Division of labour

Division of labour

Bamboo drinking horns from New Guinea
(Christy Collection.)
Larger approx. 230mm height.

In general the economic life of the Melanesians gives the impression of a moderate activity under favourable natural conditions. Melanesians from the eastern parts, when serving on European plantations or on board ship, show an amount of efficiency exceeding that of the Polynesians. In New Caledonia the conditions are less gratifying, the indolence and poverty often reminding us of Australians.

Both sexes take part in labour. Of the mode of life in New Guinea, D'Albertis has drawn a picture which would be well fitted by the motto festina lente [hurry slowly]. The natives as a rule get up early, but sleep for several hours in the course of the day. When their toilet is completed the men occupy themselves during the cool morning hours in making twine for their nets. The women clean the huts, fetch water, and cook the first meal, which is eaten in common: the men trim the meat cleverly with their bamboo knives; then most of them leave the village and betake themselves to the field - the men armed with their spears, the women with pouch-shaped nets and carved clubs to knock down dead wood from the trees. They have four meals a day, consisting of bananas, yams, taro, sago, and bread-fruit, kangaroo, and even meat and fishes. But they also eat snakes, iguanas, frogs, the grubs of various insects, fresh-water tortoises, and lastly, with great gusto, a fresh-water mollusc called ebe, the shells of which they use for the most various purposes, and therefore always carry about with them.

Carved gourd, used for betel-box, from the Trobriand Islands - Height approx 230mm. (Christy Collection.).

Art Industry

Carved bamboo box from Western New Guinea
Height approx 250mm.
(Christy Collection.)

Both Polynesians and Melanesians display an artistic tendency in their simplest articles of daily use. In reference to New Guinea, Hugo Zöller says: "You will be guilty of no exaggeration if you speak of a real art industry among the Papuas"; both peoples have attained a similar point, but the ornament of the Melanesians is richer and fuller of fancy.

It is attractive to trace out how and in what their productions show the typical differences that have their roots in the spirit of the people, or rather in the spirit of the race. In Papuan ornament the predominant element is the curved line, and that either in parallels or freely interlacing. It runs especially into spirals, but also into waves, crescents, ellipses; individual groups of ornament are separated by zig-zags and straight lines. The concentric curve is always recurring in the fantastic beaks of their ships, or in the carved shields, paddles, and mallets; it has a decided advantage over any attempts at copying Nature. In this New Zealand resembles New Guinea most; now and again efforts towards geometrical arrangement are seen in paddles, the blades of which are divided by two straight lines into four equal portions, variously coloured. It appears still more in the wooden moulds for the decoration of earthenware vessels. But it is in the east of the island world that it may claim the highest development, especially in the Tonga and Samoa groups, which herein also show affinity.

The tools with which artistic work was done were, before the introduction of iron, exceedingly simple. The stone axe was the only implement for shaping posts and planks, or for felling trees, and together with sharp shells it served for the execution of the larger ornament, figures, wooden dishes, etc. Carved and engraved work was done with shells and rats' teeth fixed in hard wood; shells, again, and the spines of sea-urchins or rays, served for boring, while smoothing was done with files from the skin of a ray and pieces of coral or pumice-stone. The shell-axe was as a rule more frequent in the west, the stone axe in the east; but iron has created an equal revolution everywhere. Skilled workmen as they were, the islanders recognised at once the advantage of iron tools; but at first they preferred sheet iron in the form of plain hoop iron to all other, since it could be set and fixed just like their old stone axes. It was only in the environs of Geelvink Bay, which were visited by the Malays from Ternate, and by Dutchmen, that the smith's art found a footing in pre-European times; otherwise throughout the length and breadth of the district, as far as Hawaii and Rapanui, iron and the other metals had either never been known or had disappeared; Schouten and Tasman never mention them.

Chisel and shell auger, from New Britain. (Berlin Museum.)