president's address — SECTION F. 173 



ences, and has got down to the bed rock of reality, one finds 

 oneself occasionally in rather strange surroundings. The most dis- 

 concerting thing about it all is the appalling candour and truth- 

 fulness of all concerned, and the utterly insufficient grounds on 

 which they sometimes act. "It is the New Guinea custom, sir," 

 said the Coui-t interpreter to me in. the first case I tried in Papua. 

 He was a highly-civilized man for a Papuan ; he spoke English 

 well — not pidgin English — and he could read and write. I had 

 asked him why some man, who had absolutey no connexion with 

 the matter in dispute, had joined in committing a murder. " It 

 is the New Guinea custom, sir," he replied ; " if a man asks you to 

 join him in killing another man you cannot refuse." " But," I 

 objected, " if some onei asked you to come and kill a man, surely 

 you would not go?" "Yes, sir," was the reply, ^'I should cer- 

 tainly go if he asked me." This " New Guinea custom " is dying 

 out, of course, but we could make it die out very much quicker 

 if we knew the reason that lies behind it. The interpreter almost 

 certainly did not know, and could only say that it was a custom 

 that had been handed down from his ancestors ; but anthropology 

 might be able to divine the cause and to help in its removal. 



Murders hi/ the Koid'i Trihc. 



Some murders which have been committed in thei neighbour- 

 hood of Port Moresby in recent years have brought home to me 

 how little we know about the Papuan, and how desirable it is that 

 we should know more. There ar& some people at the' back of Port 

 Moresby who are called Koiari ; they are essentially an inland 

 people, though they come down, in places, to within a few miles 

 of the coast. The Koiari language is Papuan, not Melanesian, and 

 extends, with dialectical variations, across the main range and as 

 far as Mount Scratchley. Government patrols going through the 

 Koiari district have for years past met with no opposition, but 

 the Koiari themseves, though they occasionally work for a white 

 man, and even join the police, have been little influenced by 

 civilization. 



The Heera. 



Murders among these people are frequent, and present certain 

 peculiar characteristics. The vast majority of murders elsewhere 

 are committed for the purpose of "paying back" for some pre- 

 vious murder, but with the Koiari this motive, though it exists, 

 seems to have less influence. Sometimes it is what I suppose may 

 be called a ritual murder, but at other times it is connected with 

 the right to wear what the Motu people call Heera — that is, the 

 feathers and other ornaments which are the insignia ol one who 

 has killed a man. This, of course, is clear enough, so far — we have 

 the same thing ourselves on a less barbaric system — and it is com- 

 mon enough elsewhere in Papua; but elsewhere, soi far as I am 



