Keeping House
The Papuan comes of age in fewer years than the white boy. From his
babyhood preparations have been made for starting him in life. His father
having settled that he shall marry the daughter of some friend, begins
to pay the stipulated price for the girl. Now a pig is paid on account,
and if accepted by the girl’s father, as a native who could talk a little
English of a kind told me, “He all same as finger ring.” Next it may be
an armshell, or some feathers. Later on some sago; and so the price is
gradually paid.
When the boy and girl are old enough to start for themselves, the girl’s
father often manages to screw an extra pig or a few additional knives or
axes out of the boy’s family, on the ground that his daughter is either
very good-looking, very strong, or a particularly smart pot maker or
gardener. When there is no chance of a higher price, or before if the
young couple take the matter into their own hands, the marriage takes
place. The couple eat from the same dish and the knot is tied. At first
they do not set up housekeeping on their own account, but usually settle
in the house of the bridegroom’s father. There is no honeymoon, unless
it has been a runaway match, and then the fugitives think it advisable
to stay away long enough for the anger of the old folks to cool down. In
the ordinary course of events the bridegroom at once takes his part in
whatever hunting or fishing or planting may be going on, and the bride
settles in her place in the household and garden work.
Sometimes there is a little more ceremony, and a touch of display. I
remember once at Orokolo seeing a procession going along the beach. It
was unlike anything I had seen before, so I gave chase. It was a long
chase, for all were going at top speed to get over the hot sand as
quickly as possible, and I was only just in time to see the bride, the
chief figure in the procession, and decked out in the finery belonging
to her family, vanishing into the house. Her friends had been carrying
suspended from poles the feathers, armshells, necklaces, and other
ornaments that had been paid as her price. These poles were fastened to
the front of the house she had entered like barbers’ poles in England,
but I doubt if they were left out overnight. Too many of the valuables
might have been missing in the morning.
[Illustration: WOULD HE TAKE A PRIZE?
_See page 4._]
[Illustration: THROWING THE SPEAR.
_See page 5._]
[Illustration: WHIP-TOPS IN SEASON.
_See page 6._]
On another occasion at an inland village, the bridal procession crossed
the river in canoes. This time no ornaments were carried, but nearly all
the people were carrying large sago puddings—round hard balls larger than
a football, and all covered with grated cocoanut, which made them look as
though coated with white sauce or sugar icing.
The houses in which the Papuans live are of all shapes and of all sizes,
and some at least are built in strange places: some in the tops of tall
trees like big birds’-nests; some on piles in the sea like the old lake
dwellings in Europe; some half in the sea and half on land, as though
they were just starting to paddle on the beach; some on platforms over
swamps, and others on the dry land. Oblong buildings are the fashion in
most villages, but in others the ends of the oblong are curved, and in
others again the one end of the house goes up and out like an old coal
scuttle-bonnet. The ridgepole is usually straight, but at the east end of
Papua concave meets with more approval, while in the west the ridgepole
looks like a hog’s back. Small conical houses are to be found inland,
but in only one district do I remember to have seen houses that were
not built upon piles. At Maiva, in the central district, the sides and
ends of the house are carried right down to the ground so as to give
protection from mosquitoes, and the building looks like a hayrick.
Usually the house is only large enough for one family, but in the Fly
River each building is really a street under one roof. The longest
I have measured, though not the longest I have been in, was 360 feet
long by about 60 feet wide. You could enter at either end by means of a
sloping platform, and then at once have to stop till your eyes became
accustomed to the difference between the glare of the sunlight outside
and the semi-darkness inside. Gradually you would make out that you were
standing at one end of what looked like an unusually long cow-shed. The
path ran down the middle, and on either side were stalls. There the
similarity ended, for in each stall was a fireplace, and instead of quiet
cows, painted and feather-bedecked natives could be seen walking about,
and bows and arrows, drums and nets, mats and paddles hung from the posts
and partitions in place of the three-legged stools and milk pails.
No matter how poorly a cowhouse might be lighted, it would not be as dark
as that house at Kiwai. Imagine its 360 feet of length without a single
window, and its roof without one chimney, though the fires in the stalls
were burning wood, and they _did_ smoke. You did not quite need an axe to
cut your way through that atmosphere, but before reaching the far end of
the house I found my pace had quickened, and when once again in the pure
outside air there was the same feeling of relief as when I came up out of
the sea from my only experience of going below in a diving-dress.
Of all the Papuan houses I like those best which are built over the sea
on piles. It is true that to get from one to the next you need to be
something of a Blondin, if you take the high road, which consists of a
single pole. On the other hand, if you are fond of a swim there is your
opportunity all around you. From platform, door or window, you can dive
or tumble in, and when you climb up into the house you want to visit
there is no need to worry about wet clothes. The host has no carpets to
spoil, and the hot sun and a strong sea breeze will soon dry thin cotton
clothing.
In England men of many trades are required to build a house, and the
materials are gathered from many different places. In Papua each man
builds his own house, with the assistance of his own family and some of
his friends, and gathers the materials from the supply he finds around
him. The forest gives him his timber. The Sago palm or the Nepa palm
supplies his thatch. In place of nails and screws he uses the cane and
vines which he can find in almost any patch of forest, or strips of bark
from many different kinds of trees. On the coast his flooring boards are
made by splitting up the old dug-out canoes, or by the more laborious
process of dividing a tree lengthwise and then adzing each half into a
plank.
In some districts the native is not content with just putting his
material together and providing a place to sleep in, but spends much
time and a certain amount of skill and taste upon the decoration of his
house. The best in this way are to be found in the eastern part of Papua,
with elaborately-carved barge boards, or woven mat gables, with patterns
worked out in white cowry shells.
All round Delena the houses lack ornamentation, though they differ in
both plan and details of building. Perhaps the most interesting part of
the work to watch is the putting on of the palm-leaf thatch. When the
framework of the house is up, and the rafters all in position, the place
of the slater’s battens is supplied by either strips of palm bark or
strings of fibre. The palm leaves, doubled across the middle, are then
pushed with one limb on either side of the strip and allowed to lie one
on the other, much like the bits of carpet in the old cottage hearth rug.
In this way a good thatch roof is made which will keep the water out for
four or five years.
Another plan is to sew the palm leaves together and make long sheets of
thatch, but this is not so tidy nor does it make so watertight a roof,
and it needs some repair each year.
[Illustration: PAROPARO.
_See page 7._]
[Illustration: THE SNAKE GAME.
_See page 9._]
[Illustration: DELENA SCHOOL GROUP.
_See page 11._]
Even in the most civilized parts of the country at the present time the
stock of tools with which a native starts building his house would be
considered absurdly inadequate by a British workman. A pointed stick
takes the place of a pick and a cocoanut shell a shovel for sinking the
holes for the posts. An axe and a knife are probably the only cutting
tools, and the point of the knife has to serve for boring holes and the
back of the axe for a hammer. Ill equipped as the native may be, he is
ahead of his fathers. They only had stone axes, and to cut down a tree
and adze two planks from it with such a tool was slow work indeed.
When I look at the size of some of his buildings, and see the way he
overcomes his difficulties, and remember his scanty stock of tools and
rough material, I consider him a clever man.
Sometimes the arrangements and calculations of the Old Folks as to the
marriage are all upset by the girl refusing to marry the boy chosen for
her. Then a long time of trouble begins. The boy’s father demands the
return of the payment he has made, but that is not possible. The pigs
have been eaten, and probably some of the neckshells, armshells, and
necklaces have been passed on by the father of the girl in part payment
for a wife for one of his sons. They are not allowed to fight it out now,
so a war of words goes on every night. If the houses are one at either
end of the village it is a war at long range, and there is little chance
for those not interested to sleep, till the combatants are too hoarse to
continue shouting. In the end a compromise is arranged, and _perhaps_ the
young people live happy ever after.
The married women are as a rule very patient, but at times they take
matters into their own hands and free themselves from what they consider
an unusually unfair share of the work. Two illustrations of this come to
my mind. When I started at Delena a young man became my cook and general
factotum. He claimed to be a cook because he could use a tin-opener, and
his other qualifications were about on the same level. Early marriage
being the rule I wondered why he was single and one day asked him. He
said that he had been married, but that his wife was dead. Evidently he
did not wish to go into details; but from another man I heard that the
wife was so tired of her husband’s lazy habits, and of having to do all
the garden work, that one day she cleaned up the garden and then hanged
herself.
The other story ends better. At Tupuselei there lived a man who had
great ideas of his personal appearance and his skill as a dancer. He
was afflicted with the idea that if he dressed up in all his paint and
feathers and let people admire him, that was enough to free him from
garden work. His wife did not agree with him, and thought out a way
of giving him a lesson. One evening he came home and did not find her
waiting to give him his meal. Though he called, she did not show up; but
the houses were close enough together for the neighbours to hear, and one
of them answered—
“Your wife has gone to see her father.”
“What about my supper?”
“You will find your wife has left it in the pot on the fire to keep warm.”
In no sweet mood my gentleman removed the banana leaf wrapping from the
top of the pot, and the smell made him wonder what he was going to have
for supper. He certainly was not prepared for the new dish his wife had
concocted. The first thing his wooden fork brought out of the pot was a
bunch of his much-prized feathers. Then followed his pearl shell breast
ornament, his armlets, his necklaces, and all the articles of personal
adornment upon which he had so prided himself, and by way of gravy his
precious paints.
His temper was not improved when he found his neighbours, who were in the
secret, laughing at him, and delivering a farewell message from his wife,
to the effect that she was tired of doing all the work and providing all
the food. If he would not make a garden he had better try to live on his
ornaments.
What became of the man for a time I do not know, but the woman continued
to live with her father at a neighbouring village.
About a year later she found, morning by morning, a fine bunch of
bananas on the verandah of the house, and told her father it was evident
someone wished to marry her. Her father kept watch and found it was the
former husband who was putting the bananas on the verandah, and knowing
his character, asked him from whose garden he had stolen them. With a
meekness quite new to him the husband replied that he had not stolen them
at all. They were grown in his own new garden, the result of his own
work, and he had brought them to show his wife that he had learnt his
lesson, and could, and would, provide food for her and the children, if
she would return to him. She did return to him, and they lived happy ever
afterwards.
John Bunyan tells us that he and his wife started life “as poor as poor
might be, not having as much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt
us both.” The young Papuan couple are not quite so badly off as that,
but few of us would like to set up housekeeping with their scanty stock.
The bride will at least have a few pots, perhaps the result of her own
work, or if she lives in a district where pots are not made, procured
by barter from another district. She will have at least one big spoon,
made by fastening part of a cocoanut shell to the end of a stick, and
perhaps a smaller spoon also cut from cocoanut shell and carved. Her
wardrobe will vary according to the district in which she lives, and
may be as extensive as a few fibre skirts, or as scanty as a length of
parcel string, or be absolutely nothing. Arms and ornaments are what the
bridegroom brings to the common stock, for his clothes are scarcely worth
counting.
[Illustration: ROCKING THE CRADLE.
_See page 33._]
In time the cradle is wanted, and the young mother has not been able
to buy one after the English pattern; but fortunately most of the
real wants can be supplied by what grows around the native home, and
the cradle comes from the banana plant. The fibre found in the stump
is cleared of the soft pith that surrounds it, washed clean, and then
twisted into a string as fine and nearly as evenly laid as whip cord; and
the woman does all the twisting by rubbing the fibre between her hand and
her thigh. When she has her string she makes the big bag that serves for
the cradle, dyeing portions of the string as she goes along so as to work
out her pattern. All the work is done without shuttle, mesh, or needle of
any kind, and in the most used pattern there is only one length of string
and only two knots—one at the beginning and one at the end of the work.
It would puzzle an English mother to put her baby comfortably into such
a cradle, and perhaps puzzle her more to rock such a cradle. The picture
will show you how the child is settled, and will make plain the ease with
which it can be rocked. Just a push and away it goes like the pendulum of
a big clock.
A mail cart would be of little use in a country where there are no roads,
but this strange cradle can be used instead of one. When the mother wants
to go to the garden or call upon a friend, all she has to do is to take
the cradle from the rope by which it is suspended, and hang it down her
back with what we may call the handle of the bag over her head. While
the mothers are at work the children are hung up in strange places,
and in walking through a banana plantation in which a number of women
are at work, one might be forgiven for thinking that the plants were
growing cradles with babies inside, instead of bunches of bananas, for
the mothers make use of the shade given by the beautiful broad leaves to
protect the children from the sun.
So far we have remained outside the house and talked about it. Now let
us pay a visit to someone living in an ordinary house in Delena. We will
find out if the owner is at home not by ringing a bell and then asking,
but by standing in front of the house and calling his name. If he is
inside he will answer by asking us to “Come up.” His front steps are
about equal to the ladder in a poor hen roost, and with your boots on you
will have to be careful. The rough poles that answer for the treads of
the steps are far apart, and have no agreement as to angles, and when you
have safely mounted to the last you will only have reached the verandah.
Hobble skirts would never do for such steps. It was a stretch before you
were up, but it will need a stoop, perhaps even you will have to go on
your hands and knees before you can get through the small opening which
does for a doorway.
Inside, as there is neither window nor chimney, and the house may be
full of smoke, it will be well to wait a few minutes before beginning
to explore, or you may knock your head against a spear or a net. As a
rule the most the host can do for you is to spread a small mat on the
floor, and invite you to sit upon it tailor fashion. He may have added
a little to the small stock with which he began married life, but it is
still a very small stock, and shows us how little one can go through
life with. No tables, chairs, bedsteads or cupboards. No long list of
kitchen utensils. No wardrobes stocked with clothes, or bottom drawer
well filled with linen. No shelves lined with books. The floor takes
the place of table, chair and bed. The native pots supply the means of
cooking the native food. A few extra grass skirts for the wife, or an
extra loin cloth for our host, may be hanging from the roof, and in the
corner or stuck in the thatch are the spears, paddles and nets, and a few
pointed sticks for use in the garden. The real valuables, the feathers
and ornaments, are stowed away in a box if our friend is fortunate enough
to possess one, or carefully wrapped up in strips of bark.
That you may know what the Papuan’s treasures are like, and be able to
identify them in the museums, I have been to the village and borrowed
a friend’s store box, and taken a photo of some of the contents. The
feathers are not included, as they are all tied up in bunches, and later
on you will see a picture of the head-dress made up and in wear.
Please now look at the picture and listen to the amateur showman as he
proclaims, “Here, ladies and gentlemen, you have a collection of jewels
from a far-off land.” It is often reported that anything may be bought
from the simple savage for a few beads, a bit of red cloth, or a mirror,
but much as you might wish to purchase this collection, nothing you could
offer would persuade the owner to part with it.
The long necklace running along the bottom of the picture, and a little
way up the sides, is made of dogs’ teeth. Only the canine teeth please
remark, and if all the dogs who contributed to that necklace had their
full compliment of ivory, then nearly forty had to be sacrificed. A man
who does not possess such a necklace will find it impossible to purchase
a wife for his son.
The thin necklace like a border round the picture is called taotao by
the Motu people, but movio by the Maivans, and requires patience in the
making. Each little bead is a small white cowry shell, and each has been
ground flat before it could be sewn on to the string.
The greatest treasures of all are the koios, the one in the centre and
four to the left of the picture. The dark part is a fretwork pattern cut
from real turtle-shell, and then moulded into a white saucer cut from a
large white shell. Do not ever call the man a duffer who can cut a koio
with a boar’s tusk, or a shark’s tooth, or an old nail as his tool. Koios
are only made by the people immediately round Hall Sound.
[Illustration: THE CUSCUS GAME.
_See page 10._]
[Illustration: A FINE FRIZZY HEAD.]
[Illustration: A FRIEND LENDS A HAND.
_See page 18._]
Precious stones increase rapidly in value when the little ones are left
behind. So do the Toeas, or arm shells. A small one may be worth little,
but there is a rush when it is known that one large enough to go up to a
man’s shoulder is on the market. I have known a native who was earning
twelve pounds a year willingly pay £5 for such a Toea.
The half-moon pearl shell is worn on the breast, and no marriage is
complete without one or more of these changing hands.
Above the pearl shell are two nose sticks, both cut from a clam shell and
carefully ground into shape. Some of these are so long and so heavy that
when worn through the septum of the nose an old sailor would be inclined
to suggest that a topping lift might ease the strain, and add to the
comfort of the wearer.
The two large pendants are made from wallaby teeth, and are worn on the
breast on state occasions, with a few dry husks at the end that will
rattle as the wearer walks about.
Seven small turtle-shell ear-rings only are shown, but it is nothing
uncommon for a woman to wear as many as twenty of these in one ear at the
same time.
Such, ladies and gentlemen, are the treasures of my friend Noi of Delena.
You would probably only value them as curios, but to him they are
treasures, and valued as heirlooms.
The Papuans are very conservative if asked to do anything contrary to
the customs of their forefathers, but are not too conservative to adopt
the customs of the white men when by so doing they can lighten the
daily task, or add to their own comfort. They willingly take to steel
tools instead of stone, and think a blanket a great improvement upon
bark cloth, and like rice and bread to be added to their daily menu.
Comparatively few, however, copy any of the household arrangements of the
foreigner.
I remember one who did. He was chief of his village, and his house,
though built of purely native material, was in shape something like my
own, and was divided into two rooms and had home-made doors and windows.
He had even gone so far as to make a table, a chair, and a sofa, and
asked me to sit on the chair when I visited him. One glance, however,
was enough to convince me that I might as well go comfortably to the
floor, as find my way there in a hurry amidst the broken fragments of the
chair.
[Illustration: A HEARTH.
_See page 39._]
On the small table were three books which I quickly recognized as the
Motu New Testament, a Hymn book, and the Catechism, and on top of the
books a small bell. A few questions led Tanokari up to telling me he had
been to my house, and seen the books and the bell and the use we made of
them. When he had learnt to read he also bought books and a bell, and
called his friends together at night so that he might have family prayers
with them.
Many others have followed the lead of this chief as far as the books are
concerned, and have learnt to make use of them as he did, but things
sometimes seem strangely mixed. I have seen a native take down his netted
bag, produce his book, and then with the greatest gravity put on a pair
of spectacles and begin to read. His clothing would not have made a
wrapping for a pair of boots, and perhaps the only other European things
in the house were his hatchet and knife.
The hearth is in the centre of the floor, and the fire upon it serves as
the light at night. An open fire in a thatch house suggests danger of the
owner losing house and all his belongings by fire. The only precaution
taken is that of putting earth on the boards where the fire is lighted,
and surrounding all by four pieces of wood.
Fires are not so common as one would expect but when they do take place
the whole village is usually swept away. In nearly every case the fire
originates from the careless leaving about of a fire stick, but at Delena
one Sunday afternoon we had excitement from another cause. An unusual
wave of quarrelsomeness seemed to be passing over the village, and I had
been preaching from the words, “Inai, au momo lahi maragi e haraia.”
As that language is not taught in the English schools, I had better
refer you to James iii. 7, and the latter part of the verse. By way of
illustration I reminded the people that one fire stick would be enough
to start a fire that would burn down the whole village. Less than half
an hour after the service was finished there was a cry of “Fire” and a
general rush to a house where the thatch was alight. Fortunately the
fire was soon extinguished, and then the cause was sought. My sermon had
produced an effect I neither expected nor desired. A little girl wanted
to test the truth of my statement, and her experiment would have resulted
in the destruction of the village but for the timely discovery of what
she was doing.
This story of the little girl has taken us away from the inside of the
house. We will go back to the hearth and notice the way in which the fire
is built. When once it has been started sticks are placed like the spokes
of a wheel, but they are only three in number. They meet in the centre of
the hearth under the pot, and as they burn away have only to be pushed in
a little till they again meet and replenish the fire. Three old cooking
pots, turned the wrong way up, form a rough tripod on which the pot in
use rests, and between them the three pieces of firewood are pushed to
the centre of the hearth.
When first we came to Delena one of my wife’s great annoyances was the
way the natives frequented the kitchen, and their curiosity as to the
contents of the saucepans on the stove. Quite calmly they would walk in
and lift the lid, and ask questions as to what they saw. I am not sure
that they did not sample too, when they had a chance. You of course would
not attempt to satisfy your curiosity in that way in a Papuan house,
but I feel sure you would want to know something about the food, and I
am equally sure you would not always care to share the Papuan’s meal,
no matter how sharp set your appetite might be, for he is not at all
particular as to what he eats.
For the most part his diet is a vegetable one, consisting of yams, sweet
potatoes, taro, bananas, sago, and cocoanuts, but at one time and another
I have seen the native eating and enjoying, not only his beloved pork,
but wallaby, cuscus, rat, dog, snake, iguana, lizard, birds of nearly
every kind, though there are a few he will not eat, shark, crocodile,
the large fruit bat, and maggots as big as one’s thumb, which thrive in
rotten palm stumps. These maggots are a great delicacy, and an old man
once offered me a length of bamboo full and seemed surprised that I did
not jump at the chance of purchasing them. In the Nara district they are
so prized that an intertribal war was kept up for some years because two
villages claimed certain land where the maggots were breeding freely in
decayed sago palms.
The Papuan is not a great eater, and can go for long on very little food
indeed, and then make up for it when he has the opportunity; but one
wonders most at the little he drinks. He may have a green cocoanut after
his meal, if he can get it, or may drink a little of the water the food
was cooked in. At other times he drinks but little, and three or four men
will start off for a day’s hunting with only a cocoanut shell of water
between them. Certainly not more than a quart.