BRITISH NEW GUINEA

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7232, 19 October 1901, Page 2

BRITISH NEW GUINEA

AN UNEXPLORED^OUNTKY THAT EUROPEANS ARE COLONISING. Mr Frank G. Carpenter, .the well-known American travelling correspondent, contributes the following interesting article to the< "Detroit Free Press" :-- Some of the most interesting, colonial experiments of the day are taking place^in New Guinea, the great- island w!hich lies on the other side of the Strait. The island has been divided up, among the British, the Dutch and the Germans, and' each nation is mow establishing its settlements upon it and sending out exploring expeditions to investigate its material and scientific resources. Within the past year the North German Ll&yd Steamship ' Company has been making New Guinea cue of its regular ports of call. A big syndicate, called the Germmr'Nevr Guinea Company, has been formed . to de-, 1 . veloft that part of the island, and plantations of cotton, tobacco and rubber- are \JMng set out. The company has already three steamers and a number of sailing vessels engaged in its trade; and it is endeavouring to build up a little Germany .&%*& ,4pwn.h*re in the South Pacific Ocean. .Tne Dutch are governing their territory through the Sultan and the native chiefs just as they rule the rest of the Dutch East Indies, and tlie British are managing their property on the same lines: that they observe ia their colonies the world over. Before I describe what is being dona in British New Guinea I want t» tell you "isctfnething about the whole island. I have learned much concerning it at the capitals Wth^ l^t3?tralian States and her© <at ThurspdSy f ' r lsTand, where there are many New" {Juintrii natives. More especially, however, I am indebted for my information- to tih'e liev H. M. Dauncey, a missionary of the Church of England, who has Jived for ten years in New Guinea, and who, long before this letter is published will bs back atrhiedwraie in the British part of that island. I have been travelling for several weeks with, Mr Dauncey, and it is through him that . I nave secured photographs of and its people. . .-•i'Jfev, Guinea is by far the largest island ok- tbs, globe. It exceeds Borneo by- over Sixteen thousand square miles, and it is bagger than any country of Europe except" Russia. It would make ten States as large as Indiana, six States the size of New York, and more than thirty-seven as big- as Massachusetts. From one end of it to the ether it is as long as from Boston to Omaha, and at places it is as wide as from Boston to Washington. Look at it as it lies upon, the map. It is just north of Australia and right under the equator, extending- for ten degrees south of it. Its shape is that of a gigantic bird squatting on Torres Strait and the Arafura . Sea, with its island-feathered tail spread cut on the Southern Pacific. Ocean, and its ragged head locking toward the Philippines and Asia. ■ What an enormous country and how little known! It is wilder than Africa and less explored than any part of South America. Only the smallest part oi-ty has ever been tro-dden by white men. It has savages of' whom we knew nothing, and plants and animals which arc just beginning to be pictured in the scientific journals. It is a land of high mountains, and low miasmatic plains. The tallest peaks be* tweenthe Himalayas and the Andes, are to be found in it. There axe mountains in JQntch New Guinea supposed to be over 17,000 ft high. They are covered with snow all the year round, and have never -'been, climbed. The 'height of the Bismarck Mountains, in the German possessions, is estimated at 16,000 ft. and in British New Guinea the Owen Stanley Range has severaj peaks of over 13,000 ft. Each colony lias one great river, the British having, the Fly, which might be called the Mississippi ol the country. . To-day I write erpeciaily of British NewGuinea. This, is the south-eastern portion of the country. Tha Dutch own the most land. They have the eastern half of the island, including the head amid upper part of the body of the squatting bird. The northern section of the remainder ■belongs to the Germans: ths southern, including the- tail, to the British. The British possessions are altogether about three times as large as . tie^fcate of Indiana, and they have just|&Bout as many people as Cincinnati, of warn*, loniy 250 are Europeans. The colony consists of missionaries, planters, gold minersi a storekeeper or "two and Government bfficiais. The seat of Government is at the little town of Port Moresby, on the southern coast, just back of aai excellent harbour. Here^there is a Government House, the store of Burns, Philp and Co., a church and about 150 native houses. The church is also used as a schoolroom, and is attended by 100 native children on week days. The Government uses native policemen, and it hast force of. 124 native constables, by whom order is kept. A VALUABLE COLOXY: Men who are posted tell 'me that NewGuinea will eventually be a valuable possession. The Government is very careful in leasing cr selling the lands. Only a short time ago it refused to sell 250,000 acres to the British New Guinea synpicate ac fifty cents pen acre, notwithstanding the syndicate offered to develop the property. It. is now having numerous applications for tracts of 50,000 acres and upwards, and among others Mr Burns, of Burns, Philp and Co., has offered to invest 500,000d0l if he can have 100,000 acres of land for his company. No land is being leased or «old without the proviso that it will be developed, and without continued development the title does not pass.'' The Government as setting out cocoamit groves and rubben plantations, and there is no doubt that the colony will eventually be self-supporting. At present its expenditures . aTe about 77,000d0J a year avA its revenues about 58,0C0d01. The r nues are derived,entirely from Customs duties, and the small■ness of both expenditures and revenues shows that the colony is still in its infancy. . „ , I The Rev Mr Dauncey tells me that i ■•

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American tobacco is imported by New Guinea, and that it forms the chief currency of the natives. The tobacco is made up in sticks as long as a lead pencil and as big round as your little finger. It is evidently -well soaked with liquorice or glucose or some other such mixture, for it is as black as jet. Such tobacco is accepted in payment for goods at the store in Port Moresby, and four sticks of it are the average pay for a day's work. Among the natives themselves tobacco is the most common, currency. So many stacks will buy a hatchet or a knife, a set of pottery dishes, a fish net or a necklace. The Government buys its land of the natives, "where it is owned 'by certain 1 families, by giving them 'hatchets, handkerchiefs and or-e-nalf pound of tobacco for a fixed amount of land, occasionally • throwing a shirt and akhife in as an extra. THE NATIVES OF NEW GUINEA. The natives of New Guinea ate of the Papuan- race, which is different from the Malays, from, the aborigines of Australia, and from the many other races of the Pacific. The Papuans are of. many varieties. They, are generally of a . copper colour, and they range from that to almost black. , Mr Daimcey found 1 the smallest of the natives in the eastern end of the island, and he tells me they increase in size as you go south and west, and at the same time grow darker, in colour, and more Boisterous in disposition. They Lave woolly hair, but not like that of the negro. Their hair stands oufc from the head. It is often threaded through "liambdo tubes or pipes, out of which it sticks in great tassels. Ithas a springy nature, so that if you put your hand down on at it will be thrown up, much like when you strike a hair mattress. In the far ea§t the men. tattoo theirfaces and bodies in ai hideous fashion. The. women: also .tattoo, . especially the upper parts of therr bodies. In some places this tattooing is the only dress. In others the. ■wornem -wear petticoats of long leaves, frequently placing one y layer upon, another, in 'flounces. These leaf »kirts extend' from the waist almost to the knees, and in connection with a necklace of shells or beads form the entire clothing. Sometimes the skir-ts are made of the fibre, of bark. . . The tattooing of the women often covers the whole body, and among some tribes this tattooing forms the coming-out suit of the maidens.* The getting of such a suit is •xeeedingly painful, but Mr Dauncey says that the girls are anxious to be in the fashion, and gladly submit to »it. The girl to be tattooed lies down on the ground, when the ink is pricked under her skin, in the various patterns. Thorns are used for the pricking, and the thorn dipped into the ink is driven under the skin with- a little mallet. Such dress-making is slow, but a suit once 'made -lasts a lifetime. MARRIED WOMEN ARE ALL BALD. In some parts of the island it is possible to tell whether a> -woman is single or married by her hair, or rather the laok of it. The married women are all bald-headed, and 'the sensible man does not attempt to flirt with the hairless female. A maiden wears her natural wool nin'til the wedding, but after that shaves off every bit of it close to the scalp, amd keeps it so shaved • for the rest of her life. The first shaving, andii indeed, all iixe shaving of this kind, is a serious matter. Until th& -foreigners came the razors were -sharp flints, but now the natives use broken glass, and there is a steady demand for soda., and beer bottles to break up for shaving utensils. " There are many New Guinea tribes, so. Missionary Dauncey tells me, in which' tii&i men' lace themselves in with rope, in order to- reduce the size of itiheir waist and stomachs. They bind bark belts from two to ten inches wide tightly about the body, compressing themselves so that the fullgrown men acquire waists as small as the "most tightly-laced of. our' women. It as said,*hat the chief reason 'for thip cusjpim is that the "men wish to persuade the ."^o-. men that they hare small stomaxshs,i>ajid| are therefore small eaters. In New Guinua the women are the chief providers, and the young woman who is looking about -for -a. husband is -supposed to prize highest -<he man ytho will be most easily fed. A boy. on being asked why he laced himself so> tigitly, said: • ■■'•■' > ■■■.: ■ . -. > ; ; "I shall have to; get a, wife some "day,? and if I have a big stomach, no one will have me." As to^ food, the people are chiefly vegetarians. They live on yarns, bananas' and; sweet potatoes. They are not particular^ however, and when, they can get them* willj eat kangaroos, pigs, dogs, snakes awMte-j ards. They are fond of grubs or larviie,! and 'the women dig these out of the treesarid cook them. - 3JEW GUINEA CLUB HOUSES. In many of iihe New Guinea, tribes the men aaid women live apart; The men, have club houses, in which they sleep and eat. The women live in huts off by themselves, » number of wives often, being in 1 one hut They cook their husbands' food in tl)fcir huts, or. on tihe . ground outside, and bring it to the chib house, laying it on the verandah,' and calling to their husbands to come and eat. Mr Dauncey says that it would' Jbe death to a woman to emter on© of jthese club houses, aridf thaifr they are leaerved exclusively for the men. The houses are often of '-great size. They look like immense hay ricks, starting from the ground and going upward until I ' they meet in the ridge of the roof. The entrance is a hole at the front. There are no windows, and the'houses are built so protected with mats that they -keep out the mosquitoes.. In other sections of 'the country, the men and women live together, on tfhe apartment house plan. In some places there are houses five hundred feet long and sixty feet wide, containing sixty fariiilies or more. Such a house would be divided by 'ittlo partitions into stalls or pens running out to a central hall, co that going through the houses is like journeying titoe stalls of a cow stabled In each stall a family has its quarters, the women doing the cooking inside^ and the smoke finding its w-ay out as it can through the roof. These New Guinea flats are very dark, for the walls extend almost to the floor, on account of the mosquitoes, and often there is not more than two feet of ;wall before the roof begins. The roof, however, any reach as high as. thirty feet above the floor. The material of the houses is usually poles and grass. First a framework of poles is made, and them the thatch of grass or banana leaves is tied on. NEW GUINEA BABIES. The New Guinea natives are fond of their children. They treat them well, and are exceedingly affectionate. Mr Dauncey told me that in his ten years' intercourse with the natives, he had never seen a father strike his child, and that mothers never whip their children. A queer thing is. the Papuan cradle. It is mad© of the fibre of the banana, woven together in the shape of a bag. Into this the "baby is dropped, and the bag is then Jiung to one of the poles of the Toof, or to *. tree, and its occupant swung to sleep. If the mother goes out, she merely unhooks or unties the staring, and slings the cradle on her (back, carrying !her baby about as the Indian squaw does her papoose. A LAND OF BIRDS. New Guinea has but few animals of note. The chief are wild pigs and small marsupials, including tree -kangaroos. In birds the country is wonderfully rich. There axe four hundred different species of land bird 3, and among them many of rirost gorgeous plumage. , The king of all New Guinea birds is the bird of paradise. There are forty species of this bird, and most of these are found in New Guinea. The birds are comparatively email, but their colour is the most gorgeous known. Some of them are of the brightest red, with a lustre like that of the opal, with yellow bills and velvet-like plumes encircling the base of tihe head. The leathers of the tail stand up like filigree wires. The golden 'bird of paradise has cix. long feathery tips extending from the back of it« head, and a great crest or crown vising out of the middle of its back, somewhait like a canopy over it. It is only the male birds that are so gorgeous, but they •re hunted everywhere for their feathers.