386 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 



and were kept at a distance only by an exhibition of juggling with 

 his false teeth by one of our party. 



At another village, on the Lacey River, we engaged some 

 youths in an archery competition, and they showed no mean skill, 

 when pieces of tobacco were the prizes. Some village dandies were 

 spectators, and in their way were curiosities, for they looked like 

 exaggerated wasps with their waists tightened to the last inch. 

 Some old men from this village who were paddling a canoe seemed 

 to take a keen satisfaction in taking out their nose sticks every 

 few minutes and washing them. 



On our arrival at Motu Motu we were welcomed by 100 or more 

 plumed or painted warriors, men of exceptional physique, which I 

 think are the best types of natives one sees along this coast ; 

 they shouted, and danced around us in quite an alarming manner, 

 and then it was a case of shaking hands all roun . They 

 brought pigs, cocoanuts and native foods in abundance. It 

 turned out that there was a big dance at the village (these native 

 dances often last for several days and nights and only terminate 

 through physical exhaustion and the food supply becoming scanty) ; 

 this accounted for their elaborate costumes and the quantity of 

 pigments that w^ere plastered on their faces. After our evening 

 meal we went into the village, where about 100 performers were 

 engaged in the dance. The men were decked in gorgeous apparel, 

 especially headgear, some of the headdresses being many feet high ; 

 they are made of wickerwork, which is covered with bright coloured 

 feathers, the plumes of the Raggiana bird of Paradise being much 

 in favour. Round their ankles they wore a kind of frilled anklets 

 made out of grass and fibre; the women only wear Ramise (a kind 

 of grass petticoat) and ornaments round their necks. The orchestra 

 consisted of torn toms, a stick some six inches in diameter at either 

 end and narrowing at the centre. It is about 2 feet 6 inches long, 

 and over each of the hollowed ends iguana skins are tightly 

 stretched. The dancing ground was in a square in the centre of 

 the village, some 40 yards long by 20 broad ; the dancers massed 

 at one end, and then, headed by the master of ceremonies, who 

 walked backwards in front of the dancers as they advanced up tha 

 square holding a blazing torch made of dry palm leaves high above 

 his head. The dancers formed regular and complicated figures, 

 keeping excellent time coming to the end of the arena ; they reversed 

 and repeated the same performance ad lib. The houses that 

 surrounded the dancing ground are all two-storied and were crowded 

 with silent admirers. 



On the Purari Delta I saw a type of canoe not known further 

 east. They are of a distinct type from any canoes east from 

 here ; they are made in all sizes up to 40 feet long and 

 about 2 ft. 6 in. wide; the ends are cut away and quite open. Across 

 the end is put a small bank of mud, and if the water is rough a boy 

 sits on his haunches in front of the mud to prevent the water from 

 washing it away. I could hear no certain reason why the 

 ends were cut away — some think to make it easier to bail out, but 

 on the other hand it is much more easy for the water to get in. 



