Daily Life and Matters Connected with It
Daily Life.
The early morning finds the wife and young children and unmarried
daughters in the house. The husband has been sleeping either there
or in the _emone_ (clubhouse), but most probably the latter. The
unmarried sons are in the _emone_, except any very young ones, who
have not been formally admitted to it in a way which will be hereafter
described. The women cook the breakfast for the whole family inside the
house at about six or seven o'clock, and then take the food of the men
to the _emone_. After breakfast most of the men and women go off to the
gardens and the bush. The women's work there is chiefly the planting
of sweet potatoes, taro and other things, and cleaning the gardens;
and in the afternoon they get food from the gardens and firewood from
the bush, all of which they bring home to the village; also they have
to clear off the undergrowth from newly cleared bush. The men's work is
mainly the yam and banana and sugar-cane planting, each in its season,
and the cutting down of big trees and making fences, if they happen to
be opening out new garden land. They also sometimes help the women with
their work. Or they may have hunting expeditions in the bush, or go
off in fishing parties to the river. In all matters the men of Mafulu,
though lazy, are not so lazy as those of Mekeo and the coast. In the
middle of the day the women cook the meal for everyone in the gardens,
this being done on the spot, and there they all eat it. At three, four,
or five o'clock all the people of the village have returned to it,
except perhaps when they are very busy taking advantage of good weather
for making new clearings or other special work. In the evening they
have another meal cooked in the village. At every meal in the village
the pigs have to be fed also, these sharing the food of the people
themselves, or feeding on raw potatoes. Unless there is dancing going
on, or they are tempted by a fine moonlight night to sit out talking,
the people all terminate their routine day by going to bed early.
As regards the daily social conduct of the people among themselves,
I was told that the members of a family generally live harmoniously
together (subject as regards husbands and wives to the matters which
will be mentioned later), that children are usually treated kindly
and affectionately by their parents, and that there is very little
quarrelling within a village; and what I saw when I was among the
Mafulu people certainly seemed to confirm all this.
There are various detailed matters of daily life which will appear
under their appropriate headings; but I will here deal with a few
of them.
Food.
The vegetable foods of the Mafulu people are sweet potato and other
plants of the same type, yam and other foods of the same type, taro and
other foods of that type, banana of different sorts, sugar-cane, a kind
of wild native bean, a cultivated reed-like plant with an asparagus
flavour (what it is I do not know), several plants of the pumpkin and
cucumber type, one of them being very small, like a gherkin, fruit from
two different species of Pandanus, almonds, the fruit of the _malage_
(described later on), and others, both cultivated and wild. The
sugar-cane is specially eaten by them when working in the gardens. [49]
Their animal food consists of wild pig and, on occasions, village pig,
a small form of cassowary, kangaroo, a small kind of wallaby, kangaroo
rat, "iguana," an animal called _gaivale_ (I could not find out what
this is), various wild birds, fish, eels, mice, a large species of
snake and other things.
Their staple drink is water, but when travelling they cut down a
species of bamboo, and drink the watery fluid which it contains. After
boiling any food in bamboo stems they drink the water which has been
used for the purpose, and which has become a sort of thin flavoured
soup.
Betel-chewing is apparently not indulged in by these people as
extensively as it is done in Mekeo and on the coast; but they like it
well enough, and for a month or so before a big feast, during which
period they are under a strict taboo restriction as to food, they
indulge in it largely. The betel used by them is not the cultivated
form used in Mekeo and on the coast, but a wild species, only about
half the size of the other; and the lime used is not, as in Mekeo
and on the coast, made by grinding down sea-shells, but is obtained
from the mountain stone, which is ground down to a powder. The gourds
(Plate 51, Figs. 6 and 7) in which the lime is carried are similar to
those used in Mekeo, except that usually they are not ornamented, or,
if they are so, the ornamentation is only done in simple straight-lined
geometric patterns. The spatulae are sometimes very simply and rudely
decorated. The people spit out the betel after chewing, instead of
swallowing it, as is the custom in Mekeo.
Cooking and Eating and Their Utensils.
They have no cooking utensils, other than the simple pieces of bamboo
stem, which they use for boiling.
Their usual methods of cooking are roasting and boiling.
Roasting is usually effected by making a fire, letting it die
down into red-hot ashes, and then putting the food without wrap or
covering into the ashes, turning it from time to time. They also
roast by holding the food on sticks in the flame of the burning fire,
turning it occasionally. Stone cooking is adopted for pig and other
meats. They make a big fire, on the top of which they spread the
stones; when the stones are hot enough, they remove some of them,
place the meat without wrap or covering on the others, then place the
removed stones on the meat, and finally pile on these stones a big
covering of leaves to keep in the heat. Stone cooking in the gardens
is done in a slightly different way; there they dig in the ground a
round hole about 1 foot deep and from 1 1/2 to 2 feet in diameter, and
in this hole they make their fire, on which they pile their stones;
and the rest of the process is the same as before. This hole-making
process is never adopted in the village. The only reason for it which
was suggested was that the method was quicker, and that in the gardens
they are in a hurry. Of course, holes of this sort dug in the open
village enclosure would be a source of danger, especially at night.
Boiling is done in pieces of bamboo about 4 inches in diameter
and about 15 or 18 inches long. They fill these with water, put the
food into them, and then place or hold the bamboo stems in a slanting
position in the flames. This method is specially used for cooking sweet
potatoes, but it is their only method of boiling anything. Water, which
they keep stored and carry in bamboo receptacles and hollow pumpkins,
is boiled in bamboo stems in the same way. The bamboo storage vessels
are generally from 2 to 5 feet long, the intersecting nodes, other
than that at one end, having been removed. The pumpkins (Plate 52,
Figs. 2 and 3) are similar to those used by the Roro coast people and
in Mekeo, except that the usual form, instead of being rather short
and broad with a narrow opening, is longer and narrower, some of them
being, say, 3 feet long, and often very curved and crooked in shape.
Their only eating utensils are wooden dishes and small pieces of wood,
or sometimes of cassowary or kangaroo bone, which are used as forks,
and pieces of split bamboo, which are used for cutting meat; but these
latter are used for other purposes, and rather come within the list
of ordinary implements, and will be there described. They also use
prepared pig-bones as forks; but these again are largely used for
other purposes, and will be described under the same heading.
The dishes (Plate 52, Fig. 1) are made out of the trunk of a tree
called _ongome_. The usual length of a dish, without its handles,
is between 1 and 2 feet; its width varies from 9 inches to 1 foot,
and its depth from 3 to 6 inches. It is rudely carved out of the
tree-trunk, [50] the work being done with stone adzes--unless they
happen to possess European axes--and it generally has a handle at one
or both ends. It is not decorated with carving in any way. The common
form of handle is merely a simple knob about 3 inches long and 1 1/2
inches wide. But it is sometimes less simple, and I have a dish one
of the handles of which is divided into two projecting pieces about
7 1/2 inches long and joined to each other at the end. The handle
is always carved out of the same piece of wood as is the dish;
never made separately and afterwards attached. The wooden forks
are simply bits cut from trees and sharpened at one end, and they
are without prongs. Their use is only temporary, and they are not
permanently stored as household utensils. The cassowary and kangaroo
bone implements (Plate 25, Fig. 3) are also merely roughly pointed
unpronged pieces of bone, and otherwise without special form. When
eating _en famille_ they do not always use these pointed wooden and
bone sticks, but very commonly take the food out of the dish with
their hands only; but if the family had guests with them they would
probably use the sticks more, and their hands less. The men and women
often eat together, sitting round the dish and helping themselves
out of it, though, if there are too many to do this conveniently,
pieces will be handed out to some of them.
Various Implements.
Besides the cooking and eating implements above described and
other things, such as weapons of war and of hunting and fishing,
and implements for manufacture, agriculture and music, which will be
dealt with under their own headings, there are a few miscellaneous
things which may be conveniently described here.
Bamboo knives (Plate 51, Fig. 5). These are simple strips made out of
a special mountain form of bamboo, and are generally 8 to 10 inches
long and about 1 inch wide. One edge is left straight for its whole
length, and the other is cut away near the end, very much as we cut
away one side of a quill pen, so as to produce a sharp point. The
side edge which is used for cutting is the one which is not cut away
at the end; and when it gets blunt it is renewed by simply peeling
off a length of fibre, thus producing a new edge, bevelled inwards
towards the concave side of the implement, and making a hard and
very sharp fresh cutting edge. The point can of course be sharpened
at any time in the obvious way.
Pig-bone implements (Plate 51, Fig. 2). These are the implements
which are often used as forks, but they have straight edges also
with which they are used as scraping knives, and they are utilised
for many other purposes. The implement, which is, I think, similar
to what is commonly found in Mekeo and on the coast, is made out of
the leg-bone of a pig, and is generally from 5 to 8 inches long. One
side of the bone is ground away, so as to make the implement flattish
in section, one side (the outside unground part of the bone) being
somewhat convex, and the other (where the bone has been ground away)
being rather concave. Some of the joint end of the bone is left to
serve as a handle; and from this the bone is made to narrow down to
a blunt, rather flattish and rounded point, somewhat like that of
a pointed paper-cutter. The side edge is used for scraping, and the
point for sticking into things.
Smoking pipes are in the ordinary well-known form of Mekeo and the
coast, being made of sections of bamboo stem in which the natural
intersecting node near the mouthpiece end is bored and the node at the
other end is left closed, and between these two nodes, near to the
closed one, is a flute-like hole, in which is placed the cigarette
of tobacco wrapped up in a leaf. They are, however, generally not
ornamented; or, if they are so, it is merely in a simple geometric
pattern of straight lines. I obtained one pipe (Plate 51, Fig. 1) of
an unusual type, being much smaller than is usual. A special feature
of this pipe is its decoration, which includes groups of concentric
circles. This is the only example of a curved line which I ever met
with among the Mafulu villages, and it is probable that it had not
been made there.
Boring drills (Plate 51, Fig. 4) are also similar to those of Mekeo
and the coast, except that there the fly-wheel is, I think, usually
a horizontal circular disc, through the centre of which the upright
shaft of the implement passes, whereas in the Mafulu boring instrument
the fly-wheel, through which the shaft passes, is a rudely cut flat
horizontal piece of wood about 9 or 10 inches long, 2 inches broad,
and half an inch or less thick, and also that in Mafulu the native
point, made out of a pointed fragment of the stone used for making
club-heads, adze blades and cloth-beaters, is not generally replaced
by a European iron point, as is so commonly the case in Mekeo and
near the coast. These drills are used for boring dogs' teeth and
shells and other similar hard-substanced things, but are useless
for boring articles of wood or other soft substances, in which the
roughly formed point would stick. [51]
Fire-making. This is a question of process, rather than of implement,
but may be dealt with here. To produce fire, the Mafulu native
takes two pieces of very dry and inflammable wood, one larger than
the other, and some dry bark cloth fluff. He then holds the smaller
piece of wood and the fluff together, and rubs them on the larger
piece of wood. After four or five minutes the fluff catches fire,
without bursting into actual flame, upon which the native continues the
rubbing process, blowing gently upon the fluff, until the two pieces
of wood begin to smoulder, and can then be blown into a sufficient
flame for lighting a fire.
Carrying bags. These are all made of network. I shall say something
about the mode of netting and colouring them hereafter, and will here
only deal with the bags and their use. They are of various sizes,
(1) There are the large bags used by women for carrying heavy objects,
such as firewood, vegetables and fruit, which they bring back to
the village on their return in the afternoon from the gardens and
bush. These bags are carried in the usual way, the band over the
opening of the bag being passed across the front of the head above the
forehead, and the bag hanging over the back behind. They are curved
in shape, the ends of the bag being at both its top and bottom edges
higher than are the centres of those edges, so that, when a bag is
laid out flat, its top line is a concave one and its bottom line is a
convex one. The network at the two ends of the top line is continued
into the loop band by means of which the bag is carried. The usual
dimensions of one of these bags, as it lies flat and unstretched
on a table (the measurements being made along the curved lines)
are as follows--top line about 2 feet, bottom line about 3 feet,
and side lines about 18 inches. But when filled with vegetables,
firewood, etc., they expand considerably, especially those made of
"Mafulu network," of which I shall speak hereafter. These bags are
uncoloured. (2) There are similar, but somewhat smaller, bags, in
which the women carry lighter things, and which in particular they
use for carrying their babies. They frequently carry this bag and
the larger one together; and you will often see a woman with a big
bag heavily laden with vegetables or firewood or both, and another
smaller bag (perhaps also slung behind over the top of the big one,
or hanging from her head at her side, or over her breast), which
contains her baby, apparently rolled up into a ball. These bags also
are uncoloured. (3) There are other bags, similar perhaps in size to
No. 2, used for visiting and at feasts, dances and similar occasions,
and also sometimes used for carrying babies. The top line of one of
these is generally about 2 feet long, the bottom line a trifle longer,
and the side lines about 1 foot. These are coloured in decorative
patterns. (4) There are small bags of various sizes carried by men
slung over their shoulders or arms, and used to hold their betel-nut,
pepper and tobacco and various little implements and utensils of
daily life. These are sometimes uncoloured and sometimes coloured. (5)
There are the very small charm bags, only about 2 inches or a trifle
more square, which are used by both men and women (I think only the
married ones) for carrying charms, and are worn hanging like lockets
from the neck. They are sometimes coloured.
Plate 53 gives illustrations of three of these bags--Fig. 1 being a
woman's ornamented bag No. 3, and Fig. 2 being a man's ornamented bag
No. 4; but this last-mentioned bag is rather a large one of its type,
the usual difference in size between Nos. 3 and 4 being greater than
the two examples figured would suggest. The patterns of both these
bags, and especially of the larger one, are more regular than is
usually the case. The bag shown in Fig. 3 will be dealt with hereafter
under the heading of netting.
As regards women, the carrying of bags, either full or empty, hanging
over their backs is so common that one might almost regard the bag
as an additional article of dress. I may say here in advance of
my observations on netting that the distinctive features of Mafulu
bags, as compared with those made in Mekeo and on the coast, are the
special and peculiar form of netting which is commonly adopted for
some of them and the curious lines of colouring with which they are
often ornamented.
Hammocks are commonly used in the houses and _emone_ for sleeping. [52]
These also are made of network and will be referred to later. The
distinctive feature of network mentioned in relation to bags applies
to these also, but not that of colouring.
Pottery is not made or used in Mafulu.
I may perhaps refer here to what I imagine to be an ancient stone
mortar, which I found at Mafulu, and which I have endeavoured to show
in Fig. 2. A portion of the upper part of the original was broken away,
and I regret that I did not try to sketch it just as it was, instead
of adopting the easier course of following what had been the original
lines. I am also sorry that its great weight made it impossible for me
to bring it down with me to the coast, [53] and that by an oversight
I did not secure a photograph of it. The vessel was well and evenly
shaped. It had perfectly smooth surfaces, without any trace of cutting
or chipping, and must have been made by grinding. It was devoid of any
trace of decoration. Its top external diameter was about 12 inches,
its height, when standing upright on its base, was about 8 inches,
and the thickness of the bowl at the lip about 1 inch. I was told
that similar things are from time to time found in the district,
generally on the ridges, far away from water. A Mafulu chief said
that the Mafulu name for these things is _idagafe._ The natives have
no knowledge of their origin or past use, the only explanation of the
latter which was suggested being that they were used as looking-glasses
by looking into the scummy surface of the water inside them. [54]
European things. The Mafulu people are now beginning, mainly through
the missionaries of the Sacred Heart, and also through their contact
with Mekeo and other lowland tribes, to get into touch with European
manufactures. Trade beads, knives, axes, plane irons (used by them
in place of stone blades for their adzes), matches and other things
are beginning to find their way directly and indirectly into such of
the villages as are nearest to the opportunities of procuring them
by exchange or labour.
Domestic Animals.
Dogs may occasionally, though only rarely, be seen in the villages,
but these are small black, brownish-black, or black and white dogs
with very bushy tails, and not the yellow dingo dogs which infest
the villages of Mekeo; and even these Mafulu dogs are, I was told,
not truly a Mafulu institution, having been obtained by the people,
I think, only recently from their Kuni neighbours. A tame cockatoo may
also very occasionally be seen, and even, though still more rarely,
a tame hornbill. There are no cocks and hens.
The universal domestic animal of the Mafulu, however, is the pig,
and he is so important to them that he is worthy of notice. These
pigs are "village" pigs, which, though naturally identical with "wild"
pigs--being, in fact, wild pigs which have been caught alive or their
descendants--have to be distinguished from wild pigs, and especially
so in connection with feasts and ceremonies.
Village pigs are the individual property of the householders who
possess them, there being no system of community or village ownership;
and, when required for feasts and ceremonies, each household has to
provide such pig or pigs as custom requires of it. They are bred in the
villages by their owners, and by them brought up, fed and tended, the
work of feeding and looking after them being the duty of the women. No
distinguishing ownership marks are put upon the pigs, but their owners
know their own pigs, and still more do the pigs know the people who
feed them; so that disputes as to ownership do not arise. The number
of pigs owned by these people is enormous in proportion to the size
of their villages, and I was told that a comparatively small village
will be able at a big feast to provide a number of village pigs much
in excess of what will be produced by one of the big Mekeo villages.
These village pigs often wander away into the bush, and may disappear
from sight for months; but they nevertheless still continue to
be village pigs. If, however, they are not seen or heard of for a
very long time (say six months), they are regarded as having become
wild pigs, and may be caught and appropriated as such. It is usual
with village pigs to clip or shorten their ears and tails, or even
sometimes to remove their eyes, so as to keep them from wandering
into the gardens. [55] But even a village pig thus marked as such
would be regarded as having become a wild pig if it had disappeared
for a very long time.
Village pigs (as distinguished from wild pigs) are, as will be seen
below, never eaten in their own village on ceremonial occasions,
or indeed perhaps at all, being only killed and cut up and given to
the visitors to take away and eat in their own villages.
Etiquette.
These simple people do not appear to have many customs which come
under the heading of etiquette, pure and simple.
A boy must soon, say within a few weeks, after he has received his
perineal band leave the parental home, and go to live in the _emone;_
but this rule only refers to his general life, and does not prohibit
him from ever entering his parents' house. If he receives his band
when he is very young, this rule will not begin to operate until he
is ten or twelve years old. He is in no case under any prohibition
from being in or crossing the village enclosure. A girl is allowed to
enter the _emone_, though she may not sleep there, prior to receiving
her band, but after that she must never enter it.
A young unmarried man, who has arrived at the marriageable age, must
not eat in the presence of women. He can eat in the bush, or inside
the _emone_, but he must not eat on the platform of the _emone_,
where women might see him. There appear to be no other customs
of mutual avoidance, as, for example, that between son-in-law and
mother-in-law, and with reference to other marriage relationships,
such as are found in some of the Solomon Islands, and among various
other primitive races.
Children and unimportant adults must always pass behind a chief,
not in front of him, and when a chief is speaking, everyone else,
old and young, must be silent.
Young men and girls associate and talk freely together in public
among other people, but no young man would go about alone with a girl,
unless he was misconducting himself with her, or wished to do so.
Visiting is purely friendly and social, and there is no personal
system of formal and ceremonial visiting, except as between communities
or villages.
There do not appear to be any forms of physical salutation, but there
are recognised ways in which men address one another on meeting and
parting. If A and B meet in the bush, A may say to B, "Where do you
come from?", and B will answer, "I come from----." A may then say,
"Where are you going to?", and B will reply to this. Then B may
put similar questions to A, and will be similarly answered. These
questions are not necessarily asked because the questioner is really
anxious for information, but are in the nature of a formality,--the
equivalent of our "How do you do?" The system of asking and answering
these questions, though well recognised as a social form, is not
in practice strictly adhered to. Also A, on coming to a village and
finding B there, and wishing to salute him, will call him by name,
and B will then call A by name. Then A will say, "You are here,"
and B will reply, "I am here." This form is more strictly carried
out than is the other one. Then when A leaves he will say to B,
"I am going," and B will answer, "Go." Then B will call A by his
name, and A will call B by name, and the formality is finished. If A,
being very friendly with B, comes to his village to see him, on A's
departure B, and probably B's family, will accompany A out of the
village, and will stand watching his departure until he is about to
disappear round the corner of the path; and then they will call out
his name, and he will respond by calling out B's name.
Gestures may perhaps be included under this heading, though there is
apparently but little to be said about the matter. When a question
is asked, an affirmative reply is indicated by nodding the head,
and a negative one by shaking it; and, though I asked if this was
not probably the result of association with people who had been among
white men, I was told that it was not so. A negative answer is also
often expressed by shrugging the shoulders, and a kind of grimace
with the lips. The nodding of the head to a negative question, such
as "Are you not well?" signifies assent to the negative, that is,
that he is not well, and so vice-versa with the shaking of the head.