detente progress* 



No. 8. October, 1894. Vol. II. 



THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF BRITISH NEW 



GUINEA. 



I. THE ETHNOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. 



IN the following pages I have endeavoured to put into 

 a small compass the present state of our knowledge 

 about the largest island in the world. The western half of 

 New Guinea (long. i4i°E.) belongs to the Netherlands, of 

 the remainder the Germans have appropriated the northern 

 half as far south as lat. 8°, while the English have annexed 

 the southern half with all the neighbouring islands. The 

 ethnography of this vast island is most interesting ; but it 

 is somewhat difficult to master, as there are so many books 

 and papers bearing upon the subject, some of which are 

 erroneous, others are worthless from this point of view, 

 many contain a few interesting facts and much padding, 

 while not a few are of great value. 1 



Many of those who have written on the natives of 

 British New Guinea have not sufficiently distinguished be- 

 tween the numerous tribes in our possession, and they speak 

 in vague terms of the Papuans as if they were all alike. 

 Now this is by no means the case, and before we can gain 

 an adequate comprehension of Papuan ethnography and 

 ethnology we must clearly distinguish between the charac- 



1 The concluding section of this article, which will appear in an early 

 number of "Science Progress," consists of a " Guide to the Literature on 

 the Ethnography of British New Guinea ". The references in the present 

 section are to the bibliography in the following section. 



