96 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 
ing and piercing put an end to man—or perhaps all of these causes 
combined contribute to the prolix age of these islanders. As they 
know few infirmities so they know few medicines, and cure themselves 
with a few herbs which necessity and experience have taught them to 
he possessed of some virtue.” 
Both sexes were expert swimmers and were as much at ease in 
the water as on land. As they threw themselves into the sea and came 
bounding from wave to wave they reminded Pigafetta of dolphins. 
The men were good divers. Legazpi states that they would catch fish 
in their hands. The children accompanied their parents while fishing, 
and were so expert in the water that Garcia declared they appeared 
‘ather fish than human beings. 
PERSONAL ANID DOMESTIC ECONOMY, 
CLOTHING AND ORNAMENTS.—The men went absolutely naked, not 
even wearing a breech clout.’ The women wore fringes of grass or 
leaves hanging from a waistband and sometimes aprons called ** tifi,”’¢ 
described by Pigafetta as narrow and of paper-like consistency, and 
said by him to be made from the inner bark of a palm.” Pigafetta 
was certainly mistaken as to the origin of this bark. The natives of 
Guam were not tapa makers like the Polynesians. No description of 
bark cloth is now made by them, but within the memory cf some of the 
people still living aprons were made of the inner bark of the breadfruit 
during a long interval between the visits of European vessels, when 
the supply of foreign cloth became exhausted. In other islands the 
bark of banyans (/7cus spp.) is also used for this purpose. In the 
narrative of Legazpi’s expedition it is also stated that ‘*palm-leaf” 
mats were used by the women for aprons, the rest of the body being 
left uncovered. The men wore hats or eye shades of pandanus leaves 
while fishing. 
On festive occasions the women adorned their heads with wreaths 
of flowers or beads and disks of tortoise shell pendant from a band of 
red spondylus shells, which ‘* they prized as highly as Europeans prize 
pearls,” also making belts with pendants of »mall coconuts, nicely 
fitted over skirts or fringes of roots of trees, thus completing their 
gala attire, ‘which resembled rather a cage than a dress.” Their 
aS 
«Garcia vida y martyrio de Sanvitores, p. 197. 
» Relation of Legazpi. 
¢ Padre Gareia’s History. It is interesting to find this name for bark-cloth aprons 
in the dialects of Isabel and Florida islands, of the Solomon group, where it has 
been transferred by the natives to introduced foreign cloth, which is now called 
‘tivi.’’? (See Coddrington, The Melanesians, p. 321, 1891. ) 
@**Vanno per esse ignude, se non che coprono le parti vergognose con una corteccia 
stretta e sottile quanto la carta, tratta dalla scorza interna che sta fra la corteccia il 
legno della palma.”’ (Pigafetta, Primo viaggio intorno al zlobo terracqueo, p. 51.) 
