THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS. 461 



the natives for smearing their bodies. No better native cloth 

 was seen ; and the natives apparently do not know the method 

 of fusing the fibrous matter from several pieces of bark together, 

 so as to form tappa, like that of Fiji or Tonga. 



The hair in the women, young and old, is cut short all over 

 the head, and worn thus simply, without decoration of any kind. 

 In the boys, the hair is short, I believe cut short, as in the 

 women. Only the young men of apparently from 18 to 30, or 

 so, wear the hair long and combed out into a mop or bush. In 

 the older men the hair is always short. There are probably 

 religious ceremonies connected with the cutting of the hair, for 

 the very large quantities of bunches of fresh-looking hair sus- 

 pended in the temples are probably not all at least, if any, taken 

 from the dead. 



The mop of hair in the young men, possibly the warriors 

 (though numbers of adults, still in full vigour, had their hair 

 short), is carefully combed out, often reddened, and greased. A 

 triangular comb is worn in it, also cocks' feathers which are 

 bound together in plumes and fastened on to the ends of short 

 sticks of wood worn as hair pins. Plumes of the Mcobar 

 pigeon, or the Night Heron, are also thus worn. 



It must be remembered that Pacific Island native ornaments 

 are all made to show on a dark skin. White shell or tusk orna- 

 ments look exceedingly well against the dark skins of natives, 

 although when removed and handled by Whites, they show to 

 little advantage. The young girls amongst the Admiralty 

 Islanders sometimes have a necklace or two on, but they never 

 are decorated to the extent to which the men are. The old 

 women have no ornaments. I saw one girl only with a necklace 

 of the beads procured from the ship. Another girl had one of 

 small unshaped lumps of wood, worn apparently rather as a 

 charm than an ornament. 



Amongst the lower races of savages, decoration follows the 

 law which is almost universal amongst other animals. It is the 

 male which is profusely ornamented, whilst the female is deprived 

 of decoration. This condition is almost entirely reversed by 

 civilisation, and the grade of advancement of a race may, to 

 some extent, be measured by the amount of expense which the 



