils within a short time of eating their totem fish, which it was said members of other clans ate unharmed.

In Bogaboga the following information was elicited and seems so important that it is given in the first person in as literal a translation as possible.

• Each one of my fish-totems has a spell {muara) named after it, and when I am fishing if I see a fish that in any way reminds me of that fish [i.e. the totem fish] in its appearance, movement or colour, I use the spell of the fish [i.e. of that totem fish], and then am sure to catch successfully and to spear straight. In fighting I would pray the muara of the manubada [the fish-hawk] so that just as it darts down from the sky and never misses its prey, so will my spear dart straightly and pierce deeply. When on a raid I would repeat the muara of the kisakisa [a hawk] so that even as it snatches meat from a man's hand or from a cookmg-pot. so may I snatch or seize my spoil from the place of the enemy.

As to the origin of the totems a Bogaboga man said that he had heard of a story which related how a shrimp and a fro^ had once had a jumping match, and the shnmp. who was the better jumper of the two, gave birth to the totems of one clan while the frog gave birth to the totems and ancestors of cer;;in other Bogfb^ga clans. [Still further west -on g^^^^^ Kubiri of Cape Nelson a totemic system is m force uh.ch ^oears t^^ show the same characteristics. My information ortMs mauer is derived from Dr Strong, who wntcs :

744 Mtikaua

' Totemism Is well-developed among the Kublrl. The crocodile is a totem and its intercession is sought by placing food in the rivers for it to eat. The more common customs of totemism are in full force. The crocodile clan has many subsidiary totems ; these include two shell-fish, because their shells are like the scales of the crocodile, three fresh-water fish, because the crocodile feeds on them, a variety of taro, and a kind of banana which has the same name as the crocodile and which is used to feed it. Even subsidiary totems may not be eaten, and in some cases they may not be touched.']

In the Mukaua district each clan has a clan chief kazwado. Over these there Is the chief of Mukaua clan, who appears to be a sort of over-lord or paramount chief and is called taupaumina. The paramount chief and the clan chiefs would assemble to discuss war, raids, and such grave matters, the final decision being voiced by the paramount chief, but how much more weight his opinion carried than that of the clan chiefs is uncertain. Undoubtedly he would decide matters concerning Inter-tribal feasts, but In the matter of clan feasts when the folk of Mukaua district exchanged food with people of their own clans some miles away, the clan chiefs would decide when these were to be held and how much food should be exchanged. Leaders of hunting parties are called kauta bitasi and are often not the clan chiefs but are appointed by them. These arrange the place of meeting and manage the hunt as well as divide the game afterwards^ There is no chiefs' language and no title, form of address, or ornaments peculiar to chiefs. A portion of the game killed at every hunt would be given to the chiefs, but there was said to be no particular portion which was their rightful share. Women or youths when passing the chiefs talking together (perhaps only in council) would bend their bodies as they passed. No distinction is made in the method of burial of chiefs and commoners. There are no stone circles In the Mukaua communities although sandstone occurs in the vicinity.

• [Presumably these are experts.]

Betrothal and Marriage 745

BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE.

The marriage customs of Mukaua and Bogaboga are identical. Children are affianced during their childhood, often when they are only eight or nine years old, or even younger. The mother of the boy makes a dress of banana leaves and offers it to the mother of the child-bride. If it is accepted the children are considered to be betrothed. As a matter of fact parents very often consult their children before betrothing them, but this is not considered necessary, though where one of the betrothed dies, the survivor is almost certain to be consulted before a new spouse is selected. The actual marriage is brought about by the bridegroom's people saying to the bride's folk that the children are old enough to marry. The boy is told this repeatedly and one day he takes his bride to his father's house, where she remains, presents being given to her people upon the next day. It appears that the majority of presents, usually pots, sleeping mats, perineal bandages and food, were not particularly valuable, but in one instance in which a valuable shell ornament was given, it was stated that this would be returned to the bridegroom's family when his wife died. The bride's people, it was said, did not make any present to the boy's people, the girl being looked upon as payment for the presents made to her folk, but as a matter of fact instances of a return present of food to the bridegroom's relatives are common. One informant who had been married at least two months volunteered the information that he had not yet had connection with his wife, as if a child were born within a year of marriage people would have sneered saying, ' \ hat sort of children are these ? ' . u u 4'

At marriage a woman comes to live m her husband s village, and although the young couple may visit the bride's village for a while, this is by no means so regular an affair as in the districts to the east. r 1 1 1 1 »i

Where the wife's land is near that of the husband the latter works both in his own and in his wife's gardens; the food belongs to both or either, but at the woman s death the land reverti to her own people. When the bnde comes fron. some distance the husband very often does no MS.t he district, and even if he does he would not usually uork m her ga den, which is cultivated by her people, who eat most

746 Mukatia of its produce. On the death of her husband a widow would return to live with her father, but her children would remain with their father's people, where their mother would visit them, or they may go and stay with her for a few weeks now and again. When a man takes a second wife he builds a separate house for her, but if he takes many wives, one after another, he will not usually build a fresh house for each one.