Mafulu

“ The Mafulu people are of short stature, though perhaps a trifle taller than the Kuni.
They are as a rule fairly strong and muscular in build, the women in particular having very strongly developed thighs; but, speaking generally, their limbs are more slender, and their general development is slighter, than is usually the case among the Roro and Mekeo people. ”

“ In some cases the men’s hair is tied up in a bunch with string, [10] and in others it is bound up in various styles with native cloth. Some of the men have their hair done up in small plaits over the forehead. All the above descriptions, except that of the padding of the band, are applicable to the Mafulu. Some of the Chirima houses have a curious apse-like roof projection over the front platform, which is a specially distinctive feature of a Mafulu house, and one with this projection figured by Mr. Monckton is indistinguishable from a typical Mafulu house. ”

“ There is no doubt that the Mafulu people have always been cannibals, and are so still, subject now to the fear in which they hold the controlling authority of the white man, and which impels such of them as are in close touch with the latter to indulge in their practice only in secrecy. ”

“ It must be borne in mind that the Mafulu people have been very little in touch with white people, the missionaries, who have only been there since 1905, and on rare occasions a Government official or scientific traveller, being almost the only white men whom the bulk of them have ever seen; and they have been but slightly affected by the outside influences which for some years past have been constantly brought to bear upon the natives of the adjoining coast line and the people of the Mekeo plains ”

“ If a young Mafulu youth wishes to marry and does not know where to look for a bride, he will sometimes light a fire outside the village; he will wait to see in which direction the next gust of wind will blow the smoke, and there he will turn to seek a wife. Often the youth carries about with him a bag with small pieces of wood and stone. ”

“ In conclusion, I would add that there is still an immense amount of detailed work to be done among the Mafulu people, and that the districts of the Ambo and Boboi and Oru Lopiku people, still further back among the mountains, offer an almost virgin field for investigation to anyone who will take the trouble to go there. ”

“ Some of them carried pigs that they had received from the Mafulu people after dances and entertainments. These companies consisted of men, women, and a very few children. Several of them were painted as for a festival, and they always passed through the camp as quickly as possible, taking no notice of us. The Mafulu people used to visit us a good deal with the ostensible purpose of trading, but they always took care to come armed with spears. ”

“ I also think I may say that the similarity between Kambisa words on the one hand, and those of either Mafulu or Korona on the other, is almost equal to the similarity between Mafulu and Korona; and Mr. Ray classes Kambisa along with Mafulu and Korona as dialects of Fuyuge. So the statement in the introductory chapter that the valley of the Upper Chirima river is included in the Fuyuge area has, I think, stood the test of some detailed linguistic comparison. ”

“ The black cassowary feather is important in Mafulu as being the special feather distinction of chiefs; but, though chiefs are as a rule possessed of more and better ornaments than are the poorer and unimportant people, they have no other special and distinctive ornament. ”

“ The Mafulu children have neither dolls nor other toys, and do not make cat’s-cradles. The young boys amuse themselves with small bows and arrows and spears, which they make themselves. One common sport is for the boys, armed with their spears, to stand in a row and for another boy to roll in front of them a ball, made out of the root of a banana tree, with its many rootlets intertwined, and for the boys to try to hit it with their spears as it passes them. A similar game is played in Mekeo and on the coast; but there the ball is often made out of the outer fibre of a cocoanut. ”

“ I think that the belief among the islands of the Pacific in the power of water to protect against the machinations of spirits or ghosts is not confined to the Mafulu natives, or indeed to those of New Guinea. ”

“ But, even if they also have another distinct and more primitive ancestry of their own, not associated with the Papuo-Melanesian types, or even with the pure Papuan types, found on the coast and in the plains, one would imagine that contact with these types would have caused the Mafulu people to learn something of the more advanced art which these other peoples display and that we should not have to record a sudden drop from artistic designs embodying curves and natural imitative art to a system confined to straight lines, zig-zags, and spots. ”

“ Here, as in other parts of New Guinea, both men and women, but especially men, love to decorate themselves with bright flowers and leaves and grasses, these being worn in the hair and in bunches stuck into their belts, armlets and leg-bands, and indeed in any places where they can be conveniently fastened.
It is not the practice with the Mafulu for mothers to wear the umbilical cords of any of their children, though apparently the Kuni people do so. ”

“ Williamson has shown strong evidence that the Mafulu and probably other adjacent mountain tribes are essentially a pygmy—that is to say a Negrito—people who have been modified to some extent by Papuan and possibly Papuo-Melanesian influence, both physical and cultural. He has marshalled his data with great skill, and has dissected out, as it were, the physical and cultural elements of the Negrito substratum. It only remains for other observers to study Negritos in other parts of New Guinea to see how far these claims can be substantiated. ”

“ 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 [64] 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. ”

“ But in that case we are, I take it, justified in regarding the dwarf races as being a separate type, to be distinguished from the taller races; and, if that be so, there appears to be substantial ground for thinking that the Dutch New Guinea dwarf people and the Mafulu people are in part descended from people of that type. ”

“ The special magic ceremony for ascertaining if the patient is or is not going to die is not performed in the case of these people. [264]
1 Though here and afterwards I use the word “man,” it must be understood that the notes apply to deaths of women also.
2 This food taboo is with the Mafulu only an optional alternative; but it may be compared with the corresponding food taboo placed upon all the relatives of the deceased by the Koita (see Seligmann’s Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 164) . ”

“ Sivu is the name of a Fuyuge community close to the Mission Station, being, in fact, the one referred to by me in my chapter on communities. Mambule is the name of another of these communities, further away from the station, being, as stated in my introductory chapter, the name of the community from which the name Mafulu arises. I cannot give verbal explanations of any of the other words; but I may say that a rough translation of the second verse is “My village, your village is alike (or equal.) ” [218]
Dancing. ”

“ Speaking of the people generally, it may certainly be said that sexual morality among men, women, boys and girls is very low; and there is no punishment for immorality, except as above stated. [176]
1 According to Dr. Seligmann, among the Koita the forbidden degrees of relationship extend to third cousins (Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 82) ; whereas it will be seen that among the Mafulu it only extends, as between people of the same generation, to first cousins. ”

“ Seligmann, also have only two numerals, but who are apparently not able to count to anything like the extent which can be done by the Mafulu (Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 4) . According to Mr. Monckton the Kambisi (Chirima valley) people only count on their fingers and up to ten, not on their toes and up to twenty (Annual Report, June, 1906, p. 89) . Father Egedi told me that the Mekeo people only count on their fingers and up to ten. ”

“ Pizoko is within the Fuyuge area, and not within that of the Afoa, and Mt. Davidson is within the Boboi area. I think that, though the Fathers’ lines are admittedly not exact, they and the information supplied by the Fathers to me are likely to be more trustworthy in these respects, especially as regards boundaries near to the actual Mafulu villages, than the earlier statements of Dr. Strong, as they are the outcome of recent and careful investigation ”

“ The word bilage signifies a community connection, which is recognised as being not so close as a clan connection; and a man will say of another, who is outside his own clan, but is a member of his own community, that he is his bilage. [89] The expression a-gata signifies absence of any connection, and a man will refer to a member of another community, Mafulu, Kuni, Ambo, or anything else (there is no distinction between these in the use of the term) as being a-gata, thereby meaning that he is an outsider. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Kabana nauera, mine, is the Fuyuge naula. The Kambisa nara-ndo, mine, nura-ndo, thine, hura-ndo his, also show a suffix ndo corresponding to Mafulu ne in naula (ne) , mine, nula (ne) thine, [347] ula (ne) his, and in the vocabulary the Kambisa suffix nda corresponds to the Korona de in the word for “chest.” There is, however, no evidence that the Korona de is equivalent to the Mafulu ne. The word given in Sikube for “woman,” amuri, is the Fuyuge plural amuli, “women.”
A few other likenesses appear, as e.g., Kambisa suffix ng represents Mafulu me, ne; Kambisa fa, the Fuyuge ve ”

“ According to native accounts the Afoa language is spoken in numerous villages which stretch from Mount Davidson to the head of the St. Joseph River in the Mafulu district. All the Afoa villages are situated north of the St. Joseph and its main branches.
[Dr. Strong gives only the pronoun: nui, thou; and the numerals: koane, one; atolowai, two; atolowai-itima, three; atolowai-atolowai, four; atolowai-atolowai-itima, five. [333]
The Pronouns given by Father Egidi for Tauata (“Anthropos,” II. 1907, pp. 1009–1015) are:—
The Possessives are:—
The Interrogatives are: te? who? te? teile? ”

“ We set up our own fly-tent and the natives’ two tents and built a large fire, for it was very cold and the boys were beginning to feel the climate of that high elevation. Indeed, during our whole stay at Mafulu we felt the stress of the climate severely. That first night was very chilly, and it was necessary to serve out blankets to the natives in order to enable them to withstand the cold. ”

“ Haddon has more than once pointed out,3 arises from it. [212]
1 I have examined at the British Museum some net work of the dwarf people of the interior of Dutch New Guinea, brought home by the recent expedition organised by the British Ornithologists’ Union, and found it to be similar in stitch to the Mafulu network.
2 The 1910 comet was regarded by some of the Mekeo people with terror, because they thought it presaged a descent of the mountain natives upon themselves.
3 See Evolution in Art (1895) , p. 264 ”

“ Who shall bid her move on? Mamoul has crowned her Queen of Tears, and her sublime patience and appealing have made a throne of the wayside stone on which she sits; there is no power so audacious that it would give the word to depose her; her matted gray locks and her furrowed cheeks, her sunken eyes and her hungry lips, are her "sacred ashes" of the high caste of Sorrow.
The Brahmin averts his face as he passes, and mutters, "She is as the flower which is out of reach,—she is dedicated to God." That insolent official, the Baboo's pampered durwan, sees in her only Mamoul ”

“ He, therefore, prepared a smaller army than was usual for the king to head, without suffering a Moor of any kind to serve in it.
It was known to a day when Maffudi was to enter upon his expeditions against Abyssinia. For near thirty years he had begun to burn the churches, and drive off the people and cattle on the first day of Lent; and, as Lent advanced, he with his army penetrated farther up the country. The Abyssinians are the strictest people in the world in keeping fasts. They are so austere that they taste no sort of animal food, nor butter, eggs, oil, or wine. ”

“ It is not he whom you have to fear, but Mafuta. Mafuta hates you, I know, and would willingly ‘smell you out’ if he dared; but the people will not let him; for where would they get any one else to play beautiful music to them if you were to die? ”

“ After the gods and goddesses of Mbau had assembled in solemn council, they decided that it would be best to make living people who could be happy on the isles situated away down beneath the sun. ‘So shall it be,’ they all muttered, as they stalked across the magic mountains of Mburoto, where they at once began to gather wonderful flowers and weeds, stones, bits of fire, and cloudy skeins of moonlight and starlight. For it was from the essential materials of Paradise that they must make the children of the world that was beneath the sun. ”