Papua

“ The young mate nodded. He hated not coming with us, but Bartlet knew. This was Papua, where wise men take no chance and fools seldom live long enough to take a second.
We took none ourselves as we rowed slowly shoreward and sheered off out of spear throw, watching the wall of jungle. There is no beach inside Barange, only the mangrove roots that writhe down to the water's edge like tangled pythons through the oozy bank of salt marsh. ”

“ As Governor Murray truly states in his interesting book "Papua, or British New Guinea," the most valuable asset the colony possesses is not its all but unexplored mineral wealth or the potential value of its splendid forests and rich soil, but it is the Papuans themselves, and let us add that under the leadership of the high-minded, self-sacrificing and well-trained civil servants of Great Britain the dawn of Papuan civilization is fast breaking into the sunlight of a happiness such as has come to but few of the erstwhile savage races of the earth. ”

“ In the interior of the large island of Papua, or New Guinea, there exists a race of men called Haraforas, who live in trees, to which they mount by means of a notched piece of wood, which they draw after them, by way of guarding against surprize.
The principal commerce of the Papuans is with the Chinese, of whom they purchase their different instruments and utensils. They give in exchange ambergris, sea snails, tortoiseshell, small pearls, birds of Paradise, lories, and other birds, which they stuff with great dexterity. The women appear to be industrious ”

“ And there was the gem that the Marquis and I had been concealing all these weeks, almost at the cost of our lives, lying out on the bar before the eyes of a crowd of sharps and scamps from all the odd corners of Australia!
One thinks quickly in moments of sudden emergency; at least, if one doesn't, one won't continue thinking, or living, long in a country like Papua. ”

“ All Papua’s important secrets are discussed under the sky. The iron house of New Guinea, with its low partitions, and the projecting veranda roof that acts as a natural sounding-board, is, I suppose, about the worst place in the world for talking over private matters—apart from the fact that a native who understands English, or a curious white man, may be standing unseen under the floor at your very feet. ”

“ The Administration continued its well-established policy of dealing generously with the settlers, and kindly but firmly with the natives; indeed the colonisation of British Papua, so far as it has gone, is proving an interesting exception to most of the settlement in Australasia, inasmuch as good feeling is being maintained with the natives, while substantial headway is being made with the pioneering. The commencement of railway buildings gave a new note of civilisation to this grand tropical domain. ”

“ African negroes, called here Papua, are the cheapest and worst disposed of any, being given to stealing and almost incorrigible by stripes. Next to them are the Bougis and the Macassars, both inhabitants of the island of Celebes. They are lazy and revengeful in the highest degree, easily giving up their lives to satisfy their revenge. The island of Bali sends the most honest and faithful, consequently the dearest slaves, and Nias, a small island on the coast of Sumatra, the handsomest women, but of tender, delicate constitutions, ill able to bear the umwholesome climate of Batavia. ”

“ The Papuans are so called from Papua, or New Guinea. They occupy the western islands, and are not generally so tall and handsome in person as the Malays. They are of a dark-brown color, with dark, curly hair of different shades, and appear to be allied to the negro; but have plump, pleasant features, unlike the negro and the aborigines of Australia. The Malays all speak one language, with dialectic differences, all musical and liquid, like the 12Italian. Every word ends in a vowel. ”

“ British New Guinea or the Territory of Papua consists of the southeastern portion of the island, with an area of 90,540 square miles and a population of 350,000 natives. The Australian commonwealth took control in 1901. The Dutch have done little for their territory; but the Germans are developing theirs through a company, though the imperial government administers public affairs; and the Australians have reduced many districts of the Territory of Papua to order and made tribes in large areas settle down to industry. ”

“ The race seems doomed to perish. Something can be done to prolong their life, to make it more pleasant; but they will never be a people, never take any share in the development of the continent which was once their own.
A quite different type of native comes under the rule of the Australian Commonwealth—the Papuan. [43] Though Papua, or New Guinea, as it was once called, is only a few miles from the north coast of Australia, its race is distinct, belonging to the Polynesian or Kanaka type, and resembling the natives of Fiji and Tahiti. ”

“ The African, inhabiting a luxuriant and happy country, enjoying, for many ages, almost the extremes of history and civilization—the Papua broken down by the pressure of an extreme destitution, and scarcely ever touched by any civilizing power—this may be the only difference between those two human tribes. ”

“ O. C. Stone, and the missionaries who have recently explored the southeastern extremity of New Guinea, have been greatly struck by the apparently quite distinct races they have found there. As far eastward as the head of the gulf of Papua (on the east side of Torres Straits) the typical Papuans prevail, the natives of the Katow River being described as nearly black, with Jewish noses, and woolly hair, using bows and arrows, and living in houses a hundred feet long elevated on posts, in all respects exactly agreeing with the prevalent type in the western portion of the island. ”

“ Iti-nui (Whiti-nui in Maori) may be one of the Maori Tawhitis, and from its position may be one of the Indonesian Islands, but it is more probably Fiji, though, at the same time if this is so, it should not precede the two following names. Papua is some island north of Fiji which cannot be identified—it is not New Guinea, as might be supposed by the similarity of names, because, that name is Malayan, and is descriptive of the woolly-haired Papuans who dwell there, and has been given long since the Polynesians left Indonesia. Papua is found in Rarotonga and other places as a local name. ”

“ Get your family ready and start day after tomorrow.
“And on your way to Papua, Lambert, you’d better report to Waite, [Pg 4] who’s in charge of our work in Australia. There’s quite a hookworm campaign going on in North Queensland. Good place to brush up on what you’ll need in Papua. You’ll find the Australians good fellows, like our Westerners, rough and generous and tolerant—they haven’t had to jam together in big cities and get small-minded.” ”

“ It is necessary to rely on yourself to secure followers, though here and there a chief may aid you. One such, the greatest “character” we encountered in Papua, will be introduced to the reader at the proper place. On the march continual apprehension besets the traveller lest his carriers bolt, for if this happened in the interior he would be done for, and he would have a terrible business to get out of the country, if indeed he got out at all. ”

“ The Papuan youth, however, with all these faults is a loyal, brave companion. He can be relied upon when accompanying a white man on a journey. The tighter the corner the more he shines, and many others as well as ourselves would have ended their days in Papua long ago had not our boys stuck to us in time of need. ”

“ In Papua, rich discoveries are very soon worked out, as a rule, and the riff-raff attracted by the gold, larrikins and sharps, parasites and wasters of every kind, sorts itself out from the men who are of any use, and drifts back to the continent of Australia, where there is more room for its kind. ”

“ The Torres Strait is regarded as no less dangerous for its bristling reefs than for the savage inhabitants of its coasts. It separates Queensland from the huge island of Papua, also called New Guinea.
Papua is 400 leagues long by 130 leagues wide, with a surface area of 40,000 geographic leagues. It’s located between latitude 0 degrees 19’ and 10 degrees 2’ south, and between longitude 128 degrees 23’ and 146 degrees 15’. At noon, while the chief officer was taking the sun’s altitude, I spotted the summits of the Arfak Mountains, rising in terraces and ending in sharp peaks. ”

“ What New Guinea may become to the trader is outlined later in the present volume, merely, be it noted, from the outside observer’s point of view, but this of course has in it a large measure of uncertainty, contingent on conditions of
“Labour and the changing mart and all the framework of the land.” Be this as it may, one thing remains sure, the extraordinary value of Papua to the man of science, particularly to the entomologist and the ornithologist. ”

“ In Papua, every effort has been made to prevent robbery of the natives by unscrupulous whites. The natives are firmly secured in the possession of their lands, which they can neither sell, lease nor dispose of, except to the government itself. Thus the natives and the government are the only two landlords in the country. To acquire land in Papua, the European settler must rent it from the government, for he is not permitted to acquire fee simple rights. ”

“ Yes, farming in Papua, even at its best, offered many problems never dreamed of in the philosophy of a Secretary of Agriculture. The old hands were far from hookworm-free, although vastly improved in general health. ”

“ LAKATOIS PREPARING TO SAIL.
23The ethnologist, too, has in Papua a happy hunting ground; for the tribes on the fringe of exploration present wonderful varieties of type, and as the mountain fastnesses of the interior are gradually opened up, there can be no doubt that rich material for the propounding of new problems and perhaps the solution of old ones will come to light. Language is curiously diversified: here you meet a tribe with a distinct speech, and camping near them for a time you learn the common currency of their tongue ”

“ Yet a danger to Papua that he himself foresaw and did all in his power to avert came as a result of the introduction of the very civilization of which he was the champion, for with peace came new wants that the most unscrupulous of traders at once sought to supply at prices ruinous to the social and moral welfare of the natives. ”

“ The central mass on which almost every part of this sub-region is clearly dependent, is the great island of New Guinea, inhabited by the Papuan race of mankind; and this, with the surrounding islands, which are separated from it by shallow seas and possess its most marked zoological features, are termed Papua. A little further away lie the important groups of the Moluccas on one side and the Eastern Papuan Islands on the other, which possess a fauna mainly derivative from New Guinea, yet wanting many of its distinctive types ”

“ In Delena district we have no cutter, so every journey must be made either in the whale boat, or a canoe, or by tramping. After the comfort of fast trains and trams in England, the labour of a short journey in Papua would be laughable if it were not so wearisome. To talk of a journey when the distance to be covered is only some 50 or 60 miles, seems absurd till you have had experience of it, and then you will measure the distance not by miles, but by hours or days. ”

“ Garnett,) which is Malay. In the quarters about to be given in detail the evidence is less exceptionable.
New Guinea.—Here there is little except Negritos; and here we meet with the name Papua. What is said of the Papuas must be said with caution. Physical conformation being the evidence, there are in New Guinea two nations, if not more than two:—1. Those of the North, with curly hair, which are subdivided into the pure Papuas, and the Papuas that are looked upon as a cross with the Malay (Quoy, Gaimard and Lesson in the French Voyages) . 2. ”

“ When I first went out to Papua there were only five other white women on the north-east coast, though there were a few at Samarai, the port. Naturally life under these conditions was very different from that in civilized countries. ”

“ It is known, that on the Malayan Peninsula, in Luconia, Borneo, and most of the larger islands of the Eastern Seas, there are occasionally found in the mountainous tracts a scattered race of blacks entirely distinct from the rest of the population. Some have conceived them to be the aborigines of these countries; others considering them as of the African race, adduce them in proof of an early and extensive intercourse between Africa and these islands. I shall content myself with observing, that they appear at the present day to form the bulk of the population of Papua or New Guinea. ”

“ The typical Papuan is distinctly tall, far exceeding the average Malay height, and is seldom shorter, often taUer, than the European. He is strongly built, somewhat “spur-heeled.” He varies in colour from a sooty-brown to a black, little less intense than that of the darkest negro. ”

“ Generations must elapse before more than a moderate degree of civilization is developed in Papua, but the foundations are being surely and conservatively laid, and already in the civilized centers natives respect and loyally serve their British friends and masters. ”

“ In Papua each man builds his own house, with the assistance of his own family and some of his friends, and gathers the materials from the supply he finds around him. The forest gives him his timber. The Sago palm or the Nepa palm supplies his thatch. In place of nails and screws he uses the cane and vines which he can find in almost any patch of forest, or strips of bark from many different kinds of trees. On the coast his flooring boards are made by splitting up the old dug-out canoes, or by the more laborious process of dividing a tree lengthwise and then adzing each half into a plank. ”