5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ties. It is somewhat unfortunate that the only scientific man who has 

 resided alone among these people for more than a year, for the express 

 purpose of studying them exhaustively, should have hit upon a place 

 where the natives are probably not true indigenes but an intruding 

 colony, although perhaps long settled in the country. Dr. Miklucho 

 Maclay will no doubt be quoted as the greatest living authority on the 

 Papuans of New Guinea ; and it is therefore very important to call 

 attention to the fact that the people he so carefully studied are not 

 typical of the race, and may not even be Papuans at all in the restricted 

 sense in which it is usually applied to the main body of the aborigines 

 of New Guinea. 



The Papuans, as well as all the tribes of dark, frizzly- haired Mela- 

 nesians, make pottery for cooking, thus differing from all the brown 

 Polynesian tribes of the Pacific, none of whom are acquainted, with this 

 art. Of course the actual seat of manufacture will be dependent on the 

 presence of suitable materials ; but those who do not make it them- 

 selves obtain it by barter, so that earthenware cooking-vessels appear 

 to be in general use all over the island. Cups and spoons are made out 

 of shells or cocoanuts, while wooden bowls of various sizes, wooden 

 mortars for husking maize or rice, wooden stools used as pillows, and 

 many other articles, are cut out and ornamented with great skill. A 

 variety of boxes are made of the split leaf -stalks of the sago palm, 

 pegged together and covered with pandanus-leaves, often neatly plaited 

 and stained of different colors, so as to form elegant patterns. A variety 

 of mats, bags, and cordage, are made with the usual skill of savage peo- 

 ple ; and their canoes are often of large size and beautifully constructed, 

 with high-peaked ends ornamented with carvings, and adorned with 

 plumes of feathers. 



The weapons chiefly used are spears of various kinds, wooden swords 

 and clubs, and bows and arrows ; the latter being almost universal 

 among the true Papuans and most of the allied frizzly-haired races, 

 while the Polynesians seem never to possess it as an indigenous weapon. 

 It is very singular that neither the Australians, the Polynesians, nor the 

 Malays should be acquainted with this weapon, while in all the great 

 continents it is of unknown antiquity, and is still largely used in Amer- 

 ica, Asia, and Africa. Peschel, indeed, attempts to show that the Poly- 

 nesians have only ceased to use it on account of the absence of game in 

 their islands ; but mammalia are almost equally scarce in the New Heb- 

 rides, where it is in constant use even in the smallest islands ; while 

 in Australia, where they abound, and where it would be a most useful 

 weapon, it is totally unknown. We must therefore hold that the use of 

 the bow and arrow by the Papuans is an important ethnological feature, 

 distinguishing them from all the peoples by whom they are immediately 

 surrounded, and connecting them, as do their physical peculiarities, with 

 an ancient widespread negroid type. 



In their knowledge and practice of agriculture the Papuans show 



