Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake Volume Ii Part 5

ETHNOLOGY OF NEW GUINEA.

The ethnology of New Guinea is involved in so much confusion and obscurity for the want of sufficient data, that even with the aid of some additional recently acquired information bearing upon the subject, I wish the following brief remarks to be regarded more as probable a.s.sumptions than as views the correctness of which admits of demonstration. Besides, to give all the proofs, such as they are, would cause much repet.i.tion of what has been already stated above.

I must premise that most of our previous definite information regarding the inhabitants of New Guinea applies only to a small portion of the north-west coast of that great island in the neighbourhood of Port Dorey, which is known to be peopled by several distinct varieties of mankind, of which one (with which, as occupying the coast, we are best acquainted) is designated the Papuan, or Papua, as generally understood by that appellation when used in its restricted signification. These Papuans, according to Dumont D'Urville,* compose the princ.i.p.al part of the population of Port Dorey, and, judging from his description, I have no hesitation in referring to them also the inhabitants of the Louisiade Archipelago and the South-East coast of New Guinea, and agree with Prichard (in opposition to the views of others) that they "const.i.tute a genuine and peculiar tribe."**

(*Footnote. Voyage de l'Astrolabe tome 4 page 603.)

(**Footnote. Researches into the Physical History of Mankind volume 5 page 227.)

NATIVES OF NORTH-WEST COAST.

Another variety among the inhabitants of Port Dorey, spoken of by M.

d'Urville as the Harfours, is supposed by him to include, along with another race of which little is known--named Arfaki--the indigenous inhabitants of the north-west part of New Guinea. The Harfours, Haraforas, or Alforas, for they have been thus variously named, have often been described as inhabiting the interior of many of the large islands of the Malayan Archipelago, but, as Prichard remarks, "nothing can be more puzzling than the contradictory accounts which are given of their physical characters and manners. The only point of agreement between different writers respecting them is the circ.u.mstance that all represent them as very low in civilisation and of fierce and sanguinary habits."* Their distinctness as a race has been denied with much apparent reason by Mr. Earl, and they are considered by Prichard to be merely various tribes of the Malayo-Polynesian race retaining their uncivilised and primitive state. Be this as it may, of these Harfours D'Urville states, that they reminded him of the ordinary type of the Australians, New Caledonians, and the black race of Oceania, from their sooty colour, coa.r.s.e but not woolly hair, thick beards, and habit of scarifying the body. I mention these Harfours for the purpose of stating that no people answering to the description of them given above were seen by us in New Guinea or the Louisiade Archipelago.

(*Footnote. Ibid page 255.)

VARIETIES OF THE PAPUAN RACE AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION.

It appears to me that there are two distinct varieties of the Papuan race inhabiting the south-east portion of New Guinea. The first occupies the western sh.o.r.es of the Great Bight, and probably extends over the whole of the adjacent country, along the banks of Aird River, and the other great freshwater channels. Judging from the little that was seen of them during the voyage of the Fly, these people appear to agree with the Torres Strait Islanders--an offshoot, there is reason to believe, of the same stock--in being a dark and savage race, the males of which go entirely naked.

The second variety occupies the remainder of the south-east coast of New Guinea and the Louisiade Archipelago. Their characteristics have already been given in this work, as seen at intermediate points between Cape Possession and Coral Haven; they agree in being a lighter-coloured people than the preceding, and more advanced in civilisation: mop-headed, practising betel-chewing, and wearing the breech-cloth. Without entering into the question of their supposed origin, I may state that, in some of their physical, intellectual, and moral characters, and also partially in their language, they seem to me to show indications of a Malayo-Polynesian influence, probably acquired before their arrival in New Guinea, along the sh.o.r.es of which they seem to have extended, colonising the Louisiade during their progress, which at Cape Possession was finally arrested by their meeting with the other section of the race alluded to in the preceding paragraph.

It would be curious to see the effects produced at the point of junction of these two sections of the same race, probably somewhere between Aird River and Cape Possession. It is not unlikely that the Papuans of Redscar Bay and its vicinity derived the use of the bow and arrow from their neighbours to the westward--and that the kind of canoe in use in Torres Strait was an introduction from the eastward, is rendered probable--setting aside other considerations--by a circ.u.mstance suggested by the vocabularies, i.e. that the name for the most characteristic part of the canoe in question--the outrigger float--is essentially the same from the Louisiade to Cape York.*

(*Footnote.

Louisiade: Sama.

Darnley Island: Charima.

Dufaure Island: Sarima.

Prince of Wales Islands: Sarima.

Redscar Bay: Darima.

Cape York: Charima.)

I have alluded in a preceding part of this work (Volume 1) to the circ.u.mstance that the small vocabulary obtained at the Louisiade may, along with others, throw some light upon the question: whence has Australia been peopled?

ORIGIN OF THE AUSTRALIAN RACE.

It may safely be a.s.sumed that the aborigines of the whole of Australia (exclusive of Van Diemen's Land) have had one common origin; in physical character the natives of Cape York seem to me to differ in no material respect from those of New South Wales, South or Western Australia, or Port Essington,* and, I believe I am borne out by facts in stating that an examination of vocabularies and grammars (more or less complete) from widely remote localities, still further tends to prove the unity of the Australian tribes as a race.

(*Footnote. M. Hombron (attached to D'Urville's last expedition as surgeon and naturalist) considers--as the result of personal observation--that the aborigines of New South Wales exhibit certain points of physical difference from those of the North Coast of Australia, meaning, I suppose, by the latter, those natives seen by him at Raffles Bay and Port Essington. I may also mention that M. Hombron considers the Northern Australians to be a distinct subdivision of the Australian race, in which he also cla.s.ses the inhabitants of the smaller islands of Torres Strait (as Warrior Island for instance) attributing the physical amelioration of the latter people to the fact of their possessing abundant means of subsistence afforded by the reefs among which they live, and the necessity of possessing well constructed canoes as their only means of procuring fish and dugong, stated by him to const.i.tute the chief food of the Torres Strait islanders. Voyage au Pole Sud, etc.

Zoologie tome 1 par M. Hombron pages 313, 314 et 317.)

The two places from one of which the Australian population may be supposed to have been more IMMEDIATELY derived, are Timor on the one hand and New Guinea on the other: in the former case the first settlers would probably have landed somewhere on the north-west coast, in the latter, at Cape York.

Mr. Eyre believes that there are "grounds sufficient to hazard the opinion that Australia was first peopled on its north-western coast, between the parallels of 12 and 16 degrees South lat.i.tude. From whence we might surmise that three grand divisions had branched off from the parent tribe, and that from the offsets of these the whole continent has been overspread."* Proceeding still further Mr. Eyre has very ingeniously attempted to explain the gradual peopling of Australia, and even indicate the probable routes taken by the first settlers during the long periods of years which must have elapsed before the whole continent was overrun by the tribes now collectively forming the Australian race. Dr. Prichard, when alluding to the probable mode of dispersion of the black tribes of the Indian Archipelago, conjectures that one of the branches during the migratory march probably pa.s.sed from Java to Timor, and from thence to Australia.** Dr. Latham also inclines to the belief that Australia was peopled from Timor and not from New Guinea, judging, in the absence of positive proof, from the probability that "occupancy had begun in Australia before migration across Torres Strait had commenced in New Guinea," inferred "from the physical differences between the Australian and the Papuan, taken with the fact that it is scarcely likely that the Papuans of Torres Strait would have failed in extending themselves in Australia had that island been unoccupied." Timor also is much nearer than New Guinea to the REMOTE source--a.s.sumed to be the continent of Asia--whence the Australians have been derived.***

(*Footnote. Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia etc. by E.J. Eyre Volume 2 page 405.)

(**Footnote. Researches into the Physical History of Mankind Volume 5 page 214.)

(***Footnote. Natural History of the Varieties of Man by R.G. Latham, M.D. pages 257 and 253.)

The unity of the Australian race being admitted implies one common origin, and that such was not derived from New Guinea, can scarcely, I think, be doubted. Upon examining the neighbourhood of the point of contact between the New Guinea-men and the Australians, we find Cape York and the neighbouring sh.o.r.es of the mainland occupied by genuine and unmixed Australians, and the islands of Torres Strait with the adjacent coast of New Guinea by equally genuine Papuans; intermediate in position between the two races, and occupying the point of junction at the Prince of Wales Islands we find the Kowrarega tribe of blacks. At first I was inclined to regard the last more as degraded Papuans than as improved Australians: I am now, however, fully convinced that they afford an example of an Australian tribe so altered by contact with the Papuan tribes of the adjacent islands as at length to resemble the latter in most of their physical, intellectual and moral characteristics. Thus the Kowraregas have acquired from their island neighbours the art of cultivating the ground, and their superior dexterity in constructing and navigating large canoes, together with some customs--such as that of preserving the skulls of their enemies as trophies: while they retain the use of the spear and throwing-stick, practise certain mysterious ceremonies connected with the initiation of boys to the rights of manhood--supposed to be peculiar to the Australian race--and hold the females in the same low and degraded position which they occupy throughout Australia.

That the Kowraregas settled the Prince of Wales Islands either prior to or nearly simultaneously, with the spreading downwards from New Guinea of the Papuans of the islands, scarcely admits of absolute proof: but that the former have existed as a tribe for a long period of years is shown by the changes which I presume to have taken place in their language. While this last unquestionably belongs to the Australian cla.s.s, as clearly indicated by Dr. Latham's a.n.a.lysis of the p.r.o.nouns,* one of the characteristic parts of the language, and, therefore, least liable to change, yet the occurrence in the Kowrarega of a considerable number of words resembling and often identical with those of the known Papuan languages of Torres Strait,** and which I believe to have been derived from the latter, seems to indicate a degree of long-continued intercourse between the two races: for changes in language to so great an extent are not effected in a short s.p.a.ce of time any more than the nearly complete fusion of two different races which has evidently taken place at the Prince of Wales Islands. Scarcely opposible to this supposition is the extreme improbability that the Papuans, who had nothing to gain from so comparatively inferior a race as the Australian, should be indebted to the latter for the words common to both found to exist in the Kowrarega and Miriam languages.

(*Footnote. See the Appendix.)

(**Footnote. As means of comparison I used the Darnley and Murray Island vocabulary given in Jukes' Voyage of the Fly, also a ma.n.u.script one of my own, which furnishes some additional particulars; some words from Ma.s.sid given by Jukes; and a few from Mount Ernest procured by myself.)

Another mode of procedure suggests itself to one endeavouring to trace the proximate origin of the Australians--and that is, to search the records of voyagers and others for any traces of such customs, the use of certain implements, etc., as are supposed to be most characteristic of these people. Yet, taking, for example, the boomerang* and throwing-stick,** we find nothing approaching to either of these instruments in any part of New Guinea yet visited by Europeans: in the absence of any evidence to the contrary from Timor, they may be considered as true Australian inventions; and a.s.suming the Australians to be the descendants of a colony from Timor, the circ.u.mstance of the natives of Melville Island--a part of Australia distant only 200 miles from their presumed place of origin--being ignorant of the use of the throwing-stick, is in favour of part of this supposition. But a thorough investigation of the question of the origin of the Australian race, and their dispersion over the continent, although NOW I believe rendered quite practicable by the great ma.s.s of additional information contributed by voyagers and travellers since Mr. Eyre wrote upon the subject, is not consistent with the objects of this work.

(*Footnote. Some of the fowling-sticks of the ancient Egyptians closely resemble the boomerang in form and appear to have been used in a similar manner, but I am not aware that anything approaching it has been seen elsewhere. A specimen which suggested this remark is exhibited in the British Museum Egyptian Room Case 36, 37 Number 5646.)

(**Footnote. The throwing-stick is completely represented in the Aleutian Islands (See in Ethnographical Room of British Museum, a specimen in case 16): in shape it differs from the Australian ones (which themselves vary in different localities) but the principle of construction and mode of use are precisely the same. In the islands of Tanna and New Caledonia a contrivance is in use to produce the same effect as the throwing-stick in propelling the spear; but, apart from other considerations, the nature of the instrument (a piece of stiff plaited cord six inches long, with an eye in one end and a knot at the other) is such as quite to preclude the probability of the Australians having derived their throwing-stick from this source.)

CHAPTER 2.3.

Death of Captain Stanley.

Sail for England.

Arrive at the Bay of Islands.

Kororareka.

Falls of the Keri-Keri.

Pa.s.sage across the South Pacific.

Oceanic birds.

Stay at the Falkland Islands.

Settlement of Stanley.

Call at Berkeley Sound.

La.s.soing cattle.

Resume our homeward voyage.

Call at Horta in the Azores.

The caldeira of Fayal.

Arrive in England.

Soon after our arrival in Sydney we had to lament the loss of our much respected commander, who died suddenly on March 13th, while apparently convalescent from a severe illness contracted during our last cruise--induced, I understand, by long continued mental anxiety, and the cares necessarily devolving upon the leader of an expedition such as ours, of which probably no one who has not been similarly situated can ever fully comprehend the responsibility. Thus died at the early age of thirty-nine, but after the successful accomplishment of the chief objects of his mission, Captain Owen Stanley, who had long before won for himself an honourable name in that branch of the naval service to which he had devoted himself, and whose reputation as a surveyor and a man of science stood deservedly high. Although it would ill become me as a civilian attached to the expedition to enter upon the services* and professional character of my late captain, yet in common with many others, I cannot refrain from adding my humble testimony to his worth, by recording my deep sense of many personal favours, and the a.s.sistance which was always liberally rendered me during my natural history investigations throughout the voyage, whenever the more important objects of the survey permitted.

(*Footnote. See O'Byrne's Naval Biographical Dictionary page 1109.)

By this unfortunate event all previous arrangements regarding our future proceedings were anulled. It had been intended by Captain Stanley to return to England by way of Singapore and the Cape of Good Hope, adding to the charts of the Inner Pa.s.sage as we went along the east coast of Australia, and making a careful survey of the Strait of Ala.s.s, between the islands of Lombock and Sumbawa. Captain the Honourable Henry Keppel of H.M.S. Meander, as senior naval officer present, having appointed Lieutenant Yule to the vacancy in the command of the Rattlesnake, with orders to proceed direct to England, we left Sydney for that purpose on May 2nd. The Bramble was left behind in the colony, and in addition to her former crew, the limited accommodations of our s.h.i.+p were still further crowded with the greater number of the Port Essington marines, some invalids, and other pa.s.sengers, making up the number on board to upwards of 230 persons.

A course was steered to pa.s.s to the northward of New Zealand without calling there, but shortly after leaving Sydney some defects in the s.h.i.+p were found out, which rendered it necessary to put into the nearest port, as the princ.i.p.al one, causing a leak in the after gunroom, could not be repaired at sea. It was also considered expedient to get rid of the Asp in order to lessen the straining of the s.h.i.+p during the prospective pa.s.sage round Cape Horn, which so much top weight was considered materially to increase. On May 14th the land about Cape Maria Van Diemen and the North Cape of New Zealand was in sight at daylight, appearing high and mountainous, with steep maritime cliffs. On our pa.s.sage across from Australia we had seen few seabirds, but now albatrosses of three or four species were very numerous, together with a few petrels, chiefly Procellaria cookii. Next morning we found ourselves to leeward of Cape Brett, having experienced a southerly current during the night of two knots an hour; it took us the whole day to work up into the Bay of Islands, and after dark we anch.o.r.ed in 28 fathoms, about six miles from the entrance of the Kawa-Kawa.

May 16th.

The view from our anchorage, although under the favourable conditions of fine weather, struck me as being dull and cheerless. The surface of the country is hilly and undulating, showing patches of wood more or less extensive, and large tracts of fern of a dull greenish hue. The sh.o.r.es of the mainland and the numerous islands exhibit every here and there argillaceous cliffs, and banks of a brown, reddish, or yellow colour, from their steepness almost devoid of vegetation. In the morning it was a dead calm, but at length a light air sprang up and carried us into the bay of Kororareka, when we anch.o.r.ed in 4 1/2 fathoms, mud and sand, off the village of the same name, also known as the towns.h.i.+p of Russell.

May 17th.

On landing at Kororareka, one finds that what from a distance appear neat and comfortable cottages lose much by close inspection. The towns.h.i.+p consists of about thirty small wooden houses, mixed up with many native hovels. It extends along the sh.o.r.e of a small bay, with a s.h.i.+ngly beach in front and a swamp behind. The number of houses was formerly much greater, most of those now existing having been built since May 1845, when the greater part of the town was burnt down by the natives. Even now it supports two public houses, and several general stores, where necessaries may be procured at double the Sydney prices. At one time much trade was done here, before the duties imposed on the occasion of New Zealand becoming a British colony drove away the whalers which used to resort in great numbers to the Bay of Islands to refit; at present, besides the Rattlesnake, the only vessel here is a brig from Hobart, bound to California, which put in to this place to get a new rudder.