ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH OUTSIDE AMERICA. 19 



kind and there is ample scope for intensive work in every part of the country. 

 The work hitherto done also suffers from the defect that it has been carried 

 out largely in the interest of museums. Even now the attention of German 

 ethnologists is being almost exclusively directed to a region, that of the 

 Kaiserin Augusta River, which is extraordinarily rich in objects of museum 

 interest, though it would seem to be not yet ripe for intensive investigation. 

 The people of the coast, on the other hand, who have largely passed beyond 

 the stage in which they provide striking objects for museums, are neglected, 

 although they are just in that condition which makes them the most fav- 

 orable subjects for intensive work. 



The islands of the Bismarck Archipelago are in much the same condition 

 as New Guinea. Some of its peoples, such as tho.se of the south coast of 

 New Britain (Neu-Pommern), arc still almost wholly untouched by external 

 influence, so that they are still unprofitable subjects for intensive work, while 

 in other places, such as parts of the Gazelle Peninsula and Duke of York 

 Island (Neu-Lauenburg), the native cultures are in urgent need of study. 

 Much has been recorded about these islands, especially by Parkinson, and 

 work has been done by recent German expeditions. Only when this has been 

 fully published shall we know how much still remains to be done. 



Some of the smaller islands of this region are places where the urgency 

 of the need for investigation perhaps reaches its maximum. As onl}' one 

 example out of many, I may mention the small island of Luf, west of the 

 Admiralty Islands and north of New Guinea. In 1909 Dr. W. Miiller visited 

 this island and found only 36 survivors of its former abundant population, 

 a number which had already shrunk to 29 when he returned to the island a 

 year later. ^ Luf is one of a chain of islands which have furnished some of the 

 most wonderful objects which our ethnological museums contain, but we 

 Icnow practically nothing of the social organization or religion of any one of 

 them. As Dr. Mtiller says, now that these islands have been deprived of their 

 museum curiosities, ethnologists seem to take no further interest in them. 



In the more southern parts of Melanesia, under the protection of Great 

 Britain and France, either jointlj' or singly, the conditions are much the same 

 as in New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. In the interior of the 

 larger islands of the Solomons there are peoples who are still far too wild to 

 be profitable subjects for intensive investigation, but nearly everywhere 

 else the people are either in a state which makes them admirable subjects 

 for intensive work, or the native culture has disappeared to such an 

 extent that the need for investigation is very urgent. Much valuable 

 work has already been done, especially by Dr. Codrington and other mis- 

 sionaries, and the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition, which went to Melanesia 

 five years ago, worked out very thoroughly the culture of one district of the 

 Solomon Islands. The survey work of this expedition shows, however, that 

 the work which has been done is negligible in amount beside that which still 



'Arch. f. Religionswissenschaft, 1913, Bd. XLVI, S. 200. 



