THE PAPUANS AND POLYNESIANS.
The Papuans—Their Physical and Moral Characteristics—Their Artistic Tastes—Their Dwellings—Their Primitive Political Institutions—Their Weapons and Mode of Fighting—The Polynesians—Their Manners and Customs when first visited by Europeans—Tattooing—The Tapa Cloth—Their Canoes—Swimming Feats—Aristocratic Forms of Government—The Tabu—Religion—Superstitious Observances—Human Sacrifices—Infanticide—Low Condition of the Coral Islanders.
Two races of man, widely differing from each other in character, social condition, and physical conformation—the Papuans and the Polynesians—are spread over the islands of the Pacific and the archipelagoes of the Coral Sea. The Papuans who occupy the area comprising New Guinea, New Ireland, New Britannia, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Solomon Group, Loyalty, and many other islands of minor importance, are in stature equal to if not surpassing the average European size. Their legs are long and thin, and their hands and feet greater than those of the Malays. The face is somewhat elongated, the forehead flat, the brows very prominent, the eyes sufficiently large and well formed, not too deeply set,277 nor with the overhanging brow of the Australians; the nose large, slightly aquiline, and broad at the base; the mouth large with thick and pouting lips. The colour of the skin is commonly of a deep black-brown or black, sometimes approaching the coal-black of the genuine Negro races.
The growth of the hair is very peculiar, and at first sight might be confounded with the wool of the negro. Its distribution is most easily seen on the body and limbs, when it may be observed to grow in small tufts or pencils, separated one from the other, and giving a blotchy or woolly aspect to the skin. The hair of the head doubtless grows in the same way, but here the tufts are close together, and each forms a separate small curl, very stiff, and when suffered to grow long hangs down in a narrow pipe-like ringlet. The fashion of dressing the hair varies in different localities, but generally the greatest care is bestowed upon it. The face of the Papuans has upon the whole a more European expression than that of the Malays, and the prominent nose, the strongly marked eyebrows, and the character of the hair enable one at once to distinguish these two races from each other.
The difference in their moral characteristics is no less remarkable.
The Papuan is impulsive and demonstrative in his language and actions. His passions and emotions express themselves in screaming and laughing, in howling and jumping. The women and children take part in every conversation, and show no fear at the sight of strangers and Europeans. The Malay is timid, cold, quiet; the Papuan bold, impetuous, and noisy. The former is serious, and seldom laughs; the latter is jovial, and loves a joke: the one hides his emotions, the other shows them openly.
It is difficult to form an opinion of the intelligence of the Papuans, but Mr. Wallace is inclined to place it on a somewhat higher level than that of the Malays, although the latter, influenced for centuries by the immigration and intercourse with Hindoos, Chinese, and Arabs, have made some progress in civilisation, while the former, communicating but little with the rest of the world, are still plunged in barbarism. The Papuan has much more vital energy, which certainly would materially aid his intellectual development were he placed in more278 favourable circumstances. He combines a remarkable taste and skill in the ornamenting of his furniture with an utter disregard of all order and convenience in his household arrangements. He has no chair or bench to sit upon, does not know the use of a brush, and his dress, such as it is, consists of dirty bark or rags. He never takes the trouble to clear the path which he daily treads, of overhanging branches or prickly thorns. In many parts his nourishment consists almost entirely of roots and vegetables; fish and game being only occasional luxuries; and in consequence both of his coarse food and his filthy habits, he is very liable to various cutaneous diseases. The children, particularly, have often a miserable look, and are covered over their whole body with eruptions and sores. If these people are not savages, where are we to look for them? And yet these same savages have a decided taste for the fine arts, and employ their leisure hours in executing ornamental works, the neatness and elegance of which would often do honour to our schools of design.
They cover the outside of their houses with rude but characteristic figures, and their canoes, and other implements and furniture are decorated with elaborate carvings in various patterns; a custom very seldom met with among the Malayan tribes.
But the most striking instance of Papuan industry, and the one which seems most at variance with their utter barbarism in almost every other respect, is shown in the construction of the immense houses in New Guinea which strike the stranger with astonishment. They are upwards of 300 feet long, about 30 feet in width, and 16 or 18 feet high in the centre, from which the roof slopes down on either hand to the floor; their inside looks just like a great tunnel. Down each side are a row of cabins with walls of bamboo and neatly made doors. Inside these cabins are low frames covered with mats, apparently bed-places, and overhead are shelves and pegs for bows and arrows, baskets, stone axes, and other utensils. These immense structures rest on a number of posts, like the ancient lacustrine habitations of Switzerland, so that their floor is raised from the muddy ground about six feet. The roof, formed of an arched framework of bamboo, is covered with a perfectly waterproof thatch of sago-palm leaves. The centre of the house for about a279 third of its width is kept quite clear, forming a noble covered promenade, though rather dark, as the only light proceeds from the large doors at the end and the little side doors between the cabins.
Most accounts describe the honesty of the Papuans as superior to that of the Polynesian race, and they seem to be less eagerly addicted to pilfering; they are, however, commonly much more hostile and ferocious, sometimes waging open warfare, sometimes having recourse to the grossest treachery. Travellers mention them honourably for the treatment of their women. Mr. Jukes never saw a woman beaten or abused among the Torres Straits Islanders, and in all the harder kinds of work the men appeared to take their fair share of labour. Their care and affection for their children seemed always great. Although wanting in the engaging liveliness and fascinating manners of some of the eastern Polynesian nations, they are of a cheerful disposition, readily engaging in sports and amusements, and their curiosity is easily excited by anything interesting or uncommon. When bartering with Europeans they show their good sense in preferring useful articles to mere ornaments.
The political institutions of the Papuans are extremely primitive. We do not hear of any division into ranks or of any hereditary chieftainship or authority among them. They apparently live in small tribes, hostile the one to the other. They have never attained to any great skill in navigation. Their canoes are commonly small, rudely fashioned, and unfit to encounter the swell of the open sea. Their agriculture is very rude and they seem in no instance to cultivate rice or any other sort of grain. No genuine Papuan nation has been known to have invented or practised the art of making any kind of cloth. Their favourite weapons are the bow and arrow, in the use of which they are very expert, but they appear never to have acquired anything like discipline or skill in warfare, although apparently more constantly engaged in it than the Polynesians.
Of their mode of fighting, the following account of a skirmish witnessed by Mr. Jukes gives us a good idea. ‘The hostile parties approached each other at full speed to within about thirty or forty yards, when they both halted, sheltering280 themselves behind rocks and large stones; and there was a pretty brisk interchange of arrows. The sharp twanging or smacking of the bows, the rattling of bundles of arrows and the hurtling of arrows through the air, and their glancing from the rocks, was heard above the shouts and cries of the combatants. The fierce gestures, quick and active movements, and the animated attitudes of the black and naked warriors, ornamented, as many of them were, with glittering pearl shells or red flowers and yellow leaves hanging from their hair, and the crouching of the women, known by their petticoats, in the rear or skirts of the battle with fresh stores of ammunition, formed for a short time an interesting and exciting spectacle. After a minute or two’s skirmishing they all rushed together, hand to hand, and formed a confused mob. The shouting and noise was then redoubled, and there was a short clatter of long poles, sticks, or canoe paddles, which we could see waving above their heads, and we thought some of them were using their arrows as spears or daggers. Still no execution seemed to be done, as we saw none of them down, and in a very short time the poles and paddles were all held erect, the women closed up, and the war of deeds seemed to end in one of words. The fight being done, both parties seemed very glad it was over. Several of the combatants were slightly scarred with arrow marks, but in some cases had evidently had a very narrow escape. It seemed as if they had seen the arrow coming and avoided it by twisting the body as the Australians avoid spears.’
As to the future prospects of the Papuan race, there can hardly be a doubt that as soon as they come within the range of European emigration or dominion, their speedy extinction must be the result. Their very qualities will seal their doom, for a warlike and energetic people will never quietly submit to the yoke of a foreign master, and must as surely disappear before the white man as the wolf or the tiger.
With the single and remarkable exception of the Feejee Islanders, who form a kind of intermediate race between the Papuan and Polynesian races, all the archipelagoes and islands of the tropical Pacific, situated on the east and north of the above-mentioned groups, are inhabited by nations distinguished from the Papuan stock by a yellow, olive-coloured, or brown skin; by smooth, generally black, hair; by a finer281 proportioned body, with well-rounded limbs and swelling muscles. The nations belonging to this yellow or Polynesian race have in general attained a much higher degree of civilisation than the black hordes of the western islands; and though enormous distances intervene between them, the inhabitants of the large groups of the Sandwich, Society, Navigators, and Friendly Islands, are more similar to each other than the various nations crowded together in the comparatively narrow space of our continent. Their features are everywhere the same; they speak dialects of the same language, so nearly resembling each other that the people of Tonga can freely converse with those of Hawaii; and when first visited by European navigators they showed a surprising similarity in their customs, their religious observances, and their political institutions, as well as in the progress they had made in agriculture and the industrial arts.
Not satisfied with the spontaneous bounty of Nature, they forced the willing soil to yield them a variety of productions. The Tahitians, besides multiplying the bread-fruit tree and the cocoa palm, chiefly cultivated the banana, the sweet potato, and the yam; while the roots of the taro formed the principal nourishment of the Sandwich Islanders, who by an admirable system of irrigation extended the plantations of this water-loving plant, even high up the hills, where it grew in artificial ponds. These served likewise as basins for the reception of mullets, which were taken when quite young out of the sea, and placed in reservoirs into which some sweet water was made to flow. They were then gradually accustomed to water less and less salt, and ultimately, after five or six weeks, transferred to the submerged taro plantations, where they grew to a large size, and acquired a delicious flavour.
The food of the common people in all these islands consisted entirely of vegetables: pork, and the flesh of dogs, which was particularly esteemed, being exclusively reserved for the use of the great. This taste seems strange, but as the dogs destined for the table were fed wholly upon bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, and other vegetables, their flesh was but little inferior to English lamb, and might well pass for a delicacy in a country where beef, mutton, and venison were unknown. The general drink was water or the milk of the cocoa-nut, but on festive occasions282 they prepared an intoxicating beverage called Kava from the root of a species of pepper.
Both men and women were dressed in Tapa, a kind of white cloth, which was not woven, but made like paper, of the macerated fibres of the bark of the Chinese mulberry and bread-fruit trees spread out and beaten together. The lower classes wore but a scanty covering of this material, while the nobles were amply attired in long and flowing garments, stained with various colours.
When even the rude Australian shows some desire to decorate his ugly person by sticking a bone through his nostrils, or by bedaubing his filthy body with paint, we cannot wonder at the taste for ornament displayed by the more polished South Sea Islanders. Elegant chaplets, of gaily-coloured feathers, adorned their raven hair, and flowers in the ears gratified at once the eye by their lively hues, and the smell by their delicious perfume.
The custom of tattooing so frequent among the Malays, and even among the Negroes and American Indians, was nowhere so universally and so elaborately practised as among the South Sea islanders. Each group had its particular patterns, each rank was differently marked. The instrument used for this painful operation was a kind of comb, the teeth of which were struck just through the skin, after which the punctures were rubbed with a kind of paste made of soot and oil which left an indelible stain.
The industrial dexterity of this ingenious people appeared in the manufacture of many other articles besides the Tapa. Rushes, grass, the bark of trees, and fibrous leaves furnished the material for finer mats than any made in Europe. The coarser kind of matting was employed for sleeping on in the night, or sitting on through the day; the finer sort was converted into garments in rainy weather, the Tapa being soon penetrated by wet. They were also very expert in making basket and wicker work; their baskets were of a vast number of different patterns, many of them exceedingly neat, and the making of them was an art practised by everyone, both men and women. Essentially maritime in their tastes, they excelled in the construction of their canoes, which were the more to be admired as an adze made of stone, a chisel or gouge283 made of bone, a rasp of coral, and the skin of a sting ray as a file and polisher, were the only tools which they possessed. With these rude implements they generally took up several days in felling a tree, which was then split into planks. The boards, having been very dexterously smoothed, were afterwards fitted to the boat with the same exactness that might be expected from an expert joiner.
To fasten them together, holes were bored with a piece of bone fixed into a stick for that purpose, and through these holes a kind of plaited cordage was passed, so as to hold the planks strongly together. The seams were caulked with dry rushes, and the whole outside of the vessel was painted over with a kind of gummy juice which supplied the place of pitch. Considering the inferiority of their tools, the building of one of their large war canoes, which sometimes had the enormous length of 108 feet and could hold forty men, was undoubtedly a piece of workmanship not inferior to the huge vessels constructed in Europe with the assistance of iron. Generally two of these war canoes were lashed together, with two masts set up between them, and a high platform raised above, on which the warriors, armed with spears and slings, were stationed; the rowers sat below, ready to receive the wounded from above and to send reinforcements to take their place. Single boats had an outrigger on one side, and only one mast in the middle; and in these frail constructions, they did not hesitate to sail far beyond the sight of land, shaping their course in the daytime by the sun, at night by the stars, to which they gave their particular names.
A fleet of war canoes with its curved figures, its waving pennants, and its men gracefully clothed in flowing garments, afforded a highly picturesque spectacle, which might give some idea of the vessels in which the Argonauts sailed to Colchis, or the Homeric heroes embarked for the destruction of Troy.
Accustomed to bathe from infancy, the half-amphibious South Sea Islanders are admira............