Festive Papua : The Story of the Great Dance in New Guinea 9781589760349

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FESTIVE PAPUA THE STORY OF THE GREAT DANCE IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

By André Dupeyrat Translated by Erik De Mauny

The Narrative Press True First Person Accounts of High Adventure

Originally published in France under the title Jours de Fête chez les Papous

The Narrative Press P.O. Box 2487, Santa Barbara, California 93120 U.S.A. Telephone: (805) 884-0160 Web: www.narrativepress.com

©Copyright 2001 by The Narrative Press All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 1-58976-034-4 (Paperback) ISBN 1-58976-035-2 (eBook) Produced in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Lomulomé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Invitation to the Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Beauty Gland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Great Fast and its Taboos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 The Gardeners of the Gabé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Setting the Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Royal Palace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 The Visit of the Scouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The Magic Beauty Bath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 The Dance of the Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 The Dance Royal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 The Night Dance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 The Antique Fusion of Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 After the Dance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 In Pursuit of the Pigs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Witchcraft and a Country Fair . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Savage Massacre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Settling Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 The End of the Gabé. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

INTRODUCTION To some people, it may seem that this book hovers between the flourishes of documentary, and the serious claims of ethnography. So I want to say at the outset that it is, above all, a personal testimony. A testimony to human beings who live in the present time as our own ancestors once lived in the Stone Age. And yet, it will be seen that the Papuans are the same as ourselves, who have already moved into the atomic era. It is a testimony to an unknown people and thus to ‘Man the Unknown’ – in short, ourselves. In addition, it bears witness to the work that is being done by missionaries from France on the very confines of the known world, and well beyond the frontiers of civilization. It must be confessed, however, that the longer one studies the primitive peoples of Papua, the less certain one feels of the meaning to be attributed to ‘civilized’ and ‘civilization’ in these latter days when so much has been done to deprive civilization of its very soul, which is Christianity. Perhaps, therefore, this book may unwittingly throw light in dark places by demonstrating what strange resemblances are to be found between the Papuan – the so-called ‘noble savage’ – and modern man – so-called ‘civilized’. In this torch beam, a thoughtful person must surely recognize both the urgent need for the ‘civilized’ to regain awareness of their soul and for Christianity to be brought to the Papuans.

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It is this last task which lies in the charge of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, to whom the Holy See entrusted the conversion of Papua in 1885. The task has proved a long and arduous one. I tried to give an idea of it in a book published some years ago (Papouasie, Histoire de la Mission: 1885-1935) and, more recently, in Vingt et un ans chez les Papous1 built up from recollected experiences and notes made on the spot, The present volume is written in the same vein. It does not, however, portray the life of the missionaries among the Papuans, but the life of the Papuans themselves. It is the first of a series of books, in which I hope to give a true picture of my Papuans as I knew them. To point out that our civilization, with its wars and their consequences, travels fast, and that our world is shrinking, is, no doubt, merely to stress the obvious. But it remains a fact. The Papuans, on the other hand, had been untouched by change for some twenty centuries or more: but in the past ten years, they have been changing at a terrifying rate – ever since 1942-43, when our ‘civilized’ war skirted their shores and exposed them to the awful perils of ‘civilized’ progress. At the present rate, the real Papuan will soon have ceased to exist: and I have therefore tried to pin down his characteristic features before they vanish altogether. ‘The real Papuan’? . . . Already I find myself falling into the error common to those who, with or without justification, have undertaken to Speak or write about these rapidly evolving primitive beings. Papuan does not exist. There are merely Papuans, in other words, the inhabitants of the largest island in the world, New Guinea, situated in 1. Missinari: Twenty-One Years Among the Papuans, by André Dupeyrat. Translanted by Erik and Denyse de Mauny.

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the Western Pacific between the Equator and the northern coast of Australia. On this island, with its weird outline, the people known as Papuans consist, in fact, of an extraordinary mixture of races, with different customs and so many distinct and varied languages – like the thousand different chips of marble in a mosaic floor – that it is impossible to generalize about them. It is always necessary to specify exactly which Papuans one is referring to, for what may be legitimately said of one group will be completely untrue for another. The Papuans with which this book is concerned belong to the ethnic group of the Fuyughés, tribes living in the central mountains of the south-eastern part of New Guinea, which the Europeans have named Papua and which is under Australian administration. Speaking more or less the same language, having more or less the same customs and the same physical appearance (the Malo-Papuanesian: short, brown-skinned, muscular, with aquiline noses and short but frizzy hair), the Fuyughés are divided up into tribes under the authority of chiefs known as Outames, through whose presence alone, by a sort of magic power, the life of the tribe is sustained. Each tribe is made up of several villages, scattered about in a well-defined region of the towering central mountains. Apart from the missionaries, who live among them, and a small number of Australian Government officers who visit and control them, the Fuyughés have scarcely any contact with white men, and from the material point of view, their civilization can still be characterized by the stone axe. The first white man to settle among them was Father Paul Fastré, a Missionary of the Sacred Heart. In 1905, he

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founded the mission station of Popolé, on the very threshold of the Fuyughé country, leaving it only in 1925. During those twenty years, Father Fastré learned the language, which had remained unknown until then and had never been written down, and studied the character and customs of the natives, whom he pacified and gradually, over the years, converted to Christianity. In 1936, Father Fastré paid a brief return visit to Popolé, which he devoted, in collaboration with the present writer, to researches of a wider and deeper nature into the native customs. It was only during this visit that Father Fastré discovered many astonishing aspects of the mentality and behaviour of the Fuyughés, whom he, nevertheless, had thought he knew so well from having spent so many years among them. Confronted with such a fact, one cannot but feel a little dubious at the speed with which certain travellers ‘discover’ tribes among whom they have merely stayed briefly in passing . . . I owe it both to the truth and to a friendly sense of personal obligation to mention that I have drawn copiously on the notes which Father Fastré accumulated on my behalf. These notes gave me a clearer insight, after the event, into certain things which I had witnessed myself but had felt were scarcely worth reporting, and helped me to understand better certain things I had heard, but whose meaning had escaped me. Above all, they both complemented and helped me to a clearer interpretation of my own notes, which, left to myself, I should never have dared to put forward with such a firm conviction as to their authenticity. The scientific value of these personal observations is thus in large measure due to Father Fastré. In this volume, I have limited myself to a study of Papuan festivals, and specifically of the Gabé of the Fuyughés.

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The latter have made many advances since the days when I lived among them. But their Gabé remains more or less unchanged and is even celebrated more frequently now than in former times. It will be seen from the following pages that it is the greatest and most spectacular manifestation in the life of the tribe: but it is also a source of ruin and degradation. Let me quote what was said to Father Fastré by the Papuan Daniel Kové Nomaï, his principal informant, and one of the most intelligent men I have ever met, either in Papua or elsewhere: ‘The Gabé is the most deplorable invention that Tsidibé (the mythological being who first settled the Fuyughés on earth) could have given us. So long as we still cling to it, any attempt to create a better life in our country will prove impossible. Because of the Gabé, our people think only of their pigs and nothing else. Because of it, our women are worked to death, but that is regarded as unimportant, as long as the pigs grow fat. The children are sickly, and take to stealing because they are dying of hunger: and no one bothers, as long as the pigs are looked after. The animals themselves multiply to such an extent that it is impossible to feed them. When that happens, they ravage our vegetable gardens, and we, the men, go hungry . . . We forget to go to prayer (that is, to church), because that does not help to fatten the pigs! To make themselves elegant, the men fast, undermine their health, and often die as a result of the festival. No matter! The women go off with strangers, homes are destroyed, and in consequence there are murders and wars! Yet even that does not matter! The pig is the thing, and the splendour of the dance . . . ’ In the following pages, the reader will himself be able to take part in the celebrations of the Gabé, celebrations by

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which the native raises a part of the heavy veil which separates him from ourselves. In subsequent volumes, I hope, within the measure of my capabilities, to describe the whole existence of these peoples, at once so far and so near, to whom my own life has been dedicated. Paris, November 1953.

Chapter 1

THE LOMULOMÉ ‘Friday’, my servant, came rushing towards me. His whole round, swarthy, good-natured face was split in a huge smile, the eyes sparkling among a thousand wrinkles under the heavily jutting brow, the thick, slightly purplish lips parted to show the strong, gleaming white teeth that bespoke his cannibal ancestry. In his excitement he could not keep still for a moment, his hands with their long tapering fingers beating a vigorous tattoo about his slim, bare waist, and the muscles of his grubby, sinewy legs flexing and unflexing like those of a ballet dancer about to take the stage. ‘What is it, Friday? What’s put you in such a state?’ ‘They’re coming!’ he cried enthusiastically. ‘Listen, you can hear for yourself, everyone’s shouting the news . . . They’re down in the river-bed. They’re coming up this way, to us.’ I heaved a sigh! I had been so much enjoying that moment of rest, in the stifling heat of a tropical noon, lazing in a net hammock, after so many days spent in toiling up and down the steep ranges of central Papua! They stretched away on all sides, those mysterious and hostile mountains, crest after crest softly outlined through the bluish haze, and each with its dense covering of dark green forest – that seemingly impenetrable jungle through which,

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nevertheless, I had travelled in all directions, and which I knew to be the home of a primitive people. For I was no Robinson Crusoe, even though I had given my ‘boy’ the name of Friday. To begin with, my island – New Guinea – was the largest in the world; and secondly, I was not alone. For more than thirty miles around, on the flanks of the mountain ranges or on the crests of individual peaks, were scattered the little leaf villages of the Fuyughé tribes. This powerful ethnic group of Papuan hill-dwellers occupies the southern slopes of the great central range of Papua. My mission station had been set up at the very heart of their territory, the central point from which I went forth on my visits to the various populated areas, and to which I returned to recuperate between one apostolic journey and the next. And yet I must admit that, at times, there was a terrible feeling of utter isolation. The fact is that these tribes were made up of a people who lagged some five thousand years behind the rest of humanity. The nearest outpost of what we call ‘civilization’ was a small handful of Europeans living on Yule Island, the main centre of the Mission, off the southern coast and more than eight days’ journey away on foot, through a wild chaos of mountains and swampy plains. Port Moresby, the tiny capital of vast New Guinea, was twelve days’ travel away, and Sydney, in Australia, our point of supply and contact with European civilization, well over two thousand miles away to the south. Isolation, indeed! But then, what a sense of freedom it gave one as well! And now, here was Friday shattering my peaceful solitude, my lazy enjoyment of having no ties. ‘They’re coming . . . ’

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‘Who are “they”?’ I asked, a shade aggressively. ‘Do you mean “clay-men”?’ ‘Clay-man’ is simply the term for a white man. In Papua, widows smear their bodies with a whitish clay, and thus resemble whites themselves. White is the colour of sorrow and of mourning. But genuine ‘clay-men’ are so rarely seen in those parts that I could only attribute Friday’s state of agitation to the arrival of some European prospector – for gold or other imagined riches – or an Australian Government agent. ‘No, not “clay-men”,’ Friday replied. ‘It’s the emissaries of the Gabé. Get ready to welcome them!’ Then I understood the reason for my brown companion’s excitement. The Gabé is one of the cardinal events in the life of the Papuans. One might translate this word as ‘grand dance’. But it implies so many preparations and ceremonies, and arouses so many passions; it is such a powerful demonstration of a tribe’s vitality, such a lavish display of all its wealth, and artifice, and so great a contribution to its renown; that the word ought to include within it all the things a European means when he talks about an International Exhibition, a Fourteenth of July parade, the Chelsea or the Four Arts Ball, a first night at the Opera, a political mass meeting, and all the other great commercial, artistic, political, military or religious manifestations, including the festivals of Christmas and New Year. By rumour and hearsay, I had known for months past that the village of Oulida, a good two days’ march away to the south-west, was making preparations for a Gabé. This imposing festival rarely takes place more than once in the same tribe, for over a period of many months, and even

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years, it entirely absorbs all the energies of its members. The date for it must be settled long in advance, for the main attraction in the celebrations of the Gabé is the solemn killing of the pigs, which provides the fitting climax. Yet the country is so poor that its inhabitants are barely able to find adequate nourishment as it is: and thus, they must allow five or six years for the women to raise and fatten the pigs that will be presented to the guests. The more animals, and the fatter they are, the more the feast will be a success. Another preparatory measure for the Gabé is the laying out of a vast plot of ignamas, or yams. These are a climbing plant, with tubers similar to those of our sugar beets, but whose white starchy flesh has a flavour vaguely reminiscent of that of the potato. The Papuans look upon it as the king of vegetables, to be eaten only by the chiefs or on special occasions. For a Gabé, it is therefore necessary to plant a large garden of yams, with which to regale the guests. The latter will then be all the louder in their praises of the tribe which is acting as host. The yam plot is even important enough to have a special name: it is called a lomulomé, and particular care and attention are lavished upon it. When, after long preliminary discussions, a tribe decides to hold a Gabé, the chief, either personally or through his ministers, makes sure first of all that there is a sufficient number of handsomely fattened pigs in his own village and the surrounding villages which come under his sway. Then, one fine day, he calls for the pointed sticks known as itsivé to be brought. These are the only agricultural implements in use among these primitive peoples. Without a word, the chief takes the pointed sticks and plants them in the central clearing of the village in front of his ‘palace’, which in reality is simply a hut of leaves and

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branches. The villagers, who have been awaiting this signal, at once shoulder their axes, gather round the sticks and break into a chant which announces to the whole world that they are going into the forest to clear the necessary space for a lomulomé, and hence, that the preparations for their Gabé have begun. They are soon reinforced by the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, the friends or allies of their chief’s. The whole group makes its way to a corner of the jungle carefully selected beforehand, and there, still singing, they begin to cut down the trees, taking care, however, to leave plenty of stems round which the tendrils of the yam will be able to climb. This operation may go on for weeks, for the forest is dense and the tools rudimentary in the extreme: a stone axe or adze (unless one has been lucky enough to obtain a steel axe from the ‘clay-men’), and those natural yet effective weapons, fire and one’s own hands. When a large section on the slope of a mountain-side has thus been cleared of trees and undergrowth, the men build around it a fence of branches and split tree-trunks, packed close together and bound with thick lianas. The women, meanwhile, burn off the last of the underbrush and pluck out any weeds. Then the ground is ready. From the moment the festival is announced, a ban is placed on all yam plants in the region, and woe betide anyone foolhardy enough to eat the least morsel of one! Thus, when the time comes to start the lomulomé, there are ample seed plants available. Each person brings a quantity and piles them in a heap on the small patch of ground for which he and his family will be responsible, even although, strictly speaking, the lomulomé is a communal affair. Then the village witch-doctor intervenes. At the four corners of

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the garden, he plants a shrub with vividly coloured leaves which gives off a particular odour. The witch-doctor is the only one who can smell it, but under the influence of his magic formulas, it spreads over the whole enclosure and immediately drives away any harmful insects. He then goes up to each pile of seed plants in turn, and recites in a monotonous sing-song voice the names of all the sacred places in the region where there are accumulations of large stones, so that the yams which are about to be planted shall become as numerous and as big. Then, with a symbolic gesture, he scatters the plants, first, however, selecting one among them which is regarded as a sort of ‘buttress’ for all the others. Having dug a hole, he plants the chosen yam seedling, which has been entwined with a shoot from a very quick-growing plant, so that the virtues of the latter may be transmitted to all the yams in the garden, and help them to grow thickly and fast. Once these rites have been performed on each separate strip of the garden, the witch-doctor becomes an ordinary member of the tribe again and joins the others in the general sowing of the plants. From this moment onwards, each man must take great care not to contract any impurity. For if he were to transgress any of the innumerable rules which govern the cultivation of the lomulomé, the whole yam crop might be irreparably jeopardized. And in that case, it would be a poor look-out for him! It is for this reason that, while the planting is in progress, none of the villagers must touch his head or his hair with his hands; if he did so, the yams would become stringy. (But as the fleas that inhabit Papuan scalps so abundantly are unfamiliar with this interdict, the sufferer must gain relief by scratching himself with a sliver of

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wood!) Then, while the favoured vegetable is growing, the villagers must not eat new sweet potatoes: their skin is too delicate and, in consequence, there is a risk of the yam skins also becoming too delicate, allowing them to go rotten. Since the same thing might happen if they ate bananas, these too, are forbidden. The prohibition also extends to the delicious malaghé almond, which has a black skin and thus would cause the yams to go black. Nor must the eggs of wild birds – if one is lucky enough to find any in the bush – be eaten, for then the yams would go soft. The flesh of the ant-eater must be avoided, for otherwise, the beasts of the forest would come and scoop up all the planted yams just as this animal scoops up ants with its long, sticky tongue. There must be a similar abstention from flying foxes and bats, to prevent the yams disappearing into the air; and from frogs, white worms, caterpillars (all highly esteemed dishes, nevertheless!) for that would make the yams soft. One wonders how the villagers manage to remember and observe all these taboos. If one of them is accidentally infringed, the person concerned remains unclean for several days. He will then be careful to avoid going near the lomulomé and will even keep aloof from his companions, for his impurity is catching, like influenza. Yet the taboos do not only cover the eating of food. Anyone who steps on a piece of pig’s dung is regarded as unclean: for if he is incautious enough to go anywhere near the yam field, the latter will acquire a bad smell. It is also forbidden to have any contact with children, even one’s own, to fondle them, or take them in one’s arms, or carry them on one’s shoulder in the native fashion: for then the yams would cease to grow. Any dealings with women, whether wives or others, is strictly forbidden. The married

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men do not even go back to their own huts – which are known as ‘the house of the women’ – but live in the big communal hut of the village, their wives bringing their meagre meals to them there, and depositing them on the threshold, without themselves going inside. Furthermore, although at ordinary times the women do all the gardening, they are not considered either capable or worthy of looking after the yams of the lomulomé. The natives say that they are too weak to dig the deep holes in which the plants must be set, and too nervous and erratic to build up the earth round them once they have begun to grow: distracted by their incessant gossiping, they would be sure to prick the tubers with their pointed sticks or their nails, and then they would be hopelessly spoilt. They also say that the women’s movements are too brusque and jerky to drive in the supporting stakes without hurting the tender shoots. Finally, it is the women’s role to handle the children, and this, again, is incompatible with a desirable growth of the sacred vegetable. Let it be added that the women will eat anything, without discrimination, so that one can never tell whether they are unclean or not. All this notwithstanding, it is the women who do all the tedious jobs in the lomulomé, like thinning out the weeds, as well as others which are their particular preserve, such as growing taros, sugar canes, banana plants, sigos (a sort of rush of which the ear is eaten), and ghilames, whose green stems combine the flavours of asparagus and artichoke. They even plant their own yams, which grow just as well as, if not better than, the men’s. But tradition counts above all. Among the Papuans, as elsewhere, it is accepted that women are good for nothing as soon as serious issues are at stake. That, anyway, was

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the firm belief of Friday, an involuntary but hardened bachelor, who proceeded, while we were awaiting the ‘emissaries of the Gabé’, to initiate me into the secrets of this greatest of all Papuan festivals.

Chapter 2

INVITATION TO THE DANCE A sound of singing, indistinct at first, but growing clearer every minute, floated up from the deep gorge bordering the small plateau on which my mission station had been erected. The ‘emissaries of the dance’ were drawing near. In honour of their coming, Friday had quickly donned what one might call his native uniform, determined to be well dressed for the occasion. Round his loins he wore a filthy old rag which fell to his knees but otherwise he was naked, or very nearly so, his modesty – by which he set great store – being saved only by an exiguous loin cloth of red calico: but his whole body gleamed with a layer of lubrication, and I could not but suspect that he had been digging into my stock of castor oil. However, I decided to shut my eyes – and my nostrils! – to this fact. Into the fibre bracelets which he wore round his biceps he had slipped little sprigs of varicoloured leaves. And now, he was frantically and energetically combing his thick, frizzy mop of hair with one of my metal table forks. Laughing, he exclaimed: ‘Can you hear them? . . . They’re almost here. They’re going to invite you, and I shall go too. Oh, what a wonderful Gabé it’s going to be! Our hearts are jumping for joy.’

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To be honest, my own heart was calm enough, but I could almost see the wild tattoo that Friday’s was beating, just under the skin of his glistening chest. ‘But tell me, Friday,’ I said, ‘why are they inviting me to their dance? They know quite well that the Gabé is not one of my customs, and that I should not join in the dancing . . . ’ ‘Yes. But the “path of the dance” crosses our territory, and it is the rule that all the chiefs living along the path must be invited. You are a chief, so they have to invite you, and you cannot refuse.’ At that moment, a troop of natives burst into the central clearing of the mission. There were about forty of them, all armed with long wooden spears or stone clubs, which they were skilfully brandishing. They approached with measured leaps and bounds, meanwhile giving voice to a sonorous chant which provided the rhythm for their movements. Twenty yards from my dwelling-hut, they all stopped dead and fell silent. The spears were lowered, the clubs shouldered. Only a few years before these people had been cannibals. They had barely emerged from a state of almost inhuman savagery, and if I had not known them, the sight of that bristling and hirsute crew might well have filled me with fear. But the thick lips were parted in smiles, the teeth shone with a dazzling innocent whiteness. A group of five young men detached themselves from the main body and came towards me. They were unarmed. ‘The emissaries of the Gabé,’ Friday whispered in my ear. I stood at the top of my wooden flight of steps and watched them come.

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They were decked in carefully contrived finery. Cockatoo feathers, white and yellow, formed a crown above the hair, fringed with short tresses. Daubs of red, white and black made a brilliant mask around their eyes and a multicoloured chin-piece beneath the mouth. Their waists were tightly encircled by belts of bark, like small corsets. Attached to the belt, and to the arm and leg-bands of plaited grass, were flowers and leaves which shivered at each movement. Without a word, the emissaries lined up before me, while I once more sat down, adopting the bored and indifferent air that was expected on such occasions. This required no great effort on my part. Solemnly, one of them laid five tobacco leaves at my feet. I looked at him, and had an impression that he was laughing at me. ‘What is this?’ I asked, somewhat irritably. ‘Why, the tobacco of invitation,’ he replied, looking surprised. Clearly, I ought not to have asked such a question, since this was something that everyone in the region presumably understood. ‘The tobacco of invitation?’ I said. ‘But where are the areca nuts? Could it be, by any chance, that you are treating me as a person of no worth?’ The emissaries exchanged bewildered glances. The troop who had accompanied them had drawn nearer. I sensed a tension in the atmosphere: and that confirmed me in my earlier impression that they were mocking me. I had heard that a leading chief received his invitation in the form of a cluster of areca nuts, the symbols of peace and friendship. But all they had offered me were a few wrinkled leaves of tobacco. I had, in point of fact, no desire for

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either one or the other. But confronted with these primitive creatures, I had to maintain the prestige they themselves had bestowed upon me, even if, personally, I felt I had no right to it. One of the emissaries emboldened himself to put the ritual question: ‘Will you not come and dance with us?’ ‘No. You have been mocking me. Be off with you!’ At that, the faces of my visitors turned literally grey. Their mouths gaped, their eyes grew round. Suddenly, they turned on their heels and went back to the main group. Everyone at once squatted on his heels and a low agitated murmur of voices arose. I had no idea what was happening. But at that moment, Friday, who had followed the whole scene as if rooted to the spot, stepped forward. He was the very picture of despair. ‘Ah! What have you done?’ he reproached me in lowered tones. ‘You have stopped the dance . . . This may lead to war because of the way you have insulted the “Fathers of the Gabé”.’ ‘What do you mean by “insulted”? It was they who insulted me!’ ‘Alas, will you never understand the customs of the “true men”? . . . Wait, I’ll explain it to you . . .’ With hurried words, Friday then initiated me into the rites of invitation to the Gabé. Later, I was able to supplement these sketchy details with fuller knowledge. When, in the village that is giving the dance, the pigs have reached the desirable state of plumpness and the yam crop is ready to be gathered, the chief calls a council in the big communal hut, to decide officially who is to be invited.

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This weighty question has been exhaustively discussed for a long time past, even from before the planting of the lomulomé, and the minor chiefs, the notables and the ordinary people have all put forward their views, vigorously and on an equal footing. Only the women are denied the right to speak, but they make up for it as soon as they can get their husbands alone afterwards. While these debates are in progress, however, the leading chief does not open his mouth. Such discussions are far beneath his dignity, and he does not appear even to notice they are going on. His role is simply to approve or disapprove, as if he has known from the very start what must be done. But in fact, the chief follows the course of the argument with just as passionate an interest as any of his subjects and, like them, he will finally take the stronger side. In this way, he is able to preserve all the appearances of sovereignty. (We are, lest the reader should doubt it, talking of Papuans, and not of statesmen in civilized countries!) In the first place, there is one inviolable principle to be observed in the choice of dancers. They must all, officially, be the leading chiefs of other villages: and on the actual day of the festival, they will display the full splendour of their majesty in a short but solemn ballet of leaps and skips. These are the so-called ‘day-time dancers’, and they alone truly merit the name. Nevertheless, each brings with him the ‘night dancers’, in other words, the strongest warriors, duly prepared for the event, and after the royal dance during the day, it is the latter who demonstrate the wealth, power and talent of their tribe in an elaborate series of dances which lasts all night. Day and night dancers alike are entitled to a special portion from the pigs which are to

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be sacrificed: the backstrap and the snout, in one single piece. In addition, the day and night dancers, numbering perhaps ten from each village, are accompanied by groups of varying size and composed of wives, uncles, aunts, male and female cousins and other relatives and friends, whose function is to provide the music for the dance, and even more, to act as ‘managers’, porters, servants and cooks. The members of this retinue are not included among the official guests, but are regarded as having casually ‘dropped in’. All the same, they are allowed to share in the feast, in the same way as the relations and friends of the villagers giving the Gabé, who, having taken part in all the preparatory work, have to be invited as well. The arrival of so many people means a whole multitude to be housed and fed. The first essential, therefore, is to know exactly how many leading chiefs to invite and to anticipate, according to the size of their villages, how large their escort is likely to be: otherwise, the village may find itself swamped and short of food, and that would be a terrible disgrace. The burning question is to know which chiefs to invite. If the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ have on some earlier occasion been officially invited by a strange tribe, the matter is simplified. They are then under a strict obligation to return the equivalent of the presents they themselves have received from their former hosts. The latter will therefore be invited, as in any other well-regulated society, as an exchange of courtesy. But if the village invited only those in whose debt it stood, there would not be a sufficient number of dancers. Here, then, it decides, is a unique occasion to place others in its debt in turn, by inviting tribes with which it has so far

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had no formal link. It is in this way that alliances are established: although it may also have the opposite effect of stirring up hostilities. What happens, in fact, is that sometimes the village sends an invitation to a tribe with which it has old scores to settle. It is a way of issuing a challenge, and places the invited tribe in an extremely delicate situation. If it does not accept, everyone will attribute the refusal to fear and the tribe will be despised. If it does accept, there is the danger that some of its members will be molested, bewitched or even slaughtered during or after the dance. So many calculations, so much diplomacy, inevitably entail long and tortuous deliberations. Whole nights are passed in these discussions, which are all the more lively because yet another custom complicates the issue. In other words, invitations cannot be merely scattered at will over the whole region. The choice is limited by the necessity of deciding upon the ‘path of the dance’, the track that the emissaries and messengers carrying the invitations will have to take, and which will also be used by the guests making their way to their hosts’ village. This path is sacred, and no other may be used. Thus, all the chiefs through whose territory the path passes must be invited. For if a single one were missed out, he would forbid access to his territory to anyone having any connection with the dance, and if some bold spirit dared to defy him, he would be killed. If a whole group made the attempt, it would mean war. In addition, if any chief refused his invitation, and by that token the right of free passage, the festival would be postponed or even cancelled, and war would be declared instead to avenge the affront. Thus it was that, by refusing the tobacco leaves that signified an invitation, I had, without realizing it, brought to a

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halt the greatest of all celebrations in the life of a tribe, the most solemn of native festivals, and had imposed a check on the intensive preparations for it that were in progress throughout the district. It was therefore not surprising that the emissaries of the Gabé had reacted as they did to my illconsidered gesture. All unwittingly, I had declared war not only on the tribe that was giving the dance, but on all those who had already accepted invitations to it. The matter might well have been decided there and then. I was alone and unarmed before a troop of about forty savages, which included representatives from all the villages through which the emissaries had already passed. The latter were present because it was so decreed by the ceremonial of invitation. For days and nights, the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ had counted and recounted the chiefs whom they had finally decided to invite, and whose names had been approved by the leading chief. For each, they had made up a little packet of croton or tobacco leaves. Ordinary guests, on the other hand, such as the night dancers or relatives, were entitled only to a few areca nuts. This was just what I had not known: or rather, I had got things the wrong way round, and had thus rejected those few leaves of bad tobacco which were nevertheless destined only for the leading chiefs. When the packets had been made up, emissaries were then chosen from among the bravest, most intelligent and most handsome warriors in the village. Then, in front of them, the elders counted the packets a hundred more times, repeating each time the names of the various recipients: for there must be no mistake. Finally, when they had learned their lesson perfectly, the emissaries set off in all their finery to fulfil their mission, being careful to follow the exact

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path decided upon in advance. The first village might be no more than an hour’s march along the path, but that made no difference. They would enter it singing and dancing, and be taken to the communal house, where they would be given areca nuts to chew and a pipe to smoke. They would then lay before the village chief the whole large bundle of invitations. The latter would count them, reciting the names of the guests, for by now everyone would know for whom each little packet was intended. Finally, he would take his own and return the others to the emissaries – by this gesture signifying that he accepted the invitation. The women of the village, warned of this visit long in advance, would already have laid in provisions from their cultivated plots and would be cooking great heaps of vegetables. There would be feasting and singing and then they would all fall asleep. The next day, the emissaries would set off once more, accompanied by several warriors from the village that had just been invited. The latter would form a guard of honour, preceding the others with songs and waving their spears and not leaving them until their mission was completed. They would proceed in this fashion to the next village, where the same ceremonial would take place, and so on to the very last village, which might be two or three days’ march away or even more. My own village – or rather my mission – happened to be the penultimate one of the series. That explained why there were so many warriors accompanying the emissaries and also their general consternation at my strange refusal. It could have meant war. In point of fact, neither they nor I had the least intention of fighting. But a way out had to be found.

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I planted myself at the head of the steps, the tobacco leaves in my hand. ‘Listen, all of you!’ I shouted, turning to the emissaries. ‘You have brought me the tobacco of invitation. At seeing these three miserable leaves of koukou (native tobacco) my heart became angry. But I did not know your customs on this point. I am a “clay-man”. But every day, mixing with you, I become more of a “true man” (native). Soon, I shall be like you, and you will be like me, knowing God, our Father, and obeying Him. Meanwhile, my heart is heavy that I have filled yours with bitterness. I accept the tobacco and I shall come to your dance!’ Something like an explosion followed. From where they had been squatting casually, the warriors bounded to their feet with lightning speed, and in a flash their spears were vibrating tautly at arm’s length, and their clubs whirling. A thunderous chant burst from their lungs, and they began to caper like madmen round the mission enclosure. Friday, more a-quiver every minute, once more reminded me that polite usage must be observed. ‘Now you must regale your visitors. Give them some food.’ ‘Food? But what food? We have nothing . . . ’ ‘Yes we have. There’s still a small bag of rice and some tins of bulomakau (in army parlance: bully beef). Let me make a meal for them.’ ‘But that’s the very last of our supplies, you wretch!’ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Friday said. ‘We’ll go to the dance and we’ll have piles of vegetables and pig-meat.’ He had his way!

Chapter 3

THE BEAUTY GLAND Friday had departed. As with all the other young men of the district, the demon of the dance was in him, and he could think of nothing else. I remained at the mission alone, with a practically empty storeroom, following the untimely visit of the emissaries of the Gabé. I therefore decided to go over each day to the neighbouring village, which had been the last to receive an invitation to the dance, so that I would be assured both of a meal and a chance to study the rites and customs with which the Papuans prepared themselves for their national festival. At the same time, I would be able to carry out my missionary duties among them. The village was less than an hour’s march away, and I set off on my first visit the day after the emissaries had departed. Nearing the village, my first encounter was with a number of young men, seated on an ancient tree-trunk that lay beside the path, who were busy with their toilet. One was shaving, or rather, depilating himself. With both hands raised to his cheeks, he was twirling several strands of a strong vegetable fibre between his thumbs and forefingers. At a slight pressure from the right-hand thumb, the strands parted, to enclose an odd hair or two; at a second pressure from the left-hand thumb, they were twisted together again, and the hairs with them; after that, a quick

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jerk of both hands was enough to pluck or sever them clean at the roots. The treatment was then repeated with the next few hairs . . . As can be seen, the operation was a long and painful one, the more so as it was not restricted to the hairs of the face, but extended over the whole body. Nevertheless, the youngster before me seemed to derive a certain pleasure from it. He gave me a smile: ‘I am making my face as smooth as a pretty pebble for the Gabé,’ he said. Another young man aroused my curiosity. He was sitting very erect, with his head bent stiffly back, and his whole face was covered with a sort of sticky grey paste. I had never seen anything like it before, and wondered whether it was a mud-pack or one of those other bizarre facial treatments so much in vogue among coquettish elderly women trying to retrieve a youthful appearance. I asked him what it was for. In rather thickened tones, for the mask prevented his jaws moving freely, he mumbled: ‘The hairs on my face were too long for me to use the bidé (the name given to the strands of fibre which serve as depilator). Therefore I covered my face with the sap of the tsinghivé (a wild rubber tree which exudes a powerful latex). Now, I’m waiting for it to dry.’ ‘What do you do next?’ ‘You’ll see . . . ’ He bent forward, thrust his fingers into a small heap of ashes to prevent them sticking to the latex, and felt the mask to find a segment that was already hard. He found one under the chin, and with a determined gesture, tore it

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off: the hairs came with it. This was yet another Papuan method of shaving. A third member of the party intrigued me even more. Armed with a long, slender stick, he seemed to be picking his teeth, but he went about this operation with such energy that his gums were stained with blood. ‘And what are you doing?’ I asked him. ‘Have you got toothache?’ ‘No,’ he replied, ejecting a great mouthful of bloodied spittle which fell near my feet. ‘No, I’m “piercing” my teeth for the big dance.’ It was in this way that I was initiated into the secrets of how to make oneself beautiful, according to Papuan notions, in preparation for the great feast. As soon as the emissaries of the dance have passed through a village and the chief has officially accepted their invitation, the whole village is thrown into turmoil. No time must be wasted, for the preparations are long and various. First, the council of elders meets, under the chief, to discuss who is to go to the dance. The chief himself must, of course, go, since theoretically he is the only one officially invited. But as he will take with him the night dancers and their numerous retinue, it is necessary to nominate rapidly the fortunate few who will represent the village and uphold its glory before all the others. In reality, the fate of the chosen dancers is scarcely an enviable one, for they must undergo a painful and exhausting programme to prepare themselves for their exalted role. For that matter, the whole village joins in these preparations. I realized this as soon as I entered the village. There were no women about.

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‘Where are your mothers, your wives and daughters?’ I asked. ‘In the forest,’ I was told. ‘They are collecting bark to make our costumes for the dance.’ The bark in question is stripped from a tree rather like a mulberry, and is soft and stringy. Having collected a sufficient quantity, the women energetically chew the pieces of bark for some days. When they have a large enough pile of viscous, chewed fragments, they go to the banks of a small mountain stream, and there they take wooden mallets and beat the lumps of bark on a flat stone, then rinse them in the water, then beat them again, until the pounded fragments are flattened and joined together into one piece, to form that primitive fabric known all over the Pacific as ‘tapa’ cloth. The lengths of material are then set out to dry and bleach in the sun, and are later ornamented with geometrical designs in red, yellow and black. The pieces used to make the dance costumes are about three yards long and ten inches wide. Men and women alike wear them in the following manner: first, the cloth is wound firmly round the waist, making a sort of belt which will support the rest; but at the same time, a good length is left free to hang in front, making a narrow apron. Next, the cloth is taken between the legs, so that modesty will be preserved in the eyes of the onlookers, and finally, is caught up in the belt again at the back, and allowed to fall to the ground, making a sort of tail. Women, however, are not entitled to wear this tail. But they are entitled to carry out a great number of different tasks. One of the things they must do, for example, is hastily to repair the nets used on ceremonial occasions, or make new ones.

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For this purpose, they again go into the forest and bring back fibrous leaves. In the village, the fibres are detached one by one and dried, and the women roll them against their thighs into long, thin cords, which are then, by means of cunning hand-made knots, fashioned into nets measuring at least six feet by four. Some of the strings are dyed red with the juice of certain berries, some yellow with liquid clay, others black with soot. These coloured cords are interwoven with the grey, undyed ones to form various geometrical patterns, which give the nets an extremely graceful appearance. Together with the ‘bikini’ of tapa cloth, the net, in fact, constitutes the women’s gala dress, being suspended from the head by a strap of woven material, and falling to the calves. It is like a huge cape of many folds, which serves not only as a garment, by day or night, but also as a carrier for provisions and a cradle for the youngest infant. Apart from attending to these fashion matters, the women must also tend the gardens, gather the vegetables and make the meals. Nevertheless, it is the dancers who have the most arduous and unremitting preparations to make for the Gabé. In the first place, they must take care of their ‘beauty gland’. It would, of course, be fruitless to look for this astonishing organ in any handbook of anatomy. It remains as yet undiscovered by our Western scientists, except perhaps for Carrel who, in Man the Unknown, seems to have at least suspected its existence. The Papuans, on the other hand, do not have the slightest doubt either as to its existence or its efficacy. Although no one has ever seen it, the gland is situated somewhere below the liver. The function of this mysterious

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organ is to contain, in secretion, the whole physical beauty of the body. It can be developed and strengthened by a vast number of complicated and often extremely dangerous practices. The skin then becomes smooth and satiny, the fat covering the muscles disappears or is harmoniously redistributed, and the limbs become supple and graceful. The virtue of the gland even communicates itself to the painted designs, materials and decorations used as bodily ornament. One day, during my stay at the village, I saw two young men in a bout of horseplay pinching each other. One of them grasped his companion’s right side with considerable violence. The latter abruptly interrupted the game, and cried angrily: ‘Don’t pinch me like that just where my urumalo is. [I have translated urumalo as ‘beauty gland’.] If you touch it, all its strength will pass into your body. And then, the colours will look fine on you, but no good at all on me.’ The first and most necessary condition for the care of the beauty gland is to be free of all impurity, or any magical taint or spell which one might have contracted by transgressing some taboo or other. A preliminary ceremony opens the series of purification rites. On the second day of my stay at the village, I noticed that a group of young men, who had set out early that morning, came back towards midday carrying great clusters of green bananas, so hard that to make them edible they must be cooked. The chosen dancers at once gathered round a blazing fire, on which they began to roast the bananas. They then placed them in a wooden trough, in the bottom of which the village witch-doctor had placed a fragment of a special

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liana, which I was told was the liana of fasting and abstinence. It appears that, in the heat given off by the peeled and steaming bananas, this creeper produces a special vapour, which enters into the very substance of the fruit. ‘You see,’ one of the older men remarked sagely, ‘this vapour has the same effect over all taboos as your salts have on the waste matter of our bowels. As soon as the dancers have eaten the charmed bananas, all magical impurities immediately depart out of them. They cannot be seen or smelt, but our men are freed of them.’ And indeed, once they had gluttonously devoured the purifying fruit, the dancers looked relieved. I noticed that each one of them took a tiny piece of the liana and placed it carefully in the bottom of his shoulder sack, the little net that serves so conveniently as a pocket for the Papuans. I even noticed that one had been given, by an older man, a polished stone, about the size of an egg and black as jet, which he stowed away with his piece of liana. ‘What are you putting in your net?’ I asked. He was a catechumen, and no doubt he was too ashamed to reply. He went off shrugging his shoulders. But the old man who had been following me about again presented an explanation: ‘That was the stone of beauty. It is in his bag, against his body. He will keep it about him always from now on. Owing to this perpetual contact, his skin will become as smooth and gleaming as the stone. The man who gave him the precious pebble is already married, and therefore has no great need of any “beauty stone”, while the young man . . .’ The old man gave a vulgar chuckle. ‘And now,’ he added, ‘all the dancers will begin the big fast.’

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It is surprising to note the significance attributed to fasting by primitive peoples in all the important events in their lives -and for the Fuyughé Papuans, the dance of the Gabé is certainly one of the most important. Furthermore, the fasting and abstinence imposed by the Catholic Church on its members are of small account compared with the privations of all kinds which the Papuans undergo. Some striking examples will be given in the course of this narrative. It is just before the eating of the charmed bananas, and on many occasions thereafter, that the dancers and the young men – who are extremely careful not to miss a single rite in their pursuit of beauty – undertake the curious toothpicking operation which had intrigued me on my arrival at the village. This rite is preceded by a communal ceremony. The future dancers gather round a branch of the ofolo tree, a hardwood which is easily split. The branch is broken into slender splinters, each about six inches long. Each dancer takes a sliver and begins to clean his nails: and as this is a rare occurrence, they are obliged to go about it with such vigour that finally blood appears. This done, the orange stick becomes a tooth-pick. It is thrust between the teeth with such force that the gums soon begin to bleed freely. After that, the tooth-pick is carefully put aside so that it may be used as a fork during the coming feast, with which the proffered vegetables and meat may be elegantly speared. ‘But why do they inflict such torture upon themselves?’ I asked the ancient hierophant at my heels. He seemed astonished at my ignorance. ‘Why, it’s to drive out all the impurities that might have remained hid-

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den after the feast of magic bananas…Besides,’ he added with a note of flattery, ‘I’ve seen you rubbing your teeth with a brush every morning. It’s quite clear that you want to stay handsome. They want to become handsome, that’s all.’

Chapter 4

THE GREAT FAST AND ITS TABOOS While I was making my almost daily visits to the village, one man particularly caught my attention. With an air at once majestic and preoccupied, he was everywhere at once, shouting orders, taking charge whenever the future dancers assembled, endlessly gesticulating. With his principal garment a frayed and dirty turban wound round his head, with his eagle-beaked nose, wide and mobile mouth, and flashing eyes, he had all the appearance of a chief. I knew him well by sight, however, and knew that he was not one. Besides, the true chief always remains calm and serene, however violent the agitation around him. A moment came when this personage, tired no doubt by his exertions, sat himself down on the outer edge of the platform in front of the communal hut, from which he could watch all the village activity. I went up to him: ‘Here, take this and smoke,’ I said, holding out a piece of newspaper and a chunk of tobacco (for our tobacco came in plug form). ‘It will do you good. You rush about so much that your body must be aching. What are your exact duties in this Gabé business?’ He looked at me with an air of pained astonishment, as if scandalized that anyone could fail to be aware of his importance. He took the tobacco, shredded it with his nails,

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rolled a cigarette and lit it, and then, after a few meditative inhalations, said quietly: ‘Don’t you know that I am the imane’ ou’ mourive?’ It took me some time to grasp the meaning of this expression. The fast (imane), whose object is to make the dancers fit for the Gabé, entails not only numerous alimentary privations, but includes ceremonies designed to make the subject handsome, and to rid him of all hindrances, as, for example, by the eating of the spell-laden bananas, the ‘piercing of the teeth’, and many others as well. In each village, there is one man whose hereditary role is to ensure that these diverse and complicated rites are observed. He is called the expert on fasting (imane’ ou’ mourive), just as the term amour’ ou’ mourive (expert on women), is used of anyone who behaves like a Don Juan, or âne’ ou’ mourive (expert on men), of anyone who shows himself to be a perfect host to his friends and visitors. (It is interesting and even salutary to note that in the Fuyughé language, the word for ‘woman’ is amour, and for ‘man’ âne’, which in French mean, of course, ‘love’ and ‘donkey’.) The expert on fasting is thus the sovereign authority on all questions of what may or may not be eaten, what songs it is fitting or not fitting to sing, and in what circumstances, and the actions which must be undertaken and those that must at all costs be avoided. He is the master of ceremonies during this vital preliminary period before the actual Gabé takes place. Thanks to a number of further discussions with the expert, I began to get a vague picture of the terrifying restrictions which the designated dancers must submit to, in order to develop and make more effective their ‘beauty gland’.

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First, they are formally prohibited from having any contact with water. They no longer wash, for fear of dulling the sheen of their skin or casting a chili on the famous gland. But they can, and indeed must, rub their bodies with croton or any other highly-coloured leaves, especially yellow ones. Endowed by nature with all the deeper shades of brown, the supreme distinction among these people is to have a light, copper-coloured skin. They also rub themselves with roots which exhale a pleasant perfume (pleasant, that is, to Papuan nostrils, for their olfactory sense is not exactly the same as ours), or with oleaginous plants. The idea is that through these contacts, their skins will take on a becoming hue, an agreeable odour and a fine surface lustre. Before these vegetable friction pads are used, it is thought advisable to leave them out in the sun for a time, not to dry them, but so that the sun’s glittering rays may become concentrated in them and so pass to the dancer’s body. ‘And what happens if one of your fasters is caught in the rain?’ I asked the expert. ‘He will certainly have been in contact with water then!’ ‘Oh, there’s no fear of that,’ he replied. ‘The fasters never go so far from the communal hut that they cannot return there for shelter if a shower threatens.’ ‘But what if they haven’t time?’ The expert smiled: ‘In that case, I shut my eyes, and they dry themselves with leaves.’ Not only are the dancers forbidden to wash, but they must also not have any water to drink. But since that universal and tasteless liquid is the only beverage known to the Papuans, this means that they have, in practice, no right

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to drink anything at all. They are not even able to quench their thirst by chewing the juicy sugar-cane, for that, too, is forbidden, the last time they are allowed to touch it being during the meal of bananas with their magical liana perfume. All they can do when they are thirsty is to munch the ripe fruit of the paw-paw or the young green shoots of the plant called tsibé, which are juicy enough but have a dubious flavour. As for food, all meat – whether of four-footed provenance, bird, worm or caterpillar – is absolutely banned. Sweet potatoes and taros are the only vegetables allowed, and even these must not be cooked in water, since boiled vegetables are commonly regarded as fattening. The sweet potatoes are cooked among the ashes and the taros on special heated stones in the hearth of the communal hut. As can be seen, the fasters’ choice of diet is severely limited, and the same rigorous limitations apply to quantity as well: a few sweet potatoes and segments of taro in the morning, the same in the evening, and nothing more. Our sternest Western dieticians could scarcely impose any more spartan régime. But these are not the only restrictions. It will be remembered that in the village giving the Gabé, those tending the lomulomé garden must submit to an extraordinary discipline over every sense: and it is the same with the dancers in the invited villages. They are forbidden to have any dealings with women whatsoever. From the moment the fast begins, a husband not only ceases to see his wife, but does not even set foot inside his own hut. Instead, he lives in the big communal house. His wife does not even prepare his food for him any longer – and that is the great outward symbol of the marriage union among the Papuans.

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This fact sheds light on a practice that had at first surprised me. Instead of seeing outside each hut the usual cooking fire, round which the married women normally busied themselves in the late afternoon preparing the family meal, I had noticed that there were only one or two fires lit, in the middle of the village clearing. They were being tended by only a few old women, their flesh creased and wrinkled, their flat, pendulous breasts like worn and empty wine-skins, who were no longer preparing food in the customary bamboo tubes or on hot stones, but merely roasting a few sweet potatoes in the cinders. They were being assisted by several young girls, entirely naked and therefore still under the age of puberty. When the potatoes were cooked, the old women piled them on hollow wooden platters, which were then taken by the young girls and deposited on the platform in front of the entrance to the communal hut. Having done this, they at once took to their heels. When this miserable repast was already quite cold, the men emerged from their retreat, and snatching up one or two potatoes, hastily devoured them, skin and all. The expert confirmed my deductions on this point: ‘Only the old women and very young girls are allowed to prepare food for the dancers,’ he explained. ‘No other woman is allowed to approach or have even the most distant contact with them.’ ‘But why do they let the food get cold?’ ‘Because, if they ate it hot, their beauty gland would suffer and would not function properly. They must eat their meals dry to avoid all forms of liquid, and cold to avoid all forms of heat.’

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Another example of the strictness of these taboos, and of the determination of the dancers to observe them, occurred only a moment or so later. While I was talking with the expert, one of the dancers emerged from the communal hut. He was walking towards a nearby part of the forest, when a little boy of three or four ran towards him, gurgling with pleasure and holding out his little arms. It was his small son. The man turned abruptly. The child had almost reached him. The man jumped aside, and then, in a voice full of wrath and with a violent gesture, he ordered the child to go away. The boy’s affectionate impulse was brusquely checked. Crestfallen and frightened, he thrust one finger in his mouth, and big tears welled up in his large dark eyes. His swollen little belly began to heave with sobs, while his father walked away, grumbling to himself. The mother, who had been holding back, ran forward, plucked the child up from the ground, and shaking and scolding it, made her way back to the family hut. ‘Married dancers,’ said the expert, by way of emphasis, ‘are not allowed to be with their wives, or even to go near their children. If they took them in their arms, their beauty glands would shrink.’ We had climbed on to the platform in front of the communal hut, where several of the fasters were taking the air. I was about to pass behind them. Immediately, they leapt to their feet and turned towards me. Flattered at being the object of so much deference, I begged them to sit down again. But the expert quickly explained their action. ‘You must learn,’ he said, ‘that no one can stand or even pass behind one of the fasters. The emanations of the

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beauty gland might escape into the person whom one cannot see behind one.’ It must be noted that this inhuman state of affairs lasts not merely a few days, but for two, three or even four months. It ends only after the big dance by night, in the centre of the village giving the Gabé. All that the fasters have to sustain them is the areca nut, which they chew ceaselessly. At every leisure moment, one sees them cracking the small green nuts, which grow in clusters under the fronds of the graceful areca palm. They take out the white and slightly bitter kernel, and chew it with a catkin of betel, a type of climbing pepper-plant, and a leaf of the same plant. When they have reduced all these to a single compact mortar, they take a bone spatula and with it extract a little quicklime, which is kept in a small gourd. Skilfully, so as not to burn the inside of the mouth, they then mix the lime with the already masticated material. At once, they begin to salivate freely, and spit gobbets of blood-red spittle all round them. This practice has a tonic effect, but if over-indulged in, it may make the head spin and produce the same sort of intoxication as alcohol. The dancers, naturally, over-indulge it, since it is their only way of keeping in shape. Besides, the chewing of betel has a further effect which is considered desirable: it makes the teeth as black as pieces of anthracite, a further token of beauty not to be despised. The dancers know perfectly well, however, that the protracted fast is bad for their health. But they do not care. I remarked on this to one of them.

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‘But I must observe the imane (the fast),’ he retorted, ‘so that I shall have “the true figure for a member of the Gabé”.’ What does it all amount to? The first avowed aim of the fast is, obviously, to prepare oneself for the mountains of food to be consumed during the great festival, for food is always the primary Papuan consideration. The second aim is to make oneself handsome, and thus win renown both personally and for one’s village. The third is to satisfy that love of the dance and of ornamentation, of colourful design and living sculpture, which seems to be the only art for which the mountain-dwelling Papuans have any feeling, and at which, with their songs, they are past masters. The fourth aim, not openly admitted but perhaps the most important of all, is to attract the women: the young unmarried men hoping to find themselves one or more wives, the married men hoping to find a new one, temporary or permanent. ‘But surely you know,’ as the wise elder said to me, ‘it’s all done for the sake of the women.’ Cherchez la femme, it seems, is as valid in Papua as elsewhere.

Chapter 5

THE GARDENERS OF THE GABÉ While the villages invited to the Gabé are feverishly engaged in preparing and perfecting their teams of dancers, the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ are no less actively engaged in transforming the village which will serve as host, so much so that it resembles an ant-heap into which someone has maliciously thrust a stick. In point of fact, I was not able actually to witness what went on in the village of Oulida during the period when it was making ready for its great Gabé. Nevertheless, as detailed reports of progress used to arrive daily in even the meanest huts of the region, I have been able from these, and from the information I subsequently gathered concerning other Gabés, to build up a reasonably accurate picture. The first thing to which the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ must give constant care and attention is the lomulomé, the huge communal garden in which the yams are grown. The observance of the multiple taboos and interdictions attached to it is rigorously enforced. And with good reason: for if any careless, half-witted, or ill-intentioned person were to infringe a single one of these taboos, the whole crop would be lost, or at least endangered. In that case, everything would have to be started afresh, and the date of the festival postponed, since it cannot take place until after the yams are gathered. It has even been known for the Gabé to be

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postponed for two or three years and yet not abandoned. To keep up their enthusiasm, the unfortunate villagers then contented themselves with salvaging the plumpest yams from the spoilt crop, and sharing them out and eating them during small, intimate local celebrations. This was their way of showing that they had not lost hope or courage. At the village of Oulida, thanks to a general vigilance towards the taboos, as well as to the efforts of the witchdoctors and, no doubt, of the gardeners themselves, there was every sign of a good crop. It is at this critical stage that every care is lavished on the regal vegetable. Not a single weed is allowed to appear between the young yam shoots. With the delicate and cautious movements of a surgeon laying bare a kidney, the Papuan gardener digs away the earth round the yam to let the air get to the young roots. Then he builds a little dam, to trap as much water as possible and thus make a sort of miniature lake round each plant. For a long time I thought this was purely a method of irrigation, and it filled me with admiration for the talent of these primitive husbandmen. But I was wrong. The dam does, indeed, hold the rain water, but it is primarily constructed as a vessel for water over which the sorcerer has pronounced certain appropriate spells. The water is also sprinkled over the garden from thick bamboos. No one is allowed to go near the garden for the next five days, during which time the magic water is left to exert its influence undisturbed: and, indeed, on returning to the garden, it is easy to see that the yams have grown. The hot tropical sun certainly has a great deal to do with it. But the sun is a normal phenomenon, and therefore does not count. The diligent gardeners slave away, plucking out all the weeds

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which the magic water has also brought forth in undue profusion, loosening the earth round each plant, and thinning out the smallest roots, leaving only the biggest in place. In this way, the yam may grow to a vast size. It can be seen that tending the lomulomé is a heavy task. ‘Is all this care and attention given only to the yams set aside for the Gabé?’ I asked one of the old men. He arched his grimy eyebrows. ‘Of course!’ What did you think? In the ordinary gardens, it’s enough to thin the weeds once in a while, stick in a supporting stake here and there, recite the necessary formulas, and wait until the crop is ready. If we had to work as hard on our ordinary gardens as we do on the lomulomé, we’d all die of fatigue.’ ‘All the same,’ I insisted, ‘you can see that the lomulomé produces a better crop.’ ‘No doubt. But, you see, the yams from the ordinary gardens are just for ourselves. No one else is there to see them. On the other hand, the yams from the lomulomé will be admired by great crowds, who will proclaim their size and flavour, and our talent, far and wide . . .’ He stopped and thrust out his chest. ‘We “true men” don’t work for food, but for fame!’ And surely that is the same sentiment as underlies our food and agricultural exhibitions at home. The frail stems of the yams thrust slowly upward, and spread on all sides, covering the soft with a carpet of green leaves. Some of them then have to be staked. This is an operation demanding considerable precautions – not so much in the setting of the stakes, which is done in the same way as rows of peas are propped up – but in what follows. Once the stakes have been planted, and the women – who are considered too clumsy to handle the stakes them-

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selves – have woven the tendrils over their supports, the men go off to a nearby stream and carefully wash their hands, which they then dry with special leaves resembling those of the water geranium, the voipode and the ilisé. Returning to the village, they at once smear their hands with pork or cassowary fat, specially kept for such occasions. ‘Why are you greasing yourselves like that?’ I asked, the first time I saw the natives putting on these ‘gauntlets’ of rancid fat. One of the village worthies condescended to explain. ‘Can you be so ignorant as not to know that pork or cassowary fat prevents direct contact with fire? Without this precaution, we should not be able to lift our potatoes from the ashes, or light our pipes, or arrange our hearths: for if we touched the flames and then our yams, they would go all black as if they had been burnt.’ When the yams begin to spring up, a ceremony is held in order to help them to grow and multiply. The tribesman who happens to know the proper formula – he need not be necessarily a sorcerer – announces one evening in the communal hut that the time has come for the Ab’ ou’ Metame (the ‘laying’ of the yam field). The next day, everyone lends a hand. Some collect ashes from the village hearths, and others go to the mountain stream whose waters, according to the words handed down from the mythical forebear of the race, Tsidibé, are beneficial to the regal root. They bathe there, and bring back sand taken from the banks. The following day, the villagers go in a group to the lomulomé. Each villager responsible for a particular strip of ground chooses the finest yam in his plot, and plucks it out,

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stem, roots and all, but does not fill in again the hole thus made. The uprooted yams are then placed in a heap in one corner of the garden, and everyone gathers round. Then the ‘father of the formula’ exclaims: ‘Are you all ready?’ Like a well-trained troop of boy scouts, the crowd responds: ‘Ready!’ The men then seize the yams, and cradling them in their arms, run with them to the village. Remaining behind alone, the ‘father of the formula’ tosses a handful of ashes into each of the freshly made holes. The ash, whatever its state at that moment, retains the property of spreading heat. It is thus able, from the hole into which it has been thrown, to warm each section of the garden, and thus help the yams to ripen. In similar fashion, the still slightly damp sand is scattered over each section. It is hoped that by this gesture, the yams will multiply like grains of sand, in the same manner as the children of Abraham. Meanwhile, in the centre of the village clearing, the gathered yams have been thrown on to a blazing fire to roast just as they are, still with earth clinging to them, and with stem and roots that are quickly consumed by the flames. When they are cooked, the married men share them out among themselves and eat them, taking care, however, first to lop off the tops, or ‘heads’, for these will be used in the planting of a new garden. Bachelors, adolescents and children must not take part in this feast, for otherwise they are liable to become weak, sickly and covered with boils. Naturally, there can be no question of the women joining in. So in this way, the married men are able to derive an occasional advantage from their status.

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Having had their fill of yams for the first time in many months, the banqueters gather up the ‘heads’, and cast them with vigorous gestures into the still warm embers. ‘Fleas, bugs, lice and other pests, these are for you,’ they clamour. They are convinced that the fleas and other intolerable vermin will be placated by this offering, and will no longer dare to importune either the villagers or their guests: and each one jealously clings to this illusion, even while he continues to scratch himself. After this ceremony, all the taboos which have hitherto weighed so heavily on the gardeners and, by a rebound action, on the whole village, are lifted. Nevertheless, care must still be taken not to eat the almonds of the bailé, which finally ripen only as they begin to rot in a pool of water, for the yams, also plunged in a bed of mud, would surely be ruined. It is also advisable not to approach the yam garden wearing flowers that have a powerful scent. The yams have so delicate a sense of smell that they might find this offensive. In the same way, one must not sleep in the garden overnight, as the Papuans are inclined to do when they feel too lazy, after a moderately exhausting day, to return to the village. Such imprudence might lead to the stomach swelling up, and finally to death, since one would have eaten the uyame of the privileged vegetables. If one is to judge by this last belief, it seems that the natives come finally to consider the yams in the lomulomé as living beings. The uyame is that envelope or vapour, or, to use the metaphysical term, that aura which is supposed to float about the human body, and which may for a time cling to any place where a body has rested. It possesses a maleficent influence. For instance, if you are on a journey

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and you take refuge for the night in a hut in the bush and sleep on the heap of ferns and dried grass which has already been used as a bed by someone else, you run the risk of ‘eating the uyame’ of your unknown predecessor, of which you may well die, or at the least suffer a very severe illness. Anyone who has ever spent the night in a really squalid hotel may recognize what the Papuans mean. At all events, for them, the uyame is the cause of many of those maladies which poor, misguided Whites call rheumatism, indigestion, catching a cold, and by other such idle names which are at once the source of so much pride and misfortune. In brief, we have to accept the fact that yams, too, have an uyame, and that it is not healthy to rest next to their dwelling-place. After some three months-months crowded with heavy tasks and preoccupations, with fears and hopes, with perpetual privations and brief carousings – the yams of the lomulomé at last reach full maturity. The owner of each separate patch uproots them in turn, as soon as he deems them to be ripe, and stacks them in his own hut, without any particular ceremony. But a day comes when nothing is left in the lomulomé but a few meagre plants which may have been overlooked deliberately, and when everyone agrees that the harvest is finished. The yams are then brought out of the individual huts and deposited in the central clearing. Here, they are packed together upright in serried ranks, so that the whole clearing seems to be paved with the whitish, curiously-shaped tubers. An old man happened to be standing beside me as I watched this operation of stacking the yams to form a solid carpet, and the sight clearly evoked in him an impulse of national pride, for he straighted his bent old back. ‘You

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know,’ he said, ‘we display our poor, dear (fanimo) little yams like this just to make sure that we will be able to feed the huge crowd that will come to our Gabé.’ In reality, neither he nor I, nor anyone else in the village could foresee, or even guess, how many people would arrive for the Gabé. And even if we had known, it would still have been impossible to judge the quantity of vegetables that would be needed to feed all the guests for an indeterminate number of days. The sole aim of the display, in other words, was to flatter the proper pride of the villagers, for word would travel throughout the region that the courtyard of their village had disappeared beneath a dense layer of colossal yams. In fact, one was reminded of some agricultural festival at home, the beribboned poles and banners and coloured lanterns, and the trestle tables with vegetables on show. The Papuans are content to decorate their platforms with yams, and to suspend the finest specimens from their gardens on poles. This is carried out, however, with a spectacular ceremony. When everyone has sated his pride with gazing on the fine display in the courtyard, the chief passes before the exhibits and makes a selection of the most handsome specimens. On these, he then sets his stamp, in the form of a tuft of croton leaves: this indicates to everyone that he has reserved them to offer to his equals, the leading chiefs of the invited tribes. Once this levy has been exacted, the proprietor of each separate section of the lomulomé stations himself beside his yams, sending one of his sons or nephews to stand at the foot of a tall pole which he has erected earlier, and thus regards as his own.

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When everyone is in position, the proud gardeners each take up their finest yam and, holding it in their arms as a mother holds her baby, break into a song in which mention is made of trees famous throughout the district for their extraordinary girth, of majestic crags and peaks, and gigantic rattans: all of which is their modest way of referring to their yams. This paean completed, each man, still clutching the beloved vegetable to his breast, rushes at top speed towards his young assistant, who waits like the goalkeeper in a rugby match, passes the precious burden to him, returns for another yam, carries it back with the same speed and enthusiasm, and so continues, rushing back and forth. In the intervals, the assistant shins up the pole like a monkey, attaches the yam by a length of creeper fastened to it beforehand, slides down and then at once climbs up again with another yam, and so on, until both yams and participants are exhausted. As this scene is repeated over and over again, with all the gardeners running madly backwards and forwards between their yams and their poles, and all the assistants climbing up and down simultaneously, and all in a laboured silence, for everyone is too busy and too breathless to speak or sing, the final effect is irresistibly comic. The most handsome yams are attached to the top of the pole, the less handsome ones beneath them, and so downwards by a carefully graduated scale, to within three or four feet of the ground. The remaining yams are laid out on raised platforms, to bring them before the public eye as much as possible. A few days later, the villagers add a further decorative effect by planting small but sturdy trees between the poles,

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leaving their topmost branches and foliage intact. They then link each tree with a heavy garland of creepers and branches, which runs in front of each hut and thus encircles the whole village. The purpose of this decoration is to show off the other products of the lomulomé. When the proper moment arrives, men and women set off to gather in the crop, and come back singing and carrying great sheaves of sugarcane, which they suspend from the garland horizontally and end to end. The village is thus enhanced by a continuous frieze, and looks more and more like the setting for a country fair. Next, using what free time remains from all their other labours, the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ bring in huge clusters of bananas, which they also attach to poles or lay on platforms, all the time, but in a completely casual manner, chanting their praises. The taros are the last to be brought in, a few days before the arrival of the dancers, for these vegetables, which are shaped like turnips but taste like flour-and-water paste, will not keep for long. Finally, on the eve of the festival, the enormous fruit of the iné (or giant pandanus), which are so cumbersome they must be cut in two, and the delicious almonds of the malaghé, each in a little sachet of bark, are dug up from underneath the ovens where they have been slowly smoked, and are laid at the foot of the poles. Some of the almonds of the iné have been separated from the huge clusters they compose. Looking like little prismatic wedges, they are strung tightly together and hung up to make further garlands.

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To add a final elegance to this decorative scheme, the poles and platforms are festooned from top to bottom with sprigs of leaves and multi-coloured bouquets of croton. And occasionally, to ‘give body’, as it were, to this exuberant display of rustic attractions, a few ancient skulls, pelvic bones, femurs and tibias are artistically interspersed among the vegetables, flowers and leaves . . . But we have jumped too far ahead. Before coming to this crowning moment, just before the arrival of the guests, the village giving the Gabé still has a number of weeks of feverish activity ahead of it.

Chapter 6

SETTING THE SCENE Apart from the attention lavished on the lomulomé, the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ have other cares which weigh no less heavily. One of the chief among them is the erection of huts for the guests. These must be so constructed as to become an integral part of the village, the surface area of which is none too large as it is to accommodate the dwellings of its inhabitants. Indeed, they are even the largest buildings of the whole group, since they are designed to give lodging to all the delegates, men, women and children, from the invited villages. Furthermore, they must face the central courtyard, so that the guests, seated on the platform which serves at once as verandah and terrace of every Papuan dwelling, can comfortably follow from this dress-circle eminence all the bustle and activity of the inhabitants and be sure not to miss any of the dances, or invitations to eat, or other developments in the fascinating spectacle. The guest huts change the appearance of a village so much that it looks as if new – which is quite often, for that matter, the case – since the inhabitants seize this opportunity to refurbish their own dilapidated houses. The construction work is generally shared out among different families. What one must bear in mind is that, while the chief of the Gabé village is the only person authorized to send out formal invitations to other villages,

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the ordinary citizens, nevertheless, have their say in the matter. While the numerous preliminary discussions are being held to decide who the guests and their escort are to be, each individual is able for his own purely personal reasons to insist on the necessity of inviting this or that person. By doing so, he assumes the responsibility for housing and feeding his own private friends. In the construction of a Papuan dwelling, no elaborate building material or complicated tools are needed. A few tree-trunks serve as centre pillars and beams, a few main branches as piles and joists, bamboo canes as flooring, long flexible withes to form the framework of the high arched roof, leaves or grass as an outer covering, and lianas to hold everything together. But although such a method of building is relatively simple, it nevertheless demands a considerable effort from these primitive beings, especially if they have not been able to acquire one of the white man’s steel axes or knives. A single builder, even aided by his family, is not able to undertake the task alone. His first thought, therefore, is to enlist help. On the surface, Papuan society is eminently democratic, and no one would ever dream of engaging labour in the European sense; a Papuan is either a worker or a rentier, according to his needs or preoccupations of the moment. In this case, therefore, he will set off for the home of one of his friends or acquaintances, perhaps even in a neighbouring village. Having arrived, he will squat down beside the friend and offer him some areca nuts to chew or a pipeful of tobacco. They will talk about the vagaries of the weather and the way the lomulomé is coming along nicely, about the pigs that are being fattened, and the way

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the guests are getting ready for the big day. Then, without warning, the visitor will say quietly and casually: ‘When the pigs are killed at the dance, I will give you part of my share.’ ‘Av’ akai,’ replies the other, ‘ “A true word”.’ This means he has agreed to help: and from now on, whenever his friend sends for him, he is ready to lend a hand. It sometimes happens, of course, as it may do anywhere, that the one who has promised his help fails to honour the bargain. He either does not turn up at all or exerts only a minimum of effort. He will still receive his piece of pork. But when he himself is next in need of aid, he will find himself paid back in his own coin. Building the new houses – there may be ten or a dozen of them – is a protracted business, for with all the emotions aroused by the coming Gabé, it is necessary to break off work at frequent intervals, squat down to smoke a pipe or two, and exchange a little banter or political gossip. But another urgent task is already clamouring for attention – the erection of a high fence round the village. Panicstricken at this thought, the builders abandon their houses to start work on that. The houses can be attended to later. Sufficient unto the day . . . and, as everyone knows, the houses for the dance sometimes fall into ruins before they are even completed. The erection of the fence is a great source of worry, but it is of primordial importance in the rites of the Gabé, and it must stand not only as a symbol but as a work of art. There are two types of enclosure. The ordinary type, called alé, is made of branches twined together and attached to stakes driven into the ground at intervals. For the Gabé, however, another kind of fence, known as a boou, is used. It stands

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between four and six feet high, and is made of long slivers of wood taken from certain trees that can be readily split lengthwise. These are planted firmly upright, and bound closely together by creepers twisted to make a patterned frieze. Care is taken to select woods of different colours and scents: they are then used in sequence, and the total effect is further enhanced by multi-coloured tufts of leaves thrust at different points into the interstices. While they work, the builders sing a particular refrain: Ovol’ our’ oumboune The molars of the pig, Kouamon’ arou!. . . Hark! We shall break them! This inspired ditty is repeated indefinitely, but instead of the word ovole (pig), at each fresh verse the singers shout the name of one of the specially fattened and now celebrated pigs reserved for the Gabé. The women who have raised them are transported with delight at hearing the name of their beloved ‘son’ – although their hearts quail at the thought that he will so soon be slaughtered. Echoing and resounding down the valley, the harmonious chanting is quickly caught by a thousand pairs of attentive ears. All over the district, people say to each other: ‘Listen! They’re laying the “water of the Gabé”.’ No one has been able to explain this mysterious expression. Perhaps it is a memory arising out of the obscurity of past centuries, when the Papuan villages may have been protected, not with a wooden palisade as they are at present, but by a trench filled with water, like the moat surrounding ancient fortresses. Several weeks elapse – with all these incessant interruptions the work tends to drag a little – and at last the fence, forming an irregular oval some hundred and thirty yards in circumference, is completed. The ‘Fathers of the

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Gabé’ then give a feast for the workers from other villages who have lent their assistance. From their former gardens, which have already been half swallowed up by the forest once more, they collect what remains of the yams, taros and sugar-cane. A few clusters still remain of the previous year’s banana crop. All these are stacked in separate piles in the middle of the village clearing. Some are intended for the workers, grouped according to their villages, and others for the women of neighbouring villages who have promised a pig for the Gabé. Each woman’s portion is clearly set apart from the rest, and in general, these heaps are clearly bigger than those reserved for the men. Nevertheless, if one inspects them more closely, one perceives that the yams are very much poorer in quality, ain’ ou’ foilanghe, or wild yams, tough and stringy. But the women, those eternally deceived creatures, are too delighted at being given the biggest portions to notice. Naturally, neither the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ nor the ‘Mothers of the Pig’ have any share in this distribution of their vegetables. They must console themselves by drawing in their belts a little more – which they literally do – since the old gardens are exhausted and the new ones have not yet borne fruit, and by assuring each other: ‘Ah, ah! . . . our name will be hailed everywhere, for we have nothing left to eat; we have given everything away! . . . ’ Indeed, human nature is much the same wherever one goes. I remember a Norman peasant, the mayor of his district, who ruined himself in order to provide a worthy celebration for the wedding of his daughter. There were many guests, and the feasting lasted a full week. ‘What else could I do?’ he asked me, with a light in his eyes. ‘It’s true that I haven’t a penny, but look at the com-

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plimentary things people are saying about us all over the countryside!’ As soon as the work on the garden and the new huts is well under way, the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ begin to concern themselves more actively with the spectacular dances which are the real object of the festival. They themselves do not dance while the Gabé is in progress, this honour being reserved for their guests. But their women dance; and thus, every evening after work, or even during the day between two spells of labour in the garden, they practise with furious concentration in a clearing near the village. But before these exhausting rehearsals begin, a special ceremony must be held at which drums are handed to the young women of the village. One might compare this ceremony with the ‘coming out’ party at which European girls of good family make their entry into society. But there is one difference worth noting: receiving the drum carries with it the right to dance in public, in other words, to shine in society and win admiration for one’s charms; but before a woman can dance at the Gabé, she must donate a pig which she herself has raised – and only a married woman can hope to achieve such a costly honour, through the generosity of her husband, who remains absolute owner of all the family pigs. In consequence, unmarried girls are excluded from the drum ceremony, and cannot therefore gain admission to ‘society’. However, there are exceptions to this rule in Papua, as there are in every society. Here, as elsewhere, the rich can override the most deeply rooted customs and the strictest rules. If a rich and influential father is able to donate a pig in his daughter’s name, the latter is handed her drum before

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she marries – and others may even be cynical enough to sing the praises of her family for its anti-social gesture. Often, the drum ceremony is the occasion on which the young girl is obliged to wear clothing for the first time – for up to now she has gone entirely naked. Her first garment consists solely of a strip of tapa passed between the legs, and held up back and front by a fibre cord round the waist. This is all she wears, and from that day onwards, whether or not she has done so in fact, she is considered to have reached puberty. The ceremony of handing over the drum is an extremely simple one. The village matrons rake over the old gardens once more, and the men go out after fish and game. The spoils of the chase are laid out in the village courtyard and divided into separate portions. The chief stands in the middle of them, and calls for the young women to be summoned. The latter approach with their families. The husband, father, or other relative of each woman then passes a drum to the chief – women are not allowed to possess these instruments in their own right. The chief pronounces the ‘débutante’s’ name. Trembling and blushing as much as a Papuan can, the girl advances, stops, and is thrust on from behind, until finally she stands before the chief. Abruptly, the chief thrusts the drum into her hands. ‘Take this drum,’ he declares, ‘and go and dance with the other women.’ It happens quite frequently that there are not enough drums to go round. In that case, the chief merely makes the young woman touch the drum which he holds in his hand. The gesture is sufficient: henceforth, she is entitled to dance in public.

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When all the women have received their drums, the food is distributed to their families, and everyone goes home, the older women commenting sourly that the young hussies have no idea of how to behave in society, even while they secretly reflect that the latter will be dangerous rivals, and the men grumbling vaguely about feminine ways, but secretly delighted with the spectacle they have just witnessed. ‘Are we going to be the only ones left out of the dancing?’ one of them exclaims, as soon as they are all back in the communal hut. ‘No, no!’ chorus a dozen masculine voices. ‘Are we going to surrender what is ours by right to a lot of clumsy women?’ The chorus of vehement and scarcely chivalrous ‘noes’ redoubles. ‘In that case,’ concludes the orator, ‘tomorrow, we’ll organize the dancing properly, and show these women a thing or two.’ ‘Bravo!’ shouts the chorus, approvingly. But as the day is taken up with a thousand different tasks and discussions, the men use the evenings for their practice. At dusk, after a hasty meal, they deck themselves out in feathers, leaves and flowers, necklaces of dogs’ teeth and shells, and broad streaks of red and yellow pigment applied to the face and thorax. Yet, to use their own expression, these ornaments are no more than ‘pig’s refuse’. They cannot bear comparison with the splendours that will be revealed on the actual day of the great festival. They are merely a foretaste of what is to come.

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Each man grasps the drum which he himself has carved, in the shape of an hour-glass, from a block of wood, covering one of the ends with a piece of lizard’s skin which is carefully tied down all round the edge. A few trial beats are heard, like an orchestra tuning up, and barely is everyone assembled when the ‘ballet-master’ leaps in front of the dancers, and roars out the opening notes of an appropriate chant, like one possessed. Immediately, the others follow, hopping rhythmically from one side of the village clearing to the other, and singing at the tops of their voices. The women hold up smoky torches, adding their shriller tones to the powerful chant, and watching in wideeyed wonderment as the men match every movement of head, trunk, legs and feet to the rhythm of drums and voices. Can they ever hope to achieve such harmony, suppleness and grace?

Chapter 7

THE ROYAL PALACE Apart from the lomulomé, the guest huts, and the fence, there is a further task to which the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ must devote much discussion and hard work. This is the erection of a new ‘palace’ for the chief, which will serve not only as a meeting-place for village notables and for the reception of important guests, but also as a permanent lodging for anyone who cares to stay there in order to gossip, smoke a pipe, eat and sleep. It is not merely the home of a monarch, but the communal centre: it is called the emone. It is customary to place the emone at the higher end of the gentle and spacious slope which serves the village simultaneously as a square, as its main and indeed only street, and as a forum. This is bordered on either side by the huts of the inhabitants and those of the guests. The palace therefore overlooks not only the square, but the whole village, and from its terrace one has a better view of what is going on than a captain has from the bridge of his ship. By contrast, the rear of the building overhangs a steep gorge into which, in the event of danger, the occupants can leap at a single bound and safely hide. When a decision has at last been reached on the construction of the palace, the news is spread abroad among all the friends and allies of the village. On the stipulated day,

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all the inhabitants, men, women and children, leave their respective villages to join in the task. Each has his special role. The men strike deep into the forest, seeking the wood that will be needed for the big centre pillars and the framework. The tree they prefer to use is the oyame, a kind of beech whose wood is very hard; for the very nature of the Gabé demands a tough and solid construction. The young boys meanwhile collect straight, flexible branches to make rafters and battens, and great bundles of lianas and rattan canes which will take the place of nails, screws and door fittings. The women bind together enormous sheaves of grass and leaves for the thatch. The next day, these materials are taken to the Gabé village, the workers organize themselves, and amid a reckless disorder and agitation which reminds one of ants at work, the actual construction begins. The chief’s emone must be supported by at least two main pillars. One, called the apopo, is placed inside, almost at the centre of the edifice; solidly rooted in earth, it soars upward to support the summit of the roof. The second pillar stands in the middle of the entrance. This is the kono, or ‘royal post’, since it is the prerogative of the Outames, or chiefs of semi-divine origin2 It might be compared to a throne. The chief sits or squats at its base, and from this privileged position watches his subjects, gives orders, makes speeches, receives his guests, and presides at ceremonies. The kono bears the emblem of the chief, which no one else is allowed to imitate. More often than not, this consists of two or three small superimposed roofs which cap the 2. See Mitsinari: Twenty-one Years Among the Papuans, by André Dupeyrat. Chapter VI ‘The Outame: A Papuan Monarch’,

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kono and are joined to the main roof, or an odd-looking pinnacle, the shape of which is different for each chief. The kono itself is ornamented with designs carved in the wood, and even with sculptured figures in relief. A known artist is summoned to do this work. He takes up residence in the village, where he is housed and fed by the chief. Basking in general favour, he does not hurry over his task. He is, in fact, exactly like a medieval artist at work on the decoration of his patron’s dwelling-place. As a final reward, he is given a large pig on the day when the pigs are killed. But if he happens to be one of the chief’s own subjects, he must content himself with having won the approbation of his sovereign. Out of respect for the truth, it must be confessed that the result of these artistic endeavours is rather disappointing. In extenuation, it must be pointed out that the artist’s tools are extremely primitive, consisting solely of sharp stones and shells if he does not possess a European knife. Furthermore, his technical skill scarcely matches up to his imagination: for one certainly needs a good deal of imagination to perceive that two rather clumsily twisting lines flecked with little cross-strokes are a snake, or a mountain stream, or whatever else it may be. Figures sculpted in relief occur only rarely on the kono. It is said that there are only one or two artists capable of representing the outline of a human form, or the recumbent shape of a fari (iguana). But although this art is stylized to an even further degree than that of the most abstruse Western ‘abstract’ artists, the natives understand it. Without hesitation, they give the name of the animal or object that each design represents.

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One day, I was teasing an Outame chief who was sitting at the foot of his kono. ‘You tell me,’ I said, ‘that this big circle with the two holes is a picture of your celebrated pig, “Mafou Dodo” . . . Well, that may be so, but personally I can’t see any pig there.’ ‘Neither can I,’ he replied. ‘But it has been agreed that it is a pig, as everybody knows.’ Does this perhaps supply a key to modern art? Once the palace is built, after more than a month of intermittent efforts, polite usage demands that one should go into ecstasies over its beauty. In point of fact, like all the other huts, it resembles an elongated beehive. It is, however, much bigger than any private dwelling, measuring anything from twenty-five to thirty feet in length and fifteen feet in width. It gives an impression of considerable height, for the roof rises from the platform which serves as a floor in the shape of an upturned ship’s hull, and the platform itself is perched on tall piles. In reality, from the base of the piles to the summit, the building is no more than thirty to thirty-five feet high. Making the new palace ready for habitation gives rise to a number of ceremonies, in which sound practical sense, humour and certain superstitious fears are all mingled. First of all, ‘the ashes’ (foyé is the traditional expression) are brought in. In this instance, foyé would be better translated by our word ‘hearth’. The ceremony consists in the application of a thick layer of clay along the bottom and sides of a trough which runs right down the middle of the floor. This trough is between eighteen inches and two feet wide, and the flooring on either side serves as a restingplace.

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The hearth having thus been prepared, there follows the ceremony of lighting for the first time the fire which will henceforth burn continually, smouldering away among the ashes with which the central hollow will soon be filled. One man stands on the threshold of the palace. Outside, another man passes to him, one by one, the pieces of firewood which have been collected beforehand. Before each piece of firewood is taken inside, a rite is performed over it. The two men each grasp it by one end, and then hold a sort of tug-of-war with it, like two thieves quarrelling over their booty, or a miser holding out and snatching back his purse. While doing this, they mutter: ‘Oh – Spirit X . . . , Y . . . ,’ etc. (invoking the names of powerful spirits which haunt the district), ‘lend us a hand!’ Thanks to this rite, the firewood will last longer. Inside the hut, the logs are laid in such a way that they quickly catch alight from the freshly kindled fire. This fire is not produced by the normal methods, which consist of borrowing some embers from the hearth of a neighbouring hut, or begging a match from the missionary, or rubbing a short piece of creeper against a dry stick held against the ground with one foot. To start the new fire, at least four lusty men are needed. Two of them stand with a big branch resting on their shoulders. The two others stand on either side and place a short but thick creeper over the middle of the branch; they then seize an end each, and begin drawing it vigorously back and forth like two sawyers wielding a rip saw, or rather, like a pair of bell-ringers, uttering the same pleasurable grunts at their exertions. The friction of the creeper against the branch soon wears a groove in the wood and engenders considerable

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heat, so that a tuft of dried moss held over the groove by a fifth participant catches alight in a few seconds. A sixth actor – a small boy – usually enters into this scene, but all he does is to squat motionless under the branch, while the others are raising the fire. The weaker and punier he is, the better, for the idea is that he will be so fortified by the experience that he will at once start growing into a young Hercules. As soon as the tuft of moss is alight, it is carried at a run into the emone, and applied to the dry grass laid underneath the hearth-logs. Everyone swells his cheeks and blows like Boreas, and soon the flames go leaping and crackling upwards. Armfuls of flowers and leaves, prepared in advance, are then cast on to the fire. Naturally, great billows of smoke roll out as a result. The villagers hail this phenomenon with loud cries and, standing on the palace floor, make the gesture of raising it to the roof with their two hands. This is in order to create a good draught up the ‘chimney’ – which, in fact, is merely the interstices between the leaves of the roof, particularly along the ridgepiece. Without this ceremony, the central heating system would be bound to produce a dense smoke, to the great discomfiture of present and future guests. The comfort of the guests having been assured, the next matter demanding consideration is how they are to be fed. For the emone is not merely the local ‘town hall’, but also the ‘hotel’ at which all passing visitors are lodged. During the Gabé, it is always full to bursting point: and the laws of hospitality, which demand that all these people be graciously and copiously fed, are inviolable. This poses a grave problem, but one which must be solved if the village cares for its good name – as indeed it does. However, just

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as it was possible to arrange a cheap supply of firewood by the use of spells, so another spell may be used to secure an abundant yet economical supply of food for the guests at the palace. For this second spell, a few men set off for a known spot, from which they bring back handfuls of a sticky, blackish earth which possesses a peculiar property: by its mere presence, it is able to make the pigs grow fatter. The men place a small lump of this earth at the foot of the big centre pillar, the apopo. Next, they spread a layer of it on the threshold of the palace. It is also smeared over the wooden platters on which the guests’ meals are served, on the stakes which support the fence round the village, and, in short, on every object with which the visitors are likely to come into contact. This unfailingly produces the effect that, even with very little food, the guests have the sensation of having eaten their fill, even to the point where ‘their stomachs groan with food’. The local pigs also benefit and increase their girth. This matter settled, the next question is how to maintain the temperature in the palace at a constant level. The hearth certainly throws off a good heat, but the fire waxes and wanes, and may go out altogether during the night unless someone stays awake to throw on fresh fuel. It would be a disgrace if a guest complained of feeling cold during his stay. Fortunately, there is an infallible trick by which the heating may be regulated. For this, a large round stone is found and placed in the hearth to warm up. When it is really hot, a bird’s feather is attached to it, and it is then rolled over the corrugated floor of the hut. This ensures that the floor will never grow cold from then on.

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The use of the feather aroused my curiosity, and one day I asked what the explanation was. ‘Don’t you know that birds’ feathers are warm?’ was the reply. I should have thought of that one! In every town hall worthy of the name, there are rapid means of communication with the outside – by telephone, telegram, or special messenger. The Papuan ‘town hall’ is no exception. Its communications are assured by a fly – known as Soungouloum’ amou – which comes buzzing in the moment anything happens. Any outside event which may interest the guests – such as the approach of an important visitor, the presence of game in the neighbouring forest, or the appearance of any suspicious interloper near the gardens – is heralded by the fly performing a crazy saraband above the hearth. The only thing is that one must interpret the sense of the fly’s message correctly. Finally, as the palace belongs to an Outame – or semidivine – chief, the building itself must share the same attribute, in order to inspire respect and even a certain reverential fear in the hearts of those who lodge in it. There are several possible ways of ensuring this, the simplest being to spread word on all sides that the new palace holds terrible powers between its walls. Another method is to conceal in the structure of the building certain segments of rattan cane over which spells have been cast by magical incantation. From time to time, the emanations of these magic canes cause the hammock of one of the unfortunate guests to collapse. If the man falls, he is sure to die as soon as he reaches home. I have been the victim of such mishaps myself, in a communal hut: luckily, I did not die as a result! But then,

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of course, I am a white man. I might also add that, on these occasions, I roundly rebuked the local potentate for having in his palace walls loose sections of rattan, which looked solid enough for me to tie my hammock to them, but which immediately collapsed beneath my weight. The various ceremonies connected with the erection and inauguration of the new emone introduce a ferocious (ayaya), and therefore dangerous, element into the Gabé. It is necessary, therefore, to make it once more harmless and gentle (amba) out of consideration for the visitors and even the inhabitants themselves, particularly the women. The latter already have to take innumerable precautions as it is! For example, in no circumstances must they set foot in the village square: for this would have the same fatal consequences as touching a wire carrying a high voltage current. In order to reach home, they must take the circular path between the surrounding fence and the backs of the huts, and clamber up into the family dwelling by means of the rough supports which serve as a ladder. To bring a peaceable atmosphere into the Gabé, the men spend a day or so in the forest and come back with all the birds and fur-bearing animals they have been able to kill with their spears and arrows. In the village, the spoils are then plucked or skinned, and the meat is roasted over open fires and eaten by the hunters. The feathers and furs are then hung up in small clusters all over the village: beneath the rafters and beams of the communal’ hut, between the palings of the surrounding fence, from the tops of the piles beneath the guests’ houses. The furs and feathers exert a gentle influence over the whole village, and attenuate the ferocious aspect of the Gabé.

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One may smile at all these ceremonies, finding them rather ridiculous or, to say the least, childish. But one cannot deny that they contain a primitive yet profound poetry.

Chapter 8

THE VISIT OF THE SCOUTS After two weeks spent in the duties of my ministry in the surrounding regions, I returned to the village near the mission station to resume my observations, and to add to my meagre diet. My ‘boy’, Friday, had temporarily abandoned his functions. I was told that he had returned to his home village, situated on the path of the Gabé, and was there making ready for the great festival like the other young men of the invited villages. I decided to make the best of a bad job. It was not the first time that I had had to fend for myself, doing my own washing and rough-and-ready mending, keeping the station outwardly neat and clean, concocting more or less adequate meals. These domestic labours demanded no more of my time or care than Friday had ever devoted to them, and I had all the leisure I needed to carry out my missionary duties. I must confess, however, that these were not very onerous at that moment either. The inhabitants of the region were too taken up with the Gabé, and had put off to some future date all thought of conversion or preparing themselves for baptism: even the children no longer came for the daily catechism. It was as much as the sick could do to persuade anyone to call me when they needed my help. The Gabé overruled everything else, and ‘my’ village, near as it was, was no exception.

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As soon as I entered it once more, I noticed a change: a number of the adult villagers had disappeared from circulation. I asked the reason for this of the expert, who was passing by with his usual air of being extremely busy. ‘They’ve gone to pay a visit to the “public conveniences” at the Gabé village,’ he answered abruptly. ‘It’s one of our festivals.’ My first thought was rather that this was an unpleasant jest. The expert wore a sullen expression. I knew that he had been very annoyed when I left his village just as the ceremonies of preparation for the Gabé were in full swing: for that was the hour of his personal triumph as the ‘expert on the great fast’, and the time when I could watch him in all the splendour of his authority and skill. He had been not a little proud, once he had overcome his initial hesitation and mistrust, to initiate me into the mysterious rites of the fast. And suddenly I had departed, as if quite indifferent to all these vital matters. In reality, I was passionately anxious to gain an insight into the mentality of my flock by a study of their habits and customs: one can never learn too much about these primitive beings. But I had had my duties as missionary to attend to. And now, on my return, here was the expert presenting me with this ludicrous tale of a solemn visit to the ‘public conveniences’ (even then, I am giving a polite equivalent for the crude terms he himself used to describe this ‘festival’). I wondered whether he was exacting his revenge for my apparent disdain. However, I discovered that this was not the case that same evening, when he gave me full details of the curious ‘festival’ – details which I was later able to verify for myself.

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When, in the village giving the Gabé, the yams in the lomulomé are ripe, the huts for the guests virtually completed, and stores of food laid in, the news spreads from hill-top to hill-top that the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ await the visit of the ‘scouts’. This seems to me the most appropriate word to describe these delegates who are dispatched by the invited villages. They are neither important chiefs nor official dancers, and are therefore not obliged to keep a strict fast. They arrive at the village of the Gabé in small groups, usually accompanied by their wives carrying the baggage. The villagers have piled up for them the last of the good vegetables remaining in their private gardens: yams, taros, sugar-cane, bananas, and so on. Naturally, no one has touched the lomulomé, except to gather the cucumbers from it, which are already ripe. The hosts have also gone hunting and fishing and have dried and smoked whatever they have brought back from these expeditions. They have also gathered and prepared some leaves of tobacco: and finally, a few small pigs have been tied by the feet and slung from the piles of their owners’ huts, to be slaughtered at the end of the feast. Everything is ready. No sooner have the scouts assembled in the village than they start to dance, brandishing spears, branches of croton or reeds, and seeing who can yell the loudest. They sing the praises of their hosts, and those of their own village. This amiable display comes to an end as soon as the organizers of the Gabé signify that they are now ready to distribute their gifts of food to each group of delegates. It is while the long and delicate negotiations are going on to ensure an equitable distribution of

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these gifts that the scouts make themselves familiar with the layout of the village. They scatter among the huts, led by the hand by the bigger children. The adults cannot lower themselves to undertaking this task, which besides would imply a belief, humiliating for their visitors, that the latter did not already know the place – even though they have come expressly to explore it. But it is only common courtesy to consider the feelings of one’s visitors – as well as one’s own. First, the scouts are taken to the new palace, which is still under construction. Since the building has not yet been inaugurated, they cannot go inside, but they are all eagerness to show their admiration for its beauties of design and construction, clicking their nails against their teeth, and uttering brief, muted exclamations. Whatever their private thoughts may be, they keep them to themselves, being too polite and cautious to reveal them. Next, they are shown the ‘villas’ which have been built for the guests, and each is careful to make a mental note of the one assigned to his group. This inspection over, the scouts are taken a short distance from the village. Here, on a steep clayey hill-side, the trees and undergrowth have been cleared to form a track, upon which a group of women go leaping up and down. These are the chosen dancers at practice. They wear no decorations or finery and have not even washed themselves. Instead, they are in workaday garb – which, in fact, means wearing no clothes at all. One particularly notices the middle-aged women, which, among the Papuans, means approaching forty. With tendons straining, muscles overlapping in folds, small posteriors projecting grotesquely, and long breasts swinging, they go about their

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task with great seriousness. In one bony hand, they hold the waist of a drum, while with the palm of the other hand they beat rhythmically on the snake or lizard-skin which covers one end of the instrument. They seem to be highly embarrassed by the whole performance. With taut necks and eyes starting from their sockets, they caper and sing, trying to co-ordinate the movements of their spindly legs and big, calloused feet to the rhythm of the song and the beat of the drum. But it is not easy. Discreetly, the men exchange smiles. ‘Poor women!’ one of them remarks compassionately. ‘They have so much else to do . . . Besides, they have no sense of rhythm and are too thick-headed to learn the songs. They need many long and arduous rehearsals before they can make a proper showing in the village square, on the day of the women’s dance!’ The leading dancers are carefully pointed out to the scouts, however, and their names, titles and attractions recited just as if they were Hollywood stars. Nevertheless, the thing that earns one of these Papuan ‘stars’ her reputation is not so much her talent or beauty, as the fact that she has raised one of the biggest pigs for the Gabé. It is of supreme importance that the scouts should remember the names of the ‘stars’: for nothing is more flattering to the hosts than to hear these names cropping up in speeches or conversation, as if the speakers had known them all their lives. Their attitude is no different from that of Western cinema-goers towards their Gretas, Ingrids and Ritas . . . When the scouts have sufficiently feasted their eyes on this spectacle, and memorized all the essential names, they are shown the path which leads to the nearest mountain stream in which it is possible to drink or wash without dan-

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ger. The waters of other streams have an evil influence, and must be carefully avoided. They must also be shown the paths leading to the gardens, so that the dancers and guests may go and seek further nourishment there if they feel that they have not been given enough during the official feasts. During the festival, the guests are always in the right, and can take with impunity anything that catches their fancy. The owner does not dream of protesting: he knows that he will be able to do the same one day. That is why, once the dance is over, the village which has given the festival looks like a field of millet after the locusts have passed over it. Finally, the scouts must inspect one more site, the most important of all, since it gives its name to this preliminary festivity. They are therefore conducted to the equivalent of one of those kiosks or shelters which, in Paris at least, are usually presided over by a woman with a little broom and a large plate for tips. These features are, of course, lacking in Papua. The site consists simply of a small clearing carved out of the bush near the village. The scouts inspect it to make sure that the surrounding trees bear plenty of smooth leaves, and that a copious stock has been laid in of small, round, polished branches – an instrument that Rabelais omitted to mention in his famous list. The delegates then return to the village, where, in the middle of the square, the portions of food which they are to receive have been arranged in small heaps. As his name is called, each one steps forward, receives his gift, and without a word of ‘thank you’ or ‘au revoir’, immediately decamps and returns to his village with all possible speed. There is a sound reason for the sending of the scouts, and their thorough inspection of the Gabé village. It is a

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way of ensuring that, when the dancers and guests arrive for the great event, they will not suffer the humiliation of appearing not to know their way about or of visibly betraying their embarrassment. The scouts have noted everything for them in advance, and as soon as they return to their villages, give a detailed and tirelessly reiterated account of their inspection. I was present when the scouts from the village near my mission station came back. In silence, and with a solemn demeanour befitting the bearers of such tidings, they made their entry into the communal hut, while their wives unloaded on the entrance platform the presents given them by the Gabé villagers: vegetables of various kinds, soiled and blackened lumps of meat on which tiny green objects were already squirming, fragments of fish which broke like glass, withered tobacco leaves, a heap of dubious-looking intestines and a few slices of uncooked bacon. The leading men, the elders, the dancers, and all who were able, crowded into the interior of the communal hut, packing in so tightly to hear the report of the delegates that the frail structure trembled and shook on its crooked piles. The delegates, meanwhile, crouched still silent on either side of the central hearth, and began by inhaling a lungful of tobacco from the bamboo cane which served as a communal pipe. Then they began to chew areca nuts, with that grave, solemn and somewhat clownish air which always struck me as immensely comical – although I took good care not to show it. All eyes were turned upon them, everyone waiting anxiously until one of them should condescend to speak. At last, one of them did. After clearing his throat in loud and promising fashion, he declared:

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‘Well, we went to see the “Fathers of the Gabé”. We danced and sang. We looked everywhere, with so much care that our eyes are aching. Then we came back here. We travelled quickly. Our legs are aching. We brought back all the food that was given us. Our stomachs are empty; they are aching. I have spoken.’ At these words, several old men stood up amid a general hubbub, and left the swaying hut. There was an outburst of curses. These were directed towards the women, who were standing about at a respectful distance from the communal hut, straining to hear what was going on. ‘What are you doing there, you idle ones?’ roared the old men. ‘Our scouts are hungry. Quickly, prepare the food they have brought, so that we may all eat and listen properly to their words.’ With their feet, they sent flying the pile of food that had been left on the platform. The women quickly ran forward, gathered it up and began to cook it in the ashes and on the heated stones already prepared for this purpose. When calm had been more or less restored, another scout began to speak: ‘We have seen what I am about to tell you. Over there, at the village of the Gabé, the women who will dance are all princesses of great beauty. Therefore, we will go and “look in their heads” [an expression meaning something rather different from the actual words used]. All will go – those who have bad feet, the short-sighted and the blind, those who lean on the staff of age and have white beards, the deaf and the dumb. The paths are good. There are no precipices. The houses are handsome and new. The food is abundant. The pigs are enormous and many. That region is a region of peace. Those who have been to war or who

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have committed a murder may go there without fear. And finally, the conveniences are provided with every desirable comfort . . . I have spoken!’ In the Gabé village itself, the recipient of this fullblown praise, the visit of the scouts is followed by the imposition of a rather curious taboo: it is absolutely forbidden to eat meat outside the surrounding fence; and by this is meant the meat of any animal whatsoever. A villager may have been offered a tasty morsel by a friend in another village; or, while making a trip through the forest, he may have been lucky enough to bring down a bird or an opossum, kill a boar or a cassowary with his spear, catch a snake or some frogs, or discover some of those plump white worms which tunnel their way through the centre of old fallen trees; but he must not eat any of this on the spot, however hungry he may be. Instead, he must carry his spoils back to the village, share them out equitably among the rest, and then, whatever repugnance it causes him, eat his own share in full view of all. One might think that this was a means of allowing the villager’s hungry compatriots to share in his good fortune, and the obligation to eat in public a way of imposing a strict control. But this is not the case. The idea is that the villager’s pig should see him eating the meat. The pig then says to himself: ‘Good. My master is eating the flesh of other animals. Therefore, he will not want to eat mine. There is no danger in my staying with him.’ If the pig did not see his owner eat the meat, even while knowing, by some mysterious intuition, that he had obtained some, he would come to the opposite conclusion and flee to the forest, where he would become a wild boar.

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If that happened, there would be no more Gabé, and dishonour would be heaped upon the village. If, however, the villager has succumbed to temptation and, in a moment of wild imprudence, has eaten meat outside the village, it is imperative that he should at least bring back a few scraps, even a single bone with a little flesh still clinging to it, and give it to his pig. The pig will see by this gesture that not only has the villager eaten meat, but that he has also thought of his dumb companion. Touched and reassured, he will then remain faithful until the great slaughter of the Gabé arrives. When I first heard of this taboo, however, I could not believe my ears. ‘You’re just saying that for my amusement, or trying to pull my leg,’ I said to my informant. ‘Surely people don’t believe such ridiculous nonsense!’ My informant happened to be an intelligent, quick-witted man who had already left his old beliefs far behind. ‘You’re wrong,’ he replied. ‘They believe in it just as firmly as you and I believe in God.’ And I subsequently discovered that he was quite right. ‘All the same,’ I insisted, ‘let’s suppose that some young men have stolen a pig, for that happens fairly often – they would scarcely dare to eat it in the village square!’ ‘No, of course not! They would cook it and eat it secretly in the forest, in the usual way. All the same, during the night, they would also secretly give a piece to their own pig, or their family’s pig. But in any case, such an occurrence is unlikely, for the elders are careful to place a ban on stealing during the whole period of preparation for the Gabé’

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‘Now that is an interesting ban,’ I remarked. ‘Is it never broken?’ ‘No. Or if anyone did break it, he would be well advised not to let himself be caught, for the punishment would be severe . . . It’s the same as with weapons of war: they must be kept in the house and guarded.’ ‘Yet these weapons are taken out sometimes . . .’ ‘Yes. But only when the Gabé has ended, not before. The Gabé is both a time and a place for peace and honesty. It’s only after the dance of the chiefs that things go back to normal again.’

Chapter 9

THE MAGIC BEAUTY BATH After the return of the scouts, the villagers invited to the Gabé plunged into an even more fevered round of activities. The appointed dancers put the final touches to their drums, which they themselves had fashioned, using a special piece of wood which was first cut to the shape of an hour-glass, and then hollowed out with the aid of burning coals and magic formulas. In doing so, they had to ensure that the sides of the instrument would be thin, uniformly smooth, and without fissures. A segment of lizard or snakeskin had then been attached to one of the open ends and held firmly in place with slender cords artistically woven round the outer rim. Three small lumps of resin, judiciously placed at the centre of the skin, helped to keep it taut. The sound of these drums varies according to their length – ranging from about eighteen inches to four feet – and their size. Rehearsals therefore had to be held with all the drums being beaten at once, so as to create a harmonious balance among them. And then, of course, the players were never satisfied that they had got the actual drum-beats right – those beats with the flat of the hand which produce a complicated and different rhythm for each of the numerous songs used at the dance. The songs themselves, although traditional and repeated a hundred times, had to be rehearsed yet again in chorus, to prevent even the slight-

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est slip occurring when the great day came. Thus, the beat of the tomtom and the roar of powerful throats never ceased to resound through the village. The dancers also had to put the finer touches to their spears, flexible as reeds yet hard as iron. One saw them in odd corners, putting the final polish on this ceremonial weapon, using sharp pieces of flint and leaves with a regular rough surface like emery paper. The spears were at least twelve feet long, and each had its own character. One type was simply a shaft of bare, polished wood, like a black venomous sting. Others were adorned, near the tip, with small circlets of golden opossum skin, or large ruffs of parakeet feathers. Even the tips, although all made of wood (the Papuans had no knowledge of working with metal), possessed their distinctive features. They were either round and sharp, like the top of an iron railing spike, or flat like a halberd, or notched with strong barbs, like the blade of a saw-bayonet. The dancer jealous of his reputation practised endlessly at making his spear quiver in a manner at once elegant and threatening. He would seize it at the centre, raise it to a level with his head, and by an apparently effortless play of the arm muscles, send long, fierce vibrations along the spear, while he roiled his eyes in terrifying fashion. Another big task confronting each dancer was to assemble all the ‘precious objects’ that he would need for his personal adornment. These were so rare and costly that no man could boast of owning all of them at any one time. Thus he would have to go from one relation or friend to another, promising each a piece of pork from the feast, and borrowing from one a necklace of dogs’ teeth, from another a pendant of wild boars’ canines, and from yet

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another a large round shell brought up from the coastal regions, or the spindle-shaped mother-of-pearl spike worn in the nose, in a large hole previously pierced in the septum. Finally, and above all, he must find the many feathers needed to make one of the big head-dresses used for the dance: parakeet feathers, green and crimson; cockatoo feathers, white and yellow; cassowary feathers, like black watered silk; eagle feathers, bronze and tawny; and the tall plumes of the bird of paradise, which soar upwards from the outer edge of the helmet like a sheaf of glowing red flames, and set a marvellous and regal aureole upon the dance of the Papuans. In the evenings, after the harassing pursuits of the day, the men sat in the communal hut, and finished weaving their bracelets and anklets of fibre and various coloured grasses, while they listened for the hundredth time to the account of the scouts. At last a day came when the impatiently awaited news was relayed from mountain to mountain: ‘In all the villages, the dancers have finished their bracelets . . . ’ This was a signal. Two days later, a group of men from Oulida, where the Gabé was to take place, arrived to collect the feathers, which had been carefully arranged and tied together in protective coverings of bark. I expressed surprise at this procedure. ‘You must understand,’ the expert explained, ‘that the dancers are much too important people to carry their own baggage. Besides, no man in his senses would entrust these precious feathers to the women, who are so careless. That is why the “Fathers of the Gabé” send trustworthy men to collect them and take them to the last village before the one

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where the Gabé is being held. There, they will be guarded with every precaution until the dancers arrive to take them and make their dance helmets.’ ‘And what would happen if someone stole these feathers?’ The expert looked at me with an air of profound commiseration. ‘Surely you know,’ he said, ‘that stealing is forbidden during the period of the Gabé And more than all the rest, the dancers’ feathers are protected by a strict taboo . . . We shall be leaving the day after tomorrow,’ he added. ‘But before that, we will hold the ceremony of the “bath of beauty”. As you must also get ready to leave, it would be better if you did not come here tomorrow . . . ’ This seemed to me a very good reason why I should do just the contrary. Early the following day, therefore, I was back at the village. I found it in the throes of intense activity, so much so that the expert was able to pretend not to have noticed me, without this seeming offensive. Everyone was bustling about, particularly around the communal hut. The women were carrying great logs of firewood and laying them on the threshold, while the children arrived with huge armfuls of leaves. Inside, the men laid the logs in the long central hearth, and used the leaves to block all the cracks and openings which abound in any Papuan hut. All at once, a chant resounded and the fasting dancers, led by the expert, assembled in the central clearing. Then at a given signal they raced off, all shouting together, down a path which led to a mountain stream. Discreetly, I followed them.

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Less than ten minutes later, the whole group had reassembled on the bank of the stream, whose waters, I had been told, acted as a beautifying agent (mothers never failed to bathe their children there). It was too narrow and shallow, however, for adults to bathe in it. For that reason, the dancers at once began to build a dam of stones, branches and leaves, some twenty yards down stream, where two large rocks impeded the rush of water. This labour completed, they squatted along the bank, waiting until the level of water in the basin had risen. I thought they would fall into the customary inertia of every self-respecting Papuan: but no, the expert was already going round among them, giving each one a piece of liana which I subsequently discovered was the ‘liana of beauty’, and of which he alone held the secret. They all began chewing it vigorously. This mastication went on for a long time and I was beginning to grow bored. All at once, however, the fasters stood up, dribbles running from their lips, and making a cup with their hands, spat into it the juice of the liana mixed with a flood of saliva; and then, with embarrassed gestures, poured the whole concoction over their heads. I was able to note that they carefully preserved the fibrous remains and stowed them away in their shoulder nets. The dam basin was now sufficiently full. The men next plucked brightly coloured leaves from the bushes covering the bank, and scattered them over the water. I learned later that the expert added to them a few leaves from the liana of beauty. The idea was that the beauty-giving powers of these beneficent waters would thereby be strengthened still further.

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The magic bath was then ready, and at a signal from the expert, the fasters leapt in, frolicking and laughing and joyously splashing about. But the game lasted no more than a minute. At once they grew solemn again and, standing in the middle of the stream, conscientiously washed themselves from head to foot. Quite apart from any concern for beauty, they certainly needed it, since they had not touched water for nearly two months! It was then that a magic rite took place which I did not understand at the time, but the details of which I was later able to discover from the researches of Father Fastré. Those among the dancers who wish to achieve a lasting beauty agree to undertake the risky attempt of spitting the juice of the ondé into the water of the bath. The ondé is the fruit of a pandanus, and looks like a gigantic pine cone, sometimes, in fact, growing to more than three feet in length. The thousands of small granules which make up the fruit are sheathed in a thin envelope, viscous, sugary and oily and generally red in colour, which melts in the mouth. The natives consider it a formidable feat, after having chewed a handful of ondé granules, to be able to spit this pulp into the beautifying stream. Even the expert rarely risks making the attempt, although he is the only one who possesses the magic formula that goes with the spitting. He therefore calls for a volunteer, preferably a bachelor, but in any case a man of strength and vigour. The latter must, at all costs, spit all the juice into the water, but all the pips on to the ground. If he does not succeed, the worst misfortunes await him. If he does succeed, however, his handsomeness is assured, even although it may not appear on the surface. Furthermore, he helps to make his companions handsome as well. Whatever

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happens, as soon as the operation is over, he falls under a strict taboo. If he is married, this taboo is lifted during the feast of the Gabé, by the application against different parts of his body of small pieces of warmed pork fat held on the end of the famous tooth-pick, which is afterwards burned. If he is not married, the taboo remains in force until he has found a wife, and as long as he is not married, he is obliged to observe the strict and debilitating régime of the great fast. I was told of the case of one young man, full of vigour and health, who, wishing to stake everything on the chance of an early marriage, had agreed to ‘spit the juice of the ondé. For some reason or other, he was unable to win the love of the woman of his dreams, or of any other. He died a year later, still celibate. ‘That’s not surprising,’ I said to my informant. ‘The only thing that surprises me is that he did not die sooner. He must have been exceptionally robust to withstand all the privations imposed by the Gabé fast.’ ‘Oh, he didn’t die because of the fast,’ was the reply. ‘It was because of the taboo acting inside him.’ ‘But why was he unable to find a wife, when he was so strong and handsome?’ ‘No doubt because he failed to spit the ondé in the proper way. He must have let some of the pips fall into the water!’ When they have finished their beauty bath, the fasters dry themselves with coloured scented leaves, and return to the village singing. During their absence, the old men have lit an enormous fire in the communal hut. The hut is soon filled with torrid heat and dense smoke, since all the openings have been

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sealed. Flat stones have been heated on the hearth. After having eaten one or two cold sweet potatoes, their sole meal of the day, the fasters crowd into this steam-box. The expert then pronounces certain magic formulas over some pieces of ginger, which he next begins to chew. At once, his mouth is filled with saliva. He pulls a stone from the fire, and spits the whole mouthful on to it. Clouds of steam rise up. Immediately the fasters all push forward and, with heads packed close together, inhale as much as they can of this vapour of ginger and saliva. Sweat begins to course down their bodies. They dab themselves dry with coloured leaves, and then the whole operation begins again. They pass the whole night in this fashion, to the accompaniment of erotic songs. The new, decorated, tapa-cloth ‘shorts’ that the dancers are to wear on the day of the great dance have meanwhile been hung from the rafters inside the hut. From time to time, the expert touches them with the tip of a wand over which he has uttered a magic formula. The idea is to make these gala costumes appear so splendid that they will attract everyone’s attention – and especially that of the women. As dawn is on the point of breaking, the steam-bath ends, and all the participants emerge into the square. They each hold a piece of white and supple tapa cloth. The dawn ‘eases itself open’, to use the native expression. At once, each holds up his cloth to its first rays and then rubs it over his face and body, saying: ‘May my face follow the dawn!’ ‘May my skin become the dawn!’ The aim of this ceremony is clearly to give the skin a brilliant surface that nothing will thereafter dull.

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The fasting dancers are given a little food, and the expert then examines them one by one. When that is over, he makes a short speech: ‘Good. You are all handsome. Your bodies are like the dried leaves of the asasé [a long, light, delicate leaf which, when dried, goes a shining light brown]. I can see through your bodies, which proves to me that you have faithfully followed the rules of the fast. If my eye could not see through you, I should know that you had not fasted properly. But that is not the case. You are all resplendent with beauty. Beneath your feet, the soil of the Gabé will grow soft . . . Now, you women, there! Are the packets all ready? Have you fled everything firmly? . . . Then we will start!’

Chapter 10

THE DANCE OF THE WOMEN If I had known, I would never have left with the dancers! The distance between ‘my’ village and the one where the Gabé was being given was roughly a nine hours’ march. Yet the journey took my good villagers nearly a fortnight! From the moment we left, the valleys resounded with reports that we were on the move. Look-outs had been posted at strategic points on the heights to watch our progress, and at each fresh stage of the journey, they shouted the news until the echoes rang: ‘The dance is beginning! . . . The dancers from so-and-so have arrived at such-and-such a village . . . The Gabé will take place tomorrow . . .’ It was always ‘tomorrow’. The route we were obliged to follow was the ‘path of the dance’ which had been officially decided upon at the beginning of the Gabé ceremonies. It was no less imperative that we should stop at each one of the villages along our route, which by virtue of this had also been invited to the festival. Thus, their inhabitants, like those of ‘my’ village, had passed through all the torments and joys, the labours and rites, which served as preparation for the great event. Since we had been at the furthest limit of the path of the dance, each village awaited our arrival and as we pro-

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gressed we recruited more and more dancers and their escorts, as a snowball rolling down from a mountain peak gradually turns into an avalanche. However, our progress was distinctly slower! In France, when a cabinet minister or some other exalted personage visits a town, this is used as the excuse for certain traditional ceremonies: the bestowing of agricultural awards for merit, the unveiling of a statue to some great man of the district, an inspection of the fire brigade in their new helmets, and so on. In Papua, the visit of the Gabé dancers is a propitious moment for holding various ceremonies which have been long delayed. For example, in one village, the girls and youths may not yet possess the right to clothe themselves, not having received the strip of tapa cloth which they will henceforth wear round their loins, and which consecrates their maturity. In another village, the son of a chief may not yet have officially received his drum, even although he is included among the dancers: and this makes it a matter of urgency to hold the ceremony, so that he may properly count as one of the ballet. In yet another village, it may be necessary to terminate a period of mourning, so as to be free of the dead before setting off to join in the rejoicings of the living. In short, in every village, there is always some festival or ceremony to detain the dancers for at least a day, or even longer. There is much singing and dancing and feasting on the vegetables and pigs provided by the villagers. But the dancers, even while they contribute their share to the festivities, are unable to take any part in the feastings, for they are still obliged to observe a strict fast. The white and floury yams, the juicy sugar cane, the succulent joints of pork – these things are not for them, but for their followers. They themselves must

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be content with the eternal sweet potatoes cooked in the ashes by the old women and young girls – and badly cooked at that, since the cooks are too busy thinking of other things to attend to their work. By the second halt, I had grasped what was happening. There were still five or six villages to be traversed before the Gabé village was reached. So, in defiance of all good manners, I decided to return to the mission station, and there to continue with my normal tasks, until word should come that the dancers had arrived at the general assembly point. Ten days later I rejoined them there. They were split up by tribes in a number of temporary shelters of branches and leaves, which had been erected a short distance away from the village. These shelters might be described as their dressing-rooms. It was here that they put the final touches to their feathered finery, which they had picked up at the preceding village, and here that they prepared the paints and brushes with which they would artistically ornament their faces and bodies. It was here, also, that they paid the final attentions to their ‘beauty glands’ and oiled their bodies so that they looked like newly cast statues of bronze. I was strolling through the ‘dressing-rooms’, smiling and benevolently exchanging greetings with the people from all the different villages, asking their news and showing that I was there, when an announcement threw everyone into great agitation. ‘The women of the Gabé are going to dance. Come, all of you!’ We hastened towards the village. I had known it for a long time, but now I could scarcely recognize it. It seemed to me much bigger and entirely new. The houses, their long, high-peaked roofs glittering

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with golden-leaved thatch in the serene late afternoon light, were crowded closely together round the single clay clearing. The clearing, some fifty yards long by twenty yards wide, lay on a slight slope, and looked like a huge red carpet. All round its outer edge were hurdles arranged as display stands, and tall bushes still retaining their topmost leaves, and these were laden with every variety of vegetable, sugar-cane, huge globes of smoked pandanus, almonds, fruit and tobacco leaves, flowers and fringes of vegetation. Outside gleamed the tall, perfumed barrier of the surrounding fence. Everywhere one looked were dense crowds of people. In front of the huts, the terraces were black with squatting men. In the narrow lanes between the huts, or under the raised floors, among the piles, were packed the women and children. Everyone was decked in flowers and painted designs and multi-coloured leaves, everyone squealed and shouted and gesticulated. However, as soon as I entered the village, having scaled the barrier by means of a rudimentary wooden ladder, the tumult died into a sudden silence. I was the white man, the being apart, the messenger of the Great Spirit. But I was also the ‘Father’, whom they had accepted into their lives, and whom they had seen fit to invite to this most typical of native festivals. The village chief came and took me by the hand, and led me across the now nearly empty square to his communal house. There, he made me sit down beside him, at the foot of his kono. Overlooking the whole square, I was in the place of honour, and right in the dress circle. ‘Look at “our” women,’ the chief said, pointing with pride to a point in the surrounding fence. ‘They are ready to make their entrance.’

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Out of politeness, he had used the dual verbal form. So I looked at ‘our’ women, in other words all the women of the tribe who had raised a pig for the Gabé and had thereby won the honour of dancing before us. They were the same as the scouts had watched as they painfully rehearsed for this memorable night in their meagre lives. I counted some forty of them, assembled at one of the entrance points to the village, outside the fence. Their faces were painted, their bodies gleamed with oil tinted with red ochre, and they were wearing all their jewels: long necklaces of sharp dogs’ teeth, wound ten times round the neck, and then falling heavily to their flaccid or bulging stomachs. On their breasts, of all shapes and sizes, gleamed large, brilliant crescents of mother-of-pearl, carved from the shells of huge oysters; their arms were tightly clasped by bracelets of gilded fibre, into which small sheaves of flowers had been thrust; while their legs were ornamented with similar circlets of woven grass, from which hung red and yellow pompons, also of vegetable fibre. Their loin-cloths of white tapa, with decorative patterns, were now almost as large as a ‘bikini’. Their big ceremonial nets, with their various designs in different colours, hung in many folds from their shoulders to their calves. The women’s head-dresses were particularly elaborate: their hair was parted in front to make a number of small tresses, which hung over the forehead and ended in a dog’s tooth or shell; on top of the head, the hair was teased out into tufts, from which rose a magnificent crown of tall, spreading plumes, and in the centre of this, with the points uppermost, were two or three of the crinkled beaks of the oranorrhine toucan. The whole effect was of a fitting crown for a savage and primitive queen, a true Papuan crown.

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The women dancers, meanwhile, remained motionless. ‘What are “our” women doing?’ I asked the chief. ‘They are looking at the fence,’ he explained, ‘and, beyond that, the village square where they are soon to display their beauty. But since you are impatient, I will give the signal.’ He murmured a few words to his neighbour, doubtless one of his ministers, who began to bark orders. At once, the men invaded the square, leaping out from all sides, like a river bursting its banks. Without glancing in the direction of the women, they shouted: ‘Where are the women? Are these most illustrious dancers ready? Is everyone ready?’ Others, no doubt husbands or near relatives, had darted among the ranks of the dancers to hand them their drums, and cast a final glance over their costumes. I decided that this masculine uproar, unleashed without cause at an order from the chief, must be intended to give the impression that the women’s dance was an improvised affair and that no one had been expecting such good fortune, whereas in reality, of course, it was one of the main attractions of the festival, prepared long in advance. Hypocritical conventions, which deceive no one, are not found only in ‘civilized’ countries. ‘Let the women enter,’ shouted the men, finally, standing in the middle of the square. Gallantly, they then withdrew to either side to make way for the women, and form a guard of honour for them. As demurely as schoolgirls leaving their convent, the latter crossed the barrier and lined up in ranks of six at the far end of the square, which descended towards us. They began with a roll of drums which steadily grew stronger,

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settled into the beat of the first dance, looked at each other, raised a tentative leg, began to intone a chant, and then, suddenly, they were off, hopping and leaping down the village square. Reaching us, they turned about, and went back up the square at the same rhythm, singing and beating their drums. At the top, they turned again, descended, turned at the bottom, and so it went on. This performance did not last long, however. It seemed that it was merely a prelude, to get the women warmed up, and give them a little confidence. Besides, dusk was at hand, and as soon as the tropical sun had begun to sink behind the nearby lofty crests, the dance stopped. The dancers dispersed, each making for her own hut, where husband and relatives awaited her. Busily, but without haste, they took off her diadem of plumes and beaks and replaced it with a voluminous dance helmet, more than three feet high, and covered with a diversity of richly glowing feathers, in which were mingled the plumes of the bird of paradise. As soon as night had fallen, the women assembled once more at the upper end of the square. They seemed as if overwhelmed by their great burdens of plumes, which stirred in the light evening breeze. At once, the dance was resumed. It was to continue without a halt until dawn. This time, not only were the huts and terraces crowded with onlookers, but the square itself was invaded by a turbulent crowd, mainly men, so that the dancers sometimes had difficulty in making a path for themselves. But the official male dancers were not present. They were obliged to remain cooped up in their ‘dressingrooms’, fearing that if they mingled in the Gabé to watch the women dance, the miraculous effects of their ‘beauty

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gland’ might be dissipated. The same fear did not trouble their companions who did not have to dance, or their wives, sisters, aunts and daughters. Seated or crouched down in every available spot (if there had been lamp-posts they would have climbed them), wandering about the square, even joining the dancers for a few steps, the spectators, villagers and guests alike, threw themselves into the festival with the greatest enthusiasm. Many of them sang with the dancers. Some of the men beat their drums to the same rhythm. The younger men and women made a frame for the ballet, holding aloft torches of resinous leaves or dry bamboos, which blazed with tall flames, died down suddenly, then sputtered back to life again. In the capricious glow of these primitive lamp standards the great dance helmets, rippling like watered silk in the play of light and shadow, dipped and bowed and swayed upright again in unison above the human tide – a dusky tide relieved by paler patches where the glow of a torch struck an answering gleam from a dog’s tooth necklace or a mother-of-pearl pendant or a moist streak of body paint. Against the hubbub of talk, which formed a muffled but continuous base to the strident chants and the rolling drum-beats, and against the rhythmic contortions of the dancers amid the milling confusion of the crowd, the spectacle took on an aspect of sheer enchantment. All the same, I must confess that long before the coming of dawn, I had fallen asleep, slumped against the royal kono. I was awoken by a terrifying din. Opening my eyes, I thought at first that a fight had started, as sometimes happens during the Gabé. ‘Rosy-fingered dawn’ was drawing back the veil of night over the village square. And on the

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square, a dark horde of men armed with glowing brands were vociferously pursuing the women dancers, who fled uttering shrill cries. But these shouts and cries were expressive of joy and pleasure. I was soon given a reason for the uproar. At the moment when dawn first whitens the sky, the dance of the women ends. At once, the men, who have spent the whole night watching the manoeuvres of the dancers from the verandas in front of the huts, leap to their feet, grasp the torch nearest to hand, jump down into the square and begin to rush about in all directions among the women, waving their dangerous, smoking baubles. They look for all the world like a band of lunatics let out to play. The women are obliged to flee precipitately and seek refuge in their own huts, else their fine plumes, to say nothing of their skins, may be burnt. If an accident does happen, no one will have the bad grace to complain. But the women soon have their revenge. When the men have tired of this diversion, they gather in the square, and with powerful voices, intone the great chant dedicated to the Pig: We shall have the lower jaw Of the great pig that is to be killed! We shall have his entrails and his hams . . .

Five minutes later, calm has been completely restored. To allow the ladies to rest and sleep after their exhausting night, the dance is adjourned to the evening of the following day, and the men of the village, taking upon themselves the burden of domestic duties, see to it that the dancers and guests are properly fed. Chivalry still survives, even among the Papuans!

Chapter 11

THE DANCE ROYAL Still in a pleasant daze of recollection from the night dance of the women, everyone seemed to be completely restored by a day and a night of rest. But their rest was only relative, for the huge crowd of guests – there were more than five hundred of them – kept up a perpetual turmoil of movement in and around the village. Each inhabitant had assumed responsibility for one or more of the dancers and their escorts, giving them their food and procuring them every possible comfort. Every day, vegetables by the ton disappeared into stomachs only too eager to profit by the occasion – except, of course, for those of the dancers themselves, who were still bound to maintain a strict fast. At dawn on the third day, a powerful chant re-echoed round the village square. Hastily, I extricated myself from the blanket in which I had slept, curled up in a corner of the communal hut. Emerging, with a shiver at the cold morning mist, I saw a group of naked men running round the square, singing and brandishing green boughs. I recognized some of the inhabitants of the village, followed by a number of dishevelled guests. Suddenly, having gone round three times, they leapt over the fence, and shouting and capering about more noisily than ever, made for the dancers’ shelters. These they circled like a whirlwind, then

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returned to the square, ran round it once more, and came to a halt, breathless. ‘That shows that the big dance is about to start,’ said one of the old men, of whom I had asked an explanation. ‘In this way, the “Fathers of the Gabé” have warned the guest dancers to be ready for today.’ Sure enough, when I went for a friendly stroll a short time later towards the dancers’ ‘dressing-rooms’, I found them all feverishly occupied with their final preparations, and particularly with making their great dance headdresses. The headdress is built up on a sort of framework, made from slender branches and sections of bamboo, which spreads out like a fan. It is at least between four and five feet high and three feet wide. From the lower part project two shoulder supports which, together with a great many lianas, keep the whole apparatus firmly balanced on the dancer’s shoulder-blades. To this framework are attached hundreds of iridescent plumes, forming a silky and compact mass. The plumes are of every conceivable colour, but are graded with such taste in such a variety of forms and tints, that the finished helmet, with the luminous spray of bird of paradise feathers waving at the summit, is a veritable masterpiece of glowing radiance and light, airy grace. (Light and airy to the onlooker, that is, for the headdress weighs heavily on its owner’s shoulders!) When I returned to the village, the inhabitants were planting, here and there in the village square, a number of bushes with straight, slender, but tough and flexible stems. I pretended not to notice what one of the sorcerers was doing, which was to deposit, in the deep holes in which the bushes were being anchored, leaves over which he had pronounced certain incantations. The purpose of these was to

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make each bush even tougher and more springy, and thus even more dangerous for the use which was to be made of it. The sun had begun to sink from the zenith when the whole crowd of guests began to flood back into the village. Another performance was about to begin, and I once more took my dress-circle seat on the terrace of the emone. As on the first day, a motley crowd was milling around the edge of the clearing. All at once, however, a shudder went through the assembly, and everyone froze into immobility. From the nearby forest erupted a troop of about a hundred men of terrifying aspect. Their faces were painted with brilliant colours – red, black, white, yellow – in designs and patterns which a Picasso might well have admired. Some had one side of the face daubed with red or yellow, while the other was leopard-spotted with dabs of white or black; others had the lower jaw and the forehead covered with a band of red paint heightened by black lines, while the nose seemed to be divided in two by a centre line of yellow reinforced with red. Others had smeared white round the eyes and mouth, like circus clowns, but the result scarcely gave rise to mirth. The men’s bodies were also painted, and the general technique seemed to be to draw heavy white lines over the approximate position of the bones, so that the dancers looked like living skeletons. On their heads, waving like a mane, were cassowary feathers, filmy as smoke and black as soot. Between their clenched teeth and lips drawn back in a frightful grimace, many of them held two of the whorled tusks of an old boar. In each man’s right hand, at head height, was clenched a long black spear, shaken with swift, wild vibrations.

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In the most absolute silence, this demoniacal crew leapt over the surrounding fence at a single bound, and then rushed into the clearing in a compact mass, as if bent on wholesale massacre and destruction. In a rapid swirl of legs, arms and javelins, they circled the clearing once, and then divided up into small groups in front of the bushes planted only a short time before, and silently began to make prodigious leaps in the air. I saw some of them rise from the ground more airily and with greater elegance and power than a Serge Lifar, and thrusting out both feet simultaneously, strike the tough trunk of the small tree so that it bent over. The acrobat then landed again on his feet, with spear held high, and the tree had not yet regained its normal position when a second weird figure dealt it another slashing blow. Suddenly, one tree snapped, then another, and soon nearly all of them were strewn flat on the ground; they had been planted solely for this trial of strength. The whole spectacle – the nightmarish daubs of paint, the terrifying expressions, the utter silence, the swirl of naked muscular bodies, the combination of aerial lightness and a blind, destructive force like that of nature – made up an awe-inspiring ballet. I learned that these men, who seemed to come from another planet, were the night dancers, and that this demonstration marked the opening of the great male dance of the Gabé. Their terrible entry and savage destruction of the trees represented a raid on an enemy village. Each onlooker was allowed to draw his own salutary conclusions as to the power and strength of the warriors. When the trees had all been levelled, the dancers again assembled in the centre of the village clearing, and one of them, breaking the tragic silence, roared out the opening

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notes of a paean of triumph, which was at once taken up by a thunderous welter of voices. Still singing, the dancers then started off on a second crazy race round the square, without any apparent discipline, waving their vibrant spears in all directions. It was a marvel that no one fell to the ground wounded. All at once, all movement ceased, and again there was complete silence. With heaving chests and glistening with sweat, the dancers ranged themselves in two lines on either side of the square, and leant on their spears placed butt down on the ground. In this way, they formed a guard of honour. The fine red dust kicked up by their frantic feet gently settled on the empty clearing, over which the rays of the evening sun now slanted. The dense quivering crowd preserved a silence that nothing was allowed to disturb. If a baby showed signs of wanting to cry, its mother quickly placed her hand over its mouth, to stifle the sound. For this was a solemn moment. The royal dance was about to begin. The leading chiefs were ready. They were standing behind the surrounding fence, casting a last glance over their magnificent costumes, seeing that their ceremonial drums were in order with a casual stroke of the palm. They alone had the right to break the silence. The waiting period dragged on: but one can never hurry the Papuans. With them, time does not count . . . Suddenly, another fantastic ballet troop, this time composed of women, climbed over the barrier, and without warning, like a packed column of huge, malevolent insects, swarmed across the tranquil square. Not a cry was uttered, not a word spoken.

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They wore scarcely any ornaments. But young and old alike, the young women with gleaming curves, the old ones with ashen, bony outlines, all jigged up and down in a wild dance, brandishing at arm’s length a short javelin, an axe, or a sharp stake. Their eyes were wide, fixed and glittering, their mouths contorted, their gestures unruly. Only one word adequately describes them: they were bacchantes – bacchantes swept by hysteria. Entering the square, they rushed upon the bushes flattened by the men, and began to lop off their leaves and shatter their branches. Then they threw themselves upon the graves placed all round the square, smashed their frail enclosures, trampled under foot the flowers and plants which adorned them, and scattered the objects left there for the dead. After a further whirlwind progress, they next halted, singly or in small groups, before the men seated on the terraces of the huts, and with crazed eyes, frothing mouths, and jerking limbs, silently threatened them with their arms. No one laughed. So much fury unleashed in complete silence was really terrifying. It was the old women who seemed to be most excited of all. One of them gave me the impression of being literally possessed. She had planted herself before me and stood there, stamping her feet, leaping to left and to right at a single bound, and waving a javelin which she seemed about to hurl at me. The sweat poured down her withered body, she contorted her arms, her long, flat breasts whirled round in every direction, and she twisted her face into hideous grimaces, thrusting out a purplish froth-covered tongue, staring straight into my eyes with eyes that shot fire. The horrible pantomime went on for a full minute. I had nothing to fear. But confronted with such an infernal caricature

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of a human being, and especially of a woman, it was impossible not to be filled with an infinite uneasiness . . . It was at this moment, while the bacchantes were still giving vent to their fury all round the periphery of the square, that the great chiefs made their majestic entry, not as a group, but one by one. His whole body covered with painted designs, his head surmounted by an enormous, gently swaying feathered dance helmet some six feet high, and falling from his shoulders a truly royal cloak, for it is woven from a thousand parakeet and bird of paradise feathers, the first chief, prototype of all the others, advances with measured tread. In his left hand, he holds the carved haft of a big ceremonial drum, while his right hand, trembling already with the rhythm, lies flat against the carefully stretched and tuned lizard-skin. His arms seem to be encumbered, however, at the elbows by macabre pendants: two skulls, dangling and grimacing. They have been attached there by one of the Gabé chiefs, who is specially responsible for this particular dancer, and treats him as an intimate friend. The skulls are those of two former chiefs, who have died some time before but have not yet been buried. Before being finally forgotten, they are thus given a final chance of taking part in the most glorious of their tribe’s festivals. By a singular contrast, the royal dancer is flanked by two young women, full of grace and liveliness, in their sumptuous ornaments. These are the dancer’s younger sisters, or the sisters of his wife, for the latter is not considered either young or beautiful enough to appear at his side. In the traditional native expression, the two young women are part of the chiefs’ adornment.

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Elbows touching, the trio go in unison through the movements of a slow and solemn march, to the rare, muffled beats of the majestic drum. Reaching the centre of the square, the dancer stops and, turning to the four points of the compass, salutes with a slow inclination of the head, sending glorious ripples through his immense plumed head-dress. Each salutation is punctuated by a deep roll of the drum. These slow, grave gestures allow all the spectators to admire the splendour of the chief’s adornments and the harmony of his movements. After that, the dance proper began – a slow, brief dance, employing few gestures, and consisting much more in the undulations communicated to the great helmet and cloak of richly glowing plumes than to any bodily arabesques. It was a restrained, impressively graceful dance, which made a violent contrast with the contortions of the bacchantes, who continued to twirl about the solemn trio. Hardly had the chief completed the final measures of the dance which brought him to the far side of the square, than a second chief took his place, with the same majestic bearing, the same ceremonial, the same sovereign gravity. Thus they paraded, one by one: there were ten in all, if I counted correctly, for in the end the spectacle took on a dream-like quality. As each one finished his dance, his friend took him by the hand and led him before the dais on which were piled the bones of those who had died in recent years. The Gabé was used as the occasion for paying them a last tribute, before they were cast into the earth and into oblivion. The royal dancer stepped a brief measure before the piles of bones, and waved his crown of plumes: one would have said he was sprinkling these macabre relics with a

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spray of shimmering colours, as the priest waves the smoking censer before the relics of the saints. This ceremony completed, the friend of the dancer took a tuft of croton leaves from one of the graves ravaged by the bacchantes, and thrust it into the chief’s belt, just by the small of the back. Then he helped him to free himself of his cumbersome adornments, and led him to the fence. There, he waited until the chief had crossed the barrier, before handing him the precious burden of plumes. Holding it in his arms, the dancer-chief then strode in dignified fashion to his ‘dressing-room’, where his assistants hastened to strip down the great headdress and share out the feathers among themselves. These would be used to ornament their own, lighter head-dresses, which they would wear all night. No man could have worn on his head all night the glorious crown of the Papuan kings.

Chapter 12

THE NIGHT DANCE The golden motes of evening sparkled for a last time in the aureole of bird-of-paradise plumes above the head of the last dancer-chief. And then the village, which since midday had worn the aspect of an open-air fair and a first performance at the Opera, became suddenly mournful. Night was falling. The guests had dispersed for the main meal of the day. Abruptly, a group of villagers emerged from the communal hut, where I had remained in a reverie next to the royal kono, and made for the platform on which the bones were lying. To my surprise, they began silently to chop the platform down with vigorous and savage blows of their axes. Skulls and tibias, pelvic bones and vertebrae, went rolling and scattering over the red earth. At once, cries of lamentation arose from all the huts. It sounded like a pack of dogs baying at the moon. And indeed, at that very moment, the moon arose and shed its cold radiance over the macabre scene. The men then gathered up the scattered bones by the armful, and took them and threw them pell-mell in a sort of common grave which had recently been dug outside the surrounding fence. The sounds of lamentation continued throughout this operation. When it was over, a single voice was raised, mournful, monotonous and yet authoritative in tone. The voice said:

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‘Amo Kaou, I have cast you out! Go away to the mountain called Maneï! Do not come back any more, and do not enter into the pidé bird in order to bite us. Your end has come. Go!’ Another voice arose, in the same chiding tone, and pronounced the same expulsion. Only the first name was different. Then another arose, and another, all against the diffused background of mournful lamentation. It was enough to make one’s hair stand on end. ‘What does it all mean?’ I asked one of the old men, who was sitting beside me in a sombre day-dream. ‘We are driving out our dead,’ he said fiercely. ‘We have kept their bones with honour so that their spirits should not persecute us. But now, they have seen the dance of the great chiefs, and that is the end. Let them leave us in peace!’ The closing words were uttered with a cry of rage, as the old man turned towards the common grave. Then he said, in a calmer voice, as if entrusting me with a secret: ‘The head of each family calls his own dead by pronouncing their names. The spirit is there, and hears himself called. He comes . . . Why, look, there is one! It’s Oléké.’ He gestured with a trembling finger towards some vague point in the clearing: I could see nothing but a beam of moonlight playing on a clay mound. But to my companion, the ghost seemed to be clearly visible. For several moments, he remained absolutely still, breathing heavily. From a neighbouring hut, the plaintive and imperious objurgation rose into the night: ‘Oléké, I have cast you out! Go away to the mountain . . . ” ‘He has gone,’ said the old man. ‘He will not trouble us any more!’

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‘But what will he do on the mountain?’ ‘Ila? (Who knows?),’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Who can say what happens to the dead once they have been driven out? One no longer speaks of them, that is all.’ All at once, the lugubrious spell which seemed to weigh so heavily on the village was raised as abruptly as it had begun by the appearance of a group of night dancers on the shadowy square. One could see them only dimly, in the once more friendly moonlight, but well enough to distinguish the tall feathers wavering above their painted faces, the fibre baubles and the gleaming necklaces of dogs’ or pigs’ teeth, and the loin-cloths with their long white tails. A number of groups arrived in this manner, as if taking a stroll. For some reason, it put me in mind of titled gallants sauntering through the garden of the Palais Royal in the days of Louis XV. At the same time, the guests began to resume their places, and the scene grew once more joyous and animated. ‘We are going to trample on the bones of the dead,’ someone remarked gaily. When all the dancers had arrived, they gathered in a circle in the middle of the square, and one of them, doubtless a notable ‘expert’, proceeded to burn some plants with very dry leaves and small, twisted roots. From where I was sitting I recognized them easily as ginger plants. The dancers all leaned forward to inhale the smoke from the little fire, and the young men each seized some of the roots and began to chew them vigorously. In answer to my questions, the chief of the village, who had once more taken his place beside me, explained:

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‘They are inhaling the smoke of the “women’s ginger” and chewing its roots to give themselves confidence, and also so that all the young women in the audience may know that they can find a husband among the dancers.’ When the ginger ceremony was over, women and young girls surrounded the dancers, towards whom the whole crowd was pressing, holding aloft flaming torches of dry bamboo and elder branches. As on the first night, the swirl of colours and movement gave a legendary enchantment to the scene. A village orator stepped out in front of the dancers to wish them welcome: ‘Ho, there! Ho, there!’ he exclaimed, evidently seized by a sudden inspiration. ‘Tell us, you, Eva Doubé, and you, Aïpé [these were the names of two of the women dancers], you said:…Now what was it you said exactly? . . . Hmm! You said: “Here are our little pigs, that we’ve brought up so well!’ Yes, that’s what you said! And then, what did we others say, we men? We said: “Let us go and seek out the black pigs!” Oh, oh! . . . Yes, that’s what we said. Let them come and let them dance, we said. And now, here they are! . . . Well now, you women, are you or aren’t you going to raise your torches, so that we can see their faces? . . . Eh? . . . What do you say to that? Eh? . . . Are they handsome, or aren’t they? . . . Lou-loulouloulou . . . ‘ A great roll of drum-beats showed how much everyone appreciated this flight of eloquence, and then the dance began. It was to continue until dawn. The dance proved to be much the same as the women’s dance, but a great deal more vigorous, varied and artistic. The main ballet, in a compact square, swept up and down the slope of the village clearing. Each dancer beat his drum

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with the flat of his hand, and sang with full-throated resonance. By rolling his head, he would make his great headdress of plumes tremble and shimmer in time with the beat. Rhythmically, he would raise one sinewy leg, while bending the other gently, and gripping the earth with springy toes; then he would twist round slightly on this foot, and land on the other; and after a graceful slide, the movement would be repeated with the other leg. The whole group performed these gestures with perfect cohesion, swaying forward and backward together in an impeccably unified movement, to the rhythm of the drums and the singing. The great ritual fast had certainly endowed the dancers with an astonishing grace and ease and suppleness, and their ‘beauty glands’ had worked wonders. But I could not help wondering where they found all their energy. Each dance lasted eight to ten minutes. Then the dancers stopped. One hastily inhaled a lungful of smoke from the long pipe which someone held forward for him; another thrust a ready-made plug of betel into his mouth. Others set their adornments straight. But already, the leader of the choir and ballet, who had been squatting in front of the dancers, bounded to his feet, roared out a new refrain to the beat of his up-raised drum, and turning, set the example. In a single movement, the rest of the dancers followed. Each dance, and in consequence each chant, for the two were regarded as one, had its own particular name and significance. Some were clearly symbolical in presentation. There was the dance of the areca nut, tranquil and joyous like the peace which the nut stands for. Then there were the rough and jolting cassowary dance and the toucan dance, and one could even recognize the characteristic noises made by these birds: for the former, when it runs, makes a

.

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sound like a train engine, and the latter, when it flies, sounds like a machine-gun in action. There was the graceful dance of the bird of paradise, and the snail dance, during which the dancers bent down and curled up in front of each other, to imitate the creature shrinking into its shell. The snake dance, with its long, sinuous file, was like a school crocodile or a samba. At one point, the artists put aside their drums and took up long, thick bamboo canes instead, which they held as a majordomo does his staff. With the butt ends, they all pounded the earth in unison. A deep and sonorous note was thus added to the chant, but on the off-beat, while the dancers shook their bodies with jerky hip movements. This syncopated ballet produced a really startling effect. ‘This is a kouroundé,’ the chief explained. As the night advanced, the crowd grew more and more animated. The women torch-bearers, marching in front and at the sides of the dance troupe, ceaselessly waved their primitive flares, which gave off showers of sparks. They sang as well, and their shrill voices sounded clearly above the deep, powerful bass notes of the men. The rest of the crowd swirled all around the indefatigable ballet, singing, hailing each other with loud cries, joining in the dance. Women circulated without constraint among the ranks of the dancers, bringing them pipes ready to be smoked. The man would hastily draw in a mouthful of smoke, so as to ‘keep his eye open’. The women were the wives or relatives of the men, eager to bestow attention on one who brought them so much pride. No doubt they also felt some anxiety on their own account as well, for from time to time, one saw a woman go up to one of the dancers, and lightly touch his back with a discreet, quiver-

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ing hand, and then both would disappear into the night. The wives and mothers were also obliged to ‘keep an eye open’. In one corner of the village, apart from the rest, the old women bustled around big fires in which impressive piles of vegetables were being cooked: yams, taros, potatoes, and so on. Towards midnight, there was an interval. The ballet dispersed among the crowd. On leaf platters, a meal was handed round, consisting of vegetables, bananas, sugarcane, areca nuts, and tobacco. The dancers had to be content with a pipe or a piece of areca nut to chew: their fast would end only when the dance ended. Another interlude occurred a little later. The inhabitants of the village had long before reached agreement on sharing the responsibility for the dancers, but this fact had not been hitherto officially and publicly celebrated. Thus, when the dance stopped, each host approached his protégé and slipped little tufts of coloured croton leaves into his bracelets and his belt. This marked, so to speak, the signing of a pact of friendship, and also the promise of a succulent piece of pork. A few minutes after the dance had started again, a woman came to speak to the chief. She remained discreetly in the shadows, below the terrace. The chief went over and spoke to her, gave a nod of acquiescence, and returned to where I was sitting with a smile on his lips. ‘Now you’ll see something amusing,’ he announced. And in fact, shortly afterwards, I witnessed an extravagant spectacle. Having received permission from the chief, the women of the village armed themselves with large clubs, and slipped in among the ranks of the dancers. The latter had just finished singing a special song about their

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hostesses. There was nothing malicious or derisive in the song, for it even compared the women to flowers. But now, however, at a secret signal, the so-called ‘flowers’ all raised their clubs and brought them down in a volley on the stalwart backs of the surprised dancers. A deafening clamour broke out. Shouting and laughing, the dancers took to their heels, pursued by these village termagants who vigorously exacted vengeance for the burning brands with which the men had chased them during their own dance. The crowd opened before them, closed again, spun round in swift eddies, yelling and triumphant. I felt somewhat ill at ease, however, recalling other similar occasions when the joke – for it was merely a joke in the minds of the villagers – had turned into tragedy. The women had laid about them with such vigour that one of the dancers had fallen with his skull cracked open. War had been declared as a result. More recently, in another village, the custom had produced less tragic consequences, but the dancers had been so well pummelled that they had had to seek refuge in a neighbouring village until the following day. This time, happily, nothing of the kind occurred, nor, thank heaven, were there any disputes between the dancers of different tribes, disputes which sometimes degenerated into real fixed battles. My presence there no doubt had something to do with it.3 The dance continued without further incident until just before dawn. Then the dancers stopped for a moment, set their decorations straight, and at the precise instant when a purplish glow climbed up the mountainous horizon, they began to intone a chant quite unlike the preceding ones, being grave, melodious and almost religious in feeling.

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They also danced in rhythm to it, to a very subdued accompaniment of low-toned drums. This was the song of Dawn. Friends, see where our dawn Grows into morning To descend down our valleys! It opens and spills itself into the course of the mountain stream: See how it spreads itself over our forests. We are like the sacred Ghinal tree, All night we have spread our leaves, Soft and tender leaves, good to the taste. And now those leaves are hard and shrivelled.

The majestic chant rose upwards in the fresh, pure air of morning. The sky whitened, the mountain peaks began to glow. Soon, the sun would appear. The tired dancers (‘hard and shrivelled’) summoned up their last energy to produce a resonant and ample roll on the drums. And there was the sun! The dance was over.

3. Just as I was correcting the proofs of this book, I noticed a news item from Papua, dated December 1953. The item said: ‘While a dance was in progress recently at Goutou (in the Yarima district), guests from Kariaritsi (in the Tawadé district) were accused of having stolen a pig. A dispute followed, in which three natives from Goutou were killed. The Kariaritsi group then fled back home, but the people of Goutou seized weapons and went and caught them by surprise in their village. They killed two of the inhabitants. Father Guichet, who is in charge of Kariaritsi, hastened to the spot to stop the slaughter ‘ The two tribes in question live near those whose Gabé I am describing. My own memories date from some fifteen years ago, but it can be seen that, in spite of some changes, the Papuans remain fundamentally the same, as indeed do their missionaries

Chapter 13

THE ANTIQUE FUSION OF BEAUTY: WORD, DANCE, SONG . . . The spectator who wishes to describe the impressions and emotions aroused in him by the major Papuan dance festivals is liable to forget to study them in their technical detail. The dynamic force behind these dances is so great, their movements so varied, and the symbolic meanings of the various measures and chants so complex and obscure, that it is only afterwards, after long study, research and observation, that the onlooker is in a position to bolster up the feelings which he has experienced so strongly, and which he tries to communicate to the reader, with a few mundane facts. For the reader is bound to ask: ‘What are they really worth, these chants you’re continually talking about? What do they mean? And the dances themselves, glimpsed through the whirl of movement, have they a characteristic form? Do they give expression to an idea? . . . ’ These are legitimate questions, and I shall try to reply to them at least briefly, paying tribute, meanwhile, to the penetrating and scholarly studies which the present Apostolic Vicar of Papua, Bishop André Sorin, made of the native music, especially that of the Fuyughés, during his stay among them as a young missionary between 1934 and

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1937. From the astonishing materials which he was able to collect, I shall choose two typical examples. The mountain Papuans, who inhabit the valleys of the Upper Vanapa, the Upper St Joseph, and the Upper Yaloghé, belong to the ethnical subdivision of Malo-Papuanesians. Under this heading are grouped the natives of New Guinea who have ethnological and somatic links with the Maloid peoples, the ancient inhabitants of India long before the Aryan invasion. The chants which one hears among the various tribes of this large Papuan subdivision are, with a few slight exceptions, all of the same type, and the dances which accompany them must also be grouped in a particular family, among the multitude of rhythmic gestures through which humanity has always sought to express itself. The words of these chants are never separated from the music: Orpheus did not speak his verses, he sang them. Among the Papuans, spoken poetry is unknown. The movements of the dance do not always accompany these chants, but they have no independent existence without them. Here again, one recognizes one of mankind’s oldest impulses, which survived in the songs of the medieval minstrels and jongleurs, with their accompaniment of rhythm and mime, and nearer to our own time, in the improvisations of the Corsicans and Basques, for example, or in the Russian bilini. Among the Fuyughés, there are two types of dance: the Olove and the Mayame. The Olove is a true dance, performed only to an accompaniment of drums and chants, and demanding richly elaborate costumes. The Mayame is merely a rhythmic chant, to which the dancers enter at a run, and perform a brief gallop and a hopping dance. No

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personal adornments are worn for it, and the dancers merely carry spears or axes, and in some cases, simply reeds and leafy branches. The Mayame can also be sung without gestures or specific movements. Both these types of dance contain a number of subdivisions in which individual dances are each known by a particular name, deriving either from their place of origin (the moumouli, for example, which is a dance of the coastal regions), from their performers (the amou youmamé, or women’s dance), from the hour when they are performed (ev’ olo, dance of the day; ai’ olo, dance of the dawn), from their purpose (olov’ andava, dance in honour of the dead), or, finally, for the list could be extended indefinitely, from the subject which the movements evoke (oundoulou falamame, the dance of the cassowary). There are also many varieties of Mayames, ranging from the mellow vilé- vilé, chants sung at evening, to the maté, obscene refrains, to say nothing of magical songs. The Papuan manner of dancing is very different from ours. One never sees mixed couples dancing together, for that would be a terrible scandal. No man would ever dare to hold a woman even by the arm or hand. Besides, men and women dance together only on rare occasions, and when they do, the women dancers go ahead of the men, or remain to one side of them. This outwardly modest convention of behaviour is strictly observed among the mountain peoples. In the coastal regions, the ranks of dancers are often made up of men and women alternately, side by side: but it must be added that in these regions, the dances are entirely different from those with which we are dealing here. Generally speaking, the Olove is performed by a compact group. The dancers advance six or eight abreast,

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immediately followed by five or six further ranks, or even more, according to the number of participants. It must be admitted, however, that these ranks have none of the impeccable bearing of a Guards’ regiment on a march-past. The group is normally led by a coryphaeus, rather like a drum-major with his long staff, who uses his wooden drum to give the signal to begin the chant, which in turn determines the nature of the dance. Facing the dancers, the leader himself sings the opening notes at the top of his voice, then leaps round and indicates the opening steps. The progress made by the group as a whole is rather slow, for it is made up of a number of separate movements executed in unison: the dancers hop lightly on one foot, then on the other, then slide to the right, make a brief forward run, hop again, and pause. After a few seconds, these movements are repeated, but this time, the group executes a sliding motion to the left, and instead of advancing, retreats a step. The group thus makes its way from one end of the square to the other, in short zigzags interrupted by pauses. While they are actually in motion, the dancers remain silent, although they beat their drums with full force with the flat of their hand. Then, as each pause occurs, they cease their beating, and sing at the top of their lungs. However, their movements are so rapid, and the pauses so brief, that one has the impression that they have not stopped singing at all. In fact, the pauses are an additional element in the rhythm rather than an interruption of it. They are certainly not to be confused with the long pauses which occur between the different dances, to enable the performers to rest and enjoy a brief smoke, as they mingle in amiable disorder.

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If the movements of the corps de ballet as a whole tend to be slow, the bodies of the individual dancers are stirred by a graceful frenzy of movement. With supple grace, each dancer raises first one leg, then the other, first forward, then back; touches the ground with springy tread, with each foot separately or both together; then crouches on his haunches, and remains for a moment in this position with knees bent, marking with his feet the rhythm beaten out on the drum; and finally stands erect again, bows low, and ceases his agitation only when the pause is reached. During all this time, he nods his head slowly forwards and backwards, to left and to right, thereby imparting the most graceful curves to the tall plumed head-dress. Yet nothing is left to chance or to individual whim: the particular rhythm of each dance governs all, and each dance becomes a harmony of movements, voices and colours, punctuated by the thunderous rolling of the drums. Often, the group of dancers splits into two: the two sections then approach or recede from each other according to their zigzag progressions and the steps of that particular dance. Such dances are rather like our rounds and quadrilles. The ourouvé is a typical example. This dance is rather like a samba, although there is no contact among the participants. Packed in a long, close file, they follow a weaving circular course all over the village square, so that one thinks of the sinuous movements of a snake. Suddenly, however, the file is broken, as two dancers step up beside the dancer immediately in front of them. These three dance a few steps together, while the others follow, and then resume their places. The movement is repeated several times. The meaning of this manoeuvre is extremely curious.

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The ourouvé is the oranorrhine toucan, in other words a toucan with an enormous beak which is heavily wrinkled at the upper edge of the base. The Papuan toucan is half-way between its South American cousin, which has just as big a beak but without wrinkles, and the calao, or hornbill. This toucan builds its nest at the summit of very tall trees, in the hollow cradle formed by the topmost leaves. According to the natives, when the young toucans are strong enough to leave the nest, the female, which bears the attractive name of paolopaolo, watches over the fledglings, while the male, called isio, sets off on a long flight to carry the news to all the other male toucans of the district and beyond. On hearing the news, the latter at once make for a tree next to the one in which the happy nest is situated, and perch there. They come from all directions – just as the dancers hasten to the Gabé, as one of my informants remarked – so that the tree becomes simply a solid mass of toucan plumage. As soon as the father returns, two isios fly to the nest, lean over the cradle, and cross their wings, the left wing of one bird against the right wing of the other. In this way they make a flying carpet, on to which one of the young toucans climbs. The two isios at once take off, each beating its free wing, and carry their passenger on a reconnaissance of the country over which he will soon fly alone. All the other isios follow the improvised aeroplane in a long, erratic and noisy file, for their wings make a din like a hundred drums being beaten. At the end of the flight, the young toucan is brought back, not to the nest, but to the tree where all the others have gathered: for henceforward, he must fly on his own wings.

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This performance is repeated for each of his brothers. (No mention is made of his sisters . . . ) The legend is certainly an attractive one, and makes one think of the eagle carrying its young towards the sun: and the natives claim to have witnessed the strange spectacle with their own eyes. All that one can say for sure is that toucans do fly through the air in groups, and that in flying, they produce a noise like a drum being beaten – although, personally, I find it more like the noise of a machine-gun. Whatever the truth may be, the ‘Toucan Ballet’, like the ‘Bird-of-Paradise Ballet’, provides one of the great moments among the dances of the Gabé The music used for the Oloves and Mayames is as varied as the chants themselves. As this is not primarily a study of Papuan music, I shall merely give a typical example, set down with great fidelity and skill by Bishop Sorin. It will provide at least a rough idea of the beauty of the Papuan chants. Here is a kouroundé . . . The dancers no longer use the drum for this, but a large bamboo tube, which they hold in their right hands like a cane. The dance is in a clearly accentuated triple time. On the first beat, the dancers all rise together on to their toes; on the second, they let the full weight of their bodies fall back on their heels, and following this movement with their right hands, strike the earth with the end of their bamboo canes, which produce a hollow resonant note; on the third beat, there is a pause. After having repeated the chant three or four times, the dancers sing it once more an octave lower, from (A), and gradually the choir descends into an impressive bass register. Before the second verse, the introduction is sung again.

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There are also a great many different types of drumbeats. Each type has its own particular name, and is chosen in relation to the rhythm required by the chant and the dance. Monseigneur Sorin has noted that in the intervals of the chants, the drums are beaten in a five-four time:

The dance of the ourouvé, described above, is accompanied by a rather amusing rhythm on the drums:

This motif is kept up as long as the procession of ‘toucans’ continues.

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The words of the Papuan chants are generally incomprehensible for the first few hearings, at least for a European, although the natives seem to grasp their meaning straight away. It is true, however, that their interpretation does not necessarily correspond to the sense that the author originally wanted to convey. The Papuan poet, in short, is a past master at the use of symbolism: indeed, he is even a surrealist. Apart from the mysterious, quivering inner life of the words he employs (and which he sometimes even borrows from foreign languages), apart from the alliterations and intoxicating repetitions in the manner of Péguy, the expansions made by adding syllables and the abbreviations by elision, to all of which verbal effects the Fuyughé language lends itself admirably, the primitive bard is an expert in the art of suggestion. But it is just this power of suggestion that constitutes the ‘essential poetry’ that eludes translation, and which is related much more closely to music than to the harmony of words. In one of his Five Great Odes, Paul Claudel exclaims: ‘Let me not know what I say! Let me be a note in ferment!’

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The Papuan poet is exactly that: a note in ferment. Often, he has no clear idea of what he is saying, but when he has spoken, his own people understand him. When Koma Doubé Pio composed his Mel’ our’ Inghi, his heart was heavy, for he was thinking of his elder brother, Hala, who had died a short time before. To the music cited above, his melancholy inspired him to set the following words, which are here given in their normal literary form with a word-for-word translation: 1 Mel’ our’ Inghina, Inghi Bird of the country of Mel Ileil’ Inghina! Alas, Inghi from up there! Mel’ our’ Inghina . . . Inghi Bird of the country of Mel 2 Mel’ our’ Inghina, Vei, nou Bab’ odé? Nou Bab’ al’ odé?

3 Mel’ our’ Inghina, Nou Bab’ ou mad’ i N’ iy’ ombo youyou.

4 Mel’ our’ Inghina, Koil’ é mé té, gé! Ghé, noura youé.

Inghi Bird of the country of Mel See, where is your Father? Your Father is there. But where?

Inghi Bird of the country of Mel As your Father once did I go hopping among the branches.

Inghi Bird of the country of Mel Ah! Be silent, then, and go! Go to the banks of your stream.

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5 Tsilong’ our’ Imi Oudé, yétélo Na mou soumato!

The tumbling stream of Tsilong Draw water from it, bring me some, That, burning, I may quench my thirst!

Now this is what these sybilline phrases, with their musical accompaniment, suggest to the minds of the natives, with a far greater intensity of feeling and far more nuances than it is possible to translate. Inghi is a celebrated bird living in the mysterious country of Mel. He is insignificant to look at, being small and without any fine plumage. Nevertheless, he is famous because he is a ‘chief-bird’ (ivandé). In this respect, he resembles the great Outame chiefs. ‘Strangers’, say the natives, ‘have only heard of them by name: they have not seen them with their own eyes. Then, one day, they see them, just as they are, without insignia or outward display, as true chiefs should be, since, being great by nature, they have no need to make themselves appear so by artifice. Then they say to us: “Is that what your chiefs are like?” And we reply: “Yes. Famous beings are like that. That is why, during the big feasts, we sing about the Inghi bird . ”’ Korea Doubé, out of fraternal piety, has compared his dead elder brother to the Inghi bird, and thus to all celebrated men. The Papuans, when they sing these verses, are vaguely aware of the mixture of social eminence and equality in death, which sets them dreaming without turning them to bitterness or envy. Thus, the mere name of Inghi, tirelessly repeated, exalts in them a profound sentiment which every man hides within himself.

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In the eyes of the poet, Inghi assumes the role of a sort of sphinx, capable of answering all the tormenting questions that men ask themselves. His brother is dead. Where is he now? Where is that ‘beyond’, which is the empire of the dead, to be situated? In addressing Inghi, the term he uses for his brother is ‘your Father’. This is not intended to evoke the idea of paternity, however, but a transforming intimacy, a community of sentiments, possessions and habitations. Inghi must know where Hala is. Perhaps he is even with the bird, in its fabulous tree? The poet yearns to join him there. He imagines himself already leaping from branch to branch, as his brother did when he leapt into the beyond. But perhaps all this is in vain? Ah! then let Inghi not even try to reply. But let him, rather, bring a few drops of the water that he is wont to drink at the edge of the Tsilong (should this be rendered as Lethe?), so that the poet, burning in the fires of grief and anguish, may refresh himself and assuage his pain. The kouroundé is no less evocative, but, like its music, is inspired by a very different set of sentiments: Yé al’ iyei” (Yariei) Dau valé Gam’ ito (mé) . . .

Take and throw them On this pile, The fish scales . . .

Daudokou Garev’ obou Ghighibou (mé) . . .

Goddess Daudokou, By my Gareve flower Lull yourself . . .

The meaning of the poem is this: while the festival of the Gabé is in progress, a dancer has fallen in love with a woman.

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He invites her to join him on ‘the voyage to Cythera’. She seems to be in agreement. In that case, why should the dancer need all the adornments which cover his person? These brightly gleaming ‘scales’ conceal his true beauty, his real personality. Let her therefore strip them from him and throw them away! He then gives his beloved the name of a mythological goddess, who may be likened to Venus, called Daudokou, and suggests that she should remain close to him during the dance, so that she may be rocked by his rhythm, while holding in her hands the bewitched flower that ornaments his belt . . .

Chapter 14

AFTER THE DANCE I emerged from sleep as a drowning man struggles to the surface. A dense and evil-smelling smoke filled the communal hut which served as my lodging. Beyond this wavering curtain, outside, the sun was shining brightly. At ordinary times, the village would have been humming with activity at that hour. Today, however, a deathly silence reigned over the huts and the surrounding bush. Everyone was still plunged in the sleep of exhaustion. I turned and sought a fresh position under my blanket, for the bamboo canes of the floor on which I had snatched a few hours’ sleep were cutting into my side. Above me, slumped in his cord net, his arms and legs hanging down like the limbs of a disjointed puppet, a man was snoring, and his brown skin bulging through the coarse mesh made me think of the embossed studs on a round leather shield. To left and right, other forms lay stretched out beside the central hearth. Above them were other nets, slung at every level, like spiders’ webs laden with huge inert victims. Coughing like some wretched morning drunkard, I raised myself to a sitting position…Goodness, I thought, what am I doing here? Was this really my proper place, in a smoky Papuan hut, surrounded by naked men, smells and fleas? Was it the proper place for a man of God, impelled by his vocation towards the conquest of souls? And what had I accomplished so far in this village, among the wild riot of movement and colour and rhythm and chant of the past few days?

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As far as I could judge, nothing. Nothing, that is, except to be merely present there, as a man of God . . . Well, I thought, I’m certainly not much of a servant of the Lord. Another Presence would certainly be needed if my own was to have the least effect; if, in the minds of these Papuans all around me, the recollected joys of their festival were to remain linked with the idea of One who planned to bring them to the only true Joy. I got up, and unhooked my canvas haversack, which contained both my church and sacristy together. Stepping over the recumbent sleepers, and ducking my head under the bulging nets, I went outside. The rays of the tropical sun were dancing their own furious dance on the red clay of the empty square. This dance business was becoming an obsession! I ran to the nearby stream, and splashed myself with cold water. It felt as good as an absolution. Returning to the village, where the alternate gruntings of dogs and pigs were the only apparent signs of life, I noticed one of the display stands for vegetables which suited my purpose. Only a few husks remained on its low platform. A leafy branch served me as broom and duster. Next, I spread out three small altar-cloths on the tiny altar, attached my brass crucifix to the centre pole, stuck two candles in the gaps in the bamboo, opened my pocket missal, prepared the chalice in two detachable pieces, and the communion bread and wine, and robed myself in light sacerdotal vestments. It was a martyr’s day, and they should have been red. But I had only one vestment, white on one side, black on the other. It did not greatly matter: like chaplains on the battlefields, missionaries have certain privileges . . .

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After a few moments of meditation alone – indeed, feeling terribly alone – I began the celebration of mass, blaming myself for my sins before heaven and earth. But, on earth at least, there was no one . . . A little while later, turning for a Dominus vobiscum, I saw a few women crouching before me. At the Orate fratres, several men arrived, stretching their legs, and squatted down round the altar. It was then that I found my attention suddenly distracted. One of the men was wearing a white shirt which gaped open in ridiculous fashion over his naked legs. Standing erect, but his head deeply bowed, he seemed to be wholly lost in meditation. But who was it? I forced myself to think of nothing but the ever stupendous action I was about to undertake: to change the substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ the Redeemer, and that, for the sake of my Papuans…Now it was His presence which reigned over this wretched village, sunk from view at the very ends of the earth, and itself sunk in its small human vanities just as the great, proud cities of the civilized world are sunk in theirs. The sacrifice of Calvary was renewed once more on a Papuan altar. Then came the thanksgiving, but by now I was no longer alone: a crowd came pressing forward to join in this ageless Communion. The man in the white shirt was still there, now on his knees. At the moment of the Ita Missa est, I recognized him. It was my ‘boy’ Friday. By the benediction, he had disappeared but a hundred other ‘savages’ made the sign of the cross. A little awkwardly, perhaps, but, after all, they showed by that sign that they had accepted Christ.

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At the close of the mass, I tried in a few very simple words to reveal the meaning of this mysterious drama of love which had been enacted for their sake, for these primitive beings whom a presentiment, if not an understanding, of the same mystery had drawn from sleep. I quickly realized, however, that it would be better not to insist. They were already beginning to scurry off in aimless agitation, like so many ants, absorbed in their own affairs once more. By now, the whole village was emerging from the torpor into which it had sunk after the exaltation of the past forty-eight hours – in itself a meagre enough recompense for so many months of effort and care and constraint. But that is one of the strange ways in which human beings behave. That day, while the leading dancers slept on, exhausted, the indefatigable ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ had to prepare the allocations of vegetables, so that the ordinary guests could depart as soon as possible for their villages. The dancers, on the other hand, would still have to be entertained for many days to come. As I sat at the foot of the kono and ate breakfast – consisting of a few sweet potatoes cooked in the ashes – I watched them bustling about the square, which was covered with debris like the main Paris market at mid-morning. With slow, solemn movements and expressions of disgust, they were taking down the yams and other vegetables that had been piled on platforms or attached to the poles surrounding the square. Great inroads had already been made into the vegetables. ‘You see,’ one of the elders confided to me, ‘ “they” have taken all we had.’

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‘They’ were the dancers and the guests, and ‘they’ had liberally exploited their privileged position. But nobody could protest at that. Nevertheless, there were still enough yams left to cover once again a large area of the square, except for the centre, which was kept free. As on the first occasion, this exhibition was staged on the pretext of making sure that there would be sufficient vegetables for everyone. In reality, its aim was to arouse the admiration of the visitors. The latter were careful to conform to polite custom. With puffy eyes and faded warpaint, dancers and guests made themselves hoarse with cluckings of praise, cries of astonishment, and flattering exclamations at the splendour and abundance of the yams. The ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ were themselves quite ready to swell the chorus of praise – not in speaking directly to the guests, for that would have been unseemly, but in talking among themselves. The guest: ‘Never in my whole life have I seen such beautiful yams. Word of truth, they are as big as the rocks in the stream over there.’ The Father of the Gabé: ‘Oh, they’re poor, feeble little things! You can hardly see them.’ (Turning to one of his fellow villagers, in clear and unmistakable tones): ‘He might have said that our yams are at least as big as houses.’ The villager: ‘Av’ akai” (word of truth).’ When the exhibition was over, in other words, when no one could think of anything more to say, two tall stakes were planted in the centre of the square. These formed the kolilo. Around them the villagers drove smaller stakes into the ground, in pairs: these were the fadés. Between the larger and smaller sets of stakes, separated by a measured distance, the vegetables to be given away were then piled.

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The kolilo was intended for the dancers, as a group. The fadés were for the guests, there being an individual fadé for each path by which the latter had come. First, the sugar-canes were brought, and cut into pieces about fifteen inches long. They were then parsimoniously counted, and a certain number placed between the stakes of each fadé. This done, the remainder were thrown in armfuls between the stakes of the kolilo. Where those heroes of the festival, the dancers, were concerned, there was no question of counting. On top of the sugar-canes the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ next piled taros, with the same parsimony towards the guests and the same generosity towards the dancers as before. On top of the taros were piled the smallest yams, those considered unworthy to be seen, and on top of that, the almonds of the malaghé and the impressive fruit of the giant pandanus, the iné. Finally, displayed for all to see, came the biggest yams. The whole pile was then crowned with leaves of tobacco, rolled and pressed into carrot-shaped bundles. It was then that I created a sensation among the villagers crowding round the heaps of vegetables. With the grave and dignified air demanded by the occasion, I laid on top of the native tobacco several plugs of American tobacco which I used for barter. These plugs were made from poor quality leaves, which were first soaked in a mixture consisting mainly of treacle, and then compressed into small sticks, as hard as iron and black as ebony. They were acrid to the palate, and strong enough to choke a bullock, but the natives much preferred them to their own tobacco. It was for this reason that plug tobacco was widely used in the Pacific as an excellent instrument of barter or payment.

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My gesture was greeted with an approving murmur from the crowd, and the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ were suffused with pride: what an honour I was paying them! At the same time, however, I had set them a fresh problem to wrestle with. Since I was a ‘chief’, I had been invited as one of the official dancers: but I had not danced. On what ground, therefore, could they present me with my share of vegetables, and later, of pork? Furthermore, by placing the plugs of tobacco on the piles of vegetables, I had acted like a ‘Father of the Gabé’. But the latter were not due to receive any share. Immemorial customs had thus been overturned. The white man was always creating fresh complications! They finally solved the problem by deciding to institute a new tradition: henceforward, there would be a ‘share for the Father’, different from the others, and given to him direct whenever he cared to take it. The kolilo was overflowing with vegetables, but the fadés were a great deal less impressive, and some, indeed, looked very meagre. The ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ therefore arranged to make them all equal, so that no one should feel slighted. This was only achieved, however, after a good deal of bitter argument, a fact which would seem to contradict the principles on which the lomulomé had been cultivated, as a communal garden. True: but in Papua, as elsewhere, theory was one thing and practice another. Each individual had spontaneously given his time and labour and effort to the communal enterprise, renouncing his private good for the good of the whole. Nevertheless, each individual had a highly proprietary interest in the result of his efforts, an interest which nothing would make him give up. That was why, in effect, and in spite of the accepted theory,

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each person responsible for a particular strip of the lomulomé was the owner of the vegetables which he had grown upon it. Europeans should have no reason to feel astonished at this state of mind! When the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ were dividing the vegetables into lots, one did indeed have the impression that everything had been placed in a common pool. But this was not the case. Each giver took mental note of his exact contribution both to the kolilo and the fadé, and each recipient was no less careful mentally to estimate its worth. The different shares were, in other words, either repayments of existing debts, or gifts which in their turn created new creditors. The shares were given generously, but sooner or later, strict repayment would be exacted. These primitive beings had no account books, since they could not write and could only count up to three, but in their heads, the columns of credit and debit were as strictly kept as in the ledgers of the Treasury. When, after a considerable time, the piles of vegetables had been finally completed, the chief, who had seated himself beside me, stood up and indicated that I should follow him. We descended the rickety steps of the ‘palace’, cut a path through the packed crowd which respectfully made way for us, and the chief stationed himself in the middle of the heaped shares. His Ago, or principal executive minister, came over to join us. ‘I am now going to call out the different “paths”,’ the chief explained to me, ‘so that their “fathers” can come forward and receive the portions we are giving them. We will begin with the alouvi (the ordinary guests).’

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In such a situation, the chiefs of the invited villages are not summoned by their own names, but by the name of the path they have followed on their way to the village. The chief dug his elbow into the ribs of the Ago, who at once began loudly proclaiming the prescribed formula: he spoke on behalf of the chief, whose dignity would not allow him to raise his voice like that in public. ‘Soisologhé! . . . Soisologhé! . . . ,’ shouted the Ago, quivering with the effort. This was the name of one of the paths. Everyone fell silent. ‘Maliouv’ ou’ todo! . . . Maliouv’ ou’ todo! . . . ,’ continued the Ago, laying his hand on one of the piles of vegetables. These words meant ‘the back of Maliouve’, Maliouve being the name of the pig intended for the guests from the Soisologhé path. By this proclamation, the latter were invited to attend the big slaughter of the pigs, and were informed of the animal they were to receive. They knew this already, as, indeed, did everyone else; but now it was official. By the Ago’s gesture, they were also officially informed of the particular portion of vegetables set aside for them, whose value they had already carefully estimated. The Ago concluded: ‘Nénémai” nour’ Alouvi nour’ oud’ ari. . . ,’ meaning, ‘When you eat, let the companions you have invited see your lips.’ This rhetorical expression was a polite way of reminding the leader of the group that his portion was not merely for himself and his family, but for all the members of the village which he represented.

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The same formula was then repeated for each of the invited tribes: only the names of the paths and the pigs varied, according to the recipients. Very soon, however, the voice of the Ago was drowned in the general tumult. What happened was that, as each proclamation ended, the ‘father of the path’ would go up to his pile and immediately demolish it, dividing it into as many smaller piles as he had companions in his group. This was a highly delicate operation, since he had to take account both of services rendered during the festival and of outstanding debts, and above all of the proper order of precedence, a matter on which the Papuans are extremely touchy. Having divided up the pile, the group leader then called in turn for the recipients, this time summoning them by name, at the top of his voice. The latter at once ran forward with a few members of their families, usually women, who loaded the vegetables into their big nets, and set off with all speed along the path leading back to their own village. With so much coming and going, so many cries and counter-cries and fresh distributions of vegetables, the confusion and uproar on the village square can be imagined. It was now quite impossible to hear the Ago, although he valiantly continued bawling at the top of his voice: but that did not matter, since everyone knew what he was going to say. Gradually, however, the square grew empty, until finally, only the dancers were left. Nonchalantly seated, or lazily stretched full length, on the hut verandas, they had watched the swirling activity beneath them with well-simulated indifference. And now, with the same outward disdain, they heard their own names proclaimed by the indefatigable Ago. They did not stir, however: they were far too grand. Instead, each dancer sent his ‘nose’ (in other

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words, the villager particularly responsible for him) to collect from the kolilo the vegetables and fruit that had fallen to his share. The chief plucked at my sleeve. ‘Our guests have left with contented hearts,’ he said. ‘Our illustrious dancers are resting, and waiting for the moment when their bellies will burst with the pressure of our food. Now, we shall hand round the volopé.’ The volopé is a special liana used to tie the legs of the pigs when the moment comes for them to be brought to the Gabé slaughter. Naturally, if there is no volopé to hand, the villagers use any other liana instead, as long as it is tough and flexible and has the customary name bestowed on it. After taking an armful of lengths of liana which he had been keeping under his hut, the chief silently distributed them among the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’, those both of his own and of the neighbouring villages, who had promised to supply one or more pigs for the feast. There were more than a hundred of them. By handing round the liana, the chief had indicated that it was time for them to go and fetch their animals. ‘Come,’ he said to me wearily, when the distribution was over. He drew me over to the foot of his kono. ‘Our village is calm now,’ he continued, using, as always, not the royal plural, but the courteous form of the dual. ‘Our body aches . . . Give me a little pipeful of our tobacco so that my inside may be fortified, for our Gabé is not yet ended . . .’

Chapter 15

IN PURSUIT OF THE PIGS The ‘Mothers of the Pig’ certainly lived up to their name! They had looked so spruce on the day of their dance, and now they were the very picture of filth. Stripped of their ornaments, reduced to their barely visible everyday garment, their bodies were mottled and smeared with long streaks of black, their legs spattered with mud, their arms and hands ingrained with dirt. Their faces, never very attractive even in their natural condition, now made one think of a painter’s palette, encrusted with old paints, and left lying about in a murky corner. Their greasy hanks of hair, grey with dust, were like old, worn-out dish-mops. When they came close, one noticed that they gave off an odour very far removed from the perfume of the rose. I remarked on this fact to the chief, the day following the sharing out of the vegetables, as we were chatting at the foot of the kono. ‘Our women are so dirty they are a disgrace to us,’ I said. ‘You ought to tell them to go and wash in the stream.’ ‘Certainly not!’ he exclaimed. ‘From the moment they have given their dance, they are not allowed to have any contact with water until the day that their pig – the pig that each of them is to contribute – has been caught, tied up, and deposited here in the square.’ ‘But why?’ I asked.

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‘Who knows? . . . It’s one of our customs.’ After a moment’s reflection, the chief added: ‘Water is a chilling element. Perhaps, if the women were to touch it, their pigs would catch cold and fall ill…I don’t know.’ The chief was quite sincere. The reason for such ancient customs has become lost in the night of time. They are still observed because that is how things have always been done. No one seek to inquire further. Seeing that I was interested in his confidences, the chief added: ‘They are not allowed to “speak to their husbands” either’ – a delicate periphrasis meaning that, during this period, they were not allowed to have intercourse with their husbands, let alone with any other man; an extremely wise measure, in the circumstances, with so many handsome strangers prowling in and around the village. ‘As for us,’ the chief continued, ‘we are forbidden to go near the places where the women usually feed their pigs, or to step over the bundles of lianas with which the animals’ feet are to be tied when the day of slaughter arrives.’ ‘And what would happen,’ I asked, ‘if one of the “Mothers of the Pig” failed to observe these prohibitions?’ ‘In that case, her pig would certainly die,’ said the chief, calmly but firmly. ‘As for the woman . . .’ He said no more, but his silence was heavy with menace. To divert him on to another topic, I asked a foolish question. ‘When are we going to kill the pigs?’ He gazed at me with his cunning little eyes. ‘Who can say? . . . Tomorrow, or the day after, or later still. I have handed out the volopé. Our men have already begun the chase. But the pigs do not easily let themselves be caught . . .

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Theoretically, the killing of the pigs, one of the most important episodes of the Gabé, is supposed to take place two or three days after the dances have been held: but in fact, it is often a week or more before all the victims have been gathered together in the square. There are several reasons for these delays. In the first place, the pigs, accustomed to a relative calm in the village, have been terrified by the sudden noise and movement of the crowds of guests arriving for the dance. Furthermore, they have been neglected by their ‘mothers’, who are momentarily too preoccupied with their duties as dancers and housewives to remember to feed them regularly. So they trot off into the bush. The villagers then have to go searching for them, scouring valleys and ravines and climbing over precipitous ranges and steep mountain crests, all covered with dense jungle. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. In the second place – and this is the principal reason – the pigs intended for the Gabé are the chosen prey of the souls of the dead, who, in spite of the exorcisms pronounced before the big night dance, still seek to wreak harm upon the living, and if not on their own persons, then on their pigs, which is equally serious. Foreseeing how much the living members of his family are going to exult and rejoice when the slaughter takes place, the jealous ghost reasons thus: ‘This pig that they are going to contribute to the Gabé, they might well have kept it for me. But no, instead of that, they have forgotten me. I count for nothing with them now. Well, they will see . . .’ Thereupon, the spirit slips into the body of the beast, which seems to go crazy and plunges off desperately into the remotest depths of the forest. Or else, the spirit is con-

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tent merely to drive it off, by striking fear into it, into the most inaccessible part of the bush. In both instances, the animal is said to be suffering from a sort of porcine madness, known as kasasé. Fortunately, as this malady is caused by a ghost, there are ways of exorcizing its evil influence. One of the best is the sap’ élamé, in other words, ‘the spitting ceremony’. For this, one takes a piece of ginger and recites over it a magic spell, ordering the wicked spirit who is suspected of having caused the trouble to retire to the top of the mountain on which it now dwells: ‘X . . . , go back to the Fariba mountain!’ It is advisable to mention the names of several of the dead, to be sure of hitting on the right one, and also to give the names of the principal peaks in the region, for one can never be sure of the one on which the spirit is supposed to reside. To lend the spell even more weight, it is usual to add: ‘X . . . , strike your hand on the thorns of the lemon tree . . . ’, or of the sago-palm, or any other tree or plant armed with sharp thorns. These two incantations have a double effect. By virtue of the first, the ghost is obliged to return to the dwellingplace which he should never have left. The second incantation impels one’s pig to rush into a prickly thicket: the pig emerges on the other side, but the evil spirit remains caught on the thorns by its hands, and the pig is free to return home. Nevertheless, if this happy result is to be achieved, it is essential, after one has recited one’s magic spells the requisite number of times, to chew the bewitched piece of ginger vigorously, and then to spit it out with great force towards the four points of the compass. If the pig is not found within the following twenty-four hours, it means that one

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has omitted one of these rites. In that case, the whole operation has to start again. It should be clear by now why the search for the Gabé pigs is such a long and arduous affair. There is also the laziness of the seekers to be taken into account. They leave the village at break of day, with such energetic and resolute airs that it seems certain that they will bring the animals back before nightfall. But hardly have they reached the cover of the undergrowth than they start to saunter and waste their time over trifles, chasing a bird or an opossum and being content merely to emit an occasional grunting noise, such as the pigs use to call to each other. In the afternoon, they restore their energies with a siesta on the soft grass. Why should anyone want to hurry? The longer the Gabé lasts the longer the festivities are extended. Meanwhile, the dancers, who are not expected to leave until after the slaughter of the pigs, have nothing to do but to make up for their long fast, and spend all their time gorging themselves. The shares of food which they have been given are soon devoured at this rate, and after that they go and help themselves from their hosts’ gardens. The latter grumble about it, but can do nothing to stop them. They are merely adhering to custom. By the time the locust-like horde of dancers departs, the gardens are bare. But the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ gain renown from their very destitution and swell with pride – if not with nourishment – at the thought. At last, on the fourth day, curious cries were raised in one of the valleys. They announced the capture of the first pig. Immediately, the village sprang out of that lethargy from which I had tried to stir it by holding occasional cate-

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chism classes, but without any marked success. Men and women crowded along the edge of the deep ravine which bordered one side of the village. Pricking up their ears, they strained to catch the drift of the message which a powerful voice was transmitting from the depths. Before taking any action, it was important to know the name of the pig that had been caught. ‘It’s Manou-Doubé!’ a hundred voices suddenly exclaimed in unison. The ‘Mother’ of this particular animal at once, in accordance with custom, began to utter shrill howls of anguish, while the relatives and friends of the happy owner began to bustle about with exclamations of pleasure. They plunged into the nearby forest and returned, singing, with a small tree of soft wood which they had uprooted and which they now replanted in the middle of the square. They then smeared their hands, arms and shoulders with the clay known as ponadé, propitious to pigs, armed themselves with long stout poles, and ran off with ungainly leaps and bounds to meet the hunters. Theirs was to be the honour of carrying the animal back. Meanwhile, the women of the ‘family’ of ManouDoubé, abandoning the unfortunate ‘Mother’ to her lamentations, had hastily thrown their big provision nets over their shoulders, and hurried off towards the gardens to gather as many vegetables as they could. At intervals, shouts echoing from various quarters announced the capture of other pigs. Since one group of hunters had been foolish enough, with their untimely zeal, to shatter the charm of the long, lazy search, the best thing now was to get it over and done with. That was why the straying pigs were rapidly spotted, pursued, caught and

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tied, all as if by magic (the magic of the spell-laden ginger, the hunters would claim later). As the names of the recaptured pigs became known, the same scenes would be repeated in the village: the women hurrying off to the gardens, and returning without delay, bowed beneath their burden of vegetables; the men plunging into the forest, with their make-up of ponadé and their long poles. There was need for haste, for if the hunters and their escorts of bearers did not return before nightfall, they would be forced to camp just outside the village until daybreak. The ceremonial entry of the pig could only be staged in daylight. I had the opportunity of watching several of these ceremonial entries, which are performed with considerable style. At any rate, the first one struck me as a gripping spectacle, although at the last one I scarcely bothered to raise my eyes from my breviary. The hunters and porters, whose coming is made known well in advance by songs and cries, emerge at last from the forest. They have adorned themselves with sprigs of leaves stuck in their fibre bracelets, belts and leg-bands, or with leafy chaplets. Yelling and brandishing their spears, they caper round a group of four porters, who with great difficulty are bearing on their shoulders a long, sagging, slipping pole. Their difficulties are understandable: for, suspended by its four feet from the centre of the pole, swings an enormous pig, struggling wildly, and emitting terrible shrill squeals. The whole spectacle is at once ridiculous and dramatic, especially when one recalls that it was in this way that the Papuans formerly transported the bodies of their enemies killed in battle or ambush, bringing

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them back to the village so that they could be cooked on hot stones and eaten. Arriving at the gateway to the village, where great excitement reigns, the cortege comes to a halt and the precious burden is deposited, gasping, on the ground. If other groups are on the way, the first party waits for them, smoking pipes and chewing betel. When everyone has reached the assembly point, the lull is broken. At a given signal, hunters, porters, and all the able-bodied men of the place rush forward in a solid, yelling mass. Each man is armed with a spear, which he holds horizontally above his head, and shakes wildly in a clenched fist. The whole horde rushes through the barrier and into the square, which it circles once, and then hurls itself upon the newly planted tree. The object is to see who can pierce it with a spear-thrust. But the crowd is too dense. It therefore splits up into smaller groups, which race past the already splintered trunk one after the other. The speed of this joust with the tree is terrifying, blow raining on blow without intermission. Spears are broken. Some of the men miscalculate their onward rush and fall. But nothing slows the whirling dance. At last, pierced and lacerated, the tree collapses in a shower of splinters, broken branches, flying leaves, and shouts of triumph. The innocent tree is the symbol of all the visible and invisible enemies, all the difficulties and obstacles, that are encountered in life, but particularly those that impede the capture of the pigs. However, as the stricken tree proves, no force can prevail against men of valour. After this demonstration of their might, the warriors return to their pigs.

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Once more raised on to the shoulders of the porters, the pigs are carried into the village amid great pomp. The shouting and chanting redouble in enthusiasm. The chief, or his representative, goes up to each group, lays his hand on the animal (which, to judge by its squeals, is singularly unmoved by this honour), and indicates where the burden is to be deposited. Usually it is beneath the floor of one of the huts, so that the pig may be protected from the sun’s rays. And there it stays, stretched on one side, its feet still tied to the pole, until all the other pigs have been brought in. The delay sometimes becomes so protracted that one or other of the animals dies. But this misfortune has been foreseen. As soon as the animal shows signs of expiring, it is slaughtered and cut up on the spot. The people of the village for whom the pig is intended are called. If they do not come, a delegation is dispatched to take them their share, which it hands over without ceremony, being in haste to return to the village so as not to miss the celebration of the main slaughter. During the entire intervening, period the village echoes night and day with the groans of the pigs imprisoned under the huts, with their plaintive moans and frightful squeals as they are shaken by spasms of rage. This may have made sweet music to Papuan ears, but it quickly became intolerable to mine. Reflecting that the same ceremonies were repeated for each new capture (and there were still dozens of pigs to be caught) and that I had had an ample share of the spectacle, I decided to set off for other villages. I had heard, furthermore, that some of the guests, too old or too weak to stand the pace of the Gabé, with its feastings and fatigues, had returned home exhausted and even ill. It was my duty to go

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and comfort them with material aid and the grace of my ministry. I stayed that night, however, to take part in the feast of vegetables and watch the dance that followed the day’s fortunate chase. Everyone rejoiced, even the ‘Mothers of the Pig’. Together with her husband, the legal owner of both, each ‘mother’ remained under the hut where her treasure lay, watching over it and supplying all its needs until the hour of sacrifice should arrive. The following day I bade farewell to my hosts. I was committing a grave breach of etiquette, for an official dancer is not supposed to leave the Gabé until after the slaughter which provides it with a fitting climax. But I was forgiven. After all, I was only a white man!

Chapter 16

WITCHCRAFT AND A COUNTRY FAIR From the end of the valley which opened before us, a deep green gulf which was gradually lost in the haze of a fine morning, came the far-off rise and fall of a voice. I was giving instruction to the catechumens of a village which had been one of those invited to the Gabé. My audience, men and women alike, at once leapt to their feet, and strained to catch the distant sound. I was obliged to abandon my discourse. ‘The “Fathers of the Gabé” are summoning the guests,’ someone exclaimed. ‘All the pigs have been caught and tied up, except one . . . Quickly, let us go!’ In less than a quarter of an hour, the village was almost completely empty. I did not follow my light-footed, and still lighterheaded flock. I had learned enough, during the previous few evenings, to realize that my presence there would have been undesirable. Perhaps, as had been hinted, it would have jeopardized the strange rites which are performed during the night which precedes the killing of the pigs. It was only later, thanks to the researches made by Father Fastré, that I was able to build up a reasonably full, although doubtless still incomplete, picture of these practices.

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When the last pig has finally been captured, the guests are once more invited, over the Papuan ‘telephone’ to assemble in the Gabé square. By the following day the Gabé village has again assumed the air of carnival it wore during the two days of the big dances. People wander hither and thither, shouting, singing and calling out to each other: it is just like a country fair. And that, in fact, is what it is, with its own subtle atmosphere of mystery and anticipation. The crowd swirls round in even greater excitement when the last pig is brought in on the shoulders of the porters, with the same ceremony that greeted the others, and followed by its modest and triumphant owner. His triumph is to have succeeded in being last . . . In his hand, he carries an enormous croton plant, with leaves of deepest crimson blending into imperial purple. This is the inopadé, which plays a considerable role in what follows. After an easy victory has been scored over the symbolic tree in the midst of a delirious tumult, the animal is deposited in the place intended for it from the start of the hunt, and its owner goes off and furtively hides his croton in the neighbouring undergrowth. From that moment on, the square is strictly out of bounds to everyone. Without needing to be given any formal command, the crowd leaves it and makes for the huts, or jostles and mills around the boundary of the square, which has been carefully marked out by the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ with tree trunks laid end to end. Anyone who oversteps this boundary and sets foot on the soil of the square, runs the risk of a serious accident: a spontaneous fracture of the femur or tibia, a sudden swelling of the knee-cap or ankles, and the danger of becoming an invalid for the rest

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of his days. If, in the dense press, some clumsy or ill-intentioned person happens to push one, so that one’s foot touches the fatal square, the only solution is to make straight for the sorcerer. At a price, he knows how to exorcize the evil that one has drawn upon oneself by this imprudent, even if involuntary action. But why has the formerly hospitable square suddenly become so dangerous? It is because, immediately after the arrival of the last hunters, the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ have gone over it, planting here and there the magic charms by virtue of which the pigs grow large and fat: the ‘pig stone’, for example, with which one rubs the head of the animal from time to time, to its great benefit; the ponadé, the greenish clay which makes it grow plump and fat; and certain flowers over which magic spells have been pronounced, so that they are able to preserve the animal in good health. There is, in short, such an accumulation of occult powers in the square, that it is perilous to go anywhere near it. Thus, the square is entirely deserted. But in the huts or underneath them among the supporting piles where the pigs lie, too feeble now to do more than whimper, on the terraces and in the narrow alleys, a happy, noisy, tumultuous country fair is soon in progress. Admittedly, the bars and merry-go-rounds and the local choral society are missing, but trading goes on briskly, with everyone laughing and slapping each other heartily on the back. Nevertheless, there are none of the usual hucksters displaying their wares before a gaping crowd of customers. The Papuan market is a very different affair from our own. Here, everyone conceals what he is really burning to sell, and it is the buyer who has to expend great effort to acquire

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the article he wants. The fact that the seller on one occasion may well want to purchase from his client on the next, leads to much complicated bargaining and tricky dealing, and lends an additional savour to the pleasures of negotiation. Naturally, the question of money does not enter into it. All trading is based wholly on barter of one object against another. This does not prevent a customer exchanging some article which is extremely useful to him for some bauble or object which he may possess already. He is not necessarily a fool or a spendthrift, but is merely anxious to take home a souvenir of the festival. We take home enough gimcrack and tawdry trifles from our own fairs not to look down on the Papuans for doing the same. The rapid descent of night, after a well-filled day, adds its mystery to these furtive exchanges. The one who is seeking a particular article strolls nonchalantly from hut to hut. He sits down, inhales a mouthful of tobacco, takes his time, and finally announces, as if he were addressing no one but the thousands of cockroaches that swarm in the hut, that he has such-and-such an object to barter for such-andsuch another. If he finds someone who will sell, and therefore also purchase, the two exchange a knowing wink, leave the hut, and there in the shadows, each hands over his merchandise, which is usually wrapped and carefully tied in a piece of tapa. No one verifies the contents of these packages, each side trusting the other as to the nature and quality of the articles exchanged. One is touched by such faith; perhaps Rousseau was right when he spoke of the ‘noble savage’. To be sure: and yet when one has lived far from Geneva and Les Charmettes, and among these good, simple people,

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one realizes that among many innocent exchanges the most shameless fraud is also rife. No Norman farmer could hold a candle to them for driving a shrewd bargain. I know one Papuan who used to trade in salt, and to make it go further, would adulterate it with a mixture of wood ash and fine sand. It is true that the mountain peoples who purchased the mixture were still, at that time, unfamiliar with white salt: all they used was a sort of blackish earth, brought from some salt-pan on the coast. But being a genuine primitive scarcely counts for much if one is also just as genuine a swindler as the civilized variety! Father Fastré once told me an anecdote which is very much to the point. ‘One day,’ he said, ‘or rather, one evening, for night was falling, one of the regulars at my mission, a gentleman called Okomé, bartered some dogs’ teeth for a bundle of feathers which had been offered to him by Yaria, a member of a different tribe. The next day, Okomé had vanished. I asked what had happened to him. ‘“He’s gone home, he left before dawn,” one of the children in my school told me. “Yesterday he gave Yaria some dogs’ teeth for some feathers. But the teeth were all decayed. So he took the feathers back to his place as fast as he could, so that Yaria could not get them back when he found out he’d been tricked.” ‘In the course of that day, I met Yaria. ‘“Ho, ho!” I said, with a knowing air, “they tell me that you struck a good bargain yesterday. From now on, you’ll be able to deck yourself out in fine dogs’ teeth, just like a great man . . . By the way, I’d like to see those teeth.” ‘“Shhh!” murmured Yaria. “Don’t speak of that . . . I haven’t got the teeth on me. I went and hid them in my hut

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last night. You see, I ‘palmed off’ some old faded feathers on Okomé. I was afraid he’d ask me for the teeth back when he noticed. That’s why I put them in a safe place... ”’ At the village of Oulida, the fair has grown quieter. Night has long since enveloped the mountains. The men squat in little tranquil groups on the terraces, and smoke a last pipe. The women, worn out by the day’s turmoil and labour, have retired into their huts with the children to prepare themselves by a good night’s sleep for the excitements of the morrow. All is silent except for the vague murmur of conversation among the smokers and the plaintive grunts of the pigs. Then, at a discreet signal from the communal hut, the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ stand up, and silently make their way on to the square, which, for them, is no longer forbidden ground. Some of them light a tiny fire, barely visible at first, but which they have surrounded with great stacks of readily inflammable material: reeds, bamboos, elder branches, and long, broad leaves of the wild pandanus, all thoroughly dried in advance. Others proceed to make holes with small, hard, pointed sticks, which they use not in the manner of a trowel but of an auger, by twirling the handle round rapidly between their palms. When the hole is deemed sufficiently large, pellets of ponadé – the greenish clay beneficial to pigs – are thrown into it, and then the men gather round in groups, and chew sugar-cane and ginger, and spit the saliva resulting from this mastication into the hole as well. The inopadé, the big crimson-leaved croton which until now has been kept hidden in the nearby undergrowth, is then fetched, in silence but with considerable agitation; for everyone tries quietly to touch the magic leaves, while

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murmuring the name of his own outame croton, in other words the ‘master’ plant through which all the other crotons with which he ornaments his gardens and his person live and grow. The inopadé is planted in the magic hole, and a number of men then proceed to decorate it. A piece of new white tapa cloth is wrapped round the stem, from the base to the first leaves. The topmost leaves are then pressed together, and a circlet of shells (matsindé) is slipped down to the level of the tapa cloth. Here and there among the leaves are hung shells of the cowrie type (kopoio), and also an oppossum skin with silvery fur. The final image is that of a man adorned for a festival. It sometimes happens, while this is going on, that someone who has committed a murder, either by brute force or witch-craft, and who has so far gone undetected, attaches to the inopadé some ornament that originally belonged to his victim. Everyone recognizes it and the murderer is thus identified. If he makes this gesture, it is partly out of bravado and pride, and partly to make himself feared; although he himself from that moment on will have good reason to fear revenge from the relatives of his victim. It is worth noting, incidentally, that public confession of murder by a symbolic gesture is not confined to the ceremony of the inopadé. At times, a murderer reveals himself by a certain way of painting his face, or a feather stuck in his hair in a particular fashion. When the decoration of the crimson croton is finished, the men who have been so silent up to then make a circle round the plant, and begin to utter terrifying cries, stamp on the earth with frenzied feet, and beat hollow pieces of

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wood. Then, at the tops of their voices, they intone a chant, the meaning of which is roughly as follows: So at last we are going to cut them up (the pigs)! Don’t worry! . . . Tomorrow you will return to your mother . . .

This chant of hope and encouragement is addressed, through the Croton-Man, to all the guests who on the next day will be returning home with their shares of pig. While this song is making the echoes ring, the singers scatter brands from their small fire among the big piles of combustible material, which immediately blaze up in a regular inferno. At these cries and chants and primitive fireworks, the whole village wakes with a start. Brutally plucked from slumber, the inhabitants all rush out, thinking a night attack has started. But their fuddled wits are soon cleared, and then laughter and joyous cries spurt up on all sides. ‘Ovol’ oul’ okide! . . . The pig fire!’ everyone clamours happily. All the girls, from the smallest who can scarcely stand upright, to the bigger ones who will even, perhaps, be married before the next moon, run forward like butterflies towards the joyous blaze, and thrust their trembling hands forward into the smoke and even, for a few seconds, into the flames themselves. The aim of this trial, which none of them would dream of missing, is to make their hands hard and strong, such as any woman of quality needs in order to fulfil her primary role: that of raising the pigs. At the same moment, the village square is freed of all magic spells.

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Men and women all crowd on to it: the girls with their ‘strong hands’ – all those, at least, who have been able to resist the counter-attack of drowsiness – the women tenderly turning over old memories, the men proud of their successful feast, the guests licking their lips over the promise of the morrow, the dancers still basking in an undimmed fame. In joyful groups, they pass the night chewing betel, smoking, singing, and taking snacks of vegetables which they roast among the embers of the ‘pig fire’. It is a time of gentle euphoria. But it is also the time when the ‘chapter’ is held. Let me explain. In a monastery the ‘chapter’ is the term for that painful hour when all the monks are called together in the main hall, and invited by their superior to accuse each other reciprocally of any faults committed publicly during the week against their holy rules. A monk stands up, amid deep silence, makes a profound bow, and keeping his eyes lowered and his hands in his sleeves, says in a humble voice: ‘With your permission, Reverend Father, I should like to bring to the notice of my dear Brother X. that he behaved in rather unseemly fashion by going down the stairs four at a time…’ and similar peccadilloes of this kind. The Papuans also hold a ‘chapter’. But its aim is not the charitable one of helping respected colleagues to rise higher in the scale of perfection. On the contrary, it is a method of taking revenge for insults which may have been inflicted long ago, but have remained fresh in the mind. The euphoria which follows ‘the pig fire’ seems to have cast its balm over the whole village (even although most of those present are secretly and impatiently asking themselves when the ‘chapter’ is going to begin). Suddenly, someone stands up with a loud exclamation. Everyone

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stops talking. In a weighty silence, the man then launches upon a diatribe, the sense of which is perfectly plain to all, even although it is frequently couched in sybilline terms: ‘A certain rat, who is bandy-legged and cross-eyed, and who lives over by the small ferns (by now, everyone knows exactly who is being referred to, beginning with the individual in question himself), this rat said the following things about me: “The snouts of his pigs are diseased, his yams are small and hard as stones, his children are runts, and his wife has no breasts.” That’s what he said. But there is my wife, for everyone to see, and my children playing in the smoke of the pig fire. As for my yams, he has filled his belly with them. My pig is over there, grunting for all his snout is worth. Tell me, then, who is it whose snout is diseased?’ Amid general, although unvoiced jubilation, the man resumes his seat, well pleased with himself. He has confounded the spiteful wretch who slandered him, or whose grandfather had slandered his great-grandfather. Justice has been done. While the denunciation is in progress, the guilty party sits with downcast eyes and does not utter a word. In normal times, such insults would start a war. But not during the Gabé, for then it is permissible to hold the kopiamé (which I have translated as ‘chapter’). All one can do is to choke back one’s feelings of shame, and ruminate on the vengeance one will take on some similar occasion in the future, or even on the present occasion, if inspiration offers. For such an indictment cannot be merely improvised: it demands deep thought, and the assistance of the muses.

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If such aid is forthcoming, the accused at once becomes the accuser. He waits for the murmurs of the audience to die down, then gets to his feet and begins to speak. He does not deny the charges levelled against him. No one would believe him, even if he were innocent. But he reveals the abominable behaviour of his own erstwhile accuser, or else lays the blame on accomplices to minimize his own misdeeds. In this way ancient grievances are brought to light, old antipathies are given momentary relief, and shameful secrets laid bare. If, however, after an indictment has been made, no one else gets up to speak, a village bard softly begins to sing, and the song is soon taken up by the others. The villagers begin drawing on their pipes again, passing round the chinking gourds of quicklime to be mixed with the chewed areca nut, and roasting slices of taro or yam. During this interlude, one of them will be putting the finishing touches to his denunciation of an unfriendly neighbour. When the song ends, he gets up and proceeds with the prosecution or the defence, whichever the case may be. The Papuan ‘chapter’ goes on till dawn. Being a sort of monk myself, perhaps it is just as well that I did not attend it!

Chapter 17

SAVAGE MASSACRE When I reached the village about ten o’clock next morning, I found it in a state of great excitement. This time, I made a modest entrance, for scarcely anyone noticed me, and those that did merely gave me a preoccupied smile as I took my place – being privileged to do so by the chief – at the foot of the royal kono. Although the village was many thousands of feet above sea-level, the heat was already overpowering. I had indeed become aware of it as I clambered and slithered up and down the paths leading to the Gabé village from the village where I had spent the past few days. But this was the day of the great slaughter, and I was obliged to drop everything and come. For if my presence seemed, for the moment, to go unnoticed, my absence would certainly not have done, and the villagers would have felt deeply insulted. I was soaked with sweat. My shirt, open wide, stuck uncomfortably to my back and sides. My trousers were liberally stained, at the knee and elsewhere, with damp and sticky patches, mementoes of my stumblings along the muddy ruts of the track. With a flick of the finger, I pushed my hat, with its broad, floppy brim like a pair of tattered wings, on to the nape of my neck. With fingers that were still numb from gripping roots and branches as I scaled and descended the

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dizzy mountain heights, I tried to roll a cigarette; but without success. Not only were my fingers too stiff: they were also moist with sweat and a few smears of blood. Lord! I thought, why am I back here again? What’s the point of it? An old man wandered by the foot of the communal hut. He was a touching and grotesque sight, hobbling along on his long stick, with his bowed back, shrivelled belly, jutting ribs, and stick-like legs. ‘Hey, grandpa!’ I called. ‘Where are you going? Come up here, next to me.’ He raised his nose, with the perpetual drip clinging to its tip. With rheumy eyes, which he shielded with a begrimed and bony hand, he looked at me and blinked. His toothless mouth broke into a smile, parting the short, crinkly beard which would have been white had it not been grubby with ancient dirt. ‘Ah! It’s you, grandson!’ he exclaimed in shrill, joyful tones. ‘I see you and speak your name (meaning: greetings!)…’ With the slow, painful concentration of a small child climbing the stairs for the first time, he hoisted himself up the crude ladder which gave access to the ‘palace’. His big head, whose thinning hairs were enveloped in a tattered and repellently dirty turban of tapa, appeared over the edge of the bamboo terrace. ‘You’re there, then?’ he said, showing his purplish gums. With sighs which clearly betrayed the magnitude of the effort, he hauled himself up and kneeled on all fours before me. But suddenly, his face, which had been all geniality, grew dark with anger.

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‘What!’ he exclaimed, ‘you’re there, all by yourself, without anyone to keep you company, and you a great chief! . . . I’m overcome with shame, “my gall grows more bitter” . . . Wait, I’ll come and sit beside you . . .’ He dragged himself over, and saw my tobacco lying open. ‘Mamo! . . . (mother mine!), they haven’t even given you a pipe! . . .’ He got on all fours again and crawled into the communal hut by the narrow aperture, called by a sheer euphemism a ‘door’. Soon he was back, more covered with ash than ever, but brandishing the short section of bamboo cane which the Papuans use as a pipe. ‘Give me your tobacco!’ he ordered. ‘I am going to prepare “our” pipe for you…’ With a dexterity of which one would not have thought his gnarled fingers capable, he rolled the shreds of tobacco in a leaf, which he fashioned into a small cornet and inserted into the special hole made near the blocked end of the bamboo. ‘Matsisi.!’ (match) he said, in a voice that brooked no delay. I tried to strike two or three, but it was impossible: they were too damp. The old man groaned, smiled, laid the pipe on the floor, and went off on all fours again to fetch a brand from the communal hearth. Returning, he picked up the pipe again, applied the brand to the end of the cigarette, adjusted the open end of the tube against his shrunken lips, and dribbling copiously, drew in several deep breaths, so as to fill the bamboo with smoke. That done, he removed the cigarette, wiped away

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the nicotine-stained saliva which ran from the tube with the grimy back of his hand, and held it before me, so that I in turn could inhale from the small hole the smoke he had amassed inside the cane. ‘No. You first, grandpa . . .’ It was a polite formula, just as, with us, someone entering a lift with a lady will stand aside and say smilingly, ‘After you, please . . .’ The old man affected reluctance. From his throat emerged a sound expressing formal refusal. ‘No, you first. I am your grandfather, it is true, but you are my father…” Caught in such a complicated family relationship, I had no choice but to comply. I took several deep gulps of the acrid smoke. I had had a certain amount of practice, else I might have fainted, for smoke taken in this way erupts like a volcano in the lungs: and indeed, I had almost fainted the first time I tried a Papuan pipe. The old man, his duty towards me fulfilled, sucked at the tube in his turn and broke into soliloquy. ‘Just look at our pigs! Don’t you think they’re as big as mountains?’ That was a slight exaggeration. But I certainly did not need spectacles to see them, the Gabé pigs. Above all, I could hear them, for at times, their muffled grunts and shrill squeals even drowned the tremendous murmur of the wildly excited crowd which swarmed about the square and lapped over its edge in whirlpools of movement which seemed to throw the spray of this human sea as high as the house-tops. Now and then, our terrace would be submerged, to the intense indignation of the old man, beneath a wave of turbulent black bodies, which almost at once

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withdrew to the square again, with a sound like that of the ocean breaking on the rocks. A whole motley population had converged on the village of Oulida: ‘Fathers of the Gabé’, their friends and allies, ‘Mothers of the Pig’ from the different villages, ordinary guests, leading chiefs and dancers with their escorts, sightseers from the surrounding district, and others who had come from the most distant tribes. For this was the last official day of the Gabé, the day on which the pigs, whose names were now on everyone’s lips, would be exhibited and slaughtered. As soon as dawn breaks on the great day, bathing the crests in the east with milky light, the Papuan ‘chapter’ ends. Prosecution and defence have eloquently stated their case, and grudges and hatreds have been temporarily vented. With the coming of day, all these human corruptions are swept away. One final chant is heard, and then, without a break, the last celebration begins. The ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ rush with their helpers under the huts, along the surrounding fence, and to all the other places where the pigs have been kept for so many days. The porters, still robust and erect despite their sleepless night, once more load their shoulders with the long poles to which the heroes of the day are tied. The terrible clamour of the beasts then breaks out with redoubled fury, the more so as their feet are painful from being tied so long, and as, perhaps, they begin to understand the fate that awaits them. They are laid in a line from one end of the square to the other, packed close together with back to stomach, and so on. Each animal is then bound with lianas to two strong stakes driven into the ground, so tightly that it cannot make a move. Impotent shudders and frightful squeals are the

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only witness to their inner revolt, in the midst of a human swarm all yelling just as loudly, but free to indulge in the most frenzied gestures. At Oulida, there were plenty of the latter to be seen. As soon as each new victim was brought, the whole square became a seething mass of stamping, pushing, leaping villagers. I had arrived just as the porters had completed the first row. In it, I counted seventy-six animals. More pigs were being laid in a second, parallel row, which finally grew to the same length as the first. In all, there were about a hundred and fifty-two pigs. Several of the old men were engaged in the honourable task of laying long slender sticks on the recumbent bodies, adjusting them at either end. ‘You see my friends?’ chuckled my ancient companion. ‘They are measuring our pigs. We will keep those sticks in the communal hut and if, some day, anyone dares to say that we only had two or three wretched little pigs to offer at our Gabé, we will set these sticks in front of him. Then he will see the immensity of our gift, and his bowels will go liquid with shame . . . ’ Jubilantly he added: ‘We shall also lay the sticks out on the soil of the square, whenever our hearts are sad. Then we shall be consoled.’ The pigs had all been placed in line, and everything was made ready for the actual slaughter. This is called ovol’ aye mame, or ‘the declaration of the pig war’, and it is marked by many of the same rites as an actual war. The ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ and nearly all their guests had armed themselves with wooden bludgeons – anyone left without one could always tear a stake out of the fence. For no one who had the right to be present wanted to miss the pleasure of joining in the braining of the beasts.

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Each warrior shouldered his bludgeon, so that they seemed to be on parade. But it was a motionless parade with the men all crouching, silent and impassive, on either side of the two rows of pigs. The women and children, the old people, casual visitors and passing strangers all crowded round the periphery and on the terraces of the huts. Some of them rather jostled us, and my aged companion was roused to complain: ‘Ah, why have my bones become like a brittle elder branch? Why do I have so little breath? Why do all these people come here disturbing two great men? Ah, when I was young! . . . ’ Suddenly he stopped talking. The chief had jumped on to one of the pigs and by a miracle of balance was standing erect on its ribs. A total silence had fallen over the whole assembly which had been so turbulent a moment earlier. The troop of warriors remained motionless. I saw the chief thrust out his chest and throw a glance in my direction. This was his moment of triumph. He dug his toes in among the hairs of the animal, which was heaving about beneath him, and then, in the voice of a colonel giving orders to his regiment, he shouted: ‘If it is on the Olomé, hurl your lightning!’ The only response was the continuing silence and immobility of the crowd. ‘If it is on the Koutouna, hurl your lightning!’ No one stirred. ‘If it is on the Mapou, hurl your lightning!’ Not a move, not a sound from the audience. The suspense was beginning to tell. ‘If it is on the Manei, hurl your lightning!’

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At these words, but still in complete silence, the crouching figures all rose as one man, with incredible suppleness and without stirring a foot, and then as suddenly resumed their former position. The movement was executed so swiftly that one did, indeed, think of a streak of lightning forking through dark storm clouds. The chief paused for an instant. Then he shouted: ‘If it is on the Olé, hurl your lightning!’ This time the storm was really unleashed. Emitting loud and terrifying cries of ‘Hou! hou! hou!…’ the crouching warriors sprang forward like so many runners leaving the starting block, and brandishing their bludgeons, leapt with wild yells on the pigs and began to beat them savagely over the head. The quaking women began to emit shrill, nerveracking cries, both maddened and maddening, and above all the ‘Mothers of the Pig’, whose howls of anguish rang out clearly above the frightful cacophony composed of the squeals of the dying animals, the slaughterers’ shouts of rage, the cries of joy and triumph mounting from the crowd in honour of slaughtered and slaughterers alike, and the hysterical crescendo of feminine lamentation. This repulsive scene lasted for several minutes, which seemed more like hours. The rule is, in fact, that the animals must be kept squealing with pain for as long as possible. Forty or fifty blows of the club descend upon them before they finally expire, their heads smashed to a pulp. Meanwhile, there was blood everywhere, down the tragic double row, flowing in rivulets over the clay of the square and spattering the frenzied warriors from head to foot. I was oppressed by such conscious delight in cruelty. It was both sickening and disquieting: for here was human

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bestiality displayed in its full horror. And as I watched, ashamed and ill at ease at being myself a man, I reflected that in their wars the natives acted in just the same way (no doubt, those who call themselves ‘civilized’ do so too). Whenever an enemy falls, all the others rush upon him. He may be already dead, but everyone is anxious to get in a blow against him, even when his wretched body is reduced to a bloody pulp. Afterwards, everyone boasts that his was the hand that struck the enemy down. But at long last the slaughter drew to a close. The shouts died down. Now there was only the joyous murmur of people in holiday mood. The crowd, which had seemed like a monstrous corporate beast, snarling, almost motionless, with staring eyes, became human once more, and began to circulate. Slowly, as if reluctantly, the slaughterers abandoned their victims and assembled at one side of the square. They were panting for breath and their eyes were distraught, their jaws clenched, and their limbs trembling like those of a man in the last throes. With automatic gestures they wiped away the trickles and splashes of blood on their arms, their heaving throats, their legs. It was only gradually that they, too, began to grow human again: a few were smiling. Finally, they threw away their blood-stained clubs, aiming them all in the same direction. ‘They are throwing them in the direction of the village where the next Gabé will take place,’ the old man informed me, his voice more quavering than ever under the stress of emotion. Thus, one Gabé has barely ended before a decision has already been reached on where the next shall be held! It may be celebrated two, five, or ten years hence: time is not important. The only important thing is that a Gabé should

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be held somewhere or other in the region. It can be seen, from this obsession, what a capital role the festival holds in the lives of the Papuans. The commands uttered by the chief, just before the slaughter of the pigs, and the movements of his men, had greatly aroused my curiosity. I tried to ask my good old companion for an explanation. To no avail, however. The notion that I could not understand was quite beyond him. For him, any man worthy of the name knew all about the rites of the Gabé and their significance from childhood onwards. In reply to my questions, he went off into a long, rambling speech which merely made the ceremony seem even more puzzling than before. I therefore had to await the return of the chief. Being intelligent and understanding, he had fully grasped the fact that Europeans know nothing of the customs of ‘true men’. From his explanations, which were later confirmed by Father Fastré, I discovered that the slaughter of the Gabé pigs was enacted as an evoné, in other words, as an image or symbol, intended to evoke the idea of an actual war among men. The pigs are the enemy. ‘It’ is the battle. The proper name used in the ritual phrase is that of a mountain in the district. The lightning is the launching of an attack. The chief begins by naming a distant mountain. The enemy is not there, so that cannot be the scene of the battle. Therefore, no one stirs. Next, the name of a slightly nearer mountain is given. But the enemy is not there either. Still no one stirs. And so it goes on, until the chief names the mountain on which the village is situated. Then, like a steel spring released, the attack is on.

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Thus it is quite fair to paraphrase the chief’s words and to explain the gestures of this warlike dance, whose tragic implications, heavy suspense, supple movements and animal fury had so unnerved me, in the following fashion. ‘If the enemy is on Mount Olomé, leap upon him like a streak of lightning!’ The enemy is not there, so the warriors hold themselves in check. ‘If the enemy is on Mount Koutouna, leap upon him like a streak of lightning!’ The enemy is not there either, but the warriors brace themselves. ‘If the enemy is on Mount Mapou, leap upon him like a streak of lightning!’ A tremor runs through the ranks, for that is much nearer. ‘If the enemy is on Mount Manei, leap upon him like a streak of lightning!’ Now the enemy is almost at hand. The warriors spring to their feet. But it is a false alarm, and they sink down again. ‘If the enemy is on Mount Olé, leap upon him like a streak of lightning!’ This time the enemy is there! The warriors charge . . .

Chapter 18

SETTLING ACCOUNTS After being slaughtered, the pigs are once more carefully lined up. But they are no longer placed on their sides, as if en brochette. This time, they are spread out on their slackened bellies, with legs outstretched, as if slumbering peacefully. There is nothing very peaceful, however, about the spectacle of their shattered and bloody skulls. In certain tribes the scene presents an even more macabre aspect. When the pigs have been lined up in this fashion, the chiefs and leading men of the village go to the common grave, and bring back some of the bones of their dead, tibias, femurs, a humerus or two, which they poke into the jaws of the pigs. They then return to the charnel ground with the bones dripping with blood, and using them as a sort of pagan aspergillum, anoint the skulls of the family dead so that their shades – even although driven off earlier – may share in the joys of the festival. Once this homage has been paid them, however, that is definitely the end, for the living will bother about them no longer. Nevertheless, pious hands occasionally place a skull or two in the communal hut. They serve as a form of decoration or, if the relic comes from an eminent man, as a commemorative monument. I have often gone to sleep with these sneering death’s heads gazing down at me.

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When the pigs are all well stretched out, an unexpected and rather confusing episode takes place on the bloody and resounding square. The ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ all stand or sit on their precious beasts and offer various ‘riches’ to the people of other villages: dogs’ teeth, or parakeet feathers mounted on a woven band, shells made up into bracelets and long necklaces, and even knives and axes of European origin. ‘What are they doing?’ I asked the chief. ‘The “Fathers of the Gabé” are paying the “price of the square” to their friends,’ he replied. It will be recalled that as the tribe giving the Gabé is unable to supply the large number of pigs needed for the festival, it asks the inhabitants of neighbouring and allied villages to bring up and fatten some on its behalf. Sticking to their side of the bargain, these friends duly bring their pigs to the slaughter. Now they must be recompensed. Payment must also be made for the favour the friend has shown by allowing the pig he has raised to be killed on the Gabé square. This aspect of commercial psychology is a little difficult for the European mind to grasp, but it is, nevertheless, a fact. In practice, it is little more than a courtesy gesture, for, sooner or later, the friend, becoming a ‘Father of the Gabé’ in his turn, and having demanded the same services of his colleague, will give him ‘presents’ to exactly the same value as he himself has received as the ‘price of the square’. Thus friendship is fostered. It may be noted that it is not the chief who pays, but the free and independent citizen. In short, while the cultivation of the lomulomé, or yam garden, is a communal affair (at least in theory), the raising and allocation of the pigs remains an entirely individual concern.

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No particular order is observed in the making of these payments, and all take place at once. There is no confusion, however, as everyone knows exactly what he owes, or what he is owed. Sometimes the pig-breeder refuses payment. ‘No,’ he says to his friend, ‘not now. I myself have some debts to settle with people who have come to your Gabé. I’ll take advantage of that. And when it’s my turn to give a Gabé you can bring me a pig like the one I gave you today, and we shall be quits.’ In such a case he will merely be given a few dogs’ teeth or feathers, or an extra piece of pork ‘to eat with “our” wife’ – his own, naturally. Papuan courtesy employs some curious expressions. During this interlude, the chief, who had been sitting beside me, disappeared into the shadows of his ‘palace’ and returned with an armful of bamboo slivers which had been given a sharp cutting edge and were blackened with smoke. Noticing my inquiring glance, he explained: ‘The pigs have been killed and paid for. Now it’s time to hand round the knives.’ Then, in a soft voice, he called to one of his subjects. The Ago, who was not far away, at once echoed his master’s command in a loud shout. The villager in question swiftly came forward, received from the chief’s hands a bamboo knife and ran towards the pig which, by this ‘investiture’, he now had the right to cut up. It was his own pig, in other words, either one that his wife had raised or that one of his friends had brought. In the latter case, by an exchange of courtesies, it was the friend who was given the honour of carving the pig fattened by his family. In this way, fifty or sixty men, perhaps even more, were called forward and handed knives. There was plenty of time for me to put questions to the chief.

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‘Who are you calling forward? Are they “experts” with the knife?’ ‘No, I summon anyone I please. First, those who are good carvers, and secondly, those who have provided several pigs . . . Cutting up the animal is a privilege.’ ‘And do you award them this privilege by virtue of their origin?’ (Literally, what I said was ‘by virtue of their navel’, the Papuan way of expressing ‘social standing’.) The chief showed signs of impatience. ‘Of course not! . . . This privilege is not so much an honour as a source of material advantage. Each man who cuts up a pig is allowed to take the scraps. I realized a moment later that the advantage was indeed considerable. The carvers put aside about as many ‘scraps’ as they possibly could – amounting, in fact, to a good third of the animal. They themselves could not touch these pieces, since not a single morsel of their own pig must pass their lips, but they formed a valuable fund with which to pay old debts or win new creditors. Europeans are not the only ones to use the gentle art of ‘greasing palms’ . . . While the chief was handing out knives and giving me this information, I had been watching, out of the corner of my eye, an individual who had been moving along the lines of pigs and touching each animal on the snout with his knife. I gave the chief a nudge. ‘What is that fellow over there supposed to be doing?’ ‘That’s E1é1i Sango,’ the chief said. ‘He is the owner of a magic knife, which comes from our supreme Spirit, Tsidibé, and which he has inherited from a long line of forefathers. One sees very few of these knives in our coun-

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try. Each is known by a particular name. This one is called Mourimouri-Koutsikoutsi . . .’ ‘And what is the particular virtue of these knives?’ ‘Well, when its owner has held it near his lips and uttered the correct formula and has then touched the slaughtered pigs with it, those who are carving the pigs can start their task without any fear that they will not have enough to go round. The magic knife multiplies the joints of meat.’ ‘Do you really believe that?’ ‘Well, who can tell? . . . Anyway, it’s one of our customs.’ I took one of the knives the chief was handing round in my fingers. It was a blade of bamboo about a foot long, and had been fashioned a long time ago, and then hung above the hearth in the communal hut, where the smoke had dried and hardened it. If it had been still green it would merely have bent, without cutting. The natives prefer these primitive carving knives to the white man’s steel blades, and they are justified in doing so. The sharpened bamboos slice cleanly and easily through the fat and the meat. Furthermore, it is a simple matter to sharpen them: one merely places the edge of the knife between one’s teeth, and tears off a fibre. Then it is as good as new. The magic knife having wrought its spell, and the humbler knives having been handed out, the carving up of the pigs then began. The Gabé pig must not, however, be cut up in any old fashion, as a European might do it. Immemorial rites must be observed. First, a deep slit is made on either side of the animal’s spine, stretching from the jaw to the tail. All the fat is then separated from the meat and removed in a single piece.

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This huge segment is carefully deposited on a bed of leaves: it is the kingly portion reserved for the dancers. Next, the shoulders and hams are removed. The pig is then turned on its side and all the fat taken off the belly, again in a single piece. This is the portion reserved for the parents of the owner’s wife, who, by virtue of the law of exogamy, do not belong to the tribe giving the Gabé, and are therefore free to feast off it at will. If the owner has provided several pigs, the belly fat must still necessarily go to the wife’s parents, as long as the wife herself is alive. Now, only the carcass and entrails remain. The latter are given to the women, who are not, in any circumstances, allowed to eat the fat, or even the lean when it is larded. These are regarded as very bad for them. So, once again, the men show their devotion by leaving them merely the offal. As for the carcass – ribs, cutlets and so on – this is divided up into as many portions as are considered necessary for paying pressing debts or winning new friends. The shoulders and hams go to serve the same purpose. The man who is cutting up the pig does not have the piles of meat and offal on his hands for long. Scarcely has he severed them than they are carried off by those for whom they have been destined since the very start of the Gabé. Everyone knows which portion is due to him and all the beneficiaries crowd at the counter, as it were, snatch their joints from the ‘butcher’s’ hands and rush off. At times, when someone is dissatisfied with his share, disputes arise. Oddly enough, the protagonists in these arguments are frequently women. One might say that they are never content. But agreement is always reached in the end

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and no one complains at these brief diversions, which enliven the tedious process of open-air butchery. At the invitation of the chief, and repressing my repugnance, I had gone down into the square, which was as sordid a sight as some black-market abattoir. ‘You should at least go and take a glance at the portions of pig you are due to receive,’ the chief had said. ‘Where is it?’ I asked. ‘Down there, at the far end of the square.’ I followed the chief past the line of repulsive butchers’ stalls, forcing myself to seem interested in the skill of the slaughterers, pausing here and there to make a genial remark or to calm one of the more irate ladies. The chief gave me a call. ‘Well, there’s your pig!’ I hurried forward, turning my eyes towards the promised animal. To my stupefaction, however, the first thing I saw was the shirt-clad man of a few days previously. Without giving any sign of having noticed my arrival, he was busily employed with a large kitchen knife, which I recognized instantly. His fine white shirt was now reduced to a pitiful condition, covered with smears of blood. ‘Friday, my son,’ I said, ‘what are you doing here?’ He looked up with a perfectly innocent expression. ‘You can see for yourself. I’m cutting up “our” pig.’ I decided to make a frontal attack. ‘Who gave you that shirt?’ He did not seem in the least perturbed. ‘No one. I took it from “our” trunk . . . ’ ‘That’s what I thought, when I saw you, the other day at mass – for don’t think I didn’t see you! You stole that shirt from me, just as you stole that knife . . . ’

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He sprang to his feet as if bitten by a snake. His face wore a look of the most poignant grief, but his eyes flashed. ‘I am not a thief,’ he protested with dignity, meanwhile wiping his knife on one of his shirt tails. ‘Are you not my father?’ ‘Well . . . yes, I suppose so!’ ‘In that case, what is yours is mine!’ ‘Now look here,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t go as far as that!’ With a brusque movement, he whipped off the shirt, screwed it up into a ball and held it out to me with a martyred air. ‘In that case,’ he murmured, ‘take back your shirt, and be my father no longer!’ What could I do? ‘You can keep it, your tapou (shirt),’ I said. ‘But as soon as you get back to the house, you’re to wash it and put it back in the trunk. Understood? And you’re also to put the knife back in its proper place.’ Friday’s face split in two with a vast smile. Putting the shirt on again, he explained that, in order to do me honour, he had felt obliged to dress himself rather as I did, before presenting himself at the Gabé. He had therefore worn the shirt, at least after the dancing, for during the dances he had been dressed as a ‘true man’, in other words, practically naked. He was most vexed when I told him that I had not noticed him. ‘And yet, during the night dance, I often passed in front of you,’ he declared. ‘I was not trying to hide. But your eyes were no doubt veiled with sleep. Afterwards, I avoided letting you see me, for I had put our shirt on. You would have made me feel ashamed. But now, the Gabé is

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over, so it doesn’t matter any more. We shall go home, and eat pig to bursting point . . . ’ Whereupon he resumed his butchery. The whole of the square, with its pervasive sickly smell of clotted blood and fresh meat, steaming entrails and greasy fat, was now covered with joints of pork laid out on leaf platters. The crowd had split up into a hundred little groups, all busily engaged in tying up their portions of the kill in liana-bound packages. The excitement was over and one even noticed, in some of their attitudes, a sort of sadness. Everyone was in a hurry to leave, but courtesy demanded that they should wait until the dancers had received the backstraps, which were their share. The latter, standing in a group, seemed as impatient as the others to depart. They had been waiting there so long! The first to be called were the day dancers, the leading chiefs. Slowly, aristocratically, without betraying the least sign of the pleasure they were feeling, they advanced in turn to receive their gifts: the entire back of a pig, complete with rind and fat, jaw and tail. It made such an armful that they looked like clever pupils at a school prize-giving. With a disdainful scowl (this being the well-mannered thing to do!) they passed their burdens on to their ‘Noses’, who hastened to wrap and tie them up. A number of these ‘great men’ were far too grand to trouble themselves with the task: but the ‘Nose’ was always there, to do everything for them. Next, the real dancers – the night dancers who had observed so long a fast and beaten the drums – were called forward one by one. Their share was not an entire back, but portions of the backs which still remained, varying in size according to their merits and privileges.

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For it must not be forgotten that this ceremony, which had all the appearance of an offering of gifts, was in reality a settling of accounts. The portion which a guest received was exactly similar to one which he himself had once given to the present donor, or, if that were not the case, he was contracting a debt which he would later have to settle in similar circumstances. At last, everything had been distributed, and nothing was left on the square but heaps of blood-spattered leaves. A heavy silence weighed on the bustling crowd. Dancers and guests were busy loading on to their shoulders – and even more on to their wives’ shoulders – their shares of meat, and stowing away in their nets their personal ornaments, carefully wrapped in strips of tapa, their goods and possessions: pipes, souvenirs, sleeping hammocks, and so on. They helped their wives to balance these burdens on their bent backs, and then, as soon as all was ready, they set off, each in the direction of his own village. There was no question of thanking or saying farewell to the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’. For that matter, the latter had disappeared inside their huts. But, no sooner had the last group of guests departed through the palisade, than the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ sprang from their retreats, with bows, arrows and spears in their hands, and insults on their lips. Dividing into groups for the different paths taken by their guests, they rushed away to provide them with a tumultuous send-off, escorting them in some instances for several miles, shouting insults and even unleashing an occasional arrow, which was not, however, aimed at anybody. And finally, before turning back for good, they burst into the Ovo Maya, the Song of the Pig.

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The words of this song have no actual meaning, but the general sense is clear. This strange way of saying farewell, consecrated by custom, expresses the feelings of the hosts for their guests in the following manner: ‘You came, you enjoyed our festivities, and you ate all our food. It was a great Gabé: and now we have nothing left! . . . ’ One can imagine the guests, bowed beneath the weight of their rich spoils as they hurry along the steep tracks, saying to each other: ‘Well, they’re certainly a bright lot, that Gabé crowd, aren’t they?’

Chapter 19

THE END OF THE GABÉ To the annoyance of Friday, and in defiance of native custom, I did not make my departure with the other guests. For me, the Gabé was not yet finished. I had work to do in this wretched village, which now wore such a pitiable aspect of filth and desolation: for the horde of guests had indeed passed over it like a swarm of locusts over a fertile countryside. While Friday spent his time roasting joints of ‘our’ pig and devouring them with friends, from time to time bringing me a piece grilled in the embers, or a chunk of bacon cooked on the burning logs, I spent my own time looking after the sick, especially the children, and giving instruction to the old men and women, who had been so shaken by the excitement and stress of the festival that they now asked to be prepared for baptism, lest death should overtake them. On the second day, all the able-bodied men disappeared into the bush armed with spears, arrows and hunting nets. ‘Where are they off to?’ I asked the chief. The chief was resting wearily against his kono as if still oppressed by the heavy burden of responsibility that had weighed on his shoulders. ‘We have nothing left to eat,’ he replied. ‘They have gone into the forest to hunt and fish.’

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Then he added with pride: ‘It was a fine feast, wasn’t it? Word of truth, there isn’t even a single yam left!’ He gazed towards the tall mountain peaks that overlooked his domain: by those sheer ranges and jungle-clad passes, his guests had now returned to their villages. It was of them that he was thinking. ‘Over there, and there,’ he continued, pointing in various directions, ‘they are eating their fill of our meat, and speaking our name.’ And it is true that, when the guests leave the Gabé, bent beneath the weight of their gifts and the valedictory shower of insults, they have only one thought: to return home as quickly as possible. Their families await them with impatience. In Papua a journey is always a perilous adventure, for one can never know what may not happen, especially at the end of a Gabé. More than once, in fact, during the tumultuous send-off, it has been known for guests to fall beneath spears and arrows. These accidents are only an indirect consequence of the Gabé: they occur when the friend of yesterday has set off, not only with his share of the pigs, but also with one of his hosts’ women, who has yielded to the attractions of the stranger and the unknown. In such a case, the outraged husband, father or sweetheart has decided to take stern measures to retrieve his possession. Men can be thick-headed and women flighty, even in the depths of the jungle. That was why the return of the travellers was awaited so impatiently, to say nothing of the prospect of a tremendous feast. At last, word is given of their approach. Soon, they can be heard singing in the depths of a ravine, where they have

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halted on the banks of a stream to spruce themselves up before making their re-entry into the village. Swiftly, the women make ready the ovens, in which the joints of pork brought back by the dancers will be cooked. The method employed is exactly the same as that formerly used – and indeed, still used, among certain not very distant tribes – in the cooking of human flesh. On fires of logs built up in a square, the logs resting one upon the other, the women lay long, flat stones to be heated. Others re-excavate a trench dug in a corner of the village and now half-filled with debris. This is about five feet long, at least a yard wide, and a little under three feet deep. It looks like a grave, but it is the oven. The young boys and girls return from the nearby forest carrying huge armfuls of leaves and branches. By the time the travellers enter silently, and go to sit on the terrace of the communal hut or on the earth beside it, all is in readiness. The escort of porters, laden with the booty from the feast, enter soon afterwards. With a jerk of the shoulder, the contents of the swollen nets and the packages of meat are thrown on to the soil of the village square. The men and women who have remained behind at the village crowd round, making comments on the quantity and quality of the gifts, and praising or criticizing the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’. Criticisms usually predominate: and that is very human – the more one is given, the more one wants. While the men are unwrapping the packages, the women, armed with two long sticks which serve as tongs, place a layer of stones, glowing red from the fire, at the bottom of the trench, which has previously been lined with leaves. On to the hot stones the men then throw the joints of pork; just as they are, with rind, fat, dust and scraps, all

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together. Vegetables are added: sweet potatoes, taros, yams, gathered and prepared in advance. The whole mixture is covered with a thick layer of leaves, on which is placed a further layer of hot stones, then more joints of meat and vegetables, and so on in this fashion until the hole is completely filled. On top of it are piled all the available branches, leaves and sheaves of grass, and the food is left to braise slowly for two or three hours. The village is in festive mood. The dancers have forsaken their attitudes of aristocratic restraint and now, highly excited, smoking and chewing betel, they describe every detail of the great slaughter and return tirelessly to the various episodes of the dance. They will, indeed, talk of these things for years to come. ‘The food is cooked,’ announce the old women who have been bustling round the oven. At once the men rush upon it, singing, and kick aside the covering of vegetation. The women remove the stones and the ‘great men’ set out the portions of meat and Vegetables on leaf platters. Once again, each portion is carefully measured. A particular portion is recognized as belonging to a particular dancer, who in turn must divide it up among certain others. These are the members of his family, his creditors, and above all, the villager from whom he has borrowed his adornments. The latter is often an old man, who can no longer undertake the journey to a feast, but who benefits from it all the same, by lending out his ‘sons’ – in other words, his personal ornaments, which he hoards as carefully as an arch-capitalist. The distribution completed, each family sits down to table, if one can use such an expression of people who eat squatting on their heels, with neither plates nor knives and forks. An almost total silence reigns. As far as is possible

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the banqueters turn their backs on one another, for if eating is a pleasurable activity, it is also a shameful one. They gulp the food down gluttonously, almost without bothering to chew it. It is less a question of savouring the fare – which, besides, has little enough real flavour – as of filling one’s stomach. In reality, many are left still hungry, for once the portions have been divided and sub-divided, the individual villager’s share is meagre enough. Thus, the meal is quickly dispatched, but with the help of a little imagination, everyone believes himself to be satisfied. Evening descends. A small group of young people try to get a dance going in the square. But the authentic dancers prefer to go on talking among small groups of friends, relating all that they have seen, heard and eaten, and most particularly, all that they themselves have done during the festivities. Slowly, the murmur of an evening song arises and the village settles down to slumber and to dream of its own festival, the Gabé that it will itself hold, one of these days . . . While the entire region was thus feasting at their expense, the former ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ raked desperately through their own forests in search of food. Each evening, the hunters and fishermen brought back their spoils. The fish and the joints of wild boar, or of opossum or phalanger or some other marsupial, were hung above the hearths to dry. Only perishable forms of food were eaten straight away: fat white worms, small birds, caterpillars and frogs. And even these were reserved strictly for the men, for their cold flesh (even when it had been placed on the embers) was held to cause deplorable havoc in female stomachs: once again, an example of proper manly devotion!

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Among the few wild boars that the hunters had captured alive, and which were kept tied up beneath the huts, like the Gabé pigs, I had noticed two or three which bore all the signs of being domestic animals. I expressed surprise at this to my original old confidant and friend, whom I was striving to initiate into the rudiments of the Christian faith. He found my question about the pigs a much easier matter to deal with. ‘Yes, the pigs you mention certainly came from the village in the first place,’ he conceded. ‘But they have become foilanghé (wild) like wild boars. Or else, they are ovol’ ou’ gamand’ aka (little wandering pigs). For that reason, we can eat them’. By these picturesque epithets, he meant either pigs that had strayed from the village into the bush a long time ago, or others that had taken to the undergrowth only since the beginning of the dances. The latter should have been caught while the search for the Gabé pigs was in progress. But the hunters had preferred to turn a blind eye to them, so as to keep them as a surprise for later. And, in the same way as a water-fowl may be baptized fish, these ‘wandering pigs’ were regarded as ordinary, edible wild boar. After a week, a store of food had been laid in. ‘Our bellies are aching,’ the chief told me. ‘We are going to hold a small feast.’ The inhabitants of the neighbouring villages who had helped to make the Gabé a success were invited for the following day. They arrived casually enough, as people living in the same block of flats would visit each other, and the boars were slaughtered, cut up, and parcelled out without any ceremony or boisterous crowds. Each of the families present or represented there received its share. In addition,

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they were given some of the smoked meat and dried fish, and even vegetables. For, in spite of what the chief had said, there were still a few yams and quite a good quantity of other root crops and fruit. In anticipation of this intimate celebration, small gardens had been cultivated in secret, in the depths of the bush. The guests of the Gabé, not knowing their location, had spared them. The separate portions were distributed in an atmosphere of calm, smiling melancholy. This was a way in which the villagers could express their gratitude to each other, as well as towards their friends. The latter soon retired to banquet in their own villages, leaving the ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ to enjoy their well-earned meal. During the meal, everyone gorged himself to the utmost: it was both a reward for privations already endured, and a form of insurance against future periods of dearth. The next day the women cleaned up the village. It certainly needed it. Until that moment, it had been strewn with all the litter left by the guests: vegetable peelings of all kinds, piles of chewed sugar-cane fibre, the empty shells of almonds and areca nuts, and above all, the heaps of leaves, soiled with blood and filth, which had served as butcher’s blocks during the slaughter and over which large green flies had been buzzing for the past week. Armed with slender branches, the women swept up whole cartloads of rubbish, which the men burnt in a big bonfire in the centre of the square. This purification accomplished, many families deserted the village altogether. They set off for the depths of the bush, where, for the next five or six months, they would camp in shelters made of leaves. Their task was to start new gardens and find means of subsistence until the first

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crop was ready. For that purpose, they had the great forest, with its wild animals, its fruit and its roots all around them. The exodus continued during the next few days, until finally, the only ones left in the village were the old men and women, with a few families to watch over them and over the huts and surrounding plots of ground. On the almost deserted square, only the tall poles, and the young trees planted in a surrounding belt in the early excitement of preparation, still served as a reminder of vanished splendours. Once, they had carried great clusters of vegetables, and garlands of flowers and leaves. Now, they were like the gaunt trees that winter strips bare in European countries. Finally, the villagers chopped them down and they were cut up into logs and laid under the huts to dry. Later on, when the solitary bush-dwellers returned with fresh supplies of food, they would be used for fires on which game and vegetables would be cooked for a final small celebration. But already, the Gabé itself was no more than a memory . . . At dusk, at that moment when night envelopes the savage jungle and reawakens all its perilous spells, one might have heard, drifting with the smoke through the leafy roofs of frail shelters, a poignant, gently modulated melody: Na fani télé I, poor lad, have mounted Oulé doubé So high my country seems dark, Na fani télé I, poor lad, have mounted Na yové . . . To catch the fine bird of paradise, Na koum’ ou’ tetsi But under the mountain’s crest Naur’ iyov’ yarimé. I spread my snares in vain.

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The ‘Fathers of the Gabé’ have climbed so high, in the glory and exaltation of their festival, that now that they have once more fallen back into ordinary life, everything seems desolate, mournful, dark. They had wanted to keep it for ever, that glory, smooth and brilliant as the plumes of the bird of paradise, expressed in the fabulous costumes of the dancers at the Gabé. But alas! between the meshes of their snares – the invitations with which they captured the handsome dancers – nothing remains . . . . And thus, in melancholy cantilena, these primitive beings breathe the universal plaint of man, for whom, on this earth, pleasure so soon gives way to disillusion and fleeting glories to the bitter daily round.


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