60 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bring home some of the produce for the evening's meal. They have 

 throughout the year a succession of fruits and vegetables either wild or 

 cultivated, and are thus never half-starved like the Australians. On the 

 whole the women are well treated and have much liberty, though they 

 are considered as inferiors, and do not take their meals with the men. 

 The children are well attended to, and the fathers seem very fond of 

 their boys, and often take them when very young on their fishing or 

 hunting excursions. 



As in the case of most other savages, we have very different and 

 conflicting accounts of the character of the Papuans. Mr. Windsor Earl 

 well remarks, that whenever civilized man is brought into friendly 

 communication with savages, the disgust which naturally arises from 

 the first glance at a state of society so obnoxious to his sense of pro- 

 priety, disappears before a closer acquaintance, and he learns to regard 

 their little delinquencies as he would those of children ; while their 

 kindliness of disposition and natural good qualities begin to be recog- 

 nized. Thus many writers make highly favorable statements respecting 

 the Papuan character and disposition ; while those whose communica- 

 tions with them have been of a hostile nature are so impressed with 

 their savage cunning and ferocity, and the wild-beast -like nature of their 

 attacks, that they will not recognize in them any feelings in common 

 with more civilized races. 



Many of the early voyagers record nothing but hostility or treach- 

 erous murders on the part of the Papuans. Their visits were, however, 

 chiefly on the northwest and southwest coasts, which the Malays have 

 long been accustomed to visit not only for commerce but to capture 

 slaves. This having become a regular trade, some of the more warlike 

 coast tribes, especially those of Onin in McCluer's Inlet, have been ac- 

 customed to attack the villages of other tribes, and to capture their 

 inhabitants, in order to sell the women and children to the Malays. It 

 is not therefore surprising that unknown armed visitors to these coasts 

 should be treated as enemies to be resisted and if possible extermi- 

 nated. Even Europeans have sometimes increased this feeling of enmity 

 through ignorance of native habits and customs. Cocoanut-trees have 

 been cut down to obtain the fruit, apparently under the impression that 

 they grew wild and were so abundant as to be of little value x whereas 

 every tree is considered as private property, as they supply an impor- 

 tant article of food, and are even more valued than the choicest fruit- 

 trees among ourselves. Thus Schouten, in 1616, sent a boat well armed 

 to bring cocoanuts from a grove of trees near the shore, but the natives 

 attacked the Europeans, wounded sixteen of them, and forced them to 

 retire. Commodore Roggewen, in 1722, cut down cocoanut-trees on 

 the island of Moa on the north coast, which, of course, brought on an 

 attack. At other times houses have been entered in the absence of 

 their owners, a great offense in the ej-es of all savage people, and at 

 once stamping the intruder as an enemy. 



