The Mafulu: Mountain People of British New Guinea. Robert Wood Williamson
on to a double band of thin cord. Specimens of this type of necklace measured by me varied in length from 36 inches (with 97 shells) to 20 inches (with 38 shells). It is worn until the period of mourning is formally terminated. The middle necklace in Plate 33 is a mourning shell necklace, and it is seen on the neck of the woman to the right in Plate 29.
Pigs’ tail ornaments similar to those already described are also worn suspended by neck-bands over the chest.
Armlets and wrist-bands are worn by both men and women, and more or less by children, including quite young ones, at the higher end of the upper arm and just above the wrist. They are made by men only, and vary in width from half an inch to 5 or 6 inches, the wider ones being generally worn on the upper arm. There are several common forms of these: (1) The more usual form (Plate 34, Fig. 4) is made of the thin and finely plaited stone-grey material described in abdominal belt No. 5, and is made in the same way, subject to the difference that the plaiting is more closely done. Measured specimens of this armlet varied in width from 1 to 2¼ inches, and displayed different varieties of diagonal twill stitch. (2) Another common form (Plate 34, Fig. 3) is made of the coarser-plaited black and yellow and brown materials described concerning No. 6 belt, and is made in the same way. Specimens of this armlet varied in width from 1 to 5 inches. (3) There is another form which in fineness of material and plait is between Nos. 1 and 2. I was told that this is made out of another creeping plant, and is left in its own natural unstained colour, which, however, in this case is a dull brown red. (4) Another form (Plate 34, Fig. 2) is made of the coarse dull red-brown and stone-yellow materials described with reference to belt No. 2, and is made in the same way. A specimen of this armlet was 2¼ inches wide. (5) Another form (Plate 34, Fig. 1) is in make something like No. 4, but the two materials used are the stone-yellow material of belt No. 2 and the black material of belt No. 6, and the plaiting materials are much finer in thickness than are those of armlet No. 4. Specimens of this armlet varied in width from ¾ to 1¼ inches. (6) The beautiful large cut single-shell wrist ornament, commonly worn on the coast and plains, whence the Mafulu people procure it. Armlets will be seen worn by many of the people figured in the plates.
There is no practice of putting armlets on young folk, and retaining them in after life, so as to tighten round and contract the arm.
Leg-bands (Plate 25, Fig. 1) and anklets are worn by both men and women, and also by children, just below the knee and above the ankle.
There is a form of plaited leg-band somewhat similar in make to armlet No. 5, and between half-an-inch and an inch in width, though the colour of this leg-band is a dull brown. But the usual form of leg-band and anklet is made by women only out of thread fibre by a process of manufacture quite distinct from the stiff plait work adopted for some of the belts and for the armlets. They make their thread out of fine vegetable fibre as they proceed with the manufacture of the band, rolling the individual fibres with their hands upon their thighs, and then rolling these fibres into two-strand threads, and from time to time in this way making more thread, which is worked into the open ends of the then working thread as it is required—all this being done in the usual native method.
I had an opportunity of watching a woman making a leg-band, and I think the process is worth describing. She first made a thread 5 or 6 feet long by the method above referred to, the thread being a two-strand one, made out of small lengths about 5 or 6 inches long of the original fibre, rolled together and added to from time to time until the full length of 5 or 6 feet of thread had been made. The thread was of the thickness of very coarse European thread or exceedingly fine string. She next wound the thread into a triple loop of the size of the proposed leg-band. This triple loop was to be the base upon which she was to make the leg-band, of which it would form the first line and upper edge. It was only about 11 inches in circumference, and thus left two ends, one of which (I will call it “the working thread”) was a long one, and the other of which (I will call it “the inside thread”) was a short one. Both these threads hung down together from the same point (which I will call “the starting point”). She then, commencing at the starting point, worked the working thread round the triple base by a series of interlacing loops in the form shown (very greatly magnified) in Fig. 1; but the loops were drawn quite tight, and not left loose, as, for the purpose of illustration, I have had to make them in the figure. This process was carried round the base until she had again reached the starting point, at which stage the base, with its tightly drawn loop work all around it, was firm and strong, and there were still the two ends of thread hanging from the starting point. Here and at subsequent stages of the work she added to the lengths of these two ends from time to time in the way above described when they needed it, and the two ends of thread were therefore always present. Then began the making of the second line. This was commenced at the starting point, from which the two ends of thread hung, and was effected by a series of loops made with the working thread in the way already described, except that these loops, instead of passing round the whole of the base line, passed through holes which she bored with a thorn, as she went on, in the extreme bottom edge of that line, and also that, in making this second line, she passed the inside thread through each loop before she drew the latter tight; so that the second line was itself composed of a single internal thread, around which the loops were drawn. The second line was continued in this way until she again reached the starting point (but, of course, one line lower down), from which the two ends of thread hung down as before. The third and following lines were made by a process identical with that of the second one, the holes for each line being pricked through the bottom of that above it. I did not see the completion of the band, but I may say that the final line is similar to the second and subsequent ones, and is not a triple-threaded line like the first one. It was amazing to see this woman doing her work. She was an old woman, but she did the whole of the work with her fingers, and she must have had wonderful eyesight and steadiness of hand, as she made the minute scarcely visible prick holes, and passed the end of her working thread through them, with the utmost apparent ease and quickness.
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