Korona, a Hillside Village
For some time people had been coming down from the hills and asking that
a teacher might be sent to live with them. They were suffering severely
from raids by their enemies, and were anxious for peace and protection.
Fortunately there was a Samoan widower, who had no fixed station, and
I told him to visit such villages as he could get at, and try to make
peace. He had taken up his temporary quarters at a village called Korona,
and he and the people were anxious that we should visit them. The road,
they admitted, was a rough one for an English lady to travel, but as they
had gone to the trouble to clear parts of it, so they said, Donisi Hahine
decided to accept the invitation.
To have the help of the rising tide an early start was made on the
Tuesday morning. We were in the boat by four o’clock, while it was yet
dark.
People may ascend Snowdon or the Swiss mountains to view the sunrise,
but they could never see one more beautiful or more impressive than
on that particular morning in Galley Reach. All around was the great
expanse of water, so calm that it reflected the clouds. Away on either
side, and right ahead, were the low banks covered without a break by
the fresh bright green of the mangroves. Then when the eyes were lifted
higher came the hills wrapped in mist as in fleecy cotton wool, and
behind them tier above tier rose the peaks and ridges of the Owen Stanley
Range. As the light became stronger the peaks, over 12,000 feet high,
stood out with wonderful distinctness. Then the pale glow turned to gold
and rose, as the sun came up behind the mountains, and as it mounted
higher and higher, the lower peaks on our side of the range were lit up
one after another like so many great electric lights. The white mists
curled further up the range, and though details were lost, the effect was
grandly harmonious.
The change from the dark stillness, broken only by the cry of a bird and
the rattle of the oars in the rowlocks, to the full blaze of the light
was much more rapid than the coming of the daylight at home, and reminded
one that it was not necessary to wait till near midday to feel the sting
of the tropical sun.
Several large rivers flow into Galley Reach as well as a perfect network
of smaller streams and creeks. Into one of these we turned. Then into
a smaller one, and again into a smaller one still. It was wonderful
how the boy in charge knew which of the many openings—all alike—he was
to take. At last the creek so narrowed that the whale boat could go no
further, and the first stage of the journey was over. It was ten o’clock
when we landed under some giant trees, and no time was lost in getting
breakfast for all hands, and taking his with him, one of the teachers
went ahead to try and find carriers to help with the baggage. Our own
boys could manage it well enough on the flat, but when climbing the hills
they would need help.
Strange things were all around us, but strangest of all were some of the
giant trees. Very high, very big round, they had roots which came out
like giant buttresses. By putting roofs on, five or six stables could
have been made at the foot of each tree.
So far there was no sign of any track having been cleared, and a boy had
to go ahead armed with a big knife to cut away the vines. Some of them
were the “wait-a-bit” thorns, and well did they deserve their name, for
if once the thorn was hooked in the clothing then the person wearing that
clothing had to wait till released from the unwelcome grip, or leave a
memento behind him.
Progress was very slow, and it was well after midday before we reached a
clearing on the bank of a rippling stream as clear as crystal, and the
coldest water I have tasted in Papua. Here the Korona people were making
a garden, and Naiti had been fortunate enough to meet some of them and
secure their services to help us to reach their village.
One was tempted to linger at this spot. It would have made an ideal camp
for a summer holiday. We had to pass on, and made use of the native
bridge. One of the large trees that grew on the bank of the stream had
been felled so that it lay from bank to bank, and to save themselves
trouble when doing the work the woodmen had built a staging round the
tree some ten feet from the ground and so got above the greatest girth.
On the other side of the stream the ground began to rise, and in places
gave some stiff climbing. After a time the question arose, “How much
further is the village?” Not far was the answer, and another start
was made. Then the way seemed blocked by fallen trees, but the guide
clambered over them, and following his lead we found ourselves in a
sweet-potato plantation. What the water-lily is to the swimmer that the
sweet-potato is to the walker. How many times one and another of the
party was thrown down, or brought to a standstill, it would be a puzzle
to say. To add to the trouble piles of felled trees continually blocked
the way, and had to be surmounted. Again the question was asked, “Is the
village far?” and again the guide, through an interpreter, answered,
“Just a little.” His idea of “a little further” was like that of an
Irishman who was once my guide in Ireland. The little further was just
an indefinite distance in front. Then again the guide was accustomed
to that kind of travelling. Our party was not, and there was plenty of
grumbling amongst the boys as the sun got low, and there were still no
signs of the village. At last the guide gave a coo-e and from the side
of the next hill came an answer. One more scramble down, and one more
scramble up, and there was the village in sight.
Few of our party had ever seen a stockaded village. It was my first. The
site was well chosen on the crown of a small hill, so that the ground
fell away on all sides. The houses which were on high stumps, almost like
stilts, faced inwards, and the stockading was really a continuation of
the outer walls of the houses right down to the ground, with the spaces
between the houses filled in the same way. The defence would have been
poor against an enemy armed with Sheffield steel, but would hold at bay
one attacking with bows and arrows and clubs, and the only entrance was
a puzzle-like stile at one corner. No need for the defender to say with
brave Horatius, “Now who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge
with me?” One could easily defend it.
Over and through this stile, one at a time, we clambered, and at once
looked for quarters for the night. Any house in the village, or the club
house, would have been placed at our disposal, but—— The people never
wash; never clean their houses; and by both look and smell one would
judge that they never cleaned the centre of the village.
The camp was made on the hill, and to the windward side of the village.
Five poles were soon cut and the home-made calico tent fixed. Supper was
soon over, and no one wanted rocking to sleep that night. All had been on
the move for seventeen hours, to say nothing of the time spent in packing
and getting into the boat at Morabi. God’s own peace seemed to brood over
the hillside, the camp, and the village, and it seemed strange almost
beyond belief, that amidst such surroundings the women and children had
withdrawn into the forest for fear there might be a night attack.
Next morning there was more time and more energy for getting into touch
with the people, but unfortunately that had to be done through an
interpreter.
Sitting by the side of Naiti on the Dubu platform was a little toddler,
who seemed loth to let go his hand. She was too young to do more than
return love for care and affection, or she would have known how much she
owed to Naiti. Her mother had died when she was a few weeks old, and
her father, according to native custom, took the child into the bush
and left it there to die. Fortunately Naiti found her, nearly dead from
starvation and covered with sores, and took her to the village. He
had no wife to tend the child, and no milk to give her, but he had his
gun, and there were birds around. Some of these he shot and made broth
for the little one, in which he soaked pieces of his hard biscuits; not
perhaps according to the latest theories as to how a child should be fed,
and Naiti, big man that he is, was not a dainty little nurse in cap and
apron, but he managed grandly, and showed us the child with pride.
Many of our teachers have rescued little children in this way, but in
most cases by taking them out of the grave of the dead mother, with whom
they were to be buried, and rarely does the father take any notice till
the child is grown enough to be useful and then he claims it. Another of
our teachers found a Korona boy abandoned in the bush because, owing to
a large ulcer on his foot, he was unable to keep up with the party on a
journey.
The season was a good one for food, and the people were determined we
should not go hungry while staying with them. Yams, sweet-potatoes,
pumpkins, and sugar cane were brought from the gardens, and piled in
front of the Dubu where we were sitting.
Then the pig was brought. He was a lively customer, and objected to the
manner in which he was handled, and no wonder. It took three men, sitting
on his back, to keep him down, and even then he had the better of it
in the matter of voice. The men could not silence him, and he sadly
interrupted the speech of the chief.
I should have liked to have recorded the whole incident in a picture,
but, alas! my camera was at the bottom of the sea off Maiva, and I can
only deal in words.
When all was ready the chief stepped down from the Dubu, and with the
village people looking on from the verandahs of their houses, and the
pig violently protesting, began his speech. Some natives are very
demonstrative when they talk. They use their whole body, and it was not
difficult to follow part at least of what the old man was saying, though
none of us knew his language. It all had to be translated later on. First
there was the welcome, and then the typical native regret that he and his
people had no food to offer us. They had managed to provide “sisina hona”
(a very little bit). Their idea of little in quantity seemed as elastic
as their idea of the village being near on the previous day, for try
as they would our boys did not manage to get through that “little bit”
during our stay in the village, and had to get the donors themselves to
help them. It was a present, the old man said; but presents are expensive
luxuries in Papua, for they cost two or three times as much as if bought
in the ordinary way. It was so in this case by the time the return
present was completed.
I was expected to kill the pig, but not caring for the job, with due
courtesy I trust, in any case with emphasis, I informed the old man that
I was not in that line of business, and turning to Naiti asked him to be
my deputy. The pig had to be killed in Papuan fashion and Naiti did not
relish the business, so handed it on to Kone.
Then came the explanation as to why we had been asked to visit the
village. Becoming very dramatic the chief received from his wife a small
basket, out of which he took a human skull. This he held in one hand and
a tomahawk in the other. The skull, he said, was that of his brother,
who together with two of his wives and some of his children had been
killed by people living on yonder hill. He showed how the tomahawk fitted
into the holes in the skull and asked me to request the Governor to take
vengeance (payment, he called it) for that murder, and then to send him
a teacher to “teach him and his people peace.” No forgiveness. Revenge
first, and then peace; but it was something that the desire for peace was
there at all.
I felt sad, for I had neither the men nor the money to comply with the
old man’s request. The sadness was the deeper when I remembered that down
on the beach, not many miles below us, was the spot where the Christian
teachers had landed as long ago as 1872, and yet till the arrival of my
wife and myself the previous day, these people had never seen a white
face in their village. Friends in England have since offered to support
a teacher in the village, but dysentery has practically exterminated the
people. The opportunity was lost.
[Illustration: SCRAMBLE IN FRONT OF TIMOTEO’S HOUSE.
_See page 127._]
[Illustration: A WIDOWER.
_See page 132._]
[Illustration: A CROCODILE.
_See page 134._]
My wife was fortunately outside the village in the camp while this
demonstration took place. It was a day of rest for all after the toil
of the preceding one, and after the feast the boys divided their time
equally between sleep and chewing sugar cane. We explored a little, and
enjoyed the beauty and the stillness of the tropical forest. Had we
known that later on, but a short distance from Korona, the manager of a
rubber plantation would find it necessary to offer so much per head for
snakes killed, and would have to pay for as many as 500 in one month,
it is probable we should not so freely have poked about amongst the
ferns, or pushed our way through the undergrowth. Ignorance was bliss,
and we laid in impressions that will never be effaced. We could hear the
bird-of-paradise calling and were fortunate enough to see some playing
round the top branches of a tree. The brush turkey ran from in front
of us, and overhead flew the hornbill, making a noise like a rusty old
engine, and not a snake did we see in our glimpse of paradise.
The second night was as uneventful as the first, and in the morning
our newly-made friends accompanied us on the first part of the return
journey. There was the same stumbling through the sweet-potato vines,
and attempts to dodge the foot and a half of every sapling which the
natives leave standing when they clear a track. Halts at the same places
for food and rest, and then to our dismay we found the tide low, and not
enough water to float the boat. To wait meant a delay of six hours and an
impossible journey in the dark. It was one of those tight corners which
bring out the best side of the Papuan character. The boys soon settled
that we were not to wait, and went to work with a will. Where the water
was shallow the boat was dragged through the mud. Where driftwood had
blocked the course it was either cut through or torn away. Very slow
progress was made, but it was progress, and all were in hope of soon
reaching deep water, when right across the stream, just under water, was
a big tree. The boat must have passed over it when the tide was higher.
Tired as the boys were, they would not attempt to cut through this, and
to move it was impossible. The only chance was to get the boat over it.
Donisi Hahine sat in lonely state, and all the others took to the water.
Pushing, pulling, straining, shouting, we got the boat on top of the tree
like a well balanced see-saw. Then all the strength was put under the
stern, and with one big lift she was launched into the deep water on the
other side, and we all rushed or swam after her.
Three hours on the river gave us no interest: we were all tired, and
thankful at last to reach Morabi.