Half Naked Natives *****
Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen.
Dampfer Prinz Sigismund
Mary dear:
Would have written sooner, but father said he was going to write to you, so thought I’d wait a while. We have been on this ship just three weeks and I’ll be more than thankful when we reach Manila in two days, although the trip has been broken stopping five places and they were all such interesting out of the way places. Never had I imagined that in this day and generation people could be so uncivilized. They talk in the books about the half naked natives, but really they are 99/100, being clad only in the proverbial fig leaf made out of a bit of bark or banana leaf, and that is usually flapping around in the breeze. Around their left arm they wear a band woven of grasses and in this they stick a few flowers, their pipe and a knife. The ones that work for white people add to this collection a bunch of keys and perhaps their spoon. Their hair is so thick and curly that they can just stick a feather or flower straight down and there it stays all day. The captain took us in his launch to some native villages where everything was most primitive, just like the days of Adam and Eve, in fact. They have an awful custom of chewing the beetle nut. It is about the size of a small cocoanut. This they cut open at the top and fill with lime. Then whenever a man dies or is killed, they take the bone from the fore arm and sharpen it. This is used to dig out the lime and beetle nut, and you seldom see a person without his nut and bone, and every minute or two he takes a bite; it makes their mouths, teeth and lips an awful brick red. One thought that always added spice to our excursions was that they are all terrible cannibals and might have grabbed us any minute. After a fight, which the different tribes have quite often, they have continual feasts, because they eat all the people they kill. Fine arrangement, isn’t it. Needless to say, everyone on board is German, and I reign supreme as the only woman. The first four days there was a nun in the 2nd class, and as she couldn’t speak a word of English I got lots of practice in German, because every day I used to talk for several hours with her, and it really is wonderful how much you can learn when you have to, isn’t it? For it wasn’t long before I could talk quite fluently with her and soon mustered up courage to talk to the men and officers and, and now have no fear at all, not that I speak perfectly by any means, but I have lost that quaky, nervous feeling. I have a little dictionary which I never move without, but hope soon to abandon even that.
There was one man on board who has a coffee and rubber plantation at Raboul. When we got there he asked me to drive over it with him, and in a week moment I consented. Well, never have I had such an exciting ride, and I hope never to experience another like it. We had a little two wheeled affair, and a pony that looked most innocent, but started off at forty miles an hour and never stopped, not even when his two hind feet were flying in the air over our heads. We whipped around corners, tore through grass so tall it nearly hid the pony, jumped ditches, bumped over cocoanuts, flew under trees so low I thought our heads would be knocked off, and went where roads never were and never could be. I [was] vainly grasping with one hand the seat to keep from falling out, and with the other trying to hold on my hat and my parasol up and skirts down and endeavoring to carry on a brilliant conversation in German, and to admire his trees. This would have been bad enough, but to add to my troubles the black boy that had brought the pony had insisted on coming too, giving us to understand that it was not to be trusted, so he hung on the back, arrayed as I have already described with the addition of an ivory bar stuck through his nose, a string of shark[‘]s teeth around his neck, and in each ear a boar’s tusk. Suddenly he yelled out, “Big fellow master pull him bull plenty too much”. Then with a few seconds of wild thinking I said gently in my host’s ear, “Traiben Sie das Pferd nicht so sehr!” Now you know that was an awful tax on my mind, but when the black boy discovered that I could understand him, he was delighted and launched forth saying with pride, “Grass belong cocoanut belong me, him go today”. He had just had his hair cut. He called me “one fellow missy” and the German “big fellow master” and said some of the funniest things I have ever heard. One of the Germans who lives there told me that the worst thing that they can think of is being cold, so when you want a glass of ice water you must say – “him cold like hell.”
The captain speaks a little English and one of the passengers too, but I shall shout for joy when we get to Manila, where I can really talk and know I am being understood. You know nearly all of New Guinea, etc. belongs to Germany, so naturally you see nothing but Germans or blacks.
These are flannel flowers and are the national flower of Australia. I had a huge bunch sent me the day we sailed from Sydney. I was awfully sick the second day, but have felt fine ever since even though it has been desperately rough and we have had the racks on the table the whole trip and I was at first really sore and stiff from balancing and bracing myself with the rolling of the ship.
You were a dear to send me the silk stockings, and I was more than glad to get them, especially as they are hole-proof. From your telling me that Arthur said it was the darndest present he ever saw, I fully expected a sachet the size of a postage stamp, or one of these little ribbon arrangements to hold pins.
Have done a lot of sewing on board, and among other things have made the cutest nightdress out of barred flax or some such material, scalloped the neck and sleeves in light blue and across the front worked little half wreaths of flowers in pink, blue and green cross stitch. Lately have been wearing the nicest “garment” which I half copied and half invented called “Chemaloons” – combination of chemise and pantaloons, like this [sketch]. Just like a chemise, only with the little V shaped seam to make the legs. I wear it under my corset, and it is so cool and looks so nice when undressed, as well as being so easy to make. Try it with an old chemise, and see if you don’t like it. Just happened to think that in the states by this time perhaps these are out of style. Everything here is about five years behind time.
Yesterday was the Kaiser’s Geburtstag, and we had quite a celebration on board. Will you send this to the Angel when you’ve finished, because it is getting so rough I can hardly stay in this chair, but will write to her as soon as we get to Manila.
Heaps of love for you and Arthur
Alice
January 30, 1913 At Yap, one place we stopped, they use stone money. A piece worth a dollar is about six feet in circumference and three inches thick with a hole in the middle. Everyone leaves them lying around their “front yards” as there is little danger of anyone carrying them away.
