400 THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS. 



The colour is an indigo blue. The women are tattooed with 

 rings round the eyes and all over the face, and in diagonal 

 lines over the upper part of the front of the body, the lines 

 crossing one another so as to form a series of lozenge-shaped 

 spaces. The tattooing is sparse and scarcely visible at a short 

 distance, and nowhere are the marks placed so close to one 

 another as to form coloured patches on the body, as in Fijian 

 women or Samoan men. 



The male natives occasionally had their chests and faces 

 reddened with a burnt red clay. Sometimes one lateral half 

 of the face is reddened, the other being left uncoloured. 

 When vermilion was given to the natives they put it on 

 cleverly and symmetrically in curved lines, leading from the 

 nose under each eye, showing that they understood how to use 

 it with effect. I had expected to find Magenta a popular article 

 of trade, but it was of no use at all. It is too transparent to 

 show on a dark-brown skin, and the natives rejected it directly 

 they tried it. No doubt the reason why they do not tattoo 

 themselves is because the tattooing would show so little. 

 Perhaps it is on account of their dark colour that Melanesians 

 generally have adopted cicatrization so largely as a sub- 

 stitute. 



No doubt the natives paint themselves elaborately on festive 

 occasions and in war time. They were fond of being painted, 

 and two natives who were painted on board all over with 

 engine-room oil-paint, yellow and green, in stripes and various 

 facetious designs, were delighted. 



The natives were also often coloured black, the colouring 

 matter used being an ore of manganese, which gives their 

 bodies a metallic lustre, like that given by plumbago or boot 

 blacking. The blacking was extended over the faces and 

 chests. The old women were often blackened, and a group 

 engaged in singing an incantation were all blackened. A man, 

 who was possibly a priest, was always blackened over the face, 

 arms and chest, and perhaps blackening has here a religious 

 signification. 



The natives nearly universally chew betel, using the pepper- 

 leaf, areca-nut and lime together as usual. Some one or two 

 men were observed who did not chew at all, and had no lime- 

 gourds. The lime is carried in gourds of a different form 

 from those used at Humboldt Bay, but perforated in the same 

 manner at one end with a small hole through which the long 

 spoon-stick is inserted. The lime is conveyed to the mouth 

 with the stick. At Humboldt Bay the lime-gourds are not 

 decorated. Here all the lime-gourds are decorated, but all 

 with nearly the same pattern. 



