122 Art. VU.— A. Mîitsumura : 



which the k'ng pat on his left arm in person with solemn cere- 

 monies and with the following words : " The Bone should be rub- 

 bed bright every day, and prese^rved as a testimony of the rank 

 he held amongst them ; this mark of dignity must, on every occa- 

 sion, be defended valiantly, nor suffered to bo torn from his arm 

 but with the loss of life.''^ It may be seen from this quotation 

 how much the bone is honoured among the natives. It may well 

 be called the " Order of the Bone," since the power rests with the 

 king to give or deprive of it,^ Of this bracelet Kubary^ also gives 

 a detailed account, which may be consulted with advantage. Ac- 

 cording to Schmeltz, some tribes of Dutch New Guinea wear a 

 wooden bracelet carved in the shape of a neck vertebra of the 

 dugong. He thinks that the object of such bracelets was to pre- 

 vent abrasion by the bow-strings.* Whatever the object may be, 

 the custom seems to indicate that in Dutch New Guinea, too, the 

 natives once wore the real bone of the dugong. 



There are a very small number of natives, both men and 

 women, who wear bracelets on the right arm instead of the left, 

 and this probably because they are left-handed cr are suffering 

 from some disease of the arm. 



0. Finger-rings. — Some natives in the West Caroline group 

 wear rings on their fingers, like the inhabitants of the East Caro- 

 lines. There are two kinds of rings, one made of tortoise-shell the 

 other of coconut shell. Though the former is, of course, the better 

 of the two, it is rather common, being found in other islands 

 too. The latter, however, seems to be widely worn in Yap. 



1 G. Keate, "The Pelew Islands," pp. 234-236. 



- K. Semper, " Die Palau-Inseln in Stillen Ocean," Leipzig. 1873, p. 114. 



3 J. S. Ki^b.iry, " Ethnograpliische Beitrüge zur Kenntnis des Karolinen Archipels," pp. 

 175-184. 



* J. 1>. E. Schmeltz, quoted by Van der Sande, "Nova Guinea, IIF. Ethnog. and Anthr.," p. 

 103. 



