NEW GUINEA

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 June 1933, Page 4

NEW GUINEA

SORCERERS AND PROPHETS. ’ SYDNEY, June 1. Three anthropologists returned to j Sydney from New Guinea by the Macdhui yesterday, bringing with them . quaint stoiics of remote tribes among I whom sorceiy survives as a. profes- , sion, and of villages . privileged by magic to overhear quarrellings in the spirit world'. Dr. and Mrs R. F. Fortune have carried out field work, for 20 months on the New Guinea mainland, and Mr Gregory Bateson, a research Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, has completed second period of field work among Sepik River natives. Mrs Fortune (Dr. Margaret Mead) is assistant curator in the ethnology department of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and her publications include “Coming of Age in San’wa” and “Growing Up in New guinea.” Dr. Fortune is the author of “Sorcerers of Dobu” and “Omaha Secret Societies.” Working in the Aitape region of the Prince Alexander Mountains, on the Yuat River and Ebon Lake, Drs. Mead and Fortune ■ learned the languages and ways of, among other, three tribes which had not previously been studied. One was the Arapcsh. The present is probably the first occasion of the name appearing in print foi the anthropologists found that the tribesmen had never provided themselves with a name. So they will be known to the outer world as the Arapesh, which is a native word meaning simply human beings. The tribes live in three environ-

: meats, said Dr. Mead, the beach, the r mountains, and the sepik grass pain, , which from the crests can be seen . rolling away to the horizon. A strip - dotted with villages thrust itself like a wedge into this plain. The mountain . people are very poor. Village sites are small, with mom for a few thatched houses built on poles, and the gardens are scattered on the hillsides, often perched on earthly shelves that are swept away by landslides. At the front of each house is a door, with a ladder, for the owners, and at the back a smaller door, with a smaller ladder, for the dog, always a favoured inmate. Because of their poverty, the tribal folk are dominated by the idea of

“growing things big.” And therefore everybody plants a few yams wherever '< he can find enough soil. This must be in other people’s gardens, since to eat his own yams is taboo. The man who cats game which lie himself has killed becomes a, social outcast. Children learn some of the taboos in a chant which runs: “Other people’s sisters, other people’s pigs, other people's yams—these you may eat.” To ensure, that his wife sha.l be as fat as possible, a boy's parents, when he is 18, buy him’a girl of half his age. He works to find lier food. And later,

’ it he is dissatisfied with her; he utters a reproach much disliked' in the tribe: , “I made your body, I grew your yams, , I worked the sago, I hunted the game, which made you big.” It is a disadvantage to a. man to have acquired his wife in another way, for example, after she has been betrothed to another and has grown up; since he cannot make use of this reproach though it may be needed. ; A DOUBLE PROPHECY. 1 * I Ono of the tribal prophets, said Dr. 1 Mead, after he had been regarded as < (lead, "came hack” to this world and»‘ | uttered two prophecies: That the white man would arrive, bringing p axes, knives, clothing, and beads, and 1 stop all warfare; and that the tribes- t people in each generation would grow - Q

shoitcr, imperceptibly to themselves, till they dwindled quite away. The first prediction having come true, the natives were eager to know whether the scientists believed the second one to be well founded. • On the Kurnai grass plain live many ' sorcerers, who were studied by Dr. Fortune. Their characteristic belief is that if they can obtain a little of the bodily essence of a man—through such “personal leavings” as might adhere to a chewed bone, or to a skirt or belt carrying some of the owner’s sweat — he will be made ill if it is roasted. The life principle, thought to have its place under the breast bone, may even be driven out. An offended person may obtain some such personal leaving of one who has angered him, and send it, wrapped in a leaf, to a sorcerer, with his fee of a giant clam ring. The parcel is passed along by a chain of the angry man’s ■ friends (whom he inherits from his father), till it reaches the sorcerer in his distant village. If the other man becomes' sick, his friends‘set out to discover, by talk in the huts or round camp fires, who it is that has engaged a magician. ’When they succeed, they must try to buy Lack the contents of the leaf, and usually the sorcerer contrives to get : money from both sides. “The sorcerer is generally a mean cld man, with ringworm,” Dr. Mead ’ remarked. “The tribal folk are nice < enough, really, and they seldom ask 1 him to do more than make their enemy 1 sick. Or they may want to make him 1 “savee,” that is, to compel his respect.” t There are two villages inhabited i chiefly by sorcerers, who are much 3 feared, and exact, such perquisites as < pigs’ tails. In some circumstances, if ? the person supposed to havp resorted t to wizardry is unknown, it may be 1 proposed to kill someone equivalent i

> in ago, sex, and social status to a vil--1 lager who has died. 1 Deaths of women and children are 1 usually attributed to “marsalai,” or spirts embodied in serpents, said Dr. 1 Mead. It is one of the marsalai, too, that makes the rainbow, by opening its mouth and pulling out fire. Because'of the universal fear of sorcery, children are trained to hide all personal leavings. Thus they must throw away any chewed bones, and their mothers tell them that if they sleep in a stranger’s house they must lie so that their perspiration, .for example, will not touch the floor.

r SPIRITS WHO UQARREL. t ) i Mi Bateman found much artist; 5 talent, among the latmul tribe, on tin . Septik River. They have well carvet i clubhouses and arc clever at a curiout ; kind 01. portraiture. Skulls are given ■ to (he tribal artists, who model over ’ them, in clay, reproducing the fea- . tures of the dead as accurately as possible. When , dry. the clay is painted, being decorated with spirals similar to those found among the Maoris. “The story was told to mo,” said Mr Bateson, “that on one occasion a skull was sent for this purpose to an artist in a neighbouring village. Having known the dead man merely by sight, the artist prefer red to model (he features after those of a man in his own village. Bm somebody in (he other village had a. dream, in which the ghost of the dead appeared', and complained about the portrait. His relatives at once got. the skull back, and had it. remodelled after I he features of the dead man’s son. 'Phis was thought a very satisfactory arrangeimom. “latmul artists measure the length of the nose, and they consider a ong nose a mark of beauty. Their portraiture is fairy realistic, except’ foi skulls of enemies. In these the de-

sign is conventionalised, and it is these which reach the museums.” Wagan, or spirits, were regarded as the cause of death and of good or ill fortune, said Mr Bateson. The people believed in possession by spiiits. For certain ceremonies, men believed to he subject to possession assemble, and begin to chew betel-nuts. Before long, one. ol them starts to tremble, then, Raping up, bursts into- a jargon regarded as the language of the wagan. Scon another follows him. And sometimes, through their strange cries, the villagers hear the spirits 1 ’ voices. Often the wagan insult each other, one calling out that the other is the cause of so-and-so being sick.

’lhe latmul cultivate instrumental music, but only for rcligous purposes, Mr Stevenson added. Their heavy flutes, six feet long, aie used in pairs', pitched a tone apait, the notes of the simple tune being blown alternately by the players. At the wagan dances, on the death of any important fan, leng cylindrical drums are beaten. In some ceremonies the beating may have to go on. without a moment’s interruption, tor two or three months. When a drummer grows tired, another comes to replace him, and stands with his bands on the first man's, so that the ritual may be continuous. Mr Bateson knew a sincerer who was paid to make the river rise, in erder to allow a man to float away a | pile of sago thatch. The sorceier took bis tec, and the river, which hail boon falling, happened to rise enough for the purpose. ’ This, however, was a nuisance to ether villagers, who had yams and taro to plant, and the sorcerer was imprisoned. Later, when ,’t was lime for the river to lisc, and Hie tribesmen, as usual, wished to pay him to ensure that, it should, the magician was atraii, to assist. “The :iver did rise, hoMevcT,” said Mr Bateson. “IMsMbly other processionals had been engaged.”