WOMAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21155, 3 July 1940, Page 4

WOMAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

■ ( LIFE IN NEW GUINEA MAKING OF “YAM MAGIC” SYDNEY, June 19. Help in making “yam magic” was one of the experiences of Dr. Phyllis Kaberry, a young Sydney anthropologist, who recently returned to this city after living for 13 months in a native village in the foothills of the Torricelli Range, New Guinea. The village was spread in a horseshoe shape along a 1100 ft high ridge, and there Dr. Kaberry lived alone in a native sago-thatched bush house, with camp bed, phonograph, and a few other necessities as her only furniture. * At first Dr. Kaberry was a curiosity for the natives, for though most of them had seen white people before, the contact was not close. By degrees, she changed their curiosity to confidence. She learned their language, and took a lively interest in their babies and their yams. Particularly the yams, the staple food product of the South Sea Islands. An Important Ingredient Ginger is an important ingredient ln the making of the native magic potions, and the head man of the village recognised, as soon as he investigated, the smell of tincture of ginger in Dr. Kaberry’s medicine box. So he “borrowed” some of it and smeared it on a yam. “Fortunately,” said Dr. Kaberry, “the yam flourished. Otherwise my reputation would have been ruined. Yam magic is an important ceremonial which takes place each month, and each month the magic differs. ! One magic is to increase the yam’s i length, another to improve the fiav- | our, and so on. This magic is performed by the men, who plant all the big yams, weed them, and harvest them. The women are not allowed to enter yam fields, and are allowed to plant only small yams. “The women are kept in the background on public occasions, to do the cooking while the men thoroughly enjoy themselves at the ceremonials. These are picturesque, especially that held for the display of yams. Then \ the men comb their hair back j from their shaven foreheads, arrange ; it round their heads like a fan, and decorate it with beads and plumes ' and sometimes hibiscus flowers. The ! owners of the yams parade up and ; down in all their finery, and with i their long spears, chanting the tribal song about the glory of their ancestors and their yams, and boasting how much better both are than those o £ the next tribe. They stamp and j prance and make an art of losing their temper. It is really like a scene from an opera. “Women are not allowed to witness these ceremonials, but I was

given special permission by the tribal grandfather. I was also allowed to see the carvings in the men’s ceremonial houses, an honour for which I paid four axes. Yams play an important part in the marriage dowry, for they are usually exchanged between the immediate relatives, as well as from two to five shell rings worth about 30 shillings each. But there are many love matches, too. i “Though women are kept in the | background on public occasions, they seem very contented at home. They are not subservient, and they can swear as vehemently as the men. They are intelligent, with a keen sense of humour. Though they delight in gossiping, they are very tolerant of one another. Sometimes I would try to draw them on by criticising someone, but they would merely say, with a shrug, ‘That’s her business.’ When I became friendly with them they asked me into their huts, and would discuss their babies and their menus and their pots and pans. The children are spoilt and ; bad-tempered, but no woman has j any status in the village unless she J has a child.” Dr. Kaberry will spend two years j on writing a book about her studies i in New Guinea, and then hopes that she will be sent to do more research work.