A Papuan Festival

Horowhenua Chronicle, 27 September 1910, Page 4

A Papuan Festival

A London paper gives an account of an extraordinary festival that is a custom among the larger Papuans, and has been observed and described by the explorers. Dr. Eric Marshall, one of the party, says that for some days previously natives had been arriving from distant parts until one small village of Tipue, of forty huts, contained 400 people, and' it was evident from tho tomtotning and other signs that sometiling of importance was about to take place. At night the natives lit a big -bonfire, and all night long they howled and yelled as if to drive away evil spirits. At daybreak, first of all the women, draped in leaves, slowly walked down the beach, driving two full-grown boars in firont 'of them, and then disappeared! in the jungle. About 15C men, with if aces painted and headis and spears decorated with feathers, formed up m three sides of a square one of which was occupied by a band of tom-tom players. A slow advance on the village then commenced, the men shouting in chorus and the women dancing on tho outskirts. Then followed the most striking scene of all. Near a large sloping erection, which was found to ha a kind of altar, were placed the two boars, which were ahout to be sacrificed. Tho animals were seized , and bound up with rattan, ami ' chalk was .rubbed into their eyes, apparently to blind them. Tht women set up a tremendous wailing, and_ a-ppearcil on the scene plastered in wot mud from head to foot. Then the two animals, on each of which a man sat astride, were hoisted up and carried to the altar, on which they were tightly lashed. Amid much shouting and beating of drums they were clubbed to death. So soon as the animals were dead, tihte women cut them free, pulled them to the ground,- and threw themselves on the dead bodies, wailing loudly and plastering themselves with wet mud in ecstacios of grief. This extraordinary ceremony ended in men and women to , the river for a much-needed wash.