Identifier: newnewguinea00grim (find matches)
Title: The new New Guinea
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Grimshaw, Beatrice Ethel
Subjects: Papua New Guinea -- Description and travel
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott London : Hutchinson
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ave this place, said the visitor fromAustralia, determinedly. Its got tons and tons ofcopra already, and Ill plant more. Ill keep a cutterto run to Samarai in a couple of days when I want.Ill bring my brother out, and well build a house andbe kings of the place. One couldnt wish it better ifit had been made to order—its almost too good. Alas, it was quite too good ! for when we got backto Samarai, we found that among the latest applica-tions for land received by the Government was onefrom a schooner captain applying for the two littleislands in the lagoon. And so the Australians visionfaded. The Trobriands lay before us after this—one bigand several little islands about a couple of hundredmiles distant from Samarai. The Trobriands arealways supposed to be one of the most interestingplaces in Papua ; they are certainly among the mostcivilised. If I did not find them as fascinating asthe wild and wicked West, that was probably becausethey reminded me too much of the South Sea island
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TOTEMS 311 life with which I was so familiar, and therefore lackedthe charm of novelty. The people of the Trobrlands are of the Poly-nesian type rather than the Papuan. Their hair isless woolly than that of the mainland tribes ; they areruled by chiefs who exercise authority over largedistricts, and they are not, and never have been, canni-bal. In Papua proper, the chief idea is almostnon-existent, unimportant village headmen being thenearest approach to it that one is likely to meet. Butthere is a real aristocracy in the Trobriands whichcounts generations of descent, and is physically betterdeveloped than the commonalty. The Trobriand native is fairly good-looking, andmuch given to ornamenting himself with pearl andother shells, dogs teeth, shell beads, and money, andchains of coloured seeds. The men are almost alto-gether unclothed ; the women wear the grass petti-coat. Trobriand houses are beautifully and elaboratelybuilt, set on high piles, with ornamented roofs andgables, and the

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