The Mafulu | Page 8

as this valley is separated from the general Fuyuge area by one of the southern ridges of Mt. Albert Edward, and more or less so by the ridges of Mt. Stone Wigg and the Wharton range, and as the Chirima is a tributary flowing into the Mambare river, which is one of the great watercourses of Northern New Guinea. The Mafulu Fathers, however, had no doubt as to the correctness of the inclusion, which seems to open out the possibility of some, at all events, of the Fuyuge people having northern associations; and indeed Monseigneur de Boismenu told me that he believed that the Mafulu people were in touch with Northern New Guinea, and got some of their shell ornaments, or the shells from which they were made, from the northern coast.
It is interesting, therefore, to turn for the purpose of comparison to the report of Mr. Monckton's expedition to Mt. Albert Edward by way of the Upper Chirima valley in 1906 [11] and the illustrations accompanying it, with which I incorporate a description of the people of this valley given to Dr. Seligmann by Mr. Money, who was with Mr. Monckton. [12]
From these it appears that the Upper Chirima people are short in stature and sturdily built. Both sexes wear the perineal band, the front of which is made (I am not sure whether this applies to women as well as to men) to bulge out by padding. In some cases the men's hair is tied up in a bunch with string, and in others it is bound up in various styles with native cloth. Some of the men have their hair done up in small plaits over the forehead. All the above descriptions, except that of the padding of the band, are applicable to the Mafulu. Some of the Chirima houses have a curious apse-like roof projection over the front platform, which is a specially distinctive feature of a Mafulu house, and one with this projection figured by Mr. Monckton is indistinguishable from a typical Mafulu house. The Chirima people place the bodies of their dead on raised platforms, and apparently sometimes put the body of an infant on the platform erection of an adult, but below the latter. This also is a practice of the Mafulu; and, though the latter people confine platform burial (if such it may be called) to chiefs and their families and important persons, it is possible that some such limitation of the custom exists in the Chirima valley also, but did not come under Mr. Monckton's notice. A burial platform figured by him might well be a Mafulu burial platform, except that the curious cone-shaped receptacle for the child is a form for which I cannot vouch as regards the Mafulu. The Chirima have a special and peculiar form of netting, which Mr. Monckton's illustration shows to be identical with the special form of Mafulu netting. On the other hand, as regards the Chirima weapons, implements and utensils, a comparison of Mr. Monckton's verbal descriptions and figures with what I have seen in Mafulu, and describe in this book, leads me to the conclusion that, though many of these are similar to those of Mafulu, some of them are different. As examples of this I may say that the drill implements of the Chirima people are very similar to, and their stone cloth-beaters appear to be identical with, those used by the Mafulu; whilst on the other hand their war bows are much longer, [13] and their method of producing fire seems to be totally different; also they apparently have bull-roarers, which to the best of my knowledge are unknown among the Mafulu. Again some of the Chirima weapons, as figured by Mr. Monckton, disclose ideas of artistic design, including that of the curved line and a rude representation of a man, which I have not met with among the Mafulu. As regards this last point I draw attention to Mr. Monckton's figures of carving on a bow and on wooden clubs. I think, however, that in such matters as these local differences might well arise between people who are really more or less identical, especially if their respective districts are on opposite sides of the main mountain range of the country, and still more so if the people of one of the districts (in the present case I refer to the Chirima people) may perhaps have been subject to the influence of other people beyond them. As to this latter point, however, I should say that these Chirima people seem to be, so far as dress, ornaments, &c., are concerned, much nearer to the Mafulu than they are to the natives of the Mambare river itself, as described by Sir William Macgregor. [14] It is curious also that the dogs of