MY FIRST EXPEDITION TO NEW GUINEA 43 



tropical fruit and of flowers. In return for their 

 goods they wanted tobacco or any article of steel. 



The natives of New Guinea at that time were much 

 less used to the white man than they are now, and 

 perhaps there will be some interest in the first observa- 

 tions I made of an interesting people, whose native 

 ways and customs are now gradually being lost 

 through contact with whites. 



The Papuan men of the coast in their native state 

 dress in a short trunk around the loins made of 

 pandanus leaf. This leaf the natives pick when it is 

 green, and mark it with a sharp shell in some pretty 

 design. The leaf is then run over a fire and finally 

 dried in the sun, becoming after this soft and pliable. 

 Two leaves suffice for a man's wardrobe. They are 

 tied around his waist with string made of a vine which 

 is interlaced with the yellow skin of the stem of an 

 orchid. Both in the marking of the pandanus leaf 

 and in the plaiting of the string there is evidence of 

 some artistic feeling. What I have said applies to 

 the natives round Samarai. On the north coast the 

 waist-belt is usually of interlaced human hair. The 

 New Guinea native carries his purse on his arm in the 

 shape of armlets of native shell-money. He ordinarily 

 wears his hair bleached to a Titian red colour with 

 lime and frizzed out with combs. 



The Papuan women-folk usually wear a short 

 petticoat woven of the young leaves of the coco-nut 

 or of the sago palm. The leaves of the sago palm 



