PAPERS READ. 



NOTES ON SOME INDIGENOUS SAGO AND TOBACCO 

 FROM NEW GUINEA. 



By J. H. Maiden, F.R.G.S., 

 Curator of the Technological Museum, Sydney. 



SAGO. 



This sample of Sago meal or flour was brought by Mr. Theodore 

 Bevan from Evorra village. Jubilee River, 16 miles north-east of 

 Bald Head. This locality had never, in all human probability, 

 been visited by a white man before. 



It is of course of native manufacture, and is from indigenous 

 sago (? Sabal Adansonii which forms forests in New Guinea and 

 New Ireland, or possibly Sagus Konigii and S. Iceve). Mr. Bevan 

 took a photograph of natives engaged in the operation of making 

 sago. (1) Tlie following description, taken from Balfour's Cyclo- 

 paedia of India, of the process as carried on in the Archipelago, 

 serves fairly for a description of that which obtains in the interior 

 of New Guinea, as described by Mr. Bevan to me, and as depicted 

 in the photograph alluded to. 



"A tree is cut down close to the ground, the leaves and leaf- 

 stalks cleared away, and a broad strip of the bark taken otf the 

 upper side of the trunk. This exposes the pithy matter, which is 

 of a rusty colour near the bottom of the tree, but higher up pure 



(1) At page 349, Vol. X. Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., Miklouho-Maclay says 

 that sago Sagus sp. (" Buam"), is regarded as a luxury on the Maclay coast, 

 and is not used commonly as food. Mr. Bevan, however, reports sago to be 

 plentiful in the district he visited. 



