IN A GERMAN COLONY
[Illustration: A WOMAN FROM THE BUSH VILLAGES]
IN A
GERMAN COLONY
OR
FOUR WEEKS IN NEW BRITAIN
BY
B. PULLEN-BURRY
AUTHOR OF “JAMAICA AS IT IS, 1903,” “ETHIOPIA IN EXILE,” ETC.
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWO MAPS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1909_
PREFACE
Since very little information has so far appeared through the medium
of the British press concerning those possessions in the Pacific,
included under the comprehensive title of the Protectorate of New
Guinea, it has seemed to me that to shape my voluminous notes into
book-form may be of use to future travellers. With that end in view,
it also appears desirable to explain that much in these remote
islands remains to be discovered. Speculative theories therefore,
however tempting the data, have been scrupulously avoided.
In the compilation of this work a simple description of conditions,
which came under the writer’s notice, is all that is attempted.
It is, moreover, hoped that the reader will not be severe to mark
amiss the latitude of expression which the authoress has permitted
herself, in the belief that she has not thereby exceeded those
limits of discursiveness which may justly be extended to confirmed
globe-trotters.
B. P.-B.
_London, 1909._
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I 1
Introductory remarks--on the _Prinz Waldemar_--incident
in the German Consulate at Sydney--the Maoris--their
present condition--difficulties in the German colony.
CHAPTER II 20
Confusing nomenclature of the Protectorate--the
Papuan type--the Melanesian--Blanche Bay and
environs--Simpsonhafen--walk to Matupi--the captain
of the _Sumatra_--on the Admiralty Islands--the
Moánus--the Usiai--the Matankor.
CHAPTER III 42
Hotel at Herbertshöhe--planters’ meetings--Docman
and “Collars”--Dr Thurnwald--traces of great
volcanic activity--the Bainings and the Sulkas--facial
ornamentation of Gazelle kanakas.
CHAPTER IV 57
Cannibals in prison--“the yelp of the beast”--history
of the Bismarck Archipelago--Spanish secretiveness--
Dampier and Carteret’s voyages--the New Guinea
Company.
CHAPTER V 74
A visit to the R. C. mission--Bishop Coppée on various
islanders--the nuns--their schools--murder of ten
missionaries--congregation of natives.
CHAPTER VI 89
A visit to Mr Parkinson--native markets--the diseased
condition of the kanakas--cultivation of taro--the
island products--the uses of bamboo and cocoanut-palm.
CHAPTER VII 106
Queen Emma’s residence--her fame in the South Sea--a
digression--details of the copra trade--“Black-birding”
--a Polynesian group of islanders--the Carteret islands
and Sir Charles Hardy Group.
CHAPTER VIII 124
I call on the Governor--sun-worshippers--the
misadventures of a decade--British colonists--I
inspect “police boys”--a “white Australia” policy
condemned.
CHAPTER IX 140
Slavery formerly practised--Baining characteristics--
an unknown race--three degrees of religious
development--Tingenatabaran--ethical perception of
the Sulkas--tamboo--magic.
CHAPTER X 157
Natives humanely treated--Australasian ladies--visit
to the Australasian Methodist Mission--New Ireland
described--settlement effected--higher plane of
culture.
CHAPTER XI 171
Early start to visit bush kanakas--a terrible
tragedy--Governor’s classification of Archipelago
peoples--dense bush--native villages--method of
catching flying foxes.
CHAPTER XII 185
Duties of a chief--_uviana_ and _luluai_ described--
_kamara_ used by Europeans--status of women--nuptial,
symbolic and other ceremonies--_vuvue_ feast--
trepanning.
CHAPTER XIII 201
The shooting ground--hornbill dance--secret
societies--the Duk Duk--Ingiet.
CHAPTER XIV 217
I visit Kabakaul--a love story--an earthquake--guests
from Herbertshöhe--a nocturnal disturbance--Bismarck’s
remark to Busch--conclusion.
INDEX 235
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
WOMAN FROM BUSH VILLAGE _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
ON THE SHORES OF BLANCHE BAY 28
POST OFFICE AT SIMPSONHAFEN 32
A GAZELLE KANAKA 54
LABOUR BOYS 118
AN ATTRACTIVE BACHELOR 180
A DUK DUK DANCE 210
FISHERMAN OF NEW BRITAIN 220
LIST OF MAPS
THE GERMAN PROTECTORATE OF NEW GUINEA 1
THE GAZELLE PENINSULA 24
[Illustration: THE GERMAN PROTECTORATE OF NEW GUINEA.]
IN A GERMAN COLONY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS--ON THE _PRINZ WALDEMAR_--INCIDENT IN
THE GERMAN CONSULATE AT SYDNEY--THE MAORIS--THEIR PRESENT
CONDITION--DIFFICULTIES IN THE GERMAN COLONY
This little span which we call life has been aptly described as a
mere parenthesis between the vast eternities of whence? and whither?
and in this age of breakneck speed if we would live, and not
vegetate, we must be men and women of the hour, keen to note, swift
to record.
In the case of the writer of these pages the call comes to testify
to the virtues of a nation which, from circumstances apparently
beyond its control hitherto, it has become the fashion to decry,
for latterly, has not our literary provender teemed with nebulous
and speculative matter anent the esoteric meaning of a Monarch’s
utterances! Indeed the fertility of the British press leaves little
to be desired. In the same way our parliamentary leaders provide
food for mental digestion in which the quantity, hardly the quality,
should satisfy the most omnivorous politician.
Raw stuff in the form of undiscussed clauses thrust before the
astonished gaze of the Electorate of Great Britain, are professedly,
the “considered judgment of the Commons of England.” Accustomed as
we are to the growth of “terminological inexactitudes” we would
remind, before we pass on, even those who frequent the precincts of
Westminster, that a fashionable sin remains, as heretofore, one of
the Lord’s abominations.
Now my travels have taken me beyond the parish pump, my views of men
and things have long since failed to coincide with that respectable
orthodoxy which to the rural mind is represented by squire and
parson, and I venture to believe that reading, marking, and learning
whilst we globe-trot amounts nearly, to the sum of what we can
acquire on this planet. Therefore it appears not inopportune, for
one who has experienced hospitality and courtesy in no small degree
during a visit to Germany’s youngest colony, to contribute her mite
to that literature which deals with the hydra-headed question of
our relations with that country. The Master’s lesson to love our
neighbours as ourselves is possibly beyond our power, yet those of
lesser light remind us that the pen as well as the tongue has its
responsibilities.
“Every word has its own spirit
True or false that never dies,
Every word man’s lips have uttered,
Echoes in God’s skies.”
And let us remember that if there be those who long to “thrash the
English,” there is at the same time, a growing determination on the
part of the Teuton people to restrain the military autocracy of the
Hohenzollern. The fiat has gone forth, Germany has set her face
against Absolutism, and in the iron chain of destiny there are no
breaks. The velocity of national movements responds in proportion to
the propelling energy at the back of them. In the history of Europe,
to-day, we may well pause to take stock of the situation, to measure
if we can the magnitude of that driving force, which, since the birth
in 1870 of this powerful nation, has converted a race of dreamers and
idealists into a hard, practical people. For if the will to dominate
by land and sea, to agitate restlessly for commercial expansion and
colonial possessions can be construed into representing the matured
fruit of Teutonic spiritual aspiration, then indeed the words of a
far-seeing poetess, “Souls are ripened in our northern sky,” have
more than mystic meaning!
Yet for our mutual comfort, let me add, that although we are not
blind as to what united Germany may mean to this country, and that
notwithstanding the fact that our fatuous law-givers profess to see
in the fly-blown phylacteries of Cobdenism relief for all the woes
which beset us, notwithstanding also the perversity which causes them
to interpret Holy Writ into doing unto the foreigner 100 per cent.
more than he would do for us in parallel circumstances, we persist
in the belief that the British bulldog breed is not yet totally
extinct, when patriots such as Lord Roberts, and Lord Meath, rise up
to warn the country of its danger and its weakness. And God knows,
and the women of England know, that compulsory military training for
three or five years for every mother’s son would be a boon and a
blessing in every way desirable. In fact our legislative muddlers are
bringing us to this, that if a healthy compulsion to learn the art of
self-defence is not soon insisted upon, the cry of the women will not
be “Give us votes!” but “Teach us to shoot straight!”
With these introductory remarks I will pass on to the subject-matter
of these pages, hoping that I have defined my position as savouring
neither of Teuto-phobia, or of Philo-Teutonism.
Some twenty months ago I stood on the deck of the _Prinz Waldemar_
as she slowly left her moorings and steamed at noon through that
most exquisite waterway, Sydney Harbour, out into the Pacific Ocean
bound for Hong-Kong. Her first port of call was Simpsonhafen, in
New Britain, where the monthly steamers of the German Lloyd are
eagerly welcomed by the officials and planters of the Protectorate
of New Guinea as the solitary link between these distant equatorial
possessions of the Kaiser and their beloved fatherland. Subsequently,
the _Prinz Waldemar_ would call at Manilla on her way to the British
emporium of the Far East. My destination was Herbertshöhe, the seat
of government of the scattered dependency. Here it was my intention
to stay a month, proceeding to Japan by the next steamer. The
undisguised wonder on the part, first of all, of the German Consul at
Sydney, then of the ship’s officials, lastly of my fellow-passengers,
when they learnt my plan, was amusing. What in the world was I
going to do in New Britain? they asked. There was no decent hotel.
I should find it _langweilich_! In fact, the place was impossible!
For a lady to stay in that fever-stricken, God-forsaken colony!
unheard of! Was I not afraid of _die cannibalen_? The idea that a
woman might be interested in the vagaries of savage life was too
hard a nut for the normal Teuton to crack. An English lady of ducal
name, who had been staying at Government House, Sydney, endeavoured
to dissuade me, picturing vividly my plight in case of illness. I
told her that fevers never troubled me, although prickly heat and
I were sworn enemies. To the objections of an English gentleman
who, with his large family, had been visiting his properties in
Australia, one could only emphasize that what he termed obstinacy,
others called determination. Though I listened to them all with deep
respect I was none the less prepared to find a four weeks’ stay
lacking in comfort, but years of roaming train one how to dispense
with luxuries. Hitherto I had always found sufficient nerve to face
unknown quantities. Besides, had I not as a child, and later, in my
teens, in the most approved Methodistical fashion, literally wrestled
in my prayers to see not only distant lands, but real live savages?
And here was a chance of beholding some of the lowest specimens of
human nature on the globe. Would I forego it because the hotel chairs
were not upholstered, or the milk to my tea was canned. A thousand
times No! In the quiet of my cabin I thanked Providence that He
had not built me that way! To tell the truth, the only thing which
really occasioned some anxiety on my part was whether I should find
the German officials courteous, or the reverse. I had some grounds
for my doubt. The unpleasant interview I had at Sydney, the morning
previous to embarking, when I requested the German Consul to give me
a letter of introduction to the Governor at Herbertshöhe, lingered in
my memory. Just then feeling was by no means friendly in Australasian
circles towards the Germans in the Pacific Islands, owing to the
extraordinary behaviour of members of the Jaluit Company, in the
affair of a schooner sailing in Micronesian seas, belonging to a
well-known firm of Sydney shippers, concerning which legal measures
were pending. I was told by everybody that I should find the Germans
obstructive, discourteous, unwilling to facilitate me in any research
I was desirous of making.
As a matter of fact, my experience was the exact opposite. However,
during my interview I gave the Consul to understand that I was known
to persons of position in Sydney, mentioning the name of one or two
prominent members of the Federal Government. I had also lectured
for a Guild, whereat the Lady Mayoress had presided. To my utter
surprise he completely ignored the foregoing, declaring, that at the
very least, I should have brought a letter from Government House
stating the object of my proposed visit, etc. Needless to say, my
anger had been roused at this official bumptiousness, and I had risen
somewhat indignantly from my chair, expressing the wish to trouble
him no further, since had I deemed it necessary, I could easily
have procured letters from the Governors, either of Australia, or
of New Zealand. The matter was comparatively of small importance,
and I should not think of troubling their Excellencies! The sequel
to my interview was that the letter I had requested was written and
received by His Excellency, Dr Hahl in New Britain shortly before
I made the call that etiquette requires. So far as my visit to the
German Protectorate was concerned, this was the first and only
disagreeable I encountered from German officialism. In the island
itself nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality extended to
me on every hand.
During those eight days of blessed rest and sunshine, gliding over
smooth seas, under brilliant skies between Sydney and the German
port, occasionally hailed by a passer-by to look at a shark, noting
the circumstance that after Brisbane not a funnel nor a sail did we
see till we entered St George’s Channel, which separates the island
of New Britain from New Ireland, I had time to meditate upon the
sights I expected to witness, in a day or two, where savage humanity,
practically barehanded, after countless ages of barbarism, had
for the last three decades come into contact with the white man’s
civilisation.
The world moves slowly where national existence is unknown, where the
intellect, or that which does duty for it, closed in by dead walls
of monotony merely guesses in the loftiest fashion of its sleep at
Heaven.
To such conditions I was about to make my introductory bow.
There seems to be no doubt that the low culture and sparse
populations of the islands in the Bismarck Archipelago have been
brought about by centuries of fierce feuds and exterminating warfare.
In pre-German days these small races were like beasts of prey,
robbing, preying upon their neighbours until they themselves were
chased, killed, and eaten in return. Their bloody fights always
ended in complete annihilation of the enemy, women and children
included, the victory being signalised by a cannibalistic gorge.
It was unthinkable that in less than a generation these men-eaters
had lost their leaden instincts, so it were, according to Herbert
Spencer, vain to expect golden conduct! Primitive peoples from one
point of view agree to differ; each, as will be seen in after pages,
appears to live and have its being on its own special rung of the
evolutionary ladder. How far removed indeed from the ideal savage are
these South Sea Islanders!
“I am as free as nature first made man
Ere the base laws of servitude began
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”
From barbarism in the Pacific to the tinker, the tailor, and the
candlestick-maker of this age and of this land is a far cry, but it
is an open question at what stage in anthropological development
man would not be infinitely better off under the rule of parental
despotism than he is ever likely to be under representative
government, provided alway that the despot is truly parental in his
methods.
The discipline of life, a pulpit expression, but comprehensive, and
the “base laws of servitude,” though opposite as the poles in their
_modus operandi_, are, so far as we can see, castigatory essentials
to the bringing into working order the endowments of humanity, but
the danger lies in that we, by our western methods, risk impairing
the original deposit of true manliness, as natural to the man-eating
savage, when he brains the enemy of his tribe, as to the latest
dandy in Piccadilly, who shows himself a lion in courage on the
battle-field. We are curious to know what the next compromising
Education Bill will give to replace the native grandeur of the human
animal, for with all our boasted enlightenment, we see in our midst
a slackness, as opposed to alertness, a softness (balm no doubt to
the nonconforming conscience) incompatible with ideals of British
bravery, if not fraught with menace to our national safety. Such
qualities too often appeal to the man in the street and take the
place of virility and common-sense.
I had passed the previous winter in New Zealand and my thoughts
during the passage travelled across the seas to a dusky race emerging
from conditions which still characterise the Melanesians under
German rule. No study of mankind is more full of interest than
that of the present condition of the Maoris of New Zealand. Over
one hundred years have passed since Captain Cook, struck by their
vast numbers, first gazed upon them as he stood upon the decks of
the _Endeavour_ watching them follow the ship round the coast. No
finer savages ever trod the earth than this offshoot of the great
Polynesian race. It is lamentable that contact with the pakeha
(white man) has resulted in the dwindling of their numbers. All that
is evil they have imbibed, but for the virtues of the European the
race seemingly has no use. It would, I thought, be interesting to
compare them presently, so far as this aspect was concerned, with the
German Melanesians. The latest census taken in 1906 gives a total of
47,731, and Dr Pomaré, the Government medical officer to the Maoris,
himself a half-caste, declares that it is the only enumeration
that can be relied upon, since the returns are now sent in by the
heads of the recently-established native village councils, for the
Maoris, like Dolly of the Playhouse, paralysed at the evils which
in the forms of drink, disease and gambling have played havoc with
their race, have now set about reforming themselves. The tattooed
chief in dogskin cloak and befeathered topknot is no longer seen.
If he was relentless and fierce, he was also brave and chivalrous.
When he ate his fallen foe he believed that in so doing he received
into himself the _mana_ (prestige, renown,) not only of the dead
man, but that of all his ancestors. To add thus to his own _mana_
by conquering the hereditary enemies of his tribe, although it
meant the perpetuation of inter-tribal feuds, was highly desirable.
His social polity was the outcome of his views of right and wrong.
Maori-lore as expounded in the whare-kura (house set apart for that
purpose) abounded in spells and incantations to ward off unseen,
adverse influences. It told him of a land called Te Reinga, where
he would live for ever with his departed ancestors in peace, from
which place they would exercise their spirit influence upon mortal
affairs. Mr Tregear in his delightful book describes the old Maoris
to have been highly educated, good, all-round men. Before the coming
of the pakeha these savages felled trees with the roughest of tools,
built houses and seaworthy boats, made weapons, carved ornaments,
understood the art of weaving and dyeing. They cultivated the soil,
they stored their minds with hymns and spells innumerable. They were
poets, orators, warriors and seamen, possessing industry, patience,
skill and artistic perception in no small degree. Their present
condition, due mostly to the fact that nothing as yet replaces this
training, is by no means so satisfactory as one would be led to
expect, taking into consideration all the agencies at work making
for their mental and moral uplifting. It may be remembered that the
first Bishop Selwyn exclaimed from the pulpit, so impressed was
he by the fervour displayed by the Christianised natives of New
Zealand, “We see here a whole nation of pagans converted to the
faith.” Subsequently, when circumstances arose during the Maori war
which led the natives to distrust the teaching and the teachers, and
Hau-Hauism was substituted for the creed of the missionary, there
remained but little to show as permanent result of the marvellous
turn things took, when in 1860, mission work reached its zenith in
New Zealand. The spell of _tapu_ had been broken, the sacred head
of the chief was regarded with lessened veneration, but to this day
the Tohungas (witch-doctors) retain their malign influence over the
majority of the people. With the substitution of British rule for
tribal authority the descendant of the once formidable Maori too
often finds his dearest joy in horse-racing, and in gambling. He
spends listless days in wondering at the marvels of the pakeha--his
motor, the phonograph, the gramophone! He forgets the tribal legend,
the glory of his heroic ancestry. In the words of an educated
Maori, “it does not take the power of second-sight for the ordinary
observer to see that the modern Maori is oppressed with unutterable
woe, a listless manner, a hopeless expression and inertia which can
accomplish nothing.” If this be a true finding for the majority, it
was good to learn that a hopeful minority of agriculturists, living
in the neighbourhood of Napier and Gisborne, present a healthy
example of what the race may eventually become. So far as education
is concerned, I had been struck with the facilities offered to the
native children. Over one hundred village schools were in operation,
and the Government offers one hundred and fifteen scholarships,
tenable for two years, for children of predominantly Maori race. Yet
the complaint was universal that no definite technical training for
various trades figured in the curriculum.
To convert the aimless lives of those who had left school into busy
ones. To turn them out into the world as carpenters, artisans,
or engineers; to give the girls objects and interests in life in
teaching them dressmaking or laundry work, and so forth, would
prevent the going back to tribal life, which is so discouraging
a feature to the teachers in the schools. But no sketch of the
actual condition of these people, however humble, seems just
without giving full allowance for the fact that the insecurity of
native land-tenure, arising from the difficulties connected with
establishing individual titles to lands formerly held in common by
the tribe, is the real cause of much of the apathy, indifference,
and idleness apparent.
In the initial stage of colonisation so far attempted in New Britain,
in the low intelligence of its aborigines as compared with that of
the Maoris and our other subject races, in the unhealthy climate, I
was shortly to see for myself how difficult is the task which lies
before the pioneers of civilisation in the equatorial regions of the
German Protectorate.