104 THE PAPUANS: COMPARATIVE NOTES, ETC., 
and this is entirely owing to the superstitious awe which 
attaches to the dead, whose spirit is supposed to hover about the 
haunts it frequented during its earth life. The inland tribes 
have no religion, but they believe in a life hereafter, although 
this is restricted to this world. They have not the imaginative 
energy necessary to carry them beyond their own immediate 
surroundings, and have but little leisure and less taste for 
abstruse philosophical theories. 
The women are chaste, modest, and very shame-faced. Pros- 
titution is not permitted, hence syphilis is unknown. None of the 
tribes I visited understood the manufacture of Kawa or any 
other inebriating beverage,—drunkenness is, therefore, 
unknown. 
The food used by the inland tribes consists mostly of vege- 
tables. Yams of different species, taro (two species), sweet 
potatoes (introduced by “ Peri,” the native teacher at Boira), 
cucumbers and pumpkins (introduced by Mr. Andrew Goldie), 
bread fruit (the true seeding tree, not the seedless variety of the 
Malay Archipelago), betel nut, and indigenous wild fruits, 
ferns and fungi, are among the most common. Sugar-cane is 
very largely cultivated, several varieties occurring. Tobacco 
seems to be indigenous in some places, and to have been intro- 
duced into others. In many districts it is entirely wanting. 
Salt is eagerly sought after, and forms the staple article of trade 
with the coast tribes, who obtain it by evaporating salt water, 
but it does not form part of their daily food, being used only on 
gala occasions. 
At Sogore, and again at Seramina, I made the very curious 
discovery that Manihot utilissima was known to the people, who 
had it growing near their villages. How it found its way into 
these remote parts of New Guinea, I was unable to learn. 
Cotton grows luxuriantly in many places where it is cultivated 
for the sake of its flowers. Draccenas, Crotons, Coleus, and 
other plants are similarly cultivated for decorative purposes. 
