PORT MORESBY AND THE ASTROLABE RANGE
I have as yet said very little about Port Moresby. It is a commodious
bay with an inner portion (Fairfax Harbour), which is land-locked. The
double bay is surrounded by thinly wooded hills, and when these are
brightened in places by the rising sun the effect is very beautiful. In
full sunlight during the time we were there, there was generally a haze
which greatly diminished the interest of the scene, but in the evening,
especially a cloudy one, the hills again stood out clearly.
The small township lies on the north side of the neck of the promontory
that forms the eastern limit of the bay; about a mile and a half off is
the solitary Government House, and about half a mile beyond this again is
the Mission Station. On the shore, below the hill on which the Mission
stands, is the large stilted village commonly known as Hanuabada; off
this is the rocky isle of Elevera, with its village of similar amphibious
pile-dwellings, for at high tide they are completely surrounded by water.
The township or Granville, as it is officially termed (Ela is the native
name for the locality), consists of a few Government offices and the
houses of residents, most of whom are either Government officials or else
connected with Burns Philp’s Store. The jetty was built by Burns Philp at
considerable expense, and at the foot of it lies their big store. This
great trading company has ramifications all over Queensland and British
New Guinea, and Port Moresby is naturally an important centre for their
trade.
Apart from its remoteness from the world, the very bad postal
arrangements, and the absence of a telegraph, Port Moresby is to my mind
a much nicer place to live in than Thursday Island. The residents proved
themselves very friendly and obliging. Were it not for home-ties and
duties I should very well like to make it my headquarters for a year or
two. A certain amount of work could be done on the spot, and a very great
deal by taking longer and shorter excursions from it. It appears to be a
healthy locality, especially at the time of the year when we were there,
and, what is of great importance in the tropics, we did not find the
nights too hot.
Knowing that I was anxious to see a little of some inland people, Messrs.
Musgrave and Ballantine arranged a three-days trip to the Astrolabe
Range. Five horses were kindly loaned by the Government and the Vaigana
Company. We packed our swags on Friday afternoon and fastened them on to
the saddles before sunset. Each took with him a blanket, a spare flannel
shirt, a pyjama suit, a tin of meat, some tobacco and handkerchiefs for
trade wrapped up in a yard of American cloth. We also tied to our saddles
a pannikin and hobbles for the horses, and carried bread and biscuits for
the journey. Cameras, spare boxes of plates, and two water bottles were
distributed among the party.
At three o’clock in the morning of Saturday, June 18th, Ballantine
came to the hotel to wake us, and we dressed with despatch and went to
Musgrave’s to saddle the horses. This took some time, as it was quite
dark, and there were several little details of girths and straps that
required arranging. Musgrave was about and very kindly had cocoa made
for us. We started about 4 a.m. in single file; the intense darkness was
relieved by the shining of the stars. The positions of the constellations
known to me presented a novel appearance, as one was not accustomed to be
up so early.
We wended our way past the gaol and along the coast to the east, through
occasional plantations and wooded country. After about an hour’s walk we
passed through a village, silent with the death of sleep, the only sign
of life being two fires on the ground, the embers of which, fanned by the
continuous breeze, were still glowing.
[Illustration: MAP OF CENTRAL DISTRICT]
The calls of various birds were answered by the stridulation of insects
as the eastern heavens gradually grew lighter, and we began to see
something of the district in which we were travelling. The noises of
nature became more marked as the dawn advanced, but there was little that
can be described as singing made by the birds, though many of the cries
were decidedly musical. Soon after sunrise we passed through Boumana,
a plantation station owned by Peter Lifu, and situated nine miles from
Port Moresby. It was only after passing this that we were able to trot or
canter. Here the country consisted of grassy plains with scattered gum
trees and occasional screw pines. In places the grass was as high as the
horses, individual stems being as high as the rider as well. As we went
inland cycads became more numerous; as a general rule these appear to die
off when they reach a height of eight or ten feet, though I saw a few
that exceeded that height.
In course of time we entered a more hilly country, and it was in places
very rough on the horses, as there were steep gullies down which they
cautiously picked their way, and up which they clambered like cats.
On the plains there was a single track, but a road had been cut out
of the side of the hills, or a broad avenue cleared through the dense
jungle. Most of the country was sparsely wooded with a clothing of rank,
coarse grass and had a very Australian aspect, as the trees were mostly
eucalyptus, bastard gums, and a tree that looked like the Australian
spotted gum, but with rather smaller leaves. An occasional wallaby
hopping in the grass and small flocks of white cockatoos that screeched
as they flew, gave a further Australian colour to the scene.
The ranges of mountains and hills in this part of New Guinea run as a
rule in a north-west south-east direction—that is, roughly, parallel with
the coast-line; geographically speaking, they are well-dissected, folded
mountain chains. All are more or less wooded right up to their summits.
As we were going obliquely across the trend of the hills we naturally had
a lot of uphill and down-dale travelling, though the track took advantage
of all available lateral spurs.
After the coast hills had been passed we saw looming in front of us
the precipitous Astrolabe Range, rising abruptly from hilly ground and
forming a huge rampart stretching away to the south-east, occasional
peaks rising higher than the general level of the fairly uniform edge.
On the flanks of this range, and indeed all the way up as far as the
summit, were masses of volcanic breccia, which stood out black and
sinister from the grass, some of the blocks being of enormous size. I
was greatly exercised in my mind whether these blocks had weathered out
_in situ_ like the Devonshire tors and the granitic blocks one sees on
the sides of the Dartmoor hills. This may be the case in some instances,
but I noticed many blocks with distinct stratification, the plane of
which was vertical or nearly so; these must either have been ejected
fragments or boulders that had rolled down from some greater height, but
the latter was by no means obvious, and I could not satisfy myself from
whence they could have fallen. The breccia was remarkably coarse; the
finest planes were about as rubbly as the coarsest volcanic ash of the
Murray Islands. My impression was that there has been an enormous amount
of weathering, and that it requires a combination of geological knowledge
and imagination, which I do not possess, to reconstruct the physical
features of the district at the time of the volcanic outburst. In any
case a rapid horse-ride through a wooded country is not favourable for
geological observations.
On the whole there is great uniformity in the vegetation; it is only
in the occasional patches of dense scrub or in the gullies that there
is much variation from the pendant, sad, greyish-green leaves of the
eucalyptus. But in these exceptions it was a little relief to see nature
freeing herself, so to speak, from the trammels of the Australian flora,
and running riot on her own account. From the tangled undergrowth rose
the tall tree stems, up which ran creepers, more particularly a climbing
polypod, which had some resemblance to the foliage of ratan; swaying from
the branches were festoons of creepers and aerial roots. One then felt
that one was really in the tropics, though the forest trees were small
compared with the giants of the Amazonian forests that Wallace, Bates,
and other travellers describe, and such as we were destined to see later
on in Borneo. Along the watercourses were clumps of bamboo. At home
one always associates palm trees with tropical scenery, here they are
conspicuously absent.
The last part of the ascent of Mount Warirata was very trying to some of
us, as we had to drag our tired horses up a very steep, stony, zigzag
road in the blazing vertical sun. The great rocks that walled the road in
many places faced the sun, and instead of giving us the comfort of their
shadows in the weary land they radiated superfluous heat to our further
discomfort. We were immensely relieved when we reached the top of the
north-easterly extremity of the Astrolabe Range, and then at a height
of 2,615 feet we were in a better position to enjoy the magnificent
panorama before us. Behind us, hidden by clouds, lay the main range of
mountains that forms the backbone of the south-easterly portion of New
Guinea. Below us was a gorgonised sea of land, ridges of sharp-crested
hills running mainly in one direction, like the arrested rollers of a
Titanic ocean. Rising like islands to the north-west from the general
level of the lower hills were two conspicuous masses, “Fanny Peak” and
“Saddle-Back.” To the south-west lay the sea, and the coast-line was
contoured as if on a map, the complex Bootless Inlet was the nearest
portion of the coast, and the variable extent of the fringing reef off
the headlands showed pale green against the blue of the sea. From this
height Bootless Inlet and Port Moresby have the appearance of “drowned”
bays, that is, of depressions of the coast which have permitted the sea
to cover what would otherwise be fertile valleys. Around us were the same
eucalyptus and cycads we had seen all day, but added to them were equally
characteristic bottle-brush trees (banksias) of more than one species and
a pink-flowered melastoma. A “cypress pine” gave the only mountainous
touch to the vegetation.
With antipodean earthly scenery we had the sky of a glorious English
summer, a clear deep blue, with massive fleecy cumulus clouds, whose
brightness was contrasted with dark shadows. At the coast-level the sky
is usually a greyer blue, often lavender coloured, owing to the moisture
in the air which acts as a screen and lowers the blue tone of the sky. A
haze pervaded the lower landscape, owing to the vapour-laden south-east
breeze and the widely drifting smoke of numerous bush fires made by
natives who were clearing the scrub for their gardens. This haze gave a
softness to the view, and painted the shades with various shades of blue,
but a little less “atmosphere” would, on the whole, have been better from
a topographical point of view.
The purity of the air may be judged from the fact that Ballantine
produced from under the shelter of a big rock a tin of fresh butter,
which he had placed there six or seven weeks previously, and it was as
sweet as when he cached it. The butter was actually fresh butter that
he had put in a cocoa tin, and not an unopened tin of butter. This was
at a height of about one thousand seven hundred feet, and the air was
evidently practically free from putrefactive microbes, or at all events
such as affect butter.
The top of Mount Warirata is composed of the volcanic breccia _in situ_,
and it formed imposing tors. I noticed several volcanic bombs in the
blocks which weathered in concentric laminæ.
On passing the top we entered on a grassy plateau, or rather spur, along
which we proceeded for a few miles. The plateau vegetation was very
similar on the whole to that of the lower hills, with the addition, as
I have already remarked, of the banksias, cypress pines, and melastoma.
Among the smaller plants were a few ground orchids, one with a green
flower somewhat resembling a listera, but with different leaves, and an
umbrella fern. Remarkable streamers of a sulphur-green lichen depended
from the boughs of the gums.
We next made a steep descent across a river gully, and after one or two
clambers up and down wooded mountain valleys, we dismounted in a bamboo
thicket close to a tributary of the Laroki River.
The horses were left here in charge of one of the party to be afterwards
fetched by natives by a long détour. The rest of us had a steep climb
up a detached hill, on the top of which was the small village of
Atsiamakara. To the east of this hill is another higher one and with
precipitous sides, but separated from it by a deep ravine; to the north
and west is open, wooded, hilly country.
It is characteristic of these bush tribes to build their villages on the
top of hills for the sake of safety from attack. Many of the villages
formerly had tree-houses, but there are now very few of these left, as
the country has been pacified. This village itself had some tree-houses,
but no trace of them now remains. These tree-houses were used as places
of refuge when the village was attacked. It might strike the reader that
it would be very easy to chop down the tree and so destroy the refugees
at one fell blow, but it must be remembered that these were designed by
men still in their Stone Age, and it is by no means an easy or rapid
matter to cut down a large tree with stone axes, especially when overhead
foes are hurling down stones and spears. Savages are by no means fools,
and they would not continue to build structures that experience proved
to be useless; besides, it is against custom to fell these trees, thus,
insecure as they appear to us, these tree-houses were real refuges.
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII
UDIA AND DAUBE, TABURI, KOIARI
ELEVARA, PORT MORESBY, WITH THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY’S STATION IN
THE BACKGROUND]
At the time of our visit there were but eleven houses in the village. Two
had verandahs along their sides on to which the door opened, a type of
house that was new to me as Papuan, but it is a characteristic type among
the hill tribes. The four of us slept for two nights, and sat and had
our meals and rested for nearly two days on the verandah of a house. Two
natives slept inside.
This was a populous village before it was raided by the mountaineers
of the main range, although these depredations have ceased in this
particular district for ten years; two epidemics have since then reduced
the population very considerably. We saw but five men, some half a dozen
women, and a few children; this did not represent the entire population,
as it is the custom for these bush tribes to reside but little in their
own houses, the rest of the time being spent in the bush, making gardens
and doing a little hunting. As a matter of fact, these people are good
agriculturists; we saw some native tobacco growing in the village.
It was interesting getting a glimpse, for it was nothing more, of a real
Papuan village, entirely unchristianised and scarcely at all affected by
European civilisation.
Daube, our host, behaved very nicely; indeed, he was quite gentlemanly.
He and a boy about the place looked after us in various ways, got water,
made fires, and cooked yams and sweet potatoes. The ladies of the village
were particularly shy, and consequently we took very little notice of
them. They wore a common sort of leaf petticoat, not of so good a quality
as is usually worn by the coast women. The men had the narrowest string
of bark I have as yet seen worn—clothing it could not be called.
I measured the five men and made a few notes on them, and Wilkin took a
few photographs. These natives are somewhat darker than the coast tribes,
of more rugged countenance, and wear beards and moustaches. Ray obtained
some information as to the nature of their language; like our Torres
Straits friends they have names for only the numerals “one” and “two.”
When strolling about we came across the old chief sitting on a log
whittling saplings into spears with a boar’s tusk for a knife. It was the
first time I had seen this primitive knife in actual use, and much to
the man’s astonishment I bought the tusk after we had photographed him
using it. Unfortunately for the picturesqueness of the photograph, he was
wearing a shirt; the wearing of a shirt by a chief is the recognised
symbol of loyalty in this district.
Our cooking was of a very primitive kind, and the results were not of
a palatable quality. Every scrap that we dropped through the crevices
of the verandah was immediately devoured by pigs. It was also a new
sensation to hear pigs grunting and scrunching underneath one at night,
and to feel the vibration of their rubbing against the verandah posts.
The nights were comparatively quite cold; we all felt chilly, and my
teeth chattered, but I doubt if the thermometer sank much below 55°.
This is a village of the Taburi tribe, who with others are called Koiari
by the Motu, a name which simply means “bushmen,” but it probably will be
convenient to retain the latter as a general name for the small tribes of
the whole district round about.
We rested all Sunday, but Ballantine walked on Saturday afternoon to
Hogeri (Sogeri), a distance of seventeen miles. He returned from Hogeri
on Monday morning, bringing along with him a crowd of inland natives
amongst whom was Gewe, the chief of Agi, a noted warrior who a year
previously would have been shot if he could have been caught, as he had
more than once raided unoffending tribes; now the chief came of his own
free will to visit Port Moresby. There were several men from Wamai and
one or two from Hogeri and Ubere. Two of the natives carried a live pig
tied to a pole, others had stone clubs, native food, and various articles.
We formed a long procession as we went back to Port Moresby in single
file. For a long time the natives kept up well with us, but eventually
they dropped behind. We had a very pleasant and by no means tiring ride
home. At sunset we arrived at Boumana to find a liberal meal provided by
Ballantine and prepared by Peter Lifu’s wife. We had fresh wallaby-tail
soup, stew, tinned raspberries, and coffee. Then we walked our horses
in the dark to Port Moresby, arriving shortly before ten o’clock; we
unsaddled at Ballantine’s, and he invited us in to have a drink. We
started with whisky and water and finished off with bread and cheese and
beer. In fact, we had a “small-fellow Christmas.” I had a good night, and
woke up next morning in good form and not very stiff or sore.
[Illustration: PLATE XIX
GEWE, CHIEF OF AGI, WHEN DEPRIVED OF HIS HAT
GEWE, WITH HIS HAT RESTORED TO HIM]
The following day Ballantine took his visitors to Burns Philp’s store,
and showed them dozens of axes and tomahawks and cases of tobacco and
other treasures, whereby they were duly impressed. Mr. Gors gave Gewe,
the Agi chief, some turkey-red twill for a loin cloth, a belt, a cotton
shirt, a second-hand guards-bandsman’s tunic, and an ancient top hat, and
the old fellow strutted about mightily pleased with himself.
Ballantine brought the party round to the hotel, as I wanted to measure
and photograph them. I began with Gewe, and it was ludicrous to see his
expansive smile of self-content. First we took him as he was, then by
dint of gentle persuasion we divested him of his regalia, and it was
evident that parting from his hat was the sorest trial. It appeared to
be quite hopeless to get a side view of his face, as he kept turning
round to see what we were doing, till Ballantine suggested that I
should show him some pictures; so I produced a coloured plate of Torres
Straits dances which so fascinated him that he became comparatively
still immediately. But even so we could not get a satisfactory side-face
portrait of him. I then measured his height, span, and head, and it was
with great relief and transparent joy that he resumed his hat. I did not
take all the measurements I should have liked, as he became restive and
suddenly stalked off. I then measured a few other natives, who were duly
photographed.
In the afternoon I went to where the natives were camped and
witnessed one of those extremes of culture that are rarely met with,
even in frontier colonies. My friend Gewe, clad in his medley of
nineteenth-century garments, was solemnly chipping a hole in a stone
club-head with a piece of flint! Close by was another mountaineer clad in
his native fringed belt and sporran, holding a cheap mirror before his
face, and shaving himself with a fragment of a glass bottle.
The following morning the natives again came to be investigated. I
measured and Wilkin photographed some more, and Seligmann tested the
keenness of their eyesight. He found the coast people at Bulaa, owing
probably to their being sailors and fishermen, had even keener eyesight
than Torres Straits islanders. The eyesight of our mountaineers, on the
other hand, was much more like that of the average European landsmen. In
the afternoon Seligmann tested their colour vision, but this did not show
anything unusual. Altogether we got very good value out of the men, and
it was a unique opportunity for us.
In the evening Ballantine gave his visitors a lantern show in the
boat-shed, interspersed with phonograph songs and tunes by Ray. I think
they did not understand the latter, but the pictures were thoroughly
appreciated by them. I sat on a box next to Gewe in order to watch him,
and I had a great treat. He had his hat on, but the military tunic was
absent. Most of the lantern-slides were local, and the natives recognised
them immediately. One slide was of especial interest, as it was the
photograph of a village that Gewe and others had subsequently sacked
and burnt. One wonders what was passing in the mind of the warrior,
as in front of him was the representation of the “before,” and in his
mind’s eye he must have seen the “after.” I must say he did not look at
all abashed, and why should he? He had only been following immemorial
custom! Like the Torres Straits islanders and the coast Papuans, Gewe
expressed wonder and admiration by a broad grin, glistening eyes, and
by making various sucking and clicking noises with his lips. He also,
like the others, flicked his teeth with his thumbnail. Our glances
often met, and we nodded and smiled and clicked to each other; once or
twice with exuberant feeling, when a slide especially pleased him, he
caught hold of my hand. I got quite fond of the old chap. He had a fine
distinguished face. He held himself well, and behaved like a gentleman.
When the portrait of Queen Victoria was on the screen, the phonograph
played “Soldiers of the Queen,” and I made Gewe take off his hat. He did
so cheerfully, as if he understood the Queen should be respected, and
directly the picture was changed I let him put it on again.
The evening was a great success, and must have considerably impressed the
mountaineers, most of whom had probably not seen a white man before.
It was very interesting to come into personal contact with the raiders
and the raided, to see individuals who were fighting each other a few
months ago walking peacefully together, sharing the same food, and
looking at lantern-slides of one another and of their villages. I would
have given a great deal to know what they thought of it all. One thing
is fairly certain, those who visited Port Moresby will remain pacific,
as they must recognise what is to them the marvellous power of the white
man. Next morning they started off home, and our friend Gewe had some
hundred miles to walk.
Probably owing to their rich soil and fine climate, the mountaineers of
the main range have a splendid physique, and are fine hardy men. They
hunt the wild pig and other animals, but they are great gardeners, and
have large plantations of indigenous sugar-cane, as well as of yams,
sweet potatoes, and bananas. There is a superabundance of native food,
and tons of it may be seen left to waste. Excess of food means plenty of
leisure, and the energy begotten by such a country and good food must
have an outlet. Naturally the people take to raiding their neighbours,
and consequently there is a continual pressure, as it were, from the
mountains towards the coast. It might be supposed that the intermediate
belt of fertile hilly country would produce men strong enough to
withstand the main range mountaineers; but it is not so, and the reason
appears to be that they have no inter-tribal combination. The villages
are usually small, from half a dozen to eighteen houses, and generally
situated on the top of a steep hill or ridge. Most of them formerly had
tree-houses as places of safety, and quite a number, especially towards
the interior, were stockaded. The stockades might surround a village,
or occur only as a close fence at each end, the object of which was to
prevent the village from being rushed. Usually there was on the top
of the stockade a projecting platform slanting upwards, up which the
besieged rush to throw spears at the enemy.
Near Mount Bellamy, in the main range, five powerful tribes—Baura,
Agi, Manari, Hagari, and Efogi—a few years ago entered into a sort of
confederation, but only for aggressive purposes. A native, in describing
this, illustrated his meaning in the following way: he was chewing
sugar-cane at the time, and he gathered up the dry fibres into a heap,
and then scattered them apart to express the dispersal of the tribes
after a foray.
This confederation has harassed an extent of country that cannot be less
than some fifty miles in length and thirty miles in breadth; over a large
tract of this area the country has been depopulated and numerous villages
entirely destroyed. The intermediate country being thus subjugated, the
confederation had commenced operations quite close to the coast, when it
was broken up by the Government; but it does not appear that even now
the Hagari have been properly reduced, though their influence has been
diminished.
The hill tribes of the interior have also played a similar game on the
coast tribes. There was little to choose between them and the main range
tribes, except that the latter were the more powerful.
We spent the rest of our time at Port Moresby in various ways. Wilkin
went for a little trip inland, and photographed some tree-houses at
Gasiri. Very few of these remarkable edifices are now extant, as the need
for them has passed away in all places reached by the strong arm of the
law. Seligmann wanted to see more of the country than would have been
practicable had he stayed with us, so he left us on June 25th to visit
Mr. English at Rigo; but before doing so he studied the collection of
charms got together by Mr. Ballantine, and made notes on magic and native
remedies, subjects that he investigated in other parts of New Guinea. Ray
did what he could in studying the language of available natives, and made
a collection of native potters’ trade marks.
Port Moresby is the headquarters of the pottery industry in the central
district of British New Guinea, and when the season comes round great
activity is displayed by the women, for pottery-making is entirely
women’s work. The men build up the _lakatois_, or trading boats, each
of which consists of at least three ordinary canoes lashed together and
provided with large crates to hold the pots in safety. The large sails,
shaped like crabs’ claws, and the flying streamers attached to the
rigging give these strange craft a most picturesque appearance as they
scud before the wind. It is not unusual for a fleet of twenty _lakatois_
to sail with a crew of some six hundred men, each of whom would take
about fifty pots.
These great trading voyages take place in October—that is, at the end of
the south-east monsoon—and the _lakatois_ wend their way up the coast,
mainly to the Gulf of Papua, where the cargoes of pottery are exchanged
for bundles of sago; as many as thirty thousand pots have been known
to be bartered in one year for a hundred and fifty tons of sago. The
voyagers return during the north-west monsoon with the sago and new
canoes; they thus have a fair wind each way.
As no one had previously photographed the method of pottery-making, I
was anxious to get a complete set of photographs, and Mr. Ballantine
arranged for three women to go through the whole process in order that
we might photograph it under favourable conditions. Wilkin and I also
photographed various women at work in the native villages.
[Illustration: PLATE XX
TREE HOUSE AT GASIRI
POTTERY-MAKING AT HANUABADA, PORT MORESBY]
The villages of Port Moresby are composite in character, as two tribes,
the Koitapu and Motu, live side by side, but apparently with extremely
little mixture.
There is no doubt that the Koitapu are the original inhabitants;
they are allied to the Koiari and other inland tribes, and hence are
a branch of the true Papuans—that is, the essentially narrow-headed
indigenous population of New Guinea. At the present time there is not
much difference in appearance between many of the Koitapu and Motu, as
doubtless intercourse has taken place at various times. The former are
somewhat darker in colour, but there are quite a number of Koitapu, for
example, who clearly have racial affinity with the hill tribes of the
interior, while the Motu exhibit an equally strong resemblance to the
main element in the coast population from Yule Island to Aroma.
The Koitapu are tillers of the soil, and the Motu are fisher-folks and
potters. Chalmers says: “By no conquest do the Motu live here, but simply
because the Koitapu allow them, saying, ‘Yours is the sea, the canoes,
the nets; ours the land and the wallaby. Give us fish for our flesh, and
pottery for our yams and bananas.’”
There are many differences between the Koitapu and Motu that point to a
difference of origin. The language is markedly different; Dr. Lawes long
ago pointed out that there were very few words in common between these
two tribes, and probably most, if not all, of these were borrowed. Ray,
too, found that the affinities of the Koitapu language were with those
of the true Papuan languages; while those of the Motu were unmistakably
Melanesian. The Koitapu cook by means of the earth-oven, but the Motu
mode of cooking by boiling in earthenware vessels is largely practised
now. This is a borrowed custom. The Motu are more careful and nice in
their diet, whereas the Koitapu devour anything edible. Their ornaments
also differ, as do their mats and other handicrafts.
The Motu folk certainly look down on the Koitapu, but at the same time
they fear the power of the sorcerers of their neighbours, and Lawes
informs us: “The first thing a Motu man does, when anyone belonging
to him is dangerously ill, is to go to a man, or oftener a woman, of
the Koitapu, with large presents, that they may loose the power of
the evil spirit over the sick man.” As the Koitapu were the aboriginal
inhabitants, they claim power over the elements, and rain and sunshine,
wind and calms can be granted or withheld by them; consequently the Motu
have to pay heavily for the weather that they happen to require. This is
a very interesting example of what has often occurred elsewhere and at
various times—a dominant people being dependent upon the magicians of the
people they have subjugated.
Lawes also states that “The Motu are afraid to go out at night for
fear of ghosts. The Koitapu have no such fear, but often travel inland
at night. The coast tribes fear the gods of the land, and in case of
calamity appeal to the owners of the soil to propitiate the gods, or
wreak upon them their vengeance in revenge for what they have suffered.”
Chalmers says that he has “never heard of the two tribes fighting, but
often the Motu has helped the Koitapu against their enemies, especially
have they prevented the Hula (Bulaa) making raids on them.”
We are not yet in a position to say definitely where the Motu originally
came from.
The twenty-seventh of June was a red-letter day, as I received my first
home letters since our departure from London on March 10th; these were
forwarded from Thursday Island by the gunboat _Goldfinch_, which arrived
in the morning. I was packing ethnographical specimens in a shed when
she arrived, but I went off with Ballantine just as I was to hear the
news, and we stayed to lunch. It was very pleasant to have fresh people
to talk to, especially travelled men. Few things are more refreshing than
intelligent chatting, when one is in one of the world’s backwaters. We
heard the news, not much more than we knew before, except the death of
Gladstone. In the afternoon I continued my study of Ballantine’s unique
collection of stone clubs. After dinner we all, with Dr. Blaney and
Ballantine, called at the _Goldfinch_, and took the captain and officers
to Hanuabada to see a dance; the moon was young and the sky was cloudy,
and there were no fires, so very little could be seen; indeed, we could
smell more than we could see.
The third-class cruiser _Mohawk_ arrived next morning fresh from the
annexation of Santa Cruz and some of the Solomon Islands. The _Goldfinch_
officers thought they would remain here for some weeks, and were planning
shooting parties. Now they learnt they must go off the next morning to
Melanesia, to annex more islands, and the _Mohawk_ was to depart the same
time for Thursday Island.
All the time I was visiting at Port Moresby I was hoping to hear some
news about Sir William Macgregor, as I was looking forward to meet him
once more; but he was at the other end of the possession, and there was
no chance of my seeing him for a long time, so I decided to return to
Murray Island as soon as possible. Burns Philp’s boat, the _Alice May_,
came in on July 5th, and Mr. Gors promised that she should take us back
to Murray Island.
There happened to be a few days to spare, and as I was very desirous of
seeing something of the Mekeo District, Mr. Musgrave kindly arranged
that the Government ketch _Lokohu_ should take us to Yule Island, where
the _Alice May_ would subsequently pick us up. Once again Mr. Musgrave’s
cordial co-operation enabled me to save time and accomplish something
that I wanted to do, which otherwise might have been left undone; for
this and for his hospitality he has earned our hearty thanks. Our stay at
Port Moresby was also rendered more profitable than it might otherwise
have been through the kindness of Mr. Ballantine. I much valued the
opportunity he gave me of studying his very fine collection of Papuan
stone clubs. Other friends too assisted us in various ways.
We left Port Moresby on the morning of July 7th.