Under the Mountain Wall Quotes

“Tukum is at times forgetful about his pigs, being readily distracted by other children, dragonflies, puddles of water, and wild foods.
Nevertheless, Tukem is a very proud little boy, and since his nami lives Lukigin, where his mother has already gone, he has decided to go away for good. This morning he put on his thin neck the cowrie collar with its brief string of shells which is his sole belonging, he smeared his body with pig grease until it shone, in order to make a fine impression at Lukigin....Then he set off alone on the long journey in the sun across the woods and fields, a small brown figure with a flat head and pot belly. His back was turned on Wuperainma, his pigs and his friends, his childhood, and he clutched a frail stick in his hand.”
― Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea

“The boy Weneluke wove hand patterns with a string, working skillfully into abstract designs on all eight fingers: one of these represented a man and woman facing each other, and, by manipulating each sex, he arrived at a nice parody of copulation.”
― Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea

“The pig had been killed because spirits, like people, cannot resist the smell of cooking pig.”
― Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea

“Though a few older men cut fingers in time of grief, it is usually the smallest girls who are selected for this ceremony, and a woman in the valley whose left hand is not a stump is very rare.”
― Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea

“Sometimes the women much resent the men who call for war and have been known to rush upon them and beat them severely about the head and shoulders.”
― Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea

“THey were jeered and admired by both sides and were not shot at, for display and panoply were part of war, which was less war than ceremonial sport, a wild, fierce festival.... A day of war was dangerous and splendid, regardless of its outcome; it was a war of individuals and gallantry, quite innocent of tactics and cold slaughter. A single death--or two or three--was the end purpose of the war....”
― Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea

“The equatorial monsoons which brought a rainy season to the coasts had small effect here in the highlands, from moon to moon, the rainfall varied little. Winter, summer, autumn, spring were involuted, turning in upon themselves, a slow circling of time.”
― Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea

“...experience was static in the valley; it was older than time itself, for time was a thing of but two generations, dated by moons and ending with the day in which he found himself.”
― Peter Matthiessen, Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in Stone Age New Guinea