ETHNOGRAPHY OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA. 231 



same diseases. There is not a clay pot on the Fly River. 

 . . . They have the same large breed of orange-coloured 

 dingo. . . . They are equally shy and timid, yet vivacious, 

 excitable, and always doing very plucky things." All the 

 lower part of the river is swampy. Kiwai is the largest 

 island in the delta, the natives cultivate thirty-six kinds of 

 bananas, twenty kinds of yams, ten kinds of sweet potatoes; 

 they use eleven kinds of fibres and drain their gardens by- 

 ditches four yards apart. The men are quite naked (cf. 

 D'Albertis, ii., pp. 18-21, 43, 51 ; Macgregor, C. A., 105, 

 1890, pp. 36-43). A fairly complete reprint of the latter 

 is given in J. A. /., xxi., 1891, p. 75, and a shorter one 

 in Thomson (pp. 11 7-1 21). Bevan's sensational account 

 (1890, p. 258) of the cannibal habits of the Kiwai 

 natives is criticised by Macgregor (C A., 105, 1890, p. 



33). 



Macgregor gives (C. A., 105, 1890, p. 45) an interesting 

 description of the village of OdagOSitia, fifty-one miles up 

 the Fly River. One house was about 520 feet in length 

 and more than 30 feet wide inside, the interior "was a per- 

 fect model of cleanliness and order ". This is apparently 

 the village which was looted by Mr. Chester and D'Albertis 

 on board the Ellangowan (D'Albertis, ii., pp. 38-41). 

 Between Tagota, where Macgregor was unprovokedly 

 attacked {Joe. cit., p. 46), and Everill Junction there are 

 very few natives. About 380 miles up the river is the 

 "Villaggio dei Cocchi," in which D'Albertis collected (!) a 

 couple of pigs and a large number of ''interesting objects" 

 (ii., pp. 131-137), and consequently Macgregor received a 

 hostile welcome (C. A., 105, 1890, p. 52). The most 

 remarkable objects D'Albertis brought away were stone- 

 clubs with perforated ornamental tops, wonderfully carved 

 out of hard stone ; nothing like them is known from 

 elsewhere. D'Albertis (ii., pp. 85-89, 95-103), and Mac- 

 gregor {loc. cit., pp. 54-61) describe the upper reaches of 

 the Fly River and the peculiar large houses made by the 

 people. 



The country between the Fly and Aird Rivers has 



been visited and mapped by Macgregor (C. A., 1, 1892, pp. 



