Native Memories Of 1884

Things That Impressed the Primitive Papuan Minds of 50 Years Ago

IN this article, written with delightful humour, Mr. F. E. Williams, Govern ment Anthropologist, provides some inter esting and unusual sidelights on the cere monies which marked the addition of Papua to the British Empire.

THE ceremony of declaring the Protec torate at Port Moresby fifty years ago has been very fully described by Charles Lyne, the journalist, as well as by Chal mers, the missionary. Without expecting to learn anything new about the cere mony I thought, however, that it might be worth while questioning some of the oldest natives in the Port Moresby vil lages, to see what they could remember of it and how they regarded it.

The results of my enquiry were, I con fess, rather disappointing. I consulted three of those old-timers.

The first of them, Gavera Gavera, had but the haziest recollection of it all. He spoke of the men-of-war (there “were actually five in the harbour), of the firing of their guns, and of a diari, or “beam”— presumably the searchlight. He also re membered how the sailors and marines fell in and marched, and how they fired their rifles, the startling noise of three

feux de joie being clearly a vivid recollec tion. But there was no intriguing detail to supplement the written accounts of Chalmers and Lyne.

My second informant, Igo Gau, was al most equally a failure. He remembered however that, whereas the other chiefs who went aboard the “Nelson” were dressed in native fashion, Boe Vagi wore a shirt —a detail which is regrettably verified by Lyne, who says that the para mount chief “was dressed in a shirt, with a handkerchief round his loins, and a red felt hat on his head.” This costume in itself was sufficiently distinctive to have

Motu Nonuka wearing the naval hat and uniform presented to his grandfather, Boe Vagi, at Port Moresby in 1884, on the occa sion of the declaration of a Protectorate over Papua.

made an impression—and no doubt a favourable one—on Igo Gau; but it was nothing to what he was to see presently.

He was not himself one of the privileged fifty to go aboard the flagship. He had watched with the others for their return, and remembers how the villagers were amazed at the appearance of their newly created chief. For whereas he had gone onto the “Nelson” clad in a shirt, he came out of it carrying a stick and wearing a naval officer’s uniform. There is no doubt that Boe Vagi did wear a naval uniform later on, in his official capacity; but I think my informant may have anticipated this investiture in his account, for neither Chalmers nor Lyne makes mention of what would have been at least a very surpris ing transformation.

Igo does not forget the noise of the cannon, though he mistook its signifi cance, In the words of an English-speak ing native who has transcribed his ac count, “the meaning of the cannons which they fired, saluting the chief Boe Vagi.”

Dr. Lawes, the missionary, had fore warned the people of the display of fire works which was to take place on the evening before the actual ceremony, (It happened to be November 5. Were the rockets solely to impress the natives, or did the Commodore send up a few extra for Guy Fawkes?) To use the words of my scribe again: “In this occasion Dr.

Lawes told the villagers that they would not be afraid, but to watch and they can see some amazing things, viz., flashing lights, crackers, sky-rockets, etc. When the light flashed towards them, and when they heard the sounds, these things will do no harms; so they may not move from their villages. If this does not be told, I should say the villagers would be rushed to and fro.” As it happened, only the Koiari, visitors from the hinterland, were sufficiently scared by the entertain ment which had been staged for their "benefit to run away from it.

The last of the three old-timers was Taubada Ova. I entrusted the task of dragging out his recollections to a young educated native, and in due course re ceived a written account of them. It was a very short one, to which the young man, digusted at the failure of Taubada’s memory, wrote an indignant preface: “In my opinion he can remember things that happened yesterday, but not day before yesterday. His head is full saw-dusts, etc.” This is strong language for an up start to use of a rather eminent and cer tainly intelligent old native; but then the youth was anxious to please, and pump ing informants without result can be a little exasperating, Taubada Ova had been on a hunting expedition with his friends when they heard, reverberating through the hills, the thunder of the Royal Salute, They hastened back to the village to learn the meaning of these unaccountable noises, but by that time of course the celebration was all over. There was, however, “lots of news about appointment of Boe Vagi as a chief”; and he had been driven walking-stick, uniform, and hat by “Gamadoa (Commodore), a big man which was sent here for appointing some one as chief.”

Later in the evening, Taubada went to see the flag flying at Boe Vagi’s house— not the Union Jack of the Declaration, but a lesser emblem which will be referr ed to presently, “a beautiful flag . . . en aigned with Bird of Paradise.” Beneath it were gathered a crowd of natives who "talked amongst themselves about obey ing Boe Vagi’s order and respecting him when he walked about.”

But if living memories have grown in

distinct, some concrete mementos of the scene remain in a rather better state of preservation. Boe Vagi had been ap pointed by the Commodore (no doubt on adequate recommendation) as leader among the fifty or more assembled chiefs.

And at the conclusion of the reception on board the “Nelson,” when the guests had disposed of the “great tub of boiled rice, sweetened with brown sugar,” and had listened to the Commodore’s haran gue, he, Boe Vagi, was called forward and presented with an ebony stick. It was to be, said the Commodore, an emblem to him of his authority, and all the tribes represented by the chiefs there present were to “look to the holder of this stick, Boe Vagi.”

The emblem of authority—it would have made a very serviceable weapon—is a thick black stick, encircled at the top by a band of silver. This band encloses a florin, face upwards, and we may picture Boe Vagi and his fellow tribesmen (who had hitherto seen but one white woman, the wife of Dr. Lawes) passing the stick from hand to hand and gazing with won der at their new Queen who, as the Com modore had said, would guard and watch over them and would look upon them as her children.

At subsequent ceremonies performed at different parts of the coast, Commodore Erskine presented five of these staffs of office to “paramount chiefs,” the sixth being given to Mr. Chalmers as a souve nir. It is more than doubtful whether any of them, except the last, now serves the purpose for which it was given. Boe Vagi’s remains in the house of his grand son, and neither he nor any other is bold enough to carry it as a staff of office. For Boe Vagi's status from the beginning was a fictitious one, and his place was not taken by a successor.

The ebony stick passed into the hands of his only daughter, Gabadi Boe. She it was whom Dyne described as the “vil lage belle,” but as “not very beautiful according to English or Australian ideas of female beauty, for her face is broad, her nose flat, her mouth large, and her head of hair immense.” But her form was robust; she wore many bands of shells, and a large piece of pearl around her neck; and she “wagged her petticoat with as much style and effect as her sex in Sydney, much more elaborately dressed, can show in a walk round the block.”

It is not a very sympathetic picture.

Gabadi Boe must have looked, dressed, and behaved like the Motu kekeni of to day, who is uncommonly attractive; and incidentally I am sure she wagged her petticoat with more verve than would be tolerated on the streets of Sydney.

She was no doubt making the most of her father’s glory, for Lyne adds, some what fancifully, that she was “evidently the admiration if not the envy of a select circle of young female acquaintances who were generally with her in a capacity something like that of maids of honour.”

In short, she was permitting herself to be lionised.

Gabadi Boe in due course married, and it is her son, Motu Nonuka, who now has the stick in his possession. He is a re spectable little native with no pretensions to chieftainship, the highest public honour he has achieved being no more than mem bership of the Village Council.

When I visited his house he had the relics of his distinguished grandfather placed ready on a table. Besides the ebony staff, there was an old moth-eaten flag, dark blue, with a white square in the corner. Unfortunately, the white cor ner had almost totally disappeared, though on what remained of it could be distinguished some streaks of dye or

painting. This was the flag which Tau bada Ova had admired. It had been sub stituted by Commodore Erskine for the Union Jack given to Boe Vagi in the pre vious year by Mr. H. M. Chester, when the country was prematurely annexed to Queensland. The streaks of painting are all the remains of a design printed on the white square by Mr. Cooper, of the N.S.W. Civil Service —viz., a Bird of Para dise —the first official appearance of Papua’s emblem.

But the most interesting of the relics were still to come. Motu Nonuka opened a rusty tin box of most unusual shape, and disclosed a naval officer’s cocked hat, and then, unwrapping a brown-paper parcel, he carefully laid out a naval offi cer’s cut-away. Both were grievously moth-eaten and tattered; but some 60 per cent. of the gilt buttons remained on the coat, and there were a pair of heavy epaulettes which, despite their dilapida tion, still gave it an air of magnificence.

As we have seen, there is some doubt whether this uniform was actually given to Boe Vagi by the Commodore; though Motu, his grandson, as well as two of my ancient informants, declared that it was.

But whoever gave it, we may be sure that the paramount chief often wore it and that it made its due impression.

On his death it passed, like the ebony stick, into the hands of his daughter, Gabadi Boe; nor does it appear that anyone ever ventured to wear it again, save on one occasion Gabadi Boe herself.

She had married a man, Nonuka Daroa, who once found himself in gaol for the incautious or malicious use of fire in a native garden. His highly-connected wife came to his rescue. I have the story from their son Motu, who remembers see ing his mother don the naval uniform and thus apparelled proceed from Hanu abada to the office of the Resident Magis trate, where she petitioned for her hus band’s release. The Government —or so it would appear from Motu’s story—was sufficiently sentimental to be affected, and the husband speedily found himself free again.

This ludicrous but charming episode is enough to prove, what one suspected al ready, that Boe Vagi’s daughter was a woman of character. It is worth adding that she could not on this heroic occasion have worn the trousers belonging to the uniform, because Boe Vagi had been buried in them.

The present possessor of ebony stick, flag, and uniform is a modest man.

Though his mother habitually carried the stick and once dared ridicule by wearing the uniform, he keeps them inside his house. He readily agreed to dress him self up for a photograph, but if there is anything Napoleonic in his pose it is the photographer’s fault.

Motu Nonuka has no vanity in the pos session of these heirlooms. He regards them —the flag and uniform, at any rate —as junk, and suggested burning them.

I realiy did not know whether it was right to dissuade him, they are so far gone.

But he has decided to put them away for a further span, and recently turned up at my office to accept a handful of moth balls.