NEW GUINEA AND ITS INHABITANTS. 6 7 



valued by its possessors, and from its extreme conspicuousness is always 

 noticed by travelers. No other race of people in the world possesses 

 this character at all ; but, strange to say, it appears very fully developed 

 among the Cafusos of Brazil. These are a mixed race, the produce of 

 negro and Indian parents, and their enormous wigs of frizzly hair have 

 been described by Spix and Martius, and are known to most South 

 American travelers. Still more interesting is the appearance of a simi- 

 lar peculiarity among the Arab tribes of Taku in eastern Africa, where 

 mixtures of negro and Arab blood are very common.* It is well known 

 that hybrid and mongrel characters are liable to great variation, and 

 are very uncertain in their appearance or degree of development. If, 

 therefore, the higher type of Papuans are the result of a remote inter- 

 mixture of Hindoos or Arabs with the indigenous Papuans, we can 

 account both for the appearance of the great mop of frizzly hair and for 

 its extremely unequal development ; and it is not improbable that the 

 Jewish and greatly elongated nose may have a similar origin. 



If we now take account of all the evidence yet obtained, we seem 

 justified in concluding that the great mass of the inhabitants of New 

 Guinea form one well-marked race the Papuan varying within com- 

 paratively narrow limits, and everywhere presenting distinctive features 

 which separate it from all other races of mankind. The only impor- 

 tant deviation from the type occurs in the southeastern peninsula, 

 where a considerable Polynesian immigration has undoubtedly taken 

 place, and greatly modified the character of the population. At other 

 points immigrants from some of the surrounding islands may have 

 formed small settlements, but it is a mistake to suppose that there are 

 any Malay colonies on the southwest coast, though some of the natives 

 may have adopted the Malay dress and some of the outward forms of 

 Mohammedanism. 



If we look over the globe for the nearest allies of the Papuans, we 

 find them undoubtedly in equatorial and southern Africa, where alone 

 there is an extensive and varied race of dark-colored, frizzly-haired 

 people. The connecting links are found in the dwarfish, woolly-haired 

 tribes of the Philippines, the Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands; 

 and, taking these altogether, we may well suppose them to represent 

 one of the earliest, if not actually the most primitive type of man. It 

 is customary to consider the Australians to be a lower race, and they 

 undoubtedly are so intellectually, but this by no means proves that they 

 are more primitive. The Australian's hair is fine and glossy like our 

 own ; and no one can look at a good series of photographs of natives 

 without being struck with the wonderful resemblance many of them 

 bear to countenances familiar to us at home coarse and brutalized 

 indeed, but still unmistakably similar. 



We must also take note of the fact that the two great woolly-haired 

 * Waitz's " Anthropology," English translation, vol. i., p. 175. 



