The Conceited Youth
In early childhood the Papuan is often a charming little being, looking
at you with eyes that can hardly be matched the world over for size and
the beauty of their plum-like bloom. He grows out of this stage all too
early, and in the next thinks only of making himself ornamental. He
certainly is not useful.
Having been allowed his own way when a child he soon considers himself
free from all parental control, and goes his own way. The girls help in
the daily round of the household management, but the youth spends most
of his time in the club house, decorating himself for the afternoon
promenade. Conceited and useless would best describe the male Papuan at
this time of his history, but to make the picture complete we must go
a step further and say that he is constantly getting into trouble and
dragging his parents and relatives into quarrels with others on account
of his misconduct.
After dancing and promenading best part of the night he is always
unwilling to turn out when the others do in the morning. As soon as
he has sufficiently roused himself he begins his preparations for the
day by spreading around him the requisites for his toilet. A strange
assortment. His dress-suit consists of a strip of bark cloth with gay
coloured patterns marked upon it. So simple a suit takes little time or
thought for its proper adjustment. No beauty doctor can, however, spend
more time and care over the face. Cocoanut shells containing various
pigments are brought into use, together with a mirror (this is one of the
few things the youth will work to procure), and lines and dots, triangles
and circles, soon hide the natural colour of the skin. It is not at all
necessary that the two sides of the face should match. One eye may be
surrounded by white or yellow, while the other may look at you out of a
frame of black.
Next comes the dressing of the hair. A friend may lend a hand in combing
this out with a two or three-pronged comb, the youth taking his ease the
while, as you can see in the picture. By the time the process is complete
the youth gazes from under a frizzy mop which it would be hard to match
the whole world over. This must be parted a little way back from the
forehead, so as to allow the feather head ornaments to be adjusted in
the right place and at the correct angle. A bead or shell frontlet must
be placed round the forehead, and then the necklace and armshells; the
anklets and garters (though he has no stockings to keep up) must all
be nicely in position before the final touch is given to the toilet. A
cocoanut is scraped, and the friend, filling his mouth with the soft
white mass, chews it till he has extracted the oil, and then gently blows
it from his lips over the body of the youth who gradually turns round in
front of him, till, like the joint on the old-fashioned spit he is done
all round. Sometimes plain oil does not meet the case, but it is coloured
with red clay and then smeared over the body instead of being blown on.
Now try and imagine what the dandy looks like, and remember that often
you can tell he is coming long before you can see him, for the remains
of former oil dressings are not washed off. The picture will give you an
idea, but unfortunately it lacks the colour. Crude as are many of the
attempts at decoration, the native often shows skill in the way he blends
the colours of his feathers and the artistic way in which he adjusts them
at the correct angle.
Many people are willing to be uncomfortable if they can be in the
fashion, and the Papuan dandy is no exception. The tight lacing he
subjects himself to may be bearable while he is promenading about, but I
have seen him suffer agony from it while trying to row in a boat, and yet
all his suffering would not make him remove his belt.
If the Papuan youth’s life were only devoted to empty show it would be
bad enough, but there is another and darker side. His parents and elders
may care little what he does with his time; nor do they worry about his
education, except in one particular. They never allow him to forget that
he must avenge wrongs inflicted upon his family. Of forgiveness they know
nothing, and the youth as he grows up is taught that for every wrong he
must exact payment.
One of the first cases tried after a Court of Justice had been
established in Papua illustrates this. A young man from a village near
Port Moresby was charged with murdering a woman and two children. He
admitted that he had killed them, but said it was “payment” for the
people of the woman’s tribe having killed his father. He was quite a
small boy at the time, but his uncles had repeatedly told him of the
deed, and that he would not only have to take a life for a life, but if
possible get something on the credit side, and so win a name for himself.
With this in view they taught him to handle the spear and the club,
and when he was a man and proficient, sent him to find his victim. It
mattered nothing to him that the first persons whom he met belonging to
the offending tribe were a woman and two children. He killed them all
three and gloried in his deed of shame. He had however to reckon with our
first Governor (Sir William MacGregor), who, being in the neighbourhood,
had the offender marched off to Port Moresby, and there, during a long
term of imprisonment, he had an opportunity of learning something of the
new order of things introduced under British Government.
It is difficult to believe that this bloodthirstiness dwells in youths
who are so vain, and so easily captivated by bits of finery, and have
such queer ideas of what should be done with English things when they do
get them.
I once took a youth to Sydney. Of course Papuan dress, or want of dress,
would not do there, so I had to fit him out in a suit of clothes. The
garments were not by any means worn out when we returned to Delena, but
for a time they passed from my view. Later Master Poha was strutting
about in the well ventilated vest, while two of his relatives divided the
remainder of the suit between them. I cannot say that either looked fully
clothed, but they were not so conspicuous as the boy at Port Moresby who
used to stalk about in a silk hat.
That hat had a history. A high Government official found that his servant
had packed it amongst his things when he was leaving London, and having
no use for it in Papua, he handed it over to a youth who had taken up
his quarters in the back premises of Government House. That youth was
not only the introducer of a new fashion, the observed of all observers,
but he was the envy of his companions, as he strutted around clothed
in a top hat, and a very broad smile. Of course the hat lost its gloss,
and took on the shape of a concertina, but that did not detract from its
usefulness, and the last I heard of it was that the elder brother of the
owner borrowed it to take on Hiri (the trading expedition), because, as
he put it, “He should be cold without any clothes.”
The Papuan youth, however, with all these faults is a loyal, brave
companion. He can be relied upon when accompanying a white man on a
journey. The tighter the corner the more he shines, and many others as
well as ourselves would have ended their days in Papua long ago had not
our boys stuck to us in time of need.