FORT MORESBY

Hokitika Guardian, 29 July 1933, Page 6

FORT MORESBY

NATIVE LIFE IN NEW GUINEA ANCIENT RITES AND CUSTOMS A vivid description cf Port Aforesby, the capital of British Now Guinea, and the sights and entertainments that visitors may witness in that littleknown land, has been' written by. a pissenger oil tlie recent pleasure cruise of the P. and 0. liner Alaloja. < “Port- Moresby is a humid tropeial outpost.” he writes, '“a place of black .aiid brown skins, of. fuzzy hair of strange outrigger cations, of cocoiiut palms, of native villages, housing happy, friendly peoples and resembling quaint brown beetles standing on many legs. The - township nestles in the dip between two curving hills, and through the gap, like tlie fores.glif of a rifie. the o.ve'aligns*, itself on distant mountains, softened by fog and mist. This pretty red and white settlement is the small entrance porc-li to the mystery, the gold, and the wildness ot the real New Guinea;.:

“Hanuabada, the largest village in' Papua, with, a population of 2000. is reached in a short motor run. There jolly black and; brown babies play aiiiong the pigs and the yellow clogs; pretty girls, wearing , long rustling Rami shirts or merely conventional loin cloths, sell model'canoes, miniature huts, pottery; shells, spears, bows and arrows; swarthy warriors dry their nets,: work on crude bowls', mend the Canoes, or stand with spear in hand and smile on face: mothers feed their young.- scold squealing pigs." arid gaze open-eyed at Australian fashions.

“The, native dance at Konedobu, three hours of incessant action by experts of six tribes, is a. weird motion piteuro of wild Papua. These darices are imbued with the mystery of the mountains', the menaces of the -jungle.' the terrors of primitive superstition, the unrestrained joy of conquest. Also they illustrate the slaying of the cassowary. tlie launching of war canoes ami similar incidents-.

“liver there pulses the maddening 'sameness,. the ceaseless monotonous thought-killing throbbing of the native drums—hardwood, shaped like ancient hour glasses, bored-through by fire, bound -with snake-skin, and tuned By'blobs of beeswax. There is But One varion-t. In that ’instance a musician plays two sticks on a wooden petrol case in kettledrum -style, the result resembling the 'qfiiek lire of explosions from an O utboard* motor. • “In the centre of the six-ring circus. densely massed men and girls colour-striped ' and 1 ’adorned with flowers and feathers, including the plumes of (Birds •’'of Paradise, are led by chiefs wearin'g immense hoops of brilliant <hues and ornaments which resemble gigantic‘Catherine wheels. In perfect time, they swing- into opposing ranks, formi a hollow 'square,' reverse, advance, retire. All Are intensely serious, re-enacting a: thousand years of . tribal tradition. The drums fill-the air. with deep iteration,’broken by sudden- shrill cries.” ■ '