p. 17 | Some Native Customs in New Guinea by S. W. CARR

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 7, 1910

Some Native Customs in New Guinea

By S. W. CARR

MANY of the native women are tattooed from head to foot with various designs. This operation is very painful, and is extended over several weeks. The arm or other portion of the body is first painted with the design, and then closely punctured with a sharpened bone and mallet.

Feasts are dependent upon the food supply, and in times of plenty a Karisimasi (Christmas) is held every month or two. In former times, their money consisted of very small shells rounded to the size of a small button and pierced in the center, also salt, native tobacco, armlets; now, beads, cloth, and knives, together with trade tobacco, are also largely used. Gambling is not uncommon, this vice having been introduced by foreigners.

The nose is pierced, and also the ears, the first to hold a polished bone, the second some tobacco, or maybe a match box or other article. Women as a rule are better workers and carry much heavier loads than the men, and it is not an uncommon sight to see a woman carrying a heavy load with a child on top of that, and the husband calmly walking ahead with nothing. After the first work of clearing and fencing a piece of ground for a garden is finished, the wife attends to the rest, while the husband spends his time fishing or hunting. Fowls are prized by the natives, and their long feathers are used to ornament the head during feasts. His hair is the pride of the New Guinea lad, and sometimes it is encased in bamboo rods two feet long, hanging down the back. Boys are used by Europeans as cooks, and girls as nurses.

Papuans do not worship idols, but live in constant dread of the pure pure tauna (sorcerer), who has power, they say, to cause sickness or kill, as he pleases. A native would rather kill another if the sorcerer told him to do so than incur his displeasure. Much of what the sorcerers do is wonderful, and no doubt they are in league with the prince of darkness. To laugh at these people and tell them that sorcery is all nonsense does not raise a person in their estimation, as it is a terribly real thing to them. The better plan to follow is not to argue the point, but listen to their stories, and then try to show the wrong of having anything to do with such works of darkness.

David says, “The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty,” and this is true of New Guinea. On several occasions missionaries have saved the lives of old men and women who were to be buried alive by their relatives when they had become too feeble to resist. Think also of the horrible custom of burying a living babe with its dead mother. “Why should the child stay and be a trouble to the nurse?” they argue. Pigs are killed in large numbers at a feast, and oftentimes roasted alive over the fire, the natives meanwhile enjoying the piercing cries of the dying creatures. On being reproved once by a missionary for this cruel practise, they replied: “Before you came, we did that to our prisoners, and some of us drank human blood raw. Pity a pig when we did not pity men!” Prior to a feast the wild pigs which have been caught are sometimes left for days in the hot sun, without food or water, with their feet tied so tightly that they swell out of all proportion.

The gospel has lost none of its power, and it is able to change the hearts of cruelty for minds filled with love and pity.

S. W. CARR.