Reaching for the ‘Snow Mountains’ of Dutch New Guinea, 1912-1913

Posted on March 7, 2014 in West Papua

Dr Elizabeth Blake has been working as an affiliated researcher on the project, using her expertise on sound and music in archaeological contexts to shed light on the anthropological collections made by A F R Wollaston in Dutch New Guinea (present day West Papua). Her research will culminate in a small exhibition at MAA next year, but in the meantime she has catalogued some of Wollaston’s photographs and created this photo essay which gives a fascinating insight into his encounters with the local people and the landscape.

On 23 June 1912 Alexander F.R. Wollaston was in Singapore making final arrangements for the second British Ornithologists’ expedition to Dutch New Guinea (West Papua).  Their goal was to reach the glaciers of Mount Carstensz by navigating up and along the Utakwa River, collecting plant and animal specimens and documenting their encounters with people. With great anticipation, on 16 September 1912 Wollaston and his colleagues, together with a sizable team including seventy-four Dayaks recruited from Borneo, arrived near the mouth of the Utakwa on a ‘beastly’ boat called the Valk.  Over the course of six months, their journey to the ‘Snow Mountains’ was filled with a wealth of experiences, through which they assembled a panoply of socially significant objects from the Papuans they met in the coastal and mountain areas. Wollaston’s album from this expedition is here at the MAA and has recently been digitised as part of the Pacific Presences project.  The album, containing 90 photographs, can be viewed alongside his accounts of their journey in the ‘Letters and Diaries of A. F. R. Wollaston (Wollaston, 1933).  These images captured the striking beauty of both the landscapes that they travelled through and the people that they met along the way.

To see details of the recent publication, Letters and Diaries F R Wollaston, click here



Mr Alexander F.R. Wollaston
Mr Alexander F.R. Wollaston


Mr C. Boden Kloss
Mr C. Boden Kloss


Lieutenant A. Van de Water 
Lieutenant A. Van de Water


The S.S. Valk anchored in the Utakwa (Wollaston 1933: 122) “September 16. Anchored about 8 miles south of the Utakwa…got off only to find 14 feet [of water] and the tide falling rapidly. Had to go back again for the rest of the day and thought it was a great pity to waste time like this, but was somewhat rewarded by a fine view of the snows of Carstensz at sunset.” 
The S.S. Valk anchored in the Utakwa (Wollaston 1933: 122)
“September 16. Anchored about 8 miles south of the Utakwa…got off only to find 14 feet [of water] and the tide falling rapidly. Had to go back again for the rest of the day and thought it was a great pity to waste time like this, but was somewhat rewarded by a fine view of the snows of Carstensz at sunset.”


Base Camp (Wollaston 1933: 123) “September 19…Busy making camp and clearing ground. Find the Dayaks don’t like the tents we have got for them so they have made houses of their own kind roofed with pandanus. I gave them two days to do it and they have made a very good job of it. They are really very jolly fellows and I like them immensely—and I think they like me which is all to the good.” 
Base Camp (Wollaston 1933: 123)
“September 19…Busy making camp and clearing ground. Find the Dayaks don’t like the tents we have got for them so they have made houses of their own kind roofed with pandanus. I gave them two days to do it and they have made a very good job of it. They are really very jolly fellows and I like them immensely—and I think they like me which is all to the good.”


Visitors arriving at Base Camp
Visitors arriving at Base Camp


Up the Utakwa in Dayak canoes 
Up the Utakwa in Dayak canoes


The  ‘Canoe Camp’ (Wollaston 1933: 135) “December 14-18. Up the river again and spent three days at No. 3 Camp, building ourselves a house of palm leaves and generally making camp good. Afterwards left this camp and made our way towards the mountains. We took with us two or three hill Papuans and they were very useful in showing us a track. Made good progress.” 
The ‘Canoe Camp’ (Wollaston 1933: 135)
“December 14-18. Up the river again and spent three days at No. 3 Camp, building ourselves a house of palm leaves and generally making camp good. Afterwards left this camp and made our way towards the mountains. We took with us two or three hill Papuans and they were very useful in showing us a track. Made good progress.”


Cooking outside of a house in the mountains (Wollaston 1933: 137) “December 21…It was the first native house we had seen, for all those we have hitherto seen had been merely wayside shelters—not permanent houses. This one, typical of those seen afterwards, was built on piles about 6 feet from the ground and about 10 feet square; entrance by sloping planks or logs to an outside platform leading to a square room, in the middle of which there was a fireplace. Outside the house were a number of men, women and children, mostly occupied in preparing a very savour-smelling feast of sweet potatoes, yams and pig flesh.” 
Cooking outside of a house in the mountains (Wollaston 1933: 137)
“December 21…It was the first native house we had seen, for all those we have hitherto seen had been merely wayside shelters—not permanent houses. This one, typical of those seen afterwards, was built on piles about 6 feet from the ground and about 10 feet square; entrance by sloping planks or logs to an outside platform leading to a square room, in the middle of which there was a fireplace. Outside the house were a number of men, women and children, mostly occupied in preparing a very savour-smelling feast of sweet potatoes, yams and pig flesh.”


Greetings and gifts (Wollaston 1933:138-139) “December 22…Following the ridge and passing a sort of rude fence across the path, we found ourselves on a levelled platform about the size of a lawn tennis court; ground quite hard and dry. Here were about sixty or seventy people of all ages and sizes, who set up the most extraordinary barking when we appeared, dancing and prancing and waving their bow and arrows. Some came and shook hands, or rather pulled knuckles with us. You hold out the bent knuckle of your middle right finger, while the other person grips it between the bent first and second fingers of his right hand; then you both pull until your hand comes away and the other one’s two knuckles come together with a click. This was repeated three or four times, accompanied by a ‘Wah’ or other ejaculation. We were then told to stand with our party at one end of the platform while all the natives belonging to the place stood at the other. A man, a sort of boss among them, ordered silence, and then began a long harangue. In one hand he held a rough iron axe, in the other two white leaves, and towards the end of his speech a lean white pig was brought in from the back of the crowd and I was instructed to go forward and receive it, which I did. Rather an embarrassing gift, but happily I was then presented with a small boy and girl as guardians of the pig. We gave them a small present, and then were told that we might proceed through the country of these mountain natives.” 
Greetings and gifts (Wollaston 1933:138-139)
“December 22…Following the ridge and passing a sort of rude fence across the path, we found ourselves on a levelled platform about the size of a lawn tennis court; ground quite hard and dry. Here were about sixty or seventy people of all ages and sizes, who set up the most extraordinary barking when we appeared, dancing and prancing and waving their bow and arrows.
Some came and shook hands, or rather pulled knuckles with us. You hold out the bent knuckle of your middle right finger, while the other person grips it between the bent first and second fingers of his right hand; then you both pull until your hand comes away and the other one’s two knuckles come together with a click. This was repeated three or four times, accompanied by a ‘Wah’ or other ejaculation. We were then told to stand with our party at one end of the platform while all the natives belonging to the place stood at the other. A man, a sort of boss among them, ordered silence, and then began a long harangue. In one hand he held a rough iron axe, in the other two white leaves, and towards the end of his speech a lean white pig was brought in from the back of the crowd and I was instructed to go forward and receive it, which I did…We gave them a small present, and then were told that we might proceed through the country of these mountain natives.”


A hot sulphur spring at 6,000 feet (Wollaston 1933: 142)  “January 24…They talked a great deal about ‘piu’, i.e. salt and asked us to go with them to see the ‘salt place’. We went, and after going through a great deal of bush came, not to a deposit of salt as we had expected, but to a warm sulphur spring; milky white water, gently steaming, 94 F…The man and woman with us took stems of the long grass that grows near the pool and proceeded to suck up the water as through straws. They drank a great deal and appeared to like it, but we tasted the stuff and found it very nasty.” 
A hot sulphur spring at 6,000 feet (Wollaston 1933: 142)
“January 24…They talked a great deal about ‘piu’, i.e. salt and asked us to go with them to see the ‘salt place’. We went, and after going through a great deal of bush came, not to a deposit of salt as we had expected, but to a warm sulphur spring; milky white water, gently steaming, 94 F…The man and woman with us took stems of the long grass that grows near the pool and proceeded to suck up the water as through straws. They drank a great deal and appeared to like it, but we tasted the stuff and found it very nasty.”


Camp No. 11, 8,000 feet (Wollaston 1933: 143) “January 27. To-day we started by wading through very cold streams, then went steeply uphill where the character of the country changed rapidly. River widened, trees became smaller and less dense. Casuarinas and coniferous-looking trees, flowers much more numerous: orchids, a sort of meadowsweet, a rose-like bush and many others…Camped beside a boulder in the middle of the river bed; not a safe place if it rained heavily but fortunately it did not.” 
Camp No. 11, 8,000 feet (Wollaston 1933: 143)
“January 27. To-day we started by wading through very cold streams, then went steeply uphill where the character of the country changed rapidly. River widened, trees became smaller and less dense. Casuarinas and coniferous-looking trees, flowers much more numerous: orchids, a sort of meadowsweet, a rose-like bush and many others…Camped beside a boulder in the middle of the river bed; not a safe place if it rained heavily but fortunately it did not.”


Disappointment at 14,866 feet…(Wollaston 1933: 146-147) “February 1…There is apparently no easy snow way up to the ridge from here. If we had been three men accustomed to ice we could have gone up, but it was not to be thought of…Nothing for it but to turn back…By getting to the snow we have accomplished nothing of any value whatever, whereas if we had gone a few hundred feet higher and had seen beyond, what might we not have seen? Further and further ridges? This prize was withheld—and nobody knows.” 
Disappointment at 14,866 feet…(Wollaston 1933: 146-147)
“February 1…There is apparently no easy snow way up to the ridge from here. If we had been three men accustomed to ice we could have gone up, but it was not to be thought of…Nothing for it but to turn back…By getting to the snow we have accomplished nothing of any value whatever, whereas if we had gone a few hundred feet higher and had seen beyond, what might we not have seen? Further and further ridges? This prize was withheld—and nobody knows.”


The snow and ice of Mount Carstensz
The snow and ice of Mount Carstensz


Drums from the coast
Drums from the coast


Sago bowls
Sago bowls


Wooden and stone clubs
Wooden and stone clubs


Carved ceremonial ‘tablets’
Carved ceremonial ‘tablets’

			

			

			

		

			
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