Report of the New Guinea nutrition survey expedition, 1947 / [edited by E.H. Hipsley and F.W. Clements].

  • Australia. Department of External Territories.
Date:
[1947?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the New Guinea nutrition survey expedition, 1947 / [edited by E.H. Hipsley and F.W. Clements]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    38/316 (page 34)
    The nearest village to Busama is Guado, which is about a mile inland. The people of this village, however, belong to a linguistic group distinct from that of Busama, and have few relations with the people of the latter. The same may be said of Wamasu to the south of Busama. A mile beyond Wamasu, lies Buakap, whose people are of the same linguistic group as the Busama, with whom they are probably on terms of greater intimacy than are those of any other village. Travelling in a northerly direction, round the coast towards Lae, there are no permanent settlements until one comes to the village of Labu’Mele, which would be about 16 miles away. Busama village occupies a narrow strip of flat land, no more than 300 yards wide, between the hills and the sea, the hills behind the village rising steeply to a height of approximately 500 feet. (See Plate 31). Both to the north and the south, the stretch of flat country broadens slightly, but nowhere to a width of more than half a mile until one travels some miles from Busama. The coastline of country recognised as Busama land stretches from the mouth of the Buang River, eight miles to the north of Busama, to a point 2 miles south of the village. The depth inland varies, but would average about 3 miles, so far as garden land is concerned, though somewhat vague timber and hunting rights are claimed over more mountainous country further inland still. The Busama people, then, have gardening rights over at least 19,000 acres of land. The Village. The houses of the village are built on the beach and extend in a fairly regular line, for about three-quarters of a mile along the shore. A small promontory makes a division of Busama into two parts, a division which reflects the present political organisation of the people. Though the village is still in progress of rebuilding, following the war, and many people are living in more or less temporary houses, the greater number of houses are of rather fine standard. They are rectangular structures, raised on posts well above the sand. Walls are of hewn timber and floors are of palm-wood, while roofs are thatched with palm leaves. Generally, the houses contain one room only, though a few are divided into two or three rooms. Most of them have verandahs, and, in some cases, small outer rooms are built on these verandahs. In such rooms, will some- times sleep youths and young umnarried men belonging to a family. As well as the houses, there are a few tents and one or two houses of a special type placed at intervals along the beach. In these special houses, sleep a number of young unmarried men and youths belonging to groups of families. In the days before the village was devastated by war, such houses would have existed for all single men and youths, and the tents represent a temporary expedient to replace some of them. As has been mentioned, occasional families now provide special rooms under the family roof for such people. This would seem to represent a tendency towards emphasis on individual families, as opposed to the extension into a wider kinship grouping, which received expression in the grouping of occupants in a single men’s house.